Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews

see what she was
     reading. I was startled to see that the book’s cover art was of a skeleton wearing a Santa suit.
    “ Rest You Merry ,” she said. “Charlotte MacLeod. It’s a lot of fun—I must remember to thank your father for recommending it.”
    I nodded. I hoped the chief wouldn’t find out that Dad was recommending Christmas-themed murder mysteries. In the chief’s
     current frame of mind, he’d find it highly suspicious, forgetting that Dad was always recommending seasonally, geographically,
     or professionally appropriate mysteries to anyone who would listen.
    “Anything wrong?” Ms. Ellie asked.
    “That depends,” I said. “What can you tell me about SPOOR and Ralph Doleson?”
    “Oh, dear,” she said. “They’re not threatening to boycott the parade again, are they?”
    Again? I’d heard threats of protests, but this was the first I’d heard of a SPOOR boycott.
    “Not that I’ve heard,” I said aloud. “But it’s important anyway.”
    “Or is Ralph Doleson complaining about us again?”
    “Not that I’ve heard,” I repeated. “But why would he? Spill. Please.”
    “Why do I think someone’s been making trouble?” she said. “Okay, this happened while you and Michael were in—where was it
     you went this summer?”
    “Nice try,” I said. “But Michael and I still aren’t telling anyone where we went on our honeymoon. Something happened in June,
     then.”
    “We heard that a pair of bald eagles had built a nest in a large oak tree down by Caerphilly Creek. You can imagine how excited
     we were!”
    I didn’t have to imagine—when Pam, Rob, and I were children, Dad dragged us to view any number of nests belonging to rare
     or interesting birds. To us, of course, this usually meant spending an hour or so gazing at lumpsof twigs at the top of trees,
     in the forlorn hope that the nest’s elusive maker would put in an appearance.
    “Down by Caerphilly Creek,” I said. “Let me guess: the oak tree was on Ralph Doleson’s property. By the Whispering Pines.”
    “Near there,” she said. “But much closer to the Spare Attic. That off-site storage facility—did you know he owns that, too?”
    “Yes,” I said. “Michael and I still have a bin there.”
    “Why in the world would you need off-site storage with this place?” she asked, glancing up at our three-story house.
    “We don’t,” I said. “We needed it before we moved, though, and Doleson wouldn’t rent month-to-month. Our final yearlong lease
     doesn’t run out till March.”
    “That man is greed personified,” she said, shaking her head.
    “ ‘Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone,’ ” I quoted . “ ‘A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!’ ”
    “ A Christmas Carol ?” she said.
    I nodded.
    “I’ve been helping Michael rehearse.”
    “Very apt,” she said. “I can’t help but think Ralph Doleson would be better cast as Scrooge than as Santa. Can you suggest
     that for next year?”
    “Get back to the bald eagles,” I said. “They were nesting near the Spare Attic and . . .”
    “We were going to put up an eagle cam,” she said. “You know—a web-based camera so people could watch the parent birds incubate
     the eggs, and then eventually observe the hatchlings. We had the camera, and some of those nice young men at your brother’s
     company did all the technical work to connect it to our Web site. But when we asked Ralph Doleson for permission to mount
     the camera on the roof of his building, he refused.”
    “Did he give any reason?” I asked.
    “No. It was just pure meanness,” she said. “It’s not that it was the only possible place to put it, but it was the only place
     we could get it installed without special equipment.”
    “I can see how that would annoy SPOOR,” I said. “But isn’t all this talk of a boycott a little extreme?”
    “If it had been just his refusal, yes,” she said. “We tried to explain