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  Chapter 1

  Thursday

  “Mom?”

  I kept my eyes firmly closed and focused on breathing in and out in the slow, deliberate way that was supposed to make you feel better when you were stressed. One … two …

  “Mom,” Jamie repeated. “I know when you’re doing your yoga breathing we’re not supposed to interrupt you unless there’s actual bleeding involved.”

  “Or open flames,” his twin brother, Josh, added.

  “But I kind of think this might qualify,” Jamie went on.

  My eyes flew open.

  All I could see for a second were the muddy shins and baggy knees of the woolen hose they were wearing as part of their medieval costumes. I craned my neck to see upward, past the well-worn leather doublets to their faces. Josh was leaning on his longbow as if it were a staff. Jamie had his slung over his left shoulder. Neither appeared to be injured. But they both looked … anxious. And that wasn’t a look I saw very often on the faces of my not-quite-teenage sons.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  They exchanged a glance. Were they deciding what to tell me? Or just sorting out who had to do the telling?

  “We think we found a body,” Josh said.

  “A dead body,” Jamie clarified.

  I opened my mouth to chide them for interrupting my yoga breathing with what was obviously a bad practical joke. But I could see by their expressions that it wasn’t a joke.

  “Where?” I asked. “And who?”

  “Out here in the woods,” Jamie said.

  “And we have no idea who,” Josh said. “All we can see is the hands.”

  “One of the hands,” Jamie corrected. “Kind of sticking up out of the ground. And maybe some fingers from the other hand.”

  “Show me.” I sprang to my feet. I’d been sitting cross-legged by the side of a tiny stream in the woods behind our house, trying to relax by focusing on my breath—and the peaceful sounds of the water, the bird calls, and the occasional distant baaing of our neighbor Seth Early’s sheep.

  Clearly relaxation wasn’t in my immediate future. I should check out what they’d found.

  They both seemed a little less anxious now that I was taking their report seriously.

  “Lead on, Macduff,” I said.

  “That’s ‘lay on, Macduff,’” Jamie corrected. “‘And damn’d be him that first cries, Hold, enough!’”

  I should know better than to try quoting lines from Macbeth when their father was currently directing a production of it. A production in which they both had small roles.

  “‘Exeunt, fighting.’” Josh was quoting the stage directions that followed Jamie’s lines. “‘Alarums.’”

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “Now show me this body.”

  The boys set off, and I could barely keep up with them. Not really surprising, since they were now eye to eye with me at five foot ten. And more of their height was leg, so they set a faster pace and were in danger of leaving me behind.

  But characteristically, Jamie would glance back occasionally, notice that I was falling behind, and tug at Josh’s sleeve to slow him down. And Josh slowed down a lot more readily than usual—that, combined with their expressions, told me that they were putting a brave front on something that had genuinely shaken them.

  So I tried my best to keep up the pace. It helped that the last stretch was a slight downhill slope, and we arrived together at the edge of a small clearing.

  “Over by that fallen log,” Josh whispered.

  Jamie merely pointed.

  I looked across the clearing and felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. They weren’t pulling some kind of strange prank. There really were two hands poking up out of the half-rotted leaves covering the ground. Only the tips of three fingers of the left hand showed, but all five fingers of the right protruded, and even a little bit of the back of the hand. The fingers were long and slender, but twisted, contorted, as if their owner had died while reaching out to grab something in panic … or in agony. And they were deadly pale—the nails were, at least. Almost silvery. The flesh, though, was a little darker. In fact, it had a blueish-gray tint. Decay? Or was it just a trick of the light—the day was quite cloudy, and the branches of the huge oaks and maples at the edges of the clearing met overhead, so not much light made it in.

  The boys each inched a little closer, as if having me along made them bolder, and I grabbed one with each hand.

  “Keep your distance,” I said. “We don’t know what she died of.”

  “She?” Josh echoed. He took a step back.

  “Mom’s right.” Jamie retreated several steps. “Definitely not a man. The fingers are too small.”

  “Could be a kid,” Josh suggested.

  Once I was sure they’d stay put I pulled out my phone and called 911.

  “What’s wrong now, Meg?” Odd. Debbie Ann, the dispatcher, made it sound as if I’d called her at least once already today. Maybe she was just having a bad morning.

  “Josh and Jamie found a dead body in the woods behind our house,” I said. “I have no idea exactly where we are, but I’ll send the boys out to the road. They can lead whoever you send back here. I’ll keep watch.”

  The boys nodded and dashed off. I wasn’t exactly thrilled at being left alone with those creepy hands, but it was better than having to leave the boys alone with them.

  “Oh, dear,” Debbie Ann said. “Do you know who it is?”

  Along with her words I could hear the rattle of keys that meant she was sending out a text message to one of the deputies. Or maybe all of the deputies. The more the merrier.

  “No idea,” I said. “All I can see is a pair of hands, sticking up out of the ground. So it’s not just dead but dead and buried, only not very competently.”

  “Horrible,” she said. “Vern’s five minutes away, and the chief was already on his way out to Camp Birnam, so he’s going to stop by—he might even beat Vern.”

  “The chief’s back from his family camping trip, then?” I felt a surge of relief. And then guilt. I hated the idea that on his first day back in town the chief would have to cope with a dead body—and probably a not-very-recent one at that. Although I was also glad that he’d be here to handle whatever happened.

  But wait—

  “Why was the chief headed out to Camp Birnam?” I asked. “I mean, if you can tell me. I’m not exactly responsible for the place, but—”

  “But you’ve been trying to keep them in line.” She sighed. “I know. Seth Early called up just now, madder than a wet hen. He thinks that the reenactor folks out there have stolen some of his sheep.”

  I closed my eyes and muttered a few words that I hoped the boys hadn’t picked up from me. For that matter, I made sure Debbie Ann couldn’t catch them.

  “I hope someone told the chief that wasn’t our idea,” I said. “Having a bunch of medieval reenactors camping out in the woods. We only let them set up that wretched camp to please the History Department. And if he wants them gone—”

  “He’s probably already heard about them.” Debbie Ann’s tone was soothing. “And if he hasn’t already heard how hard you’ve been trying to keep them from causing trouble, I’ll tell him myself. FYI, Horace is on his way, too.”

  “Good.” I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. My cousin Horace Hollingsworth was both a deputy and Caerphilly’s one trained crime-scene investigator.

  “Do you think this body could have something to do with them?” she went on. “The reenactors, that is.”

  I opened my eyes and studied the hands again.

  “I can’t imagine it would,” I said. “If it turns out that any of the reenactors are responsible, we’ll evict the whole lot, but I have a hard time imagining that. And if you’re worried about Seth—well, he can be a hothead, especially where his sheep are concerned, but I can’t imagine him killing anyone and burying them in the woods. Not even a sheep thief.”

  “He’d just punch the thief in the nose and then come down to the station to turn himself in,” Debbie Ann suggested, with a slight giggle.

  “Yes.” I thought of adding that the body was obviously not brand-new, and I’d probably have heard about it if any of the reenactors had gone missing for very long, but I wasn’t sure that thought would help matters.

  I heard the crashing noises of someone approaching through the woods. Possibly several someones, by the sound of it.

  “I have visitors,” I said.

  “Keep them away from the crime scene if it’s not Vern or the chief,” Debbie Ann warned.

  “I will.”

  But to my relief I spotted Josh approaching. He appeared to be repeatedly running ahead, then backtracking
to rejoin another figure. The second figure, sturdy and clad in an impeccably clean khaki uniform, hiked stolidly forward, ignoring Josh’s darting back and forth.

  “It’s the chief,” I said to Debbie Ann. “I’ll hang up now.”

  The chief already looked grim. Since the modest town of Caerphilly was not just the largest but the only town in our small, rural Virginia county, he didn’t see that many dead bodies. Not nearly as many as when he’d been a homicide detective in Baltimore. But the ones he did see these days hit him harder, since they happened in “his” town. The expression on his round brown face suggested that the boys’ find had already undone some of the benefits of his vacation.

  “Where is this body?” he said as he drew near.

  I stepped aside and pointed across the clearing.

  He studied the hands in silence for a few seconds.

  “Did any of you go over there?” He didn’t take his eyes away from the hands.

  “I didn’t.” I glanced at Josh.

  “We didn’t, either,” he said. “It was pretty creepy. We went to find Mom.”

  “Good,” the chief said. “Let’s keep the scene undisturbed. Horace should be here soon. In the meantime—”

  He jerked his head around, evidently noticing the same sounds I had. People crashing through the underbrush from two directions.

  He sighed.

  “With luck, that will be Horace and Vern,” he said. “But if it’s people coming to gawk—”

  “We’ll help you head them off. Josh, you go that way.” I pointed to our right. “I’ll go this way. The chief doesn’t want anyone to mess up his crime scene, so don’t let anyone go past you into the clearing.”

  Josh raced away. I circled around until I was roughly a third of the way around the periphery of the clearing. Josh did the same thing in the other direction. He took an arrow out of the quiver on his back and nocked it onto his bow. Then he glared at the woods around him, as if daring anyone to approach. I settled for crossing my arms over my chest and staring fiercely in the direction of the crashing noises nearest me.

  To my relief, Jamie appeared, followed by Vern Shiffley, the chief’s most senior deputy. Like all of the enormous Shiffley clan, Vern was tall and lanky, with a long, imperturbable face. He appeared to be merely ambling through the woods, but his strides covered ground, and Jamie was half running to keep up with him.

  “Why don’t you take over guarding this part of the perimeter?” I suggested when Vern drew near. “I’ll go help the chief deal with them.”

  I nodded toward the other group, who were heading for where Chief Burke stood.

  “Yeah,” Vern said. “That crew’s going to get on the chief’s nerves in no time flat.”

  Actually, the two women, dressed in medieval peasant garb, in much the same drab earth tones Josh and Jamie were wearing, would probably behave themselves. But the tall man in the garish plaid kilt was another matter. He was the main reason I’d been out in the woods trying to calm myself with yoga breathing.

  “I assume these are some of the people Debbie Ann told me about,” the chief said in an undertone when I reached his side. “The ones having their costume party in your parents’ woods.”

  “Not exactly a costume party,” I said. “They’ve set up their idea of what an eleventh-century Scottish military camp would look like.”

  “Why?” he asked. “I mean, it might make sense in Scotland, but here in rural Virginia?”

  “Eleventh-century Scotland is when—and where—the real-life Macbeth lived—the one on whom Shakespeare based his play.”

  “So this has something to do with the play Michael’s directing?”

  Before I could answer, the reenactors were upon us. The tall man in the gaudy black-and-yellow tartan stuck out one large and not-very-clean hand.

  “Calum MacLeod,” he said, in his annoyingly bad fake Scottish accent. “Chieftain of the Caerphilly sept of the Clan MacLeod, and leader of the war-band now encamped in Birnam Wood.”

  “Henry Burke,” the chief said. “Chief of the Caerphilly Police Department and sheriff of Caerphilly County. I’d appreciate it if you’d stand over there and keep clear of my crime scene.”

  The chief’s tone made it clear that, however politely worded, this was an order. Calum’s face showed surprise and, just for a moment, a trace of rebellion. But then he did as he was told, gesturing imperiously at the two women to follow him. And it wasn’t as if he’d have trouble gawking to his heart’s content. The clearing was in a low spot, so that on all sides around it the ground rose like a shallow, tree-filled amphitheater.

  “Chief! Chief!”

  The chief and I turned to see two more figures racing down the gentle slope toward us. The chief’s face brightened—no doubt because he recognized the lead figure as Dad. Since Dad was also the local medical examiner, no doubt his arrival would be timely. But the man following him—

  “The guy with Dad is a documentary filmmaker and an avid blogger,” I said quietly. “Also a jerk with no concept of privacy or boundaries. So unless you want pictures of your crime scene popping up all over the Web—”

  “His name?”

  “Damien Goodwin,” I said.

  The chief strode a few paces toward the approaching figures.

  “Mr. Goodwin! Stay where you are!”

  Goodwin slowed down but didn’t completely stop. Vern, as if anticipating the chief’s next order, loped in Goodwin’s direction, his long, rangy stride quickly taking him to where he could intercept Goodwin if needed.

  “Dr. Langslow,” the chief went on. “I could use your assistance.”

  Dad almost skipped the rest of the way to the chief’s side.

  “I hear you’ve got a murder!” he said.

  “A body,” the chief corrected. “So far we have no cause to suspect homicide.” His smile was a little strained. I was never sure whether Dad’s obsession with murder was the cause or result of his avid consumption of crime novels, but it was a source of great annoyance to the chief, in spite of how highly he valued Dad’s skill as a doctor and a medical examiner. “Over there.” The chief gestured toward the clearing, and the three of us turned back toward it.

  Behind us, Goodwin was arguing with Vern.

  “You have no right to take away my camera!” Goodwin was shouting. “Seizure of private property! Suppression of my First Amendment rights! Freedom of the press!”

  “You’re not allowed to film here,” the chief said over his shoulder.

  “I have permission from the owner,” Goodwin said. “I’m within my rights—”

  “That permission is rescinded until further notice,” I said. “Right, Dad?”

  “Sorry—what?” Dad was taking his binoculars out of their case. Trust a birder never to venture into the woods unprepared. He probably also had a battered copy of the Peterson Guide in one pocket, to supplement the dozen or so birding apps on his iPhone.

  “We don’t want this Mr. Goodwin taking unauthorized pictures of our crime scene, now do we?” the chief said. The “our” was definitely a kind of flattery.

  “Perish the thought.” I shuddered with deliberate drama. “So you’re temporarily rescinding Mr. Goodwin’s permission to film in this part of the woods, right, Dad?”

  “Oh, of course. Of course.” He was staring at the hands through his binoculars. “Damien! Go away for now.”

  Goodwin subsided, grumbling.

  “See that he keeps his cell phone in his pocket,” I called to Vern. “He’s just as dangerous with that as the camera.”

  I tried to ignore the renewed wrangling between Vern and Goodwin.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Dad said. “How amazing!”

  Chapter 2

  Dad chuckled—not a typical reaction for anyone who’d just spotted a dead body and what might be a crime scene. Especially not Dad, whose joy at being involved in murder cases was always tempered with sorrow for the victim and even pity for the guilty.

  “Horace should be here in five minutes,” the chief said. “After he does a little preliminary work on the surrounding area, you can—”

  “No need for Horace.” Dad took the binoculars from his face and darted toward the body.

  “Dr. Langslow!” The chief took a step to follow, then stopped, visibly torn between the desire to keep Dad from trampling the crime scene and reluctance to add his footsteps to Dad’s.