“What the hell’s going on?” Grandfather said, appearing in his wake.
“I called the chief and he says don’t move anything,” I said. “He’d probably like to keep as many people as possible out of his crime scene,” I added to my grandfather, who had followed Dad in and was peering over his shoulder.
“Right, right.” He didn’t look as if he planned on going anywhere.
“Could you maybe find me a chair?” I asked.
“Plenty of chairs here,” my grandfather said.
“Yes but they’re part of the crime scene, and I want to sit outside the crime scene, in a chair that was never in the crime scene. Could you get one from the kitchen?”
He frowned, turned, and stumped off.
“Do you need anything?” I asked Dad.
“Call your cousin Horace,” Dad said. “The chief might need him. He’s in town this week.”
I nodded. Horace was a crime-scene investigator in the sheriff’s department back in Yorktown, where I grew up. Since he was spending more and more of his free time here in Caerphilly, the chief had taken to borrowing him whenever he had a case that needed forensic assistance. As I picked my way through all the students’ clutter to the door, I felt sorry for Horace. He’d probably have to process most of the stuff in the room. And for the chief, who would have to deal with the owners of the stuff.
Outside the library, I took a deep breath, leaned against the wall, and dialed Horace’s cell phone.
“Meg, what’s up?” he asked. “Are you—”
“The chief needs you,” I said.
Normally I responded patiently to everyone’s constant inquiries about how soon I planned to go into labor, but seeing a dead body had used up a lot of my usual reserve of calm. Even if it was the dead body of someone I’d come to dislike so intensely in our brief acquaintance.
“What’s wrong?” he said, all business.
“We have a body in the library,” I said.
“A real one?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “One of the professors.”
“A professor? In the library? That sounds like—”
“Yes, someone killed a professor in our library,” I said. “And no, it wasn’t Professor Plum, and they didn’t use the candlestick, the lead pipe, or the wrench. Get all the Clue jokes out of your system before you get here—I don’t think the chief will like them.”
“Roger,” he said, and hung up.
Michael answered on the first ring.
“Everything okay?” he asked. “Or are you, I hope, calling to say that our departmental prima donna is ready for our meeting?”
“Meeting’s off,” I said.
“Don’t tell me she went home!”
“Not quite,” I said. “She’s dead.”
A pause. My grandfather appeared at the end of the hall, dragging a kitchen chair.
“You’re serious?”
“Someone hit her over the head with Tawaret.”
“With what? A toilet?”
“No, Tawaret. Egyptian goddess of pregnancy and childbirth. Not the real thing, of course—a statue. One of Rose Noire’s presents.”
I heard him telling Abe and Art, and their exclamations.
“Hang on, Meg,” Michael said. “Abe wants to talk to you.”
“Meg, are you all right?” Abe asked.
“Tell her she should sit down,” I heard Art say in the background. “She’s had a shock; she shouldn’t be on her feet.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “And Grandfather just brought me a chair—thank you,” I added to Grandfather. “Hang on a sec.”
I pressed the mute button on my phone.
“Grandfather,” I said. He was, predictably, heading back to the library. “Can you make sure no one leaves the premises until the chief gets here?”
“Leaves the premises?” he said. “You think this is a murder investigation?”
Had he somehow missed the bloodstained hippo statue?
“Looks that way to me,” I said. “Until the chief says it isn’t, we need to act on the assumption it is. We need to make sure people don’t leave. Normally I’d do it, but I’m a little out of it right now. You take charge. Round everyone up and keep them in the kitchen—most of them are probably hanging out there anyway.”
“Right,” he said, and stalked back down the hall toward the kitchen.
I pressed the button to unmute my phone.
“Sorry, Abe,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Should I notify the department chair?” he asked. “The death of a member of his department—he’s going to want to know about that.”