Owls Well That Ends Well(30)

I hoped that there was something special about those particular tables. If they followed the same process with the whole two acres, Michael and I would have to bequeath the chore of finishing the yard sale to our grandchildren.

The job of clearing out the customers was going much faster. Michael and his checkout crew were nearing the end of the line, and most of the open space inside the fence, along with the corner we’d planned to use as a picnic area, now contained neat, orderly rows of boxes, each carefully labeled with the name of the person who’d either bought the contents or would be buying them, if they bothered returning when the police allowed us to open again. The uniformed officers were progressing more slowly with questioning the departing customers, but still making visible progress. As I watched, they let two uncostumed people go free, while an officer escorted a Nixon up to the house—presumably for further questioning by the chief.

Of course, that didn’t mean that our lawn was in any danger of becoming deserted. Most of the people who’d been allowed to leave the yard sale area were still hanging around outside the fence, watching the police, and window-shopping. I wondered if the police inside found the circle of impassive Nixons, Draculas, and Grouchos as unnerving as I did.

From the size of the crowd I suspected some of the people milling around our yard had only arrived after news of the murder spread through the county. Especially the ones wielding cameras and binoculars. The cousins who’d been running the concession stand inside the fence had scrounged up more grills and food, and were doing a brisk business. The occasional squeal of feedback emanated from the side yard, where the as-yet-unnamed band formed by one of Eric’s older brothers was tuning up and preparing to satisfy their largely unfulfilled passion for playing to a live audience. Apparently the medical examiner had departed without allowing Dad to accompany him, and Dad had consoled himself by organizing an owl pellet dissection project. Several dozen children and teenagers and even a few bemused adults were diligently hacking and sawing on owl pellets with disposable plastic knives borrowed from the concession stand. Mother, by contrast, was circulating like the hostess at a floundering party, apologizing for the disruption and urging people to have some lemonade while they waited for the yard sale to reopen.

The press had arrived in force. I recognized the reporter from the Caerphilly Clarion, and the crews from the local TV and college radio stations stood out in the crowd because of all the equipment they were lugging. I had to chase several of the television trucks out of the side yard, though not before they had destroyed what little resemblance it had to a grassy lawn.

“Ah, well,” Michael said, when he saw me staring at the impressive new ruts. “We probably needed to rototill that part of the lawn anyway. By the way, is that one of the uncles who shouldn’t be wandering around by himself?”

“Uncle Ned? Not that I know of,” I said, looking over at the uncle in question. “Why, what’s he been doing?”

“Coming up and spouting gibberish at me,” Michael said.

“Oh, that’s not gibberish,” I said. “Farsi, Arabic, and I think I heard he’d taken up Mandarin. He’s testing to see if you react. Always on the lookout for foreign spies, Uncle Ned.”

“Probably not a good time to practice my French or Vietnamese, then,” he said.

“No, and probably just as well to keep him away from Giles,” I said. “Uncle Ned still hasn’t forgiven the British for burning the White House in the War of 1812.”

“Right,” he said, nodding. “Should those people be climbing on the fence?”

Dozens of people were spread-eagled against the deer fencing, like bugs on a windshield, as if pressing every square inch of their bodies as close as possible to the barrier would get them inside faster. We’d had a cat once who did that with screen doors when she wanted to come inside. She’d even leap up to plaster herself as high on the door as possible, the better to be seen, which hadn’t done a whole lot for the condition of our screen door. Sure enough, one of the onlookers started to do much the same thing, but the deer fencing began to collapse under his weight, and Michael went over to help the uniformed officers remove him from the fence.

Cousin Everett was doing a brisk business with the boom lift, sending small groups of people up on the platform and then waving them gently over the yard sale area. Hard to tell, at this distance, whether they were reporters, avid bargain hunters scoping out the merchandise, or just thrill-seekers, but he had dozens of people waiting in line for their turns.

Everett had apparently found time, before he began giving rides, to deposit a party of volunteer roofers on top of the house. As I watched, several of my uncles rolled back one of the tarps, ready for another attempt to patch the last of the roof leaks. I suspected we’d eventually have to break down and replace the entire roof. But the longer we postponed that, the better we would be able to afford it. In the meantime, the uncles were having fun; they’d found a productive use for all the leftover shingles everyone had in their garages and sheds, and I had decided that the random mixture of shingle colors gave the house a festive patchwork look.