Claws and Effect (2 page)

Tussie interrupted him. “The hospital does need a few things.”

He jumped in again. “Complete and total electrical overhaul. New furnace for the old section but hey, who listens to me? I just run the place. Let a doctor squeal for something and oh, the earth stops in its orbit.”

“That's not true. Bruce Buxton has been yelling for a brand new MRI unit and—”

“What's that?” Harry inquired.

“Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Another way to look into the body without invading it,” Tussie explained. “Technology is exploding in our field. The new MRI machines cut down the time by half. Well, don't let me go off on technology.” She stopped for a moment. “We will all live to see a cure for cancer, for childhood diabetes, for so many of the ills that plague us.”

“Don't know how you can work with sick children. I can't look them in the eye.” Hank frowned.

“They need me.”

“Hear, hear,” Miranda said as Harry nodded in agreement.

“Guess we need a lot of things,” Hank remarked. “Still, I think the folks in the scrubs will get what they want before I get what I want.” He took a breath. “I hate doctors.” Hank placed the envelopes in the large inside pocket of his heavy coveralls.

“That's why you spend your life in the basement.” Tussie winked. “He's still looking for the Underground Railroad.”

“Oh, balls.” Hank shook his head. If they had been outside, he would have spat.

“I've heard that story since I was a kid.” Miranda leaned over the counter divider. “'Bout how the old stone section of the hospital used to be on the Underground Railroad for getting slaves to freedom.”

“Every house and bush in Crozet has historical significance. Pass a street corner and some sign declares, ‘Jefferson blew his nose here.' Come on, Tussie. I've got to get back to work.”

“What are you doing here with doom and gloom?” Harry winked at Tussie.

Hank suppressed a little smile. He liked being Mr. Negative. People paid attention. He thought so anyway.

“Chuckles' car is in the shop.”

“Don't call me that,” Hank corrected her. “What if my wife hears you? She'll call me that.”

“Oh, here I thought you'd say ‘people will talk.'” Tussie expressed much disappointment.

“They do that anyway. Ought to have their tongues cut out.”

“Hank, you'd have fit right in during the ninth century
A
.
D
. Be in your element.” Tussie followed him to the door.

“Yeah, Hank. Why stop with cutting people's tongues out? Go for the throat.” Harry winked at Tussie, who joined her.

“Mom's getting bloodthirsty.”
Mrs. Murphy laughed.

“Let me get Chuckles back to his lair.” Tussie waved good-bye.

“Don't call me Chuckles!” He fussed at her as they climbed into the Tracker.

“They're a pair.” Miranda observed Hank gesticulating.

“Pair of what?” Harry laughed as she emptied the wastebasket into a large garbage bag.

The day wore on, crawled really. The only other noteworthy event was when Sam Mahanes, director of the hospital, picked up his mail. Miranda, by way of chitchat, mentioned that Bruce Buxton had slid on his back down Main Street.

Sam's face darkened and he replied, “Too bad he didn't break his neck.”

2

“Whee!” Harry slid along the iced-over farm road, arms flailing.

The horses watched from the pasture, convinced more than ever that humans were a brick shy of a load. Mrs. Murphy prowled the hayloft. Tucker raced along with Harry, and Pewter, no fool, reposed in the kitchen, snuggled tail over nose in front of the fireplace.

Susan Tucker, Harry's best friend since the cradle, slid along with her, the two friends laughing, tears in their eyes from the stinging cold.

Slowed to a stop, they grabbed hands, spinning each other around until Harry let go and Susan “skated” thirty yards before falling down.

“Good one.”

“Your turn.” Susan scrambled to her feet. Instead of spinning Harry, she got behind her and pushed her off.

After a half hour of this both women, tired, scooted up to the barn. They filled up water buckets, put out the hay, and called the three horses, Poptart, Tomahawk, and Gin Fizz, to come into their stalls. Then, chores completed, they hurried into the kitchen.

“I'll throw on another log if you make hot chocolate. You do a better job than I do.”

“Only because you haven't the patience to warm the milk, Harry. You just pour hot water on the cocoa. Milk always makes it taste better even if you use one of those confections with powdered milk in it.”

“I like chocolate.”
Pewter lifted her head.

“She heard the word ‘milk.'” Harry stirred the fire, then placed a split dry log over the rekindled flames. Once that caught she laid another log parallel to that, then placed two on top in the opposite direction.

“I'd like some milk.”
Mrs. Murphy placed herself squarely on the kitchen table.

“Murph, off.” Harry advanced on the beautiful cat, who hopped down onto a chair, her head peering over the top of the table.

“Here.” Susan poured milk into a large bowl for the two cats, then reached into the stoneware cookie jar to give Tucker Milk-Bones. As Susan had bred Tee Tucker, she loved the dog. She'd kept one from the litter and thought someday she'd breed again.

“Did I tell you what Sam Mahanes said today? It was about the only interesting thing that happened.”

“I threw out junk mail along with the Cracker Jacks in my postbox. That was the big interest in my day,” Susan replied.

“I didn't do it.”

“Then why didn't you clean it out? You're supposed to run a tight ship at the post office.”

“Because whoever put the Cracker Jacks in there wanted you to have them.” Harry smiled.

“That reduces the culprits to my esteemed husband, Ned. Not the Cracker Jacks type. Danny, m-m-m, more like his father. Must have been Brooks.” She cited her teenaged daughter.

“I'll never tell.”

“You won't have to because when I get home she'll wait for me to say something. When I don't she'll say, ‘Mom, any mail today?' The longer I keep quiet, the crazier it will make her.” Susan laughed. She loved her children and they were maddening as only adolescents can be but they were good people.

“The hard part was keeping Mrs. Murphy and Pewter from playing with the Cracker Jacks.”

“What was your solution?”

Mrs. Murphy lifted her head from the milk bowl.
“Catnip in the Reverend Jones' box.”

Both women laughed as the cat spoke.

“She's got opinions,” Susan remarked.

“I put catnip in Herb's mailbox.” Harry giggled. “When he gets home and puts his mail on the table his two cats will shred it.”

“Remember the time Cazenovia ate the communion wafers?” Susan howled recalling the time when Herb's sauciest cat got into the church closet, which was unwisely left open. “And I hear his younger kitty, Elocution, is learning from Cazenovia. Imagine kneeling at the communion rail being handed a wafer with fang marks in it.”

Harry giggled. “The best church service I ever attended. But I hand it to Herb, he tore up bread crusts and communion continued.”

“What happened with Sam Mahanes?” Susan asked. “Didn't mean to get off the track. I do it all the time and I'm not even old. Can you imagine me at eighty?”

“I can. You'll be the kind of old dear who walks in other people's kitchens to make herself a cup of tea.”

“Well—at least I won't be boring. Eccentricity is worth something. You were going to tell me about Sam Mahanes in the post office today.”

“Oh, that. Miranda told him that Bruce Buxton took a header on the ice. He turned a nifty shade of beet red and said, ‘Too bad he didn't break his neck,' and then he slammed out of the P.O.”

“Huh.” Susan cupped her chin in her hand as she stirred her hot chocolate. “I thought those two were as thick as thieves.”

“Yeah, although I don't know how anyone can stand Bruce on a long-term basis.”

Susan shrugged. “I guess in order to be a good surgeon you need a big ego.”

“Need one to be postmistress, too.”

“You know, in order to be good at anything I suppose everyone needs a touch of ego. The trick is hiding it. Bruce might be wonderful at what he does but he's stupid about people. That's one of the things I've always admired about Fair. He's great at what he does but he never brags.” She sipped a moment. “And how is your ex-husband?”

“Fine. It's breeding season so I won't see much of him until mares are bred for next year and this year's mares deliver.” Fair was an expert on equine reproduction, a veterinarian much in demand.

“Oh, Harry.” Exasperated, Susan cracked Harry's knuckles with a spoon.

“You asked how he was, not how we're doing.”

“Don't get technical.”

“All right. All right. We were keeping to our Wednesday-night dates until now. We're having fun.” She shrugged. “I don't know if lightning can strike twice.”

“Me either.”

“I get so sick of people trying to get us back together. We've been divorced for four years. The first year was hell—”

Susan interrupted. “I remember.”

“I don't know if time heals all wounds or if you just get smarter about yourself. Get more realistic about your expectations of other people and yourself.”

“God, Harry, that sounds like the beginnings of maturity.” Susan faked a gasp.

“Scary, isn't it?” She stood up. “Want more of your hot chocolate?”

“Yeah, let's finish off the lot.” Susan stood up.

“Sit down.”

“No, let me bring the cup to you. Easier to pour over the sink.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right.” Harry picked up the pan and carefully poured hot chocolate into Susan's cup and then refilled her own. “The weatherman says it's going to warm up to fifty degrees tomorrow.”

“You wouldn't know it now. I don't mind snow but ice plucks my last nerve. Especially with the kids out driving in it. I know they have good reflexes but I also know they haven't experienced as much as we have and I wonder what they'll do in that first spinout. What if another car is coming in the opposite lane?”

“Susan, they'll learn and you can't protect them anyway.”

“Yeah. Still.”

“Aren't you amazed that Miranda has kept to her diet in the dead of winter?”

“Still baking things for the store and her friends. I never realized she had such discipline.”

“Shows what love will do.”

Miranda had lost her husband over ten years ago. By all accounts it was a happy marriage and when George Hogendobber passed away, Miranda consoled herself with food. Ten years of consoling takes a long time to remove. The incentive was the return of her high-school boyfriend, now a widower, for their high-school reunion. Sparks flew, and as Miranda described it, they were “keeping company.”

“The football team.”

“What?” Harry, accustomed to abrupt shifts in subject from her old friend—indeed she was often guilty of them herself—couldn't follow this one.

“I bet that's why Sam Mahanes is mad at Bruce Buxton. Because Bruce operates on all the football players, and didn't he just get a big write-up in the paper for his work on the safety? You know that kid that everyone thinks will make All-American next year if his knee comes back. And Isabelle Otey, the girls' basketball star. He gets all the stars. Jealousy?”

“Buxton's always gotten good press. Deserved, I guess. Being in Sam's position as director of the hospital I'd think he'd want Bruce to be celebrated, wouldn't you?” Harry asked.

“You've got a point there. Funny, every town, city, has closed little worlds where ego, jealousy, illicit love collide. Even the Crozet Preservation Society can be a tempestuous hotbed. Good God, all those old ladies and not one will forgive the other for some dreaded misdeed from 1952 or whenever.”

“Sex, drugs and rock and roll.”
Mrs. Murphy climbed back up on the chair to join the kitchen discussion.

“What, pussycat?” Harry reached over, stroking the sleek head.

“People get mad at other people over juicy stuff.”

“Money. You forgot money.”
Tucker tidied up the floor, picking up her Milk-Bone debris.

“A little bit around here wouldn't hurt,”
Pewter, ever conscious of her need for luxury, suggested.

“Well?”
Mrs. Murphy pulled forward one side of her whiskers.

“Well what?”
The rotund gray kitty leapt onto the remaining free kitchen chair.

“You want money. Get your fat butt out there and earn some.”

“Very funny.”

“You could do shakedowns. People do it. Ask a small fee for not tearing up gardens, not leaving partially digested mice on the front steps, and not raiding the refrigerator.”

Before unflattering words could be spoken, Harry leaned over, face-to-face with the cats. “I can't hear myself think.”

“They certainly have many opinions,” Susan said. “Not unlike their mother.”

“M-m-m.” Harry glanced out the window. “Damn.”

Susan turned to observe.

“More snow,”
Tucker lamented. Being low to the ground, she had to plow through snow. It was the only time she admitted to admiring larger canines.

3

“Spike!” Isabelle Otey shouted from the sidelines as Harry, on the opposing team, rose up in the air, fist punching into the volleyball. Although Isabelle's main sport was basketball, she loved most team sports and she enjoyed knowing the “townies,” as residents of the county were called by UVA students. Languishing on the sidelines, she supported her team vocally.

Isabelle's team, knowing of Harry's skill, crouched in preparation but not only was Harry strong, she was smart. She spiked the ball where they weren't.

“Game,” the ref called as the score reached 21 to 18.

“Rocket arm.” Cynthia Cooper slapped Harry on the back.

Isabelle, her crutches leaning against the bleachers, called out to Harry, “Too good, Mary Minor. You're too good.”

Throwing a towel around her neck, Harry joined the coach of the opposing team. Coop, a deputy on the county's police force, joined them.

“Isabelle, they need you. Basketball team, too.” Cynthia sat next to her.

“Four more weeks. You know it isn't really painful, the swelling went down fast but I don't want to go through this again so I'm doing what Dr. Buxton told me. What scares me more than anything is going out to the car, walking across the ice with crutches.”

“Calling for rain tomorrow.” Harry wiped her face with the white towel. “The good thing is it will melt some of the snow. Bad thing, won't melt all of it and at night everything will be more ice.”

“Keeps me busy.” Cynthia grinned. “I have to earn my salary somehow. You know, most people are pretty reasonable about fender benders. A few lose it.”

“You must see a lot of stuff.” Isabelle couldn't imagine being a law-enforcement officer. She envisioned a career as a pro basketball player.

“Mostly car wrecks, drunks, a few thefts and”—she smiled devilishly—“the occasional murder.”

“I wonder if I could kill anyone.”

“Isabelle, you'd be amazed at what you could do if your life depended on it,” Cynthia said, running her fingers through her blonde hair.

“Sure. Self-defense, but I read about these serial killers in the paper or people who just go to a convenience store with a shotgun and blow everyone to bits.”

“I have a few uncharitable thoughts in the post office from time to time,” Harry giggled.

“Oh, Harry, you couldn't kill anyone—unless it was self-defense, of course,” Isabelle said.

“It's not a subject I've thought much about. What about you, Coop? You're the professional.”

“Most murders have a motive. Jealousy, inheritance money. The usual stuff. But every now and then one will come along that makes you believe some people are born evil. From my point of view our whole system allows them to get away with it.”

“Are we going to have the discussion about suspending civil rights?” Harry asked Coop.

“No, we are not because I'm going to hit the showers. I've got a date tonight.”

Both Harry and Isabelle perked right up. “With who?”

“Whom,” Harry corrected Isabelle.

“With Harry's ex.”

“For real?” Isabelle leaned forward.

“Take him. He's yours.” Harry nonchalantly waved her right hand.

“Oh, don't be such a hardass. He loves you and you know it.” Coop laughed at Harry; then her voice became animated. “That's it. Confess. You could have killed BoomBoom Craycroft when they had their affair.”

“Ah, yes,” Harry dryly replied. “The affair that ended my marriage. Actually, that's probably not true. Marriages end in a variety of ways. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Could I have killed BoomBoom? No. She was no better than she should be. I could have killed him.”

“So—why didn't you?” Isabelle, having not yet fallen in love, wanted to know.

“I don't know.”

“Because you aren't a killer,” Coop answered for Harry. “Everyone in this world has had times when they were provoked enough to kill but ninety-nine percent of us don't. I swear there are people who are genetically inclined to violence and murder, and I don't give a damn how unpopular that opinion is.”

“Why are we sitting here discussing my former marriage?”

“Because I'm going on rounds with Fair tonight.”

Fair Haristeen had invited Cynthia Cooper to accompany him when she expressed an interest in his work.

“I didn't know you were interested in horses.” Isabelle stood up as Harry handed her her crutches.

“I like them but what I'm really interested in is seeing some of the farms from the back side. Meeting the barn workers. There might be a time when I need their help. And I'm curious about the technology.”

“A lot of the stuff that's eventually used on humans is used in veterinary care first.”

“Like the operation on my knee.” Isabelle swung her leg over the bottom bleacher, stepping onto the wooden floor. “I wonder how many dogs, cats, and horses tore their anterior cruciate ligaments before I did.” She paused a moment. “Har, I'm sorry if I put you on the spot about when your marriage broke up.”

“Here, let me carry your purse.” Harry picked up the alarmingly large satchel, throwing it over her shoulder. “Everyone in Crozet knows everything about everybody—or thinks they do. He fooled around and I got sick of it. And being married to a vet is like being married to a doctor. You can't plan on anything, really. Emergencies interrupt everything and sometimes days would go by and we'd hardly see one another. And I married too young.”

They both watched with lurid fascination as BoomBoom Craycroft pushed open the gym doors. “Speak of the devil.”

“Hi, girls.” The buxom, quite good-looking woman waved to them.

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked, since BoomBoom had skipped gym in high school. Her only physical outlet, apart from the obvious, was golf.

“I saw everyone's cars parked outside and thought I might be missing something.”

“You did. We beat the pants off them and then discussed whether we were capable of murder,” Harry deadpanned.

“Ah. Well, the other reason I stopped by was that I saw Sheriff Shaw at Market Shiflett's store. Coop, he knows you have plans but will you work tonight? Bobby Yount came down with the flu and he thinks it's going to be one of those nights. He asked for you to call him in his car.”

“Damn. Oh well. Thanks, Boom.” Cynthia turned to Harry and Isabelle. “There goes my date with Fair.” She knew this would tweak BoomBoom's raging curiosity.

Eyes widening, BoomBoom edged closer to Coop, hoping to unobtrusively pull her away from the other two women, to get the scoop on what sounded like a romance or at least a real date.

Harry took care of that by saying, “Gee, Boom, maybe you ought to fill in.”

“You can be hateful. Really hateful.” BoomBoom turned on her heel, the heel of an expensive snow boot bought in Aspen, and stormed off.

Isabelle's jaw dropped at the adults' antics.

“Spike.” Coop clapped Harry on the back.