Pawing Through the Past (14 page)

28

The slight drone of a bumblebee, growing stronger by the moment, irritated Mrs. Murphy to the point where she opened one glittering green eye. The marvel of insect engineering zoomed closer. She batted at it with a paw but the large black and yellow creature zigged out of the way.

“Losing your touch,”
Tucker laconically commented.

“Bull. I’m lying on my side. If I’d been sitting up that bomber wouldn’t have had a chance. ’Course, if I’d been sitting up she wouldn’t have come near me.”

“Yeah, yeah,”
Tucker, also on her side under a hydrangea bush, said.

Mrs. Murphy sat up.
“Where’s Pewter?”

“In the post office. Leave the air-conditioning? Ha!”

The sweltering heat intensified. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker had left the post office to scrounge around Miranda’s garden in the late morning. It didn’t seem so hot then but they couldn’t find anything of interest despite a soft, lingering chipmunk scent, so they fell asleep.

BoomBoom’s elegant BMW rumbled down the alleyway. She parked behind the post office, getting out of the driver’s side as Marcy Wiggins and Chris Sharpton emerged from the passenger and rear doors.

Chris glanced over at the dumpster and shuddered.

“Guess I shouldn’t have parked here.” BoomBoom’s hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t think of it. I haven’t processed all this emotionally. I mean, I still have such unresolved—”

“Let’s go inside.” Chris cut her off before BoomBoom’s lament could gather steam.

Marcy kept staring at the dumpster. “I heard he was covered in maggots.”

“No.” Chris shook her head. “Stop this.”

Marcy began shaking.

Tucker and Mrs. Murphy crept to the edge of Miranda’s yard to listen more closely.

“Marcy, are you going to be sick?” BoomBoom moved toward her to help.

“No, no, but I can’t take this. People talking behind our backs. Talking about Bill killing Charlie. Talking about me and Charlie. This is a vicious little town!” She burst into tears. “I wish we’d never moved here. Why did I let Bill talk me into this? He wanted to come home. He said he’d be head of oncology faster in Charlottesville than in some huge city.”

BoomBoom put her arm around the frail woman. “Things will get better.”

Chris put her arm around her from the opposite side. “People gossip in big cities, too.”

“But you can get away from them. Here, you’re”—she gulped for air—“trapped. And I’m not working on your high-school reunion anymore! I’m sorry but it’s too dangerous.”

“Marcy, that’s okay,” BoomBoom soothingly said. “But this awful stuff doesn’t have anything to do with our reunion. It’s some bizarre coincidence. Come on, let’s get you in the air-conditioning. Harry will let you sit in the back while you, uh, regain your composure.”

Marcy allowed herself to be led into the post office.

“Gossip.”
Tucker shook her head.
“People would be much improved if their tongues were cut out of their heads.”

“Maybe.”
Mrs. Murphy yawned.

“If I say red, you say black. If I say apples you say oranges. You’re contrary.”

Mrs. Murphy smiled.
“Sometimes I am, I guess. It’s the feline in me.”

“Bum excuse.”

“Gossip is ugly stuff said about people behind their backs. But people, being a herd animal, need to be in touch. They need to talk about one another. There’s good talk and bad talk but think about it, Tucker, the worst thing that can happen to a human being is not to be talked about,”
Murphy expounded.

“Never thought of that,”
Tucker replied.

“Follow me.”

The dog padded after the cat, the small pieces of gravel hot in the sun. They stopped in front of the dumpster. The yellow cordoning tape had been removed.

“Nothing left.”

“I’m not so sure. Let’s look where they put the plaster casts. See, there’s little bits of plaster left in the indentations.”

“I see that,”
the dog crabbily said as she stared at the chain-link heel mark from the Bean boot and the high-heel mark not far from it.
“Left foot and right.”

“Could be anybody’s and these marks may have nothing to do with Leo’s demise but if Rick Shaw took plaster casts we ought to pay some attention to them. They’re close together.”

“Like two people, you mean. One holding him on the left side and one on the right. That’s why the heel mark is deep on this right side.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“So that means there are two people in on this.”

“That, too, is a possibility.”
She lifted her head, sniffing the air.
“Rain coming.”

Tucker sniffed.
“Tonight.”

“The bullet into Leo’s forehead was fired at close range. And the humans are saying that means he knew who killed him. But who else, I mean, what manner of stranger, would a man allow close to him?”

“A child.”

“Or a woman.”

“Ah, the two marks. A woman. She kills him and her male partner helps dispose of the body.”

“I don’t know, but I’m leaning that way.”

“It could have been Marcy and Bill Wiggins.”

“Could have been Laurel and Hardy, too.”

“There you go again. Smartmouth.”
The dog headed toward the animal door of the post office.

The cat came alongside, brushing against her friend.
“You’re right. I’m awful.”
She walked a few steps, then stopped.
“What bothers me is that we’re missing something and I won’t feel reassured until we know it. I don’t like that Mom knew these two as well as she did.”

“She wasn’t romantically involved with either of them.”

“For which we should be grateful.”

“And no women have been killed.”

“Grateful for that, too.”

Tucker blinked, then sneezed.
“Lily pollen.”

“It’s on your coat, too.”

“Don’t want Miranda to know I was in her lilies.”

“Roll in the dirt.”

“Then I’ll get yelled at.”

“Better to be yelled at for that than for creeping through the lily beds.”

“You’re right.”
Tucker rolled over.

When they slipped through the animal door no one noticed them, since everyone was ministering to Marcy Wiggins.

Tucker crawled under a mail cart. Mrs. Murphy hopped into it, landing on a recumbent Pewter, who jumped up, spitting and hissing.

“Pewts, Pewts, I’m sorry,”
Murphy laughed.

Pewter, not yet in a forgiving frame of mind, lashed out, cuffing Mrs. Murphy on the cheek.

Mrs. Murphy returned the favor and soon the mail cart was rolling, thanks to their violence. Tucker’s rear end stuck out behind the cart.

“Hey, you two!” Harry clapped her hands over the mail cart, which diverted the cats’ attention. Then her eye fell on a dirty corgi behind. “What have you done?”

“Nothing,”
came the meek reply.

“Fleas,” Mrs. Hogendobber declared. “Rolling in the dirt because of fleas.”

“Guess it means a bath and flea powder when we get home.” Harry sighed.

“Thanks, Murphy,”
Tucker growled.

“How was I to know?”
she said, then whispered to Pewter what had happened. Pewter giggled.

“It’s like having children,” Chris laughed.

“Marcy, feeling better?” Mrs. Hogendobber offered her more iced tea.

“Yes, thank you.” She nodded, then turned to Harry. “I told BoomBoom and Chris I’m not working on your reunion anymore. Who knows what will happen next?”

“I understand.” Harry didn’t believe in trying to convince people to do what they didn’t want to do.

“And I’ll thank you all to stop talking about me.”

“We aren’t talking about you.” Harry wrinkled her brow, puzzled.

“Everyone is. You think I don’t know.” She stood up and whirled on BoomBoom. “And don’t tell me I need to drink chamomile tea or some other dipshit herbal remedy! You all think I’m having marital problems. You think I slept with Charlie Ashcraft and—”

“Marcy, you need to go home.” Chris grabbed her friend under the elbow, pushing her out the back door as Marcy continued to babble.

“Paranoid,” BoomBoom flatly said.

“That’s a pretty harsh judgment,” Harry countered.

“Call it what you like then.”

“Well, BoomBoom, try to see it from her point of view. She doesn’t have the advantage of being one of us,” Harry said.

“Right now I’d say that was not such an advantage,”
Pewter called out from the mail cart.

“Boom, you seem out of sorts today.” Miranda hoped to calm the waters.

“I am.” She glared at Harry. “Cynthia Cooper called on me this morning before I left for golf and do you know what she asked me? If I had had any illegitimate children with Charlie Ashcraft or if I had any sexually transmitted diseases!”

“How come you’re yelling at me?”

“Because you baited her into it.”

“Boom, I don’t know anything about such . . . matters.”

“Well, you obviously think my life is one big promiscuous party!”

“Girls.” Miranda held up her hands. “I do wish you two would make some kind of peace.”

“Peace? She nips at me like a Jack Russell. Sex. Always sex. Right, Harry?”

“Wrong.” Harry’s face darkened as the animals watched, fascinated. “I haven’t said a word to Cynthia, and why would I even think about venereal disease? God, BoomBoom.”

“Then who did?”

Miranda looked heavenward. “Please, dear Lord, don’t send anyone into the P.O. for a while.” She returned to the battling pair. “Time out. Now you two sit down, be civil, and discuss this or I am throwing you both out. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they both said, startled at Miranda’s vehemence.

“Sit down.” She pointed to the table. They sat. “Now, questions such as BoomBoom is asking do not come out of the blue. Instead of accusing Harry, why don’t you both think back. Think back as far as you have to go.”

They sat mute.

Harry fingered the grain on the old table. “Remember in our junior year, people whispered that Charlie got someone pregnant?”

BoomBoom thought about it. “Yes, but no one left school.”

“If the baby was due at the end of the summer she might not have had to leave,” Miranda said. “Some women show less than others.”

“There’s always gym class. If someone was packing on the pounds, we’d know,” Harry said.

“Did anyone get an excuse from gym class?”

“Lord, I don’t know. That was twenty years ago.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t someone at your high school. There’s St. Elizabeth’s, or it may have been someone already out of school,” Miranda offered.

“That’s true. Cynthia must be getting desperate, running down ancient rumors.” BoomBoom folded her arms across her ample chest.

“Charlie’s death could have old roots.”

“Twenty years is a long time to get even,” BoomBoom said.

“Depends on how angry you are,”
Mrs. Murphy said.
“Someone hurt badly enough might live their entire life waiting for revenge.”

“What do you want in there?” Harry called out to the cats in the mail cart.

“Nothing. We’re trying to help,”
Murphy replied.

“There were rumors about Charlie right up to the present.” BoomBoom softened somewhat. “I’d heard that he’d gotten AIDS. Heard that at the club. He’d slept with some society queen in Washington, no surprise, but I heard she died a year ago. The papers hushed it up. Said she had heart failure.”

“Did you tell Coop?”

“Yes. And I also told her that anyone infected with the AIDS virus by him could be mad enough to kill.”

“A mother wishing to protect a child might also have plenty of motivation,” Miranda added. “But it’s a dreadful thing to do. I would think the child would find out who her father was, sooner or later.”

“Her?” Harry looked quizzically at Miranda.

“Him.”

“Do you know something we don’t?” BoomBoom’s voice grew stronger.

“No, I don’t. But remember your Bible. Numbers. Chapter thirty-two, Verse twenty-three. ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’”

Chris popped her head back in the door. “BoomBoom, if you need more time, I’ll run Marcy home. She’s having a hard time.”

BoomBoom rose. “I’ll be right there.” She paused before Miranda. “Do you think it’s a sin to have a child out of wedlock?”

“No. I think it’s inadvisable but not a sin. To me the sin is in not caring for the child.”

BoomBoom silently opened the door and left.

“Miranda, you surprise me.”

“You thought I’d say the woman should be stoned?” The older woman smiled ruefully. “Harry, I’ve lived long enough to know I can’t sit in judgment of anyone. So many young women out there want to be loved and don’t know the difference between sex and love.”

“Then what sin were you referring to when you quoted Numbers?”

“Oh.” She dropped her head for a moment. “The sin of cruelty. The sin of bruising another’s heart, of abandoning someone to pain that you have caused. The sin of carelessness and callousness and self-centeredness. I don’t know what Charlie’s sins were, I mean, other than gossip. And I certainly don’t know what Leo’s sins were, but someone out there feels he or she has suffered enough.”

29

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

Mrs. Hogendobber tossed her head. “Absolutely. I used to be on the lacrosse team.” She paused. “Granted that was some time ago but my athletic abilities haven’t completely eroded.”

Tracy placed two skateboards on the macadam surface. The parking lot at the back of the grade school was empty. Nobody driving by would see them, which was just how Miranda wanted it.

“H-m-m.” He gingerly put one sneakered foot on the board to test the rollers.

Knee guards, elbow guards, and helmets made the two senior citizens look like creatures from outer space, or perhaps older space.

“Before I hop on, how do I stop?”

“Make a sharp turn in either direction and as you slow, tip the nose forward. At least, I think that’s what you do.”

“M-m-m.” She breathed in. “Here goes.” She put her right foot on the back of the board, her left foot on the front. Nothing happened.

Tracy, now aboard himself, coached, “Push off with your right foot.”

She reached down and shoved off with more force than she had intended. “Whoa!”

Mrs. H. rolled along the level parking lot, her arms outstretched to balance her, laughing and hollering like a third-grader.

Tracy pulled alongside. “Not bad for our first time out!”

“Harry is going to die when I fly past her in the hallway.”

“Cuddles, you won’t be able to wait until the reunion. You’ll surprise her before then.” He started to wobble and hopped off.

“I thought you said turn sharply.” Which she did.

“Didn’t take my own advice.” He bent over to pick up the skateboard. “I’ll do it right this time.” He hopped back on, pushed off, then practiced a stop. “I get it. Twist from the waist.”

Miranda, watching him, tried it. She lurched to the side but didn’t lose her balance. “Stopping is harder than moving on.”

“Is in skiing, too.”

“I don’t know how young people go down banks, circle around in concrete pipes.” She recalled footage she’d seen on television.

“We don’t have to do that.” He laughed as he rolled along even faster.

She picked up the skateboard, examined the brightly colored rollers, put it back on the macadam, and got on again. “You know, I don’t do enough things like this. Oh!” She picked up speed.

“You’re busy every minute. That’s what Harry says.” He executed another stop, better this time.

“Sedentary stuff. I need to get out more. Maybe then I’ll lose a little weight. I don’t know how you managed to keep your figure. I guess for men we don’t say figure.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but you look good to me.”

“I don’t believe you, but I love to hear it.” She stopped. “I’m quite out of breath.”

“Walk. You don’t have to jog. Walking will do the trick. And if you really want to lose weight cut out the fats and sugars.”

“Oh dear.” She grimaced.

“It’s either that or exercise for three hours a day. I work out for an hour in the gym, always have. Now that I’m doing farmwork, I’m getting double workouts.”

She twisted her lower body and did a turnabout, didn’t have enough speed and slipped off but caught herself, merely falling forward with three big steps. “Say, that’s hard.”

He tried it. “It is.”

“How do you like Harry? They say you never really know someone until you live with them.”

“I like her fine. She’s paying off her ex-husband for the old truck, you know. Hardheaded, isn’t she? He just redeposits the check in her account and then they fight about it.”

“Has a fear of obligation. Whole family was like that. But she especially doesn’t want to be beholden to him. He dropped by and told me he’d had a talk with Harry. He says he’s going to aggressively win her back.”

“Faint heart ne’er won fair lady.” He crouched low to pick up speed. “This is fun, you know?”

“Yes, it is. Hate the helmet, though.”

“They are weenie but your head is precious—Precious.” He called her “Precious,” then stood up, slowed down, and hopped off while the skateboard kept going. “Those babies are well balanced.”

“And so are you.”

They both laughed as Miranda cut sharply to the right and neatly stepped off.

A siren far away pierced the late-afternoon quiet.

“Heading east,” Miranda observed.

Within a few moments another siren attracted their attention. A squad car roared down from Whitehall, past the grade school, into town. Then it, too, headed left.

“Good heavens, what could it be this time?” Miranda wondered.