A Flock and a Fluke (Clucks and Clues Cozy Mysteries)

by Hillary Avis

  “Let’s sign over dinner,” Ruth said. “Why don’t I meet you at Hopdale Brewery in Duma in about an hour? That’ll give me a chance to get everything drawn up for you.”

  “Perfect!” Jelly trilled. “Isn’t it perfect, honey?”

  “Perfect,” he echoed.

  THE MINUTE THEY LEFT, Ruth and I were at each other’s throats.

  “Why’d you throw them a life preserver with that whole ‘buy your grapes’ thing?!” Ruth demanded.

  I sucked in my cheeks. “Why’d you suddenly throw up all those barriers to sale once you had them on the hook? It’s almost like you don’t want to pay your mortgages.”

  She crossed her arms and gave me a sulky look. “I could say that same of you. You seem pretty determined to put your egg farm out of business.”

  At the mention of my eggs, my shoulders sagged. “I’m probably going out of business, anyway. The state suspended my egg handler’s license. Jam and Jelly might be doing me a favor by asking me to shut down my chicken operation.”

  “Jam and Jelly.” Ruth giggled at my nicknames for the couple. Then she blinked. “Wait, what? Why was your license suspended?”

  “I’ll know more when I get the official paperwork, but I’m guessing it was due to Amelia’s death. It’s going to be tough to shake that association, whether I get my license back or not. And in the meantime? I have two fridges full of eggs that nobody wants to eat. At least if I made jams and jellies, they’d last a little longer on the shelf.”

  Ruth put her arm around me, and I slumped against her a little. She chuckled and propped me back up. “You can’t give up so easily. Chickens are your dream.”

  “Maybe a dream that I can’t make a reality, though,” I said glumly.

  She squeezed my shoulder as we walked back through the orchard to the house. “Don’t worry, at dinner I’ll make sure those two bail on building their Tuscan retreat in the Flats.”

  I whirled on her. “Don’t you dare! I promised my best friend I wouldn’t let anything come between her and this deal, and I intend to keep that promise. Her business needs to succeed as much as mine does, and I swear, if you cluck this up for her, I am never speaking to you again!”

  Ruth stopped suddenly at the foot of the porch steps, her forehead creased and her eyebrows drawing together. “You mean it? You really want me to let them to put in an offer?”

  I looped my arm around her and offered a squeeze of my own. “I do. If you let this fall through, we might both be out of business, and one of us has to pay our mortgage in case the other one needs to move in.”

  She laughed, stopped and looked at me, then laughed again. “You know what? Suddenly going broke doesn’t sound so bad. But only if you’re sure you don’t mind living next to these people for the rest of your life.”

  I snorted. “You know as well as I do that they’re not going to last that long in the wine business. They just want to tell people they run a winery, not do the actual work.”

  “They might steamroll you,” she said worriedly. “They have strong personalities.”

  “Steamroll me?! Don’t worry, I can take care of Jam and Jelly. You just make sure that farm gets sold and the commission check has your name on it.”

  Ruth grinned at my nickname for the couple. “Let’s make a bargain. I’ll sell them the blueberry farm, and you make sure that by the time they move in, your egg business is booming so big that the community dynamic requires you to keep your birds.”

  I nodded. “You got yourself a deal. And a dozen eggs. Let me go get you a carton.” I took the stairs two at a time and swiftly returned with a carton of eggs from the porch fridge. I handed them to Ruth, and she took them with a thoughtful expression on her face.

  “You know,” she said, reflexively opening the carton to check the eggs for cracks and then closing it again, “I’m pretty sure you don’t need an egg handler’s permit to sell directly to individuals, so any cease-sales order from the ODA only puts the kibosh on wholesale orders. And you’re not making those sales anyway right now. What if you just sell them one carton at a time?”

  Hope sprouted in my chest. I hadn’t really thought about selling to individuals. It had seemed more lucrative to sell all my eggs in one or two large wholesale orders, but at this point, I’d take every five bucks I could get to put toward chicken feed. “That’s not a terrible business plan. It’d at least hold me over until the Rx resumes their regular order.”

  Ruth poked me in the ribs again. “Of course it’s not a terrible plan—I’m a successful entrepreneur, remember? I’m a member of the motherclucking Chamber of Commerce.”

  My mind was already whirring so loudly, making a mental list of people I knew who’d buy from me, that I hardly heard her retort. “Now I just need to find enough people willing to take a chance on my eggs.”

  Ruth snapped her fingers. “Farmers market. This week is the first one of the season. Get a booth! That’s my last piece of free advice. Any more and I’ll have to charge you a consulting fee.” She winked at me.

  “Then I’m charging you for these!” I snatched the carton of eggs back from her and her mouth dropped open. I giggled at her expression and held them back out to her. “Just kidding. I think Boots would move out if I charged you for eggs. And at this point, I’d pay you to take these off my hands.”

  Chapter 15

  Tuesday, Day 4

  The next morning, I was waiting on the sidewalk when a freshly curled and pressed Margie Morrow unlocked the door to City Hall. She wore a royal purple skirt-suit with a huge silk peony quivering on her left lapel. “Mayor of Honeytree, OR” was embroidered in gold on the jacket’s breast pocket. Now that was confidence. She obviously wasn’t worried about needing a new wardrobe after next month’s election.

  I tried to enter the building, but Margie moved to block the doorway, raising a drawn-on eyebrow at me. “I’m surprised to see you here, Leona.”

  “Why’s that?” I raised my eyebrows right back. “Isn’t this the place to register for a table at the farmers market?”

  She smiled, her fuchsia lipstick cracking at the edges, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m disappointed in you. I really am.”

  I snorted and squeezed past her into the small lobby. Honeytree had apparently bought grim gray office furniture in bulk—the décor in here was the same as in Eli’s office. The only difference was the “Life is Sweet in Honeytree” banner that hung above the reception desk. I spun the circular rack of forms, scanning it for the farmers market application. “Sorry you feel that way.”

  “I expected to hear more around town about Pastor Cal’s...situation,” she said behind me, with all the tact of a pig at a trough.

  I spotted the form I was looking for and plucked it out of the rack before turning to face her. “I did a little investigation after we talked. Turns out, the situation wasn’t as simple as you made it out to be, Marge.”

  She made a face at the nickname. “I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You kind of left out the part where you were attempting to blackmail Cal to drop out of the race.” I grabbed a pen off the desk and sat down to fill out the form.

  “I never did any such thing.” Margie sniffed. “I only suggested politely that he might want to avoid the scandal when the details of their marital situation came out. If my years in politics have taught me anything, it’s that things always come out eventually.”

  “They do if you plan to announce them at the Easter Scramble.” I filled in the blanks for name and address on the farmers market form, then checked the box next to “small local farm” with a flourish. “I think you moved from ‘polite suggestion’ to ‘blackmail’ when you put a deadline on his decision.”

  “People deserve to know,” she said indignantly. “You can’t have informed voters without information, right? And Cal came around to that opinion, too. He agreed to withdraw rather than tell people the truth.”

  I signed the bottom of the
form and handed it to her. “Is it still fifteen bucks?”

  She put on a pair of purple reading glasses from the desk and scanned the paper. Then she gave it back to me. “You forgot to write down your egg handler’s license number.”

  I flushed. “It’s not required.”

  “It certainly is!”

  “Check the code, Margie. I don’t need it to sell to consumers, only to restaurants. I’ll wait while you go look it up.” I crossed my arms and sat back in the uncomfortable chair.

  She pursed her lips and snatched the paper out of my hands. “Fine. I’ll check it later. But if your application is declined, the fifteen-dollar fee is nonrefundable.”

  “Fine,” I echoed. I plucked a wrinkled ten and five out of my wallet and smoothed them a little before handing them to her. “Will I be able to sell on Thursday?”

  A small smile quirked the corner of her mouth. “You seem very confident that you’ll be approved.”

  “I know the law,” I said, rising to my feet.

  “This week, I may decide to limit the number of sellers.” That annoying eyebrow arched again. This woman was put on earth to test me. “I can do that, you know. Unless...”

  I sighed. “Unless what?”

  “Unless Pastor Cal makes good on his word to withdraw from the race. It concerns me that he didn’t follow through on our agreement—much as it concerns me that you didn’t.” Her voice was all sugar. So this was how Margie Morrow got things done. “Maybe we can solve both problems if I give you a little ammunition.”

  I blinked. “What’re you talking about?”

  She sat down in the chair next to me. “Don’t you think it’s a little convenient that the second Cal’s secret was going to be exposed, Amelia dropped dead? Sort of solved that little problem for him, didn’t it? Now he’s the grieving widower instead of a liar and a fraud.”

  I’d had the same suspicion myself, but I wasn’t going to give Margie the satisfaction of knowing that. “Here’s the funny thing. Your little attempt to expose their broken marriage actually drove them back together. They reconciled that night at the cocktail party. They spent Friday night together. So there’s nothing to tell, Margie. He’s not a liar. He was happily married—at least for Amelia’s few final hours. I won’t spread your poison any further than this waiting room.”

  I rose to leave, but Margie nabbed my sleeve and pulled me roughly back down into my seat. She leaned toward me so close I could see her powdery pores. “He is a liar,” she hissed, her hot breath hitting me like a hurricane. You know, the kind of hurricanes that come in big cups with straws? “You don’t know the whole story, but you have to trust me. The town needs to know the truth about him.”

  I barked a laugh and yanked my arm away so she lost her grip on my shirt. “Why in the world would I trust you? I have no reason to. You’re a blackmailer who’s trying to pressure me into sabotaging an election that you’re probably going to lose otherwise. That’s cheating, Margie. Don’t you think Honeytree should know that, too?”

  Margie’s mouth dropped open and she blinked rapidly. “You have it all backwards!” she stuttered. “Cal threatened to blackmail me, not the other way around!”

  “Right.” I stood again and this time she didn’t pull me back down. “Now I remember. Everyone is bad except you. My eggs are dangerous, Pastor Cal is a fraud and a blackmailer, and Annaliese stole candy from the concessions stand back in high school. Do I have that right?”

  “She did,” Margie said staunchly. “I saw her do it. We were working the concessions stand together. They found the evidence in her locker the next day!”

  “Why didn’t you stop her, then?”

  Margie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I don’t remember why. I was probably scared I’d get in trouble, too.”

  “Oh gosh, what could your reasoning be?” I snapped my fingers. “Oh, I’ve got it—you knew it’d be more advantageous for your student council run if Annaliese was caught than if you stopped it from happening to begin with. And congrats, you were right. You ruined her life and you stole the election. And now you’re trying to do the same thing again, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to let you manipulate me into helping you.”

  Margie blinked rapidly. “Manipulate you?!”

  “‘You don’t know the whole story. You have to trust me,’” I mimicked. “Right. You can’t tell me the real reason, and why not? Because there is no reason except your naked ambition.”

  Margie tilted her head to the side, considering me—or maybe considering what to do with me. Then she held up my farmers market form and slowly tore it in half. She tossed the pieces in the wastebasket beside the desk and waved my fifteen bucks at me. “I’m sorry to say that your application has been declined, Leona. Better luck next time.”

  And then she turned her back on me.

  The nerve!

  I marched out the door, turned sharply right, and marched into the sheriff’s office where Eli was on the phone with someone. I steamed quietly until he hung up.

  “Couldn’t go a day without me, huh?” He put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, giving me one of his patented George Clooney grins. Well, that strong jaw and good hair weren’t enough to distract me.

  “I want to report a crime.”

  He sat forward, looking surprised, and scrambled for his computer keyboard. “OK, I’m listening—what happened?”

  “Margie Morrow just stole fifteen bucks from me!” I pointed to the west side of the room, in the direction of City Hall. I hoped my raised voice made it through the wall to Margie’s ears.

  Eli rolled his eyes. “Come on, now. You don’t really want me to write that on a report, do you? I have a tough time believing Doc and Marge are that hard up that she’d fleece you for a few dollars.”

  “She took my money, knowing full well she wasn’t going to approve my application. That’s stealing,” I said stubbornly.

  Eli folded his hands like some kind of guru. “I sense some anger.”

  “You must be psychic.” I rolled my eyes. “You better believe I’m angry. She only denied me a spot at the farmers market because I refused to do what she asked.”

  “Let me get this straight. You applied for the farmers market, which cost fifteen dollars? Then you didn’t comply with Margie’s terms, and she denied your application.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, that sounds like she was exercising her discretion as mayor, not stealing.”

  “It’s not like she was asking for something reasonable!” I said hotly. “Her terms involved lying!”

  Eli frowned. “About what?”

  “About Cal Goodbody, of course. She’s upset that I didn’t tell everybody that he and Amelia were secretly split up. That’s why she’s holding my farmers market application hostage.”

  “Well, they were split up,” Eli said, ever reasonable. “I understand that you might not want to spread it around town in the wake of the tragedy, but that’s hardly a lie.”

  “It is a lie—according to Cal, they got back together before Amelia died, remember? But when I told Margie that, she kept pushing me, saying she knew other reasons that Cal was a liar and a fraud. And then she got really desperate and claimed that Cal was blackmailing her rather than the other way around. I think she’s gone off the deep end.” I shook my head. “She really will do anything to win this election.”

  Eli frowned. “That does sound serious. Maybe more serious than pocketing fifteen bucks.”

  “Easy for you to say. It’s not your money,” I grumbled.

  He stood up and grabbed his uniform jacket from a hook behind the desk. “Walk over with me. Let’s see how truthful Margie’s accusations really are. Maybe she was just throwing her weight around in a moment of desperation, but maybe she was telling the truth—maybe there’s more to Pastor Cal than meets the eye.”

  Chapter 16

  I grudgingly followed Eli out the front door of the sheriff’s office. I knew what wo
uld happen once we got inside City Hall. Marge-in-Charge would point to the fine print saying my application fee was nonrefundable. Eli would side with her, because his job is all about enforcing the fine print. Then she’d deny what she’d said about Cal blackmailing her, because who would admit to that? And Eli, already on her side, would believe her.

  Eli held the door open and, dreading the sight of Margie’s smug expression, I dragged my feet over the doorsill. I braced myself for some of her inane chit-chat, but instead I heard Eli draw in his breath sharply behind me. Then he jostled me aside as he made a dash for what I realized was a prone figure on the floor.

  I froze at the sight. Margie was splayed out in front of the reception desk, two paper cups of coffee splashed across the floor in front of her, a half-eaten doughnut slowly soaking up the liquid. Eli skidded through the mess to kneel at Margie’s side and check her pulse. He looked back over his shoulder at me as he began chest compressions.

  “Go through the back”—he jerked his head toward the door behind the desk—“and tell Jasmine to bring her kit. Hurry!”

  I shook myself and did as he asked. Jasmine—the paramedic who’d worked on Amelia when I found her—didn’t ask questions, just grabbed a bag and followed me out of the fire station and back into City Hall. Her face registered shock when she saw Margie lying there.

  “What happened!?”

  “No pulse,” Eli said tersely, punctuating his words with chest compressions. “Can you take over?”

  She shook her head, slowly backing up as she held her kit in front of her like a protective shield. “Oh no...no way. Let me go get the bag.”

  Eli stopped what he was doing to stare at Jasmine, and I wanted to scream Keep going! Don’t stop! “What do you mean, no way? You’re obligated to help!”

  Jasmine jutted out her chin, her cheeks flushing. “I’m not obligated if it puts me in mortal peril. Those are the rules of duty in the manual.”