“We’re pretty sure the ducks belong to my cousin Quincy,” Randall explained. “He’s been in the hospital, recovering from heart surgery. He’s a bachelor, so there’d be no one at his farm to notice someone loading up the ducks. We’ve all been taking turns going over to look after them, but we haven’t had anyone sleeping there, so the place was wide open for the duck thief. Looks like they even used his big truck to do the hauling.”

I almost asked if his nephew Caleb was one of the ones who’d been helping with the duck care, but thought better of it. I’d let the chief sort that one out.

“I gather he has a lot of ducks?” I asked instead. “So whoever was doing the feeding wouldn’t necessarily miss the borrowed ones immediately?”

“Does he ever!” Randall exclaimed. “Man, but I hope he gets well before my next turn to go over there. Do you have any idea how much poop eight or nine hundred ducks can produce?”

“Yes, I saw St. Byblig’s,” I said.

“Maybe I should go apologize to old Barliman Vess,” Randall says. “He keeps filing complaints about Quincy with the health department and the police and any other agency he can think of.”

“Complaints about what?”

“The noise and the smell and the fact that occasionally the ducks get into his garden and eat his plants,” Randall said. “And I understand how Vess feels—I wouldn’t want to live there myself—but fair’s fair. Quincy was there first, and that part of the county is zoned for agricultural use. What kind of idiot moves in next to a working duck farm and then starts complaining that his neighbors are quacking and pooping too much? City folks.”

I nodded, feeling just a little flattered. Having the locals complain to you about city folks was, I knew, a distinct step up from being city folks yourself.

“I think the biggest problem is that Quincy’s operating as a free-range farm,” Randall said. “If he was running a conventional duck farm with the birds all cooped up in tiny little cages—which is what Vess kept suggesting—they probably could have gotten along okay. But these days, at least around here, the money’s in raising free-range, organic birds for the premium market.”

“And Quincy’s birds are a little too free-ranging for Mr. Vess’s taste?”

“Yup.” Randall nodded. “Well, I should be off. Got to move the ducks back to Quincy’s farm before your grandfather gets fed up and starts feeding them to his wolves.”

I hoped Randall was kidding. Then again, while Grandfather was devoted in theory to the welfare of all animals, he did have a sneaking fondness for carnivores and predators.