Wish You Were Here

11

The prospect of the weekend lightened Harry’s step as she walked along Railroad Avenue, shiny from last night’s late thunderstorm, which had done nothing to lower the exalted temperature. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, forgiven, scampered ahead.

The moment she caught sight of them, Pewter tore down the avenue to greet them.

“I didn’t know she could move that fast.” Harry whistled out loud.

When Pewter ran, the flab under her belly swayed from side to side. She started yelling half a block away from her friends. “I’ve been waiting outside the store for you!”

Panting, Pewter slid to a stop at Tucker’s feet.

Harry, thinking that the animal had exhausted herself, stooped to pick her up. “Poor Fatty.”

“Lemme go.” Pewter wiggled free.

“What is it?” Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Harry’s legs to make her feel better.

“Maude Bly Modena.” The chartreuse eyes glittered. “Dead!”

“How?” Mrs. Murphy wanted details.

“Train ran over her.”

“In her car, you mean?” Tucker was impatient waiting for Pewter to catch her breath as they continued walking toward the post office.

“No!” Pewter picked up the pace. “Worse than that.”

“Pewter, I’ve never heard you so chatty.” Harry beamed.

Pewter replied. “If you’d pay attention you might learn something.” She turned to Mrs. Murphy. “They think they’re so smart but they only pay attention to themselves. Humans only listen to humans and half the time they don’t do that.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Murphy wanted to say “Get on with it,” but she prudently bit her lip.

“As I was saying, it was worse than that. She was tied to the track, I don’t know where exactly, but when the six o’clock came through this morning, the engineer couldn’t stop in time. Cut her into three pieces.”

“How’d you find out?” Tucker blinked at the thought of the grisly sight.

“Unfortunately, Courtney heard about it first. Market let her come in and open up for the farm trade, the five A.M., crew. The Rescue Squad roared by—Rick Shaw too. Officer Cooper, in the second squad car, ran in for coffee. That’s how we found out. Courtney phoned Market and he came right down. There’s some weirdo out there killing people.”

“Like a serial killer, you mean?” Tucker was very concerned for Harry’s safety.

“It’s bad enough that humans kill once.” Pewter sucked in her breath. “But every now and then they throw one who wants to kill over and over.”

Mrs. Murphy murmured, “I liked Maude.”

“I did too.” Tucker hung her head. “Why don’t people kill their sick young like we do? Why do they let them live and cause damage?”

“Well, as I understand it, these psychos”—Pewter had an opinion on everything—“can appear mentally normal.”

“That’s no excuse for the ones they know are nuts from the beginning.” Mrs. Murphy couldn’t cover her distress.

“They think it’s wrong to weed out litters.” Tucker’s claws clicked on the pavement.

“Yeah, they let the sickies grow up and kill them instead.” Pewter laughed a harsh laugh. “No one better come after Courtney or Market. I’ll scratch their eyes out.”

Harry noticed the three animals were attentive to one another.

“Whoever this is has something to cover up,” Mrs. Murphy thought out loud.

“Yes, they have to cover up that they’re demented and they’ll kill again, during a full moon, I bet,” Pewter said.

“No. I don’t mean that.” Mrs. Murphy’s eyes became slits. Tucker had lived with Mrs. Murphy since she was a six-week-old puppy. She knew how the cat thought. “This person is after something—or has something to hide. It might not be a thrill killer.”

“Don’t you find it peculiar that he or she leaves the bodies about? Doesn’t a killer try and bury the body?” Pewter figured that’s what vultures were for, but then, people were different.

“That struck me about Kelly’s body.” Mrs. Murphy ignored a caterpillar, so intense was her concentration. “The killer is displaying the bodies . . .” Her voice drifted off because Market Shiflett emerged from his store and was waving at Harry.

“Harry, Harry!”

Harry heard the fear in his voice and ran down to the store. “What’s the matter?”

“S’awful, just awful.”

Harry put her arm around him. “Are you all right? Want me to call the Doc?” She meant Hayden McIntire.

Market nodded he was fine. “It’s not me, Harry. It’s another murder—Maude Bly Modena.”

“What?!” Harry’s color fled from her cheeks.

“I’m keeping my girl inside. There’s a monster out there!”

“What happened, Market?” Harry, shocked, put her hand against the store window to steady herself.

“That poor woman was tied to the railroad tracks like in some silent movie. The fellow saw her—the brakeman, I guess, on the morning passenger train—but too late, too late. Oh, that poor woman.” His lower lip trembled.

“Who else knows?” Harry’s mind was moving at the speed of light.

“Why do you ask?” Market was surprised at the question.

“I’m not sure, Market, I . . . Woman’s intuition.”

“Do you know something?” His voice rose.

“No, I don’t know a damn thing but I’m going to find out. This has to stop!”

“Well”—Market rubbed his chin—“Courtney knows, Rick Shaw and Officer Cooper, and Clai and Diana of the Rescue Squad, of course. Train people know, including the passengers. Train stopped. A lot of people know.”

“Yes, yes.” Her voice trailed off.

“What are you thinking?”

“That I wish so many people didn’t know already. Controlling the information might have been a way to snag a clue.”

“Yeah.” The phone rang inside. “I’ve got to pick that up. Let’s stick together, Harry.”

“You bet.”

Market opened the door and Pewter scooted in, calling her goodbyes over her shoulder.

A miserable Harry unlocked the door to the post office, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker behind.

“Come on.”

Mrs. Murphy looked at Tucker. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

Tucker replied, “Yes, but we don’t know where.”

“Damn!” Mrs. Murphy fluffed her tail in fury and walked dramatically into the post office.

Tucker followed as Harry picked up the phone and started dialing. “It could be miles and miles from here.”

“I know!” Mrs. Murphy crabbed. “And we’ll lose the scent—if it’s there.”

“It held a little bit the other time. That day was stinky hot too.”

Mrs. Murphy leaned up against the corgi. “I hope so. Buddy-bud, we’re going to have to use our powers to get to the bottom of this. Harry’s smart but her nose is bad. Her ears aren’t too good either. People can’t move very fast. We’ve got to find out who’s doing this so we can protect her.”

“I’ll die before I let anyone hurt Harry!” Tucker barked loudly.

“Susan, there’s been another murder.”

“I’ll be right there,” Susan replied.

She started to dial Fair at the clinic but hung up the phone. It was a knee-jerk reaction to call him.

“Rick Shaw came by for Ned,” Susan said as Harry unlocked the front door. It was 7:30 A.M.

“What’s he want with Ned?”

“He wants him to organize a Citizen’s Alert group. Harry, this is unbelievable. This is Crozet, Virginia, for Pete’s sake, not New York City.”

“Unbelievable or not, it’s happening. Did Rick say anything about Maude?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, was she alive when she was run over?” Harry’s entire body twitched at the thought and a wave of nausea engulfed her.

“I thought of that too. I asked him. He said they didn’t know but they believed not. The coroner would know exactly when she died.”

“If Rick said that, it means she was dead already. I mean, you’d have to be pretty stupid not to tell after a certain point. Did he say anything else?”

“Only that it happened out near the Greenwood tunnel, out on that first part of track.”

Harry said, almost to herself, “What was she doing out that far?”

“God only knows.” Susan sniffed. “What if this—this creature starts after our children?”

“That’s not going to happen. I’m sure of it.”

“How would you know?” A note of anger crept into Susan’s voice.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore your concern for the children, and you should keep the kids in at night. It’s just that—well, I don’t know. A feeling.”

“There’s a madman loose! Tell me what Kelly Craycroft and Maude Bly Modena had in common! Tell me that!”

“If we can figure that out, we might catch the killer.” Command rang through Harry’s voice. She was a born leader, although she never acknowledged it and even avoided groups.

Susan knew Harry had made up her mind. “You aren’t trained in this sort of thing.”

“Neither are you. Will you help me?”

“What do I have to do?”

“The police ask routine questions. That’s fine, because they learn a lot. We need to ask different questions—not just ‘Where were you on the night of . . . ?’ but ‘How did you feel about Kelly’s Ferrari and how did you feel about Maude’s big success with her store?’ Emotions. Maybe emotions will get us closer to an answer.”

“Count me in.”

“I’ll take Mrs. Hogendobber and Little Marilyn for starters. How about if you take BoomBoom and Mim. No, wait. Let me take BoomBoom. I have my reasons. You take Little Marilyn.”

“Okay.”

Rob sailed through the front door. He dropped the mail sacks like lead when Harry told him the news. He absolutely couldn’t believe this was happening, but who could?

Tucker and Mrs. Murphy overheard Harry reveal the location of the murder.

“We can’t get there by ourselves unless we’re willing to be gone an entire day.”

“Can’t do that.” Tucker pulled at her collar. The metal rabies tag tinkled.

“So, how are we going to get out there? We need Harry to take us in the truck.”

“Half of Crozet will go out there. People have a morbid curiosity,” Tucker observed.

“When she gets in that truck, no matter when, we’d better pitch a fit.”

“Gotcha.”

Mrs. Hogendobber was stopped by Market Shiflett as she ascended the post office steps. She emitted a piercing yell upon hearing the news.

Josiah, crossing the street, hesitated for a split second and then came over to see what was amiss.

“This is the work of the Devil!” Mrs. Hogendobber put her hand on the wall for support.

“It’s shocking.” Josiah tried to sound comforting but he never would like Mrs. Hogendobber. “Come on, Mrs. H., let me help you inside the post office.” He swung open the door.

“When did you hear?” Mrs. Hogendobber’s voice sounded even.

“On the radio this morning.” Josiah fanned Mrs. H., now sitting by the stamp meter. “Would you like me to take you home?” Josiah offered.

“No, I came for my mail and I’m going to get it.” Resolutely, Mrs. Hogendobber stood up and strode to her postal box.

Harry and Josiah followed her as Fair screeched up out front, killing the engine before turning off the key as his foot slipped off the clutch.

“You could have come right through the window,” Mrs. Hogendobber admonished him.

Fair shut the door behind him. “I thought I’d give the taxpayers a break and not do that.”

“This old building could use a rehab.” Josiah turned the key in his box.

“Do you know about that sweet Maude Bly Modena? Murdered! In cold blood.” Mrs. Hogendobber breathed heavily again.

“Now, now, don’t get yourself overexcited,” Josiah warned her.

“Quite right.” Mrs. Hogendobber controlled herself. “So much evil in the land. Still, I never thought it would come home.” She touched her eyebrow, trying to remember. “The last bad thing that happened here—apart from the drunken-driving accidents—why, that would be the robberies at the Farmington Country Club. Remember?”

“That was in 1978.” Harry recalled the incident. “A gang of high-class thieves broke into the homes there and took the silver and the antiques.”

“And left the silver plate.” Mrs. Hogendobber didn’t realize how funny that was and couldn’t understand why, for a moment, Harry, Fair, and Josiah laughed.

“The theft wasn’t funny, Mrs. H.,” Harry explained. “But on top of being robbed, everyone would find out who had good stuff and who didn’t. I mean, it added insult to injury.”

Mrs. Hogendobber found no humor in it and made a harrumphf. “Well, this has been too much for one morning. I bid you adieu.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to see you home?” Josiah offered again.

“No . . . thank you.” And she was gone.

“Didn’t they find that stuff stashed in a barn in Falling Water, West Virginia?” Fair asked.

“They did, and that was a stupid place to put it too.” Josiah shut his mailbox.

“Why?” Harry asked.

“Putting exquisite pieces like that in a barn. Rodents could chew them or defecate on the furniture. The elements could expand and contract the woods. Just dumb. They knew good stuff from bad but they didn’t know how to take care of it.”

“Maybe they packed them up or crated them.” Fair wasn’t very knowledgeable about antiques.

“No, I remember the TV reports. They showed the inside of the barn.” Josiah shook his head. “No matter, that’s small beer compared to . . . this.” He walked over to the counter where Fair was leaning. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about you, Harry?” Josiah’s face registered concern.

“I think whoever did this was one of us. Someone we know and trust.”

Josiah instinctively stepped back. “Why do you think that?”

“What’s the killer doing? Flying in and out of Charlottesville to murder his victims? It has to be a local.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be someone from Crozet.” Josiah was offended at the idea.

“Why not? It’s not so strange when you think about it.” Fair ran his fingers through his thick hair. “Something goes wrong between friends or lovers; the hurt person blows. It can happen here. It has happened here.”

Josiah slowly walked to the door and put his hand on the worn doorknob. “I don’t like to think about it. Maybe it will stop now.” He left and for good measure circled around the post office to Mrs. Hogendobber’s house to make sure she arrived home safely.

“What can I do for you?” Harry, even-toned, asked Fair.

“Oh, nothing. I heard on the way to work and I thought I’d see if you were all right. You liked Maude.”

Harry, touched, lowered her eyes. “Thanks, Fair. I did like Maude.”

“We all did.”

“That’s it. That’s what I need to find out. We all liked Maude. We mostly liked Kelly Craycroft. To the eye, everything looks normal. Underneath, something’s horribly wrong.”

“Find the motive and you find the killer,” Fair said.

“Unless he or she finds you first.”

12

Harry paused before knocking on BoomBoom Craycroft’s dark-blue front door. She’d brought the cat and the dog along because when she left for her lunch break the animals carried on like dervishes. First the ficus tree, now this. Must be the heat. She glanced over her shoulder. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, good as gold, sat in the front seat of the truck. The windows, wide open, gave them air but it was too hot to be in the truck. She turned around and opened the truck door.

“Now, you stay here.”

The minute Harry disappeared through the front door of the Craycroft house, that order was forgotten.

BoomBoom’s West Highland white shot around from behind the back of the house. “Who’s here? Who’s here, and you’d better have a good reason to be here!”

“It’s us, Reggie,” Tucker said.

“So it is.” Reggie wagged his tail and touched noses with Tucker. He touched noses with Mrs. Murphy, too, even though she was a cat. Reggie had manners.

“How are you?”

“As good as can be expected.”

“Bad, huh?” Tucker was sympathetic.

“She’s just grim. Never smiles. I wish I could do something for her. I miss him too. He was a lot of fun, Kelly.”

“Do you have any idea what happened? Did he take you places that humans didn’t know about?” Mrs. Murphy asked.

“No. I’m supposed to be a house dog. I’ve seen the concrete plant a few times but that’s it.”

“Did he seem worried recently?”

“No, he was happy as a dog with a bone. Every time he made money he was happy and he made lots of it. Bones to them, I guess. He wasn’t home much but when he was, he was happy.”

Inside, Harry wasn’t getting much from BoomBoom either.

“A nightmare.” BoomBoom snapped open her platinum cigarette case. “And now Maude. Does anyone know if she has people?”

“No. Susan Tucker offered to put up the relatives but Rick Shaw told her that Maude had no siblings and her parents were dead.”

“Who’s going to claim the body?” BoomBoom, having undergone a funeral, was keenly aware of the technical responsibilities.

“I don’t know but I’ll be sure to mention that to Susan.”

“I’ve gone over that last day a thousand times in my head, Harry. I’ve gone over the week before and the week before that and I can’t think of a thing. Not a sign, not a hint, not anything. He kept me separate from the business but I had little interest in it anyway. Concrete and pouring foundations and roadbeds never was my idea of thrills.” BoomBoom lit her dark Nat Sherman cigarette. “If he roughed a man up in business, I wouldn’t know.”

“Kelly might have crossed someone. He was very competitive.” Harry picked up a crystal ashtray with a silver rim around it and felt its perfect proportions.

“He liked to win, I’ll grant you that, but I don’t think he was unfair. At least, he wasn’t with me. Look, Harry, we’ve known each other since we were children. You know for the last few years Kelly and I were almost more like brother and sister than husband and wife, but he was a good friend to me. He was . . . good.” Her voice got thick.

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could say or do something.” Harry touched her hand.

“You’ve been kind to call on me. I never knew how many friends I had. He had. People have been wonderful—and I can be hard to be wonderful to . . . sometimes.”

Harry thought to herself that someone was being anything but wonderful. Which one? Who? Why?

BoomBoom mused, “Kelly would have been amazed to see how many people did love him.”

“Perhaps he knows. I’d like to think that.”

“Yes, I’d like to think that too.”

Harry put the ashtray back. She paused. “Have the cops gone over everything? His office?”

“Even his office here at home. The only thing on his desk the day he died was the day’s mail.”

“May I peek in the office? I don’t want to be rude, but I think if there’s anything that we can do to help Rick Shaw, we should. Perhaps if I poke around I’ll find a clue. Even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes.”

“You’ve read too many mysteries sitting there in the post office.” BoomBoom stood up and Harry did also.

“Spy thrillers this year.”

“And for that you went to Smith College?” BoomBoom felt Harry should do more with her life, but who was she to judge? BoomBoom truly was the idle rich.

The walnut paneling glowed in the bright afternoon light. Neatly placed in the middle of an unblemished desk pad bound by red Moroccan leather was Kelly’s mail.

“May I?” Harry didn’t reach for the mail.

“Yes.”

Harry picked it up and rifled through the letters, including the postcard, the beautiful postcard of Oscar Wilde’s tombstone. She replaced the mail as she found it. At that moment she was more concerned with a certain evasiveness BoomBoom displayed toward her. She and BoomBoom got along well enough, but today there was something not right between them.

It wasn’t until later, when she had left BoomBoom and was rumbling past the tiny trailer park on Route 240, that she realized Maude had received a postcard of a beautiful tombstone as well. With the same inscription: “Wish you were here.” My God, someone was telling them, I wish you were dead. It was a sick joke. She put her pedal to the metal.

“Hey, slow down,” Mrs. Murphy said. “I don’t like to drive fast.”

Harry careened into Susan’s manicured driveway, hit the brakes, and vaulted out of the truck. The cat and dog hit the turf too.

Susan stuck her head out the upstairs window. “You’ll kill yourself driving that old truck like that.”

“I found something.”

Susan raced down the stairs and flung open the front door. Harry told Susan what she discovered, swore her to secrecy, and then they called Rick Shaw. He wasn’t there, so Officer Cooper received the information.

Harry hung up the phone. “She didn’t seem very excited about it.”

“They shag so many leads. How’s she to know if this is anything special?” Susan laced her sneakers. “Let’s hope another one doesn’t show up.”

“Damn, I forgot to look.”

“For what?”

“For the postmark on Kelly’s card. Was it from Paris?”

“Let’s go to Maude’s shop and look at the postcard she received.”

Maude’s shop, closed, beckoned the passerby. The window boxes burst with pink and purple petunias. The sidewalk was swept clean.

Susan tried the door. “Locked.”

Harry circled to the back and jimmied a window. The minute she got it open, Mrs. Murphy shot up on the windowsill and gracefully dropped into the shop. Harry followed and Susan handed Tucker to her and then followed herself.

The back room, an avalanche of packing materials, greeted them.

“I didn’t know there were that many plastic peanuts in the world,” Susan observed.

Harry made a beeline for Maude’s rolltop desk in the front room.

“What if someone sees you there?”

“They can report me for breaking and entering.” Harry snatched the mail, which was kept in boxes on the desk. “Found it!” She quickly flipped over the postcard. “Well, there goes that theory.”

“What’s it say?”

“Come here and read it. No one’s going to arrest us.”

Susan joined her. “‘Wish you were here.’ ” She then noticed the postmark. “Oh.” It read Asheville, North Carolina.

Harry slid open the center drawer. A huge ledger book, pencils, erasers, and a ruler rattled. She reached for the ledger book. Sometimes accounting columns tell a story.

Footsteps on the sidewalk made her freeze. She closed the drawer.

“Let’s get out of here,” Susan whispered.

When Harry returned to the post office and relieved Dr. Johnson, she called BoomBoom and asked her to look at the postcard. It was marked PARIS, REPUBLIC OF FRANCE.

Baffled, Harry put down the receiver. Okay, the postmarks confused her. Still, she wasn’t giving up. Those postcards were important. Whoever the killer was, he or she had a sense of humor, maybe even a sense of the absurd. Even the disposition of the corpses was macabre and trashy.

She racked her brain to think of who had a sharp sense of humor: everybody in Crozet except for Mrs. Hogendobber.

The shroud of mortality drew closer. Who could be next? Was she in danger? If only she could discover the link between Kelly and Maude, maybe she’d know that her friends would be safe. But if she discovered that link, she wouldn’t be safe.

13

Harry was taken aback by the number of people milling about the railroad track. Getting there wasn’t easy. People had to drive out to 691 and then cut right on 690. Bob Berryman, Josiah, Market, and Dr. Hayden McIntire glumly stared at the tracks.

When Mrs. Murphy and Tucker sped into the brush, Harry barely noticed.

Harry joined the men. She cast her eyes downward and saw blood spattered everywhere. Flies buzzed on the ground, feasting on what hadn’t soaked up. Even the creosote odor of the railroad ties didn’t blot out the sweltering odor of blood.

Josiah grimaced. “I had no idea that it could be so bad.”

“Considering how many pints of blood are in the human body—” Hayden spoke like a physician.

Berryman, sweating profusely, cut him off. “I don’t want to know.” He backed away to his four-wheel-drive Jeep. Ozzie howled inside, furious that he couldn’t get out. Berryman roared out of there, tearing hunks of earth as he went.

“I didn’t mean to upset him,” Hayden apologized.

“Don’t worry about it.” Market pinched his nose. “Damn, are we ghouls or what?”

“Of course not!” Josiah snapped. “Maybe we’ll find something the police didn’t. How much faith do you have in Rick Shaw? When he reads, his lips move.”

“He’s not that bad,” Harry protested.

“Well, he’s not that good.” Hayden stuck up for Josiah.

Harry swept her eyes along the tracks. The cat and dog rummaged in the high weeds and then burst onto the tracks about one hundred yards west of where she was standing. At least they’re happy, she thought.

“We know one thing,” Harry stated.

“What?” Market pinched his nose again.

“She walked here.”

“How do you know that?” Josiah peered intently at her features.

“Because there’s no sign that the grasses are beaten down. If she’d been dragged there’d be a path even though it rained. A human’s body is literally dead weight.” The smell was getting to Harry and she moved away from the track.

“She could have been carried.” Josiah joined her.

“Have to be a strong man.” Hayden moved off the track too. “Don’t know if the killer is male or female, although men commit over ninety percent of the murders in this country, statistically.”

Josiah replied, “Not exactly. The women are too smart to get caught.”

Market, the last to leave even though the stench turned his stomach, doubted that. “Maude was a good five feet ten inches. The road’s back a stretch. The strongest among us was Kelly. The next strongest is Fair. No one else could have carried her, other than Jim Sanburne, and he has a bum back.”

“A four-wheel-drive could have come up here.” Josiah watched the animals as they moved closer.

“Cooper said no tire tracks,” Market volunteered.

“She walked? So what?” Josiah thrust his hands into his pockets.

“Where was Fair last night?” Hayden asked, none too innocently.

“Ask him,” Harry shot back.

“She walked out here in the middle of the night?” Market was thinking out loud. “Why?”

“She liked her jogging and usually ran along the track,” Harry told them.

“Damn good jogger to get all the way out to Greenwood,” Market said.

“In the middle of the night?” Hayden rubbed his chin.

“Beat the heat,” Josiah offered. “Hey, how about Berryman getting squeamish like that?”

“He wasn’t squeamish in school,” Market recalled. “Hell, I saw the trainer stick a needle in his knee once during a football game. Took a bad hit, you know. Twisted his knee a bit. Anyway, Kooter Ashcomb—”

“I remember him!” Harry smiled.

Kooter was an old man by the time Harry attended Crozet High.

“Yeah, well, Kooter stuck a hypodermic needle right in his knee and drew out the fluid. Played the rest of the game, too.”

“We win?” Harry wondered.

“You bet.” Market folded his arms across his chest. Market liked remembering playing fullback a lot more than he liked the present.

“Back to Maude.” One line of perspiration rolled down the side of Harry’s face. “Did she come out here alone? Did she come out here to meet someone? Did she come out here with someone?”

“I had no idea you were so logical, Harry,” Josiah observed.

“Obvious questions and I’m sure Rick Shaw and company have asked them too.” Harry wiped away the sweat.

“Wish we could find some tracks.” Hayden, not being a hunting man, wouldn’t even know how to look.

In the distance, the finger of a dark thundercloud hooked over the Blue Ridge.

“No tracks if you walk on the train bed.” Harry felt bad. The reality of Maude’s death, the blood, began to press on her head. She felt a throbbing at her temples.

“There’s nothing here”—Josiah’s voice dropped—“except that.” He pointed up to the stained site.

“But there is! There is!” Tucker barked.

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker swarmed over the site of the murder. Harry mistook this for attraction to the blood.

“Get out of there!” she shouted.

“Don’t be mad at them, Harry. They’re only animals,” Market chided her.

“There’s something here! That same smell is here!” Tucker barked.

Harry ran up to the dog and collared her. “You come with me right now!”

Mrs. Murphy ran alongside Harry. “Don’t do that! Come back. Come back and sniff!”

Harry couldn’t go back and it was just as well, because if she’d gotten down on her hands and knees to catch the scent she would also have seen a few strands of Maude’s blood-soaked hair missed by the Sheriff’s Department. That would have done her in.

Tucker and Mrs. Murphy had thoroughly investigated the area around the murder location. Not until they examined the exact site did they catch the faint amphibian odor. No track, no line. But again it was in one place, although this time there was more of it than a dot. There were a few dots, fading fast.

But no one would listen to them and they rode home in disgrace with Harry, who thought the worst of her best friends.

Later that evening the thunderstorm lashed Crozet. Marilyn Sanburne was put out because the power failed and she had a soufflé in the oven. Jim, just back from his business trip, said the hell with it. They could eat sandwiches. He was also being driven wild by the telephone ringing. As the mayor of murder hamlet, as one reporter called it, Jim was expected to say something. He did. He told them to “fuck off,” and Mim screamed, “I hate the ‘f’ word.” She would have left to go visit one of her cronies, but the storm was too intense. Instead, she flounced into her room and slammed the door.

Bob Berryman drove around aimlessly. A huge tree ripped out by the high winds crashed across the road. He avoided hitting it. Shaken, he turned the truck around and drove some more. Ozzie sat next to him wondering what was going on.

14

BoomBoom Craycroft thought the worst of everybody. Much as she tried to keep her emotions to herself they kept spilling over, and since she wouldn’t express her sorrow, what she expressed was anger. Right now she was furious with Susan Tucker and she took a sabbatical on manners.

“I don’t give a good goddam what you think. And I don’t care if whoever killed Maude killed Kelly. I want whoever killed Kelly and I’m going to get him.”

Susan hung her head. To a passerby it would appear she was addressing her golf ball with her five iron, an unusual choice off the tee. “BoomBoom, calm yourself. You were the one who wanted to play golf. You said sitting home would drive you crazy.”

BoomBoom, warming up, swung her wood and dug up a clump of Farmington Country Club turf. If the greensman had been there he would have suffered a coronary. Susan, wordlessly, replaced BoomBoom’s divot, then hit a beauty off the tee.

“Been a woody and you’d be on the green,” BoomBoom advised. “I don’t know why I kept this golf date with you. You do the screwiest things on a golf course.”

“I still beat you.”

“Not today you won’t.” BoomBoom stuck the tee in the ground, put the ball on it, and without a practice swing, socked away. The ball rose with a pleasing loft and then veered left, only to disappear in the rough.

“Shit!” BoomBoom threw her club on the ground. Not satisfied, she stamped on it. “Shit! Fuck! Damn!”

Susan held her breath during the indiscriminate rampage, which concluded with BoomBoom turning her expensive leather golf bag upside down. Balls and gloves fell out of the open zippers. Exhausted from her fury, BoomBoom sat on the ground.

“Honey, it’s the pits.” Susan sat next to her and put her arm around her. “Would you like to go home?”

“No. I hate it there more than I hate it here.” BoomBoom shook when she inhaled. “Let’s play. I feel better when I’m moving. I’m sorry I yelled at you when you were giving me the third degree. I didn’t mind Rick Shaw so much but those grotesque news-people ought to be horsewhipped. I slammed the door in their faces. I just didn’t want to hear it from you.”

“I am really sorry. Harry and I think if those of us who know one another as friends snoop around we might find something. It’s a horrendous strain and I haven’t helped.”

“You have. I got to scream and holler and throw my bag on the ground. I feel better for it.” She nimbly got up, righted her bag.

Susan picked up the balls. “Here.” She noticed the brand name. “When did you buy these?”

“Last week. Ought to be gold-plated, the expensive buggers. See my initials on them.” She pointed to a red B.B.C. carefully incised into the gleaming white surface.

“How’d you do that?”

“I didn’t. Josiah did. He’s got tools for everything. He cracks me up, buying this gilded junk, making repairs on it, and then selling it to some parvenu for a bundle.”

“He is funny, though.” Susan reached her ball.

BoomBoom waited until Susan was midway into her backswing. “Josiah said Mim has a purse with a lock on it. Isn’t that perfect?” She laughed.

Naturally Susan’s shot was ruined. “Damn you.”

The ball plunked into the water, sending up a plume.

That made BoomBoom temporarily happy. She found her ball, walked around it as though it were a snake, and finally hit it out of the rough. Not a bad shot.

“If you do think of anything, you will tell me?”

“Yes.” BoomBoom picked up her bag. She wouldn’t use golf carts because that defeated the purpose of golf for her. On weekends she’d use one because the club forced her to, and she complained plenty about it. She even pointed out one fat board member at the Nineteenth Hole and declared if he’d get out of his golf cart and walk, he might stop resembling the Michelin tire boy.

Susan peered into the water. The Canada geese peered back at her as they glided by. She carried a ball retriever for this very purpose and with some finesse she liberated her ball from the depths.

“I ought to get one of those.”

“Especially when you’re paying what you’re paying for golf balls.” Susan folded the retriever back and placed it in her bag. She then dropped her ball.

“Why do you think this is the work of one person?” BoomBoom had quieted enough to return to Susan’s earlier question.

“Two gruesome murders—spectacularly gruesome—and within the same week.”

“That’s superficial evidence. The second murderer could be a copycat. The details of Kelly’s murder covered the front page of the paper, the evening news, and God knows what else. A person wouldn’t have to be too clever to figure out that the time is right to settle a score, and goodbye Maude Bly Modena.”

“I never thought of that.”

“I thought of something else too.”

“What?”

“Susan, what if the police aren’t telling us everything? What if they’re holding something back?”

“I never thought of that either.” Susan shuddered.

15

Rick Shaw hunched over another coroner’s report. Normally, the office sank into a stupor on weekends except for the drunk-driving jobs. Not this weekend. People were tense. He was tense, and the damned newspaper was keeping a reporter on his tail. The bird perched in the parking lot after he threw him out of the office.

There was no evidence of sexual abuse. The victim had been dead for two hours before the train ran over her, which the coroner also reported. However, there were no bullet wounds, no bruises on the neck, and no contusions of any sort. Again, there was a tiny trace of cyanide in the hair. Whoever was killing these people with cyanide knew a great deal about chemistry. He or she wasn’t wasting the cyanide. The killer took the victim’s body weight into account.

Rick shook his head and closed the report, then sidled over to Officer Cooper’s desk, where he filched a cigarette from an open pack. Illicit pleasure soon to be replaced by guilt, but not until the cigarette was smoked.

A deep draw soothed him. He’d have to remember to buy a pack of Tic Tacs on the way home or his wife would smell his breath. He studied a map of the county on the wall. The positions of the two bodies were in the same general vicinity, a few miles apart. The killer was most likely a local but not necessarily a Crozet resident. Albemarle County covered 743 square miles and anyone could drive in and out of Crozet fairly easily. Of course, they knew one another out there. A stranger would be reported. No such report. Even a resident of Charlottesville or a friend from out of town would be noticed. No such notice.

The postmistress and Market Shiflett were poised at the hub of social activity. Officer Cooper had mentioned that the postmistress had an idea about postcards. People usually think what they do is relevant, and Mary Minor Haristeen was no exception. He checked out the postcards within an hour of Harry’s call and the postmarks were from different locales.

Still, he decided to call Harry. After a few pleasantries he thanked her for being alert, said he’d examined the postcards and they seemed okay to him.

“Could I have them—temporarily?” Harry asked him.

He considered this. “Why?”

“I want to match them with the inks that I have in the office—just in case.”

“All right, if you promise not to harm them.”

“I won’t.”

“I’ll have Officer Cooper drop them by.”

After Rick Shaw’s call, Harry called Rob, and he agreed to “borrow” the first postcard from France that he came across at the main post office. She swore she’d give it back to him by the next day.

Then she remembered she was supposed to interrogate Mrs. Hogendobber. She called Mrs. H., who was surprised to hear from her but agreed on a tea-time get-together.

16

Mrs. Hogendobber served a suspiciously green tea. Little chocolate cupcakes oozing a tired marshmallow center reposed on a plate of Royal Doulton china. Mrs. Hogendobber snapped one up, devouring it at a gobble.

She reminded Harry of a human version of Pewter. Stifling a giggle, Harry reached for a leaking cupcake so as not to appear ungrateful for the sumptuous repast—well, repast.

“I stopped drinking caffeine. Made me testy.” Mrs. H.’s little finger curled when she held her cup. “I purged soft drinks, coffee, even orange pekoe teas from my household.”

Obviously, she had not purged refined sugar.

“I wish I had your willpower,” Harry said.

“Stick to it, my girl, stick to it!” Another chocolate delight disappeared between the pink-lipsticked lips.

Mrs. Hogendobber’s neat clapboard house was located on St. George Avenue, which ran roughly parallel to Railroad Avenue. A sweeping front porch with a swing afforded the large lady a vantage point. A trellis along the sides of the porch, choking with pink tea roses, allowed her to see everything while not being seen. The Good Lord said nothing about spying, so Mrs. Hogendobber spied with a vengeance. She chose to think of it as being curious about her fellow man.

“I’m so glad you agreed to see me,” Harry began.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Uh, well, come to think of it, why not?” Harry smiled, reminding Mrs. H. of when Harry was a cute seven-year-old.

“I’m here to, oh, root around for clues to the murders. The telling detail, thoughts—you’re so observant.”

“You have to get up early in the morning to put one over on me.” Mrs. H. lapped up the compliment, and truthfully, she didn’t miss much. “My late husband, God rest his soul, used to say, ‘Miranda, you were born with eyes in the back of your head.’ I could anticipate his wants and he thought I had special powers. No special powers. I was a good wife. I paid attention. It’s the little things that make a marriage, my dear. I hope you have reviewed your marriage and will reconsider your acts. I doubt there are any men out there better than Fair—only different. They’re all trouble in their unique ways.” She poured herself more tea and opened her mouth but no sound escaped. “Where was I?”

“. . . trouble in their unique ways.” Harry hardly thought of herself in those terms.

“If you’d kick off those sneakers and buy some nice smocks instead of those jeans, I think he’d come to his senses.”

“Love usually involves losing your senses, not coming to them.”

Mrs. H. pondered this. “Yes . . . yes.”

Before she could launch on to another tangent, Harry inquired, “What did you think of Maude Bly Modena?”

“I thought she was a Catholic. Italian-looking, you know. The shop proved how shrewd she was. Now I never socialized with her. My social life is the Church, and well, as I said, I think Maude was Catholic.” Mrs. Hogendobber cleared her throat on “Catholic.” “I, like yourself, only knew her for five years. Not a great deal of time but enough to get a feel for a person, I guess. She seemed quite fond of Josiah.”

“What did you feel then?”

The bosom heaved. She was dying to be allowed to wander into the subjective. “I felt that she was hiding something—always, always.”

“Like what?”

“I wish I knew. She didn’t cheat anyone at the shop. I never heard of her shortchanging or overcharging but there was something, oh, not quite right. She spoke very little of her background.” Unlike Mrs. Hogendobber, who fairly galloped down Memory Lane, given half a chance to speak of her past.

“She didn’t tell me much either. I assumed she was discreet. After all, she was a Yankee.”

“Not one of us, my dear, not one of us. Her manners were adequate. She missed the refinements, of course—they all do. But then there’s Mim, who is overrefined, if you ask me.”

“I liked her. I even grew accustomed to the accent.” Uneasiness crept into Harry’s heart. She felt that poor Maude wasn’t here to defend herself and she was sorry for asking about her.

“I couldn’t understand much of what she said. I relied on tone of voice, hand gestures, that sort of thing. I bet she’s from a Mafia family.”

“Why?”

“Well, she was Catholic and Italian.”

“It doesn’t follow that she was from a Mafia family.”

“No, but you can’t prove otherwise.”

Driving home, Harry started to laugh. It was all so horrible and horribly funny. Did a person have to die before you discovered the truth about her? As long as someone is alive the chance exists that whatever you have said about her will get back to her. Therefore, Harry and most of Crozet measured their words. You thought twice before you spoke, especially if you intended to say what you thought.

The other thing Harry learned from Mrs. Hogendobber was the time, occupants, and license plate number of every car that had rolled down St. George Avenue in the last twenty-four hours. The Citizens’ Alert was Mrs. Hogendobber’s opportunity to be rewarded for her natural nosiness.

17

Ned Tucker dreamed of sleeping late on Sunday mornings but the alarm clanged at 6:30 A.M. He opened his eyes, cut off the offending noise, and sat up. The digital clock blinked the time in a turquoise-blue color. It occurred to Ned that a generation of American children wouldn’t know how to tell time with a conventional clock. Then again, they couldn’t add and subtract either. Calculators performed that labor for them.

Harry said she hated digital clocks. They reminded her of little amputees. No hands. Ned smiled, thinking about Harry. Susan turned over and he smiled even more. His wife could sleep through an earthquake, a thunderstorm, you name it. He’d give her an extra forty-five minutes and feed the kids. The chores of fatherhood comforted him. What worried him was the example he set. He didn’t want to be a slave to his job but he didn’t want to be too lazy either. He didn’t want to be too stern but he didn’t want to be too lax. He didn’t want to treat his son any differently from his daughter but he knew he did. It was so much easier to love a daughter—but then, that was what Susan said about their son.

A shower and a shave brightened Ned; a cup of coffee popped him in gear. He’d need to awaken Brookie and Dan in twenty minutes to get them up for church. He decided to take what precious quiet time he had and peruse the bills. Everything was more expensive than it should have been and his heart dropped each time he wrote a check. First he scanned his bank statement. A five hundred dollar withdrawal last Monday really woke him up. He made no such withdrawal last Monday and neither did Susan. Anything over two hundred dollars had to be discussed between them. He wanted to crumple the statement but neatly put it aside. Couldn’t contact the bank until tomorrow anyway.

The telephone rang at seven o’clock. Ned picked it up. “Hello.”

“Ned, you’re up as early as I am so I hope I’m not being rude in calling.” Josiah DeWitt, mellow-voiced, sounded serious.

“What can I do for you?” Ned wondered.

“You are, were, Maudie’s lawyer, am I right?”

“Yes.” Ned hadn’t thought of Maude since he got up. Being reminded brought back the uneasiness, the nagging suspicions.

“Since she has no living relatives I’d like to claim the body”—he sighed—“or what’s left of it, and give her a decent burial. It’s not right that she be left to a potter’s field.”

As Josiah was tight as the bark on a tree, Ned was astonished. “I think we can work this out, Josiah,” he said, then added, “But if you’ll allow me, I’ll take up a collection for the interment. We should all pull our weight on this.”

“I’d be most grateful.” Josiah did sound relieved. “Do you know of anyone who might have a plot, who could help us out there?”

“I’ll ask Herbie Jones. He’ll know.” Herbie Jones was the minister at Crozet Lutheran Church.

“Do we even know what denomination Maude was?” Josiah asked.

“No, but Herb has always had a wide embrace. I don’t think he’d mind if she were a Muslim. Would you like me to inquire about a service also?”

“Yes—I think we should. And one more thing, Ned: I’d like to run her store and buy it when that’s feasible. I don’t know what paperwork will be involved but Maudie built a good business. It was her love, you know. I’ll keep it up in her honor, and for the profit too. She’ll come back to haunt me if I don’t make a profit.”

“She left her estate to the M.S. Foundation, so we will need to negotiate with them.”

“Really?” Josiah was consumed with interest but refrained from boring in.

“She had a brother who died from the disease.”

“You know more about Maude than any of us.” Josiah was envious.

“Not really. But I’ll do what I can. It would be wonderful to keep the shop going and I can’t see that the M.S. Foundation has the personnel or the desire to come out here to Crozet and sell packing materials. I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you.”

“No, Josiah, thank you. I wish Maude could know what good friends she had.” And he thought to himself that good friend or not, Josiah was quick to see a way to make more money.

18

A persistent owl hooted in the distance. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker padded in the moonlight toward Maude Bly Modena’s store. Tucker, restless, jauntily moved along, her tail wagging. They’d be back long before Harry woke up, so Tucker treated herself to small sniffs and explorations along the way.

As they approached the building Mrs. Murphy stiffened. Tucker stopped in her tracks.

“There’s someone in there,” Mrs. Murphy whispered. “Let me jump up on the window box. Maybe I can see who it is. You come sit by the front door. If he runs out, you can trip him.”

Tucker quickly hopped up the steps and lay flat against the door. The only sound was the click-click of her claws and the tinkle of her rabies tag.

Mrs. Murphy tiptoed the length of the window box. She pressed her face against the glass panes. She couldn’t see clearly because whoever it was had crawled under the desk.

Mrs. Murphy carefully dropped onto the earth. “S-s-st, come on.”

They circled to the back as Mrs. Murphy explained why she couldn’t see.

“I can’t smell anything with the windows and door closed but we can pick up the scent by the back door or by a window.”

Tucker, nose to the ground, needed no encouragement. She hit the trail by the back door. “I got him.”

Before Mrs. Murphy could put her nose down to identify the scent the back door opened. Tucker crouched down and tripped the man coming out as Mrs. Murphy, claws at the ready, leaped onto his back. He stifled a shout, dropping his letters, which scattered in the light evening breeze.

He thrashed around but couldn’t reach Mrs. Murphy, who was far more agile than he. Tucker sank her fangs clean into his ankle.

He yowled. A few houses down, a light clicked on in an upstairs bedroom. The man gathered up the letters as Mrs. Murphy jumped off and scurried up a tree. Tucker scooted around the corner of the house and they both watched Bob Berryman run with a limp down the back alleyway. In a few moments they heard the truck start up and peel out onto St. George Avenue.

Mrs. Murphy backed down the tree. She liked climbing up much more than she liked coming down. Tucker waited at the base.

“Bob Berryman!” Tucker couldn’t believe it.

“Let’s go inside.” Mrs. Murphy trotted to the back door, which Bob had left open in his haste to escape his attackers.

Tucker, head down, followed this trail. Berryman had entered through the back door. He passed through the storage room and went directly to and under the desk. He stopped at no other place. Tucker, intent on the scent, bumped her head into the back of the desk.

Mrs. Murphy, close behind her, laughed. “Look where you’re going.”

“Your eyes are better than mine,” Tucker growled. “But my nose is golden, cat. Remember that.”

“So, golden nose, what was he doing under the desk?” Mrs. Murphy snuggled in next to Tucker.

“His hands slid over the sides, the top, and the back.” She followed the line.

Mrs. Murphy, pupils open to the maximum, stared. “A secret compartment.”

“Yeah, but how’d he get it open?”

“I don’t know, but he’s a clumsy man. It can’t be that hard.” Mrs. Murphy stood on her hind legs and gently batted the sides of the desk.

A loud slam scared the bejesus out of both of them. They shot out from under the desk. Mrs. Murphy’s tail looked like a bottlebrush. The hair on the back of Tucker’s neck bristled. No other sound assailed their sensitive ears.

Mrs. Murphy, low to the ground, whiskers to the fore, slowly, one paw at a time, headed for the back room. Tucker, next to her, also crouched as low as she could, which was pretty low. When they reached the storage room they saw that the door was closed.

“Oh, no!” Tucker exclaimed. “Can you reach the doorknob?”

Mrs. Murphy stretched her full length. She could just get her paws on the old ceramic doorknob but she couldn’t turn it the whole way. She exhausted herself trying.

Finally, Tucker said, “Give up. We’re in for the night. Once people start moving about I’ll set up a howl that will wake the dead.”

“Harry will be frantic.”

“I know but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re already in her bad graces for our work at the railroad tracks. Boy, are we in for it now.”

“No, she won’t be mad.”

“I hope not.”

Mrs. Murphy leaned against the door catching her breath. “She loves us. We’re all she’s got, you know. I hate to think of Harry searching for us. It’s been a terrible week.”

“Yeah.”

“If we’re stuck here we might as well work.”

“I’m game.”

19

Pewter, hovering over the meat case, first heard Tucker howl. The sound was distant but she was sure it was Tucker. A huge roll of Lebanon baloney, her favorite, beckoned. Courtney lifted the scrumptious meat from the case. Sandwich duty occupied her morning. By 7:00 A.M. the farm crowd had wiped out the reserve she’d made up Sunday night.

“Gimme some! Gimme some! Gimme some!” Pewter hooked a corner of the roll with a claw.

“Stop that.” Courtney smacked her paw.

“I’m hungry!” Pewter reached up again and Courtney cut her a hunk. Buying off Pewter was easier than disciplining her.

The cat seized the fragrant meat and hurried to the back door. Her hunger overwhelmed her curiosity but she figured she could eat, and listen at the same time. Another protracted howl convinced her the miserable dog was Tucker. She returned to Courtney, was severely tempted by the Lebanon baloney, summoned her willpower, and rubbed against Courtney’s legs, then hustled to the back door. She needed to perform this identical routine three times before Courtney opened the back door for her. Pewter knew that humans learned by repetition, but even then you could never be sure they were going to do what you asked them. They were so easily distracted.

Once free from the store Pewter sat, waiting for another howl. Once she heard it she loped through the backyards, and came out into the alleyway. Another howl sent her directly to the back door of Maude Bly Modena’s shop.

“Tucker!” Pewter yelled. “What are you doing in there?”

“Just get me out. I’ll tell you everything later,” Tucker pleaded.

Mrs. Murphy hollered behind the door: “Are there any humans around?”

“In cars. We need a walker.”

“Pewter, if you run back to the store do you think you could get Courtney or Market to follow you?” Mrs. Murphy asked.

“Follow me? I can barely get them to open and close the door for me.”

“What if you grabbed Mrs. Hogendobber on her way to the post office? She’s around the corner.” Tucker wanted out.

“She doesn’t like cats. She wouldn’t pay attention to me.”

“She’ll come down the alleyway. She walks it no matter what the weather. You could try,” Mrs. Murphy said.

“All right. But while I’m waiting for that old windbag . . . What is it that Josiah calls her?”

“A ruthless monologist,” Mrs. Murphy answered her, peeved that Pewter was insisting on a chat.

“Well, while I’m waiting why don’t you tell me what you’re doing in there?”

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker unfolded the adventure but only after swearing Pewter to secrecy. Under no circumstances was she to hint of any of this to Bob Berryman’s dog, Ozzie.

“There she is!” Pewter called to them. “Let’s try. Howl, Tucker.”

Pewter thundered over to Mrs. Hogendobber. She circled her. She flopped on her back and rolled over. She meowed and pranced. Mrs. Hogendobber observed this with some amusement.

“Come on, Pruneface! Get the message,” Pewter screeched. She moved toward Maude’s shop and then returned to Mrs. Hogendobber.

Tucker emitted a piercing shriek. Mrs. Hogendobber halted her stately progress. Pewter ran around her legs and back toward Maude’s shop, where Tucker let out another shriek. Mrs. Hogendobber started for the shop.

“I got her! I got her!” Pewter raced for the door. “Keep it up!”

Tucker barked. Mrs. Murphy meowed. Pewter ran in circles in front of the door.

Mrs. Hogendobber stood. She thought deeply. She put her hand on the doorknob, thought some more, and then opened the door.

“Gangway!” Tucker charged out of the door and hurried around the side of the house to relieve her bladder. Mrs. Murphy, with more bladder control, came out and rubbed Mrs. Hogendobber’s legs in appreciation.

“Thank you, Mrs. H.,” Mrs. Murphy purred.

“What were you doing in there?” Mrs. Hogendobber said out loud.

Tucker ran around and sat next to Pewter. She gave the gray cat a kiss. “I love you, Pewter.”

“Okay, okay.” Pewter appreciated the emotion but wasn’t overfond of sloppy kisses.

“Come on. Mom’s got to be at work by now.” Mrs. Murphy pricked up her ears.

The three small animals chased one another down the alleyway as Mrs. Hogendobber followed, deeply curious as to why Mary Minor Haristeen’s cat and dog were trapped inside Maude’s shop.

Harry hadn’t sorted the mail. She hadn’t properly thanked Rob for the French postcard he’d smuggled to her. She’d burned the telephone wires calling everyone she could think of who might have seen her animals.

The sight of Mrs. Murphy and Tucker along with Pewter and Mrs. Hogendobber puffing up the steps astonished her. Tears filled her eyes as she flung open the door.

Mrs. Murphy leaped into her arms and Tucker jumped up on her. Harry sat on the floor to hug her family. She hugged Pewter too. This enthusiasm was not extended to Mrs. Hogendobber, but Harry did get up and shake her hand.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hogendobber. I’ve been worried sick. Where’d you find them?”

“In Maude Bly Modena’s store.”

“What?” Harry was incredulous.

“We found a secret compartment! And Bob Berryman stole letters!” Tucker’s excitement was so great that she wiggled from stem to stern.

“Tucker bit the shit out of his ankle,” Mrs. Murphy added.

“Inside the store?”

“Yes. The door was shut and they couldn’t get out. I was walking down the alleyway—my morning constitutional on my way to see you—and I heard a ruckus.”

“You would have waddled right on by if it weren’t for me,” Pewter corrected her.

“What on earth were my girls doing in Maude Bly Modena’s shop?” Harry put her hands to her temples. “Mrs. Hogendobber, do you mind going back there with me?”

Mrs. Hogendobber would like nothing better. “Well, if you think it’s proper. Perhaps we should call the sheriff first.”

“He could arrest Mrs. Murphy and Tucker for breaking and entering.” Harry realized the instant the joke was out of her mouth that Mrs. Hogendobber wouldn’t get it. “Let me call Market over to mind the office.”

Market happily agreed and said he’d even sort the mail. He, too, wanted to read other people’s mail. It was an irresistible temptation.

The crepe myrtle bloomed along the alleyway. Bumblebees laden with pollen buzzed around the two women.

“I was right here when I heard Tucker.”

“Ha!” Pewter sarcastically remarked.

Harry followed Mrs. Hogendobber, who recounted in minute detail her every step to the door.

“. . . and I turned the knob—it wasn’t locked—and out they came.”

And in they ran too. “Come on!”

“Me, too.” Pewter followed.

“Girls! Girls!” Harry vainly called.

Mrs. Hogendobber, thrilled at the possibility of entering, said, “We’ll have to get them.”

Harry entered first.

Mrs. Hogendobber, hot on her heels, stopped for a second in front of the huge bags of plastic peanuts piled to the ceiling. “My word.”

Harry, already in the front room, exclaimed, “Where are they?”

Mrs. Murphy stuck her head out from under the desk. “Here!”

Mrs. Hogendobber, now in the room, saw this. “There.” She pointed.

Harry got down on her hands and knees and crawled under the desk. Pewter, grumbling, had to get out, as there wasn’t room for all of them.

Mrs. Murphy sat in front of the secret compartment that she had opened the night before. A small button alongside the thin molding on the seam was the key. “Right here. Look!”

Harry gasped, “There’s a secret compartment here!”

“Let me see.” Mrs. Hogendobber, negotiating gravity, hunkered down on her hands and knees. Tucker moved so she could see.

“Right here.” Harry flattened against the side of the desk the best she could and pointed.

“I declare!” Mrs. Hogendobber, excited, gasped. “What’s in there?”

Harry reached in and handed over a large ledger and a handful of Xeroxed papers. “Here.”

Mrs. Hogendobber backed up on all fours and sat in the middle of the floor.

Harry backed out and joined her. “There’s another ledger in the desk.” She got up and opened the middle drawer. It was still there.

“A second set of books! I wonder who she was filching from.”

“The IRS, most likely.” Harry sat down next to Mrs. Hogendobber, who was flipping through the books.

“I used to keep Mr. H.’s books, you know.” She laid the two ledgers side by side, her sharp eyes moving vertically down the columns. The hidden ledger was on her left. “My word, what a lot of merchandise. She was a better sales woman than any of us knew.” Mrs. Hogendobber pointed to the righthand book. “See here, Harry, the volume—and the prices.”

“I can’t believe she would get fifteen thousand dollars for seventy bags of plastic peanuts.”

This gave Mrs. Hogendobber pause. “It does seem unlikely.”

Harry took a page off the large pile of Xeroxed papers. They were the letters of Claudius Crozet to the Blue Ridge Railroad. Scanning them, she realized they involved the building of the tunnels.

“What’s that?” Mrs. Hogendobber couldn’t tear her eyes away from the accounting books.

“Claudius Crozet’s letter to the Blue Ridge Railroad.”

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Hogendobber looked up from her books.

“I don’t know.”

Harry had to get back to work. “Mrs. Hogendobber, would you do something if I asked you? It isn’t dishonest but it’s . . . tricky.”

“Ask.”

“Xerox these letters and the accounting books. Then we’ll turn it all over to Rick Shaw but we won’t tell him we have copies. I want to read these letters and I think, with your training, you may find something in the accounting books that the sheriff would miss. If he knows we’re studying the information he might take that as a comment on his abilities.”

Without hesitation, Mrs. Hogendobber agreed. “I’ll call Rick after I’ve completed the job. I’ll tell him about the animals. About us coming back here. And that’s all I’ll tell him. Where can I Xerox without drawing attention to myself? This is a great deal of work.”

“In the back room at the post office. I can buy some extra paper and reset the meter. No one will know if you don’t come out of the back room. As long as I put in the ink and the paper, I’m not cheating Uncle Sam.”

“Maude Bly Modena sure was.”

20

Ned Tucker was informed by Barbara Apperton at Citizen’s National Bank that the withdrawal from his account was correct and had been made with his credit card after hours. Ned fulminated. Barbara said she’d get a copy of the videotape, since these transactions were recorded. That way they’d both find out who used the credit card. Mrs. Apperton asked if the credit card was missing and Ned said no. He said he’d be down at the bank tomorrow.

The missing five hundred dollars wouldn’t break the Tucker family but it was unwelcome news when Ned was paying the bills.

Troubled by this small mystery on top of the grotesque ones, Susan entered the post office only to witness Rick Shaw grilling Harry.

“You can’t prove where you were Friday night or in the wee hours Saturday morning?” The sheriff stuck his thumbs in his Sam Browne belt.

“No.” Harry patted Mrs. Murphy, who watched Rick with her golden eyes.

Susan came alongside the counter. Rick kept at it. “No one was with you on the nights of the two murders?”

“No. Not after eleven P.M. on the night of Maude’s murder. I live alone now.”

“This doesn’t look good, with your animals in Maude Bly Modena’s shop. Just what are you up to and what are you hiding?”

“Nothing.” This wasn’t exactly true, because under the counter, neatly placed in a large manila envelope, were the Claudius Crozet letters. Mrs. Hogendobber had smuggled the copies of the accounting books to her home.

“You’re telling me your cat and dog entered the shop without your opening the door?” Rick’s voice dripped disbelief.

“Yes.”

“Bob Berryman let us in,” Mrs. Murphy said but no one listened to her.

“Buzz off, Shaw,” Tucker growled.

“You don’t leave town without telling me, Miz Haristeen.” Rick slapped the counter with his right palm.

Susan intruded. “Rick, you can’t possibly believe that Harry’s a murderer. The only people who can prove where they were in the middle of the night are the married ones faithful to their spouses.”

“That leaves out much of Crozet,” Harry wryly noted.

“And the ones who are together can lie for each other. Maybe this isn’t the work of one person. Maybe it’s a team.” Susan hoisted herself up on the counter.

“That possibility hasn’t escaped me.”

Harry put her mouth next to Mrs. Murphy’s ear. “What were you doing in Maude’s shop, you devil?”

“I told you.” Mrs. Murphy touched Harry’s nose.

“She’s telling you something,” Susan observed.

“That she wants some kitty crunchies, I bet.” Harry smiled.

“Don’t take this so lightly,” Rick warned.

“I’m not.” Harry’s face darkened. “But I don’t know what to do about this, any more than you do. We’re not stupid, Rick. We know the murderer is someone close to home, someone we know and trust. No one’s sleeping soundly anymore in Crozet.”

“Neither am I.” Rick’s voice softened. He rather liked Harry. “Look, I’m not paid to be nice. I’m paid to get results.”

“We know.” Susan crossed her legs under her. “We want you to and we’ll help you in any way that we can.”

“Thanks.” Rick patted Mrs. Murphy. “What were you doing in there, kitty cat?”

“I told you,” Mrs. Murphy moaned.

After Rick left, Susan whispered, “How did they get in the shop?”

Harry sighed. “I wish I knew.”

That night, after a supper of cottage cheese on a bed of lettuce sprinkled with sunflower seeds, Harry pulled out the postcards and her mother’s huge magnifying glass. She shone a bright light over the card to Kelly and placed the card Rob lent her next to it. The inks were different colors. The true Paris postmark was a slightly darker shade. Also, the lettering of the cancellation stamp on Kelly’s postcard was not precisely flush. This was also the case for the lettering on Maude’s postcard. The “A” in Asheville was out of line the tiniest bit. She switched off the light.

The postcards were a signal. She remembered when Maude received hers. She didn’t act like a woman under the threat of death. She was irritated that the sender hadn’t signed his or her name.

The floorboards creaked as Harry paced over them. What did she know? She knew the killer was close at hand. She knew the killer had a sense of humor and was perhaps even sporting, since he or she had fired a warning shot, so to speak. She knew the mangling of the bodies was designed to throw people off the scent. Just why, she wasn’t sure. The mess might have been to disguise the method of murder or it might have been to keep people from looking elsewhere, but why and for what? Or worse, it could have been a sick joke.

The other thing she knew was that Claudius Crozet was important to Maude. Tomorrow she was determined to call Marie, the secretary at the concrete plant, to find out if Kelly ever mentioned the famous engineer. She fixed a stiff cup of coffee—a spoon could stand up in the liquid—and sat down at the kitchen table to read the letters.

By one in the morning she was ravenous and wished that someone would figure out a way to fax a pizza. She ate more cottage cheese and kept reading. Crozet wrote in detail about the process of cutting the tunnels. The boring for the tunnels proceeded around the clock in three eight-hour shifts for eight solid years. The Brooksville tunnel proved extremely dangerous. The rock, seemingly sound, was soft as the men bit deeper into the mountain. Cave-ins and rockslides dumped on their heads like hard rain.

The physical difficulties occasionally paled beside the human ones. The tunnel rats were men of Ireland, but from two different parts of the Emerald Isle. The men of Cork disdained the Fardowners, the men of Northern Ireland. One bitter night, on February 2, 1850, a riot shook Augusta County. The militia was called out to separate the warring factions and the jail burst at the seams with bloodied Irishmen. By the next morning both sides agreed that they’d only desired a little fight and the authorities accepted that explanation. After breaking a few bones and sitting out the night in jail, the men got along just fine.

The Blue Ridge Railroad Company ran out of money with alarming frequency. The state of Virginia wasn’t much help. The general contractor, John Kelly, paid the men out of his own pocket and accepted paper from the state—a brave man indeed.

When Claudius Crozet described the mail train rolling through the last completed tunnel on April 13, 1858, Harry was almost as excited as he must have been.

She finished the letters, eyes burning, and hauled herself into bed. She sensed that the tunnels meant something, but why? And which one? The Greenwood and Brooksville had been sealed since after 1944. She was going to have to go out there. She finally fell into a troubled slumber.

21

A full moon radiated silvery light over the back meadows, making the cornflowers glow a deep purple. Bats darted in and out of the towering conifers and in and out of the eaves of Harry’s house.

Mrs. Murphy sat on the back porch. Tucker’s snoring could be heard in the background. The cat was restless but she knew in the morning she’d blame it on Tucker, telling her that she’d kept her awake. Tucker accused Mrs. Murphy of making up stories about her snoring.

What was really keeping Mrs. Murphy awake was Harry. She wished her friend lacked curiosity. Curiosity rarely killed the cat but it certainly got humans in trouble. She feared Harry might trigger a response in the killer if she got too close. Mrs. Murphy had great pride where Harry was concerned, and if any human was smart enough to put the pieces of this ragged puzzle together it would be her Harry. But putting together a puzzle and protecting yourself were two different things. Because Harry couldn’t conceive of killing another human being, she couldn’t believe anyone would want to kill her.

Humans fascinated Mrs. Murphy. Their time was squandered in pursuing nonessential objects. Food, clothing, and shelter weren’t enough for them, and they drove themselves and everyone around them crazy, including animals, for their toys. Mrs. Murphy thought cars, a motor toy, absurd. That’s why horses were born. What’s the big hurry, anyway? But if people wanted speed she could accept that—after all, it was a physical pleasure. What she couldn’t accept was that these creatures worked and worked and then didn’t enjoy what they worked for; they were too busy paying for things they couldn’t afford. By the time they paid for the toy it was worn out and they wanted another one. Worse, they weren’t satisfied with themselves. They were always on some self-improvement jag. This astonished Mrs. Murphy. Why couldn’t people just be? But they couldn’t just be—they had to be the best. Poor sick things. No wonder they died from diseases they brought on themselves.

One of the reasons she loved Harry was that Harry was more animal-like than other people. She loved the outdoors. She wasn’t driven to own a lot of toys. She was happy with what she had. She wished that Harry didn’t have to go to the post office every day but it was fun to see the other people, so if the woman had to work, this wasn’t so bad. However, people disregarded Harry because she wasn’t driven. Mrs. Murphy thought they were foolish. Harry was better than any of them.

Good as Harry was, she displayed the weaknesses of her breed. Mating was complicated for her. Divorce, a human invention, further complicated the simplicity of biology. Also, Harry missed communication from Mrs. Murphy. Although Harry wasn’t afraid of the night, she was vulnerable in it. Perhaps because their eyes are bad, humans feel like prey in the darkness.

Night animals are associated with evil by humans. Bats especially scared them, which Mrs. Murphy thought silly. Humans didn’t know enough about the chain of life to go about killing animals that offended them. They killed bats, coyotes, foxes—the night hunters. Their fears and their inability to comprehend how animals are connected, including themselves, would bring everyone to a sorry state. Mrs. Murphy, semidomesticated and enjoying her closeness to Harry, had no desire to see the nondomesticated animals killed. She understood why the wild animals hated people. Sometimes she hated them, too, except for Harry.

A shadowy movement caught her eye. Her ears moved forward. She inhaled deeply. What was he doing here?

A sleek, handsome Paddy moved toward the back porch.

“Hello, Paddy.”

“Hello, my sweet.” Paddy’s deep purr was hypnotic. “How are you on this fine, soft night?”

“Thinking long thoughts and watching the clouds swirl around the moon. Were you hunting?”

“A little of this and a little of that. I’m out for the medicinal powers of the velvety night air. And what were your long thoughts?” His whiskers sparkled against his black face.

“That the so-called bad animals like coyotes, bats, and snakes are more useful to earth than human drug addicts.”

“I don’t like snakes.”

“But they are useful.”

“Yes. They can be useful far away from me.” He licked his paw and then rubbed his face. “Why don’t you come out and play?”

He was tempting, even though she knew how worthless he was. He was still the best-looking tom in Crozet. “I’ve got to watch over Harry.”

“It’s the middle of the night and she’s safe.”

“I hope so, Paddy. I’m worried about this killer.”

“Oh, that. What’s that got to do with Harry?”

“She’s sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. Miss Amateur Detective.”

“Does the killer know?”

“That’s just it, isn’t it? We don’t know who it is, only that it’s someone we know.”

“Summer’s a strange time to kill anyone,” Paddy reflected. “I can understand it in the winter when the food supply is low—not that I approve of it. But in the summer there’s enough for everyone.”

“They don’t kill over food.”

“True enough.” Humans bored Paddy. “See those fireflies dancing? That’s what I want to do: dance in the moonlight, sing to the stars, jump straight up at the moon.” He turned a somersault.

“I’m staying inside.”

“Oh, Mrs. Murphy, you’ve become much too serious. I remember you when you would chase sunbeams. You even chased me.”

“I did not. You chased me.” Her fur ruffled.

“Ha, all the girls chased me. I thought it was wonderful to be chased by a bright tiger lass whose name, of all things, was Mrs. Murphy. Humans give us the silliest names.”

“Paddy, you’re full of catnip and moonshine.”

“Not Muffy or Skippy or Snowball or Scooter or even Rambette, but Mrs. Murphy.” He shook his head.

“I was named for Harry’s maternal grandmother and well you know it.”

“I thought they named their children after their grandparents, not their cats. Oh, come on out here. For old times’ sake.”

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Mrs. Murphy said with firmness but without rancor.

He sighed. “I’m faithful in my fashion. I’m here tonight, aren’t I?”

“And you can keep on going.”

“You’re a hard girl, M.M.” He was the only animal that called her M.M.

“No, just a wise one. But you can do me a favor.”

“What?” He grinned.

“If you hear or see or smell anything that seems suspicious, tell me.”

“I will. Now stop worrying about it. Time will do justice all around.” He flicked his luxurious tail to the vertical and trotted off.

22

The dark-red doors of Crozet Lutheran Church reflected the intense heat of the morning. Outside the church, sweltering, shuffled the camera crews from television stations in Washington, D.C., Richmond, and Charlottesville. What little peace remained in the town was shattered by the news teams, whose producers decided to bump up the story. The second murder was God’s gift to producers in the summer news doldrums.

Inside the simple church, people huddled together, unsure of who was friend and who was foe, although externally everyone acted the same: friendly.

The casket, adorned with a beautiful spray of white lilies, rested before the altar railing. Josiah forgot nothing. Two chaste floral displays stood on either side of the gold altar cross. Maude’s Crozet friends filled the church with flowers. Few knew her well but only one among the congregation wanted her dead. The others truly mourned Maude, as much for her as for themselves. She added something to the town and she would be missed.

The organ music, Bach, filled the church with somber majesty.

Sitting at the rear of the church and to the side was Rick Shaw. He was impressed that Josiah DeWitt and Ned Tucker canvassed the townspeople for this funeral. Ned refused to divulge who gave what but Rick shrewdly allowed Josiah the opportunity to tell all, which he did.

People of modest means, like Mary Minor Haristeen, gave as generously as they could. Mim Sanburne gave a bit more and begrudged every penny. Jim gave separately—a lot. The biggest surprise was Bob Berryman, who contributed $1,000. Apparently Bob’s wife, a portly woman determined to wear miniskirts, was kept ignorant of this bequest until Josiah’s judicious hints reached even her. Linda Berryman, glued to her husband’s side, appeared more grim than sad.

After the mercifully short service, Reverend Jones, preceded by an acolyte, walked down the aisle to the front door. He stopped for a moment. Rick saw him wince. The good reverend did not want the camera crews to sully the sanctity of this moment. But the doors must open and news ratings meant more to producers than human decency. Reverend Jones nodded slightly and the acolyte opened the door.

Mim Sanburne discreetly fluffed her hair as she prepared to leave the church. Little Marilyn, less discreetly, checked her makeup and pointedly ignored Harry, who was immediately behind her. Josiah did not escort Mim, because he acted as next of kin to Maude and because Jim was there. Market Shiflett stood next to Harry, and Mim edged up even more lest someone (like a news reporter) think she would be accompanied by a—shudder—working man. Courtney Shiflett and Brookie and Danny Tucker quietly filed out the front door too. Susan and Ned stayed behind with Josiah to make certain nothing else needed to be done until the grave-site service.

A reporter rushed up to Mim. She stiffened and turned her back on him. He shoved his microphone under Little Marilyn’s mouth. She started to open it when her mother clasped her wrist and yanked her away. Mrs. George Hogendobber waved her huge church fan in front of her face and made her escape.

Jim wheeled on the reporter. “I’m the mayor of this here town and I’ll answer any questions you have, but right now leave these people alone.”

As Jim was nearly a foot taller than the reporter, the squirt slunk off.

A woman reporter, straining to lower her voice to a more important register, buttonholed Harry, caught in the slow-moving mass of mourners.

“Were you a friend of the murdered woman?” the pert young thing asked.

Harry ignored her.

“Come on, girl.” Market grabbed Harry’s hand.

“Thanks, Market.” Harry let him propel her toward his car.

BoomBoom Craycroft stayed away from Maude’s funeral, which was appropriate. As she was still in deep mourning, no one expected her to make a public appearance anywhere but on the golf course, and everyone but Mrs. Hogendobber made allowances for that. As for BoomBoom, she would have taken apart the television crews, limb by limb.

The grave-site service progressed nicely until Reverend Jones tossed ashes on the casket. Bob Berryman began to sob. Linda was appalled. Bob moved away from the grave site and Linda didn’t follow him. She sat like a stone in the tacky metal chair.

The moment the last syllable of the service was over, the “Amens” said, Josiah rushed to Bob’s side. Harry and everyone else noticed him put his arm around Bob’s shoulders, whispering earnestly in the shaken man’s ear. Suddenly Bob pulled away from Josiah and slugged him square in the face. As the older man sank to his knees, Bob walked with deliberate control to his car. He turned to find his wife. She hurried to the car, opened the passenger door, and Bob drove off before she could even close it.

Ned reached Josiah first and found his face bloodied. Harry, Susan, and Mrs. Hogendobber got there next and Rick Shaw came more slowly. He was observing people’s reactions to the outburst.

The cameras, zoom lenses intact, whirred away from a discreet distance. Jim Sanburne advanced on them, and the newspeople scurried like cockroaches. Susan pulled tissues from her bag but the gushing nosebleed poured through them.

Hayden McIntire took command. “Tilt your head back.”

Josiah did as he was told. “What do you think? Broken?”

“I don’t know. Come with me to the office and I’ll do what I can. You’re going to have two very black eyes tomorrow along with a fat nose.”

Josiah wobbled to his feet with Hayden’s assistance.

Mrs. Hogendobber, brimming with curiosity, blurted out what everyone else was thinking: “What did you say to him?”

“Well—I don’t know.” Josiah squinted. Everything hurt. “I told him this was a terrible thing, but for Maude’s sake he should control himself. Those television vermin are across the road. What would people think?”

“That’s all?” Harry asked, knowing perfectly well that what Josiah had just said would plant a fast-growing seed. Why would it look so bad? A nasty little emotional door had been opened and everyone would jam in front of it trying to peer inside.

Josiah nodded “yes” as Hayden led him off.

Rick silently watched this and then got in his squad car. He was going to tail Bob Berryman. He called to the dispatcher, gave a description of the car and the license plate number. He specified he didn’t want Bob stopped unless he headed for the airport.

Rob Collier listened intently to the tale of Berryman’s outburst. He lingered over his afternoon pickup.

“. . . blood oozing onto his Turnbull and Asser shirt. I tell you, Rob, that must have hurt more than the blow.”

Rob pulled his eyelashes, a nervous habit. “Something’s not right.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Rob smiled good-naturedly. “Yeah, well, I’m not as dumb as you think. You’re a woman and I’m a man. I know some things that you don’t. Maybe a man cries because he killed someone and suddenly feels guilty.”

Harry leaned over the counter, inadvertently touching Tucker, who was snoozing under it. The corgi awoke with a grunt.

“I don’t know.”

“See, what’s going on here is, he’s too full up to keep it to himself. Bob Berryman don’t go ’round blubbering in public.”

“Right.”

Tucker yawned. Mrs. Murphy was sleeping with one eye open in a mail bin. Tucker could see the lump at the bottom of the canvas bin. She slunk over and very carefully, very gently bit the lump.

“Ah-h-h.” Mrs. Murphy, startled, yelped. Tucker laughed and bit her again.

“Those two put on a real show, don’t they?” Rob was diverted for a moment from his theory. “As I see it, Maude had something on Berryman. Bet your bottom dollar.”

Harry drew in air between her teeth. “Well, something was going on.”

“Maybe they were running drugs. Berryman travels nine states.”

“I can’t picture Maude as a drug dealer.”

“Hey, sixty years ago booze was illegal. The son of one of the biggest bootleggers in the country became President. Business is business.”

“Where does Kelly fit in?”

“Found out”—Rob shrugged—“or was in cahoots.”

“Next you’ll be telling me Mim Sanburne is a cocaine queen.”

“Anything is possible.”

“Let’s don’t talk about Mim, even though I brought her up. She’s on my reserve shit list. She’s mad at me. Oh, excuse me—ladies of Mim’s quality don’t get mad; they become agitated. She’s agitated with me because I told Little Marilyn to invite her brother to the wedding.”

Rob whistled. “Now there’s an odd couple.”

“Little Marilyn and Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton? He sure hasn’t shown his face around here. Probably feels safe in Richmond.”

“No, no—Stafford and Brenda Sanburne. She’s about the prettiest thing I ever saw but . . . Well, I wish him happiness, but you can’t go around breaking the rules and not expect to suffer for it.”

“You’re big on rules today.” Harry thought, Love whomever you could. It was such a rare commodity in the world, you’d better take it where you could find it. No point arguing with Rob, who was a tender racist as opposed to the horrendous kind. Still, they did their damage, whether by trickle or by tidal wave.

Rob checked his watch. “Zip time.”

He hopped into his mail truck as Mrs. Murphy hopped out of the mail bin. “Tucker, I was sleepy. Your snoring kept me awake last night.”

“I don’t snore.”

“You do. Snort. Snort.” Mrs. Murphy imitated a snore but she was far from it.

“What’s with you two?” Harry walked over to the mail bin. “There’s nothing in here.” Mrs. Murphy rubbed against her leg. Harry gingerly stepped into the mail bin, pushed off with one leg, and then tucked that in the bin too. “Wheee!”

The door opened as she crashed into the wall.

“What are you doing, Miz Haristeen?” Rick Shaw stifled a laugh.

Harry stuck her head over the bin. “The cat has so much fun when she gets in here, I thought I’d try. Hell, anything to feel good these days.”

Rick fished a cigarette out of his pocket, rolling it in his fingers. “I know what you mean.”

“Thought you’d stopped.”

“How’d you know?”

“Your eyes follow every lit cigarette.”

“You’re very observant, Harry.” Rick appreciated that in a person. “Show me what you’ve got.”

“I didn’t think you’d answer my phone call today after the blowup at the funeral.” She led him to the back room. “I’m impressed.”

She shut the door behind them and brought out the two graveyard postcards. She handed him the magnifying glass and placed the legitimate French postcard on the table. He closed one eye and studied the cards, holding the unlit cigarette in his left hand.

“Uh-huh” was all he said.

“See the slight variation in the inks?”

“Yes.”

“And the misalignment, very small, of the ‘A’ in ‘Asheville.’ ”

“Yes.” Rick twirled the magnifying glass. He handed the glass back to Harry. “Who else knows about this?”

“Susan Tucker. Rob knows I borrowed a postcard but he doesn’t know why.”

“Keep it to yourself. You and Susan.”

“I will.”

“Now, tell me what your cat and dog were doing in Maude’s shop.”

“I don’t know.”

“You were snooping in there, Harry. Don’t lie to me.”

“I wasn’t. Somehow they got locked in there. I woke up in the morning. I couldn’t find them. I drove around. I called around and just like I told you, Mrs. Hogendobber heard Tucker barking. She found them.”

“I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.” He dropped his bulk into a chair. “Gimme a Co-Cola, will you?” He lit up the cigarette as she brought him a soda from the little refrigerator. A long drag brought a smile to his lips. “It’s a filthy habit but damn, it feels good. Next I’ll try your mail bin.” He inhaled. “I’m not really sorry I started up again. It’s this or straight whiskey with a case like this, and with the whiskey I wouldn’t be on the case long.”

“What do you think—about the postcards, I mean.”

“I think we’ve got someone so smart that he or she is laughing at us. I think we’ve got a fox that will lay a false trail.”

Goose bumps dotted Harry’s skin. “Scares me.”

“Scares me too. If I only knew what the son of a bitch was after.”

“Do you follow your hunches?”

“I do, but I do my homework first.” Rick crossed his right leg over his left knee. “Okay, what’s your hunch? You’re itching to tell me.”

“The old tunnels Claudius Crozet dug have something to do with this.”

At the sound of the name Crozet, Rick sat up straight. “Why do you say that?”

“Because there was a letter from Crozet, a Xerox on Kelly’s desk. Can you ride, Rick?”

“A little.”

“Let’s ride out to the closest tunnel, the Greenwood.”

“In this heat, with the deer flies? No, ma’am. We’re going in the squad car and we can walk up the rest of the way.” He slapped her on the back. “I don’t know why I’m doing this, but come on.”

“You two stay here and be good now.”

“No! No!” erupted the chorus of discontent.

Harry started to plead with Rick but he cut her off. “No way, Harry. They stay here.”

Jungle vegetation couldn’t have been much thicker than what Rick and Harry waded through.

“We should have taken horses,” Harry grumbled.

“I haven’t got two hours. This is quicker and you just be glad I’m including you.”

“Including me? You wouldn’t know about it if I hadn’t told you. Hey, did you find Berryman?”

Rick slashed at pokeweed. “Yes. Was it that obvious after the funeral?”

“Where else would you go?”

“I found him at work. Selling a bronze stock trailer to the Beegles.”

“Fireworks?”

“No, he was tired. Guess the excitement wore him out. He’s got an alibi for the night Maude was killed. Home with his wife.”

“She could lie for him.”

“Do you honestly think, in your wildest dreams, Mary Minor Haristeen, that Linda Berryman would lie for Bob?”

“No.” Harry stopped to catch her breath. The steamy heat sucked it right out of her.

Up ahead the outline of the tunnel loomed, covered and fantastic-looking with kudzu, honeysuckle, and a wealth of weeds unknown even to Harry. The old track, an offshoot of the newer line, ran up to the mouth of the tunnel.

“I’ve been keeping an eye out for broken grasses and tracks”—Rick wiped sweat off his forehead—“but with thick foliage like this, unless it’s very recent, I don’t have much hope. It’s easier coming up the tracks but it takes twice as long.”

As they reached the tunnel Harry cast her eyes upward. The chiseled remembrance of the men who built the tunnel, clear-cut and deep, was half covered by honeysuckle. The C. CROZET, CHIEF ENGINEER was visible. The rest was obscured except for A.D. 1852.

Harry pointed upward.

Kudzu grows about three feet a day, obscuring everything in its path.

“Treasure?” Harry said.

“The C and O searched the place top to bottom before they closed this off. And look at this rock. Nobody’s getting through this stuff to hunt for treasure.”

The mouth of the tunnel had been filled with debris, rock, and then sealed with concrete. The right side of the mouth was totally choked by vines.

Harry, crestfallen, reached out and touched the rock, warm from the sun. She withdrew her hand.

“There are three more tunnels to go.”

“Brooksville is sealed off and Little Rock is still in use. I don’t know if they shut off the Blue Ridge but it’s so long and far away—”

“You’re up on your tunnels.” Harry smiled. She wasn’t the only one sitting up at night reading.

“And so are you. Come on. There’s nothing here.”

As they trudged back Rick promised to send out a deputy to investigate the Brooksville, Little Rock, and Blue Ridge tunnels. They were outside his jurisdiction but he’d work that out with his counterparts in the other counties.

“What about calling the C and O?” Harry suggested.

“I did that. They got me the reports of closing the tunnels in 1944. Couldn’t have been more helpful.”

“And . . . ?”

“Just a dry recounting of shutting them up. There’s no treasure, Harry. I don’t know what the Crozet connection is. It’s a dead end, kid.”

He drove her back to the post office, where Tucker had chewed the corner of the door and Mrs. Murphy, with great violence, had thrown her Kitty Litter all over the floor.

23

Curving, sensuous, gilded pieces of Louis XV furniture dazzled Harry each time she entered Josiah’s house. Gifted with a good eye and imagination, Josiah painted the walls stark white, which made the beautiful desks, bombé chests, and chairs stand out vividly. The floors, dark walnut, polished to perfection, reflected the glories of the furniture. The King Kong of pastel floral arrangements commanded the center of the coffee table. The flowers and the French pieces provided the only color in the room.

Josiah provided color of a different sort, valiantly sitting in a wing chair playing host to his callers, who had come as custom dictated. On a satinwood table next to the chair was a round cerise bowl that contained old marbles. Every now and then Josiah would reach into the bowl and run them through his fingers like worry beads. Another bowl contained old type bits; yet another contained doorknobs with mercury centers.

Susan rushed up to Harry to spill the rotten news about Danny’s using his father’s credit card to get money from the twenty-four-hour banking window. Ned had grounded him for the rest of the summer. Harry commiserated as Mrs. Hogendobber arrived with her famous potato salad. Mim, sleek in linen pants and a two-hundred-dollar T-shirt, glided over to assist Mrs. Hogendobber in carrying the heavy bowl. Hayden was just leaving as Fair came in. Little Marilyn served drinks out of a massive sterling-silver bowl. Little Marilyn was spending a lot of time next to the liquor at these gatherings. Each time Harry looked her way, Little Marilyn found something fascinating to hold her attention. She wasn’t going to acknowledge Harry with even a grimace, much less a smile.

“I’ve got to pay my respects to Josiah.” Harry slipped her arm around Susan’s waist. “The bank won’t tell on Danny, so if you and Ned keep it quiet no one will know but me. I think a teenaged boy is allowed a few mistakes.”

“A five-hundred-dollar one! And that’s another thing. His father says he has to pay back every penny by Halloween.”

“Halloween?”

“At first Ned said Labor Day but Danny cried and said he couldn’t make enough from mowing lawns between the middle of July and Labor Day.”

“This must be an up-to-date version of clipping a few bills from Mom’s purse. Did you ever steal from your mother?”

“God, no.” Susan’s hand automatically covered her chest. “She would have beat me within an inch of my life. Still would, too.”

Susan’s mother was alive and extremely well in Montecito, California.

“My parents would not only have whopped me good,” Harry said, “they would have told everyone they knew, to accent my humiliation, which would have made it ten times worse. Did I ever tell you about Mother not being able to get me up in the morning?”

“You mean when our classes started at six-thirty A.M.? I didn’t want to get up either. Remember that? There were so many of us the schools couldn’t handle it, so they staggered the times we’d arrive at school in the morning. If you missed your buddies at lunch hour, that was that.”

“Poor Mom had to get up at five to try and get me up because I was on the 7:00 A.M. shift. I just wouldn’t budge. Finally she threw water on me. She was not a woman to shy from a remedy once its potency was established.”

Harry smiled. “I miss her. Odd, now I have no trouble getting up early. I even like it. It’s too bad Mother didn’t have more years to enjoy the fact that I’ve become an early bird.” She collected herself. “I’ve got to say something cheery to Josiah.”

Harry strolled over to Josiah, who was now being ministered to, literally, by Mrs. H., who was telling him about Lazarus. Josiah responded by saying that he, too, drew comfort from the thought of Lazarus waking from the dead but he, Josiah, was beat up, not dead. She needed to think of a better story. Then he reached for Harry.

“Dear Harry, you will forgive me for not rising.”

“Josiah, this is the first time I’ve seen anyone’s eyes match his shirt. Maroon.”

“I prefer the descriptive burgundy.” He leaned back in his chair.

“Now isn’t that like you, making light of something terrible.” Mrs. Hogendobber artlessly tried to pretend she liked Josiah and wished him well. Not that she disliked him, but she didn’t feel he was exactly a man and she knew he wasn’t a practicing Christian.

“It isn’t so terrible. The man was distraught and lashed out. I don’t know why Berryman’s distraught, but if I were married to Our Lady of Cellulite perhaps I’d be distraught too.”

Harry laughed. He was awful but he was on target.

“I had no idea that Linda Berryman evidenced an interest in film.” Mrs. Hogendobber tentatively accepted a gin rickey—not that she was a drinker, mind you, but it had been an unusually difficult day and the sun was past the yardarm.

Fair, sitting across from Josiah, burst out laughing and then covered his mouth. Correcting Mrs. Hogendobber wasn’t worth it.

“What’s this I hear about the adorable Mrs. Murphy and the fierce Tee Tucker being caught red-handed, I mean red-pawed, in Maude’s store—which I am buying, by the way?” Josiah asked Harry.

“I have no idea how they got in there.”

“I found them, you know.” Mrs. Hogendobber recounted, to the millisecond, the events leading to the discovery. She withheld the information about the desk but did give Harry a conspiratorial glance.

Josiah picked imaginary lint off his sleeve. “Don’t you wish they could talk?”

“No.” Harry smiled. “I don’t want everyone to know my secrets.”

“You have secrets?” Fair inclined his head toward Harry.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Harry shot back.

The room quieted for a moment; then conversation hummed again.

“Not me,” Mrs. Hogendobber said in a forthright voice, and then remembered that she had one now. She rather liked that.

“One teeny secret, Mrs. H., one momentary fall from grace, or at least a barstool,” Josiah teased her. “I agree with Harry—we each have secrets.”

“Well, someone’s got a humdinger.” Susan loathed the word humdinger, but it fit.

Harry exited the conversation on secrets as Mim joined it. She walked over to Little Marilyn, who couldn’t weasel out of talking to her now.

“Marilyn.”

“Harry.”

“You’re not talking to me and I don’t much like it.”

“Harry,” Little Marilyn whispered, genuinely fearful, “not in front of my mother. I’m not mad at you. She is.”

Harry also lowered her voice. “When are you going to cut the apron strings and be your own person? For chrissake, L.M., you’re over thirty.”

Little Marilyn flushed. She wasn’t accustomed to honest conversation, since with Mim you glided around issues. Speaking directly about something was tactless. However, life in WASP nirvana was growing stale. “You have to understand”—she was now almost inaudible—“when I get married I can do what I want, when I want.”

“How do you know you aren’t exchanging one boss for another?”

“Not Fitz-Gilbert. He isn’t remotely like Mother, which is why I like him.” That admission popped out of Little Marilyn’s mouth before she recognized what it meant.

“You can do what you want now.”

“Why this sudden interest in me? You’ve never paid much attention to me before.” A hint of belligerence crept into her voice. If she was going to rebel against Mama, why not practice on Harry?

“I love your brother. He’s one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known. He loves you and you’ll hurt him if you keep him from your wedding. And I suppose if you’d stop hanging around with that vapid, phony chic set I could learn to like you. Why don’t you motor out to the stables and get a little horse shit on your shoes? When we were kids you were a good rider. Go to New York for a weekend. Just . . . do something.”

“Vapid? Phony? You’re insulting my friends.”

“Wrong. Those are friends your mother chose for you. You don’t have any friends except for your brother.” Tired, worried, and irritable underneath her public demeanor, Harry just blurted this out.

“And you’re better off?” Little Marilyn began to enjoy this. “At least I’m getting the man I want. You’re losing yours.”

Harry blinked. This was a new Little Marilyn. She didn’t like the old one. The new one was really a surprise.

“Harry?” Josiah’s voice floated above the chatter. “Harry.” He called a little louder. She turned. “It must be a glorious conversation. You haven’t paid any attention to me and I’ve been calling.”

Little Marilyn, defiantly, walked over to Josiah first. Harry brought up the rear.

“You two girls were jabbering like bluejays,” Mim said with an edge. Then her husband, Jim, pushed open the front door with a booming greeting and Mim was truly on edge.

Harry eyed Little Marilyn’s impeccable mother and thought that being in her company was like biting deeply into a lemon.

Fair saved the day, because Harry was teetering on the brink of letting everyone know exactly what she thought about them. He sensed that she was coiled, crabby. He knew he no longer loved his wife but after nearly a decade of being with someone, learning her habits, feeling responsible for her, it was a hard habit to break. So he rescued Harry from herself at that moment.

“What were you doing in Rick Shaw’s squad car?” he asked.

A slow hush rolled over the room like a soft ground fog.

“We drove up to the Greenwood tunnel,” Harry said, nonchalant.

“In this heat?” Josiah was incredulous.

“Maybe that was Rick’s way of wearing her down for questioning,” Susan said.

“I think the tunnels have something to do with the murders.” Harry knew she should have shut her mouth.

“Ridiculous,” Mim snapped. “They’ve been closed for over forty years.”

Jim countered, “Right now no idea is ridiculous.”

“What about the treasure stories?” Mrs. Hogendobber said. “After all, those stories must have some truth in them or they wouldn’t have been circulated for over one hundred years. Maybe it’s a treasure of a rare kind.”

“Like my divine desk over there.” Josiah swung his hand out like a casual auctioneer. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Mim, that you need this desk. The satinwood glows with the light of the centuries.”

“Now, now, Josiah.” Mim smiled. “We’re declaring a moratorium on selling until your eyes and your nose heal.”

“If there were a treasure, the C and O would have found it.” Fair fixed himself another drink. “People love stories about lost causes, ghosts, and buried treasure.”

“Claudius Crozet was a genius. If he wanted to hide a treasure he could do it,” Mrs. Hogendobber interjected. “It was Crozet who warned the state of Virginia that Joseph Carrington Cabell’s canal company would never work. Cabell was a highly influential man in the decades before the War of Northern Aggression, and he deviled Crozet all his life. Cabell single-handedly held up the development of railroads, which Claudius Crozet believed heralded the future. And Crozet was right. The canal company expired, costing investors and the state millions upon millions of dollars.”

“Mrs. Hogendobber, I’m quite impressed. I had no idea you were so knowledgeable about our . . . namesake.” Josiah sat up in his chair and then lapsed back again with a muffled moan.

“Here.” Fair handed him a stiff Glenfiddich scotch.

“I—” Mrs. Hogendobber, unaccustomed to lying, couldn’t think what to say next.

Harry jumped in. “I told you not to volunteer to head the ‘Celebrate Crozet’ committee.”

“Me?” Mrs. Hogendobber mumbled.

“Mrs. H., you’ve got too much on your mind. Recent events plus the committee . . . I’ll come over tomorrow and help you, okay?”

Mrs. Hogendobber got the hidden message. She nodded in the affirmative.

“Well, Harry, what did you find at the Greenwood tunnel? Lots of florins and louis and golden Russian samovars?” Josiah smiled.

“Lots of pokeweed and honeysuckle and kudzu.”

“Some treasure.” Little Marilyn minced on “treasure.”

“Well”—Josiah breathed the scotch fumes—“I give you credit for going up there in this beastly heat. We’ve got to find out who this . . . person is, and nothing is too far-fetched.” He raised his glass to Harry in a toast and then proceeded to regale the group with his plans for Maude’s store.

Later that night, Harry, who forgot to eat a decent dinner, got the munchies. She cranked up her mother’s old blender, putting in whole milk, vanilla ice cream, wheat germ, and almonds. The almonds clanked as the blades ground them. She drank the concoction right out of the blender glass.

Tucker screeched into the kitchen, jumping on her hind legs. “That’s it! That’s it!”

“Tucker, get down. You can lick the glass when I’m finished.”

Mrs. Murphy, hearing the fuss, roused herself from the living room sofa. “What’s going on, Tucker?”

“It’s that smell.” Tucker spun around in circles, her snow-white bib a blur. “Close to the turtle smell, but much nicer, sweeter.”

Mrs. Murphy jumped on the counter and sniffed the bits of wheat germ and almonds. The ice cream smell was strong. She sniffed with intensity and then vaulted from the counter onto Harry’s shoulder.

“Hey, now, that’s enough! You didn’t learn these bad manners at home.” Harry put the milkshake on the counter and lifted Mrs. Murphy off her shoulder. Gently, Mrs. Murphy was placed on the floor.

Tucker touched noses with the cat. “What did I tell you?”

“Close. The almonds don’t smell exactly like a turtle, but then a turtle doesn’t smell exactly like whatever we smelled at the concrete plant and up at the railroad track. I wonder what it is?”

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker sat next to each other and stared up at Harry as she drained the last drop.

“Oh, all right.” Harry grabbed dog biscuits and kitty treats out of the cupboard. She gave one to each animal. They ignored them.

“Not only bad manners, but picky too.” Harry waved the kitty treat under Mrs. Murphy’s nose. “One little nibble for Mommy.”

“If she starts the Mommy routine she’ll coo and croon next. You’d better eat it,” Tucker advised.

“I’m trying to keep the smell of almonds. . . . Oh, well, you’re probably right.” Mrs. Murphy daintily removed the treat from Harry’s fingers.

Tucker, with less restraint, gobbled up her biscuit with its gravylike coating.

“Good kitty. Good doggie.”

“I wish she’d stop talking to us as if we were children,” Mrs. Murphy grumbled.

24

Saturday sparkled, quite unusual for sticky July. The mountains glistened bright blue; the sky was a creamy robin’s-egg blue. Mim Sanburne swaggered down to the little dock on the lake, which also gleamed in the pure light. Her pontoon boat, Mim’s Vim, sides scrubbed, deck scrubbed, gently rocked in the lap of the tiny waves. The bar overflowed with liquid delight. A huge wicker basket filled with special treats like cream cheese–stuffed snow peas sat next to the pilot’s wheel. Everything was splendid, including Mim’s attire. She wore bright-white clamdiggers, red espadrilles, a horizontally striped red-and-white T-shirt, and her captain’s cap. Her lipstick, a glaring red smear, reflected the light.

Jim and Rick Shaw were huddled up at the house. She’d heard her husband say they ought to bring in the FBI, but Rick kept repeating that the case didn’t qualify for the FBI’s attention.

Little Marilyn followed a servant carrying the lovely baskets filled with party favors. Upon seeing the baskets, Mim entertained a fleeting thought of Maude Bly Modena. She quickly pushed it out of her mind. Her theory was that Maude must have surprised Kelly’s killer and that was why she had been killed. She’d seen on many TV programs that a killer often has to kill again to cover his tracks.

After arranging the little favors on her boat, Mim languidly strolled up the terraces and walked around her house to the front. Day lilies shouted in yellow and burnt orange. Oddly, her wisteria still bloomed and the lavender was at full tide. She couldn’t wait for her friends Port and Elliewood and Miranda Hogendobber. Not that Miranda was their social equal but she had distinctly heard Harry say to her last night at Josiah’s that she was to head the newly formed “Celebrate Crozet” committee, and Big Marilyn meant to be a part of such a committee. Anyway, the lower orders were violently flattered at being included in little gatherings of the elite. Mim was confident that Miranda would fall all over herself when Mim suggested that she, too, help head the committee. The trick of the day would be to keep Miranda off religion, to keep Port off the grandchildren, and to keep Elliewood off the murders. No murder talk today—she absolutely forbade it.

As Mim waited for the various ladies of quality and one of lesser quality to drive down the two-mile approach to the house, she allowed herself to recall her “White Party.” Decorated in silver and white by Josiah, this was to have been Mim’s Town and Country party. She’d arranged to have a reporter there. Josiah contacted the press. It would never do for her to seek publicity openly.

Jim kept the Learjet busy zooming to New York and California to pick up people. Just two hundred of her nearest and dearest friends.

Josiah, using the bulldozing talents of Stuart Tapscott, created a thirty-foot oval pond at the end of the formal gardens. The tables were laid out among the garden paths and the very special guests were seated around the pond. Josiah lined the bottom of the pond so that it was really a swimming pool. He painted the bottom cobalt blue, and lights shone under the water. However, apart from the lighting, the pond appeared to fit the lay of the land. Marvelous water lilies enhanced the surface, as did heavily sedated swans, floating serenely. As the evening wore on the drugs wore off, and the swans underwent a personality change from serene to pugnacious. They stalked from the pond, dripping, flapping and pecking vigorously at one another, to assert their right to the brandy and bonbons. They honked and attacked guests, some of whom, having consumed too much brandy, fled into the pond. Mim herself was accosted by one of the larger swans. She was saved at the last minute by Jim, who lifted her off the ground while abandoning the table to the greedy bird.

Photos of the debacle splashed across Town and Country. The copy, lighthearted, did not declare the night a disaster, but Mim was stung nonetheless.

Miranda Hogendobber, punctual to a fault, came up the driveway in her ancient but impeccable Ford Falcon. She was soon followed by Elliewood and Port. After fulsome greetings, Little Marilyn helped her mother load the ladies. She pushed off the pontoon boat and waved from the shore. Then Little Marilyn sat on the dock, toes in the water.

The first round of drinks loosened everyone. Miranda allowed alcohol to scorch her lips. A nifty cure for the stomach ailment that had plagued her last night. She refused the second round but did take a tiny nip on the third.

Mim broke out a fresh deck of cards, still smelling of ink. Port and Elliewood played against Miranda and Mim. Mim just couldn’t do enough for Miranda, which amused Port and Elliewood, who knew Mim was angling for something. Occasionally Mim would wave to a sunbathing Little Marilyn on the dock. It was perfect, really perfect, because Mim was winning.

After the first round of cards, Mim insisted on cranking the boat up and motoring on the lake. Speed was her downfall. She frightened Port, who continually asked her to slow down, but Mim, three sheets to the wind, told Port, in so many words, to shut up and live dangerously.

Finally, she stopped the boat for lunch. At first no one noticed anything wrong. The effects of the drink and the profound gratitude of not having Mim at the wheel dulled their senses.

Then Port felt something rather wet. She glanced down. “Mim, my feet are wet.”

Everyone looked down. Everyone’s feet were wet.

“Well, put your feet on the table.” Mim cheerily poured another round.

“I get the distinct sensation that we are lower in the water,” Mrs. Hogendobber said, even-voiced.

“Miranda, we are lower in the water,” Port echoed, her face now white despite the sunburn.

Mim took off her soaking shoes and settled back for another swig. The group stared at her.

“Can you bail? I mean, Mim darling, do you have a pump?” Elliewood asked. Not a cursing woman, Elliewood had to exercise willpower to say “darling.” She wanted to say “jerk,” “asshole,” anything to get Mim’s attention.

By now the water was mid-calf. Port, unable to control herself any longer, emitted a heartrending shriek. “We’re sinking! Help, my God, we’re sinking.”

She so startled the other women that Miranda put her hands to her ears and Elliewood fell out of her chair. She did not, however, spill her drink.

“I’ll drown. I don’t want to die,” Port wailed.

“Shut up! Shut up this minute. You’re embarrassing me.” Mim spat the words. “Little Marilyn is there on the dock. I’ll get her attention. There’s not one thing to worry about.”

Mim waved at her daughter. Little Marilyn didn’t budge.

Elliewood and Miranda waved too.

“Little Marilyn,” her mother called.

Little Marilyn sat still as a post.

“Little Marilyn! Little Marilyn!” the other three called.

“I can’t swim! I’m going to drown,” blubbered Port.

“Will you please be quiet,” Mim demanded. “You can hold on to the boat.”

“The goddamned boat is sinking, you bitch!” Port shouted.

Mim, outraged, pushed Port off her chair. Port sloshed in the water but bounced back up. She hauled off and caught Mim in the neighborhood of the left bosom.

Elliewood grabbed Mim, and Miranda grabbed Port.

“That’s quite enough,” Miranda ordered. “It won’t settle anything.”

“Who are you to tell me what to do?” Port got snotty.

“Bag it, Port.” Mim, although in deep water, was not going to have her chances ruined. She returned her attentions to Little Marilyn. She screamed. She hollered. She boldly took off her red-and-white T-shirt and waved it over her head, her lift-and-separate bra dazzling in the sun for all to see.

Little Marilyn, who was staring at them the entire time, finally rose to her feet and walked—not ran, but walked—up to the house.

“She’s leaving us to die,” Port sobbed.

“Can you swim?” Miranda matter-of-factly asked Elliewood. “I can’t.”

“I can’t,” howled Port.

“I can,” replied Elliewood.

“Me too,” said Mim.

“You’ll leave me here. I just know you will. Mim, you’re a cold-hearted, self-centered snake. You always were and you always will be. I curse you with my dying breath.” Clearly, Port had once harbored secret dreams of being an actress.

“Shut the fuck up!” Mim shouted.

The use of the “f” word stunned the girls more than the fact that they were sinking.

Mim continued. “If help does not come in time, and I’m sure it will, we will nonetheless get you to shore, but you’ve got to lie on your back and shut up. I emphasize shut up.”

Port put her head in her hands and cried.

Miranda, with calm resolution, prepared to meet her Maker.

Within minutes Jim, Rick Shaw, and Little Marilyn appeared on the shore. Little Marilyn pointed to the distressed band. Mim forgot she had taken her shirt off. Miranda did not. She covered Mim.

Jim and Rick ran in opposite directions. Jim hauled a canoe out of the dock house and Rick hopped in his squad car. He roared to the neighbor’s on the other side of the lake. They really didn’t want him to use their small motorboat. The sight of Mim’s sinking was pleasing to their eyes but they gave in. The women were rescued as the water crept above their waistlines.

Later, Jim and Rick overturned the boat. One of the pontoons had been slashed and then covered with some manner of water-soluble pitch. Mim, fully recovered from her plight, stood next to the boat. Jim wished she hadn’t seen this.

“Someone tried to kill me.” Mim blinked.

“Well, it could have been ripped on the bottom,” Jim lied.

“Don’t tell me what I know. I never came near the bottom. Someone tried to kill me!” Mim was more angry than scared.

“Perhaps they only meant to give you a hard time.” Rick hunkered down again to inspect the tear.

Mim, now in full hue and cry, whipped out her cellular phone to call the girls.

“Don’t do that, Mrs. Sanburne.” Rick pushed down the phone’s aerial.

“Why not?”

“It might be prudent to keep this to ourselves for a while. If we withhold information, the guilty party might make a mistake, ask a leading question—you understand?”

“Quite.” Mim pursed her lips.

“Now, Mim honey, don’t you worry. I’ll hire day and night bodyguards for you.” Jim put his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“That’s too obvious,” Mim replied.

After further discussion Jim convinced her, saying he’d get female bodyguards and they’d pass them off as exchange students.

Later, when grilled by her mother concerning her inaction on the dock, Little Marilyn declared the sight of Mim sinking was so traumatic that she was temporarily paralyzed by the prospect of losing her mother.