Whiskers In The Dark

39

May 11, 2018

Friday

The broodmares, open this year, contentedly munched on the grass now containing more nutrition. Harry, knowing that March and April can fool you, even if the pastures are green, the nutrition isn’t where it should be. She always supplemented her horses’ food either with the best-quality hay or sweet feed or both. Horses, like people, needed a change of diet as they aged. When in work, young or old, more calories were needed, but she didn’t want to give them anything that would make them hot. No corn. Stuff like that.

One foot on the bottom rail of the fence, she leaned on the top rail, watching her hoofed friends. Her old hunter, Tomahawk, a bighearted Thoroughbred, retired now, walked over to give her a kiss. He was followed by a younger horse, given to her by Joan Hamilton of Kalarama, named Shortro. Joan secured the horse from Shortro’s owner and, knowing horses, knew the gray 15.2-hand fellow would be perfect for Harry. He needed to adjust to hunt seat. Harry loved all these creatures.

She even loved Pewter, a stretch occasionally. This morning was such a day because Pewter had opened a cabinet door that Fair, in his morning fog, left open a crack. A large plastic container of homegrown catnip, crunched up, had been hidden in that cabinet. Not anymore. Pewter’s fangs and claws, with effort, tore the plastic container open. Pewter was so bombed, she lay stretched on the kitchen floor. Those glassy eyes testified to the gray cat’s condition. Mrs. Murphy, late to the party, managed some catnip, but she remained functional if a bit silly.

“Is she ill?” Pirate asked Tucker.

“If she were human, she would be called ‘three sheets to the wind.’ ” The corgi giggled. “She’ll sleep it off and pretend nothing happened.”

“Is there anything like that for dogs?” Pirate asked, a note of envy in his changing voice.

“No. Maybe the closest is Greenies, but a Greenie chewy doesn’t affect your mind. Makes you happy, though.”

“Let’s go find Mom.” The half-grown puppy headed for the kitchen door, after that the screen porch door, both of which contained animal doors.

“Right.” Tucker, already dwarfed by the Irish wolfhound, bounded outside, saw Harry, and raced toward her.

“Hello, you two worthless dogs.” She smiled at them.

“They are,” Shortro agreed.

“You are so full of it.” Tucker narrowed her eyes.

“I’m terrified.” The gray Saddlebred blew air out of his nostrils, which made both dogs back up to laughter from the horses in the paddocks.

Harry laughed, as horses have a good sense of humor—she’d been the butt end of equine jokes, too.

“Come on.” She turned for the barn.

A big industrial push mop leaned against the tack-room door. She cleaned out the center aisle, picked out the stalls, which weren’t bad, and sprinkled some fresh shavings. Shavings, not an unreasonable expense, could still cost, so best to be prudent and not throw them around. She scrubbed out the water buckets, rehung them, then filled them with the hose attached to the faucet in the wash stall. Many people might be bored with such menial labor, but Harry enjoyed it. She could think while doing physical chores, including painting the fences, which she couldn’t say she enjoyed but she could still think while doing it, painting herself mostly.

She hung the mop, brush-side up, between two nails on the wall for just that purpose. Then she walked into her tack-room office, maybe her favorite place, better than any room in the farmhouse. Plopping in the chair, she put her feet up on the desk.

“Mud.” Tucker chastised her.

She looked down at her dog. “Where are those bad cats?”

“Plotzed,” the dog simply said.

Harry, not knowing what her friend said, reached down with her dangling arm to scratch the smooth head while Pirate, on the other side of her, put his rough-coated head in her lap.

Closing her eyes, she took a fifteen-minute nap, wakened, reached for the phone, and dialed.

“Harry.” Arlene Billeaud’s alto voice sounded happy to hear Harry. “How are you?”

“Good. Just finished my barn chores, the day is radiant, and the barn swallows are back, darting everywhere.”

“You know they are related to purple martins and tree swallows. I have never been able to entice purple martins to my place and I’ve put out the housing they like. Get the tree swallows, though. Love that iridescent dark green. Do you know that tree swallows and barn swallows can travel six hundred miles a day in search of food for their young?”

“I did. Not a real bird-watcher, I don’t travel around the world, but I know what’s here.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Actually, Arlene, I was thinking of what I could do for you.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“I can’t get the murder of Jason and Clare’s death out of my mind. Murder, I think, too.”

“We don’t yet know how she died.”

“I know, but I am convinced the two deaths are related and unnatural.”

“Okay. Why?”

“The obvious conclusion that people seem to be drawing is no one knows why he was killed, but she died of a stroke or heart attack, possibly worn down by the shock of his death and her grief. They were very close. No, I don’t buy it. Nor were they killed because of their dealership, unless that’s tangential. I can’t think of a rival wishing to wipe them out.”

“That is pretty far-fetched.”

“I believe this goes back to their work days, the Navy and the foreign service.”

“How can their deaths be connected to that?”

“I’m not sure, but I believe they are, and I think it involves their fluency with languages.”

A silence followed this. “That’s an intriguing supposition, but I’m not sure I get it.”

“I’m not either. I’m rummaging around. Then there was the disappearance of Paula Devlin, another person in the foreign service and CIA.”

“Harry, I’m not sure where you are going with this. I adored Paula. She was sensible. I know a lot of CIA people. The ones in Washington, in the building, if you will, and some in the field. Many retire and can be more open about their careers. Most don’t talk about it. Perhaps you shouldn’t either.”

“Well, I am not CIA, not foreign service, not military, although I respect those careers.” She took a moment. “Arlene, I believe you might be in danger.”

“Me?” came the incredulous reply.

“You knew them all. You knew them stateside. Then with beagling. You knew them better over time.”

“Harry, I am in no danger.”

“Arlene, you could be killed. I believe it.”

“No one is going to kill me.”

“Humor me.”

“I am.”

“No, really humor me. Meet me at the Institute and let’s walk through where the bodies were found, what we know, and what we don’t know.”

“Why don’t you come to Hume? You’ve never been to my place. I think you’ll like it. Bring your animals. We can talk here.”

“No, thank you. I would like to see it, but I would like to walk through the Institute grounds with you. Maybe between the two of us, we’ll hit on something.”

Knowing this was a losing battle, Arlene asked, “When?”

“How about tomorrow at noon? If that doesn’t work, next Wednesday.”

“Sooner is better.” A pause. “Have you run these ideas by Susan?”

“Not fully.”

“Good. No point scaring her to death. Noon at the Institute building. If we don’t find anything, will you let this go?”

“I will. I promise, but if we do figure this out, we can both go to the authorities.”

“All right,” came the unenthusiastic reply.

A half hour later, as Harry totaled up the barn expenses for the first two weeks of May, the phone rang.

Reverend Jones’s deep voice announced, “Did you know that some members of the Dorcas Guild had an unscheduled meeting here this morning?”

“No.”

“Janice called it to prepare for homecoming. In this case a true mailing, an invitation card.”

“That’s probably not a bad idea, but I wish they’d included Susan or myself.”

“When I came into my office I found Mags and Janice going through my files! I told them never to do that without asking permission.”

“Right.”

He continued. “They said they were looking for an updated address book.”

Harry murmured, “None of us has one, but it was rude.”

After a bit more discussion, Harry hung up the phone. She felt she’d need to keep an eye on Janice and Mags. Something wasn’t right, but that something was going to have to wait, for Aldie commanded her complete attention.