Chapter 16
Help your chickens through the annual molting process (when they lose feathers and stop egg production) by feeding them 20 percent more protein and reducing their stress.
—Henny Penny Farmette Almanac
Abby abruptly awakened, alarmed, not knowing why. She soon realized the arm draped over her tummy wasn’t hers. She sucked in a surprised gasp. Philippe reclined beside her—one arm over her and the other cradling his pillow. Sugar had positioned herself in a ball, her back against the soles of Abby’s feet. Abby relaxed and thought about how the three of them had ended up on her bed . . . together.
After dinner and pie following the graveside service, she and Philippe had sipped cordials under the stars on the farmette patio. Her choice had been a late-season muscat; his, a brandy. When Philippe had complained of sleepiness due to the meal and an alcohol buzz, Abby had pointed the way to the bedroom. After all, she didn’t feel much like clearing the couch, which was covered in boxes of unopened bee supplies and the jars and egg cartons that Lucas had given her. While Philippe rested, Abby had reclined on a large pillow next to him. She had stroked Sugar as she’d explained to Philippe where the case was now headed. Within minutes, Philippe and Sugar had drifted off to sleep. Soon after . . . she had, too.
A grin parted her lips as Abby realized that at some point Philippe had reached over to draw her close. Trailing her fingers along his arm, she soon felt the fabric of his shirt where he had turned up the cuff. Oh, jeez. We’re still fully dressed in our funeral clothes. She suppressed a chuckle. So much for the long-awaited kiss and the sizzling whatever else that might have followed. She liked him, but he would soon leave for New York. He was a city boy, after all. Maybe this was the way things were meant to be.
Her thoughts settled peacefully as she listened to Philippe’s soft breathing and Sugar’s snoring. Beyond the window, the tinkling wind chime seemed to compete with the rustle of the fig tree leaves. A frog let go a trio of throaty croaks. All pleasant enough sounds, but what had awakened her? On the other hand, what did it really matter now?
Houdini crowed. Never quite sure why he felt the need to crow at all hours of the night, Abby wondered if he was experiencing a testosterone rush or if he was sounding the alarm about a prowling skunk or raccoon. Or maybe he had just heard another rooster cock-a-doodle-doing and was responding. Whatever.
Guiding her fingertips along Philippe’s hand where it rested against her tummy, Abby touched the angled ridges of his knuckles and traced the prominent vein that ran along the top of his hand to the boundary of soft hairs covering his forearm. She felt utterly content, so much so that not even Houdini’s crowing could interfere with the secret pleasure permeating her being, except . . . Houdini hadn’t stopped crowing. What is bugging that rooster?
A soft scuffle sounded on the gravel path alongside the house. Abby strained to hear it. For a long interval, she listened, on high alert, but the sound had ceased. She heaved a heavy sigh and settled back down. Then . . . a bottle rolled on the patio’s stone surface. Abby sighed in exasperation. Those pesky raccoons are definitely back.
Checking on the raccoons wasn’t a good enough reason to leave the comfy bed, but as she thought about their tendency to riffle through anything and everything, Abby remembered the antique cordial glasses. She had left them on the patio table after Philippe had told her how sleepy he felt. The set of crystal, a gift from her grandparents, had been etched with an Edinburgh thistle pattern. So whether she wanted to or not, Abby felt she had to get up and save those glasses from the nocturnal bandits.
Easing Philippe’s arm off her midsection so as not to awaken him, Abby rolled to the edge of the bed, then felt for the flashlight and the fuzzy pink house slippers she kept under the bed. With the items firmly in hand, she quietly tiptoed to the kitchen sliding-glass door. The sudden slap of Sugar’s tail smacked her leg.
“Not this time,” Abby whispered sharply, dropping her slippers and sliding her feet into them. “I still haven’t recovered from your last go-round with those raccoons. You guard Philippe. Now stay.”
The night-light under the microwave mounted above the oven gave off enough light for Abby to see on the counter the jar in which she kept a few baked dog biscuits in the shape of a bone. Retrieving one, she waved it under Sugar’s nose. The dog wasn’t interested. Abby laid the dog biscuit on the floor. Sugar ignored it. Stealing over to the patio door, Abby quietly unlatched it and opened it just a little. She held on to Sugar’s collar to keep the dog inside while she peeled herself out through the narrow opening. Sugar whined. She left the heavy glass door slightly ajar, certain that it was too heavy for Sugar to push and that the opening was too narrow for her to squeeze through. But Sugar was still able to sniff the raccoon scent in the night air. Immediately, she rose on her hind legs and began pawing and whining.
“Settle down!” Abby whispered. Who am I kidding? Like you are ever going to listen to me. The moon had set, taking with it that glorious silvery light it emitted, but the stars remained bright against the dark sky, and the breeze was gentle and warm. Abby almost wished that Philippe would awaken and that they could sit for a spell and maybe talk of dreams the way she and Clay used to do. Nah, let him sleep. He’s probably as physically exhausted as he is emotionally.
She found the glasses right where she’d left them. Now to get them inside before the raccoons caught sight of her. But how to do it? Sugar was just waiting for that door to open. She was sure to dash right between Abby’s legs or jump up and knock the glasses from her hands. Already, Abby could hear a commotion on the side of the house. If the raccoons had knocked over that stack of five-gallon buckets she was planning to fill with frames of honey, it meant they were just around the corner. If they saw her, they could get mighty aggressive.
Not wanting to deal with Sugar while she carried her antique stemware or to alarm the raccoons in any way, Abby conceived another plan. She turned off the flashlight and reached for the glasses. Rather than trying to wiggle through that patio door and risk dropping them, Abby cradled the glasses to her chest and struck out barefoot through the wet grass. She headed past a row of white tea roses to a wooden bench. It was positioned between thickly canopied nectarine trees; the trees’ round, dark silhouettes looked like ancient beehives. After finding the basket of rags she’d left on the bench, Abby wrapped the stemware and slid it between the layers of cloth. She wedged the basket under the arm of the bench, eager to return to bed.
Hands seized her from behind. Abby’s heart thudded against her chest. Though she was filled with terror, the cop in her fought back. Her attacker clamped a hand reeking of stale tobacco over her mouth. Joining her two hands together for strength, Abby thrust her elbow toward her attacker’s face to break his hold. It didn’t work. She realized that he was taller, stronger, and that he outweighed her. She twisted her body, trying to break free. Her slippers came off as he pulled her through the roses to an open area of grass.
She was now in his stranglehold. Terror filled every fiber of her being. Abby squeezed her index and middle fingers together for strength and plunged them into the hollow of the man’s neck while she rolled in her shoulder to lengthen her arm and wrest herself away. Thinking she was free of his iron grip, Abby pivoted, intending to hit him with an eye gouge, followed by a groin kick. But before she could execute either maneuver, he sucker punched her in the face. Knife pricks of pain shot through her left cheek. Falling, Abby screamed in pain. It came out more as a breath than a sound. The man flipped her over. Dragged her farther. Straddled her.
“Don’t fight me.” His hand was again on her mouth. “You’re going to like it!”
Abby twisted her head. She prayed Philippe had heard her. Any second now, Philippe would flip on the lights, step outside. He would see she was in trouble. She could hear Sugar. The dog was agitated.
Pain. Dress ripping. Sugar barking. Wake up, Philippe! Help!
Sugar pawed the door. Lunged through the opening. Snarling and barking, she flew at the stranger. The man’s grip loosened, but he held on to Abby as they rolled in the wet grass. Sugar was unrelenting. The man let go. His arms and hands flailed against Sugar. The dog had his sleeve in her mouth. Sugar’s head twisted . . . made staccato movements . . . back and forth, like she was playing with a rag doll. She released his hand and bit his face. Then, when his hand flew up defensively, Sugar snapped at his fingers.
Abby crawled from the melee, screaming, “Philippe! Gun . . . bedside table!” She looked back at her attacker. The man had risen to a semi-sitting position, in a fight for his life as he wrestled with Sugar.
“Call him off!” he yelled.
Abby lunged forward. Crawled toward the patio.
The man screamed, “I’ll kill it!”
Finally . . . Philippe appeared. “Mon Dieu! What is happening?” Apparently realizing the dire situation, he somehow remembered the garbage can where Abby kept rawhide bones for Sugar. Philippe lunged toward the garbage can and grabbed the large river rock anchoring the lid. He hurled the rock at the attacker. It hit the man’s shoulder. Abby’s attacker fell back in slow motion. Sugar, who had retreated momentarily, quickly pounced back on the man, snarling, her teeth exposed.
Abby crawled faster than a rabbit, pitched upward, and sprinted past Philippe as he reached for her. She raced to the bedroom. Grabbed the gun. Raced to the patio. Aimed up. Pulled the trigger.
Sugar yelped, darted a few feet away, and cowered as Philippe took cover inside the kitchen.
With her weapon trained on the man, Abby said in a steely voice, “Move, and I shoot to kill.” She walked backward and, without taking her eyes off the man, reached inside the kitchen to flick the outside light switch to the up position. The patio light went on. She could see her attacker now.
Heavyset, and wearing a T-shirt, a leather vest, jeans, scuffed combat boots, and a blue bandanna, he appeared to be a skinhead in his midtwenties. His clean-shaven face bore a long scar: it ran from under his left eye to his chin. Blood seeped from bite marks on his cheek and hand. He hawked up a mouthful of blood.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” Abby ordered. To Philippe, she said, “Call the cops. Phone’s on the kitchen counter. Police are on speed dial.”
While Philippe worked the phone, Abby stood rooted in a shoot-to-kill position, one leg in front of the other, both hands on her weapon. “Who are you?” she asked.
The man stared at her in silence.
“Fine . . . Save it for the cops.”
From inside, Philippe asked her for the address; dispatch was on the phone.
After a few minutes, the skinhead spoke. His tone was still arrogant. “I’ll answer your questions if you let me go.”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Abby kept her gun trained on him, not even moving when the raccoons began to scurry across the yard. The mama coon paused near the man, rose up on her hind legs, then dropped back down and retreated with her cubs to the abandoned property behind the fence. Philippe, visibly shaken, stepped out onto the patio and leaned against the wall. Sugar panted hard and then ran inside. Abby guessed it was to quench her thirst at the water bowl.
Minutes passed. The sky grew lighter. The stars dimmed. Houdini began his crowing routine. The next eight minutes seemed to Abby like an eternity. Then she heard wheels screeching on her gravel driveway. A car door slammed. Can’t be the police. They can’t get here that fast.
A man called out her name several times. Abby recognized Lucas Crawford’s earthy baritone voice.
“I’m back here, Lucas.”
“I heard a shot,” Lucas said, stepping around the corner and onto the patio. “What’s going on here?” His eyes were trained on Abby, but then they shifted to the man on the ground, before finally resting on Philippe. “Couldn’t tell where it came from. Worried me,” Lucas said. He seemed to be sizing up the situation. “You got blood all over you, woman. You need medical attention.”
Abby nodded. “It’s on the way.”
“You friend or foe?” Lucas asked Philippe.
“Friend, naturellement!” Philippe replied.
“Right answer,” said Lucas. He turned to glare at the stranger sitting on the ground. “So what’s the story here?”
The man on the ground scowled in silence.
Abby doubted the man would talk, but she took comfort in the take-charge attitude that Lucas was showing . . . and also in the sound of approaching sirens. When the man refused to answer her when again she asked his name, she decided to fill Lucas in. “He attacked me. Fearing for my life and limb, I got my gun and fired off a round.”
“You want me to beat the daylights out of this piece of crap?” Lucas asked. “I could do it before the cops get here.” Abby couldn’t see it, but she guessed that Lucas had locked eyes with her attacker and was engaged in a stare down. Finally, Lucas said to Philippe, “I would have thought you would have already done that.”
“Let the police handle it, Lucas. From the sound of the sirens, I’d say they’re almost here,” Abby said.
Philippe was still holding Abby’s phone and jumped slightly when a text ringtone sounded and the screen lit up.
“That’s Kat’s ringtone,” Abby said.
“What does s-w-y-p mean?” Philippe asked, reading the phone screen.
“So what’s your problem?” Abby answered. “That’s what it means. Kat must have heard about the trouble here from our dispatchers putting the call out for units to respond.”
“There’s more,” Philippe said. “There’s a one-eight-seven at the Crow Ridge cutoff.”
“One-eight-seven is the code for homicide. So who was murdered?”
Philippe shook his head, stared at the phone, and said nothing. After a few seconds passed, the text ringtone sounded again. “Eva Lennahan,” Philippe said.
Abby let go an audible gasp. Her thoughts spun. Our prime suspect? Oh, that’s not good. Her lips tightened. She shook her head in disbelief.
At the sight of two police officers running onto the patio, Abby heaved a sigh of relief and gave them her gun. She would gladly let them do their job securing the scene and taking her attacker, whoever he was, into custody. She knew that once the scene was secured, the cops would let the paramedics in to check her out. She felt wracked with pain from the assault, particularly the blow to her cheek.
The sun rose through the thicket of trees behind the chicken house. Houdini began his crow-off with a neighboring rooster farther down Farm Hill Road. While Philippe petted Sugar and Lucas helped the male cop handcuff and lead the skinhead to the patrol car, Abby gave her statement. By then, the place was swarming with cops, first responders, firemen, and paramedics—all of whom knew Abigail Mackenzie as formerly one of their own. When the female officer asked about discharging the weapon, Abby carefully explained how terrorized she had felt, how she had feared for her life.
“I was standing about here, facing him, when I made the split-second decision to fire off a round. He’d threatened to kill my dog,” Abby explained. “I imagine the casing went down five to six feet to the right, most likely parallel to the roses, perpendicular to the patio. It’s got to be somewhere in the grass there.” She tried to stand but suddenly felt quite weak. Maybe she just needed coffee.
As if reading her mind, Lucas returned, put a warm, reassuring hand on Abby’s shoulder, and said, “You look like you could use a cup of joe, Abby. Your pot in the kitchen?”
Abby nodded. “You can find the canister of beans, already ground, in the upper cupboard nearest the sink.” She sank into the rocking chair on the patio.
Philippe drew close and knelt at her feet, his hands on the handles of the rocker. “Ma chérie, are you in pain? Your face, it has a deep cut.”
Before Abby could respond, a paramedic, dressed in a blue uniform with reflector stripes on the sleeves and a lapel badge that spelled DOTTIE, rushed over to treat her. “Excuse me, please,” she said to Philippe, who moved aside. The paramedic dropped her medical pack on the patio table and leaned down to have a closer look. After opening the pack, she took out some tweezers to pluck out bits of debris from Abby’s cheek. That done, she turned back to her pack and began removing items, such as alcohol prep pads, hydrogen peroxide, iodine, antiseptic cream, gauze, and tape.
Philippe moved to the other side of the paramedic. He watched intently as the woman pushed aside her stethoscope and pulled on latex gloves to examine the laceration on Abby’s cheek.
“Could you give us a little room here?” the paramedic asked Philippe.
“Oui,” Philippe said. “I am not leaving you, Abby, but I do not want to be in the way. And the sight of the blood, it makes me queasy,” he said sheepishly. “I will check on the bees and give you a few minutes. Hmm?”
“Thank you, Philippe.” Abby watched him stroll in the direction of the apiary.
“Are there other cuts on your body?” the paramedic asked.
“Scratches, mostly on my extremities, from my rosebushes,” Abby replied.
“How did you get the cut on your face?”
“During the attack, I was punched.”
“Oh, that’s awful. I hope that lowlife gets what’s coming to him. What about pain in your head and neck? How does it feel when I move it from side to side like this?” Using her hands, the paramedic gently moved Abby’s head from left to right and up and down.
“Feels kind of stiff, like I’ve been manhandled.” Abby managed a weak smile.
The paramedic checked Abby’s pulse and listened to her heartbeat and breath sounds. Waving a light into and away from Abby’s eyes, the paramedic began asking a series of questions. “Do you know your name? The president’s name? Where you are? What day it is?” Abby knew they were standard questions paramedics used to assess a patient’s orientation and level of consciousness.
After correctly answering Dottie’s questions, Abby said, “Look, I know the drill, but I don’t need c-spine. I don’t need transport. I’m fine.”
The paramedic reached into her bag and pulled out a small sealed package. “These should help with the pain. Refusing transport is your right; however, your cut could use a stitch.”
“No, I really don’t want to go to the hospital.” Abby didn’t feel it necessary to explain why she hated hospitals. She just did. And not just because of the failed surgeries on her thumb, but also because in her former line of work, it was the place of endings. Cops died. Perps died. Witnesses passed away before they could testify. Oh, sure, plenty of local women went there to give birth, but Abby had never seen that. She just didn’t like the place. It was that simple.
“Okay, but if you are going to decline our offer of a ride in the ambulance, you’ll have to sign a release form,” the paramedic told her as she finished taping the butterfly closures across the cut on Abby’s cheek. As soon as Abby had signed the release, the paramedics left along with the first responders, cops, and firemen.
Lucas strolled out from the kitchen with a mug of coffee and handed it to Abby. He went back into the kitchen, brought out the pot and two empty mugs, and set them on the table. “For your other friend,” said Lucas, adding in a disapproving tone, “The one who lets a lady rescue herself.” He poured coffee for himself in one of the mugs and sat down on a patio chair. Abby didn’t say anything. What could she say? That’s not fair. . . . Philippe was asleep in my bed. Uh-oh, might not be a good idea to tell him that. Abby inhaled deeply, stared up at the clusters of red berries on the towering pepper tree, and said, “Great coffee, Lucas. Thank you for making it.”
“I can cook, too,” he replied.
She smiled.
Sugar had gotten her drink and then had remained at Abby’s side after the attack. She had growled occasionally, as if to continue expressing her dislike for the man who had attacked Abby. Now that he was gone, the dog, who had been panting like crazy, had taken an interest in Abby’s house slippers. The slippers were old. And letting the dog chew them was a small enough gesture of appreciation for Sugar saving her life.
Abby and Lucas quietly sipped coffee, watching Sugar. The mutt quickly abandoned the shoe chew to chase a hummingbird that had zoomed past, apparently to lap nectar from the tubular flowers of the trumpet vines.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lucas said. “I’ve got a single-action revolver in my gun safe that I could loan you until you get your gun back.”
“Really? It’s a tempting offer, Lucas.” Abby thought about it for a moment. She liked the idea but suspected that she might not be able to handle it as easily as her own gun.
As if reading her thoughts, Lucas said, “I’d be happy to offer some pointers.”
“I’d need target practice, for sure,” Abby said, thinking it could be fun to shoot cans off a fence with Lucas or fire at the range. But then again, a single-action revolver required manual cocking. Lucas would pretty readily pick up on her gimpy thumb action. Still, how cool it was that he had offered to loan her that gun. A shot from it could take down a 250-pound attacker, even if he was high on drugs.
“Think about it. Let me know,” he said in his deep country-singer voice.
Abby stared at the hills, which were now ablaze with color and which, only hours ago, would have looked like camelback humps in black. Her thoughts returned to the skinhead. She wondered who he was and why he’d come all the way out to her farmette to attack her. She was dying to call Otto to find out what the cops knew, but she would make the call when she was alone, after Lucas and Philippe had gone. This was personal.
“Looks like you got yourself a pointer there, judging from the liver spots.” Lucas stretched out his long, jeans-clad legs and crossed his feet, one worn cowboy boot over the other, and sipped his coffee.
“Well, Sugar actually belonged to someone else, but . . . her owner isn’t coming back,” Abby said, then took a swig of her coffee and thought that it had never tasted so good. But as she thought about Sugar, it seemed to her that the poor dog really had no one but Abby. Abby had a debt to pay to Sugar. And just like that, she decided she would care for the mixed-breed canine for the rest of the dog’s life. What is that . . . ? Fourteen . . . fifteen years?
“I could use a good bird dog,” Lucas said. “Take her off your hands . . . train her. Get you a proper guard dog, if you want.”
“Well, I appreciate your offer, Lucas. I really do. But I think Sugar and I are destined to be together. ”
His light brown eyes stared straight out over the back property. “Glad to hear it. A woman living alone out here . . . Well, you know how I feel about that.”
“Yes, and I appreciate that you came straight to my farmette as soon as you heard the shot. A lot of folks live along Farm Hill Road, but you are the only one who checked on me. You’re a wonderful neighbor, Lucas. I hope you know that.”
He took another swig of coffee and locked his soulful eyes with hers. After a long beat, he said softly, “Maybe sometime we could—”
“Your bees, they are happy today, Abby,” Philippe cried out exuberantly. “And the coffee smells great.” He strolled back to the patio, a broad grin creasing his face, apparently unaware that he had interrupted Lucas in mid-sentence.
“Lucas brought a cup for you, Philippe. Right there.” She pointed to the white mug on the table.
“Merci, mon ami.” Philippe gave an appreciative nod to Lucas, reached for the mug, and poured some coffee in it. After tasting it, he put the mug back down. “Oh, sadly, the coffee, it is not hot enough.”
Lucas rose and strolled into the kitchen to put his mug in the sink. Philippe sank into Lucas’s chair. When Lucas returned, he put a hand on Abby’s shoulder.
“Feel better, Abby. You know where to find me.” A few moments later, his pickup engine started, and the gravel crunched under his truck tires as he pulled away.
“I think I’ve seen him before, Abby. Who is he?” Philippe asked.
“He raises beef on a ranch near here, one that’s part of an old Spanish land grant.” Abby’s thoughts were drifting elsewhere. What was it Lucas had said? Maybe sometime we could . . . What? What was Lucas about to say when Philippe interrupted? Abby made a mental note to ask Lucas the next time she saw him.
Although her cheek throbbed and her body felt weary, Abby wanted to get Philippe back to Las Flores so he could finish packing up his brother’s apartment and ship the boxes back to New York. And she also wanted to find out the details of Eva Lennahan’s murder. She also wanted to talk with Otto about that skinhead and find out what the police knew. The pain reliever the paramedic had given her would soon kick in, and so for now, regardless of how she felt, she would work her agenda.
“I’ll just change out of my dress and drive you to the funeral home, where you left your car.” Abby used her most cheerful voice. Despite her tone, the smile evaporated from Philippe’s face.
“Must we?”
“I think we must.”
Sugar’s Favorite Doggy Treats
Commercially made dog biscuits often contain preservatives and other additives to keep them fresh and tasty for as long as possible. When you make homemade treats for your dog, you can cater to his or her personal taste by adding liver, bacon, cheese, or another flavorful ingredient. The following basic recipe is perfect for such modification. Cut the dough with a bone- or heart-shaped cookie cutter, or any desired shape.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour (all-purpose or whole-wheat or a mixture of both)
½ cup rolled oats
1 tablespoon wheat germ
½ cup chicken broth
1 large egg
1 tablespoon canola oil, plus more for greasing the baking sheet
2 tablespoons mashed cooked liver, minced cooked bacon, or grated cheddar cheese (optional)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a baking sheet with oil.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, oats, and wheat germ until well blended. Add the chicken broth, egg, and oil, and liver (or bacon or cheddar) to the flour-oat mixture and mix well.
Roll the dough out to a thickness of ¼ inch on a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough with a bone-shaped cookie cutter or with the cookie cutter you prefer. Place the biscuit shapes on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake on the center rack for 30 minutes, or until the biscuits are light brown. Remove the biscuits from the oven and transfer them with a spatula to wire racks to cool.
Store the biscuits, once they have cooled completely, in an airtight tin at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.