Bittersweet (21 page)

Mack searched systematically, beginning with the top layers of stuff on the desk and working down to the desktop, disturbing the piles and stacks as little as possible but doing a thorough job. Glancing up, she saw a brown cardigan hanging on a coatrack and checked the pockets—nothing there. She did a cursory examination of the bookshelves, then went back to the desk and began going through the drawers, first on the right side, then on the left.

It was in the top left-hand drawer, and she pounced on it and began paging through. Unfortunately, Doc Masters' handwriting was a nearly indecipherable scribble, and the pages seemed to be a random collection of notes, reminders, even a grocery list. But some of the entries were dated, and at last, she found what she thought she was looking for.
Twin heifer calves, Bar Bee. 3 hours
,
with a date
.
Unless there were two such events in the past month, this must be what she was looking for. She kept on scanning the pages, but it was the only entry that was anywhere close. The Bar Bee had to be the one.

Mack found Angie bent over a shelf in the drug storage closet with a clipboard and inventory sheet. “Found the notebook,” she announced. “It was in the top left-hand drawer.” She held it up. “The twin calves were born at the Bar Bee. Do you have any idea who owns that ranch, or where it is located?”

“The Bar Bee.” Angie straightened up with a frown. “The name doesn't ring a bell. But we can search the billing records. It might be in there from a previous visit.”

But it wasn't. And when Angie brought up the browser on her computer and they searched for the name of the ranch, they couldn't find it online, either—or in the telephone book's yellow pages.

“Maybe the tax assessor would know,” Mack said. But when she telephoned, she found that the name of the ranch wasn't enough. The county's property records were organized by address, property ID, and owner's name, none of which she had. With a sigh, she hung up the phone.

“Well, I've got a start, anyway,” she said. “Thanks, Angie, for letting me hunt for the notebook. I appreciate it very much.”

“You're welcome.” Angie picked up her inventory clipboard. “You
might ask around the café or the general store—about the Bar Bee, I mean. Somebody's bound to know—or bound to know somebody who's bound to know.”

Mack nodded, although she wasn't comfortable with the idea of making a public inquiry. She picked up a scrap of paper. “Could you do me a favor? If you happen to think about it when you're at the store or the café, please do, and let me know what you find out. Here's my cell.” She jotted down the number and handed it to Angie. “And if you could leave me out of it, that would be great. I'd rather that the owner of the Bar Bee didn't hear that a game warden is trying to locate him.” If he did, he'd dispose of those fawns in a hurry.

Angie raised an eyebrow. “Like that, huh?” She pocketed the scrap of paper. “Sure, I'll do it—if you'll keep me posted on the cops' investigation. It's bad enough not knowing whether I'll have a job here at the clinic next week or next month.” She shook her head gloomily. “But Doc was the best boss in the world. Not knowing who killed him or why . . . That's a helluva lot worse.”

“If I hear anything I can pass along, I'll be in touch,” Mack said. She glanced at her watch. “Uh-oh, gotta get going. I promised to meet a couple of people at the rodeo grounds, and I'm late already.”

•   •   •

M
ACK
had mixed feelings about rodeos, for she had seen instances of what she considered animal cruelty during and before the performances, and she knew that many animal welfare groups opposed them. But there had been at least some improvements in the way animals were treated, and—like it or not—rodeo was the state sport of Texas. Almost every city, large and small, staged an annual rodeo, counting it high on
the list of profitable tourist attractions. Utopia's rodeos were held in the arena on the west side of town, along the shore of Park Lake, a dammed-up section of the Sabinal River bordered by stately cypress trees. A couple of times every summer, the local cowboys and cowgirls (and a handful of professional out-of-town competitors) got together to test their skills in bronc and bull riding, calf roping, wild cow milking, mutton scramble, and barrel racing. Seven tiers of wooden spectators' bleachers lined one side of the fenced infield, with fences and chutes and gates on the opposite side. During the competitions, the grassy outfield and graveled parking lot were filled with pickups, horse and cattle trailers, chuck wagons and church-sponsored food tents, and crowds of men, women, and kids in Western shirts, jeans, boots, and cowboy hats. Sometimes a carnival came to town at the same time, with a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, and a half-dozen other rides and carny games. And there was always an evening dance, with a local country and western band. Square dancing, too—and square dance and clogging exhibits. Rodeo weekends brought Utopia to life, Mack thought, like the mythical Brigadoon.

But this was the day after Thanksgiving. The grassy outfield was frost bleached, and the rodeo arena and surrounding outfield were empty, except for a black SUV with dark-tinted windows parked beside the southeastern arena gate and three people tinkering with something at that end of the infield. When Mack parked her truck next to the SUV and got out, she saw that the trio, two young women and a man, were working with an interesting-looking piece of equipment sitting on the ground—the drone. It didn't look anything like the model airplanes she'd flown when she was a girl, though. It looked like a large four-legged spider with a sleek silver central body and outrigger motors at the end of each leg. The spider was about two feet long and two feet across.

Mack recognized one of the two people standing beside the drone—Chris Griffin, a dark-haired, dark-eyed, intense young man wearing chinos, spiffy white tennis shoes, and a blue sweatshirt that advertised his affiliation with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He stepped forward and put out his hand, reminding Mack that they had met at a wildlife conservation conference in San Antonio. He introduced his sister, Sharon, a lively-looking pigtailed blonde of sixteen or seventeen, who was equipped with a video camera. And then he introduced his colleague, Amy Roth, a pretty, willowy redhead in her late twenties. She wore jeans, a denim jacket, and a red T-shirt with the eye-catching words
Meat Is Murder
across the front. She carried an iPad.

“I'm the one you talked with on the phone,” Amy said, shaking hands.

Mack glanced at her T-shirt. “Well, I guess we know where you stand on a couple of major issues,” she said with a little laugh.

“Absolutely,” Amy said lightly. “I like to make my statement up front. That's why I wear it.”

Mack nodded. “Listen, guys, speaking of statements, I need to make it clear that I'm doing this because of my own personal interest and not in any official capacity. I have absolutely no input into the use of drones by Parks and Wildlife. I probably should have told you this on the phone, Amy. I hope you haven't come all the way to Utopia on the wrong assumption.”

She thought Chris looked a little disappointed, but he only said, “Amy has been wanting to evaluate the drone because of her work with PETA. And Sharon wants to videotape a flight for a science project at school. When we met at that conference, you seemed interested. So I thought we'd put it all together in one package.”

“And we were coming this way anyway,” Sharon said. “We're planning to use it to watch some people shooting—”

Amy broke in hastily. “Let's just say we're taking it for a practice flight not very far from here, later today.”

Mack caught the warning glance Amy had shot at Sharon. She guessed that they were probably going to try out the drone on some sort of surveillance mission and thought she should warn them.

“Just for the record,” she said, “I need to remind you that it's illegal to interfere with anyone who is lawfully hunting. I don't want to get a phone call from some irate guy who wants me to throw you in jail because your drone scared away a buck he had in his sights. Or a call from you, yelling that some idiot hunter has shot down your drone.”

“What about someone who is
un
lawfully hunting?” Sharon put in. She might have said more, but she subsided when her brother shook his head at her.

“We understand all that,” Chris said to Mack. He was scowling. “We've read the regs.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Mack said with a smile. “I needed to say it, is all.” She refrained from calling them kids—they were too old for that, although that's how she thought of them. Kids on a mission, kids with a cause. Kids who could get themselves into some pretty serious trouble if they didn't watch out.

She knelt down to look at the drone. “So tell me what we've got here and how it works. I used to fly my brother's radio-controlled model airplanes. But that was a couple of centuries ago, before all this new technology came along.”

“Things are changing fast,” Chris said. “This one operates on four motors, one on each of the four outriggers, at twenty-eight thousand rpm
in a hover. It has a flight deck containing the flight control system with GPS for navigation, sensors, and receivers. The camera is suspended below the flight deck. It operates on a rechargeable battery.” He held up a tablet computer. “This is the pilot's control deck. It's got monitors that show a real-time video streaming, as well as information about the flight: altitude, speed, rate of descent and ascent, and remaining battery life.”

“We can see the camera view on other devices, as well,” Amy said, holding up her iPad. “There's JPEG photo capture on a thumb drive and live camera views.”

“We can watch it on a smartphone, too,” Sharon said. “And the video can be uploaded to the Internet.”

“Twenty-eight thousand rpm?” Mack asked. “Doesn't that create a lot of vibration? I'd think it would interfere with image transmission.”

Chris shook his head. “The camera is foam insulated. You'll see—there's almost no vibration. It's high-definition,” he added, “with a wide angle lens. Takes in a lot of territory.”

“How much flying time on the battery?” Mack asked.

“About fifteen minutes,” Chris said. “As batteries improve, that time will increase.”

“Control range?”

“About a hundred eighty feet.”

Mack's first thought was that the range wasn't very great. But with greater altitude, you'd still be able to see quite a distance, depending on the camera. “Okay,” she said, “let's see it fly. But don't fly it over the town. I don't want to hear complaints from people who think they're being spied on.” She gestured. “Fly it to the west, over the lake.”

The brilliant blue sky and bright sunshine of the early morning had given way to gray clouds, but there was hardly any wind, which, according
to Chris, made it easier to control the flight. For the next several minutes, while Sharon videotaped the demonstration, Chris piloted the drone over the woods and the lake, just over the treetops at an altitude of about thirty feet. Mack and Amy watched the color video feed on Amy's iPad. Mack was surprised at the quality of the image and the resolution, especially given the range. She could see a great blue heron wading in the water and watched it catch and gulp down a fish. On the shore, a squirrel jumped from one branch to another, then swung onto the ground, flicking his tail. With that kind of resolution, Mack thought, you could probably read a license plate number on a vehicle. She could see why people were raising potential privacy concerns.

After about ten minutes, Chris began to recall the drone, swinging it over the field. He was bringing it in for a landing when another vehicle—a red panel van with brightly painted psychedelic swirls on both sides—pulled up and parked beside Mack's truck. China Bayles got out. She was wearing a gray fleece zip-front hoodie over a green Thyme and Seasons T-shirt. There was a pair of garden gloves tucked into the back pocket of her jeans, and the knees were dirty.

“Hey, Mack,” she called, and then did a double take. “Amy? My gosh, Amy! What in the world are
you
doing here?”

“Uh-oh,” Amy muttered, with a surreptitious look at Chris that Mack couldn't quite decipher. She recomposed her face and smiled. “Hi, China,” she said weakly. “What a surprise!”

Mack glanced curiously from Amy to China. “You two know each other?”

“We sure do,” China said cheerfully. She slipped an arm around Amy's shoulders and hugged her. “And yes, Amy, big surprise. Mack said she was going to take a look at a drone this morning, but I had no idea
that
you
were involved. I was installing a garden at a friend's restaurant on Main Street, and I invited myself to see the drone.” She turned to Sharon and put out her hand. “Hi. I'm China Bayles. Amy's mom and I work together.”

“Oh, now I get it, Amy,” Mack exclaimed. “You're Ruby Wilcox's daughter! I've been in your mother's shop. Really, I should have guessed. You look like her, you know—all that red hair.”

“That's my mom,” Amy said with a slightly sheepish grin. She turned to Chris. “China, this is my associate, Chris Griffin. You might have met him several years ago, when we were working together on that PETA demonstration at Central Texas State. We've got a different project going here. Sharon is Chris' sister. I'm staying with her this weekend.”

“Oh, sure,” China said easily. “I understand.” To Chris she said, “You must be the drone developer that Mack told me about. Did I miss the demo flight?”

“I just brought it in,” Chris said. “Give me a minute to put in a new battery and we'll be ready to fly again.”

While Chris was changing the battery, China said to Amy, “I'm spending Thanksgiving with my mom, who lives on a ranch near here. If you're going to be around later this afternoon, why don't you and your friends drop in? She may be at the hospital—her husband is recovering from heart surgery—but I'd be glad to show y'all around. It's a beautiful place, right on the Sabinal River.”