What possible illicit acts could you get up to in a shed, with a live chicken?I wondered, and then gave the equivalent of a full-brain cough and had to compose myself for a moment.
Well. All right. Leaving aside certain… err… exotic depravities, that is.I had a hard time picturing specifics, but I will admit that I didn’t try very hard. You cannot grow up among biologists without a certain degree of open-mindedness, but there are hard limits.
Although in fairness, exotic depravities might explain both his reluctance to tell anyone and Phelps warning me away from the shed. But that assumed that Phelps knew what Halder did in the shed. Maybe Phelps had helped him dig the stairs out below?
I saw the Devil in the woods, Miss Wilson… and he was buggering a chicken.
I started giggling so hysterically that I had to shove my hand into my mouth to keep from alerting the house. What the fireflies thought of the shadowy figure making “huh… ahuh… ahaha…” noises, I suppose no one will ever know.
I slipped back into the house and went up to my room. Unanswered questions make an uncomfortable pillow, but at leastI’d managed to prove that Halder was doing something strange, even if I had no idea what. I just wished that I didn’t have such a bad feeling about it.
I wished even more strongly that I could tell someone the next morning. Mrs. Kent had not taken well to the loss ofanotherhen. She embarked on a savage spree of baking that left Sally and I tiptoeing through a house full of glorious smells and barely contained wrath. I bolted my breakfast—bacon and toast, not eggs—feeling horribly guilty. Even if I hadn’t been the one stealing chickens, I knew what the problem was. I just couldn’t figure out how to tell anyone what I knew.
I snuck down for coffee a little before ten and saw the tray that Mrs. Kent prepared for Halder. The usual poached egg was missing. I wondered if Halder would care. His housekeeper certainly did. Her jaw was so tightly clenched that I was afraid her teeth would splinter.
I lurked in the library, the door open, and eavesdropped shamelessly down the hall.
I couldn’t quite make out what Halder said, but caught the end of Mrs. Kent’s reply. “… Jackson into town to buy some.”
Halder said something else.
“No, sir,” said Mrs. Kent coldly. She sounded angry. Had Halder confessed? I wished I could hear what he was saying. I leaned out of the library doorway, straining my ears.
“… going to stay up with a shotgun tonight. I’m about done with this.”
I gulped. He definitely hadn’t confessed. I inched farther down the hall until I could make out the doctor’s voice.
“Yes… err… quite right,” Halder was saying. He sounded as uncomfortable as I felt. “I’d rather not have anyone shot on the premises, however.”
“Oh, he’ll load it with rock salt,” said Mrs. Kent. “I ain’t lookingto murder anybody. Just warning you in case you hear a gunshot.”
“Yes, yes,quiteright. Thank you, Mrs. Kent.”
I lunged farther back into the library just in time to avoid being spotted. My heart pounded and I pressed my hand against my chest. I knew that there are people who enjoy eavesdropping and get a thrill from going through other people’s medicine cabinets, but clearly I was not one of them.I am really not cut out for all this sneaking around. I don’t enjoy it at all. Actually, I feel sick.
Judging by Halder’s responses, he wasn’t cut out for sneaking around either. He hadn’t sounded at all like his usual abrasive self. He’d sounded worried. Guilty, even.
But they’rehischickens. He doesn’t need to steal them. And scientists hardly ever feel ashamed about their work—quite the opposite. You can’t stop them talking about it. And it’s not like he’d feel guilty for sacrificing a mere chicken in the name of science. That one colleague of Father’s electrocuted ahorse, for god’s sake, trying to prove something or other about alternating current.So far as I knew, the only branch of science that didn’t eventually wind up experimenting on living things was geology. A chicken was nothing.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, maybe hewascommitting some kind of unnatural sex acts with the chickens.
No, no. He wouldn’t have had time.Granted I had only a hazy concept of how that would even work, but it would certainly have taken more than two minutes, wouldn’t it? There’d be cleanup.Anyway it only started in the last week. The first time you followed him to the shed, he wasn’t carrying livestock of any sort, and based on Mrs. Kent’s reaction, this is a new turn of events.
But if we’ve ruled out sex and science, what elseisthere?I had lived a fairly sheltered existence in some regards, but as far as basic human motivations went, I could only think of a few. Sex. Science. Money. Power.
I stared down at the tray of pinned insects in front of mewithout really seeing them. Halder had money, and I had serious doubts that he could increase his fortune by depositing a single chicken in a shed nightly. Same went for power. It just made nosense.
Sighing, I pulled out my sketchbook and set to work on the next round of illustrations. It was clear that I wasn’t going to solve this mystery any time soon, and at least I could work on earning my daily bread. Today was anotherCuterebra. Halder had three trays of the damn things, one made entirely ofC. emasculatorspecimens. This discovery had annoyed the hell out of me, given how long I’d struggled with the killing jar and the botfly buzzing against the glass, refusing to die.
No, money and power made no sense as motives for Halder. If he had more money, he’d spend it on dead insects, and he used the power hedidhave to annoy his assistant.
It was only later that I realized that I’d left off a very important motive, but by then, it was too late to do anything about it.
CHAPTER 9
“It’s got to be a tramp,” Mrs. Kent said at dinner, addressing the air over the stove. The rest of us were crouched like rabbits hoping to avoid the hawk’s notice. The pot pie she had made was spectacular, with a crust that melted like butter. I wished that I was able to enjoy it. “No critter ever opened a lock like that.”
I cleared my throat nervously. “Raccoons can be very—”
