“Hmm,” the chief said. “Sammy, what’s that racket going on outside?”
“They’re looking for Meg Langslow,” Sammy said. “Some problem only she can handle, apparently.”
Chapter 15
Damn! Just my luck that someone would start looking for me now. And not just looking for me, but kicking up enough fuss that the chief heard about it.
I needed to see what the problem was. Perhaps if I moved the dumbwaiter very slowly …
“Could be the fingerprint technician,” Horace said. “We need to take her fingerprints, for elimination purposes, and no one’s seen her for over an hour.”
The chief made a noise that sounded surprisingly like a growl.
“I’ll go help them find her,” Horace said, hastily. Under cover of the squeaks he made getting to the door, I began pulling up the dumbwaiter.
“Make sure she’s not in the barn,” the chief called after him. I paused to find out why the barn was so interesting.
“The barn?” Sammy repeated.
“We’ve had to chase her father out of the barn twice already,” the chief grumbled. “He won’t say what he’s looking for—just gives some cock and bull story about an owl’s nest in the barn, and wanting to check on the fledgling owls.”
“Cock and bull story?” Sammy said. “Why wouldn’t he just be telling the truth about wanting to check on the owlets?”
“And here I thought you were a birdwatcher, Sammy. It’s October, remember? Everyone knows that birds nest in the spring. So even if they did have an owl’s nest in the barn, the baby owls would have flown away by now, right?”
“Not necessarily, chief,” Sammy said. “Barn owls can breed any time of year. In fact, if conditions are favorable, they may produce two broods a year.”
“You don’t say,” the chief said.
Perhaps Sammy didn’t notice the note of impatience in the chief’s voice.
“It’s primarily a question of food supply,” Sammy said, warming to his topic. “You see, a grown barn owl eats five or six voles a night, and the fledglings can eat twice that much, so you need a fair number of voles to keep a family of barn owls going. Course it doesn’t necessarily have to be voles. Mice, rats, shrews, moles, frogs, lizards, bats, baby rabbits, other birds, insects—they’re pretty omnivorous. I dissected an owl pellet once that contained—”
“Sammy, do you belong to that SPOOR group of Dr. Langslow’s?”
“Yes, sir,” Sammy said. “Except Mrs. Sprocket founded it, you know; we only just elected Dr. Langslow as our new president last month. He—”
“Whatever,” the chief said. “Seeing as how you’re a SPOOR member and all—”
“I assure you sir, that I will in no way allow my membership in SPOOR to interfere with the proper performance of my duties as a police officer,” Sammy said, in his most earnest voice.
“I’m sure you won’t,” the chief said. “Do you suppose you could convince Dr. Langslow to let you inspect the fledgling owls in his place? Seeing as how you’re a SPOOR member in good standing as well as a police officer? Then maybe we could get him out of our hair and let him go bother the coroner the way he usually does.”
“Yes, sir,” Sammy said. “Want me to go do it now?”
“The sooner the better.”
“Right, sir.”
“I’ll take a break while you’re out doing it,” the chief said. “On your way out, tell Fred to give me five minutes and then send up the next witness.”
Perhaps I was in luck. If I could sneak out while Sammy was inspecting the owls and the chief was on his break, I wouldn’t have to haul myself back up to the bedroom.
I waited impatiently for the door squeak that would tell me they were safely out of the room, and then reached out to open the latch.
With no luck. Sammy must have done a better job of wedging it shut than I usually did. I could see the wooden latch crossing the crack between the dumbwaiter door and the surrounding frame, and if I’d had something long and flat, like a nail file, I could easily have knocked it free. Unfortunately, lock picking hadn’t been in my plans when I crawled into the dumbwaiter.
Ah well. At least I could take advantage of the chief’s absence to haul the dumbwaiter up to the bedroom. With luck, his break wouldn’t take him someplace where he’d hear the pulley squeaking.
I arrived safely at the bedroom level, and was reaching out to open the dumbwaiter door when I heard voices.
“Hold the other end right next to the wall, dear,” Mother was saying. “That’s eight feet, three and a half inches. I was thinking about chintz.”