Roy, Tom’s partner, was waiting outside the conference room when the deputies were finished grilling me, and he filled me in on what they had found at the pot farm.
“Pretty impressive operation,” he said. “A half acre at least, of high-yield plants. This isn’t something Gibbons was doing on his own. We’ve got the place staked out, so we can pick up the others who were helping him tend the crop as they show up. And in the house, we found a laptop and some emails that may take us to the distribution network Gibbons was plugged into. So you and Tom didn’t just find the farm. You opened a path for hitting the hub. The sheriff is calling in the Rangers and the feds to move the investigation forward. He needs to get a lid on it fast, before word gets out about this morning’s bust. The media will be on this like ducks on a June bug.”
I didn’t doubt that. “Have you seen Tom?” I asked urgently. “Is he going to be okay?”
Ray nodded toward the nurses’ station. “Yeah. He’s tough. That red-haired nurse will tell you where he is. His wife’s with him, but I’m sure he’ll want to see you.”
Sylvia was sitting beside Tom’s bed when I went into the room. She launched herself out of her chair and wrapped her arms around me in a fervent embrace.
“I can’t imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t been there, China,” she said. “That man could have killed Tom.”
“Nah,” I said. “Not a chance.”
“Believe it.” Tom’s voice was slurred—painkillers, I thought—and I had to lean close to make out the words. “Gibbons knocked me down and my gun flew out of my hand, out of reach. He would have finished me off if you hadn’t taken him out.”
“If you say so. I give up.” I held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I never argue with a cop. Even one who is flat on his back.”
• • •
AND then there was Jessica. She was waiting for me in the hall when I left Tom’s room.
“Holy cow,” she said, eyeing my bandage and my T-shirt, soaked with blood and plastered to me. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Old war wound,” I said. “Say, could you give me a ride back to the fairgrounds? I need to pick up my car. And check in on some chickens.”
“I’ll give you a ride if you’ll give me the story,” Jessica said.
“I don’t know what Sheriff Chambers is ready to release,” I said, frowning. “I understand he wants to keep a lid on this.”
“I’ve already talked to the sheriff,” she said. “He’s laid down the law about what goes into print until their investigation is further along. But he’s cleared your part of the story, as long as I don’t get into who and where, and Hark wants it for the next edition. So what’s this business about Caitie’s rooster getting kidnapped?”
I grunted. “Word gets around fast.”
Jessica shook her head. “Superior investigative reporting. Dug it out all by myself, clue by clue. And I heard that you shot a guy to keep him from killing a cop. True?”
“You don’t need my story,” I said. “You’ve already got it.”
“Yeah, the outline. Now I need the gory details.” She took my arm. “Come on. I’ll drive you to the fairgrounds while you fill in the gaps.”
• • •
ONE of the deputies had returned the roosters to their cages in the poultry tent, so they were safe—but a sorry sight. Extra Crispy had sustained a nasty cut to his comb and was missing a patch of breast feathers the size of a half-dollar. Blackheart’s tail looked as if it had been chewed on by a raccoon and one foot was bloody. Both were dusty and smeared with poopee. And the judges were just entering the tent to begin their rounds.
“Poor things,” Jessica murmured, snapping their pictures. “They look like they’ve been through the wars.”
“Give me your pen and a page of your notebook,” I said. I wrote down a two-sentence summary of the morning’s extracurricular activities and clipped it to Extra Crispy’s cage. I wanted the judges to know why the two roosters were not in the tip-top form they’d been in when they were entered. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I can’t go to the shop in this bloody T-shirt. I’ve got to go home and shower and change into clean clothes.”
“Not just yet,” Jessica said. “Stand right there, beside those roosters. I want to get a photo of you.”
“Hey, no!” I protested. I put my hand up to the bandage over my ear, where my hair was caked with blood. “I’m a complete mess.”
“Of course you’re a mess,” Jessica said gleefully. “That’s what makes this such a terrific story. Say Extra Crispy.”
• • •
“YOU are a mess, China.” Ruby patted my arm sympathetically. “With that gauze wrapped around your head, you look like a mummy. Sort of.”
“If you think this is bad, you should have seen me before I showered and changed. And put on fresh gauze.” I smothered a giddy giggle. “The bad guy looks a heckuva lot worse, though. And Tom Banner isn’t all that great, either. Not to mention the roosters. It was a rough morning for all concerned.”
“Tell me,” Ruby commanded. “From the beginning.”
It was nearly two o’clock. The lunch crowd was gone, and Ruby and I were having a very late lunch in the tearoom—grilled cheese sandwiches, a couple of dill spears, a scoop of chicken salad, and iced hibiscus tea—while Cass finished up in the kitchen and Jenna tended to the shops. It had been a long and strenuous morning, and breakfast was ancient history. I was hungry.
I had told the story several times already, so it went pretty fast, even pausing for one or two applause lines. “If I hadn’t shot Gibbons,” I concluded, “he might have killed Tom. And once he’d done that, he
