Cat on the Scent (15 page)

29

The other news of the day, not quite as shocking as the discovery of Tommy Van Allen, concerned Archie Ingram. When Deputy Cooper met him at the county offices to question him further about the shooting at Oak Ridge he asked her about the Van Allen murder.

He said he had heard about it on his C-band radio.

Cooper, suspicious as to how quickly information like that would get on the C-band, drilled him on this. He lost his temper and slugged her.

The county commissioner was sitting in the county jail for assaulting an officer. Bail wouldn't be set until the next morning.

Cynthia, glad to put Archie in his place, nonetheless called around to check Archie's story. Dabney Shiflett had put the news on C-band along with a most unflattering portrait of the man who had just fired him.

Since Wilson McGaughey drove a car, not a truck, and had no two-way radio, Dabney rightly figured it would be days before McGaughey learned what had been said about him. This small revenge gave Dabney some comfort.

30

Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber drove over to Tommy Van Allen's the evening of the body's discovery. His housekeeper, Helen Dodds, now in her late fifties, thanked them for their offer of help but was afraid to make any decisions until Tommy's estranged wife, Jessica, showed up. She was due in from Aiken, South Carolina, in the morning. Aileen Ingram, Archie's wife, joined them in the living room.

Mrs. Dodds said everyone had come by to help—the Tuckers, Reverend Jones, Sarah Vane-Tempest, Mim and Little Mim, just everyone, no matter what was happening in their lives. She was grateful, she went on, and was only sorry Tommy hadn't known he had so many friends. Then she burst into tears.

Aileen, petite and curly-haired, put her arm around Helen's shoulders. “There, there, Helen. I'm so sorry for all this.” She glanced up at Miranda. “Helen feels this is her fault.”

Helen sobbed anew. “I always tried to keep track of Tommy's schedule but lately I've fallen behind and”—she dropped her voice—“he's been secretive.”

Helen had been a dear friend of Aileen's now-deceased mother, and Aileen had remained close to the older woman. As soon as she heard the news of the body's discovery, she hurried to Helen's side.

“Helen, this isn't your fault. It may not even be Tommy's fault. Terrible things happen.”

Before Miranda could guide Helen toward heavenly support, Helen startled everyone by shouting. “Well, I hope they get him. I hope whoever killed Tommy fries in the electric chair!”

Harry cut off any attempt by Miranda to describe the Lord's justice. “Helen, I'm sure Sheriff Shaw will get to the bottom of this. We all need to keep our eyes and ears open. The smallest thing may have significance.”

Mrs. Murphy climbed out of the truck. Tucker was stuck in the cab, complaining bitterly. Pewter had stayed back at Market Shiflett's store to be picked up on the way home.

Tommy's fiery red Porsche 911 Targa was parked in the garage. Tommy, Vane-Tempest, and Blair Bainbridge had indulged in competitive consumption. Murphy sniffed the driver's-side door, the tires, the front and back of the machine. Not that she expected to find anything—just force of habit.

On her hind paws, she stretched her full height to look in the driver's window. The keys were in the ignition.

“Mrs. Murphy,” Harry called.

The cat scampered back to the truck. Miranda was already in the passenger side, Tucker wedged between her and Harry. The cat soared onto Harry's lap, then snuggled next to Tucker.

Harry backed out, heading toward town. “It was good of Aileen Ingram to come by, considering her troubles.”

“Archie needs to turn to the Lord. How much plainer must his message be?”

“Miranda, these days when people are in trouble they think of turning to a therapist if they think of anything at all.”

“Won't work.”

“I wouldn't know.” They passed BoomBoom and waved. “My point proven.”

“Mmm.” Miranda let pass the opportunity to reprimand Harry for her snideness toward BoomBoom. “I suppose Aileen was on her way to bail out Archie.”

“If she had any sense she'd leave him in there.”

“‘Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.'” Mrs. Hogendobber quoted Matthew 23, Verse 12.

“Did that just pop into your head or is there a point to it?”

“Harry, don't be ugly.”

“I'm sorry. You're right.” She sighed heavily. “I'm upset. Seeing poor Mrs. Dodds break down like that—and what's going to happen to her? Who knows what's in Tommy's will or if he even had one.”

“He had one. You don't run a big construction company without something like that. Probably had a fat insurance policy, too. I suppose Jessica will get all of it, even if they have separated.”

“He could have changed his will.”

“Yes, but they aren't legally divorced yet.”

“What made you think of the Bible verse about pride?”

“Oh.” Mrs. Hogendobber had forgotten to answer Harry's query. “Tommy, H. Vane, Blair, and even Archie. Ridley was part of it for a little while. It's a rich-boys' club. Expensive sports cars, airplanes . . .”

“Archie doesn't have that much money,” Harry interrupted.

“Enough for a Land whatever-you-call-it.”

“Land Rover.” Harry paused. “I never thought about that. I mean, it seemed discreet enough. White.”

Cynthia Cooper's squad car was parked in front of the bank although it was after banking hours. Harry turned into the parking lot, pulling in front of the old brick freestanding bank building.

“Hey.”

“Hey there.” Cooper rolled down her window.

“We just came from Tommy Van Allen's. Poor Mrs. Dodds.”

“And Aileen Ingram was there to help out.” Miranda spoke over the animals' heads.

“She can't spring Archie until tomorrow.”

“What?” both women said.

“The judge won't set bail until then.”

“He can do that?” Harry wondered.

“He can do whatever he wants. He's the judge.” Coop smiled.

“You've had a hard day,” Miranda said sympathetically.

“I've had better ones.” Cooper smiled weakly.

All heads turned as Sarah Vane-Tempest drove by with H. Vane-Tempest in the passenger seat.

“He's made a remarkable recovery,” Miranda noted.

“For how long?”
Mrs. Murphy cryptically said.

31

Sir H. Vane-Tempest had recovered sufficiently to fight with his wife, who started it.

“Why are you protecting him?” Sarah tossed her shoulder-length blond hair.

“I'm not protecting him.”

“The man tried to kill you. I insist you press charges.”

“Sarah, my love, he was behind me. Hundreds of men were behind me. Anyone could have fired that shot.”

“Archie had it in for you. The other hundreds did not. Why are you protecting him?”

“I am not protecting him.”

“Then what are you protecting?” She sat across from him as he reclined on the sofa, more tired from this exchange than from his physical trauma.

“Nothing. Why don't you fix me a real cuppa? That tepid slop at the hospital was torture.”

Angry but composing herself, Sarah walked into the kitchen. It was six-thirty, and the maid and cook had left for the day. However, she could brew an invigorating cup of tea without help. She measured out the loose Irish blend, placing it in the ceramic leaf tray of the Brown Betty teapot. She shook her head as if to return to the moment and brought out two fragile china cups delicately edged in rose gold. These had belonged to H. Vane's mother. She hoped the sight of them would improve his mood.

He beamed indulgently when she returned pushing the tea caddy. Scones, jams, white butter, and small watercress sandwiches swirled around the plate, a pinwheel of edibles. The cook made up scones and tea sandwiches fresh each day. The Vane-Tempests practiced the civilized tradition of high tea at four.

He eagerly accepted the cup filled with the intoxicating brew.

He put raw sugar, one teaspoonful exactly, into the cup.

“Ah.” He closed his eyes in pleasure as he drank. “My dear, you are unsurpassed.”

“Thank you.” She sipped her cup of tea.

“My mother loved this china. It was given to her as a wedding present from her aunt Davida. Aunt Davida, you know, served as a missionary in China before World War I. I always thought she was a little cracked, myself, but her china wasn't.” He lifted his eyebrows, waiting for the appreciative titter.

Sarah smiled dutifully. “H., you're awful.”

Pleased, he replied, “You wouldn't have me any other way.”

Sarah wanted to say that she'd be happy to have him forty pounds lighter, with a full head of hair, and perhaps twenty years younger. Some wishes were best left unsaid. “Darling, you're right. I knew from the first moment I saw you that I couldn't live without you.”

He nibbled on a scone. “Americans do some things supremely well. Airplanes, for instance. They build good airplanes. However, they can't make a decent scone and they haven't a clue as to how to produce thick Devonshire cream. Odd.”

“That's why you brought over a Scottish cook, yes?”

“Indeed.” He reached for another scone. “They want their country back, you know. I read the papers front-to-back in the hospital. Just because I was slightly indisposed didn't mean I should alter my regimen. Why England would even want to
keep
Scotland or Wales is beyond me. And Ireland? Pfft.” He made a dismissive motion with his hand.

“That's why we live here.”

“Yes. Except here we have to listen to the bleatings of the underclass, interwoven as it is with color. Silly.”

“Not to them,” Sarah said a mite too tartly.

“Reading the speeches of Martin Luther King, my pet?”

She recovered. “No. What I'm saying is, there is no perfect place, but some are closer than others. And this is very close to heaven.”

“Americans are too rude to develop proper tea culture. It takes a great civilization to do that: China, Japan, England. Do you know even the Germans are starting to get it?”

“With ruthless efficiency, I'm sure.” She smoothed her dress skirt.

He held out his cup for a refill. “They aren't that efficient. That's a myth, my dear. I've done business with them for years.”

“I never appreciated how good a businessman you were until you were nearly taken away from me.”

“Oh?” He reveled in the compliment.

“You never discuss business with me.”

“Dull, my darling. With you I savor the finer things in life: music, dance, novels. I adore it when we read together and I love it when you read to me. You have such a seductive voice, my sweet.”

“Thank you. But I must confess, H., I rather like business. I read
The Wall Street Journal
when you're finished with it and I puzzle my way through
Süddeutsche Zeitung
sometimes. I wish I had gone further in school.”

“Beauty is its own school.”

“The more I know, the more I admire your acumen.”

He placed the cup on the tray. “Sarah, building airports is not a suitable venue for a woman.”

“But darling, you don't do that anymore. Now you invest in the stock exchange, here and in London. And you have other irons in the fire. It's fascinating. You're fascinating.” She stood up and pressed her hands together, standing quite still. “If you had died, if that fool had killed you, I would have been totally unprepared to administer your empire.”

He guffawed. “That's what I pay lawyers for and—”

“But who will watch them? You may trust them. Why should I?”

“Really, my dear, they would serve you as faithfully as they have served me.”

“Henry, my experience of life is that each time money changes hands it sticks to somebody's fingers. That army you pay is loyal to you—not to me. And there is the small matter of your ex-wife and your two daughters residing in palatial splendor in England. Well, I forgot, Abigail is in Australia now, in outback splendor.”

“My ex and my daughters are provided for. They can't break my will and they'd be fools to try because the astronomical costs would jeopardize their resources. I pay the best minds on two continents. Rest yours.”

“No. I want to be included.”

“Sarah, you have twenty thousand dollars a month in play money. You can do whatever you like.”

“That's not what I'm asking and I am not impugning your generosity to me. What I want is to understand your business holdings.”

“I—” Flummoxed, Vane-Tempest began to stutter.

Still standing with her hands pressed together, Sarah half whispered, “Because I did not know whether you would live or die, I sat at your desk and I read your papers. I opened the safe and I read the papers in there. You are an amazing man, Henry, and I don't even know the half of it. I only know what you're doing here in Albemarle County. I haven't a single idea of what you may be doing in Zimbabwe or New Zealand or Germany. I do know you avoid the French like the plague.”

His mouth twitched. “I see.”

“You formed a corporation with Tommy Van Allen, Archie Ingram, and Blair Bainbridge, I learned. Teotan Incorporated. To date Teotan has purchased over two million dollars' worth of land. I had no idea Archie Ingram had resources at that level. The others, of course, aren't paupers, although no one is in your league.”

His eyes narrowed. “Archie put up sweat equity.”

“Archie is your conduit to and from Richmond. I'm not in your league either, H., but my brain does function. Archie is a county commissioner. He could point toward those areas that the state will develop or claim for highways and bypasses. Am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“And now he has cold feet.”

“Yes.”

“If the full extent of his participation is discovered, he will certainly lose his seat and may even be raked over the coals, politically and legally, for peddling influence. I believe that's the term for it.”

“Precisely.”

“Is that what he's been fighting about?”

Sir H. Vane-Tempest sat for a moment. His beautiful wife, that trophy of all trophies, surprised him. He'd been married to the woman for seven years and he'd had no idea her mind was this good. She shocked him. He was also shocked at his own blindness. He had discounted her. Oh, he loved her, he lusted after her, but he had discounted her.

He drew a deep breath. “In part, Sarah, that is what we have been fighting about. Archie is a coward. He wanted the money and he has been handsomely paid by the three of us in terms of his share of the corporate profits. He has a ten-percent share. On top of that we pay him an annual stipend through a complicated trust that I set up, one that leaves no trail to him. I'm too tired to go into the details.”

“Some other time, my love?”

His eyes brightened under his ginger brows. “Some other time. Yes.”

“But Archie had to have known what he was doing.”

“He did. As the county hearings and various other meetings heated up he realized that if his involvement with Teotan ever saw the light of day these grillings would be as little minnows to the whale of discontent, to paraphrase Boswell on Johnson.”

“Is there more?”

He shrugged. “He's having problems in his marriage. Tupping some damsel, I should think. That's usually what happens. I don't know who the unfortunate might be. Archie has little to offer, although I suppose he's handsome to women.”

“There's no accounting for taste. Some country girl might be thrilled to be sleeping with a county commissioner.” She burst out laughing, the silver, tinkling, infectious sound filling the room.

This made Vane-Tempest laugh, too.

Sarah, still smiling, said, “Darling, I want to be part of Teotan.”

“Everything comes to you when I die.”

“I want to work with you. I want to learn. I don't want to wait until you die. And I want to know why you men have been buying these properties.”

“I'm tired.” He was, too.

“You can't avoid this. Henry, I want to learn. I've watched you. You can turn a shilling into a pound and a pound into a fortune. I do know that before you built those airports in Africa you bought the land on which they were built.”

“Ah.” He smiled. “You've been doing your homework.”

“Yes.”

“Have you studied a map of this county?”

“I have, which is why I want to know why you have bought the particular lands you have bought. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.”

“Have you spoken to Blair or Archie or Tommy about any of this?”

“Of course not. And I'll never speak to Tommy again. He was found hanging in a refrigerated vault at Good Foods today.”

“What!” Vane-Tempest's eyes seemed to bug out of his head.

“Gruesome, isn't it?”

“Why didn't you tell me before?”

“I thought you could hear about it tomorrow. I wanted tonight just for our business. But it occurs to me, darling, that Tommy's death
is
our business.”

“In what way?”

“He was a partner in Teotan. He's been murdered and someone tried to kill you. Which is why you must prosecute Archie. You must. He'll strike again. Don't you see? If he kills each of you he's safe. Not only will he cover his tracks, he'll reap the profits of whatever you all have created—you saved him with that trust, that untraceable trust.”

“I don't believe it,” Vane-Tempest blurted. “Archie Ingram isn't smart enough to do that.”

“Weren't you worried when Tommy disappeared?”

“No. Off on a toot, I thought. Slumming.” He grimaced. “And then I had other things to think about. I haven't given Tommy much thought. Hanging? Did he hang himself?”

“Sheriff Shaw isn't forthcoming with the details but it's all over town, mostly because the manager of the plant fired the man who found him. Said he was remiss in his duties. And that man, Dabney Shiflett, has been babbling nonstop. I really don't know the details. But Tommy didn't hang himself. Now will you pìck up the phone and call the sheriff?”

“No, but I will pick up the phone and call Ingram.”

She stepped toward him, stooping down to meet his eyes. “Henry, if that man makes one move to harm you, I will kill him.”

Secretly excited by her ardor, he replied, “That won't be necessary. Archie Ingram has neither the intelligence nor the guts to pull off a scheme such as you imagine. As for Tommy's death, I wouldn't rush to conclusions. His demise and my—well—accident are unrelated.”

“Will you include me in Teotan?”

“Yes. But I must discuss this with Blair Bainbridge—”

She pressed her hands together again. “Unless someone kills him, too!”

“Calm down, Sarah. I must have the approval of the other partners, and that includes Archie. As for Tommy, the corporation is set up so that if one principal dies, his share is parceled out equally among the survivors.”

“You can't ask for the vote of a man who tried to kill you!” Her eyes were wild.

“I can and I must. Now if you would bring me the handy, I will arrange a meeting.”

She gave him the cell phone. He dialed and got Archie's answering machine. “Hello, H. Vane-Tempest here for Archie Ingram. Call tomorrow after nine. Good-bye.” He folded the phone, putting it on the tea trolley. “Now I can't very well call Sheriff Shaw, can I?” He paused, a dark shift clouding his features. “I liked Tommy Van Allen. Did you?”

“Yes.”

“Terrible thing.”

She settled on the chintz sofa, squeezing in next to him. “Henry, you must be careful. You must. I don't want to lose you.”

“Promise.” He leaned forward and kissed her.