A Hopeless Discovery Read online

  “You need the bucks.”

  “Your granny taught you well. But I can’t keep the bucks with the herd.”

  “Because they’d go girl crazy?”

  “To put it kindly. But it’s not just that. When the bucks are in rut, they stink something awful.”

  “Why’s that? Pheromones?”

  “No, not pheromones. They pee on themselves! Roll around in it. Cover themselves from head to toe. The girls love it. I call it goat cologne.”

  “Oh, well sure,” I said. “Because who wouldn’t love a bearded goat who smells like pee?”

  Mr. Clowder slapped me on the back. “Now you’re thinking like a goat. I like it.”

  I gestured toward the pen. “So I still don’t understand why you have the uh… the wether. What’s he there for?”

  “Basically, to get picked on. If I left the bucks alone, they’d kill each other. Danny’s here to give them someone else to pick on.”

  “Like a scape goat?” I said.

  Mr. Clowder laughed. “Ha! That’s great! Percy would’ve loved that.”

  Mr. Clowder then led me to the rest of the herd, which was wandering in and out of the trees on the edge of the pasture outside Clowder’s cabin. There had to be at least fifty of them.

  “I don’t see any fence,” I said.

  “And you won’t. I tried it when I was young, but it just didn’t work for me. The more I let the goats wander about and choose their own food, the better the milk tasted. I figure a goat knows what it’s supposed to eat better than I do.”

  “Do they always return home?”

  He shook his head. “Not always. Like every parent, I get some runaways. Percy ran away when he was a youngster. I found him two days later in a rainstorm. Goats hate the rain. When I found him, he was shivering and scared. I covered him with my coat, picked him up, and carried him back home. I think that day is what made us so close. And, you know—his sense of humor, of course.”

  “Of course,” I agreed. “But you said you castrated him? That doesn’t sound like something you do when you’re… close.”

  Mr. Clowder shrugged. “He’s a male, so he wasn’t going to produce milk, and I sure wasn’t gonna eat old Percy. But I figured he was so good-natured, he’d be a great wether. And he was. Everybody liked him.” Mr. Clowder pointed toward a light-brown goat standing on a big rock. “That’s Leon—he’s my other wether. He’s a good goat, too. But…” Mr. Clowder let out a sigh.

  “But he’s not Percy.”

  “Exactly.”

  Finally, we walked over to the tarp. It seemed like the rest of the herd was staying away on purpose. I sensed Mr. Clowder stiffen up as we got closer. He stopped a few feet short and rubbed his chin.

  “I was inside drinking my mid-morning coffee when I heard the shot. At first I thought it was Van Brocklin shooting trap. He likes to do that occasionally. But then, I don’t know why, I got a bad feeling. I came outside and saw the herd running away from the pasture. And right here, right on this spot, was Percy. By the time I reached him… he was already… gone.” He choked up a bit, and I gave him a moment to collect himself.

  Finally he took a deep breath and continued. “The good news is, there’s no blood trail, so I’m assuming he died pretty well instantly.” Then he dropped to his knees and pointed to the forest. “And if you look at how he fell, I’m guessing the shot came from the woods. That would square with the sound. Van Brocklin’s place is three or four hundred yards straight through the trees.”

  “But it also makes sense that a hunter would be shooting from the woods,” I countered.

  “Yeah, sure, but…” He shook his head.

  “But what?”

  “Well, I know you want to tell me it was a hunter, so let’s say you’re right. That means a hunter lines up a deer, misses, and just happens to hit an adult male goat so perfectly that he drops him dead on the spot?”

  “Do you have a better explanation?” I asked.

  Mr. Clowder’s pocket buzzed. He pulled out a slick-looking iPhone and answered. “Clowder’s Milk and Cheese, may I help you?” His head bobbed up and down for a moment. “Of course, just let me bring up your order.” He covered the phone. “Excuse me, Hope, I need to take this call inside.”

  “Do you mind if I look around a bit more?”

  “No, in fact I appreciate it. Listen, Hope, I know this probably isn’t the kind of thing you normally do. Heck, it might seem silly, me fussing over an old goat like this. But Percy wasn’t just a goat to me, and I’d really like to find out who did this.”

  “I understand, Mr. Clowder. I’ll do what I can.”

  As Mr. Clowder returned to his cabin, I looked down at the tarp that covered his beloved old friend, and I shook my head. Two months ago I was living in the vibrant city of Portland, working as an investigative reporter for the Portland News Gazette, putting the finishing touches on a year-long investigation of mob boss Tommy Medola. An investigation I thought would launch my career into the stratosphere. But that version of my life skidded off the rails, and now instead of a big-time investigation, I was standing in the middle of a pasture, trying to figure out how to make an old man feel better about a dead goat.

  I pulled out my phone and called my best friend, Katie.

  She answered on the first ring. “Yo.”

  “Did you know that Sheriff Kramer was going to trick me into a goat murder investigation?”

  “No, but that sounds amazing, and I’m dying to hear all the scandalous details. But at the moment I’m trying to get everything ready to leave.”

  “To leave? Oh, crap, I forgot—you and Chris’s trip.”

  “You said ‘trip’ in a really creepy way.”

  “Well, if you think about it, isn’t the whole point of a weekend away from your kids kind of creepy?”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Hope Walker. Not everything revolves around that.”

  “Does Chris know that?”

  “Okay, that’s a good point. Listen, the babysitter’s supposed to be here any second, and I still have to finish setting up the electric fence for Dominic.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “No, though it would be easier for the babysitter if I was. Listen, Hope, if Dominic ties the babysitter up or superglues her to the kitchen chair, or anything else he might have learned from watching Home Alone, would you be willing to maybe come by and remind him that his mother’s coming home in two days and that I know all the pressure points in the human body?”

  “Katie, has it ever occurred to you that maybe Dominic is the way he is because of his dear mother?”

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that, my now-ex-best-friend. I believe you have a goat murder to solve, and I’ve got to remember to pack my old lady underwear just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “In case I need a break from our weekend away.”

  After I got off the phone with Katie, I took one more look at poor Percy. The bullet had gone into the side of his neck just above his front shoulder. He would have died almost instantly. If this was a hunting accident, Clowder was right: it was quite a miracle that the shot was so dead-on.

  Assuming Percy didn’t spin around before dropping dead, the shot would have come from the direction of the trees at the top of the hill. I started up that way to see if I could find any sign that a hunter might have been in the area.

  But almost as soon as I crossed the tree line, the terrain changed, and I realized I was walking gently downhill. The slope descended another forty yards before leveling off, and then it remained flat for as far as I could see.

  I turned and looked back the way I had come. Sure enough, it was a gradual but steady incline right to the edge of the trees. That marked the top of the ridgeline, and the pasture then descended on the other side.

  I came to a sinking conclusion.

  There was no way for a hunter to take a shot from within these woods and have it hit Percy. To do so it would have to travel
uphill, over the ridgeline, and then magically turn in midair in order to travel downhill to the middle of Clowder’s pasture. That meant if the shot really came from this direction, it had to have come from the top of the hill, right at the edge of the trees.

  I jogged back up to the tree line and looked down toward Percy’s body. I held out my hand as if I was shooting, and I tried to line myself up in the general area from which the shot would have been fired. It was hard to be precise, though, so I gave up and just started walking along the tree line, looking for clues. Perhaps a footprint, or a shell casing left behind by a careless fool.

  Mostly what I found were hoofprints. But then I got lucky. When I spotted the clue, my heart leapt. It wasn’t a shell casing. It was a folded half-sheet of paper.

  I unfolded it to reveal two words, spelled out in cut-out magazine letters the way psychos did in the movies.

  Bang Bang.

  I spun around, my heart now pounding. I felt like someone was out there watching me.

  I looked at the message again. Then back down the hill toward Percy. He may have been just an old goat, but Mr. Clowder was right. This was no accident.

  I had no idea who did this, or why, but I knew one thing for certain.

  This was cold-blooded murder.

  Chapter Four

  The creepy note wasn’t my only clue. I also found a few footprints—human, not goat—nearby. They might have been Mr. Clowder’s, but then again, they might not. I was just taking photos of them with my phone when it buzzed with a call from Katie.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be knee-deep in granny underwear by now?”

  “At this rate, I’ll be lucky if I take a shower this weekend. Hope, we’ve got a serious emergency.”

  “Dominic’s already dropped a paint can on the babysitter’s head?”

  “For the record, I had Chris put all the paint cans under lock and key for exactly that reason. No, this is worse.”

  “He killed her?”

  “Worse. She called and said she’s sicker than she’s ever been in her life. I told her to suck it up and take ibuprofen like the rest of us. She hung up on me. I’ve got no one to watch the kids, Hope!”

  “Can you ask your mom?”

  “She’s busy, for real.”

  “And Chris’s parents?”

  “They’re busy too, but not for real. My mother-in-law is scared of Dominic.”

  “Tell her to suck it up like the rest of us.”

  “Only in my dreams, Hope, only in my dreams.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  And then, something very frightening happened. My best friend was speechless.

  Speechless Katie was never a good sign. Like when we were twelve years old and she was putting suntan lotion on my back at the pool, and I asked her if it was possible that green plant she’d picked up on the way was actually poison ivy. Or that time when we were in high school and I asked her if she’d remembered to put my car’s parking brake on because it sometimes slipped out of park when it was on a hill. I’d never seen Katie run so fast in my life.

  Speechless Katie always meant something bad. And this time, I had a feeling I knew what that something bad was.

  “Uh-uh, Katie. No way.”

  “You owe me, Hope Walker.”

  “I can’t watch your kids this weekend.”

  “Give me one good reason why not.”

  “I’m… really scared of Dominic too?”

  “I know that’s not true. In fact I do believe he’s got a healthy fear of you.”

  “But I don’t watch kids. You remember when I tried to take care of Simon Funkel’s turtle that one time?”

  “He was dead within twenty-four hours, I remember. I wouldn’t have thought it possible. But don’t worry, Hope, my children are much more resilient than turtles. More like cockroaches, really. And like I said, you owe me.”

  “Please don’t give me the you’ve-been-gone-twelve-years bit again.”

  “No, this is a specific subset of the gone-for-twelve-years bit. This is the specific part where you missed the birth of all three of my children. Since you weren’t here for me then, you owe it to be here for me now.”

  “Birthing three children sounds better than watching your kids for an entire weekend.”

  “Spoken like a skinny single woman who’s never given birth. You know what, Hope, I’m kind of glad the babysitter canceled. This is going to be good for you.”

  “Good for me? How?”

  “In the same way that a life-threatening disease boosts your immune system for the rest of your life.”

  “That could be the advertising campaign to get people in Europe to have more children.”

  “Help me, Obi Wan Ke-Walker, you’re my only Hope. You’re Chris’s only hope. Most important of all, you’re granny underwear’s only hope.”

  “I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.”

  “Welcome to parenthood. See you in five minutes.”

  I put the psycho note in my pocket, took a few more photos of the footprints, and made a mental note to follow back up with Mr. Clowder as soon as I could. I stopped in front of Percy’s body on the way back to my car. What a sad way to go. Though… I wasn’t actually sure how goats were supposed to die. Maybe jumping off some super-high cliff? Or having a heart attack from rolling around in too much pee? But I knew it wasn’t being dropped from fifty yards by some psycho punk who leaves creepy “bang bang” notes.

  Incredibly, I wanted justice for this old castrated goat.

  But for now, justice would have to wait.

  At least for the next few days, it was time to tackle the toughest job of all.

  It was time to be a mom.

  When I pulled up to Katie’s house, Chris was putting luggage into the trunk of his car, and Katie was holding baby Celia in one hand and her keys in the other. As she handed me the keys, she smiled the large obnoxious smile of a woman who knew what the next few days of my life were going to look like.

  “You’ll be driving the minivan, Hope.”

  “I’ve never driven a minivan. Was sort of hoping to avoid that in my life.”

  “Nonsense. It’s like a station wagon but not nearly as cool. Now remember, this ain’t the 1980s. You have to use seat belts and car seats. Can’t just duct tape the baby onto that little cushion between the two front seats.”

  “Any other weird rules?”

  “Celia is a baby. Which means she doesn’t poop on the toilet. She wears these things called diapers.”

  “I just threw up in my mouth again.”

  “Also, you have to feed the kids on a regular basis, and they can’t just drink beer and eat peanuts off the floor of Granny’s bar.”

  “No wonder you’re always so grouchy.”

  “Lastly, here’s the number for Dominic’s parole officer.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s the number for the pediatrician. If any of the kids swallow money or get a flower stuck up their nose, he’s super good at getting them out.”

  “You’re regular customers?”

  “More like a subscription service. Like Medical Netflix for really crappy parents like us. There’s a detailed schedule on the kitchen counter. If you can read, you’ll be fine. If you can use a microwave, even better.”

  “A microwave?”

  “I assume you don’t cook.”

  “I was thinking takeout.”

  Katie smiled. “That would assume you had money or I was giving you some.”

  “Microwave it is.”

  Katie gave Celia a big kiss, then held her out to me. When I hesitated, Katie shook her head. “It’s a baby, Hope. You hold her and feed her and just love her as best as you can.”

  “But what if she doesn’t like me?”

  “Then just leave her in a basket outside a convent. Until then, I’m afraid you’re stuck with each other. Thanks for doing this.”

  “I’m pretty sure I haven’t said yes.”

&nbs
p; “Not with your words, but with your terrible body language. Seriously, I’ll owe you one.”

  “You better not come back with another one of these.”

  “Kids? Hope, I’m not sure you follow the news, but our country isn’t having enough kids to replace our population. Social Security is in jeopardy! Chris and I see it as our civic duty to help the country out.”

  She turned to her kids. “Now Dominic, do not burn down the house.”

  He stood straight and saluted. “Yes, Mama!”

  “And Lucy, Aunt Hope’s going to need a lot of help.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Almost the second Katie joined Chris in the car, he threw it in reverse and peeled out of there. Katie screamed with excitement and waved.

  I adjusted Celia on my hip while I stared at Lucy and then Dominic. “So, what do you think we should do?” I asked.

  “We could play Monopoly,” Lucy suggested.

  “But that takes hours.”

  Lucy smiled. “I know, isn’t it great?”

  “Dominic, what would you like to do?”

  “We could put all the cushions in the front yard and then jump off the roof and see if it hurts.”

  “Monopoly it is!”

  For the next two hours, I tried to keep most of my curse words under my breath. Holding a baby while one child tries to play Monopoly and the other child tries to blow up the Monopoly game is not my idea of a good time. I was actually relieved when Celia pooped, because it gave me a temporary timeout from Monopoly Hell.

  But the game was never-ending. And when Dominic threw a clump of wet toilet paper in my hair just as I landed on Lucy’s Park Place hotel, I decided I’d had more than enough.

  I called Granny’s bar.

  “Library, Granny speaking. We’ve got a special on beer. We’re selling it. And a special on turd balls. We don’t tolerate ’em. Now what can I do for you?”

  “Granny, it’s me. I’ve got an emergency.”

  “Is this a real emergency or the kind of thing where I need to bail you out for something stupid you’ve done?”