Wish You Were Here. Rest In Pieces. Murder At Monticello

“Tucker!” Harry rushed to the dog, bruised but wagging her tail.

Cooper scooped up Mrs. Murphy as she walked over to Harry. She kissed the kitty, whose fur still stood straight up.“Bless you, Mrs. Murphy.” She reached down and felt for Josiah’s pulse. She dropped his arm as if it were rotten meat. “Harry, if these two hadn’t thrown him off balance he would have hit one of us. His gun was on rapid fire. The tunnel isn’t that wide. He was no dummy, except for his little slip in the post office.”

Harry sat on the moist earth, Tucker licking the tears from her face. Mrs. Murphy stood on her hind legs, her front paws wrapped around Harry’s neck. Harry rubbed her cheek against Mrs. Murphy’s soft fur.

“It’s a funny thing, Cooper. I didn’t think about myself. I thought about these two. If he had hurt Mrs. Murphy or Tucker, I would have killed him with my bare hands if I could have. My mind was perfectly composed and crystal-clear.”

“You’ve got guts, Harry. I was armed. You threw out your gun to sucker him in.”

“He wouldn’t have come in otherwise. I don’t know—maybe he would have. God, it seems like a dream. What a cunning son of a bitch. He had two guns.”

Cooper frisked the body.“And a stiletto.”

46

Mrs. Hogendobber rapturously returned on the day following Harry’s shoot-out with Josiah. The media had a field day with the heroic postmistress, her valiant cat and gallant dog, as well as stalwart Officer Cooper, so cool under fire. Harry found the hoopla almost as bad as being trapped in the tunnel.

Rick Shaw, fully briefed on the engagement with Josiah DeWitt, never mentioned in his prepared statement that Josiah’s entry into wealthy homes was on Mim Sanburne’s arm. Naturally, all of Crozet knew it, as well as Mim’s rich friends, but at least that detail wasn’t splashed across America. Jim secretly relished that his wife’s snobbery had been her undoing, and he was thrilled to be rid of Josiah.

Pewter envied her friends terribly and ate twice as much to make up for being denied stardom.

Fair and BoomBoom dated. No promises were made yet. They struggled to find some equilibrium amid the torrid gossip concerning them. Harry went from being the tough wife who threw out her husband to the innocent victim—in public, but not Harry’s, opinion.

Susan got Harry to take up golf for relaxation. Harry wasn’t certain that it relaxed her, but it began to obsess her.

Little Marilyn and Mim made up, sort of. Mim had brains enough to know that she would never dominate her daughter again.

On schedule, Rob brought the mail and picked it up. Harry kept reading postcards. Lindsay Astrove returned from Europe, sorry to have missed the drama. Jim Sanburne and the town council of Crozet decided to make money from the scandal. They offered tours of the tunnel. Tourists rode up in handcarts. A nice booklet on the life of Claudius Crozet was printed and sold for $12.50.

Life returned to normal, whatever that is.

Crozet was an imperfect corner of the world with rare moments of perfection. Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker witnessed one of them on a crisp September day.

Harry looked out the post office window and saw Stafford Sanburne, with his beautiful wife, step off the train. He was greeted by Mim and Little Marilyn. He had a big smile on his face. So did Harry.

2. REST IN PIECES

1

Golden light poured over the little town of Crozet, Virginia. Mary Minor Haristeen looked up from the envelopes she was sorting and then walked over to the large glass window to admire the view. It seemed to her as if the entire town had been drenched in butter. The rooftops shone; the simple clapboard buildings were lent a pleasing grace. Harry was so compelled by the quality of the light that she threw on her denim jacket and walked out the back door. Mrs. Murphy, Harry’s tiger cat, and Tee Tucker, her corgi, roused themselves from a drowsy afternoon slumber to accompany her. The long October rays of the sun gilded the large trotting-horse weathervane on Miranda Hogendobber’s house on St. George Avenue, seen from the alleyway behind the post office.

Brilliant fall days brought back memories of hotly contested football games, school crushes, and cool nights. Much as Harry loathed cold weather, she liked having to buy a new sweater or two. At Crozet High she had worn a fuzzy red sweater one long-ago October day, in 1973 to be exact, and caught the eye of Fair Haristeen. Oak trees transformed into orange torches, the maples turned bloodred, and the beech trees became yellow, then as now. Autumn colors remained in her memory, and this would be that kind of fall. Her divorce from Fair had been final six months ago, or was it a year? She really couldn’t remember, or perhaps she didn’t want to remember. Her friends ransacked their address books for the names of eligible bachelors. There were two: Dr. Larry Johnson, the retired, widowed town doctor, who was two years older than God, and the other, of course, was Pharamond Haristeen. Even if she wanted Fair back, which she most certainly did not, he was embroiled in a romance with BoomBoom Craycroft, the beautiful thirty-two-year-old widow of Kelly Craycroft.

Harry mused that everyone in town had nicknames. Olivia was BoomBoom, and Pharamond was Fair. She was Harry, and Peter Shiflett, who owned the market next door, was called Market. Cabell Hall, president of the Allied National Bank in Richmond, was Cab or Cabby; his wife of twenty-seven years, Florence, was dubbed Taxi. The Marilyn Sanburnes, senior and junior, were Big Marilyn, or Mim, and Little Marilyn respectively. How close it made everyone feel, these little monikers, these tokens of intimacy, nicknames. Crozet folks laughed at their neighbors’ habits, predicting who would say what to whom and when. These were the joys of a small town, yet they masked the same problems and pain, the same cruelties, injustice, and self-destructive behavior found on a larger scale in Charlottesville, fourteen miles to the east, or Richmond, seventy miles beyond Charlottesville. The veneer of civilization, so essential to daily life, could easily be dissolved by crisis. Sometimes it didn’t even take a crisis: Dad came home drunk and beat the living shit out of his wife and children, or a husband arrived home early from work to his heavily mortgaged abode and found his wife in bed with another man. Oh, it couldn’t happen in Crozet but it did. Harry knew it did. After all, a post office is the nerve center of any community and she knew, usually before others, what went on when the doors were closed and the lights switched off. A flurry of legal letters might cram a box, or a strange medley of dental bills, and as Harry sorted the mail she would piece together the stories hidden from view.

If Harry understood her animals better, then she’d know even more, because her corgi, Tee Tucker, could scurry under porch steps, and Mrs. Murphy could leap into a hayloft, a feat the agile tiger cat performed both elegantly and with ease. The cat and dog carried a wealth of information, if only they could impart it to their relatively intelligent human companion. It was never easy, though. Mrs. Murphy sometimes had to roll over in front of her mother, or Tee Tucker might have to grab her pants leg.

Today the animals had no gossip about humans or their own kind. They sat next to Harry and observed Miranda Hogendobber—clad in a red plaid skirt, yellow sweater, and gardening gloves—hoe her small patch, which was producing a riot of squash and pumpkins. Harry waved to Mrs. Hogendobber, who returned the acknowledgment.

“Harry,” Susan Tucker, Harry’s best friend, called from inside the post office.

“I’m out back.”

Susan opened the back door.“Postcard material. Picture perfect. Fall in central Virginia.”

As she spoke the back door of the market opened and Pewter, the Shifletts’ fat gray cat, streaked out, a chicken leg in her mouth.

Market shouted after the cat,“Damn you, Pewter, you’ll get no supper tonight.” He started after her as she headed toward the post office, glanced up, and beheld Harry and Susan. “Excuse me, ladies, had I known you were present I would not have used foul language.”

Harry laughed.“Oh, Market, we use worse.”

“Are you going to share?” Mrs. Murphy inquired of Pewter as she shot past them.

“How can she answer? Her mouth is full,” Tucker said.“Besides, when have you known Pewter to give even a morsel of food to anybody else?”

“That’s a fact.” Mrs. Murphy followed her gray friend, just in case.

Pewter stopped just out of reach of a subdued Market, now chatting up the ladies. She tore off a tantalizing hunk of chicken.

“How’d you get that away from Market?” Mrs. Murphy’s golden eyes widened.

Ever ready to brag, Pewter chewed, yet kept a paw on the drumstick.“He put one of those barbecued chickens up on the counter. Little Marilyn asked him to cut it up and when his back was turned I made off with a drumstick.” She chewed another savory piece.

“Aren’t you a clever girl?” Tucker sniffed that delicious smell.

“As a matter of fact I am. Little Marilyn hollered and declared she wouldn’t take a chicken that a cat had bitten into, and truthfully, I wouldn’t eat anything Little Marilyn had touched. Turning into as big a snot as her mother.”

With lightning speed Mrs. Murphy grabbed the chicken leg as Tucker knocked the fat kitty off balance. Mrs. Murphy raced down the alleyway into Miranda Hogendobber’s garden, followed by a triumphant Tucker and a spitting Pewter.

“Give me that back, you striped asshole!”

“You never share, Pewter,” Tucker said as Mrs. Murphy ran between the rows of cornstalks, moving toward the moonlike pumpkins.

“Harry,” Mrs. Hogendobber bellowed, “these creatures will be the death of me yet.”

She brandished her hoe in the direction of Tucker, who ran away. Now Pewter chased Mrs. Murphy up and down the rows of squash but Mrs. Murphy, nimble and fit, leapt over a wide, spreading squash plant with its creamy yellow bounty in the middle. She headed for the pumpkins.

Market laughed.“Think we could unleash Miranda on the Sanburnes?” He was referring to Little Marilyn and her equally distasteful maternal unit, Mim.

That made Susan and Harry laugh, which infuriated Mrs. Hogendobber because she thought they were laughing at her.

“It’s not funny. They’ll ruin my garden. My prize pumpkins. You know I’m going to win at the Harvest Fair with my pumpkins.” Miranda’s face turned puce.

“I’ve never seen that color on a human being before.” Tucker stared up in wonderment.

“Tucker, watch out for the hoe,” Mrs. Murphy yelled. She dropped the drumstick.

Pewter grabbed it. The fat swung under her belly as she shot back toward home, came within a whisker’s length of Market and skidded sideways, evading him.

He laughed.“If they want it that bad I might as well bring over the rest of the chicken.”

By the time he was back with the chicken, Mrs. Hogendobber, huffing and puffing, had plopped herself at the back door of the post office.

“Tucker could have broken my hip. What if she’d knocked me over?” Mrs. Hogendobber warmed to the scenario of damage and danger.

Market bit his tongue. He wanted to say that she was well padded enough not to worry. Instead he clucked sympathy while cutting meat off the chicken for the three animals, who hastily forgave one another any wrongdoing. Chicken was too important to let ego stand in the way.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hogendobber. Are you all right?” Harry asked politely.

“Of course I’m all right. I just wish you could control your charges.”

“What you need is a corgi,” Susan Tucker volunteered.

“No, I don’t. I took care of my husband all my life and I don’t need a dog to care for. At least George brought home a paycheck, bless his soul.”

“They’re very entertaining,” Harry added.

“What about the fleas?” Mrs. Hogendobber was more interested than she cared to admit.

“You can have those without a dog,” Harry answered.

“I do not have fleas.”

“Miranda, when the weather’s warm, everyone’s got fleas,” Market corrected her.

“Speak for yourself. And if I ran a food establishment I would make sure there wasn’t a flea within fifty yards of the place. Fifty yards.” Mrs. Hogendobber pursed her lips, outlined in a pearlized red that matched the red in her plaid skirt. “And I’d give more discounts.”

“Now, Miranda.” Market, having heard thisad nauseam, was prepared to launch into a passionate defense of his pricing practices.

An unfamiliar voice cut off this useless debate.“Anyone home?”

“Who’s that?” Mrs. Hogendobber’s eyebrows arched upward.

Harry and Susan shrugged. Miranda marched into the post office. As her husband, George, had been postmaster for over forty years before his death, she felt she could do whatever she wanted. Harry was on her heels, Susan and Market bringing up the rear. The animals, finished with the chicken, scooted in.

Standing on the other side of the counter was the handsomest man Mrs. Hogendobber had seen since Clark Gable. Susan and Harry might have chosen a more recent ideal of virility, but whatever the vintage of comparison, this guy was drop-dead gorgeous. Soft hazel eyes illuminated a chiseled face, rugged yet sensitive, and his hair was curly brown, perfectly cut. His hands were strong. Indeed, his entire impression was one of strength. On top of well-fitted jeans was a watermelon-colored sweater, the sleeves pushed up on tanned, muscular forearms.

For a moment no one said a word. Miranda quickly punctured the silence.

“Miranda Hogendobber.” She held out her hand.

“Blair Bainbridge. Please call me Blair.”

Miranda now had the upper hand and could introduce the others.“This is our postmistress, Mary Minor Haristeen. Susan Tucker, wife of Ned Tucker, a very fine lawyer should you ever need one, and Market Shiflett, who owns the store next door, which is very convenient and carries those sinful Dove bars.”

“Hey, hey, what about us?” The chorus came from below.

Harry picked up Mrs. Murphy.“This is Mrs. Murphy, that’s Tee Tucker, and the gray kitty is Pewter, Market’s invaluable assistant, though she’s often over here picking up the mail.”

Blair smiled and shook Mrs. Murphy’s paw, which delighted Harry. Mrs. Murphy didn’t mind. The masculine vision then leaned over and patted Pewter’s head. Tucker held up her paw to shake, which Blair did.

“I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Me, too,” Tucker replied.

“May I help you?” Harry asked as the others leaned forward in anticipation.

“Yes. I’d like a post box if one is available.”

“I have a few. Do you like odd numbers or even?” Harry smiled. She could be charming when she smiled. She was one of those fine-looking women who took few pains with herself. What you saw was what you got.

“Even.”

“How does forty-four sound? Or thirteen—I almost forgot I had thirteen.”

“Don’t take thirteen.” Miranda shook her head. “Bad luck.”

“Forty-four then.”

“Thirty-four ninety-five, please.” Harry filled out the box slip and stamped it with pokeberry-colored ink, a kind of runny maroon.

He handed over the check and she handed over the key.

“Is there a Mrs. Bainbridge?” Mrs. Hogendobber brazenly asked. “The name sounds so familiar.”

Market rolled his eyes heavenward.

“No, I haven’t had the good fortune to find the right woman to—”

“Harry’s single, you know. Divorced, actually.” Mrs. Hogendobber nodded in Harry’s direction.

At that moment Harry and Susan would have gladly slit her throat.

“Mrs. Hogendobber, I’m sure Mr. Bainbridge doesn’t need my biography on his first visit to the post office.”

“On my second, perhaps you’ll supply it.” He put the key in his pocket, smiled, and left, climbing into a jet-black Ford F350 dually pickup. Mr. Bainbridge was prepared to do some serious hauling in that baby.

“Miranda, how could you?” Susan exclaimed.

“How could I what?”

“You know what.” Market took up the chorus.

Miranda paused.“Mention Harry’s marital status? Listen, I’m older than any of you. First impressions are important. He might not have such a good first impression of me but I bet he’ll have one of Harry, who handled the situation with her customary tact and humor. And when he goes home tonight he’ll know there’s one pretty unmarried woman in Crozet.” With that astonishing justification she swept out the back door.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Market’s jaw hung slack.

“That’s what I say.” Pewter cackled.

“Girls, I’m going back to work. This was all too much for me.” Market laughed and opened the front door. He paused. “Oh, come on, you little crook.”

Pewter meowed sweetly and followed her father out the door.

“Can you believe Rotunda could run that fast?” Tucker said to Mrs. Murphy.

“That was a surprise.” Mrs. Murphy rolled over on the floor, revealing her pretty buff underbelly.

“This fall is going to be full of surprises. I feel it in my bones.” Tucker smiled and wagged her stumpy tail.

Mrs. Murphy gave her a look. The cat was not in the mood for prophecy. Anyway, cats knew more of such things than dogs. She didn’t feel like confirming that she thought Tucker was right. Somethingwas in the air. But what?

Harry placed the check in the drawer under the counter. It was face up and she peered down at it again.“Yellow Mountain Farm.”

“There is no Yellow Mountain Farm.” Susan bent over to examine the check.

“Foxden.”

“What? That place has been empty for over a year now. Who would buy it?”

“A Yankee.” Harry closed the door. “Or someone from California.”

“No.” Susan’s voice dropped.

“There is nothing else for sale around Yellow Mountain except Foxden.”

“But, Harry, we know everything, and we haven’t heard one word, one measly peep, about Foxden selling.”

Harry was already dialing the phone as Susan was talking.“Jane Fogleman, please.” There was a brief pause. “Jane, why didn’t you tell me Foxden had sold?”

Jane, from the other end of the line, replied,“Because we were instructed to keep our mouths shut until the closing, which was at nine this morning at McGuire, Woods, Battle and Boothe.”

“I can’t believe you’d keep it from us. Susan and I just met him.”

“Those were Mr. Bainbridge’s wishes.” Jane held her breath for a moment. “Did you ever see anything like him? I mean to tell you, girl.”

Harry fudged and sounded unimpressed.“He’s good-looking.”

“Good-looking? He’s to die for!” Jane exploded.

“Let’s hope no one has to do that,” Harry remarked drily. “Well, you told me what I wanted to know. Susan says hello and we’ll be slow to forgive you.”

“Right.” Jane laughed and hung up.

“Foxden.” Harry put the receiver in the cradle.

“God, we had some wonderful times at that old farm. The little six-stall barn and the gingerbread on the house and oh, don’t forget, the cemetery. Remember the one really old tombstone with the little angel playing a harp?”

“Yeah. The MacGregors were such good people.”

“Lived forever, too. No kids. Guess that’s why they let us run all over the place.” Susan felt old Elizabeth MacGregor’s presence in the room. An odd sensation and not rational but pleasant, since Elizabeth and Mackie, her husband, were the salt of the earth.

“I hope Blair Bainbridge has as much happiness at Foxden as the MacGregors did.”

“He ought to keep the name.”

“Well, that’s his business,” Harry replied.

“Bet Miranda gets him to do it.” Susan took a deep breath. “You’ve got yourself a new neighbor, Sistergirl. Aren’t you dying of curiosity?”

Harry shook her head.“No.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh, Harry, get over the divorce.”

“I am over the divorce and I’m not majoring in longing and desire, despite all your hectoring for the last six months.”

“You can’t keep living like a nun.” Susan’s voice rose.

“I’ll live the way I want to live.”

“There they go again,” Tucker observed.

Mrs. Murphy nodded.“Tucker, want to go over to Foxden tonight if we can get out of the house? Let’s check out this Bainbridge guy. I mean, if everyone’s going to be pushing Mom at him we’d better get the facts.”

“Great idea.”

2

By eleven that night Harry was sound asleep. Mrs. Murphy, dexterity itself, pulled open the back door. Harry rarely locked it and tonight she hadn’t shut it tight. It required only patience for the cat, with her clever claws, to finally swing the door open. The screen door was a snap. Tucker pushed it open with her nose, popping the hook.

For October the night was unusually warm, the last flickering of Indian summer. Harry’s old Superman-blue Ford pickup rested by the barn. Ran like a top. The animals trotted by the truck.

“Wait a minute.” Tucker sniffed.

Mrs. Murphy sat down and washed her face while Tucker, nose to the ground, headed for the barn.“Simon again?”

Simon, the opossum, enjoyed rummaging around the grounds. Harry often tossed out marshmallows and table scraps for him. Simon made every effort to get these goodies before the racoons arrived. He didn’t like the raccoons and they didn’t like him.

Tucker didn’t reply to Mrs. Murphy’s question but ducked into the barn instead. The smell of timothy hay, sweet feed, and bran swirled around her delicate nostrils. The horses stayed out in the evenings and were brought inside during the heat of the day. That system would only continue for about another week because soon enough the deep frosts of fall would turn the meadows silver, and the horses would need to be in during the night, secure in their stalls and warmed by their Triple Crown blankets.

A sharp little nose stuck out from the feed room.“Tucker.”

“Simon, you’re not supposed to be in the feed room.” Tucker’s low growl was censorious.

“The raccoons came early, so I ran in here.” The raccoons’ litter proved Simon’s truthfulness.“Hello, Mrs. Murphy.” Simon greeted the sleek feline as she entered the barn.

“Hello. Say, have you been over to Foxden?” Mrs. Murphy swept her whiskers forward.

“Last night. No food over there yet.” Simon focused on his main concern.

“We’re going over for a look.”

“Not much to see ’ceptin for the big truck that new fellow has. That and the gooseneck trailer. Looks like he means to buy some horses because there aren’t any over there now.” Simon laughed because he knew that within a matter of weeks the horse dealers would be trying to stick a vacuum cleaner hose in Blair Bainbridge’s pockets.“Know what I miss? Old Mrs. MacGregor used to pour hot maple syrup in the snow to make candy and she’d always leave some for me. Can’t you get Harry to do that when it snows?”

“Simon, you’re lucky to get table scraps. Harry’s not much of a cook. Well, we’re going over to Foxden to see what’s cooking.” Tucker smiled at her little joke.

Mrs. Murphy stared at Tucker. She loved Tucker but sometimes she thought dogs were really dumb.

They left Simon munching away on a bread crust. As they crossed the twenty acres on the west side of Harry’s farm they called out to Harry’s horses, Tomahawk and Gin Fizz, who neighed in reply.

Harry had inherited her parents’ farm when her father died years ago. Like her parents, she kept everything tiptop. Most of the fence lines were in good repair, although come spring she would need to replace the fence along the creek between her property and Foxden. Her barn had received a fresh coat of red paint with white trim this year. The hay crop flourished. The bales, rolled up like giant shredded wheat, were lined up against the eastern fence line. All totaled, Harry kept 120 acres. She never tired of the farm chores and probably was at her happiest on the ancient Ford tractor, some thirty-five years old, pullingalong a harrow or a plow.

Getting up at five-thirty in the morning appealed to her except in darkest winter, when she did it anyway. The outdoor chores took so much of Harry’s free time that she wasn’t always able to keep up with the house. The outside needed some fresh paint. She and Susan had painted the inside last winter. Mrs. Hogendobber even came out to help for a day. Harry’s sofa and chairs, oversized, needed to be reupholstered. They were pieces her mother and father had bought at an auction in 1949 shortly after they were married. They figured the furniture had been built in the 1930’s. Harry didn’t much care how old the furniture was but it was the most comfortable stuff she’d ever sat in. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker could lounge unrestricted on the sofa, so it had their approval.

A small, strong creek divided Harry’s land from Foxden. Tucker scrambled down the bank and plunged in. The water was low. Mrs. Murphy, not overfond of water, circled around, revved her motors, and took a running leap, clearing the creek and Tucker as well.

From there they raced to the house, passing the small cemetery on its knoll. A light shone out from a second-story window into the darkness. Huge sweet gum trees, walnuts, and oaks sheltered the frame dwelling, built in 1837 with a 1904 addition. Mrs. Murphy climbed up the big walnut tree and casually walked out onto a branch to peer into the lighted room. Tucker bitched and moaned at the base of the tree.

“Shut up, Tucker. You’ll get us both chased out of here.”

“Tell me what you see.”

“Once I crawl back down, I will. How do we know this human doesn’t have good ears? Some do, you know.”

Inside the lighted room Blair Bainbridge was engaged in the dirty job of steaming off wallpaper. Nasty strips of peony paper, the blossoms a startling pink, hung down. Every now and then Blair would put down the steamer and pull on the paper. He wore a T-shirt, and little bits of wallpaper stuck to his arms. A portable CD player, on the other side of the room, provided some solace with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto Number One. No furniture or boxes cluttered the room.

Mrs. Murphy backed down the tree and told Tucker that there wasn’t much going on. They circled the house. The bushes had been trimmed back, the gardens mulched, the dead limbs pruned off trees. Mrs. Murphy opened the back screen door. The back porch had two director’s chairs and an orange crate for a coffee table. The old cast-iron boot scraper shaped like a dachshund still stood just to the left of the door. Neither cat nor dog could get up to see in the back door window.

“Let’s go to the barn,” Tucker suggested.

The barn, a six-stall shed row with a little office in the middle, presented nothing unusual. The stall floors, looking like moon craters, needed to be filled in and evened out. Blair Bainbridge would sweat bullets with that task. Tamping down the stalls was worse than hauling wheelbarrows loaded with clay and rock dust. Cobwebs hung everywhere and a few spiders were finishing up their winter preparations. Mice cleaned out what grain remained in the feed room. Mrs. Murphy regretted that she didn’t have more time to play catch.

They left the barn and inspected the dually truck and the gooseneck, both brand-new. Who could afford a new truck and trailer at the same time? Mr. Bainbridge wasn’t living on food stamps.

“We didn’t find out very much,” Tucker sighed.“Other than the fact that he has some money.”

“We know more than that.” Mrs. Murphy felt a bite on her shoulder. She dug ferociously.“He’s independent and he’s hardworking. He wants the place to look good and he wants horses. And there’s no woman around, nor does there seem to be one in the picture.”

“You don’t know that.” Tucker shook her head.

“There’s no woman. We’d smell her.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know that one might not visit. Maybe he’s fixing up the place to impress her.”

“No. I can’t prove it but I feel it. He wants to be alone. He listens to thoughtful music. I think he’s getting away from somebody or something.”

Tucker thought Mrs. Murphy was jumping to conclusions, but she kept her mouth shut or she’d have to endure a lecture about how cats are mysterious and how cats know things that dogs don’t,ad nauseam.

As the two walked home they passed the cemetery, the wrought-iron fence topped with spearheads marking off the area. One side had fallen down.

“Let’s go in.” Tucker ran over.

The graveyard had been in use by Joneses and MacGregors for nearly two hundred years. The oldest tombstone read: CAPTAIN FRANCIS EGBERT JONES, BORN 1730, DIED 1802. A small log cabin once stood near the creek, but as the Jones family’s fortunes increased they built the frame house. The foundation of the log cabin still stood by the creek. The various headstones, small ones for children, two of whom were carried off by scarlet fever right after the War Between the States, sported carvings and sayings. After that terrible war a Jones daughter, Estella Lynch Jones, married a MacGregor, which was how MacGregors came to be buried here, including the last occupants of Foxden.

The graveyard had been untended since Mrs. MacGregor’s death. Ned Tucker, Susan’s husband and the executor of the estate, rented out the acres to Mr. Stuart Tapscott for his own use. He had to maintain what he used, which he did. The cemetery, however, contained the remains of the Jones family and the MacGregor family, and the survivors, not Mr.Tapscott, were to care for the grounds. The lone descendant, the Reverend Herbert Jones, besieged by ecclesiastical duties and a bad back, was unable to keep up the plot.

It appeared things were going to change with Blair Bainbridge’s arrival. The tombstones that had been overturned were righted, the grass was clipped, and a small camellia bush was planted next to Elizabeth MacGregor’s headstone. The iron fence would take more than one person to right and repair.

“Guess Mr. Bainbridge went to work in here too,” Mrs. Murphy remarked.

“Here’s my favorite.” Tucker stood by the marker of Colonel Ezekiel Abram Jones, born in 1812 and died in 1861, killed at First Manassas. The inscription read: BETTER TO DIE ON YOUR FEET THAN LIVE ON YOUR KNEES. A fitting sentiment for a fallen Confederate who paid for his conviction, yet ironic in its unintentional parallel to the injustice of slavery.

“I like this one.” Mrs. Murphy leapt on top of a square tombstone with an angel playing a harp carved on it. This belonged to Ezekiel’s wife, Martha Selena, who lived thirty years beyond her husband’s demise. The inscription read: SHE PLAYS WITH ANGELS.

The animals headed back home, neither one discussing the small graveyard at Harry’s farm. Not that it wasn’t lovely and well kept, containing her ancestors, but it also contained little tombstones for the beloved family pets. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker found that a sobering possibility on which they refused to dwell.

They slipped into the house as quietly as they had left it, with both animals doing their best to push shut the door. They were only partially successful, the result being that the kitchen was cold when Harry arose at five-thirty, and the cat and dog listened to a patch of blue language, which made them giggle. Discovering that the hook had been bent on the screen door called forth a new torrent of verbal abuse. Harry forgot all about it as the sun rose and the eastern sky glowed peach, gold, and pink.

Those extraordinarily beautiful October days and nights would come back to haunt Harry and her animal friends. Everything seemed so perfect. No one is ever prepared for evil in the face of beauty.

3

“He has not only the absence of fear but of all scruple.” Mrs. Hogendobber’s alto voice vibrated with the importance of her story. “Well, I was shocked completely when I discovered that Ben Seifert, branch manager of our local bank, indulges in sharp business practices. He tried to get me to take out a loan on my house, which is paid for, Mr. Bainbridge. He said he was sure I needed renovations. ‘Renovate what?’ I said, and he said wouldn’t I be thrilled with a modern kitchen and a microwave? I don’t want a microwave. They give people cancer. Then Cabby Hall, the president, walked into the bank and I made a beeline for him. Told him everything and he took Ben to task. I only tell you this so you’ll be on your guard. This may be a small town but our bankers try to sell money just like those big city boys do, Mr. Bainbridge. Be on your toes!” Miranda had to stop and catch her breath.

“Please do call me Blair.”

“Then to top it off, the choir director of my church walked into the bank to inform me that he thought BoomBoom Craycroft had asked Fair Haristeen to marry her, or perhaps it was vice versa.”

“His vice was her versa.” Blair smiled, his bright white teeth making him even more attractive.

“Yes, quite. As it turned out, no proposal had taken place.” Mrs. Hogendobber folded her hands. She didn’t cotton to having her stories interrupted but she was blossoming under the attention of Blair Bainbridge—doubly sweet, since Susan Tucker and Harry could see his black truck parked alongside Mrs. Hogendobber’s house. Of course she was going to walk him through her garden, shower him with hints on how to achieve gargantuan pumpkins, and then bestow upon him the gifts of her green thumb. She might even find out something about him in the process. Some time ago Mrs. Hogendobber had borrowed some copies ofNew York magazine from Ned Tucker, for the crossword puzzles. After meeting Blair the other day, she had realized why his name was familiar: She had read about him in one of those magazines. There was an article about high-fashion romance. When he introduced himself, the name had seemed vaguely familiar. She was hoping to find out more today about his link to the article, his illfated relationship with a beautiful model named Robin Mangione.

The doorbell rang, destroying her plan. The Reverend Herbert Jones marched through the door when Mrs. Hogendobber opened it.

Now this curdled the milk in her excellent coffee. Mrs. Hogendobber felt competitive toward all rival prophets of Christianity. The Right Reverend Jones was minister of the Lutheran Church. His congregation, larger than hers at the Church of the Holy Light, served only to increase her efforts at conversion. The church used to be called The Holy Light Church, but two months ago Miranda had prevailed upon the preacher and the congregation to rename it the Church of the Holy Light. Her reasons, while serviceable, proved less convincing than her exhausting enthusiasm, hence the change.

A cup of coffee and fresh scones were served to Reverend Jones, and the three settled down for more conversation.

“Mr. Bainbridge, I want to welcome you to our small community and to thank you for fixing up my family’s cemetery. Due to disc problems, I have been unable to discharge my obligations to my forebears as they deserve.”

“It was my pleasure, Reverend.”

“Now, Herbie”—Miranda lapsed into familiarity—“you can’t lure Mr. Bainbridge into your fold until I’ve had a full opportunity to tell him about our Church of the Holy Light.”

Blair stared at his scone. A whiff of brimstone emanated from Mrs. Hogendobber’s sentence.

“This young man will find his own way. All paths lead to God, Miranda.”

“Don’t try to sidetrack me with tolerance,” she snapped.

“I’d never do that.” Reverend Jones slipped in that dig.

“I can appreciate your concern for my soul.” Blair’s baritone caressed Mrs. Hogendobber’s ears. “But I’m sorry to disappoint you both. The fact is I’m a Catholic, and while I can’t say I agree with or practice my faith as strictly as the Pope would wish, I occasionally go to Mass.”

The Reverend laid down his scone, dripping with orange marmalade made by Mrs. Hogendobber’s skilled hands. “A Lutheran is just a Catholic without the incense.”

This made both Blair and his hostess laugh. The Reverend was never one to allow dogma to stand in the way of affection and often, in the dead of night, he himself found little solace in the rigors of doctrine. Reverend Jones was a true shepherd to his flock. Let the intellectuals worry about transubstantiation and the Virgin Birth—he had babies to baptize, couples to counsel, the sick to succor, and burials to perform. He hated that latter part of his calling but he prayed to himself that the souls of his flock would go to God, even the most miserable wretches.

“If you don’t mind my asking, Reverend, how did you find out about the cemetery being mowed?” Blair wondered.

“Oh, Harry told me this morning as she walked in to work. Said her little doggie dashed over there as she was doing her chores and she caught her in the cemetery.”

“She walks to work?” Blair was incredulous. “It has to be two miles at least, one way.”

“Oh, yes. She likes the exercise. By the time she gets to the post office she’s already put in a good two to three hours of farm chores. A born farmer, Harry. In the bones. She’ll make a good neighbor.”

“Which brings me to the subject of your renaming your place Yellow Mountain Farm.” Mrs. Hogendobber composed herself for what she thought would be a siege of argument.

“It’s at the base of Yellow Mountain and so I naturally—”

She interrupted him.“It’s been Foxden since the beginning of the eighteenth century and I’m surprised Jane Fogleman did not inform you, as she is normally a fountain of information.”

The Reverend shrewdly took a pass on this one, even though the land in question was part of his heritage. He hadn’t the money to buy it nor the inclination to farm it, so he thought he had little right to tell the man what to call his purchase.

“That long?” Blair thought a moment. “Maybe Jane did mention it.”

“Did you read your deed?” Mrs. Hogendobber demanded.

“No, I let the lawyers do that. I’ve tried to wrestle some order out of the place though.”

“Pokeweeds,” the Reverend calmly said as he downed another scone.

“Is that what you call them?”

“In polite company.” Herbie laughed.

“Herbert, you are deliberately sidetracking this discussion, which, for the sake of the Historical Society of Greater Crozet, I must conduct.”

“Mrs. Hogendobber, if it means that much to you and the Historical Society, I will of course keep the name of Foxden.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Hogendobber hadn’t expected to win so easily. It rather disappointed her.

The Reverend Jones chuckled to himself that the Crozet Historical Society sometimes became the Crozet Hysterical Society but he was glad the old farm would keep its name.

Both gentlemen rose to go and she forgot to give Blair one of her pumpkins, a lesser specimen because she was saving the monster pumpkin for the Harvest Fair.

Blair walked with Reverend Jones to his church and then bade him goodbye, turning back to the post office. He passed a vagrant wearing old jeans and a baseball jacket and walking along the railroad track. The man appeared ageless; he could have been thirty or fifty. The sight startled him. Blair hadn’t expected to see someone like that in Crozet.

As Blair pushed open the post office door Tucker rushed out to greet him. Mrs. Murphy withheld judgment. Dogs needed affection and attention so much that in Mrs. Murphy’s estimation they could be fooled far more easily than a cat could be. If she’d given herself a minute to think, though, she would have had to admit she was being unfair to her best friend. Tucker’s feelings about people hit the bull’s-eye more often than not. Mrs. Murphy did allow herselfa stretch on the counter and Blair came over to scratch her ears.

“Good afternoon, critters.”

They replied, as did Harry from the back room.“Sounds like my new neighbor. Check your box. You’ve got a pink package slip.”

As Blair slipped the key into the ornate post box he called out to Harry,“Is the package pink too?”

The sound of the package hitting the counter coincided with Blair’s shutting his box. A slap and a click. He snapped his fingers to add to the rhythm.

Harry drawled,“Musical?”

“Happy.”

“Good.” She shoved the package toward him.

“Mind if I open this?”

“No, you’ll satisfy my natural curiosity.” She leaned over as Little Marilyn Sanburne flounced through the door accompanied by her husband, who sported new horn-rimmed glasses. Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton devouredEsquire andGQ. The results were as one saw.

“A bum on the streets of Crozet!” Little Marilyn complained.

“What?”

Little Marilyn pointed. Harry came out from behind the counter to observe the scraggly, bearded fellow, his face in profile. She returned to her counter.

Fitz-Gilbert said,“Some people have bad luck.”

“Some people are lazy,” declared Little Marilyn, who had never worked a day in her life.

She bumped into Blair when she whirled around to behold the wanderer one more time.

“Sorry. Let me get out of your way.” Blair pushed his carton over to the side of the counter.

Harry began introductions.

Fitz-Gilbert stuck out his hand and heartily said,“Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton. Princeton, 1980.”

Blair blinked and then shook his hand.“Blair Bainbridge. Yale, 1979.”

That caught Fitz-Gilbert off guard for a moment.“Before that?”

“St. Paul’s,” came the even reply.

“Andover,” Fitz-Gilbert said.

“I bet you boys have friends in common,” Little Marilyn added—without interest, since the conversation was not about her.

“We’ll have to sit down over a brew and find out,” Fitz-Gilbert offered. He was genuinely friendly, while his wife was merely correct.

“Thank you. I’d enjoy that. I’m over at Foxden.”

“We know.” Little Marilyn added her two cents.

“Small town. Everybody knows everything.” Fitz-Gilbert laughed.

The Hamiltons left laden with mail and mail-order catalogues.

“Crozet’s finest.” Blair looked to Harry.

“They think so.” Harry saw no reason to disguise her assessment of Little Marilyn and her husband.

Mrs. Murphy hopped into Blair’s package.

“Why don’t you like them?” Blair inquired.

“It helps if you meet Momma. Big Marilyn—or Mim.”

“Big Marilyn?”

“I kid you not. You’ve just had the pleasure of meeting Little Marilyn. Her father is the mayor of Crozet and they have more money than God. She married Fitz-Gilbert a year or so ago in a social extravaganza on a par with the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di. Didn’t Mrs. Hogendobber fillyou in?”

“She allowed as how everyone here has a history which she would be delighted to relate, but the Reverend Jones interrupted her plans, I think.” Blair started to laugh. The townspeople were nothing if not amusing and he liked Harry. He had liked her right off the bat, a phrase that kept circlingin his brain although he didn’t know why.

Harry noticed Mrs. Murphy rustling in Blair’s package. “Hey, hey, out of there, Miss Puss.”

In reply Mrs. Murphy scrunched farther down in the box. Only the tips of her ears showed.

Harry leaned over the box.“Scram.”

Mrs. Murphy meowed, a meow of consummate irritation.

Blair laughed.“What’d she say?”

“Don’t rain on my parade,” Harry replied, and to torment the cat she placed the box on the floor.

“No, she didn’t,” Tucker yelped.“She said, ‘Eat shit and die.’ ”

“Shut up, Fuckface,” Mrs. Murphy rumbled from the depths of the carton, the tissue paper crinkling in a manner most exciting to her ears.

Tucker, not one to be insulted, ran to the box and began pulling on the flap.

“Cut it out,” came the voice from within.

Now Tucker stopped and stuck her head in the box, cold nose right in Mrs. Murphy’s face. The cat jumped straight up out of the box, turned in midair, and grabbed on to the dog. Tucker stood still and Mrs. Murphy rolled under the dog’s belly. Then Tucker raced around the post office, the cat dangling underneath like a Sioux on the warpath.

Blair Bainbridge bent over double, he was laughing so hard.

Harry laughed too.“Small pleasures.”

“Not small—large indeed. I don’t know when I’ve seen anything so funny.”

Mrs. Murphy dropped off. Tucker raced back to the box.“I win.”

“Do you have anything fragile in there?” Harry asked.

“No. Some gardening tools.” He opened the box to show her. “I ordered this stuff for bulb planting. If I get right on it I think I can have a lovely spring.”

“I’ve got a tractor. It’s near to forty years old but it works just fine. Let me know when you need it.”

“Uh, well, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to drive one,” Blair confessed.

“Where are you from, Mr. Bainbridge?”

“New York City.”

Harry considered this.“Were you born there?”

“Yes, I was. I grew up on East Sixty-fourth.”

A Yankee. Harry decided not to give it another minute’s thought. “Well, I’ll teach you how to drive the tractor.”

“I’ll pay you for it.”

“Oh, Mr. Bainbridge.” Harry’s voice registered surprise. “This is Crozet. This is Virginia.” She paused and lowered her voice. “This is the South. Someday, something will turn up that you can do for me. Don’t say anything about money. Anyway, that’s what’s wrong with Little Marilyn and Fitz-Gilbert. Too much money.”

Blair laughed.“You think people can have too much money?”

“I do. Truly, I do.”

Blair Bainbridge spent the rest of the day and half the night thinking about that.

4

The doors of the Allied National Bank swung open and the vagrant breezed past Marion Molnar, past the tellers. Marion got up and followed this apparition as he strolled into Benjamin Seifert’s office and shut the door.

Ben, a rising star in the Allied National system, a prot?g? of bank president Cabell Hall, opened his mouth to say something just as Marion charged in behind the visitor.

“I want to see Cabell Hall,” he demanded.

“He’s at the main branch,” Marion said.

Protectively Ben rose and placed himself between the unwashed man and Marion.“I’ll take care of this.”

Marion hesitated, then returned to her desk as Ben closed the door. She couldn’t hear what was being said but the voices had a civil tone.

Within a few minutes Ben emerged with the man in the baseball jacket.

“I’m giving the gentleman a lift.” He winked at Marion and left.

5

The dew coated the grass as Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker walked along the railroad track. The night had been unusually warm again and the day promised to follow suit. The slanting rays of the morning drenched Crozet in bright hope—at least that’s how Harry thought of the morning.

As she passed the railroad station she saw Mrs. Hogendobber, little hand weights clutched in her fists, approaching from the opposite direction.

“Morning, Harry.”

“Morning, Mrs. H.” Harry waved as the determined figure huffed by, wearing an old sweater and a skirt below the knee. Mrs. Hogendobber felt strongly that women should not wear pants but she did concede to sneakers. Even her sister in Greenville, South Carolina, said it was all right to wear pants but Miranda declared that their dear mother had spent a fortune on cotillion. The least she could do for that parental sacrifice was to maintain her dignity as a lady.

Harry arrived at the door of the post office just as Rob Collier lurched up in the big mail truck. He grunted and hauled off the mail bags, complaining bitterly that gossip was thin at the main post office in Charlottesville, hopped back in the truck, and sped off.

As Harry was sorting the mail BoomBoom Craycroft sauntered in, her arrival lacking only triumphant fanfare. Unlike Mrs. Hogendobber she did wear pants, tight jeans in particular, and she was keen to wear T-shirts, or any top that would call attention to her bosom. She had developed early, in the sixth grade. The boys used to say,“Baboom, Baboom,” when she went sashaying past. Over the years this was abbreviated to BoomBoom. If her nickname bothered her no one could tell. She appeared delighted that her assets were now legend.

She did not appear delighted to see Harry.

“Good morning, BoomBoom.”

“Good morning, Harry. Anything for me?”

“I put it in the box. What brings you to town so early?”

“I’m getting up earlier now to catch as much light as I can. I suffer from seasonal affect disorder, you know, and winter depresses me.”

Harry, long accustomed to BoomBoom’s endless array of physical ills, enough to fill many medical books, couldn’t resist. “But BoomBoom, I thought you’d conquered that by removing dairy products from your diet.”

“No, that was for my mucus difficulty.”

“Oh.” Harry thought to herself that if BoomBoom had even half of the vividly described maladies she complained of, she’d be dead. That would be okay with Harry.

“We”—and by this BoomBoom meant herself and Harry’s ex-husband, Fair—“were at Mim’s last night. Little Marilyn and Fitz-Gilbert were there and we played Pictionary. You should see Mim go at it. She has to win, you know.”

“Did she?”

“We let her. Otherwise she wouldn’t invite us to her table at the Harvest Fair Ball this year. You know how she gets. But say, Little Marilyn and Fitz-Gilbert mentioned that they’d met this new man—‘divine looking’ was how Little Marilyn put it—and he’s your neighbor. A Yale man too. What would a Yale man do here? The South sends her sons to Princeton, so he must be a Yankee. I used to date a Yale man, Skull and Bones, which is ironic since I broke my ankle dancing with him.”

Harry thought calling that an irony was stretching it. What BoomBoom really wanted Harry to appreciate was that not only did she know a Yale man, she knew a Skull and Bones man—not Wolf’s Head or any of the other “lesser” secret societies, but Skull and Bones. Harry thought admission to Yale was enough of an honor; if one was tapped for a secret society, too, well, wonderful, but best to keep quiet about it. Then again, BoomBoom couldn’t keep quiet about anything.

Tucker yawned behind the counter.“Murph, jump in the mail cart.”

“Okay.” Mrs. Murphy wiggled her haunches and took a flying leap from the counter where she was eavesdropping on the veiled combat between the humans. She hit the mail cart dead center and it rolled across the back room, a metallic rattle to its wheels. Tucker barked as she ran alongside.

“Hey, you two.” Harry giggled.

“Well, I’ll be late for my low-impact aerobics class. Have a good day.” BoomBoom lied about the good day part and left.

BoomBoom attracted men. This only convinced Harry that the two sexes did not look at women in the same way. Maybe men and women came from different planets—at least that’s what Harry thought on her bad days. BoomBoom had attractive features and the celebrated big tits but Harry also saw that she was a hypochondriac of the first water, managing to acquire some dread malady whenever she was in danger of performing any useful labor.

Susan Tucker used to growl that BoomBoom never fucked anyone poor. Well, she’d broken that pattern with Fair Haristeen, and Harry knew that sooner or later BoomBoom would weary of not getting earrings from Cartier’s, vacations out of the country, and a new car whenever the mood struck her. Of course she had plenty of her own money to burn but that wasn’t as much fun as burning a hole in someone else’s pocket. She’d wait until she had a rich fellow lined up in her sights and then she’d dump Fair with lightning speed. Harry wanted to be a good enough person not to gloat when that moment occurred. However, she knew she wasn’t.

This reverie of delayed revenge was interrupted when Mim Sanburne strode into the post office. Sporting one of those boiled Austrian jackets and a jaunty hunter-green hat with a pheasant feather on her head, she might have come from the Tyrol. A pleasant thought if it meant she might blow back to the Tyrol.

“Harry.” Mim’s greeting was imperious.

“Mrs. Sanburne.”

Mim had a box with a low number, another confirmation of her status, since it had been in the family since the time postal service was first offered to Crozet. Her arms full of mail and glossy magazines, she dumped them on the counter.“Hear you’ve got a handsome beau.”

“I do?” came the surprised reply.

Mrs. Murphy jumped around in the mail bin as Tucker snapped from underneath at the moving blob in the canvas.

“My son-in-law, Fitz-Gilbert, said he recognized him, this Blair Bainbridge fellow. He’s a model. Seen him inEsquire, GQ, that sort of thing. Mind you, those models are a little funny, you know what I mean?”

“No, Mrs. Sanburne, I really don’t.”

“Well, I’m trying to protect you, Harry. Those pretty boys marry women but they prefer men, if I have to be blunt.”

“First off, I’m not dating him.”

This genuinely disappointed Mim.“Oh.”

“Secondly, I have no idea as to his sexual preference but he seems nice enough and for now I will take him at face value. Thirdly, I’m taking a vacation from men.”

Mim airily circled her hand over her head, a dramatic gesture for her.“That’s what every woman says until she meets the next man, and thereis a next man. They’re like streetcars—there’s always one coming around the corner.”

“That’s an interesting thought.” Harry smiled.

Mim’s voice hit the “important information” register. “You know, dear, BoomBoom will tire of Fair. When he comes to his senses, take him back.”

As everyone had her nose in everyone else’s business, this unsolicited, intimate advice from the mayor’s wife didn’t offend Harry. “I couldn’t possibly do that.”

A knowing smile spread across the carefully made-up face.“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” With that sage advice Mim started for the door, stopped, turned, grabbed her mail and magazines off the counter, and left for good.

Harry folded her arms across her chest, a respectable chest, too, and looked at her animals.“Girls, people say the damnedest things.”

Mrs. Murphy called out from the mail bin,“Mim’s a twit. Who cares? Gimme a push.”

“You look pretty comfortable in there.” Harry grabbed the corner of the mail bin and merrily rolled Mrs. Murphy across the post office as Tucker yapped with excitement.

Susan dashed through the back door, beheld the fun, and put Tucker in another mail bin.“Race you!”

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By the time they’d exhausted themselves they heard a scratching at the back door, opened it, and in strolled Pewter. So, with a grunt, Harry picked up the gray cat, placed her in Mrs. Murphy’s cart, and rolled the two cats at the same time. She crashed into Susan and Tucker.

Pewter, miffed, reached up and grabbed the edge of the mail bin with her paws. She was going to leap out when Mrs. Murphy yelled,“Stay in, wimp.”

Pewter complied by jumping onto the tiger cat, and the two rolled all over each other, meowing with delight as the mail bin races resumed.

“Wheee!” Susan added sound effects.

“Hey, let’s go out the back door and race up the alley,” Harry challenged.

“Yeah, yeah!” came the animals’ thrilled replies.

Harry opened the back door, she and Susan carefully lifted the mail bins over the steps, and soon they were ripping and tearing up and down the little alleyway. Market Shiflett saw them when he was taking out the garbage and encouraged them to run faster. Mrs. Hogendobber, shading her eyes, looked up from her pumpkins. Smiling, she shook her head and resumed her labors.

Finally, the humans pooped out. They slowly rolled the bins back to the post office.

“How come people forget stuff like this when they get older?” Susan asked.

“Who knows?” Harry laughed as she watched Mrs. Murphy and Pewter sitting together in the bin.

“Wonder why we still play?” Susan thought out loud.

“Because we discovered that the secret of youth is arrested development.” Harry punched Susan in the shoulder. “Ha.”

The entire day unfolded with laughter, sunshine, and high spirits. That afternoon, as Harry revved up the ancient tractor Blair Bainbridge drove up the driveway in his dually. Would she come over to his place and look at the old iron cemetery fence?

So Harry chugged down the road, Mrs. Murphy in her lap, and Tucker riding with Blair. Harry pulled up the fallen-down fence while Blair put concrete blocks around it to hold it until he could secure post corners. Working alongside Blair was fun. Harry felt closest to people when working with them or playing games. Blair wasn’t afraid to get dirty, which she found surprising for a city boy. Guess she surprised him too. She advised him on how to rehabilitate his stable, how to pack the stalls, and how to hang subzero fluorescent lights.

“Why not use incandescent lights?” Blair asked. “It’s prettier.”

“And a whole lot more expensive. Why spend money when you don’t have to?” She pushed her blue Giants cap back on her head.

“Well, I like things to look just so.”

“Hang the subzeros high up in the spine of your roof and then put regular lighting along the shed row, with metal guards over it. Otherwise you’ll be picking glass out of your horses’ heads. That’s if you have to have, just have to have, incandescent lights.”

Blair wiped his hands on his jeans.“Guess I look pretty stupid.”

“No, you need to learn about the country. I wouldn’t know what to do in New York City.” She paused. “Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton says you’re a model. Are you?”

“From time to time.”

“Out of work?”

Harry’s innocence about his field amused him and somehow made her endearing to him. “Not exactly. I can fly to a shoot. I just don’t want to live in New York anymore and, well, I don’t want to do that kind of work forever. The money is great but it’s not … fitting.”

Harry shrugged.“If a guy’s as handsome as you are he might as well make money off of it.”

Blair roared. He wasn’t used to women being so direct with him. They were too busy flirting and wanting to be his date at the latest social event. “Harry, are you always so, uh, forthright?”

“I guess.” Harry smiled. “But, hey, if you don’t like that kind of work I hope you find something you do like.”

“I’d like to breed horses.”

“Mr. Bainbridge, three words of advice.Don’t do it.” His face just fell. She hastened to add,“It’s a money suck. You’d do better buying yearlings or older horses and making them. Truly. Sometime we can sit down and talk this over. I’ve got to get back home before the light goes. I’ve got to run the manure spreader and pull out a fence post.”

“You helped me—I’ll help you.” Blair didn’t know that “making a horse” meant breaking and training the animal. He had asked so many questions he decided he’d give Harry a break. He’d ask someone else what the phrase meant.

They rode back to Harry’s. This time Mrs. Murphy rode with Blair and Tucker rode with Harry.

As Mrs. Murphy sat quietly in the passenger seat she focused on Blair. An engaging odor from his body curled around her nostrils, a mixture of natural scent, a hint of cologne, and sweat. He smiled as he drove along. She could feel his happiness. What was even better, he spoke to her as though she were an intelligent creature. He told her she was a very pretty kitty. She purred. He said he knew she was a champion mouser, he could just tell, and that once he settled in he would ask her about finding a cat or two for him. Nothing sadder on this earth than a human being without a cat. She added trills to her purrs.

By the time they turned into Harry’s driveway Mrs. Murphy felt certain that she had totally charmed Blair, although it was the other way around.

The fence post proved stubborn but they finally got it out. The manure spreading would wait until tomorrow because the sun had set and there was no moon to work by. Harry invited Blair into her kitchen and made a pot of Jamaican Blue coffee.

“Harry,” he teased her, “I thought you were frugal. This stuff costs a fortune.”

“I save my money for my pleasures,” Harry replied.

As they drank the coffee and ate the few biscuits Harry had, she told him about the MacGregors and the Joneses, the history of Foxden as she knew it, and the history of Crozet, named for Claudius Crozet, also as she knew it.

“Tell me something else.” He leaned forward, his warm hazel eyes lighting up. “Why does everyone’s farm have fox in its name? Fox Covert, Foxden, Fox Hollow, Red Fox, Gray Fox, Wily Fox, Fox Haven, Fox Ridge, Fox Run”—he inhaled—“Foxcroft, Fox Hills, Foxfield, Fox—”

“How about Dead Fox Farm?” Harry filled in.

“No way. You’re making that up.”

“Yeah.” Harry burst out laughing and Blair laughed along with her.

He left for home at nine-thirty, whistling as he drove. Harry washed up the dishes and tried to remember when she’d enjoyed a new person quite so much.

The cat and dog curled up together and wished humans could grasp the obvious. Harry and Blair were meant for each other. They wondered how long it would take them to figure it out and who, if anybody, would get in the way. People made such a mess of things.

6

The balmy weather held for another three days, much to the delight of everyone in Crozet. Mim lost no time in leaning on Little Marilyn to invite Blair Bainbridge to her house, during which time Mim just happened to stop by. She deeply regretted that Blair was too young for her and said so quite loudly, but this was a tack Mim usually took with handsome men. Her husband, Jim, laughed at her routine.

Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton’s den struck Blair as a hymn to Princeton. How much orange and black could anyone stand? Fitz-Gilbert made a point of showing Blair his crew picture. He even showed him his squash picture from Andover Academy. Blair asked him what had happened to his hair, which Fitz-Gilbert took as a reference to his receding hairline. Blair hastily assured him that was not what he’d meant; he’d noticed that the young Fitz-Gilbert was blond. Little Marilyn giggled and said that in school her husband dyed his hair. Fitz-Gilbert blustered and said that all the guys did it—it didn’t mean anything.

The upshot of this conversation was that the following morning Fitz-Gilbert appeared in the post office with blond hair. Harry stared at the thatch of gold above his homely face and decided the best course would be to mention it.

“Determined to live life as a blond, Fitz? Big Marilyn must be wearing off on you.”

Mim flew to New York City once every six weeks to have her hair done and God knows what else.

“Last night my wife decided, after looking through my yearbooks, that I look better as a blond. What do you think? Do blonds have more fun?”

Harry studied the effect.“You look very preppy. I think you’d have fun whatever your hair color.”

“I could never have done this in Richmond. That law firm.” He put his hands around his neck in a choking manner. “Now that I’ve opened my own firm I can do what I want. Feels great. I know I do better work now too.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if I had to dress up for work.”

“Worse than that, you couldn’t take the cat and dog to work with you,” Fitz-Gilbert observed. “You know, I don’t think people were meant to work in big corporations. Look at Cabell Hall, leaving Chase Manhattan for Allied National years ago. After a while the blandness of a huge corporation will diminish even the brightest ones. That’s what I like so much about Crozet. It’s small; the businesses are small; people are friendly. At first I didn’t know how I’d take the move from Richmond. I thought it might be dull.” He smiled. “Hard for life to be dull around the Sanburnes.”

Harry smiled back but wisely kept her mouth shut. He left, squeezing his large frame into his Mercedes 560SL, and roared off. Fitz and Little Marilyn owned the pearlized black SL, a white Range Rover, a silver Mercedes 420SEL, and a shiny Chevy half-ton truck with four-wheel drive.

As the day unfurled the temperature dropped a good fifteen to twenty degrees. Roiling black clouds massed at the tips of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The rain started before Harry left work. Mrs. Hogendobber kindly ran Harry back home although she complained about having Mrs. Murphy and Tucker in her car, an ancient Ford Falcon. She also complained about the car. This familiar theme—Mrs. Hogendobber had been complaining about her car since George bought it new in 1963—lulled Harry into a sleepy trance.

“… soon time for four more tires and I ask myself, Miranda, is it worth it? I think, trade this thing in, and then I go over to the Brady-Bushey Ford car lot and peruse those prices and, well, Harry, I tell you, my heart fairly races. Who can afford a new car? So it’s patch, patch, patch. Well, would you look at that!” she exclaimed. “Harry, are you awake? Have I been talking to myself? Look there, will you.”

“Huh.” Harry’s eyes traveled in the direction of Mrs. Hogendobber’s pointing finger.

A large sign swung on a new post. The background was hunter-green, the sign itself was edged in gold, and the lettering was gold. A fox peered out from its den. Above this realistic painting it read FOXDEN.

“That must have cost a pretty penny.” Mrs. Hogendobber sounded disapproving.

“Wasn’t there this morning.”

“This Bainbridge fellow must have money to burn if he can put up a sign like that. Next thing you know he’ll put up stone fences, and the cheapest, I mean the cheapest, you can get for that work is thirty dollars a cubic foot.”

“Don’t spend his money for him yet. A pretty sign doesn’t mean he’s going to go crazy and put all his goods in the front window, so to speak.”

As they pulled into the long driveway leading to Harry’s clapboard house, she asked Miranda Hogendobber in for a cup of tea. Mrs. Hogendobber refused. She had a church club meeting to attend and furthermore she knew Harry had chores. Given the continuing drop in the temperature and the pitch clouds sliding down the mountain as though on an inky toboggan ride, Harry was grateful. Mrs. H. peeled down the driveway and Harry hurried into the barn, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker way in front of her.

Her heavy barn jacket hung on a tack hook. Harry threw it on, tugged off her sneakers and slipped on duck boots, and slapped her Giants cap on her head. Grabbing the halters and lead shanks, she walked out into the west pasture just in time to get hit in the face with slashing rain. Mrs. Murphy stayed in the barn but Tucker went along.

Tomahawk and Gin Fizz, glad to see their mother, trotted over. Soon the little family was back in the barn. Picking up the tempo, the rain pelted the tin roof. A stiff wind knifed down from the northeast.

As Harry mixed bran with hot water and measured out sweet feed, Mrs. Murphy prowled the hayloft. Since everyone had made so much noise getting into the barn, the mice were forewarned. The big old barn owl perched in the rafters. Mrs. Murphy disliked the owl and this was mutual, since they competed for the mice. However, harsh words were rarely spoken. They had adopted a live-and-let-live policy.

A little pink nose, whiskers bristling, stuck out from behind a bale of timothy.“Mrs. Murphy.”

“Simon, what are you doing here?” Mrs. Murphy’s tail went to the vertical.

“Storm came up fast. You know, I’ve been thinking, this would be a good place to spend the winter. I don’t think your human would mind, do you?”

“As long as you stay out of the grain I doubt she’ll care. Watch out for the blacksnake.”

“She’s already hibernating … or she’s playing possum.” Simon’s whiskers twitched devilishly.

“Where?”

Simon indicated that the formidable four-foot-long blacksnake was curled up under the hay on the south side of the loft, the warmest place.

“God, I hope Harry doesn’t pick up the bale and see her. Give her heart failure.” Mrs. Murphy walked over. She could see the tip of a tail—that was it.

She came back and sat beside Simon.

“The owl really hates the blacksnake,” Simon observed.

“Oh, she’s cranky about everything.”

“Who?”

“You,” Mrs. Murphy called up.

“I am not cranky but you’re always climbing up here and shooting off your big mouth. Scares the mice.”

“It’s too early for you to hunt.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you have a big mouth.” The owl ruffed her feathers, then simply turned her head away. She could swivel her gorgeous head around nearly 360 degrees, and that fascinated the other animals. Four-legged creatures had a narrow point of view as far as the owl was concerned.

Mrs. Murphy and Simon giggled and then the cat climbed back down the ladder.

By the time Harry was finished, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker eagerly scampered to the house.

Next door, Blair, cold and soaked to the skin, also ran into his house. He’d been caught by the rain a good half-mile away from shelter.

By the time he dried off, the sky was obsidian with flashes of pinkish-yellow lightning, an unusual fall thunderstorm. As he went into the kitchen to heat some soup, a deafening crack and blinding pink light knocked him back a foot. When he recovered he saw smoke coming out of the transformer box on the pole next to his house. The bolt had squarely hit the transformer. Electric crackles continued for a few moments and then died away.

Blair kept rubbing his eyes. They burned. The house was now black and he hadn’t any candles. There was so much to do to settle in that he hadn’t gotten around to buying candles or a lantern yet, much less furniture.

He thought about going over to Harry’s but decided against it, because he was afraid he’d look like a wuss.

As he stared out his kitchen window another terrifying bolt of lightning hurtled toward the ground and struck a tree halfway between his house and the graveyard. For a brief moment he thought he saw a lone figure standing in the cemetery. Then the darkness again enshrouded everything and the wind howled like Satan.

Blair shivered, then laughed at himself. His stinging eyes were playing tricks on him. What was a thunderstorm but part of Nature’s brass and percussion?

7

Tree limbs lay on the meadows like arms and legs torn from their sockets. As Harry prowled her fence lines she could smell the sap mixed in with the soggy earth odor. She hadn’t time to inspect the fifty acres in hardwoods. She figured whole trees might have been uprooted, for as she had lain awake last night, mesmerized by the violence of the storm, she could hear, off in the distance like a moaning, the searing cracks and crashes of trees falling to their deaths. The good news was that no trees around the house had been uprooted and the barn and outbuildings remained intact.

“I hate getting wet,” Mrs. Murphy complained, pulling her paws high up in the air and shaking them every few steps.

“Go back to the house then, fussbudget.” This exaggerated fastidiousness of Mrs. Murphy’s amused and irritated Tucker. There was nothing like a joyous splash in the creek, a romp in the mud, or if she was really lucky, a roll in something quite dead, to lift Tucker’s corgi spirits. And as she was low to the ground, she felt justified in getting dirty. It would be different if shewere a Great Dane. Many things would be different if she were a Great Dane. For one thing, she could just ignore Mrs. Murphy with magisterial dignity. As it was, trying to ignore Mrs. Murphy meant the cat would tiptoe around and whack her on the ears. Wouldn’t it be fun to see Mrs. Murphy try that if she were a Great Dane?

“What if something important happens? I can’tleave.” Mrs. Murphy shook mud off her paw and onto Harry’s pants leg.“Anyway, three sets of eyes are better than one.”

“Jesus H. Christ on a raft.”

The dog and cat stopped and looked in the direction of Harry’s gaze. The creek between her farm and Foxden had jumped its banks, sweeping everything before it. Mud, grass, tree limbs, and an old tire that must have washed down from Yellow Mountain had crashed into the trees lining the banks. Some debris had become entangled; the rest was shooting downstream at a frightening rate of speed. Mrs. Murphy’s eyes widened. The roar of the water scared her.

As Harry started toward the creek she sank up to her ankle in trappy ground. Thinking the better of it, she backed off.

The leaden sky overhead offered no hope of relief. Cursing, her foot cold and wet, Harry squished back to the barn. She thought of her mother, who used to say that we all live in a perpetual state of renewal.“You must realize there is renewal in destruction, too, Harry,” she would say.

As a child Harry couldn’t figure out what her mother was talking about. Grace Hepworth Minor was the town librarian, so Harry used to chalk it up to Mom’s reading too many touchy-feely books. As the years wore on, her mother’s wisdom often came back to her. A sight such as this, so dispiriting at first, gave one the opportunity to rebuild, to prune, to fortify.

How she regretted her mother’s passing, for she would have liked to discuss emotional renewal in destruction. Her divorce was teaching her that.

Tucker, noticing the silence of her mother, the pensive air, said,“Human beings think too much.”

“Or not at all” was the saucy feline reply.

8

The rain picked up again midmorning. Steady rather than torrential, it did little to lighten anyone’s spirits. Mrs. Hogendobber’s beautiful red silk umbrella was the bright spot of the day. That and her conversation. She felt it incumbent upon her to call up everyone in Crozet who had a phone still working and inquire as to their well-being. She learned of Blair’s transformer’s being blown apart. The windows of the Allied National Bank were smashed. The shingles of Herbie Jones’s church littered the downtown street. Susan Tucker’s car endured a tree branch on its roof, and horror of horrors, Mim’s pontoon boat, her pride and joy, had been cast on its side. Worst of all, her personal lake was a muddy mess.

“Did I leave anything out?”

Harry cleaned out the letters and numbers in her postage meter with the sharp end of a safety pin. They’d gotten clogged with maroon ink. “Your prize pumpkin?”

“Oh, I brought her in last night.” Mrs. Hogendobber grabbed the broom and started sweeping the dried mud out the front door.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to but I used to do this for George. Makes me feel useful.” The clods of earth soared out into the parking lot. “Weatherman says three more days of rain.”

“If the animals go two by two, you know we’re in trouble.”

“Harry, don’t make light of the Old Testament. The Lord doesn’t shine on blasphemers.”

“I’m not blaspheming.”

“I thought maybe I’d scare you into going to church.” A sly smile crossed Mrs. Hogendobber’s lips, colored a bronzed orange today.

Fair Haristeen came in, wiped off his boots, and answered Mrs. Hogendobber.“Harry goes to church for weddings, christenings, and funerals. Says Nature is her church.” He smiled at his former wife.

“Yes, it is.” Harry was glad he was okay. No storm damage.

“Bridge washed out at Little Marilyn’s and at BoomBoom’s, too. Hard to believe the old creek can do that much damage.”

“Guess they’ll have to stay on their side of the water,” Mrs. Hogendobber said.

“Guess so.” Fair smiled. “Unless Moses returns.”

“I know what I forgot to tell you,” Mrs. Hogendobber exclaimed, ignoring the biblical reference. “The cat ate all the communion wafers!”

“Cazenovia at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church?” Fair asked.

“Yes, do you know her?” Mrs. H. spoke as though the animal were a parishioner.

“Cleaned her teeth last year.”

“Has she gotten in the wine?” Harry laughed.

Mrs. Hogendobber struggled not to join in the mirth—after all, the bread and wine were the body and blood of our Lord Jesus—but there was something funny about a cat taking communion.

“Harry, want to have lunch with me?” Fair asked.

“When?” She absentmindedly picked up a ballpoint pen, which had been lying on the counter, and stuck it behind her ear.

“Now. It’s noon.”

“I barely noticed, it’s so dark outside.”

“Go on, Harry, I’ll hold down the fort,” Mrs. Hogendobber offered. Divorce troubled her and the Haristeen divorce especially, since both parties were decent people. She didn’t understand growing apart because she and George had stayed close throughout their long marriage. Of course it helped that if she said, “Jump,” George replied, “How high?”

“Want to bring the kids?” Fair nodded toward the animals.

“Do, Harry. Don’t you leave me with that hoyden of a cat. She gets in the mail bins and when I walk by she jumps out at me and grabs my skirt. Then the dog barks. Harry, you’ve got to discipline those two.”

“Oh, balls.” Tucker sneezed.

“Why do people say ‘balls’? Why don’t they say ‘ovaries’?” Mrs. Murphy asked out loud.

No one had an answer, so she allowed herself to be picked up and whisked to the deli.

The conversation between Fair and Harry proved desultory at best. Questions about his veterinary practice were dutifully answered. Harry spoke of the storm. They laughed about Fitz-Gilbert’s blond hair and then truly laughed about Mim’s pontoon boat taking a lick. Mim and that damned boat had caused more uproar over the years—from crashing into the neighbors’ docks to nearly drowning Mim and the occupants. To be invited onto her “little yacht,” as she mincingly called it, was surely a siren call to disaster. Yet to refuse meant banishment from the upper echelon of Crozet society.

As the laughter subsided, Fair, wearing his most earnest face, said,“I wish you and BoomBoom could be friends again. You all were friends once.”

“I don’t know as I’d say we were friends.” Harry warily put down her plastic fork. “We socialized together when Kelly was alive. We got along, I guess.”

“She understands why you wouldn’t want to be friends with her but it hurts her. She talks tough but she’s very sensitive.” He picked up the Styrofoam cup and swallowed some hot coffee.

Harry wanted to reply that she was very sensitive about herself and not others, and besides, what abouther feelings? Maybe he should talk to BoomBoom abouther sensitivities. She realized that Fair was snagged, hook, line, and sinker. BoomBoom was reeling him into her emotional demands, which, like her material demands, were endless. Maybe men needed women like BoomBoom to feel important. Until they dropped from exhaustion.

As Harry kept quiet, Fair haltingly continued:“I wish things had worked out differently and yet maybe I don’t. It was time for us.”

“Guess so.” Harry twiddled with her ballpoint pen.

“I don’t hold grudges. I hope you don’t.” His blond eyebrows shielded his blue eyes.

Harry’d been looking into those eyes since kindergarten. “Easier said than done. Whenever women want to discuss emotions men become more rational, or at least you do. I can’t just wipe out our marriage and say let’s be friends, and I’m not without ego. I wish we had parted differently, but done is done. I’d rather think good of you than ill.”

“Well, what about BoomBoom then?”

“Where is she?” Harry deflected the question for a moment.

“Bridge washed out.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Once the water goes down she’ll find a place to ford.”

“Least the phone lines are good. I spoke to her this morning. She has a terrible migraine. You know how low pressure affects her.”

“To say nothing of garlic.”

“Right.” Fair remembered when BoomBoom was rushed to the hospital once after ingesting the forbidden garlic.

“And then we can’t forget the rheumatism in her spine on these cold, dank days. Or her tendency to heat prostration, especially when any form of work befalls her.” Harry smiled broadly, the smile of victory.

“Don’t make fun of her. You know what a tough family life she had. I mean with that alcoholic father and her mother just having affair after affair.”

“Well, she comes by it honestly then.” Harry reached over with her ballpoint pen, jabbed a hole in the Styrofoam cup, and turned it around so the liquid dribbled onto Fair’s cords. She got up and walked out, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker hastily following.

Fair, fuming, sat there and wiped the coffee off his pants with his left hand while trying to stem the flow from the cup with his right.

9

The creek swirled around the larger rocks, small whirlpools forming, then dispersing. Tucker paced the bank, slick with mud deposits. The waters had subsided and were back within their boundaries but remained high with a fast current. A mist hung over the meadows and the trees, now bare, since the pounding rains had knocked off most of the brilliant fall foliage.

High in the hayloft Mrs. Murphy watched her friend through a crack in the boards. When she lost sight of Tucker she gave up her conversation with Simon to hurry backward down the ladder. Cursing under her breath, she surrendered hope of keeping dry and ran across the fields. Water splashed up on her creamy beige belly, exacerbating her bad mood. Tucker could do the dumbest things. By the time Mrs. Murphy reached the creek the corgi was right in the middle of it, teetering on the tip of a huge rock.

“Get back here,” Mrs. Murphy demanded.

“No,” Tucker refused.“Sniff.”

Mrs. Murphy held her nose up in the air.“I smell mud, sap, and stale water.”

“It’s the faintest whiff. Sweet and then it disappears. I’ve got to find it.”

“What do you mean, sweet?” Mrs. Murphy swished her tail.

“Damn, I lost it.”

“Tucker, you’ve got short little legs—swimming in this current isn’t a smart idea.”

“I’ve got to find that odor.” With that she pushed off the rock, hit the water, and pulled with all her might. The muddy water swept over her head. She popped up again, swimming on an angle toward the far shore.

Mrs. Murphy screeched and screamed but Tucker paid no heed. By the time the corgi reached the bank she was so tired she had to rest for a moment. But the scent was slightly stronger now. Standing up on wobbly legs, she shook herself and laboriously climbed the mudslide that was the creek bank.

“Are you all right?” the cat called.

“Yes.”

“I’m staying right here until you come back.”

“All right.” Tucker scrambled over the bank and sniffed again. She got her bearings and trotted across Blair Bainbridge’s land. The scent increased in power with each step. Tucker pulled up at the little cemetery.

The high winds had knocked over the tombstones Blair had righted, and the bad side of the wrought-iron fence had crashed down again. Carefully, the dog picked her way through the debris in the cemetery. The scent was now crystal clear and enticing, very enticing.

Nose to the ground, she walked over to the tombstone with the carved angel playing the harp. The fingers of a human hand pointed at the sky in front of the stone. The violence of the wind and rain had sheared off the loose topsoil; a section was rolled back like a tiny carpet. Tucker sniffed that too. When she and Mrs. Murphy passed the graveyard last week there was no enticing scent, no apparent change in the topsoil. The odor of decay, exhilarating to a dog, overcame her curiosity about the turf. She dug at the hand. Soon the whole hand was visible. She bit into the fleshy, swollen palm and tugged. The hand easily pulled out of the ground. Then she noticed that it had been severed at the wrist, a clean job of it, too, and the finger pads were missing.

Ecstatic with her booty, forgetting how tired she was, Tucker flew across the bog to the creek. She stopped because she was afraid to plunge into the creek. She didn’t want to lose her pungent prize.

Mrs. Murphy, transfixed by the sight, was speechless.

Tucker delicately laid down the hand.“I knew it! I knew I smelled something deliciously dead.”

“Tucker, don’t chew on that.” Mrs. Murphy was disgusted.

“Why not? I found it. I did the work. It’s mine!” She barked, high-pitched because she was excited and upset.

“I don’t want the hand, Tucker, but it’s a bad omen.”

“No, it’s not. Remember the time Harry read to us about a dog bringing a hand to Vespasian when he was a general and the seers interpreting this to mean that he would be Emperor of Rome and he was? It’s a good sign.”

Mrs. Murphy dimly remembered Harry’s reading aloud from one of her many history books but that was hardly her main concern.“Listen to me. Humans put their dead in boxes. You know that if you found a hand it means the body wasn’t packaged.”

“So what? It’s my hand!” Tucker hollered at the top of her lungs, although with a moment to reflect she knew that Mrs. Murphy was right. Humans didn’t cut up their dead.

“Tucker, if you destroy that hand then you’ve destroyed evidence. You’re going to be in a shitload of trouble and you’ll get Mother in trouble.”

Dejected, Tucker squatted down next to the treasured hand, a gruesome sight.“But it’s mine.”

“I’m sorry. But something’s wrong, don’t you see?”

“No.” Her voice was fainter now.

“A dead human not in a box means either he or she was ill and died far away from others or that he or she was murdered. The other humans have to know this. You know how they are, Tucker. Some of them kill for pleasure. It’s dangerous for the others.”

Tucker sat up.“Why are they like that?”

“I don’t know and they don’t know. It’s some sickness in the species. You know, like dogs pass parvo. Please, Tucker, don’t mess up that evidence. Let me go get Mother if I can. Promise me you’ll wait.”

“It might take her hours to figure out what you’re telling her.”

“I know. You’ve got to wait.”

One miserable dog cocked her head and sighed.“All right, Murphy.”

Mrs. Murphy skimmed across the pastures, her feet barely grazing the sodden earth. She found Harry in the bed of the truck. Nimbly Mrs. Murphy launched herself onto the truck bed. She meowed. She rubbed against Harry’s leg. She meowed louder.

“Hey, little pussycat, I’ve got work to do.”

The twilight was fading. Mrs. Murphy was getting desperate.“Follow me, Mom. Come on. Right now.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Harry was puzzled.

Mrs. Murphy hooted and hollered as much as she could. Finally she sprang up and dug her claws into Harry’s jeans, climbing up her leg. Harry yelped and Mrs. Murphy jumped off her leg and ran a few paces. Harry rubbed her leg. Mrs. Murphy ran back and prepared to climb the other leg.

“Don’t you dare!” Harry held out her hand.

“Then follow me, stupid.” Mrs. Murphy moved away from her again.

Finally, Harry did. She didn’t know what was going on but she’d lived with Mrs. Murphy for seven years, long enough and close enough to learn a little bit of cat ways.

The cat hurried across the meadow. When Harry slowed down, Mrs. Murphy would run back and then zip away again, encouraging her constantly. Harry picked up speed.

When Tucker saw them coming she started barking.

Breathing hard, Harry stopped at the bank.“Oh, damn, Tucker, how’d you get over there.”

“Look!” the cat shouted.

“Mommy, I found it and it’s mine. If I have to give this up I want a knuckle bone,” Tucker bargained. She picked up the hand in her mouth.

It took Harry a minute to focus in the fading light. At first, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Then she did.

“Oh, my God.”

10

Albemarle County Sheriff Rick Shaw bent down with his flashlight. Officer Cynthia Cooper, already hunkered down, gingerly lifted the digits with her pocket knife.

“Never seen anything like this,” Shaw muttered. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

The sheriff battled his smoking addiction with disappointing results. Worse, Cooper had begun to sneak cigarettes herself.

Tucker sat staring at the hand. Blair Bainbridge, feeling a little queasy, and Harry stood beside Tucker. Mrs. Murphy rested across Harry’s neck. Her feet were cold and she was tired, so Harry had slung her around her neck like a stole.

“Harry, any idea where this came from?”

“I know,” Tucker volunteered.

“Like I said, the dog was sitting on the creek bank with this hand. I ran back home and called, then hopped in the truck to meet you. I don’t know any more than that.”

“What about you, uh …”

“Blair Bainbridge.”

“Mr. Bainbridge, notice anything unusual? Before this, I mean?”

“No.”

Rick grunted when he stood up. Cynthia Cooper wrapped the hand in a plastic bag.

“If you follow me, I can show you!” Tucker yapped and ran toward the cemetery.

“She’s got a lot to say.” Cynthia smiled. She loved the little dog and the cat.

Shaw inhaled, then exhaled a long blue line of smoke, which didn’t curl upward. Most likely meant more rain.

Tucker sat by the graveyard and howled.

“I, for one, am going to see what she’s about.” Harry followed her dog.

“Me too.” Cynthia followed, carrying the hand in its bag.

Rick grumbled but his curiosity was up. Blair stayed with him. When the humans reached the iron fence Tucker barked again and walked over to the angel with the harp tombstone. Cooper flung her flashlight beam over toward Tucker.

“Right here,” Tucker instructed.

Harry squinted.“Coop, you’d better check this out.”

Again Cynthia got down on her knees. Tucker dug in the dirt. She hit a pocket of air and the unmistakable odor of rotten flesh smacked Cynthia in the face. The young woman reeled backward and fought her gag reflex.

Rick Shaw, now beside her, turned his head aside.“Guess we’ve got work to do.”

Blair, ashen-faced, said,“Would you like me to go back to the barn and get a spade?”

“No, thank you,” the sheriff said. “I think we’ll post a man out here tonight and start this in daylight. I don’t want to take the chance of destroying evidence because we can’t see.”

As they walked back to the squad car Blair halted and turned to the sheriff, now on another cigarette.“I did see something. The night of the storm my transformer was hit by lightning. I didn’t have any candles and I was standing by my kitchen window.” He pointed to the window. “Another big bolt shot down and split that tree and for an instant I thought I saw someone standing up here in the cemetery. I dismissed it. It didn’t seem possible.”

Shaw wrote this down quickly in his small notebook as Coop called for a backup to watch the graveyard.

Harry wanted to make a crack about the graveyard shift but kept her mouth shut. Whenever things were grim her sense of humor kicked into high gear.

“Mr. Bainbridge, you’re not planning on leaving anytime soon, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. I might need to ask you more questions.” Rick leaned against the car. “I’ll call Herbie Jones. It’s his cemetery. Harry, why don’t you go home and eat something? It’s past suppertime and you looked peaked.”

“Lost my appetite,” Harry replied.

“Yeah, me too. You never get used to this kind of thing, you know.” The sheriff patted her on the back.

When Harry walked in the door she picked up the phone and called Susan. As soon as that conversation was finished she called Miranda Hogendobber. For Miranda, being the last to know would be almost as awful as finding the hand.

11

At first light a team of two men began carefully turning over the earth by the tombstone with the harp-playing angel. Larry Johnson, the retired elderly physician, acted as Crozet’s coroner—an easy job, as there was generally precious little to do. He watched, as did Reverend Herbie Jones. Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper carefully sifted through the spadefuls of earth the men turned over. Harry and Blair stayed back at the fence. Miranda Hogendobber pulled up in her Falcon, bounded out of the car, and strode toward the graveyard.

“Harry, you called Miranda. Don’t deny it, I know you did,” Rick fussed.

“Well … she has an interesting turn of mind.”

“Oh, please.” Rick shook his head.

“Pay dirt.” One of the diggers pulled his handkerchief up around his nose.

“I got it. I got it.” The other digger reached down and gently extricated a leg.

Miranda Hogendobber reached the hill at that moment, took one look at the decaying leg, wearing torn pants and with the foot still in a sneaker, and passed out.

“She’s your responsibility!” Rick pointed his forefinger at Harry.

Harry knew he was right. She hurried over to Mrs. Hogendobber and, assisted by Blair, hoisted her up. She began to come around. Not knowing what another look at the grisly specimen might do, they remonstrated with her. She resisted but then walked down to Blair’s house supported by the two of them.

The police continued their work and discovered another hand, the fingertip pads also removed, and another leg, which, like its companion, had been cleaved where the thighbone joins the pelvis.

By noon, after sifting and digging for five hours, Rick called a halt to the proceedings.

“Want us to start in on these other graves?”

“As the ground is not disturbed I wish you wouldn’t.” Reverend Jones stepped in. “Let them rest in peace.”

Rick wiped his forehead.“Reverend, I can appreciate the sentiment but if we need to come back up here … well, you know.”

“I know, but you’re standing on my mother.” A hint of reproach crept into Herb’s resonant voice. He was more upset than he realized.

“I’m sorry.” Rick quickly moved. “Go back to work, Reverend. I’ll be in touch.”

“Who would do that?” Herbie pointed to the stinking evidence.

“Murder?” Cynthia Cooper opened her hands, palms up, “Seemingly average people commit murder. Happens every day.”

“No, who would cut up a human being like that?” The minister’s eyes were moist.

“I don’t know,” Rick replied. “But whoever did it took great pains to remove identifying evidence.”

After the good Reverend left, the four law enforcement officials walked a bit away from the smell and conferred among themselves. Where was the torso and where was the head?

They’d find out soon enough.

12

The starch in Tiffany Hayes’s apron rattled as she approached the table. Little Marilyn, swathed in a full-length purple silk robe, sat across from Fitz-Gilbert, dressed for work. The pale-pink shirt and the suspenders completed a carefully thought-out ensemble.

Tiffany put down the eggs, bacon, grits, and various jams.“Will that be all, Miz Hamilton?”

Little Marilyn critically appraised the presentation.“Roberta forgot a sprig of parsley on the eggs.”

Tiffany curtsied and repaired to the kitchen, where she informed Roberta of her heinous omission. At each meal there was some detail Little Marilyn found abrasive to her highly developed sense of decorum.

Hands on hips, Roberta replied to an appreciative Tiffany,“She can eat a pig’s blister.”

Back in the breakfast nook, husband and wife enjoyed a relaxing meal. The brief respite of sun was overtaken by clouds again.

“Isn’t this the strangest weather?” Little Marilyn sighed.

“The changing seasons are full of surprises. And so are you.” His voice dropped.

Little Marilyn smiled shyly. It had been her idea to attack her husband this morning during his shower. Those how-to-please sex books she devoured were paying off.

“Life is more exciting as a blond.” He swept his hand across his forelock. His hair was meticulously cut with short sideburns, close cropped on the sides and back of the head, and longer on the top. “You really like it, don’t you?”

“I do. And I like your suspenders too.” She leaned across the table and snapped one.

“Braces, dear. Suspenders are for old men.” He polished off his eggs. “Marilyn”—he paused—“would you love me if I weren’t, well, if I weren’t Andover-Princeton? A Hamilton? One of the Hamiltons?” He referred to his illustrious family, whose history in America reached back into the seventeenth century.

The Hamiltons, originally from England, first landed in the West Indies, where they amassed a fortune in sugar cane. A son, desirous of a larger theater for his talents, sailed to Philadelphia. From that ambitious sprig grew a long line of public servants, businessmen, and the occasional cad. Fitz-Gilbert’s branch of the family, the New York branch, suffered many losses until only Fitz’s immediate family remained. A fateful airplane crash carried away the New York Hamiltons the summer after Fitz’s junior year in high school. At sixteen Fitz-Gilbert was an orphan.

Fitz appeared to withstand the shock and fight back. He spent the summer working in a brokerage house as a messenger, just as his father had planned. Despite his blue-blood connections, his only real friend in those days was another boy at the brokerage house, a bright kid from Brooklyn, Tommy Norton. They escaped Wall Street on weekends, usually to the Hamptons or Cape Cod.

Fitz’s stoicism impressed everyone, but Cabell Hall, his guardian and trust officer at Chase Manhattan, was troubled. Cracks had begun to show in Fitz’s facade. He totaled a car but escaped unharmed. Cabell didn’t blow up. He agreed that “boys will be boys.” But then Fitz got a girl pregnant,and Cabell found a reputable doctor to take care of that. Finally, the second summer of Fitz’s Wall Street apprenticeship, he and Tommy Norton were in a car accident on Cape Cod. Both boys were so drunk that, luckily for them, they sustained only facial lacerations and bruises when they went through the windshield. Fitz, since he was driving, paid all the medical bills, which meant they got the very best care. But Fitz’s recovery was only physical. He had tempted fate and nearly killed not only himself but his best friend. The result was a nervous breakdown. Cabel checked him into an expensive, quiet clinic in Connecticut.

Fitz had related this history to Little Marilyn before they got married, but he hadn’t mentioned it since.

She looked at him now and wondered what he was talking about. Fitz was high-born, rich, and so much fun. She didn’t remember anywhere in her books being instructed that men need reassurance of their worth. The books concentrated on sexual pleasure and helping a husband through a business crisis and then dreaded male menopause, but, oh, they were years and years away from that. Probably he was playing a game. Fitz was inventive.

“I would love you if you were”—she thought for something d?class?, off the board—“Iraqi.”

He laughed.“That is a stretch. Ah, yes, the Middle East, that lavatory of the human race.”

“Wonder what they call us?”

“The Devil’s seed.” His voice became more menacing and he spoke with what he imagined was an Iraqi accent.

One of the fourteen phones in the overlarge house twittered. The harsh ring of the telephone was too cacophonous for Little Marilyn, who believed she had perfect pitch. So she paid bundles of money for phones that rang in bird calls. Consequently her house sounded like a metallic aviary.

Tiffany appeared.“I think it’s your mother, Miz Mim, but I can’t understand a word she’s saying.”

A flash of irritation crossed Marilyn Sanburne Hamilton’s smooth white forehead. She reached over and picked up the phone, and her voice betrayed not a hint of it. “Mother, darling.”

Mother darling ranted, raved, and emitted such strange noises that Fitz put down his napkin and rose to stand behind his wife, hands resting on her slender shoulders. She looked up at her husband and indicated that she also couldn’t understand a word. Then her face changed; the voice through the earpiece had risen to raw hysteria.

“Mother, we’ll be right over.” The dutiful daughter hung up the receiver.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. She just screamed and hollered. Oh, Fitz, we’d better hurry.”

“Where’s your father?”

“In Richmond today, at a mayors’ conference.”

“Oh, Lord.” If Mim’s husband wasn’t there it meant the burden of comfort and solution rested upon him. Small wonder that Jim Sanburne found so many opportunities to travel.

13

Those townspeople who weren’t gathered in the post office were at Market Shiflett’s. Harry frantically tried to sort the mail. She even called Susan Tucker to come down and help. Mrs. Hogendobber, positioned in front of the counter, told her gory tale to all, every putrid detail.

A hard scratching on the back door alerted Tucker, who barked. Susan rose and opened the door. Pewter walked in, tail to the vertical, whiskers swept forward.

“Hello, Pewter.”

“Hello, Susan.” She rubbed against Susan’s leg and then against Tucker.

Mrs. Murphy was playing in the open post boxes.

Pewter looked up and spoke to the striped tail hanging out of Number 31.“Fit to be tied over at the store. What about here?”

“Same.”

“I found the hand,” Tucker bragged.

“Everybody knows, Tucker. You’ll probably get your name in the newspaper—again.” Green jealousy swept through the fat gray body.“Mrs. Murphy, turn around so I can talk to you.”

“I can’t.” She backed out of the box, hung for a moment by her paws, and then dropped lightly to the ground.

Usually Susan and Harry were amused by the athletic displays of the agile tiger cat but today no one paid much attention.

Blair called Harry to tell her Rick Shaw had elected not to tear up the cemetery just yet, and to thank her for being a good neighbor.

Naturally, with Blair being an outsider, suspicion immediately fell on him. After all, the severed hands and legs were found in his—well, Herbie’s really—graveyard. And no one would ever suspect Reverend Jones.

The ideas and fantasies swirled up like a cloud of grasshoppers and then dropped to earth again. Harry listened to the people jammed into the post office even as she attempted to complete her tasks. Theories ranged from old-fashioned revenge to demonology. Since no one had any idea of who those body parts belonged to, the theories lacked the authenticity of personal connection.

One odd observation crossed Harry’s mind. So much of the conjecture focused on establishing a motive. Why? As the voices of her friends, neighbors, and even her few enemies, or temporary enemies, rose and fell, the thrust was that in some way the victim must have brought this wretched fate upon himself. The true question formulating in Harry’s mind was not motive but, Why is it so important for humans to blame the victim? Do they hope to ward off evil? If a woman is raped she is accused of dressing to entice. If a man is robbed, he should have had better sense than to walk the streets on that side of town. Are people incapable of accepting the randomness of evil? Apparently so.

As Rick Shaw sped by, siren splitting the air, the group fell silent to watch. Rick was followed closely by Cynthia Cooper in her squad car.

Fair Haristeen opened the door and stepped outside. He knew that Rick Shaw wasn’t moving that fast just to dump off hands and legs; something else had happened. He walked over to Market’s to see if anyone had fresher news. Being in Harry’s presence wasn’t that uncomfortable for him. Fair considered that women were irrational much of the time, a consideration reinforced by BoomBoom, who felt logic to be vulgar. He’d already forgiven Harry for punching a hole in his coffee cup. She chose to ignore him to his face, then watched him saunter next door. She breathed a sigh of relief. His presence rubbed like a pebble in her shoe.

“You know, I want my knuckle bone.” Tucker started to pout.“That was the deal.”

“Deal?” Pewter’s long gray eyelashes fluttered.

Before Tucker could explain, the door flew open and Tiffany Hayes, still in her sparkling white apron, burst in.“Miz Sanburne’s got a headless nekkid body in her boathouse!”

A split second of disbelief was followed by a roar of inquiry. How did she know? Who was it? Et cetera.

Tiffany cleared her throat and walked to the counter. Susan came up from the back. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter jumped on the counter and made circles to find papers to sit on, then did so. Tucker ran around front, ducking between legs to see Tiffany.

The Reverend Jones, a quick thinker, dashed next door to fetch the folks in the market. Soon the post office was over its fire code limit of people.

Once everyone was squeezed in, Tiffany gave the facts.“I was serving Little Marilyn and Mr. Fitz their eggs. She was complaining, naturally, but so what? I walked back into the kitchen and the phone rang. Roberta’s hands were covered with flour, and Jack wasn’t on duty yet so I picked it up. I recognized the voice as Miz Sanburne’s, but lordy,I couldn’t understand one word that woman was putting to me. She was crying and she was screaming and she was gasping and I just laid down that phone and left the kitchen to tell Little Marilyn her mother was on the phone and I couldn’t understand her. I mean I couldn’t say ‘your mother is pitching a fit and falling in it,’ now could I? So I waited while Little Marilyn picked up the phone and she couldn’t understand her mother any better than I could. Well, the next thing I know she runs upstairs and starts to put on her makeup, and Mr. Fitz is waiting downstairs. He was so anxious he couldn’t stand it no more so he bounded up those steps and told her in no uncertain terms that this was no time for makeup and to get a move on. So they left in that white Jeep thing of theirs. Not twenty minutes pass before the phone rings again and Jack, on duty now, picks up but Roberta and I couldn’t help ourselves so we picked up too. It was Mr. Fitz. We could hear both Marilyns ascreaming in the background. Like banshees. Mr. Fitz, he was a little shaky, but he told Jack there was a headless corpse floating in Mim’s boathouse. He told Jack to call and cancel all his business appointments for the day and all of Little Marilyn’s social engagements. Then he told Jack to get hold of Mr. Sanburne in Richmond if in any way possible. The sheriff was on his way and not to worry. Nobody was in any danger. Jack asked a few questions and Mr. Fitz told him not to worry if he didn’t get his chores done today. Thank God for Mr. Fitz.”

She finished. This was possibly the only time in her life that Tiffany would be the center of attention. There was something touching about that.

What Tiffany didn’t know was that the hands and legs had been dug up at Foxden. So now Miranda Hogendobber was able to tellher story again. Center stage was natural to Miranda.

Grateful to Mrs. Hogendobber for taking over the“entertainment” department, Harry returned to filling up the post boxes. She was glad she was behind the boxes because she was laughing silently, tears falling from her eyes. Susan came over, thinking she was upset.

Harry wiped her eyes and whispered,“Of all people, Mim! What willTown and Country think?”

Now Susan was laughing as hard as Harry.“Maybe whoever it was made the mistake of sailing in her pontoon boat.”

This made them both break out in giggles again. Harry put her hand over her mouth to muffle her speech.“Mim has exhausted herself with accumulating possessions. Now she’s got one that’s a real original.”

That did it. They nearly fell on the floor. Part of this explosion of mirth was from tension, of course. Yet part of it was directly attributable to Mim’s character. Miranda said there was a good heart in there somewhere but no one wanted to find out. Maybe no one believed her. Mim had spent her life from the cradle onward tyrannizing people over bloodlines and money. The two are intertwined less frequently than Mim would wish. No matter what story you had, Mim could top it; if not, she would tip her head at an angle that made plain her distaste and social superiority.

Nobody would say it out loud but probably most people were delighted that a bloated corpse had found its way into her boathouse. More things stank over at the Sanburnes’ than a rotten torso.

14

The deep glow from the firelit mahogany in Reverend Jones’s library cast a youthful softening over his features. The light rain on the windowpane accentuated his mood, withdrawn and thoughtful, as well as exhausted. He had forgotten just how exhausting turmoil can be. His wife, Carol, her violet eyes sympathetic, entreated him to eat. When he refused she knew he was suffering.

“How about a cup of cocoa, then?”

“What? Oh, no, dear. You know I ran into Cabell at the bank and he thinks this is a nut case. Someone passing through, like a traveling serial killer. I don’t think so, Carol. I think it’s closer to home.”

A loud crackle in the fireplace made him jump. He settled back down.

“Tell you what. I’ll bring in the cocoa and if you don’t want it, then the cat will drink it. It won’t solve this horrible mess but it will make you feel better.”

The doorbell rang and Carol answered it. Two cups of cocoa. She invited Blair Bainbridge into the library. He also appeared exhausted.

Reverend Jones lifted himself out of his armchair to greet his impromptu guest.

“Oh, please stay seated, Reverend.”

“You have a seat then.”

Ella, the cat, joined them. Her full name was Elocution and she lived up to her name. Eating communion wafers was not her style, like that naughty Episcopalian cat, but Ella did once shred a sermon of Herbie’s on a Sunday morning. For the first time in his life he gave a spontaneous sermon. The topic, “living with all God’s creatures,” was prompted, of course, by Ella’s wanton destructiveness. It was the best sermon of his life. Parishioners begged for copies. As he had not one note, he thought he couldn’t reproduce his sermon but Carol came to the rescue. She, too, moved by her husband’s loving invocation of all life, remembered it word for word. The sermon, reprinted in many church magazines beyond even his own Lutheran denomination, made the Reverend something of an ecclesiastical celebrity.

Ella stared intently at Blair, since he was new to her. Once satisfied, she rested on her side before the fire as the men chatted and Carol brought in a large pot of cocoa. Carol excused herself and went upstairs to continue her own work.

“I apologize for dropping in like this without calling.”

“Blair, this is the country. If you called first, people would think you were putting on airs.” He poured his guest and himself a steaming cup each, the rich aroma filling the room.

“Well, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am that this, this—I don’t even know what to call it.” Blair’s eyebrows knitted together. “Well, that the awful discovery was made in your family plot. Since your back troubles you, I’m willing to make whatever repairs are necessary, once Sheriff Shaw allows me.”

“Thank you.” The Reverend meant it.

“How long before people start thinking that I’ve done it?” Blair blurted out.

“Oh, they’ve already gone through that possibility and most have dispensed with it, except for Rick, who never lets anyone off the hook and never rushes to judgment. Guess you have to be that way in his line of work.”

“Dispensed … ?”

Herbie waved his right hand in the air, a friendly, dismissive gesture, while holding his cocoa cup and saucer in his left hand.“You haven’t been here long enough to hate Marilyn Sanburne. You wouldn’t have placed the body, or what was left of it, in her boathouse.”

“I could have floated it in there.”

“I spoke to Rick Shaw shortly after the discovery.” Herb placed his cup on the table. Ella eyed it with interest. “From the condition of the body, he seriously doubted it could have floated into the boathouse without someone on the lake noticing its slow progress. Also, the boathouse doors were closed.”

“It could have floated under them.”

“The body was blown up to about three times normal size.”

Blair fought an involuntary shudder.“That poor woman will have nightmares.”

“She about had to be tranquilized with a dart gun. Little Marilyn was pretty shook up too. And I don’t guess Fitz-Gilbert will have an appetite for some time either. For that matter, neither will I.”

“Nor I.” Blair watched as a log burned royal-blue from the bottom to crimson in the middle, releasing the bright-yellow flames to leap upward.

“What I dread are the reporters. The facts will be in the paper tomorrow. Cut and dried. But if this body is ever identified, those people will swarm over us like flies.” Herb wished he hadn’t said that because it reminded him of the legs and hands.

“Reverend Jones—”

“Herbie,” came the interruption.

“Herbie. Why do people hate Marilyn Sanburne? I mean, I’ve only met her once and she carried on about pedigree but, well, everyone has a weakness.”

“No one likes a snob, Blair. Not even another snob. Imagine living year in and year out being judged by Mim, being put in your place at her every opportunity. She works hard for her charities, undeniably, but she bullies others even in the performance of good works. Her son, Stafford, married a black woman and that brought out the worst in Mim and, I might add, the best in everyone else. She disowned him. He lives in New York with his wife. They made up, sort of, for Little Marilyn’s wedding. I don’t know, most people don’t see below the surface when they look at others, and Mim’s surface is cold and brittle.”

“But you think otherwise, don’t you?”

This young man was perceptive. Herb liked him more by the minute.“I do think otherwise.” He pulled up a hassock for his feet, indicating to Blair that he should pull one up, too, then folded his hands across his chest. “You see, Marilyn Sanburne was born Marilyn Urquhart Conrad. The Urquharts, of Scottish origin, were one of the earliest families to reach this far west. Hard to believe, but even during the time of the Revolutionary War this was a rough place, a frontier. Before that, the 1720’s, the 1730’s, you took your life in your hands to come to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Marilyn’s mother, Isabelle Urquhart Conrad, filled all three of her children’s heads with silly ideas about how they were royalty. The American version. Jimp Conrad, her husband, not of as august lineage as the Urquharts, was too busy buying up land to worry overmuch about how his children were being raised. A male problem, I would say. Anyway, her two brothers took this aristocracy stuff to heart and decided they didn’t have to do anything so common as work for a living. James, Jr., became a steeplechase jockey and died in a freak accident up in Culpeper. That was right after World War Two. Horse dragged him to his death. I saw it with my own eyes. The younger brother, Theodore, a good horseman himself, quite simply drank himself to death. The heartbreak killed Jimp and made Isabelle bitter. She thought she was the only woman who’d ever lost sons. She quite forgot that hundreds of thousands of American mothers had recently lost sons in the mud of Europe and the sands of the South Pacific. Her mother’s bitterness rubbed off on Mim. As she was the remaining child, the care of her mother became her burden as Isabelle aged. Social superiority became her refuge perhaps.”

He rested a moment, then continued:“You know, I see people in crisis often. And over the years I have found that one of two things happens. Either people open up and grow, the pain allowing them to have compassion for others, to gain perspective on themselves, to feel God’s love, if you will, or they shut down either through drink, drugs, promiscuity, or bitterness. Bitterness is an affront to God, as is any form of self-destructive behavior. Life is a gift, to be enjoyed and shared.” He fell into silence.

Ella purred as she listened. She loved Herbie’s voice, its deep, manly rumble, but she loved what he said too. Humans had such difficulty figuring out that life is a frolic as long as you have enough to eat, a warm bed, and plenty of catnip. She was very happy that Herb realized life was mostly wonderful.

For a long time the two men sat side by side in the quiet of understanding.

Blair spoke at last.“Herbie, I’m trying to open up. I don’t have much practice.”

Sensing that Blair would get around to telling his story sometime in the future, when he felt secure, Herb wisely didn’t probe. Instead he reassured him with what he himself truly believed. “Trust in God. He will show you the way.”

15

Although the sheriff and Officer Cooper knew little about the pieces of body that had been found, they did know that a vagrant, not an old man either, had been in town not long ago.

Relentless legwork, telephone calls, and questioning led the two to the Allied National Bank.

Marion Molnar remembered the bearded fellow vividly. His baseball jacket, royal blue, had an orange METS embroidered on it. As a devout Orioles fan, this upset Marion as much as the man’s behavior.

She led Rick and Cynthia into Ben Seifert’s office.

Beaming, shaking hands, Ben bade them sit down.

“Oh, yes, walked into my office big as day. Had some cockamamie story about his investments. Said he wanted to meet Cabell Hall right then and there.”

“Did you call your president?” Rick asked.

“No. I said I’d take him down to our branch office at the downtown mall in Charlottesville. It was the only way I knew to get him out of here.” Ben cracked his knuckles.

“Then what happened?” Cynthia inquired.

“I drove him to the outskirts of town on the east side. Finally talked him out of this crazy idea and he got out willingly. Last I saw of him.”

“Thanks, Ben. We’ll call you if we need you,” Rick said.

“Glad to help.” Ben accompanied them to the front door.

Once the squad car drove out of sight he shut his office door and picked up his phone.“Listen, asshole, the cops were here about that bum. I don’t like it!” Ben, a country boy, had transformed himself over time, smoothing off his rough edges. Now he was a sleek glad-hander and a big deal in the Chamber of Commerce. There was scarcely any of the old Ben left in his oily new incarnation, but worry was resurrecting it.

16

The Harvest Fair committee, under the command of Miranda Hogendobber, met hastily to discuss their plans for the fair and the ball that immediately followed it. The glorious events of the Harvest Fair and Ball, crammed into Halloween day and night, were eagerly awaited by young and old. Everybody went to the Harvest Fair. The children competed for having the best costume and scariest costume, as well as in bobbing for apples, running races in costume, and other events that unfolded over the early evening hours. The advantage of this was that it kept the children off the streets, sparing everyone the trick-or-treat candy syndrome that caused adults to eat as much as the kids did. The children, gorged on good food as well as their treats, fell asleep at the Harvest Ball while the adults danced. There were as many sleeping bags as pumpkins.

The crisis confronting Mrs. Hogendobber, Taxi Hall, and their charges involved Harry Haristeen and Susan Tucker. Oh, not that the two had done anything wrong, but each year they appeared as Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, Harry being the Horseman. Harry’s Tomahawk was seal-brown but looked black at night, and his nostrils were always painted red. He was a fearsome sight. Harry struggled every year to see through the slits in her cape once the pumpkin head was hurled at the fleeing Ichabod. One year she lost her bearings and fell off, to the amusement of everyone but herself, although she did laugh about it later.

What could they do? This cherished tradition, ongoing in Crozet since Washington Irving first published his immortal tale, seemed in questionable taste this year. After all, a headless body had just been found.

After an agonizing debate the committee of worthies decided to cancel Ichabod Crane. As the ball was in a few days, they hadn’t time to create another show. The librarian suggested she could find a story which could be read to the children. It wasn’t perfect but it was something.

On her way to the post office, Miranda’s steps dragged slower and slower. She reached the door. She stood there for a moment. She breathed deeply. She opened the front door.

“Harry!” she boomed.

“I’m right in front of you. You don’t have to yell.”

“So you are. I don’t want to tell you this but the Harvest Ball committee has decided, wisely I think, to cancel the Headless Horseman reenactment.”

Harry, obviously disappointed, saw the logic of it.“Don’t feel bad, Mrs. H. We’ll get back to it next year.”

A sigh of relief escaped Miranda’s red lips. “I’m so glad you see the point.”

“I do and thank you for telling me. Would you like me to tell Susan?”

“No, I’ll get over there. It’s my responsibility.”

As she left, Harry watched the squared shoulders, the straight back. Miranda could be a pain—couldn’t we all—but she always knew the right thing to do and the manner in which to do it. Harry admired that.

17

Fitz-Gilbert could have used a secretary to make himself look like a functioning lawyer—which he wasn’t.

It doesn’t do for a man not to go to work, even a very wealthy man, so his office was mostly for show although it had developed into a welcome retreat from his mother-in-law and, occasionally, his wife.

He hadn’t been to the office since the torso appeared in Mim’s boathouse, two days ago.

He opened the door and beheld chaos. His chairs were overturned; papers were scattered everywhere; his file cabinet drawers sat askew.

He picked up the phone and dialed Sheriff Shaw.

18

Finding the remains of a human body, while unpleasant, wasn’t rare. Every year in the state of Virginia hunters stumble across bodies picked clean by birds and scavengers, a few tatters of clothing left clinging to the bones. Occasionally the deceased has been killed by mistake by other hunters; other times an elderly person who suffered from disease or loss of memory simply wandered off in winter and died from exposure. Then, too, there were those tortured souls who walked into the woods to end it all. Murder, however, was not that common.

In the case of this cut-up corpse, Rick Shaw figured it had to be murder. The life of a county sheriff is usually clogged with serving subpoenas, testifying in poaching cases and land disputes, chasing speeders, and hauling drunks into the pokey. Murder added excitement. Not that he thought of it that way, exactly, but as he sat at his cluttered desk his mind moved faster; he concentrated fiercely. It took an unjust death to give him life.

“All right, Cooper.” He wheeled around in his chair, pushing with the balls of his feet. “Give.”

“Give what?”

“You know what.” He stretched out his hand.

Irritated, Cynthia opened her long desk drawer, retrieved a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes, and smacked them in his hand.“You could at least smoke filtered cigarettes.”

“Then I’d smoke two packs a day instead of one. What’s the difference? And don’t think I don’t know that you’re sneaking some.”

When it was put that way, Cooper couldn’t think of a difference. The surface of her desk shone, the grain of the old oak lending solidity to the piece. Papers, neatly stacked in piles, paperweights on top, provided a contrast to Rick’s desk. Their minds contrasted too. She was logical, organized, and reserved. Rick was intuitive, disorganized, and as direct as he could be in his position. She liked the politics of the job. He didn’t. As he was a good twenty years older than she, he’d remain sheriff and she’d be deputy. In time, barring accident, Cynthia Cooper could look forward to being the first woman sheriff of Albemarle County. Rick never thought of himself as a feminist. He hadn’t wanted her in the first place but as the years rolled by her performance won him over. After a while he forgot she was a woman or maybe it didn’t matter. He saw her as his right hand, and turning the department over to her someday was as it should be, not that he was ready to retire. He was too young for that.

The cigarette calmed him. The phones jangled. The small office enjoyed a secretary and a few part-time deputies. The department needed to expand but so far the county officials had passed no funds for that to their overworked sheriff.

One reporter from the local paper had showed up yesterday, and Rick had refused to dwell on the grisly details of the case. His low-key comments had satisfied the reporter for the moment, but Rick knew he’d be back. Rick and Coop hoped they’d have enough answers to forestall a panic or a squadron of reporters showing up from other papers, not to mention the TV.

“You’ve got a feeling about this case, boss?”

“The obvious. Destroying the identity of the corpse was paramount in the killer’s mind. No fingerprints. No clothes on the torso. No head. Whoever this poor guy was, he knew too much. And we’d know too much if we knew who he was.”

“I can’t figure out why the killer would take the trouble to divide up the body. Lot of work. Then he or she would have to bag it so it wouldn’t bleed all over everything, andthen drive the parts around to dump them.”

“Could be an undertaker, or someone with mortuary experience. Could have drained the body and then chopped it.”

“Or a doctor,” Cynthia added.

“Even a vet.”

“Not Fair Haristeen. Poor guy, he was a suspect for a bit in Kelly Craycroft’s murder.”

“Well, he did wind up with BoomBoom, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, poor sod.” Cynthia burst out laughing.

Rick laughed too.“That woman, she’s like to run him crazy. Pretty though.”

“Men always say that.” Cynthia smiled.

“Well, I don’t see how you women can swoon over Mel Gibson. What’s so special about him?” Rick stubbed out his cigarette.

“If you knew, you and I would have a lot more to talk about,” Cynthia cracked.

“Very funny.” He reached in the pack to pull out another coffin nail.

“Come on, you just finished one!”

“Did I?” He picked up the ashtray and counted the butts. “Guess I did. This one’s still smoking.” He crushed it again.

“You’re suffering one of your hunches. I know it. Come on, tell.”

He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. He felt a little foolish when he had these hunches because he couldn’t explain or defend them. Men are taught to back up what they say. He couldn’t do that in this case but over time he had learned not to dismiss odd sensations or strange ideas. Often they led him to valuable evidence, valuable insights.

“Come on, boss. I can tell when you’re catching the scent,” Cynthia prodded.

He folded his hands on his desk.“Just this. Dividing up a body makes sense. That doesn’t throw me. The hard rains worked against our killer. That and little Tucker. But really, the odds were that those legs and hands would never have been found. It’s the boathouse that doesn’t compute.”

“He could have tossed the torso in the lake and, when it came up, gaffed it or something and dragged it into the boathouse.” Cynthia stopped to think. “But everyone would have seen this person, male or female, unless it was the dead of night, and you can’t schedule the appearance of waterlogged bodies, now can you?”

“Nope. That’s why it doesn’t compute. That piece of meat wasput in the boathouse. No other explanation.”

“Well, if the killer knows the community he would know or see Mim’s pontoon boat at the dock. Nobody goes into the boathouse much unless she has one of her naval sorties planned. It’s as good a place to hide a body as any other.”

“Is it?”

They stared at each other. Then Cynthia spoke.“You think that head’s going to show up?”

“I kinda hope it does and I kinda hope it doesn’t.” He couldn’t fight temptation. He grabbed another cigarette but delayed lighting it. “See if there’s a record for Blair Bainbridge in New York.”

“Okay. Anyone else?”

“We know everyone else. Or we think we do.”

19

The light frost crunched underfoot even though Mrs. Murphy trod lightly. The rain had finally stopped last night and she had risen early to hunt field mice. Tucker, flopped on her side on Harry’s bed, was still sound asleep.

Although the cat’s undercoat was thickening, the stiff wind sent a chill throughout her body. Another month and her coat would be more prepared for the cold. The prospect of running top speed after a rabbit or a mouse thrilled Mrs. Murphy, so what was a little cold? The mice ducked into their holes, which ended the chase, but the rabbits often ran across meadows and through woods. Occasionally she caught a rabbit, but more often a mouse. She’d come alongside and reach over to grab it at the base of the neck if she could. If not she’d bump and roll it. Mrs. Murphy dispatched her conquests rapidly; not for her the torture of batting her prey around until it was torn up and punch-drunk. A swift broken neck ended the business in a split second. Usually she brought the quarry back to Harry.

The frost held the scent. Even so it wasn’t a good day for hunting. She growled once when she smelled a red vixen. Mrs. Murphy and fox competed for the same food, so the cat resented her rival. She also hotly resented that a fox had gotten into the henhouse years ago when she was a kitten and had killed every hen on the property. Feathers fluttered like snowflakes and the images of the pathetic bodies of ten hens and one rooster stayed in her mind. She couldn’t have warned off the predator anyway, because of her youth, but Harry’s dismay at the sight unnerved Mrs. Murphy. After that, Harry no longer kept chickens, which was a pity because, as a kitten, Mrs. Murphy had loved to flatten herself in the grass and watch the yellow chicks peep and run all over the place.

If Tucker wouldn’t be so fussy, Harry could get a big dog, a dog that would live outside, to chase off foxes and those pesky raccoons. A puppy with big paws from the SPCA would grow up to fill the bill. The mere mention of it would send Tucker into a hissy fit.

“Would you tolerate another cat, I ask you?” Tucker would shriek.

“If we had a surplus of mice I guess I’d have to,” Mrs. Murphy would usually reply.

Tucker declared that she could handle a fox. This was a patent lie. She could not. If a fox went to ground she might be able to dig it out but then what would she do with it? Tucker wasn’t a good killer. Corgis were brave dogs—Mrs. Murphy had seen ample proof of that—but Tucker, at least, wasn’t the hunter type. Corgis, bred to herd cattle, were low to the ground so that when a cow kicked, the small dog could easily duck the blow. Tough, resilient, and accustomed to animals much bigger than themselves, corgis could work with just about any large domesticated animal. But hunting wasn’t in their blood, so Mrs. Murphy usually hunted alone.

A meow, deep and mellow in the distance, attracted Mrs. Murphy’s attention. She tensed, and then relaxed when the splendidly handsome figure of her ex-husband slipped out of the woods. Paddy, as always, wore his black tuxedo; his white shirtfront was immaculate but the white spats were dirty. His gorgeous eyes glittered and he bounded up with unbridled enthusiasm to see his ex.

[Êàðòèíêà: _2.jpg]

“Hunting, Sugar? Let’s do it together.”

“Thanks, Paddy. I’m better at it alone.”

He sat down and flicked his tail.“That’s what you always say. You know, Murph, you won’t be young and beautiful forever.”

“Neither will you,” came the tart reply.“Still hanging around that silver slut?”

“Oh, her? She got very boring.” Paddy referred to one of his many inamoratas, this one a silver Maine coon cat of extraordinary beauty.“I hate it when they want to know where you’ve been every moment, as well as what you’re thinking at every turn. Give it a rest.” His pink tongue accentuated his white fangs.“You never did that.”

“I was too busy myself to worry about what you were doing.” She changed the subject.“Find anything?”

“Hunting’s not good. Let them get a little hungrier and then we’ll catch a few. The field mice are fat and happy right now.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“Yellow Mountain. I left home in the middle of the night. I’ve got that door, you know—don’t know why Harry doesn’t put one in for you. Anyway, I was going to head toward the first railroad tunnel but it was too far away and the promise of hunting was already dim, so I trotted up the mountain instead.”

“Not much there either?”

“No,” he replied.

“Did you hear, Paddy, about those body parts in the graveyard?”

“Who cares? Humans kill one another and then pretend it’s awful. If it’s so awful, then why do they do it so much?”

“I don’t know.”

“And think about it, Murphy. If the new guy is in his house, why would the killer drag those pieces of body down the driveway? Too risky.”

“Maybe he didn’t know the new man had moved in.”

“In Crozet? You sneeze and your neighbor says God bless you. I think he, or she, parked somewhere within a mile—two legs and two hands aren’t that heavy to carry. Came in off Yellow Mountain Road, up to the old logging road, and walked back through the woods into the pastures up to the cemetery. You wouldn’t have seen the person from your place unless you were in the west meadows. You’re usually out of the west meadows by sunset though, because the horses have been brought in, and this new guy, well, he was a risk but the cemetery is far enough away from the house that he might see someone up there but I doubt if he could have heard anything. Of course, the new guy could have done it himself.”

Mrs. Murphy batted a soggy leaf.“Got a point there, Paddy.”

“You know, people only kill for two reasons.”

“What are they?”

“Love or money.” His white whiskers shook with mirth. Both reasons seemed absurd to Paddy.

“Drugs.”

“Still gets back to money,” Paddy countered.“Whatever this is, it will come to love or money. Harry’s safe, since it hasn’t a thing to do with her. You get so worried about Harry. She’s pretty tough, you know.”

“You’re right. I just wish her senses were sharper. She misses so much. You know, it takes her sometimes ten or twenty seconds longer to hear something and even then she can’t recognize the difference in tire treads as they come down the driveway. She recognizes engine differences though. Hereyes are pretty good but I tell you she can’t tell a field mouse five hundred yards away. Even though her eyes are better in daylight, she still misses the movement. It’s so easy to hear if you just listen and let your eyes follow. At night, of course, she can’t see that well and none of themcan smell worth a damn. I just worry how she can function with such weak senses.”

“If Harry were being stalked by a tiger, then I’d worry. Since one human’s senses are about as bad as another’s, they’re equal. And since they seem to be their own worst enemies, they’re well equipped to fight one another. Besides which, she has you and Tucker and you can give her the jump, if she’ll listen.”

“She listens to me—most of the time. She can be quite stubborn though. Selective hearing.”

“They’re all like that.” Paddy nodded gravely.“Hey, want to race across the front pasture, climb up the walnut by the creek, run across the limb, and then jump out to the other side? We can be at your back door in no time. Bet I get there first.”

“Deal!”

They ran like maniacs, arriving at the back porch door. Harry, coffeepot in hand and still sleepy, opened the back door. They both charged into the kitchen.

“Catting around?” She smiled and scratched Mrs. Murphy’s head, and Paddy’s too.

20

A crisp night dotted with bright stars like chunks of diamonds created the perfect Halloween. Each year the Harvest Fair was held at Crozet High. Before the high school was built in 1892, the fair was held in an open meadow across from the train station. The high school displayed the excesses of Victorian architecture. One either loved it or hated it. Since most everyone attending the Harvest Ball had graduated from Crozet High, they loved it.

Not Mim Sanburne, as she had graduated from Madeira, nor Little Marilyn, who had followed in her mother’s spiked-heel steps. No, Crozet High smacked of the vulgate, the hoi polloi, the herd. Jim Sanburne, mayor of Crozet, had graduated from CHS in 1939. He carefully walked up and down rows of tables placed on the football field. Corn, squash, potatoes, wheat sheaves, and enormous pumpkins crowded the tables.

The mayor and his son-in-law had been cataloguing contestant entries that morning. In order to be impartial, Fitz wrote down all the produce entries. Since Jim was judging that category, it wouldn’t do for him to see them early.

The crafts filled the halls inside the school. Mrs. Hogendobber would take a step or two, stop, study, rub her hand on her chin, remove her glasses, put them back on, and say,“Hmmn.” This process was repeated for each display. Miranda took judging the crafts to new levels of seriousness.

The gym, decorated as a witches’ lair, would welcome everyone after the awards. The dance attracted even the lame and the halt. If you breathed you showed up. Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper sat in the gym judging costumes. Children scampered about as Ninja Turtles, angels, devils, cowboys, and one little girl whose parents were dairy farmers came as a milk carton. The teenagers, also in costume, tended to stick together, but as the task of decorating for the Harvest Ball fell upon CHS’s students, they heaped glory upon themselves. Every senior class was determined to top the class preceding it. The freshman, sophomore, and junior classes were pledged to help, and on Halloween Day classes were suspended so the decorating could proceed.

As Harry, Susan, and Blair strolled through the displays they admired the little flying witches overhead. The electronics wizards at the school had built intricate systems of wires, operating the witches by remote control. Ghosts and goblins also flew. The excitement mounted because if this was the warm-up, what would the dance be like? That was always the payoff.

Harry and Susan, in charge of the Harvest Ball for their class of 1976, ruefully admitted that these were the best decorations they’d seen since their time. No crepe paper for these kids. The orange and black colors snaked along the walls and the outside tables with Art Deco severity and sensuality. Susan, bursting with pride, accepted congratulations from other parents. Her son Danny was the freshman representative to the decorations committee and it was his idea to make the demons fly. He was determined to outdo his mother and was already well on his way to a chairmanship as a senior. His younger sister had proved a help too. Brookie was already worried about what would happen two years from now when she had the opportunity to be a Harvest Ball class representative. Could she top this? Susan and Ned had sent the kids to private school in Charlottesville for a couple of years, the result being that both were turning into horrid snobs. They had yanked the kids out of the private school, to everyone’s eventual relief.

Blair observed it all in wonder and amusement. These young people displayed spirit and community involvement, something which had been missing at his prep school. He almost envied the students, although he knew he had been given the gift of a superb education as well as impeccable social contacts.

BoomBoom and Fair judged the livestock competition. BoomBoom was formally introduced to Blair by Harry. She took one look at this Apollo and audibly sucked in her breath. Fair, enraptured by a solid Holstein calf, elected not to notice. BoomBoom, far too intelligent to flirt openly, simply exuded radiance.

As they walked away Susan commented,“Well, she spared you the BoomBoom brush.”

“What’s that?” Blair smiled.

“In high school—on these very grounds, mind you—BoomBoom would slide by a boy and gently brush him with her torpedoes. Naturally, the boy would die of embarrassment and joy.”

“Yeah,” Harry laughed. “Then she’d say, ‘Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.’ BoomBoom can be very funny when she puts her mind, or boobs, to it.”

“You haven’t told me what your theme was when you two co-chaired the Harvest Ball.” Blair evidenced little curiosity about BoomBoom but plenty about Harry and Susan, which pleased them mightily.

“The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Susan’s voice lowered.

Harry’s eyes lit up. “You wouldn’t have believed it. I mean, we started working the day school started. The chair and co-chairs are elected the end of junior year. A really big deal—”

Susan interrupted.“Can you tell? I mean, we still remember everything. Sorry, Harry.”

“That’s okay. Well, Susan came up with the theme and we decorated the inside of the school like the inside of a Victorian mansion. Velvet drapes, old sofas—I mean, we hit up every junk shop in this state, I swear … that and what parents lent us. We took rolls and rolls of old butcher paper—Market Shiflett’s dad donated it—and the art kids turned it into stone and we made fake walls with that outside.”

“Don’t forget the light.”

“Oh, yeah, we had one of the boys up in the windows that are dark on the second floor going from room to room swinging a lantern. Boy, did that scare the little kids when they looked up. Painted his face too. We even got Mr. MacGregor—”

“My Mr. MacGregor?” Blair asked.

“The very one,” Susan said.

“We got him to lend us his bloodhound, Charles the First, who emitted the most sorrowful cry.”

“We walked him up and down the halls that were not in use and asked him to howl, which he did, dear dog. We really scared the poop out of them when we took him up on the second floor, opened a window, and his piercing howl floated over the grounds.” Susan shivered with delight.

“The senior class dressed like characters from the story. God, it was fun.”

By now they were outside. The Reverend Herbie and Carol Jones waved from among the wheat sheaves. A few people remarked that they’d miss Harry on Tomahawk this year. The local reporter roved around. Everyone was in a good mood. Naturally people talked about the grim discoveries but since it didn’t touch anyone personally—the victim wasn’t someone they knew—the talk soon dissolved into delicious personal gossip. Mim, Little Marilyn, and Fitz-Gilbert paraded around. Mim accepted everyone’s sympathy with a nod and then asked them not to mention it again. Her nerves were raw, she said.

One stalwart soul was missing this year: old Fats Domino, the huge feline who had played the Halloween cat every year for the last fifteen. Fats had finally succumbed to old age, and Pewter had been pressed into service. Her dark-gray coat could almost pass for black in the night and she hadn’t a speck of white on her. She gleefully padded over the tables, stopping to accept pats from her admirers.

Pewter grew expansive in the limelight. The more attention she received, the more she purred. Many people snapped photos of her, and she gladly paused for them. The newspaper photographer grabbed a few shots too. Well, that pesky Tucker had got her name in the papers once, the last time there’d been a murder in Crozet, but Pewter knew she’d be in color on the front page because the Harvest Festival always made the front page. Nor could she refrain from a major gloat over the fact that Mrs. Murphy and Tucker had to stay home, while she was the star of the occasion.

The craft and livestock prizes had been awarded, and now the harvest prizes were being announced. Miranda hurried over to stand behind her pumpkin. The gargantuan pumpkin next to hers was larger, indisputably larger, but Miranda hoped the competition’s imperfect shape would sway Jim Sanburne her way. With so much milling about and chatting she didn’t notice Pewter heading for the pumpkins. Mrs. Hogendobber felt no need to share this moment with the cat.

Mim, Little Marilyn, and Fitz-Gilbert stood off to the side. Mim noticed Harry and Blair.

“I know this Bainbridge fellow attended Yale and St. Paul’s but we don’t really know who he is. Harry ought to be more careful.”

“You never minded Fair as her husband and he’s not a stockbroker.” Little Marilyn was simply making an observation, not trying to start an argument.

“At the time,” Mim snapped, “I was relieved that Harry married, period. I feared she would go the way of Mildred Yost.”

Mildred Yost, a pretty girl in Mim’s class at Madeira, spurned so many beaus she finally ran out of them and spent her life as an old maid, a condition Mim found fearful. Single women just don’t make it to the top of society. If a woman was manless she had better be a widow.

“Mother”—Fitz-Gilbert called Mim “Mother”—“Harry doesn’t care about climbing to the top of society.”

“Whether she cares or not, she shouldn’t marry a person of low degree … I mean, once she’s established the fact that shecan get married.”

Mim babbled on in this vein, making very little sense. Fitz-Gilbert heard her sniff that being a divorc?e teetered on the brink of a shadowy status. Why was Mim so concerned with Harry and who she was dating? he wondered. No other reason than that she felt nothing could go on in Crozet without her express approval. As usual, Mim’s conversation did not run a charitable course. She even complained that the little witches, ghosts, and goblins overhead whirred too much, giving her a headache. The shock of recent events was making her crabbier than usual. Fitz tuned her out.

Danny Tucker, as Hercule Poirot, scooted next to Mrs. Hogendobber. His was the enormous pumpkin.

“Danny, why didn’t you inform me that you grew this … fruit?” Mrs. Hogendobber demanded.

“Well, Mom didn’t want to upset you. We all know you want that blue ribbon.”

Pewter arrived to sit between the two huge orange pumpkins, the finalists. Mrs. Hogendobber, talking to Danny, still didn’t notice her. Pewter was insulted.

Jim picked up Miranda’s pumpkin. He quickly put it back down. “These damn things get heavier every year.” Miranda shot him a look. “Sorry, Miranda.”

Pewter smelled pumpkin goo, as though the insides had been removed for pumpkin pie. She sniffed Miranda’s pumpkin.

“See, the cat likes my pumpkin.” Miranda smiled to the crowd.

“I don’t like any pumpkins,” Pewter replied.

“Do I want to pick this one up? I might fall over from the size of it.” Jim smiled but put his large hands around Danny’s pumpkin anyway. The enormous pumpkin was much heavier than the other pumpkin, oddly heavy. He replaced it. Puzzled, he lifted it up again.

Pewter, never able to control her curiosity, inspected the back of the pumpkin. A very neat, very large circle had been cut out and then glued back into place. If one wasn’t searching for it, the tampering could easily be missed.

“Look,” she said with forcefulness.

Danny Tucker was the only human who paid attention to her. He picked up his pumpkin.“Mayor Sanburne, I know my pumpkin’s heavy, but notthis heavy. Something’s wrong.”

“Thatis your pumpkin,” Miranda stated.

“Yes, but it’s too heavy.” Danny picked it up again.

Pewter reached up and swatted the back of the orange globe. This led Danny’s eyes, much sharper than Jim’s or Miranda’s, to the patch job in the back.

[Êàðòèíêà: _2.jpg]

“Jim, we’re waiting. We want a winner,” Mim called out impatiently.

“Yes, dear, in a minute,” he replied and the crowd laughed.

Danny pushed the circle and it wiggled. He reached into his jacket, retrieved a pocketknife, and slid it along the cutting line. The glue dislodged easily and he pried out the big circle.“Oh, wow!” Danny saw the back of a head. He assumed one of his buddies had done this as a joke. He reached in, grabbed the head by the hair, and pulled it out. A wave of sweet stink alerted him. This was no joke, no rubber or plastic head. Not quite knowing what to do he held the head away fromhim, giving the crowd a fine view of the loathsome sight. What was left of the eyes stared straight at them.

Danny, now realizing what he held, dropped the head. It hit the table with a sickening splat.

Pewter jumped away. She ran down to the squashes. If this was what the job of playing Halloween cat entailed, she was resigning.

People screamed. Jim Sanburne, almost by reflex, handed the ribbon to Miranda.

“I don’t want it!” Miranda screamed.

BoomBoom Craycroft fainted dead away. The next thud heard was Blair Bainbridge hitting the ground.

Then Little Marilyn screeched,“I’ve seen that face before!”

21

Therapists in the county agreed to work with the students at Crozet High to help them through the trauma of what they’d seen.

Rick Shaw wondered if they could help him. He disliked the sight of the decayed head himself but not enough to have nightmares over it. When he and Cynthia Cooper collected the head, the first thing they did, apart from holding their noses, was check the open mouth. Not one tooth remained in the head. No dental records.

Cynthia led Little Marilyn away from the sight and asked her to clarify her statement.

“I don’t know him but I think that’s the vagrant who was wandering around maybe ten days ago. I’m not certain as to the date. You see, he passed the post office and I walked to the window and got a good look at him. That’s all I can tell you.” She was shaking.

“Thank you. You’ve had more than your share of this.” Cynthia patted Little Marilyn on the back.

Fitz-Gilbert put his arms around her.“Come on, honey, let’s go home.”

“What about Mother?”

“Your father’s taking care of her.”

Meekly, Little Marilyn allowed Fitz to shepherd her to their Range Rover.

Cynthia stuck her notebook back in her pocket. As Rick was talking to other observers, the press photographer fired off some shots.

Cynthia took statements from Harry, Susan, Herb, Carol, Market, just everyone she could find. She would have interviewed Pewter if she could have. Market held the cat in his arms, each of them grateful for the reassuring warmth of the other.

Holding his wife’s hand, Cabell Hall mentioned to Cynthia that she and Rick might want to call the video stores and have them pull their more gruesome horror movies until things settled down.

“Actually, Mr. Hall, I have no authority to do that but as a prominent citizen you could, or your wife could. People listen to you all.”

“I’ll do it then,” Taxi Hall promised.

It took Cynthia more than an hour to get everyone out of there. Finally, Cynthia and Rick had a moment to themselves.

“Worse than I imagined.” Rick slapped his thighs, a nervous gesture.

“Yeah, I thought we’d find the head, if we found it at all, back in the woods somewhere. It would be something someone would stumble on.”

“You know what we got, Coop?” Rick breathed in the cool night air. “We got us a killer with a sick sense of humor.”

22

Firelight casts shadows, which, depending on one’s mood, can either be friendly highlights on the wall or misshapen monsters. Susan, Harry, and Blair sat before Harry’s fireplace. The best friends had decided that Blair needed some company before he returned to his empty house.

The Harvest Fair had rattled everyone and Harry found another surprise when she opened the door to her house. Tucker, in a fit of pique at being left behind, had demolished Harry’s favorite slippers. Mrs. Murphy told her not to do it but Tucker, when furious, was not a reasonable creature. The dog’s punishment was that she had to remain locked in the kitchen while the adults talked in the living room. To make matters worse, Mrs. Murphy was allowed in the living room with them. Tucker laid her head between her paws and howled.

“Come on, Harry, let her in,” Susan chided.

“Easy for you to say—they weren’t your slippers.”

“Actually, you should have taken her. She finds more clues than anyone.” Susan cast a glance at the alert Mrs. Murphy perched on Harry’s armchair. “And Murphy, of course.”

“Is anyone hungry?” Harry remembered to be a hostess.

“No.” Blair shook his head.

“Me neither,” Susan agreed. “Poor you.” She indicated Blair. “You moved here for peace and quiet and you landed in the middle of murder.”

The muscles in Blair’s handsome face tightened. “There’s no escaping human nature. Remember the men put off the H.M.S.Bounty on Pitcairn Island?”

“I remember the great movie with Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh,” Susan said.

“Well, in real life those Englishmen stranded on that paradise soon created their own version of hell. The sickness was within. The natives—by then they were mostly women, since the whites had killed the men—slit the Englishmen’s throats in the middle of the night while they slept. Or at least historians think they did. No one really knows how the mutineers died, except that years later, when a European ship stopped by, the ‘civilized’ men were gone.”

“Is that by way of saying that Crozet is a smaller version of Manhattan?” Harry reached over and poked the fire with one of the brass utensils left her by her parents.

“Big Marilyn as Brooke Astor.” Susan then added, “Actually, Brooke Astor is a great lady. Mim’s a wannabe.”

“In the main, Crozet is a kinder place than Manhattan, but whatever is wrong with us shows up wherever we may be—on a more reduced scale. Passions are passions, regardless of century and geography.” Blair stared into the fire.

“True enough.” Harry sank back into her seat. “How about Little Marilyn saying she recognized that head?” The memory of the head made Harry queasy.

“A hobo she saw walking down the tracks while she was inside the post office.” Blair added, “I vaguely remember him too. He was wearing old jeans and a baseball jacket. I wasn’t that interested. Did you get a look at him?”

Harry nodded.“I noticed the Mets jacket. That’s about it. However, even if these body parts belong to the fellow, we still don’t know who he is.”

“A student at U.V.A.?”

“God, Susan, I hope not.” Harry allowed Mrs. Murphy to crawl into her lap.

“Too old.” Blair folded his hands.

“It’s a little hard to tell.” Susan also called up the grisly sight.

“Ladies, I think I’ll go home. I’m exhausted and I’m embarrassed that I passed out. This is getting to me, I suppose.”

Harry walked him to the door and bade him goodnight before returning to Susan. Mrs. Murphy had taken over her chair. She lifted up the cat, who protested and then settled down again.

“He was distant tonight,” Susan observed. “Guess it has been right much of a shock. He doesn’t have a stick of furniture in his house, he doesn’t know any of us, and then they find pieces of a body on his land. Now this. There goes his bucolic dream.”

“The only good thing about tonight was getting to see BoomBoom faint.”

“Aren’t you ugly?” Susan laughed at her.

“You have to admit it was funny.”

“Kind of. Fair had the pleasure of reviving her, digging in her voluminous purse for her tranquilizers, and then taking her home. If she gets too difficult I guess he could hit her up with a cc of Ace.”

The thought of BoomBoom dosed with a horse tranquilizer struck Susan as amusing.“I’d say that BoomBoom wasn’t an easy keeper,” she said, using an equine term—quite accurate, too, because BoomBoom was anything but an easy keeper.

“I suppose we have to laugh at something. This is so macabre, what else can we do?” Harry scratched Mrs. Murphy behind the ears.

“I don’t know.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Are you?” Susan shot back.

“I asked you first.”

“Not for myself,” Susan replied.

“Me neither, because I don’t think it had anything to do with me, but what if I fall into it? For all I know the killer might have buried those body parts in my cemetery.”

“I think we’re all right if we don’t get in the way,” Susan said.

“But what’s ‘in the way’? What’s this all about?”

Mrs. Murphy opened one eye and said,“Love or money.”

23

Sunday dawned frosty but clear. The day’s high might reach into the low fifties but not much more. Harry loved Sundays. She could work from sunup to sundown without interruption. Today she was planning to strip stalls, put down lime, and then cover and bank the sides with wood shavings. Physical labor limbered up her mind. Out in the stable she popped a soothing tape into the boom box and proceeded to fill up the wheelbarrow. The manure spreader was pulled up under a small earthen bank. That way Harry could roll the wheelbarrow to the top of the bank and tip the contents over into the wagon. She and her father had built the rampin the late sixties. Harry was twelve. She worked so hard and with so much enthusiasm that as a reward her father bought her a pair of fitted chaps. The ramp had lasted these many years and so did the memory of the chaps.

Both of Harry’s parents thought that idle hands did the Devil’s work. True to her roots, Harry couldn’t sit still. She was happiest when working and found it a cure for most ills. After her divorce she couldn’t sleep much, so she would work sometimes sixteen or eighteen hours a day. The farm reflected this intensity. So did Harry. Her weight dropped to 110, too low for a woman of five foot six. Finally, Susan and Mrs. Hogendobber tricked her into going to the doctor. Hayden McIntire, forewarned, slammed shut his office door as they dragged her through it. A shot of B12 and a severe tongue-lashing convinced her that she’d better eat more. He also prescribed a mild sedative so she could sleep. She took it for a week and then threw it out. Harry hated drugs of any sort but her body accepted sleep and food again, so whatever Hayden did worked.

Each year with the repetition of the seasons, the cycle of planting, weeding, harvesting, and winter repairs, it was brought home to Harry that life was finite. Perhaps LIFE in capital letters wasn’t finite but her life was. There would be a beginning, a middle, and an end. She wasn’t quite at the middle yet, but she endured hints that she wasn’t fifteen either. Injuries took longer to heal. Actually, she enjoyed more energy than she’d had as a teenager but what had changed the most was her mind. She’d lived just long enough to be seeing events and human personality types for the second and third time. She wasn’t easily impressed or fooled. Most movies bored her to death, for that reason as well. She’d seen versions of those plots long before. They enthralled a new generation of fifteen-year-olds but there wasn’t anything for her. What enthralled Harry was a job well done, laughter with her friends, a quiet ride on one of the horses. She’d withdrawn from the social whirl after her divorce—no great loss, but she was shocked to find out how little a single womanwas valued. A single man was a plus. A single woman, a liability. The married women, Susan excepted, feared you.

Although Fair lacked money he didn’t lack prestige in his field and Harry had been dragged along to banquets, boring dinners at the homes of thoroughbred breeders, and even more boring dinners at Saratoga. It was the same old parade of excellent facelifts, good bourbon, and tired stories. She was glad to be out of it. BoomBoom could have it all. BoomBoom could have Fair too. Harry didn’t know why she’d gotten so mad at Fair the other day. She didn’t love him anymore but she liked him. How could you not like a man you’ve known since you were in grade school and liked at first sight? The sheer folly of his attachment to BoomBoom irritated her though. If he found a sensible woman like Susan she’d be relieved. BoomBoom would suck up so much of his energy and money that eventually his work would suffer. He’d spent years building his practice. BoomBoom could wreck it in one circle of the seasons if he didn’t wake up.

The sweet smell of pine shavings caressed her senses. For an instant Harry picked up the wall-phone receiver. She was going to call Fair and tell him what she really thought. Then she hung it up. How could she? He wouldn’t listen. No one ever does in that situation. They wake up when they can.

She spread fresh shavings in the stalls.

Mrs. Murphy checked out the hayloft. Simon, sound asleep, never heard her tiptoe around him. He’d dragged up an old T-shirt of Harry’s and then hollowed out part of a hay bale. He was curled up in the hollow on the shirt. She then walked over to the south side of the loft. The snake was hibernating. Nothing would wake her up until spring. Overhead the owl also slept. Satisfied that everything was as it should be, Mrs. Murphy climbed back down the ladder.

“Tucker,” she called.

“What?” Tucker lounged around in the tack room.

“Want to go for a walk?”

“Where?”

“Foxden pastures off Yellow Mountain Road.”

“Why there?”

“Paddy gave me an idea the other day and this is the first time I’ve had a chance to look in the daylight.”

“Okay.” Tucker stood up, shook herself, and then trotted out into the brisk air with her companion.

Mrs. Murphy told Tucker Paddy’s idea about someone parking off Yellow Mountain Road on the old logging road and carrying the body parts to the cemetery in a plastic bag or something.

Once in the pastures Tucker put her nose down. Too much rain and too much time had elapsed. She smelled field mice, deer, fox, lots of wild turkeys, raccoons, and even the faint scent of bobcat.

While Tucker kept her nose to the ground Mrs. Murphy cast her sharp eyes around for a glint of metal, a piece of flesh, but there was nothing, nothing at all.

“Find anything?”

“No, too late.” Tucker lifted her head.“How else could the body get to the cemetery? If the murderer didn’t walk through these pastures, then he or she had to go right down Blair’s driveway in front of God and Blair, anyway. Paddy’s right. He came through here. Unless it’s Blair.”

Mrs. Murphy jerked her head around to view her friend full in the face.“You don’t think that, do you?”

“I hope not. Who knows?”

The cat fluffed out her fur and then let it settle down. She headed for home.“You know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think tomorrow at work will be impossible. Lardguts will go on and on and on about the head in the pumpkin. She got her name and her picture in the paper. God help us.” Mrs. Murphy laughed.

24

“… and the maggots had a field day, I can tell you that.” Pewter perched on the hood of Harry’s truck, parked behind the post office.

Mrs. Murphy, seated next to her, listened to the un-ending paean of self-praise. Tucker sat on the ground.

“I heard you ran into the squashes,” Tucker called up.

“Of course I did, nitwit. I didn’t want to injure the evidence,” Pewter bragged.“Boy, you should have heard people scream once they realized it was real. A few even puked. Now I watched everyone—everyone—from my vantage point. Mrs. Hogendobber was horrified but has a cast-iron stomach. Poor Danny, was he grossed out! Susan and Ned rushed up to him but he wanted to go to his friends instead. That age, you know. Oh, Big Marilyn, she wasn’t grossed out at all. She was outraged. I thought she’d flip her lid after the corpse in the boathouse but no, she was mad, bullshit mad, I tell you. Fitz stood there with his mouth hanging open. Little Marilyn hollered that she recognized the face, what there was of it. Harry didn’t move a muscle. Stood there like a stone taking it all in. You know how she gets when things are awful. Real quiet and still. Oh, BoomBoom dropped, tits into the sand, and Blair keeled over too. What a night. I knew something was wrong with that pumpkin. I sat next to it. It takes humans so long to see the obvious.” Pewter sighed a superior sigh.

“You were a teeny weeny bit disgusted.” Mrs. Murphy flicked her tail.

Pewter turned her head. She puffed out her chest, refusing to be baited by her dearest friend, who was also a source of torment.“Certainly not.”

A door closed in the near distance. The animals turned, observing Mrs. Hogendobber striding up the alleyway. As she drew near the animals she opened her mouth to speak to them but closed it again. She felt vaguely foolish carrying on a conversation with animals. This didn’t prevent her from talking to herself, however. She smiled at the creatures and walked into the post office.

“Why’d Harry bring the truck?” Pewter asked.

“Wore herself out yesterday,” Tucker replied.

Mrs. Murphy licked the side of her right front paw and rubbed it over her ears.“Pewter, do you have any theories about this?”

“Yeah, we got a real nut case on the loose.”

“I don’t think so.” Mrs. Murphy washed the other paw.

“What makes you so smart?” Pewter snapped.

Mrs. Murphy let that go by.“If a human being has the time to think about a murder he can often make it look like an accident or natural death. If one of them kills in the heat of passion it’s a bullet wound or a knife wound. Right?”

“Right,” Tucker echoed, while Pewter’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Murphy, we all know that.”

“Then we know it was a hurry-up job and it wasn’t passion. Someone in Crozet was surprised by the dead person.”

“A nasty surprise.” Tucker followed her friend’s thinking.“But who? And what could be so terrible about the victim that he should have had to die for it?”

“When we know that, we’ll know everything,” the cat said in a low voice.

25

The coroner’s conclusions, neatly typed, rested on Rick Shaw’s desk. The deceased was a white male in his early thirties. Identity remained unknown but what was known was that this fellow, who should have been in the prime of life, was suffering from malnutrition and liver damage. Larry Johnson, meticulous in the performance of his duties, added in his bold vertical handwriting that while alcohol abuse might have contributed to the liver damage, the organ could have been diseased for reasons other than alcohol abuse. Then, too, certain medications taken over many years could also have caused liver damage.

Cooper charged into the office. She tossed more paperwork onto the sheriff’s desk. “More reports from Saturday night.”

Rick grunted and shoved them aside.“You haven’t said anything about the coroner’s report.”

“Died of a blow to the head. A child can kill someone with a blow to the head if it’s done right. We’re still in the dark.”

“What about a revenge motive?”

She was tired of kicking around ideas. Dead ends frustrated her. The fax machine hummed. She walked over to it almost absentmindedly.“Boss, come over here.”

Rick joined her and watched as the pages slowly rolled out of the machine. It was Blair Bainbridge’s record.

He had been a suspect in the murder of his lover, an actress. However, he wasn’t a suspect for long. The killer, an obsessed fan, was picked up by the police and confessed. The eerie thing was that the beautiful woman’s corpse had been dismembered.

“Shit,” was Cynthia’s response.

“Let’s go,” was Rick’s.

26

Heavy work gloves protected his hands as Blair righted tombstones, replaced the sod, and rolled it flat. The trees, now barren, surrounded the little cemetery like mournful sentinels. He stopped his labors when he saw the squad car roll down the driveway. He swung open the iron gate and headed down the hill to meet them.

A cool breeze eased off Yellow Mountain. Blair asked Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper inside. A couple of orange crates doubled as chairs.

“You know, there are wonderful auctions this time of year,” Coop volunteered. “Check in the classifieds. I furnished my house, thanks to those auctions.”

“I’ll check it out.”

Rick noticed that Blair was growing a thin military moustache.“Another modeling job coming up?”

“How’d you guess?” Blair smiled.

Rick rubbed under his nose.“Well, I’ll get to the point. This isn’t a social call, as I’m sure you’ve surmised. Your records indicate an actress with whom you were involved was brutally murdered and dismembered. What do you have to say?”

Blair blanched.“It was horrible. I thought when the police caught the murderer I’d feel some comfort. Well, I guess I did, in that I knew he wouldn’t kill anyone else, but it didn’t fill the … void.”

“Is there anyone in Crozet or Charlottesville who might know of this incident?”

“Not that I know of. I mean, a few people recognized my face from magazines but no one knows me here. Guess that doesn’t look so good for me, huh?”

“Let’s just say you’re an unknown factor.” Rick shifted his weight. The orange crate wasn’t comfortable.

“I didn’t kill anybody. I think I could kill in self-defense or to protect someone I love, but other than that, I don’t think I could do it.”

“What one person defines as self-defense another might define as murder.” Cynthia watched Blair’s handsome features.

“I am willing to cooperate with you in any way. And I’ve refused to talk to the press. They’ll only muck it up.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened in New York?” Rick’s voice was steady, unemotional.

Blair ran his hands through his hair.“You know, Sheriff, I’d like to forget that. I came here to forget that. Can you imagine what it was like to see that head pulled out of a pumpkin?”

The sheriff softened.“Not pretty for any of us.”

Blair took a deep breath.“I knew Robin Mangione from a shoot we did for Baker and Reeves, the big New York department store. I guess that was three years ago. One thing led to another and, well, we stopped dating other people and got involved. Our work schedules often took us out of town but whenever we were in New York we were together.”

“You didn’t live together?” Rick asked.

“No. It’s a little different in New York than here. In a place like this people get married. In New York, people can be as good as married and yet live in separate apartments for their entire lives. Maybe because of the millions of people, one needs a sense of privacy, of separate space, more than you do here. Anyway, living together wasn’t a goal.”

“What about her goals?” Cooper was suspicious about this living-apart stuff.

“She was more independent than I was, truthfully. Anyway, Robin inspired devotion from men. She could stop traffic. Fame, any kind of fame really, brings good and bad. The flotsam and jetsam of fame is how I think of it, and Robin was sometimes hassled by male admirers. Usually a sharp word from her, or if need be from me, took care of the problem. Except for the guy who killed her.”

“Know anything about him?” Rick asked.

“What you know, except that I watched him at the trial. He’s short, balding, one of those men you could pass on the street and never notice. He sent letters. He called. She changed her number. He’d wait for her outside the theater. I got in the habit of picking her up because he was such a nuisance. He began to threaten. We told the police. With predictable results.” Rick dropped his gaze for a moment while Blair continued: “And one day when I was out of town on a shoot he broke the locks and got into her apartment. She was alone. The rest you know.”

Indeed they did. Stanley Richards, the crazed fan, panicked after he killed Robin. Disposing of a body in New York City would try the imagination of a far more intelligent man than Stanley. So he put her in the bathtub, cut her throat and wrists and ankles, and tried to drain most of the blood out of the body. Then he dismembered her with the help of a meat cleaver. He fed pieces of the body to the disposal but it jammed up on the bone. Finally, desperate, he spent the rest of the night hauling out little bits of body and dumping her east, west, north, and south. The head he saved for the Sheep Meadow, in the middle of Central Park, where in exhaustion he put it down on the grass. A dawn jogger saw him and reported him as soon as he found a cop.

Neither Rick nor Cynthia felt the need to rehash those details.

“Don’t you find it curious that—”

“Curious?!” Blair erupted, cutting off Rick.“It’s sick!”

“Do you have any enemies?” Cynthia inquired.

Blair lapsed into silence.“My agent, occasionally.”

“What’s his name?” Rick had a pencil and pad out.

“Her name. Gwendolyn Blackwell. She’s not my enemy but she broods if I don’t take every job that comes down the pike. That woman would work me into an early grave if I let her.”

“That’s it? No irate husbands? No jilted ladies? No jealous competitor?”

“Sheriff, modeling isn’t as glamorous as you might suppose.”

“I thought all you guys were gay,” Rick blurted out.

“Fifty-fifty, I’d say.” Blair had heard this so many times it didn’t rock his boat.

“Is there anyone you can think of—the wildest connection doesn’t matter—anyone who would know enough to duplicate what happened to Robin?”

Blair cast his deep eyes on Cynthia. It made her heart flutter.“Not one person. I really do think this is a grim coincidence.”

Rick and Cynthia left as baffled as they were when they arrived. They’d keep an eye on Blair, but then they’d keep an eye on everyone.

27

The western half of Albemarle County would soon feel the blade of the bulldozer. The great state of Virginia and its Department of Highways, a little fiefdom, decided to create a bypass through much of the best land in the county. Businesses would be obliterated, pastures uprooted, property values crunched, and dreams strangled. The western bypass, as it came to be known, had the distinction of being outmoded before it was even begun. That and the fact that it imperiled the watershed meant little to the highway department. They wanted the western bypass and they were going to have it no matter who they displaced and no matter how they scarred the environment.

The uproar caused by this high-handed tactic obscured the follow-up story about the head in the pumpkin. Since no one could identify the corpse, interest fizzled. It would remain a good story for Halloweens to come.

The respite was appreciated by Jim Sanburne, mayor, and the civic worthies of Crozet. Big Marilyn refused to discuss the subject, so it withered in her social circle, which was to say the six or seven ladies as snobbish as herself.

Little Marilyn recovered sufficiently to call her brother, Stafford, and invite him home for a weekend. This upset Mim more than the sum of the body parts. It meant she’d have to be sociable with his wife, Brenda.

This projected discomfort, awarded to Little Marilyn in lavish proportions by her mother, almost made the young woman back down and uninvite her brother and his wife. But it was opening hunt, such a pretty sight, and Stafford loved to photograph such events. She kept her nerve. Stafford would be home next weekend.

Weary of the swirl of tempestuous egos, Fitz-Gilbert decided to stay out late that night. First he stopped at Charley’s, where he bumped into Ben Seifert on his way out. Fitz tossed back one beer and then hit the road again. He ran into Fair Haristeen at Sloan’s and pulled up the barstool next to the vet.

“A night of freedom?”

Fair signaled for a beer for Fitz.“You might call it that. What about you?”

“It’s been a hell of a week. You know my office was ransacked. Doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the … murder … but it was upsetting on top of everything else. The sheriff and his deputy came out, took notes and so forth. Some money was missing, and a CD player, but obviouslyit’s not at the top of their list. Then Cabell Hall called me to tell me to watch my stock market investments, since the market is on a oneway trip these days—down—and my mother-in-law—oh, well, why talk about her? Oh, I just ran into Ben Seifert at Charley’s. He’s an okay guy, but he’s just burning to succeed Cabell some day. The thought of Ben Seifert running Allied National gives me pause. And then of course there’s my father-in-law. He wants to call out the National Guard.

“Those are my problems. What are yours?” Fitz asked.

“I don’t know.” Fair was puzzled. “BoomBoom’s out with that model guy. She says he asked her to the Cancer Fund Ball but I don’t know. He didn’t seem that interested in her when I met him. I kind of thought he liked Harry.”

“Here’s to women.” Fitz-Gilbert smiled. “I don’t know anything about them but I’ve got one.” He clinked glasses with Fair.

Fair laughed.“My daddy used to say, ‘You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.’ I didn’t know what he was talking about. I do now.”

“Marilyn is great by herself. It’s when she’s in the company of her mother …” Fitz-Gilbert wiped froth off his lips. “My mother-in-law can be a whistling bitch. I feel guilty just being here … like I slipped my leash. But I’m glad I didn’t get dragged to the Cancer Ball. Marilyn says she can only do but so many a year, and she wanted to get things ready for Stafford and Brenda. Thank God. I need the break.”

Fair changed the subject.“Do you think this new guy likes Harry? I thought guys like that wanted leggy blondes or other guys.”

“Can’t speak for his preferences, but Harry’s a good-looking woman. Natural. Outdoorsy. I’ll never know why you guys broke up, buddy.”

Fair, unaccustomed to exchanging much personal information, sat quietly and then signaled for another beer.“She’s a good person. We grew up together. We dated in high school. We, well, she was more like my sister than my wife.”

“Yeah, but you knew BoomBoom since you were yay-high,” Fitz countered.

“Not the same.”

“That’s the truth.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” Fair felt prickly anxiety creeping up his spine.

“Uh … well, I mean that they are so totally different from one another. One’s a quarter horse and the other’s a racehorse.” What he wanted to say was, “One’s a quarter horse and the other’s a jackass,” but he didn’t. “BoomBoom puts lead in your pencil. I’ve seen her start motors that have been stalled for years.”

Fair smiled broadly.“She is attractive.”

“Dynamite, buddy, dynamite.” Fitz, less inhibited than usual, kept on. “But I’d take Harry any day of the week. She’s funny. She’s a partner. She’s a friend. That other stuff—hey, Fair, it gets old.”

“You’re certainly forthcoming,” came the dry reply.

“Nothing’s preventing you from telling me to keep my mouth shut.”

“While we’re on the subject, tell me what you see in Little Marilyn. She’s a miniature of her mother, on her way to being as cold as a wedge, and near as I can tell she’s even slacking off on the charity work. What’s the—”

“Attraction?” Fitz decided not to take offense. After all, he was handing it out so he’d better take it. “The truth? The truth is that I married her because it was the thing to do. Two respectable family fortunes. Two great family names. My parents, had they lived, would have been proud. Superficial stuff, when you get right down to it. And I was kind of wild as a kid. I was ready to settle down. I needed to settle down. What’s strange is that I’ve come to love Marilyn. You don’t know the real Marilyn. When she’s not knocking herself out trying to be superior she’s pretty wonderful. She’s a shy little bug and underneath it there’s a good heart. And what’s so funny is that I think she likes me too. I don’t think she married me for love, any more than I married her for it. She went along with the merger orchestrated by thatharridan”—he sputtered the word—“of a mother. Maybe Mim knew more than we did. Whatever the reason, I have learned to love my wife. And someday I hope I can tear her away from this place. We’ll go someplace where the names Sanburne and Hamilton don’t mean diddly.”

Fair stared at Fitz, and Fitz returned the stare. Then they burst out laughing.

“Another beer for my buddy.” Fitz slapped money on the counter.

Fair eagerly grabbed the cold glass.“We might as well get shitfaced.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

By the time Fitz reached home, supper was cold and his wife was not amused. He cajoled her with the tidbit about BoomBoom and Blair attending the Cancer Fund Ball and then poured them each a delicious sherry for a nightcap, a ritual of theirs. By the time they crawled into bed, Little Marilyn had forgiven her husband.

28

Two men argued at the end of an old country road. Heavy cloud cover added to the tension and gloom. Way up in the distance beckoned the sealed cavern of Claudius Crozet’s first tunnel through the Blue Ridge Mountains.

One man clenched his fists and shook them in the face of the other.“You goddamned bloodsucker. I’m not giving you another cent. How was I to know he’d show up? He’s been locked away for years!”

Ben Seifert, being threatened, just laughed.“He showed up in my office, not yours, asshole, and I want something for my pains—a bonus!”

The next thing he knew a brightly colored climbing rope was flipped over his neck and the wordbonus was choked right out of him. Strangulation took less than two minutes.

Still furious, the killer viciously kicked the body, breaking some ribs. Then he shook his head, collected his wits, and bent down to pick up the limp corpse. This was an unpleasant task, since the dead man had voided himself.

Cursing, he tossed the body over his shoulder, for he was a strong man, and carried him up to the tunnel. Although it had been sealed after World War II, there was an opening of loose stones which had been dug out by a former Crozet resident. The railroad had overlooked resealing the tunnel.

His brain worked clearly now. He removed the stones with care so as not to tear up his hands and then dragged the body into the tunnel. He could hear the click of little claws as he slammed his unwanted burden on the ground. He walked outside and replaced the stones. Then he picked his way down the hillside, composing himself, brushing off his clothes. People rarely hiked up to the tunnels. With luck it would be months before they found that bastard, if they found him at all.

The problem was Seifert’s car. He searched the seats, trunk, and glove compartment to make certain no note existed, no clue to their meeting. Then he started the engine and drove to the outskirts of town, leaving the car at a gas station. He wiped off the steering wheel, the door handle, everything he’d touched. The car shone when he finished with it. Shrewdly, he’d left his own car three miles away, where the victim had picked him up on Three Chopt Road. That was at one o’clock this morning. It was now four-thirty and darkness would soon enough give way to light.

He jogged the three miles to his own car, parked behind one of the cement trucks at Craycroft Cement. Unless someone walked around the mixer they’d never have seen his car.

He had figured killing his unwanted partner was a possibility, hence the preparation. Not that he had wanted to kill the dumb son of a bitch, but he’d gotten so greedy. He kept bleeding him. That left little choice.

Blackmail rarely ended with both parties wreathed in smiles.

29

The mail slid into the boxes but the magazines had to be folded. Ned Tucker received more magazines than anyone in Crozet. What was even more amazing was that he read them. Susan said it was like living with an encyclopedia.

The morning temperature hovered at thirty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, so Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker hopped to work at a brisk pace. Harry brought the blue truck only when the weather was filthy or she had errands to run. As she’d done her grocery shopping yesterday, the blue bomb reposed by the barn.

Harry cherished the quiet of her walk and the early hour alone in the post office after Rob Collier dropped off the mail. The repetition of chores soothed her, like a labor’s liturgy. There was comfort in consistency.

The back door opened and closed. Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and even Harry could tell by the tread that it was Mrs. Hogendobber.

“Harry.”

“Mrs. H.”

“Missed you at the Cancer Ball.”

“Wasn’t invited.”

“You could have gone alone. I do sometimes.”

“Not at a hundred and fifty dollars a ticket I can’t.”

“I forgot about that part. Larry Johnson paid for my ticket. He’s quite a good dancer.”

“Who all was there?”

“Susan and Ned. She wore her peach organdy dress. Very becoming. Herbie and Carol. She wore the ice-blue gown with the ostrich feather ruff. You should have seen Mim. She had on one of those gowns Bob Mackie designs forDynasty.”

“Did she really?”

“I am here to tell you, girl, she did, and that dress must have cost her as much as a Toyota. There isn’t a bugle bead left in Los Angeles, I am sure of it. Why, if you dropped her in that lake of hers she’d attract every fish in it.”

Harry giggled.“Maybe she’d get along better with the fish than she does with people.”

“Let’s see, I said Ned and Susan. Fair wasn’t there. Little Marilyn and Fitz weren’t there either—must be taking a break from the black-tie circuit. Most of the Keswick and Farmington Hunt Clubs showed up, and the country club set too. Wall to wall.” Mrs. Hogendobber picked up a handfulof mail and helped to sort.

Mrs. Murphy sat in a mail bin. She had sat so long waiting for a push that she fell asleep. Mrs. Hogendobber’s arrival woke her up.

“What did you wear?”

“You know that emerald-green satin dress I wear at Christmas?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I had it copied in black with gold accents. I don’t look so fat in black.”

“You’re not fat,” Harry reassured her. It was true. She wasn’t fat but she was, well, ample.

“Ha. If I eat any more I’m going to resemble a heifer.”

“How come you haven’t told me that Blair escorted BoomBoom to the ball?”

“If you know it why should I tell you?” Mrs. Hogendobber liked to stand behind the post boxes and shoot the letters in. “Well, he did. Actually, I think she asked him, because the tickets were in her name. The hussy.”

“Did he have a good time?”

“He just looked so handsome in his tuxedo and I like his new moustache. Reminds me of Ronald Colman. BoomBoom dragged him to meet everyone. She was wearing her party face. I guess he had a good time.”

“No dread disease?”

“No. She danced so much I doubt she even had time to tell him of the sorrows of her youth and how awful her parents were.” Miranda didn’t crack a smile when she relayed this observation but her eyes twinkled.

“My, my, doesn’t he have something to look forward to: ‘The Life and Times of BoomBoom Craycroft.’ ”

“Don’t worry about her.”

“I’m not.”

“Harry, I’ve known you since you were born. Don’t lie to me. I remember the day you insisted we call you Harry instead of Mary. Funny that you later married Fair Haristeen.”

“You remember everything.”

“I do indeed. You were four years old and you loved your kitty—now let me see, her name was Skippy. You wanted to be furry like Skippy, so you asked us to call you Hairy, which became Harry. You thought if we called you that, you’d get furry and turn into a kitty. Name stuck.”

“What a great cat Skippy was.”

This aroused Mrs. Murphy from her half-slumberous state.“Not as great as the Murphy!”

“Ha!” Tucker laughed.

“Shut up, Tucker. There was a dog before you, you know. A German shepherd. His photo is on the desk at home, for your information.”

“Big deal.”

“Playtime.” Harry heard the meows and thought Mrs. Murphy wanted a push in the mail bin. Although it wasn’t what the cat was talking about, she happily rolled around in the canvas-bottomed cart.

Mrs. Hogendobber unlocked the front door. She no sooner turned the key than Blair appeared, wearing a heavy red Buffalo-checked jacket over a flannel shirt. He rubbed his boots over the scraper.

“Good morning, Mrs. Hogendobber. I enjoyed our dance last night. You float over the floor.”

Mrs. Hogendobber blushed.“Why, what a sweet thing to say.”

Blair stepped right up to the counter.“Harry.”

“No packages.”

“I don’t want any packages. I want your attention.”

He got Mrs. Hogendobber’s too.

“Okay.” Harry leaned over the other side of the counter. “My full attention.”

“I’ve been told there are furniture and antique auctions on the weekends. Will you tell me which are the good ones and will you go along with me? I’m getting tired of sitting on the floor.”

“Of course.” Harry liked to help out.

Mrs. Murphy grumbled and then jumped out of the mail bin, sending it clattering across the floor. She hopped up on the counter.

“The other request I have is that you accompany me to a dinner party Little Marilyn is giving for Stafford and Brenda tomorrow night. I know it’s short notice but she called this morning to ask me.”

“What’s the dress?” Harry couldn’t believe her ears.

“I’m going to wear a yellow shirt, a teal tie, and a brown herringbone jacket. Does that help?”

“Yes.” Mrs. Hogendobber answered because she knew Harry was hopeless in these matters.

“I’ve never seen you dressed up, Harry.” Blair smiled. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at seven.” He paused. “I looked for you at the Cancer Ball last night.”

Harry started to say that she wasn’t invited but Mrs. Hogendobber leapt into this breach. “Harry had another engagement. She’s kept so busy.”

“Oh. Well, I wanted to dance with you.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “That Craycroft woman is a real motormouth. Never stopped talking about herself. I know it isn’t gallant of me to criticize someone who made such an effort to have me meet people, but jeez”—he let out his breath—“she likes to party.”

Both Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber tried to conceal their delight at this comment.

“BoomBoom knows you’re rich,” Mrs. Murphy piped up.“Plus you’re single, good-looking, and she’s not above driving Fair crazy with you, either.”

“She has a lot to say this morning, doesn’t she?” Blair patted Mrs. Murphy’s head.

“You bet, buster. Stick with me, I’ll give you the scoop on everybody.”

Blair laughed.“Now, Murphy—I mean, Mrs. Murphy; how rude of me—you promised to help me find a friend exactly like you.”