'The plumage?' Dad said, looking blank.
I explained about the breeding plumage.
'Oh, very good!' Dad exclaimed. 'Actually, I wasn't thinking of the plumage at all; it was the texture.'
'Your medical expertise confirms Meg's deduction, then?' Michael asked.
'Actually, it's my culinary expertise,' Dad said. 'From my bachelor days. You can tell by the limpness that it's been thawed,' he said, waggling one of the puffin's legs in a disgusting fashion. 'And from the smell that it wasn't thawed recently enough to be safe,' he added, bending over to smell the puffin and wrinkling his nose.
'It's not an entree, Dad; it's evidence,' I said with exasperation.
'Although I do hope we're not having poultry tonight,' Michael murmured.
'Can you tell how the puffin died?' I asked. 'Was it electrocuted, for example?'
'Can't really tell without an autopsy, which I don't suppose you want me to do,' Dad said, looking around with an eager expression. Jeb shook his head, and Dad sighed.
'Could be electrocution,' Dad said. 'Could be a lot of things.'
'Well, it's probably irrelevant to Resnick's accident anyway,' Jeb said.
'Look, about this accident idea,' I said. 'How do we know it was an accident? I mean, even if you assume he had the bad luck to touch something electrified during one of the rare moments yesterday when we had power, what was the something? And if you think he had some kind of electrical bird trap hooked up among the shoreline, where is it?'
'Probably washed away with the storm,' Jeb said.
'Possibly, but why didn't Michael and I see it when we found the body?'
'You saw the wound, and you were looking for something that could have hit him,' Dad said. 'You probably didn't see the bird trap.'
'I'd have noticed,' I said. I glanced at Michael for support.
'She did look around,' he said. 'She said that the tide was about to cover up the crime scene, and she looked around very carefully so she could describe it later.'
'A really strong electrical shock could have thrown him back some distance,' Dad said. 'Maybe whatever shocked him wasn't all that nearby. If he touched something, got a shock, and fell back into the pool, landing on a rock that caused the gash, and then floated to the other side of the pool…'
'Hell, maybe it was a lightening bolt from the storm,' Jeb put in.
'It was a hurricane, not a thunderstorm,' I said.
Jeb shrugged.
'Well, whatever it was, it's gone now,' Dad said, patting my shoulder.
'Maybe the waves got it and washed it away just before we got there,' Michael said. 'They were awfully close to washing Resnick away by the time we found him.'
'We'll let the mainland authorities worry about it,' Jeb said.
Everybody took that as a signal that the examination was over. I followed them out of the cooler, still irritated.
'You don't look very pleased,' Michael murmured to me.
'Oh, I'm thrilled,' I said softly. 'Dad's just removed any need for us to run around the island investigating the murder.'
'What's wrong with that?'
'We still haven't found James Jackson, the biographer, remember? Even if they rule the death accidental, he'll probably try to capitalize on it. If it really was accidental.'
I tried not to take my irritation out on him, but I suspect it still showed. Was it just hurt pride, because I'd failed to notice Resnick's electrical contraption lying around? Or was there something to my feeling that this was suddenly turning out much too easy?
Jeb secured the meat locker again and we left the Anchor Inn. Dad and Dr. Peabody strode ahead, eagerly sharing the news with everyone they met.
'I'm sorry,' Michael said as we followed along more slowly.
I shrugged.
'Well, maybe after this, Dad will stop bragging about my detective abilities,' I said.
'Not necessarily,' he said, with a chuckle. 'You did figure out about the puffin.'
To my relief, Michael had the good sense not to keep trying to cheer me up, and we hiked back to Aunt Phoebe's cottage in companionable silence.
Word of Dad's and Dr. Peabody's findings spread throughout the island, and within half an hour people began turning up at the cottage for a spontaneous celebration. People swarmed up and down the stairs, carrying all the lawn furniture and yard ornaments up to the bedrooms, which would make bedtime a whole lot of fun. Jeb Barnes was one of the first to arrive, and he brought along a case of cheap champagne.
'I got through to the Coast Guard!' he announced over the popping corks.
A ragged cheer went up from the twenty or so people gathered around the crate, and Rob asked, 'When's the ferry going to start running?'
'Maybe tomorrow, maybe Tuesday,' Jeb said. 'They're going to wait and see. But the Coast Guard will bring the police over from the mainland tomorrow so we can tie up all the loose ends about Resnick's death.'
Another cheer, this time accompanied by clinking glasses.
Death. No one was calling it a murder any longer. Even Dad seemed to have gotten over his disappointment that our homicide had turned into death by misadventure. Jim had the generator running again, and Dad put a collection of big band music on the portable player. I was the only one not in high spirits. After all, even if the police declared the death an accident and eliminated the danger of assorted members of my family being arrested for murder, Resnick was still news. James Jackson, the biographer, was still here on the island, sitting on the latest draft of his manuscript. And I suspected that whether he'd uncovered the truth about Mother's past or jumped to a totally wrong conclusion wouldn't matter to a pack of reporters hungry for sensational headlines. We had to find Jackson and deal with him, somehow, before he made his story public.
Dad was telling a group of birders some kind of story. From his gestures, I deduced he was describing Resnick's wounds.
'Absolutely understandable,' I heard him say during one of those chance lulls in the general noise level. I saw several of the birders glance my way. 'Electrocution is remarkably hard to--'
Drat. I'd hoped no one had noticed my ineffectual attempts to play detective, but from the looks on the birders' faces, I suspected they had all noticed. Irrational of me to resent that. Equally irrational to resent Dad's not being around earlier to give his verdict on the cause of death.
I glanced around the party, trying to convince myself that everyone present wasn't pointing at me and snickering at my failure. I saw that Rhapsody had arrived and, as I expected, had immediately become enthralled with Mother. She followed Mother around, literally sitting at her feet, absorbing her every word and gesture as if the fate of the world depended on it. She had already picked up some of Mother's mannerisms. Mother, of course, was eating it up and acting even more charming and elegant than usual.
Damn. On top of everything else, I didn't need to feel like one of Cinderella's ugly stepsisters.
'Don't be so gloomy,' Michael said, handing me a glass of the champagne. 'Aren't you glad it turned out to be an accident?'
'It isn't an accident until the police say it is,' I said. 'Sorry, I don't mean to take it out on you.'
'I understand,' he said. 'It's not as if you can take it out on your dad; he didn't mean to get lost just at the one moment when we really could have used his expertise. Look, don't worry so much about Jackson; I'm sure we'll figure out some way to--'
'Great news,' said Kenneth Takahashi, appearing beside us. 'I mean, I'm sorry the old goat's dead, but thank God it was an accident.'
I noticed that Takahashi had learned one thing from the birders at least. He had grasped the concept of protective coloration, and now he wore clothes as faded and mud-stained as the best of them.
'Well, don't let your guard down yet,' I said. 'Some of the birders would still give you quite a hard time if they knew why you came here.'
'Oh, that's all right,' he said, waving his glass genially. 'If they ask me what I do, I'll tell them I'm in land use. Sounds vaguely conservationish. They seem to like that. They keep trying to feed me.'
