Stork Raving Mad: A Meg Langslow Mystery (A Meg Lanslow Mystery)

said.
    “Way,” I said. “Check the stuff Danny found. Bottom of the stack.”
    The three of them bent their heads over the photocopies. I settled back under the afghan and listened again to the rustling paper and their muted exclamations.
    “Fascinating,” Michael said at last. “And while normally I feel sorry for anyone who’s been bashed that badly by a reviewer, I can make an exception in Dr. Wright’s case.”
    “Yes,” Abe said. “Just because life spoiled her dream of an acting career doesn’t excuse her torturing drama students for the rest of her life.”
    “Inexcusable,” Michael said. “But at least now we understand why.”
    “By the way,” I said. “What’s the scoop on Kathy Borgstrom? The chief heard that she was expelled from the graduate drama program for plagiarism.”
    “She was,” Abe said. “The charges turned out to be unsubstantiated.”
    “The charges were phony,” Art put in. “It was a frame.”
    “We have always suspected it was,” Abe said. “And we might have been able to prove it if Dr. Wright had been willing to cooperate.”
    “We did cast enough doubt to allow her to work for the department,” Art said.
    “So she’s got even more reason to hate Dr. Wright,” I said.
    None of them said anything, so I gathered they agreed withme. And maybe they were wondering, just a little, if Kathy were guilty.
    “Should we be going?” Art said, after a while. “It’s 7:55.”
    “No wonder I’m so tired,” I muttered. I usually began the night’s tossing and turning at eight, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent so much of the day not only out of bed, but on my feet.
    “Yes,” Abe said. “The rehearsal starts in five minutes.”
    “We need to get seats near The Face,” Abe said.
    “Ramon’s saving us three at the front,” Michael said.
    “Go get ’em,” I murmured.
    I heard footsteps. I felt Michael kiss the top of my head and twitch the covers up a little. Then I faded into sleep.

Chapter 27
     
    I was dreaming that an army of people was crawling over the house, some of them cleaning it while others messed it up again so the cleaners wouldn’t run out of things to do, and all of them keeping me from sleeping. And just when I finally managed to lock myself in the hall bathroom, the doorbell began ringing over and over again.
    I woke up and answered the phone.
    “Meg?” It was Clarence Rutledge, Spike’s vet. “Did I wake you?”
    “What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting upright. “Is Spike all right?”
    “Spike’s fine,” he said. “You can send someone to bring him home again tomorrow.”
    “Damn,” I said. “I was hoping he’d require at least a week of hospitalization. What about Hawkeye?”
    “He isn’t fine yet, but he will be eventually,” Clarence said. “He’s a lucky dog. If Sammy and Horace hadn’t gotten him in so fast, and if your father hadn’t been around to help—well, all’s well that ends well.”
    “I just hope they catch the bastard who did it,” I said.
    “That’s why I was calling. Is the chief still there? I’ve takenthe DNA swab from Hawkeye and wanted to find out what to do with it.”
    “He’s out in the barn, watching the play,” I said. “You could leave a voice mail on his cell phone.”
    “Do you have the number?”
    I fished out my cell phone, looked up the chief’s number, gave it to Clarence, wished him a good night, and turned out the light again.
    Unfortunately, by this time I was wide awake.
    I tossed and turned for a while, worrying about Kathy, Danny, Ramon, and even the unlikable Bronwyn. And about the play. What was The Face thinking? Were Michael and his colleagues making any progress in the quest for secession?
    I finally decided that as long as I was up, I might as well go to the bathroom. I reached over to the bedside table for the flashlight I kept there. I’d gotten in the habit of using the flashlight to keep from waking up Michael every time I had to go to the bathroom in the night.
    It wasn’t on the bedside table. I turned the light on and looked again. No flashlight anywhere.
    Of course, now that I had the light on, I could just as easily have gone to the bathroom without the flashlight. Michael was still down at the rehearsal—probably wouldn’t come to bed for hours. But the lack of the flashlight bothered me. I could always just use the light and wake Michael. Or ask him to get me one when he came up to bed. We kept several downstairs in the