The Tail of the Tip-Off (23 page)

“—tricky.”

“April is. Why don't you have the church picnic the first weekend in May? It shouldn't be too hot and the only real worry you'll have is rain. If it rains we'll have it here.”

“I like to get the jump on spring but—you're right. On a day like today you have to have faith to believe in spring. ‘O ye of little faith,' ” he mused. “Uh, tomorrow's Gospel reading.” He had told her of his two choices.

“Jesus and the disciples in the boat and the waves crash over. They wake Him up and He calms the wind and the waves. My vote.” Harry smiled.

“I guess I suffered my own tempest,” he sheepishly admitted.

She whispered, “They were dumb. I mean I like the Gentrys but they can't chew gum and walk at the same time.”

He laughed. “Let's see how far they've gotten.”

They both walked into the hall. The brothers had gotten the padding down to the foot of the stairs. Next would come the carpet.

“It's going to make such a difference.”

The four cats watched with apprehension as the two humans approached the closet. Tucker, on the stairs with the cats, lowered her head.

The Gentry brothers were now at the vestibule end of the hall. On their knees, they were unrolling the lovely carpet.

“You know, I started down the hall to check on communion wafers. I can't remember if Charlotte reordered some or not. I've got enough to get through tomorrow but I'd better check. That's how I got stuck.”

Harry followed him back. He didn't notice that Cazenovia and Elocution disappeared. Mrs. Murphy, determined to stand her ground, watched her tail swishing. Why would he think she had eaten the wafers? Pewter leaned on Murphy, but she wasn't so certain they wouldn't come in for a blast. Tucker headed up the stairs in the church cats' footsteps.

Harry, knowing her children well, sensed they were guilty of something.

Herb opened the door. “Here we go.” He reached in. No box on the shelf. He looked down. Shredded cellophane. Torn boxes. Communion wafer bits scattered like Hansel and Gretel's crumbs.

“Elo! Cazzie!” His face turned beet red.

“The dog did it,”
Elo called from her hiding place.

Harry stared at the desecration, then threw back her head and laughed. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks.

Herb sputtered. He fumed. He kicked the tattered boxes out of the closet. He sighed. Finally he laughed, too. “Give me a sign, Lord.”

“He has.” Harry wiped her eyes, laughing even harder. “He's sent you two very holy cats.” She wondered if her animals had participated in this. After all, they attended the Parish Guild meetings. She knew Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker were capable of it. She thought it wise not to point the finger.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter watched, their eyes large, their tails twitching too much.

Tucker, flat on her belly, was just around the corner at the top of the stairs.
“Elo, I'll kill you for that,”
the dog threatened.

Harry knelt down to pick up the wafer bits.

“Wonder if Father O'Mallory has any to spare?” Herb's brow furrowed as he held a box, cellophane tatters spilling over his reddened fingers which still stung. More evidence covered the floor.

“If he doesn't, I'll go to the market and buy crackers, you know, little cocktail crackers. If you bless them why aren't they as good as communion wafers?”

“Well, they might be but if they're salty everyone will be sitting in their pews thirsty.”

“Give them more wine.” Harry smiled devilishly.

“Harry, you've got a point there. Wait, don't go until I know.” He hurried into his office, handing her one of the fang-marked boxes. She tagged after him.

“Thanks, Dalton.” Herb hung up the phone. “He's got them. Oh dear Jesus, thank you for Father Dalton O'Mallory. Well, I'd better go pick them up.” He stopped. “Harry, you know I forgot to ask why you dropped by.” He slapped his hand against his thigh. “I'm sorry.”

“You had a lot on your mind and, uh, don't you need shoes?”

“Uh—yes.” He walked to the closet in his office, pulling out a pair of galoshes and a heavy loden coat.

“I dropped by to tell you Tracy Raz closed on the old bank building yesterday and I thought if we all chipped in twenty dollars each we could afford to have a sign painted for him, whatever he wants, ‘Raz Enterprises' or something.”

“Why, sure.” He slipped his foot into the rubber boot. “More rubber. I'll watch where I put my foot down.” He stared at the old wooden floor for a minute. “When I come back, hopefully this will be covered up. Good thing Fred Forrest isn't here. He'd find something wrong with the floor. You don't notice the tilt when it's covered up.”

“It's a couple of centuries old. He can get over himself. Anyway, all he can do is make trouble on new construction.”

Herb shook his head. “No. If he wants to be a butthead he can march right in here and declare this floor unsafe.”

“No way.”

“He can. If Fred has it in for you, watch out. I'm not just worried about Matthew's taking on the sports complex. I wouldn't put it past Fred to worry him over buildings already up, and let me tell you, that gets really, really expensive.”

“He wouldn't. There's enough upset in his office.”

“He would. Something's wrong with Fred.”

Yes, there was.

41

L
ater that day Harry shopped with Susan at Foods of All Nations. As she owned two trucks, no car, a big market shopping tested her ingenuity—especially where to put the stuff when rain or snow poured into the bed of the truck.

Usually she borrowed Susan's wagon or they both shopped together, which was the case today. Also in “Foods” as it was known was BoomBoom.

The three women emerged, heading to their vehicles in the cramped parking lot.

Harry closed the back wagon door and noticed out of the corner of her eye two cars side by side, noses in opposite directions. BoomBoom observed it, too, as she filled up her Explorer. Matthew Crickenberger was in one. Fred Forrest was in another.

Harry couldn't hear what they were saying but she noticed that Fred rolled up his window, driving off without looking to the right or the left. Matthew's electric window glided up as he shook his head in anger, his face red.

“See that?” Harry asked Susan who had been moving stuff in the wagon's backseat.

Susan, sliding behind the wheel, answered, “What?”

“Matthew and Fred. Appeared they had another, uh, moment.”

“Missed it.”

BoomBoom walked over. “Well, I didn't. Fred said, ‘Cover your ass.' Wish I'd caught the rest of it.”

“Been a day of moments,”
Mrs. Murphy observed.

“Yeah and it's only one-thirty.”
Tucker wanted to stick her nose in the grocery bags.

“Saturday's Harry's day off. And we're spending it shopping. I want to do something fun.”
Pewter slid over the gearshift onto the front seat and Susan's lap. Harry bid BoomBoom goodbye and got into the passenger seat as Susan started the engine.

“The Reverend Jones provided excitement,”
Mrs. Murphy tittered, recalling the scene.

“And you were such a chicken,”
Pewter called back at Tucker.

“I was not. Elocution and Cazenovia were the chickens.”

“Well, I want excitement. The day is young.”
Pewter stood on her hind legs, her paws on Harry's left shoulder as she looked back at the others.

“Excitement comes in both good and bad varieties,”
the corgi sagely noted.

42

E
ach time he thought of Fred, Matthew gripped his steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He'd catch himself, then stop. He pulled his dark green Range Rover onto Garth Road and headed west.

As late as the 1960s, these rolling hills sported few houses. Horse farms, hay farms, and down at White Hall, apple orchards dotted the road.

Berta Jones, former Master of the Farmington Hunt Club, kept three retired Kentucky Derby winners at her farm, Ingleside. She hunted those fast Thoroughbreds, too.

But the redoubtable Berta had been long gone. Her daughter, Port Haffner, another bold rider, kept to the old Virginia ways, but surrounding the beautiful farm were expensive houses on anywhere from two to twenty acres.

The homes, red brick with white porticos, security systems, sprinkler systems, and big-ass family rooms, were built for the “come heres” to impress one another. Natives wondered why anyone would pour their money into a house instead of the land.

But the new people gave Matthew his start in building. He soon realized the money was in commercial construction and by the mid-1970s, quick to master new technologies and materials, Matthew pulled ahead of larger, more established firms. Now he was the large established firm.

He got along with most people, newcomers or old families. He often wondered why the newcomers didn't learn the ways of the place—“When in Rome”—but so often these people whipped out their checkbooks expecting that to supplant simple good manners. They'd write a check for a charity but would keep their maid on starvation wages. The Virginian would not write a check for charity but would properly take care of the maid.

The law of Virginia was, “Take care of your own.”

The problem was the new people didn't know who “their own” were. Maybe they wrote the checks to cover their bases.

Well, Anne knew the rules. Matthew pulled into the crushed-stone drive on the north side of Garth Road, a little winding road tucked away, and soon he was at the door of a charming 1720-inspired frame house, simple, well built, and of pleasing proportions. Charleston-green shutters framed the sash windows, the white of the house blending in with the snow.

He used the brass knocker in the form of a pineapple.

Anne opened the door. “Matthew, do come in.”

“Forgive me for not calling. I was on my way home and thought I'd stop by to see if you need anything.”

“Please come in. I'll make us both a drink. It would be lovely to have some company.”

Upstairs the squeals of two girls captured his attention as he entered the house. “Party?”

“Georgina Weems. I'm trying to keep Cameron's routine as normal as I can. Children mourn differently than we do. She needs her friends. I need mine.” She looked into his eyes with her hazel green eyes. “Scotch? Vodka martini? Isn't that your drink?”

“A little too early for me. I'll take a cup of your famous coffee.”

“You're in luck because I was just going to make espresso. H.H. bought me that huge brass Italian thing with the eagle on the top. Restaurants don't have espresso makers this huge.” She led him into the kitchen.

He folded his coat over the back of a kitchen chair. “A major machine.”

She showed him the steps for making espresso, then brewed him a perfect cup, cutting a small orange rind to accompany it. She poured herself one, too, in the delicate white porcelain cup with the gold edge that H.H. also gave her for Christmas.

“Let's go in the living room. What's wrong with me? I should have taken your coat.”

“Everything happens in the kitchen anyway, and I don't care about my coat. Sandy sends her love, by the way.”

Anne sat down at the kitchen table. “You two have been wonderful throughout this ordeal. It's bad enough I've lost my husband”—she put her cup on the saucer—“but to have people think I killed him is a deep dose of cruelty. I know what is being said behind my back.”

“Now, only the sheriff is going to take that route. He has to investigate all possibilities.” He tried to soothe her.

“Rick was here yesterday. Cooper, too. You know my little greenhouse? They went through it with me and asked me questions about belladonna. They were quite obvious so I pointed out that even an azalea if ingested in large quantities can induce a coma. Buttercups can shred your digestive system. The berries on mistletoe can be fatal.” She paused. “I must look like a husband killer.” She dropped her head slightly, then raised it.

“Not to me you don't.”

“Thank you.”

“This espresso is better than anything I've ever had in a restaurant.” He sipped appreciatively. “Need any shopping done?”

“Thank you, no. The weather has kept me in more than anything. Let them stare. I'll stare right back.”

“That's the spirit. Most people are so damned bored anyway they're looking at you with envy in their eyes. ‘If only I could be that interesting.' ” He mimicked what he thought such a voice would sound like.

“Oh, Matthew, you're pulling my leg.”

“Hey, I'll pull your arm, too.” He drained his cup.

She refilled it. “Should I call Sandy and tell her I'm peeling you off the ceiling?”

“One of the advantages of being big is that I can ingest a lot more of everything before it affects me.” He smiled. “You know, I've been thinking a lot about H.H.'s death. We both know his temper might piss off someone, excuse my French, but a deep-dyed enemy? Can't think of a one.”

“What about his lover when he ditched her?” Anne was surprisingly frank, but Matthew was an old friend.

“I didn't know about that—not until everyone knew and then the next evening there he was at the basketball game with you.”

“For Cameron. He was waffling. ‘I'll go. I'll stay.' It really was hell and I suppose that's why I'm not mourning the way people think I should. I suppose I do look guilty.” Her jaw set.

“Why didn't you tell us? Sandy and I would have talked to him. You know that.”

She lightly tapped the table with the head of the small spoon. “I was furious that he would think I was so stupid, so pliable, that he could do this to me again. When I did confront him he denied it. Don't they all? But I wore him down. He said he was sorry but he also said he needed a lift. He needed too many lifts over the years.” She rose, opened the refrigerator and put out cookies, then drew herself another espresso. She also poured a shot of McCallums for good measure. She held up the bottle but Matthew shook his head no. “The only thing I didn't do was take an andiron and brain him.”

“Did you know the woman?”

“Eventually. Mychelle Burns.”

“Ah.” He chose not to say what he knew about that.

“Now she's dead, too, and it doesn't look good for me.”

“There are very good lawyers in this town. Don't you worry.”

“I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't worried. More worried for Cameron than for me. What if her little friends hear their parents talking? What if they tell Cameron, ‘Your mother murdered your daddy'? My God, that terrifies me.”

“We aren't there yet.” He exhaled. “Presumably Rick will find out why Mychelle was killed but that's not really my concern. I've been thinking. Could this have had anything to do with H.H.'s business?”

“How?” She sipped the scotch, the warmth as comforting in its way as the espresso was.

He paused a moment. “Oh, money under the table. Rigged bids. That sort of thing.”

“Not that I know of. It wasn't that H.H. kept his business life from me but by the time he'd come home, the food would be on the table and we'd talk to Cameron. That was her time. After supper he might mention what happened in his day. I guess most couples are like that or become like that. You move in separate worlds unless you're in the business together.”

“True. Sandy and I rarely talk about business. I don't want to bring it home.” He made a motion with his hands as though pushing something away. “Men and women have better things to talk about.”

“From time to time he'd blow his stack over Fred Forrest.”

“Fred's such a pain in the ass. Now if someone murdered him, I could understand that. What about firing someone, a guy who holds a grudge?”

She shook her head. “Given the type of business you're in, I know you have to fire people but he never brought that up. If an ex-employee bore a grudge, I knew nothing of it.”

“H.H. used to make fun of me because a lot of my boys are functionally illiterate, but I'll tell you, they are loyal. They know it's hard to get hired and they know most bosses will trim down their pay if they can hardly read and write. I pay them well and I get good work, steady, good work. It's been years since I've had to fire anyone.”

“Isn't it a pain, though? You can't leave written notes.”

“You'd be amazed at what they remember. They don't need to have a note. Tell them and they remember. Granted, it's a problem if something comes up and Opie's down at the store getting lunch. Or you're going to leave the site and you need to leave him a note, but that doesn't happen very much. Anyway, I have a good foreman and that helps.”

“I wish I could tell you something, anything.”

“You may not be able to answer this—do you think you would have divorced him?”

“For Cameron's sake, I wouldn't want to.”

“What about yours?” Matthew's voice was soft.

“Oh.” She glanced at a spot over his head then dropped her gaze to his. “He'd become a habit. I was used to him. There were days when I loved him and days when I didn't. Lately there were more of the ‘didn't.' ”

“Anne, I'm sorry. Truly sorry.” She shrugged, tilted her head and smiled. He continued. “If you need a good lawyer, let me know. You know you can call Sandy or me any time of night or day. If you need some time alone, we'll be glad to take Cameron. Matt and Ted adore her. They'll be big brothers.”

“Thank you. Do you think I did it?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Thank you, Matthew.”