Claws And Effect

Harry rode Tomahawk. Fair rode a 17.3 Hanoverian, the right size for Fair's height at six four and then some in his boots. Big Mim had so many fabulous horses Harry wondered how she chose her mount for the day. Little Mim, always impeccably turned out like her mother, sat astride a flaming chestnut. Sam Mahanes, taking the morning off, grasped his gelding, Ranulf, with a death grip, tight legs and tight hands. The gelding, a sensible fellow, put up with this all morning because they were only trotting. Once the fox burst into the open and the field took off flying, though, Sam gripped harder.

Coming into the first fence, a slip fence, everything was fine, but three strides beyond that was a stiff coop and the gelding had had quite enough. He cantered to the base of the jump, screeched on the brakes. Sam took the jump. His horse didn't. Harry, riding behind Sam, witnessed the sorry spectacle.

Sam lay flat on his back on the other side of the coop.

Harry hated to miss the run but she tried to be helpful so she pulled up Tomahawk, turning back to Sam, who resembled a turtle.

Dismounting, she bent down over him. "You're still breathing."

"Just. Wind knocked out of me," Sam gasped, a sharp rattle deep in his throat. "Where's Ranulf?"

"Standing over there by the walnut tree."

As Sam clambered up, brushed off his rear end, and adjusted his cap, Harry walked over to the horse, who nickered to Tomahawk. "Come on, buddy, I'm on your side." She flipped the reins over his head, bringing him back to Sam. "Sam, check your girth."

"Oh, yeah." He ran his fingers under the girth. "It's okay."

"There's a tree stump over there. Make it easy on yourself."

"Yeah." He finally got back in the saddle. "We'll have a lot of ground to make up."

"Don't worry. I'll get us there. Can you trot?"

"Sure."

As they trotted along, Harry was listening for hounds. She asked, "Ever been to Trey Young's?"

"No."

"He's a good trainer."

Still miffed because of his fall, which he blamed completely on his horse, Sam snapped, "You telling me I can't ride?"

Harry, uncharacteristically direct with someone to whom she wasn't close, fired back, "I'm telling you you can't ride that horse as well as you might. I take lessons, Sam. Ranulf is a nice horse but if you don't give with your hands and you squeeze with your legs, what do you expect? He's got nowhere to go but up or he'll just say, 'I've had enough.' And that's what he said."

"Yeah-well."

"This isn't squash." She mentioned his other sport. "There's another living creature involved. It's teamwork far more than mastery."

Sam rode along quietly. Ranulf loved this, of course. Finally, he said, "Maybe you're right."

"This is supposed to be fun. If it isn't fun you'll leave. Wouldn't want that." She smiled her flirtatious smile.

He unstiffened a little. "I've been under a lot of pressure lately."

"With Hank Brevard's murder, I guess."

"Oh, before that. That just added to it. Hospital budgets are about as complicated as the national budget. Everybody has a pet toy they want, but if everyone got what they wanted when they wanted it, we'd be out of business and a hospital is a business, like it or not."

"Must be difficult-juggling the egos, too."

"Bunch of goddamned prima donnas. Oh, you probably haven't heard yet. The blood on the blade sent to Bruce was chicken blood." He laughed a rat-a-tat laugh. "Can you believe that?"

Rick Shaw had contacted Sam when the blade arrived in the mail. When the lab report came back Rick called Bruce Buxton first and Sam second.

"Fast lab report."

"I guess chicken blood is easy to figure." Sam laughed again. "But who would do a fool thing like that? Sending something like that to Buxton?"

"One of his many fans," Harry dryly replied.

"He's not on the top of my love list but if you needed knee surgery, he'd be on top of yours. He's that good. When they fly him to operate on Jets linebackers, you know he's good."

She held up her hand. They stopped and listened. In the distance she heard the Huntsman's horn, so she knew exactly where to go.

"Sam, we're going to have to boogie."

"Okay."

They cantered over a meadow, the powdery snow swirling up. A stone wall, maybe two and a half feet, marked off one meadow from another.

Harry called to Sam, "Give with your hand. Grab mane. Never be afraid to grab mane." Taking her own advice she wrapped her fingers around a hunk of Tomahawk's mane and sailed over the low obstacle. She looked back at Sam and he reached forward with his hands, a small victory.

Ranulf popped over.

"Easy." Harry smiled.

The two of them threaded their way through a pine forest, emerging on a snowy farm road. Harry followed the hoofprints until they crossed a stream, ice clinging to the sides of the bank in rectangular crystals.

"Up over the hill." Sam pointed to the continuing tracks.

"Hounds are turning, Sam. We're smack in the way. Damn." She looked around for a place to get out of the way and hopefully not turn back the fox into the hounds, a cardinal sin in foxhunting.

Sam, not an experienced hunter, really thought they should charge up the hill but he deferred to Harry. After all, she'd been doing this since she was tiny.

She pushed Tomahawk into the woods, off the old farm road. They climbed over a rocky outgrowth and stopped about forty yards beyond that. No sooner had they reached their resting point than the red fox sauntered into view, loping onto the farm road. He crossed, hopped onto a log, trotted across that, scampered along, and then, for reasons only he knew, he flipped on the afterburners and was out of there before you could count to ten.

Within two minutes the first of the hounds, nose to the ground, reached the farm road.

Sam started to open his mouth.

"No," Harry whispered.

He gulped back his "Tally Ho," which would have only disturbed the hounds. "Tally Ho" was sometimes called out when a fox was seen but only if the witness was sure it was the hunted fox, and not a playful vagrant. Also, if hounds were close, the human voice could disturb them, making their task even more difficult. Yet it was human nature to want to declare seeing the fox.

In about five minutes, the Huntsman, the person actually controlling the hounds, who had been battling his way through a nasty briar patch, emerged onto the road.

"Okay, Sam, turn your horse in the direction in which you saw the fox, take off your cap, arm's length, and now you can say 'Tally Ho.' Hounds are far enough away."

Excited, Sam bellowed, "Tally Ho!"

The Huntsman glanced up, winked at Harry, and off he rode, following his hounds, who were on the line.

In another two minutes the field rode up, Harry and Sam joining them in the rear. Sam, being an inexperienced hunter, needed to stay in the back out of other people's way.

They ran a merry chase until the red fox decided to disappear and in that maddening way of foxes, he vanished.

Ending on a good note, the Huntsman, after conferring with the Master, the person in charge of the hunt, called it a day.

Riding back, Sam thanked Harry.

Little Mim came alongside Harry as Sam rode up to Larry Johnson to chat. "Think he'll ever learn?"

"Yeah. At least he's not a know-it-all. He doesn't like advice but eventually it sinks in."

"Men are like that," Little Mim remarked.

"Jeez, Marilyn, think of the women we know like that, too."

"You mean my mother?"

Harry held up her hand. "I didn't say your mother."

"Well, I mean my mother." Little Mim glanced over her shoulder to make certain Mother wasn't within earshot.

She wasn't. Big Mim at that very moment was pressing Susan Tucker to join the Garden Club, which was supposed to be a great honor, one Susan devoutly wished to sidestep.

Back at the trailers, people shared flasks, hot tea, and coffee. Susan brought Mrs. Hogendobber's orange-glazed cinnamon buns. The mood, already high, soared.

"Gee, I hate to go back to work." Harry laughed.

"Isn't it a shame we couldn't have been born rich?" Susan said in a low voice, since a few around them had been, like Big Mim and Little Mim.

"Breaks my heart."

"What'd Fair give you for Valentine's?"

"Wormer. Ivermectin."

"Hey, that's romantic." Susan, a hint of light sarcasm in her voice, laughed.

"I gave him a vet book from 1792."

"Hey, that is romantic." Susan handed Harry a mug of hot tea. "You know, this new thermos I bought is fabulous. We've been out for two and a half hours. I put the tea in the thermos a good hour before that and it's piping hot."

"Yeah. I'll have to get one."

Sam walked over. "Harry, thank you again."

"Sure." She offered him a sip of tea. He held up his flask.

"A wee nip before returning to drudgery." He bowed, said "Ladies," then walked back to his trailer.

Susan looked at Harry. Neither one said anything. They neither liked nor disliked Sam. He was just kind of there.

Larry Johnson, carrying a tin of chocolate-covered wafers, came over. "Ladies. Don't worry about the calories. I'm a doctor and I assure you any food eaten standing up loses half its caloric value."

They laughed, reaching in for the thin delicious wafers.

"How's the mood at the hospital?" Susan asked.

"Good. Hank's death may not be hospital related." He paused. "But as you know I'm semi-retired so I'm not there on a daily basis."

"Semi-retired." Harry laughed. "You work as hard as you did when I was a kid."

Larry had an office in his home. Years ago he had taken on a partner, Hayden McIntire, vowing he would retire, but he hadn't.

"That was good of you to nurse Sam along," Larry complimented Harry. "Soon you'll be in Tussie Logan's class. She's wonderful with children." He laughed low. "I kind of regard Sam in that light."

"You didn't see me stop to help him." Susan ate another chocolate-covered wafer. "The run was too good."

Larry, in his early seventies, was in great shape thanks to hunting and walking. "A straight-running fox, joy, pure joy. But you know, I think he doubled back. He was so close, then-" He snapped his fingers.

"Fox magic." Susan smiled, checked her watch, and sighed, "I'd better get home."

"Well, back to work for me." Harry finished off her tea.

14

"Mom!" the animals cried when Harry bounced through the back door of the post office.

"Hi," she called out.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so glad you're here. Look." Miranda handed her an envelope, opened. "Susan left this for you. She forgot to give it to you at the breakfast."

Harry checked the addressee, Mrs. Tucker. "H-m-m." She slid out the letter and read it aloud:

"Dear Susan,

As you know, I will be running for the office of mayor of our great town of Crozet.

I need your support and the help of all our friends. I hope that you and Harry will throw your weight behind my campaign.

My top two priorities are keeping Crozet's rural character intact and working closely with the Albemarle Sheriff's Department to decrease crime.

Please call me at your earliest convenience.

Yours truly, Marilyn Sanburne."

Harry rattled the paper a bit. "Call her? She can nab any of us in the street. Waste of postage."

"It is rather formal but I don't think staying neutral is as easy as you do. And if we waffle too long we will gain her enmity," Miranda sensibly said.

"The thing is, did Little Mim get the support of the party?" Harry was surprised that Little Mim would write Susan. It seemed so distant.

"No. Not yet. Called Rev. Jones. He's on the party's local steering committee. He said that yes, they voted to support Marilyn at their monthly meeting, which was Saturday. They wouldn't make the vote public until the state steering committee gave them the okay. Herb said they would probably hear from them in Richmond today. He didn't anticipate any problems. After all, Jim Sanburne, as a Republican, has run unopposed for nearly twenty years. The Democrats ought to be thrilled with their candidate. Not only is someone challenging Jim, it's his own daughter."

Mrs. Murphy rubbed against her mother's leg. "We checked in your mailbox, Mom. You only have bills."

She reached down, scooping up the beautiful tiger cat. "Mrs. Murphy, you are the prettiest girl."

"Ha," came a croak from Pewter, reposing on her side on the small kitchen table in the rear. She wasn't supposed to be on the table but that never stopped her.

"Jealous." Harry walked over to rub Pewter's ears.

"I'm not jealous."

"Are, too," Murphy taunted her friend.

"Am not." Pewter stuck out her amazingly pink tongue, hot pink.

Murphy wiggled out of Harry's arms, pouncing on Pewter. They rolled over and over until they fell off the table with a thud, shook themselves, and walked in opposite directions as though this was the most natural event in the world.

"Cats." Tucker cocked her head, then looked up at Harry. "Mom, I don't like these chain letters. Something's not right."

Harry knelt down. "You are the best dog in the universe. Not even the solar system but the universe." She kissed her silky head.

"Gag me." Pewter grimaced, then turned and walked over to sit beside Mrs. Murphy, their kitty spat forgotten as quickly as it flared up. "Obsequious."

"Dogs always are." Murphy knowingly nodded, but Tucker could have cared less.

Within the hour Coop drove up and ducked into the front door of the post office just as rain began to fall. "Is this weather crazy or what?" she said as she closed the door behind her.

"Find anything out?" Miranda flipped up the divider to allow her in the back.

"Yes." Cynthia stepped through, removed her jacket, and hung it on the Shaker peg by the back door. "Crozet Hospital is in turmoil. Jesus, what a petty place it is. Backstabbers."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess a lot of businesses are like that." Mrs. Hogendobber was disappointed. "No suspects?"

"Not yet," Coop tensely replied.

"Oh great. There's a killer on the loose."

"Harry." Mrs. Murphy spoke out loud. "You humans rub shoulders with killers more than you imagine. I'm convinced the human animal is the only animal to derive pleasure from murder."

As though picking up on her cat's thoughts, Harry said aloud, "I wonder if Hank's killer enjoyed killing him."

"Yes," Cooper said without hesitation.

"Power?" Harry asked.

"Yes. No one likes to talk about that aspect of murder. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. No one has the right to take another human life."

"Miranda, people may read their Bible but they don't follow the precepts," Cooper told her.

"You know, the post office is in the middle of everything. Action Central, sort of." Harry's eyes brightened. "We could help."

"No, you don't." Cooper's chin jutted out.

"Yeah." Mrs. Murphy fluffed her tail. "A little skulking about is good for a cat."

"Which cat?" Pewter grumbled.

Cynthia Cooper waggled her finger at Harry and Miranda. "No. No. And no."

15

A meeting that evening brought together the faithful of St. Luke's Lutheran Church, presided over by the Reverend Herbert C. Jones. While Harry considered herself a lapsed Lutheran she adored the Rev, as she called him. She liked that the Lutheran church-as well as the other churches in the area-hummed, a hive of activity, a honeycomb of human relationships. If someone was sickly, the word got out and people called upon him or her. If someone struggled with alcoholism, a church member who was also in Alcoholics Anonymous invariably paid a call.

The other major denominations, all represented, cooperated throughout major crises such as when someone's house burnt down. It wasn't necessary that the assisted person be a member of any church. All that mattered was that they lived in Crozet or its environs.

Reverend Jones, warm and wise, even pulled together the Baptist and Pentecostal churches, who had often felt slighted in the past by the "high" churches.

Mrs. Hogendobber, a devout member of the Church of the Holy Light, proved instrumental in this new area of cooperation.

Tonight the meeting concerned food deliveries and medical services for those people unable to shop for themselves and who had no families to help them. Often the recipients were quite elderly. They had literally outlived anyone who might be related to them. In other cases, the recipient was a mean old drunk who had driven away family and friends. The other group involved AIDS patients, most of whom had lost their families, self-righteous families who shrank into disapproval, leaving their own flesh and blood to die alone and lonely.

Harry especially felt a kinship with this group since many were young. She had expected to meet many gay men but was shocked to discover how many women were dying of the insidious disease, women who had fooled around with drugs, shared needles, or just had the bad luck to sleep with the wrong man. A few had been prostitutes in Washington, D.C., and when they could no longer survive in the city they slipped into the countryside.

Harry, well educated, was not an unsophisticated person. True, she chose country life over the flash and dash of the city, but she hardly qualified as a country bumpkin. Then again few people really did. The bumpkin was one of those stereotypes that seemed to satisfy some hunger in city people to feel superior to those not in the city. Still, she realized through this service how much she didn't know about her own country. There was an entire separate world devoted to drugs. It had its rules, its cultures, and, ultimately, its death sentence.

Sitting across from her in the chaste rectory was Bruce Buxton. Insufferable as he could be, he gave of his time and knowledge, visiting those that needed medical attention. How Herb had ever convinced him to participate puzzled her.

"-three teeth. But the jaw isn't broken." BoomBoom Craycroft read from her list of clients, as the group called their people.

Herb rubbed his chin, leaned back in his seat. "Can we get her down to the dentist? I mean can she get away from him and will she go if you take her?"

BoomBoom, becoming something of an expert on domestic violence, said, "I can try. He's perverse enough to knock out the new teeth if she gets them."

Bruce spoke up. He'd been quiet up to now. "What about a restraining order?"

"Too scared. Of him and of the system." BoomBoom had learned to understand the fear and mistrust the very poor had of the institutions of government and law enforcement. She'd also learned to understand that their mistrust was not unfounded. "I'll see if I can get her out of there or at least get her to the dentist. If I can't, I can't."

"You're very persuasive." Herb put his hand on his knee as he leaned forward in the chair a bit. His back was hurting. "Miranda."

"The girls and I"-she meant the choir at the Church of the Holy Light-"are going to replace the roof on Mrs. Weyman's house."

"Do the work yourself?" Little Mim asked. Though an Episcopalian and not a Lutheran, she attended for two reasons: one, she liked Herb, and two, it irritated her mother, who felt anything worth doing had to be done through the Episcopalian Church.

"Uh-no. We thought we'd give a series of concerts to raise money for the roof and then perhaps we could find some men to donate their labor. We're pretty sure we can come up with the money for materials."

"Here I had visions of you on the roof, Miranda." Herb laughed at her, then turned to Bruce, moving to the next topic on the agenda. "Any luck?"

Before Bruce could give his report they heard the door to the rectory open and close. Larry Johnson, removing his coat as he walked from the hall to the pleasant meeting room, nodded at them.

"Late and I apologize."

"Sit down, Larry, glad you could make it. Bruce was just about to give his report about the hospital cooperating with us concerning our people who can't pay for medical services."

Larry took a seat next to Miranda. He folded his hands, gazing at Bruce.

Bruce's pleasant speaking voice filled the room. "As you can imagine, the administration sees only problems. Both Sam and Jordan insist we could be liable to lawsuits. What if we treated an indigent patient who sued, that sort of thing. Their second area of concern is space. Both say Crozet Hospital lacks the space to take care of paying patients. The hospital has no room for the non-paying."

Little Mim raised her hand. Bruce acknowledged her.

"While I am not defending the hospital, this is true. One of my goals as a board member and your next mayor"-she paused to smile reflectively-"will be to raise the money privately for a new wing to be built."

"Thank you." Herb's gravelly voice was warm. He was amused at her campaigning.

"It is true," Bruce agreed, "but if we could bring people in on the off hours, before eight A.M. or after three P.M., we might at least be able to use equipment for tests. I know there is no way we will get hospital beds. Which brings me to the third area of concern voiced by the administration, the use of hospital equipment. The increased wear and tear on equipment, whether it's IVAC units, X-ray machines, whatever, will raise hospital operating costs. The budget can't absorb the increases." He breathed in. "That's where we are today. Obviously, Sam and Jordan don't want to give us a flat no. They are too politically astute for that. But there is no question in my mind that they evidence a profound lack of enthusiasm for our purpose."

The room fell silent, a silence punctuated when the door to the rectory was again opened and closed. The sound of a coat being removed, placed on the coatrack was heard.

Tussie Logan, face drawn, stepped into the room. "Sorry."

"Come on in. We know your time isn't always your own." Herb genially beckoned to her. "Bruce has just given us his progress report."

"Or lack thereof," Bruce forthrightly said. "Tussie, you look tired."

Bruce slid his chair over so she could wedge in between himself and BoomBoom.

"One of my kids, Dodie Santana, the little girl from Guatemala, had a bad day."

"We're sorry." Herb spoke for the group.

"We'll do a prayer vigil for her," Miranda volunteered.

"Thank you." Tussie smiled sadly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

"I'm glad you did." Larry lightened the mood. "It means I'm not the last one to the meeting."

"Back to business then." Herb turned to Bruce. "Can we get access to the hospital's insurance policy?"

"Yes. I don't think Sam would refuse that," Bruce replied.

"But who would understand it?" Larry said, half in jest. "I can't even understand the one Hayden and I have for the practice."

"I believe Ned Tucker will help us there." Herb watched as both Cazenovia and Elocution paraded into the room. "Harry?"

"I'll call him." She volunteered to ring up Susan's husband, a man well liked by all except those who crossed him in court.

"Bruce and I have spoken about this," Tussie joined in, "and-there's no way to delicately put this. Jordan Ivanic fears poor patients will steal-not just drugs, mind you, which would be most people's first thought, oh no, he thinks they'll steal toilet paper, pencils, you name it."

"He said that?" Harry was upset.

Cazzie jumped in her lap, which made her feel better. Elocution headed straight for Herb.

"Yes. Flat out said it." Tussie tapped her foot on the floor.

"My experience is the biggest thieves are the rich." Bruce rubbed his chin, perceived the frown on Little Mim's face, and hastened to add, "Think of Mike Milken, all those Wall Street traders."

"Well, I think I'd better call upon Sam and Jordan." Herb petted his youngest cat, who purred loudly.

"Meow." Elocution closed her eyes.

Bruce said, "I've been able to secure the cooperation of at least one physician in each department. Our problem now is convincing Sam Mahanes to use a portion of the hospital, even a room, to initially screen these people.

"He did voice one other small concern." Bruce's voice was filled with sarcasm. "And that is the paying patients. He didn't feel they should be around the charity cases. It would engender hard feelings. You know, they're paying and these people aren't. So he said if we could find space and if we could solve the liability problem, where are we going to put people so they wouldn't be visible?"

"Ah." Herb exhaled.

Miranda shifted in her seat, looked down at the floor, took a deep breath, then looked at the group. "Bruce, you weren't born and raised here so I don't expect you to know this but sequestering or separating the poor gets us awfully close to segregation. In the old days the waiting rooms in the back were always for colored people. That was the proper and polite term then, and I tell you no white person ever went through the back door and vice versa. It brings back an uneasy feeling for me and I expect it does for those of us in this room old enough to remember. The other problem is that a goodly number of our people are African-American or Scotch-Irish. Those seem to be the two primary ethnic groups that we serve and I couldn't tell you why. Anyway, I think Sam needs to be-" She looked at Herb and shrugged.

"I know." Herb read her perfectly. After all, Sam was a Virginian and should know better, but one of the problems with Virginians was that many of them longed for a return to the time of Thomas Jefferson. Of course, none of them ever imagined themselves as slaves or poor white indentured servants. They always thought of themselves as the masters on the hill.

The group continued their progress reports and then adjourned for tea, coffee, and Miranda's baked goods.

BoomBoom walked over to Harry. "I'm glad we're working together."

"It's a good cause." Harry knew BoomBoom wanted to heal the wounds and she admitted to herself that BoomBoom was right, although every now and then Harry's mean streak would kick up and she wanted to make Boom squirm.

"Are you going to work on Little Mim's campaign?"

"Uh-I don't know but I know I can't sit in the middle. I mean, I think Jim's a good mayor." She grabbed another biscuit. "What about you?"

"I'm going to do it. Work for Little Mim. She's right when she says our generation needs to get involved and since Big Mim will sit this out we won't offend her."

"But what about offending Jim?" Harry asked as Cazenovia rubbed her leg.

"Some ham biscuit please."

Harry dropped ham for the cat.

"He won't be offended. I think he's going to enjoy the fight. Really, he's run unopposed for decades." BoomBoom laughed.

Bruce, his eye on BoomBoom-indeed, most men's eyes were on BoomBoom-joined them. "Ladies."

"Our little group has never had anyone as dynamic as you. We are so grateful to you." BoomBoom fluttered her long eyelashes.

"Oh-thank you. Being a doctor isn't always about money, you know."

"We are grateful." Harry echoed BoomBoom's praise minus the fluttering eyelashes. "Oh, I heard about the chicken blood on the blade. I'm sorry. Whoever did that ought to be horsewhipped."

"Damn straight," he growled.

"What?" BoomBoom's eyes widened.

This gave Harry the opportunity to slip away. Bruce could tell BoomBoom about his experience and she could flirt some more.

"Harry." Herb handed her a brownie.

When his back was turned from the table, both cats jumped onto it. People just picked up the two sneaks and put them back on the floor.

"M-m-m, this thing could send me into sugar shock." She laughed.

He lowered his voice as he stood beside her. "I'm very disturbed by Sam's attitude. I think some of the problem may be that it was Bruce who asked. Sam can't stand him, as you know."

"He'll talk to you."

"I think so." He picked up another brownie for himself. "There goes the diet. How are things with you? I haven't had any time to catch up with you."

"Pretty good."

"Good." His gravelly voice deepened.

"Rev, do me a favor. I know Sam will talk to you-even more than he'll talk to Rick Shaw or Coop. Ask him flat out who he thinks killed Hank Brevard. Something doesn't add up. I don't know. Just-"

"Preys on your mind." He dusted off his fingers. "I will."

"I asked Bruce before the meeting started what he thought about Brevard," Harry continued. "He said he thought he was a royal pain in the ass-and maybe now the hospital can hire a really good plant manager. Pretty blunt."

"That's Bruce." Herb put his arm around her reassuringly, then smiled. "You and your curiosity."

Tussie, her back to Herb, reached for a plate, took a step back, and bumped into him. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"Take more than a little slip of a girl like you to knock me down."

"He's right. Tussie, you're getting too skinny. You're working too hard," Harry said.

"Runs in the family. The older we get, the thinner we get."

"Sure doesn't run in my family," Miranda called out from the other side of the table, worked her way around the three-bean salad, and joined them.

"Do you think poor patients will steal?" Harry asked Tussie.

"No," she said with conviction.

"Aren't hospitals full of drugs?" Miranda paused, then laughed at herself. "Well, that's obvious but I mean the drugs I read about in the paper-cocaine, morphine."

"Yes and those drugs are kept under lock and key. Any physician or head nurse signs in, writes down the amount used and for what patient, the attending physician then locks the cabinet back up. That's that."

"But someone like Hank Brevard would know how to get into the drug cabinets, storage." Harry's eyebrows raised.

"Well-I suppose, but if something was missing, we'd know." Tussie's lower lip jutted out ever so slightly.

"Maybe. But if he was smart, he could replace cocaine with something that looks like it, powdered something, powdered milk of magnesia even."

Slightly irritated, Tussie gulped down a bite of creamy carrot salad. "We'd know when the patient for whom the drug was prescribed didn't respond."

"Oh hell, Tussie, if they're sick enough to prescribe cocaine or morphine, they're probably on their way out. I bet for a smart person who knows the routine, who is apprised of patients' chances, it would be like stealing candy from a baby." Harry didn't mean to be argumentative; the wheels were turning in her mind, that was all.

"You watch too much TV." Tussie's anger flashed for a second. "If you'll excuse me I need to talk to BoomBoom."

Harry, Miranda, and Herb looked at one another and shrugged.

"She's a little testy," Miranda observed.

"Pressure," Herb flatly stated.

"I guess. Guess I wouldn't want to be working where someone was murdered. See, Miranda, imagine a murder at the post office-The body stuffed in the mailbag." Harry's voice took on the cadence of a radio announcer's: "The front and back door locked, a fortune in stock certificates jammed into one of the larger, bottom postboxes."

"Harry, you're too much." Miranda winked at her.

"And remember what I said about your curiosity, young lady. I've known you all your life and you can't stand not knowing something." Herb put his arm around her.

16

It was that curiosity that got Harry in trouble. After the meeting she cruised by the hospital when she should have driven home. The puddles from the melted ice glistened like mica on the asphalt parking lot.

Impulsively, she turned into the parking lot, drove around behind the hospital to the back delivery door, which wasn't far from the railroad tracks. She paused a moment before continuing around the corner to the back door into the basement.

She parked, got out, and carefully put her hand on the cold doorknob. Slowly she turned it so the latch wouldn't click. She opened the door. Low lights ran along the top of the hallway. The dimness was creepy. Surely, the hospital didn't have to save money by using such low-wattage bulbs. She wondered if Sam Mahanes really was a good hospital director or if they were all cheap where the public couldn't observe.

She tiptoed down the main corridor which ran to the center of the building, the oldest part of the complex, built long before the War Between the States. She counted halls off this main one but wished like Hansel and Gretel she had dropped bread crumbs, because if she ducked into some of these offshoot halls she wouldn't find her way out quickly. Bearing that in mind, she kept to the center hall corridor.

If she'd thought about it, she would have waited for this nighttime exploration until she could bring Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. Their eyes and ears were far better than her own, plus Tucker's sense of smell was a godsend. However, she'd taken them home after work, whipped off her barn chores, and hopped over to the rectory for the meeting.

She thought she heard voices somewhere to her right. Instinctively she flattened against the wall. She wanted to find the boiler room. The voices faded away, men's voices. A closed door was to her right.

Stealthily she crept forward. A flickering light to her right told her a room lay ahead. The voices sounded farther away, and then-silence.

The door behind her opened. She hurried away, slipping into the boiler room. She'd found her goal. Again, she flattened against the wall listening for the footfall but the boiler gurgling drowned out subtle sounds.

She quickly noted that another exit from the boiler room lay immediately in front of her on the other side of the room.

Glancing around she took a deep breath, walked to the boiler. The chalk outline of Hank's body had nearly worn away. She knelt down, then looked at the wall. Though it was scrubbed, a light bloodstain remained visible. Shuddering at the picture of blood spurting from Hank's throat, jetting across the room, she started to rise.

Harry never made it to her feet. A clunk was the last thing she heard.

17

Sheriff Rick Shaw and Deputy Cynthia Cooper hit the swinging doors of the emergency room so hard they nearly popped off their hinges.

"Where is she?" Rick asked a startled ER nurse.

The young woman wordlessly pointed to yet another set of doors and Rick and Cynthia blasted through them.

A woozy Harry, covered with a blanket, lay on a recovery-room bed. A quiet night at the hospital, no other patients were in the room.

Jordan Ivanic, a sickly smile on his face, greeted the officers. "Why does everything happen on my watch?"

"Just lucky, I guess," Dr. Bruce Buxton growled at him. Bruce considered Jordan a worm. He had little love for any administrative type but Jordan's whining and worrying curdled his stomach.

"Well?" Rick demanded, staring at Bruce.

He pointed to the right side of Harry's head. "Blow. Blunt instrument. We've washed the blood off and cleaned and shaved the wound. I've taken X rays. She's fine. She's stitched up. A mild concussion at the worst."

"Harry, can you hear me?" Cynthia leaned down, speaking low.

"Yes."

"Did you see who hit you?"

"No, the son of a bitch."

Her reply made Cooper laugh. "You'll be just fine."

"Who found her?" Rick asked Jordan.

"Booty Weyman. New on the job and I guess he just happened to be checking the boiler room. We don't know how long she was there. We don't know exactly what happened either."

"I can tell you what happened," Rick snapped. "What happened was someone hit her on the head."

"Perhaps she fell and struck her head." Jordan tried to find another solution.

"In the boiler room? The only thing she could have hit her head on is the boiler and then we'd see burns. Don't pull this shit, Ivanic." Rick rarely swore, considering it unprofessional, but he was deeply disturbed and surges of white-hot anger shot through him. "There's something wrong in this hospital. If you know what it is you'd better come clean because I am going to turn this place upside down!"

Jordan held up his hands placatingly. "Now Sheriff, I'm as upset about this as you are."

"The hell you are."

This made Bruce laugh.

"Dr. Buxton." Cynthia leaned toward the tall man. "When did you get here?"

"I came a little bit after the meeting at the rectory, the God's Love group, you know. Herb's group."

"Yes." She nodded.

"Stopped at the convenience store. So I guess I got here about eight forty-five."

"Did you go to the boiler room yourself?" Rick asked the doctor.

"No. She was brought to me. When Booty Weyman found her, he had the sense to call for two orderlies. Scared to death." Bruce remembered Booty's face, which had been bone white.

"Well, if you won't be needing me I'll go back to my office." Jordan moved toward the door.

"Not so fast." Rick stopped him in his tracks. "I want the blueprints to the hospital. I want every single person's work schedule. I don't care who it is, doctors, receptionists, maintenance workers. I want the records for every delivery and trash removal for the last year and I want all this within twenty-four hours."

"Uh." Jordan's mind spun. "I'll do my best."

"Twenty-four hours!" Rick raised his voice.

"Is that all?" Jordan felt like he was strangling on his voice, which got thinner and higher the more nervous he became.

"No. Have you had any patients die under mysterious or unexplained circumstances?"

"Certainly not!" Jordan held his hands together.

"You would say that." Rick got right in his face.

"Because it's true. And I remind you, Sheriff," Jordan found a bit of courage to snap back, "whatever has occurred here has occurred in the basement. There are no patients in the basement."

"Get out." Rick dismissed him with a parting shot. "Twenty-four hours, on my desk."

"I'm glad he left before he peed his pants," Bruce snorted.

"I did not pee my pants," Harry thickly said.

"Not you, Harry. Just relax." Cooper reached for her hand.

Rick whispered to Bruce, "Do you think Harry is in danger?"

"No. Her pulse is strong. She's strong. She's going to have a tender spot on her head." He pointed to the three tiny, tight stitches. "These will drive her crazy."

"The blow was that hard?" Cynthia carefully studied the wound.

"No. If it was that hard, Deputy, we'd have seen a fracture in the skull. Whoever hit her knew just how hard to hit her, which is interesting in and of itself. But the skin on the skull is thin and tears quite easily. Also, as you know, the head bleeds profusely. If I hadn't stitched up what was a relatively small tear, the wound would have seeped for days. She might scratch it, infecting it or tearing it further. Something like this doesn't throb as much as it stings and itches." He smiled warmly. He had a nice smile, and it was a pity he didn't smile more often.

"Do you have any idea what she was doing here? Did she mention coming to the hospital at the meeting?" Cynthia asked.

"No."

Rick sighed, a long, frustrated sigh. "Mary Minor Haristeen can be damned nosy."

"Drugs." Harry tried to raise her voice but couldn't.

"What?" Cooper bent low.

"Drugs. I bet you someone is stealing drugs."

Bruce sighed. "It's as good an explanation as any other." He rubbed his hands together.

"I'd like to keep her here overnight for observation."

"I'll bring her home and stay with her," Cynthia declared.

"You said she was in no danger." Rick, understanding Cynthia's concern, stared at Bruce.

Bruce cupped his chin in his hand. "From a medical point of view, I don't think she is. She might suffer a bit of dizziness or nausea. Occasionally vision will be impaired. Again, I don't think the blow was that hard."

"She has a hard head." Rick smiled ruefully.

"You got that right, Sheriff." Bruce smiled back at him.

18

"Ow." Harry touched her stitches as Cynthia Cooper drove her home in her own truck.

As they walked through the kitchen door the two cats and dog ran up to their human, all talking at once. She knelt down, petting each one, assuring them that she was fine.

"We can skip breakfast, Mom, if you feel punk," Tucker volunteered.

"No, we can't." Pewter meowed so loudly that Cynthia laughed, walked over to the kitchen counter, and opened a can of food.

"I'll do that."

"Harry, sit down. I can feed the cats and dog."

"Thanks."

Mrs. Murphy, now on Harry's lap, licked her face. "We were scared. We didn't know where you were."

"Yes, don't leave us. You need a brave dog to guard you." Tucker's lovely brown eyes shone with concern.

Harry rose to make a pot of coffee. Mrs. Murphy walked beside her.

"Sit down. I'll do it." Cynthia laughed to herself. Harry had a hard time accepting help. "Besides, I need to know what happened and your full concentration is necessary."

"I can concentrate while I make the coffee."

"All right." Coop put out the food as Pewter danced on her hind legs.

She then put down Tucker's food.

"Thank you." Tucker dove in.

"Okay. I went to the God's Love meeting. Regular cast of characters. On the way home I thought, why not cruise the hospital." Harry noticed Mrs. Murphy sticking to her like glue. "Murphy, I'm fine. Go eat." The tiger cat joined Pewter at the food bowl.

"I'm with you so far." Coop smiled, wondering how Harry would explain nosing around the basement.

"Well, I zipped into the parking lot and I don't know, the idea occurred to me that I might go around the back. I did that and then, uh, no one was around so I thought, 'Why not just take a peek?' I wasn't being ghoulish. I just wanted to see the room where Hank was killed."

"What time was this?"

"Um, eight-thirty or nine."

"Go on." Cynthia began frying eggs.

"Okay. I parked the truck. I got out. The door was unlocked. I opened it. Boy, the lights are dim down there. Cheapskates. Well, I walked down the hall. I passed a closed door on my right and up ahead, a wash of light spilled out onto the hallway and I heard voices. Low. Sounded like men's voices. I froze. I couldn't hear too much because I was outside the boiler room. Anyway, I kind of slid down, peeked into the room and no one was there. They left but I don't know how. I mean I noticed doors in there but I didn't hear any open or close. I tiptoed over to the chalk marks for Hank's body. Not much of them left. I knelt down and I looked over to the wall. At least I think that was the wall where the blood splashed. The light is pretty good in the boiler room. There's discoloration on that wall. I started to get up and-that's all I remember."

"Whoever hit you, hit you hard enough to knock you out but not hard enough to do damage, real damage. That tells me something."

"Oh?"

"Yes." Coop slid the eggs onto a plate Harry handed to her. "Either your assailant is a medical person who knows his stuff, or your assailant knew you and didn't want you dead. Or both. Everyone who knows you knows you can't resist a mystery, Harry. But the fact remains that the assailant was merciful, if you can stand the term, given your stitches."

"Ah." Harry hadn't thought of that, but then she hadn't had time to think of anything.

"Merciful, hell," Tucker growled. "Wait until I sink my fangs into his leg."

"I'll scratch his eyes out," Mrs. Murphy hissed.

"I'll regurgitate on him," Pewter offered.

"Gross!" Mrs. Murphy stepped back from the food bowl as Pewter pretended to gag.

"Ha ha," Pewter giggled.

"Lot of talk around here," Harry teased her animals.

Coop, now sitting at the table, leaned across it slightly. "Harry, just what in the hell did you think you would find?"

Harry put down her fork, her eyes brightened. "I asked myself-what goes on in a hospital? Life or death. Every single day. Right?"

"Right." Coop shook pepper on her eggs.

"What if there is an incompetent doctor or technician? One false move on the anesthesiologist's part and-" She snapped her fingers to signify the patient dying instantly. "One misapplied medication to a critically ill patient or one angel of death." Noticing Coop's noncomprehension she hastened to explain. "A nurse who wants to ease patient suffering or who decides old people can just die and get out of the way. There are hundreds of secrets at a hospital and I would imagine hundreds of potential lawsuits. We all know doctors cover for one another."

"Yes." Cynthia thoughtfully chewed for a moment. "But given that they have to work together and cooperate closely, I suppose that's natural. Cops cover for one another, too."

"But you see where I was heading. I mean what if there's a problem person, an inadequate physician?"

"I understand. I'm still trying to link this to Hank Brevard."

"Yeah, me, too. The head of maintenance wouldn't exactly be in the know if the problems were medical." She paused. "Unless he had to hide evidence or bury it or he was stealing drugs."

"Be pretty damn hard to cart a body or bodies out of the hospital. Or down into the basement. Now, drugs, that's another matter."

"Then, too, people do just fall into things. Pop up at the wrong place at the wrong time." Harry jabbed at her eggs.

"True."

"Or maybe Hank had a problem. Gambling. Just an example. They nailed him at work. It might not have anything to do with the hospital but I think it does. If he owed money I'd think a killer would shoot him somewhere else. There are easier ways to get rid of somebody than the way he was killed."

Coop reached for the toast. "That's what I think, too. Rick isn't saying much. But we're all traveling down the same path."

"I even thought it might have something to do with harvesting body parts. A patient dies. Okay, now how would the family know if the liver or kidneys have been removed?"

"The undertaker would certainly know if there'd been an autopsy but-he wouldn't necessarily know if any body parts or organs had been removed."

"If the family requests an autopsy, and most do, it would be so easy. And in some hospitals aren't autopsies a matter of course?"

"I don't know. They aren't in Crozet." Coop tapped her fork on the side of the plate, an absentminded gesture.

"Let's go with my thesis. Organs. A healthy kidney is worth five thousand dollars. In any given week a hospital the size of Crozet, a small but good place, will have, I would think, at least three people die with healthy organs. I mean that's not far-fetched. A black market for body parts."

"No, I guess it isn't far-fetched. We can clone ourselves now. So much for reproduction." Her light eyes twinkled.

"Don't worry. Old ways are the best ways."

The two women laughed.

"Where to hide the organs before shipping them out?" Cynthia knew how Harry thought.

"I've seen those containers. They're not big. They're packed with dry ice. They'd be pretty easy to stash away in the basement. A nurse or doctor might find that kidney upstairs but who goes into the basement? Hank was in on it. The key is in the basement. Maybe it really was part of the Underground Railroad once. There'd be lots of places to hide stuff in then."

"Well, it's a theory. However, I don't think organs last very long. And donor types need to match. Still, it's something to investigate."

"And I can help."

"There she goes again." Tucker shook her head.

"What I want from you is: keep your mouth shut. Don't you dare go back into that hospital without me. Whoever hit you knows you, I think. You show up again and the blow might be-" Coop's voice trailed off.

"Is Rick mad at me?"

"Of course. He'll get over it."

"Who found me?"

"Booty Weyman, new on the job. Poor kid. Scared him half to death."

"Who stitched me up?"

"Bruce Buxton-and for free."

Surprised, she said, "That was nice of him." Glancing at the old railroad clock on the wall, Harry said, "I've got to feed horses, turn out, and get to work."

"You feel good enough to go to work?"

"Yeah. It hurts but it's okay. I'll stuff myself with Motrin."

"How about if I help you feed? One other little thing, don't tell people where you were or what you were doing. You've got until you walk into the post office to come up with a good story. The last thing we need on this case is to draw everyone's attention to the basement. It's much better if the killer or killers get a little breathing room. Whatever they are doing, if indeed it does involve the hospital, let them get back to it. Rick is even delaying talking to Sam about this for twenty-four hours. The trick is to get everyone to let down, relax."

"You need someone on the inside."

"I know."

"Larry Johnson still goes to the hospital. He's true blue."

"Larry is in his seventies. I need a younger man," Coop replied.

"Old Doc might be in his seventies but he's tough as nails and twice as smart. I'd put my money on him any day of the week."

"Well-I'll talk to Rick."

"The other thing is, Larry's a deep well. Whatever goes in doesn't come out."

"That's true. Well, come on, girl. If you're going to work we'd better get cracking in the barn."

"Hey, Coop, thanks. Thanks for everything."

"You'd do the same for me."

As the humans pulled on their coats, Mrs. Murphy said to her friends, "She's right about one thing. A hospital is life and death."

19

"What happened to you?" Miranda practically shouted when Harry walked through the back door at work.

Harry trusted Miranda, a well-founded trust, so she told her everything as they sorted the mail, fortunately light that morning.

"Oh, honey, I hope you haven't stirred up a hornet's nest." The older woman was quick to grasp the implications of what Harry had done.

In fact, Miranda's mind clicked along at a speedy pace. Most people upon meeting her beheld a pleasant-looking woman somewhere in her early sixties, late fifties on a good day. She used to be plump but she'd slimmed down quite a bit upon reigniting the flame with her high-school beau. She wore deep or bright colors, had a real flair for presenting herself without calling undue attention to herself, the Virginia ideal. But most people who didn't really know Mrs. George Hogendobber had slight insight into how bright she was. She always knew where the power in the room resided, a vital political and social survival tool. She was able to separate the wheat from the chaff. She also understood to the marrow of her bones that actions have consequences, a law of nature as yet unlearned by a large portion of the American population. She'd happily chat about her garden, cooking, the womanly skills at which she excelled. It was easy for people to overlook her. Over the years of working together, Harry had come to appreciate Miranda's intelligence, compassion, and concern. Without being fully conscious of it she relied on Miranda. And for Miranda's part, she had become a surrogate mother to Harry, who needed one.

Naturally, the cats and dog understood Miranda perfectly upon first introduction. In the beginning Miranda did not esteem cats but Mrs. Murphy set her right. The two became fast friends, and even Pewter, a far more self-indulgent soul, liked Miranda and vice versa.

Pewter couldn't understand why humans didn't talk more about tuna. They mostly talked about one another so she often tuned out. Or as she put it to herself, tuna-ed out.

Nobody was tuning out this morning though. The animals were worried and simultaneously furious that Harry had taken such a dumb chance. Furthermore, she had left them home. Had they been with her, the crack on the head would have never happened.

As the morning wore on, everyone who opened a postbox commented on the square shaved spot on Harry's head and the stitches. Her story was that she clunked herself in the barn. Big Mim, no slouch herself in the brain department, closely examined the wound and wondered just what could do that.

Harry fibbed, saying she'd hung a scythe over the beam closest to the hayloft ladder and when she slid down the ladder-she never climbed down, she'd put a foot on either side of the ladder and slide down-she forgot about the scythe. The story was stupid enough to be believable.

After Mim left, Miranda wryly said, "Harry, couldn't you have just said you bumped your head?"

"Yeah, but I had to bump it on something hard enough to break skin." She touched the spot. "It hurts."

"I'm sure it does and it's going to keep hurting, too. You promise me you won't pull a stunt like that again?"

"I didn't think it was such a stunt."

"You wouldn't." Miranda put her hands on her hips. "Now look here, girlie. I know you. I have known you since you came out of the womb. You don't go around that hospital by yourself. A man's been murdered there."

"You're right. I shouldn't have gone alone."

Right before lunch Bruce Buxton walked in. "How's my patient?"

"Okay."

He inspected his handiwork. "A nice tight stitch if I do say so myself."

As luck would have it, Sam Mahanes dropped in. As no one had thought to tell Bruce to keep his mouth shut, he told Sam what happened to Harry.

"You stitched her up, discharged her, and didn't inform me?" Sam was aghast, and then wondered why Rick Shaw hadn't told him immediately.

"I'm telling you now," Bruce coolly responded, secretly delighted at Sam's distress.

"Buxton, you should have been on the phone the minute this happened. And whoever was down there"-he waited for a name to be forthcoming but Bruce was not about to finger Booty Weyman so Sam continued-"should have reported to me, too."

"First off, I gave the order to the orderlies that carried her up, to the nurse, to shut up. I said that I'd talk to you. I'm talking to you right now. I was going to call you this morning." He checked his watch. "In twenty minutes to be exact. Don't blow this out of proportion."

"I don't see how it could be any worse." Sam's jaw clapped shut.

"Oh, trust me, Sam Mahanes. It could be a lot worse."

This comment so enraged the hospital director that he turned on his heel, didn't even say good-bye to the ladies, and strode out of the post office, slamming the door hard behind him.

20

Sam, still angry, cut off Tussie Logan as she was trying to back into a space in the parking lot reserved for staff.

He lurched into his space, slammed the door, and locked his car as she finally backed in, avoiding his eyes.

Tussie knew the director's rages only too well. She didn't want to cross him and she didn't want her new Volkswagen Passat station wagon scratched.

Larry Johnson, who had been driving behind Sam at a distance, observed the incident.

Sam strode toward the hospital without a hello or wave of acknowledgment.

After parking, Larry stepped out of his car as Tussie reached into hers, retrieving her worn leather satchel.

"Good morning, Dr. Johnson." She put her arm through the leather strap while closing her car door.

"Morning, Tussie. He damn near knocked you out of the box."

"One of his funks."

"I don't remember Sam being such a moody man." The older doctor fell into step next to Tussie.

"The last month, I don't know, maybe it's been longer. He's tense, critical, nothing we do is right. Maybe he's having problems at home."

"Perhaps, but Sally seems happy enough. I've always prided myself on being able to read people but Sam eludes me."

"I know what you mean." She turned up the collar of her coat, an expensive Jaeger three-quarter-length that flowed when she walked. "I guess you've seen everything and everybody in this burg."

"Oh-some," he modestly replied. "But you still get surprised. Hank Brevard. I wouldn't think he could have aroused enough passion in another person to kill him."

"Maybe he got the better of someone in a car deal." She said this with little conviction.

Hank had put his mechanical skills to work in fixing up old cars and trucks. His hobby became an obsession and occasionally a source of income, as he'd repair and sell a DeSoto or Morgan.

"God knows, he had his own car lot. This last year he must have gone on a buying spree. I don't remember him having so many cars. I'd love to buy the 1938 Plymouth. No such luck." Larry laughed.

"I bet once the dust settles, Lisa will sell his collection."

"Ah, Tussie, even if she did, I couldn't afford the Plymouth."

"Maybe you could. You've got to treat yourself every now and then. And what we do is draining. There are days when I love it as much as my first day out of nursing school and there are other days when I'm tired of being on my feet."

"Tussie, you're a wonderful nurse."

"Why, thank you, Doctor."

He smiled. "Here we are." He opened the front door. "Into the fray." He paused a moment, then said, "If you see anything off track, please tell me. In confidence. If there is something wrong here we've got to get to the bottom of it. This is too good of a hospital to be smeared with mud."

Surprised, she shrank back a moment, caught herself, and relaxed. "I agree. I'm a little touchy right now. A little watchful."

"We all are, Tussie. We all are."

21

Four medium-sized smooth river stones anchored the corners of the large blueprint that covered Sheriff Shaw's desk. He leaned over with a magnifying glass, puffing away like a furnace on his cigarette. The smoke stung his eyes as he took the cigarette out, peered closely, then stuck the weed back in his mouth.

Cynthia, also smoking, stood next to him. She told herself she was smoking in self-defense but she was smoking because that little hit of nicotine coated her frayed nerve endings.

He pointed a stubby finger at the boiler room, put down the magnifying glass, and placed his left forefinger on the incinerator room. This meant his cigarette dangled from his mouth, a pillar of smoke rising into his eyes.

Coop took the cigarette out of his mouth, putting it in an ashtray.

"Thanks." He breathed deeply. "The two easiest spots to destroy evidence."

"Right but I don't think that's our problem."

"Oh?" His eyebrows arched upward. "I wouldn't mind finding the damned knife."

She shook her head. "That's not what I mean. We aren't going to find the knife. It's burned to a crisp or he could have taken it right back up to where those things are steamed or boiled or whatever they do. Fruitless."

"I like that word, fruitless." He reached for his cigarette again with his right hand but kept his left forefinger square on the incinerator room. "What's cooking in your brain?"

"You know, Harry had some good ideas last night."

"Oh." He snorted. "This I've got to hear."

"She thought maybe someone is pirating body parts, organs."

He paused a long time, lifted up his left finger. "Uh-huh."

"Or stealing drugs."

He stubbed out his cigarette, which he'd smoked to a nub. "The other angle is that his killer was an enemy and knew this would be the best place to find him. The killer knew his habits but then most killers do know the habits of their victims. Until Harry got clunked on the head I was not convinced the crime was tied to the hospital. Now I am."

"Me, too," Cooper agreed. "Now the trick is to find out what is at the hospital. What doesn't add up for me about Hank is-if he were in on a crooked deal, wouldn't he have lived higher on the hog? He didn't appear to live beyond his means."

Rick rubbed his chin. "Maybe not. Maybe not. Wait for retirement and then whoosh." He put his hands together and fluttered his fingers like a flyaway bird.

"He was in a position to take kickbacks from the fuel company, the electrical supply company, from everybody. For instance, those low-wattage lightbulbs. I noticed that when we answered Bobby Minifee's call. How do we know he didn't charge for a hundred watts but put in sixty? Now I went over those records and know that he didn't but I mean, for example. He was in the perfect position to skim."

"Wouldn't have been killed for that, I wouldn't reckon. But if he was corrupt it would have been damned hard to pin down. Those records, he could have falsified them, tossed the originals in the incinerator." He rubbed his palms together. "Right now, Coop, we're grasping at straws. We've got a hundred theories and not one hard piece of evidence."

"Let's go back to the basement. Don't tell Sam Mahanes when we're there. Call and tell him our people will be there next Tuesday. Then you and I go in Monday night. Someone might be tempted to move something out. But even if that isn't the case we'd be down there without Sam or anyone knowing except for the maintenance man on duty and we can take care of him."

"That's not a bad idea."

"A light hammer might help. To tap walls."

Rick smiled. She was good. She was good.

22

The sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains arced out like a pinwheel of fire, oriflamme radiating from the mountaintops, an edge of pink gold on each spoke.

Harry paused at the creek dividing her property from the property of her neighbor, Blair Bainbridge. The sky overhead deepened from robin's-egg blue to a blue-gray shot through with orange. She never tired of nature's palette.

As she watched the display, so did Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper. They had parked an unmarked car along the railroad tracks near the hospital just below the old switching station, a smallish stone house, finally abandoned by the C O Railroad in the 1930s.

"Something," Rick murmured.

"Yeah." Coop watched the sky darken to velvety Prussian blue, one of her favorite colors.

One by one lights switched on, dots of life. Drivers turned on their headlights and Crozet's residents hurried home for supper.

"When's the last time you went to a movie?" Rick asked.

"Uh-I don't know."

"Me, too. I think I'll surprise the wife tomorrow night and take her to a movie. Dinner."

"She'll like that."

He smiled. "I will, too. I don't know how I had the sense to pick her and I don't know why she married me. Really."

"You're a-well, you know, you're a butch kind of guy. Women like that."

He smiled even bigger. "You think?"

"I think."

He pulled out a Camel, offered her one, then lit up for both of them. "Coop, when you going to find what you're looking for? You still thinking about Blair Bainbridge?"

She avoided the question. "I meant to ask you the other day, when did you switch to Camels? You used to smoke Chesterfields."

"Oh," he exhaled. "I thought if I tried different brands"-he inhaled-"I might learn to hate the taste."

"Marlboro."

"Merit." He grimaced.

"Kool."

"I hate menthol."

"Dunhill. Red pack."

"Do you know any cop can afford Dunhills?"

"No. Shepheard's Hotel. Another good but real expensive weed."

"You must be hanging out with rich folk."

"Nah-every now and then someone will offer me a cigarette. That's how I smoked a Shepheard's Hotel."

"M-m-m, what's the name of that brand, all natural, kind of thirties look to the pack, an Indian logo. Where did I see those?" he pondered.

She shrugged. "I don't know." A beat. "Viceroy."

"Pall Mall. You're too young to remember."

"No, I'm not. Winstons."

He waited, took a deep drag. "I go to the convenience store. I ask for cigarettes, I see all those brands stacked up and now I can't think of any more."

"Foreign ones. Gauloises. French. Those Turkish cigarettes. They'll knock your socks off."

He grunted, then brightened. "Virginia Slims."

"Lucky Strike."

"Good one. And I note you haven't answered my question about Blair Bainbridge."

Blair Bainbridge worked as a model, flying all over the world for photo shoots. Little Mim Sanburne more or less claimed him but he was maddeningly noncommittal. Many people thought he was the right man for Harry, being tall and handsome, but Blair and Harry, while recognizing one another's attractiveness, had evolved into friends.

"Well, he is drop-dead gorgeous," she sighed.

"Have I ever spoken to you about your personal life?" He turned toward her, his eyebrows quizzically raised.

"No." She laughed. "Because I don't have a personal life."

"Yeah, well, anyway, you and I have been on this force a good long time. You're in your thirties now. You're a good-looking woman."

"Thanks, boss." She blushed.

He held up his hand, palm facing her. "Don't waste your time on a pretty man. They're always trouble. Find a guy who works hard and who loves you for you. Okay, maybe he won't be the best-looking guy in the world or the most exciting but you know, for the long run you want a doer, not a looker."

She gazed out the window, touched that he had thought about her life away from work. "You're right."

"That's all I have to say on the subject except for one more little thing. He has to meet my approval."

They both laughed as the darkness gathered around them. They got out of the car and walked up the railroad tracks to the hospital, slipping down over the embankment at the track.

They opened the back door. Each carried a flashlight and a small hammer. Both had memorized the blueprints.

Wordlessly, they walked down the main corridor to the boiler room. The boiler room sat smack in the middle of the basement. The thick back wall of the room was almost two and a half feet of solid rock, an effective barrier should the boiler ever blow up. The other three walls each had corridors coming into the boiler room.

The only other hallway not connecting into the boiler room was one along the east side of the building at the elevator pool. But in the middle of that east hallway, intersecting it perpendicularly, the east corridor ran into the boiler room.

Offices and storage rooms were off of each of these corridors. The incinerator room was not far from the boiler room.

Coop tapped the solid wall behind the boiler. No empty sound hinted at a hidden storage vault. The two prowled each corridor, noted the doors that were locked, and checked every open room.

The silence downstairs was eerie. Every now and then they could hear the elevator doors open and close, the bell ringing as the doors shut. They heard a footfall and then nothing.

The opened rooms contained maintenance items for the most part. Each corridor had mops, pails, and waxers strategically placed so they could be easily carried to the elevators. A few rooms, dark green walls adding to the gloom, contained banks of ancient file cabinets.

As they quietly walked along, the linoleum under their feet squeaked. Back at the oldest part of the building, the floors were cut stone.

"Three locked doors. Let's find Bobby Minifee." Rick checked his watch. They'd been in there for two and a half hours.

Bobby hadn't taken over Hank Brevard's old office until that morning. The Sheriff's Department had crawled over every inch, every record. Satisfied that nothing had escaped the department's attention, the office was released for use.

"Bobby." Rick knocked on the open door.

Startled, he looked up and blinked. "Sheriff."

"We need your help."

"Sure." He put down the scheduling sheet he was working on.

"Bring all your keys."

"Yes, sir." Minifee lifted a huge ring full of keys.

The three walked to the first locked door, which was between Hank's office and a storage room full of paper towels and toilet paper.

After fumbling with keys, Bobby found the right one. The door swung open and he switched on the light. Shelves were jammed with every kind of lightbulb imaginable.

"Hank made us keep this locked because he said people would lift the bulbs. They're expensive, you know, especially the ones used in the operating room."

"People would steal them."

Bobby nodded yes. "Hank used to say they'd steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke. I never saw much of it myself." He politely waited while Rick and Cooper double-checked the long room, tapping on walls.

"Okay. Next one," Rick commanded.

The second locked room contained stationery and office supplies.

"Other hot items?" Coop asked.

"Yep. It's funny but people think taking a notebook isn't stealing."

"Everyone's got that problem, I think." The sheriff flipped up a dozen bound legal pads. "If I had a dollar for every pen that's walked off my desk I'd have my car paid for."

The third room, much larger than the others and quite well lit, contained a few pieces of equipment-one blood-infusion pump, one oscillator, two EEG units.

"Expensive stuff." Rick whistled.

"Yes. Usually it's shipped out within forty-eight hours to the manufacturer or the repair company. For a hospital this size, though, we have few repairs. We're lucky that way." Bobby walked through the room with Rick and Cynthia. "Hank took care of that. He was very conscientious about the big stuff. He'd call the manufacturer, he'd describe the problem, he'd arrange for the shipping. He'd be at the door for the receiving. You couldn't fault him that way."

"Huh," was all Rick said.

"Where do you keep the organ transplants?"

Bobby's eyes widened. "Not here."

"You don't receive them at the shipping door?" Coop asked.

"Oh, no. The organ transplants are hand-walked right into the front door, the deliverer checks in at the front desk, and then they are delivered immediately to the physician. They know almost to the minute when something like that is coming in. Most of the time the patient is ready for the transplant. They'd never let us handle something like that."

"I see." Rick ran his forefinger over the darkened screen of an oscilloscope.

"Let's say someone has a leg amputated. What happens to the leg?" Coop asked.

Bobby grimaced slightly. "Hank said in the old days the body parts were burned in the middle of the night in the incinerator. Now stuff like that is wrapped up, sealed off, and picked up daily by a company that handles hazardous biological material. They burn it somewhere else."

"In the middle of nowhere, I'd guess, because of the smell," Coop said.

"No." Rick shook his head. "They use high heat like a crematorium. It's fast." He smiled smugly, having done his homework.

"I'm glad. I wouldn't throw arms and legs into the incinerator." Bobby shuddered.

"People were tougher in the old days." Rick wanted another cigarette. "Well, thank you, Bobby. Keep it to yourself that we were here."

"Yes, sir."

Rick clapped him on the back. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah." He shrugged.

"Notice any change in the routine here?" Coop clicked off her flashlight as Bobby walked them to the back door by the railroad tracks.

"No. Not down here. I'm duplicating Hank's routine. He'll be hard to replace. We're not as efficient right now. At least, that's what I think."

"Anyone coming down here who usually doesn't come down?"

"Sam and Jordan made separate appearances. But now that things have settled a little it's business as usual-no one cares much about our work. If something isn't done we hear about it but we don't receive compliments for doing a good job. We're kind of invisible." A slight smirk played on Bobby's lips.

"Has anyone ever offered you drugs? Uppers. Downers. Cocaine?"

"No. I haven't even been offered a beer." The corners of his mouth turned up. Dimples showed when he smiled.

Rick opened the back door. "Well, if anything pops into your head, no matter how small it seems, you call me or Coop."

"I will."

The temperature had dropped below freezing. They climbed up the bank to the tracks.

"Ideas?"

"No, boss. Wish I had even one."

"Yeah, me, too."

It had never occurred to them to tap the floors in the basement.

That same Monday evening, Big Mim and Larry Johnson dined at Dalmally. Jim Sanburne was at a county commissioners' meeting in Old Lane High School, now the county offices, in Charlottesville. Little Mim was ensconced in her cottage.

The two dear friends chatted over fresh lobster, rice, vegetables, a crisp arugula salad, and a very expensive white Chilean wine.

"-his face." Larry laughed.

"I haven't thought of that in years." Mim laughed, remembering a gentleman enamored of her Aunt Tally.

He had tried to impress the independent lady by his skill at golf. They were playing in a foursome during a club tournament. He was in the rough just off the green, which was surrounded by spectators. The day being sultry, ladies wore halter tops or camp shirts and shorts. The men wore shorts and short-sleeved shirts, straw hats with bright ribbon bands.

The poor fellow hit a high shot off the rough which landed right in the ample bosom of Florence Taliaferro. She screamed, fell down, but the golf ball was not dislodged from its creamy resting place.

No one knew of a rule to cover such an eventuality. He couldn't play the ball but he was loath to drop a ball and take a penalty shot. His contentious attitude so soured the caustic Tally that the moment they turned in their cards, she never spoke to him again.

Larry cracked a lobster claw. "I'm amazed at what flutters through my mind. An event from 1950 seems as real as what's happening this moment."

"Y-e-s." She drew out the word as the candlelight reflected off her beautiful pearls.

Larry knew Mim always dined by candlelight; the loveliness of the setting proved that Mim needed luxury, beauty, perfect proportion.

Gretchen glided in to remove one course and bring out another. She and Big Mim had been together since girlhood. Gretchen's family had worked for Mim's parents.

"What do you think about my daughter opposing my husband?"

"Ah-ha! I knew you had an agenda."

"She shouldn't do it," Gretchen piped up.

"Did I ask you?"

"No, Miss Mim, that's why I'm telling you. I have to get a word in edgewise."

"You poor benighted creature," Big Mim mocked.

"Don't you forget it." Gretchen disappeared.

Larry smiled. "You two would make a great sitcom. Hollywood needs you."

"You're too kind," Mim replied, a hint of acid in her tone.

"What do I think? I think it's good for Marilyn but it creates stress for the residents of Crozet. No one ever wants to offend a Sanburne."

"There is that," Mim thoughtfully considered. "Although Jim has been quite clear that he doesn't mind."

"It still makes people nervous. No one wants to be on the losing side."

"Yes." Mim put down her fork. "Should I tell her to stop?"

"No."

"I can't very well suggest to Jim that he step down. He's been a good mayor."

"Indeed."

"This is a pickle."

"For all of us." He chewed a bit of lobster, sweet and delicious. "But people will pay attention to the election; issues might get discussed. We've gotten accustomed to apathy-only because Jim takes care of things."

"I suppose. Crozet abounds with groups. People do pitch in but yes, you're right, there is a kind of political apathy. Not just here. Everywhere."

"People vote with their feet. They're bored, with a capital B."

"Larry," she leaned closer. "What's going on at Crozet Hospital? I know you know more than you're telling me and I know Harry didn't cut her head on a scythe."

"What's Harry got to do with it?"

"There's no way she could stay away from the murder site. She's been fascinated with solving things since she was tiny. Now really, character is everything, is it not?" He nodded assent so she continued. "I'd bet my earrings that Harry snuck over to the hospital and got hurt."

"She could have gotten hurt sticking her nose somewhere else. What if she snuck around Hank Brevard's house?"

"I know Mary Minor Haristeen."

A ripple of silence followed. Then Larry sighed. "Dear Mim, you are one of the most intelligent women I have ever known."

She smiled broadly. "Thank you."

"Whether your thesis is correct or not I really don't know. Harry hasn't said anything to me when I grace the post office with my presence." He was telling the truth.

"But you have been associated with the hospital for, well, almost fifty years. You must know something."

"Until the incident I can't say that I noticed anything, how shall I say, untoward. The usual personality clashes, nurses grumbling about doctors, doctors jostling one another for status or perks or pretty nurses." He held up his hand. "Oh yes, plenty of that."

"Really." Mim's left eyebrow arched upward.

"But Mim, that's every hospital. It's a closed world with its own rules. People work in a highly charged atmosphere. They're going to fall for one another."

"Yes."

"But there has been an increase of tension and it predates the dispatch of Hank Brevard. Sam Mahanes has lacked discretion, shall we say?"

"Oh."

"People don't want to see that sort of thing-especially in their boss or leader."

"Who?"

"Tussie Logan."

"Ah."

"They avoid one another in a theatrical manner. But Sam isn't always working during those late nights." He held up his left palm, a gesture of questioning and appeasement. "Judge not lest ye be judged."

"Is that meant for me?"

"No, dear. We've gracefully accommodated one another's faults."

"It was me, not you."

"I should have fought harder. I've told you that. I should have banged on this front door and had it out with your father. But I didn't. And somehow, sweetheart, it has all worked out. You married and had two good children."

"A son who rarely comes home," she sniffed.

"Whose fault is that?" he gently chided her.

"I've made amends."

"And he and his wife will finally move down from New York some fine day. Dixie claims all her children. But whatever the gods have in store for us-it's right. It's right that you married Jim, I married Annabella, God rest her soul. It's right that we've become friends over the years. Who is to say that our bond may not be even stronger because of our past. Being husband and wife might have weakened our connection."

"Do you really think so?" She had never considered this.

"I do."

"I shall have to think about it. You know, I cherish our little talks. I have always been able to say anything to you."

"I cherish them as well."

A car drove up, parked, the door slammed, the back door opened.

Jim slapped Gretchen on the fanny. "Put out a plate for me, doll."

"Sexual harassment."

"You wish," he teased her.

"Ha. You'll never know."

He strode into the dining room. "Finished early. A first in the history of Albemarle County."

"Hooray." Mim smiled.

Jim clapped Larry on the back, then sat down. "Looks fabulous."

"Wait until you taste the rice. Gretchen has put tiny bits of orange rind in it." Mim glanced up as Gretchen came into the room.

"Isn't that just perfect."

"Of course. I prepared it." Gretchen served Jim rice, vegetables, then tossed salad for him.

The small gathering chattered away, much to Larry's relief. Had he continued to be alone with Mim she would have returned to her questions about the hospital.

Mim had to know everything. It was her nature, just as solving puzzles was Harry's.

And Larry did know more than he was telling. He could never lie to Mim. He was glad he didn't have to try.

23

Each day of the week grew warmer until by Saturday the noon temperature rose into the low sixties. March was just around the corner bringing with it the traditional stiff winds, the first crocus and robin, as well as hopes of spring to come. Everybody knew that nature could and often did throw a curveball, dumping a snowstorm onto the mountains and valley in early April, but still, the days were longer, the quality of light changed from diffuse to brighter, and folks began to think about losing weight, gardening, and frolicking.

Hunt season ended in mid-March, bringing conflicting emotions for Harry and her friends. They loved hunting yet they were thrilled to say good-bye to winter.

This particular Saturday the hunt left from Harry's farm. Given the weather, over forty people turned out, quite unusual for a February hunt.

As they rode off, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and an enraged Tucker watched from the barn.

"I don't see why I can't go. I can run as fast as any old foxhound." Tucker pouted.

"You aren't trained as a foxhound." Mrs. Murphy calmly stated the obvious, which she was forced to do once a year when the hunt met at Harry's farm.

"Ha!" The little dog barked. "Walk around, nose to the ground. Pick up a little scent and wave your tail. Then you move a bit faster and finally you open your big yap and say, 'Got a line.' How hard is that?"

"Tail," Pewter laconically replied.

"How's zat?" The dog barked even louder as the hounds moved farther away, ignoring her complaints.

"You haven't got a tail, Tucker. So you can't signal the start of something mildly interesting." The tiger was enjoying Tucker's state almost as much as Pewter, who did have the tiniest malicious streak.

"You don't believe that, do you?" She was incredulous, her large dog eyes imploring.

"Sure we do." The two cats grinned in unison.

"I could run after them. I could catch up and show my stuff."

"And have a whipper-in on your butt." Pewter laughed, mentioning the bold outriders responsible for seeing that hounds behaved.

"Wouldn't be on my butt. Would be on a hound's," Tucker smugly replied. "I think Mom should whip-in. She'd be good at it. She's got hound sense, you know, but only because I taught her everything she knows-about canines."

"Pin a rose on you," Pewter sarcastically replied.

Tucker swept her ears back for a second, then swept them forward. "You don't know a thing about hunting unless it's mice and you aren't doing so hot on that front. And then there's the bluejay who dive-bombs you, gets right in front of you, Pewter, and you can't grab him."

"Oh, I'd like to see you tangle with that bluejay. He'd peck your eyes out, mutt." Pewter's temper flared.

"Hey, they hit a line right at the creek bed." Mrs. Murphy, a keen hunter of all game, trotted out of the barn, past Poptart and Gin Fizz, angry at not hunting themselves. She leapt onto the fence, positioning herself on a corner post.

Tucker scrambled, slid around the corner of the paddock, then sat down. Pewter, with far less enthusiasm, climbed up on a fence post near Mrs. Murphy.

"Tally Ho!" Tucker bounded up and down on all fours.

"That's the Tutweiler fox. He'll lead them straight across the meadows and dump them about two miles away. He always runs through the culvert there at the entrance to the Tutweiler farm, then jumps on the zigzag fence. I don't know why they can't get his scent off the fence but they don't." Mrs. Murphy enjoyed watching the unfolding panorama.

"How do you know so much?" Tucker kept bouncing.

"Because he told me."

"When?"

"When you were asleep, you dumb dog. I hunt at night sometimes. By myself since both of you are the laziest slugs the Great Cat in the Sky ever put on earth."

"Hey, look at Harry. She took that coop in style." Pewter admired her mother's form over fences.

"She would have taken it better with me," a very sour Gin Fizz grumbled. "Why she bothers with Tomahawk, I'll never know. He's too rough at the trot and he gets too close to the fence."

As Gin was now quite elderly, in his middle twenties, but in great shape, the other animals knew not to disagree with him.

Poptart, the young horse Harry was bringing along, respectfully kept quiet. A big mare with an easy stride, she couldn't wait for the day when she'd be Harry's go-to hunter. She listened to Gin because he knew the game.

As the animals watched, Miranda drove up with church ladies in tow. She cooked a hunt breakfast for Harry once a year and Harry made a nice donation to her Church of the Holy Light. Each lady emerged from the church van carrying plates of food, bowls of soup, baskets of fresh-baked breads and rolls. Although called a breakfast, hunters usually don't get to eat until twelve or one in the afternoon, so the selection of food ranged from eggs to roasts to biscuits, breads, and all manner of casseroles.

The enticing aroma of honey-cured Virginia ham reached Tucker's delicate nostrils. She forgot to be upset about the hounds. Her determination to trail the hounds wavered. Her left shoulder began to lean toward the house.

"I bet Miranda needs help," Tucker said in her most solicitous tone.

"Sure." Murphy laughed at her while observing Sam Mahanes lurch over a coop. "That man rides like a sack of potatoes."

Sam was followed by Dr. Larry Johnson, who rode as his generation was taught to ride: forward and at pace. Larry soared over the coop, top hat not even wobbling, big grin on his clean, open face.

"Amazing." Pewter licked a paw, rubbing it behind her ears.

"Larry?" Murphy wondered.

"Yes. You know humans would be better off if they didn't know arithmetic. They count their birthdays and it weakens their mind. You are what you are. Like us, for instance." Pewter out of the corner of her eye saw Tucker paddle to the back door. "Do you believe her?"

"She can't help it. Dogs." Murphy shrugged. "You were saying?"

"Counting." Pewter's voice boomed a bit louder than she had anticipated, scaring Poptart for a minute. "Sorry, Pop. Okay, look at you and me, Mrs. Murphy. Do we worry about our birthdays?"

"No. Oh boy, there goes Little Mim. She just blew by Mother. That'll set them off. Ha." Murphy relished that discussion, since Harry hated to be passed in the hunt field.

"Tomahawk's too slow." Gin Fizz, disgruntled though he may have been, was telling the truth. "She needs a Thoroughbred. Of course, Little Mim can buy as many hunters as she wants and the price is irrelevant. Mom has to make her own horses. She does a good job, I think." Gin loved Harry.

"But I'm only half a Thoroughbred," Poptart wailed. "Does that mean we'll be stuck in the rear?"

Gin Fizz consoled the youngster. "No. You can jump the moon. As the others fall by the wayside, you'll be going strong as long as you take your conditioning seriously. But on the flat, well, yes, you might get passed. Don't worry. You'll be fine."

"I don't want to be passed," the young horse said fiercely.

"Nobody does." Gin Fizz laughed.

"Am I going to get to finish my thought or what?" Pewter snarled. She liked horses but herbivores bored her. Grass eaters. How could they eat grass? She only ate grass when she needed to throw up.

"Sorry." Gin smiled.

"As I was saying," Pewter declaimed. "Humans count. Numbers. They count money. They count their years. It's a bizarre obsession with them. So a human turns thirty and begins to fret. A little fret. Turns forty. Bigger. Is it not the dumbest thing? How you feel is what matters. If you feel bad, it doesn't matter if you're fifteen. If you feel fabulous like Larry, what's seventy-five? Stupid numbers. I really think they should dump the whole idea of birthdays. They wouldn't know any better then. They'd be happier."

"They'd find a way to screw it up." Murphy looked over at her gray friend. "They fear happiness like we fear lightning. I don't understand it. I accept it, though."

"They're so worried about something bad happening that they make it happen. I truly believe that." Pewter, for all her concentration on food and luxury, was an intelligent animal.

"Yeah, I think they do that all the time and don't know it. They've got to give up the idea that they can control life. They've got to be more catlike."

"Or horselike." Gin smiled wryly.

"They've got to eat some meat, Gin. I mean they're omnivores," Pewter replied.

"I'm not talking about food, I'm talking about attitude. Look at us. We have good food, a beautiful place to live, and someone to love and we love her. It's a perfect life. Even if we didn't have a barn to live in, it's a perfect life. I don't think horses were born with barns anyway. Harry needs to think more like a horse. Just go with the flow." Gin used an old term from his youth.

"Uh-yeah," Pewter agreed.

Harry may not have gone with the flow but she certainly followed her fox. Just as Mrs. Murphy predicted, the Tutweiler fox bolted straightaway. Two miles later he scurried under a culvert, hopped onto a zigzag fence to disappear, ready to run another day.

The hounds picked up a fading scent but that fox didn't run as well as the Tutweiler fox. He dove into his den. After three hours of glorious fun, the field turned for home.

Harry quickly cleaned up Tomahawk, turning him out with Poptart and Gin Fizz, who wanted to know how the other horses behaved on the hunt.

Her house overflowed with people, reminding her of her childhood, because her mother and father had loved to entertain. She figured most people came because of Mrs. Hogendobber's cooking. The driveway, lined with cars all the way down to the paved road, bore testimony to that. Many of the celebrants didn't hunt, but the tradition of hunt breakfast was, whoever was invited could come and eat whether they rode or not.

Bobby Minifee and Booty Weyman attended, knowing they would be welcome. The Minifees were night hunters so Bobby would pick a good hillock upon which to observe hounds. Night hunters did just that, hunted at night on foot. Usually they chased raccoons but most hunters enjoyed hunting, period, and Bobby and Booty loved to hear the hounds.

Sam Mahanes had parted company with his horse at a creek bed and didn't much like Bruce Buxton reminding him of that fact.

Big Mim Sanburne declared the fences were much higher when she was in her twenties and Little Mim, out of Mother's earshot, remarked, "Must have been 1890."

Everyone praised Miranda Hogendobber, who filled the table with ham biscuits, corn bread, smoked turkey, venison in currant sauce, scrambled eggs, deviled eggs, pickled eggs, pumpernickel quite fresh, raw oysters, salad with arugula, blood oranges, mounds of almond cake, a roast loin of pork, cheese grits and regular grits, potato cakes with applesauce, cherry pie, apple pie, devil's food cake, and, as always, Mrs. Hogendobber's famous cinnamon buns with an orange glaze.

Cynthia Cooper, off this Saturday, ate herself into a stupor, as did Pewter, who couldn't move from the arm of the sofa.

Tussie Logan and Randy Sands milled about. Because they lived together people assumed they were lovers but they weren't. They didn't bother to deny the rumors. If they did it would only confirm what everyone thought. Out of the corner of her eye, Tussie observed Sam.

Tucker snagged every crumb that hit the floor. Mrs. Murphy, after four delicious oysters, reposed, satiated, in the kitchen window. Eyes half closed, she dozed off and on but missed little.

"Where's Fair today?" Bruce Buxton asked Harry.

"Conference in Leesburg at the Marion Dupont Scott Equine Medical Center. He hates to miss any cooking of Mrs. Hogendobber's and the Church of the Holy Light but duty called."

"I think I would have been less dutiful." Bruce laughed.

"Mrs. H.," Susan Tucker called out. "You said you and the girls had practiced 'John Peel.'"

"And so we have." A flushed, happy Miranda held up her hands, the choir ladies gathered round, and she blew a note on the pitch pipe. They burst into song about a famous nineteenth-century English foxhunter, a song most kids learn in second grade. But the choir gave it a special resonance and soon the assemblage joined in on the chorus.

Mrs. H., while singing, pointed to Larry Johnson, who came and stood beside her. The choir silenced as he sang a verse in his clear, lovely tenor and then everyone boomed in on the chorus again.

After the choir finished, groups sporadically sang whatever came into their heads, including a medley of Billy Ray Cyrus songs, Cole Porter, and various nursery rhymes, while Ned Tucker, Susan's husband, accompanied them on the piano.

Many of the guests, liberally fueling themselves from the bar, upped the volume.

Tucker, ears sensitive, walked into Harry's bedroom and wiggled under the bed.

Pewter finally moved off the sofa arm but not to the bedroom, which would have been the sensible solution. No, she returned to the table to squeeze in one more sliver of honey-cured ham.

"You're going to barf all over the place." Mrs. Murphy opened one eye.

"No, I'm not. I'll walk it off."

"Ha."

Coop grabbed another ham biscuit as people crowded around the long table. Larry Johnson, uplifted from the hunt and three desert-dry martinis, slapped the deputy on the back.

"You need to hunt with us."

"Harry gets after me. I will. Of course, I'd better learn to jump first."

"Why? Sam Mahanes never bothered." He couldn't help himself and his laughter sputtered out like machine-gun fire.

It didn't help that Sam, talking to Bruce, heard this aspersion cast his way. He ignored it.

"Harry would let you take lessons on Gin Fizz. He's a wonderful old guy." Susan volunteered her best friend's horse, then bellowed over the din. "Harry, I'm lending Gin Fizz to Coop."

"What a princess you are, Susan," Harry yelled back.

"See, that's all there is to it." Larry beamed. "And by the way, I'll catch up with you tomorrow."

Before Coop could whisper some prudence in his ear-after all, why would he need to see her-he tacked in the direction of Little Mim, who smiled when she saw him. People generally smiled in Larry's company.

Mrs. Murphy had both eyes open now, fixed on Coop, whose jaw dropped slightly ajar.

Miranda walked up next to the tall blonde. "I don't know when I've seen Larry Johnson this happy. There must be something to this hunting."

"Depends on what you're hunting." Mrs. Murphy looked back out the window at the horses tied to the vans and trailers. Each horse wore a cooler, often in its stable colors. They were a very pretty sight.

24

Miranda stayed behind to help Harry clean up, as did Susan Tucker. The last guest tottered along at six in the evening, ushered out by soft twilight.

"I think that was the most successful breakfast we've had all year. Thanks to you." Harry scrubbed down the kitchen counters.

"Right," Susan concurred.

"Thank you." Miranda smiled. She enjoyed making people happy. "When your parents were alive this house was full of people. I remember one apple blossom party, oh my, the Korean War had just ended and the apple trees bloomed like we'd never seen them. Your father decided we had to celebrate the end of the war and the blossoms, the whole valley was filled with apple fragrance. So he begged, borrowed, and stole just about every table in Crozet, put them out front under the trees. Your mother made centerpieces using apple blossoms and iris, now that was beautiful. Uncle Olin, my uncle, he died before you were born, brought down his band from up Winchester way. Your dad built, built from scratch, a dance floor that he put together in sections. I think all of Crozet came to that party and we danced all night. Uncle Olin played until sunup, liberally fueled by Nelson County country waters." She laughed, using the old Virginia term for moonshine. "George and I danced to sunrise. Those were the days." She instinctively put her hand to her heart. "It's good to see this house full of people again."

"They step on my tail," Pewter grumbled, rejoining them from the screened-in porch and, hard to believe, hungry again.

"Because it's fat like the rest of you." Mrs. Murphy giggled.

"Cats don't have fat tails," Pewter haughtily responded.

"You do," Murphy cackled, then jumped on the sofa, rolled over, four legs in the air, and turned her head upside down so she could watch her gray friend, who decided to stalk her.

Pewter crouched, edged forward, and when she reached the sofa she wiggled her hind end, then catapulted up in the air right onto the waiting Murphy.

"Banzai. Death to the Emperor!" Pewter, who had watched too many old movies, shouted.

The cats rolled over, finally thumping onto the floor.

"What's gotten into you two?" Harry laughed at them from the kitchen.

"You know, I've heard people say that animals take on the personality of their owner," Miranda, eyes twinkling, said.

"Is that a fact?" Harry stepped into the living room as the cats continued their wrestling match with lots of fake hissing and puffing.

"Must be true, Harry. You lie on the sofa and wait for someone to pounce on you." Susan laughed.

"Humor. Small, pathetic, but an attempt at humor nonetheless." Harry loved it when her friends teased her.

"Is that true?" Miranda appeared scandalized. "You're a sex bomb?" The words "sex bomb" coming out of Miranda's mouth seemed so incongruous that Harry and Susan burst out laughing and were at pains to explain exactly why.

Tucker, dead asleep in the hallway to the bedroom, slowly raised her head when the cats broke away from one another, ran to her, and jumped over her in both directions. Then Pewter bit Tucker's ear.

"Pewts, that was mean." Mrs. Murphy laughed. "Do the other one."

"Ouch." Tucker shook her head.

"Come on, lazybones. Let's play and guess what, there are leftovers," an excited, slightly frenzied Pewter reported before she tore back into the living room, jumped on the sofa, launched herself from the sofa to the bookcases, and miraculously made it.

Mrs. Murphy followed her. Once she and Pewter were on the same shelf, they had a serious decision to make: which books to throw on the floor.

Harry, sensing their plan, rushed over. "No, you don't."

"Yes, we do." Mrs. Murphy pulled out The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder.

Crash.

"I will smack you silly." Harry reached for the striped devil but she easily eluded her human.

Pewter prudently jumped off but not before knocking off a silver cup Harry had won years before at a hunter pace. As the clanging rang in her ears, the cat spun out, slid around the wing chair, bolted into the kitchen where Miranda was putting Saran Wrap over the remains of the honey-cured ham, stole a hunk of ham, and crouched under the kitchen table to gnaw it.

"I've seen everything." Miranda shook her head.

"Wild." Susan knelt down as Tucker walked into the kitchen. "Aren't you glad you're not a crazy kitty?"

"Got her a piece of ham," Tucker solemnly stated.

Harry surveyed the house. "We did a good job."

Mrs. Murphy joined Pewter under the table.

"I'm not giving you any. I stole this myself with no help from you."

"I'm not hungry."

"Liar," Pewter said.

Harry peered under the table. "Radical."

"That's us." Murphy purred back.

Harry examined the ham before Miranda put it in the refrigerator. "She tore a hunk right off of there, didn't she?"

"Before my very eyes. Little savage."

"Might as well cut the piece smooth." Harry lifted up the corner of the Saran Wrap and sliced off the raggedy piece. She divided it into three pieces, one for each animal. "Hey, anyone want coffee, tea, or something stronger? The coffee's made. Will only take me a second to brew tea."

"I'd like a cuppa." Miranda wrapped the last of the food, then she reached into the cupboard, bringing down the loose Irish tea that Harry saved for special occasions. "How about this?"

"My fave." She turned to Susan. "What will you have?"

"Uh, I'll finish off the coffee and sit up all night. Drives Ned nuts when I do it but I just feel like a cup of coffee. Hey, before I forget, is that possum still in the hayloft?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I saved the broken chocolate bits for him."

"He'll like that. He has a sweet tooth."

"I don't know how Simon"-Mrs. Murphy called the possum by his proper name-"can eat chocolate. The taste is awful."

"I don't think it's so bad." Tucker polished off her ham. "Although dogs aren't supposed to eat it. But it tastes okay."

"You're a dog." Murphy shook her head in case any tiny food bits lingered on her whiskers. She'd follow this up with a sweep of her whiskers with her forearm.

"So?"

"You'll eat anything whether it's good for you or not."

Tucker eyed Mrs. Murphy, then turned her sweet brown eyes onto Pewter. "She eats anything."

"I don't eat celery," Pewter protested vigorously.

As the animals chatted so did the humans. The hunt was bracing, the breakfast a huge success, the house was cleaned up, the barn chores done. They sat and rehashed everything that had happened in the hunt field for Miranda's benefit as well as their own. Then all shared what they'd seen and heard at the party, laughing over who became tipsy, who insulted whom, who flirted with whom (everybody flirted with everybody), who believed it, who didn't, who tried to sell a horse (again, everybody), who tried to buy a horse (half the room), who tried to weasel recipes out of Miranda, various theories about Hank Brevard, and who looked good as well as who didn't.

"I heard only twenty people attended Hank's funeral." Miranda felt badly that a man wasn't well liked enough to pack the church. It is one's last social engagement, after all.

"As you sow so ye shall reap." Harry quoted the Bible not quite accurately to Miranda, which made the older woman smile.

"Some people never learn to get along with others. Maybe they're born that way." Susan lost all self-restraint and took the last cinnamon bun with the orange glaze.

"Susan Tucker," Harry said in a singsong voice.

"Oh, I know," came the weak reply.

"You girls have good figures. Stop worrying." Miranda reached down to scratch Tucker's head. "I wonder about that. I mean how it is that some people draw others to them and other people just manage to say the wrong thing or just put out a funny feeling. I'm not able to say what I mean but do you know what I mean?"

"Bad vibes," Harry simply said, and they laughed together.

"These aren't bad vibes but Little Mim was working the party. She's really serious about being mayor." Susan was amazed because Little Mim had never had much purpose in life.

"Maybe it would be good," Harry said thoughtfully. "Maybe we need some fresh ideas.

"But we can't go against her father. He's a good mayor and he knows everybody. People listen to Jim." Harry wondered how it would all turn out. "I don't see why he can't take her on as vice-mayor."

"Harry, there is no vice-mayor," Miranda corrected her.

"Yeah," she answered back. "But why can't we create the position? If we ask for it now either as a fait accompli or charge the city council to create a referendum, it's a lot easier than waiting until November."

"Oh, ladies, all you have to do is tell Jim your idea and he'll appoint her. You know the city council will back him up. Besides, no one wants to see a knock-down-drag-out between father and daughter-not that Jim would fight, he won't. But we all know that Little Mim hasn't much chance. Your solution is a good one, Harry. Good for everybody. The day will come when Jim can't be mayor and this way we'd have a smooth transition. You go talk to Jim Sanburne," Miranda encouraged her.

"Maybe I should talk to Mim first." Harry drained her teacup.

"There is that," Susan said, "but then Jim hears it first from his wife. Better to go to him first since he is the elected official and on the same day call on her. She can't be but so mad."

"You're right." Harry looked determined, scribbling the idea on her napkin.

The phone rang. They sat for a moment.

"I'll get it." Mrs. Murphy jumped onto the counter, knocking the wall phone receiver off the hook.

"Her latest trick." Harry smiled, got up, and picked up the phone. "Hello." She paused. "Coop, I can't believe it." She paused again. "All right. Thanks." She turned to her friends, her face drained white. "Larry Johnson has been shot."

"Oh my God." Miranda's hands flew to her face. "Is he-?" She couldn't say the word.

25

The revolving blue light from Rick's squad car cast a sad glow over the scene. Cynthia stood with him behind the three barns at Twisted Creek Stables. The parking lot for trailers and vans was placed behind the barns, out of sight. Those renting stalls could use the space for their rigs.

Larry Johnson, who lived in town, boarded his horse here. He'd always boarded horses, declaring he wasn't a farm boy and he wasn't going to start now. He'd boarded his horses ever since he started his practice after the war.

Facedown in the grass, one bullet in his back, another having taken off part of the back of his skull, he'd been dead for hours. How long was hard to say, since the mercury was plummeting. He was frozen stiff.

He would have lain there all night if Krystal Norton, a barn worker, hadn't come to the back barn to bring up extra feed. She thought she heard a motor running behind the barn, walked outside, and sure enough, Larry's truck was parked, engine still humming. She didn't notice him until she was halfway to the truck to cut the motor.

"Krystal," Cynthia sympathetically questioned, "what's the routine? What would Larry have done after the hunt breakfast?"

"He would drive to the first barn, unload his horse, put him in his stall, and then drive back here, unhitch his trailer, and drive home in his truck."

"And he'd unloaded his horse?"

"Yes." Krystal wiped her runny nose; she'd been sobbing both from shock and because she loved Dr. Johnson. Everybody did.

"Nobody noticed that he hadn't pulled out?" Cynthia led Krystal a few steps away from the body.

"No. We're all pretty busy. There's people coming and going out of this hack barn all the time." She used the term "hack barn," which meant a boarders' barn.

"You didn't hear a pop?"

"No."

"Sometimes gunfire sounds like a pop. It's not quite like the movies." Coop noticed a pair of headlights swerving into the long driveway and hoped it was the whiz kids, as she called the fingerprint man, the photographer, and the coroner.

"We crank up the radio." Krystal hung her head, then looked at the deputy. "How can something like this happen?"

"I don't know but it's my job to find out. How long have you worked here?"

"Two years."

"Krystal, go on back to the barn. We'll tell you when you can go home but there's no need to stand out here in the cold. This has been awful and I'm sorry."

"Is there some-some deranged weirdo on the loose?"

"No," Cynthia replied with authority. "What there is is a cold-blooded killer who's protecting something, but I don't know what. This isn't a crime of passion. It's not a sex crime or theft. I don't believe you are in danger. If you get worried though, you call me."

"Okay." Krystal wiped her nose again as she walked back into the barn.

The headlights belonged to Mim Sanburne's big-ass Bentley. She slammed the door and sprinted over to Larry Johnson. She knelt down to take him up in her arms.

The sheriff, gently but firmly, grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't touch him, Mrs. Sanburne. You might destroy evidence."

"Oh God." Mim sank to her knees, putting her head in her hands. She knelt next to the body, saw the piece of skull missing, the hole in his back.

Rick motioned Coop to come on over fast.

Cynthia's long legs covered the distance between the barn and the parking lot quickly. She knelt down next to Mim. "Miz Sanburne, let me take you back to your car."

"No. No. I want to stay with him until they take him away."

Another pair of headlights snaked down the driveway. Miranda Hogendobber stepped out of her Ford Falcon, which still ran like a top. Behind her in Susan's Audi station wagon came Susan, Harry, and the two cats and dog.

Rick squinted into the light. "Damn."