“Maybe make it a search-and-seizure warrant,” I suggested. “We’ve got a carrier in the truck. If we find those chickens, we ought to confiscate them. To ensure their safe return,” I added. “That black bird is wearing a hefty price tag.” And the other was priceless, at least where Caitie was concerned.
“Right,” Maude said, and began filling in the warrant. “You’ll want to get them back to the fair before the judges get around to the chicken section.” She gave me a sympathetic glance. “Wouldn’t be right for that daughter of yours to miss out on a chance at a blue ribbon because some jerk made off with her chicken.”
“Thank you,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that Extra Crispy would be in blue-ribbon shape. He’d lost quite a few feathers in the tussle.
Maude paused, looking at Tom. “This isn’t a no-knock warrant, is it?”
“Nope. No need. I’m not looking for drugs.” The Fourth Amendment—and Texas law—requires that even if the police have a search or arrest warrant that justifies entering a property, they must knock and announce themselves and their purpose before they enter. One important exception: the cops don’t have to knock and announce if doing so would give suspects the opportunity to destroy the evidence by flushing the drugs down the toilet. If an officer thinks he’ll need to enter unannounced, he can request a no-knock warrant that gives him authority to barge right in without so much as a hey-there. I go into full defense-lawyer mode when I hear this, of course. It can make for a lively discussion in the courtroom.
“Makes sense,” Maude said. Finished, she signed her name with a flourish and handed the warrant to Tom. “China riding shotgun on this one?”
“I don’t think—” Tom began.
“You bet I am,” I broke in emphatically. “That’s Caitie’s rooster.” I frowned at Tom. “And when we get those birds, they need to go straight back to the fair. I don’t want them shut up in the sheriff’s evidence locker for who knows how long.” Or taken to a shelter, as are animals seized in cruelty cases.
“I agree with China,” Maude said. “Special case. The chickens go back where they came from. The poultry tent.” She frowned at Tom. “And if I were you, I’d take her, Tom—unless, that is, you’re sure you can personally identify both of these stolen birds. You figure you can do that?”
Tom muttered something under his breath, but Maude only smiled.
“I thought so,” she said briskly. “You two better be on your way, then. It would be a damned shame if that jerk decided to barbecue the evidence.”
• • •
COUNTY Road 12 took us out into the wooded hills south of Pecan Springs, along the Pecan River. A narrow, asphalted two-lane with no shoulders, the road hugged the twisting river for five or six miles, then crossed it on a rusty iron bridge and headed west into the Hill Country. I called Ruby to ask her to open the shop for me.
“Tom Banner and I are pursuing a pair of stolen roosters,” I said. “One of them is Extra Crispy.”
“Somebody stole Caitie’s chicken?” she exclaimed incredulously. “Who would want to do a thing like that? Why?”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “I’ll fill you in later. Anything going on there?”
“Lori came in a few minutes ago. Her phone quit working, which is why nobody could reach her. She got it fixed, but in the process, she thinks she lost a text from you. She says maybe it had an attachment?”
“Oh, right,” I said. That would be the picture I had texted Lori of the baby in the white christening dress. I wanted her to tell me whether it was anything like the christening dress her aunt had given her. “Tell her I’ll resend it when I get a minute. Not right now.”
“I’ll do it. When do you think you’ll be in?”
“As soon as we’ve got the chickens back. I hope it won’t be too long.” I clicked off and brought up the map on my cell phone. “Looks like it might be seven or eight miles,” I told Tom, calculating. “Maybe twelve minutes?”
“Working on it,” Tom said.
The houses along the road were mostly double-wides and small frame dwellings surrounded by poorly tended yards and patches of uncut weeds, with junky cars parked in the driveways or propped up, without tires, on concrete blocks. Once, we passed what looked like an auto junkyard shielded from public view by a screen of Ashe junipers, and Tom made a note to check for the permit. The county licenses junkyards, but unless the neighbors report violators, they can fly under the radar for years. Meanwhile, all those abandoned vehicles are leaking noxious fluids into the groundwater, potentially poisoning the neighbors’ wells.
As we drove, I kept an eye on the painted numbers on the mailboxes. We were making good time until we got behind a tractor pulling a trailer loaded with hay bales. We crawled along behind it on the narrow road until Tom finally got to a place where he could pass. We got around it and sped up.
I slanted a glance at Tom. I was impatient to get where we were going and nervous about retrieving those roosters, but he was confident and relaxed, his big hands light on the steering wheel of the heavy truck. He has the look of somebody who knows what he’s doing, with a firm jaw and eyes that seem to see things the rest of us can’t. There’s a wariness in him, too, that I suppose comes from his Delta Force deployments, when he had to be constantly on the lookout for invisible threats to his buddies and himself. His wife, Sylvia, told me once that his war experiences, which must have been horrific, still trouble him. He has violent nightmares—dreams that sometimes scare her as much as they disturb him. I
