Owls Well That Ends Well Part 13

"I'd give you the money, but where on earth are you going to buy a funnel cake?" I asked. "This isn't the county fair, you know."

"The funnel cake truck is out front," he said. "And the Sno-Cone stand, too. Come and see!"

I followed him around to the other side of the house where, indeed, a brightly painted funnel cake truck and a mobile Sno-Cone stand had set up and were dispensing their wares to a long line of customers.

"Can I have one? Please?"

I handed over the money for a funnel cake. Eric looked at it dubiously.

"What about Frankie?" he asked. "Can't he have one, too?"

"He can't share yours?"

"He's our guest!" Eric said. "Wouldn't it be more polite to let him have his own funnel cake?"

"Okay," I said. "But you'll have to hit up someone else for Sno-Cones."

"Oh, Frankie's grandma is getting us those," Eric said. "Thanks, Meg!"

Nice to know I wasn't the only soft touch in town.

"That was a good idea," said Dad, who happened to be standing nearby.

"Giving the boys another sugar high?" I said. "Since it's Rob watching them, not me, I suppose so."

"No, I meant having the food vendors come out," Dad said.

"And compete with the family run concession?"

"I don't think it will hurt," Dad said. "Your cousins already have more customers than they can keep up with."

"Maybe I'll have a funnel cake, then, if it won't look disloyal," I said. "I wish I could take credit, but the funnel cake and Sno-Cone people appeared on their own."

"Probably similar to the way flies and carrion beetles appear on a dead body," Dad said, nodding. "It only takes minutes for the faint odor of beginning decay to attract scavenger insects."

"I would have said the way ants find a picnic," I said. "Maybe I'll wait on the funnel cake."

"I think I'll indulge," Dad said, and joined the funnel cake line.

You'd think I'd have gotten used to Dad's metaphors by now, I thought, with a sigh.

I spotted Cousin Rosemary. She'd been one of the people I'd had to turn down when they asked to join the yard sale at the last minute. Apparently she'd brought her stuff anyway, and now that the real yard sale was unavailable, had set up a booth in our front yard, near the Sno-Cones and the funnel-cake, between an aunt selling quilts and Horace's ex-girlfriend Darlene, who crocheted afghans in remarkably loud colors. I glanced around, and saw that several other card tables had appeared, like mushrooms after a rain. A black market yard sale and craft fair was growing up outside the gates of the one still held captive by the police.

Well, like the food, it would be something else to keep people entertained until we could let them back into the yard sale. And maybe Not-Rosemary was still selling the bath oils and bath salts she'd started making when she discovered aromatherapy. I actually liked some of her bath concoctions. And I realized that she'd hung a sign at the front of her booth with her new name conveniently blazoned across it: ROSE NOIR.

Unless that was the name of her business. I stopped in front of her table.

"Rose Noir," I said. I figured if that was her new name, she'd think I was greeting her, and if it wasn't, she'd just a.s.sume I was reading her sign.

"Yes-do you like it?" she asked.

"Very nice," I said, while reaching into my pocket for the notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe.

"I think I've finally found a name that really captures the true essence of my nature," she said.

"Yes, it certainly does," I said, while scribbling a memorandum to myself: "Note: Rosemary = Rose Noir" and today's date. "You're still selling the bath oils, I see."

I picked up a jar of her lavender-scented bath oil.

"How much for these?"

She frowned.

"Here," she said. "Try this instead."

She tried to hand me something called "Scheherazade." I could tell from the name, without even reading the label, that it would be dripping with musk.

"No thanks," I said. "I'd rather have the lavender. Lavender's good for dealing with stress, remember? And that's certainly something I have plenty of today. Stress, I mean, not lavender. I'm all out of lavender."

"I'm sorry," she said. "But I can't sell you that. I just don't see you as a person who should be using lavender."

"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 embarra.s.s 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 G.o.d, 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 circ.u.mstances. And Giles's brief, uncharacteristic flare of temper only made him seem more vulnerable when it pa.s.sed.

"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 a.s.sumption 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 p.r.i.c.kly 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 ... ."