Time to be Dr. Boise again.
Patrick
I really didn’t think I would have to say this for the second time in my life, but come on.
I say it slowly, and loudly so the man in front of me doesn’t miss the point. “Sir. A goat is not a missing person.”
The farmer blinks at me, chewing something that might be tobacco or might be a twig. Hard to tell.
“Well, I never said she was a person,” he replies.
Rina, one of the new detectives on my team, steps forward, flipping through her notes. “You said daughter. You said, and I quote, ‘my daughter Tilly is gone.’”
The man reaches down and strokes the head of the very pregnant goat standing beside him. “She is a daughter. Until summer when I sell her.”
I stare at him feeling my blood pressure climb.
I clench my teeth so hard my jaw pops.
Then I turn on my heel and walk away before I lose my badge over a goat.
Rina jogs after me. “Sorry, Sarge!”
I yank open the car door, drop into the seat, and mutter, “Not your fault.” Then slam it shut. She gets into the passenger seat and buckles in just as I put the cruiser in reverse.
Through the windshield, the farmer waves at us like we are leaving a barbecue instead of a crime scene that should never have been a crime scene.
Rina says, “They wouldn’t call us for livestock if we didn’t find the goats and cows so quickly.”
I glare at her. “I should have put Tilly in the trunk and bought barbecue sauce instead.”
She bursts out laughing. “I really thought Tilly was a little kid.”
“It happens to the best of us,” I say.
She shakes her head. “To you?”
I nod. “A chicken named Hendrix. I found him hiding in a tree.”
She snorts. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was. Searched the whole property in blistering heat, finally found shade under a tree and the fucker crapped on me.”
Rina is full-on laughing now, practically folded over in the passenger seat. “Sorry, Sarg. I know today was stressful.”
“Stressful,” I scoff. “The team has more than two hundred open cases right now. We cannot go chasing goats.”
Rina stays quiet after that. Smart.
I roll my eyes and put the car in gear, driving back toward the station. I mutter under my breath the entire time, cursing livestock, farmers, the sun, the universe, and whatever cosmic force decided to let me live this ridiculous life today.
And now that I don’t have the option of going home and drinking the beer I have chilling in the fridge, I’m even more pissed than before. The frustration thrums under my skin.
Such a waste of perfectly good money. Ice-cold beer, sitting there like a taunt, and I can’t touch it.
I guess I could give it to Harvey, but why should I? That fucker has enough joy in his life. Let him buy his own damn beer.
By the time we pull into the station, I’m already mentally exhausted.
