Hotspur

CHAPTER 8

Roger’s Corner, a white frame convenience store, commanded the crossroads of Soldier Road, the road heading west from town, and White Cat Road, an old wagon road heading north and south. Far in the distance, a thin turquoise line rimmed the mountains. A first-quarter moon accompanied by a red star hovered above the last bright strip of twilight.

Roger, now in his middle forties, ate too much of his own pizza heated in a revolving infrared glass case. On the shelves, Snickers, Cheez-Its, Little Debbie cakes, and Entenmann’s chocolate-covered doughnuts vied with bags of charcoal, ammunition, hunting knives. In the coolers, handmade sandwiches—including Roger’s famous olive cream cheese on whole wheat—enticed folks to stop. If they hadn’t tanked up in town, they pretty much had to stop at Roger’s, because gas was hard to find in these parts. The next pump was over the Blue Ridge Mountains in Waynesboro.

The outside floodlights hummed in the night air accompanied by the flutter of saturniid moths and the buzz of many bugs, a few zapped by the lights themselves. A long sign, ROGER’S CORNER, white with well-proportioned red block letters, ran almost the entire length of the roof. Roger might never achieve his fifteen minutes of Warholian fame in the world at large, but his sign announced his presence emphatically in these parts.

Shaker Crown, his Orioles baseball cap pulled up off his forehead, worn out from the day’s work and not much of a cook, leaned over the counter.

Henry Xavier, owner of the largest insurance company in town, had stopped by on his way home as had Ralph Assumptio, owner of the John Deere tractor dealership. Both men had farms on this west side of the county that were part of Jefferson Hunt territory and both men hunted with Sister. Most members didn’t say they hunted with the Jefferson Hunt. They’d simply say, “I hunt with Sister Jane.”

By so doing, they found out instantly if the person to whom they were talking knew anything about local society. If they were met with a blank they would graciously add, “the Jefferson Hunt.” It was one of those little pride things like the way members of Green Springs Valley Hounds outside of Baltimore never discussed how big their jumps were. They shrugged and would say about their horse, “Oh, he got over nicely.” Green Springs Valley Hounds, founded in 1892, boasted some stiff fences. It was not a hunt for the fainthearted, but such details were never explained, simply announced.

All groups cherish their ceremonies of togetherness, rituals that prove them set apart and special.

“Where’s your chew?” Roger was ringing up Shaker’s sandwich.

“Um . . .”

“Here it is. You left it on top of the Twinkies.” Henry Xavier, known only as Xavier, picked up the neat round tin of Copenhagen Black and handed it to Shaker.

“Ah, thanks.” Shaker tapped his head. “Vapor lock.”

Ralph joined them, banging on the counter the gallon of milk his wife had told him to pick up. “Day wasn’t fit for man nor beast.”

“We built new coops over there at Foxglove. And it was hateful.”

“Thank God.” Ralph lovingly stared at the round can of chew in Shaker’s hand. “Damn, I wish I hadn’t promised Frances I’d give that up.”

“Guess who showed up to bitch out Sister?” Shaker asked as he pulled soggy bills out of his pocket, gently peeling a fiver off the wad.

“Crawford,” Xavier offered.

“On a mission,” Roger simply said.

“Mission impossible.” Xavier smiled as the others laughed.

“That jumped-up jackass really believes we’ll elect him joint-master.” Ralph put his milk back in the cooler because he sensed this might be a ripening chat.

“Hey, if he dumps enough money into the club, who knows?” Xavier’s heavy brows, black with some gray, shot upward. “Money papers over many sins.”

“Sins I can handle. But he lacks the imagination to be a sinner. He’s just a Yankee jackass,” Ralph said as he walked back from the cooler.

“Aren’t they all?” Shaker winked.

“I was born in Connecticut.” Xavier smiled. He was a genial man becoming portly. In this heat he favored seersucker shirts, which somehow made him look fatter, not thinner.

“Oh, Xavier, you were raised here. Don’t turn P.C. on us.” Roger slapped at him over the counter.

“Well, do you guys want to know who rolled down the road or not?”

“Shoot,” Xavier said.

“Alice Ramy.”

“What did she want?” Ralph couldn’t stand it any longer; he grabbed a tin of Skoal menthol chew, pulled the string around it, and with delight placed a pinch between his lip and his gum. He closed his teeth in contentment.

“Oh, the usual. Got up in Janie’s face and said we couldn’t hunt there and she’d loose the hounds of hell on us”—Shaker enjoyed his little reference to hounds— “and that Peter’s harrier better stay out of her chicken coop, wait, make that her golden chicken coop.”

“And Sister smiled through it all,” Ralph said.

“And that’s why Crawford Howard can’t ever be a joint-master. His ego would be in the way. He’d fire back at the old battle-ax or buy up all the land around her and choke her out. Son of a bitch.” Xavier knew a good deal about Crawford’s local business dealings since he insured many of them. He hated Crawford, but business was business.

“True.” Roger clasped his hands. “But you guys need a joint-master so Sister can train him to her ways. She can’t live forever.”

“She might come close,” Shaker said with a laugh. “She was throwing around oak boards today like a thirty-year-old. Tough as nails, the old girl is.”

“Don’t make ’em like that anymore.” Xavier admired Sister. After all, he’d hunted in the field with her when he was a boy. She’d been in her forties then.

“I kind of felt sorry for Alice,” Shaker continued. “Guess Ben Sidell got her knickers in a knot. She felt he accused her of covering up for Guy, and you know, the whole ugly mess is flaring up all over again. Sister was real good about it. Said she’d call on her. I couldn’t take it that far, but I do feel kind of bad for Alice.”

“Alice doesn’t make it any easier, and I should know,” Ralph said, and shook his head. He was Alice’s nephew; his mother was Alice’s sister. “Everything has to be her way. If you take a can of beer out of her refrigerator, she opens the door behind you to make sure you didn’t disturb the other cans lined up inside. You can’t smoke a whole cigarette but what she whisks the ashtray and dumps the ashes. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she’ll run you crazy. And now she’s out of control. At least when Paul was alive he’d make fun of her and snap her out of it.”

“Women dry up,” Xavier simply stated.

“And men get sentimental,” Roger, a sharp observer of folks, said. He reached for a brew. “Anyone? On me?”

“Thanks.” Xavier accepted a cold can of Bud while Roger reached for an import, Sol.

“People dry up if they aren’t tended to. I’m kind of worried about myself,” Shaker joked.

“I don’t want to hear, ‘There are no women out there.’ ” Xavier punched him. “Clean up, get out, and start looking.”

“Did Ben call on you?” Ralph asked Roger.

“Sure.”

“Me too.” Xavier sighed.

“Hasn’t gotten to me yet,” Shaker added. “I was hired on as a whipper-in that year. What a year.”

“Give Ben credit. He’s going over the file and questioning every name he finds in there. I talked to him.” Roger liked the aftertaste the crisp Sol beer left in his mouth. He liked Mexican beers. “Guy stopped by here that last night. Bought something. I don’t remember what. Dad was behind the counter. I was helping to unload the Coca-Cola truck.”

“You had muscles then,” Xavier teased him.

“Still do. They’re protected by this layer of fat.”

“You’ll never have that problem,” Xavier, also a bit heftier than in his running days, commented to Shaker.

“Most huntsmen stay pretty lean, takes a lean hound for a long race and a lean huntsman, too. Although I know one or two fat huntsmen. Pity the horse.”

“Ever notice how a lot of fat people are really light on their feet?” Xavier thought about a copy of Men’s Health magazine he’d seen on the rack at Barnes & Noble. A fellow in swim trunks was on the cover, his abs rippled like the proverbial six-packs. Xavier made a mental note to buy the magazine. He was standing around looking at his buddies, and except for Shaker they looked like overweight middle-aged men.

“I don’t want to see it,” Ralph blurted out.

“See what?” Xavier asked.

“The grave. The grave over at After All.”

“Ralph, what made you think of that?” Shaker noticed how white Ralph’s face had turned.

“First day of cubbing. We’ll probably leave from the kennels, and if the fox heads east we could wind up over there, and I don’t want to see that grave. Every time I think about Nola I get sick. I mean it.”

A silence followed.

Roger broke it. “Me too.”

“Ditto,” Xavier sighed.

“I guess when the sheriff is done with the bones, he’ll give them back to the Bancrofts,” Shaker said.

“And that’s another thing—all this bullshit about forensic science,” Ralph exploded. “Nola’s been in that dirt tomb for twenty-one years. They aren’t going to find squat. You know why you hear so much about pathology and this miracle and that miracle? Because any law enforcement officer can tell you, murder is damned easy to pull off. So if you create this propaganda about how you can be convicted from one strand of hair, people believe it. I suppose it deters the weak-willed. I don’t know much, but I can tell you those lab coat dudes aren’t going to find much.”

“They know her head was crushed,” Xavier said. “Ben told me.”

“Oh, come on. If we’d dug her up we’d know that, too,” Ralph practically spit out. “Do you think he cares? The killer? People kill every day and never give it a second thought. They don’t have a conscience. It would eat you or me up alive. But whoever killed Nola”—Ralph pointed his forefinger for emphasis—“walked away and thought he was right, or rid of her, or whatever he thought, but he didn’t give a damn.”

“I don’t believe that,” Shaker argued.

“Me neither. Killing a beautiful woman like that would haunt him for the rest of his days,” Roger agreed with Shaker.

Xavier tapped his lips with his forefinger, a little stream of air escaping, then he said, “Maybe. Maybe not. If it was Guy, we will never know. Apologies to you, Ralph. I know he was your cousin, but let’s just look at this from every angle. If it was Guy, it’s done and he’s gone. Maybe he’ll return someday in old age, confess, repent. I don’t know. Stranger things have happened, but if it wasn’t Guy, I don’t think the man who smashed in the side of her head cares that he killed her. He just cares that he doesn’t get caught.”