Rest In Pieces (10 page)

16

The Harvest Fair committee, under the command of Miranda Hogendobber, met hastily to discuss their plans for the fair and the ball that immediately followed it. The glorious events of the Harvest Fair and Ball, crammed into Halloween day and night, were eagerly awaited by young and old. Everybody went to the Harvest Fair. The children competed for having the best costume and scariest costume, as well as in bobbing for apples, running races in costume, and other events that unfolded over the early evening hours. The advantage of this was that it kept the children off the streets, sparing everyone the trick-or-treat candy syndrome that caused adults to eat as much as the kids did. The children, gorged on good food as well as their treats, fell asleep at the Harvest Ball while the adults danced. There were as many sleeping bags as pumpkins.

The crisis confronting Mrs. Hogendobber, Taxi Hall, and their charges involved Harry Haristeen and Susan Tucker. Oh, not that the two had done anything wrong, but each year they appeared as Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, Harry being the Horseman. Harry’s Tomahawk was seal-brown but looked black at night, and his nostrils were always painted red. He was a fearsome sight. Harry struggled every year to see through the slits in her cape once the pumpkin head was hurled at the fleeing Ichabod. One year she lost her bearings and fell off, to the amusement of everyone but herself, although she did laugh about it later.

What could they do? This cherished tradition, ongoing in Crozet since Washington Irving first published his immortal tale, seemed in questionable taste this year. After all, a headless body had just been found.

After an agonizing debate the committee of worthies decided to cancel Ichabod Crane. As the ball was in a few days, they hadn’t time to create another show. The librarian suggested she could find a story which could be read to the children. It wasn’t perfect but it was something.

On her way to the post office, Miranda’s steps dragged slower and slower. She reached the door. She stood there for a moment. She breathed deeply. She opened the front door.

“Harry!” she boomed.

“I’m right in front of you. You don’t have to yell.”

“So you are. I don’t want to tell you this but the Harvest Ball committee has decided, wisely I think, to cancel the Headless Horseman reenactment.”

Harry, obviously disappointed, saw the logic of it. “Don’t feel bad, Mrs. H. We’ll get back to it next year.”

A sigh of relief escaped Miranda’s red lips. “I’m so glad you see the point.”

“I do and thank you for telling me. Would you like me to tell Susan?”

“No, I’ll get over there. It’s my responsibility.”

As she left, Harry watched the squared shoulders, the straight back. Miranda could be a pain—couldn’t we all—but she always knew the right thing to do and the manner in which to do it. Harry admired that.

17

Fitz-Gilbert could have used a secretary to make himself look like a functioning lawyer—which he wasn’t.

It doesn’t do for a man not to go to work, even a very wealthy man, so his office was mostly for show although it had developed into a welcome retreat from his mother-in-law and, occasionally, his wife.

He hadn’t been to the office since the torso appeared in Mim’s boathouse, two days ago.

He opened the door and beheld chaos. His chairs were overturned; papers were scattered everywhere; his file cabinet drawers sat askew.

He picked up the phone and dialed Sheriff Shaw.

18

Finding the remains of a human body, while unpleasant, wasn’t rare. Every year in the state of Virginia hunters stumble across bodies picked clean by birds and scavengers, a few tatters of clothing left clinging to the bones. Occasionally the deceased has been killed by mistake by other hunters; other times an elderly person who suffered from disease or loss of memory simply wandered off in winter and died from exposure. Then, too, there were those tortured souls who walked into the woods to end it all. Murder, however, was not that common.

In the case of this cut-up corpse, Rick Shaw figured it had to be murder. The life of a county sheriff is usually clogged with serving subpoenas, testifying in poaching cases and land disputes, chasing speeders, and hauling drunks into the pokey. Murder added excitement. Not that he thought of it that way, exactly, but as he sat at his cluttered desk his mind moved faster; he concentrated fiercely. It took an unjust death to give him life.

“All right, Cooper.” He wheeled around in his chair, pushing with the balls of his feet. “Give.”

“Give what?”

“You know what.” He stretched out his hand.

Irritated, Cynthia opened her long desk drawer, retrieved a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes, and smacked them in his hand. “You could at least smoke filtered cigarettes.”

“Then I’d smoke two packs a day instead of one. What’s the difference? And don’t think I don’t know that you’re sneaking some.”

When it was put that way, Cooper couldn’t think of a difference. The surface of her desk shone, the grain of the old oak lending solidity to the piece. Papers, neatly stacked in piles, paperweights on top, provided a contrast to Rick’s desk. Their minds contrasted too. She was logical, organized, and reserved. Rick was intuitive, disorganized, and as direct as he could be in his position. She liked the politics of the job. He didn’t. As he was a good twenty years older than she, he’d remain sheriff and she’d be deputy. In time, barring accident, Cynthia Cooper could look forward to being the first woman sheriff of Albemarle County. Rick never thought of himself as a feminist. He hadn’t wanted her in the first place but as the years rolled by her performance won him over. After a while he forgot she was a woman or maybe it didn’t matter. He saw her as his right hand, and turning the department over to her someday was as it should be, not that he was ready to retire. He was too young for that.

The cigarette calmed him. The phones jangled. The small office enjoyed a secretary and a few part-time deputies. The department needed to expand but so far the county officials had passed no funds for that to their overworked sheriff.

One reporter from the local paper had showed up yesterday, and Rick had refused to dwell on the grisly details of the case. His low-key comments had satisfied the reporter for the moment, but Rick knew he’d be back. Rick and Coop hoped they’d have enough answers to forestall a panic or a squadron of reporters showing up from other papers, not to mention the TV.

“You’ve got a feeling about this case, boss?”

“The obvious. Destroying the identity of the corpse was paramount in the killer’s mind. No fingerprints. No clothes on the torso. No head. Whoever this poor guy was, he knew too much. And we’d know too much if we knew who he was.”

“I can’t figure out why the killer would take the trouble to divide up the body. Lot of work. Then he or she would have to bag it so it wouldn’t bleed all over everything, and
then
drive the parts around to dump them.”

“Could be an undertaker, or someone with mortuary experience. Could have drained the body and then chopped it.”

“Or a doctor,” Cynthia added.

“Even a vet.”

“Not Fair Haristeen. Poor guy, he was a suspect for a bit in Kelly Craycroft’s murder.”

“Well, he did wind up with BoomBoom, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, poor sod.” Cynthia burst out laughing.

Rick laughed too. “That woman, she’s like to run him crazy. Pretty though.”

“Men always say that.” Cynthia smiled.

“Well, I don’t see how you women can swoon over Mel Gibson. What’s so special about him?” Rick stubbed out his cigarette.

“If you knew, you and I would have a lot more to talk about,” Cynthia cracked.

“Very funny.” He reached in the pack to pull out another coffin nail.

“Come on, you just finished one!”

“Did I?” He picked up the ashtray and counted the butts. “Guess I did. This one’s still smoking.” He crushed it again.

“You’re suffering one of your hunches. I know it. Come on, tell.”

He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. He felt a little foolish when he had these hunches because he couldn’t explain or defend them. Men are taught to back up what they say. He couldn’t do that in this case but over time he had learned not to dismiss odd sensations or strange ideas. Often they led him to valuable evidence, valuable insights.

“Come on, boss. I can tell when you’re catching the scent,” Cynthia prodded.

He folded his hands on his desk. “Just this. Dividing up a body makes sense. That doesn’t throw me. The hard rains worked against our killer. That and little Tucker. But really, the odds were that those legs and hands would never have been found. It’s the boathouse that doesn’t compute.”

“He could have tossed the torso in the lake and, when it came up, gaffed it or something and dragged it into the boathouse.” Cynthia stopped to think. “But everyone would have seen this person, male or female, unless it was the dead of night, and you can’t schedule the appearance of waterlogged bodies, now can you?”

“Nope. That’s why it doesn’t compute. That piece of meat was
put
in the boathouse. No other explanation.”

“Well, if the killer knows the community he would know or see Mim’s pontoon boat at the dock. Nobody goes into the boathouse much unless she has one of her naval sorties planned. It’s as good a place to hide a body as any other.”

“Is it?”

They stared at each other. Then Cynthia spoke. “You think that head’s going to show up?”

“I kinda hope it does and I kinda hope it doesn’t.” He couldn’t fight temptation. He grabbed another cigarette but delayed lighting it. “See if there’s a record for Blair Bainbridge in New York.”

“Okay. Anyone else?”

“We know everyone else. Or we think we do.”

19

The light frost crunched underfoot even though Mrs. Murphy trod lightly. The rain had finally stopped last night and she had risen early to hunt field mice. Tucker, flopped on her side on Harry’s bed, was still sound asleep.

Although the cat’s undercoat was thickening, the stiff wind sent a chill throughout her body. Another month and her coat would be more prepared for the cold. The prospect of running top speed after a rabbit or a mouse thrilled Mrs. Murphy, so what was a little cold? The mice ducked into their holes, which ended the chase, but the rabbits often ran across meadows and through woods. Occasionally she caught a rabbit, but more often a mouse. She’d come alongside and reach over to grab it at the base of the neck if she could. If not she’d bump and roll it. Mrs. Murphy dispatched her conquests rapidly; not for her the torture of batting her prey around until it was torn up and punch-drunk. A swift broken neck ended the business in a split second. Usually she brought the quarry back to Harry.

The frost held the scent. Even so it wasn’t a good day for hunting. She growled once when she smelled a red vixen. Mrs. Murphy and fox competed for the same food, so the cat resented her rival. She also hotly resented that a fox had gotten into the henhouse years ago when she was a kitten and had killed every hen on the property. Feathers fluttered like snowflakes and the images of the pathetic bodies of ten hens and one rooster stayed in her mind. She couldn’t have warned off the predator anyway, because of her youth, but Harry’s dismay at the sight unnerved Mrs. Murphy. After that, Harry no longer kept chickens, which was a pity because, as a kitten, Mrs. Murphy had loved to flatten herself in the grass and watch the yellow chicks peep and run all over the place.

If Tucker wouldn’t be so fussy, Harry could get a big dog, a dog that would live outside, to chase off foxes and those pesky raccoons. A puppy with big paws from the SPCA would grow up to fill the bill. The mere mention of it would send Tucker into a hissy fit.

“Would you tolerate another cat, I ask you?”
Tucker would shriek.

“If we had a surplus of mice I guess I’d have to,”
Mrs. Murphy would usually reply.

Tucker declared that she could handle a fox. This was a patent lie. She could not. If a fox went to ground she might be able to dig it out but then what would she do with it? Tucker wasn’t a good killer. Corgis were brave dogs—Mrs. Murphy had seen ample proof of that—but Tucker, at least, wasn’t the hunter type. Corgis, bred to herd cattle, were low to the ground so that when a cow kicked, the small dog could easily duck the blow. Tough, resilient, and accustomed to animals much bigger than themselves, corgis could work with just about any large domesticated animal. But hunting wasn’t in their blood, so Mrs. Murphy usually hunted alone.

A meow, deep and mellow in the distance, attracted Mrs. Murphy’s attention. She tensed, and then relaxed when the splendidly handsome figure of her ex-husband slipped out of the woods. Paddy, as always, wore his black tuxedo; his white shirtfront was immaculate but the white spats were dirty. His gorgeous eyes glittered and he bounded up with unbridled enthusiasm to see his ex.

“Hunting, Sugar? Let’s do it together.”

“Thanks, Paddy. I’m better at it alone.”

He sat down and flicked his tail.
“That’s what you always say. You know, Murph, you won’t be young and beautiful forever.”