“I’ll put Goodey at the head of the list,” I said.

Lula swung into the office. “At the head of what list?”

“The catch ’em list,” I told her. “We need to make money today.”

“So we’re going after Butch Goodey? I thought he was in Mexico.”

“He’s back. He’s working at the meatpacking plant.”

“I hate that place,” Lula said. “It gives me the creeps. You drive by with your windows open, and you can hear cows mooing. You’re only supposed to hear stuff like that on a farm. I mean, what the heck’s the world coming to when you can hear cows mooing in Trenton? And who the heck would work at a meatpacking plant anyway?”

“Butch Goodey,” I said.

The meatpacking plant was down by the river, south of town, on the edge of a residential area that was blue-collar or no-collar. It took up half a block, with some of that space devoted to holding pens, where the cattle went in, and some to loading docks, where the hamburger meat came out.

At nine-thirty in the morning, the plant was in full swing. It was going to be a glorious, sunny, warm day and the area around the plant smelled faintly of cow.

“You know what this makes me think about?” Lula said, jumping down from the Jeep, standing in the parking lot. “It makes me think I could use a new leather handbag. If we get done early today, we should go to the mall.”

I didn’t think we were going to get done early. I expected this was going to be a very long day. It was Thursday, and there was no way we could get all of the money by bringing in a few skips. If we didn’t come up with over a million dollars by tomorrow, Grandma Plum and Aunt Mim were going to be wearing black.

THIRTEEN

LULA AND I entered a small reception area and approached the woman at the front desk. I gave her my business card and told her I wanted to speak to Butch Goodey. The woman ran her finger down a roster of names attached to a clipboard and located Goodey.

“He’s helping unload cattle right now,” she said. “The easiest way to find him would be to go around the building from the outside. Just go out the door, turn left, and keep walking. You’ll see an area around the corner where trucks are off-loading, and Butch should be there.”

“I’m glad we didn’t have to go through the building,” Lula said, “because I don’t want to see them chopping up cows. I like thinking meat grows in the supermarket.”

We turned the corner and came to an area where cattle were milling around in a pen.

“What kind of cows do you suppose these are?” Lula asked. “Are these hamburger cows or steak cows?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “All cows pretty much look the same to me.”

“Yeah, but some are bigger than others and some got horns. These cows are hefty black cows. I guess they’re my kind of cow,” Lula said.