Cat On The Scent

20

Warm spring light flooded the barn, illuminating Rick Shaw's face as he stood under the wing of the Cessna. Behind him a young woman dusted for fingerprints.

Not a drop of blood marred the shiny surface of the airplane or the cockpit, although there were muddy paw prints on the wings and the cockpit. No dings, dents, or smears of oil hinted at foul play.

The wheels of the small plane were blocked. In fact, everything was in order. The gas tank was almost full. They could have crawled up into the Cessna to cruise through creamy clouds on this, a gorgeous day.

Cynthia spoke to Tally Urquhart. Miss Tally's sight remained keen, her hearing sharp, but her powers of locomotion had diminished. After fervid wrangling sprinkled with the utterance of unladylike epithets, she had agreed to stop driving. No longer able to ride astride, she allowed herself the pleasures of driving a matched pair of hackney ponies, to the terror of the neighbors. Her majordomo, Kyle Washburn, had the honor of transporting her to her many clubs and good deeds. It was also his duty to hang on when she took the reins. There were many in Albemarle County who thought no amount of money was too much to pay Kyle.

“I told you that,” Tally snapped.

“I know it's irritating, ma'am, but my job is to check and double-check.”

She tossed her white curls, hair still luxuriously thick. “Tommy Van Allen put his plane in my big hay barn and walked away, never to return. And I heard nothing.”

“At no time did you hear a plane buzz the house?” Cynthia braced herself for the blast.

“Are you deaf? No.”

Kyle stepped in. “Miss Tally is in town a lot, Deputy. Anyone who knows her and her busy schedule would have no trouble landing here when she was out of the house.”

“You hear anything?” Cynthia smiled at him.

“No.”

“Mr. Washburn.” She leaned toward his weathered, freckled face. “How could this plane sit here and you not know it?”

“Winter hay barn,” Tally snapped as though that simple description would be enough for any intelligent person.

“Miss Tally fills this barn up with hay in the fall. Usually I open it wide in May. Air it out. I'm behind this year—a little.”

“So you two think whoever parked the plane here—do you park a plane?—well, whoever did this knows Miss Tally's schedule?”

“Yes,” Kyle answered while Tally glared. This was damned inconvenient and she knew the situation would bring her bossy niece over to once again interfere.

Using her cane with vigor, hand clutched over the silver hound's head, Tally stalked Harry.

“I don't know any more than you do.” Harry shrugged.

“You know a good deal less.” Tally pointed her cane at Harry. “You say you chased these varmints here?”

“I'm no varmint,” Tucker yipped.

“They led me right to the barn.”

Tally studied the animals at Harry's feet.

“Sometimes animals know things. Your mother had a marvelous sense of animals. She could talk to them and I swear they talked back,” Tally said, her smile momentarily tinged with melancholy. Then, steeling herself, she again eyed Harry. “You get used to it. By the time you're my age everyone's dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. No use crying over spilt milk.” She took a little breath. “And if you ask me, Tommy Van Allen is dead, too.”

Rick, respectfully silent until now, asked, “Why do you say that, ma'am?”

“Tommy Van Allen is wild as a rat. He'd be here if he were alive.”

“Some people think he was selling drugs, made a big haul and disappeared,” Rick suggested.

“Piffle.”

“Ma'am?”

“He might use them. He wouldn't sell them. That boy was a lot of things but stupid wasn't one of them. He wouldn't sell drugs.” She pointed her cane at Rick's chest. “Every time something happens around here everyone yells ‘Drugs.' Too much TV.” She turned to Harry. “You're a nosy kid. Always were. In the blood. Your great-grandfather was nosy.”

“Which one?”

“Biddy Minor. Handsomest man I ever saw. Had to know everything, though. Killed him, of course.”

Rick, a student of local crime, said gently, since it wouldn't do to correct her, “It was never proven.”

She raised an eyebrow, barely deigning to refute his prattle. “Proving and knowing are two different things, Sheriff. Just like I know Tommy Van Allen is dead. I know it. You have to prove it, I suppose.”

“Ma'am, we can't convict anyone without proof.”

“Convict them?” Her thin voice rose. “Convict them—they're out on the streets in six months.”

Rick blushed. “Miss Tally, I feel exactly the same way but I have a job to do. I'm elected to this position.”

She softened. “And so you are. Well—what else do you want to know?”

“Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill Tommy Van Allen?”

She paused thoughtfully. “No more than anyone else. By that I mean he had his share of angry ex-girlfriends, his share of people who plain didn't like him.”

“Can you think of any reason why someone would shoot Sir H. Vane-Tempest?”

“Pompous, silly ass.” She shrugged her bony shoulders. “You're going to canvass my neighbors, aren't you? Surely one of them heard this airplane.”

“We'll speak to everyone,” Rick assured her.

A crunch of tires on gravel turned all heads in the direction of the Bentley Turbo R pulling into the open barn.

Tucker barked as the motor was cut off and one elegant leg swung out the driver's side. “Mim!” The little dog rushed forward to greet the haughty Mim, who nonetheless loved dogs. She bent over to pat Tucker's head, and the dog happily tagged at her heels.

“Don't you start telling me what to do.” Tally's lower lip jutted out.

“I'm not. I'm here to help.” Mim stopped to study the plane. “Extraordinary,” she said quietly.

“If you all don't need me any longer I'll go.” Harry began to move toward the open door.

“Go on.” Sheriff Shaw nodded.

Cynthia called out, “I'll catch you later.”

Miss Tally placed her left hand on Harry's arm. Her thin ring gleamed. “Mary Minor, you never believed the story about my brother shooting your great-granddaddy because Biddy walked up on his still, did you?”

“No.”

She nodded, satisfied. “Good girl.”

Harry herded Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker into the truck, hearing Mim say, “Now, Aunt Tally, why would anyone put a plane in your barn?”

“To give me excitement in my declining years.”