Swan for the Money: A Meg Langslow Mystery

call me after midnight unless it was an emergency. He had probably forgotten how early I had to be up and called to give me a postmortem on Millard! The Musical!
    I’d call him back as soon as I could. For now, I needed to call the chief. I figured if he wasn’t still up at the house he couldn’t have gone far. I dialed his cell phone.
    “Something wrong?”
    Not the most gracious way to answer the phone, but no doubt he’d seen my name on the caller ID and knew this wasn’t a social call. I wasted no time on amenities either.
    “I think someone’s stealing Mrs. Winkleson’s Belties,” I said. “I’m up in—”
    “Her what?”
    “Her cows. The black and white cows. Belted Galloways, or Belties for short. I thought I saw someone out behind the barns, so I looked around, and I stumbled across someone— two someones, actually— loading cows into a big truck. They fled when they heard my cell phone ring and realized someone was spying on them.”
    A brief silence.
    “You normally leave your cell phone on while you’re spying on people?”
    “I was about to call you to report them,” I said. It was only a slight exaggeration. “And who expects to get a call after midnight, for heaven’s sake?”
    “Where are you?” he asked,
    “In a pasture somewhere,” I said. “Go across the goat pasture, take a right at the rose compound, walk into the woods, and when you come out of the woods, that’s where I am. And where the truck was.”
    I heard him repeating my instructions, and then I heard Sammy say, “Yes, sir!”
    “Stay where you are,” the chief said to me. “Sammy’s coming to find you. And keep this line open. If you see anything threatening, speak up.”
    “Right.”
    “Could they have been heading for the back entrance?”
    “Since I have no idea where I am or where the back entrance is, your guess is as good as mine,” I said. “They were heading away from the house and barns— that’s all I know.”
    I heard the chief giving orders— probably on his police radio, from the occasional snippets I caught of static-laden replies.
    Suddenly I saw something moving toward me. I yelped slightly in surprise before I realized that it was two cows approaching me.
    “What’s wrong?” the chief snapped.
    “The cows,” I said.
    “What about the cows? What’s happening?”
    I didn’t answer because I wasn’t quite sure what the cows were up to. Were Belties territorial, like the black swans? Mischievous like goats? Or merely curious? I wasn’t sure whether to run or stand my ground, and settled for bracing my backagainst a tree and staying put. The two Belties stopped about two feet away and stood as if expecting me to do something.
    I reached out and scratched one behind the ear. She grunted contentedly. The other cow butted my shoulder gently.
    “Meg! What’s wrong?”
    “The cows were just lonely,” I said. “I’m fine.”
    Though I wasn’t sure how fine I would be if I stopped petting the cows. After all, however meek they were, they outweighed me by a ton. And they were beef cows, not dairy. Did that make them more fierce? I figured out a way to hold my cell phone and still keep a few fingers free for scratching. At least it wasn’t actually raining, although I had the feeling it was going to start raining again any minute, and hoped someone would show up before it did. I was still petting both cows when Sammy appeared after what was probably only a few minutes but felt like years.
    “Meg! Are you okay?’
    “I’ll be fine if you can convince these cows that the petting zoo is closed for the night.”
    Sammy, who was raised on a farm, seemed to have no trouble shooing the over-friendly Belties away.
    The chief and Horace showed up shortly afterward. The three of them spent quite a while inspecting the part of the pasture where I’d seen the truck loading. At least I hoped I’d pointed to the right part of the pasture. They milled around for fifteen minutes or so, pointing their flashlights this way and that way. I saw multiple flashes of light from Horace’s digital camera. Eventually, Horace came back my way.
    “Rain’s working for us this time,” he said. “Enough hoof printsfor us to tell that they got away with several other cows, and I should be able to get some very clear tire impressions.”
    I couldn’t see his face, but from his voice I suspected he was smiling ear to ear. He trudged off into the rain as the chief and Sammy strolled up.
    “Where’s