Catch as Cat Can (18 page)

34

Although the rain had stopped, the runoff slopped over highways, and culverts, jammed with gunk, backed up and overflowed. Everywhere one looked there was running water. The shoulders off the sides of the roads shone with it.

Driving slowly, Harry gave thanks that her lands rested high above the floodplain. Structures built in lowlands had flooded basements at the least.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker had been arguing since climbing into the truck. Murphy was determined to jump out when Harry slowed for the curve by Tally Urquhart's farm entrance.

Pewter vowed she would not launch herself from a moving vehicle. What did she care if Sean might be in danger? Besides, the long, long driveway meant she'd get her feet wet.

Tucker moaned because she might squeeze out the window but not being as agile as the cat, she feared the drop. No point in collecting broken bones.

“But I need your nose,”
Murphy pouted.

“Won't do you a bit of good if I can't haul myself up the driveway. It's not a good plan, Murphy. Be patient. Sooner or later, Mom will call on Tally.”

“By that time it will be too late.”
The sleek cat put her paw on the window crank as the old truck didn't have electric windows.

“No, it won't.”
Pewter was nervous that if Murphy rolled down the window and shot out of the truck, Harry would swerve and they'd slide off the road into the muck. Not an appealing prospect to a fastidious cat.

Tally's farm lay up ahead, marked by a big rectangular sign with a white rose on a dark green background and the name “Rose Hill” swinging in the light breeze. Mrs. Murphy, using both paws, started cranking down the window when to her delight, Harry turned right onto the drive.

“Murphy, what are you doing?”

“Damn, now she knows I know how to roll down the window.”

“I told you not to do it.”
Pewter smugly moved over to sit next to Harry.

“Brownnoser,”
Murphy spat.

“That does us no good at all. What if this is a short visit? We need a plan,”
Tucker, being practical, said.

“All right. When we get there, Tucker, go straight to the dining room. The flooring is old random-width. There are cracks between the boards. Sniff the cracks. Would be a bitter smell, I think. Pewter, go into the pantry. You do the same thing but get on the shelves. You'll have to stick your nose in sugar bowls, creamers, any small bowl, but be careful. You don't want to inhale anything into your system. Stuff would be lethal. Think how quickly it killed Roger O'Bannon.”

“If it did,”
Pewter replied.
“We'll never know without an autopsy. He could have died of natural causes.”

“We'd best hope he did,”
Tucker grimly said.

“Sean should have ordered an autopsy.”
Pewter eagerly moved toward the passenger door as Harry parked at the back of Tally's beautiful house.
“It's weird.”

“Some humans feel strongly that the body shouldn't be disturbed. And no one thought of murder at the time. It's not so weird.”
Tucker allowed Harry to lift her down.

The blossoms, knocked off the trees and bushes, scattered on the grass like pink and white confetti. Harry rapped on the back door as she scraped the petals off her boots.

As no one came directly to the door she opened it a crack. “Aunt Tally, it's Harry.”

The sound of footsteps reverberated through the back hall. Reverend Herb Jones appeared. “Harry, come in.”

“Hi. I didn't see your car.”

“In the garage. The storm was so bad I thought I'd better come out here and stay, especially since Mim and family are in New York.” He closed the door behind Harry and the animals, who headed to their respective assignments. “When the help goes home she's out here all alone and those were nasty storms. One right after the other.”

“Gee, I'm happy you're here. That's why I stopped by. I was worried about Tally being alone, too.” She followed Herb into the huge kitchen.

Tally glanced up from yellowed hunt-territory maps, drawn in the 1930s. “I'm still alive, thank you.”

“Never a doubt in my mind.” Harry laughed. “Hey, those are something.”

“Forgot I had them and then Herb and I were talking about the old Albemarle Hunt, which hunted the Greenwood territory. I was just a kid then but that hunt unraveled, odds and ends, and in 1929 Farmington took over the territory. Anyway, these old maps will show you.”

Harry propped on her elbows to study the maps. She loved old prints, photographs, aquatints. “I think people had better lives back then.”

“Well, I'm inclined to agree—until you had a toothache,” Aunt Tally sensibly replied.

As the humans enjoyed one another's company, Tally recalling her girlhood, Herb remembering the big jumps from hunt days gone by, the animals worked quickly.

Pewter, nosy anyway, quietly pulled open the pantry cabinets. They had glass window fronts so she didn't waste any time. She pushed the lids off the two sugar bowls, one silver and formal, one informal. Plain white sugar rested inside. She sniffed. Plain white sugar, pure and simple.

For good measure she inspected every small bowl, tureen, creamer. Everything was in order. Disappointed, she hopped down, pulling open the bottom cabinets that didn't have glass window fronts. Nothing in there but big pots and pans and serving dishes.

Mrs. Murphy had intended to prowl around the kitchen but with the humans in there she decided to join Tucker.

The corgi, diligent and intelligent, carefully started with the joinings between two boards, following it from end to end. Murphy walked in just as she reached the place where the table had been set.

The cat sat on her haunches.

Tucker stopped, checked out a spot, lifted her nose up, then put it back down.
“Murph, try this.”

The cat joined her friend and although her nose wasn't as refined as the dog's, a scent so faint as to be ethereal wafted up from a crack.
“Bitter.”

“Smells like a bad poison, but we can't prove it.”
The dog cocked her head, then put her nose down again, wrinkled it, bringing her head up.
“Not rat poison. I've never smelled this.”

Pewter sauntered in.
“Big fat nothing.”

“Come here,”
Murphy said.

Pewter placed her nose where Tucker indicated she should. She sniffed, then blinked her eyes, jerking her head back.
“Nasty, what's left of it.”
She turned to Murphy.
“You might be right.”

“You two slept under the table. What I remember”
—the tiger jumped up on the fireplace mantel where she'd been sitting during the tea dance—
“is that Roger was already in the chair. Lottie came into the room. She'd been out dancing or in the garden. I don't know. The desserts had just been placed on the table. Everything was buffet style. People started to come in and crowd the table. They needed the coffee. Lots of drinking. Lottie picked up a piece of chocolate cake. She was in the line. Next she poured a cup of coffee from the silver samovar and then she put in three scoops of raw sugar. I remember it was raw sugar because she took a step back to put the sugar on the table, bumped into Thomas Steinmetz just as he reached for the sugar, and spilled it all over the floor. She apologized, he said it was his fault, and then she carried the cake and the coffee over to Roger, who was happy that she paid attention to him. I don't know what they said because I was, by then, watching the other humans.”
She thought a moment.
“She'd made a mess of the sugar. Thomas cleaned it up before one of the kids hired to serve got there. He picked up the broken pieces of the bowl and swept up the sugar with his napkin. When one of the servers got there he handed it to him to put in the trash. He'd wrapped everything in his napkin. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time except to think that he was nice to do it because there was enough on the floor that someone could have slipped on it. Drunk as many were, I'd say that was a sound conclusion on his part. And, well, within ten minutes, Roger was dead. And quiet. No gurgling or choking. I was sitting right here. Quiet!”

“Lottie Pearson gives Roger coffee and cake. She went with Don Clatterbuck to the dance that night.”
Pewter frowned.
“Lottie Pearson.”

“And she's not very happy with Mom.”
Tucker flattened her ears.

“Yes.”
Murphy remained silent for a long time.
“I was thinking that Sean—but now I don't know. But what would Lottie Pearson have to do with three dead men, Wesley Partlow, Donny Clatterbuck, and Roger O'Bannon? Is she a black widow or something?”

“She could have been killing men before now, but thinking on it, maybe her animosity toward Roger was a big act,”
Pewter, suspicious, said.

“If she isn't acting, someone around here sure is.”
Tucker hit the nail on the head.

35

Harry, not knowing what her animals were thinking, was working from her own ideas. Satisfied that Aunt Tally flourished, she headed her truck toward the old folks' home, the highest building in Crozet, which wasn't saying much.

An expanse of asphalt surrounded the beige block building, still wet so the parking lot surface shone like mica. She pulled her truck to the back, cut the motor, and emerged followed by the “kids,” Pewter shaking water off her paws at every step.

Harry walked around the building. Nothing unusual presented itself. She then stopped at the edge of the tarmac to study the railroad tracks that swooped right next to the building with a long curve. Wesley had been found near those tracks. The brush, already grown up at this time of year, could easily conceal activity. She pushed through the bushes and brambles, leaves spraying water on her. An old mud road pockmarked with huge holes filled with brown water followed the tracks. The hanging tree, a fiddle oak, sat just south of that road, maybe fifty yards. From the tree the distance to the tracks measured about two hundred yards.

Harry looked up at the strong, spreading limbs and shuddered. The sun peeked out from the clouds, then immediately disappeared again. Thunder shook the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was far enough away that it sounded like one of the gods, clearing his throat.

“Not more rain.” Harry exhaled. “I tell you, it's either floods or drought these days.”

“You're exactly right. Let's go back to the truck,”
Pewter strongly suggested.

“H-m-m.” Harry walked around the tree, searched the ground, then checked the tree bark. Her curiosity was getting the better of her, a condition her pets feared.

After ten minutes she returned to the truck, Pewter racing ahead of everyone. The skies grew dark gray rapidly. Harry opened the driver's door a crack, reached behind the seat, pulling out a towel. She wiped off each animal's paws before allowing them in the truck. Then she climbed in herself, opened the window about two inches, and sat. A fine mist slowly enveloped the old folks' building.

The front door opened. Sean O'Bannon, his hand under his mother's elbow, guided her to her car. The mist thickened, heavy with moisture.

“I forgot about that,” Harry said to herself as she observed Sean slide behind the wheel of his mother's car, turn on the motor, and drive out.

“What?”
Mrs. Murphy nudged her.

“Sean's grandmother lives here now. She's too old to properly take care of herself.”

“She understood you?”
Pewter's jaw dropped.

“Coincidence.”
Murphy laughed.

Harry thought out loud. “Seems Wesley was murdered at night, during the storm—of course, it's been one storm after another. Even without the cover of rain it would be pretty easy to get back in there without anyone noticing. But why back there? There's nothing there and even if there had been fresh tire tracks they'd been washed away by the time the body was found. Maybe going behind the home wasn't in the plan.” The first raindrop struck the windshield, a circle of tinier droplets spraying upward after the contact. “Maybe this was an easy place to meet or maybe it was an easy place to jump the train as it slows for the curve to go through town. Plus easy to find if one doesn't know Crozet. Big parking lot. In the rain you could sit here with your lights off and who would notice, driving by? The question is, how long was Wesley alive after he was released from jail? I found the Mercedes star three miles from here. What was he doing out in the woods? There's nothing there.”

“Nothing that you know about,”
Murphy corrected her.

The rain arrived full force. Harry rolled up her window. The temperature dropped with the arrival of the rain, skidding into the low sixties so fast that the animals huddled together.

Harry reached behind her seat and pulled up an old sweatshirt, slipping it over her head.

“It's so raw.”

“Let's go home where it's warm,”
Pewter pleaded.

Finally, Harry turned on the motor, reached over, flipping the heat on—low—as well as the windshield wipers. She cruised by Miranda's. Tracy's car sat in the driveway. Although he now lived within walking distance, he must have decided it was going to rain.

She turned out toward O'Bannon's. The rain fell harder. She could barely see the wrecker's ball. She drove east for a few miles, then turned back for home.

The second she opened the passenger door, the animals flew from the truck to the house. She, too, dashed through the downpour.

No messages on her answering machine disappointed her.

Thanks to the constant rains she'd reorganized every closet, her library, the linens and towels, even the socks. The only indoor chore left to do would be to repaint the living room. She didn't feel up to that.

Restless, she rambled from room to room, then finally grabbed a county map from her map section in the library. She opened it on the coffee table, placing paperweights on each corner, shooing off Murphy and Pewter, who felt compelled to sit on paper, any paper.

She used a number four pencil, a light line, to trace the distance from the jail to the place at Marcus Durant's where she'd found Wesley's Mercedes star. Then she drew a line from there to the old folks' home. From the jail to Durant's would be a long distance to walk, close to twelve miles if you knew how to cut over meadows and pastures. Following Route 250 West to Route 240 West would increase the distance from the jail to Durant's by another two miles.

“Someone picked him up.”

Murphy, back on the coffee table, but not on the map, peered down.
“Draw a line to Booty Mawyer's farm. Draw a line from the place where you found the star at Durant's to Mawyer's. Just for the heck of it.”

Pewter hopped up next to Murphy.
“Why not from the old folks' home to Booty's?”

“Could but I don't think that's the way it played out.”

Tucker, on her hind legs, studied the map also.

“I have an audience here.” Harry smiled, then jumped when a loud clap of thunder exploded right over the house. “Big one.” She sheepishly grinned. “Okay, what else? Murphy, get your paw off the map.”

Murphy pointed from the river spot to Booty's. She did this three times before Harry caught on.

“Do you think their minds just aren't wired right?”
Pewter wondered.
“They'd forget their head if it weren't attached to their neck.”

“No, the problem is their heads are filled with junk. Whatever they see on TV or hear on the radio or hear at the corner store. Empty stuff, eats up brain cells.”

Tucker loved Harry so she felt she should defend her.
“But Mother's better than most.”

“H-m-m. Booty's backs up on Durant's. He could have hidden in the shack. It wouldn't be that far to park the truck and walk to the shack.”

“Or to Donny Clatterbuck's!”
Pewter raised her voice.

Harry, believing the cat was afraid of the storm, petted her. “Wesley wasn't seen driving the truck by the time Coop was looking for it. Unless he drove the old farm roads, but for what?” She bent low over the map. “Railroad's not far.” She sat up. “Doesn't compute.” Then she stood to get the county map of Culpeper off the shelf. She unfolded it as the animals watched. “White Shop Road.”

“Right off Route 29. Easy to find,”
Pewter noted.

“Easier driving from the south to the north than vice versa unless you know the road. See, it's at a sharp angle,”
Murphy pointed out.
“But once you know where it is, it's easy.”

“Back way to Bull Run Kennels,” Harry said.

“Hey, someone's coming down the drive. Intruder! Intruder!”
Tucker raced to the back door, the fur on the back of her neck standing up.

A door slammed, feet could be heard running for the back door. The screened porch door opened with a creak and then a knock reverberated with the thunder at the back door.

“It's Lottie Pearson,”
Tucker barked.