Mother, still keeping the onlookers in order, took a moment to draft Rob to take her place in the checkout line. I noticed, with alarm, that she handed him the orange and purple lamp shade I’d found so hideous. I hoped she was only holding it for someone else. Or maybe she liked the shape and was planning to strip off all the ghastly trappings and recover the frame with a nice unobtrusive beige. Surely the lamp shade couldn’t possibly be part of her decorating plans for Michael and me.
I’d worry about that later. The first two of the chief’s officers had arrived. Given the speed of their arrival and the fact that they wore civvies with what appeared to be folded Nixon masks shoved in their pockets, I suspected they’d been here all along as customers. Burke assigned them to search the barn. I hoped the chief would assign the next arrivals to crowd control. Even Mother could only do so much.
“Meg, your cousin Horace has found something,” Dad said, appearing at my elbow.
“And just what has he found?” Chief Burke said, stepping between me and Horace.
Cousin Horace stepped forward, holding a charred object at the end of a set of barbecue tongs.
“We found this in one of our grills,” he said. “And there are some stains on the cover that might be blood spatter.”
“And just why are you so familiar with blood spatter?” Chief Burke asked, frowning at Horace. “Been watching CSI too often?”
“Cousin Horace’s a crime scene technician with the sheriff’s department at home,” I said.
“Ah,” the chief said, nodding with approval. I blinked in surprise at his ready acceptance of Horace’s credentials, and then realized that among so many costumed revelers, Horace’s habitual gorilla suit looked perfectly normal. The chief had already focused on the object Horace was holding.
A book. The side toward me was so badly charred that I could only just make out the faint suggestion of pages, but Chief Burke found his side more interesting. I edged closer to look over his shoulder and found that the book’s front cover was only slightly scorched and perfectly recognizable, its faded red cloth binding stamped in gold and black with a chessboard motif and the book’s author and title.
The Uttermost Farthing, by R. Austin Freeman.
Chapter 9
“Damn,” I muttered. A little too loudly.
“What is it?” the chief said, looking back at me.
“This is turning into a zoo,” I said, waving at the crowd of rubberneckers and interrupted shoppers, pretending that they rather than the book had inspired my exclamation. “I don’t suppose you’d let us collect their money so they could all haul their stuff away.”
The chief lowered his head and peered disapprovingly over his glasses.
“And you’re positive none of their stuff is evidence?” he said.
“It was just a thought,” I said. “How about if I get my volunteers to go down the line and box up everyone’s stuff—we’ll have the carbons of the sales slips for an inventory. And then we can store everything until your officers are finished with it, and you could question people and get them out from underfoot.”
He looked at me suspiciously, then nodded.
“That should work,” he said, sounding faintly surprised that I’d come up with a good idea. “Get Sammy to help you,” he added, as a tall, gangling young redheaded officer strode up, still trying to button one of his uniform cuffs.
Help me or make sure I didn’t pull anything?
I added Sammy and the cousin dressed as a ballerina to the checkout line detail. Michael and Sammy did the heavy work of boxing up the items while Mrs. Fenniman, the ballerina, and the white rabbit continued writing up sales slips.
I tried to recruit Horace, but the chief had already deputized him to help with the crime scene examination, since Caerphilly only had one part-time evidence technician. Dad, who devoured mysteries and loved the idea of being involved in a real-life crime, kept dashing around, trying to be everywhere at once. I hoped he’d found someone reliable to watch Eric and Frankie. I couldn’t tell if he was seething with jealousy that Horace was participating in the investigation or vibrating with eagerness at the thought of interrogating Horace later. He’d badger me with questions, too, I thought, with a sigh. Dad had convinced himself and almost everyone we knew that I was a brilliant amateur sleuth. Unfortunately, Chief Burke was one of the few holdouts. The more I could keep Dad out from underfoot, the happier the chief would be.
For that matter, I planned to be as helpful as possible to the chief when I couldn’t stay out of his way entirely. I raced to clear one of our two checkout tables when he asked for some place to serve as a collection point for the evidence they found—so far, only the half-burnt book.