Owls Well That Ends Well (15 page)

“Why not?”

“Scents have personalities, too, you know,” she said. “And if you’re wearing the wrong scent for your personality, it’s as bad as wearing the wrong color for your skin. It creates all kinds of psychic conflict.”

“So what scent should I wear?”

“Here, let me try something,” she said, rummaging among some small brown bottles on her table with one hand while she tried to grab my wrist with the other.

“No, tell me what scents you recommend first,” I said, pulling my hands back out of reach.

“Strong, forceful scents,” she said. “Cinnamon. Clove. And musk.”

“Cinnamon and clove are all right,” I said. “But not musk. I hate musk.”

“See!” she said, as if this proved something. “I knew it! You’re fighting your true sensual nature.”

“Musk makes me sneeze, and I’d sooner just roll in a compost heap,” I said. “I don’t see why you won’t sell me some of that lavender bath oil you sold me the last half dozen times I’ve seen you. I promise not to wear it out in public and embarrass you. I just want to take a nice, hot, relaxing bath in it tonight. It’s good for relaxing, isn’t it? And—”

I stopped myself when I realized, from the look on poor Rosemary’s face, that I was raising my voice. I took a deep breath.

“Never mind,” I said. “If you won’t sell me any lavender, how about rose?”

She shook her head.

I gave up.

Time I got back to more important things. Like trying to get the yard sale back on track. And trying to keep Chief Burke from arresting poor Giles.

I realized that I hadn’t seen Giles recently. Not since before my travels in the dumbwaiter. Dad was just stepping away from the funnel cake booth with his prize in hand, so I fell into step beside him.

“Seen Giles lately?” I asked.

“Not since the lawyer got here,” he said. “They went upstairs somewhere to talk.”

“Well, that’s a relief. That he’s talking to his lawyer, for a change, instead of the cops. No thanks,” I said, as Dad held out his funnel cake. “I don’t want to deprive you.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve had a couple already.”

“Ah, so that’s why there’s already powdered sugar all over your costume,” I said, nodding. “If you keep this up, you’ll look more like a snowy owl than a great horned owl.”

Dad’s hearty laugh raised a cloud of powdered sugar, and he went off to share my joke with the rest of the family.

I was momentarily distracted by a table at which one of our neighbors was selling what looked like a lifetime supply of organizational tools—every kind of box, bag, tote, basket, shelf, and bin I’d ever seen and some I hadn’t. Had she won a free, all-you-can-carry shopping binge at The Container Store and decided to sell off the surplus? I could still feel the seductive promise—that everything would be okay if I just organized my stuff, and here were the tools that could do it. But I broke the spell and walked away. Probably because Edwina Sprocket had built up her own impressive collection of organizational gizmos, and they hadn’t kept clutter from taking over the house while she’d lived there. We’d put most of the bins and totes out with the other yard sale loot, and they’d been one of the first things people snapped up and fought over.

Back to business, I told myself. I decided to go inside and see if I could talk to Giles.

I found him and the lawyer in the dining room—apparently the chief was finished with his interrogation. The lawyer was talking to someone on his cell phone, or at least trying to—he stood over by the window, shouting into it. Giles sat slumped on one of the folding chairs.

He didn’t look up when I came in, so I went over and tapped him gently on the shoulder.

“Good God, what now?” he snapped, but the anger faded as soon as he saw it was me.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were one of the coppers again. My nerves are shot. I’m not used to being treated like a common criminal.”

I nodded. I wanted to say that I hoped he’d kept his temper better in check with the cops, but I could understand if he hadn’t, under the circumstances. And Giles’s brief, uncharacteristic flare of temper only made him seem more vulnerable when it passed.

“I’ve been trying to find out what really happened,” I said.

He nodded. I felt momentarily annoyed—didn’t he realize that I’d spent most of the afternoon trying to help him? But then, perhaps he didn’t. Even if he did, I could hardly expect him to share Dad’s inflated confidence in my sleuthing abilities.

“How has it been going here?” I asked.

“Apart from the fact that they’re about to arrest me, you mean?” he asked.

“They’re not!” I exclaimed. I was hoping Chief Burke would have found some evidence to suspect someone other than Giles. After all, I’d been trying to steer him to every other possible suspect I could think of.

“I was in the barn, and they have my fingerprints on the murder weapon, and probably the blood-stained book, too.”

I opened my mouth to mention that the book hadn’t been bloodstained after all, but then remembered, in time, that I had heard that while eavesdropping. And I didn’t think it would be a bad thing if Giles made the same wrong assumption in front of the chief.

“And I admitted quarreling with the man,” Giles went on. “Not to mention throwing the bookend at him.”

“Everyone quarreled with Gordon,” I said. “Including two people with a much better motive for killing the jerk—his ex-partner and his estranged wife.”

Giles nodded.

“Just what happened in the barn?” I asked.

Giles frowned, and for a moment, I thought he was angry at me for questioning him. Then his face fell and he sighed. Probably just sick to death of answering that question.

“You went into the barn to talk to Gordon?” I prompted him.

“Yes. Twice,” he said. “Once when Gordon was still alive, and once, I suppose, after he was already dead, since I didn’t see him. If only I’d known it would make me a suspect.”

“You’re not the only one,” I said. “Tons of people were traipsing in and out of the barn all morning. So who did you see there?”

“Gordon, of course,” Giles said. “The first time, anyway. The second time, there was no one there at all.”

“Did you notice anyone going in or out?”

Giles thought briefly.

“The second time, someone was leaving as I came in,” he said.

“Who?”

“No one I know,” Giles said.

“Describe him, then,” I said.

“Her,” Giles corrected.

“What did she look like?”

He shook his head.

“Giles—” I began. And then I stopped myself. No sense taking out my frustration on poor Giles. It wasn’t really his fault that the stress of being a suspect sent him retreating behind the rather stiff, chilly exterior of his English reserve.

Though I shuddered to imagine how an American jury would react to his demeanor. I hoped things wouldn’t get that far. And come to think of it, maybe it would reduce the chance that they would if someone had a word with Giles about softening his prickly manner when dealing with the police.

Probably a better job for Michael.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just trying to help. Isn’t there anything you can tell me about the woman?”

“All I remember was the hat.”

“What kind of hat?”

“It had all these bobbling flowers all over it,” he said. “Frightful object, really; I remember wondering why anyone would put such a thing on her head. I’m sorry; that’s not much help, is it?”

“No, it’s a great help,” I said. “I think I know who it is. The Hummel lady.”

“Hummel lady?”

But just then, Chief Burke strode in. He frowned at me before turning to Giles.

“Giles Rathbone,” he said. “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent … .”

While the chief read Giles his Miranda rights, I slipped back out into the hall. I went up to a short section of wall we were planning to demolish anyway and gave it several swift kicks.

“Idiot!” I snarled, and then added a few choice words. Only a few, and fortunately I didn’t specify who I was talking about. I heard smothered titters from overhead and glanced up to see Eric and Frankie peering down at me.

“Don’t either of you dare tell your grandparents what I just said,” I warned them.

The dining room door opened, and Giles walked out. The police weren’t precisely leading him away in handcuffs, but two burly officers escorted him out the front door, down the steps, and along the path to the waiting police cruiser. Though perhaps the burly officers were there not to prevent his escape, but to keep him from accidentally killing himself. He stumbled several times over the cracked concrete of the walk, and I mentally moved “new front walk” much higher on the list of repair and remodeling projects that already occupied seventeen pages in my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe.

Giles looked miserable as he ran the gauntlet of curious onlookers and eager reporters. Not that being arrested is a picnic for most people, but I suspected it was pure hell for someone as self-effacing as Giles. If only he’d stand up straight and look calm and professorial. Unfortunately, cameras on either side were taking pictures so rapidly that their flashes blurred into the almost constant glare you see at celebrity press conferences, and the barrage of light made him squint and hunch his shoulders in a way that looked furtive and guilty. He may not have been tried in a court of law, or even in the court of public opinion, but in the camera’s eye he’d already been found guilty, guilty, guilty.

“Wow! Would you look at that?” Rob said, at my elbow. “It’s like watching the movie stars arrive at the Oscars.”

“More like watching celebrities arrested on
Court TV,
” I said.

“They didn’t have this many reporters at my arrest,” Rob said, sounding envious.

“I’m sure they would if you were arrested today,” I said. I meant it sarcastically, but Rob took my words at face value.

“I suppose so,” he said. “
Lawyers from Hell II
did significantly raise our public profile.”

“Hey, if you want to put it to the test, why don’t you confess?” I said. “You could always say you did it out of compassion for Giles, and in the meantime maybe it would be good publicity for your next game.”

“Hmmm,” he said, and walked away wearing what I’d come to think of as his serious, corporate look—the one that usually inspired Mother to take his temperature and Dad to lecture him on the importance of dietary fiber. Fortunately, he didn’t remember to wear it often. For that matter, he often let whole weeks pass without remembering to show up at the offices of the company he ostensibly ran, to the great relief of his staff, who could get a lot more work done when he wasn’t underfoot, and knew that they could always rely on me to hunt him down if they needed him to sign something or impress a client.

I turned back and watched as the officers guided the stunned-looking Giles into the backseat of their patrol car and drove off.

Chapter 19

Most of the police vehicles drove off in the wake of the car carrying Giles. I hoped the media would follow suit, but unfortunately, only a few of them did. Which probably meant that the local reporters had all too good an idea of how little newsworthy material they’d get from Chief Burke and preferred to stay here and work the crowd. Since the crowd contained a fair number of my family, the odds were good that they’d eventually do something entertaining, though not necessarily related to the murder. My more exhibitionistic relatives were already jockeying for their chances.

Including Dad. He and half a dozen of his fellow SPOOR members, all dressed as various species of owls, had appropriated the front stoop and were giving a presentation on the importance of owls and other predators to the ecosystem. Dad was the only one enjoying his costume. The rest huddled together and hunched their shoulders with embarrassment, which gave them an unfortunate resemblance to a flock of cartoon buzzards waiting for a new supply of carrion.

Should I tell Dad? No, I didn’t want to spoil his fun; and besides, his exuberance more than made up for the lugubrious effect of his troops. Even in my current tired state, the sight of him pacing up and down his impromptu stage, waving his wings with excitement, made me smile.

That was about the only thing that did, though. What do you do when you throw a party and the guests refuse to leave? It was getting close to dark; surely they’d leave then. Or would they?

I went into the kitchen and rummaged through my supplies until I found the markers and large sheets of paper I’d brought for making any last minute signs. I printed two notices that read YARD SALE CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. As an afterthought, I added a smaller note at the bottom of each, advising readers that the reopening would be announced on the campus radio station.

“Won’t work, you know,” Rob said, looking over my shoulder.

“Worth trying,” I said, handing him the signs and a roll of masking tape. “Would you do me a favor and stick one of these on the gate to the fenced-in area and the other on the mailbox?”

He nodded and sauntered out. I poured myself a glass of iced tea, sat down in a corner of the kitchen, closed my eyes, and did my yoga breathing exercises. Breathe in on four counts. Breathe out on eight. In on four counts and out on eight. As usual, the breathing helped me tune out the surrounding chaos, and as usual, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a person whose arrival I’d tuned out suddenly spoke to me.

“Meg, dear,” Mother said. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I was resting,” I said.

“That’s nice,” she said. “You just stay there and rest. I only wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Ask away,” I said. “Though my brain’s pretty fried right now.”

“Michael has been
so
nice about taking me places and helping me with my designs for your house.”

I winced, suspecting from her tone that she was finding me annoyingly uncooperative.

“But it’s hard to work in a vacuum, dear,” Mother went on, with a slight edge to her voice. “If you’d just give me some idea what kind of décor you want, I could work a lot more effectively. Without any guidance, I’m left to guess what you’d like, so it’s no wonder you’re not happy with my suggestions.”