Page 33 of Justice & Liberty

As we headed out of the restaurant, I glanced around. “You don’t know where I could get a chicken coop, do you?”

She froze, like a character in a sitcom, and slowly panned to look at me. “You’re joking. Jaycie, you barely even wanted to sit on benches that’d had pigeons on them. Tell me you’re not planning to buy chickens. I know you’re living in the middle of nowhere, but come on.”

“It’s...not exactly that,” I hedged, even though it really was. There were going to be chickens in my life, and I was trying to embrace it. It was just that I didn’t seem to have a say in it. “Thing is, someone paid at the shop with a chicken, and then left before I could say I don’t, you know, accept birds as currency. Besides, she was my old school lunch lady. I wasn’t going to tell her she couldn’t have bedtime tea.” I groaned and leaned against my car, burying my face in myhands. “It’s not that I want chickens, it’s just that Mom’s best friend tells me this wasn’t an unusual thing, so I kinda want to be prepared.”

“Prepared for chickens.”

“Prepared for chickens,” I agreed, peeking through my fingers at her, waiting for judgment, but instead she descended into laughter.

“Damn, I missed you so much.” Then she motioned behind us. “There’s a big box hardware store over there. I’d say you’re on your own, but honestly, I gotta see this.”

So we both went over to the hardware store in question. I wasn’t expecting to find anything, even though September had told me I could find one. But I’d definitely been in the same kind of store out in LA, and had never once seen a chicken coop there.

But one question to an employee and we were looking at not just a single chicken coop, but an array of them.

“Exactly how many chickens are you expecting?” Gabby asked, trying hard but mostly failing to keep a straight face as we looked at the choices.

I scowled at her. “How the heck am I supposed to know how many people are going to try to pay me in chickens? Or how often? Or how long chickens live?” I blinked, staring at her. “Oh my god, I’m going to be overrun by chickens.”

We finally chose something based on the ability to fit the box into my SUV, and then Gabby offered to come down to South Liberty with me to help unload it. “I can help put it together too, but that’s going to take forever, so not tonight. Saturday, maybe?”

“The neighbor kid is also gonna come by on Saturday to help, if you want to join us,” I agreed. “We’ll have a party. I’ll order pizza.”

“Well if there’s free pizza in it for me, I’m definitely in,” she agreed, grinning.

She was lovely and patient enough to go to the grocery store with me too, before we drove back down to South Liberty. We set the enormous heavy box inside the garage to await Saturday, and I hugged her again before seeing her off, her muttering about calling her mother to tell her that I was going to have chickens. Maria Rivera had taught me how to make the fabulous recipes she served on every holiday, all the while lamenting that Gabby didn’t want to learn how to make her tamales. I suspected I was going to get a call from her suggesting what I could do with fresh eggs, and I started planning what recipes I could ask for.

Flan, for sure.

Maybe...maybe I could make tamales and flan for the holidays. I could invite Gabby over. And Sabrina and Walter if I had to, and...well, Hunter Grant had family in town, but maybe I could invite her anyway. Maybe even Father—or maybe not-Father—Timothy.

Tanya and I had never done much for the holidays, and I had missed having a big get-together with great food.

So maybe, if Tanya had been so right about everything, it was time to forget about that whole life. Time to move forward without letting anyone else decide things for me.

Time to do what I wanted.

18

I draggedthe groceries inside and set them on the counter, and as I turned away from the fridge after putting the butter away, my gaze caught on the driveway.

The driveway, where earlier that day, the sheriff had parked and asked for my help.

He’d been talking about Mom, of course, because somehow she’d helped him with...well, I wasn’t sure what. His job, though, clearly.

Bee and Hex joined me as I worked, Bee leaping up onto one of the kitchen table chairs and staring speculatively at the stuff on the counter. “Tuna?”

“Of course,” I agreed, and since I was thinking about it, I grabbed a bowl and put a few spoonfuls of kheer into it for her. “Here, your pudding. That’s all you’re getting, though, because Hex is right, and milk isn’t good for you.”

I looked to Hex, raising a brow. “You want some too?”

She considered for a moment, then heaved a great kitty sigh. “Yes.”

So I gave her a bowl with a little pudding in it too.

And then, not gonna lie, I ate the rest myself. It wasn’t that much better for me than it was for them, but it was delicious.

“So,” I told them after I finished putting all the food away. “The sheriff wants my help with this investigation.” Hex hadn’t seemed surprised at all by his presence, which agreed with my presumption that it had been common for Mom. I ignored that and went on. “Any idea how I could help the sheriff find a murderer? I don’t even, like, know anything about what happened, so I’m not sure how to help.”

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