Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews Page B

sounded happy.
    “Oh, dear,” Ms. Ellie murmured. “Some of our members don’t look as if they feel like cooperating. I’ll have to see if I can
     help.”
    She strolled over to where the chief was standing and said a few quiet words to him. The chief bowed slightly and gestured
     toward the barn. Seeing Ms. Ellie and the chief strolling along, chatting amiably, most of the SPOOR members fell into step
     behind them. The few would-be rebels made a big show of dragging their heels and making it clear with their body language
     that they were only going to the barn out of curiosity, not because anyone had the right to order them around.
    Deputy Sammy came over to talk to me.
    “The chief wants to know if you have any trash bags we can borrow,” he asked. “We don’t have any evidence bags large enough
     to hold the goose suits.”
    “There’s a whole case of them right inside the barn,” I said. “The Boy Scouts were going to use them in their post-parade
     cleanup.”
    “Thanks,” he said.
    And speaking of the Boy Scouts, if Chief Burke was going to confiscate all the goose suits and perhaps detain all the SPOOR
     members for questioning, perhaps I should find them and see if they really were prepared enough to fill in as the six geese
     a-laying.
    Though why should they have to? An idea occurred to me, and I followed Sammy out to the barn.
    “The trash bags are over there,” I said, pointing to the corner where they were stored. Rather unnecessarily, since Sammy
     had already spotted the giant box with TRASH BAGS printed on it in two-inch letters.
    “A school bus will be fine,” the chief was saying into his cell phone. “How soon can you get it here?”
    “A school bus?” I echoed.
    “He’s taking us to town to be interrogated,” Ms. Ellie said.
    “Interviewed,” the chief said. “Okay, we have thirty-seven SPOOR members here. Is that all of you?”
    “Thirty-eight counting Mrs. Markland,” several geese chimed in. The chief scowled at his officers.
    “And where is this Mrs. Markland?” he asked.
    “Since I wasn’t her pastor, I couldn’t tell you,” Ms. Ellie said. “But I can assure you she wasn’t here murdering Mr. Doleson.”
    The chief blinked.
    “That’s the late Mrs. Markland,” I put in.
    “She’s dead, then?” the chief asked.
    “As a doornail,” Ms. Ellie said.
    “ ‘I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade,’ ” I quoted.
    The chief and Ms. Ellie both turned to frown at me.
    “Sorry, total Dickens immersion,” I said. “Just ignore it.”
    “We’ve found the trash bags, thank you,” the chief said. “I’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
    Coming from him, it was a relatively subtle dismissal.
    “Great,” I said. “But I need something from you.”
    “What?”
    “Six geese,” I said.
    “The geese are all—”
    “Only six,” I said. “Look, you can’t possibly talk to all thirty-seven at once. Why not take thirty-one of them to town in
     your school bus, and let the remaining six take themselves there by marching in the parade?”
    “The costumes are evidence.”
    “We’ve got more costumes,” one of the geese said.
    “More?” The chief turned to frown at the speaker. “Where?”
    “Not here,” the goose said, backing off slightly. “But they’re over at Dr. Langslow’s farm. They don’t look the same. They’re
     left over from another event. We could send someone for them.”
    “You mean the white duck costumes?” a second goose asked.
    “They always looked more like geese than ducks anyway,” the first goose said. “They’re still better than anything the Boy
     Scouts could whip up on this short notice.”
    “I’ve got a key to the farmhouse,” I said. “I’ll send someone to fetch six of the white goose costumes. If it’s okay with
     you.”
    The chief frowned. He didn’t like the idea, but he also knew how important the parade was to most