The Hunt Ball

C H A P T E R 7

Delia delivered seven healthy puppies. Sister had fallen asleep sitting on a low chair next to the brood box; a long heat lamp, overhead, glowing with dimmed light.

The dog hounds gave cry when the first screams were heard flying down from Hangman’s Ridge like an arrow of fear.

Sister opened an eye, then closed it again, smiling. She imagined the girls spooked up on the ridge, the Miller School boys proud of their accomplishment. The next set of screams aroused the gyps sleeping out in the toasty large boxes on stilts in the large runs. The boxes had porches, the interiors filled with fresh straw. All the outdoor runs, dotted with spreading old trees, provided room to play or sleep. Younger hounds lived inside the main brick kennels. The arrangement gave each hound plenty of personal space so tempers didn’t flare from overcrowding.

The continued screams awakened everyone.

Again Sister opened an eye, sighed, then opened both eyes. The sound of two sirens in the far distance presaged something terribly wrong. She patted Delia on the head, hurried to the small bathroom off the office, splashed water on her face, dashed outside, hopped into her pickup, and drove up Hangman’s Ridge.

She reached the back side of the ridge just as the sheriff’s squad car crested the Soldier Road side. The blue lights washed over the two hanging corpses. She knew immediately that one of the hanged men was real. Swaying slightly, his back to her, the angle of his neck gave it away. The young people, some crying, stood at their respective buses, the chaperones attempting to comfort the more obviously distressed. Tootie, Valentina, and Pamela also did what they could to help others. Felicity shook like a leaf but was in control of herself. Sister noted the remarkable poise of the three young women. Charlotte and Carter greeted Sheriff Ben Sidel as he stepped out of the car.

The rescue squad van pulled up behind the sheriff’s car.

Sister waited until Ben, Charlotte, and Carter walked toward the tree, the rescue squad following at a discreet distance.

Ben spoke to Sister, “Hell of a Halloween.”

She simply replied, “Yes, it is hellish.”

Charlotte, the muscles in her face tight, met Sister’s gaze as the older woman walked toward her.

Sister now faced the corpse, Zorro. She registered disbelief.

“Al Perez,” Charlotte whispered to Sister.

Ben carefully checked the ground underneath, motioning for a deputy, Ty Banks, to come over. Deputy Banks, flashlight in hand, listened intently as Ben Sidel, in a quiet voice, gave him instructions.

Sister noted Inky still as a stone.

“What happened?” Ben asked Charlotte.

Briefly she explained the after-party plan by the Miller School boys, how at first they thought this was part of their night of fright, as they called it.

Ty examined the bark on the tree, and, like the sheriff, he inspected the ground underneath the corpse. Four imprints from a stepladder pressed into the earth. “Sheriff.” He wordlessly pointed to the ladder footmarks, scanning to see if footprints were visible. The earth, fairly dry except for the light dew that would turn to frost, yielded no sign of footprints.

“Yes, I noticed that, too. Was he dead before he was hanged or was he killed by hanging?” Ben thought out loud.

“He couldn’t have been dead longer than half an hour,” Carter opined. “Warm, no rigor even in the small muscles.”

When the students were walked back to the buses, Carter carefully touched Al’s leg to feel for body temperature. He did not touch any other part of the hanged man’s body for fear of damaging evidence.

“My husband wanted to make sure Al was, well, dead. If by any chance he wasn’t, we would have cut him down and done our best to revive him. I mean, Carter would,” Charlotte spoke.

“I understand,” Ben said sympathetically.

“Will you need to question the students?” Charlotte thought first of her flock.

“Not now.” Ben knew that some of the kids were aflutter from hysteria, despite the efforts of Knute, Bill, Amy, Bunny, and the other girls. “Did any of them see anything unusual?”

“No.”

Charlie Thompson, chaperone for the Miller School, quietly approached. “Sheriff, three of my boys strung up the mannequin. They were alone. I guess you’d like to interrogate them.”

“Well, that might be too strong a word. Mr. Thompson, take them back to school. I’ll ring you first and then talk to the boys. Right now, these kids need your attention. You can all leave. I’ll be in touch.”

Charlotte looked to her husband, then back at Ben. “Should we tell his wife?”

“No, I’ll do it. I hope no one has called her,” Ben responded.

“No, I made that clear to all,” Charlotte firmly replied.

“It’s the worst part of this job,” Ben flatly stated. “You all can go as well.”

As the Custis Hall people and the Miller School people left, Ben asked Sister, “Hear anyone come up on your side of the ridge?”

“No, nothing. I was in the kennel whelping room. I would have heard a car or truck.”

As the buses and cars dipped over the ridge onto the rutted road, Ben’s eyes followed the receding red dots of light. “You have an opinion on Al Perez?”

“He was pleasant, competent, very upbeat. I knew him from serving on the board of directors.”

“Enemies?”

“I don’t know. Charlotte would know better than I. Custis Hall is her bailiwick.” She hesitated a moment. “He didn’t get along with Amy Childers—old romance—but we all have a few of those. We don’t usually hang for it.”

“One hopes.”

Ben, not a country boy, learned to ride when he came to Jefferson County four years ago. He discovered that riding wasn’t easy, but he enjoyed the challenge. He’d reached the point where he rode with the Hilltoppers. He was working toward riding up with first flight, taking all those exciting jumps.

He had keen powers of observation, trained powers. He also had a sense of people’s character, having heard every lie known to man, so he particularly valued an honest person. Sister Jane was rock-solid honest. Her powers of observation were also highly trained. She proved a shrewd judge of character, too, where humans were concerned.

Sister raised her eyes to Al’s darkening face. “Hanging is a definite form of suicide. Anyone who hangs himself truly wants to die, but you’ve seen the stepladder prints, as did I. Al Perez didn’t hang himself. Whoever killed him wants to tie the past to the present, to scare the hell out of all of us. This is the place of public execution.”

Ty, twenty-nine, in thrall to his work, drank in every word. He’d not thought of that.

“A warning?” Ben thought out loud.

“Yes, but to whom? This is just a feeling, but the warning involves the school.”

“Why do you say that?”

Sister paused. “If this person only wanted to warn and warn publicly, he could have hung Al somewhere else, or shot him, dumping him in a public place or a well-traveled spot. But it seems you’ve got a fevered imagination at work.”

Ben felt the cold slice of breeze from the northwest. He reached in his pocket for a small round hard candy. He offered Sister one, then Ty. “In charge of alumnae affairs. Important post. Financially critical.”

Sister folded her arms over her chest. “I doubt very much Al Perez is an innocent victim.”

“M-m-m.” Ben was thinking the same thing.

As Sister walked back to her truck, Inky shadowed her. Inky liked Sister. It was mutual.

Sister put her hand on the door handle, stopped to call back to Ben. “Shrouds have no pockets.”

“What?”

“Shrouds have no pockets. I don’t know why that popped into my mind, except that a lot of money flowed through his hands.”