Free Owls Well That Ends Well by Donna Andrews Page B

writing up sales slips.
    I tried to recruit Horace, but the chief had already deputized him to help with the crime scene examination, since Caerphilly only had one part-time evidence technician. Dad, who devoured mysteries and loved the idea of being involved in a real-life crime, kept dashing around, trying to be everywhere at once. I hoped he’d found someone reliable to watch Eric and Frankie. I couldn’t tell if he was seething with jealousy that Horace was participating in the investigation or vibrating with eagerness at the thought of interrogating Horace later. He’d badger me with questions, too, I thought, with a sigh. Dad had convinced himself and almost everyone we knew that I was a brilliant amateur sleuth. Unfortunately, Chief Burke was one of the few holdouts. The more I could keep Dad out from underfoot, the happier the chief would be.
    For that matter, I planned to be as helpful as possible to the chief when I couldn’t stay out of his way entirely. I raced to clear one of our two checkout tables when he asked for some place to serve as a collection point for the evidence they found—so far, only the half-burnt book.
    “You go on down to the barn and get started,” the chief told Horace—who had shed his beloved gorilla suit, apparently in the interest of looking more professional.
    “And be careful,” I said.
    The chief raised an eyebrow at me.
    “Tell all your officers to be careful in there,” I said. “The barn’s old, and run down, and we’re not sure it’s structurally sound. No one was supposed to go in there.”
    “Ah,” the chief said. “That’s the reason for the KEEP OUT signs. Makes sense. Knowing those Sprockets, it’s a mercy the whole thing didn’t fall down years ago.”
    “If Gordon had paid any attention to the signs, maybe he’d be alive today,” I said. “Of course, a whole lot of other people ignored them as well.”
    “Such as?” the chief said, taking out a small notebook.
    “I don’t know all their names,” I said. “Barrymore Sprocket probably knows more than I do—he went in and tried to chase Gordon out, with no success.”
    “We’ll talk to him,” the chief said, scribbling notes. “Right now, just tell me who you saw.”
    “The Hummel lady, for one,” I said, pointing to her. “I don’t know her name, but that’s her, over there in the flowered dress.”
    The chief nodded, and scribbled in his notebook. Why couldn’t he satisfy my curiosity by exclaiming, “Oh, you mean Mrs. So-and-so?”
    “Then there was a man in a gigantic Mexican sombrero,” I said. “He’s probably still around somewhere. And a tall man in a brown jacket. And one of the Gypsies—we have quite a lot of Gypsies, so I’m not quite sure which one. Oh, and Giles might have gone in to talk to him about a book.”
    He couldn’t claim I’d left out Giles. But had my casual manner made Giles seem less suspicious or more? The chief just kept scribbling.
    “Of course, I didn’t necessarily see everyone who went into the barn,” I said. “I was trying to keep the yard sale running. There could have been dozens of others.”
    “Hmm,” the chief said, looking up from his notebook. “Somehow I suspect you didn’t miss much.”
    Just then Horace returned, escorting a uniformed officer who held something in his latex-gloved hands.
    The other owl-shaped bookend.
    “We found it in the barn, sir,” the officer said, placing it on the evidence table. “Appears to be a match for the murder weapon.”
    Of course, Giles picked that moment to stroll up.
    “I didn’t know you were closing so early,” he said, blinking with confusion at the general exodus toward the checkout line. “I don’t suppose—oh, there it is. Have you found the other one as well?”
    He was pointing, of course, at the owl-shaped bookend.
    “Is this yours, sir?” Chief Burke asked, with narrowed eyes.
    “Er … no, not exactly,” Giles said, blinking with confusion. “Not yet anyway. I