“W-what … w-hat h-h-happened?” I stuttered through my tears.
“I don’t know.” His arms tightened around me. “I don’t know.”
The two police constables were pissing me off.
After Jared called the vet out, she examined the birds and said she’d need to do a postmortem on one to be sure, but they displayed symptoms of cyanide poisoning. We found traces of food in their troughs that we hadn’t put there.
“You think the food was poisoned?”
Jared had nodded grimly. “We’ll bag it up, get it tested.”
That had made me cry all over again because who would want to hurt my chickens? The image of them lying deadtogether in the henhouse haunted me and I kept having to bite back tears. I was a farmer’s wife, for goodness’ sake. Shouldn’t I be better at dealing with this? I wasn’t, though.
My chest ached.
And right now, it also burned with fiery anger at the blasé way the cops were treating the situation.
“I mean, it’s possible someone just left out some food that’s bad for them, right?” The younger of the two police officers shrugged, looking so bored I wanted to slap the expression off his face.
“No, it’s not,” Jared snapped, clearly sick of their attitude too.
“Well …” The older constable sighed heavily. “I don’t really know what we can do here. This doesn’t seem like a crime but an accident.”
“Aye.” The other broke a smile. “And it seems only fair since I can’t count the times I’ve had chicken poisoning.”
He did not just say that.
“Hey!” I took a step toward the young officer. “Show some respect. Those chickens were important to us. To me. And someone killed them. Do you honestly think it’s a coincidence that all our chickens were poisoned within a week or so of one of our ewes having her throat slashed?”
The younger officer blanched as he glanced guiltily at the older police officer. The older PC cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Uh, well, we weren’t aware of that.”
Jared threw up his hands in agitation. “Fucking great. Absolutely useless.”
“There’s no need to be rude.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Says the police officer who laughed at the mass execution of farm animals.”
“I think you’re being a bit melodramatic. Typical American.” He snort-huffed.
“Don’t”—Jared took a menacing step toward him—“talk to my wife like that.”
“And don’t try to intimidate a police officer.” The older man glared angrily at my husband.
“Get off my farm.” Jared gestured to the front of the house. “And heads-up, I’ll be filing a complaint against you both. I’m good friends with Chief Inspector Jim Rowley at Inverness. I’ll be sure to let him know how utterly useless and disrespectful you’ve both been.”
The younger paled even further while the other PC just sneered and stormed off. His partner followed him with another glance of worry over his shoulder.
I moved to Jared, sliding my arm around his waist. He immediately curled me into his chest as we watched the officers get in their patrol car and drive off.
“What now?”
“I wasn’t lying. Jim Rowley used to be a PC at Tain. He and Granddad were good friends their whole lives. Jim worked his way up to chief inspector. I didn’t want to call him about the ewe because I wasn’t sure it was something. But now with this, I think we need his help. And he needs to know he has two arseholes among his ranks. He’s a good man. He won’t stand for it.”
Worry knotted in my gut. “Who could be doing this, Jared?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s my father.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, hating that so much for him.
