Murder At Monticello

17

Harry and Warren Randolph grunted as they picked up the York rake and put it on the back of her truck.

“Either this thing is getting heavier or I’m getting weaker,” Warren joked.

“It’s getting heavier.”

“Hey, come on for a minute. I want to show you something.”

Harry opened the door to the truck so Tucker and Mrs. Murphy could leap out to freedom. They followed Harry to the Randolphs’ beautiful racing barn, built in 1892. Behind the white frame structure with the green standing-seam tin roof lay the mile-long oval track. Warren bred Thoroughbreds. That, too, like this property, had been in the family since the eighteenth century. The Randolphs loved blooded horses. The impressive walnut-paneled foyer at the manor house, hung with equine paintings spanning the centuries, attested to that fact.

The generous twelve-by-twelve-foot stalls were back to back in the center line of the barn. The tack room, wash stalls, and feed room were located in the center of the stall block. Circling the outside of the stalls was a large covered aisle that doubled as an exercise track during inclement weather. Since many windows circled the outside wall, enough light shone on the track so that even on a blizzardy day a rider could work a horse.

Kentucky possessed more of these glorified shed-row barns than Virginia, so Warren naturally prized his barn, built by his paternal grandfather. Colonel Randolph had put his money in the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway as well as the Union Pacific.

“What do you think?” His hazel eyes danced.

“Beautiful!” Harry exclaimed.

“What do you think?” Mrs. Murphy asked Tucker.

Tucker tentatively put one paw on the Pavesafe rubber bricks. The dull reddish surface of interlocking bricks could expand and contract within itself, so no matter what the weather or temperature, the surface remained nonskid. The bricks were also specially treated to resist bacteria.

The tailless dog took a few gingery steps, then raced to the other curved end of the massive barn. “Yahoo! This is like running on cushions.”

“Hey, hey, wait for me!” The cat bolted after her companion.

“Your cat and dog approve.” Warren jammed his hands into his pockets like a proud father.

Harry knelt down and touched the surface. “This stuff is right out of paradise.”

“No, right out of Lexington, Kentucky.” He led her down the row of stalls. “Honey, they’re so far ahead of us in Kentucky that it hurts my pride sometimes.”

“I guess we have to expect that. It is the center of the Thoroughbred industry.” Harry’s toes tingled with the velvety feel underneath.

“Well, you know me, I think Virginia should lead the nation in every respect. We’ve provided more presidents than any other state. We provided the leadership to form this nation—”

Warren sang out the paean of Virginia’s greatness, practicing perhaps for many speeches to follow. Harry, a native of the Old Dominion, didn’t disagree, but she thought the other twelve colonies had assisted in the break from the mother country. Only New York approximated the original Virginia in size before the break from West Virginia, and it was natural that a territory that big would throw up something or someone important. Then, too, the perfect location of Virginia, in the center of the coastline, and its topography, created by three great rivers, formed an environment hospitable to agriculture and the civilizing arts. Good ports and the Chesapeake Bay completed the rich natural aspects of the state. Prideful as Harry felt, she thought bragging on it was a little shy of good manners or good sense. People not fortunate enough to have been born in Virginia nor wise enough to remove themselves to the Old Dominion hardly needed this dolorous truth pointed out to them. It made outsiders surly.

When Warren finished, Harry returned to the flooring. “Mind if I ask how much this stuff costs?”

“Eight dollars a square foot and nine fifty for the antistumble edge.”

Harry calculated, roughly, the square footage before her and arrived at the staggering sum of forty-five thousand dollars. She gulped. “Oh” squeaked out of her.

“That’s what I said, but I tell you, Harry, I haven’t any worries about big knees or injuries of any sort of this stuff. Before, I used cedar shavings. Well, what a whistling bitch to keep hauling shavings in with the dump truck, plus there’s the man-hours to fetch it, replenish the supply in the aisle, rake it out, and clean it three times a day. I about wore out myself and my boys. And the dust when we had to work the horses inside—not good for the horses in their stalls or the ones being exercised, so then you spend time sprinkling it down. Still use the cedar for the stalls though. I grind it up a bit, mix it in with regular shavings. I like a sweet-smelling barn.”

“Most beautiful barn in Virginia.” Harry admired the place.

“Mouse alert!” Mrs. Murphy screeched to a stop, fishtailed into the feed room, and pounced at a hole in the corner to which the offending rodent had repaired.

Tucker stuck her nose in the feed room. “Where?”

“Here,” called Mrs. Murphy from the corner.

Tucker crouched down, putting her head between her paws. She whispered, “Should I stay motionless like you?”

“Nah, the little bugger knows we’re here. He’ll wait until we’re gone. You know a mouse can eat a quart of grain a week? You’d think that Warren would have barn cats.”

“Probably does. They smelled you coming and took off.” Tucker laughed as the tiger grumbled. “Let’s find Mom.”

“Not yet.” Mrs. Murphy stuck her paw in the mouse hole and fished around. She withdrew a wad of fuzzy fabric, the result of eating a hole in a shirt hanging in the stable, no doubt. “Ah, I feel something else.”

A piece of paper stuck to Mrs. Murphy’s left forefinger claw as she slid it out of the hole. “Damn, if I could just grab him.”

Tucker peered down at the high-quality vellum scrap. “Goes through the garbage too.”

“So do you.”

“Not often.” The dog sat down. “Hey, there’s a little bit of writing here.”

Mrs. Murphy withdrew her paw from her third attempt at the mouse hole. “So there is. ‘Dearest darling.’ Ugh. Love letters make me ill.” The cat studied it again. “Too chewed up. Looks like a man’s writing, doesn’t it?”

Tucker looked closely at the shred. “Well, it’s not very pretty. Guess there are lovers at the barn. Come on.”

“Okay.”

They joined Harry as she inspected a young mare Warren and his father had purchased at the January sale at Keeneland. Since this was an auction for Thoroughbreds of any age, unlike the sales specifically for yearlings or two-year-olds, one could sometimes find a bargain. The yearling auctions were the ones where the gavel fell and people’s pockets suddenly became lighter than air.

“I’m trying to breed in staying power. She’s got the bloodlines.” He thought for a moment, then continued. “Do you ever wonder, Harry, what it’s like to be a person who has no blood? A person who shuffled through Ellis Island—one’s ancestors, I mean. Would you ever feel that you belong, or would there be some vague romantic attachment, perhaps, to the old country? I mean, it must be dislocating to be a new American.”

“Ever attend the citizenship ceremony at Monticello? They do it every Fourth of July.”

“No, can’t say that I have, but I’d better do it if I’m going to run for the state Senate.”

“I have. Standing out there on the lawn are Vietnamese, Poles, Ecuadorians, Nigerians, Scots, you name it. They raise their hands, and this is after they’ve demonstrated a knowledge of the Constitution, mind you, and they swear allegiance to this nation. I figure after that they’re as American as we are.”

“You are a generous soul, Harry.” Warren slapped her on the back. “Here, I’ve got something for you.” He handed her a carton of the rubber paving bricks. It was heavy.

“Thank you, Warren, these will come in handy.” She was thrilled with the gift.

“Oh, here. What kind of a gentleman am I? Let me carry this to the truck.”

“We could carry it together,” Harry offered. “And, by the bye, I think you should run for the state Senate.”

Warren spied a wheelbarrow and placed the carton in it. “You do? Well, thank you.” He picked up the arms of the wheelbarrow. “Might as well use the wheel. Just think if the guy who invented it got royalties!”

“How do you know a woman didn’t invent the wheel?”

“You got me there.” Warren enjoyed Harry. Unlike his wife, Ansley, Harry was relaxed. He couldn’t imagine her wearing nail polish or fretting over clothes. He rather wished he weren’t a married man when he was around Harry.

“Warren, why don’t you let me come on out here and bush-hog a field or two? These bricks are so expensive, I feel guilty accepting them.”

“Hey, I’m not on food stamps. Besides, these are an overflow and I’ve got nowhere else to use them. You love your horses, so I bet you could use them in your wash rack . . . put them in the center and then put rubber mats like you have in the trailer around that. Not a bad compromise.”

“Great idea.”

Ansley pulled into the driveway, her bronzed Jaguar as sleek and as sexy as herself. Stuart and Breton were with her. She saw Harry and Warren pushing the wheelbarrow and drove over to them instead of heading for the house.

“Harry,” she called from inside the car, “how good to see you.”

“Your husband is playing Santa Claus.” Harry pointed to the carton.

“Hi, Harry,” the boys called out. Harry returned their greeting with a wave.

Ansley parked and elegantly disembarked from the Jag. Stuart and Breton ran up to the house. “You know Warren. He has to have a new project. But I must admit the barn looks fabulous and the stuff couldn’t be safer. Now, you come on up to the house and have a drink. Big Daddy’s up there, and he loves a pretty lady.”

“Thanks, I’d love to, but I’d better push on home.”

“Oh, I ran into Mim,” Ansley mentioned to her husband. “She now wants you on the Greater Crozet Committee.”

Warren winced. “Poppa just gave her a bushel of money for her Mulberry Row project—she’s working over our family one by one.”

“She knows that, and she said to my face how ‘responsible’ the Randolphs are. Now she wants your stores of wisdom. Exact words. She’ll ask you for money another time.”

“Stores of wisdom.” The left side of Harry’s mouth twitched in a suppressed giggle as she looked at Warren. At forty-one, he remained a handsome man.

Warren grunted as he lifted the heavy carton onto the tailgate. “Is it possible for a woman to have a Napoleon complex?”

18

The human mouth is a wonderful creation, except that it can rarely remain shut. The jaw, hinged on each side of the face, opens and closes in a rhythm that allows the tongue to waggle in a staggering variety of languages. Gossip fuels all of them. Who did what to whom. Who said what to whom. Who didn’t say a word. Who has how much money and who spends it or doesn’t. Who sleeps with whom. Those topics form the foundation of human discourse. Occasionally the human can discuss work, profit and loss, and what’s for supper. Sometimes a question or two regarding the arts will pass although sports as a subject is a better bet. Rare moments bring forth a meditation on spirituality, philosophy, and the meaning of life. But the backbeat, the pulse, the percussion of exchange, was, is, and ever shall be gossip.

Today gossip reached a crescendo.

Mrs. Hogendobber picked up her paper the minute the paperboy left it in the cylindrical plastic container. That was at six A.M. She knew that Harry’s fading red mailbox, nailed to an old fence post, sat half a mile from her house. She usually scooped out the paper on her way to work, so she wouldn’t have read it yet.

Mrs. H. grabbed the black telephone that had served her well since 1954. The click, click, click as the rotary dial turned would allow a sharp-eared person to identify the number being called.

“Harry, Wesley Randolph died last night.”

“What? I thought Wesley was so much better.”

“Heart attack.” She sounded matter-of-fact. By this time she’d seen enough people leave this life to bear it with grace. One positive thing about Wesley’s death was that he’d been fighting leukemia for years. At least he wouldn’t die a lingering, painful death. “Someone from the farm must have given the information to the press the minute it happened.”

“I just saw Warren Sunday afternoon. Thanks for telling me. I’ll have to pay my respects after work. See you in a little bit.”

Now, telling a friend of another friend’s passing doesn’t fall under the heading of gossip, but that day at work Harry sloshed around in it.

The first person to alert Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber to the real story was Lucinda Coles. Luckily Mim Sanburne was picking up her mail, so they could cross-fertilize, as it were.

“—everywhere.” Lucinda gulped a breath in the middle of her story about Ansley Randolph. “Warren, in a state of great distress, naturally, was finally reduced to calling merchants to see if by chance Ansley had stopped by on her rounds. Well, he couldn’t find her. He called me and I said I didn’t know where she was. Of course, I had no idea the poor man’s father had dropped dead in the library.”

Mim laid a trump card on the table. “Yes, he called me too, and like you, Lulu, I hadn’t a clue, but I had seen Ansley at about five that afternoon at Foods of All Nations. Buying a bottle of expensive red wine: Medoc, 1970, Château le Trelion. She seemed surprised to see me”—Mim paused—“almost as if I had caught her out . . . you know.”

“Uh-huh.” Lucinda nodded in the customary manner of a woman affirming whatever another woman has said. Of course, the other woman’s comment usually has to do with emotions, which could never actually be qualified or quantified—that being the appeal of emotions. They both acknowledged a tyranny of correct feelings.

“She’s running around on Warren.”

“Uh-huh.” Lucinda’s voice grew in resonance, since she, as a victim of infidelity, was also an expert on its aftermath. “No good will come of it. No good ever does.”

After those two left, BoomBoom Craycroft dashed in for her mail. Her comment, after a lengthy discussion of the slight fracture of her tibia, was that everybody screws around on everybody, and so what?

The men approached the subject differently. Mr. Randolph’s demise was characterized by Market as a response to his dwindling finances and the leukemia. It was hard for Harry to believe a man would have a heart attack because his estate had diminished, thanks to his own efforts, from $250 million to $100 million, but anything was possible. Perhaps he felt poor.

Fair Haristeen lingered over the counter, chatting. His idea was that a life of trying to control everybody and everything had ruined Wesley Randolph’s health. Sad, of course, because Randolph was an engaging man. Mostly, Fair wanted Harry to pick which movie they would see Friday night.

Ned Tucker, Susan’s husband, took the view that we die when we want to, therefore Père Randolph was ready to go and nobody should feel too bad about it.

By the end of the workday speculation had run the gamut. The last word on Wesley Randolph’s passing, from Rob Collier as he picked up the afternoon mail, was that the old man was fooling around with his son’s wife. The new medication Larry Johnson had prescribed for his illness had revved up his sex drive. Warren walked in on the tryst and his father died of a heart attack from the shock.

As Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber locked up, they reviewed the day’s gossip. Mrs. Hogendobber dropped the key in her pocket, inhaled deeply, and said to Harry, “I wonder what they say about us?”

“Gossip lends to death a new terror.” Harry smirked.

19

“You know, if I ever get tired of home, I’ll come live in your barn,” Paddy promised.

“No, you won’t,” Simon, the possum, called down from the hayloft. “You’ll steal my treasures. You’re no good, Paddy. You were born no good and you’ll die no good.”

“Quit flapping your gums, you overgrown rat. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.” Paddy washed one of his white spats.

A large black cat permanently wearing a tuxedo and spats, Paddy was handsome and knew it. His white bib gleamed, and despite his propensity for fighting, he always cleaned himself up.

Mrs. Murphy sat on a director’s chair in the tack room. Paddy sat in the chair opposite her while Tucker sprawled on the floor. Simon wouldn’t come down. He hated strange animals.

The last light of day cast a peachy-pink glow through the outside window. The horses chatted to one another in their stalls.

“I wish Mom would come home,” Tucker said.

“She’ll be at Eagle’s Rest a long time.” Mrs. Murphy knew that calling upon the bereaved took time, plus everyone else in Crozet would be there.

“Funny how the old man dropped.” Paddy started cleaning his other forepaw. “They’re already digging his grave at the cemetery. I walked through there on my rounds. His plot’s next to the Berrymans’ on one side and the Craigs’ on the other.”

Tucker walked to the end of the barn, then returned. “The sky’s bloodred over the mountains.”

“Another deep frost tonight too,” Paddy remarked. “Just when you think spring is here.”

“Days are warming up,” Mrs. Murphy noted. “Dr. Craig. Wasn’t that Larry Johnson’s partner?”

Paddy replied, “Long before any of us were born.”

“Let me think.”

“Murph.” Tucker wistfully stood on her hind legs, putting her front paws on the chair. “Ask Herbie Jones, he remembers everything.”

“If only humans could understand.” Mrs. Murphy frowned, then brightened. “Dr. Jim Craig. Killed in 1948. He took Larry into his practice just like Larry took in Hayden McIntire.”

Paddy stared at his former wife. When she got a bee in her bonnet, it was best to let her go on. She evidenced more interest in humans than he did.

“What set you off?”

The tiger cat glanced down at her canine companion. “Paddy said he walked through the cemetery. The Randolphs are buried between the Berrymans and the Craigs.”

Tucker wandered around restlessly. “Another unsolved murder.”

“Ah, one of those spook tales they tell you when you’re a kitten to scare you,” Paddy pooh-poohed. “Old Dr. Craig is found in his Pontiac, motor running. Found at the cemetery gates. Yeah, I remember now. His grandson, Jim Craig II, tried to reopen the case years back, but nothing came of it.”

“Shot between the eyes,” Mrs. Murphy said. “His medical bag stolen but no money.”

“Well, this town is filled with weirdos. Somebody really wanted to play doctor.” Paddy giggled.

“In 1948,” Mrs. Murphy triumphantly recalled the details told to her long ago by her own mother, Skippy, “The town smothered in shock because everyone loved Dr. Craig.”

“Not everyone,” Paddy said.

“Hooray!” Tucker jumped up as she heard the truck coming down the driveway. “Mom’s home.”

“Paddy, come on in. Harry likes you.”

“Yeah, get out of here, useless,” Simon called down from the loft.

The owl poked her head out from under her wing, then stuck it back. She rarely joined in these discussions with the other animals since she worked the night shift.

The dog bounded ahead of them.

The tuxedo cat and the tiger strolled at a leisurely pace to the front door. It wouldn’t do to appear too excited.

“Ever wish we were still together?” Paddy asked. “I do.”

“Paddy, being in a relationship with you was like putting Miracle-Gro on my character defects.” Her tail whisked to the vertical when Harry called her name.

“Does that mean you don’t like me?”

“No. It means I didn’t like me in that situation. Now, come on, let’s get some supper.”

20

The upper two floors of Monticello, not open to the public, served as a haven and study for the long-legged Kimball Haynes. While most of the valuable materials relating to Mr. Jefferson and his homes reposed in the rare books section of the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia, the Library of Congress, or the Virginia State Library in Richmond, only a small library existed upstairs at Monticello.

One of Kimball’s pleasures consisted of sitting in the rectangular room above the south piazza, or greenhouse, which connects the octagonal library to Jefferson’s cabinet, the room he used as his private study. Kimball kept a comfortable wing chair there and a private library, which included copies of records that Jefferson or his white employees kept in their own hand. He pored over account books, visitors’ logs, and weather reports for the year 1803. As Mr. Jefferson was serving his first term as president during that year, the records lacked the fullness of the great man’s attention. Peas, tomatoes, and corn were planted as always. A coach broke an axle. The repairs were costly. The livestock demanded constant care. A visitor assigned to a third-floor room in November complained of being frightfully cold, a reasonable complaint, since there were no fireplaces up there.

As the night wore on, Kimball heard the first peepers of spring. He loved that sound better than Mozart. He thumbed the copies blackened by the soil on his hands. Ground-in dirt was an occupational hazard for an archaeologist. He had used these references for years, returning to the rare books collection at the University of Virginia only when he’d scrubbed his hands until they felt raw.

After absorbing those figures, Kimball dropped the pages on the floor and leaned back in the old chair. He flung one leg over a chair arm. Facts, facts, facts, and not a single clue. Whoever was buried in the dirt at Cabin Four wasn’t a tradesman. A tinker or wheelwright or purveyor of fresh fish, even a jeweler, wouldn’t have had such expensive clothing on his back.

The corpse belonged to a gentleman. Someone of the president’s own class. 1803.

Now, Kimball knew that might not be the year of the man’s death, but it couldn’t be far off. Whatever happened politically that year might have some bearing on the murder, but Kimball’s understanding of human nature suggested that in America people rarely killed each other over politics. Murder was closer to the skin.

He recalled a scandal the year before, 1802, that cut Thomas Jefferson to the quick. His friend from childhood, John Walker, accused Jefferson of making improper advances to his wife. According to John Walker, this affair started in 1768, when Thomas Jefferson was not yet married, but Walker maintained that it continued until 1779, seven years after Jefferson had married Martha Wayles Skelton, on January 1, 1772. The curious aspect of this scandal was that Mrs. Walker saw fit to burden her husband with the disclosure of her infidelity only some time after 1784, when Jefferson was in France.

Kimball also remembered that upon Jefferson’s return from France, he and John Walker began to move on separate political paths. Light-Horse Harry Lee, father of Robert E. Lee, later volunteered to mediate between the two former friends. As Light-Horse Harry loathed Thomas Jefferson, the result of this effort was a foregone conclusion. Things went from bad to worse with James Thomson Callender, a vicious tattletale, fanning the flames. It was at this time that the infamous allegations against Jefferson for sleeping with his slave, Sally Hemings, began to make the rounds.

By January of 1805 these stories gained enough currency to cause the New-England Palladium to castigate Mr. Jefferson’s morals. Apparently, Mr. Jefferson did not stand for family values.

The fur flew. Few cocktails are more potent than politics mixed with sex. Drinks were on the house, literally. Congress wallowed in the gossip. Things haven’t changed, Kimball thought to himself.

To make matters murkier, Jefferson admitted to making a pass at Mrs. Walker. Acting as a true gentleman, Jefferson shouldered all the blame for the affair, which he carefully noted as having occurred before his marriage. In those days, the fellow accepted the stigma, no matter what had really happened. To blame the lady meant you weren’t a man.

Thanks to Jefferson’s virile stance, even his political enemies let the Walker affair go. Everyone let it go but John Walker. Only as Walker lay dying at his estate in Keswick, called Belvoir, did he acknowledge that Jefferson was as much sinned against as sinner. By then it was too late.

The Sally Hemings story, however, did damage the president. A white man sleeping with a black woman created a spectacular conundrum for everyone. A gentleman couldn’t admit such a thing. It would destroy his wife and generate endless jokes at his expense. Let there be one red-haired African American at Monticello and the jig was up, literally. That little word-play ran from Maine to South Carolina in the early 1800s. Oh, how they must have laughed in the pubs. “The jig is up.”

It did not help Mr. Jefferson’s case that some fair-skinned African Americans did appear at Monticello bearing striking resemblance to the master. However, as Kimball recalled, Thomas wasn’t the only male around with Jefferson blood.

So what if a cousin had had an affair with Sally? Bound by the aristocratic code of honor, Jefferson still must remain silent or he would cause tremendous suffering to the rake’s wife. A gentleman always protects a lady regardless of her relation to him. A gentleman could also try to protect a woman of color by remaining silent and giving her money and other favors. Silence was the key.

One thing was certain about the master sleeping with a slave: The woman had no choice but to say yes. In that truth lay lyric heartache sung from generation to generation of black women. Broke the hearts of white women too.

Stars glittered in the sky, the Milky Way smeared in an arc over the buildings as it had centuries ago. Kimball realized this murder might or might not have something to do with Thomas Jefferson’s personal life, but it surely had something to do with a violent and close relationship between a white man and a black woman.

He would go over the slave roster tomorrow. He was too sleepy tonight.

21

The Crozet Lutheran Church overflowed with people who had come to pay their last respects to Wesley Randolph. The deceased’s family, Warren, Ansley, Stuart, and Breton, sat in the front pew. Kimball Haynes, his assistant Heike Holtz, Oliver Zeve and his wife, and the other staff at Monticello came to say good-bye to a man who had supported the cause for over fifty of his seventy-three years.

Marilyn and Jim Sanburne sat in the second pew on the right along with their daughter Marilyn Sanburne Hamilton, alluring in black and available thanks to a recent divorce. Big Mim would apply herself to arranging a more suitable match sometime in the future.

The entire town of Crozet must have been there, plus the out-of-towners who had occasion to know Wesley from business dealings, as well as friends from all over the South.

The Reverend Herbert Jones, his deep voice filling the church, read the Scriptures.

Somber but impressive, the funeral would have been remembered in proportion to Wesley’s services to the community. However, this funeral stuck in people’s memories for another reason.

Right in the middle of Reverend Jones’s fervent denial of death, “For if we believe we are risen in Christ . . .” Lucinda Payne Coles whispered loud enough for those around her to hear, “You sorry son of a bitch.” Red in the face, she slid out of the pew and walked back up the aisle. The usher swung the door open for her. Samson, glued to his seat, didn’t even swivel his head to follow his wife’s glowering progress.

As the people filed out of the church, Mim cornered Samson in the vestibule. “What in the world was that all about?”

Samson shrugged, “She loved Wesley, and I think her emotions got the better of her.”

“If she loved Wesley, she wouldn’t have marred his funeral. I’m not stupid, Samson. What are you doing to her?” Mim took the position that men wronged women more often than women wronged men. In this particular case she was right.

Samson hissed, “Mim, this is none of your business.” He stalked off, knowing full well she’d never refer a customer to him again. At that moment he didn’t care. He was too confused to care.

Harry, Susan, and Ned observed this exchange, as did everyone else.

“You’re going to get a call tonight.” Susan squeezed her husband’s forearm. “That’s the price of being such a good divorce lawyer.”

“Funny thing is, I hate divorce.” Ned shook his head.

“Don’t we all?” Harry agreed as the source of her former discontent, Fair, joined them.

“Damn.”

“Fair, you always were a man of few words.” Ned nodded a greeting.

“My patients don’t talk,” Fair replied. “You know, something’s really wrong. That’s not like Lulu. She knows her place.”

“It’s going to be a much poorer place now,” Susan wryly noted.

“Mim will wreak vengeance on Samson. Bad enough he told her to bugger off, he did it in public. He’ll have to crawl on his belly over hot coals—publicly—to atone for his sin.” Ned knew how Mim worked. She used her money and her vast real estate holdings as leverage if she felt a pinch in the pocketbook would suffice. When her target was a woman, she generally preferred to cast her into social limbo. But the human is an animal nonetheless, and harsh lessons were learned faster than mild ones. Had Mim been a man, she would have been called a hard-ass, but she’d have been lauded as a good businessman. Since she was a woman, the term bitch seemed to cover it. Unfair, but that was life. Then again, had Mim been a man, she might not have had to teach people quite so many lessons. They would have feared her from the get-go.

Larry Johnson, physician to Wesley and the family, climbed into his car to follow the funeral procession to the family cemetery.

“Hear Warren wouldn’t let anyone sign the death certificate but Larry,” Fair mentioned. “Heard it over at Sharkey Loomis’s stable.”

“That must have been a sad task for Larry. They’d been friends for years.” Harry wondered how it would feel to know someone for fifty, sixty years and then lose them.

“Come on, or we’ll be last in line.” Susan shepherded them to their cars.

22

A hard-driving rain assisted Kimball Haynes. The slashing of the drops against the windowpane helped him to concentrate. It was long past midnight, and he was still bent over the records of births and deaths from 1800 to 1812.

He cast wide his research net, then slowly drew it toward him. Medley Orion, born around 1785, was reported to be a beautiful woman. Her extraordinary color was noted twice in the records; her lovely cast of features must have been delicious. White people rarely noted the physiognomy of black people unless it was to make fun of them. But an early note in a lady’s hand, quite possibly that of Martha, Jefferson’s eldest daughter, stated these qualities.

Martha married when Medley was five or six. She would have seen the woman as a child and as she grew. Usually Martha kept good accounts, but this reference was on a scrap of paper on the reverse of a list penned in tiny, tiny handwriting about different types of grapes.

A flash of lightning seared across the night sky. A crackle, then a pop, sounded out in the yard. The electricity went off.

Kimball had no flashlight. He was wearing his down vest, since it was cold in the room. His hands fingered a square box of matches. He struck one. He hadn’t placed any candles in the room, but then, why would he? He rarely worked late into the night at Monticello.

The rain pounded the windows and drummed on the roof, a hard spring storm. Even in this age of telephones and ambulances, this would be a hateful night in which to fall ill, give birth, or be caught outside on horseback.

The match fizzled. Kimball declined to strike another. He could have felt his way down the narrow stairway, a mere twenty-four inches wide, to the first floor, the public floor of Monticello. There were beeswax candles down there. But he decided to peer out the window. A rush of water and occasional glimpses of trees bending in the wind were all he could make out.

The house creaked and moaned. The day you see, the night you hear. Kimball heard the door hinges rasp in the slight air current sent up by the winds outside. The windows upstairs were not airtight, so a swish of wind snuck inside. The windows themselves rattled in protest at the driving rains. The winds howled, circled, then swept back up in the flues. Occasionally a raindrop or two would trickle down into the fireplace, bringing with it the memory of fires over two hundred years ago. Floorboards popped.

Perhaps in such a hard storm a wealthy person would light a candle to bring some cheer into the room. A fire would struggle in the fireplace because the downdraft was fierce, despite the flue. Still, a bit of light and good cheer would fill the room, and frightened children could be told stories of the Norse and Greek gods, Thor tossing his mighty hammer or Zeus hurtling a bolt of lightning to earth like a blue javelin.

“What would such a storm have been like in Cabin Four?” Kimball wondered. The door would be closed. Perhaps Medley might have had tallow candles. No evidence of such had been found in her cabin, but tallow candles had been found in other digs and certainly the smithy and joinery had them for people who worked after dark. A quilt wrapped around one’s body would help. The fireplaces in the servants’ quarters lacked the refinement of the fireplaces in the Big House, so more rain and wind would funnel down the chimneys, sending dust and debris over the room. At least Medley had a wooden floor. Some cabins had packed-earth floors, which meant on the cold mornings your bare feet would hit frost on the ground. Maybe Medley Orion would hop into bed and pull the covers up on such a night.

Kimball feverishly worked to piece together the bits of her life. This was archaeology of a different sort. The more he knew about the woman, the closer he would come to a solution, he thought. Then he’d double-think and wonder if she might be innocent. Someone was killed in her cabin, but maybe she knew nothing. No. Impossible. The body had to have been buried at night. She knew, all right.

The rain wrapped around Monticello like a swirling silver curtain. Kimball, grateful for the time to sit and cogitate, a man’s word for dream, knew he’d have to keep pressing on. He did realize he needed advice from a woman friend or friends. Compared to men, women rarely killed. What would compel a slave woman to take a man’s life, and a white man’s at that?

23

Imbued with the seriousness of her task, Mim invited Lucinda Coles, Miranda Hogendobber, Port Haffner, Ellie Wood Baxter, and Susan Tucker and Mary Minor Haristeen for youth. Little Marilyn was also present in the capacity of acolyte to Mim in her own role as social priestess. Ansley Randolph would have been invited, but given that Wesley Randolph lay in the ground but a scant three days, that would never do.

When Kimball Haynes asked for assistance, he suffered an embarrassment of riches. Although not as politically canny as Oliver, Kimball possessed a scrap of shrewdness. One doesn’t advance in this world without it. After his night at Monticello in the rainstorm, he thought the wisest policy would be to call Mim Sanburne. After all, she, too, felt some of the heat over what was happening at Monticello. She squeezed money out of turnips. She never turned down a hard job. She knew everybody, which was worth more than knowing everything. To top it off, Mim adored being at the center of activities.

Mim swooned when Kimball called saying that he wanted to get together with her because he thought she might have the key to the problem. He assured her that she had great insight into the female mind. That did it. Mim couldn’t bear having great insight into the female mind without her friends knowing. Hence tonight.

Although furious at Samson, Mim bore no animosity toward Lulu other than that she should not have lost her temper in the middle of a funeral service. Then again, Mim felt some kinship with Lucinda since she was certain Samson was up to no good. Not that Mim wouldn’t use Lucinda to bring Samson to heel if the occasion presented itself. She’d wait and see.

Caviar, chopped eggs and onions, fresh salmon, eleven different kinds of cheese and crackers, sliced carrots, snow peas stuffed with cream cheese, crisp cauliflower, and endive with bacon grease dribbled over it completed the warm-ups, as Mim called them. Lunch dazzled everyone. Mim found a divine recipe for lobster ravioli which proved so enticing, no one even mentioned her diet. Arugula salad and a sliver of melon balanced the palate. Those wishing megacalorie desserts gorged on a raspberry cobbler with a vanilla cream sauce or good old devil’s food cake for the chocolate lovers.

Mim had the fruits flown down from New York City, as she kept an account there with a posh food emporium. Finally, everyone’s mood elevated to the stratosphere. Should anyone require a revitalizing liquid after luncheon, a vast array of spirits awaited them.

Susan chose a dry sherry. She declared that the raw wind cut into her very bones. She knew perfectly well that someone had to stampede for the crystal decanters on the silver trays. Lucinda would die before she’d take the first drink, so Susan figured she’d be the one to save Lulu’s life. Miranda declined alcohol, as did Harry and Ellie Wood, a septuagenarian in splendid health.

“I always feel prosperous on a full stomach.” Mrs. Hogendobber accepted a cup of piping coffee from the maid dressed in black with a starched white apron and cap.

“Mim, you’ve outdone yourself. Hear! Hear!” Lulu held up her glass as the other ladies and Kimball did likewise or tapped their spoons to china cups from Cartier.

“A trifle.” Mim acknowledged the praise. It might have been a trifle to her, but it damn near killed the cook. It wasn’t a trifle to Mim either, but by making light of her accomplishments she added to her formidable reputation. She knew not one lady in the room could have pulled off a luncheon like that, much less at the last minute.

“You know Ansley is comatose with grief.” Port, another dear friend of Mim’s, paused as the maid handed her a brandy the color of dark topaz.

“Really?” Ellie Wood leaned forward. “I had no idea she was that fond of Wesley. I thought they were usually at sixes and sevens.”

“They were,” Port crisply agreed. “She’s comatose with grief because she had to stay home. She made me swear that I would call her the instant we finished and tell her everything, including, of course, what we wore.”

“Oh, dear,” Harry blurted out honestly.

“You have youth, Harry, and youth needs no adornment.” Miranda came to her rescue. Harry lacked all clothes sense. If she had an important date, Susan and Miranda would force her into something suitable. Harry’s idea of dressing up was ironing a crease in her Levi 501s.

“I don’t know.” Susan kidded her schoolmate. “We’re thirty-something, you know.”

“Babies.” Port kicked off one shoe.

“Time to have some.” Mim glared at her daughter. Little Marilyn evaded her mother’s demand.

Kimball rubbed his hands together. “Ladies, once again we are indebted to Mrs. Sanburne. I do believe she’s the glue that holds us together. I knew we couldn’t proceed at Mulberry Row without her leadership in the community.”

“Hear. Hear.” More toasts and teaspoons on china cups.

Kimball continued. “I’m not sure what Mim has told you. I called needing her wisdom once again and she has provided me with you. I must ask your indulgence as I review the facts. The body of a man was found facedown in Cabin Four. The back of his skull bore testimony to one mighty blow with a heavy, sharp object like an ax but probably not an ax, or else the bone fragment would have been differently smashed—or so Sheriff Shaw believes. The victim wore expensive clothes, a large gold ring, and his pockets were full of money. I counted out the coins and he had about fifty dollars in his pockets. In today’s money that would be about five hundred. The remains are in Washington now. We will know when he died, his age, his race, and possibly even something about his health. It’s amazing what they can tell these days. He was found under the hearth—two feet under. And that is all we know. Oh, yes, the cabin was inhabited by Medley Orion, a woman in her early twenties. Her birth year isn’t clearly recorded. The first mention of her is as a child, so we can speculate. But she was young. A seamstress. Now, I want you to cast your minds back, back to 1803, since our victim was killed then or shortly thereafter. The most recent coin in his pocket was 1803. What happened?”

This stark question created a heavy silence.

Lucinda spoke first. “Kimball, we didn’t know that a man was murdered. The papers said only a skeleton was unearthed. This is quite a shock. I mean, people speculated but . . .”

“He was killed by a ferocious blow to the head.” Kimball directed his gaze toward Lucinda. “Naturally, Oliver didn’t, and won’t, want to attest to the fact that the person was murdered until the report comes back from Washington. It will give all of us at Monticello a bit more time to prepare.”

“I see.” Lucinda cupped her chin in her hand. In her late forties, she was handsome rather than beautiful, stately rather than sweet.

Ellie Wood, a logical soul, speculated. “If he was hit hard, the person would have had to be strong. Was the wound in the front of the skull or the back?”

“The back,” Kimball replied.

“Then whoever did it wanted no struggle. No noise either.” Ellie Wood quickly grasped the possibilities.

“Might this man have been killed by Medley’s lover?” Port inquired. “Do you know if she had a lover?”

“No. I don’t. I do know she bore a child in August of 1803, but that doesn’t mean she had a lover as we understand the concept.” Kimball crossed his arms over his chest.

“Surely you don’t think Thomas Jefferson instituted a breeding program?” Lucinda was shocked.

“No, no.” Kimball reached for the brandy. “He tried not to break up families, but I haven’t found any records to indicate Medley ever had a permanent partner.”

“Did she bear more children?” Little Marilyn finally joined in the conversation.

“Apparently not,” he said.

“That’s very odd.” Puzzlement shone over Susan’s face. “Birth control consisted of next to nothing.”

“Sheepskin. A primitive form of condom.” Kimball sipped the brandy, the best he had ever tasted. “However, the chance of a slave having access to anything that sophisticated is out of the question.”

“Who said her partner was a slave?” Harry threw down the joker.

Mim, not wanting to appear old-fashioned, picked it up. “Was she beautiful, Kimball? If she was, then her partners may indeed have had access to sheep membrane.” Mim implied that Medley therefore would have attracted the white men.

“By what few accounts I can find, yes, she was beautiful.”

Lucinda scowled. “Oh, I hope we can just slide by this. I think we’re opening a can of worms.”

“We are, but somebody’s got to open it.” Mim stood her ground. “We’ve swept this sort of thing under the rug for centuries. Not that I enjoy the process, I don’t, but miscegenation may be a motive for murder.”

“I don’t think a black woman would have killed a man merely because he was white,” Ellie Wood said. “But if she had a black lover, he might be driven to it out of jealousy if nothing else.”

“But what if it was Medley herself?” Kimball’s voice rose with suppressed excitement. “What would drive a slave to kill a rich white man? What would drive a woman of any color to kill a man? I think you all know far better than I.”

Catching his enthusiasm, Port jumped up. “Love. Love can run anyone crazy.”

“Okay, say she loved the victim. Not that I think too many slaves loved the white men who snuck into their cabins.” Harry grew bold. “Even at her most irrational, would she kill him because he walked out on her? How could she? White men walked out on black women every morning. They just turned their backs and poof, they were gone. Wouldn’t she have been used to it? Wouldn’t an older slave have prepared her and said something like, ‘This is your lot in life’?”

“Probably would have said ‘This is your cross to bear.’ ” Miranda furrowed her brow.

Unsettled as Lucinda was by Samson’s infidelity, and she was getting closer and closer to the real truth, she recognized as the afternoon continued that her unhappiness at least had a front door. She could walk out. Medley Orion couldn’t. “Perhaps he humiliated her in some secret place, some deep way, and she snapped.”

“Not humiliated, threatened.” Susan’s eyes lit up. “She was a slave. She’d learned to mask her feelings. Don’t we all, ladies?” This idea rippled across the room. “Whoever this was, he had a hold on her. He was going to do something terrible to her or to someone she loved, and she fought back. My God, where did she get the courage?”

“I don’t know if I can agree.” Miranda folded her hands together. “Does it take courage to kill? God forbids us to take another human life.”

“That’s it!” Mim spoke up. “He must have threatened to take someone else’s life—or hers. What if he threatened to kill Mr. Jefferson—not my stalker theory, mind you, but an explosive rage on the dead man’s part—something erratic?”

“I doubt she’d kill to save her master,” Little Marilyn countered her mother. “Jefferson was an extraordinary human being, but he was still the master.”

“Some slaves loved their masters.” Lucinda backed up Mim.

“Not as many as white folks want to believe.” Harry laughed. She couldn’t help but laugh. While bonds of affection surely existed, it was difficult for her to grasp that the oppressed could love the oppressor.

“Well, then what?” Ellie Wood’s patience, never her strong point, ebbed.

“She killed to protect her true lover.” Port savored her brandy.

“Or her child,” Susan quietly added.

An electric current shot around the room. Was there a mother anywhere in the world who wouldn’t kill for her child?

“The child was born in August 1803.” Kimball twirled the crystal glass. “If the victim were killed after August, he might have known the child.”

“But he might have known the child even before it was born.” Mim’s eyes narrowed.

“What?” Kimball seemed temporarily befuddled.

“What if it were his?” Mim’s voice rang out.

A silence followed this.

Harry then said, “Most men, or perhaps I should say some men, who have enjoyed the favors of a woman who becomes pregnant declare they don’t know if the baby is theirs. Of course they can’t get away with that now thanks to this DNA testing stuff. They sure could get away with it then.”

“Good point, Harry. I say the child was born before he was killed.” Susan held them spellbound. “The child was born and it looked like him.”

“Good God, Susan, I hope you’re wrong.” Lucinda blinked. “How could a man kill his own child to—to save his face?”

“People do terrible things,” Port flatly stated, for she didn’t understand it either, but then, she didn’t refute it.

“Well, he paid for his intentions, if that’s what they were.” Ellie Wood felt rough justice had been done. “If that’s true, he paid for it, and done is done.”

“‘Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand and their doom comes swiftly.’ Deuteronomy 32:35,” Miranda intoned.

But done was not done. The past was coming undone, and the day of calamity was at hand.

24

“I thought it would take some of the burden off you. You don’t need people at you right now.” Ansley Randolph leaned on the white fence and watched the horses breeze through their morning workout around the track—the Fibar and sand mix kept the footing good year-round. “Not that anything will make you feel better, for a time.”

Pain creased the lines around Warren’s eyes. “Honey, I’ve no doubt that you thought you were doing the right thing, but number one, I am tired of being whipped into shape by Mim Sanburne. Number two, my family’s diaries, maps, and genealogies stay right here at Eagle’s Rest. Some are so old I keep them in the safe. Number three, I don’t think anything of mine will interest Kimball Haynes, and number four, I’m exhausted. I don’t want to argue with anyone. I don’t even want to explain myself to anyone. No is no, and you’ll have to tell Mim.”

Ansley, while not in love with Warren, liked him sometimes. This was one of those times. “You’re right. I should have kept my mouth shut. I suppose I wanted to curry favor with Mim. She gives you business.”

Warren clasped his hands over the top rail of the fence. “Mim keeps a small army of lawyers busy. If I lose her business, I don’t think it will hurt either one of us, and it won’t hurt you socially either. All you have to do is tell Mim that I’m down and I can’t have anything on my mind right now. I need to rest and repair—that’s no lie.”

“Warren, don’t take this the wrong way, but I never knew you loved your father this much.”

He sighed. “I didn’t either.” He studied his boot tips for a second. “It’s not just Poppa. Now I’m the oldest living male of the line, a line that extends back to 1632. Until our sons are out of prep school and college, the burden of that falls entirely on me. Now I must manage the portfolio—”

“You have good help.”

“Yes, but Poppa always checked over the results of our investments. Truth be told, darling, my law degree benefitted Poppa, not me. I read over those transactions that needed a legal check, but I never really paid attention to the investments and the land holdings in an aggressive sense. Poppa liked to keep his cards close to his chest. Well, I’d better learn fast. We’ve been losing money on the market.”

“Who hasn’t? Warren, don’t worry so much.”

“Well, I might have to delay running for the state Senate.”

“Why?” Ansley wanted Warren in Richmond as much as possible. She intended to work nonstop for his election.

“Might look bad.”

“No, it won’t. You tell the voters you’re dedicating this campaign to your father, a man who believed in self-determination.”

Admiring her shrewdness, he said, “Poppa would have liked that. You know, it’s occurred to me these last few days that I’m raising my sons the way Poppa raised me. I was packed off to St. Clement’s, worked here for the summers, and then it was off to Vanderbilt. Maybe the boys should be different—maybe something wild for them like”—he thought—“Berkeley. Now that I’m the head of this family, I want to give my sons more freedom.”

“If they want to attend another college, fine, but let’s not push them into it. Vanderbilt has served this family well for a long time.” Ansley loved her sons although she despised the music they blasted throughout the house. No amount of yelling convinced them they’d go deaf. She was sure she was half deaf already.

“Did you really like my father?”

“Why do you ask me that now, after eighteen years of marriage?” She was genuinely surprised.

“Because I don’t know you. Not really.” He gazed at the horses on the far side of the track, for he couldn’t look at her.

“I thought that’s the way your people did things. I didn’t think you wanted to be close.”

“Maybe I don’t know how.”

Too late now, she thought to herself. “Well, Warren, one step at a time. I got along with Wesley, but it was his way or no way.”

“Yep.”

“I did like what he printed on his checks.” She recited verbatim: “These funds were generated under the free enterprise system despite government’s flagrant abuse of the income tax, bureaucratic hostilities, and irresponsible controls.”

Warren’s eyes misted. “He was tough duty, but he was clear about what he thought.”

“We’ll know even more about that at the reading of the will.”

25

The reading of the will hit Warren like a two-by-four. Wesley had prepared his will through the old prestigious firm of Maki, Kleiser, and Maki. Not that Warren minded. It would be indelicate to have your son prepare your will. Still, he wasn’t prepared for this.

A clause in his father’s will read that no money could ever be inherited by any Randolph of any succeeding generation who married a person who was even one-twentieth African.

Ansley laughed. How absurd. Her sons weren’t going to marry women from Uganda. Her sons weren’t even going to marry African Americans, quadroons, octoroons, no way. Those boys weren’t sent to St. Clements to be liberals and certainly not to mix with the races—the calendar be damned.

Warren, ashen when he heard the clause, sputtered, “That’s illegal. Under today’s laws that’s illegal.”

Old George Kleiser neatly stacked his papers. “Maybe. Maybe not. This will could be contested, but who would do that? Let it stand. Those were your father’s express wishes.” Apparently George thought the proviso prudent, or perhaps he subscribed to the let-sleeping-dogs-lie theory.

“Warren, you aren’t going to do anything about this? I mean, why would you?”

As if in a trance, Warren shook his head. “No—but, Ansley, if this gets out, there go my chances for the state Senate.”

George’s stentorian voice filled the room. “Word of this, uh, consideration will never leave this room.”

“What about the person who physically prepared the will?” Warren put his foot in it.

George, irritated, glided over that remark as he made allowances for Warren’s recent loss. He’d known Warren since infancy, so he knew the middle-aged man in front of him was unprepared to take the helm of the family’s great, though dwindling, fortune. “Our staff is accustomed to sensitive issues, Warren. Issues of life and death.”

“Of course, of course, George—I’m just flabbergasted. Poppa never once spoke of anything like this to me.”

“He was a genteel racist instead of an overt one.” Ansley wanted to put the subject out of her mind and couldn’t see why Warren was so upset.

“And aren’t you?” Warren fired back.

“Not as long as we don’t intermarry. I don’t believe in mixing the races. Other than that, people are people.” Ansley shook off Warren’s barb.

“Ansley, you must promise me never, never, no matter how angry you may become with me or the boys—after all, people do rub one another’s nerves—but you must never repeat what you’ve heard in this room today. I don’t want to lose my chance because Poppa had this thing about racial purity.”

Ansley promised never to tell.

26

But she did. She told Samson.

The early afternoon sun slanted across Blair Bainbridge’s large oak kitchen table. Tulips swayed outside the long windows, and the hyacinths would open in a few days if this welcome warmth continued.

“I’m not surprised,” Samson told Ansley. “The old man made a lifetime study of bloodlines, and to him it would be like crossing a donkey with a Thoroughbred.” Then he smirked. “Of course, who is the donkey and who is the Thoroughbred?”

She held his hand as she sipped her hot chocolate. “It seems so—extreme.”

Samson shrugged. The contents of Wesley’s will held scant interest for him. Another twenty minutes and he would have to hit the road. His stomach knotted up each time he left Ansley. “Say, I’ve got people coming in from California to look at Midale. Think I’ll show them some properties in Orange County too. Awful pretty up there and not so developed. If I can sell Midale, I’ll have some good money.” He pressed his other hand on top of hers. “Then you can leave Warren.”

Ansley stiffened. “Not while he’s in mourning for his father.”

“After that. Six months is a reasonable period of time. I can set my house in order and you can do the same.”

“Honey”—she petted his hand—“let’s leave well enough alone—for now. Lulu will skin you alive and in public. There’s got to be a way around her, but I haven’t found it yet. I keep hoping she’ll find someone, she’ll make life easier—but she has too much invested in being the wronged woman. And that scene at Big Daddy’s funeral. My God.”

Samson coughed. The knot in his stomach grew tighter. “Just one of those things. She leaned over to whisper in my ear and said she smelled another woman’s perfume. I don’t know what got into her.”

“She knows my perfume, Diva. Anyway, when we’re together I don’t wear any perfume.”

“Natural perfume.” He kissed her hand in his.

She kissed him on the cheek. “Samson, you are the sweetest man.”

“Not to hear my wife tell it.” He sighed and bowed his head. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. I’m living such a lie. I don’t love Lulu. I’m tired of keeping up with the Joneses, who can’t keep up with themselves. I’m tired of being trapped in my car all day with strangers and no matter what they tell you they want to buy, they really want the opposite. I swear it. Buyers are liars, as my first broker used to say. I don’t know how long I can hold out.”

“Just a little longer, precious.” She nibbled on his ear. “Was there another woman’s perfume on your neck?”

He sputtered, “Absolutely not. I don’t even know where she came up with that. You know I don’t even look at other women, Ansley.” He kissed her passionately.

As she drew back from the kiss she murmured, “Well, she knows, she just doesn’t know it’s me. Funny, I like Lulu. I call her most every morning. I guess she’s my best friend, but I don’t like her as your wife and I never did. I couldn’t get it, know what I mean? You can sometimes see a couple and know why they’re together. Like Harry and Fair when they were together. Or Susan and Ned—that’s a good pair—but I never felt the heat, I guess you’d say, between Lulu and you. I don’t really feel like I’m betraying her. I feel like I’m liberating her. She deserves the heat. She needs the right man for her—you’re the right man for me.”

He kissed her again and wished the clock weren’t ticking so loudly. “Ansley, I can’t live without you. You know that. I’ll never be as rich as Warren, but I’m not poor. I work hard.”

Her voice low, she brushed his cheek with her lips as she said, “And I want to make sure you don’t join the ranks of the nouveau pauvre. I don’t want your wife to take you to the cleaners. Give me a little time. I’ll think of something or someone.” She leapt out of her chair. “Oh, no!”

“What?” He hurried to her side.

Ansley pointed out the kitchen window. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker merrily raced to the stable. “Harry can’t be far behind, and she’s no dummy.”

“Damn!” Samson ran his hands through his thick hair.

“If you slip out the front door I’ll go out to the stable and head her off. Hurry!” She kissed him quickly. She could hear the heels of his shoes as he strode across the hardwood floors to the front door. Ansley headed for the back screen door.

Harry, much slower than her four-footed companions, had just reached the family cemetery on the hill. Ansley made it to the stable before Harry saw her.

“What’s she doing in Blair’s house?” Tucker asked.

Mrs. Murphy paused to observe Ansley. “High color. She’s het up about something and we know she’s not stealing the silver. She’s got too much of her own.”

“What if she’s a kleptomaniac?” Tucker cocked her head as Ansley walked toward them.

“Nah. But give her a sniff anyway.”

“Hi there, Mrs. Murphy. You too, Tucker,” Ansley called to the animals.

“Ansley, what are you up to?” Tucker asked as she poked her nose toward Ansley’s ankles.

Ansley waved at Harry, who waved back. She reached down to scratch Tucker’s big ears.

“Hi, how nice to find you here.” Harry diplomatically smiled.

“Warren sent me over to look at Blair’s spider-wheel tedder. Says he wants one and maybe Blair will sell it.”

A spider-wheel tedder turns hay for drying and can row up two swathes into one for baling. Three or four small metal wheels that resemble spiderwebs are pulled by a tractor.

“Thought you all rolled up your hay.”

“Warren says he’s tired of looking at huge rolls of shredded wheat in the fields and the middle of them is always wasted. He wants to go back to baling.”

“Be a while.” Harry noted the season.

Ansley lowered her voice. “He’s already planning Thanksgiving dinner for the family. I think it’s how the grief is taking him. You know, if he plans everything, then nothing can go wrong, he can control reality—although you’d think he would have had enough of that with his father.”

“It will take time.” Harry knew. She had lost both her parents some years before.

Mrs. Murphy, on her haunches, got up and trotted off toward the house. “She’s lying.”

“Got that right.” The dog followed, her ears sweeping back for a moment. “Let’s nose around.”

The two animals reached the back door. Tucker, nose straight to the ground, sniffed intently. Mrs. Murphy relied on her eyes as much as her nose.

Tucker picked up the scent easily. “Samson Coles.”

“So that’s it.” Mrs. Murphy walked between the tulips. She loved feeling the stems brush against her fur. “She must really be bored.”