Cat of the Century (13 page)

“We’re country people,” Aunt Tally called out from the living room. “We know the drill.”

He nodded as he passed the living room.

“All I found was the propane heater. If I’d known there was a generator, I would have hooked it up,” Harry said.

“We keep it locked up. Things that expensive can walk.” He fished his flashlight out of his jacket and opened the door to the dark basement. “Let me show you where the circuit breakers are.”

“Found them.” Harry nonetheless fell in behind Fuji, as Tucker trailed behind her.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter stayed in the parlor.

“Seen one basement, seen ’em all,”
Pewter announced.

Down in the basement, Fuji popped open the metal cover of the box and flipped off the main breaker, which was a bright-blue longer switch at the bottom of the two rows of small black switches.

“Flip it on when the power returns,” he told Harry, as he walked to a closet in the back.

Harry remained near the breaker. As Fuji opened the closet with his key, she called, “Need help carrying the generator?”

“No, thanks. Ten gallons of gas are here in two five-gallon cans. This
closet has ventilation toward the back.” He shined his flashlight at the long, narrow louvers at the top of the ceiling.

He carried the generator, placed it under the circuit breakers, and hooked it up. “Someone will need to get up in the middle of the night and top it off.” Fuji set both cans in front of the closet but not next to the generator. At least Harry wouldn’t have far to carry one.

“I’ll do it.” Harry followed Fuji back up the stairs.

The refrigerator hummed again.

“Inez, they’re playing our song,” Aunt Tally quipped.

Little Mim walked into the kitchen. “How about some soup? Won’t take long to heat it up.” She smiled at Fuji.

Although the ladies were full, they were more than happy to make something hot for Fuji.

“No, thank you, ma’am.” He walked to the front door. “There’s a lot left to do. This storm is brutal.”

Harry said, “Thank you. Do you have a cell?”

“Do. ’Course, it’s not working now. No satellite TV. We’ll sleep in a trailer back behind the stables. It’s there for times like this or for graduation, when we work around the clock. The boys and I hoped to watch some basketball. We’ll play cards instead.” He grinned. “I’ll clean those dogs out.”

“Hey, remind me never to play cards with you.” She opened the door. “Thank you, Mr. Wertland.”

He touched his finger to his lad’s cap. Harry noticed that the truck windshield was already thickly covered with snow. He couldn’t have been in the house longer than fifteen minutes.

She closed the door against the frigid air.

Big Mim had turned off the propane heater. The distinct, not exactly pleasant odor of propane filled the house.

Everyone was in the kitchen, including the two cats.

The teapot whistled. Little Mim poured the hot water into a Brown Betty snug in a knitted tea cozy. Whoever outfitted the alumni house understood tea and possibly had spent time in England.

“Hooray.” Harry eagerly put out teacups.

Aunt Tally and Big Mim perched on the chairs at the table.

“I’m going to sit here and be waited on.” Aunt Tally heard the radiator gurgle, as she waited for her tea.

“Me, too,”
Pewter said.

Little Mim, eager to return to her husband, Blair, lamented, “Even if the snow stops sometime tomorrow, we won’t get a flight out for days.”

“It will probably take at least one day to open the interstates. Longer than that for the other roads.”

“All we need is the interstate. Blair will be having fits. Phones are out and the cell isn’t working.” Little Mim daintily placed two brown sugar cubes in her tea.

“Once the snow stops, the cell will eventually work. Need to call my husband, too.” Harry knew Fair would be fretting. “I can squeeze everyone into that new station wagon he bought me.”

“I’ll hire a private jet.” Big Mim poured tea for everyone. “What’s the point of having money if you don’t use it, especially at a time like this?” She got up to bring tea to Inez. “I’ll take you home, too, of course.”

“I’ve never been in a private jet.” Inez was excited about the prospect.

“Narrow. Comfortable but narrow.” Little Mim, having grown up with privilege, had flown in many a private jet.

“I’m not flying,”
Tucker told everyone, even though she hadn’t been asked.
“Hurts my ears.”

“Hurts mine, too, because I’d have to hear about it.”
Mrs. Murphy poked fun.

As they enjoyed the warmth creeping back into the house, they forgot about alumnae meetings, Mariah, the depressing state of the economy.

Quiet, close times free of ringing phones, radio noise, and flickering TV screens were rare these days. They’d all lived long enough to know such peacefulness would eventually give way to overwork, anxiety, life’s troubles. Just how much trouble not one of them could have imagined.

O
n Sunday, March 29, Harry finally pulled into the long, crushed-stone driveway to the farm. She’d left Fulton on Saturday morning, after the main roads had been plowed. She drove carefully for two days, usually in snow, because the remnants of the storm moved east as she did. As she went through West Virginia, the snow had thickened. Once home, she figured that in about four hours, heavier snow would be at their doorstep. In the last four days she’d seen more snow than she had in the previous decade.

Fair ran out to greet her, forgetting to put on a coat. “Honey, I thought you’d never get home.”

“Me, neither.” She kissed him. “This station wagon is terrific. You know, I averaged twenty-two miles per gallon.”

“Pay attention to me,”
Pewter wailed, as she didn’t want to jump down into the snow.

Fair scooped her up under one arm and Mrs. Murphy with the other.

Harry and Tucker followed inside, glad to be upright. Driving that long gave Harry kinks in her back.

Fair ran out to collect Harry’s bag. Back inside, he carried it straight to the upstairs bedroom.

“I’m the last to return home. Inez went back to Rose Hill with Aunt Tally. I actually like long drives. I can think. Didn’t make sense to squeeze into that little jet, then have to spend the money to fly back on a big one to retrieve the car. Too much money and too much time,” Harry said.

“I’m sure glad you’re home. I hated the thought of you driving through all that snow.”

“Wasn’t so bad. I mean, after what I saw in Fulton, Missouri.” She ran water in the teapot. “A cup of tea my way.”

Her kitchen had never looked so good to her—nor to Pewter, who made a beeline for the food bowls, which Fair had filled. Soon, all three animals’ faces had disappeared in ceramic dog and cat dishes.

“We have them well trained,”
Pewter giggled.

Every now and then on the road, Harry had called Fair on her cell. Not one for talking much while driving, she needed to do it to keep awake. She’d told him about Mariah’s disappearance, Aunt Tally’s speech, and meeting Aileen Tinsdale.

“Doesn’t bode well,” was her terse comment now. “When Inez got to Tally’s, she called me. Isn’t she amazing—Aunt Tally, too? They get around; their minds are sharp.”

“I guess if you don’t use it you lose it. Applies to other parts, as well.” He smiled. “Oh, Terri Kincaid called. At least she’s not charging you for a pot someone else broke. I wouldn’t put it past her. She’d heard about the lady who ‘disappeared’—her word. Bad news travels fast.”

“He just figure that out?”
Pewter taunted.

“Keep eating,”
Tucker said.

“You don’t need to encourage her.”
Mrs. Murphy lifted her head from the bowl.
“I’m glad we’re home. We were lucky there was a blizzard.”

“Why?”
Pewter asked.

“Because the blizzard pinned down the killer,”
the tiger replied.

“You don’t know that the killer was on campus,”
Pewter replied.

“No, I don’t. Time will tell.”
Mrs. Murphy bit the kibble piece in the shape of a fish in half.

Tired though she was from the travel and commotion, Inez checked her notebook, in which she kept an abbreviated record of proceedings.
The full minutes from the last two years’ worth of meetings were at home. She pored over the various chapters’ financial reports, which she always stapled to the back of her notebook. Nothing in those documents hinted at wrongdoing. After four hours of review, she still wasn’t satisfied.

“Flo.” Inez’s voice was strong over the phone line, as she called from Aunt Tally’s. “Did you make it home all right?”

“Did. My sweet son dug out the walkway. Otherwise I would have needed snowshoes to get to the door. You know, I think this was one of the worst blizzards I’ve ever seen. I hope it didn’t spoil Tally’s big day too much.”

“No. Gives her one more thing to talk about.” Inez laughed. “Flo, I’m calling you because I checked my notes from the last two years. I also went over all the financial reports. Everything looks okay, but we both know how easy it is to make something appear strong on paper.”

“Funny, I did the same thing. In a situation like this, when a treasurer misses a meeting and can’t be found, my first thought is that he or she has absconded with the funds. I assume you checked our account once phones and computers were up.”

“Did. Fine. You know, Flo, people who steal, if they’re very smart, plan far ahead. When the time is right, they clean everything out and disappear. If I were doing such a thing, I’d go to Uruguay.”

“Good Lord, why?”

“Well, it’s beautiful in many places, has some sophistication, and the local authorities aren’t looking to arrest you for something you’ve committed in another country. Plus, contributions, so to speak, go a long way. I’d feel quite safe there.”

“I can’t imagine Mariah in Uruguay.”

“Neither can I. But I can’t find the hole, know what I mean? And I really don’t think Mariah is a thief.”

“I do. I just hope this has nothing to do with the board.”

Flo was and wasn’t right.

S
itting in her luxurious office near the St. Louis Ritz-Carlton, Flo looked outside at the snow piled high along the street sides. One needed a pole vault to get over it, but then, not that many people walked in this part of town. Slushing along in an expensive vehicle was the transportation of choice. People did walk in this gracious city, though, especially through huge Forest Park or down at the reclaimed, tidied-up area by the muddy Mississippi itself. She’d lived long enough to see St. Louis, a city she loved, shed old clothes and try on new ones. That’s how she thought of renewal projects. After William Woods, she’d done two years of graduate work at Washington University. Mariah attended the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia after graduating from William Woods—a fact Mariah swiftly inflicted on anyone she’d just met. As far as Flo was concerned—and Dick, too—Washington University was one of the greatest universities in the United States. Then again, how could Charlottesville, Virginia, home to UVA, hold a candle to St. Louis? For one thing, St. Louis had the Cardinals.