Catch as Cat Can (12 page)

20

The word of the grisly find reached the post office by one-thirty. Big Mim stopped by after her errands.

“I feel terrible.” Miranda meant it, too.

“You didn't know him,” Harry hastened to comfort her. She knew how guilty Miranda could get.

“She's right, Miranda. You simply reported that your hubcaps were stolen and by chance or whatever he was parking cars at my party. And you can believe I have chastised that company. I'll never use their valet service again. Not that he did any harm but still, they ought to scrutinize their help more closely. Their excuse was he had a valid driver's license and they needed all the help they could get due to the dogwood parties.” Big Mim shook out her umbrella. “I've made a mess. Sorry. I didn't think it would be so wet.”

“Don't worry about it. I'll mop up the floor before I leave tonight. It's that kind of day.” Harry scratched Pewter at the base of her tail.

“Do they know how long he was there?” Miranda asked.

“No. The coroner will figure it out,” Big Mim replied. “Did you know our county is getting so populous we have two coroners now, full time?”

“I didn't know that,” Miranda replied.

“I guess I'd better call Cynthia and tell her I found the Mercedes star and gave it back to Marilyn.” Harry headed for the phone while Miranda filled in Big Mim. Big Mim hadn't seen Little Mim since breakfast so she knew nothing of the returned star.

“I wish Mother hadn't found that star.”
Mrs. Murphy sighed. The low pressure was getting to her.

“Who cares?”
Pewter purred.
“Wesley Partlow's nothing to her.”

“She's curious. She'll be especially curious now. You know how she gets,”
Tucker agreed with Mrs. Murphy.

“If the kid killed himself, that's that,”
Pewter, the hard-boiled, replied.
“He didn't have much of a life to look forward to, did he?”

“I can't imagine a dog killing herself,”
Tucker mused.
“I think it's a peculiar thing to humans. Suicide.”

“If it's suicide we have nothing to worry about.”
Mrs. Murphy joined Pewter on the counter.
“But if it's not suicide then this will be a stormy spring.”

“Oh, come on,”
Pewter said, a touch sarcastically.
“Who would risk their own freedom to kill a loser like Wesley?”

21

The sodden ground could suck the shoes right off a horse. It held onto human shoes, too, as Harry and Cynthia Cooper trudged along the deer path not far from Durant Creek. Tucker, up to her knees in the mud, accompanied them. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, left back at the farm, planned even more retaliatory destruction.

Harry pointed. “Here we connect up to the old farm road. Jeez, it's loud.”

Coop stopped at the crossroads of deer path and farm road. “The ground's soaked. If we get any more rain, the creeks and rivers will jump their banks.”

“Spring.”

“Yep.”

“We were running back. I noticed a gleam. And that's about the size of it. We walked over, I discovered it was the hood ornament. I didn't notice footprints or tire tracks. It started to pour but it had been raining before, as you know. If a car or truck had come back here there would have been deep ruts. There weren't.” She moved over. “About here.”

Tucker, senses much keener, sniffed around. No trace of human scent remained, although a hint of coyote lingered. She was glad her mother couldn't smell it because coyote spelled a great deal of trouble for everyone. The force of the storms beat down small branches, brush, stripped some buds off trees. She couldn't gather any more evidence than the humans.

“Where does the farm road lead?”

“To the creek.”

“Any structures, sheds, anything like that along the way?”

“No. Marcus Durant's shack is the only building and that's back where we parked.”

“Well, let's head back.” Coop stuck her thumbs in her belt. “Whatever might have been on the ground is washed away by now, but”—she looked around again—“I've got to run down every lead I can. I just wonder what the hell he was doing out here, if he was here.”

“Come on, Tucker.”

“I'm coming,”
the dog replied, irritated that she couldn't locate more scent.

A sharp breeze picked up as the two women and dog walked back.

“Sure doesn't feel like spring today,” Cooper commented.

“Cuts to the bone. Coop, what's going on? You wouldn't be out here with me if you weren't worried.”

“I don't think Wesley Partlow committed suicide. Marshall Wells can't get to the autopsy until tonight. I'll withhold judgment until I get his results.”

“Isn't it hard to perform an autopsy on an exposed corpse that's been hanging?” Harry grimaced.

“Those guys know what they're doing. They take tissue samples. I couldn't do it. I trust their opinion because they do such a thorough examination of the body, too. Rick and I have trained eyes but we're not doctors.”

“I wouldn't think a kid like Wesley could be hanged without a fight. Surely there are easier ways to kill someone than to hang them.”

“Not if all you have is rope. What if our killer, assuming there was one, didn't have a gun or a knife? Right now I don't know much of anything and I sure don't know why he was out here. I would figure from the time we released him to the time you found the Mercedes star would have been five to six hours.”

“He wouldn't knowingly throw away the star.” Harry was thinking out loud. “He could have lost it running or in a fight. From here to the elder-care home in Crozet is about three miles.”

“Yeah.” Coop opened the door to the squad car.

“Shut the door, Cynthia. Let me wipe off Tucker's paws first.”

“I can wash them,”
Tucker grumbled.

Harry had had the presence of mind to throw an old towel in the squad car. She grabbed it, bending down to clean off the corgi's muddy paws. “I'd never know you had white feet, Miss Pooch.”

Coop leaned against the car door. “He wasn't on drugs. That's the first thing I think about. Wesley was clean as far as we know.”

“I'd have thought he'd take anything he could get. Maybe he had more sense than I gave him credit for—what little I saw of him. Some people are life's losers. It sounds harsh but it's true. Miranda gets mad at me when I say that because she believes everyone can be redeemed through the Lord. I hope she's right.”

“She hasn't been quoting as much scripture lately.” Coop smiled. “Tracy?”

“Yeah, though she was never what I'd call a Bible thumper. Okay, there were times when she came close but she has toned down a little. I actually like it when she quotes the Bible. I'm learning something. I never did memorize much except for Hamlet's soliloquy, which I hate.” Harry, meditatively rubbing Tucker's paws, got lost in thought.

“M-m-m, come on, she's clean enough.”

“All right, Tucker. In you go.”

“I told you I could wash myself.”
Tucker sat down on the backseat and began washing her paws.

As they drove down Whitehall Road, Coop asked, “Is there anything unique about the farms out here?”

“Unique? Well, some of them are very beautiful but I can't think of anything unique. Many of them were filled with wounded soldiers during the War Between the States. They'd ship them in by train and folks would pick up soldiers, ours and the Yankees, down at the train station and take them home. God, it must have been a mess. Just about every house in central Virginia had soldiers in it.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“You were in as much danger from the surgeon as you were from the enemy. But no, there's nothing special unless you count architecture.”

“I sure wish I knew what he was doing down here.”

“Did anyone pick him up from the station?”

Coop shook her head. “Walked right out and kept going.”

“Creepy.”

“Wesley?”

“The weekend. Kind of a weekend of death. Roger and then Wesley.”

Cynthia said, “I heard Lottie Pearson hired a lawyer.”

“You're kidding.”

“Just in case we accuse her of poisoning Roger. Now, there's a paranoid woman. No one is accusing her of anything. It was her dumb luck to hand him coffee and cake.”

“Who told you?” Harry could think of a few people who would get the news first.

“Little Mim.”

“Lottie's been shining her on.”

“Oh, well, Little Mim knows it. She said she called BoomBoom to tell her she made the right decision in fixing you up with Diego and not Lottie.”

“She did?” Harry was surprised.

“You're a lot more fun than tight-ass Lottie.” Coop whistled. “And he is gorgeous.”

“Pretty is as pretty does.”

“Oh, Harry, that's what you always say about horses.”

“Well, it applies to men, too.”

Coop laughed as she turned right, out toward Harry's farm. “Who knows what men say about us?”

“That we're beautiful, sexy, and wonderful. Right?” Harry laughed, too.

“I'm sure.”

“Do you have to go to the autopsy tonight?”

“No, I get the night off. Things are returning to normal, finally.”

“Miranda, Susan, and I are going to Tracy's apartment over the pharmacy to paint. Miranda's bringing all the food. How are you with a paint brush?”

“Picasso.”

When Harry walked inside her house she noticed how silent it was. Not a kitty in sight. It wasn't until she went into the living room that she beheld savaged lampshades, pillows tossed on the floor, and her bowl of potpourri strewn all over the carpet.

“Mrs. Murphy! Pewter!”

“You don't think they'll show their faces, do you?”
the dog intelligently asked.
“They're both in the barn in the hayloft, I guarantee it.”

Harry looked at the old clock on the mantelpiece. “Damn. Well, come on, Tucker, I was going to take them to Tracy's but not now.”

She grabbed her old white painter's pants, a white T-shirt, then headed out the door with a bouncy Tucker at her side.

Once at Tracy's she blew off steam about the depredations of felines. It made her paint faster but she was careful with her brush and didn't make a mess. Miranda had chosen a rich, warm beige for the living room, the windows trimmed in linen white.

Once Cynthia arrived the pace really picked up. They had the living room and all the trim knocked out by eight. Miranda had set up two card tables in the kitchen. Susan went off her diet. She couldn't help it, the food was too good.

Tracy had fought in Korea right out of high school. He stayed in the army, got his college degree, and after years of outstanding service was wooed away from the army by the CIA. He wasn't a right-wing fellow; he'd seen enough government mismanagement to cure him of any blind patriotism. However, he revered the Constitution and loved his country, warts and all. He had a logical mind, a mind good at detail. When he retired to Hawaii he thought all would be well, but his wife had died three years earlier. His fiftieth high-school reunion brought him home and back to his high-school flame, Miranda, herself widowed. It was as though they had never parted. So he flew back to Hawaii, attended to business there, sold his house, and returned.

Both Tracy and Miranda were of a generation where you didn't live with a member of the opposite sex unless you married them. He could walk to Miranda's from his apartment and everything would be proper.

“When do you move the furniture in?” Susan asked. “Do you have furniture?”

“Some.” He looked at Cynthia Cooper. “Did you notice the knot on the hanging rope? Not to change the subject.”

“Just looked like a knot to me.”

“You saved the rope for evidence, of course.”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I come down and look at it tomorrow? And who notified next of kin?”

“Augusta County Sheriff's Department.” A cloud crossed Cooper's face. She didn't want to trespass on another law-enforcement agency's jurisdiction, but she thought she probably should have gone with someone from the Augusta department. She'd go over there tomorrow.

         

Already a few pounds thinner thanks to his wired-up jaw, Officer Everett Yancy hopped out of his seat when Deputy Cooper walked through the doors of the sheriff's headquarters.

“Coop!” He hustled her to his desk, sat her in his chair, leaned over, and punched in a code. “What do you make of this?”

On the computer screen appeared a message from their contact at Richmond's Department of Motor Vehicles, Carol Grossman. The DMV, efficient, processed information from satellite DMVs statewide as well as mailings from individual drivers.

The message read:

Hey, you asked for this driver's license Saturday night.
Here's our record.
Yrs, Carol

Yancy reached in front of Cooper to scroll up more text. Before her eyes was Wesley Partlow's license. But the photo on the license wasn't Wesley Partlow.

For the first time, Cooper felt the ground give way beneath her. She knew they were going out into deeper water.

She glanced up at Yancy. “These guys are good—real good.”

No sooner had she studied Carol Grossman's message than the phone rang for her.

“Hello.”

“Deputy Cooper, Officer Vitale. I'm sorry to be a little behind. I went over to the Partlows' like you requested. No one's dead.”

“Thank you, Officer Vitale.” She put the phone down. “Someone sure is dead, along with my brain!” She stormed out of the room.

22

You've got ants in your pants.” Miranda re-inked the stamp pads, then closed the lids, sliding them under the counter.

“I want to know what's going on.”

“We all want to know what's going on. That's why Tracy drove down to the sheriff's office this morning.”

“Well, why hasn't he called?”

“Harry, he left a half hour ago. Will you calm yourself?”

“Yes. It's time for my morning nap. I need quiet.”
Pewter yawned.

The front door swung open. BoomBoom came in, wearing bib overalls, large hoop earrings, and a bright green T-shirt. “Good morning, ladies.”

“I can see you're going to spend a day on the tractor.” Harry thought she'd like to be on her old John Deere.

“No,” came the brief reply as BoomBoom slid her key in the lock of her postbox, swinging open the brass door with the glass window.

“Bills,”
Tucker told her as the corgi helped sort the mail this morning.

“Why, hello, Tucker. I didn't notice you when I came in.”

“Where are you off to in your overalls?”

“Harry, I'm not accustomed to you being so interested in my schedule.” BoomBoom sorted through the envelopes as though they were cards in a deck. “What gives?”

“Nothing.” Harry appeared nonchalant.

BoomBoom sashayed to the counter, leaned on it, and purred, “You want to know if Thomas has said anything about Diego.”

“Not me.”

“I hate it when humans try to purr.”
Mrs. Murphy stuck one leg straight up, contorted her head under it to lick the back side.

“If I made her do that people would say it's cruelty to animals.” Harry pointed to the agile tiger kitty.

“You can't do that.” Miranda smiled. “I know I can't. I bet the Dalai Lama couldn't do it either.”

“What's the Dalai Lama got to do with it?” BoomBoom, mystified, wrinkled her nose, a habit when she was puzzled.

“Doesn't he twist himself into a pretzel, sleep on nails?” Miranda's eyes grew larger. “Walk through fire.”

“No, that's a master yogi.”

“Yogi Bear.” Harry giggled.

BoomBoom said, “But honestly, they can do things like that. There are some who can have out-of-body experiences.”

“I have out-of-body experiences when I get the flu.”

“Harry, gross.” BoomBoom stacked her mail on the counter, flipped it on the side, and tapped the envelopes evenly together. “Anyway, do you want to know what Diego said to Thomas?”

“Sure,” she shrugged.

“Mother, don't try to be so cool.”
Mrs. Murphy still had her hind leg over her head.

Tucker walked back behind the counter when Harry tipped it up.
“Murphy, I wish you wouldn't do that. It hurts just to look at you.”

“If you didn't have such stumps, you could do it, too,”
the tiger cat said with malicious glee.

“Ha, ha,”
the dog dryly replied.

“Why isn't anyone paying attention to me?”
Pewter pouted.

“You said you wanted to take a nap,”
Murphy fired back.

“Am I asleep?”

“Pewter, you are so perverse.”

“All cats are perverse.”
The little dog headed for the back animal door.

“Where are you going? What are you doing?”
Mrs. Murphy demanded.

“Hey, there's nothing in here but two bitchy cats.”

“Is that so?”
Pewter fluffed her fur.

“Guess you won't find out what Thomas told BoomBoom.”
Mrs. Murphy cleverly dangled the bait.

“Oh, yeah.”
Tucker stopped, returning to the counter.

“Well?” Miranda expectantly leaned over the counter.

“Thomas said that Diego hopes to see Harry again.” BoomBoom hooked her thumb under her overall strap. “Has he called you?”

“No, Thomas hasn't called me,” Harry said.

“You know what I mean. Don't be such a smart-ass, Harry.”

“Yes, Diego has called me. Is everyone happy now?”

“You didn't tell me.” Miranda was hurt.

“Because he called last night after our painting party. I forgot to tell you because there's so much else going on. Anyway, Diego has to fly back to Montevideo this week, but he hopes to be down for the Wrecker's Ball.”

“Oh. What painting party?” BoomBoom asked.

Mrs. Murphy, bored with the humans, put her hind leg down finally, swept her whiskers forward, and stared right down at Tucker.
“What a pretty doggie.”

Tucker looked up but a fraction of a second too late because the cat swooped down on her, bowling her over.
“Oooph.”
The dog had the wind knocked out of her and was rolled over by the force of Murphy's aerial bombardment.

Pewter, ears up, inched closer to the tangle.
“This looks good.”

“Banzai! Death to the emperor,”
Murphy sang out.

“You watch too many war movies,”
Tucker snapped as she scrambled to her feet. She bolted out the animal door, Mrs. Murphy in hot pursuit.

Pewter hesitated a moment. After all, puddles dotted the alleyway; but the screams from outside finally lured her out the animal door, where both cat and dog pounced on her, knowing she'd fall for it.

“Nonstop party.” Harry laughed.

“What, painting?”

Both Harry and Miranda told her about the painting party at Tracy's apartment and Tracy asking Coop to see the rope.

Just then the phone rang. Miranda picked it up and Harry crowded next to her. BoomBoom hurried behind the counter to listen in.

“Oh, hello, Mim.” Miranda tried to hide the disappointment in her voice.

“Has my package arrived from Cartier? I sent my tank watch up to New York to be fixed weeks ago.” Big Mim emphasized “weeks.”

“No package today. I'm so used to you being my first customer. Where are you?”

“I'm on my way to Richmond with Marilyn. I promised I'd take her to Monkey's.” She mentioned a dress shop much frequented by ladies such as herself. “I'm on the car phone. Clear as a bell, isn't it?”

“You two have a wonderful time. Bye now.” Miranda hung up the phone.

Lottie Pearson walked through the door. “Hello.” She opened her postbox, gathered her mail, and walked right out.

“Can you believe?” BoomBoom's eyebrows shot upward.

The phone rang again. They all reached for it but Miranda was first.

Miranda picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Hi, sugar.” Tracy's baritone sounded deep. “I'm heading back. Need anything?”

“What'd you think?” Harry, leaning over, spoke into the receiver.

“Did you grab the phone from my beautiful girlfriend?”

“No. She's right here. BoomBoom, too. We're hanging on your every word.”

“Oh.” He inhaled. “Heavy rope, climber's rope. You know when you see movies of hangings in the Old West, how the rope has a special kind of noose?”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

“That's what I wanted to see. If Wesley took the time to make that noose, assuming he killed himself, or if his killer did, assuming he was murdered. The noose isn't as easy to tie as you would think.”

“And?” Harry's tone raised up.

“No. A simple knot like you tie when you're tying up a package.”

“Honeybunch, what does that mean?” Miranda breathlessly asked, having regained full access to the receiver.

“That either Wesley or his killer didn't know how to tie the knot, didn't care, didn't have time. Or that the climber's rope would hold.”

“I don't follow.” BoomBoom honestly didn't.

“One of the reasons the noose knot was used to hang people is that it would hold the weight of the body and snap the neck. It's more humane than choking to death, which is what happens if you tie a common package knot. In time the common knot will give even on good quality rope.”

“This gives me chills. You come on home.” Miranda half laughed.

“I will. Say bye to the girls.”

Miranda hung up the phone as the three animals pranced through the animal door, best friends again.

“I didn't know that about a noose.” Harry's hand instinctively flew to her neck. “Choking and swinging at the same time. What an awful way to die.”

“I think we missed something.”
Mrs. Murphy quietly sat down on a chair by the table in the back.

“We have only to wait. They're bound to tell another human. You know how they are.”
Pewter jumped on a chair at the table and began biting out the mud between her toes. She hated dirt.

“All this talk of death . . .” Boom's voice faded away, then increased in strength. “Roger's funeral is tomorrow. Are you all going?”

“You know we will.” Miranda frowned for a moment. “Now, why would you even ask?”

“I don't know.” BoomBoom's shoulders hunched up, then she relaxed. “I'm a little distracted. Aren't you?”

“Well, it has been a strange couple of days but we may be making too much of it all.” Miranda noticed the tiny mud pellets falling to the floor since Pewter was sitting in one of the chairs next to her. “Pewter, pick up after yourself.”

“I'll clean it up.” Harry opened the small broom closet in the back, fetching the dustpan and brush.

“Well, I'm off.”

“You never said why you're wearing overalls.” Harry knelt down, brushing up the mud bits.

“I'm going to work.”

“What work?” Harry rather impolitely replied.

“Welding. I have an order to make a hen and chickens for Opal Michaels.”

“Better make it a chicken with attitude,” Harry said.

“If I were making it for Big Mim I'd put a crown on that bird.” BoomBoom laughed as she opened the front door.

Miranda picked up Mrs. Murphy to pet her. “I'm glad to see you and BoomBoom are getting along better.”

“She's always made more of an effort than I have.”

“Well, I'm glad to see you recognize that. Remember your
Proverbs
. ‘A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.'” Miranda quoted Chapter Seventeen, Verse Seventeen.

“I wouldn't go that far.” Harry winked at her.

Mrs. Murphy listened as the tiny mud bits hit the floor.
“Pewter, you have more mud between your toes than an elephant.”

“And you don't?”

“Not as much as you.”

“Why aren't you grooming yourself?”
the gray cat wondered.

“I'm waiting until she sweeps up your mess. Then I'll make another one.”

“Murphy, you're awful,”
Tucker giggled.