Chickenlandia Mystery Read online

  Ma shook her head. “Got her registration fee in the mail last week. Check’s already cleared the bank.”

  Veenie eyed Ma. “She was planning to attend the cook-off. We got out first big clue. She must have been kidnapped. Taken out of the action.”

  I stared at Veenie. “By who? The chicken mafia?”

  Veenie clicked her dentures at me. “RJ, you know as well as I do that there are people in Pawpaw County who are low enough to knock an old lady in the kneecaps if it means they might get to strut around as the Queen of Pawpaw County for a whole day.”

  “Like who?”

  Ma spat out a name: “Pam Perkins.” Her little black eyes burned with a hot look of hatred. “That Pam Perkins. I bet she’s involved in all this.”

  Pam was from Freetown. She ran Cluckytown, an egg house. We’d all known her since she was a kid cheating on her 4-H cooking and poultry projects. Veenie and some of the esteemed members of the Baptist’s Ladies Auxiliary had nicknamed her “Cheaty Pants Perkins.” Pam had won a lot of Pawpaw County Fair ribbons over the year, mostly by hiring student chefs from Louisville to reimagine mouthwatering Hoosier classics like raisin pie, Big Red cake, and pork-and-gravy French fries. Pam didn’t look evil; the exact opposite. She was a tiny, pocket-sized woman, a childless widow who wore swing skirts and appliqued hand-knit sweaters. Her round, metal-rimmed glasses were almost as big as her entire face. Her husband, Rabbit Perkins, had gotten drunk one spring day a decade ago and flipped an old John Deere tractor he’d been souping up for the tractor parade at the county fair. He plowed himself under, along with the seed corn. Pam had stuck with chicken ranching and made a decent buck hustling eggs and fryer hens for the IGA stores of southern Indiana.

  Word in the barnyard was that Cluckytown had been losing egg customers to Ma and Peepaw’s Chickenlandia steadily over the last three years. Chickenlandia operated as an organic free-range enterprise. Cluckytown was much bigger, but their hens were caged, scrawny, and depressed. They laid eggs darn near as small and tasty as marbles. Folks in Pawpaw County would drive out of their way, up the knobs to Ma and Peepaw’s` little place, to get a plump, fresh egg or two.

  Pam had been trying to outcook Gertie and snatch the BBQ queen crown on behalf of Cluckytown for years. She’d come in second the last three years and as such was the runner-up, who in theory was supposed to assume the crown if for any reason Gertie couldn’t fulfill her duties, which included donning the crown and sash to stroll around the midway at the Pawpaw County 4-H Fair at the tail end of every summer. Pam was forever lurking in Gertie’s shadow, her runner-up crown polished, her sash pressed to perfection. She stood ready to serve, but sadly never got the call. Folks who knew her said she spent most of her free time scheming how to take down Gertie and Chickenlandia.

  I asked Ma if Pam had been hanging around causing trouble.

  She shook her head. “Haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, which is kind of odd now that I think about it. She was coming up to the farm every week, snooping around, asking questions, trying to pry trade secrets out of me and Peepaw.”

  Veenie sniffled. “You reckon Cheaty Pants Pam is mean enough to sabotage the festival?”

  “Might be,” said Ma.

  “She the only enemy you got?” Veenie asked.

  Ma twisted her lips and thought for a moment. “Probably the meanest, but then there’s Hiram.”

  Veenie’s cornflower-blue eyes widened. “Hiram Krupsky? He’s sneaky as snake spit. Everybody says so.”

  Hiram Krupsky III, aka The Hoosier Chicken Wing King, was a well-known fixture in Pawpaw County, and far beyond. His daddy, Hiram II, had started a chicken ranch back in WWII along the B & O railroad lines down in Sparksville, when chicken was the only meat the government didn’t ration. He sold mostly eggs but also raised and sold fryer and roaster birds and a mouthwatering selection of spiced and frozen chicken wings. Krupsky’s chicken empire now spread across Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio. He liked to brag that his eggs were the stars at the White House Easter egg hunt each year. Anybody who thought farming was a lost financial cause had never seen Hiram’s bank account. Rumor was he was worth several million; that’s a heap of eggs and wings.

  Veenie asked Ma if Hiram had been pestering them lately.

  “Oh, sure. He keeps coming over, trying to buy the place. Says he wants to open a free-range organic operation. Says our place would jump-start him with a whole new line of eggs and poultry for today’s consumer who wants healthier eggs and meat.”

  “He offering real money?”

  “Oodles of it.”

  “He ever threaten you or Peepaw?”

  “Shucks no. Always polite. Like a politician. Last time he was up our way, last week, he plucked Ginger up and gave her a big ol’ hug and kiss. Ginger squawked to be let down and pecked his big nose like it was a grub. Ginger’s like Veenie. Don’t like being squeezed on.”

  Veenie thought about that. “If he’s kissing chickens, he’s sure enough trying to butter you up.”

  “I figured as much, but he’s never made threats. Just keeps offering more money. Even offered to pay the legal fees to begin the transfer of the farm while offering to let me and Peepaw keep running it and living in the farmhouse until we pass on.”

  I asked if that was a deal she and Peepaw would consider.

  “Heck no. I mean, Chickenlandia is our home. It’d feel all wrong if we sold it.”

  I understood what Ma was saying. She and Peepaw loved their little chicken farm. When Hiram Krupsky and Pam Perkins saw chickens, they saw dollar bills with beaks. When Ma and Peepaw saw chickens, they saw their adopted kids pecking and crowing and kicking up the dust for fun.

  Ma said she had to be going, had pies to bake, but she and Peepaw would be home all evening if we cared to stop by and scope out the crime scene after our trip to Tunnelton to inquire after Gertie.

  Veenie scrunched her face up as Ma sauntered out the beauty parlor door. “Harry is not going to like us chasing chickens. This is sure to crank him up big time.”

  Tinky Sue, who was dustbusting my hair from the floor around her clipping chair, stopped and asked Veenie what it was that Harry wouldn’t like. “Don’t Harry like it when you gals bring in new cases?”

  “Oh, sure,” crowed Veenie. “But he likes to think of the Shades Detective Agency as a high-powered place. Thinks he’s James Bond.”

  I nodded.

  Tinky Sue snickered. “That would make you and Veenie Bond girls.”

  Veenie rolled up the legs on her electric-blue, zigzag yellow leggings until she showed a pair of scarred knees. Her knees were as big, knobby, and round as babies heads. A couple of wiry white hair sprouted from each knee cap. She stuck out her plump calves and admired them. “People are always saying how my legs are my best feature. And now that RJ has a decent head of hair I bet we’ll be beating the men off with a stick.”

  For once I hoped Veenie was right. My life had been dull as dust lately. I’d unexpectedly started thinking maybe a little romance wouldn’t be so bad. Problem was the only man chasing after me was the sheriff, Boots Gibson. He looked a good bit like Santa Claus in cowboy boots with a bad sunburn. He liked to lecture me and Veenie about behaving like decent old ladies instead of parading around the county pistol-whipping hillbilly hoodlums with the butt of a BB gun. (Veenie’s bad habit, not mine.)

  I’d first turned Boots down in second grade, but he was a persistent little badger. It’s like he’d laid claim to me back in the '50s with an unexpected lip-lock in the coatroom and gosh darn he wasn’t walking away without his prize. Now, six decades later, he was starting to look more enticing. Probably not a good sign.

  Some sort of bad chicken juju was rolling over Knobby Waters. Given our luck, Veenie and I would be fortunate if we didn’t end up with our little white tail feathers scalded, plucked, and scattered around the county before the week was done. During our last big case someone had tried to shoot us. Twice. And we hadn’t done an
ything. People in Pawpaw County were nice and decent, as a rule, but most everybody owned a gun or two, so every now and then some ticked off client or suspect would lose their composure and spray us with buckshot. It was a lot to put up with for minimum wage.

  “Slip on your poncho and your hippie sunglasses,” I instructed Veenie. “Let’s crank up the Impala and hotfoot it over to Tunnelton. See if we can find Gertie’s sister, Lottie.”

  And we were off, me feeling sassy with my swinging new do and Veenie looking like Elton John’s mamaw. Tinky Sue waved bye with her free hand as she stood at the porch door and ushered in Jay Bob Burris, the next customer in line for a quick cut and fluff.

  Chapter Four

  Climbing up the knobs, the Impala started shaking, swinging its heavy bumper like a hula dancer. I had to grip the wheel to keep the car from skipping off the shoulder of the steep one-way road that wound like a black snake up the hills, past the old dump, then back down the other side, through Leesville, toward Tunnelton.

  I shot a glance at Veenie, who was sliding around on the slippery white-leather seats. “The car feel like it’s riding funny to you?” I had to shout because the windows were down in the car and the muffler was rattling like a blind man with a set of tin begging cups.

  Veenie grabbed hold of the window crank and steadied herself in the seat. The car was shaking so hard her dentures chattered. “Feels … like … your suspension … is going. Reckon we best throw Dickie under the hood again.”

  Veenie and I co-owned the turquoise Impala. It had been my ride since it rolled off the assembly line in 1960. I’d always meant to trade it in for a newer model, but every year I had less money than the last. My husband died suddenly. The kids needed braces. Joyce, my daughter, needed a big wedding. Then my son Eddie, a musician, never took to working reliably. Now the Impala was a collectible. Insurance on the thing was cheap, and I was used to all its rattles and roars.

  Veenie used to drive—fancied herself a Danica Patrick type—but she’d lost her license to macular degeneration. She could still see fairly well, but had some blind spots in the middle, especially in dim light. Luckily, her latest boy toy, Dickie Freeman, was a retired mechanic who happily spent half his time trying to get under Veenie’s hood and the other half greased up under the Impala’s hood. Dickie loved keeping the Impala streetworthy.

  Once we were on a flat gravel road again, the Impala stopped shaking. With all the gravel kicking up against the undercarriage I could barely hear the muffler rattling and coughing. I hoped the muffler didn’t fall off. That happened to us once before out on US 50 going up Crane Hill on the way to Seymour in hot pursuit of some pumpkin chunkers. The muffler had dropped and dragged along the pavement, shooting fire like a giant sparkler. It hadn’t been pretty, but on the bright side we’d caught the pumpkin chunkers.

  I was still musing about the Chevy when we sped through what was left of Fort Ritner, popped up and down some hills, and rolled around a series of curves along the river down into Tunnelton. Tunnelton came by its name honestly. Back in the 1860s, the Ohio and Mississippi railroad blasted a long tunnel through the limestone ledges that snaked along the East Fork of the White River. The brick-lined tunnel was almost a mile long. Long enough that if you entered the tunnel on one end you’d not see the daylight at the other end until you were halfway through the moldy darkness. Some folks claimed the tunnel was built under a graveyard and that when the railroad cut the tunnel, caskets fell through the tunnel roof and shattered on the iron tracks. Rumor had it that angry sleep-deprived ghosts still haunted the tunnel, and the town.

  That day, like most days, Tunnelton was a ghost town. The sun had slid out from under the clouds, but everything was wet and slick with rain. The Impala splashed through potholes as we rolled past the abandoned Tunnelton schoolhouse and gymnasium. The two-story limestone gymnasium was half hidden in a tangle of vines and weeds. Its giant black glass windows were shattered and cracked. The building stared out at us with dark, wet eyes. The school had closed back in the early ’70s. Kids had been bussed over to Bedford North Lawrence. Main Street still had a mom and pop grocery store and gas station combo that was open, so I wheeled in to get gas and check the undercarriage of the Impala to make sure our muffler was still intact and that nothing had caught fire. The car smelled like fire and brimstone, but then it smelled like that most days if I gassed it too hard.

  Satisfied the Impala was fine and dandy, I cranked up the gas pump and shot ten gallons of fuel into the turquoise beast. Veenie said she needed to visit the ladies’ room and wet her whistle, so we traipsed into the gas station. A young, stringy-haired, gaunt-faced guy with a bad tattoo of a snake on his right cheek and a mess of acne on his left cheek was hunched behind the counter, trimming his fingernails with a Boy Scout pocket knife. His eyes were glued to a small TV. He wore a Pacer’s baseball cap backwards on his head. He barely shot me a glance as Veenie barreled to the back of the store and disappeared into the restroom.

  Beach towels, fishing gear, T-shirts, and neon pool noodles hung from the rafters like a curtain between me and the cashier. I imagined the hanging stock was meant for people who came to Tunnelton to fish and swim in the river, or picnic out on the sand bars. Back when I was a kid my daddy would load us up in the back of his pickup and drive out onto the wide sandbars for a wiener and marshmallow roast down by the Fort Ritner iron bridge. When I was a teenager, my friends and I used to wrestle up cheap liquor—Mad Dog 20/20, Boone’s Farm, whatever we could afford and get the clerk to hand over to us—and wait until the pitch-black of night to walk into the tunnel in search of ghosts. I wondered if kids still did that sort of thing. Probably not. Most seemed to think of their cell phones as their best friends.

  I sidled up to the counter and slapped down cash for the gas. The counter guy took the cash and rung it up without taking his eyes off the TV. Judge Judy was on. She was shaming some big, bald black guy for stealing his girlfriend’s leased car and selling it off for parts. I asked the cashier if he knew where Lottie Tanner lived.

  “Sure,” he said. Then he clicked up the sound.

  A freight train went through town and shook the old wood-framed grocery like it was made of Tinker Toys. I waited for the train to pass and the dust to settle before asking the cashier to volunteer additional information about Lottie Tanner. I cleared my throat. “I think she lives over off Guthrie Street.” I checked the paper Tater had given me to make sure. “Over past the old Guthrie mansion.”

  The cashier nodded, but still didn’t look at me. He was busy digging something out from under the nail on his left thumb with his pocket knife.

  Veenie bellied up to the counter carrying a giant bag of Cheetos and a carton of chocolate milk. She eyed the milk carton. “Says here this expired last week.”

  The cashier shrugged. He rang open the register and held out his hand, palm up. “You want it or not, sweetheart?”

  Veenie slit open the top of the milk carton and sniffed deeply. “Reckon I do. I get a discount?”

  “No. And we don’t take credit or debit cards either. Cash only.” He made a face and fiddled with a large, gray metal ring he had stuck in one earlobe like he was an African tribesman about to sprint off on a hunt.

  Veenie grumbled, but paid for her Cheetos and chocolate milk as I asked again if Lottie Tanner lived off Guthrie Street.

  The cashier stared at me. “I said she did.”

  Oh boy. I was beginning to see why this guy’s career in customer service had stalled at the Tunnelton grocery. I thanked the cashier and headed back to the Impala.

  Like most small Indiana towns, it was hard to get lost in Tunnelton. The only thing in town still growing was the graveyard. That and the tall tales about the ghosts that haunted the big tunnel. The town, or what was left of it, consisted of three blocks of mostly abandoned buildings that stretched out like a ghost town in each direction. The only reason people visited Tunnelton these days was to stay in the restored Guthrie mansion, a big Italian-style
Victorian made of brick with hand-carved limestone trim and hoity-toity, white, wrought iron porch railings. Back in the day, the mansion had been built by Alfred Guthrie, president of the Stone City Bank, in Bedford. Some sweet young restaurant folks from up around Bloomington had bought the mansion and whipped it back into shape. It made a humdinger of a wedding retreat. Back in my day nobody wanted to get married on a farm, let alone inside a barn. Nowadays city folks paid big bucks for an authentic country experience.

  I steered the Impala left down Guthrie Street, and then gunned it out of town. There were a couple of boarded up structures, an old grain elevator by the railroad tracks, and a weathered, two-story farmhouse with cardboard taped in the upstairs windows. A couple of rusted pickup trucks dappled red and gray like Appaloosa horses sat beside a weedy gravel drive that snaked up to a ramshackle farmhouse on the hill. “That looks to be Lottie’s house,” I said, double-checking the address.

  Veenie eyed the house. “Looks empty. You sure?”

  I studied the address Tater had written in pencil on the envelope. “Yep. I think she lives alone. Never married. In her eighties. Probably doesn’t see the point in mowing her yard.” The farmhouse looked like how I felt most days. When I was younger I’d wondered how anyone could let their house go to pot. I’d stopped wondering about the same time I hit menopause. Life was a heap of work. Lottie lived alone. No neighbors. Nobody to bang on her door, yell at her for trashing up the neighborhood. I kind of envied her. Most people wouldn’t have the guts to up and abandon life’s daily chores like Lottie appeared to be doing. We oldsters were all raised to keep things neat and clean. But these days, with everybody running around with their underwear outside their pants and their credit cards weighted down with bad debt, there wasn’t much incentive to work at being decent.

  Veenie and I sauntered up to the door. There didn’t appear to be a doorbell. A rusted dinner bell hung on a chain above a porch swing that was pelted in ratty old quilts. I clanged the bell a few times. The sound was wet and rusty. The bell clanging caused a line of blackbirds perched on the power lines to fly off, but nothing human stirred in the house or around the overgrown yard.