Whiskers In The Dark

21

April 22, 2018

Sunday

A light rain failed to dampen efforts to brighten up the Institute in preparation for the Hounds F4R Heroes. The women had been asked to come up early. Harry, along with her pets, swept out the stables. Susan, Mary Reed, and Arlene focused on the Institute building itself while Amy, her husband, Jeff, Dr. Rachel Cain, up from near the North Carolina line, and Beth Opitz, Virginia, crawled over the kennels. The fixed rooftops held tight in the rain, which threatened to grow stronger. The kennel group checked for dropped nails, any nail sticking out from the kennel itself. Looked clean.

Inside, floors swept testified to the good wood. The walls, having recently been painted, to Susan’s eye a pale mint, were welcoming and all the furniture was vacuumed. The porch outside, some white chairs tucked back up to keep out of the rain, gleamed white.

Harry rarely minded working without other humans. Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, and Pirate were with her. She washed out every water bucket and hung it back up inside the stall. She thought about filling each bucket, then decided against it because the water would sit until Friday. She stacked good square bales of hay on a raised pallet. Again, no need to put hay in a stall’s corner. People preferred to feed their own animals. Some horses wanted three flakes, others two. Some needed a bit of grain, which the two judges would bring if they wished. Too much grain proved as bad as too little, so best left to the owner. The mule who would be in the barn was reported to have a healthy appetite.

“Tidy,” she announced.

“Because we killed all the mice.” Pewter lounged on a sturdy wooden bench between two stalls. This stood there for odds and ends each rider might put down, but Pewter commandeered one by stretching out.

Off to the side was a sturdy yellow cart.

Mrs. Murphy, like Harry checking each stall, puffed up her friend. “We did kill a lot.”

“Bud the chickadee will tell everyone. Bet mice don’t dare come back in here for months,” Pewter predicted.

A wheelbarrow at the end of the open aisle, rain blowing in a bit, filled with sweet-smelling shavings, next attracted Harry. She lifted up the handles, going to the first stall. A wide shovel allowed her to pitch in the contents. She returned to the shavings shed outside, moving quickly, filled the wheelbarrow, and returned to repeat the procedure. Once both stalls contained shavings, she took a rake, carefully spreading the shavings evenly. She wasn’t sure if one animal was coming or two, so she set up two stalls.

Most all barns have nails so one can hang up shovels, rakes, brooms, even lunge whips. Keeping equipment up off the ground guaranteed a longer life for same.

Finishing, she leaned on the rake, admiring her handiwork. “Ought to do it.”

“Who will pick out the stalls?” Tucker asked.

“Arlene, she’s in charge,” Mrs. Murphy answered.

“If she doesn’t, Mom will.” Tucker watched as Harry made certain everything was just so, including tack hooks, which she brought and hung up.

“She’s so orderly.” Pirate was learning to love Harry.

“A greatly overrated virtue,” expressed Pewter, who was not.

The rain, steady now, drummed on the barn roof. Harry walked to the end of the aisle, looked out. Checking her watch, she walked back and sat next to Pewter.

“Let’s give it a little time before we make a run for it.”

“It’s not going to stop.” Pewter put her front paws on Harry’s thigh.

“Sky’s gray. Coming down in sheets now,” Tucker observed.

“We should have left when it started,” Pewter complained. “Now I’ll get wet paws, which I hate. Takes so much time to dry between your toes.”

The five creatures listened. A tiny mouse peeked out from its hole in one stall. No one saw her at all because of the shavings. She ducked back in. No need to set off the cats, and her living quarters were dry, filled with rag bits, lots of rag bits.

“Jeez.” Harry listened.

“I’m telling you. It’s not going to get any better. Make a run for it,” Tucker advised.

“She can carry me.” Pewter rolled over to reveal an overlarge tummy.

“You can run, Fatty,” Tucker undiplomatically barked.

Pewter sat up. “I’ll scratch your eyes out.”

No time for scratching as Harry stood up, walked to the end of the aisle, took a deep breath, and sprinted for the cabin. It was far enough from the barn that she was soaked by the time she reached it, threw open the door, and everyone piled in, dogs and cats shaking themselves dry. Not being able to shake, Harry stripped off her wet clothes. She’d started a fire when she and Susan first arrived, for the lowering clouds kept the mercury in the high forties, low fifties. The threat of rain, the dampness, added to the coolness. The slight chill cut right through her. She draped her clothing over the one rocking chair in front of the fire, wrapped herself in a heavy towel, which she’d brought, and sat down to dry herself.

“Susan will get wet,” Pirate said.

“She’s in the Institute. She can find an umbrella if she decides to come back here before the dinner,” Tucker told him. “Susan can run between raindrops.”

“She can?” Pirate questioned.

“She’s pulling your leg.” Mrs. Murphy smiled.

Feet propped up on a heavy log turned on its end, Harry dozed off. Her animals did, too, as the rain beat down. The aroma from the fire filled the room.

A half hour passed. The door flew open. Susan, umbrella overhead, turned around, shook the umbrella outside the open cabin door, then shut it. Harry, awakened, knocked over her makeshift footstool.

“Get the work done?”

Susan, wearing a Barbour raincoat, slipped out of it, hanging the dripping garment up on a peg. “We did. Glad I brought my raincoat.” Noticing the drying garments, she said, “You didn’t.”

“I did.” Harry pointed to her Filson tin jacket. “I didn’t wear it. When we left the cabin, I really didn’t think it would rain. Wrong again.”

Susan dropped into the rocking chair next to Harry after carefully removing the drying clothing, folding them over the coat pegs. “I’m bushed.”

“Me, too. Fell asleep, obviously. I hardly ever do that.”

“Get the barn ready?”

“Oh, sure. Takes time, but it’s all easy enough. I don’t know who they buy their shavings from, but they’re good shavings. Personally I prefer peanut hulls, but they are so expensive. So I use shavings like everyone else.”

“M-m-m.” Susan inhaled the fragrance. “It’s not cold, cold but it’s raw. Know what I mean?”

“What time do we need to be back at the Institute?”

“Hour. Dinner. The Ogdens are coming.” Susan named a couple who had served for decades in the foreign service, and Geoff had also been president of Middleburg Hunt Club.

“Good. I don’t know them well, but the times I’ve been in their company have been interesting.” Harry smiled. “By the way, this bath towel is warm. I usually don’t wrap myself in a bath towel. Always have my robe, which I forgot. Actually, I forgot a lot of stuff.”

Susan turned to her, the light flickering on her face. “You’re too young for a senior moment. Is it sheer stupidity?”

“Aren’t you hateful?” Harry pointed a finger at her.

“No. Actually, I’m tired, too. It’s been a week, you know. Ned was in Richmond the entire week and he’s there now. Then there’s the planning for the homecoming. Great idea, don’t get me wrong. Now I’m stuck with Mags Nielsen and Pamela Bartlett. Everything is an issue.”

“There are just people like that and my feeling is there are more and more or maybe I’m just noticing.”

“No, Harry, I think it’s true. Everything is a potential problem, a potential lawsuit or, given the homecoming and food, how about ptomaine poisoning? You would not believe the bullshit.”

“Actually, I would. Not so much for me since I farm, although I receive pages and pages of questions annually from the U.S. Agricultural Department as well as Virginia’s. Given that no one in the cabinet or in Congress farms, the questionnaires are really about their careers, not my farming.” She smiled. “I’m a cynic.”

“We all are now. I imagine Fair handles his share of paperwork, sidesteps lawyers, has to account for controlled substances.”

“Fortunately, horses don’t have lawyers but their owners do. He fills out insurance forms, no kidding, and they get longer and longer. And now there is health insurance for horses. I’m not kidding.”

“I suppose if you have a horse worth two million dollars, that’s not such a far stretch,” Susan reasoned.

“No, but a foxhunter? A pleasure horse? Not one of my horses is insured.”

“Of course not. You’re married to the vet.” Susan let out peals of laughter and Harry joined her.

An hour later, dry, a bit of makeup, squeezing under Susan’s umbrella, they sloshed to the Institute. The work party, comprised of ten hard workers, sat at the table, glad to be finished, hopeful for the upcoming event. Some drank wine, others beer, and, for the purists, bourbon and scotch. Even Mary, hardly a drinker, would not have downed vodka. Bourbon still reigned in the South.

Geoff and Jan, sitting in the middle of the table, surrounded by old hunting friends, pepped up the conversation, as always. Geoff’s career in the State Department hit many high notes from being counsel general in Istanbul to specialized work on economics to personnel to being director of maritime affairs. Jan also covered many bases, truly enjoying it when she and Geoff were posted to the same countries. It seemed they knew everybody; they had known Jason well and later Clare.

Harry, fascinated, listened to Geoff having five Turkish bodyguards as he was the PLO’s number one target in Turkey. Like many people, she took our State Department for granted, not considering how lives could be at risk. Given the murder of Ambassador John Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, during Obama’s presidency, the dangers were apparent. What wasn’t apparent and what she was listening to was what happens when the secretary of state and then the president do not correctly evaluate information from abroad. The first step was that U.S. diplomatic efforts were weakened or undermined by enemies. The worst outcome was death.

Fortunately, few people in the foreign service are killed, but one receives postings and must go. A posting to Russia proves quite different from one to France. Both are vital.

Harry realized how naive she was.

Jan, wonderful to look at, was telling the group how the public and private sectors can cooperate. The leadership starts with the president.

“For instance, and I bet no one knows this except for Geoff and me, it was President Nixon who brought together the private and public sectors. He considered it important and part of our education. I wasn’t in service then, obviously, but I stepped into it as a young woman. A person like the president of Westinghouse might be sitting next to a senator from Utah. I always thought of it as cross-fertilization. Nixon would have meetings and he used state dinners to good effect. The big prize was a private lunch with him.”

“Good things.” Mary Reed smiled. “Don’t you think plenty of good things are still happening? The media focuses on the bad?”

“Fundamentally this is a Puritan society.” Susan, the history major, threw this out. “Bad news sells. Cromwell proved that.”

Everyone started talking at once.

Harry leaned toward Arlene, an old friend of the Ogdens. “Arlene, how did you meet the Ogdens?”

“They were back in Washington when I was at the Agency. The secretary of state’s office is on the seventh floor of the Harry S. Truman Building and I’d see Geoff in the elevators because sometimes I was called out there. We got to talking after many trips and I found out he foxhunted; he found out I beagled. Then he, Jan, and I hunted together. I’d follow the foxhounds by car. They’d join in on the beagling and basseting, and that’s how we all met Mary Reed. A former Vietnam combat helicopter pilot, Al Toews, was Master and huntsman of Ashland Bassets then, a big, tall—and I mean tall—fellow. What fun we had.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Al died of a heart attack on December twenty-first. I remember because it’s the winter solstice. Unexpected. Everyone came through, as you would expect. The hunting world is tight. Mary then took over. The club supported her, but what a shock.”

“I can imagine. It’s odd, isn’t it, how big and strong men are, but they go first. For the most part they do.”

Arlene nodded. “My mother used to say God gave women something extra.”

Harry laughed. Hours passed before anyone noticed.

Finally, Rachel couldn’t help herself as she asked Mary, “Nothing about Jason?”

“It is disturbing.”

“Murder is.” Geoff Ogden flatly spoke. “As the senior officer here,” he said with a smile, “I’d advise you all to have security.” He tapped the table with his forefinger. “You never really know, and both covered some sensitive areas.”

“Will you be here for the Hounds for Heroes?” Mary inquired.

“We’ll certainly try,” Geoff replied.

Harry sidestepped the Jason issue to ask Geoff, “Did you ever lose anyone in service?”

A silence followed this. “I’m not sure.”

All eyes turned to Jan and him.

Jeff Walker, Amy’s husband, a man who had spent time in Nepal, had a grasp of, if not foreign service, at least what can happen when one is immersed in another culture and another language. “That’s enigmatic.”

Geoff Ogden paused, his distinctive voice low but clear. “When I was in Istanbul I had an M.C., a minister counselor, Paula Devlin. A career officer, obviously. She’d spent four years in Helsinki, two in Cape Town, said it was beautiful, and another two in Vienna before being posted to Istanbul. Her specialty was economic development and the Turks needed that. She spoke good Turkish and worked well with her Turkish counterpart.”

“What happened?” Rachel wondered.

“That’s just it. I don’t know.” He looked to Mary.

“She hunted with Ashland Bassets after she retired. She and Al were great pals.”

“And?” Everyone looked at Mary.

Mary thought a moment, then spoke. “Al swore she was CIA. As a combat officer he had a nose for things. Like he could tell even before he was told if another person had seen combat. I don’t know, it was a sixth sense. And he seemed to have it about the CIA. Paula disappeared. Vanished. Not a trace.”

Jan added, “Apart from being a good Master and huntsman, Al did possess a sixth sense.”

“What did you think?” Arlene asked Geoff, adding, “I knew her from hunting. We discovered we both worked for the government. We didn’t usually discuss work. She asked me once about being wounded but we clicked. She was a lovely friend. We also talked with Clare about her shipboard days in the Gulf of Finland. She was a Russian expert and would listen to Russian chatter. For three women, and it was tougher then, we had good careers.”

“In any embassy or consulate there are CIA people. There have to be. And there are some telltale signs. They have money. Never run out. Maybe not lots of money, depending on their job, but money. If they are operating inside our borders, they usually have a business front. There are times when they can be opaque. If you’re smart, you don’t ask too much, women or men. For one thing, most government employees can’t tell you the truth.” Geoff looked outside the window into the darkness. “Still raining. Well, the ground should be good for the fundraiser.”

“Hope so.” Amy stood up as the others followed.

Rachel then asked, “No one ever found Paula?”

Jan said, “She didn’t come home. Her neighbors in Hume noticed. No sign of her. Just poof.”

Geoff added, “Her little dog didn’t come home either.” He held the chair for his wife. “Everyone got their umbrella?”

—

Back at the cabin, Harry and Susan took off their clothing. Harry snuggled into her comforter, Susan into her sleeping bag.

“Make room for me,” Pewter demanded.

Harry patted a place for Pewter and one for Mrs. Murphy. The dogs stretched out in front of the fire, which Harry had fed.

Ruffy slept with them.