by Judy Clemens
“So what if it’s a lemon peel?” Gregg said when they’d all left. “What’s going to happen to the calf?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to it,” Carla said.
“But it was foaming,” Mrs. Gregg said. “It was sick.”
“No, it wasn’t.” I gave the calf one last pat and walked out the gate. “Somehow a lemon peel got into its feed. It chewed on it, because that’s what calves do. Lemons make them foam at the mouth.”
“But its eyes, they were all—” Gregg demonstrated, rolling his eyes like a crazy person.
“You would, too, if you suddenly had a lemon in your mouth.”
His nostrils flared. “How did a lemon get in its feed?”
“How would I know?” But I had an idea.
“Dad,” the Gregg girl said, “can I go now?”
Such concern. Enough to make your heart harden.
Gregg jerked his chin, and the girl was off in a heartbeat. Gregg glared at me, like the whole thing was my fault, then spun on his heel and stalked off. Mrs. Gregg watched him go, turned toward Carla, then hurried after her husband. Gotta love the family dynamics. And the gratitude.
But forget them. “You done with me, Carla?”
She sighed. “All done. Thanks for being the voice of reason.”
“Hey, anytime.”
“Carla?” One of the other vets from her practice hustled up. “I was over in the rabbit building with Susie—” his daughter “—when I heard what was going on. You need help?” He glared at one of the other vets, who was still hanging around the edge of the barn.
Carla patted his shoulder. “I got it, Don. But thanks.”
“Stella,” he said to me.
I nodded.
He leaned on the stall. “So, this the calf?”
“Yup. He’s fine.” Carla explained about the lemon.
“Stupid pranks,” Don muttered. “But good job. So, if you don’t need me?”
“We’re good.”
He waved and was gone again, back to his daughter and her rabbits.
“So, the quarantine?” I said, returning to the important stuff.
Carla gave a double thumbs up. “Completely lifted.”
“Thank you. I’ll let Zach know.”
“Thanks so much for coming. I didn’t want those other vets getting involved, and I hated to bother Don…” Her shoulders slumped, and the stress of the past hour showed in her face.
“Carla, I’m always here for you. You know that.”
“I do. It’s just…this job is not turning out to be as fun as I thought.”
“Carla—”
“I’ll be fine.” She gave me a quick hug, then yanked out her phone, which was ringing yet again. She answered, waving goodbye as she gathered her toolbox and strode away.
I found Zach talking to Taylor at his stall. Taylor had abandoned Austin, who was now perched on his straw bale with Randy, doing something with a phone. Zach and Taylor leaned over the fence, patting Barnabas.
“Zach,” I said.
He spun around so fast I thought he’d fall over. “Is Barnabas going to be okay? All the calves?”
Now there was someone who cared about the animals.
“They’ll be fine.”
Austin and Randy joined us.
“But what’s wrong with their calf?” Austin asked. “Are they quarantining the barn? Or canceling our judging?”
“Nope, it was just a prank. Someone put lemon peels in his food.”
Austin laughed, and ran a hand through his hair. “Thank God.”
Taylor’s nose wrinkled. “What?”
Zach explained what happened.
“But why would he eat a lemon peel? Wouldn’t it be sour?”
“If it’s dry enough he wouldn’t notice. Might even think it’s a treat at first.”
“So someone did it on purpose?”
“That would be my guess. Don’t know how it would get in his food, otherwise.”
“Who would do that?” Taylor asked, her voice strained.
“Yeah,” Austin said. “Who?”
“That’s easy,” I said. “Someone who wants the Greggs to lose the championship.”
Chapter Seventeen
I stepped outside and called Nick—on my cell phone, which he’d insisted I bring with me—to let him know all was well.
“Who plays pranks on calves?” he said.
I repeated what I’d told the kids. “There are a lot of people here who resent the Greggs. Kids who have a lot invested in their own animals and don’t want the Greggs to win undeserved prizes.”
“So they take it out on the calf?”
“Lemon peels aren’t going to hurt him. Just make him look bad. They probably figured if they could get him disqualified, all the better for everyone else.”
“It’s still not right.”
“Of course not. I’m just hoping it stops there.”
We enjoyed silence for a moment before he said, “So, you heading home?”
“As soon as I find Miranda.”
“Just text her.”
“Don’t know if she’ll answer when she sees it’s me.”
He laughed.
“I really didn’t mean that to be funny.”
“Yeah, well, it was. She’ll answer. I can’t imagine she wants to spend any more time at the county fair than she has to.”
“Maybe she’s still sitting in the car.”
“Too hot.”
“Not if she left it running.” Which I wouldn’t put past her. It struck me that she would have had to pay to get into the fair if she’d actually attempted it, since I hadn’t taken her in the exhibitors’ entrance. Whoops. But then, she was so freaked out about Nick giving me money to keep our home in the black, why should I help her any? “Or else she left me here, and she’s on her way home.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
I wasn’t so sure. “I’ll be home soon. I hope.”
“See you then. Love you.”
“You, too.”
I hated texting. The only time I ever did it was when I needed to get in touch with Zach or Mallory, or one of the other Granger teens. Carla had tried to get me into it, but I shut that down real quick. If somebody wanted to tell me something, they’d get a much more timely response if they just called and let me talk to them. Typing stuff out with my thumbs was a waste of time and energy. This whole texting thing had, of course, been another source of contention with Miranda, who wanted to text me price quotes and photos and all sorts of crap about weddings. She finally realized she wasn’t getting answers because I wasn’t sending them—not because I wasn’t receiving her texts. Yet another reason for her to hate me.
I opened my Contacts and pushed the call button. The phone rang once. Twice. I knew that on Miranda’s end it was playing that annoying song, the one where the woman is singing about needing a man to make her complete—I know, that could be a million of them—but at least all I could hear was the tone. After a few more rings, the call went into her voicemail—“Hello! You’ve reached Miranda! Leave a message!”
No! I didn’t want to!
I hung up. She’d see my missed call, and maybe she would deign to call me back.
So. Hmm. What to do? I thought of checking out the dairy barn, to see what Claire was up to, but I really didn’t want to run into the Greggs again. I had no desire to go anywhere near the hall where the cops were camped out, and the carnival rides made me want to throw up just looking at them. I made my way toward the food tent. I could always eat.
“Ms. Crown?”
Oh, great. “Detective Watts.” She wasn’t looking any too happy. Whether that was because of me or because she’d just gotten a whiff of the pig barn I wasn’t sure. Either way, I wished I’d managed to take off before she found me.
She fingered her handcuffs. “You interfered with a police investigation.”
“Really? How?”
“I saw you on YouTube harassing the press.”
> “Oh, are reporters a part of the police department now?”
“You said you were going home. Instead, you waited outside the building.”
“So? Is that a crime?”
“The police dispersed the crowd. You stayed anyway, and caused problems.”
“I caused problems? I’d say it was that pushy reporter who caused the problems. If you folks had done your job right I wouldn’t have had to step in.”
“Threatening the press isn’t our job.”
“I was protecting an innocent citizen. Somehow I thought that was the whole point of the police department.”
Her nostrils flared. “Why were you still there?”
“We were taking care of someone.”
“Yes, the daughter of a—” She stopped and glared at me, like I’d almost made her say something she wasn’t supposed to.
“Of a what? Suspect in Rikki Raines’ death?”
“She is not…are you friends with Daniella Troth? Because I wouldn’t have thought so.”
I bit off the retort I wanted to make. And I didn’t hit her. Instead, I said, “Do your superiors know where you are?”
Her mouth opened and closed, like a stupid fish, and then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes she said, “Look, Ms. Crown, I’m not sure how or why we got off on the wrong foot, but all I really want is to find out who killed Rikki Raines. I just…” She shook her head.
“What?”
“We were both tired last night. You’d talked to a lot of people, and so had I. I’m not experienced at this. You can see how old I am. It’s not exactly—”
“—easy to compete in a man’s world.”
She gave a small smile. “Or, more specifically, my dad’s world.”
“The sheriff.”
“Yeah.”
“Was he here last night? I didn’t see him.”
“Would you believe he’s out of state? The biggest case here in…ever…and he’s out in Colorado at some training conference.” She gave a laugh that was more like a hiccup.
“He coming back?”
“I’m sure he is. Wouldn’t want to miss out. Besides, I’m sure he’s in touch with all the higher-ups.”
“Reporting on you?”
She made a face. “Among others.”
“I guess that is his job, right?”
“I suppose.” She looked somewhere past my left ear. “So, are we good?”
“We’re okay.”
“I’m glad. Talk to you later.” She angled away.
“Hey, Watts,” I called after her.
She turned, eyebrows raised.
“Good luck.”
She saluted with a finger and strode away.
I bought a pulled pork sandwich and a lemon shake-up at the school boosters tent and sat in the back corner, where the canvas flap was open and I could feel a breeze. The place was bustling with customers, and the high school and parent volunteers working the counter smiled through their sweat. Not exactly high on my to-do list on summer days, to run the fries basket.
I was about halfway through the sandwich when Austin sat down across from me.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” He had a double cheeseburger, fries, deep-fried pickles, a thirty-two-ounce Powerade, and a piece of cake. He could compete with Carla, the way he was going. The problem with Carla was, she didn’t have the hollow legs.
“No one else hungry?” I said.
Austin shrugged, and picked at his food. “I’m older than most of them anymore, so I don’t know, it feels kind of weird to hang out with them. They’re off doing other stuff, I guess. Getting ready for judging.”
“Taylor’s their age. You seem to like her okay.”
“Yeah, but she’s hot.”
At least he was honest.
“Scare you this morning?”
He picked up his sandwich, then set it down without taking a bite. “You mean about the sick calf? Sure. But we were all the way across the room, and we’ve only been there a day. I didn’t think Halladay could get sick that quick.”
So he didn’t know everything, even though he was a teenager, and a farmer. Just goes to show what wishful thinking can do. “I’m glad it turned out to be nothing. I understand why someone would want to do that to the Greggs, but I hope they don’t try anything worse. It could hurt the calf. Or disqualify the whole barn.”
Austin stuck a fry in his ketchup and swirled it around. “Do they know who did it?”
“Don’t think so. Not anything to go on when there’s only a chewed-up lemon peel as evidence, and since nothing really bad happened I can’t imagine they’ll put much time and effort into it. Especially with all the other stuff that happened last night.”
He was quiet for a moment as he scraped icing off his cake with his plastic fork. “You mean, the whole Rikki Raines thing? Yeah, that’s…pretty sick.”
“Did you go to the concert? I didn’t see you.”
He set his fork down. “I was there. I just hung out on the edge. I could see fine.”
I sat back, sipping on my lemonade. “How come you’re the only senior in 4-H? What happened to everyone else your age?”
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “They lost interest, I guess. But I want to go to ag school, and this is as much of an application priority as anything. I’m the president of the club, and I’ve been in it forever, since I was, I don’t know, third grade, when we were allowed to start. I’ll get good references from the leaders, and my project this year was to help out one of the local vets, which was cool.”
“How do you think Halladay will do this afternoon?”
“Good, I hope. He’s one of the best calves I’ve ever had. Got lucky for my last year. Sometimes you get a calf and you think he’s going to be great, and it turns out he’s a loser, and sometimes it’s the other way around. Halladay’s been great since he was born.”
I knew what he meant. Some milkers were that way. They start out as beautiful heifers, bright-eyed and perfect, then somewhere along the way their milk dries up, or they produce half what the others do, or they can’t get pregnant. Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason, and no tests or check-ups can tell us what the deal is. Then, as much as we hate it, we have to give up on them. As Ma Granger would say, “It’s just the way God made ’em.” Unfortunately for cows, it’s a little different than when you say that about a person. People don’t go to the slaughterhouse if they don’t fit our business model.
“You and Halladay ready for judging today?”
“I guess.” He set down the fry he was holding, and pushed back his chair. He hadn’t eaten a thing. He must have been much more nervous about judging than he admitted. “I’d better get back. My sister’s on cow plop duty while I get something to eat. She’ll be ticked if I don’t relieve her soon.”
I remembered cow plop duty. You had your calf as clean as you could get him, and you didn’t want him getting any fresh manure on those pristine hooves. So whenever there was a cow plop, it had to disappear, fast. “See you around.”
He jerked his chin at me, and left, dumping his entire lunch in the trash. Watching him go, I noticed Bryan standing at the front of the tent, tray in hand, shoulders stiff, eyes darting from table to table. It was like he’d traveled back in time to the high school cafeteria, where the weird kid with the NASCAR obsession wouldn’t exactly have been the prom king. Or would even go to prom.
I held still, hoping if I played possum I’d luck out and he wouldn’t see me or the empty chairs beside me. But since hope and luck have a way of abandoning me in times of social awkwardness, his eyes landed right on me. I could tell by the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and the color drained from his face.
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
I waved to the chair opposite me. I didn’t attempt to smile, because he would’ve seen through that. I could show kindness to my best friend’s boyfriend by simply offering him a seat, right? I didn’t have to throw in a
hostess personality with it.
He blinked, scanned the room again—a little desperately, I thought—then shuffled over. “This seat taken?”