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

paused to look around. To my left, I could see the lighted windows of the library. Inside, Horace was methodically picking his way through a section of the students’ belongings. Poor Horace was in for a long night.
    The table where Dr. Wright had been killed wasn’t visible from this angle, but much of the library was. Should I point this out to Chief Burke? Ask if he’d interrogated the students, particularly any smokers who’d used the backyard, to see if they’d seen anyone other than Dr. Wright in the library?
    Probably not a good idea. He resented people interfering in his investigations. So far I’d managed not to set him off today. I decided to keep it that way.
    I’d tell Horace and let him ask the chief.
    For its first ten or fifteen feet, the path to the barn was lined on both sides with several dozen black plastic garbage bags, all tied at the top and neatly arranged. Someone had posted a “trash” sign to the left and a “recycling” sign to the right. Every weekthe students were here we had more bags of both kinds. Maybe we could just get our trash company to leave a Dumpster for the next few weeks.
    And maybe anyone who had been on trash-removal duty would also be a good candidate for interrogation about whether they’d seen anything suspicious in the library.
    Ahead, light spilled out of the barn windows. A slight breeze rustled the trash bags and picked up a few stray leaves in the yard. I pulled my coat tighter and hiked to the barn.
    I slid open the door a little way and the light and noise hit me.
    “Come in and shut the door!” half a dozen voices sang out in unison.
    “It’s Mrs. Waterston!” another voice called. “Open the door for her!”
    The door flew aside so abruptly that it almost dragged me sideways with it.
    “Meg!” Rose Noire was at my elbow, steering me inside. “What are you doing out here? I thought you were napping!”
    “I was hungry,” I said.
    “You could have called me,” she said. “I’d have brought you a plate.”
    “And miss the party?” I said. “I’m fine. Point me toward the food.”
    I let her take my hat, gloves, and scarf, but since the barn wasn’t actually heated, I hung onto my coat.
    Across the room I could see a flock of students under Mother’s direction setting up several rows of folding chairs facing toward the far end, which I deduced was to be used as the stagefor the dress rehearsal. In the stage area, other students were arranging stacks of zucchini and other articles that I recognized as props for Señor Mendoza’s play. The stagehands looked a little flustered, though—Señor Mendoza and Bronwyn were standing on opposite ends of the stage, shouting what I deduced were contradictory sets of instructions. In the time it took me to reach the buffet tables, one poor young man carried a potted lemon tree back and forth between stage left and stage right four times before giving up, dropping the pot center stage and running over to clutch a couple of Mother’s folding chairs as if his life depended on deploying them.
    I was relieved to see that Mother hadn’t actually called in caterers. The buffet was spread out on the four old picnic tables we used for outdoor family events during the summer. A mixed assortment of tablecloths covered them. Stacks of pizza boxes filled one entire table and the others held bowls of chips, salads, and other side dishes in quite an assortment of serving pieces. Back in our hometown of Yorktown, this would have meant that Mother had called upon her large extended family to contribute to the potluck event. But we were in Caerphilly, an hour away from the heartland of the Hollingsworth family. Had she dragged them all up here?
    Some of them. I recognized the odd, handmade pottery dish in which Cousin Lacey always brought her corn pudding. I made sure to snag a couple of Aunt Bella’s lighter-than-air crescent rolls from her familiar wicker breadbasket. I avoided the cut-glass dish in which Great-Aunt Louella brought her famous pickles. The dish was emptier than usual, probably because thestudents didn’t yet know that Louella’s pickle recipe contained enough jalapeno and habenero peppers to supply a Mexican restaurant for half a year. We’d be finding bitten-into pickles hidden in corners for weeks.
    But some of the offerings looked more local. I spotted one of Mother’s friends from the historical society arranging gingerbread men on an antique plate. I was almost certain that the