Cat's Eyewitness

"And?"

He sipped the deep red liquid, Cockburn 1987, a decent enough year, although Herb had laid away a case of 1983 and was just waiting for 2010, when he thought it would peak. "The religious life, on the surface, appears benign, noncompetitive. Factor in a group of men who have retreated from the world, and it would seem an easy life. It isn't. A ministry is difficult, because if you truly tend to your flock, if a priest, pastor, reverend has a church, you deal with birth, death, marriage, divorce, disappointments, betrayals, the whole human range of emotions. You have financial woes, as you know from serving on the vestry board. You have politics." He inhaled. "You get two human beings together, honey chile, and you got politics. So the brothers have many of the same problems the rest of us do, and in a funny way I think that makes it all the harder for them."

"Why?"

"Because they withdraw to the contemplative life believing it will succor them. At least, that's what I think. And because they have no women. Women sweeten life." He held up his hand. "I don't mean that in a loose way. I mean female energy changes a man. Look at how we work together on that vestry."

"Sometimes I think it's a lot of hot air."

"It is, but if half the board weren't women, we men would waste time over pecking order, who's on top."

"You."

He laughed. "Yes and no. But men are different. Women make men work better together, and if a man finds the right woman, life is richer."

"You must feel so alone sometimes, Herb. I'm sorry I haven't been more sensitive to you. I know you grieved and all that, but I don't know what it's like to lose a life partner. Forgive me for not being a better friend."

He reached over for her hand. "Sweetie, you're young. And you are a good friend. I was a lucky man to have a good wife, and I'm starting to go out in the world again. It takes time."

"What becomes of men without women? Straight men, I mean."

"Gay men need them, too. I reckon three things happen: a man becomes bitter and hates women, blaming them for his failings; a man becomes morose and withdraws from the world, he thinks he can't win a woman or he's not worthy; or, the third possibility, a man looks inward and recognizes he'd better change. Naturally, the third possibility is the one I see the least. People are amazingly resistant to change, even when it's in their best interests." He finished his port.

"The Greyfriars aren't a mystical order. Whatever their reasons for withdrawing, for living without women, creating a false miracle is out of keeping. I mean, that's my conclusion after a cursory study of the monastic life," Harry said.

Herb shifted his weight. "By virtue of being a force in Western life for over two thousand years, the Catholic Church has witnessed its share of frauds, forgeries, hoaxes. The shroud of Turin is one of the better fake reliquaries. It was painted sometime between 1260 and 1390. The bishop reported to Pope Clement that the artist who did it was cunning, clever."

"People want to believe these things. The more downtrodden they are as a group or as individuals, the more they have need of miracles, seems to me."

"My favorite is the preserved bodies of saints. Some have been tampered with, others dried out into mummies, and those buried in limestone soil fool everyone. The limestone turns the body fat into hand soap, which doesn't decay. Presto! A miracle."

"Maybe something like a noncorrupted corpse would inspire an individual to change his life, dedicate himself to God. Personally, I'd run in the other direction. I don't want to be around dead bodies regardless of condition! I mean, I have, but I want to get away as soon as I can!" Harry shuddered.

"Few of us look our best." Rev. Jones chuckled.

"So you don't believe in the Miracle of the Blue Ridge?"

"No."

"Me, neither."

"That's a given." He smiled.

"For whatever reason, I think Brother Thomas—a believer, most likely—and Nordy are connected to the tears, the statue."

"It's possible. Killed by..." He paused, holding his palms upward.

"Killed by a brother," Harry said with assurance. "Both of them. I don't think Brother Thomas was killed for his land. He willed Susan the Bland Wade tract. She told me yesterday, and I expect she's with Sheriff Shaw even as we speak. Given that we now know her great-uncle was killed with a morphine injection—I'd guess it was shot into him—she figured Rick should know she stood to gain by his death."

"She told me the day after Thanksgiving. Susan"—he paused— "is circumspect. She thinks long and hard about moral issues. Many people see only her social side. You and I see that she's really a thinking person."

"She'll be a suspect, she thinks. Anyway, I caught her yesterday right after she'd gotten the news and she was going to go up to Afton to raise holy hell, excuse the expression."

"Not wise."

"No. But she was upset. It's understandable. Anyway, I hauled her back to her kitchen. She finally calmed down. We talked things through. The killer is one of the brothers, I just know it. I don't know why."

He drummed the arm of the sofa with his fingers. "No one is going to kill over the Bland Wade tract no matter how lucrative a sale might be. For one thing, Harry, it's too obvious."

"That's what I think, too."

"Brother Thomas, over his long life, saw many things, heard many things. As for Nordy, I expect he stuck his nose in it."

"I keep thinking this has something to do with eyes. I guess because of the statue and the way Nordy died."

"Literal."

"What?"

"You're literal. What do eyes do but bear witness?"

Harry's cell rang. She picked it out of her fishing-gear bag. "Susan. Maybe I better take it."

"Go on," he said indulgently.

"Hi. I'm with Herb."

"Harry, Rick sent someone to take another blood sample from the statue. Coop took one, and, well, hers came back type O. This one has come back type A."

"Jesus!" Harry exclaimed.

34

A thin blue plume of smoke curled upward as Sheriff Shaw sat opposite Brother Andrew. He offered the monk a cigarette; Brother Andrew refused. Rick offered not to smoke, but the physician monk told him to please go ahead; after all it was the Sheriff's office. He could do as he pleased.

As Rick gratefully drew on the unfiltered cigarette, Brother Andrew inhaled the secondary smoke.

"Are you sure you don't want one? I can call out for filters if you'd prefer?"

"No. It's an indulgence I understand only too well, but I can luxuriate in your smoking."

"No one smokes up there?" Rick was incredulous.

"Uh, in theory, no. In practice, yes." Brother Andrew folded his hands on the small metal table, which rattled with each touch.

"Must be like high school, sneaking cigarettes." Rick smiled, remembering his days at old Lane High School, when he and his friends would duck behind a car in the parking lot to light up.

"Yes. Those of us in thrall to nicotine would usually hide our stashes where we worked. For instance, I locked mine in the medicine cabinet in the infirmary. Brother Prescott—well, I shouldn't rat on a brother, should I?"

"Stays here."

"He keeps his on a thin ledge behind a bookshelf. It's funny, really."

"Booze?"

"Oh, yes." Brother Andrew nodded. "We aren't in prison, Sheriff. We can go to town."

"I thought you took a vow of poverty."

Brother Andrew held up his palms. "We do, but one earns a little pocket money here and there. Some have access to family money. We have few earthly pleasures, if you will, although watching the sun rise from the top of the mountain is certainly a large one."

A knock at the door diverted the conversation for a moment.

"Coop?"

"Yes," came the voice on the other side of the door. "May I come in?"

"Do you mind if Deputy Cooper takes notes? She's much better at it than I am."

"No, not at all." Brother Andrew welcomed the opportunity to be in a woman's company, even if the circumstances were strained.

"Come on in."

"Hello." Coop entered, took a seat slightly behind Rick so she wasn't right up at the table. She carried a stenographer's notebook.

"It's nice to see you again, Deputy." Brother Andrew liked Coop.

"You know, it's nice to see you, too, and I regret the circumstances."

"Yes," he quietly replied.

"Did Brother Thomas smoke?" Rick questioned.

"He did up until his eightieth birthday, and then he gave it up. Cold turkey. I teased him about that." Brother Andrew gestured with his right hand. "Why renounce something that soothed his nerves at eighty? He said, 'I want to see if I can do it.' That was a challenge, so I bid the weed good-bye myself. We became quite close after that."

"Did Brother Thomas have enemies?"

"No."

Rick leaned forward, the bottom of the chair legs scraping the floor. "Brother Andrew, you know that Brother Thomas had both chloroform and morphine in his body, the latter killing him. You and Brother John are the only two people with access to those substances." Rick stubbed out his cigarette. "Legally."

"Correct. Why am I here and not Brother John?"

"We grilled Brother John rigorously. He said a bottle of morphine is missing from the locked medicine cabinet, along with needles." Rick stopped and thought for a long time.

"Needles can bend. Whoever killed Brother Thomas probably took extras for insurance. They'd be ridiculously easy to hide."

"Like cigarettes and booze."

"Yes." Brother Andrew kept calm about the news of the missing morphine and needles.

"Might I say something, Boss?" Coop glanced over her notebook.

"Do you mind?" Rick asked Brother Andrew.

"No."

"Did you know the needles and morphine were missing?" the deputy asked the brother.

He sat still, breathed a few times, then answered her. "Yes."

"Morphine is not something you'd want to find missing from your medicine cabinet." Rick sounded surprised.

"No, it isn't."

"Why didn't you report it?" Cooper asked.

"I thought I could find out who took it on my own. If I told Brother Handle or you it wouldn't help. I thought it better to lull the killer."

"Convenient explanation," Rick flatly replied.

"Brothers live in silence much of the time. I really believed I could uncover the thief." Brother Andrew lifted his eyes slightly. "Better this be done among our own. You all, forgive me, wouldn't help. You'd hinder. You don't understand the order."

Rick, voice calm, said, "You know exactly how to use chloroform. You know how much to put on gauze to knock out a person. Morphine is there for your taking. You would know exactly how to drive an object through the eyeball into the brain. You're tall enough, strong enough to do it."

A moment of silence followed, then Cooper asked, "What was your relationship with Brother Thomas?"

"I loved him."

"We often kill the ones we love," Rick stated.

"Yes." Brother Andrew flashed back on giving his suffering wife the injection that ended her wretched pain. "Yes, I suppose we do, but you are thinking in different terms than I am. You are thinking of murder. I am trained as a physician. My job is to save lives, not take them. My job is to lessen suffering. Why would I kill Brother Thomas?''

"That's what we want to know," Rick said. "For instance, perhaps he was terminally ill and no one knew it but you. You gave him a safe and quick exit."

Brother Andrew blanched, then composed himself. "No, and if I did I wouldn't prop him up against the statue of Our Blessed Virgin Mother."

"I imagine the brothers hide many secrets. The little secrets like smoking and drinking," he paused, "and drugs, no doubt. Little secrets. Then there are perhaps bigger secrets about why each man is there."

"Your assumption is that we are there because of something we did wrong, we are there to expiate a sin. It is possible, Sheriff, for a man to choose such a life because he feels it will bring him closer to God."

"Has it?"

"Yes, and"—Brother Andrew swallowed hard—"no. Christianity is a hard path." He allowed himself a slow smile. "When I hear pundits say that we are now embarked on a crusade, the final war with the Muslims, which is always justified by saying that the Muslim wishes to kill every Christian, I think to myself, no worry here. There are no Christians in America, just hypocrites."

"Surely there are some." Coop's voice exuded a warm quality.

"Oh, I'm cynical, but I know from my experience that Christianity is difficult. Didn't Christ tell us that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? What do we do but lay up riches? We have preachers telling their flocks that Jesus didn't really mean that. In fact, the richer they are, the more this is a sign of God's favor."

"Calvinism." Coop read her history.

"Indeed. And then I tell myself that my job isn't to save anyone's soul but my own."

"Brother Andrew, you surprise me," Rick said.

"You thought I'd come in here and mouth pieties or beg forgiveness or confess to a crime I didn't commit?"

"Give me some reason why you didn't," Rick pressed.

"I told you. I loved Brother Thomas. I had no quarrel with him about anything. He was as close to a Christian man as I have ever seen. He was devoid of vanity, of falsity, of cunning. He took delight in his tasks, whether they involved horticulture, his favorite, or plumbing, not quite his favorite. He gladly helped when needed and he had an uncanny knack of knowing when one needed help. I would never have killed him."

"Who would?"

"I don't know."

"But if you did, would you tell? Is your first priority to protect the monastery?"

"If I thought one of the brothers killed Brother Thomas and I knew who, I hope I would have the courage to come to you."

"Well, that monastery sits on top of the mountain, hardly two miles from Interstate 64 and only a half hour, at most, from the interchange of Interstate 81 and 64. It would be a perfect cover for drug distribution—not sales, distribution. And not necessarily street drugs, but the hard drugs. How easy to leave kilos of marijuana? Or Oxycontin? Percodan? Viagra and Levitra?"

"Given our vow of chastity, the latter two would be rather cruel."

Rick smiled. "I didn't say you all were taking these drugs, just distributing them."

"I'd know."

"Why would you know? You don't know who got into your locked medicine cabinet."

"No, I don't."

"I'm going on my hunch that you supplied the morphine."

"I did not," Brother Andrew protested.

"Brother, you are the most likely suspect, unless you can point me in a better direction."

"I can't." Brother Andrew threw up his hands.

"You put the body in the coffin."

"After he thawed out, yes."

"You nailed shut the coffin."

"No, Brother Mark did that. Brother Prescott and I dressed the body, laid him in the coffin. Brother Frank put in an appearance, but he didn't do much. We put the lid on and Brother Mark nailed it shut. I saw him do it."

Rick's voice grew stronger. "And you carried him to his grave."

"I was one of his pallbearers, and if the coffin had been empty, I would have known. Of course, now I know three fifty-pound sacks were in the coffin, not Brother Thomas."

Rick switched tactics. "Nordy Elliott must have known the secret. Maybe he was in on it, a distribution ring, for example."

"He was ambitious, Sheriff, that doesn't mean he was selling drugs," Brother Andrew coolly answered.

"He must have known something."

"If he did, it's gone with him. And with Brother Thomas, as well, if he knew something. But what could he have known? If there is a drug ring, if the old man had stumbled upon it, he would have gone straight to the Prior. Straight to him."

"What if Brother Handle is in on it?" Rick paused as this sank in. "Did you tell Brother Thomas your secrets?"

"He saw me smoke. Occasionally, I took a drink."

"You were a successful physician in your other life. You made a great deal of money. Rarely does a man walk away from something like that."

"I did."

"Why?" Rick bluntly kept at him.

"My wife was dying of cancer. I couldn't save her and she was in terrible pain. When she finally died, I—there's no other way to put it, I broke down. If I hadn't chosen this life, to retreat and pray, I think I would have committed suicide or drunk myself to death. She wouldn't have wanted that."

Rick was silent for a long time, then said, "No, she wouldn't." He reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table, then thought better of it. "You check your medical supplies daily?"

"I should but sometimes I let it slide. I figure Brother John has done it for me."

"Wouldn't Brother John report the missing morphine?"

"Not necessarily," Brother Andrew said. "I thought he'd have more sense. I thought I'd get to him before he talked, if he talked."

"He ran right to Brother Handle. How long did you know?"

"Hours." Brother Andrew put his head in his hands. "The cabinet is locked. So I naturally thought that it was John who took the bottle, see? I wanted to ease my way toward him on this. I thought he was the killer."

"A clever fellow could pick the lock. I'd be willing to bet anyone could have picked that lock. It might not have been John who took the bottle."

Cooper interjected. "Why would you think Brother John would kill Brother Thomas?"

"That's just it. I couldn't fathom it. I wanted time."

"Let me ask you this: the tears of blood from the statue of the Virgin Mary. Do you think this is a hoax?" Rick pressed.

"Hoax is a strong word. I think it's a natural phenomenon."

"One bringing in money, much needed money."

"If Brother Handle were unscrupulous, it could bring in more."

"How do you know he isn't?"

A shocked look passed over Brother Andrew's face. "I would know. Brother Frank gives a treasurer's report."

"What if Brother Handle and Brother Frank are in collusion and keeping the money for themselves?" Rick pressed.

"Never."

"Maybe Brother Thomas found out and tipped off Nordy Elliott. Brother Thomas probably wouldn't go to an outside authority, but Nordy was a reporter, not a cop. If the story got out it might pressure the schemers. Brother Thomas thought like that."

"He could have come to you," Rick said.

"I doubt he would," Brother Andrew replied.

"He found out you were in on the cut of the fake miracle," Rick stung him.

"I am not. I would never do something like that."

"You're here because you're a suspect for murder. What's a little fakery and ill-gotten gains compared to that?"

"I didn't kill anyone." Brother Andrew folded his hands together.

"Then perhaps you can explain this to me." Rick spoke as to a slow-witted child. "You keep your medical certification current. Right?"

"I do."

"And how do you do that?"

The monk resented this question because he knew that Rick had the answer, had done the legwork. "To maintain my license I must take thirty hours of study, updating my knowledge, every year."

"Required by the Board of Medicine and the Medical Society of Virginia, correct?"

"Correct. These requirements can be satisfied by lectures, conferences out of state so long as the board recognizes them. If I were to fall behind, my license would be yanked out from under me."

"I'm glad that you know the law in your profession, I mean so far as your certification goes. Tell me then why you keep a blood and plasma supply in the infirmary when you know it is against state regulations? A private physician cannot harbor a blood supply. If I read the law correctly, both nationally and for the great state of Virginia, you aren't even allowed to give a transfusion in a private home."

A pause followed this as Brother Andrew sat stock still.

Clearing his throat, the lean monk replied, "That is the letter of the law, Sheriff, but the spirit of the law, if you will, may be more flexible."

"Not in my business," Rick flatly said.

"We both save lives at our best but in different ways." Brother Andrew leaned forward. "I have no doubt you've bent the rules to save someone."

"Brother Andrew, you're the one being questioned, not me. But I'm listening and I like to think I'm fair about things."

"Driving rains, the outskirts of a hurricane, or a howling blizzard, make it impossible to get up Afton Mountain or down. Have you, in your detective work, looked at the average age of the brotherhood? The average is fifty-nine. I need to have blood and plasma on hand just in case disaster should befall someone. So yes, I have violated the letter of the law and I would do so again to spare a life. I simply must be able to give someone a transfusion in extremis."

"I understand that but I also understand that the blood supply is tightly monitored. How do you get it?"

"I won't tell."

"Do you steal it?"

"Of course not," was the indignant response.

"Do you have your own blood drives?" Rick slyly smiled.

"No. Look, Sheriff, I am not going to put someone else in jeopardy. All I will say is one can get blood from a blood bank, a hospital, or an ambulatory clinic, usually run by a nurse but with a physician overseer. Obviously, you know that."

"I do. I also know that if you wanted to kill someone it would be awfully easy to do it with tainted blood, shall we say."

"Blissfully easy. I don't even have to have infected blood. I can pump too much potassium in the blood and that's it. And being the presiding physician, I'm the one to sign the death certificate. It's so easy to kill someone and make it natural, literally of natural causes, if one is a doctor or nurse. But did I kill Brother Thomas? No. Besides, he didn't need transfusions on a regular basis. Brother Sidney is the one who needs those."

"You're a cool customer, Brother Andrew."

"A doctor has to be cool or he can't function."

"All right, let's consider something else. I would guess it's no huge secret that you gave Brother Sidney a transfusion. And no one has questioned the practice?"

"Why would they? Medicine is a different world. There's no reason that anyone up on that mountain would wonder about Brother John and I keeping a blood supply. The other thing is, as long as people are healthy they pay no attention to their doctors."

"Tell me, then, how would you bring up the supply?" Rick held up his hand. "I'm not grilling you on your source, just want to know if anyone would go with you."

"Brother John if we both could be spared, of course. Brother Thomas would occasionally go with me and we'd run all the errands he needed and pick up the blood last. He stayed in the car while I ran in and picked up the container. It's a blue container which can hold dry ice. But again, I'm sure you know that because your research must have told you how quickly the hemoglobin can break down if warm."

"Yes. Anyone else?"

"Uh, no."

"Think. Have you ever sent anyone to pick up blood without you or Brother John?"

"Never."

"No one else ever went with you?"

"No. Just Brother Thomas."

"Would Brother Thomas ever have reason to steal a packet of blood?"

"No." Brother Andrew shrugged. "I can't think of any reason."

"Well, I can if the Blessed Virgin Mother is crying tears of blood."

This stopped Brother Andrew breathing for a moment. "Good Lord!"

"Seems obvious to me. And really, it should be obvious to you. Your surprise doesn't convince me or let me put it this way, it's a good thing you went into medicine and not acting."

"I resent that."

"Thought you might." Rick smiled. "You do confess that you have broken the law by keeping blood and administering transfusions?"

"I do," was the terse answer.

"Well, if you are willing to bend the rules in one area, I expect you would bend or break them in another area."

"Sheriff Shaw, I try to follow a narrow path. But sometimes one must break the rules."

A long silence followed this. Rick finally said, "I'm arresting you for the murder of Brother Thomas. You have the right to a lawyer. You waived it earlier. Would you like to reconsider?"

"Yes, but I don't know where to turn. And I only have one phone call, right?"

"Don't worry about that." Rick rubbed his forehead. "The state will appoint a lawyer if you don't have one. Or you can call someone you trust to find one. I'm not going to stick to one phone call. Your situation is unique because you have withdrawn from the world for the most part. Perhaps there's someone you treated whom you would trust."

"I trust Ned Tucker."

"Why Ned?"

"Brother Thomas. Susan would visit from time to time. Brother Thomas loved her and thought highly of Ned."

"Mmm. You can try. He might decline since you are accused of killing his wife's great-uncle."

"Are you going to lock me up?"

"Yes."

Brother Andrew's face registered his uneasiness. "I see. Will I be in a cell with other men?"

"No. I'll put you in your own cell. But remember, Jesus died with criminals. I would think being with the fallen would be an opportunity for you."

Brother Andrew dropped his head a moment, then looked up. "I will do my best, but I wish you wouldn't lock me up."

"Brother Andrew, you're my best suspect at this point." Rick lowered his voice. "And if you didn't kill Brother Thomas and Nordy Elliott, being in jail may just save your life."

35

We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard." Miranda quoted Acts, Chapter 4, Verse 20.

"Miranda, what have I seen?" Harry bent over the large dining-room table at Miranda's house, where Miranda had spread the plans for her expanded garden and the blueprints for a small gardening shed. "Wow, this thing has running water, slanting windowpanes for forcing bulbs, staggered shelves, even long sinks for potting, watering, and replanting. You've thought of everything."

"Tazio was a great help to me. What a mind that young woman has; she can see things in three dimensions."

"That's why she's an architect." Harry admired the clapboard structure, a small weathervane on top. "What kind of weathervane will you buy?"

"Have to think about that final touch." Miranda put her hands on her hips. "This is a lifetime dream. Harry, I am so excited."

"You deserve it. I'm good with a hammer and nails, you know."

"You'll be called." Miranda hugged her.

"Now, about this quote, seeing and hearing. That's witnessing, right?"

"Yes, but witnessing isn't talking as much as it's living the Lord's word. You bear witness, you don't talk witness."

"I understand, but Herb said something to me and I can't get it out of my mind. It's this eye stuff. The tears, Nordy's death. I don't know, I'm fixated on eyes, and Herb said, 'What do eyes do but bear witness?'"

"It's a moot point, Harry. Brother Andrew is in custody."

"Circumstantial evidence, I say. Until we know why, well, let me put it this way: even if Rick has enough for a conviction, I can't rest until I know why."

"It's the Hepworth in you." Miranda mentioned her maternal line. "Curious as cats, every one. That's why your mother spent so much time in the library. Kept her from meddling, but she satisfied her curiosity."

"Well, that's a nice way of saying I'm nosy."

The older woman smiled. "You are wonderful as you are. Nothing wrong with being curious."

"Don't even think of it!" Harry snapped at Mrs. Murphy, who was wiggling her haunches, ready to spring onto the table. "Paw-prints on your plans."

"Spoilsport." Mrs. Murphy complained but didn't jump up.

"Gets crabby when she hits a dead end," Pewter observed.

"That's what worries me. What if it is a dead end? A man's in jail. She should leave it be."

"When she stops poking around we'll know she's ready to die. She wouldn't be herself." The tiger sauntered into the kitchen, the others following.

"Give me another example of witnessing."

Miranda rubbed her chin with her forefinger, then quoted. "So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

"New Testament, right?"

"Second Corinthians, Chapter Five, Verse Twenty. We aren't being asked to go around and preach so much as we are charged with living Christ's teaching. Of course, some are called. They go out and preach. I couldn't do it."

"Why not?"

"I'm afraid of speaking in public." She laughed.

The door flew open and Susan, madder than a wet hen, blew through it, shaking in her hand an expensive fly-fishing rod and reel. "Another mystery solved! I will kill him. He promised me he wouldn't buy this. I'm scrimping to paint the inside of the house. Do you know what this cost?" She answered her own question. "A thousand dollars. There isn't a fish in the James River worth a thousand dollars. I will strangle him."

"Susan, he's had that since summer." Harry opened her big mouth.

"Oops." Mrs. Murphy giggled in the kitchen, turning on her heels to better watch the show.

"Someone better pour Susan a drink. She's stressed out," Pewter sensibly suggested.

"You knew!" Susan's eyes widened. "You knew and you didn't tell me. I ought to strangle you, too."

"Now, wait a minute, Susan—"

Susan threw the rod on the table, saw that it plopped on blueprints and plans, and quickly picked it up. "I'm sorry, Miranda."

"Girls, a late-afternoon sherry might be in order."

"Thank God." Pewter rubbed against Miranda's legs.

"I'll take a baseball bat, thank you." Susan's eyes burned.

"Oh, Suz, come on. Take a drink. Sit down. I can explain, really, I can."

Once settled in the living room, Miranda handed each woman a sherry glass. Harry wasn't a drinker, but a sip of sherry on a cold day can provide a touch of warmth.

"You two sort this out and I'll bring in scones and tea. A bit of hot tea with sherry works wonders."

As Miranda bustled in the kitchen, the animals with her because she tossed them treats, Harry started in, "It's like this: Herb borrowed the new rod and reel. He made a bet with Ned last summer and, I don't remember what it was, but anyway, he won, so he got to use Ned's fancy rod and reel for a fishing trip over in Monterey on the Jackson River. Ned feared your wrath, so Herb kept the rod and reel at his house. Guess Ned took it back. Where did you find it?"

"In his clothes closet in the back. I usually don't go in there, but I wanted one of his Brooks Brothers shirts. How could you keep this from me?"

"Everyone needs their secrets. It seemed harmless enough. And isn't it better to know this than to think he's having an affair?"

"He could still be doing that."

"He probably has a guilty conscience about this. He knows how much you want to get those rooms painted. It's so much money."

"For just two rooms, seven thousand dollars." Susan slumped back in the chair. "The whole house needs it. I guess I could try to do it myself, but I just hate painting. The fumes make me woozy. And we just spent all that money on the apartment in Richmond. How could he!"

"Look, I'm not working. It's winter, so I can't put in any crops. I'll do it for you. Let that be my Christmas present to you. You buy the paint. I'll do the work."

Susan burst into tears, got up, threw her arms around Harry. "I love you!"

Harry, surprised, hugged Susan back, although she had to get out of the chair to do it. Susan was so overcome, they both fell back into the chair just as Miranda walked into the room.

"Girls, don't you dare hurt each other!" She put the tray down.

Susan, tears rolling down her cheeks, extracted herself from Harry, who was wedged in the big chair. "We fell over. Really, Miranda, I wasn't hurting her."

"Child, what is wrong?"

"Harry is going to paint the inside of my house for a Christmas present." Susan bawled all over again.

"What a special gift. That is the best Christmas present ever." Miranda put her arm around Susan's waist. "Now sit down. I'm going to serve you scones and tea while you sip your sherry." When Susan sat back down, Miranda brought over the large tray, placing it on the graceful old coffee table. "Honey, you've been under quite a bit of heavy weather. You've been so troubled about Ned and you loved Thomas. It's been a very hard time. It's in God's hands. You relax and let's enjoy one another's company." She then served Harry, and Harry had to shoo away Pewter, who was perishing of lust for the clotted cream.

"If I beg like George Packard, that long-haired red tabby think she'll give me cream?" Pewter mentioned a local cat who imitated the dogs.

"Here." Miranda put down a little bowl of the rich cream as Pewter's new trick worked.

"If she gets any fatter I'm going to have to get her one of those children's car seats where you strap them in." Harry laughed at her cat, whose dark gray whiskers now had a cream coating.

Mrs. Murphy stuck her face in there, too, while Tucker contented herself with a large Milk-Bone.

"I spoke to Coop this morning," Susan said. "Andrew did not confess."

"Not surprising," Harry replied.

"You'd think a monk would be truthful." Susan thought the scone, with little currants in it, was the most delicious thing she had ever eaten.

"Guess that's why the different orders of monks have had cleanup periods over the centuries. They become corrupt." Harry broke open a scone, the aroma and heat within rising.

"The question is, Susan, are you satisfied? Do you think justice is being served?" Miranda drove straight to the point.

"I don't know. I told Harry right around Thanksgiving that I had this odd sense of foreboding. I still have it."

"What we need to do is crawl over the Virgin Mary."

"With all those praying people?" Susan's eyebrows shot upward. "Can't, and you can't do it at night. Also, its snowing again on the mountains. If she has been tampered with you aren't going to find it in the snow."

"If she's been tampered with it will be up through the middle, a line buried from underneath. We won't see it. Wish we had one of those heat-imaging things. If the line is wrapped in heat tape, we'd know."

"God, I never even thought of such a thing." Susan was dismayed.

"Has to keep the line warm somehow or it will burst." Harry munched, paused, then said, "Unless the line is drained each night."

"Now, there's a thought. If the line comes out far enough away from the statue, someone could sneak out and drain it. But it would still be under the snow, don't you think?" Susan pondered this.

Harry got up, brought Miranda's plans back to the coffee table. "See how Tazio's laid out her water lines?"

Miranda and Susan studied the gardening shed. "Yes," they said in unison.

"Miranda is going to install leaky pipe. All she has to do for her gardens is turn on the spigot, set it to a timer. She doesn't have to turn it off if she forgets or is busy. The pipes will drain out. Now, granted this is a leaky pipe, has those little holes so it will drain, but the regular water line here into the gardening shed is regular pipe, copper pipe. She's got the pipe packed in PVC up from the frost line, and between that and the copper it's going to be wrapped in heavy-duty insulation, the kind that won't blow up if it gets wet. The insulation runs into the gardening shed, so in theory, those pipes should never freeze. And the gardening shed is heated. Now, she didn't set those pipes up to drain, because it ought to be unnecessary, but if she wanted to, she could set up a small drain field over here, put a runoff pipe to it, and drain it nightly in the cold. See?"

Even the animals studied the plans.

"She's got it." Mrs. Murphy simply said with admiration.

"If the Virgin Mary is rigged," Miranda shook her head, "who could do it without drawing attention to himself?"

"Brother Thomas," Harry replied. "He's the only one with the knowledge."

"Oh, God." Susan sat back down with a thump.

"And he was the one who repaired her last summer."

"With Brother Mark's help. At least, I think so. Brother Mark was his apprentice."

"Girls, I just can't believe, not for a single second, that Thomas would stoop so low to create a false miracle." Miranda's face flushed with emotion.

36

Worn down by questioning, anger, and grief among the brethren, and the press of people worshiping at the base of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mother, Brother Handle felt his mind was fraying. He knew his temper was, but he would have to go over the same question, the same info, two or three times before it lodged in his head. Never a sound sleeper anyway, he would lie awake, eyes wide open.

Although the news of Brother Thomas's demise had been given to him only days ago, the time seemed like weeks since so much had been compressed in those days. Badgered by Rick, questioned in a nicer manner by Deputy Cooper, the stony faces of the monks contributed to his wondering if he should step down from his post. On the one hand, he would clear the way for a more vigorous Prior; on the other hand, it would look as though he ran away from trouble. Miserable though he was, he decided to stick it out. He told no one of his inner struggles. Even if Brother Handle had thought someone would be willing to listen, he would not have divulged his torments.

"I know this is the second time I've been in here," Brother Handle stood in the middle of the infirmary examination room, "but show me one more time."

"The morphine?" Brother John raised his bushy eyebrows.

"The routine. Go through the whole routine."

Indulgently, Brother John walked into the large supply closet, with Brother Handle close behind. "Everything is kept here. As I've told you before, the medicines, the needles, the linens, bandages, whatever we might need is kept here. In the examining room, the surgical implements are in a locked drawer. If Brother Andrew or I needed them, they were placed on the stainless-steel tray. Everything sanitized, of course."

Brother Handle pointed to the white metal cabinet, lock prominent by the handle. "It's in there."

"Yes." Brother John pulled a key from a chain around his neck. "Only Brother Andrew and myself have a key."

Brother Handle knelt down, peering at the lock as Brother John slowly opened it so as not to smack him in the face with the door. "Someone with dexterity could pick the lock."

"Yes, if someone were especially dexterous I guess they could get away with it." Brother John pointed to the bottles, most of them dark brown with white labels; a few were in white boxes.

"The morphine is clearly marked. Mmm, flu shots."

"Have you had yours yet? I didn't give it to you? Did Brother Andrew?"

"No, but—"

"Brother Handle, you need the flu shot. You're due and it's going to be a bad year."

"We can do it tomorrow."

"Today. It stings for a second and that's that."

Resigned to his fate, Brother Handle sat in the wooden chair. "Get it over with. I hate these things."

"Do you know anyone who likes them?"

"No."

Brother John took out the bottle. With his thumb he flicked off the hard plastic cap covering the top. He peeled the clear plastic wrapper off the needle, allergy-size, stuck the point into the rubber, and with his left hand turned the bottle upside down, drawing out the liquid with his right hand as he pulled back on the needle plunger. "Simple. Anyone can draw liquid out of a bottle. I know Brother Andrew is under arrest because he didn't report the missing bottle, but it doesn't take specialized knowledge to use a needle. They're being too hard on him." He checked the milligram bars, turned the bottle upside down, and removed the needle. He dabbed alcohol on a cotton ball and rubbed that on Brother Handle's left triceps. Straight as an arrow, he quickly inserted the needle, pressed the plunger with his thumb, removed the needle straight, held the cotton swab on the spot. "You'll live."

"I wonder," Brother Handle pessimistically groaned.

"A flu shot isn't going to do you in."

"Not the flu shot I'm worried about."

"I know. We're all worried."

Brother Handle leaned forward in the chair. "At what temperature does blood freeze?"

"30.99 degrees Fahrenheit. That's why blood is separated from plasma; the water and minerals freeze earlier than the actual blood."

"Who would steal blood?" Brother Handle asked.

"No one. It breaks down quickly. It would be worthless in medical applications." Brother John opened his hands, palms upward. "Unless the thief were a doctor or trained nurse, the blood would be useless rapidly. I can't see any reason for someone to steal blood."

"Do you count the blood packets each day?" Brother Handle's eyes bored into Brother John.

"No. Brother Andrew and I did count them but not every day."

"Did you ever lose any?"

"No." Brother John shut the refrigerator door. "Wait. Yes. September."

"What happened?"

"Brother Thomas and Brother Andrew picked up a container—you know those big blue containers with dry ice—of blood. They parked the car up here and then couldn't find the blood."

"Container."

"The container was in the car."

"I see."

"This is December. What does that have to do with the terrible situation—I know Brother Andrew is under suspicion but I don't see what blood has to do with it nor do I think Brother Andrew would kill Brother Thomas. It's absurd." Brother John's jaw set hard.

"I don't know, anymore. But I do know it took a crane to put Mary back on her boulder, and that was mid-September." Brother Handle raised his voice. "Who? If not Brother Andrew? Who?"

Brother John walked over to the Prior. "We live close together here, Brother Handle, yet we don't know about one another on many levels. A man could live his entire adult life here and others would only know of his temperament and his habits. Who is to say what or why?"

"You're certainly sanguine about it, forgive the pun."

"I'm a scientist. A doctor is a scientist. If I remain dispassionate I can help you more readily than if I'm emotionally involved." Brother John noted to himself that Brother Handle did not know about the laws involving the storage of blood by private physicians. He wondered how long before the Prior would begin making queries to outside doctors and learn about what Brother John considered a necessary irregularity.

Brother Mark ran into the infirmary. "Brother Handle!" he called out.

"Speaking of emotions," Brother Handle sourly said. "I'm in the supply room."

Brother Mark hurried to the open door. "Brother Handle, the main boiler broke down."

"Well, fix it."

"I don't know if I can."

"You spent all that time assisting Brother Thomas and you can't fix the boiler?" Brother Handle's hands flew up in the air in disgust.

"I lack his gift," Brother Mark pleaded.

"You'd better find it, because I am not calling j. g. cohen."

"That's an electrical company, Brother," Brother John quietly corrected him.

"All right, then," Brother Handle fumed, "I am not calling a plumbing company. Bunch of damned thieves. The type that set upon St. Paul."

"Setting that aside, it's nineteen degrees outside," Brother John flatly remarked.

To Brother Mark, the Prior sputtered, "Isn't there anyone else in this place who knows some plumbing?"

"Brother Prescott knows a little bit about the boiler. He was with us this summer when we drained the boiler, drained all the radiators, and then restored the pressure."

"Get him, then!" Brother Handle bellowed.

"Yes, sir, but," Brother Mark's voice trembled, "if I can't fix it, you really will have to call a plumber right away, because if the radiators freeze they will blow apart. A big chunk of metal could kill someone."

This stopped Brother Handle. "Let's all go down into the bowels of this place. You, too, Brother John."

Once in the cavernous underground, they stepped down another four feet to the enormous cast-iron furnace built in 1914, installed that same year. It was still heated with coal, the huge pile of dense anthracite, shovel next to it, near the open door of the furnace.

A water gauge—a clear tube one foot tall on iron hinges— was attached to the side of the furnace but far enough away from the metal itself so one would not be burned when reading it. The pressure gauge, face as large as a railroad clock, sat atop a pipe emerging from the box of the furnace itself.

"Pressure's falling fast," Brother Prescott, summoned by Brother Mark, stated the obvious.

"She's full up on coal. I shoveled it in myself," Brother Mark said, his grimy hands proving it.

"You know," Brother Prescott spoke to Brother Handle, "most people alive today have never seen a boiler like this, a furnace this huge. Brother Thomas worked on these kinds of things when he was a boy. If you call a plumber, chances are whoever walks in here will be over his head. All he'll tell you to do is to replace it with a modern furnace or heat pumps."

"I know that!" Brother Handle snapped.

"The only thing I can think of is that one of our water pipes is leaking or burst. Everything here is all right," Brother Mark added.

"You're the smallest; you'll have to get into the crawl space. It has to be down here," Brother Prescott stated. "If a pipe had burst in the kitchen or the bathrooms, we'd know. There'd be water everywhere."

"Here." Brother John handed the young man a powerful flashlight, then gave him a leg up to wiggle into the crawl space, a maze of pipes.

Brother Mark slid along the cold underbelly of the monastery. Cobwebs festooned his robe. The robe itself was an impediment. The occasional rat stared at him, then scurried away. At last, he found the leak at a U-joint where the pipes turned toward the housing side of the building. He was belly-flat in water.

He then had to back out, bumping his head in the process.

Brother Prescott grabbed his feet when they dangled from the crawl space.

A begrimed Brother Mark announced, "I found it. I need a new U-joint, a wrench, and grease. We need to turn off the main water valve. I can fix it in an hour, in less time if one of you will come in with me and hold the light, hand me the tools."

"I'll shut off the water valve," Brother John volunteered.

"Brother Prescott, get in there with him," Brother Handle commanded. "We've got to get this fixed as quickly as possible."

Wordlessly, Brother Prescott walked over to a corridor running from the big room at a right angle. Brother Thomas had kept everything necessary for the furnace there. "How big a U-joint?" he called out.

"I'll get it." Brother Mark, dripping, dashed over to the room.

"Brother John," Brother Handle turned to the physician. "You'd better stay down here to give them a leg up and to pull them out. Also, if anyone should get hurt in there you'll be on the spot. Better safe than sorry."

"Of course."

Then Brother Handle strode out to leave them to it. He reached his office, pulled on an overcloak, grabbed a small high-intensity flashlight from his desk. There was a pump in the forge, one behind the greenhouse, which also served the gardens, and another one in a small building behind the chandler's cottage.

While not a plumber or a particularly handy fellow, he knew the basics. He could spot a split pipe, a worn-out hose. He could read a pressure gauge as easily as the next man. He wanted to get outside despite the cold and he wanted to be alone. Double-checking everything would give him a reason to go out, not that he really needed one.

The chandler's shop was fine, as was the forge. His last stop and the one farthest from the monastery was the pumphouse behind the greenhouse. He could hear, even though he was one hundred yards away and on the ridge, people praying, chanting.

Grimacing, he ducked into the pumphouse, which was about eight feet by six feet, with a seven-foot ceiling. The pump in here, more modern than the one in the monastery, powered the sprinkler system in the greenhouse and the watering system outside. The brothers had long ago given up carrying buckets to the many plants and shrubs as the gardens expanded.

The overhead naked lightbulb, 150 watts, afforded some light. A standing kerosene heater was lit to provide warmth, to keep the pipes from freezing. The kerosene odor made Brother Handle woozy. He clicked on the flashlight, checking the gauge, the dial, the pipes. Then he got down on his hands and knees, cursing, to check those pipes running out and under the ground. A narrow-gauge copper pipe behind the pump caught his eye. It was tucked behind a large pipe. The copper pipe had been freshly painted black. He scratched it with his thumbnail and was rewarded with the sight of gleaming new copper. A metal box, painted black to blend in with the pipes and the walls of the pumphouse, hung under this pipe.

"He has put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. My kinsfolk and my close friends have failed me." Brother Handle, heart sinking, quoted Job, Chapter 19, Verses 13 and 14.

He touched the box, cold to his fingertips. The pipe, too, was cold but not freezing.

He didn't know how long he remained there, cramped under the larger pipe. He blinked and shook his head to clear it, then moved backward before standing up.

He whispered to himself the lament of Job, "My brethren far from me."

37

Staring into the silver bowl, three feet across, engraved with the details of a steeplechase victory by Mini's grandfather, Angus Urquhart, Susan was mesmerized as she stood in the large center hallway, Persian carpets underfoot.

"Ma'am." The short gentleman in livery behind the bowl held up a silver cup, the long, graceful curving ladle in his right hand.

"Hank, I can't get used to seeing you in livery."

"Mizz Big"—he referred to Big Mim by the nickname her staff called her—"does everything tiptop. How do you like Gretchen in her do?"

Gretchen, Big Mim's right hand, the woman who truly ran Dalmally, wore a mobcap with a low-cut eighteenth-century gown in deep maroon. Over that she wore a starched bright white apron. During the mid-eighteenth century it wasn't uncommon for women to be well dressed with an apron over their skirts. This protected the dress while they served or did anything messy. They removed the apron when dining or dancing. What set apart the lady of the house from the servants wasn't so much the fabrics, because a rich household dressed the servants with great care and at great expense. The dividing line for women was jewelry.

Mim, queen of Crozet, mourned the loss of elegance. She would quote Talleyrand: "He who did not live in the years before the Revolution cannot understand the sweetness of living."

Rev. Herb Jones would reply that it depended on one's station. An aristocrat might live very well but then again could be impoverished. A merchant might live like a prince although not be allowed a coat-of-arms or any such distinction. A skilled laborer might also enjoy the fruits of his labors. And then there were the hundreds of thousands who toiled, who sowed but did not reap. What sweetness life held would be found under a woman's petticoats, in the bottle, or perhaps one sunny day when the fellow found a gold coin on the road.

To this Big Mim argued that the century is not that important when it comes to the suffering masses. There will always be millions on the bottom. No amount of social engineering has ever figured out how to truly distribute wealth without either punishing the enterprising, murdering the aristocrats, or burning up resources in wars.

Perhaps she was right. The twenty-first century displayed no signs of a solution, although the leveling tendencies flared up regularly.

When Susan beheld the gargantuan punch bowl, she was overwhelmed with its workmanship, including the perfection of the cursive engraving.

Harry walked up next to her. "Every time I see this bowl, which Mim breaks out for her extravaganzas, I think the damned thing must be worth over a hundred thousand dollars. It's lined in gold, for Christ's sake."

Susan tipped back her head and laughed. "Harry, you are so predictable."

"What did I do now?"

"Not one thing. You're just you." Susan accepted the filled silver cup from Hank with an appreciative nod.

"Mizz Harry?"

"Hank, I need a tonic water with lime. I'll go to the bar for that. Can't drink eggnog."

"Jim mixed it up himself. The first cup will taste ever so delicious." His eyes sparkled. "The second cup will make you roar like a lion. If you drink a third, we'll carry you out of here feetfirst." His deep laugh rumbled.

"Thanks for the warning." Susan peered into her cup, a sprig of fresh mint floating on top along with a little sprinkle of nutmeg. The mint was Jim's special touch when he gave instructions to Hank.

"Now, you know, Mizz Big cooked up her orange blossoms. A little less lethal." Hank winked.

"Thanks. Merry Christmas, Hank."

"You, too, ladies."

As Susan accompanied Harry in her fight to reach the bar, she said, "Did you notice the color of the eggnog in the bowl?"

"Yeah."

"Living room. I want that color in the living room."

"I thought you were only painting two rooms and that wasn't one of them." Harry snaked through two rotund guests whose stomachs nearly touched.

"I know. I'm getting carried away. But I'll pay you."

"Don't be silly I actually like painting. But what I'll do is get a large batch mixed up; I don't want to go back and have a second mix. Never quite matches up, I swear it. Anyway, I'll get enough for my living room, too. That can be your Christmas present to me."

"I'm still getting the better deal."

"Actually, I am, because I've got you for my best friend." Harry smiled, her teeth exceptionally white.

After getting a large tonic water with a slice of lime, the two friends pushed through to the living room, a festival of white, red, and gold. Red and gold were Big Mim's stable colors, as well.

In this part of the world, even if a person had one acre with a run-in shed on it, they displayed stable colors, often in a small square on their truck on the driver's side, certainly on the sign to their place. It added color to country already steeped in nature's colorful wardrobe. Even winter greeted the eye with white, all shades of gray, mauve, purple, and brilliant red holly berries set against dark, glossy green. The sky gleamed intense robin's egg blue or true turquoise, at night giving way to pink, salmon, every shade of scarlet to purple.

The living room, indeed every room but those upstairs, bulged with friends, acquaintances, a smattering of nonfriends and a few enemies. The ages ranged from a few months old to Aunt Tally, closing in on one hundred. The net worth spanned less than twenty thousand dollars a year to over seven billion dollars. And there wasn't only one billionaire in the room. There were folks who could neither read nor write and those who made their living with language. The mix, heady, even combustible, represented a true Virginia party, and it was perfect.

Most everything Big Mim did was perfect. She didn't cotton to not being the richest person at the party, but she made certain she was the most charming, elegant, and hospitable. Her legendary aesthetic abilities were much in evidence, and in this department she had hot competition. Again, it was Virginia. Colors had to be subtle, furniture had to be hand-built from exquisite woods, floors, often hundreds of years old, had to glow with the patina of time. If your house looked as though you'd spent a fortune decorating it, you were already off the board. This, of course, made the competition for beautiful homes and inviting interiors much, much harder. Big Mim ran first, although Alicia ran a close second and BoomBoom wasn't far behind: win, place, show.

Then there was Harry, valiantly bringing up the rear. But she was cherished because she knew what was good and because she didn't violate the integrity of her old farmhouse. Then, too, everyone knew she didn't have the money to do it right.

Tazio Chappars, from a wealthy African-American and Italian family in St. Louis, endured an adjustment period when she first moved to Albemarle County. Being an architect, she had definite ideas about design and she loved interior decorating even though it wasn't her profession. Defiantly, she decorated her attractive clapboard house in a minimalist style. After two years she found that bored her. She began to be seduced by Wedgwood blues, putty grays, seaweed greens. The soft curve of the back of a Sheraton sofa sang a siren song. When her two brothers visited her, they teased her but they had to admit, a softness, a welcome comfort, was part of her home and life.

Also part of her life was Paul de Silva, Big Mini's steeplechase trainer. They couldn't keep from touching each other's hands as they spoke to others. BoomBoom, Alicia, Fair, and Ned chatted with them as Harry and Susan joined in.

"Where have you been?" Ned asked.

"Took me forever to get my eggnog."

Ned peeked into the silver cup. "Doesn't look like it took forever to finish it."

"I'm sticking to one. Hank gave me fair warning."

"Every year Jim makes that concoction more potent." Fair laughed.

"Well, Harry, when are your mares due?" Paul asked.

"Mid-February"

"Fair, you'd better party now, because once January is upon us you'll be a busy man." Tazio smiled.

"Every foal is a gift. I never get tired of helping a new life." Fair meant it, too.

"I know all of you have bets on my mare. Did she get covered by Peggy Augustus's stallion or did she behave like a slut with that donkey down the road?" BoomBoom giggled.

"Girl's gotta have a good time." Harry giggled, too.

"If she gives me a mule I'll make it and ride it in the hunt field."

"BoomBoom, you will, too." Alicia laughed.

"May I have your attention, please," Jim Sanburne called out.

Took a few minutes, but everyone quieted as the band set up in the ballroom.

Big Mim stood alongside her husband. "Merry Christmas," she greeted the guests.

Jim raised his arms, a big smile on his face. "Every Christmas Mim and I love to have you with us. The Urquharts have kept Christmas in these rooms since 1809. Guess before that they celebrated in the log cabin." He paused and smiled. "I like to think of Christmases past; I like to imagine that those guests who danced before us are with us. And I like to think that Christmas brings out the best in each of us. This Christmas is very special to my wife and me, because we are pleased to announce the engagement of our daughter to Blair Bainbridge. Come on up here, honey."

"Daddy," Little Mim demurred, but Blair took her elbow and led her next to her father.

"To the future union of Marilyn Sanburne the Second and Blair Bainbridge." He stopped and held his glass over his head. "To the future!"

"To the future!" the assembled called back.

An eruption of noise followed this, as did the sounds of the band tuning up, then breaking into "The Virginia Reel," to announce that the dancing should commence.

As guests surged forward to congratulate Blair and to wish Little Mim the best, Harry, Fair, Susan, Ned, BoomBoom, Alicia, Tazio, and Paul slowly moved into the line.

Alicia mentioned to Harry, "Have you visited the Greyfriars' Web site?"

"Yes, why?"

"Tepid. Nothing about the tears," Alicia replied.

Harry moved along, hoping Fair wasn't listening to their conversation. He was bending down to listen to Paul, a shorter man than himself—but then, most men were.

Harry motioned toward Fair. BoomBoom winked.

Alicia understood and whispered, "Have you visited Web sites about the Virgin Mary?"

"Yes," Harry said.

Susan squeezed closer to hear.

"I found one mentioning the statue at Afton. Goes through the whole history—you know, the legend of the tears before World War One and World War Two. Tells about the tears now, and the Web master promises to pray for you at the statue, say a rosary if you like."

"No kidding?" Susan raised her voice.

"Susan." Harry elbowed her. "Don't let him hear you."

"Harry," BoomBoom whispered, "he was married to you. He knows you're up to something."

"He doesn't have to know what," she whispered back.

"The Web master—a pseudonym, I'm sure—is called Brother Love." Alicia reached for BoomBoom for balance when a large group of people crowded up behind them. "Brother Love is making a pretty penny."

"I know," Harry replied. "Cooper knows, too. I was playing around one night and found it. I called Coop, but she already knew."

Glorious though the party was, Harry couldn't wait to get home. Fair came home with her, and there was nothing to do but park him in front of the computer, too.

Silently, he read everything.

After they'd gone through it all, the cats on either side of the computer, Fair remarked, "Brother Love will take your Visa card number for a rosary. Extra prayers are available, too. Irritates me."

"That's capitalism." She anticipated his next question. "I didn't mention this to you because you were busy—me, too, and, really, I just found it myself yesterday."

"You should have told me right off the bat, dammit."

Harry squinted, took a deep breath. "Susan said something to me once. She said, 'Sometimes it's not who has the most to gain, it's who has the most to lose.' "

Neither Harry, Fair, nor the animals could have known that as they scrolled through the Bleeding Mary Web site, Brother Handle was suffering the long, dark night of the soul. He knelt on the cold floor of the chapel as he prayed. He knew the killer was in his flock, and he didn't think it was Brother Andrew. If he called in the sheriff, that would warn the killer, who must be relaxing thanks to Brother Andrew's arrest. He hoped he could flush the man out. He still couldn't imagine the reasons for anything so foul. He didn't know about the Web site, but even if he had, it wouldn't have led him to the murderer. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't think of how to set a trap. He couldn't confide in anyone. He didn't trust anyone.

As he prayed, tears falling down his cheeks, he thought this would be the worst night of his life. It was a blessing he couldn't have known what was to follow.

38

A massive lone oak, well over three hundred years old, graced the middle of the family cemetery at Blair Bainbridge's farm, which touched Harry's farm on the western border, a strong-running creek being the dividing line.

This cemetery contained the remains of the Rev. Herbert C. Jones's ancestors. The Rev always considered this farm the old home place, lost by his uncle's frivolous nature. The now departed man had sat under the oak among the hand-carved tombstones and read his life away. Fond of Russian novels, he had learned Russian, but he also devoured literature in French, Italian, and German. Brilliant though he was, the stout fellow hadn't a grain of common sense.

A parson barely makes enough to keep body and soul together. Herb couldn't step in to repair the outbuildings or the house. When hard necessity dictated the farm must be sold, he was glad a young, well-to-do man bought it. Blair transformed the farm into a tidy, working place, helped by Harry's country wisdom.

A light snow fell on the oak as Harry and Blair stood underneath. At 7:45 A.M. the skies promised even more snow to come, for clouds darkened in the west. In the country, people meet early, since the workday begins by six A.M. In summertime, it often begins at five A.M., so people and animals can beat the heat.

"There you have it." He smiled wanly. "I've poured my heart into this farm." He laughed. "If I'd known how much work these couple of hundred would be!" He whistled. "I would never have made it without you."

"You're a very intelligent man, Blair. You would have figured it out," she demurred.

"What I would have done is hire a consultant who would have charged me an arm and a leg. You did it all because you're a good neighbor. I don't think there's anything you don't know about farming." He sighed deeply. "It's so beautiful in this graveyard, with the wrought-iron fence, this oak, which was a sapling seventy years before the American Revolution. Guess you know why we're here."

"Well, Blair, I have a pretty good idea."

"You asked if I would come to you first if I decided to sell. I love this farm, but Little Mini wants to live at Aunt Tally's. She'll inherit that farm, and I guess both she and Stafford will inherit Dalmally someday."

"Be a cold day in hell, because the Urquharts live forever." Harry laughed.

"I thought of that. I expect that Dalmally will go to Stafford's children and to ours. We hope to have children. Mim's spoken to her brother in New York about all this. They're on the same page. But I hate to leave this place, I really do, even though Rose Hill is only another two miles down the road."

"It's a lovely, lovely place, and you two will make it your own."

"I expect Aunt Tally will drive us both crazy sometimes, but you know, she's a good woman. I'm glad to know her. She's a free thinker. To have that kind of energy at ninety-nine, she really has become one of my heroes."

"Mine, too."

He paused, watching a blue jay fly onto a tombstone, bitch and moan at the cats below, then fly off, dusting them with snow. "Jane Fogleman at Roy Wheeler Realty says I can ask one point two million and probably sell for a million, but—" Harry's face fell. He held up his hand. "You and Herb can't come up with that kind of money. Here's what I propose. You've saved me plenty. You laid out my pastures. Took me to the tractor dealers. Introduced me to the honest workmen and craftsmen in the county. You hauled me over to Art Bushey and got me a deal on two trucks. You even sat down and explained to me what a four-ten axle is compared to a lesser one and why I needed that to haul cattle although it would make for a bouncier ride. You spent weeks with me that one summer showing me the different kinds of cattle, the ratio of meat to bone. You were patient. You're a good friend to me. Let me be a good friend to you. I'll sell the farm to you and Herb for five hundred thousand dollars. I'll write you up a lease-to-buy contract for all my equipment. It will be simple, five thousand dollars a year. You maintain the equipment and you give me the right to borrow it from time to time should Aunt Tally's tractors or implements break down. How does that sound?"

Stunned, Harry opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"Yes!" Mrs. Murphy spoke for her human.

"But we don't have the money." Tucker's brown eyes implored the tiger cat to think of something.

"You don't pass on a deal like that, Tucker. And she'll get the money. Risk drives people forward. This kind of scramble separates the sheep from the goats."

Her mind racing, Harry gulped the cold restorative air. She held out her hand. "Blair, I accept your offer. How much time do I have to raise the money?"

"If you can do it in four months' time, great. If not, a year."

"All right."

He touched a tree limb, low and so old the thickness of it was as big as a man's thigh. "I'm not a poor man. My profession, silly as it is, has made me a lot of money, but I'm a piker compared to the Sanburnes and the Urquharts. They must have triple-digit millions."

"Easily, but they're responsible people. They manage their wealth with wisdom and they're the mainstays of important charities."

"Oh, I know. I admire them but I keep asking myself, how do I raise children in this wealth and teach them that other children are starving?"

"Tally and Big Mim will pass that on. Take your cues from them, and you're good with people, you'll be good with children. Actually, I don't know how anybody does it. I can raise cats, dogs, horses, and cattle, but I don't know how I'd do with the human variety."

He beamed. "You'd do just fine. Probably have them cleaning tack by the time they could walk."

She laughed, a sense of relief and fear bearing on her with equal measure. "Blair, you're probably right."

As she walked back through the snow, passing the evergrowing beaver dam in the creek, she thought about how unpredictable was life. Then she laughed out loud because she was glad of it.

"Happy," Pewter, jumping from human footstep to human footstep, remarked.

"For once, she's taking a big chance. Even if she falls on her face, and I know she won't," Mrs. Murphy said, "this will be good for her. She'll finally make good in the world, the human world."

Once beyond the beaver dam, beyond the low hillock at a right angle to the pond the beavers had created, Harry noticed fox tracks heading to the den on the hillock. "Smart," she said to her companions.

"Too smart," Tucker replied.

Harry lifted her head. "Hey come on." She ran through the snow, breathing heavily. Snow wore you out.

Opening the door from the kitchen was Susan, and Harry reached it just as Susan was leaving. Before she could open her mouth to exclaim her good fortune, Susan grabbed her by the arm, pulling her into her own kitchen. She helped Harry with her coat.

"Susan, I can—"

"Harry, Ned ran a check on the Brother Love site. Ned forgot about it until this morning. He's on overload and gets forgetful. As an elected official Ned can get information from the phone company, from the Internet services that we can't. He can ask the sheriff to get information, too."

"What did you find?"

"Brother Love was Nordy Elliott."

"What?" Harry had one arm in her jacket, the other arm out, the jacket dangling to the floor as the cats attacked it.

"Nordy Elliott set up and ran the Web site." Susan became more clear. She was rattled.

"What a total creep."

"If Nordy set it up and now he's dead, there had to be someone else in on the deal." Pewter stated the obvious.

"I hate this," Mrs. Murphy said. It was all much too clever, almost catlike.

"Susan, we've got to get up on that mountain." Harry slipped her arm back into her jacket.

"Take your thirty-eight, Harry. I left the house in such a fit I forgot mine."

39

I'm listing to starboard," Harry remarked as she and Susan once again trudged through the snow. The cats and dog walked ahead of the humans since the thin crust on the snow, an eighth of an inch of ice, didn't break under their light weight. Harry and Susan crunched through, sank ankle deep in powder, lifted their boots out again, and kept going. Their thighs felt the effort after twenty minutes. The going was slow.

"I'm just listing," Susan grumbled.

"The gun. It's heavier than I thought," Harry replied. She'd slipped in her coat pocket the Les Baer competition series handgun, a .38 Super that Fair had given her for her birthday. Harry's hand—eye coordination was excellent. Fair knew she'd like target practice with the competition series gun, as it was extremely accurate and reliable.

A gaggle of buzzards turned their long necks to gaze at the five creatures fumbling in the snow. They'd settled on what was left of a deer. One huge bird stretched her wings wide, holding the posture.

"Jeez, that wingspread must be four feet." Susan respected the buzzard's task in life.

"Hope it's not an omen." Harry's right foot sank deeper into the snow than her left.

"That's a happy thought," Pewter, claws gripping the ice, said sarcastically.

"If these two think they'll be incognito up there, they're lunatics." Mrs. Murphy had to laugh.

"Mother knows she'll be spotted sooner or later. But coming this way at least they didn't pass through the gates. Mother's afraid she'll be stopped since Brother Handle and Brother Frank think she's a pest. And maybe she doesn't want to disturb the people praying at the statue," Tucker remarked.

"Tucker, why get on your knees in the snow?" Pewter thought the whole posture ridiculous.

"Slaves kneel. Freemen stand up," Mrs. Murphy commented.

"Huh?" Pewter gripped the ice again.

"In Roman times, a slave knelt before his or her master sometimes. So humans are showing the Virgin Mary they are her slaves. She's the boss," Mrs. Murphy deduced.

"I thought Christians weren't supposed to worship idols." Tucker found human religions baffling.

"They don't consider Mary an idol," Mrs. Murphy confidently replied.

"Wait a minute. Moses pitches a fit because the Hebrews are worshiping a golden calf, but these people can lay down and sob in front of a statue?" Pewter's tiny nostrils flared when she caught a whiff of the buzzards as the wind shifted.

"That's why people are what they are, Pewter. They can rationalize anything. Reality is pretty much irrelevant to them. It's what they make up. It's why they suffer so much mental illness. How many alcoholic cats do you know? Cats on Prozac? Because sooner or later in human lives, in the life of their nation, reality intrudes and it's always unwelcome, a big, fat shock. They just go off." Mrs. Murphy wobbled her head to make her point.

The other two laughed.

"Can't reconcile reality with illusion or delusion," Tucker noted.

"Tucker, that's almost poetic." Pewter's pink tongue unfurled when she spoke.

As they neared the site of the statue, the animals could hear people saying their rosaries. Harry and Susan couldn't hear it yet.

Harry stopped. Susan collided into her and they fell down.

"Dammit, Harry, you should have given me warning."

"Sorry." Harry sat on the cold frosty snow for a moment to catch her breath.

"Come on." Susan, up first, held out her gloved hand.

Harry scrambled up. "Let's start with the outbuildings closest to the statue."

"The glassed-in greenhouse below, the garden cottage, the chandler's cottage. The other outbuildings and shops fan out all along the back high ridge."

"I wish we could go over the Virgin Mary with a fine-tooth comb." Harry sighed.

"Springtime," Susan answered.

"That will be too late." Harry stayed down on the slope away from the statue.

They passed the pumphouse and the greenhouse, electing to go to the chandler's cottage first since they could see figures inside the greenhouse.

The heavy door to the chandler's cottage was shut against the cold, snow piling by the door. Smoke spiraled out of the chimney, then swooped down low as though a large hand pushed the gray smoke flat.

Harry opened the door.

"Harry." Brother Mark smiled. "I'm glad you're here. Business has been light given all this weather. Hi, Susan. You know, it's not the same around here without Brother Thomas."

"I can well imagine." Susan loved the odor of the different candles. "What are you doing in the candle shop?"

"Brother Frank put me here today since Brother Michael, who usually runs this shop, you know, is coming down with a cold." He watched as Mrs. Murphy and Pewter marched directly to a small hole in a floorboard by the corner. "I knew there were mice in here! Every now and then Brother Michael complains of a chewed candle—never one of the tallow candles, always beeswax."

"Does Brother Michael make all these candles?" Susan admired a huge taper.

"He has help."

"Do you ever make any?" Harry inquired.

"No. It's a little too artistic for me. I mean, I can pour the wax in the molds, that part is okay, but it's when Brother Michael wants colors. I mess it up." He brightened. "I can collect beeswax with the best of them. They call me when they get stuck."

"Mountain honey." Susan could drink an entire jar of honey and savor every drop. However, the calories would send her right over the edge.

"Brother Prescott has charge of the hives. Funny to think of him in beekeeper's garb. Of course, the hives are in the same places they have been since the nineteenth century. Got 'em at the edge of every meadow."

Harry had sidled up to the computer as Susan and Brother Mark chatted. She noted that the computer was new, sophisticated.

Brother Mark caught her observation out of the corner of his eye. "Something, isn't it?"

"I thought you all had old stuff." Harry admired the thin flat screen in front of her.

"We did. Brother Prescott and I talked Brother Handle into a new system. Every shop is connected. Brother Frank can sit in his office and call up sales figures when they are transacted."

"What about Brother Handle?" Susan asked with seeming innocence.

"He's got the best." Brother Mark leaned forward and said conspiratorially, "About all he can do is turn it on. Great piece of equipment wasted."

"I would guess a lot of the brothers don't know how to use a computer." Harry couldn't take her eyes from the screen, its resolution crisp and clean.

"Uh, it's an age thing. I mean mostly it's an age thing. The brothers running the shops had to learn, didn't much like it. The others don't use them."

"Did my great-uncle know how to use one?" Susan asked.

"He could do anything. If it had a motor or was wired, Brother Thomas could figure it out."

"He was pretty amazing," Susan agreed.

"I know you're down there," Mrs. Murphy called into the mouse opening.

A high voice called back, "And down here we'll stay."

Another voice yelled, "Hairy brute."

Mrs. Murphy stuck her paw in the hole.

"Wouldn't you love to grab one!" Pewter's pupils grew large in her chartreuse eyes.

As the cats fiddled with the mouse hole, Tucker sniffed everything. All was in order.

"Do you own a computer?" Harry asked.

"No." Brother Mark pointed out a candle in the shape of a cat.

"Girls." Harry pointed to the candle.

The cats glanced at the object, then returned their focus to the mice between the floorboards and the joists.

"I'll buy this for the kitties." Susan reached into her jeans' pocket for bills. "Brother Mark, do you think you'll remain a monk?"

He paused a long time. "It was easier when I had Brother Thomas to turn to, to work with. Now I feel pretty much alone. I don't know if I'm cut out for the contemplative life."

"Darn." Susan dropped her money, bills fluttering to the floor.

Harry bent down to retrieve them and her .38 gun handle clearly showed in her jacket pocket.

"What are you doing with a gun?" Brother Mark's voice rose to a higher register.

"Forgot to put it away after target practice," she fibbed.

"Stuff it down in your pocket. Everyone's jumpy around here."

"You think Brother Andrew killed my great-uncle?" asked Susan.

"I don't know." Brother Mark accepted the bills, his palm open. "He had the best opportunity for it."

"It is strange," she concurred. "Don't all those people at the statue work on your nerves?"

"No, not really. They need help and comfort. And they're generous. Even the poor ones leave something. I believe that Our Lady will intercede for them. She may not give them what they ask for, but she'll give them what's best."

"Yes," Susan simply said.

"She ought to do something about these mice," Pewter piped up.

Slyly, Harry reached for the keyboard but didn't touch it. "Brother Mark, did you know there's a Web site dedicated to Our Lady of the Blue Ridge? If you send money, the person posing as a brother will pray for you or say a rosary."

"No."

"I'm not kidding." Harry's hands hovered over the keyboard. "Want to see?"

"Uh—well, yes, but if a brother walks in here you'll have to bail. No personal use."

Deftly, Harry typed in the Web site address, Brother Mark hanging over her shoulder. When the photo of the Blessed Virgin Mother, tears bloody on her cheeks, appeared, he gasped.

Harry scrolled up text and Brother Mark read quickly. Then the door opened and she clicked off the computer, stepping back so Brother Mark could step forward as though he was making a sale.

Brother Frank walked in, his face soured at the sight of Harry. "Here to meddle?"

"That's a Christian greeting," she shot back.

He considered this. "Well, what are you doing here?"

"Candles." Susan pointed to the bag into which Brother Mark was placing the cat candle and a fat beeswax candle.

"Are the cats and dog buying, too?" Brother Frank scowled.

"Mice." Brother Mark indicated the hole in the floor.

"Well, put rat poison in it!" Brother Frank commanded.

"I can't do that, Brother. It will kill the mice, but I can't get them out without tearing up the floor, and the shop will stink to high heaven."

"Get a cat," Mrs. Murphy suggested.

"Right," Pewter seconded the motion.

"You've always got an answer." Brother Frank fumed, then abruptly conceded, "You're right in this case."

Susan picked up her bag, smiled at Brother Mark. "Nice to see you."

As Harry, Susan, and the animals left the shop, Brother Frank peered through the window. "She's on a search-and-annoy mission. Ah, heading for the greenhouse. Stopped. Talking to Susan. Going behind the greenhouse. Now, why would she do that?"

Brother Mark shrugged. "I don't know."

"Nothing back there but the pumphouse." Brother Frank turned from the window. "I came in here for a reason and I forgot it. Damn that Harry. She made me forget it." He peered out the window again. "There goes Brother Handle. He's going behind the greenhouse, too. Oh, he won't be happy when he finds Harry and Susan." Brother Frank chuckled. "He won't be happy at all. All right, then, I'm going. If I remember why I came here in the first place, I'll tell you."

"Good-bye, Brother." Brother Mark's eyes squinted as the treasurer closed the door with a thud.

Because of the runoff from the greenhouse and garden cottage, the ice crust was thicker behind those buildings. The cats and dog dug in, but Harry and Susan looked like skiers without skis.

Harry hit the side of the stone pumphouse with a thud. She noticed the shoveled-out railroad-tie steps at the rear leading up to the path. "Dammit."

Susan noticed it at the same time and laughed. "Be easier getting out than getting in. Think a monk can use a computer in the middle of the night and get away with it?"

"Yes. What I need to find out is if that information is fed back into Brother Handle's computer. Every time you log on, it's recorded in the computer, right?"

"Right."

"It seems to me, if all the computers are tied in, it wouldn't be that hard to keep track of who is watching what. But even without that, each of these computers will have that stored inside. A whiz will know how to get the traffic pattern out of the motherboard."

"Right." Susan pushed open the door with Harry's help.

The animals dashed in.

"Flip on a light," Susan said, smelling the kerosene.

Harry hit the switch. "Wow, this baby is powerful."

"Why isn't she worried about someone seeing the light?" Pewter wondered.

"At this point she doesn't care if she's yelled at or not. If someone was looking out of the garden cottage or the greenhouse, they'd have seen us all come in here."

Harry and Susan inspected the pump.

"Wish I had a flashlight." Susan could see that a bright focused light would help.

"We can see well enough." Harry squeezed behind the pump. She dropped down on her hands and knees, and Tucker came up, sticking her wet nose in her mother's face. "Tucker, don't."

"You look silly on all fours," the dog rejoined.

"Susan, here it is." Harry found the thin painted copper pipe. "This has to be it."

"Could run to one of the fountains."

"Yeah, it could, but look how new the copper is. See the scratch here? If it had been in service for a while, the copper would be green." She noticed the smallish box, painted black, underneath the copper tube, feeding into it. She fished out her trapper knife, wedging it under a flat cap. "Damn."

"Frozen?"

"It's above freezing in here. If it weren't it'd be Niagara." She pointed to the kerosene heater in the corner. "Does the job." She returned to the small box. "I guess someone has the job of lighting that. Damn, I can't pop this."

"What are you looking for?"

"I think this has liquid or powder in it. Red."

Susan said nothing, then stiffened and whirled around. Harry was still on her hands and knees.

"Intruder!" Tucker warned as Harry backed out.

Brother Handle opened the door and closed it behind him. "Just what are you doing?"

"Figuring out the miracle." Harry's voice was low, angry. "You knew, didn't you?"

Before he could answer, Susan, her voice trembling slightly, said, "Did you kill Thomas?"

Harry jumped in. "Are you going to kill us?"

The door opened with great force, sending Brother Handle sprawling on the floor.

"He won't kill you, but I will." Brother Mark, knife in hand, leapt for Harry, pinning her so she couldn't reach for her gun.

Tucker sank her fangs into his ankle.

"Climb up the robe," Mrs. Murphy ordered.

The two cats easily climbed up, ripping the heavy wool as they progressed. They reached his shoulders as he kept Harry pinned but tried to shake them off.

Susan leapt onto Brother Mark, as well, grabbing his neck on the right side. The thin, razor-sharp knife was in his left hand. He couldn't reach Susan with it without releasing his hold on Harry.

Brother Handle, on his feet now, lurched toward the melee.

Tucker let go of Brother Mark's ankle, whirling to meet this new threat. To her surprise, the Prior quickly pulled the rope tie from his robe, flipping it over Brother Mark's neck while putting his knee in the young man's back. Susan dropped away.

Choking, Brother Mark released his grasp of Harry, but with his left hand he swung back, stabbing the Prior in the side.

The older man grunted in pain, slightly loosening the rope.

Brother Mark, almost free, swung the knife toward Harry, but she pulled the .38 from her pocket.

"Stay still."

"You wouldn't," he sneered as Brother Handle held his side but didn't let go of the loosening rope.

"I will."

Brother Mark slashed out at Harry. She ducked in the close quarters, firing into his abdomen. He screamed and dropped down on one knee as the cats leapt off his shoulders. "Oh, God," he moaned.

"He's not listening," Susan spat. "You killed my uncle! Kill him, Harry. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

"No." Harry steadily held the gun, elbows straight. "Call Rick."

Susan yanked out her tiny cell phone, flipping it open.

"How'd you figure it out?" Brother Mark moaned.

Harry ignored him. "Brother Handle, how bad is it?"

His hand, covered with blood, stayed pressed to his side. "I'll live."

The pain increased for Brother Mark. On first getting hit with a bullet it's a hard thud. As minutes go by the pain intensifies, turning into agony. A wound to the stomach is never good. He curled up in the fetal position.

Susan supported Brother Handle, who was rocking on his feet as she'd gotten off the phone. "Lean on me. Try to relax. I know it's difficult, but the calmer you can be, the deeper your breathing, the better. Honest."

He sagged against her. "God forgive me. I was wrong. I waited one day too long."

Harry never took her eyes or the gun off Brother Mark. "You did what you thought was best, Brother Handle."

"I put the order first." His body was shaking and he was sweating.

"Let's sit down. Can you sit down without a great deal of pain?" Susan gently moved him toward the thick stone wall, slowly doing a deep knee bend against it. His eyes fluttered. She looking imploringly at Harry.

"Is he going to croak?" Pewter was ready to leave if he did. She wasn't big on the moment of death. It was too messy for her fastidious tastes.

"No, he's going into shock. Susan is trying to keep him warm," Mrs. Murphy replied.

"What about him?" Pewter walked over to sniff the groaning Brother Mark.

"Don't know." Mrs. Murphy listened, hearing a siren in the distance. "Let's hope he lives so we can find out what really happened and why."

Tucker, firmly planted between Harry and Brother Mark, said, "I'd be happy to rip his throat out."

Harry now heard the siren. "I've never been so happy to hear that sound in my life."

Brother Handle, floating in and out of consciousness, raised his head for a lucid moment. "Hail Mary, Mother of God, full of grace—" He dropped his head again.

40

It was a simple scam. Straightforward," Coop said to Harry and Susan. "We were closing in, but you two jumped the gun. You know, Harry, sometimes you're too clever by half."

"You said a mouthful." The Rev. Jones smiled.

The four gathered in the St. Luke's rectory office, the fire crackling in the large fireplace.

"How's Brother Handle?" Harry asked Herb, who had been to the hospital that morning.

"He's got a hell of a gash but he was lucky. Just missed his kidney."

Harry watched the four cats play with Tucker and Owen, lots of fake puffing up while the dogs snapped their jaws. It was all very ferocious.

"So the motive was money after all." Susan sighed.

"Yes and no." Coop rubbed her hands on the arms of the club chair. "Mark wanted money. Nordy wanted money and fame. It was his idea in the first place. He'd cover the story; it'd be big news before Christmas, you know, a hopeful, religious story. The story would run as long as he could come up with interesting angles, string it out, which he did. And he was right, the footage was used all over the country by network affiliates. He thought this was his ticket to the big time, a huge metropolitan market."

Harry wondered, "Who would have thought those two would be partners?"

"College. They knew each other at Michigan State, which was no secret. They'd kept in touch. They'd run a little scam in college printing false I.D.s. Neither one was especially honest, obviously. When Nordy started broadcasting from Channel Twenty-nine, Mark, or I should say Brother Mark, the smarter of the two, hooked back up with him. He was disconnected in the monastery. He felt Brother Handle and the other monks disdained him, but he had nowhere to go. He'd burned his bridges behind him. He needed money and he knew from his life outside the brotherhood that he wanted a lot of money. His five years as a brother apparently taught him nothing about the Ten Commandments." Coop wryly smiled.

"Maybe he thought they were the Ten Suggestions." Harry noticed the animals leaving the room.

"Why did he kill G-Uncle?" Susan folded her hands together.

"He cried about that," Coop said flatly.

"Crocodile tears," Susan bitterly replied.

"No, I think he feels some remorse. As you know, he was your great-uncle's apprentice, following him everywhere. Brother Prescott stuck Mark with Brother Thomas because Thomas had such patience. No one else could get along with Mark for very long. Brother Thomas taught him how to keep the plant going, taught him the guts of the place. He learned the wiring and the plumbing. Brother Thomas, pious as he was, suspected the bloody tears. He was going to discover how it was done and he knew the only person, apart from himself, who could rig that up would be Mark."

"But how did Mark do it?" Harry could hear a door down the hall slowly opening.

"When the statue was taken off her base this summer, Brother Mark drilled into her a little each night. First, and this was the easiest part, he hollowed out her head. He painted the inside with a hard sealer to prevent the blood from eventually seeping through the soapstone. He covered the outside hole with epoxy made to look like stone. Special-effects people do this kind of stuff all the time.

"Nordy linked him up with special-effects people he'd met through covering film shoots in Virginia. Mark learned what he needed to know via e-mail.

"Then he drilled a line from the head down to the base. That wasn't so difficult, either, just time-consuming. He ran a copper tube from the head to the base.

"Again he drilled out a big section in the base to hide all that coiled copper until he could dig a narrow ditch down to the pumphouse.

"He had to do that at night. He could work on the statue during the day while she was off her base, since Brother Thomas would come and go. Digging the ditch for the copper line was the hardest part, and he had to do it by hand."

"Then there was blood in the black box behind the pump?" Harry asked.

"No. Water. He'd send a little water up the copper tube, warm water, to meet the blood, and gravity did the rest." Coop admired the plan.

"Ah, that's why he picked winter." Susan got it. "In warm weather she'd cry all the time; he'd have to replace the blood."

"Right. This way he could make the miracle last longer yet be a little unpredictable. He could refill the head. The plug unscrewed once he would scrape off the bonding glue. He only refilled her once, replaced the glue with his special-effects touches—makeup for statues! It was very clever. And remember, he stole one container full of blood types. He didn't know when he could steal another. Sooner or later Brother Andrew or Brother John would have caught him."

"Then why in God's name did he remove Thomas's body? That was so disrespectful!" Susan's face reddened.

"He panicked." Coop dropped two perfectly square sugar cubes in her coffee.

Herb's secretary, Linda, had brought a large silver service, placing it on the coffee table. Her office was just off Herb's, and the handy kitchen was next to that.

"Why? Why would he panic?" Harry thought the procedure grisly.

"You. You have a reputation for ferreting out secrets. He knew the morphine would stay in the body for a time, so he thought he'd get rid of the body in case there was an exhumation. He also figured that no one would find the body until springtime and he'd be long gone. He underestimated you in that."

"Susan, too," Harry said.

"Actually, we have to give credit to the cats and dogs." Susan paused. "Coop, give them credit in your report."

Reaching for a chocolate-dipped shortbread cookie, Herb asked, "Then why did Mark kill Nordy?"

"Greed. Nordy pushed him. Nordy pushed everybody. They argued about the fifty-fifty split. According to Mark, Nordy declared the money would be a trickle if he hadn't gotten national coverage and then set up the Web site. There's the ring of truth to it."

"Was my uncle really praying in front of the statue?"

"According to Mark, he was. Perhaps he knelt down out of habit. Mark followed him. All he had to do was reach around and cover his mouth with chloroform. When he passed out, Mark pumped him full of morphine. Those allergy needles barely leave a mark. Thomas had a flashlight; he was intending to look around. He was suspicious. Mark took the flashlight and put it back in the supply room."

"How much money did they make?" Herb, always struggling to balance the budget for St. Luke's, had to ask.

Coop leaned forward. "So far they'd taken in over half a million dollars."

"What!" Harry nearly spit out her tea.

"Religion is big business. Selling cures and hope is even bigger." Coop shrugged. "The Bakkers built an empire on it, as have Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. These people or their organizations, if you will, make millions every year. Now, I'm not saying that Falwell and Robertson are crooks, only that we can't even imagine all the lonely and frightened people sitting watching TV who pick up the phone, use their credit card, or write a check."

Herb glanced up at the ceiling. "Don't suppose there's a miracle waiting to happen at St. Luke's Lutheran Church, do you?"

Harry stood up. "I don't know about a miracle, but I believe there's a sacrilege in progress."

"Huh?" Herb's eyes widened.

Harry tiptoed out, peeked down the hallway. The supply door was open, one box of communion wafers was shredded, and she could just make out Elocution, on her hind legs, pulling down another one, egged on by Pewter.

"What are you doing?" Harry shouted.

"Run for your life!" Elocution shot out of the closet so fast she knocked over Pewter, who quickly scrambled to her feet.

The cats hurried up the stairwell, as the closet was underneath it. The dogs, larger, couldn't slip through the stair rails, so they skidded around the end of the stairs, hurrying up to the landing.

Herb joined Harry. "Red-handed!"

Susan, Coop, and Linda, sticking her head out of her office, looked down the hallway.

They all walked down the carpet to the closet. Not a crumb of communion wafer remained from the shredded box.

"Well," Herb shook his head, "we know they aren't Muslims."

"Lucy Fur needs to come home from your sister's. She'll keep them in line." Susan mentioned Herb's other cat, who had been visiting his sister.

Once the animals were collected and scolded, Harry and Susan drove back down Route 250, heading west. They'd called Fair and Ned, giving each man the details. Then they called BoomBoom and Alicia, who just couldn't believe Nordy was that devious and smart. Big Mim already knew, since Sheriff Shaw kept both herself and her husband, as mayor of the town, in the pipeline.

As Susan flipped on her turn signal, Harry said, "No. Let's go back up to Afton. I want to see the Blessed Virgin Mary again. I have a prayer."

"Funny, I do, too."

Harry turned to the animals in the back of Susan's station wagon. "If you know what's good for you, you'll have a prayer, as well. I am so ashamed of you. Can't you eat Ritz crackers? Does it have to be communion wafers?"

"The cats made us do it," Tucker whined.

"Shut up, you weenie." Mrs. Murphy clocked him one on the snout, which made Owen crouch down lower in the sheepskin bed.

"Don't be ugly, Murphy," Harry reprimanded her.

"Why eat a Ritz cracker?" Pewter replied. "They're too salty. Anyway, eating the communion wafers makes a statement."

"It does?" Owen popped his head up.

"Sure. You know the story about the fishes and the loaves? Well, give me fishes and I won't eat the wafers." Pewter thought herself terribly clever.

The animals giggled. Harry crossed her arms over her chest. "Susan, do you ever get the feeling they're laughing at us?"

"Every day."

This time Susan pulled up to the parking lot at the monastery, which was close to full. The events did not necessarily discredit the powers of Our Lady of the Blue Ridge to the devout or to those deeply in need of spiritual succor.

Harry and Susan, trailed by the animals, walked up the hill, then stopped at a distance from the praying people.

The cardinal flew and sat on Mary's hand. "Bunch of nits."

"Good thing no one knows what he's saying but us." Mrs. Murphy fluffed out her fur.

"So much has happened since Thanksgiving, I feel as though I've lived a year," Susan said, her breath escaping like a plume of white smoke.

"Me, too. Herb and I are going to do our best to buy the farm. And this whole thing up here—I couldn't exactly put my finger on Mark, but at least I was in the game. It made me think, made me think about how a life can be snuffed out in a split second and others ruined because of selfishness, greed." She shook her head. "Why? I just don't understand why."

"I don't think we ever will and I don't think it will ever stop, Harry. There will always be humans ready to rape, steal, lie, kill. And they'll either act on impulse or think they have a good reason. I don't think the human animal has advanced emotionally as a species since we've been walking upright."

"Bleak."

Susan's lower lip jutted out for a moment. "Maybe we can't do much for the species, but we can change ourselves. We've done what justice we could for my great-uncle. I'm satisfied."

"Good."

"And," she stopped and reached for Harry's hand, "I want to tell you something, something I have carried since I was nineteen years old, since I married Ned. This brush with fate or whatever you want to call it made me realize that it wasn't Ned who was withdrawing, it was me."

"Why?"

"Harry, I've lied to Ned, to you, to everyone since that wild summer."

"What are you talking about?"

She faced Harry directly. "I fell in love with Charlie Ashcraft and I got pregnant. Ned was head over heels for me at the same time. Of course, I never told anyone what was what, and you know how Charlie was. He dumped me like a hot rock. So I told Ned I was pregnant by him and we married. Danny was born eight months later in case you didn't count."

"Susan, why didn't you tell me? How you must have suffered."

"At first," the tears finally came, "I felt lucky. I mean, because I wasn't caught. And Ned is such a good man. Eventually I did fall in love with him. Danny looks so much like Charlie, but—and here's the odd thing—people see what they want to see. Ned has blue eyes, so people would say about Danny, 'He has his father's blue eyes.' I would reply, 'Yes, he's the spitting image of Ned,' all the while lying through my teeth. But what I didn't know is that little by little, I was growing distant. You can't lie to people and not pay for it inside. It's like a drop of poison put in a deep well each day, until one day you can't drink the water."

"Susan, I am sorry. Truly."

"You're my best friend and I've lied to you. Forgive me."

"Of course I do." She thought a few moments. "I can understand why you did what you did. I wish you had trusted me, but I do understand and I love you. You're my sister. I love you no matter what."

Susan choked up for a second, then said, "I told Ned last night."

"You did?"

Susan nodded, sputtering. "It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life."

"God, Susan, what did he do?"

She quietly replied, "He said he always knew."

The two stood there, not moving or speaking.

Harry finally whispered, "That's a big love."

"Look," Tucker barked.

Tears flowed down the Blessed Virgin Mary's face, blood red in the sunlight.

Harry thought for a moment that there was probably some blood left in the statue, and then she thought that it didn't matter. Miracles do happen.

That evening when Fair stopped by, Harry told him, "Yes."

Dear Reader,

Catnip! Tuna! Chipped beef! These are the things that make life wonderful. Of course, I wouldn't mind a bunny with a limp.

The more I write these mysteries, the more I enjoy myself. I don't really need Mother at all except to type, open the canned food, and give me furry toys.

Pewter contributes about as much as the human in the house.

As for the dogs, poor things, they try so hard to read.

I hope you are all well, lots of mice in the cornfields, moles in the ground, and little voles, too.

The old truck finally pooped out at 200,000± miles. I want a big new one with my name emblazoned on the side. Too flash? How about a small S.P.B. on the driver's door? I know Mother is frothing at the mouth to buy one but she has to drag it out, research it to the max. Right now she can't make up her mind between an F-250 4x4 or an F-150 4x4. Personally I deserve an SL 55 AMG, but we are farmers so I have to be practical. The S.P.B. is a must, though.

You should insist that your human put your initials on the door. After all, they can't put one foot forward without us.

Ta ta,

Sneaky Pie

Dear Reader,

Having just picked up the manuscript, discovering Sneaky Pie's letter, I feel I should set the record straight.

My God, how she flatters herself.

I work just as much on these mysteries as she does. Furthermore, I don't waste time bringing baby copperheads into the house. Nor do I dash after the chickens only to have them turn on me. She's not as smart as she would have you believe.

As for the old truck, I sure got my money's worth. What's wrong with researching thoroughly? A truck or car is a big purchase. I can't just throw the money away so she can ride in comfort. Yes, the star likes to be ferried about in style. Get her? An SL 55 tweaked by AMG. Catitude!

Catitude to the tune of about $119,750 retail base price. I mean, she can't even think about the regular SL 500 at $88,500 retail base price. No, she wants the SL 55 AMG. That's one pussycat that needs to be Number One on the New York Times bestseller list, because I'm not buying her a sports car. Wait, a sports car with her initials on the door.

I suppose I'll have to put her initials on the truck or she'll shred my shoes. Sneaky Pie practices revenge.

Wish me luck.

Rita Mae

About the Authors

RITA MAE BROWN, bestselling author of over thirty books, loves her work. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, she lives in Afton, Virginia. She is The Master of Foxhounds of The Oak Ridge Foxhunt Club.

SNEAKY PIE BROWN, a tiger cat born somewhere in Albemarle County, Virginia, was discovered by Rita Mae at her local SPCA. They have collaborated on twelve previous Mrs. Murphy mysteries: Wish You Were Here; Rest in Pieces; Murder at Monticello; Pay Dirt; Murder, She Meowed; Murder on the Prowl; Cat on the Scent; Pawing Through the Past; Claws and Effect; Catch as Cat Can; The Tail of the Tip-Off; and Whisker of Evil, in addition to Sneaky Pie's Cookbook for Mystery Lovers. She wants everyone to know that the wonderful foxhounds of Oak Ridge are the only hounds in the world supported by a cat.