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

“I’m going to throw up,” Tucker mumbled from the floor.

Blair picked up his mail, got to the door, and stopped.“Harry?”

“What?”

He held up his hands in entreaty. Mrs. Hogendobber kicked Harry behind the counter. Blair couldn’t see this.

“Oh, yes, I’d love to go.”

“Seven tomorrow.” He left, whistling.

“That hurt. I’ll have a bruised ankle tomorrow.”

“You have no sense when it comes to men!” Miranda exclaimed.

“I wonder what got into him?” Harry’s gaze followed him to his truck.

“Yours is not to reason why. Yours is but to do and die.”

Just then Susan sauntered in through the back door.“‘Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred.’ ”

“Blair Bainbridge just asked her to a dinner party at the Hamiltons’ tomorrow night and he wants her to take him to some auctions.”

“Yahoo!” Susan clapped her hands together. “Good work, girl.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Susan, help me with her. She nearly told him she didn’t have a date for the Cancer Ball. She’s going to iron her jeans for the dinner party and think she’s dressed. This calls for action.”

Miranda and Susan looked at each other and then both looked at Harry. Before she knew it, each one grabbed an arm and she was propelled out the back door and thrown into Susan’s car.

“Hey, hey, I can’t leave work.”

“I’ll take care of everything, dear.” Miranda slammed shut the door as Susan cranked the motor.

30

The Allied National Bank overlooked Benjamin Seifert’s tardiness. No one called Cabell Hall to report Ben’s absence. If Ben had found out about such a call the perpetrator wouldn’t have kept his job for long. Often on the run and not the most organized man in the office, Benjamin might have made morning appointments without notifying the secretary. Ben, a bright light at Allied, could look forward to taking over the huge new branch being built on Route 29N in Charlottesville, so no one wanted to get on his bad side. The more astute workers realized that his ambitions extended beyond the new branch at 29N.

When he didn’t phone in after lunch the little group thought it odd. By three, Marion Molnar was worried enough to call his home. No answer. Benjamin, divorced, often stayed out into the wee hours. No hangover lasted this long.

By five, everyone expressed concern. They dialed Rick Shaw, who said he’d check around. Just about the time Marion called, so did Yancey Mills, owner of the little gas station. He recognized Benjamin’s car. He’d figured something was wrong with it and that Benjamin would call in. But it was near to closing time and he hadn’t heard anything and there was no answer at Ben’s house.

Rick sent Cynthia Cooper over to the gas station. She checked out the car. Seemed fine. Neither she nor Rick pressed the panic button but they routinely called around. Cynthia called Ben’s parents. By now she was getting a bit alarmed. If they found no trace of him by morning they’d start looking for him. What if Ben had refused a loan, or the bank had foreclosed, and someone had it in for him? It seemed far-fetched, but then nothing was normal anymore.

31

It was her face reflecting back from the mirror, but Harry needed time to get used to it. The new haircut revealed those high cheekbones, full lips, and strong jaw so reminiscent of her mother’s family, the Hepworths. The clear brown Minor eyes looked back at her too. Like everyone else in Crozet, Harry combined the traits of her parents, a genetic testimony to the roulette of human breeding. The luck held in her case. For others, some of them friends, this wasn’t true. Multiple sclerosis haunted generation after generation of one Crozet family; others never escaped the snares of cancer; still others inherited a marked tendency to drink or drugs. The older she got the luckier she felt.

As she focused on the mirror she recalled her mother seated before this very mirror, paint pots out, lipsticks marshaled like stubby soldiers, powder puffs lurking like peach-colored land mines. Much as Grace Hepworth Minor had harassed, wheedled, and bribed her sole child, Harry steadfastly refused the lure of feminine artifice. She was too young then to articulate her steely rejection of the commercialization of womanness. All she knew was that she didn’t want to do it, and no one could make her. As years sped by, this instinctual rejection was examined. Harry realized that she thought she was clean and neat in appearance, healthy, and outgoing. If a man needed that fake stuff, in her opinion he wasn’t much of a man. She was determined to be loved for herself and not because she’d paid out good money to fit the current definition of femininity. Then again, Harry never felt the need to prove that she was feminine. She felt feminine and that was enough for her. It ought to be enough for him. In the case of Fair it turned out to be enough for a while.

In this respect BoomBoom and Harry represented the two poles of female philosophy. Maybe it was why they never could get along. BoomBoom averaged one thousand dollars each month on her upkeep. She was waxed, dyed, massaged. She was awash in nutrients which took into account her special hormonal needs. At least that’s what the bottles said. She dieted constantly. She thought nothing of flying to New York to shop. Then the bills truly rolled in. One pair of crocodile shoes from Gucci was $1,200. Sleek, up-to-date, and careful to cover any flaws, real or imagined, BoomBoom represented a triumph of American cosmetics, fashion, and elective surgery. Her self-centeredness, fed by this culture, blossomed into solipsism of the highest degree. BoomBoom marketed herself as an ornament. In time she became one. Many men chased after that ornament.

When Harry inspected the new Harry, courtesy of the strong-arm tactics of Miranda and Susan, she was relieved to see a lot of the old Harry. Okay, blusher highlighted those cheeks, lipstick warmed her mouth, but nothing too extreme. No nasty eyeshadow covered her lids. The mascara only accentuated her already long black lashes. She looked like herself, only maybe more so. She was trying to make sense of it, trying to like the simple suede skirt and silk shirt that Susan had forced her to buy upon pain of death. Spending is worse than pain, she thought; it lasts longer.

Too late now. The check had been written, the merchandise carried home. No more time to fret over it anyway because Blair was knocking at the front door.

She opened it.

He studied Harry.“You’re the only woman I know who looks as good in jeans as in a skirt. Come on.”

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker stood on the back of the sofa and watched the humans motor down the driveway.

“What do you think?” Tucker asked the cat.

“She looks hot.” Mrs. Murphy batted Tucker.“Aren’t you glad we don’t have to wear clothes? Wouldn’t you look adorable in a little gingham dress?”

“And you’d have to wear four bras.” Tucker nudged Mrs. Murphy in the ribs, nearly knocking her off the sofa.

That appealed to Mrs. Murphy’s demented sense of humor. She rocketed off the back of the sofa, calling for the dog to chase her. She dashed straight for the wall, enticing Tucker to think that she was trapped, and then hit the wall with all fours, banking off it, sailing right over Tucker’s head while the dog skidded intothe wall with a hard bump. Mrs. Murphy performed this maneuver with a demonic sense of purpose. Enraged, Tucker’s feet spun so fast under her that she shook like a speeded-up movie. Around and around they ripped and tore until finally, as Tucker charged under an end table and Mrs. Murphy pranced on top of it, the lamp on the table teetered and tottered, only to wobble on its base and smash onto the floor. The crash scared them and they flew into the kitchen. After a few moments of quiet they ventured out.

“Uh-oh,” Tucker said.

“Well, she needed a new lamp anyway. This one had gray hairs.”

“She’ll blame me for it.” Tucker already felt persecuted.

“As soon as we hear the truck, we’ll hide under the bed. That way she can rant and rave and get it out of her system. She’ll be over it by tomorrow morning.”

“Good idea.”

32

“The meringue tarts.” Little Marilyn triumphantly nodded to Tiffany to serve the dessert.

Little Marilyn practiced nouvelle cuisine. Big Marilyn followed suit, which was the first time mother had imitated daughter. Jim Sanburne complained that nouvelle cuisine was a way to feed people less. Bird food, he called it. Fortunately, Big Marilyn and Jim weren’t invited to the small dinner tonight. Cabell Hall was, though. Fitz continually flattered the important banker, his justification being that three years ago Cabell had introduced him to Marilyn. Little Marilyn’s septic personality had been somewhat sweetened by the absence of her maternal unit, so she, too, showered attention on Cabell and Taxi.

“Tell Blair how you were nicknamed Taxi.” Little Marilyn beamed at the older woman.

“Oh, that. He doesn’t want to hear that.” Taxi smiled.

“Yes, I do.” Blair encouraged her as Cabby watched with affection his wife of nearly three decades.

“Cabell is called Cabby. Fine and good but when the children were little I hauled them to school. I picked them up from school. I carried them to the doctor, the dentist, Little League, dance lessons, piano lessons, and tennis lessons. One day I came home dog tired and ready to bite. My husband, just home from his own hard day, wanted to know how I could be so worn out from doing my duties as a housewife. I explained in vivid terms what I’d been doing all day and he said I should start a local taxi service, as I already ran one for my own children. The name stuck. It’s sexier than Florence.”

“Honey, you’d be sexy if your name were Amanda,” Cabby praised her.

“What’s wrong with the name Amanda?” Brenda Sanburne asked.

“Miss Amanda Westover was the feared history teacher at my prep school,” her husband told her. “She taught Cabell, me—she may have even taught Grandfather.Mean.” Stafford Sanburne and Cabell Hall were both Choate graduates.

“Not as mean as my predecessor at the bank.” Cabell winked.

“Artie Schubert.” Little Marilyn tried to recall a face. “Wasn’t it Artie Schubert?”

“You were too young to remember.” Taxi patted Little Marilyn’s bejeweled hand. “He made getting a loan a most unpleasant process, or so I heard. Cabby and I were still in Manhattan at the time and he was approached by a board member of Allied National to take over the bank. Well, Richmond seemed like the end of the earth—”

Cabby interrupted:“It wasn’t that bad.”

“What happened was that we fell in love with central Virginia, so we bought a house here and Cabby commuted to work every day.”

“Still do. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m at the branch in the downtown mall in Charlottesville. Do you know that in the last ten years or so our growth rate has exceeded that of every other bank in the state of Virginia—by percentage, of course. We’re still a small bank when compared to Central Fidelity, or Crestar, or Nations Bank.”

“Darling, this is a dinner party, not a stockholders’ meeting.” Taxi laughed. “Is it obvious how much my husband loves his job?”

As the guests agreed with Taxi and speculated on how people find the work that suits them, Fitz-Gilbert asked Blair,“Will you be attending opening hunt?”

Blair turned to Harry.“Will I be attending opening hunt?”

Stafford leaned toward Blair.“If she won’t take you, I will. You see, Harry will probably be riding tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you help me get ready in the morning and then you can meet everyone there?” Harry’s voice registered nothing but innocence.

This drew peals of laughter from the others, even Brenda Sanburne, who knew enough to realize that getting ready for a fox hunt can be a nerve-racking experience.

“Nice try, Harry.” Fitz-Gilbert toasted in her direction.

“Now my curiosity’s got the better of me. What time do I have to be at your barn?”

Harry twirled her fork.“Seven-thirty.”

“That’s not so bad,” Blair rejoined.

“If you drink enough tonight it will be,” Stafford promised.

“Don’t even mention it.” Fitz-Gilbert put his hand to his forehead.

“I’ll say. You’ve been getting snookered lately. This morning when I woke up, what a sorry face I saw.” Little Marilyn pursed her lips.

“Did you know, Blair, that Virginia is home to more fox-hunting clubs than any other state in the Union? Nineteen in all—two in Albemarle County,” Cabell informed him. “Keswick on the east side and Farmington on the west side.”

“No, I didn’t know that. I guess there are a lot of foxes. What’s the difference between the two clubs here? Why don’t they have just one large club?”

Harry answered, a wicked smile on her face,“Well, you see, Blair, Keswick Hunt Club is old, old, old Virginia money living in old, old, old Virginia homes. Farmington Hunt Club is old, old, old Virginia money that’s subdivided.”

This caused a whoop and a shout. Stafford nearly choked on his dessert.

Once recovered from this barb, the small group discussed New York, the demise of the theater, a topic creating lively debate, since Blair didn’t think theater was pooping out and Brenda did. Blair told some funny modeling stories which were enlivened by his talent for mimicry. Everyone decided the stock market was dismal so they’d wait out the bad times.

After dessert, the women moved over to the window seat in the living room. Brenda liked Harry. Many white people were likable but you couldn’t really trust them. Even though she knew her but slightly, Brenda felt she could trust Harry. In her odd way, the postmistress was color blind. What you saw with Harry was what you got and Brenda truly appreciated that. Whenever a white person said, “I’m not prejudiced myself … ,” youknew you were in trouble.

The men retired to the library for brandy and Cuban cigars. Fitz-Gilbert prided himself on the contraband and wouldn’t divulge his source. Once you smoked a Montecristo, well, there was no looking back.

“One day you’ll spill the beans.” Stafford passed the cigar under his nose, thrilling to the beguiling scent of the tobacco.

Cabell laughed.“When hell freezes over. Fitz can keep a secret.”

“The only reason you guys are nice to me is because of my cigars.”

“That and the fact that you were first oar for Andover.” Stafford puffed away.

“You look more like a wrestler than a first oar.” Blair, too, surrendered to the languor the cigar produced.

“I was skinny as a rail when I was a kid.” Fitz patted his small potbelly. “Not anymore.”

“Ever know Binky Colfax when you were at Andover? My class at Yale.”

“Binky Colfax. Valedictorian.” Fitz-Gilbert flipped through his yearbook and handed it to Blair.

“God, it’s a good thing Binky was an academic.” Blair laughed. “You know, he’s in the administration now. An undersecretary in the State Department. When you remember what a wuss the guy was, it makes me fear for our government. I mean, think of it, all those guys we knew at Yale and Harvard and Princeton and …”

“Stanford,” Stafford chipped in.

“Do I have to?” Blair asked.

“Uh-huh.” Stafford nodded.

“… Stanford. Well, the nerds went into government or research. In ten years’ time those guys will be the bureaucracy serving the guys that will be elected.” Blair shook his head.

“Do you think every generation goes through this? You pick up the paper one day or you watch the six o’clock news and there’s one of the wieners.” Fitz-Gilbert laughed.

“My father—he was Yale ’49—said it used to scare him to death. Then he got used to it,” Blair said.

Cabby chimed in:“Everyone muddles through. Think how I feel. The guys in my class at Dartmouth are starting to retire. Retire? I remember when all we thought about was getting …”

He stopped, as his hostess had stuck her head into the library, hand curled around the door frame.“Are you fellows finished yet? I mean, we’ve solved the problems of the world in the last forty-five minutes.”

“Lonesome, honey?” Fitz called to her.

“Oh, an eensie-weensie bit.”

“We’ll be out in a minute.”

“You know, Fitz, I think we must know a lot of people in common since so many of your schoolmates came to Yale. Someday we’ll have to compare notes,” Blair said.

“Yes, I’d like that.” Fitz, distracted by Little Marilyn, wasn’t paying much attention.

“Yale and Princeton. Yeck.” Stafford made a thumbs-down sign.

“And you went to Stanford?” Blair quizzed him.

“Yes. Finance.”

“Ah.” Blair nodded. No wonder Stafford was making so much money as an investment banker, and no wonder Cabell shone smiles upon him. No doubt these two would talk business over the weekend.

“You were smart not to become a lawyer.” Fitz twirled his cigar, the beautiful, understated band announcing MONTECRISTO. “A lawyer is a hired gun, even if it’s tax law. I’ll never know how I passed the bar, I was so bored.”

“There are worse jobs.” Cabell squinted his eyes from the smoke. “You could be a proctologist.”

The men laughed.

The phone rang. Tiffany called out from the kitchen,“Mr. Hamilton.”

“Excuse me.”

As Fitz picked up the phone, Stafford, Cabell, and Blair joined the ladies in the living room. In a few minutes Fitz-Gilbert joined them too.

“Has anyone seen or heard from Benjamin Seifert?”

“No. Why?” Little Marilyn asked.

“He didn’t go to work today. That was Cynthia Cooper. She’s spent the evening calling his business associates and family. Now she’s calling friends and acquaintances. I told them you were here, Cabby. They’d like to talk to you.”

Cabell left the room to pick up the phone.

“He’s out of the office as much as he’s in it,” Harry volunteered, now that Ben’s boss was out of earshot.

“I told him just last week to watch his step, but you know Ben.” Fitz pulled up a chair. “He’ll show up and I bet the story will be a doozie.”

Harry opened her mouth but closed it. She wanted to say“What if this has something to do with the vagrant’s murder?” What if Ben was the killer and skipped town? Realizing Little Marilyn’s sensitivity to the topic, she said nothing.

Harry had forgotten all about Ben Seifert when Blair dropped her at her door. He promised he’d be there at seven-thirty in the morning. She opened the door and turned on the lights. Only one came on. She walked over to the debris on the floor, the lamp cord yanked out of the wall.

“Tucker! Mrs. Murphy!”

The two animals giggled under the bed but they stayed put. Harry walked into the bedroom, knelt down and looked under the bed, and beheld two luminous pairs of eyes staring back at her.

“I know you two did this.”

“Prove it,” was all Mrs. Murphy would say, her tail swaying back and forth.

“I had a wonderful time tonight and I’m not going to let you spoil it.”

It was good that Harry had that attitude. Events would spoil things soon enough.

33

The earth glittered silvery and beige under its cloak of frost. The sun, pale and low in the sky, turned the ground fog into champagne mist. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker curled up in a horse blanket in the tack room and watched Harry groom Tomahawk.

Blair arrived at seven forty-five. As Harry had already brushed and braided Tomahawk, painted his feet with hoof dressing, and brushed him again, she was ready for a clean-up.

“What time did you get up?” Blair admired her handiwork.

“Five-thirty. Same time I always get up. Wish I could sleep past it but I can’t, even if I go to bed at one in the morning.”

“What can I do?”

Harry shed her garage mechanic overalls to reveal her buff breeches. A heavy sweater covered her good white shirt. Her worn boots, polished, leaned against the tack room wall. Her derby, brushed, hung on a tack hook. Harry had earned her colors with the hunt while she was in high school and her ancient black melton coat with its Belgian-blue collar was carefully hung on the other side of the tack hook.

Harry placed a heavy wool cooler over Tomahawk and tied it at the front. Unhooking the crossties, she led him to his stall.“Don’t even think about rubbing your braids, Tommy, and don’t get tangled up in your cooler.” She gave her horse a pat on the neck. “Tommy’ll be good but I always remind him, just in case,” she said to Blair. “Come on, everything’s done. Let’s get some coffee.”

After a light breakfast, Blair watched Harry replace Tomahawk’s square cooler with a fitted wool dress sheet, put on his leather shipping halter, and load him into her two-horse gooseneck, which, like the truck, was showing its age but still serviceable. He hopped in the cab, camera in his coat pocket, ready for the meet.

He was beginning to appreciate Harry’s make-do attitude as he perceived how little money she really had. False pride about possessions wasn’t one of her faults but pride about making her own way was. She wouldn’t ask for help, and as the blue bomb chugged along he realized what a simple gift it would have been for him to offer the use of his dually to pull her rig. If he had asked politely she might even have let him. Harry was funny. She feared favors, maybe because she lacked the resources to return them, but by Blair’s reckoning she kept her accounts even in her own way.

Opening meet of the hunt brought out everyone who had ever thrown a leg over a horse. Blair couldn’t believe his eyes as Harry pulled into the flat pasture. Horse trailers littered the landscape. There were little tagalongs, two-horse goosenecks, four-horse goosenecks. There were a few semis pulling rigs a family could live in, Imperatore vans with the box built onto the back of the truck, and there was even one of the new Mitsubishi vans, its snub nose exciting both admiration and derision.

Horses, unloaded and tied to the sides of these conveyances, provided splashes of color. Each stable sported its own colors and these were displayed both in the paint jobs of the rigs and on the horses themselves, blanketed in their own special uniforms, the sheets or blankets indicating their allegiances. Harry’s colors were royal-blue and gold, so Tomahawk’s blue wool dress sheet was trimmed in gold and had a braided gold tail cord on the hindquarters. There were coolers and blankets in a myriad of color combinations: hunter-green and red, red and gold, black and red, blue and green, tan and blue, tan and hunter-green, silver and green, sky-blue and white, white and every color, and one cooler was even purple and pink. The purple and pink one belonged to Mrs. Annabelle Milliken, who had ordered a purple and white cooler years ago but the clerk wrote down the wrong colors and Mrs. Milliken was too polite to correct her. After a time everyone became accustomed to the purple and pink combination. Even Mrs. Milliken.

Big Marilyn’s colors were red and gold. Her horse, a shining seal-brown, could have galloped out of a Ben Marshall painting, just as Little Marilyn’s bold chestnut might have trotted out of a George Stubbs.

Harry put on her stock tie, her canary vest, her coat, derby, and deerskin gloves. Using the trailer fender as a mounting block, she swung into the saddle. Blair asked her if she wanted a leg up but she said that she and Tomahawk were used to the do-it-yourself method. Good old Tommy, in a D-ring snaffle, stood quietly, ears pricked. He loved hunting. Blair handed Harry her hunting crop with its long thong and lash just as Jock Fiery rode by and wished her“good hunting.”

As Harry trotted off to hear the words of wisdom from the Joint Masters, Jill Summers and Tim Bishop, Blair found Mrs. Hogendobber. Together they watched the tableau as the Huntsman, Jack Eicher, brought the hounds to the far side of the gathering. Horses, hounds, staff, and field glistened in the soft light. Susan joined the group. She was still struggling with her hairnet, which she dropped. Gloria Fennel, Master of the Hilltoppers, reached in her pocket and gave Susan another hairnet.

Blair turned to Mrs. Hogendobber.“Does everyone ride?”

“I don’t, obviously.” She nodded in the direction of Stafford and Brenda, both of them madly snapping photos. “He used to.”

“Guess I’d better take some lessons.”

“Lynne Beegle.” Mrs. Hogendobber pointed out a petite young lady on a gloriously built thoroughbred. “Whole family rides. She’s a wonderful teacher.”

Before Blair could ask more questions, the staff, which consisted of three Whippers-In, the Huntsman, and the Masters, moved the hounds down to where the pasture dropped off. The field followed.

“The Huntsman will cast the hounds.”

Blair heard a high-pitched“Whooe, whoop whoop, whooe.” The sounds made no sense to him but the hounds knew what to do. They fanned out, noses to the ground, sterns to heaven. Soon a deep-throated bitch named Streisand gave tongue. Another joined her and then another. The chorus sent a chill down Blair’s spine. The animal in him overrode his overdeveloped brain. He wanted to hunt too.

So did Mrs. Hogendobber, as she motioned for him to follow on foot. Mrs. H. knew every inch of the western part of the county. An avid beagler, she could divine where the hounds would go and could often find the best place to watch. Mrs. H. explained to Blair that beagling was much like fox hunting except that the quarry was rabbits and the field followed on foot. Blair gained a new respect for Mrs. Hogendobber. Rough terrain barely slowed her down.

They reached a large hill from which they could see a long, low valley. The hounds, following the fox’s line, streaked across the meadow. The Field Master, the staff member in charge of maintaining order and directing the field, led the hunt over the first of a series of coops—a two-sided, slanted panel, jumpable from both directions. It was a solidly imposing three feet three inches high.

“Is that Harry?” Blair pointed to a relaxed figure floating over the coop.

“Yes. Susan’s in her pocket and Mim isn’t far behind.”

“Hard to believe Mim would endure the discomforts of fox hunting.”

“For all her fussiness that woman is tough as nails. She can ride.” Mrs. Hogendobber folded her arms in front of her. Big Marilyn’s seal-brown gelding seemed to step over the coop. The obstacle presented no challenge.

As the pace increased, Harry smiled. She loved a good run but she was grateful for the first check. They held up and the Huntsman recast the hounds so they could regain the line. Joining her in the first flight were the Reverend Herbert Jones, dazzling in his scarlet frock coat, or“pinks”; Carol, looking like an enchantress in her black jacket with its Belgian-blue collar and hunt cap; Big Marilyn and Little Marilyn, both in shadbelly coats and top hats, the hunt’s colors emblazoned on the collars of their tailed cutaways; and Fitz-Gilbert in his black frock coat and derby. Fitz had not yet earned his colors, so he did not have the privilege of festooning himself in pinks. The group behind them ran up and someone yelled, “Hold hard!” and the followers came to a halt. As Harry glanced around her she felt a surge of affection for these people. On foot she couldhave boxed Mim’s ears but on a horse the social tyrant didn’t have the time to tell everyone what to do.

Within moments the hounds had again found the line, and giving tongue, they soon trotted off toward the rough lands formerly owned by the first Joneses to settle in these parts.

A steep bank followed a bold creek. Harry heard the hounds splashing through the water. The Field Master located the best place to ford, which, although steep, provided good footing. It was either that or slide down rocks or get stuck in a bog. The horses picked their way down to the creek. Harry, one of the first to the creek, saw a staff member’s horse suddenly plunge in up to his belly. She quickly pulled her feet up onto the skirts of her saddle, just in the nick of time. A few curses behind her indicated that Fitz-Gilbert hadn’t been so quick and now suffered from wet feet.

No time to worry, for once on the other side the field tore after the hounds. Susan, right behind Harry, called out,“The fence ahead. Turn sharp right, Harry.”

Harry had forgotten how evil that fence was. It was like an airplane landing strip but without the strip. You touched down and you turned, or else you crashed into the trees. Tomahawk easily soared over the fence. In the air and as she landed Harry pressed hard with her left leg and opened her right rein, holding her hand away from and to the side of Tommy’s neck. He turned like a charm and so did Susan’s horse right on her heels. Mim boldly took the fence at an angle so she didn’t have to maneuver as much. Little Marilyn and Fitz made it. Harry didn’t look over her shoulder to see who made it after that because she was moving so fast that tears were filling her eyes.

They thundered along the wood’s edge and then found a deer path through the thick growth. Harry hated galloping through woods. She always feared losing a kneecap but the pace was too good and there wasn’t time to worry about it. Also, Tomahawk was handy at weaving in and out through the trees and did a pretty good job keeping his sides, and Harry’s legs, away from the trunks. The field wove its way through the oaks, sweet gums, and maples to emerge on a meadow, undulating toward the mountains. Harry dropped the reins on Tomahawk’s neck and the old boy flew. His joy mingled with her joy. Susan drew alongside, her dappled gray running with his ears back. He always did that. Didn’t mean much except it sometimes scared people who didn’t know Susan or the horse.

A three-board fence, interrupted by a three-foot-six coop, hove into view. Before she knew it Harry had landed on the other side. The pace and the cold morning air burned her lungs. She could see Big Marilyn out of the corner of her left eye. Standing in her stirrup irons with her hands well up her gelding’s neck, Mim urged on her steed. She was determined to overtake Harry. A horse race, and what a place for it! Harry glanced over at Mim, who glanced back. Clods of earth spewed into the air. Susan, not one to drop back, stayed right with them. A big jump with a drop on the other side beckoned ahead. The Field Master cleared it. Mim’s horse inched in front of Tomahawk. Harry carefully dropped behind Mim’s thoroughbred. It wouldn’t do to take a jump in tandem unplanned. Mim soared over with plenty of daylight showing underneath her horse’s belly. Harry let the weight sink into her heels, preparing to absorb the shock of the drop on the other side, and flew over it, though her heart was in her mouth. Those jumps with a drop on the other side made you feel as if you were airborne forever and the landing often came as a jarring surprise.

A steep hill rose before them and they rode up it, little stones clattering underneath. They pulled up at the crest. The hounds had lost the line again.

“Good run.” Mim smiled. “Good run, Harry.”

Mrs. Hogendobber and Blair drove in her Falcon to where she thought the run would go. The old car nosed into a turnaround. She sprang out of the vehicle.“Hurry up!”

Blair, breathing hard, followed her up another large hill, this one with a commanding view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His eyes moved in the direction of her pointing finger.

“That’s the first of Crozet’s tunnels, way up there. This is the very edge of Farmington’s territory.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, there’s a national association that divides up the territory. No one can hunt up in the mountains, too rough really, but on the other side the territory belongs to another hunt, Glenmore, I think. To our north it’s Rappahannock, then Old Dominion; to the east, Keswick and then Deep Run. Think of it like states.”

“I don’t know when I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful. Did the hounds lose the scent?”

“Yes. They’ve checked while the Huntsman casts the hounds. Think of it like casting a net with a nose for fox. Good pack too. As fleet as sound.”

Far, far in the distance she heard the strange cry of a hound.

Down at the check, all heads turned.

Fitz, now winded, whispered to Little Marilyn,“Honey, can we go in soon?”

“You can.”

“This terrain is really pretty rugged. I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I’m not alone and I’m a better rider than you are,” Little Marilyn informed him, somewhat haughtily but still in a whisper.

The Huntsman followed the cry of his lone hound. The pack moved toward the call. The Field Master waited for a moment, then motioned for the field to move off. The sweet roll of earth crunched up. More rock outcroppings challenged the sure-footedness of the horses.

“We’re about out of real estate,” Harry said to Susan. She kept her voice low. It was irritating to strain to hear the hounds and have someone chattering behind you. She didn’t want to bother any of the others.

“Yeah, he’ll have to pull the hounds back.”

“We’re heading toward the tunnel,” Mim stated.

“Can’t go there. And we shouldn’t. Who knows what’s up there? That’s all we need, for a bear or something to jump out of the tunnel and scare the bejesus out of these horses.” Little Marilyn wasn’t thrilled at the prospect.

“Well, we can’t go up there, that’s for sure. Anyway, the Chesapeake and Ohio sealed up the tunnel,” Fitz-Gilbert added.

“Yes, but Kelly Craycroft opened it up again.” Susan referred to Kelly Craycroft’s clever reopening and camouflaging of the tunnel. “Wonder if the railroad did seal it back up?”

“I don’t want to find out.” Fitz’s horse was getting restive.

The cry of the lone hound soon found answers. The pack worked its way toward the tunnel. The Field Master held back the field. The Huntsman stopped. He blew his horn but only some of the hounds returned as they were bidden. The stray hound cried and cried. A few others now joined in this throaty song.

“Letting me down. Those hounds are letting me down,” the Huntsman, shamed by their disobedience, moaned to a Whipper-In who rode along with him to get the hounds back in line.

The Whipper-In flicked the lash at the end of his whip after a straggler, who shuttled back to the pack.“Deer? But they haven’t run deer. Except for Big Lou.”

“That’s not Big Lou up there though.” The Huntsman moved toward the sound. “Well, come along with me and we’ll see if we can’t get those babies back down before they ruin a good day’s hunting.”

The two staff horses picked their way through the unforgiving terrain. They could now see the tunnel. The hounds sniffed and worried at the entrance. A huge turkey vulture flew above them, swooped down on an air current, bold as brass, and disappeared into the tunnel.

“Damn,” the Whip exclaimed.

The Huntsman blew his horn. The Whipper-In made good use of his whip but the animals kept speaking. They weren’t confused; they were upset.

As this had never happened before to the Huntsman in his more than thirty years of hunting, he dismounted and handed his reins to the Whip. He walked toward the entrance. The vulture emerged, another in its wake. The Huntsman noticed hunks of rancid meat dangling from their beaks. He caught a whiff of it too. As he neared the tunnel entrance he caught another blast, much stronger. The hounds whined now. One even rolled over and showed its belly. The Huntsman noticed that some stones had fallen away from the entrance. The odor of decay, one he knew well from life in the country, seeped out of the hole full bore. He kicked at the stones and a section rolled away. The railroad had neglected to reclose the entrance after all. He squinted, trying to see into the darkness, but his nose told him plenty. It was a second or two before he recognized that the dead creature was a human being. He involuntarily stepped back. The hounds whined pitifully. He called them away from the tunnel, swaying a bit as he came out into the light.

“It’s Benjamin Seifert.”

34

A sensuous Georgian tea service glowed on the long mahogany sideboard. Exquisite blue and white teacups, which had been brought over from England in the late seventeenth century, surrounded the service. A Hepplewhite table, loaded with ham biscuits, cheese omelettes, artichoke salad, hard cheeses, shepherd’s pie, and fresh breads commanded the center of the dining room. Brownies and pound cake rounded out the offerings.

Susan had knocked herself out for the hunt breakfast. The excited hum of voices, ordinarily the sign of a successful hunt, meant something different today.

After the Huntsman identified Ben Seifert he rode with the Whip down to the Masters, the Field Master, and the other Whips. They decided to lift the hounds and return to the kennels. Not until everyone was safely away from the tunnel and had arrived at the breakfast did the Masters break the news.

After caring for the hounds, the Huntsman and the Whip who’d accompanied him to the grisly site returned to the tunnel to help Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper.

Despite the dolorous news, appetites drove the riders and their audience to the table. The food disappeared and Susan filled up the plates and bowls again. Her husband, Ned, presided over the bar.

Big Marilyn, seated in an apricot-colored wing chair, balanced her plate on her knees. She hated buffets for that very reason. Mim wanted to sit at the table. Herbie and Carol sat on the floor along with Harry, Blair, and BoomBoom, who was making a point of being charming.

Cabell and Taxi arrived late and were told the news by a well-meaning person. They were so shocked they left for home.

Fair hung back at the food table. He noticed the gathering on the floor and brought desserts for everyone, including his ex-wife. Fitz-Gilbert and Little Marilyn joined Mim. Mrs. Hogendobber wouldn’t sit on the floor in her skirt so she grabbed the other wing chair, a soothing mint-green.

“Miranda.” Big Marilyn speared some omelette. “Your views.”

“Shall we judge society by its malcontents?”

“And what do you mean by that?” Big Marilyn demanded before Mrs. Hogendobber could take another breath.

“I mean Crozet will be in the papers again. Our shortcomings will be trumpeted hither and yon. We’ll be judged by these murders instead of by our good citizens.”

“That’s not what I was asking.” Mim zeroed in. “Who do you think killed Ben Seifert?”

“We don’t know that he was murdered yet.” Fitz-Gilbert spoke up.

“Well, you don’t think he walked up to that tunnel and killed himself, do you? He’d be the last person to commit suicide.”

“What do you think, Mim?” Susan knew her guest was bursting to give her views.

“I think when money passes hands it sometimes sticks to fingers. We all know that Ben Seifert and the work ethic were unacquainted with one another. Yet he lived extremely well. Didn’t he?” Heads nodded in agreement. “The only person who would have wanted to kill him is his ex-wife and she’s not that stupid. No, he fiddled in someone’s trust. He was the type.”

“Mother, that’s a harsh judgment.”

“I see no need to pussyfoot.”

“He handled many of our trusts, or at least Allied did, so he knew who had what.” Fitz gobbled a brownie. “But Cabell would have had his hide if he thought for an instant that Ben was dishonest.”

“Maybe someone’s trust was running out.” Carol Jones thought out loud. “And maybe that person expected a favor from Ben. What if he didn’t deliver?”

“Or someone caught him with his hand in the till.” The Reverend Jones added his thoughts.

“I don’t think this has anything to do with Ben and sticky fingers.” Harry crossed her legs underneath her. “Ben’s death is tied to that unidentified body.”

“Oh, Harry, that’s a stretch.” Fitz reached for his Bloody Mary.

“It’s a feeling. I can’t explain it.” Harry’s quiet conviction was unsettling.

“You stick to your feelings. I’ll stick to facts,” Fitz-Gilbert jabbed.

Fair spoke up, defending Harry.“I used to think that way, too, but life with Harry taught me to listen to, well, feelings.”

“Well, what do your deeper voices tell you now?” Mim said “deeper” with an impertinent edge.

“That we don’t know much at all,” Harry said firmly. “That now one of us has been killed and we can’t feel so safe in our sleep anymore because we haven’t one clue, one single idea as to motive. Is this a nut who comes out at the full moon? Is it someone with a grudge finally settling the score? Is this a cover-up for something else? Something we can’t begin to imagine? My deeper voice tells me to keep eyes in the back of my head.”

That shut up the room for a moment.

“You’re right.” Herbie placed his plate on the coffee table. “And I am not unconvinced that there may be some satanic element to this. I’ve not spoken of it before because it’s so disturbing. But certain cults do practice ritual killings and how they dispatch their victims is part of the ritual. We have one corpse dismembered, and, well, we don’t know how Ben died.”

“Do we know how the other fellow died?” Little Marilyn asked.

“Blow to the head,” Ned Tucker informed them. “Larry Johnson performed the autopsy and I ran into him after that. I don’t believe, Herbie, that satanic cults usually bash in heads.”

“No, most don’t.”

“So, we’re back to square one.” Fitz got up for another dessert. “We’re not in danger. I bet you when the authorities examine Ben’s books they’ll find discrepancies, or another set of books.”

“Even if this is over misallocation of funds, that doesn’t tell us who killed him or who killed that other man,” Susan stated.

“These murders do have something to do with Satan.” Mrs. Hogendobber’s clear alto voice rang out. “The Devil has sunk his deep claws into someone, and forgive the old expression, but there will be hell to pay.”

35

Long shadows spilled over the graves of Grace and Cliff Minor. The sun was setting, a golden oracle sending tongues of flame up from the Blue Ridge Mountains. The scarlet streaks climbed heavenward and then changed to gold, golden pink, lavender, deep purple, and finally deep Prussian-blue, Night’s first kiss.

Harry wrapped her scarf around her neck as she watched the sun’s last shout on this day. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker sat at her feet. The aching melancholy of the sunset ripped through her with needles of sorrow. She mourned the loss of the sun; she wanted to bathe in rivers of light. Each twilight she would suspend her chores for a moment, to trust that the sunwould return tomorrow like a new birth. And this evening that same hope tugged but with a sharper pull. The future is ever blind. The sun would rise but would she?

No one believes she will die; neither her mother nor her father did. Like a game of tag, Death is“it,” and around he chases, touching people who fall to earth. Surely she would get up at dawn; another day would unfold like an opening rose. But hadn’t Ben Seifert believed that also? Losing a parent, wrenching and profound, felt very different to Harry than losing a peer. Benjamin Seifert graduated from Crozet High School one year ahead of Harry. This time Death had tagged someone close to her—at least close in age.

A terrible loneliness gnawed at Harry. Those tombstones covered the two people who gave her life. She remembered their teachings, she remembered their voices, and she remembered their laughter. Who would remember them when she was gone, and who would hold the memory of her life? Century after century the human race lurched two steps forward and one step back, but always there were good people, funny people, strong people, and their memories washed away with the ages. Kings and queens received a mention in the chronicles, but what about the horse trainers, the farmers, the seamstresses? What about the postmistresses and stagecoach drivers? Who would hold the memory of their lives?

The loneliness filled her. If she could have, she would have embraced every life and cherished it. As it was, she was struggling on with her own.

Harry began to fear the coming years. Formerly, time was her ally. Now she wasn’t so sure. If death could snatch you in an instant, then life had better be lived to the fullest. The worst thing would be to go down in the grave without having lived.

The bite of the night’s air made her fingertips tingle and her toes hurt. She whistled to Tucker and Mrs. Murphy and started back for the house.

Harry was not by nature an introspective person. She liked to work. She liked to see the results of her work. Deeper thoughts and philosophic worries were for other people. But after today’s jolt Harry turned inward, if only for a brief moment, and was suffused with life’s sadness and harmony.

36

A terrible rumpus outside awoke Mrs. Murphy and Tucker. Mrs. Murphy ran to the window.

“It’s Simon and the raccoons.”

Tucker barked to wake up Harry, because now that it was cold Harry made sure to shut the back door tight, and they couldn’t get out to the screened-in porch. That door was easy to open, so if Harry would just open the back door they could get outside.

“Go away, Tucker,” Harry groaned.

“Wake up, Mom. Come on.”

“Goddammit.” Harry’s feet hit the cold floor. She thought the dog was barking at an animal or had to go to the bathroom. She tramped downstairs and opened the back door and both creatures zoomed out. “Go on out and freeze your asses. I’m not letting you back in.”

The cat and dog didn’t have time to reply. They streaked toward Simon, backed up against the barn by two masked raccoons.

“Beat it!” Tucker barked.

Mrs. Murphy, fur puffed up to the max, ears flat back, spit and howled,“I’ll rip your eyes out!”

The raccoons decided they didn’t want to fight, so they waddled off.

“Thanks,” Simon puffed, his flanks heaving.

“What was all that about?” Mrs. Murphy asked.

“Marshmallows. Blair put out marshmallows and I love them. Unfortunately, so do those creeps. They chased me all the way back here.” A trickle of blood oozed from Simon’s pink nose. His left ear was also bleeding.

“You got the worst of the fight. Why don’t we go up to the loft?” Mrs. Murphy suggested.

“I’m still hungry. Did Harry put out leftovers?”

“No. She had a bad day,” Tucker answered.“The humans found another body today.”

“In pieces?” Simon was curious.

“No, except that the vultures got at it.” Mrs. Murphy quivered as the wind kicked up. It felt like zero degrees.

“I’ve always wondered why birds like the eyes. First thing they’ll go for: the eyes and the head.” Simon rubbed his ear, which had begun to sting.

“Let’s go inside. Come on. It’s vile out here.”

They wiggled under the big barn doors. Simon paused to pick up bits of grain that Tomahawk and Gin Fizz had dropped. As the horses were sloppy eaters, Simon could enjoy the gleanings.

“That ought to hold me until tomorrow.” The gray possum sat down and wrapped his pink tail around him.“If you come upstairs it’s warm in the hay.”

“I can’t climb the ladder,” Tucker whimpered.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.” Simon rubbed his nose.

“Let’s go into the tack room. That old, heavy horse blanket is in there, the one Gin Fizz ripped up. The lining is fleecy and we could curl up in that.”

“It’s hanging over the saddle rack,” Tucker called.

“So? I’ll push it down.” Mrs. Murphy was already hooking her claws under the door bottom. The door, old and warped, wavered a little and she wedged her paw behind it while Tucker stuck her nose down to see if she could help. In a minute the door squeaked open.

The cat leapt onto the saddle rack, dug her claws in the blanket, and leaned over with it. She came down with the blanket. The three snuggled next to one another in the fleece.

When Harry hurried into the barn the next morning she felt guilty for leaving her pets outside. She knew she’d find them in the barn but she was quite surprised to find them curled up with a possum in the tack room. Simon was surprised, too, so surprised that he pretended to be dead.

Tucker licked Harry’s gloved hands while Mrs. Murphy rubbed against her legs.

“This little guy’s been in the ring.” Harry noticed Simon’s torn ear and scratched nose.

“Simon, wake up. We know you’re not dead.” Mrs. Murphy patted his rump.

Harry reached for a tube of ointment and while Simon squeezed his eyes more tightly shut she rubbed salve on his wounds. He couldn’t stand it. He opened one eye.

Mrs. Murphy patted his rump again.“See, she’s not so bad. She’s a good human.”

Simon, who didn’t trust humans, kept silent, but Tucker piped up,“Look grateful, Simon, and maybe she’ll give you some food. Let her pick you up. She’ll love that.”

Harry petted Simon’s funny little head. “You’ll be all right, fella. You stay here if you want and I’ll do my chores.”

She left the animals and climbed into the hayloft.

Simon panicked for a moment.“She won’t steal my treasures, will she? I think I’d better see.” Simon walked out of the tack room and grabbed the lowest ladder rung. He moved quickly. Mrs. Murphy followed. Tucker stayed where she was and looked up. She could hear the hay moving around as Harry prepared to toss it through the holes in the loft floor over the stalls.

Harry turned around to see Simon and Mrs. Murphy hurrying toward the back. She put down her bale and followed them.

“You two certainly are chummy.”

The T-shirt made Harry laugh. Simon’s nest was much improved since Mrs. Murphy had last visited.

“Shut up, down there,” the owl called out.

“Shut up, yourself, flatface,” Mrs. Murphy snarled.

Harry knelt down as Simon darted into his half-cave. He’d brought up some excess yarn Harry had used to braid Tomahawk for opening hunt. He also had shredded the sweet feed bag and brought it up in strips. Simon’s nest was now very cozy and the T-shirt had been lovingly placed over his homemade insulation. One ballpoint pen, two pennies, and the tassled end of an old longe line were artfully arranged in one corner.

“This is quite a house.” Harry admired the possum’s work.

A shiny glint caught Mrs. Murphy’s sharp eye.“What’s that?”

“Found it over at Foxden.”

“I didn’t think possums were pack rats.” Harry smiled at the display.

“I operate on the principle that it is better to have something and not need it than need it and not have it. I am not a pack rat,” Simon stated with dignity.

“Where at Foxden did you find this?” Mrs. Murphy reached out and grabbed the shiny object. As she drew it toward her she saw that it was a misshapen earring.

“I like pretty things.” Simon watched with apprehension as Harry took the earring from her cat.“I found it on the old logging road in the woods—out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Gold.” Harry placed the earring in her palm. It seemed to her that she had seen this earring before. It was clearly expensive. She couldn’t make out the goldstamp, as it appeared the earring had been run over or stepped on. She was able to make out the T-I-F of TIFFANY. She turned the earring over and over.

“She’s going to give it back to me, isn’t she?” Simon nervously asked.“I mean, she isn’t a thief, is she?”

“No, she’s not a thief, but if you found it over at Foxden she ought to take it. It might be a clue.”

“Who cares? Humans kill one another all the time. You catch one, and somebody else starts killing.”

“It’s not as bad as that.”

The owl called out again,“Keep it down!”

Harry loved the sound of an owl hooting but she detected the crabby note. She placed the earring back in Simon’s nest. “Well, kiddo, it looks like you’re part of the family. I’ll set out the scraps.”

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Simon, visibly relieved, stuck his nose out of his nest and regarded Harry with his bright eyes. Then he spoke to Mrs. Murphy.“I’m glad she’s not going to kill me.”

“Harry doesn’t kill animals.”

“She goes fox hunting,” came the stout reply.

As Harry returned to dropping the hay down to the horses, the cat and the possum discussed this.

“Simon, they only kill the old foxes or the sick ones. Healthy ones are too smart to get caught.”

“What about that fox last year that ran into Posy Dent’s garage? He was young.”

“And that exception proves the rule. He was dumb.” Mrs. Murphy laughed.“I feel about foxes the way you feel about raccoons. Well, Harry’s going back down, so I’ll follow her. Now that she knows where you live she’ll probably want to talk to you. She’s like that, so try and be nice to her. She’s a good egg. She put stuff on your scratches.”

Simon thought about it.“I’ll try.”

“Good.” Mrs. Murphy scampered down the ladder.

As she and Tucker trotted back to the house for breakfast the cat told the dog about the earring. The more they talked, the more questions they raised. Neither animal was sure the earring was important to the case but if Simon found it in a suspicious place, its value couldn’t be overlooked. All this time they’d assumed the killer was a man but it could be a woman. The body was cut up and stashed in different places. The parts weren’t heavy by themselves. As to dragging Ben Seifert into the tunnel, that would be hard, but maybe the two deaths weren’t connected.

Mrs. Murphy stopped.“Tucker, maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree. Maybe the killer is a man but he’s killing for a woman.”

“Getting rid of competitors?”

“Could be. Or maybe she’s directing him—maybe she’s the brains behind the brawn. I wish we could get Mom to see how important that earring is, but she doesn’t know where it came from and we can’t tell her.”

“Murphy, what if we took it from Simon and put it where he found it?”

“Even if he’d part with it, how are we going to get her over there?”

Inside now, they waited for their breakfasts.

Tucker thought of something:“What if a man is killing for a woman, killing to keep her? What if he knows something she doesn’t?”

Mrs. Murphy leaned her head on Tucker’s shoulder for a moment.“I hope we can find out, because I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

37

Not only had Larry Johnson taken the precaution of sending tissue samples to Richmond, he wisely kept the head of the unidentified corpse rather than turning it over to the sheriff. After contacting a forensics expert, the elderly doctor sent the head to a reconstruction team in Washington, D.C. Since Crozet did not have a potter’s field, a burial ground for the indigent, the Reverend Jones secured a burial plot in a commercial cemetery on Route 29 in Charlottesville. When he asked his congregation for contributions they were forthcoming, and to his pleasant surprise, the Sanburnes, the Hamiltons, and Blair Bainbridge made up the balance. So the unknown man was put to rest under a nameless but numbered brass marker.

Larry never dreamed he would have a second corpse on his hands. Ben’s family arranged for interment in the Seifert vault, but Cabell Hall handled all the funeral details, which was a tremendous help to the distraught couple. Larry’s examination determined that Ben had been strangled with a rope and that death had occurred approximately three days before discovery. The temperature fluctuated so much between day and night, he felt he could not pinpoint the exact time of death based on the condition of the corpse. Also, the animal damage added to the difficulty. Larry insisted on sparing Ben’s mother and father the ordeal of identifying the corpse. He knew Ben; that was identification enough. For once, Rick Shaw agreed with him and relented.

Rick did put up a fight about shipping off the head of the original victim. He was loath to part with this one piece of evidence. Damaged as the head was, it was his only hope. Someone had to have known the victim. Larry patiently showed him the work of the reconstructive artists. Cynthia Cooper helped, too, as she was impressed with what could be done.

After carefully studying the head in its present condition, the team would strip the skull of the remaining flesh and then build a new face, teeth, hair, everything. Drawings would be made to assist in the rebuilding. Once complete, drawings and photographs of the head would be sent to Rick Shaw. They would also be sent to other police stations and sheriff’s offices. Long shots do come in. Someone, somewhere, might identify the face.

Since a second murder had followed closely on the heels of the first, Larry Johnson called Washington and asked them to hurry.

This they did. Rick Shaw walked into the post office with a large white envelope in his hand.

“Sheriff, want me to weigh that?” Harry offered.

“No. This just arrived Federal Express.” Rick pulled out the photograph and slid it over the counter to Harry. “This is a reconstruction of the head of the dismembered victim. Looks like an all right guy, wouldn’t you say?”

Harry stared at the photograph. The face was pleasant, not handsome but attractive. Sandy hair, combed to one side, gave the face a clean-cut appearance. The man had a prominent, jutting chin.“He could be anybody.”

“Put it on the wall. Let’s hope somebody here recognizes him. Triggers a memory.”

“Or a mistake.”

“Harry, you’ll know before I do.” Rick tapped the counter twice. It was his way of saying “Be careful.”

She pinned the photograph by the counter. No one could miss it. Mrs. Murphy stared at it. The man was no one she knew, and she saw people from a vastly different angle than did Harry.

Brookie and Danny Tucker stopped by after school. Harry explained to them who the photograph was. Danny couldn’t believe that it was a likeness of the head he’d plucked out of his pumpkin. The photographed head lacked a beard, which made the man appear younger.

Mim came in later. She also studied the photograph.“Don’t you think this will upset people?”

“Better upset than dead.”

Those ice-blue eyes peered into Harry’s own. “You think we’ve got a serial killer on the loose? That’s jumping to conclusions.Anything could have happened to this man.” A long, frosted fingernail pointed at the bland face. “How do we know he wasn’t killed in some sort of bizarre sexual episode? A homeless person, no one to care, he’s offered a meal and a shower. Who’s to know?”

How interesting that a sliver of Mim’s fantasies was showing. Harry replied, “I can’t think of one woman who would go to bed with a man and then kill him and cut him up.”

“Insects do it all the time.”

“We’re mammals.”

“And poor excuses at that.” Tucker chuckled.

Mim went on.“Maybe it was a group of people.”

“In my wildest imaginings I can’t think of any group here in town that would do that. Wife swapping, yes. Sex murders, no.”

Mim’s eyes brightened. “Wife swapping? What do you know that I don’t?”

“The postmistress knows everything in a small town,” Harry teased.

“Not everything or you’d know who the killer is. I still think it’s some group thing and Ben was in on it. Or it was about money. But I spoke with Cabell Hall today and he’s had a team scouring the books, just going over them with a fine-tooth comb, and everything is in order. Very, very strange.”

BoomBoom, Fair, Fitz-Gilbert, and Little Marilyn crowded in at once. They, too, examined the photo.

“Makes me nauseated to think about that.” BoomBoom held her stomach. “I wasn’t right for days. I thought I’d seen everything when my husband was killed.”

Fair put his arm around her.“I wonder what Kelly would have made of this?”

“He would have found humor in it somewhere.” Little Marilyn had liked BoomBoom’s deceased husband.

Fitz-Gilbert nearly put his nose on the photograph.“Isn’t it something what these guys can do? Imagine putting together a face, given the condition of that head. It’s just amazing. He looks better than he did in life, I bet.”

“The organization behind something like this is amazing, too,” Harry said. “Rick told me that this photograph will be in every police station in the country. He’s hoping it will pay off.”

“So do we,” Mim announced.

Mrs. Hogendobber let herself in through the back door. She bustled over to see what was going on and was drawn to the photograph.“He was young. Thirty, early thirties, I should say. What a shame. What a shame for a life to end so young and so violently and we don’t even know who he was.”

“He was a no-count. We do know that.” Fitz-Gilbert referred to the man’s vagabond existence.

“No one’s a no-count. Something must have happened to him, perhaps something awful. Perhaps an illness.” Mrs. Hogendobber folded her arms across her chest.

“I bet he was one of those people who used to live in halfway houses,” Little Marilyn put in. “So many of these places have been shut down, now that the programs have been cut off. They say that flophouses in big cities are full of those people—low normals, you’d call them, or people who aren’t a hundred percent functional. Anyway, the state pays hotels to give them lodging because they can’t work. I bet he was one of those people. Just thrown out into a world where he couldn’t cope.” Little Marilyn’s high-pitched voice lowered a trifle.

“Then what in the world was he doing in Crozet?” Mim never could give her daughter credit for anything.

“On his way to Miami?” Fitz-Gilbert posited. “The homeless who can leave the northern cities in winter try to get to the Sunbelt cities. He could have hopped on a freight at Penn Station.”

“What could he have in common with Ben Seifert?” BoomBoom wondered.

“Bad luck.” Fitz smiled.

“If these murders are connected, there is one interesting thing.” Harry stroked Mrs. Murphy, lounging on the counter. “The killer didn’t want us to know the dismembered victim, yet he or she didn’t care at all if we recognized Ben Seifert.”

“Identify the dismembered man and you’ll identify the killer.” Fair’s clear voice seemed to echo in the room.

“We’d at least be halfway home,” Mrs. Hogendobber added.

“That’s what worries me,” Mim confessed. “We are home. These murders are happening here.”

38

Layers of sweaters, winter golf gloves, and heavy socks protected Cabby and Taxi Hall from the cold. Avid golfers, they tried to squeeze in nine holes after Cabell’s work hours when the season permitted, and they never missed a weekend.

Taxi’s relaxed swing off the tee placed her ball squarely in the fairway. “Good shot if I do say so myself.”

She stepped aside as Cabell stuck his orange tee into the ground. He placed a bright-yellow ball on the tee, stepped back, shifted around a little, and fired. The ball soared into the air and then drifted right, into the woods. He said nothing, just climbed back into the cart. Taxi joined him. They reached the woods. As the ball was such a bright color they easily located it, even though it had plopped into the leaves.

Cabell studied his position. Then he pulled out a five iron. This was a risky shot, since he’d have to shoot through the trees or go over them. He planted his feet, took a deep breath, and blasted away.

“What a shot!” Taxi exclaimed as the ball miraculously cleared the trees.

Cabby smiled his first genuine smile since Ben was discovered dead.“Not bad for an old man.”

They headed back to the cart.“Honey,” Taxi said, “what’s wrong, other than the obvious?”

“Nothing,” he lied.

“Don’t shut me out.” Her voice carried both firmness and reproach.

“Florence, sugar, I’m plain tired. Between worried employees, the sheriff’s investigation, and a constant stream of questions from our customers, I am beat, crabby—you name it.”

“I will. You’re preoccupied. I’ve seen you handle bank problems and people problems before. This is different. Are the books cooked? Was Ben a thief?”

“I told you as soon as we had that audit, around the clock—can’t wait for the bill on that one—no. Ben’s books look okay.”

“Is someone running through his trust fund? Fitz-Gilbert spends like there’s no tomorrow.”

Cabby shook his head.“For him thereis no tomorrow. He’s got more money than God. I tried to instill some restraint in him when he was a boy but I obviously failed. Combine his fortune with the Sanburnes’ and, well”—Cabell swung his club—“what’s the purpose in restraint?”

“It’s not right for a man not to work, no matter how much money he has. He could do charity work.” Taxi got in the driver’s seat of the cart. Cabell hopped in. “See”—she pointed—“you’ve got a good lie. I don’t know how you made that shot.”

“Neither do I.”

“Cab … are we in trouble?”

“No, dear. Our investments are sound. I’ve put enough away. I’m just puzzled. I can’t imagine what Ben got himself into. I mean, he was my anointed. I trusted him. How does this look to the board of directors?”

Taxi cast a sharp glance at her husband.“You never really liked Ben.”

Cabell sighed.“No. He was a smarmy little bastard, impressed with money and bloodlines, but he worked harder than people gave him credit for, he had very good ideas, and I felt he could run Allied when I stepped down.”

“In other words, you don’t have to like the chicken to enjoy the omelette.”

“I never said I didn’t like Ben. Not once in his eight years at the bank have I said that.”

Taxi pulled up by the bright-yellow ball.“We’ve been married twenty-seven years.”

“Oh.” Cabby sat for a moment, then got out and fussed over which iron to use.

“The seven,” Taxi advised.

“Well”—he took a look at the green—“well, you might be right.”

As they continued play, Cabell Hall thought about the differences between women and men, or perhaps between his wife and himself. Taxi always knew more about him than he realized. He wasn’t sure that he knew his wife as well as she knew him: his likes, dislikes, hidden fears. True, he kept much of his business life from her, but then she didn’t share every moment of her day either. He didn’t care if the washer repairman came on time any more than she cared whether one of the tellers had a bad cold.

Still, it was a curious thing to be reminded that his life partner could see into him and possibly through him.

“Cabell,” Taxi interrupted his reverie, “I’m serious about Fitz. A man needs a real life, real responsibilities. I know Fitz seems happy enough, but he’s so aimless. I’m sure it all goes back to losing his parents when he was so young. You did all you could for him, but—”

“Honey, you aren’t going to improve Fitz. Nobody is. He’s going to drift through life surrounded by things. Besides, if he did something useful like, say, taking over the Easter Seal drive, it would mean he couldn’t play with his wife. Work might conflict with deep-sea fishing in Florida and skiing in Aspen.”

“Just an idea.” Taxi chipped onto the green.

He waited, then spoke:“Do you have any idea who killed Ben?”

“Not one.”

Cabell let out a long, low breath, shook his head, snatched what he thought was his putter out of a bag.“I swear I’m going to put all of this out of my mind and concentrate on golf.”

“Then I suggest you replace my putter and use your own.”

39

Late that night Harry’s telephone rang.

Susan’s excited voice apologized. “I know you’re asleep but I had to wake you.”

“You okay?” came the foggy reply.

“I am. Ned got home from his office about fifteen minutes ago. He was Ben’s lawyer, you know. Anyway, Rick Shaw was at the office asking him a lot of questions, none of which Ned could answer, since all he ever did for Ben was real estate closings. It turns out that after the sheriff and the bank inspected their books they checked over Ben’s personal accounts. Spread among the bank, the brokerage house, and the commodities market, Ben Seifert had amassed seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Even Cabell Hall was amazed at how sophisticated Ben was.”

That woke up Harry.“Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Susan, he couldn’t have made more than forty-five thousand a year at the bank, if he made that. Banks are notoriously cheap.”

“I know. They also called in his accountant and double-checked his IRS returns. He was clever as to how he declared the money. Mostly he identified the gains as stock market wins, I guess you’d say. Well, the accountant reported that Ben said he’d get his records to him but he never did. He figured he’d alerted Ben plenty of times. If the materials weren’t there, it was Ben’s problem come audit day. Assuming that day ever came.”

“Funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“He didn’t cheat on his income taxes but he must have been cheating somewhere. Actually, it doesn’t sound like cheating. It sounds like payoffs or money-laundering.”

“I never thought Ben was that smart.”

“He wasn’t,” Harry agreed. “But whoever was in this with him was, or is.”

“Smart people don’t kill.”

“They do when they’re cornered.”

“Why don’t you come into town and stay with me?”

“Why?”

“You know what Cynthia Cooper told us about Blair. I mean, about his girlfriend.”

“Yes.”

“He seems awfully smart to me.”

“Does your gut tell you he’s a murderer?”

“I don’t know what to think or feel anymore.”

Harry sat up in the bed.“Susan, I just thought of something. Listen, will you come over here tomorrow morning before I go to work? This sounds crazy but I found a little possum—”

“No more of your charity cases, Harry! I took the squirrel with the broken leg, remember? She ate my dresses.”

“No, no. This little guy had an earring in his nest. It’s kind of bent up, but well, I don’t know. It’s a very expensive earring, and he could have picked it up anywhere. What if it has something to do with these deaths?”

“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning. Lock your doors.”

“I did.” Harry hung up the phone.

Mrs. Murphy remarked to Tucker, also on the bed,“Sometimes she’s smarter than I think she is.”

40

Simon heard Harry climbing the ladder. He anticipated her arrival, since she’d put out delicious chicken bones, stale crackers, and Hershey’s chocolate kisses last night.

Mrs. Murphy sank her claws into the wood alongside the ladder and pulled herself into the loft before the humans could get there.“Don’t fret, Simon. Harry’s bringing a friend.”

“One human’s all I can stand.” Simon shuttled farther back in the timothy and alfalfa bales.

Harry and Susan sat down in front of Simon’s nest.

“Do you charge him for all this?” Susan cracked.

“If it isn’t nailed down, he takes it.” Mrs. Murphy laughed.

“I only take the good stuff,” the possum said under his breath.

“See.” Harry reached in and retrieved the earring.

Susan held the object in her palm.“Good piece. Tiffany.”

“That’s what I thought.” Harry took the earring, holding it to the light. “This isn’t yours and it isn’t mine. Nor is it Elizabeth MacGregor’s.”

“What’s Mrs. MacGregor got to do with it?”

“The only women out here on this part of Yellow Mountain Road are me, you when you’re visiting me, and formerly Elizabeth MacGregor. Oh, and Miranda drops by sometimes but this isn’t her type of earring. It’s more youthful.”

“True, but we have no way of knowing where this came from.”

“In a way we do. We know that this nest is home base. At the largest, a possum’s territory is generally a rough circle about a mile and a half in diameter. If we walk north, east, south, and west to the limit of that perimeter, we’ll have a pretty good idea of where this earring might have come from.”

“I can tell her,” Simon called out from his hiding place.

“She can’t understand but she’ll figure it out,” Mrs. Murphy said.

“Is that other one okay, really?”

“Yes,” the cat reassured him.

Simon peeped his head up over the alfalfa bale and then cautiously walked toward the two women. Harry held out a big peanut butter cookie. He approached, sat down, and reached for the cookie. He put it in his nest.

“What a cute fellow,” Susan whispered. “You’ve always had a way with animals.”

“’Cept for men.”

“They don’t count.”

Simon shocked them. He reached up, grabbing the earring out of Harry’s hand, and then dashed into his nest.“Mine!”

“Maybe he’s a drag queen.” Harry laughed at Simon, then remembered one of those odd tidbits from reading history books. During Elizabeth I’s reign in England only the most masculine men wore earrings.

They were still laughing as they climbed down the ladder.

“Well?” Tucker demanded.

“We’re going to have to make a circle following the possum’s territory.” Harry thought out loud.

“Let’s run over to the graveyard and see if they follow,” Tucker sensibly proposed.

“You know Harry—she’s going to be thorough.” The cat walked out the barn door and Tucker followed.

The two women, accompanied by the animals, walked the limits of the possum’s turf. By the time they swept by the cemetery, both considered that it was possible, just possible, that the earring came from there.

Susan stopped by the iron fence.“How do we know the earring doesn’t belong to Blair? It could have been his girlfriend’s. There could be a woman now that we don’t know about.”

“I’ll ask him.”

“That might not be wise.”

Harry considered that.“Well, I don’t agree but I’ll do it your way.” She paused. “What’s your way?”

“To casually ask our women friends if anyone has lost an earring, and what does it look like?”

“Well, Jesus, Susan, if a woman is the killer or is in on this, that’s going to get—”

Susan held up her hands.“You’re right. You’re right. Next plan. We get into the jewelry boxes of our friends.”

“Easier said than done.”

“But it can be done.”

41

Frost coated the windowpanes, creating a crystalline kaleidoscope. The lamplight reflected off the silver swirls. Outside it was black as pitch.

Little Marilyn and Fitz-Gilbert, snug in Porthault sheets and a goose-down comforter, studied their Christmas lists.

Little Marilyn checked off Carol Jones’s name.

Fitz looked over her list.“What did you get Carol?”

“This wonderful book of photographs which create a biography of a Montana woman. What a life, and it’s pure serendipity that the old photos were saved.”

Fitz pointed to a name on her list.“Scratch that.”

Little Marilyn, Xeroxing last year’s Christmas list as a guide, had forgotten to remove Ben Seifert’s name. She grimaced.

They returned to their lists and after a bit she interrupted Fitz.“Ben had access to our records.”

“Uh-huh.” Fitz wasn’t exactly paying attention.

“Did you check our investments?”

“Yes.” Fitz remained uninterested.

She jabbed him with her elbow.

“Ow.” He turned toward her. “What?”

“And? Our investments?!”

“First of all, Ben Seifert was a banker, not a stockbroker. There’s little he could have done to our investments. Cabby double-checked our accounts just to make sure. Everything’s okay.”

“You never liked Ben, did you?”

“Did you?” Fitz’s eyebrow rose.

“No.”

“Then why are you asking me what you already know?”

“Well, it’s curious how you get feelings about people. You didn’t like him. I didn’t like him. Yet we were nice to him.”

“We’re nice to everybody.” Fitz thought that was true, although he knew his wife could sometimes be a pale imitation of her imperious mother.

They went back to work on their lists. Little Marilyn interrupted again.“What if it was Ben who ransacked your office?”

Surrendering to the interruption, Fitz put down his list.“Where on earth do you get these ideas?”

“I don’t know. Just popped into my head. But then what would you have that he wanted? Unless he was siphoning off our accounts, but both you and Cabby say all is well.”

“Allis well. I don’t know who violated my office. Rick Shaw doesn’t have a clue and since the computer and Xerox machine were unmolested, he’s treating it as an unrelated vandalism. Kid stuff, most likely.”

“Like whoever is knocking over mailboxes with baseball bats in Earlysville?”

“When did that happen?” Fitz’s eyes widened in curiosity.

“Don’t you read the ‘Crime Report’ in the Sunday paper?” He shook his head, so Little Marilyn continued. “For the last six or seven months someone’s been driving around in the late afternoon, smashing up mailboxes with baseball bats.”

“You don’t miss much, do you, honey?” Fitz put his arm around her.

She smiled back.“Once things settle down around here …”

“You mean, once they downshift from chaos to a dull roar?”

“Yes … let’s go to the Homestead. I need a break from all this. And I need a break from Mother.”

“Amen.”

42

Weeks passed, and the frenzy of Christmas preparations clouded over the recent bizarre events until they were virtually obscured by holiday cheer. Virginia plunged into winter, skies alternating between steel-gray and brilliant blue. The mountains, moody with the weather, changed colors hourly. The spots of color remaining were the bright-red holly berries and the orange pyracantha berries. Fields lapsed into brown; the less well-cared-for fields waved with bright broomstraw. The ground thawed and froze, thawed and froze, so fox hunting was never a sure thing. Harry called before each scheduled meet.

The post office, awash in tons of mail, provided Harry with a slant on Christmas different from other people’s. Surely the Devil invented the Christmas card. Volume, staggering this year, caused her to call in Mrs. Hogendobber for the entire month of December, and she wangled good pay for her friend too.

So far, Susan had rummaged through BoomBoom’s jewelry, an easy task, since BoomBoom loved showing off her goodies. Harry picked over Miranda’s earrings, not such an easy task, since Miranda kept asking “Why?” and Harry lied by saying that it had to do with Christmas. The result was that she had to buy Miranda a pair of earrings to put under her Christmas tree. Biff McGuire and Pat Harlan found the perfect pair for Mrs. H., large ovals of beaten gold. They were a bit more than Harry could comfortably afford, but what the hell—Miranda had been a port in a storm at the post office. She also splurged and bought Susan a pair of big gold balls. That exhausted her budget except for presents for Mrs. Murphy and Tucker.

Fair and BoomBoom were holding and eroding. She asked Blair to accompany her to a Piedmont Environmental Council meeting under the guise of acquainting him with the area’s progressive people. This she did but she also performed at her best and Blair began to revise somewhat his opinion of BoomBoom, enough, at least, to invite her to a gala fund-raiser in New York City.

Harry and Miranda were up to their knees in Christmas cards when Fair Haristeen pushed open the front door.

“Hi,” Harry called to him. “Fair, we’re behind. I know you’ve got more mail than is in your box but I don’t know when I’ll find it. As you can see, we’re hard pressed.”

“Didn’t come in for that. Morning, Mrs. Hogendobber.”

“Morning, Fair.”

“Guess you know that BoomBoom left this morning for New York. Her Christmas shopping spree.”

“Yes.” Harry didn’t know how much Fair knew, so she kept mum.

“Guess you know, too, that Blair Bainbridge is taking her to the Knickerbocker Christmas Ball at the Waldorf. I hear princes and dukes will be there.”

So he did know.“Sounds very glamorous.”

“Eurotrash,” Mrs. Hogendobber pronounced.

“Miranda, you’ve been reading the tabloids again while you’re in line at the supermarket.”

Mrs. Hogendobber tossed another empty mail bag into the bin, just missing Mrs. Murphy.“What if I have? I have also become an expert on the marriage of Charles and Diana. In case anyone wants to know.” She smiled.

“What I want to know”—Fair spoke to Mrs. Hogendobber—“is what is going on with Blair and BoomBoom.”

“Now, how would I know that?”

“You know BoomBoom.”

“Fair, forgive the pun but this isn’t fair,” Harry interjected.

“I bet you’re just laughing up your sleeve, Harry. I’ve got egg all over my face.”

“You think I’m that vindictive?”

“In a word, yes.” He spun on his heel and stormed out.

Miranda came up next to Harry.“Overlook it. It will pass. And he does have egg on his face.”

“Lots of yolk, I’d say.” Harry started to giggle.

“Don’t gloat, Mary Minor Haristeen. The Lord doesn’t smile on gloaters. And as I recall, you like Blair Bainbridge.”

That sobered Harry up in a jiffy.“Sure, I like him, but I’m not mooning about over him.”

“Ha!” Tucker snorted.

“You do like him though.” Miranda stuck to her guns.

“Okay, okay, so I like him. Why is it that a single person is an affront to everyone in Crozet? Just because I like my neighbor doesn’t mean I want to go out with him, doesn’t mean I want to go to bed with him, and doesn’t mean I want to marry him. Everyone’s got the cart before the horse. I actually like living alone. I don’t have to pick up Fair’s clothes, I don’t have to wash and iron them, and I don’t have to worry about what to make for supper. I don’t have to pick up the phone at seven and hear that he’s got a foaling mare in trouble and he won’t be home. And I suspect some of those mares were BoomBoom Craycroft. My nightmare. I am not taking care of another man.”

“Now, now, marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition.”

“Oh, balls, Miranda. You show me any marriage in this town and I’ll show you the wives doing seventy-five percent of the work, both physical and emotional. Hell, half of the men around here don’t even mow their lawns. Their wives do it.”

The grain of truth in this outburst caused Miranda to think it over. Once she took a position it was quite difficult for her to reverse it—modify it perhaps, but not reverse. “Well, dear, don’t you think that the men are exhausted from their work?”

“Who’s rich enough to keep a wife that doesn’t work? The women are exhausted too. I’d come home and the housework would land in my lap. He wouldn’t do it, and I think I worked pretty damn hard myself.”

Little Marilyn came in.“Are you two having a fight?”

“No!” Harry yelled at her.

“Christmas.” Miranda smiled as if to explain the tension.

“Take Valium. That’s what Mother does. Her shopping list contains close to three hundred names. You can imagine what a tizz she’s in. Can’t say that I enjoy this either. But you know we have a position to maintain, and we can’t let down the little people.”

That toasted Harry, pushed her right over the edge.“Well, Marilyn, allow me to relieve you and your mother of one little person!” Harry walked out the back door and slammed it hard.

“She never has liked me, even when we were children.” Little Marilyn pouted.

Miranda, inviolate in her social position, spoke directly.“Marilyn, you don’t make it easy.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“You’ve got your nose so far up in the air that if it rains, you’ll drown. Stop imitating your mother and be yourself. Yes, be yourself. It’s the one thing you can do better than anyone else. You’ll be a lot happier and so will everyone around you.”

This bracing breeze of honesty so stunned the younger woman that she blinked but didn’t move. Mrs. Murphy, hanging out of the mail bin, observed the stricken Little Marilyn.

“Tucker, go on around the counter. Little Marilyn’s either going to faint or pitch a hissy.”

Tucker eagerly snuck around the door, her claws clicking on the wooden floorboards.

Little Marilyn caught her breath.“Mrs. Hogendobber, you have no right to speak to me like that.”

“I have every right. I’m one of the few people who sees beneath your veneer and I’m one of the few people who actually likes you despite all.”

“If this is your idea of friendship I find it most peculiar.” The color returned to Little Marilyn’s narrow face.

“Child, go home and think about it. Who tells you the truth? Who would you call at three in the morning if you were feeling low? Your mother? I think not. Are you doing anything with your life that makes you truly happy? How many bracelets and necklaces and cars can you buy? Do they make you happy? You know, Marilyn, life is like an aircraft carrier. If there’s a mistake in navigation, it takes one mile just to turn the ship around.”

“I am not an aircraft carrier.” Little Marilyn recovered enough to turn and leave.

Miranda slapped letters on the counter.“It’s going to be that kind of day.” She said this to the cat and dog, then realized who she was talking to and shook her head. “What am I doing?”

“Having an intelligent conversation,” Mrs. Murphy purred.

Harry sheepishly opened the back door.“Sorry.”

“I know.” Miranda opened another sack of mail.

“I hate Christmas.”

“Oh, don’t let work get to you.”

“It isn’t just that. I can’t wipe the murders out of my mind and I suppose I am more upset than I realized about Blair taking BoomBoom to that stupid ball. But why would he ask me? I can’t afford to travel to New York and I don’t have anything to wear. I’m not an impressive specimen on a man’s arm. Still …” Her voice trailed off. “And I can’t believe Fair can be taken in by that woman.” She paused. “And I miss Mom and Dad the most at Christmas.”

Tucker sat beside Harry’s feet and Mrs. Murphy walked over to her too.

Miranda understood. She, too, lived with her losses.“I’m sorry, Harry. Because you’re young I sometimes think that everything’s wonderful. But I know what it’s like to hear the carols and wish those old familiar voices were singing with us. Nothing is ever quite the same again.” She went over and patted Harry on the back, for Mrs. Hogendobber wasn’t a physically demonstrative woman. “God never closes one door that he doesn’t open another. You try and remember that.”

43

Resplendent sashes swept across the men’s chests; medals dangled over hearts. Those in military dress caused the women to breathe harder. Such handsome men, such beautiful women laden with jewelry, the aggregate sum of which was more than the gross national product of Bolivia.

BoomBoom’s head spun. Blair, in white tie and tails, squired her around the dance floor, one of the best in America. What was Crozet compared to this? BoomBoom felt she had arrived. If she couldn’t turn Blair’s head, and he was attentive but not physically attracted to her—she could tell—she knewshe’d snare someone else before the night surrendered to dawn.

A coral dress accentuated her dark coloring, the lowcut bodice calling attention to her glories. When she and Blair returned to their table after dancing, a college friend of his joined them. After the introductions, Orlando Heguay pulled up a chair.

“How’s life in the boonies?”

“Interesting.”

Orlando smiled at BoomBoom.“If this lovely lady is proof, I should say so.”

BoomBoom smiled back. Her teeth glistened; she’d had them cleaned the day before. “You flatter me.”

“Quite the contrary. My vocabulary fails me.”

Blair smiled indulgently.“Come visit for New Year’s. I might even have furniture by then.”

“Blair, that’s a deal.”

“Orlando, refresh my memory. Were you at Exeter or Andover?”

“Andover. Carlos was Exeter. Mother and Dad thought we should go to separate schools, since we were so competitive. And now we’re in business together. I suppose they were right.”

“And what is your business, Mr. Heguay?”

“Oh, please call me Orlando.” He smiled again. He was a fine-looking man. “Carlos and I own The Atlantic Company. We provide architects and interior designers to various clients, many of whom reside in South America as well as North America. I was the original architect and Carlos was the original interior designer, but now we have a team of fifteen employees.”

“You sound as though you love it,” BoomBoom cooed.

“I do.”

Blair, amused by BoomBoom’s obvious interest—an interest reflected by Orlando—asked, “Didn’t you go to school with Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton?”

“Year behind me. Poor guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“His parents were killed in a small plane crash one summer. Then he and a buddy were in a car wreck. Messed them up pretty badly. I heard he’d had kind of a breakdown. People were surprised when he made it to Princeton in the fall, ’cause there’d been so much talk about him his senior year.People thought he was definitely on the skids.”

“He lives in Crozet, too … seems to be perfectly fine.”

“How about that. Remember Izzy Diamond?”

“I remember that he wanted to make Pen and Scroll so badly at Yale that I thought he’d die if he didn’t. Didn’t make it either.”

“Just got arrested for an investment scam.”

“Izzy Diamond?”

“Yes.” Orlando’s eyebrows darted upward, then he gazed at BoomBoom. “How rude of us to reminisce about college. Mademoiselle, may I have this dance?” He turned to Blair. “You’re going to have to find yourself another girl.”

Blair smiled and waved them off. He felt grateful to BoomBoom for easing his social passage into Central Virginia. In an odd way he liked her, although her need to be the center of attention bored him the more he was around her. Asking her to the Knickerbocker Ball was more of a payback than anything else. He couldn’t have been happier that Orlando found her tremendously attractive. Many of the men there cast admiring glances at BoomBoom. Blair was off women for a while, although he found himself thinking of Harry at the oddest times. He wondered what she’d do at a ball. Not that she’d be awkward but hecouldn’t imagine her in a ball gown. Her natural element was boots, jeans, and a shirt. Given Harry’s small rear end, her natural element illuminated her physical charms. She was so practical, so down to earth. Suddenly Blair wished she were with him. Wouldn’t she find some funny things to say about this crowd?

44

“Who’ll start at fifteen thousand? Do I hear fifteen thousand? Now you can’t buy this new for under thirty-five. Who’ll bid fifteen thousand?”

As the auctioneer sang, insulted, joked, and carried on, Harry and Blair stood at the edge of the auction ground. A light rain dampened the attendance, and as temperatures were dropping, the rain could quite possibly turn to snow. People stamped their feet and rubbed their hands together. Even though she wore silk long johns, a T-shirt, a heavy sweater, and her down jacket, the cold nipped at Harry’s nose, hands, and feet. She could always keep her body warm but the extremities proved difficult.

Blair shifted from foot to foot.“Now you’re sure I need a seventy-horsepower tractor?”

“You can get along with forty-five or so, but if you have seventy you can do everything you’ll ever want to do. You want to turn up that back field of yours and fertilize it, right? You’ll want to bush-hog. You’ve got a lot to do at Foxden. I know that John Deere is old but it’s been wellmaintained and if you have a tiny bit of mechanical ability you can keep it humming.”

“Do I need a blade?”

“To scrape the driveway? You could get through the winter without one. It doesn’t usually snow much in Virginia. Let’s concentrate on the essentials.”

Life in the country was proving more complicated and expensive than Blair had imagined. Fortunately, he had resources, and fortunately, he had Harry. Otherwise he would have walked into a dealer and paid top dollar for a piece of new equipment, plus oodles of attachments he didn’t need immediately and might never even use.

The green and yellow John Deere tractor beckoned to more folks than Blair. Bidding was lively but he finally prevailed at twenty-two thousand five hundred, which was a whopping good buy. Harry did the bidding.

Harry, thrilled with his purchase, crawled up into the tractor, started her up, and chugged over in first gear to her gooseneck, a step-up. She’d brought along a wooden ramp, which weighed a ton. She kept the tractor running, put it in neutral, and locked the brake.

“Blair, this might take another man.”

He lifted one end.“How’d you get this thing on in the first place?”

“I keep it on the old hay wagon and when I need it I take it to the earthen ramp and then shove it off into the trailer, backed up to the ramp. I expand my vocabulary of abuse too.” She noticed Mr. Tapscott, who had purchased a dump truck. “Hey, Stuart, give me a hand.”

Mr. Tapscott ambled over, a tall man with gorgeous gray hair.“’Bout time you replenished your tractor, and you got the best deal today.”

“Blair bought it. I just did the bidding.” Harry introduced them.

Mr. Tapscott eyed Blair. As he liked Harry his eye was critical. He didn’t want any man hanging around who didn’t have some backbone.

“Harry showed me the roadwork you did out at Reverend Jones’. That was quite a job.”

“Enjoyed it.” Mr. Tapscott smiled. “Well, you feeling strong?”

To assist in this maneuver, Travis, Stuart’s son, joined in. The men easily positioned the heavy ramp, and Harry, in the driver’s seat, rolled the tractor into the gooseneck. Then the men slid the ramp into the trailer, leaning it against the tractor.

“Thank you, Mr. Tapscott.” Blair held out his hand.

“Glad to help the friend of a friend.” He smiled and wished them good day.

Once in her truck, Harry drove slowly because she wanted the ramp to bang up against the tractor only so much.

“I’m going to take this to my place, because we can drive the tractor straight off. Then you can help me slide off the wooden ramp. Wish they made an aluminum ramp that I could use, but no luck.”

“At the hunt meets I’ve seen trailers with ramps.”

“Sure, but those kinds of trailers cost so much—especially the aluminum ones, which are the best. My stock trailer is serviceable but nothing fancy like a ramp comes with it.”

She backed up to the earthen ramp. Took two tries. They could hear Tucker barking in the house. They rolled off the tractor, after which they pushed and pulled on the wooden ramp.

“Well, how are we going to get it off the bank?” Blair was puzzled, as the heavy wooden ramp was precariously perched on the earthen rampart.

“Watch.” Harry pulled the gooseneck away, hopped out of the truck, and unhitched it. Then she climbed back in the truck and backed it over to the old hay wagon. A chain hung from the wagon’s long shaft, a leftover from the days when it was drawn by horses. She dropped the chain over the ball hitch on her bumper. Harry wisely had both hitches on her trailer: the steel plate and ball bolted into the bed of her truck for the gooseneck and another hitch welded onto the frame under the bed of the truck, with its adjustable ball mount. Then she drove the hay wagon alongside the embankment.

“Okay, now we push the ramp onto the wagon.”

Blair, sweating now despite the temperature, pushed the heavy wooden ramp onto the beckoning platform.“Presto.”

Harry cut the motor, rolled up her windows, and got out of the truck.“Blair, I spoke too soon. I think it’s going to snow. We can put the tractor in my barn or you can drive it over to yours and I’ll follow you in your truck.”

As if on cue the first snowflake lazed out of the darkening sky.

“Let’s leave it here. I don’t know how to work one of these contraptions yet. You still gonna teach me?”

“Yeah, it’s easy.”

The heavens seemed to have opened a zipper then; snow poured out of the sky. The two of them walked into the house after Harry parked the tractor in the barn. The animals joyously greeted their mother. She put on coffee and dug out lunch meat to make sandwiches.

“Harry, your truck isn’t four-wheel drive, is it?”

“No.”

“Hold those sandwiches for about twenty minutes. I’ll run down to the market and get food, because this looks like a real snowstorm. Your pantry is low and I know mine is.”

Before she could protest he was gone. An hour later he returned with eight bags of groceries. He’d bought a frying chicken, a pork roast, potatoes, potato chips, Cokes, lettuce, an assortment of cheese, vegetables, apples, and some for the horses too. Pancake mix, milk, real butter, brownie mix, a six-pack of Mexican beer, expensive coffee beans, a coffee grinder, and two whole bags of cat and dog food. He truly astounded Harry by putting the food away and making a fire in the kitchen fireplace, using a starter log and some of the split wood she had stacked on the porch. Her protests were ignored.

“Now we can eat.”

“Blair, I don’t know how to make a pork roast.”

“You make a good sandwich. If this keeps up like the weather report says, there’ll be two feet of snow on the ground by tomorrow noon. I’ll come over and show you how to cook a pork roast. Can you make waffles?”

“I watched Mother do it. I bet I can.”

“You make breakfast and I’ll make dinner. In between we’ll paint your tack room.”

“You bought paint too?”

“It’s in the back of the truck.”

“Blair, it’ll freeze.” Harry jumped up and ran outside, followed by Blair. They laughed as they hauled the paint into the kitchen, their hair dotted with snowflakes, their feet wet. They finished eating, took off their shoes, and sat back down with their feet toward the fire.

Mrs. Murphy sprawled before the fire, as did Tucker.

“How come you haven’t asked me about taking BoomBoom to the Knickerbocker Ball?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“I apologize for not asking you, but BoomBoom has been helpful and for two seconds there I found her intriguing, so I thought I’d take her to the Waldorf as sort of a thank you.”

“Like buying the groceries?”

He pondered this.“Yes and no. I don’t like to take advantage of people and you’ve both been helpful. She met someone there that I went to college with, Orlando Heguay. A big hit.” He wiggled his toes.

“Rich?”

“Um, and handsome too.”

Harry smiled. As the twilight deepened, a soft purple cast over the snow like a melancholy net. Blair told her about his continuing struggles with his father, who had wanted him either to be a doctor like himself or go into business. He talked about his two sisters, his mother, and finally he got to the story about his murdered girlfriend. Blair confessed that although it had happened about a year and a half ago he was just now beginning to feel human again.

Harry sympathized and when he asked her about her life she told him that she had studied art history at Smith, never quite found her career direction, and fell into the job at the post office which, truthfully, she enjoyed. Her marriage had been like a second job and when it ended she was amazed at the free time she had. She was casting about for something to do in addition to the post office. She was thinking of being an agent for equine art but she didn’t know enough about the market. And she was in no hurry. She, too, was beginning to feel as if she was waking up.

She wondered whether to ask him to stay. His house was so barren, but it didn’t seem right to ask him just yet. Harry was never one to rush things.

When he got up to go home, she hugged him goodbye, thanked him for the groceries, and said she’d see him in the morning.

She watched his lights as he drove down the curving driveway. Then she put on her jacket and took out scraps for the possum.

45

Tucked into bed with the latest Susan Isaacs novel, Harry was surprised when the phone rang.

Fair’s voice crackled over the line. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, kind of.”

“The lines are icing up. You might lose your power and your phone. Are you alone?”

“What kind of question is that? Are you?”

“Yes. I’m worried about you, Harry. Who knows what will happen if you’re cut off from the world?”

“I’m in no danger.”

“You don’t know that. Just because nothing has happened recently doesn’t mean that you might not be in danger.”

“Maybe you’re in danger.” Harry sighed. “Fair, is this your way of apologizing?”

“Uh … well, yes.”

“Is the bloom off the rose with BoomBoom?”

A long silence filled with static was finally broken.“I don’t know.”

“Fair, I was your wife and before that I was one of your best friends. Maybe we’ll get back to being best friends over time. So take that into consideration when I ask this next question. Have you spent a lot of money on her?”

This time the silence was agonizing.“I suppose I have, by my standards. Harry, it’s never enough. I buy her something beautiful—you know, an English bridle, and those things aren’t cheap. But anyway, for example, an English bridle, and she’s all over me, she’s so happy. Two hours later she’s in a funk and I’m not sensitive to her needs. Does she ever run out of needs? Is she this way with women or is this something reserved for men?”

“She’s that way with women. Remember her sob story to Mrs. MacGregor and how Mrs. MacGregor helped her out and lent her horses—this was way back before she married Kelly. Mrs. MacGregor wearied of it before long. She’d have to clean the tack and the horse for BoomBoom, who showed up late for their rides. She’s just, oh, I don’t know. She’s just not reliable. The best thing that ever happened to her was marrying Kelly Craycroft. He could afford her.”

“Well, that’s just it, Harry. We know Kelly left a respectable estate and she’s crying poor.”

“Pity gets more money out of people than other emotions, I guess. Are you strapped? Did you spend … a lot?”

“Well … more than I could afford.”

“Can you pay your rent on the house and the office?”

“That’s about all I can pay for.”

Harry thought awhile.“You know, if you owe on equipment you can ask for smaller payments until you’re back on your feet. And if your hunt club dues are a problem, Jock couldn’t be more understanding. He’ll work with you.”

“Harry”—Fair’s words nearly choked him—“I was a fool. I wish I’d given the money to you.”

Tears rolled down Harry’s cheeks. “Honey, it’s water over the dam. Just get back on your feet and take a break from women, a sabbatical.”

“Do you hate me?”

“I did. I’m over that, I hope. I wish things had turned out differently. My ego took a sound beating, which I didn’t appreciate, but who would? It’s amazing how the most reasonable people become unreasonable and, well, not very bright, when love or sex appears. Does it even appear? I don’t know what it is anymore.”

“Me, neither.” He swallowed. “But I know you loved me. You never lied to me. You worked alongside me and you didn’t ask for things. How we lost the fire, I don’t know. One day it was gone.”

Now it was Harry’s turn to be quiet. “Who knows, Fair, who knows? Can people get that feeling back? Maybe some can but I don’t think we could have. It doesn’t mean we’re bad people. It slipped away somehow. Over time we’ll come back to that place where we can appreciate—I guess that’s the word—the good things about each other and the years we had. Most of Crozet doesn’t believe that’s possible between a man and a woman but I hope we prove them wrong.”

“Me too.”

After he hung up Harry dialed Susan and told all. By now she was working on a good cry. Susan consoled her and felt happy that perhaps she and Fair could be friends. Once Harry purged herself she returned to her primary focus these days, a focus she shared only with Susan: the murders.

“No leads on that money in Ben’s portfolio?”

“Not that I know of, and I pumped Cynthia Cooper at the supermarket too,” Susan replied. “And Ned has worked with Cabell, who’s taking this hard.”

“And nothing is missing from the bank?”

“No. And they’ve checked and double-checked. Everyone asks that same question. It’s driving Cabell crazy.”

“Did you get into any more jewel boxes?”

“Very funny. My idea wasn’t so good after all.”

“I felt positively guilty asking Miranda to go through her stuff. She’s in her Christmas mood. Even the mail doesn’t stop her. Did you see her tree? I think it’s bigger than the one at the White House.”

“It’s the Christmas-tree pin that kills me, all those little twinkling lights on her bosom. She must have a mile of wire under her blouse and skirt,” Susan laughed.

“You going to Mim’s party?”

“I didn’t know we were allowed to miss it.”

“I’m going to wear the earring. It’s our only chance.”

“Harry, don’t do that.”

“I’m doing it.”

“Then I’m telling Rick Shaw.”

“Tell him afterwards. Otherwise he’ll come and take the earring. Which reminds me, do you have an earring without a mate … ?”

“Thanks a lot, pal!”

“No, no, I don’t mean that. I have so few earrings I was hoping you’d have one I could have, preferably a big one.”

“Why?”

“So I can trade with the possum.”

“Harry, for heaven’t sake, it’s an animal. Take it some food.”

“I do that. This little guy likes shiny things. I have to trade.”

Susan sighed dramatically.“I’ll find something. You’re looney-tunes.”

“What’s that say about you? You’re my best friend.”

On this note they hung up.

Mrs. Murphy asked Tucker,“Did you know that cats wore golden earrings in ancient Egypt?”

“I don’t care. Go to sleep.” Tucker rolled over.

“What a crab,” the cat thought to herself before she crawled under the covers. She liked to sleep with her head on the pillow next to Harry’s.

46

All through the night heavy snow fell over Central Virginia. A slight rise in the temperature at dawn changed the snow to freezing rain, and soon the beautiful white blanket was encased in thick ice. By seven the temperature plunged again, creating more snow. Driving was treacherous because the ice was hidden. State police blared warnings over the TV and radio for people to stay home.

Blair spun around in front of the barn when he tried to get his dually down the driveway. He grabbed his skis and poles and slid cross-country to the creek between his property and Harry’s. The edges of the creek were caked with ice; icicles hung down from bushes, and tree branches sparkled even in the gray light and the continued snow. Blair removed his skis, threw them to the other side of the creek, and then used his poles to help him get across. Any stepping stone he could find was slick as a cue ball. What normally took a minute or two took fifteen. By the time he arrived at Harry’s back door he was panting and red in the face. The waffles returned his vigor.

When Harry and Blair reached the tack room it was warm enough to paint, because Harry had set up a space heater in the middle of the room. They painted all day. Blair cooked his pork roast as promised. Over dessert they sat talking. He borrowed a strong flashlight, strapped on his skis, and left for home early, at 8:30 P.M. He called Harry at close to 9:00 P.M. to let her know he’d finally made it. They agreed it had been a great day and then they hung up.

47

The snow continued to fall off and on through Sunday. Monday morning Susan Tucker slowly chugged out to Harry’s to pick her up for work. The ancient Jeep, sporting chains, was packed with Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker. As they drove back to town Harry was astonished at the number of vehicles left by the side of the road or that had slipped off and now reposed at the bottom of an embankment. She knew the owners of most of the cars too.

“What a boon to the body shop,” Harry remarked.

“And what a boon to Art Bushey. Most of those people will be so furious they’ll tow the car out as soon as possible and take it over to him for a trade. Four-wheel drive is more expensive to run but you gotta have it in these parts.”

“I know.” Harry sounded mournful.

Susan, well-acquainted with her best friend’s impecunious state, smiled. “A friend with four-wheel drive is as good as owning it yourself.”

Harry shifted Tucker’s weight on her lap as the little dog’s hind foot dug into her bladder. “I need to come up with a sideline. Really. I can’t make it on the post office salary.”

“Bad time to start a business.”

“Do you think we’re on the verge of a depression? Forget this recession garbage. Politicians create a euphemism for everything.”

“You can always tell when a politician is lying. It’s whenever his mouth is moving.” Susan slowed down even more as they reached the outskirts of town. Although the roads had been plowed and plowed again, the ice underneath would not yield. “Yes, I think we’re in for it. We’re going to pay for the scandals on Wall Street, and even worse, we’re going to pay for the savings and loan disaster for the rest of our natural lives. The party’s over.”

“Then I’d better come up with a party clean-up business.” Harry was glum.

Susan slowly slid into the wooden guard rails in front of the post office when she applied her brakes. The Jeep was four-wheel drive but not four-wheel stop. She could see Miranda already at work.“I’ve got to get back home. Oh, here, I almost forgot.” She reached into her purse and retrieved a large gold earring.

“This isn’t real gold, is it? I can’t take it if it is.”

“Gold plate. And I go on record as being opposed to your plan.”

“I hear you but I’m not listening.” Harry opened the door. Tucker leapt out and sank into the snow over her head.

Mrs. Murphy laughed.“Swim, Tucker.”

“Very funny.” Tucker pushed through the snow, leaping upward every step to get her head above the white froth.

The cat remained on Harry’s shoulder. Harry helped Tucker along and Mrs. Hogendobber opened the door.

“I’ve got something to show you.” Mrs. Hogendobber shut the door and locked it again. “Come here.”

As Harry removed her coat and extra layers, Miranda plunked a handful of cards on the counter. They appeared to be sale postcards sent out at regular intervals by businesses wanting to save the additional postage on a regular letter. Until Harry read one.

“‘Don’t stick your nose where it don’t belong,’ ” she read aloud. “What is this?”

“I don’t know what it is, apart from incorrect grammar, but Herbie and Carol have received one. So have the Sanburnes, the Hamiltons, Fair Haristeen, BoomBoom, Cabby and Taxi—in fact, nearly everyone we know.”

“Who hasn’t received one?”

“Blair Bainbridge.”

Harry held up the card to the light.“Nice print job. Did you call Sheriff Shaw?”

“Yes. And I called Charlottesville Press, Papercraft, Kaminer and Thompson, King Lindsay, every printer in Charlottesville. No one has any record of such an order.”

“Could a computer with a graphics package do something like this?”

“You’re asking me? That’s what children are for, to play with computers.” Mrs. Hogendobber put her hands on her hips.

“Well, here come Rick and Cynthia. Maybe they’ll know.”

The officers thought the postcards could have been printed with an expensive laser printer but they’d check with computer experts in town.

As they drove slowly away Cynthia watched new storm clouds approaching from the west.“Boss?”

“What?”

“Why would a killer do something like this? It’s stupid.”

“On the one hand, yes; on the other hand … well, I don’t know.” Rick gripped the wheel tighter and slowed to a crawl. “We have next to nothing. He or she knows that, but there’s something inside this person, something that wants to show off. He doesn’t want to get caught but he wants us and everyone else to know he’s smarter than the rest of us put together. Kind of a classic conflict.”

“He needs to reaffirm his power, yet stay hidden.” She waved to Fair, stuck in the snow. “We’d better stop. I think we can get him out.”

Rick rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling.“Look, I know this is illegal so I won’t ask you directly but wouldn’t it be odd if these postcards were misplaced for a day—just a day?” He paused. “We got someone smart, incredibly smart, and someone who likes to play cat and mouse. Dammit. Christmas!”

“Huh?”

“I’m afraid for every Christmas present under every tree right now.”

48

A stupendous Douglas fir scraped the high ceiling in Mim Sanburne’s lovely mansion. The heart-pine floors glowed with the reflection of tree lights. Presents were piled under the tree, on the sideboard in the hall, everywhere—gaily colored packages in green, gold, red, and silver foil wrapping paper topped off with huge multicolored bows.

Approximately 150 guests filled the seven downstairs rooms of the old house. Zion Hill, as the house was named, originated as a chinked log cabin, one room, in 1769. Indians swooped down to kill whites, and Zion Hill had no neighbors until after the Revolutionary War. There were rifle slits in the wall where the pioneers retreated to shoot attacking Indians. The Urquharts, Mim’s mother’s family, prospered and added to the house in the Federal style. Boom times covered the United States in a glow in the 1820’s. After all, the country had won another war against Great Britain, the West was opening up, and all things seemed possible. Captain Urquhart, the third generation to live at Zion Hill, invested in the pippin apple, which people said was brought into the county from New York State by Dr. Thomas Walker, physician to Thomas Jefferson. The Captain bought up mountain land dirt-cheap and created miles of orchards. Fortunately for the Captain, Americans loved apple pie, apple cider, applesauce, apple tarts, apple popovers, apples. Horses liked them too.

Before the War Between the States, the next generation of Urquharts bought into the railroad heading west and more good fortune was heaped upon their heads. Then the War Between the States ravaged them; three out of four sons were sacrificed. Two generations later, only one daughter and one son survived. The daughter had the good sense to marry a Yankee who, although locally despised, arrived with money and frugal New England values. The brother, never free of his war wounds, worked for his sister’s husband, not a comfortable arrangement but better than starvation. The stigma of Yankee blood had slightly faded by World War II, faded enough so that Mim didn’t mind using her paternal family name, Conrad, although she always used her mother’s name first.

Architecture buffs liked an invitation to Zion Hill because the rooms had been measured by the distance from the foreman’s elbow to the end of his middle finger. The measurements weren’t exact, yet visually the rooms appeared perfect. Gardeners enjoyed the boxwoods and the perennial and annual gardens lovingly tended for over two centuries. Then, too, the food pleased everyone. The fact that the hostess lorded it over them pleased no one, but there were so many people to talk to at the Christmas party, you only had to say “Hello” to Mim and “Thank you for the wonderful time” as you left.

The lushes of Albemarle County, glued to the punch bowl as well as the bar, had noses as red as Santa’s outfit. Santa appeared precisely at 8:00 P.M. for the children. He dispensed his gifts and then mommies and daddies could take home their cherubs for a good night’s rest. Once the small fry were evacuated, folks kicked into high gear. Someone could be depended on to fall down dead drunk every year, someone else would start a fight, someone would cry, and someone would seduce a hapless or perhaps fortunate partygoer.

This year Mim hired the choir from the Lutheran Church. They would go on at 9:30 P.M. so the early risers could carol and go home.

The acid-green of Mim’s emeralds glittered on her neck. Her dress, white, was designed to show off the jewels. Dangling emerald earrings matched the necklace, the aggregate value of which, retail at Tiffany’s, would have topped $200,000. Hot competition in the jewelry department came from BoomBoom Craycroft, who favored sapphires, and Miranda Hogendobber, who was partial to rubies. Miranda, not a wealthy woman, had inherited her sumptuous ruby and diamond necklace and earrings from her mother’s sister. Susan Tucker wore modest diamond earrings and Harry wore no major stones at all. For a woman, Mim’s Christmas party was like entering the lists. Who wore what counted for more than it should have and Harry couldn’t compete. She wished she were above caring but she would have liked to have one stunning pair of earrings, necklace, and ring. As it was she was wearing the misshapen gold earring.

The men wore green, red, or plaid cummerbunds with their tuxedos. Jim Sanburne wore mistletoe as a boutonniere. It produced the desired effect. Fitz-Gilbert sported a kilt, which also produced the desired effect. Women noticed his legs.

Fair escorted BoomBoom. Harry couldn’t figure out if this had been a longstanding date, if he was weakening, or if he was just a glutton for punishment. Blair accompanied Harry, which pleased her even if he did ask at the last minute.

Fitz-Gilbert passed out Macanudos. He kept his Cuban Montecristos for very special occasions or his personal whim, but a good Macanudo was as a Jaguar to the Montecristo Rolls-Royce. Blair gladly puffed on the gift cigar.

Susan and Ned joined them, as did Rick Shaw, in a tuxedo, and Cynthia Cooper wearing a velvet skirt and a festive red top. The little group chatted about the University of Virginia’s women’s basketball team, of which everyone was justly proud. Under the astute guidance of coach Debbie Ryan, the women had evolved into a national power.

Ned advised,“If only they’d lower the basket, though. I miss the dunking. Other than that it’s great basketball and those ladies can shoot.”

“Especially the three-pointers.” Harry smiled. She loved that basketball team.

“I’m partial to the guards myself,” Susan added. “Brookie’s hero is Debbie Ryan. Most girls want to grow up to be movie stars or players. Brookie wants to be a coach.”

“Shows sense.” Blair noticed Susan’s daughter in the middle of a group of eighth-graders. What an awkward age for everyone, the young person and the adults.

Market Shiflett joined them.“Some party. I wait for this each year. It’s the only time Mim invites me here unless she wants a delivery.” His face shone. He’d been downing Johnnie Walker Black, his special brand.

“She forgets,” Harry diplomatically told him.

“The hell she does,” Market rejoined. “How’d you like your last name to be Shiflett?”

“Market, if you’re living proof I’d be honored to have Shiflett as my last name.” Blair’s baritone soothed.

“Hear, hear.” Ned held up his glass.

The tinkle of shattered glass diverted their attention. BoomBoom had enraged Mrs. Drysdale by swinging her breasts under Patrick Drysdale’s aquiline nose. Patrick, not immune to such bounty, forgot he was a married man, a condition epidemic at such a large party. Missy threw a glass at BoomBoom’s head. Instead, it narrowly missed Dr. Chuck Beegle’s head and smashed against the wall.

Mim observed this. She cocked her head in Little Marilyn’s direction.

Little Marilyn glided over.“Now, Missy, honey, how about some coffee?”

“Did you see what that vixen did? Obviously, she has nothing to recommend her other than her … her tits!”

BoomBoom, half in the bag, laughed,“Oh, Missy, get over it. You’ve been jealous of me since sixth grade, when we were studying pirates and those boys called you a sunken chest.”

Her remark inflamed Missy, who reached into a bowl of cheese dip. The gooey yellow handful immediately decorated BoomBoom’s bosom.

“Damn you for getting that stuff on my sapphires!” BoomBoom pushed Missy.

“Is that what you call them … sapphires?” Missy shrieked.

Harry nudged Susan.“Let’s go.”

“May I assist?” Blair volunteered.

“No, this is women’s work,” Susan said lightly.

Under her breath Harry whispered to her friend,“If she swings she’ll take a roundhouse. BoomBoom can’t throw a straight punch.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Susan swiftly wrapped an arm around BoomBoom’s small waist, propelling her into the kitchen. The sputtering died away.

Harry, meanwhile, ducked a punch and came up behind Missy, putting both hands on Missy’s shoulders, and steered her toward the powder room. Little Marilyn followed.

“God, I hate her. I really hate her,” Missy seethed, her frosted hair bobbing with each step. “If I were really awful I’d wish her upon Patrick. She ruins every man she touches!” Missy realized who was shepherding her. “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m so mad I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“It’s all right, Missy. You do know what you’re saying and I agree.”

This opened a new line of conversation and Missy calmed down considerably. Once in the immense bathroom, Little Marilyn ran a washcloth under cold water and applied it to Missy’s forehead.

“I’m not drunk.”

“I know,” Little Marilyn replied. “But when I get rattled this works for me. Mother, of course, supports Upjohn Industries.”

“What?” Missy didn’t get the joke.

“Mummy has pills to calm her down, pills to pep her up, and pills to put her to sleep, forgive the expression.”

“Marilyn”—Missy put her hand over Little Marilyn’s—“That’s serious.”

“I know. She won’t listen to her family and if Hayden McIntire won’t prescribe them she simply goes to another doctor and pays him off. So Hayden goes on writing out the prescriptions. That way he has an idea of how much she’s taking.”

“Are you okay now?” Harry inquired of Missy.

“Yes. I lost my temper and I’ll go apologize to your mother, Marilyn. Really, Patrick’s not worth fussing over. He can look at anything he wants on the menu but he can’t order, that’s all.”

This was an expression both Harry and Little Marilyn heard frequently from married couples. Little Marilyn smiled and Harry shrugged. Little Marilyn stared at Harry, bringing her face almost nose to nose.

“Harry!”

“What?” Harry stepped backward.

“I had earrings like that, except that one looks—”

“Squashed?”

“Squashed,” Little Marilyn echoed. “And you only have one. Now that’s peculiar because I lost one. I wore them all the time, my Tiffany disks. Anyway, I thought I lost it on the tennis court. I never did find it.”

“I found this one.”

“Where?”

“In a possum’s nest.” Harry studied Little Marilyn intently. “I traded the possum for it.”

“Come on.” Missy reapplied her lipstick.

“Scout’s honor.” Harry raised her right hand. “Did you keep the mate?” she asked Little Marilyn.

“I’ll show you tomorrow. I’ll bring it to the post office.”

“I’d love to see what it looks like in pristine condition.”

Little Marilyn took a deep breath.“Harry, why can’t we be friends?”

Missy stopped applying her lipstick in mid-twirl. A Sanburne was being emotionally honest, sort of.

In the spirit of the season Harry smiled and replied,“We can try.”

Three quarters of an hour later Harry, having spoken to everyone on her way back from the bathroom, managed to reach Susan. She whispered the news in Susan’s ear.

“Impossible.” Susan shook her head.

“Impossible or not, she seems to think it’s hers.”

“We’ll see tomorrow.”

BoomBoom swooped upon them.“Harry and Susan, thank you ever so much for relieving me of Missy Drysdale’s tedious presence.”

Before they could reply, and it would have been a tart reply, BoomBoom threw her arms around Blair, who was relieved to find his date finally sprung from the powder room.“Blair, darling, I need a favor—not a humongous favor but a teeny-weeny one.”

“Uh …”

“Orlando Heguay says he’ll come down for New Year’s Eve and I can’t put him up at my place—I hardly know the man. Would you?”

“Of course.” Blair held out his hands as if in benediction. “It’s what I meant to do all along.”

Susan whispered to Harry,“Has Fair spent a lot on his Christmas present for Our Lady of the Sorrows?”

“He says he can’t return it. He had a coat specially made from Out of the Blue.”

“Ouch.” Susan winced. Out of the Blue, an expensive but entertaining ladies’ apparel store, couldn’t take back a personalized item. Anyway, few women fit BoomBoom’s specifications.

“Tim-ber!” Harry cupped her hands to her mouth at the exact moment Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton hit the floor, drunk as a skunk.

Everyone laughed except for the two Marilyns.

“I’d better make up for that.” Harry wiggled through the crowd to Little Marilyn. “Hey, we’re all under pressure,” she whispered. “Too much party tonight. Don’t get too mad at him.”

“Before this night is out we’ll have them stacked like cordwood.”

“Where are you going to put them?”

“In the barn.”

“Sensible.” Harry nodded.

The Sanburnes thought of everything. The loaded guests could sleep it off in the barn and puke in the barn—no harm done to the Persian rugs. And no guilt over someone being in an accident after the party.

Before the night was over Danny Tucker’s girlfriend cried because he didn’t ask her to dance enough.

The juiciest gossip of all was that Missy Drysdale left Patrick, drunk and soon a stable candidate. She traipsed out of the party with Fair Haristeen, who dumped BoomBoom when he overheard her talking about Orlando Heguay’s visit.

BoomBoom consoled herself by confiding to Jim Sanburne how misunderstood she was. She would have made real progress if Mim hadn’t yanked him away.

Another Christmas party: Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men.

49

Harry sat in the middle of an avalanche of paper. Mrs. Murphy jumped from envelope pile to envelope pile while Tucker, head on paws, tail wagging, waited for the cat to dash through the room.

“You’re it.” Mrs. Murphy jumped over Tucker, who leapt up and chased her.

“Stay on the ground. It’s not fair if you go to the second story.” Tucker made up the rules as she ran.

“Says who?” Mrs. Murphy arced upward, landing on the counter.

Mrs. Hogendobber barely noticed the two animals, a sign that she had become accustomed to their antics.

“One more day of this, Harry. There’s a bit of aftermath, as you well know, but the worst will be over tomorrow and then we can take off Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

Harry, sorting out mail as fast as she could, replied,“Miranda, I barely recover from one Christmas before the next one is on the way.”

Reverend Jones, Little Marilyn, and Fitz-Gilbert pushed through the door in a group, Market on their heels. Everyone plucked the offending postcards out of their boxes.

Mrs. Hogendobber headed off their protests.“We got them too. The sheriff knows all about it, and face it, we had to deliver them. We’d violate a federal law if we withheld your mail.”

“Maybe we wouldn’t mind so much if he were literate,” Fitz joked.

“Christmas is almost upon us. Let’s concentrate on the meaning of that,” Herb counseled.

Pewter scratched at the front door. While the humans talked, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker told Pewter about Simon and the earring.

As if on cue, Little Marilyn reached into her pocket and pulled out the undamaged Tiffany earring.“See.”

Harry placed the damaged earring next to the shiny gold one.“A pair. Well, so much for a Tiffany earring. It was the only way I was going to get one.”

“Put not thy faith in worldly goods.” The Reverend smiled. “Those are pretty worldly goods, though.”

Fitz poked at the bent-up earring.“Honey, where did you lose this? They were your Valentine’s present last year.”

“Now, Fitz, I didn’t want to upset you. I was hoping I’d find it and then you’d—”

“Never know.” He shook his head. “Marilyn, you’d lose your head if it weren’t fastened to your shoulders.” After he said this he wished he could have retracted it, considering the Halloween horror. His wife didn’t seem to notice.

“I don’t know where I lost it.”

“When’s the last time you remember wearing them?” Miranda asked the logical question.

“The day before the hard rains—oh, October, I guess. I wore my magenta cashmere sweater, played tennis over at the club, changed there, and when I got back into the car I couldn’t find one earring when I got home.”

“Maybe it popped off when you pulled your sweater over your head. Mine do that sometimes,” Harry mentioned.

“Well, I did take my sweater off in the car and I had a load of dry cleaning on the front seat. If the earring flew off, it might have landed in the clothing and I wouldn’t have heard that tinkle, like when metal hits the ground.”

“Which car were you in, honey?” Fitz asked.

“The Range Rover. Well, it doesn’t matter. I thank you for finding this, Harry. I wonder if Tiffany’s can repair it. Did you really find it in a possum’s nest?”

“I did.” Harry nodded.

“What are you doing ransacking possums’ nests?” Fitz pinched Harry’s elbow.

“I have this little guy who lives with me.”

“You found my earring on your property?” Little Marilyn was astonished. “I was nowhere near your property.”

“I found it but who knows where the possum found it? Maybe he’s a member of Farmington Country Club.”

This made everyone laugh, and after more chatter they left and the next wave of people came in, also upset when they pulled the“Don’t stick your nose where it don’t belong” postcards out of their boxes.

The animals observed the human reactions. Pewter washed behind her ears and asked Mrs. Murphy again,“You believe that earring is connected to the first murder?”

“I don’t know. I only know it’s very peculiar. I keep hoping someone will find the teeth. That would be a big help. If the earring was dropped, what about the teeth?”

“Since those would identify the first victim, you can bet the killer got rid of the teeth,” Tucker said.

“Once the snow melts, let’s go back to the graveyard. Can’t hurt to look.”

“I want to come.” Pewter pouted.

“You’d be a big help,” Mrs. Murphy flattered her,“but I don’t see how we can get Mother to bring you out. You can do one thing, though.”

“What?” Pewter’s eyes enlarged, as did her chest. She was puffing up like a broody hen.

“Pay attention to each human who comes to the store. Let me know if anyone seems stressed.”

“Half of Crozet,” Pewter grumbled but then she brightened.“I’ll do my best.”

Tucker cocked her head and stared at her friend.“What’s wrong, Murphy?”

“What’s wrong is the postcard. It’s kind of smartass. I mean, if it isfrom the killer, which we don’t know, but if it is, it’s also a warning. It means, to me, that maybe this person thinks someone just might get too close.”

50

Using the Sheaffer pen that had once been his father’s, Cabell wrote his wife a note. The black ink scrawled boldly across the pale-blue paper.

My Dearest Florence,

Please forgive me. I’ve got to get away to sort out my thoughts. I’ve closed my personal checking account. Yours remains intact, as does our joint account and the investments. There’s plenty of money, so don’t worry.

I’ll leave the car at the bank parking lot behind the downtown mall. Please don’t call Rick Shaw. And don’t worry about me.

Love,

Cabell

Taxi did just that. The letter was propped up against the coffee machine. She read it and reread it. In all the years she had known her husband, he had never done anything as drastic as this.

She dialed Miranda Hogendobber. She’d been friends with Miranda since kindergarten. It was seven-thirty in the morning.

“Miranda.”

Mrs. H. heard the strain in her friend’s voice immediately. “Florence, what’s the matter?”

“Cabell has left me.”

“What!”

“I said that wrong. Here. Let me read you the letter.” As she finished, Florence sobbed, “He must be suffering some kind of breakdown.”

“Well, you’ve got to call the sheriff.”

“He forbids me to do that.” Florence cried harder.

“He’s wrong. If you don’t call him I will.”

By the time Rick and Cynthia arrived at the beautiful Hall residence, Miranda had been there for a half hour. Sitting next to her friend, she supplied support during the questioning.

Rick, who liked Taxi Hall, smoked half a pack of cigarettes while he gently asked questions. Cynthia prudently refrained from smoking, or the room would have been filled with blue fog.

“You said he’s been preoccupied, withdrawn.”

Taxi nodded, and Rick continued.“Was there any one subject that would set him off?”

“He was terribly upset about Ben Seifert. He calmed down once the books were audited but I know it still bothered him. Ben was his prot?g?.”

“Was there resentment at the bank over Ben’s being groomed to succeed your husband?”

She folded her arms across her chest and thought about this.“There’s always grumbling but not enough for murder.”

“Did your husband ever specifically name anyone?”

“He mentioned that Marion Molnar couldn’t stand Ben but she managed to work with him. Really, the politics of the bank are pretty benign.”

Rick took a deep breath.“Have you any reason to suspect that your husband is seeing another woman?”

“Is that necessary?” Miranda bellowed.

“Under the circumstances, yes, it is.” Rick softened his voice.

“I protest. I protest most vigorously. Can’t you see she’s worried sick?”

Taxi patted Miranda’s hand. “It’s all right, Miranda. Everything must be considered. To the best of my knowledge Cabell is not involved with another woman. If you knew Cabby like I do, you’d know he’d much rather play golf than make love.”

Rick smiled weakly.“Thank you, Mrs. Hall. We will put out an allpoints alert. We’ll fax photos of Cabby to other police and sheriff’s departments. And the first time he uses a credit card we’ll know. Try to relax and know that we are doing everything we can.”

Outside the door Rick dropped a cigarette, which sizzled in the snow.

Cooper observed the snow melting around the hot tip.“Well, looks like we know who killed Ben Seifert. Why else would he run?”

“Goddammit, we’re going to find out.” He stepped on the extinguished cigarette. “Coop, nothing makes sense. Nothing!”

51

Harry wondered where Mrs. Hogendobber was, for she was scrupulously punctual. Being a half hour late was quite out of line. The mail bags clogged the post office and Harry was falling behind. If it had been any time other than Christmas, Harry would have left her post and gone to Miranda’s house. As it was, she called around. No one had seen Mrs. Hogendobber.

When the back door opened relief flooded through Harry. Those emotional waters instantly dried up when Mrs. Hogendobber told her the news.

Within fifteen minutes of Miranda’s arrival—half an hour before the doors opened to the public—Rick Shaw knocked on the back door.

He walked through the mail bags and up to the counter, glanced at the composite picture of the reconstructed head.“Lot of good that’s done. Not a peep! Not a clue!Nada!” He slammed his hand on the counter, causing Mrs. Murphy to jump and Tucker to bark.

“Hush, Tucker,” Harry advised the dog.

Rick opened his notebook.“Mrs. Hogendobber, I wanted to ask you a few questions. No need to cause Mrs. Hall further upset.”

“I’m glad to help.”

Rick looked at Harry.“You might as well stay. She’ll tell you everything anyway, the minute I leave.” He poised his pencil. “Have you noticed anything unusual in Cabell Hall’s behavior?”

“No. I think he’s exhausted, but he hasn’t been irritable or anything.”

“Have you noticed a strain in the marriage?”

“See here, Rick, you know perfectly well that Florence and Cabby have a wonderful marriage. Now this line of questioning has got to stop.”

Rick flipped shut his notebook, irritation, frustration, and exhaustion dragging down his features. He looked old this morning.“Dammit, Miranda, I’m doing all I can!” He caught himself. “I’m sorry. I’m tired. I haven’t even bought one Christmas present for my wife or my kids.”

“Come on, sit down.” Harry directed the wornout man to a little table in the back. “We’ve got Miranda’s coffee and some Hotcakes muffins.”

He hesitated, then pulled up a chair. Mrs. Hogendobber poured him coffee with cream and two sugars. A few sips restored him somewhat.“I don’t want to be rude but I have to examine all the angles. You know that.”

“Yeah, we do.”

Rick said,“Well, you tell me how one partner in a marriage knows what the other’s doing if she’s asleep.”

Miranda downed a cup of coffee herself.“You don’t. My George could have driven to Richmond and back, I’m such a sound sleeper, but well, you know things about your mate and about other people. Cabell was faithful to Taxi. His disappearance has nothing to do with an affair. And how do we know he wrote that letter voluntarily?”

“We don’t,” Rick agreed. A long silence followed.

“I have a confession to make.” Harry swallowed and told Rick about the misshapen earring.

“Harry, I could wring your neck! I’m out of here.”

“Where are you going?” Harry innocently asked.

“Where do you think I’m going, nitwit? To Little Marilyn’s. I hope I get there before she mails off that earring to New York. If you ever pull a stunt like this again I’ll have your hide—your hide! Do you understand?”

“Yes,” came the meek voice.

Rick charged out of the post office.

“Oh, boy, I’m in the shit can,” Harry half-whispered.

Rick opened the door and yelled at both of them,“Almost forgot. Don’t open any strange Christmas presents.” He slammed the door again.

“Just what does that mean?” Mrs. Hogendobber kicked a bag of mail. She regretted that the instant she did it, because there was so much mail in the bag.

“Guess he’s afraid presents will be booby-trapped or something.”

“Don’t worry. We can sniff them first,” Tucker advised.

Harry interpreted the soft bark to mean that Tucker wanted to go outside. She opened the back door but the dog sat down and wouldn’t budge.

“What gets into her?” Harry wondered.

“She’s trained you,” Mrs. Hogendobber replied.

“You guys are dumb,” Tucker grumbled.

“There goes our expedition,” Mrs. Murphy said to her friend.“Look.”

Tucker saw the storm clouds rolling in from the mountains.

Harry pulled a mail bag over to the back of the boxes. She started to sort and then paused.“It’s hard to concentrate.”

“I know but let’s do our best.” Miranda glanced at the old wooden wall clock. “Folks will be here in about fifteen minutes. Maybe someone will have an idea about all this … crazy stuff.”

As the day wore on, people trooped in and out of the post office but no one had any new ideas, any suspects. It took until noon for the news of Cabell’s vanishing act to make the rounds. A few people thought he was the killer but others guessed he was having a nervous breakdown. Even the falling snow and the prospect of a white Christmas, a rarity in Central Virginia, couldn’t lift spirits. The worm of fear gnawed at people’s nerve endings.

52

Christmas Eve morning dawned silver gray. The snow danced down, covering bushes, buildings, and cars, which were already blurred into soft, fantastic shapes. The radio stations interrupted their broadcasts for weather bulletins and then returned to“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” A fantastic sense of quiet enshrouded everything.

When Harry turned out Tomahawk and Gin Fizz, the horses stood for a long time, staring at the snowfall. Then old Gin kicked up her heels and romped through the snow like a filly.

Chores followed. Harry picked up Tucker while Mrs. Murphy reclined around her neck. She waded through the snow. A snow shovel leaned against the back porch door. Harry put the animals, protesting, into the house and then turned to the odious task of shoveling. If she waited until the snow stopped she’d heave twice as much snow. Better to shovel at intervals than to tackle it later, because the weather report promised another two feet. The path to the barn seemed a mile long. In actuality it was about one hundred yards.

“Let me out. Let me out,” Tucker yapped.

Mrs. Murphy sat in the kitchen window.“Come on, Mom, we can take the cold.”

Harry relented and they scampered out onto the path she had cleared. When they tried to go beyond that, the results were comical. Mrs. Murphy would sink in way over her depth and then leap up and forward with a little cap of snow on her striped head. Tucker charged ahead like a snowplow. She soon tired of that and decided to stay behind Harry. The snow, shoveled and packed, crunched under her pads.

Mrs. Murphy, shooting upward, called out,“Wiener, wiener! Tucker is a wiener!”

“You think you’re so hot,” Tucker grumbled.

Now the tiger cat turned somersaults, throwing up clots of snow. She’d bat at the little balls, then chase them. Leaping upward, she tossed them up between her paws. Her energy fatigued Tucker while making Harry laugh.

“Yahoo!” Mrs. Murphy called out, the sheer joy of the moment intoxicating.

“Miss Puss, you ought to be in the circus.” Harry threw a little snowball up in the air for her to catch.

“Yeah, the freak show,” Tucker growled. She hated to be outdone.

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Simon appeared, peeping under the barn door.“You all are noisy today.”

Harry, bent over her shovel, did not yet notice the bright eyes and the pink nose sticking out from under the door. As it was, she was only halfway to her goal, and the snow was getting heavier and heavier.

“No work today.” Mrs. Murphy landed head-deep in the snow after another gravity-defying leap.

“Think Harry will make Christmas cookies or pour syrup in the snow?” Simon wondered.“Mrs. MacGregor was the best about the syrup, you know.”

“Don’t count on it,” Tucker yelled from behind Harry,“but she got you a Christmas present. Bet she brings it out tomorrow morning, along with the presents for the horses.”

“Those horses are so stupid. Think they’ll even notice?” Simon criticized the grazing animals. He nourished similar prejudices against cattle and sheep.“What’d she get me?”

“Can’t tell. That’s cheating.” Mrs. Murphy decided to sit in the snow for a moment to catch her breath.

“Where are you, Murph?” Tucker always became anxious if she couldn’t see her best friend and constant tormentor.

“Hiding.”

“She’s off to your left, Tucker, and I bet she’s going to bust through the snow and scare you,” Simon warned.

Too late, because Mrs. Murphy did just that and both Tucker and Harry jumped.

“Gotcha!” The cat swirled and shot out of the path again.

“That girl’s getting mental,” Tucker told Harry, who wasn’t listening.

Harry finally noticed Simon.“Merry Christmas Eve, little fellow.”

Simon ducked away, then stuck his head out again.“Uh, Merry Christmas, Harry.” He then said to Mrs. Murphy, who made it to the barn door,“It unnerves me talking to humans. But it makes her so happy.”

A deep rumble alerted Simon.“See you, Murphy.” He hurried back down the aisle, up the ladder, and across the loft to his nest. Murphy, curious, stuck her head out of the barn door. A shiny new Ford Explorer, metallic hunter-green with an accent stripe and, better yet, a snow blade on the front, pulled into the driveway. A neat path had been cleared.

Blair Bainbridge opened his window.“Hey, Harry, out of the way. I’ll do that.”

Before she could reply, he quickly plowed a walkway to the barn.

He cut the motor and stepped out.“Nifty, huh?”

“It’s beautiful.” Harry rubbed her hand over the hood, which was ornamented with a galloping horse. Very expensive.

“It’s beautiful and it’s your chariot for the day with me as your driver. I know you don’t have four-wheel drive and I bet you’ve got presents to deliver, so go get them and let’s do it.”

Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker spent the rest of the morning dropping off presents for Susan Tucker and her family, Mrs. Hogendobber, Reverend Jones and Carol, Market and Pewter, and finally Cynthia Cooper. Harry was gratified to discover they all had gifts for her too. Every year the friends exchanged gifts and every year Harry was surprised that they remembered her.

Christmas agreed with Blair. He enjoyed the music, the decorations, the anticipation on children’s faces. By tacit agreement Cabell would not be discussed until after Christmas. So as Blair accompanied Harry, the cat, and the dog into various houses, people marveled at the white Christmas, and at the holiday bow tied on Tucker’s collar, compliments of Susan. Eggnog would be offered, whiskey sours, tea, and coffee. Cookies would be passed around in the shapes of trees and bells and angels, covered with red or green sparkles. This Christmas there were as many fruitcakes as Claxton, Georgia, could produce, plus the homemade variety drowning in rum. Cold turkey for sandwiches, cornbread, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, and mince pie would be safely stowed in Tupperware containers and given to Harry, since her culinary deficiencies were well known to her friends.

After dropping off Cynthia’s present, they would drive through the snow to the SPCA, for Harry always left gifts there. The sheriff’s office was gorged with presents but not for Rick or Cynthia. These were “suspicious” gifts. Cynthia was grateful for her nonsuspicious one.

Blair remarked,“You’re a lucky woman, Harry.”

“Why?”

“Because you have true friends. And not just because the back of the car is crammed with gifts.” He slowed. “Is this the turn?”

“Yes. The hill’s not much of a grade but in this weather nothing is easy.”

They motored up the hill and took a right down the little lane leading to the SPCA. Fair’s truck was parked there.

“Still want to go in?”

“Sure.” She ignored the implication. “The doors are probably locked anyway.”

Together they unloaded cases of cat and dog food. As they carted their burden to the door, Fair opened it and they stepped inside.

“Merry Christmas.” He gave Harry a kiss on the cheek.

“Merry Christmas.” She returned it.

“Where is everybody?” Blair inquired.

“Oh, they go home early on Christmas Eve. I stopped by to check a dog hit by a car. He didn’t make it.” Harry knew that Fair never could get used to losing an animal. Although he was an equine vet, he, like other veterinarians, donated his services to the SPCA. Every Christmas during their marriage, Harry brought food, so Fair naturally took those days to work at the shelter.

“Sorry.” Harry meant it.

“Come here and look.” He led them over to a carton. Inside were two little kittens. One was gray with a white bib and white paws and the other was a dark calico. The poor creatures were crying piteously. “Some jerk left them here. They were pretty cold and hungry by the time I arrived. I think they’ll make it, though. I checked them over and gave them their shots, first series. No mites, which is a miracle, and no fleas. Too cold for that. Scared to death, of course.”

“Will you fill out the paperwork?” Harry asked Fair.

“Sure.”

She reached into the carton and picked up a kitten in each hand. Then she put them into Blair’s arms. “Blair, this is the only love that money can buy. I can’t think of anything I’d rather give you for Christmas.”

The gray kitten had already closed her eyes and was purring. The calico, not yet won over, examined Blair’s face.

“Say yes.” Fair had his pen poised over the SPCA adoption forms. If he was surprised by Harry’s gesture, he wasn’t saying so.

“Yes.” He smiled. “Now what am I going to call these companions?”

“Christmas names?” Fair suggested.

“Well, I guess I could call the gray one Noel, and the calico Jingle Bells. I’m not very good at naming things.”

“That’s perfect.” Harry beamed.

On the way home Harry held the carton on her lap. The kittens fell asleep. Mrs. Murphy poked her head over the side and made an ungenerous comment. She soon went to sleep herself. The cat had eaten turkey at every stop. She must have gobbled up half a bird all totaled.

Tucker took advantage of Mrs. Murphy’s food-induced slumber to give Blair the full benefit of her many opinions.“A dog is more useful, Blair. You really ought to get a dog that can protect you and keep rats out of the barn too. After all, we’re loyal and good-natured and easy to keep. You can housebreak a corgi puppy in a week or two,” she lied.

Blair patted her head. Tucker chattered some more until she, too, fell asleep.

Harry could recall less stressful Christmases than this one. Christmases filled with youth and promise, parties and laughter, but she could not remember giving a gift that made her so blissfully happy.

53

Highly potent catnip sent Mrs. Murphy into orbit. Special dog chewies pleased Tucker. She also received a new collar with corgis embroidered on it. Simon liked his little quilt, which Harry had placed outside his nest. It was a small dog blanket she had bought at the pet store. The horses enjoyed their carrots, apples, and molasses treats. Gin Fizz received a new turn-out blanket and Tomahawk got a new back-saver saddle pad.

After chores Harry opened her presents. Susan gave her a gift certificate to Dominion Saddlery. If Harry added some money to it she might be able to afford a new pair of much needed boots. When she opened Mrs. Hogendobber’s present she knew she would be able to afford them, because Mrs. H. had also given her a certificate. Susan and Miranda had obviously put their heads together on this one and Harry felt a surge of affection wash over her. Herbie and Carol Jones gave her a gorgeous pair of formal deerskin gloves, also for hunting. Harry kept rubbing them between her fingers; the buttery texture felt cool and soft. Market had wrapped up a knuckle bone for Tucker, more turkey for Mrs. Murphy, and a tin of shortbread cookies for Harry. Cynthia Cooper’s present was a surprise, a facial at an upscale salon inBarracks Road Shopping Center.

No sooner had she opened her packages than the phone rang. Miranda, another early riser, loved her earrings. She also promised Harry she’d bring all the food gifts she’d received to work so that whoever came to the post office could help themselves, thereby removing the temptation from Mrs. Hogendobber’s lips. Hanging up the phone, Harry realized that she and Miranda would wipe out the food before anyone walked through the door.

As the day progressed the sun appeared. The icicles sparkled and the surface of the snow at times shone like a rainbow, the little crystals reflecting red, yellow, blue, and purple highlights. The Blue Ridge Mountains loomed baby-blue. Wind devils picked up snow in the meadows and swirled it around.

More friends called, including Blair Bainbridge, who said he’d never had so much fun in his life as he did watching the kittens. He said he’d take her to work tomorrow and promised to give her a Christmas present before tomorrow night. He enjoyed being mysterious about it.

Then Susan called. She also loved her earrings. Harry spent too much money on her, but that’s what friends were for. The noise in the background tried Susan’s patience. She gave up and said she’d see Harry tomorrow. She, Ned, and the kids were going outside to make syrup candy in the snow.

Harry thought that was a great idea, and armed with a tin of Vermont maple syrup, she plunged into the snow, now mid-thigh in depth. Mrs. Murphy shot down the path to the barn, covered from yesterday’s snow but at least not over her head.

“Simon,” the cat called out,“syrup in the snow.”

The possum slid down the ladder. He hurried outside the barn and then stopped.

“Come on, Simon. It’s okay,” Tucker encouraged him.

Emboldened by the smell and halfway trusting Harry, the gray creature followed in Mrs. Murphy’s footsteps. He sat near Harry and when she poured out the syrup he gleefully leapt toward it with such intensity that Harry took a step backward.

Watching him greedily eat the frozen syrup reminded Harry that life ought to be a feast of the senses. Living with the mountains and the meadows, the forest and the streams, Harry knew she could never leave this place, because the country nourished her senses. City people drew their energy from one another. Country people drew their energy, like Antaeus, from the earth herself. Small wonder that the two types of humans could not understand each other. This deep need for solitude, hard physical labor, and the cycle of the seasons removed Harry from the opportunity for material success. She’d never grace the cover ofVogue orPeople. She’d never be famous. Apart from her friends no one would even know she existed. Life would be a struggle to make ends meet and the older she got the harsher the struggle. She knew that. She accepted it. Standing in the snow, surrounded by the angelic tranquillity, guarded by the old mountains of the New World, watching Simon eat his syrup, cat and dog next to her, she was grateful that she knew where she belonged. Let others make a shout in the world and draw attention to themselves. She regarded them as conscripts of civilization. Her life was a silent rebuke to the grabbing and the getting, the buying and the selling, the greediness and lust for power that she felt infected her nation. Americans died in sordid martyrdom to money. Indeed, they were dying for it in Crozet.

She poured out more syrup into the snow, watching it form lacy shapes, and wished she had heated chocolate squares and mixed the two together. She reached down and scooped up a graceful tendril of hard syrup. It tasted delicious. She poured more for Simon and thought that Jesus was wise in being born in a stable.

54

“We need a pitchfork.” Harry, using her broom, jabbed at the mail on the floor. “I don’t remember there being this much late mail last year.”

“That’s how the mind protects itself—it forgets what’s unpleasant.” Mrs. Hogendobber was wearing her new earrings, which were very becoming. The radio crackled; Miranda walked over, tuned it, and turned up the volume. “Did you hear that?”

“No.” Harry pushed the mail-order catalogues across the floor with her broom. Tucker chased the broom.

“Another storm to hit tomorrow. My lands, three snowstorms within—what’s it been—ten days? I don’t ever recall that. Well now, maybe I do. During the war we had a horrendous winter—’44, I think, or was it ’45?” She sighed. “Too many memories. My brain needs to find more room.”

Mim, swathed in chinchilla, swept through the front door. A gust of wind blew in snow around her feet.“How was it?” She referred to Christmas.

“Wonderful. The service at the church, well, those children in the choir outshone themselves.” Miranda glowed.

“And you, out there all alone?” Mim stamped the snow from her feet as she addressed Harry.

“Good. It was a good Christmas. My best friends gave me certificates to Dominion Saddlery.”

“Oh.” Mim’s eyebrows shot upward. “Nice friends.”

Mrs. Hogendobber tilted her head, earrings catching the light.“How about these goodies? Harry gave them to me.”

“Very nice.” Mim appraised them. “Well, Jim gave me a week at the Greenbrier. Guess I’ll take it in February, the longest month of the year,” she joked. “My daughter framed an old photo of my mother, and she gave me season’s tickets to the Virginia Theater. Fitz gave me an auto emergency kit and a Fuzzbuster.” She smiled. “A Fuzzbuster, can you imagine? He said I need it.” Her face changed. “And someone gave me a dead rat.”

“No.” Mrs. Hogendobber stopped sorting mail.

“Yes. I am just plain sick of all this. I sat up last night by myself in Mother’s old sewing room, the room I made my reading room. I’ve gone over everything so many times I’m dizzy. A man is killed. We don’t know him or anything about him other than that he was a vagrant or a vagabond. Correct?”

“Correct.”

Mim continued:“Then Benjamin Seifert is strangled and dumped in Crozet’s first tunnel. I even thought about the supposed treasure in the tunnels, but that’s too far-fetched.” She was referring to the legend that Claudius Crozet had buried in the tunnels the wealth he received from his Russian captor. Theyoung engineer, an officer in Napoleon’s army, was seized during the horrendous retreat from Moscow and taken to the estate of a fabulously wealthy aristocrat. So useful was the personable engineer, building many devices for the Russian, that when prisoners were finally freed, he bestowed upon Crozet jewels, gold, and rubies. Or so they said.

Harry spoke.“And now Cabell has …” She clicked her fingers in the air to indicate disappearance.

Mim waved a dismissive hand.“Two members of the same bank. Suspicious. Maybe even obvious. What isn’t so obvious is why am I a target? First the”—she grimaced—“torso in the boathouse. Followed by the head in the pumpkin when my husband was judging. And then the rat. Why me? I can’t think of any reason why, otherthan petty spite and envy, but people aren’t killed for that.”

Harry weighed her words.“Did Ben or Cabell have access to your accounts?”

“Certainly not, even though Cabell is a dear friend. No check goes out without my signature. And of course I studied my accounts. As a precaution I’m having my accountant audit my own books. And then”—she threw up her hands—“that earring. Well, Sheriff Shaw acted as though my daughter was a criminal. Forgive me, Harry, but a possum with an earring doesn’t add up to evidence.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Harry concurred.

“So … why me?”

“Maybe you should review your will.” Miranda was blunt.

This knocked Mim back. But she didn’t lash out. She thought about it. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

“Mim, if you think this is somehow directed at you, then you may be in danger,” Mrs. Hogendobber counseled. “What would someone want of you? Money. Do you own land impeding a developer? Are you in the way of anything that converts to profit? Do you have business ventures we don’t know about? Is your daughter your sole beneficiary?”

“When Marilyn married I settled a small sum upon her as a dowry and to help them with their house. She will, of course, inherit our house and the land when Jim and I die and I’ve created a trust that jumps a generation, so most of the money will go to her children should she have them. If not, then it will go to her and she’ll have to pay oodles of taxes. My daughter isn’t going to kill me for money, and she wouldn’t bother with a banker.” Mim was forthright.

“What about Fitz?” Harry blurted out.

“Fitz-Gilbert has more money than God. You don’t think we let Marilyn marry him without a thorough investigation of his resources.”

“No.” Harry’s reply was tinged with regret. She’d have hated for her parents to do that to the man she loved.

“A shirttail cousin?” Miranda posited.

“You know my relatives as well as I do. I have one surviving aunt in Seattle.”

“Have you talked to the sheriff and Coop about this?” Harry asked.

“Yes, and my husband too. He’s hiring a bodyguard to protect me. If one can ever get through the snow. And another storm is coming.” Mim, not a woman easily frightened, was worried. She headed for the door.

“Mim, your mail.” Miranda reached into her box and held it out to her.

“Oh.” Mim took the mail in one Bott?ga Veneta–gloved hand and left.

A bit later Fitz arrived. He and Little Marilyn had indulged in an orgy of spending. He listed the vast number of gifts with glee and no sense of shame.“But the best is, we’re going to the Homestead for a few days starting tonight.”

“I thought Mim was going to the Greenbrier.” Miranda was getting confused.

“Yes, Mother is going, she says, in February, but we’re going tonight. A second honeymoon maybe, or just getting away from all this. You heard that Mim received an ugly present.” They nodded and he continued: “I think she ought to go to Tahiti. Oh, well, there’s no talking to Mim. She’ll do as she pleases.”

Blair came in.“Hey, I’ve got good news for you. Orlando Heguay is coming down on the twenty-eighth and he can’t wait to see you.”

“Orlando Heguay.” Fitz pondered the name. “Miami?”

“No. Andover.”

Fitz clapped his hand to his face.“My God, I haven’t seen him since school. What’s he doing?” Fitz caught his breath. “And how do you know him?”

“We’ll catch up on all that when he gets here. He’s looking forward to seeing you.”

“How about dinner at the club Saturday night?” Fitz smiled.

“I’m not a member.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Fitz clapped him on the back. “Be fun. Six?”

“Six,” Blair answered.

As Fitz left with an armful of mail, Blair looked after him.“Does that guy ever work?”

“He handled a real estate closing last year,” Harry laughed.

“Are you going to be home after work?” Blair asked her.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll stop by.” Blair waved goodbye and left.

Alone again, Miranda smiled.“He likes you.”

“He’s my neighbor. He has to like me.”

55

Four bags of sweet feed, four bags of dog crunchies, and four bags of cat crunchies, plus two cases of canned cat food astounded Harry. Blair unloaded his Explorer to her protests that she couldn’t accept such gifts. He told her she could stand there and complain or she could help unload and then make them cocoa. She chose the latter.

Inside, as they sipped their chocolate drinks, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small light-blue box.

“Here, Harry, you deserve this.”

She untied the white satin ribbon. TIFFANY CO. in black letters jumped out at her from the middle of the blue box.“I’m afraid to open this.”

“Go on.”

She lifted the lid and found a dark-blue leather box with TIFFANY written in gold. She opened that to behold an exquisitely beautiful pair of gold and blue-enameled earrings nestled in the white lining.“Oh,” was all she could say.

“Your colors are blue and gold, aren’t they?”

She nodded yes and carefully removed the earrings. She put them in her ears and looked at herself in the mirror.“These are beautiful. I don’t deserve this. Why do you say I deserve this? It’s … well, it’s …”

“Take them, Mom. You look great,” Murphy advised.

“Yeah, it was bad enough you tried to give back our crunchies. You need something pretty,” Tucker chimed in.

Blair admired the effect.“Terrific.”

“Are you sure you want to give me these?”

“Of course I’m sure. Harry, I’d be lost out here without you. I thought I was hardworking and reasonably intelligent but I would have made a lot more mistakes without you and I would have spent a lot more money. You’ve been helpful to someone you hardly know, and given the circumstances, I’m grateful.”

“What circumstances?”

“The body in the graveyard.”

“Oh, that.” Harry laughed. She’d thought he was talking about BoomBoom. “I don’t mean that quite the way it sounds, Blair, but I’m not worried about you. You’re not killer material.”

“Under the right—or perhaps I should say wrong—circumstances I think anyone could be killer material, but I appreciate your kindness to a stranger. Wasn’t it Blanche DuBois who said, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’?”

“And it was my mother who said, ‘Many hands make light work.’ Neighbors help one another to make light work. I was glad to do it. It was good for me. I learned that I knew something.”

“What do you mean?”

“I take bush-hogging, knowing when to plant, knowing how to worm a horse, those kinds of things, as a given. Helping you made me realize I’m not so dumb after all.”

“Girls who go to Seven Sisters colleges are rarely dumb.”

“Ha.” Harry exploded with mirth and so did Blair.

“Okay, so there are some dumb Smithies and Holy Jokers but then, there are some abysmal Old Blues and Princeton men too.”

“Have you ever tracked, after a snow?” Harry changed the subject, since she didn’t like to talk about herself or emotions.

“No.”

“I’ve got my father’s old snowshoes. Want to go out?”

“Sure.”

Within minutes the two suited up and left the house. Not much sunlight remained.

“These snowshoes take some getting used to.” Blair picked up a foot.

They trekked into the woods where Harry showed him bobcat and deer tracks. The deer followed air currents. Seeing these things and smelling the air, feeling the difference in temperature along the creek and above it, Blair began to appreciate how intelligent animal life is. Each species evolved a way to survive. If humans humbled themselves to learn, they might be able to better their own lives.

They moved up into the foothills behind Blair’s property. Harry was making a circle, keeping uppermost in her mind that light was limited. She put her hand on his forearm and pointed up. An enormous snowy owl sat in a walnut tree branch.

[Êàðòèíêà: _2.jpg]

She whispered,“They rarely come this far south.”

“My God, it’s huge,” he whispered back.

“Owls and blacksnakes are the best friends a farmer can have. Cats too. They kill the vermin.”

Long pink shadows swept down from the hills, like the skirts of the day swirling in one last dance. Even with snowshoes, walking could be difficult. They both breathed harder as they moved out of the woods. At the edge of the woods Harry stopped. Her blood turned as cold as the temperature. She pointed them out to Blair. Snowshoe footprints. Not theirs.

“Hunters?” Blair said.

“No one hunts here without permission. The MacGregors and Mom and Dad were fierce about that. We used to run Angus, and the MacGregors bred polled Herefords. You can’t take the chance of some damn fool shooting your stock—and they do too.”

“Well, maybe someone wanted to track, like we’re doing.”

“He wanted to track all right.” The sharp cold air filled her lungs. “He wanted to track into the back of your property.”

“Harry, what’s wrong?”

“I think we’re looking at the killer’s tracks. Why he wants to come back here I don’t know, but he dumped hands and legs in your cemetery. Maybe he forgot something.”

“He wouldn’t find it in the snow.”

“I know. That’s why I’m really worried.” She knelt down and examined the tracks. “A man, I think, or a heavy woman.” She stepped next to the track and then picked up her snowshoe. “See how much deeper his track is than mine?”

Blair knelt down also.“I do. If we follow these, maybe we’ll find out where he came from.”

“We’re losing the light.” She pointed to the massing clouds tethered to the peaks of the mountains. “And here comes the next snowstorm.”

“Is there an old road back up in here?”

“Yes, there’s an old logging road from 1937, which was the last time this was select-cut. It’s grown over but he might know it. He could take a four-wheel drive off Yellow Mountain Road and hide it on the logging road. He couldn’t take it far but he could get it out of sight, I reckon.”

A dark shadow, like a blue finger, crept down toward them. The sun was setting. The mixture of clear sky and clouds was giving way to potbellied clouds.

“What would anyone want back up here?” Blair rubbed his nose, which was getting cold.

“I don’t know. Come on, let’s get back.”

In the good weather the walk back to Harry’s would have taken twenty minutes but pushing along through the snow they arrived at Harry’s back door in the dark one hour later. Their eyes were running, their noses were running, but their bodies stayed warm because of the exercise. Harry made more cocoa and grilled cheese sandwiches. Blairgratefully accepted the supper and then left to take care of his kittens.

As soon as he left, Harry called Cynthia Cooper.

Cynthia and Harry knew each other well enough not to waste time. The officer came to the point.“You think someone is after Blair?”

“Why else would someone be up there scoping the place?”

“I don’t know, Harry, but then nothing about these murders makes any sense except for the fact that Ben was up to no good. But just what kind of no good we still don’t know. I think Cabell knows, though. We’ll find him. Ben died a far richer man than he lived. Bet that took discipline.”

“What?”

“Not spending the money.”

“Oh, I never thought of that,” Harry replied. “Look, Coop, is there any way you can put someone out in Blair’s barn? Hide someone? Whoever this is doesn’t intend to barge down his driveway. He’ll sweep down from the mountainside.”

“Harry, can you think of any reason, any reason at all, why someone would want to kill Blair Bainbridge?”

“No.”

A long sigh came through the phone.“Me neither. And I like the guy, but liking someone doesn’t mean they can’t be mixed up in monkey business. We called his mother and father—routine, plus I wondered why he didn’t go home for Christmas or why they didn’t come here. His mother was very pleasant. His father wasn’t rude but I could tell there’s tension there. He disapproves of his son. Calls him a dilettante. No wonder Blair didn’t go home. Anyway, there wasn’t much from them. No red flags went up.”

“Will you put a man out there?”

“I’ll go out myself. Feel better?”

“Yes. I owe you one.”

“No, you don’t. Now sleep tight tonight. Oh, you heard about the dead rat present to Mim?”

“Yeah. That’s odd.”

“I can think of about one hundred people who would like to do that.”

“But would they?”

“No.”

“Are you nervous about this? It’s not over yet. I can feel it in my bones.”

A silence from Coop told Harry what she needed to know. Cynthia finally said,“One way or the other, we’ll figure this out. You take care.”

56

The wind lashed across the meadows in the early morning darkness. Even silk long johns, a cotton T-shirt, a long-sleeved Patagonia shirt, and a subzero down jacket couldn’t stave off the bitter cold. Harry’s fingers and toes ached by the time she reached the barn.

Simon was grateful for the food she brought him. He had stayed in last night. Harry even tossed out some raw hamburger for the owl. Given the mice that crept into the barn when the weather became cruel, Harry needn’t have fed the owl. She dined heartily on what the barn itself could supply, a fact that greatly irritated Mrs. Murphy, who believed that every mouse had her name on it.

When the chores were finished and Harry ventured back out, the wind was blowing harder. She couldn’t see halfway across the meadow, much less over to Blair’s. She was glad she had kept the horses in this morning, even if it would mean more mucking chores.

Tucker and Mrs. Murphy followed on her heels, their heads low, their ears swept back.

“If this ever stops I’m asking the owl to look where those prints were,” Tucker said.

“They’re covered now.” Mrs. Murphy blinked to keep out the snow.

“Who knows what she’ll find? She can see two miles. Maybe more.”

“Oh, Tucker, don’t believe everything she says. She’s such a blowhard, and she probably won’t cooperate.”

Both animals scooted through the door when Harry opened it. The phone was ringing inside. It was seven o’clock.

Cynthia’s voice greeted her “hello” with “Harry, all’s well over here.”

“Good. How was Blair?”

“At first he thought it was silly for me to sleep out in the barn but then he came around.”

“Is he awake yet?”

“Don’t see any lights on in the house. That boy’s got to get himself some furniture.”

“We’re waiting for a good auction.”

“Got enough to eat? I think the electricity might go out and the phone lines might come down if this keeps up.”

“Yeah. Can you get out okay?” Harry asked.

“If not, I’ll spend an interesting day with Blair Bainbridge, I guess.” A distant rumble alerted the young policewoman. “Harry, I’ll call you right back.”

She ran outside and strained her ears. A motor, a deep rumble, cut through even the roar of the wind. The snow was blowing so hard and fast now that Cynthia could barely see. She’d parked her cruiser in front of the house. She heard nothing for a moment and then she heard that deep rumble again. She ran as fast as she could through the deep snow but it was no use. Whoever was rolling down the driveway finally saw the police car and backed out. She ran back into the barn and called Harry.

“Harry, if anyone comes down your driveway other than Susan or Mrs. Hogendobber, call me.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. Listen, I’ve got to get out on the driveway before all the tracks are covered. Do as I say. If I’m not back at the barn, call Blair. If he doesn’t pick up, you call Rick. Hear?”

“I hear.” Harry hung up the phone. She patted Tucker and Mrs. Murphy and was very glad for their sharp ears.

Meanwhile, Cynthia struggled through the blinding snow. She thought she knew where she was going until she bumped into an ancient oak. She’d veered to the right off the driveway. She got back on the driveway again and reached the backup tracks. The tread marks were being covered quickly. If only she had a plaster kit, but she didn’t. By the time she got one this would be gone. She knelt on her hands and knees and puffed away a little snow. Wide tires. Deep snow treads. Tires like that could be on any regular-sized pickup truck or large, heavy, family four-wheel drive like a Wagoneer, a Land Cruiser, or a Range Rover. She hunkered down in the snow and smashed her fist into the powder. It flew up harmlessly. Half of the people in Crozet drove those types of vehicles and the other half drove big trucks.

“Damn, damn, damn!” she shouted out loud, the wind carrying away her curses.

On her way back to the barn she slammed into the corner of the house. There’d be no getting out of Foxden today. She hugged the side of the building and slowly made her way to the back porch. She opened the back door, stepped inside the porch, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it. It wasn’t eight yet and she was exhausted. She could no longer see the barn.

She used the dachshund foot scraper and cleaned off her boots. She unzipped her heavy parka and shook off the snow. She hung it on the hook outside the door to the kitchen.

She stepped into the kitchen and dialed Harry.“You okay?”

“Yeah, no one’s coming down my driveway.”

“Okay, here’s the plan. You can’t get to work today. Mrs. Hogendobber will go in if she can even get down the alleyway. Call her.”

“I’ve never missed a day because of weather.”

“You’re missing today,” Cynthia ordered her. “Blair has that Explorer. We’ll pack up his kittens and him and we’re coming over there. I don’t want you alone, or him alone, for a while anyway.”

“Nobody wantsme.”

“You don’t know that. I can’t take any chances. So, I’ll get him up and we’ll be over there within the hour.”

57

“What pests.” Mrs. Murphy flicked her tail away from Jingle Bells, the calico, who was madly chasing it.

“Human babies are worse.” Tucker ignored the gray kitty, Noel, who climbed up one side of her body only to slide down the other screaming“Wheee!”

Harry, Blair, and Cynthia busied themselves making drawings of each room of Blair’s house. Then they drew furniture for each room, cut it out, and fiddled with different placements.

“Have you told us everything?” Cynthia asked again.

“Yes.” Blair pushed a sofa with his forefinger. “Doesn’t go there.”

“What about this, and put a table behind it? Then put the lamps on that.” Harry arranged the pieces.

“What about a soured business deal?” Cynthia asked.

“I told you, the only deal I made was to buy Foxden … and the tractor at the auction. If something is on my property that is valuable or germane to the case, don’t you think whoever this is would have taken it?”

“I don’t know,” Cynthia said.

“Whoops,” Harry yelled as the lights went out. She ran to the phone and put the receiver to her ear. “Still working.”

The sky darkened and the wind screamed. The storm continued. Fortunately, Harry kept a large supply of candles. They wouldn’t run out.

After supper they sat around the fireplace and told ghost stories. Although the storm slackened, a stiff wind still rattled the shutters on the house. It was perfect ghost story time.

“Well, I’ve heard that Peter Stuyvesant still walks the church down on Second Avenue in New York. You can hear his peg leg tap on the wood. That’s it for me and ghost stories. I was always the kid who fell asleep around the campfire.” Blair smiled.

“There’s a ghost at Castle Hill.” Cynthia mentioned a beautiful old house on Route 22 in Keswick. “A woman appears carrying a candle in one of the original bedrooms. She’s dressed in eighteenth-century clothing and she tells a guest that they ought not to spend the night. Apparently she has appeared to many guests over the last two hundred years.”

“What? Don’t they meet her social approval?” Harry cracked.

“We know their manners won’t be as good,” Blair said. “Socializing has been in one long downward spiral since the French Revolution.”

“Okay.” Cynthia jabbed at Harry. “Your turn.”

“When Thomas Jefferson was building Monticello, he brought over a Scotsman by the name of Dunkum. This highly skilled man bought land below Carter’s Ridge and he built what is now Brookhill, owned by Dr. Charles Beegle and his family, wife Jean, son Brooks, and daughters Lynne and Christina. The Revolutionary War finally went our way and after that Mr. Dunkum built more homes along the foot of the ridge. You can see them along Route Twenty—simple, clean brick work and pleasing proportions. Anyway, as he prospered, less fortunate relatives came to stay with him, one being a widowed sister, Mary Carmichael. Mary loved to garden and she laid out the garden tended today by Jean Beegle. One hot summer day Jean thought she’d run the tractor down the brick path to the mess of vines at the end which had resisted her efforts with the clippers. Jean was determined to wipe them out with the tractor. To her consternation, no sooner did she plunge into the vines than she dropped into a cavity. The tractor didn’t roll over—it just sat in the middle of a hole in the earth. When Jean looked down she beheld a coffin. Needless to say, Jean Beegle burnt the wind getting off that tractor.

“Well, Chuck borrowed a tractor from Johnny Haffner, the tractor man, and together the two men pulled out the Beegles’ tractor. Curiosity got the better of them and they jumped back into the grave and opened the casket. The skeleton of a woman was inside and even a few tatters of what must havebeen a beautiful dress. A wave of guilt washed over both Chuck and Johnny as they closed up the coffin and returned the lady to her eternal slumbers. Then they filled in the cavity.

“That night a loud noise awakened Jean. She heard someone shout three times. Someone—a voice she didn’t recognize—was calling her. ‘Jean Ritenour Beegle, Jean, come to the garden.’

“Well, Jean’s bedroom didn’t have a window on that side, so she went downstairs. She wasn’t afraid, because it was a woman’s voice. I would have been afraid, I think. Anyway, she walked out into her garden and there stood a tall well-figured woman.

“She said, ‘My name is Mary Carmichael and I died here in 1791. As I loved the garden, my brother buried me out here and planted a rosebush over my grave. When he died the new owners forgot that I was buried here and didn’t tend to my rosebush. I died in the kitchen, which used to be in the basement of the house. The fireplace was large and it was so cold. They kept me down there.’

“Jean asked if there was anything she could do to make Mary happy.

“The ghost replied, ‘Plant a rosebush over my grave. I love pink roses. And you know, I built a trellis, which I put up between the two windows.’ She pointed to the windows facing the garden, which would be the parlor. ‘If it would please you and it does look pretty, put up a white trellis and train some yellow tearoses to climb it.’

“So Jean did that, and she says that in the summers on a moonlit night she sometimes sees Mary walking in the garden.”

As the humans continued their ghost stories, Mrs. Murphy gathered the two kittens around her.“Now, Noel and Jingle, let me tell you about a dashing cat named Dragoon. Back in the days of our ancestors …”

“When’s that?” the gray kitten mewed.

“Before we were a country, back when the British ruled. Way back then there was a big handsome cat who used to hang around with a British officer, so they called him Dragoon. Oh, his whiskers were silver and his paws were white, his eyes the brightest green, and his coat a lustrous red. The humans had a big ball one night and Dragoon came. He saw a young white Angora there, wearing a blue silk ribbon as a collar. He walked over to her as other cats surrounded her, so great was her beauty. And he talked to her and wooed her. She said her name was Silverkins. He volunteered to walk Silverkinshome. They walked through the streets of the town and out into the countryside. The crickets chirped and the stars twinkled. As they neared a little stone cottage with a graveyard on the hill, the pretty cat stopped.

“‘I’ll be leaving you here, Dragoon, for my old mother lives inside and I don’t want to wake her.’ Saying that, she scampered away.

“Dragoon called after her, ‘I’ll come for you tomorrow.’

“All the next day Dragoon couldn’t keep his mind on his duties. He thought only of Silverkins. When night approached he walked through the town, ignoring the catcalls of his carousing friends. He walked out on the little country path and soon arrived at the stone cottage. He knocked at the doorand an old cat answered.

“‘I’ve come to call on Silverkins,’ he said to the old white cat.

“‘Don’t jest with me, young tom,’ the old lady cat snarled.

“‘I’m not jesting,’ said he. ‘I walked her home from the ball last evening.’

“‘You’ll find my daughter up on the hill.’ The old cat pointed toward the graveyard and then shut the door.

“Dragoon bounded up the hill but no Silverkins was in sight. He called her name. No answer. He leapt from tombstone to tombstone. Not a sign of her. He reached the end of a row of human markers and he jumped onto a small square tombstone. It read, ‘Here lies my pretty pet, Silverkins. Born 1699. Died 1704.’ And there on her grave was her blue silk ribbon.”

The kittens screamed at the end of the story.

Harry glanced over at the scared babies. Mrs. Murphy was lying on her side in front of them, eyes half-closed.

“Mrs. Murphy, are you picking on those kittens?”

“Hee hee” was all Mrs. Murphy would say.

[Êàðòèíêà: _2.jpg]

58

No goblins bumped in the night; no human horrors either. Harry, Cynthia, and Blair awoke to a crystal-clear day. Harry couldn’t remember when a winter’s day had sparkled like this one.

Perhaps Harry had overreacted. Maybe those tracks belonged to someone looking, illegally, for animals to trap. Maybe the truck or car Cynthia heard coming down Blair’s driveway was simply someone who had lost his way in the snow.

By the time Harry arrived at work she felt a little sheepish about her concerns. Outside the windows she saw road crews maneuvering the big snowplows. One little compact car by the side of the road was being completely covered by snow.

Mrs. Hogendobber bustled around and the two gossiped as they worked. BoomBoom was the first person at the post office. She’d borrowed a big four-wheel-drive Wagoneer from the car dealer just before the storm. She hadn’t bought it yet. “How fortunate to have such a long-term loan,” was Mrs. Hogendobber’s comment.

“Orlando arrives today. The ten-thirty. Blair said he’d pick him up and we’d get together for dinner. Wait until you meet him. He really is special.”

“So’s Fair,” Harry defended her ex. If she’d thought about it she probably would have kept her mouth shut, but that was the trouble: She didn’t think. She said what came into her head at that exact moment.

BoomBoom’s long eyelashes fluttered. “Of course he is. He’s a dear sweet man and he’s been such a comfort to me since Kelly died. I’m very fond of him but well, he is provincial. All he really knows is his profession. Face it, Harry, he bored you too.”

Harry threw the mail she was holding onto the floor. Mrs. Hogendobber wisely came alongside Harry … just in case.

“We all bore one another occasionally. No one is universally exciting.” Harry’s face reddened.

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker pricked their ears.

“Oh, come off it. He wasn’t right for you.” BoomBoom derived a sordid pleasure from upsetting others. Emotions were the only coin BoomBoom exchanged. Without real employment to absorb her, her thoughts revolved around herself and the emotions of others. Sometimes even her pleasures became fatiguing.

“He was for a good long time. Now why don’t you pick up your mail and spare me your expertly made-up face.” Harry gritted her teeth.

“This is a public building and I can do what I want.”

Miranda’s alto voice resonated with authority. “BoomBoom, for a woman who proclaims exaggerated sensitivity, you’re remarkably insensitive to other people. You’ve created an uncomfortable situation. I suggest you think on it at your leisure, which is to say the rest of the day.”

BoomBoom flounced off in a huff. Before the day reached noon she would call everyone she knew to inform them of her precarious emotional state due to the personally abusive behavior of Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber, who crudely ganged up on her. She would also find it necessary to call her psychiatrist and then to find something to soothe her nerves.

Mrs. Hogendobber bent over with some stiffness, scooping up the mail Harry had tossed on the floor.

“Oh, Miranda, I’ll do that. I was pretty silly.”

“You still love him.”

“No, I don’t,” Harry quietly replied, “but I love what we were to each other, and he’s worth loving as a friend. He’ll make some woman out there a good companion. Isn’t that what marriage is about? Companionship? Shared goals?”

“Ideally. I don’t know, Harry, young people today want so much more than we did. They want excitement, romance, good looks, lots of money, vacations all the time. When I married George we didn’t expect that. We expected to work hard together and improve our lot. We scrimped and saved. The fires of romance burned brighter sometimes than others but we were a team.”

Harry thought about what Mrs. Hogendobber said. She also listened as Miranda turned the conversation to church gossip. The best soprano in the choir and the best tenor had started a row over who got the most solos. Mrs. Hogendobber interspersed her pearls of wisdom throughout.

At one o’clock Blair brought in Orlando Heguay. The airplane was late, the terminal crowded, but all was well. Orlando charmed Mrs. Hogendobber. Harry thought he was exactly right for BoomBoom: urbane, wealthy, and incredibly attractive. Whether or not he was a man who needed to give a woman the kind of constant attention BoomBoom demanded would be known in time.

As Blair opened his post box a hairy paw reached out at him. He yanked back his hand.

“Scared you,” Mrs. Murphy laughed.

“You little devil.” Blair reached back into his box and grabbed her paw for a minute.

Orlando walked around and then paused before the photograph of the unidentified victim. Studying it intently, he let out a low whistle.“Good God.”

“I beg your pardon,” Mrs. Hogendobber said.

Harry walked over to explain why it was on the wall but before she could open her mouth Orlando said,“That’s Tommy Norton.”

Everyone turned to him, ashen-faced. Harry spoke first.“You know this man?”

“It’s Tommy Norton. I mean, the hair is wrong and he looks thinner than when I knew him but yes, if it isn’t Tommy Norton it’s his aging double.”

Miranda dialed Rick Shaw before Orlando finished his sentence.

59

After profuse apologies for disrupting Orlando’s holiday, Rick and Cynthia closed the door to Rick’s office. Blair waited outside and read the newspaper.

“Continue, Mr. Heguay.”

“I met Fitz-Gilbert in 1971. We were not close at school. He had a good friend in New York, Tommy Norton. I met Tommy Norton in the summer of 1974. He worked as a gofer in the brokerage house of Kincaid, Foster and Kincaid. I was seventeen that summer and I guess he was fifteen or sixteen. I worked next door at Young and Fulton Brothers. That convinced me I never wanted to be a stockbroker.” Orlando took a breath and continued. “Anyway, we’d have lunch once or twice a week. The rest of the time they’d work us through lunch.”

“We?” Cynthia asked.

“Tommy, Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton, and myself.”

“Go on.” Rick’s voice had a hypnotic quality.

“Well, there’s not much to tell. He was a poor kid from Brooklyn but very bright and he wanted to be like Fitz and me. He imitated us. It was sad, really, that he couldn’t go to prep school, because it would have made him so happy. They weren’t giving out as many scholarships in those days.”