Claws And Effect

1

"People tell me things. Of course, I have a kind face and I'm a good listener, but the real reason they tell me things is they think I can't repeat their secrets. They couldn't be more wrong."

"People tell me secrets." The corgi looked up at Mrs. Murphy, the tiger cat, reposing on the windowsill at the post office.

"You're delusional. Dogs blab." She nonchalantly flipped the end of her tail.

"You just said people think you can't repeat their secrets but they're wrong. So you blab, too."

"No, I don't. I can tell if I want to, that's all I'm saying."

Tucker sat up, shook her head, and walked closer to the windowsill. "Well, got any secrets?"

"No, it's been a dull stretch." She sighed. "Even Pewter hasn't dug up any dirt."

"I resent that." A little voice piped up from the bottom of a canvas mail cart.

"Wait until Miranda finds out what you've done to her garden. She hasn't a tulip bulb left, Pewter, and all because you thought there was a mole in there last week."

"Her tulips were diseased. I've saved her a great deal of trouble." She paused a moment. "And I was careful enough to pull mulch over the hole. She won't find out for another month or two. Who knows when spring will come?"

"I don't know about spring but here comes Mim the Magnificent." Tucker, on her hind legs, peered out the front window.

Mim Sanburne, the town's leading and richest citizen, closed the door of her Bentley Turbo, stepping gingerly onto the cleared walkway to the post office because ice covered much of central Virginia.

Odd that Mim would own a Bentley for she was a true Virginian, born and bred, plus her family had been in the state since the early 1600s. Driving anything as flashy as a Bentley was beyond the pale. The only thing worse would be to drive a Rolls-Royce. And Mim didn't flaunt her wealth. Miranda, who had known Mim all of her life, figured this was a quiet rebellion on her friend's part. As they both cruised into their sixties, not that they were advertising, this was Mim's salvo to youth: Get Out Of My Way.

People did.

Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen smiled when Mim pushed open the door. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Harry. Did you have trouble driving in today?"

"Once I rolled down the driveway I was fine. The roads are clear."

"You didn't ask me if I had trouble." Miranda walked up to the counter dividing the post office staff from the public. As she lived immediately behind the post office, with just an alleyway in between, she slipped and slid as she made her way to work on foot.

"You haven't broken anything so I know you're fine." Mim leaned on the counter. "Gray. Gray. Cold. Hateful."

"Four degrees Fahrenheit last night." Miranda, passionate gardener that she was, kept close watch on the weather. "It must have been colder at Dalmally." She mentioned the name of Mim's estate just outside of town. As some of Mim's ancestors fled to America from Scotland they named their farm Dalmally, a remembrance of heather and home.

"Below zero." Mim strolled over to her postbox, took out her key, the brass lock clicking as she turned the key.

Curious, Mrs. Murphy dropped off the windowsill, jumped onto the wooden counter, then nimbly stepped off the counter onto the ledge that ran behind the postboxes, dividing the upper boxes from the larger, lower boxes. She enjoyed peering in the boxes. If a day dragged on she might reach in, shuffle some mail, or even bite the corners.

Today she noticed that Susan Tucker's mailbox had Cracker Jacks stuck on the bottom of it.

Mim's gloved hand, a luscious, soft turquoise suede, reached into her box. Murphy couldn't help herself; she peered down, then took both paws and grabbed Mim's hand, no claws.

"Mrs. Murphy. Let me have my mail." Mim bent down to see two beautiful green eyes staring back at her.

"Give me your glove. I love the smell of the suede."

"Harry, your cat won't let me go."

Harry walked over, slipped her fingers into the mailbox, and disengaged Murphy's paws. "Murphy, not everyone in Crozet thinks you're adorable."

"Thank you!" Pewter's voice rose up from the canvas mail cart.

Harry gently placed her tiger on the counter again. A pretty woman, young and fit, she stroked the cat.

Miranda checked the bookshelves for cartons. "Mim, got a package here for you. Looks like your coffee."

Mim belonged to a coffee club, receiving special beans from various world-famous cafés once a month. "Good." She stood at the counter sorting her mail. She removed one exquisite glove and slit open envelopes with her thumbnail, a habit Harry envied, since her own nails were worn down from farm work. The older, elegant woman opened a white envelope, read a few sentences, then tossed the letter and envelope in the trash. "Another chain letter. I just hate them and I wish there'd be a law against them. They're all pyramid schemes. This one wants you to send five dollars to Crozet Hospital's Indigent Patients Fund and then send out twenty copies of the letter. I just want to know who put my name on the list."

Harry flipped up the divider, walked over to the wastebasket, and fished out the offending letter.

"Sister Sophonisba will bring you good fortune." She scanned the rest of it. "There is no list of names. All it says is to pass this on to twenty other people. 'If you wish.'" Harry's voice filled the room. "Send five dollars to Crozet Hospital's Indigent Patients Fund or your microwave will die."

"It doesn't really say that, does it?" Miranda thought Harry was teasing her but then again . . .

"Nah." Harry flashed her crooked grin.

"Very funny." Mim reached for her letter again, which Harry handed to her. "Usually there's a list of names and the top one gets money. You know, your name works its way to the top of the list." She reread the letter, then guffawed, "Here's the part that always kills me about these things." She read aloud. "Mark Lintel sent five dollars and the Good Lord rewarded him with a promotion at work. Jerry Tinsley threw this letter in the trash and had a car wreck three days later." Mim peered over the letter. "I seem to recall Jerry's wreck. And I seem to recall he was liberally pickled in vodka. If he dies he'll come back as a rancid potato."

Harry laughed. "I guess he has to get rid of that old Camry somehow so he decided to wreck it."

"Harry," Miranda reprimanded her.

"Well, I liked your death threat to microwaves." Mim handed the letter over the worn counter to Harry, who tossed it back into the wastebasket, applauding herself for the "basket."

"Two points." Harry smiled.

"Seems to be local. The references are local. None of this 'Harold P. Beecher of Davenport, Iowa, won the lottery,'" Mim said. "Well, girls, you know things are slow around here if we've wasted this much time on a chain letter."

"The February blahs." Harry stuck her tongue out.

"Ever notice that humans' tongues aren't as pink as ours?" Tucker, the corgi, cocked her head, sticking her own tongue out.

"They are what they are," came the sepulchral voice from the mail bin.

"Oh, that's profound, Pewts." Mrs. Murphy giggled.

"The sage of Crozet has spoken," Pewter again rumbled, making her kitty voice deeper.

"Well, I don't know a thing. What about you two?"

"Mim, we thought you knew everything. You're the-" Harry stopped for a second because "the Queen of Crozet" dangled on the tip of her tongue, which was what they called Mim behind her back. "-uh, leader of the pack."

"At least you didn't say Laundromat." Mim referred to a popular song from the sixties, before Harry's time.

"How's Jim?" Miranda inquired after Mim's husband.

"Busy."

"Marilyn?" Miranda now asked about Mim's daughter, Harry's age, late thirties.

"The same, which is to say she has no purpose in this life, no beau, and she exists simply to contradict me. As for my son, since you're moving through the family, he and his wife are still in New York. No grandchildren in sight. What's the matter with your generation, Harry? We were settled down by the time we were thirty."

Harry shrugged. "We have more choices."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" Mim put her hands on her slender hips. "All it means is you're more self-indulgent. I don't mind women getting an education. I received a splendid education but I knew my duty lay in marrying and producing children and raising them to be good people."

Miranda deftly deflected the conversation. "Don't look now, but Dr. Bruce Buxton is flat on his back coasting down Main Street."

"Ha!" Mim ran to the window, as did Mrs. Murphy and Tucker. "I hope he's black and blue from head to toe!"

Bruce spun around, finally grabbing onto a No Parking sign. Breathing heavily, he pulled himself up, but his feet insisted in traveling in opposite directions. Finally steadied, he half slid, half skated in the direction of the post office.

"Here he comes." Mim laughed. "Pompous as ever although he is handsome. I'll give him that."

Dr. Bruce Buxton stamped his feet on the post office steps, then pushed the door open.

Before he could speak, Mim dryly remarked, "I give you a 9.4," as she breezed past him, waving good-bye to Harry and Miranda.

"Supercilious snot!" he said only after the door closed because it wouldn't do to cross Mim publicly. Even Bruce Buxton, a star knee specialist at Crozet Hospital, knew better than to offend "The Diva," as he called her.

"Well, Dr. Buxton, I gave you points for distance. Mim gave you points for artistic expression." Harry laughed out loud.

Bruce, in his late thirties and single, couldn't resist a pretty woman so he laughed at himself as well. "I did cover ground. If it gets worse, I'm wearing my golf spikes."

"Good idea." Harry smiled as he opened his mailbox.

"Bills. More bills." He opened a white envelope, then chucked it. "Junk."

"Wouldn't be a letter from Sister Sophonisba, would it?" Harry asked.

"Sister Somebody. Chain letter."

"Mim got one, too. I didn't." Harry laughed at herself. "I miss all the good stuff. Say, how is Isabelle Otey?"

Harry was interested in the gifted forward for the University of Virginia's basketball team. She had shredded her anterior cruciate ligament during a tough game against Old Dominion. UVA won the game but lost Isabelle for the season.

"Fine. Arthroscopic surgery is done on an outpatient basis now. Six weeks she'll be as good as new, providing she follows instructions for six weeks. The human knee is a fascinating structure . . ." As he warmed to his subject-he was one of the leading knee surgeons in the country-Harry listened attentively. Miranda did, too.

"My knees are better." Mrs. Murphy turned her back on Bruce, whom she considered a conceited ass. "Everything about me is better. If people walked on four feet instead of two most of their problems would vanish."

"Won't improve their minds any," came the voice from the mail cart, which now echoed slightly.

"There's no help for that." Tucker sighed, for she loved Harry; but even that love couldn't obviate the slowness of human cogitation.

"Pewter, why don't you get your ass out of the mail cart? You've been in there since eight this morning and it's eleven-thirty. We could go outside and track mice."

"You don't want to go out in the cold any more than I do. You just want to make me look bad." There was a grain of truth in Pewter's accusation.

Bruce left, treading the ice with slow respect.

In ten minutes Hank Brevard, plant manager of Crozet Hospital, and Tussie Logan, head nurse in Pediatrics, arrived together in Tussie's little silver Tracker.

"Good morning." Tussie smiled. "It's almost noon. How are things in the P.O.?"

"The P.U.," Hank complained.

He was always complaining about something.

"I beg your pardon." Mrs. Miranda Hogendobber huffed up.

"Cat litter." He sniffed.

"Hank, there's no litter box. They go outside."

"Yeah, maybe it's you," Tussie teased him.

He grunted, ignoring them, opening his mailbox. "Bills, bills. Junk."

Despite his crabbing over his mail, he did open the envelopes, carefully stacking them on the table. He was a meticulous man as well as a faultfinder.

Tussie, by contrast, shuffled her envelopes like cards, firing appeals, advertisements, and form letters into the wastebasket.

Miranda flipped up the dividing counter, walked out, picked up the wastebasket, and started to head back to the mailbag room, as she dubbed the working portion of the post office building.

"Wait." Tussie swiftly dumped two more letters into the trash. "If you don't open form letters you add three years onto your productive life."

"Is that a fact?" Miranda smiled.

"Solemn," Tussie teased her.

Miranda carried the metal wastebasket around the table to Hank. "Any more?"

"Uh, no." He thumbed through his neatly stacked pile.

"Can't you ever do anything on impulse?" Tussie pulled her mittens from her coat pocket.

"Haste makes waste. If you saw the damaged equipment that I see, all because some jerk can't take the time. Yesterday a gurney was brought down with two wheels jammed. Now that only happens if an orderly doesn't take the time to tap the little foot brake. He pushed, got no response, then pushed with all his might." Hank kept on, filled with the importance of his task. "And there I was in the middle of testing a circuit breaker that kept tripping in the canteen. Too many appliances on that circuit." He took a breath, ready to recount more problems.

Tussie interrupted him. "The hospital does need a few things."

He jumped in again. "Complete and total electrical overhaul. New furnace for the old section but hey, who listens to me? I just run the place. Let a doctor squeal for something and oh, the earth stops in its orbit."

"That's not true. Bruce Buxton has been yelling for a brand new MRI unit and-"

"What's that?" Harry inquired.

"Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Another way to look into the body without invading it," Tussie explained. "Technology is exploding in our field. The new MRI machines cut down the time by half. Well, don't let me go off on technology." She stopped for a moment. "We will all live to see a cure for cancer, for childhood diabetes, for so many of the ills that plague us."

"Don't know how you can work with sick children. I can't look them in the eye." Hank frowned.

"They need me."

"Hear, hear," Miranda said as Harry nodded in agreement.

"Guess we need a lot of things," Hank remarked. "Still, I think the folks in the scrubs will get what they want before I get what I want." He took a breath. "I hate doctors." Hank placed the envelopes in the large inside pocket of his heavy coveralls.

"That's why you spend your life in the basement." Tussie winked. "He's still looking for the Underground Railroad."

"Oh, balls." Hank shook his head. If they had been outside, he would have spat.

"I've heard that story since I was a kid." Miranda leaned over the counter divider. "'Bout how the old stone section of the hospital used to be on the Underground Railroad for getting slaves to freedom."

"Every house and bush in Crozet has historical significance. Pass a street corner and some sign declares, 'Jefferson blew his nose here.' Come on, Tussie. I've got to get back to work."

"What are you doing here with doom and gloom?" Harry winked at Tussie.

Hank suppressed a little smile. He liked being Mr. Negative. People paid attention. He thought so anyway.

"Chuckles' car is in the shop."

"Don't call me that," Hank corrected her. "What if my wife hears you? She'll call me that."

"Oh, here I thought you'd say 'people will talk.'" Tussie expressed much disappointment.

"They do that anyway. Ought to have their tongues cut out."

"Hank, you'd have fit right in during the ninth century A.D. Be in your element." Tussie followed him to the door.

"Yeah, Hank. Why stop with cutting people's tongues out? Go for the throat." Harry winked at Tussie, who joined her.

"Mom's getting bloodthirsty." Mrs. Murphy laughed.

"Let me get Chuckles back to his lair." Tussie waved good-bye.

"Don't call me Chuckles!" He fussed at her as they climbed into the Tracker.

"They're a pair." Miranda observed Hank gesticulating.

"Pair of what?" Harry laughed as she emptied the wastebasket into a large garbage bag.

The day wore on, crawled really. The only other noteworthy event was when Sam Mahanes, director of the hospital, picked up his mail. Miranda, by way of chitchat, mentioned that Bruce Buxton had slid on his back down Main Street.

Sam's face darkened and he replied, "Too bad he didn't break his neck."

2

"Whee!" Harry slid along the iced-over farm road, arms flailing.

The horses watched from the pasture, convinced more than ever that humans were a brick shy of a load. Mrs. Murphy prowled the hayloft. Tucker raced along with Harry, and Pewter, no fool, reposed in the kitchen, snuggled tail over nose in front of the fireplace.

Susan Tucker, Harry's best friend since the cradle, slid along with her, the two friends laughing, tears in their eyes from the stinging cold.

Slowed to a stop, they grabbed hands, spinning each other around until Harry let go and Susan "skated" thirty yards before falling down.

"Good one."

"Your turn." Susan scrambled to her feet. Instead of spinning Harry, she got behind her and pushed her off.

After a half hour of this both women, tired, scooted up to the barn. They filled up water buckets, put out the hay, and called the three horses, Poptart, Tomahawk, and Gin Fizz, to come into their stalls. Then, chores completed, they hurried into the kitchen.

"I'll throw on another log if you make hot chocolate. You do a better job than I do."

"Only because you haven't the patience to warm the milk, Harry. You just pour hot water on the cocoa. Milk always makes it taste better even if you use one of those confections with powdered milk in it."

"I like chocolate." Pewter lifted her head.

"She heard the word 'milk.'" Harry stirred the fire, then placed a split dry log over the rekindled flames. Once that caught she laid another log parallel to that, then placed two on top in the opposite direction.

"I'd like some milk." Mrs. Murphy placed herself squarely on the kitchen table.

"Murph, off." Harry advanced on the beautiful cat, who hopped down onto a chair, her head peering over the top of the table.

"Here." Susan poured milk into a large bowl for the two cats, then reached into the stoneware cookie jar to give Tucker Milk-Bones. As Susan had bred Tee Tucker, she loved the dog. She'd kept one from the litter and thought someday she'd breed again.

"Did I tell you what Sam Mahanes said today? It was about the only interesting thing that happened."

"I threw out junk mail along with the Cracker Jacks in my postbox. That was the big interest in my day," Susan replied.

"I didn't do it."

"Then why didn't you clean it out? You're supposed to run a tight ship at the post office."

"Because whoever put the Cracker Jacks in there wanted you to have them." Harry smiled.

"That reduces the culprits to my esteemed husband, Ned. Not the Cracker Jacks type. Danny, m-m-m, more like his father. Must have been Brooks." She cited her teenaged daughter.

"I'll never tell."

"You won't have to because when I get home she'll wait for me to say something. When I don't she'll say, 'Mom, any mail today?' The longer I keep quiet, the crazier it will make her." Susan laughed. She loved her children and they were maddening as only adolescents can be but they were good people.

"The hard part was keeping Mrs. Murphy and Pewter from playing with the Cracker Jacks."

"What was your solution?"

Mrs. Murphy lifted her head from the milk bowl. "Catnip in the Reverend Jones' box."

Both women laughed as the cat spoke.

"She's got opinions," Susan remarked.

"I put catnip in Herb's mailbox." Harry giggled. "When he gets home and puts his mail on the table his two cats will shred it."

"Remember the time Cazenovia ate the communion wafers?" Susan howled recalling the time when Herb's sauciest cat got into the church closet, which was unwisely left open. "And I hear his younger kitty, Elocution, is learning from Cazenovia. Imagine kneeling at the communion rail being handed a wafer with fang marks in it."

Harry giggled. "The best church service I ever attended. But I hand it to Herb, he tore up bread crusts and communion continued."

"What happened with Sam Mahanes?" Susan asked. "Didn't mean to get off the track. I do it all the time and I'm not even old. Can you imagine me at eighty?"

"I can. You'll be the kind of old dear who walks in other people's kitchens to make herself a cup of tea."

"Well-at least I won't be boring. Eccentricity is worth something. You were going to tell me about Sam Mahanes in the post office today."

"Oh, that. Miranda told him that Bruce Buxton took a header on the ice. He turned a nifty shade of beet red and said, 'Too bad he didn't break his neck,' and then he slammed out of the P.O."

"Huh." Susan cupped her chin in her hand as she stirred her hot chocolate. "I thought those two were as thick as thieves."

"Yeah, although I don't know how anyone can stand Bruce on a long-term basis."

Susan shrugged. "I guess in order to be a good surgeon you need a big ego."

"Need one to be postmistress, too."

"You know, in order to be good at anything I suppose everyone needs a touch of ego. The trick is hiding it. Bruce might be wonderful at what he does but he's stupid about people. That's one of the things I've always admired about Fair. He's great at what he does but he never brags." She sipped a moment. "And how is your ex-husband?"

"Fine. It's breeding season so I won't see much of him until mares are bred for next year and this year's mares deliver." Fair was an expert on equine reproduction, a veterinarian much in demand.

"Oh, Harry." Exasperated, Susan cracked Harry's knuckles with a spoon.

"You asked how he was, not how we're doing."

"Don't get technical."

"All right. All right. We were keeping to our Wednesday-night dates until now. We're having fun." She shrugged. "I don't know if lightning can strike twice."

"Me either."

"I get so sick of people trying to get us back together. We've been divorced for four years. The first year was hell-"

Susan interrupted. "I remember."

"I don't know if time heals all wounds or if you just get smarter about yourself. Get more realistic about your expectations of other people and yourself."

"God, Harry, that sounds like the beginnings of maturity." Susan faked a gasp.

"Scary, isn't it?" She stood up. "Want more of your hot chocolate?"

"Yeah, let's finish off the lot." Susan stood up.

"Sit down."

"No, let me bring the cup to you. Easier to pour over the sink."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Harry picked up the pan and carefully poured hot chocolate into Susan's cup and then refilled her own. "The weatherman says it's going to warm up to fifty degrees tomorrow."

"You wouldn't know it now. I don't mind snow but ice plucks my last nerve. Especially with the kids out driving in it. I know they have good reflexes but I also know they haven't experienced as much as we have and I wonder what they'll do in that first spinout. What if another car is coming in the opposite lane?"

"Susan, they'll learn and you can't protect them anyway."

"Yeah. Still."

"Aren't you amazed that Miranda has kept to her diet in the dead of winter?"

"Still baking things for the store and her friends. I never realized she had such discipline."

"Shows what love will do."

Miranda had lost her husband over ten years ago. By all accounts it was a happy marriage and when George Hogendobber passed away, Miranda consoled herself with food. Ten years of consoling takes a long time to remove. The incentive was the return of her high-school boyfriend, now a widower, for their high-school reunion. Sparks flew, and as Miranda described it, they were "keeping company."

"The football team."

"What?" Harry, accustomed to abrupt shifts in subject from her old friend-indeed she was often guilty of them herself-couldn't follow this one.

"I bet that's why Sam Mahanes is mad at Bruce Buxton. Because Bruce operates on all the football players, and didn't he just get a big write-up in the paper for his work on the safety? You know that kid that everyone thinks will make All-American next year if his knee comes back. And Isabelle Otey, the girls' basketball star. He gets all the stars. Jealousy?"

"Buxton's always gotten good press. Deserved, I guess. Being in Sam's position as director of the hospital I'd think he'd want Bruce to be celebrated, wouldn't you?" Harry asked.

"You've got a point there. Funny, every town, city, has closed little worlds where ego, jealousy, illicit love collide. Even the Crozet Preservation Society can be a tempestuous hotbed. Good God, all those old ladies and not one will forgive the other for some dreaded misdeed from 1952 or whenever."

"Sex, drugs and rock and roll." Mrs. Murphy climbed back up on the chair to join the kitchen discussion.

"What, pussycat?" Harry reached over, stroking the sleek head.

"People get mad at other people over juicy stuff."

"Money. You forgot money." Tucker tidied up the floor, picking up her Milk-Bone debris.

"A little bit around here wouldn't hurt," Pewter, ever conscious of her need for luxury, suggested.

"Well?" Mrs. Murphy pulled forward one side of her whiskers.

"Well what?" The rotund gray kitty leapt onto the remaining free kitchen chair.

"You want money. Get your fat butt out there and earn some."

"Very funny."

"You could do shakedowns. People do it. Ask a small fee for not tearing up gardens, not leaving partially digested mice on the front steps, and not raiding the refrigerator."

Before unflattering words could be spoken, Harry leaned over, face-to-face with the cats. "I can't hear myself think."

"They certainly have many opinions," Susan said. "Not unlike their mother."

"M-m-m." Harry glanced out the window. "Damn."

Susan turned to observe.

"More snow," Tucker lamented. Being low to the ground, she had to plow through snow. It was the only time she admitted to admiring larger canines.

3

"Spike!" Isabelle Otey shouted from the sidelines as Harry, on the opposing team, rose up in the air, fist punching into the volleyball. Although Isabelle's main sport was basketball, she loved most team sports and she enjoyed knowing the "townies," as residents of the county were called by UVA students. Languishing on the sidelines, she supported her team vocally.

Isabelle's team, knowing of Harry's skill, crouched in preparation but not only was Harry strong, she was smart. She spiked the ball where they weren't.

"Game," the ref called as the score reached 21 to 18.

"Rocket arm." Cynthia Cooper slapped Harry on the back.

Isabelle, her crutches leaning against the bleachers, called out to Harry, "Too good, Mary Minor. You're too good."

Throwing a towel around her neck, Harry joined the coach of the opposing team. Coop, a deputy on the county's police force, joined them.

"Isabelle, they need you. Basketball team, too." Cynthia sat next to her.

"Four more weeks. You know it isn't really painful, the swelling went down fast but I don't want to go through this again so I'm doing what Dr. Buxton told me. What scares me more than anything is going out to the car, walking across the ice with crutches."

"Calling for rain tomorrow." Harry wiped her face with the white towel. "The good thing is it will melt some of the snow. Bad thing, won't melt all of it and at night everything will be more ice."

"Keeps me busy." Cynthia grinned. "I have to earn my salary somehow. You know, most people are pretty reasonable about fender benders. A few lose it."

"You must see a lot of stuff." Isabelle couldn't imagine being a law-enforcement officer. She envisioned a career as a pro basketball player.

"Mostly car wrecks, drunks, a few thefts and"-she smiled devilishly-"the occasional murder."

"I wonder if I could kill anyone."

"Isabelle, you'd be amazed at what you could do if your life depended on it," Cynthia said, running her fingers through her blonde hair.

"Sure. Self-defense, but I read about these serial killers in the paper or people who just go to a convenience store with a shotgun and blow everyone to bits."

"I have a few uncharitable thoughts in the post office from time to time," Harry giggled.

"Oh, Harry, you couldn't kill anyone-unless it was self-defense, of course," Isabelle said.

"It's not a subject I've thought much about. What about you, Coop? You're the professional."

"Most murders have a motive. Jealousy, inheritance money. The usual stuff. But every now and then one will come along that makes you believe some people are born evil. From my point of view our whole system allows them to get away with it."

"Are we going to have the discussion about suspending civil rights?" Harry asked Coop.

"No, we are not because I'm going to hit the showers. I've got a date tonight."

Both Harry and Isabelle perked right up. "With who?"

"Whom," Harry corrected Isabelle.

"With Harry's ex."

"For real?" Isabelle leaned forward.

"Take him. He's yours." Harry nonchalantly waved her right hand.

"Oh, don't be such a hardass. He loves you and you know it." Coop laughed at Harry; then her voice became animated. "That's it. Confess. You could have killed BoomBoom Craycroft when they had their affair."

"Ah, yes," Harry dryly replied. "The affair that ended my marriage. Actually, that's probably not true. Marriages end in a variety of ways. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Could I have killed BoomBoom? No. She was no better than she should be. I could have killed him."

"So-why didn't you?" Isabelle, having not yet fallen in love, wanted to know.

"I don't know."

"Because you aren't a killer," Coop answered for Harry. "Everyone in this world has had times when they were provoked enough to kill but ninety-nine percent of us don't. I swear there are people who are genetically inclined to violence and murder, and I don't give a damn how unpopular that opinion is."

"Why are we sitting here discussing my former marriage?"

"Because I'm going on rounds with Fair tonight."

Fair Haristeen had invited Cynthia Cooper to accompany him when she expressed an interest in his work.

"I didn't know you were interested in horses." Isabelle stood up as Harry handed her her crutches.

"I like them but what I'm really interested in is seeing some of the farms from the back side. Meeting the barn workers. There might be a time when I need their help. And I'm curious about the technology."

"A lot of the stuff that's eventually used on humans is used in veterinary care first."

"Like the operation on my knee." Isabelle swung her leg over the bottom bleacher, stepping onto the wooden floor. "I wonder how many dogs, cats, and horses tore their anterior cruciate ligaments before I did." She paused a moment. "Har, I'm sorry if I put you on the spot about when your marriage broke up."

"Here, let me carry your purse." Harry picked up the alarmingly large satchel, throwing it over her shoulder. "Everyone in Crozet knows everything about everybody-or thinks they do. He fooled around and I got sick of it. And being married to a vet is like being married to a doctor. You can't plan on anything, really. Emergencies interrupt everything and sometimes days would go by and we'd hardly see one another. And I married too young."

They both watched with lurid fascination as BoomBoom Craycroft pushed open the gym doors. "Speak of the devil."

"Hi, girls." The buxom, quite good-looking woman waved to them.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, since BoomBoom had skipped gym in high school. Her only physical outlet, apart from the obvious, was golf.

"I saw everyone's cars parked outside and thought I might be missing something."

"You did. We beat the pants off them and then discussed whether we were capable of murder," Harry deadpanned.

"Ah. Well, the other reason I stopped by was that I saw Sheriff Shaw at Market Shiflett's store. Coop, he knows you have plans but will you work tonight? Bobby Yount came down with the flu and he thinks it's going to be one of those nights. He asked for you to call him in his car."

"Damn. Oh well. Thanks, Boom." Cynthia turned to Harry and Isabelle. "There goes my date with Fair." She knew this would tweak BoomBoom's raging curiosity.

Eyes widening, BoomBoom edged closer to Coop, hoping to unobtrusively pull her away from the other two women, to get the scoop on what sounded like a romance or at least a real date.

Harry took care of that by saying, "Gee, Boom, maybe you ought to fill in."

"You can be hateful. Really hateful." BoomBoom turned on her heel, the heel of an expensive snow boot bought in Aspen, and stormed off.

Isabelle's jaw dropped at the adults' antics.

"Spike." Coop clapped Harry on the back.

4

In one of those weather shifts so common in the mountains, the next few days witnessed temperatures in the middle fifties. The sounds of running water, dripping water, and sloshing water filled everyone's ears as rivulets ran across state roads; thin streams crossed the low spots of meadows spilling into creeks; streams and rivers rose halfway to their banks, and were still rising.

The north faces of ravines held snow in their crevasses, lakes of pristine snow trackless since animals avoided the deep drifts. Ice, turquoise blue, was frozen in cascades over rocks on the north face of outcroppings.

Fearing the onslaught of another sweep of Arctic air soon, farmers scrubbed and filled water troughs, suburban gardeners added another layer of mulch on spring bulbs, car dealers washed their inventory.

An early riser, Harry knocked out her farm chores, rode one horse and ponied the other two, climbed up on the ladder to sweep debris out of the barn gutters and the house gutters also.

Mrs. Murphy hunted mice in the hayloft, careful not to disturb Simon, the sleeping possum, the hibernating blacksnake, or the huge owl dozing in the cupola. Pickings were slim, since the owl snatched everything up, so Simon ate grain from the tack room. However, neither the owl nor Murphy could eradicate the mice living in the walls between the tack room and the stalls. The mice would sit in their cozy home and sing just to torment the cat.

Pewter, not one to get her paws wet, reposed in the house, flopped on her back on the sofa. Tucker followed Harry, whom she considered her human mother, which meant her stomach was filthy but she too felt a great sense of accomplishment. She picked up the small twigs and branches which had fallen, dragging them over to the toolshed. Small though the corgi was, she could pull four times her weight.

She'd grab the fat end of a branch, plant her hind legs, jerk the weight up a bit, then backpedal. Her yard work always made Harry laugh.

By eleven Harry was ready to go to town this Saturday. Fox-hunting was canceled since the rigs and vans would get stuck in the mud. Parking was always a problem on rainy or muddy days.

"Tucker, let's clean you up in the wash stall. You're not getting in the truck like that."

"I could sit in one spot. I won't move." Her ears drooped since she wasn't thrilled about a bath in any way, shape, or form. On the other hand she'd happily sit in a puddle, leap into the creek. But there was something about soap married to water that offended her canine sensibilities.

"Come on."

"Why don't you wash off Mrs. Murphy's paws, too?" A gleeful malicious note crept into Tucker's voice as she headed into the barn.

"I heard that, you twit." Murphy peeped over the side of the hayloft.

"Any luck?" Harry called to her beloved cat.

"No," came the growl.

"Slowing down, aren't you?" Tucker wanted to get a rise out of her friend. She was successful.

"I could smoke you any day, lardass. Tailless wonder. Dog breath."

"Ha. Ha." Tucker refused to glance upward, which further infuriated the sleek, slightly egotistical cat.

"All right. If you won't stand I'm going to put you in the crossties," Harry warned the little dog.

Turning on the warm water, she hosed off Tucker's stomach, which now returned to its lovely white color.

Mrs. Murphy, keen to enjoy her friend's discomfort, hopped down from the hayloft to sit on the tack trunk in the aisle. "Cleanliness is next to godliness."

"You think you're so smart."

"Cats are smarter than dogs."

"That's what you say but it's not true. Cats don't save shipwrecked humans. Newfoundlands do that. Cats don't rescue people in avalanches. St. Bernards do that. Cats don't even herd cows or pull their weight in the fields. Corgis do that. So there."

"Right. I told you cats were smarter than dogs. Further proof: You'll never get eight cats to pull a sled in the snow." She hurriedly washed her paws since she didn't want Harry to think she could wash her down.

"You two are chatty." Harry finished with Tucker, cut the hose, then wiped her off with an old towel.

A frugal soul, Harry saved everything. She had a pile of old towels in a hanging basket in the aisle outside the washroom. She also kept old towels in the tack room and she even picked up worn-out towels from the country club, purchasing them for a few dollars. For one thing, she needed them, but for another, Harry couldn't abide waste. It seemed like a sin to her.

"Beauty basket." Murphy smiled slyly at Tucker.

"Thank you. I thought you'd never notice. If she's cleaning me up it means we're going somewhere. Wonder where?"

"Well, Augusta Co-op for feed, always high on Mom's list. Wal-Mart. A and N for jeans if she needs any. Oh, don't forget AutoZone. She'll pick up a case of motor oil, windshield-wiper fluid, oil filters. Then again she might go to James River Equipment to get oil and oil filters for the tractor. You know her. It won't be the jewelry store. She's the only woman I know who would like a new set of wrenches for Valentine's Day as opposed to earrings or even flowers."

Tucker laughed. "She loves flowers, though."

"She'll send Fair flowers." Murphy laughed because in most ways Harry was quite predictable, but then cats always knew humans better than humans knew cats.

"Let me look at you." Harry walked over to Mrs. Murphy, who didn't bother to run away from her. After all, if she did and made Harry mad, she wouldn't get to ride in the truck, and Murphy adored riding in the truck, lording it over lowly cars.

"Clean as a whistle."

Harry inspected each dark paw, the color of Mrs. Murphy's tiger stripes. "Pretty good there, pussycat."

"Told you."

Harry picked up an animal under each arm, strode outside and put them inside the truck. No dirty paw marks on her seat covers. To haul her horse trailer, a year ago she'd bought a new dually, a one-ton truck with four wheels in the back for greater stability. She'd agonized for years over this decision, fretting over the financial drain, but it worked out okay because Fair helped a bit and she watched her pennies. But for everyday running about she used the tough old 1978 Ford, four-wheel drive, half ton. She'd bought cushy sheepskin covers for the bench seat as she'd worn out the original sheepskin covers.

When she closed the door, she thought about Pewter, then decided to let the cat sleep. True, Pewter would be grouchy on their return but she wanted to get rolling. Once a job was completed, Harry wanted to move on to the next one.

Her grandmother once said that Harry was "impatient of leisure," an apt description.

Once on the road they headed toward Crozet instead of going toward Route 64, which would take them to Waynesboro where Harry shopped. She avoided Charlottesville for the most part since it was so expensive.

"Bag Augusta Co-op." Murphy observed the sodden landscape.

Both animals were surprised when Harry turned down the long, tree-lined drive to Dalmally Farm, passed the chaste yet still imposing main house, and continued on to a lovely cottage in the rear not far from the stables, so beautiful most people would be thrilled to live in them.

"Little Mim?" Tucker was incredulous.

Little Mim, Harry's age, was not an especially close friend of Harry's. Little Mim had attended an expensive private school whereas Harry, Susan Tucker, BoomBoom, Fair, and the gang all attended Crozet High School. Then, too, Little Mim had a chip on her shoulder, which Harry usually knocked off. One would not describe them as close friends under any circumstances. Over the years they had learned to tolerate one another, always civil in discourse as befit Virginians.

"Now don't get off the sidewalk or she won't allow you in the house. You hear?" Harry ordered.

"We hear."

Neither animal wanted to miss why Harry was calling on young Marilyn Sanburne.

Little Mim opened the door, greeted them all, seating Harry by the fireside. Her Brittany spaniel kissed Tucker, who didn't mind but felt the display of enthusiasm ought to be tempered. Murphy sat by the fireside.

"I'll get right to the point." Little Mim pushed over a bowl of candies toward Harry. "I'm going to run for mayor and I need your help."

"I didn't know your father was stepping down," Harry said innocently, for Jim Sanburne had been mayor of Crozet for almost thirty years. Jim was good at getting people together. Everyone said Mim had married beneath her when she selected Jim from her many beaus. She did, if money and class were the issues. But Jim was a real man, not some fop who had inherited a bundle of money but no brains nor balls. He worked hard, played hard, and was good for the town. His Achilles' heel proved to be women; but then men like Jim tend to attract more than their share. Mim used to hate him but over time they had worked things out. And she had to admit she'd married him on the rebound after a torrid affair with Dr. Larry Johnson back in the fifties. She'd had a breast cancer scare a few years back and that more than anything settled down Jim Sanburne.

"He's not," came Little Mim's blithe reply as she leaned back on her sofa.

"Uh, Marilyn, what's going on?"

"Crozet needs a change."

"I thought your dad was doing a great job."

"He has." She crossed one leg over the other. "But Dad wants to bring in more business and I think that's going to damage the town. We're doing fine. We don't need Diamond Mails."

"What's Diamond Mails?"

"Dad's trying to lure this big mail-order book club here from Hanover, Pennsylvania. You know those book clubs. There's all kinds of them: history, gardening, investing, best-seller clubs. He wants to build a huge warehouse out there just beyond the high school, where the abandoned apple-packing shed is, on the White Hall Road? The groves are still behind it-on that nasty curve."

"Sure. Everyone knows where it is."

"Well, that's where he wants them to relocate. He says he'll take the curve out of the road. The state will do it. Fat chance, I say, but Dad has friends in Richmond. Think about it. This monstrous ugly warehouse. About fifty to sixty jobs, which means sixty houses somewhere and worse, think of the mail. I mean, aren't you already on overload?"

"But they'll have their own shipping and mailing."

"Of course they will but the workers will go through you. Private mail."

"Well-that's true." Harry had just shoveled piles of Valentine's Day cards. A future with more canvas bags bursting with mail loomed in her imagination.

"It's time for our generation to make our contribution. You know everybody. People like you. I'd like your support."

"That's flattering." Harry's mind was spinning. She didn't want to offend Little Mim and she certainly didn't want to offend Mim's father, whom she liked. "This is an awful lot to think over. I'll need a little time. And I'm not crawfishing. I do want to think about it. Does your father know you plan to oppose him in the fall election?"

"Yes. He laughed at me and said there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip." Her face darkened. "And I said that's for sure and who knows what will happen between now and November."

"What's your mother say?"

"Oh." Marilyn's face brightened. "She said she was neutral. She wouldn't get in the middle of it. That was really good of her, and I didn't expect that."

"Yes." Harry thought Big Mim was taking the only sane course of action.

"The other thing is that Dad and Sam Mahanes plan to raise the money for a new wing on the hospital, which I don't oppose but I want to make sure nothing slips under the table, you know, no sneaky bond issue. If they want a new wing then they can raise the money privately. Larry Johnson agreed to head the drive. Dad talked him into it."

"You wouldn't by any chance know what's going down between Sam and Bruce Buxton, would you?"

"Budget." She clipped her words.

"You mean the hospital?"

"Bruce wants everything brand spanking new. Sam preaches fiscal responsibility. That's what Dad says."

"Well, I guess people will always fight over resources." Harry had seen enough of that.

"It's turned into a feud too because other doctors support Bruce but the nurses support Sam. They say they know how to work the older equipment, old IVAC units and stuff, and they don't want stuff that's so technologically advanced that they have to go back to school to use it."

"Larry Johnson will calm them down." Harry knew that Larry and Mim had had an affair but as it was long before she was born she paid little attention to it. He'd come back from the war to establish a practice. He was handsome, but Mim's mother had felt he wasn't rich enough or classy enough for her daughter. She broke up the relationship and Mim had never forgiven herself for her cowardice. She should have defied her mother. Marrying Jim certainly was an act of defiance although too late for Larry, who had subsequently married a girl of his own class. As it turned out, Jim Sanburne had a gift for making money in construction, which over time had somewhat mollified Mrs. Urquhart, Mim's mother. And over time, Jim and Larry had become friends.

"He certainly will," Little Mim agreed.

"Thanks for asking me over. I've got to run some errands. The feed truck couldn't get into the farm last week and Thursday's delivery day. So I'd better get odds and ends just in case we get clobbered again. February is such a bitch."

"Doing anything for Valentine's Day?"

"No. You?"

"Blair's in Argentina on a photo shoot. So no." She paused. "Do you know if Bruce Buxton is dating anyone?"

Harry, wisely, did not comment on what Marilyn perceived of as a romance and what Blair Bainbridge thought of as a growing friendship. At least, that's what Harry thought was her peripatetic neighbor's position regarding Little Mim. "I don't know much about Bruce other than that he comes in for his mail. He's a little bit moody-but I never see him with a woman. Too busy, I guess."

Little Marilyn stood up, as did Harry. "You can talk to anyone you like about my candidacy. It's not a secret and I'll make a formal announcement March first."

"Okay." Harry reached the door, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker behind her, and then she turned and stopped. "Hey, did you get a chain letter last week?"

"I probably did but I throw them in the trash after reading the first line. Why?"

"Your mother got one and it upset her."

"Why?"

"Just junk mail, but you know how those things predict dire consequences if you don't send out the money and pass them along."

"A tidal wave will engulf your home in Tempe, Arizona." A gleam of humor illuminated Little Mim's attractive face.

"Right, that sort of thing. Oh well. I'll see you." Harry opened the door as her cat and dog scampered for the truck.

A tidal wave wasn't about to engulf Tempe, Arizona, but the creeks were rising fast in Crozet.

As Harry headed toward Route 64, she noticed Deputy Cynthia Cooper on Route 250 heading in the opposite direction, siren blaring, lights flashing. Harry pulled off the two-lane road.

"Another wreck, I'll bet," Harry said to her passengers.

"Pretty bad." Mrs. Murphy, sharp-eyed, had noticed how grim Coop looked.

It occurred to Harry, the way things usually occurred to Harry-meaning it just popped into her head-that she didn't know what an IVAC unit was.

5

The straight corridors of lead pipes running overhead testified to the 1930s updating of the oldest section of the hospital. Like a metallic spiderweb, they led to the boiler room, a square cut deep down at the center of the old building. Smack in the middle of this deep square sat the enormous cast-iron boiler, as good as the day it was built in 1911.

Hunkered down, fingers touching the stone floor for balance, Rick Shaw, sheriff of Albemarle County, glanced up when his trusted deputy walked into the room.

She stopped a moment, surveyed the blood splattered on the wall ten feet away, then bent down on one knee next to her boss. "Jesus Christ."

Lying in front of her was the still-warm body of Hank Brevard. His throat had been cut straight across with such force that he was nearly decapitated. She could see his neckbone.

"Left to right." Rick pointed to the direction of the cut.

"Right-handed perp."

"Yep."

The blood had shot across the room when the victim was killed, his heart pumping furiously.

"Tracks?"

"No." Rick stood up. "Whoever did this must have come up behind him. He might not have much blood on him at all and then again even if he did, this is a hospital. Easy to dump your scrubs."

"I'll look around."

Coop hurried down the main corridor. She heard a door slam behind her, hearing the voices of the fingerprint and lab teams.

She pushed open grimy pea-green doors, each one guarding supplies, empty cartons, odds and ends. The old incinerating room was intact. Finally she found the laundry room for the old part of the hospital. Nothing there caught her eye.

Rejoining Rick she shrugged. "Nada." She paused a moment. "You know, I had a thought. I'll be back. But one quick thing. There may be laundry rooms for the newer sections of the hospital. We'll need to check them fast."

"Where are you going?"

"Incinerator."

She ran back down the corridor, opened the door, and walked in. In the old days the incinerating room burned body parts. These days such things were considered biohazards so they were hauled out of the hospital and burned somewhere else. It seemed odd, trucks of gallbladders and cirrhotic livers rolling down Main Street to their final destination, but the laws made such incongruity normal.

She searched each corner of the room, then picked up the iron hook and gingerly opened the incinerator. A sheet of flame swept near her face. Instinctively she slammed the door shut. If there had been any evidence tossed in there, it was gone now.

"Damn!" She wiped her face, put the hook back on its hanger, and left the room.

Rick had returned to the corpse. Wearing thin plastic gloves like the ones worn in the hospital he went through Hank's pockets. A set of keys hung from the dead man's belt. In his left pocket he had $57.29. His right pocket contained his car keys and a folded sheet of notepaper, a grocery list. Rick put everything back in Hank's pockets.

"All right, guys. Do what you can." He stood up again and propelled Coop away from the others. "Let's get to Hank's office before we notify the hospital staff."

"Boss, who called you? And why isn't anyone else here?"

"Bobby Minifee called me from his cell phone. I told him not to speak to anyone, to stay with the body. He's outside in the unmarked car with Petey."

Bobby Minifee was Hank's assistant.

Petey D'Angelo, a young officer on the force, showed a flair for his job. Both Rick and Coop, young herself at thirty-four, liked him.

"So you're hoping no one knows about this except for Bobby Minifee and whoever killed Hank?"

"Yeah. That's why I want to get to Hank's office. Bobby said it was at the northeast corner of the building. This is the center so we take that corridor." As they walked along in the dim underground light, Rick cursed. "Shit, this is like a maze from hell."

"You'd have to know your way around or you'd run into the Minotaur."

"I'll remember that." He vaguely remembered the Greek myth about the half-bull, half-man.

They arrived at an open door, the name Hank Brevard on a black sliding nameplate prominently displayed. The spacious office was jammed with file cabinets. Hank's desk, reasonably neat, had an old wooden teacher's swivel chair behind it and a newer, nicer chair in front for visitors.

Coop began flipping through drawers while Rick pulled out the file drawers.

"Records go back ten years. If this is only ten years I'd hate to see all of the records."

"I've got a pile of oil bills from Tiger Fuel. A picture of the wife and kids." She stopped. Who would get that awful job, telling them? She opened the long middle drawer. "Pencils, pens, a tiny light, paper clips. Ah . . ." She pulled the drawer out even farther. A few envelopes, lying flat, were at the rear. "Winter basketball league schedule. Repair bill for his car. A new alternator. Three hundred forty-nine dollars with labor. That hurts. And . . ." She turned. "You getting anything?"

"It will take half the force to go through these file cabinets and we'll do it, too, but no, nothing is jumping right out at me except the mouse droppings."

"Need Mrs. Murphy."

"You're getting as bad about that cat as Harry."

Coop opened the last letter; the end of the envelope had been slit. She took out the letter. "Sister Sophonisba will bring you good fortune." She laughed a low laugh. "Guess not." She glanced up at the date. "Guess he didn't make the twenty copies in time."

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"A chain letter. Mail out twenty copies in three days. Well, it's past the three days."

Rick came over, snatched the chain letter, and read it. "'Ignore this letter at your peril.' Under the circumstances it's like a sick joke." He handed the letter back to Coop, who replaced it inside the envelope. "All right, let's find Sam Mahanes."

"Saturday night."

"H-m-m. I'll find Sam. You find out who's the head honcho Saturday night."

"Boss, when are we going to notify people?"

"Not until I talk to Sam and you talk to whoever. I think we're already too late. The killer's flown the coop."

"Or he's over our head." She looked up at the ceiling.

"There is that. I'll send Petey over to Lisa Brevard. He's going to have to learn to deliver the bad news. Might as well start now. I'll keep Bobby Minifee with me-for now."

"Rick, think Bobby could have done it?"

"I don't know. Right now I don't know much except that our killer is strong, very strong, and he knows where to cut."

6

Face as white as the snow that remained in the crevices and cracks of the county, Bobby Minifee clung to the Jesus strap above the window on the passenger side of the squad car.

Rick lit up a Camel, unfiltered, opening the window a crack. "Mind?"

"You're the sheriff," Bobby said.

"You need me to pull over?"

"No. Why?"

"You look like you're going to be sick."

A jagged intake of breath and Bobby shook his head no. At twenty-one, Minifee was good-looking. He worked nights at the hospital to make ends meet. During the day he studied at Piedmont Community College. A poor boy, he had hopes of going on to Virginia Tech at Blacksburg. He was bright and he wanted a degree in mechanical engineering. The more he studied the more he realized he liked fluid dynamics, waves, water, anything that flowed. He wasn't sure where this would lead him but right now he was considering a different kind of flow.

"Sheriff, you must see stuff like that all the time. Blood and all."

"Enough. Car wrecks mostly. Well, and the occasional murder."

"I had no idea blood could shoot like that. It was all over the wall."

"When the jugular is cut, the heart, which is close to the throat, remember, pumps it out like a straight jet. It's amazing-the human body. Amazing. Was he still bleeding like that when you found him?" Rick slowly worked his way into more questions. When he arrived on the crime scene he had gone easy on Bobby because the kid was shaking like a leaf.

"No, oozing."

"Do you think he was still alive when you found him?"

"No. I felt for his pulse."

"How warm was his wrist or his hand when you touched him?"

"Warm. Not clammy or anything. Like he just died."

"The blood was bright red?" Bobby nodded yes, so Rick continued. "Sure? Not caked around the edges, or clumping up on his neck?"

"No, Sheriff. The reddest red I've ever seen, and I could smell it." He shook his head as if to clear his brain.

"It's the smell that gets you." Rick slowed down for a stoplight. "I'd say you were a lucky man."

"Me?"

"You, Minifee, could be lying there with Hank. I'd guess you were within five minutes of seeing the killer. Did you hear a footfall?"

"No. The boiler is pretty noisy."

"Freight train. Those old cast-iron babies go forever, though. Our ancestors expected what they built to last. Now we tear stuff down and build structures and systems that decay in seven years' time." He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. "Didn't mean to lecture."

"Takes my mind off-"

"When I drive you home I'll give you a few names of people you can talk to, people who specialize in this kind of shock. It is a shock, Bobby, and don't do the stupid testosterone thing and go it alone."

"Okay." His voice faded.

"Did you like Hank Brevard?"

"He was a hardass. You know what I mean? One of those guys who likes to make you feel stupid. He always knew more than I did or anybody did. A real negative kind of guy."

"So you didn't like him?"

Bobby turned to directly stare at Rick. "Funny, but I did. I figured here's a real loser. In his fifties, mad about young guys coming up. Used to shit on me all the time about my studies. 'An ounce of experience is worth a pound of book learning,'" Bobby imitated Hank. "I kind of felt sorry for him because he really knew his stuff. He kept on top of everything and he could fix just about anything. Even computers and he's not a computer guy. He had a gift."

"Being plant manager of a hospital isn't a small job."

"No, but he couldn't rise any higher." Bobby sighed.

"Maybe he didn't want to."

"He did. You should have heard him gripe about baseball player salaries or basketball. He felt plenty trapped."

"Insightful for a young man."

"What's age got to do with it?" Bobby turned back to gaze out the window. The night seemed blacker than when they had driven away from the hospital.

"Oh, probably nothing. I'm just used to young people being self-absorbed. But then think of what I see every day."

"Yeah, I guess."

"The other men who worked under Hank, feel the same way you did?"

"I'm night shift. I don't know those guys."

"Can you think of anyone who might want to kill Hank?"

"He could really piss people off." Bobby paused. "But enough to kill him-" He shrugged. "No. I'd feel better if I could."

"Listen to me. When you return to work, stuff will fly through your head, when you first go back to that boiler room. Sometimes there's a telling detail. Call me. The other thing is, you might be scared for yourself. I know I would be. From my experience this doesn't look like a sicko killer. Sickos have signatures. Part of their game. Hank either crossed the wrong man or he surprised somebody."

"What could be down in the boiler room worth killing for?"

"That's my job." Rick coasted to a stop at Sam Mahanes' large, impressive home in Ednam Forest, a well-to-do subdivision off Route 250. "Bobby, come on in with me."

The two men walked to the red door, a graceful brass knocker in the middle. Rick knocked, then heard kids yelling, laughing in the background.

"I'll get it," a young voice declared, running feet heading toward the door.

"My turn," another voice, feet also running, called out.

The door swung open and two boys, aged six and eight, looked up in awe at the sheriff.

"Mommy!" The youngest scurried away.

"Hi. I'm Sheriff Shaw and we're here to see Daddy. Is he home?"

"Yes, sir." The eight-year-old opened the door wider.

Sally Mahanes, a well-groomed, very attractive woman in her middle thirties, appeared. "Kyle, honey, close the door. Hello, Sheriff. Hi, Bobby. What can I do for you?"

Kyle stood alongside his mother as his younger brother, Dennis, flattened himself along the door into the library.

"I'd like to see Sam."

"He's down in his shop. The Taj Mahal, I call it. Sam owns every gadget known to man. He's now building me a purple martin house and-" She smiled. "You don't need to know all that, do you?" She crossed over to the center stairwell, walked behind it, opened a door, and called, "Sam." Music blared up the stairs. "Kyle, go on down and get Daddy, will you?" She turned to Rick and Bobby. "Come on in the living room. Can I get you a drink or a bite to eat?"

"No, thanks." Rick liked Sally. Everyone did.

"No, thank you." Bobby sat on the edge of a mint-colored wing chair.

Sam, twenty years older than his wife, but in good shape and good-looking, entered the living room, his oldest son walking a step behind him. "Sheriff. Bobby?" He tilted his head a moment. "Bobby, is everything all right?"

"Uh-no."

"Boys, come upstairs." The boys reluctantly followed their mother's lead, Dennis looking over his shoulder. "Dennis. Come on."

Once Rick thought the children were out of earshot he quietly said, "Hank Brevard has been murdered in the boiler room of the hospital. Bobby found him."

Thunderstruck, Sam shouted, "What?"

"Right after sunset, I'd guess."

"How do you know he was murdered?" Sam was having difficulty taking this all in.

"His throat was cut clean from ear to ear," Rick calmly informed him.

Sam glanced to Bobby. "Bobby?"

Bobby turned his palms up, cleared his voice. "I came down the service elevator from the fourth floor. I checked the hot line for messages. None. So I thought I'd check the pressure of the boiler. Supposed to be cold tonight. I walked in and Hank was flat on his back, eyes staring up, and it's kind of strange but at first I didn't notice his wound. I noticed the blood on the wall. I thought maybe he threw a can of paint. You know, he had a temper. And then I guess I realized how bad it was and I knelt down. Then I saw his throat. I took his pulse. Nothing. I called the sheriff-"

Rick interrupted. "Sam, I ordered him not to call anyone else, not even you. I was there in five minutes. Coop took seven. He would have called you."

"I quite understand. Bobby, I'm very sorry this has happened to you. We'll get you some counseling."

"Thank you."

"Sam, running a hospital is a high-pressure job. I know you have many things on your mind, lots of staff, future building plans, but you did know Hank pretty well, didn't you?"

"Oh sure. He was there when I took over from Quincy Lowther. He was a good plant manager. Set in his ways but good."

"Did you like him?"

"Yes." Sam's face softened. "Once you got to know Hank, he was okay." A furrow crossed his brow, he leaned forward. "Have you told Lisa?"

"I have an officer over there right now."

"Unless you need to question her, Sally and I will go over."

"Pete will ask the basics if she's capable. I'll see her tomorrow. I'm sure she would be grateful for your comfort." Rick never grew accustomed to the grief of those left behind. "Do you have any idea who would kill Hank or why? Did he have a gambling problem? Was he having an affair? I know it's human nature to protect friends and staff but anything you know might lead me to his killer. If you hold back, Sam, the trail gets cold."

Sam folded his hands together. "Rick, I can't think of a thing. Bobby told you he had a hot temper but it flared up and then was over. We all shrugged it off. Unless he had a secret life, I really can't think of anyone or anything."

Rick reached in his shirt pocket. "Here. If you think of anything, tell me. Coop, too. If I'm not around, she'll handle it."

"I will." Sam shifted his gaze to Bobby. "Why don't you take off a few days-with pay. And"-he rose-"let me get those counselors' names for you."

"Sam, you get on over to Lisa. I'll give him some names." Rick stood up, as did Bobby.

"Right." Sam showed them to the door.

Rick drove Bobby home and as he pulled into the driveway of his rented apartment he asked, "Who's in charge of night maintenance?"

"Me."

"Upstairs?"

"You mean, who stands in for Sam?"

"Yeah."

"Usually the assistant director, Jordan Ivanic."

Rick clicked on the overhead light, scribbled the name on his notepad, tore off the sheet. "Can't hurt."

"Thanks." Bobby opened the squad car door, stepped out, then bent down. "Do you ever get used to this?"

"No, not really."

On the way back to the hospital, Rick called Coop. She'd questioned Jordan Ivanic. Not much there except she said he had nearly passed out. The body had been removed thirty minutes ago and was on its way to the morgue. The coroner was driving in to get to work immediately. She had ordered Ivanic to sit tight until Rick got there and she hadn't called the city desk at the newspaper, although she would as soon as Rick gave her the okay. If she helped the media, they would help her. It was an odd relationship, often tense, but she knew she'd better do a good job with the media tonight.

"Good work." Rick sighed over his car phone. "Coop, it's going to be a long night."

"This one's out of the blue."

"Yep."

7

At ten o'clock Saturday evening, Harry, already snuggled in bed, Mrs. Murphy on her pillow, Pewter next to her, and Tucker on the end of the bed, was reading Remembrance of Things Past. This was one of those books she'd promised herself to read back in college and she was finally making herself do it. Amazed at Proust's capacity for detail and even more amazed that readers of the day had endured it, she plowed through. Mostly she liked it, but she was only halfway through Volume I.

The phone rang.

"Has to be Susan or Fair," Pewter grumbled.

"Hello." Harry picked up the receiver; the phone was on the nightstand by the bed.

"Har." Susan's voice was breathless. "Hank Brevard was found murdered at the hospital."

"Huh?" Harry sat up.

"Bobby Minifee found him in the boiler room, right after sunset. Throat slit. O-o-o." Susan shuddered.

Susan, one of Crozet's leading younger citizens, was on the hospital board. Sam Mahanes, responsible and quick, had called every member of the board, which also included Mim Sanburne and Larry Johnson.

"Oh, I wish I hadn't picked on him." Harry felt remorse. "Even if he was a crab."

"You know, Harry, a little expression of grief might be in order here."

"Oh, balls, Susan. I did express grief-a little, your qualifier! Besides, I'm talking to you."

A light giggle floated over the line. "He was a downer. Still-to have your throat slit."

"A swift death, I assume."

The animals pricked their ears.

Susan paused a second. "Do you think people die as they lived?"

"Uh, I don't know. No. No. I mean how can you die as you lived if someone sneaks up behind you and s-s-s-t."

"You don't have to produce sound effects."

"And how can you die as you lived if you're propped up in a hospital bed, tubes running everywhere. That's a slow slide down. I'd hate it. Well, I guess most people in that position hate it."

"Yeah, but I wonder sometimes. What I'm getting at is even if you're on that deathbed, let's say, you would approach death as you approached life. Some will face it head-on, others will deny it, others will put on a jolly face."

"Oh that. Yeah, then I suppose you do-I mean, you do die as you lived. Makes Hank's death even stranger. Someone grabs him and that's the end of it. Swift, brutal, effective. Three qualities I wouldn't assign to Hank."

"No, but we'd assign them to his killer."

Harry thought a long time. "I guess so. What's so weird is why anyone would want to kill Hank Brevard other than to stop hearing him talk about how our country is a cesspool of political corruption, Sam Mahanes works him too hard, and let's not forget Hank's theories on the Kennedy assassination."

"Fidel Castro," Susan filled in.

"I count that as part of the Kennedy assassination." Harry changed the subject slightly. "When do you have a board meeting? I'm assuming you'll have an emergency one."

"Which Mim will take over as soon as Sam opens it."

"He'd damn well better smile when she does it, too. She's one of the hospital's largest contributors. Anyway, imperious as Mim can be, she has good ideas. Which reminds me. I was going to call you tomorrow and tell you that Little Mim wants to run for mayor of Crozet."

"Tomorrow. You should have called me the minute you walked in the door," Susan chided her.

"Well, I kinda intended to but then I mopped the kitchen floor because it was a mud slide and then I trimmed Tucker's nails which she hates, the big baby."

"I do," Tucker replied.

"Has Marilyn lost her senses?"

"I don't know. She pressured me a little bit but not in a bad way. She said her father had done a pretty good job but she and he were falling on opposite sides of the fence over the development of Crozet, especially where industry is concerned, and you know, she did make a good point. She said it's time our generation got involved."

"We have been slugs," Susan agreed. "So what are you going to do? Between a rock and a hard place."

"I said I'd think about it. She'll ask you, too. We're all going to have to make choices and publicly, too."

"M-m-m, well, let me call Rev. Jones so he can get the Lutheran Church ladies in gear. Miranda will organize the Church of the Holy Light group. We'd better all get over to Lisa Brevard's tomorrow morning."

"Right. What time are you going?"

"Nine."

"Okay. I'll be there at nine, too. See you." Harry hung up the phone, informed her three animal friends of the bizarre event, then thought about the morning's task.

Sitting next to grief disturbed her. But when her mother and father had died within a year of each other, she had cherished those people who came to share that grief, brought covered dishes, helped. How selfish to deny yourself to another person in need because their sorrow makes you uncomfortable. People feel uncomfortable for different reasons. Men feel terrible because they can't fix it and men are raised to fix things. Women empathize and try to soothe the sufferer. Perhaps the categories don't break down that neatly along gender lines but Harry thought they did.

She reached over and set her alarm a half hour early, to five A.M.

Then she clicked off the light. "Who in the world would want to kill Hank Brevard?"

"Somebody very sure of himself," Mrs. Murphy sagely noted.

"Why do you say that?" Pewter asked.

"Because he or she knew his way around the basement, probably he. He left the body. Humans who want to cover their tracks bury the body. At least, that's what I think. There's an element of arrogance in just leaving Hank crumpled there. And the killer either knew the schedule, the work routine, or he took the chance no one else would be in the basement."

"You're right," Tucker said.

"Will you guys pipe down? I need my beauty sleep."

"Try coma," Pewter smarted off.

The other two snickered but did quiet down.

8

The scale needle dipped. Tom Yancy, the coroner, lifted off the brain. His assistant wrote down 2 lb. 9 oz.

Both Rick and Coop had attended enough autopsies not to be but so squeamish but Rick hated the part when the coroner sawed off the skullcap. The sound of those tiny blades cutting into fresh bone and the odor of the bone made him queasy. The rest of it didn't bother him. Most people got woozy when the body was opened from stem to stern but he could handle that just fine.

Each organ was lifted out of Hank Brevard.

"Liver's close to shot," Tom noted. "Booze."

"Funny. I never saw him drunk," Rick remarked.

"Well, it is possible to have liver disease without alcohol but this is cirrhosis. He drank."

"Maybe that's why he was so bitchy. He was hungover most of the time," Coop said.

"He wasn't exactly beauty and light, was he?" Tom poked around the heart. "Look. The heart is disproportionate. The left side should be about one half the right. His is smaller. Chances are he would have dropped sooner rather than later since this pump was working too hard. Every body has its secrets."

After the autopsy, Tom washed up.

"The obvious?" Rick asked.

"Oh yeah. No doubt about it. Left to right as you noted. Back to the bone. The C-3 vertebra was even nicked with the blade where I showed you. Damn near took his head off. A razor-sharp blade, too. Nothing sloppy or jagged about it. Very neat work."

"A surgeon's precision." Coop crossed her arms over her chest. She was getting tired and hungry.

"I'd say so, although there are plenty of people who could make that cut if the instrument was sharp enough. People have been slitting one another's throats since B.C. It's something we're good at." Tom smiled wryly.

"But the assailant had to be powerful." Rick hated the chemical smells of the lab.

"Yes. There's no way the killer could be female unless she bench-presses two hundred and fifty pounds and some do, some do. But from the nature of the wound it was someone a bit taller than Hank. Otherwise the wound would have been a bit downward, unless he drove Hank to his knees, but you said there was no sign of struggle at the site."

"None."

"Then my guess, which I'm sure is yours, too, is the killer came up behind him, was Hank's height or taller, grabbed his mouth and cut so fast Hank barely knew what hit him. I suppose there's comfort in that."

"How long did it take him to die?"

"Two minutes, more or less."

"There'd be no shortage of suitable knives in the hospital," Coop said.

"Or people who know how to use them." Tom opened the door to the corridor.

Flames darted behind the glass front of the red enamel wood-burning stove. Tussie Logan hung up the phone in the kitchen.

When she returned to the living room, Randy Sands, her housemate and best friend, noticed her ashen face. "What's wrong?"

"Hank Brevard is dead."

"Heart attack?" Randy rose, walked over to Tussie, and put his arm around her shoulders.

"No. He was murdered."

"What?" Randy dropped his arm, turning to face her.

"Someone slit his throat."

"Good Lord." He sucked in his breath. "How primitive." He walked back to the sofa. "Come on, sit down beside me. Talking helps."

"I don't know what to say." She dropped next to him, which made his cushion rise up a little bit.

"Who just called to tell you?"

"Oh, Debbie, Jordan Ivanic's secretary. I guess we're all being called one by one. She said Sheriff Shaw or Deputy Cooper would be questioning us and-" She bit her lip.

"Not the most hospitable man but still." He put his arm around her again. "I'm sorry."

"You know, I was just in the post office with him and he was bitching and moaning about working a late shift because someone was sick or whatever. Half the time I tuned him out." She breathed in sharply. "Now I feel guilty as hell about it."

Randy patted her shoulder. "Everybody did that. He was boring."

A log popped in the stove.

Tussie flinched. "You never know. How trite." She rocked herself. "How utterly trite but it's true. Here I work in a hospital with these desperately sick children. I mean, Randy, we know most of them haven't a prayer but this shakes me."

"Working with terminally ill children is your profession. Having an associate or whatever you call Hank is quite another matter . . . having him murdered, I mean. Sometimes I open my mouth and I can't keep my tongue on track," he apologized.

"Start one sentence and bop into the second before you've finished the first." She smiled sadly. "Randy, I have to go back and work in that hospital and there's a killer loose." She shuddered.

"Now you don't know that. It could have been a random thing."

"A homicidal maniac goes to the hospital and selects Hank."

"Well," his voice lightened. "You know what I mean. It's got nothing to do with you."

"God, I hope not." She shuddered again and he kept patting her shoulder, keeping his arm around her.

"You'll be fine."

"Randy, I'm scared."

9

Once a human being reaches a certain age, death, while not a friend, is an acquaintance. Sudden death, though, always catches people off guard.

Lisa Brevard, in her early fifties, was stunned by her husband's murder. To lose him was bad enough, but to have him murdered was doubly upsetting. She knew his faults but loved him anyway. Perhaps the same could have been said of him for her.

After Harry left the Brevards' she, Susan, Miranda Hogendobber, and Coop had lunch at Miranda's, she being the best cook in Crozet.

"When does Tracy get back?" Coop asked Miranda about her high-school boyfriend, who had struck up a courtship with her at their reunion last year.

"As soon as he sells the house." She placed the last dish on the table-mashed potatoes-sat down, and held Harry's and Coop's hands. Coop held Susan's hand so the circle was complete. "Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy bounty to us both in food and in friendship. We ask that Thou sustain and comfort Lisa and the family in their time of sorrow. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen."

"Amen," the others echoed, as did the animals, who quickly pounced upon their dishes on the floor.

"You look wonderful, Miranda." Susan was proud of Miranda, who had lost forty pounds.

"Men fall in love with their eyes, women with their ears." Miranda smiled.

Coop glanced up, fork poised in midair. "I never thought of that."

"The Good Lord made us differently. There's no point complaining about it. We have to accept it, besides"-Miranda handed the bowl to her left-"I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Wh-o-o-o." Harry raised her eyebrows.

"Don't start, Harry." Miranda shot her a glance, mock fierce.

"I hope Tracy sells that house in Hawaii fast." Harry heaped salad into her bowl.

"I do, too. I feel like a girl again." Miranda beamed.

They talked about Tracy and others in the town but the conversation kept slipping back to Hank Brevard.

"Cooper, are you holding back?" Harry asked.

"No. It takes us time to piece together someone's life and that's what we have to do with Hank. Whatever he was, whatever he did, someone wanted him dead. Big time."

"He couldn't have, say, surprised someone doing-" Susan didn't finish her sentence as Harry jumped in.

"In the boiler room of the hospital?"

"Harry, someone could have been throwing evidence into the boiler," Susan defended herself.

"Most likely the incinerator." Cooper then described the bowels of the hospital building to them. "So you see, given the corridors, whoever did this knew their way around."

"Someone who works there," Miranda said.

"Or someone who services equipment there. We have to run down every single contractor, repairman, delivery boy who goes in and out of that place."

"What a lot of work," Miranda exclaimed. "Like that old TV show, Dragnet. You do throw a net over everything, don't you?"

Cooper nodded. "And sooner or later, Miranda, something turns up."

And so it did, but not at all where they thought it would.

10

"Oh boy." Harry closed the post office door behind her just as Rob Collier pulled up to the front door. She hurried through and opened the front door. "Monday, Monday."

"I've got stuff for you," he sang out as he hauled canvas bags stuffed with mail.

"Valentine's Day. I forgot." She grimaced as he tossed two extra bags onto the mailroom floor.

"Just think of all the love in those bags," he joked.

"You're in a good mood."

"I already got my Valentine's Day present this morning."

"No sex talk, Rob, I'm too delicate."

He grinned at her, hopped back in the big mail truck, and took off in the direction of White Hall, where a small post office awaited him.

"Think Mom got any love letters?" Tucker tugged at one of the bags.

"I don't think she cares. She has to sort her mail the same as everybody else's," Murphy replied.

"Saint Valentine. There ought to be a Saint Catnip or how about a Saint Tuna?" Pewter, having eaten a large breakfast, was already thinking about lunch at seven-thirty in the morning. "I bet there wasn't even a real person called Valentine."

"Yes, there was. He was a third-century martyr killed in Rome on the Flaminian Way under the reign of Claudius. There are conflicting stories but I stick to this one," Mrs. Murphy informed her gray friend.

"How do you know all that?" Pewter irritatedly asked.

"Whatever Harry reads I read over her shoulder."

"Reading bores me," Pewter honestly answered. "Does it bore you, Tucker?"

"No."

"Tucker, you can hardly read."

"Oh yes I can." The corgi glared at Murphy. "I'm not an Afghan hound, you know, obsessed with my appearance. I've learned a few things in this life. But I don't get what a murdered priest has to do with lovers. Isn't Valentine's Day about lovers?"

With a superior air, Murphy lifted the tip of her tail, delicately grooming it, and replied, "The old belief was that birds pair off on February fourteenth and I guess since that was the day Valentine was murdered somehow that pairing became associated with him."

"I'm sorry I'm late." Miranda bustled through the back door. "I overslept."

Harry, up to her elbows in mail, smiled. "You hardly ever do that."

They had spoken Sunday about the murder of Hank Brevard and, with that shorthand peculiar to people who have known one another a long time or lived through intense experiences together, they hopped right in.

"Accident?" Miranda placed packages on the shelves, each of which had numbers and letters on them so large parcels could be easily retrieved.

"Impossible."

"I guess I'm trying to find something-" A rap on the back door broke her train of thought.

"Who is it?" Harry called out.

"Miss Wonderful."

"Susan." Harry laughed as her best friend opened the door. "Help us out and make tea, will you? Rob showed up early and I haven't started a pot. What are you doing here this early, anyway?"

Susan washed out the teapot at the small sink in the rear. "Brooks' Volvo is in the shop so I dropped her at school. Danny's off on a field trip so I had to do it." Dan, her son, would be leaving for college this fall. "I swear that Volvo Ned bought her must be the prototype. What a tank but it's safe."

"What's the matter with it?" Miranda asked.

"I think the alternator died." She put tea bags in three cups, then came over to help sort mail until the water boiled. "You'd think most people would have mailed out their Valentine's cards before today."

"They did, but today"-Harry surveyed the volume of mail-"is just wild. There aren't even that many bills in here. The bills roll in here next week."

The teakettle whistled. "Okay, girls, how do you want your tea?"

"The usual," both called out, which meant Harry wanted hers black and Miranda wanted a teaspoon of honey and a drop of cream.

Susan brought them their cups and she drank one, too.

"Murphy, what are you looking at?"

"This Jiffy bag smells funny." She pushed it.

Pewter and Tucker joined her.

"Yeah." Pewter inhaled deeply. "Addressed to Dr. Bruce Buxton."

Puzzled, Tucker cocked her head to the right and then to the left. "Dried blood. Faint but it smells like dried blood."

The cats looked at one another and then back to Tucker, whose nose was unimpeachable.

"All right, you guys. No messing with government property." Harry snatched the bag, read the recipient's name, then placed it on the bookshelves, because it was too large for his brass mailbox. "Ned tell you anything?" she asked Susan.

"No. Client relationship."

Susan's husband, a trusted and good lawyer, carried many a secret. Tempted though he was at times, he never betrayed a client's thoughts or deeds to his wife.

"Is Bobby Minifee under suspicion?" Miranda put her teacup on the divider between the public space and the work space.

"No. Not really," Susan replied.

"Anyone seen Coop?" Harry shot a load of mail into her ex-husband's mailbox.

"No. Working overtime with all this." Susan looked on the back of a white envelope. "Why would anyone send a letter without a return address, the mail being what it is. No offense to you, Harry, or you, Miranda."

"None taken." Harry folded one sack, now emptied. "Maybe they get busy and forget."

At eight on the dot, Marilyn Sanburne stood at the front door just as Miranda unlocked it.

"Good morning. Oh, Miranda, where did you get that sweater? The cranberry color compliments your complexion."

"Knitted it myself." The older woman smiled. "We've got so much mail-well, there's some mail in your box but you'd better check back this afternoon, too."

"Fine." Little Mim pulled out her brass mailbox key, opened the box, pulling out lots of mail. She quickly flipped through it, then loudly exclaimed, "A letter from Blair."

"Great." Harry spoke quickly because Little Mim feared Harry had designs on the handsome model herself, which she did not.

"I also wanted you ladies to be the first to know that I've rented the old brick pharmacy building and it's going to be my campaign headquarters."

"That's a lot of space," Harry blurted out.

"Yes." Little Mim smiled and bid them good-bye.

They watched as she got into her car and opened Blair's letter. She was so intent upon reading it that she didn't notice her mother pull up next to her.

Mim parked, emerged well-dressed as always, and walked over to the driver's side of her daughter's car. Little Mim didn't see her mother, so Big Mim rapped on the window with her forefinger.

Startled, Little Mim rolled down the window. "Mother."

"Daughter."

A silence followed. Little Mim had no desire to share her letter, and she wasn't thrilled that her mother saw how engrossed she was in it.

Shrewdly, she jumped onto a subject. "Mother, I've rented the pharmacy."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"Zeb Berryhill called your father and wondered if he would be upset and your father said he would not. In fact, he was rather looking forward to a challenge. So that was that."

"Oh." Little Mim, vaguely disappointed, slipped the letter inside her coat. She was hoping to be the talk of the town.

"It must be good."

"Mother, I have to have some secrets."

"Why? Nobody else in this town does," said the woman who had secrets going back decades.

"Oh, everyone has secrets. Like the person who killed Hank Brevard."

"M-m-m, there is that. Well, I'm off to a Piedmont Environmental Council meeting. Happy Valentine's Day."

"You, too, Mumsy." Little Mim smiled entirely too much.

As she drove off, Big Mim entered the post office just as Dr. Buxton pulled into the parking space vacated by her daughter. At that moment her irritation with her daughter took over the more pressing gossip of the day.

"Girls," Mim addressed them, "I suppose you've heard of Marilyn's crackbrained plan to oppose her father."

"Yes," came the reply.

"Not so crackbrained," Pewter sassed.

Bruce walked in behind her, nodded hello to everyone, opened his box, and almost made it out the door before Miranda remembered his package. "Dr. Buxton, wait a minute. I've got a Jiffy bag for you."

"Thanks." He joined Mim at the divider.

She placed her elbows on the divider. "Bruce, what's going on at the hospital? The whole episode is shocking."

"I don't know. He wasn't the most pleasant guy in the world but I don't think that leads to murder. If it did a lot more of us would be dead." He looked Big Mim right in the eye.

"Was that your attempt at being subtle?" She bridled when people didn't properly defer to her.

"No. I'm not subtle. I'm from Missouri, remember?"

"Two points." Murphy jumped onto the divider, Pewter followed.

"Let me out," Tucker asked Harry, because she wanted to be right out there with Bruce and Mim.

"Crybaby." Harry opened the swinging door and the corgi padded out to the public section.

"You and Truman." Mim rapped the countertop with her long fingernails.

"Here we go." Miranda slid the bag across the counter.

"Ah." He squeezed the bag, examined the return address, which was his office at the hospital. "Huh," he said to himself but out loud. He flicked up the flat red tab with his fingernail, pulling it to open the top. He shook the bag and a large bloody scalpel fell out. "What the hell!"

11

Coop placed the scalpel in a plastic bag. Rick turned his attention to Dr. Bruce Buxton, not in a good mood.

"Any ideas?"

"No." Bruce's lower jaw jutted out as he answered the sheriff.

"Oh, come on now, Doc. You've got enemies. We've all got enemies. Someone's pointing the finger at you and saying, 'He's the killer and here's the evidence.'"

Bruce, a good four inches taller than Rick, squared his shoulders. "I told you, I don't know anyone who would do something like this and no, I didn't kill Hank Brevard."

"Wonder how many patients he's lost on the table?" Pewter, ever the cynic, said.

"He probably lost more due to bedside manner than incompetence," Mrs. Murphy shrewdly noted.

"He's not scared. I can smell fear and he's not giving off the scent." Tucker sniffed at Bruce's pants leg.

"You don't have to stop. You can still sort the mail. But first tell me where you saw the bag," the sheriff asked Harry, Miranda, and Susan, now stuck because she had dropped in to help. He had interviewed Mim first so that she could leave.

"I saw it first," Tucker announced.

"You did not. I did," Pewter contradicted the bright-eyed dog.

"They don't care. If you gave these humans a week they wouldn't understand that we first noticed something peculiar." Murphy flopped on her side on the shelf between the upper and lower brass mailboxes.

"I saw the bag." Harry, feeling a chill, rolled up her turtleneck, which she had folded down originally. "Actually, Mrs. Murphy sniffed it out. Because she noticed it, I noticed it."

"What a surprise." Mrs. Murphy's long silken eyebrows twitched upward.

"Look, Sheriff, I've got to be at the hospital scrubbed up in an hour." Bruce impatiently shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"When will you be finished?" Rick ignored Bruce's air of superiority.

"Barring complications, about four."

"I'll see you at your office at four then."

"There's no need to make this public, is there?" Bruce's voice, oddly light for such a tall man, rose.

"No."

"No need to tell Sam Mahanes unless it turns out to be the murder weapon and it won't."

Coop, sensitive to inflections and nuance, heard the suppressed anger when Bruce mentioned Sam Mahanes.

"Why are you so sure that isn't the murder weapon?" she asked.

"Because I didn't kill him."

"The scalpel could still be the murder weapon," she persisted.

"I heard that Hank was almost decapitated. You'd need a broad, long, sharp blade for that work. Which reminds me, the story was on all the news channels and in the paper. The hospital will be overrun with reporters. Are you sure you want to see me in my office?"

Rick replied, "Yes."

What Rick didn't say was that he wanted hospital staff to know he was calling upon Dr. Buxton. While there he would question other workers.

He couldn't be certain that the killer worked in the hospital. What he could be certain of was that the killer knew the layout of the basement.

Still, he hoped his presence might rattle some facts loose or even rattle the killer.

"Well, I'll see you at four." Bruce left without saying good-bye.

"Harry, what are you looking at?" Rick pointed at her.

"You."

"And?"

"You're good at reading people," she complimented him.

Surprised, he said, "Thanks"-took a deep breath-"and don't start poking your nose in this."

"I'm not poking my nose into it. I work here. The scalpel came through the mail." She threw up her hands.

"Harry, I know you." He nudged a mailbag with his toe. "All right then, you get back to work. Susan?"

"I dropped in for tea and to help. It's Valentine's Day."

"Oh, shit." He slapped his hand to his head.

"Shall I call in roses for your wife?" Miranda volunteered.

Rick gratefully smiled at her. "Miranda, you're a lifesaver. I'm not going to have a minute to call myself. The early days of a case are critical."

"I'd be glad to do that." Miranda moved toward the phone as Rick flipped up the divider and walked out the front. "Coop," he called over his shoulder. "Start on the basement of the hospital today. In case we missed something."

"Roger," she agreed as she reached in her pocket for the squad car keys.

They had arrived at the post office in separate cars.

"Any leads?" Harry asked the big question now that Rick was out of the post office.

"No," Cynthia Cooper truthfully answered. "It appears to be a straightforward case of murder. Brutal."

"Doesn't that usually mean revenge?" Susan, having read too many psychology books, commented.

"Yes and no." She folded her arms across her chest. "Many times when the killer harbors an intense hatred for the victim they'll disfigure the body. Fetish killings usually involve some type of ritual or weirdness, say, cutting off the nose. Just weird. This really is straightforward. The choice of a knife means the killer had to get physically close. It's more intimate than a gun but it's hard to get rid of a gun. Even if the killer had thrown it in the incinerator, something might be left. A knife is easy to hide, easy to dispose of, and not so easy to figure out. What I mean by that is, in lieu of the actual weapon, there are a variety of knife types that could do the job. It's not like pulling a .45 slug out of a body. Also, a knife is quiet."

"Especially in the hands of someone who uses knives for a living." Murphy pounced on the third mailbag.

Cynthia, taller than the other women, reached her arms over her head and stretched. She was tired even though it was morning, and her body ached. She hadn't gotten much sleep since the murder.

Miranda hung up the phone, having ordered flowers for Rick's wife. "Did I miss anything? You girls talking without me?"

"No. No suspects," Harry told her.

"'Be sure your sin will find you out.' Numbers, thirty-second chapter." She reached into the third mailbag to discover that Murphy had wriggled inside. "Oh!" She opened the drawstring wider. "You little stinker."

"Ha. Ha." Murphy backed farther into the mass of paper.

"Harry, if I get a day off anytime soon I'm coming out to your place." Coop smiled.

"Sure. If it's not too cold we can go for a ride. Oh, hey, before you go-and I know you must-have you heard that Little Mim is going to run against her father for the mayor's office?"

"No." Cynthia's shoulders cracked, she lowered her arms. "They'll be playing happy families at Dalmally." She laughed.

"Well." Harry shrugged, since the Sanburnes were a law unto themselves.

"Might shake things up a bit." Cynthia sighed, then headed for the door.

"I expect they've been shaken up enough already," Miranda wisely noted.

Harry made a quick swing to the hospital to find Larry Johnson. Although semi-retired, he seemed to work just as hard as he had before taking on Dr. Hayden McIntire as a partner.

She spied him turning into a room on the second-floor corridor.

She tiptoed to the room. No one was there except for Larry.

He looked up. "My article for the newsletter." He snapped his fingers. "It's in a brown manila envelope in the passenger seat of my car. Unlocked."

Harry looked at the TV bolted into the ceiling, at the hospital bed which could be raised and lowered. Then her attention was drawn to the IVAC unit, an infusion pump, a plastic bag on a pole. A needle was inserted usually into the patient's arm and the machine could be programmed to measure out the appropriate dose of medicine or solution.

"Larry, if I'm ever taken ill you'll be sure to fill my drip with Coca-Cola."

"Well, that's better than vodka-and I've seen alcohol sneaked into rooms in the most ingenious ways." He rolled the unit out of the way.

"Got any ideas?" She didn't need to say about the murder.

"No." He frowned.

"Nosy."

"I know." He smiled at her. "I apologize for not running my newsletter article to the post office. I'm a little behind today."

"No problem."

She left, found his red car easily, grasped the manila envelope, and drove home. Cindy Green, editor of the newsletter, would pick it up at the post office tomorrow.

If nothing else, the great thing about working at the post office was you were central to everybody.

12

"Intruder! Intruder!" Tucker barked at the sound of a truck rolling down the driveway.

Murphy, her fabulously sensitive ears forward, laconically said, "It's Fair, you silly twit."

Murphy, like most cats, could identify tire sounds from a quarter of a mile away. Humans always wondered how cats knew when their mate or children had turned for home; they could hear the different crunching sounds. Humans could tell the difference between a big truck and a car but cats could identify the tire sounds of all vehicles.

Within a minute, Fair pulled up at the back door. Murphy jumped on the kitchen windowsill to watch him get out of the truck, then reach back in for a box wrapped in red paper with a white bow.

He glanced up at the sky, then walked to the porch, opened the door, stopped at the back kitchen door, and knocked. He opened the door before Harry could yell, "Come in."

"It's me."

"I know it's you." She walked out of the living room. "Your voice is deeper than Susan's."

"Happy Valentine's Day." He handed her the red box.

She kissed him on the cheek. "May I open it now?"

"That's the general idea." He removed his coat, hanging it on a peg by the back door.

"Wormer! Thanks." She kissed him again.

He'd given her a three-month supply of wormer for her horses. That might not be romantic to some women but Harry thought it was a perfect present. "I have one for you, too."

She skipped into the living room, returning with a book wrapped in brown butcher paper yet sporting a gleaming red ribbon and bow. "Happy Valentine's Day back at you."

He carefully opened the present, smoothing the paper and rolling up the ribbon. A leather-bound book, deep rich old tan with a red square between two raised welts on the spine, gave off a distinctive aroma. He opened to the title page. The publication date was in Roman numerals.

"Wow. 1792." He flipped through the pages. "Ever notice how in old books, the ink on the page is jet black because the letter was cut into the page?"

"Yeah. The best." She stood next to him admiring the book, an old veterinary text printed in London.

"This is a beautiful present." He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her with more than affection. "You're something else."

"Just what, I'd like to know." Pewter, ready for extra crunchies, was in no mood for romance.

"I've got corn bread from Miranda, if you're hungry."

"I am!"

"Pewter, control yourself." Harry spoke to the now very vocal Pewter, who decided to sing a few choruses from Aïda at high register.

Harry poured out crunchies.

"Yahoo." The cat dove in.

"Anything to shut her up." Harry laughed.

"She's got you trained." He pulled two plates out of the cupboard as Harry removed the tinfoil from the corn bread.

As they sat and ate she told him what had happened at the post office with Bruce Buxton.

After hearing the story, Fair shook his head. "Sounds like a cheap trick."

"Bruce doesn't win friends and influence people," Harry truthfully remarked.

"Arrogant. A lot of doctors are like that, or at least I think they are. Then again, a lot of vets are that way. I don't know what there is about medical knowledge that makes a man feel like God but Bruce sure does."

"You've got a big ego but you keep it in check. Maybe that's why you're such a good equine vet. Not good, really, the best." She smiled at him.

"Hey, keep talking." He beamed.

"Come to think of it, I don't know anyone that really does like Bruce. Too bad they couldn't have seen his face when he opened the Jiffy bag. Whoever sent it would have been thrilled with their success. 'Course if they could see him in the hunt field, they'd have a giggle, too."

Bruce liked the excitement of the chase, the danger of it, but in truth he was a barely adequate rider, as was Sam Mahanes. It was one more place where they could get in each other's way.

"Don't you wonder what Hank Brevard did to get himself killed? I mean, there's another guy not exactly on the top of anyone's 'A' list." Fair cut a bigger piece of corn bread. "Still, you didn't want to kill him. Now I could see someone doing in Bruce. Being around him is like someone rubbing salt in your wound. Murder is-dislocating."

"For the victim." Harry laughed at him.

"You know what I'm trying to say. It calls everything you know into question. What would push you to kill another human being?"

"Yeah, we were talking about that at volleyball." She pressed her lips together and raised her eyebrows, her face a question. "Who knows?"

"Did you think Hank Brevard was smart?" Fair asked Harry. He trusted her reactions to people.

"M-m-m, he knew how to cover his ass. I'm not sure I would call him smart. I guess he was smart about mechanical things or he wouldn't have been plant manager. And I suppose he'd be pretty efficient, good at scheduling maintenance checks, that sort of thing."

"Yeah," Fair agreed.

"No sense of culture, the arts, enjoying people."

"Cut and dried. I think the only people really upset at his death are his wife and family." Fair stood up and walked to the window. "Damn, this weather is a bitch. This afternoon the mercury climbed to fifty-two degrees and here comes the snow."

"What's my thermometer read?" She had an outdoor thermometer on the kitchen window, the digital readout on the inside of the window.

"Twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit."

"Let's hope it stays snow. I'm over it with the ice."

"Me, too. Those farm roads don't always get plowed and horses get colic more in the winter. Of course, if people would cut back their feed and give them plenty of warm water to drink I'd have fewer cases and they wouldn't have large vet bills. I can't understand people sometimes."

"Fair, it takes years and years to make a horseman. For most people a horse is like a living Toyota. God help the poor horse."

He looked back at her, a twinkle in his eyes. "Some horses know how to get even."

"Some people do, too."

13

The next day proved Fair's theory. The snow, light, deterred no one from foxhunting that morning. Foxhunting-or fox chasing, since the fox wasn't killed-was to Virginia what Indiana U. basketball was to the state of Indiana. Miranda happily took over the post office, since the mail lightened up after Valentine's Day. She felt Harry needed an outlet, since all she did was work at the post office and then work at the farm. As foxhunting was her young friend's great love, she liked seeing Harry get out. She also knew that Fair often hunted during the week and she still nurtured the hope that the two would get back together.

Cold though the day was when Harry first mounted up, the sun grew hotter and by eleven o'clock the temperature hit 47 degrees Fahrenheit. As the group rode along they looked at the tops of the mountains, each tree outlined in ice. As the sun reached the top of the mountains the crests exploded into millions of rainbows, glittering and brilliant.

At that exact moment, a medium-sized red fox decided to give everyone a merry chase.