Swan for the Money: A Meg Langslow Mystery

legs black. The label on this box read, helpfully, “labels.”
    I opened the box up and looked inside. It was full of small black and white plastic labels. I picked up one. Class 130. Okay, the classes were the different categories in which the roses would be entered. I knew that much from proofing the program. I dumped the box’s contents on a nearby table and began to sort them. I ended up with labels for classes 101 through 149, and also three sets of alphabetical labels. Where were all those A– Zs supposed to go?
    And why was I assuming the show would go on? For all I knew, the chief would declare the whole area a crime scene, and before the afternoon was out I’d have to pack up the little plastic labels again.
    “Something wrong?”
    I looked up to see one of the rose growers watching me.
    “Do you know what to do with these?” I asked, indicating the labels.
    “Just how much do you know about rose shows, sugar?” the woman asked.
    “Next to nothing,” I said. “My mother suckered me into doing this because I have a reputation in the family for being organized. But she promised there would be someone here to help who knew how this whole thing is supposed to run.”
    “I can help with that. Molly Weston.”
    Since there were no roses nearby, I assumed that was her name. I shook the hand she held out, and then stood by while she started shuffling the little plastic rectangles.
    “Do you have one of the programs?”
    I rummaged around until I found the box of programs and handed her one.
    “Okay,” she said. “This is pretty straightforward. Class 101 is for hybrid teas or grandifloras from a grower with 75 or fewer rose bushes,” she said. “And 102 is for growers with 76 and above. Those are the two biggest categories— so big that we need the alphabetical tags underneath. I’d say use the first four tables for 101 and the next four for 102. The next few are fairly small, maybe half a table each, until you get to the miniatures. That’s what the third set of alpha tags is for. I’d say another four tables for them. Here— follow me.”
    She handed me a couple of stacks of plastic tags and I trailed after her, placing the tags on the tables, closer together or farther apart, depending on how popular she thought the categories were apt to be.
    We had only done a couple of tables when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket. Michael.
    “It’s my husband,” I said. “I should—”
    “Go talk to the man,” she said, waving me away. “I’ll handle this.”
    I flipped the phone open and strolled outside, where I could have some privacy.
    “Hey, beautiful,” Michael said. “Do you miss me?”
    “You have no idea how much,” I said.
    “Rose show even worse than you anticipated?”
    “About as bad as I anticipated up until an hour ago,” I said. “Then it took a nose dive when someone tried to kill Mrs. Winkleson.”
    “Tried? She’s all right, then?”
    “She’s fine. Unfortunately the attacker probably managed to knock off another one of the rose growers. Dad went with her to the hospital, but it’s not looking good.”
    “Oh, no,” he said. “Who?”
    “Sandy Sechrest.”
    “I don’t recognize the name,” he said.
    “That’s because she was never anything but polite, helpful, and cooperative in the last few weeks,” I said. “It’s only the rude, demanding, unhelpful, nasty ones you’d recognize, because they’re the ones I come home and bitch to you about.”
    “Actually, the only name I can think of off the top of my head is Mrs. Winkleson.”
    “That figures,” I said. “There are some others you’d probably recognize if I said the names, but she’s been the worst. Did you hear that someone abducted Mrs. Winkleson’s dog last night?”
    “My God, you have had a morning. Do you think they’re related? The murder and the dognapping, I mean?”
    “No idea. And unlike Dad, I’m trying to leave the detectingto Chief Burke. Let’s talk about something else. How’s the trip going?”
    “Could be better,” he said. “I don’t suppose the attempted murder counts as a crisis for which you need me standing sup-portively at your side?”
    “What’s wrong?” I asked. “I thought you felt duty-bound to see your student’s play.”
    “That was when it was a play,” he said. “He didn’t tell us that during the rehearsal period it had mutated into a musical.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Used to be Millard Fillmore and the Compromise