Stork Raving Mad (12 page)

He turned around and frowned.

“You might want to tell Horace that where he found it may not be precisely where the killer left it,” I said. “I remember
stumbling over the thing as I was backing away from the body. Sorry,” I added, seeing the slight frown on his face.

“Not exactly your fault,” he said. “Did you pick it up?”

“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “I knew better. I left it where it landed. I don’t think it moved much, if that helps.”

He nodded and disappeared.

I leaned back, closed my eyes, and hoped he took a good long time examining the scene.

“Meg, dear.”

I winced involuntarily, then opened my eyes to see my mother standing in the open doorway of the office.

“Meg, would you like to see the plans for the nursery?”

I was opening my mouth to shriek, “Not now, Mother.” But I stifled the urge and counted to ten before saying anything.

“Maybe later,” I said finally. “Has Michael seen them?”

“He thinks they’re fine,” she said. “But I would feel better if you saw them before we get started, and we need to do that soon if—”

“Right now, I’m not sure Chief Burke will even let you do any decorating,” I said. “He might consider the whole house part of the crime scene.”

“Crime scene?” Mother asked. Her hand flew to her throat in a characteristic gesture of genteel astonishment. I sighed. I’d forgotten that the rest of the household might not have heard about Dr. Wright. Mother, for example, had probably been too busy with her decorating plans to notice.

“We’ve had a suspicious death,” I said. “Probably no one you
know,” I added, to quell the growing alarm on her face. “A Dr. Wright from the English department.”

“Oh, dear,” Mother said. “The English department? Is this apt to have any unfortunate effect on, well, circumstances?”

“You mean on Michael’s tenure prospects?” I’ve never been noted for subtlety. “If anything, this should improve them, since it would be hard to find anyone in the English department who hated him more than Dr. Wright.”

“I see,” Mother said. I could tell she disapproved of my bluntness at the same time as she appreciated the information. And I hoped she wasn’t about to say anything about a silver lining.

“Of course, this means Michael is a suspect,” I said. “We all are.”

“I’m sure that the chief will sort everything out,” Mother said. “Such a nice man. Where is he? I’ll just make sure he’s comfortable with our continuing the work on the nursery.”

“He’s in the library,” I said. “With the body.”

She sailed off. I wondered if Mother’s current positive opinion of the chief would survive if he vetoed her plan to redecorate the nursery, or worse, blasted her for interrupting his investigation.

Not my problem.

I heard them talking out in the hall for a few minutes. I felt curiously indifferent to the outcome of their conversation. If I’d known this morning that Mother was planning a kamikaze decorating raid, I’d have reacted with angst and anger. But now? I found it hard to care.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the chief said. I opened my eyes to see him seating himself in one of Michael’s guest chairs. Had he forgotten my warning, or did he think I was exaggerating? He’d find out. “Now, let’s—hang on a second.”

Something beeped, and he reached in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He flipped it open and frowned at the screen.

“Text message,” he said. “I hate text messages.” He peered over his glasses at the phone, tentatively punched a few keys, and then frowned more deeply and continued staring at his cell phone as if expecting it to turn into an adder and bite him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I called Dr. Smoot,” the chief said. “And I left a message for him to call me back ASAP on police business. Does that seem unreasonable?”

“No,” I said. “You’ve got a murder. You need the medical examiner.”

“Acting medical examiner,” the chief corrected. There was no love lost between the two at the best of times. “And he texted me back—is that a verb, texted?”

“If it isn’t, it will be eventually,” I said. “What did he text—er, say?”

“That he couldn’t because he was in no this week. What does he mean, ‘in no’? Is that some kind of flippant refusal? Like get lost?”

“Probably just a typo,” I said. “Maybe he was typing something that began with n-o and hit send before he finished.”

“Well if that’s the case, he should have sent a follow-up message
to explain,” the chief grumbled. “And he was pretty emphatic. Not just no but NO, in caps.”

“Oh, he means New Orleans,” I said.

“Well, how the dickens am I supposed to know that?” the chief said. “And what the devil is he doing there?”

“Taking that tour of the famous vampire hangouts in New Orleans,” I said. “He’s been talking about doing that for ages. Fictional vampire hangouts, of course,” I added, seeing the chief’s reaction. Chief Burke had little sympathy with his acting medical examiner’s passion for the supernatural.

“Fine way for a grown man to spend his time,” the chief said. “Not to mention the fact that he’s not around when I need him.”

“Next time I plan a murder, I’ll make sure he’s on the invitation list,” I murmured.

“I’ll have to call the mayor and get him to deputize someone again,” he said. “Might as well be your father, if you think he’d be willing.”

“I’m sure he’d be ecstatic,” I said. “As long as you don’t consider him a suspect.”

The chief sighed. “No, he’s well alibied,” he said. “We’ve been together down at the vet’s office for most of the last two hours.”

I was immensely relieved. Dad was an avid reader of mystery books and always loved the idea of being involved in a real-life case, even—or perhaps especially—if he was a suspect. But he could hardly nominate himself as the killer if the chief himself could alibi him.

The chief punched a few buttons on his cell phone. I closed
my eyes and tried to demonstrate my complete lack of interest in eavesdropping during the chief’s brief conversation with the mayor.

“Lucky thing, your dad being with me at the vet’s,” the chief said, after he and the mayor had said their goodbyes. “That makes him practically the only person associated with this household who isn’t a suspect.”

“Including me,” I said.

“Including you,” he echoed. “Though I have to admit, I can’t help but consider you a long shot.”

“Because of your profound respect for my character, or because you don’t think a pregnant woman capable of murder?” I asked.

“Never mind,” he said. “Shall we continue our discussion?”

“What about Horace?” I asked. “If you’re having Horace do the forensic work—”

“Horace and Sammy were at the veterinarian’s office with your father and me,” the chief said. “Some fool tourist ran over Sammy’s dog, Hawkeye, this morning. Didn’t even stop to see if the poor beast was all right. Which he will be,” he added, noticing my anxious face. “But it took Doc Clarence an hour and a half of surgery, with your Dad helping out, while Horace and I calmed Sammy down and got a description of the car. Been a lively morning already.”

“And now this,” I said, shaking my head. “By the way, don’t you want to tell Dad about his temporary appointment?”

“Good point.” He started to sit up, realized the chair wasn’t about to let him, and then tried again. He managed to lever
himself out, which was more than a lot of people could, but he gave it a thunderous glance once he’d escaped. “Though I don’t know why I bother. He’s been acting as if he already had the job from the moment he arrived on the scene. But still, your father’s—”

“Chief?”

Cousin Horace. With Dad right behind him.

“We have good news, sort of,” Horace said.

“Sort of?” the chief echoed. He glanced back at the chair, then changed his mind and leaned against the desk.

“Tawaret didn’t do it.”

“Tawaret?” the chief asked. He pulled out his notebook and flipped a few pages forward. “Who the hell’s Tawaret?”

He glared at me, as if rebuking me for leaving out a critical suspect.

“Meg’s hippopotamus statue,” Horace said. “It wasn’t the murder weapon.”

“You’re sure?” the chief said.

“Reasonably sure,” Horace said.

“We’ll know more at the autopsy, of course,” Dad said. “But I think the evidence is fairly conclusive.”

“I thought you found strands of her hair on the hippo, and the dent in her head matches the thing’s snout,” the chief said. “If she wasn’t hit over the head with it—”

“She was,” Horace said. “But that’s not what killed her. She was already dead when the blow was struck. No bleeding.”

“Exactly,” Dad said. “It could be a natural death, but more likely she was poisoned. You might want to secure the kitchen.”

Bad news for the paella makers. The chief pulled out his cell phone again.

“What was she eating?” he asked, as he pushed one of his speed-dial numbers.

“Weak tea,” I said. “And lightly buttered toast. You might want to see if Rose Noire took the same thing to the other prune.”

“The other what?” the chief said, frowning.

Oops. Better not explain. I’d just let him try to figure out if he’d misheard or I’d misspoke.

“The other professor,” I said. “Dr. Blanco, the one who came with Dr. Wright. I could be wrong, but I think they both ordered weak tea and toast.”

“And prunes?” the chief asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, wincing. “Ask Rose Noire.”

“Great,” the chief said. “Which reminds me—Dr. Langslow, the mayor sends his regards and asks if you’ll fill in as acting medical examiner while Smoot’s away.”

“Shouldn’t that be acting acting medical examiner?” I said. “Since Smoot—never mind.”

The chief was glowering at me.

“Splendid,” Dad said.

“So carry on, and keep me posted,” the chief said. “One other thing—”

Dad and Horace both paused in the doorway and looked back expectantly.

“We don’t tell anyone about this,” the chief said. “Apparently
Dr. Blake has already spread the word that she died from being hit over the head. So let’s leave it that way. Let everybody think that’s what we think.”

“To weed out false confessions,” Dad said, nodding vigorously.

“And to create a false impression of security in our killer,” the chief said. “If he doesn’t know we know about the poison, maybe he’ll think he’s got plenty of time to dispose of the evidence. So don’t say anything to anyone about poison. What should we say she died of?”

“Blunt force trauma to the upper right portion of the occipital bone,” Dad said.

“Too specific,” the chief said.

“I’m the one most people are going to be interrogating,” I said. “How about if I just say it looked to me as if she was hit on the back of the head with something.”

“That’s probably best,” the chief said. “Holding back information is one thing; deliberately spreading inaccurate information might be counterproductive.”

“All right.” Dad sounded disappointed. “I’d better get back to my examination.”

He and Horace popped back into the library.

“There’s also the fact that anyone with half a brain could figure out that he’s lying,” the chief said.

“Yes,” I said. “Dad’s enthusiasm for intrigue far exceeds his acting skills.”

“I hope he’s not going to sulk about it,” the chief said.

“He is,” I said. “But only for about five minutes. And I see your point. After all, if someone saw someone else deliberately putting poison in her tea—oh, my God!”

“What?” the chief asked.

“Señor Mendoza’s heart medicine. Did I mention that?”

“No,” the chief said.

“Of course I didn’t,” I said. “Because I thought she was killed with a blunt instrument. But now that we know she might have been poisoned—”

“Just tell me about the blamed heart medicine,” the chief said.

“He spilled it,” I said. “He handed the pill bottle to a student to open, and suddenly there were little white pills all over the foyer floor. And people crawling around everywhere picking them up.”

“When you say people, you mean all those . . . potential suspects sitting around in your kitchen?”

“Most of them,” I said. “I don’t think Art and Abe were here yet, or Mother and the Shiffleys.”

The chief scribbled in his notebook.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean there weren’t still pills lying around when they got here,” I said. “Señor Mendoza didn’t seem at all worried about getting them all back. That’s why Dad was at the vet, incidentally; because Spike swallowed one, and we were worried about what it would do to him.”

“He mentioned Spike might have swallowed something,” the chief said. “But just then Sammy came running in with Hawkeye, so I never heard the details.”

“Anyway, there were pills all over the front hall and probably still are some. I hope Clarence keeps Spike until we can give the hall a thorough vacuuming. You might not know what they were—unless you talked to any of the dozens of people who saw what happened. But—”

“Did the pills look something like this?” he asked. He held up a small yellowish-white pill.

“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t know you had a heart problem.”

“I don’t.” He tucked the pill back in his pocket. “I almost stepped on this in your foyer when I first arrived. So we make sure the tox screen looks for digitalis.”

He glanced up and caught me suppressing a yawn.

“You should rest,” he said.

“If you’re finished with me, I could certainly use a nap,” I said.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, shooing me in the direction of the door. “If you think of anything else, you let me know after your nap.”

“Will do,” I said.

I made my way down the long hallway, wondering all the while what it would take to install one of those rolling walkways they used in airports to move passengers from one end of the terminal to the other. Probably not very useful in the long run, so I returned to trying to figure out how we could install an elevator without ruining the look of the front hallway.

I was still thinking about the elevator when I found myself at the bottom of the stairs. To my surprise, the siren call of my nice, comfortable bed wasn’t as strong as it had been a few
minutes ago. Okay, my eyelids were still drooping, but I was also dying to find out what all those witnesses, suspects, and innocent bystanders were up to in our kitchen.