The hands disappeared, alas, but I had to admit that my shoulders already felt better.
I wondered if the police really would release Giles soon or if he’d have trouble getting bail on a weekend. But I didn’t want to depress Michael. Especially since he was packing a picnic supper to take with us. Even if he was thinking of Giles’s missed meal more than ours, he was definitely packing enough for all three of us, and then some.
“Signs up,” Rob said, wandering back in. “Maybe we should threaten to turn Spike loose on anyone who isn’t gone by six.”
“Where is Spike, anyway?” I asked.
“Um … the cops had me put him in his pen when the crowds started dying down,” Rob said. “I guess he’s still out there.”
“Rob! You know he’s supposed to come in before dark!”
I hurried outside.
We’d had to placate Michael’s mother, Spike’s absentee owner, when she’d first heard about the pen, and explain that no, Spike wasn’t living in the barn. But since I’d spent so much time there getting ready for the yard sale and would spend just as much after we moved in, working in my forge, Dad and Michael thought it would be a good idea to have Spike there with me.
“You can keep each other company,” Dad had said.
“Some company,” I’d said, frowning at Spike, and from the expression on his face, I suspected Spike felt the same. A pity he couldn’t talk, or he’d set them straight by explaining that he could care less about human company as long as his food bowl was full.
“Besides, he can warn you of trespassers,” Michael had said. “It’s pretty isolated out here.”
So far, the one time we’d had a trespasser—a rather shabby character who tried to enter the house through an unlocked window—Spike slept through the whole thing, including my chasing the would-be thief away with a large (though unsharpened) broadsword. But even if Spike had barked when the guy began trying doors and windows, I’d probably have ignored the noise, since I’d long since gotten used to him barking at every legitimate visitor who turned into our driveway, every car or truck that passed by on the road, every mouse or squirrel that showed its nose in the barn, the owls every time they came or went, and the occasional shadow of a cloud or hawk passing overhead.
Still, I had to admit that Spike enjoyed his pen. A Spikesized doggie door let him go at will from the large, outside area, which we’d nicknamed the barking lot, to a small inside enclosure along one wall of the barn, where we kept his spare bed and a set of bowls. The main problem was that we couldn’t leave him out at night, to howl at the moon or mourn its absence, for fear of owls getting him.
“The barn owls probably wouldn’t try it,” Dad had said, eyeing Spike judiciously. “Unless they were really starving, and clearly they aren’t, if they’ve had a second brood. But a great horned owl wouldn’t hesitate to attack Spike.”
“It would if it knew him the way we do,” I’d said, out of loyalty. But I had to admit, Dad had a point. Spike’s craving for outdoor nightlife would have to remain unfulfilled.
I only hoped the police on duty would let me in to whisk him away before the owls did.
Chapter 20
Outside, I spotted Dad and Eric talking to Sammy, the young uniformed officer, at the gate of the yard sale area.
“Meg!” Dad called. “Do you want to come with us?”
“That depends on where you’re going,” I said. “I need to get to the barn to fetch Spike.”
“Then come along,” Dad said. “We’re checking on Sophie.”
“Sophie?” I spent a few minutes racking my brain to remember who Sophie was and how she fit into the murder investigation or the family tree. Or had someone once again made the mistake of thinking that Spike needed feminine companionship? If so, this time I’d send the vet bills to the idiot responsible.
“I give up,” I said, finally. “Who’s Sophie?”
“One of your owls,” Dad said, in a reproachful tone. “The female of the nesting pair in the barn.”
“Oh,” I said. “I don’t think we were ever formally introduced. But isn’t the barn still off-limits?”
“Not as long as Sammy’s escorting us. I thought you might like to see the barn. Since Sophie’s there,” he added, with a look of such perfect innocence that I knew he was up to something.
“Ah,” I said. “Yes, just for a minute.”
“Come with me,” Sammy said. “But remember, don’t touch anything.”
I started guiltily when he said that. He’d probably noticed me scrutinizing the various boxes and piles lined along the fence. I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to explain that I was only wishing for someone to steal the hideous orange and purple lamp shade from Mother’s stash, not actually planning to do it myself.