The Hen of the Baskervilles by Donna Andrews Page B

advertising the awards his winery had won. He did have them listed on relatively small plaques attached to the front of the booth. They filled five of the plaques, and there wasn’t much room left on the sixth.
    â€œHe makes nice wines,” Mother said. “Very nice indeed.”
    I hoped by now the winemakers had figured out that Mother’s “very nice indeed” was equivalent to most people’s “fabulous.”
    â€œSpecial occasion wines,” she added.
    Which meant they were not only fabulously good, but also fabulously priced.
    â€œBut that’s not why I called you,” Mother said. “He’s back.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œRemember that man I told you about? The suspicious one?”
    Had Mother reported a suspicious person earlier today? I didn’t actually remember, but in the wake of the thefts and vandalism, she’d have been in a very small minority if she hadn’t reported at least one suspicious person.
    â€œRemind me what he was doing that was suspicious.”
    â€œPrecisely what he’s doing now,” Mother said. “Standing over there, staring fixedly at the wine tent.”
    She led me to the entrance and we stepped outside, as if to have a private conversation.
    â€œDon’t stare,” she said. “He’s right over there beside that bank of trash cans.”
    â€œWearing the navy-blue windbreaker. I see him.”
    â€œHe’s been there on and off all day.”
    â€œI’ll check him out.” I wouldn’t have called him suspicious. Morose, maybe. But if he was making the exhibitors nervous, I’d check him out.
    â€œThank you, dear.” Mother strode back into the tent.
    I checked my watch and then set off toward the trash cans in a matter-of-fact manner, looking not at them but at the tent beyond them. But I could see the lurker out of the corner of my eye.
    Then an enormous overalls-clad figure stepped between me and my target.
    â€œAre you the fair director?” he asked. “I need to talk to you.”

 
    Chapter 13
    I tried to keep the lurker in view, but the man in overalls was at least six feet six, almost as wide, and completely blocked my view of him.
    â€œI’m the assistant director,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
    â€œI just heard about the problems,” he said.
    â€œProblems?” As I talked, I shaded my eyes and edged slightly to one side, as if the glare made it uncomfortable to look up at him.
    â€œAll these thefts,” he said. “I need to make sure my Romeldales are safe.”
    I found myself wishing, for at least the tenth time since the fair had started, that farmers would at least try to remember that the rest of us weren’t necessarily that familiar with all the heritage breeds. Would it kill him to say “Romeldale chickens” or “Romeldale goats” or “Romeldale apples”?
    â€œWe’re taking every precaution to make sure that all the exhibits are safe,” I said. “I’ve been inspecting all the buildings this morning, and apart from the three initial incidents, we’ve had no other reports of any kind of theft or vandalism—not so much as a pea in the produce tent.”
    â€œMy wife’s in the craft barn—she spins the fleeces into wool and exhibits the skeins—and she heard about that poor woman whose quilt was vandalized.”
    Aha. If Romeldales had fleeces, odds were they were sheep.
    â€œWe’ve got extra security there as well. And—are your Romeldales in the main sheep barn?”
    He nodded. Sheep, then.
    â€œMy husband and I are there ourselves,” I said. “We’re camping out with our llamas, and helping our next-door neighbor keep an eye on his Lincolns.”
    To anyone else, I would have said Lincoln sheep, but someone who kept one heritage sheep breed had probably heard of the others—and if he hadn’t, he could get a