by Hillary Avis
A few of the chicks were sprawled out limply in the straw, probably sleeping. I couldn’t help giving each one a nudge just to make sure they were still breathing. They all hopped to their feet right away, peeping loudly at my rudeness, which sent Dr. Speckle into a frenzy of motherly clucks as she ushered the affronted chicks under her wings.
All except one.
When I nudged the last one, a little yellow layer, she struggled to stand, then lost her footing and toppled over again and stayed there still. I picked her up and gently dipped her beak into the electrolyte water. She sipped it, but when I tried to prop her up on her feet, she tipped over again. It was then that I noticed her crooked toe and splayed legs.
I cussed under my breath. A genetic defect. She probably wasn’t going to make it. The humane thing to do was end her life now, before I made a huge investment in time and feed.
“What?” Rusty asked over his shoulder.
“Nothing.” This was part of farming, losing animals. I’d planned for this loss, I reminded myself. I knew what I was getting into and that’s why I ordered extra chicks. But as I watched the wobbly little critter try to stand up, I couldn’t stomach culling her—not when she so clearly wanted to live. Besides, she wasn’t going to pass this defect on to her offspring because she wasn’t going to have any offspring. If she could lay eggs, she could be a productive member of the flock. I just needed to correct her splayed legs enough for her to walk. And in the meantime...
I scooped up the little chick and tucked her inside my bra, careful not to crush her. She snuggled in just as she might under Dr. Speckle’s warm, feathered wing. I looked up to see Rusty’s openmouthed, wide-eyed expression.
“What in the H-E-double-hockeysticks are you doing?!” He looked both horrified and delighted, like he’d caught me picking my nose.
I flushed. “I’m just keeping her warm until I get her inside. She needs a little doctoring, that’s all.”
“I’ve never heard of the cleavage cure.” Rusty snickered, staring at my grandma shirt—or at my chick-cradling boobs underneath it. “But I have to say, I’m all for it!”
“The only thing you need to cure is that tractor,” I snapped. Rusty Chapman could keep his eyes and opinions to himself.
Chapter 24
At the comfort of my kitchen table, I gingerly taped a band-aid around the chick’s legs to hold them together and still provide some range of motion. I set her on the table and she wobbled but stayed upright! She immediately began pecking at a chip in the enamel tabletop, so I sprinkled a pinch of the chick starter I’d stashed in one of my cargo pockets on the table a few inches in front of her. She hopped toward it and gobbled most of it up in less than a minute, then cocked her head and stared at me with one beady eye, looking for more.
Satisfaction surged over me. “Good job, little one. I think you’ve got a shot.”
I peered closer at her crooked toes. They were curling backward pretty badly; she’d have a hard time roosting when she grew up, which meant she was doomed to occupy the bottom of the pecking order. Those that roosted higher had higher status; only the lowliest of low hens would sleep on the floor. I used pieces of another bandage and a cut-up toothpick to splint her feet into the proper position.
The little chick pecked at her new booties—they made her look like a duckling instead of a chick—and then when they proved inedible, turned her attention to the fresh batch of starter crumbles in front of her.
Hop, hop, hop.
I was so engrossed in watching the chick’s progress that I didn’t hear Ruth come in until I her voice came from right behind me. “Rusty said you had a house chicken. I guess he wasn’t lying.”
I shrieked and jumped out of my seat. “Don’t you people knock?!”
At my sudden movement, the little chick flattened herself on the tabletop as though I were a swooping hawk, but when I picked her up, she nestled against the warmth of my palm, her eyes fluttering closed.
“I’ve never knocked at the door to this house.” Ruth’s voice was unusually subdued. “I’ll remember next time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said instantly. “I didn’t mean that; I was just startled. You don’t have to knock—you and Rusty are always welcome here. Wait, he called you? How in the world did you get here so fast?”
Ruth pulled out a chair and sat down next to me. “I was already next door, dropping off dinner for Anne and her family, and I figured I’d swing by and see the new chicks. Rusty caught me in the driveway and said you’d just taken one of the babies inside.”
“This one had splay leg.” I passed her the chick and a smile spread across her face as she examined the chick’s feet and legs.
“You should call her Boots. How are you, little Boots?” Ruth cupped the chick close to her, and Boots closed her eyes again, her head nodding down as she fell asleep in Ruth’s hands. “Precious. If I could bottle this feeling and make a spa treatment out of it, I’d earn a fortune.”
“Somehow I think ‘the baby chicken facial’ wouldn’t be a huge seller.” I giggled.
“I don’t know. People are asking for snail-slime facials all the time.”
“No!”
She shrugged as she stroked Boots’s sleeping head with one finger. “It’s true. It’s a thing. You can look it up on the internet.”
I shuddered and tried to quell the image of a snail trail across my face. “How’s Anne doing?”
“You know. She’s a mess, as we all would be in her situation. The sheriff’s department is swarming her place, tearing it apart looking for clues about who might have had something against Walt. They pulled everything out of the blueberry shed and everything out of every closet and drawer inside the house. I hate to think how they’re going to leave it. Hopefully Anne’s sisters can help her put it back together.”
I nodded. “Tell me about it—I’m worried about how they’re going to leave my yard, too. It looks like Crater Lake out there.”
“Maybe you should put in that duck pond my grandpa had planned,” Ruth said wryly. “I’m only half kidding. That’s a big hole. It’ll take forever to fill it back in.”
I grinned. “Nah, Rusty’s going to fix the tractor and use that to move most of the dirt. Thanks for telling him to show up, by the way. He’ll be a big help.”
Ruth frowned. “I didn’t tell him to do that. All I said was your chicks came in. I guess coming over to help was his idea. I didn’t know he had a thoughtful bone in his body.” Ruth looked at me appraisingly. “I hadn’t considered it before, but maybe he’s interested in you.”
I snorted and pointed to my “World’s Best Nana” shirt. “Rusty has a thing for grandmas, huh?”
“Well, he’s our age, isn’t he?” Ruth asked. “And you’re cute as a bug. Lots of guys are checking you out. I saw how Eli looked at you at the park the other day.”
“Yeah, like I’m different.” I rolled my eyes, remembering his comment. “I think Rusty’s more interested in making money. He said he was expecting a paycheck from Walt but now—”
“Yeah.” Ruth nodded. “Now he’s got to get his ducks in a row.”
“Or chickens, in this case.” I grinned at her.
“I wish he wouldn’t work here,” she said abruptly.
I swallowed. I didn’t blame Ruth for feeling that way; my own feelings were complicated enough. She’d sold the family farm to someone who wasn’t family despite Rusty’s protests, which I’m sure weighed heavily on her conscience. “I’m sorry. I should have turned him down. I just thought it was what you wanted, since he said you sent him. I’ll let him know that—”
“No.” She shook her head, her eyes welling up a little. “Really, it’s fine. He has to find his own path. I hoped that once you moved in over here, he’d spread his wings a little, figure out what he wants to do with his life. But a week or two of work over here will pay some bills, and goodness knows he needs that, too. Just don’t let him take over and pretend like he’s still running it. He’s got to remem
ber that the farm is in new hands and he isn’t the only one who can do the job. Make sure you boss him.”
I grinned. “No worries—bossing is my forte. Just ask Eli.”
Ruth’s expression turned to amusement. “I told you. That man’s been tagging after you like a dog after dinner. Stef said he drove you to the post office this morning.”
I nodded. “He’s trying to keep an eye on me, you know, because of a killer active in the neighborhood, blah blah blah.”
“Surely he didn’t think someone was going to murder you on the way to the post office? Oh, yuck, she pooped!” Ruth wrinkled her nose and handed Boots back to me, then rose to get a paper towel from the holder by the sink.
I stroked Boots’s pale yellow fluff with one finger as she settled back into my cupped palm. “He’s just worried that Walt’s killer might come after me because I’ve been asking around about Joe’s murder.”
“He thinks the murders are related?” Ruth’s eyes nearly bugged out of her skull. “How could they be? I thought Walt killed Joe because he was jealous!”
I shrugged. “No way to know now. But Eli thinks it’s possible Walt wasn’t the killer. He thinks it’s possible Walt was telling the truth that he saw the killer burying Joe’s body. When I dug up Joe’s bones and word got out, the killer might have decided to get rid of the potential witness.”
“Do you think Eli’s right?” Ruth asked worriedly.
“Nah. I mean, we could come up with a million theories of the crime. Let’s say Walt killed Joe. Word gets around that Walt knew the skeleton was buried in my yard. Someone from Joe’s family goes to the blueberry shed and exacts revenge. ‘Hello, my name is Toronto Montoya. You killed my son, prepare to die.’”
Ruth chuckled despite the grim subject matter. “I think we’d notice if any Canadians were hanging around town. They have funny accents.” Ruth tossed the paper towel in the garbage and squeezed a blue dollop of dish soap into her palm before vigorously scrubbing her hands like she was going into surgery.
I giggled at her. “A Honeytree girl who’s afraid of a little chicken plop?”
Ruth rinsed her hands and flicked the excess water back into the sink. “Hey, I touch people’s faces all day. I can’t run the Salmonella Salon.”
“Oh, right. No baby chick facials for you. Snail-slime spa treatments only.”
She swatted me with the back of her hand as she sat down again. “Yelena swears by them.”
“Well, she is very well-preserved for someone her age,” I admitted, and then I stopped short, remembering the conversation I’d had with Yelena in my kitchen just a few days earlier. “She moved here after she retired, right? She said it was fifteen years ago. Do you know where she lived before?”
Ruth shrugged. “I assume Russia.”
“Because of the funny accent,” I said, grinning. For some reason I got a kick out of pointing a finger at the least likely suspect on the planet. It proved my point—there was no way to know who had it out for Walt. He was nearly eighty, after all, and he must have collecting plenty of enemies over those eight decades, given his stellar personality.
Ruth blew a curl out of her face and rolled her eyes. “Oh, please! Yelena hasn’t been faking a Russian accent for fifteen years to hide her true Canadian identity. That’s just ridiculous.”
“Of course not. But maybe she raised her children in Toronto. Maybe her son Joe rode the rails around the US before he disappeared twenty years ago. Maybe she tracked him here to Honeytree, where the trail went cold, and she’s been waiting here ever since, hoping that he’d show up. Then when I moved here, he did show up—or at least, his bones did. Cue revenge killing.” I shrugged.
“You think Yelena went on a murderous rampage?” Ruth looked skeptical. I couldn’t blame her. Little old Yelena with her braids wrapped around her head was hardly the picture of a calculating woman bent on revenge.
“I know I would if someone hurt Andrea. You’d better believe I’d stab the plop out of someone who took her life, whether it was twenty minutes ago or twenty years ago.”
Ruth tilted her head to the side, considering. “She was pretty keen on coming out here to the farm even though her hair was only half-done. Tambra said she basically insisted, and it’s not like her conditioning treatment couldn’t have waited until the next day.”
“And that night I told everyone that Walt seemed to know the body was buried there.” My voice came out barely above a whisper. I was just being stupid suggesting Yelena was a potential suspect, but suddenly my wild theory didn’t seem so crazy.
Ruth pulled out her phone and scrolled quickly through a few menus before holding it to her ear. “I’m calling Eli,” she said to me.
I nodded. While she filled him in on our suspicions about Yelena, Boots the baby chick and I went to find a heating pad. Though my dad had never brooded chicks this way, I’d read that I could use a heating pad to stand in for a mama hen. Boots needed a few days with her braces on before I could put her back in with gen-pop, so I had to make her a warm place to snuggle that wasn’t down the front of my shirt.
I located the heating pad in the bottom drawer of the bathroom and dumped out a Rubbermaid tote of sky-high heels—when was I going to wear those again, anyway?—to house Boots in. A ratty hand towel spread in the bottom of the bin, a desk organizer with the heating pad clipped to the top to make a cozy cave, and two mayonnaise-jar lids to hold food and water, and Boots was happily hopping about and pecking in her new home. I admired her pluck—it took me a little longer than thirty seconds to feel at home after my move.
“Eli says he’ll look into it,” Ruth said behind me.
“Cheese and rice, you scared me again!” I pressed my hand to my thudding heart in an attempt to calm it to merely cardiac-arrest level.
“Sorry not sorry.” She giggled at my expression. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
I held out my hand and she helped me to my feet. “Two days ago, I dug up a dead guy. Yesterday, my neighbor was brutally stabbed. Forgive me if I’m a little jumpy.”
She clucked her tongue. “I know, it’s a lot. But Rusty’s out front, I’m here, and Eli’s taking care of business. You can lean on us. Heck, if you want to come stay with me for a while, that’s fine.”
“Be careful, I might take you up on that.” I forced a grin. “I mean, I would if it weren’t for the chicks. I need to check on them throughout the day while they’re so vulnerable.” I motioned to the plastic tote, where Boots was standing in a corner, peeping mournfully. My heart, which had finally slowed to a reasonable speed, panged with sympathy for the little chick.
Ruth leaned over the tote to get a better view of Boots, frowning. “What’s wrong with her? She was so happy a minute ago.”
“She’s lonely.”
“How can you tell?”
“Process of elimination. She’s got food, water, warmth—everything but company.”
“Well, that’s unacceptable!” Ruth declared, and marched out of the bedroom. She grabbed her purse from the kitchen table on her way to the front door.
I tagged after her. “Where are you going?”
She looked at me like I was crazy for asking. “To the barn. We’re going to pick her out a friend.”
I should have known. “We better make it two, then. Because—” I paused, not wanting to say the real reason aloud—that the chicks had a not-insignificant risk of death in these first weeks. “Well, because why have one friend when you can have more.”
Chapter 25
Outside, I was shocked to hear the chug of the tractor drowning out the sound of the forensics team working. Rusty had somehow resurrected it in the barn and was already testing it out in the driveway. He waved at us triumphantly from his seat and in the same moment, the tractor lurched forward. His comical grimace and mad grab for the wheel send Ruth into a gale of giggles.
“Ride ’em, cowboy!” she called to him, her hands around her mouth like the megaphones we used as cheerleaders on th
e sidelines of Friday night football games.
He grinned and yelled back over the tractor’s grumble, “Hey, I’ve had a good ten seconds in the saddle. I’m calling that a victory!”
I gave him a thumbs-up as I ducked inside the barn. “The brooder is in the back,” I said over my shoulder to Ruth.
She rubbed her hands together greedily as she followed me to the stock tank. “I can’t wait to get my hands on these cute little cotton balls!” She reached in and scooped out a couple of chicks, nuzzling them before popping them into her cleavage and grabbing a couple more. She plopped down on a straw bale next to the tank, beaming.
“Huh. I only fit one in mine,” I said, motioning to her boob-nest.
She glanced down and smirked. “Honey, I can fit two tacos and a Corona in here, plus chips and guac in an emergency.” To prove her point, she tucked the other two chicks into her shirt and they quickly snuggled in with their sisters.
“I see how it is—you’ve stashed your buffalo wing appetizer in there for later.” I smirked right back at her.
Ruth cracked up. “That’s right. Gotta have my drinks and snacks. Let’s get these little ones settled in the house.”
We went back inside, and, as I had predicted, Boots’s frantic peeping settled down immediately when she was surrounded by four of her sisters. The five chicks snuggled under the heading pad and crashed out almost immediately. “See? We get by with a little help from our friends.”
Ruth nodded as she rested on her heels beside the Rubbermaid tub, watching the babies sleep. “We need to do what we can for Anne,” she said thoughtfully. “Especially once her family goes back home. She’ll need friends.”
“I’ll be sure to check on her, since I’m right next door.” I didn’t know Anne well, but I certainly sympathized with her situation. Friendships could be forged in all kinds of circumstances, and sometimes the strongest ones came out of adversity. “I can give you a daily update on how she’s doing, if you want, and we’ll go from there.”