The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

Parker’s truck for some of this,” Caroline said.
    “I already asked,” Ms. Ellie said. “The chief says it’s still part of his crime scene.”
    “Understandable,” I said.
    “I just better not see him clearing out the police station with it,” Ms. Ellie grumbled. “Meg, there’s just one more thing.”
    I braced myself. I hated that particular phrase, and I had a sinking feeling I knew what was coming.
    “We need a place to put the books,” she said. “Right now we’re just going to box them up, of course. We have to get through emptying the library first. We won’t even have time to think about reopening for days—maybe weeks. Not until we either find a new building or fix things so we can get back into the old one.”
    Weeks might be conservative. If the whole issue had to go through the law courts, we were talking months or years.
    “Can we use your sheds? And maybe the hay loft in your barn?”
    “We’ll have the animals out in a few days’ time,” Caroline said. “Then you can use the whole barn.”
    “I don’t suppose you could check with Mother and Dad,” I suggested. “They have a barn, too. And I can’t think of anything Dad would rather have in his backyard than a library.”
    “I can,” Ms. Ellie said. “He already offered to let the chief use his barn for the temporary police station.”
    I sighed. I hoped Dad and Chief Burke would both survive the proximity.
    “Apparently barn space is at a premium right now,” Ms. Ellie said. “Not many people have barns that they don’t use for farming.”
    “True,” I said. “Well, then mi casa es su casa . Or should that be mi casa es su biblioteca ?”
    “I’d like to make a suggestion,” Randall said. “An offer, I guess. A lot of people are going to be pretty unhappy if the county doesn’t have a library open. Kids’ grades could suffer, people on fixed incomes would have no access to books. If Meg and Michael will agree to host the county’s books in their library till we can get past this situation, I’d be willing to build those shelves we’ve been talking about at the cost of the materials. How about it?”
    They all looked at me.
    “I’ll have to talk to Michael,” I said.
    “Good.” Caroline and Ms. Ellie looked optimistic. Randall seemed to consider it a done deal—had he already talked to Michael? Or did he just know how much Michael coveted the dream library for which Randall had already drawn up plans?
    They all took their leave shortly after that. I went out to the barn—which was locked up tight. As I unlocked the door, I made a mental note to thank Rose Noire. I picked up my laptop and a couple of files from my desk, relocked the barn, and took my papers back to the kitchen. Then I fixed myself another cup of tea. Randall’s offer had driven sleep even farther away.
    I spent the next hour or so poring over our family budget and the Shiffley Construction Company’s proposal for our library. Could we afford the library buildout, even at Randall’s generous terms? Could we live with ourselves if we passed up the chance?
    And wouldn’t building out the library be an excellent way to celebrate Michael’s tenure? Which wasn’t official yet, of course. It wouldn’t be official for another month, but it was as close to a certainty as anything could be in the tangled world of academia. So shouldn’t I jump at this chance to celebrate his academic success with a library worthy of a tenured professor? A tenured professor and quite possibly, in a few years, a department chairman, since by this fall he would be one of only three tenured faculty members in the newly formed drama department. And the other two were in their sixties and had already come up with a plan for each of them to serve as department chair for a year or two and then retire, leaving Michael in place as their natural successor. Our prospects were rosy.
    But right now the bank account wasn’t.
    And just how long would Ms. Ellie and her books be occupying our library after Randall Shiffley built it out? At the county meeting, Festus had told us to prepare for the battle to last months if not several years. Several years of not being able to use part of our own house?
    Of course, that would also mean several years of having wonderfully convenient access to a much bigger library than Michael and I could ever hope to assemble. We already were having bedtime story hour for the boys in the hope that they’d form the same love of reading