Cat on the Scent

33

The Daily Progress spread over the table carried the Tommy Van Allen story on the front page. Pewter sat on the paper. The big news was that cocaine was found in his blood.

The post office buzzed. People were in shock but everyone had a theory. No one was quite prepared for the sight of Tommy's widow, Jessica, cruising down Main Street behind the wheel of Tommy's blazing-red Porsche.

Harry and Mrs. Murphy noticed her first. “She could have waited until he was cold in the ground.” Realizing what she'd said, she quickly added, “Sorry.”

The group crowding into the post office all talked at once. The Reverend Jones was still upset that Tommy's bomber jacket was discovered on his truck seat. Big Mim declared that no one had manners anymore so they shouldn't be shocked at the behavior of Mrs. Van Allen—formerly of Crozet and now hailing from Aiken. It was rumored she had a polo-player lover who had discreetly stayed back in South Carolina. Tally Urquhart sorted her mail. Sarah Vane-Tempest suggested the whole world had gone nuts. Susan Tucker warned people about jumping to conclusions.

When Blair walked in, Big Mim buttonholed him at once.

“What do you think?”

“It's macabre,” he replied.

“Not that. What do you think of—” She stopped mid-sentence because she had spotted Archie Ingram driving by, pulling a U-Haul trailer behind his Land Rover. “What in the world?”

Blair swallowed. “Damn. Pardon me, Mrs. Sanburne. I've got to go.”

“Blair, your mail,” Harry called out.

He shut the door, not hearing her.

“Isn't that the most peculiar thing?” Miranda Hogendobber walked out to the door.

Cynthia Cooper pulled up, as did Ridley Kent, dapper even in an old tweed jacket. He bowed and opened the door for her as Miranda stepped back. Cooper wished Ridley's courtesies presaged genuine interest but she knew they did not.

Everyone said their hellos.

“I knew I'd find the gang here,” Cynthia muttered, walking over to her mailbox.

Tucker sat outside the front door. She figured the cats could tell her who said what to whom. She wanted to watch the cars and pick up tidbits of conversation in the parking lot.

“Herb, when's the service?” Mim asked.

“Thursday at ten.”

Mrs. Murphy sat next to Pewter on the divider counter, both cats careful to avoid the burgundy stamp pad.

“Why haven't you arrested Archie Ingram?” Sarah pursued Cynthia.

“We did yesterday. He's out on bail today.”

The silence was complete.

“For murder?” Mrs. Murphy asked.

All eyes swiveled to the cat, who meowed, then back to Cooper, her left cheek covered with a reddish bruise soon to turn other colors. Cynthia walked over and petted Murphy and Pewter.

“I don't mean for hitting you—I mean for shooting my husband.” Sarah's pleasant voice turned shrill.

“Mrs. Vane-Tempest, we don't know that,” Cynthia said simply.

Ridley Kent spoke up, his rich baritone filling the room. “We're all worried. How could we not be?” He glanced around the group for affirmation. “We're all here now. Why don't we put our heads together?”

Mim, usually the group organizer, coolly appraised the usurper. “Good idea.”

Ridley, appreciating his mistake, deferred to the Queen of Crozet. “With your permission, Mim. You're better at this kind of thing than any of us.”

She smiled and stepped forward. “The circumstances of Tommy's death are still unknown, are they not?”

Cynthia nodded. “We know he was shot in the head, just as the paper tells you. It will take a while to establish the time of death because he was perfectly preserved, you see. But he did have coke in his blood.”

“I don't care about Tommy. He's gone to his reward. I care about Henry. What if the killer comes back for him?” Sarah's eyes filled.

“Is it possible it was an accident?” Herb suggested, not believing that it was.

“Three shots? No.” Ridley folded his arms across his chest.

“Is there a connection between Sir H. Vane-Tempest and Van Allen? Something that one of us might have overlooked?” Harry interjected.

“On the surface, no, but we're digging,” Cynthia replied. “These things take time, and I understand your frustration. Be patient.”

“Wouldn't it make sense to question the people who sold the guns and uniforms?” Harry thought out loud. “Maybe there's something peculiar. You've tested Archie's Enfield rifle, and other people's rifles,”—she nodded to the assembled—“but what about other suppliers? Whoever shot H. Vane had to come up with the stuff. He had to have contact with these people.”

“Along with every other reenactor. But yes, we are chasing them down one by one. I had no idea that Civil War reenactments were this precise.”

“Obsessive,” Sarah said curtly.

“Do you know of any connection between Tommy Van Allen and your husband, other than social?” Herb asked Sarah.

“No,” she lied.

“Doesn't Mrs. Woo make period uniforms?” Harry remembered the seamstress with a small shop behind Rio Road Shopping Center.

“She does everything.” Mim nodded. “She can whip up a dress from the 1830s that would fool a museum curator. She made a lot of the uniforms.”

“She's on our list. We haven't gotten there yet. Initially we concentrated on the firearms people, hoping we could trace the rifle since we have two bullets, one intact and one flattened, the one that lodged against Sir Vane-Tempest's shoulder blade. The third one is missing.”

“Arrest Archie Ingram.” Sarah pounded the table, making the cats jump.

“Mrs. Vane-Tempest, you can't imagine the pleasure that would give me, but I can't arrest him without evidence.”

“He was behind my husband.”

“So was I,” Ridley said. “So were Blair, Herb, and half of Crozet.”

“You don't care what happens to Henry. You don't like him!” Sarah shouted.

“Ma'am, I abide by the laws of the land and I can't arrest Archie Ingram. Not without compelling evidence.”

Herb raised his impressive voice. “What's important is we've got to communicate with one another. If we see anything untoward, call the sheriff or the deputy. Call one another.”

“Do you think we're all in danger?” Mim neatened her mail stack. She wasn't frightened as much as she was curious.

“No,” Cynthia replied.

“Lucky you.” Sarah, furious, stalked out of the post office.

This set everyone off again. Ridley Kent hurried after her.

Tucker listened intently, then came in by the back animal door. “She's hot.”

The cats jumped down to join her. “Can't blame her.”

“What did you make of Blair running out like that when he saw Archie?” Pewter asked the dog.

“He folded himself into that car and flew down the road in the direction of home. Makes me wonder.”

“Let's go over there tonight after work,” Murphy suggested.

“Yes, let's,” Pewter chimed in.

One by one the townspeople left. Cynthia, Tally, and Mim lingered.

Miranda made Tally a bracing cup of tea, as she was flagging a bit.

“Not every question has an answer.” The old lady sipped her tea, straight.

“I think they do. But we don't always want to hear it.” Mim contradicted her aunt.

“Speak for yourself.”

“No one wanted to know the answer when Jamie shot Biddy Minor.” Big Mim hated being contradicted, even by Tally—or especially by Tally. “Every place has unsolved crimes because people don't want to know.”

“What good would it do to know? Everyone is dead. How they arrived at that state is irrelevant!” Tally snapped.

The cats knew better than to leap on the table with Tally present. They hung out in the canvas mail cart instead, heads peeping over the top. Tucker sat under the table.

“Moonshine,” Harry called over her shoulder as she emptied the wastebasket into a plastic garbage bag. “I know that's not the reason but that was the excuse given.”

“My brother didn't make any more moonshine than anyone else in Albemarle County in those days,” Tally said. “Bad blood.”

“Had to be awfully bad if Jamie shot him,” Miranda said. “Both such handsome men. I've seen their pictures.”

“Never see their like again.” Tally stared off in the distance.

“Didn't Jamie have a gambling problem?” Big Mim asked her aunt.

“Mim, my brother had many problems. You name it—gambling, horses, women, wine. Prudence was not his watchword.”

“Wasn't Tommy Van Allen's either.” Harry, finished with her chore, leaned on the sink behind them.

“Somewhat similar personalities. You'd have thought it would have been Jamie who got shot, not Biddy. Biddy was a sensible man most ways.” Tally allowed Miranda to refill her cup.

“Guess we'll never know.” Harry walked to the divider and folded up the newspaper. The back section fell on the floor. She picked it up without reading it.

“People do terrible things. They just do,” Tally said. “We're animals with a gloss of manners.”

“I resent that.” Murphy's tail twitched.

Harry opened a jar of Haute Feline, giving each cat a fishy.

“Hey.”

She handed Tucker a Milk-Bone.

“You remind me of your great-grandfather, Mary Minor. You have his eyes and you have his curiosity.”

“Did you like my great-grandfather?”

“I adored him. Had a schoolgirl crush. Biddy was the handsomest man. Curly black hair and those snapping black eyes. And the biggest smile! He could light a room with that smile. He bet on horses and cards, chickens . . . everyone did. He and Jamie bred fighting cocks together. Often wondered if that wasn't it. But it wasn't moonshine, I'm sure of that.”

“Where'd they fight chickens?” Miranda said. “Didn't you have a pit out on the farm? Oh, I barely remember. My momma wouldn't allow me anywhere near.”

“A beautiful pit out by the back barn.” She pointed to Harry. “Out where you found the airplane. Nothing left of it anymore. It's full of rusted trucks and tractors. All illegal now.” She shrugged.

After Mim and Tally and Cynthia left, Harry picked up the paper to throw it into the garbage bag. She glanced at the back page. “Miranda, did you read this?”

“What?”

They bent over the story. A big photo of a golden retriever behind the wheel of a Dodge Ram made them giggle.

Harry read aloud. “‘Maxwell, a golden retriever owned by Stuart Robinson of Springfield, Massachusetts, received a ticket today for driving without a license. Robinson said the dog was in the cab of the truck when he got out at the gas station, leaving the motor running. He doesn't know how but Maxwell drove the truck down the street, finally running into a mailbox.'”

Miranda laughed. “Art Bushey will kidnap that dog and put him behind the wheel of a Ford.”

They laughed harder.

Pewter said, “I could drive a truck if I had to.”

“You could not,” Tucker said. “You don't have the strength to hold the steering wheel.”

“I do so.”

“She could.” Mrs. Murphy took Pewter's part.

“I'll believe it when I see it.”

After work the cats crawled into the parked truck and practiced.

“This is harder than I thought,” Pewter confessed.

“Yeah, and we aren't even moving.” Murphy laughed until she rolled over.

“Come on, let's go over to Blair's.”