“I’m not so sure, Max,” he said as we returned to the kitchen and then out the door again. “Chickens aren’t the most intelligent creatures, you know.”
I did know that, but that wasn’t going to stop me from trying to strike up a conversation and bringing the subject around to Grace and Fabio.
We set off in pursuit of these famous Farnsworth chickens, and simply had to follow our noses this time, the smell of ammonia and chicken feces becoming stronger and stronger as we set paw for the large sheds where they were presumably being kept.
The grounds where the Farnsworth house was located were vast and covered with different types of vegetation. There were the neatly clipped lawns, bordered by shrubs and flower beds, there were copses of trees dotting the landscape, and there was even what looked like a golf course, where presumably Jock entertained his business clients.
Behind the house I’d also spotted the obligatory swimming pool, but all these things didn’t hold our interest. Instead, we made a beeline for an adjacent patch of land, where a large chicken shed had been constructed, the smell unmistakable now. Next to the long flat building, a second similar building stood, which looked brand-new, and also several large silos had been erected, presumably for the storage of chicken feed, and a few low-slung tanks for chicken manure, as I’d once seen on a duck farm.
Inside the shed, we found easily thirty thousand chickens, all living in darkness, silently squatting on the floor. The smell was foul, and dust and feathers flew through the air, making it hard to breathe.
“So many chickens,” Dooley marveled. “And they all smell so bad!”
“There must be thousands,” I returned.
A man dressed in blue coveralls was dispensing chicken feed, paying us no mind.
We ambled along, and saw that the chickens didn’t have all that much space to walk around. In fact they were packed closely together, looking pretty miserable.
“They don’t look happy, Max,” Dooley said.
“No, they sure don’t,” I agreed.
I’d always had this image of chickens happily strutting around on a nice patch of farmland, picking at kernels of grain or the occasional worm and generally having a good old time, but these poor chickens were clearly not having the time of their lives.
I finally selected a chicken that was staring at us intently, and said, “Hi, there, Mrs. Chicken! My name is Max and I would like to ask you a couple of questions if I may.”
The chicken didn’t respond, and merely kept staring at me unblinkingly.
“Um… the wife of your owner, Mrs. Farnsworth, seems to have disappeared,” I said. “Would you perhaps have overheard a rumor about what might have happened to her?”
I was trying to be as polite as possible, but even then she hardly acknowledged my presence. I gave it another shot. “Grace Farnsworth’s daughter is very worried about her mother. Any thoughts on her possible whereabouts? Theories? Gossip from the coop?”
“What do you care what happens to Grace Farnsworth?” asked the chicken finally.
I was relieved. The animal could speak! “Well, like I said, her daughter is worried. She wants to know what happened to her, as she believes there might be foul play involved.”
“And what if it was? Would that be so bad? Humans aren’t very nice to us, cat, and they’re not very nice to each other either, so it doesn’t surprise me Grace was taken.”
“Humans aren’t very nice to you?” I asked.
“Do you see the way we live? Like sardines in a can? All Jock Farnsworth cares about is to make us grow as big as possible as quickly as possible, and then sell our meat to the highest bidder. Not a very nice life for a chicken, cat.”
“No, I can imagine it’s not,” I agreed, starting to feel genuinely sorry for the poor creature. Still, I was there to do a job, and I intended to do it to the best of my abilities. “So no idea what happened to Grace, huh?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. And I don’t see why you should care either. Though you probably have your reasons.”
“Well, my human is a reporter and also an amateur detective, and she promised Alicia she would help her find her mother.”
The chicken frowned, and for a moment I thought she was going to pick at me. “Look, if your human is a reporter, maybe you could bring her over one of these days? Ask her to write an article about the way they treat us down here? Now that would be a big help.”
I was already nodding before she finished the sentence. “Oh, sure. I’ll tell her to drop by. And maybe take a couple of pictures of these horrible circumstances you live in.”
“That would be great. You know I’ve never seen the sun? Or smelled fresh air? This is no life for a chicken, cat, and before I die I would love to get out of this horrible shed.”
“I promise I’ll bring my human to do a full report, chicken,” I said. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“I have no name, cat,” she said sadly. “Only a number.”
“Oh, Max,” said Dooley. “We have to help her.” Her story had touched his heart, as it had touched mine. “We have to tell Odelia what Jock is doing to these poor chickens.”
I was already starting to walk away, after thanking the unnamed chicken for her time, when she yelled, “Jock is not a nice man, cat. And it wouldn’t surprise me if he did something to his wife.”
I retraced my steps. “What makes you say that?”
“There’s things going on here…” she began. “Things that are very suspicious indeed.”
And even though I pressed her to say more, she wouldn’t, merely shaking her head.
“Mysterious,” said Dooley once we’d left the gigantic chicken coop.
“Yeah, very mysterious,” I agreed. “We better tell Odelia. She needs to investigate this. Maybe there’s more to the disappearance of Grace Farnsworth than meets the eye.”
“Or maybe Grace couldn’t stand what’s happening to those poor chickens and ran away,” Dooley offered.
“Um…” I had a feeling Grace wasn’t the kind of person who would worry too much about the fate of her husband’s chickens. No, something was going on here, but what? The chickens knew more, but why weren’t they telling me? Were they too scared to talk?
I decided we needed to return with Odelia. She might be able to inspire trust in the chickens when she promised to expose their harrowing circumstances. And so I vowed to return that night, under the cloak of darkness, and this time with Odelia in tow.
Chapter 18
Chase was looking around the library. So many books, he thought, and wondered if the owners of this place had read them all. Somehow he thought not. He picked one book from its shelf and opened it. A Short History of Herbivores and Omnivores in the Ottoman Empire. Um… fascinating stuff, for sure. Real page-turner.
Chief Alec was studying another leafy tome and grinned. “Look at this, Chase.”
Chase looked at that. It was a book filled with pictures of scantily clad ladies painted by some dude called Peter Paul Rubens. They were extremely rotund ladies, too.
“I didn’t know Playboy published a seventeenth-century edition,” he quipped.
“And obviously no fitness clubs available,” said Alec with a wink at his colleague.
Chase had been pushing Alec to join a gym, and had even managed to get him to sample the gym in the hotel in LA where they’d stayed for their conference. It hadn’t gone down well. Alec was not the kind of person who took to fitness like a fish to water. On the contrary, he’d hated it, and had hated it even more the next day, when his muscles had been sore and painful.
“Must be fun to have the money to buy all of this stuff,” said Alec as he picked up a small trinket from a side table. It looked like a green seashell, but exquisitely shaped.