In the Land of Milk and Honey by Jane Jensen Page B

edge.
    â€œThere are bits of a green plant here,” Elaine said. Using the flashlight and a pair of tweezers, she drew my attention to several small green leaves that were stuck to the bottom of the trough. “It doesn’t look like hay.”
    No, it didn’t. It looked like the remains of a green, leafy plant. I was familiar with what Ezra fed his mules, and this didn’t look like anything he gave them. A shot of excitement went through me. Sometimes in my work I had moments that were rather like what I’d imagined an archaeologist would feel uncovering that first bit of a valuable artifact. Of course, sometimes it just turned out to be a buried penny.
    â€œShould I go ahead and bag it?” Elaine asked.
    I shook my head. “Let’s get some photos before anyone touches it.”
    â€œWe can do that.” Elaine called for the CDC agent with the camera around his neck and he came over.
    I fidgeted with the cell phone in my pocket as I watched. I was half tempted to call Grady and suggest a crime-scene team, but a few bits of leaves were hardly a smoking gun, and the CDC and DCNR people were already here. This multi-bureau work was so complicated.
    More than a dozen photos were taken of the trough, and then Elaine looked at me. “Good?”
    I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks. Go ahead and bag it.”
    She did, carefully picking up the bits of green with tweezers and placing them in a plastic bag. “I can courier this to the CDC lab for testing. If there’s any tremetol in this plant, we’ll know by tomorrow morning.”
    â€œThat’s fantastic. Thanks, Elaine.”
    I meant every word. If this was a breakthrough, we’d know soon. Maybe working with the CDC wasn’t a hardship after all.
    Glen got a phone call just as he and I were getting into his car. He took it outside while I checked e-mail on my phone.
    When he got into the driver’s seat, he looked pleased. “The cows on the other two farms where Amber got milk look healthy, and there’s no sign of sickness in the families. We’ll still confiscate all their milk and test it, and the cows too. But so far it looks like we’re in luck there. Do you have a preference which one we hit first for questioning?”
    â€œActually, if it doesn’t look like those farms were affected, I’d like to follow up on the Hershbergers. You said you didn’t have much luck questioning Samuel Hershberger?”
    â€œNot really. It’s probably a good idea to go back there with you.”
    â€œThe green plant your team just found in the trough—you didn’t find anything like that over at the Hershbergers’?”
    Glen gave me a worried frown. “No. But we did our investigation several weeks after the family first got ill. If there was something like that there, it might have been long gone.”
    â€œRight. Well . . . yeah. It’s worth going back there. If you need to be elsewhere, you can drop me at the station and I can take my own car.”
    â€œNope, I’m in,” Glen said firmly. “As you say, it doesn’t look like the other two farms where Amber got her milk were affected. My team can follow up with them.” He gave me a smile that was a degree too warm. I gave a weak one in return and looked out the window.
    I was distracted by thoughts of those few green leaves. There hadn’t been enough left of the plant for the DCNR people to be able to identify it. And Levi hadn’t recognized it as anything he fed the cows. His best guess was it was a weed the cows had picked up in the pasture that had gotten dislodged from a cow’s mouth as it ate at the trough. His explanation made perfect sense, but I couldn’t help feeling it was significant. Until the test results proved otherwise, I was suspicious of those green leaves.
    As if reading my mind, Glen spoke up as he drove. “We should have the lab results