by Hillary Avis
Ollie jumped to his feet and grabbed my arm. “The exterminator?! You can’t do that—he’ll kill them.”
“They will?” Dylan’s voice was tremulous, and he blinked back tears as he stared up at me.
“They’re dangerous to the chickens,” I explained. It was a half-truth. Possums don’t usually eat adult hens, but they love eggs, and they won’t say no to a vulnerable chick, either. Either way, bad for my business. “They can’t live here.”
“They’re just babies,” Ollie said hotly.
“Babies grow up. Then I’ll have six grownup possums stealing my eggs. And what about when they have babies?” I asked. “I won’t have any eggs left.”
The boys were silent a minute, thinking. Then Dylan offered, “You could feed them something different. That’s what Mom does so we don’t eat too much dessert. She says, ‘Fill up on vegetables first.’”
“Your mom’s very smart.” I smiled at him. If only it were so easy to tempt possums with veggies. “Tell you what. I will possum-proof my chicken run tomorrow. Maybe if I can keep them out, they’ll decide to move somewhere else. Then I won’t have to call the exterminator.”
Ollie gave a satisfied nod. “Good.”
Adding smaller gauge wire around my huge chicken run was going to be an expensive and time-consuming chore. But if one litter of possums figured out how to burgle the nest boxes, there’d be another litter next season and another after that, as generations of possums passed down their coop-cracking wisdom. I’d be dealing with this every year if I didn’t fix the problem now...as much as it might hurt when I paid the credit card bill for all that hardware cloth. Using larger gauge wire was a budget decision to begin with, and now I regretted it. I sighed.
“Do you promise you won’t hurt them?” Dylan asked in a tiny voice. Both boys stared up at me, and I crumbled under the power of their giant puppy-dog eyes.
“I promise.”
“Even if they go in the chicken coop before you fix it?”
“Even if. But it’s not going to happen.”
Ollie crossed his arms, his jaw set. “How do you know? I think you’re just saying that, like how Mom always says we can have a treat after dinner, but then we don’t.”
The hypocrisy of adults is the main plight of childhood, I thought ruefully, and Ollie had called me on it. Well, at least this time, I had an explanation. “I know they’re not going to break in tonight because I’m going to do a stake-out. I’ll watch the chicken coop and scare them away if they come near.”
“You’re going to stay up all night?” Dylan asked incredulously.
I nodded.
His face lit up. “Can I do it, too?”
“Yeah, can we?” Ollie asked. “It’ll be like camping!”
Camping in the yard wasn’t a terrible idea, actually. I still had Eli’s tent sitting on the porch, forgotten in the embarrassment over my accidental selfie. And after playing babysitter all week, Ruth would enjoy the night off. I even had some new kid toothbrushes in the drawer that I’d bought just in case Isabella-Sophia and John-William needed them when they visited last Christmas. Plus, a night under the stars would keep Dylan and Ollie’s minds off their mom.
I grinned at them. “You know what? I don’t see why not.”
The boys hooted with happiness and bounced around. After enjoying their celebration for a minute, I went to scout for a level spot with no rocks to set up the tent. I found one near the lilac bush by the house. It was near enough to the coop that my hi-beam would illuminate any nighttime visitors, so I dragged the tent bag off the porch and got to work.
It’s no mean feat, setting up a tent alone. I got it spread out and oriented toward the coop just fine, but when it came to the poles? Well, shoving those bendy things through the teeny sleeves was as impossible as pulling up a wet bathing suit. They just...stuck. And with nobody to help work the poles through the seams, the cold sweats started. I felt like I was trapped in the swimming pool dressing room with my swimsuit around my thighs. Nobody could help me now. I was alone, half-naked—
“Need a hand?” The rumble of Eli’s amused voice interrupted my panic attack. I hadn’t heard him approach, which meant he must have walked over from his place.
I scrambled to my feet, brushing off the grass and dirt that clung to my clothes, which thank the gourd I was wearing. “Now that you mention it, I do. I hope you don’t mind that we’re using your tent again. I forgot to send it home with you the other day.” You know, the day I sent you that picture of my boobs.
“I haven’t even missed it.” He kindly did not mention my boobs as he kneeled on the other side of the tent. “I’m glad it’s coming in handy. I’m surprised, though. I know camping isn’t your favorite.”
I nodded toward the boys, who were on their bellies staring under the pumphouse again. “I promised them a possum stake-out tonight. We found a whole family holed up under there with a bunch of empty eggshells. I think they’re the reason the flock has been so reluctant to roost in the coop.”
“Phew—glad to be off the hook.” Eli winked before nodding at me to bend the first tent pole into place. It was infinitely easier with his help.
“I’m hoping this’ll keep Ollie and Dylan distracted so they won’t be homesick, too. Any word on when Tambra’s going to be released?” I asked as we moved on to the next section of the tent.
Eli stayed quiet until we got that pole in place, too. Then he said, “I don’t think she is.”
I stared at him over the top of the upright tent. “What do you mean? Surely now that Archer’s been arrested, the state police will have to let her go!”
He shook his head. “He has an alibi. His mom said he was with her the whole evening. They watched the fireworks and then she drove him home.”
“That’s a lie!” I blurted out. “I mean, if fake alibis work so well, then I’ll testify that Tambra was with me the whole evening.”
“I found her with McKenzie’s body, Leona,” Eli said sadly. “I wish it wasn’t this way, but—”
“What about the note? He sent Jillian that note—it has to mean something. They can’t just ignore that the killer sent the note. Tambra couldn’t have done that from county lockup.”
Eli came around the side of the tent and pulled me into a hug. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my face into his shirt as hot tears threatened to spill over. He rested his chin on the top of my head and I felt the hum of his throat as he answered. “Detective Crisp thinks the note was unrelated to the murder. Whoever sent it probably just read Jillian’s name in the paper and decided to be a jerk. It happens too often in cases like this.”
I pulled back from him to look at his face. “So that’s it? Tambra is stuck in jail and Jillian is walking around terrified because she thinks someone might murder her, and the official word from law enforcement is ‘don’t worry about it; it’s probably nothing’?”
Eli nodded, stretching out his hands helplessly. “Don’t blame me—it’s not my case. We just have to accept that the road to justice might have more twists and turns than we want it to.”
I crossed my arms. “I don’t accept it. And I do blame you. Even if you’re not in charge, you should be going to bat for these women. Nobody else is going to do it, Eli. Not the state police, not the DA—not even the father of Tambra’s children is doing a motherclucking thing. They only have you.”
“And you. And Ruth.”
“Us,” I agreed. “They have us.”
Chapter 20
Ruth showed up when the boys were already asleep in the tent with Boots, worn out from the adventures of the afternoon. I was afraid the crunch of her tires on the gravel might wake them, but I didn’t even hear them stir inside the tent when she slammed her car door and walked over, her sleeping bag slung over her shoulder and a pillow in a flowery case clamped under one arm.
She spread out the sleeping bag next to mine on the tarp I’d laid out a short distance from the tent, then plopped down on it and cracked open the
wine cooler I handed her. “I knew I’d convert you on camping,” she said, taking a self-satisfied swig.
“Camping’s not a religion. It’s not like my soul is saved just because I set up a tent. Anyway, this isn’t camping. The bathroom is right there, the fridge is right there...” I counted off the amenities of home on my fingers.
She rolled her eyes at me as she stared up at the sky, where the last fingers of sunlight dyed the wispy clouds shades of Buff Orpington and Rhode Island Red. “Sleeping under the stars is a religious experience. There’s no church like staring up at the whole universe staring back at you.” Her voice got dreamy at the end like it did when she rubbed different colored rocks on her chakra points. Must be the wine cooler again.
“Well, tonight, a whole family of possums is going to interrupt the service,” I said, trying to bring her back to earth. I patted the sprayer nozzle beside me, already set to “jet.” The attached hose snaked back to the bib by the house, where the water was turned on full blast. “One squirt from this puppy, and Mama Possum won’t be bringing her babies to the breakfast bar anymore.”
“Speaking of babies,” Ruth said. She nodded toward the tent and lowered her voice. “What are we going to do with those boys? Any news from Eli about the investigation?”
“Unfortunately.”
“What do you mean?” Her forehead creased as she swigged the last of her drink. She rolled over and propped up her chin on the pillow so she could look at me.
“The state police are ignoring any evidence that points away from Tambra.” I wrapped my arms around my knees and stared at the coop, where I’d spent way too much time putting the chickens to bed this evening, moving them one at a time to the roosts. “Archer gave them the weakest alibi on the planet, and they swallowed it anyway.”
“He still says he wasn’t there?” Ruth asked, her mouth dropping open. “Even with the picture of him on the front page of the paper?”
“His mom claims he was with her the whole time and she drove him home herself.”
“Maybe he was? I know Luna Clark—she’s not the kind to fib.”
I shrugged. “Maybe he told her he was going to the bathroom or something, so she didn’t even remember he was gone. Jillian said Archer accosted her and McKenzie in the parking lot, just before—well, you know. That was during the fireworks. So obviously he wasn’t on the field with his mother then. You never know what people will do for their kids.” I shook my head.
Ruth was quiet. She traced the pattern on her pillowcase with an idle finger as she thought about what I’d said. Then she turned to me, her expression frank. “Did anyone else see Archer in the parking lot that night?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So it’s just Jillian’s word that puts him there?”
I looked at her sharply. “What are you saying? You think Jillian lied?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“She has no reason to make it up!”
Ruth arched one eyebrow. “Wouldn’t be the first time a runner-up had a grudge against a winner. Think about it—it’s a lot better for Jillian if someone else was in that parking lot, isn’t it? Because otherwise it’s just her and McKenzie and Tambra.”
It was, now that Ruth had put it so plainly. Jillian said herself that she and McKenzie weren’t good friends. And if she knew, somehow, that she and McKenzie were both dating Archer, well...maybe losing the crown and the guy were too much for her. I certainly knew the pain of being a woman scorned. And Jillian had been acting weird this week. I thought it was grief, but maybe it was guilt.
“But what about the note?” I asked. Ruth’s puzzled face reminded me that she didn’t even know about it. I’d hustled the boys out of the Greasy Spoon so fast that I hadn’t had time to catch her up on all I’d learned from Jillian. “Someone sent Jillian a threatening note. It reads like it’s from the killer.”
Ruth blinked in the dim of the evening. “The good news is that Tambra couldn’t have sent it. That alone should exonerate her.”
“That’s what I said. But the state police are so sure Tambra did it that they’re saying it was sent by someone unrelated to the crime. Not that they have any proof one way or another.”
“Right. Or Jillian could have forged it to cast suspicion away from herself.” Ruth bit her lip pensively, like she didn’t really believe her own speculation.
I didn’t know what to think. I was pretty sure Archer was there in that parking lot during the Fourth of July fireworks. But that didn’t mean Jillian was innocent. She wasn’t the good girl I thought she was. No, she’d broken rules and hidden secrets, too. She might be a good person, but that didn’t mean she didn’t do bad things sometimes.
“What’s that?” Ruth whispered, snapping her head up and squinting in the direction of the coop. A flash of movement caught my eye, too. Ruth scrabbled for my hi-beam and aimed it for the coop. Confirmed: a passel of possums. They froze in the glare of the flashlight, a couple of the babies halfway through the wire, caught in the act. They looked just like Dylan squeezing under the door in the men’s changing room.
I reached over me and grabbed the sprayer, pointed it at the possums, and let loose the jet of cold well water. My aim was perfect. The mama possum took a direct hit, knocking her sideways, and the babies were stunned by the splash. All six sodden animals froze and keeled over, playing dead.
“I hope you didn’t drown them,” Ruth giggled as she kept the light trained on their prone forms, barely visible in the grass. A few minutes later, the little family staggered to their feet and made a dash for the row of trees at the back of my property. But before they disappeared into the brush, the mama turned to look at us with an expression so injured, I couldn’t help cracking up.
“She looks like the loser in a wet T-shirt contest,” Ruth said. Her whole body jiggled with laughter, giggles rising until she keeled over like a possum playing dead and let out a full belly laugh. We passed the giggles back and forth until we both fell asleep under the summer night sky, with the universe staring down at us.
Chapter 21
July 9, Day 6, Saturday
Ruth hung up her phone and sipped her coffee gingerly, wincing slightly as the hot liquid burned her tongue. “He’s on the road.”
She meant Dylan and Ollie’s father. I nodded and set two plates of blueberry pancakes on the table for the boys. Boots pecked hopefully for pancake crumbs under the table.
“What’s mine, again?” Dylan asked, ignoring his breakfast and craning his neck to examine his own belly.
“No Spring Chicken,” I answered. I’d given each of them one of my T-shirts to wear as emergency pajamas while I put their clothes through the wash last night. The shirts were comically baggy on the wiry little boys, hanging below their knees like brightly colored nightgowns. Dylan must have asked me a million times what the words on the front of his said.
“No Spring Chicken,” Dylan repeated.
“Too bad you can’t read yet.” Ollie took a smug bite of pancake.
“I can read! I just can’t read upside down,” Dylan protested.
Ollie rolled his eyes. “That’s because you’re just a kindergarten dummy.”
“Be nice,” Ruth admonished Ollie.
He smirked at her with his mouth full, then swallowed. “Or what? You’ll tell Mom?”
Ruth and I exchanged a look. The way he said it...he knew. We’d kept the boys away from news reports on the radio and TV, so he didn’t know that his mom was in jail for murder, but he knew something was wrong. At eight years old, he was more tuned-in to the weird ways of grownups than his brother.
“Guess what we’re doing today?” I said brightly. Distraction was only going to work for so long, but I wasn’t yet ready to have that conversation. Maybe when their dad arrived tomorrow. “We’re going to go see Jillian get her Miss Honeytree crown!”
Dylan’s pout, still lingering from his brother’s insult, slowly melted into a smile. “Jillian the princess? The one from my—I
mean, your car?” I nodded, and his smile grew. “Is she going to give out candy?”
Of course, every time he’d been around Jillian lately, from the parade to the Greasy Spoon, there’d been candy involved. Not wanting to crush his excitement, I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Ollie snorted—at another grownup lie, I supposed. But at least he didn’t say anything, just shoveled down the rest of his pancakes and slid out of his chair. “Can I have my clothes, please?” he asked, standing with his arms held out to his sides like his yellow “Poultry in Motion” shirt was made of old banana peels.
I slugged the last third of my coffee and rose to check the laundry machines. Only a few minutes remained on the dryer’s cycle, so I cracked it open. The boys’ matching American flag outfits tumbled a few times and then fell, warm and crispy, into my hands. I bet Tambra never imagined they’d get so much wear out of this holiday gear when she bought it.
Back in the kitchen, I handed the small pile of clean clothes to Ollie. “Can you help your brother get dressed?” I asked. “Without being mean to him?”
Ollie looked like he wanted to say something, but he just nodded and took the clothes from me, then headed for the back bedroom. “Come on, Dyl-pickle,” he said over his shoulder. Dylan hopped down from the table and scurried after him, leaving a few bites of syrup-soaked pancake on his plate.
I moved the plate to the floor so Boots could enjoy the leftovers. She pecked happily at the sticky breakfast, wiping her beak on the edge of the plate between bites.
“You know, she almost makes me want a house pet,” Ruth mused as she watched her. “Someone to have coffee with in the morning and come home to in the evening. Someone to hang out with and watch TV at night. Someone to make me laugh.”
I grinned at her. “Sounds like you need a house husband, not a house chicken.”
Her eyes went wide, and she clutched her coffee cup in front of her like a life preserver. “Me?!”
