Riley asked, "Your crop?"
"Just the experimental stuff. Other stuff's still there."
My spy-dy senses went off.
"Can you give me more detail?"
"Woke up. Whole crop of corn gone. Almost a whole acre. Every plant ripped out overnight."
"Really?" Riley asked. "Did you go to the police?"
I was wondering the same thing…after wondering how someone could take out hundreds of plants and haul them away in the middle of the night.
"Can't. Seed company wouldn't allow it. Would make the news, and this stuff's experimental."
"They don't want the news to get out that the seed exists, is that right?" Riley asked.
"Yep," was Erskine's reply.
"Any idea who did this?"
"I think it's some fool from Bladdersly. Bastards are always competing against us."
Riley thought about this. "Any idea who in Bladdersly?"
"Nope."
"Why steal every single plant?" I asked.
Erskine looked at me for the first time. "Don't know. Not like you can transplant them."
I pictured a field of corn stalks tied to sticks. Roots run six to seven feet underground. It would be impossible to transplant them.
I turned to Riley. "Can you get satellite imagery from last night?"
He started clicking away on the keyboard.
"You can help?" Erskine's bushy eyebrows went up. "I'll hire you."
Claire, sensing an important moment, led the farmer away to fill out paperwork.
Riley said quietly, "Have you ever heard of anything like this happening before?"
I thought about it. "Never. There've been a few cases where a farmer introduced root worm to destroy a crop, and one time a farmer set fire to his neighbor's crop."
"Why do that?"
"According to Grandma Wrath, the two men were competing for a seed company's test plots."
"So, that's really a thing?"
I nodded. "Riley, this seed is supposedly impervious to pests, has its own super fertilizer, and grows twice as fast. That's a huge deal. Farmers have enough to worry about with bad weather and all. This seed, if it really works, would revolutionize the industry."
He sat back and watched as Erskine walked out of the office, his paperwork filled out and a sizeable deposit paid.
"What if it was the Chinese? Their whole industry comes from industrial espionage."
"It could be," I agreed. "Anna Beth was known to work for the Chinese. Maybe they switched her from military to agricultural secrets." My mind was racing for answers. "But does it have anything to do with why she was murdered?"
Riley shook his head. "That's not my job right now. This is a big opportunity."
"Erskine Zimmer is a big opportunity?"
"His connections to the seed company are important. I could get more corporate work. That's where the real money is."
"You need work, period." I pointed at Claire. "I don't even know how you managed to hire her."
Riley looked offended. "I've made some shrewd investments lately. It's not like I need the money. I just want more work."
Riley came into money? He'd never told me that before. Shrewd investments? A monkey was better at picking out stock options. In the years we worked together, Riley only hit big in the market once, and even then, it ended up a loss.
"What shrewd investments?" I asked.
"That's none of your business," he said quickly. "You'd better go. I've got to get to work."
"But what about Lana?" I grumbled.
He waved me off. "You're on your own for a bit. This new job takes priority. The only thing I'll say is be careful around Hilly Vinton."
* * *
I left Riley with my head swimming. The theft of Erskine's crop was bizarre. I wasn't as interested in that as I was in finding Lana and learning why Anna Beth Trident was dumped in my yard and whether or not Hilly was here for the wrong reasons.
Back at home, I pulled into my driveway to see Kelly sitting on my front porch. And she wasn't alone.
"What are you doing here?" I asked as I joined my best friend, who was accompanied by Betty.
"Mrs. Albers gave me a ride," Betty said. "Can I talk to you for a moment?" She gave a surreptitious glance at Kelly. "Alone?"
Kelly smothered a grin as I walked Betty halfway around the house.
"I've got your stuff," Betty said quietly, like she was a dealer of some sort.
She handed me a wadded-up paper bag. Inside was the package of chloroform wipes.
"Um." I weighed the bag in my hand. "It feels a little light."
Betty nodded. "My fee."
"You asked for two wipes," I argued. "I'm pretty sure there are more than that missing."
The girl shrugged. "I can't be responsible for what's there. I had to steal it back from my idiot brother."
Great. That was all I needed. Half a package of disposable knockout drugs in the wrong hands. Of course, one pair of those hands would belong to the kid standing in front of me, and I knew she already had two somewhere for a purpose I didn't want to know about.
"Thanks." I shoved the package into the front pocket of my shorts and dragged her back to Kelly.
"Thanks for giving her a ride," I said. "Hopefully you got a good bribe out of it."
Kelly nodded but said nothing.
I tossed Betty my keys. "Run inside and check on the animals, please."
Betty took off like a rocket and slammed the door behind her. My troop loved my pets. I wasn't worried. Philby could hold her own with this girl. Probably because she was Betty in feline form.
"What's up?" I asked as I sat next to Kelly.
My best friend gave me a look that made me feel guilty for not reading her mind. I know, you think spies are really good at reading people. And I am, when it comes to lying about not being followed by guerillas or whether or not a certain terrorist is hiding drugs in a stuffed aardvark.
But when it came to peopley issues and feelings, I was never really prepared.
"Kelly, what's going on? You've been so weird lately."
She sighed heavily before nodding. "I'm thinking of quitting."
My heart stopped. "Not the troop! You can't abandon me! Those girls will eat me the first time I forget the snack!"
She managed a wan smile. "No, not the troop. My job. They haven't replaced the last few nurses who've left, and now I'm working constant overtime. I don't have the energy to spend time with my husband or daughter, let alone you and the girls."
I put my arm around her. Kelly was my rock. She always had been. I had to admit, I'd always been a little flaky. But Kelly was the mature one. We complemented each other. Now I had to be the rock, and I had no idea what to say.
"This week," she continued, "I've worked eighty hours already. I can't go on like this."
"Okay," I said slowly. "Well, Robert makes good money. Can't he support you for a while?"
She shrugged. "I suppose so. I haven't talked to him about it yet."
"Why not?" That was a surprise. She and Robert had an amazing marriage. I assumed they talked about everything.
"I'm afraid he'll say we can't swing it." Kelly rubbed her face.
"What about another job? Something part-time, maybe?" I suggested.
She thought about this. "I guess so. Robert couldn't argue if I had something part-time lined up. But what would I do? I've been a nurse forever. I don't know how to do anything else."
"Well…" I considered this. "What do you want to do? What would make you happy?"
She stared into space. "I have no idea. Something where I could think outside the box or be creative. I'm tired of treating people with the same injuries and viruses."
"Have you thought about working at the Girl Scout Council?" I suggested. "You're so good with kids. I'll bet they could use someone like you."
She shook her head. "I'm good with our kids. But if I had to be around them all day, I think the magic would wear off."
"Maybe Ronni and Randi could use a receptionist or office manager or something? Randi says they do mostly online orders and are always swamped." Who knew the taxidermy business was so lucrative? "And maybe if you work there, Randi wouldn't spend all her time coming up with dead animal dioramas for me."
Kelly laughed. "As tempting as that sounds, I think I'd be too skeeved out being around dead animals all day. And I don't think I have much of a head for business." A thought occurred to her. "You know, I've always loved research. Do you think Soo Jin could use me?"
I shrugged. "It couldn't hurt to ask, but you'd still be at the hospital."
She deflated. "I hadn't thought about that. I really want to try something new."
Kelly looked absolutely beat. She needed help, and beyond espionage, I didn't know what to say. I really wasn't the right one to talk to. I'd been back here for years and still had no job. Oh sure, there were a couple of offers. The mayor once suggested I could run the Who's There Historical Society for a few hours a week, but that fell through. And Riley has had an offer for me to work for him out for a while now.
Betty stuck her head out the door. "The kitchen sink's on fire. FYI." She disappeared back inside the house.
"I have to deal with that." I stood up and opened the door. "But give me a day or two. I might be able to find something."
As I found the fire extinguisher and put out the fire that Betty insisted my cat started, an idea popped into my head. Maybe I had something for her after all.
The flames died down to reveal the charred remains of a little dead mouse-angel lying pitifully in the sink. Apparently Philby had upped her game from eating them to burning them.
"What happened?" I nudged the tiny corpse. "Why didn't you just turn on the faucet?"
Betty shrugged and pointed at the cat, who appeared to be smiling maniacally. "She said not to."
Oh, well, that made sense.