The Hen of the Baskervilles (21 page)

He strode over toward Vern, looking cranky. Dealing with lawyers, importunate or otherwise, often had that effect on him. I scrambled to catch up with Horace and Plunkett.

 

Chapter 23

Both Horace and Plunkett were out of sight by the time I left the fair office, so I was on my own. Randall and I had spent a good deal of time tramping through the nearby woods while debating how much of the fairgrounds to fence in. I remembered the dirt access road Plunkett had mentioned—Randall and I had crossed it a number of times and had debated whether to use it for direct access to the Midway—an idea we'd abandoned, not just because of the expense of upgrading it. We were also afraid that if we used it, Clay County would want to set up a second entrance gate, and we didn't trust them to give us an accurate account of the take.

I headed through the woods and eventually struck the dirt road—not much more than a trail, really. I turned right, since that was more or less the direction in which Plunkett had gestured. I guessed correctly. After a few minutes' walk, I spotted a flash of metallic red through the trees.

The Mazda. It was parked in a place where the woods drew back from the road far enough that you could park. Though if the gleaming little convertible had been mine I would never have parked it there, where it was almost sure to be scratched if another car tried to squeeze by on the left. In fact, I would never have driven it down the road in the first place, and I was a great deal less obsessed with pretty cars than most men I knew.

Deputy Plunkett was sitting on the trunk of the car, smoking a cigarette. Horace was nowhere to be seen.

“Where's Horace?” I asked.

“On his way, I guess.” Plunkett sounded annoyingly nonchalant. “He fell behind once we hit the woods. Not enough hustle.”

Fell behind! More likely Plunkett had deliberately lost him. I was opening my mouth to tell him what I thought of his actions, when I realized, from the look on his face that he already knew what I thought. And he was enjoying himself. Why give him the satisfaction?

He flicked his cigarette butt onto some leaves and leaned back, crossing his arms and making himself comfortable, watching me.

I strode over and ground his cigarette butt out with a little more force than necessary, all the while imagining his head under my heel. Then I looked at the dense woods around us. Clay County was mostly woods and swamp, and if Horace took the wrong direction, he could wander for hours. Days.

I wanted to yell at Plunkett. In fact, I wanted to hit him, and I don't just mean a girly little slap. I fantasized, just for a few moments, how satisfying it would feel to land a good, solid punch on his nose. I'm taller than most women, strong for my size due to my blacksmithing, and thanks to a few years of martial arts training and a childhood of sparring with hordes of rowdy cousins, I was no slouch at self-defense. Plunkett might be surprised how good a punch I could land. And I was sorely tempted to surprise him.

Just then I heard a faint shout in the distance. It sounded like someone yelling for help.

“Guard the car,” I said. “Don't touch it, don't drive it, and don't leave.”

It took me half an hour to locate Horace and lead him back to the Mazda. When I found him, he was babbling anxiously on his cell phone, apparently begging Debbie Ann to send search parties. I took the phone away from him and assured Debbie Ann that I could probably find our way back to the car and from there to civilization. Then I calmed Horace down, mainly by pointing out how much Plunkett would enjoy seeing him angry or upset. By the time we arrived back at the Mazda, he was calm, if a little grim.

“Get off the damned car,” was all he said to Plunkett.

Horace was still working on his examination of the car's exterior when Vern Shiffley showed up.

“Heard some of you folks got lost in the trackless forest,” Vern said.

I winced.

“I wasn't lost,” I said.

“Me neither,” Plunkett said, smirking.

“You were supposed to be guiding Horace, and you misplaced him,” Vern told Plunkett. “The way I see it that means you were as good as lost, too. I heard you were trying to hire yourself out as a hunting guide this fall. Anyone asks me for a recommendation, I'll steer them to Meg here instead.”

Plunkett glowered. Vern sauntered over to the car.

“I'm good by myself,” Horace said. “Thanks.”

“Not butting in unless you want me to,” Vern said. “Just watching. Always interesting, seeing an expert work.”

He patted Horace's shoulder, and I thought I heard him mutter, “Sorry.”

Horace nodded.

Plunkett ambled over so he could watch, too. I thought of heading back to the fair, but having successfully managed to find the car, and then Horace, and then the car again, I didn't want to risk spoiling my reputation as a fearless tracker, so I stayed put and after calling Michael to get an update on the boys, I found a vantage point from which I could watch the search.

Vern was pretty good at keeping out of Horace's way. Plunkett wasn't, but I had the feeling that annoying Horace—and the rest of us—was exactly what he wanted to accomplish. Horace wasn't rising to the bait, and I could tell that was spoiling Plunkett's good mood.

Horace was still working on the front seat and the two deputies were watching through the open back doors when suddenly—

“Ah-ah-choo!”

Deputy Plunkett sneezed vigorously all over the backseat of the car, without even bothering to cover his nose and mouth.

“Watch it, will you?” Vern said.

“You're contaminating my crime scene,” Horace complained. He was staring at the backseat of the car as if appalled at all the alien DNA that had just landed on it.

“Not to mention contaminating the rest of us,” Vern said. He had pulled out his handkerchief and was mopping his face—apparently Plunkett had spattered him as well. “Keep your germs to yourself.”

“It's not germs,” Plunkett said. “It's these damned chicken feathers.”

He held up one hand to display a couple of black-and-brown feathers, and then began shaking his hand as if trying to brush them off.

“Did those come from inside the car?” Vern asked.

Horace just closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Yup,” Plunkett said. “Right here in the backseat.”

“Vern, can you put them in this. Please.” Horace's voice was shaking slightly. He held out an evidence collection bag. “Collect them all and put them very carefully in this bag.”

“You think they have something to do with the murder?” Plunkett asked.

Horace made an untranslatable noise.

“Maybe the murder,” Vern said. “Maybe the chicken theft. Which could be related to the murder, for all we know. Let's not get careless.”

Plunkett shrugged. He tried to help with the feather gathering, but Vern shifted to put his body between Plunkett and the car. Plunkett shrugged and returned to leaning against the side of the car. Horace didn't take his eyes off what Vern was doing.

“Meg,” Horace said. “What color were the missing chickens?”

“The Russian Orloffs?” I said. “Black and brown. The rooster had long black tail feathers.”

Horace reached down with one gloved hand and picked up a long, curled black plume. We all stared at it for a few seconds.

“Do the Riordans raise chickens on that farm of theirs?” Vern asked.

“I know Molly doesn't,” I said. “But Brett hasn't been living there lately. He's been over at Genette's farm. I have no idea what livestock she raises.”

“Have the people who owned the missing chickens taken the cages home?” Horace asked.

“No, they've turned them into a shrine for the missing birds,” I said.

“Vern,” Horace said. “Can you hold down the fort here? Secure the car and arrange to have it towed back to town, to the impound lot? Or you could tow it as far as the fair gate and I'll get back here as soon as I can to finish up and go with it to the lot.” Vern nodded. He was already pulling out his cell phone to call his cousin who ran the local towing service.

“I need to go to the poultry barn.” Horace picked up the bag containing the feathers and trotted off down the road. I took off after him.

“What are you planning to do?” I asked when I caught up. Which I did fairly quickly—I had the longer stride and was in better shape.

“Identify these feathers.”

“Okay, I guessed that much,” I said. “Maybe I should have said ‘Where are you going?' Because this is the long way, you know. We could save time cutting through the woods.”

“I'd rather take the long way,”

“It'll take hours.” Okay, I was exaggerating, but only a little. “Follow me.”

He wasn't happy about it, but he didn't argue. After what Plunkett had done to him, I was flattered that Horace followed me into the woods, and didn't begrudge him his sigh of relief when we broke out of the trees again and spotted the pie and quilt barn dead ahead. Once inside the fairgrounds, he took the lead. We dived into the poultry tent and Horace almost danced with impatience as we shoved our way through the crowds until we reached the part of the tent where the Bonnevilles' chicken cages were.

“Here we are,” I said.

Behind the cages, almost invisible behind the huge black bows, were the Bonnevilles.

“Are these the cages that your stolen chickens occupied?” Horace asked.

“We're leaving them here as a memorial,” Mr. Bonneville said. Mrs. Bonneville just sniffled.

“There are feathers here,” Horace said. “Have any other chickens been in these cages?”

“No,” Mr. Bonneville said. “And no other chickens ever will. We plan to keep them as a shrine.”

“Awesome,” Horace said. He fished an evidence bag out of his pocket and reached for the door of the cage.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Bonneville cried. “Those few forlorn feathers are all we have left of Anton Chekhov and Anna Karenina.”

“Anton Chekhov?” Horace repeated. “Anna Karenina?”

“They're Russian Orloffs,” I explained. “Hence the Russian names. Horace is our crime scene technician,” I told the Bonnevilles. “If you want the feathers as keepsakes, Horace can return them after our investigation. But right now, he needs to collect them. Unless you have a problem with our borrowing the feathers to help our efforts to recover your missing chickens.”

Putting it that way quelled their objections, and they cooperated enthusiastically with Horace's attempts to pick the cages clean.

“Now,” Horace said, when he'd finished. “Do you recognize these feathers?”

He held up the evidence bag containing the feathers we'd collected in Brett's car.

“They're not the ones you just collected from Anton's cage?”

“We found these in another location,” Horace said.

The Bonnevilles waxed sentimental over the feathers, particularly the long tail feather. “It could be Anton's,” Mrs. Bonneville said. “It's just like his.” But they ultimately admitted that the most they could say was that there was nothing about the feathers to prove that they weren't from their Orloffs.

“This other chicken,” Horace said finally, pointing to the diminutive black-and-brown bird occupying the third cage.

“Agrippina Vaganova,” Mrs. Bonneville said.

“Is she related to the stolen ones?”

A simple yes or no would have been sufficed. Instead, the Bonneville treated us to a lengthy discourse on their breeding program. I could see that Horace's eyes were glazing over.

“Let me make sure I have this straight,” I said, finally, interrupting their explanations about chickens with strawberry-, cushion-, and walnut-shaped combs. “Agrippina is Anton's half-sister, and Anna Karenina is their aunt.”

The Bonnevilles nodded, and Mrs. Bonneville choked back a few more sobs. Agrippina, by contrast, seemed to be taking her possible bereavement with admirable stoicism.

Further questioning revealed that while Anton's and Agrippina's sire had been eaten by a fox a few months ago, their mothers—Anna Karenina's sisters or half-sisters, all with polysyllabic Russian names—were still presumably clucking and foraging with the rest of their free-range flock back at the Bonnevilles' farm, and could be made available for DNA comparison testing. Mr. Bonneville took to the notion of DNA testing with such enthusiasm that we had a hard time preventing him from setting out immediately to fetch his entire flock.

“I wouldn't want you to upset them right now,” Horace said. “After all, the DNA testing will only become necessary if there's any dispute over ownership of the missing birds after they're recovered.”

The phrase “after they're recovered” was definitely to the Bonnevilles' liking and we left them smiling for the first time since the fateful first night of the fair.

“Perhaps we should tell Mr. Twickenham to hold off for a bit,” I overheard Mrs. Bonneville saying to her husband as Horace and I left. “It does seem as if the fair management is making a reasonable effort.”

I made a mental note to ask the chief what Mr. Twickenham had wanted. Probably fodder for suing the Un-fair. I hoped not, but then again, if they tried, I would have the pleasure of saying “I told you so” to Randall, who had protested about spending the time and money to have an attorney draft all the release forms we had exhibitors sign. Not that the forms would keep the Bonnevilles from suing us, but they might at least make it harder for them to prevail in court.

“Do you really think we have a chance of recovering them?” I asked, when we'd left the tent.”

“No idea,” Horace said. “Except that we have a much better chance of recovering them now than we did before. There's only so far we can afford to go to investigate a chicken theft. It's not even grand larceny unless the birds are worth a hundred dollars apiece.”