But despite the evidence of the truck parked in the driveway, nobody answered Tom’s repeated knocking at the front door. He knocked and called, waited a reasonable time, and called and knocked again. Then he left the front porch and walked around the back, out of sight.
I sat there, waiting, listening to the mutter of the police dispatcher on Tom’s radio as deputies around the county checked in. I noticed a red-blue strobe flasher light on the dash, and to the right of the steering wheel a box of digital switches that monitored lights and siren. Tom was well equipped. He must be more involved with the reserve deputy program than I had thought. He had turned off the AC with the ignition and the truck was hot, so I opened my door and got out. He had told me to stay with the truck—he hadn’t said “Stay in it.”
I stood there, letting the cool breeze wash over me and taking a look around. Off to the right was a thick cedar brake, and between it and the driveway a rocky, unmowed strip of native goldenrod, hemlock, poverty weed, and buffalo gourd. Ahead of us in the driveway was the Chevy ranch truck. And lying at the edge of the driveway a couple of feet from the Chevy’s passenger side door was a wilted green plant stalk, a couple of feet long. I frowned. Ragweed? Hemlock? Or—
“Hey, China.” Tom had come around the back of the house and was beckoning to me to bring the carrier and join him. He must have seen the chickens, I figured, or someone in the house had told him where they were. I hauled it out of the back of the truck and took it to him.
“You’ve found the roosters?” I asked eagerly. “Where are they?”
“Haven’t found them yet,” he said, taking the carrier from me. “But I heard one crowing. And there doesn’t appear to be anybody at home, so you might as well help me round up our missing chickens. If they’re here, that is. You’ll know them when you see them, I hope?”
“I’ll certainly recognize Caitie’s rooster. That black one shouldn’t be too hard to pick out, either. And they should both be wearing leg bands, unless Gibbons has removed them.” I heard a rooster crow, too, then. “Sounds like it’s over there,” I said, nodding toward a rickety wood-frame barn on the far side of a fenced vegetable garden and an empty corral.
The crowing was followed by a loud cackling. “Well, that’s not our rooster,” Tom said dryly. We walked up to the barn. He stopped, put down the carrier, and rapped on the door frame. “Sheriff’s deputy,” he shouted, his right hand on his holster. “I have a search warrant. Anybody here?”
Nobody answered. The cackling paused briefly, then began again.
“I’ll go first,” Tom said, and went in. After a moment, he returned. “Nobody here,” he said, and picked up the carrier.
I followed him into the barn. After the bright sunshine outdoors, I had to blink to adjust to the shadowy darkness inside. The air was sweet with the scent of fresh hay. Along one wall was a row of several rabbit hutches. Along another wall, a half dozen metal chicken nest boxes. A large black hen was perched on one, cheerfully celebrating a freshly laid egg. I couldn’t be a hundred percent positive in the dimness, but I was pretty sure that she had a black comb and black legs, like Blackheart.
So that’s it, I thought. Dana Gibbons already had an Ayam Cemani hen. He had stolen the Ayam Cemani rooster to sire a flock of Ayam Cemani chicks. He was hoping they would bring him good fortune—and at a hundred and seventy-five dollars an egg, he could be right. But that wasn’t going to happen, because we had a warrant to seize the rooster. And on the barn floor in front of the nest boxes was the small plastic crate we had seen in the video from Caitie’s camera.
I ran to the crate, Tom at my heels, and peered in. I saw two disconsolate roosters, their tails dragging, crouched together for comfort—Extra Crispy and Blackheart.
“Hello, baby,” I crooned, opening the crate’s wire door and reaching for Extra Crispy. “It’s okay. We’re taking you home now. Caitie will be so glad to see you.” Silly talk, yes, but there it is. I was relieved to see both birds, and I could almost believe, from the glint in his eye, that Extra Crispy was glad to see me.
“Hold on a minute, China,” Tom said, and took out his cell phone. He snapped several pictures of the crate, the two bedraggled birds in the crate, and the black hen on the perch, and emailed the photos to the sheriff’s office while I transferred the roosters into the carrier. Blackheart was docile enough to come without a struggle and Extra Crispy knew me, so I got the job done without too much wing-flapping.
The birds, though, were not nearly as sleek and pretty as they’d been when they were checked in at the fair. They were dusty and disheveled, they had both lost feathers (perhaps in a brief dispute over who was boss of the crate), and their rear ends were covered in poopee. In their present condition, neither would win a ribbon. That would be a huge disappointment for Caitie, but I knew she’d be thrilled that Extra Crispy had been rescued.
“We’re done here,” Tom said, glancing around the barn. “We’ll take these birds back where they came from, and I’ll talk to the sheriff about the charges.”
“Felony theft,” I said grimly. “Maybe throw in a couple of counts of animal cruelty for good measure. There’s no food or water in this crate. And the birds may have some injuries we can’t see.”
“Sounds right.” Tom picked up the carrier. “Come on. Let’s boogie.”
Tom was carrying the roosters and I was a step or two
