"May I help you?" His voice was brittle, but polite.

"I'm here for the plants." I braced myself for what I assumed would be a hostile reaction, but he only shrugged.

"Help yourself." He turned back to the bookcase.

It was only then that I noticed a cardboard moving box at his feet. I thought it unlikely that he was helping with the evacuation.

He glanced back and saw where I was looking.

"Yes, they fired me this morning," he said. "So it's fine with me if you haul away everything in the damned building. I don't even give a tinker's damn whether you're working for the county board or just scrounging for valuables for yourself. Not my problem anymore. Just wait till I pack a few personal items and you can have anything that's left."

"No, not your problem anymore," I said. "Of course, the rest of us will be dealing for years with what you've left behind." And so might he if the talk about taking legal action against him was more than hot air, but I didn't want to tip him off if he hadn't heard about it already.

"I didn't cause Caerphilly's problems," he said over his shoulder. He was running his finger along the spines of the books and occasionally plucking out one and dropping it into the box. "Cause them-I didn't even know about them when I took the job. I thought I was coming to a nice, quiet, affluent county where the biggest problem would be talking the farmers into installing a few more traffic lights. And by the time I found out-hah!"

I wasn't sure if that was a laugh or a snort. He finished with the bookcase and stepped over to the desk.

"No one blames you for causing the original financial problems," I said. "But you didn't do much to help solve them, either, did you? When you figured out how bad things were, why did you try to cover up instead of leveling with everyone?"

"Hah!" he said again. Definitely not what I'd call a laugh. "I thought the board was in on it. I assumed they wanted me to keep it hush-hush. It never occurred to me that every single one of them either couldn't read a spreadsheet or couldn't be bothered."

"So instead you went along with the mayor's plan," I said. "The mayor, and his developer friends, who've been trying to get around the county's antigrowth policies for decades."

He was putting a paperweight in the box. He stood up and looked at me for a few moments.

"Oh, that's right," he said softly. "Your property's one of the ones they'll be seizing."

"One of the ones they want," I said. "We'll see about the seizing."

"It's not personal, Mrs. Waterston," he said. "I know it feels that way to you, but I didn't steer the developers to your land."

"No, I'm sure the mayor did that," I said. "But you could have said, 'No, we can't do that.'"

"According to the legal advice Mayor Pruitt has received, we can," he said. "I didn't think it was reasonable to turn down a plan that would save the county just because a few people are inconvenienced by it. I had to put the welfare of the whole county first. You can see that, can't you?"

He was clever. He struck just the right tone-practical common sense tinged with a hint of regret for the inconvenience he was causing, and a strong suggestion that he was disappointed at my selfishness and obtuseness. For a few moments, I almost found myself buying into his point of view. Who were we to stand in the way of saving the county?

And then I shook free of the spell.

"What you're trying to do isn't saving the county," I said. "You're just trying to get the county out of a temporary financial bind. And to do it, you're willing to sell out to a bunch of developers who want to change the county in ways no one here wants."

He shook his head, smiled his bland smile, and was opening his mouth to speak again. I hastened to drown him out.

"I read up on that Supreme Court case," I said. "The one where they upheld the city's right to seize a woman's house so they could give her land to a developer. You know what's on the land where her house used to be? Nothing. It's a vacant lot now. Circumstances changed, the developer backed out, and now that city has a bunch of vacant lots that used to be people's homes."

"This is a completely different problem," he began.

"And we need a different solution," I said. "Not the one you and the mayor are trying to shove down our throats."

"You don't understand what we're going to do-" he began. And then he stopped and shriveled slightly, his already stooped shoulders hunching even more.

"What he's going to do," he said. "Not me and the mayor anymore. Just the mayor. He's the one who got all of you into this in the first place. Go yell at him."

I hadn't been yelling, but maybe he was expecting me to. The county board probably hadn't whispered when they'd fired him this morning.

"I'll be going up to the mayor's office as soon as I take that peace lily downstairs." I trundled the luggage cart over to the plant and hefted it. Not the giant mutant peace lily I'd been led to expect. It wasn't any bigger than the one they'd showed me on the sidewalk.

"That's all I need," I said.

He didn't answer. He had picked up a silver frame from his desk. It held a picture of him with Francine and a slightly younger version of the son who was on Timmy's T-Ball team. He was staring at it with a gloomy expression on his face.

I felt a momentary twinge of sympathy. Not for Mann, but for Francine, and maybe a little for the kid, who was one of the least bratty of Timmy's teammates. What happened to the boy if Francine decided not to move on with her husband when he found a new job? Or maybe when Mann decided that even without a new job he didn't want to stay in Caerphilly another minute?

Not my problem. I glanced around, saw no other plants, and began turning the luggage carrier around.

Mann slipped the silver frame into the box and strode toward the door.

"You can tell them to come up now," he said.

"Tell who?" I asked.

"Whoever the county's sending to inspect my boxes," he said. "I told them this morning I didn't want to take them until someone did that. I want proof that I didn't take anything but my own personal property."

He was standing in the doorway, glaring at me.

"Or is that your job?" he asked.

"No, I'm just here for the peace lily," I said. "But if you like, I'll see if I can find someone to take care of it for you."

He turned and strode off. I had a little trouble getting the luggage carrier over the doorsill, and by the time I got it out into the hall, the elevator had already gone.

"Jerk," I said to the closed doors. "You know how slow these elevators are. You could have held it."

Then again, did I really want to endure a long, slow, awkward elevator ride with the man who had helped the mayor in his plot to seize our home?

A man who just might be a prime suspect in Parker Blair's murder. The mayor wasn't the only one with a motive to stop Parker's investigation. After all, when his discoveries were made public, they had cost Terence Mann his job. What if he'd thought that killing Parker would keep them from coming to light? What if he was the one afraid the macaw's prattle would implicate him? In my eagerness to see our dishonest and obnoxious mayor brought down, was I overlooking the real culprit?

I pulled out my cell phone and called the chief.

"What now?" he said. "A dognapping? Or perhaps a hamster heist?"

"Terence Mann just finished packing his personal effects and wants someone to come and verify that he's only taking what belongs to him."

"And this is your business because...?"

"It isn't, but I was moving a county-owned plant out of his office and he decided to use me as the audience for his dramatic exit. He's left his box of personal effects, and for that matter, his whole office, wide open. I have no idea if the county board really did demand some kind of inspection of what he took-"

"More likely he just wants to cause someone extra work," the chief said.

"But just in case, I figure no one would complain if you did the inspection and made sure anything valuable or confidential was secure."

"And snoop around while I'm there?"

"If you don't want to, tell me who else I should call," I said. "I suppose your lack of interest means he isn't on your suspect list."

There was a silence. I could hear something. Footsteps on a hard surface. Someone saying, "Hello, chief." A truck engine roaring by. The chief was outdoors, apparently, and walking somewhere. It was probably a full thirty seconds before he spoke.

"Unfortunately for Mr. Mann, he doesn't have an alibi for the night of the murder. His wife was working at the hospital and he claims, not surprisingly, that he was home asleep in his bed."

"So he is a suspect."

"He hasn't been ruled out," the chief said. "As it happens, I'm already on my way to the town hall, so I'll drop in while I'm there. Are you still in the county manager's office?"

"No, I'm right outside the door."

"Stay put."

With that he hung up.

What did he mean by "stay put"? Was he merely ordering me to keep guard over the unlocked door? Or warning me not to go back into the office to snoop around?

Probably both.

I rolled the plant to the side, so someone getting off the elevator wouldn't run smack dab into it. I strolled over to the double doors and took a good long look. The first impression was that the office was suddenly empty. It wasn't, of course-it was still filled with furniture, lamps, drapes, hideous Pruitt oil paintings, and stacks and boxes of paper. The peace lily had only left a small vacancy on the credenza, and there were only a few empty spaces on the bookshelves. There were even files on the desk and papers in the in- and out-boxes. But it contained no personal touches at all, and it was very clear, even to the casual observer, that Terence Mann wasn't coming back.

Which probably meant that if he had any secrets, they weren't here. Or they looked, to the casual observer, like things it would be perfectly normal to pack.

My fingers itched to rummage through the two moving boxes, sitting so casually on the floor, one beside the desk and one by the bookcase.

But I didn't want the chief to catch me doing it. I felt as if I'd earned a measure of trust from him by not doing precisely that sort of thing.

I deliberately turned my back on the double doors and marched over to a nearby bench that gave me a good view of both the elevator door and the door to Terence Mann's office. Former office.

While I was waiting, I could check on Grandfather's condition. I pulled out my cell phone and hesitated. Should I call the hospital or Dad?

Probably less red tape if I called Dad. And his cell phone number was already on my speed dial list.

He answered in the middle of the second ring.

"Meg! You should see this!" he said.

"Hello to you, too," I said. "See what?"

"Caerphilly's new police station! Isn't it wonderful that we weren't doing anything else with our barn?"

Mother might not think it was so wonderful, since she had plans to convert the barn to a studio for her fledgling decorating business.

"Remember, it's only temporary, Dad," I said.

"We've got the chief's office set up in the tack room, and Debbie Anne's communications console in the first stall, and the fingerprint machine-"

"I'm looking forward to seeing it," I said. "Later. I just called to ask how Grandfather was."

He sighed.

"Stable," he said.

"Stable isn't good?"

"Stable isn't bad," he said. "All his signs are very good, actually. I'd just be a lot more comfortable if he regained consciousness. The longer he's unconscious the more concerned I become."

"Should I go over and visit him?" I asked. "On the theory that on some level unconscious patients can still hear what we say to them?"

"Yes, please do," Dad said. "I've been running in every time I go to town to fetch another load from the police station, but it might help if more of us did that. Reassure him that everything's going just fine."

Just then the elevator dinged.

"Actually," I said, "I thought I'd tell him to hurry up and get well so he can keep the mayor from seizing all the animals and exterminating them. If you ask me that's a lot more likely to jump-start him than telling him everything's fine."

"But Meg-" he began.

"Gotta run," I said, as the chief stepped off the elevator. "I'll let you know later how my plan works."

Horace followed the chief off the elevator. The two of them glanced at me. Horace waved. The chief nodded, as if to dismiss me. Horace stuck his hand into the doorway to hold the elevator.

I can take a hint. I shoved the cell phone back in my pocket, reclaimed the peace lily, and trundled it onto the elevator.

"Thanks," I said as the elevator door slowly closed. "Have fun."

Back on the sidewalk, the ladies treated me like a conquering hero, and fussed over the plant as if they suspected Terence Mann of dousing it with Roundup and boiling water.

"What took you so long?" the lady with the clipboard asked. "We were frantic with worry!"

"I was just having a little talk with our former county manager," I said.

"Former!" several garden ladies exclaimed. Apparently this morning's board action wasn't yet widely known. The ladies began coagulating into small groups on the sidewalk, voicing their vehement approval, discussing the significance of Mann's departure, and hotly debating what the county's next move should be. A posse of overalls-clad Shiffleys lugging file cabinets put down their loads to join in the discussion. Participatory democracy at work. Good. The county needed more of that.

I folded up the luggage carrier and marched back into the town hall to confront the mayor.

Chapter 21.