Cat of the Century (20 page)

“Neither,” she replied. “It was John Henry.”

Such questions were like asking a ballet choreographer who was the better athlete: Pavlova or Fonteyn.

Those questions always sparked debate, but Inez thoroughly enjoyed that because it meant people were passionate. What better to be passionate about than horses?

She hummed as she opened her “mail,” then stopped abruptly.

A message from Mariah D’Angelo read, “Catch me if you can.”

Y
ou don’t know from one minute to the next,” Aunt Tally, arm linked through Inez’s, remarked.

The two old ladies walked slowly to the stone stable not more than a quarter mile from the house. Tally’s comment was about the weather. On Tuesday, April 7, the sun shone brightly and huge cumulus clouds, creamy white, filled a robin’s-egg-blue sky. The forty-five-degree temperature, while nippy, was an improvement over the last few days.

Erno, Doodles, and Tucker tagged along. No little bunnies or fox cubs appeared, as it was too early in the season. Tucker thought the extended cold and snow might have delayed breeding. She had no desire to chase bunnies, but she did wish to herd them. If it had four legs, Tucker knew her job. When she was a puppy she’d tried to herd the two-legged creatures but learned how stubborn they were. Occasionally she’d be successful in getting Harry to the door, but that was it.

“Aha.” Aunt Tally pointed the tip of her cane at a crocus not yet open. “There’s hope.”

“Blossom, there’s always hope.”

“I try to remember, but lately I’ve seen the shadow of the Grim Reaper fall across my path. I’m not ready to go.”

“Are you sick? You’d better not be.” Inez’s voice thickened.

“I’m in rude good health.” Tally shook her head. “Sometimes the
swiftness of death shocks me, though. Flo at her desk. Or I pick up the paper and read about a young person killed crossing the street.”

“I know what you mean.” Inez inhaled the crisp air. “Funny, no one ever thinks it will happen to them.”

“If people focused on it, they’d probably never get out of bed.”

Inez sidestepped a puddle, dragging Tally with her. “Look at all the businesses going under. People killing themselves over money. Money!” Inez watched Erno and Doodles romping. “If only we could be more like them.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Aunt Tally used “ain’t” for effect, as her English was usually quite correct. “You haven’t said anything about Mariah’s latest message since you called me last night.”

“‘Catch me if you can’,” Inez repeated Mariah’s message on her computer. “What’s to say? She’s clearly enjoying herself. But I’m sure Liz isn’t. She called me.” Inez looked at Aunt Tally. “Liz certainly gets the vicious ones. Last night’s read: ‘I hope you die slowly of strangulation.’ That’s a bit much, but then, murder is a bit much.” Inez sidestepped some remaining ice on the path.

“We still don’t know if Mariah is Flo’s murderer. The messages haven’t confessed to it,” Aunt Tally remarked.

“Well, no, but there seems little doubt,” Inez responded.

They stopped in front of the elegant stone stable that Little Mim and Blair had rehabilitated at no small expense.

The mid-morning sun gave the stone a rosy, inviting warm glow. Each stall had both an outdoor and indoor Dutch door; the top halves remained closed as it was still nippy. The horses had come in to feed. Little Mim, like her mother, Big Mim, and Harry, had grown up caring for horses. She took excellent care of the four in the stable.

“Let’s go inside.” Inez, who had probably seen more stables than any three people together, never tired of studying them.

The dogs preceded them, and Erno let out a yelp.
“A mouse. I know where he is!”

The gorgeous russet dog pounced at a tiny crack in the wood divider between stalls.

“Erno, all barns have mice, even if they have cats or Jack Russells.”
Doodles laughed.
“You should know that.”

“Of course I do,”
the young dog answered,
“but I am a hunter, you know. If I had to, I’d go after a boar.”

“Let’s hope you don’t have to,”
Doodles said drily.

Bred for bird hunting, Doodles wasn’t opposed to other forms of hunting but felt they were inferior to his task. He was good at it, too, and could stand stock-still for an hour.

Once inside, Inez whistled. The large brass knobs at the top of the scoop-necked stall openings had been polished until they gleamed. All the brass hardware shone.

“The last time I was in here, these were standing stalls,” Inez remembered.

“Little Mim took out some of the dividers and made six big stalls. When this was built in … oh, 1822, that was the fashion, as you know. You tied them to the manger and kept water and feed there, but they couldn’t run out. No stall doors. She kept the look but put up the stall doors.” Aunt Tally pointed to the floor. “They worked on the laid-brick floor, too. Those two have such an eye,” Aunt Tally bragged.

“They sure do.”

“Inez, does it occur to you that there’s more to Flo’s murder? Do you really believe a woman as intelligent as Mariah would kill Flo, even though she despised her, to avoid being exposed?”

“Seems like enough motivation.”

“Consider this. If Mariah confessed, groveled about her terrible mistake …” Aunt Tally paused. “Did she have a wretched childhood?”

“I don’t think so.” Inez looked into her old friend’s lively eyes.

“Okay, she can’t hide behind that.” She took a deep breath. Eau de cheval, her favorite aroma, filled her lungs. “But if she acted contrite, how long would she serve? Three years? Five? And, being smart, she’d come up for parole. Apart from the public humiliation, it wouldn’t be that awful.”

“I never thought of that. But if Mariah is as intelligent as we think she is, she’d have never sold bogus watches.”

“True, but greed infects even the intelligent. Maybe more so, because they think they can get away with it.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Inez agreed.

“Speaking of intelligence, Liz’s lightbulb”—Tally tapped her temple—“is dimming.”

Inez replied, “Every time Liz talks to Terri Kincaid, Terri carries on. Liz knows she’s emotional. Actually, I’m not sure Terri is wrapped too tight.”

“Maybe she has help.” Aunt Tally had been told by Inez about the broken jar and the white sand in plastic inside. “Makes them jumpy. I remember some of Mother’s big parties in the 1920s. I’d peep down the stairs. Some people were quite open about a snort here or there.” Aunt Tally shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s right or wrong. All I know is these days everything is demonized: sugar, cigarettes, etc.”

“Both Harry and I recognize that we don’t really know, but can you imagine anyone not thinking cocaine?”

“Not these dogs.” Aunt Tally turned to leave the beautiful stable. “Are you telling Cooper?”

“No. If we’re wrong, what a horrible thing to do to Terri. If we’re right, it will come out in the wash sooner or later.”

“Right.”

They retraced their steps, happy to be in the routine, as were the three dogs, who chased one another.

After a few quiet moments, Inez muttered, “It’s the damned messages. Why take that risk?”

“Ego,” Aunt Tally responded with conviction, tapping the paving stones with her cane.

“Then what else will she do?” Inez wondered.

“You mean to prove we’re all too dumb to catch her, especially the police and, I shall assume, her husband? She’s taunting everybody.”

“Mariah will have to up the ante,” Inez grimly predicted.

Y
esterday’s sunshine gave way to a low-pressure system with steady rain. Harry finished her chores, hung up her dripping Barbour coat, and stepped out of her work boots. The painted wooden floor of the screened-in porch felt cold to her feet. She stepped into the kitchen, where she peeled off her stockings. The work boots had sprung a leak.

After drying her feet with a towel, Harry knew she should clean out the broom closet—a chore she’d put off for two years. It’s amazing how resourceful a human can be in avoiding an unwanted fox.

She opened the closet door, studied the mops, brooms, cleaning agents, and shelves with cans, jars, brushes.

Pewter, who’d opted to stay in the living room rather than help Harry with the chores, heard the door shut.
“So much for the broom closet.”

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, coming in to the living room to join Pewter, laughed.

Harry found her moccasins with fleece lining, then called out, “Where are you?”

“We’re hiding,”
Mrs. Murphy called back in a high register.

Harry walked into the living room, the fleece feeling so good on her cold feet. “Come here.”

Tucker did. Mrs. Murphy didn’t.

“Here.”
Tucker knew the drill.

Harry took the offered front paw, carefully wiping it dry. “You know to wait for me. I don’t want tracks all over the house.”

Finished with Tucker, Harry walked to the sofa. “Gimme.”

Mrs. Murphy, already curled up on a needlepoint pillow, turned her head.

“I see wet paw prints on this sofa.”

“They’ll dry,”
the cat said.

Harry sat next to the beautiful tiger, who didn’t move. She carefully wiped her paws.

“Think of it as a feline pedicure.”

“Oh, Mom,”
Mrs. Murphy replied.

“Maybe she’ll paint your toenails.”
Pewter giggled.

“All you do is giggle. What’s with you?”
Mrs. Murphy complained.

“I could dust these bookcases.” Harry put one hand on her hip.

“Will you sit down and relax?”
Pewter grumbled.
“Why do humans have to make work? I can’t stand it.”

“That’s why you’re fat.”
Mrs. Murphy cast her green eyes at Pewter’s rotund tummy.

“I have big bones. I’m not fat. Work has nothing to do with it.”

Harry knelt down and slipped an early edition of
War and Peace
off the bookshelf. The edges of books on the bottom shelves displayed Tucker’s teething marks from when she was a puppy.

The bookcase, which was floor to ceiling on either side of the fireplace, had been built by Harry’s great-grandfather, a passionate reader, as was her mother. Many of the books they cherished remained exactly where Harry’s kin had placed them. First editions of Faulkner, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, were recent compared to the first editions of Surtees, Tennyson, and Dickens. Harry knew these books would fetch a pretty penny in New York City, but there were some things with which one did not part.

Sandy McAdams and his wife, Donna, owned and operated Daedalus Bookshop at 123 Fourth Street NE, in the ever-expanding city of Charlottesville. Every now and then, Harry would wander in there, knowing she’d kill two hours browsing, dreaming. Sandy, who had a flaming beard with streaks of gray, could be relied upon for a bracing
discussion. Once she’d asked him how people could part with such treasures, and he’d replied that so often the love of a good book didn’t pass to the next generation. When the book lover died, the family sold all the books; hence Sandy’s enormous inventory.

In his raspy voice, Sandy had said, “The Spanish have a saying, that when an old person dies, a library burns.”