Megan Stine - Murder To Go

Outside in the dark there was no one, but there was a box. It was about the size of an extra-large shoe box. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a red string, and it was lying right in front of the door. The handwriting on the paper said “For Jupiter Jones.” Pete scooted the box with the toe of his sneaker, pushing it farther away.

“Feels heavy,” he said.

Jupe bent down and picked up the package. “It is heavy,” he said.

“You going to open it?” Bob asked as Jupe carried it into the workshop, leaving the door open.

“Don’t,” Kelly said, holding Pete’s arm.

Jupe listened carefully for a minute, first to the box and then to the sounds in the night air. Was someone still out there? Pete and Bob listened, too, and their leg muscles tensed, ready to spring into action.

Finally Jupe untied the string. The box seemed to move in his hands. “Whatever’s in here is moving around, because the balance of the box keeps changing.” Jupe unwrapped the brown paper. But he was holding the box with the lid facing down, so the contents spilled out onto Jupe’s feet.

Splat!

Kelly screamed and Jupe’s face went white.

There, lying on Jupe’s new white sneakers, was a dead chicken — with its head cut off! It was floppy and freshly-killed, with a big smear of blood at the neck. Then Jupe saw the note, also stained with chicken blood. Slowly he picked it up. It said:

Jupiter Jones —

You’re already plump enough to be slaughtered. Stay away from things that aren’t your business. This is your last warning!

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. In the warm morning sunshine, Pete dribbled around Jupe and made a break for the basketball hoop above his garage door. He went up for a back-handed lay-up and all 190 pounds of him stuffed the ball through the net.

“Come on, Jupe,” Pete said, passing the basketball back to him. “Are you playing?”

“I keep thinking about last night and that chicken,” Jupe said.

“You’re telling me,” Pete said, coming up to Jupe. “Yuck — it’s enough to give us nightmares for a week. That’s why you’ve got to get some exercise. It’ll take your mind off having to wash all that blood off your shoes.”

Jupe gagged, remembering the horrible sight of the headless chicken, dripping blood and veins. While he was trying to catch his breath, Pete knocked the ball out of his hands and went in for another lay-up.

“Let’s not relive the moment,” Jupe said with a shudder. “The question is, who sent it? Who wants us to stay away from Big Barney? It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Big Barney would do himself. He’s giving us other signals — inviting us to come closer, to get involved with his business.”

“Jupe,” Pete said seriously, “you’ll figure it out. You always do. I have faith.”

Jupe smiled at his friend and quickly stole the ball from him. Jupe threw a long, arching shot toward the basket — and missed by a mile.

“You’re getting closer,” Pete said. “You’re definitely in the same state.”

Bob’s car horn beeped in the driveway and he hopped out as soon as the VW chugged to a stop.

“Morning, guys,” Bob said. “Seen the paper, Jupe?” He tossed Jupe the morning edition. “Check out the front page of the business section.”

Pete tossed Bob the basketball and they shot a few while Jupe read the news story.

“This is extremely timely,” Jupe said a few minutes later. “Michael Argenti has intensified his efforts to acquire the Chicken Coop restaurants. Hmmm. I’ve got to make a phone call.” He disappeared into Pete’s house. Five minutes later he came out, wearing the famous Jupiter Jones I-told-you-so smile.

“Who’d you call?” asked Pete.

“Michael Argenti,” Jupe said. “I thought it was time that we checked him out. After all, it’s possible that he won’t succeed in buying the Chicken Coop restaurants. In which case, he might settle for merely ruining Big Barney’s business by poisoning his food.”

“What’d Argenti say about that?” asked Pete.

“I didn’t talk to him,” said Jupe. “His secretary said he was out of town today. And do you know where?”

“No, but you’d better know or this is a really dumb conversation,” Pete said.

“Petaluma,” Jupe announced. “Just north of San Francisco. It’s where Big Barney has his chicken farms.”

In less than an hour Jupe and Pete were climbing aboard a commuter plane to San Francisco. They had phoned Juliet and gotten her to agree to pay all their expenses in this investigation — although she didn’t realize that they were also investigating her father. Bob stayed behind because he had some heavy-duty responsibilities at the talent agency. One band was scheduled to play at two different weddings that day, and Bob was supposed to make sure that the band didn’t get too drunk to make it to the second wedding reception on time.

At San Francisco International Airport, Pete and Jupe rented a car and drove an hour north to Petaluma. They had no trouble finding Big Barney’s ranch. It was well marked and well known to everyone in town.

The ranch itself looked more like an automobile factory than a chicken farm. There were two huge cinder block buildings, each two stories high and about as long as a football field. Surrounding them was a chain-link fence.

Pete and Jupe stood outside the fence for a moment and stared. Maybe because it was Saturday, no one was around. So the guys opened the gate and walked fifty yards to the first building. A quick check to see if anyone was watching — then they sneaked inside.

They couldn’t believe their eyes — or their ears. Inside they saw not hundreds of chickens, but hundreds of thousands of them in a well-lighted space. The noise was incredible. Light poured in through a green-house-style glass roof, but air conditioning kept the temperature down.

Jupe and Pete grabbed two Chicken Coop visors that were hanging on a peg by the doorway. They put them on so they’d look like employees and started to snoop around.

The first thing they found out was that it was very difficult for human beings to move in this building. Besides the countless chickens, there were long red plastic pipes mounted a few inches from the floor — and they were everywhere. The pipes ran the entire length of the building, like long, low hurdles. Pete and Jupe had to step over them to walk around. These were feeding pipes, with small red plastic bowls attached every eighteen inches. There were also water pipes, with small purple nozzles for the birds to drink from. The entire process of chicken raising was automated, which was why no people were around.

The birds were grouped into long sections according to age, from little purple fuzzy chicks up to fat, full grown, bright-plumed birds. Pete and Jupe walked from section to section.

“Why do some of them look so strange?” Pete asked. “Look at that guy — he’s got the weirdest little wings I’ve ever seen.”

“Genetic engineering,” Jupe said. “A process of planned nutrition and selective breeding so that desirable physical and biological traits become dominant. Some are bred so their wings are big and some so they have big breasts to produce a lot of white meat. That’s why that one looks top-heavy, like it’s going to fall over.”

Suddenly Jupe and Pete saw they were not the only humans in the building. Three men had entered and were looking around. They were standing where Jupe and Pete had come in, among the smallest chicks.

“Quick,” Jupe said. “Look busy.”

“There’s nothing to do,” Pete said. “Everything’s done by machine.”

“Then hide!”