Out Of Hounds

CHAPTER 20

February 26, 2020 Wednesday

“Sure is a lot of suds.” Tootie sprayed the power washer on the walls and floor of the kennel.

“Could peel the paint off a car, there’s so much force, but I’ve yet to find anything that can clean a kennel like a good power washer, or as inexpensively.”

“Once a week.” Tootie nodded.

“Well, I did go over the top when I bought two. Thought it would save time. Just have one with the cleaner in it and the other with clear hot water. I maybe saved some time but probably not enough to justify the expense.” Sister stood by her clear water power washer while Tootie finished up with the sudsy one.

The two women worked side by side and had been at it since nine that morning. Weevil and Betty walked hounds without them so they could do the indoor runs first. The outdoor runs were picked up, the poop thrown into a manure spreader, which also had straw bedding in there, which was changed whenever needed. Sister, a stickler for proper kennel practices, might let the straw go a week if the weather wasn’t awful but that was it. Every outdoor condo, as they called the big boxes on stilts, was rebedded once a week in winter. No straw in summer to help keep hounds cool. Some mornings in the winter, Sister would walk out to see what looked like steam rolling out of the condos’ small open doors.

The condo runs, huge, narrowed to a chain-link walkway to the main kennel and a push-open door, should hounds prefer to be in the kennel. However, the animals exhibited strong likes and dislikes so some kept to their social group in their condo, sort of like a sorority or a fraternity. Others enjoyed the camaraderie of the indoor housing. Best to let them tell you which, was Sister’s attitude about all animals. Golly, the long-haired cat, would sashay down to the kennels, parade along the outside runs, and denigrate the hounds within. They ignored her, which Raleigh and Rooster could not. As it was, she now reposed in the kennel office, fire crackling in the fireplace, for it had been built before indoor heating, later added. The roar of the power washers disturbed her equilibrium.

This did not disturb the two humans, happy with how the kennels sparkled. After the washing was done each woman pushed a large mop so the floor dried out quickly. The mops, carried to the industrial sink by the storage closet, were rung out, not such an easy task, then placed inside the closet, mop-head up. Both women washed their hands, dried same, then rubbed cornhusker oil on their hands.

“Stuff works. My hands don’t crack, I hate the cold on my hands and feet. Feels worse if your hands are cracked.”

“Hate it, too,” Tootie agreed, then added, “they’re on a long walk.”

No sooner had she said that than the iron gates to the outdoor draw run could be heard opening. The two women had also washed that concrete floor.

“Come along,” Weevil’s voice rang out.

“Barmaid, skiddle, daddle, do,” Betty urged the youngster to hurry up.

Then the door opened to the inside of the kennels, girls first into their side of the kennels then the boys. Everyone finally settled, the door opened into the large feeding room.

“Brisk.” Weevil rubbed his hands together. “It’s sixty degrees one day then thirty the next. I don’t know if I will ever get used to it.”

“Weevil, I was born and raised in Virginia and I’m not used to it,” Betty teased him. “Girls, this place looks practically perfect.”

“Those power washers do the job,” Sister replied.

“Given what you paid for them, industrial strength as I recall, they should. What was it? Three thousand dollars, and that was five years ago. God knows what they are now.”

“Let’s go into the office. Warmer there. Both of you are cherry red.” Sister placed the back of her hand on Betty’s extra-rosy cheek. “Cold.”

Once inside the office, a nice room with the Louis XV desk in the center, they sank into chairs.

“Where did you all go?” Tootie inquired.

“The huntsman here,” Betty nodded Weevil’s direction, “thought a climb to Hangman’s Ridge would be good for their engines.”

Betty called the hindquarters of any animal the engine, which included humans. Those glute muscles drive one.

“Well?” Sister raised her eyebrows.

“My engine knows I climbed that grade, as do my calf muscles. Usually we ride up there. It’s a haul but hounds enjoyed it.”

“I suppose, but that place is creepy,” Weevil admitted. “It’s the steepest grade we have but when I get up there on that plain, the thick branches of that hangman’s tree sway and it kind of gets me,” he confessed.

“Gets all of us,” Betty agreed.

Golly, stretched on the leather top of the gorgeous desk, lifted her head. “The dead men are still there, unquiet. We can sometimes see them. You humans can’t. It’s not a good place.”

Sister, sitting behind the desk, rubbed the cat’s ears. “Eighteen people were hanged there, men. Each one had a trial even then, rule of law although it was harsher, of course.”

“Do you think people believe in the law?” Tootie, often quiet but always thinking, asked.

“They say they do,” Betty replied, “until they get caught.”

“Doesn’t matter what country, what century, not much changes on that issue and the laws are made by those who can read and write and we take that for granted.” Sister thought about this then changed the subject. “Shaker called last night from Cleveland.”

“How is he?” Betty missed their huntsman of decades who had suffered a neck injury last winter season.

“As long as he doesn’t pound himself, his words, he’ll be fine. He won’t talk about it right now but if he hunts that’s a pounding. Even a smooth canter is a pounding. Once he gets home I’m hoping Skiff can talk sense to him. He won’t listen to me, I know it.” Sister pressed her lips together.

Skiff Kane, Crawford Howard’s huntsman, had become Shaker’s girlfriend. They spoke the same language. He had flown to Cleveland for the expert medical diagnosis and care there, and stayed with friends. Jefferson Hunt paid for this, of course. He was reluctant but he did go, as it was his last chance. Six months ago, neck still out of line, Sister sent him to a specialized clinic in Houston. They felt he was as good as he would be. Since he couldn’t accept that, burning to once again carry the horn, Sister sent him to Cleveland.

“You’re the master.” Tootie obeyed a vertical hierarchy but she knew Shaker and all who hunted understood.

“I learned a lot from him.” Weevil had whipped-in to the big hunt outside Toronto, before that, then wound up in Virginia, serendipity.

“Weevil, much as we all admire and even love Shaker, I don’t see how he can ride hard. It would scare me half to death,” Sister admitted. “No one necessarily wants to see a great huntsman give up the horn due to age and injury, but it’s how it works. We all are happy with your work and hounds love you.”

“I don’t want Shaker to think I’m conniving behind his back,” Weevil said.

Betty quickly responded, “He’s not like that. Stubborn, opinionated, but he is fair-minded, and remember he took over the horn when Ray died. It’s the way it happens.” She named Sister’s late husband, who died in 1991.

“You know what I’ve been doing?” Betty waited for all to ask then continued. “The missing fingers. Well, missing from long ago. I’ve been researching this on Google. Nothing really, then Bobby, sitting at the table playing solitaire, piped up ‘Cards.’ ‘Cards! What?’ I turned at him.”

“Cards?” The other three looked at Betty.

“You have a deck in there?” Betty leaned over Sister to open the long thin middle drawer in the desk. “Most everyone has a deck of cards somewhere.”

“I don’t, but I bet there’s a deck in Shaker’s desk. He would play cards with the boys once a week down at Roger’s Corner.” She named the country convenience store miles down the road, which had not been altered since after World War II. Betty opened the drawer in the old schoolhouse desk. “Aha. Now watch carefully.” She walked back to stand in front of Sister.

Weevil and Tootie watched as Betty flicked a card from the bottom of the deck with her forefinger.

“I don’t get it.” Weevil furrowed his brow.

“You saw me do that, right?”

“We all did.” Sister stared at the cards in front of her on the desk as Betty kept flicking.

Stopping, Betty remarked, “If my forefinger and second finger, my middle finger, were cut off at the knuckle, squared off, a proper operation, you would never see me flick a card from the bottom.” As they stared at the cards, then her again, she explained. “Whoever those men were or even what they did now, we may never know, but they knew cards. They were probably cardsharks. Wasn’t Parker Bell imprisoned for gambling? As I recall, Gigi Sabatini mentioned he had had good luck with men who had not committed violent crimes. You know, stuff that isn’t violent.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance but I truly believe there are no victimless crimes. Think of the people ruined when Enron tanked.” Sister folded her hands over the cards.

Betty looked at the two younger people. “You all were probably too young, but Kenneth Lay, head of Enron, misled people, probably the easiest way to put it, falsified profits. He also promised millions to the University of Missouri. Can you imagine the shock? The school had budgeted those millions.”

“So there is no victimless crime.” Sister handed the cards back to Betty. “Actually, in some ways entrenched stupidity creates its own victims. It’s not a crime but, well, I don’t know. How did we get off on this?” She looked at the cards in Betty’s hand. “Okay. What’s your theory?”

“My theory is those deaths are part of a crime network. So Parker Bell and the man in the truck either ran afoul of whoever they were working for or got greedy. They had to be in on the take. As for Delores, killed in the same way, her death is connected to all this.”

“But what take?” Tootie’s voice lifted up.

“If we knew that, we’d know what this is about.” Betty walked back returning the cards to the drawer. “So here’s what crosses my mind. Gigi Sabatini, we don’t really know him. He’s thrown his money around and he hired an ex-con. Maybe he’s pulling the strings. He can’t be happy about the incident on the farm. But I don’t think that’s why Parker was killed. Maybe Gigi does.”

“Gray said Gigi made his money producing then distributing high-grade plumbing fixtures. His products are sold all over our country.”

Betty laughed. “A royal flush.”

Sister appeared appalled. “Do you eat with that mouth?”

Weevil’s eyes widened then Tootie, who had known the two older women since seventh grade at Custis Hall, quietly reassured him. “They’re always this way.”

“Okay.” He smiled.

Betty patted his arm. “Weevil, when you’ve been friends with someone for decades, it all comes out…the good, the bad, the ugly. You know, ugly with shoes.”

“I beg your pardon?” He blinked.

“I don’t know if it’s a Southern expression but it’s an American one. Another one is ‘She doesn’t wash her fruit.’ ”

“What?” He laughed.

“Means someone is crazy.” Betty laughed with him. “Come on now, Canadians must have silly expressions.”

“Mrs. Franklin, we are totally reasonable people.” He busted out laughing and they all laughed together.

“Well, Betty, you and Bobby have given us something to think about.”

“My thought is, there’s money to be made and money at stake.” Betty then changed the subject. “We ought to leave fifteen minutes early tomorrow to get to Kingswood.” She cited a newer fixture.

“Right.” Sister then suggested to Weevil, “Leave the youngsters back. We don’t know this place that well and even though we have the tracking collars, let’s wait until next time.”

“Right-O.” He grinned. “British expression.”

Betty fired at him, “I thought you were Canadian?”

“I am, but we’re closer to the Brits than you are.” He smiled.