Tail Gait

May 2, 2015

Bouncing along on her John Deere, Harry plowed some back acres that she’d fertilized in mid-April. As winter proved long and hard, like other farmers, she waited it out, pushing back chores that normally were accomplished in April.

That glorious morning, clear, in the mid-fifties, seemed to invite celebration. Overhead red-shouldered hawks cried out; regiments of robins inspected what Harry had plowed, knowing worms would turn up. Blackbirds sat in the trees doing what they do best: gossiping. Rabbits, squirrels, foxes, deer, bobcats, and, higher up in the mountains, bear all wandered about, thrilled with the weather.

As she’d started at sunup, Harry rolled toward the barn on the last strip. Looking behind her, satisfied that she’d not missed any ground, she chugged along, just as happy as those creatures playing and chirping around her.

Pulling into the large work shed, she cut the tractor’s motor, climbed down.

She looked for Mrs. Murphy and the others, but they were nowhere in sight.

“Lazy bums.” She smiled, suspecting they were sprawled in the tack room or kitchen.

Inside the four-bay shed, on the wall, a huge thermometer, a big black hand on a white dial with degrees, told her it was now exactly fifty-six degrees Fahrenheit. Next to that hung an old clock, a Remington advertisement for the face, its electric cord tacked against the wall to an outlet.

Seeing it was 8:20 A.M., she dusted herself off, wiped her hands on an old clean rag, checked the clock again, and headed back to the kitchen in the house.

Since he was up most of the night with a mare foaling, Fair now slept. Pushing open the screen door, then the kitchen door quietly, Harry sat at the table and wrote him a note. Then, taking from the refrigerator a wonderful egg-and-bacon quiche she’d made, she put it in the oven but didn’t turn it on. She left her husband directions, not that he couldn’t have figured it out. Fair had mastered the basic domestic arts, but still.

Curled up in their beds, each of the cats opened one eye. Tucker, dead to the world, snored.

She washed her hands properly this time, grabbed a paper towel, dried them, and quietly walked out the door. Mrs. Murphy shot out of bed to follow.

Pewter rolled over, lifted her head. Did she want to vacate her cozy bed with her name on it? If she didn’t, she might miss something. She, too, roused herself, stretched fore and aft, then scurried after Harry and Mrs. Murphy, who had by now reached the truck.

“Sleeping Beauty.” Harry laughed as she opened the door, picking up the gray cat.

“She doesn’t need beauty sleep, she needs a beauty coma.” Mrs. Murphy giggled.

“Says you,” Pewter called from the truck seat. As Mrs. Murphy was placed next to Pewter, the fat gray cat turned her back on the tiger, who didn’t mind a bit.

Once in her seat, Harry took a deep breath, turned the key, listened to the glorious rumble of an old V-8 engine, popped her in gear, and drove down the long gravel driveway.

Whistling with happiness, Harry rolled down her window a crack for fresh air. She liked old trucks, no frills, no extra doors, more cargo space. The only time she didn’t like her old 1978 F-150 was when she pulled up next to someone on her right side. Then she had to lean over and roll down the passenger window to speak. Also, she had to personally lock each of the two doors. Other than that, fewer things to go wrong and fewer upkeep expenses. Harry, careful with money, hated to waste or overspend.

“Where are we going?” Pewter inquired.

One hand on the steering wheel, Harry petted the cat with the other but didn’t answer.

“You’d think after all these years she’d know what I was saying.” Pewter pouted.

“Pewter, don’t sit under an apple tree and beg for a pear,” Mrs. Murphy wisely said.

Turning onto Cynthia Cooper’s drive, Pewter brightened. “Good, she always has treats.”

Pulling into the place by the back door, Harry spotted Cooper out in her small equipment shed. A pair of feet peeked out from under a smallish tractor, of which one end was raised up on cinder blocks.

Harry walked over. “Cooper, get out from under there.”

“I will in a minute. I broke a rod.”

“No. Get out now. You should never be under any large piece of equipment jacked up like that. Come on.”

Pushing herself out from under, Cooper looked up and blinked. “I’m careful.”

“Sure you are, but weird things happen. If that tractorette tipped over for any reason, you’d be pinned, squashed.”

“Dammit.” Cooper ran her hands over her jeans to get off the dirt.

“Don’t cuss me. I want you safe and sound. Who else can I pick on?”

Cooper smiled. “Well, I’m pissed because I know you’re right, and I’m pissed at this damned tractor.”

Harry knelt down to look under the 20HP small Japanese tractor. While nothing is as well made or as expensive as a John Deere, the Kubota was a good product for considerably less.

“You did break a rod. Know how it happened?”

“I dropped the mower mount, started on the front, weeds high.” She pointed to part of the driveway encroached by high grasses; they weren’t really weeds. “Everything was fine and then I hit a stone. I heard it, naturally, but I didn’t know how bad it was until I rolled off it and the mount hung heavy on one side. Cut the mower, tried to raise the mount, still hung on one side, and I drove back here. Now I’m going to have to pay to have this thing hauled in to the dealer. Damn.”

“Which dealer, the one in Staunton or the one in Orange?”

“All the way to Orange. I got such a good deal.” She sighed.

“Oh, well, there are worse things. Let’s go in and you can tell me why you wanted to see me.”

As Harry followed her neighbor, she called to the cats, hovering over a mole hole as if the mole would be stupid enough to come out.

Inside, the cats and Harry sank into the alcove. “I’ll come over and mow,” said Harry. “Don’t fret.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“You will not. Now shut up. I don’t want to hear another word. But before I do that, you and I need to walk where you want mowed. All that hard freezing and thawing has pushed up stuff, including tree roots as big as elephant trunks.”

“I’m surprised some coffins haven’t pushed out of their graves.” Cooper put up coffee for herself and boiled water for Harry’s tea.

“Make a good horror movie.” Harry quickly raised her voice. “Don’t you dare!”

“Piffle.” Pewter took her paw out of the lower cabinet door, which she’d managed to wedge it into.

Cooper walked over, opened the door, took out a bag of treats bought especially for two spoiled cats, then shook it into two bowls. “There.”

“You are the best human, really the best,” Pewter meowed before shoving her face into the goodies.

“So what’s up?” Harry asked as Cooper poured.

“An odd thing, and I’ll need your help with Snoop again.”

“Really?”

Cooper told her about Snoop finding the letter opener yesterday. Snoop had informed Paul Huber, and events shot off from there. “Paul Huber drove over to talk to Rick and me. He was not far away from Snoop’s work site, as he was working on the huge Continental Estates project.”

Paul was doing the landscaping. Rudy had already put in the roads.

“I would imagine Paul was both upset and confused.”

“He’s certainly organized. He pulled out his tablet, one of those expensive Macs, had the truck usage information in maybe two minutes. As it turned out, that was the same truck used to plant the birch over at Claiborne Bishop’s. I asked, Did he check mileage each day? I knew it was a long shot. He said the company checks it once a week for each vehicle.”

“Because employees might be using trucks for personal use?” Harry inquired.

“Right, especially one-ton and half-ton trucks. Paul said they hadn’t found a good daily mileage program but that once a week had been very helpful. If anyone had a notion to use a company truck a lot, it would show up.”

“H-m-m. But the presence of the wooden letter opener doesn’t mean he was killed there.”

“We crawled over that truck, and we also impounded it. By the time that truck returns to Paul Huber, there won’t be a fiber we haven’t investigated. He was fine with that. Shocked that Frank’s body might have been in his truck, but cooperative.”

“What did Snoop say?”

“Not much. He was shaken. He swears that it was a letter opener he gave to Frank. As to what appears to be dried blood, obviously, we have to run that through the lab, but there was a stain on the blade.”

“Report on Frank isn’t back from the medical examiner’s office?”

“Shouldn’t be too much longer. Luckily, his body was in decent shape. A couple of days packed in soil is better than weeks or months. We already know the cause of death is stabbing.”

“Fundamentally, I’d say the cause of death was alcohol.”

A tight smile crossed Cooper’s lips. “I figure most alcoholics are committing slow suicide. Frank received extra help.” She rose, picked up papers from her kitchen counter, and handed them to Harry, then sat again. “What Frank had been reading just this last year.”

Harry scanned the list. “Ginger McConnell’s influence is apparent even if Frank hated him. May I copy this?”

“I made that for you. You’re the reader. Thought you might recognize some of those books.”

“I recognize a lot of them. One thing’s for sure, Frank still had an active mind. You don’t read books like these unless the lights are on upstairs.” She tapped her head.

“I thought about Professor McConnell, too. But I still can’t find the crucial connection between the two.”

Harry folded her hands together, elbows on the table, rested her head on her hands. “Here are two people, one the student of the other back in the mid-seventies, both dead and both interested in the Revolutionary War, post-Revolutionary America. That isn’t a period overrun with novelists, historians—some academicians, sure. But for whatever reason, that war doesn’t stir up people like successive wars.”

“Eighteen twelve. Who thinks about that?” Cooper knew a little about history, liked it some.

“Every time you sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ ” Harry said and smiled.

“Who can sing that? Too hard.” Cooper leaned over. “What about this book?”

“The Men Who Lost America. What about it?”

“Wasn’t that in Ginger’s office?” Cooper asked.

“He has shelves filled with everything and from every writer since the Revolution, I swear. But this was written by a UVA professor. Probably had extra meaning for Ginger.”

“M-m-m,” Cooper murmured, then said, “Will you go talk to Snoop again?”

“Of course. What do you want me to ask?”

“What he really thinks. He clammed up when Paul showed up. Of course, that makes sense. It’s his and Marshall’s companies that hire Snoop and the other mall residents for odd jobs. He has just complicated their lives.”

Shrewdly, Harry replied, “Whoever killed Frank complicated their lives. Snoop simply realized Frank’s body had been in that truck.” She finished her tea. “I’ll make up a basket and go down today.”

“If tomorrow is better, that’s fine. I know the weekends are about the only time you and Fair get to spend together.”

“He’s worn out. Had to deliver another foal late last night. I’ll be back so we can watch a movie tonight. He loves that.” She stood up. “Now you’ve got me all fired up. I’ll call you as soon as I get back.”

—

Two hours later, basket in hand, Harry and Tucker found Snoop at his usual post on the large planter. He waved to her as she approached.

“Lunch.” She sat next to him, placing the basket in his lap as people strolled by.

Opening one end, he peeked inside. “I smell bacon.”

“Bacon, avocado, turkey, and lettuce with Thousand Island dressing, and you get to choose between a Co-Cola, water, or sparkling grapefruit juice.”

“Sparkling grapefruit.” She handed him a light green ice-cold can, as well as a sandwich.

Tucker watched with soulful eyes as Harry unwrapped her own sandwich.

“Here, beggar.” She gave the corgi a tidbit.

They ate in the sunshine, the temperature now in the low sixties.

After a few chocolate-chip cookies, with their debris back in the basket, Harry sat, soaking up the sunshine. A full stomach aids good feelings. Snoop sat wordlessly next to her, watching people go by: the piercings, blue hair, cutoffs, as well as those who sported preppy looks.

She noted the painted bucket by his feet with carved letter openers, little boxes, nice things. “Snoop, heard about your discovery.”

“Yeah.”

“A shock, right?”

He nodded. “I’m standing there in the middle of people, the driver, some of the other work crew, Mr. Huber, Mr. Reese, the sheriff, the deputy, and I’m thinking, What if one of these guys killed ol’ Frank? Know what I mean?”

Put that way, she did know what he meant. “Makes a lot of sense. You were smart to shut up.”

“I ask myself, What did Frank know? He wasn’t killed for his money. Maybe somebody stabbed him because they believed his raving about the professor, but I don’t think so. But I think Frank knew something.”

“I expect you’re right, but it is hard to figure out what he might have known that got him killed.” She put her feet on the basket, Tucker watching every move.

“Well, as I figure it, he knew someone had killed the professor,” said Snoop. “He might even have known who or why. That’s one possibility. Another is that whatever Frank knew could cost someone a lot of money. He wasn’t killed over drugs, or women, or an argument, or anything like that. I mean, his death was neat, right?”

Harry turned to look at Snoop’s profile. His beard, while not long, needed attention; same with his hair. He looked like what he was, a man with no visible means of support who lives rough. It would be easy to discount him. She was glad she hadn’t, because Snoop was smart.

“Ever see anyone talking to Frank?” she asked.

“Yeah. People would pass by. Might have a word. Most looked the other way.”

“Snoop, anyone who was a repeat offender?” She half smiled.

He folded his arms over his chest, looked at his feet, then looked at her. “Nah. Just us down here. We talk to one another.” He breathed in, then added, “The crew bosses who hire us sometimes. That’s all I can think of.”

“Frank talk about money?”

“Just that he didn’t have any.” He grew silent, then said with some force, “Mrs. Haristeen, he was found under a tree planted by the landscaping company, he was in that truck dead or alive. Who knows? Whatever Frank knew had to affect those people. I’m not going on any more jobs out there.”

This comment made her sit up straight. “You worried? For yourself?”

Harry couldn’t steer clear. Her curiosity was getting the better of her.