“You have got to be kidding me.” We had a fake pesticide death—all for show. And now we had a true homicide. “Have you identified the poison?”
“Yes. A new product Gyndrex was about to start testing. I’m pretty sure Davenport’s death will put the kibosh on releasing the pesticide, even though it didn’t kill him.”
And that shed a whole new light on the situation.
I dropped Tinkie and Chablis at Hilltop, lingering longer than I should over coffee and the joys of the perfect partnership. When I finally drove home, I was wired from the coffee and starving. Sweetie, Pluto, and I needed some chow. Plundering through the refrigerator, I found a Styrofoam box with the most beautiful hamburger I’d ever seen. It was a masterpiece of burgerdom. Bless Millie’s heart. She frequently left café goodies in the fridge for the pups and me. This was one night her generosity answered my prayers.
Sweetie whined at my feet while I popped the treat in the microwave. My mouth watered in anticipation.
I sliced a slab of meatloaf leftover from the day before and put it in a bowl on the floor for Sweetie Pie. Pluto dined on baby shrimp. When the burger was warm, I sat down at the kitchen table, stomach growling. I had just lifted the sandwich to my mouth when ninety pounds of flying hound struck me. The chair, my plate, the table—everything tumbled. My lovely, untasted hamburger flew across the room, hit the wall, and slid down leaving a greasy smear.
“Sweetie Pie!” Aggravation harshened my tone. I gained my feet and started toward the hound, who stood over the ruined meal. She growled, as if she meant to keep it all for herself.
“Sweetie!”
Pluto slipped behind the dog and scratched around the hamburger patty, as if he were burying it in the litter box.
I stopped in my tracks. “I understand.” I bent to give Sweetie a kiss on the head. “Thank you. And Pluto, too.”
A snarl tore from Sweetie’s throat and before I knew what had happened, she bounded across the kitchen and out the doggie door. A vehicle’s powerful engine caught, the sound coming from behind the barn. I ran out the front door just in time to see Sweetie leap into the back of a pickup racing down the driveway.
“Sweetie Pie!” I called her name, but it was too late. She was bouncing about in the truck’s bed. I snatched my car keys and tore down the driveway after the retreating truck, my chest constricted in fear. Sweetie had taken a huge risk. Obviously, there had been something wrong with the hamburger meat. And obviously, the person responsible was outside Dahlia House, possibly waiting for the poison or sleeping potion or whatever to take effect. But Sweetie had foiled their plans. She’d come to my rescue, yet again. And Pluto, too.
No truck taillights were visible when I made it to the main road. I switched on my cell phone app that allowed me to track Sweetie Pie. Too often she and Chablis instigated trouble ranging from minor to felonious. To keep up with my hound, I’d purchased a Find Rover tag for her collar and the tracking app for my smartphone.
This was going to be a wild ride. Following the beep of the tag, I called Tinkie and told her what had happened.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Headed toward the river.”
“I’ll intersect.”
“Don’t! Go by the house and take some of that hamburger to Doc. Maybe he can figure out why Sweetie didn’t want me to eat it. I’ll call and check in. I promise.”
Clouds now obscured the moon and stars, forestalling any hint of dawn. The speedometer pegged seventy, but the pickup was pulling away from me. The thought of Sweetie trapped in the bed of the truck made me physically ill. If the driver hit a bump too hard or slammed on the brakes, she’d go flying. She was a superhero dog, but she wasn’t indestructible. I had only the little dot that indicated Sweetie Pie on the screen of my phone to guide me, and I raced after it.
My cell phone rang and I answered to hear Coleman’s voice.
“Where are you?”
I gave him my location and direction.
“Promise me, Sarah Booth, that you won’t approach the truck without backup. You might get yourself and Sweetie Pie killed.”
“I’m not promising anything. I’ll do what’s necessary to save Sweetie.” Enough said. I would face laser blasts for my dog.
“I’m en route. So is DeWayne. And Cece and Jaytee. Just wait for us.”
“Anyone else riding to the rescue?” Tinkie must have called everyone in her contact list. For all I knew, the Zinnia Twirlers were on the way, batons at the ready.
“Harold, Roscoe, Oscar, Tinkie, Chablis. I’m sure not a single one of them followed my instructions to stay in Zinnia. They’re all headed toward you, and from what I hear, they’re armed to the teeth. Heaven help the person who took Sweetie.”
It was a fine point that Sweetie hadn’t been taken. She was a stowaway, jumping into the truck of her own free will. At the moment, I didn’t feel the need to correct him. Getting my dog home safely was the only thing that mattered.
The dot on the application halted. “Oh, no. The truck has stopped.” I floored the accelerator.
“Don’t rush in—”
I hung up on him. I knew what he would say, and I knew I wouldn’t heed his words of wisdom. My dog was in danger. Like any mother, I would risk everything.
I braked at a narrow dirt side road. The little dot showing where Sweetie was located indicated that I should turn down it. In the darkness, I wasn’t completely certain where I was, but I’d been traveling west and sensed I wasn’t far from Stonegate Farm, the Hendersons’ property.
I killed the headlights and stopped, took my gun from the trunk, got back into the car and slowly rolled forward. The Find Rover app indicated that I was almost upon my dog. What concerned me was that Sweetie Pie wasn’t moving. At all. Because she was hiding? Or because she was hurt?
The pickup loomed, about twenty feet away. I parked and got out. “Sweetie?” I called.
No response.
I crept to the tailgate. The bed was empty, except for Sweetie’s red collar. Summoning all my restraint, I reached for it. It was impossible to guess when it had been removed, or how. My beautiful hound could be dead along the road or injured somewhere nearby. But why would anyone hurt her and leave the collar in the bed of the truck?
“Sarah Booth Delaney. It would have been so much easier if you’d eaten the damn hamburger. You would have gone to sleep and we’d simply have taken you. None of this foolish driving around. You’ve wasted my valuable time. Drop the gun. Now.”
A revolver’s hammer cocked. Reluctantly, I dropped my weapon in the dirt. Bert Henderson stood beside Betty. I could barely make them out, but her gun was big and wicked looking.
“Where’s my dog?” I demanded.
“I think a university will buy a hound for medical experimentation,” Betty said. “When we realized she was in the truck, Bert tried to snare her, but her collar came off. Thank goodness he knows all about those tracking apps. He realized you’d follow us exactly where we wanted you.”
“Why? What do you want with me?”
“The Gyndrex board meeting is only a few days away. We need a certain outcome on several votes.”
“Gyndrex doesn’t care what happens to me.” The Hendersons were nuttier than a fruitcake. “Holding me hostage won’t carry any weight with the board of directors.”
“It will with Cyrus Angler. He has a soft spot for you.”
“So what if he does? Cyrus is a pumpkin farmer. What does Gyndrex care what he thinks?” Whatever synapses were firing in their pea-sized brains weren’t making sense to me.
“Cyrus has evidence the GMO crops have been deliberately disseminated in the fields of non-GMO farmers. Proof that could result in Gyndrex being sued for billions. At the board meeting in Memphis, Cyrus plans to hand out copies of this information to all the media. He has to be stopped.”
“Why would Gyndrex deliberately spread their crops for free?”
“You sure don’t keep up with the agricultural news.
Gyndrex has been suing farmers for stealing the seeds—and gaining a lot of acreage in the process.”
The truth packed a wallop. “They spread the seeds themselves, then sue the farmers for stealing them. Cyrus had evidence.” It was evil genius. “And you abducted Priya Karsan and left the dummy at The Club. You stashed her in Cyrus’s house, hoping to discredit him. Your plane was never truly stolen. You had Ricky take it and rig it to fly without a pilot, then you crashed it into Cyrus’s field to discredit him further.”
“Actually, Betty’s plan was to crash the plane into his house and kill him. Tell everybody Cyrus’s PR stunt went wrong.” Bert was so excited, he almost danced. “Cyrus would be dead and discredited in one fell swoop. That fool Ricky bungled the job. He said he could handle the technology, but I knew he couldn’t. Then he demanded payment before he’d hand over the plane’s controls. Betty shouldn’t have killed him before I checked out the way he’d programmed the plane. That was her mistake.”
“You staged it to look like someone opposed to GMOs poisoned him at The Club.” It all made sense now. “Jasper Pew helped you to dispose of the body and set up the fake death scene in the cooler.”
“You’re a smart cookie. Too bad you stuck your nose into this,” Bert said.
“Drive her car to the river and sink it,” Betty said. “I’ll swing by and pick you up once I take care of her.”
“Betty, you said no one else would die.” Bert sounded slightly nervous.
I had to bluff then. “You’d better hurry. Do you think I’d come all the way out here without letting the sheriff and my partner know where I am?”
Betty waggled the gun. “Put a rush on it, Bert. You,” she motioned at me with the gun. “Start walking.” She pushed me into the field of newly turned dirt. I couldn’t see two feet ahead of me. I could be walking into a pit or an old well or anything else. The only good thing was that Betty was as blind as I was, but she knew the terrain.
Stalling was my only option. Surely Coleman and the cavalry would ride over the hill at any second. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where Sweetie Pie is.”
“Oh, you’ll be with her soon, and wish you weren’t. I’ll keep you alive long enough to bring Cyrus to heel. After that, your value will be something short of zero.”
“Betty . . .” Bert hadn’t moved.
“Shut up and do what I say, Bert, or I’ll take care of you, too.” Betty pushed my shoulder.
I had to play for time. “If you’ve hurt my dog, I will make you suffer.”
“Threats are so cute when I’m the one holding the gun.”
I heard my car start up. The headlights blazed, illuminating Betty and me. Bert reversed down the dirt road. There was nothing I could do to stop him. He’d take my mother’s roadster to the river and drive it in.
“Get moving,” Betty said. “Or I’ll plug you and be done with it. No one will find your body for days. Cyrus will give up the evidence if he believes you’re alive and in danger. It’ll all turn out the same whether you’re alive or dead.”
The light from the car was almost gone, but I glimpsed Sweetie Pie streaking across the field, one sleek, athletic hound. Ninety pounds of muscle and bone slammed into Betty’s back. The gun flew from Betty’s hand. She went down hard in the dirt. Air whooshed out of her lungs, compounded by Sweetie lying on top of her.
Betty thrashed and gasped, but there was nothing she could do. And I wasn’t in any hurry to call off my hound. Because I could, and because it gave me immense satisfaction, I picked up the gun Betty had dropped and gave her a firm tap on the head with the butt. She instantly went limp. That would work until I found something to tie her with.
“Sweetie!” I called my hound over and ran my palms along her ribs and back. She didn’t appear to have any injuries. She’d merely been waiting for her moment to exact revenge.
I had my hound. Next was saving my car. I pulled out my cell phone and gave Coleman explicit directions to find me, and asked him to send the posse after Bert. Before he submerged the roadster.
As I finished the call, I saw headlights bump down the dirt road toward me. It couldn’t be Coleman. I had Betty’s gun, and mine was on the ground near the pickup. I whistled up Sweetie, and we ran and hid beside the truck.
The vehicle was thirty yards away . . . and screams sliced the chill night air. The car stopped, the driver’s door swung open, and a man fled. He ran past the headlights, spinning and slapping at his head.
Wearing Pluto like a coonskin cap, Bert danced in front of the car. The cat’s four claws-extended paws dug into Bert’s skull. Pluto must have slipped into the backseat when I left Dahlia House to follow Sweetie.
“Damn!” I leaned against the truck and watched the show. “Ride ’em, Pluto,” I called out.
“Get the creature off me. I’ll do anything you say.”
“Uh, keep dancing,” I said.
He cursed and yelled and swatted at Pluto. The cat rode him like a rodeo champion. Bert stumbled close enough for me to whack him on the head with the gun butt. He went down like a sack of potatoes.
“Pluto, that was very deceptive. I didn’t realize you were in the car.” I scooped him into my arms. “And thank you. You saved Mama’s car from the river.” I gave the cat a big kiss. He hissed at me and jumped from my arms.
I had several lead lines for my horses in the trunk. Perfect to hog-tie Bert and Betty. Their lemonade guzzling days were behind them.
I’d just tied the last knot when I heard Coleman’s siren. The vehicles came down the narrow dirt road, one after the other. I stood in the middle of the path with Sweetie and Pluto on either side and waved them in. Coleman and DeWayne, with a little unsolicited help from Harold, Scott, and Oscar, helped—more like shoved—the Hendersons into the patrol car’s backseat. Roscoe, Harold Erkwell’s evil terrier, sniffed Sweetie and Pluto to determine if they were truly unscathed. Chablis was beside herself with joy. It was a heartwarming critter reunion.
My friends gathered ’round, and I pieced together the puzzle for them.
“Is Cyrus safe in Grand Bay?” Cece asked.
“We’ll find out,” Coleman said as he placed a call. In a moment, he had the farmer on the phone. After a few questions, he hung up. “Cyrus is in Grand Bay. Tomorrow, he and his son are driving to Memphis. He and Priya Karsan have set up a press conference for eight thirty Thursday morning, half an hour before the Gyndrex board meeting. They’ll distribute media packets with the information Cyrus researched on the dangers of GMO crops and the evidence of company wrongdoing in spreading their crops. There’s no stopping Cyrus now. The cat is out of the bag.”
“Me-ow!” Pluto sprang into Coleman’s arms.
“Thank goodness this is over,” Tinkie said. “And Priya is uninjured. I wonder if she’ll ever consider coming back to Sunflower County and offering a seminar.”
“I think it can be arranged,” Cece said. “In fact, I think it can be arranged after the first of the year. Say, January fourteenth.” She did a two-step in the dirt. “The event is already booked. We’ll have our spa day and the lecture. By then, Priya will be even more famous than she is now. The Food Guru will be a household name.”
“Well, the only household name I want to hear right now is Jack Daniel’s,” I said. “Let’s drop off Bert and Betty at the hoosegow and head to Dahlia House for a drink. We can toast to the rising sun.”
Wednesday was lost to me. I wallowed in the arms of Morpheus, catching up for the sleep I’d lost. Thursday dawned crisp and clear. At eight thirty, a cup of hot coffee in hand, I switched the TV to the Memphis channel. Cyrus and Priya were in front of the Peabody Hotel, where Gyndrex’s nine o’clock board meeting was scheduled.
Cyrus related anti-GMO facts point by point. Priya distributed reports of food contaminants to an audience of over two thousand. Their one-two punch would bring the big company to heel, at least for a little while.
A cool breeze tickled my neck and when I looked behind me, I fou
nd myself eye-to-eye with Eleanor Roosevelt. She wore a floral print dress accessorized by a lovely strand of pearls. Thank goodness, Jitty had given up her crow apparel. I was sick of black.
“What’s shakin’, Eleanor?” I was willing to pander to Jitty’s disguises.
“Those two make a great team for the good of America.” She motioned at the TV screen where Priya and Cyrus were concluding their presentation. “It takes courage to stand up for what’s right.”
“It does,” I agreed.
“And you didn’t do too shabby yourself, Sarah Booth Delaney.”
“Thank you, First Lady. You had your share of victories fighting for the American people.”
“Yes, Franklin and I waged some tough battles. Unregulated greed is the companion of capitalism, and it is the only thing that can bring down a great country.”
I didn’t want to talk politics. It was a beautiful November morning—the sun was bright, the air warmer than usual. It was perfect for a ride. “I wish you could cook me breakfast while I ride Reveler. It would be wonderful to come back to homemade French toast and hot coffee.”
Eleanor’s features transformed into my beautiful haint’s. “Cookin’ was never one of my talents, Sarah Booth. Alice was the better cook. My talent was gardening.”
“Mama used to make the best French toast. Maybe you can slip me her recipe from the Great Beyond. I dream about it all the time.”
“Maybe you should dream you hired a cook. In the Great Beyond, we don’t worry about vittles.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to take care of me? Like you’re always saying, that’s what you’re here for.” I couldn’t resist deviling her, though I rarely got one over on her.
“I’d like to find a man who could take care of you. I’m beginning to believe you’re one of those women who need to be barefoot and pregnant. Stayin’ busy around the house keeps down the sass level.”
Jitty talked a good game, but she’d defend me to the death. “You know, it’s healthy for me to have dreams. I just think it would be lovely to come home from a long ride and find a stack of French toast hot and waiting.”
Guru Bones Page 5