Murder at Monticello (18 page)

41

The night turned unseasonably cool. The Reverend Jones built a fire in his study, his favorite room. The dark green leather chairs bore testimony to years of use; knitted afghans were tossed over the arms to hide the wear. Herb Jones usually wrapped one around his legs as he sat reading a book accompanied by Lucy Fur, the young Maine coon cat he'd brought home to enliven Elocution, or Ella, his older first cat.

Tonight Ansley and Warren Randolph and Mim Sanburne joined him. They were finishing up planning Kimball's memorial service.

“Miranda's taking care of the music.” Mim checked that off her list. “Little Marilyn's hired the caterer. You've got the flowers under control.”

“Right.” Ansley nodded.

“And I'm getting a program printed up.” Warren scratched his chin. “What do you call it? It's not really a program.”

“In Memoriam,” Ansley volunteered. “Actually, whatever you call it, you've done a beautiful job. I had no idea you knew so much about Kimball.”

“Didn't. Asked Oliver Zeve for Kimball's résumé.”

Mim, without looking up from her list, continued checking off jobs. “Parking.”

“Monticello, or should I say Oliver, is taking care of that?”

“Well, that's it, then.” Mim put down her pencil. She could have afforded any kind of expensive pencil, but she preferred a wooden one, an Eagle Mirado Number 1. She carried a dozen in a cardboard container, the sale carton, wherever she journeyed. Carried a pencil trimmer too.

The little group stared into the fire.

Herb roused himself from its hypnotic powers. “Can I fetch anyone another drink? Coffee?”

“No thanks,” everyone replied.

“Herb, you know people's secrets. You and Larry Johnson.” Ansley folded her hands together. “Do you have any idea, any hunch, no matter how wild?”

Herb glanced up at the ceiling, then back at the group. “No. I've gone over the facts, or what we know as the facts, in my mind so many times I make myself dizzy. Nothing jumps out at me. But even if Kimball or the sheriff uncover the secret of the corpse at Monticello, I don't know if that will have anything to do with Kimball's murder. It's tempting to connect the two, but I can't find any link.”

Mim stood up. “Well, I'd better be going. We've pulled a lot together on very short notice. I thank you all.” She hesitated. “I'm sorry about the circumstances, much as I like working with everyone.”

         

Warren and Ansley left about ten minutes later. Driving the dark, winding roads kept Warren alert.

“Honey . . .” Ansley watched for deer along the sides of the road—the light would bounce off their eyes. “Did you tell anyone that Kimball read the Randolph papers?”

“No, did you?”

“Of course not—make you look like a suspect.”

“Why me?”

“Because women rarely kill.” She squinted into the inky night. “Slow down.”

“Do you think I killed Kimball?”

“Well, I know you sent that letter with the cut-out message to Mim.”

He decelerated for a nasty curve. “What makes you think that, Ansley?”

“Saw
The New Yorker
in the trash in the library. I hadn't read it yet, so I plucked it out and discovered where your scissors had done their work.”

He glowered the rest of the way home, which was only two miles. As they pulled into the garage he shut off the motor, reached over, and grabbed her wrist. “You're not as smart as you think you are. Leave it alone.”

“I'd like to know if I'm living with a killer.” She baited him. “What if I get in your way?”

He raised his voice. “Goddammit, I played a joke on Marilyn Sanburne. It wasn't the most mature thing to do, but it was fun considering how she's cracked the whip over my head and everyone else's since year one. Just keep your mouth shut.”

“I will.” Her lips clamped tight, making them thinner than they already were.

Without letting go of her wrist he asked, “Did you read the papers? The blue diary?”

“Yes.”

He released her wrist. “Ansley, every old Virginia family has its fair share of horse thieves, mental cases, and just plain bad eggs. What's the difference if they were crooked or crazy in 1776 or today? One doesn't air one's dirty laundry in public.”

“Agreed.” She opened the door to get out, and he did the same on the driver's side.

“Ansley.”

“What?” She turned from her path to the door.

“Did you really think, for one minute, that I killed Kimball Haynes?”

“I don't know what to think anymore.” Wearily she reached the door, opened it, and without checking behind her, let it slam, practically crunching Warren's nose in the process.

42

Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, and Deputy Cooper exhausted themselves reading. Mim's connection to Thomas Jefferson was through the Wayles/Coolidge line. Ellen Wayles Randolph, his granddaughter, married Joseph Coolidge, Jr., on May 27, 1825. They had six children, and Mim's mother was related to a cousin of one of those offspring.

Slender though it was, it was a connection to the Sage of Monticello. Ellen maintained a lively correspondence with her husband's family. Ellen, the spark plug of Maria's—or Polly's—children, inherited her grandfather's way with words just as her older brother, called Jeff, inherited his great-grandfather's, Peter Jefferson's, enormous frame and incredible strength.

One of the letters casually mentioned that Ellen's younger brother, James Madison Randolph, had fallen violently in love with a great beauty and seemed intent upon a hasty marriage.

Harry read and reread the letter, instantly conceiving an affection for the effervescent author. “Miranda, I don't remember James Madison Randolph marrying.”

“I'm not sure. Died young though. Just twenty-eight, I think.”

“These people had such big families.” Deputy Cooper wailed as the task had begun to overwhelm her. “Thomas Jefferson's mother and father had ten children. Seven made it to adulthood.”

Miranda pushed back her half-spectacles. When they slid down her nose again she took them off and laid them on the diary before her. “Jane, his favorite sister, died at twenty-five. Elizabeth, the one with the disordered mind, also died without marrying. The remainder of Thomas's brothers and sisters bequeathed to Virginia and points beyond quite a lot of nieces and nephews for Mr. Jefferson. And he was devoted to them. He really raised his sister Martha's children, Peter and Sam Carr. Dabney Carr, who married Martha, was his best friend, as you know.”

“Another
Martha?” Cynthia groaned. “His wife, sister, and daughter were all named Martha?”

“Well, Dabney died young, before thirty, and Thomas saw to the upbringing of the boys,” Miranda went on, absorbed. “I am convinced it was Peter who sired four children on Sally Hemings. A stir was caused when Mr. Jefferson freed, or manumitted, one of Sally's daughters, Harriet, quite the smashing beauty. That was in 1822. You can understand why the Jefferson family closed ranks.”

Officer Cooper rubbed her temples. “Genealogies drive me bats.”

“Our answer rests somewhere with Jefferson's sisters and brother Randolph, or with one of his grandchildren,” Harry posited. “Do you believe Randolph was simple-minded? Maybe not as bad as Elizabeth.”

“Well, now, she wasn't simple-minded. Her mind would wander and then she'd physically ramble about aimlessly. She wandered off in February and probably died of the cold. Poor thing. No, Randolph probably wasn't terribly bright, but he seems to have enjoyed his faculties. Lived in Buckingham County and liked to play the fiddle. That's about all I know.”

“Miranda, how would you like to be Thomas Jefferson's younger brother?” Harry laughed.

“Probably not much. Not much. I think we're done in. Samson's tomorrow night?”

43

Pewter grumbled incessantly as she walked with Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker to work. The fat cat's idea of exercise was walking from Market's back door to the back door of the post office.

“Are we there yet?”

“Will you shut up!”
Mrs. Murphy advised.

“Hey, look,”
Tucker told everyone as she caught sight of Paddy running top-speed toward them. His ears were flat back, his tail was straight out, and his paws barely touched the ground. He was scorching toward them from town.

“Murph,”
Paddy called,
“follow me!”

“You're not going to, are you?”
Pewter swept her whiskers forward in anticipation of trouble.

“What's wrong?”
Mrs. Murphy called out.

“I've found something—something important
.” He skidded to a stop at Harry's feet.

Harry reached down to scratch Paddy's ears. Not wanting to be rude, he rubbed against her leg.
“Come on, Murph. You too, Tucker.”

“Will you tell me what this is all about?”
the little dog prudently asked.

“Well spoken.”
Pewter sniffed.

“Larry Johnson and Hayden McIntire's office.”
Paddy caught his breath.
“I've found something.”

“What were you doing over there?”
Tucker needed to be convinced it really was important.

“Passing by. Look, I'll explain on the way. We need to get there before the workmen do.”

“Let's go.”
Mrs. Murphy hiked up her tail and dug into the turf.

“Hey—hey,”
Tucker called, then added after a second's reflection,
“Wait for me!”

Pewter, furious, sat down and bawled.
“I will not run. I will not take another step. My paws are sore and I hate everybody. You can't leave me here!”

Perplexed at the animals' wild dash toward downtown Crozet, Harry called after them once but then remembered that most people were just waking up. She cursed under her breath. Harry wasn't surprised, though, by Pewter's staunch resistance to walk another step, having been quickly deserted by her fitter friends. She knelt down and scooped up the rotund kitty. “I'll carry you, you lazy sod.”

“You're the only person I like in this whole wide world,”
Pewter cooed.
“Mrs. Murphy is a selfish shit. Really. You should spend more time with me. She's running off with her no-account ex-husband, and that silly dog is going along like a fifth wheel.”
The cat laughed.
“Why, I wouldn't even give that two-timing tom the time of day.”

“Pewter, you have a lot on your mind.” Harry marveled that the smallish cat could weigh so much.

         

As the three animals raced across the neat square town plots, Paddy filled them in.

“Larry and Hayden McIntire are expanding the office wing of the house. I like to go hunting there. Lots of shrews.”

“You've got to catch them just right because they can really bite,”
Mrs. Murphy interrupted.

“It's easy to get in and out of the addition,”
he continued.

The tidy house appeared up ahead, with its curved brick entranceway splitting to the front door and the office door. The sign,
DR
.
LAWRENCE JOHNSON & DR
.
HAYDEN MCINTIRE
, swung, creaking, in the slight breeze.
“No workmen yet,”
Paddy triumphantly meowed. He ducked under the heavy plastic covering on the outside wall and leapt into the widened window placement. The window had not yet been installed. The newest addition utilized the fireplace as its center point of construction. A balancing, new fireplace was built on the other end of the new room. It matched the old one.

“Hey! What about me?”

“We'll open the door, Tucker.”
Mrs. Murphy gracefully sailed through the window after Paddy and landed on a sawdust-covered floor. She hurried to the door of the addition, which as yet had no lock, although the fancy brass Baldwin apparatus, still boxed, rested on the floor next to it. Mrs. Murphy pushed against the two-by-four propped up against the door. It clattered to the floor and the door easily swung open. The corgi hurried inside.

“Where are you?”
Mrs. Murphy couldn't see Paddy.

“In here,”
came the muffled reply.

“He's crazier than hell.”
Tucker reacted to the sound emanating from the large stone fireplace.

“Crazy or not, I'm going in.”
Mrs. Murphy trotted to the cavernous opening, the firebrick a cascade of silky and satiny blacks and browns from decades of use. The house was originally constructed in 1824; the addition had been built in 1852.

Tucker stood in the hearth.
“The last time we stood in a fireplace there was a body in it.”

“Up here,”
Paddy called, his deep voice ricocheting off the flue.

Mrs. Murphy's pupils enlarged, and she saw a narrow opening to the left of the large flue. In the process of remodeling, a few loose bricks had become dislodged—just enough room for an athletic cat to squeeze through.
“Here I come.”
She sprang off her powerful haunches but miscalculated the depth of the landing.
“Damn.”
The tiger hung on to the opening, her rear end dangling over the side. She scratched with her hind claws and clambered up the rest of the way.

“Tricky.”
Paddy laughed.

“You could have warned me,”
she complained.

“And miss the fun?”

“What's so important up here?”
she challenged him, then, as her eyes became accustomed to the diminished light, she saw he was sitting on it. A heavy waxed oilskin much like the covering of an expensive foul-weather coat, like a Barbour or Dri-as-a-Bone, covered what appeared to be books or boxes.
“Can we open this up?”

“Tried. Needs human hands,”
Paddy casually remarked although he was ecstatic that his find had produced the desired thrill in Mrs. Murphy.

“What's going on up there?”
Tucker yelped.

Mrs. Murphy stuck her head out of the opening.
“Some kind of stash, Tucker. Might be books or boxes of jewelry. We can't open it up.”

“Think the humans will find it?”

“Maybe yes and maybe no.”
Paddy's fine features now came alongside Mrs. Murphy's.

“If workmen repoint the fireplace, which they're sure to do, it's anyone's guess whether they'll look inside here or just pop bricks in and mortar them up.”
Mrs. Murphy thought out loud.
“This is too good a find to be lost again.”

“Maybe it's treasure.”
Tucker grinned.
“Claudius Crozet's lost treasure!”

“That's in the tunnel; one of the tunnels,”
Paddy said, knowing that Crozet had cut four tunnels through the Blue Ridge Mountains in what was one of the engineering feats of the nineteenth century—or any century. He accomplished his feat without the help of dynamite, which hadn't yet been invented.

“How long do you think this has been in here?”
Paddy asked.

Mrs. Murphy turned to pat the oilskin.
“Well, if someone hid this, say, in the last ten or twenty years, they'd probably have used heavy plastic. Oilskin is expensive and hard to come by. Mom wanted one of those Australian raincoats to ride in and the thing was priced about $225, I think.”

“Too bad humans don't have fur. Think of the money they'd save,”
Paddy said.

“Yeah, and they'd get over worrying about what color they were because with fur you can be all colors. Look at me,”
Tucker remarked.
“Or Mrs. Murphy. Can you imagine a striped human?”

“It would greatly improve their appearance,”
Paddy purred.

Mrs. Murphy, mind spinning as the fur discussion flew on, said,
“We've got to get Larry over here.”

“Fat chance.”
Paddy harbored little hope for human intelligence.

“You stay here with your head sticking out of the hole. Tucker and I will get him over here. If we can't budge him, then we'll be back, but don't you leave. Okay?”

“You were always good at giving orders.”
He smiled devilishly.

Mrs. Murphy landed in the hearth and took off for the door, Tucker close behind. They crossed the lawn, stopping under the kitchen window, where a light glowed. Larry was fixing his cup of morning coffee.

“You bark, I'll jump up on the windowsill.”

“Not much of a windowsill,”
Tucker observed.

“I can bank off it, if nothing else.”
And Mrs. Murphy did just that as Tucker yapped furiously. The sight of this striped animal, four feet planted on a windowpane and then pushing off, jolted Larry wide awake. The second thud from Mrs. Murphy positively sent him into orbit. He opened his back door and, seeing the culprits, thought they wanted to join him.

“Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, come on in.”

“You come out,”
Tucker barked.

“I'll run in and right out.”
Mrs. Murphy flew past Larry, brushing his legs in the process, turned on a dime, and ran back out through his legs.

“What's the matter with you two?” The old man enjoyed the spectacle but was perplexed.

Again Mrs. Murphy raced in and raced out as Tucker ran forward, barked, and then ran a few steps away.
“Come on, Doc. We need you!”

Larry, an intelligent man as humans go, deduced that the two animals, whom he knew and valued, were highly agitated. He grabbed his old jacket, slapped his porkpie hat on his head, and followed them, fearing that some harm had come to another animal or even a person. He'd heard about animals leading people to the site of an injured loved one, and a flash of fear ran through him. What if Harry'd been hurt on her way in to work?

He followed them into the addition. He stopped after walking through the door as Mrs. Murphy and Tucker dashed to the fireplace.

“Howl, Paddy. He'll think you're trapped or something.”

Paddy sang at his loudest,
“‘Roll me over in the clover/Roll me over/Lay me down and do it again.' ”

Tucker giggled as Mrs. Murphy leapt up to join Paddy, although she refrained from singing the song. Larry walked into the fireplace and beheld Paddy, his head thrown back and warbling for all he was worth.

“Got stuck up in there?” Larry looked around for a ladder. Not finding one, he did spy a large spackling compound bucket. He lifted it by the handle, discovering how heavy it was. He lugged it over to the hearth, positioned it under the opening, where both cats now meowed piteously, and carefully stood on it. He could just see inside.

He reached for Paddy, who shrank back. “Now, now, Paddy, I won't hurt you.”

“I know that, you silly twit. Look.”

“His eyes aren't good in the dark, plus he's old. They're worse than most,”
Mrs. Murphy told her ex.
“Scratch on the oilskin.”

Paddy furiously scratched away, his claws making tiny popping noises as he pulled at the sturdy cloth.

“Squint, Larry, and look real hard,”
Mrs. Murphy instructed.

As if he understood, Larry shielded his eyes and peered inside. “What the Sam Hill?”

“Reach in.”
Mrs. Murphy encouraged him by back-stepping toward the treasure.

Larry braced against the fireplace with his left hand, now besmirched with soot, and reached in with his right. Mrs. Murphy licked his fingers for good measure. He touched the oilskin. Paddy jumped off and came to the opening. Mrs. Murphy tried to nudge the package, but it was too heavy. Larry tugged and pulled, succeeding in inching the weighty burden forward until it wedged into the opening. Forgetting the cats for a moment, he tried to pull out the oilskin-covered bundle, but it wouldn't fit. He poked at the bricks around the hole and they gave a bit. Cautiously he removed one, then two and three. These bricks had been left that way on purpose. The two kitty heads popped out of the new opening. Larry squeezed the package through and almost fell off the bucket because it was so heavy. He tottered and jumped off backward.

“Not bad for an old man,”
Tucker commented.

“Let's see what he's got.”
Mrs. Murphy sailed down. Paddy came after her.

Larry, on his knees, worked at the knot on the back side of the package. The three animals sat silent, watching with intent interest. Finally, victorious, Larry opened the oilskin covering. Inside lay three huge, heavy volumes, leather-bound. With a trembling hand Larry opened the first volume.

The bold, black cursive writing hit Larry like a medicine ball to the chest. He recognized the handwriting and in that instant the man he had admired and worked with came alive again. He was reminded of the fragrance of Jim's pipe tobacco, his habit of running his thumbs up and down under his braces, and his fervent belief that if he could cure human baldness, he'd be the richest doctor on the face of the earth. Larry whispered aloud, “‘The Secret Diaries of a Country Doctor, Volume I, 1912, by James C. Craig, M.D., Crozet, Virginia.' ”

Seeing his distress, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker sat next to him, pressing their small bodies against his own. There are moments in every human life when the harpoon of fate rips into the mind and a person has the opportunity to perceive the world afresh through his own pain. This was such a moment for Larry, and through his tears he saw the two furry heads and reached out to pet them, wondering just how many times in this life we are surrounded by love and understanding and are too self-centered, too human-centered to know what the gods have given us.