The Hen of the Baskervilles (12 page)

Muriel Slattery, who ran the local diner, was a frequent medalist in the pie competition. I wasn't sure if it was only Muriel's pies that had inspired Denton to relocate to Caerphilly or if he also had designs on Muriel herself, but either way, mentioning her and her pies would ensure his attendance.

“So you just called to remind me to come to the fair?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Actually I wanted to see if something is doable before I try to talk Randall into hiring you to do it.” I explained about the chicken thefts, and the winemakers' theory that Genette was hiding the stolen animals on some property other than her vineyard.

“It's doable,” he said. “Assuming there's anything to find, how long it takes depends on how smart she's been about hiding her ownership. Let me do a little poking around pro bono. If she's stupid, I could find it with a couple of hours of checking online. If she's smart, or has smart lawyers, it could be more trouble than it's worth. Or at least more than I want to do pro bono and more than the county would want to pay for. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I appreciate it,” I said. “And so will Randall when I tell him.”

After I hung up I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. Just for a second. Would it really hurt if I took just a small nap? Or stole away to the llama booth to see what Michael and the boys were up to? Maybe I could collect the boys and we could all have a nap. Nothing like a nap to improve a person's mood, regardless of age.

My cell phone rang. The front gate needed more change.

Another call. The portapotties were getting low on toilet paper. A reporter from Richmond wanted a press pass. A farmer from Jetersville wanted to know if he was too late to enter his cattle in the competition. Another farmer from Vesuvius wanted directions to the fairgrounds. One of the pickle judges had indigestion and needed an antacid. Someone's prize sow had gone missing from the pig barn, which caused quite a bit of alarm until she turned up in the rodeo ring, where the high school kid who had raised her was about to compete in the teen calf-roping contest.

“Thank goodness we found her,” I said, as I watched the pig being led to safety.

“I wasn't too worried,” the pig barn volunteer said. “She's only a Chester White. A prize-winning Chester White, of course, but it's a common breed, so I didn't think it could be part of the rash of thefts of heritage breeds.”

“It's not a rash. Not here at the fair. Two bantams does not make a rash.”

“I didn't mean it that way.” He had started backing away.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just that we're a little sensitive about people thinking this is a fair problem. I've heard of several other people who have lost heritage animals from their own farms, long before we even thought of holding our fair.”

“True,” he said. “Been happening a lot over the last couple of years.”

“So it's a problem that followed the heritage breeds to the fair,” I said. “I wish we'd known in advance they were such big theft risks, but now that we do know, we've tightened security. We're determined that we won't lose any more animals, and we'll do our best to solve the theft of those two bantams.”

The volunteer nodded, but he was frowning, and visibly thinking hard about something.

“You know,” he said finally. “You say you wish you'd known they were a theft risk? I don't think most of
us
knew that until we got here and began comparing notes. I've been raising Tamworths for ten years now, and not long ago I started running a few Mulefoots. Most of us—heritage pig breeders, I mean—we're not trying to keep them to ourselves. We want the breeds to come back strong. We get excited if someone we know is a solid pig man—or woman—wants to buy some piglets and start raising our breed. Bigger gene pool's gonna benefit all of us. Someone wants to get started, we do our best to help them. Theft wasn't the big problem. Getting people to take us seriously was. But since I've been here I've been talking to people. Not just Tamworth and Mulefoot people or even Red Wattles and Gloucestershire Old Spot people, but cow and sheep and goat and poultry people. I don't think I've ever talked to so many heritage breed people at one time, and we're all realizing that theft's getting to be a much bigger problem for all of us.”

“And here we come along and create the biggest concentration of heritage breed animals the state has ever seen,” I said. “Talk about a target for whoever's doing the stealing.”

“Yeah, but you also created the biggest concentration of heritage breed
owners
we've ever had in the state,” he said. “Got us talking, and talking made us realize we have a problem. And isn't that the first step in dealing with it?”

With that he nodded, and strode off to help a ten- or twelve-year-old girl in a FFV t-shirt who was trying to steer a pig taller than she was into one of the pens in the barn.

Should I report what he'd said to the chief? As I headed back toward the llama booth, hoping to see the boys before they went down for their nap, I kept trying to decide. Then I spotted something: the morose man in the windbreaker—the one Mother had found so suspicious. He was once more standing by the bank of trash cans, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets, staring.

I strolled up and confronted him.

“Is there a reason you're always standing there, staring at the wine pavilion?” I asked.

He blinked and took a step back.

“Just wishing I was in there, showing my wines,” he said.

“You didn't register in time to get a booth?”

“Didn't try to get a booth.” He was looking down, apparently focused on his attempt to use the toe of one boot to knock dirt off the side of the other. “Lost my vineyard last year.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Of course, in a way, my vineyard's in the pavilion, even if I'm not,” he said. “Genette Sedgewick bought it after I went bust.”

Oh, dear.

“Another member of the Genette fan club,” I said aloud.

“Ha, ha.” It wasn't really a laugh. “I wouldn't have minded so much if it hadn't been her who sent me over the edge in the first place. We had a bad harvest last year, and a lot of us were scrambling to buy grapes so we could keep our production up.”

“You can do that?” I asked. “Sell wine made from grapes you didn't grow?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Lots of vineyards do. As long as you don't claim you grew them, you could have a winery without owning a single vine. Anyway, Genette was buying, too. She drove up the price for Virginia grapes so high that a lot of us couldn't afford them. Some people found a way to absorb the hit. Or maybe they're dying, too, just more slowly. I couldn't make enough wine to pay the mortgage.”

“Couldn't you buy grapes from someplace else?” I asked. “I hate to sound disloyal, but Virginia's not the only state that grows grapes.”

“State law says you can't have more than twenty-five percent out-of-state grapes and still call it a Virginia wine,” he said. “I bought as much out-of-state fruit as I could, made as much wine as I could, and sold it all for good prices. I have—had—a good reputation. But it wasn't enough.”

I nodded. He went back to kicking mud off his boots.

“So if you don't have a winery, why did you come to the fair?” I asked.

He looked up, frowning.

“I mean, why torture yourself?” I added.

He grimaced.

“I didn't realize it would be this bad.” He shook his head. “I thought it would be a good chance to see people, maybe find out if anyone's hiring. I've been mucking out cow barns at my brother-in-law's dairy farm up in Pennsylvania for six months now. Be nice to come back home. Work with grapes, even if they're not my grapes. But every time I try to work up my nerve to walk into that tent…”

He shook his head.

“I think I could do it if I didn't know she was in there,” he muttered.

“She isn't always,” I said. “Stay here and keep your eye on that door.” I pointed to the tent door farthest from Genette's booth. “My mother's in charge of the tent. I'll have her step outside and flutter a scarf the next time Genette takes off. Would that help?”

He looked up, a hopeful expression on his face.

“Yeah,” he said. “That would help a lot. Thanks.”

“By the way, what's your name?”

“Paul Morot. My vineyard was called Fickle Wind Winery.”

I nodded as if I recognized the name. Actually, it did sound familiar. If his winery had had a good reputation, odds were Mother had found his wine and served it. Even before we'd put her in charge of the wine pavilion, Mother had become an avid partisan of the Virginia wine industry—possibly because Dad had begun planting grapes and trying to make his own wine. So far Dad hadn't produced any truly spectacular wine—in fact, these days Rose Noire did a rather brisk business turning his failures into exotic herbal vinegars and selling them. But Mother was already looking forward to the day when she could serve Langslow Reserve to dinner guests and remark, with studied casualness, “Oh, yes—James won a medal with this one at the fair.”

So if Mother remembered Morot's vineyard, she'd be even more willing to help him infiltrate the tent in Ge-nette's absence.

Although to be honest, I hadn't asked his name so I could help him. Ever since meeting Genette, I'd had the uneasy feeling that something bad was going to happen. I'd have called it a premonition if I believed in them. In spite of all Rose Noire's arguments to the contrary, I remained convinced that a premonition was actually your subconscious adding up facts your conscious hadn't yet noticed, and coming to a conclusion that would turn out to be perfectly rational if you analyzed everything properly.

And if my subconscious thought that bad things were going to happen, I wasn't going to argue with it, because even my conscious self had seen enough to be worried. What if last night's mishaps were only the prelude?

I strode over to the wine pavilion and found Mother.

 

Chapter 15

“I checked out your lurker,” I said. “He's probably harmless.” I explained why Morot had been lurking, and as I suspected, Mother was eager to help.

“The poor man,” she said. “And yes, you have had his wine. He makes—made—a lovely Chardonnay, very buttery with a hint of apples. I'm sure you remember.”

Actually, I wasn't likely to. I liked wine, but when people started describing it as “crisp” or “buttery” or “robust,” or having hints of something-or-other, I just didn't get it. To me, wine was good, or bad, or okay, or maybe sometimes even fabulous, but buttery? Hints of apples?

“It was the white wine we served at Josh and Jamie's christening party,” Mother added.

“Oh, that,” I said. “Yes, that was nice. Very nice indeed. So he made that?”

“I shall definitely do what I can to help that poor man. Do you remember that lovely Merlot of his? The one with those ever-so-slight notes of chocolate and licorice.”

“Chocolate and licorice?” I didn't recall ever drinking a wine that tasted even ever so slightly of either flavor, much less both, and the idea sounded perfectly dreadful. Of course, the odds were if I'd had the merlot, I'd have just thought that it tasted like really good red wine. So I opted for tact. “Not really, but I'll take your word for it.”

I left the wine pavilion and headed back for the fair office. On the way, as I was passing the sheep barn, I noticed there was a crowd at the small exhibition ring nearby, so I strolled over to see what was up.

When I got closer, I realized that the crowd consisted almost entirely of teenagers. Most of them, boys and girls alike, were in t-shirts and jeans. Some of them were talking to each other or texting on cell phones. Some were flirting or arguing. Many were just standing there, looking down at their boots or sneakers.

What was odd was that every single one of them had his or her back to the show ring. The entire ring was lined three-deep on all four sides with teenagers who were studiously ignoring whatever was in it.

So of course I was dying of curiosity to see what they were ignoring.

The ring was surrounded on three sides by bleachers that provided a couple of rows of rough board seating. A few kids were perched there, but not many, probably because it was a little uncomfortable to sit on the bleachers with your back turned to the ring. I threaded my way through the crowd, saying hello to the occasional kid who knew me. I suppose I could have asked them what was up, but I was reluctant. After all, I was the deputy organizer—I was supposed to know what was going on.

So I when I reached the bleachers I climbed to the top row and peered over all the heads. As I watched, someone opened a gate on the far side and three sheep trotted into the ring.

Three of the nakedest sheep I'd ever seen.

Michael and I had lived across the road from Seth Early's sheep farm for years now, so I knew what sheep looked like at all stages of life, from fully fleeced to newly shorn. But I'd never seen Seth's sheep quite this closely shorn. These three sheep looked as if they'd been first shorn and then shaved. Their skins were very pale, but with a slight rosy flush to them, and surprisingly wrinkly in places. Like around the neck and at the top of the legs. As they trotted in formation around the ring, I found it fascinating to see how the skin around their legs wrinkled and smoothed in time with their steps. Amazing how long their legs were, and how slender they appeared without the heavy wool to conceal their real size. They looked … graceful. Not a word I'd ever previously thought of applying to sheep.

And yet, as these three trotted around the ring, with brisk steps and an alert manner, I kept feeling the impulse to avert my eyes. I wondered if the sheep found the sudden change from fleece to flesh disconcerting or liberating.