Wish You Were Here (22 page)

45

It wasn't until the diminishing hours of sunlight, the spreading of coppery-rich long shadows, about seven in the evening, that Harry understood what really happened in the post office.

Josiah and Officer Cooper revived Mim. Little Marilyn left. Whatever sorrow she might feel over her mother's acute distress was well hidden. Mim had caused her enough distress over the years. If she fainted in the post office and cracked her head, so be it.

When Mim came to, with the bodyguard shoving amyl nitrite under her nostrils, she said, “I don't fit here anymore. My life's like an old dress.”

For a brief moment Harry pitied her.

Josiah tended to Mim, walking her to his shop.

People poured in and out of the post office for the rest of the day. Harry and Officer Cooper barely had time to go to the bathroom, much less think.

The thinking came later, in the oppressive heat redolent with the green odor of vegetation, as the two women, armed, climbed the grade on the old track up to the Greenwood tunnel. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker refused to stay in the parked car far below. They, too, panted.

“People hauled timbers up here. Even with mules, this was a bitch.”

“The old tracks run to the tunnel. Crozet built serving roads and tracks before—” Harry stopped. A yellow swallowtail butterfly twirled before her and winged off.

“Is this one of your jokes?
Coop . . . Coop! Josiah said that to me after reading his card.”

“So what? Ned recognized Susan's handwriting. ‘Wish you were here' fizzled.”

“Don't you see? The killer knows that apart from the sheriff, I'm the one who recognized the postcard signal. I'm the one who ran to Mrs. Hogendobber even before your people got to her. I see the mail first. He slipped. It's him! Jesus Christ, Josiah DeWitt. I like him. How can you like a murderer?”

Officer Cooper's face, taut, registered the information. “Well, if there is someone in that tunnel, we're sitting ducks.”

“Like Kelly Craycroft's poster.” Harry's mind raced. “I don't know how long it will take him to realize what he's done.”

“Not long. Our people are everywhere. He may not be able to leave his shop early. When he does he'll come for you.”

“He doesn't know where I am.”

“Then he'll come up here in the night if there really is anything here, or he'll slip away. I don't know what he'll do but he's not fearful.”

The closed mouth of the tunnel, wreathed in kudzu, loomed before them.

“Let's go.” Harry pressed on.

Cooper, mental radar scanning, cautiously stepped up to the mouth. Harry, paces behind, checked out the top of the tunnel. It would be rough going, coming up behind the tunnel. In fact, it would take hours, but it could be done.

The tunnel mouth was indeed sealed shut. Only dynamite would open it.

“Look for Paddy's rabbit hole.”
Mrs. Murphy and Tucker fanned out.

Nose to the ground, Tucker smelled the faintest remains of Bob and Ozzie.
“Ozzie and Berryman were here.”

Mrs. Murphy nodded.
“Paddy's got to be right. If Berryman came up here, there is a treasure!”
She raced ahead of the corgi while Harry and Coop tiptoed along the mouth of the tunnel.

Hidden behind the foliage, there was a small hole at the base of the tunnel. A rabbit could easily go in and out of it. So could Mrs. Murphy.

“Don't go in there,”
Tucker warned.
“We'll do it together.”

“Okay. I'll go first. My eyes are better.”
Mrs. Murphy slipped through the hole.
“Holy shit!”

“Are you all right?”
Tucker, half in and half out of the hole, was digging for all she was worth.

“Yes.”
Mrs. Murphy ran back to her buddy.
“Can you see yet?”

“Barely.”
Tucker blinked and blinked but she felt in a sea of India ink.

Slowly her eyes adjusted and she saw the treasure. It wasn't Claudius Crozet's treasure, but it was a king's ransom in paintings, Louis XV furniture, carpets painstakingly rolled in heavy protective covers. Mrs. Murphy soared onto a Louis XV desk. A golden casket rested atop it. She lifted up the lid with one paw. Old, expensive jewelry glistened inside. Near the mouth of the tunnel rested an old railroad handcart. A huge bombé cabinet was on it.

“Get Harry.”

Tucker dashed to the rabbit hole and barked.

“Where's the dog?” Officer Cooper glanced around. “Sounds like she's inside the tunnel. That's impossible.”

Harry pulled away brush, kudzu, and vine to reach the farthest right-hand corner of the tunnel. Tucker barked at her feet. “There's a rabbit hole. Tucker, come out of there.”

Officer Cooper got down on her hands and knees. A black, wet nose twitched. “Come on, pooch.”

“You come in here,”
Tucker replied.

“They won't fit.”
Mrs. Murphy joined her.
“Let's go out. There has to be another way in.”

Tucker grunted her way out and Mrs. Murphy danced out. Tucker jumped up at Harry. Mrs. Murphy circled her human friend. Harry understood. She crouched down, then lay flat on her belly as Cooper stepped out of the way. “There's something in there. I need a flashlight.”

Cooper lay down. She cupped her hands around her eyes as Harry moved so she could get a better look. “Antiques. I can't see how much but I see a big chest of drawers.”

Harry leaped up and ran her hands along the tunnel mouth. Cooper joined her. Harry knocked on the right-hand side of the sealed mouth. It sounded hollow.

“Epoxy and resin. Makes sense now, doesn't it?” Harry said. “That furniture was not squeezed through the rabbit hole unless Josiah has Alice in Wonderland potions. Must be a trigger or a latch somewhere. I bet Kelly loved making this. I wonder how long it took him?”

“Working nights, I don't know, a couple of months. A month. I've got it.” Coop found a thick vine covering a latch. The vine, kudzu, was affixed to the false front. The natural foliage grew around it.

With a click the door opened, large enough to get a railroad lorry through. The two women entered the tunnel. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker scurried inside.

“There's a fortune in here,” Harry whispered.

Tucker's ears went up. Mrs. Murphy froze.

“Don't bark, Tucker. He knows the humans are here but he doesn't know we are. Whine. Give Harry a warning.”

Tucker whined, softly. Harry leaned over to pat her.
“Mommy, please pay attention,”
the dog cried.

“Hide, Tuck, hide.”
Mrs. Murphy jumped from a desk to the top of a wardrobe near the doorway. Tucker hid behind the lorry.

Harry felt their fear. “Cooper, Cooper,” she whispered and grabbed Cynthia's arm. “Something's wrong.”

Cooper pulled her pistol. Harry did too.

A light footfall played on their ears. Inside the tunnel, sounds were magnified and distorted in the 536 feet of rock. Harry crept to the right side of the opening. She stood on the other side of the lorry. Cooper remained in the deep shadows to the left.

A familiar, charming voice reached them. Josiah was too smart to appear in the opening. “I underestimated you, Harry. Never underestimate a woman. Officer Cooper, I know you're armed. I suggest you toss out your weapon. No reason to defile Claudius Crozet's handiwork with bloodshed—especially mine.” Cooper kept silent. “If you don't toss out your weapon I'm going to throw in this gasoline-soaked rag and just the tiniest Molotov cocktail I happen to have with me for the evening's enjoyment. I also have a gun, as I guess you know. It's Kelly's. When ballistics files its report on Bob Berryman, it will frustrate that stellar public servant Rick Shaw, and tell him Bob was killed with a dead man's gun. It's nasty dying in a fire and if you run out I'll be forced to shoot you. If you throw out your weapon, Officer Cooper, perhaps we can make a deal. Something more lucrative than your vast public salaries—both of you.”

“What was the deal you made with Kelly? Or Maude?” Harry's voice, sharp and hard, reverberated through the tunnel.

“Kelly enjoyed excellent terms, but after four years at twenty percent he got a little greedy. As you can see, there's enough stockpiled in the tunnel that I could dispense with his services for the future. When my inventory runs low I shall find another feckless fellow eager for profit.”

“You used his paving enterprise.”

“Of course.”

“And his trucks.”

“Harry, don't try my patience with the obvious. Officer Cooper, throw out your gun.”

“First, I want to know why you killed Maude. It's obvious what she did, too.”

“Maudie was a dear woman but her ovaries ruled her head, I fear. You see, she really was in love with Bob Berryman. When business reasons compelled me to remove Kelly Craycroft from our board of directors, she didn't want to be an accessory to murder.”

“Was she?”

“No. But she became frightened. What if I were caught and what if our profitable venture were disclosed? Berryman, stringing her along, kept telling her he would leave Linda, and Maude loved that cretin. A shaky partner is worse than no partner at all. She could have given us away, or worse, she could have spilled the beans to Bob Berryman—pillow talk—who with his amusing sense of honor would have traipsed directly to the authorities. You see, poor Maude had to go. Now, darlings, I've indulged you long enough. Throw out the gun.”

“Did you try to drown Mrs. Hogendobber?” Harry wanted to keep him talking. She had no plan, but it gave her time to think.

“No. Throw out your gun.”

Harry dropped her voice to the gossip register, a tone she prayed would be irresistible to Josiah. “Well, if you didn't slash those pontoons, who did?”

He laughed. “I think it was Little Marilyn. A real passive-aggressive, our Little Marilyn. She didn't go for help until she realized that two of the ladies on Mim's yacht couldn't swim. She just wanted to ruin her mother's party. I can't prove it, but that's what I think.” He laughed again. “I would have given anything to have seen that boat sink. Mim's face must have been fuchsia.” He paused. “Okay, enough chat. Really, there's no point in anyone's being hurt. Just cooperate.”

“Well, how did you get your victims to eat cyanide?”

“You are prolonging this.” Josiah sighed. “I simply poured cyanide on a handkerchief, pretending it was cologne, and quickly put it over their mouths! Presto! An instant dead person. Now get with the program, girls.”

Harry intoned. “You didn't have to mutilate them.”

“An artist's touch.” He sniggered.

“One more teeny-weeny question.” Harry gulped for air. Her voice was steely calm in the suffocating atmosphere. “I know you brought the goods up here in a lorry, but where did you get them in the first place?”

Josiah hooted. “That's the best part, Harry. Mim Sanburne! I've been her ‘walker' for years. The finest homes. New York, Newport, Palm Beach, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, wherever there is an elegant party, a must gathering. I'd appraise the merchandise and then one or two years later,
voilà
—I'd return for an engagement of a different sort. No engraved invitations. That was the easy part. You bribe a servant—the rich are notoriously cheap, you know. Pay someone enough to live on for a year and a one-way ticket to Rio. How simple to get in when the master and mistress were gone. The hard part was lifting the lorry off the track and rolling it inside the tunnel each time we were finished—that and trying to stay awake the next day. We never had to work that hard, though. Perhaps three houses a year. Distribution is easy once the fuss dies down. A small load to Wilmington or Charlotte. A side trip to Memphis. Wouldn't snooty Mim just die? She looks down her long nose at thee and me, yet she's consorting with a criminal—an elegant criminal.”

“Big profits, huh?”

“Ah, yes, sweet are the workings of capitalism—a lesson you've never learned, my girl. Now, time's up.” His voice, hypnotic, promised all would be well. This was just a glorious lark.

Harry edged closer to the mouth and in pantomime to Coop said that she would throw out her gun. Cooper nodded. Mrs. Murphy fluffed her tail, ready to strike.

“You won't toss in that Molotov cocktail. The fire would ruin your inventory. The smoke and commotion would bring all of Crozet up here to the tunnel. Now that would spoil everything. If we're going into business, we'd better trust one another right now. You throw down your gun first and Officer Cooper will throw out hers.”

“Don't take me for a fool, Harry. I'm not throwing down my gun first,” he snapped.

“You're the creative one, Josiah. Think of something,” Harry taunted him. “You can starve us out but Rick Shaw will notice you're missing. That won't do. We'd better reach an agreement now.”