“I’m here at the fairgrounds, Tom. In the poultry tent. Where are you? Can you get over here, fast? There’s something you need to see.”
“Something—”
“Chicken theft,” I said tersely. As I clicked off, I noticed a drift of red-orange breast feathers among the cedar-shaving mulch that covered the tent floor. Caitie’s rooster had not been taken without a fight. He had struggled bravely against his kidnapper. And then something else caught my eye, a square of shiny plastic on the shadowy ground under the cages, half hidden under the mulch. I picked it up by one corner, carefully, and was examining it when Tom appeared. He was in uniform with his badge and sidearm, so I knew he was on the job.
He stood beside me, staring at the empty cages. “Damn,” he muttered. “Hell’s bells.” A Delta Force veteran has a more colorful vocabulary, I’m sure. He must have been editing it for me.
“There’s no nighttime security in these tents?” I asked.
But that was a dumb question. I already knew the answer. What’s more, I had read the fine print in the Exhibitor Agreement that I had cosigned with Caitie (a minor, of course), in which we released the management of the Adams County Fair from any and all known damages, injuries, and losses from theft, fire, water, wind, storm, acts of a third party, or for any other cause known to man. Which pretty much covers it. If Caitie and the owner of that valuable black rooster wanted to be reimbursed for their loss, they wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on. For Caitie, of course, that wasn’t the issue. She loved Extra Crispy with all her heart. Right now, she was dealing with one big threat: Kevin’s cancer. I hated the thought that she might have to face another.
“We do our best,” Tom said, sounding resigned. “We hire guys to patrol at night, but they can’t be everywhere. Some of the other tents—the livestock tents, for instance—get more attention, since the animals are more valuable.” He pulled down his mouth. “Guess we didn’t count on somebody exhibiting a rooster that costs as much as a registered heifer.”
I handed him the item I’d found, using just the tips of my fingers, in case the thief might have left prints. “I found this under the cages,” I said. “I’m guessing that Caitie’s rooster gave the guy a hard time.” I bent over and picked up a few of the feathers scattered through the mulch. “I hope he wasn’t too badly damaged—the rooster, I mean.” I hoped the thief got a rooster claw in his eye. He had it coming to him.
“An exhibitor’s badge!” Tom exclaimed. “Looks like this jerk is such an amateur that he left us his business card.” He read the name on the clip-on badge. “Dana Gibbons. Exhibitor 20245. Must have dropped this when the rooster objected to being abducted. Damn lucky, huh, China? We’ve got a name—I can get the address from the fair’s database.”
“Hang on a sec.” I pursed my lips. “I’m not saying it’s not evidential, but that badge could have been dropped anytime yesterday.” Even the dumbest defense lawyer would pop up with that claim in a New York minute, unless— And then I thought of something. “However, we may have a witness.”
Tom frowned. “A witness?”
“Up there.” I pointed at Caitie’s chicken cam, mounted about six feet up on the nearest tent pole, aimed down at the cages.
“Shit,” Tom said reverently. “Forgot all about that. I never thought, when we put it up there—”
“Neither did I,” I replied. “But I’m glad it’s there. With any luck, we may get a glimpse of Dana Gibbons, whoever she is.”
“She?” Tom said, startled. “I thought Dana was a guy’s name.”
“She, he, whoever.” I headed for the camera. “Maybe this will tell us.” A minute or two later, I had taken it down and retrieved the thumb drive. But Tom and Caitie hadn’t tested the camera when they put it up. It’s finicky sometimes. Maybe it hadn’t been working.
Tom frowned. “We’re going to need a computer to read that.”
“My laptop is in my car. And let’s take this.” I reached under the cages for the carrier we’d brought the chickens in.
“Why the carrier?” Tom asked.
“Because I want to get those roosters back,” I said. “And they don’t automatically perch on your shoulder, like a trained parrot.” Actually, Extra Crispy would, but I didn’t know about Blackheart. If we managed to retrieve the roosters, I didn’t want to be the one to lose a twenty-five-hundred-dollar bird.
“Sorry, wasn’t thinking,” Tom acknowledged ruefully. “Come on, let’s go. I’d sure as hell like to catch this guy before that reporter friend of yours gets wind of this story.”
I raised my eyebrows, but I understood his concern. A theft like this could get the fair a very public black eye. We went out to the parking lot and I opened the laptop on the hood of my Toyota, where we could both get a good look. I held my breath for the few moments it took to boot the machine and bring up the thumb drive. I was relieved when a surprisingly clear color image of Caitie’s two cages appeared, with Blackheart’s cage just visible to the left. We could see Jessica and me, and Caitie running off with Sharon, and Tom leaving, then Jessica and me leaving. And so it went all day: the motion-sensor image turned on as people walked past the cages or when the birds themselves moved, eating, drinking, preening themselves, or stretching their wings. It turned off when there was no movement.
Tom and Caitie had installed the camera early the previous morning. The tent had been closed for the night at seven p.m., so the camera had recorded some ten hours of movement. I fast-forwarded through it, watching as the day ended, the tent was closed, the overhead lights dimmed (but didn’t go out), and the birds settled down for the night. I kept on fast-forwarding,
