Sour Puss

"Okay, what's the story about Jesus calming the seas in a storm?" Harry, as usual, stuck to whatever was on her mind.

"Ah, yes, Matthew, Chapter eight, Verses twenty-three through twenty-seven, and the same story is also recounted in Mark and in Luke. John doesn't mention it, but he doesn't mention a lot of things." She jumped as a mighty clap of thunder rattled the china. "Must be right over the post office and soon to be here."

"But not a drop of rain—yet." Herb noticed Blair shutting up the doors and, out of the corner of his eye, Arch and Fair talking by the coffee table. "Excuse me, ladies, I'll help shut up the house before we get blown to kingdom come."

"Clouds black as the devil's eyebrows." Miranda gave a shiver.

" 'Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?'" Harry quoted the most famous line from the story.

"Why, Harry Haristeen, I'm impressed." Miranda smiled.

"I can also quote the Pledge of Allegiance, but that's about it." Harry heard the first great splat as raindrops big as plums hit the windows. "Glad Paul put up the horses."

"Yours in?"

"Put everyone in for a little rest from one another."

A blinding bolt of lightning struck perhaps a half mile away. The lights flickered, then died. Within seconds another bolt struck a lone shed out in one of the large pastures. The color was pale pink, and Harry saw spots when the powerful lightning touched the lightning rod.

"Jesus Christ," Susan blurted out, for it was pitch black except for lightning flashes.

"Candles," Mim called, as Little Mim and Gretchen, her majordomo, followed, the matches and lighters flicked to help them.

Within five minutes, beeswax candles glowed in hurricane lamps in the various downstairs rooms.

"She is always prepared." Miranda admired her childhood friend.

However, even Big Mim wasn't prepared for the crash when Fair flew backward into the coffee table. People's drinks splattered all over the floor, along with a candle, which Jim quickly picked up before it could burn anything.

Arch, without a word, turned on his heel, walked down the front hall, opened the door, and went outside into the storm.

Fair followed, also without a word.

Harry put down her lemonade, then sprinted after them.

"There goes my hair," Harry grumbled to herself, as she was soaked in seconds.

Susan stood at the door, rain lashing in, and shouted, "Harry, come back in here. Let them settle it." She then hurried to the closet to rummage for a raincoat or umbrella.

Harry didn't waste energy yelling at the men to stop. Her shoes sunk into the earth; the rain was coming at her sideways. She could barely see the hand in front of her face.

"You son of a bitch!" Fair slugged Arch.

Both men, in the prime of life, hurt each other when they landed a blow, which wasn't as often as they would have liked, since footing was slick. They fell down, scrambled up, traded blows, only to slide into the grass again.

Fair, more powerful, taller, in a little bit better shape, and with a longer reach, connected with Arch more than Arch could hit him.

Men, donning raincoats, hurried out of the house behind Susan, the borrowed umbrella now blown inside out.

Ned opened his car door and turned on the headlights, for it was pitch black.

The headlights created a ghostly tableaux in the unrelenting rain. Blair, also tall and strong, grabbed Fair, as Jim and Ned pulled Arch away, blood pouring over his left eye, only to be washed clean by the rain.

Harry walked on Fair's other side, Susan with her, as Blair opened Harry's truck door, passenger side, and Fair climbed in.

"Thank you, Blair," Harry simply said as she scrambled into the driver's seat.

"You okay?" Harry, now cold, shivered as she turned on the engine. She waved to Susan, who followed the others back into Mim's house. Ned and Jim, however, walked Arch toward the stables, no doubt to clean him up. Also, the enforced march was calming Arch down.

"Broke the heel of my shoe." Harry grinned, water still running down her face from her wet head. "A genuine tragedy." She took Fair's swollen hand. "Hurt?" She noticed his left cheek was bright red also.

"I'll put it in ice when we get home." He looked down the front of his suit. "Ruined my new tie."

"I can fix that, too, once it dries out." She prudently did not ask him what the fight was about, because it would anger him all over. In time, he'd calm down and she'd find out.

The cab of the truck was warm now that the motor was running. Harry, driving slowly in the undiminishing rain, made it home in a half hour. It usually took ten minutes.

They stripped off their clothes on the screened-in porch, the slate floor cold underneath their feet.

Harry, shivering, hung his bedraggled tie over a peg. They then both burst into the kitchen.

"Two drowned rats." Pewter opened one eye from her bed.

Fair dashed into the bathroom, returning with two large bath towels. He wrapped one around Harry and the other around himself.

As he did so, Harry devilishly said, "Honey, looks like your part got shrink-wrapped."

Teeth chattering, he managed to say, "Things do contract in the cold."

"I can fix that." She laughed as she opened the refrigerator, took out ice, putting it in a bowl. "First, let's work on your hand."

30

The storm purified the air. At sunrise the mountains turned red, then pink, and finally gold. The trees at the very top were beginning to bud. Spring marched onward.

Mrs. Murphy marched onward, too. She liked hunting alone. Pewter complained the farther from the house they traveled, so the tiger pounced on field mice without the whining of the fat gray cat to warn them of a feline presence.

She reached the confluence of the two creeks, Potlicker with Harry's Creek. The oak torn open by the bear served as a shattered sentinel.

The hard rains had knocked blossoms off trees and bushes but also brought down the pine pollen, a relief to anyone suffering from spring allergies. Mrs. Murphy sawglobs of yellow pollen swirling in the creek. She peered down at a deep spot where the water, swollen from the hard rains, came perilously close to the bank. She liked watching fish, turtles, and crawfish, but the current and silt nixed that.

She walked along the eastern bank. Even with the beaver dams and lodges, some damaged by the debris moving in the water, she couldn't cross the creek. Not that it mattered. There was plenty of game on this side of the creek.

Two mourning doves flew overhead as the sun rose higher. Flatface, the great horned owl, silently winged toward the barn. The mighty bird dipped her wings as Mrs. Murphy looked up at her, then continued on her way. Mrs. Murphy respected Flatface for her hunting prowess and for her good sense. Good hunters usually respected one another, including humans. The bad ones pulled everyone down with them, unfortunately.

A surge of water sent a small wave crashing against the bank. The cat jumped high, then turned and trotted away from the creek. Getting her paws wet in the pastures and soggy ground was one thing, being sprayed by the creek was another.

As she headed down toward the back pastures of the farm, she thought she heard a motor on the other side of the creek. The water muffled the sound. She stopped, listened intently, then burst into a run, heading straight for the old hickory in the center of the back pasture. She leapt onto the textured bark, dug in her claws, and rapidly climbed up.

She strained to hear. The rise of the land on the western bank blocked sight of the farm road. She definitely heard a truck. Frustrated, she listened as the motor cut off. Ten minutes passed, the motor cut on again, and the truck, in low gear, drove away.

Whoever had been on the Jones land didn't stay long.

Mrs. Murphy backed down the hickory. Back at the barn, she climbed into the hayloft, where Simon slept, tiny snoring noises coming from his long nose. She noted the Pelham chain prominently displayed. Simon loved his stolen treasures.

She padded across the expanse, half open and swept clean; the other half was filled with high-grade alfalfa-orchard grass mix. Harry always kept a hayloft's supply of good forage in case someone needed to be kept in a stall. Luckily all the horses were easy keepers and didn't need fancy grain mixes. One or two scoops of crimped oats mixed with sweet feed kept everyone happy.

Simon liked the oats, too, eagerly dining on what the horses dropped along with the bits of dry molasses. Harry, after wetting her hand, tossed in a small handful of molasses if someone was picky. Never failed.

Mrs. Murphy inhaled the tang of a working barn, the best perfume in the world. She passed Matilda, the enormous blacksnake, curled up in her hole in a hay bale. Mrs. Murphy gave Matilda and her hay bale a wide berth. This year her eggs, next to her own snake apartment, seemed fatter than last year's. Like most farmers, Harry knew that her best friends apart from the domesticated animals were owls, blacksnakes, bats, honeybees, praying mantises, most spiders, swallowtails, and purple martins. Each of these creatures rid the premises of pests, whether small rodents or insects. The bees kept things pollinated. Abundance rests on the wings of bees.

Mrs. Murphy got along with most of these creatures, but Matilda gave her the willies. She hopped from hay bale to hay bale until she sat on top of the carefully stacked, sweet-smelling mass.

"You asleep yet?"

"Fat chance with your big mouth."Flat-face glared down at her.

"Any eggs up there?"Mrs. Murphy liked owlets.

"No. I can have babies more than once a year, you know. I'll raise a ferocious brood when I'm good and ready."

"Better to plan these things,"Mrs. Murphy agreed. She harbored a great secret, which was that a few years ago, when Harry took her in to be spayed, the vet—not Marty, of course—spayed the wrong cat. But they had shaved her belly before mixing up patients, both tiger cats.

"All the crops that Harry has planted will bring flying and crawling pests from everywhere. The grapes alone will keep the day birds chubby. And wait until the sunflowers lift their heavy heads; won't be for a while, but those seeds bring bugs and bad birds.We both know who the bad birds are. There will be so much to do."Flatface forgot about having owlets.

"Thought you hunted at night."

"If someone tasty shows up during the day, I can be roused."She laughed her deep"Hoo hoo, hoo hoo hoo."

"The crows will be a problem."

"You and Pewter will be on duty for them. They are very intelligent. You have to give them that."

Mrs. Murphy sniffed,"Pewter has the attention span of a gnat. Worse, she's obsessed with the blue jay."

"A most arrogant bird, besotted with his plumage and his topknot."Flatface sighed, then changed the subject."Thought I might pick up something juicy this morning once the storms passed, but my protein sources are still holed up," she said.

Mrs. Murphy moved to the subject she truly wanted to discuss."You didn't happen to fly over the peach orchard?"

"Yes."

"I heard a truck maybe five minutes before I saw you. Did you see it or who was in it?"

"White truck with a gold lily painted on it."

"Hy Maudant,"Mrs. Murphy exclaimed.

Later that day, the contents of Toby's computer, finally transcribed, reached Rick Shaw's desk with a thud.

Cooper looked up. "Can you imagine how many trees died for that?"

"Very funny." Rick sighed, fished out a Camel, and lit up despite the "No Smoking" signs that the county government felt compelled to post in every county government building.

"Let me help." She rolled her chair next to his. They started reading.

"Sure a lot of chemical equations," Rick mumbled.

"Soil stuff. Sugars in the grapes. That kind of thing."

"How do you know that?" Rick asked, surprised.

"Took organic chem in college."

"Why?" He was incredulous.

"I liked it."

"I thought people only took that under pain of death or to get into med school."

"Always knew I wanted to go into this field. Thought it would help me read toxicology reports, stuff like that. It does, too."

"Anything unusual?"

"Pretty much what you'd expect from Toby." The distinctive, inviting odor of tobacco enticed her to bum one of Rick's Camels.

Rick's phone rang, he picked it up, listened, then hung up. "Ballistics. The bullet in Professor Forland was from Toby's gun."

Startled for a moment, Cooper said, "Well, that's not what you'd expect from Toby."

31

The next day winds swept down from the northwest, and the temperature cooled dramatically. At ten-thirty in the morning, the mercury hung at forty-eight degrees.

Harry and BoomBoom walked through the little sunflower shoots, the grapevines tiny little dots showing—and the hay fields. Both women wore canvas Carhartt jackets.

BoomBoom turned her back to the wind. "May."

"At least we aren't in Utah. It's snowing there." Harry was glad she wore gloves.

Tucker tagged along, but the cats thought the toasty kitchen was the only place to be.

Gorgeous, immense cumulus clouds majestically rolled overhead. From white to cream to dove gray with slashes of slate, the cloud billowed.

"Feels like rain later." BoomBoom flipped up the collar on her jacket. "Well, you can't be bored living in central Virginia if you like observing the weather." She continued walking along the row of Italian sunflowers. "These little shoots can bear the chill. Sunflowers are tough."

"So are we." Harry smiled. "Sorry you missed Mim's party."

"Me, too. Alicia and I were in Richmond at a fund-raiser for the Virginia Horse Council." She pulled out her gloves now that the wind stiffened. "Fund-raising is the second-oldest profession."

"With none of the pleasure of the first." Harry gleefully kicked a little clod of earth.

"Do you think they like it, really?"

Harry shrugged. "It's a job. I suppose there are some pleasurable moments. I mean, people usually don't keep on doing something they hate."

"I don't know. I'm not sitting in judgment, mind you, but I don't know. There's probably a sense of power over men but disgust, too. Their need is so overwhelming; men are such fools about it."

"Yeah. But I think we need sex just as much, only we're taught to suppress it."

"Some women suppress it so much it vanishes." BoomBoom swished the air with her hand. "The older I get, Harry, the more I know about some things and the less I know about others. At least, I've learned not to make grand statements except when it comes to things like horses."

"I'm waiting."

"Whenever I doubt there's a God, I look at horses." BoomBoom gazed at the foals with their mothers.

Harry smiled broadly. "Don't forget corgis."

Both women laughed as they headed toward the barn, the limbs on the trees swaying, the birds sticking close to home.

"So you didn't hear what happened at the redbud party?" Harry enjoyed testing this out.

"No." BoomBoom stopped and looked right at Harry. "What did I miss?"

"Here's a blow-by-blow description." Harry laughed at her turn of phrase, then lunched in.

When Harry finished, BoomBoom, voice slightly raised, said, "You are so evil. Youcould have told me the minute I got out of the truck."

"More fun to wait. I knew no one had gotten to you or you would have said something."

"Do I have to beg to find out what the fight was about?"

"No. I had to wait until this morning. Fair doesn't get angry often, but when he does he takes a while to cool down. How they reached this point I don't know. All I know is Fair says that Arch told him he didn't deserve me. Fair agreed. Then Arch told him he'd cheat again, used the phrase we've all heard: 'the leopard doesn't change his spots.' Fair told him that would never happen. Arch said something worse. Don't know what, but Fair said, 'Go screw yourself, because you're not going to screw my wife.'"

BoomBoom, astonished, gasped, "Fair said that? That is so unlike him."

"Shocked me, too."

"I guess." BoomBoom drew out "guess."

"It's all pretty embarrassing. Fair left early yesterday morning to call on Big Mim. He also sent a large bouquet. He called me after he left. Mim was lovely about it, of course. Aunt Tally was still there. She didn't go home in that awful rainstorm. Well, she kissed Fair and told him she hadn't had that much fun in years and he was perfectly right to defend his wife's honor."

"What did Arch say?"

"Fair wouldn't tell me, but I called Aunt Tally on her cell this morning. She'd heard from Bo, who was standing by the coffee table when all this started, that Arch said," Harry paused, color rising to her cheeks, "I was the best in bed that he ever had. Fair didn't deserve me."

"He said that?" BoomBoom's eyebrows leapt upward.

Harry shrugged. "Guess so."

A long moment passed as they neared the barn. "Well, are you? The best in bed?"

"Boom, I don't know."

"The things I find out about you."

"And, of course, you're a saint."

"I didn't say that," the tall blonde responded.

Harry burst out laughing.

BoomBoom laughed, too. "You know, it's not sex with men that bores me. It's their anxiety about it. I find that exhausting and tedious."

"Yeah, but they can't always control the lever, you know. Stands up at the wrong time, sits down at the wrong time. Even if a man finally gets the girl of his dreams, his member isn't a hundred percent reliable."

"Big damned deal." BoomBoom evidenced no sympathy.

"Hey, imagine if your breasts stood up and flopped down sometimes at will, sometimes against your will."

BoomBoom stared down at her magnificent appendages. "Dear God, what an awful thought."

"Anxiety. I rest my case." Harry grinned triumphantly.

BoomBoom laughed. "Given all that's going on, I'm glad we can laugh." She breathed deeply. "Talk to Bill Moses any more about your sharpshooters?"

"I did. He said it's bizarre. They can't survive a Virginia winter. And, I quote, 'Should they infect your vines, the damage will be minimal because they'll be dead first frost.' I asked about the vascular damage—I hope I'm using the right word, but you know, the little plant veins that carry the nutrients around. Bill declared they can't do enough damage in the short summer they might live."

"I sure hope he's right. And he reminded me that not all sharpshooters are infected."

"We didn't see any today in your grapes."

"Wind blows everything away. I'm worried a little. And I'm worried about my Alverta peaches, too."

"Everyone else is focused on grapes," BoomBoom replied. "Hey, if I make the mistake of using the word oenology when I should say viticulture, the old hands lift an eyebrow."

Harry smiled weakly.

"Tell me. I should know, but I don't," BoomBoom asked.

"Viticulture is growing grapes. Oenology is making wine. Such a big damned deal." Harry threw up her hands.

"Intruder!"Tucker alerted.

The women reached the barn at the same time as Arch. He turned off the big Dodge diesel engine and climbed out.

"Harry, BoomBoom, hi." He stood with his feet apart, his old cowboy boots creased across the top. "Harry, I apologize. I apologized to Fair at work. I was completely out of line. I'm not making excuses but," he shook his head, a look of bewilderment on his face, "I thought I was over you, I guess. But when I saw you after four years, well, I guess I still have some big feelings, and I took them out on Fair. I'm really sorry."

"It can be difficult." Harry tacitly accepted his apology.

He breathed out of his nostrils. "I've got to get back. Rollie keeps me on a short chain." He smiled ruefully. "He's heard about the sharpshooter, so now we've inspected every leaf... which we should."

BoomBoom asked, "Do you think it can do a lot of damage here?"

"I don't know. I hope not. The last thing we want is trouble in the industry just when we're getting somewhere. What worries me is if it's mutated or is moving up because of warming trends." He stepped up into the high cab, shut the door, leaned out the window. "I'll make this up to you, Harry. Oh, you found the sharpshooters in your peaches, right?" She nodded "yes" and he asked, "They doing all right?"

"I think so."

"Good." He waved and drove off.

As he drove back down the drive, Harry watched the exhaust curl out of the tailpipe. "That took a bit of courage coming here."

BoomBoom sat down when they walked inside the tack room. "I thought Toby was cracking up. Now I wonder about Arch. Not that he shouldn't apologize."

"Shaky. Edgy. Everyone's off balance."

Tucker dropped like a stone on the old horse blanket on the floor for her use."He'safraid. I smell it on him."

Harry interpreted the dog's talk as a request for a treat, so she gave Tucker a twisted rawhide chew, then sank into the director's chair opposite BoomBoom. "Another reason I know things aren't good is Coop's not around. She's working overtime and she's not saying much. I check in every day."

"Did she talk to Herb?"

Harry brightened. "She did. Forgot to tell you. He said fine. She'll move in as soon as she can get a day off. There's so much busy work to do—switch over the power, the Phones, all that diddlyshit."

"One of these days we won't need wires. We'll own one phone number and everything will be keyed to that," BoomBoom predicted.

"Think so?"

"I do." She suddenly broke into song. "I've got your number."

"You're as nuts as the rest of them." Harry laughed a true deep, dump-the-stress laugh.

"I'm not insane, honey, just unsane. I greatly recommend it during trying times."

32

"Right temple, neatly done. No note." Rick filled in Cooper when she reached Tinsley Crossroads three miles from White Vineyards.

She approached the truck. Hy sat upright behind the wheel, his head tilted all the way back, his Adam's apple prominent, the .22 pistol still in his right hand. The powder burns on his right temple left a smell of singed flesh and hair, but the entrance was relatively clean. The exit proved messier, with tiny bits of brain and pulverized bone on the seat. A few specks stuck to the passenger window, but the sight wasn't gross. Coop had seen some really grotesque corpses.

She walked around the truck. The bed contained a small box of twine and a small box of flypaper. A paperback book about insects had a page turned down. She flicked to the page using the blade of her penknife. It was a photograph of the sharpshooter. Then she knelt down, flipped over on her back, and crawled under the truck. When she slid out, the crushed stone from the road dotted her damp back. The roadbed remained moist from Sunday's hard storm.

"How long before the print boys get here?" She returned to Rick.

"Fifteen minutes. I called them a half hour ago. Traffic's bad right now." He brushed off her back.

"He hadn't driven in deep mud, but there's mud on the skid plate." She then asked, "Was the motor turned off?"

"Yes. Everything seems quite deliberate." Rick lit up, handing the fag to Coop so she could enjoy the first drag.

"Thanks." She inhaled, then handed the cigarette back to her boss. "Who found him?"

"Bo Newell. He was driving those Belgian people around. Guess they won't be buying here. I sent them on. I'll get back with Bo later."

"Body temperature?"

"He's around ninety-five degrees rightnow, give or take." Rick had put on latex gloves, checking for a pulse, the instant he arrived on the scene.

"Most folks will take this as proof he was guilty." Rick watched a blue plume of smoke rise slightly then flatten out, which meant pressure moving down, probably rain later.

"I try not to laugh when I hear the gossip. Ever notice how desperately people want to believe, want to have an answer, but don't want to work for it?"

"That's why we're on the county payroll. We have to work for it. In the meantime they can make up whatever they want to make up. They aren't held accountable."

"Think he was accountable?" Coop inclined her head toward Hy for a second.

"Suicide? He took care of it that way?" Rick crossed his arms over his chest. "It's logical."

"Are you going to treat this as a suicide?" Coop asked, her inflection rising.

He replied, eyebrows raised, "What do you think?"

She waited, looked at Hy, then back at Rick. "Nope."

"Damned straight. I'm treating this as a suspicious death."

"Too many, too close."

"I hear the wheels turning." Rick pointed his forefinger at her.

"They are, boss, but I need traction."

"What we know is, everyone who could have killed Professor Forland or Toby doesn't have an airtight alibi." He tapped his toe on the crushed-stone road surface. "Fair has an alibi for Forland. He was asleep in bed. Harry can testify to that. Toby and Arch have or had no one who could clear them about their whereabouts in the middle of the night. Rollie has Chauntal. Then, of course, wives can and do lie to protect husbands. For Toby's murder, while signs point to Hy, we can't completely rule out Fair."

"I think Fair was set up, because of Toby calling about Jed. We're missing a big chunk here."

"Yeah, I know. And now the bugs." He nodded in the direction of the truck.

"Flypaper?"

"Coop, we're close to this guy. Really close, if we can just find the right piece to the puzzle."

"In time," she grimly replied.

"Thought of that, too."

"Traction."

33

Fiona had borne up through her husband being accused of murder. Now she bent under the crushing weight of his death.

Rick carefully described the scene and the fact that the gunshot may have been self-inflicted.

Cooper, as was her habit, stood quietly beside Rick but made mental notes. Once back in the squad car she would write everything down. Usually she carried her pad with her, but under the circumstances that seemed cold.

"Hy would never kill himself. He's Catholic." Fiona sobbed, her embroidered handkerchief at her gushing eyes.

Plenty of Catholics had killed themselves over two millennia, but neither Rick nor Cooper thought it wise to mention this. Thefact that Fiona hadn't collapsed was impressive to the two enforcement officials. Events had leached pounds from her, but her haggard face retained vestiges of mature beauty.

"Did you notice anything out of line the last few days?" Rick sighed. "You and Hy have been under a punishing strain."

Her bloodshot eyes searched his. "Do you still think Hy killed Toby?"

"I have to stick to facts. Hy was our main suspect in the death of Toby Pittman."

Coop stepped in. "Something horrible is happening, and for whatever reason it's happening among those who possess highly specialized knowledge concerning disease in grapes and other crops."

Fiona wiped her eyes, took a deep breath. "Hy was passionate about making wine. He got into a big argument with Rollie Barnes yesterday at the co-op store about using machines to destem grapes. He ran into him at the cafe. People have been shunning us, Rollie included, so Hy's been extra sensitive. I don't even know how they started talking, but Hy lost his temper and declared the only way to make wine was to destem the grapes by hand. No bad grapeshould ever fall into the basket. With a machine they do. Hy came home livid, as it apparently turned into a real shouting match. He thinks everyone is against him." A long pause followed. "And they were."

Coop's voice soothed. "I'm terribly sorry, Fiona."

"Sheriff, Deputy, I know my husband did not kill Toby Pittman. Yes, a wife isn't considered a good judge in these circumstances, but the least I can do for Hy," she choked up, then gained control, "is to clear his name, and by God, I will."

"Why don't we wait with you until Alicia arrives?" Rick suggested, as he didn't want to leave her alone.

Knowing that the Maudants had no children and were fairly new to Crozet, Coop had taken the precaution of calling Alicia Palmer on the way to White Vineyards. Alicia and Fiona were pals. Alicia dropped everything, so Rick and Coop expected her at any moment.

The sound of the Land Cruiser on the drive sent a ripple of relief through Coop. Alicia would know what to do.

Before the beautiful woman camethrough the door, Fiona asked, "When can l have his body?"

"I'll get the autopsy performed today. I'll call you as soon as it's over. You understand this is necessary?" Rick spoke in a low tone.

"Yes, I understand." She sat upright, speaking deliberately. "I want you both to know that my husband did not commit suicide."

Alicia entered without knocking, greeted the sheriff and deputy as she walked over to Fiona. She leaned down to embrace her friend, and that's when Fiona gave way.

As Fiona's sobs shortened, Rick briefed Alicia on the disposition of the body.

"I'll take care of the details." Alicia held Fiona's hand.

"Fiona, please forgive me for pressing you at this time, but it's crucial. We must go through Hy's papers and computer."

"Must it be now?" Alicia spoke for her friend.

"Yes. Alicia, if this isn't suicide, others may be in danger," Rick stated.

Fiona nodded that it was all right.

Alicia asked, "Is she in danger?"

"I don't care if I am," Fiona flared. "Let them come and get me. I don't want to live without Hy. I don't care!"

Coop calmly reminded her, "You have to live long enough to clear his name."

Fiona blinked, nodded, and said, "You're right."

34

Hy Maudant's funeral, a desultory affair, was attended by twenty-five people that Friday. St. Luke's seemed cavernous with so few mourners in the pews, but the Reverend Jones rose to the occasion. He didn't want to praise a murderer, but he didn't wish to condemn him, either. While Herb didn't know conclusively if Hy had killed Toby, he felt the evidence against him to be overwhelming. However, the Christian God is a merciful God, and Herb wanted to console Fiona and leave some shred of dignity with the departed.

Whenever confronted with a knotty problem, Herb turned to the Psalms. He read from Psalm Twenty-five:" Turn thou to me, and be gracious to me; for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of myheart, and bring me out of my distresses. Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.'"

As the service ended, Hy's casket was carried by four men from Hill and Wood Funeral Parlor, along with Fair Haristeen and Jim Sanburne.

Fiona, supported by Alicia and Boom-Boom, followed her husband's casket to the shining black hearse. Aware that eyes were upon her, she held her head up.

Eight people attended the burial apart from the pallbearers: Harry, BoomBoom, Alicia, Susan, Miranda, Tracy, Little Mim, and Aunt Tally.

As they repaired to Fiona's house for the traditional gathering, Aunt Tally waited for Harry to walk next to her.

"Aunt Tally." Harry slipped her arm through the old lady's free arm as Tally used her cane with the other one.

"We could have done better," the nonagenarian muttered under her breath.

"Beg pardon?" Harry inclined her ear toward Aunt Tally.

"Crozet should have done better by Fiona. Whatever Hy did is buried with him. No need to punish his widow."

"You're right." Harry shortened her steps.

"I have a terrible feeling, Aunt Tally."

"We all do, dear."

"It's not just about Hy's death. It's about all of this. Usually I can piece things together. Even if I don't put all the puzzle together, I'm close and I eventually figure it all out. But I'm blind this time."

"Malaise." Aunt Tally nodded. "I think we all feel that, Harry. It's not just the shock of this death or the visceral impact of the others, it's that we can't see why." She stopped, withdrawing her arm from Harry's to put both hands on the silver hound's head of her ebony cane. "Mark me, Harry, I am near one hundred and I tell you with the fullness of my years: there is nothing new under the sun. There are new technologies, but there is nothing new in the nature of the human animal."

"I believe that," Harry interjected while Aunt Tally took a deep breath.

"You do have a puzzling mind—I mean, you can often figure things out because you aren't hampered by seeing things as you wish to see them. That's a great gift. Your grandfather certainly had it, which is one of he reasons I fell in love with him. Your mother possessed it, too, and people with this gift can often run afoul of those who wish to view the world through rose-colored glasses. Use your sharp mind to ask, 'Why do people kill?'"

"Love, money, power."

"Exactly. To that I add revenge and to protect one's self."

As they started walking toward the gracious house, Harry whispered as if to herself, "The vineyards. How do the vineyards tie in to love or revenge?"

Aunt Tally, ears good even if her joints weren't, replied, "Money. There's a great deal of money once one is established."

"Enough to kill for?" Harry lifted her shoulders.

"People kill one another in cities for an expensive pair of sneakers, for drugs, for the damnedest, most inconsequential things."

"True," Harry softly answered.

"One of the great virtues of becoming ancient is I have ample time to cogitate and to continue my study of human nature. They call economics the dismal science. I think not. It's the study of human nature. Thousands of years of recorded history and we've learned nothing. Dismal."

That, too, applied to the small gathering at White Vineyards. One by one the people left, until only Fiona, Alicia, and BoomBoorn remained to look over the rolling hills festooned with vines climbing on the wires. In other circumstances this would presage hope. Today it represented loss.

Harry drove her old F-150 back to the farm; since Fair needed to visit his patients, he had attended the funeral driving his own truck. He called the horses his patients. He had a good bedside manner.

Harry resolved to keep tabs on Fiona, she would have, anyway. She also wanted to find out who was calling with checkbook in hand, how long it would take people to show up at the door. Could someone be trying to create a monopoly of local vineyards? But to kill for it—well, that upset her. Just thinking about it made her mad, gave her energy. And she kept thinking, "Could anyone be that greedy? That stupid?"

And she determined to visit local vineyards.

That was a mistake.

35

"Costs twenty-five dollars a plant. That's a hell of a lot better than one thousand five hundred dollars a plant." Dinny Ostermann pushed back his sweat-stained ball cap as he explained a new technique for identifying six common virus infections. "The worm is turning."

"How do you mean?" Harry had dropped by Dinny's small vineyard in Crozet.

Dinny bottled no wine. He picked his grapes and sent them on to whoever gave him the best price each year. As he grew an outstanding Cabernet Sauvignon, the Bordeaux variety of red grape, he enjoyed visits from various vintners' representatives during harvest time.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker nosed around. Dinny loved animals, so he laughedas Mrs. Murphy leapt straight up to try and snatch a yellow swallowtail from midair. The gorgeous insect fluttered away, her compound eyes seeing the tiniest movement.

"From Canada to Chile, people are waking up to the profit from wine. Wine consumption will finally overtake beer in our country." He hooked his thumbs in his muddy jeans.

"You really believe that wine will overtake beer?"

"More health benefits, and who gets a wine gut?" He laughed.

"Thought you might come to Hy's funeral."

"No. Hy and I didn't much get on."

"You think he killed Toby?"

"Yeah. They hated each other."

"I've been swinging by as many vineyards as I can in Albemarle and Nelson Counties. Trying to find out if anyone has seen the sharpshooters. So far no one has. What about you?"

He shook his head. "No. Heard you found them on strips in your peach orchard, but you haven't seen any on your grape leaves, have you?"

"No. But I've been thinking that it's kind of cool, rain off and on, and pretty good breeze, too. Maybe they'll show up when it's calm and warmer."

"Let's hope not." Dinny's black hair curled out from under his cap. "Damned queer, though."

"I'm furious that someone used my peach orchard for their experiment."

"I would be, too." He removed his cap, holding it over his eyes as he looked toward the sun. "Should dry out by tomorrow." He laughed. "Boots get heavy with all that mud caked in the treads."

"Don't I know it."

"Hey, gives us good legs. We'll both look good in bathing suits." He smiled.

"What a happy thought." She lifted Tucker up, putting the heavy corgi in the cab. "Dinny, I had an odd thought."

"Only one?"

"Only one that I can share." Mrs. Murphy and Pewter jumped in the cab while Harry closed the door and leaned against it. "You know most all the growers and vintners. Apart from Hy and Toby, is there bad blood between any of them?"

He considered this. "I don't know as I'dcall it bad blood, but if this were a frog-jumping contest, I'd keep my eyes on my frog, 'cause I expect someone would pour BBs down its throat."

"You think anyone is competitive enough to destroy the other guy's crop? Like with black rot or one of those mildews or the sharpshooter?"

He rubbed his chin, dark underneath the shaved skin. "Seems like it would come back on them."

"What if they unleashed something for which they were prepared? I mean, like downy mildew. Forgive me, Dinny, I don't know these diseases and pests like you do, but if spores were wafted over someone else's grapes, the criminal could have sprayed his own grapes."

"You'd have to be rich."

"Why?"

"Because you'd have to have all those sprayers and booms right there to use before you let loose the spores or the bugs. Couldn't be renting them. Too obvious."

"Don't all the big vineyards have them?"

He nodded yes, but added, "There're Plenty of little guys out there with maybe anacre or two in cultivation. They rent the equipment."

"You don't seem surprised by my questions."

"Harry, you belong with those two cats. Curious."

"Guess so. My fear is that I'm trying to find who hates whom. I'm wondering if the killings are over."

"I expect the people who hated one another are dead." His eyebrows lifted. He stepped back up on his small tractor. "Guess you heard that Tabitha Martin donated Toby's body—I should say body parts—to the medical school for anatomy."

"Some sister."

"Yeah. I look on the bright side. Toby's helping science. He liked science."

"He was on to something, Dinny."

Harry drove by Rockland Vineyards, spied Rollie Barnes's truck and a farm truck next to it. She pulled down the drive onto Toby's farm, came up alongside the two trucks, and cut the motor.

"Hello, Harry." Both Rollie Barnes and Arch Saunders greeted her.

"How's it going?" she asked. The cats put their paws on the windowsill, since Harry had rolled down the truck windows. Tucker stuck her head out.

"If the weather cooperates, this is going to be Toby's best yield yet. A real tribute to him." Rollie swept over the vineyards with his right hand.

"I dropped by Dinny Ostermann's and things look good there, too. You know, he was telling me about a new technology called RT-PCR that can pin down six different viruses that infect grapevines."

Arch spoke up. "Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction."

"That's a mouthful." Harry smiled.

"Pretty close to a miracle. Cheap and fast. The old way to identify corky bark and leafroll virus could take up to three years." Arch liked showing off his knowledge in front of his boss. "Costs a fortune, though. RT-PCR costs twenty-five dollars a pop."

"Yeah, that's what Dinny said. Didn't see you two at Hy's funeral—"

Arch interrupted, "Harry, I'm not that big a hypocrite."

"Didn't think you were, but we all were wondering what Fiona will do. Maybe shecan carry it by herself. A lot of work." Harry's voice was without any accusatory trace.

"I offered her a very good price for the place." Rollie sounded like a charitable man.

"After the funeral?" This time Harry's voice betrayed her surprise.

"Someone has to be first in line, and that's going to be me," Rollie explained himself.

"I suppose. I figured the Belgians would hurry back to Dulles Airport after finding Hy at Tinsley Crossroads," Harry replied. "Called Bo to see how he was doing after finding Hy. He told me they're still in the hunt and that he's fine."

"Probably a lot more exciting than what happens in Belgium." Rollie couldn't help but smile. "Bo will be telling that story for the rest of his life."

"It will be a long life. Only the good die young." Harry adored Bo, as did many women. She liked teasing him. Harry then inquired, "Is there a grape resistant to the sharpshooter?"

"Lake Emerald grape. They developed itin Florida. It's used as a rootstock mostly. Used a lot around Leesburg, Florida."

"We're too far north?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, but it's not the kind of grape we want to grow." Arch left it at that.

"You two need to get back to work and so do I, but I saw your trucks and thought I'd say hello."

"Hey, where's the donkey?" Arch asked.

"BoomBoom took him."

"Place is kind of lonesome without Jed," Arch said.

"Do you mind if I stop by the barn? Think I dropped my penknife in there when I was searching for Jed."

Rollie answered, "Go ahead. I don't think there's much in there."

"I didn't see a knife," Arch offered.

When Harry walked into the barn, she headed straight to the supply room. The boxes of flypaper were still there. She thought maybe Toby had put those sharpshooters in her peach orchard. It would have made more sense to put them in her grapes or someone else's grapes if he had hoped to destroy their business. But Toby could be sly. Maybe he was testing to see if they would survive. She was the only person who went to the peach orchard regularly, and most Crozet friends and neighbors roughly knew her habits and schedule.

She looked around for jars, for any evidence how he might have kept the insects alive. Nothing turned up.

As to the quantities of flypaper, all she could figure out was maybe he got a deal. That wasn't so unusual. She left as ignorant as when she arrived.

36

"I told Coop I snooped around at Toby's barn." Harry and Fair played with the foals when Fair came home from his calls. Although it was Saturday, horses pay no attention to weekends.

The more they were handled, the better the babies would be when they grew up.

"They might be small, but those little buggers can still hurt you,"Mrs. Murphy remarked as she sat on a fence post.

"It's the biting."Pewter steered clear of the foals.

"They're smart. They'll learn, and HarryandFair make it fun." Tucker watched.

"And the mothers like the humans, so that helps."Mrs. Murphy noticed hundreds of tiny green praying mantises who hadpopped out of their pod."Wow, glad I don't have to feed that family."

Tucker squinted, for the newborns crawled on wisteria wrapping up and over a small pergola Harry had put at the entrance to her flower garden. "/can't see that far."

"You can't see much anyway."Pewter felt ever so superior.

"/can see better than you think. I can see colors, too, even though humans used to think dogs couldn't, and furthermore, Miss Snot, I see better than humans in the dark."

"But not as well as I do,"Pewter cattily said.

"/didn't make that claim." Tucker smiled as the light bay foal nuzzled Harry's cheek.

"Funny how humans get things wrong,"Mrs. Murphy mused."All that business about dogs seeing black and white, and now they have research to prove otherwise. Research can be a good thing, but why don't they trust their own senses?"

"The sixth sense is the important one."Pewter shifted her weight on her fence post, a bit small for her large behind.

"Knowing without knowing. Yes, they should listen,"Tucker agreed.

Fair dug in his pocket for dried-appletreats for the patient mothers. "Coop say anything?"

"Not much. I told her I was researching diseases of grapes. She's been doing it, too. Do you know, when I ran off the names, names only of stuff that can attack grapes, I had four pages, two columns each, single spaced? Now I wonder how any grape ripens."

"The same could be said about any crop." He felt a soft muzzle fill his hand. "Back in the office today I was reading where Asian soybean rust is in Georgia. And it's one of those diseases carried by the air. After all that's happened I'm paying more attention."

"Spores?"

"Yep. Fungal, and it's so virulent that it can destroy plants in one month if untreated."

"Damn, that is a hateful one." Harry pondered. "What can the farmers do?"

"Spray, but that's expensive. The chemicals to kill Asian rust cost eighteen dollars an acre. Not cheap."

"Did it get here on a plane—you know, spores on someone's pants?" Harry was curious.

"No. It's the damnedest thing. Hurricane Ivan carried it here in a matter of weeks. It's been moving slowly through Asia, then Africa, and then South America—slowly as in decades—and all it took was one big hurricane to carry the spores across the ocean."

"But Hurricane Ivan was two years ago."

"Hit Florida bad, and that's where they first found the fungus, on kudzu."

"God, kudzu will take over the universe." Harry gasped.

"I don't know about the universe, but the spores sure managed to get from the kudzu in Florida to the soybeans in Georgia with unseemly haste." He handed out the rest of the apple treats. "I e-mailed Ned and he e-mailed back. I didn't know that soybeans account for sixteen percent of our country's agriculture production. Soybeans are twelve percent of U.S. export. Tell you what—first, that impressed me, and then second, Ned is up to speed."

As they walked back to the house Harry quietly said, "You're as caught up in this murder stuff as I am."

"I'm the one telling you to butt out, keep your nose out of other people's business."

He brushed his boots on the hedgehog scraper outside the screen door. "But I keep coming back to vineyards and revenge of some sort."

"And to the fact that growing grapes and making wine are becoming big business. There's millions to be made."

"But first you have to spend millions. It's a rich person's game. People like Dinny Ostermann benefit, and I hope we do, too, but we won't make the millions."

"What else have you been doing at your computer?" She felt Pewter brush against her leg as she walked into the kitchen.

"Tuna!"

"Pewter, let me make tea. I need a pick-me-up. You'll get your tuna soon enough."

Fair smiled. "How do we know she isn't saying, 'rib eye rare'?"

"Yes!"Pewter stood on her hind legs.

Mrs. Murphy along with Tucker padded into the kitchen."A ballerina. Our very own toe dancer "

"If we get steak it will be because of me,"Pewter bragged.

"Steak!"Tucker's ears stood straight up and forward.

As it happened, Fair decided to grillsteak. Harry knew not to interfere with his cooking, but she had to laugh behind his back at how "the boys," as she thought of them, ruthlessly competed about their grilling techniques. Ned, Jim, Blair, Tracy, even Paul de Silva had outdoor grills. She didn't know what he was doing out there with his apron around his waist as he wielded a dangerously sharp long fork and knife.

When Fair brought in the steaks, the aroma filled the kitchen.

As they ate their supper, giving the animals small steak tidbits, they kept going over events.

Harry rose to shut the kitchen window. "When the sun sets, the chill comes up fast. This is the coolest May I remember."

"It is."

"Hope you don't have any emergencies tomorrow."

"Me, too. What did you have in mind?"

She put on her sweetest smile. "Herb said Coop could move in when she was ready, so why don't we take the horse trailer and load up her stuff? One haul will do it. She doesn't have much."

This wasn't the Sunday he'd hoped for,but he figured silently that with his muscle power and Harry's organizing abilities they should be able to pull this off in three compressed hours. "Sure. She'll make a good neighbor."

"I'll make it worth your while." Harry smiled.

"Even if you don't, it's hard for a man to win when two women gang up on him, and one is his beautiful wife."

"You are such a flatterer." But she loved it.

37

Maps spread over the hood of her truck, Harry pointed to acres she had shaded with different-colored pencils. Susan peered down as traffic pulled in and out at the post office parking lot, a big parking lot for Crozet.

"Here's Carter's Mountain," Harry said as the two cats and dog watched people, arms laden with mail, bills, and magazines, come and go.

"Harry." Susan put her hand on Harry's shoulder. "I can read a map."

"Sorry. Well, anyway, this is what Patricia and Bill own. Down here is what Hy and Fiona own—I should just say Fiona. White Vineyards, about three hundred acres. Over here is Toby's, and Toby is just under two hundred acres, and here is Rollie. Arch andRollie's Spring Hill, the main part, is also two hundred acres—well, two twenty. These days that's a lot for Crozet. Okay, shaded in apple green are small growers who sell to the large ones."

"What's the pink?"

"Those are small farms Rollie and Arch have bought up. When you add Rockland— Toby's—to it, Spring Hill controls just under five hundred acres."

Just then Arch pulled into the post office. He emerged from his truck. "Are you coming back to work here?"

"No." Harry smiled.

"It's not the same without you and Miranda. Yeah, the big building and the extra post boxes are good, but we've lost something." He walked over. "Now, what are you up to?"

"Vineyards. Who owns what, who controls what, and you're coming out on top."

He smiled broadly. "Good for Spring Hill. Harry, any more sharpshooters?"

"No. Not yet anyway."

"You just never know. I sure hope they aren't adjusting to the latitude and the warmer winters. If they do, we're in big trouble. Well, let me go pick up the mail. Nice tosee you." He turned, then stopped. "Are you two going to put more acres in grapes?"

"Not yet," Harry answered.

"Buy land while you can. There will bea point in Albemarle County where it will be only the very rich and the very poor."

"I don't think I'm going to ever qualify as the very rich." Harry laughed.

"Me, either," Susan agreed.

"Not true. If either of you ladies ever sell the land you've inherited, you'll be worth millions. Let me know. Rollie has a big bankroll."

"Arch, if I sell my land, I sell my birthright," Harry said.

"Me, too. The Bland Wade tract has been in our family since right after the Revolutionary War."

"That's well and good, but if property taxes keep going up, and you know they will, and if, for some reason, your nursery business doesn't bring in enough cash, you'll be land poor, sure as shooting."

"Somehow, Arch, we'll hang on. The land is who we are." Harry spoke for herself and Susan.

"Well, keep it in mind. You never know. And you're both very smart ladies." He smiled and left.

"I guess on paper we're already millionaires based on the value of the land." Susan thought it out.

"We are?" Harry hadn't given it a thought.

"Pretty sure. It was our good fortune to be born into families that never sold off their land no matter how bad the times were. How they kept it together through the booms and busts of the nineteenth century, the war, the horrible aftermath, and then the crash in the 1930s—it's a testimony to how much they loved this place and how much they believed in the future."

"It really is," Harry solemnly replied. "We'll do our part, no matter what."

Arch walked back out of the post office, cell phone to his ear, and waved to the ladies. As he drove by, he slowed and said, "Rollie will pay twenty percent over current market value. He's on a roll."

"A lot of land has opened up in the last month," Harry blurted out. "Seems like you two have come out ahead."

Arch stopped the truck for a minute. "Can't let established vines go to ruin. Thewine industry has come too far in Virginia, know what I mean?"

"Fiona is going forward," Susan said.

Arch frowned for a second, then said "More power to her, but she's another one who could cash in and walk away a rich woman."

"She's already rich, plus she gets back the million dollars of Hy's bail. Just think of all that money at one time. It's overwhelming." Harry's eyes lit up.

"See you, ladies." Arch waved and drove on.

"What're you doin' now?" Harry asked Susan.

"Thought I'd go home and see if I can't find southern hawthorne saplings, little guys for us to plant come fall. I ordered the sugar maples, did I tell you?" Susan found that she enjoyed researching tree varieties, then finding them.

"No."

"They'll come in late September. Boy, I'm not used to thinking ahead like this. I'm used to school calendars." She sighed. "Where does the time go? Danny is a junior at Cornell and Brooks goes to Duke next fall."

"Sure goes fast," Harry agreed. "All right, I'm going back to the farm. Have to see if I can work the boom on the tractor. Never used one before. I might wait and cut hay instead. I'll ask Fair to help with the boom."

"Good luck with the boom." Susan kissed Harry on the cheek, then hopped into her Audi and drove off.

Two hours later Harry happily perched on the cushioned tractor seat as she cut the back acres; this was her orchard grass with regular alfalfa. The mix was popular with horsemen. She'd cut the quadrant with drought-resistant alfalfa later. She had to time it just right and allow the rows to dry out completely. Small wonder farmers obsessively watched the weather. But if she didn't give the blister bugs time to get, out of the drying hay, nothing good would come of it.

She made the animals stay back in the barn when she cut hay.

The cats dozed on the tack trunk in the center aisle, the day was so pleasant. Tucker was sprawled in the middle of the barn aisle.

Riding on a tractor always got Harry to thinking. As the diesel engine rumbled, the newly mown hay exerted a hypnotic quality. The symmetry pleased her. The aroma intoxicated her. She hummed to herself, jouncing along. When she cut the last row, she disengaged the blades and slowly bumped back to the shed. As she washed down the equipment, the tiny beads of water caught the sun, thousands of moving rainbows then shattered on the John Deere green paint. Satisfied that she'd done a good job, she strode into her small vineyard, walking down the short rows filling the quarter acre. Not a glassy-winged sharpshooter in sight.

She whistled on her way to the tack room, sat down at the heavy old schoolteacher's desk, and dialed Rollie Barnes. Luckily he was in his office.

"Rollie, this is Harry Haristeen. I was wondering if you'd give me a minute of your time."

"What can I do for you?" Rollie liked women asking him for advice.

"Well, as you know, I have this piddling quarter of an acre in Petit Manseng. I haven't followed this case going before the Supreme Court about shipping wine out of state. What really is this about?"

"First, let me say that for the most part I favor states' rights, but when they interfere with the free movement of goods and services, I believe there has to be a uniform federal law." He sounded like a politician.

"I'm with you." She was, too.

"Many states ban direct shipment of wine to consumers. Obviously, this puts a huge dent in profits."

"So if a person from Missouri calls Kluge Vineyard for a case of wine, Kluge Vineyard can't send it to a private customer?" Harry asked.

"Right. It's outrageous." His voice rose. "Of course, we have no way of knowing how the court will rule, but the case is about to come up. If it rules that banning direct shipment is unconstitutional, that will be a huge victory for everyone in this country who makes wine. It's a victory for the consumer, too. Instead of going through a middleman with their markup, we can ship directly to the customer."

"Any idea how the court will rule?"

"No." His voice deepened, the register became less emotional. "The Supreme Court is erratic. Then again, I'm not a lawyer, thank God. I have to be rational or I lose business."

Harry laughed. "Thank you, Rollie. I knew you'd know. I guess a ruling in favor of direct shipment means business will boom and land prices will shoot up higher."

Pleasure purred in his voice. "Oh, yes."

"You're sitting in the catbird seat."

"Is that a good thing?"

She laughed. "Sure is. Ever look up in a tree and see where the catbird sits? Best place, and no one can get him."

"Well, then, you're right."

After a few more pleasantries, Harry hung up, then called Cooper. "Hey."

"Hey back at you," Cooper, in the squad car, answered.

"Need any more help over at the house? I can come over tonight and tomorrow, too. Fair's going to be making late calls tonight."

"He needs to take in a partner or even two."

"Yes, he and I will have that discussion when we go on our vacation end of July."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"No, we're really going. BoomBoom will take care of the horses and Paul de Silvasaid he'd help, too. Of course, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker will go along with us."

At the sound of their names the two cats opened their eyes.

"Vacation?"Pewter murmured."Where?"

The tiger rolled on her side."Kentucky. They're going to a horse show and to look at horses."

"That will be nice."Pewter noticed another little bit of peppermint candy by the tack trunk."Think they have good tuna in Kentucky?"

"Pewter, there's good cat food all over the country."Mrs. Murphy lifted her head to listen to Harry.

"Coop, I've been thinking about the two murders and Hy's suicide. I know Rick thinks I get in the way—"

Coop interrupted. "Let's just say that since you don't have to follow police procedures, you can find things that are critical to us, but you can also put yourself in harm's way. Furthermore, Harry, you can compromise evidence."

"I know, I know. Well, I haven't been in the way about the grape murders—that's how I think of them."

"Because you're still recovering fromgetting remarried. Obviously, you're returning to reality." Coop laughed. "Not that being married to Fair isn't wonderful."

Harry laughed at herself. "God, am I that obvious?"

"Yes." Coop pulled off the road behind White Vineyards. "What's up?"

"Toby's storage room in his barn contains an unusually large amount of flypaper."

"It did seem like a lot, but he must have been someone who buys in bulk. He had enough paper tablets, toilet paper, pencils, and aspirin for the next year." Coop and Rick had combed Toby's property.

"What about Hy Maudant's place? Did you find boxes of flypaper there?"

"No. In fact, I'm on the dirt road behind White Vineyards now. Harry, most people who keep horses or cattle in a barn resort to flypaper." Cooper was amused.

"You're going to walk up in the back of the grape rows, right?"

A pause followed. "I am. You're really waking up, aren't you?"

"Looking for sharpshooters?"

"Yes." Cooper knew there was no point lying to Harry.

"Anything else? Like black rot?"

"I'm not too well versed on these things, but if the vines are diseased or the young leaves spotted, I'll find out what's wrong."

"But if there is something wrong, Arch and Rollie would know."

"And they'll take measures. They're over there a lot."

"When you went through Toby's and Hy's files, was there material about the sharpshooter?"

"Not in Hy's files. All he had was one sheet of laminated paper with photos. Toby's computer was bursting with information on every possible enemy to his grapes."

"Hmm, was there an extra large amount about the bugs?"

"The problem is, I don't know what an extra large amount is, given the sheer volume of information he had on everything, and I mean everything."

"What about Professor Forland's files?"

"We've been working with the Blacksburg authorities. Professor Forland had the latest research, like Toby, on everything."

"What I was wondering is, was Professor Forland secretly working on a mutation? Not to harm our crops but if our government wanted to use biological warfare against someone else?"

"No." Coop's voice was firm. "He didn't work for our government. He was called in as an expert by the wine lobby to testify before House and Senate subcommittees."

"Ah."

"Harry?"

"I think this is about revenge. I don't know who was trying to destroy whom first, Hy or Toby. It escalated. Maybe Professor Forland found out Toby's intentions, which would have hurt everyone, and Toby killed him. Hy caught Toby later or figured it out. Hy knew his stuff. He made the big mistake of confronting Toby."

"And then finally overwhelmed with what he'd done, Hy shoots himself? It's all plausible, Harry, but it's not proven."

"But you've thought of this, too?"

"We have."

"Have you thought of why the sharpshooters were in my peach orchard?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"The intention was for you to find themand sounda warning—I think. Again, this is conjecture."

"Didn't work. The scare tactic. No one sold their vineyards because of it, although it's early in the game."

"Yeah, but, Harry, it was a red herring. At least that's what I think. Once you do the research, you find out there's no way that sharpshooters, those little stealth bombers, can live here. So a true vintner wouldn't panic and sell out, but latecomers to making wine might."

"The sharpshooters were brought up from farther down South." Harry paused. "There's no other way they could have gotten here."

"Clever."

"Somehow this gets back to me. I don't know why." Harry's frustration mounted.

"What do you know that I don't? Why would you be a target with three men dead, one apparently by his own hand?"

"I don't know. You said 'apparently.'"

"Forensics has a small question mark because of the nature of the powder burns. It was Hy's gun. Registered in his name. Like I said, it's a small question mark. We aren't yet treating it as a suspicious death,but the coroner sent his photographs to Richmond for a second opinion." Coop, with her window down, inhaled the fragrance of the earth.

"I keep coming back to those darned sharpshooters."

"Okay, listen to me. There is a very good chance that in some tangential way, you are... involved is the wrong word, but you know what I mean. If the tactic was simply to scare another grower, it seems putting the bugs in their vineyards would make more sense. But again, you would make sure to find out what the sharpshooters were and you'd go to the right people. It's a little more sophisticated than dumping bugs in White Vineyards, for example."

"Maybe my peach orchard was the experiment. They didn't want to use their vineyard or peach grove if they have one. And maybe I stumbled on it a day early. I don't know. I'm trying to think of everything."

"/found the stealth bomber." Pewter sat upright.

"You did."Mrs. Murphy supported Pewter, which gave the gray cat great satisfaction.

Harry and Coop batted ideas around. Allit did was make them dizzy with implication. Ideas aren't hard evidence.

After their discussion, Harry walked out into the center aisle. Movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Matilda dangling from a rafter; blacksnakes enjoy a good climb.

Matilda startled Harry for an instant. "I wish she wouldn't do that."

38

The heavy aroma of coffee from Shenandoah Joe's curled into Fair's nostrils. He sighed, inhaled deeply, then opened his eyes. He'd fallen asleep on the couch, but his boots were neatly lined up on the floor, a pillow was under his thick blond hair, and a blanket covered him.

Pewter, resting on his chest, opened her eyes when he did."Good morning. Breakfast!"

"Pewter, you must weigh twenty pounds."

The gray cannonball on his chest shifted her weight. "/do not. I have big bones."

From the kitchen Mrs. Murphy called out,"Ha!"

"Oh, shut up. You're no beauty basket, either."

"Maybe not, but at least I'm in shape."

Tucker, patiently waiting by her ceramic food bowl, groaned."Not a fight before breakfast."

"Come on, Pewts, I need to get up."

Grumbling, switching her tail furiously, Pewter vacated her spot.

Fair sat up, rubbed his eyes, then headed for the bathroom.

By the time he walked into the kitchen, Harry had made a cheese omelette, lots of capers in it, with fresh tomato slices on the side sprinkled with olive oil and fresh parsley ground like green confetti.

"Good morning." She smiled as she put the plate on the table along with an English muffin.

"Thanks. When did you get in?"

"Nine-thirty. You were out like a light." She sat down to join him.

Harry wore a cotton undershirt—the kind kids called wife beaters—and thin cotton boxer undershorts. Once the worst of the winter passed, she hated to wrap up in a robe.

"I don't remember. God, I must have been tired. I read your note on the blackboard, drank a tonic water, and sat down toread the newspaper." He watched the cream swirl in his coffee. "How's it going at Coop's?"

"She was smart. She unpacked the kitchen first. Since that's the worst job, anything after that is easy. I've got to remember to bring some flowers, something to make it like home." She rose, grabbed a little notebook on the counter under the phone, and scribbled "flowers" on the page. "Can you think of a good housewarming gift?"

"Does she have a coffee grinder?"

"No. Perfect." Triumphantly, she wrote, "Coffee grinder."

"See how smart I am?"

"I know. You married me." She demolished her omelette. "Horse okay?"

"Yeah. He'll make it. I'd hoped we could haul him down to Virginia Tech, but I don't think he would have made it; he was losing blood. We put down plastic tarps, clean, tranqed him, and he dropped on the tarp. Operated there. I don't know if he'll ever hunt again, but he might be able to amble on trails. He just shredded his suspensory, deep lacerations in his right shoulder. Had to stitch that up, but it's the suspensorythat's the real issue." He cited a ligament in the foreleg.

"Mandy will give him good care, and she'll never part with him." Harry named the owner, a kind woman in her fifties.

"All comes down to the owner."

"I've been thinking about Jed."

"Cuts make you think of him? He's finally happy. He's made friends at BoomBoom's with the other horses."

"Actually, I've been thinking about Jed ever since I talked to Coop yesterday, and then as we were organizing the house we talked some more."

"I'll bet." Fair grinned, then rose to pour more coffee. "Want more hot water for your tea?"

"No thanks."

"Well, what about Jed?"

"He was sound."

"Right."

"Why did Toby call you there?"

"I thought we talked about this."

"We did, sort of, and you mentioned that when you had that impromptu lunch with Arch and Bo that Arch thought Toby had lost his mind."

"Right. You said when you saw Toby at Alicia's he was irrational," Fair replied.

"He was. Alicia, Arch, and myself were witness to it. He wasn't a pretty picture. But Coop says that there is a slight question mark about Hy's suicide. The coroner sent the photos to Richmond."

"What does that have to do with Toby?"

"Just this: what if you were set up to look like Toby's killer? What if Hy really told the truth? He didn't kill Toby. He panicked when he saw the body and fled. One of those things—the killer has it all planned out and something unexpected happens. Pretty much life, isn't it? One unexpected thing after another."

"True." Holding his coffee cup in his hands, Fair thought. "Why me? I can't think of anyone that mad at me."

"I can't, either."

"And I don't have anything to do with vineyards. I figure that's the tie, the vineyards."

"I have a quarter of an acre."

"You do, but that's not my business. I'll put my back into it, but no one will ever accuse me of being a vintner."

"Think hard."

He did, but he couldn't think of an enemy. He could think of people who didn't put him high on their list but not a violent enemy.

Two hours after Fair left for the clinic, Harry worked with the babies. She'd gotten them used to halters; now she was getting them accustomed to the lead rope, with their mother's help.

Tucker watched from the middle of the paddock, and each cat sat on a fence post.

Harry trotted with a little fellow.

She suddenly stopped. "Oh, my God, I've been blind as a bat!"

39

It's funny how when one person realizes something, so often another person thinks of this at the same time.

Harry took the lead rope off the foal, patted the little guy, then quietly walked to the barn. Rushing about, being emotional around horses, particularly foals, upsets them. No matter what her realization, Harry was a horsewoman first.

Her cell phone, sticking out from her back pocket, irritated her. She plucked it out, holding the small device, as she opened and closed the wooden gate to the paddock. Then she sprinted for the barn, Tucker at her heels.

As they ran, they heard a big diesel engine throbbing in the driveway.

"Intruder!"Tucker alerted Harry, who heard it, too.

"I'm not taking any chances, Tucker. We don't know whose diesel that is. You stay in the tack room."

Harry skidded into the center aisle, grabbed the fixed ladder to the hayloft, climbing the steps two at a time. She'd stuck the cell in her back pocket again. When she reached the top step she held the rails of the ladder, which extended three feet beyond the top foot rail. She swung onto the loft floor with such force that her cell dropped from her back pocket. She didn't notice as she ran for the open loft doors.

Mrs. Murphy, dozing with Pewter in the tack room, awakened with a start. She leapt off the saddle blanket over the saddle, dashed out the open tack-room door, and climbed up after Harry.

Tucker sat in the center aisle, looking up.

Pewter opened one eye as she reposed on a second saddle—Fair's, since it had a larger seat. She closed it, only to open it again as she heard the truck door slam, motor still thrumming.

Harry ran past Simon, who was playingwith his curb chain, and hid behind the highest stack of hay bales as she thought about what to do. She was three hay bales down from Matilda, who did not like the thumping on the loft floor. Why couldn't Harry walk? In the cubbyhole next to her, Matilda's eggs jostled slightly.

Simon put down the curb chain. The cell phone captured his attention. What a wonderful toy. He scurried to fetch it, carting it back to his nest. He pulled out the antenna and inadvertently pressed buttons until the small unit glowed. This was his best-ever find.

Harry flipped open her pocketknife. She always carried one, as do most country people. The blade, at four-and-a-half inches, was sharp. She was confident it was better than nothing. That was all she was confident about.

"Harry," Arch called. When he received no answer he cut the loud motor. He noticed her truck. He walked to the back porch door and knocked. No answer. He gave the fields a cursory look, since she was usually out working or in the barn. The next stop was the barn.

When he saw Tucker he knew Harry had to be there. He checked the tack room. Checked each stall and the feed room. He wasted no energy calling for her. He now knew she knew and he knew she was hiding. Didn't take a genius to figure that out. Arch was no genius, but he possessed ample cunning.

A call came on the cell phone. Scared Simon so bad he flipped the phone right up in the air and it hit the floor with a thud. The ringing reverberated on the wooden floor, which made Flatface open her eyes. She was even more displeased than Matilda.

Mrs. Murphy flattened herself on a hay bale to the left of Harry, who was crouching behind hay bales. Harry wished she hadn't dropped her phone, because she would have called Coop. Too late.

Harry knew her only hope was surprise. Her heart beat so hard she thought Arch could hear it.

He swung through the top of the ladder, his work boots hitting the floor. He scanned the hayloft, then walked over and picked up the flashing cell phone. He tossed it on the floor and it skidded toward Simon, who watched with his black shining eyes. His nest faced away from Arch, but the big manwalked over, his boots hitting the boards hard.

Flatface's anger rose accordingly.

Simon, terrified, flopped on his side and played dead. Arch kicked the cell phone again as he walked past Simon toward higher stakes. Simon, still as a corpse, nevertheless opened his eyes, then twitched his nose. Relief flooded over him, since Arch couldn't have cared less about one slightly overweight possum.

"I forgot how smart you are." Arch walked with deliberation now. "Of course, Harry, you can't be all that smart. You married that two-timing bastard again."

Mrs. Murphy flattened herself as much as she could. She scarcely breathed.

Tucker frantically ran back and forth under the ladder."Pewter, do something! Climb the ladder."

For all her carping and diva ways, Pewter came through in a crisis. She shot off the saddle, brushed past Tucker, and then stopped quickly."Stay to the side of the ladder. If he comes down, bite hard. Run circles around him and keep biting. Maximum pain." As Pewter hauled herself up the ladder she called over her shoulder,"Shutup. You don't want him to know where you are when he comes down."

Tucker immediately stopped barking to crouch by the ladder.

Pewter just reached the top as Arch found Harry, who sprang out like a jack-in-the-box. She hit him with her shoulder low, a decent enough block. Arch reeled back two big steps, his heel squishing into Matilda's eggs. She struck with such speed that all Harry saw was a black blur.

Matilda caught him above the right ankle, sinking her fangs in full length, then she disengaged and slithered with amazing speed to the back of the hay bales. Mrs. Murphy launched off the top of her hay bale as Arch screamed in pain. She hit his head hard, nearly slipped off, and dug her claws into his face to hang on.

Arch bent his head. Harry saw her chance and rammed her knife up under his chin as hard as she could. She stabbed him at an angle. She'd used so much force that the blade stuck in his jawbone. She couldn't dislodge it. She stayed too close. Arch could use his long reach even with the tiger valiantly biting and scratching. He graspedHarry's right wrist, twisting her arm. She hollered in pain.

Pewter, frantic at the sight, climbed up Arch's leg. He didn't bother to shake her off. Arch was fixated on killing Harry. Pewter climbed up his torso, reached his shoulder, perilously dug her claws in, and hung on as she inched down his right arm. Finally she reached his hand and bit for all she was worth. Howling, he released his grasp.

Maybe Harry should have run, but white-hot rage flooded her. She lowered her shoulder again and slammed his gut as hard as she could. This time, his leg throbbing from Matilda's deep wound, struggling to see because of the blood running into his eyes, he hit the floor hard with his knees. But he lunged forward, closing his left hand over Harry's ankle like a vise.

The cats leapt off as Arch went down.

Simon watched in horror. A bit of a coward, Simon's first instinct was to withdraw deeper into his little nest. All creatures recognize their own, who cares for them, and this won over his natural timidness. Simon waddled forth as Harry slugged Arch over and over again, aiming for the exposed handle of the pocketknife so each blow causedsearing pain. But he dragged her down. As he wrapped both hands around her throat, blood now pouring out of his right hand and from under his chin, she hit again, so hard that the knife snapped off at the hilt.

The cats, knowing he was strong enough to choke Harry to death despite everything, went for the eyes. When Pewter sunk her claws into his left eyeball, clear gel oozed out. She knew she'd succeeded. He'd never see out of that eye again. The pain seared. Arch had never felt such pain in his life. He let go. Harry scrambled to her feet. Four big strides and she reached her cell phone. Arch, screaming, covered his face with his hands. She prayed her cell worked, and it did. She punched the preprogrammed button to call Coop. As she did, Arch again struggled to his feet.

Wily, Harry knew she couldn't reach the ladder, since he was between her and that escape route.

"Hello."

"Coop. Help. I'm home."

She said no more as he stumbled after her again with the power of someone who no longer cares whether he lives or dies.

Harry stepped back slowly, throwing thecell phone at him. The cats stepped back with her. Simon stealthily crept up behind Arch.

"Hoohoo, hoo hoo." Flatface had seen enough. She stood poised at the edge of her nest, opened wide her large wings, pushing off without a sound.

By superhuman effort, Arch overcame his pain and ran for Harry again. She took two hurried steps backward, then cut left. His forward momentum and the swelling in his leg prevented him from turning as quickly as Harry. The opened doors of the loft yawned ahead, but he stopped himself just at the edge to keep from falling out.

His full stop allowed Simon to scurry up behind him and bite above his ankle. His little sharp teeth were not capable of as much damage as Matilda's or the cats', but those teeth still hurt. Arch gasped, then he felt a tremendous blow to the head. Flatface blasted him, talons balled tight. He tipped over, flailing to right himself, but fell out of the loft, breaking both legs as he crashed.

Harry ran to the open doors just in time to see Tucker fly out of the barn and grab Arch by the throat.

"Leave him, Tucker. Leave him."

Drenched in sweat, her wrist hurting like hell where he'd twisted her arm, Harry fought for large gulps of air.

"I'll rip his throat out"The mighty little dog had felt so helpless hearing the terrible struggle in the loft.

"Tucker, no, no." Harry fought off a moment of dizziness.

"We need a confession!"Mrs. Murphy yelled.

The infuriated dog understood. She released his throat, but not before leaving some puncture wounds. She guarded him, ready to bite again.

"Thank the Lord, Tucker's a corgi,"Pewter, upset herself, blurted out."Smart as a cat."

Harry sat down, putting her head between her legs. Flatface, who'd flown out of the loft doors when Arch sailed out, flew back in. She swooped low over Harry, the air from her wings refreshing, then she soared up to her perch.

"Thanks,"Mrs. Murphy called up to her.

"My pleasure,"she called down."He deserved it"

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Simon wedged themselves next to Harry. All threelicked her hands. Mrs. Murphy then stood on her hind legs to lick her face.

Arch was screaming and sobbing. The worst pain was his eye. The broken legs, the snakebite, the dog, cat, and possum bites hurt, but the blinded eye felt excruciating.

The animals heard Cooper before Harry did, but soon enough she heard the siren, then the stones flying off the squad-car tires as her friend careened down the driveway. More sirens followed.

Harry took a deep breath, wiping away her quiet tears. She wasn't crying from fear but from gratitude. She owed her life to these little friends and to her own fierce desire to fight.

She stood up, shook her head, then knelt back down. She kissed Mrs. Murphy and Pewter. Simon couldn't bear a human kiss, so she ran her forefinger over his head. Then she headed for the ladder. Stooping to pick up the cell phone, she thought again and put it on the floor.

"My gift, Simon. Thank you."

40

Friendship distills the sweetness of life.

Mrs. Murphy listened as the friends below learned more of what had happened. She lay with her belly flat on the wide, low walnut branch, her legs dangling over each side. Nearby, artfully wedged on the picnic-table, Pewter posed, preened, and was so full of the milk of kindness she almost mooed. No one believed her, but they still fed her bits of fried chicken, little clumps of broccoli heads drenched in butter, and succulent bits of honey-cured ham. Tucker, not quite the dramatist, cast soulful eyes as she walked behind BoomBoom, Alicia, Big Mim, Miranda, Cooper, Susan, Fair, and Harry in turn.

"You're going to wear yourself out going from person to person like that,"Mrs. Murphy called down to her.

"Iburn the calories off moving."

"O la!"The tiger laughed as the dog gobbled a large chicken morsel from Big Mim's fingers.

Simon sat at the open loft doors, half-listening to the chatter in Harry's front yard across from him. Mostly he chewed a long raspberry penny-candy stick that Harry had given him. Sweets were Simon's downfall.

Two days had passed since Harry's battle with Arch. Her wrist, wrapped in a bandage, hurt but not enough to stop her.

"So it wasn't a full confession, after all?" Big Mim, who liked to be first to hear any news, had only gotten parts.

When Cooper reached Harry, the first thing she had to do after ascertaining Harry was all right was call for an ambulance. Took another day for Arch to be able and willing to talk.

"He says it is." Cooper passed a plate of corn bread.

"Revenge. A broken heart. I don't buy the broken-heart bit." Susan swept back her sleek pageboy with her right hand. "He'd been without Harry for four years, andit's not like she ever said it would be more than it was."

"Men hear what they want to hear," Alicia simply said. "Sorry, Fair."

"Some truth to it, I expect." He'd been badly shaken by Harry's close call and sick with himself for not seeing the true threat.

"He was so likable." Miranda sought the best in people. She sighed. " 'Be sure your sin will find you out.'" Quoting Numbers, Chapter 32, Verse 23, she then added, "You can't outrun the Lord. Most times you can't outrun the law, either."

"Did you have any idea it was Arch, you and Rick?" BoomBoom put it straight to Cooper.

"Our main suspects were Toby, Rollie, Hy, and Arch bringing up the rear. Toby was the front-runner initially because of his unremitting hostility to the others, his crazed competitiveness. I emphasize crazed. Arch confessed to killing Toby and Hy, but he swears he did not kill Professor Forland."

"It was Toby, then?" Susan asked.

"Yes, I think so. The bullet was from Toby's gun," Cooper replied.

"He rode around town showing off that new gun. He must have been nuts," Boom-Boom said, because she'd heard from Alicia how Toby found his misplaced gun in his truck.

"He never thought we'd find the body." Cooper sipped the best lemonade she'd ever drunk. "By the time we did, well, we're eating. Anyway, the coroner did retrieve the bullet. Then it took a little time to trace it."

"He used a brand-new registered gun," Fair remarked, "a beautiful gun, really. He was either crazy or arrogant. He disguised the grave up in the peach orchard, but earth has a way of rising up or sinking down sooner or later."

"What about Toby losing his gun?" Alicia had witnessed his surprise at finding it.

"Who knows? He probably did, or forgot where he'd put it. Toby had a motive to kill Professor Forland. He didn't find out until Arch sort of told him why he wasn't hired to lecture at Virginia Tech. That's what Arch says. He said he knew Toby would figure it out from their conversation at Patricia and Bill's party. So Toby, precarious as he was, went off his rocker. We'll never know, but he probably asked Professor Forland to swing by on his way out of town or he met him somewhere. We don't know why he buriedForland in your peach orchard. I suspect he killed him near here and went up to the orchard when he checked to see if you were around. Again, we'll never know. He was smart enough not to kill him at Rockland Vineyards. The other two murders we do know about."

"But it does come back to Toby again." Fair would never erase the sight of the murdered man from his mind. It wasn't so horrible as it was unexpected, and sad, too, given Toby's deranged state.

"Yes, it does. Toby, toiling away at his computer, realized quickly that the sharpshooters had been deliberately placed in Harry's peach orchard. His first response was that this was a plot to ruin his grapes. Always his grapes. Then he thought about other vineyards. The more he worked on it, the more he realized, no matter that the sharpshooter had been planted, it couldn't do enough damage in a summer to be a problem to the grapes." Cooper poured herself more lemonade.

"Why would that get him killed?" Boom-Boom was very curious.

"He approached Arch. Not on the best of terms. However, they were on better termsthan Toby and Hy. Toby accused Arch of bringing up the sharpshooters from North Carolina to scare people, hoping some would bail out. He thought Arch and Rollie were going to corner the market and then price-fix. Rollie, before he retired here, and I use 'retire' loosely, engaged in ruthless business practices. He made his fortune crawling over other people. Arch denied this to Toby. But that was the truth."

"Why didn't Arch leave well enough alone?" Big Mim inquired.

"He knew how highly intelligent Toby was. Toby, sooner or later, would figure out the sharpshooters were intended for the Alverta peaches. No, they couldn't destroy the orchard, but they could do some small damage this season, then die in the frost. He knew how much keeping the old variety alive meant to Harry. He would have done more damage to other crops by other means as time went by."

"So he killed Toby with his own gun?" Fair said.

"Yes, but he had the gun at Toby's head and forced him to call you. Arch's anger had escalated from harming peaches to harmingyou. He said each time he saw you, he hated you more. You don't deserve Harry."

Fair put his arm around his wife's waist. "He might be right there."

"Honey, don't be a flatterer." Harry blushed.

"Sweetheart, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I let you down once in the past and I let you down again. I never saw it coming with Arch."

"Fair, none of us did." BoomBoom cared for Fair, always would.

"She's right. Arch could have won an Oscar for his performance." Alicia's bracelet slid down her arm as she lifted her hand for emphasis.

"You would know." Big Mim smiled.

"Everyone was on the wrong track. Fixed on the vineyards and those who own them." Susan found each detail more riveting and dismal simultaneously.

"Then why did he kill Hy? He confessed to that, didn't he?" BoomBoom felt some relief in that Fiona no longer had to bear the 'stigma of her husband's supposed suicide.

Such things shouldn't stick to family and friends, but people were harsh about suicide, it seemed.

"Hy, no slouch either when it came to protecting against parasites and fungi, had been studying the sharpshooter as soon as the news hit. His worry, according to Arch, was that global warming was allowing these things to move ever northward."

"Boll weevil." Miranda knew her bugs.

"How about the parasite that kills honeybees that finally made it this far north in 1980 and is wreaking havoc? There sure might be something to this warming stuff." Harry worried, as did every farmer.

"Hy drove out to your peach orchard to see for himself." Cooper continued with Arch's confession. "He determined as did Toby that the sharpshooter had been planted there. Hy thought they hadn't flown up here, because they would have alighted in other orchards and vineyards between here and North Carolina. He definitely knew the sharpshooters were planted. He tried to find out why. Obviously, there was no way Hy would communicate with Toby over anything. The natural person to discuss this with was Arch, thanks to his extensive knowledge. That turned out to be a fatal mistake."

"Hy wouldn't have made the connectionto revenge against Fair and Harry, would he?" Susan thought of three lives needlessly cast away.

"Arch wasn't taking any chances. Hy was piecing things together about the sharpshooters. And Arch was shaken that Hy had driven up before Fair when he'd just shot Toby. Arch's plan backfired, and that was just dumb luck. He drove out the back way when he heard Hy's truck coming in the front. He couldn't see because of the hill there, but he assumed it was Fair. Fair would have been parked in the penitentiary for a good long time or bankrupted by the legal fees regardless of outcome. Arch said he couldn't believe it when he found out we apprehended Hy. He thought if Fair were put in jail he could win back Harry. If Fair got off and they were bankrupted, well, he'd have some pleasure in seeing her suffer by staying with Fair."

"Flatface flew over Hy when he drove into the peach orchard,"Mrs. Murphy casually reminded Pewter and Tucker.

"No way to tell Harry."Pewter belched.

"Pewter. Mind your manners," Harry said.

"You never burp,"Pewter sassed.

"Could be worse. Could have come out the other end."Tucker giggled.

"I'm leaving."Pewter, miffed, jumped off the bench seat. She jumped back up, though.

"Ha! The day you walk away from food, the sun will rise in the west."Mrs. Murphy swung her tail with vigor.

"The next thing Arch realized, obvious now, is that Harry would figure it out, too. It might take her a little longer; she'd have more resistance to the thought. Dominos." Cooper finished off her ham sandwich and longingly stared at the cherry cobbler. She'd wait until everyone else finished their meal before grabbing dessert.

"If it weren't for Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, Arch might have gotten away with it." Harry glanced up at Mrs. Murphy, who was glowing with the praise.

"He wouldn't have gotten away with it, Harry. He might have killed you, God forbid, but we would have nailed him, because I think he would have run," Cooper said forcefully.

"Where's Rollie in all this?" Fair wondered.

"Shocked. Chauntal, too. I had to tellRollie he had been a suspect and why. Didn't much like that, either, but he admitted he had been, in his words, 'extremely aggressive in business.' His next concern was if he might be sued. Arch is his business partner. I told him he wouldn't be the first person to have a business partner in jail. I also told him," Cooper looked to Harry, then Fair, "that you weren't the kind of people to do that."

"Thank you," Fair simply replied.

"Guess I should thank Matilda, Flatface, and little Simon, too. I told you all what happened earlier." Harry smiled.

"Matilda didn't do it because she cares about you. She was pissed that Arch squished her eggs."

"You don't know that."Tucker used her paw to wipe her whiskers.

"They lay their eggs and forget them. Snakes don't take care of their babies,"Pewter announced with authority.

"Could be that Matilda is different."Tucker defended the blacksnake, although she didn't much like her.

"She's different, all right. She's working on being the largest blacksnake in America."Mrs. Murphy inhaled the clean air, a lightcurrent swirling down from the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"Isn't that the truth!"Pewter said in a burst of animation."Bet her bite hurt so bad, Arch saw an hour's worth of fireworks in a minute."

"Flatface came through."Tucker smiled.

"She complains about us, calls us groundlings, but she does come through. She can't admit we're all together."Pewter puffed out her chest.

Mrs. Murphy, noticing the expansion, said,"Are you going to burp again?"

"No,"came the swift, indignant reply.

Mrs. Murphy lowered her voice."Is it going to be worse?"

"I am not going to hurl. I didn't eat that much. I was actually sensible."

This barefaced lie struck both Mrs. Murphy and Tucker speechless.

Mrs. Murphy sat up, stretched, and looked at Simon."He ate his raspberry penny candy. Now he's playing with the cell phone."

"Wait until she gets billed from Rio de Janiero."Pewter's good humor was restored by imagining another's distress.

"He can't use the phone. Simon's notbright enough to figure it out,"Tucker said. "/don't mean to be ugly, but really, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed."

"He'll push buttons. He may not know what he's doing, but he'll get something going. He's pulled out the antenna."Pewter was loving this.

"Harry will cut off the service to the phone. Might take her a day to think of it, but she'll go get another phone and transfer the numbers. Of course, who knows? By that time maybe he will have made a call."Mrs. Murphy entered into the spirit of this.

"And when that music plays he'll throw the cell phone in the air, squeal, and run for his nest."Pewter laughed loudly.

The humans, not privy to the animals' conversation, had been talking about why anyone would kill, but especially someone like Arch, as it was hopeless. How could he dream of winning Harry back by harming Fair?

Of course, Arch didn't think she'd know he set Fair up.

"Finally, he snapped and figured if he couldn't have Harry, no one could have her." BoomBoom felt she'd settled the issue.

" 'Beloved, never avenge yourselves, butleave it to the wrath of God.'" Miranda quoted Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 19.

"The grapes of wrath!"Pewter piped up.

"Oh, Pewter."Mrs. Murphy wrinkled her nose.

"You're just jealous that you didn't think of it"Pewter again puffed out her fluffy chest."Sourpuss."

Dear Reader,

All this study of grapes interested me because birds come to grapes. But really, I would have rather written a book about cultivating catnip. Mother declared that would have limited application.

Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not giving up on my catnip idea. Sooner or later, I'll get my way. For one thing, I hid her favorite pair of socks. Small revenge, you say. Ha. Imelda Marcos has shoes. Mother has socks. For one thing they are more affordable than a closet full of shoes. So if she sees things my way, I will retrieve the socks.

On May 16, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 that laws banning direct shipment of wine to consumers in other states is unconstitutional. Impromptu celebrations filled Virginia. I note here that a Virginian will use any excuse for a party; they are excessively convivial.

All's well here. Hope your life is full of mice, moles, voles, butterflies, and the occasional inattentive bird.

In Catitude,

Sneaky Pie

Dear Reader,

I just proofread the Cast of Characters and note that my coauthor rearranged things, citing the animals as the most important characters.

Her ego is in a gaseous state, ever-expanding. However, I must get up the second cutting of hay, since a thunderstorm seems more than likely this afternoon. It really is true, you make hay while the sun shines. There's no time to fix this and off it goes to my wonderful, wry editor, Danielle Perez.

If Sneaky's done anything else, I won't know about it until I receive the bound galleys. Too late then.

You know, it's hell to work with a cat. They really are smarter than we are. Have you ever gotten anyone to feed you, pay your bills, give you the best chair in the house, tell you how beautiful you are, and groom you daily? Me, neither.

Yours,

RITA MAE BROWN

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