Swan for the Money: A Meg Langslow Mystery

sprig dug into your hands in a really annoying way. Not into Mother’s hands, which are very small, but most people would find it uncomfortable. So when I started making them in larger numbers, I rethought the design. Everypair of secateurs I’ve made since has had a hole about this size. The one I saw stuck in Mrs. Sechrest’s back was my original.”
    “The pair that was stolen from your mother at the garden club meeting.”
    “Yes.”
    He scribbled a little in his notebook. I wondered what. Was he writing down what I just told him? Or did he use his notebook to vent things that it wouldn’t do to blurt aloud? Had he just scribbled, “Meg Langslow: found victim. Made weapon and seventeen virtually identical copies. Definitely a suspect”? Or something more like. “Blast, but I wish I were back in Baltimore, where people try to kill each other for normal reasons, like drugs and money”?
    He saw me looking at his notebook and tilted it a little more toward his chest, as if he thought I was about to try to read upside down.
    “Do you know who stole your shears?” he asked.
    “Mother suspected the Pruitts and Mrs. Winkleson,” I said. The chief nodded, and scribbled. “Of course,” I went on, “that could just be because she doesn’t particularly like the Pruitts and Mrs. Winkleson.” The chief stopped scribbling long enough to glance up at me as if checking to see if I was joking. I shrugged apologetically. He dropped his eyes again and scribbled longer than seemed quite necessary to record what I’d just said.
    “Which Pruitts?” he asked.
    “I’m not sure,” I said. “There are usually three or four of them at garden club meetings, trying to give orders instead of doing any useful work.”
    “What else is new?” the chief muttered.
    “I’ve got the membership list here,” I said, raising my clipboard. “I can’t swear every member was there for the meeting, and there might have been a few non-members tagging along, but it would give you some idea. And here’s a copy of the volunteer list. It’s shorter.”
    “A lot shorter,” he said.
    “That’s because I only wrote down the people who actually committed to show up and work.”
    The chief nodded, and scanned the lists.
    “Will it inconvenience you if I keep these?” He didn’t sound as if a “yes” would change his mind.
    “Be my guest,” I said. He glanced up in surprise. “Everyone knows I keep the member list with me at rose show meetings, and they’re always asking to borrow it and not giving it back, so I’ve learned to bring a few photocopies. And any volunteers who aren’t here already either aren’t coming at all or won’t be in time to do any useful work, so that list’s pretty useless by now.”
    “Thank you,” he said. “But I mean it. Stay out of this.”
    “I will.”
    “I’m serious. There’s a murderer— attempted murderer— running around loose, and if that person thinks you can point the finger at them—”
    “Got it,” I said. “Solving the murder— or attempted murder— is your job.”
    For that matter, I could stop worrying about solving the theft of the secateurs. Odds were the chief would see that as an integral part of solving the larger crime. Even poor Mimi’s abduction would probably get a lot more attention because of thepossibility that it was connected to the subsequent attempt to murder her owner.
    But it was still my job to figure out whether or not someone was sabotaging Dad’s black roses, and if so, who.
    Not that I was going to say as much to the chief.
    My cell phone rang. Rob.
    “Meg? I saw the ambulance leave, and Dr. Smoot just came in asking for the chief. I sent him up to the barns. What’s going on?”
    “Someone tried to kill Mrs. Winkleson and got the wrong person,” I said. “Rob says Dr. Smoot’s here,” I added, to the chief.
    “Damn,” the chief said. “As if he could do any good out here, with the . . . victim heading off to the hospital. Let me have that a second.”
    I gathered from the chief’s side of the conversation that Dr. Smoot was already out of earshot. The chief began giving Rob instructions about keeping out unnecessary personnel, particularly reporters. I left him to it and went outside to greet Dr. Smoot.
    I spotted him already up at the goat pens, leaning on the fence. At least I assumed the figure in the inky black cloak was Dr. Smoot. Mrs. Winkleson would approve if she saw him, but he wasn’t dressing in black for her