“You’re welcome,” I said. “Getting back to Karen—”

“As I said, I don’t think she had anything to do with the murder or the embezzlement, but she’s got a lot of explaining to do. Why didn’t she just turn in that thumb drive herself? And why did she hide from us?”

“She was going to turn it over to you—she asked me to at the accident scene,” I said. “But when she found Jasper’s body, she panicked. Knew he was in with some bad people, and she was afraid they’d come after her and her son. So she brought him to me for safekeeping. And she was probably afraid you’d suspect her of the murder, at least to begin with, so she hid until you’d have time to find the real culprit.”

“More likely she was expecting you to figure it out,” he grumbled. “If more people would talk to the police, we’d have a lot easier time solving crime around here. And you have no idea how much trouble you’ve been the last few days, popping in and out of that damned cockatiel farm every five minutes. Been a full-time job convincing the damned Feds that you’re not a drug smuggler, just a meddling busybody.”

“Sorry,” I said. “If I’d known you were taking Karen’s disappearance seriously and making the hunt for her a priority, maybe I’d have stayed out of it. I thought you suspected her of the murder. Now that I know what was going on that I didn’t see—well, I’m sorry I added to your stress.”

The chief snorted.

“Which is a good ways still short of promising you’ll never do it again,” he said. “Well, it all worked out in the end.” And then, as if annoyed with himself for unbending that far, he stomped off. Dad and Dr. Blake came in.

“Meg, what’s wrong?” Dad asked. “You look pale.”

“I think Chief Burke understands that Karen wasn’t involved in the embezzlement or the murder,” I said. “But I’m not sure about some of the other agencies.”

“I’m sure the chief will bring them around,” Dad said. Did he really think that, or was he just being optimistic?

“Don’t worry,” Dr. Blake said. “I’ve already called both those lawyers whose names you gave me. They’re on their way down to the station, and I’ll make sure they have Karen on the list of people they’re supposed to represent, if need be. Between the two of them, I’m sure they’ll sort all this out.”

“Speaking of sorting all this out,” I asked, “where did all those finches come from? There were only six here yesterday.”

“Well,” Dad said. “Last night we were right in the middle of stealing them—”

“Confiscating them,” Dr. Blake corrected.

“When a car drove up, and we thought it was Freddy coming home,” Dad went on. “It turned out to be Rob, bringing Ms. Hamilton home from the airport, but it still meant we had to cancel the mission for the evening. We thought we’d have to call it off entirely—it was heavy work, carrying those cages, more than we could handle at our ages.”