Probable Claws

3

December 27, 2016

Tuesday 6:00 PM

Shock or not the farm chores needed to be done. Home by three-thirty, Harry brought in the horses, put two scoops of grain in their feed buckets hanging in the corner of the stall, tossed in three flakes of hay.

Darkness came early. She liked to bring the horses in while light. She just made it. Large round bales dotted the various paddocks and pastures so the horses could eat when they felt like it. The large bales like shredded wheat looked coated in sugar due to the snow. Harry grew good hay, which her horses greatly appreciated. She’d place the bales together in some fields to break the wind. When eaten she’d bring in more. Some days the horses would all be next to the hay.

The top barn doors, closed against the cold, the bottom ones, too, kept the temperature pleasant for the horses. Their ideal temperature is much lower than for humans. About fifty degrees Fahrenheit with their blankets on, fresh water in the two buckets per stall, life was good.

Pewter listened as Mrs. Murphy replayed the shooting. Tucker walked from stall to stall with Harry, who was always glad of the canine company.

“Quick,” Pewter said.

“Couldn’t see the killer’s face, came right up to the edge of the sidewalk and boom.” Mrs. Murphy sat on a saddle pad in the heated tack room.

“People kill one another like we kill mice.”

Hearing Pewter, the mice came in behind the tack trunk, a small hole in the wall allowing them easy access. Their living quarters were stuffed with chewed up old towels, rag bits, and grain scattered about. They shouted, “Better not!”

“As long as you keep the deal, you’re safe,” the tiger cat reassured them.

“If anyone dies we should ask them to push out the body so we can bring it to Harry,” Pewter suggested.

“Not now. She’s too shook up,” Mrs. Murphy responded.

“I mean when an old mouse dies. They seem to live forever those guys.” Pewter sniffed.

“All the animals on this farm enjoy good health.” Mrs. Murphy nodded.

“Hateful, hateful trips to the vet. Gives me angina. I just feel the palpitations.” Pewter rolled her eyes.

“Tucker slobbers.” Mrs. Murphy giggled.

“It’s the needles!” Pewter’s eyes now widened.

“Yeah,” her buddy agreed.

“But back to people killing one another all the time. Gary must have done something wrong.” Pewter inhaled the scent of cleaned leather.

“Mom told Cooper as they waited for the ambulance that years ago, like fifteen, he went through a horrible divorce. It brings out the worst in people.”

“Fifteen years is a long time to wait.” Pewter thought this unlikely as a cause.

“Revenge is a dish best eaten cold,” Mrs. Murphy pronounced.

“I think if someone bloodies your nose you bloody them right back.” Pewter appeared fierce.

“Humans, if they do that, get caught. Impulse killing. Waiting makes sense for them. All those laws perverting nature pretty much.” The tiger believed humans got it all backward.

“Maybe fifteen years isn’t a long time to wait…but divorce, that’s…I don’t know.”

“Irrational.” Mrs. Murphy affirmed Pewter’s unspoken thoughts.

The tack room door opened, cold air entering with Harry and Tucker.

The corgi joined Mrs. Murphy on the saddle pad. “When the sun sets the mercury goes down with it. Going to be nasty cold tonight.”

“Is,” Mrs. Murphy agreed.

Harry checked her feed order, scribbled on a pad by the old landline phone, sank into her chair. She’d called her husband, who would be home from work shortly. She looked forward to Cooper joining them. Fair, sensitive to her distress, could always lift her spirits. As an equine vet his hours could be variable. One good thing about the winter was there were fewer injury calls than during the warm months, with the exception of ice. Horses, like people, could go down on ice.

“Dad,” Tucker barked.

The cats, too, heard the rumble of the big diesel-engine truck crunching down the driveway. Soon it stopped, the door slammed, the groan of the huge barn doors came next, then the clunk of their being shut.

The tack room door opened.

“Honey.” He walked over and kissed her, pulled up a chair.

“I am so glad to see you.”

“Heard a report on the local news driving home. The usual ‘too early to know anything’ stuff.”

“Out of the blue, Fair, just out of the blue.” She swiveled her chair to face his.

He slid the chair forward so his knees touched hers. “Thank God you weren’t standing next to Gary.”

“I was close enough to smell the gunpowder.” She shivered. “He grabbed his chest, a little blood trickled through his fingers, not much at all, he groaned, and sank. There was a split second that it seemed the gun was pointed at me. It was almost like a dream. It just didn’t seem real.”

“Cooper,” Tucker barked.

Hearing the motor, Harry looked up. “I told Coop to come by for soup. Let me go in and warm it up. Won’t take a minute. You fix her a drink.”

They rose, animals first, closed the door behind them and hailed their friend walking up the brick walkway to the back closed-in porch. In the warm weather the wooden sides were removed and it became a screened porch that kept out the bugs.

Once inside, Fair made Cooper a hot toddy and fed the animals while Harry warmed the soup.

Sipping her drink, Cooper smiled. “Warms you better than a down jacket.”

“True.” He toasted her.

“Won’t be a minute.” Harry pulled fresh bread and butter out of the keeper on the counter.

“Well,” Cooper started. “Simple .38 caliber, a handgun many people own. Unregistered, of course.” She held up her hand. “I am not anti-science but I think there can be many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.’ This will be a long, hard slog.”

“Why?” Fair asked.

“No criminal record. An ugly divorce years back. No complaints against his design company at the Better Business Bureau. A member of Keswick Golf Club. Well liked. I called his old Richmond employer, Rankin Construction. He left on good terms. Had always wanted his own small design company, working with construction companies instead of working for a construction company.”

“Is that awful yellow crime scene tape up?” Harry asked.

“It is. Front and back. Photographs of where he fell. The inside of his office. All done. The team, wearing latex gloves, checked drawers, cataloged mail. For now everything is in place as he left it. The forensics will be back tomorrow.” She lifted her hands, palms up. “Nothing out of the ordinary, so far. But I always hope for a clue, for a pattern to emerge,” Coop replied.

“I suppose you’ll need to examine his projects. Talk to customers and clients.” Harry tested the soup, turned down the burner.

“Yes. The most obvious problem would be if Gary ever overcharged or took a kickback from a client or construction company. That’s all I can think of right now.”

“He wouldn’t.” Harry’s voice was firm. “Gary would never do anything like that.”

“I hope you’re right, but if there’s one thing law enforcement has taught me it’s that you never really know. Look at how Bernie Madoff fooled people.”

“Coop,” Harry said as she ladled out the fragrant soup. “Gary didn’t live high on the hog like the Ponzi scheme guy. Other than golf and his annual vacations out of the country to see the architecture elsewhere, like the time he went to the Alhambra. Stuff like that. Madoff was an entirely different kind of person. Madoff had to drum up business constantly, whereas Gary really didn’t.” She put the bowls on the table while Fair cut the bread.

“Harry, this is so good.” Cooper swallowed a spoonful.

“Easy to make but time-consuming. It’s my grandmother’s recipe. I do it exactly as she did. No shortcuts.”

“Wonderful.” Cooper sighed. “Wonderful to be off duty, too. It’s been a day. Started with a false burglary alarm at Ivy Farms. Slid downhill from there. What about yours?” She looked at Fair.

“Not bad. One puncture wound but other than that mostly paperwork and inquiries from new horse owners about keeping the weight on during winter.”

“That should be easy. Feed them more.” Cooper buttered her bread.

“Pretty much. Go light on pellets. Use senior food for the older guys. It’s more expensive but properly fed those old horses will hold their weight. And a good blanket never hurts. An easy day.”

Returning to her most pressing problem, Cooper said, “I called Dawn Hulme, Gary’s ex-wife. Wanted to reach her before anyone else did. If you can do that you often get an unprepared response.”

“And?” Harry’s eyebrows rose.

“Shock. No phony sorrow. She said they rarely spoke over the years. I asked could she tell me why they divorced. She said she started proceedings. He never listened to a word she said and she was sick of it. He didn’t beat her, run with other women. He was married to his work; but then, many men are. She repeated again that he never listened to anything she said, asked about her day, what she felt. Nothing. She asked him to go to counseling. He refused and her next call was to a divorce lawyer. And she admitted it was acrimonious.”

Fair, spoon midair, remarked, “I listen.”

“You do. Really, I’m the one who could be accused of not listening, of being a little dense,” Harry confessed.

“A little!” Pewter yelled up from her food dish, painted with her name on the side.

“Now, Pewts,” Mrs. Murphy said.

“She never listens to one thing I say. There’s a box of rocks upstairs.” Pewter indicated Harry’s brain, which did make the other two animals laugh.

“Don’t you find it odd that we were standing on the sidewalk and the motorcyclist cruised up?” Harry wondered.

“No. Opportunity equals preparation. I think Gary would have been killed no matter what; and when the motorcyclist saw us there it presented a better opportunity than if he had to park, go into Gary’s office, or wait for a client to leave. He might have left a few pieces of thread from his scarf or a tread from his boots, I don’t know; but this way, slow down, drive over, pull the trigger. Nothing is left for forensics to pick up. Whoever did this can think quickly. At least that’s my idea now.”

“I would have never thought of that,” Harry admitted.

“You don’t need to.” Cooper smiled.

“And it could have been a woman?” Fair inquired.

“The tinted visor of the helmet covered the whole face. Motorcycle clothing tends to be leather and given the wind, especially now that it’s cold, I think anyone would wear a heavy leather jacket, leather pants, and boots. You wouldn’t know gender from the clothing.”

“Coop, I never heard one word about him running around after Dawn. That divorce must have throttled any thoughts of another relationship.”

“Women do kill and, Harry, how do we know that wasn’t a professional killer?”

“That’s outrageous,” Harry blurted out.

“So it seems, but I have to consider everything no matter how seemingly absurd. One thing I do know and that is that murder makes sense. The killer has a good reason to him or her. The only time I would waffle on that is impulse killing—you know, two guys are loaded at a bar, one thinks he’s been mocked, a fight ensues, etc. That’s impulse killing and the truth is that stuff happens mostly among the uneducated, the young. Of course, publicly I can’t say that but generally an impulse killer is not too intelligent. Someone who kills in cold blood is.”

“Ah,” Harry murmured.

“Ah and don’t try to solve this. Your curiosity does not serve you well.” Cooper was firm. “Are you in danger? No, probably not. This killing was planned and worked out totally in the killer’s favor. You start poking around, things might turn ugly.”

“Hear, hear.” Fair seconded Cooper.

“She doesn’t listen to me. She won’t listen to them,” Pewter prophesied.