Cat of the Century (18 page)

“Wouldn’t you run out of wind?”
Tucker inquired.

“He might, but Aunt Tally wouldn’t if she smoked one.”
Mrs. Murphy laughed.

After the relaxing time in the deep-seated chairs, Fair checked his watch, the inexpensive Fossil brand. Few vets wore costly watches while on the job. “Time to throw your bags in the Volvo.”

“I wouldn’t mind a ride in the Volvo.” Inez smiled. “Come on, Erno.”

“A road trip!”
Erno was joyous.

“With Bubble Butt.”
Pewter indicated Tucker, who pointedly ignored her.

Mrs. Murphy chastised her friend.
“Pewter, it’s a long way home.”

“Cats are supposed to stick together, Murph.”

It took fifteen minutes to pack up and lock up.

Erno gaily jumped into the back of the Volvo.

“Harry, you sit up front next to Fair.” Inez opened the back door.

“Inez, I’m going to take a nap. I didn’t sleep too well last night. Something was moving around outside and Tucker wouldn’t shut up.”

“It was a bear,”
Tucker defended herself.

On the way west on 250, Inez said to both of them, “Thank you for this.”

“Ha. You think we’re being nice. We’re being selfish. You’ll reorganize my house and barn for the better. I’m no fool.”

Harry rolled up her coat for a pillow.

Inez enjoyed being teased. “Are you inferring that I’m an old version of Martha Stewart?”

“No. I’m saying it flat out.” Harry giggled.

A Volvo full of happy people and animals rode back to Crozet. Despite all, they truly enjoyed one another.

“I told you about Liz’s email?” Inez asked.

“Did.” Fair responded.

“I hope she’s not the next victim,” Inez said.

O
n Sunday, April 5, the weather turned back toward winter. Sleet drove from the northwest, and the temperature hung near thirty-five degrees. Residents of central Virginia usually figured the last frost would be by April 15. Sometimes Mother Nature would fool you; a mid-April snowstorm was unusual but not rare. However, snow in April was often deep and very cold.

Harry, like most farmers, preferred snow to sleet. Although the mercury dipped lower for snow, it always felt warmer.

Cooper kept the fire going in the fireplace in her simple living room. Harry had filled in Cooper on everything that she knew to date, and Cooper, having seen the photos of Flo, was hooked on the case.

“Inez okay?”

Harry replied, “Horrified but okay. She’s not one to embroider a disaster.”

Cooper’s hand found Mrs. Murphy’s head as the cat squeezed between the two humans. “Hmm.”

“Any ideas?”

“No. The Fulton police department was more helpful than St. Louis’s. Big-city departments usually look down their nose at us country folks. I have no right to know facts from this case, as it doesn’t involve anyone in our county. I explained my concern, but they waved me off, so to speak. I understand it, but it’s damned frustrating.”

“Thanks to her position, Inez has been able to check alumnae accounts. Nothing has been touched. I told you that Mariah’s treasurer, right?”

“You did. Know anything about Flo’s private account yet?”

“No. Given Dick’s grief, no one connected to the board or college has inquired about Flo’s finances or personal life.”

Cooper stretched out her long legs, propping them up on the battle-scarred but sturdy coffee table. “This is like every other crime. Some are open-and-shut. Once you know the motive, things always make sense. You look at a person’s finances, then business dealings, then sex life. Given Flo’s intended exposé of Mariah, that provides a clear motive.”

“It’s a good thing Mariah’s in hiding, because it’s all over the news. The murder, I mean.”

“I tapped in to the Kansas City news. Saw the shuttered doors at Fletcher, Maitland, and D’Angelo. Boy, what a mess.”

“Gayle Lampe called Inez and said Mariah’s business partner swears he’s innocent and doesn’t know where she is.”

“You saw them a little. What’d you think?” Cooper inquired.

“Nothing really. Mariah and Flo both looked like two well-groomed, successful Midwestern ladies.”

“As opposed to Southern ladies?” Cooper appreciated the purr coming from Mrs. Murphy.

“Cooper, we tend to be flamboyant in the South. Then you get to Texas and they’re over the top. Fun, though.”

“It’s the hair.” Cooper laughed. “Those Texas girls do big hair.”

Pewter, on her side in front of the fire screen, was dead to the world. Tucker, also out cold, lay back to back with the gray cat.

“I’ve racked my brain; Fair has, too. I even wondered for a flash if the hostility between Flo and Mariah wasn’t put on. Were they in on the scam together, and then Flo betrayed Mariah to cover her own butt? But Inez reinforced that they really had hated each other since 1970, when both were freshmen at William Woods.”

“Harry, if Flo was a partner in crime, she wouldn’t have betrayed Mariah to cover her butt, she would have killed her.”

“Oh,” Harry blinked. “Let’s just suppose Mariah is dead. Who would kill her and Flo?”

Cooper looked out the window, the small handblown panes decorated with frost around the edges. “Whoever has the most to lose. The emails point to Mariah being alive or whoever is sending them is a convincing double. Mariah did have the most to lose.”

“Right. Sometimes my mind just goes places, you know, like what if?” Harry propped her own legs up on the battered coffee table, something that would have drawn a sharp word from her very proper mother.

She changed the subject. “Isn’t it strange? For the last ten years we’ve had some heavy snows, but not like when I was little. This year it’s been like old times.”

“Is Terri Kincaid a board member?” Cooper returned to the subject.

“No. She heads the Charlottesville alumnae chapter. Liz is grooming Terri. That’s what Inez thinks. The fighting between Flo and Mariah dimmed Liz’s desire to stay on the board. Then, too, given the economy, she probably wants to devote herself completely to business.”

“Sensible.”

“This thing is worldwide. It’s scary.”

“Yep, but it will be patched up and the fundamental changes avoided. That’s how I see it.” Cooper paused.

“And you know, sooner or later, the day of true reckoning will come. Always does.”

“Well, no one wants to know what a sheriff’s deputy thinks about the world’s confusion.”

“I do. And I truly want to know what you think about the confusion in Missouri. Do you think Inez is in danger?”

“No. Well, let me amend that. It doesn’t appear that Inez or any other board member is threatened by what looks like an old hate that finally ended in murder. But it wouldn’t hurt to be a little cautious until Mariah surfaces.”

Harry felt her feet growing warmer from proximity to the fire. “She could be out of the country.”

“Yeah, but sooner or later, people do turn up. Get found.”

“Never found Ralston Peavey’s murderer. I told you about his granddaughter?” Harry thought she had.

“You did. Out of curiosity, I’ll pull that old file,” Cooper said.

“Not trying to be argumentative about murderers showing up.”

“I know. But Ralston Peavey’s killer didn’t communicate. Mariah has. That means ego. I’m telling you, sooner or later, she’ll make a misstep, and
wham!
”

“Her husband says he doesn’t know where she is.”

“Hey, Harry, maybe he’s looking for her, too.” Cooper smiled.

“Do you have milk, cereal, anything for breakfast?” Harry changed the subject. “You might not get out tomorrow.”

“Let me check if the milk is still good. Bought it just before I left.” Cooper walked into the kitchen.

Lifting her head, Pewter called out,
“Tuna.”

“I’m okay for breakfast.” Cooper returned and sat next to Harry. “Can you keep Inez close?”

“Up to a point. I don’t want her out in the weather when I do my chores. She can sit in the tack room if you think the house is too far away.”

“Usually you hear a vehicle drive up. Tucker certainly does. I’m sure she’s safe in the house. But keep her near. I’ll call Little Mim and Blair, too, to check regularly on Aunt Tally. This really will all clear up, but criminals who taunt are often imaginative. They crave publicity—not that there’s much for her here. Still … From Aunt Tally’s point of view, this certainly has made her hundredth-birthday celebration unique.”

“You’re terrible.” Harry lightly punched her.

“I know.” Cooper laughed.

G
ood windshield wipers,” Inez commented as the Volvo wipers cleared away tiny driving snowflakes.

Over the course of the day, the temperature had fluctuated between twenty-one and thirty-three degrees. The precipitation came down as tiny little snow bits. When the mercury dropped, the bits blossomed into slightly larger snowflakes. Harry replied, “You need only one worn-out pair of windshield wipers to realize you need good ones.”

“Couldn’t help but notice the double windshield wipers you have on the old Ford. Gold lamé,” Inez teased her.

“Fair made me get silver for the dually. He said he’s not driving around in a truck with gold windshield wipers. I said, ‘But you wear pink.’ He said he’s man enough to wear pink but he can’t do gold windshield wipers. Actually, I almost bought purple, but that would have sent him right over the edge.”

“I look good in gold.”
Pewter curled in Inez’s lap.

Mrs. Murphy, in the back on the old blanket, which she’d drawn up around her, said,
“Dream on.”

“Pay her no mind. She’s jealous. Tigers are a dime a dozen, but I’m a perfect gray.”
Pewter’s ego needed no enhancement.
“What’s Tucker doing?”

“Asleep. Low pressure makes her sleepy,”
Mrs. Murphy said. She was a little drowsy herself.

Inez’s eyelids fluttered. She shook her head. “I could go back to bed.”

“Me, too.” Harry turned left into the parking lot on the north side of the Barracks Road Shopping Center.

“Not too many people here in this weather.” Inez unbuckled her seat belt.

“Monday’s usually a busy shopping day, at least at the supermarkets.” Harry turned to Inez. “I’m going to run into Buchanan and Kiguel. Want to come in or stay? I’ll keep the motor running so that it doesn’t get cold.”

“I’ll stay. Hard to believe it’s April sixth and only thirty-one degrees. I’ve never seen a spring like this, and you know how many I’ve seen.”

Harry grinned. “You never know.”

“You don’t, which is why I’m in no hurry to exit earth.”

Harry hopped out and made a dash for the framing shop. When she entered, she could see the top of Shirley Franklin’s head as she was kneeling down beneath the counter.

“What are you doing?”

Shirley popped her head up. “Reorganizing these finished prints.” She stood. “How are you, Harry?”

Harry gave her the story about Aunt Tally’s hundredth, William Woods, the watch scam, the murder. Shirley had grown up in Missouri, so she could picture the scene.

“How awful. Is Tally all right?”

“I think so.”

“Certainly turned into an unusual birthday.”

“I turned forty last August seventh, which you know. I don’t know where those forty years went. Imagine how Aunt Tally feels reflecting on one hundred,” Harry mused.

That was all it took. Harry and Shirley stood there gabbing for a half hour, neither realizing how much time had passed. Both women were independent thinkers, and they each egged the other on. Also, thanks to the weather, no one came in the store to interrupt the conversation.

Harry finally remembered that Inez was sitting in the station wagon. “Oh, my gosh.” She checked her watch.

Shirley checked hers, too, and they burst out laughing. “Did you need anything?”

Harry thought a moment, then it came back to her. “Actually, I did. Well, it’s a question. Larry and Enrique”—she named the late co-owner, then the very alive one—“used to get these wonderful old books with prints in them. Remember all the bug prints, each hand-colored? Well, if Enrique or you come across dog ones, I’d like to give Inez a framed print of a vizsla. She has a stunning vizsla.”