The Purrfect Murder (21 page)

29

S
aturday, October 4, was glorious with sunshine and radiated with the first flush of color, which would peak in about a week. Oaks blushed orange, yellow, russet; maples screamed scarlet. Zinnias stood huge and colorful. Willows bent over in yellow.

Herb called an emergency vestry-board meeting. The spectacular weather provoked him to keep a tight rein on it, because he wanted to be outside himself.

At eight in the morning, Harry, Susan, Folly, BoomBoom, and Nolan Carter showed up, so Herb had his quorum. Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker also attended, but the exhaustive discussion of the furnace choices drove the animals down the hall, the thick carpet pleasing underfoot.

Elocution demonstrated how to hit the wall with four feet and do a flip. Cazenovia and Lucy Fur also performed this acrobatic feat, and Mrs. Murphy got the hang of it. Pewter observed but declined the opportunity.

“Come on, Pewts, it's fun.”
Mrs. Murphy hit the wall again, four clear pawprints on the light-beige paint.

Pawprints covered both sides of the hallway wall, because the three Lutheran cats practiced their skills daily. Herb pretended not to see all the marks, because then he'd have to kneel down to clean them. He could bend down just fine. It was the getting up that ached.

“Nolan, oil's your business. I would expect you to vote for the oil furnace as opposed to a heat pump,” Herb genially teased him, although all were preoccupied with recent events.

Nolan, whose waist was expanding but not yet fat, stroked a neat Vandyke, which looked good on him. “Tell you what, there are two sides to this issue. The first is always what is cost-effective over the long run. The second is what provides the most efficient heat.” He laid his palm flat on the big report that Tazio had prepared before the Poplar Forest fund-raiser horror. “A heat pump works great until it becomes bitter cold, down in the teens. Then your electric bill skyrockets and, for whatever reason, the heat is insufficient.”

BoomBoom interjected, “Plus you feel the air from the vents. It's below body temperature, so it always feels cold.”

“Yes, it does.” He nodded. “However, how many days does the temperature sink like that?” He held up his hands, questioning. “A total of three weeks in the winter. Granted, you might not be as comfortable as you'd like during those three weeks, but you have fireplaces and that helps.”

“Smells great, too.” Harry used her fireplaces throughout the cold, plus she had a wood-burning stove in the basement, which worked wonders in keeping costs down. She kept the door to the basement open; the big stove was equipped with a blower, and the warm air curled up the stairs and throughout the house. She kept her thermostat at sixty-seven degrees, but the old frame house remained toasty.

Depend on Harry to find the least expensive way to do something without compromising value.

“What about oil prices?” Susan asked the obvious, pressing question.

“They're going to stay erratic, and it's not just the Middle East.” Nolan leaned back on the big sofa. “As long as Nigeria is unstable and they blow up oil fields, it'll cost us. That's a high-grade oil, some of the best in the world. The short answer is: beware.”

“Puts you in a spot,” Folly said.

“Folly”—he turned to her—“it's more than a spot. I have elderly people on fixed incomes. They won't be able to pay their heating bills. If I don't deliver, they'll freeze. What do I do? Hurt myself or be a good Samaritan? And it's going to get worse.”

“You are a good Samaritan, Nolan,” Herb praised him.

“I think, at this time, go with the heat pump. The system she's selected here should be good for at least thirty years. By that time there has to be better technology available.”

“Nolan, why couldn't we put in the oil furnace and burn ethanol?” BoomBoom liked technical problems.

“No, no.” He shook his head. “I know that's hyped as the answer. Someone touts a new technology as the answer and then it isn't. We've got real problems, and I don't see any shortcuts, despite what the press tells you. Get the heat pump.”

Herb scanned the gathered. “What do you think? Shall we vote on it?”

“I move we vote to buy the heat-pump system selected by Tazio,” Harry said.

“I second the motion.” BoomBoom knew her
Robert's Rules of Order.

“All in favor signify by raising your right hand and saying, ‘Aye.'” Herb knew them, too. “The ayes have it.” He chuckled because it was unanimous. “Now for the next question. Do we just do here or do we replace the church system, as well?”

A silence followed this. No one wished to scoot the budget into the red, but all realized if they put it off it would cost more later, possibly as much as twenty-five percent more.

Folly had been quieter than usual, but she did smile warmly at Harry, who was glad that she, herself, didn't carry heavy secrets.

While this discussion unfolded, the cats and corgi played soccer with a canvas frog jammed full with aromatic catnip.

When Pewter got the frog, she inhaled deeply, her pupils enlarged, then she batted the frog and rolled over.

Tucker liked the catnip aroma, but it didn't have the same effect on her.

After ten minutes of this, the cats were silly. They flopped on their sides and giggled, the frog now between Cazenovia's paws.

The cats' giggling—little puffs of expelled air—made Tucker giggle, too. She expelled air, too, but it came out with a bit more force and sounded like,
“Ho.”

Most people don't think that animals can laugh, but cats, dogs, and horses can.

Elocution, on her side, reached out to snag the frog.

“No you don't.”
Cazenovia sank her claws in the canvas with a pleasing crunch sound.

“Did I tell you Mom visited Tazio yesterday?”
Mrs. Murphy said to Lucy Fur.

“No, how is she?”
Lucy asked.

“Going downhill, Mom thinks. Said she looked worn, thin, just drawn out.”
Pewter supplied the information.

“But the big news is, the two rats that live in Poplar Forest destroyed evidence,”
Tucker exclaimed.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker eagerly related how Randolph and Sarah had eaten the bloody towel, as well as how Sarah “smoked” the Virginia Slims.

Lucy Fur licked one paw, then sat up, eyes still large.
“Poppy could be in danger.”

“You're not supposed to tell.”
Cazenovia sat up, too.

“We can tell. Poppy can't tell.”

“What did he do?”
Pewter loved Herb, as did they all.

“He didn't do anything,”
Lucy Fur announced firmly.
“Letters. Some of his parishioners received threatening letters, and when Will was killed they came to him. Others came when Little Mim stepped forward about her own past.”

“Great day.”
Tucker sighed.

“Why didn't he go to Rick straightaway?”
Pewter thought this very strange.

“He can't. He's a minister, and if a person confesses to him, that information is sacred. He has been carrying this around, knowing what could happen.”
Cazenovia thought her poppy very brave.

“Do you know what was in the letters?”
Pewter had a good idea.

“Sure. We all sat there during these tearful confessions. The first letters asked for money, not huge sums, but then the sums escalated. After Will was shot, they really skyrocketed,”
Lucy Fur informed them.

Elocution, head more clear now, added,
“Greedy.”

Cazenovia, her long calico hair lustrous, worried.
“Penny Lattimore came in Tuesday. Her latest letter from Jonathan Bechtal—supposedly from him, anyway—reminded her she was number two on the list if she didn't pay up. She decided she had to go to Rick and she'd have to tell her husband. She asked Poppy to go with her.”

“Did he?”
Mrs. Murphy wanted to be certain of her facts.

“He did. I guess the hard part was telling Marvin that she'd had an affair; the abortion was due to that. Whatever became of that talk, I don't know.”
Elocution took a deep breath.
“I do know that Rick and Coop have taken her into protective custody. Even Marvin doesn't know where she is. They've put out this story that she's missing to see if they can flush out the blackmailer.”
Lucy Fur eyed the front of the house.

“Well, that might work,”
Pewter said.

“Might,”
Cazenovia agreed but qualified it.
“But what we're worried about is, what if the blackmailer figures out that some of his victims have confessed to Poppy? He'll come after him.”

“I hope not.”
Tucker's voice rose.
“Mom thinks that Mike McElvoy may have killed Carla. But if you think about it, he could be part of this. He's against abortion—Tazio told Mom that—but he presents himself as a reasonable person. So he makes money twice, first through his job, if he has been inventing problems at these construction sites and getting paid off, then through this.”

“I don't know.”
Mrs. Murphy inhaled, for the catnip scent remained strong.
“Mike would have to have his hands on Will Wylde's records and he'd have had to set up Jonathan Bechtal.”

“Set up? Jonathan confessed.”
Cazenovia thought that was that.

“I think that Jonathan Bechtal is being used as a cat's paw, forgive the expression.”
Mrs. Murphy's tiger coat glistened.
“Is he a fanatic? Obviously. Does he expect to get out in a few years' time to enjoy whatever money he and whoever have extorted from the patients? Maybe. But even if he isn't in this for the money, I'm willing to bet one of my nine lives that he believes the money goes to Love of Life, all the money. If he finds out otherwise, it could get ugly for whoever is on the outside.”

“Mike McElvoy would be that person. And he might have a way into Will's records if he's a computer whiz.”
Elocution was considering all that had been said.

“He's up to no good, but is it that bad?”
Tucker had learned that Mrs. Murphy eventually found the right path.

Cazenovia, thinking about all this and remembering the conversations women had with Poppy, piped up,
“Who was number one if Penny is number two?”

“Dr. Wylde.”
Lucy Fur stated this with conviction.

“But he wouldn't have been blackmailed.”
Mrs. Murphy felt sure of this.
“He'd stood up to death threats before. I don't think he was number one.”

“Little Mim,”
Pewter declared.

“More likely, but I don't know.”
Mrs. Murphy flicked the tip of her tail.
“What I do know is that the other women who have been paying off have not gone to Rick. Herb knows those of his parish. He can't be the only minister hearing their stories. The other thing is that Harry will blunder right into it. We've got two of our people to protect.”

30

W
hy don't you buy your own car?” Susan grumbled as she drove her Audi station wagon from the vestry-board meeting. “Here it is Saturday, a perfect day for chores and errands, and I'm hauling your little white butt around.”

“Too much money.” Harry affected a prudent and pious tone.

“Your husband will buy you a car if you want one.”

“It seems…” She thought for a moment. “Excessive.”

“So I drive out to your farm, pick you up, bring you to St. Luke's, and now we're cruising around because you want to enjoy how great my wagon rides. I've spent three dollars in gas just picking you up.”

“I'll pay you.” Harry wrinkled her nose. “Besides, I take you places in my truck. And I just discovered my truck needs a new alternator, so it's in the shop. You can drop me off on the way home.”

“Your F-150 that was foaled in 1978? It's not a bad ride. Better than your dually. That thing will rattle your teeth.”

Harry nodded. “It may suck up gas, but it hauls the rig, hauls the flatbed. I can do a lot of farm chores with that, and it saves me buying another tractor. Blair lends me his big eighty-horsepower. I thought I might could buy it when he and Little Mim moved to Rose Hill, but he took the tractor. Good thing, because she was still using that old Massey Ferguson from the seventies, the one where the gears would lock up and you'd fly along. Scared the poop out of me when I saw it.”

“What is that old Massey Ferguson in horsepower?”

“One twenty.”

“Mercy.” Even though not a farmer, Susan, like most people in the area, had an appreciation of the equipment, maintenance, skill, and time it took to produce any crop.

Now that she and Harry were partners in the timber tract, she was learning a lot and she loved it.

“So, what's your gas mileage?”

“I tell you this every time we go out.” Susan noticed a maple tree downtown in high orange-red color.

The trees and bushes in town usually peaked before the ones in the country, because town temperature was often five or more degrees higher due to building density, more asphalt roads, and more car and furnace emissions.

“Twenty-five miles to the gallon on the open road. Sometimes twenty-eight,”
Tucker piped up, since she'd heard it so many times.

Susan patiently repeated these same numbers to Harry.

“Pretty good for an engine this big, machine this heavy.”

“You're not old enough to get Alzheimer's; maybe you have Halfzheimer's,” Susan teased her.

“I remember. I like to hear you say it,” Harry teased her back.

“Funny, Ned took Owen to the office today, and I miss my little guy. We spend most every waking moment together.”

“Corgi love.”
Tucker smiled.

“Don't make me throw up.”
Pewter faked a gag.

“Hairball! Hairball alert!”
Mrs. Murphy jumped away in mock disgust.

“Better than a worm-hanging-out-of-your-butt alert.”
Pewter's pupils narrowed for a second.

“I have never had a worm emerge from my nether regions.”
Mrs. Murphy was incensed.

“Oh, puh-leese Louise.”
Pewter drew out the word.
“I've seen spaghetti strings out of that anus.”

“Never!”
Mrs. Murphy cuffed the gray cat, who slapped her right back.

“Get me out of here,”
Tucker whined as she tried to climb into the passenger seat up front.

“No, Tucker.” Harry turned. “You two, stop it. If I have to crawl back there, there will be big trouble in River City. You hear me?”

“I hear you, but I'm not listening.”
Pewter whacked Mrs. Murphy again.

Mrs. Murphy leapt onto the rotund kitty. Since Susan had put the seats down, the two now rolled all the way to the hatchback door.

“Susan, if you pull over, I'll settle this.”

“Oh, let them have at it.”

“You'll have blood in your car.”

“Harpy!”
Pewter snarled.

“Liar!”
Mrs. Murphy scratched.

The lightbulb switched on in Tucker's brain, and she called out above their mutual insults,
“What I want to know, Pewter, is what are you doing studying Mrs. Murphy's anus?”

This produced the desired effect. Both cats stopped screaming and clawing.

Pewter disentangled herself from the tiger cat, huffed up to full blowfish proportion, and jumped sideways toward the corgi.
“Death to dogs!”

“Don't think about it.”
Tucker, bracing herself, snarled.

“Harry will put you in mincemeat pie when I'm done shredding.”
Her chartreuse eyes, pupils full to the max, glittered with fury.

Mrs. Murphy, who should have known better, leapt on Pewter from behind, and the two rolled back to the hatchback door again.

“All right!” Harry turned to Susan. “Let me settle this.”

Susan pulled off High Street into a bank parking lot. “They'll scratch you.”

“They'd better not if they know what's good for them.”

Harry opened her door. Hearing it slam, the cats perceived the situation. They parted, retreating to opposite sides of the back, and began grooming.

Harry flipped up the hatchback. “Just what in the hell do you two think you're doing?” No feline response brought forth a human torrent. “It's a privilege to ride in this station wagon. It's a privilege to visit Cazenovia, Lucy Fur, and Elocution. And it's a privilege to cruise around town. If I hear one squeak, one snarl, one ugly meow, you two worthless cats are never riding in this station wagon again. Worthless. You haven't caught one mouse in the barn, and I know they are there.”

Mrs. Murphy replied,
“We have a deal with the tack-room mice. They aren't destructive. They're—”

Pewter interrupted.
“She hasn't a clue.”

“You shut up, fatty screw loose. You're the reason we're in this predicament.”

“Me! Me!”
Pewter stood up.

“Don't you dare.” Harry grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, shaking her lightly, the way her feline mother would have done.

Releasing the gray cannonball, Harry peered intently at Mrs. Murphy, pointing her index finger right at her. All three animals knew what that meant. The next gesture would be a little smack on the fanny.

Harry shut the hatchback, returned to the front. “Susan, how do people with children do it? You had two.”

“Animals are more intelligent.” Susan laughed good-naturedly.

Harry wheeled around as if to catch the cats off guard. “I'm watching you.”

Silence.

They drove east on High Street. “How about I turn down by Fifth Street and I'll pick up 64?”

“How about we cruise by Woolen Mills first?”

“What's in Woolen Mills?”

“Mike McElvoy's house.” Before Susan could protest, Harry rapidly said, “When we were at the Poplar Forest ball, Mike and Noddy came by. The usual small talk, and she kidded about his work shed. Said he'd spent as much money on that as she did remodeling the kitchen.”

“And?”

“She said it's where he buries the bodies.”

“Harry, that's a figure of speech.”

“Well, we can at least peek in it. Susan, remember Tazio told us he's antiabortion, and might I remind you, Tazio is still in jail. What's a drive by?”

“Nothing I guess, unless you swing the shotgun out the window.” She exhaled. “I don't know why I let you talk me into these things.”

“Because I'm your best friend. Because you love me.”

Susan smiled. “I do, but you drive me crazy.”

“Not a far putt.”

They both laughed uproariously.

“Yeah, well.” Susan shrugged.

“I love you, too.” Harry waited a beat, then whirled around again. “I'm watching.”

“Two-legged toad. You'll get back trouble before I do,”
Pewter sassed, but her anger toward Mrs. Murphy ebbed.

“Miss Hemorrhoid,”
Mrs. Murphy added, a devilish glint to her eyes.

Triumphantly, the gray cat sang out,
“Now who's talking about anuses.”

Mrs. Murphy froze, considered another retaliatory attack, but thought better of it, for Harry meant what she said.

The two-story frame house, painted a Williamsburg blue with white trim, came into view. It was at the end of the street, which afforded a bit more quiet, not that Woolen Mills was particularly noisy. It was a pleasant neighborhood, the only drawback being when the winds changed at the city sewage-treatment plant.

“Hey, those boxwoods are gorgeous.” Susan noted the boxwoods lining the walkway to the front porch.

“English. Tight as a tick.” Harry craned her neck to see the shed. “Slow down.”

“I'm going five miles an hour,” Susan dryly replied.

As she turned in the small cul de sac, Harry caught sight of the shed at the rear of the verdant lawn. “Hey, that is nice, and he has a gravel drive up to it. He could do all kinds of things there, and who would notice?”

“Presumably Noddy?”

“Naw.” Harry shook her head. “If he's there working away or using a computer or something, she'd be busy herself.”

“Where did I read that Internet porn sites have become a big problem in marriage?” Susan tried to recall the magazine as she drove out of the cul de sac.

“You'd think it would be better than hiring prostitutes.”

“That's not the point,” Susan, more thoughtful on these matters than Harry, replied. “The point is that instead of communicating with his wife or his girlfriend, a man watches porn sites with those icons of physical perfection. Empty sex.”

“That's probably true. I've never seen a porn site.” Harry turned to Susan. “Who has the time to sit down and watch a computer or TV? You know, I didn't watch one baseball game all the way through this summer, and I love my Orioles.”

“You and I are in the minority. Americans squander millions of hours in front of the TV. I read somewhere that it totals eight years of a life. And then there's the computer screen. It's sad and frightening.”

“Here's what I don't get. Why do men watch porn when there's a living, breathing woman in the next room?”

“Because they aren't communicating, like I said. That is one thing I will give Ned. He'll talk. Oh, I might have to goad him into it or charm him, but he will. It's one of the reasons we've weathered some of the storms we have.” She picked up speed. “He's a good man.”

“That he is.” Harry was quiet, looked in the back again with a glare, then returned her attentions to Susan. “Fair communicates better than I do. I don't know. I can't get the words out. Hell, most of the time, I don't even know what I'm feeling.”

“I know.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That those of us who know you and love you know that speaking about your emotions isn't your forté. But when you must face them, you do. Course, it takes a damned disaster.”

She replied ruefully, “I don't understand how I can be smart in one area and just dumb as a sack of hammers in another.”

“We're all like that. You've seen me struggle with math. If it weren't for you, I'd never have gotten through geometry and algebra in high school.”

“I love math. There's always an answer.”

“Exactly.” Susan smiled broadly. “Emotions aren't clear-cut like that. But don't you find, as you get older, that you improve in the area where you're, say, not so gifted?”

“Kinda.” Harry changed the subject, since she never could think what to say about her emotional reticence. “If I had the money, do you know what car I would buy? If practicality weren't an issue?”

“A big Mercedes?”

“They are stupendous. But that's still practical. I'd buy a Porsche 911 C4.” Animation filled her body. “Oh, that sweet, short throw between gears, the top note of the engine. God, I love it.”

“Gearhead.”

“I am, but you know, so is BoomBoom.”

“Wonder why she never bought a Porsche?”

“She switched to Mercedes because of BMW's iDrive. She likes big cars, so Porsches are too small. But now Mercedes has Command system, just as ridiculous as iDrive. Bet she does buy a Porsche next.” Harry shook her head. “The Germans may well be the most intelligent people on the face of the earth when it comes to engineering, music, and I would have to say war, but they do tend to overcomplicate.”

“War. How can you say that?”

“Look at what they accomplished since Frederick the Great. Their fatal mistake was not learning the painful lesson of World War One.”

“Which was?”

“Germany can't fight a war on two fronts, and Germany can never defeat the United States.”