Free An Owl Too Many by Charlotte MacLeod Page B

breathe fairly well, but there was no way I could peek out from underneath. It came down tight over my face.”
    “You couldn’t recognize the person’s voice?”
    “Not at all. He talked funny, I think he might have had marbles or something in his mouth.”
    “But did he talk? Did he say why he’d taken you prisoner?”
    “He kept yelling, ‘What did he tell you?’ I said ‘He who?’ and he said I knew damned well who and to stop trying to be cute or he’d plug me where it hurt. So then I thought of Emory and said was that who he meant and he said damn right he meant Emory and what did he tell me? He said, ‘Did he say where he put it?’ I said I didn’t even know what it was and would he kindly tell me what the hell he was talking about? So we argued back and forth for a while, then he stopped the car and made me get out and pushed me into the woods and tied me up the way you found me.”
    “But you didn’t have the—er—mask over your head when we found you,” Peter reminded her. “What happened to it? Did you get a look at his face when he took it off?”
    “No,” said Viola. “He tied my hands and feet to the tree first, then he ripped the pieces off my shirt and got behind the tree and reached around. All I saw was the tail of my shirt coming down over my eyes. I tried to turn my head and bite him, but he slapped my face and told me not to get funny. Then he shoved the gag in my mouth and said maybe I’d be ready to talk after I’d had a couple of days out here by myself to think it over. Then I heard him crashing through the brush and the car start up and drive away and I—oh God! I thought I was going to die. I thought some animal would come and g-get me.”
    She was starting to fall apart. Svenson wasn’t about to let her.
    “Cry later. Talk now. What did Emmerick tell you?”
    “He never told me anything!”
    “Must have. Yammering type, saw you often. Job? Hobbies? Family?”
    “Oh, that. Yeah, Emory did talk a lot. I thought you meant like secrets.”
    Svenson waited. Viola shrugged. “Well, he didn’t go much for Chinese food but he was crazy about Italian. Is this what you want?”
    “Go on.”
    “He claimed he was divorced, and more or less gave me to understand that he wouldn’t be interested in getting married again but he was still interested, if you get what I mean. Only I’ve got this snoopy landlady—it’s next to impossible to rent an apartment around here, so I’m stuck in a rooming house—and Emory was staying at the inn over in Balaclava Junction, which is about the same as boarding in a monastery from the way he described it, so it wasn’t going to work out. Which was okay by me because I wasn’t all that crazy about him anyway.”
    Peter weeded out the one salient fact. “Staying at the inn, you say? I wonder whether Ottermole knows that. He’d better take a look at the room. Go ahead, Miss Buddley, did Emmerick discuss any of his alleged colleagues at the Meadowsweet Construction Company?”
    “Not that I remember. He asked a lot of questions about Professor Binks.”
    “He never mentioned Mr. Fanshaw?”
    “Would that be Chuck? Emory talked about this guy named Chuck, but never called him by his full name.”
    “Too bad. What did he say about Chuck?”
    “He said Chuck owed him money.”
    “Really? How did he happen to tell you that?”
    “Probably because he’d had a few drinks. Then he said Chuck was a swell guy and he wasn’t worried about the money. I got the idea that it was quite a lot, but Emory might just have been trying to impress me. Look, do we have to keep standing here? What if that guy with the gun comes back?”
    “Urrgh!” For the first time that day, Thorkjeld Svenson smiled.

7
    “ DO YOU WANT TO go straight to your rooming house, Miss Buddley?” Peter hoped she’d say yes, but the ex-captive shook her head.
    “Uh-uh. Take me back to the station, if you don’t mind. I need to pick up my car.”
    “You’re sure you