Stork Raving Mad: A Meg Langslow Mystery (A Meg Lanslow Mystery)

could tolerate that was still in its original sealed container. But I’d forgotten that it was an integral part of the crime scene. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat anything from there anyway—not until the police figured out how Dr. Wright was poisoned.
    “If you could follow me to the barn, ma’am,” Deputy Shiffley said to Bronwyn.
    “What about her?” she said, pointing to me.
    “I’ve already been interrogated and released,” I said.
    I could hear Bronwyn still arguing with the officer as I drifted out into the hallway.
    Something to eat and a place to sleep. I had some snacks stashed in my bedroom. But I stared up at the stairs in dismay. It had been a long morning. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go upstairs. If I did, I’d probably be too tired to come down later, which would mean I’d miss everything that was going on.
    As I was dithering over whether to climb the stairs, the doorbell rang.
    “Serves me right for hesitating,” I muttered as I made my slow way to the door.
    But when I opened the door and saw who was standing outside, my mood lifted.
    “Kathy!” I exclaimed.
    Kathy Borgstrom was dressed, as usual, almost entirely in black—black velvet coat, black tights, black wool cap, black platform boots, and black velvet gloves. A cobwebby scarf in neon pink added the one note of color—though very little warmth. But while her wardrobe might look as if she’d raided the crypt of a Goth-obsessed vampire, Kathy herself could never be described as anything but wholesome and perky. Not to her face, of course.
    “Meg!” she said. “You look enormous. How much longer?”
    “Anytime now,” I said. “Come in.”
    “I was kidding about the enormous part,” she said. “I hope you realized that. Most of you looks fine; you haven’t gained a lot of weight in your face or your hands or—”
    “It’s okay,” I said. “Come in so I can shut the door. You’re letting all the heat out.”
    “Is this a bad time?” she asked as she followed my orders. “I could come back later if this is a bad time.”
    “It’s a horrible time, and don’t you dare leave,” I said. “Abe needs you. We’ve had a murder.”
    “A murder!” Her hands flew to her face in a dramatic gesture of alarm. “Who?”
    “Dr. Wright,” I said.
    “Oh,” she said, in a much less agitated tone. “That’s terrible,” she added, about a second too late.
    “You think so? Nobody else does.”
    “Just because none of us likes her doesn’t mean it’s okay for some nut to knock her off,” she said, as she shed her coat, revealing a tight-fitting black knit garment that she probably thought of as a dress. I would have called it a tunic. “Besides, you know this is only going to cause trouble for all of us on the drama side of the divide. The police are bound to suspect us. Hell, I suspect us.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Here’s hoping we all have alibis for the time of death.”
    “Oh, God,” she said, her face suddenly falling. “I probably don’t. Assuming it happened between the time you called me and now, that is. And it’s all The Face’s fault.”
    The Face was what most people called the president of Caerphilly College. He was a kindhearted man of great charm and personal dignity and arguably not a single brain cell. He owed his position to his inexplicable ability to extract large amounts of money from wealthy people and institutions. As long as he stuck to doing that and left running the college to people with some kind of administrative skills, things went smoothly. But Kathy Borgstrom wasn’t a wealthy potential benefactor, so the fact that she’d even encountered The Face was unsettling news.
    “What did he want?” I asked.
    “I have no idea,” Kathy said. “I mean, who ever does? Hekept asking to see Abe, and I must have explained about fifteen times that Abe was out of the office but that I’d track him down as soon as possible. I didn’t want to tell him where Abe was—the last thing you need is him showing up on your doorstep. And he kept wandering around, picking up papers and putting them down in the wrong places, reading stuff on the bulletin board, and asking questions about whether I was happy and did I think that the building needed painting and had I taken enough of a vacation this year. It was . . . unnerving.”
    Studying her face I could see that she really was rattled. Which was odd. Normally an encounter with The Face produced monumental irritation, not