Probable Claws

44

February 22, 2017

Wednesday

Feverishly writing in her notebook, Harry sat at Gary’s desk while Tazio worked at the drafting table. Harry checked and double-checked each file box. One by one she flipped through the pages she had marked with arrows sticking off the paper. Finally she carefully sifted through 1983, satisfied herself, returned the file.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, Pirate, and Brinkley had wedged against the now-closed door to the small back room. Harry, bringing Pirate along, allowed the puppy to join the others.

Pewter, wide awake, poked Mrs. Murphy, half asleep. “She’s shut the door. Fear. The spider is too much.”

“She doesn’t know there’s a spider back there.” Tucker opened one eye.

“What do you know? I’m staying right here, on duty,” Pewter grumbled as Tucker closed that one eye.

The front door opened, Raynell came in with a roll under her arm, the original drawings for Nature First’s redo. The wind made it difficult for her to close the door.

“Jeez,” she gasped as she pulled it closed.

“Think it was like this when Washington was born?” Tazio looked up, smiling.

“Hope not.” Harry chimed in.

“Keeping the fires going had to be a full-time job, plus one needs to be near the fireplace.” Raynell unwound her scarf.

“It’s easy to forget how much effort it took to keep warm or cool or fetch the butter from the springhouse,” Harry added.

“What about cities? Delivering firewood, lighting lamps, then later in time cleaning out gas lamps, gas lines to homes for light. And then what about cleaning up the streets? Can you imagine the tons of horse manure?” Tazio slipped a pencil behind her ear.

Harry laughed. “Actually, I can.”

“At least we developed good sewage systems.” Raynell studied architecture as well as wildlife for Nature First.

“Can you imagine living in London or Paris, even in the eighteenth century? Had to be noxious even as ideas exploded everywhere, and the arts, too.” Harry returned the file to its slot on the bottom shelf.

“How come you’re keeping them?” Raynell asked Tazio. “You can get all that information off the Internet.”

“His notes in the margins are helpful. He has initials, question marks, and sometimes these envelope drawings by construction sites. It’s better to sit down with a pile of papers instead of scrolling back and forth. I need his notes.”

“You’re right,” Raynell agreed. “So what are you writing?” She directed this to Harry.

“Checking against the notes I’ve transcribed.”

“Harry, what do you need with them? Unless you’re going into architecture or construction.”

“I am going to find Gary’s killer.”

“In building codes?” Raynell was incredulous.

“Yes. What if the envelope drawings along with initials in some of the margins mean blackmail?”

“Harry, you have too much imagination.” Raynell winked.

Pewter, eyes now open, put her ear to the crack of the back-room door. “I hear her. Heavy footsteps. Eight of them.”

“Pewter, you’re getting mental.” Mrs. Murphy sighed.

“Getting?” Tucker spoke loudly, which sounded like a yip to the humans.

That fast, the rotund gray cat leapt onto Tucker’s back, boxing her ears. Tucker, surprised, had the presence of mind to roll over so now fatpuss was underneath the corgi. However, cats on their back are formidable, fur flew.

“Dammit.” Harry rose from her kneeling by the bottom shelf, walked over, pulled Tucker off a highly offended cat.

“You always take her part,” Tucker whined.

“Tucker, she’s not taking Pewter’s part she’s just separating you, for which I am grateful.” Mrs. Murphy spoke as Brinkley and Pirate watched, eyes wide open.

“I have been cruelly treated by a tailless wonder,” Pewter spat.

In a flash of what she thought was brilliance, Harry opened the door to the back and the animals did go back there.

“I am not protecting you all from the monster spider. That spider is so big she must be a holdover from prehistoric times. She’s a dinosaur spider and I don’t care if she bites you all.” Pewter looked up at Harry, then glared at Tucker.

Harry, hands on hips, shook her head, kept the door open a crack, then returned to the big room. “Sorry.”

“They are dramatic.” Tazio laughed.

Raynell sat in one of the old ladderback chairs, placing the drawings across her knees. “Back to the codes.”

“Oh.” Harry plopped behind Gary’s desk. “He noted with initials in the margins at the construction sites where workers had died, like Ali Asplundah on June 2, 1983. If I could ever find the 1984 code file I think he would have marked in the margin for the Kushner Building. I think he knew something about Edward Elkins. 1984 was the year Gary left. He put two and two together and got out or possibly was paid off.”

Raynell rested her hands on the rolled-up drawings. “Well, what’s two and two? I don’t get it. I wish Lisa was here. Maybe she would.”

“Lisa, I think, had figured it out. Your boss was maybe over the top about her cause sometimes, my opinion, but she was really smart,” Harry said.

“I don’t think you can do a job like that if you aren’t passionate,” Tazio demurred. “The pay is low, the tasks enormous, and a nonprofit person must continually fundraise as well as educate. Has to be exhausting.”

“Felipe and I miss her very much.” Raynell stood, gave the drawings to Tazio. “We’ve got copies. Thought you’d like the original.”

“Thanks.”

“The monster is on the ceiling!” Pewter hollered.

Sure enough, the spider had crept out from her entrance into the bathroom, stopped, assessed the situation, then crawled up the wall to affix herself to the ceiling, sending Pewter into fits.

“Ignore her.” Harry threw up her hands.

“You know, I still don’t get it. It’s not strange that someone might note worker deaths. If I kept a diary I would. So maybe the codes were his diary,” Raynell said.

“Maybe. I think this has to do with what’s under the buildings.”

“Harry, who cares?” Raynell sounded doubtful.

“Many people would care if they know history, a road map of this area over time is under there. Millions of years of dinosaur bones and some maybe almost intact as whole animals. That’s why Gary and Lisa had all those rubber dinosaurs. Yes, they were fascinated, but both knew that area between Richmond and Danville was home to dinosaurs for about two hundred and fifteen million years. Properly unearthed, the fossils, bones, whatever, would reveal a great deal about evolution and about perhaps what really happened to those creatures.”

“I don’t know.” Raynell’s eyebrows rose.

“If you study the period, the Jurassic, the Cretaceous, you’ll learn that the basin running all the way up to Washington, D.C., even toward Baltimore and down to Danville, is loaded with fossils. The richest area is from Richmond to Danville. I’m pretty sure now and I’m going to drive this over to Cooper at HQ. You know some people would lose fortunes if construction suddenly had to stop or nothing new could be built until this is squared somehow with scientists. Some people have killed and would kill over it. I think those who are dead figured this out, saw bones and wanted some hush money. I really think it led to murder.”

Raynell nodded, reached into her purse, pulled out a Glock. “You’re right. Now you and Tazio get into the back room.”

“What are you doing?” Tazio gasped.

“My job. Into the back room. Now.”

The two women, side by side, walked into the back room, where the animals, almost as puzzled as the two women, stared at them, except for Pewter.

“Death from above!” the gray cat screamed.

Raynell did look upward for a moment and she, too, screamed. Her fear of spiders gave Harry and Tazio a split second to leap for the gun, which the woman foolishly pointed up at the humongous spider on the ceiling. The spider, perhaps having a sense of humor, dropped from that height right onto Raynell, who felt the weight on her head and those legs creeping down toward her face.

Tucker lunged for Raynell’s calf as Brinkley took the other one. Those fangs hurt like the devil.

The spider evaded Raynell’s desperate attempts to dislodge her. Harry, in terrific shape thanks to farming, grabbed the gun hand and brought Raynell’s arm down hard over her knee. A snap could be heard, the gun dropped. Tazio pinned her other arm behind her back as Mrs. Murphy batted the gun away.

“Rabies. The spider had rabies,” Pewter bellowed for all she was worth.

Raynell, screaming, sweating, begged, “Get that spider off of me.”

“Not until you confess. You killed Gary, right?” Harry held her broken arm, giving it a jerk.

Raynell screamed. “I did. I did.” Weeping, she pleaded, “Get the spider off.”

“She’s going to bite you.” Pewter relished the moment.

Pirate, although a puppy, stood on the fallen woman’s chest.

“Please, help me!” Raynell sobbed.

“Who do you work for? Then we’ll remove the spider,” Harry promised.

“A company in partnership with Rankin Construction.”

“I am not touching that spider,” Tazio sensibly said as she kept Raynell’s left arm securely pinned.

“I’ll move her. God, she’s enormous.” Harry gulped, kept her hand securely on Raynell’s arm, reached over to brush the eight-legged wonder off the sobbing woman’s head. The spider, having had her fun, jumped off, scurrying to the bathroom.

“Taz, do you have any rope?”

“Do.”

Harry let go of Raynell’s arm but stomped it first for good measure.

The jolt of pain as well as residual fear kept Raynell from rising. Harry scooped up the gun, guarded by Mrs. Murphy, flipped off the safety, pointed it at the stricken woman.

Tazio ran to her supply closet, brought out a sturdy roll of twine and tied Raynell’s hands in front of her, her right arm limp. Raynell tried to bat at Tazio with her left as the spider’s exit gave her a bit of courage, but Tucker and Brinkley kept their fangs secure in her calves.

Dragged to a chair, twine now wrapped so many times, Raynell wasn’t going anywhere.

Harry called Cooper.

Pewter remained in front of the bathroom door but the other animals guarded Raynell.

Cooper, Sheriff Shaw, Dabney arrived at the studio within fifteen minutes, sirens blaring. They must have hit seventy miles an hour on those old roads.

Cooper, first in the door, looked at Raynell, then Harry and Tazio. “You okay?”

“Great.”

Pewter called from the back room, “I saved the day. Really, she walked under the ceiling and the monster dropped. Engineered the whole thing.”

The other animals kept quiet, but Tucker and Brinkley grimaced.

“Blood.” Sheriff Shaw followed the dripping blood from the back room to where Raynell sat, then noticed the bloody jaws of Tucker and Brinkley.

“They bit her calves,” Harry simply said.

Tazio turned to Raynell. “Out with it.”

Cooper retrieved her small notebook, flipped it open.

Raynell kept her mouth shut, so Harry punched her broken arm. “Now! Or I’ll break the other one.” She looked up at Sheriff Shaw. “Self-defense.”

“Of course.”

“I killed Gary Gardner.”

“Next.” Harry moved toward her.

“Next what?”

“Next victim.”

“Uh…”

Harry raised her hand again. That fast, Harry unleashed a backhand across Raynell’s face, the sound of which could have been heard out on the street.

The officers wouldn’t stop her. Nor would they report this. Raynell could babble to any lawyer she wished. Harry loved Gary. She was so angry she bordered on the irrational. It was a wonder Harry didn’t try to kill Raynell. Raynell got what was coming to her.

“Lisa Roudabush.”

“How did you know to try and kill me?” Harry pressed.

“The camera at the excavation site gave you away.”

Triumphant, Harry looked at Cooper, Rick, and Dabney. “She’s all yours.”

Tucker and Brinkley drank water as Raynell was lead away.

“That’s better.” Tucker exhaled.

“Human blood has a metallic taste,” Brinkley replied.

Pirate, watching everything, asked, “Does this happen often?”

Mrs. Murphy, on the desk, looked down at the handsome fellow. “Around Harry it does.”

Tazio dropped into her drafting table chair. “What the hell am I going to do about that spider?”

Suddenly Harry burst out laughing, laughter after a crisis has passed, soon joined by Tazio.

“Feed her dead flies. She saved our lives.” Harry laughed until she cried.

“I saved you. Me. Me. Me,” Pewter called from the adjoining room, then sashayed into the big room as if to make her point.

“Well, Pewts, now we know why you were so fascinated with the back room.” Harry wiped the tears from her eyes.

“I can’t kill that big thing. She really did save us.”

“Like I said, dead flies. And she won’t live but so long yet. While she’s here she is impressive.” Harry scratched Mrs. Murphy, sitting on the desk, then reached down to pet Pewter.

“Were you scared?” Tazio asked.

“Surprised. And scared now that it’s over.” She thought a moment. “Spiders. I recall the divine from colonial times, Jonathan Edwards, who wrote, ‘We are depraved creatures, spiders hanging over the fire.’ Thank God that spider was hanging on the ceiling,” Harry said.

“Do you think we are depraved?”

“Some of us are, but no, I don’t. What about you?”

“No, but they certainly get all the media attention. I guess that’s our Puritan background, exalt misery and suffering. That’s all I see from it. Not a hint of joy.”

“You know what H. L. Menken wrote, ‘A Puritan is a person who fears that someone, somewhere, is having fun.’ ” Harry laughed a little bit, having condensed the famous quote.

With that they both exploded in raucous laughter again, truly grateful to be alive.