“How so?” Veenie asked.
“Pam’s death must be related to the ownership of Cluckytown. Hiram said she was in a heap of debt. That the bank was fixing to foreclose. But I’ve not seen or heard anything about that. The Hoosier Squealer is usually on top of hot gossip like that. If someone was set to inherit Cluckytown, that would be a powerful motive for murder.”
Hayley suggested we punch up the records for the Pawpaw County probate court. “Maybe they have a will or death settlement on file for Mrs. Perkins. The will would list all the inheritors and the executors responsible for making good on any debts.”
Hayley poked at my iPad. It only took her a minute to pull up the county records. A minute more and she glanced up my way. She ran both palms across her skunk stripes and sighed. “No will has been filed. Nothing official online.”
Sharon Smith was the IT records gal over at the courthouse. She was about my age and smart as an owl but also slow as a herd of elephants trudging uphill. Last time I’d needed paperwork from the courts, it took me three months and a special bribe visit with one of Ma’s raisin pies—Sharon’s favorite—to pry information out of her. If we relied on Sharon, this case might not be solved until Christmas. There could be a heap of dead bodies piled up by then.
Veenie dug through a kitchen drawer and popped the cap on a fresh bottle of Big Red. She waited for the fizz to die down before taking a chug. “We could ask Kiki Shelton, Chigger’s granddaughter. She was Pam’s gal Friday. Bet she’d know.”
I flashed on Kiki with her red side ponytail and blue nails as long and pointy as the Pope’s hat. She hadn’t been all that happy with Veenie and me last we’d chatted, but I reckoned that put her in the same category as most of Pawpaw County. I glanced at the kitchen wall clock. It was late—almost ten—past my bedtime, and way past closing time at Cluckytown. The festival opened tomorrow, and day one was a humdinger. The BBQ cook-off was in the morning, the chicken dance competition was at noon, and the day closed off with a BBQ chicken dinner. Kiki was single and young. I imagined she and her friends would be at the festival strutting around the midway in search of eligible young roosters.
I was about to voice this out loud when my cell phone, which was sitting on the kitchen table, lit up and jumped around. I flicked it on and read the email. It was from Boots, saying he had the chicken dinner tickets and would pick me up around five when he got off work. “Wear something nice?” he typed with a question mark.
I reckoned that meant he didn’t want me showing up looking like I’d fallen off a tractor on the way home from the back forty.
I texted him that Veenie and I were going to Chickenlandia early in the morning to work on our cases, so I’d meet him outside the chicken dinner tent at five. “Will wear one of my better gunny sacks,” I added, just to irk him a bit.
He texted back “smart” and a picture of a donkey’s backside.
Very romantic, per usual.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The old Impala coughed and clattered as I stomped the gas pedal, pushing her to climb the knobs. Fingers of sunlight were barely poking through the trees, the air still foggy with dew. With all the rain we’d had the last week, the day was sure to be a steamer.
Veenie was sitting next to me in the front seat, rubbing her eyes. She was dressed in her chicken dance outfit, her little chicken feet house slippers flapping up and down as the Impala jumped across potholes. “Why we got to go to the festival so early? The dance off ain’t until noon,” she whined.
“Quit your crabbing,” I said, flipping down the sun visor as I crested a hill. “We got snooping to do. Everybody will be at the festival, and I want to snag a good parking space up top. Plus, we need to show Ma and Peepaw my photos of Dewey and Ginger before all the brouhaha commences.”
Hayley popped up from the back seat. Her skunk hair was growing out fast. Veenie had loaned her some fancy hair gel and heavy-duty black eyeliner, so little Hayley looked a good bit like a sleepy-eyed Pepe Le Pew. “What makes you think everybody will be at the festival?”
I shot her a look in the rearview. “Because nothing exciting ever happens in this town. The festival is pretty much it, except for the Boy Scout’s fish fry, or if some fellow accidently hooks a whopper of a catfish. Hiram is the main festival sponsor, so he’ll be strutting around the midway sporting a sash. And I’ve got a basket of questions for that rascal. Kiki, Pam’s right-hand gal, will be there because she’s single and it’s a chance to kick up her heels with the boys. And then there’s all that BBQ chicken. Half the county would shove their mamas under a John Deere for a chance to sink their teeth into Gertie’s prize-winning poultry.”
Hayley looked puzzled. I reckoned she was used to a good bit more excitement in her day.
Veenie confirmed what I’d said. “RJ is dead right. We got to split up, go in pursuit of the suspects.” She turned in her seat to face me. “You reckon Willy will be there?”
“Might be,” I mused. “It’s a public event, and Hiram will be on parade. Seems he’d want to keep his muscle close by, just in case.”
Veenie squirmed in her seat. The ruffled feathers on her chest were fluttering in the strong wind rushing in the window of the Impala. A couple of small feathers had blown off the costume into her eyes. She sneezed.
“That outfit is a hoot,” I said. “I bet the judges really enjoy it.”
We were at the top of the knobs now. Ma and Pa’s main driveway was already crammed with pickups. Lots of folks had arrived early to set up their booths. A couple of 4-H kids in green windbreakers were standing in the field, white batons out, directing traffic. Another pair of 4-Hers were already manning the ticket booth.
I wheeled the Impala in and bumped across the field toward the rear of Ma and Peepaw’s barn. The Impala slipped and slid in the damp morning grass. The barn area was marked off with a yellow nylon rope and a line of orange safety cones. I spied Hiram’s white limo on the other side of the rope and gunned it that way. Fergus, chauffer’s cap on, shading his eyes in the crowning sun, was leaning back on the limo, smoking a cigarette. I stomped the brake and the Impala slid to a stop, its bumper nosed up to the rope. Veenie scrambled out, flapped her wings, and dragged a couple of orange cones and the nylon rope out of our way. She hopped back in, and I slid the Impala to a stop beside Hiram’s limo.
Veenie jumped out and chicken-strutted toward Fergus. By the time Hayley and I had caught up with Veenie, she and Fergus were at each other’s throats.
Fergus had taken off his chauffer’s cap and stuck it, folded, into the back pocket of his Levi’s. He was blowing smoke out his nose, snorting in the morning air like an old, curly-headed bull. Veenie was literally dancing around him, her tail feathers fanned out. Veenie did a couple of high cancan kicks, high enough to broadcast that she wore a feather-ruffled pair of red knickers. Things were going per usual between them.
Fergus snorted smoke and flicked ashes toward Veenie. “Pull your skirts down, woman. Whole town can see the Promised Land.”
“That’s the whole point, you old fool. People enjoy a right good show.” Veenie kicked her chicken feet out and did a two-step slide across the wet grass.
Fergus rolled his eyes. “You go ahead and put everything you got on the showroom floor, old lady. We’ll see who’s buying.”
Veenie wound up her wings and was fixing to light in on Fergus when Dickie Freeman came bounding across the field. He was dressed in a rooster costume. Veenie has fastened a splay of red feathers to a red IU baseball cap so Dickie’s rooster comb bounced as he hurried her way. Veenie had also sewn red sequins and white feathers onto a pair of red boxers. Underneath that, Dickie was wearing a pair of white leotards that matched Veenie’s leggings. He sparkled in the early morning light.
Fergus snorted as soon as he spied Dickie loping Veenie’s way, carrying his chicken feet house slippers smashed together in one hand. Dickie was sporting a pair of worn, lace-up leather boots, probably not wanting to get his fancy chicken feet d
irty in the wet grass and mud. Fergus took a long drag on his cigarette before coughing out, “Real men don’t have feathers on their ass.”
“Well,” Veenie growled as she hopped forward to lay one on Dickie. “At least he’s got an ass.” She patted Dickie’s behind and then glared at her ex-husband. “That thing you drag along behind you is so flat the whole town could watch movies on it.”
Fergus’s face flushed. Eyeing Dickie, he ground out his cigarette in the mud with the toe of his boot and stalked away. I could see that Fergus was headed to the back of the barn where Willy was standing, peering around the corner, throwing him a little wave. As soon as Willy saw me, he ducked back behind the barn.
Interesting.
I nudged Hayley, who seemed spellbound—horrified might be the more accurate term—by the full-on display of oldster love gone wrong. Poor little peep. I reckoned it would do her good to see something other than the sparkly Hollywood version of girl meets boy. Love could be messy, especially after a few decades of your heart wrestling with the less glamorous reality of it all—kids, child support, poverty, that sort of stuff.
I grabbed Hayley by the elbow and slapped my cell phone into the palm of her hand. “Go find Ma and Peepaw. Show them the pictures I took of Ginger and Dewey over at Krupskys. Ask them if they can make a positive ID. I got some weasels to chase,” I explained as I hotfooted it toward the back of the barn, not realizing at the time how dead-on that assessment would prove to be.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
By the time I cornered the barn, Fergus and Willy had vanished. I scrambled under a rusty, red Farmall tractor which was tangled in honeysuckle vines and emerged in the shade on the other side to face a wall of used tires.
Fergus had vamoosed, but something just as interesting came into focus between the cracks in the tire towers.
Hiram was standing in a pool of shade behind the barn with his son, Phus. Hiram was all decked out in his baby-blue leisure suit and high-heeled cowboy boots. He was wearing a red sash emblazoned with the word “sponsor.” Phus, who was a head taller than him, was in one of his expensive white suits with his blond peep hair fluffed up like a rooster’s comb. He was sporting a “sponsor” sash too. Neither of them looked all that happy.
Hiram said something like, “Why’d you have to drag that girl into this?”
Phus whined something like, “I’m allowed to have some fun.”
I tried to sneak closer to better hear what they were saying to each other—they were slinging words back and forth—when I felt a hand slam heavily down on my left shoulder. I peered up to see Willy, his reflector sunglasses shading his eyes, a black earpiece stuck in one ear. He was staring down at me. The muscles in the sides of his neck were bulged out in determination. His tiny, black toothbrush mustache was twitching.
Uh-oh.
Willy took hold of my shoulder and steered me out into the open. He pushed me forward through the tire stacks until he had me firmly planted between Phus and Hiram. He grunted. “Found this snooping over behind the trash pile, boss.”
Hiram smiled. “You looking for me?”
I threw him a smile just as wide and innocent. “Might be.”
Phus didn’t look altogether pleased to see me. I reckoned he saw me as an ongoing nuisance. I imagined him finding me snooping where I didn’t belong yesterday had not improved my standing. He heaved a heavy sigh and stuck his balled hands into his trouser pockets, throwing back the long tails on his white jacket.
Hiram dismissed his son with the instruction, “Go on. I’m not arguing with you anymore. Go do what I told you.”
As Phus tucked tail and disappeared around the corner of the barn, Hiram told Willy to release his grip on me.
I felt the fabric on my shirt shoulder loosen up, and then Willy was gone.
“He’s right handy to have around,” I said, nodding back over my shoulder to where Willy had been. I rubbed my shoulder, trying to bring the feeling back into where Willy had pinched the nerves.
Hiram’s watery, blue eyes drank me in. He seemed suspicious.
I decided to charge ahead, full steam, no messing around. Hiram had been around the barnyard a few times. No use treating him like a dopey kid. “Why’d you steal the Horton’s prize chickens, then lie to me?”
His silver eyebrows shot up. “What in tarnation are you talking about?”
“Ginger and Dewey. I found them in your breeding lab yesterday.”
“That’s news to me,” he said. “You sure it was them?”
I wasn’t one hundred percent certain, but I’d lay wages Hayley would get two thumbs-up from Ma and Peepaw as soon as they eyed the photos. “Positive,” I lied, deciding to push my luck.
“Well,” Hiram mused, stroking his chin, “it’s possible Pam planted them there, I reckon.”
“No,” I said, standing my ground. “Your computer system says you personally banded them before sending them to the breeding barn.”
“It does, does it?”
“Sure enough.”
We eyed each other, neither one giving an inch.
Hiram spoke at last. “How you know who banded them chickens?”
“Jo and Hira checked. They matched the numbers on the chicken’s bands to an order in the system. Order was put in by you. Said those chickens came special order from China.”
“I’m confused. You just told me you found Ma and Peepaw’s prize chickens. How’d they get to China and back?”
Even I was feeling confused now. I squared my shoulders. “I’d wager they never went to, or came from, China. I imagine you logged them in like that to hide their real identity.”
Hiram sniffed the air around me. “Have you been smoking giggle weed, gal?” His eyes narrowed. They were cold, squeezed up like ice cubes.
Frustrated, I decided to come at Hiram from another direction. “Willy is a murderer.”
“Says who?” Hiram pushed the cowboy hat far back on his head and stuck out his chest.
“His parole officer.”
Hiram’s chest fell. He looked surprised to hear that news. “I got no notion what you’re talking about. Nothing like that came up in his hire records. He’s Rhea Dawn’s big brother. She brought him up from Kentucky and sent him over to me. You sure about this?”
“Yep.” I took a step back. Hiram knew about Willy’s record. Hayley had those emails as proof. I didn’t take it as a good sign that he was hurling so many lies at me while not even breaking a sweat. I was starting to feel uncomfortable that we were standing there all alone, out of sight and earshot, behind the barn. I was relieved when I heard the band blowing out a practice tune nearby. A trumpet bellowed, followed by a drumroll.
Hiram held out his arm. “That’s my cue that the midway is about to open. I got a speech to make first thing to open this thing up to the public.”
When I didn’t respond, he offered the crook of his arm my way again. “Dagnabbit, take hold of my arm. I’ll escort you out.”
I reckoned I had no choice but to take hold of the man’s arm. I latched on and marched out proudly, the pair of us taking our place in front of the marching band, which was scrambling to assemble in an orderly pattern. I said “howdy” to some of the kids in the Knobby Waters Corn Huskers marching band as Hiram and I slid into place at the head of the assemblage. The band kids were wearing their giant red-and-white feather hats. They were lined up in their uniforms, which were also red and white, looking as cute as toy soldiers as they prepared to prance across the field to the main stage.
As the horns blew and drums rolled, Hiram and I marched forward toward the center stage. I spied Gertie sitting dead-on center of the stage, which was decorated in red, white, and blue, with Hayley’s dancing chicken billboard as a backdrop. Gertie was sitting up proud, wearing a new flower-print dress with a Peter Pan collar and elbow-length white gloves. Her sash and crown advertised her royal status. Her steely gray hair was piled up on her head in a tight little bun. Cute little banana curls bounced like springs
around her ears. Tinky Sue had clearly had a go at Gertie’s hair that morning.
I caught an eyeful of Veenie in her hen outfit standing in front of the stage arm in arm with Dickie, who made the cutest little red-headed rooster. She waved a wing my way. Dickie jumped up and down and waved my way too, his rooster comb flopping. He was wearing sunglasses, beaming like he was king of the barnyard.
Everybody lining the parade fairway looked happy. People were waving, blowing kisses, letting go of multicolored balloons. Everybody except for Boots. The sheriff was standing near the steps that led up onto the stage, booted feet wide apart, dressed in his full cop uniform and pointy hat. Sunglasses shaded his eyes. His sunburned face was twisted up as tight as a two-penny screw. He did not wave as Hiram and I marched by, but I swear I heard him grunt.
Hiram and I were almost to the stage when Hayley popped up in the crowd. She was waving my cell phone, mouthing something to me, but the band was cranked up full blast, belting out a marching tune. I stood on tiptoe, trying to peek over the crowd to see what Hayley was trying to show me, but Hiram yanked me back down, trying to keep me closer to his height.
As we marched up to the stage, Hiram had to let go of my arm to take hold of the high side steps festooned in red and blue tape that led up to the platform. My arm freed, I shot away through the crowd, trying to make my way back to Hayley. She’d looked mighty excited, and I was eager to hear what she’d discovered.
Chapter Thirty
I was darn near breathless by the time I pushed to Hayley’s side. Most of the crowd was pressing in the opposite direction, crowding toward the stage, hoping to hear what Hiram had to say.
Hayley grabbed me by an elbow and pulled me through the tangled crowd to her side. Once she had a hold on me, she pushed and elbowed to get us out of the noise and to the edge of the chaos. Pushing our way through the crowd, Hayley and I made it to the edge, where we could stand and talk. Words burst out of Hayley. “Ma says that’s definitely Ginger and Dewey in those pictures.” She handed back my cell phone.
Chickenlandia Mystery Page 17
