Whiskers In The Dark

12

April 18, 2018

Wednesday

“What if we get one thousand people?” Mags Nielsen’s blonde eyebrows shot upward. “Will cost a fortune.”

“If we get one thousand people, we should celebrate that so many want to come home,” Harry calmly answered. “And we can start fundraising when the announcement goes out.”

Susan jumped in. “Mags, do we need to hire a caterer? We do. But we can still bring dishes. If we’re careful, those costs can be controlled.”

Janice Childe, another hard worker of the Dorcas Guild, rapped her pencil on the meeting table. “I sincerely doubt one thousand people will journey to St. Luke’s from wherever they may be in the world but”—she emphasized “but”—“three hundred, perhaps more, I expect that. First of all, look how many of us still attend St. Luke’s. Those of us still in the Mid-Atlantic or even New England may well make the journey. Do we have a great deal to organize? We do, but it is doable.”

Mags, not yet convinced, added, “Janice, apart from the food, the chairs, the parking, and the tents, tents’ cost. After marrying our oldest daughter, I can tell you about tents. Then there are the games to organize.”

Susan held up her hand. “Isn’t that why we have the St. Peter’s Guild? I think some of this comes under the heading ‘Men.’ ”

This provoked laughter.

“Speaking of men, surely there are those in the congregation who would write a few restorative checks,” the much older Pamela Bartlett advised.

“Well said.” Harry smiled at Pamela, whom she much respected.

“What about the jewelry that was found with that old body? Why can’t the church sell that? I have no idea what it’s worth. All the papers said was that there were jewels with the bones, but those jewels belong to us.” Janice surprised them with this. “Where are they? Harry, you’re in charge of building and grounds. You must know.”

“Well,” Harry prevaricated. “Almost a year and a half has elapsed. If someone were going to come forward, they would have done so by now. But no one has. Still, we might want to wait longer. Can you imagine the mess if we did something like that and a person shows up, DNA test in hand?”

“Oh, Harry, that’s TV stuff.” Mags shrugged. “That body was in there for over two hundred years. No one is going to appear claiming to be a relative. Remember when the reverend gave a sermon shortly after the body was discovered? He said, if I remember correctly, that the abandoned, those without a proper service, prayers, or tears still deserve consideration.”

“You’re probably right, but we live in such litigious times,” Susan reminded them all. “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

“For now.” Pamela’s clear voice rang out.

“Have any of you seen the jewels?” Janice’s curiosity shot upward with the discussion.

“I did,” Harry replied.

“Well?”

“Janice, her necklace was so covered with dirt, I couldn’t tell you much about it.” This was close to a lie. “Yes, she was wearing a necklace, but maybe the shock of the discovery kept me from closer scrutiny.” Another big fib.

“Harry, no one has ever accused you of not paying attention to detail,” Janice shot back. “Surely you could tell if the jewelry was genuine.”

“I couldn’t.” This was practically true. “I can only tell you she wore some very dirty pearls.”

“We should investigate.”

Susan, sharp, interjected. “Janice, the possible uproar doesn’t offset the gain.”

“Aren’t the jewels in the safe downstairs?” Mags asked.

“No. Sheriff Shaw took everything when the corpse was removed. Well, that was hardly a corpse. The bones.” Harry sounded calm. “I expect he has them in a secure place. I know that Reverend Jones hasn’t asked for them back and I think one of the reasons is that he hopes Sheriff Shaw may be able to piece together something about this discovery. The jewelry might help.” She did not reveal that the fabulous jewelry was locked in the big steel safe at Keller and George, an old, established jewelry store.

“This is beyond a cold case.” Janice again rapped her pencil on the table.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Pamela, highly intelligent, realized this needed to be shut down. “Who knew the body was on top of the Taylors’? Since this had remained undetected since what, 1786 or so, it’s doubtful anyone knew other than the person who placed her there. The Taylors died in 1786. Had to be close, I would think, and there were no more burials for a year. Good luck for St. Luke’s. But while this may be an old case, it’s not necessarily a cold case. It’s new to us.”

Mags considered this. “True.”

Janice then chimed in. “New to us, but someone had to have known. Someone put her there.”

“Of course they did.” Harry tried to suppress her irritation. “But chances are that person has also been dead for two hundred years.”

“Well, what if whoever killed her told someone, or his or her children?” Janice persisted.

“I think we’d know. I would think whoever that might be, subsequent generations would have dug her up.” Susan, too, was working to slide away from the jewelry.

“Then why now?” Janice was close to defiant.

“Janice, if we knew that, wouldn’t we have solved this?” Harry hit the nail on the head.

As the meeting broke up, the two old friends kept their mouths shut until they were in Susan’s station wagon.

“What is wrong with her!” Harry couldn’t help it.

“Janice has always been nosey. And I say she became more aggressive when she started frosting her hair.”

Harry exploded with laughter. “Oh God, Susan.”

“Think about it. Janice hit forty and forty hit back. Granted, it is a good frosting job, but no one frosts their hair until middle age.”

They howled as Susan drove out of the parking lot.

Once at Harry’s, they sat for a nip of bourbon seasoned in a Madeira cask. Harry rarely drank, but she felt like a special moment and this certainly was that.

“Treats,” Pewter demanded.

Harry dutifully got up and tossed out treats, not because she knew what Pewter said but because she knew if she didn’t buy off the cat, Pewter would be in her lap. The others would then act up, too.

The back door opened. “Me.”

“Come on in. Spirits.” Harry instructed her neighbor, Deputy Cynthia Cooper.

The lean woman hung up her heavy jacket and joined them as Harry put down a small, lovely crystal glass with the bourbon gleaming within. “Still cold out there.”

“Mid-April. You never know,” Susan agreed.

“Heard from the Loudoun Sheriff’s Department what happened at Aldie. You all manage to get right in the middle of things, don’t you? Well, I’m glad it’s up there and not here.”

“I am, too,” Susan agreed. “We just left our Dorcas Guild meeting. No one knows yet, but it will be in the paper. We would never have gotten anything done regarding homecoming if they knew we’d found Jason. Those girls would have been all over us like white on rice.”

“As it was, Mags Nielsen and Janice Childe wanted to know why St. Luke’s couldn’t sell the jewelry found on the old body. It was ridiculous.” Harry sipped her drink.

“What?” Cooper wondered.

“Oh, this all started over money. The homecoming I told you about. The notices haven’t even gone out and Mags and Janice are obsessing over money. You know, it’s made me tired.”

“What did happen at Aldie?” the young officer wanted to know.

The two relayed their experience.

“Not a sound? You would have heard something,” Cooper said.

“We were all pretty far away, but what I think is that he stepped down from the tractor, talked to whomever was planning to kill him. No sign of fighting back, and whoever it was sliced him when he turned around. If this had been done face-to-face, blood would have been all over the killer.”

“Had to be someone who knows how to kill. You need to clasp the lower jaw, jerk the head back as far as you can, hold it still for a second, and then slice and slice deep enough to cut the jugular.”

“Jason was a fairly big man.” Susan thought about what Cooper had pictured.

“That he was,” Harry agreed. “But again, he knew his killer. He had to, so whoever did it had the advantage of complete surprise.”

“They had to be fast,” Susan added.

“Which is why I will bet you this is a trained killer,” Cooper said.