Swan for the Money: A Meg Langslow Mystery

looked up as I reentered the dining room.
    “Yes,” I said. I decided not to mention the dognapping, or my private worry that it would derail the rose show. “Dad, why are there armed Shiffleys on your roof?”
    “Armed?” Dad said. “Oh, no. It’s not rifle hunting season yet. They’re only using bows and arrows.”
    “I think that still counts as armed,” I said. “It’s a weapon. What are they doing up there?”
    “Protecting the roses, dear,” Mother said.
    “Protecting the roses?” I echoed. “I thought you were against letting the Shiffleys hunt on your land.”
    “They’re not hunting, dear,” Mother said, with a touch of annoyance in her voice. “They’re not going to do anything unlessthey see a deer attacking our roses. Didn’t you hear your father say that he thought deer could be responsible?”
    “Eating roses isn’t exactly attacking them,” I said. “It’s just what deer do. And I could have sworn I also heard Dad say that it was the Pruitts who were responsible.”
    “I think they’re the ones who discarded that disgusting little bottle,” Mother said. “After sprinkling its loathsome contents over our poor roses. Deliberately.”
    “It could be,” Dad said. “You never know.”
    He was using what Rob and I called the “humor your mother” voice.
    “So the woman who gave me a hard time for buying a deerskin leather jacket is now allowing the Shiffleys to slaughter deer just because they’re eating her roses?”
    “They’re not going to shoot the deer,” Mother said. “Just scare them off. Along with any conniving Pruitts who try to lure them to our roses.”
    Behind his back, Dad put his finger to his lips and shook his head.
    “Randall’s going to send a few of his cousins over to do the same at your house,” he said aloud.
    “No way,” I said. “I can live with your using our yard to expand your rose-growing area, at least as long as someone other than me does all the pruning and spraying and mulching and whatever else they need. I like roses as well as anyone else. But I draw the line at giving them their own private army. What if the Shiffleys shoot the llamas?”
    “I think the Shiffleys know the difference between a deer and a llama,” Dad said.
    “After dark, which is when the damned deer tend to show up for dinner? I’m not betting Ernest’s and Thor’s lives on it. Not to mention all of Seth Early’s sheep, who spend at least half their time lolling around in our yard with the llamas.”
    “Heck, the sheep and llamas could be going after the roses for all we know,” Rob said. “I say shoot to kill! You reach for a rose and you’re history.”
    Mother gave him a withering look, and the rest of us ignored him.
    “I doubt if the deer will come into the yard with the llamas there,” I said. “I’ll make sure the llamas are in the yard with the roses at night, instead of in the pasture. But I don’t want any Shiffleys playing William Tell on our roof.”
    “If you’re sure, dear,” Mother said. From the tone of her voice, I fervently hoped I was right about the llamas being good deer deterrents, or I’d never hear the end of it.
    “Let’s go see the remaining candidates,” she said to Dad, and swept out the door, Dad trailing in her wake.
    I picked up my untouched orange juice glass and then thought better of it and put it back down beside my equally neglected plate. I didn’t usually bother with breakfast anyway, unless someone else made it, and this morning my stomach was too tied up in knots over all the work ahead.
    Unless, of course, my stomach woes were unrelated to the rose show. Could this be morning sickness? Could my tearfulness at the thought of Mrs. Winkleson’s missing dog be due to hormones rather than sentiment? Even if it wasn’t, I didn’t dare let any of the busybodies see me turning up my nose at breakfast. So I picked up my still-loaded plate, put the scrambledeggs and the bacon between two slices of toast, sandwich style, and wrapped them in a napkin to take with me.
    “I’m running late,” I said. “See all of you later. I’m heading over to get the show barn set up.”
    “May Caroline and I come along with you?” my grandfather asked. “She should be here any minute, and she’s as curious as I am about this whole rose show thing.”
    I stared at him in disbelief. Caroline Willner was the owner of a nearby wildlife refuge and, like him, a passionate animal welfare activist. I doubted that