Whisker Of Evil

50

The uproar over rabies and Carmen’s disappearance continued through the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday, July 1, Rick Shaw, Jim Sanburne, and Tavener Heyward made public appeals for people to calm down.

Not only were people shooting animals, they were shooting one another. This, as much as a desire to restore public confidence, prompted the televised appeal.

Shootings occurred in Brown’s Cove, Boonesville, and Sugar Hollow, places where impulsive action independent of law enforcement was not unknown; but they were also happening in tony locations like Ednam Forest and Farmington Country Club.

One person would fire at another’s dog and pretty soon it would erupt into the gunfight at the OK Corral. Rick and Cooper were exhausted. So were the veterinarians in town, who had to patch up the animals while Bill Langston and Hayden McIntire patched up the people.

The lawyers would reap the benefits of this disorder. Of course, if it kept up, the undertakers would experience a blip in profits, as well.

Everyone with a grain of sense kept their pets out of the public eye. But dogs especially can foil human intentions. Digging under fences or climbing over them caused many a problem.

Both Rick and Cooper were praying the upcoming Fourth of July weekend would find people focusing on their parties. Hopefully this scare would die down.

Big Mim spent Tuesday and Wednesday with Alicia since St. James was under siege. When the reporters packed up and left the front gate, Mim thought it safe to leave.

Harry and Miranda finished up Tuesday working with Amy Wade. Wednesday, both women stayed in their respective homes.

Thursday afternoon, Cooper drove out to Harry’s farm. She’d put in so much overtime that Rick gave her the afternoon off. She brought wonderful sandwiches from Bodo’s, a bagel place in town. No sooner had Harry set the picnic table outside than Fair came down the drive with sandwiches from the service station at the intersection of Route 250 and Miller School Road.

“Jackpot.” Pewter licked her lips.

“How do you know she won’t put some in the fridge?” Tucker hoped Pewter was right, though.

“Look adorable. Show lots of tummy.” Mrs. Murphy opened her mouth slightly, inhaling the delicious aroma of sliced turkey, ham, and roast beef.

“Good idea.” Pewter ran across the lawn to the picnic table.

Harry and Cooper brought out drinks and condiments from the kitchen while Fair placed three plates and utensils on the oilcloth tablecloth.

The three humans sat down to eat. Harry cut the sandwiches in quarters. That way everyone could have a little bit of everything.

“I’m starved.” Harry bit into a turkey sandwich in which she had placed crisp pickles.

“How can you eat pickles like that? You didn’t even slice them lengthwise.” Cooper, working on roast beef sliced paper-thin, marveled.

“I’ve known Harry to open a jar of sweet gherkins and demolish the contents in less than fifteen minutes.”

Harry, mouth full, shook her head. “No.” She swallowed, then said, “Takes twenty minutes.”

“I am so hungry I feel faint.” Pewter hit the pathetic note.

“Me, too.” Tucker tried looking terribly sad.

“Well, I’m here for whatever you’ll give me,” Mrs. Murphy flatly stated.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Harry tore off a bit of turkey and fed it to Pewter. She was rewarded with purrs so loud they sounded like a feline diesel engine.

Fair and Cooper followed suit, so Mrs. Murphy and Tucker were happily engaged, too.

The food revived Cooper. She really had been tired. “Oh, that’s good. I’ll try some ham now.” Harry handed her the plate with the sandwiches piled on it. “Thank you.” She grabbed the mustard jar, slathering the tangy condiment on the rye bread. “I’ve been on the force for thirteen years, since college graduation, and, guys, I have never, ever been through what I’ve been through the last two days. People are totally irrational about their animals.”

“Tell me.” Fair reached into a bowl of Utz potato chips.

“I’m not,” Harry fibbed.

Everyone, animals included, laughed at her.

“I thought people were blind about their children. They’re worse about their pets!” Cooper took some potato chips, as well. “Rick has smoked more from Tuesday morning to this afternoon than the whole month of June put together. Chain smoking.”

“All it does is divert us from what’s important,” Fair added.

“That thought has occurred to me.” Cooper put her sandwich quarter on the plate for a moment; she’d been gesticulating with it in her hand. The animals were ready for something to fall out of it. “Well, here’s news, too. Haven’t had time to tell you. I’ve been too busy eating. Actually, all of us were hungry.” She noted the refilled plates. “The news is that Marshall Kressenberg isn’t coming to the service Saturday. He’s in Ireland. His secretary said he left on a horse-buying trip. I don’t believe it, but we’ll get him. Don’t worry.”

“He did it?” Fair thought a pickle would be delicious. Harry glared at him when he picked up the jar. “Don’t worry. I’ll leave plenty for you.”

“Good.” Harry fed Mrs. Murphy a piece of roast beef. This was her third sandwich quarter and Mrs. Murphy’s second.

Cooper said without hesitation, “Oh, yeah. We have to prove it, but he’s our man.”

“Well, it occurred to me that Ziggy Dark Star’s tattoo could tell the tale. We didn’t discuss that,” Harry said.

“Fair did,” Cooper replied.

“You did?” Harry’s voice rose at the end of the question.

“I did.”

“Was there a Ziggy Dark Star?” Harry was puzzled.

“No. I expect Ulysses Malone, the owner of Old Wampum Farm, was paid off. He bought Ziggy Flame’s mother in the dispersal sale in 1974. And he bought the foal born in 1967, the result of Mary Pat’s breeding back Ziggy Flame’s mother to Tom Fool. But before he could register that colt, it ran through a board fence in a thunderstorm and killed itself. Now, there would be no reason to register the death with the Jockey Club, since the colt hadn’t been registered yet in the first place. He hushed it up because he didn’t want people to think he didn’t take proper care of his horses. He also fired his farm manager.”

“Marshall would know the letter sequence. He altered the tattoo.” Cooper was still hungry.

“Wait. Let me get this straight. Ulysses Malone and Marshall Kressenberg create an imaginary horse, send in the paperwork and the blood work to the Jockey Club, and are issued a tattoo number starting with a W for 1967?” Harry couldn’t believe the simplicity yet daring of the plan.

“They sent in Ziggy Flame’s blood,” Fair said.

“But what about Ziggy’s tattoo?” Harry, irritated that she hadn’t thought of this, questioned.

“First off, how many people do you know who have a mare to breed who are going to walk up to a stallion and hold his upper lip?” Fair replied. “And V is easy to turn to W. Who would suspect anything?”

“You’ve got a point there.” Harry nodded. “I’ve been around horses all my life and I’m real, real careful around stallions.”

“We do know that Ulysses Malone died a wealthy man. He’d made the money through breeding. His business took off in the late 1970s,” Cooper said. “I expect he was given a share in Ziggy Flame rather than being paid a lump sum. Safer, plus there was the potential for long-term profits, which, luckily for him, materialized.” Cooper had learned a lot about the breeding industry because of this case. “When Mary Pat’s broodmares were dispersed, he bought the mare who was Flame’s dam. He had the reputation of getting bargains at dispersal sales. She produced a few more foals, too, before she died at age twenty-three.”

“My horses have tattoos. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?” Harry, distressed at her oversight, complained.

“Lot going on,” Cooper laconically responded.

“Too much upheaval.” Pewter batted a piece of rye bread. Bread was okay, but meat was better.

Harry turned to Fair. “You didn’t say anything to me?”

“When have I had time? Or you?”

“Well, when did you figure this out?”

“Over the weekend. When I did all the bloodline and color research. I told you about most of that, but the tattoo slipped my mind, really.” Fair apologized. “And one other thing I haven’t had time to tell you. I’ve only told Rick and Cooper.

“I read Mary Pat’s notes. This was the book that Barry found and probably read. She used a kind of shorthand.

“Once you get used to Mary Pat’s system you can figure it out easily enough.

“Mary Pat suspected the nick between her mare and Tom Fool blood would be golden. She jotted it down. Of course, she died before she could have been sure just how good their cross was, but even the late foals that old Malone got out of the mare did very well at the sales and track.”

“Barry must have figured this out.” Harry rubbed her chin. “The real question is what in God’s name did Barry do with this information? Jeez, I must be slipping!” Harry said worriedly. “I didn’t even badger you to read Mary Pat’s notes.”

“You’ve been more rattled than you realize.” Cooper took the bull by the horns. “The whole post-office business is upsetting. I mean, Har, even if you were ready to leave, to move on, it would have been nice if you could have done it your way. Pug Harper—well, it was really Jerome—pushed you.”

“But I thought I was okay,” Harry plaintively said.

“Honey, you are okay.” Fair soothingly draped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. She kept her hand on the pickle jar, however. “It’s just your way. Everyone who loves you knows that. You aren’t a person who shows much emotion. It kind of works on you from within.”

“Meaning, I don’t know what’s going on?” She thought a minute. “I guess that’s kind of true. If it’s outside me, I can figure it out. If it’s inside me, it takes a long time.”

“Breakthrough.” Tucker smiled.

“It’s a pity she’s not a cat,” Pewter mused. “Life would be so much more clear for her.”

Mrs. Murphy climbed up on the plank seat. She snuggled next to Harry. “Her eyesight would be better, anyway.”

“Okay, I missed the tattoo. Signs point to Marshall Kressenberg’s having something to do with Mary Pat’s death. There are a lot of blank spaces, though, lot of loose ends.”

Cooper leaned her elbows on the table. “Once we get our hands on Kressenberg, I think those ends will get tied up.”

“So the rabies is just that. Not connected?” Fair asked.

“Certainly seems to be the case. Except we have the murder of Jerome Stoltfus hanging over our heads. Marshall, I hope, will spill the beans on who killed Jerome. I’m thinking that somehow, in Jerome’s mania to find the cause of the rabies case, he found damning evidence against Marshall Kressenberg. Jerome figured out that Ziggy Flame was Ziggy Dark Star. Jerome proved much more resourceful than we ever imagined. He’d started doing color research.”

“I’ll be,” Harry sighed. “And you’re sure Alicia doesn’t have a hand in this?”

“No, I’m not sure.” The tall, blond woman folded her hands together over her plate. “But Alicia Palmer hasn’t cracked over all these years.”

“Neither has Marshall Kressenberg,” Fair responded.

“But she had all the money in the world. Why help him?” Harry wondered.

“Because she wanted the fortune. She didn’t want to wait until Mary Pat died an old lady and she herself would be much older. She wanted to be her own woman. As long as Mary Pat lived, Alicia would have to dance to her tune. As it was, they fought over Alicia’s desire for an acting career.” Cooper had seen a lot of mischief over inheritances.

The three humans and three animals sat quietly for a minute or two.

Fair rose, walked to his truck. He held up a white paper bag. “Chocolate chip cookies!”

“Hooray!” Harry clapped her hands.

“It’s not that exciting,” Pewter grumbled.

“Chocolate is the human version of fresh mouse.” Mrs. Murphy closed her eyes, swaying slightly.

“Or marrow bones.” Tucker, full, rested her head on her paws.

“So we’re not out of the woods yet?” Harry returned to the subject at hand. “There might be an accomplice or two?”

“Yes,” Cooper simply replied.

“I’ve had my head in the sand. Wonder what else I’ve missed. Maybe I missed something that would help. I’m upset. At the risk of bragging on myself, I’m usually pretty sharp about details, people, clues. At least I think I am.”

“Harry, you are. You are.” Cooper smiled. “But you are going through a big life change.”

“You mean I have to find a job?” Harry laughed.

“A career. Something you love.” Fair put in his two cents.

“Kind of a muddle right now.”

“Honey, this has all happened fast. Give yourself the summer to think things through and explore options. Everything will be fine.”

“When you say it, I believe it. When I’m home alone, doubt creeps in.” She sighed.

Fair resisted the obvious riposte that she shouldn’t be home alone, he should be with her.

It was true. Harry was rattled. Her mind was clouded by quitting, by questions about her future. She was also rattled, although happy, because she realized she did love Fair. This was a quiet, growing realization, and she’d address it when all this settled down. She knew she ran away from emotion, but she swore to herself she wouldn’t do that about Fair and she’d sit down to talk to him. She gave herself an August 1 deadline. She was again in love with him.

Had Harry been on course, she would have realized she had been given a clue Tuesday, a disturbing and dangerous clue.