Catch As Cat Can

21

The sodden ground could suck the shoes right off a horse. It held onto human shoes, too, as Harry and Cynthia Cooper trudged along the deer path not far from Durant Creek. Tucker, up to her knees in the mud, accompanied them. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, left back at the farm, planned even more retaliatory destruction.

Harry pointed. “Here we connect up to the old farm road. Jeez, it's loud.”

Coop stopped at the crossroads of deer path and farm road. “The ground's soaked. If we get any more rain, the creeks and rivers will jump their banks.”

“Spring.”

“Yep.”

“We were running back. I noticed a gleam. And that's about the size of it. We walked over, I discovered it was the hood ornament. I didn't notice footprints or tire tracks. It started to pour but it had been raining before, as you know. If a car or truck had come back here there would have been deep ruts. There weren't.” She moved over. “About here.”

Tucker, senses much keener, sniffed around. No trace of human scent remained, although a hint of coyote lingered. She was glad her mother couldn't smell it because coyote spelled a great deal of trouble for everyone. The force of the storms beat down small branches, brush, stripped some buds off trees. She couldn't gather any more evidence than the humans.

“Where does the farm road lead?”

“To the creek.”

“Any structures, sheds, anything like that along the way?”

“No. Marcus Durant's shack is the only building and that's back where we parked.”

“Well, let's head back.” Coop stuck her thumbs in her belt. “Whatever might have been on the ground is washed away by now, but”—she looked around again—“I've got to run down every lead I can. I just wonder what the hell he was doing out here, if he was here.”

“Come on, Tucker.”

“I'm coming,” the dog replied, irritated that she couldn't locate more scent.

A sharp breeze picked up as the two women and dog walked back.

“Sure doesn't feel like spring today,” Cooper commented.

“Cuts to the bone. Coop, what's going on? You wouldn't be out here with me if you weren't worried.”

“I don't think Wesley Partlow committed suicide. Marshall Wells can't get to the autopsy until tonight. I'll withhold judgment until I get his results.”

“Isn't it hard to perform an autopsy on an exposed corpse that's been hanging?” Harry grimaced.

“Those guys know what they're doing. They take tissue samples. I couldn't do it. I trust their opinion because they do such a thorough examination of the body, too. Rick and I have trained eyes but we're not doctors.”

“I wouldn't think a kid like Wesley could be hanged without a fight. Surely there are easier ways to kill someone than to hang them.”

“Not if all you have is rope. What if our killer, assuming there was one, didn't have a gun or a knife? Right now I don't know much of anything and I sure don't know why he was out here. I would figure from the time we released him to the time you found the Mercedes star would have been five to six hours.”

“He wouldn't knowingly throw away the star.” Harry was thinking out loud. “He could have lost it running or in a fight. From here to the elder-care home in Crozet is about three miles.”

“Yeah.” Coop opened the door to the squad car.

“Shut the door, Cynthia. Let me wipe off Tucker's paws first.”

“I can wash them,” Tucker grumbled.

Harry had had the presence of mind to throw an old towel in the squad car. She grabbed it, bending down to clean off the corgi's muddy paws. “I'd never know you had white feet, Miss Pooch.”

Coop leaned against the car door. “He wasn't on drugs. That's the first thing I think about. Wesley was clean as far as we know.”

“I'd have thought he'd take anything he could get. Maybe he had more sense than I gave him credit for—what little I saw of him. Some people are life's losers. It sounds harsh but it's true. Miranda gets mad at me when I say that because she believes everyone can be redeemed through the Lord. I hope she's right.”

“She hasn't been quoting as much scripture lately.” Coop smiled. “Tracy?”

“Yeah, though she was never what I'd call a Bible thumper. Okay, there were times when she came close but she has toned down a little. I actually like it when she quotes the Bible. I'm learning something. I never did memorize much except for Hamlet's soliloquy, which I hate.” Harry, meditatively rubbing Tucker's paws, got lost in thought.

“M-m-m, come on, she's clean enough.”

“All right, Tucker. In you go.”

“I told you I could wash myself.” Tucker sat down on the backseat and began washing her paws.

As they drove down Whitehall Road, Coop asked, “Is there anything unique about the farms out here?”

“Unique? Well, some of them are very beautiful but I can't think of anything unique. Many of them were filled with wounded soldiers during the War Between the States. They'd ship them in by train and folks would pick up soldiers, ours and the Yankees, down at the train station and take them home. God, it must have been a mess. Just about every house in central Virginia had soldiers in it.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“You were in as much danger from the surgeon as you were from the enemy. But no, there's nothing special unless you count architecture.”

“I sure wish I knew what he was doing down here.”

“Did anyone pick him up from the station?”

Coop shook her head. “Walked right out and kept going.”

“Creepy.”

“Wesley?”

“The weekend. Kind of a weekend of death. Roger and then Wesley.”

Cynthia said, “I heard Lottie Pearson hired a lawyer.”

“You're kidding.”

“Just in case we accuse her of poisoning Roger. Now, there's a paranoid woman. No one is accusing her of anything. It was her dumb luck to hand him coffee and cake.”

“Who told you?” Harry could think of a few people who would get the news first.

“Little Mim.”

“Lottie's been shining her on.”

“Oh, well, Little Mim knows it. She said she called BoomBoom to tell her she made the right decision in fixing you up with Diego and not Lottie.”

“She did?” Harry was surprised.

“You're a lot more fun than tight-ass Lottie.” Coop whistled. “And he is gorgeous.”

“Pretty is as pretty does.”

“Oh, Harry, that's what you always say about horses.”

“Well, it applies to men, too.”

Coop laughed as she turned right, out toward Harry's farm. “Who knows what men say about us?”

“That we're beautiful, sexy, and wonderful. Right?” Harry laughed, too.

“I'm sure.”

“Do you have to go to the autopsy tonight?”

“No, I get the night off. Things are returning to normal, finally.”

“Miranda, Susan, and I are going to Tracy's apartment over the pharmacy to paint. Miranda's bringing all the food. How are you with a paint brush?”

“Picasso.”

When Harry walked inside her house she noticed how silent it was. Not a kitty in sight. It wasn't until she went into the living room that she beheld savaged lampshades, pillows tossed on the floor, and her bowl of potpourri strewn all over the carpet.

“Mrs. Murphy! Pewter!”

“You don't think they'll show their faces, do you?” the dog intelligently asked. “They're both in the barn in the hayloft, I guarantee it.”

Harry looked at the old clock on the mantelpiece. “Damn. Well, come on, Tucker, I was going to take them to Tracy's but not now.”

She grabbed her old white painter's pants, a white T-shirt, then headed out the door with a bouncy Tucker at her side.

Once at Tracy's she blew off steam about the depredations of felines. It made her paint faster but she was careful with her brush and didn't make a mess. Miranda had chosen a rich, warm beige for the living room, the windows trimmed in linen white.

Once Cynthia arrived the pace really picked up. They had the living room and all the trim knocked out by eight. Miranda had set up two card tables in the kitchen. Susan went off her diet. She couldn't help it, the food was too good.

Tracy had fought in Korea right out of high school. He stayed in the army, got his college degree, and after years of outstanding service was wooed away from the army by the CIA. He wasn't a right-wing fellow; he'd seen enough government mismanagement to cure him of any blind patriotism. However, he revered the Constitution and loved his country, warts and all. He had a logical mind, a mind good at detail. When he retired to Hawaii he thought all would be well, but his wife had died three years earlier. His fiftieth high-school reunion brought him home and back to his high-school flame, Miranda, herself widowed. It was as though they had never parted. So he flew back to Hawaii, attended to business there, sold his house, and returned.

Both Tracy and Miranda were of a generation where you didn't live with a member of the opposite sex unless you married them. He could walk to Miranda's from his apartment and everything would be proper.

“When do you move the furniture in?” Susan asked. “Do you have furniture?”

“Some.” He looked at Cynthia Cooper. “Did you notice the knot on the hanging rope? Not to change the subject.”

“Just looked like a knot to me.”

“You saved the rope for evidence, of course.”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I come down and look at it tomorrow? And who notified next of kin?”

“Augusta County Sheriff's Department.” A cloud crossed Cooper's face. She didn't want to trespass on another law-enforcement agency's jurisdiction, but she thought she probably should have gone with someone from the Augusta department. She'd go over there tomorrow.

Already a few pounds thinner thanks to his wired-up jaw, Officer Everett Yancy hopped out of his seat when Deputy Cooper walked through the doors of the sheriff's headquarters.

“Coop!” He hustled her to his desk, sat her in his chair, leaned over, and punched in a code. “What do you make of this?”

On the computer screen appeared a message from their contact at Richmond's Department of Motor Vehicles, Carol Grossman. The DMV, efficient, processed information from satellite DMVs statewide as well as mailings from individual drivers.

The message read:

Hey, you asked for this driver's license Saturday night.

Here's our record.

Yrs, Carol

Yancy reached in front of Cooper to scroll up more text. Before her eyes was Wesley Partlow's license. But the photo on the license wasn't Wesley Partlow.

For the first time, Cooper felt the ground give way beneath her. She knew they were going out into deeper water.

She glanced up at Yancy. “These guys are good—real good.”

No sooner had she studied Carol Grossman's message than the phone rang for her.

“Hello.”

“Deputy Cooper, Officer Vitale. I'm sorry to be a little behind. I went over to the Partlows' like you requested. No one's dead.”

“Thank you, Officer Vitale.” She put the phone down. “Someone sure is dead, along with my brain!” She stormed out of the room.