PICKED OFF

by Linda Lovely

  After I dropped off my parents, I headed straight to Udderly. When I walked into the cabin, I caught Eva giving Cashew a treat.

  “That’s the first and only one, right?” I asked. Any more treats from Eva and Andy, and my dog would look like Tammy, our pot-bellied pig.

  Already in her nightie, Eva had the good grace to look guilty and quickly changed the subject. “Are your folks coming tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “And Mom says Carol doesn’t need to hand over Zack’s phone—if it ever reappears—until she gets some answers from the Aces owner.”

  “Sounds right.” Eva yawned. “I’m tired. Unless we need to blatherskite tonight, I’m off to dreamland.”

  I kissed her cheek. “No we can blatherskite at first light.”

  I was tired, too. Before trundling off to bed, I texted Andy and Paint since I’d promised to share any updates on Zack. My report was brief. Z still in coma. Aces owner at airport.

  Too bushed to work my thumbs into a tither trying to explain all the drama about the missing cell phone, I sent a cryptic request. Z phone missing. Hunt at Udderly, 2morrow 9a?

  In a flash, both men texted they’d join the cell hunt caper. My final text went to Mollye, who’d feel slighted if she were left out of a scavenger hunt.

  I just hoped one of Udderly’s critters hadn’t decided the phone was a munchie.

  Maybe Mollye could use her questionable psychic powers to see if one of the goats had craved an iPhone snack.

  THIRTEEN

  In theory it was morning. Could have fooled me. Pitch black. Chilly. Nothing seemed to be going right. What did I expect when I hadn’t had an injection of caffeine and sunrise seemed a distant promise?

  I couldn’t find the blasted pail I normally used to feed Rita and scoop up our billy goats’ high-energy eats. I rummaged around the milking barn until I stumbled on a substitute, then headed to Duncan’s lair.

  I crept inside his pen, emptied the feed, and skedaddled.

  Whammo!

  I pitched forward. Landed hard. My bottom felt as if someone’d hit it with a two-by-four. It took me a second, sprawled in a freshly “watered” (by Duncan) mud patch, for my brain to click in.

  The billy goat’s de-horned but hard and incredibly bony head had hit me square in the butt. I scrambled up and ran. He wasn’t going to get me again.

  What was that horrid smell? Ye gods. I breathed through my mouth. Didn’t do much to alleviate the smell of my goat pee-soaked pants.

  I spotted Aunt Eva’s lantern as she stepped out of the milking barn. “You okay?” she yelled as I ran pell-mell toward her.

  “No,” I answered. “I’m not.”

  “Peeuw.” Aunt Eva laughed. “You idiot, you turned your back on Duncan. What did I tell you? You’re not going to bring that stink inside. You smell worse than those tofu concoctions you whip up.”

  “So what do you want me to do?” I asked, exasperated by her uncompassionate response.

  “Strip. Use the outdoor shower behind the milking barn. I’ll bring you a towel and clean clothes.”

  Eva punctuated her shooing motions with loud guffaws.

  Grrr.

  Scrubbed raw, I’d returned to our cabin, shivering. In late October, daytime temperatures were delightful. Mid-seventies. But come sundown the mercury dived, and it was mid-morning before temperatures climbed out of the forties.

  By the time Paint, Andy, and Mollye arrived for the missing iPhone search, I was clean and scent free. Chores complete, I was also fully caffeinated—four cups of java—and ready to rock-and-roll despite a short night and bouts of mind-wandering insomnia.

  I’d latched on to the latest coffee research, which suggested a potful wasn’t as bad for your health as experts once touted. Good news. I’d given up meat, eggs, and cheese in the interest of a healthy diet, but even we vegans have our limits. Coffee and chocolate were where I drew my dietary line in the sand.

  Eva stepped out on the porch to greet the scavengers.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked. “A grid search?”

  “Sounds like a winner,” Paint said. “Brie and I will start right outside the barn. Andy, you and Mollye can scour the area where they put the speakers’ podium. We can work our way towards each other.”

  “Not a bad plan, but I think we’ll go with girls versus boys. I want the advantage of Mollye’s psychic powers,” I joked.

  What I didn’t want was Paint-initiated distractions from the task at hand. The legal moonshiner had quite the talent for flustering me. “Mollye and I will start at the barn.”

  “What are you going to do, call Zack’s phone to see if you hear it ring?” Eva asked.

  Andy shrugged. “We could give it a try, but Zack probably switched it to vibrate. Since the fundraiser was his mom’s big to-do, I’m betting he was super careful. Having his phone ring while she was mid-speech would have been very uncool.”

  Paint nodded. “The battery’s probably dead anyway. We’re not near a cell tower so whatever calls Zack did make ate up a lot of power. If the phone’s lost, it hasn’t been charged since Friday, and now it’s Sunday morning.”

  Andy pulled out his cell phone. “Well, let’s call and see what happens. I’ve got Zack’s number in my directory.” A few seconds later, Andy shook his head. “Didn’t ring. Went straight to voicemail. Battery’s definitely dead.”

  “Well, good luck with your search,” Eva said. “I’m off to make goat fudge. Our inventory is kaput. Tell you what. I’ll give a one-pound fudge reward to anyone who finds Zack’s phone. Everyone except Brie that is. She’ll get a hunk of slimy tofu she can doctor up and try to pass off as chocolate mousse. Ugh. Life’s too short.”

  “Yeah, life tends to be short when you keep shoveling in cholesterol,” I countered.

  My friends laughed at our tit for tat. My aunt stuck out her tongue as she turned to walk away. After a few steps, she yelled over her shoulder. “Don’t forget we have guests coming for lunch, and I suppose we need to feed them.”

  “I know. Mom and Dad are bringing the grease—a.k.a. fried chicken. I thawed a sweet potato casserole, cut up fruit, and threw together a salad before I left the cabin.”

  “We’re invited, right?” Mollye asked.

  “Not this time. Phil Owens and Bob Codner from ARGH are coming over to give Eva more details on setting up a conservation easement.”

  “Well, rats,” Mollye said. “I love fried chicken.”

  “Help me find the cell phone, and I’ll see Eva’s fudge and raise it with as much fried chicken as you can chow down in one sitting. I just won’t cook it and I’ll tattle on you to Riley the Rooster, who may peck you in protest.”

  “Deal. Riley Roo’s my buddy. He loves me,” said Mollye.

  The crime scene tape was down so the barn was no longer off limits. Mollye and I started inside even though we figured the crime scene investigators had searched all the obvious places. After a few minutes bothering the animals, we moved our search outside. We looked along what we considered Zack’s most likely route from head table to haunted sideshow.

  Ten feet out, I spotted the missing pail used to feed our mule and billy goats in an unexpected spot. Forced to use a different bucket the last two mornings, Rita had snorted each time her nose bumped its steep sides. I walked over to return the mule’s favorite pail to the barn.

  Bingo.

  “Found it,” I shouted. The iPhone’s camouflage-style case was a near match with the feed. Lucky I spotted it.

  Andy and Paint came running.

  “How on earth did the phone land in that bucket?” Paint asked.

  “I think I know,” Andy said. “There were buckets inside the back stall where we found Zack. Remember how the paramedics wanted everything out of their way, a clear path?”

  “Right.” Paint nodded. “I helped move s
tuff.”

  “Let’s make sure it’s Zack’s,” I added, “though I can’t imagine another iPhone landing in a feed bucket. We can use my charger to power it up and then call.”

  “Good idea,” Mollye agreed. “Maybe if we look at his text messages we’ll find a clue about the attack. Are we detectives, or what?”

  “Or what.” Andy sighed. “Even if it’s Zack’s phone, we can’t look at texts, downloads, or recent calls without his passcode. He’s had so many problems with snoops; Zack was paranoid about being hacked. Said he’d created a doozy of a passcode to defeat even the best black hats, though Paint and I might guess it if we could remember our first day in kindergarten.”

  Mollye’s triumphant expression evaporated. “So can you figure it out? What happened in kindergarten? Do you remember?”

  Paint grinned. “I have fond memories of naptime and chocolate milk, but I kinda doubt his passcode is ‘napsalot’. Luckily, we don’t need Zack’s password. We have Zack. He programmed it so he didn’t have to fool around keying in a passcode. His thumbprint opens the phone.”

  “You’re right.” Andy nodded. “Good. Carol can decide if she wants to open it.”

  “Eva can talk it over with her,” I agreed. “Carol may want to hand the phone over to the Sheriff or Sala Lemmon without yielding to the temptation to peek at Zack’s texts.”

  Mollye shook her head. “I’d sure want to know what made my son’s phone such a prize before I gave strangers carte blanche.”

  Back at the cabin, we plugged the phone in and called Zack’s number. The phone vibrated. Definitely his.

  “Excellent,” Andy announced, smiling in triumph. “Now it’s up to Carol. Who’s up for going to a dog agility competition in Greenville? One of my former patients, a Jack Russell, is competing. I’ll leave about two.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I answered. “A nice break. Two o’clock should work.”

  “I love dog shows,” Mollye said. “It’s such a kick to guess which owner belongs to which dog.”

  “I’m in,” Paint added, “even though Lunar would consider such an event beneath him. I may have raised Lunar since he was an abandoned pup, but he’s still a wolf. He’d prefer to eat his rivals.”

  FOURTEEN

  Mom and Dad were the first to arrive for lunch, bringing two large, fragrant boxes of fried chicken. Why does grease-coated meat still smell so good? Will my sense of smell ever get on board with my vegan heart?

  I transferred the chicken to a tray and popped it in the oven to stay warm while Eva put out a selection of goat cheeses. I brought Mom and Dad up to date on our cell phone find before our guests arrived. I agreed with Eva that phone custody should be Carol’s decision.

  “Did you let Carol know you found the phone?” Mom asked.

  “Yes,” Eva replied. “She’s going to turn it over to the sheriff after she makes sure there’s nothing personal her son would want kept private. I’ll take the phone to her after lunch.”

  Barking dogs announced our guests’ arrival. Looking out the window, I watched Bob Codner lever his bulky frame out of the passenger seat of Phil Owens’ old but elegant Jaguar. Eva’d told me Phil had bought an abused, fifteen-year-old Jag and restored it the year after he retired. Under the noonday sun, the car’s mirror-like finish was almost blinding.

  Phil didn’t exactly fit the image of someone who tinkers with old cars. Or maybe he did. He had money and time and hated fishing. Phil lived on the banks of Ardon County’s Lake Sisel, where retirees’ posh homes were slowly edging out former trailers and fishing camps.

  Phil, a retired airline pilot, was representative of the silver-haired band of newcomers hated by the CAVE contingent. Phil and Lilly co-founded ARGH when a developer announced plans to build high-rise, high-density condos on the lake, even though infrastructure—roads, water, sewer, fire-fighting equipment—for such a project didn’t exist.

  Bob, a local, and Phil, a transplant, were fast friends. Both were passionate about protecting Ardon County’s ecology, culture, and farmlands from unplanned sprawl.

  Eva welcomed both men and completed the introductions. While Mom and Dad had attended ARGH meetings presided over by Aunt Lilly, they’d never formally met either gentleman.

  “Let’s chat while we eat,” Aunt Eva decreed after the handshakes. “I’m hungry.”

  No one objected. The guests knew Eva well enough to nod assent. My aunt took drink orders while I put plates of steaming chicken on the table. Six was the max our little dining nook could seat without knocking knees.

  Once everyone but me had hoisted a chicken part or attacked it with a fork and knife, Mom asked her first question. “Do you think Ardon County will ever get zoning? Wouldn’t that eliminate the need for conservation easements?”

  Phil shook his head. “Zoning’s opposed by slick developers, like Allie Gerome, and the CAVE faction’s right-wing fringe. There are also plenty of reasonable locals who want their kids to be able to sell farms or forestland to the highest bidders. They don’t want zoning to nix a lucrative offer. Sorry neighbors.”

  Bob waved a chicken leg as he jumped in. “Of course, the same locals raise a huge stink if someone proposes putting anything that offends them nearby. I know. I’m one of the so-called natives. Native meaning my kin have marked our territory with gravestones for at least four generations. It doesn’t mean we have a drop of Cherokee blood.”

  “What kind of projects trigger local wrath?” Dad asked.

  “Group homes for virtually any population segment needing them,” Bob added. “Plus any enterprise that violates their morals—shops that sell sex toys, tattoo parlors, even retreats for religions that sound seditious to Southern Baptists.”

  Phil laughed. “Don’t forget the claim that zoning is a United Nations’ conspiracy.”

  Dad’s fork clanked on his plate. “You’re kidding. Zoning pre-dates the U.N.’s existence by decades.”

  Bob put down his chicken leg—flesh no longer attached—and shook a finger at Dad. “Howard, logic won’t work. The CAVE contingent knows you’re a carpetbagger out to steal land anointed with our ancestors’ blood. But they reserve even more hatred for locals like Carol and me who think their conspiracy theories are hogwash. That’s why Chester and his cronies crashed Carol’s fundraiser. They’ve despised her since she won her first election, a seat on County Council.”

  “So zoning isn’t in the cards?” Mom asked, returning us to her original question.

  “We’ll get some form of it sooner or later,” Phil answered. “It’s the later that worries me. We’re at a tipping point. Unplanned sprawl can desecrate a landscape before people realize what’s happening.”

  Eva cleared her throat. “And zoning’s not a perfect guarantee. Some future County Council could make it meaningless. But a conservation easement’s an iron-clad guarantee.”

  When the conversation segued into tax considerations, my mind wandered. Mom would make certain Eva’s trust document was solid. If my tofu creations didn’t prompt my aunt to change her will, I would inherit Udderly. I wanted exactly what Eva wanted—Udderly’s wooded hills to remain green and unpaved.

  Trying to safeguard what you love can be tricky if others feel just as strongly about destroying those protections. That thought brought me back to Carol and Zack.

  What could make Zack’s phone so valuable? Did Carol have an idea? How far would she go to safeguard it?

  FIFTEEN

  A few minutes after Eva left for the hospital, Mollye’s van pulled up with Paint and Andy already on board. Since her van provided the roomiest option, Mollye’d offered to drive. My Prius certainly couldn’t compete.

  Mollye rolled down her window and hollered. “Get your fanny in gear. The gents saved the front seat for you. I’m guessing neither wanted to risk being close to me. Afraid their passion might overcome them.”

  I stepp
ed on the running board and hopped in. “I’m sure that’s it. It’s all I can do to control myself around you. Hi, everyone.”

  I’d barely buckled my seatbelt when I heard a phone ring.

  “Sorry,” Paint said. “I’ll put it on vibrate after I see who it is. Ugh. No need to answer. It’s that doofus Mick again. Fourth time he’s called wanting the inside track on Zack’s condition. I know he flew out to Vegas for a game once and Zack played nice guy, introducing him around as a high school pal. But they were never close. I’m guessing Mick’s just looking to score insider dope. Every time he calls he sounds a little more frantic, more squirrelly.”

  Since the Greenville convention center was an hour’s drive, it gave me oodles of time to try to pin down why fantasy football was so popular with Mick—and my three buddies. Hey, maybe I was missing great entertainment.

  “I’m still not clear. What makes fantasy football so addictive? Enlighten me.”

  I should have kept my mouth shut. Over the next hour I learned far more than I cared to know. At one end of the spectrum, fantasy football attracted hard-core gambling addicts like Mick. With a ten-thousand-dollar weekly fantasy football option, gamblers could excavate a gaping black hole of debt in no time.

  Of course, there were also casual players attracted by camaraderie and the desire to be a winner. Fantasy football made it socially acceptable to gamble, win at something, and crow about their expertise and talent.

  Mollye said women loved to show up men in their families—or offices—by proving they were more than capable of mastering football’s finer points, studying stats, and reading scouting reports. A lot fairer way to compete than, say, arm wrestling.

  “So have we convinced you to join my fantasy football team?” Paint asked.

  “Not a chance. Between dairy chores and renovating my someday B&B, free time is a real luxury. Any spare minutes are devoted to sleeping, reading and cooking. I haven’t even found time to arrange for Udderly to host the goat yoga classes that have become so popular.”