The Big Cat Nap

This is fantastic.” Susan, while hardly a car enthusiast, still appreciated the acceleration of the WRX STI when she mashed the pedal to the floor.

“That’s why it’s called a pocket rocket. Handles like butter.” In the passenger seat, Harry grinned.

Harry wanted to treat Susan for turning hay in the unremitting sun. What Harry had just cut needed at least two days to cure, partly to let the blister bugs run out. Susan had turned yesterday’s cutting. They showered after that sweaty job.

They’d known each other all their lives—sisters, really. Neither woman had siblings, a rare occurrence for their generation. Kindergarten, grade school, high school, Harry and Susan did everything together. They did attend different colleges but spent summers together and even went to Europe upon college graduation. Susan’s people had more money than Harry’s, but Harry’s wonderful mom and dad saved for a year to send her overseas as a graduation present. Susan was a business major, while Harry studied art history. Like most traveling young people, they enjoyed and endured many adventures. They returned to their native Virginia with a deeper appreciation of their own state and country, as well as a wider view of the world. Both had learned that every country has gifts and every country can do many things better than we do.

“Do you know how many years it’s been since I drove a stick shift?” Susan slowed for the intersection with Route 240.

As she lurched forward, one of the Zippo lighters with a flag on it given to the men by Blair Bainbridge slid out from under the seat.

“Given that you’re knocking the fillings out of my teeth, I’d guess it’s been a good twenty years.”

Laughing, Susan replied, “That’s about right. God, it is fun, though. I really feel like I’m driving the car.”

“Remember that Dodge Dart you had junior year?”

“Tinker Bell.” Susan smiled. “Hey, Tinker got me where I wanted to go.” She paused. “With some help from you and BoomBoom. She suffered from chronic conditions.”

“Brake fade, numb steering, faulty timing, bald tires. Tinker was a basket case.”

“Half the time so was I. Why anyone looks back on their high school days with fondness is beyond me. Every day was an invitation to a new drama.”

“Well, every day you fell in love. You were a hot mess.”

“You always had Fair. But you were still a mess.” A gleam shone from Susan’s eyes, which never left the road.

“Oh, we all were. What scared me the most was taking the college boards.”

“You aced them. Got you a scholarship to Smith.”

“Scared me to death. Actually, I do sort of look back fondly sometimes. When we were tiny, we saw the world as so wondrous: butterflies, horses, shiny cars, listening to the car radio. But high school was more about emotions for the first time—adult emotions, I guess.”

“Coming from you, that’s a statement.”

“Why?”

“Harry, I think of you as a part-time adult.”

“You know, I could cancel our lunch, even if you did turn my hay. Mean. You are just hateful mean.”

Susan laughed. “The truth hurts.”

They cruised along, secure in the love of deep friendship, cruising down Memory Lane, as well.

Susan pulled in to the parking lot of The Blue Mountain Brewery, their favorite place. The restaurant, on Route 151 in Afton, had good food and was much less expensive than any equivalent place in Charlottesville.

Charlottesville was working hard on appealing to the foodies, the result being an array of restaurants with small portions artfully displayed, followed by big bills.

Once settled in their booth, orders given and tall, ice-cold glasses of Coca-Cola in their hands, they jabbered about this, that, and who shot the cat, to use the old Southern expression.

When Susan’s rather big BLT arrived, a moment of guilt affected her. “I have no self-discipline. How can I lose weight eating bacon?”

“Oh, Susan, shut up about your weight. You look great. If Ned still revs his motors when he sees you, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“That’s the best way to look at it.”

With a devilish smile, Harry added ever so sweetly, “And, Susan, a little fat fills the wrinkles.”

Susan took her unused fork and jabbed Harry lightly on the hand. “You’ll eat those words instead of your salad. You’re too skinny anyway.”

“A woman can never be too rich or too thin,” Harry replied. “Who said that?”

“Someone who lived an unhappy life. Some days you have to eat fat or fried chicken or even a little sugar. I really do try to limit myself, but if I gave up everything, I’d be downright miserable.”

“A lot of women sure are.” Harry speared a wedge of egg. “Susan, I’ve been thinking.”

“God, no.”

“Really. This is serious, and I can tell you, knowing it will go no further. I can’t get the murders out of my mind. With my dumb luck, I found two of the corpses. Well, the cats and dog found the second one. But no one can believe they’re unrelated anymore.”

“No.” Susan’s eyes widened. She knew that Harry, in part because she didn’t have to observe law-enforcement protocol, often stumbled upon connections before others did. Then again, Harry often got it nearly right but not right enough, to the sheriff’s discomfort.

“I’ve investigated the gambling angle—gambling rings—as best I could. I called Tessa Randolph, who works at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. You remember her. Anyway, she told me that, no matter what type of illegal gambling, there has to be a drop or a mule, a place where the money is bet or a person who takes the bets. The drag track could be a good spot for an operation like that. But I can’t find a thing there. I’ve hinted to Sammy at ReNu that I want to bet. He races at the track, so I called him up. He said he didn’t know anything. He could be playing dumb.”

“You’re not the brightest, honeybun.”

“Well, do you have another suggestion?”

“Yes. Don’t call anyone at ReNu, for starters. We pay taxes, so Sheriff Shaw and Coop will deal with it. If there’s an illegal ring, you just tipped them off.”

“Yeah,” Harry paused, “but it bothers me that I’ve seen these dead men. I didn’t know them, but seeing them so close to life, so recently dead, it’s eerie, know what I mean?”

“I think so. All right, Harry, what have you got?”

“Questions. I’ve been in an early-morning fog. I could see shapes. Little by little, that morning fog is lifting. What I saw was that this could be tied to gambling or drugs, but now I don’t think so. But I definitely think it has to do with whatever the mechanics know at ReNu. Of course, that could still be gambling and drugs, but—I don’t know why I think it has to do with some kind of specialized knowledge. I’ve asked Coop to slip me the report on Tara Meola’s death.”

“That was an accident.”

“Was, but I want to read the disposition of her car.”

“What do you mean?”

“A deer caused her death. Official version, and indeed it likely was the catalyst, but I think there’s more to it.”

“Oh, come on, Harry, she wasn’t murdered.”

Taking a deep breath, then a deep swallow of Coca-Cola, Harry lifted her eyebrows just slightly. “Her air bags deployed.”

“Hell, yes, they did. That’s what they’re for. A deer crashed through her windshield.”

“But when did they deploy? Look, when Miranda and I careened off the road, the air bags blew up. She couldn’t see. How she got us to the side of the road and stopped, I have no idea. Air bags are supposed to deploy in a collision. We had no collision or hard bumps really. They shouldn’t have deployed. Miranda’s a lot better driver than I thought—not that I’d say that to her, because then I’d let her know I had qualms about both her abilities and her age.”

“Sometimes you actually can do the right thing.” Susan smiled at Harry.

“I’m trying. I’ve got to find out about Tara’s car.”

“You’re not going to trouble her parents? Harry, you can’t do that.”

“I won’t. I really would like to talk to them, but I promise I won’t. I asked Herb a little about it, since he’s been calling on them. She was insured by Safe and Sound.”

“So are a lot of other people. It’s a huge mid-Atlantic company.”

“A very successful one, and we all more or less like Latigo Bly. Somehow, though, it’s hard for me to completely trust a man who changed his name legally from Alphonse to Latigo.”

Susan put down her BLT lest she drop it, she was laughing so hard. “Harry.”

“Really? Latigo? He could have changed his name to Tom, John, Robert. If he wanted to sound younger, how about Jordan? But Latigo?”

Susan laughed all the harder. “Dakota, Travis, Brett, Randy, Caleb. Are those in the same category?”

“No. They’re generational, but Latigo? Have you ever heard of anyone named after a rope?”

“You’re right. He could have picked a horse—Secretariat. Secretariat Bly.”

The silliness escalated, which meant it was turning out to be a perfect lunch.

On the way back, Harry drove, loving the short throw between shifts. “Victor is Lucifer. He knew I’d fall in love with this car.”

“Anyone who knows you would know you’d go gaga over high performance. Didn’t take a rocket scientist. BoomBoom driven it yet?”

“I’ll pick her up at the concrete plant tomorrow.”

“Think this car’s haunted?”

“No.” She climbed Afton Mountain. “I think about Nick, though, sitting in this seat.”

“It will do me no good to tell you to be careful.”

In her own way, Harry was being careful. She didn’t tell Susan what her hunch was, because she was afraid it would set her friend off and, also, she was far from sure. Why cast a shadow on a seemingly good person until one was sure?

So Harry changed the subject, a favorite tactic. “Yancy Hampton is coming back to check out my ginseng in July, when the little berries show up. Do you know in some places ginseng is bringing five hundred dollars a pound! Growers in New York get that—not all of them, but they’re averaging between three hundred and four hundred dollars a pound.”

Drily, Susan said, “Yancy isn’t going to offer you that.”

“I know.” Harry shifted into fourth gear. “I have both cultivated and wild ginseng down by the creek. Ginseng loves it there, with all the shade and moisture.”

“Takes ginseng a long time to produce seeds, doesn’t it?” Susan remembered sitting down at the creek with Harry as children, dipping their toes in the cold water.

“Three to four years. But, remember, my wild ginseng is well established. The cultivated stuff I planted last year—well, I have a wait on that.”

Susan changed the subject. “Ever miss the P.O.?”

“All the time. Really was Crozet’s hub.”

“Yeah. The new building is big, clean, and light, but you can’t hang out there like we could at the old P.O. George Hogendobber used to give us licorice sticks. Who would have ever thought you’d graduate from Smith College and become our postmistress?”

“Not me. I thought I was filling in until I found my real job and the postmaster general found a real postmistress.”

“You never talk about it.” Susan looked at her friend’s profile.

“What’s to say? The new building outgrew me, I guess. Couldn’t take Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, or Tucker to work. Those two cats could roll the mail carts as well as I could.” Harry smiled. “Everything’s changed, Susan. Sometimes I feel old. I know I’m not, but … oh, I don’t know.”

“We have memory now. We can compare things. Couldn’t do that at age six.”

Harry thought about that. “Change is life, I guess.”

“It is.” Susan took a breath as Harry shifted around a curve, sliding nicely. “Show-off.”

“Couldn’t help it.” Harry laughed. “Ever go into the café at Fresh?”

“Couple of times. He’s done a nice job. Sometimes I see friends. Sometimes I don’t. I think Yancy hoped it would be a central place, but who goes into an organic market? People with some money. Nobody poor can pay those prices.”

“Got that right. I really don’t like Yancy. Can’t put my finger on exactly why he rubs me the wrong way.”

“Me, too.”

“You play golf with Barbara. You like her.”

“I do. But she’s a nervous type. And she never talks about him. Not one word, which I think is a bit strange. It’s not as if you and I and the rest of us don’t occasionally discuss our significant others.”

“Or insignificant others.”

“That, too.”

They were still laughing when Harry pulled in front of the barn.

“Why didn’t you take me?” Tucker asked as the two women disembarked. Harry leaned down to pick up the cigarette lighter, reminding herself to call Victor, since it must be his.

“ ’Cause you rolled in horse poop,” Pewter helpfully suggested.

“Do you know, Pewter, when you talk, your belly sways from side to side?”

“Do you know, Tucker, when I’m behind you, tailless thing, I see things I’d rather not?”