“Hardly fair,” I said. “They’re left with a sapling instead of a full-grown shade tree.”
“Oh, but Ms. Delia took care of that,” Anne said. “She found a company that would dig up a full-grown mulberry from somewhere and plant it in the yard, right where the old one had been. Not quite as big as the old one, but big enough to drop a whole heck of a lot of mulberries across the property line.”
“That must have cost a pretty penny.”
“You know it!” She shook her head as if in awe of Cordelia’s gall. “And she sent that great big bill to Mr. Weaver. Took her forever to get him to pay it, but he did, finally.”
“Good for her!”
“And the ladies put everyone in town on notice,” Anne said. “That anyone who wanted to take down the new tree had better have written permission from both of them, and that if anything happened to the new tree, they’d raise holy hell. Pardon my French, but that’s what Ms. Delia said. And ever since then, they’ve been at each other’s throats. I think maybe Ms. Delia would have gone back to Richmond, where she’d been living, if not for Mr. Weaver. She was so mad at him. I think she moved back here to make sure he didn’t run roughshod over Miss Annabel.”
Somehow the Annabel I’d met didn’t seem like someone who’d be easy to run roughshod over. But maybe several decades of living with Cordelia had toughened her up.
Then again, Annabel hadn’t had much success in getting the local police to investigate her suspicions of Weaver.
“This is exactly the sort of thing I want to hear about,” I said. “Family history. Town history.”
“I’d love to talk to you,” she said. “Except that I’ve got a busy afternoon today. How long are you staying?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “That rather depends on the emus.”
“The emus?”
“My grandfather’s come to town to rescue them,” I said.
“Your grandfather?” she said. “Is he part of Dr. Montgomery Blake’s rescue team?”
“News travels fast here,” I said. “Actually, Dr. Blake is my grandfather.”
“Oh, my goodness!” She was standing with her mouth open, staring at me as if I had suddenly achieved celebrity status. In a way I had. Any second now she probably would tell me she watched all of Grandfather’s TV shows.
“Dr. Montgomery Blake is your grandfather!” she exclaimed. “I am such a fan! I have all his books. My own copies, I mean, not just in the library.”
Shame on me. I should have realized a librarian would focus on Grandfather’s printed oeuvre. I wondered if it would be discreet to tell her that he actually did write them, for the most part, although he did keep a tame English major on staff to clean up his syntax.
“If you like, I’ll ask him to drop by and sign them while he’s in town,” I said instead.
“I would be so honored!” she said. “Do you suppose there’s any way we could prevail on him to speak here at the library? On any topic he chooses.”
Would Grandfather object to her handing him an audience to perform for? Clearly she didn’t know him as I did.
“I’ll ask,” I said. “And frankly, if you want to make him immensely grateful, you could help me out with a personal project of his.”
“If I can,” she said.
“I think Grandfather intended to get down here to rescue the emus before now,” I said. “But it took a while to arrange, and—well, he’s disappointed that Ms. Delia won’t get to see the rescue.”
“They were friends?”
“Not that I know of.” Not anymore, anyway. I was trying not to lie too much, in case the whole story eventually came out. “But she and Miss Annabel were the ones who brought the plight of the emus to his attention. And he knows about Miss Annabel’s belief that her cousin was murdered.”
“I’m not sure she’s wrong,” the librarian said. “But there’s not a whole lot any of us can do if the police won’t take any action.”
“I think maybe Grandfather feels a little guilty that he waited too long for Ms. Delia to have the satisfaction of seeing the rescue,” I said. “Or maybe he actually agrees with Miss Annabel. Whatever the reason, he’s hired a private investigator to look back over the evidence. To see if there’s anything that would convince Chief Heedles to reopen the case. Or get the state police involved. Or maybe just leak it to the press.”
“Oh, my!”
“And I’ve decided that helping the PI might be cooler, cleaner, less tiring work than chasing after emus.”