Authors: Rita Mae Brown
“Just an idea.” Taxi chipped onto the green.
He waited, then spoke: “Do you have any idea who killed Ben?”
“Not one.”
Cabell let out a long, low breath, shook his head, snatched what he thought was his putter out of a bag. “I swear I’m going to put all of this out of my mind and concentrate on golf.”
“Then I suggest you replace my putter and use your own.”
39
Late that night Harry’s telephone rang.
Susan’s excited voice apologized. “I know you’re asleep but I had to wake you.”
“You okay?” came the foggy reply.
“I am. Ned got home from his office about fifteen minutes ago. He was Ben’s lawyer, you know. Anyway, Rick Shaw was at the office asking him a lot of questions, none of which Ned could answer, since all he ever did for Ben was real estate closings. It turns out that after the sheriff and the bank inspected their books they checked over Ben’s personal accounts. Spread among the bank, the brokerage house, and the commodities market, Ben Seifert had amassed seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Even Cabell Hall was amazed at how sophisticated Ben was.”
That woke up Harry. “Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Susan, he couldn’t have made more than forty-five thousand a year at the bank, if he made that. Banks are notoriously cheap.”
“I know. They also called in his accountant and double-checked his IRS returns. He was clever as to how he declared the money. Mostly he identified the gains as stock market wins, I guess you’d say. Well, the accountant reported that Ben said he’d get his records to him but he never did. He figured he’d alerted Ben plenty of times. If the materials weren’t there, it was Ben’s problem come audit day. Assuming that day ever came.”
“Funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“He didn’t cheat on his income taxes but he must have been cheating somewhere. Actually, it doesn’t sound like cheating. It sounds like payoffs or money-laundering.”
“I never thought Ben was that smart.”
“He wasn’t,” Harry agreed. “But whoever was in this with him was, or is.”
“Smart people don’t kill.”
“They do when they’re cornered.”
“Why don’t you come into town and stay with me?”
“Why?”
“You know what Cynthia Cooper told us about Blair. I mean, about his girlfriend.”
“Yes.”
“He seems awfully smart to me.”
“Does your gut tell you he’s a murderer?”
“I don’t know what to think or feel anymore.”
Harry sat up in the bed. “Susan, I just thought of something. Listen, will you come over here tomorrow morning before I go to work? This sounds crazy but I found a little possum—”
“No more of your charity cases, Harry! I took the squirrel with the broken leg, remember? She ate my dresses.”
“No, no. This little guy had an earring in his nest. It’s kind of bent up, but well, I don’t know. It’s a very expensive earring, and he could have picked it up anywhere. What if it has something to do with these deaths?”
“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning. Lock your doors.”
“I did.” Harry hung up the phone.
Mrs. Murphy remarked to Tucker, also on the bed,
“Sometimes she’s smarter than I think she is.”
40
Simon heard Harry climbing the ladder. He anticipated her arrival, since she’d put out delicious chicken bones, stale crackers, and Hershey’s chocolate kisses last night.
Mrs. Murphy sank her claws into the wood alongside the ladder and pulled herself into the loft before the humans could get there.
“Don’t fret, Simon. Harry’s bringing a friend.”
“One human’s all I can stand.”
Simon shuttled farther back in the timothy and alfalfa bales.
Harry and Susan sat down in front of Simon’s nest.
“Do you charge him for all this?” Susan cracked.
“If it isn’t nailed down, he takes it.”
Mrs. Murphy laughed.
“I only take the good stuff,”
the possum said under his breath.
“See.” Harry reached in and retrieved the earring.
Susan held the object in her palm. “Good piece. Tiffany.”
“That’s what I thought.” Harry took the earring, holding it to the light. “This isn’t yours and it isn’t mine. Nor is it Elizabeth MacGregor’s.”
“What’s Mrs. MacGregor got to do with it?”
“The only women out here on this part of Yellow Mountain Road are me, you when you’re visiting me, and formerly Elizabeth MacGregor. Oh, and Miranda drops by sometimes but this isn’t her type of earring. It’s more youthful.”
“True, but we have no way of knowing where this came from.”
“In a way we do. We know that this nest is home base. At the largest, a possum’s territory is generally a rough circle about a mile and a half in diameter. If we walk north, east, south, and west to the limit of that perimeter, we’ll have a pretty good idea of where this earring might have come from.”
“I can tell her,”
Simon called out from his hiding place.
“She can’t understand but she’ll figure it out,”
Mrs. Murphy said.
“Is that other one okay, really?”
“Yes,”
the cat reassured him.
Simon peeped his head up over the alfalfa bale and then cautiously walked toward the two women. Harry held out a big peanut butter cookie. He approached, sat down, and reached for the cookie. He put it in his nest.
“What a cute fellow,” Susan whispered. “You’ve always had a way with animals.”
“’Cept for men.”
“They don’t count.”
Simon shocked them. He reached up, grabbing the earring out of Harry’s hand, and then dashed into his nest.
“Mine!”
“Maybe he’s a drag queen.” Harry laughed at Simon, then remembered one of those odd tidbits from reading history books. During Elizabeth I’s reign in England only the most masculine men wore earrings.
They were still laughing as they climbed down the ladder.
“Well?”
Tucker demanded.
“We’re going to have to make a circle following the possum’s territory.” Harry thought out loud.
“Let’s run over to the graveyard and see if they follow,”
Tucker sensibly proposed.
“You know Harry—she’s going to be thorough.”
The cat walked out the barn door and Tucker followed.
The two women, accompanied by the animals, walked the limits of the possum’s turf. By the time they swept by the cemetery, both considered that it was possible, just possible, that the earring came from there.
Susan stopped by the iron fence. “How do we know the earring doesn’t belong to Blair? It could have been his girlfriend’s. There could be a woman now that we don’t know about.”
“I’ll ask him.”
“That might not be wise.”
Harry considered that. “Well, I don’t agree but I’ll do it your way.” She paused. “What’s your way?”
“To casually ask our women friends if anyone has lost an earring, and what does it look like?”
“Well, Jesus, Susan, if a woman is the killer or is in on this, that’s going to get—”
Susan held up her hands. “You’re right. You’re right. Next plan. We get into the jewelry boxes of our friends.”
“Easier said than done.”
“But it can be done.”
41
Frost coated the windowpanes, creating a crystalline kaleidoscope. The lamplight reflected off the silver swirls. Outside it was black as pitch.
Little Marilyn and Fitz-Gilbert, snug in Porthault sheets and a goose-down comforter, studied their Christmas lists.
Little Marilyn checked off Carol Jones’s name.
Fitz looked over her list. “What did you get Carol?”
“This wonderful book of photographs which create a biography of a Montana woman. What a life, and it’s pure serendipity that the old photos were saved.”
Fitz pointed to a name on her list. “Scratch that.”
Little Marilyn, Xeroxing last year’s Christmas list as a guide, had forgotten to remove Ben Seifert’s name. She grimaced.
They returned to their lists and after a bit she interrupted Fitz. “Ben had access to our records.”
“Uh-huh.” Fitz wasn’t exactly paying attention.
“Did you check our investments?”
“Yes.” Fitz remained uninterested.
She jabbed him with her elbow.
“Ow.” He turned toward her. “What?”
“And? Our investments?!”
“First of all, Ben Seifert was a banker, not a stockbroker. There’s little he could have done to our investments. Cabby double-checked our accounts just to make sure. Everything’s okay.”
“You never liked Ben, did you?”
“Did you?” Fitz’s eyebrow rose.
“No.”
“Then why are you asking me what you already know?”
“Well, it’s curious how you get feelings about people. You didn’t like him. I didn’t like him. Yet we were nice to him.”
“We’re nice to everybody.” Fitz thought that was true, although he knew his wife could sometimes be a pale imitation of her imperious mother.
They went back to work on their lists. Little Marilyn interrupted again. “What if it was Ben who ransacked your office?”
Surrendering to the interruption, Fitz put down his list. “Where on earth do you get these ideas?”
“I don’t know. Just popped into my head. But then what would you have that he wanted? Unless he was siphoning off our accounts, but both you and Cabby say all is well.”
“All
is
well. I don’t know who violated my office. Rick Shaw doesn’t have a clue and since the computer and Xerox machine were unmolested, he’s treating it as an unrelated vandalism. Kid stuff, most likely.”
“Like whoever is knocking over mailboxes with baseball bats in Earlysville?”
“When did that happen?” Fitz’s eyes widened in curiosity.
“Don’t you read the ‘Crime Report’ in the Sunday paper?” He shook his head, so Little Marilyn continued. “For the last six or seven months someone’s been driving around in the late afternoon, smashing up mailboxes with baseball bats.”
“You don’t miss much, do you, honey?” Fitz put his arm around her.
She smiled back. “Once things settle down around here . . .”
“You mean, once they downshift from chaos to a dull roar?”
“Yes . . . let’s go to the Homestead. I need a break from all this. And I need a break from Mother.”
“Amen.”
42
Weeks passed, and the frenzy of Christmas preparations clouded over the recent bizarre events until they were virtually obscured by holiday cheer. Virginia plunged into winter, skies alternating between steel-gray and brilliant blue. The mountains, moody with the weather, changed colors hourly. The spots of color remaining were the bright-red holly berries and the orange pyracantha berries. Fields lapsed into brown; the less well-cared-for fields waved with bright broomstraw. The ground thawed and froze, thawed and froze, so fox hunting was never a sure thing. Harry called before each scheduled meet.
The post office, awash in tons of mail, provided Harry with a slant on Christmas different from other people’s. Surely the Devil invented the Christmas card. Volume, staggering this year, caused her to call in Mrs. Hogendobber for the entire month of December, and she wangled good pay for her friend too.
So far, Susan had rummaged through BoomBoom’s jewelry, an easy task, since BoomBoom loved showing off her goodies. Harry picked over Miranda’s earrings, not such an easy task, since Miranda kept asking “Why?” and Harry lied by saying that it had to do with Christmas. The result was that she had to buy Miranda a pair of earrings to put under her Christmas tree. Biff McGuire and Pat Harlan found the perfect pair for Mrs. H., large ovals of beaten gold. They were a bit more than Harry could comfortably afford, but what the hell—Miranda had been a port in a storm at the post office. She also splurged and bought Susan a pair of big gold balls. That exhausted her budget except for presents for Mrs. Murphy and Tucker.
Fair and BoomBoom were holding and eroding. She asked Blair to accompany her to a Piedmont Environmental Council meeting under the guise of acquainting him with the area’s progressive people. This she did but she also performed at her best and Blair began to revise somewhat his opinion of BoomBoom, enough, at least, to invite her to a gala fund-raiser in New York City.
Harry and Miranda were up to their knees in Christmas cards when Fair Haristeen pushed open the front door.
“Hi,” Harry called to him. “Fair, we’re behind. I know you’ve got more mail than is in your box but I don’t know when I’ll find it. As you can see, we’re hard pressed.”
“Didn’t come in for that. Morning, Mrs. Hogendobber.”
“Morning, Fair.”
“Guess you know that BoomBoom left this morning for New York. Her Christmas shopping spree.”
“Yes.” Harry didn’t know how much Fair knew, so she kept mum.
“Guess you know, too, that Blair Bainbridge is taking her to the Knickerbocker Christmas Ball at the Waldorf. I hear princes and dukes will be there.”
So he did know. “Sounds very glamorous.”
“Eurotrash,” Mrs. Hogendobber pronounced.
“Miranda, you’ve been reading the tabloids again while you’re in line at the supermarket.”
Mrs. Hogendobber tossed another empty mail bag into the bin, just missing Mrs. Murphy. “What if I have? I have also become an expert on the marriage of Charles and Diana. In case anyone wants to know.” She smiled.
“What I want to know”—Fair spoke to Mrs. Hogendobber—“is what is going on with Blair and BoomBoom.”
“Now, how would I know that?”
“You know BoomBoom.”
“Fair, forgive the pun but this isn’t fair,” Harry interjected.
“I bet you’re just laughing up your sleeve, Harry. I’ve got egg all over my face.”
“You think I’m that vindictive?”
“In a word, yes.” He spun on his heel and stormed out.
Miranda came up next to Harry. “Overlook it. It will pass. And he does have egg on his face.”
“Lots of yolk, I’d say.” Harry started to giggle.
“Don’t gloat, Mary Minor Haristeen. The Lord doesn’t smile on gloaters. And as I recall, you like Blair Bainbridge.”
That sobered Harry up in a jiffy. “Sure, I like him, but I’m not mooning about over him.”