Page 51 of Respect

Phoebe met Vin. “Hey. You look like you’re hurting.”

“Nah, just tryin’ not to. Hey, the mail came. This was in it. I signed for it.” He handed over a business-size envelope.

The first thing she noticed was a green sticker: CERTIFIED MAIL. The second thing was the return address: The McIntosh County Health Department, Animal Welfare Division.

Ragamuffin Ranch was a licensed large-animal shelter. To keep said license valid, the state sent an inspector in annually to evaluate the site. They’d passed their most recent inspection in November.

“Why is the Health Department sending me a certified letter?” she wondered aloud, still staring at the back of the envelope.

“I don’t know,” Vin replied. “But I never got any mail with that sticker on it and found good news inside.”

“Yeah, me either.” Her heart picking up some speed, she set her toolbox down, pulled her work gloves off, and dug her finger under the envelope’s flap. In the envelope was a single sheet of white paper with official letterhead across the top in a businesslike serif font.

Under that letterhead, all caps, boldface, was the alarming phrase NOTICE OF ACTIVE INVESTIGATION.

She tipped the page so Vin could read that much.

“Oh shit,” he muttered.

Phoebe nodded and began to read.

Dear Ms. Davis:

Our office has received serious complaints regarding the condition of Ragamuffin Ranch, the large-animal shelter registered in your name at the address of 175263 N4810 Road, Checotah, OK 74426. The complaints filed allege serious degradation of conditions and potential danger to the animals sheltered there. Our office has opened an investigation into these allegations. You will have an opportunity to respond to the allegations during a full interview, but first we will be conducting a complete inspection within 24 hours of your receipt of this notice.

Please feel free to contact our office with any questions.

Harry Morgan, Inspector

Department of Health, McIntosh County

Eufaula, OK 74432

Phoebe read the letter three times through. Then, because fury and panic were making her vision dark and sparkly, she handed the page to Vin. He took it, and she walked stiff-legged to the pasture fence. The animals were still geeking out over the brushes.

This was Lydia Copperman’s big move. Her efforts to turn Phoebe’s donors and patrons away wasn’t returning the results she’d hoped for. I can have this rathole crawling with inspectors, UberBitch had also threatened, and she had meant it.

Phoebe ran a tight ship and cared for her charges as if they were her family—because they were her family. She knew Ragamuffin was completely up to code. In fact, in most cases, it far surpassed the minimum expectation of ‘up to code.’ There were a few things—like the roof of the stable—that the inspector in November had suggested they keep an eye on because they were only a year or two out from needing repair or replacement, but she knew for an absolute fact that everything on this ranch that had passed inspection in November would pass inspection two months later.

A fair and honest inspection, at least.

She had no confidence whatsoever that the inspection coming up—today or tomorrow!—would be fair and honest. UberBitch was siccing the health department on her, and to get this kind of speed from a government agency, she was obviously throwing her weight and her wallet around. This would not be a fair and honest inspection.

This inspection could very well ruin her.

And then she would lose everything. Everything.

Phoebe had lived on this farm all her life, as her father had before her, and his father before him. Her mother had been miserable here—unhappy with the farm, with the man she’d married, and with the child who had caused them to marry—and during Phoebe’s senior year of high school, less than two months after her father’s death, her mother had given her the farm and escaped to Florida to live like she’d never made a series of unfortunate choices in her own adolescence.

To Phoebe’s mother, this property had been an albatross. A prison. But she knew Phoebe loved it, so she knew it belonged with her.

It was the one truly decent thing her mother had ever done for her.

They hadn’t done any paperwork to transfer the deed to Phoebe’s name, because neither of them had thought about it. Phoebe had been an eighteen-year-old about to graduate and go into the Army when her mother had given her the property and scooted south to Florida, and then Phoebe had been in a coma, and then in rehab, and then in a transitional house, relearning complicated things like how to eat soup by herself, and legal paperwork had been sort of beyond her.

However, after she’d come out of the coma, she’d learned that her mother had died of a fentanyl overdose, so by the time she was capable of legal paperwork, all she had to do was procure and submit her mother’s death certificate and prove that she was the only heir.

Margot had lived in this house alone during Phoebe’s stint in the Army and her years of recovery. ‘Housesitting,’ she’d called it.

---