Tail Gait

April 18, 2015

Trudy stepped out through her front door as Harry and Susan set the last dwarf crepe myrtle in a hole. “Girls, come on in and have some lemonade.”

“Wonderful idea,” Susan enthused. “Be another ten minutes at the most,” she called to Trudy. “Don’t you think planting these four balances the ones we put in earlier? It bothered me that you’d have all this color on the right side of the house. Needs balance.”

“You’re right, but then, Susan, you’re the gardener,” said Trudy. “Don’t bother to knock. Just come in.” She closed the door.

The two friends finished up, watered the crepe myrtles, washed their hands under the hose, checked their shoes. Had they tracked dirt in the house, Trudy wouldn’t have minded, but Susan would have pitched a fit. Harry, not so much.

Tucker and Owen, who had accompanied Harry and Susan, got their paws wiped before entering the house. Tucker wiggled with happiness—in part because she could go home and lord it over Pewter, expressly not invited.

As they entered the front door, Trudy called out, “In the kitchen.”

The four creatures walked down a wide center aisle to the rest of the house. The kitchen sparkled. Ginger and Trudy had lavished attention and money on a colonial kitchen with a walk-in fireplace on the western wall. Fieldstone covered that entire wall. The one non-colonial element they had insisted on when they were building the house was a wall of windows. She hated a dark house. So the kitchen, apart from the windows overlooking the backyard, also had two large French doors with paned glass. The kitchen glowed with light at two o’clock in the afternoon.

Trudy put the finishing touches on a tray, on which was a large lemonade pitcher, glasses with polka dots, a china plate filled with peanut-butter cookies, and a smaller plate loaded with dog biscuits.

“Oh, Trudy, you’re the best.” Harry filched a cookie before they even sat down. “The Devil made me do it!”

Susan carried the tray to the kitchen table. Too hot outside. Glad for the company, Trudy chattered about the weather, the ongoing struggles over a proposed bypass, the state’s response to federal guidelines for schools. Trudy’s passion had always been education, and when she and Ginger first married, she had taught at an elementary school until her children were born.

Tucker and Owen sat on either side of Trudy, who fed them a treat now and then. The reward was a love-drenched look.

“Did I tell you the girls drove to Richmond to pick up Adrian?”

Susan bit into a fat-filled cookie. “No. I wondered where they were.”

“Adrian will be here through the next week. He apologized over and over for not coming with Olivia, but I told him I understood. Running a big company has to be both exciting and frustrating.” Adrian Gaston made a fortune by perfecting a special plastic packaging. Starting with two other workers, his factory had expanded to 650. His product was used by almost every food service, shipper, and supermarket in the eastern United States.

“An amazing man.” Harry admired anyone who started their own business, whether it was an artisan cabinetmaker or someone who made it big like Adrian.

“Olivia.” Trudy paused. “So many gentlemen callers, as my mother would say. That girl would walk into a room and men would trail her like ducklings.” She smiled. “Rennie wasn’t a wallflower by a long shot, but Olivia has that magnetic personality. Well, Ginger had it.”

“In spades.” Susan smiled.

Trudy was solemn for a moment. “Thank you for the crepe myrtles, for spending some time with Olivia, and most of all for not coming around here with long faces just oozing sympathy.”

“It was terrible,” said Susan. “It’s still terrible, but, well—” She considered her words carefully. “People think that’s the right thing to do. And really, how does one express sympathy? You’re such a positive and strong woman, but others need all the props. Maybe I shouldn’t say props?”

Trudy waved her hand, Tucker and Owen intently focusing on every move just in case any food fell. “For some people, it’s the one time they get to be the center of attention. Their marriage, the birth of their children, and then passing. Personally, I don’t want to be the center of attention.” She stopped then, and with clarity and some volume, said, “What I want is an answer!”

“Yes. Everyone who loved Ginger wants that.” Susan sank in her chair a bit, tired from the physical labor and everything else.

“The sheriff and that nice deputy, your neighbor, Harry, were very sensitive. They asked questions the day he was killed, and they’ve come back. You don’t realize how good a public servant is until you need him or her.”

“True,” Harry simply agreed. “Did they ask you anything that surprised you?”

“Yes, quite a few things surprised me.” Clearly, Trudy wanted to talk about this. “I know they also talked to the girls, but as both of them no longer live in central Virginia, they knew so little about current affairs. Olivia is the more emotional of the two. I’ve kept things to myself and, well, Rennie, too. I suppose parents always seek to protect their children.”

“What was it that surprised you?” Harry’s antenna vibrated, and she didn’t want to push, but she sure wanted to know.

“Oh. Well, they asked about Ginger’s investments. I said his retirement plan, a few stocks. Nothing, just enough to keep us through our old age. God, I hate the twilight years, don’t you?”

They both laughed and nodded in affirmation.

Trudy continued. “They asked had he suffered large losses? Well, no. Then they asked about anyone from years back, during the Sally Hemings blowup, what about those people? Had any of those hotheads from that time reappeared?” Her hand stroked her throat briefly. “They never left. Really, except for the far-flung family members, most are still here, some still teaching. And, of course, Monticello has gone from strength to strength. Water under the bridge.”

“Seems to be.”

Harry realized that Trudy knew nothing about Frank Cresey seeing Olivia. Nor had she been informed of Frank’s confession. Sheriff Shaw and Coop, both shrewd law enforcement people, probably decided to wait a bit on that news.

Susan ate another cookie. “These are divine.”

“I’ve been baking to keep my sanity.”

Susan took another. “Trudy, we’re all supposed to bring you food.”

“People did, and do. It’s gobbled up rather quickly, but cooking and baking have always settled my mind.” She looked at Harry. “For your mother, it was gardening.” Then she looked at Susan. “For yours, I guess it was tennis. I never asked you why you took up golf instead of tennis.”

“Because Mom always beat me. I hated it!” Susan’s eyes widened. “Even when I was supposed to be in my prime, Mom could wipe the court up with me.”

Trudy reached over, touched Susan’s hand. “Honey, you’re still in your prime.”

The clock struck three.

Harry dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Here we are taking up your afternoon.”

“No, you’re not. I enjoy your company.”

“I enjoy yours,” Tucker politely said, and was instantly rewarded with a treat.

Owen, no fool, imitated his sister. “Trudy, you are the best,” the corgi cooed. A treat, miniature lamb-chop shape, color and all, was handed down to him.

“Here, let us clear the table,” Susan offered.

“Don’t you dare.” Trudy needed things to do. “Oh, one thing I didn’t mention which surprised me. The sheriff and deputy wanted to see Ginger’s office. They couldn’t believe the books on the shelves, the piles of books on the floor, and his brand-new desktop computer.”

“When did he buy a new computer?” Harry asked.

“Come on. I’ll show you. Cost as much as a used Toyota.” She led them down the cross hall, off the main hall, to Ginger’s bright office. Lots of windows here too. Trudy, with trepidation, had let him decorate it himself. Apart from the flintlock rifle over the fireplace and the flintlock pistols used as paperweights, he did okay.

“I’ve never been in Ginger’s office.” From the doorway, Harry took in the hand-tinted old maps, the famous reproduction of Washington on horseback in a gold frame.

“Wait until you see this.” Trudy walked behind his desk. Everyone followed, dogs too, to stand behind Trudy. She turned on a super-expensive Mac with an enormous screen. “His baby.”

Always interested in anything mechanical or technical, Harry let out a gasp. “This did cost as much as a used Toyota! Maybe even a new one!”

Trudy sat down, punched in a password, and a crude drawing of The Albemarle Barracks popped up. “Drove him wild that everything at this site was destroyed or built over. He swore if we could dig there, we would find so much useful information. Funny, he was coming full circle. When he graduated from Yale, he became fascinated with two things: slavery in the North, and prisoners of war during the Revolutionary War. Then he moved away from that, focused on what we called ‘the common man.’ But Ginger’s curiosity, relentless, pulled him down many a byway. Can you believe one time he had to learn everything about marriage customs in seventeenth-century Poland?” She threw up her hands. “I have no idea why, and I don’t think he did either.”

They laughed. She clicked on an icon and opened another file.

Harry exclaimed, “This screen is fabulous. The detail.” She leaned over to peer at the text.

Susan did too, and read aloud, “A Memoir of the Exploits of Captain Alexander Fraser and His Company of British Marksmen, 1776 to 1777.”

Trudy said, “Ginger would still drive to read diaries and letters in private collections, or in small college and university libraries. But was he thrilled with how much information he could get using his monster machine.” Trudy turned the computer off, looked around the office. “I miss him. I miss his conversation. I knew when I married him that he was a remarkable man. The years only confirmed that.”

Harry smiled. “You could learn more from Ginger in a half hour than an entire semester’s course with someone else.”

They walked out of the office. Harry paused for a moment to study the Fry-Jefferson map framed on the wall. Trudy noticed. “I think half the old places in Virginia have that map on the wall. Can you imagine travel back then?”

“Sometimes,” Harry replied.

“I can’t,” Susan quipped. “Nor can I imagine what you endured if you had a toothache. And bleeding people. Probably hastened Washington’s death, all the bleeding.”

“We’ve come so far in some ways, and yet remain primitive in others,” Trudy thoughtfully said, then added, “I think the sheriff and the deputy were amazed at the little they saw of Ginger’s research. Sheriff Shaw asked if Brinsley Sims could read through what Ginger was working on because he would be able to put it into some kind of perspective. I said of course, as long as he does it in the house. I quite like Brinsley. Lord! He’s got to be close to retirement. Where does the time go?”

“I don’t know, but if you find out, let’s go bring some back,” said Harry.

After laughing at Harry’s idea, Trudy said, “I asked the sheriff, ‘Was Ginger’s research important to the case?’ They were very honest and said they didn’t know. They had to explore many avenues. Which I understand.” She took a breath as they walked to the front door. “Ginger’s refrain was ‘The past is always with us.’ Much as I believe that, it can’t have anything to do with his murder.”

—

Driving back to Harry’s in her truck, the dogs, satisfied, slept.

Susan turned to Harry, who hadn’t spoken a word since they left Trudy’s. “All right. What’s whirring through your overheated pea brain?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Thinking about the past.”

“Go on.” Sometimes Susan had to wheedle.

“What if Ginger’s murder has to do with a buried treasure? You know, maybe a robbed pay wagon.”

“Harry!” Susan’s voice registered disbelief.

“Well, you never know.” Harry shrugged. She was headed in the right direction, but on the wrong track.