Santa Clawed (5 page)

T
uesday, December 16. A light snow covered the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but only a few swirling flakes traveled to the valley below. Still, those glistening rounded mountains, once the largest peaks in the world, looked perfect when the sun came out.

Susan drove Harry and herself in her Audi station wagon, a purchase she had never regretted. In the backseat, along with Christmas packages and a large fuzzy rug, sat Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, Pewter, and Owen, Susan’s corgi and full brother to Tucker. When Susan’s kids, now in college, reached the stage where she became a taxi, her corgi breeding fell by the wayside. She hoped to pick it back up, since it fascinated her.

“If I hear one more Christmas carol, I’m going to scream,” Susan grumbled.

“Scream what?” Harry loved to tease Susan.

“How about, ‘Jesus was born in March, why are we celebrating in December?’ That ought to get their knickers in a knot.”

“You know why as well as I do. We sat through six years of Latin. Too bad we didn’t go to the same college. I kept on and you didn’t.”

Harry referred to the fact that the Roman winter-solstice festival, Saturnalia, was so popular the Christians couldn’t dislodge it. Since they lacked a winter festival, they fudged on Jesus’s birth, killing two birds with one stone.

“Ah, yes, Latin. I switched to French so I could order French food cooked by American chefs who pretend to know what they’re doing.” She braked as a Kia pulled out in front of her, the young man behind the wheel yakking away on a cell phone so tiny it was a wonder he could find it much less press in phone numbers.

“Ever notice that the people who take the most chances in the world are always in cheap cars?”

“No.” Susan switched back to French cooking. “Actually there are some extraordinary French chefs now. I mean Americans who can cook.”

“All men. If a man cooks, he’s a chef. If a woman cooks, she’s a cook.”

“Harry, you’re being ever so slightly argumentative.”

“Me?” Harry responded with mock surprise.

“You, lovie.”

Harry stared out the window at the jam-packed lot to Barracks Road Shopping Center. “Can’t get Christopher out of my mind. Such a waste for him to die.”

“When you called me, I couldn’t believe it. We’d just been talking about him.” Susan sighed as she began the hunt for a parking space. “Obviously no one has come forward to lay claim to the deed.”

Harry smirked slightly. “Coop’s keeping something from me. I can always tell.”

“Harry, she can’t tell you everything.”

Harry shifted in her seat. “I know, but it drives me crazy.”

“Not a far putt,” Susan, a good golfer, teased her.

“She did tell me one thing this morning when I talked to her. Christopher had an obol under his tongue.”

Susan, after the years of high school Latin and hearing about the myths, knew what that meant. “Aha. My parking karma is working.” She slid into the space, popped the car in park, cut the motor. They sat still for a minute. “An obol for the ferryman. Some kind of symbolism, apparently.”

“It’s just so odd, but at least we have an educated killer.”

“It is odd.”

Harry shook her head. “He’s fired up my curiosity.”

“God help us,”
Pewter piped up.

“She gets these notions and we have to bail her out,”
Mrs. Murphy agreed.

“Then she gets my mother in trouble,”
Owen said.

“Look at it this way. No one is bored.”
Tucker had long ago resigned herself to Harry’s curiosity.

“You all stay here.” Harry had visions of returning to the Audi to find the interior shredded.

“I want to go with you,”
Tucker whined.

“Brownnoser,”
Pewter said with disdain.

“Oh, shut up, fatty.”

The gray cat, giving her best Cheshire cat smile, purred maliciously.
“Hey, I’m not the one with my nose in the litter box, eating cat poop.”

“That’s low.”
Owen blinked.

“Low, but true.”
Pewter, satisfied with the turn of conversation, snuggled farther down in the rug next to Mrs. Murphy.

“Pay her no mind, Tucker. Cats stick together.”
Owen leaned next to Tucker, who hoped she’d find a way to get even with Pewter.

Susan and Harry walked into the elegant framing shop called Buchanan and Kiguel.

Shirley Franklin, the good-looking and artistic lady behind the counter, peered over the customers’ heads and called out, “How are you? Good to see you.”

“Surviving the helladays,” Harry quipped.

People laughed. Shirley was handing out wrapped custom-framed jobs. The finished work was lined up in special bins so it wouldn’t fall over.

“The obol.” Susan had noticed a pretty print of Aphrodite.

“Pagan.”

“I know that, you twit,” Harry said softly.

“Maybe it means Brother Christopher was a fake.”

Harry’s expression changed as she turned to look Susan full in the face. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

“Or it’s all about money. His scandal was about money.” Susan’s curiosity now ran as high as Harry’s.

“Or both.”

Back at the sheriff’s headquarters, Cooper was glued to the computer screen, happy not to be on patrol today. The long night without much sleep had worn her down. A law-enforcement officer can’t afford to miss things or be physically slowed down. Too much can happen, and it always happens fast.

Rick had given a statement to the media that morning. The phones sounded like a beehive, one buzz after the other.

He walked over and leaned over her shoulder. “They’re coming out of the woodwork, these media wonders.” The side of his mouth curled up slightly. “Didn’t tell them about the obol.”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that. Don’t even know where to look. I did tell Harry.”

“She know any more than Dr. Gibson?” Rick inquired.

“No, but she said she’d review her old college texts.”

“Least that keeps her out of our way.”

“You think this murder has anything to do with Christmas?”

“Who knows? I’d like a little hard evidence. Check the airlines into Charlottesville to see if any passengers came in from Phoenix, Arizona.”

“Will do.”

“Grasping at straws,” he acknowledged. “But sometimes a loose, wide net does catch some fish.”

T
he Queen of Crozet, elegant even in her barn clothes, watched as Fair took X-rays of her filly’s right cannon bone.

Big Mim Sanburne adjusted her red cashmere scarf around her neck, wiggled her fingers in her cashmere-lined gloves. “Adolescence.”

Although small, Big Mim was so called because her daughter was Little Mim.

Paul de Silva, Big Mim’s trainer, looked on as Fair set up the plates and positioned the portable machine.

“She’s a naughty girl.” Fair stepped back, as did the other two, and he pressed the button on the long cord of the X-ray machine.

Fair wore lead-lined gloves. Any medical person, whether dental, vet, or human, needed to be prudent concerning X-ray equipment. No need to wind up glowing in the dark.

Paul crossed his arms over his chest. “Least we know she can jump.”

Big Mim found his light Spanish accent pleasing. The cadence, more singsong than English, enlivened his sentences. Then, too, he was a handsome young man, with jet-black hair, thin sideburns longer than most, and a tiny tuft of black hair under his lower lip. He was engaged to Mim’s architect, Tazio Chappars. Big Mim took credit for getting them together. There was just enough truth in this so no one argued with her.

No one argued with her anyway, except for her late mother’s sister, Aunt Tally, and her daughter, Little Mim. Little Mim’s disagreements proved less vocal than the soon-to-be centenarian.

“Okay, last one.” Fair positioned the machine again.

Mim looked outside the closed barn doors, which had big windows that allowed in a lot of light, as did the continuous skylight running on both sides of the roof seam. “Coming down now.”

“Sure is.” Fair clicked the photo. “We need the snow.”

“Not much last winter,” Paul agreed.

“There are so many people drawing off the water table now in Albemarle County that we’re all going to be in trouble in a decade or even less.” Big Mim and her husband, the mayor of Crozet, were particularly concerned about the environment.

“All over. The human animal will suck this planet dry.” Fair carefully put the plates in a special pouch. “Mim, I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s popped a splint. I’ll know more after I examine the X-rays, of course, but chances are it needs to reattach. She’ll have a bit of jewelry there, so that’s the end of strip classes.”

Bone splints are not uncommon in horses. Usually the fragment does grow back to the main bone. Occasionally it doesn’t, which causes the animal pain and then the vet has to surgically remove it. Like any surgery, it runs up the bills, and the recovery time bores the bejesus out of the horse, especially one as young and full of herself as Maggie, her barn name.

“Oh, well.” Big Mim waved her hand. “I can live without strip classes. I leave those to Kenny Wheeler.”

A strip class is a conformation class wherein the animal is stripped of tack. The judge bases his ribbons on the makeup of the animal, not performance. It’s a beauty pageant. Kenny Wheeler, a famous horseman, won those classes all over the United States.

“He’s got some good ones.” Paul appreciated Mr. Wheeler’s acumen.

“He has more money than God.” Big Mim laughed.

“So do you,” Fair teased her.

Most people were afraid of Big Mim and would never tease her, but Fair, knowing her since childhood, could get away with it. The fact that he was incredibly handsome helped.

“Maybe St. Peter. Not God.” She laughed at herself, then told Paul, “How about putting her back in her stall? Let’s not turn her out until we get the full report.”

“Yes, madam.” He touched his lad’s cap and walked the bright filly back to her stall.

Fair carried the X-ray equipment and plates out to his truck. Like most vets, this was his mobile office. People had no idea how expensive it was for an equine vet to be properly equipped. The special truck cover alone cost $17,000.

Fair returned to Big Mim’s large office. “Sit down.” Big Mim motioned for Fair to sit by the fireplace.

The granary-oak floor shone. The sofa and chairs, covered in a dark tartan plaid, added color. A gorgeous painting, a hunt scene by Michael Lyne, hung over the fireplace. The walls, covered in framed photographs, bore testimony to Big Mim’s successes in the show ring and the hunt field. She also had a photograph of Mary Pat Reines jumping over a fence in perfect, perfect form. Ever since she was young, this photo had prodded her on. She’d look at it and vow to ride more elegantly. Mary Pat had been Alicia Palmer’s protector and lover when Alicia was in her twenties. Big Mim had never realized how a fierce rival pushes one to excellence until Mary Pat passed away. She missed her socially and truly missed her in the show ring. In some ways, the world had come full circle. Big Mim struck terror in the hearts of younger competitors because she was as elegant over fences as Mary Pat had been. And Alicia had come home from Hollywood once again to be part of the community.

“Fire feels good. Nothing quite like it, the hardwood odor, the flickering glow.” Fair gratefully sank into the deep chair.

“In the old days, a small wood-burning stove would often be put in the tackroom. Not the safest solution. I remember the barn rats—what my father called ‘the grooms’—huddled around the potbellied stove. There they’d be, wiping down the tack, breaking apart the bridles. In those days the bits were sewn into the bridles. Looks better than how it is today.” She paused a moment, then smiled. “The vice of the old, recalling the golden years that correspond to one’s youth.”

“Your golden years never stopped.” Fair complimented her, and in truth, Big Mim looked marvelous for a woman in her seventies.

“Now, now,” she chided, but loved it. “Drink?”

“You know what, I’m going to fix myself a cup of tea. You stay seated.”

“Then I’m not much of a hostess.” She watched as he rose to go to the small kitchen area.

“You’re the best hostess in the county and the best fund-raiser, too.”

“The second-oldest profession.” She put her feet up on a hassock after removing her paddock boots, which were slip-ons.

Fair turned on a faucet specially designed to produce water just a hair under boiling. “I keep meaning to ask you where you got this and then I forget.”

“The boiling-water tap?”

“Yes.”

“Most plumbing supplies have them.”

“Think I’ll get one for Harry for Christmas. No, I’ll get two. One for the house and one for the barn.”

“She’ll like that.”

“Got her a necklace to match the ring I bought her when we were in Shelbyville.”

“She’ll like that, too. Harry is a very good-looking woman. It just takes a miracle to get her out of her jeans and into a dress.”

“Actually, Big Mim, I like getting her out of her jeans.”

They both laughed.

“I would imagine her Christmas spirit and yours are somewhat dimmed by what you saw. Rick called me, of course.”

The sheriff knew to keep Big Mim in the pipeline. There would be hell to pay if he didn’t; plus, her connections had helped him many a time. Big Mim knew everyone, and she had many, many favors she could call in.

Fair sipped his tea, a bracing Darjeeling. “No one likes coming upon a dead body. It upset Harry because she’d just talked to him that afternoon. She said he was committed to the order, to doing good in life.”

“I expect most of the brothers are making up for some perceived or real sins. And some people are cut out for the contemplative life.”

“I’m not one of them.”

“Obviously not.” She smiled.

“If Rick talked to you, then you know whoever slit his throat did so with skill and speed.”

“Yes.” She paused. “And Christopher gave no alarm.”

“No.”

“Strange. And no footprints in the snow?”

“The snow was mashed down,” he replied.

“If the killer is smart, and I reckon he is, he could have walked backward in his footsteps until it was safe to turn around.”

“Never thought of that.” Fair paused a moment. “Harry thinks there will be more killings.” He half-smiled. “You know Harry.”

“Let’s hope she’s wrong, but the fact that this had to be well thought-out and fairly quickly executed—at the back of the tree farm, which was open to the public—suggests a killer with a good mind. You know what I mean: a smart person, however misshapen his moral code, with perhaps an assistant.”

“Ah. Never thought about an assistant.”

“The work would go more quickly.” She stopped herself, then continued, “What I don’t understand is why someone didn’t hear them.”

“The element of surprise, perhaps? Then again, what if he knew his killer? Sure would simplify the process.”

“Yes.” She folded her hands together.

“And the Christmas tree farm, like any business, has peak hours of activity. In this case, people would come in the largest numbers after work. Brother Sheldon was up front. He’d occupy them.”

“Think Brother Sheldon was in on it?”

“No. He did seem genuinely distraught, and he passed out. I’ve never passed out. Must be a strange feeling.”

“I did once, in Venice of all places. Felt a little weak and woozy. Next thing I remember is waking up with Big Jim picking me up and people speaking in Italian so fast I couldn’t understand a word. It could be, just to play devil’s advocate,” she switched back to the primary subject, “that Brother Sheldon was acting or that he hadn’t anticipated how the sight would affect him.”

“The passing out was genuine. I really don’t think he was part of the murder. Of course, Harry and I were there in the dark. We probably missed things. There was no sign of struggle, but there was blood all around the tree. I know I missed a lot.”

“Anyone other than a law-enforcement officer would. And even they miss things sometimes.”

“Funny thing, though. Harry says she doesn’t want a tree now. I expect she’ll change her mind. She’ll see trees everywhere, so maybe the emotion will pass.”

“I didn’t know Christopher Hewitt. I knew him as a child. After all, everyone sees everyone else, and he was close in age to Little Mim and you all, but I didn’t know him. He wasn’t part of your crowd. I knew what everyone else knew: the insider-trading scandal. He seemed mild enough. But then, perhaps successful criminals always do—the kind that steal millions, I mean.”

“White-collar crime is so different from what I think of as lower forms of crime: assault and battery, murder, petty theft. Those crimes, I think, are committed by people with poor impulse control. Low normals, really.” He used the expression for low-normal intelligence. “White-collar crimes demand intelligence, a bland exterior for the most part, and vigilance. Constant vigilance to cover your tracks.” He thought a moment. “I suppose premeditated murder and large-scale robbery demand intelligence.”

“Murder is easier to accomplish and remain undetected than television crime dramas acknowledge. Why do you think there’s so much publicity when a murder is solved?”

Fair finished his tea. “Also fuels the illusion that you can’t get away with murder, when you can.”

“I wonder if the killer is reveling in the publicity. The greatest luxury in life is privacy.”

“That it is.” He smiled. “Another luxury is having your wife listen to you even if she’s a trifle bored.”

She smiled. “I doubt she finds you boring. But you know how she, um, becomes obsessed. If ever there was a person who shouldn’t have seen the remains of Christopher Hewitt, that person is Harry.”

As Big Mim and Fair chatted, Dr. Bryson Deeds was having lunch at Farmington Country Club with his lawyer and college friend, Bill Keelo, a man as high-powered in his way as Bryson was in his.

Seated at the next table was a group of eight who’d finished a game of platform tennis, which was played outside on a raised platform in a cage. They sweated so much the snow didn’t bother them, but it finally got so slippery everyone had to stop. Each court hosted a foursome, mixed doubles. The exhilarating exercise put everyone in high spirits, as did the holidays. Anthony McKnight, president of a small but quite successful local bank, and Arnold Skaar, a retired stockbroker, were part of the group. Both men knew and had business relations with Bryson and Bill. Arnie was in everyone’s good book because he still made them money during recessions, both mild and deep.

Bryson stabbed his salmon. “Spoke to Brother Morris this morning.”

“Me, too. He’s distraught.” Bill noticed as Donald Hormisdas, another lawyer, passed their table and waved.

“Faggot,” Bill hissed.

Bryson ignored the slur on Donald, as he’d heard it so many times from Bill. “Apart from the emotional loss, Brother Morris is upset because Brother Christopher had such a good business mind.”

“He certainly was persuasive. I’d worked as their lawyer for years at a reduced fee, and Christopher convinced me to do their work for free.”

Bryson smiled slightly at Bill. “He could talk a dog off a meat wagon.”

Aunt Tally entered the room, accompanied by her great-niece, Little Mim. As Tally passed each table, the gentlemen rose to greet her. For one thing, this displayed superb manners, something a fellow should consider if he wished to seduce a lady. Women noticed such things, just as most women could recall to the slightest detail what she wore the first time she met a man and what he wore last week to the basketball game. For another thing, Aunt Tally walked with a silver-headed cane. The silver head was in the graceful shape of a hound. If you didn’t stand up and say something mildly fawning, Aunt Tally would whack you. Worse, she’d tell everyone you had the manners of a warthog. You were cooked.