Chapter 24
Sunday morning dawned bright, clear, and unseasonably warm. I knew because I got to watch. I woke up just before dawn, started worrying about everything I had to do, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t hear any hooting owls or screaming cousins, but just listening for them kept me wakeful. And the eight-foot-tall windows that made the room so wonderfully light and airy faced east. Given our remote location, I hadn’t made curtains a high priority. That would have to change.
Still, lovely weather. Perfect yard sale weather. Too bad that instead of a yard sale, we still had a crime scene in the backyard. I could hear voices—probably Cousin Horace and the local evidence technician showing the crime scene to the promised reinforcements from Richmond. A lot of reinforcements, from the sound of it. At least what I could hear over the renewed hammering from the roof.
I tried to focus on something positive. The bare wooden floors, for example. Beautiful hardwood floors; at least they would be after someone (probably me) refinished them. One of the few things in the house that didn’t need expensive major repairs. Just some elbow grease. Okay, a whole lot of elbow grease; probably more than I’d have to spare for months. But they were already beautiful in potential.
Or maybe I just liked them because they were bare. Only the sleeping bag, pillows, and an alarm clock to mar the beautiful emptiness; and I could roll up the sleeping bag neatly and put it and the pillows in the closet for the day.
Of course, I’d have to wait until Michael got up.
I talked myself out of going down to tidy the kitchen. The itch to tidy was only a symptom. Tidying the already tidy house wasn’t what I really wanted.
I wanted to clear the two acres of junk out of our backyard, and I wanted to clear Giles of murder. The junk would have to wait until the police released the scene.
So what could I do about the murder?
I took out my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe. Which Michael sometimes calls my security blanket. He’s not far wrong. It’s certainly my way of imposing order on an unruly world. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I take out the notebook and make sure I’ve written down everything I have to do or remember. No matter how dauntingly long the list is, I know I’ll feel better once I have each task pinned down in ink and captured between the notebook’s covers. In the last few months, especially when Michael was away on his acting trips, I sometimes felt the notebook was the only thing that kept me sane.
I’d been scribbling for a long time when Michael finally turned over and yawned.
“Morning,” he said, with a sleepy smile.
In fact, a downright inviting smile, and I was tempted to rejoin him in the sleeping bag. Just then the boom lift platform appeared outside the window, carrying half a dozen of my uncles and cousins wearing plaid flannel shirts and toting saws. They waved cheerfully before settling down to the fascinating task of removing the dead oak branch.
Michael sighed and waved back.
“I’ve put curtains really high on my to-do list,” I said. “And meanwhile, I need to ask you something.”
“Ask away,” he said.
“What do you know about Mrs. Pruitt?”
“Who?” he said, frowning and sitting up.
“Ginevra Brakenridge Pruitt,” I said. Shouted, actually; the volunteer lumberjacks had started their chain saw.
“The Poet Laureate of Caerphilly?”
“Is she?”
“Well, not officially,” he said. “And I suspect the administration would love to downplay her connection to the college, if it weren’t for all that money she left them. The whole student demonstration thing was pretty embarrassing.”
“Demonstration?” Caerphilly’s students were notoriously apolitical. “When did the students demonstrate, and what did it have to do with Mrs. Pruitt?”
“Back in the late seventies,” Michael said. “I wasn’t here, but I’ve heard all about it. They protested against having to sing the school song at graduation.”
“Let me guess: Mrs. Pruitt wrote it.”
“All five interminable verses,” Michael said. “The administration appointed a commission to study the suitability and political correctness of the lyrics, and declared a moratorium on singing it until the commission finished its work. And since the commission’s last meeting was held in 1981 …”
“So that’s why we all hum along instead of singing the school song at college events,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“In my opinion, which counts for very little around the English department—”
“But a great deal here in the sane world.”