Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos

The next morning was Michael's turn to rise at dawn and attempt the feat of getting dressed in a two-person tent without waking the other person. He didn't succeed either, of course, and by the time he finally went outside to deal with his boots and weapons, I'd given up hope of getting back to Asleep and was only trying to figure out why he had to be up so early, anyway. We still had several hours until I had to be at the craft fair, and the battle didn't start till three.

Well, if I couldn't sleep, I could make good use of the time. I rummaged through die clutter until I found my cell phone. Then I curled up in the sleeping bag and spent the next hour calling relatives and neighbors to ask if they could lend me any ironwork they'd bought from me. Most agreed, and promised to drop the stuff off at my booth. Since I hardly had enough stock left to sell, I planned to put tags on the borrowed stuff saying "FOR DISPLAY ONLY; ORDER NOW FOR DELIVERY BEFORE CHRISTMAS" and see how many more commissions I could score.

It worked fairly well; I took dozens of orders, and whenever I dashed over to check on how Tad was doing, Faulk's booth was full of customers and increasingly lower on ironwork. The bail fund grew steadily until Mrs. Fenniman came by and offered to put up the balance in return for Faulk making her a gazebo that looked like his booth.

"Of course, if they convict him, he might not be able to make your gazebo for quite a while," Tad reminded her.

"If he's convicted, he won't need the booth for quite a while, so you can give me that," she replied. Practical as usual.

The Anachronism Police had the bit in their teeth and were writing citations right and left. Luckily, my fellow crafters took my word that I'd do something to erase the rapidly mounting fines, so morale was high. Even mine. A night of tossing, turning, and fretting hadn't produced any brainstorms about the murder, but I had come up with a way to handle the fines, and enlisted Tad and my nephew Eric to help me carry it out.

We didn't see much of the reenactors. Except for Wesley, who strutted by, resplendent in a scarlet British officer's uniform, all the reenactors were busy making last-minute preparations for the battle.

"And sleeping off the beer, some of them," one soldier's wife told me, shaking her head. "Seems some of the boys must have gotten a little soused and went around playing pranks."

"Pranks?" I said. "What kind of pranks?" Call me paranoid, but I couldn't help jumping to the conclusion that anything out of the ordinary had to be connected with Benson's murder.

"Oh, stupid stuff," she said. "Someone going around pilfering stuff – just for the hell of it, as far as we can tell, because most of what was missing wasn't valuable. And this morning all the pilfered stuff has started turning up in places some drunk would think was funny. Like we found one woman's missing stays run up a flagpole and a stolen bayonet stuck in the wall of the privy for a toilet-paper holder. Juvenile stuff like that. So everyone's on edge, expecting to find the missing musket balls in the stew, or maybe someone's stolen long Johns."

"Must be a Y-chromosome thing," I said, and we both laughed as she wrote a check for the iron pot rack she was ordering.

"Whoever did it better steer clear of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers," she said, as she turned to go. "Their regimental standard still hasn't turned up, and those boys are hopping mad."

Maybe that was why Michael hadn't dropped by all morning, I thought. Maybe he was helping soothe frayed tempers and recover purloined items. Or, more likely, maybe he was simply having too much fun marching around in the white-and-gold uniform.

Two o'clock came, and the crafters who didn't want to see the battle began their loadout, while the rest of us headed out to the battlefields. I lagged behind. If Michael and half the men in my family hadn't been participants, I think I would have gone back to the tent and curled up for a ten-hour nap. I'd-been questioning people all morning, whenever I could steal a moment away from my booth, and I hadn't turned up a single useful bit of information, or thought of a single plan for helping Faulk. To top my mood off, the first person I ran into when I got to the battlefield was Mrs. Waterston.

"Oh, there you are, Meg," she said, in a voice that implied she'd been searching frantically for me all day.

"What's up?" I asked, warily.

"I don't suppose you know where that brother of yours has gone," Mrs. Waterston said.

"Off to join whatever unit he's fighting in, I should think."

"Oh – he's fighting?" she said, sounding surprised.

"Well, he's a man; they're all allowed to fight, no matter how useless they are at it," I grumbled.

"Bother," she said, without appearing to hear me. "Well, here, you watch him for a while."

With that, she handed me Spike's leash and sailed off. He looked up and wagged his tail as if glad to see me. I sighed, and decided to find a portapotty before the battle got going. Preferably one that didn't already have fifty people in line, which was how I ended up going back through the rapidly emptying camp to use the relatively out-of-the-way portapotties there.

When I got out, I looked over at the tree where I'd tied Spike and saw only his leash and his empty collar lying on the ground. He'd escaped again.

"As soon as this bloody festival is over, I am buying that dog a proper harness," I fumed, turning around to scan the surroundings. "Maybe a straitjacket."

I strode down the lanes of the camp, calling Spike's name, which was probably a mistake. He might not even want to be found.

I passed Cousin Horace, who was struggling with a pair of dark blue overalls.

"Have you seen Spike?" I asked.

"No. Could you help me with these?" he said.

"Stand still then."

He didn't exactly stand still, but at least he stopped wiggling his legs, and I was able to undo the misbuttoned overalls and do them up again properly. Meanwhile, above my head, he was struggling into a coat.

"There," I said, standing up. "That's a nice uniform, Horace."

"I'm fighting with the Third Virginia State Legion," Horace said, proudly, turning so I could admire his hunter-green coat.

"Won't catch me in one of those dandified uniforms," drawled a voice nearby.

Tony Grimes. Who seemed to have regained some of his courage since fingering Faulk for murder, the rat. Although when I got a little closer, I suspected it was Dutch courage. Hair of the dog.

He was sitting outside his tent, wearing a filthy set of buckskins, trying to tie the laces of a pair of buckskin shoes, and making a poor job of it.

"Nice outfit, Tony," I said. "I guess you usually just keep them around for gardening and changing the oil in your truck."

"Don't forget your hat, soldier," Tony said to Horace. "Madame Von Steuben's on a tear; she's court-martialing anyone who's missing part of his uniform."

"Oh, dear, where did I leave it?" Horace moaned.

"If you don't know, go see Mrs. Tranh, quick," I said. "She brought spares of everything, if she hasn't run out."

"Better hurry," Tony said, as he reached back into his tent for something. "All the redcoats were supposed to be on the field half an hour ago."

Horace hurried off. I stopped.

"All the redcoats?" I repeated, under my breath.

Horace's uniform was green. Bright, hunter green.

I turned and walked back to Tony. He was struggling to tie a knot in a broken buckskin lace.

"What did you say?"

"I just told your wimp of a cousin to hurry," Tony said. "Mrs. Waterston wanted all the redcoats in the redoubt half an hour ago."

"Only Horace's not a redcoat, you slimy little weasel!" I exclaimed, leaning over, pulling Tony up by die front of his buckskin shirt, and shaking him. "You're colorblind, aren't you?"

"What difference does that make?" Tony said, trying to pull away.

"You told Monty the killer was wearing red plaid socks," I said. "How the hell did you know they were red plaid? They could have been green or blue or even purple plaid for all you knew."

"I'm only red-green colorblind," he said. "I can see most other colors, and I've gotten very good at telling what kind of brown means red and what kind of brown means green."

"Yeah, you did a great job of matching the color of my flamingos," I said. "Pink's just like red for you, isn't it? And I bet you're a little shaky on anything even close to red or green. Admit it," I snapped, giving him another good shake.

"Okay, maybe I could be wrong on the color, but they were definitely plaid," he said. "How many people were wearing kilts at that party? Just Faulk."

"Yeah, but there were plenty of people wearing plaid underneath their costumes," I said. "Plaid shorts, plaid socks, all kinds of things. And the killer could have changed out of his costume by the time he went to my booth. Maybe the killer wasn't even at the party in the first place. It could be anybody, you idiot."

I let go of his shirt. Okay, I shoved him a little while I was doing it. He landed hard on his backside, then rolled over and scuttled into his tent.

"It could be anybody," I repeated. I should have felt relieved – surely this would clear Faulk, or at least cast serious doubt on the case against him. Why did I have such a nagging feeling of anxiety?

Maybe because I was in close proximity to the real murderer. Tony had lied time and again about what he'd done on the night of the murder. Why was Monty so unwilling to consider him as a suspect?

Well, if Monty wouldn't tackle him, I would.

"Damned mutt," came a mutter from inside Tony's tent.

Spike scrambled out through the tent flap, dragging a muddy piece of cloth. No, not just a piece of cloth. A British flag. The one stolen from the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, perhaps?

I bent down and opened the tent flap. The odor hit me first – a mixture of beer, sweat, and vomit, like a frat house. Holding my breath, I peered in to see Tony, sitting on a tangled wad of blankets, gulping something from a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.

"You want me to take this flag back before they catch you with it?" I asked.

He raised his head, looked at the flag, and frowned.

"Damn," he said. "Where'd that come from?"

"The whole camp was buzzing this morning about a series of daring midnight robberies."

"Daring midnight robberies?"

"A flag, a cannonball, some poor woman's stays run up the flagpole."

"Oh, yeah," he said, with a sickly smile. "That's right. Hell of a prank. But don't tell anyone. You don't want to get us in trouble."

"Us?"

"Me and Wes."

"You and Wes?" I said. "Since when did you guys get to be such buddies? I thought you hated him."

"He's not so bad," Tony said. "He agreed not to write the article about me. And I apologized for locking him up. So we had a few drinks together."

Quite a few, from the look of him, but I held my tongue.

"So all is forgiven and you're friends now."

"I have to get to the battlefield," he said. He started to sit up, but I shoved him down again. Something bothered me.

"Tell me one thing, Tony," I said, fishing in my haversack. "And then I'll leave you alone."

"Yeah, right," he said.

"What did you do with the key?"

"What key?"

"The key to the padlock. This key," I said, holding up the key I'd found in Faulk's booth. "This key. The one you used to lock Wesley in the stocks."

"I never had that key," he said.

"Then how'd you lock him in?"

"It was a padlock, for Pete's sake," Tony said. "You don't need a key; you just snap it shut."

With that, he pushed past me and staggered toward the battlefield.

Tony never had the key. He hadn't even known that the padlock needed a key.

But Wesley had. He'd known it since Thursday night, when he'd tried to play his prank and lock me in the stocks. He knew about the padlock, and he even knew we kept the spare key on a nail under the platform. The spare key that wasn't there when I found him. The spare key he'd used to lock himself in to fake an alibi.

If Tony had left the town square to go to my booth, why not Wesley? And then, back at the stocks, all he had to do was loosen a few bolts and slip in after securing the padlock. I'd checked that the padlock was locked – I'd never thought to see if the other end was loose.

"Come on," I told myself. "You're not going to accuse your own cousin of being a murderer, are you? What possible motive could he have?"

Good question.

I pulled Spike behind me as I strode through the camp to Wesley's tent. When I found it, I tied Spike's leash to a tent peg and crawled inside.

It smelled strongly of unwashed Wesley, with grace notes of stale grease, thanks to a stash of fast-food bags crumpled in the corner. And a tantalizing hint of a scent I couldn't identify but knew I'd smelled recently.

I began to search – hastily. He was supposed to be in the British lines, but then Wesley wasn't famous for being where he was supposed to be. I was looking for discarded plaid, which wasn't as easy as it sounded. Dirty clothes – most, I suspected, on their fourth or fifth reuse – covered every surface. I lifted one pair of graying briefs and uncovered a file folder. I was about to put the underwear back when I noticed the name "Cooper" on a piece of newsprint sticking out of the folder.

I opened the folder. It contained a small collection of articles on Roger Benson and his works. I scanned them, briefly. Most were about the fall of Cooper and Anthony, and I nodded without surprise when I realized that Cooper and Anthony had owned the Virginia Commercial Intelligence, whose closing had cost Wesley his dream job and, as he'd said himself, destroyed his journallism career.

"That's a good enough motive for me," I murmured.

The last article in the folder came from the York Town Crier a few weeks ago – a puff piece about Rob and Lawyers from Hell, mentioning Benson's firm as one of those vying to market the game. No wonder Wesley had suddenly reappeared in Yorktown.

Finding the orange plaid socks stuffed into one of the McDonald's bags was just icing on the cake.

I grabbed the bag, planning to take it, with the file folder, straight to Monty – better yet, the sheriff. I still didn't trust Monty – and ducked out of the tent.

But as I stood up, the greasy paper of the bag gave way and something heavy landed on a sensitive part of my foot. Several somethings.

"Damn!" I said, jumping back. Spike gave chase to one of the small objects as it rolled in front of him, and growled when he found that musket balls are inedible.

Musket balls. Four of them. And a trickle of black powder followed them out of the bag. That was the half-familiar scent, I realized; the strong, acrid tang of old-fashioned gunpowder. What was Wesley doing with the missing musket balls and a residue of gunpowder? I didn't remember him seeming that interested in black-powder shooting when Jess and his crew had shown us how to make cartridges. Then again, he'd helped; he knew how to make cartridges.

"And how to make live ammo," I said, aloud; and suddenly I remembered how Wesley had looked at Michael last night, when he'd gotten the false impression that Michael was the witness Monty was talking about.

"Michael," I exclaimed. "He's going after Michael."