Time for me to go home and collapse. Or time for me to spruce up a bit and make my own token appearance at the party. I was leaning toward the former. But maybe I’d feel better by the time I drove up to the house. And then—
My cell phone rang.
“Meg?” It was Horace. “Um . . . we could use some help over here.”
Chapter 24
“What kind of help?” I asked. And where are you.”
“We’re in the goat pa— I mean at the crime scene,” Horace said. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Didn’t Mr. Darby remove the goats?”
“Yes, thanks. But you know those giant mutant black swans Mrs. Winkleson has on her pond?”
“They’re not giant mutant swans. That’s the size swans usually are,” I said. “Just keep your distance from them.”
“That’s what I told Dr. Smoot,” Horace said. “But one of them just showed up here at our crime scene and he tried to shoo it away.”
“Bad idea.”
“Yeah, we noticed. Is there something we can do to make them go away?”
“Is Mr. Darby still around?”
“No, he left with the goats.”
Just then I saw Mr. Darby stumble by the open door of the barn.
“Hang on,” I said. “Mr. Darby!”
He waved, and strolled inside. I put my phone on speaker.
“I took care of the goats,” he said. “I’m heading back to—”
“We have another small problem,” I said. “Now it’s the swans menacing the crime scene. How can we make them go away?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never tried. Evil monsters, those swans. The only thing to do is wait until they go away on their own. I told you that when one of them was sitting on your car, remember?”
“Did you get that, Horace?” I asked.
“Yes, but we can’t just wait for it to leave. It knocked Dr. Smoot down, and it’s still standing on top of him. He thinks his arm is broken. Dr. Smoot, that is.”
I looked back at Mr. Darby, who shook his head hopelessly.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Meg?”
“Snopes.com will love hearing about this,” I said, as I opened my eyes. “I understand there’s some debate over whether a swan actually can break a human arm.”
“This won’t help,” Horace said. “It did knock him down, but the broken arm is probably from the fall. But even a much smaller bird could put an eye out with its beak. I’m not going near it.”
“Good point,” I said. “Stand by. You know that gate going into the pasture?” I said, turning to Mr. Darby. “Is it big enough to drive a vehicle through?”
He nodded.
“Come with me.”
I dashed outside and found that, as usual, Horace had left his keys in his truck. I started it and waited impatiently until Mr. Darby ambled over and got up into the passenger seat.
“When we get there, you open the gate.”
He nodded and I put the truck into gear, lurching down a muddy dirt road. When we got to the gate, Mr. Darby stepped out to open it. When he’d closed it after me, he stayed on the outside and leaned against the fence instead of getting back in the cab. I tried not to take that as a vote of no confidence in my rescue plan.
The truck lurched violently as I steered toward the end of the field where I could see Horace and Sammy, waving pitchforks at a black swan. The swan was sitting on a black lump— presumably Dr. Smoot in his cape— and paid no attention to them, apart from occasionally rising slightly to flap its enormous wings.
As I drew near, Horace got careless with the pitchfork and the bird swatted it aside as if it were a toothpick.
When I was about ten feet from the swan, I rolled the window down a few inches.
“Stand by to rescue Dr. Smoot,” I said. “I’m going to try to push the swan away.”
“But you’ll run over Dr. Smoot!” Horace exclaimed.
“Tell Smoot to lie as flat as possible,” I said. “Your truck’s probably got enough ground clearance to miss him.”
“Probably?” came a voice from under the swan.
I began easing the truck forward. The swan didn’t like it. When I was five feet away, it stood up and began flapping its wings furiously. I kept inching forward as slowly as I could. Another foot, and the swan fluttered up into the air and landed on the truck’s windshield.
“Grab Smoot!” I shouted, as I shifted into reverse and began backing up as fast as I could without dislodging the swan. After all, I didn’t want to hurt it— just get it away from Dr. Smoot.