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

“Did he ever come up to Andover to visit?”

“Well, Fitz’s parents were killed in that awful plane crash that summer, and the next year, at school, Fitz was really out of control. Tommy and Fitz were close, though, and Tommy did come up at least once that fall. He fit right in. Since I was a year older than Tommy, I lost touch after graduating and going to Yale. Fitz went to Princeton, once he straightened out, and I don’t know what happened to Tommy. Well, I do remember that he worked again at Kincaid, Foster and Kincaid the following summer and so did Fitz.”

“Can you think of anyone else who might know Tommy Norton?” Rick asked.

“The head of personnel in those days was an officious toad named Leonard, uh, Leonard Imbry. Funny name. If he’s still there he might remember Tommy.”

“What makes you think the photograph reconstruction is Norton?” Cynthia thought Orlando, with his dark hair and eyes, was extremely handsome and she wished she were in anything but a police uniform.

“I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it but the reconstruction had Tommy’s chin, which was prominent. The nose was a little smaller maybe, and the haircut was wrong.” He shrugged. “It looked like an older version of that boy I knew. What happened to him? Before I could get the story from the ladies in the post office you whisked me away.”

Cynthia answered.“The man in the photograph was murdered, his face severely disfigured, and his body dismembered. The fingerprints were literally cut off the fingerpads and every tooth was knocked out of his head. Over a period of days people here kept finding body parts. The head turned up in a pumpkin at our Harvest Festival. It was really unforgivable and there are children and adults who will have nightmares for a long time because of that.”

“Why would anyone want to kill Tommy Norton?” Orlando was shocked at the news.

“That’s what we want to know.” Rick made more notes.

“When was the last time you saw Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton?” Cynthia wished she could think of enough questions to keep him there for hours.

“At my graduation from Andover Academy. His voice had deepened but he was still a little slow in developing. I don’t know if I would recognize him today. I’d like to think that I would.”

“You said he attended Princeton—after he straightened out.”

“Fitz was a mess there for a while after his parents died. He was very withdrawn. None of us boys was particularly adept at handling a crisis like that. Maybe we wouldn’t be adept today either. I don’t know, but he stayed in his room playing Mozart’sRequiem. Over and over.”

“But he stayed in school?” Rick glanced up from his notes.

“Where else could they put him? There were no other relatives, and the executor of his parents’ estate was a New York banker with a law degree who barely knew the boy. He got through the year and then I heard that summer of ’75 that he started to come out of his shell, working back at Kincaid, Foster and Kincaid with Tommy. They were inseparable, those two. Then there was the accident, of course. I never heard of any trouble at Princeton but Fitz and I weren’t that close, and anything I did hear would have been through the grapevine, since we’d all gone off to different colleges. Hewas a good kid, though, and we all felt so terrible for what happened to him. I look forward to seeing him.”

They thanked Orlando, and Blair, too, for waiting. Then Cynthia got on the horn and called Kincaid, Foster and Kincaid. Leonard Imbry still ran personnel and he sounded two years older than God.

Yes, he remembered both boys. Hard to forget after what happened to Fitz. They were hard workers. Fitz was unstable but a good boy. He lost track of both of them when they went off to college. He thought Fitz went to Princeton and Tommy to City College.

Cynthia hung up the phone.“Chief.”

“What?”

“When are Little Marilyn and Fitz returning from the Homestead?”

“What am I, social director of Crozet? Call Herself.”Herself was Rick’s term for Big Marilyn Sanburne.

This Cynthia did. The Hamiltons would be back tonight. She hung up the phone.“Don’t you find it odd that Orlando recognized the photograph, if it is Tommy Norton, and Fitz-Gilbert didn’t?”

“I’m one step ahead of you. We’ll meet them at their door. In the meantime, Coop, get New York to see if anyone in the police department, registrar, anyone, has records on Tommy Norton or Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton. Don’t forget City College.”

“Where are you going?” she asked as he took his coat off the rack.

“Hunting.”

60

In just a few days at the Homestead, Little Marilyn knew she’d gained five pounds. The waffles at breakfast, those large burnished golden squares, could put a pound on even the most dedicated dieter. Then there were the eggs, the rolls, the sweet rolls, the crisp Virginia bacon. And that was only breakfast.

When the telephone rang, Little Marilyn, languid and stuffed, lifted the receiver and said in a relaxed voice,“Hello.”

“Baby.”

“Mother.” Little Marilyn’s shoulder blades tensed.

“Are you having a good time?”

“Eating like piggies.”

“You’ll never guess what’s happened here.”

Little Marilyn tensed again.“Not another murder?”

“No, no, but Orlando Heguay—he knows Fitz from prep school—recognized the unidentified murdered man. He said it was someone called Tommy Norton. I hope this is the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for, but Sheriff Shaw, as usual, appears neither hopeful nor unhopeful.”

The daughter smiled, and although her mother couldn’t see it, it was a false smile, a knee-jerk social response. “Thank you for telling me. I know Fitz will be relieved when I tell him.” She paused. “Why did Rick Shaw tell you who the victim was?”

“He didn’t. You know him. He keeps his cards close to his chest.”

“How did you find out?”

“I have my sources.”

“Oh, come on, Mother. That’s not fair. Tell me.”

“This Orlando fellow walked into the post office and identified the photograph. Right there in front of Harry and Miranda. Not that anyone is one hundred percent sure that’s the victim’s true identity, but well, he seems to think it is.”

“The whole town must know by now,” Little Marilyn half-snorted. “Mrs. Hogendobber is not one to keep things to herself.”

“She can when she has to, but no one instructed her not to tell and I expect that anyone would do the same in her place. Anyway, I think Rick Shaw went over there, slipping and sliding in the snow, and had a sit-down with both of them. I gave him the key to Fitz’s office. Rick said he needed toget back in there too. He thought the fingerprint people might have missed something.”

“Here comes Fitz back from his swim. I’ll let you tell him everything.” She handed the phone to her husband and mouthed the word “Mother.”

He grimaced and took the phone. As Mim spun her story his face whitened. By the time he hung up, his hand was shaking.

“Darling, what’s wrong?”

“They think that body was Tommy Norton. Iknew Tommy Norton. I didn’t think that photo looked like Tommy. Your mother wants me to come home and talk to Rick Shaw immediately. She says it doesn’t look good for the family that I knew Tommy Norton.”

Little Marilyn hugged him.“How awful for you.”

He recovered himself.“Well, I hope there’s been a mistake. Really. I’d hate to think that was … him.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“I think it was 1976.”

“People’s appearances change a lot in those years.”

“I ought to recognize him though. I didn’t think that composite resembled him. Never crossed my mind.

“He had a prominent chin. I remember that. He was very good to me and then we lost track when we went to separate colleges. Anyway, I don’t think boys are good at keeping up with one another the way girls are. You write letters to your sorority sisters. You’re on the phone. Women are better at relationships. Anyway, I always wondered what happened to Tom. Listen, you stay here and enjoy yourself. I’ll drive back to Crozet, if for no other reason than to calm Mother and look at the drawing with new eyes. I’ll fetch you tomorrow. The major roads are plowed. I’ll have no trouble getting through.”

“I don’t want to be here without you, and you shouldn’t have to endure a blast from Mother alone. God forbid she should think our social position is compromised the tiniest bit—the eensiest.”

He kissed her on the cheek.“You stay put, sweetie. I’ll be back in no time. Eat a big dinner for me.”

Little Marilyn knew she wouldn’t change his mind. “I think I’ve already eaten enough.”

“You look gorgeous.”

He changed his clothes and kissed her goodbye. Before he could reach the door the phone rang. Little Marilyn picked up the receiver. Her eyes bugged out of her head.

“Yes, yes, he’s right here.” Little Marilyn, in a state of disbelief, handed the phone to Fitz.

“Hello.” Fitz froze upon hearing Cabell Hall’s voice. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

Little Marilyn started for the suite’s other phone. Fitz grabbed her by the wrist and whispered, “If he hears the click he might hang up.” He returned to Cabell. “Yes, the weather has been bad.” He paused. “In a cabin in the George Washington National Forest? You must be frozen.” Another pause. “Well, if you go through Rockfish Gap I could pick you up on the road there.” Fitz waited. “Yes, it would be frigid to wait, I agree. You say it’s warm in the cabin, plenty of firewood? What if I hiked up to the cabin?” He paused again. “You don’t want to tell me where it is. Cabell, this is ridiculous. Your wife is worried to death. I’ll come and get you and take you home.” He held the receiver away from his ear. “He hung up. Damn!”

“What’s he doing in the George Washington National Forest?” Marilyn asked.

“Says he’d been taking groceries up there for a week before he left. He’s got plenty of food. Went up there because he wanted to think. About what I don’t know. Sounds like his elevator doesn’t go to the top anymore.”

“I’ll call Rick Shaw,” she volunteered.

“No need. I’ll see him after I visit Taxi. She needs to know Cabby’s physically well, if not mentally.”

“Do you know exactly where he is?”

“No. In a cabin not far from Crabtree Falls. The state police can find him though. You stay here. I’ll take care of everything.”

He kissed her again and left.

61

Sheriff Shaw had investigated the theft at Fitz-Gilbert’s office when it was first reported. Now, alone in the office, he sat at the desk. He hoped for a false-bottomed drawer but there wasn’t one. The drawers were filled with beautiful stationery, investment brochures, and company year-end reports. He also found a stack ofPlayboy magazines. He fought the urge to thumb through them.

Then he got down on his hands and knees. The rug, scrupulously clean, yielded nothing.

The kitchen, however, yielded a bottle of expensive port, wine and scotch, crackers, cheese, and sodas. The coffee maker appeared brand-new.

He again got down on his hands and knees, once he opened the closet door. Again it was clean, except for a tuft of blond hair stuck in the corner on the floor.

Rick placed the hair in a small envelope and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

As he closed the door to the office he knew more than when he walked in, but he still didn’t know enough.

He needed to be methodical and cautious before some high-ticket lawyer smashed his case. Those guys could get Sherman’s March reduced to trespassing.

62

Cynthia Cooper discovered that Tommy Norton had never matriculated at City College of New York. By two in the afternoon her ear hurt, she’d been on the phone so long. Finally she hit pay dirt. In the summer of 1976, a Thomas Norton was committed to Central Islip, one of the state’s mental institutions. He was diagnosed as a hebephrenic schizophrenic. Unfortunately, the file was incomplete and the woman on the other end of the phone couldn’t find the name of his next of kin. She didn’t know who admitted him.

Cynthia was then transferred to one of the doctors, who remembered the patient. He was schizophrenic but with the help of drugs had made progress toward limited self-sufficiency in the last five years. Recently he was remitted to a halfway house and given employment as a clerical worker. He was quite bright but often disoriented. The doctor gave a full physical description of the man and also faxed one for Cynthia.

When the photo rolled out of the office fax she knew they’d found Tommy Norton.

She then called the halfway house and discovered that Tommy Norton had been missing since October. The staff had reported this to the police but in a city of nine million people Tommy Norton had simply disappeared.

She roused Rick on his radio. He was very interested in everything she knew. He told her to meet him at Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton’s house with a search warrant.

63

The pale-orange sun set, plunging the temperature into the low twenties. As Venus rose over the horizon she seemed larger than ever in the biting night air. A violent orange outline ran across the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains, transforming the deep snows into golden waves. So deep was the snow that even the broomstraw was engulfed. A thin crust of ice covered the snow.

Giving Orlando the full tour of Crozet wasn’t possible because many of the side roads remained snowed under. Blair asked his friend’s indulgence as he turned down Harry’s driveway at 5:10 P.M. He’d picked up a round black de-icer for her to try in the water trough and he thought tonight would be a good test. If it didn’t work, Paul Summers at Southern States said he could bring it back and get his money refunded.

“I don’t remember you being the country type.” Orlando reached for a hand strap as the vehicle slowly rocked down the driveway. “In fact, I don’t remember you getting up before eleven.”

“Times change and people change with them.” Blair smiled.

Orlando laughed.“Couldn’t have anything to do with the postmistress.”

“Hmmn” was Blair’s comment.

Orlando, serious for a moment, said,“It’s none of my business but she seems like a good person and she’s easy on the eyes. Fresh-looking. Anyway, after what you’ve been through you deserve all the happiness you can find.”

“I loved Robin but I could keep a distance from her. You know, if we’d gotten married I don’t think it would have lasted. We lived a pretty superficial life.”

Orlando sighed.“I guess I do too. But look at the business I’m in. If you want the clients with deep pockets, you shmooze with them. I envy you.”

“Why?”

“Because you had the guts to get out.”

“I’ll still go on shoots from time to time until I get too wrinkled or they don’t want me anymore. See, you were smarter than I was. You picked a career where age is irrelevant.”

Orlando smiled when the clapboard house and barn came into view.“Clean lines.”

“She has little sense of decoration, so tread lightly, okay? I mean, she’s not a blistering idiot but she hasn’t a penny, really, so she can’t do much.”

“I read you loud and clear.”

They pulled up in front of the barn and the two men got out. Harry was mucking the stalls. Her winter boots bore testament to the task. The doors to the stalls hung open as the used shavings were tossed into the wheelbarrow. At the end of the aisle another wheelbarrow, filled with sweet-smelling shavings, stood. The door to the tack room was open also. Tucker greeted everyone and Mrs. Murphy stuck her head out of the loft opening. An errant sliver of hay dangled on her whisker. When Harry saw the two men she waved and called out,“Hola!” This amused Orlando.

“Who is it?” Simon asked.

“Blair and his friend Orlando.”

“She won’t bring them up here, will she?” The possum nervously paced.“She brought Susan up once and I didn’t think that was right.”

“Because of the earring. That was a special case. They won’t climb up the ladder. The one guy’s too well-dressed, anyway.”

“Shut up down there.” The owl ruffled her feathers, turned around, and settled down while expanding on everyone’s deficiencies.

Down below Orlando admired the barn and the beautiful construction work. The barn had been built in the late 1880’s, the massive square beams prepared to bear weight for centuries to come.

Tucker barked,“Someone’s coming.”

A white Range Rover pulled up next to Blair’s Explorer. Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton opened the door and hurried into the barn.

“Orlando, I’ve been looking at Blair’s for you, and then thought you might be here.”

“Fitz … is it really you?” Orlando squinted. “You look different.”

“Fatter, older. A little bald.” Fitz laughed. “You look the same, only better. It’s amazing what the years do to people—inside and outside.”

As the two men shook hands, Harry noticed a bulge, chest-high, in Fitz’s bomber jacket. This wasn’t an ordinary bomber jacket—it was lined with goose down so Fitz could be both warm and dashing.

Tucker lifted her nose and sniffed.“Murphy, Murphy.”

The cat again stuck her head out the opening.“What?”

“Fitz has the stench of fear on him.”

Mrs. Murphy wiggled her nose. A frightened human being threw off a powerful, acrid scent. It was unmistakable, so strong that a human with a good nose—for a human—could even smell it once they had learned to identify it.“You’re right, Tucker.”

“Something’s wrong,” Tucker barked.

Harry leaned down to pat the corgi’s head. “Pipe down, short stuff.”

Mrs. Murphy called down,“Maybe he found another body.” She stopped herself. If he’d found another body he would have said that immediately.“Tucker, get behind him.”

The little dog slunk behind Fitz, who continued to chat merrily with Orlando, Blair, and Harry. Then he changed gears.“What made you think that picture was Tommy Norton?”

Orlando tipped his head.“Looked like him to me. How is it you didn’t notice?”

Fitz unzipped his jacket and pulled out a lethal, shiny .45.“I did, as a matter of fact. You three get against the wall there. I don’t have time for an extended farewell. I need to get to the bank and the airport before Rick Shaw finds out I’m here and I’ll be damned if you’re going to wreck things for me—so.”

As Orlando stood there, puzzled, Tucker sank her teeth up to the gums into Fitz’s leg. He screamed and whirled around, the tough dog hanging on. The humans scattered. Harry ran into one of the stalls, Orlando dove into the tack room, shutting the door, and Blair lunged for the wall phone in the aisle, but Fitz recovered enough to fire.

Blair grunted and rolled away into Gin’s stall.

“You all right?” Harry called. She didn’t see Blair get hit.

“Yeah,” Blair, stunned, said through gritted teeth. The force of being struck by a bullet is as painful as the lead intruding into the flesh. Blair’s shoulder throbbed and stung.

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Tucker let go of Fitz’s leg and scrambled to the barn doors, bullets flying after her. Once she wriggled out of the barn she slunk alongside the building. Tucker didn’t know what to do.

Mrs. Murphy, who had been peering down from the loft, ran to the side and peeked through an opening in the boards.“Tucker, Tucker, are you all right?”

“Yes.” Tucker’s voice was throaty and raw.“We’ve got to save Mother.”

“See if you can get Tomahawk and Gin Fizz up to the barn.”

“I’ll try.” The corgi set out into the pastures. Fortunately, the cold had hardened the crust of the snow and she could travel on the surface. A few times she sank into the powder but she struggled out.

Simon, scared, shivered next to Mrs. Murphy.

Down below, Fitz slowly stalked toward the stalls. The cat again peered down. She realized that he would be under the ladder in a few moments.

Harry called out,“Fitz, why did you kill those people?” She played for time.

Mrs. Murphy hoped her mother could stall him, because she had a desperate idea.

“Ben got greedy, Harry. He wanted more and more.”

As Fitz spoke, Orlando, flattened against the wall, moved nearer to the door of the tack room.

“Why did you pay him off in the first place?”

“Ah, well, that’s a long story.” He moved a step closer to the loft opening.

Tucker, panting, reached Tomahawk first.“Come to the barn, Tommy. There’s trouble inside. Fitz-Gilbert wants to kill Mom.”

Tomahawk snorted, called Gin, and they thundered toward the barn, leaving Tucker to follow as best she could.

Inside, the tiger cat heard the hoofbeats. Their pasture was on the west side of the barn. She vaulted over hay bales and called through a space in the siding.“Can you jump the fence?”

Gin answered,“Not with our turn-out rugs in this much snow.”

Simon wrung his pink paws.“Oh, this is awful.”

“Crash the fence then. Make as much noise as you can but count to ten.” Tucker caught up to the horses.“Tucker,” Mrs. Murphy called,“help them count to ten. Got it? Slow.” She spun around and called to Simon over her shoulder.“Help me, Simon.”

The gray possum shuttled over the timothy and alfalfa as quickly as he could. He joined Mrs. Murphy at the south side of the barn. Hay flew everywhere as the cat clawed at a bale.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting the blacksnake. She’s hibernating, so she won’t curl around us and spit and bite.”

“Well, she’s going to wake up!” Simon’s voice rose.

“Worry about that later. Come on, help me get her out of here.”

“I’m not touching her!” Simon backed up.

At that moment Mrs. Murphy longed for her corgi friend. Much as Tucker griped and groaned at Mrs. Murphy, she had the heart of a warrior. Tucker would have picked up the snake in a heartbeat.

“Harry has taken good care of you,” the cat pleaded.

Simon grimaced.“Ugh.” He hated the snake.

“Simon, there’s not a moment to lose!” Mrs. Murphy’s pupils were so large Simon could barely see the gorgeous color of her iris.

A shadowy, muffled sound overhead startled them. The owl alighted on the hay bale. Outside, the horses could be heard making a wide circle. Within seconds they’d be smashing to bits the board fencing by the barn. In her deep, operatic voice the owl commanded,“Go to the ladder, both of you. Hurry.”

Bits of alfalfa wafted into the air as Mrs. Murphy sped toward the opening. Simon, less fleet of foot, followed. The owl hopped down and closed her mighty talons over the sleeping four-foot-long blacksnake. Then she spread her wings and rose upward. The snake, heavy, slowed her down more than she anticipated. Her powerful chest muscles lifted her up and she quietly glided to where the cat and the possum waited. She held her wings open for a landing, flapped once to guide her, and then softly touched down next to Mrs. Murphy. She left the snake, now groggy, at the cat’s paws. She opened her wide wingspan and soared upward to her roost. Mrs. Murphy had no time to thank her. Outside, the sound of splintering wood, neighing, and muffled hoofbeats in the snow told her she had to act. Tucker barked at the top of her lungs.

“Pick up your end,” Mrs. Murphy firmly ordered Simon, who did as he was told. He was now more frightened of Mrs. Murphy than of the snake.

Fitz, distracted for a moment by the commotion outside, turned his head toward the noise. He was close to the loft opening. The cat, heavy snake in her jaws, Simon holding its tail, flung the snake onto Fitz’s shoulders. By now the blacksnake was awake enough to curl around his neck for a moment. She was desperately trying to get her bearings and Fitz screamed to high heaven.

As he did so Mrs. Murphy launched herself from the loft opening and landed on Fitz’s back.

“Don’t do it!” Simon yelled.

The cat, no time to answer, scrambled with the snake underfoot as Fitz bellowed and attempted to rid himself of his tormentors. Mrs. Murphy mercilessly shredded his face with her claws. As she tore away at Fitz she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Blair come hurtling out of the stall.

“Orlando!” Blair called.

No sooner had he hollered for his friend than Harry, having shed her winter parka, moved from Tomahawk’s stall like a streak.

Mrs. Murphy grabbed for Fitz’s right eye.

He fired the gun in the air as the cat blinded him. Instinctively he covered the damaged eye with his right hand, the gun hand, and that fast, Harry hit him at the knees. He went down with an“oomph.” The snake hit the ground with him. Mrs. Murphy gracefully jumped off. Tucker wiggled back into the barn.

“Get his gun hand!” Mrs. Murphy screeched.

Tucker raced for the flailing man. Fitz kicked Harry away and she lurched against the wall with a thud. Blair struggled to keep Fitz down but his one arm dangled uselessly. Orlando crept out of the tack room and, seeing the situation, swallowed hard, then joined the fight.

“Jesus!” Fitz bellowed as the dog bit clean through his wrist, pulverizing some of the tiny bones. His fingers opened and the gun was released.

“Get the gun!” Blair hit Fitz hard with his good fist, striking him squarely in the solar plexus. If he hadn’t been wearing the down bomber jacket, Fitz would have been gasping.

Harry dove for the gun, skidding across the aisle on her stomach. She snatched it as Fitz kicked Blair in the groin. Orlando hung on his back like a tick. Fitz possessed the strength of a madman, or a cornered rat. He raced backward and squashed Orlando on the wall. Tucker kept nipping at his heels.

Fitz whirled around and beheld Harry pointing the gun at him. Blood and clear fluid coursed down from his sightless right eye. He moved toward Harry.

“You haven’t got the guts, Mary Minor Haristeen.”

Blair, panting from the effort and the pain, got between Fitz and Harry while Orlando, flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him, sucked wind like a fish out of water.

Her fur puffed out so she was double her size, Mrs. Murphy balanced herself on a stall door. If she had to, she’d launch another attack. Meanwhile, the blacksnake, half in a daze, managed to slither into Tomahawk’s stall to bury herself in shavings. Simon stuck his head out of the loft opening. His lower jaw hung slack.

“You haven’t got a prayer, Fitz. Give up.” Blair held out his hand to stop the advancing man.

“Fuck off, faggot.”

Blair had been called a faggot so many times it didn’t faze him—that and the fact that the gay men he knew were good people. “Hold it right there.”

Fitz swung at Blair, who ducked.

“Get out of the way, Blair.” Harry held the gun steady and true.

“You’ll never shoot. Not you, Harry.” Fitz laughed, a weird, high-pitched sound.

“Get out of the way, Blair. I mean it.” Harry sounded calm but determined.

Orlando struggled to his feet and ran to the phone. He dialed 911 and haltingly tried to explain.

“Just tell them Harry Haristeen, Yellow Mountain Road. Everybody knows everybody,” she called to Orlando.

“But everybody doesn’t know everybody, Harry. You don’t know me. You didn’t want to know me.” Fitz kept stalking her.

“I liked you, Fitz. I think you’ve gone mad. Now stop.” She didn’t back up as he advanced.

“Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton is dead. He went to pieces.” Fitz laughed shrilly.

Orlando hung up the phone. Blair’s face froze. They couldn’t believe their ears.

“What do you mean?” Orlando asked.

Fitz half-turned to see him with his good eye.“I’m Tommy Norton.”

“But you can’t be!” Orlando’s lungs still ached.

“Oh, but I am. Fitz lost his mind, you know. Off and on, and then finally … off.” Fitz, the man they knew as Fitz, waved his hand in the air at “off.” “Half the time he didn’t know his own name but he knew me. I was his only friend. He trusted me. After that car accident we both hadto have plastic surgery. A little nose work for him, plus my chin was reduced while his was built up. He emerged looking more like Tommy Norton and I looked more like Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton. Once the swelling went down, anybody would have taken us for brothers. And as we were still young men, not fully matured, people would readily accept those little changes when I next met them: the deeper voice, the filled-out body. It was so easy. When he finally lost it completely, the executor and I put the new Tommy in Central Islip. As for my family—my father had left my mother when I was six. She was generally so damned drunk she was glad to be rid of me, assuming she even noticed.”

“The executor! Wasn’t Cabell the executor?” Harry asked.

“Yes. He was handsomely paid and was a good executor. We stayed close after he moved from New York to Virginia. Cabell even introduced me to my wife. He took his cut and all went well. Until ‘Tommy’ showed up.”

A siren wailed in the distance.

“All you rich people. You don’t know what it’s like. Money is worth killing for. Believe me. I’d do it again. Fitz would still be alive if he hadn’t wandered down here looking for me. I guess he was like England’s George the Third—he would suffer years of insanity and then snap out ofit. He’d be lucid again. I was easy to find. Little Marilyn and I regularly appear in society columns. Plus, all he would have to do was call his old bank and track down his executor. He was smart enough to do that. As pieces of his past came back to him he knew he was Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton. Well, I couldn’t have that, could I? I was better at being Fitz-Gilbert than he was. He didn’t need his money. He would have just faded out again and all that money would have been useless, untouchable.”

The siren howled louder now and Tommy Norton, thinking Harry had grown less vigilant, leapt toward her. A spit of flame flashed from the muzzle of the gun. Tommy Norton let out a howl, deep and guttural, and clutching his knee, fell to the ground. Harry had blown apart his kneecap. Undaunted, he crawled toward her.

“Kill me. I’d rather be dead. Kill me, because if I get to you, I’ll kill you.”

Blair got behind him, putting his knee in Tommy’s back while wrapping his good arm around the struggling man’s neck. “Give it up, man.”

The metal doors of the barn squeaked as they were rolled back. Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper, guns drawn, burst into the barn. Behind them stood Tomahawk and Gin Fizz, splinters of the fence scattered in the snow, the fronts of their blankets a mess.

“Did we do a good job?” they nickered.

“The best,” Mrs. Murphy answered, her fur now returning to normal.

Cynthia attended to Blair.“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“I think I’d get there faster if I drove myself in the Explorer.”

“I’ll take you.”

Tommy sat on the floor, blood spurting from his knee and his eye, yet he seemed beyond pain. Perhaps his mind couldn’t accept what had just happened to him emotionally and physically.

“No, you won’t. Both these men need care.” Rick pointed for Orlando to call the hospital and he gave the number. “Tell them Sheriff Shaw is here. On the double.”

As Harry and Blair filled in the officers, Tommy would laugh and correct little details.

“What was Ben Seifert’s connection?” Rick wanted to know.

“Accidental. Stumbled on Cabell Hall’s second set of books, the ones where he accounted for my payments. Cabell is somewhere up in the mountains, by the way. He ran away because he thought I’d kill him, I guess. He’ll come down in good time. Anyway, Ben proved useful. He fed me information on who was near bankruptcy, and I’d buy their land or lend them money at a high interest rate. So I started to pay him off, too, but …” Tommy gasped as a jolt of pain finally reached his senses.

Harry walked over to Mrs. Murphy and picked her off the stall door. She buried her face in the cat’s fur. Then she hunkered down to kiss Tucker. Tears rolled down Harry’s cheeks.

Blair put his good arm around her. She could smell the blood soaking through his shirt and his jacket.

“Let’s take this off.” She helped him remove the jacket. He winced. Cynthia came over, while Rick kept his revolver trained on Tommy.

“Still in there.” Cynthia referred to the bullet. “I hope it didn’t shatter any bone.”

“Me too.” Blair was starting to feel woozy. “I think I better sit for a minute.”

Harry helped him to a chair in the tack room.

Orlando stood next to Rick. He stared at this man whom he once knew.“Tom, you passed, you know.”

Tiny bits of patella were scattered on the barn aisle. A faint smile crossed Tom’s features as he fought back his agony. “Yeah, I fooled everybody. Even that insufferable snob, that bitch of a mother-in-law.” A dark pain twisted his face. His features contorted and he fought for control. “I would never have been able to marry Little Marilyn. Fitz-Gilbert could marry her. Tommy Norton couldn’t.”

“Maybe you’re selling her short.” Orlando’s voice was soothing.

“She’s controlled by her mother” was the matter-of-fact reply. “But you know what’s funny? I learned to love my wife. I never thought I could love anybody.” He looked as if he would weep.

“How much was the Hamilton fortune worth?” Sheriff Shaw asked.

“When I inherited it, so to speak, it was worth twenty-one million. With Cabell’s management and my own attention to it, once I came of age it had grown to sixty-four million. There are no heirs. No Hamiltons are left. Before I killed Fitz, I asked if he had children and he said no.” Tommy deliberately did not look at his knee, as if not seeing it would control the pain.

“Who will get the money?” Orlando wanted to know. After all, money is fascinating.

“Little Marilyn. I made sure of that twice over. She’s the recipient of my will and Fitz-Gilbert’s, the one he signed in my office that October day. Trusting as a lamb. It might take a while but one way or the other my wife gets that money.”

“Exactly how did you kill Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton?” Cynthia inquired.

“Ben panicked. Typical. Weak and greedy. I always told Cabell that Ben could never run Allied after Cabell retired. He didn’t believe me. Anyway, Ben was smart enough to get Fitz in his car and out of the bank before he caused an even greater scene or blurted out who he was. He drove him to my office. Ben was prepared to hang around and become a nuisance. I told him to go back to the bank, that Fitz and I would reach some accord. I said this in front of Fitz. Ben left. Fitz was all right for a bit. Then he became angry when I told him about his money. I made so much more with it than he ever could have! I offered to split it with him. That seemed fair enough. He became enraged. One thing led to another and he swung at me. That’s how my office was wrecked.”

“And you stole the office money from yourself?” Cynthia added.

“Of course. What’s two hundred dollars and a CD player, which is what I listed as missing?” Sweat drenched Tommy’s face.

“So, how did you kill him?” She pressed on.

“With a paperweight. He wasn’t very strong and the paperweight was heavy. I caught him just right, I suppose.”

“Or just wrong,” Harry said.

Tommy shrugged and continued.“No matter. He’s dead now. The hard part was cutting up the body. Joints are hell to cut through.”

Rick picked up the questioning.“Where’d you do that?”

“Back on the old logging trail off Yellow Mountain Road. I waited until night. I stored the body in the closet in my office, picked him up, and then took him out on the logging road. Burying the hands and legs was easy until the storm came up. I never expected it to be that bad, but then everything was unexpected.”

“What about the clothes?” Rick scribbled in his notebook.

“Threw them in the dumpster behind Safeway—the teeth too. If it hadn’t rained so hard and that damned dog hadn’t found the hand, nobody would know anything. Everything would be just as it was … before.”

“You think Ben and Cabell wouldn’t have given you trouble?” Harry cynically interjected.

“Ben would have, most likely. Cabell stayed cool until Ben turned up dead.” Tom leaned his head against the wall and shook with pain and fatigue. “Then he got squirrely. Take the money and run became his theme song. Crazy talk. It takes weeks to liquidate investments. Months. Although as a precaution I always kept a lot of cash in my checking account.”

“Well, you might have gotten away with murder, and then again you might not have.” Rick calmly kept writing. “But the torso and the head in the pumpkin—you were pushing it, Tommy. You were pushing it.”

He laughed harshly.“The satisfaction of seeing Mim’s face.” He laughed again. “That was worth it. I knew I was safe. Sure, the torso in the boathouse pointed to obvious hostility against Marilyn Sanburne but so what? The pieces of body in the old cemetery—considering what happened to Robin Mangione—was sure to throw you off the track at some point. I copied her murder to make Blair the prime suspect, just in case something should go wrong. I had backup plans to contend with people—not dogs.” He sighed, then smiled. “But the head in the pumpkin—that was a stroke of genius.”

“You ruined the Harvest Fair for the whole town,” Harry accused him.

“Oh, bullshit, Harry. People will be telling that story for decades, centuries. Ruined it? I made it into a legend!”

“How’d you do it? In the morning?” Cynthia was curious.

“Sure. Jim Sanburne and I catalogued the crafts and the produce. Since he was judging the produce, we decided it wouldn’t be fair for him to prejudge it in any way. I planned to put the head in a pumpkin anyway—another gift for Mim—but this was too good to pass up. Jim was in the auditoriumand I was in the gym. We were alone after the people dropped off their entries. It was so easy.”

“You were lucky,” Harry said.

Tom shook his head as if trying to clear it.“No, I wasn’t that lucky. People see what they want to see. Think of how much we miss every day because we discount evidence, because odd things don’t add up to our vision of the world as it ought to be, not as it is. You were all easy to fool. It never occurred to Jim to tell Rick that I wasalone with the pumpkins. Not once. People were looking for a homicidal maniac … not me.”

The ambulance siren drew closer.“My wife saw what she wanted to see. That night I came home from Sloan’s she thought I was drunk. I wasn’t. We had our sherry nightcap and I took the precaution of putting a sleeping pill in hers. After she went to sleep I went out, got rid of that spineless wonder, Ben Seifert, and when I got back I crawled into bed for an hour and she was none the wiser. I pretended to wake up hung over, as opposed to absolutely exhausted, and she accepted it.”

“Then what was the point of the postcards?” Harry felt anger rising in her face now that the adrenaline from the struggle was ebbing.

“Allied National has one of those fancy desk-top computers. So do most of the bigger businesses in Albemarle County, as I’m sure you found out, Sheriff, when you tried to hunt one down.”

“I did,” came the terse reply.

“They’re not like typewriters, which are more individual. By now Cabell was getting nervous, so we cooked up the postcard idea. He thought it would cast more suspicion on Blair, since he didn’t receive one. Although by that time few people really believed Blair had done it. Cabell wanted to play up the guilty newcomer angle and get you off the scent. Not that I worried about the scent. Everyone was so far away from the truth, but Cabell was worried. I did it for fun. It was enjoyable, jerking a string and watching you guys jump. And the gossip mill.” He laughed again. “Unreal—you people are absolutely unreal. Someone thinks it’s revenge. Someone else thinks it’s demonology. I learned more about people through this than if I had been a psychiatrist.”

“What did you learn?” Harry’s right eyebrow arched upward.

“Maybe I reconfirmed what I always knew.” The ambulance pulled into the driveway. “People are so damn self-centered they rarely see anybody or anything as it truly is because they’re constantly relating everything back to themselves. That’s why they’re so easy to fool. Think about it.” And with that his energy drained away. He could no longer hold his head up. Pain conquered even his remarkable willpower.

As the ambulance carried Tommy Norton away, Harry knew she’d be thinking about it for years to come.

64

The fire crackled, arching up the chimney. Outside the fourth storm of this remarkable winter crept to the top of the mountains’ peaks.

Blair, his arm in a sling, Harry, Orlando, Mrs. Hogendobber, Susan and Ned, Cynthia Cooper, Market and Pewter, and the Reverend Jones and Carol gathered before the fire.

While Blair was in the hospital enduring the cold probe to find the bullet, Cynthia had called Susan and Miranda to tell them what happened and to suggest that they bring food to Harry’s. Then she dispatched an officer to Florence Hall’s to break the news to her of her husband’s complicity as gently as possible. The state police might not find Cabell tonight but after the storm they’d flush him out of his cabin.

Orlando had stayed at the farm while Harry had followed the ambulance in the Explorer. He cooked pasta while the friends arrived. Tomorrow night would be time enough for him to see BoomBoom.

Rick organized guards for Norton while the doctors patched him up. He and Cynthia then enjoyed telling the reporters and TV crews how they apprehended this dangerous criminal. Then Rick let Cynthia join her friends.

While the women organized the food, Reverend Jones, after declaring himself a male chauvinist, went out and repaired the fence lines. His version of being a male chauvinist meant doing the chores he thought were hard and dirty. The result was that, behind his back, the women dubbed him the“male chauvinist pussycat.” Market lent him a hand and within forty-five minutes they had replaced the panels and cleaned up the mess. Then they attended to the horses. Fortunately, the blankets had absorbed the damage. Both Tomahawk and Gin Fizz were none the worse for wear and they patiently waited in their stalls with the doors open—in the hurry to get Blair and Tommy to the hospital, no one had thought to put the horses in their stalls and close the doors.

Sitting on the floor, plates in their laps, the friends tried to fathom how something like this could happen. Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker circled the seated people like sharks, should a morsel fall from a plate.

“What about the tracks behind my house?” Blair stabbed at his hot chicken salad.

Cynthia said,“We found snowshoes in Fitz’s—I mean Tommy Norton’s—Range Rover. He dropped the earring back there. There wasn’t anything he could do about that mistake but it was the earring that rattled him. I mean, after the real Fitz initially shocked him. Anyway, he wanted to know how quickly he could get back here in the snow if he had to, if you or Orlando, most likely, proved difficult. He was performing a dry run, I think, or he was hoping to head you off before Orlando got here. He must have been getting pretty shaky knowing about Orlando’s visit. Anything to prevent it would have been worth the risk.”

“What would I have done?” Orlando asked.

“He wasn’t sure. Remember, his whole life, the plan of many years, was jeopardized when the real Fitz showed up. Ben Seifert used the event to extort more money out of him. He was getting nervous. What if you noticed something, which, unlikely as it may have seemed to you, was not unlikely to him? You knew him before he was Fitz-Gilbert. The impossible was becoming possible,” Cynthia pointed out. “And it turned out you did cause trouble. You recognized the face in the photograph. The face that must have cost a fortune in plastic surgery.”

“What about the earring?” Carol was curious.

“We’ll never really know,” Harry answered. “But I remember Little Marilyn saying that she thought it must have popped off when she took her sweater off in the car, the Range Rover. Tommy had the body in a plastic bag on the front floor, and the sharp part of the earring, the part that pierces one’s ear, probably got stuck on the bag or in a fold of the bag. Given his hurry he didn’t notice. All we do know is that Little Marilyn’s earring showed up in a possum’s nest miles away from where she last remembered wearing it, and there’s no way the animal would have traveled the four miles to her place.”

“Does Little Marilyn know?” Mrs. Hogendobber felt sympathy for the woman.

“She does,” Cynthia told her. “She still doesn’t believe it. Mim does, of course, but then she’ll believe bad about anybody.”

This made everyone laugh.

“Did anyone in this room have a clue that it might be Fitz?” Mrs. Hogendobber asked. “Tommy. I can’t get used to calling him Tommy. I certainly didn’t.”

Neither had anyone else.

“He was brilliant in his way.” Orlando opened a delicate biscuit to butter it. “He knew very early that people respond to surfaces, just as he said. Once he realized that Fitz was losing it, he concocted a diabolically clever yet simple plan to become Fitz. When he showed up at Princeton as afreshman, hewas Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton. He was more Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton than Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton. I remember when I left for Yale my brother said that now I could become a new person if I wanted to. It was a new beginning. In Tommy’s case that was literal.”

Blair took that in, then said,“I don’t believe he ever thought he would have to kill anyone. I just don’t.”

“Not then,” Cynthia said.

“Money changes people.” Carol stated the obvious, except that to many the obvious is overlooked. “He’d become habituated to power, to material pleasures, and he loved Little Marilyn.”

“Love or money,” Harry half-whispered.

“What?” Mrs. Hogendobber wanted to know everything.

“Love or money. That’s what people kill for… .” Harry’s voice trailed off.

“Yes, we did have that discussion once.” Mrs. Hogendobber reached for another helping of macaroni and cheese. It was sinfully tasty. “Maybe the road to Hell is paved with dollar bills.”

“If that’s the center of your life,” Blair added. “You know, I read a lot of history. I like knowing other people have been here before me. It’s a comfort. Well, anyway, Marie Antoinette and Louis the Sixteenth became better people once they fell from power, once the money was taken away.Perhaps somebody else would actually become a better person if he or shedid have money. I don’t know.”

The Reverend considered this.“I suppose some wealthy people become philanthropists, but it’s usually at the end of their lives when Heaven has not been secured as the next address.”

As the group debated and wondered about this detail or that glimpse of the man they knew as Fitz, Harry got up and put on her parka.“You all, I’ll be back in a minute. I forgot to feed the possum.”

“In another life you were Noah,” Herbie chuckled.

Mrs. Hogendobber cast the Lutheran minister a reproving glare.“Now, Reverend, you don’t believe in past lives, do you?”

Before that subject could flare up, Harry was out the back door, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker tagging along. Pewter elected to stay in the kitchen.

She slid back the barn doors just enough for her to squeeze through to switch on the lights. It was hard to believe that a few hours ago she nearly met her death in this barn, the place that always made her happy.

She shook her head as if to clear the cobwebs. Mostly she wanted to reassure herself she was alive. Mrs. Murphy led the way, and Harry crawled up the ladder, Tucker under her arm, and handed the food to Simon, who was subdued.

Mrs. Murphy rubbed against the little fellow.“You done good, Simon.”

“Mrs. Murphy, that was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. There’s something wrong with people.”

“Some of them,” the cat replied.

Harry watched the two animals and wondered at their capacity to communicate and she wondered, too, at how little we really know of the animal world. We’re so busy trying to break them, train them, get them to do our bidding, how can we truly know them? Did the masters on the plantation ever know the slaves, and does a man ever know his wife if he thinks of himself as superior—or vice versa? She sat in the hay, breathing in the scent, and a wave of such gratitude flushed through her body. She didn’t know much but she was glad to be alive.

Mrs. Murphy crawled in her lap and purred. Tucker, solemnly, leaned against Harry’s side.

The cat craned her head upward and called,“Thanks.”

The owl hooted back,“Forget it.”

Tucker observed,“I thought you didn’t like humans.”

“Don’t. I happen to like the blacksnake less than I like humans.” She spread her wings in triumph and laughed.

The cat laughed with her.“You like Harry—admit it.”

“I’ll never tell.” The owl lifted off her perch in the cupola and swept down right in front of Harry, startling her. Then she gained loft and flew out the large fan opening at the end of the barn. A night’s hunting awaited her, at least until the storm broke.

Harry backed down the ladder, Tucker under her arm. Harry stood in the center of the aisle for a moment.“I’ll never know what got into you two,” she addressed the horses, “but I’m awfully glad. Thank you.”

They looked back with their gentle brown eyes. Tomahawk stayed in one corner of his stall while Gin, sociable, hung her head over the Dutch door.

“And Mrs. Murphy, I still don’t know how the blacksnake came flying out of the loft, followed by you. I guess I’ll never know. I guess I won’t know a lot of things.”

“Put her back up in her place,” Mrs. Murphy suggested,“or she’ll freeze to death.”

“She doesn’t know what you’re talking about.” Tucker scratched at Tomahawk’s stall door and whined.“Is this the one she hid in?” the dog asked the cat.

“Under the shavings in there somewhere.” The tiger’s whiskers swept forward as she joined Tucker in clawing at the door.

She knew the snake would be there but nonetheless it always made her jump when she saw one. Harry, curious, opened the door. Now she knew why Tomahawk was in one corner of his stall. He did not like snakes and he said so.

“Here she is.” Tucker stood over the snake.

Harry saw the snake, partially covered by shavings.“Is she alive?” She knelt down and placed her hand behind the animal’s neck. Gently she lifted the snake and only then did she realize how big the reptile was. Harry suffered no special fear of snakes but it couldn’t be said that she wanted to hold one, either. Nonetheless, she felt some responsibility for this blacksnake. The animal moved a bit. Tomahawk complained, so they backed out of the stall.

Mrs. Murphy climbed up the ladder.“I’ll show you.”

Harry racked her brain to think of a warm spot. Other than the pipes under her kitchen sink, only the loft came to mind, so she climbed back up.

The cat ran to her and ran away. Harry watched with amusement. Mrs. Murphy had to perform this act four times before Harry had enough sense to follow her.

Simon grumbled as they passed him,“Don’t you put that old bitch near me.”

“Don’t be a fuss,” the cat chided. She led Harry to the snake’s nest.

“Look at that,” Harry exclaimed. She carefully placed the snake in her hibernating quarters and covered her with loose hay. “The Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform,” she said out loud. Her mother used to say that to her. The Lord performed his or her wonders today with a snake, a cat, a dog, and two horses. Harry had no idea that she’d had more animal help than that, but she did know she was here by the grace of God. Tommy Norton would have shot her as full of holes as Swiss cheese.

As she closed up the barn and walked back to the house, a few snowflakes falling, she recognized that she had no remorse for shooting that man in the kneecap. She would have killed him if it had been necessary. In that respect she realized she belonged to the animal world. Human morality often seems at a variance with Nature.

Fair Haristeen’s truck churned, sliding down the driveway. He hurriedly got out and grabbed Harry in his arms. “I just heard. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She nodded, suddenly quite exhausted.

“Thank God, Harry, I didn’t know what you meant to me until I, until I …” He couldn’t finish his sentence. He hugged her.

She hugged him hard, then released him.“Come on. Our friends are inside. They’ll be glad to see you. Blair was shot, you know.” She talked on and felt such love for Fair, although it was no longer romantic. She wasn’t taking him back, but then he wasn’t asking her to come back. They’d sort it out in good time.

When they walked into the kitchen, a guilty, fat gray cat looked at them from the butcher block, her mouth full. She had demolished an entire ham biscuit, the incriminating crumbs still on her long whiskers.

“Pewter,” Harry said.

“I eat when I’m nervous or unhappy.” And indeed she was wretched for having missed all the action.“Of course, I eat when I’m relaxed and happy too.”

Harry petted her, put her down, and then thought her friends deserved better than canned food tonight. She put ham biscuits on the floor. Pewter stood on her hind legs and scratched Harry’s pants.

“More?”

“More,” the gray cat pleaded.

Harry grabbed another biscuit, plus some turkey Miranda had brought, and placed it on the floor.

“I don’t see why you should get treats. You didn’t do anything,” Mrs. Murphy growled as she chewed her food.

The gray cat giggled.“Who said life was fair?”

3. MURDER AT MONTICELLO

1

Laughing, Mary Minor Haristeen studied the nickel in her upturned palm. Over the likeness of Monticello was inscribed our nation’s motto, E Pluribus Unum. She handed the nickel to her older friend, Mrs. Miranda Hogendobber. “What do you think?”

“That nickel isn’t worth a red cent.” Mrs. Hogendobber pursed her melon-tinted lips. “And the nickel makes Monticello appear so big and impersonal when it’s quite the reverse, if you’ll forgive the pun.”

The two women, one in her mid-thirties and the other at an age she refused to disclose, glanced up from the coin to Monticello’s west portico, its windows aglow with candlelight from the parlor behind as the last rays of the early spring sun dipped behind the Blue Ridge Mountains.

If the friends had strolled to the front door of Thomas Jefferson’s house, centered in the east portico, and then walked to the edge of the lawn, they would have viewed a sea of green, the ever-flattening topography to Richmond and ultimately to the Atlantic Ocean.

Like most born residents of central Virginia’s Albemarle County, Harry Haristeen, as she was known, and Miranda Hogendobber could provide a fascinating tour of Monticello. Miranda would admit to being familiar with the estate since before World War II, but that was all she would admit. Over the decades increasing restoration work on the house itself, the dependencies, and gardens, both food and flowering, had progressed to the point where Monticello was the pride of the entire United States. Over a million out-of-town visitors a year drove up the tricky mountain road to pay their eight dollars, board a jitney bus, and swirl around aneven twistier road to the top of the hill and thence the redbrick structure—each brick fashioned by hand, each hinge pounded out in a smithy, each pane of glass painstakingly blown by a glassmaker, sweating and puffing. Everything about the house suggested individual contribution, imagination, simplicity.

As the tulips braved the quickening western winds, Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber, shivering, walked around the south side of the grounds by the raised terrace. A graceful silver maple anchored the corner where they turned. When they reached the front they paused by the large doors.

“I’m not sure I can stand this.” Harry took a deep breath.

“Oh, we have to give the devil his due, or should I sayher due?” Mrs. Hogendobber smirked. “She’s been preparing for this for six decades. She’ll say four, but I’ve known Mim Sanburne since the earth was cooling.”

“Isn’t this supposed to be the advantage of living in a small town? We know everyone and everyone knows us?” Harry rubbed her tight shoulder muscles. The temperature had dropped dramatically. “Well, okay, let’s brave Mim, the Jefferson expert.”

They opened the door, slipping in just as the huge clock perched over the entrance notched up seven P.M. The day, noted by a weight to the right as one faced the door, read Wednesday. The Great Clock was one of Jefferson’s many clever innovations in the design of his home. Even great minds err, however. Jefferson miscalculated the weight and pulley system and ran out of room to register all the days of the week in the hall. Each Friday the day weight slipped through a hole in the floor to the basement, where it marked Friday afternoon and Saturday. The weight then reappeared in the hall on Sunday morning, when the clock was wound.

Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber had arrived for a small gathering of Albemarle’s “best,” which is to say those whose families had been in Virginia since before the Revolution, those who were glamorous and recently arrived from Hollywood, which Harry dubbed Hollyweird, and those who were rich. Harry fell into the first category, as did Mrs. Hogendobber. As the postmaster—Harry preferred the term postmistress—of the small town of Crozet, Mary Minor Haristeen would never be mistaken for rich.

Marilyn Sanburne, known as Mim or Big Marilyn, clasped and unclasped her perfectly manicured hands. The wife of Crozet’s mayor and one of Albemarle’s richer citizens, she should have been cool as a cucumber. But a slight case of nerves rattled her as she cast her eyes over the august audience, which included the director of Monticello, the exuberant and fun-loving Oliver Zeve. The head of archaeology, Kimball Haynes, at thirty quite young for such a post, stood at the back of the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen”—Mim cleared her throat while her daughter, Little Marilyn, thirty-two, viewed her mother with a skillful show of rapt attention—“thank you all for taking time out from your busy schedules to gather with us tonight on this important occasion for our beloved Monticello.”

“So far so good,” Mrs. Hogendobber whispered to Harry.

“With the help of each one of you, we have raised five hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of excavating and ultimately restoring the servants’ quarters on Mulberry Row.”

As Mim extolled the value of the new project, Harry reflected on the continued duplicity that existed in her part of the world. Servants. Ah, yes, servants—not slaves. Well, no doubt some of them were cherished, beloved even, but the term lent a nice gloss to an ugly reality—Mr. Jefferson’s Achilles’ heel. He was so tremendously advanced in most ways, perhaps it was churlish to wish he had been more advanced about his source of labor. Then again, Harry wondered what would happen if the shoe were on her foot: Would she be able to refuse a skilled labor force? She would need to house them, clothe them, feed them, and provide medical care. Not that any of that was cheap, and maybe in today’s dollars it would add up to more than a living wage. Still, the moral dilemma if one was white, and Harry was white, nagged at her.

Nonetheless, Mim had provided the driving energy behind this project, and its progress was a great personal victory for her. She had also made the largest financial contribution to it. Her adored only son had sped away from Crozet to marry a sophisticated model, a flashy New York lady who happened to be the color of caf? au lait. For years Mim had refused her son entry to the ancestral mansion, but two years ago, thanks to a family crisis and the soft words of people like Miranda Hogendobber, Big Marilyn had consented to let Stafford and Brenda come home for a visit. Confronting one’s own prejudices is never easy, especially for a person as prideful as Mim, but she was trying, and her efforts to unearth this portion of Monticello’s buried history were commendable.

Harry’s eyes swept the room. A few Jefferson descendants were in attendance. His daughters, Martha and Maria, or Patsy and Polly as they were called within the family, had provided T.J. with fifteen grandchildren. Those surviving out of that generation in turn provided forty-eight great-grandchildren.The names of Cary, Coles, Randolph, Eppes, Wayles, Bankhead, Coolidge, Trist, Meikleham, and Carr were carrying various dilutions of Jefferson blood into the twentieth century and, soon, the twenty-first.

Tracing one’s bloodlines back to the original red-haired resident of Monticello was a bit like tracing every Thoroughbred’s history back to the great sires: Eclipse, 1764; Herod, 1758; and Matchem, 1748.

Nonetheless, people did it. Mim Sanburne herself adamantly believed she was related to the great man on her mother’s side through the Wayles/Coolidge line. Given Mim’s wealth and imperious temperament, no one challenged her slender claim in the great Virginia game of ancestor worship.

Harry’s people had lurched onto Virginia’s shores in 1640, but no intertwining with Mr. Jefferson’s line was ever claimed. In fact, both her mother’s family, the Hepworths, and her father’s seemed content to emphasize hard work in the here and now as opposed to dwelling on a glorious past.

Having fought in every conflict from the French and Indian War to the Gulf crisis, the family believed its contributions would speak for themselves. If anything, her people were guilty of reverse snobbery and Harry daily fought the urge to deflate Mim and her kind.

Once she had overcome her nerves, commanding the spotlight proved so intoxicating to Big Marilyn that she was loath to relinquish it. Finally, Oliver Zeve began the applause, which drowned out Mim’s oratory, although she continued to speak until the noise overwhelmed her. She smiled a tight smile, nodded her appreciation—not a hair out of place—and sat down.

Mim’s major fund-raising victims, Wesley Randolph and his son Warren, Samson Coles, and Center Berryman, applauded vigorously. Wesley, a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson through Thomas’s beloved older daughter, Martha, had been consistently generous over the decades. Samson Coles, related to Jefferson through his mother, Jane Randolph, gave intermittently, according to the fluctuations of his real estate business.

Wesley Randolph, fighting leukemia for the last year, felt a strong need for continuity, for bloodlines. Being a Thoroughbred breeder, this was probably natural for him. Although the cancer was in remission, the old man knew the sands in the hourglass were spinning through the tiny passage to the bottom. He wanted his nation’s past, Jefferson’s past, preserved. Perhaps this was Wesley’s slender grasp on immortality.

After the ceremony Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber returned to Oliver Zeve’s house, where Mrs. Murphy and Tee Tucker, Harry’s tiger cat and Welsh corgi respectively, awaited her. Oliver owned a fluffy white Persian, one Archduke Ferdinand, who used to accompany him to Monticello to work. However, children visiting the shrine sometimes pestered Archduke Ferdinand until he spit and scratched them. Although the archduke was within his feline rights, Oliver thought it best to keep him home. This was a great pity, because a cat will see a national shrine with a sharper eye than a human.

Then, too, Archduke Ferdinand believed in a hereditary nobility that was quite at odds with Jefferson’s point of view.

As of this moment the archduke was watching Mrs. Murphy from a vantage point at the top of the huge ficus tree in Oliver’s living room.

Kimball, who accompanied them, exclaimed,“The female pursues the male. Now, I like that idea.”

Mrs. Murphy turned her head.“Oh, please. Archduke Ferdinand is not my type.”

The Archduke growled,“Oh, and Paddy is your type? He’s as worthless as tits on a boar hog.”

Mrs. Murphy, conversant with her ex-husband’s faults, nonetheless defended him.“We were very young. He’s a different cat now.”

“Ha!” the Archduke exploded.

“Come on, Mrs. Murphy, I think you’re wearing out your welcome.” Harry leaned over and scooped up the reluctant tiger cat who was relishing the archduke’s discomfort.

Oliver patted Harry on the back.“Glad you could attend the ceremony.”

“Well, I’m not. We didn’t see a single thing!” Harry’s little dog grumbled.

Mrs. Hogendobber slung her ponderous purse over her left forearm and was already out the door.

“A lot of goodwill come from Mim’s check.” Kimball smiled as Harry and Mrs. H. climbed into the older woman’s pristine Ford Falcon.

Kimball would have occasion to repent that remark.

2

One of the things that fascinated Harry about the four distinct seasons in central Virginia was the quality of the light. With the advent of spring the world glowed yet retained some of the softness of the extraordinary winter light. By the spring equinox the diffuse quality would disappear and brightness would take its place.

Harry often walked to the post office from her farm on Yellow Mountain Road. Her old Superman-blue pickup, nursed throughout the years, needed the rest. The early morning walk awakened her not just to the day but to the marvelous detail of everyday life, to what motorists only glimpse as they speed by, if they notice at all. The swelling of a maple bud, the dormant gray hornet’s nest as big as a football, the brazen cries of the ravens, the sweet smell of the earth as the sun warmed her; these precious assaults on the senses kept Harry sane. She never could understand how people could walk with pavement under their feet, smog in their eyes, horns blaring, boom boxes blasting, their daily encounters with other human beings fraught with rudeness if not outright danger.

Considered a failure by her classmates at Smith College, Harry felt no need to judge herself or them by external standards. She had reached a crisis at twenty-seven when she heard her peers murmur incessantly about career moves, leveraged debt, and, if they were married, producing the firstborn. Well, at that time she was married to her high school sweetheart, Pharamond Haristeen, D.V.M., and it was good for a while. She never did figure out if the temptations of those rich, beautiful women on those huge Albemarle County farms had weakened her big blond husband’s resolve, or if over time they would have grown apart anyway. They had divorced. The first year was painful, the second year less so, and now, moving into the third year of life without Fair, she felt they were becoming friends. Indeed, she confided to her best girlfriend, Susan Tucker, she liked him more now than when they were married.

Mrs. Hogendobber originally blew smoke rings around Harry’s head over the divorce. She finally calmed down and took up the task of matchmaking, trying to set up Harry with Blair Bainbridge, a divinely handsome man who had moved next door to Harry’s farm. Blair, however, was on a fashion shoot in Africa these days. As a model he was in hot demand. Blair’s absence drew Fair back into Harry’s orbit, not that he was ever far from it. Crozet, Virginia, provided her citizens with the never-ending spectacle of love found, love won, love lost, and love found again. Life was never dull.

Maybe that’s why Harry didn’t feel like a failure, no matter how many potentially embarrassing questions she was asked at those Smith College reunions. Lots of squealing around the daisy chain was how she thought of them. But she jumped out of bed every morning eager for another day, happy with her friends, and contented with her job at the post office. Small though the P.O. was, everybody dropped in to pick up their mail and have a chat, and she enjoyed being at the center of activity.

Mrs. Murphy and Tee Tucker worked there too. Harry couldn’t imagine spending eight to ten hours each day away from her animals. They were too much fun.

As she walked down Railroad Avenue, she noticed that Reverend Herb Jones’s truck was squatting in front of the Lutheran church with a flat. She walked over.

“No spare,” she said to herself.

“They don’t pay him enough money,” Mrs. Murphy stated with authority.

“How do you know that, smarty-pants?” Tucker replied.

“I’ve got my ways.”

“Your ways? You’ve been gossiping with Lucy Fur, and all she does is eat communion wafers.” Tucker said this gleefully, thrilled to prove that Herbie’s new second cat desecrated the sacrament.

“She does not. That’s Cazenovia over at St. Paul’s. You think every church cat eats communion wafers. Cats don’t like bread.”

“Oh, yeah? What about Pewter? I’ve seen her eat a doughnut. ’Course, I’ve also seen her eat asparagus.” Tucker marveled at the gargantuan appetite of Market Shiflett’s cat. Since she worked in the grocery store next to the post office, the gray animal was constantly indulged. Pewter resembled a furry cannonball with legs.

Mrs. Murphy leapt on the running board of the old stepside truck as Harry continued to examine the flat.“Doesn’t count. That cat will eat anything.”

“Bet you she’s munching away in the window when we pass the store.”

“You think I’m stupid?” Mrs. Murphy refused the bet.“But I will bet you that I can climb that tree faster than you can run to it.” With that she was off and Tucker hesitated for a second, then tore toward the tree as Mrs. Murphy was already halfway up it.“Told you I’d win.”

“You have to back down.” Tucker waited underneath with her jaws open for full effect, her white fangs gleaming.

“Oh.” Mrs. Murphy’s eyes widened. Her whiskers swept forward and back. She looked afraid, and the dog puffed up with victory. That fast Mrs. Murphy somersaulted off the tree over the back of the dog and raced to the truck, leaving a furious Tucker barking her head off.

“Tucker, enough.” Harry reprimanded her as she continued toward the P.O. while making a mental note to call Herb at home.

“Get me in trouble! You started it.” The dog blamed the cat.“Don’t yell at me,” Tucker whined to Harry.

“Dogs are dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb,” the cat sang out, tail hoisted to the vertical, then ran in front of Tucker, who, of course, chased her.

Murphy flipped in the air to land behind Tucker. Harry laughed so hard, she had to stop walking.“You two are crazy.”

“She’s crazy. I am perfectly sane.” Tucker, put out, sat down.

“Ha.” Mrs. Murphy again sailed into the air. She was filled with spring, with the hope that always attends that season.

Harry wiped her feet off at the front door of the post office, took the brass keys out of her pocket, and unlocked the door just as Mrs. Hogendobber was performing the same ritual at the back door.

“Well, hello.” They both called to each other as they heard the doors close in opposite ends of the small frame building.

“Seven-thirty on the dot,” Miranda called out, pleased with her punctuality. Miranda’s husband had run the Crozet post office for decades. Upon his death, Harry had won the job.

Never a government employee, Miranda nonetheless had helped George since his first day on the job, August 7, 1952. At first she mourned him, which was natural. Then she said she liked retirement. Finally she admitted she was bored stiff, so Harry politely invited her to drop in from time to time. Harry had no idea that Miranda would relentlessly drop in at seven-thirty each morning. The two discovered over time and a few grumbles that it was quite pleasant to have company.

The mail truck beeped outside. Rob Collier tipped his Orioles baseball cap and tossed the bags through the front door. He delivered mail from the main post office on Seminole Trail in Charlottesville.“Late” was all he said.

“Rob’s hardly ever late,” Miranda noted. “Well, let’s get to it.” She opened the canvas bag and began sorting the mail into the slots.

Harry also sifted through the morass of printed material, a tidal wave of temptations to spend money, since half of what she plucked out of her canvas bag were mail-order catalogues.

“Ahhh!” Miranda screamed, withdrawing her hand from a box.

Mrs. Murphy immediately rushed over to inspect the offending box. She placed her paw in and fished around.

“Got anything?” Tucker asked.

“Yeah.” Mrs. Murphy threw a large spider on the floor. Tucker jumped back as did the two humans, then barked, which the humans did not.

“Rubber.” Mrs. Murphy laughed.

“Whose box was that?” Harry wanted to know.

“Ned Tucker’s.” Mrs. Hogendobber frowned. “This is the work of Danny Tucker. I tell you, young people today have no respect. Why, I could have suffered a heart attack or hyperventilated at the very least. Wait until I get my hands on that boy.”

“Boys will be boys.” Harry picked up the spider and wiggled it in front of Tucker, who feigned indifference. “Oops, first customer and we’re not halfway finished.”

Mim Sanburne swept through the door. A pale yellow cashmere shawl completed her Bergdorf-Goodman ensemble.

“Mim, we’re behind,” Miranda informed her.

“Oh, I know,” Mim airily said. “I passed Rob on the way into town. I wanted to know what you thought of the ceremony at Monticello. I know you told me you liked it, but among us girls, what did you really think?”

Harry and Miranda had no need to glance at each other. They knew that Mim needed both praise and gossip. Miranda, better at the latter than the former, was the lead batter.“You made a good speech. I think Oliver Zeve and Kimball Haynes were just thrilled, mind you, thrilled. I did think that Lucinda Coles had her nose out of joint, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.”

Seizing the bait like a rockfish, or small-mouthed bass, Mim lowered her voice.“She flounced around. It’s not as if I didn’t ask her to be on my committee, Miranda. She was my second call. My first was Wesley Randolph. He’s just too ancient, poor dear. But when I asked Lucinda, she said she was worn out by good causes even if it did involve sanitized ancestors. I didn’t say anything to her husband, but I was tempted. You know how Samson Coles feels. The more times his name gets in the paper, the more people will be drawn to his real estate office, although not much is selling now, is it?”

“We’ve seen good times and we’ve seen bad times. This will pass,” Miranda sagely advised.

“I’m not so sure,” Harry piped up. “I think we’ll pay for the eighties for a long, long time.”

“Fiddlesticks.” Mim dismissed her.

Harry prudently dropped the subject and switched to that of Lucinda Payne Coles, who could claim no special bloodlines other than being married to Samson Coles, descended from Jane Randolph, mother to Thomas Jefferson.“I’m sorry to hear that Lucinda backed off from your wonderful project. It truly is one of the best things you’ve ever done, Mrs. Sanburne, and you’ve done so much in our community.” Despite Harry’s mild antipathy toward the snobbish older woman, she was genuine in her praise.

“You think so? Oh, I am so glad.” Big Marilyn clasped her hands together like a child at a birthday party excited over all those unwrapped presents. “I like to work, you know.”

Mrs. Hogendobber recalled her Scripture.“‘Each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.’ ” She nodded wisely and then added, “First Corinthians, 3:13–14.”

Mim liked the outward appearance of Christianity; the reality of it held far less appeal. She particularly disliked the passage about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. After all, Mim was as rich as Croesus.

“Miranda, your biblical knowledge never ceases to amaze me.” Mim wanted to say, “to bore me,” but she didn’t. “And what an appropriate quotation, considering that Kimball will be digging up the foundations of the servants’ quarters. I’m just so excited. There’s so much to discover. Oh, I wish I had been alive during the eighteenth century and had known Mr. Jefferson.”

“I’d rather have known his cat,” Mrs. Murphy chimed in.

“Jefferson was a hound man,” Tee Tucker hastened to add.

“How do you know?” The tiger cat swished her tail and tiptoed along the ledge under the boxes.

“Rational. He was a rational man. Intuitive people prefer cats.”

“Tucker?” Mrs. Murphy, astonished at the corgi’s insight, could only exclaim her name.

The humans continued on, blithely unaware of the animal conversation which was more interesting than their own.

“Maybe you did know him. Maybe that’s why you’re so impassioned about Monticello.” Harry almost tossed a clutch of mail-order catalogues in the trash, then caught herself.

“You don’t believe that stuff,” Mrs. Hogendobber pooh-poohed.

“Well, I do, for one.” Mim’s jaw was set.

“You?” Miranda appeared incredulous.

“Yes, haven’t you ever known something without being told it, or walked into a room in Europe and felt sure you’d been there before?”

“I’ve never been to Europe,” came the dry reply.

“Well, Miranda, it’s high time. High time, indeed,” Mim chided her.

“I backpacked over there my junior year in college.” Harry smiled, remembering the kind people she had met in Germany and how excited she was at getting into what was then a communist country, Hungary. Everywhere she traveled, people proved kind and helpful. She used sign language and somehow everyone understood everyone else. She thought to herself that she wanted to return someday, to meet again old friends with whom she continued to correspond.

“How adventuresome,” Big Marilyn said dryly. She couldn’t imagine walking about, or, worse, sleeping in hostels. When she had sent her daughter to the old countries, Little Marilyn had gone on a grand tour, even though she would have given anything to have backpacked with Harry and her friendSusan Tucker.

“Will you be keeping an eye on the excavations?” Miranda inquired.

“If Kimball will tolerate me. Do you know how they do it? It’s so meticulous. They lay out a grid and they photograph everything and also draw it on graph paper—just to be sure. Anyway, they painstakingly sift through these grids and anything, absolutely anything, that can be salvaged is. I mean, potsherds and belt buckles and rusted nails. Oh, I really can’t believe I am part of this. You know, life was better then. I am convinced of it.”

“Me too.” Harry and Miranda sounded like a chorus.

“Ha!” Mrs. Murphy yowled.“Ever notice when humans drift back in history they imagine they were rich and healthy. Get a toothache in the eighteenth century and find out how much you like it.” She glared down at Tucker.“How’s that for rational?”

“You can be a real sourpuss sometimes. Just because I said that Jefferson preferred dogs to cats.”

“But you don’t know that.”

“Well, have you read any references to cats? Everything that man ever wrote or said is known by rote around here. Not a peep about cats.”

“You think you’re so smart. I suppose you happen to have a list of his favorite canines?”

Tucker sheepishly hung her head.“Well, no—but Thomas Jefferson liked big bay horses.”

“Fine, tell that to Tomahawk and Gin Fizz back home. They’ll be overwhelmed with pride.” Mrs. Murphy referred to Harry’s horses, whom the tiger cat liked very much. She stoutly maintained that cats and horses had an affinity for one another.

“Do you think from time to time we might check out the dig?” Harry leaned over the counter.

“I don’t see why not,” Mim replied. “I’ll call Oliver Zeve to make sure it’s all right. You young people need to get involved.”

“What I wouldn’t give to be your age again, Harry.” Miranda grew wistful. “My George would have still had hair.”

“George had hair?” Harry giggled.

“Don’t be smart,” Miranda warned, but her voice carried affection.

“Want a man with a head full of hair? Take my husband.” Mim drummed her fingers on the table. “Everyone else has.”

“Now, Mim.”

“Oh, Miranda, I don’t even care anymore. All those years that I put a good face on my marriage—I just plain don’t care. Takes too much effort. I’ve decided that I am living for me. Monticello!” With that she waved and left.

“I declare, I do declare.” Miranda shook her head. “What got into her?”

“Who got into her?”

“Harry, that’s rude.”

“I know.” Harry tried to keep her lip buttoned around Mrs. Hogendobber, but sometimes things slipped out. “Something’s happened. Or maybe she was like this when she was a child.”

“She was never a child.” Miranda’s voice dropped. “Her mother made her attend the public schools and Mim wanted to go away to Miss Porter’s. She wore outfits every day that would have bankrupted an average man, and this was at the end of the Depression and the beginning of World War Two, remember. By the time we got to Crozet High, there were two classes of students. Marilyn, and the rest of us.”

“Well—any ideas?”

“Not a one. Not a single one.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Tucker barked. The humans looked at her.“Spring fever.”

3

Fair Haristeen, a blond giant, studied the image on the small TV screen. He was taking an ultrasound of an unborn foal in the broodmare barn at Wesley Randolph’s estate, Eagle’s Rest. Using sound waves to scan the position and health of the fetus was becoming increasingly valuable to veterinarian and breeder alike. This practice, relatively new in human medicine, was even more recent in the equine world. Fair centered the image he wanted, pressed a small button, and the machine spat out the picture of the incubating foal.

“Here he is, Wesley.” Fair handed the printout to the breeder.

Wesley Randolph, his son Warren, and Warren’s diminutive but gorgeous wife, Ansley, hung on the veterinarian’s every word.

“Well, this colt’s healthy in the womb. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

Wesley handed the picture to Warren and folded his arms across his thin chest.“This mare’s in foal to Mr. Prospector. I want this baby!”

“You can’t do much better than to breed to Claiborne Farm’s stock. It’s hard to make a mistake when you work with such good people.”

Warren, ever eager to please his domineering father, said,“Dad wants blinding speed married to endurance. I think this might be our best foal yet.”

“Dark Windows—she was a great one,” Wesley reminisced. “Damn filly put her leg over a divider when we were hauling her to Churchill Downs. Got a big knee and never raced after that. She was a special filly—like Ruffian.”

“I’ll never forget that day. When Ruffian took that moment’s hesitation in her stride—it was a bird or something on the track that made her pause—and shattered the sesamoid bones in her fetlock. God, it was awful.” Warren recalled the fateful day when Thoroughbred racing lost one of itsgreatest fillies to date, and perhaps one of the greatest runners ever seen, during her match race with Kentucky Derby—winner Foolish Pleasure at Belmont Park.

“Too game to stay down after her leg was set. Broke it a second time coming out of the anesthesia and only would have done it a third time if they’d tried to set the break again. It was the best thing to do, to save her any more pain, putting her down.” Fair added his veterinary expertise to their memory of the black filly’s trauma.

Wesley shook his head.“Damn shame. Damn shame. Would’ve made one hell of a brood mare. Her owners might even have tried to breed her to that colt she was racing against when it happened. Foolish Pleasure. Better racehorse than sire, though, now that we’ve seen his get.”

“I’ll never forget how the general public reacted to Ruffian’s death. The beautiful black filly with the giant heart—she gave two hundred percent, every time. When they put her down, the whole country mourned, even people who had never paid attention to racing. It was a sad, sad day.” Ansley was visibly moved by this recollection. She changed the subject.

“You got some wonderful stakes winners out of Dark Windows. She was a remarkable filly too.” Ansley praised her father-in-law. He needed attention like a fish needs water.

“A few, a few.” He smiled.

“I’ll be back around next week. Call me if anything comes up.” Fair headed for his truck and his next call.

Wesley followed him out of the barn while his son and daughter-in-law stayed inside. Behind the track, over a small knoll, was a lake. Wesley thought he’d go sit there later with his binoculars and bird-watch. Eased his mind, bird-watching. “Want some unsolicited advice?”

“Looks like I’m going to get it whether I want it or not.” Fair opened the back of his customized truck-bed, which housed his veterinary supplies.

“Win back Mary Minor Haristeen.”

Fair placed his equipment in the truck.“Since when are you playing Cupid?”

Wesley, gruff, bellowed,“Cupid? That little fat fellow with the quiver, bow, and arrows, and the little wings on his shoulders? Him? Give me some time and I’ll be a real angel—unless I’m going downtown in the afterlife.”

“Wesley, only the good die young. You’ll be here forever.” Fair liked teasing him.

“Ha! I believe you’re right.” Wesley appreciated references to his wild youth. “I’m old. I can say what I want when I want.” He breathed in. “’Course, I always did. The advantage of being stinking rich. So I’m telling you, go get that little girl you so foolishly, and I emphasize foolishly, cast aside. She’s the winning ticket.”

“Do I look that bad?” Fair wondered, the teasing fading out of him.

“You look like a ship without a rudder’s what you look like. And running around with BoomBoom Craycroft … big tits and not an easy keeper.” Wesley likened BoomBoom to a horse that was expensive to feed, hard to put weight on, and often the victim of a breakdown of one sort or another. This couldn’t have been a truer comparison, except in BoomBoom’s case the weight referred to carats. She could gobble up more precious stones than a pasha. “Women like BoomBoom love to drive a man crazy. Harry’s got some fire and some brains.”

Fair rubbed the blond stubble on his cheek. He’d known Wesley all his life and liked the man. For all his arrogance and bluntness, Wesley was loyal, called it like he saw it, and was truly generous, a trait he passed on to Warren. “I think about it sometimes—and I think she’d have to be crazy to take me back.”

Wesley put his arm around Fair’s broad shoulders. “Listen to me. There’s not a man out there who hasn’t strayed off the reservation. And most of us feel rotten about it. Diana looked the other way when I did it. We were a team. The team came first, and once I grew up some I didn’t need those—ah, adventures. I came clean. I told her what I’d done. I asked her to forgive me. Screwing around hurts a woman in ways we don’t understand. Diana was in my corner two hundred percent. Heart like Ruffian. Always giving. Sometimes I wonder how a little poontang could get me off the track, make me hurt the person I loved most in this world.” He paused. “Women are more forgiving than we are. Kinder too. Maybe we need them to civilize us, son. You think about what I’m saying.”

Fair closed the lid over his equipment.“You aren’t the first person to tell me to win back Harry. Mrs. Hogendobber works me over every now and then.”

“Miranda. I can hear her now.” Wesley laughed.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong. Harry was a good wife and I was a fool, but how do you get over that guilt? I don’t want to be with a woman and feel like a heel, even if I was.”

“That’s where love works its miracles. Love’s not about sex, although that’s where we all start. Diana taught me about love. It’s as gossamer as a spiderweb and just as strong. Winds don’t blow down a web. Ever watch ’em?” His hand moved back and forth. “That woman knew me, knew my every fault, and she loved me for me. And I learned to love her for her. The only thing that pleases me about my condition is when I get to the other side, I’m going to see my girl.”

“Wesley, you look better than I’ve seen you look in the last eight months.”

“Remission. Damn grateful for it. I do feel good. Only thing that gets me down is the stock market.” He shivered to make his point. “And Warren. I don’t know if he’s strong enough to take over. He and Ansley don’t pull together. Worries me.”

“Maybe you ought to talk to them like you talked to me.”

Wesley blinked beneath his bushy gray eyebrows.“I try. Warren evades me. Ansley’s polite and listens, but it’s in one ear, out t’other.” He shook his head. “I’ve spent my whole life developing bloodlines, yet I can hardly talk to my own blood.”

Fair leaned against the big truck.“I think a lot of people feel that way … and I don’t have any answers.” He checked his watch. “I’m due at Brookhill Farm. You call me about that mare and—and I promise to think about what you said.”

Fair stepped into the truck, turned the ignition, and slowly traveled down the winding drive lined with linden trees. He waved, and Wesley waved back.

4

The old Ford truck chugged up Monticello Mountain. A light drizzle kept Harry alert at the wheel, for this road could be treacherous no matter what the weather. She wondered how the colonists had hauled up and down this mountain using wagons pulled by horses, or perhaps oxen, with no disc brakes. Unpaved during Thomas Jefferson’s time, the road must have turned into a quagmire in the rains and a killer sheet of ice in the winter.

Susan Tucker fastened her seat belt.

“Think my driving’s that bad?”

“No.” Susan ran her thumb under the belt. “I should have done this when we left Crozet.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Mrs. H. pitched a major hissy when she reached into your mailbox and touched that rubber spider that Danny must have stuck in there. Mrs. Murphy pulled it out onto the floor finally.”

“Did she throw her hands in the air?” Susan innocently inquired.

“You bet.”

“A deep, throaty scream.”

“Moderate, I’d say. The dog barked.”

Susan smiled a Cheshire smile.“Wish I’d been there.”

Harry turned to glance at her best friend.“Susan—”

“Keep your eyes on the road.”

“Oh, yeah. Susan, did you put that spider in the mailbox?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now, why would you want to go and do a thing like that?”

“Devil made me do it.”

Harry laughed. Every now and then Susan would do something, disrupt something, and you never knew when or where. She’d been that way since they first met in kindergarten. Harry hoped she’d never change.

The parking lot wasn’t as full as usual for a weekend. Harry and Susan rode in the jitney up the mountain, which became more fog-enshrouded with every rising foot. By the time they reached the Big House, as locals called it, they could barely see their hands in front of their faces.

“Think Kimball will be out there?” Susan asked.

“One way to find out.” Harry walked down to the south side of the house, picking up the straight road that was called Mulberry Row. Here the work of the plantation was carried out in a smithy as well as in eighteen other buildings dedicated to the various crafts: carpentry, nail making, weaving, and possibly even harness making and repair. Those buildings vanished over the decades after Jefferson’s death when, a quarter of a million dollars in debt—roughly two and a half million dollars today—his heirs were forced to sell the place he loved.

Slave quarters also were located along Mulberry Row. Like the other buildings, these were usually constructed of logs; sometimes even the chimneys were made of logs, which would occasionally catch fire, so that the whole building was engulfed in flames within minutes. The bucket brigade was the only means of fire-fighting.

As Harry and Susan walked through the fog, their feet squished in the moist earth.

“If you feel a descent, you know we’ve keeled over into the food garden.” Harry stopped for a moment.

“We can stay on the path and go slow. Harry, Kimball isn’t going to be out here in this muck.”

But he was. Wearing a green oilskin Barbour coat, a necessity in this part of the world, big Wellies on his feet, and a water-repellent baseball hat on his head, Kimball resembled any other Virginia gentleman or gentlewoman on a misty day.

“Kimball!” Harry called out.

“A fine, soft day,” he jubilantly replied. “Come closer, I can’t see who’s with you.”

“Me,” Susan answered.

“Ah, I’m in for a double treat.” He walked up to greet them.

“How can you work in this?” Susan wondered.

“I can’t, really, but I can walk around and think. This place had to function independently of the world, in a sense. I mean, it was its own little world, so I try to put myself back in time and imagine what was needed, when and why. It helps me understand why some of these buildings and the gardens were placed as they are. Of course, the people working under the boardwalks—that’s what I call the terraces—had a better deal, I think. Would you two damsels like a stroll?”

“Love it.” Harry beamed.

“Kimball, how did you come to archaeology?” Susan asked. Most men Kimball’s age graduating from an Ivy League college were investment bankers, commodities brokers, stockbrokers, or numbers crunchers.

“I liked to play in the dirt as a child. This seemed a natural progression.” He grinned.

“It wasn’t one of those quirks of fate?” Harry wiped a raindrop off her nose.

“Actually, it was. I was studying history at Brown and I had this glorious professor, Del Kolve, and he kept saying, ‘Go back to the physical reality, go back to the physical reality.’ So I happened to notice a yellow sheet of paper on the department bulletin board—isn’t it odd that I canstill see the color of the flyer?—announcing a dig in Colonial Williamsburg. I never imagined that. You see, I always thought that archaeology meant you had to be digging up columns in Rome, that sort of thing. So I came down for the summer and I was hooked. Hooked on the period too. Come on, letme show you something.”

He led them to his office at the back of the attractive gift shop. They shook off the water before entering and hung their coats on the wooden pegs on the wall.

“Cramped,” Susan observed. “Is this temporary?”

He shook his head.“We can’t go about building anything, you know, and some of what has been added over the years—well, the damage has been done. Anyway, I’m in the field most of the time, so this suffices, and I’ve also stashed some books in the second floor of the Big House, so I’ve a bit more room thanit appears. Here, look at this.” He reached into a pile of horseshoes on the floor and handed an enormous shoe to Harry.

She carefully turned the rusted artifact over in her hands.“A toe grab. I can’t make out if there were any grabs on the back, but possibly. This horse had to do a lot of pulling. Draft horse, of course.”

“Okay, look at this one.” He handed her another.

Harry and Susan exclaimed at this shoe. Lighter, made for a smaller horse, it had a bar across the heel area, joining the two arms of the shoe.

“What do you think, Susan?” Harry placed the shoe in her friend’s hands.

“We need Steve O’Grady.” Susan referred to an equine vet in the county, an expert on hoof development and problems and strategies to overcome those problems. He was a colleague of Fair Haristeen, whose specialty was the equine reproductive system. “But I’d say this belonged to a fancy horse, a riding horse, anyway. It’s a bar shoe …”

“Because the horse had a problem. Navicular maybe.” Harry suggested a degenerative condition of the navicular bone, just behind the main bone of the foot, the coffin bone, often requiring special shoeing to alleviate the discomfort.

“Perhaps, but the blacksmith decided to give the animal more striking area in the back. He moved the point of contact behind the normal heel area.” Kimball placed his hand on his desk, using his fingers as the front of the hoof and his palm as the back and showed how this particular shoe could alter the point of impact.

“I didn’t know you rode horses.” Harry admired his detective work on the horseshoe.

“I don’t. They’re too big for me.” Kimball smiled.

“So how’d you know this? I mean, most of the people who do ride don’t care that much about shoeing. They don’t learn anything.” Susan, a devout horsewoman, meaning she believed in knowing all phases of equine care and not just hopping on the animal’s back, was intensely curious.

“I asked an expert.” He held out his palms.

“Who?”

“Dr. O’Grady.” Kimball laughed. “But still, I had to call around, dig in the libraries, and find out if horseshoeing has changed that much over the centuries. See, that’s what I love about this kind of work. Well, it’s not work, it’s a magical kind of living in the past and the present at the same time. I mean, the past is ever informing the present, ever with us, for good or for ill. To work at what you love—a heaping up of joys.”

“It is wonderful,” Harry agreed. “I don’t mean to imply that what I do is anything as exalted as your own profession, but I like my job, I like the people, and most of all, I love Crozet.”

“We’re the lucky ones.” Susan understood only too well the toll unhappiness takes on people. She had watched her father drag himself to a job he hated. She had watched him dry up. He worried so much about providing for his family that he forgot to be with his family. She could have done with fewer things and more dad. “Being a housewife and mother may not seem like much, but it’s what I wanted to do. I wouldn’t trade a minute of those early years when the kids were tiny. Not one second.”

“Then they’re the lucky ones,” Harry said.

Kimball, content in agreement, pulled open a drawer and plucked out a bit of china with a grayish background and a bit of faded blue design.“Found this last week in what I’m calling Cabin Four.” He flipped it over, a light number showing on its reverse side. “I’ve been keeping it here to play with it. What was this bit of good china doing in a slave cabin? Was it already broken? Did the inhabitant of the little cabin break itherself—we know who lived in Cabin Four—and take it out of the Big House to cover up the misdeed? Or did the servants, forgive the euphemism, go straight to the master, confess the breakage, and get awarded the pieces? Then again, what if the slave just plain took it to have something pretty tolook at, to own something that a rich white person would own, to feel for a moment part of the ruling class instead of the ruled? So many questions. So many questions.”

“I’ve got one you can answer.” Susan put her hand up.

“Shoot.”

“Where’s the bathroom?”

5

Larry Johnson intended to retire on his sixty-fifth birthday. He even took in a partner, Hayden McIntire, M.D., three years before his retirement age so Crozet’s residents might become accustomed to a new doctor. At seventy-one, Larry continued to see patients. He said it was because he couldn’t face the boredom of not working. Like most doctors trained in another era, he was one of the community, not some highly trained outsider come to impose his superior knowledge on the natives. Larry also knew the secrets: who had abortions before they were legal, what upstanding citizens once had syphilis, who drank on the sly, what families carried a disposition to alcoholism, diabetes, insanity, even violence. He’d seen so much over the years that he trusted his instincts. He didn’t much care if it made scientific sense, and one of the lessons Larry learned is that there really is such a thing as bad blood.

“You ever read these magazines before you put them in our slot?” The good doctor perused theNew England Journal of Medicine he’d just pulled out of his mailbox.

Harry laughed.“I’m tempted, but I haven’t got the time.”

“We need a thirty-six-hour day.” He removed his porkpie hat and shook off the raindrops. “We’re all trying to do too much in too little time. It’s all about money. It’ll kill us. It’ll kill America.”

“You know, I was up at Monticello yesterday with Susan—”

Larry interrupted her.“She’s due for a checkup.”

“I’ll be sure to tell her.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He shrugged his shoulders in resignation. “But if I don’t say what’s on my mind when it pops into my head, I forget. Whoosh, it’s gone.” He paused. “I’m getting old.”

“Ha,” Mrs. Murphy declared.“Harry’s not even thirty-five and she forgets stuff all the time. Like the truck keys.”

“She only did that once.” Tucker defended her mother.

“You two are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” Larry knelt down to pet Tucker while Mrs. Murphy prowled on the counter. “Now, what were you telling me about Monticello?”

“Oh, we drove up to see how the Mulberry Row dig is coming along. Well, you were talking about money and I guess I was thinking how Jefferson died in hideous debt and how an intense concern with money seems to be part of who and what we are as a nation. I mean, look at Light-Horse Harry Lee. Losthis shirt, poor fellow.”

“Yes, yes, and being the hero, mind you, the beau ideal of the Revolutionary War. Left us a wonderful son.”

“Yankees don’t think so.” The corner of Harry’s mouth turned upward.

“I liken Yankees to hemorrhoids … they slip down and hang around. Once they see how good life is around here, they don’t go back. Ah, well, different people, different ways. I’ll have to think about what you said—about money—which I am spending at a rapid clip as Hayden and I expand the office. Since Jefferson never stopped building, I can’t decide if he possessed great stamina or great foolishness. I find the whole process nerve-racking.”

Lucinda Payne Coles opened the door, stepped inside, then turned around and shook her umbrella out over the stoop. She closed the door and leaned the dripping object next to it.“Low pressure. All up and down the East Coast. The Weather Channel says we’ve got two more days of this. Well, my tulips will be grateful but my floors will not.”

“Read where you and others”—Larry cocked his head in the direction of Harry—“attended Big Marilyn’s do.”

“Which one? She has so many.” Lucinda’s frosted pageboy shimmied as she tossed her head. Little droplets spun off the blunt ends of her hair.

“Monticello.”

“Oh, yes. Samson was in Richmond, so he couldn’t attend. Ansley and Warren Randolph were there. Wesley too. Carys, Eppes, oh, I can’t remember.” Lucinda displayed little enthusiasm for the topic.

Miranda puffed in the back door.“I’ve got lunch.” She saw Larry and Lucinda. “Hello there. I’m buying water wings if this keeps up.”

“You’ve already got angel wings.” Larry beamed.

“Hush, now.” Mrs. H. blushed.

“What’d she do?” Mrs. Murphy wanted to know.

“What’d she do?” Lucinda echoed the cat.

“She’s been visiting the terminally ill children down at the hospital and she’s organized her church folks to join in.”

“Larry, I do it because I want to be useful. Don’t fuss over me.” Mrs. Hogendobber meant it, but being human, she also enjoyed the approval.

A loud meow at the back diverted the slightly overweight lady’s attention, and she opened the door. A wet, definitely overweight Pewter straggled in. The cat and human oddly mirrored each other.

“Fat mouse! Fat mouse!” Mrs. Murphy taunted the gray cat.

“What does that man do over there? Force-feed her?” Lucinda stared at the cat.

“It’s all her own work.” Mrs. Murphy’s meow carried her dry wit.

“Shut up. If I had as many acres to run around as you do, I’d be slender too,” Pewter spat out.

“You’d sit in a trance in front of the refrigerator door, waiting for it to open. Open Sesame.” The tiger’s voice was musical.

“You two are being ugly.” Tucker padded over to the front door and sniffed Lucinda’s umbrella. She smelled the faint hint of oregano on the handle. Lucinda must have been cooking before she headed to the P.O.

Lucinda sauntered over to her postbox, opened it with the round brass key, and pulled out envelopes. She sorted them at the ledge along one side of the front room. The flutter of mail hitting the wastebasket drew Larry’s attention.

Mrs. Hogendobber also observed Lucinda’s filing system. “You’re smart, Lucinda. Don’t even open the envelopes.”

“I have enough bills to pay. I’m not going to answer a form letter appealing for money. If a charity wants money, they can damn well ask me in person.” She gathered up what was left of her mail, picked up her umbrella, and pushed open the door. She forgot to say goodbye.

“She’s not doing too good, is she?” Harry blurted out.

Larry shook his head.“I can sometimes heal the body. Can’t do much for the heart.”

“She’s not the first woman whose husband has had an affair. I ought to know.” Harry watched Lucinda Coles open her car door, hop in while holding the umbrella out, then shake the umbrella, throw it over the back seat of the Grand Wagoneer, slam the door, and drive off.

“She’s from another generation, Mary Minor Haristeen. ‘Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.’ Hebrews 13:4.”

“I’m going to let you girls fight this one out.” Larry slapped his porkpie hat back on his head and left. What he knew that he didn’t tell them was with whom Samson Coles was carrying on his affair.

“Miranda, are you implying that my generation does not honor the vows of marriage? That just frosts me!” Harry shoved a mail cart. It clattered across the floor, the canvas swaying a bit.

“I said no such thing, Missy. Now, you just calm yourself. She’s older than you by a good fifteen years. A woman in middle age has fears you can’t understand but you will—you will. Lucinda Payne was raised to be an ornament. She lives in a world of charities, luncheons with the girls, and black-tie fund-raisers. You work. You expect to work, and if you marry again your life isn’t going to change but so much. Of course you honored your marriage vows. The pity is that Fair Haristeen didn’t.”

“I kept remembering what Susan used to say about Ned. He’d make her so mad she’d say, ‘Divorce, never. Murder, yes.’ There were a few vile moments when I wonder how I managed not to kill Fair. They passed. I don’t think he could help it. We married too young.”

“Too young? You married Fair the summer he graduated from Auburn Veterinary College. In my day you would have been an old maid at that age. You were twenty-four, as I recall.”

“Memory like a wizard.” Harry smiled, then sighed. “I guess I know what you mean about Lucinda. It’s sad really.”

“For her it’s a tragedy.”

“Humans take marriage too seriously.” Pewter licked her paw and began smoothing down her fur.“My mother used to say, ‘Don’t worry about tomcats. There’s one coming around every corner like a streetcar.’ ”

“Your mother lived to a ripe old age, so she must have known something,” Mrs. Murphy recalled.

“Maybe Lucinda should go to a therapist or something,” Harry thought out loud.

“She ought to try her minister first.” Mrs. Hogendobber walked over to the window and watched the huge raindrops splash on the brick walkway.

“You know what I can’t figure?” Harry joined her.

“What?”

“Who in the world would want Samson Coles?”

6

The steady rain played havoc with Kimball’s work. His staff stretched a bright blue plastic sheet onto four poles which helped keep off the worst of the rain, but it trickled down into the earthen pit as they had cut down a good five feet.

A young German woman, Heike Holtz, carefully brushed away the soil. Her knees were mud-soaked, her hands also, but she didn’t care. She’d come to America specifically to work with Kimball Haynes. Her long-range goal was to return to Germany and begin similar excavations and reconstruction at Sans Souci. Since this beautiful palace was in Potsdam, in the former East Germany, she suffered few illusions about raising money or generating interest for the task. But she was sure that sooner or later her countrymen would try to save what they could before it fell down about their ears. As an archaeologist, she deplored the Russians’ callous disregard for the majority of the fabulous architecture under their control. At least they had preserved the Kremlin. As to how they treated her people, she wisely kept silent. Americans, so fortunate for the most part, would never understand that kind of systematic oppression.

“Heike, go on and take a break. You’ve been in this chill since early this morning.” Kimball’s light blue eyes radiated sympathy.

She spoke in an engaging accent, musical and very seductive. She didn’t need the accent. Heike was a knockout. “No, no, Professor Haynes. I’m learning too much to leave.”

He patted her on the back.“You’re going to be here for a year, and Heike, if the gods smile down upon me, I think I can get you an appointment at the university so you can stay longer than that. You’re good.”

She bent her head closer to her task, too shy to accept the praise by looking him in the eye.“Thank you.”

“Go on, take a break.”

“This will sound bizarre,” she accented thebi heavily,“but I feel something.”

“I’m sure you do,” he laughed. “Chilblains.”

He stepped out of the hearth where Heike was working. The fireplace had been one of the wooden fireplaces which caught fire. Charred bits studded one layer of earth, and they were just now getting below that. Whoever cleaned up after the fire removed as much ash as they could. Two other students worked also.

Heike pawed with her hands, carefully but with remarkable intensity.“Professor.”

Kimball returned to her and quickly knelt down. He was working alongside her now. Each of them laboring with swift precision.

“Mein Gott!” Heike exclaimed.

“We got more than we bargained for, kiddo.” Kimball wiped his hand across his jaw, forgetting the mud. He called to Sylvia and Joe, his other two students working in this section. “Joe, go on up and get Oliver Zeve.”

Joe and Sylvia peered at the find.

“Joe?”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Not a word to anyone, you hear? That’s an order,” he remarked to the others as Joe ran toward the Big House.

“The last thing we want is for the paper to get hold of this before we’ve had time to prepare a statement.”

7

“Why wasn’t I told first?” Mim jammed the receiver of the telephone back on the cradle. She put it back cockeyed so the device beeped. Furious, she smashed the receiver on correctly.

Her husband, Jim Sanburne, mayor of Crozet, six feet four and close to three hundred pounds, was possessed of an easygoing nature. He needed it with Mim.“Now, darlin’, if you will reflect upon the delicate nature of Kimball Haynes’s discovery, you will realize you had to be the second call, not the first.”

Her voice lowered.“Think I was the second call?”

“Of course. You’ve been the driving force behind the Mulberry Row restorations.”

“And I can tell you I’m enduring jealous huffs from Wesley Randolph, Samson Coles, and Center Berryman too. Wait until they find out about this—actually, I’d better call them all.” She paced into the library, her soft suede slippers barely making any sound at all.

“Wesley Randolph? The only reason you and Wesley cross swords is that he wants to run the show. Just arrange a few photo opportunities for his son. Warren is running for state senate this fall.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not the mayor of Crozet for nothing.” His broad smile revealed huge square teeth. Despite his size and girth, Jim exuded a rough-and-tumble masculine appeal. “Now, sit down here by the fire and let’s review the facts.”

Mim dropped into the inviting wing chair covered in an expensive MacLeod tartan fabric. Her navy cashmere robe piped in camel harmonized perfectly. Mim’s aesthetic sensibilities were highly developed. She was one hundred eighty degrees from Harry, who had little sense of interior design but could create a working farm environment in a heartbeat. It all came down to what was important to each of them.

Mim folded her hands.“As I understand it from Oliver, Kimball Haynes and his staff have found a skeleton in the plot he’s calling Cabin Four. They’ve worked most of the day and into the night to uncover the remains. Sheriff Shaw is there too, although I can’t see that it matters at this point.”

Jim crossed his feet on the hassock.“Do they have any idea when the person died or even what sex the body is?”

“No. Well, yes, they’re sure it’s a man, and Oliver said an odd thing—he said the man must have been rich. I was so shocked, I didn’t pursue it. We’re to keep a tight lip. Guess I’d better wait to call the others but, oh, Jim, they’ll be so put out, and I can’t lie. This could cost contributions. You know how easy it is for that crew to get their noses out of joint.”

“Loose lips sink ships.” Jim, who had been a skinny eighteen-year-old fighting in Korea, remembered one of the phrases World War II veterans used to say. He tried to forget some of the other things he’d experienced in that conflict, but he vowed never to be so cold again in his entire life. As soon as the frosts came, Jim would break out his wired socks with the batteries attached.

“Jim, he’s been dead for a hundred seventy-five to two hundred years. You’re as bad as Oliver. Who cares if the press knows? It will bring more attention to the project and possibly even more money from new contributors. And if I can present this find to the Randolphs, Coleses, and Berrymans as an historic event, perhaps all will yet be well.”

“Well, sugar, how he died might affect that.”

8

Bright yellow tape cordoned off Cabin Four. Rick Shaw puffed on a cigarette. As sheriff of Albemarle County, he’d viewed more than his share of corpses: shotgun suicides, drownings, car accident after car accident, killings by knife, pistol, poison, ax—even a piano bench. People used whatever came to hand. However, this was the oldest body he’d studied.

His assistant, Cynthia Cooper, recently promoted to deputy, scribbled in her small notebook, her ballpoint pen zipping over the blue lines. A photographer for the department snapped photos.

Rick, sensitive to the situation, arrived at six-thirty P.M., well after five P.M., when Monticello closed its doors for the night, allowing for the departure of straggling tourists. Oliver Zeve, arms folded across his chest, chatted with Heike Holtz. Kimball looked up with relief when Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber walked down Mulberry Row. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker trailed behind.

Oliver excused himself from Heike and walked over to Kimball.“What in the hell arethey doing here?”

Kimball, nonplussed, stuck his hands in his back pockets.“We’re going to be here some time, people need to be fed.”

“We’re perfectly capable of calling a catering service.” Oliver snapped.

“Yes,” Kimball smoothly replied, “and they’re perfectly capable of babbling this all over town as well as picking up the phone toThe Washington Post or, God forbid,The Enquirer. Harry and Miranda can keep their mouths shut. Remember Donny Ensign?”

Kimball referred to an incident four years past when Mrs. Hogendobber served as secretary for the Friends of Restoration. She happened one night to check Donny Ensign’s books. She always did George’s books and she enjoyed the task. As treasurer, Donny was entrusted with the money, obviously. Mrs. H. had a hunch, she never did say what had set her off, but she had quickly realized that Mr. Ensign was cooking the books. She immediately notified Oliver and thesituation was discreetly handled. Donny resigned and he continued to pay back a portion of what he had siphoned off until the sum, $4,559.12, was cleared. In exchange, no one reported him to Rick Shaw nor was his name destroyed in the community.

“Yes.” Oliver drew out the word even as he smiled and trotted over to the two women. “Here, let me relieve you lovely ladies of this burden. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re bringing us food. Kimball thinks of everything, doesn’t he?”

Rick felt a rub against his leg. He beheld Mrs. Murphy.“What are you doing here?”

“Offering my services.” She sat on the toe of the sheriff’s shoe.

“Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber, what a surprise.” A hint of sarcasm entered Rick’s voice.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic, Sheriff.” Miranda chided him. “We aren’t going to interfere in your case. We’re merely offering nourishment.”

Cynthia hopped out of the site.“Bless you.” She scratched Tucker’s head and motioned for Harry to follow her. Tucker followed also. “What do you make of this?”

Harry peered down at the skeleton lying facedown in the dirt. The back of his skull was crushed. Coins lay where his pockets must have been, and a heavy, crested ring still circled the bones of the third finger on his left hand. Tatters of fabric clung to the bones, a piece of heavily embroidered waistcoat. A bit more of the outer coat remained; the now-faded color must have once been a rich teal. The brass buttons were intact, as were the buckles on his shoes, again quite ornate.

“Mrs. H., come here,” Harry called.

“I don’t want to see it.” Mrs. Hogendobber busily served sandwiches and cold chicken.

“It’s not so bad. You’ve seen far worse at the butcher shop.” Harry deviled her.

“That isn’t funny.”

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker shouldn’t have been in the site, but so much was going on, no one really noticed.

“Smell anything?” The cat asked her companion.

“Old smoke. A cold trail—this fellow’s been dead too long for scenting.” The corgi wrinkled her black nose.

Mrs. Murphy pawed a piece of the skull.“Pretty weird.”

“What?”

“Well, the guy’s had his head bashed, but someone put this big piece of skull back in place.”

“Yeah.” The dog was fascinated with the bones, but then, any bones fascinated Tucker.

“Hey, hey, you two, get out of here!” Harry commanded.

Tucker obediently left, but Mrs. Murphy didn’t. She batted at the skull.“Look, you dummies.”

“She thinks everything is a toy.” Harry scooped up the cat.

“I do not!” Mrs. Murphy puffed her tail in fury, squirmed out of Harry’s arms, and jumped back to the ground to pat the skull piece again.

“I’m sorry, Cynthia, I’ll put her back in the truck. Wonder if I could put her in Monticello? The truck’s a ways off.”

“She’ll shred Mr. Jefferson’s bedspread,” Tucker warned.“If it has historic value, she can’t wait to get her claws in it. Think what she’ll say to Pewter, ‘I tore up Thomas Jefferson’s silk bedspread.’ If it has tassles on it, forget it. There won’t be any left.”

“And you wouldn’t chew the furniture legs?” the cat shot back.

“Not if they give me one of those bones, I won’t.” The corgi laughed.

“Stop being an ass, Tucker, and help me get these two nincompoops to really look at what they’re seeing.”

Tucker hopped into the dig and walked over to the skeleton. She sniffed the large skull fragment, a triangular piece perhaps four inches across at the base.

“What’s going on here?” Harry, frustrated, tried to reach for the cat and the dog simultaneously. They both evaded her with ease.

Cynthia, trained as an observer, watched the cat jump sideways as though playing and return each time to repeatedly touch the same piece of the skull. Each time she would twist away from an exasperated Harry.“Wait a minute, Harry.” She hunkered down in the earth, still soft from the rains. “Sheriff, come back here a minute, will you?” Cynthia stared at Mrs. Murphy, who sat opposite her and stared back, relieved that someone got the message.

“That Miranda makes mean chicken.” He waved his drumstick like a baton. “What could tear me away from fried chicken, cold greens, potato salad, and did you see the apple pie?”

“There’d better be some left when I get out of here.” Cynthia called up to Mrs. Hogendobber. “Mrs. H., save some for me.”

“Of course I will, Cynthia. Even though you’re our new deputy, you’re still a growing girl.” Miranda, who’d known Cynthia since the day she was born, was delighted that she’d received the promotion.

“Okay, what is it?” Rick eyed the cat, who eyed him back.

For good measure, Mrs. Murphy stuck out one mighty claw and tapped the triangular skull piece.

He did notice.“Strange.”

Mrs. Murphy sighed.“No shit, Sherlock.”

Cynthia whispered,“Oliver’s deflected us a bit, you know what I mean? We should have noticed the odd shape of this piece, but his mouth hasn’t stopped running.”

Rick grunted in affirmation. They’d confer about Oliver later. Rick took his index finger and nudged the piece of bone.

Harry, mesmerized, knelt down on the other side of the skeleton.“Are you surprised that there isn’t more damage to the cranium?”

Rick blinked for a moment. He had been lost in thought.“Uh, no, actually. Harry, this man was killed with one whacking-good blow to the back of the head with perhaps an ax or a wedge or some heavy iron tool. The break is too clean for a blunt instrument—but the large piece here is strange. I wonder if the back of an ax could do that?”

“Do what?” Harry asked.

“The large, roughly triangular piece may have been placed back in the skull,” Cynthia answered for him, “or at the time of death it could have been partially attached, but the shape of the break is what’s unusual. Usually when someone takes a crack to the head, it’s more of a mess—pulverized.”

“Thank, you, thank you, thank you!” Mrs. Murphy crowed.“Not that I’ll get any credit.”

“I’d settle for some of Mrs. Hogendobber’s chicken instead of thanks,” Tucker admitted.

“How can you be sure, especially with a body—or what’s left of it—this old, that one person killed him? Couldn’t it have been two or three?” Harry’s curiosity was rising with each moment.

“I can’t be sure of anything, Harry.” Rick was quizzical. “But I see what you’re getting at. One person could have pinned him while the second struck the blow.”

Tucker, now completely focused on Mrs. H.’s chicken, saucily yipped,“So the killer scooped the brains out and fed them to the dog.”

“Gross, Tucker.” Mrs. Murphy flattened her ears for an instant.

“You’ve come up with worse.”

“Tucker, go on up to Mrs. Hogendobber and beg. You’re just making noise. I need to think,” the cat complained.

“Mrs. Hogendobber has a heart of steel when it comes to handing out goodies.”

“Bet Kimball doesn’t.”

“Good idea.” The dog followed Mrs. Murphy’s advice.

Harry grimaced slightly at the thought.“A neat killer. Those old fireplaces were big enough to stand in. One smash and that was it.” Her mind raced. “But whoever did it had to dig deep into the fireplace, arrange the body, cover it up. It must have taken all night.”

“Why night?” Cynthia questioned.

“These are slave quarters. Wouldn’t the occupant be working during the day?”

“Harry, you have a point there.” Rick stood up, his knees creaking. “Kimball, who lived here?”

“Before the fire it was Medley Orion. We don’t know too much about her except that she was perhaps twenty at the time of the fire,” came the swift reply.

“After the fire?” Rick continued his questioning.

“We’re not sure if Medley came back to this site to live. We know she was still, uh, employed here because her name shows up in the records,” Kimball said.

“Know what she did, her line of work?” Cynthia asked.

“Apparently a seamstress of some talent.” Kimball joined them in the pit, but only after being suckered out of a tidbit by Tucker. “Ladies who came to visit often left behind fabrics for Medley to transform. We have mention of her skills in letters visitors wrote back to Mr. Jefferson.”

“Was Jefferson paid?” Rick innocently asked.

“Good heavens, no!” Oliver called from the food baskets. “Medley would have been paid directly either in coin or in kind.”

“Slaves could earn money independently of their masters?” Cynthia inquired. This notion shed new light on the workings of a plantation.

“Yes, indeed, they could and that coin was coveted. A few very industrious or very fortunate slaves bought their way to freedom. Not Medley, I’m afraid, but she seems to have had quite a good life,” Oliver said soothingly.

“Any idea when this fellow bit the dust, literally?” Harry couldn’t resist.

Kimball leaned down and picked up a few of the coins.“Don’t worry, we’ve photographed everything, from numerous different angles and heights, drawn the initial positions on our grids—everything is in order.” Kimball reassured everyone that the investigation was not jeopardizing the progress of his archaeological work. “The nearest date wecan come to is 1803. That’s the date of a coin in the dead man’s pocket.”

“The Louisiana Purchase,” Mrs. Hogendobber sang out.

“Maybe this guy was opposed to the purchase. A political enemy of T.J.’s,” Rick jested.

“Don’t even think that. Not for an instant. And especially not on hallowed ground.” Oliver sucked in his breath. “Whatever happened here, I am certain that Mr. Jefferson had no idea, no idea whatsoever. Why else would the murderer have gone to such pains to dispose of the body?”

“Most murderers do,” Cynthia explained.

“Sorry, Oliver, I didn’t mean to imply …” Rick apologized.

“Quite all right, quite all right.” Oliver smiled again. “We’re just wrought up, you see, because this April thirteenth will be the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of Mr. Jefferson’s birth, and we don’t want anything to spoil it, to bleed attention away from his achievements and vision. Something like this could, well, imbalance the celebration, shall we say?”

“I understand.” Rick did too. “But I am elected sheriff to keep the peace, if you will, and the peace was disturbed here, perhaps in 1803 or thereabouts. We’ll carbon-date the body, of course. Oliver, it’s my responsibility to solve this crime. When it was committed is irrelevant to me.”

“Surely, no one is in danger today. They’re all”—he swept his hand outward—“dead.”

“I’d like to think the architect of this place would not find me remiss in my duties.” Rick’s jaw was set.

A chill shivered down Harry’s spine. She knew the sheriff to be a strong man, a dedicated public servant, but when he said that, when he acknowledged his debt to the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the man who elevated America’s sense of architecture and the living arts, the man who endured the presidency and advanced the nation, she recognized that she, too, all of them, in fact, even Heike, were tied to the redheaded man born in 1743. But if they really thought about it, they owed honor to all who came before them, all who tried to improve conditions.

As Oliver Zeve could concoct no glib reply, he returned to the food baskets. But he muttered under his breath,“Murder at Monticello. Good God.”

9

Riding back to Crozet in Mrs. Hogendobber’s Falcon, Mrs. Murphy asleep in her lap, Tucker zonked on the back seat, Harry’s mind churned like an electric blender.

“I’m waiting.”

“Huh?”

“Harry, I’ve known you since little on up. What’s going on?” Mrs. Hogendobber tapped her temple.

“Oliver. He ought to work for a public relations firm. You know, the kind of people who can make Sherman’s March look like trespassing.”

“I can understand his position. I’m not sure it’s as bad as he thinks, but then, I’m not responsible for making sure there’s enough money to pay the bills for putting a new roof on Monticello either. He’s got to think of image.”

“Okay, a man was murdered on Mulberry Row. He had money in his pockets, I wonder how much by today’s standards… .”

“Kimball will figure that out.”

“He wore a big gold ring. Not too shabby. What in the hell was he doing in Medley Orion’s cabin?”

“Picking up a dress for his wife.”

“Or worse.” Harry frowned. “That’s why Oliver is so fussy. Another slave wouldn’t have a brocaded vest or a gold ring on his finger. The victim was white and well-to-do. If I think of that, so will others when this gets reported… .”

“Soon, I should think.”

“Mim will fry.” Harry couldn’t help smiling.

“She already knows,” Mrs. Hogendobber informed her.

“Damn, you know everything.”

“No. Everybody.” Mrs. H. smiled. “Kimball mentioned it to me when I said, sotto voce, mind you, that Mim must be told.”

“Oh.” Harry’s voice trailed off, then picked up steam. “Well, what I’m getting at is if I think about white men in slaves’ cabins, so will other people. Not that the victim was carrying on with Medley, but who knows? People jump to conclusions. And that will bring up the whole Sally Hemings mess again. Poor Thomas Jefferson. They won’t let that rest.”

“His so-called affair with the beautiful slave, Sally, was invented by the Federalists. They loathed and feared him. The last thing they wanted was Jefferson as president. Not a word of truth in it.”

Harry, not so sure, moved on.“Funny, isn’t it? A man was killed one hundred ninety years ago, if 1803 was the year, and we’re disturbed by it. It’s like an echo from the past.”

“Yes, it is.” Miranda’s brow furrowed. “It is because for one human being to murder another is a terrible, terrible thing. Whoever killed that man knew him. Was it hate, love, love turned to hate, fear of some punishment? What could have driven someone to kill this man, who must have been powerful? I can tell you one thing.”

“What?”

“The devil’s deep claws tore at both of them, killer and killed.”

10

“I told Marilyn Sanburne no good would come of her Mulberry Row project.” Disgusted, Wesley Randolph slapped the morning newspaper down on the dining table. The coffee rolled precariously in the Royal Doulton cup. He had just finished reading the account of the find, obviously influenced by Oliver Zeve’s statement. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” he growled.

“Don’t exercise yourself,” Ansley drawled. Her father-in-law’s recitation of pedigree had amused her when Warren was courting her, but now, after eighteen years of marriage, she could recite them as well as Wesley could. Her two sons, Breton and Stuart, aged fourteen and sixteen, knew them also. She was tired of his addiction to the past.

Warren picked up the paper his father had slapped down and read the article.

“Big Daddy, a skeleton was unearthed in a slave’s cabin. Probably more dust than bone. Oliver Zeve has issued what I think is a sensible report to the press. Interest will swell for a day or two and then subside. If you’re so worked up about it, go see the mortal coil for yourself.” Ansley half smiled when she stole the description fromHamlet.

Warren still responded to Ansley’s beauty, but he detected her disaffection for him. Not that she overtly showed it. Far too discreet for that, Ansley had settled into the rigors of propriety as regarded her husband. “You take history too lightly, Ansley.” This statement should please the old man, he thought.

“Dearest, I don’t take it at all. History is dead. I’m alive today and I’d like to be alive tomorrow—and I think our family’s contributions to Monticello are good for today. Let’s keep Albemarle’s greatest attraction growing.”

Wesley shook his head.“This archaeology in the servants’ quarters”—he puffed out his ruddy cheeks—“stirs up the pot. The next thing you know, some council of Negroes—”

“African Americans,” Ansley purred.

“I don’t give a damn what you call them!” Wesley raised his voice. “I still think ‘colored’ is the most polite term yet! Whatever you want to call them, they’ll get themselves organized, they’ll camp in a room underneath a terrace at Monticello, and before you know it, all of Jefferson’s achievements will be nullified. They’ll declare thatthey did them.”

“Well, they certainly performed most of the work. Didn’t he have something like close to two hundred slaves on his various properties?” Ansley challenged her father-in-law while Warren held his breath.

“Depends on the year,” Wesley waffled. “And how do you know that?”

“Mim’s lecture.”

“Mim Sanburne is the biggest pain in the ass this county has suffered since the seventeenth century. Before this is all over, Jefferson will be besmirched, dragged in the dirt, made out to be a scoundrel. Mim and her Mulberry Row. Leave the servant question alone! Damn, I wish I’d never writtenher a check.”

“But it’s part of history.” Ansley was positively enjoying this.

“Whose history?”

“America’s history, Big Daddy.”

“Oh, balls!” He glared at her, then laughed. She was the only person in his life who dared stand up to him—and he loved it.

Warren, worry turning to boredom, drank his orange juice and turned to the sports page.

“Have you any opinion?” Wesley’s bushy eyebrows knitted together.

“Huh?”

“Warren, Big Daddy wants to know what you think about this body at Monticello stuff.”

“I—uh—what can I say? Hopefully this discovery will lead us to a better understanding of life at Monticello, the rigors and pressures of the time.”

“We aren’t your constituency. I’m your father! Do you mean to tell me a corpse in the garden, or wherever the hell it was”—he grabbed at the front page to double-check—“in Cabin Four, can be anything but bad news?”

Warren, long accustomed to his father’s fluctuating opinion of his abilities and behavior, drawled, “Well, Poppa, it sure was bad news for the corpse.”

Ansley heard Warren’s Porsche 911 roar out of the garage. She knew Big Daddy was at the stable. She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Lucinda,” she said with surprise before continuing, “have you read the paper?”

“Yes. The queen of Crozet has her tit in the wringer this time,” Lucinda pungently put it.

“Really, Lulu, it’s not that bad.”

“It’s not that good.”

“I never will understand why being related to T.J. by blood, no matter how thinned out, is so important,” said Ansley, who understood only too well.

Lucinda drew deeply on her cheroot.“What else have our respective husbands got? I don’t think Warren’s half so besotted with the blood stuff, but I mean, Samson makes money from it. Look at his real estate ads inThe New York Times. He wiggles in his relation to Jefferson every way he can.‘See Jefferson country from his umpty-ump descendant.’ ” She took another drag. “I suppose he has to make a living somehow. Samson isn’t the brightest man God ever put on earth.”

“One of the best-looking though,” Ansley said. “You always did have the best taste in men, Lulu.”

“Thank you—at this point it doesn’t matter. I’m a golf widow.”

“Count your blessings, sister. I wish I could get Warren interested in something besides his so-called practice. Big Daddy keeps him busy reading real estate contracts, lawsuits, syndication proposals—I’d go blind.”

“Boom time for lawyers,” Lulu said. “The economy is in the toilet, everybody’s blaming everybody else, and the lawsuits are flying like confetti. Too bad we don’t use that energy to work together.”

“Well, right now, honey, we’ve got a tempest in a teapot. Every old biddy and crank scholar in central Virginia will pass out opinions like gas.”

“Mim wanted attention for her project.” Lulu didn’t hide her sarcasm. She’d grown tired of taking orders from Mim over the years.

“She’s got it now.” Ansley walked over to the sink and began to run the water. “What papers did you read this morning?”

“Local and Richmond.”

“Lulu, did the Richmond paper say anything about the cause of death?”

“No.”

“Or who it is? TheCourier was pretty sparse on the facts.”

“Richmond too. They probably don’t know anything, but we’ll find out as soon as they do, I guess. You know, I’ve half a mind to call Mim and just bitch her out.” Lucinda stubbed out her cheroot.

“You won’t.” An edge crept into Ansley’s voice.

A long silence followed.“I know—but maybe someday I will.”

“I want to be there. I’d pay good money to see the queen get her comeuppance.”

“As she does a lot of business with both of our husbands, about all I can do is dream—you too.” Lucinda bid Ansley goodbye, hung up the phone, and reflected for a moment on her precarious position.

Mim Sanburne firmly held the reins of Crozet social life. She paid back old scores, never forgot a slight, but by the same token, she never forgot a favor. Mim could use her wealth as a crowbar, a carrot, or even as a wreath to toss over settled differences—settled in her favor. Mim never minded spending money. What she minded was not getting her way.

11

The gray of dawn yielded to rose, which surrendered to the sun. The horses fed and turned out, the stalls mucked, and the opossum fed his treat of sweet feed and molasses, Harry happily trotted inside to make herself breakfast.

Harry started each morning with a cup of coffee, moved her great-grandmother’s cast-iron iron away from the back door—her security measure—jogged to the barn, and got the morning chores out of the way. Then she usually indulged herself in hot oatmeal or fried eggs or sometimes even fluffy pancakes drenched in Lyon’s Golden Syrup from England.

The possum, Simon, a bright and curious fellow, would sometimes venture close to the house, but she could never coax him inside. She marveled at how Mrs. Murphy and Tucker accepted the gray creature. Mrs. Murphy displayed an unusual tolerance for other animals. Often it took Tucker a bit longer.

“All right, you guys. You already had breakfast, but if you’re real good to me, I might, I just might, fry an egg for you.”

“I’ll be good, I’ll be good.” Tucker wagged her rear end since she had no tail.

“If you’d learn to play hard to get, you’d have more dignity.” Mrs. Murphy jumped onto a kitchen chair.

“I don’t want dignity, I want eggs.”

Harry pulled out the number five skillet, old and heavy cast iron. She rubbed it with Crisco after every washing to help preserve its longevity. She dropped a chunk of butter into the middle of the pan, which she placed on low heat. She fetched a mixing bowl and cracked open four eggs, diced a bit of cheese, some olives, and even threw in a few capers. As the skillet reached the correct temperature, the butter beginning to sizzle, she placed the eggs in it. She folded them over once, turned it off, and quickly put the eggs on a big plate. Then she divided the booty.

Tucker ate out of her ceramic bowl, which Harry placed on the floor.

Mrs. Murphy’s bowl, “Upholstery Destroyer” emblazoned on its side, sat on the table. She ate with Harry.

“This is delicious.” The cat licked her lips.

“Yeah.” Tucker could barely speak, she was eating so fast.

The tiger cat enjoyed the olives. Seeing her pick them out and eat them first made Harry laugh every time she did it.

“You’re too much, Mrs. Murphy.”

“I like to savor my food,” the cat rejoined.

“Got any more?” Tucker sat down beside her empty bowl, her neck craned upward, should any morsel fall off the table.

“You’re as bad as Pewter.”

“Thanks.”

“You two are chatty this morning.” Harry cheerfully drank her second cup of coffee as she thought out loud to the animals. “Guess being up at Monticello has made me think. What would we be doing if this were 1803? I suppose, getting up at the same time and feeding the horses wouldn’t have changed. Mucking stalls hasn’t changed. But someone would have had to stoke a fire in an open hearth. If a person lived alone, it would have been a lot harder than today. How could anyone perform her chores, cook for herself, butcher meat—well, I guess you could have bought your meat, but only a day at a time unless you had a smokehouse or the meat was salted down. Think about it. And you two, no worm medicine or rabies shots, but then, no vaccines for me either. Clothing must have been itchy and heavy in the winter. Summer wouldn’t have been too bad because the women could have worn linen dresses. Men could take off their shirts. And I resent that. If I can’t take off my shirt, I don’t see why they can.” She carried on this conversation with her two friends as they hung on every word and every mouthful of egg that was shoveled into Harry’s mouth. “You two aren’t really listening, are you?”

“We are!”

“Here.” Harry handed Mrs. Murphy an extra olive and gave Tucker a nibble of egg. “I don’t know why I spoil you all. Look at how much you’ve had to eat this morning.”

“We love you, Mom.” Mrs. Murphy emitted a major purr.

Harry scratched the tiger cat’s ear with one hand and reached down to perform the same service for Tucker. “I don’t know what I’d do without you two. It’s so easy to love animals and so hard to love people. Men anyway. Your mom is striking out with the opposite sex.”

“No, you’re not.” Tucker consoled her and was very frustrated that Harry couldn’t understand.“You haven’t met the right guy yet.”

“I still think Blair is the right guy.” Mrs. Murphy put in her two cents.

“Blair is off on some modeling job. Anyway, I don’t think Mom needs a man who’s that pretty.”

“What do you mean by that?” the cat asked.

“She needs the outdoor type. You know, a lineman or a farmer or a vet.”

Mrs. Murphy thought about that as Harry rubbed her ears.“You still miss Fair?”

“Sometimes I do,” the little dog replied honestly.“He’s big and strong, he could do a lot of farmwork, and he could protect Mom if something went wrong, you know.”

“She can protect herself.” True as this was, the cat also worried occasionally about Harry being alone. No matter how you cut it, most men were stronger than most women. It was good to have a man around the farm.

“Yeah—but still,” came the weak reply.

Harry stood up and took the dishes to the porcelain sink. She meticulously washed each one, dried them, and put them away. Coming home to dirty dishes in the sink drove Harry to despair. She turned off the coffeepot.“Looks like a Mary Minor Haristeen day.” This meant it was sunny.

She paused for a moment to watch the horses groom one another. Then her mind drifted off for a moment and she spoke to her animal friends.“How could Medley Orion live with a body under her fireplace—if she knew? She may not have known a single thing, but if she did, how could she make her coffee, eat her breakfast, and go about her business—knowing? I don’t think I could do it.”

“If you were scared enough, you could,” Mrs. Murphy wisely noted.

12

The old walnut countertop gleamed as Mrs. Hogendobber polished it with beeswax. Harry, using a stiff broom, swept out the back of the post office. The clock read two-thirty, a time for chores and a lull between people stopping in at lunchtime and on their way home from work. Mrs. Murphy, sound asleep in the mail cart, flicked her tail and cackled, dreaming of mice. Tucker lay on her side on the floor, made shiny from the decades of treading feet. She, too, was out cold.

“Hey, did I tell you that Fair asked me to the movies next week?” Harry attacked a corner.

“He wants you back.”

“Mrs. H., you’ve been saying that since the day we separated. He sure didn’t want me back when he was cavorting with BoomBoom Craycroft, she of the pontoon bosoms.”

Mrs. Hogendobber waved her dust cloth over her head like a small flag.“A passing fancy. He had to get it out of his system.”

“And so he did,” came Harry’s clipped reply.

“You must forgive and forget.”

“Easy for you to say. It wasn’t your husband.”

“You’ve got me there.”

Harry, surprised that Mrs. Hogendobber agreed with her so readily, paused a moment, her broom held off the ground. A knock at the back door brought the broom down again.

“Me,” Market Shiflett called.

“Hi.” Harry opened the door and Market, who owned the grocery store next door, came in, followed by Pewter.

“Haven’t seen you today. What have you been up to?” Miranda kept polishing.

“This and that and who shot the cat.” He smiled, looked down at Pewter, and apologized. “Sorry, Pewter.”

Pewter, far too subtle to push the dog awake, flicked her fat little tail over Tucker’s nose until the dog opened her eyes.

“I was dead to the world.” Tucker blinked.

“Where’s herself?” Pewter inquired.

“Mail cart, last time I saw her.”

A gleam in her eye betrayed Pewter’s intentions. She walked to the mail cart and halted. She scrunched down and wiggled her rear end, then with a mighty leap she catapulted herself into the mail cart. A holy howl attended this action. Had Mrs. Murphy not been a cat in the prime of her life, had she been, say, an older feline, shesurely would have lost her bladder control at such a rude awakening. A great hissing and spitting filled the bin, which was beginning to roll just a bit.

“Now, that’s enough.” Market hurried over to the mail cart, where he beheld the spectacle of his beloved cat, claws out, rolling around the heavy canvas bag with Mrs. Murphy in the same posture. Tufts of fur floated in the air.

Harry dashed over.“I don’t know what gets into these two. They’re either the best of friends or like Muslims versus Christians.” Harry reached in to separate the two, receiving a scratch for her concern.

“You fat pig!” Mrs. Murphy bellowed.

“Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat,” Pewter taunted.

“You ought not to make light of religious differences,” Mrs. Hogendobber, faithful to the Church of the Holy Light, admonished Harry. “Cats aren’t religious anyway.”

“Who says?” Two little heads popped over the side of the cart.

This moment of peace lasted a millisecond before they dropped back in the cart and rolled over each other again.

Harry laughed.“I’m not reaching in there. They’re bound to get tired of this sooner or later.”

“Guess you’re right.” Market thought the hissing was awful. “I wanted to tell you I’ve got a special on cat food today. You want me to save you a case?”

“Oh, thanks. How about a nice, fresh chicken too?”

“Harry, don’t tell me you’re going to cook a chicken?” Mrs. Hogendobber held her heart as though this was too much. “What’s this world coming to?”

“Speaking of that, how about them finding a body up at Monticello?”

Before either woman could respond, Samson Coles blustered in the front door, so Market repeated his question.

Samson shook his leonine head.“Damn shame. I guarantee you that by tomorrow the television crews will be camped out at Mulberry Row and this unfortunate event will be blown out of all proportion.”

“Well, I don’t know. It does seem strange that a body would be buried under a cabin. If the death was, uh, legitimate, wouldn’t the body be in a cemetery? Even slaves had cemeteries.” Market said.

Both Harry and Mrs. H. knew the body didn’t belong to a slave. So did Mrs. Murphy, who said so loudly to Pewter. They had exhausted themselves and lay together in the bottom of the cart.

“How do you know that?” the gray cat wondered.

“Because I saw the corpse,” Mrs. Murphy bragged.“The back of the skull was caved in like a big triangle.”

“You aren’t supposed to give out the details,” Tucker chided.

“Oh, bull, Tucker. The humans can’t understand a word I’m saying. They think Pewter and I are in here meowing and you’re over there whining at us.”

“Then get out of the cart so we can all talk,” Tucker called up.“I saw the body too, Pewter.”

“Did you now?” Pewter grasped the edge of the cart with her chubby paws and peered over the side.

“Don’t listen to him. All he wanted was Mrs. Hogendobber’s chicken.”

“I saw the body as plain as you did, bigmouth. It was lying facedown under the hearth, maybe two feet under where the floor must have been at the time of death. So there.”

“You don’t say!” Pewter’s eyes widened into big black balls.“A murder!”

“Good point, Market.” Samson cupped his chin in his hand for a moment. “Why would a body be buried—what did they say, under the fireplace?”

“Hearth,” the dog called out, but they didn’t pay attention.

“Maybe the man died in the winter and they couldn’t dig up the frozen ground. But the ground wouldn’t be frozen under the hearth, would it?” Market threw this out. He didn’t necessarily believe it.

“I thought the people at that time had mausoleums, or something like mausoleums anyway, dug into rock where they’d store bodies until the spring thaws. Then they’d dig the grave,” Miranda added.

“Did they really?” Market shivered at the thought of bodies being stacked up somewhere like cordwood.

“Well, they were frozen, I suspect,” Miranda answered.

“Gruesome.” Samson grimaced. “Has Lucinda come in today?”

“No,” Harry answered.

“I can’t keep track of my own wife’s schedule.” His affable tone belied the truth—he didn’t want Lucinda tailing him. He liked to know her whereabouts because he didn’t want her to know his.

“What’d she think of the Monticello discovery?” Mrs. Hogendobber asked politely.

“Lucinda? Oh, she didn’t think it would be positive publicity, but she can’t see that it has anything to do with us today.” Samson tapped the countertop, admiring Mrs. Hogendobber’s handiwork. “I hear Wesley Randolph doesn’t like this one bit. He’s overreacting, but then, he always does. Lulu’s interest in history isn’t as deep as mine,” he sighed, “but then, she doesn’t have my connections to Mr. Jefferson. A direct line from his mother, Jane, you know, and then, of course, on my father’s side I’m related to Dolley Madison. Naturally, my interest is keen and Lulu’s people were new. I don’t think they got over here until the 1780s.” He stopped for a second, realized he was unrolling his pedigree to people who could recite it as well as he could. “I digress. Anyway, Lulu reads a good amount. Like me, she’ll be glad when this episode is behind us. We don’t want the wrong kind of attention here in Albemarle County.”

“Samson, we’re talking about almost two centuries between then and now.” Market chuckled.

“The past lives on in Virginia, the mother of presidents.” Samson beamed a Chamber of Commerce smile. He couldn’t have known how true was that pronouncement, or how tragic.

As Samson left, Danny Tucker and Stuart and Breton Randolph boisterously rushed into the post office. Danny looked like his mother, Susan. Stuart and Breton also strongly resembled their mother, Ansley. Every mouth jabbered simultaneously as the teenage boys reached into the mailboxes.

“Eii—” Danny let out a yell and jerked back his hand.

“Mousetrap?” Stuart’s sandy eyebrows shot upward.

“No such luck,” Danny sarcastically replied.

Breton peeped in the mailbox.“Gross.” He reached in and pulled out a fake eyeball.

Harry whispered to Mrs. Hogendobber.“Did you do that?”

“I won’t say I did and I won’t say I didn’t.”

“Harry, did you put this eyeball in the mailbox?” Danny, accompanied by his buddies, leaned on the counter.

“No.”

“Mother’s not fond of rubber eyeballs,” Mrs. Murphy disclosed.

Reverend Herb Jones walked into the hubbub.“A prayer meeting?”

“Hi, Rev.” Stuart adored the pastor.

“Stuart, address Reverend Jones properly,” Miranda ordered.

“I’m sorry. Hello, Reverend Jones.”

“I always do what Mrs. H. tells me.” Reverend Jones put his arm around Stuart’s shoulders. “I’d be scared not to.”

“Now, Herbie …” Miranda began to protest.

Breton, a sweet kid, chimed in.“Mrs. Hogendobber, we all do what you tell us because you’re usually right.”

“Well …” A long, breathless pause followed. “I’m glad you all realize that.” She exploded in laughter and everyone joined in, including the animals.

“Harry.” Herb put his hand on the counter as he laughed. “Thanks for calling me the other day about my flat tire. Fixed it—now just got another one.”

“Oh, no,” Harry responded.

“You need a new truck,” Market Shiflett suggested.

“Yes, but I need the money, and so far—”

“No pennies from heaven.” Harry couldn’t resist. This set everyone off again.

“Reverend Jones, I’ll help you change your tire,” Danny volunteered.

“Me too.” Breton jumped in.

“Me three.” Stuart was already out the door.

As they bounded out, Danny flashed his rubber eye back at Harry, who made a cross with her fingers.

“Good kids, I miss Courtney. She’s loving her first year at college. Still hard to let go.” Market, a widower, sighed.

“You did a wonderful job with that girl,” Miranda praised him.

“Too bad you didn’t do better with Lardguts,” Mrs. Murphy called out.

“Thanks,” Market replied.

“I resent that,” Pewter growled.

“Well, back to the salt mines.” Market paused. “Pewter?”

“I’m coming. I’m not staying here to be insulted by a—a string bean.”

“Oh, Pewter, where’s your sense of humor?” Tucker padded over to her and gave her a nudge.

“How do you stand her?” Pewter liked the corgi.

“I tear up her catnip toys when she’s not looking.”

Pewter, at Market’s heels, gaily sprang out the door as she thought of a catnip sock shredded to bits.

Harry and Miranda returned to their chores.

“You are the culprit. I know it.” Harry giggled.

“An eye for an eye …” Mrs. H. quoted her Old Testament.

“Yeah, but it was Susan who put the rubber spider in the box, not Danny.”

“Oh, darn.” The older woman clapped her hands together. She thought, “Well, help me get even.”

Harry tipped back her head and roared. Miranda laughed too, as did Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, whose laughter sounded like little snorts.

13

Samson Coles’s bright red Grand Wagoneer stuck out like a sore thumb on the country roads. The big eight-cylinder engine harnessed to a four-wheel drive was essential to his business. He’d hauled prospective buyers through fields, forded rivers, and rumbled down old farm roads. The roominess inside pleasedpeople, and he was disappointed when Jeep discontinued the boxy vehicle to replace it with a smaller, sleeker model, the Grand Cherokee. The Grand Cherokee suffered from a Roman nose and too much resemblance to the rest of the Jeep line, he thought. The wonderful thing about the old Wagoneer was that no other car looked like it. Samson craved standing apart from the crowd.

However, he didn’t much crave it today. He parked behind a huge bank barn, pulled on his galoshes, and stomped through over a mile of slush to Blair Bainbridge’s farm next to Harry’s place.

He knew Harry was keeping an eye on the farm in Blair’s absence. The great thing about a small town is that most people know your schedule. It was also the bad thing about a small town.

Harry usually sorted Blair’s mail at work and put it in an international packet so he’d get it within a few days unless Blair happened to be on a shoot in a very remote area or in a political hot spot. She’d stop by Blair’s Foxden Farm on her way home from work.

The squish of mud dragged him down. Hard to run in galoshes, and Samson was in a hurry. He had a two o’clock appointment at Midale. That listing, once the property sold, meant a healthy commission for Samson. He needed the money. He was listing the estate at $2.2 million. He thought Midale would sell between $1.5 and $1.8 million. He’d work that out with his client later. The important thing was to get the listing. He’d learned a long time ago that in the real estate business if you give the client a high price, you usually win the listing. Occasionally, he would sell a property for the listing price. More often than not, the place would sell for twenty to thirty percent less and he covered himself by elaborately explaining that the market had dipped, interest rates varied, whatever soothed the waters. After all, he didn’t want a reputation for being an unrealistic agent.

He checked his watch. Eleven-fifteen. Damn, not much time. Two o’clock would roll around before he knew it.

The lovely symmetrical frame house came into view. He hurried on. At the back screen door he lifted the lid of the old milk box. The key dangled inside on a small brass hook.

He put the key in the door, but it was already unlocked. He opened and closed the door behind him.

Ansley rushed out from the living room, where she’d been waiting. “Darling.” She threw her arms around his neck.

“Where’d you park your car?” Samson asked.

“In the barn, out of sight. Now, is that a romantic thing to say?”

He squeezed her tight.“I’ll show you my romantic side in other ways, sweet thing.”

14

The County of Albemarle wasted little money on the offices of the sheriff’s department. Presumably they saw fit to waste the taxpayers’ money in other ways. Rick Shaw felt fortunate that he and his field staff had bulletproof vests and new cars at regular intervals. The walls, once painted 1950s grade-school-green, had at least graduated to real-estate-white. So much for improvements. Spring hadn’t really sprung. Rick was grateful. Every spring the incidence of drunkenness, domestic violence, and general silliness rose. Cynthia Cooper attributed it to spring fever. Rick attributed it to the inherent vile qualities of the human animal.

“Now, see here, Sheriff, is this really necessary?” Oliver Zeve’s lips narrowed to a slit. A note of authority and class superiority slithered into his deep voice.

Rick, long accustomed to people of higher social position trying to browbeat him, politely but firmly said,“Yes.”

During this discussion Deputy Cooper marched back and forth, occasionally catching Rick’s eye. She knew her boss really wanted to pick up the director of Monticello by the seat of his tailored pants and toss him out the front door. Rick’s expression changed when he spoke to Kimball Haynes. “Mr. Haynes, have you found anything else?”

“I’m pretty sure that the body was buried before the fire. There’s no ash or cinder below the line where we discovered him—uh, the corpse.”

“Couldn’t the fire have been set to cover the evidence?” Rick doodled on his desk pad.

“Actually, Sheriff, that would have jeopardized the murderer if the murderer lived at Cabin Four or worked on the estate. You see, these fires were woefully common. Once the fire burned itself out and people could walk in the ruins, they would shovel up the cold ash and scrape the ground back down to the hard earth underneath.”

“Why?” The sheriff stopped doodling and made notes.

“Courtesy more than anything. Every time it rained, whoever had lived in the cabin would smell that smoke and ash. Also, what if after the fire they used the opportunity to enlarge the cabin or to make some improvement? You’d want to start on a good, flat surface… .”

“True.”

“Burning the cabin would only have served the purpose of making it appear the victim had died in the fire. Given the obvious status of the victim, that would be peculiar, wouldn’t it? Why would a well-to-do white man be in a slave’s cabin fire? Unless he was asleep and died of smoke inhalation, and you know what that would mean,” Kimball offered.

Oliver’s temper flared. “Kimball, I vigorously protest this specious line of reasoning. This is all conjecture. Very imaginative and certainly makes a good story but has little to do with the facts at hand. Namely, a skeleton, presumably almost two hundred years old, is found underneath the hearth. Spinning theories doesn’t get us anywhere. We need facts.”

Rick nodded gravely, then stung quickly.“That’s exactly why the remains must go to the lab in Washington.”

Caught, Oliver fought back.“As director of Monticello, I protest the removal of any object, animate or inanimate, human or otherwise, found on the grounds of Mr. Jefferson’s home.”

Kimball, exasperated, couldn’t restrain his barbed humor. “Oliver, what are we going to do with a skeleton?”

“Give it a decent burial,” Oliver replied through clenched teeth.

“Mr. Zeve, your protest is duly noted, but these remains are going to Washington and hopefully they’ll be able to give us some boundaries concerning time, if nothing else, sex, and race,” the sheriff stated flatly.

“We know it’s a man.” Oliver crossed his arms over his chest.

“What if it’s a woman in a man’s clothing? What if a slave had stolen an expensive vest—”

“Waistcoat,” Oliver corrected him.

“Well, what if? What if she wanted to make a dress out of it or something? Now, I am not in the habit of theorizing, and I can’t accept anything until I have a lab report. Do I think the skeleton is that of a male? Yes, I do. The pelvis in a male skeleton is smaller than that in a female. I’ve seen enough of them to know that. But as for the rest of it—I don’t know much.”

“Then may I ask you to please not theorize about the possibility of the victim’s dying by smoke inhalation? Let’s wait on that too.”

“Oliver, that was my, uh, moment of imagination.” Kimball shouldered the blame since Oliver wanted to assign it. “Miscegenation is an old word and an ugly word, but it would have been the word and the law at the time. I understand your squeamishness.”

“Squeamish?”

“Okay, wrong word. It’s a delicate issue. But I return to my original scenario, and being an archaeologist, I have some authority here. In the process of preparing the burned cabin for a new building, the killer would run the very real risk that a spade would turn up the corpse. That is one strong reason against a fire having been set to cover up the evidence. The other, far more convincing data is that the layer of charred earth—again, scraped back as best they could—was roughly two feet above the corpse, allowing for the slight difference between the actual floor of the cabin and the floor of the hearth.”

“Is there any record of this cabin burning?” Rick listened to the slow glide as the soft lead crossed the white page. He found it a consoling sound.

“If the murder occurred in 1803, as it would appear, Jefferson was in his first term as president. We have no record in his own hand of such an event, and he was a compulsive record-keeper. He’d even count out beans, nails—just compulsive. So, if he were home at the time, or visiting home from Washington, we can be certain he would have made a note of it. I’m sorry to say that the overseer lacked Mr. Jefferson’s meticulous habits,” Kimball replied.

“Unless the overseer was in on it and wanted no attention called to the cabin.” Rick stopped writing.

An edge crept into Oliver’s tone. “I guess after years on the job you would naturally think like that, Sheriff.”

“Mr. Zeve, I understand that at this moment we seem to be in an adversarial position. In as plain a language as I can find: A man was murdered and it was covered up, forgive the pun, for nigh onto two hundred years. I am not the expert that you are on the end of the eighteenth century, the beginning of the nineteenth, but I would hazard a guess that our forefathers were more civilized and less prone to violence than we are today. I would especially think this is true of anyone who would have worked at Monticello, or visited the estate. So, whoever killed our victim had a powerful motive.”

15

In the parking lot the cool, clammy evening air caused Kimball to shudder. Oliver added to his discomfort.

“You weren’t helpful in there.” Oliver tried to sound more disappointed than angry.

“Usually you and I work easily together. Your position is far more political than mine, Oliver, and I appreciate that. It’s not enough for you to be an outstanding scholar on Thomas Jefferson, you’ve got to play footsie with the people who write the checks, the National Historic Trust in D.C., and the descendants of the man. I’m sure I’ve left out other pressures.”

“The people and artisans who work at Monticello.” Oliver supplied this omission.

“Of course,” Kimball agreed. “My one concern is discovering as much as we can about Mulberry Row and preserving the architectural and even landscaping integrity of Monticello at the time of Mr. Jefferson’s peak. My interpretation of peak, naturally.”

“Then don’t offer up theories for the good sheriff. Let him find out whatever there is to find out. I don’t want this turned into a three-ring circus and certainly not before the two hundred fiftieth birthday celebration. We need to make sure that celebration has the correct focus.” He inhaled and whispered, “Money, Kimball, money. The media will turn somersaults on April thirteenth, and the attention will be a godsend to all our efforts to preserve, maintain, and extend Monticello.”

“I know.”

“Then, please, let’s not give anyone ideas about white men sleeping in slave cabins, or with slave women.Smoke inhalation.” Oliver pronounced the two words as though they were a sentence of doom.

Kimball waited, turning this over in his mind.“All right, but I can’t turn away the opportunity to help Sheriff Shaw.”

“Of course not.” Oliver intoned, “I know you well enough to know that. I’m in an optimistic frame of mind and I think whatever comes back from the lab will put this to rest. Then we can put the remains to rest in a Christian burial.”

After saying goodnight, Kimball hopped into his car. He watched Oliver’s taillights as he backed out behind him and then sped away. A moment of darkness enveloped him, a premonition perhaps or a sense of sorrow over his disagreement with Oliver, who could bounce him right out of a job. Then again, maybe thinking about murder and death, no matter how far distant, casts a brooding spell over people. Evil knows no time. Kimball shuddered again and chalked it up to the cool, cloying dampness.

16

The biting wind on Monticello Mountain made the forty-five-degree temperature feel like thirty-five. Mim huddled in her down jacket. She wanted to wear her sable, but Oliver Zeve warned her that wouldn’t look good for the Friends of Restoration. The antifur people would kick up a fuss. Made her spit. Furs had been keeping the human race warm for millennia. She did admit that the down jacket also kept her warm and was much lighter.

Montalto, the green spherical anchor at the northern end of Carter’s Ridge, drifted in and out of view. Ground clouds snaked through the lowlands, and they were slowly rising with the advent of the sun.

Mim admired Thomas Jefferson. She read voraciously what he himself had written and what had been written about him by others. She knew that he had purchased Montalto on October 14, 1777. Jefferson drew several observatory designs, for he wished to build one on Montalto. There was no end to his ideas, his drawings. He would return to projects years later and complete them. He needed little sleep, so he could accomplish more than most people.

Mim, greedy for sleep, wondered how he managed with so little. Perhaps his schemes held loneliness at bay when he sat at his desk at five in the morning. Or perhaps his mind raced so fast he couldn’t shut it off—might as well let it be productive. Another man might have gone on the prowl for trouble.

Not that Thomas Jefferson lacked his share of trouble or heartache. His father died when he was fourteen. His beloved tomboy older sister, Jane, died when he was twenty-two. His wife died on September 6, 1782, when he was thirty-nine, after he stayed home to nurse her for the last four painful months of her life. He sequestered himself in his room for three weeks following her death. After that he rode and rode and rode as if his horse could carry him away from death, from the burden of his crushing sorrow.

Mim felt she knew the man. Her sorrows, while not equal to Jefferson’s, nonetheless provided her with a sense that she could understand his losses. She understood his passion for architecture and landscaping. Politics proved harder for her to grasp. As the wife of Crozet’s mayor, she glad-handed, fed, and smiled at every soul in the community … and everybody wanted something.

How could this brilliant man participate in such a low profession?

A sound check in the background brought her out of her reverie. Little Marilyn pulled out a mirror for her mother. Mim scrutinized her appearance. Not bad. She cleared her throat. Then she stood up as she saw a production assistant walking her way.

Mim, Kimball, and Oliver would be discussing the corpse onWake-up Call, the national network morning show.

She was to deflect any suggestions of miscegenation, as Samson Coles put it to her on the phone. Wesley Randolph, when she called on him, advised her to emphasize that Jefferson was probably in Washington at the time of the unfortunate man’s demise. When Mim said that perhaps they’d have to wait for the pathology report from D.C., her rival and friend harrumphed. “Wait nothing. Don’t be honest, Mim. This is politics even if centuries have passed. In politics your virtues will be used against you. There’s private morality and public morality. I keep telling Warren that. Ansley understands, but my son sure doesn’t. You get up there and say whatever you want so long as it sounds good—and remember, the best defense is a good offense.”

Mim, poised at the edge of the lights behind the camera, watched as Kimball Haynes pointed to the site of the body.

Little Marilyn watched the monitor. A photo of the skeleton flashed on the screen.“Indecent.” Mim fumed. “You shouldn’t show a body until the next of kin are notified.”

A hand gripped her elbow, guiding her to her mark. The sound technician placed a tiny microphone on the lapel of her cashmere sweater. She shed her jacket. Her perfect three strands of pearls gleamed against the hunter-green sweater.

The host glided over to her, flashed his famous smile, and held out his right hand,“Mrs. Sanburne, Kyle Kottner, so pleased you could be with us this morning.”

He paused, listened to his earphone, and swiveled to face the camera with the red light.“I’m here now with Mrs. James Sanburne, president of the Friends of Restoration and the moving force behind the Mulberry Row project. Tell us, Mrs. Sanburne, about slave life during Thomas Jefferson’s time.”

“Mr. Jefferson would have called his people servants. Many of them were treasured as family members and many servants were highly skilled. His servants were devoted to him because he was devoted to them.”

“But isn’t it a contradiction, Mrs. Sanburne, that one of the fathers of liberty should own slaves?”

Mim, prepared, appeared grave and thoughtful.“Mr. Kottner, when Thomas Jefferson was a young man at the House of Burgesses before the Revolutionary War, he said that he made an effort at emancipation which failed. I think that the war diverted his attention from this subject, and as you know, he was sent to France, where his presence was crucial to our war efforts. France was the best friend we had.” Kyle started to cut her off, but Mim smiled brightly. “And after the war Americans faced the herculean labor of forming a new kind of government. Had he been born later, I do believe he would have successfully tackled this thorny problem.”

Amazed that a woman from a place he assumed was the sticks had gotten the better of him, Kyle shifted gears.“Have you any theories about the body found in Cabin Four?”

“Yes. I believe he was a violent opponent of Mr. Jefferson’s. What we would call a stalker today. And I believe one of the servants killed him to protect the great man’s life.”

Pandemonium. Everyone started talking at once. Mim stifled a broad smile.

Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, Susan, and Market were watching on the portable TV Susan had brought to the post office. Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter stared at the tube as well.

“Slick as an eel.” Harry clapped her hands in admiration.

“Stalker theory! Where does she come up with this stuff?” Market scratched his balding head.

“The newspapers,” Susan answered. “You’ve got to hand it to her. She turned the issue of slavery on its head. She controlled the interviewer instead of vice versa. Until the real story surfaces, if it ever does, she’s got the media chasing their tails.”

“The real story will surface.” Miranda spoke with conviction. “It always does.”

Pewter flicked her whiskers fore and aft.“Does anyone have a glazed doughnut? I’m hungry.”

“No,” Tucker replied.“Pewter, you have no sense of mystery.”

“That’s not true,” she defended herself.“But I see Mim on a daily basis. Watching her on television is no big deal.” Pewter, waiting for a comeback from Mrs. Murphy, was disappointed when none was forthcoming.“What planet are you on?”

The gorgeous eyes widened, the tiger cat hunched forward and whispered,“I’ve got a funny feeling about this. I can’t put my paw on it.”

“Oh, you’re hungry, that’s all.” Pewter dismissed Mrs. Murphy’s premonition.

17

Harry and Warren Randolph grunted as they picked up the York rake and put it on the back of her truck.

“Either this thing is getting heavier or I’m getting weaker,” Warren joked.

“It’s getting heavier.”

“Hey, come on for a minute. I want to show you something.”

Harry opened the door to the truck so Tucker and Mrs. Murphy could leap out to freedom. They followed Harry to the Randolphs’ beautiful racing barn, built in 1892. Behind the white frame structure with the green standing-seam tin roof lay the mile-long oval track. Warren bred Thoroughbreds. That, too, like this property, had been in the family since the eighteenth century. The Randolphs loved blooded horses. The impressive walnut-paneled foyer at the manor house, hung with equine paintings spanning the centuries, attested to that fact.

The generous twelve-by-twelve-foot stalls were back to back in the center line of the barn. The tack room, wash stalls, and feed room were located in the center of the stall block. Circling the outside of the stalls was a large covered aisle that doubled as an exercise track during inclement weather. Since many windows circled the outside wall, enough light shone on the track so that even on a blizzardy day a rider could work a horse.

Kentucky possessed more of these glorified shed-row barns than Virginia, so Warren naturally prized his barn, built by his paternal grandfather. Colonel Randolph had put his money in the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway as well as the Union Pacific.

“What do you think?” His hazel eyes danced.

“Beautiful!” Harry exclaimed.

“What do you think?” Mrs. Murphy asked Tucker.

Tucker tentatively put one paw on the Pavesafe rubber bricks. The dull reddish surface of interlocking bricks could expand and contract within itself, so no matter what the weather or temperature, the surface remained nonskid. The bricks were also specially treated to resist bacteria.

The tailless dog took a few gingery steps, then raced to the other curved end of the massive barn.“Yahoo! This is like running on cushions.”

“Hey, hey, wait for me!” The cat bolted after her companion.

“Your cat and dog approve.” Warren jammed his hands into his pockets like a proud father.

Harry knelt down and touched the surface.“This stuff is right out of paradise.”

“No, right out of Lexington, Kentucky.” He led her down the row of stalls. “Honey, they’re so far ahead of us in Kentucky that it hurts my pride sometimes.”

“I guess we have to expect that. It is the center of the Thoroughbred industry.” Harry’s toes tingled with the velvety feel underneath.

“Well, you know me, I think Virginia should lead the nation in every respect. We’ve provided more presidents than any other state. We provided the leadership to form this nation—”

Warren sang out the paean of Virginia’s greatness, practicing perhaps for many speeches to follow. Harry, a native of the Old Dominion, didn’t disagree, but she thought the other twelve colonies had assisted in the break from the mother country. Only New York approximated the original Virginia in size before the break from West Virginia, and it was natural that a territory that big would throw up something or someone important. Then, too, the perfect location of Virginia, in the center of the coastline, and its topography, created by three great rivers, formed an environment hospitable to agriculture and the civilizing arts.Good ports and the Chesapeake Bay completed the rich natural aspects of the state. Prideful as Harry felt, she thought bragging on it was a little shy of good manners or good sense. People not fortunate enough to have been born in Virginia nor wise enough to remove themselves to the Old Dominion hardly needed this dolorous truth pointed out to them. It made outsiders surly.

When Warren finished, Harry returned to the flooring.“Mind if I ask how much this stuff costs?”

“Eight dollars a square foot and nine fifty for the antistumble edge.”

Harry calculated, roughly, the square footage before her and arrived at the staggering sum of forty-five thousand dollars. She gulped.“Oh” squeaked out of her.

“That’s what I said, but I tell you, Harry, I haven’t any worries about big knees or injuries of any sort of this stuff. Before, I used cedar shavings. Well, what a whistling bitch to keep hauling shavings in with the dump truck, plus there’s the man-hours to fetch it, replenish the supply in the aisle, rake it out, and clean it three times a day. I about wore out myself and my boys. And the dust when we had to work the horses inside—not good for the horses in their stalls or the ones being exercised, so then you spend time sprinkling it down. Still use the cedar for the stalls though. I grind it up a bit, mix it in with regular shavings. I like a sweet-smelling barn.”

“Most beautiful barn in Virginia.” Harry admired the place.

“Mouse alert!” Mrs. Murphy screeched to a stop, fishtailed into the feed room, and pounced at a hole in the corner to which the offending rodent had repaired.

Tucker stuck her nose in the feed room.“Where?”

“Here,” called Mrs. Murphy from the corner.

Tucker crouched down, putting her head between her paws. She whispered,“Should I stay motionless like you?”

“Nah, the little bugger knows we’re here. He’ll wait until we’re gone. You know a mouse can eat a quart of grain a week? You’d think that Warren would have barn cats.”

“Probably does. They smelled you coming and took off.” Tucker laughed as the tiger grumbled.“Let’s find Mom.”

“Not yet.” Mrs. Murphy stuck her paw in the mouse hole and fished around. She withdrew a wad of fuzzy fabric, the result of eating a hole in a shirt hanging in the stable, no doubt.“Ah, I feel something else.”

A piece of paper stuck to Mrs. Murphy’s left forefinger claw as she slid it out of the hole.“Damn, if I could just grab him.”

Tucker peered down at the high-quality vellum scrap.“Goes through the garbage too.”

“So do you.”

“Not often.” The dog sat down.“Hey, there’s a little bit of writing here.”

Mrs. Murphy withdrew her paw from her third attempt at the mouse hole.“So there is. ‘Dearest darling.’ Ugh. Love letters make me ill.” The cat studied it again.“Too chewed up. Looks like a man’s writing, doesn’t it?”

Tucker looked closely at the shred.“Well, it’s not very pretty. Guess there are lovers at the barn. Come on.”

“Okay.”

They joined Harry as she inspected a young mare Warren and his father had purchased at the January sale at Keeneland. Since this was an auction for Thoroughbreds of any age, unlike the sales specifically for yearlings or two-year-olds, one could sometimes find a bargain. The yearling auctions were the ones where the gavel fell and people’s pockets suddenly became lighter than air.

“I’m trying to breed in staying power. She’s got the bloodlines.” He thought for a moment, then continued. “Do you ever wonder, Harry, what it’s like to be a person who has no blood? A person who shuffled through Ellis Island—one’s ancestors, I mean. Would you ever feel that you belong, or would there be some vague romantic attachment, perhaps, to the old country? I mean, it must be dislocating to be a new American.”

“Ever attend the citizenship ceremony at Monticello? They do it every Fourth of July.”

“No, can’t say that I have, but I’d better do it if I’m going to run for the state Senate.”

“I have. Standing out there on the lawn are Vietnamese, Poles, Ecuadorians, Nigerians, Scots, you name it. They raise their hands, and this is after they’ve demonstrated a knowledge of the Constitution, mind you, and they swear allegiance to this nation. I figure after that they’re as American as we are.”

“You are a generous soul, Harry.” Warren slapped her on the back. “Here, I’ve got something for you.” He handed her a carton of the rubber paving bricks. It was heavy.

“Thank you, Warren, these will come in handy.” She was thrilled with the gift.

“Oh, here. What kind of a gentleman am I? Let me carry this to the truck.”

“We could carry it together,” Harry offered. “And, by the bye, I think you should run for the state Senate.”

Warren spied a wheelbarrow and placed the carton in it.“You do? Well, thank you.” He picked up the arms of the wheelbarrow. “Might as well use the wheel. Just think if the guy who invented it got royalties!”

“How do you know a woman didn’t invent the wheel?”

“You got me there.” Warren enjoyed Harry. Unlike his wife, Ansley, Harry was relaxed. He couldn’t imagine her wearing nail polish or fretting over clothes. He rather wished he weren’t a married man when he was around Harry.

“Warren, why don’t you let me come on out here and bush-hog a field or two? These bricks are so expensive, I feel guilty accepting them.”

“Hey, I’m not on food stamps. Besides, these are an overflow and I’ve got nowhere else to use them. You love your horses, so I bet you could use them in your wash rack … put them in the center and then put rubber mats like you have in the trailer around that. Not a bad compromise.”

“Great idea.”

Ansley pulled into the driveway, her bronzed Jaguar as sleek and as sexy as herself. Stuart and Breton were with her. She saw Harry and Warren pushing the wheelbarrow and drove over to them instead of heading for the house.

“Harry,” she called from inside the car, “how good to see you.”

“Your husband is playing Santa Claus.” Harry pointed to the carton.

“Hi, Harry,” the boys called out. Harry returned their greeting with a wave.

Ansley parked and elegantly disembarked from the Jag. Stuart and Breton ran up to the house.“You know Warren. He has to have a new project. But I must admit the barn looks fabulous and the stuff couldn’t be safer. Now, you come on up to the house and have a drink. Big Daddy’s up there, and he loves a pretty lady.”

“Thanks, I’d love to, but I’d better push on home.”

“Oh, I ran into Mim,” Ansley mentioned to her husband. “She now wants you on the Greater Crozet Committee.”

Warren winced.“Poppa just gave her a bushel of money for her Mulberry Row project—she’s working over our family one by one.”

“She knows that, and she said to my face how ‘responsible’ the Randolphs are. Now she wants your stores of wisdom. Exact words. She’ll ask you for money another time.”

“Stores of wisdom.” The left side of Harry’s mouth twitched in a suppressed giggle as she looked at Warren. At forty-one, he remained a handsome man.

Warren grunted as he lifted the heavy carton onto the tailgate.“Is it possible for a woman to have a Napoleon complex?”

18

The human mouth is a wonderful creation, except that it can rarely remain shut. The jaw, hinged on each side of the face, opens and closes in a rhythm that allows the tongue to waggle in a staggering variety of languages. Gossip fuels all of them. Who did what to whom. Who said what to whom. Who didn’t say a word. Who has how much money and who spends it or doesn’t. Who sleeps with whom. Those topics form the foundation of human discourse. Occasionally the human can discuss work, profit and loss, and what’s for supper. Sometimes a question or two regarding the arts will pass although sports as a subject is a better bet. Rare moments bring forth a meditation on spirituality, philosophy, and the meaning of life. But the backbeat, the pulse, the percussion of exchange, was, is, and ever shall be gossip.

Today gossip reached a crescendo.

Mrs. Hogendobber picked up her paper the minute the paperboy left it in the cylindrical plastic container. That was at six A.M. She knew that Harry’s fading red mailbox, nailed to an old fence post, sat half a mile from her house. She usually scooped out the paper on her way to work, so she wouldn’t have read it yet.

Mrs. H. grabbed the black telephone that had served her well since 1954. The click, click, click as the rotary dial turned would allow a sharp-eared person to identify the number being called.

“Harry, Wesley Randolph died last night.”

“What? I thought Wesley was so much better.”

“Heart attack.” She sounded matter-of-fact. By this time she’d seen enough people leave this life to bear it with grace. One positive thing about Wesley’s death was that he’d been fighting leukemia for years. At least he wouldn’t die a lingering, painful death. “Someone from the farm must have given the information to the press the minute it happened.”

“I just saw Warren Sunday afternoon. Thanks for telling me. I’ll have to pay my respects after work. See you in a little bit.”

Now, telling a friend of another friend’s passing doesn’t fall under the heading of gossip, but that day at work Harry sloshed around in it.

The first person to alert Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber to the real story was Lucinda Coles. Luckily Mim Sanburne was picking up her mail, so they could cross-fertilize, as it were.

“—everywhere.” Lucinda gulped a breath in the middle of her story about Ansley Randolph. “Warren, in a state of great distress, naturally, was finally reduced to calling merchants to see if by chance Ansley had stopped by on her rounds. Well, he couldn’t find her. He called me and I said I didn’t know where she was. Of course, I had no idea the poor man’s father had dropped dead in the library.”

Mim laid a trump card on the table.“Yes, he called me too, and like you, Lulu, I hadn’t a clue, but I had seen Ansley at about five that afternoon at Foods of All Nations. Buying a bottle of expensive red wine: Medoc, 1970, Ch?teau le Trelion. She seemed surprised to see me”—Mim paused—“almost as if I had caught her out… you know.”

“Uh-huh.” Lucinda nodded in the customary manner of a woman affirming whatever another woman has said. Of course, the other woman’s comment usually has to do with emotions, which could never actually be qualified or quantified—that being the appeal of emotions. They both acknowledged a tyranny of correct feelings.

“She’s running around on Warren.”

“Uh-huh.” Lucinda’s voice grew in resonance, since she, as a victim of infidelity, was also an expert on its aftermath. “No good will come of it. No good ever does.”

After those two left, BoomBoom Craycroft dashed in for her mail. Her comment, after a lengthy discussion of the slight fracture of her tibia, was that everybody screws around on everybody, and so what?

The men approached the subject differently. Mr. Randolph’s demise was characterized by Market as a response to his dwindling finances and the leukemia. It was hard for Harry to believe a man would have a heart attack because his estate had diminished, thanks to his own efforts, from $250 million to $100 million, but anything was possible. Perhaps he felt poor.

Fair Haristeen lingered over the counter, chatting. His idea was that a life of trying to control everybody and everything had ruined Wesley Randolph’s health. Sad, of course, because Randolph was an engaging man. Mostly, Fair wanted Harry to pick which movie they would see Friday night.

Ned Tucker, Susan’s husband, took the view that we die when we want to, therefore P?re Randolph was ready to go and nobody should feel too bad about it.

By the end of the workday speculation had run the gamut. The last word on Wesley Randolph’s passing, from Rob Collier as he picked up the afternoon mail, was that the old man was fooling around with his son’s wife. The new medication Larry Johnson had prescribed for his illness had revved up his sex drive. Warren walked in on the tryst and his father died of a heart attack from theshock.

As Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber locked up, they reviewed the day’s gossip. Mrs. Hogendobber dropped the key in her pocket, inhaled deeply, and said to Harry, “I wonder what they say about us?”

“Gossip lends to death a new terror.” Harry smirked.

19

“You know, if I ever get tired of home, I’ll come live in your barn,” Paddy promised.

“No, you won’t,” Simon, the possum, called down from the hayloft.“You’ll steal my treasures. You’re no good, Paddy. You were born no good and you’ll die no good.”