Pawing Through the Past (22 page)

“Did the voice sound familiar?” Rick put his hand on her knee.

“Yes, but . . . it was just a whisper. I didn’t recognize it, and yet, there was something familiar. Eerie.”

“Height?”

“Maybe five nine, ten, average, I guess.”

“Build?”

“Average.”

“And you couldn’t see the face?”

“Ski mask.” She reached for the water now. Susan handed it to her.

Rick stood back up, asked everyone where they were. In the parking lot, they all confirmed one another’s presence, except for Susan, who waited at the doors for Harry.

“Listen to me,” Rick commanded. “Say nothing of this. Harry, if you can’t speak normally for the next few days, put out that you have laryngitis. Let’s see if we can disturb our guy. He’s going to want to know what you’ve seen.”

“Okay.”

“Next thing. Keep someone with you at all times.”

“I wish they could listen. Dennis Rablan!”
Murphy meowed, knowing it was hopeless.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Murphy.” Harry reached for the cat. Pewter came over, too.

“You’re covered at work. Miranda is there,” Rick said.

“I’ll stay,” Fair gladly volunteered.

“Z’at all right with you?” Cynthia, sensitive to the situation, asked Harry.

“Yes.” Harry nodded.

“Do you think he was waiting in the stairwell for Harry?” Susan shuddered.

“I don’t know,” Rick grimly replied. “If he was up there throughout the dinner, he’d have seen who was leaving and who was staying. If he’d gone to the dinner and then come back, well, maybe he hoped his intended victim was still there.” He turned to Harry and then Fair: “This is a highly intelligent and bold individual. Take nothing for granted.” Rick was seething inside that he hadn’t posted a man upstairs. He assumed locking the doors would do the job.

The three animals looked at one another. They knew they’d be on round-the-clock duty, too.

47

Like most stubborn people, Harry failed to realize how shock would affect her. She thought she was fine. She was happy to go home but surprised that when she walked through the kitchen door a wave of exhaustion washed over her, adding to the throb caused by the headache. She wanted to talk to Fair but couldn’t keep her eyes open.

“Honey, you need to go to bed.” He lifted her out of the chair into which she’d slumped.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so tired. Maybe I should take more painkiller.”

“No. You’ve had enough.”

Too wiped out to protest, she meekly let him walk her into the bedroom and fell into bed.

“I’ll sleep by the kitchen door,”
Tucker declared.

“I’ll take the front door.”
Mrs. Murphy chose her spot.

“Well, I’ll sleep in the bedroom then. What if someone climbs through the window?”
Pewter dashed to the bedroom before the others could protest.

Tracy came home at midnight, whistling as he opened the kitchen door. Fair, stretched out on the sofa, swung his long legs to the floor.

“Fair?”

“Had a good night?”

“Wonderful. I feel like a kid again. I even kissed Miranda on her doorstep.” He smiled broadly, then considered Fair on the sofa. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“No.” Fair walked into the kitchen, reached under the cupboard by the door, pulled out a bottle of Talisker scotch, and poured them each a nightcap. They moved to the cheerful, if threadbare, living room, where Fair told Tracy everything he could remember from the evening.

A long, long silence followed as Tracy stared into the pale gold liquid in his glass. “We were fiddling while Rome burned, I guess. That son of a bitch was over our heads the whole time.”

“Harry could have been killed.” Fair put his glass down on the coffee table, first sliding a coaster under it. “And whoever it is may fear she recognized him through his voice or way of going.”

“Way of going?”

“Ah,” Fair explained, “a horse has a special movement and I or any good horseman, really, can identify her by her gait. A way of going. For instance, you have an athlete’s walk. I might be able to identify you even if you were in costume—or BoomBoom Craycroft, that sashay.”

“The sheriff’s command to act as though she has laryngitis is a good one for flushing him out but not so good for Harry. She knows she’s bait?”

“Of course. Rick will have plainclothes men around the post office. He’s got the house covered now. There’s only one drive in and out.”

“Somehow that’s not very reassuring.”

“No.” Fair picked up his glass again, holding it between both hands.

“Do you have any ideas about who, what, why?”

“No, well, not exactly. I told you Rick Shaw’s idea, that this is someone who was in love with Ron Brindell. Or at least is avenging him.”

Tracy emptied his glass, then leaned toward Fair. “You know what, Buddy? I’m sixty-eight years old and I don’t know a damn thing. Do people snap? Can anyone snap in a given situation? Are some weak and some strong? Are there really saints and sinners? Don’t know but I do know once a person loses their fear of their own death, once they no longer care about belonging to other people, they’ll do anything. Anything. My God, look at Rwanda. Sarajevo. Belfast. Kill children. Kill anything.”

“Presumably those killings are politically motivated.”

“Yeah, that’s another load, too. Some people just want to kill. Give them a reason so they can cover up their murderous selves. The church can give them a reason, the state. I’ve seen enough to know there are no good reasons.”

“I’m with you there.”

“Whoever this is no longer cares. He’s given up on people. He has nothing to lose. I also think he intended to finish off his list at the reunion and he’s been thwarted. He’s angry. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll make a mistake.”

Fair nodded in agreement. “The more I think about this reunion murderer, the more the finger points to Dennis Rablan.”

“There are three left.” Tracy held up three fingers.

“Two. Dennis Rablan and Bob Shoaf.”

“Three. Hank Bittner.”

“He said he wasn’t in the locker room.”

“He knows too much. Three. And there’s a strong possibility one of the three is the killer.”

“I’d hate to be one of those guys.” Fair’s deep voice dropped even lower.

Truer words were never spoken.

48

“Getting the flu?” Chris asked Harry sympathetically when she heard her voice on the phone that Sunday morning.

“Laryngitis,” Harry replied.

“You do sound scratchy. I called to apologize. I chickened out. I could have at least said good-bye.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. If I’d been in your shoes, I’d have melted my sneakers running—flat-out flying—out of there.”

“You’re not mad?”

“No.”

“Anybody know anything? I mean, any clues?”

“Not that I know of but then Sheriff Shaw wouldn’t tell me no matter what.”

“Yes, I guess. He has to be careful. Well, I hope you feel better. I’ll see you in the P.O. tomorrow.”

“You bet.” Harry hung up the tackroom phone.

She and Fair finished the barn chores and had decided to strip all the stalls to fill in the low spots and places where the horses had dug out.

“You need rubber mats or Equistall.” Fair rolled in a wheelbarrow of black sand mixed with loam.

“Equistall costs me four hundred and fifty dollars a stall.”

“It is expensive. Our alfalfa cube experiment was a big success.”

“So far. I’ve been able to cut back on my feed bill but everyone’s getting good nutrition. Maybe a little too much,” she laughed, as she indicated Tomahawk in the paddock.

“If he were a man that’d be a beer belly.” Fair shoveled the sand into the stall. “Tracy was up early this morning. At least their reunion is a smashing success. They’re meeting for breakfast in the cafeteria.”

“Chris sure wanted to know everything. Maybe I’m being suspicious. I guess it’s natural since she and Denny have been pretty close. Right now I—” A car motor diverted her attention.

“Who goes!”
Tucker barked, running out of the barn.

Pewter and Mrs. Murphy, sitting in the hayloft, saw BoomBoom’s Beemer roll down the dusty drive.

“Wonder what she wants?”
Mrs. Murphy said.

“Fair
,” Pewter sarcastically replied.

“We’ll soon find out.”
The tiger cat tiptoed to the edge of the hayloft. She stayed still as she peered down into the center aisle.

Once BoomBoom parked her car and got out, Pewter joined her.

“Harry!”
BoomBoom called out.

“In here
,” came the reply.

BoomBoom walked into the barn, saw Harry in the aisle, and then noticed Fair as he stepped out of the stall. Her expression changed slightly. “Oh, hello.”

“Hi,” he said.

“Has Bob Shoaf come by?”

“No. Why would he?” Harry said.

“I thought he might stop off to say good-bye before flying back up north. He always liked you.”

“BoomBoom, I don’t believe a word of this. What’s wrong?” Harry leaned her rake against the stall door.

Her voice shot up half an octave. “I wanted to say good-bye myself, really.”

“Why don’t I go inside or why don’t you two go inside? Maybe you can have this discussion without me.” Fair tossed a shovelful of the sand mix into a stall.

“Uh . . . yes.” BoomBoom backed out of the barn.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter climbed down backwards from the ladder to the hayloft. They followed the two women, who stopped at the BMW.

BoomBoom, voice lowered, said, “He left without saying anything. I thought if he was still around I’d find out what was the matter.”

“He’s a jock, Boom. He’s used to being fawned over and getting what he wants. As long as he didn’t leave money on your dresser, I wouldn’t worry.” Harry immediately guessed what really happened.

BoomBoom’s face flushed. “Harry, you have the most off-putting way of speaking sometimes.” She reached in her skirt pocket. “He left this, though.” A heavy, expensive Rolex gold watch gleamed in her hand.

“That costs as much as my new truck.”

“Yes, I think it does. I really ought to return the watch but I can’t send it to his house, now, can I?”

“Ah. . . . ?” Harry had forgotten about Bob’s perfect wife and two perfect children. She took the watch from BoomBoom’s palm. Nine-fifteen. She checked the old Hamilton she wore, her father’s watch. Nine-fifteen.

“One other thing, I ought to check the school. I know you and Susan cleaned up last night but I am the Chair, and I should double-check everything.”

“Well, go on.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Great. Why come to me?”

“Because Susan is at church with Ned and the kids and because—you’re not afraid of much.”

Within ten minutes Harry, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, BoomBoom, and Fair reached Crozet High.

The front main entrance was open because of the class of 1950’s breakfast, the last scheduled event. The first place they checked was the gym, which was locked. BoomBoom had a set of keys. She unlocked the door. They looked around quickly. Everything was fine.

“I’m going back upstairs,”
Tucker said.
“Maybe I missed something in the dark.”

“I can see in the dark. I didn’t see anything,”
Pewter said.

“There was a lot going on.”
Tucker headed up the stairs.

Pewter followed. Mrs. Murphy stayed with Harry as the humans checked the hallways and garbage cans.

“You all cleaned up everything. I don’t have anything to do,” BoomBoom said gratefully.

“Murphy!”
Pewter howled from the top of the stairs.

Murphy hurried up the stairs, met Pewter and raced with her as she flew over the polished floor to the classroom next to the back stairwell.

Tucker sat in the classroom. The window was open. The blinds, pulled all the way to the top, had the white cord, beige with age, hanging out the window. That wasn’t all that was hanging out the window.

Mrs. Murphy jumped to the windowsill. Bob Shoaf, tongue almost touching his breastbone, hung at the end of the venetian blind cord.

“Should I get Mom?”
Pewter asked.

“Not yet.”
Mrs. Murphy coolly surveyed the situation.
“The humans will track up everything. Let’s investigate first.”
She asked the dog,
“Anything?”

“English Leather fading—and Dennis’s scent.”

Pewter jumped up next to Mrs. Murphy.
“His face is—I can’t describe the color.”

“Don’t worry about him.”
Murphy noted that the end classroom jutted out by the stairwell. The windows in a row could be seen from the road out front but the back window, set at a right angle to the others, was hidden from view. Bob probably wouldn’t have been found until sometime Monday if they hadn’t come upstairs. The frost preserved the body but even without a frost the humans wouldn’t have smelled him for twenty-four to forty-eight hours, depending on the warmth of the day. She also noticed that rigor had set in. Nothing lay on the ground below.

The three animals prowled around the classroom. They walked the windowsills, checked under desks, sniffed and poked. Then they split up. Mrs. Murphy walked to the far stairwell. Tucker and Pewter checked the stairwell closest to the classroom.

They met in the downstairs hallway. No one had found anything unusual.

“Do you think the killer would have done this to Mom?”
Tucker asked.

“No. But I think he would have killed her if she’d gotten too close. I know he would. But he wasn’t hanging when she was attacked. Whoever did this in the wee hours of the morning hauled him back here. That’s a lot of work.”
Mrs. Murphy spied the humans coming out of the cafeteria, each one eating a muffin from the class of 1950’s breakfast.

“They’ll wish they hadn’t eaten,”
Pewter sighed.

“Well, let’s get them upstairs.”
Tucker thought she’d pull on Fair’s pants leg.

“BoomBoom is going to have a terrible time explaining that watch.”
Murphy headed toward the group.