Drizzled with Death(32)

“That would be disheartening, but even so, you know how I feel about my goats.”

“I do. Hanley said you were all alone when it happened, too.”

“I was. I was too angry and worried for the goats to be scared, so it could have been worse.” Connie pried the closet door open as far as she could, given the stack of newspapers on the floor in front of it. Wrapping herself in a canvas jacket that looked like it belonged to Hanley, she led the way out to the goat enclosure.

The fence was indeed damaged like Hanley had said. Some of the heavy wire sagged out of shape and was distended in several places. The ground inside the enclosure looked torn up like there had been an altercation of some sort. There wasn’t much else to see until we went inside the barn at the end of the enclosure. Connie entered the building and motioned for me to follow. At first it was difficult to see, the light levels were low, and the colors were mostly drab browns and wood tones. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out several animals huddled together at the far end of the barn in one of the old horse stalls.

“Clementine was the one scraped up in the fray,” Connie said, pointing at a white female with a crooked horn. She had a nasty gash along her haunch and someone had covered it with ointment, which glistened against her matted fur. All the goats, except Clementine, took a few tentative steps toward Connie as she clucked at them.

“She seems like she’s still afraid,” I said, noting the way she hung back from the others, cowering against the back wall.

“She must be. Clementine usually runs right over me with her displays of affection.”

“What about the one Hanley said went missing?”

“It was her sister, Susannah. The two were very close. Clementine must be heartbroken.” I wondered if one of them behaved like Celadon. I’m not sure I could see myself feeling as heartbroken if Celadon simply went missing one evening. I might even be the tiniest bit relieved.

“Do you have any idea what might have done this?” I had my own, of course, but there was no way I was going to be the one to mention the mountain lion to her if she hadn’t heard it through the grapevine already.

“Well, I heard you thought you saw a mountain lion, and until this happened, I agreed with the rest of the folks in town that you had finally cracked from all the Christmas hoopla your family puts together. But now, I’m not so sure.”

“So you think it could have been a mountain lion?”

“I don’t know what else could have come in here and then jumped back out with a full-grown goat in tow. Do you?”

“I don’t need to be convinced. I saw the thing with my own eyes.”

“What did Fish and Game say?”

“There is no such thing in New Hampshire anymore.”

“Well, then, maybe it was a yeti.”

“Maybe you had a yeti here messing with your goats, but there was a mountain lion at my sugarhouse and I hope we can prove it.”

“Well, whatever you do, make sure you tell your grandfather to fortify the situation in your own barn. I’d hate for his cows to meet a similar fate.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him. And please let me know if you have any more trouble. I know the Fish and Game guy’s number and would be happy to ask him to give a look around.”

“I’ll do that. And if you see Hanley when you get home be sure to tell him I’m making a tuna noodle casserole for dinner. There’s nothing like making a man’s favorite meal to keep him happy at home.” Maybe Hanley had lied about his favorite meal. Or else Jill was an even better cook than Connie.

• • •

I always loved the ride over to Roland’s place even if the reason was a mundane errand like a pickle delivery. The road wound through some of the prettiest parts of town, with peeks at the mountains and even a glimpse of the lake along one stretch. I’d been there many times delivering syrup for the inn. Roland and his wife, Felicia, had been kind enough to offer to use only Greener Pastures syrup on their guests’ breakfast tables and even to sell bottles of it at the front desk.

Roland and Felicia Chick had waited until their kids were grown and then set about realizing their lifelong dream of running an inn. Everything about the place spoke of how much care they had lavished on it. The windows gleamed, the paint dazzled, the gardens lulled. Even the birds frolicked in a way that was almost magically cheerful. Every bit of it was enchanting except for the view.

From the gracious, wraparound porch with its gingerbread trim and lush hanging baskets of hyperactively blooming petunias, you used to be able to look out over the gentle rolling hills in the distance covered in dense trees and shrubs. Now, standing out like a cockroach on a wedding cake, a mini storage facility blighted the view. The property line lay just beyond a carefully planted border of flowering quince, lilac, and weigela the Chicks had installed several years earlier. A road leading into Alanza’s property cut right behind the border and some of the heavy equipment used to construct it had demolished some prized specimens and enabled an unobstructed view of the metal shacks. The machines were still there, poised and threatening like an enemy army just beyond a city wall.