by A. J. Aalto
CHAPTER 16
WHEN MY PHONE started bopping the Inspector Gadget theme song at five-thirty in the morning I was alone again, and really glad I’d changed all my ring tones to reflect who was calling. I wouldn’t have even cracked an eyelid to pick up for Batten, but Schenk? That was safe enough. My arm flipped out from under the covers and snatched the phone up.
“Fnargh. Glerrr. Whaddayahuh?”
“Just about right.” Constable FunTimes didn’t sound like he’d slept yet. Either that or I was talking to a bear coming out of hibernation. “Can my psychic tell when someone’s lying?” he asked.
“Maybe, if they're really bad at it.” I dug sleep boogers out of my eye with a fingertip. “I’m not going to like where you’re going with this, am I?”
“Meet me out front of your place in ten.”
“What, now?” I groaned. “It’s ass o’clock in the morning.”
“Actually, it’s quarter past I’ll-Find-Another-Psychic.”
“We can’t work at…” I squinted at the alarm clock. “Five-thirty.”
“You can tell time,” he noted, as though impressed. “Lennie Epp, fifty-eight, local farmer, is available now. So, we go now.”
I didn’t so much jump out of bed as drool sideways, arm first to brace against the carpet, legs flopping as though boneless. Like a gymnast doing a cartwheel, if that gymnast had been sucking on roofies. I was, unofficially, the limpest gymnast ever. I tugged on my jeans while sitting bare-assed and listless on the carpet, pinching the cell phone between my ear and shoulder. “This Epp dude a witness to something?”
“Says he saw some kids messing around down by the pond about a month ago.”
“So? Aren’t there always kids messing around down there? It’s right near the Blue Ghost Tunnel.”
“Yeah, but this particular group had a metal detector. Our farmer says he’s seen them on more than one occasion, always at night, out there with headlamps.”
“Grave robbers?” I put the phone down to swap out my Derpy Hooves nightshirt for a black t-shirt and my favorite cable knit sweater, then picked it up again, wondering where I’d left my suede gloves.
“Wouldn’t jump to that,” Schenk was saying. “Probably just being kids. Making out, messing with stuff, snooping around for old casket handles at the pond or what have you.”
“You’re sure you need me for this?”
“Wouldn’t dream of going without you,” he said, heavy on the sarcasm. “From now on, where I go, you go.”
“Did Malashock say so?”
“I said so,” he said sharply.
“Sooooorr-eey,” I grumbled, but he’d already hung up. Belatedly I groaned at having reacquired my Canadian accent from hanging around with Schenk so much. I'd probably be taking responsibility for the weather and apologizing to inanimate objects when I bumped into them if I didn't get out of here soon.
I found my gloves in the bathroom, both pairs, and put the suede ones on. I wondered what was crawling in Schenk’s craw this morning; maybe he had developed a touch of Batten’s I-shouldn’t-need-you resistance. The fact that he’d summoned me just to question a local farmer, something he’d probably done a thousand times without the help of someone like me… I winced. No wonder he was cranky. I vowed to keep that in mind and not harp on the subject. People skills, me? Point: Marnie.
His Sonata was idling at the curb when I got downstairs, the exhaust fogging the frigid air. I’d borrowed Mr. Merritt’s wool scarf to keep my neck warm, but my cheeks nearly froze solid between my reluctantly leaving the house and wrenching open the passenger door to throw myself into the car.
“I don’t suppose I could implore you to drive thr—”
He interrupted with the point of one big finger at the console where two familiar brown paper cups of coffee leaked steam through the vents in their lids.
“Oh,” I said gratefully, “My hero. Hey, you look like roadkill, eh?” Okay, my people skills might have frozen off on the way to the car.
“I was feeling pretty today,” he deadpanned, “and you ruined it.”
I half-smiled at the sarcasm. “Seriously, you okay?”
“Just need coffee,” he sidestepped.
“Spill it, Tough Guy, what's the big secret?”
“Nightmare last night. Didn’t sleep well afterward.”
“Boy, you give up your secrets easy.”
He grunted. “Woke up aching, like I'd been swimming all night.”
Everything inside me went still and I flashed back on the chaotic dream of my own, half-remembered; drowning in the black water of the canal, swimming with a skeleton, an angry storm, a flash of light, thunder, eels, and the shrieking approach of some spectral terror, frost dragons circling overhead.
“Swimming?” I asked. “Why'd you say swimming? Why not running uphill, or boxing, or flying into a wall made of petrified moose testicles or something?”
“I don’t know. I just—“
“I had a swimming dream, too.” I told him every detail, only holding back the skeleton that went tumbling by in the turbulent waters. When I was done, he was holding onto his goatee, pulling on it, deep in thought.
“And that’s it?” he asked. “That’s everything?”
“What else should there be?”
“I had a similar dream, only there was this skeleton. With a spinning skull. It came off and rolled end over end in the water, flashing jaw bone and forehead and…” He drifted, shook it off. “I should stop eating pizza with hot sausage and peppers before bed, that’s all.”
He took to the street carefully, minding the unplowed sections, coasting past black ice, navigating corners with more care than usual. He finished his coffee quickly, drinking with purpose; I had the feeling he’d have mainlined it if possible.
“Five forty-five,” the car said. I may have cost myself another six thousand dollars when it did.
***
The Epp farm was tucked behind an industrial park on the east side of the canal, not far from the Twin Flight Locks. From the looks of it, the farm had been there for generations, predating the industry by decades. It consisted of two barns and some henhouses, a maze of chicken-wire fences topped with fresh snow, and a light blue farmhouse with doors and shutters freshly painted the brilliant yellow of egg yolk.
Downwind, it stank of years’ worth of guano. So did Mr. Epp, who came waddling out of the smaller barn wiping his hands on his olive green coveralls, trudging through the snow. His padded, red plaid jacket was the type that always made me think of lumberjacks. Under a crammed-down, wrinkly Molson Canadian knit cap of washed-out grey, he had poker-straight orange hair complemented by a silver-streaked carroty handlebar mustache that he must have begun cultivating about the time I was born. I thought Batten’s upper lip would be sorely intimidated in the face of such manly follicles. When he opened his mouth to talk I expected him to draw matching revolvers like Yosemite Sam. He was definitely the rootinest, tootinest, chicken-poopinest dude I'd ever laid eyes on.
“Why, I know I said I’m up and at ‘em before dawn, officer, but I sure didn’t expect you to show before the sun did.”
I whispered, “Is he for real?”
Schenk elbowed me. Because of his height his chiding elbow connected with my left ear. “I understand you witnessed some youths down by the pond recently,” Schenk said. “Why don’t we go inside and you can tell me all about that?”
“Sorry, you misunderstood.” The farmer rubbed one hand with the other in rough strokes, thumb-in-palm. “I said I knew they were down there, but I didn’t personally see them.”
“Oh?” Schenk withdrew a flip pad and his pencil from his inside jacket pocket and scribbled a note.
“The chickens saw them.”
Schenk didn’t miss a beat. “The chickens.” He wrote this, too, as though it could possibly mean something.
I raised my hand like I was in class. “Uh, how do you know the chickens saw them?”
“They told me. Well,
not me, directly.” Epp smiled widely. “Obviously, I can’t talk to chickens.”
“You can’t,” Schenk clarified.
“No, not me, no sir.” When he shook his head Epp’s ginger handlebars waved hypnotically back and forth like magic tentacles. “So, I’ll just go get the Chicken Whisperer, and we’ll get to interviewing your star witnesses, officer.”
Epp tromped off in the direction of the house. Schenk let a long, steady breath out of his nostrils and began to thump his pencil against his pad rapidly, taptaptap. My eyes snuck sideways and way, way up at him.
“Did he just say Chicken Whisperer?”
Unhappily, Schenk confirmed, “He did.”
“Oh, I’m so glad I answered your call this morning.”
“You owe me big time.”
“Wait a second. You woke me up, told me to come with you under pain of replacement with some less-awesome psychic, and I owe you? What kind of happy horse hockey are you trying to pull, Longshanks?”
“Hockey?” He paused, thoughtful. “I'll be damned. That's why he looks so familiar. He could be Lanny McDonald's twin brother.”
What I knew about hockey would probably fit on a puck with room to spare, because I am the worst Canadian in the history of ever, so I kept my ignorance to myself. I thought he needed a pat on the arm to bolster his spirits, so I gave him one.
He glanced down at me. “Getting anything off him, Big City Psychic?”
“Not a thing,” I confessed. “The Blue Sense must not be awake yet.” I turned at the sound of the door. “Holy crispy crapsicles.”
Epp thumped out the back door of the farmhouse wearing a floppy blond Marilyn Monroe wig and a quilted housecoat thrown over his overalls. He backhanded ropey platinum waves out of his hairy face. He’d smeared tangerine lipstick on his lips. It matched the color of his facial hair almost perfectly. He made me feel like Janet Leigh when the shower curtain tore open. It’s entirely possible I let out a little eep in lieu of a violin musical sting.
Schenk said tentatively, “Mr. Epp?”
“I’m Tina Epp, the Chicken Whisperer.” She handed Schenk a business card. “I’ll take you down to talk to Henny. She’s in charge of the girls out in the big barn. This way.”
I whispered out the side of my mouth, “It’s that new horror movie: Mrs. Doubtfire Silences the Lambs.”
Schenk clamped his lips together hard to keep a straight face and tucked the business card in his back pocket. “Uh, ma’am?” He followed her into the barn, clearing his throat. “Who's Henny? A hen?”
The barn was lit by stark white fluorescents and warmed just enough to take the chill off. The smell of chickens was only mildly worse inside. Epp began rubbing her hands again.
“She’s the Black Jersey Giant. Isn’t she a beaut? Now, hold on.”
She approached the pens and began talking to the chicken. In clucks.
I said, “How come you got a business card and I didn’t?”
Schenk was working valiantly at keeping his shit together; he flicked me an annoyed glance, dug the card out, and handed it to me. It was warm from being tucked against his butt cheek and it read: Chickens: I “get” them. The hinky quotation marks made me wonder: how exactly did Tina Epp “get” the chickens? She folded her fists into her armpits to make ersatz wings of her arms and used one boot to scratch at the dirt.
“This might be the best/worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” I confided to the cop in a whisper, “and I’ve been chased by half-naked zombies cosplaying wildlife.”
“Nope,” Tina reported to us, flexing her fingers. “Nope. Sorry. Henny says the girls don’t know nothing. Only the rooster was out.”
I ventured, “And you can’t talk to the rooster?”
“Aw, heck no, not me, ma’am.” She batted at her wig again, spitting as strands of hair drifted and stuck to her mustache and lipstick: rookie make-up problem. It almost never happened to me anymore. Mostly because I stopped wearing lipstick.
Schenk opened his mouth, and by the hitching of his belt I figured he was going to tell Epp we’d be heading out. Epp held up one finger to tell us to wait.
“You just hold yer bones, officer. I’ll go on in and fetch the Cock Whisperer.”
Schenk and I froze in mutual stunned silence, our eyes slinking sideways to each other’s, while Epp clomped back toward the house in her black rubber boots, rubbing her hands in one another. I wondered if Schenk realized his hand had drifted to check that his gun was in place.
“Are you scared, too?” I whispered.
“I’ve never been so afraid in all my days on the force,” he said.
“Can’t we just leave?” I hissed in disbelief. “Do we really have to interview the Cock Whisperer? What if this nutcase comes out naked?”
“Then we'll call an ambulance for a case of frostbite nobody wants.” Schenk made a calming motion at me with one big, capable hand. “Settle yourself, now,” he advised. “I want to find out if Henny the Hen’s rooster buddy is named Cocky the Cock.”
A gleeful meep escaped me and I swallowed my giggles. “Don’t!”
“I’m serious,” he said, but the twinkle in his eye said otherwise.
“I can’t,” I wailed from behind both gloved fists. “I can’t do it. I can’t not laugh at this. I’m sorry!” I tried smothering my laughter, fanning myself for air. This was a terrible idea because even in the cold air the overpowering reek of avian waste nearly made me gag. “I better go wait in the car.”
I turned to leave the barn, but Schenk snagged the back of my parka by the hood.
“Don’t you dare leave this spot,” he said with a downright ferocious smile. It reminded me of a lion about to tear a strip off of dinner. I felt my eyes widen in the face of his almost savage amusement. “You wanted to play. The game has just begun, woman.” He cleared his throat again, and slid his sunglasses on, despite the fact that the sun was still hours from rising. “Welcome to my world. Straight face, button your lip.”
“The Cock Whisperer better have a card, because I’m gonna want that.”
Schenk’s sigh told me grow up. “Here she comes. Whoops, he’s a he again.”
I couldn’t look. I kept my back to the Cock Whisperer as he jingled forth; I heard the little tinkles and thought, belly dancer? Please, Dark Lady, anything but a gimp suit studded with bondage rings. I studied Schenk’s amazingly blank face for clues and found nothing, but the reflection in his sunglasses gave it away; Lennie Epp had thrown on a purple and green, three-peaked, King’s court jester hat with bells sewn to the tips. Gone was the housecoat and Marilyn wig. His Yosemite Sam mustache had been hastily waxed down into dastardly curls.
And suddenly, I was okay. The laughter was gone. I felt the stir of psi and welcomed the return of the Blue Sense, settling in my brain like a warm, familiar hand on my forehead. I knew in that instant that Lennie was not insane, nor was he talking to the livestock, nor did he believe he was talking to the livestock. The chickens had seen nothing. Lennie was our witness. But Lennie didn’t trust us, not yet. In fact, Lennie was torn; he was desperate to share the fishy stuff he’d seen, but he was terrified of policemen. So Lennie was fucking with us to see just how badly we wanted his input. We were being tested.
I could see by the strained expression on Schenk’s face that he was about thirty seconds from tossing his notebook in the air and stomping off. When Lennie began to do a hopping jester dance from one boot to the other in front of the pen where he kept the rooster and singing “coochie-coo coochie-coo,” I spoke up.
“Mr. Epp, how much time did you serve at Kingston Penitentiary?”
Epp’s crazy dance stopped. He whipped around so fast his jester hat flew off, leaving his flat orange hair sticking up at the front. “That wasn’t me. That was my brother, Shecky.”
“Shecky Epp?”
“That’s right.”
“You realize that my cop friend here can check that in about two minutes, right?” I had no idea if that was a fair es
timate or not, but it sounded good. “Computers. Wonderful things.”
Epp considered me with new interest. “You’re not a cop?”
“Nope. Wait, you mean I look like a cop?” I might have had a little zing of pride there. I might also have had an idea for something to do with Harry when we had some privacy.
“You talk like a cop, all polite and cordial—”
“I am freezing my tits off in your chicken-shit shed, Lennie,” I said. “So, if you're done giving us the lowest-rent version of Paris Fashion Week ever, how about telling me what you saw?”
Lennie’s eyebrows shot straight up, and over Schenk’s unhappy curse, the farmer hooted a laugh. He turned on his heel, crooking an inviting finger at us to join him in the farmhouse. We did.
“Saw three of them for the longest time,” Lennie told us, leading us through a maze of plastic bins filled with assorted junk in his mudroom. “Two guys and one girl. Early twenties. Always at night. Always had beer. Bottles, which bothers me, because…” He paused to give me a serious look. “Broken glass.”
I nodded, although I had no idea why he’d care about that. The Blue Sense told me he felt very strongly about it.
“Twenty, thirty times over the past year or so, just about every weekend or other,” Lennie continued. He left the door between the mudroom and a bright kitchen propped open. “They didn’t make no trouble, so I didn’t make no trouble for them.”
The kitchen looked like something out of a post-apocalypse movie, with empty cans scattered on the floor near an overflowing garbage pail, dishes piled in stacks by a cluttered sink, some broken, some coated in old food. I followed Schenk’s lead and pretended not to notice. Whether or not Lennie was the most slovenly housekeeper in the province had nothing to do with his being a witness.
“After a while,” he went on, shuffling through empty chip wrappers and stepping idly over a basket full of yarn, “they started bringing around a fourth person, another woman. Short. Blonde. Spiked hair. Glasses. Then the goth chick with the blue streak started bringing equipment.”
“What kind of equipment?” Schenk’s notebook was out again.
