Claws And Effect

"Has there been a problem with the equipment? Is that why you're here?" Joe asked because the reputation of his business was vitally important to him.

"No. Not that we know of." Coop walked around and sat back down, as did Harry.

"Can you tell me just what it is that you check on the infusion pumps, if check is the correct term?"

"We check for electrical safety, something like good current leakage. Or a power cord might be damaged. Sometimes orderlies will drop a unit. Stuff happens. We take the unit apart and check the circuits. Here, let me show you." He stood up and ushered them into the spanking-clean shop area.

"Here." Laura pointed to the digital screen on the face of the unit, above a keyboard of numbers like telephone push buttons. "The nurse punches in the flow, the time frame, the amount of fluid, and the rate, which is displayed here." She pointed to the screen. "The nurse on duty or doctor has only to look on the screen to know how much is left in the unit, whether to increase flow or whatever."

Harry remembered Larry punching in information on a unit.

"And you can put any fluid in the bag?" Coop pointed to boxes filled with sterile bags.

Joe nodded. "Sure. Blood. Morphine. Saline solution. Anesthesia. OBs use IVAC units to drop Pitocin, which stimulates the uterus to go into labor. The infusion pump is very versatile."

"And simple," Laura added.

"Here." Joe picked up a unit from the table. "You can even medicate yourself." He placed a round button attached to a black cord into Coop's hand. "You hit the button and you get more drip."

"Are these units well made?" Harry was curious.

"Oh sure. They're built to last and it's like everything else, newer models are more expensive, more bells and whistles, but I service units that are twenty years old-they usually come in from Third World countries."

"May I ask you something?" Laura smiled.

"Of course."

"Is someone stealing IVACs and selling them to poor countries?"

"What we have are two murders which we believe are connected, and I think we just found the connection. We don't know if the units are sold on the black market or not. What we have to go on right now are these false bills."

"Murders?" Laura's eyes widened.

"Yes, the plant manager of the hospital was killed three weeks ago and a doctor was killed just a week ago." She paused. "Both of those men must have stumbled onto something relating to these billings."

"Have you added up the amount of the billings? You've got three years' worth." Laura checked the figures and the dates.

"Yes, we have. It comes to seven hundred fifty thousand dollars for that time period."

"Someone's rolling in dough," Laura flatly stated.

"We've looked for that, too, Mr. and Mrs. Cramer. We didn't know this was the problem but we knew something had to be going on. We had no reports of suspicious patient deaths. We thought there might be a black market in human organs."

"There is." Joe leaned forward. "A huge black market."

"We found that out, too, but we also discovered that wasn't our problem. You two have shown me what's at stake here, a lot of money and more to come, I should guess."

"Joe, I think we'd better contact our lawyers. Officer, do you mind if I make copies of these?"

"No, but I ask you both to keep quiet about this. You can't sue anyone until we catch them and we won't catch them if they have warning."

"I understand," Laura agreed.

"This just knocks me out." Joe shook his head.

"The only reason the sheriff and I noticed these particular invoices, and it took time, I might add, was we crawled over the hospital, over billings, maintenance bills, you name it, but what finally caught our eye was that these bills were so neat."

"What do you mean?" Laura was curious.

"Well, they have a receipt date, as you can see." Coop pointed to the round red circle in the middle of each bill. "They have a pay date." She pointed to another circle, this one in blue with a date running across it diagonally. "But the invoices are so white and crisp."

"What do you mean?" Laura picked up an invoice.

"The other bills and invoices had gone through a couple of hands, a couple of shufflings. Fingerprints were on the paper, corners were a little dog-eared. These are pristine. It was a long shot but it was just peculiar enough for me to come up here."

"I'm glad you did." Joe, upset, looked into the young officer's eyes.

"Is there anyone who stands out in your mind at Crozet Hospital?" Coop had been making notes in her notebook.

"No. Well, I met the director and the assistant director, that sort of thing. I talked to a few of the nurses. The nurses are the ones who use the infusion pumps. That's why the simpler the model, the better it is. You can make these devices too complicated. Nurses have to use them, they're overburdened, tired-keep it simple." His voice boomed.

"How serious would a malfunctioning unit be?" Coop asked.

"Life and death." Laura folded her long fingers together as if in prayer. "An improper dosage could kill a patient."

After they left Salvage Masters they drove east on Route 50, ten miles into Middleburg. Harry took her chaps to Journeyman Saddlery to have them repaired, since Chuck Pinnell in Charlottesville was off to another Olympics. As he was one of the best leatherworkers in the nation, with a deep understanding of riders' needs, he had been invited to the Olympics to repair tack for all the competitors, not just Americans.

"Coop, look at these neat colors and the trims you can get, too."

Cynthia felt the samples, played with putting colors together. "It really is beautiful."

"They can put your initials on the back or on the side. They can make leather rosebuds on the belt or whatever. It's just incredible."

"I can see that."

"Mine's a plain pair of pigskin chaps with cream trim and my initials on the back, see?" Harry showed her the back of the chaps belt.

"Uh-huh." Cynthia was gravitating toward black calfskin.

"You know, if you had a pair of chaps made to your body, you might even learn to jump. I'd let you ride Gin Fizz. He's a sweetie. Then, too, chaps have other uses." She had a devilish glitter in her eye.

Coop weakened, allowing herself to be measured. She chose black calfskin, smooth side out, no fringe, and a thin green contrasting strip down the leg and on the belt, also calfskin. She had her initials centered on the back of the belt in a small diamond configuration. The waiting period would be three months.

All the way back to Crozet the two women discussed uses for the chaps as well as the pressing matter at hand: how to trap the killer or killers into making a mistake.

It only takes one mistake.

39

The two cats and the dog had heard about the trip to Upper-ville and Middleburg. They huddled in the back of the post office by the animal door. Outside a hard frost was melting as the temperature at ten in the morning was forty-five degrees and rising quickly. February could run you crazy with the wild weather fluctuations.

"That's what those machines are we found. The pumps that should have gone to Salvage Masters." Pewter held her tail in her paw. She'd meant to clean it but in the excitement of the news she'd forgotten.

Mrs. Murphy, already one step ahead of her, replied, "Yes, of course, but that's not the real problem. You see-" As the two animals drew closer to her she lowered her voice. "Those machines have to be rehabbed. That's why they're down there. Whoever is stashing them can't put them back into use without cleaning them, right?"

"Why not?" Tucker asked.

"Either they won't work or they'll work improperly. Which means complaints to Salvage Masters and the game is up. Whoever is doing this has to crawl down in that space and clean the pumps. I should think that part wouldn't be too hard. Well, the person has to get in and out undetected. What's difficult is if a machine needs more work than just cleaning. See?" Mrs. Murphy swept her pointed, refined ears forward.

"No, I don't see," Pewter confessed.

"I do." Tucker licked the gray cat's face. "Someone has to understand these machines."

"Oh." Pewter's face brightened. "I get it."

"Think it through," Murphy counseled patiently. "The infusion pumps are small. One person, a small person, a child even, can pick them up, roll them, move them around. The hospital routine isn't ruffled. For years these pumps have been removed for cleaning. Right?" The dog and other cat nodded in agreement. "Whoever picks them up is in on it."

"Not necessarily," Tucker contradicted her. "An orderly or janitor could pick them up and take them to the basement for shipping out. Then they could be removed to where we found them."

"True." The pretty tiger was getting excited because she felt she was getting close to figuring this out. "That's a good point, Tucker. The fewer people who know, the better. And someone has to run off the fake invoices. H-m-m."

"Okay, let's review." Tucker caught Murphy's excitement. "We have a person or persons good at using a computer. It sounds easy, copying a bill, but it isn't and the paper matches, too. So they're pretty good. We have a person or persons with mechanical skill. Right?"

"Right," the two kitties echoed.

"And there has to be someone higher up. Someone who can cover for them. Someone very, very smart because the chances are, that's the mastermind behind this. That person recruited the others. How often does an employee woo the boss into crime?" Tucker stood up, panting from her mental efforts.

"Well done, Tucker." Mrs. Murphy rubbed along the dog's body.

"How can we get a human to the hidden room?" Pewter cocked her head, her long whiskers twitching.

"We can't," Mrs. Murphy flatly replied. "First off, anyone we might lure there in the hospital could be in on it. We'd wait downstairs and who is downstairs but the plant crew, as Sam Mahanes calls them. You know one of them has to be in on it. Has to be. We'd be toast."

"Hank Brevard." Pewter's green eyes grew large. "He was the one. And he had his throat slit."

"Maybe he got greedy. If he'd kept at his task why kill him? Think about it. Whoever is on top of this sordid little pyramid is creaming the bulk of the profits. Hank figured out somewhere along the line that he was an important person in the profit chain and he wanted more. He asks for more or threatens. Sayonara." Murphy glanced at Miranda and Harry sorting out the parcels, tossing them in various bins or putting them on the shelves, numbers like the postboxes.

"Which means if the money is to keep rolling in, our Number One Guy will soon need to recruit someone else." Tucker was getting an uneasy feeling.

"He might be able to do the work himself," Pewter said.

"That's possible but if he's high up on the totem pole he isn't going to have the time, number one, and number two, he isn't going to be seen heading to the basement a lot. Eventually that would be a tip-off, especially after Hank's death." Mrs. Murphy's mind raced along.

"When Mom got clunked on the head-it must have been him." Tucker hoped Harry wouldn't go back to the hospital but she knew her mother's burning curiosity, which was why she'd been feeling uneasy.

"Everyone knows that Harry is both smart and curious. Smart for a human. I hope as long as she stays away from the hospital, she's okay, but she's friends with Coop. If I were the killer that would be worrisome. Look how fast he struck when Larry was finding discrepancies, and they probably weren't critical yet because if they were Larry would have gone straight to Sheriff Shaw. He wouldn't have waited." The tiger began to pace.

"If it were just one person . . ." Pewter's voice trailed off; then she spoke louder. "We've got at least two. Mom might be able to handle one but two-well, I don't know."

"And no bites yet on Bristol, the missing dog? We've got to find out who that is," Mrs. Murphy fretted.

"Mim would tell Rick if anything had happened," Tucker said.

"Well, nothing's happened on that front yet." Murphy sighed. They were wrong about that.

40

Fair stood at the divider counter sorting out his mail. "You know Dr. Flynn's got two gorgeous stallions standing at Barracks Stud."

"Yeah. I thought I'd breed Poptart in a few years. She's still pretty young and I need her. If she's bred . . ." Harry's voice trailed off as there was no need to say she'd be out of work for at least the last three months of her pregnancy and then out of work until the foal was weaned.

"I like Fred Astaire, too." Fair mentioned a beautifully bred Thoroughbred stallion at Albemarle Stud.

"Doesn't everyone?" Harry smiled as she threw metered mail in one pile, since it needed a second hand-cancellation for the date.

"Now's what's the difference between one stallion and another?" Mrs. Hogendobber, not a horse person, asked.

"Kind of the difference between one man and another." Fair laughed.

"Don't get racy. I'll blush." Miranda's cheeks did turn rosier.

"It depends on what you're looking for, Miranda. Let's say you have a good Thoroughbred mare, she's well bred and she has good conformation. She didn't win a lot of races but she's pretty good. You'll search around-and you can do this on the Net, by the way-for a stallion whose bloodlines are compatible and who also has good conformation. You might want more speed or more bone or more staying power. That's in the blood. Breeding is as much an art as a science."

"Don't forget luck." Harry pressed the heavy rubber stamp in the maroon postal ink.

"There sure is that," the tall blond man agreed. "Miranda, if breeding were just a matter of study, we'd all be winning the Triple Crown. So much can happen. If you get a live foal-"

"What do you mean, a live foal?" The older woman assumed they'd all be live.

"A mare can slip or not catch in the first place." Noticing the puzzled look he explained, "A mare can not get pregnant even though you've done everything by the book. Or she can get pregnant yet abort early in the pregnancy. Strange as it may sound, it isn't that easy to get mares pregnant. A conception rate of sixty percent by a vet specializing in breeding is respectable. There's a vet in Pennsylvania who averages in the ninety percent range, but he's extraordinary. Let's say your mare gives birth. A mare can have a breech delivery the same as a woman but it's much worse for a mare. If those long legs with hooves get twisted up or tear her womb you can imagine the crisis. Foals can strangle on the umbilical cord or be starved for oxygen and never be quite right. They can be born dead."

"It sounds awful."

"Most times it isn't but sometimes it really is and your heart sinks to your toes. You know how much the owner has put into the breeding both financially and emotionally. Around here people are attached to their mares. We don't have huge breeding establishments so just about everything I see is a homebred. Lots of emotion."

"Yes, I can see that. Why, if Mrs. Murphy had kittens I think I'd be so concerned for her."

"Thank you." Murphy, half asleep in the mail cart, yawned.

Pewter, curled up next to her, giggled. "Some mother you'd be."

"Look who's talking. You selfish thing, you'd starve your own children if there weren't enough food. I can see the headlines now. 'Cat starves kittens. Is fat as a tick.'"

"Shut up."

"You started it."

"Did not," Pewter hissed.

"Did too."

"Not."

"Too." Murphy swatted Pewter right on the head.

"Bully!" Pewter rolled over to grapple with the thinner cat.

A great hissing, growling, and flailing was heard from the mail cart. Harry and Miranda tiptoed over to view the excitement. Fair watched from the other side of the counter.

Tucker, on her side, lifted her head, then dropped it. "Cats."

"Fatty, fatty, two by four," Murphy sang out.

"Mean. Hateful and mean!" Pewter was holding her own.

The mail cart rolled a bit. Harry, devilish, gave it a shove.

"Hey!" Murphy clambered over the side, dropped to the ground, put her ears back, and stomped right by her mother.

"Whee!" Pewter crouched down for the ride.

Harry trotted over, grabbed the end of the mail cart. "Okey dokey, smoky. Here we go." She pushed the mail cart all around the back of the post office as Pewter rose up to put her paws on the front. The cat loved it. Murphy sulked, finally going over to Tucker to sit next to the dog, who wanted no part of a cat fight.

"It's a three-ring circus around here." Miranda laughed.

"You look good in hunter green. I meant to tell you that when I walked in." Fair complimented her dress.

"Why, thank you, Fair. Now where were we before Mrs. Murphy and Pewter interrupted us?"

"Mares. Actually once you deliver a healthy foal life begins to shine a little. There are always worries. The mare's milk could be lacking in proper nutrition. The foal's legs could be crooked although usually they straighten out and if not then I go to work. Nothing intrusive. I believe less is more and let nature do her work. But short of a foal running through a board fence in a thunderstorm, once you've got a healthy baby on the ground, you're doing great."

"What about diseases?"

"Usually protection comes in the mother's milk. In that sense it's like kittens or puppies. They receive immunity from the mother. In time that immunity wears off and then you need to be vigilant. But nature truly is amazing and a foal arrives much more prepared to negotiate the world than a human baby. With both babies, the more they're handled the better they become. I think, anyway."

"You're the doctor." Mrs. H. smiled.

"Here, why don't you take these back?" He shoved bills across the counter.

"Happy to." She playfully grabbed them.

"Want mine, too?" Harry usually got to her own mail last.

"We could burn them," Fair suggested.

"They'd just come back," Harry ruefully observed.

"Somewhere in this vast nation exists a person with an incredible mind, a person who can crack computer codes. I pray that person will wipe out everyone's IRS files and save our country. I dream about it at night. I believe in a national sales tax. Then everyone knows what they're paying. No hidden taxes. If the government can't run itself on those monies then the government can cut back. If I have to cut back as a private citizen I can expect my government to do the same. That's exactly what I think."

"Bravo." Harry finished canceling the metered mail. "Run for office."

"Little Mim has beat me to it." He shuffled his mail, organizing it into a pile according to letter size.

"That rebellion has taken second place to the mess around here. Maybe that's a good thing. Little Mim doesn't seem to know what she's searching for but young people worry more these days than we did."

"I don't know," said Harry. "Maybe after a long time you forget. You know, you forget the pain but hold on to the good part of the memory."

"Could be. Could be." Miranda smiled at Fair, who smiled back, as both were hoping Harry had done this with memories of her marriage.

"Tucker, why don't we sneak out tonight and go to the hospital? I bet those pumps get brought in as well as cleaned at night."

Pewter called out from the mail cart. "That's a seven-mile hike and it's cold at night, real cold." Her voice lowered.

"I don't mean from the farm, dimwit. I mean just before Harry leaves work we run off."

"Oh, I don't know. She'll catch us." Pewter wanted to go home after work. Supper beckoned.

"Not if we run under Mrs. Hogendobber's porch."

"Murphy, we could head straight to the hospital. All we have to do is go through yards. One road crossing but we can handle that." Tucker was thinking out loud.

"If we do that, she'll follow us. If we get close enough to the hospital I know she'll go in. She'll forget her promises and just go right in. Can't have that." Mrs. Murphy knew her human to the bone.

"It will be cold," came the mournful whine from the mail cart.

"That's why you have fur," Murphy tartly replied.

"Fine."

Murphy and Tucker looked at one another and shrugged.

At closing the tiger and corgi blasted out the back animal door. Pewter stuck close to Harry as she chased her bad pets. Although curious, the gray cat wanted to snuggle up on the sofa in front of the fire after her tuna supper. She wasn't that curious.

Harry and Miranda tried to cut off the cat and dog but the animals easily eluded them.

"Every now and then." Harry shook her head.

"I'll keep my eyes open for them."

"Thanks, Miranda. I'll leave the animal door unlocked, too. I don't know what it is. They get a notion." She glanced up at the sky. "At least it looks like it will be a clear night. No storms rolling in."

Defeated, Harry bundled Pewter into the cab of the old truck to head home.

"They're very naughty." Pewter sat right next to Harry.

"You're a good kitty." Harry rubbed her head.

"I'd like fresh tuna, please," Pewter purred, half closing her eyes, which gave her a sweet countenance.

Murphy and Tucker reached the hospital just as the loading dock was shutting down. They scooted in, hearing the big rolling doors lock behind them.

"Going to be a long night," Murphy observed.

"Yeah but someone might open the back door later. We'll get out."

"No matter what, we know we can escape in the morning. I bet if we scrounge around we'll find something to eat."

They could hear the elevator doors open and close. The shift was changing. Day workers were going home and the night crew, much smaller in number, was coming to work. Then silence. Not even a footfall.

Just to make sure they remembered the layout they walked down the halls, checked the boiler room in the center, poked their heads into those closet doors that were open.

Finally they walked into the carton room.

"Clever, leaving this door open, filling it with cartons. As though there is nothing to hide," Murphy noted.

"You can hide better than I can." Tucker searched the room. "What if I lie flat over here in the darkest corner and you push a carton over me. I think that will work. After all, no one is expecting a corgi here."

"Right."

As Murphy covered up Tucker they both heard a footfall, a light footfall.

Wordlessly, the cat climbed to the top of the cartons, wedging herself between two of them. She could see everything. Tucker's face, ears covered, poked out from the carton in the dark corner. Both held their breath.

Tussie Logan softly walked inside carrying a pump. She pressed the stone in the wall. The floor door slid aside. She climbed down the ladder, pressed a button down there, and the floor quietly closed up.

Neither animal moved. Three hours later the floor yawned open. Tussie climbed up the ladder, then pressed the stone. She watched the flagstone roll back, tested it with her foot, brushed off her hands, put her nurse's cap back on, and left, yawning as she walked.

They could hear her move down the hall but she didn't go to the elevator bank. Instead she opened the back door and left.

Tucker grunted as she shook off the carton. "That floor is cold."

"Let's see if we can get out of here."

The two hurried to the lone door at the end of the hall.

Tucker stood on her hind legs. "You maybe can do this."

Murphy reached up but it was a little high. "Nope."

"Get on my back."

The cat hopped onto the corgi's strong back. She easily reached the doorknob and her clever paws did the rest. They opened the door and scooted out without bothering to close it.

Within twenty minutes they were scratching at Miranda's back door.

She opened it. "Nine-thirty at night and cold. Now just what were you two bad critters doing out there?"

"If only we could tell you," Mrs. Murphy sighed.

"Come on. Bet you're hungry," said the kindly woman, who would feed the world if she could figure out how.

When the phone rang at ten that same cold night Mim, early to bed, grudgingly picked it up.

A muffled voice said, "Your barn, tomorrow morning at nine." Then hung up.

Mim had caller ID and quickly called Sheriff Shaw at home.

"823-9497." He repeated the number as she read it to him.

"She must have had fabric or something over the mouthpiece but it was a woman," Mim stated, "and she sounded familiar."

"Thanks. You've done good work. I'll have someone in the hayloft tomorrow and another officer flat in the backseat of your car. Park your car at the barn."

"I will."

When Rick checked the phone number it turned out to be the pay phone in the supermarket parking lot.

Harry chastised Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, neither of whom appeared remorseful, which only infuriated her more. She thanked Miranda for keeping them overnight. That was at seven in the morning.

By seven-thirty Rob Collier had dropped off two canvas sacks of mail, a light day. As Harry sorted mail and Miranda tackled the packages and manila envelopes, the two bold creatures told Pewter everything.

"Nurse Logan. Tussie Logan?" Pewter couldn't believe it. "It's hard to imagine her as a killer."

"We didn't say she was the killer. Only that she went down into the room and came back out three hours later. We assume she's cleaning the infusion pumps." Mrs. Murphy allowed herself a lordly tone.

"Remember the first three letters of assume." Pewter smarted off.

41

A spiral of blue smoke lazed upward for a few feet, then flattened out. Whenever smoke descended hunters felt that scent would be good. Rick, not being a foxhunter, would have gladly picked up a good scent, figuratively speaking. He felt he was on the cusp of knowledge yet it eluded him like a receding wave.

The temperature hovered in the low forties but the air carried the hint of snow. He looked west at the gunmetal-blue clouds peeping over the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Turning up the collar of his jacket, he stood on a knoll a half mile from Mim's barn. Coop, next to him, held a cell phone in her hand. They waited for the call from the barn.

"You know I've always felt that killers, like painters, eventually leave a body of work behind so distinctive that you can identify them-by looking at the canvas. Some people kill out of self-defense. Understandable. Admirable even, and hard to fault." A plume of air escaped his lips.

"As long as those killers are men. If a wife kills in self-defense against an abusive husband people find reasons why she shouldn't have done so. In fact, boss, killing seems to still be male turf."

"Yep, for the most part it is. We jealously guard our propensity for violence. That's the real reason the services have trouble with women in combat. Scares the men." He half laughed. "If she's got an Uzi, she's as powerful as I am."

She hunched up. The wind picked up. She checked her watch. Nine-fifteen. No call.

They waited until ten-thirty, then walked back to the barn. Mim and the two officers at the barn were bitterly disappointed.

Mim returned to her house accompanied by one of the officers.

"Stay in the barn office until noon unless you hear from me," Rick ordered the other man. Then he and Cooper trudged through the woods to their squad car parked in the hay shed on a farm road. The ground was frozen. They'd drive out without getting stuck.

Once inside the car they sat for a moment while the heater warmed the vehicle and Rick squashed his cigarette in the ashtray.

"Boss." Coop unzipped her coat. "Harry had an idea."

"Sweet Jesus." He whistled.

"The Cramers foxhunt with Middleburg Hunt and Orange, too."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He turned toward her, his heavy beard shadow giving his jaw a bluish tinge.

"According to Harry it means they hunt with fast packs, they're good riders."

"So what?"

"So, she said invite them down to hunt. It might rattle our killer."

"Harry thought of that, did she?" He leaned back, putting both hands behind his head. "Remind me to take that girl to lunch."

"The sight of them might provoke our guy to do something stupid."

"We still have to keep somebody with them. No chances. Can you ride good enough to stay with them?"

"No, but Graham Pitsenberger can and so can Lieutenant-Colonel Dennis Foster. They're both tough guys. They'll be armed, .38s tucked away in arm holsters or the small of the back. We can trust them."

"You've asked them?"

"Yes. Graham will come over from Staunton. Dennis will drive down from Leesburg. Harry said she'll mount them."

"That sounds exciting," he wryly noted.

"I'll go with the Hilltoppers."

"God, Cooper, I can't keep track of all this horse lingo."

"Hilltoppers don't jump. It will take me a while before I can negotiate those jumps. I will though." A determined set to her jaw made her look the way she must have looked as a child when told no by her mother.

"I'll stick to fishing. Not that I have the time. I've been promising Herb we'd go over to Highland County to fish for the last four years." He sighed, cracking his knuckles behind his head.

"You haven't spit on dogs or cussed Christians so I guess it's all right?"

"Where do you get these expressions?" He smiled at her. "I'm a Virginia boy and I haven't heard some of them."

"I get around." She winked.

"When are the Cramers coming?"

"This Saturday."

"I'll try to get there for part of it, anyway."

"Roger."

"Let's cruise." He put the car in gear. "Maybe if we're lucky we'll catch this perp before there's more harm done."

What neither of them knew was that they were already too late.

42

"Ran down over everything, part of my ceiling fell in." Randy Sands, bone white, coughed, composed himself, and continued, "so I banged on the door and shouted and then I opened the door. I guess that's when I knew something was-was not right." He coughed again.

Rick sympathetically put his arm around Randy's thin shoulders. "Quite a shock, Randy."

"Well, I yelled for her but she didn't answer so I went straight to the bathroom." His lower lip trembled. "The rest you know."

In the background the rescue squad removed the body of Tussie Logan. The fingerprint team had come and gone.

Coop figured from the body that Tussie had been in the tub perhaps four or five hours. Whoever shot her had come up behind her and shot down through the heart, one shot.

"Randy, how long have you owned this house?" Rick asked as Coop joined him.

"Since Momma died." Randy thought this information was sufficient.

"When was that?"

"Nineteen ninety-two." He fidgeted when the body was rolled out on the gurney even though it was in a body bag. "She was a good-looking woman. I hated to see her like that."

"Yes." Rick guided him to the sofa. "Sit down, Randy. Your first impressions are valuable to us and I know you're shaken but I have to ask questions."

Shaken though he was, it wasn't often that Randy Sands was the center of attention. He sat on the wicker sofa, brightly colored cushions behind him. Rick sat in a chair opposite the sofa. Coop quietly examined each room in the airy upstairs apartment.

"Did Tussie lock her doors?"

The clapboard house with the wraparound porch built in 1904 was halfway between Charlottesville and Crozet, situated back off Garth Road. The location was convenient to the hospital yet afforded privacy and a touch of the country. Randy couldn't always keep up with the forty-two acres. Tussie enjoyed mowing the lawn on the riding mower, edging the flower beds, and hanging plants on the porch.

"Where were you today?"

"At work. I came home around five-thirty. Finished a little early today. That's when I found Tussie."

"Where do you work, Randy?"

"Chromatech. Off the downtown mall. My bosses Lucia and Chuck Morse can verify my hours." A slightly belligerent tone infected his voice.

"I'm sure they can. Now do you have any idea who would kill Tussie?"

"No." He shook his head.

"Drugs?"

"No. Never."

"Drinking?"

"No. Well, socially but I never saw her drunk. I can't imagine who would do this."

"Is anything obvious missing? Jewelry? Money? Paintings?"

"I didn't check her jewelry box. I stayed right here in the living room. I-" He didn't want to say he was afraid to walk from room to room.

"Boss." Cynthia Cooper called from the glassed-in back porch, which had been a sleeping loft in the old days.

"Excuse me, Randy. You wait here." Rick walked down the hallway to the back.

The porch overlooked the meadows, the mountains beyond. Filled with light, it was a wonderful place to work. A bookshelf rested against the back wall. Her desk, a door over two file cabinets, was in the middle of the narrow room, coldish except for a space heater on the floor.

"Here." Coop pointed to a very expensive computer and laser printer.

"Huh. Must have cost close to six thousand dollars."

"This computer and printer can do anything. The quality is very high."

"Invoices?" Rick wanted another cigarette but stopped himself from reaching for the pack in his inside coat pocket. "Maybe."

"Is everything all right?" Randy's querulous voice wafted back to them.

"Yes, fine," Rick called back. "Coop, can you get into the computer?"

"Yes, I think so."

"I'll keep Randy busy. Maybe I'll walk him outside. He can show me if there's a back way in." Rick winked and returned to the slender man in the corduroy pants.

Coop sat down, flicked on the computer. Tussie had lots of e-mail. She had been plugged into a nurses' chat room. She'd taped a list of passwords on the side of her computer, a defense against forgetfulness perhaps. Coop went through the passwords finally hitting pay dirt with "Nightingale." Coop perused the messages. She then pulled up the graphics package, which was extensive.

"I could sit here all day and play with this," Coop said to herself, wishing she could afford the same system.

Tussie had a code. Coop couldn't crack it.

After checking out what she could, she shut off the computer and walked to the bedroom. With gloved hands she lifted the lid on the leather jewelry box. Earrings, bracelets, and necklaces were thrown in together. She opened the top drawer of the dresser. Silk underwear was jumbled. A green savings bankbook rested under the eggplant-colored underwear.

She pulled it out, flipped the white pages to the last balance. "Wow." She whistled.

Tussie's savings account balance as of February 25 was $139,990.36.

"I'm beginning to get the picture," Coop said to herself.

Once she and Rick were together in the squad car she informed him of her finds. They wondered where and how Hank Brevard had hidden his profits. To date they'd found nothing in that department.

Rick picked up the phone, calling in to headquarters. He ordered the department computer whiz to see if he could crack Tussie's code.

"Screwy, isn't it?" Coop wiggled down in her seat, hunching her shoulders. "What's the plan, boss?"

"First we'll go to Sam Mahanes, which means he'll call for his lawyers."

"Right. Then he'll express grief."

"Then we'll go to Bruce Buxton."

"More shock and dismay but in a different way."

"We'll go to her Pediatric unit. And then you and I are going to walk through this hospital one more time. As many times as it takes over the next few days, weeks, or whatever. We know there are false billings. We know those infusion pumps have to be cleaned and rehabbed. They have to be in that hospital somewhere. Damn, it's right under our noses!"

Coop, having heard that before, sat up straight and said nothing. She was wondering why a woman like Tussie Logan got involved in the scam in the first place. Tussie seemed like a nice enough person. She knew right from wrong. She knew what she was doing was wrong-even before the murders. Maybe Tussie was one of the murderers. How does a woman like that get into something like this? She knew what Tussie Logan had done was wrong and she knew Tussie knew it was wrong.

Coop expected more of women than men. It surprised her. She'd never thought of herself as a sexist but her response to Tussie's criminal behavior gave her a gleam of insight into her own self. She wasn't sure she liked it.

43

The Church of the Holy Light, in order to raise money for Herb's God's Love group, was holding a bake sale at the small old train station. Given that the ladies of the church had earned fame for their skills, the place was mobbed.

Miranda Hogendobber baked orange-glazed cinnamon buns as well as luscious breads.

Harry held down the fort at the post office. She and Miranda spelled one another. Sometimes it was nice to scoot out of work early or take a long lunch.

Everyone noticed when the Rescue Squad ambulance pulled out of the brick garage and they also noticed when it drove by, heading out of town.

Big Mim, as Crozet's leading citizen, felt she should be informed of every single event the moment it occurred. She flipped out her tiny cell phone, dialing the sheriff's office.

"Mother." Little Mim thought her mother could have at least walked outside to call, but then again it was cold.

"Don't tell me what to do." She tapped her foot, clad in exquisite crocodile loafers. "Ah, hello. Is the sheriff in? Well, have him call me then, Natalie." She dropped her voice as she worked over the daytime dispatcher. "You don't know who just rolled by in the ambulance, do you? Well, have him call me on my cell phone. Thanks. Bye." She pressed the Off button, folded her phone, slipping it in her purse.

"People do have heart attacks without consulting you." The daughter smiled sweetly as she drove home a light barb.

"They shouldn't. They shouldn't do anything without consulting me." Mim smiled sweetly right back. "I suppose I ought to buy some brownies."

"The orange cinnamons are all gone."

"Really, Miranda should open her own bakery. She's got a gift." Mim noticed the squad car with Rick and Coop stopping at the post office. "Here." She handed her daughter fifty dollars. "I'm going across the street."

"Without me?"

"Oh, Marilyn. Just buy the stuff and join me." Mim was out the door before she finished her sentence.

Rick and Cooper set foot in the post office but before they could open their mouths, Mim charged in. "Did Natalie call you?"

"About one minute ago." He exhaled from his nostrils. "I was going to call you as soon as I finished here."

Big Mim's eyebrows raised up. What could be so important that Harry had to be consulted first?

"Bad news." Pewter trotted over from the small table in the rear.

"Why don't you all come back here?" Harry flipped up the divider as Mrs. Murphy stretched herself on the narrow shelf behind the postboxes. Tucker, awake, watched.

Rick realized he was going to have to tell Mim something, so he thought he'd get that over with first. "Randy Sands found Tussie Logan in her bathtub shot to death."

"What?" Mim clapped her hands together, a gesture of surprise.

"How did he know?" Harry asked the pointed question.

"The water was running and it came through his ceiling below. He came home from work, noticed it, and ran upstairs. He's in a bad way. I called Reverend Jones to go on out there."

"Shot." Mim sat down hard in one of the wooden chairs at the table.

"Well, that's no surprise to us," Mrs. Murphy said.

"Being in on it and being dead are two different things," Tucker sagely noted.

"Ugh." Pewter hated the thought of dead big bodies. She didn't mind mice, mole, or bird bodies but anything larger than that turned her stomach.

"Good Lord. I wonder if it was Tussie who called me?" Mim was incredulous.

"Her death ought to tell you that." Murphy paced on the narrow ledge.

"If they knew what we knew, it would." Tucker had more patience with human frailty than the cat.

"How long had she been dead?" Harry was figuring in her mind whether the killer crept up by night or by day.

Rick added, "It's hard to tell. Tom Yancy will know."

"Struggle?" Harry was still reeling from the news of the murder and that Tussie was the chain-letter writer.

"No," Coop simply stated.

"Whoever it was may have been known to her but having anyone walk into your bath ought to provoke some sort of response from a lady." Mim saw her daughter, laden with food, leave the train station to put the booty in her car.

"I don't know but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to walk into a bathroom and pull the trigger. She wouldn't have time to struggle. This was fast and effective." Rick slipped a cigarette out of the pack. "Ladies?"

"No. I thought you quit." Mim didn't care if anyone smoked or not.

"I quit frequently." He lit up.

"Why do humans do that?" Pewter hated the smell.

"To soothe their nerves," Murphy said.

"It ruins their lungs." Tucker also hated the smell.

"You don't see cats smoking," Pewter smugly said, secure that this proved yet again the superiority of cats.

Murphy kept pacing. "Rick's not just here to deliver the news. Mom wouldn't be first for that."

"Yeah, that's true," Tucker agreed.

"Harry, I think we'd better cancel having the Cramers hunt tomorrow. It's too dangerous. And I'm going to have Coop stay with you at night until-" He noticed Little Mim walking toward the post office.

"The Cramers?" Mim's voice rose. "Do I know the Cramers?"

"No." Harry quickly spoke for she, too, saw Little Mim. "They hunt with Orange and Middleburg."

"Must be good." Mim wanted to know what was going on.

"Mrs. Sanburne." Rick leaned over. "We're close to our killer here. I know you like to be in on everything but right now I would expose you to danger, serious danger. The reason I'm here with Harry is that she was struck over the head at the hospital."

Mim raised an eyebrow, saying nothing, since Miranda had sworn her to secrecy when she told her, but Mim had figured it out anyway. Rick continued. "I can't take a chance. The killer or killers may think she knows more than she does."

"And I don't know anything." Harry shrugged. "Wish I did."

"What do the Cramers have to do with Harry?"

"Well, uh, we were going to hunt together tomorrow. They're in the hospital business and-"

"Mrs. Sanburne, I promise you I'll fill you in as soon as we're-" He paused, searching for the right words. "Over the hump. Now could I ask you to intercept your daughter before she gets in here? Just give me two minutes with Harry."

Mollified slightly, Mim stood up, walked over, flipping up the divider, and caught Marilyn just as her hand was on the doorknob. She ushered her back toward the car across the street.

"Rick. Let the Cramers hunt. It will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. We've got Graham, we've got Dennis. They're military men. They're horsemen. They know what they're doing. They can protect the Cramers. Dennis is riding down with them in their rig and he'll ride back. I really believe we can shake our gorilla out of the tree tomorrow."

"It's a hell of a chance." Rick ran his fingers through his thinning hair. He knew Harry had a point but he hated to risk civilians, as he thought of them.

"Coop, I know we can do this. I wouldn't use the Cramers as bait if I didn't think it would flush him out," Harry pleaded.

"Yeah, Harry, I know, but I just saw Tussie Logan."

Rick and Coop stared at one another.

Rick puffed, then put down his cigarette. "Okay."

44

The Hunt Club hounds met at Tally Urquhart's farm at ten in the morning. Rose Hill, one of the oldest and most beautiful farms in Albemarle County, was a plum fixture, fixture being what meeting places are called.

The home itself, built of bricks baked on-site in the mid-eighteenth century, glowed with the patina of age. Tally herself glowed with the patina of age at ninety-two. She said ninety-two. Mim, her niece, swore that Tally was a hair older but at least everyone agreed she was triumphantly in her nineties.

Tally would stride into a room, still walking mostly upright, shake her silver-headed cane, a hound's head, at the congregation and declare, "I am two years older than God so do what I say and get out of my way."

And people did. Even Mim.

Years ago, back in the 1960s, Tally had been Master of the Jefferson Hunt. Her imperiousness wore thin but her ample contributions to the treasury ensured a long mastership. She finally retired on her eightieth birthday, amid much fanfare.

Everyone thought Mim would vie to be Master but she declined, saying she had enough to do, which was true. But truthfully, Mim wanted to keep her hunting pure fun and if she were Master it would be pure politics. She practiced that in other arenas.

Jane Arnold found herself elected Master and had remained at her post ever since.

A chill from the mountains settled into the meadows. Harry's hands were so cold she stiffly fastened Poptart's girth. She had introduced Laura and Joe Cramer to Jane per custom. There was no need to introduce Graham Pitsenberger, Joint-Master of Glenmore Hunt, nor Lt. Col. Dennis Foster, the Director of the Master of Foxhounds of America Association.

Master and staff didn't know the true reason for their company. Jane graciously invited these guests to ride up front with her.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. If Joe and Laura were up front, nothing much could happen that she could foresee. If they fell behind, well, anything was possible.

Aunt Tally waved everyone off, then hurried back to the house before the chill could get her. Also, she was hosting the breakfast and it had to be perfect.

Dennis and Graham had conferred by phone before the hunt. Each man wore a .38 under his coat, low near the belt so the gun could be easily retrieved if needed.

Susan, Little Mim, and Harry rode behind Big Mim, who rode immediately behind the Cramers and the two men. It would never do to pass Big Mim in the hunt field, but since her Thoroughbreds were fast and she was a consummate rider, there was little chance that would happen.

The hounds hit right behind the cattle barns and within minutes everyone was flying up the hill behind the barns, down into the narrow ravine, across the creek, and then they boomed over open meadows which would soon be sown with oats.

Sam Mahanes rode in the middle of the pack, as did the bulk of the field. A few stragglers, struggling at the creek, brought up the rear.

Dr. Bruce Buxton rode back with the Hilltoppers since he was trying a new horse. Being a cautious rider, he wasn't ready to ride a new horse in the first flight.

They flew along for fifteen minutes, then stopped. The hounds, noses to the ground, tried to figure out just where Reynard lost them. A lovely tricolored female ran up a large tree, blown over in a windstorm, its top branches caught in the branches of another large tree. The angle of the fallen tree must have been thirty degrees. The top of the tree hung over a large, swift-moving creek.

Finally a brave hound plunged into the creek and started working on the other side.

"He's on this side," the hound called out to his companions.

"I knew it!" the tricolor female, still on the tree, shouted. "He ran up this tree and dropped into the creek. Swam to the other side. Oh, he's a smart one, he is."

Within a minute the whole pack had crossed the creek. The humans and horses, however, slipped and slid, trying to find a negotiable crossing. Jane, leading the humans, rode about one hundred yards downstream to find a better place. She motioned for the others to follow her quickly for the hounds were streaking across the meadow.

Laura Cramer, sitting her horse beautifully, jumped down the bank, trotted across the creek, and then jumped out. Her husband followed. Mim, of course, rode this as though she were at Madison Square Garden. Everybody made it except for a little girl on a pony. The water swirled up over the saddle. She let out a yell. Her mom retrieved her, and both walked back home, the kid crying her eyes out, not because she was cold and wet but because her mother made her stop hunting. She didn't care if she caught a cold. It would mean she might miss some school. Mothers could be mean.

Harry and Poptart observed a movement out of the corner of their eyes. The fox had turned, heading back toward the creek.

Harry stopped, turned her half-bred in the direction of the fox, took off her hunt cap, counted to twenty to give the fox a sporting chance, and then said, "Tally Ho."

Jane raised her whip hand, stopping the field. Everyone got a splendid view of a medium-sized red fox rolling along at a trot. He reached the creek, jumped in, but didn't emerge on the other side. He swam downstream, finally jumping out, and he then walked across a log, stopped, checked where the hounds were. Then he decided to put some distance between himself and these canine cousins.

Graham stood up in his stirrups and laughed. He was a man who enjoyed being outsmarted by this varmint. Dennis noticed the First Whipper-In flying along the top of the ridge ahead of the hounds but to the right of the fox. No hunting person, staff or field, ever wants to turn the fox.

The Huntsman watched proudly as his hounds curved back, soared off the bank into the creek, coming out on the other side. Now they had to find the scent, which was along the bank but a good football field or more downstream. The Huntsman jumped straight down the bank.

Laura whispered to Joe, "Think we'll have to do that?"

"You go first." He laughed.

Jane wheeled back, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor. She'd recross at their original crossing site and then gallop along the stream to try and catch up, for she knew the Huntsman would push his hounds up to the line of scent as fast as he could.

Within minutes the hounds sang out. Harry's blood raced. Susan giggled. She always giggled when the pedal pushed to the metal.

They slopped across the creek, jumped up the bank, and thundered alongside it, jumping fallen logs, dodging debris. The path opened up; an abandoned meadow beckoned ahead, a few scraggly opportunistic cedars marring it.

They shot across that meadow, hounds now flying. They crossed a narrow creek, much easier, and headed up the side of a steep hill, the tree line silhouetted against a gray, threatening sky.

Once they reached the crest of the hill, the hounds turned toward the mountains. The field began to stretch out. Some whose horses were not in condition pooped out. Others bought some real estate, mud stains advertising the fact. About half the field was still riding hard when the crest of the ridge thinned out, finally dipping into a wide ravine with yet another swift-running creek in it.

They reached the bottom to watch all the hounds furiously digging at an old tree trunk. The fox had ducked into his den. There was no way the hounds, much too big for the den, could flush him out, plus he had lots of hidden exits if things grew too hot. But the Huntsman dismounted to blow, "Gone to ground." The hounds leapt up, dug, bayed, full of themselves.

The fox moved farther back into the den, utterly disgusted with the noise. Why a member of the canine family would want to live with humans baffled the fox. Humans smelled bad, plus they were so dumb. No amount of regular food could overcome those flaws.

After a fulsome celebration, the Huntsman mounted back up.

"Shall I hunt them back, Master?"

"Oh, why not?" She smiled.

On the way back they picked up a bit of scent but by the time Tally's farm came into view, fingers and toes craved warmth.

Everyone untacked their horses, threw sweat sheets and then blankets over them, tied them to the trailers, and hurried into Tally's beautiful house.

Harry thought to herself, "So far, so good."

45

"Why, the fences were four feet then. We rode Thoroughbreds of course and flew like the wind." Tally leaned on her cane. It wasn't her back that had given out on her but her left knee and she refused to have arthroscopic surgery. She said she was too damned old to have some doctor punching holes in her knee.

Dennis listened, a twinkle in his eyes. The fences were always bigger when recalled at a distance of decades but in truth, they were.

A crowd filled the house: Miranda, Ned Tucker, Jordan Ivanic, Herb Jones, plus stablehands, more lawyers and doctors, and the neighbors for miles around. When Miss Tally threw a hunt breakfast, best to be there.

"Sam," Joe Cramer greeted him warmly. "I didn't have time to talk to you during the hunt. Say, it was a good one, wasn't it?"

"Those creek crossings-" Sam noticed Bruce out of the corner of his eye. "Well, I haven't seen you for some time, Joe. I'm glad you could come on down and hunt with us."

"Yes, Harry invited us," Joe almost said but caught himself.

Cynthia Cooper brushed by, a plate loaded with food, including biscuits drenched in redeye gravy, her favorite.

Bruce joined Joe and Sam. He spoke to Joe. "Forgive me. I know I've met you but I can't recall where."

"Salvage Masters. Joe Cramer." Joe held out his hand. "We rehab infusion pumps, every brand."

"Why, yes, of course." Bruce warily shook his hand. "What brings you to Crozet?"

"Harry Haristeen invited my wife and I to hunt today. You know, February is usually a good month."

Laura glided up next to her husband. "The dog foxes are courting."

"My wife, Laura. Laura, this is Dr. Bruce Buxton and Sam Mahanes, director of Crozet Hospital."

"Glad to meet you." She shook their hands.

"You ride quite well," Sam said admiringly.

"Good horse," she said.

"Good hands." Graham Pitsenberger, smiling, squeezed into the group, the fireplace immediately behind them providing much needed warmth. "Time to thaw out."

"My butt's cold, too." Bruce smiled.

"Sam." Joe held his hands behind his back to the fire. "You know, your infusion pumps are way overdue on a cleaning." Joe just blurted this out in the excitement of it all. He was supposed to say nothing.

Sam paused a moment. "They are?"

"Years."

"I'll look into that. I can't imagine it because our plant manager, Hank Brevard, was meticulous in his duties. I'll check the records."

Troubled, Bruce cleared his throat. "We've had a shake-up at the hospital, Mr. and Mrs. Cramer. You may have heard."

Joe and Laura played dumb, as did Graham.

Sam, jovially, touched Joe's elbow as he spoke to Bruce. "No need to go over that, Bruce. Foxhunting shouldn't be plagued with work troubles. Joe, I'll get out the files Monday and give you a call."

"Here's my card." Joe slipped his hand into his inside hacking jacket, producing a business card printed on expensive paper, really printed, not thermographed.

He'd changed from his hunting coat to a hacking jacket for the breakfast, which was proper. Not that Tally would have pitched a fit. She didn't care if anyone came into her house in a muddy or torn frock or melton so long as they regaled her with stories. She did draw the line at lots of makeup in the hunt field though. Tally felt that hunting favored the naturally beautiful woman while exposing the artificial one.

Sam took the card, excusing himself. As he headed for the bar, Bruce tagged after him.

"Sam, what's going on? The equipment is overdue for cleaning." He gulped down his drink. "Why the hell won't you listen to me about this-our reputation is taking a beating."

"Let's have this discussion at another time."

"It's a damned sorry mess if we're using pumps that need work. It's beyond sorry."

"Bruce." Sam's voice was firm but low. "As far as I know those infusion pumps are working beautifully. The nurses would report it to the head nurse in a heartbeat. You know that. But I will definitely check the records. Hank would never let anything get out of hand or worn down. He just wouldn't and I don't think Bobby Minifee will either, once he feels comfortable in his position."

Rick Shaw and Big Mim whispered to one another in the corner for a moment.

"When will Tussie's death be written up in the paper?"

"Tomorrow." Rick sighed. "I used every chit I had to hold the story. The only people who know are you, Marilyn, Harry, and Randy."

"Rescue Squad."

"They understand perfectly well. Diana Robb can shut up the two people who came out with her for another twenty-four hours."

"I hope so." Mim's eyes darted around the room.

"Randy called the hospital and told her boss that Tussie had a family emergency. She wouldn't be in to work until Sunday."

"If this ruse works, Rick, our fox should bolt the den."

Rick smiled. "You hunters crack me up."

She smiled and they parted to mix with the others.

Little Mim cleverly maneuvered toward Bruce Buxton who, face flushed, was now talking with Harry, Susan, and Miranda.

"You all will be receiving invitations to one of Mother's teas," Little Mim said, her luxurious chestnut hair falling straight to her shoulders.

"More mail to sort." Harry winked.

Miranda's stomach growled. She put her hand on it, saying, "News from the interior."

"Time to eat," Susan added. "Harry, you've only eaten once. You must be ready for another plate."

"Cold makes me hungry."

The three women made a beeline for the table, leaving Marilyn to flirt with Bruce, who didn't seem to mind.

Fair strode through the door.

Tally called out to him. "Why didn't you hunt today?"

"Breeding season, Miss Urquhart. But I had to drop by to see you."

"Liar. You dropped by for the food!" He kissed her cheek.

"I came to see you." He kissed the other cheek. "Prettiest girl in the county."

"You go." She blushed a little. "Go on, your girlfriend's back at the table. She can eat, Fair, my, how she can eat. In my day a lady hid her appetite. Of course, she never puts on a pound. Me neither."

"Your figure is the envy of women half your age."

"Fifty!" Tally triumphantly said.

"Actually, I was thinking more like thirty-five."

"Mercy. You get out of here before I forget myself." She pushed him toward the dining room.

Fair cut into the line to be with Harry.

"Cheater," Susan humorously complained.

"Tally called me a liar. You're calling me a cheater. Anyone else want to unburden themselves?" He stared down at his ex-wife's pretty head. "I retract that offer."

Harry reached for and squeezed his hand. Laura Cramer was on the other side of the table.

"This is a lively group." Laura laughed.

"Wait until the drinks hit." Susan giggled.

Harry introduced Fair to Laura as they moved around the table.

He gallantly carried her plate, put both plates down on the long coffee table, and headed to the bar for Cokes for each of them. Fair never drank during the day, although he did drink socially.

Cooper walked over. "Some party."

"Have you had anything to eat?"

"Yes. Too much. I'm going back for dessert."

"Come sit with us." Harry indicated they'd sit on the floor.

The Cramers also sat on the floor, using the coffee table as their table. Graham, Dennis, Cooper, Susan, and Miranda squeezed in. Fair and Joe talked medical talk, since veterinary medicine used many of the same procedures and machines as human medical science. In fact, some procedures successful on humans were pioneered by veterinarians.

Graham regaled Cynthia Cooper with tales of training green racehorses to use the starting gate. Dennis Foster and Laura compared packs of hounds in northern Virginia, always a subject of passionate interest to foxhunters. Susan listened intently and Laura invited her, the whole table, to join them at Middleburg Hunt for a ripsnorter.

At one point Joe leaned over, whispering to Harry what he'd said to Sam and Bruce. Just then Jordan Ivanic bent over to say his hellos and Joe repeated what he'd told Sam and Bruce to Jordan, who blanched.

"I'll look into it. We've had some unfortunate occurrences." Jordan smiled tightly.

"I think murder qualifies as an unfortunate occurrence." Graham picked up a piece of corn bread.

"Now, Mr. Pitsenberger, we only know that Hank Brevard was killed in the basement of the hospital. We have no information that would connect other irregularities to that incident," Jordan smoothly replied.

"That's not what the newspaper says," Graham needled him.

"Newspapers sell issues for the benefit of advertisers. Now if you all will excuse me. It's nice to see you again." Jordan nodded to the Cramers.

"That's a cool cucumber," Graham remarked as Jordan was out of earshot.

"He wasn't so cool when Hank was murdered," Susan filled him in. "At least that's what I heard."

The visiting hunters had been well briefed about Hank's demise and Larry Johnson's murder. They knew nothing about Tussie Logan.

"For a small community you don't lack for excitement," Laura dryly said.

A shout at the front door attracted everyone's attention.

"George Moore, what are you doing here?" Tally laughed as a tall man breezed through her front door.

"I'm here to sweep you off your feet." He picked her up.

"Brute!" She threw up her hands in mock despair.

He carefully placed her down. "Have you eaten any of your own food?"

"No. I've been the hostess with the mostest."

"Well, come on. I'll be your breakfast date." He slipped her arm through his, walking her to the table.

Everyone knew George so there was lots of catcalling and waving.

Little Mim teased Bruce Buxton. "With a name like George, you have a lot to live up to in Virginia."

The breakfast rolled on for hours. Tally had hired a pianist, which augmented the already high spirits. After everyone had eaten they crowded around the piano to sing, a habit common to Tally's generation and all but lost by the time Harry's generation was raised.

As the guests finally left one by one, Dennis accompanied the Cramers.

Rick quietly watched everyone from the front windows of the house. Coop used the excuse of helping Harry load her horses to go back to the trailers.

"I'll ride home with you." Cynthia's voice indicated this was an order not a request.

"Great."

"Rick's going to push Sam and Jordan about the records and he wants me to stick with you."

"I'd say there's someone at this breakfast today who is sweating bullets."

"You know, here's where the human ego baffles me. Why not take the money and run? If you're the kingpin of this scam, you know the noose is being tightened-just run," Coop said.

"Maybe the money is not easily retrieved."

"All the more reason to run." Coop shrugged.

"I think it's ego. He thinks he can outsmart all of us."

"Could be. He's done a good job so far." Coop waved as the Cramers and Dennis pulled out.

By the time Harry and Coop reached the farm, unloaded the horses, fed them, cleaned up, they were tired.

As they discussed the events of the day, the animals listened.

"I hate to admit this but I'm hungry again." Harry laughed.

"I can always eat."

They raided the refrigerator.

"You know, Mom has that chirpy quality," Tucker noticed.

"That means she's going to do something really dumb." Murphy said what Tucker and Pewter were thinking.

46

Rick walked into his office just as the dispatcher told him to pick up line one.

"Sheriff Shaw."

"Hi, Sam Mahanes. I dropped back by the hospital after Tally's breakfast and we do have records for cleaning out the infusion pumps. Joe Cramer must have been confused."

"Where are you now?"

"Home."

"Can anyone working a computer terminal at the hospital pull up a maintenance file?"

"No. If people could do that they could also get into medical records, which are strictly confidential. The only people accessing the maintenance file would be myself. Well, Ruth, of course, Hank Brevard, and now Bobby Minifee."

"What about the men working with Bobby? Someone like Booty Weyman. Wouldn't Bobby teach him to use the computer? Anybody responsible for equipment, for shipping, would have to access the records."

"I'll double-check with Bobby on Monday. I'm not sure. I always assumed Hank gave marching orders and that was that."

"Maybe he did but it would have made his life a lot easier if someone could work the computer, otherwise he'd have been bugged on his days off, on vacation." Rick paused. "And Jordan Ivanic. As your second-in-command he would have the maintenance records or know how to get them."

Sam airily dismissed Jordan. "He could, I suppose, if he felt it germane but Jordan shows little interest in those matters. He likes to focus on 'above the line' as he calls it. He feels that maintenance, orderlies, janitorial, and even nurses are 'below the line.'"

"Speaking of nurses, are you on good terms with Tussie Logan?"

"Yes. She's one of our best." A questioning note filtered through Sam's even voice.

"H-m-m, why don't you meet me in your office in about an hour? Jordan will be on duty this weekend. We can all go over this together."

"Sheriff, an oversight about infusion pumps seems small beer compared to the murders."

"On the contrary, Sam, this may be the key." He paused. "Anything not quite on the tracks at Crozet Hospital interests me right now. And one other little thing. Joe and Laura Cramer have examined the invoices. The billing numbers aren't their billing numbers. These invoices are bogus, Sam." Rick could hear a sharp intake of breath.

"In an hour. Eight-fifteen."

47

"Coop, are you going to spend the night?" Harry innocently asked.

"Yes." Cynthia checked her watch. It had been losing time.

"Seven." Harry answered without being asked.

"I'd much rather the damn thing gained time than lost it. Well, it only cost me forty dollars so I suppose I could afford another one. There's no sense wearing good watches on my job." She reset her watch, to synchronize with Harry's: seven o'clock.

"Those Navy Seals watches are pretty neat. They glow in the dark."

"So do people who live near nuclear reactors," Coop joked.

"Ha ha." Harry stuck out her tongue. "Wouldn't it be helpful if you could read the dial in the dark? What if you're creeping up on a suspect or you have to coordinate times, synchronize in the dark?"

"Your fervid imagination just runs riot."

"You should live here." Pewter yawned.

"Coop, there's two of us. I've got a .38 pistol. You've got your service revolver."

"Harry, where is this leading?"

"To Crozet Hospital."

"What?!"

"Now hear me out. Three people are dead. My stitches still itch. Joe baited Sam, Bruce, and Jordan. Right?"

"Right."

"What we're looking for has to be in that basement. Has to be."

"Rick Shaw and I crawled over that basement with a fine-tooth comb. We studied the blueprints. We tapped the walls to see if any are hollow. I don't see how we could have missed anything."

"The floor," Murphy practically screeched in frustration.

"Pussycat, do you have a tummy ache?" Harry swung her legs off the sofa but Murphy jumped on her lap to save her the trip to the chair.

"I am fine. I am better than fine. What you want is underneath your feet."

"Yeah!" Pewter joined the chorus.

"It's so obvious once you know," Tucker barked.

"Pipe down." Harry covered her ears and they shut up.

"Something provoked them."

"Human stupidity," Murphy growled.

"Maybe you need a tiny shot of Pepto-Bismol."

"Never." Mrs. Murphy shot off Harry's lap so fast she left tiny claw marks in Harry's thigh.

"Ouch. Murphy, behave yourself."

"You ought to listen to us." Tucker stared at her mother, her liquid brown eyes soulful.

"Here's my idea. We take our guns. We take a good flashlight and we go back down there together. I even think we should take Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. They can sense and smell things we can't. Coop, you know Rick won't let me or the kids down there and what we need is there. Has to be."

"You're repeating yourself."

"This is our only chance. It's nighttime. There won't be as many people around. The loading dock will be closed. We'll have to contend with whoever is on night duty, assuming we can find him. Come on. You're a trained officer of the law. You can handle any situation."

It was the appeal to Cooper's vanity that wore down her defenses. "It's one thing if I gamble with my life, it's another if I gamble with yours."

"What about mine?" an insulted Pewter yowled.

"God, Pewter, you can't be hungry again." Harry returned her attention to Cynthia Cooper. "You gamble every day you put your foot out of bed. Life is a gamble. I really want to get whoever killed Larry Johnson. I can't say I'm motivated by Hank's death or Tussie's, not that I wished them dead, but Larry was my doctor, my friend, and a good man. I'm doing this for him."

Cooper thought a long time. "If I take you, will you shut up? As in never mention this to Rick?"

"Scout's honor."

Another long pause. "All right."

"Oh brother." Tucker hid her eyes behind her paws.

48

Harry drove her old blue truck around to the back of the hospital. Everyone in town knew that truck but it was less obvious than Coop's squad car. She parked next to the back door. Had Harry parked out in the open parking lot even though she was at the rear of the hospital, the truck would have been more noticeable.

Cynthia checked her watch. It was seven-fifteen.

Harry double-checked hers. "Seven-fifteen."

The young officer checked her .357, which she wore in a shoulder holster. It was a heavy, long-barreled revolver. She favored long barrels since she felt they gave her more accuracy, not that she looked forward to shooting anyone.

Harry shoved her .38 into the top of her jeans.

"Mom, you ought to get a holster," Tucker advised.

"She ought to get a new brain. She has no business being here." Pewter, a grumbler by nature, was nonetheless correct.

"We'd better be on red alert. We can't turn her back." Murphy's tail puffed up, then relaxed. She had a bad feeling about this.

Coop opened the back door as the animals scampered in. Harry noiselessly stepped through and Coop shut the door without clicking the latch. They walked down toward the boiler room, stopped, and listened. Far away they could hear the rattle of the elevator cables; the doors would open and close but they heard no one step out. Then the cables rattled more.

The animals listened intently. They, too, heard no one.

The two women stepped inside the boiler room, the large boiler gurgling and spewing for the night was cold. Coop checked the pressure gauge. She had respect for these old units. The trick was keeping the pressure in the middle of the gauge, which looked like a fat thermometer.

"This place was supposed to be on the Underground Railroad. The first thing we checked when Hank was killed was whether the wall was hollow behind what had been the old fireplace. Nothing," Cynthia whispered.

"You checked all the walls?"

"In every single room."

"Follow me," Mrs. Murphy commanded.

"Yeah, come on," Tucker seconded her best friend.

As the animals pushed and prodded the two humans, Sam Mahanes pulled into his reserved parking space right next to Jordan Ivanic's car. It was seven twenty-five. If the two of them were to meet with Rick Shaw at eight-fifteen then he'd better prepare Jordan, who, he felt, was a ninny. While Rick asked them about the invoices, Ivanic was capable of babbling about an anesthesiologist who nearly lost a patient. Those things happened in hospitals and Sam was determined that everyone stay on track.

Down in the basement, after a combination of nips, yowls, and pleading, Harry and Coop at last followed Mrs. Murphy and Tucker. Pewter walked along, too, but in a foul mood. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker were showing off too much for her and the only reason she accompanied everyone tonight was that her curiosity got the best of her.

In the distance the animals and humans heard a siren. Someone was being rushed to the emergency room. In the country that usually meant a heart attack, a car accident, or a farm accident.

"In here!" The tiger's tail stood straight up.

Harry reached for the light but Coop put her hand over Harry's. "No." She clicked on the flashlight, half closing the door behind her.

The cartons, neatly stacked, offered no clue to the treasure below.

Tucker ran to the wall, stood on her hind legs, and pressed the stone. Although low to the ground and short, the corgi was powerfully built with heavy bones. The flagstone opened with a sliding sound and thump.

"I'll be damned," Cooper swore under her breath as she flashed the light into the entrance.

In the distance the elevator chains rattled, the doors opened and closed.

The humans didn't hear but the animals did.

"Human. Human off the elevator." Pewter's fur stood straight up.

"Quick. Down the hatch!" Mrs. Murphy hopped onto the ladder, her paws making a soft sound on the wood as she hurried down into the hiding room.

"Murphy!" Harry whispered loudly.

Pewter, no fool, followed suit. Tucker, never one for ladders, turned around and backed down with encouragement from the cats.

By now the humans could hear a distant footfall heading their way.

"Come on." Harry grabbed the top of the ladder, swung herself around, and slid down, her feet on the outside.

Cooper reached down, giving Harry the flashlight, but as she turned around to climb down she knocked over a carton. It tumbled down. She grabbed it, putting it back up, then dropped down the ladder.

"How do we close this damn thing?" Harry realized she might have trapped everyone.

Mrs. Murphy pressed a round red button on the side of the ladder. The top slowly closed.

"Murphy," Harry whispered.

"Hide. Get in the back here and hide behind the machines," the tiger advised.

As the animals ran to the back, the humans heard the heavy footsteps overhead. Whoever was up there was bigger than they were. They moved to the back, crouching down behind pumps stacked on a table.

Cynthia put her finger to her lips, pulled out her gun. Harry did the same. Then Coop cut the flashlight.

The flagstone slid open.

"Can you smell him?" Mrs. Murphy asked Tucker.

"Too far away. All I can smell is this dank cellar."

The light was turned on. The humans crouched lower. One foot touched the top rung of the ladder, then stopped.

"Hey." Bobby Minifee's voice sounded loud and clear. "What are you doing?"

They heard a crack and a thud and then Bobby was tossed down the ladder. He landed heavily, blood pouring from his head. The flagstone closed overhead.

Pewter and Murphy ran to Bobby. Coop crept forward. Overhead they heard something heavy being pulled over the sliding trapdoor.

Harry, too, quietly moved forward. The two women bent over the crumpled young man. Harry took his pulse. Coop opened his eye.

"His pulse is strong," Harry whispered.

Coop looked around for towels, an old shirt, anything. "We've got to wrap his head up. See if you can find anything."

"Here." She handed Coop a smock, unaware that it had been Tussie Logan's.

Coop tore it into strips, wrapping Bobby's head as best she could. "Let's get him off this cold floor."

Harry cleared off a table and with effort they put him on top of it.

As the humans tended to Bobby, Mrs. Murphy considered their options. "Coop and Mom are armed. That's cold comfort."

"I'd rather have them armed than unarmed," Pewter sensibly replied.

"We'd better find a way out of here. For all we know, he's sitting up there trying to figure out how to kill us all."

"There's something over the trapdoor but since it's a sliding door, we could try." Pewter didn't like the cold, damp hole.

"Try what? To open the door?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah, press the button and see what happens." Pewter reached out with her paw.

"Pewter, no," Murphy ordered. "You don't know what's sitting on the trapdoor. You don't know what will fall down. Hospitals have all kinds of stuff like sulfuric acid. Whatever he put up there he figured would either hold us or hurt us. He's a quick thinker. Remember Larry Johnson."

"And he's merciless. Remember Hank Brevard and Tussie Logan," Tucker thoughtfully added.

"My hunch is, he'll come back. He doesn't know who's down here but he suspects something. And he has to come back to kill Bobby. He heard the carton drop. I know he did. He was moving up faster than the humans could hear." Mrs. Murphy's tail twitched back and forth. She was agitated.

"I don't fancy being a duck in a shooting gallery," Pewter wailed.

"Get a grip," Tucker growled.

"I'm as tough as you are. I'm expressing my feelings, that's all."

"Express them once we're out of this mess." Mrs. Murphy prowled along the walls. "Pewter, take that wall. Tucker, the back. Listen for anything. If this was part of the Underground Railroad then there has to be a tunnel off this room. They had to get the slaves out of here somehow."

"Why couldn't they take them out in the middle of the night? Out the back door?" Pewter did, however, go to the wall to listen.

"If everyone is still telling stories about the Underground Railroad, this place was closely watched. Since no one was ever caught, I believe they had tunnels or at least one tunnel." Murphy strained to hear anything in the walls.

"Hey." Pewter's green eyes glittered. "Rats."

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker trotted over, putting their ears to the wall. They could hear the claws click as the rats moved about; occasionally they'd catch a snippet of conversation.

"Now, how do we get in?" Tucker sniffed the floor, moving along the wall. "Nothing but mildew."

"Pewter, you check the ceiling, I'll study the wall." Mrs. Murphy slowly walked along the wall.

"Why am I checking the ceiling?" Pewter rankled at taking orders and she'd been taking too many, in her mind.

"Maybe the way they got out was to crawl between the ceiling and the floorboards upstairs."

"Murphy," Tucker said, "the rats sound lower than that."

"We've got to try everything." Murphy walked the length of the wall, then returned, stopping at a large stone at the base. "Tucker, Pewter, let's push. This might be it."

They grunted and groaned, feeling the stone budge.

"Harry!" Tucker barked.

Harry turned from Bobby to see her three friends pushing the stone. She walked over, knelt down, putting her own shoulder to the large stone. Sure enough it rolled in. "Coop!"

Cooper turned her flashlight into the small dark cavern and a narrow tunnel appeared, rats scurrying in all directions. One would have to walk hunched over but it could be done. "It was part of the Underground Railroad!"

"He's back!" Tucker barked as she heard the heavy burden being slowly slid off the trapdoor.

"He knows we're here now," Murphy warned after Tucker barked.

Harry heard it, too. She ran back and cut the lights. "Let's go." She ducked down and squeezed into the tunnel, crawling on all fours. Cooper followed as the animals ran past them. The two women rolled the stone back in place, then stood up, bending over to keep from bumping their heads.

"Bobby, we left Bobby." Harry's face bled white.

"Harry, we'll have to leave him to God. Let's hope whoever this is comes after us first. He had to have heard Tucker."

"Sorry," Tucker whimpered.

"No time for that," Mrs. Murphy crisply meowed. "We've got to go wherever this leads and hope we make it." She shot ahead followed by Pewter, who was feeling claustrophobic.

The humans ran along as fast as they could, flashlight bobbling. Harry noticed scratchings along the wall. She reached for Cooper's hand, halting her for a moment. She took the flashlight, turning it on the wall. It read: Bappy Crewes, age 26m 1853. They ran along knowing that Bappy, buried in the wall, never found freedom. Right now they hoped that they would.

"He's rolling the stone." Tucker could hear behind them.

"Nip at their heels, Tucker. Make them go faster. We don't know what's at the end of this and it might take us a little time to figure it out."

"Oh, great," Pewter moaned when Murphy said that.

"Your eyes are the best. Run ahead. Maybe you can figure it out," Tucker told the cats.

The two cats sped away as the light dimmed. The tunnel turned hard right. The rats cursed them. They skidded, turned right, then finally reached the end of the tunnel. They waited a moment while their eyes adjusted. They could see the flashlight shining on the wall where the tunnel turned right.

"We have to go up. There's no other way," Pewter observed.

"Oh, thank the Great Cat in the Sky." Murphy breathed a prayer. A ladder made from six-inch tree trunks lay on its side. "Maybe we can make it."

Harry and Cooper now turned right; they were running harder now because whoever was behind them was firing into the dark.

Harry saw the ladder since Murphy was helpfully sitting on it. The two women hoisted it up. Cooper turned to train her gun on the turn in the tunnel.

"Get up and push with all your might!" the deputy said be-tween gritted teeth.

Harry's foot went through one rotted rung but the rest were okay. She pushed and the top opened with surprising ease. She reached down, picking up Murphy, whom she tossed up. Then she did the same for Pewter and finally she carried Tucker, much heavier, under her arm.

She turned back for Coop, who extinguished the flashlight so as not to give their pursuer, who was approaching the right-hand turn, a target. Cooper, in great shape, leapt up, grabbing the top rung. She was out of the tunnel in moments.

"Where are we?" Pewter asked.

Harry quickly flopped down the heavy lid. "Let's get out of here."

"We're in the old switching station." Cooper was amazed. "My God, they literally put them on the trains."

"Smart people, our ancestors." Harry opened the door to the old switching station and they plunged into the darkness, running for all they were worth.

"Down here." Cynthia scrambled down a ditch by the side of the railroad tracks, the typical drainage ditch. "Lie flat. If he comes out I might be able to drop him."

They waited for fifteen minutes in the bitter cold but the door to the switching station never opened.

The railroad, begun by Claudius Crozet in 1849, had been in continuous use since then, with upgrades. The small switching station had been replaced by computers housed in large stations in the major cities. A nerve network fanned out from there, so the individual stations had fallen into disuse.

"Let's go back." Coop, shivering, stood up, brushing herself off.

"Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, I think we owe you big time."

"We're not out of the woods yet." Murphy's senses stayed razor sharp as Tucker's hackles rose.

"I vote for warmth." Pewter moved ahead toward the hospital parking lot.

Cynthia checked her wristwatch. "Eight-ten." As they drew closer to the front door she noticed Rick's squad car. "Well, we might get our asses chewed out but let's find him."

They walked into the main reception area just as Sam Mahanes, disheveled, was greeting Rick. Cooper's hands were torn up and the sleeves of Harry's jacket were shredded where her arms had slid against the stone wall when her foot went through the rotted rung of the ladder to the switching house.

"You look like the dogs got at you under the porch." Rick frowned. "And just what are you doing here?"

It took a second but both Harry and Coop looked down at Sam's shoes, scuffed with dirt on the soles.

"Harry, you've got to take those animals out of here. This is a hospital," Sam reprimanded her as he moved toward the front door.

"He smells like the tunnel!" Tucker hit him from behind. If they'd been playing football the corgi would have been penalized for clipping.

Harry may have been a human but she trusted her dog. "Coop, it's him!"

Sam lurched to his feet, kicked at the dog, and ran for all he was worth.

"Stop!" Cooper dropped to one knee.

He didn't stop, reaching the revolving door. Coop fired one shot and blew out his kneecap. He dropped like a stone.

The few people in the hospital at that hour screamed. The receptionist ducked behind the desk. Rick ran up and handcuffed Sam's hands behind him.

"Call a doctor," he shouted at the receptionist.

"Call two," Cooper also shouted. "There's a man badly injured in the basement. I'll take the doctor to him."

Sam was cussing and spitting, blood flowing from his shattered kneecap.

"How'd you know?" Rick admiringly asked his deputy.

"It's a long story." She smiled.

49

"That's so awful about Tussie Logan." Miranda wrung her hands.

The group of dear friends gathered at Miranda's house that Sunday morning. The article about Tussie's murder was front-page news. Harry and Cooper filled them in on all that happened.

"He made enough money. He didn't have to steal any." Big Mim was horrified by the whole episode.

"'And he said to them, Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.' Luke, chapter twelve, verse fifteen." Miranda recalled the Scriptures.

"Well, that's what's wrong with this country. It's money. All anyone ever thinks about is money." Mim tapped her foot on the rug.

"Mimsy, that's easy for you to say. You inherited a boatload of it." Miranda was the only one in the room who could say that to Mim.

Fair sat so close to his ex-wife he was glued to her. "I'll never forgive myself for not keeping a closer watch over you."

"Fair, honey, it's breeding season. You can't. You have to earn a living. We all do. Well, most of us do."

"All right. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth but that doesn't mean I don't understand this nation's malaise. I do. I can't help being born who and what I am any more than the rest of you," Mim said.

"Of course, dear, but I simply wanted to point out that it's rather easy to declare money the root of all evil when one is secure." Miranda's voice was soothing.

Susan, rather disappointed to have missed the action, asked, "I thought Sam Mahanes had an alibi for Hank Brevard's death?"

"He was in his work space, as he calls it." Cooper nodded. "Rick questioned Sally Mahanes in a relaxed way. The night of Hank's murder she didn't see him come in. He used the private entrance to his shop. It was easy for him to slip in. He left the radio on. Easy. Hank got greedy, threatened him, and Sam took him out. Quick. Efficient."

"And Larry?" Mim's lower lip trembled a moment.

"We'll never know what Larry knew." Cooper shook her head. "But he was such an intelligent man. Sam took no prisoners. Poor Tussie, after Hank's murder she must have lived in terror."

"Caught in a web and couldn't get out." Miranda felt the nurse's life had been squandered.

"And how much money are we talking about?" Mim got down to brass tacks.

"Close to a million over the years. Just out of Crozet Hospital. He confessed that they billed for more than infusion pumps. They worked this scam on anything they could fix, including air conditioners. But the IVAC units-easy to fix, Tussie knew them inside and out-were the cash cow."

"Well, I thank you for apprehending Larry's killer. I feel I owe you a reward, Cynthia, Harry." Mim's voice was low but steady as she fought with her own emotions.

"I was doing my duty, Mrs. Sanburne. You don't owe me a thing."

"And I don't deserve anything either. The real detectives were Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. How they figured out where the hiding room was, I'll never know, and then they discovered the tunnel. They're the ones."

Mim eyed the three animals eagerly looking at her. "Then I shall make a large contribution to the local SPCA."

"No! Food!" Pewter wailed.

"Good God." Murphy grimaced. "At least, ask for catnip."

"Perhaps my largesse is unappreciated." Mim laughed.

"No." Harry smiled. "They want treats."

"And they shall have them!" Mim smiled. "Liver and kidneys and chicken. I'll cook them myself."

"This is wonderful." Tucker turned a circle. She was that excited.

A knock on the door drew their attention.

"Come in," Miranda called out.

Little Mim, face flushed, let herself in, hurriedly taking off her gorgeous sheepskin coat dyed hunter green; even the baby lamb's wool was dyed hunter green. "I'm sorry I'm late but Daddy and I just had a meeting. I'm going to run for vice-mayor and he's going to create the position. So now, Mother, will you support me?"

"With enthusiasm." Big Mim smiled.

"Why does it take people so long to find the obvious solution?" Pewter tilted her head as she spoke to Murphy.

"Too much time on their hands." Tucker turned another circle just thinking about kidneys.

"She's probably right. When they had to fight lions and tigers and bears, when they had to till the soil and run from thunderbolts, they didn't have time to think about themselves so much," Pewter thoughtfully added.

"Who was it said, 'The unexamined life is not worth living'? That contradicts your point," Tucker said.

"Yeah, who said that?" Pewter asked.

"Not a cat so who cares?" Mrs. Murphy burst into uproarious laughter.

Dear Reader,

You'll never guess what just happened. My Aunt Betty makes catnip sockies. She brought in two huge bags full, two hundred little toys just loaded, jammed, stuffed, reeking of potent, powerful, intoxicating home-grown Virginia catnip. She placed the bags on two kitchen chairs and then left the room. I expect something diverted her attention because Pewter and I shredded the bags, wallowed in all those toys.

Mother walked in to find us sound asleep, burrowed in those sockies. Now Aunt Betty has to make a bunch more since we've "tested" these. Mother says she can't send them out. I argued that they'd be even more valuable but she said I really ought to shut up.

A few other things. No, Mother still hasn't gotten up the money to totally repair her bridge. Many of you write and ask. More dogs seem interested in our bridge than cats. This doesn't mean I think dogs are reading. No. I bet their humans read to them.

Another question you ask is are there other cats on the farm. Mother says I have to name them, that I'm selfish and hogging all the limelight. Oh? Do my friends write mysteries? No. They chase mice, moles, birds, skinks, lizards, and even the chickens (who chase right back). I'm the one who works around here! But to keep the peace allow me to introduce my friends. First my daughter, Ibid. She looks just like me except she has green eyes. Pewter you know, of course. Every time someone knocks on the door, Pewter rushes out to greet them since she believes they've come to see her. Oh, the ego. She has a double, Gracie Louise, and together they play tricks on people. One jumps out from the left then runs away and a few seconds later the other one jumps out from the right. Personally, I think they've read too many plays, from Plautus to Shakespeare, about twins. Then there's Mr. Murphy, a large tiger cat named for Mrs. Murphy, obviously. He's hunting quite a bit, but a nice fellow. There's another tiger cat, Nenee. The calicos are Pippin and Peaches. All very pretty, young, slim. Loretta is about four months old. She follows me around when she isn't shadowing Mother. Usually I can put up with her questions but some days she plucks my last nerve. Maybelline guards the lower barn and Zydeco commands the upper.

As you can see there are many of us. Everyone has all their shots and everyone gets spayed. If a stray has kittens, she gets spayed after her babies are weaned.

Mother gives speeches for various animal shelters and SPCAs. She loves animals, sometimes to the despair of her friends because she's always taking in some stray. She's even fed and gotten shots for fox cubs.

We also have ten dogs. With the exception of Liška, an ancient Shiba Inu, and Godzilla, the Jack Russell, they, too, are strays or hounds rescued from the pound.

Together, over the years, Mother and I have placed many abandoned animals in homes. We're proud of our efforts.

We don't understand how humans can bear children or have animals and then mistreat them. Cats don't do that. Nor dogs.

I was talking to Pewter the other day and I said, concerning humans, "They left Eden. We didn't."

Nuff said.

Oh, one lovely thing happened to Mom. As you've probably gathered, all her money goes toward animals and she doesn't have very much left for herself. She doesn't mind but when her best clothes were stolen a few years ago on a book tour she hadn't the money to replace them, especially at today's prices. One day the postman dropped off a large box. She signed for it. I helped her open it. Four beautiful Turnbull Asser shirts were inside, made to Mom's pattern, registered at that British company. I wanted to wear them but she wouldn't let me touch them. The colors: lavender, silky blue, and a black patterned one, and a pink-ain't life grand!

We called Turnbull Asser in New York (the home company is on Jermyn Street, London). Yes, they had taken the order but they wouldn't tell us who sent the shirts.

Now, that's a mystery.

I love everyone.

Affectionately Yours,

Sneaky Pie

www.ritamaebrown.com

or

Sneaky Pie Brown

P.O. Box 696

Crozet, VA 22932

Books by Rita Mae Brown with Sneaky Pie Brown

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PAWING THROUGH THE PAST

CLAWS AND EFFECT

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WHISKER OF EVIL

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RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE

IN HER DAY

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DOLLEY: A NOVEL OF DOLLEY MADISON IN LOVE AND WAR

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Barry Monteith was still breathing when Harry found him. His throat had been ripped out.

Tee Tucker, a corgi, racing ahead of Mary Minor Haristeen as well as the two cats, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, found him first.

Barry was on his back, eyes open, gasping and gurgling, life ebbing with each spasm. He did not recognize Tucker nor Harry when they reached him.

"Barry, Barry." Harry tried to comfort him, hoping he could hear her. "It will be all right," she said, knowing perfectly well he was dying.

The tiger cat, Mrs. Murphy, watched the blood jet upward.

"Jugular," fat, gray Pewter succinctly commented.

Gently, Harry took the young man's hand and prayed, "Dear Lord, receive into thy bosom the soul of Barry Monteith, a good man." Tears welled in her eyes.

Barry jerked, then his suffering ended.

Death, often so shocking to city dwellers, was part of life here in the country. A hawk would swoop down to carry away the chick while the biddy screamed useless defiance. A bull would break his hip and need to be put down. And one day an old farmer would slowly walk to his tractor only to discover he couldn't climb into the seat. The Angel of Death placed his hand on the stooping shoulder.

It appeared the Angel had offered little peaceful deliverance to Barry Monteith, thirty-four, fit, handsome with brown curly hair, and fun-loving. Barry had started his own business, breeding thoroughbreds, a year ago, with a business partner, Sugar Thierry.

"Sweet Jesus." Harry wiped away the tears.

That Saturday morning, crisp, clear, and beautiful, had held the alluring promise of a perfect May 29. The promise had just curdled.

Harry had finished her early-morning chores and, despite a list of projects, decided to take a walk for an hour. She followed Potlicker Creek to see if the beavers had built any new dams. Barry was sprawled at the creek's edge on a dirt road two miles from her farm that wound up over the mountains into adjoining Augusta County. It edged the vast land holdings of Tally Urquhart, who, well into her nineties and spry, loathed traffic. Three cars constituted traffic in her mind. The only time the road saw much use was during deer-hunting season in the fall.

"Tucker, Mrs. Murphy, and Pewter, stay. I'm going to run to Tally's and phone the sheriff."

If Harry hit a steady lope, crossed the fields and one set of woods, she figured she could reach the phone in Tally's stable within fifteen minutes, though the pitch and roll of the land including one steep ravine would cost time.

As she left her animals, they inspected Barry.

"What could rip his throat like that? A bear swipe?" Pewter's pupils widened.

"Perhaps." Mrs. Murphy, noncommittal, sniffed the gaping wound, as did Tucker.

The cat curled her upper lip to waft more scent into her nostrils. The dog, whose nose was much longer and nostrils larger, simply inhaled.

"I don't smell bear," Tucker declared. "That's an overpowering scent, and on a morning like this it would stick."

Pewter, who cherished luxury and beauty, found that Barry's corpse disturbed her equilibrium. "Let's be grateful we found him today and not three days from now."

"Stop jabbering, Pewter, and look around, will you? Look for tracks."

Grumbling, the gray cat daintily stepped down the dirt road. "You mean like car tracks?"

"Yes, or animal tracks," Mrs. Murphy directed, then returned her attention to Tucker. "Even though coyote scent isn't as strong as bear, we'd still smell a whiff. Bobcat? I don't smell anything like that. Or dog. There are wild dogs and wild pigs back in the mountains. The humans don't even realize they're there."

Tucker cocked her perfectly shaped head. "No dirt around the wound. No saliva, either."

"I don't see anything. Not even a birdie foot," Pewter, irritated, called out from a hundred yards down the road.

"Well, go across the creek then and look over there." Mrs. Murphy's patience wore thin.

"And get my paws wet?" Pewter's voice rose.

"It's a ford. Hop from rock to rock. Go on, Pewt, stop being a chicken."

Angrily, Pewter puffed up, tearing past them to launch herself over the ford. She almost made it, but a splash indicated she'd gotten her hind paws wet.

If circumstances had been different, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker would have laughed. Instead, they returned to Barry.

"I can't identify the animal that tore him up." The tiger shook her head.

"Well, the wound is jagged but clean. Like I said, no dirt." Tucker studied the folds of flesh laid back.

"He was killed lying down," the cat sagely noted. "If he was standing up, don't you think blood would be everywhere?"

"Not necessarily," the dog replied, thinking how strong heartbeats sent blood straight out from the jugular. Tucker was puzzled by the odd calmness of the scene.

"Pewter, have you found anything on that side?"

"Deer tracks. Big deer tracks."

"Keep looking," Mrs. Murphy requested.

"I hate it when you're bossy." Nonetheless, Pewter moved down the dirt road heading west.

"Barry was such a nice man." Tucker mournfully looked at the square-jawed face, wide-open eyes staring at heaven.

Mrs. Murphy circled the body. "Tucker, I'm climbing up that sycamore. If I look down maybe I'll see something."

Her claws, razor sharp, dug into the thin surface of the tree, strips of darker outer bark peeling, exposing the whitish underbark. The odor of fresh water, of the tufted titmouse above her, all informed her. She scanned around for broken limbs, bent bushes, anything indicating Barry-or other humans or large animals-had traveled to this spot avoiding the dirt road.

"Pewter?"

"Big fat nothing." The gray kitty noted that her hind paws were wet. She was getting little clods of dirt stuck between her toes. This bothered her more than Barry did. After all, he was dead. Nothing she could do for him. But the hardening brown earth between her toes, that was discomfiting.

"Well, come on back. We'll wait for Mom." Mrs. Murphy dropped her hind legs over the limb where she was sitting. Her hind paws reached for the trunk, the claws dug in, and she released her grip, swinging her front paws to the trunk. She backed down.

Tucker touched noses with Pewter, who had recrossed the creek more successfully this time.

Mrs. Murphy came up and sat beside them.

"Hope his face doesn't change colors while we're waiting for the humans. I hate that. They get all mottled." Pewter wrinkled her nose.

"I wouldn't worry." Tucker sighed.

In the distance they heard sirens.

"Bet they won't know what to make of this, either," Tucker said.

"It's peculiar." Mrs. Murphy turned her head in the direction of the sirens.

"Weird and creepy." Pewter pronounced judgment as she picked at her hind toes, and she was right.