Alpaca Lies (Bought-the-Farm Mystery Book 5)

by Ellen Riggs

  “I bet it’s that split nail,” I said, pulling the clippers out of the bag and starting to pry open the packaging. It was easier to break into a safe than sealed plastic like this. The shards were almost as sharp as the blades. “Maybe I’ll trim it now. Don’t let me keep you, Simon. Poor Anne’s on her own.”

  He turned off the engine, opened the door and hopped out, replacing his hat as he did. “No worries, I’ll give you a hand.”

  Oops. My strategy had backfired so badly that Keats wedged himself between my boots.

  “Simon, your community spirit is showing,” I said, smiling. “But Anne’s always so kind to me and I refuse to keep you a second longer.”

  Leaving the door of the truck open and the headlights on, he started walking toward the camelid pasture. “Don’t worry. Nan’ll be fine with Gregor.”

  Glancing into the truck, I saw a key fob with a scarlet heart dangling from the ignition. The interior lights made the gold N glitter.

  Nan. A pet name only Anne’s nearest, dearest and most possessive knew. There was a pink hat on the passenger seat as well.

  So she really did like to dance, after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “On second thought, it would be silly to start trimming in the dark, Simon,” I said. “It could do more harm than good. Better to tackle that in daylight.”

  “But I’m here now,” he said. “A certified expert in alpaca nail trimming.”

  “There’s certification for nail trimming?” I asked, just to keep the conversation light.

  “Sure. You can get certified for anything on the Internet these days.” He gave a grim chuckle. “You hold the light and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  He held out his hand for the trimmers.

  “I learn better by doing,” I said, continuing to pry open the packaging. “You explain and I’ll trim.”

  No way would I bend over and offer my head for a thump, though. I had to think fast.

  “Fine, have it your way,” he said. “Come on, now.”

  That’s when I realized my boots hadn’t moved. I was still standing near the truck with Keats between my feet.

  “Simon, I have a bad habit of overreaching, especially when I’m tired. Kellan’s always asking me to slow down and think about what I’m doing. So I’d really rather wait till tomorrow. Senna will be here and can train me. But thank you.”

  “Let’s just get it done,” he said. “I’m going in with or without you. I’ve got a utility knife.”

  Finally I started moving and Keats preceded me, belly low, hackles high. I couldn’t let Simon and his utility knife go inside the pen with my animals. He might be armed with worse for all I knew. The feed store was licensed to sell firearms.

  “I wouldn’t, Simon. The donkeys are raring for a fight. Have been ever since… what happened to José.”

  “I don’t know why they wouldn’t just trample him,” Simon said.

  I stopped walking. “Pardon me?”

  He turned back, grinning. “I mean, when I heard the story of how he climbed in here late at night. He was a drunk dancer, not an animal wrangler. You’ve got to have your wits about you when dealing with livestock, right?”

  “Right. Which is why—”

  “I’ll get the gate,” he said, plodding on.

  As I followed, I finished prying the clippers out of the packaging and slipped them into my pocket. At the same time, I yanked out my phone and texted Kellan one word: help.

  Then I hit the record button and turned on the phone light. The battery was low. Hopefully there was enough juice to get me through the next 10 or 15 minutes. That’s how long it would take the cops to get here.

  It was time to dance for my life.

  Simon went inside the pasture and I loitered at the gate. Did I shut myself inside with him and trap the animals there, too? Or did I leave the gate open so they could escape, and risk them escaping and injuring themselves another way?

  Keats whined and raised one paw in a point. Right! The pig poker. Normally I left the long wooden pole with its rusty brass hook near Wilma’s pen, but since Drama had gotten so feisty with Keats, I’d started leaving it here. Now it was only a few yards away. If things got as bad as I feared they would, I could grab it from the inside and pull it over. Just having a shred of a plan made it possible for me to pull in a full breath. I was going to need oxygen to fuel my best brain cells if I hoped to talk my way through this.

  “Let’s go, Ivy,” Simon said.

  I let Keats into the pen and pulled the door closed, making sure it didn’t quite latch. Keats glanced at me with his blue eye, confirming he noticed.

  “Leave the dog outside,” Simon said. “No reason for him to get hurt.”

  “No one’s going to get hurt with a nail trim, are they? Otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it.”

  His teeth gleamed in the light of my phone, and he turned his phone on, too. “Leave him if you like. It’s just a precaution. You know how unpredictable animals can be.”

  I knew how unpredictable human animals could be as well. “Let’s just get it done fast.”

  “Agreed.” He said it too quickly and I knew exactly what he wanted to get done: kill me.

  He knew I’d figured out what happened the night José died. My expression obviously gave me away when I saw the trimmers. What a terrible time for my normally reliable poker face to fail me.

  He walked over to Alvina and she backed against the fence, eyes wide and terrified.

  “She’s scared, Simon,” I said. “Maybe you could try dancing with her first to settle her down.”

  He turned quickly. “I don’t dance, Ivy. Never did, never will. There’s no place for that kind of thing in Clover Grove. It makes people lose their wits. In farm country, we can’t afford to lose our wits.”

  I nodded. “No argument there. José was foolish trying his moves out here alone.”

  Simon continued to stare at me. I couldn’t get a good look at his eyes but I knew they had the crazy gleam. I’d seen it before. I’d felt the vibes. The train had left the station and all I could do was keep it rolling before it zoomed off the tracks. Again.

  “He was the worst kind of loser,” Simon said. “He took advantage of women. Good women who lost their minds over his fancy footwork.”

  “I know. He scammed my mom out of some of my hard-earned savings,” I said. “Every cent counts around here.”

  “Dahlia I’m not surprised about. She’s the type to fall for a stupid ponytail.”

  “Well, she had plenty of company. Quite a few women in town contributed generously to José’s start-up fund. It doesn’t mean any funny business was going on, Simon.”

  “I saw what I saw,” he said. “All I had to do was park outside his studio a couple of nights. Dancing like that goes nowhere good.”

  I leaned against the fence, easing slowly toward the pig pole. “I might have said the same thing till tonight. I took a spin under the mirror ball with a skilled dancer and it really did transport me for a few minutes. All the worries of my life—and there are many—faded away. That’s when I understood why women wanted to keep José in town. It wasn’t because they loved him or his ponytail.”

  “He gave them big ideas. Romantic ideas. That’s not what life out here is all about. Like you said, every cent counts. Your reputation counts.”

  He swept off his hat again and swiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his coat. I didn’t know if it was sweat or tears, but it was a chance to move a little further along the fence.

  “I know, Simon. It’s so gallant of you to think of the women who got taken for a ride. Luckily Anne didn’t dance. She was safe from José’s wiles.”

  I was trying to give him an out. To tell him I didn’t suspect him. His heavy breathing paused for a second, and maybe he considered taking the escape route I offered.

  “It doesn’t matter if she did,” he said. “If other people thought it was true.”

  “I’ve never heard Anne’s nam
e come up and I have access to insider information.”

  “Just a matter of time. You know what this town is like. She wore a pink hat to disguise herself. Like I wouldn’t know that hat anywhere. I gave it to her.”

  “You and Anne have the kind of relationship everyone envies,” I said. “You’re best friends and business partners as well as husband and wife. We all want to be like you guys.”

  “It can all fall apart in a second,” he said. “One minute your wife is holding your hand, the next she’s handing over your retirement savings to a fancy dancer.”

  “Oh, Simon, if that happened to Anne, I’m so sorry. But you know full well it was just dancing. Just money. She’d never cheat on you.”

  “Just dancing… Just money…” He mimicked me. “Just disrespect and complete annihilation of my social standing.” The baseball cap came off again, and this time I could see his face was streaked with both sweat and tears. “She gave him twenty grand and still holds my hand like it never happened.”

  “That’s because it didn’t mean anything to her. You can recover that money, I bet. The police are looking for an old safe.”

  He put his hat on crooked. “I got it from his apartment. Looks like an old piece of crap but I can’t break into it, even with an axe.”

  “But you’ll get there. And you can figure out a way to return the money to everyone. You’ll be a hero.”

  “Ivy, you’re a nice person. Too nice. Too gullible.” He took a step toward me. “And way too nosy. That’s what makes people need to kill you. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry people want to kill me?” I asked, lightly. I was almost at the pig pole. If I could keep him talking just a minute longer, I’d be able to grab it and haul it over. Then I’d run like heck and count on him to follow. Away from my animals.

  “Yeah,” he said. “And sorry I need to finish what others have failed to do.”

  “Kill me? Why on earth would you do that?”

  “Because you know too much.”

  “Like I’d ever tell anyone about Anne. I like her, and I refuse to believe she did anything more than invest in a dance studio. People do worse every day.”

  “I’ve done worse,” he said. “And you know it.”

  “Ah. So you’re the one who ridded our town of a nasty pest? I should thank you.”

  “You should. But instead you’d tell your boyfriend.”

  “Women don’t always share. Like you said. How about we just keep it a secret between us?

  It was the wrong thing to say. The hitch in his breath told me so before he blurted, “No more secrets.”

  I raised my hand. “Okay, okay. If you’re going to kill me, you might as well tell me how you lured José out here. I’m nosy, like you said.”

  “Easy. Texted him from Anne’s phone. There was a string of messages where he called her ‘his biggest patron’ and ‘his Nan.’ No one ever called her that but me.”

  “That’s how a conman works, Simon. They get personal details and exploit them.”

  His breathing hitched again, as if fighting back sobs. “Don’t you get it? No one used that name but me. But she let him. She responded to his texts. Even if racy dancing was all that happened, she broke our trust. It can’t ever come back.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Simon. People rebuild from worse all the time.”

  He shook his head over and over, as if trying to shake loose an image. I expected it was Nan in José’s arms, gossamer hair flying as she spun away from the drudgery of this life.

  “It didn’t mean she didn’t love you,” I said. “She thought she’d get the money back soon, and with interest.”

  “Go ahead and take her side, Ivy. You know where that’s getting you? Nowhere.”

  That’s where he was wrong. It got me to the pig poker. But just as my hand touched the wooden pole, Simon lunged.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  If I’d expected anything in that moment it would have been for Keats to lunge, too. And my dog didn’t let me down. The problem was that for all his natural spring, he couldn’t launch far enough to inflict much damage to a large, tall man. Keats was smart enough to know that and bide his time by going for Simon’s calves.

  What I never expected was for Alvina to throw herself into the fray. She was a sensitive beast, barely recovered from the last crime committed in this pen by night. Maybe I’d made an impression with my singing earlier, or maybe she was tired of her turf being invaded. Either way, she let out a strange, feral bray and moved in front before Simon could reach me.

  And then she did what an alpaca under pressure does: she spit in his face. I had dropped my phone in my pocket to grab the poker with both hands so I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing it happen. But I knew well enough what it felt like, and smelled like, and based on his yelp, Simon’s eyes had been wide open to receive the blast. He hopped around, trying to wipe his eyes and probably only rubbing it in more.

  “Alvina, Keats, come,” I yelled, starting to run for the gate while maneuvering the pig poker. I turned to see if she followed. Alvina wasn’t used to commands and this girl danced to her own drummer.

  Simon held his arms wide to block Alvina’s path, and with his back to me, yelled, “Guess I’ll hunt some big game before the small game. Alpaca goes down first. The dog second, and you third, Ivy.”

  “Not going to happen,” I said, hauling back the pole. “Not that way.”

  Alvina let out another screech. She sounded terrified now. If I swung at Simon hard enough and he dodged, I could hit the alpaca.

  Keats saw the dilemma. He ran as he never had before in a huge loop, bringing Drama Llama and the thugs across the pasture. When they got near the fence, Percy jumped onto Drama’s back and held on like a bareback rodeo rider. His claws spurred Drama on, and the llama led his crew straight at Simon. At the last moment, Drama dodged. The redirect gave Percy a chance to leap onto the fence again. Simon spun out of reach in a move that was more like a ballroom dancer’s than he’d ever care to know. The alpaca spit must have cleared from his eyes because he managed to clamber up the fence quite easily. I thought he’d go over… Make a run for the truck. Instead, as Drama and the thugs circled back, Simon did the stupidest thing I could imagine: he jumped on the fierce llama’s back.

  “No!” I yelled, holding the poker like a baseball bat in case I could get a swing at him. Drama bucked under the big man’s weight. Simon managed to stay on. I’d heard he did rodeo work in his youth and he still had the skills, if the wrong animal. Llamas weren’t built to carry a man that large.

  “Leave my llama alone,” I yelled.

  “I couldn’t get them to trample the dance king,” Simon yelled. “But that’s how you’re going down, Ivy.”

  Keats had other plans. I turned to see him pulling at the gate from the bottom and Percy did the same from the top. It swung open and Drama Llama saw his opportunity. He gave a last buck and then bolted with the rest of his gang in pursuit.

  A shriek rang out and I wondered if Simon had been thrown already. I hoped not. I wanted Drama to give him the thrill ride of a lifetime. Or deathtime, if that’s what Fate had in mind. It was out of my hands now. All I could do was protect the animals.

  Keats and Percy started to follow and I called them back. “Let him go, Keats. Get Alvina and we’ll take his truck in case he comes back.”

  Keats hesitated, clearly itching to go after his man. Finally he circled the alpaca and she followed me out without a protest. My initial plan was to run her down to the barn, but by the time I unlocked it, got her inside, and ran back, Simon could be back and mowing me down. I didn’t think he’d get far on Drama.

  So I went with plan B.

  Running to Simon’s truck, I opened the back door of the cab. It was an awkward jump, but if Alvina would do it, a safer ride than the open bed at the back.

  Keats gave her heel a little nip and she put her front legs up on the runner. I started to boost from behind, knowing she wasn’t tha
t heavy. She scrabbled and her bowels unleashed in the struggle. It wasn’t her fault and incontinence was the least of our worries. Putting my shoulder into it, I got her inside and closed the door.

  I saw a light in the pasture and said, “Get his phone, Keats.”

  Percy and I jumped in, and I already had the truck rolling slowly when Keats came back and catapulted right over my lap into the passenger seat. It was the biggest truck I’d ever been in, let alone driven. But I managed to get it in first gear and chugged forward.

  “Hold on, everyone,” I called, pulling the door closed. “Gonna be a bumpy ride.”

  I did a slow, wide U turn in the parking area and then nearly hit the clutch when I saw the lights bumping through the fields toward me.

  I knew those lights. I just didn’t know who was behind them.

  “Should I stay or go?” I asked Keats, who had one white paw raised in a point.

  His mouth opened and he panted ha-ha-ha.

  I put the truck in neutral and waited till the headlights joined to reveal what Keats was laughing about.

  Edna’s ATV rolled into view, slower than I’d ever seen it move. Behind her, Simon Rezek stumbled at the end of a rope. His hands were cuffed and his mouth gagged by the scarf she’d worn earlier.

  She jumped off, still wearing the purple sequinned dress. I got out of the truck to join her.

  “Honestly, Ivy,” she said, yanking pepper spray out of her coat pocket. “Can’t you keep your trouble at home? I was pulling up to my house in a cab when this idiot rode by on your llama. I hopped on my vehicle and pursued till I got close enough to lasso him. Simon was spouting all kinds of madness so I knew what I was dealing with. Came right over to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay. We’re okay,” I said, gesturing to the truck. Keats and Percy had already jumped down and Alvina’s face was pressed to the rear window closest to us.

  Edna started to laugh. “Did you stall that thing?”

  I straightened my shoulders and adjusted my imaginary crown. “I did not.”