Swan for the Money: A Meg Langslow Mystery

over to Mother and Dad’s long before he got up, to get a start on my rose show-related tasks, so we hadn’t had a chance to talk yet today and wouldn’t again until tomorrow evening. Okay, it was only thirty-six hours, but I wasn’t looking forward to coping with the rose show without Michael.
    Outside it was raining. Barely more than a drizzle at the moment, but since it had been either drizzling or flat-out raining almost continuously for the past five days, thanks to an unseasonably early tropical storm stalled off the Carolina coast, the whole yard was a sea of mud. We stopped on the front porch where it was merely damp and clammy.
    “More rain,” I said. “I hate to think of you driving all the way in that.”
    “Good for the roses, though.”
    “Actually, right now it’s not,” I said. “The rain can cause spotting on the blooms, and if we get more high wind it will blow all the best blossoms to bits, and if this damp weather keeps on much longer I think there’s some kind of fungus that could takehold. This close to a show, all a rain does is cause the growers extra work and heartache.”
    I gestured toward a nearby rose garden, which might have been beautiful if every single bush hadn’t had a trash can or plastic bag over it, to protect the blooms from last night’s wind.
    I noticed that Michael’s face was twitching, as if he was fighting the urge to laugh.
    “Good grief,” I said. “I’m starting to sound just like them, aren’t I?”
    “I think it’s quite commendable that you’ve become something of an expert in such a short time,” he said, with a chuckle.
    “I’m not an expert,” I said. “I’ve just had to learn a few things, in self defense. I was so relieved when they both got involved in this rose hobby. It’s taken Mother’s attention away from the whole idea of opening a decorating business, for one thing.”
    “I still don’t quite get why you’re so worried about that,” Michael said. He leaned against the porch railing at my side, and I had the comforting thought that it wasn’t just the rain making him delay setting out to meet his fellow faculty members.
    “Because you know if she starts the decorating business we’ll be the guinea pigs,” I said. “She’ll want to come over and do rooms in our house as show pieces, probably in styles neither of us can stand, like French Provincial or Louis Quatorze, and then she’ll expect us to keep them in perfect order so she can drop in at a moment’s notice with prospective clients.”
    “Potentially annoying,” he said, but I could tell he didn’t really believe me. He’d see, if Mother ever did launch her decorating career.
    “I think she’d already have opened that shop if she hadn’tbeen bitten by the rose show bug. And it’s something she and Dad can share. Frankly, I’ve been a bit worried about how much time and energy Dad has been spending on Dr. Blake’s projects.”
    “Worthwhile projects, all of them.”
    “Yes, but I’m getting tired of having to bail them out of jails all over the East Coast when their protests tick off local law enforcement,” I said. “Not to mention how dangerous some of their schemes can be. Did you hear Dr. Blake’s plan for infiltrating a dogfighting ring?”
    “Considering how familiar his face is from all those Animal Planet shows and National Geographic specials, I doubt if even he can pull that off.”
    “And even he realizes it. That’s why he wants Dad to do the actual infiltrating, while he stands by with a camera crew.”
    “Ouch,” Michael said. “I can see why you’re worried.”
    I didn’t mention the fact that my grandfather had been planning to recruit Michael as his undercover agent until I convinced him that Michael’s face was almost as well known as his, thanks to reruns of the various TV shows and movies Michael appeared in before he’d abandoned his acting career to take up the less precarious life of a drama professor at Caerphilly College. I was exaggerating a bit. Most of Michael’s leading roles had been in soaps, which didn’t do reruns. Fortunately Dr. Blake despised television in principle and only turned his set on to watch himself, so my scheme had worked— and then backfired, when he recruited Dad instead.
    “That’s the great thing about this new rose obsession,” Michael was saying. “It may be a little annoying for the rest of us, but it’s harmless.”
    “You haven’t met the other competitors,” I said.