Hotspur

CHAPTER 2

Creamy suds of disinfectant swirled down the large kennel drain as Shaker washed the feed room. The female hounds, called bitches or gyps, drowsy after their exercise and breakfast, lounged on the benches on their side of the kennels. The dog hounds on their side, separate from the girls, did likewise as well as being scattered throughout the runs like so many canine statues.

A few hound ears perked up, then dropped back as Sister Jane and Betty hurried into the kennels.

Shaker turned off the power washer. “Sad job putting old Pepper in the ground.” He hung the washer nozzle on a wall hook, then glanced over at his boss and dear friend. “Janie, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Ashen-faced, still a little shaky, she replied, “I have.”

The three repaired to Shaker’s office next to the kennels. The open windows let in the breeze carrying the tang of hound scent.

“Here, you’d better sit down.” He pulled out his desk chair for Sister. “You, too, Betty.” He moved over the spartan extra chair for Betty Franklin, who dropped into it. Betty kept swallowing.

“We have seen a ghost. We have.” Tears welled up in Betty’s expressive eyes.

Shaker, always a bit awkward in emotional situations but a feeling man nonetheless, patted Betty on the back. “On Hangman’s Ridge?” They hadn’t walked out that way, but it was the first thing that popped into his mind. The ridge was reputed to have been haunted since Lawrence Pollard had swung from the oak for having master-minded a land speculation deal that had impoverished all who had invested in it in 1702.

Sister shook her silver head. “Nola Bancroft.”

He perched his spare frame on the edge of the desk, a flicker of disbelief on his sunburnt features. “What are you talking about?”

Sister closed her eyes, inhaled deeply. “After you took hounds back, Walter got Jimmy to bury Peppermint. We couldn’t put him by Snake Creek, so Betty and I thought just above the abutment by the covered bridge would be high enough.” She took a deep breath. “Well, Jimmy did a fine job, but I saw bones. I jumped in, Walter after me—”

“Me too,” Betty chimed in. “It was an elbow.”

“Walter brushed away the earth, and the arm bones appeared and then the hand. The Hapsburg sapphire was still on her finger. . . .”

Raleigh wedged himself tightly next to Sister’s leg since he could tell she was upset.

“My God, I don’t believe it! After all these years.”

“Twenty-one years,” Betty added. “Just a pile of whitened bones and that ring. The little metal belt buckle from her dress was there, too. Remember when Paul Ramy kept asking each of us what Nola was wearing the last time we saw her? Well, we’d all just seen her at Sorrel Buruss’s party.”

“She had on a blue flowered sundress,” Sister recalled. “Everyone teased her that she bought the dress because the blue matched her eyes and she sassed back that she bought it because it showed off her cleavage.” Sister smiled, remembering the impossibly beautiful younger daughter of Tedi and Edward Bancroft.

Nola had been twenty-four years old when she’d disappeared more than two decades earlier.

“Uh, is she still in the grave?” Shaker lowered his voice.

“I don’t know.” Betty shifted in her seat. “The sheriff showed up with Gaston Marshall, the coroner. Ben took statements from each of us and told us we could leave.”

Ben Sidell was the sheriff. Betty, like many county residents, often called him by his first name.

“What did Gaston do?” Shaker asked.

“He made the sheriff’s assistant take pictures and then he got down in the grave and they started cleaning off the dirt. They were very careful. We were excused before they’d finished the job. Maybe there will be clues left.”

“What a pity old Sheriff Ramy isn’t still alive for this,” Betty said.

“I always thought Sheriff Ramy pretty much died the day his son Guy disappeared. His body just kept on for a while longer,” Sister added.

Guy Ramy had been courting Nola. The Bancrofts did not consider the sheriff’s son a suitable match for their daughter. They offered strong resistance, which only made Guy more attractive to the headstrong Nola. And he wasn’t bad-looking to begin with. He disappeared when Nola did, so at first people naturally figured they’d run off to get married without parental blessing. But as days passed, then weeks, no one heard a peep. Even Sybil, Nola’s older sister, didn’t hear from Nola, and the two sisters were close. Sybil, married but a year to Ken Fawkes, plunged into a depression. In a sense, the whole family did as the weeks passed into months. As Sybil had married beneath her, to use Tedi’s phrase, she felt guilty because she thought her marriage had put even more pressure on Nola to marry a Randolph, a Valentine, a Venable, a De-Jarnette, names considered suitable in Virginia.

No one ever saw or heard from Nola Bancroft or Guy Ramy again after Saturday, September 5, 1981.

“Walter’s still there. As a medical man, Ben asked him to stay. The worst was what to do about telling Tedi. We all agreed she couldn’t find her daughter and Peppermint together. The sheriff allowed Jimmy to haul Peppermint up on the ridge and bury him there so Tedi won’t have to see that. And he said he wouldn’t fetch Tedi and Edward until Nola’s body is completely free of its tomb. Well, I guess it isn’t a tomb, but you know what I mean. Oh, it’s just awful, Shaker.”

The thought of Tedi Bancroft viewing the skeletal remains of her beloved daughter made Shaker grimace. “Can’t someone else identify her?”

“Actually none of us can. Not even Tedi. We assume it’s Nola because of the sapphire. The coroner will have to go by dental records.”

“Assuming the skull is there.” Betty furrowed her eyebrows.

“Betty,” Sister said, looking at her sternly.

“Well, we don’t know how she died. Killers do really strange things. I mean, some of them are fascinated with death. They keep coming back. And who knows but what they might find Guy right there with her. Maybe he killed her and then shot himself.”

“He’d never kill Nola. He loved that girl,” Shaker said with conviction.

“Furthermore, how could he bury himself?” Sister sensibly added.

“Well, I am shook up. I’m not being very logical. But I can’t help it. The sight of that big ring on that bony finger will stay with me forever.”

“Yes, me too.” Sister sighed, dropping her hand to pet Raleigh’s sleek head. “Let’s pray that Walter can talk Ben out of fetching Tedi. Edward can come down. Or Ken, or Sybil, or anyone but Tedi. Anyway, I think the only reason Ben would subject them to this is to see if he can jolt something out of them,” Sister said shrewdly.

“None of them did it,” Betty flatly stated.

“But people suppress things, Betty. Maybe the grisly sight will force out a memory that will help put the pieces of the puzzle together. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I’ve suppressed plenty in my own life.”

“Haven’t we all.” Betty cracked her knuckles, a nervous gesture.

“You know what my memory of Nola is?” Shaker asked. “I see this beautiful girl just flying her fences on Peppermint. Like that great big old stone wall down there at Duelling Grounds.” Shaker mentioned a farm where they hunted. “Everyone takes the low end, but she’d put him right to the four-foot section and sail over, hands forward, eyes up, big smile on her face.”

“Girl could ride,” Betty agreed as she smiled in remembrance.

In these parts, indeed in most of Virginia, the ability to ride was considered one of the social graces. It had nothing to do with money and a lot to do with talent. Or at least determination, should one lack talent. Nola had it all: talent, determination, and money.

Sybil, a very good rider herself, pitted herself against Nola or rode with her as her partner in hunter pairs at hunter trials and hunter paces, outdoor competitions. They were fun to watch.

Golliwog, a large calico, sauntered into the kennel. She’d been waiting up at the house for Sister to return and she was quite irritated about her delay. Not only was Sister overdue, but Golliwog had artfully arranged a large field mouse on the back porch for Sister’s delectation. But the heat was rising, the mouse ripening with it. Golly did not like such unsavory things, although Raleigh did, of course. This was just one more reason that dogs were inferior to cats in Golly’s mind.

“I am sick and tired of waiting for everyone!” she complained.

“Pipe down, Golly!” Sister ordered the cat, a useless order, of course.

“We found Nola Bancroft’s body,” Raleigh informed the imperious creature.

Nola had disappeared long before Golly was born— the cat was now in the prime of life—but she had heard odd snippets over the years concerning the Bancroft girl who could have been a movie star. Not that she paid much attention, since she always preferred to be the topic of conversation herself.

“What, she just popped up somewhere?”

“Peppermint died this morning and we found her when Jimmy Chirios dug the grave with the backhoe.”

As the dog and cat considered the morning’s events, Sister stood up. “Well, we’ve got to do something, but I don’t know exactly what.”

“Pay a call,” Betty suggested.

“Yes, I know that. We’ve got to let the club members know. She was a member of Jefferson Hunt, after all.”

“You’re right. I’ll get the telephone tree going,” Betty said. Shaker pulled the club directory from his long middle desk drawer, handing it to Betty.

“I suggest you don’t,” he said.

“Why?” Both women stared at him.

“Wait until you talk again to the sheriff. He might not want the news out quite that fast.”

“Shaker, this is Jefferson County. Gossip travels faster than light,” Sister truthfully stated. “Even now the phones are ringing throughout the county.”

“But it shouldn’t be on our heads. He’s going to want to talk to anyone who remembers Nola, which is anyone in our club over twenty-five, and that’s most everyone.”

“He’s right.” Betty handed back the directory.

Sister, usually politically astute, considered the wisdom of Shaker’s suggestion and realized she’d been more rattled by the discovery than she’d thought. “Right.” She rubbed her temples a moment. “Do you know what keeps running through my mind? It’s Peppermint. He loved her. He would do anything for Nola. He carried all the Bancrofts at one time or another, but he loved Nola best of all and now he’s led us back to her.”

“In death,” Betty said, sounding a trifle morbid even to herself.

“Fate.” Shaker reached for his old briarwood Dunhill pipe, his father’s.

“Aren’t death and fate the same thing?” Betty wondered.

“No, ma’am, not by a long shot.” Shaker leaned against the desk. “Not by a long shot.”