Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

do his best to defend against mountain lions.) Howard was irritated because his dinner was three hours late, and he told me about it in no uncertain tones. If you’ve ever had an aggravated basset lecture you about his delayed dinner, you know what I’m talking about.
    Pumpkin, Caitie’s orange tabby cat, isn’t as vocal as Howard, but he let me know that he wasn’t at all happy with the way his household was being managed. This scruffy, battle-scarred, down-at-the-heels character showed up on our doorstep earlier this year, having already deployed eight of his nine lives in search of a forever home. The fellow immediately clawed his way into Caitie’s soft heart. She adopted him without hesitation—never mind that what I had in mind when she asked for a kitty had been something on the order of a cute, cuddly kitten.
    “He’s like me when I came to live here,” she said. “He doesn’t have any family. He doesn’t have a home. He’s lonesome. He needs somebody to take care of him. He needs
me
.” And since this guy had been around the block a time or two and knew an outstanding opportunity when he saw it, he unpacked his bags, powered up his purr, and took up residence on Caitie’s pillow.
    The gang showed up as I finished feeding the animals and was brewing myself a cup of tea. Brian thudded into the kitchen, whirled me around twice, announced that he had won the game with a bases-loaded single in the ninth, and then did a celebratory dance around the kitchen table, followed by another bone-crushing hug.
    Brian came permanently into my life when he was just ten, and now I have to bend over to give him a hug. Not quite seventeen, he’s two-plusinches taller than I am and outweighs me by twenty-plus pounds. His craggy face is still unformed, but he has McQuaid’s dark hair and steel-blue eyes. He also has his dad’s interest in sports, although (happily, in my opinion) he doesn’t care much about football. I was delighted when he joined the baseball team. Baseball (again, in my opinion) is a civilized sport, a game of skill and timing. And the players do not try to kill one another.
    “You
rock,
” I said, gasping for air, and then pointed out that it was now past nine o’clock and that he’d better rock on upstairs and do his homework.
    McQuaid came in, kissed me briefly, reported that Brian had been named the game’s most valuable player, grabbed two ponchos, and went out to help Caitie shut up the chicken coop. Her chickens—three red hens and three white hens—are the dearest loves of her life, next to Pumpkin and the violin my mother gave her. (The rest of us bring up the rear.) Using money that she earned helping me at the shop, Caitie bought the chickens in early summer. She decided to get teenaged pullets rather than baby chicks because she wanted to launch her egg business as soon as possible. Her “girls,” as she calls them, live in the chicken palace that McQuaid constructed.
    And I do mean
palace
. The sizeable chicken yard is fenced and covered with wire netting in order to foil enterprising skunks, raccoons, and Pumpkin. The coop has a main floor and a chicken ladder to the loft and the three nest boxes. Caitie requested a box for each girl (with her name on it), but we pointed out that all six girls would not be laying eggs at exactly the same moment and that they ought to be willing to share the nests. So far, though, we haven’t seen any evidence of sharing. We haven’t seen any eggs yet, either. Until—
    “It’s an egg!” Caitie cried ecstatically, bursting through the kitchen door, her poncho wet with rain. “Somebody laid an egg, Mom! A real egg! And in a nest, too!”
    “An egg?” I asked, in an incredulous tone. “I don’t believe it! Come on, Caitie—you’re foolin’. A really truly egg? In a
nest
?”
    “Really truly! The very first one!” She opened her hand and we looked down at the small egg cupped in her palm. It was a little bigger than a golf ball. “Isn’t it
awe
some?” she whispered. Her tone was as hushed as if we were admiring the Hope Diamond.
    “I have never seen a more beautiful beginner’s egg in my life,” I said truthfully. “Who laid it? Was it a red hen or a white hen?”
    “I don’t know,” she said, stroking it with her fingers. “It’s
brown
, Mom. Why is it brown? I don’t have any brown chickens.”
    I know next to nothing about the egg production habits of chickens, but I remembered reading some information that