Swan for the Money: A Meg Langslow Mystery

shook my head slightly. Yes, Chief Burke would probably understand why Dad was so upset. His wife was going to be one of tomorrow’s rose exhibitors. But that didn’t mean he’d be willing to drop real police business to hunt for the elusive user of the doe urine.
    Not unless someone brought him some actual proof that the doe urine was evidence of a crime. And clearly as the organizer of the rose show, I was the best someone to find that evidence.
    Ah, well. At least the prime suspects were mostly people like the Pruitts, whom I didn’t like and would be just as happy to see getting into trouble.
    My fingers hovered over the wretched little bottle.
    “Allow me,” Michael said. He picked up the bottle and stepped into the kitchen with it.
    “Don’t throw it away!” Dad called after him. “It’s evidence.”
    “Not very useful evidence,” I said. “Do you expect the perpetrator to be carrying around a sales receipt for the doe urine, or perhaps another few bottles to use if the opportunity arises?”
    “We could have it tested for fingerprints.’
    My grandfather looked at the bare hand with which he’d been holding the bottle, then at Dad’s equally ungloved hands. He cocked one eyebrow at Dad.
    “Or something,” Dad said. His shoulders sagged as if someone had begun deflating him.
    “Here you go.” Michael emerged from the kitchen holding a zip-locked plastic bag containing the doe urine bottle.
    “An evidence bag!” Dad exclaimed. “Excellent! How remiss of me not to have thought of it.”
    I grimaced and tucked the thing in a side pocket of my tote.
    “You’ve been under a great deal of emotional stress this morning,” Rose Noire said. “I could fix you some herbal tisane.”
    “A little more time in the garden,” Dad said. “That’s all I need.”
    He helped himself to more bacon, no doubt to fuel his gardening.
    Of course, I didn’t see what good bagging the evidence would do, since Dr. Blake and Dad— and who knew how many other people— had been handling it, mingling their own fingerprints and DNA with whatever useful trace evidence a forensic examination might have found on the bottle.
    Still, while I doubted the chief would be interested, maybe Icould turn the bottle over for analysis to my cousin Horace, who was a crime scene technician back in our home town of Yorktown. Not that he could necessarily find anything useful by analyzing it, but at least it would be out of my hands, not to mention my tote bag. And Horace was one of the volunteers who’d promised to come out and help me set up for the rose show, so I could rid myself of the vile vial in an hour or so.
    “Thanks,” I said to Michael.
    “My plea sure,” he said. “And now I really should be hitting the road.”
    He folded his napkin and stood, pushing his chair back.
    “You’re going to miss the great rose show?” Rob exclaimed.
    “He’s going up to New York with several other drama department faculty members,” I said. “One of their former gradstudents is in an off-Broadway play—”
    “Way off Broadway,” Michael corrected. “Somewhere in the Bronx, I think. But it’s legit, and he’s not just in it, he wrote it, and we all promised to come up and see it.”
    “But does it have to be this weekend?” Mother said, with a long-suffering sigh.
    “Meg and I were originally going next weekend, after the rose show was over,” Michael said. “But the inside scoop is that the play won’t last till next weekend. In fact, there’s an even chance we’ll get there and find out that last night was the last performance, but we have to try.”
    “As long as you’re back by Sunday,” Mother said. “Remember, I’m having the family tea then.” And as I knew, she fully expected to have several trophies to show off by tea-time.
    “Don’t worry,” Michael said. “It’s just an overnight trip.We’re driving up today, seeing the play to night, and we’ll probably be up late, letting the kid cry on our shoulders and rebuilding his confidence. But we’re heading back tomorrow morning.”
    “Unless they all give in to the temptation to see a few more plays while they’re up there,” I said, just to tease Mother a little. “Important to keep up with trends in the field they’re teaching about.”
    “If the others decide to stay over, I’ll catch a shuttle back,” Michael said, seeing the stricken look on Mother’s face.
    I followed him outside to say a more private good-bye. I’d come