Leave Tomorrow Behind (Stella Crown Series) (10 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“What’s happening? Watch out for that pothole.” I was on the phone with Carla, and directing Miranda, who was driving. She glared at me. I was pretty sure she wanted to give me the finger, the way her hand twitched on the steering wheel, but she didn’t. Too bad. It certainly hadn’t been my choice to have a chauffeur, but Lucy was busy with a lame cow, Nick had a conference call, Willard was “working,” and apparently I wasn’t “fit for driving” because I had fallen asleep at the breakfast table. Whatever.

“Not sure what’s wrong yet,” Carla said. She’d given me the basics when she’d taken the phone from Zach. Basically, the Greggs’ calf was foaming at the mouth and rolling its eyes. Not exactly what you want to see in a barn full of animals. “We’ve got the barn roped off until we figure it out. Hey! Get away from there! Stupid parents. Gotta go, Stella. Get here as soon as you can.” She hung up.

“Can’t you drive any faster?” I said to Miranda.

“Not around potholes, according to you.”

It wasn’t my fault the fair didn’t have a paved driveway. Or that Miranda drove like an old lady. Or a blind person.

“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll walk from here.” Before she’d entirely stopped I climbed out of the car.

She lurched across the seat. “Where are you going? What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. Park. Get something to eat. Look at stuff.”

“But—”

I slammed the door. She waited a second, then shot away, enveloping me in dust. Gotta love her.

I made my way to the exhibitors’ entrance, and from there to the calf barn. I had to make a detour around the cordoned-off manure trailer—there was now a different one parked across the lot—and was stopped at the door to the barn.

“No visitors,” the security guard said, semi-blocking the door with his pole-like frame.

“I’m not a visitor.”

He looked me up and down, peering out from under his bangs. “Don’t see a badge.”

“Oh, for…How old are you? Do they hire teenagers as security now?”

“I’m twenty-one.”

“Whatever.” I yanked out my phone and called Carla. “Justin Bieber won’t let me in.”

“One sec.”

I tried to see around the guard while I waited, but he shifted position as I did, trying to block my view. Good luck with that, spider legs.

Carla hustled up. “Let her in.”

“But—”

I ducked under his arms and through the door, and Carla swept me away. I refrained from sticking my tongue out.

We headed toward the Greggs’ calf pen, but were stopped halfway there by Zach and Randy.

Zach grabbed my arm. “What’s wrong with the calf? Is it contagious?”

“Haven’t seen it yet.”

“But what about Barnabas? Should we take him home?”

I put my hand over his, and he relaxed his death grip. “Hey, it will be all right.” I knew he was terrified of losing another calf; his experience from the summer before was still fresh in his mind. “Carla’s got it under control.” I glanced at her. “Right?”

She put her arm around Zach. “Absolutely. We’ll know more soon. Give us a few minutes and we’ll tell you everything.”

I patted Zach’s hand, and he let go.

“Come on, man,” Randy said. “I think I saw Taylor over by your box.”

Zach blinked. “Taylor’s here?”

I looked where Randy was pointing and saw the girl hanging out at Zach’s stall. Or Austin’s, maybe. Austin was taking advantage of Zach’s absence to make time with Taylor, letting her pet his calf. Neither Austin nor Taylor seemed especially animated, but I wasn’t sure if that was because the chemistry wasn’t there, or because of the night’s tragic events. Taylor was smiling, and seemed friendly and all, but it didn’t have the same blinding effect as the day before. I also wondered how it was she’d gotten admission to the barn, when I’d been kept out, like a criminal. But then I remembered the gender and age of the security guard and figured that answered the question. I wouldn’t consider what that meant about me.

Randy jerked his chin toward Austin and Taylor, and Zach’s expression changed from just worried, to worried and a little bit jealous. He took off without waiting for Randy.

“Thanks, Bud,” I said.

Randy nodded and left.

“So, Carla, what do we have?”

Carla shook her head. “I really don’t think it’s serious, but I wanted to get your opinion before I made the call.”

“Mine? Why? Aren’t there any other vets around?”

She snorted. “Too many, but none who are here officially, and all who are waiting for me to fall flat on my face in a cow plop. They want this to be the next plague, or at least Mad Cow Disease, and are already imagining their names on the bylines in
The Veterinary Journal
. But I think what’s happening is something a lot simpler.”

“What?”

“Nope. I want you to view it fresh.”

We were ten feet away from the gaggle of vets and worried 4-H’ers when Gregg saw me. Instead of his tacky clean farmer clothes he was wearing a suit. Maybe even the same one he’d had on the night before at the concert. His eyes were bloodshot and whiskers shaded his chin. The red tie was gone altogether. I guess that’s what happens when a girl dies soon after you assault her. I took a moment to consider whether assaulting was all he’d done. And just what his relationship was to the dead singer.

He met my eyes briefly before throwing a tantrum. “What is she doing here? Where’s security?”

Gregg’s youngest daughter, the one who was supposedly the owner of the calf, stood off to the side, more concerned in picking something off her shoe.

Carla intercepted Gregg before he got close enough I could slug him. “I asked her here.”

“You? How dare—”

Carla held up a finger. Not the finger I would have chosen, but it worked to shut him up. While she kept him silent, she looked at me. “Now, please.”

I walked up to the pen while the others watched. Gregg wasn’t the only one muttering. The other vets weren’t exactly thrilled with my presence. Their problem, not mine.

The calf looked fine to me. Bright-eyed, steady on his feet, backed up against the far wall, like any normal calf would do with a million people staring at him. No more of the eye-rolling Carla had mentioned, but that could have been because he wasn’t as freaked out as he had been. The only unusual thing I could see was wetness around his mouth, like he’d just taken a really long drink. I leaned toward him, then glanced up at Mrs. Gregg, who stood to the side, hands clenched into fists, which she had pressed against her thighs. “May I go in?”

Gregg sputtered. “No, she can’t—”

Mrs. Gregg nodded. Ignoring Mr. Gregg, I slipped through the gate and slowly approached the calf, until I knelt beside him. It wasn’t water around his mouth. It was saliva. A lot of it. And it smelled funny. Like…lemons.

I rooted through the calf’s feed bin, but there wasn’t much there. Not enough to hide what I expected to be the culprit.

I stood up and held out my hand. “Shovel.”

Someone placed a shovel in my hands, and I scraped around in the wood chips below the feed bin until I found what I was looking for. I picked it up and held it out.

“What is it?” Gregg grumped.

“Lemon peel.”

Carla’s eyes sparkled. “Thought so.”

The other vets all slumped as one entity. There went their Pulitzers, or whatever vets get for writing articles no one else can understand. They drifted away, as did the other 4-H’ers and their parents. They understood what had happened, and realized whatever danger they’d imagined was completely overstated.

“So what if it’s a lemon peel?” Gregg said when they’d all left. “What’s going to happen to the calf?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to it,” Carla said.

“But it was foaming,” Mrs. Gregg said. “It was sick.”

“No, it wasn’t.” I gave the calf one last pat and walked out the gate. “Somehow a lemon peel got into its feed. It chewed on it, because that’s what calves do. Lemons make them foam at the mouth.”

“But its eyes, they were all—” Gregg demonstrated, rolling his eyes like a crazy person.

“You would, too, if you suddenly had a lemon in your mouth.”

His nostrils flared. “How did a lemon get in its feed?”

“How would I know?” But I had an idea.

“Dad,” the Gregg girl said, “can I go now?”

Such concern. Enough to make your heart harden.

Gregg jerked his chin, and the girl was off in a heartbeat. Gregg glared at me, like the whole thing was my fault, then spun on his heel and stalked off. Mrs. Gregg watched him go, turned toward Carla, then hurried after her husband. Gotta love the family dynamics. And the gratitude.

But forget them. “You done with me, Carla?”

She sighed. “All done. Thanks for being the voice of reason.”

“Hey, anytime.”

“Carla?” One of the other vets from her practice hustled up. “I was over in the rabbit building with Susie—” his daughter “—when I heard what was going on. You need help?” He glared at one of the other vets, who was still hanging around the edge of the barn.

Carla patted his shoulder. “I got it, Don. But thanks.”

“Stella,” he said to me.

I nodded.

He leaned on the stall. “So, this the calf?”

“Yup. He’s fine.” Carla explained about the lemon.

“Stupid pranks,” Don muttered. “But good job. So, if you don’t need me?”

“We’re good.”

He waved and was gone again, back to his daughter and her rabbits.

“So, the quarantine?” I said, returning to the important stuff.

Carla gave a double thumbs up. “Completely lifted.”

“Thank you. I’ll let Zach know.”

“Thanks so much for coming. I didn’t want those other vets getting involved, and I hated to bother Don…” Her shoulders slumped, and the stress of the past hour showed in her face.

“Carla, I’m always here for you. You know that.”

“I do. It’s just…this job is not turning out to be as fun as I thought.”

“Carla—”

“I’ll be fine.” She gave me a quick hug, then yanked out her phone, which was ringing yet again. She answered, waving goodbye as she gathered her toolbox and strode away.

I found Zach talking to Taylor at his stall. Taylor had abandoned Austin, who was now perched on his straw bale with Randy, doing something with a phone. Zach and Taylor leaned over the fence, patting Barnabas.

“Zach,” I said.

He spun around so fast I thought he’d fall over. “Is Barnabas going to be okay? All the calves?”

Now there was someone who cared about the animals.

“They’ll be fine.”

Austin and Randy joined us.

“But what’s wrong with their calf?” Austin asked. “Are they quarantining the barn? Or canceling our judging?”

“Nope, it was just a prank. Someone put lemon peels in his food.”

Austin laughed, and ran a hand through his hair. “Thank God.”

Taylor’s nose wrinkled. “What?”

Zach explained what happened.

“But why would he eat a lemon peel? Wouldn’t it be sour?”

“If it’s dry enough he wouldn’t notice. Might even think it’s a treat at first.”

“So someone did it on purpose?”

“That would be my guess. Don’t know how it would get in his food, otherwise.”

“Who would do that?” Taylor asked, her voice strained.

“Yeah,” Austin said. “Who?”

“That’s easy,” I said. “Someone who wants the Greggs to lose the championship.”

Chapter Seventeen

I stepped outside and called Nick—on my cell phone, which he’d insisted I bring with me—to let him know all was well.

“Who plays pranks on calves?” he said.

I repeated what I’d told the kids. “There are a lot of people here who resent the Greggs. Kids who have a lot invested in their own animals and don’t want the Greggs to win undeserved prizes.”

“So they take it out on the calf?”

“Lemon peels aren’t going to hurt him. Just make him look bad. They probably figured if they could get him disqualified, all the better for everyone else.”

“It’s still not right.”

“Of course not. I’m just hoping it stops there.”

We enjoyed silence for a moment before he said, “So, you heading home?”

“As soon as I find Miranda.”

“Just text her.”

“Don’t know if she’ll answer when she sees it’s me.”

He laughed.

“I really didn’t mean that to be funny.”

“Yeah, well, it was. She’ll answer. I can’t imagine she wants to spend any more time at the county fair than she has to.”

“Maybe she’s still sitting in the car.”

“Too hot.”

“Not if she left it running.” Which I wouldn’t put past her. It struck me that she would have had to pay to get into the fair if she’d actually attempted it, since I hadn’t taken her in the exhibitors’ entrance. Whoops. But then, she was so freaked out about Nick giving me money to keep our home in the black, why should I help her any? “Or else she left me here, and she’s on her way home.”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

I wasn’t so sure. “I’ll be home soon. I hope.”

“See you then. Love you.”

“You, too.”

I hated texting. The only time I ever did it was when I needed to get in touch with Zach or Mallory, or one of the other Granger teens. Carla had tried to get me into it, but I shut that down real quick. If somebody wanted to tell me something, they’d get a much more timely response if they just called and let me talk to them. Typing stuff out with my thumbs was a waste of time and energy. This whole texting thing had, of course, been another source of contention with Miranda, who wanted to text me price quotes and photos and all sorts of crap about weddings. She finally realized she wasn’t getting answers because I wasn’t sending them—not because I wasn’t receiving her texts. Yet another reason for her to hate me.

I opened my Contacts and pushed the call button. The phone rang once. Twice. I knew that on Miranda’s end it was playing that annoying song, the one where the woman is singing about needing a man to make her complete—I know, that could be a million of them—but at least all I could hear was the tone. After a few more rings, the call went into her voicemail—“Hello! You’ve reached Miranda! Leave a message!”

No! I didn’t want to!

I hung up. She’d see my missed call, and maybe she would deign to call me back.

So. Hmm. What to do? I thought of checking out the dairy barn, to see what Claire was up to, but I really didn’t want to run into the Greggs again. I had no desire to go anywhere near the hall where the cops were camped out, and the carnival rides made me want to throw up just looking at them. I made my way toward the food tent. I could always eat.

“Ms. Crown?”

Oh, great. “Detective Watts.” She wasn’t looking any too happy. Whether that was because of me or because she’d just gotten a whiff of the pig barn I wasn’t sure. Either way, I wished I’d managed to take off before she found me.

She fingered her handcuffs. “You interfered with a police investigation.”

“Really? How?”

“I saw you on YouTube harassing the press.”

“Oh, are reporters a part of the police department now?”

“You said you were going home. Instead, you waited outside the building.”

“So? Is that a crime?”

“The police dispersed the crowd. You stayed anyway, and caused problems.”

“I caused problems? I’d say it was that pushy reporter who caused the problems. If you folks had done your job right I wouldn’t have had to step in.”

“Threatening the press isn’t our job.”

“I was protecting an innocent citizen. Somehow I thought that was the whole point of the police department.”

Her nostrils flared. “Why were you still there?”

“We were taking care of someone.”

“Yes, the daughter of a—” She stopped and glared at me, like I’d almost made her say something she wasn’t supposed to.

“Of a what? Suspect in Rikki Raines’ death?”

“She is not…are you friends with Daniella Troth? Because I wouldn’t have thought so.”

I bit off the retort I wanted to make. And I didn’t hit her. Instead, I said, “Do your superiors know where you are?”

Her mouth opened and closed, like a stupid fish, and then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes she said, “Look, Ms. Crown, I’m not sure how or why we got off on the wrong foot, but all I really want is to find out who killed Rikki Raines. I just…” She shook her head.

“What?”

“We were both tired last night. You’d talked to a lot of people, and so had I. I’m not experienced at this. You can see how old I am. It’s not exactly—”

“—easy to compete in a man’s world.”

She gave a small smile. “Or, more specifically, my dad’s world.”

“The sheriff.”

“Yeah.”

“Was he here last night? I didn’t see him.”

“Would you believe he’s out of state? The biggest case here in…ever…and he’s out in Colorado at some training conference.” She gave a laugh that was more like a hiccup.

“He coming back?”

“I’m sure he is. Wouldn’t want to miss out. Besides, I’m sure he’s in touch with all the higher-ups.”

“Reporting on you?”

She made a face. “Among others.”

“I guess that is his job, right?”

“I suppose.” She looked somewhere past my left ear. “So, are we good?”

“We’re okay.”

“I’m glad. Talk to you later.” She angled away.

“Hey, Watts,” I called after her.

She turned, eyebrows raised.

“Good luck.”

She saluted with a finger and strode away.

I bought a pulled pork sandwich and a lemon shake-up at the school boosters tent and sat in the back corner, where the canvas flap was open and I could feel a breeze. The place was bustling with customers, and the high school and parent volunteers working the counter smiled through their sweat. Not exactly high on my to-do list on summer days, to run the fries basket.

I was about halfway through the sandwich when Austin sat down across from me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He had a double cheeseburger, fries, deep-fried pickles, a thirty-two-ounce Powerade, and a piece of cake. He could compete with Carla, the way he was going. The problem with Carla was, she didn’t have the hollow legs.

“No one else hungry?” I said.

Austin shrugged, and picked at his food. “I’m older than most of them anymore, so I don’t know, it feels kind of weird to hang out with them. They’re off doing other stuff, I guess. Getting ready for judging.”

“Taylor’s their age. You seem to like her okay.”

“Yeah, but she’s hot.”

At least he was honest.

“Scare you this morning?”

He picked up his sandwich, then set it down without taking a bite. “You mean about the sick calf? Sure. But we were all the way across the room, and we’ve only been there a day. I didn’t think Halladay could get sick that quick.”

So he didn’t know everything, even though he was a teenager, and a farmer. Just goes to show what wishful thinking can do. “I’m glad it turned out to be nothing. I understand why someone would want to do that to the Greggs, but I hope they don’t try anything worse. It could hurt the calf. Or disqualify the whole barn.”

Austin stuck a fry in his ketchup and swirled it around. “Do they know who did it?”

“Don’t think so. Not anything to go on when there’s only a chewed-up lemon peel as evidence, and since nothing really bad happened I can’t imagine they’ll put much time and effort into it. Especially with all the other stuff that happened last night.”

He was quiet for a moment as he scraped icing off his cake with his plastic fork. “You mean, the whole Rikki Raines thing? Yeah, that’s…pretty sick.”

“Did you go to the concert? I didn’t see you.”

He set his fork down. “I was there. I just hung out on the edge. I could see fine.”

I sat back, sipping on my lemonade. “How come you’re the only senior in 4-H? What happened to everyone else your age?”

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “They lost interest, I guess. But I want to go to ag school, and this is as much of an application priority as anything. I’m the president of the club, and I’ve been in it forever, since I was, I don’t know, third grade, when we were allowed to start. I’ll get good references from the leaders, and my project this year was to help out one of the local vets, which was cool.”

“How do you think Halladay will do this afternoon?”

“Good, I hope. He’s one of the best calves I’ve ever had. Got lucky for my last year. Sometimes you get a calf and you think he’s going to be great, and it turns out he’s a loser, and sometimes it’s the other way around. Halladay’s been great since he was born.”

I knew what he meant. Some milkers were that way. They start out as beautiful heifers, bright-eyed and perfect, then somewhere along the way their milk dries up, or they produce half what the others do, or they can’t get pregnant. Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason, and no tests or check-ups can tell us what the deal is. Then, as much as we hate it, we have to give up on them. As Ma Granger would say, “It’s just the way God made ’em.” Unfortunately for cows, it’s a little different than when you say that about a person. People don’t go to the slaughterhouse if they don’t fit our business model.

“You and Halladay ready for judging today?”

“I guess.” He set down the fry he was holding, and pushed back his chair. He hadn’t eaten a thing. He must have been much more nervous about judging than he admitted. “I’d better get back. My sister’s on cow plop duty while I get something to eat. She’ll be ticked if I don’t relieve her soon.”

I remembered cow plop duty. You had your calf as clean as you could get him, and you didn’t want him getting any fresh manure on those pristine hooves. So whenever there was a cow plop, it had to disappear, fast. “See you around.”

He jerked his chin at me, and left, dumping his entire lunch in the trash. Watching him go, I noticed Bryan standing at the front of the tent, tray in hand, shoulders stiff, eyes darting from table to table. It was like he’d traveled back in time to the high school cafeteria, where the weird kid with the NASCAR obsession wouldn’t exactly have been the prom king. Or would even go to prom.

I held still, hoping if I played possum I’d luck out and he wouldn’t see me or the empty chairs beside me. But since hope and luck have a way of abandoning me in times of social awkwardness, his eyes landed right on me. I could tell by the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and the color drained from his face.

Oh, for heaven’s sake.

I waved to the chair opposite me. I didn’t attempt to smile, because he would’ve seen through that. I could show kindness to my best friend’s boyfriend by simply offering him a seat, right? I didn’t have to throw in a hostess personality with it.

He blinked, scanned the room again—a little desperately, I thought—then shuffled over. “This seat taken?”

I pushed it out with my foot. “By you.”

“Um. Thanks.” He set his tray down, paused for a moment, then perched on the edge of the folding chair. His food consisted of a bowl of chicken noodle soup, two packets of crackers, and a bottle of water.

“Making up for Carla?” I said.

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.”

He picked up his spoon, then set it down. Then picked it up again. And looked at his bowl.