Pawing Through The Past

"I trust Market."

"Harry, you know what I mean. You won't trust men as romantic partners. You won't let a man into your life."

"I guess." Her voice sounded resigned.

"You know, I dropped by tonight to see how you were-check the horses, too. I don't know if it's your reunion or because I'm getting close to forty . . . the murders or that this late summer has been uncommonly beautiful, but whatever it is-I love you. I have always loved you, even when I was acting a fool. And I think you love me. Love me the old way. Down deep."

She stared into his clear light eyes. Memories. Their first kiss. Dancing on the football field to the car radio. Driving to colonial Williamsburg in Fair's old 1961 Chevy truck. Laughing. And finally, loving.

"Maybe I do."

"Equivocal?"

"I do."

He leaned across the table and kissed her.

"It would be more romantic if they'd wash one another's heads," Pewter advised.

"They're not cats," Mrs. Murphy said.

"Nobody's perfect." Tucker burst out laughing.

27

At seven in the morning a haze softened the outline of trees, buildings, bridges. Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper, in separate vehicles, pulled into the paved driveway to the doctors' offices. Johnson McIntire, a brass plaque, was discreetly placed next to the dark blue door.

The white clapboard building looked like the house it once was. Back in the early fifties, Larry Johnson bought it and the house next door, where he continued to live.

Larry, slightly stooped now, his hair a rich silver, opened the door himself when the officers of the law knocked.

"Come in, come in." He smiled genially. "If you all are up as early as I am, it must be important. The murders, I suppose."

"Yes." Rick closed the door behind him as they followed Larry into his office covered with a lifetime of service awards and his medical diploma.

"Can I get you all some coffee?"

"No, no, thank you. We're already tanked." Deputy Cooper fished her notebook from her back pocket.

"Larry." Rick called the doctor by his first name as did most people. "You knew Charlie Ashcraft and Leo Burkey."

"I delivered them. In those days you did everything. G.P. meant just that."

"You saw them grow up?" Rick stated as much as he asked.

"I did."

"And you would therefore have an assessment of their characters?"

"I think so, yes." Larry leaned back in his chair. "Are you asking for same?"

"Yes. I took the long way around." Rick laughed at himself.

"Charlie was a brilliant boy. Truly brilliant. He covered it up as any good Southern gentleman would do, of course. His success in the stock market didn't surprise me as it did others. He was upright in his business dealings. Even as a child he was inter-ested in business, and honest. As you know, his downfall was women. He was like most men who were spoiled and coddled by a mother. They go through the rest of their life expecting this treatment and what amazes me is there is always a large pool of women willing to be used. But if you separated Charlie from the woman thing, he was a decent man."

"What about Leo?" Coop asked.

"Strong. Even as a child, quite physically strong. A pleasing boy. You had to like him. Another good-looking kid, not as dramatically handsome as Charlie but good-looking. I saw little of him after he left for college and then moved to Richmond."

"Did these two have anything in common that you could see?"

"No."

"What about medically? Was there anything they both suffered from? Depression or something?"

"No. Not as far as I know. After all, I stopped being Leo's doctor after high school. Both boys had the usual round of strep throat, flu, chicken pox. But nothing out of the ordinary."

"Could either man have infected sex partners with venereal diseases?" Rick was zeroing in on the area he sensed would be most fruitful.

Larry put his hands behind his head, leaning back. He glanced at the ceiling, then back at the two before him. "As you know, the relationship with a patient is confidential."

"We know, but both patients are dead and I hope and pray these murders are at an end. But Larry, what if? I've got to find out everything I can. Everything."

Larry's voice dropped as he brought his hands back on his desk. "Rick, the two men don't have anything in common medically. Again, I haven't seen Leo Burkey as a patient since he graduated from college, which had to be, well, 1984 or 1985, I guess."

Cynthia checked her notes. "Right. 1984."

"So there are no illegitimate children from high-school days? No follies?"

"Not for Leo. Again, not under my care. Charlie, as you would imagine, was quite a different matter."

"Yes," Rick said. "Tiffany said you'd know everything."

"She did, did she?" Larry shook his head. "Life is too short to be so unforgiving. Of all Charlie's ex-wives and ex-flames she's the one who hates the most. It will destroy her in the end."

"Could you be more specific?" Cynthia tried to hide her impatience.

"He fathered a child after graduating from high school. The child was put up for adoption. The rumor always was that he fathered the child in high school but it was during his college days. That was the beginning of a career of sexual irresponsibility that rivals that of any rock star. He refused to use any form of birth control. He believed if a woman went to bed with him that was her responsibility. He used to say, 'If she's dumb enough to want the baby, she should have it.' That sort of thing. He slept with so many people he contracted genital herpes, which he happily passed along. I treated him for gonorrhea eight times in his lifetime. Curiously, he never contracted syphilis."

"What about AIDS?"

Larry leveled his gaze. "Yes. At the time of his death he was HIV-positive but showing no signs. He had resources and could afford every new drug that came down the pike, plus, apart from the sexual risks he took, he kept himself in good shape."

"He could have infected others?" Cynthia was scribbling as fast as she could.

"Could and did."

"Will you give us their names?" Rick knew he wouldn't.

"I can't do that."

"Any of them married?"

"Yes."

"Brother." Rick sighed.

"The husband doesn't know and I suppose he won't know until he discovers he's infected or his wife shows symptoms. People can be HIV-positive for years and not know it. This virus mutates, it alters its protein shell. In a strange fashion it's an intelligent virus. Every day we learn more but it's not enough."

"Charlie slept with woman A. Did she become positive immediately?"

"I don't honestly know. Yes, I can't give you a hard and fast answer. We do know of cases where an uninfected person has repeated contact with an infected person, sexually, and does not contract the disease. There's a famous case of two female cousins, African-American, who are prostitutes. They have been repeatedly exposed to AIDS, yet remain immune. The other oddity is that different people show clinical signs of infection at different times. A fifteen-year-old boy may show signs quite soon after becoming positive whereas a thirty-five-year-old man might not show any for years. It's puzzling, infuriating, and ultimately-terrifying."

Rick and Cynthia sat silent.

Cynthia finally spoke. "Does the woman know she's HIV-positive?"

"Yes. One is in denial. I see that quite often when a person learns they have a disease for which there is no cure. Flat denial." He folded his arms across his chest, glanced at the ceiling. "The other woman died last year. There were two. There may be more but I've only treated two. I'm not the only doctor in town."

"I see." Rick clasped and unclasped his hands.

"People are capable of great evil-even nice people. Life has taught me that. Korea opened my eyes and then general practice did the rest." He paused. "Having said that, I think I'm a good judge of character. The woman still alive would not kill Charlie Ashcraft. I really believe that. I don't think Leo Burkey is even in the picture on this one."

"Would Charlie Ashcraft ever sleep with men?" Cynthia surprised both men by asking what to her was obvious: Charlie and Leo could have been lovers.

A considered moment followed. Larry cleared his throat. "Under the right circumstances, yes. Charlie was driven-and I mean driven-by sex. He was irrational and irrationality is always dangerous. We tend to laugh off sexual dysfunction in men, especially if it's of the aggressive variety, satyriasis."

"Beg pardon?"

"The male version of nymphomania," Larry answered Cynthia.

"Oh."

"We laugh and tell jokes about what a stud he is but in fact he's sick. In Charlie's case he was sick in body as well as in mind."

"Did Tiffany know about the AIDS?" Rick inquired.

"He was not infected when they were divorced, which was three years ago. Charlie became HIV-positive shortly thereafter and displayed no signs of the disease. In other words, he was HIV-positive but he had not yet developed full-blown AIDS. I don't know if Tiffany knew about it. She would, of course, know about the genital herpes and she no doubt suspected there were unclaimed children along the way."

"More than the one?" Cynthia was surprised, although on second thought she wondered why.

"Yes-but only one lives here. The others were out of town."

"My God, did he provide for them or anything?" Like most women, Cooper had a strong maternal streak and couldn't understand how some men could be so callous concerning their offspring.

"As far as I know he didn't do squat." Larry rose from his chair and sat on the edge of his desk before them. "We're professionals. You and I see things most people do not see and don't want to see. We aren't supposed to be emotional. Well, I fail because there were times when I could have killed Charlie myself-and yet, I liked the guy." He held up his hands.

"Larry, the mother might have strong motivation to kill Charlie."

"Not now. The child is in the late teens and in no danger from infection. Charlie became HIV-positive seventeen years after the child's birth. As for the other women, why kill him now? Furthermore, Rick, the murders of Charlie and Leo appear to be by the same person. Yes?"

"Yes."

"The connection is the answer and I don't have it." He cleared his throat. "When do you get the autopsy report on Leo?"

"Not until next week. Everyone is on vacation. The coroner's office is shorthanded."

"Would you like me to call in and ask for special blood work?"

"Yes, thank you. If they both were HIV-positive that would be a beginning."

"I'll call them right now. We can talk to them together." He glanced at the clock on his desk. "Someone will be there by now."

The rest of the day Cynthia Cooper thought about the young person in Crozet. She hoped the person would have Charlie's looks and his brilliance but not his grotesque irresponsibility. Then she thought how she looked at people every day but didn't really see them. They were all accustomed to one another. If there was a resemblance to Charlie, she'd missed it.

28

The slight drone of a bumblebee, growing stronger by the moment, irritated Mrs. Murphy to the point where she opened one glittering green eye. The marvel of insect engineering zoomed closer. She batted at it with a paw but the large black and yellow creature zigged out of the way.

"Losing your touch," Tucker laconically commented.

"Bull. I'm lying on my side. If I'd been sitting up that bomber wouldn't have had a chance. 'Course, if I'd been sitting up she wouldn't have come near me."

"Yeah, yeah," Tucker, also on her side under a hydrangea bush, said.

Mrs. Murphy sat up. "Where's Pewter?"

"In the post office. Leave the air-conditioning? Ha!"

The sweltering heat intensified. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker had left the post office to scrounge around Miranda's garden in the late morning. It didn't seem so hot then but they couldn't find anything of interest despite a soft, lingering chipmunk scent, so they fell asleep.

BoomBoom's elegant BMW rumbled down the alleyway. She parked behind the post office, getting out of the driver's side as Marcy Wiggins and Chris Sharpton emerged from the passenger and rear doors.

Chris glanced over at the dumpster and shuddered.

"Guess I shouldn't have parked here." BoomBoom's hand flew to her mouth. "I didn't think of it. I haven't processed all this emotionally. I mean, I still have such unresolved-"

"Let's go inside." Chris cut her off before BoomBoom's lament could gather steam.

Marcy kept staring at the dumpster. "I heard he was covered in maggots."

"No." Chris shook her head. "Stop this."

Marcy began shaking.

Tucker and Mrs. Murphy crept to the edge of Miranda's yard to listen more closely.

"Marcy, are you going to be sick?" BoomBoom moved toward her to help.

"No, no, but I can't take this. People talking behind our backs. Talking about Bill killing Charlie. Talking about me and Charlie. This is a vicious little town!" She burst into tears. "I wish we'd never moved here. Why did I let Bill talk me into this? He wanted to come home. He said he'd be head of oncology faster in Charlottesville than in some huge city."

BoomBoom put her arm around the frail woman. "Things will get better."

Chris put her arm around her from the opposite side. "People gossip in big cities, too."

"But you can get away from them. Here, you're"-she gulped for air-"trapped. And I'm not working on your high-school reunion anymore! I'm sorry but it's too dangerous."

"Marcy, that's okay," BoomBoom soothingly said. "But this awful stuff doesn't have anything to do with our reunion. It's some bizarre coincidence. Come on, let's get you in the air-conditioning. Harry will let you sit in the back while you, uh, regain your composure."

Marcy allowed herself to be led into the post office.

"Gossip." Tucker shook her head. "People would be much improved if their tongues were cut out of their heads."

"Maybe." Mrs. Murphy yawned.

"If I say red, you say black. If I say apples you say oranges. You're contrary."

Mrs. Murphy smiled. "Sometimes I am, I guess. It's the feline in me."

"Bum excuse."

"Gossip is ugly stuff said about people behind their backs. But people, being a herd animal, need to be in touch. They need to talk about one another. There's good talk and bad talk but think about it, Tucker, the worst thing that can happen to a human being is not to be talked about," Murphy expounded.

"Never thought of that," Tucker replied.

"Follow me."

The dog padded after the cat, the small pieces of gravel hot in the sun. They stopped in front of the dumpster. The yellow cordoning tape had been removed.

"Nothing left."

"I'm not so sure. Let's look where they put the plaster casts. See, there's little bits of plaster left in the indentations."

"I see that," the dog crabbily said as she stared at the chain-link heel mark from the Bean boot and the high-heel mark not far from it. "Left foot and right."

"Could be anybody's and these marks may have nothing to do with Leo's demise but if Rick Shaw took plaster casts we ought to pay some attention to them. They're close together."

"Like two people, you mean. One holding him on the left side and one on the right. That's why the heel mark is deep on this right side."

"It's a possibility."

"So that means there are two people in on this."

"That, too, is a possibility." She lifted her head, sniffing the air. "Rain coming."

Tucker sniffed. "Tonight."

"The bullet into Leo's forehead was fired at close range. And the humans are saying that means he knew who killed him. But who else, I mean, what manner of stranger, would a man allow close to him?"

"A child."

"Or a woman."

"Ah, the two marks. A woman. She kills him and her male partner helps dispose of the body."

"I don't know, but I'm leaning that way."

"It could have been Marcy and Bill Wiggins."

"Could have been Laurel and Hardy, too."

"There you go again. Smartmouth." The dog headed toward the animal door of the post office.

The cat came alongside, brushing against her friend. "You're right. I'm awful." She walked a few steps, then stopped. "What bothers me is that we're missing something and I won't feel reassured until we know it. I don't like that Mom knew these two as well as she did."

"She wasn't romantically involved with either of them."

"For which we should be grateful."

"And no women have been killed."

"Grateful for that, too."

Tucker blinked, then sneezed. "Lily pollen."

"It's on your coat, too."

"Don't want Miranda to know I was in her lilies."

"Roll in the dirt."

"Then I'll get yelled at."

"Better to be yelled at for that than for creeping through the lily beds."

"You're right." Tucker rolled over.

When they slipped through the animal door no one noticed them, since everyone was ministering to Marcy Wiggins.

Tucker crawled under a mail cart. Mrs. Murphy hopped into it, landing on a recumbent Pewter, who jumped up, spitting and hissing.

"Pewts, Pewts, I'm sorry," Murphy laughed.

Pewter, not yet in a forgiving frame of mind, lashed out, cuffing Mrs. Murphy on the cheek.

Mrs. Murphy returned the favor and soon the mail cart was rolling, thanks to their violence. Tucker's rear end stuck out behind the cart.

"Hey, you two!" Harry clapped her hands over the mail cart, which diverted the cats' attention. Then her eye fell on a dirty corgi behind. "What have you done?"

"Nothing," came the meek reply.

"Fleas," Mrs. Hogendobber declared. "Rolling in the dirt because of fleas."

"Guess it means a bath and flea powder when we get home." Harry sighed.

"Thanks, Murphy," Tucker growled.

"How was I to know?" she said, then whispered to Pewter what had happened. Pewter giggled.

"It's like having children," Chris laughed.

"Marcy, feeling better?" Mrs. Hogendobber offered her more iced tea.

"Yes, thank you." She nodded, then turned to Harry. "I told BoomBoom and Chris I'm not working on your reunion anymore. Who knows what will happen next?"

"I understand." Harry didn't believe in trying to convince people to do what they didn't want to do.

"And I'll thank you all to stop talking about me."

"We aren't talking about you." Harry wrinkled her brow, puzzled.

"Everyone is. You think I don't know." She stood up and whirled on BoomBoom. "And don't tell me I need to drink chamomile tea or some other dipshit herbal remedy! You all think I'm having marital problems. You think I slept with Charlie Ashcraft and-"

"Marcy, you need to go home." Chris grabbed her friend under the elbow, pushing her out the back door as Marcy continued to babble.

"Paranoid," BoomBoom flatly said.

"That's a pretty harsh judgment," Harry countered.

"Call it what you like then."

"Well, BoomBoom, try to see it from her point of view. She doesn't have the advantage of being one of us," Harry said.

"Right now I'd say that was not such an advantage," Pewter called out from the mail cart.

"Boom, you seem out of sorts today." Miranda hoped to calm the waters.

"I am." She glared at Harry. "Cynthia Cooper called on me this morning before I left for golf and do you know what she asked me? If I had had any illegitimate children with Charlie Ashcraft or if I had any sexually transmitted diseases!"

"How come you're yelling at me?"

"Because you baited her into it."

"Boom, I don't know anything about such . . . matters."

"Well, you obviously think my life is one big promiscuous party!"

"Girls." Miranda held up her hands. "I do wish you two would make some kind of peace."

"Peace? She nips at me like a Jack Russell. Sex. Always sex. Right, Harry?"

"Wrong." Harry's face darkened as the animals watched, fascinated. "I haven't said a word to Cynthia, and why would I even think about venereal disease? God, BoomBoom."

"Then who did?"

Miranda looked heavenward. "Please, dear Lord, don't send anyone into the P.O. for a while." She returned to the battling pair. "Time out. Now you two sit down, be civil, and discuss this or I am throwing you both out. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," they both said, startled at Miranda's vehemence.

"Sit down." She pointed to the table. They sat. "Now, questions such as BoomBoom is asking do not come out of the blue. Instead of accusing Harry, why don't you both think back. Think back as far as you have to go."

They sat mute.

Harry fingered the grain on the old table. "Remember in our junior year, people whispered that Charlie got someone pregnant?"

BoomBoom thought about it. "Yes, but no one left school."

"If the baby was due at the end of the summer she might not have had to leave," Miranda said. "Some women show less than others."

"There's always gym class. If someone was packing on the pounds, we'd know," Harry said.

"Did anyone get an excuse from gym class?"

"Lord, I don't know. That was twenty years ago."

"Perhaps it wasn't someone at your high school. There's St. Elizabeth's, or it may have been someone already out of school," Miranda offered.

"That's true. Cynthia must be getting desperate, running down ancient rumors." BoomBoom folded her arms across her ample chest.

"Charlie's death could have old roots."

"Twenty years is a long time to get even," BoomBoom said.

"Depends on how angry you are," Mrs. Murphy said. "Someone hurt badly enough might live their entire life waiting for revenge."

"What do you want in there?" Harry called out to the cats in the mail cart.

"Nothing. We're trying to help," Murphy replied.

"There were rumors about Charlie right up to the present." BoomBoom softened somewhat. "I'd heard that he'd gotten AIDS. Heard that at the club. He'd slept with some society queen in Washington, no surprise, but I heard she died a year ago. The papers hushed it up. Said she had heart failure."

"Did you tell Coop?"

"Yes. And I also told her that anyone infected with the AIDS virus by him could be mad enough to kill."

"A mother wishing to protect a child might also have plenty of motivation," Miranda added. "But it's a dreadful thing to do. I would think the child would find out who her father was, sooner or later."

"Her?" Harry looked quizzically at Miranda.

"Him."

"Do you know something we don't?" BoomBoom's voice grew stronger.

"No, I don't. But remember your Bible. Numbers. Chapter thirty-two, Verse twenty-three. 'Be sure your sin will find you out.'"

Chris popped her head back in the door. "BoomBoom, if you need more time, I'll run Marcy home. She's having a hard time."

BoomBoom rose. "I'll be right there." She paused before Miranda. "Do you think it's a sin to have a child out of wedlock?"

"No. I think it's inadvisable but not a sin. To me the sin is in not caring for the child."

BoomBoom silently opened the door and left.

"Miranda, you surprise me."

"You thought I'd say the woman should be stoned?" The older woman smiled ruefully. "Harry, I've lived long enough to know I can't sit in judgment of anyone. So many young women out there want to be loved and don't know the difference between sex and love."

"Then what sin were you referring to when you quoted Numbers?"

"Oh." She dropped her head for a moment. "The sin of cruelty. The sin of bruising another's heart, of abandoning someone to pain that you have caused. The sin of carelessness and callousness and self-centeredness. I don't know what Charlie's sins were, I mean, other than gossip. And I certainly don't know what Leo's sins were, but someone out there feels he or she has suffered enough."

29

"You're sure you want to do this?"

Mrs. Hogendobber tossed her head. "Absolutely. I used to be on the lacrosse team." She paused. "Granted that was some time ago but my athletic abilities haven't completely eroded."

Tracy placed two skateboards on the macadam surface. The parking lot at the back of the grade school was empty. Nobody driving by would see them, which was just how Miranda wanted it.

"H-m-m." He gingerly put one sneakered foot on the board to test the rollers.

Knee guards, elbow guards, and helmets made the two senior citizens look like creatures from outer space, or perhaps older space.

"Before I hop on, how do I stop?"

"Make a sharp turn in either direction and as you slow, tip the nose forward. At least, I think that's what you do."

"M-m-m." She breathed in. "Here goes." She put her right foot on the back of the board, her left foot on the front. Nothing happened.

Tracy, now aboard himself, coached, "Push off with your right foot."

She reached down and shoved off with more force than she had intended. "Whoa!"

Mrs. H. rolled along the level parking lot, her arms outstretched to balance her, laughing and hollering like a third-grader.

Tracy pulled alongside. "Not bad for our first time out!"

"Harry is going to die when I fly past her in the hallway."

"Cuddles, you won't be able to wait until the reunion. You'll surprise her before then." He started to wobble and hopped off.

"I thought you said turn sharply." Which she did.

"Didn't take my own advice." He bent over to pick up the skateboard. "I'll do it right this time." He hopped back on, pushed off, then practiced a stop. "I get it. Twist from the waist."

Miranda, watching him, tried it. She lurched to the side but didn't lose her balance. "Stopping is harder than moving on."

"Is in skiing, too."

"I don't know how young people go down banks, circle around in concrete pipes." She recalled footage she'd seen on television.

"We don't have to do that." He laughed as he rolled along even faster.

She picked up the skateboard, examined the brightly colored rollers, put it back on the macadam, and got on again. "You know, I don't do enough things like this. Oh!" She picked up speed.

"You're busy every minute. That's what Harry says." He executed another stop, better this time.

"Sedentary stuff. I need to get out more. Maybe then I'll lose a little weight. I don't know how you managed to keep your figure. I guess for men we don't say figure."

"Thank you, ma'am, but you look good to me."

"I don't believe you, but I love to hear it." She stopped. "I'm quite out of breath."

"Walk. You don't have to jog. Walking will do the trick. And if you really want to lose weight cut out the fats and sugars."

"Oh dear." She grimaced.

"It's either that or exercise for three hours a day. I work out for an hour in the gym, always have. Now that I'm doing farmwork, I'm getting double workouts."

She twisted her lower body and did a turnabout, didn't have enough speed and slipped off but caught herself, merely falling forward with three big steps. "Say, that's hard."

He tried it. "It is."

"How do you like Harry? They say you never really know someone until you live with them."

"I like her fine. She's paying off her ex-husband for the old truck, you know. Hardheaded, isn't she? He just redeposits the check in her account and then they fight about it."

"Has a fear of obligation. Whole family was like that. But she especially doesn't want to be beholden to him. He dropped by and told me he'd had a talk with Harry. He says he's going to aggressively win her back."

"Faint heart ne'er won fair lady." He crouched low to pick up speed. "This is fun, you know?"

"Yes, it is. Hate the helmet, though."

"They are weenie but your head is precious-Precious." He called her "Precious," then stood up, slowed down, and hopped off while the skateboard kept going. "Those babies are well balanced."

"And so are you."

They both laughed as Miranda cut sharply to the right and neatly stepped off.

A siren far away pierced the late-afternoon quiet.

"Heading east," Miranda observed.

Within a few moments another siren attracted their attention. A squad car roared down from Whitehall, past the grade school, into town. Then it, too, headed left.

"Good heavens, what could it be this time?" Miranda wondered.

30

Harry, tape measure around Tomahawk, heard the phone ring in the tackroom. She ignored it, then gave in.

"Hello."

"Marcy Wiggins has shot herself." Susan Tucker's voice had none of its customary lilt.

"What?"

"Shot herself in the temple with a .38. Bitsy Valenzuela found her when she stopped by to pick up a picnic hamper she'd lent Marcy."

"When?"

"About an hour ago. Maybe longer. Bill Wiggins called Ned asking for legal representation in case it isn't a suicide. Bill was the first person Rick questioned, too. That's all I know."

"Is she dead?"

"Yes."

"That poor woman." Harry put her hand to her tem-ple. "She was definitely strange at the post office yester-day. Chris and BoomBoom took her home. She said everyone was talking about her and she couldn't stand it. Stuff like that. I should have paid more attention. Did she leave a note?"

"I don't know. Ned left the instant he hung up the phone. I believe this has something to do with Charlie."

"Yeah," Harry weakly replied. "What a September this has turned out to be."

31

Marcy's autopsy report revealed she had been HIV-positive. This, of course, was kept confidential. Leo Burkey's autopsy revealed him to be robustly healthy.

But the real shocker was when ballistics tests proved the gun that Marcy used to kill herself was the same one used to kill Charlie and Leo.

People assumed Marcy had been having an affair with Charlie. He tired of her. She snapped. Others said Bill killed Charlie but there was no evidence to link Bill to her demise. Rick and Cooper had been thorough on that count. She couldn't live with her guilt for betraying her husband. No one could figure out why she wanted to do in Leo but the scientific fact remained: it was her gun.

She did leave a suicide note which simply said, "I can't stand it anymore. Forgive me. Marcy."

The rest of September passed with no more murders. People breathed a sigh of relief.

The plans for the reunion remained in full swing. Dennis Rablan dated Chris Sharpton, which set tongues wagging. Some people thought she was wasting her time. Others thought he was dating her in hopes of getting her to wisely invest what little he had left. A few thought they made a cute couple. Dennis was happy again. Market asked her out once but she gracefully declined, saying she was focusing on Dennis. Blair Bainbridge dated Little Mim under the glare of a silently disapproving Big Mim. Everyone remarked how well they danced together but not in front of Big Mim, of course. The speculation on Blair and Little Mim was even hotter than the gossip concerning Dennis and Chris.

Harry went to the movies every Wednesday night with Fair, Tracy, and Miranda. However, she was in no hurry to get closer to her ex, but she did draw closer to Tracy-closer than she could have imagined. Theirs was a father-daughter sort of relationship. He, wisely, never asked about her romantic status with Fair, figuring sooner or later she would discuss it.

Once the sirocco of gossip died down, Crozet returned to normal. Mim bossed everyone about-but she was gaining more support for her gardening project. BoomBoom obsessed about the reunion. Harry was doing a great job on publicity. Susan had the caterers lined up. One for breakfast and lunch, a different one for dinner only because two of the participants ran catering businesses.

The horses gained weight on the alfalfa cubes. Harry had to cut back on the amount she was feeding them.

Pewter actually lost some weight during the September heat wave. Everyone commented on how good she looked.

Tucker endured a flea bath once a week.

Mrs. Murphy refused to accept that Marcy Wiggins had killed two men. No one paid any attention to her, so she finally shut up. Murphy kept repeating that she "wasn't the type." It was Leo Burkey's murder that kept Murphy on alert.

She crouched in the tackroom just to the side of a mouse hole on this beautiful early-October day. Pewter walked in, as did Tucker.

"Hear anything?" Pewter inquired.

"They're singing again."

Tucker cocked her head. "'The Old Gray Mare'-where do they get these old songs?"

"Beats me." Mrs. Murphy, disgusted, shook her head. "I'll figure that out just about the time I figure out the murders."

"Oh, Murph, don't start that again. It's over and done." Tucker put her head flat on the tackroom floor as she tried to peer into the mouse hole.

"All right, but I'm telling you, something is coming out of left field. Just wait."

Pewter, opinionated, said, "Why would a murderer jeopardize himself after getting off scot-free? I mean, if it wasn't Marcy, why would that person kill again?"

"Because the job isn't finished."

Tucker gave up on seeing the mice. "Murphy, you always say that murders are committed over love or money. Marcy had the love angle."

"No one was robbed. Nix the money," Pewter chipped in.

"Remember the humans thought there might be an insurance payoff, but Leo left no insurance and Marcy's policy was quite small. No trust funds either," Tucker said.

"'. . . she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be . . .'" The mice boomed out the chorus.

"I hate them." Mrs. Murphy's striped tail lashed back and forth.

"Let's go outside. Then we don't have to listen," Pewter sensibly suggested, and the three animals trotted to the roses at the back of the house.

"Great year for roses." Pewter sniffed the huge blooms.

"Silly refrain, 'ain't what she used to be many long years ago,'" Murphy sang the chorus. Much as she scorned the song, she couldn't get it out of her head.

32

Crozet's citizens walked with a snap in their step. They were two days from a big weekend.

Crozet High would play Western Albemarle for Homecoming. The class of 1950 was having its fiftieth reunion and the class of 1980 was celebrating its twentieth.

The Apple Harvest Festival would follow that, filling up the following week.

Fall had arrived with its spectacular display of color and perfect sixty-degree days, followed by nights of light frost.

Everyone was in a good mood.

Harry sorted the mail. She liked the sound the paper made when she slipped envelopes into the metal post office boxes. She tossed her own mail over her shoulder. It scattered all over the floor.

Miranda glanced at the old railroad clock hanging on the wall. "Another fifteen minutes and Big Mim will be at the door." She pointed to Harry's mail on the floor. "Better get that up."

"Not yet!" Pewter meowed as she skidded onto the papers.

Mrs. Murphy followed.

"Copycat," Tucker smirked.

"If this were a dead chicken you'd be rolling in it." Murphy bit into a brown manila envelope.

"Of course." Tucker put her nose to the floor so her eyes would be even with Murphy, now on a maniacal destruction mission.

"Dead chickens!" Pewter pushed a white envelope with a cellophane window deeper into the small pile of increasingly tattered paper.

Harry knelt down. Two pairs of eyes, pupils huge, stared back at her. "Crazy cats."

"Sorry human," Pewter replied.

"You can't say that." Tucker defended Harry.

"All humans are sorry. Doesn't mean I don't love her. Oh, this sounds divine." Pewter sank her fangs into the clear address panel and it crackled.

"Tucker, you take life too seriously." Murphy had stretched to her full width over the mail.

"Enough." Harry started pulling papers from underneath the cats, who would smack down on the moving paper with their paws. "Let go."

"No," Pewter sassed.

"She's a strong little booger." Harry finally pulled out a triple-folded piece of paper, stapled shut. Four claw rips shredded the top part. The staple popped off as she pulled on a small piece of paper attached to it.

Harry opened what was left. A small black ball, no message, was in the middle of the page. She checked the postmark: 22901, the main post office in Charlottesville. "Looks like another one."

"Oh, no." Miranda hurried over. "Well, I don't know."

"I'll check the other boxes."

Her classmates each had a letter, too.

Miranda was already dialing Rick Shaw.

Big Mim knocked at the front door. Harry unlocked it, letting her in at eight A.M. on the dot.

"Good morning, Harry."

Miranda hung up. "Morning, Mim."

"Look." Harry showed Big Mim the mailing.

"Not very original, is he?" Mim sniffed, as she held the torn paper in her gloved hands.

"No." Harry sighed. "But each murder occurred after each mailing."

"Call Rick?"

"Just did," Miranda said.

"Whoever this is seems determined to spoil your reunion." Mim tapped the countertop.

"He already has, in a way. We won't be talking about what we've learned in twenty years or remembering the dumb things we did in high school. We'll be talking about the murders." Harry was angry.

"'Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many.'" Miranda quoted Matthew. Chapter seven, Verse thirteen. "I don't know why that just popped into my head."

33

Streamers dangled from clumps of shiny metallic balloons, hanging like bunches of grapes. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter raced around the gym, leaping upwards to bat the strings. Tucker sat under a ladder watching the reunion crew frantically hanging the blown-up photo posters of the senior superlatives.

A light frost covered the ground with a silvery glaze. The gym, large and unheated for decorating, proved chilly. Fortunately, it would be heated in the morning.

Harry and Chris had set up three long tables by the entrance. These they covered with white tablecloths. Sitting on the tablecloths were beautifully marked stand-up cards for each letter of the alphabet. In neat piles in front of the alphabet cards were the identification badges for each returning class member. Each badge, on the upper left-hand side, carried a small photograph of the individual from high-school days. This had proved costly, causing another row between Harry and BoomBoom, but even Boom admitted, once she saw the badges, that it was effective. Some people change so much that the high-school photograph would be the only way to recognize them.

Susan brought sandwiches. Always organized, she had arranged the food for the two-day celebration but she'd even thought of the hard work the night before. They only had Friday night in which to prepare, since Crozet High was in use throughout the week.

BoomBoom surprised everyone by having the photo frames built weeks before. Every balsa-wood frame was numbered, as were the low baskets in the shape of a running horse, the centerpieces on the table.

T-shirts were rolled and wrapped with blue and gold raffia. Disposable cameras, one for each participant, were also in the baskets, along with items from local merchants. Art Bushey threw in Ford key chains. Blue Ridge Graphics gave a deep discount on the T-shirts. The baseball caps, on the other hand, were on sale to raise money to pay for cost overruns. The T-shirts were meant to be money raisers but Bob Shoaf, who'd made a bundle in pro football, contributed the money for them so no one would be left out in case they hadn't enough money for mementos.

Harry's job was over. She'd stepped up publicity with each succeeding week. She'd done radio spots, appeared on Channel 29 Nightly News-along with BoomBoom, who never could resist a camera. She'd created clever newspaper ads using the mascot and pictures from 1980.

Local bed-and-breakfasts, as well as one hotel chain, offered discounts for returning members of the class of 1980 as well as the class of 1950.

Out of one hundred and thirty-two surviving classmates, seventy-four had sent in their deposits, as well as complaints about the strange mailings.

For Mrs. Hogendobber the return rate was one hundred percent. A fiftieth high-school reunion was too special to miss.

"Looks good." Harry admired the entrance tables. "It's simple. There's nothing to knock over. No centerpiece. They can pick up their badges and go."

"Now, where's the pile of badges for people you couldn't think of, I mean, you couldn't think of anything to say. You'll have to think fast," Chris said.

"They're here in this paper bag on my seat." Harry nervously pointed to the bag. "But I don't know if I'll be able to think of anything."

"Well, since I have no preconceived notions, I'll pop over from time to time and whisper in your ear-things like 'He looks like a warthog!'" She smiled. "Got your dress?"

"Yes. Miranda and Susan hauled me to town. Only have to wear it to the dance. I'm not wearing it the rest of the time."

A whoop from the hallway diverted their attention.

"Harry! You owe me ten dollars," Miranda's voice rang out.

Harry, along with the animals, hurried out into the long, polished hallway to behold Miranda on a skateboard, Tracy just behind her.

"I don't believe it!"

"Ten dollars." Miranda triumphantly held out her hand.

"Did I say ten dollars?" She grinned, then fished in her pocket. She'd forgotten the bet but vaguely remembered a crack about Miranda not being able to skateboard.

"She can do wheelies," Pewter remarked.

"Frightening, isn't it?" Tucker guffawed. "That's a lot of lady to hit the ground."

As though she understood the corgi, Miranda pushed off with her right foot and headed directly for the dog, who had the presence of mind to jump out of the way.

Mrs. Murphy said, "She's lost a lot of weight, Tucker. There's not so much lady to hit the ground. But still . . ."

"Sweetest ten dollars I ever made." Miranda held up the green bill after stopping.

Tracy stepped off his skateboard to put his arm around Miranda. "This girl practiced. She can even go down hills now."

"Mrs. H., you're something else." Harry laughed.

"Never underestimate the power of a woman." Miranda again waved the ten dollars in the air as Susan, BoomBoom, and Chris entered the hallway to see what was going on.

"Hee hee." Mrs. Murphy, eyes gleaming, hopped on Miranda's skateboard, rolling a few yards down the hallway.

"Human. That cat is human," Chris marveled.

"Don't flatter yourself." Mrs. Murphy got off, made a circle at a trot, then hopped on again, picking up a little speed.

Miranda finally took the skateboard from her, putting it behind the door of the cafeteria. Murphy would have pushed it out to play some more but Harry scooped her up to take her home. She was tired, even though the name-tag display hadn't been that trying. It was the anticipation that was exhausting her, that and a tiny ripple of dread.

34

Heart racing, Harry threw another log on the fire in the bedroom fireplace. She crawled into bed, finding the sheets cold. Then she crawled out, grabbed a sweatshirt, pulled it over her head, and slid back under the covers. Keeping an old house warm was a struggle, especially for Harry, who watched her pennies.

"Will you settle down?" Pewter grumbled from the other pillow.

The dry cherry log slowly caught fire, releasing a lovely scent throughout the room.

Harry tilted the nightstand light toward her, picked up her clipboard and reviewed tomorrow's agenda. Mrs. Murphy, cuddled on her left side, observed. Tucker was stretched out in front of the hearth, head on her paws.

"Okay. The tables are already set alongside the gym for breakfast. Susan's having the food delivered at seven-thirty. Bonnie Baltier said she'd be here in time to help me man the check-in table. She understands she has to write something, anything, on the name cards with names only on them. The band will set up tonight when we go home to change. Amazing how many amps those electric guitars and stuff suck up. And I suppose we'll all hold BoomBoom's hand, who's really supposed to be in charge, but by now is Miss Basketcase Crozet High." She parked her pencil behind her right ear. "My second superlative photo didn't turn out so badly. I think it's better than BoomBoom's."

"Me, too," Tucker called up to her.

"Just don't draw a mustache on BoomBoom's, Mom-or at least wait until the end of the reunion."

"Mrs. Murphy, maybe I'll put a blue and gold bow on you for the festivities."

"Won't she be fetching," Pewter meowed.

"Don't be catty," Murphy rejoined.

"Ha, ha," Tucker dryly commented.

"You guys are a regular gossip club tonight." Harry scanned her clipboard, then put it on the nightstand. She put her right hand over her heart. "My heart is thumping away. I don't know why I'm so nervous. I wasn't nervous at our fifteenth reunion." She stroked Murphy's silken head. "People know I'm divorced. Oh, I'm not really nervous about that. They can just hang if they don't like it. I'm hardly the only person in our class who's suffered romantic ups and downs. Don't know. Of course, how many divorced people are dating their exes? Guess it's seeing everybody at the same time. Overload."

"Sure, Mom," Mrs. Murphy purred, closing her eyes.

She snatched her clipboard again. "Fair said he'd be there as a gofer. Everyone will be glad to see him. Half the girls in my class had a crush on him. I think he wants to be there-in case." She again spoke to Mrs. Murphy since Pewter had curled up in a ball, her back to Harry. "Say, can you believe Miranda on that skateboard? Or you, Murphy."

"I can do anything."

"Oh, please." Tucker rolled on her side. "Why don't you two go to sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a long, long day."

As if in response, Harry replaced the clipboard and turned out the light.

35

Screams echoed up and down Crozet High School's green halls as classmates from 1980 and 1950 greeted one another. Southern women feel a greeting is not sufficiently friendly if not accompanied by screams, shouts, flurries of kisses, and one big hug. The men tone down the shouts but grasp hands firmly, pat one another on the back, punch one another on the arm, and if really overcome, whisper, "Sumbitch."

Harry, up at five-thirty, as was Tracy, finished her chores in record time, arriving at the school by seven. Tracy picked up Miranda so he arrived at seven-fifteen. Everything was actually organized so Harry sat next to Bonnie Baltier checking people in. Dennis Rablan, three cameras hanging around his neck, took photographs of everyone. Chris assisted him with long, smoldering looks as she handed him film.

Tucker sat under Harry's legs while Mrs. Murphy defiantly sat on the table. Pewter ditched all of them, heading toward the cafeteria for Miranda's reunion. The food would be better.

The class of 1950 arranged tables in a circle so everyone could chat and see one another. Pewter zoomed into the cafeteria, which was decorated with blue and gold stallions built like carousel horses and fixed to the support beams. Miranda had said that Tracy was working on something special but no one realized it would be this special. The beams themselves were wrapped with wide blue and gold metallic ribbons. The room was festooned with bunting. The cafeteria actually looked better than the gym with its huge photographs, then and now, and blue and gold streamers dangling from huge balloon clusters.

Best, to Pewter's way of thinking, was the breakfast room itself. Miranda had sewn blue and gold tablecloths. On each table was a low, pretty, fall floral bouquet.

Pewter noticed Miranda's and Tracy's skateboards resting behind the door. She also noticed that this reunion, forty-two strong, was quieter. There were more tears, more genuine affection. One member, a thin man with a neatly trimmed beard, sat in a wheelchair. A few others needed assistance due to the vicissitudes of injury or illness. Apart from that, Pewter thought that most of the class of 1950 looked impressive, younger than their years, with Miranda glowing. She'd lost twenty-five pounds since the beginning of September and Pewter had never realized how pretty Miranda really was. She wore a tartan wraparound skirt, a sparkling white blouse, and her usual sensible shoes. She also smiled every time she glanced at Tracy. He smiled at her a lot, too.

"Pewter Motor Scooter!" Miranda hailed her as the gray cat dashed into the room. "Welcome to the class of 1950."

"What a darling cat. A Confederate cat." A tiny lady in green clapped her hands together as the gray cat sauntered into the room.

"We work together," Miranda laughed, telling people about Pewter's mail-sorting abilities while feeding her sausage tidbits.

"I am so-o-o happy to be here," Pewter honestly said.

About ten minutes later Harry ducked her head into the room. "Hi, everybody. Aha, I thought I'd find you here."

"I like it here!"

"Folks, this is Doug Minor's girl-remember Doug and Grace Minor? Grace was a Hepworth, you know."

Martha Jones, quite tall, held out her hand. "I know your mother very well. We were at Sweet Briar together. You greatly resemble Grace."

"Thank you, Miss Jones. People do tell me that."

"Your mother was the boldest rider. She took every fence at Sweet Briar, got bored, jumped out of the college grounds, and I believe she jumped every fence on every farm on the north side of Lynchburg."

People laughed.

Miranda said, "Mary Minor is a wonderful rider."

"Thanks, Mrs. H., but I'm not as good as Mom. She was in Mim's class."

"Where is Mimsy?" the thin man in the wheelchair bellowed.

"I'm here. You always were impatient, Carl Winters, and I can see that little has changed that." Mim swept in dressed in a buttery, burnt-sienna suede shirt and skirt. "You know, I wish I had graduated from Crozet High. Madeira wasn't half as much fun, but then, all-girls schools never are."

"You're really one of us, anyway." A plump lady kissed Mim on the cheek.

"I'll take my thief back to the gym," Harry said while the others talked.

"She can stay. She'll come back anyway. It's fine."

"Please, Mom." Pewter's chartreuse eyes glistened with sincerity.

"Well . . . okay," Harry lowered her voice, leaning toward Miranda. "Your decorations are better." She raised her voice again. "Tracy, the carousel horses are spectacular!"

She left them smiling, talking, eating Miranda's famous orange sticky buns.

She ran into Bitsy Valenzuela and Chris Sharpton dragging an enormous coffee urn down the hall.

"Guys?"

"BoomBoom called me on the car phone and told me she was panicked. There wasn't enough coffee so we dashed over to Fred Tinsley's, which got Denny's nose out of joint since Chris was assisting him. I had to promise Fred six months free on his car phone to get this damn thing. E.R. will kill me," Bitsy moaned. "Is he here yet?"

"Yes, he brought miniature flashlights shaped like cell phones."

"That's my E.R. for you: ever the marketer."

"Would you like me to take a turn here? That looks heavy," Harry offered.

"Why don't you run in and get someone strong-like a man-to do this. That's what men are for." Bitsy gave up and slowly set down her side of the urn, as did Chris.

"Are we still allowed to say stuff like that?" Chris giggled.

"Yeah, among us girls we can say anything. We just can't say it publicly." Bitsy laughed, "Nor would I admit to E.R. that I need him. But I do need him."

Harry dashed into the gym, returning with Bob Shoaf, Most Athletic, who had played for seven years with the New York Giants as cornerback. Apart from having a great body, Bob wasn't hard to look at. He was, however, blissfully married, or so the newspapers always reported.

"Girls, you go on. I'll do this." He hoisted the urn up to his chest. "You two should look familiar to me but I'm afraid I can't place you."

"They helped us all summer and fall, Bob, but these two lovely damsels aren't from our class. Bitsy Valenzuela-Mrs. E. R. Valenzuela-and Chris Sharpton, a friend."

"Forgive me if I don't shake hands." He carried the urn into the gym, where BoomBoom greeted him as though he had brought back the Golden Fleece from Colchis.

Bitsy and Chris stopped inside the door. "It's odd."

"What?" Bitsy turned to Chris. "What's odd?"

"Seeing these people after staring at their yearbook pictures. It's like a photograph come to life."

"Not always for the best." Mrs. Murphy lifted her long eyebrows. The class of 1980 had been on earth long enough for the telltale spider veins in the face to show for those who drank too much. The former druggies might look a bit healthier but brain cells had fried. A poignant vacancy in the eyes signaled them. A lot of the men were losing their hair. Others wore the inner tube of early middle age, not that any of them would admit that middle age had started. Nature thought otherwise. Bad dye jobs marred a few of the women but by and large the women looked better than the men, testimony to the cultural pressure for women to fuss over themselves.

Bonnie absentmindedly stroked Mrs. Murphy as she double-checked her list. Everyone had checked in except for Meredith McLaughlin, who wouldn't arrive until lunch. Harry rejoined her while Chris joined Dennis, wreathed in smiles now that she was back.

"Done." Bonnie put down her felt-tip pen.

"You're a fast thinker. I should have remembered that." Harry smiled. "When you came up with 'Secret Life, Televangelist' for Dennis Rablan, I could have died. That was perfect. Even he liked it!"

"Had to do something. What do you put down for the Best All-Round who has . . ." She shrugged.

"Zipped through a trust fund and unzipped too many times," Harry laughed.

"And then there's you. Most Likely to Succeed and Most Athletic, running the post office at Crozet," Bonnie said.

"I guess everyone thinks I'm a failure."

"Not you, Mom, you're too special." Tucker reached up, putting her head in Harry's lap.

"No." Bonnie shook her head. "But if there were a category for underachiever, you'd have won. You were, and I guess still are, one of the smartest people in our class. What happened?"

Harry, dreading this conversation, which would be repeated in direct or subtle form over the next day and a half, breathed deeply. "I made a conscious choice to put my inner life ahead of my outer life. I don't know how else to say it."

"You can do both, you know," remarked Baltier, successful herself in the material world. She ran an insurance company specializing in equine clients.

"Bonnie, I was an Art History major. What were my choices? I could work for a big auction house or a small gallery or I could teach at the college level, which meant I would have had to go on and get my Ph.D. I never wanted to do that and besides I married my first year out of college. I thought things were great and they were-for a while."

"I'm rude." Baltier pushed back a forelock. "I hate to see waste. Your brain seems wasted to me."

"If you measure it by material terms, it is."

"The problem with measuring it in any other way is that you can't."

"I think it's time we join the others. I'm hungry."

"You pissed at me?"

"No. If BoomBoom had asked me I'd be pissed." Harry then nodded in the direction of an attractive woman on the move up, one face-lift to her credit, holding court by the pyramid of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. "Or her."

Deborah Kingsmill, voted Most Intellectual, truly thought she was superior to others because she was book-smart and because she'd escaped her parents. And that's exactly where her intelligence ended. She'd never learned that people with "less" intelligence possessed other gifts.

Deborah and Zeke Lehr, the male Most Intellectual, were pictured together reading a big book in Alderman Library. Zeke owned a printing business in Roanoke. He'd done well, had three kids and kept himself in good shape. He was pouring himself a second cup of coffee while listening to BoomBoom discuss the sufferings of organizing the reunion.

"Hey, thanks for your work." Rex Harnett, already smelling like booze, kissed Harry on the cheek.

"You know, it turned out to be fun," Harry admitted to the broad, square-built fellow, who had been voted Most School Spirit and would easily have qualified for Most School Spirits.

"Fair coming?"

"He is but he's probably on call this morning. He'll get here as soon as he can. He's as much a part of our class as his."

"You two getting back together?"

"Not you, too!" Harry mocked despair.

"I have personal reasons. You see, if you aren't interested in the blond god then I'd like to ask you out."

"Rex?" Harry was surprised and mildly revolted.

Tucker, on the floor, was even more surprised. "He's to the point. Gotta give him credit for that."

"I thought you were married."

"Divorced two years ago. Worst hell I've ever been through."

"Rex, I'm flattered by your attention"-she eased out of his request-"but we aren't the right mix."

He smiled. "Harry, you can say no nicer than any woman I know." He glanced across the room. "The redhead and the blonde look familiar but I can't place them."

"Bitsy Valenzuela, E.R.'s wife."

"The other woman?"

"Chris Sharpton. She moved here from Chicago and she and Bitsy helped us organize."

"Market looks the same. Less hair," Rex said. "Boom's the same."

"She's beautiful. She's surrounded by men," Harry flatly stated.

Bonnie Baltier, having grabbed a doughnut, joined them, as did Susan Tucker.

"Isn't this something?" Susan beamed.

"We've all got to go down the hall and congratulate the class of 1950," Harry suggested. "After breakfast. You can't believe how they've decorated the cafeteria."

"We can see ourselves thirty years from now." Rex smiled.

Bonnie was staring at the huge superlative photos. "You know who I miss? Aurora Hughes. What a good soul."

"I suppose with each reunion we'll miss a few more," Rex bluntly said.

"What a happy thought, you twit." Bonnie shook her head.

"Hell, Baltier, people die. For some, Charlie could have died even earlier."

Susan asked, "Remember the rumor that Charlie had an illegitimate child in our junior year?"

Rex shrugged. "Yeah."

Harry said, "Guys talk. You say things to each other you wouldn't say to us. Any ideas on who the mother was-or is, I should say?"

"No," Rex replied. "He dated a lot of girls. Raylene Ramsey was wild about him but she didn't leave school and she didn't gain weight. Wasn't her."

"Yeah, we thought the same thing," Susan said.

Bonnie dabbed the sugar crumbs from the corners of her mouth. "It doesn't matter. Let's concentrate on the good times."

"I'm for that. When's the bar open?" Rex held up his coffee cup.

"Six o'clock."

"I could be dead by then." He laughed as Bitsy, Chris, Bob, and Dennis joined their group. He slipped a flask from his pocket, taking a long swig.

"If you keep drinking the way you do, that's a possibility." Baltier let him have it.

"S-s-s-s." Rex made a burning sound, putting his finger on her skin.

36

By nine-thirty the whole group, including Fair, was called to attention by BoomBoom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention."

She didn't immediately get it.

Bob Shoaf cupped his hands to his lips. "Shut up, gang!"

The chatter frittered away, and all eyes turned toward BoomBoom, standing on a table. Modestly dressed by her standards, in a blue cashmere turtleneck, not too tight, a lovely deep-mustard skirt, and medium-height heels, she presented an imposing figure. She exuded an allure that baffled Harry, who saw BoomBoom as a silly goose. Harry wrote it off to the awesome physical asset that had given Olivia Ulrich her nickname. This was a mistake.

Women like Harry had a lot to learn from women like BoomBoom, who prey on male insecurities and unspoken dreams. Harry expected everyone, including men, to be rational, to know where lay their self-interest and to act on that self-interest. No wonder Mary Minor Haristeen was often surprised by people.

"Welcome, class of 1980." BoomBoom held out her hands as if in benediction. As the assemblage roared she turned her palms toward them for quiet. "All of us who worked on this reunion are thrilled that all of you have returned home. Mike Alvarez and Mignon, his wife, flew all the way from Los Angeles to be with us, winning Most Distance Traveled." Again the group roared approval.

As BoomBoom spoke the homilies reserved for such occasions, Harry, standing at the back with Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, surveyed her class. They were a spoiled generation.

Unlike Miranda's generation, who emerged from the tail end of World War II only to be dragged through Korea, Harry's generation knew the brief spasm of Desert Storm. Luckily they had missed Vietnam, which forever scarred its generation.

Everyone expected and owned one or two vehicles, one or more televisions, one or more computers, one or more telephones, including mobile phones. They had dishwashers, washers and dryers, workout equipment, stereo systems, and most had enough money left over for personal pleasures: golf, riding horses, fly-fishing in Montana, a week or two's vacation in Florida or Hawaii during the worst of winter. They expected to send their children to college and they were beginning, vaguely, to wonder if there'd be any money left when their retirement occurred.

Most of them were white, about ten percent were black. She could discern no difference in expectations although there were the obvious differences in opportunities but even that had improved since Miranda's time. Walter Trevelyn, her Most Likely to Succeed partner, a café-au-lait-colored African-American, did just that. He was the youngest president of a bank in Richmond specializing in commercial loans, a bank poised to reap the rewards of the growth Richmond had experienced and expected to experience into the twenty-first century.

About half the class was working class, a gap in style as much as money, but those members also had one or more vehicles, televisions, and the like.

The sufferings her generation endured were self-inflicted, setting apart the specters of gender and race. She wondered what would happen if they ever really hit hard times: a great natural catastrophe, a war, a debilitating Depression.

Susan slid up next to her. "You can't be that interested in what BoomBoom is saying."

Harry whispered back, "Just wondering what our generation will do if the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan."

"What every other generation of Americans has done: we'll get through it."

Harry smiled a halfway funny smile. "You know, Susan, you're absolutely right. I think too much."

"I can recall occasions where you didn't think at all," the tiger cat laconically added to the conversation.

Tucker, bored with the speeches, wandered to the food tables to eat up the crumbs on the floor.

"Harry!" BoomBoom called out.

Harry, like a kid caught napping in school, sheepishly blinked. "What?"

"The senior superlatives are asked to come forward."

"Oh, BoomBoom, everyone knows what I looked like then and now. You all go ahead."

Susan, her hand in the middle of Harry's back, propelled her toward the two big photographs as she peeled off to stand in front of her superlative, Best All-Round. Under the old photo the caption read Susan Diack. Under the new one, Susan Tucker. She glanced up at her high-school photograph. She and Dennis Rablan sat on a split-rail fence, wearing hunting attire, a fox curled up in her lap. Unlike Harry, she had changed physically. She was ten pounds heavier, although not plump. It was rather that solidness that comes to many in the middle thirties. Her hair was cut in the latest fashion. As a kid she had worn one long plait down her back. Dennis had grown another four inches.

Harry first stood at the Most Athletic, sharing a joke with Bob Shoaf, whom she liked despite his silly swagger. Then she dashed over to Most Likely to Succeed with Walter Trevelyn, who gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Everyone laughed as the superlatives laughed at their own young selves.

Then BoomBoom walked from her superlative, Best Looking, to Most Talented. "Folks, let's remember Aurora Hughes. Hank, what do you remember most about Aurora?" She turned to Hank Bittner, the Most Talented.

"Her kindness. She had a way of making you feel important." He smiled, remembering the girl dead almost twenty years.

Hank, talented though he was as a youth, had prudently chosen not to keep on with his rock band. Instead he moved to New York, began work in a music company, and had risen to become a powerful maker and breaker of rock groups.

Next BoomBoom walked to Most Popular. Meredith McLaughlin, late because of a prior commitment, had just skidded under her photographs. She glanced up at herself, young and old, and twice her former size to boot.

"Was that really me?" She hooted.

"Yes!" The group laughed with her.

"Meredith, what do you remember most about Ron Brindell?"

"The time he decided to wear a burnoose to class because we were studying the Middle East. Do you all remember that?" Many nodded in assent. "And old Mr. DiCrenscio pitched a fit and threw him out of class. Ron marched to Mr. Thomson, our principal, and said it was living history and he'd protest to the newspaper. Funniest thing I ever saw, Mr. Thomson trying to pacify both Ron and Mr. DiCrenscio."

"Thank you, Meredith."

She then walked over to Wittiest, where Bonnie Baltier muttered something under her breath, although by the time the tall woman reached her she was all smiles.

"What do you remember about Leo Burkey?" BoomBoom asked.

"His smart mouth. He got mad at Howie Maslow once and told him he could use his nose for a can opener."

People tittered. Howie Maslow, class president of 1978, had a nose like a hawk's beak. In fairness to Leo, the power had gone to Howie's head.

Then BoomBoom walked back to her own superlative and looked up at Charlie in 1980 and 2000. "He was always gorgeous. He was highly intelligent and fun. He had a terrific sense of fun. As to his weakness, well, who among us shall cast the first stone?"

A dead silence followed this until Hank Bittner called out, "I'll cast the first stone. He made my life miserable. Stole every girlfriend I ever had."

Everyone erupted at once. BoomBoom paled, waving her hands for people to quiet.

Finally, Fair, the tallest among them, bellowed, "Enough, guys, enough."

"Shut up, Fair, you're '79," Dennis Rablan hollered.

"Doesn't matter. Speak no ill of the dead." Market Shiflett defended his friend, Fair.

"Dead? Did they drive a stake through his heart? I'm sorry I missed the funeral," Bob Shoaf sputtered, and it was an amusing sight seeing a former cornerback and probably a man eventually to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, sputter.

"I'd like to find whoever shot him and give the guy a bottle of champagne," Hank called out.

The women silently observed the commotion among the men and without realizing it they gravitated together in the center of the room.

"This is going to ruin our reunion." BoomBoom wrung her hands.

"No, it won't. Let them get it out of their systems." Bitsy Valenzuela comforted Boom.

"People don't hold back here, do they?" Chris's eyes never left the arguing men.

Harry picked up Mrs. Murphy, who reached up at her to pat her face. "Boy, I haven't seen Market Shiflett this mad in years."

Market stood toe-to-toe with Bob Shoaf, shaking his fist in Bob's face. Rex Harnett stepped in, said something the ladies couldn't hear, and Market pasted him right in the nose. Dennis, like the paparazzo he longed to be, got the picture.

BoomBoom implored Harry, "Do something."

Harry, furious that BoomBoom expected her to solve the problem while she stood on the sidelines, stalked off, but as she did an idea occurred to her.

She walked to the corner of the room where Mike Alvarez had set up the dance tapes he'd made for the reunion. A huge tape deck, professional quality, loaded and ready to go, gave her the answer. She flipped the switch and Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall" blared out.

She coasted back to the women. "Okay, everyone grab a man and start dancing. If this doesn't work we'll go down the hall and visit the class of 1950. Maybe we'll learn something."

BoomBoom glided up to Bob Shoaf. Harry, with a shudder, took Rex Harnett. Chris paired off with Market Shiflett to his delight, Bitsy wavered then chose Mike Alvarez. Susan took Hank Bittner. Once all the men were accounted for, the place calmed down, except that Fair Haristeen strode up, tapping Rex on the shoulder.

"No," Rex replied.

"A tap on the shoulder means the same thing everywhere in the world, Rex."

"Lady's choice. I don't have to surrender this lovely woman even though you so foolishly did."

Fair, usually an even-tempered man but possibly overheated from the men's debacle, yanked Rex away from Harry.

Rex, fearing the bigger man, slunk to the sidelines, bitching and moaning with each step. Hank Bittner laughed at Rex as he passed him. In the great tradition of downward hostility, Rex hissed, "Faggot."

Shoaf, with his lightning-fast reflexes, tackled Rex as Fair grabbed Hank. The two combatants were hustled by their keepers outside the gym, Rex screaming at the top of his lungs. Tracy Raz, hearing the commotion, left his own reunion to assist Fair with Hank.

Although the music played the dancers stopped for a moment.

Chris was appalled. "Is that guy a Neanderthal or what?"

Harry said, "Neanderthal."

"What's he talking about?" Susan asked Dennis. "Calling Hank a faggot."

Dennis, lips white, replied, "I don't know."

37

Chris Sharpton headed for the door as Bitsy grabbed E.R. by the wrist, pulling him along to go outside.

BoomBoom hurried to them. "Don't let this bother you. It's just part of a reunion, confronting and resolving old issues."

"Hey, my reunion wasn't like this," Chris replied. "Then again, it's good theater. Bad manners but good theater."

E.R. stared. "BoomBoom, I don't believe old issues ever get resolved. It's all bullshit."

"Don't get started, E.R.," Bitsy said again, pulling her husband along. "I have to get my purse out of the car."

Chris watched them go down the hall, then followed.

Mrs. Murphy sauntered past BoomBoom. "Ta ta."

Harry, who hadn't heard E.R. tell Boom what he thought in plain English, followed her cat. Tucker had already zipped down the hall after Fair.

Harry walked down the hall to the far end, away from the parking lot, and pushed open the front doors. Fair and Hank stood under a flaming yellow and orange oak tree. Tucker sat at Fair's feet.

"Don't say it."

"I'm not saying anything." Harry tightly smiled as Hank shoved his hands in his pockets, his face red.

"Are you sufficiently calmed down?" She spoke to her old high-school friend.

"I suppose." He smiled. "It's funny. I live in New York City. I come back and it's like I never left."

Mrs. Murphy breathed in the October air for the day was deliciously warm, the temperature in the middle sixties. Tucker, far more interested than she was in these emotional moments, stayed glued to Fair. The tiger cat hitched her tail up with a twitch and a jerk.

"I'm going to walk around a little bit."

"I'm staying here," Tucker announced.

"Okay." Mrs. Murphy walked toward the back of the school. As she passed the parking lot she noticed Bitsy and E.R. heatedly talking at their car. Chris, carrying a large box of reunion T-shirts, pushed open the school doors with her back. They'd already sold out one box of T-shirts. Chris was resigned to being a gofer. She ignored Bitsy and E.R.

"You can stay, I am going!" Bitsy, hands on hips, faced her husband.

"Ah, honey, come on. It will get better."

Pewter circled the building from the other end. At the sight of the tiger cat, Pewter broke into a lope.

"You won't believe it." Her white whiskers swept forward in anticipation of her news. "Rex Harnett is back there carrying on like sin. I mean, he needs to have his mouth inspected by the sanitation department."

"Because of Hank?"

Pewter puffed out her chest. "Hank, Charlie, Dennis, you name it. He's, uh, voluble." She opened her right front paw, unleashed her claws, then folded them in again. "Mostly it's babble about how he couldn't make the football team and was elected Most School Spirit as a sop. Get a life! He did say that he knows who Charlie got pregnant."

"Well?"

"Nothing. He needed to sound important. I don't think he knows squat. Tracy Raz got disgusted and went back to his reunion. His parting words were 'Grow up.'"

"I'm not sure what really started the fight but I do know that Rex Harnett may be a drunk but that doesn't mean he's totally stupid. Maybe he does know something."

"Rex is hollering that he's no homosexual." Pewter loved the dirt. "Bob Shoaf told him to shut up. If Rex were homosexual, homosexuals would be grossed out. Pretty funny, really."

"I thought you were in the cafeteria with the golden oldies." Mrs. Murphy turned in a circle, then sat down.

"I ran out with Tracy. The hall amplifies noise." Pewter paused for effect, returning to the scene outside with Rex: "Then, and I tell you I about fell over, Rex started crying, saying that no one ever liked him. He did not deny being a drunk, however. Are they all nuts or what? I thought reunions were supposed to be happy. Miranda's is. Anyway, Rex stormed off to the men's room. I think Bob walked around to the other side of the school to find Fair and Hank."

"The hormone level is a lot lower at Miranda's." The tiger smiled. "They're just animals, you know. That's what so sad. They spend their lifetime denying it but they're just animals. I can't see that we act any worse when our mating hormones are kicking in than they do."

"Paddy proves that," Pewter slyly said, making an oblique reference to Mrs. Murphy's great love, a black tom with white feet and a white chest, a most handsome cat but a cad.

"If you think you're going to provoke me, you aren't. I'm going back inside. Who knows, maybe someone else will blow up or reveal a secret from the past."

Pewter had hoped for a rise out of Murphy. "Me, too."

They bounced onto the steps of the side door. The old, two-story building had a front door with pilasters, a back door into the gym, and two side doors which were simple double doors.

One side door was propped open. They walked down the main hall toward the gym.

Susan Tucker, Deborah Kingsmill, and Bonnie Baltier barely noticed the cats as they walked by them.

"-ruin the whole reunion."

"They'll get over it," Susan replied.

"I wish everyone would stop speculating about who Charlie got pregnant. I fully expect everyone to sit down with their yearbooks and scrutinize every female in the book from all three classes. That's not why we're here and anyway, nothing anyone can do about it."

"Baltier, people love a mystery," Susan said.

"No one even knows if it's true," Deborah Kingsmill sensibly replied. "Because he was so handsome people make up stories. If it isn't true they want it to be true. It's like those tabloid stories you read about superstars drinking lizard blood."

The women laughed.

"What's so strange about drinking lizard blood?" Pewter asked.

"Pewter." Mrs. Murphy reached out and swatted Pewter's tail.

As the cats laughed and the three women headed back to the gym, Harry came into the hall from the front door.

Before the cats could run to her and Tucker, a shout from the men's locker room diverted their attention. Dennis Rablan threw open the door, stepped outside, leaned against the wall and slid down. He hit the floor with a thump. He scrambled up on his hands and knees, tried to clear his head and stood upright.

As Susan, Bonnie, and Deborah ran to him from one direction, Harry and Tucker ran from the other.

"Call an ambulance," Dennis croaked.

38

"Don't go in there." Dennis barred the way as Harry and Susan moved toward the men's locker-room door.

"They'll never notice us." Mrs. Murphy slipped in since the door was easy to push open. Pewter and Tucker followed.

They ran into the open square where the urinals were placed. Three toilet stalls were at a right angle to the urinals. A toilet stall door slowly swung open, not far.

"There." Pewter froze.

Rex Harnett's feet stuck out under the stall door.

"I'll check it out." Tucker dashed under the adjoining stall, then squeezed under the opening between the two stalls.

Mrs. Murphy, unable to contain her famous curiosity, slipped under from the other stall since Rex was in the middle one.

"He's dog meat," Mrs. Murphy blurted out, then glanced at Tucker. "Sorry."

"You'd better be."

"What is it? What is it?" Pewter meowed. Being a trifle squeamish, she remained outside.

Face distorted, turning purple, Rex's eyes bulged out of his head; the tight rope around his neck caused the unpleasant discoloration. His hands were tied behind his back, calf-roping style, quick, fast, and not expected to hold long. Between his eyes a neat hole bore evidence to a shot at close range with a small-caliber gun. No blood oozed from the entry point but blood did trickle out of his ears.

"Fast work." Murphy drew closer to the body. "What does your nose tell you?"

"What is it!" Pewter screeched.

"Shot between the eyes. And trussed up, sort of, scaredy cat."

"I'm not scared. I'm sensitive," Pewter responded to Murphy, a tough cat under any circumstances.

Although the odor of excrement and urine masked other smells as Rex's muscles had completely relaxed in death, Tucker sniffed the ankles, got on her hind legs and sniffed the inside of the wrists, since his arms were turned palm outward.

"No fear smell. This is a fresh kill. Maybe he's been dead fifteen minutes. Maybe not even that, Murphy. So if he had been terrified, I'd know. That scent lingers, especially in human armpits." She reached higher. "No. Either he never registered what hit him, or he didn't believe it. Like Charlie Ashcraft."

"And Leo Burkey." The sleek cat emerged from under the stall to face a cross Pewter.

"I am not a scaredy cat."

"Shut up, Pewter." Murphy smacked her on the side of the face. "Just shut up. You know what this means. It means the murders are about this reunion. And it means that Marcy Wiggins didn't kill Charlie. She may have been killed because she got too close. We can't discount her death as suicide."

"What are we going to do?" Tucker, upset and wanting to get Harry out of the school, whimpered.

"I wish I knew." Murphy ran her paw over her whiskers, nervously.

"We know one thing." Pewter moved toward the door. "Whoever this is, is fast, cold-blooded, and wastes no opportunities."

"We know something else." Tee Tucker softly padded up next to the gray cat. "The murderer wants the attention. Most murderers want to hide. This one wants everyone to know he's here."

"That's what scares me." Murphy solemnly pushed open the door as the humans from both reunions piled into the highly polished hallway.

39

Harry could hear the wheels of the gurney clicking over the polished hall as Diana Robb carted away Rex Harnett's body. Her stomach flopped over, a ripple of fear flushed her face. She took a deep breath.

"Damnedest thing I ever saw," Market Shiflett said under his breath.

Harry and Market walked into a classroom only to find Miranda, Tracy, and others there from the other reunion. The two cats and dog quietly filed in. Mrs. Murphy sat on the window ledge in the back, Pewter sat on Harry's desk, and Tucker watched from just inside the doorway.

Within moments, BoomBoom entered. "After all our hard work. Twenty years ruined."

"Really ruined for Rex," Harry said, but with no edge to her voice.

"Well . . . yes," BoomBoom said after a delay.

Susan ducked into the room. "Most people are filing back into the gym. Cynthia Cooper is herding us in there. I guess we'll be questioned en masse."

"Lot of good that will do." BoomBoom ran her forefinger through her long hair. "The murderer isn't going to confess. After all, any of the men could have killed Rex." Because she didn't protest that the murder had nothing to do with the reunion, meant she'd accepted the fact that it was connected.

"So every man is a suspect?" Harry's voice rose in disbelief.

"Girls, this won't get you anywhere." Miranda's lovely voice shut them up. "Whatever is going on presents a danger to everyone, but we can't let the killer erode the trust we've built over the years. The way to solve these heinous crimes is to draw closer together, not farther apart."

"You're right," Susan said.

"What if one of us were to see the killer? How long do you think we'd live?" BoomBoom trembled.

"Not long," Pewter answered.

"Let's not give way to fear," Market advised. "Hard not to, I know."

"Maybe the person who did it got away. That's why Cynthia and Rick want us in the gym, to count heads." BoomBoom allowed herself a moment of wishful thinking.

Tracy leaned toward her. "Whoever did this is in the gym."

"Come on then, let's get it over with." Harry marched out of the classroom.

"Come on." Mrs. Murphy tagged behind as Pewter and Tucker followed, too.

"If there's a killer in there, I'm not going." BoomBoom's voice rose.

"You're safer in there than you are out here." Miranda put her hand under BoomBoom's elbow, propelling her out of the classroom.

40

"Class of 1950 over here." Sheriff Shaw indicated the left side of the gym. "Class of 1980 to the right. Who has the rosters?"

"I do." Miranda stepped forward with her attendance list.

Rick took it from her hand. "Coop, go down the list with Miranda. Meet each person and check them off."

"Right, boss."

"Okay, what about 1980?"

"I've got it." Bonnie Baltier walked back to the table, picked up the Xeroxed sheets, and walked back, handing them to the sheriff.

"You stay with me. I want you to check off each name and show me who the person is. Use a colored pen. You've already got them checked off in black."

"Anyone got a colored pen?" Baltier called out.

"I do." Bitsy stepped forward, handing Bonnie a red pen. "E.R. is a member of this class and he was with me in the parking lot at the time of the murder," she told the sheriff.

E.R. called out, "Bitsy, don't bother the sheriff."

Chris Sharpton moved up alongside Rick. "It's not my reunion."

"Well, it is for now. Sit down." He pointed to the check-in table. "I'll get to you last and then you can go home. I assume you want to go home."

"Yes," she nodded slowly.

"All right." Rick walked with Bonnie. "One-two-three."

As they worked their way down the line, Harry observed how differently people deal with authority. Some classmates answered directly. Others exhibited attitude, not at all helpful under the circumstances. The doctors in the room felt it necessary to behave like authority figures themselves. A few people were intimidated. Others were clearly frightened.

As they neared the end of the list, Hank Bittner asked to go to the bathroom.

"You'll have to wait until I'm through with this. Another five minutes. We're almost at the end."

Bob Shoaf called out, "Don't forget Fair Haristeen."

"I sent an officer out to find him." Rick's voice remained even. He felt as if he were a teacher with a room full of misbehaving children. In a way, he was.

"We're also missing Dennis Rablan." Bonnie scanned the familiar yet older faces. "Hey, anyone seen Dennis?"

"The last I saw, he'd come out of the bathroom," Harry spoke up, and a few others corroborated her statement.

"Did he walk down the hall? Go outside for a breath of fresh air?" Rick tapped his fingers against his thigh. He held on to his temper but he was greatly disturbed. Dennis might be the witness he needed-or the killer. However, there was a lot of commotion. People don't expect murder at their high-school reunion. And they don't think to keep track of one another.

"Tucker, you stick with Mom. Pewter and I will scout around for Dennis," Mrs. Murphy ordered the corgi.

Pewter was out the door before Mrs. Murphy finished her sentence.

Since the class of 1950 consisted of forty-six people, Cynthia had finished the name check and was taking down whatever information the attendees might have. Nothing useful emerged since all of them, including Tracy Raz, were gathered in the cafeteria for the welcoming ceremonies.

"Boss"-Cynthia crossed over to Rick-"we can let them go. At least, let them go back to the cafeteria."

"Yeah, okay."

Cynthia dismissed the class.

Martha Jones of the 1950 class said to a squatty fellow, bald as a cue ball, "I'm not at all sure I want to go back to the cafeteria."

"There's safety in numbers," he replied. "This is their problem, not ours."

As the last member of the class of 1950 filed out, Cynthia joined Rick.

"Let's divide them into groups of ten." He lowered his voice. "I don't think I can hold them here all day. The best we can do is-"

Hank Bittner interrupted him. "Sheriff, the five minutes is over."

"Go on." Rick waved him off. "Everyone else stay here."

Fair Haristeen passed Hank as he made for the men's room, stopped in front of the one cordoned off, then turned heading in the other direction, toward another bathroom.

As Rick questioned Fair, who sat next to Bitsy, E.R., and Chris, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter prowled the hallway, sticking their heads in every classroom.

"Nothing here. If someone were dead and stuffed in a closet we could smell him," Pewter remarked. "Fresh blood carries."

"You know we have ten times the scent receptors in our nostrils than humans do," Murphy casually said. "And they say that hunting hounds have twenty million receptors. More even than Tee Tucker."

"I'd keep that to myself. You know how proud Tucker is of her scenting abilities." The tiger peeked into the cafeteria, where the class of 1950 was again getting settled, disquieted though they were. "Pewter, let's go upstairs."

The cats turned around and walked to the stairway to the second floor. There was one stairwell at the end of the building but they walked up the main one, the wide one, which was in the middle of the hall. The risers bore thousands of scuff marks; the treads, beaten down also, bore testimony to the ceaseless pounding of teenaged feet. Although the school sanded and finished the stairs once a year the wood had become thin, concave in spots, the black rubber of sneakers leaving the most obvious marks on the worn surface.

The cats reached the second floor. A chair rail ran along the green walls; small bits had broken off and were painted over. The floor was as worn as the stair treads.

Mrs. Murphy turned into the first classroom, hopped on the windowsill, and looked down.

Pewter jumped up to join her. As she looked down she saw a bluejay dart from a majestic blue spruce. "Hate those birds."

"They don't like you either."

"What are we looking for?" Pewter sneezed. "Dust," she said.

"Dennis Rablan. First order of business. Second order of business is to memorize the school. We can see a lot from here."

"Wonder if Dennis is dead?"

"I don't know." Mrs. Murphy put her paws on the wall, gently sliding down. "He was an average-sized man. There aren't too many places a killer can stuff a fellow like that. Closets. Freezers. Let's check out each room, go down the back stairway, and then we can check out the cars. I don't remember what kind of car Denny drove, do you?"

"No. Wasn't a car. It was one of those minivans."

They inspected each classroom, each bathroom, then trotted down the back stairs. They jumped on the hood of each car in the parking lot but no bodies were slumped over on the front seat.

"Don't jump on Mom's hood. She gets testy about paw prints." Pewter giggled.

A sheriff's department car pulled into the parking lot. Sitting in the front seat next to the officer was Dennis Rablan. The cats watched as the officer parked, got out, and Dennis, handcuffed, swung his feet out, touching the ground.

"Please take these off," Dennis pleaded. "I'm not a killer. Don't make me walk into the reunion like this."

"You left your reunion in a hurry, buddy, you can walk right back in wearing these bracelets. Eighty miles an hour in front of the Con-Agra Building. If you aren't guilty then you're running scared."

The cats followed behind the humans, who didn't notice them. As the officer, a young man of perhaps twenty-five, propelled Dennis into the gym, people turned. Their expressions ranged from disbelief to mild shock.

"I didn't do it!" Dennis shouted before anyone could say anything.

"Sheriff, I searched his van and found a hunting knife and a rope. No gun."

"Let me see the rope." Sheriff Shaw left for a moment as Dennis stood in the middle of the room.

He quickly returned, wearing thin rubber gloves, rope in hand. "Rablan, what's this?"

"I don't know. I didn't have a rope in my van this morning."

"Well, you sure have one in your van now."

"I didn't do it. I thought Rex Harnett was a worthless excuse for a man. I did. A useless parasite." He turned toward his classmates. "I can't remember him ever doing anything for anybody but himself."

"Maybe so but he didn't deserve to die for it." Hank Bittner, back from the bathroom, spoke calmly.

"Tucker," Mrs. Murphy softly called, "sniff the rope."

The beautiful corgi walked over to the sheriff, her claws clicking on the gym floor. She lifted her nose before Rick noticed. "Talcum powder."

When the sheriff looked down at the dog looking up, he paused as if to say something but didn't. He stared at Harry instead, who whistled for Tucker. She instantly obeyed.

"I didn't do it." Dennis set his jaw.

BoomBoom folded her arms across her chest. "Sheriff, he's not the type."

"Then who is?" the sheriff snapped back. "I have seen little old ladies commit fraud, fifteen-year-old kids blow away their parents, and ministers debauch their flocks. You tell me, who is?"

"If none of you are going to stand up for me, I'll tell everything I know about our senior year," Dennis taunted the others.

"You bastard!" Bittner lunged forward, reaching Dennis be-fore Cynthia could catch him. With one crunching uppercut he knocked Dennis off his feet.

Rick grabbed Hank's right arm as the young officer pinned the other one.

"He's a liar. He doesn't know anything about anybody," Hank snarled.

Bob Shoaf confirmed Hank's opinion. "Right, Rablan, make up stories to save your own ass."

Dennis, helped to his feet by Cynthia, sneered. "I'll tell what I want to when I want to and I'll extract maximum revenge. It was never my idea. I just happened to be there."

"Be where?" Rick asked.

"In the showers."

"Let me get this straight." Rick motioned for Jason, the young officer, to unlock the handcuffs. "You're talking about today? Or 1980?"

"He's scared out of his wits," Pewter whispered.

Dennis looked around the room and his bravado seemed to fade. "I don't remember anything. But someone planted that rope in my van."

"Fool's blabbing about the rope before it's tested." Market Shiflett was disgusted with Dennis.

"Can I go home?" Chris sighed.

"No," Rick curtly answered.

Harry, next to Fair, said, "What did happen my senior year?"

Susan, on her other side, whispered, "Those that know are rapidly disappearing."

"Yeah, all part of the in-group clique." Harry felt dreadful, half-queasy over the deaths and the lingering presence of in-tended evil.

"All men," Susan again whispered.

"So far," Fair said. He was worried for all of them.

41

"Now what's the story." Rick folded his hands on the wooden desk with the slanted top, and leaned forward.

Cynthia remained in the gym checking everyone's hands for residue from firing the gun. She also checked their purses and pockets for surgical gloves. As lunchtime approached Rick de-cided the class of 1980 could enjoy their lunch as planned. Susan, in charge of the food, was rearranging tables with help. It would be a somber group that ate barbecue.

Rick meanwhile commandeered a classroom down the hall. Then he intended to interview the senior superlatives since they were the ones dying off, the men, anyway.

Market was number one on the list.

"I heard it second-no, thirdhand." Market coughed behind his hand. "I didn't think about it-even then-because Charlie was always bragging about himself. But . . ."

"Just tell me what you heard," Rick patiently asked.

"You know about senior superlatives?"

"Yes."

"I heard that on the day the class of 1980 elected theirs, which would have been mid-October, I think, there was the usual round of excitement and disappointment, depending on whether you were elected or not. But what I heard was that Charlie Ashcraft, Leo Burkey, Bob Shoaf, Dennis Rablan, and Rex Harnett pinned down Ron Brindell and raped him." Market grimaced. "They said if that faggot was going to be elected Most Popular they'd make sure he was popular. Or words to that effect. But Ron never reported them and he seemed on friendly terms with those guys. Just another one of those high-school rumors, like Charlie getting a girl pregnant."

Rick sighed. "Adolescent boys are terrified of sex and their own relation to it. Their answer to anything they don't understand is violence."

"I don't remember feeling all that violent," Market replied. "But I can't believe Ron would stay friendly with them after something like that."

"Depends on what he thought he had to do to survive. It's hard for many men to understand what it's like to be the victim of sexual violence," Rick said.

"I never thought of that." Market wondered what else he never thought of by virtue of being a man, a straight man.

"We worship violence in this country. Turn on your television. Go to the movies. I can tell you it makes my job a lot harder. Anyway, who told you this?" Rick returned to his questions.

"I wish I could remember. As I said, I dismissed the story and I never heard any more about it. I don't think the rumor made the rounds or it would have lasted longer. Damn, I wish I could remember who told me."

"Too bad."

"Maybe Ron wasn't a homosexual. Maybe he was just effeminate." Market thought a moment. "Must be hell to be a gay kid in high school."

"Anything else?"

"No. Well, Ron Brindell killed himself. His parents died shortly after that. From grief. He was their only son, you know. All that misery. I can't imagine killing myself."

"Self-hate." Rick offered Market a cigarette, which he refused. "All manner of things derail people: greed, lust, obsessions, sex, revenge, and self-hate. Then again I sometimes wonder if some people aren't born sorrowful." He inhaled. "Market, we've known each other for a long time. I don't mind telling you that we're sitting on a time bomb."

"Because everyone's gathered together?"

"Yes."

"But two murders took place before the reunion."

"That they did-with Marcy Wiggins' .38."

"Guess it was too good to be true." Market stopped. "I don't mean good that Marcy killed herself, but her gun . . . we all let our guard down."

Rick nodded in agreement. "Our first thought was a crime of passion. Bill had discovered the affair with Charlie, shot her, and made it look like suicide, taking the precaution to have her write a confession in her own hand. But Dr. Wiggins happened to be at the Fredericksburg Hospital that day. She could have been murdered by someone else but I don't think so. All indications were suicide."

"But her gun-"

Rick interrupted. "I know. I have a thousand theories and not one useful fact but I am willing to bet you a hundred dollars of my hard-earned pay that our murderer is sitting in the gymnasium right now. For whatever reason, this twentieth reunion has triggered him."

"Jeez, I just want to get out of here."

Rick frowned. "A normal response. I'm not sure I can let you all go. Not just yet, anyway."

As Market left the room, Rick thought about bringing in Dennis next. However, having Dennis in the gym would disquiet the others. Maybe he'd get more information from them if they stayed agitated. He decided to call Hank Bittner next.

Market walked back into the gym. Cynthia kept everyone on a short leash. No one could rush up to Market. He sat down at the end of the table, his grim visage further upsetting the others. Market was usually so cheerful.

Walter Trevelyn asked Cynthia, "Are we trapped in the gym or what?"

"Once Rick finishes his interviews, he'll make a decision." She kept checking hands.

"I think we should forget the reunion," Linda Osterhoudt, who'd looked so forward to this reunion, suggested. "How can we go on? At least, I can't go on."

BoomBoom put down her barbecue sandwich. "If we cancel our reunion then the murderer wins. He's spoiled everything."

"I'd rather have him win than me be dead," came the sharp retort from Market.

Others spoke in agreement.

Mike Alvarez dissented. "I came all the way from Los Angeles. If we stick together what can he do?"

"I have something to say about that." Mike's attractive wife spoke up. "We came all the way from L.A. and it would be perfect if we could live to go all the way back-soon."

He declined to reply.

"We could market this," Bonnie quipped. "You know, like those mystery party games? We'll create one, Murder at the Reunion. If you get a lemon, make lemonade."

"Baltier, how insensitive," BoomBoom chided.

Hank Bittner returned, telling Bob Shoaf to go out. Bob glared at Dennis, who glared right back. Then Bob turned on his heel and left to join Rick Shaw.

Chris sat, avoiding eye contact with Dennis. Market moved and sat on the other side of Chris, as if to reassure her.

Rick returned with Bob Shoaf, who didn't seem as upset as Market had been on his return to the group. Rick still wasn't ready to pull Dennis out of the room.

BoomBoom started to cry. "All my hard work . . ."

"Oh for Christ's sake." Harry smashed her plastic fork down so hard it broke. "This isn't about you."

"I know that but I wanted it to be so great. It's your hard work, too, and Susan's and Mike's and Dennis's. I bet he didn't get any pictures either."

"Yes, I did. Up until the murder."

"How long will it take you to develop them?" Cynthia inquired.

"If I take the film to my studio I can be back in an hour."

"You're not going to let him go?" Hank Bittner was incredulous.

"There's not enough evidence to book him," Cynthia answered.

"He left the scene of the crime!" Hank exploded.

"I didn't do it."

The room erupted again as Rick shouted for quiet. "We've got your names and addresses. We've got the hotels where you're staying. We'll get in touch with you if we need to. I have no desire to make this more uncomfortable than it has to be."

"Are you going to book Dennis?" Hank insisted.

"No, I'm not, but I'm going back with him to his studio," Rick stated.

Dennis bit his lip until it bled, realized what he had done and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

As Rick and Dennis left, Cynthia remained. BoomBoom stood up, then sat down abruptly as Susan pulled her down. They whispered for a moment.

Mrs. Murphy followed Dennis and Rick out to the squad car.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Dennis demanded.

"Look, Dennis"-Rick put his hand on the man's shoulder-"I know you're scared. I don't know why you're scared and I wish you'd tell me. Think a moment. You have to live in this county. Whatever it is that frightens you can't be as bad as ending up dead."

"I didn't do it." Dennis stubbornly stopped, planting his feet wide. "I did not rape Ron Brindell."

Rick paused a minute as this was an unexpected response. "I believe you. Why are you so frightened? That was twenty years ago. I believe it happened. I believe you. Why did you run away today? The only thing I can figure is you ran away from the others who were in on it. Or you think you're next."

He mumbled, "I don't know. It's crazy. People don't come back from the dead."

"No, they don't, but there's someone in that gym who loved Ron Brindell. A girlfriend who wants retribution for his suffering. Another man perhaps. He could have had a lover. None of you knew. The man's come back for his revenge after all these years. He could be married and have children. How would you know? We called Ron's cousin in Lawrence, Kansas, to see if she had any ideas. She said they were never close. She lost contact with him after high school. Right now, Dennis, you're my only hope."

Dennis hung his head as Mrs. Murphy scampered back to tell Pewter and Tucker. "I don't know anything."

The cat could hear the shouting from the gym and she wasn't halfway down the hall. She loped to the open double doors to behold all the humans on their feet, everyone shouting and screaming. BoomBoom was the only person seated and she was in tears.

Tucker ran over to greet Mrs. Murphy. Pewter, wide-eyed, remained on the table. The commotion mesmerized her. She wasn't even stealing ham and barbecue off plates.

The only people not fighting were Harry, Susan, Fair, Bitsy, and Chris. Even E.R. was yelling at people.

"I thought we were a good class." Susan mournfully observed the outbreak of bad manners and pent-up emotion.

"Maybe we should go down to Miranda's reunion," Harry said.

"And ruin it?" Fair bent over and brushed the front of his twill pants. "I say we all go home. No one in their right mind would stay for the dance tonight."

"Jesus, guys, what am I going to do with all the food that's been ordered? It's too late to cancel it. Someone's got to eat it."

"I never thought of that." Harry briskly walked back to the center of the melee. "Shut up!" No response. She stood on the table and yelled at the top of her lungs. "Shut up!"

One by one her classmates quieted, turning their faces to a woman they'd never had reason to doubt.

BoomBoom continued sobbing.

"Boom." Susan reached her, patting her on the back. "Wipe your eyes. Come on. We've got to make the best of it."

With all eyes on her, Harry took a deep breath, for she wasn't fond of public speaking. "We'll solve nothing by turning on one another. If anything, this is a time when we need one another's best efforts. As you know, the sheriff has released us. Before we scatter to the four corners of the globe, what are we to do with all the food Susan has ordered and you've paid for? Remember, we have the supper in the cafeteria tonight before the dance. We can't cancel it. We've paid for it. What do you want to do?"

"Let the class of 1950 have it," Hank said.

"They've organized their own dinner," Susan informed him.

"Can't we send it to the Salvation Army?" Deborah Kingsmill asked.

"I'll call them to find out." Susan left for her car. She'd left the cell phone inside it.

"We could eat our supper and go. It seems obscene to have a dance under these circumstances," Linda Osterhoudt said. "And it seems obscene to waste all that food if the Salvation Army won't take it."

Others murmured agreement.

"Shall we vote on it?" Harry asked.

"Wait until Susan comes back," Bonnie Baltier suggested.

"Even if we vote on it, it doesn't mean the majority rules." Market shook his head. "You can't make people come and eat."

"Well, we can count heads. And we can divide up what's left among those who choose to come back for supper." Harry turned as Susan reentered the room. "What'd they say?"

"Thanks for our generosity but they've only got six men in the shelter right now."

"Okay then, how many are willing to come back for supper in the cafeteria? No dance."

Feet shuffled, then a few hands were timidly raised. A few more moments and more hands shot up.

Fair and Harry counted.

"BoomBoom, surely you're coming." Susan handed her another tissue.

"I am," she weakly replied.

"You're coming, Cynthia?" Harry smiled as the deputy raised her hand.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Thirty."

"Thirty-one." Fair finished his count.

"How'd I miss one?" Harry wondered.

"You didn't. You just forgot to count yourself," he said.

"Okay then. We'll see you all tonight for supper, six o'clock in the cafeteria. Bring coolers and stuff so you can carry food back home." She put her hand on the edge of the table, swinging down, her feet touching the floor lightly.

"Graceful-for a human," Mrs. Murphy noted.

"Where's Chris?" Susan didn't see her.

"The minute Rick said we were free to go she shot out of here. Just about the time everyone started yelling at everyone else," Harry said.

"Can't blame her. She'll probably never talk to us again." Susan sighed.

"It wasn't your fault." Fair smiled at Susan.

"In a way it was. I roped Chris into this because of a bet we made on a golf game this summer. Of course, she was really hoping to meet a man and she found Dennis. Right now, I doubt she's too happy about that, too."

"I didn't say one thing about all that extra food." Pewter waited for praise to follow.

"Miracle. I've lived to see a miracle." Mrs. Murphy gaily sped out of the gym.

Cynthia sat in her squad car in the parking lot. The school, even with the heat on, was a bit chilly. The car heater warmed her. She'd found no residue on anyone's hands or clothing. The killer probably wore plastic gloves. She'd had every garbage can at school checked. While she held everyone in the gym, Jason went through the dumpster. Nothing-but disposing of a thin pair of gloves would have been easy.

42

As Harry drove away from Crozet High School she glanced in her rearview mirror at the brick building. The four white pillars on the front lent what really was a simple structure a distinguished air. Stained glass over the double-door main entrance bore the initials CHS in blue against a yellow background.

Situated on a slight rise, the school overlooked a sweeping valley to the east, a view now partially obscured by the brand-new, expensive grade school on the opposite side of the state road. The mountains, to the west, provided a backdrop.

Like most high-school students, when she attended Crozet High she took it for granted. She never thought about architecture, the lovely setting, the nearness to the village of Crozet. She thought about her friends, the football games, her grades.

A memory floated into her mind, a soft breeze from an earlier time. She had been wearing a beautiful fuchsia sweater and Fair wore a deep turquoise one. They hadn't intended to color coordinate but the effect, when they stood together, was startling.

She remembered that junior year, hurrying from her classroom during break, hoping to catch sight of Fair as he moved on to his next class. When she'd see him her heart would skip a beat like in some corny song lyric. She didn't know exactly what she was feeling or why she was feeling it, only that the sensation was disquieting yet simultaneously pleasurable. She thought she was the only person in the world to feel like this. People didn't much talk about emotions at Crozet High, or if they did, she'd missed it. Then, too, an extravagant display of emotion was for people who lived elsewhere-not Virginia. Young though they all were, they had learned that vital lesson. And today most of them had forgotten it, good manners worn out by fear, police questioning, and suspicion of one another.

Harry burst into tears.

"Mom, what's the matter?" Mrs. Murphy put her paws on Harry's shoulder to lick the right side of her face.

"Don't worry, we'll protect you." Tucker's soft brown eyes seemed even kinder than usual.

"Yeah, scratch that murderer's eyes out!" Pewter puffed up.

"Damn, I never have Kleenex in the truck." She sniffled. "I don't know what's the matter with me. Nostalgia." She petted Murphy, then reached over her to pat the other two as she turned right toward home. "Why is it that when I look back, it seems better? I was so innocent, which is another word for stupid." She sniffed again but the tears continued to roll. "I fell in love with my high-school boyfriend and married him. I actually thought we'd live happily ever after. I never thought about-well-the things that happen. I never even thought about paying the bills. I supposed I would live on air." She pulled over to the side of the road, put on her flashers, and reached under the seat, pulling out a rag she used to clean the windshield. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "Smells like oil. I must have used this to check my oil. That's dumb-putting it back in the cab." She closed her eyes. A headache fast approached from the direction of lost youth.

"We love you," Tucker said for all of them.

"I love you guys," she replied, then bawled anew, feeling, like so many people, that the only true love comes from one's pets. "I love Fair, but is it real? Or is it just the memories from before? This is one hell of a reunion."

Mrs. Murphy tried the sensible approach. "Time will tell. If you two can be together, you'll know it if you just go slow. About your reunion, how could anyone not feel terrible?"

"Some nutcase," Pewter said. "Someone who is now feeling very powerful."

Tucker nuzzled up to Harry. "Mom, it's the reunion. It's stirred up feelings, good and evil."

She blew her nose again, popped the truck in gear, and headed toward home. "I guess when I was in high school I thought trouble happened to other people, not to me. I had a wrong number." She ruefully laughed. "But you know, kids, that love is so pure when you're young. It never comes again. Maybe you fall in love again and maybe it's a wiser and better love but it's never that pure, uncomplicated love."

"Humans worry too much about time," Pewter observed. "Suppose they can't help it. There's clocks and watches and deadlines like April fifteenth. It'd make me a raving lunatic."

"Hasn't helped them any." Tucker nudged close to Harry and stared out the window as the familiar small houses and larger farms ticked by.

Mrs. Murphy sat on the back of the seat. She had an even higher view.

"I look around at everyone at the reunion and wonder what's happened to them. How'd we get here so fast? With a murderer in our midst. Our class? I read somewhere and I can't remember where, 'Time conquers time'-maybe it's true. Maybe I'll reach a time when I let it all go. Or when I'm renewed with a spiritual or even physical second wind."

"Mom, you've missed the turn!" Tucker acted like a backseat driver.

"She's clearing her head. Whenever she needs an inner vacation she cruises around. Cruising around in the dually is a statement." Mrs. Murphy didn't mind; she appreciated the plush upholstery covered with sheepskin. "She had to show up at her reunion in this new truck. Funny, isn't it? The desire to shine."

The warm autumn light turned the red of cow barns even deeper, the fire of the maples even brighter.

Harry loved the seasons but had never applied them, an obvious but potent metaphor, to her own life. "Know what's really funny? No one ever believes they'll get old. There must be a point where you accept it, like Mrs. Hogendobber." She thought a moment. "But then Mim hasn't truly accepted it. And she's the same age as Miranda." Her conversation picked up. The ride was invigorating her. "Here's what I don't get. First, someone is killing off men in the class of '80. Someone is actually carrying out a plan of revenge. I've been mad enough to kill people but I didn't. What trips someone over the edge? And then I think about death. Death is something out there, some shadow being, a feared acquaintance. He snatches you in a car wreck or through cancer. By design or by chance. But he's oddly impersonal. That's what gets me about this stuff. It's brutally personal."

43

Harry had no sooner walked through the kitchen door than the phone rang.

"Hello," Fair said. "I'm at the clinic but I can be there in fifteen minutes."

"I'm fine. I'll meet you at school for supper. Don't worry." She hung up the phone and it rang again.

"Hey," Susan said. "I dropped off two English boxwoods for Chris. I feel guilty. She's not coming to the dinner tonight, obviously. She was funny, though. She said if we survived our reunion she'd love to play golf next weekend. Oh, she's through with Dennis, too. Said she's shocked at the way he behaved. That's what really upset her."

"Well-good for her. Did you think of anything for Bitsy? It's really E.R.'s responsibility to thank her for her work but, well, I liked working with her."

"The full treatment at Vendome." Susan mentioned the most exclusive beauty parlor in town, where one could have a haircut, massage, waxing, manicure, pedicure, and complete makeover, emerging rejuvenated.

"That's a good idea. We'll get BoomBoom to cough up the money. Those two worked as hard on our reunion as we did."

"I paid for the boxwoods. It was my bet. If Boom won't pay for Vendome, I'll do it. It's only right."

"I'll split it with you."

"No, you won't. You put away that money you're getting on rent."

"I guess Tracy will leave after his reunion. He hasn't said anything. I'll tell you, though, his rent money has made my life easier."

"You're the truck queen of Crozet." Susan laughed, since she knew the rent money went to pay for the truck.

"Susan, are you scared?"

"About the dinner?" They'd known one another since in-fancy so elaborate explanations weren't needed, nor were transitions between subjects.

"Yeah."

"No. I'll have Ned with me. Also, I don't think we're involved except as bystanders."

"There won't be that many people there. I wonder if the killer will attend? And I wonder if we're doing the right thing. We haven't even had time to process Rex's murder. I feel like we're being whittled away."

"Are you scared?" Susan asked.

"Yes. I'm not afraid I'll get bumped off. I'm afraid of what I'll feel."

"Blindsided." Susan referred to the manner in which emotions flatten a person.

"You, too?"

A long pause followed. "Yes. I joked about who was that young person in the Best All-Round photograph but I meant it. And then I look at Danny and Brooks." She referred to her son and daughter. "And I realize they're feeling all the same emotions and confusions we did but in a different time. I'm beginning to believe that the human story is the same story over and over again, only the sets change."

"A in History," Harry laughed.

Susan thought back on her A's in History and just about everything else. "The difference is that I understand it now-before, I just knew it."

"Can you understand the murders?"

"No. I don't even know what to call the way I feel. Intense . . . disturbed? No, I don't understand it and I don't remember anything that horrible from high school. I mean, nothing out of the ordinary like two people hating one another so much it lasts for twenty years. But we're in the dark. Even Market seems to know something we don't, and Dennis-good Lord."

"Think Denny Rablan will show his face?"

"He doesn't dare."

44

Denny sat there as big as life and twice as smug. No one wanted to sit next to him. Finally Harry did, only because Susan had put out the exact number of chairs based on the head count. The sheer quantity of food overwhelmed the tables: spicy chicken wings, corn bread, perfectly roasted beef with a thin pepper crust, moist Virginia ham cooked to perfection, biscuits, shrimp remoulade, a mustard-based sauce for the beef, sweet potatoes candied and shining orange. Three different kinds of salad satisfied those who didn't wish such heavy foods. The women sat down, claiming they'd stick to the salads. That lasted five minutes.

The desserts, reposing on a distant table, beckoned after the main course. Carrot cake, tiny, high-impact brownies, fruit compote, luxurious cheeses from Denmark, England, and France rested among heaps of pale green grapes. If that wasn't enough, a thin, dense fruitcake with hard sauce filled out the menu.

The bar was open, which somewhat raised the conversation level.

The thirty-one people who came to the dinner ate themselves into a stupor. Mike Alvarez did not return. His wife had put her foot down but he left the tapes for everyone to enjoy, if "enjoy" was the right word. During dinner BoomBoom played the slow tapes. "Digestion tapes," she called them.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker ate from paper plates on the floor under the table. Since there was so much food, Harry didn't think anyone would begrudge her animals.

Fair sat on the other side of Harry, her left side. Hank Bittner refused to sit next to Dennis even though he came in late and seats were taken. Bonnie Baltier switched seats with Hank so she sat on the other side of Dennis.

"Anything turn up in the lab?" Bonnie asked Dennis as her fork cut into the steaming sweet potato.

"No. Rick Shaw took the pictures and left. He said he had suspects but they always say that. I just said, 'Yeah, the whole class.'"