Swan for the Money(3)

“So hunters use the stuff,” I said. “You’re sure that bottle wasn’t just discarded by some passing hunters?”

“We hadn’t given anyone permission to hunt our land,” Mother said.

It took a few seconds for the grammatical implications to sink in— the fact that she said “hadn’t” rather than “haven’t.” Did her use of the pluperfect tense mean that now, after Matilda’s demise, they had given hunting rights to someone? But by the time that thought struck me, Mother and Dad were deep in a discussion of which surviving black roses were likely to produce a prize-worthy bloom by Saturday’s contest. Everybody else appeared to be listening attentively, or as attentively as possible while consuming vast quantities of bacon, sausage, country ham, French toast, waffles, pancakes, cinnamon toast, croissants, and fresh fruit. Were the rest of the family really that interested in rose culture, or did they just figure they’d better come up to speed on the subject in self defense?

“Meg,” Dad said, “I’m leaving this in your hands.”

He gestured to my grandfather, who ceremoniously handed me the empty doe urine bottle.

“Yuck,” I said, dropping the thing on the table. I wasn’t normally squeamish, but my stomach rose at the thought of the little bottle’s former contents. “What in the world to you expect me to do with it?”

“Find out who used it on Matilda,” Dad said. “And help me figure out how to stop it. I’m counting on you!”





Chapter 2





I was opening my mouth to suggest that thanks to the rose show, I already had more than enough to do today, things that were a lot more important than tracking down the owner of a bottle of deer urine. But I thought better of it. Matilda was important to Dad. And if someone had sabotaged his entries in the rose show, wasn’t that rose show business?

Better yet, wasn’t it a crime?

“Maybe you can get the chief involved,” Michael said, as if reading my thoughts.

I shook my head slightly. Yes, Chief Burke would probably understand why Dad was so upset. His wife was going to be one of tomorrow’s rose exhibitors. But that didn’t mean he’d be willing to drop real police business to hunt for the elusive user of the doe urine.

Not unless someone brought him some actual proof that the doe urine was evidence of a crime. And clearly as the organizer of the rose show, I was the best someone to find that evidence.

Ah, well. At least the prime suspects were mostly people like the Pruitts, whom I didn’t like and would be just as happy to see getting into trouble.

My fingers hovered over the wretched little bottle.

“Allow me,” Michael said. He picked up the bottle and stepped into the kitchen with it.

“Don’t throw it away!” Dad called after him. “It’s evidence.”

“Not very useful evidence,” I said. “Do you expect the perpetrator to be carrying around a sales receipt for the doe urine, or perhaps another few bottles to use if the opportunity arises?”

“We could have it tested for fingerprints.’

My grandfather looked at the bare hand with which he’d been holding the bottle, then at Dad’s equally ungloved hands. He cocked one eyebrow at Dad.

“Or something,” Dad said. His shoulders sagged as if someone had begun deflating him.

“Here you go.” Michael emerged from the kitchen holding a zip-locked plastic bag containing the doe urine bottle.

“An evidence bag!” Dad exclaimed. “Excellent! How remiss of me not to have thought of it.”

I grimaced and tucked the thing in a side pocket of my tote.

“You’ve been under a great deal of emotional stress this morning,” Rose Noire said. “I could fix you some herbal tisane.”

“A little more time in the garden,” Dad said. “That’s all I need.”

He helped himself to more bacon, no doubt to fuel his gardening.

Of course, I didn’t see what good bagging the evidence would do, since Dr. Blake and Dad— and who knew how many other people— had been handling it, mingling their own fingerprints and DNA with whatever useful trace evidence a forensic examination might have found on the bottle.

Still, while I doubted the chief would be interested, maybe I could turn the bottle over for analysis to my cousin Horace, who was a crime scene technician back in our home town of Yorktown. Not that he could necessarily find anything useful by analyzing it, but at least it would be out of my hands, not to mention my tote bag. And Horace was one of the volunteers who’d promised to come out and help me set up for the rose show, so I could rid myself of the vile vial in an hour or so.