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

do anything for me. So tell me.”
    I held my breath. Danny would do anything for Bronwyn?Was Ramon reluctant to speak or was he, like me, pondering how Bronwyn had managed to win that kind of loyalty?
    “Some of my sleeping medicine,” Ramon said finally. “Just a couple of pills. I didn’t want to hurt her. I just wanted to buy some time until I could figure out what to do.”
    “How many pills?” Bronwyn asked. I almost nodded in approval.
    “Three,” he said. “The stuff’s not very strong—I usually have to take two of them myself to get any effect. I’ve taken three on a bad night. It couldn’t have killed her.”
    “No,” Bronwyn said. “From what I heard, she was hit over the head with that horrible hippopotamus statue. Of course, they don’t yet know why she just sat there and let someone whack her on the head with the hippo. She didn’t strike me as the type to just take a nap when she was in the middle of screwing with someone’s life. So there must be some reason she was snoozing.”
    “My sleeping pills?” Ramon asked. Bronwyn must have nodded. He groaned.
    “Don’t tell anyone,” Bronwyn said. “I’ll get Danny to keep quiet. It’s not your fault what the killer did, and with luck they’ll never figure out about the sleeping pills.”
    “Thanks,” Ramon said.
    I heard a few soft murmurs and giggles—Bronwyn and Ramon kissing and making up, probably. I tuned them out and thought about what I’d heard. Was Ramon telling the truth about the pills? Or had he slipped something deadly into Dr. Wright’s tea? If he was the poisoner, was the rumor that she’dbeen hit over the head reassuring him or making him more wary?
    “Come on,” Bronwyn said. “Nearly time for rehearsal.”
    “How can we have a rehearsal with the police camped in the library?” Ramon asked.
    “Professor Waterston said we could use the barn.”
    “You really think Blanco will let us do the show?” Their voices were beginning to fade as they walked toward the other end of the living room.
    “Blanco? He’s not going to give us any problems,” Bronwyn said. “Without Dr. Wright to give him a backbone, I bet he doesn’t have the guts to stop the show.”
    “And if you’re wrong?”
    “Then maybe the killer will come back and bash him, too.”
    “Bron, that’s horrible.”
    “I’m only saying what we’re all thinking,” she said. “Come on—we should start the rehearsal on time.”
    I heard their footsteps disappear in the distance.
    Apparently, while I was asleep, the chief had made progress in his interviews, if Bronwyn and Ramon were at large and even thinking about starting a rehearsal. And maybe it was a good thing they were moving the rehearsals to the barn before they began using the real zucchini.
    How long had I been asleep? I glanced at the clock on the mantel, which said a quarter past twelve, as it had for the last month—it was an antique clock Mother had given us that required winding weekly, which no one had bothered to do since the students moved in. Probably not a practical clock for thebusy family we were about to become, and absolutely no help at the moment.
    I pulled out my cell phone and checked the time on that—2:40 p.m. Which meant I’d been sleeping for over an hour. I didn’t feel particularly rested, but then I rarely did these days.
    I began to pick my way through the debris to the doorway.
    Halfway there a thought stopped me. If memory served, Ramon was one of the students sleeping here in the living room. With everyone else either being interrogated or attending a rehearsal, now might be a good time to see if his sleeping pills were still findable—before it occurred to him to dispose of them.
    I poked around the room until I figured out where Ramon’s stuff was. They’d put together a ring with everyone’s mailbox keys on it, and apparently someone had just made a mail run to the dorms and thrown small bundles of letters and flyers on some of the sleeping bags and air mattresses. I scanned the addresses until I found a pale pink envelope addressed to Ramon lying on one of the sleeping bags. The return address was a Mrs. Angelica Soto in San Antonio.
    I glanced over my shoulder. Still no one around. If the living room had a door I’d have closed and locked it, but there was only the huge open archway. I felt incredibly exposed as I rummaged through the heaps of stuff around Ramon’s sleeping bag.
    Eventually I found a pill bottle tucked under his