Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos by Donna Andrews

Author:Donna Andrews [Andrews, Donna]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780312939588
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2006-02-07T06:00:00+00:00

Either the artillery crew decided to sleep in, or I really was getting used to the sound of gunfire. When the familiar boom woke me up, I scrabbled in my haversack for my watch and found it was a little past seven.

Michael not only slept through the cannon, he also didn't seem to notice getting kicked or elbowed several times while I struggled into my dress in the tiny tent.

I stumbled outside, stretched, and bunked at the bright sunlight. Another unseasonable steam bath of a day.

„Pardon me, mistress, could you direct me to the necessary?“

„The necessary what?“ I asked, turning to see a disheveled-looking man clutching a lumpy haversack.

„The necessary,“ he said. „You know – the privies?“

„Oh, that's right,“ I said, belatedly recognizing the colonial euphemism for toilets. And not entirely inappropriate, since the sanitary facilities were a collection of portable toilets and sinks that we all used only when absolutely necessary. I pointed over the tops of the surrounding tents. „Right over there, behind the fences. Men's on the left.“

„Thank you, mistress,“ he said, and galloped off.

I pondered visiting the necessary myself, and decided it wasn't urgent. If I set off now, in fifteen minutes I could be at my parents' house, partaking of the forbidden modern pleasures of running water and flush toilets. And perhaps even a hot shower, if I could get there before most of the visiting crowd of relatives woke up.

Even more important, I could talk to Rob. He'd been conspicuously absent from the party last night, and I had a feeling that, sooner or later, Deputy Monty was going to want to talk to him. And I knew Rob was less likely to push himself to the top of the suspect list if he uttered his first, careless comments about Benson's death to me, rather than Monty.

I made my way through the sleeping crafter section of camp to the more lively regimental section. The camp seemed more authentic today. Yesterday, when everyone was setting up and on their best behavior, I'd decided it was more like a really well-done movie set than an actual Revolutionary War encampment. Everything seemed just a little too clean and well repaired, not to mention a lot less smelly than the real thing. And the reenactors seemed too much on their best behavior, as if to say, „Look how authentic I am!“

This morning, as campers got up and stumbled through pared-down and much-adapted versions of their usual morning rituals, the whole place reeked of authenticity. People had stopped worrying about whether the dogs and children were rolling in the dirt and whether their language was absolutely free of anachronisms, and had just started living. I liked it better this morning.

Until I got closer to the road, where the troops of modern police who'd started searching the encampment at that end spoiled the illusion of walking back into the eighteenth century. I felt a little guilty, since it was probably my cash box they were searching for.

„Don't be silly,“ I told myself.

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