My heart dropped to my stomach when I heard the news. The news itself didn’t surprise me, but darn I was disappointed in Hiram. There was no ignoring now that every time that man’s mouth flew open, a load of cocky doodle had spilled my way. I guess it hurt me that he could court me so hard yet not give me one whiff of trust or respect.
I was about to ask Hayley if Ma had said anything else about the chicken photos or the case when I noticed that her face had paled and her dark brown eyes, ringed in black mascara, had widened.
Hayley was looking past me, over my shoulder. A little sound like “oh” leaked out her lips. She turned and sped off, elbowing her way back into the middle of the crowd.
I yelled after her, but my cry was lost in Hiram’s speech, which was bellowing out across the crowd through a PA system.
A woman came to stand next to me. “You know that girl?” she asked. The woman was dressed in a navy-blue suit with white piping trim. She was wearing expensive dark sunglasses and white hose with matching navy-blue flats. Her black hair had a bit of wave to it, and some salt sprinkled here and there. It was cut shoulder-length, professional style. She took off her sunglasses and chewed on the earpiece. “That girl,” she repeated. “Do you know where she ran off to?”
“The one I was talking to?”
“Yes, of course.” The woman, who was on the petite side, was on her tiptoes, trying to see over me back into the crowd where Hayley had disappeared. As soon as the woman caught sight of Hayley sneaking behind the grandstand, she sprinted away after her.
Before I could register what had happened with Hayley, Veenie burst out of the crowd, her wings flapping. She fluttered one white wing toward the section under the shade trees where the oldsters and young beauty queens had set up two large circles of lawn chairs. In the middle of the lawn chair wagon train stood a booth where the Baptist ladies were hawking fresh-squeezed lemonade and homemade brownies.
At first I thought Veenie was dipping her wing at Helen Nierman, our nosy next-door neighbor. Helen was lurching around inside the lemonade booth barking out orders to her crew of middle school kids from the Sunbeams Bible Study class. The little tykes were busy squeezing lemons and icing cups as fast as they could. Helen was twirling her canes around like she meant to whack the tykes unless they picked up the pace. Jesus might not have approved of Helen’s stern management style, but the missionary fund was sure enough going to be richer by the time the festival closed down. Thank you, Helen.
Sweeping past Helen, my eyes landed on something more interesting: Kiki Shelton, Pam’s Cluckytown gal Friday. She was sitting in a lawn chair under a stand of maple trees, her legs crossed at the knee, swinging one foot impatiently. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse, baggy blue shorts, and movie-star sunglasses. Her long red ponytail was pulled to one side.
Veenie didn’t wait for me to comment. She fluffed her tail feathers and hopped toward the lawn chairs and Kiki. I hurried after her, jostling my elbows to crowd her out, hoping to get there first so I could squeeze some answers from Kiki about what was happening at Cluckytown now that Pam had passed on. I barely beat Veenie to the lawn chairs. Thankfully, she was out of breath on arrival, probably as hot as Hades under all those feathers and tight leotards.
I extended Kiki my hand along with a hearty congratulation. “Heard you’re running Cluckytown now.” (Not true, but hey, I wanted to get her gabbing before she had time to think.)
Kiki stared at my hand like it was a wiggly old spider. She pulled her side ponytail into her lap and petted on it like it was a lapdog. “I might be. I mean, with Pam gone, somebody had to step in and keep things upright. I have a college degree in business, you know.”
“Must be a big job,” I said, aiming to snag her by the ego. I pulled up an empty lawn chair and scooted over next to Kiki.
Luckily, Veenie was doubled over, still trying to catch her breath. Her face was red as a fireball candy, but I knew she’d pale up and be good to roar in a minute or two.
Kiki stared at Veenie. “Is Mrs. Goens going to be all right? I mean, the nurse aids from the community college are running a first aid station over behind the lemonade stand. Mrs. Goens is awful old, and like, well, she looks like she might be choking or dying, something awful like that. Shouldn’t we call someone?” Kiki slipped her sunshades down to the end of her nose to get a better fix on Veenie.
“Nah,” I said. “She’ll be fine in a minute or two.” Personally, I was in no rush for Veenie to get her wind back. She might light into Kiki, and then we’d be in a fix. I needed info, and to get that, I needed to keep Kiki on my sweet side. I moved things around swiftly in my brain, trying to formulate questions for Kiki. I took hold of Kiki’s arm and patted it gently. “Must be hard running Cluckytown all by yourself. I reckon Pam’s heirs are helping? When’s the auction?”
Veenie, who’d recovered and now sat spread-legged in the grass on her red-ruffled and feathered rear, threw in her two cents. “We checked with probate court. They got no will on file.”
Kiki slid her sunglasses back up her nose. “That’s because Mrs. Perkins didn’t, like, have a will. She had a trust.”
“Isn’t that a rich person’s doohickey?” Veenie asked.
Kiki leaned back in her lawn chair and flicked her long blue fingernails together. She sat up straight and crossed her ankles. “You don’t have to be rich. A trust is, well, like when the person puts everything into, well, like into a holding company. Like, the person becomes a company. Like the Pam Perkins Trust. Then, when said person dies, somebody steps in as the executor—think of them as the new CEO—and they, like, parcel out all the assets according to what the trust says. You don’t have to file in probate court. You get to keep the terms of the will secret. People make trusts mostly to keep nosey folks out of their business.” Kiki curled back her lips and smiled at Veenie. “Mrs. Perkins wasn’t all that fond of you, you know.”
“Hey,” Veenie objected, fluttering a wing, “Not like I toted her photo around in my wallet either.”
“So,” I jumped in, “Cluckytown will go up for auction? I bet that means a lot of extra work on your part.”
“No,” corrected Kiki. “No. New owners have already taken over.”
“It sold already?”
“No,” Kiki said, sounding like she was getting tired of all my nosey questions. “The loan guarantors took it over.”
“The First National Bank has taken over Cluckytown?”
“No. The Krupskys are running it. They held the second mortgage. Owned a majority share. They were in business with Mrs. Perkins, planning to expand into a free-range operation with her.”
My mouth fell open so wide a cow could have strolled in and I still would have had room left over for a good-sized bull—which was good, I reckoned, since Hiram had fed me nothing but BULL. Hiram had made a fool of me, and then some. He’d sent Pam to harass the Hortons by stealing their prize chickens, then kept those chickens to breed on his own. Now that Pam had her wings (or horns as the case might be), Hiram owned everything lock, stock, and barrel. And not a soul was left on this earth to stop him.
Veenie and I had been bamboozled by the best.
Chapter Thirty-One
Veenie looked equally flabbergasted. “You mean Hiram’s been lying to us right square to our faces? Dagnabbit, Ruby Jane, I told you that man is slipperier than a pocketful of pudding.”
Kiki frowned. “Hiram? He’s that really old guy, right? Granddaddy Krupsky? Phus’s daddy?”
“Course he is,” Veenie chirped. “He owns Kruspsky Enterprises. Whole kit and caboodle right down to the chicken feet.”
“Oh no, I don’t think so.” Kiki shook her head. “Phus owns the place. He and Pam told me so. Me and Phus have what you’d call a special working relationship. I’m, like, his business protégé. He promoted me to manager at Cluckytown soon as Pam kicked off.”
Hiram didn’t own Krupsky Enterprises? Phus owned it? My brain exploded like a pinball machine. Light
s flashed. Buzzers dinged. I asked Kiki, “Did you send that video of Veenie and Pam catfighting at Cluckytown to the Squealer? Phus ask you to do that?”
“Well, sure. Yeah, Phus asked me to do that.” She curled up the fingers on her right hand and inspected her long nails.
“Why’d he do that? Was he hoping to make Pam look bad?”
Kiki tugged at one side of her blouse, pulling the off-the-shoulder slope a bit higher. “I got more of an idea that it was Mrs. Goens who had him worried. He said something about Mrs. Goens being dangerous. He thought she ought to be reported, locked up even. And you know he’s not alone in that idea. My mom says the same thing. Been saying it for years.”
Kiki read the look on my face as trouble brewing. “Look, you can’t be telling anyone about Phus and me. Don’t be spreading gossip, okay? It was just, well, a silly old flirtation. It’s not like we love each other or anything. I mean, he’s kind of old, and chickens aren’t really my thing.” She flipped her ponytail. “But he’s real sweet. A gentleman, not like a lot of the men in these parts who think if they gift you a six pack and a Papa John’s pizza it buys them lifetime free admission to the fun park, if you get my drift.”
Having almost debauched myself for a box of chicken wings, I certainly did.
“Besides,” she continued, chewing a stick of gum, “Phus took me out to surf and turf dinners in Columbus. Business meetings. And he gave me this bracelet for no reason at all.”
She held out her hand, and dangled her jewelry under my nose. Then she continued bragging. “This bracelet is gold. Has all these cute, itsy-bitsy diamonds. It’s a diamond tennis bracelet, like the one Bruce Jenner gave Kris Kardashian, I mean back when they were an item, like, before he gave up his wiener and beans, and all.” Kiki flashed her wrist under my nose again.
I took hold of her skinny wrist and flipped the bracelet band. It was already turning her wrist green. The diamonds looked to be paste. Put to the test, I imagined those cutesy “diamonds” wouldn’t cut bubble gum.
Veenie whispered hoarsely to me, “That bracelet is as cheap as dog meat, and darn near as real.”
Kiki jerked her hand away and squealed. “Hey, I heard that!”
“Good,” Veenie croaked, “cause Ruby Jane there yanked me out of bed at the butt crack of dawn, and I’m too cranky and hoarse to repeat myself. Got to save my clucker for the big dance-off.” She stroked her throat, which pretty much looked like a chicken’s wattle.
“You have to excuse her,” I said, trying to stay in Kiki’s good graces long enough to get the full 411 on the Krupskys. “She didn’t drink her Geritol this morning.”
Kiki stood up and smoothed out her shorts. “I think you two should be going. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I should even be talking to you.” She nodded toward Veenie’s ankle. The blue ankle monitor blinked faintly through Veenie’s white leotards.
I was about to dig my heels in and ask Kiki more questions about Phus when the band struck up again. The music was so loud I could barely hear my own thoughts pinging in my brain.
On cue with the music, Veenie popped up off the grass and fluttered back to Dickie, who was waving her toward the center stage where the chicken dance competition would soon begin.
The opening ceremonies on the stage had come to an end. Gertie was standing up center stage, waving to the crowd like she’d just been crowned the queen of England, but Hiram was already off the platform. He came bursting through the crowd like a baby-blue super ball and took me roughly by the arm. “Me and you got some talking to do,” he growled.
Without waiting for my answer, Hiram steered me back behind the barn where things were much quieter, but also, I realized as I was being pushed along, where no one could possibly witness what might happen next between us.
I swallowed hard when I saw Willy waiting behind the barn, fiddling with the earbud in his right ear. His eyes were shielded by reflective sunglasses. He had his black hood pulled up and puckered around his face like he was trying to hide his features, even though it was almost noon and hot as blazes.
“You want me to take care of her, boss?”
“Yes,” said Hiram. “I sure do.”
I spun around to face Hiram. “What in the Sam Hill are you doing?”
“Dadgummit, woman, it’s for your own blasted good.”
I felt a beefy hand slide over my mouth, then another slid over my eyes. Something that smelled like fruity nail polish snaked up my nostrils. Next thing I knew, the world went as black as a pan of persimmon pudding.
Chapter Thirty-Two
When I came to, I was in the loft of Ma’s barn. I was laid out on a little bed made of stacked hay bales with a goose feather pillow rolled under my neck. I knew it was goose down from the smell and the quills that poked at my neck through the blue ticking. A whopping big industrial fan, the kind used to cool livestock, was bolted up in the rafters, whirling above me. My hands were tied together in front of me. My ankles were lashed together too, but I could sit up and look around. There wasn’t much to see.
My lips were sealed with duct tape, so I couldn’t talk, let alone yell. My brain pounded like a giant pebble against the inside of my skull. I could hear the dull roar of the festival crowd cheering and clapping outside, but the whirl of the overhead industrial fan muffled details of what was happening out by the center stage.
I flipped around in the hay, scattering bales as I rolled onto my side. I inchwormed my way to a crack of light in the barn board. Squinting, I could see out over the back of the barn. I spied the tractor graveyard where the used tires were piled in towers. Fergus was standing between two towers of tires, smoking. His lips were moving. It looked like he was mumbling to himself. At least that’s what I thought until I saw a fat, black blur erupt out the back barn door.
Willy.
My hip slipped on the hay and I slid down until I couldn’t see out the barn wall. It took me a minute or two to inchworm my way upright again. I braced myself in the slippery hay. My right kneecap ached, but I was determined to see what was happening. I leaned into the pain, grinding my teeth until my jaw ached.
Willy was dragging a blue tarp out the back door of the barn, across the wet grass. Fergus was pulling on the same tarp. The tarp was piled high with bags of chicken feed. No doubt about it, Willy and Fergus were stealing supplies from Ma and Peepaw. Hiram must have ordered them to pilfer what they could while everyone was distracted at the festival. Lord, that man had no decency.
I watched as Willy pushed and Fergus pulled the tarp loaded with stolen goods across the grass toward Hiram’s white limo. But they didn’t stop at the limo. They slid the goods toward an old van parked on the other side. The van was riddled with rust above the wheel wells and featured a badly faded mural of a desert scene on the outside. I could see Kentucky license plates on the front. Willy was from Kentucky, so I imagined the van had to be his ride. Working together, the two men managed to slide open the side door on the van and toss in the feed one bag at a time.
I wanted to yell at Fergus. I regretted not letting Veenie pop him with her BB pistol all those times she’d itched to get at him. I couldn’t yell at anyone though. My lips were stuck together. Each time I tried to part them I ended up with the taste of glue gumming up my teeth.
I heard the front barn door creak open, then close. I could still see Willy and Fergus out back, so I knew it wasn’t them. I heard hushed footsteps in the hay on the barn floor below me. I flipped over on my side and inchwormed my way toward the edge of the loft where I could see through a crack between boards.
Hayley stood in the barn below. She was bent over, her hands on her knees, breathing hard. I had to get her attention.
I inchwormed against the half wall that ringed the loft, and did my best to slam my body against the railing. Something cracked, and I hoped like heck it was the railing, not my back.
It worked; the body slam was hard enough to send hay and debris raining down on Haley. She looked up, her mouth still open
, gulping in air and hay. I mumbled as loud as I could and slammed the railing again. I was giving myself splinters, but I reckoned that might not be the worst of it by the time this case was done.
Hayley scrambled up the ladder into the loft. “Mrs. Waskom!” she cried. “What are you doing up here?”
If my lips had been able to move, I would have said something sassy like, “Oh, just lollygagging the day away,” but instead I mumbled and wheezed through my nose the best I could until Hayley crawled over and ripped off the duct tape.
“Ouch!” I screamed. I was pretty sure she’d ripped off my upper lip, and was relieved to discover that I could still make words after licking some of the glue gum off my teeth. “Hiram and Willy!” I gasped. “We’ve got to stop them.”
Hayley looked uncertain as to what to do, so I kicked into mom mode and yelled at her hoarsely to untie me. Mom mode worked. Hayley hopped to.
My hands freed, I was rubbing my raw wrists when the barn door below creaked open. The woman in the sunglasses and blue knit suit sauntered in. “Hayley Peters, you come out from hiding right now! You come out, you hear me!”
Hayley sighed, but rolled to the railing and peered over. “I’m coming, Mom,” she mumbled. “Give me a minute, okay?” And she began the climb down the ladder to her mother.
Once we were all down on the ground, it didn’t take long for Hayley and her mom to fill me in on their story.
Hayley’s mom, Brenda was her name, lit into her. “You had me worried half to death.”
“How’d you find me?” Hayley whined.
“Your cell phone,” Brenda said. “I put a trace on it through my account. You think I’d let you run around unchecked as wild as you’ve been lately?”
Chickenlandia Mystery Page 18
