Murder At Monticello

27

The quiet at Eagle’s Rest proved unnerving. Ansley regretted saying how much she loathed the loud music the boys played. Although cacophonous, it was preferable to silence.

Seven in the evening usually meant each son was in his room studying. How Breton and Stuart could study with that wall of reverberating sound fascinated her. They used to compete in decibel levels with the various bands. Finally she settled that by declaring that during the first hour of study time, from six to seven, Stuart could play his music. Breton’s choice won out between seven and eight.

Both she and Warren policed what they called study hall. Breton and Stuart made good grades, but Ansley felt they needed to know how important their schoolwork was to their parents, hence the policing. She told them frequently, “We have our jobs to do, you have your schoolwork.”

Unable, at last, to bear the silence, Ansley climbed the curving stairway to the upstairs hall. She peeked in Breton’s room. She walked down to Stuart’s. Her older son sat at his desk. Breton, cross-legged, perched on Stuart’s bed. Breton’s eyes were red. Ansley knew not to call attention to that.

“Hey, guys.”

“Hi, Mom.” They replied in unison.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Again in unison.

“Oh.” She paused. “Kind of funny not to have Big Daddy yelling about your music, huh?”

“Yeah,” Stuart agreed.

“He’s never coming back.” Breton had a catch in his breath. “I can’t believe he’s never coming back. At first it was like he was on vacation, you know?”

“I know,” Ansley commiserated.

Stuart sat upright, a change from his normal slouch. “Remember the times we used to recite our heritage?” He imitated his grandfather’s voice. “The first Randolph to set foot in the New World was a crony of Sir Walter Raleigh’s. He returned to the old country. His son, emboldened by stories of the New World, came over in 1632, and thus our line began on this side of the Atlantic. He brought his bride, Jemima Hessletine. Their firstborn, Nancy Randolph, died that winter of 1634, aged six months. The second born, Raleigh Randolph, survived. We descend from this son.”

Ansley, amazed, gasped. “Word for word.”

“Mom, we heard it, seems like every day.” Stuart half smiled.

“Yeah. Wish I could hear him again and—and I hate all that genealogy stuff.” Breton’s eyes welled up again. “Who cares?”

Ansley sat next to Breton, putting her arm around his shoulders. He seemed bigger the last time she hugged him. “Honey, when you get older, you’ll appreciate these things.”

“Why is it so important to everyone?” Breton asked innocently.

“To be wellborn is an advantage in this life. It opens many doors. Life’s hard enough as it is, Breton, so be thankful for the blessing.”

“Go to Montana,” Stuart advised. “No one cares there. Probably why Big Daddy never liked the West. He couldn’t lord it over everybody.”

Ansley sighed. “Wesley liked to be the biggest frog in the pond.”

“Mom, do you care about that bloodline stuff?” Breton turned to face his mother.

“Let’s just say I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

They digested this, then Breton asked another question. “Mom, is it always like this when someone dies?”

“When it’s someone you love, it is.”

28

Medley Orion left Monticello in the dispersal after Thomas Jefferson’s death in 1826. Kimball burned up tank after tank of gas as he drove down the winding county roads in search of genealogies, slave records, anything that might give him a clue. A few references to Medley’s dressmaking skills surfaced in the well-preserved diaries of Tinton Venable.

Obsessed with the murder and with Medley herself, Kimball even drove to the Library of Congress to read through the notations of Dr. William Thornton and his French-born wife. Thornton imagined himself a Renaissance man like Jefferson. He raced blooded horses, designed the Capitol and the Octagon House in Washington, D.C., was a staunch Federalist, and survived the burning of Washington in 1814. His efforts to save the city during that conflagration created a bitter enmity between himself and the mayor of Washington. Thornton’s wife, Anna Maria, rang out his praises on the hour like a well-timed church bell. When she visited Monticello in 1802 she wrote: “There is something more grand and awful than convenient in the whole place. A situation you would rather look at now and then than inhabit.”

Mrs. Thornton, French, snob that she was, possessed some humor. What was odd was that Jefferson prided himself on convenience and efficiency.

Kimball’s hunch paid off. He found a reference to Medley. Mrs. Thornton commented on a mint-green summer dress belonging to Martha Jefferson—Patsy. The dress, Mrs. Thornton noted, was sewn by Patsy’s genie, as she put it, Medley Orion. She also mentioned that Medley’s daughter, not quite a woman, was “bright,” meaning fair-skinned, and extraordinarily beautiful like her mother, but even lighter. She further noted that Medley and Martha Jefferson Randolph got along quite well, “a miracle considering,” but Mrs. Thornton chose not to explain that pregnant phrase.

Mrs. Thornton then went on to discuss thoroughly her feelings about slavery—she didn’t like it—and her feelings about mixing the races, which she didn’t like either. She felt that slavery promoted laziness. Her argument for this, although convoluted, contained a kernel of logic: Why should people work if they couldn’t retain the fruits of their labors? A roof over one’s head, food in the stomach, and clothes on one’s back weren’t sufficient motivation for industriousness, especially when one saw another party benefitting from one’s own labor.

Kimball drove so fast down Route 29 on his way home that he received a speeding ticket for his excitement and still made it from downtown Washington to Charlottesville more than fifteen minutes faster than the usual two hours. He couldn’t wait to tell Heike what he had discovered. He would have to decide what to tell Oliver, who grew more tense each day.

29

Kimball Haynes, Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, Mim Sanburne, and Lucinda Coles crammed themselves into a booth at Metropolitain, a restaurant in Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. The Metropolitain combined lack of pretension with fantastic food. Lulu happened to be strolling in the mall when Kimball spotted her and asked her to lunch with the others.

Over salads he explained his findings about Medley Orion and Jefferson’s oldest child, Martha.

“Well, Kimball, I can see that you’re a born detective, but where is this leading?” Mim wanted to know. She was ready to get down to brass tacks.

“I wish I knew.” Kimball cut into a grits patty.

“You all may be too young to have heard an old racist expression.” Mim glanced at the ceiling, for she had learned to despise these sayings. “‘There’s a nigger in the woodpile somewhere.’ Comes from the Underground Railway, of course, but you get the drift.”

Lulu Coles fidgeted. “No, I don’t.”

“Somebody’s hiding something,” Mim stated flatly.

“Of course somebody’s hiding something. They’ve been hiding it for two hundred years, and now Martha Jefferson Randolph is in on it.” Lulu checked her anger. She knew Mim had yanked properties away from Samson because of his outburst at the funeral. Angry as she was at her husband, Lucinda was smart enough not to wish for their net worth to drop. Actually, she was angry, period. She’d peer in the mirror and see the corners of her mouth turning down just as her mother’s had—an embittered woman she swore never to emulate. She was becoming her own mother, to her horror.

Harry downed her Coke. “What Mim means is that somebody is hiding something today.”

“Why?” Susan threw her hands in the air. The idea was absurd. “So there’s a murderer in the family tree. By this time we have one of everything in all of our family trees. Really, who cares?”

“‘Save me, Lord, from liars and deceivers.’ Psalm 120:2.” Mrs. Hogendobber, as usual, recalled a pertinent scripture.

“Forgive me, Mrs. H., but there’s a better one.” Kimball closed his eyes in order to remember. “Ah, yes, here it is, ‘Every one deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.’ ”

“Jeremiah 9:5. Yes, it is better,” Mrs. Hogendobber agreed. “I suppose letting the cat out of the bag these many years later wouldn’t seem upsetting, but if it’s in the papers and on television, well—I can understand.”

“Yeah, your great-great-great-great-grandfather was murdered. How do you feel about that?” Susan smirked.

“Or your great-great—how many greats?” Harry turned to Susan, who held up two fingers. “Great-great-grandfather was a murderer. Should you pay the victim’s descendants recompense? Obviously, our society has lost the concept of privacy, and you can’t blame anyone for wanting to keep whatever they can away from prying eyes.”

“Well, I for one would like a breath of fresh air. Kimball, you’re welcome to go through the Coleses’ papers. Maybe you’ll find the murderer there.” Lulu smiled.

“How generous of you. The Coleses’ papers will be invaluable to me even if they don’t yield the murderer.” Kimball beamed.

Mim shifted on the hard bench. “I wonder that Samson has never donated his treasures to the Alderman Library. Or some other library he feels would do justice to the manuscripts and diaries. Naturally, I prefer the Alderman.”

The olive branch was outstretched. Lulu grabbed it. “I’ll work on him, Mim. Samson fears that his family’s archives will be labeled, stuck in a carton, and never again see the light of day. Decades from now, someone will stumble upon them and they’ll be decayed. He keeps all those materials in his temperature-controlled library. The Coleses lead the way when it comes to preservation,” she breathed, “but perhaps this is the time to share.”

“Yes.” Mim appeared enlightened when her entrée, a lightly poached salmon in dill sauce, was placed in front of her. “What did you order, Lucinda? I’ve already forgotten.”

“Sweetbreads.”

“Me too.” Harry’s mouth watered as the dish’s tempting aroma wafted under her nose.

“What a lunch.” Kimball inclined his head toward the ladies. “Beautiful women, delicious food, and help with my research. What more is there to life?”

“A 16.1-hand Thoroughbred fox hunter that floats over a three-foot-six-inch coop.” The rich sauce melted in Harry’s mouth.

“Oh, Harry, you and your horses. You have Gin Fizz and Tomahawk.” Susan elbowed her.

“Getting along in years,” Mim informed Susan. Mim, an avid fox hunter, appreciated Harry’s desire. She also appreciated Harry’s emaciated budget and made a mental note to see if she could strong-arm someone into selling Harry a good horse at a low price.

Six months earlier the idea of helping the postmistress wouldn’t have occurred to her. But Mim had turned over a new leaf. She wanted to be warmer, kinder, and more giving. It wasn’t easy, overnight, to dump six decades of living a certain way. The cause of this volte-face Mim kept close to her chest, which was, indeed, where it had begun. She had visited Larry Johnson for a routine checkup. He found a lump. Larry, the soul of discretion, promised not to tell even Jim. Mim flew to New York City and checked into Columbia-Presbyterian. She told everyone she was on her semiannual shopping spree. Since she did repair to New York every spring and then again every fall, this explanation satisfied. The lump was removed and it was cancerous. However, they had caught the disease in time. Her body betrayed no other signs of the cancer. Procedures are so advanced that Mim returned home in a week, had indeed accomplished some shopping, and no one was the wiser. Until Jim walked in on her in the bathtub. She told him everything. He sobbed. That shocked her so badly that she sobbed. She still couldn’t figure out how her husband could be chronically unfaithful and love her so deeply at the same time, but she knew now that he did. She decided to give up being angry at him. She even decided to stop pretending socially that he didn’t have a weakness for women. He was what he was and she was what she was, but she could change and she was trying. If Jim wanted to change, that was his responsibility.

“Earth to Mrs. Sanburne,” Harry called.

“What? I must have been roller-skating on Saturn’s rings.”

“We’re going to help Kimball read through the correspondence and records of Jefferson’s children and grandchildren,” Harry told her.

“I can read with my eyes closed,” Miranda said. “Oh, that doesn’t sound right, does it?”

After lunch Lulu escorted Mim to her silver-sand Bentley Turbo R, a new purchase and a sensational one. Lulu apologized profusely a second time for her outburst during Wesley’s funeral. After Mim’s luncheon she had smothered her hostess in “sorries.” She had also confessed to Reverend Jones and he had told her it wasn’t that bad. He forgave her and he was sure that the Randolphs would too, if she would apologize, which she did. Mim listened. Lulu continued. It was as though she’d pried the first olive out of the jar and the others tumbled out. She said she thought she’d smelled another woman’s perfume on Samson’s neck. She’d been on edge. Later she’d entered his bathroom and found a bottle, new, of Ralph Lauren’s Safari.

“These days you can’t tell the difference between men’s colognes and women’s perfumes,” Mim said. “There is no difference. They put the unguents into different bottles, invent these manly names, and that’s that. What would happen if a man used a woman’s perfume? He’d grow breasts overnight, I guess.” She laughed at her own joke.

Lulu laughed too. “It strikes me as odd that the worst thing you can call a man is a woman, yet they claim to love us.”

Mim arched her right eyebrow. “I never thought of that.”

“I think of a lot of things.” Lulu sighed. “I’m a tangle of suspicions. I know he’s cheating on me. I just don’t know who.”

Mim unlocked her car, paused, and then turned. “Lucinda, I don’t know if that part matters. The whole town knows that Jim has enjoyed his little amours over the years.”

“Mim, I didn’t mean to open old wounds,” Lulu stammered, genuinely distraught.

“Don’t give it a second thought. I’m older than you. I don’t care as much anymore, or I care in a new way. But heed my advice. Some men are swordsmen. That’s the only word I can think of for it. They swash and they buckle. They need the chase and the conquest to feel alive. It’s repetitive, but for some reason I can’t fathom, the repetition doesn’t bore them. Makes them feel young and powerful, I suppose. It doesn’t mean Samson doesn’t love you.”

Tears glistened in Lucinda’s green eyes. “Oh, Mim, if only that were true, but Samson isn’t that kind of man. If he’s having an affair, then he’s in love with her.”

Mim waited to reply. “My dear, the only thing you can do is to take care of yourself.”

30

“If you light another cigarette, then I’ll have to light one too,” Deputy Cynthia Cooper joshed.

“Here.” Sheriff Shaw tossed his pack of Chesterfields at her. She caught them left-handed. “Out at first,” he said.

She tapped the pack with a long, graceful finger, and a slender white cigarette slid out. The deep tobacco fragrance made her eyelids flutter. That evil weed, that scourge of the lungs, that drug, nicotine, but oh, how it soothed the nerves and how it added to the coffers of the great state of Virginia. “Damn, I love these things.”

“Think we’ll die young?”

“Young?” Cynthia raised her eyebrows, which made Rick laugh, since he was already middle-aged.

“Hey, you want another promotion someday, don’t you, Deputy?”

“Just a beardless boy, that Rick Shaw.” She placed the cigarette in her mouth, lighting it with a match from a box of Redbuds.

They inhaled in sweet silence, the blue smoke swirling to the ceiling like a slow whirling dervish of delight.

“Coop, what do you think of Oliver Zeve?”

“He took the news as I expected. A nervous twitch.”

Rick grunted. “His press statement was a model of restraint. But nothing, nothing, will beat Big Marilyn Sanburne advancing her stalker theory. She’s good. She’s really good.” Rick appreciated Mim’s skills even though he didn’t like her. “I’d better call her.”

“Good politics, boss.”

Rick dialed the Sanburne residence. The butler fetched Mim. “Mrs. Sanburne, Rick Shaw here.”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“I wanted to give you the report from Washington concerning the human remains found at Monticello.” He heard a quick intake of breath. “The skeleton is that of a white male, aged between thirty-two and thirty-five. In good health. The left femur had been broken in childhood and healed. Possibly the victim suffered a slight limp. The victim was five ten in height, which although not nearly as tall as Jefferson’s six foot four, would have been tall for the times, and given the density of bone, he was probably powerfully built. There were no signs of degenerative disease in the bones, and his teeth, also, were quite good. He was killed by one forceful blow to the back of the skull with an as yet undetermined weapon. Death, more than likely, was instantaneous.”

Mim asked, “How do they know the man was white?”

“Well, Mrs. Sanburne, determining race from skeletal remains can actually be a little tricky sometimes. We’re all much more alike than we are different. The races have more in common than they have dissimilarities. You could say that race has more to do with culture than physical attributes. However, forensics starts by considering the bone structure and skeletal proportions of a specimen. Specifically, the amount of projection of the cheekbones, the width of the nasal aperture, and the shape and distance between the eye sockets. Another factor is the amount of projection of the jaw. For instance, a white man’s jaw is generally less prominent than a black man’s is. Prognathism is the term for the way the jaw figures more prominently in the faces of those of African descent. There is also in many white skeletons the presence of an extra seam in the skull, which extends from the top of the nasal arch to the top of the head. Perhaps even more helpful is the amount of curvature in the long bones, especially the femur, of an individual. A white person’s skeleton tends to have more twisting in the neck or head of the femur.”

“Amazing.”

“Yes, it is,” the sheriff agreed.

“Thank you,” Mim said politely, and hung up the phone.

“Well?” Cooper asked.

“She didn’t succumb to the vapors.” Rick referred to the Victorian ladies’ habit of fainting upon hearing unwelcome news. “Let’s run over to Kimball Haynes’s. I want to see him away from Oliver Zeve. Oliver will shut him down if he can.”

“Boss, the director of Monticello isn’t going to obstruct justice. I know that Oliver walks a tightrope up there, but he’s not a criminal.”

“No, I don’t think so either, but he’s so supersensitive about this. He’ll put the crimp on Kimball somehow, and I think Kimball is the one person who can lead us to the killer.”

“I think it’s Medley Orion.”

“How often have I told you not to jump to conclusions?”

“Eleventy million times.” She rolled her big blue eyes. “Still do it though.”

“Still right most of the time too.” He kicked at her as she walked by to stub out her cigarette. “Well, I happen to agree. It was Medley or a boyfriend, father, somebody close to her. If we could just find the motive—Kimball knows the period inside and out and he’s got a feel for the people.”

“Got the bug.”

“Huh?”

“Harry told me that Kimball eats and sleeps this case.”

“Harry—next she’ll have the cat and dog on it too.”

31

The night air, cool and deep, carried stories to Tucker’s nose. Deer followed the warm air currents, raccoons prowled around Monticello, a possum reposed on a branch of the Carolina silver-bell near the terrace which Mrs. Murphy, like Kimball, thought of as a boardwalk. Overhead, bats flew in and out of the tulip poplar, the purple beech, and the eaves of the brick house.

“I’m glad Monticello has bats.” Mrs. Murphy watched the small mammals dart at almost right angles when they wanted.

“Why?” Tucker sat down.

“Makes this place less august. After all, when Thomas Jefferson lived here, it probably didn’t look like this. The trees couldn’t have been this grand. The garbage had to go somewhere—know what I mean?—and it must have been filled with noises. Now there’s a reverential silence except for the shuffling of human feet on the tours.”

“It must have been fun, all the grandchildren, the slaves calling to one another, the clanging in the smithy, the neighing of the horses. I can imagine it, and I can envision a bright corgi accompanying Mr. Jefferson on his rides.”

“Dream on. If he had dogs out with him, they would have been big dogs—coach dogs or hunting dogs.”

“Like Dalmatians?” Tucker’s ears dropped for a moment as she considered her spotted rival. “He wouldn’t have owned Dalmatians. I think he had corgis. We’re good herding dogs and we could have been useful.”

“Then you would have been out with the cattle.”

“Horses.”

“Cattle.”

“Oh, what do you know? Next you’ll say a cat sat by Jefferson’s elbow when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.”

Mrs. Murphy’s whiskers twitched. “No cat would ever have allowed the phrase ‘All men are created equal’ to pass. Not only are all men not created equal, cats aren’t created equal. Some cats are more equal than others, if you know what I mean.”

“He wrote it in Philadelphia. Maybe that affected his brain.” Tucker giggled.

“Philadelphia was a beautiful city then. Parts of it are still beautiful, but it just got too big, you know. All of our cities got too big. Anyway, it’s absurd to plunk an idea like that down on parchment. Men aren’t equal. And we know for sure that women aren’t equal. They weren’t even considered at the time.”

“Maybe he meant equal under the law.”

“That’s a farce. Ever see a rich man go to jail? I take that back. Every now and then a Mafia don gets marched to the slammer.”

“Mrs. Murphy, how could Thomas Jefferson have dreamed of the Mafia? When he wrote the Declaration of Independence, only a million people lived in the thirteen colonies and they were mostly English, Irish, Scottish, and German, and, of course, African from the various tribes.”

“Don’t forget the French.”

“Boy, were they stupid. Had the chance to grab the whole New World and blew it.”

“Tucker, I didn’t know you were a Francophobe.”

“They don’t like corgis. The Queen of England likes corgis, so I think the English are the best.”

“Jefferson didn’t.” The cat’s silken eyebrows bobbed up and down.

“Not fair. George III was mental. The whole history of the world might have been different if he’d been right in the head.”

“Yeah, but you could pick out any moment in history and say that. What would have happened if Julius Caesar had listened to his wife, Calpurnia, on March fifteenth, when she begged him not to go to the Forum? Beware the Ides of March. What would have happened if Catherine the Great’s attempt on her looney-tunes husband’s life had failed and she was killed instead? Moments. Turning points. Every day there’s a turning point somewhere with someone. I think the creation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals gets my vote as most important.”

Tucker stood up and inhaled. “I pick the founding of the Westminster Dog Show. Say, do you smell that?”

Mrs. Murphy lifted her elegant head. “Skunk.”

“Let’s go back in the house. If I see her, then I’ll chase her and you know what will happen. The odor of skunk in Monticello.”

“I think it would be pretty funny myself. I wonder if Jefferson would like the idea of his home being a museum. I bet he’d rather have it filled with children and laughter, broken pottery and wornout furniture.”

“He would, but Americans need shrines. They need to see how their great people lived. They didn’t have indoor plumbing. Fireplaces were the only source of heat in the winter. No washing machines, refrigerators, stoves, or televisions.”

“The last would be a blessing.” Mrs. Murphy’s voice dripped disdain.

“No telephones, telegraphs, fax machines, automobiles, airplanes . . .”

“Sounds better and better.” The cat brushed up against the dog. “Quiet except for natural sounds. Just think, people actually sat down and really talked to one another. They were under an obligation to entertain one another with their conversational abilities. You know what people do today? They sit in their living room or family room—isn’t that a dumb word? Every room is a family room—they sit there with the television on and if they talk they talk over the sound of the boob tube.”

“Oh, Mrs. Murphy, they can’t all be that crude.”

“Humph,” the cat replied. She did not consider the human animal the crown of creation.

“I’m surprised you know your history.” Tucker scratched her ear.

“I listen. I know human history and our history and no matter what, I am an Americat.”

“And there is an Ameriskunk.” Tucker scurried to the front door, which was open just enough so she could squeeze in as a fat skunk at the edge of the lawn hastened in the opposite direction.

Mrs. Murphy followed. The two ran to the narrow staircase behind the North Square Room, turned left, and scampered up to Kimball’s makeshift workroom.

Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, and Kimball, now bleary-eyed, had sifted through as much correspondence as they could. Martha Jefferson, the future president’s daughter, married Thomas Mann Randolph on February 23, 1790. Together they produced twelve children, eleven of whom gained maturity and most of whom lived to a ripe old age. The last died in 1882, and that was Virginia Jefferson Randolph, born in 1801. Martha’s children in turn begat thirty-five children. Maria, her sister, had thirteen grandchildren through her son Francis Eppes, who married twice, which brings that generation’s count to forty-eight. They, too, were fruitful and multiplied—not that everyone lived to breed. A few grew to adulthood and never married, but the descendants were plentiful even so.

Mrs. Hogendobber rubbed her nose. “This is like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“But which needle?” Harry joined her chorus.

“Which haystack, Martha or Maria?” Kimball was also wearing down.

“You’d think someone would say something about Medley or her child.” Harry noticed her friends enter the room. “What have you two been up to?”

“Discussion of history,” Mrs. Murphy answered.

“Yeah, deep stuff.” Tucker plopped at her mother’s feet.

“The sad truth is that back then black lives weren’t that important.” Mrs. Hogendobber shook her head.

“There sure are enough references to Jupiter, Jefferson’s body servant, and King and Sally and Betsey Hemings, and well, the list could go on and on. Medley gets a footnote.” Kimball started pulling on his lower lip, an odd habit indicating intense thought.

“What about Madison Hemings? He sure caused a sensation. A dead ringer for Thomas Jefferson with a deep brown tan. He waited on the dinner guests. Bet he gave them a start.” Harry wondered what the real effect must have been upon seeing a young mulatto man in livery who surely shared the president’s blood.

“Born in 1805, and as an old man he said he was Jefferson’s son. Said his mother, Sally, told him.” Kimball abruptly leapt up. “But that could be a desire to be the center of attention. And Jefferson had a wealth of male relatives, each and every one capable of congress with Sally or her pretty sister, Betsey. And what about the other white employees of the plantation?”

“Well, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Martha’s oldest son, who was born in 1792 and lived to 1875, swore that Sally was Peter Carr’s favorite mistress and Sally’s sister, Betsey, was mistress to Sam Carr. Those were Jefferson’s nephews, the sons of Dabney Carr and Martha Jefferson’s younger sister. Wild as rats they were too.” Kimball smiled, imagining the charms of a black purdah with one white sultan, or, in this case, two.

“Wonder if Sally and Betsey thought it was so great?” Harry couldn’t resist.

“Huh”—he blinked—“well, maybe not, but Harry, you can’t remove sexual fantasy from the life of the male. I mean, we all want to imagine ourselves in the arms of a beautiful woman.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry grumbled. “The imagining isn’t so bad, it’s the doing it when one is married. Oh, well, this is an ancient debate.”

He softened. “I get your point.”

“And who slept with Medley?” Mrs. Murphy flicked her tail. “If she was as pretty as she is reputed to have been, she would have turned a white head or two.”

“What a loud purr.” Kimball admired Mrs. Murphy.

“You should hear her burp.” Tucker wagged her nontail, hoping to be noticed.

“Jealous.” Mrs. Hogendobber said matter-of-factly.

“She’s got your number, stumpy.” Mrs. Murphy teased her friend, who didn’t reply because Kimball was petting her.

“Is it me or is there a conspiracy of silence surrounding Medley Orion and her child?” Harry, like a hound, struck a faint, very faint scent.

Both Kimball and Mrs. Hogendobber stared at her.

“Isn’t that obvious?” Kimball said.

“The obvious is a deceitful temptation.” Mrs. Hogendobber, by virtue of working with Harry, picked up the line now too. “We’re overlooking something.”

“The master of Monticello may not have known about whatever Medley was up to or whoever killed that man, but I bet you dollars to doughnuts that Martha did, and that’s why she took Medley. She could easily have been sold off, you know. The family could have ditched this slave if she became an embarrassment.”

“Harry, the Jeffersons did not sell their slaves.” Kimball almost sounded like Mim. It wasn’t true though. Jefferson did sell his slaves, but only if he knew they were going to a good home. Jefferson’s policy demonstrated more concern than many slave owners evidenced, yet the disposal of other humans seemed both callous and mercenary to some of Jefferson’s contemporaries.

“They could have given her away after Thomas died.” Mrs. Hogendobber shifted in her seat, a surge of energy enlivening her thoughts. “One or both daughters protected Medley. Martha and Maria.”

Kimball threw his hands in the air. “Why?”

“Well, why in the hell did not one family member suggest they pack off Sally and Betsey Hemings? My God, Jefferson was crucified over his alleged affair with Sally. Think about it, Kimball. It may have been two hundred years ago, but politics is still politics and people have changed remarkably little.” Harry nearly shouted.

“A cover-up?” Kimball whispered.

“Ah”—Mrs. Hogendobber held up her forefinger like a schoolmarm—“not a cover-up but pride. If the Hemingses were ‘dismissed,’ shall we say, then it would have been an admission of guilt.”

“But surely keeping them on this hill fed the gossipmongers too,” Kimball exploded in frustration.

“Yes, but Jefferson didn’t buy into it. So if he’s mum, what can they do? They can make up stories. Any newspaper today is full of the same conjecture posing as fact. But if Jefferson levitated above them all in his serene way, then he stole some of their fire. He never sweated in front of the enemy is what I’m saying, and he made a conscious decision not to bag the Hemingses.”

“Harry, those slaves came from his mother’s estate.”

“Kimball, so what?”

“He was a very loyal man. After all, when Dabney Carr, his best friend, died young, he created the family cemetery for him, and would lean on his grave and read to be close to him.”

Harry held up her hands as if asking for a truce, “Okay. Okay, then try this. Sally and Betsey’s mother, Betty Hemings, was half white. The skinny from the other slaves was that her father was an English sea captain. Thomas Jefferson freed Bob and James, Sally and Betsey’s brothers, in 1790. Except for another daughter, Thenia, who was acquired by James Monroe, all the Hemingses stayed at Monticello. They had a reputation for being good workers and for being intelligent. Sally was never set free, but her daughter was, by Jefferson, in 1822. At least, that’s what I’m getting out of all these papers.”

“I know all that,” Kimball fretted.

“I don’t.” Mrs. Hogendobber made a sign indicating for Harry to continue.

“Jefferson made provision for Sally’s sons Madison and Eston to be freed upon reaching the age of twenty-one. Now, he wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t think these people could earn a living. It would be cruel to send them into the world otherwise. Right?”

“Right.” Kimball paced.

“And the lovers of Sally and Betsey may not have been the Carr brothers. The slaves said that John Wayles took Sally as, what should I say, his common-law wife, after his third wife died, and that Sally had six children by him. John Wayles was Martha Jefferson’s brother, T.J.’s brother-in-law. Jefferson took responsibility, always, for any member of his family. He loved Martha beyond reason. His solicitude makes sense in this light. Of course, others said that John Wayles was the lover of Betty Hemings, so that Sally and Betsey would have been Martha’s cousins. Guess we’ll never really know, but the point is, Sally and Betsey had some blood tie, or deep-heart tie, to T.J.”

Kimball sat back down. He spoke slowly. “That does make sense. It would force him into silence, too, concerning the paternity slanders.”

“John Wayles wasn’t equipped to handle this kind of scrutiny. Jefferson was.” Mrs. Hogendobber hit the nail on the head. “And even though they hurt Jefferson, the slandermongers, they couldn’t really abridge his power.”

“Why not?” Kimball was perplexed.

“And flush out all those white jackrabbits in the briar patch?” Mrs. Hogendobber laughed. “The question is not which southern gentlemen slept with slave women, the question is which ones did not.”

“Oh, I do see.” Kimball rubbed his chin. “The Yankees could fulminate properly, but the Southerners shut up and rolled right over, so to speak.”

“Hell, yes, they wouldn’t have nailed Jefferson to the cross for their own sins.” Harry laughed. “The Northerners could do the nailing, but they never could quite catch him to do it. He was far too smart to talk and he always sheltered those weaker than himself.”

“He had broad, broad wings.” Mrs. Hogendobber smiled.

“And where does that leave Medley Orion?” Kimball stood up and paced again.

“She may or may not have been related to the Hemingses. Obviously, from the description of her as ‘bright,’ she was one quarter white if not half white. And her lover was white. The lover is the key. He was being protected,” Harry said.

“I disagree. I think it’s Medley who was being protected. I can’t prove it, but my woman’s intuition tells me the victim was Medley’s white lover.”

“What?” Kimball stopped in his tracks.

“The Jeffersons extended their grace to many people: to Wayles if he was the amour of Betty Hemings or her daughter, Sally; to the Carrs if they were involved. The corpse in Cabin Four wasn’t a family member. His absence or death would have been noted somewhere. Someone had to make an explanation for that. Don’t you see, whoever that man is—or was, I should say—once the Jeffersons found out, they didn’t like him.”

She paused for breath and Kimball butted in. “But to countenance murder?”

Mrs. Hogendobber dropped her head for a second and then looked up. “There may be worse sins than murder, Kimball Haynes.”

32

Warren Randolph buttoned his shirt as Larry Johnson leaned against the small sink in the examining room. Larry was tempted to tell Warren it had taken his father’s death to force him into this check-up, but he didn’t.

“The blood work will be back within the week.” Larry closed the file with the plastic color code on the outside. “You’re in good health and I don’t anticipate any problems, but”—he wagged his finger—“the last time you had blood drawn was when you left for college. You come in for a yearly check-up!”

Warren sheepishly said, “Lately I haven’t felt well. I’m tired, but then I can’t sleep. I drag around and forget things. I’d forget my head if it weren’t pinned to my shoulders.”

Larry put his hand on Warren’s shoulder. “You’ve suffered a major loss. Grief is exhausting and the things that pop into your mind—it’ll surprise you.”

Warren could let down his guard around the doctor. If you couldn’t trust your lifelong physician, whom could you trust? “I don’t remember feeling this bad when Mother died.”

“You were twenty-four when Diana died. That’s too young to understand what and whom you’ve lost, and don’t be surprised if some of the grieving you’ve suppressed over your mother doesn’t resurface now. Sooner or later, it comes out.”

“I got worried, you know, about the listlessness. Thought it might be the beginning of leukemia. Runs in the family. Runs? Hell, it gallops.”

“Like I said, the blood work will be back, but you don’t have any other signs of the disease. You took a blow and it will take time to get back up.”

“But what if I do have leukemia like Poppa?” Warren’s brow furrowed, his voice grew taut. “It can take you down fast. . . .”

“Or you can live with it for years.” Larry’s voice soothed. “Don’t yell ‘ouch’ until you’re hurt. You know, memory and history are age-related. What you call up out of your mind at twenty may not be what you call up at forty. Even if what you remember is a very specific event in time, say, Christmas 1968, how you remember it will shift and deepen with age. Events are weighted emotionally. It’s not the events we need to understand, it’s the emotions they arouse. In some cases it takes twenty or thirty years to understand Christmas of 1968. You are now able to see your father’s life as a whole: beginning, middle, and end. That changes your perception of Wesley, and I guarantee you will think a lot about your mother too. Just let it go through you. Don’t block it. You’ll be better off.”

“You know everything about everybody, don’t you, Doc?”

“No”—the old man smiled—“but I know people.”

Warren glanced up at the ceiling, pushing back his tears. “Know what I thought about driving over here today? The damnedest thing. I remembered Poppa throwing the newspaper across the room when Reagan and his administration managed that Tax Reform Act of 1986. What a disaster. Anyway, Poppa was fussing and cussing and he said, ‘The bedroom, Warren, the bedroom is the last place we’re free until these sons of bitches figure out how to tax orgasms.’ ”

Larry laughed. “They broke the mold when they made Wesley.”

33

The graceful three-sash windows, copied from Monticello, opened onto a formal garden in the manner of Inigo Jones. The library was paneled in a deep red mahogany and glowed as if with inner light. Kimball sat at a magnificent Louis XIV desk, black with polished ormolu, which Samson Coles’s maternal great-great-great-grandmother was reputed to have had shipped over from France in 1700 when she lived in the Tidewater.

Handwritten diaries, the cursive script elegant and highly individualistic, strained the archaeologist’s eyes. If he stepped away from the documents, the writing almost looked Arabic, another language of surpassing beauty in the written form.

Lucinda, the consummate hostess, placed a pot of hot tea, a true Brown Betty, on a silver tray along with scones and sinful jams and jellies. She pulled a chair alongside him and read too.

“The Coles family has a fascinating history. And the Randolphs, of course, Jefferson’s mother’s family. It’s hard to remember how few people there were even at the beginning of the eighteenth century and how the families all knew one another. Married one another too.”

“You know that America enjoyed a higher rate of literacy during the American Revolution than it does today? That’s a dismal statistic. These early settlers, I mean, even going back to the early seventeenth century, were as a rule quite well educated. That common culture, high culture if you will, at least in the literary sense and the sense of the living arts”—he rubbed the desk to make his point—“must have given people remarkable stability.”

“You could seize your quill and inkwell, scratch a letter to a friend in Charleston, South Carolina, and know that an entire subtext was understood.” Lulu buttered a scone.

“Lulu, what was your major?”

“English. Wellesley.”

“Ah.” Kimball appreciated the rigors of Wellesley College.

“What was a girl to study in my day? Art history or English.”

“Your day wasn’t that long ago. Now, come on, you aren’t even forty.”

She shrugged and grinned. She certainly wasn’t going to correct him.

Kimball, at thirty, hadn’t begun to think about forty. “We’re youth-obsessed. The people who wrote these diaries and letters and records valued experience.”

“The people who wrote this stuff weren’t assaulted on a daily basis with photographs and television shows parading beautiful young women, and men, for that matter. Your wife, hopefully the best woman you could find, did not necessarily have to be beautiful. Not that it hurt, mind you, Kimball, but I think our ancestors were much more concerned with sturdy health and strong character. The idea of a woman as ornament—that was off waiting to afflict us during Queen Victoria’s reign.”

“You’re right. Women and men worked as a team regardless of their level of society. They needed one another. I keep coming across that in my research, Lulu, the sheer need. A man without a woman was to be pitied and a woman without a man was on a dead-end street. Everyone pitched in. I mean, look at these accounts kept by Samson’s great-grandmother—many greats, actually—Charlotte Graff. Nails, outrageously expensive, were counted, every one. Here, look at this account book from 1693.”

“Samson really should donate these to the Alderman’s rare books collection. He won’t part with them, and I guess in a way I can understand, but the public should have access to this information, or scholars at least, if not the public. Wesley Randolph was the same way. I ran into Warren coming out of Larry Johnson’s office yesterday and asked him if he’d ever read the stuff. He said no, because his father kept a lot of it in the huge house safe in the basement. Wesley figured that if there were a fire, the papers would be protected in the safe.”

“Logical.”

Lulu read again. “Whenever I read letters to and from Jefferson women I get totally confused. There are so many Marthas, Janes, and Marys. It seems like every generation has those names in it.”

“Look at it this way. They didn’t know they were going to be famous. Otherwise maybe they would have varied the first names to help us out later.”

Lulu laughed. “Think anyone will be reading about us one hundred years from now?”

“They won’t even care about me twenty minutes after I’m gone—in an archival sense, I mean.”

“Who knows?” She gingerly picked up Charlotte Graff’s account book and read. “Her accounts make sense. I picked up Samson’s ledger the other day because he had laid it out on the desk and forgot to put it away. Couldn’t make head or tails of it. I think the gene pool has degenerated, at least in the bookkeeping department.” She rose and pulled a massive black book with a red spine out of the lower shelf of a closed cabinet. “You tell me, who does the better job?”

Good-naturedly, Kimball opened the book, the bright white paper with the vertical blue lines such a contrast from the aged papers he’d been reading. He squinted. He read a bit, then he paled, closed the book, and handed it back to Lulu. Not an accounting genius, he knew enough about double-entry bookkeeping to know that Samson Coles was lifting money out of clients’ escrow funds. No broker or real estate agent is ever, ever to transfer money out of an escrow account even if he or she pays it back within the hour. Discovery of this abuse results in instant loss of license, and no real estate board in any county would do otherwise, even if the borrower were the president of the United States.

“Kimball, what’s wrong?”

He stuttered, “Uh, nothing.”

“You look pale as a ghost.”

“Too much scones and jam.” He smiled weakly and gathered the papers together just as Samson tooted down the driveway, his jolly red Wagoneer announcing his presence. “Lulu, put this book away before he gets here.”

“Kimball, what’s wrong with you?”

“Put the book back!” He spoke more sharply than he had intended.

Lulu, not a woman given to taking orders, did the exact reverse, she opened the account book and slowly and deliberately read the entries. Not knowing too much about bookkeeping or the concept of escrow even though she was married to a realtor, she was a bit wide of the mark. No matter, because Samson strode into the library looking the picture of the country squire.

“Kimball, my wife has enticed you with scones.”

“Hello, dear.” He leaned over and perfunctorily kissed her on the cheek. His gaze froze on the account book.

“If you two will excuse me, I must be going. Thank you so much for access to these materials.” Kimball disappeared.

Samson, crimson-faced, tried to hide his shock. If he reacted, it would be far worse than if he didn’t. Instead, he merely removed his ledger from Lulu’s hands and replaced it on the lower shelf of the built-in cabinet. “Lulu, I was unaware that my ledger qualified as an archive.”

Blithely she remarked, “Well, it doesn’t, but I was reading over your umpteenth great-grandmother’s accounts from 1693, and they made sense. So I told Kimball to see how the accounting gene had degenerated over the centuries.”

“Amusing,” Samson uttered through gritted teeth. “Methods have changed.”

“I’ll say.”

“Did Kimball say anything?”

Lucinda paused. “No, not exactly, but he was eager to go after that. Samson, is there a problem?”

“No, but I don’t think my ledger is anybody’s business but my own.”

Stung, Lulu realized he was right. “I’m sorry. I’d seen it when you left it out the other day, and I do say whatever pops into my head. The difference between the two ledgers just struck me. It isn’t anybody else’s business but it was—funny.”

Samson left her gathering up the scones and the tea. He repaired to the kitchen for a bracing kick of Dalwhinnie scotch. What to do?

34

Mrs. Murphy, with special determination, squeezed her hindquarters into Mim Sanburne’s post office box. From the postmistress’s point of view, the wall of boxes was divided in half horizontally, an eight-inch ledge of oak being the divider. This proved handy when Harry needed to set aside stacks of mail or continue her refined sorting, as she called it.

As a kitten, Mrs. Murphy used to sleep in a large brandy snifter. She never acquired a taste for brandy, but she did learn to like odd shapes. For instance, she couldn’t resist a new box of tissues. When she was small she could claw out the Kleenex and secrete herself into the box. This never failed to elicit a howl and laughter from Harry. As she grew, Mrs. Murphy discovered that less and less of her managed to fit into the box. Finally, she was reduced to sticking her hind leg in there. Hell on the Kleenex.

Usually the cat contented herself with the canvas mail bin. If Harry, or on rare occasion, Mrs. Hogendobber, wheeled her around, that was kitty heaven. But today she felt like squishing herself into something small. The scudding, frowning putty-colored clouds might have had something to do with it. Or the fact that Market Shiflett had brought over Pewter and three T-bones for the animals. Pewter had caused an unwelcome sensation in Market’s store when she jumped into Ellie Wood Baxter’s shopping cart and sunk her considerable fangs into a scrumptious pork roast.

Harry adored Pewter, so keeping her for the day was fine. The two cats and Tucker gnawed at their bones until weary. Everyone was knocked out asleep. Even Harry and Mrs. H. wanted to go to sleep.

Harry stopped in the middle of another massive catalogue sort. “Would you look at that?”

“Looks like a silver curtain. George and I loved to walk in the rain. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but George Hogendobber was a romantic. He knew how to treat a lady.”

“He knew how to pick a good lady.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” Mrs. Hogendobber noticed Mrs. Murphy, front end on the ledge, back end jammed into Mim’s box. She pointed.

Harry smiled. “She’s too much. Dreaming of white mice or pink elephants, I guess. I do love that cat. Where’s the culprit?” She bent down to see Pewter asleep under the desk, her right paw draped over the remains of her T-bone. The flesh had been stripped clean. “Boy, I bet Ellie Wood pitched a holy fit.”

“Market wasn’t too happy either. Maybe you ought to give him a vacation and take Pewter home tonight. She certainly could use a little outdoor exercise.”

“Good idea. I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m as bad as these guys.”

“Low pressure system. The pollen ought to be a factor soon too. I dread those two weeks when my eyes are red, my nose runs, and my head pounds.”

“Get Larry Johnson to give you an allergy shot.”

“The only person an allergy shot does any good for is Larry Johnson.” She grumbled. “He’ll come by soon to give us a lunch hour today. He’s back working full-time again. Remember when he first retired and he’d come in so you could take time for lunch? That lasted about six months. Then he was back working at his practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. Soon it was every morning, and now he’s back to a full schedule.”

“Do you think people should retire?”

“Absolutely not, I mean, unless they want to. I am convinced, convinced, Mary Minor, that retirement killed my George. His hobbies weren’t the same as being responsible to people, being in the eye of the storm, as he used to say. He loved this job.”

“I’m trying to find a business I can do on the side. That way, when I retire, I can keep working. These government jobs are rigid. I’ll have to retire.”

Miranda laughed. “You aren’t even thirty-five.”

“But it goes by so fast.”

“That it does. That it does.”

“Besides, I need money. I had to replace the carburetor in my tractor last week. Try finding a 1958 John Deere carburetor. What I’ve got in there is a hybrid of times. And I don’t know how much longer the truck will hold up, she’s a 1978. I need four-wheel drive—the inside of the house needs to be painted. Where am I going to get the money?”

“Things were easier when you were married. Anyone who doesn’t think a man’s salary helps isn’t very realistic. Divorce and poverty seem to be the same word for most women.”

“Well, I lived just fine on my own before I was married.”

“You were younger then. You weren’t maintaining a house. As you go along in life, creature comforts get mighty important. If I didn’t have my automatic coffee maker, my electric blanket, and my toaster oven, I’d be a crab and a half,” she joked. “And what about my organ that George bought me for my fiftieth birthday? I couldn’t live without that.”

“I want a Toyota Land Cruiser. Never could afford it though.”

“Does Mim have one of those?”

“Along with one of everything else. But yes, she’s got the Land Cruiser and Jim’s got the Range Rover. Little Marilyn has a Range Rover too. Speak of the devil.”

Mim pulled up and sat in the car, trying to decide if the rain would let up. It didn’t, so she made a dash for it. “Whoo,” she said as she closed the door behind her. Neither Harry nor Mrs. Hogendobber informed her of Mrs. Murphy’s slumber. She opened her post box. “A cat’s tail. I have always wanted a cat’s tail. And a cat’s behind. Mrs. Murphy, what are you doing?” she asked as she gently squeezed the feline’s tail.

Mrs. Murphy, tail tweaked, complained bitterly. “Leave me alone. I don’t pull your tail.”

Harry and Miranda laughed. Harry walked over to the cat, eyes now half open. “Come on, sweet pea, out of there.”

“I’m comfortable.”

Sensing deep resistance, Harry placed her hands under the cat’s arms and gently removed her amid a torrent of abuse from the tiger. “I know you’re comfy in there, but Mrs. Sanburne needs to retrieve her mail. You can get back in there later.”

Tucker raised her head to observe the fuss, saw the situation, and put her head down on the floor again.

“You’re a big goddamned help,” the cat accused the dog.

Tucker closed her eyes. If she ignored Mrs. Murphy, the feline usually dropped it.

“Did she read my mail too?” Mim asked.

“Here it is.” Miranda handed it over to Mim, whose engagement diamond, a marquise cut, caught the light and splashed a tiny rainbow on the wall.

“Bills, bills, bills. Oh, just what I always wanted, a catalogue from Victoria’s Secret.” She underhanded it into the trash, looked up, and beheld Harry and Miranda beholding her. “I love my cashmere robe. But this sexy stuff is for your age group, Harry.”

“I sleep in the nude.”

“True confessions.” Mim leaned against the counter. “Heard you all have been helping Kimball Haynes. I guess he told you about the pathology report, or whatever they call those things.”

“Yes, he did,” Miranda said.

“All we have to do is find a thirty-two-year-old white male who may have walked with a slight limp in his left leg—in 1803.”

“That, or find out more about Medley Orion.”

“It is a puzzle.” Mim crossed her arms over her chest. “I spoke to Lulu this morning and she said Kimball spent all of yesterday over there and Samson’s mad at her.”

“Why?” asked Harry innocently.

“Oh, she said he got out of sorts. And she admitted that maybe she should have waited until Samson was home. I don’t know. Those two.” She shook her head.

As if on cue, Samson stamped into the post office with customers from Los Angeles. “Hello there. What luck, finding you here, Mim. I’d like you to meet Jeremy and Tiffany Diamond. This is Marilyn Sanburne.”

Mim extended her hand. “How do you do?”

“Fine, thank you.” Jeremy’s smile revealed a good cap job. His wife was on her second face-lift, and her smile no longer exactly corresponded to her lips.

“The Diamonds are looking at Midale.”

“Ah,” cooed Mim. “One of the most remarkable houses in central Virginia. The first to have a flying staircase, I believe.”

Samson introduced the Diamonds to Harry and Miranda.

“Isn’t this quaint?” Tiffany’s voice hit the phony register. “And look, you have pets here too. How cozy.”

“They sort the mail.” Harry didn’t have the knee-jerk response to these kinds of people that Mim did, but she marveled at big city people’s assumption of superiority. If you lived in a small town or the country, they thought, then you must be unambitious or stupid or both.

“How cute.”

Jeremy brushed a few raindrops off his pigskin blazer, teal yet. “Samson’s been telling us about his ancestor, Thomas Jefferson’s mother.”

I bet he has, Harry thought to herself. “Samson and Mrs. Sanburne—Mrs. Sanburne is the chair, actually—have raised money for the current restorations at Monticello.”

“Ah, and say, what about the body in the slave quarters? I know why you look familiar.” He stared at Mim. “You were the lady on Wake-up Call with Kyle Kottner. Do you really think the victim was a stalker?”

“Whoever he was, he posed some danger,” she replied.

“Wouldn’t it be ironic, Samson, if he were one of your relatives.” Tiffany sank a small fishhook into Samson’s ego. Her unfortunate obsession with looking young and cute, and her faint hint of superiority, hadn’t dimmed her mind. She’d endured enough of Samson’s genealogical bragging.

Harry stifled a giggle. Mim relished Samson’s discomfort, especially since she hadn’t fully forgiven him for his behavior at Wesley’s funeral.

“Well,” he gulped, “who knows? Instead of living up to the past, I might have to live it down.”

“I’d rather live in the present,” Tiffany replied, although her penchant for attempting to keep her face in the twenty-year distant past stated otherwise.

After they vacated the premises, Mim walked back over and leaned against the counter. “Sharp lady.”

“She’s got Samson’s number, that’s for sure.”

“Harry”—Mim turned to Miranda—“Miranda, have you found anything at all?”

“Just that Medley Orion lived with Martha Jefferson Randolph after 1826. She continued her trade. She had a daughter, but we don’t know her name.”

“What about searching for the victim? Surely the possibility of a limp could give him away. Someone somewhere knew a lame man visited Medley Orion. And he wasn’t a tradesman.”

“It’s baffling.” Miranda leaned on the opposite side of the counter. “But I’ve turned this over and over in my mind and I believe this has something to do with us now. Someone knows this story.”

Mim tapped the counter with her mail. “And if we know, it will upset the applecart.” She grabbed a letter opener off the counter and opened her personal mail. Her eyes widened as a letter fell out of a plain envelope postmarked Charlottesville. Letters were pasted on the paper: “Let the dead bury the dead.” Mim blanched, then read it aloud.

“Already has,” Harry said. “Yeah, the applecart’s upset.”

“I resent this cheap theatric!” Mim vehemently slapped the letter on the counter.

“Cheap or not, we’d better all be careful,” Miranda quietly commented.

35

Ansley, in defiance of Warren, allowed Kimball Haynes to read the family papers. She even opened the safe. After she heard about Lulu’s trouble with Samson, she figured the girls ought to stick together, especially since she didn’t see anything particularly wrong with allowing it.

Reflecting on that later, she realized that she felt a kinship with Lulu since they shared Samson. Ansley knew she got the better part of him. Samson, a vain but handsome man, evidenced a streak of fun and true creativity in bed. As a young man, he was always in one scrape or another. The one told most often was how he got drunk and ran his motorcycle through a rail fence. Stumbling out of the wreckage, he cursed, “Damn mare refused the fence.” Warren had been riding with him that day on his sleek Triumph 750cc.

They must have been wild young bucks, outrageous, still courteous, but capable of anything. Warren lost the wildness once out of law school. Samson retained vestiges of it but seemed subdued in the company of his wife.

Ansley wondered what would happen if and when Lucinda ever found out. She thought of Lucinda as a sister. Conventional emotion dictated that she should hate Lucinda as a rival. Why? She didn’t want Samson permanently. Temporary use of his body was quite sufficient.

The more she thought about why she allowed Kimball access to the papers, the more she realized that Wesley’s death had opened a Pandora’s box. She had lived under that old man’s thumb. So had Warren, and over the years she lost respect for her husband, watching him knuckle under to his father. Wesley had displayed virtues, to be sure, but he was harsh toward his son.

Worse, both men shut her out of the business. She wasn’t an idiot. She could have learned about farming or Thoroughbred breeding, if nothing else. She might have even offered some new ideas, but no, she was trotted out to prospective customers, pretty bait. She served drinks. She kept the wives entertained. She stood on high heels for cocktail party after cocktail party. Her Achilles’ tendon was permanently shortened. She bought a new gown for every black-tie fund-raiser on the East Coast and in Kentucky. She played her part and was never told she did a good job. The men took her for granted, and they had no idea how hard it was to be set aside, yet still be expected to behave graciously to people so hideously boring they should never have been born. Ansley was too young for that kind of life. The women in their sixties and seventies bowed to it. Perhaps some enjoyed being a working ornament, the unsung part of the proverbial marital team. She did not.

She wanted more. If she left Warren, he’d be hurt initially, then he’d hire the meanest divorce lawyer in the state of Virginia with the express purpose of starving her out. Rich men in divorce proceedings were rarely generous unless they were the ones caught with their pants down.

Ansley awoke to her fury. Wesley Randolph had crowed about his ancestors, notably Thomas Jefferson, one time too many. Warren, while not as bad, sang the refrain also. Was it because they couldn’t accomplish much today? Did they need those ancestors? If Warren Randolph hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he’d probably be on welfare. Her husband had no get-up-and-go. He couldn’t think for himself. And now that Poppa wasn’t there to tell him how and when to wipe his ass, Warren was in a panic. She’d never seen her husband so distressed.

It didn’t occur to her that he might be distressed because she was cheating on him. She thought that she and Samson were too smart for him.

Nor did it occur to Ansley that a rich man’s life was not necessarily better than a poor man’s, except in creature comforts.

Warren, denied self-sufficiency, was like a baby learning to walk. He was going to fall down many times. But at least he was trying. He pored over the family papers, he studied the account books, he endured meetings with lawyers and accountants concerning his portfolio, estate taxes, death duties, and what have you. Ansley had waited so long for him to be his own man that she couldn’t recognize that he was trying.

She took a sour delight from the look on his face when she told him that Kimball had read through the family papers from the years 1790 to 1820.

“Why would you do a thing like that when I asked you to keep him and everyone else out—at least until I could make a sound decision. I’m still—rocky.” He was more shocked than angry.

“Because I think you and your father have been selfish. Anyway, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”

He folded his hands as if in prayer and rested his chin on his fingertips. “I’m not as dumb as you think, Ansley.”

“I never said you were dumb,” came the hot retort.

“You didn’t have to.”

Since the boys were in their bedrooms, both parents kept their voices low. Warren turned on his heel and walked off to the stable. Ansley sat down and decided to read the family papers. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

36

The dim light filtering through the rain clouds slowly faded as the sun, invisible behind the mountains, set. The darkness gathered quickly and Kimball was glad he had driven straight home after leaving the Randolphs’. He wanted to put the finishing touches on his successful research before presenting it to Sheriff Shaw and Mim Sanburne. He was hopeful that he could present it on television too, for surely the media would return to Monticello. Oliver would not be pleased, of course, but this story was too good to suppress.

A knock on the door drew him away from his desk.

He opened the door, surprised. “Hello. Come on in and—”

He never finished his sentence. That fast, a snub-nosed .38 was pulled out of a deep coat pocket and Kimball was shot once in the chest and once in the head for good measure.

37

The much-awaited movie date with Fair turned into an evening work date at Harry’s barn. The rain pattered on the standing-seam tin roof as Fair and Harry, on their knees, laid down the rubberized bricks Warren had given her. She did as her benefactor suggested, putting the expensive flooring in the center of the wash stall, checking the grade down to the drain as she did so. Fair snagged the gut-busting task of cutting down old black rubber trailer mats and placing them around the brick square. They weighed a ton.

“This is Mother’s idea of a hot date.” Mrs. Murphy laughed from the hayloft. She was visiting Simon as well as irritating the owl, but then, everyone and everything irritated the owl.

Tucker, ground-bound since she couldn’t climb the ladder and never happy about it, sat by the wash stall. Next to her was Pewter, on her sleepover visit as suggested by Mrs. Hogendobber. Pewter could climb the ladder into the hayloft, but why exert herself?

“Don’t you think the horses get more attention than we do?” Pewter asked.

“They’re bigger,” Tucker replied.

“What’s that got to do with it?” Mrs. Murphy called down.

“They aren’t as independent as we are and their hooves need constant attention,” Tucker said.

“Is it true that Mrs. Murphy rides the horses?”

“Of course it’s true.” Mrs. Murphy flashed her tail from side to side. “You ought to try it.”

Pewter craned her neck to observe the two horses munching away in their stalls. “I’m not the athletic type.”

“You’re awfully good to help me.” Harry thanked her ex-husband as he groaned, pulling a rubber mat closer to the wall. “Want a hand?”

“I’ve got it,” he replied. “The only reason I’m doing this, Skeezits”—he used her high school nickname—“is that you’d do it yourself and strain something. For better or for worse, I’m stronger.” He paused. “But you have more endurance.”

“Same as mares, I guess.”

“I wonder if the differences between human males and females are as profound as we think they are. Mares made me think of it. The equine spread is narrow, very narrow. But for whatever reason, humans have created this elaborate code of sexual differences.”

“We’ll never know the answer. You know, I’m so out of it, I don’t even care. I’m going to do what I want to do and I don’t much care if it’s feminine or masculine.”

“You always were that way, Harry. I think that’s why I liked you so much.”

“You liked me so much because we were in kindergarten together.”

“I was in kindergarten with Susan, and I didn’t marry her,” he replied with humor.

“Touché.”

“I happened to think you were special once I synchronized my testosterone level with my brain. For a time there, the gonads took over.”

She laughed. “It’s a miracle anyone survives adolescence. Everything is so magnified and so new. My poor parents.” She smiled, thinking of her tolerant mother and father.

“You were lucky. Remember when I totaled my dad’s new Saab? One of the first Saabs in Crozet too. I thought he was gonna kill me.”

“You had help. Center Berryman is not my idea of a stable companion.”

“Have you seen him since he got out of the treatment center?”

“Yeah. Seems okay.”

“If I was ever tempted by cocaine, Center certainly cured me of that.”

“He came to Mim’s Mulberry Row ceremony at Monticello. One of his first appearances since he got back. He did okay. I mean, what must it have been like to have everyone staring at you and wondering if you’re going to make it? There are those who wish you well, those who are too self-centered to care, those that are sweet but will blunder and say the wrong thing, and those—and these are my absolute faves—those who hope you’ll fall flat on your face. That’s the only way they can be superior—to have the next guy fail. Jerks.” Harry grimaced.

“We became well acquainted with that variety of jerks during our divorce.”

“Oh, Fair, come on. Every single woman between the ages of twenty and eighty fawned over you, invited you to dinner—the poor-man-alone routine. I got it both barrels. How could I toss out my errant husband? All boys stray. That’s the way they’re made. What a load of shit I heard from other women. The men, at least, had the sense to shut up.”

He stopped cutting through the heavy rubber, sweat pouring off him despite the temperature in the low fifties. “That’s what makes life interesting.”

“What”—she was feeling angry just remembering—“dealing with jerks?”

“No—how we each see a slice of life, a degree or two of the circle but not the whole circle. What I was getting while you were getting that was older men like Herbie Jones or Larry Johnson on my case.”

“Herbie and Larry?” Harry’s interest shot into the stratosphere. “What did they say?”

“Basically that we all fall from grace and I should beg your forgiveness. Know who else invited me over for a powwow? Jim Sanburne.”

“I don’t believe it.” She felt oddly warmed by this male solicitude.

“Harry, he’s an unusual man. He said his life was no model but that infidelity was his fatal flaw and he knew it. He really blew me away because he’s much more self-aware than I reckoned. He said he thought he started having affairs when he was young because he felt Mim lorded it over him, his being a poor boy, so to speak.”

“He learned how to make money in a hurry.” Harry always admired self-made people.

“Yeah, he did, and he didn’t use a penny of her inheritance either. Fooling around was not just his way to get even but a way to restore his confidence.” Fair sat down for a minute. Tucker immediately came over and sat in his lap.

“Oh, Tucker, you’re always sucking up to people,” accused Pewter, who was the original brown-noser the minute the refrigerator door opened.

“Pewter, you’re jealous,” Mrs. Murphy teased.

“No, I’m not,” came the defensive reply. “But Tucker is so—so obvious. Dogs have no subtlety.”

“Pewter, you’re just a chatty Cathy.” Harry reached over and stroked her chin.

“Gag me,” Tucker said.

“Why do you think you fooled around?” Harry thought the question would shake her, but it didn’t. She was glad it was finally out there even if it did take three years.

“Stupidity.”

“That’s a fulsome reply.”

“Don’t get testy. I was stupid. I was immature. I was afraid I was missing something. The rose not smelled, the road not taken. That kind of crap. I do know, though, that I still had a lot of growing-up to do even after we were married—I spent so much of my real youth with my nose in a textbook that I missed a lot of the life experiences from which a person grows. What I was missing was me.”

Harry stopped putting in the brick and sat down, facing him.

He continued. “With a few exceptions like wrecking the Saab, I did what was expected of me. Most of us in Crozet do, I guess. I don’t think I knew myself very well, or maybe I didn’t want to know myself. I was afraid of what I’d find out.”

“Like what? What could possibly be wrong with you? You’re handsome, the best in your field, and you get along with people.”

“I ought to come over here more often.” He blushed. “Ah, Harry, haven’t you ever caught yourself driving down Garth Road or waking up in the middle of the night, haven’t you ever wondered what the hell you were doing and why you were doing it?”

“Yes.”

“Scared me. I wondered if I was as smart as everyone tells me I am. I’m not. I’m good in my field, but I can sure be dumb as a sack of hammers about other things. I kept running into limitations, and since I was raised to believe I shouldn’t have any, I ran away from them—you, me. That solved nothing. BoomBoom was an exercise in terrible judgment. And the one before her—”

Harry interrupted. “She was pretty.”

“Pretty is as pretty does. Anyway, I woke up one morning and realized that I’d smashed my marriage, I’d hurt the one person I loved most, I’d disappointed my parents and myself, and I’d made a fool of myself to others. Thank God I’m in a business where my patients are animals. I don’t think any people would have come to me. I was a mess. I even thought about killing myself.”

“You?” Harry was stunned.

He nodded. “And I was too proud to ask for help. Hey, I’m Fair Haristeen and I’m in control. Six-foot-four men don’t break down. We might kill ourselves working, but we don’t break down.”

“What did you do?”

“Found myself at the good reverend’s house on Christmas Eve. Christmas with Mom and Dad, oh, boy. Grim, resentful.” He shook his head. “I flew out of that house. I don’t know. I showed up at Herb’s and he sat down and talked to me. He told me that no one’s a perfect person and I should go slow, take a day at a time. He didn’t preach at me either. He told me to reach out to people and not to hide myself behind this exterior, behind a mask, you know?”

“I do.” And she did.

“Then I did something so out of character for me.” He played with the edge of the rubber matting. “I found a therapist.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, I really did, and you’re the only person who knows. I’ve been working with this guy for two years now and I’m making progress. I’m becoming, uh, human.”

The phone cut into whatever Fair would have said next. Harry jumped up and walked into the tack room. She heard Mrs. Hogendobber almost before she picked up the phone. Mrs. H. told her that Kimball Haynes had just been found by Heike Holtz. Shot twice. When he didn’t show up for a date or answer his phone, she became worried and drove out to his place.

Harry, ashen-faced, paused for a moment. “Fair, Kimball Haynes has been murdered.” She returned to Mrs. H. “We’ll be right over.”

38

A tea table filled with tarts and a crisp apple pie aroused the interest of Tucker, Mrs. Murphy, and Pewter. The humans at that moment were too upset to eat. Mrs. Hogendobber, a first-rate baker, liked to experiment with recipes before taking them to the Church of the Holy Light for suppers and benefits. The major benefit was to Harry, who was used as the guinea pig. If Harry ever stopped doing her high-calorie-burning farm chores, she’d be fat as a tick. Mrs. H. had planned to bring the treats to work tomorrow, but everything was up in the air.

“That bright young man. He had everything to live for.” Miranda wiped her eyes. “Why would anyone kill Kimball?”

Fair sat next to her on one side of the sofa, Harry on the other.

Harry patted her hand. An awkward gesture, but it suited Mrs. Hogendobber, who was not a woman given to hugs or much public display of affection. “I don’t know, but I think he stuck his nose too far in somebody’s business.”