The Hen of the Baskervilles(88)

“You broke my nail!” Genette keened. “Do you know how much that hurts?”

At least I think she said hurts. Her voice was muffled, so it could just as easily have been “Do you know how much that costs?”

“A broken nail can’t possibly hurt you as much as it would have hurt me if you succeeded in scratching my eyes out.” I had pulled out my cell phone. It was hard to dial with the hand that was still holding the flashlight, but I managed. After all, 911 is a pretty short dial.

“I’m in the chicken tent,” I said when Debbie Ann answered. “I’ve caught the thief.”

“I’m not the thief!” Genette wailed.

Just then one of the Nankins who’d apparently escaped from the bag popped into the pool of light from the flashlight, took one look at Genette, and left, squawking.

“I rest my case,” I said.

“What’s going on here?”

A man holding a fistful of Monopoly money in one hand and a flashlight in the other was standing in the aisles.

“I caught her stealing chickens,” I said.

“I wasn’t stealing,” Genette said. “I was going to leave some cash to pay for them.”

“Yeah, right,” the man said. Two more people loomed up behind him.

“What are they doing here?” one asked.

“Meg caught the chicken thief,” someone answered.

“Chicken purchaser,” Genette insisted.

“‘Chicken purchaser’?” I echoed. “Was there a reason you couldn’t come by in the daytime to discuss the terms of the sale with the owners?”

“They were so stubborn,” she said.

“Then I guess they don’t want to sell.”

“Damn straight we don’t,” one of the volunteers said.

“Not to her,” another volunteer added.

“It was idiotic—I was offering them three times what the silly birds were worth. I can’t believe they turned it down.”

I could, easily.

“That’s their right,” I said. “Where did you put the Orloffs and the Sumatrans?”

“I didn’t take any of them,” she said. “I just figured if everyone else was stealing chickens, why not?”

I was opening my mouth to say how ridiculous that was when Vern Shiffley strode into the tent.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“Chicken thief,” I said. “She’s all yours.”





Chapter 33

It was a great exit line. Too bad I didn’t actually get to exit after it. I had to explain to Vern how I came to be in the tent and what I’d seen Genette doing. I wouldn’t have minded if I hadn’t known I’d have to explain it all over again when the chief arrived.

“So what’s your side of the story?” Vern asked Genette.

“I wasn’t stealing anything,” she said.

“Then what were you doing here?”

“I left something here in my booth, and I had to come back to get it.” She was batting her eyes and trying to look helpless. “Silly me! I guess in the dark I must have wandered into the wrong tent.”

“Looks more like you cut a slit in the wrong tent and crawled in,” Vern said.

“I didn’t want to run into any of the other winemakers,” she said. “They all hate me.”

“Not surprising,” Vern said. “Have you been slicing up the sides of their tent?”

They went back and forth about that for a few minutes before she changed her angle.

“You see, I heard a noise in here,” she said. “And I was sneaking in to see if I could catch whoever was in here red-handed. And when I came in here, she was here—stuffing chickens into that bag!”

She pointed to me with a triumphant look on her face. Vern and I looked at each other.

“She gets points for gall,” I said. “None for brains.”

“It’s my word against hers,” Genette said.

“No, it’s not,” came a hollow voice from behind us. We all started—even Vern—and I think he clapped his hand to his gun when he saw that one of the trash barrels lined up against the other side of the tent had begun to rise straight up into the air.

Then I realized that the trash can had legs. Short, stubby, black-clad legs.

Mr. Bonneville heaved the trash can off his head and turned to lift the trash can next to him, revealing Mrs. Bonneville. They were both wearing new-looking black tracksuits.

“We were staking out the tent,” Mrs. Bonneville said.

“We had a feeling the thief would come back,” her husband added. “And we saw the whole thing.”

“From your trash cans?” Genette said. “How could you see anything?”