Rust in Peace (A Giovanna Ferrari Repair-it-all Mystery Book 1)

by J. J. Murray

  Helen brings me my meal, the buffalo burger still sizzling. She winks at me and leaves.

  Owen stands. “It’s on the house.”

  “And that’s another reason your wife doesn’t like me,” I say, adding pepper to my buffalo chips. “Your generosity to me is costing her baby clothes and diapers.”

  “Think about the mill, okay?”

  My phone rings, and I dig it out of my pocket. “Hello?”

  “Gio, it’s Fernando.”

  My heartbeat increases. Fernando Flores, hot Latino ranch hand at The Hemmingsford Buffalo Farm. “Hola, Fernando.”

  “Gio,” Fernando says, “I think Big John broke the scale.”

  Big John is the buffalo farm’s only bull, and he weighs more than a ton. “I’ll be right there, Fernando.” I end the call. “Gotta go, Owen. Could you get Helen to box this up for me?”

  “Sure.” He motions to Helen. “Giovanna needs a to-go box.”

  Helen pulls a Styrofoam container from under the counter and brings it to me. I slide my lunch into it, close it, stand, and throw a twenty on the table.

  “I told you it was on the house,” Owen says.

  “Put in your child’s college fund,” I say.

  He takes the twenty. “What’s broken now?”

  “Fernando thinks Big John might have broken the scale.”

  “Because they weigh those bison too often.”

  Owen is trying to bait me into an argument. I know the proper term is “bison,” but “buffalo” is in the name of the farm. “They have to weigh their buffalo often. If they’re not gaining weight, they won’t make a profit.”

  “Surprised those bison aren’t losing weight in this heat,” Owen says. “You know they’re charging me nine bucks a pound now.”

  “For your buffalo burgers.”

  “They’re bison.”

  “Then why not call them ‘bison burgers’ in your menu?”

  Owen sighs. “You remember when my daddy did that, and we didn’t sell as many.”

  “Surprised you sell any at all at eleven bucks for a quarter-pound burger,” I say. “You’re making thirty-five bucks’ profit for every pound of meat.”

  “But you’re not taking into account the toppings, the condiments, the staff, my electric bill, property taxes, insurance …”

  Your pregnant wife, your future child, your child’s education, your new and boring Chrysler Town and Country parked outside. “I gotta go.”

  “When you get a minute sometime, I’ll take you on a walk-through of the mill so you can let me know what you think we’ll need.”

  I suck down the rest of my lemonade. “Owen, you need a steady water supply filling your millpond to make that waterwheel turn again.”

  “There will be plenty of water, Gio.”

  “When? It’s so shallow now that when you skip rocks, the rocks skip on rocks instead of on water.”

  “You were always so good at skipping rocks.”

  And you were always so good at skipping the country with my heart. “The buffalo scale awaits.” I pick up my to-go box.

  “Promise me you’ll think about it.”

  “I will.” I smile. “And unlike you, I always keep my promises.”

  I walk briskly out of The Swinging Bridge and into the heat.

  That man frustrates me so much! If he had come back without Kimiko, I know I would have swept him off his feet, and we’d be listening to buffalo snorting, Lovie snoring, and bears playing volleyball with my trashcan long into the night.

  It’s too bad I can’t repair or fix men.

  But there’s always Fernando …

  Chapter 6

  Highway 17 has to be the straightest road in Virginia because it used to be a rail bed. The Hemmingsford Buffalo Farm starts at my cabin, cuts through a slice of West Virginia, and returns to Virginia for another quarter mile.

  I slow as I pass the cabin and honk my horn.

  Lovie dashes to the end of the swing bridge with a gopher snake in her mouth.

  I hope we never run out of critters for her to play with.

  I pass a former train station turned hotel turned family home, a large bass pond surrounded by cat-o-nine-tails in front. Owen and I used to fish that pond while swatting dragonflies and looking out for muskrats and my mama …

  A thousand feet into West Virginia, I turn up an old cart path and pull beside one of the buffalo farm’s Toyota Tundra’s, a green Circle D trailer behind it with its ramp down. I look at the massive red barn that functions as the handling station for the herd. The barn contains stalls and chutes I helped design, weld, and reinforce for buffalo who don’t like to be confined. If you pen up a buffalo for too long, it will die. Buffalo need wide, open spaces to flourish. Twice a year, ranch hands walk the buffalo into the squeeze chute to weigh, tag, or inoculate them.

  I get out and see Big John locked in place by the squeeze chute. He doesn’t look too happy, but you wouldn’t be too happy if cold metal held you hydraulically in place.

  I walk into the dark, musty barn and see Fernando shaking his head and fiddling with buttons on the control board. Fernando’s jeans, though stained and torn, grip his legs like, well, like I want to grip them. His tan is as brown as his boots and cowboy hat, his muscles rippling under his long-sleeved brown T-shirt. If it weren’t for his permanent scowl, he would have the face of an angel.

  “Ciao, Big John,” I say, petting his shaggy face. “Come stai? Sei così pelosa e calda.”

  Big John turns his head to me and sniffs my shirt. He snorts and sneezes.

  I forgot about Dodie’s cookies! I take them from my shirt pocket and shove them into my front pants pocket. “Sorry, Big John.”

  Fernando leaves the control board but moves no closer to Big John. “I will never understand how you can do that.”

  Fernando has such a sexy accent, but I can out-sexy him. “Speak Italian to him?”

  “Pet him,” Fernando says. “He is a dangerous animal.”

  Big John certainly looks dangerous. His horns are at least two feet long, and three feet of air separate them. “He’s only a big baby, Fernando. What is he now, fifteen?”

  “He is sixteen, and he is not a baby. A baby did not break my hand and two ribs. A baby did not break Luis’s leg. A baby did not pick up my truck with his horn and spin it around. A baby did not wear an eight-hundred-pound bale of hay on his head like a hat. A baby did not break three-inch pipe with his neck. A baby did not jump a seven-foot fence to run thirty-five miles an hour for two miles down the road.”

  The “runaway buffalo incident” made the front page of the Current. “So Big John likes to play rough. It’s because you don’t talk nicely to him. He needs to hear kindness in your voice.”

  “He is an animal,” Fernando says. “He does not understand a word I say.”

  “You don’t know that.” I rub Big John’s snout. “You’re just a big baby, Big John.”

  “I cannot wait until he goes to the taxidermist.”

  I frown. “Don’t say that. Big John’s listening.”

  Fernando hitches up his pants and puts on heavy leather gloves. “When he dies, the Hemmingsfords are having him stuffed.”

  “But he’s your only bull,” I say.

  “Oh, he will live another nine or ten years,” Fernando says. “As long as he keeps his teeth.”

  “Why would Big John lose any teeth?” I ask. “He eats grass.”

  “This drought is lowering the grass to the ground where there is dirt, sand, and rocks,” Fernando says. “They wear down a buffalo’s teeth over time. If he loses his teeth, he loses his life.”

  “Send him to the dentist then,” I say.

  “There are no buffalo dentists, Gio,” Fernando says. “Big John will soon be your neighbor. We are rotating the fields.”

  “Why do you do that so often?” I ask.

  “To beat the parasites,” he says. “Forty-five days is the limit for any field.”

  “But I have heifers an
d calves in my field now. The grass is already low.”

  “You will see why we are moving him. Reset the scale.”

  I move toward the control panel, hit the reset button, and watch as green numbers appear on an LCD screen hanging from an eave. “Twenty-eight hundred and two pounds. It seems to be working fine, Fernando.”

  “Big John should not weigh this much, Gio.”

  “This scale is accurate to within ten pounds.”

  “Gio, if Big John weighs this much, he is the heaviest buffalo in the world,” Fernando says. “The old world record was twenty-four hundred pounds.”

  I pat Big John’s side, plumes of dirt rising into the air. “You hear that, Big John? You’re a world-record holder.”

  “Gio, when we weighed him a year ago, he weighed only twenty-three hundred pounds,” Fernando says. “He gained five hundred pounds in one year. We have to put him on a diet. That is why we are moving him to the field next to you. He will have to work to eat.”

  “There are plenty of veggies for you there, Big John.”

  “He is supposed to eat one hundred pounds of grass a day, but he is eating closer to one hundred and fifty pounds a day,” Fernando says. “He does not seem interested in the females like he used to, so he eats.”

  “But you keep him separated from them,” I say. “How can he show any interest when he doesn’t see them?”

  “You were not there at breeding time,” Fernando says. “We could tell he was not interested. And when it comes time to breed again, he will be too heavy for them. The heifers only weigh eleven hundred pounds at most.”

  A seventeen hundred pound difference. “Maybe he’s depressed.”

  “Buffalo do not get depressed,” Fernando says.

  “I eat more when I’m depressed.”

  Fernando tips up his hat. “You must not be depressed now.”

  I smile. “Are you flirting with me, Fernando?”

  Fernando’s eyes widen. “No.”

  “Thank you for the compliment anyway,” I say. “But if I didn’t have any calls for repairs today, I’d be home eating ice cream.” Please make the connection, Fernando. I want you to say, “So you are depressed?” in that sexy accent of yours, and I will say, “Oh yes, because I am so lonely for a strong man like you,” and then you will ask me—

  “Mr. Hemmingsford says Big John is eating a lot now because he knows the drought will last a long time.”

  Fernando did not make the connection.

  “The only decent grass for the heifers and calves is down by Gray Creek,” he says, “and Gray Creek is drying up.”

  “Motts Creek isn’t much better,” I say. “The water’s so low the fish are getting sunburned.”

  “Fish do not get sunburned.”

  “Sure they do. Ever been to the trout hatchery?”

  “I am too busy.”

  “If a trout’s fins are above the waterline too long, he gets sunburned. The hatchery workers have to add sunblock to the water.”

  “You are pulling my leg, Gio.”

  I’d like to pull your legs and the rest of you into those big hay bales over there …

  “I am sure you have better things to do,” he says.

  Involving you and hay? Yes. “Not really.”

  Fernando releases Big John from the squeeze chute and gives him a wide berth as Big John moves through the fencing toward Fernando’s truck. “Go to the truck.”

  Big John snorts.

  I stand on the scale. “What’s it say, Fernando?”

  “One hundred thirty-five.”

  One hundred and thirty-five! I leap off the scale. “You’re right, Fernando. The scale is wrong. It’s fifteen pounds off. I wear heavy boots, you know.”

  Fernando seems to smile. “You look fine.”

  I move closer to him. “You knew the scale wasn’t broken, didn’t you, Fernando?”

  “I was not sure,” he says. “Five hundred pounds is a lot for a bull to add in one year.”

  I inch closer to him. “You didn’t call me so you could see me, did you?”

  “I called you to make sure the scale was working.”

  If I move any closer, I will be inside his shirt. “You can call me other times, too.” I put my hand on his chest. “If you want to talk.” Look at those soft brown eyes, that dark, curly hair, those nice smooth, rippling—

  “I have a wife and daughter in El Salvador.”

  “Oh.” I remove my hand and jam it into my front pocket.

  “I am sorry, Gio,” he says. “That was rude, even for me.”

  I drift back a step. “It’s okay. I didn’t see you wearing a ring, so I thought …”

  “We could not afford rings,” he says.

  I nod and examine the dirt. “Well, it’s good to know you have your priorities in order.”

  “You are a very beautiful woman, Gio. I still do not understand why you are not married.”

  That makes two of us.

  “If I were not married, I would ask you out for ice cream so you do not eat ice cream alone at your cabin because you are depressed.”

  He did understand. I knew he was a sharp man. “Thank you. I’ll bet you miss your family.”

  “Very much. One day I will bring them up here to stay. I only need a bigger place. I am saving money, but it is not enough yet. I am sorry to bring you out here on such a hot day.”

  “Oh, it was a nice day for a drive.”

  “What do we owe you?”

  “You already paid me with several compliments.”

  Fernando smiles, and it is a beautiful smile. “I will tell Mr. Hemmingsford you were out here for an hour.”

  “I was only out here twenty minutes, so don’t bother. And I only get paid when I fix something.” And I only seem to get compliments from married men these days. “Need help getting Big John into the trailer?”

  “I will manage.”

  I walk along the metal barrier. “Let me help.” I reach through the metal fence and pat Big John on the rump. “Come on, Big John. Let’s go for a ride.”

  Big John lumbers to the foot of the trailer ramp and stops.

  “He doesn’t like the ramp, does he?” I ask.

  “No. He will not go inside without a fight.”

  “Sure he will.” I walk up the ramp and into the trailer, stepping carefully around Big John’s prodigious, fresh cow chips. I turn and face Big John. “Don’t you want to go for a ride, Big John?”

  Big John starts up the ramp, which groans and bends under his weight. As he enters, I slide sideways by him and slip down the ramp.

  Fernando pushes up the ramp and secures it with a chain and padlock.

  “Piece of cake,” I say, checking to see if I have anything caked on my boots.

  “Thank you, Gio.”

  “You’re welcome, Fernando. I look forward to meeting your family.”

  “I hope to introduce them to you soon,” he says.

  Great. Two men worthy of fantasies, and they’re already taken.

  I wish I had some ice cream right now.

  Chapter 7

  When I get to the repair shop, I clean up using Heavy-Duty Lava soap in Nonno’s upstairs bathroom, but I still smell like cinnamon.

  I remove Dodie’s cookies from my pocket and put them in the garage near the mousetraps. If the mice die from eating them, at least they’ll smell better when I bag and toss them out.

  I wander into the workshop where Nonno has set out a true muffuletta style lunch on an empty worktable. This muffuletta is not a certain sandwich sold in New Orleans. This is the real deal.

  Nonno makes his own giardiniera, what some have mistakenly called “olive salad,” using white wine vinegar to pickle diced black and green olives, celery, cauliflower, carrots, zucchini, and onions. He seasons his giardiniera with oregano and garlic, bathes it in olive oil, and lets it sit for at least twenty-four hours. This “salad” is the cornerstone of the muffuletta lunch and sits in the middle of the worktable.

 
One serving tray holds sliced salami, ham, and mortadella—Italian sausage. Another contains blocks of provolone and mozzarella and round muffuletta loaves. A Sicilian would never pile all these offerings into a muffuletta loaf and call it a sandwich. One must eat muffuletta a la carte, one slice of mortadella, one taste of giardiniera soaked into the bread, and one chunk of provolone at a time.

  I sit next to Nonno and dig in with my fingers. “Have any of the creeks around here ever gone dry?”

  “All the time when I was a boy. We would have a mild winter and little snow followed by dry springs and heat waves. Farmers then diverted too much water from creeks to their fields. Most of the county smelled like dead fish. My papa said the flourmill used too much water because it had the biggest pond. They even had a man guarding it at night.”

  Guarding water. I hope it doesn’t come to that this summer. “Owen wants to repair the mill so he can grind flour.”

  “You were wise not to marry him.”

  I tear a hunk from the loaf and dip it in the bowl of giardiniera. “I was never going to marry him.”

  He shakes a piece of ham at me. “You are lying.”

  “I wanted to marry him.” I chew on the bread. “It’s not the same as marrying him.”

  “You still think about him.” He dips a chunk of provolone in the giardiniera and pops it into his mouth.

  “I don’t.”

  “You are lying again,” he says. “You make excuses to see him every day.”

  I chew on some mortadella. “He calls me.”

  “You do not have to go,” he says, rolling a hunk of mozzarella inside a piece of salami.

  “I know that,” I say.

  “It gives people the wrong idea about you,” he says.

  “He’s married, Nonno,” I say, “and his wife is having a baby.”

  He pulls a hunk off the first loaf and hands the rest to me. “You thought he was the man for you despite what Nonna told you.”

  Nonna once told me, “If a man has nice thighs, eyes, and is wise, he is a prize.” Owen had the eyes and thighs, but he wasn’t and may never be wise.

  “You are the only man I need, Nonno.” I put some salami on the bread and take a bite.