Cat's Eyewitness (17 page)

“You will.” Aunt Tally encouraged her. “Set yourself a goal, stick to it. You’re smart as a whip.”

“Thank you.”

“See, she’ll listen to you, Aunt Tally. She doesn’t listen to me. I tell her how smart she is.” Susan placed the rubber wedges on either side of the tubes.

“Ned have his team together?” Aunt Tally inquired.

“He does. Another three weeks and he’s sworn in as our state senator and I will be truly married to an elected politician. I can’t tell you how many people he interviewed for the jobs. He needs to have the right people, people who know the drill in Richmond. People who can get along. That’s the problem, you know, in any office or wherever: can the people who work together get along? I worry about what this will cost us, too. He has an apartment in Richmond; the miles will pile up on the car when he switches back and forth from here to there. I didn’t want him to spend money on an apartment, but he reminded me what happened when both houses fought over the state budget: long, long sessions. He really needs a little place there. And like I said, he really needs a team that can get along.”

“We always did.” Miranda patted Harry’s shoulder as she squeezed behind her and BoomBoom.

“Easier when there’s two,” Big Mim said, then amended the thought. “If it’s the right two.”

Big Mim and Aunt Tally worked for an hour. Harry and Miranda were grateful to them, because they knew how out of the ordinary this gesture was and the two women really did help.

No sooner had the two climbed into Big Mim’s go-through-anything Range Rover, saved for bad weather, than Alicia pulled out her cell phone to call Patterson’s Florist.

“More amaryllis?” BoomBoom raised her eyebrows, then turned to Harry. “She’s filled one room with red and white amaryllis, arranging them like a tree on this platform she’s had built. I’m not explaining this very well. Anyway, she’s placed all the pots, wrapped in foil, on the circular levels, and I’ve never seen anything quite like it. She’s so visually creative.”

“You are, too,” Harry complimented her.

“Not like Alicia, but thank you.”

They overheard Alicia. “Yes, one to Aunt Tally and one to Big Mim. Today, if possible.” She paused, smiling at BoomBoom and Harry, then her attention returned to her order. “Yes. Say, ‘With thanks from the girls at the P.O.’ Uh-huh. Put it on my account. Thank you so much.” She hung up.

Miranda said, “We’ll divvy that up.”

“No, you won’t.” Alicia waved her hand.

“You think of everything.” BoomBoom finished her row of boxes.

“You’re prejudiced.” Alicia returned to the mail cart.

A beat passed, then Susan simply said, “You two make each other happy.”

For a moment no one uttered a word, not even the animals. Then BoomBoom, who thought she’d be scared only to discover she wasn’t at all, replied, “We do.”

And that was that.

Within the hour they finished the mail. It would have taken Harry and Miranda past closing to do it themselves. Miranda made a fresh pot of coffee, dashed across the alleyway, and soon returned with a large basket filled with chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, and fresh gingerbread, a thin glaze of vanilla icing on the top.

“Girls, I was in such a hurry to get over here after Pug called me”—she mentioned the postmaster of the area by name—“that I didn’t have time to throw together some treats.”

An impromptu party followed, with either Miranda or Harry rising to take care of a customer. Miranda even thought to bring dried liver treats for the cats and dog.

Harry bit into her second slice of gingerbread, then stopped mid-chew. Swallowing big, she said, “Know what?” The others looked at her. “The eye. Nordy was killed through the eye. The Virgin Mary is bleeding through the eyes.”

The cats and dogs listened to this as they ate the treats brought for them.

“If she could smell, she’d have caught that whiff of lanolin and beeswax when we came to work,”
Tucker said.
“Don’t know about eyes, but I know that lanolin odor.”

“Virgin wool,”
Mrs. Murphy replied.

“From an unmarried sheep.”
Pewter giggled.

“From someone wearing a virgin wool sweater, or a robe like a Greyfriar.”
The tiger ignored Pewter’s joke.

23

I
t’s a strange coincidence. Let that be the end of it.” Fair pulled off the thin, long, whitish latex gloves he’d used to check a mare.

The gloves barely made a sound as they dropped into the garbage can in BoomBoom’s stable. At six o’clock in the evening the sun had set an hour ago, and the sky was filled with low, dense, tinted clouds, the remains of one of those sunsets that goes on and on, the last brushstroke of color dying after an hour.

BoomBoom was holding the furry chestnut mare, a well-built animal by Lemon Drop Kid out of Silly Putty, a mare who broke down on the racetrack. BoomBoom, like Harry, Fair, and Big Mim, could pick a horse. The animal could be underfed, wormy, blowing its coat, or injured, yet she saw the potential. She was highly regarded by other horsemen, all the more so since this particular broodmare was by Lemon Drop Kid, a marvelous stallion who enjoyed a stellar career on the track.

As Fair worked on the mare, BoomBoom and Harry filled him in on conversations at the post office, their ideas, Susan’s ideas, Miranda’s, and, well, everyone’s who flounced into the post office that day—which was everyone who could stand up. If you didn’t show up at the post office, it meant you were involved in a flaming seduction or too sick to walk. After recovering from both fevers, one was expected to divulge the details in as amusing a manner as possible.

Harry bristled. “Oh, come on, I’m just tossing out theories.”

“Your theories have a way of almost getting you killed.”

“True!”
the two cats and dog agreed as they sat on the stacked hay bales.

Alicia appeared in the open barn doors, the fading light framing her. Winter sunsets at this latitude were one more joy of living in central Virginia.

For an instant, seeing Alicia in the doorway, Harry could understand why BoomBoom had fallen in love with her. Then she looked at Fair washing his hands in the sink in the small tackroom, dirt on his coveralls, his green Wellies half brown with muck, and she thought he didn’t need a sunset. He was beautiful to her. A thin pang of desire and even guilt shot through her body. She’d made him pay and pay for his sins. Maybe they weren’t really sins. She said she’d forgiven him, and she had. She recognized at that very instant that she needed to forgive herself. She’d held on to the whip hand too long and she’d diminished herself in the process, as well as hurt a man who loved her more than life itself.

“How is she?” Alicia turned up the collar of her bomber jacket; the mercury was dropping faster than the New Year’s ball in Times Square.

“Healthy. The infection cleared up.” Fair turned to BoomBoom. “I’d ship her out to Kentucky after Christmas. They’re so efficient and responsible at Payson Stud. They’ll put her under lights and, when she’s ready, she’ll have multiple covers by St. Jovite.” He mentioned one of the good studs standing at the farm. “I know those board bills ratchet up, but, BoomBoom, that’s the stallion you want for this mare. He raced for years and retired sound. You want that hardy blood. After she’s caught, ship her back. I’ll take it from there. If you breed your other mare, go to Tom Newton’s stud, Harbor Dean. But send this girl to Kentucky.”

“You’re right.”

“Are you breeding her for the track?” Harry liked the mare; she had clean legs but was retiring because she’d suffered a cracked vertebra in an accident in the shedrows.

“Well, I know that’s better for Payson Stud, but, no, I’m breeding her for foxhunting. One of the great things about the people at Payson Stud is that Mrs. Payson runs steeplechase horses, so she understands about jumping and, even more importantly, staying power. Peggy Augustus is another true horseman who cares about going the distance. Everyone these days seems to breed for sprint races. The good old distance bloodlines are thinning out. Remember, Husband, Peggy’s stallion, was the sire of my best hunter. I’ll be taking one of my other mares to Husband in January.”

Horsemen, like golfers, could talk for hours, days, weeks about horses, bloodlines, great chasers and racers, great hunt horses.

Alicia, a horseman herself—although her knowledge was interrupted by the time she’d spent acting in California—said, “Why don’t we continue this at the kitchen table? There’s potpie waiting for you all, if you don’t mind simple fare.” She paused a moment. “Not referring to you, Fair.”

At the massive farmer’s table, the conversation bounced between recent events, horses, and politics, especially Wendell Ordman’s career.

Fair cut into his pie, through crusty layers of perfection. “How did Maggie Sheraton like Herb?”

Alicia answered, “Karma. Her words.” She imitated Maggie’s delivery. “Alicia Palmer, darlin’ girl, when I shook his hand I felt a karmic bond. Many lives. Then we spoke and I found in this life a courteous gentle Virginia gentleman.”

“Which means?” Harry lifted one eyebrow.

“Means she’s coming down from New York for New Year’s. She’ll stay here, of course. They’re going to the dance at Farmington Country Club. She’s bought three gowns from Bergdorf Goodman. One of them is bound to be right.”

“Wonder what Herb thinks?” Harry thought Herb looked good in a tuxedo. It helped to hide his paunch, which he was now exercising to remove.

“He invited her, so he must like her,” Fair reflected.

Fair got up and refilled everyone’s coffee cup. He noticed a pair of headlights coming down the drive. “Boom, are you expecting anyone?”

“No.”

In the country, dear friends don’t feel compelled to call first, so an unannounced visitor wasn’t that out of the ordinary.

The car pulled into the drive, the lights cut off. In the darkness BoomBoom couldn’t tell the make of the vehicle. The back door swung open and a teary Susan walked in.

“Susan, what’s the matter?” Harry asked.

“Well, I drove to your house, then I remembered you said at the post office that Fair was checking Boom’s mare and . . .” Susan rambled on before she got to the point. “Ned’s staying in Richmond tonight. He said he has so much to do he needs to stay over, but when I called him back on his cell he didn’t pick up.”

Alicia got up and pulled another chair to the table, as BoomBoom fetched another plate and table setting. “Susan, sit down. Please join us.”

“I can’t eat. I’m too fat. That’s why he’s sleeping with other women.”

“Susan, you don’t know that. Now, come on. And he needs to stay in Richmond sometimes, but especially now.” Harry led her to the table.

Fair, upset for Susan, poured a cup of coffee for her. “She’s right, Susan. Don’t worry about him not answering his cell. I mean, he might be in a meeting or the battery could need a recharge. Don’t worry.”

Susan wiped her eyes as Alicia placed a hot potpie in front of her.

“What am I going to do?” Susan asked in a flat tone.

“You’re going to relax with your friends, enjoy this potpie, and we’ll figure this out together.” Alicia took charge.

“You’ll feel better if you eat this.” BoomBoom encouraged Susan. “Your blood sugar drops and everything looks much worse.”

Reluctantly Susan pierced the pie, the enticing aroma curling up to her nostrils. She gingerly took a bite, then another. “It is good.”

“The goddess herself made it,” BoomBoom teased.

“Will you stop?” Alicia rolled her eyes.

“Susan, I don’t think Ned is having an affair. Really. I’m not just saying that to make you feel better, but I think I’d know,” Fair said.

“Would he tell you?”

Fair was reassuring. “Maybe. Look, he’s never been in politics before. He probably feels he’s over his head.”

“I haven’t heard a breath of scandal about Ned. If he were up to something I’d know by now.” BoomBoom soothed her.

“I’ve been married to the man since I was nineteen. I know him. He’s up to something. He’s distant.” Susan’s lower lip quivered anew.

“Has it occurred to you that perhaps you’re distant?” Alicia reached over to pat Susan’s left hand.

“How’s his health?” BoomBoom inquired.

“Healthy as a horse,” Susan responded, then turned to Alicia. “Maybe I have been weird.”

Harry asked as she cut into a spice cake with thick icing, “Susan, you said Ned is healthy as a horse. Wasn’t Great-Uncle Thomas healthy as a horse?”

“He was. Why?”

“Why assume he died of a heart attack just because he was eighty-two?” Harry said as she passed a piece of moist cake to Fair.

“It’s not an unreasonable assumption,” Fair replied.

“But he had no history of heart disease, am I right?” Harry persisted.

Susan thought for a moment. “The Bland Wades live forever. He was worried about his heart. He’d been experiencing irregular heartbeats. But still, at his age that’s to be expected. Like I said, the Bland Wades are tough. Brooks takes after that side.”

“Danny looks a little like a Bland Wade,” Fair said.

“I always thought he resembled his father,” Susan hastily replied.

“He’s handsome no matter who he resembles.” Alicia thought Susan had lovely children.

Susan repeated, “He looks just like his father.”

Harry got back on track. “Do you have any reason to believe Brother Thomas was sick?”

“No,” Susan said.

“A major coronary would take him right out. There might not be any indication before the attack.” Fair was thinking about the kind monk.

“You didn’t ask for an autopsy.” Harry was thinking out loud, not asking a question.

Susan answered, though. “Of course not, Harry, he was two years older than God. Let the poor soul be buried with dignity.”

“I think you should exhume him and have an autopsy performed.”

“Harry, we’re eating,” BoomBoom chided her.