The Real Macaw: A Meg Langslow Mystery

bit of packing or maybe only offer to haul a few boxes in my car. Then I’d drop by to pay a brief visit to Grandfather on my way home.
    So after phoning home to make sure Timmy and the twins were doing okay with Michael, I headed back to the library.
    Around nine in the evening, I was still doggedly packing books when I got a call from Dad.
    “Meg? Are you still in town?”
    “Unfortunately.” I stood up and winced. “I got caught up in the library packing, but we’re nearly finished.”
    “Could you give me a ride home?” he asked. “I’m still helping out at the police station. Your brother could take me, but he has to head out now, and I was rather hoping to stop by the hospital one more time.”
    “Of course,” I said. “Want me to pick you up now?”
    “No, the chief can drop me off when we finish up here. Your grandfather’s in room 242—I’ll meet you there.”
    “Roger.”
    I felt a pang of guilt. I’d meant to drop by the hospital hours ago. And for all my complaining about how the twins tied me down, I realized I was missing them terribly after a day spent running around without them.
    I hunted out Ms. Ellie and apologized for not staying till the bitter end. Then I drove the few blocks over to the hospital.
    It might have been faster to walk. I had to pass by the town hall on my way, and the crowds and traffic were worse than ever. In fact, about halfway through the slow crawl around the town square, I turned off on a side street and began picking my way through the less crowded outskirts of town. Taking the long way round would probably save time, and the longest route I could possibly imagine would only take me twenty or thirty blocks out of my way.
    My detour led me past the bus station and nearby, the dark building that held Parker Blair’s furniture store. I found myself thinking how remarkably close it was to the town hall. It would have been easy for Louise, Mayor Pruitt, Terence Mann, or anyone else working late at the town hall to slip away long enough to kill Parker and then return without anyone being the wiser. Given the elevator’s snail-like pace, one of them could easily stretch a supposed trip to the basement vending machine area to fifteen or twenty minutes. And that was assuming there was anyone around keeping close enough tabs that they had to explain their absence.
    And the whole bus station area seemed short on both pedestrians and streetlights. Not hard to imagine Parker’s killer skulking along these rather run-down sidewalks without being spotted.
    A pity Mayor Pruitt hadn’t included this part of town in the ruinously expensive beautification campaign. Of course, why would he? None of his family owned property here.
    I almost hoped the mayor turned out to be the killer. The tabloids would love it—“Town Elects Psycho Killer as Mayor!”—but it would certainly make the recall campaign much easier.
    The hospital and its parking lot were reassuringly bright by comparison. I realized my shoulders were tense and hunched. I didn’t normally stress out that much about driving through the bus station area—after all, I’d lived for many years outside Washington, D.C., and driven through neighborhoods that made the worst block in Caerphilly look like a garden spot.
    Of course I’d never knowingly driven past a murder site in any of those neighborhoods. Or had to contemplate which of my acquaintances might be the killer.
    Then again, maybe my tension wasn’t due to my route but my destination. I felt my shoulders tightening even more as I crunched across the gravel of the parking lot toward the hospital entrance.
    “I hate hospitals,” I muttered.
    Caerphilly Hospital was better than most, largely because it was smaller than most, and thus a lot less impersonal. They’d been nice to me when the twins were born. But it was still a hospital. I took a deep breath and strode through the entrance.
    The front desk was staffed by a woman reading a copy of People . I knew her slightly—one of Randall Shiffley’s many cousins. We waved at each other. Since Dad had already told me Grandfather was in room 242, I didn’t have to ask directions. I pushed the elevator call button. She went back to her magazine.
    No one rode up with me in the elevator. I stepped out onto the second floor and looked around. No one else in the hall, which was in some kind of night mode—still well lit, but less glaringly bright than it would have been in the daytime. The layout was