"Parker's missing earring!" he exclaimed. Then his face fell. "And another one just like it. Which is the real one?"

"They could both be Parker's," I said. "A lot of places still only sell earrings in pairs. Which is annoying for people who only wear one, I suppose, but at least if you lose one you've still got a spare."

"He wasn't wearing both of them the night he was murdered," the chief said. "He only has a hole in one ear."

"The earring that was ripped from Parker's ear should show traces of blood," Horace said. "And we can probably run DNA and prove that the blood is Parker's. Might even get some DNA from whoever ripped it out."

"And a fat lot of good that's going to do," the chief said. "Since it's been rattling around in these women's purses for heaven knows how long. And we won't even know if the earring that was ripped out was the one Ms. Dietz put into Ms. Forrest's purse or the one that was already there."

"She put both of them in," Vivian said.

"Did not! I only had the one!" Louise countered.

The chief looked at me. I shook my head.

"One earring, two," I said. "All I know is that I saw something sparkly fall into Vivian's purse. And who knows if this is their first round of earring planting or their twenty-first. It's hopeless."

The chief sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"Not hopeless," he said. "Just tedious. I'm betting one of them stole the spare earring from Mr. Blair's house-and locked you in the attic-as part of a plan to frame her rival, not knowing that her rival was already in possession of the real earring. We'll be checking their alibis, examining their clothes for blood spatter, looking for witnesses who might have seen them at your house or Mr. Blair's house, checking for their DNA in the truck cab, trying to prove that one or the other had access to a gun that could have fired the bullet. It'll be legwork and forensics that solves this. Tedious, but effective."

The elevator dinged. The deputies started to herd their charges in, and then had to step back as Francine Mann stepped off and then looked around in surprise.

"What is going on here?" She sounded startled and maybe a little scared. She was wearing a light, loose jacket at least two sizes too large for her slender frame, and with her shoulders hunched and her fists jammed in the oversized pockets, she looked curiously like a frightened young girl.

"Can we help you?" the chief asked.

"I think I'm supposed to be helping you." She straightened her shoulders and some of her usual quiet, competent manner returned. "I'm the night administrative supervisor-that means the duty staff call me if there's a problem."

She looked around and pursed her lips as if suggesting that the duty staff's call was more than a little overdue.

"I didn't call you," Vivian said. There was just a hint of insolence in her tone, as if Francine were the one person in the hallway she could talk back to with impunity. I remembered Francine saying that the medical staff resented her and undercut her at every chance. I'd thought she was being oversensitive, but judging from Vivian's manner, maybe she was right.

"No, you didn't." Francine studied Vivian for a few seconds before turning back to the chief. "I was driving home when Debbie Anne reached me on my cell phone to say that you needed a replacement for Vivian-I thought she'd been hurt. What is she being arrested for-is this about the murder?"

The chief frowned. He hated being interrogated.

"They're in handcuffs because they tried to scratch each other's eyes out," I said. "Long story-I can fill you in later if you like."

"At the moment, we need your help," the chief said. "We don't want to leave the floor unstaffed. I suppose Dr. Langslow can stay here until you can get a replacement for Ms. Forrest."

"There's no need to inconvenience Dr. Langslow," Francine said. "As soon as Debbie Anne reached me I called the first nurse on our roster. She should be here within half an hour if not sooner. And in the meantime, I'll go down and ask the ER to send someone up here to fill in."

"Please do," Dad said.

The elevator had disappeared during the confusion of Francine's arrival. The deputies had punched the button and were watching the floor indicator impatiently. Louise and Vivian were glaring at each other.

The elevator dinged again.

"You might want to take them down one at a time," I said. "Unless you fancy refereeing a cat fight in the elevator."

"Good suggestion," the chief said. "And Fred, call Debbie Anne. We need to get another deputy down here to take over guarding Dr. Blake."

"I thought one of them did it," Sammy said.

"Until we're sure one of them did it, and know which one," the chief said. "Sammy, you can do that after you're patched up."

The deputy guarding Louise ushered her into the elevator. He held the door for Francine. She took a step forward. Then she looked at Louise, paled, and stopped.

"I think I'll take the stairs," she said. "It's just as fast."

She trotted briskly down the hall in the direction of Grandfather's room. The deputies released the elevator door and it left.

"Yankee busybody," Vivian muttered. "As if she gave two pins if anything happened to me. I bet she didn't call the next nurse on the duty roster-just came down to see what was going on. She'll make the call from the stairwell and complain that the duty nurse took too long getting here."

I glanced down the hall to see if Francine had heard, but she was disappearing into the stairwell. Behind us, I heard a buzzing noise.

"Oh, dear," Dad said. "Your grandfather is ringing his call bell."

"I should go and see to him," Vivian said.

"Oh, what a great idea," I said. "Letting one of the people who might have assaulted him look in on him. And just when he's starting to regain consciousness and might be able to identify his assailant."

"I'll go," Dad said.

"I can just go down to the ER," Sammy said.

"Dad, stay here and patch up Sammy," I said, as I set off down the corridor. "Grandpa probably just wants to know what all the ruckus was. I'll call you if he needs anything."

"Right," Dad said. "Come here, Sammy. First we need to clean up that bite wound. You'd be amazed at how filthy the human mouth is."

Chapter 24.

When I reached his room, I found Grandfather lying back on his pillows with a thunderous scowl on his face. He was fiercely clutching the little gizmo containing the call button. Since it also housed the TV remote, his death grip was not only sounding the bell at the nurses' station nonstop, it had also turned on the set and was making it flip wildly through all the channels. The Tonight Show, The Simpsons, Nightline, David Letterman, a Japanese monster movie, professional wrestling, a music video, I Love Lucy, SpongeBob, and the Weather Channel flicked past in the time it took me to reach the bed. He'd also managed to jack the volume up to rock-concert level. Thank goodness for the buffer zone.

"Easy on that thing." I held out a hand for the gizmo. "Do you need a nurse? Or Dad?"

"I'm fine, dammit." He was shouting to be heard over Desi Arnaz and Madonna. "I need to know what the hell all that commotion was out there."

"The chief just arrested some suspects." I eased the call button unit out of his hand, turned off the TV, and hung the thing back on the side of the bed within easy reach. Blessed silence returned, or at least what passes for silence in a hospital-merely the quiet beeping of the three or four machines hooked up to Grandfather.

"Suspects? In my case or the murder?"

"Take your pick." I straightened his pillow. "We're pretty sure it's the same thing."

He nodded and closed his eyes. He seemed fine, but I decided to keep an eye on him for a little while. Dad would know where to find me when he finished with Sammy. And odds were Dad wouldn't dawdle now. He'd be eager to get back to the farm, so he could hang around the barn while the chief interrogated his two suspects.

I felt a small thrill of excitement and relief. It was nearly over.

The chief still had to figure out which of the two women had ripped the earring from Parker's ear. But I had every confidence that between his interrogation skills and Horace's forensic ones, they'd solve that problem before long.

Of course, all the town's thorny financial problems would remain. That would bother me a lot more tomorrow. Tonight, I just breathed a sigh of relief that the murder case was about to be solved. And maybe it was a good thing that neither our mayor nor our county manager had turned out to be killers.

I glanced at my watch. No matter how much of a hurry he was in, Dad would do his best patching up Sammy. That could take fifteen or twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour. I could still get home in time for Michael to get a decent night's sleep. But in the meantime, I'd make myself comfortable.

At least one of the hospital's decorating touches had a practical use. Beside the bed was a chair that looked reasonably comfortable. It even reclined-just the thing for worried family members keeping vigil. My room on the third floor had had one just like it, and in spite of his height, Michael had found it reasonably comfortable for napping, before and after the twins' arrival.

I tiptoed over to the chair, carefully set my purse on the floor beside it, and sank gratefully into the seat, ready to relax.

"Pffffffffft!"

The chair emitted a loud, prolonged noise that sounded for all the world as if an elephant had broken wind.

Startled, I bolted out of the chair.

"What the hell was that?"

I glanced down at my grandfather, who was glaring at me with one open eye.

"It wasn't me," I said. "It was the chair."

"Hmph!" He closed the eye again and settled back into his pillow.

I glared at the chair, and then gave it another try. Instead of slumping into the chair, I sat down slowly and carefully, easing my weight more gradually onto the seat.

"Pfffffffffff!"

This time, the farting noise was softer, but a lot more prolonged. Grandfather made a growling noise but didn't say anything.

I got up again and examined the chair. Had someone hidden a whoopee cushion in it? Rob liked that sort of thing, and I knew from the evidence of the little video camera that he'd been here. But there didn't appear to be any place to hide a whoopee cushion. A small crack in the faux leather was probably the culprit. The chair was making those annoying noises all on its own.

I tried sitting down again. This time I gripped the chair's arms and lowered my body with excruciating slowness. Even with the upper body and arm strength I had from my blacksmithing work it was a grueling process, but I congratulated myself that I'd eliminated nearly all the noise.

I was about ninety percent lowered when my grandfather spoke up.

"Just sit, dammit," he snapped. "Hell and damnation! It's like listening to someone torture a balloon."

I sat. But unless I sat perfectly still, the chair seat continued to make indecorous noises. It squeaked when I crossed my legs. It hissed when I leaned over slightly to see if Grandfather was asleep. Bending down to get something from my purse produced a miniature encore of the original breaking-wind noise. I gave up.

"If you're awake when Dad comes back, tell him I went down to the cafeteria," I said, softly enough that Grandfather wouldn't hear me if he was asleep.

"Hallelujah," he muttered.

I stopped outside his door to scribble a note for Dad and tuck it behind the metal room number plate on the door. Then I headed for the cafeteria, which was on the ground floor at the other end of the hospital. It probably wouldn't be serving hot food at this hour on Sunday night, but the vending machines would be working. And if I picked a booth that emitted unseemly squelching noises when I sat down, no one would care.

I had to turn on the lights when I arrived. The buffet section was empty and scrubbed so well it shone. But there was a large bank of vending machines. I decided on hot tea.

I settled back into a booth to drink it. I closed my eyes and took a few of the deep relaxing breaths I'd learned in yoga class. This was definitely one of those moments Rose Noire kept talking about, when instead of being bored and fretful, the wise person relaxed and turned what could be wasted moments into a relaxing mental haven. For once, there was no one here demanding anything of me-if you didn't count Dad asking me to cool my heels until he was ready to be chauffeured home. The boys were safely asleep, with enough milk stockpiled to feed them if Dad took longer than expected-always a strong possibility. No one was asking me to feed, groom, walk, or clean up after an animal. If she were here, Rose Noire would probably have attempted to lead me in a few restorative yoga poses, but thank God she wasn't, and I could enjoy this rare moment of total peace and quiet in my own way.

After about ten breaths, I opened my eyes and looked around for something to do.

I fished in my purse to find that once again the fat paperback mystery I'd been working on since the boys were two weeks old wasn't there. I'd probably left it on my bedside table. I'd been reading myself to sleep with the opening page of chapter three for the last week.

No book, but I did find Rob's little pocket video camera. I turned it on and began figuring out how to use it.

Not hard. Not that I expected it to be, since my mechanically inept brother seemed to have no difficulty using it.

I sipped my tea and started at the beginning of the camera's memory. Lots of pictures of Rob's feet. One long sequence showing the corner of the refrigerator while Rob and Rose Noire tried to figure out why the camera wasn't on. Their dialogue was muted, but audible in the silent, empty cafeteria.

"Wait a minute!" he said. "It's been on all the time! Great!"

"Do you know how you turned it on?" Rose Noire asked.

Apparently not, because the next sequence showed wildly gyrating scenery and an occasional glimpse of Rob's jeans-clad legs as he strolled along, swinging the camera in one hand, unaware that it was filming.

But after a while his camerawork improved. A sequence of Rose Noire trying to feed both boys at the same time really captured the insanity of life with twins. Though if I were Rose Noire, I'd have made him stop filming and help. I would have to confiscate the sequence of Josh, unwisely left diaperless, happily peeing into the air-and onto his nearby brother. It was cute, but I didn't want Rob sharing it with the immediate world on YouTube.

And then videos of the animals began to appear. Puppies frolicking on our living room rug. A trio of cats grooming themselves in unison like a feline precision drill team. A lot of footage of Tinkerbell, the wolfhound-I wouldn't be surprised at all if she became a permanent resident. And then some footage of the macaw.

The original macaw. I could see now that it was a completely different blue from the one we had now, a darker blue with overtones of gray and maybe a slight tinge of purple. I'd have to take Mother's word for it that this was Prussian blue.

Clearly Rob was amused by the macaw's blue language. I watched several scenes in which the bird swore like the proverbial sailor with Rob giggling in the background. In the first two, the camera jiggled in time with his laughter, but he soon learned the trick of setting it on a piece of furniture. This not only improved the quality of the video, it allowed Rob to get into the action, feeding straight lines to the macaw.

In one shot, I could hear Mother's voice in the background.

"Rob!" she exclaimed. "What in the world are you teaching that poor bird?"

"It's not my fault," Rob said, turning off-camera to look at her. "The bird already knew all that. Parker must have done it."

"Parker, Parker," Mother said. She was still off-camera, but I could almost see her shaking her head in gentle, sorrowful reproof.

The macaw echoed her, repeating Parker's name.

Wait a minute. The bird wasn't just echoing her. Parker's name appeared to have triggered something.

"Oh, Pahkeh," the bird said. "Oh, yes, Pahkeh. Ohhhhh! Pahkeh! YES!"

Rob dropped out of the picture, though his giggles could still be heard. Make that guffaws. Apparently he was so overcome with laughter that he had to roll on the floor. Mother presumably tsk-tsked and left the room, head high, pretending not to hear the macaw.

But the video kept rolling, and the macaw kept repeating Parker's name in what was clearly the heat of passion-and in a strong, nasal New England accent.