The Litter Of The Law

“Poppy, she’s not listening to you,” Elocution warned as she sat in the chancery window the next morning, observing Harry outside.

Cazenovia and Lucy Fur meowed in unison.

Rev. Herb Jones, wedged behind his desk, glanced up, opening his mouth to quiet the kitties, then he heard a metallic clink. Pushing the chair away from his desk, he rose, hurrying to the window where Elocution fussed.

“See! See!” the cat spoke louder.

“I will bless her.” Reverend Jones hustled out of his beautiful office, grabbing his coat and dashing out the back door. “Harry, what are you doing?” he said, finding her next to a ladder propped against the building’s wall.

“Waiting for the roofer?” she half-fibbed.

“You were going to climb up there, I know it.” Reverend Jones’s face reddened.

“Well, eventually.” She flashed her brightest smile.

Inside, Lucy Fur turned to Elocution. “He can never resist her smile.”

Cazenovia agreed. “It’s amazing.”

Outside, Harry, hands in pockets for the air had chilled, headed off a lecture. “Seth Isman will be here in a minute. I just know bad weather is around the corner, so I figured we’d better hop on this.”

“Uh-huh.” The reverend crossed his arms over his chest. “Hop on, hop up.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got two feet on the ground and am looking at the most wonderful Lutheran minister in Virginia.”

He burst out laughing. “You stinker.” Then he put his arm around her. “Sweetie, I do thank you for taking on building and grounds and for doing this so soon after finding Hester’s body. We would all have understood if you’d waited.” He took a deep breath. “God rest her soul.”

“I’d already made the appointment for today, Reverend, and truthfully, I feel better if I’m busy.”

“You know, Hester’s service still isn’t organized.” The pastor shook his head. “Hester’s brother died years ago and her niece lives in Houston. I called over to St. Francis in Staunton, where Hester worshipped, but so far, no plans. We are all distressed. If I knew her niece I’d offer help, but Hester’s priest told me the young lady—her name is Sarah Price—is doing all she can and he feels things will be properly done. She’ll get here from Texas next week. Terrible. Such a terrible thing.” He turned as the roofing van drove up and parked in the rear of the church lot. “Now, see here, Harry, don’t you get up on that roof. Look me in the face and promise.”

Taking a deep breath, she promised, “I won’t.”

“You can’t dissemble to my face.” He laughed. “Well, you can’t really lie anyway. Never could, but that doesn’t prevent you from withholding information or wiggling just a little.”

“You’ve known me too long.”

“Remember that. I’ve got my eye on you.”

True to her word, Harry remained earthbound while wiry Seth scrambled around up on the roof. After a few minutes, he backed down the ladder.

“Is it worse than I thought?” asked Harry of the short young man.

“No,” he replied. “A two-foot-square area, just like you thought, should fix the problem and prevent more. The workmanship on that old roof is something, just something.”

“Our ancestors knew what they were doing and they weren’t deluded by technology. It still takes good materials and a good man who knows how to use them.”

Seth smiled, which enlivened his strong face. “Yeah. We’re losing it, though. Losing hand skills.”

“You haven’t lost yours,” Harry complimented him.

“Thanks, Harry. Once I decided to concentrate on older structures, things just fell into place. I don’t work with cheap materials. After I’ve repaired a roof, I don’t get calls back about leaking. I understand that most folks don’t know about construction. And they only have so much money, so they buy footage and flash instead of maybe something smaller that is well built. Being able to get up on this roof, seeing how those shingles were laid … I don’t know. Kinda gives me chills. Like I’m part of something that goes way back.”

“I know what you mean. Well, you know I have to report to the board, so as soon as you can write up an estimate, I will deliver it. They already agreed for the work to be done, but if I can present an estimate, that makes everyone feel better.”

“You’ll save money because I can do this with just one other man. We can work pretty fast together. The really good news is I have a source of slate shingles that should closely match yours. A huge old house was dismantled in Cumberland County. The heirs just let it go. Built in 1719.” He paused. “A little bit of history slips away but it takes money to restore and keep those old places going. I understand, but if you can’t do it, sell it to someone who can. Don’t wait until it falls apart.”

“Good advice, but when there’s more than one heir, things tend to get dragged out.”

“Boy, that’s the truth. Anyway, I can get on this next Monday. Figure a full day just in case. If all goes well, half a day. I don’t think the bill will go over four thousand dollars, and I will try to do it for less. Preacher’s price.” He smiled broadly.

“Seth, you’re a good egg.”

“You don’t know me,” he devilishly replied. “Want me to put the ladder back?”

“Sure. Thank you. I’ll walk with you to the shed.”

As Harry and Seth strolled away, chatting about SEC football, she noticed Neil Jordan drive up, followed soon after by Wesley Speer.

After Seth drove away, Harry returned to the chancery.

“There’s a lift to her step,” Lucy Fur noted. “Must be good news.”

“We’ll see.” Cazenovia hopped off the windowsill to hurry out of the room and down the hall to greet Harry, whom she very much liked.

Pushing open the back door, Harry beheld the beautiful longhaired calico cat already on her hind legs.

“Caz.” Harry knelt down and scooped her up. “Such a religious kitty. And such a good concierge.”

“I am.”

Carrying the contented cat, Harry peered into the large office. She didn’t want to disturb the reverend, as he seemed to be in the middle of a meeting. Neil and Wesley sat in the chairs around the coffee table. The reverend was standing at his desk, papers in hand. He looked up at her.

“I can come back,” said Harry.

“No, come on in.”

Putting Cazenovia down, Harry pulled off her work gloves. “Hi.”

Neil and Wesley stood up to greet her.

“Should I brace for the worst?” Neil joked.

“No. Good news. Seth can start on the roof next Monday, should finish the same day, and—here’s the good part—he’s got a source of old slate shingles and he feels sure he can keep the bill under four thousand. What luck.”

“I suppose if a bill can be said to be good, that is,” Neil solemnly replied.

“Neil, slate costs an arm and a leg,” said Wesley. “Old slate, especially. We’ll make up the shortfall if we have one, but I bet we don’t.” He beamed.

“Harry, sit down. Let’s all have a hot cup of cocoa or whatever. Betty!” Reverend Jones called.

A middle-aged woman stuck her head in the room. “Yes? Oh, hi, everyone.”

“How about cocoa?” The reverend looked at his small gathering.

“Cocoa sounds perfect.” Harry smiled.

“I’ll go with that,” Wesley agreed, as did Neil.

The young, pretty secretary usually outside the reverend’s office was now in her last months of pregnancy and on leave. Filling in was Betty Maddox, cousin to Dorothy, the sheriff’s department’s chief of forensics. You had to be careful what you said about people in Crozet, as most folks were related.

“While we wait, it’s good you’re here, Harry,” said Neil. “I’d like to give the church lawns a good dressing of fertilizer and put it down before mid-November. Give it plenty of time to get into the ground. Checked the soil. Good pH, selenium. Potassium okay. Needs a little magnesium.”

“Neil, that’s wonderful.” Harry smiled. “The little mini-drought that we had didn’t affect our lawns too much, but fertilizer always helps, and I’ll come on back in springtime and drill in some wonderful lush grass seed. I always throw some rye in, too. Give the clover and bluegrass early cover.”

Thanks to his real estate company, Wesley kept up with farming news. His largest sales were big estates and he had to know something about soil conditions and crop yields if selling to a true farmer, or even a new person who would lease out the land. Most new people wanted to live on a grand estate but didn’t want to actually farm, which was wise since they weren’t raised to it.

“Harry, did you see where the USDA”—he used the initials for the United States Department of Agriculture—“predicts the drought reduced our economic growth by almost half a percentage point? That’s extremely serious.”

“Sure is,” she agreed. “But I was talking to Buddy Janss and he said what was so bizarre was that sometimes fields on one side of a road twisted up while on the other side the crops were healthy. What crazy weather. Buddy has suffered some losses, though.”

Neil didn’t much like Buddy, in part because the large fellow didn’t buy his fertilizer. Buddy was so smart he’d worked out a deal years ago with horse owners to remove their manure and straw for free. This he put in piles, let it cook, then the next year used it himself, selling the extra for fertilizer. The horse owners, most of them owning but a few horses, gladly paid him to haul off the muck. Buddy used commercial fertilizers if a field needed extra potassium or another nutrient. That drove Neil crazy, but then, the two possessed such differing personalities they would have struggled to like each other no matter what. Neil was detail oriented and picky, whereas Buddy was expansive, and did his best but didn’t fret.

“Wasn’t Buddy friends with Hester?” Neil asked, as he had only lived in the area a few years.

“For years and years.” Harry smiled. “You know Hester wouldn’t sell anything that was sprayed or if the seeds had been genetically modified.”

“She was a crank,” Neil said. “Not that I wished her dead, but really.”

“Hester was an eccentric,” the reverend said in his most diplomatic tone, “but she worked hard for causes she believed in, she mentored younger people like Tazio, and I expect any of us could be considered a crank at one time or another.”

“Not you.” Harry grinned and the men laughed.

“You should live with him,” Elocution called out from her fuzzy den on the floor.

“He feeds us Fancy Feast and he even tried to see if we’d chew on greenies,” Cazenovia chided her from the windowsill. “He’s the best.”

“Yeah, Elo,” Lucy Fur chimed in. “Button your lip.”

“All right, all right,” the Lutheran cat said, giving in.

Betty arrived with a tray of hot cocoa and sugar cookies. The Reverend Jones jumped up to carry it and place it on the table.

Wesley returned to the subject of Hester. “Horrible. Harry, you have endured two shocks. Finding that young man and then Hester.”

“Did,” she agreed. “As I didn’t know the fellow who was killed, it was a shock and that was all, but Hester, that hurt. Yes, she had her ways, but she was a good soul and really pretty smart. I mean a lot smart, actually.”

“That she was,” Wesley agreed. “The last time I stopped by the stand, we got on the subject of crop irrigation. I don’t remember how we did get on it—you know with Hester, one thing didn’t lead to another, it jumped to another. But anyway, she was telling me that farmers have been pulling water out of the Ogallala Aquifer since the early 1950s and some of those irrigation booms are a half mile long. A half mile!”

“Great day,” Reverend Jones exclaimed.

“It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?” said Wesley. “A half-mile boom spinning around a fixed water pipe? But there’s a lot of talk, consideration in a lot of the affected states, about cutting back on irrigation because the droughts are dropping water levels, as is all the population growth.”

“Where are water levels dropping? Which states?” Neil asked.

Fortified by the cocoa, Wesley leapt in. “Neil, it’s eastern Wyoming, about all of Nebraska, southern South Dakota, eastern Colorado and New Mexico, a huge swath of Kansas, Oklahoma’s Panhandle, and a chunk of Texas. The water shortage is huge.”

“The breadbasket,” Harry thought out loud.

“For us. For the world, too, really,” Wesley said. “Hester had been reading up on it, just like she was always reading about chemicals, her history interests, that sort of thing. I was so impressed at the facts she had at her fingertips. She felt if farmers didn’t cut back, wells would run dry and that would become a disaster, a true disaster. Irrigation accounts for one-third of our nation’s annual water demand. I told her that genetic engineering could create more drought-tolerant corn, soybeans, etc. We could reduce our irrigation, but she didn’t want to hear that.”

They laughed.

Harry stood up. “It was good to see you all and I’m glad I have what I think is good news about the roof. Tell you what we could do for Hester: Let’s sell all those tickets for the Halloween Hay-ride. The funds go to the library, and we know how much Hester loved the Crozet Library. Will you all help me?”

“It would be an honor,” Wesley immediately replied.

“Of course,” Neil agreed.

In his gravelly voice, the Reverend Jones said, “I can preach a good sermon on this. We’ll sell those tickets. We’ll sell out! Thou hast put gladness in my heart.” He smiled. “Psalm 4:7. If we sell those tickets, it will put gladness in all our hearts.”