Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything (31 page)

I couldn't help myself. I laughed. Maybe too unsteadily to seem entirely rational.

He frowned. “What's going on here? You in some kind of trouble?”

Fred climbed onto my lap and poked his nose out of the car to sniff Costello. I got a good grip on his collar. “One kind of trouble I'm in is that you two are shaking me down for money I don't have and never owed to begin with.”

“What's the other kind of trouble?” He glanced down toward Ten's ranch. The tallest tree and the barn roof were just barely visible over the small rise. “Is there something you want us to take care of for you? 'Cause we've been a little itchy for some action.”

I found myself smiling and my spirits lifting. “That's the best offer I've had in a long time. But no, thank you.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure. I'm going back to the house now. I'm probably going to stay there, if you want to take the night off.”

“You're a good kid,” Costello said. “But we're getting a paycheck, you know? So we'll follow you back, if that's okay.”

It felt strange to smile at Mr. Costello, considering he had been trying to intimidate me just a short time ago, but I did. I waved good-bye and rolled up the window and headed back to Honeybelle's house. Mr. Costello followed and pulled to the curb beside Honeybelle's driveway, his usual surveillance position. Parked across the street was the other black car.

I parked and put the garage door down and took Fred with me through the back gate. Mr. Carver and Mae Mae were standing on the back porch, looking out past the swimming pool.

Mae Mae pointed. “There's a prairie dog caught in one of those traps back there.”

My mood lifted again. Finally, some success. “Great! Let's call Rudy and tell him to come get it.”

“We already called, and he said he can't come until morning. He's busy with termites out at the Bum Steer.”

“The barbecue joint? Fine. Let's load the cage into the trunk of the car, and I'll drive it out there to him.”

For all the disasters I'd encountered lately, it felt good to save a prairie dog from certain death. I had a feeling it was the beginning of many traps filling up soon. “I'll even spring for dinner. Brisket or ribs?”

Mr. Carver had been looking dismayed until I brought up dinner. His expression turned hopeful. “I haven't had ribs in a long time.”

Mae Mae said, “I have fresh sausage. I was going to stuff it in an eggplant with rice and peppers. It's a dish my uncle used to make. I want to try it out.”

Mr. Carver winced. “That sausage of yours gives me indigestion.”

“Everything gives you indigestion! How am I going to be the next Paula Deen or Martha Stewart if I don't practice my recipes?”

“Maybe this is a good time to take a night off,” I said to Mae Mae. “If you're going to audition for Poppy's boss tomorrow, you should maybe make some notes about things to talk about. Family traditions and whatnot.”

Mae Mae frowned. “My family traditions aren't worth talking about.”

“Martha Stewart's probably weren't either, but she made a good story out of what she had.”

With a grumble, Mae Mae said, “Okay, I'll think it over.”

“Mr. Carver, you can help me with the animal trap.”

Fred had already gone out to investigate the hissing and scrabbling going on in the small cage out by the gazebo. He sniffed it cautiously. As we got closer, I realized the prairie dog had upset the cage and was now trying to tear it apart from the inside. With short legs, a short tail, and a pudgy body, it looked like a smallish Ohio groundhog, but it had a lot more energy. It was using its front teeth to try biting through the wire bars of the trap.

Mr. Carver looked dubiously at the frantic animal. “How are we going to get it out of there?”

“I think we leave it in the trap. We just have to carry the trap to the garage and put it into the car.”

“How do we carry it without getting bitten?” On top of the trap were two folding handles, but they were perilously close to the animal's sharp teeth. For such a little guy, he was looking very vicious.

I mulled over the problem for a moment and went into the house for the kitchen broom. When I returned, I threaded the broomstick through the wire of the trap. I held one end of the broom, and Mr. Carver took the other. Between us, we managed to carry the trap across the lawn and into the garage—not an easy task with the prairie dog flinging itself around inside. Fred trotted around us, as if supervising. We put Fred's towel in the backseat and let him ride along. Out of breath, Mr. Carver sat in the passenger seat. I drove.

As we pulled out of the driveway, I spotted the Blues Brothers parked on the street. I rolled my window down and pulled up beside them.

Mr. Costello had been reading a newspaper, but he amiably rolled down his window, too. “Where are you off to?”

“We're going for some barbecue. Can we pick you up some ribs? My treat.”

“Aw, you're such a nice girl. No, thanks, we'll just follow along. Maybe we'll get some for ourselves.”

“What about your friends? Shall we ask them?”

“Friends?”

I pointed at the other black car that had remained parked on the other side of the street.

Mr. Costello shook his head. “They're not with us. Those are the feds, see the license plate? You don't want to go talking to them. They're just gonna make life difficult.”

“What kind of feds?” I asked, trying to read the license plate on the other car. At the top of the plate, it did indeed say
U.S. GOVERNMENT
.

Mr. Costello shrugged. “They aren't real friendly with us. Just so's it's not the IRS, I don't care who they are.”

I was feeling punchy, so I waved, he waved, and we rolled up our windows.

As I pulled away, Mr. Carver said, “Who was that?”

I had no idea what to tell him, so I said, “An uncle of mine. So, ribs? Or something else? They have good barbecued chicken at the Bum Steer, right?”

We drove across town to the barbecue joint and found it bustling with dinnertime patrons picking up food at the takeout window. Out front, smoke billowed enticingly from the great black smokers. A sweating attendant wearing a cowboy hat and a splattered apron used a large mop to spread something wet on the charred hunks of meat.

I parked and went inside to ask after the Critter Control man.

“Oh, Rudy left about an hour ago,” the cashier told me. She weighed about eighty pounds and had a raspy voice—probably from breathing smoke all day “He's coming back tomorrow. Unfortunately, we're going to have to close for a few days while he treats the termites. You're lucky you got here today while we still have some meat.”

Mr. Carver was overwhelmed by the menu and couldn't decide what to order, so we asked for brisket and ribs
and
chicken—enough to last us for lunches the next few days. Along with the meat came a container of coleslaw and another of beans. The cashier gave us half a loaf of sliced white bread, too, and three small containers of different sauces with increasing degrees of heat.

Mr. Costello came in behind us and ordered ribs. He asked the cashier's advice about sauces and ended up taking the trio, too. He asked for extra napkins and a six-pack of beer. She recommended Shiner Bock. We waited until his food and drink were packaged, discussing the Texas heat.

“But it's dry heat,” Mr. Carver said.

“It's still stinkin' hot,” Mr. Costello replied.

We all left together.

While I drove home, Mr. Carver kept the tantalizing bags of food on his lap. Fred leaned over the seat, sniffing. The Blues Brothers followed in their car.

Mr. Carver watched the rearview mirror and finally said, “How long will your uncle be visiting?”

“I'm not sure,” I said before seizing on a diversionary topic. “Mr. Carver, when you get your million dollars, will you go to Nashville?”

“What?” He finally gave up staring at the car behind us.

“Nashville.”

“Well, I suppose I could go there. I hear there are lots of places to play,” he said. “Even for an amateur like me. But maybe I'm getting to be too old.”

“You won't know until you try, right? You ought to do what makes you happy. You've worked hard all your life. Maybe now it's time to do what you really enjoy.”

“I'd really enjoy knowing what all those cars and trucks are doing on our street.”

I slowed down before Honeybelle's driveway to gawk at all the vehicles that had joined the single black car with the federal license plate. There were large SUVs and pickup trucks, their doors all emblazoned with a federal seal. A handful of people milled around in the middle of the street, but nobody stopped me, so I pulled into the garage.

Mystified, Mr. Carver and I stood looking at the crowd on the street for a moment. Nobody paid us any attention, so we took the prairie dog out of the trunk. We left him in the garage with a wet rag dripping through the wire so he'd be cool and have something to drink. Feeling sorry for him, I gave him the rest of the peanut butter and oatmeal Rudy had left to bait the trap again. While he settled in for a big meal, we closed the garage door on him.

Mr. Carver stared at all the extra vehicles and the uniformed officers. “What are all these people doing here? Is there something going on in the neighborhood?”

I was pretty sure I didn't want to know. My hope was that some law enforcement entity had come to arrest the Blues Brothers. But I said, “Let's go eat before our dinner gets cold.”

Mr. Carver willingly headed for the house with me. Fred followed.

Mae Mae came out of the house and charged across the backyard toward us, arms flailing. “The police are here! I had to let them in, Mr. Carver! They wouldn't take no for an answer! They barged right in!”

“What police?” I asked. “Bubba Appleby?”

“No, it's people in black vests and wearing badges, and one man carrying a really big gun!”

“Mr. Carver, hold the dog. I'll go check.” I was already running for the house, hoping this turn of events had something good to do with Miss Ruffles.

But Mae Mae called after me, “They're out in Honeybelle's rose garden!”

The rose garden?

In the slanting afternoon sunlight, I changed course and ran for the front yard, where I found half a dozen officers poking through Honeybelle's bushes. A man wearing sunglasses and holding a rifle of some kind stood apart from the rest, as if standing guard over the others. I went to him first. “Can I help you? I work here.”

He gave me a glance up and down to confirm I wasn't dangerous and gestured with his free hand. “Talk to Miss Simpkins over there.”

Miss Simpkins turned out to be a square-shaped, no-nonsense, middle-aged lady in khaki green shirtsleeves and a matching baseball cap. She showed me her badge in a leather wallet. “U.S. Department of Agriculture, ma'am. We're here about the roses.”

“I see that.” I saw other officers with gardening shears and one with a shovel. “I'm Sunny McKillip. I used to be Honeybelle Hensley's assistant. Is there a problem?”

“We think so, ma'am. We've been waiting for a warrant, and now that we have it, we're taking a close look at Mrs. Hensley's roses.”

That explained the second car hanging around the neighborhood for the last several days. It had held federal agriculture agents, not more wiseguys from New Jersey.

“Can I ask why you're disturbing the roses?”

“About ten days ago, officials at the Dallas–Fort Worth airport stopped an illegal shipment of a rosebush from Germany. You know, it's illegal to falsify shipping labels when moving agricultural products internationally, and this one was particularly sloppy. Apparently, your Mrs. Hensley tried to send home a rosebush without any of the proper permits or documentation. We can't risk bringing disease or parasites into this country, so we need to check all of her plants for foreign organisms. Right now there's a particularly virulent form of bacteria that—”

“The shipment can't have come from Mrs. Hensley. She died. And before that, she didn't travel. She never left Texas in her whole life. Her roses all came from here in Texas. She must have purchased one, had it sent from Germany. The lack of permits is hardly her fault.”

Miss Simpkins blinked at me.

One of her assistants came over with a rose cutting in a bag. He was a gawky young man with a brand-new uniform. “We mark 'em like this, Maggie?”

Miss Simpkins checked his scribbles on the bag and gave him a nod. “Just like that, Caleb.” To me, she said, “We're going to have to catalog what we find here. It may take a couple of days. We'll have to dig soil samples and take some roots as well as cuttings. This is a big garden. And we're probably going to quarantine the area.”

“The garden was her pride and joy,” I said. “The family plans to hold a big wedding here soon.”

“Yeah, well, it may look real pretty right now, but we can't have citizens bringing bad stuff into Texas. Think about pythons taking over Florida. You wouldn't want a wedding with pythons.”

“There aren't any pythons here. Just look—it's beautiful.”

“You can't always see what might be very harmful. Insects, bacteria, diseases. Who knows what else? We're going to have to check everything out.” She gave me a stern yet motherly look. “If you get in our way, Miss McKillip, I have the power to ban you from the property. You and the rest of your merry band.”

She gestured to indicate anxious Mr. Carver and bullishly aggressive Mae Mae, who were standing on the front porch. Mae Mae was wearing one of her frilly aprons, one that said
HOT AND SPICY
. Beside her and looking half her size, Mr. Carver looked dejected as he watched the workers dig in Honeybelle's garden. He clutched our barbecue dinner to his chest as if it might save his life. Fred sat on the porch between them.