No Nest for the Wicket(33)

But why had he been hanging around all day? Had he really been that interested in watching his wife play croquet? Or had he been gloating over his coming triumph?

Or maybe bumping off Lindsay Tyler?

For all I knew, he could have gotten bored and taken off during the afternoon game. Gone back to his office to do some business that would give him an alibi for the time of Lindsay’s death. But he’d returned by the time the police arrived.

I made a note to keep my eyes open for a chance to talk to Mr. Briggs. Perhaps later in the picnic. At the moment, despite the fact that I hadn’t invited three-fourths of the people thronging our lawn, Mother would expect me to make some effort to play the gracious hostess.

Not to mention playing shepherdess before too long. I could see a couple of Mr. Early’s sheep mingling with the crowd. When we’d first moved into the house, we’d been responsible, in Mr. Early’s eyes, for damaging the fence around his pasture and allowing several hundred of his sheep to escape. Since then, we’d learned that the Great Sheep Escape, although dramatic, had not been unprecedented. Mr. Early’s fences leaked sheep all the time at a slow but fairly constant rate. Most of the locals cast aspersions on Mr. Early’s fence-mending ability, but now that I’d come to know his sheep rather better than I liked, I blamed the sheep. Mr. Early’s sheep were not only larger and woollier than your average sheep, they were also more agile and enterprising. In addition to rounding them up regularly from our yard and shooing them out of the downstairs rooms, we’d found stray sheep lying against the outside of our bedroom door on a cold morning—to take advantage of the warmth from our space heater leaking out under the door—frolicking in the wading pool we set up for some visiting junior relatives, and, to Michael’s dismay, giving birth in the passenger seat of his convertible.

At least today’s sheep were on their best behavior.

I noticed that Mrs. Burke and several of the chief’s deputies were circulating through the crowd in what they thought was a subtle fashion. If they wanted to overhear gossip about the murder, they were doomed to disappointment. Most of the guests were talking about eXtreme croquet, not murder.

Mrs. Pruitt and Mrs. Fenniman were already bickering over the logistics of restarting the tournament.

“Easier just to start the game over,” Rob suggested.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Pruitt said. “I’m sure we all remember where we were when the police notified us. We can just pick up from there.”

From which I deduced that she thought her team had been ahead when Chief Burke interrupted the game and she didn’t want to risk losing that advantage.

“Let me consult the rules on that,” Mrs. Fenniman said. Which suggested that she wasn’t entirely sure who’d been ahead and wanted time to figure it out before deciding whether to agree to resume the previous game or dig in her heels and insist on a “do-over.”

“There’s the issue of poor Meg’s ball,” Mrs. Pruitt said, bestowing a suspiciously genial smile on me.

“What about my ball?” I asked.

“It hasn’t been found, has it?” Mrs. Pruitt said.

“Yes, it has,” Sammy piped up. “We found it last night.”

“Where is it, then?” Mrs. Fenniman snapped. “You haven’t gone and lost it, have you?”

“Of course not,” Sammy said. “We took it to the crime lab with the mallets.”

“Down in Richmond? Dear me!” Mrs. Pruitt said, shaking her head with a sadness that was almost believable. “You’ll need a few strokes to get back on course from there, won’t you?”

She wasn’t really suggesting that I resume playing the ball from the crime lab, was she?

“I think we can call that an out-of-bounds ball,” Mrs. Fenniman said.

“Are we sure?” Mrs. Pruitt asked.

“I’ll check with the board of regents,” Mrs. Fenniman said, as if that settled it. Which it probably did; the eXtreme croquet board of regents generally backed Mrs. Fenniman’s interpretation of the rules. I had no idea whether that was because they agreed with her or because they’d guessed her capacity for making their lives miserable by phone and e-mail if they contradicted her.

“What if one of the players turns out to be the killer?” Mrs. Pruitt asked. “I don’t suppose that’s covered under the rules?”

“Already asked them about that last night,” Mrs. Fenniman replied. “They recommend that the affected team be allowed to field a substitute. Unless murders during our games happen frequently, in which case local custom should prevail.”