Whiskers In The Dark

37

May 5, 2018

Saturday

Robins hopped along the ground, mockingbirds taunted everyone from their perches, goldfinches flew about—it was an avian party. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter walked with Harry as the birds complained about their intrusion into the birds’ territory.

“I have every right to be at St. Luke’s,” Pewter huffed.

“Oh, ignore them. They have to make a big show of it,” Mrs. Murphy advised as Tucker and Pirate ambled along.

In just one month from the spring equinox, the grass had turned emerald green and the buds had opened so the color of spring green floated above the grass. Some trees, like willows, fully opened. Others took their time, but the spring green would soon turn to darker green until fall, when the leaves reached their fullest amount of chlorophyll. That’s what Harry thought, anyway.

Harry passed through the quads, reaching the lone tree with the single grave. A simple wooden cross stood at the head, with no birth date or death date, as no one knew.

“Forlorn,” Harry muttered.

She didn’t know that the blackball on paper that had been slipped into her St. Luke’s mailbox was about this grave. Given all that was happening at Aldie, she pushed the unknown murder victim to the back of her mind as best she could.

A car door closed at Reverend Jones’s house. Pamela Bartlett, seeing Harry, headed in her direction, as the grave rested beyond the formal graveyard. In her late seventies, Pamela regularly attended her yoga classes four times a week. She moved with suppleness and ease, her shape that of a much younger woman. Only her shining silver hair hinted at a longer life.

Turning to see who shut the car door, Harry smiled when she beheld Pamela. She’d always liked the lady, but working with her on the Dorcas Guild enlarged that emotion.

“Mrs. Bartlett.” Harry walked toward her.

“And what is our building and grounds woman doing?” Pamela extended her hand for Harry to lightly shake, then walked with her a few paces to the grave.

As Virginia women they needed to touch each other. Southerners tend to be more demonstrative physically and otherwise than, say, those north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Touch provided a reassurance that words never did.

“I wanted to see if the grass was growing on the grave.”

“Doing nicely,” the older woman replied. “I see you have brought your team.”

“I’m the smart one.” Pewter rubbed on Mrs. Bartlett’s stockinged leg.

Tucker looked upward at the lovely face, deciding not to tell Pewter what she thought of her. Pirate did what Tucker did. The half-grown puppy really was learning the ropes.

“You know, they really are my team.” Harry’s attention returned to the grave. “This wooden cross won’t last but so long given the weather. Maybe a few years. I was wondering if I could convince someone in the men’s guild to perhaps carve a cross on a large stone.”

“What a good idea.” She looked upward as a mockingbird flew tantalizingly close. “I do hope this will prove a quiet grave.”

“Me, too,” Harry responded.

“I’ll break your neck,” Pewter threatened as the daring fellow swooped low.

As if hearing her cat, Harry enfolded Pamela in her thoughts, for she trusted her completely. “Whoever lies here had a broken neck. The Taylors’ grave, as you know, was somewhat disturbed. All these two centuries later, who knows about this murder? Pamela, it’s on my mind because of the two deaths at Aldie, and it was my misfortune to see both bodies. I can’t shake it. I mean, I’m not horrified. I have seen bodies before, and the deaths were fresh. But why? Why Aldie? I’m being drawn in. I can’t help myself.”

“Well,” the silver-haired lady said, “you’d be an odd duck if you weren’t affected.”

“Affected. She’s obsessed. I have to live with this.” Pewter complained loudly.

“Pewter.” Harry bent over to scratch the cat’s ears, which irritated the others so Harry petted them for a moment.

“She’s not shy.” Pamela laughed.

“What would you do?”

“I wouldn’t try to block the feelings. Never works. I’m sure you’ve considered why those two people died, husband and wife, at Aldie, one murdered. It’s in the papers and is odd, to say the least. This murder, even though long, long ago, also casts a spell. The pearls alone would cast a spell. Janice Childe and Mags Nielsen seem under their spell.”

“I wonder if either of them knows something?”

Pamela’s eyes crinkled. “Do you think Mags could keep from spilling the beans?”

Harry laughed. “Well, Janice is drawn to the jewelry. Then again, who wouldn’t be?”

“The killer was not.”

“True, but had to be a man.”

“Now what does that explain? A man would surmise the value of that necklace and the earrings. He wouldn’t wish to wear them but he’d surely wish to sell them. Yet he did not.”

“It’s something, isn’t it, to think that they lay under the ground—fabulous, fabulous jewelry—for centuries, since 1786 or so? I take the Taylors’ death date as the date close to when she was tossed on their caskets.”

“Why?”

“Ground would have been soft. Turned up. So digging in, throwing her down, covering up the body, tamping it down wouldn’t arouse suspicion.”

Pamela crossed her arms across her pale peach cashmere sweater. “You have thought about it. What have you thought about Aldie?”

“Strange that you should ask. Although they were married and business partners, I think this has nothing to do with that profitable car dealership.”

“Inheritance wasn’t a motivation?”

“No. Granted, a wife or husband is always the first in the line of suspects, then comes family and friends, but I think, like this murder here, it goes back to something else.”

“Fascinating.”

Warming to someone interested in her ideas and not telling her to forget it, Harry went on. “He was in the foreign service, had a good career, became a communications expert, and she rose in the Navy. They met in Paris, hit it off. They were on the same wavelength. Obviously, they built a successful business together in a competitive field. But I believe this is connected to their language skills.”

Pamela blinked. “What languages?”

“He was fluent in Turkish and she in Russian. I know this is important. I know it. I don’t know why.”

“It’s a volatile part of the world,” Pamela volunteered.

“Isn’t every part of the world volatile eventually?”

A smile crossed Pamela’s lips, a light coating of coral lipstick. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Makes me wonder if we’re due.” She held up her hand. “Don’t get me started. Turkey and Russia. Two hereditary enemies.”

“My other idea does involve the dealership, maybe a sour business deal. But their company’s record is awfully good.”

“I see. Back to whoever is underground in front of us. Murder, as we know. Why are people killed? Well, the old motives are dragged out. Love. Money. Revenge. Drugs, but that gets to money. What else? Well, sheer perversity and sadism, I guess, but I doubt any of our considered victims would qualify.” Pamela, an educated woman, rarely strayed into her own emotions when considering a problem.

“Information. People will kill for that. We know money wasn’t a motive for this woman. The jewelry would have been taken. What kind of information would someone have at the end of the eighteenth century? Our forefathers delighted in accusing one another of sexual peccadilloes. I doubt she was killed for that, even if she was a kept woman. For her I believe it was love or revenge.”

“Possibly.”

“This sounds damning in a way, but I don’t think either Jason or Clare would arouse another human being to the heights of amorous recrimination. Not love. So I come back to money, and I don’t know why, information. Clare was Naval Intelligence. She may have stumbled on something.”

“Now? Her career was over.” Pamela didn’t argue, merely presented the idea.

“Maybe not. Russian, remember. Whatever is happening over there, they are poisoning people in other countries.”

“Harry, that’s a terrible thought.”

Harry waved her hand somewhat dismissively. “I know. I’m out in left field. I’ve got to let this go. But I think I’ll drive back up to Aldie, look around again. I have missed something. Then I can let go.”

“Well, don’t drink the water.” Pamela half teased her.

Harry smiled. “Do you think we will ever know about this mystery?”

“I’m not sure, but given that the Taylors’ grave was oddly disturbed, perhaps. But I don’t think any of us will reason this one out. I think whoever poked around the Taylors’ grave will make a mistake or simply come forward. No crime has been committed in our time.”

“Speaking of coming forward—” Harry inclined her head and Pamela turned. Janice and Mags approached them, carrying a pot of unbloomed something.

“Hello,” both Harry and Pamela said to their sister Dorcas Guild members.

“How about finding you two here?” Janice cradled the pot.

“We’ve brought marigolds, will soon open up. The big ones, orange and yellow. Thought they might brighten this grave. It’s rather sad.” Mags carried a hand trowel. “Harry, you don’t mind if I plant these, do you? I’ve been nurturing them in my kitchen window.”

“Of course not.”

“You are in charge of building and grounds.” Janice cited her title. “We want to stay on the good side of you.”

“It’s a lovely idea. I was here to see how the grass was doing. Good, I think, and Pamela joined me.”

“What about me?” Pewter pouted.

Pamela checked her watch. “Off I go. The reverend is expecting me. Has more ideas about the homecoming. He’s fallen in love with the idea.”

As she left, Harry thanked Janice and Mags and she, too, walked up toward the church, as her old truck was parked in the side parking lot. As she walked, it occurred to her that Pamela, in her good-natured way, had warned her indirectly, as Geoff Ogden had done directly.

She also remembered that May fifth was the Kentucky Derby day, and Harry walked a little faster. She wanted to watch the Run for the Roses.