The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

him, her desk was cleared off by eleven last night. And I don’t even think the Fight or Flight Committee had made its decision by that time, much less sent out the word. She must have come down here straight from the meeting.”
    “Maybe she thought she saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to waste no time,” he said.
    “Maybe,” I said. “But last night when she left the barn, she didn’t look like someone who was making a bold decision to risk her job on a principle. She just looked miserable and scared. Maybe she made a run for it. Or maybe whoever killed Parker didn’t give her the chance.”
    The chief studied me for a few moments with a faint frown on his face. Then he pulled out his cell phone and hit a few keys.
    “It’s me,” he said. “Can you get the word out to all our officers that I want to talk to Ms. Louise Dietz?… That’s right.… No, just wanted for questioning. For now … Thanks. No, I’m down at the town—I’m down at the county courthouse. I should be back soon.”
    He hung up, stuffed the phone into his pocket, and went back to loading the neatly labeled plants. But I thought I could see a little more haste in his manner.
    “County courthouse,” I said. “I like that better than town hall.”
    “It’s what we should have been calling it all along,” he said. “Blasted Pruitts!”
    About ten seconds after we finished loading the last plant, the smallest and most elderly of the garden ladies trotted back down the sidewalk, beaming with delight.
    “Finished so soon?” she trilled. “Wonderful!”
    The chief and I watched as she dug into a straw purse, fished out an enormous cluster of keys, and hopped nimbly into the high cab of the truck.
    “Thanks again!” she called as she drove off, shifting the truck’s gears as effortlessly as if she drove it every day. For all I knew she did.
    “I’d better get back to the station,” the chief said. “Thanks for the information on Ms. Dietz.”
    “Don’t worry,” I said. “The way voter sentiment is running right now, the mayor will probably be recalled long before he has a chance to appoint a puppet.”
    “Yes. I understand they already have a couple hundred signatures on the recall petitions,” he said. “And frankly, even if the mayor does hire a puppet in spite of the DA’s efforts, I’ll still be investigating the assault on your grandfather, which definitely happened in the county, not the town. We’ll manage.”
    “You bet we will, Chief,” I said.
    “Deputy Sheriff, you mean.”
    I tried it on for size.
    “No,” I said. “You’ll always be the chief to me.”
    He smiled, nodded, and left.

Chapter 22
    I decided to make my own escape before the garden club ladies returned with more backbreaking work. I headed for the police station parking lot to collect my car.
    As I walked, I fretted over what I’d learned—and how very much we still didn’t know. If things were normal, I might have been able to shove the whole thing out of my mind. I’d have reminded myself that the chief, a very smart man and a seasoned homicide investigator, was on the case. And that I had two four-month-old sons at home who needed me a lot more than any investigation did.
    But things weren’t normal. How much of his time could the chief spend on the murder case, and how much was he being pulled away to referee squabbles like the one between the mayor and me? For that matter, how much time had he and his officers spent packing up the police station when they needed to be working on their investigation? And next there’d be the unpacking, and then the inefficiencies and delays that always happen when you’re working out of a different space—even a perfect space, which Mother and Dad’s barn most certainly was not. And who knew what would be happening in town tomorrow when the workweek began and the lender found out that instead of paying the interest on its loan, Caerphilly was sticking them with a collection of well-used buildings full of ghastly oil paintings?
    If I could think of anything that might help, I’d have done it, even if it got me in trouble with the chief for interfering. But try as I might, I came up empty.
    The sun was setting. Part of me wanted to go home and cocoon with the twins. And part of me wanted to stay in town, help with the evacuation, and keep my ears open for stray bits of information that might prove useful.
    I decided to compromise. I’d return to the library, do a little