Weeding Out Trouble (8 page)

My mother squealed. Miss Maisie swung her broom this way and that, nearly knocking Riley clear off the steps. "Get him!" she yelled.

The "him" in question was a snow white rooster. It flapped its wings and ran in circles, while Miss Maisie tried to sweep it into oblivion.

"Mercy me!" my mother shouted.

Riley looked to be in complete and utter shock, his eyes wide, his mouth open. Either that or he'd seen his life flash before his eyes when the broom came at him again.

"Grab it!" Miss Maisie yelled at me.

I spun around as the rooster ran circles around my feet. I bent down and reached out, but the rooster ran right through my legs—still free as, well, a bird.

"Why didn't you grab him, Nina?" Flash asked me.

"I can't feel my hands!"

"Where's your coat?" he asked me.

"Long story, Flash."

"Well, I can't catch him! Not with my arthritis. Riley?"

Riley sprang into action, chasing the bird around the

yard. It was my mother, however, who reached down and plucked the rooster from the ground, holding it firmly in the crook of her arm.

I wasn't sure who looked more surprised, me or the rooster, who I immediately named Gregory Peck. He was a handsome little guy.

Winded, Riley dropped onto Miss Maisie's bottom step. "Grandma Cel, where'd you learn to do that?"

"I grew up on a farm, c
hérie
."

My mouth dropped open and I spoke around my chattering teeth. "You grew up on a farm? How come I didn't know this?"

My mother shrugged.

Argh.

Mr. Cabrera came jogging up, not wanting to miss out on the action. "A rooster!"

"It's becoming an epidemic," Miss Maisie stated, banging her broom against the wooden floorboards of her porch. "A poultry plague."

I saw Riley ease away.

"It's true," Flash said. "First the turkeys, then a rooster?"

"Is someone trying to get rid of us?" Miss Maisie asked, her dark eyes wide with fear.

I thought it both a bit dramatic and paranoid of her, but didn't want to upset her by saying so. "How?" I asked.

"I was just watching a news story the other day about the bird flu! These birds could be contaminated. Someone probably brought them to the Mill to infect us so they could clear the neighborhood of the old riffraff. Developers would love this land to build spiffy new condos."

Immediately, my mother dropped the rooster. It took off, running zigzag across Miss Maisie's yard.

"Now, Maisie," Flash began, apparently having no qualms against upsetting the woman. "That's silly."

I crossed my arms and tucked my hands into my armpits to keep my fingers from getting frostbitten. "They're not contaminated," I said. "There's been no bird flu reported in the U.S. yet."

"Then you explain it," Miss Maisie demanded.

Two turkeys. One terrified rooster. I had no explanation whatsoever.

"That's what I thought," she snapped. "Someone has to catch that rooster so we can get it tested."

No one budged.

Miss Maisie took the tearful approach. "Our lives could be at stake!"

My mother nudged me. "Go get the rooster, c
hérie
."

"Oh, sacrifice your favorite child."

She arched an eyebrow. "Nonsense. You're the only one fast enough. You've been working out."

I looked at Riley.

"He's but a child, c
hérie
!"

Gritting my teeth, I went after the rooster. My mother called out tips. "Grab him around the middle, Nina! Catching roosters is in your genes. You should have no problems."

I was cold. I was upset about Kit. I was mad at Kevin. The last thing I wanted to be doing was catching a runaway rooster that might or might not be carrying the bird flu.

And, to top it all off, I had problems. It seemed Gregory Peck didn't want to be caught. He led me all around the yard, and by the time I grabbed him by his skinny little leg and was able to get my hands around his middle, the clink was looking good again.

"Now what?" I asked once I caught the bird.

No one had an answer.

"Chérie
, why are your lips blue?"

Argh!

"Here." I shoved the bird at Mr. Cabrera. "Put him in your garage. I'll call Animal Control. I'm going home."

"There's no need to be crabby, Miz Quinn." Gregory Peck flapped his wings. "Whoa, whoa," Mr. Cabrera said to the rooster, trying to calm it as though it was a horse.

With that image in my head, I hurried home. I walked in the front door and closed it behind me, tempted to lock it. Kevin was on the phone. Lewy and Joe were sitting on my sofa, both sipping coffee from my favorite W
izard of
Oz
mugs.

I froze. I'd been hoping they would be long gone.

"You don't smell so good," Joe said, sniffing.

I looked down at myself. Gregory Peck had left a calling card behind—on my shirt.

"What are you two still doing here?" Glancing out the window, I saw their car. It sat at the curb—I'd completely overlooked it.

Joe leaned forward. "We'd like to know where you were this morning, Nina."

"Out," I said.

"Out isn't going to cut it." Lewy sipped his coffee.

"I went for a ride with a friend."

"Where?"

"We were headed for Indiana, but got lost, then the roads were so bad we decided to turn around."

I was a great fibber.

"You're good, Nina," Joe intoned melodramatically, "but we're better. Just remember that."

I shivered, but not from his words. I was frozen to the bone. Truthfully, the pair didn't scare me in the least. I thought maybe Gregory Peck had more brains than the two of them combined.

"If we find out you've been aiding and abetting . . . "

"Yeah, yeah." I motioned to the phone. "Is that for me?"

Kevin handed it over. "It's Tam," he said.

I took the call.

"He's stubborn," Tam said once I was on the line. "He wouldn't listen to a word I said about Kit."

"I had to live with that for seven years." I smiled at Kevin, and he growled. He'd been doing that a lot lately. So much for being grateful for my hospitality. "What's up?" I asked Tam.

Clearing her throat, she said, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but one of the TBS trucks is missing."

She went on to tell me the story just as we'd rehearsed. I made appropriately distressed noises where I was supposed to. The whole act was just in case the phone lines were tapped—something I wouldn't put past the two sitting on my couch.

I hung up and faced the three men who'd like nothing better than to see Kit in jail.

"What's going on?" Kevin asked.

"Nothing," I hedged, playing my part really well.

"We have ways of finding out if you're lying," Joe said.

Well, that answered the question of the phones being tapped.

"Oh, all right. One of my TBS trucks is missing from the lot at work. It was there yesterday and wasn't there today."

Lewy jumped up, walked to the corner of the room and made a call from his cell phone. It took me much effort not to smile.

I ducked into the kitchen and came out with the phone book. "Who are you calling?" Joe asked.

"None of your business."

"Everything you do is my business, Nina," he answered. Amazingly, he didn't sound happy about it either.

"I'm aware," I said, grumpy.

I found the number for the Animal Control office and called, leaving a message on their machine.

"A rooster?" Kevin asked once I hung up.

"He's quite handsome."

"Testy, I bet," Joe said. "Those roosters always are."

Kevin and I looked at him.

"Grew up on a farm," he mumbled, draining the last of his coffee.

"Shouldn't you two be leaving now?" I asked Joe.

"We thought we'd just hang around for a while longer," Lewy said after finishing his call.

I could have argued about civil liberties and warrants and such, but decided to take an easier way out. "Fine by me. I'm going to go take a shower." I started up the stairs, then stopped. "Oh, I should let BeBe in first."

Outside, I unhooked BeBe from her lead, and she galloped into the house, leaving her snowman behind. Apparently her crush had been fleeting.

I ran up the stairs as she pranced around the living room, licking, slobbering, drooling, and shaking wet fur.

It wasn't long before I heard the front door close and saw the two detectives walking toward the street.

I had the uneasy feeling I'd be seeing a lot more of them.

In times of stress I take to my drawing pad. And if this wasn't a stressful time, I didn't know what was. Never mind that Kit was missing. Or that Daisy was dead. Or that there was a poultry pestilence going on in the Mill.

No, my brain had already filed away those mind-numbing morsels in a corner labeled Deal with Later.

My current elevated stress hit a little closer to home.

From my spot on the floor, I glanced up at my bed, though I didn't need visual confirmation for what I was hearing.

My mother snored.

So did BeBe.

It was all a girl could do to stay sane.

The forty watt glow of my table lamp was just enough light for me to work. I picked a purple oil pastel out of its case and colored in foxglove. I used my pinkie to blend. I was working on a design board for Alice Graeme, a sweet old lady who'd heard of Taken by Surprise through the Mill's grapevine. She and her sister, May, lived a few blocks over, technically out of the neighborhood, but I'd learned never to underestimate the power of the Mill's gossiping abilities. Alice had hired me to do a backyard makeover for May this coming spring, and my head swam with ideas for the pair.

I stretched out my legs, rolled my shoulders. Under ordinary circumstances my bedroom floor wasn't the ideal place to work. But these weren't ordinary times, and there wasn't anywhere else for me to go.

Downstairs was occupado with Kevin. Downstairs I would feel obligated to talk to him. Downstairs we might have to discuss that phone call I'd overheard.

I was avoiding downstairs like the plague.

Riley's room was off-limits. Never mind the fact that he was in there—Xena was in there. Xena was Riley's pet boa constrictor. We had a love/hate relationship. Mostly, I loved to hate her. The deal was that as long as Riley took care of her, he could live. If, for some reason, Xena managed to escape again, like she did last spring, Riley knew I'd hunt him down.

I had boundaries.

Speaking of boundaries, I rose up on my knees and peered out the bottom of my window at the house across the street. My shade was pulled down three-quarters of the way—just enough to see that the lights were on at Bobby's, as if beckoning me over.

I felt beckoned.

And tempted.

It was odd having Bobby across the street. Don't get me wrong, I loved having him there. But it was strange being
here
, with him
there
. I always felt as though the neighbors knew when I went over—and stayed the night. It was worse than if we'd moved in together.

So, I tried to set limits for myself. Tried to keep things the way they would be if he lived across town and not two hundred feet away.

My mother snorted and rolled over, causing BeBe to snort and roll over too. I thought about taking a picture for this year's Christmas card, but I valued my life.

I sunk back down, trying not to think about Bobby. I shuffled him off into another corner of my brain labeled, Keep Your Pants On. It was a dusty corner, rarely used.

Which said volumes about how well I was doing with the boundaries I'd set with him.

Refocusing on my drawing, I smiled at what I had so far. Since Alice had said May loved whimsy, I was aiming for a fairy garden. Romantic and old-fashioned, with lots of fuss but little muss, because realistically the two women couldn't get around all that well anymore.

I planned a sedum walkway and would fill in empty space with colorful delphiniums, hollyhocks, roses, dianthus, and ferns. I set a section aside for herbs such as rosemary, thyme, and saffron, to scent the air. I hoped my local nursery would have the perfect lichen-covered rock for added atmosphere.

I'd spent the last hour scouring online catalogs for the right accessories. I found a tree-stump shaped as a chair, a weathered whitewashed bench, and a scalloped-shaped fountain complete with a perched fairy, wings spread as she poured water into the bowl, perfect for the garden.

Lighting would be essential to this garden, so I colored in two- and three-stemmed mushroom-shaped lights made from copper I found on an artisan website. I made a mental note to ask Kit to look into—

I stiffened.

Kit.

I tried to shove him back into that corner of my mind he'd snuck out of, but I couldn't. He didn't just loom large in real life, but in my thoughts too.

What was he doing? Was he okay? Scared? Hungry? Grieving all alone?

What had he thought about Kent Ingless? And what exactly had he been doing to help Daisy with her business?

My cell phone vibrated, and I grabbed it and headed into the bathroom.

"Where are you?" Ana asked. "You sound all echoey."

"In the bathroom." I kept my voice low.

"Do I want to know?"

I peeked out my door, at my mother hogging the covers

and BeBe hogging the bed. "No." Closing the door tight, I wondered how I was going to budge BeBe so I could get some sleep. "Where are you?" I asked. Filtered voices came across the line. "What's all that noise in the background?"

"TSA warning about leaving baggage unattended."

I sank into the empty bathtub. "You're coming home?"