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“Are they as fun as they advertise?”
“The tour I went on is a bit different than the ones they give the paying guests,” I say with a short laugh. “My first tour was to Leo Landry's old fishing cabin. Leo is the grandfather to the whole Landry clan.” I frown. “Well, most of them. Not all, I guess. Anyway, his fishing cabin is extremely… rustic. It’s deep in the bayou, and I promise it has seen some things.”
“They don’t take just anyone there?”
“No. It takes a bit to get to and you would be convinced that you were in the middle of a crime documentary about halfway there.”
She laughs. “You are so dramatic.”
“That’s funny, that’s what they said.”
She shakes her head. “You consider Hilton hotels rustic, Henry. I can only imagine the horror on your face riding an airboat down the Louisiana bayou toward a ‘rustic’ fishing cabin.”
“There wasn’t a bottle of sparkling water or a crumpet to be found for miles,” I say, playing right into the stereotype she’s painting.
Which isn’t that far off.
The fishing cabin did, in fact, horrify me.
“What is a crumpet anyway?” she asks. “Are those real?”
“Very real. And delicious.”
We pull up in front of the building that houses the offices for the petting zoo and animal park. I don’t have to wonder how I’m going to find someone or who it will be because there is a small crowd gathered right near the entrance to the goat barn.
“You can head over to the bar,” I tell Sammy. “We’ll meet you there in a little bit.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be the big guy face-first in a bowl of gumbo.”
I laugh. “You won’t be the only one. I’ll look for the guy in the green shirt.”
He chuckles. “Perfect.”
I help Ruby out of the car, and we approach the group.
I only recognize some of them. Griffin Foster, who is one of the veterinarians for the animal park; his wife Charlie, who handles PR and marketing; Zander Landry, Autre’s cop; and Knox, the longtime town manager who was a write-in for mayor once and now continues to win every election via write-in.
I’m already grinning as we approach because they’re standing near the goat pen and Griffin is surrounded.
“What’s going on?” Ruby asks.
“Looks like goat shenanigans,” I say.
“You say that as if it’s a regular occurrence.”
“Oh, it is,” I tell her. “One of the goats, Stan, can open any gate they put on any pen. This leads to the goats getting out, which leads to them roaming the town. It’s such a regular occurrence that they have a goat phone that is manned twenty-four-seven. When people see the goats anywhere they’re not supposed to be, they simply call the goat hotline, and someone from the animal park comes and rounds them up.”
“The goats hate the petting zoo so much that they’re always trying to escape?”
“Nope. Sugar, the one with the big pink bow around her neck, is in love with Griffin, the grumpy-looking one there with the dark hair. If she hasn’t seen him for more than about twelve hours, she gets separation anxiety. Then Stan breaks them all out and she goes looking for him. The rest go with her for…moral support?” I grin. “Or just for the adventure of it. I don’t know.”
Ruby looks at me for a moment, realizes I’m not joking, and laughs. “Do we really want to know what’s going on over there?”
I nod. “Very much.”
“I’m just saying,” the man I don’t recognize says as we approach. “She was our sheep first.”
“You didn’t even care where she was until you noticed her on our website,” Griffin says.