The blare of a horn and the zoom of an accelerating car as it passed startled her. She was halfway home and she had no recollection of the drive. Shaken, she pulled off the road and tried to collect herself.
She took a deep, cleansing breath and closed her eyes, only to see Rumford’s image pop up. Okay, she admitted, so he hadn’t faked the war club’s disappearance as she had suspected. But what if he had encountered Nolan at the game with the club? It was extremely unlikely Rumford would have accepted Nolan’s explanation. They would have argued and Rumford might well have lost his temper and bashed Nolan with the club. It was a scenario that seemed all too probable, considering the argument she’d witnessed outside the library.
In fact, she thought, considering the number of times she’d seen Nolan embroiled in some conflict or other, there was no shortage of people who could have argued with Nolan at the game. After all, even Bear Sykes had admitted he wanted to kill Nolan at times.
Not that she thought for a minute that Bear had killed Nolan. It was just an expression. People said it all the time but they didn’t really mean it. For instance, at this very moment she would like to kill Toby. She’d like to wrap her hands around his neck and shake some sense into him. Of course, she would never do it. But the urge was there. He certainly knew how to push her buttons. Was that what had happened to Nolan? Had he made someone, probably Rumford, so angry that Nolan had gotten himself killed?
Or had somebody seen some benefit in killing Nolan and cold-bloodedly taken advantage of the moment? That theory expanded the list of suspects even more. Nolan had managed to make enemies on both sides of the casino issue. By insisting on the rights of the tribe, he’d alientated the anticasino forces, and by criticizing the proposed plan, he’d made enemies of the procasino faction. There was no love lost between Howard White and Nolan, and she suspected Pete Crowley didn’t think much of him either. Come to think of it, she’d even seen him arguing with his own boss, Andy Brown.
Andy Brown! He had more to gain from the casino than anybody, considering it was going to be built on his land. He’d be sitting pretty—no more pumpkins and turkeys for him!
Of course, Brown had an unshakable alibi. He’d been in New York at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the day Nolan was killed. Sara had seen Katie and the rest of the Brown family on TV.
Suddenly, she had an unsettling thought. The Browns were in New York and Nolan was dead. That meant nobody had been taking care of poor TomTom Turkey. He must certainly need some food and water, and as it happened, she wasn’t far from the farm. She couldn’t just let the poor old thing starve, she decided, flipping on the directional signal and pulling back onto the road. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to check Andy Brown’s alibi.
When she pulled into the driveway at the farm, Lucy was struck by the silence. When she’d been there before, it had always been crowded with people. In summer, Brown did a big business with his fruit and vegetable stand. September brought apples, and hordes of weekenders visiting the old-fashioned cider press. October was pumpkins and the haunted house, and in November, of course, it was the fresh turkeys.
That explained the silence, she realized. The turkeys were gone. All the noisy gobblers had either been sold or frozen for Christmas. All except TomTom.
Lucy pulled up beside the barn and got out of the car. She felt a little bit like a trespasser, but she did have a good excuse for being there. She was on a mission of mercy. Entering the cavernous barn she went straight to the corner where the giant turkey was penned.
“Hi, there, TomTom,” she said, studying the situation. “Are you hungry?”
The huge bird cocked his head and blinked at her. As she watched he began to fan his tail.
“Now, calm down,” she told him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just came to see if you’ve got any food.”
Moving with stately slowness, the bird approached her, lifting first one enormous clawed foot and then the other.
Good Lord, thought Lucy, watching in fascination. Suddenly the relationship between birds and dinosaurs, which she’d read about in numerous books when Toby was in his dinosaur phase, didn’t seem so preposterous.
Her instinct was to make a hasty exit, but TomTom’s feed tray was indeed empty. Also, it was close to the side of the pen and she could probably fill it with feed without entering the cage. The water, however, posed a problem. The galvanized metal can hung from a chain attached to one of the rafters and was in the exact middle of the pen.
“This is a pretty kettle of fish,” said Lucy, keeping a wary eye on the big bird as she explored the barn looking for the feed bin.
She found it under a window and next to it stood a sillcock with a hose.
Lucy first filled the feeder tray, hoping the bird would be too busy eating to bother her while she filled the water can. But as soon as she opened the gate he turned to look at her, once again spreading out his tail.
“Okay. Be thirsty. See if I care.”
Realizing the hose was quite long Lucy decided to try to toss
