Pawing Through the Past (26 page)

58

Harry and Tracy buzzed around the kitchen making pea soup, a favorite winter treat. Fair called to say he’d be late. A horse at Mountain Stables had badly cut his hind leg and needed stitching up. He didn’t think he’d be back for another hour and a half because he needed to swing by the office and fill his truck with supplies. He had a hunch he’d be on plenty of calls the next couple of days as people kept their horses in stalls, feeding them too much grain. Colic often followed heavy snows. Since Tracy was there he felt Harry was okay.

Tucker jerked up her head.
“Someone’s coming. On foot!”

“Tucker, chill.” Harry heard nothing.

Both cats ran to the kitchen door. A towel was stretched across the bottom of it to keep out the draft.

A knock on the door surprised the humans.

“Chris, what on earth are you doing here in this weather?” Harry opened the door.

“I was coming back from Waynesboro. I did a big shop at Harris Teeter in preparation for the storm and my car died. Absolutely dead. No lights. No nothing. Do you think you could run me home in your truck? I could throw everything in the back.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll do it.” Tracy plucked his coat off the peg.

“Thank you so much.” Chris smiled. “I’m sorry to bother you on such a cold night. I saw Fair’s truck parked at Mountain Stables when I came down the mountain. He never gets a break, does he?”

“No.” Harry smiled. “Comes with the territory.”

Tracy, his hand on the doorknob, said, “Call Fair, will you?” What he really meant was, call Rick Shaw and tell him you’re alone, but he didn’t want to say that in front of Chris since the sheriff had told them to keep it quiet.

“I will.” She waved as the two walked out the door.

Harry picked up the phone, dialing the sheriff’s number. “Hi,” she said, but before she could finish her sentence Chris was back in the kitchen, a gun in her hand, leveled at Harry.

“Hang up. Come outside.”

Tucker grabbed Chris’s ankle but she leaned over and clunked the faithful creature on her head. Tucker dropped where she was hit.

“Tucker!”
Mrs. Murphy screamed.

Pewter, thinking fast, shot out the kitchen door and through the screened-in porch door, which was easy to open. Much as Mrs. Murphy wanted to lick her fallen friend’s face, she knew she had to follow.

The two cats ran into the barn. Nearly six inches of snow were already on the ground and the snow was so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

Tracy Raz lay in the snow facedown, blood oozing from the back of his head.

Again the cats couldn’t stop to help him. They raced into the barn, climbing up into the loft. Once there, Mrs. Murphy stood on her hind legs, pushing up the latch. They wedged their paws at the side and pushed the door open.

“If she’ll come this way we can jump down on her. The height will give us force.”

“And if she doesn’t?”
Pewter breathed hard.

“We follow and do what we can.”

Simon waddled over and saw Tracy.
“Uh oh.”

“Simon, help us push a bale of hay over to the opening,”
Murphy commanded.

The three small animals tried but they couldn’t do it. Pewter kept running back and forth from the hay bale to the loft door opening.

“Here they come!”

Chris walked behind Harry. At least she let Harry pull on a jacket. On seeing Tracy lying in front of the barn, Harry rushed over.

“Forget him!”

“But he’s . . .”

“Forget him.”

“I take it you’re not really Chris Sharpton.” Harry kept talking as she knelt down and felt Tracy’s pulse, which, thanks-be-to-God, was strong.

“No. Come on.”

“Where’s Dennis?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Murphy wriggled her rear end, then launched herself from the loft opening. She soared through the snowflakes with Pewter right behind her.

“Ooph!” Chris fell backwards as Mrs. Murphy hit her on the chest. A split second later Pewter hit her square in the face. Chris slipped in the snow, falling on her back.

Harry jumped on her.

The gun discharged.

The cats clawed and bit but couldn’t do much damage through the winter clothes. Also, the humans were rolling in the snow. Harry, strong, wasn’t as strong as Chris. Harry bit Chris’s gun hand but Chris wouldn’t drop the gun. The cats leapt off when the humans rolled back on the ground. They’d get up, slip and fall, but Harry never let go of Chris’s gun hand no matter how hard Chris hit or kicked her.

“We’ve got to get the gun!”
Pewter hollered.

Harry hung on as Chris flung her around, her feet off the ground. Harry dragged Chris down again but they struggled up. The cats kept circling the humans while Simon watched in horror, not knowing what to do.

Finally, Chris pushed Harry away far enough to hit her hard on the jaw with a left hook. The blow stunned Harry enough that she relaxed her grip. Chris hit her again. Harry let go of the gun hand as she slid back into the snow, the blood running from her mouth. The cats again climbed up Chris’s legs but she barely noticed them.

She aimed her gun at Harry, who neither begged for life nor flinched. Chris fired, missing her, because Flatface had suddenly flown low overhead and scared her for an instant.

Murphy climbed up Chris’s leg, her back, and reached up to claw deep into her face. Chris struggled to rise and throw off the cat. Pewter climbed up and hung on to Chris’s gun hand, sinking her fangs into the fleshy part of the palm. Chris tried again to throw off the cats, slipped in the snow, and fell down, cats shredding her face and hand.

Harry scrambled and grabbed the gun as Chris flailed, screaming, struggling to her knees. Harry had gotten up and smashed the butt of the gun into her skull. Chris dropped face first into the snow. Harry kicked her in the ribs, then kicked her again, rolling her over. Chris was out cold. Harry wanted to kill her. But some voice inside reminding her “Thou shalt not kill” prevented her from her own rage and act of revenge.

She looked into the falling snow, the flakes sticking to her eyelashes. Half-dazed herself, she sank to the ground.

Mrs. Murphy, on her hind paws, licked Harry’s face.
“Come on, Mom. You’ve got to tie her up before she comes to—come on.”

Pewter licked the other side of her face.

Harry blinked and shook her head, then stood up, swayed a little but walked into the barn, grabbed a rope lead shank, and made quick work of tying Chris’s hands behind her back and tying her feet up behind her, the rope also around her neck. If Chris kicked her feet she’d choke herself.

She hurried over to Tracy, who was slowly awakening. She rubbed snow on his face. He opened his eyes.

“Tracy, can you get up?”

She put his arm around her shoulder and they both slipped and slid into the kitchen, where a groggy, sore corgi wobbled to her feet.

59

Harry, Miranda, Tracy, Fair, Susan, and Cynthia sat before Harry’s roaring fire in the living-room fireplace. It was past midnight but the friends had gathered together as the snow piled up outside.

Fair treated Tucker’s knot on the head by holding her in his lap, applying an ice pack periodically.

“You were saved by the grace of God,” Miranda, still terribly upset, said. “He sent his furry angels of deliverance.” She started to cry again.

Tracy sat next to her on the sofa, putting his arm around her. “There, there, Cuddles. You’re right, our guardian angels worked overtime.” A bandage was wrapped around his head and one eye was swollen shut.

“Mrs. Murphy and Pewter are heroes.” Harry sat cross-legged before the fire, her cats in her lap. “You know, I would never have figured this out. So much for my deductive powers.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think I would have figured it out either,” Cynthia consoled her. “We waited for a mistake and he finally made one. Had it not been for Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, you all would be dead and Ron would be heading for New York to get Hank Bittner.”

“Has he confessed?” Fair, both hands on Tucker, asked.

“Yes. He didn’t expect to live. His plan was to kill Dennis and then himself after killing Bittner. He felt no particular animosity toward Harry, but toward the end, the power went to his head. He chained Dennis in his basement, forcing him to cooperate. He told Dennis if he didn’t help him he’d kill Dennis’s children as well as others from the class of 1980. If Dennis would help—with a gun in his ribs—he’d confine himself to the locker room boys. He broke his promise, of course.”

“What about the two footprints at the dumpster?” Harry asked. “Remember, an L.L. Bean chain print and a high heel. You told us about that after we pestered you.”

“He had his boots on. The heel was someone else. That was the thing. He could still pass as a man, an effeminate one, if he again dressed in men’s clothes. He swears he nailed Leo Burkey in the Outback parking lot. Says he came back around and got Leo in the car. As to Charlie, Ron came down the back stairs, dressed as a man, walked into the locker room and shot him. He always identified himself first. He said Charlie laughed and Leo turned white as a sheet.”

“What an elaborate ritual of revenge.” Tracy’s head throbbed. “To fake his own death. He knew whoever jumped off that bridge would be swept to sea. They hardly ever retrieve the bodies of the people who jump or fall from the Golden Gate Bridge.”

“It was a despondent man he met in a bar,” Cynthia said. “They made a suicide pact, the other fellow jumped and Ron didn’t. Ron wrote the note ‘Enough is enough.’ People were so shocked at seeing a man standing on the edge of the bridge they didn’t notice another man creeping away.”

“But the yearbook!” Harry stood up, brushing off her rear end. She was sore from the struggle and her left jaw, turning dark red, would soon turn black-and-blue.

“He rummaged around used-bookstores. Found yearbooks, leafing through them. He said he looked through hundreds until he found a picture of a tall, lanky dark-haired girl that would work. People don’t study yearbook pictures. He knew you wouldn’t scrutinize. He said he decided to live life a blonde, which would make you laugh. He somewhat resembled Chris Sharpton. He understood people in a cunning fashion. He especially understood the code of politeness. He knew people around here wouldn’t pry.”

“Is Chris Sharpton alive?”

“Yes. She’s married for the second time and lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She married her high-school boyfriend, divorced him, and in a fit sold off everything they’d had together, including her high-school yearbook. The book found its way to a San Francisco used-bookshop. Sometimes those dealers buy in lots from other dealers. At least he didn’t kill Chris Sharpton,” Cynthia said. “Rick had our guys calling and checking everything the minute he started talking.”

“Did he fake Marcy Wiggins’ suicide?” Susan felt terrible for the dead woman.

“No, she really was despondent and was on antidepression medication for months. She kept her gun in the glove compartment of her car. He’d steal it, then put it back. Brazen. If she’d caught him, he’d have made up a story.”

“When did he become a woman?” Miranda wanted to know.

“After college. He worked for a large pharmaceutical com-pany, learned as much as he could about the process, saved his money, moved to San Francisco, and underwent the sex-change process there, which is time-consuming and costly. It didn’t make him any happier, though. All those years he was transforming, his one motivation was to return and punish his tormentors.”

“Time stopped for him.” Fair removed the cold pack from Tucker’s head for a moment, to the relief of the dog.

“He’ll get the chair,” Susan bluntly stated.

“He wants to die. His only regret is that he couldn’t kill Hank Bittner and Dennis.”

“What will happen to Dennis?” Harry wondered out loud. “Was he in on it from the beginning?”

“No. Dennis drove to Chris’s after losing our tail. He put his van in Chris’s garage—at her suggestion. Or should I say, his? He was upset from the reunion supper and wanted to talk. She lured him into sex games. He went to bed with her and that’s how Chris—or Ron—got the cuffs on him without a struggle. After that Ron was always near him with a gun on him. He was up in the stairwell when Dennis hit you, Harry. They were waiting for Hank.”

Cynthia shrugged. “Dennis was a coward in not fighting Leo, Charlie, Rex, and Bob in the locker room but then four against one isn’t good odds. Two against four if Ron had fought back isn’t good odds either, but Dennis was afraid to be discovered. He was in a sexual relationship with Ron. At least up until the rape. But you know, Dennis wasn’t a coward once Chris revealed who she really was. He said he was prepared to die in order to save his children. Ron confirms that, too.”

“Is Dennis gay?” Fair asked.

“I don’t know. Ron was crazy about him and Dennis said at that time in his life getting laid was the most important thing in the world.”

“In a way, I’m surprised more gay people don’t lose it, become violent.” Fair had never really thought about it.

“Statistically, they are one of the most nonviolent groups we have in America,” Cynthia replied. “Yet they are still utterly despised by a lot of people. It was worse in Ron’s youth. That doesn’t justify what he’s done. And the press will make a big hoo-ha over it. Every gay leader in the country will have something to say and every reactionary will point to this as proof positive that gays are the Devil’s spawn, ignoring the fact that most violent crimes are committed by heterosexual males between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. The truth is irrelevant.”

“It always has been,” Susan agreed. “My husband can tell you that.”

Ned Tucker, being a lawyer, had seen enough lying, cheating, and getting-away-with-it to fill three lifetimes.

“No wonder we couldn’t figure out what was happening,” Harry said thoughtfully. “A man consumed by revenge, turns into a woman. One life is deformed, if you can stand that word, and four men die for it twenty years later. I would have never figured out that Chris Sharpton was Ron Brindell. I’m just glad to be alive—even if I am a little dumb.”

“None of us would have figured it out.” Susan, too, knew she wouldn’t have put the pieces together.

“Then what was all that business about the mother of Charlie Ashcraft’s illegitimate child?” Fair asked. “A couple of the victims mentioned that—and, well, there was a lot of loose talk.”

“That was a red herring,” Cynthia replied. “But at that stage no one except the victims knew this was connected to Ron Brindell. They thought Charlie’s murder might have something to do with his past lovers or his illegitimate child.”

“Does anyone know who that woman is?” Harry asked Cynthia.

“It has no bearing on the case,” Cynthia quickly said.

“I’d like to know.” Harry shrugged. “Curiosity.”

“Forget about it.” Susan sighed. “It will come out in time. All of Crozet’s secrets eventually see the light of day.”

“I can’t believe all the times I was in Chris’s company and I never thought anything. Although I thought she had awfully big feet,” Harry exclaimed.

Cynthia said, “He was brilliant in his way.”

“Well, I owe thanks to one brave dog and two kitties who flew through the air with the greatest of ease.” Harry kissed Mrs. Murphy and Pewter.

Tracy said, “And I thank them, too. Ron hit me hard on the back of the head. If he’d shot me the noise would have warned you. He would have finished me off after he killed you.”

“Tracy, you came all the way back from Hawaii for your reunion. I’m sorry it was spoiled,” Harry said.

“Brought me home. I’m thankful for that. I might stay awhile.” He squeezed Miranda to him.

“I don’t think I would have figured out that Chris was Ron.”
Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Harry’s side as she was again seated on the floor.

“She was as nice as she could be and she didn’t seem masculine or anything—except she had this little Adam’s apple. I never thought a thing about it,”
Pewter said.

“I should have known.”
Tucker sat up on Fair’s lap.
“Too much perfume. She masked her scent or rather lack of it. You can change forms but you can’t really change scent but so much. That’s probably why he doused his black sweats and black shirt with English Leather. It smells manly.”

“Well, we’d better go check on Simon.”
Mrs. Murphy left the room followed by Pewter and Tucker, too.

“Are you guys going potsie?” Harry asked.

“God, I wish she wouldn’t say that. It sounds so stupid. I love her, I’m thrilled she’s alive, but is there any way to get her to drop ‘potsie’ from her vocabulary?”
Tucker laid her ears back.

“Just say yes, you are, and come on,”
Pewter advised.

Outside, the cold bracing air felt clean as they breathed. The snow was now nearly eight to ten inches deep. Tucker ran to the barn, snow flying up behind her. Pewter and Mrs. Murphy, hopping from spot to spot since the snow was almost over their heads, soon followed.

Simon peered over the loft edge. The horses offered thanks to all. They’d been in their stalls and couldn’t do anything to help.

“Thank you, Simon,”
Murphy meowed.

“Flatface,”
Pewter called up.

“Who’s there?”
said the enormous bird, who knew exactly who was there as she looked down from her high nest.

“Thank you,”
they said in unison.
“Thank you for helping to save Harry.”

“Inept groundlings!”
came the Olympian reply.