Whiskers In The Dark

40

May 12, 2018

Saturday

Light fragrances filled Harry’s nostrils. Finally a true spring. Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, and Pirate sat on the Institute porch. Arlene drove in on time, for Harry, per usual was early, parking at the stone building.

Harry leaned over the porch railing. “Perfect timing.”

Arlene shut the door to her Subaru Forester, looking up. “I was in the Army, remember. Zero dark forty and stuff like that.”

They both laughed as Harry came down the stairs to greet her, her four friends behind her. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Harry, although I truly believe I am safe.”

“Let’s walk a bit.” She started away from the Institute, passing the stables, the canary cart visible as only yellow can be. “The ground isn’t soggy. Feels good.”

“Does.”

“My neighbor and dear friend is a deputy for the Albemarle County Sheriff’s Department, Cynthia Cooper. I bedevil her. I’ve asked her, since she can procure information that I can’t, would she keep me informed if there’s a development here or with the medical examiner before anything is made public, if it is. She told me yesterday that Clare’s autopsy showed she had been poisoned with tetrodotoxin. From blowfish liver, can you believe it? Just a small amount, one to two milligrams, can kill. Causes paralysis, slow at first, just a little woozy, a little numbness. Then the nerve systems begin to fail, then the throat muscles, finally asphyxiation.”

“Tetrodotoxin?” Arlene looked skeptical. “How can you test for that? It can’t be detected.”

“So you’ve heard of it?” Harry watched Arlene.

Arlene dropped her head. “You were right. Two deaths, connected most likely.”

“This isn’t about selling cars.”

“No,” Arlene replied evenly.

“Let’s go to where Jason was found.”

They walked up the farm road, crossed the creek burbling along, reached the top of the hill, pastures on both sides, woods at the edge of the pastures. Good bunny territory, as there was cover.

Arlene, hands on hips, looked around. “Odd, isn’t it? Cavalrymen buried out here. Jason dropped here. Not that we know exactly where those men are, but sometimes I think Aldie truly is haunted.”

“Me, too. You don’t seem especially worried about Clare being poisoned.”

“I told you. I don’t think I’m going to be murdered.”

“But you knew them for years.” Tucker nudged closer to her as Ruffy bounded up to join them.

“In a professional capacity and not that well. Jason more than Clare because I was assigned to the State Department for a time.”

“But you liked Jason and Clare?”

“I got along with them. I enjoyed hunting with them. I hunted with them at their territory, but I wouldn’t say we were close, which is why I’m not worried.”

Harry swept her eyes over the pleasant land, heard some birds chirping loudly.

Bud the chickadee swooped low near the dogs but not too close to the cats. “Six eggs!”

“Congratulations.” Tucker praised the bird, who swooped again, then headed for a bird box at the woods’ edge.

The Beagle Club had put out quite a few bird boxes to encourage all manner of them.

“Saucy.” Harry grinned.

“They are.” Arlene also swept her eye over the area. “He was just off the road, over this little rise here.” She stepped to the place that they had revisited with Clare. “I don’t think he suffered.”

“I’m not sure either one did, Arlene. Quick deaths. He knew who killed him. I’m convinced of that.”

“Yes, me, too.” Arlene inhaled the fresh odor of spring. “I wonder how many are out there. Who? When? Where?”

“We know the when,” Harry posited. “Back to our time. I have racked my brain and I know this language stuff matters. So hear me out. What if they had discovered someone or someones here who were working against our country’s interests? We know that Clare was CIA. As to Jason, no, but he surely had access to sensitive information as he advanced in his career. They would suspect before the rest of us. Maybe they got too close.”

“No,” Arlene replied emphatically.

“Well, why not?”

“Neither of those two had that kind of courage. I know Clare was a captain in the Navy. I don’t doubt she was good at what she did, but she wasn’t on anyone’s front line.”

“She listened.”

“That she did, and I don’t doubt that over time she could recognize voices, as could Jason. Jason, of course, was expected to contact people in the Turkish government. He had an easy way about him. He made friends, I bet.”

“The other thing I’ve thought about is Paula Devlin. She, too, had a sensitive career and she disappeared. Three people.”

“Two were married. They ran a business. Paula wasn’t tied in to them.”

“But they knew her.”

“We all knew one another. Paula was a bubbly person, always up for something. She knew French and German. Think I got that right. I could understand basic French conversation, you know, stuff like ‘May I have a glass of water?’ I’m not too good with languages.”

“Me neither, except for Latin. Started in middle school. You could then and I went straight through. Helped me at Smith.”

“I forget you attended Smith. That’s probably why you’re so smart. Let’s sit on this log here. My legs are tired. I walked for miles yesterday with my Blastoff kids.”

“Maybe Paula knew something or maybe she was selling secrets?”

Arlene’s back stiffened. “Paula was blue chip. She would never, never do anything to jeopardize our country.”

“Well, she’s dead. She must have figured out something, and now Jason and Clare are dead. Maybe there’s a political reason for that, too.”

“No doubt.”

“We should go to the sheriff’s department.”

“We should not.” Arlene reached over to scratch Pirate’s ears.

“Well, you need protection.”

“I do not. You’re jumping to conclusions. I am in no danger, not a bit. Your theory is interesting, but no one is going to listen to a ‘what if.’ ”

“We should at least go to Geoff and Jan Ogden. They’ll know what to do and they liked Paula.”

“They will know what to do, which is to stay quiet.”

“Aha. So you do think this has something to do with national secrets.”

A long pause followed this. Ruffy rubbed against Arlene’s leg. She felt a cool little puff of breeze.

“I do.”

“I knew it. I knew it.” Harry was triumphant as her animals looked up at her.

“Do you think murderers should be punished?”

“Of course I do.”

“All right. In the main I agree with you, but what if someone is killed to protect our country or to even the score.”

“Well—I don’t know.”

The animals could smell Arlene and knew that she knew something. People give off various scents. Sweat is obvious, but there are others. The one that amused the dogs and cats the most was when a human was attracted to another human. The scent changed. The other human might also be attracted but neither knew their noses were leading them to a possible union.

“I don’t know if you will correctly figure this out, but you’ll dog me, hound me, forgive the pun since we both hunt behind the hounds.”

“You do know something. You are in danger.”

“I am not in danger but yes, I do know something.” She opened her arm, moving it across the meadows, as it were. “I believe Paula is out there somewhere. I know she was killed. Ruffy, her shadow, never came home, so I think Ruffy was killed with her. I mourned her for a long, long time. I still pray for her. A devoted public servant deserves our memory. A woman who loved her country, she was a spy. Not a pretty word, but she was. Her work involved risk. Her cover was good but nonetheless.”

“Did she talk to you about what she’d seen and done?”

“Oh, some things. But let’s consider spying for a moment. It’s a ghastly game. Annually millions, possibly more, are spent on this. Money that might feed people. Even allies spy on one another. You can imagine what enemies do.”

“Meddle in our elections.”

Arlene shrugged. “Why is anyone surprised, really? And do we know all of what we’re doing? I’m not saying it’s moral, but I am saying it’s necessary.”

“Okay. But who do you think Jason, Clare, and perhaps Paula were close to exposing? Something or someone?”

“Jason and Clare were not. Paula was. Let’s think about spying again. Our Revolutionary War. If John André had not been captured, a man of great personal charm, we would not have discovered that Benedict Arnold was a traitor, ready to hand over West Point to the British. They would have controlled the Hudson. They were rich, had a professional army and navy, and they would have hanged many of us had they won. Spying is necessary and dangerous.”

“Nathan Hale, ‘I regret that I have only one life to give for my country.’ ” Harry recalled a bit of her schooling.

“Paula died for her country.”

“What?” Harry swiveled to look directly at Arlene.

“She slowly put the pieces together. The Russians wanted information about the Turks. They would pay for this. Clare could be helpful. She and Jason were not yet married, but they were getting close. She would not be selling them anything, but she could put the person she was talking to in contact with Jason. So in this way, the path was not direct, but Jason gave good information. He split the money with Clare. Over time they became even closer.”

“Does that endanger us?”

“Not necessarily, although it is a violation of everything one is taught in the foreign service and in the military. However, as time went on, Clare and Jason, who Paula believed concocted this in their time together in Paris, were offered quite large sums of money, ultimately a few million, if they would give information about our country once they returned, still in service, of course.”

“Like military stuff?”

“Not so much. The Russians study us more than we study ourselves. So do the Chinese and even our allies, the English, the French, the Germans. They realized the media was creating real problems, hatreds. Let me tell you something, Harry. No one turns off their TV or electronic device because they’re angry. They turn it off because they’re bored. Sell fear. Sell hate. People will be mesmerized, glued to the set. And the advertising budgets will soar, which is exactly what has happened. Doesn’t matter if you’re watching a talking head from the right or the left, the newscaster acting as though he or she is really giving you the news, those dreary talk shows on Sunday where pompous assholes, forgive my language, declaim what is happening in Washington. So-and-so of the Democratic Party will raise your taxes, destroy your wealth. So-and-so of the Republican Party will favor the rich while the poor go hungry. I could go on. But the electronic media makes so much money. Billions by now if you added it all up. Jason knew communication. He could direct our enemies to the correct formats. False news could be fed into people’s computers, their phones. For him, this would be easy. As for supplying the TV types, a piece of cake. It’s kind of like the corruption running all through our country. Everything is commercially driven. No one gives a damn about the people, about the country, as long as they make money. Paula did. So do I.”

Harry breathed deeply. “You’re telling me you killed Jason and Clare.”

“Ah, Harry, Smith College turned out a truly smart woman. Then again, you were smart or they wouldn’t have admitted you.”

“Did you?”

“The short answer is yes. The last time I spoke with Paula, we both met in Washington, one of those expensive but really good K Street restaurants. She laid out what she had uncovered. She didn’t have it all together, but she had it. She wanted the name of the Russian operative, the Turkish operative, too. She didn’t want to go to her old bosses and look a fool. If she had names, she’d be listened to. She didn’t need to show how much money it took to buy the dealership. That’s on record. Where the money came from, well, it’s clearly concealed as saved salary and investments. She also couldn’t trace the rest of the funds to Switzerland, but she was certain they were there. It’s where everything winds up.” Arlene half laughed.

“I don’t know if I would have figured it out correctly.”

“You were on a track. You could have endangered yourself, although the Russian, whoever he or she is, I doubt would worry about it. That person is probably back in Moscow or St. Petersburg or in a fabulous dacha. I am in no danger.”

“I can scratch your eyes out.” Pewter puffed up. “I am terrifying.”

“Wait,” Mrs. Murphy commanded.

“Am I?”

“Let me ask you this. Would you kill for your country?”

“I, yes, I think I would, but the damage was already done. You didn’t kill for your country.”

“No.” A long sigh followed this. “No. But Paula died for us. She was doing her duty. If she could have brought them to justice, had them arrested, we would know more and possibly be able to better safeguard America in the future.”

“That’s true.” Harry should have been frightened but her curiosity overrode her fear.

“She was my friend. I loved her. Imagine if someone had killed Susan. Wouldn’t you seek revenge if they went unpunished, were wildly successful to boot?”

“I—” Harry thought a long time. “Yes.”

“She was my friend. I loved her. I even loved her little beagle. When they disappeared, I somewhat consoled myself by knowing she didn’t die alone. Silly.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No. I admire you. I like you, Harry. You don’t give up. And if you turned me in, it would be your word against mine. And the law-enforcement people would have to figure out how I killed them. Well, Jason is obvious. I am hoping you will choose silence.”

“Clare?”

“She had a headache. I had those pills, had them for months thinking I would eventually slip them into a drink. Instead, I handed them to her. She took them. Who would notice? Blowfish is undetectable in the bloodstream, flushes out within hours.”

“It stays in the urine for up to four days. In consideration of the circumstances of Jason’s death, the medical examiner’s office decided to run a more extensive toxicology panel. There is a slim possibility that it was from accidental ingestion of tainted food, even though we didn’t have anything on the menu like blowfish.” Harry smiled wryly. “It’s like super food poisoning. Kind of like ‘The Purloined Letter.’ It wasn’t hidden. Out in the open.”

Arlene nodded. “More or less. Easily available for someone with contacts all over the world.”

She stood up. “I think Paula’s here. She would have readily met them here, or one of them. I don’t know if Jason or Clare did the deed or if they both did. Aldie is the perfect place. Killing her on their territory wouldn’t be wise, nor on hers. Here, well, it’s full of ghosts. If we haven’t been able to find the cavalrymen from 1863, we won’t find Paula.”

Harry stood up, too, looked again at the expanse. “I don’t understand people.”

“I understand them only too well.” Arlene exhaled. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

Harry shrugged. “I didn’t know her, of course, but she did her duty for us. I’ll pray for her.”

They turned to walk back to the Institute.

Ruffy smiled at his friends. “She can be at peace. Justice is one thing. Peace is another.”

“She had a good friend,” Tucker said. “Arlene.”

“Come on, you rascals.” Harry called to her friends.

Arlene smiled. “If I had made a move toward you, I think I would have been attacked.”

“Scratch your eyes out!” Pewter spat.

“Bite your legs,” Tucker promised.

“Push you over,” the ever-growing Irish wolfhound threatened.

“Climb up your back and claw your face while Pewter climbed up your front.” Mrs. Murphy said exactly what Pewter wanted to hear.

As they took a few steps onto the farm road, Tucker turned around to see Ruffy walking with his human.

“Look,” the corgi announced.

The other three watched, Ruffy’s tail wagging, looking up at the human ghost.

“Love never dies,” Mrs. Murphy said.