Pecked to Death (14 page)

“He’s not getting anything in me. We had dinner; I hardly think that counts as a marriage proposal.”

“No, apparently you have to be a contender for the NFL draft for that to be plausible,” he said.

She put her finger to her ear. “Is that more jealousy I hear, Lucas?”

“No, Sadie, it’s pity because you obviously have no idea what’s really important. You want a man who is flashy, rich, famous, and handsome. You don’t care what it takes to get him, you don’t care about his character, and you don’t care about who you have to hurt to get what you want.”

“Are you finished with the lecture, Father Luke?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good, then get out.” She backed him toward the door and slammed it when it he was outside. Then she realized she had been intending to go out, too. She waited until she was sure Luke had left, and then she emerged, smiling as if nothing in the world was wrong.

Abe Kaplan had already left for work. Sadie sprinted away before Madame Zora could retrieve her tarot cards. Good fortune must have been smiling on her, though, because as she passed Doctor Jones’ house, she saw him outside washing his car.

“Doctor Jones,” Sadie called, waving her arm as she approached, lest he try and make an escape.

Like a child who believed he became invisible if he closed his eyes, the doctor angled his back to her and concentrated hard on washing his car.

“I’m so glad I found you at home,” Sadie said, panting slightly from her sprint.

“It’s my day off. My
one
day off, and I don’t want to spend it being questioned by a child. Go away, Sadie.”

She smiled. “I spend my days clucking for pocket change, Doctor. You’re going to have to try harder to offend or dissuade me. But if you would simply cooperate, then I promise I’ll only take a few minutes of your time.”

He sighed, and she took that a sign of his agreement.

“What I’ve been able to learn from talking to people is that Abby was worried about something before she died. She was acting odd, even for her, by arguing with people and making false accusations.”

He didn’t agree, but neither did he disagree.

“I have two theories on this. The first is that she knew something about her physical health, and that’s why she was acting so odd. The second is that her health was fine, but her finances weren’t. Abby never mentioned money, but I always assumed she had a lot of it. But now there isn’t any. What I can’t decide is if she finally realized she had less than she thought she did or if something happened to it. Do you know?”

He remained silent for a while as he fastidiously scrubbed the car. She thought he wasn’t going to answer at first, but at last he put down the sponge and spoke. “Abby made a lot of wild accusations toward the end. It was hard to tell fact from fiction.”

“Did she have dementia?”

He stared off into space. “She was acting so peculiar. I thought so. Broke my heart. But now…” He shook his head, picked up the sponge, and threw it into the water again. “I need to look into some things.”

“What things?”

“Never you mind. I’ll not have rumors about innocent people flying rampant around the neighborhood, like the ridiculous one that you’re with child.” He raised his eyebrow at her.

Sadie beamed at him. “You’re the first one who hasn’t believed it.”

“A sensible girl like you getting pregnant out of wedlock? Nonsense.”

She bustled forward and gave him an impulsive hug. “Yes, well,” he murmured, patting her back as awkwardly as Luke had done. “Abby always said there was more to you than people realized. Guess she was right. I might have done wrong by her, but I need to make certain. Let me look into some things, and then we can meet to discuss my findings.”

“Give me a call, and I’ll be there, day or night,” Sadie said.

He nodded, picked up his sponge, and resumed washing his car, slowly and thoughtfully now, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Sadie found Abe Kaplan in his accounting office. He was busy, but he made no complaints about squeezing her in for a quick meeting.

“Yes, Abby did come to me about her finances. She was concerned that money was missing from her account. She wanted me to look into it, but I told her I couldn’t. I suggested that she hire a forensic accountant to trace the money she thought was missing.”

“Did she?” Sadie asked.

“I don’t know, but I doubt it. We talked just a few short days before she died.”

“Did she seem worried or afraid?”

“No, she seemed angry, and justifiably so. If someone had stolen money from me, then I would be out for blood.”

“Do you think someone stole money from her?” Sadie asked.

“It’s possible. People prey on the elderly all the time, unfortunately. There are swindlers who specialize in it.”

“But Abby wasn’t your typical old person. She was sharp as a tack,” Sadie said.

“That she was. Maybe someone underestimated her, but it appears that, if it was true, then whoever it was got away with it because it’s too late now.”

Sadie left the meeting depressed but no less confused. If someone stole Abby’s money and she found out about it, then that was the perfect motive for murder. But Doc Jones said Abby had died of natural causes in his sight. Something was wrong, and Sadie couldn’t figure out what it was. She set aside her worries as she adorned herself with feathers. The extreme heat had finally broken, and she was anxious to earn enough to pay for her car insurance. After today, she should have enough to do so, and then she would be safe for another month. Maybe she could earn enough with the chicken job to build up a cushion of savings for wherever she went next. She should have been smarter with her money before, but how could she have predicted that she would get fired for flashing the nation?

Another line of cars was waiting to hear her cluck. By now the novelty should have worn off, and people should have found something better to do than watch a grown woman flap her arms and cluck like a chicken. But their town was small and far from the big city. Little things were big entertainment, and Sadie had been popular in high school. Lots of people either wanted to stop to say hello or see how the mighty had fallen. She was less enthusiastic about the clucking today. The visit home was beginning to take its toll. She simply wanted everything to be over so she could move on with her life and forget everything that had happened in Virginia.

Toward the end of her shift, there were more cars instead of less, and Sadie wondered why. Usually people came at the beginning and slowly tapered away. Now the line was building, and so was the feeling of anxiety in Sadie’s stomach. As she caught sight of some of the tags at the end of the line, she began to notice that many were from out of state.

“A buck, buck, buck for a cluck, cluck, cluck,” she sang to a minivan full of petulant children. But she was distracted by one oddly-shaped van at the end of the line.

“That wasn’t as funny as last time. Make her do it again,” a child from the back row commanded.

“He’s right,” the woman behind the wheel said. “That was half-hearted at best. Could you do it again?”

Sadie looked at her and recognized someone she had gone to school with, a nerdy girl who had a not-so-secret crush on Luke. Cars behind her began to honk. “One cluck per buck, Jenny,” she said. “Move along.”

“We paid for a good cluck and didn’t get it,” Jenny argued. “I plan to talk with your manager about this.”

“That sounds like a quality use of your time,” Sadie said. Jenny’s son picked up a plastic sword and began jabbing his mother in the back of the head. “Nice family. Motherhood suits you. I am filled to the brim with jealousy. Move along, please.” She tapped the side of the car and made a shooing motion. Jenny drove off in a huff, her kid screaming bloody murder. As the next car moved up, Sadie had a better view of the oddly-shaped van, and the air rushed out of her lungs. It was a news van and, worse, as she watched, someone got out and began removing a camera. “Uh-oh,” Sadie murmured.

“Can I have my cluck?” an old man asked. He shoved a dollar out the window, his arthritic hands shaking.

“Cluck, cluck, cluck,” Sadie said, still staring at the van.

“You didn’t take your dollar,” the man said. He waved the dollar between them.

“This one is on the house,” Sadie said. She shooed him away and began searching for an escape. The news guy had his tripod set up. “Please, please, please, no,” Sadie murmured. Just then another car pulled up, cutting off the old man so there was almost a collision.

The passenger door opened, and Luke stuck his head out. “Hop in,” he said.

“What time is it?” Sadie asked.

“Time for a rescue?” he said.

“No, seriously, what time is it? I can’t leave until four, or my pay is docked.”

“It’s one minute after four,” he said.

That was all Sadie needed to hear. She made a run for it, skidded across the hood, and jumped inside the car. “Go,” she said.

He began to ease away. She grabbed his thigh and squeezed. “Maybe you misunderstood. When I said ‘go,’ I meant go fast.”

“I’m not going to speed or get us killed,” Luke said.

She pointed a feathered finger at the line of cars and trucks now following them. “How do the words ‘Local Man Saves Disgraced Chicken’ sound to you? Because unless you get us away from them, your picture is about to be splashed all over the place with mine.”

Her little pep talk worked, and Luke put the pedal to the metal. The news crews did the same, and soon they were in an honest-to-goodness pursuit. Their county was rural and hilly, and Sadie began to feel like they were filming an episode of
The Dukes of Hazzard
as she called out turns for Luke to take in an effort to throw off their pursuers. Their maneuvers began to pay off as one after another of the reporters lost heart and gave up the chase. After about a half an hour, only one car remained.

“This one must be from around here because he’s keeping up,” Sadie said as she eyed the car in her rearview mirror.

“Any more brilliant ideas? We’ve covered most of the county by now,” Luke said.

They were getting close to their neighborhood. “Let’s just go home and barricade ourselves in Aunt Abby’s house. Your house,” she amended. “I’ll call the police if the guy doesn’t give up.”

“Sounds good,” Luke said, and then the back window exploded. “Is he shooting at us?”

Another shot rang off, and this time there was no mistaking the man’s intent as the passenger-side mirror flew off. “Duck,” Sadie said.

“I can’t see where I’m going if I duck,” Luke said. “He’s going to kill us.”

“Pull over,” Sadie said.

“Are you crazy?”

“No, I know where we are. Just trust me and pull over.”

He veered to the side of the road and shoved the car into park as Sadie fumbled with both their seatbelts. “Come on,” she said as soon as she had them undone. Luke hopped out of the car and they used it as a shield as she pulled off her chicken head and shoved it over his face.

“What are you doing?” he asked. The sound was muffled because she had put the head on backwards, but it didn’t matter.

“Don’t let go of me,” she warned.

“What? I’m not…” he said, and then she leapt on him, wrapping her arms and legs around him as she pressed her face against the smelly feathers of the chicken neck. They toppled to the ground and started to roll down a steep ravine, bouncing hard over large rocks and small trees. Sadie tried to absorb the impact of the blows with the padded chicken suit, but Luke was taller than she was, and his head stuck out. That was why she had given him the chicken head. He grunted and groaned as his head made contact with the hard ground, but she knew from experience that the costume was well-padded and would keep him from injury. She, on the other hand, was having a hard time keeping her head pressed against the suit. Centrifugal force and gravity wanted to tear her away from Luke. He must have realized because he put his hand up and pressed her protectively closer.

At last they reached the bottom of the ravine. They lay for a few seconds, stunned and breathing hard, and then another shot rang out. They jumped up, but Sadie couldn’t run into the woods wearing the thick, cumbersome suit. “Unzip me,” she commanded.