“Silly me,” Molly Weston said. “I just used my cell phone to call 911.” She sounded a little exasperated with her photo-happy companions.
“So,” I said, turning back to Mrs. Winkleson. “You really think you’re going to get away with—”
“Everybody drop your guns and put your hands in the air!”
It was Sammy. I obediently dropped the shotgun, making sure to throw it well out of Mrs. Winkleson’s reach. She didn’t drop anything, and was very slow to put her hands up. By contrast, Horace and all three of the rose growers threw their hands up instantly, and the lady in pink and the blot lady dropped their cell phones to boot.
“What in blazes is going on here?”
The chief.
“Meg? Are you all right?”
And Michael, back safe and sound from New York.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Though I didn’t really breathe easily again until Sammy carefully checked Mrs. Winkleson’s pockets and fished out a small but lethal-looking black-handled revolver.
Chapter 42
“I’m still having a hard time believing that Mrs. Winkleson killed someone over something as silly as roses,” Michael said.
“Don’t let them hear you call roses silly.” I said, gesturing toward the other end of the prep barn where the rose exhibitors were waiting with visible impatience for the judges to finish.
“I don’t mean that roses are silly in general,” he said. “But as a motive for murder?”
“Wasn’t really about roses,” I said. Though it came out sounding more like “Wf neenee bah woz,” since I was talking through a mouthful of pastrami on rye. I hadn’t minded missing Mother’s brunch to go snooping at Dad’s request, but for some reason, after I’d answered all of Chief Burke’s questions and seen Mrs. Winkleson arrested and hauled off for further questioning, I’d suddenly found myself shaking with hunger. Maybe it was a side effect of realizing how close I’d come to never eating again. So we’d commandeered a table at the far end of the barn, and I was sampling a few of the food delicacies Michael had brought back from New York.
“Then what is it about?” Michael said, a little muffled himself by the chocolate cheesecake he was nibbling.
“Pride, maybe,” I said. “She wanted everyone to think she was an expert rose grower and hybridizer. And maybe control. She ruled her little world with an iron hand, and even tried to impose her own color scheme on nature, for heaven’s sake. You think she’d sit still while Mrs. Sechrest ruined her plans for glory?”
“I guess not,” he said. “But allow me to change my adjective. Silly’s not the word. It’s stupid. However lovely roses are, they’re a stupid reason for murder. Stupid, and maybe even crazy.”
“Now that I won’t argue with,” I said. “And I doubt anyone else in this barn would either. Do you think—”
“Hey, Meg, Michael, did you hear the good news?”
It was Rob, being dragged along by the Small Evil One, with Dr. Blake and Caroline following more slowly.
“If you mean the good news that Mrs. Winkleson did not manage to shoot me and is under arrest for murder, then yes, I have,” I said. “I can’t think of any good news that would top that.”
“Mind if I have some,” Rob said, pointing at the deli spread. Michael indicated the litter of brown paper parcels with a sweeping gesture, and Rob wasted no time before making himself a supersized sandwich.
“Actually, I meant the good news about Mr. Darby,” Rob said.
“We’ve figured out what he’s been up to,” my grandfather said. “He wasn’t stealing cows and goats after all.”
“Then who was?”
“No one. You came across him and his cousin loading up cattle they’d purchased quite legitimately.”
“So why were they loading them in the middle of the night?” I asked. “And why did they run away like thieves when they heard me? Some boyish fondness for playing cowboys and rustlers?”
“They were afraid you were Mrs. Winkleson,” Caroline put in. “She refused to sell to Mr. Darby.”
“So he had a friend buy them at a fair market price,” Dr. Blake explained. “Then the friend turned around and sold them to Mr. Darby for the same price.”
“But he still had the problem of getting them off the farm without Mrs. Winkleson realizing that he was the purchaser,” Caroline said. “She’d have stopped selling to the friend if she’d figured it out.”
“The chief’s pretty provoked,” Rob said. “To hear him talk, you’d think Mr. Darby deliberately set out to complicate his murder investigation.”