Hounded To Death

CHAPTER 13

The Bryn Mawr Hound Show fell on the same weekend as the Custis Hall graduation. Missing it disappointed Sister, for if the Virginia show was all trumpets and cymbals, Bryn Mawr was mellow woodwinds. But she couldn’t be in two places at the same time, and after the events at the last two hound shows, she was almost relieved to stay home.

On the Monday after graduation, Tootie, with help from Val, moved into RayRay’s bedroom at the end of the long upstairs hall. How wonderful it felt to have life back in that room!

Tootie didn’t want to unpack, she wanted to get right to work, but Sister told her to get her things in order first; they’d have plenty to do tomorrow. Val would be driving back home, and she thought the two friends would like time together.

Usually, chore day was Thursday but Sister had odds and ends that wouldn’t wait, so she hopped in the car, hit up Southern States and Whole Foods, stopped by Keller & George to drop off an old watch for repair, and lingered over new watches.

Arriving at the little café early, Sister drank an ice cold Co-Cola and read yesterday’s Times of London, her favorite newspaper despite its steep subscription rate (close to two thousand dollars a year) but worth every penny for the pleasure.

“Ah.” She looked over the top of the paper, removing her reading glasses.

“Sorry, I’m late.” Ben Sidell sat opposite her.

“You’re not. I was early. Chaos at home. I’m enjoying the peace and quiet.” She filled him in on Tootie’s moving in and Val’s help. Felicity and Howie were also moving into the vacant Demetrios farm, closer to Sister, that Crawford Howard had purchased because it abutted his land.

“Sounds like everyone’s settling in.” He smiled.

“And there will be a marriage ceremony the last weekend of June.”

“Good.” His brown eyes were merry. “Better to be married than not, I think.”

“In Felicity’s case, certainly.” She smiled.

“In general.” Ben leaned back. “Studies show that men who marry live longer and are happier than men who do not.”

“And women?” She arched a silver eyebrow.

“As it happens, the statistics are not the same. Single women appear to get along just fine.”

“Sure, because they don’t have to do double the housework.”

“Don’t more men do housework now?” Ben rubbed his chin. Judging by the light brown stubble there, he had left home this morning without shaving. “They must. Women are making more money, so they don’t have to put up with deadbeats anymore.”

“Well, I hope so. Ray wouldn’t do laundry if he had to go naked.” She laughed. “He did do the dishes, though.”

Ben noticed the sports page sticking out from under the Sunday paper. “May I?”

“Sure.” She slipped it to him.

After they ordered he commented wryly, “A lot of cricket photos. I don’t know as I will ever understand that game. It takes forever to finish a match.”

“Can you imagine living when people had enough time for games to last three days? Remember, cricket started out as a kind of farm sport, or perhaps I should say a sport of the lower orders. I actually quite like it.”

He pushed the paper back. “You never cease to amaze me. Speaking of which, here’s the background on Grant Fuller.” He handed her a sheet of paper.

Their sandwiches came, and a refill of Sister’s Co-Cola.

“Tennessee, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia.” She tapped the side of her plate once with her knife and then put it down quickly, realizing what she’d done. “He was expanding the business.”

“How well did you know him?”

“Just socially, and even then I saw him infrequently. The dog food he gave me to test was quite good.”

“After you called me last night I got to thinking about all this. The three people seem to have nothing in common—mind you, I believe that Hope did kill herself—but then I thought, ‘Well, the Silver Fox’”—he used one of Sister’s nicknames—“‘told me to put my nose down.’ What I did find is that both men had been charged with cruelty to animals.”

“Grant?” This surprised her.

“That’s why he sold his slaughterhouses. The newspaper report quotes him as saying he didn’t know any easy way to kill large animals, and they performed this act as humanely as possible. Of course, the poor animals can smell the blood, the panic. They die in dreadful fear; we all know that. Much as I hate it, I’m not going to stop eating beef, pork, or lamb chops. Still, there ought to be a better way.”

“I’m sure there is, if we’d apply ourselves to finding it. And I expect in future there will be less meat-eating because it’s cheaper to get the calories from grain. This assumes that humans continue to breed like flies, outpacing the food supply.”

“Um—well, Sister, as you know there’s nothing I can do about that. My job takes effect after the act, not before.”

She studied the states and dates again. “West Virginia. The date is the same as that terrible storm. Charleston, West Virginia. The same as the night Hope died.”

“And?”

“Oh, nothing. Coincidence.” She opened the small jar of mustard served with her sandwich. “Were there any other charges of cruelty against Grant?”

“No, the animal rights activists stuck to the slaughterhouse issue.”

“If Grant Fuller is ever found, maybe we’ll be closer to the truth. He certainly never struck me as a brutal man—unlike Mo.”

“No break in that case yet.”

“Too many people are still cheering.” She smiled. “Thank you for going to the trouble of getting this information on Grant from the sheriff in his county.”

“Turns out Grant is a meticulous record keeper. Once Grant’s wife filed a missing person’s report, his secretary handed the sheriff his desk daybook. It listed all his purchases. The sheriff said Grant must have had a hollow leg.”

“Really?” Sister’s voice rose. “I saw him exceedingly happy a few times but never bombed.”

“Cases of Jack Daniel’s Black and some Kentucky bourbons, too. Also cases of vodka.”

“He lived in Tennessee; he would drink Jack. Also, Ben, much of his work involved socializing. I’ll bet he had a traveling bar in his car. He was a student of bourbon. I know that and he got Hope into distilleries to meet the real artists, the actual distillers. Then his wife put an end to that.”

“Too bad his wife was suspicious but maybe she had just cause. About his traveling bar, well, lubricate the customer.” Ben polished off the last of his sandwich. “Feeding them first doesn’t hurt either.”

“Is that a hint for more?”

“I’m not a customer.”

“You’re right. You’re a valuable member of the Jefferson Hunt Club who is learning the subtleties of hunting God’s most intelligent creature. You truly have come a long way.”

The praise made him blush. “Thank you. I had no idea how complicated it is.”

“There are people who hunt for forty years and don’t know what’s going on. Don’t know when a whipper-in has blundered into the covert; don’t know when hounds have overrun the line; never take into account the angle of the sun, the wind, or the time of the month.”

“Time of the month?”

“Can’t get foxes to run the day after a full moon. If they’re out they’ll pop right back into their den.”

“Why?”

“Full as ticks. Hunting is fabulous during a full moon. Every creature is moving about. A predator doesn’t have to work as hard to flush game.”

“See? I learn something every time I’m with you.”

“You flatter me. Dessert?”

“I want the bomb.” The bomb was a huge round dome of chocolate-chip ice cream on a thin shortbread wafer. Over this was poured either chocolate syrup or crème de menthe.

“That sounds good.”

He ordered one with chocolate syrup; she ordered the crème de menthe. They ate themselves silly.

After lunch, he walked her back to her car. “Now that the hound shows are over, maybe things will settle down. No murders, no disappearances.”

“I was straining for a connection,” said Sister. “Probably didn’t have a thing to do with hound shows.”

She was as right about that as Ben was wrong about future events.