Cat's Eyewitness (22 page)

“As in your life and my life?”

“Right.”

“As in my great-uncle Thomas and Nordy Elliott meeting their Maker?”

“Right. It’s in front of our eyes, but our belief system is so strong, we are so invested in it, that we can’t see.”

“I see,” Susan replied, then had to laugh. “I mean, I get your point but I don’t see. Not yet.”

“Another thing. I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone if that will make you feel better. You’ve been worried. Crazy things are happening all around us.”

“And?”

“Fair has given me until Christmas Eve to answer with a yes or no concerning his often-repeated marriage proposal.” She stared down at the coffee cup.

Susan straightened in the chair. “That is news!”

32

A
cavern of snow faced Harry, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker at the soapstone quarry in the northeastern corner of Nelson County. The quarry was so deep that snow in the bottom didn’t completely melt until the end of April. In the mid-eighteenth century the quarry brought prosperity to the small community of Schuyler. Like everything else in Virginia, the profits disappeared after 1865. Two generations after the war, the quarry boomed. Its fortunes shot upward and plunged down many times over the twentieth century. Despite the varying demand for soapstone and other types of stone, the quality of the product remained what it had always been: high.

“Imagine digging stone with pickaxes,” Iggy Monroe said as he walked alongside Harry, the animals, and Bo Newell, who had introduced her to Iggy. “Before white men, the Indians didn’t even have iron picks and shovels. Harder work for them.” His beat-up work boots sank into the snow as he led Harry to the main road down into the open mines. “This stone is so special because it makes the best wood-burning stoves in the world. Perfect material.”

“It conducts heat,” Bo added. “Evenly.”

“This grade of soapstone conducts it in an even manner without cracking,” Iggy added. “You don’t get the exterior heat that an iron stove throws off. An iron stove can turn red-hot on you. Not going to happen with this.”

“You can carve it?” Harry inquired.

“Yeah, better in slabs, though.”

“But you can carve it into statues and stuff, you can cut into it to make signs?”

“Kind of a waste. If you want to make signs, use slate.”

“Isn’t soapstone a little oily?” Bo inquired.

“Yes.”

“Could it leak liquid?”

“No, not if the stove is properly built.”

“I’m not being very clear. When I mean, Mr. Monroe, is, if there were a vein of iron ore inside the stone, might the stone ooze iron ore—you know, a rusty liquid coming out of a crack?”

He shook his head. “No. There’s no iron ore in this. We’d have hit a seam by now, and you can see”—he swept his hand toward the cavern—“there haven’t been any iron seams for over two hundred and fifty years.”

“Would it be possible to drill up through the stone and run liquid through it?”

“Sure, but you can do that with most any stone, even marble, which is dense and tight. The soapstone isn’t a good candidate for that.”

After chatting a few more minutes with Mr. Monroe and saying good-bye to Bo, Harry and the animals returned to her truck. As she drove the winding asphalt road back toward Route 29, she turned on the old radio, frowned at the static, then clicked it off.

“Babies, someone has worked on the statue of Our Blessed Virgin Mother. There’s not one doubt in my mind. And whoever did it was smart. They knew enough to bury their little line beneath the frost line.” She thought longer. “It’ll freeze above the frost line when it’s bitterly cold. Hmm.”

“If someone planned a miracle, you can bet they considered that and figured it out, too,”
Tucker sagely noted.

“If she’s right. It’s still possible this is a miracle.”
Pewter sat next to the dog.
“Not that I think it is, but you need an argument.”

“Can’t believe you admit being contentious.”
Mrs. Murphy was jubilant.

“I admit a lot of things.”
Pewter slightly tossed her head, then laughed.
“On rare occasions.”

Harry had the bit between her teeth. “Heat tape? Oh, that would take too much room. Could someone keep a pipe warm off a battery? Wonder if there’s another way to create tears without drilling up through Mary.” She absentmindedly reached for Mrs. Murphy, sitting closest to her. “And how could someone work on that statue without being detected? If my idea is right, drilling up through her, that would take time. How would someone get away with it? And it would have to be done in the summer. Damn.”

“She’s about to go into a tizzy.”
Pewter listened to the note of frustration in Harry’s alto voice.

“If she’s right, about the drilling, it points in one direction, doesn’t it?”
Mrs. Murphy didn’t like the direction.

“Brother Thomas.” Harry said what Mrs. Murphy was thinking. “It’s not possible. Why would he do something like that? I can’t believe it.” She exhaled a blast of air from her nostrils.

Unable to contain herself, she drove to Susan’s just as Susan was coming out her driveway. She stopped as Harry pulled alongside her, pressing a button. The automatic window whined as it slid down.

Harry rolled down her window.

“Harry, I’m going up to Afton.”

“Why?”

“The report just came in from the lab in Richmond. My g-uncle had traces of chloroform in his body and,” she paused, her anger rising, her voice trembling, “morphine. He was killed with an overdose of morphine.”

“Oh, Susan.” Harry’s eyes widened. “But wait. Wait. Don’t go up there, Susan. Not yet. It’s not safe. Come on, turn around, let me tell you what I’ve dug up”—she didn’t think about that being a pun—“and we can formulate a plan.”

“Why isn’t it safe? I’m going up there to tear that goddamned Prior a new one!”

“No. Don’t. Calm down. Uncle Thomas is dead, and so is Nordy Elliott. Okay. We didn’t care about Nordy like we cared about Uncle Thomas, but, Susan, those deaths were connected. I know it. I just know it. You don’t want your name on the list.”

Susan felt the cold air on her left cheek. “All right.”

Once in Susan’s kitchen, the two sat down at the wooden table. Susan poured a cup of tea for each of them.

“Look, Susan, I have no idea what’s going on up there. The usual motivations for murder don’t seem to apply, or if they do, I haven’t figured them out. Love, sex, and money seem in short supply.”

“I’m not sure about the money.” Susan stared into Harry’s eyes. “When G-Uncle was here for Thanksgiving, he told me he had willed me the Bland Wade tract, all fifteen hundred acres of it.”

“Jeez Louise.”

“Worth a great deal of money both as real estate and for timber.”

“I’ll say.” Harry, like most Southerners, loved the land and felt one could never own enough.

“He said that the monastery life was dying. But I don’t know as he would have given it to the Greyfriars anyway. In his way, he had a sense of family, even though he was separate from us much of the time.”

“Who knows?”

“Ned. Brooks. Danny. The will hasn’t been read yet, so I don’t know if Brother Handle knows.”

“Fifteen hundred acres in Albemarle County might be pretty good motivation to kill someone—if you thought it was coming to you.”

“Me?” Susan’s hand flew to her heart.

“No, silly, Brother Handle.”

“Now I’m doubly upset. Rick is going to ask me all kinds of questions. I’ll be a suspect.”

“That’s his job. He’s been sheriff a long time. He’s got a sense of who kills and who doesn’t, according to the circumstances.”

“That’s reassuring,” Susan said sarcastically.

“Relax.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Look, something is going on on top of that mountain. We need to find out what the hell it is.”

“Look what happened to Nordy. Maybe he found out.”

33

W
hen Nordy Elliott got up that morning, he didn’t know he was going to die.” Herb Jones’s deep voice filled his office, a simple, beautiful room, windows overlooking the exquisite quad of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church.

His two cats, Elocution and Cazenovia, lounged on the back of the leather sofa, eyes open, appearing to drink in every word.

“Keep going, Poppy, it’s good,”
Cazenovia, the long-haired calico, encouraged him.

“He rose, as do we all, filled the time with the daily chores, then drove to work. How could any of—no, wait, that’s not right.” He stopped, scribbled on his papers.

“Yo ho.”

“I’m in the office, Harry. Come on in.”

She trooped in, shedding her coat as she walked down the hallway, hanging it on a peg just outside his door. Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker accompanied her.

“Rev, you look divine in your spectacles.”

“Very funny.” He removed his glasses, got up from his chair, and walked to the sofa. “Before I sit down, coffee, tea, sherry?”

“Nothing for me.”

“Well, I need fortification. This service for Nordy—” He shook his head. “Can’t find the right tone.”

“Didn’t his parents ship his body back to, where was it, Michigan?”

Herb poured himself a small glass of port, then joined Harry. The four cats squeezed around the two humans, while Tucker plopped in front of the fireplace filled with crackling applewood.

“I think so. Pete thought we should have a small service for those who knew him. But I hardly knew the man. A pushy sort.” Herb shrugged. “I don’t want to stand up there and mouth platitudes.”

“You could never do that,”
Elocution praised him.

“He’s the only reason Mom comes to church. She wants to hear Herb’s sermons.”
Mrs. Murphy noted the large walnut trees outside the window. The birds fluttered on the branches, because Herb had placed a large bird feeder in the tree nearest the window.

“Maybe Pete can help,” Harry suggested.

“Pete wasn’t overfond of him.” Herb smiled slightly.

“Everyone was a launching pad for Nordy’s career, especially Pete, I guess.”

“I suppose a reporter needs to be aggressive, have a big ego, but I think Pete thought Nordy wasn’t half as smart as Nordy thought he was.” Herb sipped the delicious fortified spirits. “God bless the people who invented port.”

“Dionysus.”

“Wine.”

“Well, isn’t port fortified wine?”

“It’s a balance of wine, which is fruit, after all, and brandy. Port, at its best, is regal,” Herb answered.

“You feel about port the way I feel about orange pekoe tea.” She smiled. “When it’s right, it lifts me right up.” She snuggled down in the deep leather cushions, where many a rear end had parked over the decades. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’ve come calling?”

“You’ll tell me when you’re ready, but I know it isn’t about any issues before the vestry board.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’re usually armed with papers or you’re in tandem with Tazio Chappars.”

“Don’t you want to worm it out of me?” she teased him. “Take your mind off the eulogy.”

“Nordy.” He leaned on the large curved arm, a needlepoint pillow behind his back. “Pete may have sold him short. Nordy was like a terrier, he wouldn’t give up. I suppose I could comment on his persistence. Persistent in more areas than his career, too, so I’ve heard.”

“True enough, but he was barking up the wrong tree with BoomBoom—to continue your terrier image.”

“Terriers are mental,”
Tucker flatly stated.

“They’re just scrappy, Tucker, not considered and reasonable like you,”
Elocution purred.

“But some have tails.”
Pewter giggled.

“The good ones don’t.”
Tucker barked.

“Tucker, you’re not part of this discussion,” Harry reprimanded her corgi.

“You don’t have to listen to Pewter’s insults,”
the dog said.

“A simple observation isn’t an insult.”
Pewter’s voice was syrupy.

“You all can talk all you want, but if any cat opens the closet containing the communion wafers, there will be a serious blessing,” Herb’s voice rumbled.

Harry laughed. “People will be telling the story of the cats eating the communion wafers when we’re all resting in the graveyard.” She stopped as the word “graveyard” prompted her toward her subject. “The real reason I’m here, apart from enjoying your company, is to ask you about the Greyfriars. You probably know the men up there better than the rest of us do.”

“Some.”

“Over the years you’ve formed an opinion of the Prior, of Brother Prescott and Andrew and poor old Thomas.”

“I have.”

“And?”

He sipped the deep red liquid, Cockburn 1987, a decent enough year, although Herb had laid away a case of 1983 and was just waiting for 2010, when he thought it would peak. “The religious life, on the surface, appears benign, noncompetitive. Factor in a group of men who have retreated from the world, and it would seem an easy life. It isn’t. A ministry is difficult, because if you truly tend to your flock, if a priest, pastor, reverend has a church, you deal with birth, death, marriage, divorce, disappointments, betrayals, the whole human range of emotions. You have financial woes, as you know from serving on the vestry board. You have politics.” He inhaled. “You get two human beings together, honey chile, and you got politics. So the brothers have many of the same problems the rest of us do, and in a funny way I think that makes it all the harder for them.”

“Why?”

“Because they withdraw to the contemplative life believing it will succor them. At least, that’s what I think. And because they have no women. Women sweeten life.” He held up his hand. “I don’t mean that in a loose way. I mean female energy changes a man. Look at how we work together on that vestry.”

“Sometimes I think it’s a lot of hot air.”

“It is, but if half the board weren’t women, we men would waste time over pecking order, who’s on top.”

“You.”

He laughed. “Yes and no. But men are different. Women make men work better together, and if a man finds the right woman, life is richer.”

“You must feel so alone sometimes, Herb. I’m sorry I haven’t been more sensitive to you. I know you grieved and all that, but I don’t know what it’s like to lose a life partner. Forgive me for not being a better friend.”

He reached over for her hand. “Sweetie, you’re young. And you are a good friend. I was a lucky man to have a good wife, and I’m starting to go out in the world again. It takes time.”

“What becomes of men without women? Straight men, I mean.”

“Gay men need them, too. I reckon three things happen: a man becomes bitter and hates women, blaming them for his failings; a man becomes morose and withdraws from the world, he thinks he can’t win a woman or he’s not worthy; or, the third possibility, a man looks inward and recognizes he’d better change. Naturally, the third possibility is the one I see the least. People are amazingly resistant to change, even when it’s in their best interests.” He finished his port.

“The Greyfriars aren’t a mystical order. Whatever their reasons for withdrawing, for living without women, creating a false miracle is out of keeping. I mean, that’s my conclusion after a cursory study of the monastic life,” Harry said.

Herb shifted his weight. “By virtue of being a force in Western life for over two thousand years, the Catholic Church has witnessed its share of frauds, forgeries, hoaxes. The shroud of Turin is one of the better fake reliquaries. It was painted sometime between 1260 and 1390. The bishop reported to Pope Clement that the artist who did it was cunning, clever.”

“People want to believe these things. The more downtrodden they are as a group or as individuals, the more they have need of miracles, seems to me.”

“My favorite is the preserved bodies of saints. Some have been tampered with, others dried out into mummies, and those buried in limestone soil fool everyone. The limestone turns the body fat into hand soap, which doesn’t decay. Presto! A miracle.”

“Maybe something like a noncorrupted corpse would inspire an individual to change his life, dedicate himself to God. Personally, I’d run in the other direction. I don’t want to be around dead bodies regardless of condition! I mean, I have, but I want to get away as soon as I can!” Harry shuddered.

“Few of us look our best.” Rev. Jones chuckled.

“So you don’t believe in the Miracle of the Blue Ridge?”

“No.”

“Me, neither.”

“That’s a given.” He smiled.

“For whatever reason, I think Brother Thomas—a believer, most likely—and Nordy are connected to the tears, the statue.”

“It’s possible. Killed by . . .” He paused, holding his palms upward.

“Killed by a brother,” Harry said with assurance. “Both of them. I don’t think Brother Thomas was killed for his land. He willed Susan the Bland Wade tract. She told me yesterday, and I expect she’s with Sheriff Shaw even as we speak. Given that we now know her great-uncle was killed with a morphine injection—I’d guess it was shot into him—she figured Rick should know she stood to gain by his death.”

“She told me the day after Thanksgiving. Susan”—he paused—“is circumspect. She thinks long and hard about moral issues. Many people see only her social side. You and I see that she’s really a thinking person.”

“She’ll be a suspect, she thinks. Anyway, I caught her yesterday right after she’d gotten the news and she was going to go up to Afton to raise holy hell, excuse the expression.”

“Not wise.”

“No. But she was upset. It’s understandable. Anyway, I hauled her back to her kitchen. She finally calmed down. We talked things through. The killer is one of the brothers, I just know it. I don’t know why.”

He drummed the arm of the sofa with his fingers. “No one is going to kill over the Bland Wade tract no matter how lucrative a sale might be. For one thing, Harry, it’s too obvious.”

“That’s what I think, too.”

“Brother Thomas, over his long life, saw many things, heard many things. As for Nordy, I expect he stuck his nose in it.”

“I keep thinking this has something to do with eyes. I guess because of the statue and the way Nordy died.”

“Literal.”

“What?”

“You’re literal. What do eyes do but bear witness?”

Harry’s cell rang. She picked it out of her fishing-gear bag. “Susan. Maybe I better take it.”

“Go on,” he said indulgently.

“Hi. I’m with Herb.”

“Harry, Rick sent someone to take another blood sample from the statue. Coop took one, and, well, hers came back type O. This one has come back type A.”

“Jesus!” Harry exclaimed.