Swan for the Money: A Meg Langslow Mystery

meantime, if there’s anything anyone can do to help you through this dreadful ordeal, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
    She blinked as she considered this. Then she turned back to the chief.
    “You’ll be providing me with police protection, of course,” she said.
    “Alas, madam, we do not have the personnel to do that,” the chief said. “With a crime of this magnitude, we’ll need to seek whatever help we can get from nearby counties and from the State Bureau of Investigation.”
    “But I’ve been receiving threats!” Mrs. Winkleson snapped.
    “What kind of threats?” The chief looked up from his notebook with an expression of genuine interest. No doubt, like me, he was thinking about the “or else” typed on the scrap of paper I’d rescued from the goat.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “The usual thing. Stop the rose show or you’ll be sorry. Stuff like that. And they took my dog, too. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”
    “My officers are even now searching for your missing dog,” the chief said. “Why didn’t you report these threats when we talked earlier this morning? Did it not occur to you that they might be relevant to your missing dog?”
    “I thought they were nonsense until now,” she said. “Now I realize they were serious.”
    “The disappearance of your dog didn’t convince you?”
    “That, too.”
    I could see the chief, himself a dog own er, found her cavalier attitude toward Mimi’s absence as unsatisfactory as I did.
    “It would have been helpful to know about these threats earlier,” he said. “We will certainly keep them in mind as our investigation progresses.”
    “Are you telling me there’s nothing you can do to protect me?” Mrs. Winkleson bellowed.
    “I can catch whoever did this as soon as possible,” the chief snapped. “That’s the best thing I can do to help you and everyone else in this county, and I hope I can expect your full cooperation.”
    They glared at each other for a few moments. Mrs. Winkle-son suddenly put on her Lady Bountiful face.
    “Of course,” she said. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. Or if any of my staff are less than fully cooperative. I’ll leave you to your work.”
    She gave him the same sort of gracious nod I’d seen her give her butler when she was in a good mood, and then sailed off toward the barns.
    “Motive’s going to be a problem in this one,” I said, when she was out of earshot.
    “I don’t see why,” the chief said. “For a few moments there, I wanted to kill her myself.”
    “That’s your problem,” I said. “Everyone feels that way. Too many suspects.”
    “We’ll manage,” he said. “Could you find your cousin Horace now?”
    In other words, mind my own business. I nodded and went back to the barns in search of Horace.

Chapter 18
     
     
     
     
    Horace and Sammy were in the show barn, staring at some of the tables.
    “Meg, do we really have to paint all the table legs black?” Sammy asked. “I could go into town and get some paint, but we borrowed them from the New Life Baptist Church, and I think they’d rather get their tables back the same color they started out, and besides—”
    “I agree,” I said. “No painting the table legs. And if Mrs. Winkleson has a problem with that, tell her to talk to me. Horace, the chief could use your help.”
    “Something wrong?” he asked.
    “Someone tried to knock off Mrs. Winkleson just now,” I said. “Unfortunately, they attacked someone else by mistake. The chief could use your forensic talents. Sammy, he could probably use your help, too.”
    Horace hurried off. Sammy started to follow, then turned back to me.
    “Who’s the, um, victim?” he asked.
    “Mrs. Sechrest. One of the rose growers. Not from around here.”
    Sammy nodded.
    “I suppose I should be ashamed to say that’s a relief, but it is,” he said. “You said tried. Will she make it?”
    “We don’t know yet,” I said. “Dad didn’t look too cheerful.”
    Sammy shook his head and hurried after Horace.
    No one else was in the barn. Were the volunteers all in the other barn, working on the setup there? Out helping with the search for Mimi? Or all up at the goat pasture, staring at the crime scene?
    I was determined not to do that myself, so I looked around for something to do. I spotted an open box, presumably what Sammy and Horace had been working on when Mrs. Winkle-son blew through and demanded that they paint the table