then.'
'We can estimate closer than that even without the postmortem,' I said. 'I left the party at about ten, and I was talking to Benson about fifteen or twenty minutes before I left. Allowing about five minutes for the walk, he couldn't have gotten here much earlier than nine forty-five. And I'm sure you know what time I called 911.'
'Ten thirty-five,' the sheriff said. 'Ricky paged me as soon as he got the call.'
'See? That narrows it down to about forty-five minutes, from nine forty-five to ten thirty.'
'And your own notebook will back that up,' the sheriff said. 'What time was it when you started interrogating Meg here?'
'Ten forty-five,' Monty said, frowning.
'Are you sure?' the sheriff said. 'It's a good fifteen minutes from the station down here.'
'I wasn't at the station when I got the call,' Monty said. 'I was already heading this way to investigate a noise complaint about those damned cannons.'
'We have our time range, then,' the sheriff nodded, looking pleased with himself.
'Of course, we only have Ms. Langslow's word that Mr. Benson was still at the party at nine forty-five.'
'Ask around,' I said. 'If no one noticed my quarrel with him – '
'Quarrel? You had a quarrel with the deceased?'
'Yes, I had a quarrel with the deceased; so did several other people,' I said. 'The man was not well liked.'
'Another cousin, I suppose,' Monty said.
'Mr. Benson?' the sheriff said. 'No, he's no relation. In fact, he's not from around here.'
'Which means he's probably only been here about ten years or so, right?' Monty said, sounding a little resentful.
'More like ten hours,' I said. 'He came to town for a business meeting with my brother, Rob.'
'Now that's interesting,' Monty said.
I was afraid he'd think that.
Horace continued patiently scraping and sampling around my booth, like an ant in strange territory, examining every leaf, twig, and dirt clod on the off chance it might be edible. Meanwhile, Monty badgered me into describing every encounter I'd had with Roger Benson during the day. I already didn't like the way this was going. Although I was obviously still Monty's favorite suspect, he showed far too much interest in Rob, Faulk, and Tad. And also far too much interest in leering at my costume, to judge by the increasingly black looks he got from Michael.
The ambulance crew came and left with Benson. Even patient Cousin Horace was running out of forensic steam and still Monty continued questioning me.
'So, can you think of anyone else who might have a reason to dislike the deceased?' Monty said, finally. He stared intently at me, as if he suspected I was holding something back. Which I was. For the past half hour I'd been fighting the overwhelming urge to say that if disliking someone was reason for murder, Deputy Monty had better hire a bodyguard if he planned to stay in town much longer. Fortunately, Cousin Horace intervened.
'Mrs. Fenniman,' he said, glancing up as he scraped little bits of dirt into a plastic bag. 'I heard her say at the party that he was a no-good sneak thief, and someone should shoot him down like a rabid dog.'
'But he wasn't shot,' the sheriff said. 'And besides, I don't think Mrs. Fenniman even owns a gun.'
'I didn't say she did,' Horace said. 'But that's what she said.'
'She has her grandfather's Civil War sword,' Dad put in.
'But what does that matter if – '
'We'll put her down as having reason to dislike the deceased,' Monty interrupted, looking up from his notebook.
Monty finally let me change out of my costume, under the careful scrutiny of the waiting female officer. Cousin Horace produced evidence bags large enough to hold the dress, the stays, and all the other parts of my outfit.
'Is it okay if I take my laptop and my cash box with me, for safekeeping?' I asked.
'That depends,' Monty said. 'Where did you leave them?'
'In one of my storage cases,' I said, pointing. 'The padlocked one.'
The deputy looked at Cousin Horace, who shrugged.
'If it was in a locked case, why not?' he said. 'Anyway, we're all finished here.'
'Give me the key, then,' Monty said, holding out his hand.
I handed my keyring over, with the padlock key separated out from the rest, and watched in exasperation as he let it fall back into the bunch and proceeded to try five or six other keys, including several that any halfwit should have known weren't right. Did he really think Honda made padlocks?
'Ah, that's got it,' he said, when he finally got around to the right key. He removed the padlock and lifted up the lid of the case.
'I thought you wanted a computer and a cash box,' he said.
'I do,' I said.
'Nothing but birds in here.'
'Birds?'
I ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape and went to where I could look over his shoulder. Sure enough, the case he'd just opened was filled to the brim with pink wrought-iron flamingos.
'That's the wrong case,' I said.
'Only one with a padlock.'
I shoved past him, ignoring his protests, and began opening the other cases. Most were empty, their former contents used to stock my booth. But I found the case where I'd stowed the computer and the cash box. The computer was there. The cash box wasn't.
'They've taken my cash box,' I said.
'Nonsense, you're just looking in the wrong case,' Monty said.
But my cash box wasn't in any of the cases. It wasn't anywhere in the booth.
'Maybe you took it with you when you left the booth.'
'For heaven's sake, I know what I did with it,' I said, exasperated. 'I was going straight from the booth to Mrs. Waterston's party. Why on Earth would I lug along my cash box? I'm very sure I put it and the laptop in this case and padlocked the case to keep them safe till I got back.'
'Only you didn't padlock the case,' he said.
'Yes, I'm sure I did,' I said.
Monty crooked an eyebrow.
'Obviously someone came in, picked the padlock, took my cash box, and – of course! That would explain what happened to Mr. Benson!' I exclaimed. 'He interrupted a robbery in progress! The robber killed him, and was so rattled that he put the padlock on the wrong case.'
I thought it was a brilliant theory, but Monty looked unmoved.
'That's very interesting,' he said. 'We'll keep that in mind as we investigate.'
Yeah, sure you will, I thought.
'You ask me, the killer only took the money box to distract us,' Monty said. 'Whoever did it rifled the booth to make it look like a burglary and lucked out, finding you'd padlocked the wrong case. He took the cash box to make it look like a robbery, but not the computer.'
'And why not the computer?' I said. 'The cash box only had about a thousand dollars in it – '
'Must be nice to be rich enough not to miss a grand when you lose it,' Monty said.
'I didn't say I wouldn't miss it,' I said, gritting my teeth. 'As a matter of fact, if you don't find it, I'll be eating macaroni and cheese till Ground Hog Day. I meant that my laptop's worth at least twice that. Why would the killer take the cash box to cover up his motive and not a much more valuable laptop?'
