The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

orders and actually get him to follow them.
    “Welcome,” I said, as Caroline sailed into the room like a small, plump, gray-haired whirlwind.
    “Meg! I can’t believe these idiots brought all those animals here—and you so busy with the twins. But we’ll take them off your hands, no problem. Monty! You old goat! What are you doing sitting on your duff goofing off when there’s work to be done?”
    “I am not goofing off!” Grandfather said, holding his head high with wounded dignity. “I am endeavoring to come up with a plan of action.”
    “Well, any plan has to start with getting the livestock out of Meg’s living room,” Caroline said. “Let’s get cracking on that, and then you can do your endeavoring out in the barn.”
    Under Caroline’s direction, things started moving, and the pace picked up rapidly, as other Corsican volunteers trickled in. By 7:00 A.M. , we had fifteen volunteers out in the barn, working with the animals.
    Well, actually only twelve working with the animals. I took my big coffeemaker out to the barn and showed Thirteen how to use it, then gave Fourteen and Fifteen some cash and sent them to town for provisions, human and animal.
    “This would be a lot easier if you’d left all the stalls here,” Grandfather complained as he surveyed the interior of the barn.
    “No, it wouldn’t,” I said. “The old stalls were literally falling down from neglect. They wouldn’t have been safe for the animals.”
    “I suppose it will have to do.” He strode off and began giving orders that contradicted everything Caroline had planned. I decided to stay out of the ensuing verbal donnybrook.
    Instead, I drifted over to my workspace. Mother might be proud of the redecorating she’d done in the house, but I thought I’d done a rather nice job on the renovation of the barn—with help from the Shiffley Construction Company, of course. The former tack room was now my office, and right outside we’d torn down some ramshackle stalls to create a storage room for supplies on one side and a forge area on the other. I twined my fingers through the metal grate that separated me from the forge—an ingenious suggestion from Randall Shiffley, that allowed me to spread out into the main part of the barn if I wanted to, and then lock up my expensive work tools safely when I was finished.
    Evidently today would not be the day I unlocked the grate and fired up my forge. Though I should do that soon. The longer my pregnancy-induced sabbatical lasted, the more I fretted that my muscles would atrophy and I’d lose all those skills and instincts I’d built up over fifteen years of blacksmithing.
    I gazed wistfully at my anvil and imagined myself working at it. Actually, I imagined myself hammering fiercely at a stubborn bit of metal that gradually yielded to the force of my blows.
    Always a bad sign when I started fantasizing about smashing things with my hammer instead of envisioning new designs. I sighed, and turned away from the grate.
    We’d left a few stalls at the other end of the barn, with the idea that eventually we might want a few cows, or even horses for the boys. The rest of the space had been roughly finished into a huge open area that had already proven invaluable for rained-out family picnics, the annual plant sale held by Mother’s garden club, and rehearsals of plays that Michael and his drama department students were directing.
    Unfortunately, it was also perfect for housing the refugee animals. I hoped the Corsicans didn’t use that as an excuse to procrastinate about finding them permanent homes.
    I couldn’t help eyeing the Corsicans suspiciously. Most of them were probably harmless animal lovers—well-meaning people who were doing their best to help out in a difficult situation. But from conversations I overheard, I got the impression that the plan to burgle the animal shelter was pretty widely known among the group. Which meant that any number of them would have known Parker Blair would be making that dramatic midnight rendezvous in the graveyard.
    If I were the chief, I’d consider the Corsicans prime suspects.
    Assuming he knew they all had advance knowledge of the burglary. Did he? Should I tell him?
    I felt a sudden qualm. Why was I plotting ways to rat out the Corsicans? Was I just feeling resentment because they’d filled my house with animals and animal by-products?
    No. The burglary plot could easily have something to do with the murder. And odds were they