Hen of the Baskervilles

by Donna Andrews

  “I thought we had volunteers sleeping in every building that couldn’t be locked up tight,” Randall said.

  “We do,” I replied. “And that’s just what they were doing. Sleeping.”

  “Well, that’s a clue. Whoever did this must be pretty light on his feet.”

  The chief glared at him and Randall shrugged apologetically.

  “Chief,” I said. “Randall told that reporter that we were going to organize some extra patrols staffed by volunteers from among the exhibitors. Unless you have an objection to the idea, I should go and get that started.”

  The chief has shifted his glare from Randall to the fair map. He continued staring at it for a few moments, then his face softened.

  “No way we can adequately cover this whole area with the personnel I have available,” he said. “Try not to recruit any hotheads, and I don’t want any of your vigilantes armed.”

  “Roger.” I stopped short of saluting. “I’m going to do my recruiting during a detailed inspection of every single tent and barn where a theft might have taken place. I think we need to warn the exhibitors.”

  “We already alerted the media,” Randall said.

  “And now we need to make sure the exhibitors get the straight scoop from us,” I said. “Not whatever melodramatic account the newspapers and radios come up with.”

  Randall and the chief both nodded glumly.

  As I was walking away from the fair office, my cell phone rang. Michael.

  “The boys and I are over at the sheep barn,” he said. “I found your note—what’s up?”

  I explained, as succinctly as I could, how my morning had gone so far. And how I expected to spend the rest of the morning, and who knows how much of the afternoon.

  “I’ll keep the boys busy, then,” he said. “We came over a little late because they wanted to help Rose Noire. At least I think we helped. I didn’t realize Horace really was on a case. I thought he just figured out a way to dodge the potpourri.”

  “All too real,” I said. “Last time I passed by, things were slow over at the pony rides. The boys would love that. And there’s a children’s concert on the main stage at two.”

  “I’ll make sure someone else is minding the booth at two.” Michael and several of his fellow llama aficionados had set up an information booth topped with a large banner proclaiming THE JOY OF LLAMAS! They were determined to have at least one llama and one human on duty at all times to answer any questions from the public, and Michael, as the booth organizer and local host, would probably be filling in any time they couldn’t get coverage. I wasn’t sure I’d have been happy to be that tied down, but Michael was enthusiastic. And he planned to keep the boys with him during his shifts—to demonstrate how family-friendly llamas were—so I didn’t have to worry about a babysitter and would know exactly where to find the three of them most of the time.

  “Good idea,” I said. “Actually, I’d make it one thirty, to give you time to walk over to the stage.”

  “Any chance you’ll join us for that?”

  “I’ll try.”

  If I hurried and got through all the barns, tents, and pavilions efficiently, I probably could make the concert. Especially if I focused on briefing the volunteers in charge of each building and left it to them to bring all the exhibitors up to speed. At least I hoped I could safely leave it to them. We had to strike a difficult balance, making people aware of the thefts and vandalism without upsetting them so much they’d pack up and leave.

  I was a little worried, at first, that the volunteers would overreact. But most of them caught on right away. Recruiting for the patrols actually helped encourage people, and a surprising number of people signed up. I was collecting dozens of names and cell phone numbers to work from.

  I even managed to convince Bill Dauber to hand over running the chicken tent to a different volunteer.

  “Just until the Bonnevilles either calm down or leave,” I said.

  He actually looked relieved and hurried off to his new assignment, guarding the far end of the parking lot.

  I had finished with all three poultry tents and the pig, sheep, and cow barns and was briefing the volunteer in charge of the horse barn when I made a depressing discovery.

  “I might have another theft for you,” one horse breeder said. “Someone stole one of my horse blankets.”

  “You’re sure it couldn’t have just been misplaced?” I asked.

  He looked at me over his glasses with his lips pursed disapprovingly.

  “I have special blankets made for all my horses,” he said. “With their names embroidered on them. Costs a pretty penny, and I’m careful about keeping track of them.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Just asking. So what happened?”

  “I got the horses settled into their stalls last night,” he said. “With the blankets on, in case it got cool. Sometimes does in September. There was a stable boy on duty here in the barn, but he must have napped. Anyway, I came in this morning and found someone had taken away Mosby’s blanket and replaced it with an old quilt.”

  I felt a slight chill when I heard those words.

  “Could you show me?” I asked.

  My tone of voice must have satisfied him that I was taking his loss seriously. He led me down the row of stalls. We were in the draft horse section of the barn. Here and there, the enormous heads of Shires, Clydesdales, and Percherons hung out over the stall doors, watching us go by.

  The horse owner led me to a stall containing a beautiful gray Percheron. He patted the horse’s nose, then opened the stall door and led me in.

  “See?” He pointed to the Percheron.

  Wrapped around the enormous horse was a quilt. A very familiar-looking quilt. I pulled out my camera and compared the photo I’d taken last night of Rosalie’s quilt with the fabric draped over the Percheron’s rump. Yes, it was the same quilt. And still beautiful, in spite of all the mud stains. Or were some of them manure stains? Maybe I should hope they were. Since moving to the country, I’d found that manure was one of the easiest stains to treat. But our reddish yellow Virginia clay …

  I pulled out my cell phone and called the chief.

  “We’ve had another theft,” I said. “And I’m afraid I’ve found the missing quilt.”

  Chapter 6

  Some misguided soul told Rosalie what was going on and she showed up at the barn while Horace was still doing his forensic examination of the scene. She didn’t react well to the sight of her poor, mistreated quilt. In fact, she reacted so badly that after a telephone consultation with Dad, Deputy Aida hauled her down to the Caerphilly Hospital to be looked after.

  “I doubt if she’ll need to be admitted,” Aida said in an undertone to me while Mother and the quilting ladies helped Rosalie into the back of the cruiser. “But you know how good your father is with hysterical patients.”

  “We must do something,” one of the quilting ladies said, as they watched Rosalie’s departure.

  “Let’s take the quilt to Daphne,” Mother suggested. “At the Caerphilly Cleaners.”

  “I’m not sure I’d want to entrust the Baltimore Album to a mere dry cleaner,” one of the ladies said. Clearly she wasn’t from around here.

  “Daphne is no mere dry cleaner,” Mother said. “She is a fabric conservation genius.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Around here, it’s generally accepted that if Daphne can’t get it out, God must want you to wear the stain.”

  “She has some tricks for dealing with that horrible red clay,” said a woman I recognized as the head of the Caerphilly Quilting Club. “But let’s make sure Horace’s forensic testing doesn’t involve putting any nasty chemicals on it. When we had that burglary last year, you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get all that fingerprint powder scrubbed away.”

  “And before you haul the quilt anywhere, remember that it’s evidence.” I hated to put a damper on the quilt rescue, but I didn’t want them to interfere with Horace’s forensics. “Someone did steal
it, possibly the same someone who still has those missing chickens. Let’s make sure the police don’t need to keep it.”

  Horace was quick to assure them that fabric wasn’t a very good surface for fingerprints, and he had no need to put any chemicals on the quilt. With the chief’s permission, the quilters bore the quilt away to Daphne’s. Four of them insisted on helping carry it, each holding one corner of the folded bundle, and their slow pace and solemn faces made them look alarmingly like pallbearers.

  “Is that true, or did you just not want to upset the quilters?” I asked Horace as we watched them depart.

  “Well, they’re doing some really interesting things in Scotland with vacuum metal deposition to get fingerprints off fabric,” he said. “But it’s still in the early stages yet. And probably impossible to clean off. Still, it would be interesting to try.”

  He sounded wistful. Lately I’d noticed that Horace often seemed disappointed at the relatively tame forensic challenges small-town police work had to offer.

  “Well, we’ll all keep our eyes open for some more fiber evidence,” I said, patting him on the back. “Evidence that no one cares so much about.”

  I dropped by the produce tent and sent the pumpkin owner and his father out for lunch at the Un-fair’s expense while two Shiffleys from the Shiffley Construction Company loaded the remains of the pumpkin into the barrels. Eight huge barrels by the time they finished.

  “We just going to leave these here?” one Shiffley asked.

  “Because this stuff’s already starting to stink,” the other pointed out.

  “Yes, it will rot, and I have no idea if that will increase or decrease the weight,” I said. “Can we put the stuff on ice?”

  “Would take a lot of ice,” the first said. “Cousin of ours has a refrigerated truck. We might be able to borrow that for a few days.”

  “Fabulous.” I left them to handle it.

  Time for me to return to my rounds. Luckily there weren’t too many more buildings to visit, and I was guardedly optimistic that by now, any other thefts or vandalism would have been discovered and reported.

  And no, there weren’t any other incidents. By the time I reached the last building, I realized it was getting close to opening time. I stopped by a food stand that was already cooking Italian sausages, one of my favorites. I wolfed one down, and made a mental note to come back and have another when I had the time to really enjoy it. Then I headed for the front gate.

  I had a little time left, so I decided to run a personal errand. I strolled into the farmers’ market, a huge barn with booths for farmers and craftspeople who wanted to sell their goods as well as enter them into competition.

  I threaded my way through aisles where the vendors were scrambling to set out the last of their merchandise before the first customers arrived. Fresh-baked bread, rolls, cookies, and pies. Fruit and vegetable stalls heaped with corn, pumpkins, squash, beets, string beans, apples, pears, peaches, grapes, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, leeks, and who knows how many other fruits and vegetables. Fresh and dried spices. Freshly made jams, jellies, and preserves. Organic meats. Farm-made sausages. Farm-cured bacon and ham. Saltwater taffy. Homemade fudge. I waved in passing to my cousin Rose Noire, who was setting up her stall with organic herbs, potpourris, gourmet herbal vinegars, and essential oils. She was dressed today in a tie-dyed dress that would not have looked out of place at Woodstock, and her frizzy mane was topped with a wreath of dried herbs and flowers. On me it would have looked as if I’d stuck my head into a jar of potpourri, but on her it looked curiously elegant. I stopped for a cup of locally roasted fair-trade coffee, but resisted all the other temptations. I’d save my calories for later, when I came back with the boys in tow.

  My destination was a booth decorated with a large sign that said LEAPING GOAT FARM—ARTISAN CHEESES. My friend Molly Riordan had started her creamery business ten years ago, and was finally seeing some success—winning medals at fairs, getting good reviews in foodie magazines, and most important, selling her cheeses as fast as she could make them. Always good to see someone as nice and as hardworking as Molly making good.

  But I could see that she was frowning as she arranged a selection of crackers and sample dishes of cheese spread on the counter.

  “Why so glum?” I asked. “If it’s about the thefts, our police are on the case.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t leave anything valuable here overnight. Just a little preoccupied.”

  She was smiling now, but in the rather determined way people smile when they really don’t feel like it. And while she hadn’t answered my question, maybe this wasn’t the time or place to pry.

  “I came to get some of my favorite cheeses before you run out,” I said. “I brought a list.”

  “Always the organized one.” Her smile became a little more believable. “Yes, I have all these. You might want to double the quantities. Could be your last chance.”

  “Last chance? No! Why?”

  “You heard Brett left me, right?”

  I nodded. I suspected I wasn’t the only one of her friends who considered this good news, although I couldn’t just come out and say so.

  “Well, there you have it.” She was slicing thin slices of a huntsman-style cheese that made my mouth water and almost distracted me.

  “What do you mean, there you have it?” I gave in to temptation and snagged a small slice. “What does Brett have to do with your continuing to make cheese? I thought he never did a lick of work around the farm.”

  “No,” she said. “But his name’s on the deed with mine. And he’s filed for divorce already, and demanding his half of the farm. I can’t afford to buy him out. I could try to give him half the income, although I’m not sure I could live on half of almost nothing, but he won’t even consider it.”

  “Have you pointed out to him that he’ll get a lot more in the long run if he waits?” I asked. “And that maybe without the income from the farm, he might have to get an actual job?”

  “He doesn’t care,” she said. “His new girlfriend is supporting him. Paying for his high-powered divorce lawyer, too.”

  “Do you have a lawyer?” I asked.

  She shook her head, and pretended that the cheddar she was slicing took all her concentration.

  “You need one.” I was already taking out my notebook. “One who’s even better than his. Let me talk to Mother.”

  She looked puzzled.

  “I didn’t know your mother was a lawyer,” she said. “Does she handle divorces?”

  “She handles her family,” I said. “She’s not a lawyer, but we must have several dozen in the family. And most of them are very, very good at what they do, and I’m sure a few of them do divorce. I will explain to Mother that if she wants to continue serving your cheeses at her parties, she will need to find you a lawyer who can take on Brett’s lawyer. And do it on terms you can afford.”

  “Do you really think she can find someone?” Her hand was trembling, and I was relieved to see her put down the cheese knife.

  “You’ve met Mother,” I said. “You know what she’s like when she takes on a project. So brace yourself. You’re about to become a project.”

  Molly’s smile was finally starting to look genuine.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You have no idea how great that would be.”

  “I’ve got to run.” I tucked my notebook back into my pocket. “How about if you put my order together—and yes, double it, not because I think you’re going out of business but because just looking at your booth makes me realize I was being way too conservative when I made my list. I’ll drop back later to pick it up and give you a check. And I can let you know what Mother says.”

  She nodded, and I could see that above the smile she was blinking rapidly. Fighting back tears. If we’d been alone, I’d have hugged her, but that would probably make the tears spill over, and I knew here in the crowded vendor hall she’d want to hold it together.

  “Later,” I said, and headed
for the exit. I felt curiously more cheerful after learning about Molly’s problem, perhaps because unlike the thefts and vandalism, I felt I knew exactly what to do to solve it.

  If only all the day’s problems would be this easy.

  Chapter 7

  Outside, I hurried over to the gate and supervised the opening. I was relieved to see that in spite of the overcast weather, a decent number of people were lined up outside, impatiently waiting to buy their tickets for this first day of the Un-fair. Yesterday’s weather had been abysmal, mainly because the remnants of a passing hurricane had dumped three inches of water on us. If I weren’t involved in the fair, I might have waited out today’s chance of thunderstorms, but here were several hundred people eager to come to the fair. Not bad at all for a Thursday, with only a few competitions scheduled and the Midway, with its rides and games, not opening for two more hours.

  But just as the gates opened, I found myself wondering if one of those smiling, eager faces belonged to a chicken thief. A pumpkin smasher. A despoiler of exquisite quilts. I stopped myself from scowling—no sense scaring off the paying customers—but I found myself studying the people as they began to trickle in.

  The family groups were probably harmless. No petty criminal worth his salt would encumber himself with toddlers already demanding hot dogs and cotton candy, boys begging to be taken on the rides, or girls pleading to go see the horses. But I had to work harder at not frowning when I spotted men, alone or in pairs.

  They could have any number of innocent reasons for coming, I reminded myself. They could be farmers, looking to buy or sell livestock or just check out the competition. They could be coming to see the latest tractors and combines on display. They could be craving barbecue or fried chicken or any of the dozens of foodstuffs on sale throughout the fair. They could be here for the entertainment, which ranged from our minor Nashville luminary to Rancid Dread, an inexplicably popular local heavy metal band.

  They could even be spies for one of the other counties or private groups trying to field their own entries in the competition to steal the thunder from the newly restored official state fair.