Full Cry

CHAPTER 32

A towering bouquet, winter greens interspersed with rich red and creamy white roses, stood majestically on Sister’s front hall table, a long narrow Louis XVI, its gold ormolu gleaming against the deep black lacquer.

Sister opened the note, which read, “Who says flowers don’t bloom in winter? Beautiful. Gray.”

Her right hand touched her heart for a second.

Golly sat behind them, a feline part of the display. “Patterson’s delivered.”

“Spectacular!” Sister exclaimed.

She loved flowers—what woman doesn’t? One of the small disappointments of age was that men did not seem to send them as regularly as they once did.

She took the stairs two at a time, stripped off her clothing. She always took off her boots in the stable, and the girls would clean them. She’d slip into her Wellies, cold in the winter, finish the chores, then come into the house.

She hopped in the shower, Raleigh and Rooster pressing their noses to the glass doors. Then she toweled off, fixed her hair, threw on makeup, opened the closet door, and uttered those immortal words, “I have nothing to wear.”

“How can she say that?” Rooster, having lived with a man, was just learning that women were different in some respects. He was only in his second year with Sister.

Raleigh, nosing a soft pair of leather shoes, answered, “Color, season, fabric, she has to worry about all of that and then when she picks the right thing, the shoes.” He rolled his eyes. “The downfall of women!”

“Peter would shower, shave, put on a suit or a navy blazer with some kind of pants, a tie, and off he’d go. Twenty minutes, tops,” Rooster informed Raleigh.

A red ball rolled into the large closet as Golly giggled. “Look what I have.”

“That’s not yours.” Raleigh snatched the ball.

“Pig.” Golly sat on a forest green pair of high-heel shoes, squashing them.

Finally Sister settled on a tailored suit, double-breasted, with a magenta pinstripe. She wore a pale pink blouse and a deep teal silk scarf. She was always putting together colors in odd ways, but they worked. After much deliberation, she wore shoes the color of the suit.

“Can you imagine wearing panty hose?” Golly wanted to snag the nylons.

“No.” Rooster wrinkled his nose. “Where’s she going, anyway?”

“Special party for Reading for the Blind. Kind of a fund-raiser, but more low-key than the dance stuff.” Raleigh knew his mother’s charities and special interests.

Golly shot out of the closet, cut in front of the dogs, and walked into the bathroom where Sister performed a last-minute makeup check. Golly hit the wall with all fours, bounced off, and turned to face the dogs.

“King of the hill!”

The two canines stopped, then Rooster said, “Golly, you’re mental.”

“I’m a killer. I can bring down bunnies twice my size. I can face off a . . . a bobcat. I can terrify a cow. I am Kong!” She spun on her paws, flew the entire length of the upper hallway, hit the wall there, bounced off, and flew back, running right under the dogs’ bellies.

“She is mental,” Rooster repeated.

“I think she has to go to the bathroom,” Raleigh said. “She gets that way if she has to do Number Two.”

“I do not!” Golly was outraged. “But if I have to go, I’ll go in your bed because you have mortally offended me.” She turned in a huff, jumping onto the counter where the makeup sat.

“I don’t know how you’ve stood it for all these years,” Rooster consoled Raleigh. “At least when I lived with Peter, he didn’t keep cats. They’re horrible.”

“Oh, ignore her, Rooster. She just wants attention. Think of her as a tiny woman in a fur coat.”

Golly, purring for all she was worth, watched as Sister put on lipstick, considered it, wiped it off, put on a more pinkish, subdued color, considered it, threw the tube in the trash in disgust. Finally Sister wiped her lips and rubbed in a little colored gloss.

“She’s losing it,” Golly grandly announced.

“No. She’s finding it,” Raleigh answered.

By the time Sister reached the gathering, darkness enveloped the town, the white church steeples contrasting against the darkness. A light snow fell.

Marty Howard, a force in the reading group, urged people also to get involved in the Committee to Promote Literacy.

Clay and Izzy Berry moved through the group. Izzy had a sister who was blind and was passionate about the work of this group. Xavier and Dee were there, as well as Dalton Hill and Ben Sidell.

“Ben, this is the first time I’ve seen you at one of our functions. Thank you for coming,” Sister warmly greeted him.

“Marty asked me to drop by. You gave us great sport today, Master.” He smiled at her.

“Thank you. Mostly I was trying to hang on and stay up with the hounds. Coyote, as I’m sure you know.”

“That word filtered back to us. Bobby Franklin galloped as fast as I’ve ever seen him go.” He nodded in the direction of the genial, plump Bobby.

The Franklins donated printing to this group.

“Big as he is, he can go.” Sister smiled. “He’s trying the Atkins Diet now. Let’s all encourage him. Betty sure looks fabulous. She put her mind to losing weight last summer, got it off, kept it off.”

“Well, you don’t see too many fat whippers-in, do you?” Ben absentmindedly rattled the cubes in his glass. “Guess you heard about the brief exchange between Xavier and Sam?”

“I did,” Sister tartly responded.

“Gray intervened, and Clay moved Xavier up. Lends spice to the proceedings.”

“Maybe too much.” As Xavier and Dee came over, Sister pecked him on the cheek, then her. “Haven’t I just left you?”

“What a day.” Xavier, face drawn, complimented her.

“X, thank you for your restraint.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got bigger things on my mind than that worm.”

“Honey,” Dee gently chided him.

“Well, I don’t mind telling you all how I feel. It’s not like we don’t know one another. And Ben, you’re out there riding, so I count you in.” Xavier inhaled. “The storage fire is turning into a nightmare.”

Sister sympathized. “I’m sorry. It’s got to be a strain.”

“The investigator won’t release the money until the situation, as she calls it, is clarified. How can I clarify Donnie Sweigert winding up as Melba toast? Melba toast that committed arson. It’s crazy.”

“Honey.” Dee squeezed his arm.

“Sorry. I’m a little stressed.”

“These investigators are good, sugar. She’ll figure it out,” Dee reassured her husband.

Ben glanced briefly to the floor, then looked up.

“Sorry, Ben. Dee didn’t mean it that way. This is a tough situation. I know you’re doing all that you can.” Xavier, for all his troubles, was sensitive to the feelings of others.

Clay and Izzy joined them. Politically wise, Clay didn’t want the tension between Xavier and himself to become gossip fodder. Yes, he wanted the check, but he didn’t know what more to do about it either.

After a few moments of social chat, the group broke up. Ben remained with Sister. She noticed Clay moving off to talk to one group of people while Izzy moved over to another, chatted briefly, and then left the room. She noted that Dalton also left the room by another door.

“Meant to ask you, you know the high school and college coaches around here, don’t you?”

“Some better than others,” Sister answered.

“With the exception of the university men’s basketball coach, most of these guys have been working a long time, great stability.”

“Winners don’t get fired,” Sister replied, knowing the same applied in the hunt world.

Few people understood the pressures on a professional huntsman. He or she has to produce, just like the quarterback for a major league team. Huntsmen are professional athletes minus the endorsement, media hype, and titanic salaries. Many of these men and women could have had careers in the lucrative sports. They chose love instead of loot.

“What’s the problem with men’s basketball at the university?”

“Boy, it’s a yo-yo, isn’t it? Let’s hope they’ve turned the corner.” She touched his arm. “Look at these kids playing basketball and football now. They’re hulks.”

“That they are.” Ben lowered his voice. “Sam Lorillard mentioned something to me at the breakfast. Mitch and Anthony did some odd jobs for Berry Storage. We knew that. Donnie Sweigert was always the driver, never any other driver.”

“I don’t see the significance.”

“I’m not sure I do, either. Sam’s friend, Rory Ackerman, who’s now in rehab in Greensboro, was the one who told him this. Anyway, Sam said Mitch and Anthony only delivered furniture to coaches or trainers.”

“Have you asked Clay?”

Ben nodded that he had. “Said he’d check his records. Said he couldn’t trust Mitch and Anthony or any of the railroad denizens to stay sober long enough for a long haul. They only made the short runs, and Donnie drove those because he didn’t like going cross-country. Also Clay said he felt Donnie could control the drunks. I think Donnie himself drank more than Clay knew.”

“What a pity.”

Ben shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You know these people. Can you think of anything—no matter how far-fetched—that would tie in Mitch, Anthony, and Donnie to the delivery of expensive furniture to coaches?”

“Drugs,” she replied. “These days it always seems to come down to that. We have a countereconomy in America, not one tax dollar produced from it. Billions.”

“I know,” Ben said with feeling.

Sister replied, “I can’t see that Clay or X would be involved in drugs. They don’t appear to use them. But,” she inhaled, “an insurance scam fits the bill, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Worried?”

Ben looked her right in the eyes. “Yes.”

“You don’t think it’s over?”

“No.”

She rubbed her forehead a moment. “They aren’t afraid to kill.”

“Selling OxyContin can yield hundreds of thousands of dollars. Prozac, Percodan, anything like that. Even Viagra.” He smiled slightly. “Off market, the drugs can make one very rich very fast. As for cocaine and other party drugs, they can make you rich fast, but they’re more dangerous because the other people dealing them are smart, tough, quick to kill.”

“Ben, have you ruled out the furniture and silver theft entirely?”

“No. No evidence so far for linking the fire to that, but,” he said, with emphasis, “these people are highly intelligent, very well organized. This may be a warning to someone else in the ring or to competition. They’d be stupid to burn down a warehouse full of stolen goods, wouldn’t they?”

Sister agreed, then asked, “What can I do?”

“The Jefferson Hunt is one of the hubs of the county. Can you think of any one or any group who might be involved in a high-class theft organization or involved with drugs? For example, and I certainly don’t mean she would do this, just as an example, can you imagine Betty Franklin buying illegal diet drugs in this country on the black market?”

“No.” Then Sister chuckled. “Bobby would be thinner.”

Ben smiled. “Keep your eyes open. Keep thinking. We’re right next to it, Sister, but we can’t see it.”

When Ben walked away, she thought about the ghosts on Hangman’s Ridge. She shuddered. Those ghosts appeared when someone was going to die. She used to think it was a tall tale, but over the years she had learned to believe it.

She moved around the party. Marty Howard caught up with her for a moment. “Thank you for coming. If you ever have any time, Sister, we’d love for you to read. It’s not just books we need, but magazines and newspapers. It’s often hard for the blind to keep up with current things.”

“I never thought of that. I could read for an hour to two. Let’s see how I do.”

“I’ll call Monday and we can check calendars.”

As Marty moved away, Dalton Hill joined her. “The hunting has been very good. I’m glad I joined.”

“Me, too.” Sister noticed he wore an English school tie, quite expensive. “Beautiful tie.”

“Eton.” He blushed slightly. “Actually, I didn’t attend Eton. I went to St. Andrews College, Aurora, but I liked the thin Eton blue diagonal stripe.”

“I can see why. I heard you purchased the Cleveland bay.”

“Yes. I’m going to have my two hunters brought down from Hamilton, too.” He named the town where his horses were boarding. “I want to hunt as much as I can. One of the great things about teaching is I can set my schedule, so I have arranged all my classes to be in the late afternoon.”

“Perfect.” She paused, then addressed him. “Dr. Hill—”

“Do call me Dalton. I’m trying to downplay the doctor,” he interrupted, a conspiratorial note in his voice. “I really don’t want to hear about someone’s gallbladder.”

“I promise never to discuss mine.” She smiled. “In Canada certain drugs are available that aren’t available here, am I right?”

“Not hard drugs, of course, but yes. Canada’s laws are more patient-oriented. Forgive me a bit of national pride, but in the United States, Master, everything is driven by profit, by the huge pharmaceutical companies.”

“Call me Sister. But surely those mega companies—and not all of them are American, I mean the Germans and the Swiss have giant pharmaceutical companies, all those companies do business in Canada.”

“They do, but we have them more in check. The whole point is to heal the patient. If you can’t heal the patient, then you make him or her as comfortable as possible; it’s cruel to deny a suffering person relief.”

“What about performance drugs? Not drugs for illness, but drugs to enhance performance?”

“Sexual performance?” His eyebrows rose.

“Now there’s the elixir of life as well as profit,” she wryly exclaimed. “I wasn’t thinking of that, but let’s include it. I was thinking along the lines of drugs to retard aging, and yes, I would be the first in line.”

“No need.”

“Dalton, thank you. You’re fibbing, but it falls sweetly upon the ear.” She smiled broadly. “I was thinking of anti-aging drugs and athletic-performance drugs. Guess I was remembering that fabulous runner, Ben Johnson, the Canadian sprinter who set a record for the hundred-meter dash at the 1987 World Championships, and won the Gold Medal at the 1988 Olympics, and then forfeited it when he admitted to steroid use.”

“Athletes are far beyond that. The coaches, the team doctors—everyone is more sophisticated now, and the drugs are more sophisticated, too.”

“And some of these drugs are legal in your country?”

“Not steroids.”

“Do you condone their use?”

Hesitating, he replied, “There is no way any professional athlete can make a living, can hold down his or her job, without chemical help. I find nothing wrong in trying to advance human performance. The caveat is abuse. Aspirin is a drug. Caffeine is as well. Bodybuilders routinely drink a cup of coffee before working out. Actually, I find your country’s drug laws backward, repressive, opening a wide door for crime.”

She sighed deeply. “I’m afraid you are right.”

“The entrenched interests here, meaning those people making tax-free billions, have churches and politicians on their side. It’s hypocritical. It’s shocking. It’s big business.”

“Prohibition on a higher plane.” She sighed again.

“Exactly.” His lips compressed. Then he relaxed. “I apologize. Being an endocrinologist, I study human chemistry. We really can improve performance with drugs. We really can retard aging. And we really can begin to solve the riddles of some dreadful degenerative diseases with stem cell research.” He threw up his hands. “I cannot for the life of me understand why any human being would deny a cure for Parkinson’s to another, and yet that’s exactly what’s happening.”

“For many people, these are complex moral issues.”

“There’s nothing moral in watching a human being die by inches.”

“I agree, Dalton, I totally agree. But I am one lone woman in Virginia without one ounce of political clout.”

“You can vote, and you are a master. Masters are members of Parliament in training.” He was warm to her now. “Same skills.”

“Perhaps they are.”

“Why did you ask me about drugs?”

“Oh, Ben and I were talking about the university basketball team. One thing led to another. And then you said you wanted to shy away from being called a doctor. I thought I’d better ask while I could, especially about the aging stuff.” She laughed as she evaded telling the truth.

“I’ll tell you what. If you come to my office, I’ll pull blood, run an EKG, do a few other tests. I can tell you, with accuracy, the true age of your body. Not your years but the true age of your body. In fact, you’d be a fascinating subject. Without the tests, I’d hazard a guess that internally you are between forty-five and fifty. You have never abused alcohol, drugs, or smoked. Am I correct?”

“You are.”

“Come see me.”

“I shall. I appreciate the offer.”

“You’d be doing me a favor.” He paused a moment. “I believe, no, I know we can live longer, stronger lives than we imagine. Aging must be recast in our minds as a slow disease that can be fought. I can envision a day when men can live to be a hundred and fifty with full productive lives.”

“Women?” she asked slyly.

“Ah.” He smiled. “A hundred seventy-five.”

“Right answer. Can you envision a future where a woman can run the hundred-yard dash, well, I guess it’s a hundred meters now, in nine seconds?”

“Yes. And a man will do it in seven and a half.”

“Are you being sexist?”

“No. Men really are faster. Yes, the fastest woman in the world will be faster than eighty percent of the men but, at the top, the men are faster. That’s the real difference in professional tennis. It’s not upper-body muscle, which people focus on, it’s speed. Men can return shots that women can’t. So if a woman plays a man, she’s not used to her ‘winners’ being fired back that fast.”

“Never thought of that.”

“In your favor, women have much more endurance, and, this I can’t quantify scientifically, but also much more emotional strength.”

She studied his earnest features. “Perhaps. But there’s so much we can never know accurately because our concepts of male and female are formed in a rigid cultural grid. Even scientific research reflects unconscious bias.”

“I agree. It does.” He noticed a pretty woman talking to Marty Howard.

“That’s Rebecca Baldwin, Tedi Bancroft’s grandniece. Thirty-one, I should say. Used to hunt, but she went back to school to get her doctorate in architectural history. Lovely girl. Allow me to introduce you.”

After Sister performed this service, she smiled to herself at how Dalton’s demeanor changed in the presence of a pretty woman. Ah yes, though he was an endocrinologist, his hormones pumped just like in the rest of us.

She found Gray, whispered in his ear. “You are so handsome. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m having fun.”

He slipped his arm around her waist for a moment, inhaling her fragrance, her hair. “I’m walking on air. And I do want to take you to a proper dinner. Let’s go Sunday. And sometime, too, let’s go up to the Kennedy Center. I have season seats, box seats, for the opera. Do you like the opera?”

“I can learn.” Sister knew nothing except she loathed recitatives.

He hugged her tighter. “We’ve both got a lot to learn. We’ll never be bored.”

Tedi noticed this exchange and prayed silently. “Dear God, let this be something special. Bring love into her life. She deserves it. And help us all get over this black/white stuff.” Then she glanced across the room, filling with more people, catching sight of the man she had loved for fifty years. Her eyes misted over. When she had stood before the altar next to a black-haired Edward Bancroft, she could never have dreamed that fifty years later she would love him more deeply, more passionately, with more insight into the man than when he slipped that thin gold band on her finger. She prayed again, “Thank you.”

Sister checked her watch as she made the rounds. Time to get home. She thought to herself that she didn’t give Gray much of a chase. So many men love the chase. Well, seductive gamesmanship wasn’t her style. Then she thought to herself, Admit it, I’m seventy-two. I haven’t any time to waste. She nearly laughed out loud at the thought.

As she was ready to leave, she overheard Clay and Xavier inside the cloakroom.

“. . . a real bind.”

“Clay, I know. I’m doing everything I can. I can’t just write a check out of my company’s funds.”

“It’s not just the money, X. It’s the suspicion. People are looking at me like I’m an arsonist, a scam artist, like I’m a murderer. Do you know what this is doing to my wife and children?”

Xavier’s voice rose, almost pleading. “What can I do? Neither Ben Sidell nor the investigator can figure it out. What can I do?”

“Can’t you write me a small check? Even five thousand dollars?”

“You’re putting me in a terrible position. If I do that, I’m undercutting the carrier. I have hundreds of clients placed with them, and Worldwide Security has been excellent. I can’t screw up that relationship for myself or my other clients.”

“So you’ll screw up our friendship?”

“Clay, my hands are tied.”