Outfoxed (27 page)

CHAPTER 54

Understanding one's emotions isn't the same as conquering one's physical desires. Every day Cody Franklin fought her profound thirst for alcohol, specifically tequila. The hours, the tears, the laying bare of frailties during her intensive week of rehab and subsequent therapy couldn't prepare her or anyone for the body's craving.

She could do without cocaine, marijuana, skin-popping heroin. But to spend the rest of her life without a drop of liquor seemed a cruel sentence. She'd dream of standing at a neon-lit bar, all cool aluminum washed in blue light. The bartender, Dionysus in disguise, would slide a glass of straight tequila to her. Margaritas were for wimps. Tequila sunrises were for trendies. Straight tequila on the rocks. She'd wake up sweating, mouth dry, hands shaking. Then she'd haul herself out of bed, pull a seltzer water out of the fridge, and drink. But she craved tequila.

One day at a time. Like a mantra she'd roll that phrase over and over in her head until it made no sense at all but sounded soothing.

She realized that the first day an alcoholic takes a drink, gets hooked, is the day emotional development stops. By her own reckoning she was eighteen years old. She'd smoked some weed before that, junior high school, popped the top of a beer can, but she started methodically drinking at eighteen, her first year in college.

She also realized that she was self-centered. Like many young people she assumed other people thought like her. One of the good things to come out of the rehab was the knowledge that just wasn't so. Other people were other people. She was making an effort to see the world through other eyes, making an effort to grow up at last.

She gave herself a pep talk as she left Real Estate Virginia. Turned down again, she trudged through the snow. She knew she couldn't make a career out of training horses. She was good but there were plenty better. She could exercise a horse, she could give a green horse confidence, but she couldn't put the spit and polish on a horse to go into the showring. She could bring along a sane foxhunter but that was a small market and people still believed they could find the perfect foxhunter for $5,000. Those days were long gone but no one would ever accuse a Virginian of keeping up with the times. Indeed, they prided themselves on not keeping up with the times. The times were for the rabble. Virginians were eternal and eternally above such silliness.

The cold air made her nose run. Great. If anyone saw her they'd say she was on coke again. She crossed the downtown mall, heading for the parking lot where her wheezing car awaited her.

She passed the side street where Fontaine's office was, a three-story Federal brick building painted beige with burgundy shutters. On a whim she turned down the street, walked up the steps, freshly shoveled and swept of snow. Inside, the office door was open. Martha Howard sat at her desk, landscaping plans unfurled.

“Hi, Martha. How are you doing? I was in the neighborhood.”

“Come on in.” Martha stood up. She had guessed at Fontaine's relationship with Cody but didn't pry. It was none of her business.

“It's strange—without him here.”

“Yes. Very. Would you like coffee or tea? How about a soft drink?”

“Coffee. I'm chilled and I don't know why. I walked here from Real Estate Virginia. It's not that far.”

“First bitter of the winter. Always takes me that way, too.” Martha poured coffee in a mug with a horse's tail as the handle. “One or two?”

“Two and milk, please.”

Martha delivered the coffee, then sat down with Cody on the sofa. “How are you doing?”

“Okay. And you?”

“A lot of changes. It's hard to believe Fontaine is really gone. Right now it seems like he's on vacation. Ireland. He loved Ireland better than any place. He had more energy . . .” Martha's voice trailed off. She rose, poured herself a coffee, reached into the white cabinet, and brought out a box of cookies. She sat back down and they both nibbled on the dark-chocolate-covered cookies. “I always thought that women had more energy than men and in the main I think they do but Fontaine was in a class by himself. Has the sheriff grilled you yet?”

“Yes. I don't think they know any more than when they first started questioning people.”

“Maybe. I suppose it's too early to tell. People think Crawford did it. He hated Fontaine. He was missing for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Bad timing. He didn't kill him, though.”

“He could have paid someone else.”

Martha laughed, an unexpected reaction to Cody. “Never. Crawford is too smart to ever let emotions foul up his life. If he were caught, he'd be dragged through a court of law. . . . Not Crawford. Too cold-blooded and that was not a cold-blooded murder.”

“I never thought of that.” Cody wrapped both hands around the coffee mug to warm herself. “What are you going to do?”

“About Crawford?”

“Well, I wasn't thinking about that. I meant here. What will happen to the business?”

“I think Sorrel will sell it. Right now she's in no shape to make a major decision and I told her I'd finish up the jobs outstanding. If I had the money, I'd buy it. Fontaine was hardly regular in his work habits. He was good at bidding jobs and I learned a lot from him but a strong work ethic was not part of his makeup. At the risk of bragging, I kept this business on track. I love the creative part of this. Love design. I know I could make a success of this.”

“Crawford would buy it for you. He'll do anything to get you back.”

“Is that your opinion?”

Cody, not the most socially conscious creature, said, “Yes. Other people think that, too, but I guess it's hard to trust someone after they've—well—I'm kind of going through that myself only I was the one who screwed around.”

Martha lowered her eyes for an instant. “What are you going to do?”

“About Doug?”

“No. About your life.”

“I don't know. No one will hire me. I guess they'd hire me to dig ditches. Places want drug tests now. I don't mind that.” She sighed. “What I mind is everyone peering at me as though I'm under a microscope. I think half of the people want me to fall on my face and the other half don't.”

“Life.” Martha smiled, a tinge of sadness in her face.

“I didn't think it would be this hard. The receptionist at Real Estate Virginia, Marcy Talmadge, took my résumé and blew me off. I remember that sorry bitch from high school.” She ate another cookie in defiance.

“No one forgets anything around here. It's the reverse of California.”

“Maybe I should move there.”

“No.” Martha quickly added, “I mean, it's beautiful. I can't make a decision like that for you but I think there are so many lost people there.” She measured her words. “What did Fontaine mean to you?”

“Me?” A look of pure surprise crossed her beautiful features.

“You.”

“Fun. Never knew what he'd do next. And he was generous.”

“To pretty girls.” She stopped, thought, then added, “Actually, he was generous to most people. He had a way about him. He lived for the moment. He never thought about the consequences of his actions. I wish I could be more, uh—present—without getting into the trouble he did. “ She exhaled. “I never leave the house without an umbrella, Handi-Wipes, and a box of Band-Aids.”

“That's probably why Fontaine liked you so much. Opposites attract.”

“I don't know. I always thought he hired me to get back at Crawford, discovered I was good at managing the office, the clients, reading blueprints, scheduling jobs and workers, and counted himself lucky.”

“He was lucky. Until the end. Say, Martha, I meant it. Don't you think Crawford would buy this business for you?”

“I don't know. I'd hate to be beholden to him.”

“What if you worked out some kind of buyout over time? I mean if you two don't get back together.”

Martha appraised Cody. “It's a possibility.”

“Because if you don't go out and bid new landscaping jobs, you'll fall behind. You can't wait until the company is legally yours.”

“Isn't it amazing how your mind works when you stop drinking?”

“I've wasted a lot of time.”

“Think how you'd feel if you dried out at sixty-two. You haven't wasted all that much. Besides this will give you a checkered past, which will make you more fascinating to the stick-in-the-muds. Plenty of those around here.” Martha picked up a napkin, placing it under her coffee mug. “Do you want to work here?”

“Yes.”

Martha squared her shoulders; her voice was warm but authoritative. “You know, I believe we could work together but I have to know something. Tell me straight. Did you sleep with Fontaine?”

“Yes, but didn't everyone?”

“I didn't.”

“My mother didn't.” Cody laughed.

“What was the attraction? I'd think to someone your age he'd look, well, old.”

“Yeah, a little. He taught me stuff. How to dress and what to drink. Not that I'll need that anymore. He paid attention to me and he'd give me money sometimes. If I'd fall behind on the rent or get messed up . . . he took care of things.”

“You didn't feel that you betrayed Sorrel?”

“No. He betrayed Sorrel. I was along for the ride.” A trace of bitterness, a whiff, lingered in the air.

“Did you sleep with him while you were with Doug?”

“Doug harped on me. Nagged. Once he smashed my bottle of tequila, you know, the kind with the worm in it.” She drew in a deep breath. “I cheated on him. Hell, I cheated on everyone.”

“There's enough money in the till for me to hire you for four months. Not a lot but better than the last job you had. Maybe we can keep this company going. Start Monday?”

“Deal.” Cody held out her hand.

Martha shook it. “Deal.” She smiled. “Think Sister will cancel tomorrow?”

“No. Takes a hurricane or blizzard to stop her. She'll call this snow a ‘dusting.' ”

They both laughed.

CHAPTER 55

Deep in the wood a crisscrossing of mountain lion and coyote tracks attracted Inky's attention. She'd left her own delicate prints in the snow, a tighter track than the red fox's. As this was her first snow she hadn't realized how tired she would get. She abandoned the idea of dropping down into the cornfields. She circled behind a cairn. A mouse had to be in there somewhere. She was right.

Nibbling on her breakfast, she heard the horn far away. Hounds could move better in the snow than she could, so she started for home, a short quarter mile away.

A soft hoot stopped her.
“Inky. Coyote coming this way and the hounds are on him.”

“I'll hurry.”
She talked as she ran, Athena flying slowly overhead.
“Did you have a good night?”

“When the weather's bad I hunt the barns. Eight mice.”

Impressed, Inky said,
“I'm satisfied with one.”
She reached her den, sitting down outside it.
“This stuff makes me tired.”

“Don't venture far from your den in deep snow, Inky. It can be fatal. Sometimes the snow will get an icy crust on top. That's not so bad but you can slip and slide halfway to China.”
She chortled.
“Wings are a big advantage.”

“I'll let you know when I sprout some.”

The horn sounded a bit closer, maybe two miles away.

“They cast behind Foxglove Farm.”
Athena perched on a low limb, her head turned nearly upside down.
“Didn't take long to pick up the coyote. They run straight as a die. You'd best be careful of them. They'll eat your game and run you out, too. Right now there's enough for everybody but during a famine the coyote will be your enemy. Never forget that. Not so good for the hounds either.”

“I'd think it would be so easy. They stay on the scent and just run along.”
Inky blinked as Athena shook some snow off the branch and the snow fell in her eyes.

“A good hound figures things out. If you zig and zag and circle back, a good hound thinks about it, casts himself or herself until picking up your scent again. If all hounds do is run coyote, then all they need to be is fast. They don't have to solve problems. Sister fears the coyote. If he runs you foxes out, then generations of breeding for special characteristics in hounds will go down the drain. People will breed for nose, drive, and speed. They won't need brainy hounds.”
Athena noted Inky's crestfallen face.
“Don't fret. There aren't that many coyotes here yet and as I said, it won't be a problem until there's a shortage of food. Besides, when Mr. Coyote starts snatching the house pets from suburban manicured yards, you'll hear a fuss. Next thing you know the laws will change and folks will be out there hunting coyote with guns. That, too, presents problems. I tell you, Inky, the first weekend of deer season there are more guns out here than there were at Gettysburg.”

“What's Gettysburg?”

“Human foolishness. I'll tell you about that some other time. When the snow melts why don't you store up corn, oats, whatever, just in case we get a big storm. Squirrels have a point, you know.”

“Thank you. I will.”

The horn was within a mile of them now. They looked over at a rocky foothill to the Blue Ridge Mountains shining in the distance, the very edge of the Foxglove Farm territory. The coyote was trotting along the top of the boulders of the foothill.

“Is he in danger?”
Inky asked.

“No. A coyote runs only as fast as he needs to run. When he's ready he'll vanish. Although he'd better not let Cora or Dragon get too close. They are very fast hounds. They're way back, though. Hear them now?”

And the faint music of the hounds drifted toward them.

Inky listened intently.
“Will the coyote kill me?”

Athena swiveled her head back to focus on Inky.
“Don't give him a reason. Don't challenge him. You'll be all right. You have more to fear from St. Just now than from coyotes.”

“Exactly how did Target kill his mate?”

“Hubris. Conceit. Two summers ago, the summer of the grasshoppers, Target was sunbathing on Whiskey Ridge and she dive-bombed him. He leapt up and caught her. Wasn't asleep, you see. She brought it on herself.”

Inky's beautiful eyes seemed even more lustrous as she sat in the snow.
“Athena, do you know everything?”

She laughed.
“No, my, my, no, but I watch, I listen, and I learn. If you listen to older animals and watch everyone around you, you learn from their experiences, too. You can even learn from humans.”

“Really?”

“They're a case study. You see they've removed themselves from the rest of us and they're suffering. They're losing practical intelligence. Just one example: Humans are fouling their own nest. Every bird, every den dweller knows you can't do that. But they are. I don't mind that they'll pay for it. I mind that we'll pay for it with them.”

“All of them?”

“Not all of them. Some are still close to us. But I fear their knowledge will be discounted by the city dwellers. I fear in another generation or two it will be lost and then the earth will shudder.”

“I hope not.”
Inky felt frightened, for she respected the power of the earth.

“I hope not, too, little one, but they grow more and more arrogant. I tell you a common house cat—and I do not esteem cats, most especially that smart-ass, Golly—but even Golly has more wisdom than humans.”

“Even Sister?”

“Sister is one of us. Peter Wheeler was, too, and Shaker and Doug. They live within Nature's rhythms and despite human frailty they are respectful. But Peter has gone back to earth. And what of the young ones? I just don't know.”
Athena glanced back at the boulders. The coyote had left and she saw the silhouette of the pack, in a line, crossing the rocks.
“There's good hound work for you.”

“It's pretty, isn't it?”
Inky smiled.
“Athena, when the snows started I was at the hound graveyard. Sister and Raleigh were there and she was hurt. She was mourning Archie and the human dead, too. And she said she was going to lay a trap on Thanksgiving hunt. She didn't say what but when the snow melts I'll tell Aunt Netty and Mother and Father. I don't know what we can do but we can be out and ready.”

“I'll stay up on Thanksgiving, then. I wonder what she'll do?”
Athena sighed, her plump chest pushing out, revealing the light-colored feathers under the long silky ones.
“I'm going home to bed. I suppose Babs is there.”
Babs was the screech owl in the next tree.
“She's a dear friend, you know, but that dreadful voice.”
Athena shook her head then lifted off as Inky turned and scooted into her den.