Chapter 16. Birds of a Feather #2
She leaned in for a closer look as I went over the plans.
“The entry doors would be along an interior hallway spanning the length of the building. The open area at the front of the barn where the horse tack and carriage are now could be turned into storage closets and a small foyer. Photos of Martha, Virgil, Cornelia, and their families could be hung on the walls, along with their stories. Information about the Underground Railroad could also be included.”
She put a hand to her chest, a sign the idea had warmed her heart. “What a wonderful tribute to both my family and the barn.”
“I’m pretty sure I can get most of the rust off that old plow.” I pointed over to the ancient farm implement. “Maybe the plow could be incorporated into some kind of art installation out front. We could look for a metal sculptor who’d be willing to do it.”
“That’s a great idea! I teach biology at Fisk University. My colleague in the art department is sure to have a student who’d be right for the job. I’d love to give one of them a commission.”
“Perfect.”
Everything seemed to be falling into place, as if it were meant to be.
We nailed down several outstanding details and decided that a fence should be erected around a shady half-acre area behind the barn to serve as a dog park for the tenants.
I hoped the dogs wouldn’t dig up Wobbling Womble’s bones to chew on.
Nobody knew for certain where the manure pile had been situated when he’d been buried under it way back when.
Buck and I would clear walking trails through the woods, and use pea gravel to suppress weed growth, keep the paths dry, and provide a stable walking surface.
With all of the outdoor spaces and amenities, The Haylofts would be a unique, beautiful, and homey place to live.
Gail and I worked out pricing and payment for the labor and materials, then sealed the deal with a handshake. She gestured to indicate the Victory Garden. “Let me buy you lunch to celebrate our partnership.”
“I’d love that.” The baby must be making me hungry. The bagel and fruit I’d had for breakfast seemed so long ago.
We climbed into our cars and began to make our way down the drive to the restaurant.
It was a mild sunny day, and the cow with the pink collar and bell rubbed her shoulder rather than her rump on the tree trunk this time, her bell clang-clang-clanging.
Ruby was back on perimeter patrol. She ran along the fence and barked up a storm as we passed by.
I unrolled my window and called out to her.
“Hi, Ruby!” She replied with a vigorous wag of her tail.
A moment later, Gail and I reached the restaurant, parked, and went inside.
Deborah stood at the hostess stand. A cloud seemed to pass over her face when she saw us approaching.
“Good morning, ladies.” She gave me a nod before shifting her focus to Gail.
“If I’m not mistaken, you own the property behind the restaurant. ”
“That’s right,” Gail said.
Deborah bit her lip, then leaned toward us over the stand and spoke in a whisper.
“I heard what happened at the barn last Monday. How terrible! We had a group in here celebrating a birthday, another year of life, and at that same time another person was killed so close by, their life ended.” She released a shaky breath. “It was an eerie coincidence.”
Another eerie coincidence was that Deborah was not wearing her usual feather-adorned French comb. A visual of that black and white chicken feather tumbling across Tyler’s back played through my mind. “Did you know Tyler Yee?”
“Not really,” Deborah said. “I’d met him the week before, but that’s the only time we ever spoke. He came in for a late lunch and introduced himself, then he asked me a few brief questions for an article he was going to write about plant-based restaurants. But that’s all.”
Deborah seemed to be downplaying her interactions with Tyler.
She hadn’t mentioned that Tyler had asked her about the “big offer” she’d made on the Pittman property, even though he’d noted the topic in his list. I wondered just how much Deborah had offered Gail.
I was dying to ask the two of them but didn’t.
It would be ill-mannered to inquire about money matters that were none of my business.
I locked eyes with Deborah, then moved my gaze up to the plain French hair comb she wore today. “Where’s your pretty comb with the chicken feathers?”
Deborah put her hand to the side of her head, as if checking to remind herself what she was wearing.
“My cats got to it.” She shook her head and chuckled.
“Little rascals. They treated it like a toy and tore it to pieces. I’ll make another one once I find a spare moment.
I’ve got bags and bags of feathers I collected during the hens’ last molting season. ”
I knew squat about chickens, including the fact that they had a molting season. I’d assumed that feathers were like hair and constantly regenerated. “When is their molting season?”
“Early fall,” she said. “It’s quite a sight. Some of the chickens just look a little raggedy for a few weeks, but others molt until they’re nearly naked before their new feathers grow in.”
“Is it unusual for a chicken to lose feathers at a different time of year?”
“It’s unusual if they’re healthy,” she said. “They might lose feathers if they’ve got parasites or if they’re stressed out for some reason, like being too crowded.”
“Are your hens healthy?” I asked.
“Of course. Just look at them.” She gestured to the screen showing the camera feed from the chicken coop.
Some of the hens strutted around, pecking the ground, while others sat in their nesting boxes.
The black and white chicken who’d probably produced the feather I’d seen seemed to sense our eyes were on her.
She stood up in her nesting box and flapped her wings before settling down again.
I dug even deeper. “Does anything else cause a chicken to lose their feathers?”
Deborah shrugged. “A hen might lose feathers if a rooster gets too romantic with her too often. The roosters hang on to the hens with their claws while they mate.”
“Ouch!”
Deborah continued to educate me on the sex lives of chickens.
“The feed stores sell chicken saddles that protect the hens from overly amorous roosters. They’re like aprons the hens wear on their backs.
That’s not a problem, here, though. I don’t breed the chickens.
All of my males are capons, and capons aren’t interested in mating. ”
“What’s a capon?” Gail asked.
I wasn’t familiar with the term, either.
“That’s what castrated roosters are called,” Deborah said. “Like how castrated horses are called geldings. Removing the rooster’s testicles keeps them from fighting, too. Roosters can lose lots of feathers during a cockfight, but my capons get along just fine. No toxic masculinity in my coop.”
If the black and white feather I’d seen at the barn wasn’t recently shed by one of her chickens, it seemed to increase the odds it had come from her French comb.
But if she realized she’d lost the feather at the barn, wouldn’t she have lied to me about chickens and their molting process?
Maybe she didn’t want to risk being untruthful.
After all, it would only take a few seconds on Google to determine she’d misled me.
“This way.” Deborah escorted us to a table, handed us each a menu, and headed off to retrieve glasses of water. But as soon as she was a few tables away, she glanced back at me with an odd look on her face.
Forcing my attention back to the task at hand, I looked over the menu and decided to go with the sesame tofu skewers over rice.
Gail and I made small talk over lunch, and I enjoyed getting to know her better.
She had two adult children, both of whom had followed in her footsteps and become professors, one at Vanderbilt and the other at Tennessee State, Oprah Winfrey’s alma mater and the school that had given Dolly Parton an honorary doctorate.
Gail’s husband was an executive in the healthcare industry, overseeing the administration at a public hospital.
Their children had given them five adorable and busy grandchildren.
She showed me dozens of photos of the kids at dance recitals, T-ball games, and the elementary school science fair.
“My grandson won first prize with a project on coffee grounds. He repurposed the used grounds from his parents’ pot to fertilize the azaleas.
You’ve never seen such beautiful blooms! The grounds kept bugs away too.”
“I’ll have to give that a try,” I said. “My azaleas could use a boost.”
When lunch was over, I thanked Gail and headed to the building supply store for lumber and other materials. I could hardly wait to get started on the Hayloft apartments! Even so, my mind kept going back to that black and white feather that shouldn’t have been at the barn …