Catch As Cat Can

4

Like ants at a picnic.” Mrs. Murphy marveled at the humans, about twenty, walking through lots of elaborate broken columns, pediments, sarcophagi all neatly divided according to function.

The short drive to the building was dotted with large terra-cotta, stone, and ceramic pots. Next to the stone lot was a marble lot with large sheets of roseate marble that must have come from an old hotel lobby, smaller pieces of veined green marble, a bar top perhaps, which rested next to jet-black marble, again all neatly stacked. The largest outdoor lot was filled with rubble from stone walls, building foundations, some blocks hewn square and others natural.

The indoor rooms of the main building contained wooden cornices, fireplace mantels, pilasters, handblown glass, hand-hammered nails, a cornucopia of treasures.

A railroad siding ran parallel to the main building. A flatcar filled with heavy stone cornices, lintels, and copings was near the building. Flatbeds delivered materials and perhaps an old car once a week. Behind that was an old red caboose which stayed as yet unrestored.

Sequestered in the rear of the four acres was Roger's garage shop. Fast-growing pines shielded it from view. Dotted around the various outdoor lots were small neat buildings. They looked like garden sheds and contained tools, old tractor parts, and other items needing protection from the elements.

The animals found the debris less fascinating than the humans but occasionally a whiff of a former occupant, another dog or cat, lingered. Such olfactory information was recent, of course. No such signature wafted from shards saved from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Harry was amazed at the salvage yard's transformation into a kind of architectural dumping ground. The last time she had visited, Sean's father, Tiny Tim, who was tight as a tick with his money, jovially presided over the place, one big yard filled with rusting cars. Tim collected old gravestones as he was interested in the stonemasons' carvings. He'd talk about the tombstones, then move to the broader subject of death. Tiny Tim vehemently opposed autopsies. When he died his wife and sons did not request one so no one knew exactly what he died from, but a lifetime of smoking, drinking, and eating anything that didn't eat him first probably did him in.

Sean, long and lean, wore a faded orange canvas shirt tucked into carpenter's pants. Grease was not ground into his hands, no smears of oil or dirt besmirched his shirt. He could have been a greengrocer except for the carpenter's pants.

One wall displayed specialized tools used in restoration: elegant chisels, small hammers, larger ones, tiny butane torches for peeling back layers of leaded paint. The choices were overwhelming and expensive.

Cynthia and Miranda approached the counter.

Sean asked his assistant, Isabella Rojas, to take care of the customer he was serving and he strode across the expanse to greet the two women. “Welcome. I think you're in luck.”

Harry caught up with them, the three animals lagging behind. “This is wonderful.”

“Thanks.” He focused on Miranda. “Mrs. Hogendobber, follow me.”

The humans and animals left the main building, walking about four hundred yards to the rear where thousands of hubcaps, sparkling in the sunlight, hung on wires. They were organized according to car model and year.

The glare from the shiny surfaces caused Mrs. Hogendobber to shield her eyes with her hand. “My word, I had no idea there were this many hubcaps in the world.”

“Let's cruise the outbuildings.” Tucker wagged her nonexistent tail. “Bet they're full of vermin.”

“You're a ratter, are you?” Pewter sashayed, a superior air exuding from her gray fur. “You couldn't catch a comatose mouse.”

“Look who's talking,” the corgi called over her shoulder as she sprinted toward the garage building followed by Mrs. Murphy. A trail of fading beer cans gave evidence of Roger O'Bannon's progress. Sobriety was not a virtue associated with Roger.

Pewter declined. For one thing she really didn't care much about mousing or Roger O'Bannon. Birding was her game and she was still put out that Harry had saved the woodpecker for Don Clatterbuck's skills. She wanted to pull the feathers off. Truth be told, Pewter had never killed a bird but she picked up those who died or fell from the nest. She liked yanking out the feathers. She wouldn't eat one. Pewter wouldn't eat anything that wasn't well cooked except for sushi. Something about the darting and dodging of birds excited her and she dreamed of killing the blue jay housed in the maple tree. One day the arrogant fellow would fly too close, run his mouth too loud. She knew her day would come and she'd end his foul abuse. But for the moment she was content to sit at Harry's feet and listen to the tale of the hubcaps.

“My hubcaps!” Miranda reached for the only set of Ford Falcon hubcaps on the line.

“Now, Mrs. H, if you file a theft report I have to impound the hubcaps as evidence. If you don't file, you can put them right back on your car,” Cynthia counseled her.

“No!” Miranda shook her head in disbelief.

“That's the law.”

“How long will that take?”

“It depends on whether we find the suspect or not. If we do and he comes up for a hearing and then a trial, it could take months—many months.” Cooper sighed, for the clogging of the courts wore her out as well as her sister and brother officers. She often thought to herself that people would be far better off trying to solve problems themselves instead of running to the sheriff's department or a lawyer to do it for them. Somehow Americans had lost the ability to sit down and talk to one another, or so it seemed to her.

“Oh, dear, what will the girls at church say?” Miranda worried about driving around undressed, as it were. “Well . . .”

“Maybe we can solve this together.” Cynthia focused on Sean, now removing the hubcaps from the line. “The obvious question: who sold you the hubcaps?”

“Usually Roger takes care of the car end of the business but he's not here at the moment,” Sean said. “I just happened to be outside when a kid drove up with the hubcaps.”

“Know him?”

“No. Never saw him before in my life. I knew the Falcons were rare so I paid fifty dollars for them, wholesale. I priced them at one hundred and twenty and hung them right on the line. If I'd taken a moment to think about it, I might have realized they were Miranda's but the kid said they came off his grandmother's Falcon that had breathed its last.”

“What did he look like?”

“Slight. Early twenties. Sandy hair, a pathetic attempt at a mustache.” Sean sported a red mustache and closely clipped beard of luxurious density but the curly hair on his head was black and long. He tied it in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Harry called this a dork knob behind his back.

“Any distinguishing features? Do you remember his clothes or his car?”

“1987 GMC truck. Gray. Virginia plates. Uh, a Dallas Cowboys windbreaker maybe as old as the car and—yes, there was one distinguishing feature. His left eye sagged, an old wound. It was half-closed and a small red scar ran from over the eyebrow to below the eye itself.”

“Runny nose? Jumpy?” Cynthia was looking for a fuller picture of the “perp,” as she called him.

“No. Calm. Didn't smell alcohol either.”

Miranda took out her checkbook as Harry held the hubcaps that Sean had handed to her. The older woman fished around in the bottom of her purse. “I've got a pen in here, I know it.”

“Put that away,” Sean chided her gently. “I'm not having you pay for what's yours.”

“But you paid the thief.”

“My problem. I mean it, Miranda. You put that checkbook away right now.”

Cynthia thought a moment. “Why don't we do this? You put the hubcaps back on your car. I'll fill out this report and I'll look for the kid. If Rick Shaw”—she mentioned her boss, the sheriff—“wants to see the evidence, I'll send him to you. I just don't see the point of impounding your hubcaps where they'll sit until God knows when. Just let me handle this.”

“I don't want to get you in trouble.” Miranda appreciated Cynthia Cooper's concern. She had become friends with the young deputy over the last few years.

“A little trouble won't hurt me.” She smiled.

“I'm sorry about this.” Sean genuinely liked Miranda, as did most people in Crozet.

“Times change and it would appear not for the better. You had nothing to do with it.” Miranda smiled back at him.

“If you all don't need me anymore I'll get back to the store. Saturdays are always our busiest day.” He took a few steps, then stopped. “You all are coming to the Wrecker's Ball, aren't you? First Saturday in May. It's our fund-raiser for the project Building for Life, which helps poor people who need homes.”

“Wouldn't miss it.” Cynthia closed her notebook.

“My ex-husband asked me to your ball months ago. I was so proud of him for planning ahead but,” Harry laughed, “it's foaling season so for all I know right in the middle of the dance his beeper will go off. The perils of veterinary medicine, I guess.”

Fair Haristeen, Harry's former mate, was a much-sought-after equine practitioner. He'd built up a fine practice, constructing a modern clinic with an operating room.

“Eradicating vermin. Ha,” Pewter cackled, trying to direct Harry to her furry pals.

Harry looked down at the gray cannonball of a cat. She would have scooped her up but her arms were full of hubcaps.

Miranda whistled for Tucker.

A yip told them where Tucker was and also that the dog was in no hurry to return to the humans.

“Let me put these by your car, Miranda. I'll even put them on for you but I'd better find those two first. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. I'm taking up your Saturday afternoon.”

“I was coming here anyway, really I was.” Harry walked briskly back to the Falcon, parked in front of the new main building. She stacked the hubcaps by the driver's door.

“Hey, I'll put the hubcaps on. How do we know someone else won't pick them up or try to buy them?” Cynthia came over. “You get the kids.”

Harry put Pewter in the truck cab, careful to roll down the window partway even though it wasn't that warm, only in the low fifties. She then hurried back to the garage. “Tucker!”

“I've got a rat!” Tucker crowed.

“A rathole. Be accurate,” Mrs. Murphy corrected the dog but she, too, knew the rat was in the hole and her tail fluffed out a little. A rat could be a formidable enemy, with teeth that could tear a hunk of flesh right out of you.

Harry opened the large sliding door and slipped in. Three old cars, in various states of interior and exterior rebirth, sat side by side. The walls were hung with tools, an air compressor sat in the corner, and the pièce de résistance, an expensive hydraulic lift in a pit, bore testimony to Roger O'Bannon's passion. Just as Sean loved old buildings, Roger loved old cars; and fortunately for both brothers, the market for old cars and trucks was soaring just like the restoration business.

One wall was filled with tools, vises, rubber fan belts hung on pegboard. Everything was organized and neat except for the garbage can overflowing with beer cans.

Tucker and Murphy crouched in the back right-hand corner of the shop.

“Come on. Time to go,” Harry ordered.

“He's in here. He's got a bag of popcorn.” Tucker's nose never failed her.

“Wonder where he got the popcorn,” Mrs. Murphy said.

A voice much deeper than expected startled them. “The vending machine. I know how to get in and out. Now leave me alone before I tear your face off.”

“I'll rip your throat out first!” Tucker ferociously replied.

“Listen, you nipshit, I've got lots of ways in and out of this joint. If I want to I can just slip out and you won't even know it. But this is my living room and I want you out.”

“You can't talk to me that way. I'm Tucker Haristeen!”

“Yeah, and I'm the Pope. Look, Tucker, you're on my turf, I'm not on yours. And take that cat with you before I get really mean.”

“You two are pushing the envelope!” Harry grunted as she lifted an uncooperative Tucker. “Now we're going and I mean it. Mrs. Murphy, if I have to come back here for you, no catnip tonight. Is that clearly understood?”

“Mean. You can be so mean sometimes,” Mrs. Murphy grumbled.

“Pope Rat, I will come back here and get you! Your days are numbered,” Tucker promised.

“Dream on.” Laughter emanated from the hole.

Two disgruntled creatures joined a languid Pewter on the front seat, the driver's window rolled down partway. Miranda had waited for them. Cynthia had left to respond to a fender bender at Wyant's store in Whitehall.

“Thank you again, Harry.”

“Please.” Harry waved her hand as if to say it was nothing. “What are you going to do for the rest of the day?”

“I'm going to plant pink dogwoods at the edge of my front yard. It needs an anchor. Did you know that the Romans planted quince trees at their property corners? It's a good plan but I'm going to plant dogwoods, pink.” She drew out the word “pink” until it sounded like “pa-ank.”

“Pretty.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Plow the garden. It's about time.”

“We might have one more frost but I doubt it. Although I remember one year back in the fifties when we had a frost in May. Don't forget to plant okra for me.”

Before either woman could get in her vehicle, Roger rumbled through the opened front gates. A shiny trailer rolled behind his Ford dually. Unlike a horse trailer, this one had no side windows, slats, or side doors.

He screeched to a stop. “Hey, babe.”

“Am I the fourteenth woman you've called ‘babe' this morning?”

“Nah, the ninth.” He pulled over so traffic could get in and out, cut the motor, and stepped out of the rig. “Mrs. Hogendobber, you're a babe, too, but your boyfriend would knock my teeth down my throat so how about if I just say, ‘Hi, lovely lady.'”

“Roger, you're an original.” The good woman smiled.

They filled him in on the hubcap episode. He was delighted the hubcaps had been recovered immediately.

As the humans chatted Pewter remarked, “If he'd lose twenty pounds, trim up his hair, and take a little more care about his person he'd pass.”

“As what?” Mrs. Murphy snickered.

That made Pewter and Tucker laugh. Tucker stuck her nose out the slightly opened driver's window.

“Kinda chilly.” Pewter ruffled her fur.

“Yep,” Tucker replied, watching Roger drop the tailgate to proudly display his stock car. They stepped up the tailgate ramp for a closer look at this latest incarnation of the Pontiac Trans Am.

“—someday.” Roger crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well, I hope you do get into big-time racing but, Roger, it's so dangerous.”

“Your green Hornet is impressive.” Harry admired the brilliant metallic-green Pontiac.

“Oh, I love this machine, I do, but it's kind of the difference between”—he thought a minute—“a real nice horse and a great horse. NASCAR is the top of the top, you know. I'm down here in the bush league.”

“You've got a lot of horses right here.” She patted the long hood of the car, then stepped back onto the ramp. “Grease monkey.”

He turned up his palms, grease deep in the skin. “Daddy had me swinging that wrecker's ball by the time I was twelve. In the blood. 'Chines.” He looked up at the steel giraffe. “Still works.” Then he looked at Harry. “Come on.”

If it had a motor in it, Harry was enthralled. She clambered up the metal steps ringing with each footfall, up to the operator's cab.

“What is she doing?” Pewter crossly complained, paws on the dash as she peered upward through the windshield.

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker followed her example. They heard the motor fire up.

“You know,” Miranda said out loud, “I believe I'll move my car.”

“If she's getting out of here, we should do the same.” Pewter headed for the open driver's-side window.

“Worrywart.” Mrs. Murphy barely got the words out of her mouth when the wrecker's ball swung over the roof of the truck, over part of the new main building's roof.

“Adios!” Pewter flew out the window.

“Damn.” Tucker scrambled to the window; it was a long drop for the dog.

“Don't worry, Tucker, I can open the door.” Murphy leaned hard on the door handle, pressing with all her weight.

Hearing the click, the corgi pushed against the door, which opened, Tucker nearly tumbling out. Once on the ground, cat and dog bolted just as the ball passed over on its way back.

“Every cat for herself,” Pewter called from under a neatly stacked crosshatched pile of railroad ties.

Miranda crouched in her Falcon, which she'd parked next to those railroad ties. “Tell you what, I hope that boy is sober.” She emerged from her car thinking if anything did go wrong she'd have a better chance on foot.

“Me, too,” Pewter concurred.

Up in the operator's cab, Roger brought the ball back up to the nose of the crane. “Your turn.”

She sat on the cracked black leather seat, warm from Roger. “Ready.”

“If you want the ball to go down—no, don't grab them yet—you squeeze these calipers. Closing them completely dumps the ball straight down. Smash.

“If you want to swing the ball use this set of calipers here, here on the left, and the wheel”—he pointed to the steering wheel—“will move the whole deal, turn the cab and the crane, see. Got it?”

“Piece of cake.” She smiled as she swung the ball, slowly, over the other side of the fence, keeping her eyes glued to the ball. “Bet you get to a point where you can work the calipers, the wheel, the pedals kind of like a drummer.”

“'Zactly, but I say if you can drive a tractor you can learn to do most any heavy equipment work.”

She brought the ball back up, let it down a little bit, then brought it up to the nose. “This is so cool.”

“Yeah.”

Sean strode outside, looking upward along with his customers who were outside. He shouted, trying to be heard over the heavy diesel motor, “Roger!”

Roger leaned out of the cab, saluting his brother, then he swung back in. “He is so old. Turned into an old man. I'm telling you, I love my brother but, Jesus H. Christ, he is such a pain in the ass. Like this business is the center of the universe. Ever since Dad passed. Okay, okay, everyone has to make a living but Sean thinks he's the indispensable person. Hey, the cemeteries are filled with indispensable people, you know what I mean, Harry Barry?” He sighed. “Miss seeing you around.”

“Thanks, Rog. What a nice thing to say.”

He shook his head. “We've got the yard on an even keel. Working like dogs but all I ask”—he waved again to his gesticulating brother, then cut the motor—“is to go to the tracks Friday and Saturday nights.” He glanced down. Sean hadn't moved. “Big Brother is watching you. Well, babe, lesson's over.”

“I loved it.”

As they climbed down, the three animals hurried back to the truck, jumped in, and together using the armrest pulled the door back.

Tucker had to jump onto the floorboard first but she scratched up on the seat and helped pull the door back with the kitties.

“She doesn't need to know I can open the door.” Mrs. Murphy raised her long silky eyebrows.

“What she doesn't know won't hurt her.” Pewter giggled.

“I'm thrilled to be alive,” Tucker exhaled. “Seeing that black ball swoosh over my head did not inspire confidence.”

Harry, enthusiastically reporting her lesson to Miranda, didn't notice the animals shutting the truck door. She hadn't even noticed it was open in the first place and she was so excited when she was up with the wrecker's ball she missed the people scattered below.

Sean fired off a few choice words to Roger, who shrugged. Sean turned on his heel, stalking back into the main building.

Roger smiled at the two women. “The only question worth asking yourself is, ‘Am I having fun?'”

Harry drove home feeling the day had improved considerably. As she turned down her long farm road to the house she noticed a gleaming BMW 740il parked in front of the barn. The car belonged to BoomBoom Craycroft, a marvelously beautiful woman who had had an affair with Harry's ex-husband, making her a least-favorite of Harry's. Granted, BoomBoom had slept with Fair Haristeen after Harry had separated from him. Still, the affair had lasted for about six months. Harry was devastated. Of all women, BoomBoom! She had competed against the tall beauty since grade school. Harry usually won the athletic and intellectual events, although BoomBoom ran a close second along with Harry's best friend, Susan Tucker. But where no female classmate could compete with Boom was her effect on the male of the species. Most men, especially when they were young and not wise in feminine wiles, fell for BoomBoom like the proverbial ton of bricks.

The two women had managed an accord over the last few years but that was the extent of it.

“Damn, damn, damn,” Harry whispered under her breath.

“If you'd let me catch that rat she would have come and gone,” Tucker unhelpfully suggested.

“Tucker, shut up. You know how they can get. It's all hands on deck.” Mrs. Murphy put her paws on the dash.