"This is a great opportunity..." No sense letting Tinnie in on everything. What she didn't know she couldn't share with friends whose politics were suspect.

"I understand that. I don't want you to waste it. But Uncle Willard will be foaming at the mouth."

"Especially when he hears what you've been doing."

She grinned. Those devils wakened in her eyes. "We could give him one more reason for-"

"Wicked, wicked woman. Right here?"

"Look around. n.o.body ever comes in here-"

Click! The door opened. "Excuse me. I hate to interrupt, but-" The door opened. "Excuse me. I hate to interrupt, but-"

"That's all right, Ed," I told the stiff-backed officer.

He winced. "The old man asked me to include you in our response to a problem that's just come up. He told me I'd find you here."

"He was right again. What kind of problem?"

"Murder."

"Ah, s.h.i.t. Not again." I shed some dust and the book I was pretending to skim. "What can I do?"

"The old man says you're the expert." Ed looked Tinnie over. He had no trouble with his s.e.xual ident.i.ty and was one hundred percent in favor of redheads.

The guy might be all right after all.

"Let's go."

81.

As we descended the front steps, I said, "Ed, I need to take Miss Tate home sometime today. She's overdue. Her folks will be worried."

"Why tell me?"

"I didn't think Venable and his lovable lizards would care and you've got the next closest interest in security here, right? I thought you'd want to know who's coming and going and why."

"If you want to do me a courtesy, I'd prefer you called me Lieutenant, not Ed." His voice was brittle.

I was supposed to be cowed. "All right, Ed. I won't call you Ed no more. But don't look for any military c.r.a.p. I'm out of that. I don't need it, don't appreciate it, don't like it. If it helps, think of me as a civilian contractor."

He didn't warm to that idea. Civilians are not to be trusted. You don't have enough control. But he said, "All right, Mr. Garrett. On that basis. Call me Mr. Nagit."

"Or Lieutenant?"

"Or Lieutenant. Yes."

Tinnie was tagging along. The G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot had adopted her shoulder for the time being. One of them snickered. I have my suspicions which though both my trials showed straight faces. I asked, "You interested in a parrot, Mr. Nagit?"

"I don't think so."

"He can talk."

"Then definitely not, Mr. Garrett. But when you decide to get rid of the other one..." He chuckled.

"Make me an offer." I chuckled, too.

"Garrett!"

"Sorry, darling."

Mr. Nagit smiled. We'd made peace. For the moment.

Mr. Nagit led us toward the front gate. A crowd had gathered out there. More men were headed that way. I said, "These guys need something to do."

"The old man said give them a day to recuperate. But you're right. Uhn! What's this mess?"

We had come to the torn-up part of the lawn. I said, "I noticed this yesterday. I asked Miss Montezuma about it. She didn't know what happened."

Mr. Nagit eyeballed the hoofprints. He moved a few steps this way, a few steps that. I tagged along. He observed, "There were at least a dozen animals involved. Pretty light. And poorly shod. Came this way from the gate, swung around there, then went back. They were galloping when they came up to the turn but they walked back down."

I agreed. "They were chasing somebody."

"This may connect with our murder." Nagit started toward the gate, reconsidered the battered ground. "Sure made a mess."

A mess. Bane of the military mind. "Maybe they were playing with their prey."

"What kind of people would?..."

"Tinnie and I saw a band of centaurs when we were coming out here." I described the circ.u.mstances. No point being secretive. I'd told North English already and suspected he might have said a word to Mr. Nagit.

"Centaurs? Hmm."

Meanwhile Tinnie tried to shush the G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot. That clown rooster was having a mild fit. I asked, "Do birds behave strangely around here, Mr. Nagit?"

"Not that I've noticed."

"That buzzard's had two seizures this morning. I thought he might've picked up something."

"Not here."

We soldiered on. Toward, it developed, the cl.u.s.ter of evergreens just inside the gate.

I observed, "These people shouldn't be tracking all over the murder scene."

"I understand that. I told everyone to stay out of the trees."

"The body in there?"

"See for yourself."

82.

I saw for myself.

Mr. Nagit bullied the freecorps thugs into moving back. I did admire their discipline.

There wasn't much smell yet but the flies were plentiful. They're always the first to know. I heard them before I saw anything.

The first dead thing wasn't human. It used to be a wild dog. Before something left nothing but a head and some feet and fur and odd bits of bone scattered amongst the well-tossed pine needles.

I heard a little "Tee-hee." I looked over my shoulder and wasn't surprised to see my one-eyed, lizard-loving buddy Venable checking another savaged remnant of wild Rover.

"Did your babies do this?"

He t.i.ttered. "Killed the wild dogs and ate them, they did, yes. And never laid a claw on Stucker. He was dead already. They won't touch carrion unless they're absolutely starving. Even then, sometimes, the strong males will eat the weak ones before they touch cold meat. Hee."

The dining preferences of his pets didn't interest me. Mr. Nagit was less intrigued than I. I asked, "What's this about Stucker? He looked pretty healthy when I saw him a few minutes ago."

Venable looked baffled.

Soon I saw why.

Stucker's corpse was naked. It was dirty and far from fresh. The wild dogs had been at him during the night, long before my glimpse of him in the house a while ago.

There was no doubt he'd been dead half a day before the dogs found him. I muttered, "But he was at supper with us last night."

The pine needles were well stirred. Here and there, in the soft soil beneath, were clear hoofprints.

"Why didn't they bury him?" I wondered aloud.

"They did. Over there," Venable told me. "Just not deep enough. The dogs dug him up. We pulled him over here and brushed him off before we sent for the lieutenant."

I wanted to scream and give Venable a good throttling. But that would do no good now.

I reminded Mr. Nagit that, "We saw centaurs on the road just north of here yesterday. And n.o.body was on the gate when we got here. We were talking about that when Stucker came out of here still pulling up his pants. I figured he'd gone off to take a dump. But..."

Mr. Nagit looked puzzled.

"The boss will understand. It's a matter of shapeshifters. Killer shapeshifters."

The light dawned. "He told us how he handled a couple of those at the Weider masque. I thought they'd all been captured."

"Some were. And used their abilities to get away. There seem to be an awful lot of them around. They keep turning up."

"We'd better grab the Stucker back at the house."

"Good idea. Only I'll bet we don't find him."

"Why not?"

"If you were him up there and saw this mob down here, what would you think?"

"That we found the body." Mr. Nagit showed me his comradely smile.

It wasn't that endearing. Venable's pets smiled that way while they waited for your friendly status to evaporate.

"Exactly. What else strange has happened the past few weeks? Any a.s.saults? Unexplained deaths? Mysterious thefts? People supposedly seen two places at the same time?" The shifters seemed to have the solution to that difficulty worked out, though.

"No." Mr. Nagit barked at the freecorps fighters gradually pushing into the grove, wanting to sneak a peek at disaster. He finger-pointed half a dozen. "You men go up to the house. Grab Stucker."

"But-"

"If you see Stucker it won't be be Stucker. Stucker's right there. Already starting to ferment. Get moving." Stucker. Stucker's right there. Already starting to ferment. Get moving."

I observed, "That'll teach those guys to get so close an officer notices them."

Nagit smiled again. This had to be a record day. "I suppose it will." He glared around like he was thinking of something else that had to be done. Men backed away.

There was a lot of soldier in those guys still.

"Settle down!" I snapped at the G.o.dd.a.m.n Parrot. Having decided he didn't love Tinnie anymore, he had jumped to my shoulder where he was practicing some weird tribal fertility dance.

Lieutenant Nagit said, "Looks like he's trying to see the body but you keep moving."

He was taking up for the bird? "Maybe he's hungry. He's a vulture in disguise. Venable. Think he could play with your pets?"

No?

That wonder buzzard is so d.a.m.ned useless I can't even turn him into lizard bait.

83.