Stork Raving Mad(33)

“That’s fine,” he said.

“And you might not want to sit there,” I said, as he pulled up one of Michael’s four guest chairs.

“Why not?” he asked, glancing down at the chair as if expecting to find something dangerous in the seat.

“They may look comfy—in fact, for the first five minutes, they aren’t too bad. But they’re next to impossible to get out of,” I said. “I’ve seen able-bodied people take two or three tries, and for anyone with weak knees or low upper-body strength, forget it.”

“I’ll save them for any witnesses I want to be sure of holding onto,” the chief said. He pulled up a nearby book box and sat on that instead. “Now tell me what the devil’s been happening around here.”

I took a deep breath and dived in.

I’d gotten as far as telling the chief about the confrontation between Ramon Soto and the prunes when someone knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” the chief snapped, in a tone of voice clearly intended to make casual curiosity seekers flee.

Sammy stuck his head in.

“We appear to have found the murder weapon,” he said.

He held up the pregnant hippopotamus statue in one gloved hand.





Chapter 12


“What the hell is that?” the chief asked.

“She’s the Egyptian goddess of pregnancy and childbirth,” I said.

The chief studied the statue with a look of vague distaste on his face.

“This thing belongs to you?” he asked.

“Don’t look at me,” I said. “It was a present.”

“Who the dickens would give a pregnant woman a thing like that?”

“Rose Noire. It’s supposed to protect me and the kids from demons. And if you want to know how I felt about it—well, there’s a reason I exiled it to the library.”

The chief shook his head.

“There seems to be hair on the hippo,” Sammy said. “Human hair, I mean. And if you ask me, the dent in the victim’s skull matches the hippo’s snout.”

“We’ll have Horace look at the hair when he gets here,” the chief said.

“He’s already here,” Sammy said. “He wouldn’t let me bring this to show you till he took about a million photos of it lying there on the floor.”

“Good,” the chief said. “Give that nasty thing back to him. I’m sure he and the medical examiner will want to do some tests to confirm the match to the wound. But from the look of things, I expect you’re right.”

“Does this mean you’ll have to confiscate the statue?” I asked. I tried not to sound too cheerful.

“I’m sorry,” the chief said. “I’m afraid so.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I’d be absolutely thrilled if you ended up having to keep it indefinitely.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary,” the chief said. He turned back to Sammy. “Where did you find this?”

“Lying there right by the body,” Sammy said. “Like whoever did it just hit her and dropped the hippo right away.”

“Show me,” the chief said. “If you don’t mind,” he added to me.

“I’m not going anywhere until Starsky and Hutch decide to show up,” I said. The chief looked blank for a moment, so I patted my stomach.

“You’re not having labor pains, are you?” he asked, looking anxious. “If you think you’re going to need to go to the hospital soon, we could finish our interview now.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “If the shock of finding a dead body didn’t send me into labor, I think I can manage to hold off a few minutes while Sammy shows you where he found the murder weapon. But there’s just one thing,” I said to his back.

He turned around and frowned.

“You might want to tell Horace that where he found it may not be precisely where the killer left it,” I said. “I remember stumbling over the thing as I was backing away from the body. Sorry,” I added, seeing the slight frown on his face.

“Not exactly your fault,” he said. “Did you pick it up?”

“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “I knew better. I left it where it landed. I don’t think it moved much, if that helps.”

He nodded and disappeared.

I leaned back, closed my eyes, and hoped he took a good long time examining the scene.

“Meg, dear.”

I winced involuntarily, then opened my eyes to see my mother standing in the open doorway of the office.

“Meg, would you like to see the plans for the nursery?”

I was opening my mouth to shriek, “Not now, Mother.” But I stifled the urge and counted to ten before saying anything.