The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

least one felony, and I want them to stay right where they are until I release them. If anyone really wants to incur a charge of interfering with a police investigation—”
    “No, no,” the kid said, sitting up straight for the first time since I’d seen him. “We’re good. I’ll go back and tell them. No rush.”
    He was backing away as if afraid the chief would come through the phone at him. The chief tended to have that effect on people. Even people who didn’t know him. The kid began fumbling to load the ramp back into the truck, and Rob jumped to help him.
    “Ms. Langslow?”
    I turned the speaker off.
    “Was there anything else?” the chief asked.
    The kid had started his truck, and was lurching down our dirt driveway back to the road. I waved at the Corsicans and headed back for the house.
    “Thanks,” I said to the chief. “You’ve got him on the run.”
    “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to figure out what to do with those confounded animals,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of killing them either, but do you realize how hard it’s going to be finding homes for all of them?”
    “I’ll get the Corsicans to start working on that.” I glanced back, decided I was safely out of earshot of anyone at the barn, and continued. “That’s the Committee Opposed to the Ruthless Slaughter of Innocent Captive Animals.”
    “Yes, I’m aware of them,” the chief said. “Were they all involved in planning the shelter burglary, do you think, or was that your grandfather’s pet project?”
    I winced.
    “No idea,” I said. “Since I’m not a Corsican.”
    “A pity you’re not,” the chief said. “I expect you’d have talked them out of this nonsense. Well, with any luck, by the time I have resources to divert to the burglary, some of the saner county board members will have persuaded the mayor and the county manager that pressing charges would be a PR disaster. Right now I’m focusing on Parker Blair’s murder. So how many of these so-called Corsicans knew about the plans for the burglary, do you think? Apart from the actual burglars, who alibi each other rather convincingly.”
    “No idea,” I said. “From what I’ve overheard, I think the burglary plan was an open secret throughout the organization.”
    “Drat,” he said.
    “Of course, a lot of them could be just pretending,” I said. “To look like they’re part of the inner circle. And I doubt if too many people knew exactly where they were planning to meet Parker.”
    “Which would be relevant if he’d been killed at the rendezvous spot, but he wasn’t.”
    “Where was he killed? And how? I haven’t—”
    I stopped myself. On the other end of the call, the chief was silent. I mentally kicked myself. Clearly that question had crossed some kind of boundary.
    Then the chief sighed.
    “It’ll be in the papers tomorrow,” he said. “He was shot at relatively close range, apparently through the open driver’s side window of his truck. Which was still parked behind his furniture store. He might not have been found till morning, except that the truck’s lights were on, and one of the neighbors called to complain that they were shining in her windows.”
    “And that location doesn’t help your investigation one little bit, does it?” I said. “All the Corsicans would have expected him to be involved in the burglary, because he’s one of the few members with a truck big enough to haul away all the animals. And anyone who guessed he was involved could also guess that sometime that evening he’d show up in the parking lot behind his store to pick up his truck.”
    “It’s also possible that his murder had nothing to do with the Corsicans,” the chief said. “His store’s only two blocks from the bus station, you know.”
    “Ah,” I said. To an outsider, of course, the chief’s words would have made no sense, but locals all knew—and newly arrived students soon figured out—that the few blocks around the bus station were the closest thing Caerphilly had to a high-crime, low-rent district. During his years on the Baltimore PD, the chief had seen plenty of neighborhoods that made Caerphilly’s worst look like Beverly Hills, so it was amusing that he’d started referring to places near the bus station with the same vague dismay as the rest of the town.
    “Of course you’re right,” he said. “The Corsicans are prime suspects. Which is unfortunate, since now I have to check alibis on every