The Hen of the Baskervilles(3)

“Hey, Meg.” Vern waved me over. “Meg Langslow’s the assistant director of the fair,” he said to the couple.

The two turned their eyes toward me without appreciably moving their heads. I almost flinched under their mute, accusing stares.

“I’m so sorry about this,” I said. “Vern, what can we do to help?”

“Any chance you could round up some volunteers to help us search for the chickens?” Vern said.

“Absolutely.” I pulled out my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe, as I call my trusty planner and to-do list, and began scribbling some notes on who to enlist. Then I noticed Bill Dauber, the tent volunteer, standing at my elbow. No, he was standing a little behind me, as if he didn’t want to be seen.

“Organize a search,” I told him, in a low voice.

“Roger!” He dashed off, as if glad to have an excuse to leave.

“They could be miles from here by now,” the man said. The woman sniffled and the chicken she was holding squawked and struggled—I deduced that the woman had tightened her grip.

“They could, and we’ll be doing what we can to track them down,” Vern said. “But whoever did this took the chickens, not the cages. For all we know, it could have been a prank. Maybe someone just set them loose. Or maybe someone did steal them, but it can be hard holding on to one riled up chicken—and this guy was trying to carry two? I’d say there’s a good chance one or both will turn up if we do a good search nearby.”

I hoped if they did turn up they’d still be alive. Should I have some knowledgeable person check the fried chicken stand to see if any of their supplies were a little too fresh?

“How did they manage to steal the chickens?” I asked aloud.

“We had only two officers patrolling the whole fairground last night,” Vern said. “We figured since it was only farmers here at night it wouldn’t be a high-crime area. Unfortunately, it would be pretty easy for someone to watch until they knew the pattern of their patrols and then elude them.”

“But we had a volunteer who was supposed to be here in the tent all night,” I pointed out.

“He was here.” The husband of the bantam-owning couple, his voice unexpectedly fierce. “He slept through the whole thing.”

“Mr. Dauber had himself a lawn chair over near the tent entrance,” Vern said. “Looks like he made himself a mite too comfortable and dozed off. My best guess is that the chicken thief slipped in through the back entrance.”

No wonder Dauber had been so eager to leave.

“Your best guess,” the man echoed. “Have you done any forensics?”

Vern winced slightly, no doubt wishing himself back to the day when CSI and other TV cop shows hadn’t made “forensics” a household word.

“You forget, we’re just a rural sheriff’s department in a small and very cash-poor county.” Vern’s accent suddenly sounded a lot more country than usual. “We have to call in someone to do forensics, and it’s hard to justify it for anything less than a murder.”

From the way the wife was looking at him, I suspected she was almost willing to provide the murder.

“What about Horace?” I asked. “He’s in town for the fair.”

“If you think he’d be willing,” Vern said.

I was already dialing his number while Vern turned to the couple to explain.

“Horace Hollinsgsworth, Ms. Langslow’s cousin, is a veteran crime scene analyst from York County,” he said. “With luck, she can talk him into doing the forensics for us.”

Luck was with us. Horace was awake and very eager to be of service, probably because another cousin, Rose Noire, was panicking that she hadn’t prepared enough stock to sell in her organic herbal products booth and had recruited him to help.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I asked.

“If I never tie another little pink ribbon on another little purple flowered bag of stuff that makes me sneeze, I’ll die a happy man,” Horace said. “Beats me why people pay money for a bunch of dried weeds. But don’t tell Rose Noire I said that.”

“If she asks, I’ll tell her you reluctantly agreed to help out for the good of the fair,” I said.

“I’ll be right over.”

I relayed this good news to Vern.

“That’s great!” He turned back to the couple. “Now, folks, I don’t want you to touch anything until Mr. Hollingsworth gets here. Do you have someplace else you can keep your other chicken?”

I spotted Mr. Dauber, who was buttonholing people to recruit them for the search and assigned him the additional task of finding a new cage for the forlorn fowl, who seemed in ever-increasing danger of being hugged to death. Given how fast Mr. Dauber scrambled to follow my orders, I deduced he was feeling guilty about his failure to protect the bantams. As well he might. And it probably wasn’t a bad idea to put some distance between him and the red-faced, scowling husband of the couple who owned the bantams.