The Tail Of The Tip-Off

"Taz, what have you got there?"

Taz gave her the story.

Mrs. Murphy shouted from the seat, "Welcome to Crozet, Brinkley. You were named for a good dog, a German shepherd."

"Thank you. Do you think she'll feed me soon?"

"As soon as you get home, and she lives maybe seven or eight minutes from here. She's very responsible and, oh, make sure you tell her you like her work. She's an architect," Tucker helpfully suggested.

"Don't drool on her blueprints," Pewter sassily said.

"Oh, forgive me. I'm Mrs. Murphy, this is Tucker, and the smart mouth is Pewter. We live out by Yellow Mountain and we work at the post office so I'm sure we'll see you."

As Harry and Taz talked about H.H.'s death, the shock of it, they moved on quickly, because it was cold, to the next guild meeting and what they both hoped to accomplish.

"Hey, I was surprised to see you at the basketball game. You haven't been a regular."

"I thought I'd give it a try." The cold air tingled in Taz's upturned nose.

"Well, let me know if you need anything for your new best friend."

"Thanks. I'm hoping to find a home for him. I'd better grab some milk and bread and hurry home. Brinkley needs to eat."

"Yes," Brinkley agreed.

When Taz got home, the first thing she did was mix some canned food into the dry food. She watched while the famished animal gulped the food then drank water. When he finished he smiled up at her.

"You know, even though you're skinny, you're a rather handsome dog." She walked over to pet him. "You know, oh, I said that already, didn't I? Well, how about if I put your bed in the bedroom? We don't want it where people can see it."

She picked up the fleece doggie bed, placing it on the floor at the foot of her bed. She thought the dog would curl up and go to sleep for he had to be exhausted but Brinkley was so thrilled to find a person who might love him he followed her everywhere she went until she sat down at her computer. Then he blissfully slept at her feet.

She couldn't help but smile when she glanced down at him.

Harry arrived home before the wind started howling. By the time she left the barn, the doors rattled.

Walking to the house she complained to her animals. "First it's El Niño, then it's La Niña. Okay, that passed and with it the mild winters, but this is ridiculous. Second big blow in as many weeks."

Once in the house she fed her pets, buttered a bagel, pulled out a legal-sized pad, a pencil, and sat at the kitchen table. She diagrammed the inside of the Clam, marking who sat where. She diagrammed the parking lot, noting the spot where H.H. collapsed. Then she wrote down the names of everyone she could remember who either tried to assist or who watched helplessly.

"Didn't she hear a thing Herb told her?" Pewter crossly complained.

"She heard." Tucker gazed at Harry, her expressive brown eyes filled with concern.

"She feels compelled to solve this or to at least shift the focus onto herself and away from Susan," the tiger correctly surmised.

"I think she'll be careful." Tucker hoped she would.

"I'm sure she will but if she's being watched, it's only going to add fuel to the fire." Mrs. Murphy knew her human very well.

"Sooner or later people will know H.H. was murdered," Pewter thought out loud. "Might take some of the onus off her."

"They won't know until the report comes back from the state lab in Richmond," Mrs. Murphy replied. "January isn't the murdering season so those toxicology reports will be back soon enough, I'll bet. She can get into a lot of trouble in that time."

"Maybe the storm will slow her down." Tucker allowed Pewter to groom her.

"We can hope." Mrs. Murphy jumped onto the kitchen table.

Harry looked at the cat and back at her drawing of the parking lot. "Ah, you three were in the truck. I'll add that." She added their names with a flourish. "Maybe if I can find out who H.H. was sleeping with I can figure this out."

In a way she was right and in a way she was wrong.

13

Although the storm didn't dump a lot of snow on the ground, the winds howled ferociously. Drifts piled up across the roadways, and five feet behind the drifts the asphalt shone as though picked clean. Nor did the winds abate. Shutters rattled, doors vibrated, and the stinging cold seeped through the cracks and fissures in buildings. The storm system stalled out, too, so every now and then a flurry of snow attended the wind.

Harry's three horses, Gin Fizz, Poptart, and Tomahawk, played outside wearing their blankets, each one a different color to please the horse. Unless the ground was glazed with ice, Harry turned her horses out. They needed to move about, burn off energy. She would bring them in at sundown. Often she'd pause during her barn chores to watch them dash around. Poptart, the youngest and lowest on the totem pole, liked to tease the two older horses. She'd sidle up to Gin Fizz, the handsome, flea-bitten gray, then tug his blanket askew. She'd do this until he'd squeal, then she'd torment Tomahawk. Poptart was the baby sister at her teenage siblings' party. Usually Tomahawk and Gin Fizz indulged her. When she'd cross the line they'd flatten their ears, bare their teeth, and snort. If that failed, a well-timed kick, not connecting, usually backed off the naughty horse.

Simon, the possum, snored slightly as he slept in the hayloft. He'd made cozy quarters out of a hay bale. Since Harry knew he was there she'd never pulled out that bale. The owl dozed in the cupola, glad to be out of the wind. The blacksnake, in deep hibernation, was out of it. She wouldn't stir until April at the earliest. Old and huge, she was as big around as Harry's wrist. The mice cavorted behind the walls of the tack room, having burrowed into the feed room. Theirs was a merry life despite the efforts of Mrs. Murphy and Pewter to curtail their nonstop party.

The doors at both ends of the center-aisle barn were shut tight, but they still slapped and banged. The stall doors to the outside Dutch doors were locked, top and bottom, but wind secreted itself between the frames, causing them to shake with each blast.

Inside, Harry's breath spiraled out as she spread a light dusting of lime over the wet spots. She'd clean out the soiled bedding, expose the wet spots and lime them, then let them dry and come back just before sundown to pull bedding over them. Once a week, usually Saturday morning, she'd strip down each stall so it would air out. Then she'd put a generous helping of fresh wood shavings over it. She liked straw because she could make a better compost out of it for her garden, but soiled straw was heavy and strained her back with each successive full pitchfork. Also, straw was getting expensive; more expensive still were peanut hulls. Some people even tried shredded newspapers. The good thing about Crozet, among other fine qualities, was the availability of small sawmills. She could find a suitable grade of wood shavings without any trouble, for a reasonable cost. Toss a little mix of cedar shavings in each stall and the barn smelled wonderful.

She couldn't prove it but Harry believed those cedar shavings helped keep down the parasites, not that she had to worry about parasites in this weather.

Though proud of her barn system, her farm management, Harry wouldn't brag about her accomplishments. She figured the shine on her horses' coats and their happy attitudes spoke to anyone with horse sense. As to the rest of it, if a person drove down the long road to the farm they would behold a tidy, neat, well-loved farm no matter what the season.

Over the years she'd dug two new wells at each end of the farm to accommodate watering troughs. In time she hoped to purchase one of those irrigation systems with pipes interspersed with wheels. The system would roll at a timed rate of speed over the pastures. It was moving sculpture, a beautiful sight to her eyes. Beautiful price, too.

Droughts had begun to visit central Virginia. Not each year, but three years out of ten, say. She needed a good hay crop. An irrigation system could be a blessing.

Harry tried to think ahead, to plan, but no matter how well she planned Mother Nature surprised her. So did people.

She climbed the ladder to the hayloft. Mrs. Murphy followed her. Pewter adamantly remained in the tack room. Mouse patrol, she fibbed. Tucker stayed down in the aisle.

Harry tiptoed to Simon's den. Fast asleep on an old white towel, each time he exhaled the small stalks of hay wavered. She put down a bowl with graham crackers soaked in honey. Simon loved sweets. His water bowl was clean.

Of course, he could drink water out of the horse buckets. The barn stayed warm enough for the water not to freeze over. Sometimes if the mercury dropped into the single digits the buckets would freeze, but if the temperature stayed in the twenties or low thirties outside, the temperature inside usually kept above freezing. The heat coming off those large horse bodies helped, too.

Harry smiled as she peeped over at the possum. She'd even managed last spring to trap him-which he hated-but she took him to the vet where he received every shot possible. He was an extremely healthy possum, no carrier of EPM, a malady affecting first birds, then possums as carriers, and finally horses. Much as she adored Simon, Harry had to see to the health of her horses, hence the shots. He avoided her for weeks after that. No matter how many times the pets told him the traumatic visit had been for his own good, he stayed furious. He finally got over it in June, once again showing himself to Harry, taking small treats from her hand.

By the time Harry climbed back down it was eight-thirty A.M. She'd knocked out her barn chores. She couldn't do anything outside. She felt good about life. Harry loved getting her chores done in a timely and orderly fashion.

The phone rang in the tack room. She picked it up. Tucker sat at her feet.

A muffled male voice hissed. "Curiosity killed the cat. Mind your own business."

Click.

She stood there with the receiver in her hand. "Shit."

"What a pretty thing to say," Pewter sarcastically meowed.

"I've just been warned off," Harry said aloud.

"I knew it! I knew this would happen," Tucker worriedly said.

"It will only make her more determined." Mrs. Murphy hopped onto a saddle on a saddle rack.

Harry took off her barn coat. The tack room, toasty, invited one to sit down, inhale the aroma of the stable.

"Too bad she doesn't have caller ID," Pewter, who was interested in technology, said.

"That's the truth. On a day like today I bet whoever called didn't go to a phone booth." Tucker swiveled her left ear toward the wall. She could hear the mice whispering.

"That voice was familiar but he must have had a cloth over the phone or something to disguise it. But damn, I know that voice!" She threw her work gloves on the floor. "I am a perfect ass."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Mom," Tucker sympathized.

The slender woman pulled over the director's chair from the desk. She dropped down into it, lifting her feet up to rest on her tack trunk, a present from her father for her twelfth birthday. He'd built it from glowing cherrywood, carving her initials in a diamond shape on the front.

Harry observed her audience, which included the mice, although she couldn't hear them nor did she know they'd gathered around their semicircular hole partially hidden by that very tack trunk. "Think about it. How can you have an affair in Crozet? You can't even sneeze without someone saying 'Gesundheit.' There are only a few ways I figure a man or a woman for that matter can have an affair. Tucker, you look so interested."

Tucker, her head cocked, was drinking in every word. "I am. Dogs don't have affairs so the concept alone fascinates me."

"What is it that dogs have?" Pewter sniggered.

"Sex."

"How crude, Tucker." Pewter, on the saddle rack below Mrs. Murphy-they were in a vertical line-had to laugh.

"Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, so you need to be able to hide in plain sight assuming the affairee is a person living in Albemarle County. If your paramour lives somewhere else that's easier. Too easy. A doctor has plenty of opportunities to get away with it. A private office, hospital rooms, all those nurses. Pretty easy. Anyone in a nine-to-five job, not so easy, but anyone who is self-employed, more chances. H.H. ran a construction firm. I suppose he could enjoy trysts in an unfinished building after the workers left but he'd have to drag a bed in there or a futon. Scratch that. He has an office. A real possibility, although a wife can cruise by and most wives would have a key. Still, that's possible. The other thing is that a lot of construction sites, the bigger ones, have trailers, an on-site office. That would be real easy. Yeah, I can see that. And the last possibility, open to anyone, not just H.H., would be sneaking in and out of the paramour's house or apartment assuming she's unmarried. If she's married, it's got to be the office or the trailer. No way could he take a woman to the club or to a motel. Not in this county."

"Mother, have you contemplated an affair? You've certainly thought this out." Mrs. Murphy's long whiskers swept forward then back as she, too, listened to the mice.

"What do you want, pussycat?"

"For you to behave," the tiger replied.

Harry laughed. She liked conversing with her animals although she didn't know what they were saying. "Next issue. What kind of woman? H.H. wasn't attracted to tarts. I've known him all his life. He liked well-groomed women, nice looking. He wasn't the handsomest guy around nor the richest, so he wasn't going to get, say, a BoomBoom but he could certainly attract, m-m-m, a nice-looking secretary. Maybe someone he met socially. He didn't have much free time. What self-employed person does? He liked kayaking." She thought. "No. We'd know. I'm sure. There aren't but so many women on the reservoir."

"Could be on one of the rivers," Tucker said.

As if in response to the dog's thought, Harry added, "But Anne would go with him most times. Not a hobby. Has got to be a woman he met through work or someone at an office where he does business, building supply, another construction company, architects' offices."

"You forget that he goes to the dentist like everyone else. He would have his annual physical at a doctor's office. That's a possibility." Mrs. Murphy considered the picking grounds.

"The other issue we have to consider is whoever this was, he nearly left his wife for her. He did leave his wife for her if only for one day. So the woman would have to be presentable. H.H. wasn't exactly a snob but he wouldn't risk everything for a woman he didn't think most of his friends would eventually accept."

"You know, she's smarter than I give her credit for sometimes." Pewter blinked, the pupils of her eyes changing shape.

14

Matthew Crickenberger's rain-forest wall was just wide enough that he could turn around in it. He'd built it four feet deep and to the ceiling.

Outside the office window it was a winter wonderland. Inside his rain forest it was the Colombian jungle.

He could have foisted off cleaning the glassed-in enclosure complete with an expensive air circulation system and humidifier. However, he enjoyed his Sunday-afternoon escapes.

A thorough cleaning, including checking the pond, took three hours. The birds, accustomed to him, opened their wings and their mouths. Matthew always brought treats and not just on Sundays. The neon-colored frogs felt no special affection for the middle-aged man. They hopped for cover. He brought ants and tiny grubs for them, too.

The last chore was washing the inside of the floor-to-ceiling glass. He hummed as he slid the rubber blade to the top of the glass. He could just reach the top. Then he would swiftly bring it straight down. Small droplets fell on his back from the tree canopy overhead. Vines hung like necklaces.

Finished at last, he placed his buckets outside, then stepped out onto a small sisal rug. He shut the door behind him, wiped his feet, and picked up the white towel from the country club draped over a chair. He toweled himself off, making a mental note to tell Hunter at the club that he owed for a towel. Matthew, meticulous about such things, was irritated when people would filch towels, paper, ashtrays. He confronted one of Charlottesville's flush lawyers once, saying, "Never steal anything small." The other men in the locker room laughed. The lawyer, a banty rooster of a man, laughed, too.

The phone rang. Matthew picked it up, assuming the caller was his wife.

"A loaf of bread, a jug of wine," he jovially answered.

"Matthew?"

"Fred." Matthew was surprised.

"The same."

"Are you working on a snowy Sunday? I don't think the county will pay extra." A hint of sarcasm crept into Matthew's voice.

Fred ignored him. "Do you know who will take over Donaldson Construction?"

"Uh-no. Why?"

"Well, I wanted to go through the Lindsay house out by Beaverdam Road and I don't want to disturb Anne."

"Call Tazio."

"She doesn't work for Donaldson Construction."

"No, but she's the architect. You'd have a competent person with you."

"I don't know. I'd like a company representative. It's always better."

"Well, Fred, I don't think this is the time to bother anyone at the company. They're all reeling. Even the site foreman has got to be upset. Make an exception and call Tazio."

"Yeah." Fred's voice faded, he cleared his throat. "I wish I hadn't had that fight with him."

"Guilt is a useless emotion."

"I didn't say I felt guilty." Fred bristled.

"You didn't have to. Now just listen to me. You were not on your best behavior. You really wanted to hit Josef P. but nailed H.H. instead."

"Well-yeah, but if I told you the times I wanted to slug H.H. Arrogant bastard." He inhaled sharply. "Dead. Gone. No more trouble."

"He was either belligerent or a whiner. Let him lose out on a bid and whoever won it was corrupt, paying off. I mean, it couldn't be because someone else could do a better job."

"That someone was usually you," Fred dryly commented.

"In the last few years it was."

A silence followed. "I'll call Tazio."

"Uh, Fred." A light note lifted Matthew's voice. "I assume my helpfulness will only influence you to find fault with my projects."

A rasping laugh followed. "You got that right, Matthew."

15

This time of year gets to me." Susan folded an empty mailbag. "Spring seems a million years away and the Christmas bills are arriving. Ugh."

Miranda and Harry, having finished the sorting of the mail, had been discussing the merits of painting the small table and chairs in the back.

Harry was happy that no one had called to threaten Susan, because Susan would certainly have told her. So whoever it was had focused on her. Instead of making her fearful, it exhilarated her. Danger got her blood up.

The animals thought she was foolish. She should report the call to the sheriff or Deputy Cooper.

"Red," Miranda declared.

"Yellow," Harry countered.

"Blue." Susan laughed. "Or better yet, paint them yellow with blue and red pinstripes or red with blue and yellow pinstripes or-"

The front door opened, Big Mim burst through. "Why didn't you tell me?"

The three women stared back at her. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter jumped on the dividing counter as Tucker, half-asleep, lifted her head.

"Tell you what?" Harry wondered if Mim had learned that H.H.'s death was suspect. If so, who would have told her but Sheriff Shaw?

"Susan"-Big Mim charged up to the counter-"your husband is going to put together an exploratory committee to consider a campaign for the house seat and you never said a word."

The man who was the state representative in Richmond was retiring that year without endorsing any candidate for the Democratic Party. This was not pique on his part. There were a few good people who might run but no one had declared themselves. Better to wait and see.

Susan blanched. "Mim, it's not my place to make those announcements."

"You knew!" Mim had to know everything.

"Of course I knew. And didn't Ned come and talk to you and Jim?"

"Yes, but you should have called me first." She spun on her heel, opened her mailbox, then slammed it, the metallic thud ringing through the room.

She marched out as resolutely as she had marched in. Outside the day was gray. Inside the clock read eight A.M.

"Monday morning." Tucker dropped her head back on her paws.

"I thought we didn't have any secrets between us," Harry said half in jest, for she hadn't known of Ned's decision, either.

"It's not my secret." Susan held to her position.

"It's wonderful." Miranda took the folded mailbag from Susan's hands, placing it on the shelf with the packages.

Susan walked over to the coffeepot, poured herself a cup, and spoke with deliberation. "Ned has this dream that he can change things for the better. He's been quiet about it but this is his chance. I think he'd make a good state representative. He's honest, fair-minded, and not afraid of tough problems."

"All of that is true, but what do you think for yourself?" Harry pressed.

"Oh Harry." Then Susan glanced at Miranda. "I don't want to be a political wife-watching every word, dressing up, attending all those boring events."

"You don't have to do that." Harry waved as Market Shiflett, in big snow boots, passed by the front window. He owned the convenience store next door.

"She can't hide under a rock." Miranda disagreed with Harry. "She has to show her support."

"She can pick and choose her events. I'm not suggesting she . . ." Harry paused. "Susan, I don't know what I'm suggesting. I really don't know what it takes to get elected to office. Money. After that it kind of looks like a beauty contest to me." She smiled. It faded as Fred Forrest, Mychelle Burns, and Tazio Chappars walked toward the front door. A clean Brinkley followed Tazio.

Neither Fred nor Mychelle lived in Crozet. They were arguing, Fred wasn't paying attention to where he was going, and as Tazio, shaking snow from her boots, stepped into the post office, Fred looked up, his mouth hanging open. He shut it like a bird clamping down on a beetle.

"Hello," Harry, Miranda, and Susan called out.

"Hello," Tazio replied.

Mychelle and Fred merely nodded.

"How are you feeling today?" Mrs. Murphy asked Brinkley.

Tucker came around from behind the divider. Harry had installed a doggie door for her because she grew weary of opening and closing the half-door under the flip-up part of the divider. A lot of times she just left that half-door open but every time she closed it, Tucker would claw at it.

"Much better. Tazio fed me a delicious meal, beef bits over kibble which she stirred all together. I think she stuck a vitamin pill in there but I don't care. I'll take vitamins if it makes her happy."

"She must have given you a bath, too. Your coat looks clean. You know, you'll get some luster once you gain weight." Tucker liked the Lab.

"I feel like a new dog." Brinkley smiled.

"What's going on with Fred and Mychelle?" Pewter inquired.

"Tazio walked out of the bank and Fred was in the parking lot. He said he'd been calling her about the Lindsay house. He's rude. Said he'd read the blueprints for her sports complex design. Design is not his bailiwick but she'd made errors and the construction company would have a hard time building her monstrosity. He used that word. Mychelle nods whenever he speaks. She must be in love with him or something. She agrees with everything he says."

"In love with Fred? Ugly." Pewter wrinkled her nose.

As the three humans began to leave, Tazio winked at Harry.

Mrs. Murphy called out, "Get Taz to bring you to our farm. We'll give you the tour."

"I'll try." A happy Brinkley wagged his tail and followed Tazio out the door.

"If a fart has human form it's Fred." Harry burst out laughing.

"Harry, that is so crude. Your mother would be horrified if she could hear you speak like that." Miranda shook her head although she did agree with the assessment.

"You'd be cleaning the kitchen floor with boiling water as penance." Susan laughed, remembering Harry's mother. "But he is just awful. Awful!"

"Isn't it something, though, that Tazio got the job, her design was selected and here she is, her office is in Crozet. We all ought to be proud," Miranda said.

"It's a beautiful design, sweeping glass with beautiful curves. Hey, you know what I've always wanted to do?"

The other two women looked at Harry. "What?"

"Put a deep-sea diver on top of the Clam."

"That would be funny," Susan said. "You'd need a crane to get it up there."

"No. They clean that roof. There has to be a way to get on top from the inside." Harry's mind raced forward.

"Sure and you'd slide all the way off." Susan knew that in Harry's mind she was carrying the deep-sea outfit on her back, going through a trapdoor onto the roof.

"Would not."

"Would, too," Susan sassed in good humor.

"You two."

A frazzled Deputy Cynthia Cooper opened the back door, closing it behind her. "What is wrong with everyone this Monday?"

"We're fine," Harry responded.

"That's why I'm here. To escape for fifteen minutes. Oh, orange-glazed cinnamon buns, where are they?" Disappointment shone on her face.

Miranda baked the most delicious cinnamon buns, drenching them with a thick orange glaze icing.

"Now that you mention it," Miranda checked her watch, tossed on her coat, "they're just about ready."

"Yahoo!" Susan clapped her hands together like a child.

"Need help?" Tucker volunteered.

"I'll be right back." Miranda slipped out the door.

"What's going on?" Harry asked the officer.

"Aunt Tally's missing a cow. She was convinced someone stole it. In a snowstorm? Okay, dealt with that. The cow broke through the fence line and was at the next farm. Then a waterpipe burst on Hydraulic Road in front of the Kmart. Naturally the water froze all over the road, which had been slush. We had to redirect traffic at rush hour. That was a lot of fun. It's raw out there today. What a mess. And then some kid sideswipes BoomBoom at the stop sign at Routes 240 and 250. She came to a stop, a full stop, which you have to do even though it's a pain. And this kid gets impatient and pulls alongside her on the right, loses control since the road is slick, and slides all along the right side of her car."

"That's such a pretty car," Susan commiserated.

Miranda reappeared. "Voilà!"

"Miranda, you're a lifesaver." Cooper plucked one off the tray the second Miranda set it on the table.

An Explorer pulled up outside the post office. Two young blonde women disembarked. The driver opened the back door and out popped a medium-sized, reddish, mixed-breed dog, her tail twirling like a windmill. Right behind her, trying to be more dignified, was another dog, wheat-colored, larger.

"Minnesota plates." Miranda noticed. "Why, those girls will feel right at home."

Harry and Cooper laughed as the door opened and the humans and dogs stepped into the cozy post office.

"Strange dogs," Pewter announced as Tucker's ears perked right up and she scratched open the divider door between the working area and the post box area.

"All dogs are strange," Mrs. Murphy teased as she looked down from the counter as the dogs all touched noses.

"Ignore her. She's grand and airy," Tucker advised the two friendly visitors.

"Excuse me?" Gina Marie, the red-colored Lab/terrier mix cocked her head, questioning.

Casey Jo, the younger of the two visiting dogs, wagged her tail, her body and then lifted her paw for emphasis but she didn't say anything.

"Yankee dogs." Mrs. Murphy glared down at them in mock anger.

"Is that like a cookie? Yankee?" Casey Jo vaguely remembered little cellophane-wrapped doodles called, obviously enough, Yankee Doodles.

Tucker, ignoring Madame Supremacy on the counter, said, "Well, no, it's not a cookie but never you mind. Grand and airy means stuck up. It's a Southern expression and I can tell by your accents that you aren't Southern."

"No. But I thought the South was hot," Gina Marie said.

"Not in the winter. And we're right at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains so it gets right cold here."

"Bet you don't have cats that work in your post office?" Mrs. Murphy, Pewter now beside her, looked down.

"No." Casey Jo, a happy soul, thought the cats amusing.

"Any dogs working there?" Tucker inquired.

"No. St. Paul, where we live is, well, dogs and cats wouldn't be allowed to work in an office or place like this. People pay a lot of attention to rules there and I'm sure it's against the rules or our humans would take us to work." Gina Marie thought the rules were dreadful.

"See, that's what's so great about Virginia." Tucker smiled broadly, revealing her white teeth. "Everyone pretends to obey the rules and then they do what they want. It's all very civilized, of course."

"Well, how can it be civilized if people are breaking the rules?" Casey Jo innocently asked.

"Oh dear, they really are Yankees," Pewter whispered to Mrs. Murphy, nodding in agreement.

Tucker realized this would become a discussion not just of hours but days and weeks, so she prudently changed the subject. "It's very nice that your humans brought you along."

"Our humans take us everywhere they can and they are lots of fun. They play ball with us and swim with us and ski with us. They can't keep up with us so we have to slow down, of course, but they don't sit in chairs while we play. They participate."

"Does your human play with you?" Casey Jo believed humans would be so much happier if they could chase balls all day and chew bones.

Tucker glanced up at Harry, now out from behind the counter to talk to the visiting ladies from St. Paul. "Yes, but my human works all the time. We farm, you see, so I herd the horses and I guard Mom. The cats are supposed to kill the vermin but-she lowered her voice-they are falling down on the job."

"You'll pay for that." Mrs. Murphy's tail lashed.

"Death to dogs!" Pewter crowed, which made Casey Jo bark.

"She's so full of it. Pay her no more mind than if she was a goat barking." Tucker turned her back on the cats.

"I beg your pardon?" Gina Marie's eyebrows raised up.

"Uh, I don't think I can explain that one but just ignore those cats. How come you're in Crozet?"

"Polly Foss," Casey Jo indicated one of the women who looked a lot like sisters, "is here for a management conference so her best friend, Lynae Larson, took off work to come along. They've never seen central Virginia."

"Come on, girls," Polly called to the chatting dogs.

Casey Jo walked over to Harry and licked her hand before leaving.

Lynae laughed. "She loves everyone."

The two pretty Nordic ladies left carrying orange-glazed buns.

"Now isn't it just the most fun to talk to someone from different parts?" Miranda used the Virginia expression "different parts" which, depending on the intonation of the speaker, could mean a wide variety of things.

"Guess they didn't realize we have real winter here." Harry laughed.

Cooper chimed in. "Yeah, but at least ours only lasts three months. They're stuck with it half the year."

"Poor darlin's." Miranda couldn't imagine that much cold for that long.

As Gina Marie and Casey Jo hopped back in the SUV, they inhaled the delicious aroma of those orange glazed cinnamon buns and hoped those two girls in the front seat would share.

"Weren't those cats funny?" Casey Jo leaned on Gina Marie.

"Grand and airy," Gina Marie said as they both laughed.

Casey Jo replied, "Animals are nice here but you know, Gina, I can't exactly understand what they're saying."

Later that Monday when Cooper was back at headquarters, the preliminary lab report came in. H.H. had been killed by a toxin. However, no one in Richmond was familiar with the toxin and they were continuing tests to make a clear identification.

She leaned over Rick Shaw's shoulder, reading the report with him. He put the papers down. She came around to sit on the edge of his desk, facing him.

"If it's got the white coats baffled it must really be weird." He ran his hand over his thinning hair.

"Yeah, well, whatever it was it sure was lethal." Her finger went to her neck. "Wham."

"No dart or shard or anything in the body." He dumped his full ashtray into the trash can. The odor of stale cigarettes wafted upward.

"Isn't it possible that when Fair or whoever loosened the scarf it fell out?" She recalled that Fair mentioned H.H. had had a plaid cashmere scarf around his neck when he collapsed in the parking lot.

"The penetration in the neck was an inch and a half." He drummed his fingers on the desk. "You'd think whatever hit him would have stuck in there. And if it pulled out with the scarf there'd be a tear in the scarf. We combed that parking lot. Not even a sliver on the ground."

"The penetration was deep but thin. You saw the wound."

"I did. That's what worries me. How could the killer hit H.H. and no one see it? He'd have to be close and silent. It's possible the killer could have brushed by him but surely someone would notice a human being jamming something into the neck of another human being. This report disturbs me. These days you don't know what some nutcase is cooking up in a lab."

"Not just here, boss, but all over the world." She sighed.

"You got that right." He frowned.

"Maybe basketball is a trigger in some way?"

"Yeah, I thought of that, too." He drummed harder. "Looks like we need a full-court press on this one."

16

The gang rarely missed a basketball game but that Friday night they gathered at Anne Donaldson's for a quiet remembrance since H.H. had loathed funerals. Although Harry and H.H. hadn't been close, they were part of the same community, so she was there to pay her respects.

Friends and neighbors told stories highlighting H.H.'s quick temper, which would evaporate and then he'd forgive and forget.

H.H. had touched a lot of people, including all those who'd worked for him over the years. People fervently wished they had told him how they felt about him while he lived. Nagging guilt nibbled at more than one conscience.

Tazio Chappars fought tears when Matthew recounted how the sports complex job had come down to the wire. How disappointed H.H. had been to lose what would have been his biggest contract ever.

Matthew's pleasant voice filled the room. "He came to my office to congratulate me personally." His voice cracked for a second. "That's class." Composed again, he continued. "There's no doubt in my mind that H.H. would have won major institutional jobs in the future. It was just a matter of time and who would have thought his time would run out?" He lifted his glass. "To H.H."

Speak no ill of the dead. Matthew made no mention of H.H.'s tendency to whine when things didn't go his way.

The others toasted in unison. As Matthew was the last speaker, people then talked among themselves.

Fred Forrest's and Mychelle Burns's absences were noted. They could have showed, paid their respects if only for fifteen minutes.

Harry scanned the packed rooms. People were wedged together in the hall, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the den, the family room, even out in Anne's greenhouse. She wondered if H.H.'s killer was there. If he was, was he enjoying the gathering? Was it triumph or was it relief?

She switched on the truck radio as she drove home that evening. Virginia was defeating Florida State in a lackluster game.

Be a lot of empty seats tonight, she thought to herself.

An oncoming car on the Whitehall Road blinded her with its brights. She cursed loudly, surprising herself. It wasn't until then that she realized how angry she was. Angry at the killer. Angry that she was no help. She felt as if she were driving in the dark with no lights on.

"I'll find out who he was sleeping with! Dammit, it's a start," she said out loud. "She must know something if she isn't the killer herself."

Then it occurred to Harry that if the secret lover did indeed know something, she probably didn't have long to live.

17

In one of those spectacular reversals so common in mountain regions, the next day the temperature climbed up to the low fifties. The snow melted, the earth grew soggy, the skies sparkled robin's-egg blue with that crystal clarity only winter brings. Everyone played outside Saturday. After all, Old Man Winter could return in a heartbeat.

Harry, Susan, Big Mim, Little Mim, Fair, and BoomBoom went fox hunting, returning in the early afternoon. They scattered in various directions dictated by the necessities of daily life.

The Daily Progress reported a careful interview with Sheriff Shaw in which he announced that H. H. Donaldson's death was not from natural causes. He said the builder appeared to have been poisoned, and the matter was under investigation.

Harry and Fair, after putting up their horses, met back in Crozet for a late lunch at the Mountain View Grille restaurant.

"-unusual for you." Fair had just finished telling Harry how happy he was that she wasn't playing detective.

"Rick asked me to butt out." She saw no reason to inform Fair that she was going to get to the bottom of this.

"Since when has that stopped you?" He smiled as she reached over on his plate, snagging a crisp French fry.

"My theory is"-she popped the dark little potato sliver into her mouth-"find the lover and you find the killer." She couldn't resist the French fry any more than she could resist thinking about the murder.

"I see. A woman scorned." He watched as she reached for another one. "Honey, why don't you let me order an extra plate of fries?"

"Because I'll eat every single one and I can pack on five pounds in the winter looking at food. But oh, it's so-o-o good."

"Our bodies have more wisdom than we do. We're supposed to be heavier in the winter. Insulation. Our food supplies ran perilously thin in winter before we knew how to preserve food. We needed every fat cell we had."

"Ever think about the difference between people from warm climates and those from temperate climates? People in the tropics reach up and grab a fruit. There is no tomorrow. But people in temperate climates have to plan ahead because of winter. History of the world right there. If you plan ahead for food, it's not such a big jump to planning ahead to conquer other people."

"Harry, I never know what's whirring around in that brain of yours."

"I read that but it does make sense. And what people drink: warm climates, wine; temperate climates, beer; cold climates, hard liquor. That's what they could make based on what they grew. You with your Swedish blood could drink us all under the table if you were so inclined."

"That's what undergraduate days are about. I'm surprised I'm not dead. Sometimes I think about the stuff I did when I was a kid." He broke into a toothy grin. "First off, why wasn't I killed on the road? Then, why wasn't I shot? Or kicked in the head by a horse? But I came to my senses and began to practice moderation the day I entered vet school. You, on the other hand, were ahead of me there."

"My parents would have skinned me alive. Oh hey, here comes Herbie."

The Reverend Jones walked in, waving to them.

"Come on over." Fair stood up.

"You two are finishing. I can't intrude."

"You are never an intrusion. We were considering dessert. Please join us." Fair pulled out the chair.

Herb sat down, happy to be among friends. "Susan said hunting was wonderful today."

"The earth was a little warmer than the air. It exhaled, so to speak." Fair smiled. He enjoyed studying the mysteries of scent and that's what they remained, mysteries.

"How about that article in the paper today-about H.H.?" Herb cast a swift stern glance at Harry, one unnoticed by Fair.

"We will be overrun with theories." Fair looked up from the dessert menu.

After the waiter took Herb's order and Fair's dessert order, Fair said, "Has anyone thought about the Republican Party? H.H. was county chairman."

"Ah-" Herb pressed the end of the spoon bringing up the bowl of it. "Good at it, too. Young and full of conservative zeal minus the social agenda. I don't know what they'll do, although if they're smart, really smart, they'll draft Tazio Chappars for the job."

"Tazio?" Fair considered this. "That would be brilliant."

"With Ned considering a run for the State House, the Republicans need young leadership to create excitement. Ned will be a strong candidate. Tazio might be able to attract a new, vigorous element into the Republican Party." Herb, keenly political, enjoyed the elections the way some folks enjoy chess.

"Susan mentioned people were very supportive." Harry knew she'd get sucked into all this and she so hated politics.

"Charlotte's down with the flu." Herb brightened when his rib-eye steak sandwich was put before him. "Just what the doctor ordered."

"Better take one to Charlotte then," Harry teased him.

"I tell you what, you don't know how good a secretary she is. These last two days I've answered phones, sorted the mail into must-do, can-wait, and throwaway piles, checked the office supplies. I'm low on everything plus I've had to fiddle around with the rescheduling of the carpets. They swore on a stack of Bibles, and to a pastor, too, that they would be at the church doors at eight A.M. on Tuesday. I think I'd better send Hayden McIntyre over to Charlotte's. I need her!"

"Did you send her flowers?"

"Yes." Herb smiled at Harry as he bit into the delicious sandwich.

"Anything I can do to help? I'm off this weekend. Zack's on call." Fair shared on-call duties over the weekends with other vets. It was a good system, otherwise no equine vet in Virginia would ever have a weekend off. Horses seem to watch the calendar, being careful to injure themselves over the weekend, preferably very late at night.

Tazio Chappars came in. "Hey," she called when seeing them.

"Sit down." Fair stood up.

"No, please sit, Fair. I can't. I've got Brinkley in the truck. I don't want to leave him so I thought I'd pick up a sandwich and go back to the office."

"It's Saturday. A beautiful Saturday," Harry beamed. "You can't go to work; who knows when we'll get another one?"

"I know, I know, but I've got to catch up."

"I'll catch up in 2020." Herb laughed, his deep rumble shaking the table.

"You and Brinkley are becoming best friends." Harry thought maybe she'd better order an extra sandwich to divide among three put-out animals at home.

"I love that dog. How did I live this long without my own dog? I always told myself I was too busy but I have my own office so he comes to work with me, he goes to the construction sites. He's such a good dog, so smart." She glowed.

"Labs are," Fair agreed.

"There's a corgi sitting at home who vehemently disagrees," Harry laughed, "but Labs are incredible creatures."

"He talks to me," Tazio sheepishly admitted, "and I talk back."

"Harry talks to her critters all the time." Herb polished off the rib-eye sandwich.

"Oh, and you don't talk to Elocution and Cazenovia?"

Herb nodded at Harry. "Couldn't write a sermon without them. Just thought I'd throw the spotlight on you."

"Nice to chat with you all. Let me go order a sandwich. What did you have, Herb? It looked good." Tazio inhaled the delicious aroma.

"Rib eye."

"That's what I'll get. And one for Brinkley." She walked over to the counter.

Just then Mychelle Burns entered, looked around nervously, saw Tazio, and sidled up to her.

Tazio, at pains to conceal her dislike, smiled. "What are you doing in Crozet?"

"Nothing," she fibbed. "Saw your truck with the dog in it." Mychelle lowered her voice. "I need to talk to you. Privately."

Tazio's brow furrowed. "Not today."

"Monday? In your office."

"Mychelle, I don't have my Filofax with me. Call me Monday."

"Don't put me off. I will be in your office Monday at nine. You be there. It's important."

"You know, you're becoming like Fred. That's not an attractive prospect." Tazio exhaled through her nostrils. "I need to check my book."

Mychelle lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "Don't fuck with me."

Surprised at the other woman's crude language, Tazio replied, "Mychelle."

"Wait until you hear what I have to say. Here's a preview: Fred, at night, takes debris from construction sites and dumps them at Matthew's site. Here's another preview: H.H. paid under the table for copies of Matthew's job blueprints. You need to talk to me."

"All right, Mychelle, all right. Monday at nine." Tazio wondered what was going on.

Without a goodbye, Mychelle turned and left, not even bothering to close the front door behind her. One of the waitresses hurried over to close it.

Harry, along with Fair and Herb, watched the exchange although they couldn't hear what transpired. Tazio looked back at them and shrugged. She paid for her two sandwiches and left, waving as she did so.

"Mychelle is not winning friends and influencing people," Fair observed.

"She used to be upbeat. Job's affected her. People get upset when something's wrong and it costs money to fix it. I suppose we need these building codes but they seem so, I don't know, too much paperwork, too much interference." Herb ordered Boston cream pie.

The lightbulb switched on in Harry's head. Of course, she thought to herself, how easy, both had access to H.H. Under my nose and I never saw it. One of those women is, was, H.H.'s lover. I'd bet my life on it!

"Harry?" Fair touched her hand.

"What?"

"You didn't hear a word I said."

"Fair, I'm sorry, I just had an idea." She smiled. "I'm listening, really. You have my full attention."

18

Coaches ride a roller coaster. While the best of them hope to build students' character, prepare them for life's unpredictables, they still must win and win convincingly. The most successful character builder in America isn't going to get a renewed contract if his or her team doesn't win. And of all coaches, the two most visible to the public are football and basketball, the college sports with the largest following, the lucrative TV contracts.

In the dark ages, no one even knew the women's basketball coach's name. These days they were stars with all the perks and pressures their male counterparts had endured and enjoyed for close to one hundred years-except one. Women's coaches didn't sleep with male students. Male coaches used to cut a swath through the girls, although those days, too, had waned thanks to administrators finally waking up to the abuse inherent in such a relationship even if freely contracted. Then again, the male coaches were usually married, a sticking point.

Married women coaches would pace the sidelines, their husbands and children breathlessly watching. The unmarried women coaches would pace the sidelines, the unmarried men breathlessly watching.

It never occurred to Coach Ryan and her assistant coaches that a murderer was watching. H. H. Donaldson's death, now known to be suspicious, wasn't connected to basketball. At least, no one thought it was.

Since Cameron loved basketball, idolized the players, and worshipped Coach Debbie Ryan, H.H. had purchased a block of ads to run concurrent with the women's basketball season thinking it would make his little girl happy. He'd even bought her a subscription to the University of Virginia newspaper so she could read the fuller accounts of the very games she had witnessed.

Each Monday, Georgina Craycroft, BoomBoom's sister-in-law and head of Virginia Graphics, would design an ad for H.H. based on that week's opponents. The last of H.H.'s ad designs would run out Sunday. Georgina didn't know whether to continue. The staff of The Cavalier Daily didn't want to bother Anne Donaldson but H.H. had paid for the season. Still, Georgina didn't wish to create more designs if Anne wasn't interested. She'd refund whatever monies were outstanding. Georgina was a fair-minded person.

Georgina called BoomBoom, who was closer to Anne than she was. BoomBoom was also on good terms with Coach Ryan.

Anne declared the ads were important to Cameron and, no doubt, fun for the team. BoomBoom then relayed this to Georgina who hastened to her office this beautiful Saturday morning. Old Dominion University, always tough, would be an opponent in the coming week, as well as Georgia, reputed to have the best center in women's basketball this year.

BoomBoom, curiosity rekindled by her sister-in-law's call, drove out to Harry's just as Harry pulled into her driveway.

Each disembarked at the barn.

"BoomBoom, what's up?"

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, noses pressed against the kitchen window over the sink, watched. Tucker barked at the animal door which Harry had secured so the dog wouldn't follow her down the drive when she motored back into town.

"What's she saying?" Pewter pawed at the window.

"I can't read lips," Mrs. Murphy replied.

"We thought you could do everything," the dog, also irritated, said.

"First, she leaves us here to go fox hunting. Then she comes back, unloads Poptart, gets everything organized, gets back in the old truck, and drives to Crozet leaving us again!" Tucker was beside herself.

"She did give us a treat before she left," Pewter said.

"They're coming inside. Tucker, go shut the door to the bedroom. Hurry," Mrs. Murphy ordered.

"I didn't shred the socks she left on the bed. You did." Tucker stubbornly tossed her head as she moved to the kitchen door.

"I hate dogs." Mrs. Murphy soared off the kitchen counter followed by Pewter, who slid down lest she land with a thump.

The two cats raced for the bedroom. Pewter flopped on her side as Mrs. Murphy pushed the door from behind. When the door was almost closed the tiger cat slunk around it, careful not to open it more than necessary. Then she, too, flopped on her side, claws out to the max. The cats hooked their claws under the door-there was just enough space-pulling it shut. The latch didn't click but it was shut enough that a casual walk down the hall would not reveal their depredations.

"-good of Anne." BoomBoom hung her coat on one of the pegs by the back door.

"She's a strong woman." Harry hung her jacket there as well. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"No. I'll tell you why I dropped by unannounced. Talking to Georgina and then Anne reminded me of that awful night. You have a knack for figuring things out. I bet you have thought about it."

"Well-I don't know anything." Harry motioned for her to sit at the kitchen table.

"Why don't we go down to the Clam and walk it out?" BoomBoom's lovely face became quite animated.

"What do you mean, 'walk it out'?"

"If you and I start from where H.H. was sitting in his seat to where he fell, we'll know how far the killer trailed him."

"How do you know the killer did?" asked Harry.

"I've been reading about poisons."

"But the paper didn't say exactly what kind of poison."

"Exactly." BoomBoom was triumphant. "By the process of elimination I know it wasn't arsenic because it takes too long to kill you and the victim suffers from diarrhea. Wasn't cyanide or his skin would have been red. I think he was given the poison right there at the basketball game. In reviewing what I remember, I wonder if I'm correct. Know what I mean? You now know something, and when you look back, well, maybe today's knowledge clouds yesterday's events. I mean yesterday as in the past. Not literally yesterday. I've thought about who had coolers full of drinks. He could have been handed a poisoned drink. Or popcorn or a candy bar."

BoomBoom folded her hands together. "From my reading, I've learned that poisons and toxins aren't exactly the same thing. A toxin is anything that can kill or upset a living organism. But a poison is a subgroup. Poisons usually enter the body in a single massive dose or they can accumulate into a massive dose over time. Also, poisons are easy to identify."

Alert, a fascinated Harry leaned forward. "I didn't know that."

"Another thing is poisons can usually be nullified with fast treatment. With toxins"-she shook her head-"not so easy."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, toxins can kill you with minute levels. And worse, they can disguise themselves, the symptoms are masked. It takes extremely sensitive analytical instruments to detect low levels of toxins and not all of these dangerous substances have antidotes."

"So technically, you think H.H. wasn't poisoned?"

"No. If he had been, Sheriff Shaw would certainly know by now what had poisoned him. What did kill him was something used in a tiny amount. And it kind of mimicked a heart attack."

"Risky. Fingerprints. And cruel. What if Anne or Cameron had drunk from the same can? Nibbled on the candy bar?"

"Hi." The two cats smiled as they entered the kitchen.

"There you are. I wondered where you all were hiding." Harry reached down to rub Mrs. Murphy's then Pewter's head. She was thinking about BoomBoom's research.

"You'll sing a different tune when you see what they've done," Tucker warned.

"Shut up, tailless butt." Pewter flattened her ears.

"Lardass." The little dog laughed.

"Carrion breath." Mrs. Murphy joined in the fun.

"Tuna fart." Tucker thought she could gross them out.

"I don't pass gas," the cat haughtily replied.

"You burp a lot, though." Pewter giggled.

"Whose side are you on?" Murphy crossly questioned the gray cat who prudently stepped close to Harry.

"Hey, kids, we can't hear ourselves talk," Harry reprimanded them.

"If you only knew." Tucker rolled her eyes.

"That's the great thing about humans. They don't know squat." Pewter erupted in a loud laugh, startling the others.

"Perhaps they need to go out." BoomBoom rose and opened the kitchen door. The screen door had another animal door to the side of it which Harry kept unlocked.

The three refused to budge.

"Sit down, BoomBoom. They get like this whenever I leave them home. Now back to your research. The killer must have highly specialized knowledge, like a chemist. If the killer had no conscience, zip, food or drink might be the answer. If the killer does have a conscience, then he or she had to find another way to administer the poison or probably more people would be dead."

"You know." BoomBoom pointed at Harry with her forefinger.

"I do not."

"You're way too calm. You've already figured it out and I bet you've been to the Clam."

"Uh-well, I have been there, yes, but I don't know any more than you do. In fact, you know more than I do."

Harry swung her legs to and fro under her seat. She was getting excited. "Fair was present at the autopsy. He said there was a mark on the left side of H.H.'s neck, a thin penetration wound. And I bugged Coop who confirmed it and said they'd checked his clothes, they'd checked the parking lot. No small dart, not even a tiny needle. Nothing."

"Go back to the Clam with me. Come on."

"I've got chores." Harry wavered.

"All right." BoomBoom stood up. She wanted to check the scene. Would she remember something she had suppressed? She was also hoping spending time with Harry would further repair their relationship.

"It is bizarre"-Harry rose to walk BoomBoom to the door-"that he could be stabbed and we didn't see it. Nor did he yell. It doesn't make a bit of sense."

"If the weapon had been smeared with something like Novocain"-BoomBoom turned to face Harry-"H.H. might not have felt the wound. It's possible."

"It is!" Harry froze in her tracks.

"Come on, let's go." BoomBoom tapped Harry on her shoulder.

They piled into BoomBoom's mammoth Expedition. Her BMW was in the shop after being sideswiped. She had lots of cars and could converse for hours on the merits of a BMW 540i versus a Mercedes AMG 55, or any other models. The animals merrily joined them. Boom loved animals and she didn't care if her seats had pawprints on them.

They parked in the sea of asphalt and hurried to the basketball court where the girls were practicing.

Both Harry and BoomBoom waved as they trotted to their respective seats, the animals with them.

Harry closed her eyes. "I swear I felt something whizz by the left side of my face. It may not be important . . . but sitting here, I, yes, I remember a whizz, kind of."

"The whoosh you felt, it could have just been a noisemaker unfurling." Boom turned to Harry from her seat.

"I didn't turn around. My focus was on the game." She threw up her hands. "But then why wasn't there a dart or a metal point in his neck?"

"H.H. pulled it out?"

"That I would have seen. No." Harry shook her head.

"What if the killer jabbed his neck when we were leaving or even in the parking lot then pocketed the knife or needle or whatever?" BoomBoom mimicked a quick jab.

Pewter had returned to the hairline crack in the wall. She sniffed. The trickle of water continued, no doubt from melting snow. Pewter could smell the dampness.

As the humans left she scampered after them. They carefully walked along the circular hall in the direction of the main entrance. Tucker stopped, lifted her nose.

Mrs. Murphy stopped, too. "Oh."

"I smell it, too." Pewter, eyes large with excitement, followed the dog now in front of a locked door.

Tucker put her nose to the ground. "Blood. Fresh."

The two cats inhaled deeply. "Very, very fresh."

"There are other smells. This must be a broom closet." Tucker processed the information her incredible nose was compiling. "Disinfectant. Soap, bar soap. I can smell water, not much, but there must be a sink in there. But the blood, yes, quite strong and human. Oh, and perfume."

The cats crowded at the door, curling their upper lips toward their noses to direct more scent into their nostrils. Yes, a hint of perfume.

"The janitor could have cut himself." Pewter lifted her nose for fresher air. "Guess it would be a feminine janitor. One who favors floral perfume."

"Pewter, there's a great deal of blood. Someone is dying."

"Or dead," Mrs. Murphy grimly responded.

Tucker cocked her head, swiveling her ear to catch any sound at all. "Not yet. I can hear the human breathe, ragged."

"Mother, someone is hurt. Hurt bad!" Mrs. Murphy screamed.

"Help!" Pewter hollered.

"Help!" Tucker added, her bark frantic.

Harry stopped, turning toward them. "Come on."

"Help!" they all bellowed.

Harry turned to BoomBoom. "Ever since Tucker took to chasing that rat at O'Bannon's Salvage yard she imagines she is the world's greatest ratter. 'Course, she never caught the rat in the first place."

"Help!"

"That's it!" Harry strode back, reached down, picking up a cat in each arm. "I have had about enough of this." She charged out of the building, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter wriggling. BoomBoom hurried in front of them.

She opened the door for Harry to toss the cats in the Expedition. They jumped up and down as though on pogo sticks. Pewter screamed her head off.

BoomBoom, now in the driver's seat, tried to soothe them. "There, there, she'll be right back."

"Oh, BoomBoom, you have no idea what's wrong," Mrs. Murphy cried.

Harry ran back into the building where Tucker was making a fuss. As it was Saturday no one was around to pay attention to the dog. The girls were still at practice.

Seeing Harry, Tucker stood on her hind legs, scratching at the door.

"Get a grip," Harry furiously commanded.

"You've got to open this door!"

Harry, as if understanding, placed her hand on the doorknob. Locked. "That's one rat that will live another day."

"No, no, someone is dying in there. I can hear them breathe. I know that sound! I know the-"

"Tucker, we are going to have a Come to Jesus meeting right here if you don't behave." She bent down, grabbing Tucker and carrying the twenty-eight-pound whimpering dog to the car.

"They are so upset." BoomBoom worried that they might be sick.

"Spoiled is more like it." Harry shut the door to the passenger side. "I apologize."

Tears welled up in the dog's brown eyes. "Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, I tried."

"You're the best dog, Tucker, the very best dog." Mrs. Murphy licked Tucker's face as Pewter rubbed against her white chest.

"I feel so terrible. That person is dying."

19

The day faded. A sliver of white creamy cloud snaked over the Blue Ridge Mountains, with rich, deep gray-blue clouds filling the sky above. When the sun set, the white transformed to scarlet, brilliantly offsetting the mountains. So unusual was the sight that Harry, pitchfork in hand, at the manure pile mostly unfrozen thanks to the sudden thaw, stopped to appreciate the panorama.

The manure pile, contained in a pit housed by three sides of pressure-treated two-by-fours, was step one in Harry's mulch process. Once the manure and shavings cooked for a year, she'd take the front-end loader of the tractor and move it all to the second pit. If the year had had a lot of moisture, the pile would be ready to use and sell. She made a little pin money selling a pickup-truck load for thirty dollars. If it had been a drought year, she waited another year for the mixture to properly cook.

The best fertilizer was goose, duck, or chicken manure if you could find someone to haul it and spread it. But it was expensive by Harry's standards-sometimes as high as eighteen dollars a ton-so she used it sparingly on the few trouble spots she had in her own garden. Her pastures, lush in all but the worst droughts, displayed the effects of her management.

She'd built two such pits for her neighbor, Blair. He had cattle so his mulch/manure was pretty good, too. She tended it for him since he was on the road quite a bit. Their deal was that she could haul out six pickup loads each year which she then mixed into her own piles.

The steam climbed upward as she turned the pile. The temperature skidded with the sunset. There'd be a hard frost tonight.

Mrs. Murphy, fluffed out against the encroaching cold, sat on the corner of the pit, above it all.

"You know, the birds pick through here. You don't need to spend money buying special feeds for them."

"You're a good companion, Mrs. Murphy." Harry observed the scarlet sky deepen to a blood red with mauve tendrils snaking through the color.

"Thank you. I have other ideas on saving money. Feed Pewter less." She could say this without an accompanying yowl because Pewter was in the kitchen consoling Tucker, utterly morose because she couldn't help the injured human.

"Beautiful." She scratched the cat behind the ears. "Why would anyone watch television when they can see this? The human race would rather watch something made up than something real. Sometimes I wonder why I'm human. Really, Murphy, I find my own species bizarre."

"'Stupid' is closer to the mark." The cat inhaled the peaty odor of pit mingled with the sharp tang of cooling air. A silent large figure flew out of the barn cupola. The owl began her first foray of the evening. She circled Harry and Murphy, banked, then headed toward the creek.

"Damn, she is big. She gets bigger every year." Harry respected the predator; her huge claws, balled up, could knock a person off balance. If the claws were unleashed the owl could slice open flesh as easily as a butcher with a knife.

"And haughty."

"Who said that?" the owl, who had keen hearing, called as she soared away from the barn. "Who-o-o. You-ou-ou, Mrs. Murphy. Groundling."

"I cannot tell a lie. It was I."

"You two must be talking to one another," said Harry, who half-believed they were. She grew up in the country and knew animals could communicate. She just didn't realize how effectively they did.

"Come on, Mom, time to close up the barn. Head to the house."

Harry carried her pitchfork back to the toolshed. She checked the outside water troughs to make sure the heaters, built especially for that purpose, were floating. It was a great luxury not to chop ice in the morning. These small units either dropped to the bottom of the trough or floated, depending on the brand. Plugged into an electrical outlet, they could keep the water temperature above freezing. Horses appreciated that because they didn't want to drink ice-cold water. Less water consumption meant greater chances of colic or impaction. Harry didn't feed pellets which she thought added to winter digestive problems. She only fed lots and lots of high-quality hay-she swore by it and her horses stayed happy and healthy, no gut problems.

She walked back into the barn, closed the big sliding doors, checked everyone's water buckets, and readjusted Tomahawk's blanket which he'd managed to push toward the right.

Simon peered over the hayloft. "Murphy, marshmallows."

The possum adored marshmallows. His sweet tooth caused him to rummage through the wastebasket searching for candy wrappers. He ate all the grain spilled onto the feed-room floor, too.

"I'll do my best but she doesn't listen," Murphy answered Simon.

Harry checked and double-checked, then cut the lights at the switch housed at the end of the center aisle. She opened the doors enough to slip through, then shut them tight.

Back in the kitchen, she made herself a cup of hot chocolate. Tucker, ears drooping, Pewter at her side, barely lifted her head.

Harry felt the dog's ears. Not hot. She checked her gums. Fine. "Little girl, you look so sad."

"I am."

"She blames herself," Pewter explained.

"If I'd run away from Mom maybe she would have chased me. If I'd kept coming back to the closet door she might have figured it out. I just didn't think fast enough." Tears formed in the dog's eyes.

"She's a good human but she's only human." Mrs. Murphy joined Pewter in consoling the corgi. "She probably wouldn't have figured it out no matter what you did. There was nothing you could do."

Tucker was grateful for their kindness but she felt so horrible she closed her eyes. "Someone has to find whoever is in there."

She was right. Someone was in for a nasty shock.

20

Billy Satterfield, a student, worked as a janitor. He was a sandy-haired, slight boy with clean features, a regular kid who fit in with the rest of the student body when in the jeans and flannel shirts he wore to classes. On the weekends when he wore coveralls, though, students never looked his way. He was invisible, a member of the working class. People's responses to him as a broom pusher taught him a lot. He never wanted to be a negligible person, a grunt. He made good grades if for no other reason than because he was determined to graduate and make money.

A long, loopy key chain hung from his belt, the keys tucked in his right pocket. He walked to the broom closet, pulled out the keys, found the right one, and opened the door.

The sight of a youngish woman, bound and gagged, scared him half to death. Her glassy eyes stared right through him. He wanted to scream, to run down the hall, but he had enough presence of mind to make certain she was truly dead. Gingerly he touched her shoulder. Cold. Stiff.

His knees shaking, his stomach churning, he backed out of the closet, shutting the door. He leaned his head against the door for a minute fighting for his composure. It was seven-thirty in the morning. No other custodial person was on duty. As there was a basketball game tonight, other men would show up later at nine if he was lucky. He breathed deeply.

He pulled out his cell phone, a tiny folding one, and dialed 911. Within seconds he was connected to the Sheriff's Department and grateful.

Coop, working the weekend, spoke to Billy, did her best to soothe him. She was by his side within fifteen minutes, calling Rick on the way.

She heard Rick open the door, the squeaking of his rubber-soled shoes. He wore a dark charcoal suit, as he was on his way to the early service at church.

"What have we got?"

"Knife wound, bled to death internally. Let's just say our killer wasn't skillful. It was a slow death, I would think. Oh sorry, Sheriff Shaw, this is Billy Satterfield. He found the body about thirty minutes ago."

Rick extended his hand. "Sorry, Mr. Satterfield. Do you mind telling me what you saw?"

"Billy, call me Billy." He took a breath and did not look at the corpse. "I usually come in early on Saturdays and Sundays. I got here right at seven-thirty so I opened the door to the closet probably seven thirty-five and that's what I saw. I touched her shoulder-to make sure." He shivered.

Cooper reassured him. "Most people have the same reaction."

"Really?"

"They do."

Rick pulled on thin latex gloves, bent down on one knee, and carefully examined the body. He didn't move it. No sign of struggle. No other cuts. Bruising on the neck. He shook his head. "Is this your rope?"

"No, sir."

"Sorry, I didn't mean yours personally. Was this rope in the closet?"

"No, sir."

"Clothesline." Rick stood up. "I'll call the boys," he said, referring to his crime lab team. "Maybe we'll get lucky and come up with prints or at least fibers or something." He exhaled. "She wasn't winning any popularity contests but this-"

"You know her?" Billy was amazed at their professional detachment.

"Yes. She works for the county. She's a building inspector."

21

The wind, out of the west, carried a sharp edge. Tree branches swayed against a still blue sky. Harry walked out of St. Luke's at nine-thirty. She liked to attend the earliest service, matins, which was at eight-thirty on Sunday morning since the eleven o'clock service was packed. Vespers, at seven P.M., also pleased her. The eventide service exuded a cozy, quiet quality, especially in winter.

She didn't know how Herb preached three sermons each Sunday, but he did. He needed an assistant, a young pastor, but so far the diocese couldn't find their way to sending him one, saying there weren't that many to go around. Although overburdened, Reverend Jones thoroughly enjoyed his labors.

Tazio Chappars also liked matins. She hurried along to catch Harry.

"Sorry, Tazio, I didn't know you wanted company." Harry pulled her cashmere scarf, a present from Miranda, tighter around her neck.

"Isn't it funny how the seasons remind you of people, past events?"

"Yes, it is."

"This time of year makes me think of my mother. She hated winter and complained nonstop from the first frost to the last. But right about the third week of January she'd say, 'A little more light. Definitely.' Then every day after that we'd have to read the newspapers together, myself and my brothers, to find the exact number of daylight hours versus nighttime hours."

"You know, I've never met your brothers. I'd like to."

Tazio quickly put her hand on top of her hat, for the wind kicked up. "Jordan and Naylor, twins. Can you imagine growing up with twin brothers? They were horrid. Anyway, they about died when I moved here. Like a lot of people they have visions of po' black folk being oppressed each and every day. I tell them it's not like that and in many ways it's as sophisticated here as back home in St. Louis, but I'm talking to a brick wall. If I'm going to see them I have to go to them."

"Gee, I'm sorry. If they ever do come, though, let me know."

"I will. It's hard to believe the creeps who put tadpoles in my Kool-Aid are now doctors. Dad's an oncologist, Jordan followed Dad. Naylor specializes in hip replacements. I'm the oddball who didn't go into medicine."

"I couldn't do it." Harry shook her head. "You picked the right career for you." She turned her back on the wind. "Boreas."

"The north wind." Tazio remembered her mythology. "I loved those stories. And the Norse sagas. In college I read the African myths, went on to Native American myths. And you know, all those stories are filled with wisdom. Not that I learned to be wise. I'm afraid that only comes the hard way."

They reached their respective trucks, each one carrying their animals. Brinkley stood up, tail wagging, when he saw Tazio.

"I wish I could take my cats and dog to church," Harry mused. "It would do them a world of good."

"Mrs. Murphy on the organ? Think again, Harry."

"You do have a point, but she is a musical kitty."

"Would you like a cup of coffee? I'll treat. I'm beginning to worry about repairs to the rectory and maybe we could have our own meeting before the meeting." Tazio's lipstick, a shiny burgundy gloss, accentuated her nice teeth when she smiled.

"Sure."

They walked into the coffee shop, quiet on Sunday morning. Harry ordered a cappuccino with mountains of frothy milk. The animals, pleased to be allowed in, actually sat by the table without making a fuss.

"Brinkley, you're looking better," Tucker complimented the young Lab.

"She's feeding me a high-protein diet because I'm still growing. And last night she put chicken gravy on it. The most delicious thing I've ever tasted."

"I killed a live chicken once," Pewter boasted. "A Rhode Island Red and she was huge. Laid huge eggs, too."

"Brinkley, don't listen to her. She is such a storyteller." Mrs. Murphy rubbed against the Lab's light yellow chest.

"I did so kill a chicken. She walked out in front of the barn. The biggest chicken in the universe and she tried to chase me but I jumped on her back." The gray cat drew herself up to her full height, becoming more impressive.

"Now for the real story." Tucker chuckled. "She really did jump on the back of the chicken and it was a most plump chicken. But Pewter scared the dumb bird so much she dropped dead of a heart attack. It wasn't exactly a life-and-death struggle."

"That doesn't change the fact that I killed the chicken. Brinkley, they never want to give me credit for anything. They've never killed a chicken."

"No." Tucker clamped her long jaws shut. "Harry would throw me out of the house if I did. And you were lucky she was in the barn watching you or you would really have gotten into trouble. She knew the bird had had a coronary."

"How many chickens do you have?" Brinkley asked.

"Not a single one." Mrs. Murphy laughed.

Brinkley put his nose down to touch Pewter's. "Did you kill them all?"

This went straight to Pewter's head. She puffed out her chest, she swished her tail, she tipped up her chin. It was the Mighty Puss pose. "I did not but I could have if I wanted to."

"Then what happened to the chickens?" The younger fellow was puzzled.

"Well, first you have to understand that our human is the practical sort. But every now and then she gets an idea that doesn't exactly work out. The money-saving venture actually loses and, well, she goes through three pencils doing her sums trying to figure it out. The chickens were one of those kind of things." Tucker smiled.

"At first things were okay." Mrs. Murphy picked up the story. "She bought peepies, put them under an infrared light. Well, Brinkley, you won't get one little egg for six months. But finally the great day arrived and a puny egg appeared. In time more eggs appeared from these twenty hens and the eggs got bigger and bigger as the hens got bigger. Finally, when the chickens became ever so plump, the red fox down the lane would just yank one out of the chicken coop. Locked doors, screened top, nothing stopped him except that one big Rhode Island Red. He never could kill that chicken until heart disease did her in. Too much corn, I reckon."

The front door opened and Cynthia Cooper came in and sat down. "Herb told me you all left church together. I checked around and here you are."

Harry knew Cooper fairly well. "What's the matter?"

"Another killing at the Clam." She motioned and the waitress brought her a cup of double latte.

"You're kidding!" Harry sat up straight, as did the animals.

"Mychelle Burns stuffed in the broom closet."

"What?" Tazio's hands shook for a moment.

"If I were the kind of person who jumped to conclusions, I'd say someone was trying to spook the team." Harry slapped her napkin next to her fork.

"At this point no theory seems far-fetched." Cooper took a deep draught of the restorative coffee. "But H.H. and Mychelle?" She turned to Tazio. "Harry told me that Mychelle was unpleasant to you at the Mountain View Grille?"

"She said she wanted to see me. It was important. Usually when she wanted to see me it was about one of my buildings. We never discussed anything but work."

"But wouldn't she give you a hint, something like, 'The copper pipes at the new house are crooked'?" Harry shrugged. "I know I'm not using terminology correctly but you know what I mean. To kind of get you thinking about the problem, real or made-up."

"Made-up is closer to the mark. You know, being a sister, I wanted to like her but I couldn't stand her. Not that I wished her dead. We had nothing in common and I felt she singled me out for particular abuse."

"At lunch the other day when she nabbed you, what did she say?" Harry jumped right in whether she had any business asking these questions or not.

"She was her usual hostile self or maybe 'demanding' is a better word." Tazio stopped herself a moment. "But there was something else."

"Fear?" Harry interjected.

"Well-no, not exactly. She baited me because she knew I didn't want to see her. Apparently, Fred loathes Matthew so much he'll carry garbage from other construction sites and dump it at Matthew's. And she said H.H. would get copies of blueprints on buildings Matthew had done. She admitted she was baiting me and said she had more to tell me so I'd better see her."

Cooper drained her cup, needing the caffeine and sugar. She started to perk up. "Did you ever hear of any improprieties about her? Payoffs? Under-the-table kind of stuff?"

Tazio vigorously shook her head no. "She was honest. She was . . . I guess the word is 'incorruptible.'?"

"Can you tell us how she was killed?" Harry wanted details.

"Stabbed to death."

"How awful," Tazio said.

"In the Clam. That's what I don't get. Why there?" Harry's mind raced along.

"Do you have any notes or correspondence from Mychelle?" Cooper waved for another latte.

"Official documents. Nothing personal."

"I'd like to look at them."

"Of course. I can take you over to the office right now when we've finished our coffee."

"Maybe she wasn't a betting woman but her luck sure ran out." Cooper sighed.

"Maybe she was another chicken the fox got at," Mrs. Murphy commented.

"Some fox." A note of bitterness crept into Tucker's voice.

22

As Cooper and Tazio drove off in their respective vehicles, Harry ordered a coffee to go. She needed the buzz this morning. She also ordered three doughnuts. One for her, one for Susan, and one to be shared among Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker.

As she shepherded her small brood into the 1978 Ford half-ton, she considered whether H.H.'s and Mychelle's murders were connected by anything other than location. Both were UVA fans, but their social circles didn't overlap. They shared no hobbies. Their connection through construction must have been rife with tension.

Of course, it was possible that the demise of both people was not connected. Yet both murders occurred within days of each other. It was too suspicious, at least in her mind.

Even though neither H.H. nor Mychelle was close to her, murder comes as a shock. To snatch life from another human violated everything she had been taught. Murder created disorder. Harry loathed disorder.

A morose Tucker, paws on the dashboard, watched the road.

"Tucker, you did what you could," Mrs. Murphy sympathized.

"It must have been a slow, agonizing death," Tucker said.

"Well, think of all the abandoned animals who die slow, agonizing deaths. Put it in perspective," Pewter counseled since she certainly didn't believe human life was more important than animal life.

"I guess." The strong little dog sighed, pushed back from the dash, and landed on Pewter who complained loudly.

"All right, you two." Harry cruised down Susan's driveway, lined with blue spruces. She cut the engine. "Back door. We are wiping paws." She held up the towel she kept in the truck for this purpose. "And we are not begging for food. Do you read me, Pewter?"

"I do not beg for food. I merely put myself in the vicinity of food."

"Pulease." Mrs. Murphy held up her paw as Harry wiped it.

"Yeah, pulease." Tucker drew out "please" even more.

"Mock me if you must." Pewter sniffed.

Harry opened the back door. "It's me."

"Den," Susan called out.

The three animals rushed in, greeting Owen, Susan's corgi and Tucker's brother, followed by Harry.

"Where is everybody?"

"Ned took Brooks to Barnes Noble after church. He promised her a book if she made an A in her last history test and she did. And once there you know she'll drag him to Old Navy and they'll have to check out the shoe stores and then he'll pop into the clothing store. Ned has more ties than David Letterman, I swear. The shopping will exhaust them. So they'll eat at Hot Cakes or maybe Bodo's. I'll get a loaf of bread from Our Daily Bread. Ain't motherhood grand?"

"Susan, shut up!"

"What?"

"Mychelle Burns has been killed. Her body was found at the Clam. Stabbed."

"What! You waited all this time to tell me?"

"I couldn't get a word in edgewise."

"Mother can talk," Owen laconically said.

"Can't they all?" Tucker agreed with her brother.

"I brought you a doughnut. We've got figuring to do."

Harry, knowing Susan's house as well as her own, walked over to the writing desk, picked up a tablet and a pencil.

"If I'm going to eat this doughnut, I'll perish from sugar shock. I'll make us sandwiches, then we can eat the doughnut."

"Susan, later. Come on. Look at this." She rapidly drew a sketch of the Clam, the parking lot, and a cutaway view of the interior of the Clam.

"Harry, you brought coffee but you didn't bring me any?"

"Oh-I'm sorry. I didn't think of that."

"Selfish." Susan walked to the kitchen, returning with a large mug of coffee. She sat next to Harry on the leather chesterfield sofa.

"Okay. Here's where H.H. fell down. X marks the spot. There are broom closets on each floor but if I remember correctly, the first one going in from the main doors is about here." She made another X. "I wonder if the killer works at the Clam."

"Honey, I hate to cast stones at your theory but I don't think where they were found matters. The question is why."

"I know that!" Harry got testy. "But wouldn't you agree that two deaths, murders, right here and here practically back to back are frightening-and probably connected."

"How'd you find out?"

"Coop tracked down Tazio and me after church."

"What's Tazio got to do with it?"

"Nothing except that Mychelle cornered her at the Mountain View Grille"-Harry named the restaurant-"and told her she wanted a meeting with her right then. This was yesterday. Tazio declined nicely and Mychelle became un-nice. Her specialty. Said that Tazio better see her first thing Monday morning. Tazio assumed it had to do with some code violation. I was right there with Fair and Herb. Anyway, we all saw it. Mychelle left, her pout intact."

"Speak no ill of the dead."

"Oh, I just can't be that big of a hypocrite." Harry dismissed the ancient protective phrase.

"I can't resist." Susan reached for the doughnut.

"Me, me, me," Pewter cried piteously.

"That's why I bought this extra doughnut." Harry divided it into four pieces which irritated Pewter who tried to steal Mrs. Murphy's, receiving a box on the ears for her efforts.

Susan savored the delicious glaze. "If Mychelle was the woman behind H.H.'s-"

"Already thought of that. Only one person has a motive under those circumstances. Anne Donaldson."

"I can't believe Anne would kill her husband and then Mychelle."

"People are totally irrational about what we call 'love.' I call it 'mutual psychosis.'?"

"Bull."

"I need to trace Anne's activities."

"Like hell you do. That's Rick and Coop's job, and if you've thought of it, you can rest assured they've thought of it. And furthermore, Harry, it's in bad taste snooping around Anne."

"Not if she killed them."

"She didn't."

"Who died and made you God? Since when do you know the unknowable?"

"I know Anne."

"Listen, Susan, she was sitting smack next to him at the game. She could have easily slipped him the toxin, not poison, but toxin, or scratched his neck where the tiny puncture was, is. I suppose it's still there. I mean, he won't decay for some time."

"That is the most gruesome thought." Susan made a face.

"Well, the embalmers load them up depending on the viewing time, the temperature, I guess they factor in stuff like that. And even though he's in the ground he's still intact. That's all I was saying."

"How can you think of stuff like that?"

"I just do. And you do, too. It might take you longer."

"Thank you," Susan dryly replied.

"I don't mean it that way. You're smarter than I am."

"You went to Smith, I didn't."

"That's neither here nor there. Our minds work differently. That's why we're best friends."

"Is that it? I always wondered." Susan's good humor was restored.

"Anyway, she could have so easily done him in and we'd never, ever know. About Mychelle, well, not an elegant murder. Sloppy."

"God, it is ghastly. The murders are so different, in execution, I mean, it's quite possible they were committed by two different people."

Harry replied, "That's logical but I know in my bones that H.H.'s and Mychelle's murders are connected. I've even thought that H.H. might owe money from gambling."

"That's a different kettle of fish and if this is somehow connected to college sports, there will be a lot more dead bodies. Those rings are very well organized. Hundreds of thousands of dollars change hands."

"And the playoffs are right around the corner."

Susan reached in the white bag. "Damn."

"What?"

"I wanted another doughnut."

"I'm sorry. You're always moaning about losing weight. I don't know why. You look just fine."

"You haven't seen me naked lately." Susan laughed.

"No. Should we hit the showers?"

"Hey, golf and tennis season will be here before you know it. Do you want to see me walking through the ladies' locker room, a towel wrapped around me, looking like the great white whale?"

"Susan, you exaggerate."

"A tad." She clasped her hands together. "But now I can't get the thought of another doughnut out of my mind and I have all this correspondence to catch up on." She pointed to a tottering pile on the desk. She thought about sneaking a cigarette to curb her appetite but dismissed that remedy. The doughnut was proving a more powerful temptation.

"Come on. We can pick up more doughnuts. Hey, we could go to Krispy Kreme."

Susan shook her finger at her. "You know how I love those doughnuts. Not fair."

As the humans and animals piled into Susan's station wagon, Mrs. Murphy said, "The secret of success is to watch the doughnut, not the hole."

23

What do you mean she's dead? She can't be dead. She's supposed to be in my office tomorrow at eleven!" Fred Forrest shouted at the sheriff.

His wife, Lorraine, hurried back into the living room. She'd left her husband alone with the sheriff and his deputy but hearing his raised voice she thought he might need her. Fred possessed a terrible temper.

"Fred, honey?"

He turned to her. "Mychelle is dead. They say Mychelle is dead." He was standing in front of his chair, having bolted up the minute he got the bad news.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Forrest." Rick was standing in front of her.

"Sit down, Sheriff. Fred, you should have asked the sheriff and Deputy Cooper to sit down. Please." She motioned to both of them to have a seat. "Now, Fred, you just take a deep breath. Sit down, honey."

He remained on his feet. "I don't believe it."

"I'm afraid it's true." Cooper's voice was steady.

Finally Fred submitted to his wife's tugging and dropped into his chair.

"Would you like me to go, Sheriff?"

"No. Perhaps you'll be able to help us, Mrs. Forrest."

She perched on the edge of the large, cushy chair next to Fred's La-Z-Boy.

"How did she die?" Fred's bottom jaw snapped upward like a turtle's.

"She suffered a stab wound. The coroner's report may reveal more information, though. We try not to jump to conclusions."

"This is terrible. This is the worst thing I've ever heard. A young woman like that. She had everything to live for." His eyes had a wild look.

"You worked closely with her?" Rick asked as Cooper unobtrusively took out her notebook, flipping over the cover.

"I supervised her. She was my best in the field. Soaked it all up. Only had to tell her once." He kept shaking his head. "Who would do a thing like this?"

"That's what we want to know." Rick rubbed his forehead. "Did she have a boyfriend?"

"She didn't say but we didn't talk about personal things, Sheriff. Strictly business. When men and women work together it has to be strictly business."

"I see." Rick avoided glancing at Cooper since they talked about everything and everyone under the sun. "Well, did you ever notice any men meeting her after work?"

"No, sir. That girl did her job, then climbed in her car and drove home. Every single day. Never mixed in pleasure with her job. No, sir."

"Would you characterize Mychelle as a happy person?"

"Well, I guess I would. She didn't complain." This was Fred's version of happiness.

"Did she ever have difficulties with contractors? Architects?"

Fred pinched his lips together. "Any one of them can be a headache on any given day. She was professional. If something was wrong she explained the problem. She knew the county code forwards and backwards. Very professional."

"Did you ever receive complaints about her?"

"Our department gets every whiner in the county. But it wasn't personal, you see. Doesn't matter which building inspector is on the job. Contractor will call back and say, 'Fred Forrest says I don't have proper ingress and egress.' Stuff like that."

"No one ever called and said, 'Mychelle Burns is wrong' or 'She's impolite.' That sort of thing?" Rick queried.

"No."

"What about H. H. Donaldson?"

"No different."

"You didn't like him?"

"No. Man was a pain in the ass. Thought he was an artist. That type. I didn't wish him dead, you understand, but I never liked the guy."

"He never called complaining about Mychelle?"

"No. H.H. just called to complain, period."

"Any other contractor that you would describe as a prima donna?"

"Olin Reid's like that."

"What about a huge operator like Matthew Crickenberger?"

"He's reasonable but, you see, Sheriff, that's pretty much the way it is. The bigger the operator, the better he is. I don't have but so many citations on a Crickenberger job. It's the little guy's trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Do it cheap, you see. Doesn't always have good subcontractors. The best attract the best."

"I see." Rick patted his pack of cigarettes in his chest pocket. He wouldn't light up in Fred's house, but it was reassuring to know his Camels were right there. "Did Mychelle ever come into money?"

Fred's expression was surprised. "Money?"

"An inheritance, perhaps. Maybe she won a lottery ticket, you know, something for a thousand bucks. Anything?"

"No. Never saw her spend much. A sensible girl. Why?"

"Money is often a motive for murder. Perhaps she came into some money. That sort of thing."

Fred shook his head. "No. I would have known. I don't think people can hide money. Even though she didn't bring her personal life to work, I would have noticed new clothes or things."

"Did she gamble?"

Now he was really surprised. "Mychelle?"

"Sure. Gambling's big."

"Only time I ever saw her use the phone was for business. Same with the cell phone. County phone. Gotta have it in the field, you know. No extra calls. No, sir."

Lorraine took advantage of the momentary lull in the conversation to ask Rick and Cooper if they'd like refreshments but they declined.

"Uh, Mr. Forrest-"

"Sheriff, my name is Fred and you know that."

"I do." Rick smiled. "All right, what about sports? Big sports fan?"

"Yes, sir. Loved UVA. Any UVA team. Loved the Pittsburgh Pirates. Could never understand that." A puzzled expression crossed his face.

"Now, Fred, you're a pretty big sports fan yourself."

"I guess I'd have to agree."

"Well, I agree." Lorraine put in her two cents' worth.

"You ever run into Mychelle at a game?"

"Now, I rarely saw her at football. Stadium's so big, you see. I know she was there but I didn't see her. I'd see her at basketball. Men's and women's. Big fan of women's. Big fan."

"Do you recall if she had dates? Do you remember seeing her with anyone consistently?"

He thought hard. "I'd usually see her with a bunch of girls. All about her age. A couple of times I saw her with a fellow but"-he shook his head-"couldn't tell you who."

"I would guess Mychelle would be good with numbers."

"Sure."

"Fred, I have to chase down any and every idea."

"Guess you do. Guess you do."

"You won't like this question but I have to ask you. Do you think she could have been taking bribes to overlook anything not up to grade?"

Fred vigorously shook his head. "No way, José. No way."

"Do you have any idea why Mychelle might have been killed?"

"I don't, but I sure hope you catch the bastard who did it. She was a good girl, Sheriff. Kept to herself. Not a flashy girl but she did her job and she did a good job. She had a future, she did."

"And someone took it away from her," Lorraine quietly said.

"Mrs. Forrest, do you have any idea why someone might kill Mychelle Burns?" Rick thought she was relaxed enough to speak up if she had a thought.

"Sheriff, I don't. I don't think she was a happy girl. She was a person finding her way in life but I can't imagine her in some kind of trouble, trouble like this."

"Drugs?"

Fred interjected. "I'd have known. An employee can only hide drugs or booze but so long." Then he turned to his wife. "Why do you say she was unhappy?"

"She did her job just like you said, dear, but I never saw Mychelle animated about anything." Lorraine held up her hand because Fred was going to interrupt her. "Except for UVA sports, like you said. But she never talked about hobbies or her friends or a special friend. My personal opinion is that she was a lonely girl without a lot of social skills. I don't think she was happy."

"You never told me that."

"Dear, you never asked."

24

Susan and Harry munched their doughnuts in Susan's station wagon, the cats and dogs in the rear seat, a beach towel on the leather to protect it.

"I am not driving down to the Clam."

"Didn't ask." Harry wrinkled her nose.

"That shows some good judgment for a change," Susan replied in a singsong voice.

"We could go over to Tazio's office. See if she's there."

"Something tells me this has nothing to do with the church guild."

"Coop left with her. Come on, Susan. Just cruise by. You don't have to stop."

As it wasn't far out of the way, Susan drove by Tazio's office. She'd converted the old barbershop just south of the railroad overpass. Tazio's big truck sat in the parking lot.

"She's done a great job on that old building."

Just then Tazio and Brinkley opened the door, turned to shut it.

Harry rolled down her passenger window. "Taz!"

Tazio turned to wave. "Hey."

Susan pulled up next to Tazio's truck since Harry was half hanging out the station wagon window letting in the cold air.

"Tazio, any luck?" Harry asked as Susan parked next to the truck.

"With Coop?"

"Hi," the animals called to Brinkley who responded in turn.

"This is my brother, Owen." Tucker introduced the corgi.

As the animals chatted so did the people.

"-empty." Tazio pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as she walked to her truck. "Makes me wonder, though. What if Mychelle told other people she was seeing me Monday? She was whispering about it, as you well know, but being emotionally obvious, if you know what I mean. Someone out there might think I know more than I know-which is nothing."

"If Cooper thought you were in danger, she'd tell you," Susan sensibly reassured the architect.

"I'll cut to the chase." Harry opened the door, got out so she could stand face-to-face with Tazio.

This irritated Susan who now had to twist her neck and lean over even farther.

"What chase?"

"Did you sleep with H.H.?"

"Harry, I can't believe you asked me that!" The pretty woman's voice rose.

"No time to pussyfoot." Harry lamely defended herself.

"I can't believe it, either." Susan agreed with the disgruntled Tazio. "On second thought, I can. She's capable of anything including bad manners-rarely happens but she is capable."

"Come on, you all. Two people are dead. You're fretting over manners?" Harry crossed her arms over her chest.

"No." Tazio folded her arms over her chest, too.

"Then it was Mychelle." Harry leaned back against the station wagon.

"You don't know that." Tazio was again surprised.

"No, but that's my guess. A crime of passion."

"Anne Donaldson might have wanted to kill him but she's not the type." Susan gave up and got out of her car. "I don't believe it."

"Susan, why would anyone else want to kill H.H. and then Mychelle? There is no other motive. They weren't stealing money. We'd have seen it. People can't have money without spending it. Actually, this is America. We don't even need to have money and we spend it. So I can't think that's behind it. Drugs?" She threw up her hands. "What's left? Sexual revenge?"

"You can't jump to conclusions like that and really, Harry, you're usually more thoughtful," Susan chided her. "There could be other reasons. As I've said before, the murders may not even be related."

"What other reasons?" A frosty breath spiraled upward when Tazio spoke.

"I don't know. Someone could have made a bad business deal with H.H. Something we know nothing about, something even his wife knows nothing about. Maybe Mychelle had a boyfriend she crossed. The murders don't have to be related. There really are coincidences in this world." Susan put her hands in her pockets. "What if one of H.H.'s ex-girlfriends flew into a rage when he left Anne for Mychelle? Well, we think it was Mychelle. Why didn't he dump his wife for her, the ex, I mean? People do crazy things."

Harry stubbornly stuck to her guns. "If that's the case, then I am right. The murders are related."

As the humans argued, Brinkley proudly told the little pack in the station wagon, "I carry Tazio's plans. She doesn't have to get up from her chair. I can carry blueprints without making a tooth mark."

"What about slobber?" an unimpressed Pewter said.

"I don't slobber," Brinkley replied.

"Tucker does." Pewter felt like being a pill.

"I do not."

"She does not," Owen grumbled. "Corgis don't slobber."

"He's right. They nip your heels. Very big on herding." Mrs. Murphy wrapped her tail around her. It was growing colder in the vehicle. "Death from the ankles down."

Finally, Harry and Susan climbed back in the car.

"I'll see you at the board meeting. And Harry, how could you even think I would sleep with H.H.? I still can't believe you asked me that."

"He wasn't that bad looking."

"Not my type."

"Okay, I'm sorry. I was kind of rude."

"Kind of!" Susan exclaimed.

"Like you haven't done worse." Harry flopped back against the seat. "See you." She waved to Tazio who put Brinkley in the cab of the truck. Then Harry rolled up the window.

"I may have done worse to you but not to an acquaintance."

"I apologized."

"With no enthusiasm. I am taking you back to your truck. I am not driving you anywhere else. I will not risk more social embarrassment."

"Sure. Get your doughnuts and forget your best friend. I know how you are."

The animals snuggled up to one another, although Mrs. Murphy kept her ears cocked in case the humans said anything of importance.

"My advice to you is to concentrate on other things."

"I told you this was about sexual revenge. I'm going to tell Cooper, too."

"She'll be thrilled."

"You can be so sarcastic."

"Oh, and you are beauty, truth, and light. You're bored, Harry. When you get bored you get into trouble. I have half a mind to call your ex-husband and tell him just what I think."

"Of what?"

"Of you."

"You think I'm terrific." A raffish grin appeared on Harry's lips, glossy with lip protector.

"So modest."

"Don't call Fair."

"Make up your mind."

This was a subject of fruitful contention. Fair wanted his ex-wife back. She had forgiven him at last. They'd been divorced four years. She loved him but she didn't think she was in love with him one day and then the next day she thought she was.

Harry scrunched down in the seat. "Oh Susan, why is life so damned complicated?"

"It just is. Even here in Crozet. But you have to be fair, forgive the pun. If there's someone out there for you, go look. If you want Fair, then just do it. Get it over with. Take him back and make a life again."

"That's what everyone wants me to do."

"I never said I did."

"Actually, you haven't, for which I am grateful."

"Are you confused?"

"No."

"Then let him go if you don't want him. It will be easier than watching him fall in love without you letting him go."

Harry sat upright, her head sharply turning in Susan's direction. "What do you know that I don't?"

"Nothing. I really don't. But people can only wait so long. He's repented. He's been respectful. I don't think he will have another episode like the one that, well, you know. He got it out of his system." Susan held up her right hand for Harry to shut up since her mouth had opened wide. "Listen. I'm telling you what I observe and what I think. I'm not telling you to take him back. But make up your mind. Just damn well do it. Fish or cut bait."

Harry exhaled, blowing the hair on her forehead up. "I hate this."

"Oh, come on, it's not as bad as when your marriage broke up."

"That's true."

"We aren't getting any younger, you know. Forty sure draws closer."

"So what?" Harry replied.

"You're a pretty girl. You need a partner. Life is just better with the right person. I ought to know. I married Ned when I was nineteen, nineteen years ago, and it was one of the smartest things I ever did."

"Ned is pretty wonderful, although he may not be so wonderful once the campaign starts. Maybe you can paint on a smile."

"I'll manage."

"Guess you will. You usually do. But here's the thing, Susan. I can respond to other men. Remember when Diego from Uruguay visited here? He started my motor. If I can feel that way about another man I don't know if I'm doing the right thing getting tied down again. Maybe this time I'll be the unfaithful one . . ."

"Revenge?"

"I've been through the revenge fantasies. I'm over it. I'm even over not trusting him. I'm just"-she shrugged-"stuck."

"Love changes over time. It can't be like when you were first together. The fire burns more steadily. It's better, I think. If you're looking for that falling-in-love high, no, you won't find that with Fair. But what you have is genuine."

"There are advantages to getting back together permanently with Fair. He knows me and I know him. He has his work here and I have mine. I'm not leaving Crozet. I don't care how alluring another man is. I can't imagine not living here."

"Maybe you should take a year off? Rent the farm and live somewhere else. Just to experience it."

"I lived in Northampton, Massachusetts. College was great but I belong here, right here in dowdy Crozet."

"The town's not much," Susan agreed. "Of course, central Virginia is one of the most beautiful places on earth."

"Right, and think about this. Suppose I rented a place in-in-I got one, Montana? I haul my horses out there. I'm not living without my horses. I take the kitties and Tucker. To do what? Think great thoughts? I have no great thoughts. I don't even have medium-sized thoughts."

"I'm glad you have decisively reached that conclusion. Now how about the other one?"

"You're right"-her voice dropped, then rose again-"you are. But you know, I look around and I think I know everyone and they know me and then I remember that we still don't know who Charly Ashcraft's illegitimate child is, nor the mother, and that's a mystery of what, twenty years? I think about that and I think about other things and, well, I can't stand it. I can't stand not knowing things. Poor Fair, I drive him crazy."

Charly Ashcraft, the handsomest boy in Harry's high school class, had fathered two illegitimate children before he graduated from high school. The first one was never identified, nor was the young woman who was the mother. The second one was known to live out of town, but the unknown first child remained one of those mysteries that would every now and then crop up in conversations. Charly himself had been shot a few days before his twentieth high school reunion in a pure revenge killing. Many thought he had it coming.

"Forget Charly's child," Susan firmly said. "It's not possible to know everything about everybody."

"You're right, you know, and that kind of scares me. Do I even know myself? Does anybody?"

"Yes. If you want to learn, time teaches you."

"H-m-m."

Susan pulled into her driveway. "Think about what I've said."

"I will. I always think about what you tell me even if I don't agree."

Susan cut the motor. "And Harry, for God's sake, don't run around and tell people that H.H. and Mychelle were killed because they were lovers."

"I wouldn't do that."

"I guess you wouldn't but you did give me a jolt when you went straight for Tazio like that."

"She can take it."

"Why do you say that?"

"I've gotten to know her a little bit by being on the guild with her. She's tough."

"You know what bothers me?"

"What?"

"I don't think those murders have one thing to do with an illicit romance. I don't know why but I just don't. I'd feel better if they did. But I have this weird sensation that all this is about something else, something way out of our league."

As Susan rarely said things like that, Harry paid attention. She was usually the one with hunches, dragging Susan along.

"Could be."

"And because we can't imagine it, it's dangerous. I think what you don't know can hurt you."

"So you do think the murders are related?" Harry couldn't hide the note of triumph in her voice.

"Yes, I do, and once you've killed two people, what's a third?"

25

The basketball game that evening was a subdued affair made even more dolorous by a poor performance. UVA lost by seven points.

Mychelle's body had only been found that morning, but the story was already on the television news. Those not watching the news soon heard about it from their neighbors on the bleachers. People, being the curious creatures that they are, walked by the broom closet and stopped to stare. A few were disappointed that blood wasn't smeared on the floor.

Even Matthew Crickenberger, ever ebullient, was quiet. He handed out drinks as always but didn't have the heart to blow his noisemakers. BoomBoom dispiritedly shook her blue and orange pennant a few times but that was about it.

Fred Forrest, too shaken by Mychelle's murder, didn't attend the game.

After the game, Harry sprinted to her truck. She had talked with Fair on the phone earlier. Both of them decided this wasn't the night for him to take Harry and BoomBoom out for a drink.

The lights of the university receded as she rolled down Route 250 passing Farmington Country Club on the right, Ednam subdivision on the left. About a mile from Ednam the old Rinehart estate reposed on the left. Subdivisions like Flordon and West Leigh were tucked back into the folds of the land but much of it remained open. A sparkle of light here or there testified to a cozy home, a plume of smoke curling up out of the chimneys.

Harry loved leaving Charlottesville, rolling into the quiet of the countryside. She'd shift her eyes right and left searching for the reflection off a deer's eyes or a raccoon. Seeing that greenish glare, she'd slow down.

Then she reached the intersection of Route 250, which curved left toward Waynesboro and then Staunton. She took the right into Crozet, new subdivisions dotting the way into town. She passed the old food processing plant, currently empty and a cause for sadness. She passed the tidy row of small houses on the north side of the road. A tricky little curve ahead kept her alert. The supermarket was on the right and the old, still-intact train station perched on her left.

When she reached the intersection with the flashy new gas station she turned left. A blessed absence of traffic allowed her to poke along. She could see the lights on in Tracy Raz's apartment. He'd renovated the top floor of the old bank building, which he was buying. Closemouthed, he wouldn't tell anyone what he planned to do with the building but, knowing Tracy, it would be interesting. He hadn't even told Miranda, whose curiosity was reaching a fever pitch.

When she finally pulled into the long driveway to the farm she felt oddly happy. She loved her little part of the world and most of the people in it. She knew people's grandparents and parents, she knew their children, she knew their kith and kin including the ones not worth knowing. She knew their pets and their peculiarities-both the pets' and the people's. She knew who had the oldest walnut tree, the best apple orchard, who put up the best Christmas decorations, who was generous, who was not. She knew who liked the color red and who liked blue, who had money, who didn't, and who lied about what they did have. She knew who could ride and who couldn't, who could shoot and who couldn't. She knew the frailties of ego and body. She'd seen the ambitious rise, the lazy fall, and drink and drugs claim their fair share of souls. She'd watched the ebb and flow of gossip about any one person and had been a victim of it herself, divorce being a spectator sport. She'd seen undeserving people prosper occasionally and the deserving brought low through no fault of their own. She knew chaos was like a chigger. You couldn't see the little blighter but the next thing you knew, there it was under your skin biting the hell out of you.

Murder was chaos. Apart from the immorality of it, it offended her sense of order and decorum. Furthermore, a murder acted like cayenne pepper on her system, it speeded her up. It inflamed her own ego. How dare someone do this? And what really nibbled at her was the fact that whoever did thought they were smarter than other people. She flat-out hated that. She would not be outsmarted.

When she pulled up to the back door, she saw three pairs of eyes staring out from the kitchen window. She heard Tucker barking a welcome.

She sprinted to the door, walked through the screened-in porch, opened the door to the kitchen and a rapturous welcome.

"My little angels."

"Mom!" came the chorus.

"Kids, I'm going to figure out what's going on around here. We'll show 'em."

"She never learns." Tucker's ears drooped for a moment.

"And we do double duty. Her senses are so dull, without us she would have been dead a long time ago," Pewter complained.

"And so would we," Mrs. Murphy forcefully said. "She saved me from a sure death at the SPCA and she took care of you, too, Pewter. She talked Market Shiflett into giving you a home when he found you abandoned under the Dumpster. The fact that you ate him out of his convenience store is another matter. She saved us both. Where she goes, we go."

Pewter, chagrined, replied, "You're absolutely right. One for all and all for one."

Tucker laughed. "You all are so original."

As Tucker had been a gift to Harry from Susan Tucker, she didn't feel saved but she still felt lucky. Harry loved her and Tucker loved Harry, devotedly.

"Aren't we chatty tonight?" Harry picked up Murphy, kissing her forehead, and then she picked up Pewter, kissing her, too.

"Human kisses." Pewter grimaced.

As Pewter wriggled out of Harry's arms, Murphy kissed the human back, her rough tongue making Harry giggle. Then she put Murphy down and knelt to kiss Tucker. Harry loved her animals and, if truth be told, she probably loved them more than people.

As for her declaration that she would figure out what was going on, she might have been a little less cocky if she had been sitting in on Mychelle Burns's autopsy.

26

Cooper, wearing a lab coat, stood beside the corpse as Tom Yancy worked.

Sheriff Shaw had prowled the corridors of the Clam during the game. He didn't have to say why. She knew her boss. He was a good law officer, his methods were laudable, but he also had a sixth sense. Sometimes if he'd just walk around or sit at a crime scene, he'd get what he called "a notion." Through his example, she'd learned to trust her own instincts. There was no shortcut to hard police work but, still, those instincts could put you on the right track.

"No strangulation. No rape." Yancy talked, his face not two inches from Mychelle's neck. "No bruises."

"No struggle?"

"No. The first wound you saw, the one here right under the thoracic cavity didn't kill her. It was this one, not so easily seen." He pointed to a surprisingly clear stab wound. A few drops of blood discolored the entry point right below her heart. "The weapon nicked her heart but it took some time for it to kill her. She had a strong heart."

"No similarity at all to H.H.?"

"No. Not in method. She faced her killer. He or she stabbed her once, then twice. Close. The killer was very close. He used a stiletto or thin-bladed knife. Delivered with force. The internal bleeding was much more severe than the external. As I recall, you said there was blood but not a mess of it."

"Right."

"She wasn't expecting the blow. There are no fingerprints on the back of her neck. If she had tried to flee, the killer would have reached around and held her by the back of the neck to deliver this wound at this angle. If she'd turned away or he'd grabbed an arm, the wound would be at a different angle, flesh would be torn. My educated guess is this blow was a complete surprise delivered by someone she knew well enough to let him or her get very close."

"Stiletto." Cooper thought to herself that this was an odd choice for a weapon, something for opera, not real life or death.

Yancy half-smiled. "Be a lot easier to knock someone off with a butcher knife but a big knife is harder to conceal."

"Anything else I should know?" Cooper asked.

Yancy shrugged. "She had genital herpes."

"Did H.H.?"

"I saw no external sign."

"Do you have any blood left from that autopsy?"

"Down in Richmond. Yes."

"Better run a test for it. It'll show in the blood, won't it?"

"Oh yeah." Yancy exhaled. "I wish we'd get that toxicology report on H.H. soon."

"Amazing what shows in the blood, isn't it?"

"The human body is amazing, how people abuse it and it just keeps ticking. I've cut open people whose livers were like tissue paper. I'd lift them out and they'd disintegrate, I mean come apart between my fingers. And that wasn't what killed the corpse. Makes me wonder."

"Apart from the genital herpes, anything else?"

"She was in good health. The knife pierced the left lung, as you can see here"-he held down the chest cavity where he'd opened her up-"then nicked the heart. With each beat of the heart the nick tore a little bit more. The blood seeped out."

"Was it painful?"

"Yes. You can feel your heart."

"Jesus."

"Hope she believed in Him. Maybe it gave her comfort."

"How strong would you have to be to stab her twice like that?"

"Not weightlifter strong but strong enough."

"A slight person could do it with great force?"

"Sure."

"H-m-m, well, the usual. Tests for drugs, alcohol, and I guess poison."

"She wasn't poisoned. The body doesn't lie, Coop. She died by violence."

Cooper noticed Yancy's blue eyes. "More than any of us you see what we do to one another. I see it in a different way but you see it in the tracery of the veins."

"Like you, I try to keep my professional distance and I'd be a liar if I said there weren't people on this slab who didn't deserve it. But a young woman, prime of life, I gotta wonder. Don't take this the wrong way, but if she'd been sexually molested it would make more sense to me. This," he shook his head, "this was about as far away from sex as you can get."

27

Wearing a white hard hat, Fred Forrest buttonholed Matthew Crickenberger at the site of the new sports complex. Tazio and Brinkley had just arrived, too. Matthew greeted the wiry man with no affection and none was returned. Tazio said hello to Stuart Tapscott and Travis Critzer who would be in charge of the earthmoving operation. They didn't get a chance to put in another word.

Fred folded his arms across his chest. "Don't think because I'm shorthanded that you can get away with anything."

"Oh, come on, Fred, I'm not trying to get away with anything. I've always gone by the code, exceeded code." Matthew's voice betrayed a hint of disgust.

"You're all the same," Fred sneered. "I'm hiring someone real soon and I'll have him up to speed in no time. You'd better toe the line. Going to be my special project, right here." He tapped the frozen earth with his foot. "Going to drop by just about every day."

"You can do whatever you want," Matthew, his face florid, replied.

"That's exactly right." Fred, no trace of humor, jutted his chin out. "Think you were damned lucky to get your environmental impact studies passed. UVA." He sniffed, implying the studies were accepted because this was a UVA project.

The truth was the opposite. Any time the university sought to expand or build, the county faced the hue and cry from non-university people that the school, like a giant gilded amoeba, was smothering the county. Any UVA request going before any county board or the county commission itself bore unusual scrutiny. Also, any university project was certain to be reported in the newspaper, radio, and on TV. The public then would respond.

Fred knew that. He wanted to get Matthew's goat. If the opportunity presented itself for Fred to needle Matthew, he took it.

"You've got a copy of the study, Fred. Read it yourself."

"Did. That's why I said you're lucky."

Stuart Tapscott, an older and wiser man, had to walk away. Travis, in his thirties, followed Stuart's prudent example. They didn't want to say something they would later regret.

Tazio stuck by Matthew. Brinkley stuck by Tazio.

"Get that damned dog out of here." Fred pointed a finger at the handsome animal.

"No." Tazio stared Fred straight in the face.

"You'll do what I tell you or I can make life interesting." He practically licked his lips.

"It's not against code for me to have a dog with me on the job. And you push me, I'll push right back. Go bully someone else."

"You think because you're a woman and black I'll go easy on you? Think again. You're all the same, you architects, big construction people. You think you're better than us. Make more money. We're just clock punchers. I know what you think. How you think. Get away with whatever you can."

"Leave Tazio alone, jerk," Brinkley warned as he put himself between Fred and Tazio.

"That dog's growling at me. I'll call Animal Control."

"He's clearing his throat." Matthew, feeling unflappable today, smiled. "Fred, run along. We've got work to do."

"I'll go when I'm goddamned good and ready."

"Suit yourself." He turned his back on Fred, put his hand under Tazio's elbow, guiding her to a spot ten yards away where a peg with surveyor's tape was in the ground. Brinkley remained next to Tazio but looked over his back.

Fred followed them. "Design will never work. Too much glass. Too expensive to heat."

"It will work. Not only will it work, it will be less expensive to heat and cool than the building currently in use, and this building is twice the size, thanks to my design"-she squared her shoulders-"and thanks to modern materials."

"Glass will pop out in the first big storm. Pop out like what happened to the John Hancock Building in Boston."

"Fred, we haven't even broken ground, why don't you plague someone else? You can't find fault with dirt." Matthew winked at Tazio.

"Yeah, leave my mother alone." Brinkley seconded the motion.

"I can declare the foundation inadequate. Shifting substrata."

"Go ahead. I've got a geologist and an engineer to prove you wrong. Go ahead, Fred, get on the wrong side of UVA. You aren't going to find one thing amiss, you're going to delay construction, cost the university money and, buddy, I wouldn't give a nickel for your social life in this town."

"Scares me." He feigned fear then said with malice, "I know how to cover my ass."

"Is that why Mychelle is dead?" Matthew verbally slipped the knife right between his ribs.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean!" The cords stood out on Fred's thin neck.

"That you were banging her, buddy, and it got too hot. You just did her in."

Face contorted with rage, he spat, "You son of a bitch. Liar."

"You were in love with her. I've got eyes." Matthew had the whip hand now.

Tazio and Brinkley watched with lurid fascination. Stuart, Travis, and the other men stopped what they were doing to watch and listen, too, since Fred hit the screaming register.

"Never! Never. I ought to kill you. I ought to tear your tongue outta your head."

"You're awfully emotional for a man who wasn't in love with a woman. Awfully emotional for someone who says he's innocent." Matthew was unfair, but then Fred had been unfair to him.

Fred placed his feet apart, doubled his fists. "Loved that girl like she was a daughter. You'll turn anything slimy, Matthew. Way your mind works."

"Well, I ask myself, why would someone like Mychelle get killed? Sure can't be anything to do with her job. She was an irritant but not a major problem, and there's nothing she can offer any of us, good or bad, to get herself killed. That leaves a few little things, drugs or some kind of sordid affair. I pick the sordid affair and you are the most likely candidate, although why she'd bother with you is beyond me. Then again, I don't claim to understand women."

"Sick. You're sick."

Tazio quietly said, "Fred, you must have an idea who killed her."

The normal color returned to his face. "No. I don't have any ideas. Sick. Makes me sick. You make me sick." He turned his eyes again to Matthew.

"Sex or drugs," Matthew simply said, his voice almost victorious in tone.

"She didn't do drugs. I'd have known. Can't hide that."

"You can for a while, but I agree, Fred, sooner or later it comes out just like alcoholism leaks out."

Tazio noticed the surveyor's tape flutter as a little wind kicked up.

"She was a good girl!" Fred's eyes looked haunted.

"That leaves sex." Matthew shrugged. "Hey, she wasn't my favorite and neither are you, Fred, but I do hope Sheriff Shaw finds her killer. I'm just glad it wasn't you-if you're telling the truth."

"Never forgive you for this," Fred vowed.

"Do I care? You're as likely a candidate as anyone else. You were around her all the time. You're married. She's not. Younger. You're older. Hey, it's not such a far putt."

"I don't cheat on my wife," Fred, angry still but in control, answered. "You do. Matthew, you're a lying sack of shit. Always was. Always will be." He pointed his finger at Tazio. "He'll be on you like a duck on the fly."

"I resent that." Matthew took a step toward the slighter man.

"Maybe you were the one? Huh?" Fred stuck Matthew right back.

"Not my type."

Fred paused a moment. "That's true. For once you told the truth."

"But I'll tell you who was sleeping with Mychelle. H.H.," Matthew said.

"Know that for a fact?" Fred didn't want to believe that since he hadn't liked H.H., either.

"Two and two make four."

"Prove it," Fred immediately responded.

"She could meet him at his construction sites. Nothing untoward about that. Right? She maybe got inconvenient. He dumps her. She kills him. Anne kills her or maybe Anne killed them both. Justice is served."

"You are so full of it." Fred laughed loudly.