Free Some Like It Hawk by Donna Andrews

away from the barricade. Bag their hands so Horace can test them for gunshot residue. Don’t let them wash or do anything until he gets there.”
    “Yes, sir,” Sammy said. He loped off.
    “Meg, if you don’t mind, can you keep an eye on that back stairway till I can get another deputy in here?” the chief said. “While you’re there, call your brother. You heard what I just told Sammy—brief him.” I nodded and pulled out my cell phone as I took my place at the bottom of the stairs. I dialed Rob, but his phone rang on unanswered.
    “Randall—you said that newspaper photographer was in here?” the chief was asking.
    “Taking pictures the whole time,” Randall answered, with a nod.
    “Let’s get his film,” the chief said. “I want to see his pictures.”
    “These days a lot of those fellows use digital,” Randall said.
    “Then I need whatever he’s storing the photos on,” the chief said. “I could have an officer seize his camera, but maybe you could handle it more diplomatically.”
    “Can do,” Randall said.
    Rob’s phone finally went to voice mail.
    “Call me,” I said. “ASAP.”
    “Make sure he understands we’re not trying to take them away from him,” the chief said. “He can have his camera back as soon as we get copies of his pictures, but we need to see everything he’s taken so far today.”
    “As soon as I find him,” Randall said.
    “Check with Vern,” the chief said. “By now he should have the folks from the Star-Trib rounded up along with all the guards. I told him to keep the witnesses in the big auditorium tent.”
    “Roger,” Randall said. “Soon as you’ve got some help down here, I’ll go over there and do what I can to make sure the media doesn’t get their version of the day’s events from the Flying Monkeys.”
    He turned to leave and had to pause in the doorway as my father burst in with his old-fashioned black doctor’s bag in hand.

 
    Chapter 9
    “Sorry it took me so long,” Dad said, as he trotted over to where Colleen Brown’s body lay.
    “You beat the ambulance,” the chief said.
    Just barely. The EMTs swept in behind Dad, laden with high-tech equipment that I could have told them was going to be useless. They could probably see it, too, but like Dad, they were wearing determined looks.
    If they were going to go through the motions of trying to revive the poor woman, I didn’t want to watch. I pulled out my cell phone and while I hit redial, I climbed a few steps up the stairway, to the point where I had to crane my neck to see Colleen Brown.
    “She’s past anything we can do,” I heard Dad say, in a soft, discouraged voice.
    This time Rob answered his phone.
    “Where were you?” I snapped.
    “At the other end of the basement,” he said. “You have to be up close to the barrier to get a cell signal down here.”
    After relaying the chief’s instructions to Rob, I climbed up a few more steps. The stone walls and steps made the stairway curiously more comforting than the cinder block and linoleum of the basement. Or maybe I just wanted a little more distance between me and the crime scene. I called Michael.
    “Meg! What’s going on?”
    “There’s been a murder,” I said. “Someone who worked for the Evil Lender. Randall Shiffley and I were practically the first ones on the scene, so I might be tied up for a while being interviewed and processed and whatever.”
    “What can I do to help out here?”
    “Keep the boys safe. Get someone to change my sign so it says next blacksmithing demonstration to be announced. Plan something for dinner that’s not fried chicken, fried fish, or barbecue.”
    “How about pizza?”
    “Pizza would be excellent.”
    We talked for a few more minutes, arranging all the small details of our afternoon and our evening. A welcome dose of the normal and mundane before I returned to the grim business at hand.
    By the time I finished, another deputy had arrived to take my post.
    “You can head over to