"Oh my gosh, I know who that is!" Preston yelled and jumped up.
Jim just stared at where his wife was sitting. It was no wonder she hadn't wanted to tell him earlier. A person in a chicken suit? How were they supposed to track that down? An investigation like this could drag on for years. Christie wouldn't be able to supply height, weight, physique, race, sex, or any distinguishing characteristics.
"I know who that is!" Preston was dancing around, then there was a scuffle, and a chair scooting back.
"Hey!" Christie yelled.
"Is he hugging her?" Jim asked Tom before taking action.
"Yup."
Jim moved forward and put his hands out to separate them. "Don't hug my wife."
"But I can solve this thing, man! Easy! The guy who wears the chicken suit is on my bowling team. His name's Ernest." Preston threw his arms around Jim. "My second murder case, and I've already solved it!"
"Wade," Paul said calmly. "Would Ernest kill someone in cold blood like this?"
The room fell silent for a minute. "Maybe..." Preston's voice had a defeated quality to it. "You guys, he told me in confidence… Ernest doesn't like working at Mr. Burger." It sounded like he was hanging his head and talking to the floor as he relayed that terrible revelation. "If only I'd told someone sooner!"
"Wade," Paul said, "let's head over to Mr. Burger and talk to Ernest. Okay?"
"I don't know if I should go," Wade whispered. "Ernest trusted me with his secret. I betrayed him!"
"Oh come on," Paul said, sounding exasperated. "You've never kept a secret in your life."
"Sure I have."
"This is a murder investigation," Paul said. "That was information we needed to know."
Jim waved a hand to get attention. "The murder took place in the middle of a field right outside town."
"The chicken ran off when I stopped the car," Christie informed them. She'd been a bit tongue-tied at the time of the murder, so Jim was learning along with everyone else. "The chicken was kicking a man, and I thought it looked a little odd, so I pulled over. It had a gun in its hand—"
"Wing," Preston said. "Chickens have—"
"I know chickens have wings!" Christie said, exasperated. "But this was a man—or a woman—in a chicken suit. Whoever it was pulled out a gun—"
"From where?" Preston asked, sounding naively disgusted.
Christie didn't answer, so Jim continued. "Just because this Ernest guy didn't like his job, what would he be doing two miles from the restaurant killing someone? Most job-related crimes take place on-scene in the heat of the moment."
"That's true," Paul said.
"Did we get an ID on the body?" Jim asked.
"Wade?" Paul asked.
"I haven't had time to get down to the morgue yet," Preston said.
"Well, you know everyone in town, right? Let's go ID the body."
Christie stood up and Jim took her arm.
"Ma'am, no offense, but you're a civilian. And a lady," Wade said. "You should stay here."
"Jim?" Christie asked.
"It's okay. Stay here. I'll be back." Jim looked over to where Tom had been standing. "Tom?"
"Right here."
Jim took Tom's arm and let the other detective lead him out of the room.
"See, Denny?" some cop said, "that's how close partners are supposed to be."
"Ramirez, he's just leading the blind guy," Boyer said.
"We can learn a lot from them, Denny."
"Let go of my arm, Ramirez!"
Two sets of footsteps hurried off.
Hank jumped up and Jim took his harness. They followed Preston and Gigante.
"What's going on?" Captain Stiles asked. He stopped outside his office and watched Wade and Paul walking toward the door with the two detectives from New York following closely.
"We're just working on the murder investigation," Paul said, pausing just long enough to nod to the captain, then turning back toward the front door.
"You should let the New York guys handle it, Paul. They're used to things like that."
"Captain, I'm from DC. I've handled my fair share of murder investigations."
"Then letting them take it from here won't bother you. Old hat, it's boring." Stiles smiled benignly at them.
"But, boss!" Wade complained. "I want to help!"
"I'm sure you do, Wade, but don't get in their way." Stiles grabbed Wade's sleeve and pulled him aside. "We don't have murderers in Bakersfield. They'll never find the perp, so let them take the rap when the case falls apart, okay?"
"But we have a dead body. Obviously someone killed him. And we have a witness. This isn't like when I just had the arm. This is better!"
"Wade, I hate to break it to you, but with our low crime rate, the chances of finding a murderer here are very slim. Go on home." He patted the detective on the arm and turned toward his office. "Oh, Phil, there you are! Did you get lunch?"
"Not yet, Captain," Sergeant Hampton said, stopping outside the captain's office.
"If you guys want to stay behind, we'll handle it," Tom Selway said.
"That's very sweet," Wade said, "but this is our jurisdiction. We're letting you help." He patted Tom on the shoulder much the same way Stiles had patted Wade.
"Phil," Stiles said, "tell these crazy kids there's absolutely nothing for them to worry about. Just because we might possibly, hypothetically, have one dead body in Bakersfield, that does not mean someone's out to kill us all." He pushed past the sergeant and slammed the door to his office, cowering in the corner of the room he'd darkened earlier by pulling the blinds shut. That had been a very decisive decision he'd made on his own, to keep out the light, and the criminals.
Wade opened the front door to the station and stepped out into the burning sun. He glanced to his right and saw Detective Tom Selway of the NYPD. To his left was Detective Paul Gigante, formerly of the DCPD. Wade felt a little shiver go through him and he grinned. He slipped an arm through each of the other detective's arms.
Selway pulled back first and stopped walking. Paul pulled away, too.
"Wade," he said, "what have I told you about personal space?"
"Sorry, Paul," Wade said. "It's just so exciting. Isn't it exciting?"
"Sorry," Paul said, turning to Tom, who was standing next to Jim Dunbar and the dog.
Wade opened his mouth to protest. He didn't want Paul apologizing for him.
"He just gets really excited around black people," Paul continued.
"Why?" Selway asked, his forehead wrinkling as he looked over at Wade.
Wade leaned closer and smiled. "I just feel like I'm part black, that's all. We have a bond, we're brothers."
Tom Selway laughed and turned around, taking in the place. "You guys are screwy. Where's the morgue?" He lifted his arms and spun in place. A vulture chose that moment to start circling overhead. Some dust lifted as a tumbleweed rolled by.
"You think we have a morgue in the station? What is this, the LAPD?" Wade asked. "We have to go down to the hospital."
Dunbar's head lowered, and Tom looked up at the sky. "Unbelievable," Selway said.
"You guys have never been to a hospital?"
"Where is the hospital?" Selway asked. "Fresno? LA? San Francisco?"
"We have a lot of crime, you know, so the officers tend to get banged up pretty often. Where would we go every time we got shot if we didn't have our own hospital?"
"Tom, I'll ride with you, okay?" Jim said.
Tom glanced at Jim as the other detective's hand landed on the sleeve of his jacket and momentarily gripped the hell out of it. Jim actually looked worried that Tom would turn down the request. "Yeah," Tom hurried to tell him.
"You guys don't want to ride with us?" Detective Preston asked, sounding hurt.
Tom wavered, but when he looked back and saw Wade and Paul standing next to a pea green Gremlin, he shook his head. "No room with the dog, sorry," he said.
"But we can pretend we're undercover. And listen to theme songs," Wade pleaded. "I have an 8-track player. We can listen to anything you want."
"Honest, we would…" Tom shrugged off the rest of the answer.
"We'll see you there!" Jim called, then slid into the front seat of Tom's car and slammed the door. "Are these guys for real?" he asked when Tom turned on the car and blasted the air conditioning.
"You've been here longer than I have. You tell me," Tom said. He pulled out of the lot and followed at a discreet distance.
"Let's just solve the case and get out of here." Jim slid down in the seat a little, his head facing the side window.
Tom pulled out onto the highway. "How? You wanna have a six-foot-tall chicken line-up?"
"It was more like seven feet, with the head," Jim mumbled.
"Jim!" But he finally snickered, thinking Jim was joking. Tom didn't always catch on right away when Jim was joking. "Oh well," Tom said. "This is better than the convention, right?"
"Tom," Jim said, "my wife just witnessed a murder. How is that better?"
"This is the morgue?" Selway asked.
Wade watched the New York detective look around the one tiny room in the basement of the hospital. He walked over to the wall and held up a hand to point out the stencil job on the painted concrete blocks. "Morgue" was painted up there in all capitals. "Yeah, this is the morgue," Wade said. They'd had a bit of a mix-up the year before when an intern thought the room was for post-surgery, and they'd nearly done an autopsy on some guy who hadn't yet come out of anesthesia after heart surgery. That had been a rude awakening for the patient, not to mention that the doctor who was planning to perform the autopsy had never had a dead patient wake up on him before. It was just better all around to have things properly labeled. Someone had even gone so far as to stencil "hallway" all the way down the hall.
"There's only one table."
"Do we really need more than one?" Wade asked. "How many dead people do you want here?"
Paul pulled the sheet back from the face. "Wade? Do you know who this is?"
Wade's mouth dropped open. "It's Ernest!"
The body was covered with feathers, as if the man really had been attacked by a giant chicken. One of the feathers was dislodged and floated in the air. Tom watched it in disbelief.
"The guy who wears the chicken suit?" Dunbar asked.
The feather landed on Hank's nose and the dog sneezed.
"Yeah!" Wade said. "But if he wasn't wearing the suit, who was?"
"Someone else?" Selway suggested.
"But Ernest never let anyone else wear his chicken suit. Believe me; I asked."
Wade winked at the drive-through girl at Mr. Burger.
"Hi, Wade," she flirted. "I'll get the manager. You want a soda while you wait?" She leaned down to show off her cleavage in the maroon and blue Mr. Burger uniform, which had the top three buttons undone in the heat.
"Sure, Sherry, I'd love one."
Dunbar shifted in the seat next to Wade. "Why are we doing an interview in the drive-through? We should go in and talk to the guy in his office."
"Yeah," Selway piped up from the back seat. The dog panted between Tom and Paul, all sandwiched in the back of the Gremlin. "We should go in; it's more professional."
"You guys don't know Hamish like I do," Wade said. "He would be greatly offended if we went inside."
"We should really give notification inside."
"He tends to overreact to bad news."
"Wade," Sherry the drive-through waitress said, "here's your soda. Hamish will be here soon. He's on the phone." She handed down the soda, then slid the window to the drive-through closed and stood up there, smiling down through the window.
"Why does Mr. Burger have a chicken for a mascot?" Dunbar asked, staring out the side window.
"It was the only costume left at the shop," Wade said, wiggling his fingers in Sherry's direction. She waved back.
Wade set his soda down and jabbed Dunbar quickly in the shoulder a couple times. Dunbar turned. "What's your favorite TV cop show?"
"Wade, you can't ask a blind guy what his favorite TV show is," Paul whispered urgently.
"Why not? Just because you never answered the question doesn't mean he won't."
"But he can't see."
Wade shrugged.
"Car 54, Where Are You?" Jim said, leaning back against the door to face Wade straight on.
Wade stared at the man, his mouth open. Jim seemed serious enough, not blinking, not smiling. "You're kidding, right?"
Dunbar shook his head. "How can you go wrong with Fred Gwynne?"
"But… but—that doesn't count. That was a sitcom; it's not like real life."
"Wade," Paul said, "what would you know about real life?"
"But—" Wade kept protesting.
Tom swallowed a lump in his own throat. Hamish had his head down on the drive-through counter, sobbing hysterically over the death of his favorite employee.
"Why Ernest?" Hamish lamented. "Why? Why not me? Or Sherry? I was going to fire her, anyway. But Ernest was the Chicken."
"I know," Wade said, trying to comfort the man through the three-inch gap in the window. He'd closed it, he told the other detectives when they asked, just in case. Now the four of them and the dog were sweltering in the car, and Wade wouldn't tell them in case of what. "He was a great chicken," Wade continued sympathetically.
"The best," Hamish said.
Tom had to turn away from the red face in the little window. Now that was a great boss. If their lieutenant cared that much about each of them, Tom was sure he'd like his job even that much more. He would never call in sick if Fisk took everything this personally.
"And how the man could chicken dance. He started it at my daughter's wedding last year, you know. That was the best darn chicken dance this county has seen in years!" Hamish started sobbing even harder and blew his nose into a stack of napkins.
"Do you know who would want to kill Ernest?" Jim called.
Hamish wailed.
Preston put a hand on Jim's arm briefly. "Let me handle this," he told Dunbar. "This is a very delicate situation."
Hamish swept everything off the counter onto the floor.
"Hamish!" Wade yelled. "It'll be okay. We'll find the guy who did this."
"Ask him about the chicken suit," Tom said.
"Hamish! Was Ernest the only one in town with a chicken suit?"
"Of course he was the only one! How many guys do you know around here who could pull off dressing as a giant chicken?" Hamish's face got redder as he hefted the cash register into the air and threw it backwards at the grill. He growled, hands in the air. "Ernest, my son! With you gone, there is no Mr. Burger!"
"Is he going to destroy the place?" Tom asked.
"He might set fire to it like he did last year."
"He set fire to his own restaurant?" Jim asked.
"Well, Mr. Burger had just died. He was the last mascot before they got the Chicken."
"The last mascot died, too? How?"
"He was 95."
Jim turned away, one hand over his mouth as he stared toward the window. "Is Hamish going to be able to give us any pertinent information?"
Tom turned back to watch Hamish as he pulled all the hoses off the back of the soda machine and sprayed the restaurant. He opened the drive-through window and sprayed the car, but not before Wade managed to roll up the window.
"This is how he grieves," Wade said, quietly turning to explain. "It's okay. He'll be fine in a few minutes."
Tom jumped when there was a knock on Jim's window.
Wade waved. "It's Sherry, you can roll down the window," he told Jim.
Jim fumbled for the handle and rolled the window down halfway.
"Hi, Wade," Sherry said seductively. "I thought I should get out of there while I could."
"That's a good idea, Sherry. You'll probably get off work early tonight," Wade said.
"That's good," she said. "I wanted to go visit my mom. It's her birthday, you know."
Tom looked away. Hamish was bashing the wall with a french fry basket.
"Tell her happy birthday," Wade said.
"I will. I felt bad last year. I didn't get to go visit her grave."
"I know. But with any luck you'll get out there this year."
"Yeah." She smiled and leaned closer to the car. "I just thought I should tell you, with Hamish in the state he is, that he was on the phone earlier with the guy who took the chicken suit. He was trying to get a ransom for it."
Hank sneezed in Tom's face and Tom pushed the dog away.
"A ransom?" Paul asked.
"Oh, hi, Paul, didn't see you there." Sherry blew him a kiss and Paul gave a tight smile. "Who are your friends, Wade? You look awfully familiar," she said to Jim.
"They're from New York," Wade said. "They're helping out on the case."
"Oh, that's nice. You'll like Bakersfield, I'm sure. But I should get back to work."
"Sherry," Jim said, holding up a hand. "You don't know who was on the phone, do you? The guy who took the chicken suit?"
She laughed, a high tinkling sound. "Of course I know! I am the one who answered the phone, silly."
"Well?" Jim prompted.
"Winston Glade, you know, from the photo studio at the mall? He's great with little kids. He can always get them to smile."
"I bet the chicken suit would be good for business," Wade said.
"I'm sure it would." Sherry straightened up. "Well, ta-ta, boys. Good luck." She waved and headed back toward the building. "Hamish!" she yelled. "Don't make me call the fire department again!"
"Well, there we have it," Jim said. He opened his door. "We'll meet you guys back at the station, okay?"
Tom slid out the back of the car and held the seat up for the dog, then followed Jim the six feet back to where he'd parked his own car.
"A Thousand Words, how can I help you?" the voice on the phone said. "A photo of your child or a photo of your family?"
Wade cleared his throat. "Can I talk to Winston Glade?"
"I'm sorry, we don't allow personal phone calls. A photo of your child or a photo of your family?"
Wade looked up at Paul. He covered the receiver with his hand. "They won't let me talk to him. We'll have to get a picture taken."
"What? Wade, we're police officers, we don't need permission," Paul said.
"Which one's cheaper?" Wade asked the young man on the phone.
"The single child would be the cheapest option," the man said.
Wade covered the phone again. "Paul, can we borrow your son?"
"Wade!"
"I don't have any kids of my own, Paul. You know that."
Paul snatched the phone out of his hand. "Hello? Yes, is Mr. Glade working today?… Yes, of course… Fine, yes, I'm requesting him as a photographer… Is he working?… Lunch? Do you know where?… Can we come after lunch?…" Paul sighed. "Oh fine, a family photograph, just put us down for that, okay?" Paul slammed the phone down. "He's at lunch, but he should be back in an hour."
Wade grinned up at Paul. "I'm part of your family?" he asked, so happy he was about to cry.
"Don't even think of hugging me," Paul said, stepping back with a hand in the air. He moved so his desk was between the two of them.
Wade looked around. He needed to hug someone. Dunbar was closest.
Jim followed Tom closely. "It's a little diner," Tom whispered. "Looks like we'll be at a table for four. They have one menu on the table… packets of sugar and stuff… and a basket of crackers. The menu is in the middle, the crackers will be on your left, sugar will be on my right, ketchup in the middle… Restrooms straight back and to the right, windows to the left, counter to the right. Here's the table."
Jim winked at Tom while he had his back to the other two detectives. They'd come up with a little conspiracy in the car, figuring if Paul and Wade were going to toy with them and pretend this was normal, they were going to toy back.
"Jim," Tom said stiffly, "could you pass me a baguette, please?" He enunciated every word to the point of almost sounding British.
"Sure, Thomas." Jim ran his hand across the table to a little basket filled with double-packs of saltine crackers. He held it out to Tom and waited for him to take a pack.
"Thank you very much," Tom said in his affected voice. "James, we really should take these boys out for a rousing game of tennis. After tea, of course."
"Absolutely," Jim said.
Jim could hear Paul moving across the table, probably reading the menu, but Wade, directly to his left, was completely quiet.
"Are you sure you're black?" Wade finally asked.
"Of course," Tom said.
The waitress popped up, diffusing the tension momentarily.
"You know," Jim said after they ordered, "my mom was black."
He heard silence across the table and to his left. To his right he heard Tom shrugging out of his suit coat and putting it across the back of his chair, then reaching for a paper packet, probably of sugar, tearing it open and pouring it into his coffee.
"My dad was white," Paul said uncomfortably to fill the silence.
"Are you sure?" Wade asked Jim. "Is that possible? I mean, Paul here, his dad…"
"Oh, yeah, it happens all the time," Jim said.
"Certainly," Tom said.
"Yeah, but you don't look—I mean, do you even know what you look like?" Wade asked.
Jim blinked at Wade with a straight face. "What do you mean? What do I look like?"
"You—you can't be black," Wade protested.
"Why not? I'm very groovy."
"Who told you that your mom was black?"
"Why would anyone need to tell me my mom was black?"
"Because you—you're blind."
"I'm blind!" Jim stared over at Tom quickly. "Tom! I'm blind!"
Tom snorted. "Dunbar, you give me that look, I'm gonna spit coffee out my nose." He pushed Jim away.
Jim turned back to Preston and shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, Wade."
"You were joking?" Wade sounded relieved.
"Both my parents were white," Jim said.
"And he hasn't been blind all that long," Tom added.
"How long have you been blind?" Paul finally asked after a nice laugh at Wade's expense.
"About two years."
"Really? I'd have thought you were born blind. How long have you been a cop?"
"I've been reinstated about a year, but I've been a detective for eleven years, a cop for about sixteen years."
"I was a detective in DC for twelve years with the same partner," Paul said.
"DC?" Jim said. "I don't think I could ever live anywhere but New York."
"Except for our murder rate, DC has a really low crime rate." Paul took a sip of his coffee. "How'd you go blind?"
"I was shot."
"Really?" Wade jumped in. "I got shot once!"
Jim just shook his head a little, staring down at the table. He gave Wade a little smile to humor the kid.
"Where'd you get shot?" Wade asked.
"In the head."
"Me, too! Can you believe that? What a coincidence!"
"You got shot in the head?" Jim asked in a disbelieving tone.
"Yeah!"
"He did," Paul put in. "I was there. The guy from The Rockford Files shot him."
Jim laughed. "For a second there, I actually believed you."