Claws and Effect (11 page)

“It still makes people nervous. No one wants to be on the losing side.”

“Yes.” Mim put down her fork. “Should I tell her to stop?”

“No.”

“I can't very well suggest to Jim that he step down. He's been a good mayor.”

“Indeed.”

“This is a pickle.”

“For all of us.” He chewed a bit of lobster, sweet and delicious. “But people will pay attention to the election; issues might get discussed. We've gotten accustomed to apathy—only because Jim takes care of things.”

“I suppose. Crozet abounds with groups. People do pitch in but yes, you're right, there is a kind of political apathy. Not just here. Everywhere.”

“People vote with their feet. They're bored, with a capital B.”

“Larry,” she leaned closer. “What's going on at Crozet Hospital? I know you know more than you're telling me and I know Harry didn't cut her head on a scythe.”

“What's Harry got to do with it?”

“There's no way she could stay away from the murder site. She's been fascinated with solving things since she was tiny. Now really, character is everything, is it not?” He nodded assent so she continued. “I'd bet my earrings that Harry snuck over to the hospital and got hurt.”

“She could have gotten hurt sticking her nose somewhere else. What if she snuck around Hank Brevard's house?”

“I
know
Mary Minor Haristeen.”

A ripple of silence followed. Then Larry sighed. “Dear Mim, you are one of the most intelligent women I have ever known.”

She smiled broadly. “Thank you.”

“Whether your thesis is correct or not I really don't know. Harry hasn't said anything to me when I grace the post office with my presence.” He was telling the truth.

“But you have been associated with the hospital for, well, almost fifty years. You must know something.”

“Until the incident I can't say that I noticed anything, how shall I say, untoward. The usual personality clashes, nurses grumbling about doctors, doctors jostling one another for status or perks or pretty nurses.” He held up his hand. “Oh yes, plenty of that.”

“Really.” Mim's left eyebrow arched upward.

“But Mim, that's every hospital. It's a closed world with its own rules. People work in a highly charged atmosphere. They're going to fall for one another.”

“Yes.”

“But there has been an increase of tension and it predates the dispatch of Hank Brevard. Sam Mahanes has lacked discretion, shall we say?”

“Oh.”

“People don't want to see that sort of thing—especially in their boss or leader.”

“Who?”

“Tussie Logan.”

“Ah.”

“They avoid one another in a theatrical manner. But Sam isn't always working during those late nights.” He held up his left palm, a gesture of questioning and appeasement. “Judge not lest ye be judged.”

“Is that meant for me?”

“No, dear. We've gracefully accommodated one another's faults.”

“It was me, not you.”

“I should have fought harder. I've told you that. I should have banged on this front door and had it out with your father. But I didn't. And somehow, sweetheart, it has all worked out. You married and had two good children.”

“A son who rarely comes home,” she sniffed.

“Whose fault is that?” he gently chided her.

“I've made amends.”

“And he and his wife will finally move down from New York some fine day. Dixie claims all her children. But whatever the gods have in store for us—it's right. It's right that you married Jim, I married Annabella, God rest her soul. It's right that we've become friends over the years. Who is to say that our bond may not be even stronger
because
of our past. Being husband and wife might have weakened our connection.”

“Do you really think so?” She had never considered this.

“I do.”

“I shall have to think about it. You know, I cherish our little talks. I have always been able to say anything to you.”

“I cherish them as well.”

A car drove up, parked, the door slammed, the back door opened.

Jim slapped Gretchen on the fanny. “Put out a plate for me, doll.”

“Sexual harassment.”

“You wish,” he teased her.

“Ha. You'll never know.”

He strode into the dining room. “Finished early. A first in the history of Albemarle County.”

“Hooray.” Mim smiled.

Jim clapped Larry on the back, then sat down. “Looks fabulous.”

“Wait until you taste the rice. Gretchen has put tiny bits of orange rind in it.” Mim glanced up as Gretchen came into the room.

“Isn't that just perfect.”

“Of course. I prepared it.” Gretchen served Jim rice, vegetables, then tossed salad for him.

The small gathering chattered away, much to Larry's relief. Had he continued to be alone with Mim she would have returned to her questions about the hospital.

Mim had to know everything. It was her nature, just as solving puzzles was Harry's.

And Larry did know more than he was telling. He could never lie to Mim. He was glad he didn't have to try.

23

Each day of the week grew warmer until by Saturday the noon temperature rose into the low sixties. March was just around the corner bringing with it the traditional stiff winds, the first crocus and robin, as well as hopes of spring to come. Everybody knew that nature could and often did throw a curveball, dumping a snowstorm onto the mountains and valley in early April, but still, the days were longer, the quality of light changed from diffuse to brighter, and folks began to think about losing weight, gardening, and frolicking.

Hunt season ended in mid-March, bringing conflicting emotions for Harry and her friends. They loved hunting yet they were thrilled to say good-bye to winter.

This particular Saturday the hunt left from Harry's farm. Given the weather, over forty people turned out, quite unusual for a February hunt.

As they rode off, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and an enraged Tucker watched from the barn.

“I don't see why I can't go. I can run as fast as any old foxhound.”
Tucker pouted.

“You aren't trained as a foxhound.”
Mrs. Murphy calmly stated the obvious, which she was forced to do once a year when the hunt met at Harry's farm.

“Ha!”
The little dog barked.
“Walk around, nose to the ground. Pick up a little scent and wave your tail. Then you move a bit faster and finally you open your big yap and say, ‘Got a line.' How hard is that?”

“Tail,”
Pewter laconically replied.

“How's zat?”
The dog barked even louder as the hounds moved farther away, ignoring her complaints.

“You haven't got a tail, Tucker. So you can't signal the start of something mildly interesting.”
The tiger was enjoying Tucker's state almost as much as Pewter, who did have the tiniest malicious streak.

“You don't believe that, do you?”
She was incredulous, her large dog eyes imploring.

“Sure we do.”
The two cats grinned in unison.

“I could run after them. I could catch up and show my stuff.”

“And have a whipper-in on your butt.”
Pewter laughed, mentioning the bold outriders responsible for seeing that hounds behaved.

“Wouldn't be on my butt. Would be on a hound's,”
Tucker smugly replied.
“I think Mom should whip-in. She'd be good at it. She's got hound sense, you know, but only because I taught her everything she knows—about canines.”

“Pin a rose on you,”
Pewter sarcastically replied.

Tucker swept her ears back for a second, then swept them forward.
“You don't know a thing about hunting unless it's mice and you aren't doing so hot on that front. And then there's the bluejay who dive-bombs you, gets right in front of you, Pewter, and you can't grab him.”

“Oh, I'd like to see you tangle with that bluejay. He'd peck your eyes out, mutt.”
Pewter's temper flared.

“Hey, they hit a line right at the creek bed.”
Mrs. Murphy, a keen hunter of all game, trotted out of the barn, past Poptart and Gin Fizz, angry at not hunting themselves. She leapt onto the fence, positioning herself on a corner post.

Tucker scrambled, slid around the corner of the paddock, then sat down. Pewter, with far less enthusiasm, climbed up on a fence post near Mrs. Murphy.

“Tally Ho!”
Tucker bounded up and down on all fours.

“That's the Tutweiler fox. He'll lead them straight across the meadows and dump them about two miles away. He always runs through the culvert there at the entrance to the Tutweiler farm, then jumps on the zigzag fence. I don't know why they can't get his scent off the fence but they don't.”
Mrs. Murphy enjoyed watching the unfolding panorama.

“How do you know so much?”
Tucker kept bouncing.

“Because he told me.”

“When?”

“When you were asleep, you dumb dog. I hunt at night sometimes. By myself since both of you are the laziest slugs the Great Cat in the Sky ever put on earth.”

“Hey, look at Harry. She took that coop in style.”
Pewter admired her mother's form over fences.

“She would have taken it better with me,”
a very sour Gin Fizz grumbled.
“Why she bothers with Tomahawk, I'll never know. He's too rough at the trot and he gets too close to the fence.”

As Gin was now quite elderly, in his middle twenties, but in great shape, the other animals knew not to disagree with him.

Poptart, the young horse Harry was bringing along, respectfully kept quiet. A big mare with an easy stride, she couldn't wait for the day when she'd be Harry's go-to hunter. She listened to Gin because he knew the game.

As the animals watched, Miranda drove up with church ladies in tow. She cooked a hunt breakfast for Harry once a year and Harry made a nice donation to her Church of the Holy Light. Each lady emerged from the church van carrying plates of food, bowls of soup, baskets of fresh-baked breads and rolls. Although called a breakfast, hunters usually don't get to eat until twelve or one in the afternoon, so the selection of food ranged from eggs to roasts to biscuits, breads, and all manner of casseroles.

The enticing aroma of honey-cured Virginia ham reached Tucker's delicate nostrils. She forgot to be upset about the hounds. Her determination to trail the hounds wavered. Her left shoulder began to lean toward the house.

“I bet Miranda needs help,”
Tucker said in her most solicitous tone.

“Sure.”
Murphy laughed at her while observing Sam Mahanes lurch over a coop.
“That man rides like a sack of potatoes.”

Sam was followed by Dr. Larry Johnson, who rode as his generation was taught to ride: forward and at pace. Larry soared over the coop, top hat not even wobbling, big grin on his clean, open face.

“Amazing.”
Pewter licked a paw, rubbing it behind her ears.

“Larry?”
Murphy wondered.

“
Yes. You know humans would be better off if they didn't know arithmetic. They count their birthdays and it weakens their mind. You are what you are. Like us, for instance.”
Pewter out of the corner of her eye saw Tucker paddle to the back door.
“Do you believe her?”

“She can't help it. Dogs.”
Murphy shrugged.
“You were saying?”

“Counting.”
Pewter's voice boomed a bit louder than she had anticipated, scaring Poptart for a minute.
“Sorry, Pop. Okay, look at you and me, Mrs. Murphy. Do we worry about our birthdays?”

“No. Oh boy, there goes Little Mim. She just blew by Mother. That'll set them off. Ha.”
Murphy relished that discussion, since Harry hated to be passed in the hunt field.

“Tomahawk's too slow.”
Gin Fizz, disgruntled though he may have been, was telling the truth.
“She needs a Thoroughbred. Of course, Little Mim can buy as many hunters as she wants and the price is irrelevant. Mom has to make her own horses. She does a good job, I think.”
Gin loved Harry.

“But I'm only half a Thoroughbred,”
Poptart wailed.
“Does that mean we'll be stuck in the rear?”

Gin Fizz consoled the youngster.
“No. You can jump the moon. As the others fall by the wayside, you'll be going strong as long as you take your conditioning seriously. But on the flat, well, yes, you might get passed. Don't worry. You'll be fine.”

“I don't want to be passed,”
the young horse said fiercely.

“Nobody does.”
Gin Fizz laughed.

“Am I going to get to finish my thought or what?”
Pewter snarled. She liked horses but herbivores bored her. Grass eaters. How could they eat grass? She only ate grass when she needed to throw up.

“Sorry.”
Gin smiled.

“As I was saying,”
Pewter declaimed.
“Humans count. Numbers. They count money. They count their years. It's a bizarre obsession with them. So a human turns thirty and begins to fret. A little fret. Turns forty. Bigger. Is it not the dumbest thing? How you feel is what matters. If you feel bad, it doesn't matter if you're fifteen. If you feel fabulous like Larry, what's seventy-five? Stupid numbers. I really think they should dump the whole idea of birthdays. They wouldn't know any better then. They'd be happier.”

“They'd find a way to screw it up.”
Murphy looked over at her gray friend.
“They fear happiness like we fear lightning. I don't understand it. I accept it, though.”

“They're so worried about something bad happening that they make it happen. I truly believe that.”
Pewter, for all her concentration on food and luxury, was an intelligent animal.

“Yeah, I think they do that all the time and don't know it. They've got to give up the idea that they can control life. They've got to be more catlike.”

“Or horselike.”
Gin smiled wryly.

“They've got to eat some meat, Gin. I mean they're omnivores,”
Pewter replied.

“I'm not talking about food, I'm talking about attitude. Look at us. We have good food, a beautiful place to live, and someone to love and we love her. It's a perfect life. Even if we didn't have a barn to live in, it's a perfect life. I don't think horses were born with barns anyway. Harry needs to think more like a horse. Just go with the flow.”
Gin used an old term from his youth.

“Uh—yeah,”
Pewter agreed.

Harry may not have gone with the flow but she certainly followed her fox. Just as Mrs. Murphy predicted, the Tutweiler fox bolted straightaway. Two miles later he scurried under a culvert, hopped onto a zigzag fence to disappear, ready to run another day.

The hounds picked up a fading scent but that fox didn't run as well as the Tutweiler fox. He dove into his den. After three hours of glorious fun, the field turned for home.

Harry quickly cleaned up Tomahawk, turning him out with Poptart and Gin Fizz, who wanted to know how the other horses behaved on the hunt.

Her house overflowed with people, reminding her of her childhood, because her mother and father had loved to entertain. She figured most people came because of Mrs. Hogendobber's cooking. The driveway, lined with cars all the way down to the paved road, bore testimony to that. Many of the celebrants didn't hunt, but the tradition of hunt breakfast was, whoever was invited could come and eat whether they rode or not.

Bobby Minifee and Booty Weyman attended, knowing they would be welcome. The Minifees were night hunters so Bobby would pick a good hillock upon which to observe hounds. Night hunters did just that, hunted at night on foot. Usually they chased raccoons but most hunters enjoyed hunting, period, and Bobby and Booty loved to hear the hounds.

Sam Mahanes had parted company with his horse at a creek bed and didn't much like Bruce Buxton reminding him of that fact.

Big Mim Sanburne declared the fences were much higher when she was in her twenties and Little Mim, out of Mother's earshot, remarked, “Must have been 1890.”

Everyone praised Miranda Hogendobber, who filled the table with ham biscuits, corn bread, smoked turkey, venison in currant sauce, scrambled eggs, deviled eggs, pickled eggs, pumpernickel quite fresh, raw oysters, salad with arugula, blood oranges, mounds of almond cake, a roast loin of pork, cheese grits and regular grits, potato cakes with applesauce, cherry pie, apple pie, devil's food cake, and, as always, Mrs. Hogendobber's famous cinnamon buns with an orange glaze.

Cynthia Cooper, off this Saturday, ate herself into a stupor, as did Pewter, who couldn't move from the arm of the sofa.

Tussie Logan and Randy Sands milled about. Because they lived together people assumed they were lovers but they weren't. They didn't bother to deny the rumors. If they did it would only confirm what everyone thought. Out of the corner of her eye, Tussie observed Sam.

Tucker snagged every crumb that hit the floor. Mrs. Murphy, after four delicious oysters, reposed, satiated, in the kitchen window. Eyes half closed, she dozed off and on but missed little.

“Where's Fair today?” Bruce Buxton asked Harry.

“Conference in Leesburg at the Marion Dupont Scott Equine Medical Center. He hates to miss any cooking of Mrs. Hogendobber's and the Church of the Holy Light but duty called.”

“I think I would have been less dutiful.” Bruce laughed.

“Mrs. H.,” Susan Tucker called out. “You said you and the girls had practiced ‘John Peel.'”

“And so we have.” A flushed, happy Miranda held up her hands, the choir ladies gathered round, and she blew a note on the pitch pipe. They burst into song about a famous nineteenth-century English foxhunter, a song most kids learn in second grade. But the choir gave it a special resonance and soon the assemblage joined in on the chorus.