by Judy Clemens
Miranda stopped with the plucking.
“Where are we going?” Nick said.
“Dairy barn. Carla’s in trouble.” I kicked it up to a jog, leaving the two of them behind.
They knew where to find me.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I burst into the barn, expecting a crowd, but saw only a small group. They were standing at the Greggs’ stalls, and Gregg himself was yelling and poking a finger in Carla’s face. His head looked like it might explode any second, but that was exactly how I felt watching him assault Carla.
I strode over and pushed his hand away, stepping between the two of them, wondering why Bryan hadn’t done that already. Mrs. Gregg stood behind her husband, her face all blotchy from crying. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and she swiped at her face with her hand. The older two girls were there, too, expressions blank, mouths open.
Gregg’s yelling stopped when I moved in, and his face went some kind of nuclear color. “You? Get out of the way before I—”
“Make me.”
“Stella…” Carla grabbed the back of my shirt.
I held out a hand to shut Gregg up and turned to Carla. “You okay?”
“Come here. Please.” She pulled me away from the group. Her face was so pale I was afraid she was going to either faint or throw up, so I led her to a straw bale and had her sit. Bryan was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered why he’d disappeared. He’d been there a few minutes ago, when he called me. At least I think he had.
“What’s going on?”
She slumped against the stall behind her. “The Greggs’ cows. They’re sick, both of them. And I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“Tell me the symptoms.”
She took a shuddering breath. “Dizzy, at least they keep swaying into the sides of the stalls. Fever. Rolling eyes. It could be anything. Drugs. Sickness. I just don’t know.”
The bags under Carla’s bloodshot eyes were on their way to becoming serious luggage, and her shoulders slumped so low she threatened to slide right off the bale. All of her usual confidence and pep was gone.
“When did this start?”
“A few hours ago. I got the call just before the parade that the cows were acting strangely. It’s gotten worse fast.”
“So, not lemons this time.”
She shook her head so miserably I was afraid she was going to join Mrs. Gregg and start crying. “That first night, she called me and I told her she was imagining things. What if she wasn’t? What if I did miss something?”
I guess we couldn’t rule it out.
I sat beside her. “Okay, what have you done so far?”
“All the usual things. Temperature, looking in the eyes, everything I could do without hauling them off to the office. Bryan just ran some body fluids to the lab. We evacuated the surrounding stalls, even though it would be too late if there really is something wrong, and I called my partners. One of them should be here soon. Oh, God, I feel like such an idiot.”
“Did you check their feed?”
“There’s nothing left in their stalls. No hay. No grain. They’ve eaten every crumb.”
Or somebody had cleaned it up.
A commotion over at the cows caught my attention. Someone new had arrived. Carla’s head shot up hopefully, but the new arrival wasn’t one of her partners. It was one of the nasty vets who had shown up the day before, during the whole lemon fiasco. He went directly to Gregg, who began talking loudly and pointedly.
“She can’t figure out what’s wrong. It has to be something simple, right?” He glanced at us, making sure we saw that he had called in someone else.
“I’ll stop him,” I said, rising.
“No.” Carla’s hand shot out to grab my elbow. “Let him examine the animals. Maybe he’ll catch something I didn’t. We have to remember it’s about the animals. We can’t let something happen to them just because some people can’t deal with me.”
“But Gregg thinks he can just call in some other vet. And that vet thinks he can come into your territory.”
“Let him. You know how I said this job wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be? He can have it.”
“But your reputation—”
“—is fine. Two days—because that’s what it’s been, can you believe it?—can’t ruin my career.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Not with Gregg and his connections involved.
Nick and Miranda joined us, and Carla’s eyes barely lit up at the sight of Nick in his well-fitting jeans. Not a good sign.
“Stay with her,” I told them.
I wandered toward the cows, trying to stay out of Gregg’s sight lines, but that was impossible. He was completely aware of me, and his eye was twitching. His nostrils were just flaring when his flunky vet stepped back to confer with him. Whatever he was saying, it wasn’t good, because Gregg grabbed the closest thing to him—a bucket—and flung it across the room, barely missing a 4-H’er who had bent over to pick something up.
“Stella? What’s happening?” Don, one of Carla’s partners, the one who had been on hand the day before after the lemon fiasco, spoke quietly beside me.
“Something bad, I guess. Gregg’s throwing a fit. You gonna take a look?”
“In a second.” He went to sit with Carla, where they had probably about the same conversation she and I had had.
“I don’t believe this!” Gregg yelled. “Somebody is out to get us!”
He met my eyes for a few seconds, then stomped away, the vet scuttling after him. Mrs. Gregg stood as if frozen, while her two older girls hovered in the background, obviously not sure whether they should care about what was happening, or go do something more fun. One of them jumped, pulled her phone from her pocket, and began texting away. The other turned to the guy beside her. A different guy from the one at calf judging earlier.
Spectators began drifting away. The only ones staying were people who had cows in the barn, and were worried about them being affected. I went closer to the stalls now that Gregg was gone. Mrs. Gregg looked too out of it to notice, and I wasn’t sure if she would even care. The cows seemed disoriented, off balance, and their eyes had a glassy sheen. Almost like they’d been hypnotized. Or were in pain.
Don followed me over to the stall. “What do you think? You see anything like this before?”
“Actually…” A memory was coming back to me. I’d had an intern one summer, stupidest kid I’d seen for a long time, but I was doing a favor for his parents and giving him some pointers. He’d found some bad hay I’d thrown out back for the garbage, and figured it just hadn’t been put away properly. He fed it to some unfortunate cows, and they’d all looked just like this, like they were either drunk or suffering incredibly bad hangovers.
I put my hand on the closest cow’s side and leaned on it. The cow moaned and inched sideways. Stomachache. I met Don’s eyes briefly, then went to the trough, where the hay would have been placed earlier. It was empty, as they had said, but I leaned in and smelled it, catching a whiff of rotten odor.
“Bad grain?” Dan said.
I stood up. “Could it be that simple?” I turned to Mrs. Gregg. “Who’s been feeding these cows?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Feed. Who’s been giving it to them?”
“My daughters, of course. They’re their cows.”
Uh-huh. I looked at those very daughters, whose interest in their sick cows had lowered even further, so much so that one of them was walking away.
“What is it?” Mrs. Gregg said.
I returned to Carla and knelt in front of her and Nick. “Did you find any smidgen of grain to send to the lab?”
“Just crumbs. Along with a sample of the water.”
“Maybe crumbs will be enough.”
“You think it was the grain?”
“It would explain how the cows are acting, and would be incredibly simple to do. No needles, no hard-to-find drugs. Just rotten sileage. Or even hay.”
She closed her eyes a
nd sighed. “But why?”
“I think we know why,” I said.
She shook her head. “The cows weren’t the ones cheating.”
“Of course not. But feeding those idiot girls rotten sileage wouldn’t knock them out of the competition.”
She didn’t smile. “Okay. It was to get back at the family for how they play the game. But that still doesn’t tell us who. Who would do such a thing?”
A sick feeling rumbled in my stomach. I really hoped I didn’t know the answer to that.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Austin was nowhere to be found in or around the calf barn, and he wasn’t hanging out at the food tent. The combine demo had ended by that time, and he wasn’t at the grandstand. We ran into Mallory and Brady—who had been there to cheer on Brady’s buddy Smashmaster—and they hadn’t seen Austin, either.
“Why are we looking for him?” Nick said.
“He hates the Greggs.”
“Yeah, but so do lots of other people.”
I stopped walking and pulled him to the side of the fairway. Miranda came along, because she was still stuck to us, like flypaper. “Now, look. You cannot tell anyone else what I’m about to tell you. That means you, too, Miranda.”
She frowned. “What am I, a snitch?”
“You’d better not be.”
“She’s fine,” Nick said. “What is it?”
I explained Laura’s revelation about what she’d seen the night before, and Austin’s story about being with Rikki and placing the lemon in the calf’s trough. “I did see him going to the cops’ building during the parade, so at least he listened to me on that account.”
Miranda gasped. “Maybe he killed her, and he was going to confess.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why, because he’s one of your farmer clique?”
“We don’t have a clique.”
“Right. That’s why you don’t think he did…wait a minute, you don’t think he killed Rikki, but you do think he messed with the Gregg’s dairy cows?”
“He brought the lemons.”
“But just because he did the lemons doesn’t mean he did this, too. He promised not to, didn’t he?”
“I know, but not everyone keeps promises, and he could easily have tampered with the Greggs’ grain before heading over to see the cops, while everyone else was at the parade. The 4-H’ers were all out of the barn, gone to ride on the floats.”
“Okay, hang on.” Nick held up his hands, referee-like. “We don’t have to make this a huge discussion, like everything else with you two. We’re just trying to find Austin, right? So Stella can talk to him?”
“More like interrogate him,” Miranda muttered.
“I won’t…it’s not like I want it to be him.”
“Will you two just—” Nick dropped his hands. “Come out to the car when you’re ready to go home. I’ll be trying not to punch something.”
Miranda and I watched him stalk away.
“Well?” I said. “Aren’t you going with him?”
“Um…I don’t think so. He just slipped into his annoyed zone. When he gets like this I leave him alone.”
Annoyed zone. With us. With me. I really was being a pain in the ass, wasn’t I, when it came to Miranda?
“So come on, then,” I said. “Let’s go find Austin. To talk to him gently.”
She eyed me suspiciously. “You want me to come with you?”
“Where else would you go?”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
We’d already checked the grandstand and the food tent, and we knew he wasn’t in the barn. I had Miranda stick her head in the cops’ building, because I didn’t want to get harassed about what I was doing there, and if I had more to add to my statement, but he wasn’t there, either.
“Why don’t you just call him?” Miranda asked.
“Because I don’t generally collect teenage boys’ numbers.”
“You have Zach’s.”
“Because he’s family.”
“He’s not your fam—”
“Wait. I know where we should check.”
Miranda caught up with me. “What I was going to say is, Zach would know his number.”
“Maybe. Ask him.”
“I don’t have Zach’s contact information!”
“Then here.” I thrust my phone at her. “Text him.”
“But…” She stumbled after me, texting while we speed-walked. I hoped she wouldn’t run into anything, including me.
She was done by the time we reached Austin’s trailer. Everything was dark. I pointed to the side of the trailer. “Wait there.”
“But—”
“He’s not going to talk if you’re here.”
She gave a huge sigh, then stomped into the shadows. Good riddance. Although I was going to have to adjust my attitude to get back in Nick’s good graces. Crap. I liked being rude to Miranda.
“Hello?” I knocked on the door. No response. I tried the door, but it was locked, so I knocked again. Something clanked inside, and the door opened. Austin’s mother stood there in pajamas, not exactly happy to be awake. I was surprised she was even there. According to Austin his folks weren’t spending the week with him.
“Sorry to disturb you,” I said. “Is Austin in?”
She peered up into the narrow bed above the driver’s seat, and nodded. “You need him?”
“Please.”
“This isn’t about Rikki again, is it? He’s talked to enough people about that today.”
The cops. “I know. This isn’t about that. I promise.”
“Then what?”
“Can I please just talk to him? It won’t take long.”
Her mouth pinched, but she must have seen something in my face, or remembered that Austin was eighteen and able to make his own decisions. “Just a sec. I’ll ask if he wants to come out.”
She disappeared back into the trailer, closing the door, and I heard mumbling, then a thump, like something dropping from the ceiling.
Austin came to the door in shorts and a T-shirt, squinting. “What?”
“Can I talk to you a minute?”
“I guess.” His mother stood in the background, making no secret of listening.
“Outside?”
He glanced back at his mom, then stepped out, shutting the door behind him. He took a few steps away, out of hearing range, and crossed his arms. “What do you want?”
I searched for signs of guilt, but saw only cranky teenager. “Do you know anything about what’s going on in the dairy barn right now?”
He made a confused face. “You know I don’t have a dairy cow. Why would I know anything about whatever it is?”
I would have bet anything he was telling the truth. “Who else hates the Greggs enough to sabotage their cows?”
His eyes widened. “I didn’t do any—”
“I know. I believe you.” Because I did. He didn’t look like someone who’d broken a promise, or who had harmed a second and third animal that day. My conscience eased. I hadn’t realized just how worried I was that I’d let him off the hook, and he’d done it again, with a more serious consequence. “But someone else got to their dairy cows. Any ideas?”
“How about everybody in the barn?”
“That’s helpful.”
“Well, it’s the best I can do. I’m hardly over there. Ask Claire or Bobby. Maybe they saw something, or know more about the people in that class.” He clenched his jaw. “You really thought I did it, didn’t you?”
“You did the lemons last night, so…” I shrugged. “You do something stupid like that once, you’re going to have to pay the consequences of someone like me not quite trusting you anymore.”
He looked at the ground. “Yeah. I know.”
“What’s your mom doing here?”
He shrugged. “I called her. Asked her if she could come.”
An eighteen-year-old, who realized he still needed his mother. My heart melted even mor
e. “All right. Go back to bed.”
He shuffled around a little, then crept back into the trailer. I could hear his mom’s voice before the door shut, asking what was going on now.
Chapter Thirty
