Pawing Through The Past

Pawing Through the Past

Rita Mae Brown

Books by Rita Mae Brown with Sneaky Pie Brown

WISH YOU WERE HERE

REST IN PIECES

MURDER AT MONTICELLO

PAY DIRT

MURDER, SHE MEOWED

MURDER ON THE PROWL

CAT ON THE SCENT

SNEAKY PIE'S COOKBOOK FOR MYSTERY LOVERS

PAWING THROUGH THE PAST

CLAWS AND EFFECT

CATCH AS CAT CAN

THE TAIL OF THE TIP-OFF

WHISKER OF EVIL

Books by Rita Mae Brown

THE HAND THAT CRADLES THE ROCK

SONGS TO A HANDSOME WOMAN

THE PLAIN BROWN RAPPER

RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE

IN HER DAY

SIX OF ONE

SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT

SUDDEN DEATH

HIGH HEARTS

STARTING FROM SCRATCH:

A DIFFERENT KIND OF WRITERS' MANUAL

BINGO

VENUS ENVY

DOLLEY: A NOVEL OF DOLLEY MADISON IN LOVE AND WAR

RIDING SHOTGUN

RITA WILL: MEMOIR OF A LITERARY RABBLE-ROUSER

LOOSE LIPS

OUTFOXED

HOTSPUR

FULL CRY

Pawing Through the Past

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Mary Minor Haristeen (Harry), the young postmistress of Crozet. She won double senior superlatives in high school: Most Likely to Succeed and Most Athletic.

Mrs. Murphy, Harry's gray tiger cat, calm in a crisis and sassy, too.

Tee Tucker, Harry's Welsh corgi, Mrs. Murphy's friend and confidante, is a solid, courageous creature.

Pewter, Market Shiflett's shamelessly fat gray cat, who now lives with Harry and family. Her high intelligence is usually in the service of her self-indulgence.

Pharamond Haristeen (Fair), an equine veterinarian, formerly married to Harry. He wants to get back together again with Harry.

Susan Tucker, Harry's best friend. She tells it like it is. She won the Best All-Round senior superlative in high school.

Olivia Craycroft (BoomBoom), a buxom dilettante who constantly irritates Harry. Her senior superlative was Best Looking.

Cynthia Cooper, a young deputy in the sheriff's department, who is willing to use unorthodox methods to capture criminals.

Sheriff Rick Shaw, a dedicated, reliable public servant. He may not be the most imaginative sheriff, but he is the most persistent.

Tracy Raz, the former All-State football player, who comes home for his fiftieth high-school reunion and rekindles his romance with Miranda.

Chris Sharpton, a newcomer to Crozet, she jumps right into activities hoping to make friends.

Bitsy Valenzuela, a socially active woman who includes Chris in her circle.

Marcy Wiggins, an unhappily married woman, who looks forward to her outings with Bitsy and Chris. She needs the diversion.

Big Marilyn Sanburne (Mim), the undisputed queen of Crozet, who can be an awful snob at times. She knows the way the world works.

Little Marilyn Sanburne (Little Mim), a chip off the old block yet quite resentful of it.

Charlie Ashcraft, a notoriously successful seducer of women. Voted Best Looking by his high-school class.

Leo Burkey, was voted Wittiest.

Bonnie Baltier, was voted Wittiest.

Hank Bittner, was voted Most Talented.

Bob Shoaf, was voted Most Athletic later playing cornerback for the New York Giants.

Dennis Rablan, voted Best All-Round and now a photographer. He squandered his inheritance and is regarded as a failure.

Miranda Hogendobber, last but not least on the list: A woman of solid virtue, common sense, she works with Harry at the post office.

1

The huge ceiling fan lazily swirled overhead, vainly attempting to move the soggy August air. Mary Minor Haristeen, Harry to her friends-and everyone was a friend-scribbled ideas on a yellow legal pad. Seated around the kitchen table, high-school yearbooks open, were Susan Tucker, her best friend, Mrs. Miranda Hogendobber, her coworker and good friend, and Chris Sharpton, an attractive woman new to the area.

"We could have had this meeting at the post office," Susan remarked as she wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"Government property," Miranda said.

"Right, government property paid for with my taxes," Susan laughed.

Harry, the postmistress in tiny Crozet, Virginia, said, "Okay, it is air-conditioned but think how many hours Miranda and I spend in that place. I have no desire to hang out there in my free time."

"You've got air-conditioning at your house." Miranda stared at Susan.

"I know but the kids are having a pool party and-"

"You left the house with a party in progress? There won't be a drop of liquor left," Harry interrupted.

"My kids know when to stop."

"Congratulations," Harry taunted her. "That doesn't mean anyone else's kids know when to stop. I hope you locked the bar."

"Ned is there." Susan returned to the opened yearbook, the conversation clearly over. Her husband could handle any crisis.

"You could have said that in the first place." Harry opened her yearbook to the same page.

"Why? It's more fun to listen to you tell me what to do."

"Oh." Harry sheepishly bent over the yearbook photo of one of her senior superlatives, Most Likely to Succeed. "I can't believe I looked like that."

"You look exactly the same. Exactly." Miranda pulled Harry's yearbook to her.

"Don't compliment her, it will go to her head." Susan turned to Chris. "Are you sorry you volunteered to help us?"

"No, but I don't see as I'm doing much good." The newcomer smiled, her hand on her own high-school yearbook.

"All right. Down to business." Harry straightened her shoulders. "I'm in charge of special categories for our twentieth high-school reunion. BoomBoom Craycroft, our fearless leader"-Harry said this with a tinge of sarcasm about the head of the reunion-"is going to reshoot photographs of our senior superlatives with us as we are today. My job is to come up with other things to do with people who weren't senior superlatives.

"That's only fair. I mean, there are only twelve senior superlatives, one male, one female. That's twenty people out of one hundred and thirty-two, give or take a few, since some of us were voted more than one superlative." Harry paused for a breath. "How many were in your class, Miranda?"

"Fifty-six. Forty-two are still alive, although some of us might be on respirators. My task for my reunion is easier." Miranda giggled, her hand resting on the worn cover of her 1950 yearbook.

"You all were so lucky to go to small high schools. Mine was a consolidated. Huge," Chris remarked, and indeed her yearbook bore witness to the fact, being three times fatter than that of Harry and Susan or Mrs. Hogendobber.

Susan agreed. "I guess we were lucky but we didn't know it at the time."

"Does anyone?" Harry tapped her yellow wooden pencil against the back of her left wrist.

"Probably not. Not when you're young. What fun we had." Miranda, a widow, nodded her head, jammed with happy memories.

"Okay, here's what I've got. Ready?" They nodded in assent so Harry began reading, "These are categories to try and include others: Most Distance Traveled. Most Children. Most Wives-"

"You're not going to do that." Miranda chuckled.

"Why not? That one is followed by Most Husbands. Too bad we can't have one for Most Affairs." Harry lifted her eyebrows.

"Malicious," Susan said dryly.

"Rhymes with delicious." Harry's eyes brightened. "Okay, what else have I got here? Most Changed. Obviously that has to be in some good way. Can't pick out someone who has porked on an extra hundred pounds. And-uh-I couldn't think of anything else."

"Harry, you're usually so imaginative." Miranda seemed surprised.

"She's not at all imaginative but she is ruthlessly logical. I'll give her that."

Harry ignored Susan's assessment of her, speaking to Chris, "When you're new to a place it takes a long time to ferret out people's relationships to one another. Suffice it to say that Susan, my best friend since birth, feels compelled to point out my shortcomings."

"Harry, being logical isn't a shortcoming. It's a virtue," Susan protested. "But we are light on categories here."

Chris opened her dark green yearbook to a club photo. "My twentieth reunion was last year. One of the things we did was go through the club photos to see if we could find anyone who became a professional at something they were known for in high school. You know, like did anyone in Latin club become a Latin teacher. It's kind of hokey but you do get desperate after a time."

Harry pulled the book toward her, the youthful faces of the Pep Club staring back at her. "Which one are you?"

Chris pointed to a tall girl in the back row. "I wasn't blonde then."

"I can see that." Harry read the names below the photo, finding Chris Sharpton. She slid the book back to the owner.

"What we also did, which took a bit of quick thinking on the spot, was, we had cards made up with classmates' names written on them in italics. They were pretty. Anyway, if the individual hadn't fit into some earlier category we did things like Tom Cruise Double-anything to make them feel special."

"That's clever," Miranda complimented her.

"The other thing we did was make calls. As you know, people disperse after high school. Each of us on the committee called everyone we were still in contact with from our class. We asked who they were in contact with and what they knew about the people. This way we gathered information for things like Most Community Service. After a time it's a stretch but it's important that everyone be included in some way. At the last minute we even wrote a card up, Still the Same."

"Chris, these are good ideas." Harry was grateful. "You're wonderful to come help us. I mean, this isn't even your reunion."

"I'm not as generous as you think," Chris laughed. "Susan bet me she'd beat me by three strokes on the Keswick golf course. The bet was I'd help you all if I lost."

"What would you have gotten if you'd won?"

"Two English boxwoods planted by my front walkway."

Since moving to Crozet four months ago, Chris had thrown herself into decorating and landscaping her house in theDeepValley subdivision, a magnet for under-forty newcomers toAlbemarleCounty .

An outgoing person, Chris had made friends with her neighbors but most especially Marcy Wiggins and Bitsy Valenzuela, two women married to men who were classmates of Harry's.

"Good bet," Harry whistled.

"I told you my golf game was improving," Susan gloated. "But Miranda, I don't think we've done one thing to help you."

She smiled a slow smile. "Our expectations are different than yours. At your fiftieth high-school reunion you're thrilled that all your parts are moving. We'll be happy to eat good food, share stories, sit around. I suppose we'll pitch horseshoes and dance. That sort of thing."

"Are you in charge of the whole thing?" Chris was incredulous.

"Pretty much. I'll need to round up a few people to help me decorate. I'm keeping it simple because I'm simple."

Before anyone could protest that Miranda was not simple, Mrs. Murphy, Harry's beautiful tiger cat, burst through the animal door.

"What have you got?" Harry rose from the table expecting the worst.

Pewter, the plump gray cat, immediately followed through the animal door and Tee Tucker, Harry's corgi, burst through behind her, bumping the cat in the rear end, which brought forth a snarl.

Susan focused on the animals. "I don't know what she's got but everyone wants it."

Mrs. Murphy blew through the kitchen into the living room, where she crouched behind the sofa as Pewter leapt onto the large stuffed curving arm.

"Selfish!"

The tiger cat did not answer her gray accuser because, if she did, the mole she had carefully stalked would have popped out of her mouth and escaped.

Harry knelt down. "Say, Murphy, good job. That's a huge mole. Why, that mole could dig toChina ."

"She didn't catch it by herself," Pewter complained loudly. "I blocked off the other exit. I deserve half of that mole."

"I helped." The corgi drooled.

"Ha!" Pewter disagreed.

"Thank you for bringing me this prize." Harry carefully reached behind the sofa, petted Murphy, then grabbed the limp mole by the scruff of its neck.

The tiger cat opened her jaws. "Moles are dangerous, you know. William of Orange, King of England, was killed when his horse stepped in a mole hole. He broke his collarbone and then took a fever."

"Show-off." Pewter's pupils narrowed to slits.

Mrs. Murphy sashayed into the kitchen, ignoring her detractors.

"Excuse me, ladies." Harry walked outside, depositing the mole at the back of the woodpile. The minute it was on the ground it scurried under the logs. "That's Murphy for you. She didn't even break your neck, little guy. She was bringing me a present. Guess she expected me to dispatch you."

When Harry returned, Chris said, nose wrinkled, "I don't know how you could pick up that mole. I could never do that. I'm too squeamish."

"Oh, when you grow up in the country you don't think about stuff. You just do it." She pointed to Chris's yearbook. "Lake Shore,Illinois, must be a far cry from the country."

"That it is." Chris laughed.

Susan, flipping through her yearbook, bubbled. "I'm getting excited about this reunion. October will be here before we know it. Time flies."

"Don't say that. I'm nervous enough about getting organized for the damn thing," Harry grumbled.

"Maybe you're nervous about seeing all those people," Chris said.

"I'm as nervous about them seeing me as me seeing them. What will they think? Do I look like a . . ." Susan paused. "Well, do I look older? Will they be disappointed when they see me?"

"You look great," Harry said with conviction. "Besides, half of our class still lives within shouting distance. Everyone knows what you look like."

"Harry, we hardly even see the people who moved to Richmond-like Leo Burkey. Shouting distance doesn't matter."

Harry cupped her chin in her hand. "Leo Burkey will be just like always, handsome and B-A-D."

"Hey, I'd like to meet this guy." The single Chris smiled.

"Is he between wives?" Harry asked Susan.

"BoomBoom will know."

"Of course she will." Harry laughed. "Miranda, we really aren't doing a thing for you but I'm glad our reunions are at the same time. We can use a skateboard to go up and down the halls to visit."

"I'll bet you think I can't even use a skateboard," Miranda challenged her.

"I never said that!"

"You didn't have to." Miranda winked. But just you wait, Miranda thought to herself, smiling.

"It's not fair that Murphy gets all the attention," Pewter wailed as she jumped on the kitchen counter.

"I don't get all the attention but I did bring in a fresh mole. Jealous."

"I am unloved," Pewter warbled at a high-decibel range.

Harry got up, opened the cupboard, and removed a round plastic bowl of fresh catnip. She rolled it between her fingers, releasing the heavenly aroma. Then she placed the bits on the floor where Pewter dove in, quickly followed by Murphy. Harry handed Tucker a Milk-Bone, which satisfied her.

A little coo from Pewter directed all human eyes to her. Blitzed on catnip, she lay on her back on the heart pine floor, her tail slowly swishing. Mrs. Murphy was on her side, her paws covering her eyes.

"Bliss." Miranda laughed.

"I love the whole world and everyone in it," Pewter meowed.

Murphy removed one paw-"Me, too"-then she covered her eyes up again.

"That ought to hold them." Harry sat back down after pouring everyone iced tea. Mrs. Hogendobber had brought homemade icebox cookies, cucumber sandwiches, and fresh vegetables.

"Do you know that some schools now regard senior superlatives as politically incorrect?" Susan reached for a sandwich.

"Why?" Miranda wondered.

Susan pointed to the senior superlative section, one full page for each superlative. "Elitist. Hurts people's feelings."

"Life is unfair." Harry's voice rose slightly. "You might as well learn that in high school if you haven't already."

"You've got a point there." Chris shook her sleek blonde pageboy. "I can remember crying hot tears over stuff that now seems trivial but I learned that disappointments are going to come and I've got to handle them. And all that surging emotion going through you for the first time. How confusing."

"Still is." Harry sipped her tea. "For me anyway."

"Is everyone in your class still alive?" Chris asked Susan and Harry.

"We've lost two," Susan answered. "Aurora Hughes." She turned the page to Most Talented and there a willowy girl in a full-length dress was in the arms of a young man, Hank Bittner, wearing a top hat and tails. "She died of leukemia the year after graduation. We were all in college and, you know, I still feel guilty about not being there.Aurora was such a good kid. And she really was talented."

"Who was the other one?" Chris asked.

"Ronnie Brindell." Harry spoke since Susan had just stuffed a cookie in her mouth. "They say he jumped off theGolden GateBridge inSan Francisco . He left a note. I still can't believe he did it. I liked Ron. I can't imagine he'd-well-what can you say about suicide?"

"Here." Susan flipped to the senior superlative for Most Pop-ular. A slender, slightly effeminate young man sat on a merry-go-round with Meredith McLaughlin, her eyes sparkling with merriment.

"He doesn't look depressed." Chris studied the picture.

"People said he was gay and couldn't handle it." Harry also studied the picture. "He was a nice boy. But the bruiser boys used to pick on him something terrible. I bet it was rough being a gay kid in high school but back then no one said anything like that. The gay kids must have gotten roughed up daily but it was all hidden, you know."

"I do, actually. We had the same thing atLakeShore . I guess every school did. It's sad really. And to think he jumped off the bridge." Chris shuddered.

"May the Lord be a tower of strength for the oppressed." Mrs. Hogendobber cited a verse from Psalm Nine and that closed the subject.

"Who knows what secrets will pop up like a jack-in-the-box?" Susan ruminated. "Old wounds might be opened."

"Susan, it's a high-school reunion for Pete's sake. Not therapy."

"Okay, maybe not therapy but it sure is a stage where past and present collide for all to see."

"Susan, I don't feel that way. We know these people."

"Harry, when was the last time you saw Bob Shoaf?" Susan mentioned the star athlete of their class, who became a professional football player.

"On television."

"You don't think he'll have the big head? Those guys snap their fingers for girls, cars, goodies . . . and presto, they get what they want. He won't be the same old Bob."

"He sounds fascinating, too." Chris's eyes widened.

"He thinks so. He was always conceited but he is good-looking and I guess he's rich. Those people pull down unreal salaries." Harry sighed, wishing a bit of money would fall her way.

"Maybe he blew it all. Maybe he's suffering from depression. Maybe he's impotent." A devilish grin filled Susan's face. "Secrets!"

"She's right, though. At our twentieth people who had crushes on one another in high school snuck off, marriages hit the rocks, old rivalries were renewed. It was wild, really. I had a good time, though." Chris shyly grinned.

Susan wheeled on Harry. "Charlie Ashcraft!"

"Not if he were the last man on earth!"

"You slept with Charlie. That's your secret."

"Is not," Harry protested.

"Girls." Mrs. Hogendobber feigned shock. She'd spent enough time around this generation to know they said things directly that her generation did not. She still couldn't decide if that was wise or unwise.

"You know, Harry, it will all come out at the reunion if what Chris says holds true for us."

"You're one brick shy of a load." Harry considered flicking a cucumber at her face. "Anyway, a woman has to have some secrets. People are boring without secrets."

Mrs. Murphy raised her head, her mind clearing somewhat from the delightful effects of the homegrown catnip. "That depends on the secrets."

2

Canadasent down a ridge of cool dry air which swept over centralVirginia , bringing relief from the moist, suffocating August heat.

That evening Harry, on her knees weeding her garden, rocked back on her heels to inhale the light, cool fragrance. With the mercury dipping to sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, she had put on a torn navy blue sweatshirt.

Mrs. Murphy stalked a maple moth who easily saw her coming; those compound eyes could see everything. The yellow and pinkish creature fluttered upwards, fixing on the top of the boxwoods. From this lordly perch it observed the sleek cat, who, intelligent as she was, couldn't climb a boxwood.

The pile of weeds grew to a mound.

"Better toss this before it gets too heavy." Harry lifted the pitchfork, wedged it under, and in one neat motion picked up the debris. She walked past to the compost pile some distance from the manure spreader.

"Dump it on the manure spreader," Murphy suggested.

"You don't have to come along," Harry replied to her cat, who she thought was complaining. She walked to the edge of the woods, where she chucked the weeds. Murphy caught up with her.

"If you'd put it in the manure spreader, Harry, it would have been a lot easier."

Harry leaned on her pitchfork and looked out over the hay field. The bees were heading back to the hives as twilight deepened. Even the nasty brilliant yellow digger bees headed to their labyrinthine underground nests. The bats stirred overhead, consuming insects.

"Farmer's friend," Harry said. "Did you know, Mrs. Murphy, that bats, black snakes, praying mantis, and owls are some of the best partners you can have among the wild animals?"

"I did. I forgot to tell you that the black snake that winters in the loft is now close to four and a half feet long and she's on the south side of the garden. Her hunting territory is a giant circle and she moves counterclockwise. The sight of her is a fright. 'Course, the sight of Flatface, the barn owl, is a fright, too. She's grown twice as tall as last year. Thinks she's better than the rest of us."

Harry reached down, picked up her little friend, and kissed the top of her head. "You are the most wonderful cat in the world. Have I told you that lately?"

"Thank you," Murphy purred, then wiggled to get down. The night creatures emerging were too tempting. She wanted to stalk a few.

Harry grabbed the pitchfork which she'd propped against a hickory: "Come on, time for supper."

The sweet smell of redbud clover filled their nostrils as the thin line of ground fog turned from seashell pink to mauve to pearl gray. A bobwhite called behind them. The magnificent owl of whom Mrs. Murphy had just spoken flew out from the barn cupola on her first foraging mission of the evening.

Part of the rhythm of this place and these animals, Harry placed the pitchfork on the wall of the small storage shed. The night air cooled the temperature considerably. She put her hands in her jeans pockets as she hurried into the house.

"What took you so long?" Pewter complained. "I thought you two were weeding the garden."

"We did but we had things to talk about." Mrs. Murphy brushed past her, then quickly turned as she heard the can opener. "Hope it's tuna tonight. I'm in the mood for tuna."

A bark outside and then a whap on the doggie door announced Tucker's presence.

"Where were you?" Mrs. Murphy asked from the counter as Harry spooned out the tuna into the two cat dishes, one marked Her Highness and the other, Upholstery Destroyer.

"Blair Bainbridge's." The dog mentioned Harry's nearest neighbor to the west. "Bought starter cattle and I had to help him herd them. He doesn't know beans and he's still moving a little slow after his injuries from last year. Wait until you see the calves. Weedy, spindly legs and thin chests, not good specimens at all but at least they've been wormed and had their shots. Wait until Mom sees them. It will be interesting to see how she manages to praise him without telling him these are the worst heifers she's ever seen."

"She'll find a way."

"Tucker. You've been busy. You're getting lamb bits in gravy." Pewter sniffed the distinctive mutton aroma.

"Yeah!"

As the three ate, Harry popped a pasta dish in the microwave. She wasn't very hungry but she ate it anyway since she had a tendency to lose weight in the summers.

Afterward they all sat on the sofa while Harry tried to read the newspaper but she kept rattling it, then putting it down. Finally, she got up, threw on her jacket, and walked outside.

"What's she up to?" Pewter, quite comfortable, wondered.

"I'll go." Tucker roused herself and followed.

"Me, too." Murphy shook herself.

"Damn," Pewter grumbled. She flicked her tail over her gray nose, finally got up to stretch, and tagged along.

Harry walked to the paddocks behind the barn, where she leaned against the black three-board fence to watch her horses, Gin Fizz, Tomahawk, and Poptart, enjoying the refreshing air.

They looked up, said hello, and returned to grazing.

Overhead the evening star appeared unreal, it was so big and clear. The Big Dipper rolled toward the horizon andYellowMountain was outlined in a thin band of blue, lighter than the deep skies.

"Kids, I couldn't live anywhere else. I know I work fourteen to sixteen hours a day between the post office and the farm, but I couldn't work in an office. I don't know. . . ." Her voice trailed off. Pewter climbed up one fence post, Mrs. Murphy climbed up on another one while Tucker patiently sat on Harry's foot. "I kind of dread this reunion. I went to the fifteenth-still married then. It's a lot easier when you're married-socially, I mean. The ones from far away will look at me, then look at BoomBoom. I guess it's pretty easy to see why Fair hopped on her in a hurry. Wonder if he'll come? He was in the class ahead. But of course he will, he knows everybody. He's a good man, guys. He went through a bad patch, that's all, but I couldn't endure it. I just couldn't do it."

"He's over that now," Tucker stoutly replied. The corgi loved Fair Haristeen, DVM, with all her heart and soul. "He's admitted he was wrong. He still loves you."

"But she doesn't love him." Pewter licked her paw and rapidly passed it over her whiskers.

"She does love him," Mrs. Murphy countered, "but she doesn't know how much or in what way. Like she wouldn't want to marry him again but she loves him as a person."

"It's awfully confusing." Tucker's pretty ears drooped.

"Humans make such a mess," Pewter airily announced.

"They think too much and feel too little," Murphy noted. "Even Mom and I love her, we all love her. It's the curse of the species. Then again I sometimes reverse that and believe they feel too much and don't think enough. Now I'm confused." She laughed at herself.

"You all have so much to say tonight." Harry smiled at her family, then continued her musings. "I watch television sometimes. You know, the sitcoms. Apart from being the same age, I have nothing in common with those people. They live in beautiful apartments in big cities. They have great clothes and no one worries about money. They're witty and cool. A drought means nothing to them. Overseeding is a foreign word. They drive sexy cars while I drive a 1978 Ford half-ton truck. My generation is all those things that I am not." She frowned. "Not too many of us live in the country anymore. The old ways are being lost and I suppose I'll be lost with them but-I can't live any other way." She kicked the dewy grass. "Damn, why did I get so involved in this reunion? I am such a sucker!" She turned on her heel to go back to the house.

Mrs. Murphy gracefully leapt off the post while Pewter turned around to back down. No need to jar her bones if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Tucker stayed at her mother's left heel.

As they passed the front of the barn, Simon, the possum who lived in the hayloft, peered out the open loft door.

The animals greeted him, causing Harry to glance up, too. "Evening, Simon."

Simon blinked. He didn't hurry back to his nest, and that was as close as he got to greeting them.

"You want marshmallows, I know." Harry walked to her screened-in porch and opened the old zinc-lined milk box that her mother had used when Monticello Dairy used to deliver milk bottles. She kept marshmallows and a small bag of sunflower seeds for the finches there. She walked back with four marshmallows and threw them through the hayloft door. "Enjoy yourself, Simon."

He grabbed one, his glittering black eyes merry. "I will."

Harry looked up at Simon, then down at her three friends. "Well, I bet no one else in my class feeds marshmallows to their possum." Spirits somewhat restored, she trotted back into the house to warm up.

3

After sorting everyone else's mail, Harry finally sorted her own. If the morning proved unusually hectic she'd slide her mail into her metal box, hoping she'd remember it before going home.

Sometimes two or three days would pass before she read her own mail.

This morning had been busy. Mrs. Hogendobber, a tower of strength in or out of the post office, ran back and forth to her house because the hot-water heater had stopped working. She finally gave up restarting it, calling a plumber. When he arrived she went home.

Fair stopped by early. He kissed his ex-wife on the cheek and apologized for delivering four hundred and fifty postcards to mail out. Each containing his e-mail address. He had, however, arranged them by zip code.

Susan stopped by, grabbed her mail, and opened it on the counter.

"Bills. Bills. Bills."

"I can take care of that!" Mrs. Murphy swished her tail, crouched and leapt onto the counter. She attacked the offending bills.

"Murphy." Harry reached for the cat, who easily eluded her.

"Murphy, you have the right idea." Susan smiled, then gently pushed the cat off her mail.

Mrs. Hogendobber came through the back door. "Four hundred and twenty dollars plus fifty dollars for a house call. I have to buy a new hot-water heater."

"That's terrible," Susan commiserated.

"I just ordered one and it will be here after lunch. I can't believe what things cost andRoy even gave me a ten-percent discount." She mentioned the appliance-store owner, an old friend.

"Hey." Susan opened a letter.

"What?" both Harry and Mrs. Murphy asked.

"Look at this." She held open a letter edged in Crozet High's colors, blue and gold.

It read, "You'll never get old."

"Let me see that." Harry took the letter and envelope from her. "Postmarked from theBarracks Road post office."

"But there's no name on it," Susan remarked.

"Wonder if I got one?" Harry reached into her mailbox from behind the counter. "Yep."

"Check other boxes," Susan ordered.

"I can check but I can't open the envelopes."

"I know that, Harry. I'm not an idiot."

Miranda, ignoring Susan's testiness, reached into Market Shiflett's mailbox, a member of Harry and Susan's class. "Another."

Harry checked the others, finding the same envelope. "Well, if someone was going to go to all that trouble to compliment us, he ought to sign his name."

"Maybe it's not a compliment," Mrs. Murphy remarked.

Pewter, asleep, opened one eye but didn't move from the small table in the back of the post office. "What?"

"Tell you later," Mrs. Murphy said, noticing that Tucker, on her side under the table, was dreaming.

"Oh, whoever mailed this will 'fess up or show up with a face-lift." Susan shrugged.

"We aren't old enough for face-lifts." Harry shuddered at the thought.

"People are doing stuff like that in their early thirties." Susan read too many popular magazines.

"And they look silly. I can always tell." Miranda, still upset about her hot-water heater bill, waved her hand dismissively.

"How?" both women and Mrs. Murphy asked.

Miranda ran her forefinger from the corner of her cheekbone to the corner of her mouth. "This muscle or ligament, whatever you call it, is always too tight, even in the very, very good ones."

"Like Mim's?" Susan mentioned Crozet's leading citizen.

"She won't admit to it." Harry liked Mim but never underestimated the woman's vanity.

"Cats are beautiful no matter how old we are," Mrs. Murphy smugly noted.

Harry, as if understanding her friend, leaned down. "If I had a furry face I wouldn't care."

Susan tossed the mailing in the trash. "You'll never get old. Ha!"

Ha, indeed.

4

"Now what?" Harry, hands on hips, sourly inspected her truck.

"Battery," Tucker matter-of-factly said.

Harry opened the hood, checked her cables and various wires, kept the hood open, then got back in the driver's seat and turned the ignition. A click, click, click rewarded her efforts.

"Damn! The battery."

"That's what I said." The corgi calmly sat, gazing at the hood of the old blue truck.

The truck, parked in the alleyway behind the post office, nose to the railroad tie used as a curb bumper, presented problems. Many problems. With over two hundred thousand miles on the 1978 V-8 engine, this machine had earned its keep and now had earned its rest. Harry had investigated rebuilding the engine. She might squeeze another thirty thousand miles out of the truck with that. She'd gone through eight sets of tires, three batteries, two clutches, but only one set of brakes. The upholstery, worn full of holes, was covered by a plaid Baker horse blanket Harry had Mrs. Martin, the town seamstress, convert into a bench seat cover. The blue paint on the truck was so old that patches glowed an iridescent purple. The rubber covers on the accelerator and clutch were worn thin, too.

Mrs. Hogendobber, having changed into her gardening clothes, including a wonderful goatskin apron, walked across the alley from her backyard to the post office. Apart from singing in the choir and baking, gardening was her passion. Even now-being the end of a hot summer-her lilies, of all varieties, flourished. She misted them each morning and each evening.

"Miranda, do you have jumper cables?" Harry called to her.

"Dead again?" Miranda shook her head, commiserating. "And this such a beautiful afternoon. I bet you want to get home."

Just then Market Shiflett stuck his head out of the back door of the store. "Harry, Pewter-half a chicken!"

"Uh-oh. I'll pay for it, Market. I'm sorry." Secretly, Harry laughed. The fresh chickens reposed in an old white case with shaved ice and parsley. Pewter must have hooked one when Market opened the case. She was clever and she knew Market's ways, having spent her earlier years as his cat. "Did you see Mrs. Murphy?"

"Oh, yes." Market nodded. "Aiding and abetting a criminal! I often wonder what your human children will turn out to be should you have them."

"From the sound of it-chicken thieves." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Pewter valiantly struggling to haul the half-chicken to the truck. Mrs. Murphy tugged on the other side of the carcass.

"Let me help." Tucker gleefully leapt toward them.

"No, you don't," Mrs. Murphy spat, then saw Market. "Pewter, quick, into the crepe myrtle!"

The two cats dragged the chicken under the pinkish-purple crepe myrtle.

"Here." Harry dug into her pocket, handing Market a ten-dollar bill.

"It's not a gold-plated chicken." He fished in his pocket for change.

"Forget it, Market. You do plenty for me and I'm sorry Pewter behaved so badly."

"Breathed her last?" He turned his attention to the truck.

"No, just the battery."

"You've got cables, don't you?" Miranda smiled at Market, who was getting a little thick around the middle.

"I do."

"Well, if you don't mind, I'll let you two recharge Old Paint here. I am determined to dust for Japanese beetles. And I'm enduring a grub attack, too. Maybe I should get some chickens. That would take care of that." Then she saw the two cats crouched under the crepe myrtle, passionately guarding the plucked corpse. "Then again, I think not."

Harry laughed. "Go on, Miranda. Market and I will fix this."

As Miranda walked back to her lawn, Market hopped in his Subaru, next to a large new dumpster, backed out, maneuvering his car so that its nose was at a right angle to the blue truck. This saved Harry from attempting to coast backwards.

"The cables will reach." He clipped the tiny copper jaws onto the battery nodes. "Off?"

"Yep."

He switched on his ignition. "Just give it two minutes. Did you check for a loose connection?"

"I did."

Market slid out from behind the wheel and came over to lean on the truck. "Harry, it's time to bite the bullet. You'll never get through another winter with this baby."

"I know," Harry mournfully agreed.

"Call Art."

"I can't afford a new truck."

"Who said you had to buy a new one? Buy a used one."

"Market, the bank won't give me a loan on a used truck."

"They will if it's a recent one, like two or three years old."

"Yeah, but then the price will be way up. It's damned if I do and damned if I don't."

Market, hearing the distress level in Harry's voice, put his arm around her shoulder. "Chill out, honey. Art is one of our buddies. He'll help. He makes enough money off everyone else. Go talk to the man."

"Well . . ." Her voice weakened. "I don't want to be disappointed."

"There are worse disappointments than that and we've both had them," Market genially encouraged her.

He was right, too. They'd both had a few hard knocks along the way-his divorce being more acrimonious than hers, but no divorce is happy. He had one beloved daughter, now in college. Poor Market had married the day he graduated from high school. His senior superlative was Friendliest and that friendliness meant his daughter was born seven months after the wedding.

"You know, time forges bonds of steel, doesn't it?" Harry said.

"What do you mean?"

"You, me, Miranda, Herbie, the gang. We know everything about one another-almost." She smiled.

"Yep. I can't believe we're having our twentieth. I'm"-he hummed a minute, a habit-"half-excited and half-apprehensive. How about you?"

"Same."

"Well, let's see if this baby is fired up." He walked back and cut his motor. "Crank her up."

Harry hopped in. The engine turned over, then rumbled. "I think I'd better let her run for a few more minutes."

"Good idea. How are you coming along with ideas for the reunion?"

"Okay. We had our first meeting yesterday. I've gotten everything written out for the calendars of local newspapers for all the major towns in the state. And I've written up ads to run the week before the reunion-ads with photos. I'll have to fight BoomBoom for the money. The publicity part I can do with no problem. It's coming up with some special moniker for everyone that's driving me crazy."

"Speak of the devil," he said under his breath as BoomBoom, in a new 7-series BMW-to replace one wrecked during a theft attempt-rolled down the alleyway. She pulled over. The electrical windows purred as she lowered them.

"Hi." BoomBoom's voice purred like her windows.

Marcy Wiggins, Chris Sharpton, and Bitsy Valenzuela said "Hi" along with her.

Harry returned the hellos of the trio, all neighbors in theDeepValley subdivision. Bitsy had married E.R. Valenzuela, a classmate who'd worked inSilicon Valley and moved back home last year to establish a cellular phone business. Since E.R. worked all the time no one ever saw much of him, including his wife. Marcy, a somewhat withdrawn woman, had married Bill Wiggins, who'd gone to medical school in upstateNew York , returning to the University of Virginia Hospital for his residency in oncology. No one saw much of Bill either, but he was conge-nial when they did.

"How'd you do?" Market asked the ladies, who all wore golf clothes.

"Not bad. We played in the Cancer Society tournament, captain's choice, and we each won a sleeve of balls. We came in seventh out of a field of twenty teams," BoomBoom bragged.

Chris leaned out the back window. "I've never played at Waynesboro Country Club. It's fun. I don't think I'll ever win boxwoods from Susan, though."

"Keep trying. Anyone roped into working on our reunion deserves boxwoods," Harry replied. "Do you all need mail?"

"No, everyone's husbands did their duty."

"Except for me," Chris laughed.

"Stay single, girl, believe me. Marriage is work," Marcy grumbled.

"Need your mail?" Harry inquired of Chris.

"No, I'll get it tomorrow. We're on our way to the big sale atFashion Square ," Chris answered. "Next time you see any of us-complete makeover." She crinkled her freckled nose.

The ladies waved and drove off.

"Cute, that Chris." Market winked.

"Yes. She reminds me of someone but I can't place it."

"Meg Ryan in a pageboy."

"You have made a study, haven't you?" Harry poked him.

"Hey, she's living in one of those new houses. She isn't going to look at a guy who owns a convenience store. I'm realistic. She's a stockbroker. Stockbrokers don't date grocers."

"The right man is the right man. Doesn't matter what he does."

"Bull. Especially from you."

"You trying to say I'm not romantic?"

"You're as realistic as I am and you always were. The Minors are solid people." He referred to Harry's paternal ancestors. She'd kept her married name, Haristeen.

"I wish someone in our family had had a head for business. Solid is good but a little money would have been wonderful."

"Mim Sanburne's got enough brains and money for the whole town, I guess." He folded his arms across his chest. "This morning a lady came in as Mim was picking up a big rack of lamb, beautiful piece of meat. She's having another one of her 'dos.' Anyway, these two ladies come in, tourists. They'd crawled overMonticello and Ash Lawn and they'd driven up toOrange to seeMontpelier . They were on their way toStaunton to see Woodrow Wilson's birthplace and they needed gas. Anyway, they wound up right here in the middle of Crozet. The tall one says, 'This is kind of a dumpy town, isn't it?' The short one, maps under her arm, replies, 'Yes.' Then she looks at me and says, 'Is there anything of interest here?' Before I could open my mouth, Mim says, 'Me.' Gives them the freeze stare"-he rubbed his hands when he said that-"then opens the door, gets into her Bentley Turbo R, which these two ladies had no appreciation for, and drove off. 'Well, who does she think she is?' says the short one. 'The Queen of Crozet,' says I." He chuckled. "Guess they complained all the way to Fisherville. By that time they were probably consulting their maps again."

Harry laughed. "Crozet isn't exactly picturesque, but I think the painting the kids did on the railroad underpass is pretty nice." She leaned next to Market, shoulder to shoulder. "I guess we aren't much to look at but the land is beautiful. That's what counts. Buildings fall down and so do we. Can't be but so bad." She changed the subject abruptly, a habit of hers. "How do you get a name like Bitsy?"

"Probably the same way you get a name like Harry. You do something when you're little and it sticks. You picked up more injured animals than anyone I know. You were and remain dappled with an interesting assortment of animal sheddings."

"Which reminds me-give me a plastic bag so I can take that chicken home and boil it for them."

He fetched a beige plastic bag from the store. They both approached the two cats and Tucker, squatting before them, making them crazy.

"All right, girls, hand it over."

"Death to anyone who dares touch this chicken!" Pewter growled.

"Don't be melodramatic." The dog salivated.

Pewter lashed out, catching one of the corgi's long ears. Tucker yelped.

"Pewter, hateful thing." Harry knelt down. "Market, want your cat back?"

"Hell, no. She ate me out of my profit." He knelt down beside Harry. "Pewter, you're a bad cat."

"Put one over on you."

"Don't brag, Pewter, let's see if we can make a bargain." Mrs. Murphy swept her ears forward. "Harry, if you don't throw the chicken away, we'll come out."

"I'm going to cook the chicken."

"She understood!" Tucker was ecstatic.

The cats, equally amazed, released the chicken from their fangs and claws. Harry scooped it into the plastic bag.

"Come on."

They slunk out from under the bush just in case Market was going to take a swat at them.

Harry put the chicken on the seat, which meant three animals gladly scrambled into the truck. "Market, ask that Chris out. She'll say yes or she'll say no. And you've heard both before."

"I don't know."

"Hey, before I leave I forgot to ask you. Did you get a letter saying 'You'll never grow old'?"

"Yeah. In Crozet colors."

"I checked the envelopes. Each of our classmates living here got the same envelope, but that doesn't guarantee the same content. Thought I'd ask."

"No name." He stepped back from the driver's window. "I thought it was a joke because it's our twentieth reunion. Thirty-seven or thirty-eight, most of us, you know. I figured someone was panicking about turning forty."

"I didn't think of that. Susan thought it was a compliment. We look good. I guess." Harry smiled her beguiling smile.

"I'll take it." Market smacked the door of the truck like a horse's hindquarter and Harry drove off.

5

"Call to question." BoomBoom, sitting behind a long table, raised her voice.

"What are you talking about?" Harry, failing at hiding her irritation, snapped.

"Robert's Rules of Order. Otherwise we'll descend into chaos."

"BoomBoom, you're full of shit," Harry blurted out. "It's just us. Susan, Market, and Dennis."

Dennis Rablan, voted Best All-Round, volunteered to be in charge of the physical plant. That meant cleaning the gymnasium atCrozetHigh School , setting up the sound system for taped music, and working with the decorating committee. He'd gotten only one volunteer, Mike Zalaznik, to help him. Dennis was lazy as sin, so Mike would wind up doing most of the work.

Dennis had learned to ignore the whisperings behind his back about how he had squandered away the large nest egg his father had left him. He owned a photography studio in downtown Crozet. Weddings, anniversaries, high-school graduation, red-haired Dennis was always on hand toting two or three cameras. He was the one classmate who saw the other local classmates during the turning points of their lives.

The small group sat in a history classroom at Crozet High, the windows wide open to catch the cool breeze since that wondrous Canadian high still hung around.

"Harry, don't lose your temper," Susan admonished her best friend. "BoomBoom"-she turned to the chair sitting opposite them-"you don't need to be so formal about this meeting. I don't like it any more than Harry does. Let's discuss ideas without the hoopla."

"What do you think, Dennis?" BoomBoom smiled at Dennis, her big eyes imploring him.

"Well, I never learned Robert's Rules of Order, I doubt I could contribute much, but then I might not be able to contribute much anyway." He brushed a bright forelock back.

"Aren't you going to ask me?" Market folded his arms across his chest.

"You'll vote with Harry. You always do."

"Because she has good sense." Market laughed. "Look, you want to reshoot our senior superlative pictures and have them blown up life-size to place around the auditorium. I'm not opposed to the idea but how are you going to get the superlatives from out of town to duplicate the photograph?"

"Easy." BoomBoom loved showing up Harry, although she told all who would listen that she bore Harry no ill will. After all, she had cavorted with Harry's husband after they separated but were not yet divorced, so, morally Harry was in the right. BoomBoom thought that by recognizing this she'd be absolved of her misdeeds. But small-town memories were long.

"Well?" Susan leaned forward in her seat.

"We shoot the original locations, ask the away people to duplicate their pose in a studio, and we superimpose it on the location photograph. Dennis knows how to do it. Right, Dennis?"

"Right."

"For how much?" Harry asked.

"Seven hundred dollars." BoomBoom smiled broadly, as though she'd scored a coup.

"Mostly that's for gas, chemicals, paper. There's not much in there for me," Dennis quickly added.

"You'd better not take it out of my publicity budget," Harry warned.

"You don't have a publicity budget." BoomBoom dismissed the idea.

"Oh, yes, I do. I worked it out over the weekend and I've made copies for everyone. If you want a bang-up reunion then you've got to cast wide your net." She handed out budget copies as Mrs. Murphy walked into the room, sitting down under the blackboard. "And don't forget, the day after Labor Day weekend I have to send a mailing with details to each class member. That's in the budget, too."

The school, built in 1920 out of fine red brick with a pretty white four-columned main entrance, exuded a coziness that Mrs. Murphy liked. Pewter and Tucker peeped around the doorjamb.

"Are they finished yet?" Pewter had found nothing in the hallway to entice her.

"No," Murphy replied. The other animals came in and sat next to her, watching the humans as humans watch animals in a zoo.

"Harry, we can go over your budget later. We need to nail down this superlative idea first." BoomBoom barely glanced at the paper. BoomBoom herself had been voted Best Looking.

"I think it's a good idea. And I assume you will blow up the original senior superlative photograph and put it next to the new one." Susan nodded.

"Exactly! Won't it be wonderful?"

"Not if you're going bald," Market moaned.

BoomBoom pounced on him. "If you'd take the herbs I drop off for you it would help, and if that doesn't give you results fast enough, then get those hair transplants. They really work."

"You'd look adorable," Dennis teased, "with those plugs in your scalp. Just like cornrows."

"I'll get you for that, Dennis. You know why God made hair? Because not everyone could have a perfect head."

"Three points for Market." Harry chalked up the air.

"Are you going to agree with my plan or not?" BoomBoom folded her hands, staring at Harry.

"Yes. There, bet that surprised you, didn't it?"

"Kinda." BoomBoom sighed with relief. "Dennis, when can you start?"

"The sooner the better. How about this week?"

"Fine," everyone said in unison. They wanted to go home. The weather was good and everyone had things to do.

"Let's go." Pewter shook herself.

"Not yet," Tucker sighed as BoomBoom plucked another paper off her pile.

"We still don't have a ball chairman. So many of us live in the centralVirginia area-you'd think someone would volun-teer."

"People are overcommitted," said Susan, a shining example.

"If I can't buttonhole someone soon, we'll have to do it," BoomBoom announced.

"No, we won't." Harry put her foot down.

"BoomBoom plucks Mom's last nerve. Beyond that, what is it about people sitting in a meeting? Everything takes three times as long. Big fat waste of time," Murphy commented.

"Passing opinions is like passing gas. They can't help it," Pewter giggled.

"Harry, are you still our liaison person with Mrs. Hogendobber so we don't have any conflicts with their reunion?" BoomBoom ignored Harry's small rebellion.

"Liaison person? I see her five or six days out of the week."

"Thought I'd ask."

"BoomBoom, what's your idea for the decorating committee?" Susan had visions of a bare auditorium save for the senior superlative photographs.

"Marcy Wiggins and Bitsy Valenzuela have volunteered to help us if we help organize the Cancer Ball fund-raiser in December. I think Charlie Ashcraft will head the committee."

"You can't be serious," Harry blurted out. "Charlie is such a womanizer."

"He's all we've got. Plus"-BoomBoom lowered her voice conspiratorially-"he's already putting the moves on Marcy."

"I hope you've warned her." Susan frowned.

"She's a big girl." BoomBoom tidied the few papers on her desk.

"Boom, he's one of the handsomest men God ever put on earth and utterly irresponsible. His idea of going slow is to ask a woman to bed after being introduced to her instead of before. Come on." Harry leaned forward.

"She's married." Market waved off the subject, feeling Marcy's wedding ring offered protection-sort of like garlic against a vampire.

"Unhappily," BoomBoom demurred.

Dennis finally spoke. "Remember Raylene Ramsey and Meredith McLaughlin getting into a fight over Charlie at our fifteenth reunion?"

"I thought they'd kill one another." Market checked his watch.

"I'd rather hoped they'd kill Charlie," Harry laughed.

"I never could see what you girls saw in him." Dennis laughed, too.

"Don't look at me. I think he's an asshole." Harry held up her hands.

BoomBoom, having seduced Charlie in their youth, or vice versa, kept silent on this.

Susan jumped in. "I don't mind that he had sex with both of them at our fifteenth. I do mind, however, that he saw fit to do it in the pool at the Holiday Inn. Just because it was three in the morning didn't mean we weren't awake." Susan shook her head in disgust.

"Back to the subject. Charlie as head of decorating?" BoomBoom tapped the desk with her pencil. "And Marcy Wiggins and Bitsy Valenzuela," she added.

"But they didn't go to high school with us," Market protested.

"Who cares, Market? We need workers. Chris was a big help at our meeting at my house." Harry punched him lightly. "Anyway, they married into our class. That counts for something."

"Chris says maybe she'll meet some men. It's hard for new people to fit in. We were born here. We never think about breaking into a new place," BoomBoom replied.

"Did she really say she wanted to meet men?" Market whispered.

"Yes," Harry whispered back.

"She's not half bad," Dennis whispered as he overheard them. This earned him a stern glare from Market.

"Are we okay on Charlie then?" BoomBoom pressed on.

The others looked at one another, then reluctantly raised their hands in agreement since no one could think of a substitute.

"One last item of business before we adjourn." BoomBoom couldn't help but notice how fidgety her classmates had become. "I received a bordered letter, run off at Kinko's or KopyKat, I think. Anyway, it said, 'You'll never get old.' Harry, did you send that out?"

"Why me?" Harry was surprised.

"You're the postmistress. I thought you might be playing a practical joke on us."

"No. It wasn't me."

BoomBoom looked from one to the other as each one shook his or her head. "Well, I think it's in bad taste."

"Boom, what are you talking about?" Susan asked.

"Yeah," Market and Dennis said.

"'You'll never get old.' I should think it would be obvious. We'll never get old if we're dead. Here I am trying to create the best reunion ever and someone is sending out a sick joke."

"I didn't take it that way." Susan frowned since she didn't like BoomBoom's interpretation.

On that note the meeting broke up.

"It is odd," Mrs. Murphy mused to no one in particular.

6

"Are you really going to buy a truck?" Fair Haristeen asked his ex-wife as he picked up his mail the next morning.

"Gonna try."

"She's taking a two-hour lunch to visit Art Bushey." Miranda helpfully supplied him with information.

"Serious." He rubbed his chin.

"She cruises the lot at night, looking at trucks, but this is the first time she's going over in the day," Mrs. Murphy told Fair, who pulled a metal foil wrapper out of his pocket and gave it to her.

"Here, Houdini, open this." His deep voice rumbled.

Mrs. Murphy surreptitiously looked around. Pewter, asleep in the mail cart, remained unaware of the gift which Murphy inspected and then tore open. The aroma of moist fish tidbits caused one chartreuse eye to open down in the mail cart.

"Don't you have anything for me?" Tucker implored.

Fair reached into his other pocket, bringing forth a foil packet with a plum-colored edging marked Mouth-Watering Dog Divine Treats. He pulled open the pouch, spilling the contents on the floor.

"Thank you!" Tucker gobbled up the round meat treats.

Pewter, on her back, rolled over. She crawled out of the cart to join Mrs. Murphy, who wasn't wildly happy about it but she wasn't selfish either.

"Are you going to add a small-animal practice to your equine practice?" Mrs. Hogendobber laughed.

"No. I get freebies from feed companies. Which reminds me, I've got a bag of rich alfalfa cubes. I'm wondering if you'd help me, Harry? If I give you a feed schedule, three cubes per day along with your standard timothy, will you keep weight charts for me?"

"Sure," Harry happily agreed.

"You don't put your horses on a scale, do you?" Mrs. Hogendobber, not a horse person, inquired. "That would be awfully difficult, wouldn't it?"

"Miranda, the easiest way to keep track of gain is a tape mea-sure. Just the kind you'd buy from the five-and-dime."

"Except there are no more five-and-dimes." Miranda wrinkled her forehead. "When I think of the times I ran into Woolworth's with a quarter as a child and thought I was rich . . ."

"You were." Fair smiled, which only made him more handsome. He strongly resembled the young Gary Cooper.

At six feet four inches, with blond hair, a strong jaw, kind eyes, and broad shoulders, Fair was a man women noticed. And they usually smiled when they noticed.

"Those were the days." The older woman rolled up the blue nylon belts used to hold large quantities of mail. "Do you know, Fair Haristeen, that this year is my fiftieth high-school reunion. I have to pinch myself to realize it."

"You don't look a day over thirty-nine and no one in Crozet can hold a candle to your gardening powers."

She smiled broadly. "Better not say that in front of Mim."

"If I had three gardeners I'd be on the garden tour, too." He tossed catalogues in the garbage can. "You do it by yourself."

"Thank you." She was mightily pleased.

"Almost lunch hour." Harry flicked two letters into Susan Tucker's mailbox.

Fair glanced at the clock. "Want me to go with you to Art's?"

"Why, you think I can't make a deal?"

"No. I think you'll cry if you part with that heap out back."

"I will not." Color came to her cheeks.

"Okay." He winked at Miranda when Harry couldn't see him, walked to the door, then turned. "I'll drop the alfalfa cubes off tonight."

"I don't know if I want to talk to you. I can't believe you think I'd cry over a truck."

"Uh-huh." He pushed open the door and walked into the breezy air. It felt more like late September than the tail end of August.

"He gets my goat," Harry mumbled as she rolled up lingerie catalogues and slid them in Little Mim's mailbox. "Why does she get all these underwear wishing books?"

"Because she's wishing," Miranda answered.

Little Mim, divorced a few years back, was lonesome, lonesome and carrying a torch for Harry's neighbor, Blair Bainbridge.

"Oh." Harry blinked. She never thought of stuff like that.

"It's noon. Are you going to the Ford dealer, or not?"

"I'm going. I said I was going. I know none of you think I can count beans, much less make a deal."

"I never said that."

"You didn't have to."

"Harry, calm yourself. I think you have a good head for figures. I admire your frugality. After all, I'm still driving my husband's Falcon and how many years has my poor George been called to heaven? Really now, I'm on your side."

Harry regretted her crabby moment. "I know you are, Miranda. I don't know what made me cross."

"Your ex."

She shrugged. "I think I can do better without the three musketeers. Mind letting them work through lunch hour?"

"Take me?" Tucker wagged her nonexistent tail.

"I'm staying right here." Pewter put one paw on the collapsed foil packet.

"I'll stay, too. Good luck, Mom."

Twenty minutes later Harry rolled downPantopsMountain , for she'd driven down on I-64, turning left on Route 250 at the Shadwell exit. The Ford dealership, spanking blue and white, covered the north side of the road just before the river. In the old days there had been a covered bridge over theRivannaRiver , calledFreeBridge , since there was no toll to use it. A big storm would find horse and buggies lined up in the bridge waiting for the worst to blow over. Today such chance encounters and sensible acceptance of Nature's agenda had been pushed aside. People thought they could drive through anything. The covered bridge gave way to a two-lane buttressed bridge, which in turn gave way to a four-lane soulless piece of engineering. People zoomed across the river with never a thought for stopping and looking down or having a juicy chat with a friend while the thunder boomed overhead.

Harry pulled in front of the plate-glass windows at the older part of the Ford building.

Art Bushey walked out to see her. "Hi, beautiful. Did I ever tell you, I have a thing for postmistresses. I like that word 'mistress.' Just gives me chills."

"Pervert." Harry punched him, then hugged him.

"Knew you were coming. Half of Crozet called me, including your ex-husband. Still loves you, Harry. But hey, men fall all over you."

"You are so full of it."

"Love hearing it, though, don't you? You're a good-looking woman. I want good-looking women driving Ford trucks." He ducked his head into the 1978 truck to look at the speedometer. "How many times has this thing turned over?"

"Over two hundred thousand."

"We build 'em good, don't we?" He patted the nose of the blue truck. "Come on, let me show you what I've got, and Harry, don't panic about the money just yet. Let me show you what's here. You drive them. I'll work something out. I want your money, now, don't misunderstand me. I love money. But Busheys, Minors, and Hepworths"-he mentioned her mother's maiden name-"go back a long way. I remember when your father bought this truck."

"I do, too. His first new truck. You still had your mustache." Harry recalled the flush on her father's lean face when he told his wife and daughter he'd bought a brand-new truck.

"Come on." He opened the door to a red half-ton 4 x 4. "Thinking about growing my mustache back."

"I guess you were expecting me-got the plates on and everything." She smiled. "About the mustache: do it. Makes you look dangerous."

Art liked that. "They're all ready for you and I've got two used ones for you to look at as well."

She hopped in the cab, turned the motor over as he clicked on his seat belt in the passenger seat.

"Now this truck is maxed out. AC over here, tape deck and CD, speakers everywhere, captain's chairs-nice on the back-plush interior, which your cats will enjoy. Cats are fussy."

"Yeah, I'd hate to disappoint them." Harry hit the accelerator, they backed out, and in a minute they were heading toward Keswick. "Jeez, this thing drives like a car."

They roared down the road and as she touched the brakes, the machine glided to a smooth stop.

By the time they returned to the dealership she was amazed at how the truck felt. One by one they got into the different trucks, different trim packages.

After an hour of driving new and two very nice used trucks they repaired to Art's office. "What do you think?"

"I'm scared of the cost," she forthrightly replied.

He punched in a mess of numbers. "Look." He yanked out the computer printout. "I can get you an F250 HD 4 by 4 for twenty thousand, four hundred and seventy-eight dollars. That's stripped and doesn't figure in your trade-in, which I will know in a minute because while we were out cruising, one of my guys was going over your truck."

"It's in good shape."

"I know that. You take care of everything, including yourself." He pointed to figures on the right-hand column. "Add in your tags, title transfer, documentation service-and I don't know whether you want the extended service plan or not but figure another five hundred. Hold that number in your head. Round numbers are easier to remember. If you buy this now, I can give you a six-hundred-dollar rebate. That expires September fifteenth. Don't ask me why. Ford makes those decisions and the dealer has nothing to say about it. Good for you, though. But here"-he punched in some more numbers-"I can get you the XLT package for another fifteen hundred. If you buy things piecemeal like the tape deck and AC it doesn't make sense. I know this sounds crazy but if you spend money you can save money on the payments. I'm figuring you'll finance for five years. Look, I can get you the bells and whistles-" He pointed to a figure on the bottom of a new page he pulled out of the computer.

Her eyes grew large. "But that's almost four thousand more dollars."

"It is. But if we spread it over the five years it means about another thirty in your payment schedule. And Harry, this isn't the final figure. Aren't you going to badger me about the price?"

"Uh . . ."

The phone rang. "Yeah," Art said. "Great." He punched the button. "One thousand five hundred dollars on your 1978. And here's what I'll sell you the F250 HD 4 by 4 for." He scrawled numbers.

"That's almost twenty percent less." She scooted to the edge of her seat.

"That's right. You're paying what I pay plus the paperwork. What color do you want?"

"Red."

"What interior?"

"Beige."

He pointed to a red truck sitting on the lot. "You got it. Now Harry, I know you don't make a lot of money. I also know you'll drive this truck for twenty years. Why don't you take the truck home? If you don't like it, bring it back but don't go telling everyone what the cost is or everyone will want the same deal and then I'd go broke."

"Art?"

"Hey." He threw up his hands. "Like I said, I've got a thing for postmistresses. Go on, get out of here before Miranda calls and says she's overloaded."

Harry drove the new machine along I-64 feeling certain that everyone on the highway was admiring the beautiful truck. She'd done her sums at home and knew she could carry, with care, about four hundred and fourteen dollars a month.

When she drove to the front of the post office instead of the back, Miranda, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, and Market-in picking up his mail-ran out.

"Wow!" Market whistled.

"Open the door!" Mrs. Murphy excitedly demanded, and as the door swung open for everyone to see the plush interior, the cat jumped up on the floor and then on the seat.

"O-o-o." She dug her claws in the upholstery just a tiny bit.

Within seconds, Pewter sat next to her. "Snuggly." She patted at the divider between the two seats, a console with trays, cup holders, all manner of niceties to make the truck a little office. "Even a place to store catnip."

"I want to see!" The dog whined as the humans opened the door on the other side.

"Here." Harry picked up Tucker, a heavy child, putting her on the seat after wiping off her paws.

"Neat." The dog smiled.

"Not bad." Pewter squeezed next to Tucker.

"Did you buy it?" Miranda eagerly asked.

"I think I did. I have to call my banker. I didn't give Art a firm yes."

"You can put the fifth wheel in the back-haul your horses. The old half-ton was straining," Market counseled.

"What saved me was I only hauled one at a time." Harry laughed because it did make life that much harder not being able to take two horses in her two-horse trailer.

Chris Sharpton drove up and parked. "This is new."

Harry smiled. "I haven't bought it yet."

"BoomBoom called me"-Chris pulled her mailbox key out of her purse-"asking me to come up with more ideas for the 'welcoming committee.' That's what she's calling you guys now. I told her I wouldn't mind but I hoped you wouldn't mind. After all, it's your reunion and your committee."

"'Course, I don't mind."

Chris smiled. "The Boom is getting desperate-not so much about the work for this thing but because she wants to make certain that she is perfect by homecoming-head to toe."

"Big surprise," Harry giggled.

"Can we meet tomorrow night?" Chris walked into the post office as Harry nodded yes.

Later that night, Harry turned off the lights in the barn, walked across to the house, and burst into tears. She'd lived with her old truck for so many years she couldn't imagine living without it.

No sooner had she walked into the house than Tucker barked, "Intruder!"

Harry walked back outside.

Fair was driving her old 1978 blue truck, followed by Art Bushey in a new silver Jeep.

"Hi," she said as they both got out of their vehicles.

"Here's your truck." Fair handed her the keys.

"Huh?" She was confused.

"Fair put up the down payment on the F250 so you don't have to trade in your dad's truck." Art crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the silver Jeep. "I told him he's nuts. You still aren't going to take him back but he did it anyway."

"Art, you're awful." She burst out laughing as the cats hopped into the bed of the old blue truck. The vantage point was better.

"Fair, I can't take your money."

"A late divorce settlement." He shrugged. "Now do you want the F250 or the F350 dually?"

"I'd better stick to the F250 HD."

"Doing it my way it's twelve hundred more for the dually. So you have everything you've ever wanted-your half-ton and a dually," Art said. "Big F350 in red with a beige interior just like the 250 here. And those extra wheels in the back are what you need when you're hauling weight."

"Deal!" She shook his hand.

"Red." Fair slapped his baseball cap against his thigh. "I bet Art a hundred bucks you'd buy another blue truck."

"Gotcha." Art smiled.

"Hey, wait." Harry ran into the barn, returning with a paper. "Here's the figures on the horses. I measured them tonight."

"Damn, I knew I forgot something. I'll drop off the alfalfa cubes tomorrow."

"Fair."

"Huh?"

"You're a good man." She put her hand behind his neck, drew him down, and kissed him.

"What about me?"

"How could I forget?" She kissed Art, too.

"All right, buddy, drive this back." Art shepherded Fair to the Jeep. Art would drive back in the F250. "You can pick up your dually tomorrow unless you want me to send it to Cavalier Camper for the fifth wheel."

"That's a good idea," Harry agreed.

As they drove off, Pewter asked Mrs. Murphy, "How'd he know she'd never part with her father's truck?"

Tucker called from the ground, "He's very sensitive."

"But it's metal," Pewter protested, finding the emotion around the 1978 truck silly.

"Metal but it has so many memories."

"A cruise downMemory Lane ." Tucker walked back toward the house.

"If she got this worked up over a truck, what's she going to be like at her high-school reunion?" Pewter gingerly stepped onto the back bumper and thence to the ground.

7

"A big smile. There. Cover of People magazine." Dennis Rablan clicked away, his black Nikon camera covering his face. "Boom, get your face closer to the steer. You, too, Charlie, get in there."

"Yuk." Charlie grimaced. "I didn't like this the first time we did it, twenty years ago."

"Least it's not a horse's ass," Harry quipped. She had been conned by Susan to help with the first superlative shoot.

"No, I've got Boom for that."

"You know, Charlie," she hissed through clenched teeth, "you won Best Looking but you sure didn't win Best Personality and you never will."

"Like I care." He beamed to the camera.

Susan stood to the side holding up a reflector, which the steer distrusted. Crouched beside the large animal were Fair Haristeen on one side and Blair Bainbridge, equally tall, on the other.

Although Blair was a professional model, Charlie Ashcraft held his own. He was a strikingly handsome man, with curly, glossy black hair, bright blue eyes, and a creamy tan. At six foot one with a good body, he bowled women over. He knew it. He used it. He abused it. He left a trail of broken hearts, broken marriages, and broken promises behind him. Despite that, women still fell for him even when they knew his history. His arrogance added fuel to the fire. He was loathed by those not under his spell, which was to say most men.

Her shoulders ached, her deltoids especially, as Harry held the silver reflector behind Denny Rablan. She thought, How like BoomBoom to take her own photo first. No matter what, her visage will be plastered all over the gym. Instead she said, "Denny, I'm putting this down for a minute." The heat was giving her a headache, or was it the reunion itself? She wasn't sure she had improved with the passage of time.

Click. He said without looking at her, "Okay. All right, take a break, especially Hercules here."

Fair stepped up and put a small grain bucket in front of Hercules, whose mood improved considerably.

Marcy Wiggins in her candy-apple red Taurus GL drove down the farm lane followed by Chris Sharpton and Bitsy Valenzuela in Bitsy's Jaguar XJR, top down.

"Oh no, are we late?" Chris wailed, opening the car door.

"No, we're taking a break. Harry's arms are tired," BoomBoom answered.

"I'll hold the reflector," Chris eagerly volunteered.

"Great. You've got a job." Harry handed her the floppy silver square.

"Boom, you look fabulous-professional makeup job, I bet," Bitsy cooed.

"Oh . . ." BoomBoom Craycroft had no intention of answering that question.

Charlie glided over. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure."

"You have, too." Bitsy laughed. "I met you at the Foxfield Races. My husband is E. R. Valenzuela, the president of 360° Communications here in town. You let me know if you need a cell phone in your car, you hear now?"

"Foxfield, well, that is a distracting environment." He smoothed his hair, which sprang back into curls. "I had no idea E.R. had such good taste in women."

Then brazenly, Charlie swept his eyes from the top of Chris's head to her toes. "A model's body. Tall and angular. Have I ever told you how much I like that?"

"Yes." She laughed. "Every time you see me."

He beamed at each lady in turn. Marcy turned beet red. "I'll call you the three Amuses. Good, huh?"

"Brilliant." Chris's eyelids dropped a bit, then flickered upward.

"God, Charlie, I hope you don't say that to my husband." Marcy swallowed hard.

"Do you know what I say to any woman's husband? 'If you don't treat her right, some other man will. Just because you're married doesn't mean you can relax. A woman's got to be won over each and every day.'" He smiled from ear to ear.

"Good Lord," Marcy whispered.

"I think I'll help Boom," Bitsy brightly said as she skipped past her friend.

Bitsy wiped the shine from BoomBoom's nose, adding a dab of lipstick to her mouth.

Denny clapped his hands, which disturbed Hercules, who let out a bellow. "Let's go."

Harry, arms crossed, watched Charlie stoop down, Hercules on one side and BoomBoom on the other.

"Harry, why don't you take away this bucket?" BoomBoom pointed at the bucket.

"You crippled?" Harry turned on her heel, striding to her old Ford truck. "Adios."

"You're not going to kiss me good-bye?" Charlie called out. He puckered his lips.

"I wouldn't kiss you if you were the last man on earth," Harry said, as Susan's jaw nearly dropped to her chest.

"Hey, I love you, too."

"Charlie, is this a command performance?" Marcy asked, voice wavering.

He winked at her, then called after Harry, "I understand you called me a body part at the reunion meeting."

"I should have called you an arrogant, empty-headed, vainglorious idiot. 'Asshole' showed a lack of imagination." She smiled a big fake smile, her head throbbing.

"You've been divorced too-o-o long," he said in a singsong voice.

She stopped in her tracks. Fair's face froze. Susan covered her eyes, peeking out through her fingers. BoomBoom squared her shoulders, ready for the worst.

"You know what, Charlie? My claim to fame is that I'm one of seven women inAlbemarleCounty who haven't gone to bed with you."

"There's still time." He laughed as Marcy Wiggins' face registered dismay.

"You'll die before I do." Harry turned, heading back to the truck.

This icy pronouncement caught everyone off guard. Charlie laughed nervously. Dennis took over, rearranging the principals except for Hercules, who was firmly planted close to the grain.

Then Charlie yelled after her, "I knew you sent that letter about me not growing old."

"Dream on." Harry kept walking. "I wouldn't waste the postage."

"Susan, you aren't going, too?" BoomBoom's voice, drenched in irritation, cut through Hercules' bellow as he cried for his grain bucket. Susan left with Harry.

Susan leaned over to Harry as they walked away. "You got a wild hair or what?" she said, sotto voce.

"I don't really know. Just know I can't take any more." Harry rubbed her temples. "Susan, I don't know what's happening to me. I have no patience anymore. None. And I'm sick and tired of beating around the bush. Hell with it."

"M-m-m."

"I don't want to be rude but I'm fresh out of tolerance for the fools of this life."

"Your poor mother will be spinning in her grave. All the years of cotillion, the Sunday teas."

Harry put her hand on the chrome door handle of the 1978 truck. "Here's what I don't get: where is the line between good manners and supporting people in their bullshit? I'm not putting up with Charlie for one more minute." She opened the door but didn't climb inside. "I've turned a corner. I'm not wearing that social face anymore. Too much time. Too much suppressed anger. If people are going to like me they can like me as I am. Treat me right and I'll treat you right."

"Within reason."

"Well . . . yes." Harry reluctantly conceded.

Susan breathed in the moist air. The heat had finally returned and with it the flies. "I know exactly how you feel. I'm not brave enough to act on it yet."

"Of course you are."

"No. I have a husband with a good career and two teenagers. When the last one graduates from college-five more years-" She sighed, "Then I expect I'll be ready."

"Tempus fugit." Harry hopped in the truck. "Charlie Ashcraft has not one redeeming virtue. How is it that someone like him lives and someone good dies? Aurora Hughes was a wonderful person."

"Pity. He is the most divine-looking animal." Susan shrugged.

"Handsome is as handsome does."

"Tell that to my hormones," Susan countered.

They both laughed and Harry drove home feeling as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. She wasn't sure why. Was it because she had erupted at BoomBoom? At Charlie? Or because she had gotten tired and left, instead of standing there feeling like a resentful martyr? She decided she wasn't going to help with any other senior superlative photographs and she wasn't even sure she'd go through with her own. Then she thought better of it. After all, it would be really mean-spirited not to cooperate. They were all in this together. Still, the thought of BoomBoom hovering around . . . Of course, knowing Boom, she'd put off Harry's shot until last and then photograph her in the worst light. Harry thought she'd better call Denny at the studio tomorrow.

After the chores, she played with Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. They loved to play hide 'n' seek.

The phone rang at nine P.M.

"Har?"

"Susan, don't tell me you just got home."

"No. I just heard this instant-Charlie Ashcraft was shot dead in the men's locker room at the Farmington Country Club."

"What?"

"Right between the eyes with a .38."

"Who did it?"

"Nobody knows."

"I can think of a dozen who'd fight for the chance."

"Me, too. Queer, though. After just seeing him."

"Bet BoomBoom's glad she got the photograph first," Harry shot from the hip.

"You're awful."

"No, I'm your best friend. I'm supposed to say anything in the world to you, 'member?"

"Then let me say this to you. Don't be too jolly. Think about what you said this afternoon. We have no idea of who he's slept with recently. That's for starters. He was gifted at hiding his amours for a time, anyway. I'm all for your cleansing inside but a little repression will go a long way right now."

"You're right."

After she hung up the phone she told Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, who listened with interest.

"A jilted husband finally did what everyone else has wanted to do," Tucker said.

"Tucker, you have the sweetest eyes." Harry stroked the soft head.

"Weren't there any witnesses?" Mrs. Murphy asked.

"Right between the eyes." Pewter shook her head.

8

Farmington Country Club glowed with the patina of years. The handmade bricks lent a soft paprika glow to the Georgian buildings in the long summer twilight. As the oldest country club in Albemarle County, Farmington counted among its members the movers and shakers of the region as well as the totally worthless whose only distinguishing feature was that they had inherited enough money to stay current on their dues. The median age of members was sixty-two, which didn't bode well forFarmington 's future. However,Farmington rested secure in its old golf course with long, classic fairways. The modern golf courses employed far too many sharp doglegs and par 3's because land was so expensive.

Charlie Ashcraft, a good golfer, had divided his skills betweenFarmington and its challengers, Keswick and Glenmore. At a seven handicap he was much in demand as a partner, carrying pounds of silver from tournaments. He also carried away Belinda Harrier when he was only seventeen and she was thirty and had won the ladies' championship. That was the first clue that Charlie possessed unusual powers of persuasion. Charlie's parents fetched him from theRichmond motel to which they had fled and Belinda's husband promptly divorced her. Her golf game went to pot as did Belinda.

Rick Shaw, sheriff ofAlbemarleCounty , and his deputy, the young and very attractive Cynthia Cooper, knew all this. They had done their homework. Cynthia was about twenty years younger than Rick. The age difference enhanced their teamwork.

The men's locker room had been cordoned off with shiny plastic yellow tape. The employees of the club, all of whom had seen enough wild stuff to write a novel, had to admit this was the weirdest of the weird.

The locker room, recently remodeled, had a general sitting room with the lockers and showers beyond that. The exterior door faced out to the parking lot. An interior door was about thirty feet from the golf shop with a stairway in between which first rose to a landing and continued into the men's grill, forbidden to women. If a man walked through the grill he would wind up in the 19th Hole, the typical sort of restaurant most clubs provide at the golf course.

Getting in and out of the men's locker room would have been easy for Charlie's killer. As the golfers had come and gone, the only people around would have been those who'd been dressing for dinner in the main dining room or down in the tavern way at the other end of the huge structure. There would be little traffic in and out of the locker room. The housekeeping staff cleaned at about eleven at night, checking again at eight in the morning since the locker rooms never closed.

Charlie Ashcraft had been found by a local attorney, Mark DiBlasi. The body remained as Mark had found him, sitting upright, slumped against locker 13. Blood was smeared on the locker. Charlie's head hadn't slumped to the side; blood trickled out of his ears but none came from his eyes or his mouth. It was a clean shot at very close range; a circle of powder burn at the entry point signified that. The bullet exited the back of his head, tore into the locker door, and lodged in the opposite wall.

Mark DiBlasi had been dining with his mother and wife when he left the main dining room to fetch his wallet from his locker. He'd played golf, finished at six-thirty, showered, and closed his locker, but forgot his wallet, which was still in his golf shorts. The moment he saw Charlie he called the sheriff. He then called the club manager. After that he sat down and shook like a leaf.

"Mark, forgive me. I know this is trying." Cooper sat next to him on a bench. "You think you came back here at eight?"

"Yes." Mark struggled for composure.

"You noticed no one."

"Nobody."

She flipped through her notebook. "I think I've gotten everything. If I have other questions I'll call you at the office. I'm sorry your dinner was disturbed." She called to Rick, "Any questions?"

Rick wheeled around. "Mark, who was Charlie's latest conquest?"

Mark blushed and stammered a moment. "Uh-anyone new and pretty?"

Rick nodded. "Go on. I know where to find you. If you think of anything, call me."

"Will do." Mark straightened his tie as he hurried out.

"He'll have nightmares," Cynthia remarked.

"H-m-m." Rick changed the subject. "Charlie's four ex-wives. We'll start there."

"They all moved away, didn't they?"

"Yeah." He whistled as he walked through the men's locker room to fix the layout in his mind.

A knock on the door revealed Diana Robb, head of the Crozet Rescue Squad. "Ready?"

"I didn't hear the siren," Cynthia said.

"Didn't hit it. I was coming back from the hospital when you called, not more than a mile away." She looked at Charlie as she walked back into the lockers. "Neat as a pin. Even his tie is straight."

"Mark DiBlasi found him."

Diana called over her shoulder, "Hey guys, bring in the gurney and the body bag." Her two assistants scurried back out for the equipment.

"Mark said he was warm when he found him," Rick informed her.

"Fresh kill."

"We've already dusted. He's ready to go." Cynthia watched as the gurney was rolled in; the quarters were a bit tight.

"Put on your gloves and let's lift him up, carry him out to the sitting room," Diana directed. "Sucker's going to be heavy."

"Any ideas?" Cynthia asked Diana.

"Too many."

"Yeah, that seems to be the problem." Rick smiled.

"I do know this." Diana wiggled her fingers in the thin rubber gloves over which she pulled on a pair of heavier gloves. "Charlie always was a snob. If you didn't have money you had to have great bloodlines. There were no poor people involved."

9

The post office buzzed the next morning. As it was the central meeting point in town, each person arrived hopeful that someone would have more news than they had. Everyone had an opinion, that much was certain.

"Can't go sleeping with other men's wives without expecting trouble," Jim Sanburne, mayor of Crozet and husband of Mim, announced.

As Jim, in his youth, had indulged in affairs, the elegant Mim eyed him coldly. "Well said."

"This is getting good." Mrs. Murphy, whiskers vibrating, perched on the counter between the mailroom and the public room.

Pewter, next to her, licked her paw, then absentmindedly forgot to wash herself. Tucker, mingling out with the people, believed she could smell guilt and anger.

"Will even one person lament his death?" Mim asked.

Jim Sanburne rubbed his chin. "Whoever he was carrying on with at the time, I reckon."

The Reverend Herb Jones growled, "He was a rascal, no doubt. But, then again, he was a young man in his prime-never forget redemption."

Miranda nodded her head in agreement with the Reverend.

"Something wrong with that boy." The massive Jim leaned over the counter so close that Pewter decided to rub against his arm to make him feel loved.

"Male version of nymphomania," Big Mim said as her daughter, Little Mim, blinked, surprised at her mother's bold-ness.

Fair, who'd walked in the door, picked up the word "nymphomania." "I came just in time."

Marcy Wiggins and Chris Sharpton also pushed open the door. Fair stepped aside. The small space was getting crowded.

Chris shyly blinked. "It's so shocking. I mean, we were all watching the superlative shoot and then this."

"Chris, don't waste your time feeling sorry for that s.o.b.," Susan Tucker told her. "You didn't know him well enough to be one of his victims-yet. He would have tried."

"Charlie should have been shot years ago," Fair laconically said, then turned solemn. "But still you never think something like this would happen to someone you know."

Noticing the look on Marcy's face, Harry added, "We're not as cold as you might think, Marcy. But ask E.R. about Charlie's past. He upset too many applecarts without giving a thought to what he was doing to people's lives. He remained unacquainted with responsibility for his entire life."

"Oh," Marcy replied, looking not at all comforted.

"'The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.' Proverbs. Twelfth chapter, fifteenth verse," Mrs. Hogendobber quoted. "Charlie Ashcraft was told many times in many ways by many people that he had to change his habits. He didn't. Someone changed them for him; not that that's right. No one has the right to take a life. That power belongs only to God."

"Tucker, smell anything?" Murphy called down.

"No, although Jim Sanburne has dog pee on his shoe. Bet Mim's dog got him and he doesn't even know it," the corgi gleefully reported. "Of course, I haven't sniffed everyone yet. There's too much coming and going."

BoomBoom flounced through the door, breathlessly put her tiny hand to her heart. "Can you believe it? Right after our superlative shoot."

"Aren't you glad you shot yours first?" Harry dryly commented. "As it is we'll have two people missing in our shoots. This way you would have had three."

"Harry, I can't believe you said that." BoomBoom folded her arms across her chest. "Do you really think I would be more concerned about our senior superlative photographs than a man's life?"

"In a word, yes." Harry also folded her arms across her chest.

"This is getting good," Pewter purred with excitement.

"Our classmate is dead," BoomBoom nearly shrieked. "After that damned letter you sent."

"I didn't send that stupid letter!" Harry lowered her voice instead of raising it.

"Harry would never do anything like that," Fair curtly said.

"She likes to stir the pot."

"Look who's talking." Harry squared off at BoomBoom.

"Pipe down," Big Mim commanded. "You aren't solving anything. This is about Charlie's murder, not your history with one another." She turned to her ex-husband. "If every man in Crozet were shot for infidelity, who would be left?"

"Now, honey, let sleeping dogs lie." His basso profundo voice rumbled.

"It's not sleeping dogs we're talking about," Mim snapped.

Little Marilyn tugged at the ends of her white linen jacket and suppressed a smile.

"We're all upset." Herb smoothed the waters. "After all, every one of us here, with the exception of the two lovely young additions to our community"-he nodded toward Chris and Marcy-"has known Charlie since childhood. Yes, he was flawed, but is there anyone standing here who is perfect?"

A subdued quiet fell over the room.

"I'm perfect," Pewter warbled as the humans looked at her.

"Oh la!" Mrs. Murphy laughed.

"Girls, this is serious." The corgi frowned. "You know sooner or later the murderer will pop up and what if he pops up here?!"

"You've got a point," Mrs. Murphy, stretching fore and aft, agreed.

"Doesn't change the fact that I am perfect."

"Harry, what do you feed them?" Chris lightheartedly said, which broke the tension in the room.

The chatter again filled the room but the acrimony level died down.

Herb leaned over to Harry. "What's this letter business?"

"I'll show you." She walked back to the small table where she'd left three days' worth of mail. She returned, handing it over the counter.

He read it. "Could mean a lot of things."

"Exactly," Harry agreed.

"But it is creepy," BoomBoom intruded.

"Now it is, but we're viewing it through the lens of Charlie's death," Herb sensibly replied.

Fair put one elbow on the counter divider. "I wouldn't make too much of this unless something else happens-something, uh, dark."

Chris joined in as Marcy was tongue-tied and uncomfortable. "I agree, but reunions are such loaded situations. All those memories."

"My memories are pretty wonderful." Fair winked at Harry, who blushed.

"You were the class ahead. Our memories might be different." BoomBoom sighed.

"I thought you had a great time-a great senior year," Harry said.

"I did."

"Well, then, Boom, what are you talking about?"

Mrs. H., fearing another spat, left the Sanburnes and Marcy Wiggins to go back behind the divider. "Let me tell you about memory. It plays tricks on you. The further I get from my youth the better it looks and then some sharp memory will startle me, like stepping on a nail. It might be a fragrance or a ring around the moon at midnight, but then I remember the swirling emotions-the confusion-and you know, I'm quite glad to be old."

"You're not old," Fair gallantly said.

Jim, overhearing, agreed. "We're holding up pretty good, Miranda, and of course, my bride"-he smiled broadly-"is as beautiful as the day I married her."

As the friends and neighbors applauded, Marcy slipped outside.

"Odd." Tucker noticed as did Chris, who also walked outside.

"Marcy?" Mrs. Murphy knew her friend's mind.

"Yes . . . such a little person with such a heavy burden." The dog put her paws on the windowsill.

Jim checked his gold watch. "Meeting at town hall." He kissed Mim on the cheek. "Home for dinner."

One by one the old friends left the post office.

"When's the next shoot?" Harry asked BoomBoom as she slipped the key into her mailbox. She was beginning to regret her anger at the high-school shoot and she really regretted saying she'd outlive Charlie even though she loathed him.

"Saturday."

"Who is it?"

"Bonnie Baltier and Leo Burkey. She's driving down from Warrenton and he's coming over fromRichmond . I promised them dinner as a reward."

"Better do the shoot soon. I mean, you never know who else will die." Harry rolled the full mail cart over to the counter.

"That's ghoulish," BoomBoom indignantly replied.

"You're right." Harry sighed. "But I couldn't resist. I mean I could keel over right here. We're all so . . . fragile."

"Prophesy." Fair raised an eyebrow and Harry whitened.

"Don't say that. That's worse." BoomBoom, an emotional type, crossed herself.

"I didn't say it was a prophecy. I said prophesy."

"I'm a little jangled." Boom's beautiful face clouded over.

"Your affair with Charlie was in high school," Harry snapped. "That's too far back to be jangled."

"That is uncalled for, Harry, and you're better than that," Miranda chided.

"Don't know that I am." Harry stuck her jaw out.

"Charlie Ashcraft was a big mistake. That was obvious even in high school. But I had to make the mistake first." Boom's face was pink. "I know you think little of me, Harry Haristeen, and not without just cause. I've apologized to you before. I can't spend my life apologizing. I am not promiscuous. I do not go around seducing every man I see and furthermore when my husband died my judgment was flawed. I did a lot of things I wouldn't do today. When are you ever going to let it go?"

Harry, amazed, blurted out, "It's easy to be gracious now-I even believe you. But it wasn't your marriage that hit the rocks."

"That was my fault." Fair finally spoke up. He'd been too stunned to speak.

"Why don't you three go out back and settle this?" Miranda saw more people pulling into the parking lot. "I know this is federal property and you have a right to be here, but really, go out back."

"All right." Harry stomped out, slamming the back door behind her.

"I think we're on duty." Mrs. Murphy jumped down, then scooted across the back room.

Pewter followed. Tucker walked out the front door when Fair held the door for BoomBoom. She tagged at their heels as they walked between Market Shiflett's store and the post office to the parking area in the rear.

In the parking lot by the alleyway they stood mutely staring at one another for a moment.

"Come on, Mom, get it out. Get it over with," Mrs. Murphy advised.

"I'm being a bitch. I know it." Harry finally broke the silence.

Fair said, "Some wounds take a long time to heal. And I am sorry, truly sorry. Harry, I was scared to death that I was missing something." He paused. "But if I hadn't made such a major mistake I wouldn't have known what a fool I was. Maybe other people can learn without as much chaos, but I don't think I could have grown if I hadn't gone through that time. The sorrow of it is, I dragged you through it, too."

Harry leaned against the clapboard side of the post office, the wood warm on her back. All three animals turned their faces up to her. She looked down at them, opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"Go on," Mrs. Murphy encouraged her.

Harry picked up the tiger cat, stroking her. "I don't guess there is another way to learn. I don't know if it's worse being the one who goes or the one who stays. Does that make sense?"

"It does, sort of," BoomBoom replied. "We're so different, Harry, that if this hadn't happened we still wouldn't be best friends. I'm driven by my emotions, and you, well, you're much more logical."

"I apologize for my rude remarks. And I accept your apology."

"Mom is growing up at last." Tucker felt quite proud of her human.

Before more could be said, Mrs. Hogendobber opened the back door. "Cynthia Cooper here to see all three of you."

They trooped back in, feeling a bit sheepish.

Cynthia noticed their demeanor and after a few pleasantries she asked them about the shoot, if they noticed anything un-usual about Charlie, if they had any specific ideas.

Each person confirmed what the other said. Nothing was different. Charlie was Charlie.

Cooper stuck her notepad in her back hip pocket. "Harry, I need to see you alone." She shepherded Harry out to the squad car. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter watched through the window. They could clearly see from their perch on the divider.

"What's going on?" Tucker, intently staring out the window, asked.

"Mother is frowning, talking, and using her hands a lot."

"I can see that. I mean what is really going on?" the dog snipped.

"H-m-m." Pewter blinked, not pleased with the turn of events.

The air-conditioning hummed in the squad car. Empty po-tato chip bags lay on the seat. Harry removed them to the floor.

"Whatever possessed you to tell Charlie Ashcraft he'd die before you'd sleep with him?"

"Coop, I don't know. I was mad as hell."

"Well, it doesn't look good. Because of that outburst I have to consider you a suspect. It was a dumb thing to say."

"Yeah . . ." Harry bent over, picked up the potato chip bags, and folded them lengthwise. "I hated that guy. But you know perfectly well I didn't kill him."

"Can you account for your whereabouts from six-thirty to eight last night?"

"Sure. I was on the farm."

"Can anyone corroborate this?" Cooper wrote in her steno pad.

"Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker."

"That's not funny, Harry. You really are a suspect."

"Oh come on, Cynthia."

"You are a member of the country club. It wouldn't have been difficult for you."

"No, I'm not," Harry quickly spoke. "Mom and Dad were but after they died I couldn't afford the dues. I'm allowed to go to the club once a month, which I usually do with Susan if she needs a tennis partner."

"But your presence at the club wouldn't seem unusual. Everyone knows you."

"Coop, let me tell you: there are old biddies, male and female, who have nothing better to do than cast the searching eye. If I had been there, you can be sure someone would have reported me because I've already played with Susan this month. I've used up my allotted time."

Cynthia flipped her book closed. "Do you think you could kill?"

"Sure, I could. In self-defense."

"In anger?"

"Probably," she replied honestly.

"He sexually baited you."

"He'd been doing that since high school."

"You snapped."

"Nope." Harry folded her arms across her chest.

Cynthia exhaled through her nostrils. "Rick will insist on keeping you an active suspect until better shows up. You know how he is. So don't leave the state. If an emergency should arise and you need to leaveVirginia , call me."

"I'm not leaving. Now I'm insulted. If you don't find the killer, I will."

"What I'd advise you to do, Harry, is watch your mouth. That's why we're sitting in my squad car on a hot August day."

"I suppose BoomBoom couldn't wait to tell how I lost my temper."

"Let's just say she performed her civic duty."

"That bitch."

"Yes, well, if that bitch winds up dead you are in trouble."

"Coop, I didn't kill Charlie Ashcraft."

Relenting, dropping her professional demeanor, Cynthia replied, "I know-but shut up. Really."

Harry smoothed the folded potato chip bags on her thigh. "I will. I don't know what's come over me. It's like I just don't give a damn anymore." She stared out the window. "You think it's this reunion? I'm getting stirred up?"

"I don't know. Your high-school class seems, well, volatile." She paused. "One more question."

"Sure."

"Do you think this murder has anything to do with your high-school reunion?"

"Nah. How could it?"

10

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" Tucker inquired of Mrs. Murphy and Pewter as the animals watched Harry fall in love with her new truck.

"She's read the manual twice, she's crawled under the truck, and now she's identifying and playing with every single part she can reach in the engine. Humans are extremely peculiar. All this attention to a hunk of metal," Pewter said.

A little breeze kicked up a wind devil in front of the barn door where the animals crouched in the shade. Harry worked in the fading sunlight.

"It's a perfect red." Mrs. Murphy felt more people would notice her riding in a red truck than in any other color. "Look who's rolling down the road."

They heard the tire crunch a half mile away, saw the dust and soon Blair Bainbridge's 911 wide-body black turbo Porsche glided into view, a vastly different machine than the dually but each suited for its purpose.

Harry put down the grease gun she'd been using and wiped her hands on an old towel as Blair stopped. "Hey, had to see the new truck. I didn't believe it when Little Mim told me, but when Big Mim said you truly had a new truck, one that could haul your trailer, I had to see it."

"Big Mim is interested in my truck?" Harry smiled.

"The only topic of conversation hotter than your red truck is the end of Charlie Ashcraft. Everyone has a suspect and no one cares. Amazing." He stretched his long legs, unfolding himself from the cockpit of the Porsche. "It seems like everyone knew Charlie but no one really knew him."

"You could say that about a lot of people."

"Yes, I guess you could," he agreed.

She lingered over the big V-8 engine, admiring the cleanliness of it, touching the fuel injection ports, which meant she had to stand on an old wooden Coca-Cola box to lean down into the compact engine. "Blair, men talk. What are they saying?"

"Oh," he waved his hand, "I'm not in the inner circle." He took a breath.

"You know I value your judgment. You were born and bred here and, uh . . ." He stopped for a moment. "I find myself in a delicate situation."

"Too many women, too little time." Harry laughed.

He laughed, too. Harry relaxed him. "Not exactly, but close. Over the years we've become friends and I think I would have committed more blunders without you. I'm afraid I'm heading for a real cock-up, as the Brits say."

"Little Mim."

"Yes." He glanced up at the sky. "See, it's like this: women accuse men of being superficial over looks. Trust me. Women are equally as superficial."

"You would know." She smiled at the unbelievably handsome model.

Blair flew all over the world for photo shoots. The biggest names in men's fashions wanted him.

"You're not going to put up a fight? You're not going to tell me men are worse than women?"

"Nope." Harry jammed her hands in her back pockets. "Now tell me what's going on."

"Little Mim has a crush on me. Okay, I've dealt with crushes before and I like her. Don't get me wrong. But over the weekend I was at a fund-raiser and, of course, the Sanburnes were there. Big Mim pulled me away from the crowd, took me down to the rathskeller, and closed the door."

"This is getting serious," Harry remarked. The rathskeller was a small stone room in the basement of the Farmington Country Club.

"She offered me cash if I would stay away from Marilyn. She said modeling was not a suitable profession for her son-in-law."

"No!" Harry blurted out.

"I make a lot of money, but let's just say my business is timesensitive. I'd be a liar if I said I'm immune to a big bribe. And I've had enough scrapes and breaks to my body to wake me up to that fact. My Teotan Partnership Investment is doing very well, though. But really, I was shocked that the old girl would try to buy me off."

Through various twists and turns Blair wound up sole director of a corporation originally set up to sell water toAlbemarleCounty . However, he'd begun bottling it and selling the mountain water-purified, of course-in specialty stores. This proved lucrative.

"You don't need her money." Harry thought to herself that it must be nice.

"No. But the Sanburnes control Crozet. If I spurn Little Mim, I'm cooked. If I ignore Big Mim's wishes, I'm cooked."

"M-m-m." Harry removed her hands from her pockets and rubbed them together absentmindedly. "Do you like Marilyn?" She called Little Mim by her Christian name.

"Yes."

"Love?"

"No. Not yet, if ever. That takes time for me." He pursed his lips.

"Well, squire Little Mim around to local functions, spend some time with her and her family. Sometimes when you really get to know someone things look different. You look different, too."

He paused and rephrased his thoughts. "If I'm up-front about getting to know her daughter, the family, Mim will take it better if I choose to spend my life with her daughter?" he questioned, then quietly added, "If the relationship should progress, I mean."

"He is a Yankee." Mrs. Murphy laughed because Blair missed the subtlety of Harry's suggestion.

"Because he's only thinking of his feelings about Little Mim." Pewter had gotten a spot of grease on her paw, licked it, and spit.

"Go drink water," Tucker told her.

The gray cat scampered into the barn, standing on her hind legs to drink out of the water bucket in the wash stall.

"He's missing the point, that this gives Little Mim and Big Mim plenty of time to assess him." Tucker stood up and shook. "Mom's betting on Little Mim getting the stars out of her eyes."

"No. I think Mom is giving everyone a chance to draw closer or gracefully decline. If he walks away from Mim's offer she'll be furious. And if he took it he'd be held in contempt by her forever."

"He's in a fix. You don't think Little Marilyn knows?"

"Tucker, it would kill her."

"Yeah."

Pewter mumbled back, "Let's drag that grease gun into the woods."

"You'll have even more grease on you."

Pewter eyed the dog. "I hate it when you're smarter than I am."

All three animals laughed.

". . . no hurry," Harry continued. "If you go slow and be honest, things will turn out for the best."

"I knew you'd know the right thing to do."

"And pay court to Big Mim even if she's cold to you. She loves the attention."

"Right." He folded himself back into his car. "Glad you fi-nally got a new truck."

"Me, too."

He drove back down the driveway without fully realizing that now he really wanted Little Mim precisely because her mother refused him. Suddenly Little Mim was a challenge. She was desirable. People are funny that way.

As soon as he was out of sight, Harry raced for the phone in the tackroom.

"Susan."

"What?"

"I was just thinking about how people say one thing and do another-sometimes on purpose and sometimes because they don't know what they're doing."

"Yes . . ." Susan drew out the yes.

"Well, I was just talking to Blair about another matter but it made me think about people concealing their true intentions. Like Charlie's behavior toward Marcy Wiggins at the shoot."

"He didn't pay much attention to her at the shoot." Susan thought back.

"Exactly," Harry said.

"H-m-m." Susan thought it over.