The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

for them in a place less crowded than the library, but I wasn’t fond of announcing that fact in public.
    “Let him stay and help,” Ms. Ellie said. “I can drop him off this afternoon.”
    Timmy beamed at the chance.
    “Fine with me,” I said.
    I grabbed a slice of the pizza to eat in the car on the way. I had plenty of time—the trip took longer than usual, because the town streets were still choked. Though there were fewer cars and buses bringing in volunteers and more vans and trucks hauling boxes out of town. If I’d had any doubt where the various town and county offices were located, I had only to glance down the street to see which ones had clusters of boxes and furniture on the sidewalk in front of them. The lavender-hatted garden ladies running in and out with potted plants in their purple-gloved hands were another dead giveaway.
    While I was waiting for a volunteer to back a very large truck into a very small space at the town hall loading dock, I pulled out my cell phone and called Chief Burke.
    “What can I do for you, Ms. Langslow?” he asked.
    “I wanted to share something I heard,” I said. “Terence Mann has been blaming Parker Blair for his problems.”
    “According to whom?”
    “Mrs. Mann, who was down at the library packing books with me a little while ago.”
    “Now that is interesting,” he said. “Did you find out anything else?”
    “I thought of asking her if he’d started blaming Parker only in the last day or so or if he was already mad at him before the murder,” I said. “But I figured if I did, she’d know I suspected her husband of murder, and besides, you’d probably rather ask that yourself.”
    “Good call,” he said.
    “But she did volunteer that when her husband gets a new job—when, not if, because she’s expecting the county to fire him any day now—she may or may not be leaving with him.”
    “Did she say why?”
    “No, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What does she know that is suddenly making her want out of a marriage that seemed, up to now, pretty solid? But I figured that’s also something you’d rather find out for yourself.”
    “Thank you,” he said. “For the information and for your commendable self-restraint.”
    He didn’t say “uncharacteristic self-restraint,” so I decided to accept that as a compliment.
    The truck pulled out, freeing up the road ahead of me.
    “Got to go,” I said. “Good luck.”
    Halfway home, it occurred to me to wonder where all the visiting Hollingsworths were lunching. Not, I hoped, with us. To my relief, Mother had only invited a select few out to the house—a mere two dozen—and someone had had the sense to drop by the Caerphilly Market for provisions.
    They all took turns trooping upstairs to inspect the twins, and out to the barn to view the animals, including an ever-increasing number of kittens from the yellow tabby. A fine time was had by all with the possible exception of Rob, who had recovered from his panic over the feline blessed event, but was now wandering around the house looking under chair cushions and in wastebaskets and drawers and behind pieces of furniture.
    “Hasn’t anyone seen my video camera?” he kept wailing. “The most exciting thing to happen in this town since the Civil War, and I’m missing all of it!”
    I wasn’t sure whether he meant the Great Migration, as Ms. Ellie had started to call it, or the birth of the kittens, in which he’d begun to take an almost paternal pride.
    I thought of suggesting that he could borrow our video camera, but Rob was notorious for losing anything smaller than a basketball.
    After I’d pumped milk and spoiled everyone’s fun by determining that the boys were getting cranky and needed to be put down for a nap, I decided to head back to the library. I checked to see if Mother needed a ride.
    I found her standing in the living room, looking around. I noticed that some of the wicker furniture from our sunporch had migrated into the living room to take the place of the missing items. And she’d brought a cheerful indigo-and-white batik tablecloth to throw over the macaw’s cage in place of the rather utilitarian canvas tarp that had been there before.
    Still, she had that look. The decorating look.
    “Perhaps we should repaint while everything’s out of the room,” she said.
    I was about to point out that everything wasn’t out of the room. They’d only removed about a fourth of the furniture. Of course, Mother would