Owls Well That Ends Well Part 7

"We found it in the barn, sir," the officer said, placing it on the evidence table. "Appears to be a match for the murder weapon."

Of course, Giles picked that moment to stroll up.

"I didn't know you were closing so early," he said, blinking with confusion at the general exodus toward the checkout line. "I don't suppose-oh, there it is. Have you found the other one as well?"

He was pointing, of course, at the owl-shaped bookend.

"Is this yours, sir?" Chief Burke asked, with narrowed eyes.

"Er ... no, not exactly," Giles said, blinking with confusion. "Not yet anyway. I suppose it belongs to Dr. Langslow. I got it from his table, anyway. I was planning to buy it."

I winced. To someone who didn't know him well, Giles's stammer and his unwillingness to meet the chief's eyes probably smacked of guilt. I realized that this was simply his normal behavior when forced to talk to anyone he didn't know very well about any subject other than nineteenth-century English poetry, but just how well did Chief Burke know Giles?

"And just what did you do with it in the meantime?" the chief asked.

"Carried it around with me," Giles said. "Them, actually-there's another one someplace. I don't suppose you've found it, eh? Anyway, I'm afraid I threw them down after I lost my temper with that beastly Gordon McCoy."

"And one of them struck Mr. McCoy," the chief said, nodding.

"Good heavens no!" Giles exclaimed. "Just threw them down-over there in the barn. Although a few minutes ago, when I returned to look-"

He took a step or two in the direction of the barn and the chief headed him off by stepping in his path, the way a Border collie would guide a large and rather fl.u.s.tered sheep.

"The barn's off-limits," the chief said. "Just what were you and Mr. McCoy quarreling about?"

"It wasn't a quarrel," Giles said. "He offered to sell me a book at an exorbitant price, and I told him I wouldn't pay that much even if I wanted it, and I already had a copy. And then he said something rude, and I replied in kind and threw the bookends down in a temper. And when I returned later to apologize and reclaim my bookends, I couldn't find him or them."

I sighed. Giles sounded less nervous now, and more like his usual dry, precise self. Unfortunately, under the circ.u.mstances, dry and precise sounded more like stuffy and condescending.

"Is this the book?" the chief said, indicating the Freeman book on the evidence table.

"Good heavens," Giles said. "The swine. I didn't think he'd actually do it."

"Do what?"

"Burn it," Giles said. "He said if I didn't buy it, he might as well burn it-I thought he was just joking. I never imagined ..."

He reached out to touch the book-I had the impression he wanted to comfort it-but the chief grabbed his arm.

"Hands off," the chief said. "That's evidence."

"Evidence?" Giles echoed. "What-?"

"I hear you have a body for me," said a voice behind us.

"Coroner's here, chief," Sammy announced, unnecessarily.

"Body?" Giles looked pale.

"We're investigating the murder of Gordon McCoy," the chief said. "I'm afraid I have a few more questions for you, Professor Rathbone."

Giles didn't faint, but I suspect it was a close call.

Chief Burke looked up and noticed that the small crowd of kibitzers had grown larger. He frowned.

"Meg," he said. "I need a place where I can talk to these people. Someplace more private."

"You can use the house," I said. "The dining room would work. There's no furniture, though."

"Can we have a room with furniture, then?" the chief asked.

"None of them have furniture yet," I said. "At least the dining room has a floor. I can haul in one of the card tables and a few folding chairs; we have plenty of those."

"That would be fine," the chief said, and waved his hand as if dismissing me to go set up his interrogation room.

I'd have been more irritated if I hadn't seen Mrs. Burke, standing behind him, hands on her hips, and a frown on her face.

"Henry," Mrs. Burke began, in a warning tone. "What kind of high-handed stunt are you pulling, shutting down the yard sale like this? Don't tell me there's some county ordinance about yard sales that you've suddenly decided to enforce."

"Don't start with me, Minerva," the chief said. "It's not my fault that no-account Gordon McCoy managed to get himself murdered right in the middle of these good people's yard sale."

"Gordon McCoy!" Mrs. Burke exclaimed. "Well, G.o.d rest his soul, but if we had to have someone murdered ... I suppose there's no help for it, then; you can't argue with a murder, can you?"

With that, she trotted off to take her place in the checkout line.

I went over to snag a few folding chairs from some of the now-idle sellers.

As I was picking up the chairs, I overheard someone talking in the checkout line.

"If I were the chief, I'd take a good look at that wife of his," a voice said.

Chapter 10.

I froze so I could hear better, all the while envying dogs their ability to swivel their ears in any direction.

"His own wife?" a second voice exclaimed. "You can't really think Minerva-"

"No, silly, Gordon's wife."

"Carol? I thought she and Gordon split up two years ago."

I pretended to find something wrong with the chair I was about to fold, and risked a look over my shoulder. One of the Marie Antoinettes we'd been watching so closely as a possible shoplifter was leaning toward a stout, gaudily dressed Gypsy.

"It was five," Marie Antoinette said. "And they reconciled; but now they've split up again, and this time it looks permanent."

"Very permanent, with him dead and all."

"Well, naturally," Marie Antoinette said. "I mean it was looking permanent, before Gordon was killed. They were fighting over property, and Carol swore he was hiding a.s.sets from her."

"And was he?"

"For heaven's sake, it's Gordon we're talking about," Marie Antoinette said, tossing her fluffy white wig. "Of course he was hiding a.s.sets."

"Troll," the Gypsy muttered.

"But she's been going about it the wrong way. She should have just hired a private investigator to follow the jerk. But she's been trying to do it all herself."

"Maybe she can't afford to hire anyone?"

"Well, that's possible. But at least she shouldn't have run around doing things that probably made the judge think she was a nutcase."

"What kind of things?" the Gypsy asked.

"She broke into his house," Maria Antoinette said. "And got caught."

They both shook their heads.

"So if you ask me, Chief Burke is barking up the wrong tree, ha.s.sling that poor Professor Rathbone," Marie Antoinette continued, jerking her head toward where the chief was still talking to a stricken-looking Giles. "They should look at Carol."

"How does killing Gordon help Carol find his hidden a.s.sets?" the Gypsy asked.

"If he's dead, and they're still married, she doesn't need to worry about finding them, silly. They're all hers now."

"Unless he's hidden them so well that no one ever finds them," the Gypsy suggested.

Or unless she was the one who murdered him.

"Wouldn't that be something?" Marie Antoinette exclaimed, and they both giggled. I suspected that however much they disliked Gordon they weren't overly fond of Carol either.

I folded the chair and turned toward the house. I realized that I might have a very good chance of prying information out of Carol, since I probably had a good idea where Gordon had hidden his a.s.sets. Several times, while delivering things to the bin we'd rented at the Spare Attic, an off-site storage place, I'd run into Gordon coming from or going to a nearby bin. He'd looked anxious when he noticed I'd seen him. If I could find Carol, maybe I could trade her this information in return for the inside scoop on what she'd seen in the barn.

Of course, the ethical thing to do was to tell the chief what the two women had been saying and share my knowledge of Gordon's storage bin with him.

Later. a.s.suming I could pry the chief away from his intense conversation with Giles.

"d.a.m.n!" I muttered.

"What's wrong, Meg?"

I looked up to see that Dad had returned. Alone.

"Eric and Frankie-" I began "Taken care of," he said, waving genially.

"Fine," I said. Giles was still talking to the chief. I shook my head and stuck a folding chair under each arm.

Giles was pointing toward the barn.

"d.a.m.n the man," I muttered.

"What's wrong?" Dad asked.

"Someone should tell Giles not to talk to the police without a lawyer," I said.

"You think he had something to do with the murder?"

"No," I said. "I can't imagine him having anything to do with the murder, but I don't think Chief Burke agrees. If Giles doesn't watch out, he'll get arrested."

"Oh, dear," Dad said. "He seems like such a nice man."

"Very nice," I said. "And he thinks Michael deserves tenure."

"So do I, naturally," Dad said.

"Yes, but you're not on his tenure committee," I said. "Giles is."

Dad frowned.

"But I thought Giles was an English professor," he said.

"He is," I said. "So is Michael, technically. The drama department, being small, is technically a subgroup of the English department."

"How odd," Dad said. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

I sighed, and rubbed my forehead. The slight headache I'd been trying to ignore suddenly felt worse. I could have sworn I'd explained this to most of my family several times already. Maybe I'd just fretted about it so much that it seemed as if I'd told them.

"Depends on your point of view," I said. "If you ask me, most of the English professors-the tenured ones, anyway-are stuffy, pompous bores. Of course, I could be prejudiced by the fact that they all look down their noses at their colleagues in the drama section of the department."

"That must be annoying."

"Worse than annoying," I said. "Every year or two, they try to eliminate all but the driest and most academic of drama courses. Which would also let them eliminate all those decla.s.se theater people like Michael."

"Oh, dear," Dad said. "So Michael's job isn't safe?"

"Well, it is and it isn't," I said. "The college administration always reinstates the canceled cla.s.ses-they're too popular to kill. But while the administration wants the prestige of having an award-winning theater arts program and the fees the drama cla.s.ses bring, they could care less if any of the faculty responsible ever get tenure. So far, in the past thirty years, not a single one has."

"That doesn't sound promising," Dad said, staring at the house as if the connection between Michael's tenure and our ability to continue paying the mortgage had begun to dawn on him.

"Doesn't mean Michael would be unemployed if he didn't get tenure," I said. "He'd almost certainly be welcome to stay around indefinitely, as a lecturer or something. On a suitably tiny salary, with no benefits to speak of. That helps the bottom line almost as much as those popular courses he teaches."

"The college's bottom line, you mean."