Chapter 9.

Saturday dawned crisp and clear-the sort of perfect spring morning that makes most people eager to leap out of bed and greet the day.

Of course most people hadn't spent several predawn hours pacing the nursery floor with wailing infants, and eventually driving doggedly up and down the road hoping the kids would fall asleep before their chauffeur did.

"Dad tells me some babies go through a phase when they won't sleep unless you're not just holding them but walking around with them," I reported over breakfast.

"Or driving them around the neighborhood," Michael added, with a yawn. "How long a phase?"

"I didn't ask. I wasn't sure we wanted to know."

Michael nodded.

"But he'll check them out today, just to make sure they're okay," I added.

Most of the time it was a blessing to have a highly qualified doctor willing and even eager to make a house call whenever I was worried about the boys' health. And the boys' arrival had reenergized Dad's interest in keeping up with new developments in pediatrics. I did hope the boys would take Dad's zeal in stride, as my sister, Pam, and I had, and not react as Rob had, by complaining that growing up he felt like a guinea pig.

"When did he have in mind?" Michael asked. "Remember, I'm taking the boys to Timmy's baseball game today."

"I thought his game was yesterday," I said. "I'm sure I remember taking him to participate in something that vaguely resembled baseball."

"Makeup game, remember?" Michael said.

"Oh, right," I said. "So today's the regularly scheduled game."

"Yes, so if your father's coming over specifically to see the boys-"

"He'll be out in the barn with the animals all day," I said. "Unless he gets sucked into the murder investigation again, but I doubt that. I gather there's not a lot of medical uncertainty about how Parker Blair died. So you can just take them out to the barn when convenient. And if you're cool with minding the boys, I'm going to catch up on all those overdue tasks from my notebook. Anything else on our agenda?"

"Only that your mother wanted to invite a few people to dinner, since Caroline and your grandfather are here."

"Our house or theirs?"

"She was a bit vague on the subject-"

"Which means she's planning to have it here." I winced at the thought.

"That's what I figured. So I convinced her that it was better to have it at their house, to avoid the possibility that your father and the other Corsicans would badger the dinner guests to adopt some of the animals."

"You are a genius," I said.

"Are we going now?" Timmy appeared in the doorway, dressed in his Red Sox uniform.

I'd let Michael deal with the fact that Timmy had put on his pants inside out and was wearing his cleats on the wrong feet.

"Shall I get Josh and Jamie ready?" I asked.

"I got them dressed while you were in the shower," he said. "And the diaper bag is waiting in the foyer."

Not for the first time, I gave thanks that Michael was not only capable of taking care of small children but absolutely matter-of-fact about doing it.

And we'd made it to another Saturday morning. Our usual weekend routine was for Michael to spend lots of time with the boys so I could have a little of what he liked to call "me time." I didn't always tell Michael what I did with my me time. He seemed to enjoy imagining me having massages, manicures, and facials before settling in the sunroom to eat bonbons and read a mystery cover to cover. And maybe one of these days I'd do a few of those things. To date, I'd spent my me time doing errands, catching up on neglected household chores, and napping. It was heavenly.

"Great," I said. "Call me if you need me."

I headed for my office in the barn. I had a few phone calls to make and e-mails to send before I started my errands.

Sending the e-mails took twice as long as it should, due to the distractions of a litter of puppies playing at my feet while a trio of kittens attempted to attack my fingers whenever I typed. I decided that unless I wanted people to think I was calling from the animal shelter-which come to think of it, I was-it would be easier to make the phone calls somewhere else. Anywhere else.

I left the barn, declining half a dozen requests for assistance as tactfully as possible, and strode outside.

I was just in time to wave good-bye as Michael finished stashing all three boys in the Twinmobile and drove off to Timmy's T-Ball game. I felt a brief pang of guilt that I'd left him to do it all by himself. But Michael made it look so easy that I sometimes forgot to volunteer help.

I'd pitch in later. Right now, I was running on too little sleep, and too many people were demanding things from me. I was beyond cranky and ready to take it out on someone. Not the boys, who were, as Rob was fond of saying, functioning as designed. But everyone else- A walk. That was what I needed. It was a beautiful, mild day, perfect for a nice, calming walk. Once I felt better, I could stop somewhere out of sight and hearing of the barn and make my calls with the cell phone before starting my errands.

I set off at a brisk pace.

Ever since Michael and I had moved into our house, I realized that the surrounding countryside was an incredible source of stress relief.

Not our yard. That was part of the stress. Our several acres were pocked with tiny, ramshackle sheds and outbuildings that would eventually have to be removed at great expense or repaired at even greater expense. Seeing Randall's workmen beginning to prepare the roof of the future macaw shed for reshingling didn't improve my mood, especially after one of them stared at the shed, shook his head and muttered, "Lipstick on a pig."

And the landscaping consisted mostly of overgrown shrubbery that had been there when we bought the house, plus a few bare, weedy areas where we'd succeeded in hacking away moribund bushes but hadn't yet filled the space with anything better. Rose Noire had started off with great plans for beautiful, maintenance-free plantings of deer-resistant native plants-which was why we'd hacked out the old bushes in the first place. But by the time we'd finished our first round of machete work, she was too immersed in her organic herb business to carry through with her plans.

Why couldn't Mother turn her attention to the exterior of the house instead of nagging us to redecorate inside? Even the pool, which had been such a delight last summer, was a source of stress at the moment-when I looked at it, I didn't see a relaxing haven or a convenient source of the exercise I needed to finish regaining my old shape. All I could think of was the need to fence it in before the twins began crawling.

But long-distance walks calmed me. Through Seth Early's pasture across the road, to the top of the hill where, surrounded by his placid, friendly sheep I could sit on a familiar rock outcropping and gaze down at our house. The distance seemed to soften the edges and help me forget all the chores that swarmed into my mind up close. Or down to Caerphilly Creek, to listen to the water babble and check on the eagles' nest.

Or when time was short, as it was now, I could walk just over the hill to commune with our llamas and gaze down on the edge of my parents' farm. Dad was letting Rose Noire use the field next to our property for her herbs, and had leased the rest of the fields to an organic farmer who was raising buffalo, belted Galloway cows, and free-range chickens. My spirits always rose when I gazed across the gently waving fields of herbs and saw the majestic bison peacefully grazing, or ambling slowly toward the creek. And it was April already, which meant that any day now we'd start seeing the buffalo calves. And surely by now some of Rose Noire's herbs would be beginning to bloom and perfume the hillside.

I reached the hilltop, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.

Then I opened my eyes, and instead of the majestic bison, I saw a pair of surveyors. One, wearing an orange safety vest and an orange hard hat, was holding up the stick while the other, in khaki with a white hard hat, was bending over and peering through the scope. The llamas, who were always fascinated by human activity, hovered nearby, two at each surveyor's elbow. Not for the first time, I wondered if we could possibly train the llamas to deal with trespassers. Not to hurt them, of course, just to loom menacingly and spit at them a few times until they left the premises.

I strode toward the trespassers.

"What are you doing here?" I said, when I got close enough. I cringed when I realized how much like my mother I sounded. Then again, sounding like Mother had its uses. Both men snapped to attention.

"You must be Ms. Harrison from corporate," Orange Hat said.

I wasn't about to tell a direct lie, but it occurred to me that they might be more forthcoming if they thought I was this Ms. Harrison. So I did my best to look corporate.

"I said, what are you doing here?" Faint accent on the "here," as if I had expected to find them somewhere else. And I tapped my foot in irritation. I didn't have to fake the irritation-they were trespassing.

"We already finished surveying the condo site down by the river," White Hat said. "We thought we'd get a head start on the golf course location."

"Golf course location?"

"See that run-down old farmhouse up there?" White Hat was pointing at our house. "That's the proposed clubhouse location."

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I wasn't sure which made me angrier, the fact that they'd just applied the word "run-down" to the house we'd spent so much money renovating, or that some corporation thought they could tear it down to build a clubhouse.

And you couldn't have a clubhouse without a golf course surrounding it, of course. I had no idea how large a golf course was, but I figured you'd probably need at least a hundred acres, and that meant they also had designs either on Mother and Dad's farm behind us or Seth Early's across the road. Maybe both. And I didn't think either property owner would take kindly to the idea of turning those acres of rich, prime farmland into a golf course.

"Ma'am? Are you all right?"

I'd counted well past ten and it hadn't helped much, so I opened my eyes and glared at the two of them.

"Get off my property," I said. I didn't raise my voice, but something in my tone made the surveyors flinch, and all the llamas took a step or two back.

"Ma'am?"

"That run-down old farmhouse is my home, and this is my land, and I want you to get the hell off my property," I said. "Go back and tell whoever sent you that they're wasting your time and their money. There's no way in hell we're selling our land to build a golf course, and they have a lot of nerve sending someone to survey the land before even asking us if we were interested in selling."

"But ma'am-" White Hat began.

"You are trespassing." I spoke as loudly and distinctly as I could.

"Hey, Meg!"

It was Rob, approaching rather more rapidly than his usual pace, no doubt because he was being pulled along by Tinkerbell, the wolfhound. I frowned at the interruption. I turned back to the two surveyors and was irritated to see that they looked relieved. I glared at them until Rob drew near.

"Hey!" Rob said, a little out of breath. "What's up?"

"You're just in time, counselor," I said.

Rob's eyes bugged out at the word "counselor," but he was smart enough not to say anything. Or maybe just too surprised to speak.

"These two gentlemen appear to be lost," I went on. "They're trying to survey some land where their employer is planning to build a golf course, and they wound up here by mistake. And they were just leaving."

"Look, lady-" White Hat began.

"Because they really don't want me to call the police and report them as trespassers," I said. "Much less set my dog on them."

I glanced at Tinkerbell, who was staring fixedly at them. Which probably meant one of them had some food in his pocket, or perhaps had wiped greasy hands on his work clothes at lunchtime-I'd already observed that Tinkerbell was a chowhound, not a watchdog. But the two of them didn't know her. They both looked anxious, and one of them took a half step backward.

"Look, lady, we're sorry." White Hat again. I pegged him for the senior member of their team. "We thought you knew about the project. That's what my boss said-that the mayor had informed the landowners whose property was affected, and we should go ahead and survey. But if that's wrong, we can come back later."

"Just how-" I began. And then I stopped. If the mayor was involved, then something sneaky was afoot.

I noticed that the llamas were creeping closer again. Apparently Tinkerbell's presence didn't bother them. Given her size, they probably just thought she was a new, rather odd-smelling llama.

"It's called eminent domain," Orange Hat said.

White Hat glared, as if he wished Orange Hat had kept quiet.

"I've heard of that," Rob said.

We all looked at him. From the looks on the surveyors' faces, they clearly didn't think much of my attorney's expertise.

"That's nice," I said. I wanted to add that I was relieved to know Dad hadn't paid all that money to a law school that would let him graduate without taking a single class in property law, but I held my tongue. No use showing the enemy that we had dissension in our ranks.

"I meant I heard a rumor the mayor was thinking of using it," Rob said. "I didn't hear where," he added quickly, with a glance at me.

"But eminent domain is the government seizing private property if it's in the public interest, right?" I asked.

Rob and the surveyors all nodded.

"Just how do condos and a golf course serve the public interest?" I said. "I thought eminent domain was mostly used to build roads and dams and such."

"Kelo v. City of New London," Rob blurted out. He had a look of pleased surprise on his face, as if he wasn't quite sure where the reference came from. "Went to the Supreme Court. They upheld taking someone's property for redevelopment that would increase the city revenues."

"Economic development," White Hat said. "Lot of jurisdictions are using eminent domain for that these days. Sorry, ma'am. Can we get on with our work?"

"No," I said. "Just because the mayor's thinking about doing something doesn't mean it's done. For one thing, we're not in town-we're in the county, and the town and the county don't always see eye to eye on everything."

In fact, the town and county were almost sure to disagree when it came to the subject of development.

But the mayor knew that. If he had some kind of sneaky plan to get around the county voters' longstanding passion for protecting the farmlands ...

"My boss isn't going to be happy about this," one of the surveyors said. "Can I have him call you to discuss this?"

"No," I said. "If he needs to discuss it with anyone, he can call my attorney."

They both glanced over at Rob.

"Not me," he said. "I'm just her brother. And not actively engaged in legal practice at the moment," he added hastily.

I had pulled my notebook out of my pocket and was scanning the pages where I kept useful names and numbers-specifically the several pages of lawyers who were either members of the Hollingsworths, Mother's vast extended family, or had gone to school with Mother, or were otherwise indebted to her. I found the name and number I was looking for and scribbled on a slip of paper.

"Here." I handed him the paper, and was gratified to see his eyes widen. Yes, someone who worked for a property development company might well have heard of Cousin Festus Hollingsworth.

"And just who shall I say will be calling him?" I asked.

White Hat fished in several pockets before finding a battered business card, and he had to borrow my pen to cross out his own name and add that of his boss.

"I guess we'll be going now," he said.

Rob, Tinkerbell, and I watched as the two surveyors trooped back to an SUV parked far enough down the road that I'd never have seen it from our house. Maybe there wasn't anything sinister in that. Maybe it was simply the most convenient spot to where they wanted to survey.

Then again ...

Tinkerbell whined slightly as they went and strained a little at the leash, causing the surveyors to glance back nervously over their shoulders. The llamas were following them, and to my great delight, just before they reached the fence, Groucho, the largest of the llamas, nailed White Hat with a gob of smelly green llama spit. Maybe they weren't such bad watch animals after all.

"Tinkerbell wouldn't really have attacked them, you know," Rob said when they were out of earshot.