Whisker of Evil (22 page)

39

P
otlicker Creek flowed the four and a half miles from St. James to Harry's farm. Along the way it widened, as other small creeks fed into it, until finally it spilled into the Mechums River.

The waters, clear and cool, had been favored by the native population. Although the English had settled the eastern and central parts of Albemarle County before the Revolutionary War, only a handful ventured this far west, thanks to the vigilance and ferocity of the Monacans.

Once Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the mood of the now-independent Americans swung upward and westward. Crushing war debts drove some far past the boundaries of Anglo civilization. Others knew fortunes would be made if they could only figure out how to get their produce and products to burgeoning cities and towns back east.

Potlicker Creek, not being a mighty river, offered little in the way of transportation. But those who settled at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains discovered that the crystal creek water made soft whiskey or clear spirits, if that was your preference.

A tangle of footpaths leading back to the stills tucked in the hollows crisscrossed the creek along its course. The revenue man had tried to tame the distillers. More than one never made it back home. Finally, the government ignored the distillers until the upheavals of the Great Depression.

During that time, families along the Appalachian Chain were removed, bought out, or forced out to make way for the explosion of public works designed to revive the economy as well as to stave off revolt. Along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains the Skyline Drive was built, in use to this day, as a monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt's vision and a sorrow to those families forced to leave home.

The moonshine men became ever more adept at hiding or moving. Potlicker Creek would see a still erected for a season then moved deeper into a sheltering mountain crevice. As Albemarle County became more and more desirable, the distillers took their trade to Nelson County, meeting stout resistance from those Nelson County men already in the business.

Harry, Fair, Alicia, and Aunt Tally, who was making a habit of visiting Alicia, stood at a narrow crossing of Potlicker Creek a mile behind the training track at St. James. The slick slide along the creek bank bore testimony to the work of muskrats, an animal as industrious as the beaver.

Along the creek, mountain laurel and blackberries spilled over one another. A canopy of various oaks, hickories, maples, and black walnuts added to the cool stillness of the morning.

Indomitable as she was, Aunt Tally couldn't walk far on the uneven ground, slick with dew. Alicia, driving Big Mim's second vehicle, a Land Cruiser—on loan so Alicia could see if she liked it—rolled along until the farm road played out near Potlicker Creek. The short walk to the creek took ten minutes, with Fair clearing away the low brush with a machete. Aunt Tally refused an arm under her elbow, gamely stepping forward with the help of her cane.

“High winds.” Aunt Tally pointed to a tulip poplar broken in half across the creek. “Must have been that storm firing through here two weeks ago.”

“When Mary Pat was alive she had the men keep the trails cleared. Remember, she had trails on both sides of the creek?” Alicia said.

“Used to have wonderful hunts up here. Picnics, too. When I was a little girl, Sharkey Southwell kept a big still not four hundred yards east of here. Then he got religion and that was the end of the still. It was also the end of Sharkey's easy money. He became a roofer after that,” Aunt Tally grumbled. “Sharkey added a few blackberries to his waters. In those days you could take your pick: blackberries, cherries, and, oh, the apple brandy. You never tasted anything so good in your life. Only one place makes apple brandy anymore. Down in Covesville. Legal, too. Never tastes as good when it's legal.” She laughed, a dry laugh.

“Alicia, aren't there high pastures back there?” Fair inquired.

“Yes, St. James goes to the top of the mountain. There are hundreds of acres of summer pastures, which we used for the cattle. Every May we'd drive them up, bringing them back in September. Royal Orchard still has high pastures.” Alicia mentioned a farm atop a spur of the Blue Ridge that ran east–west along Route 64. “Once Mary Pat was gone, I sold the cattle, and there wasn't a reason to keep up the pastures. Also, the cost of labor kept going up.” She paused a moment. “I'm glad I kept St. James. You know, those three years I had with Mary Pat taught me to love central Virginia.”

“Mary Pat's up there, close by.”
Mrs. Murphy remembered what the fox had told her.

“Hush. Alicia was extra kind letting you tag along,” Harry admonished her.

“Did the fox say the high meadows?”
Tucker asked.

“Yes. At least, that's the story foxes have passed down. Her ring traveled a long way, didn't it?”
Mrs. Murphy looked up at Mary Pat's ring on Harry's finger.

“If Mary Pat or what's left of her is up there under a cairn of stone, Ziggy's up there, too,”
Pewter said.

“No.”
Mrs. Murphy was putting the pieces of this strange puzzle together, but she was missing some large ones.
“I think the killer, when all was safe, brought Ziggy down and got him out of here.”

“He'd never stay up there by himself. He would jump those fences. Stallions need high, high fences, and those were cattle pastures,”
Pewter sensibly replied.

“Whoever killed Mary Pat knew horses. That's why he kept Ziggy. He or she would have been smart enough to take a mare up there to keep him company if Ziggy had to stay up there for a while. I don't know if this was a crime of passion or a crime of money, but whoever did it has kept it covered up for thirty years. Until now.”
Mrs. Murphy wanted to get up to the high meadows. They'd be overgrown, but who knows what she might find? Her senses and sensibility were superior to the human variety.

“How does Barry fit in?”
Pewter, frustrated at not understanding, growled.

“He rented the stables. He may have gone up to those meadows. It'd be a stiff hike but fun. Maybe it got him to thinking. But he did have Mary Pat's breeding notes. He clearly was working toward something. And he was found two miles downstream. That part brings up questions.”

“Mrs. Murphy, it would take a Hercules to carry a man like Barry two miles downstream.”
Pewter was right.

“Whoever killed him threw him in an SUV or the back of a truck and drove on the road. Regular road. Turned up an old farm road, came to the stream; there are old trails. He could have made it without too much effort. Then he picked up the body and walked downstream. He or she didn't need to walk miles. It was a good plan. Few people come up to Potlicker Creek,”
Tucker, voice low, said, her ears forward.

“Why didn't the sheriff figure that out?”
Pewter played devil's advocate.

“Oh, I think he did, but too late. Too late,”
Mrs. Murphy replied.

“What do you mean?”
Tucker walked to the edge of the creek. The bank was steep.

“Rick was thorough. They combed the banks of this creek for miles in both directions, but by the time it occurred to him to come up the unused roads leading in, it was too late. And remember, whoever did this was smart enough not to pick a road that would come straight up to the creek. So walking along the creek wouldn't get you any tire tracks. And it rained a few days after we found Barry. There's luck involved in crime detection, not just science and observation. Rick has had bad luck. We've got to get up to those high meadows.”
Mrs. Murphy, deep in thought, peered down at the muskrat slide.

“Murphy, there's rabies here. At St. James.”
Pewter sat down.
“And for all you know it's sweeping down from those high meadows. I'm not going up there.”

“Don't be a chicken. You have your rabies shot.”
Tucker pushed through the blackberries to a clear space on the bank. She peered over the side, seeing the opening to the muskrat den.

“I'm not a chicken. I'm cautious, that's all. Anyway, how do you think you're going to get up there? If you run away now, Harry will never take you out again.”
Pewter puffed out her chest, secure in her conviction.

“Harry will get up there. I bet you one catnip sockie.”
Mrs. Murphy's green eyes twinkled.

The plump gray cat considered this.
“I'm not taking that bet.”

The three animals laughed.

Tucker addressed Mrs. Murphy.
“You know, you said this was a crime of passion or money. If Alicia is the killer it would be both.”

Pewter perked right up.
“She came back to see the ring. Aha! I knew it.”

“You two.”
Mrs. Murphy shook her head.
“And where was Alicia when Barry was killed?”

“Barry has nothing to do with this.”
Pewter didn't like to be refuted.
“I believe Carmen Gamble killed him. Or Sugar. But Carmen was in the middle of it.”

“Well, if it's Carmen, Harry sees her often enough, and if it's Alicia, our dear human is standing right next to her.”
Tucker marveled at Harry's ability to land in the middle of danger.

40

R
ick hung up the phone. “Jerome didn't have rabies.”

Cooper, at her desk, cheered. “Thank God.”

Rick celebrated by lighting up a Camel. He'd returned to his favorite brand after trying others. Two blue plumes escaped his nostrils. “If those tests had come back positive, we'd be answering the calls of people shooting one another's dogs and cats and then one another. Thank God for small favors.”

It was a very small favor, indeed.

41

B
lack clouds, their undersides limned with darkest silver, began peeking over the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The temperature dropped. The wind rustled the tops of the trees, sending a few leaves flying.

Mrs. Murphy, awakened by a persistent whippoorwill, jumped off the bed. Tucker snorted as she was stretched on the rug, but she didn't waken. Pewter, as usual, was dead to the world and draped over Harry's head.

As the tiger padded through the kitchen, the old railroad clock's black hands announced three forty-five. The short pendulum with the gold disc at the end swung monotonously to and fro. Seconds and minutes ticked away, but Mrs. Murphy rarely worried about time. She thought of it as a human invention. They drove themselves crazy with clocks, phones, machines. She thought time was an illusion and age a conceit. A cat lives every moment intensely. Pewter slept intensely. Mrs. Murphy brushed through the animal door intensely. Alive, alert, in the present, whiskers forward, that's the way to live.

She scampered to the barn just as the owl flew through the opened hayloft door.

“Hoo, hoo-hoo.”

Mrs. Murphy climbed the ladder to the hayloft. Simon, sound asleep in his nest, clutched the broken Pelham curb chain, his prized possession. Simon wanted shiny things. A broken curb chain was as good as a Tiffany diamond to him.

Flatface the owl bent over from her large nest in the cupola, climbed to the side, opened her wings, and effortlessly floated down, landing exactly in front of the cat.

“Good evening,”
Mrs. Murphy greeted her.

“And a good evening it's been, Mrs. Murphy. Hunting's good before a storm, and how is it that I so often have the pleasure of your company as the old barometer is dropping?”

“You know, I never thought of that. I think it wakes me up, although tonight that whippoorwill did the job. I was going to go to the edge of the woods to give him a piece of my mind. Have you ever noticed when the moonlight strikes their eyes just right, they are ruby red?”

“So they are. I personally don't understand ground nesters. Why on earth, forgive the pun,”
she hooted,
“would any self-respecting bird want to sit in the dirt or leaves or a bunch of twigs? Even a silly house dog can eat them.”

“Better not let Tucker hear you say that.”

“Tucker is the exception that proves the rule. And Tazio's Lab is all right,”
Flatface conceded.

“The ground nesters rely on camouflage,”
Mrs. Murphy, her own stripes a good cover, replied.

“That's like humans relying on prayer. Work then pray, I say. It's blasphemy that they believe the Almighty is a human. I try to overlook this offense and their stupidity. We all know the Great Omnipotent Owl watches over us all.”

“Doesn't seem to be watching over this part of Virginia right now,”
Mrs. Murphy wryly commented. She wasn't going to get drawn into a religious discussion, since she devoutly believed spiritual life was guided by a heavenly cat of epic proportion.

“Why, things are wonderful. I haven't had such good hunting in years. Years.”
She fluffed out her large chest, then turned her head almost upside down.

“It makes me dizzy when you do that.”

“Hoo hoo-hoo, ha.”
The big bird righted her head.

“You're right, hunting is superb, but I was thinking about the human deaths, murders.”

“Oh, that? I did ask my friends if they'd heard of rabies over the mountains. Word came back: ‘No.' I just haven't seen you to tell you.”

“Thank you for asking around.”

Simon rolled over in his sleep.

Flatface observed him sternly.
“He's supposed to be a nocturnal animal. Lazy sod.”

The whippoorwill sang out again just as the first raindrops splattered on the roof.

“Simon tries, but he doesn't get any further than the feed room. He picks up under the horse buckets, I'll give him credit for that. He keeps things tidy. Then he gets full and goes to sleep.”
Mrs. Murphy laughed at the funny-looking possum, a very sweet soul.

“Oh, he doesn't content himself with the feed room and the leavings under the horse buckets. He opens that desk drawer every night for candy. It's a wonder he has a tooth in his head. Really, that's one of the marvelous aspects of having a beak: no tooth decay.”

“Lucky. I had my teeth cleaned in December. I hate it, but Harry drags me down to Dr. Shulman and they both tell me how good it is for my health. And Pewter screams the entire way. She always knows when it's a vet trip. What a baby.”

“That cat has such a high opinion of herself.”

“The best—you'll love this: We were at St. James and Pewter convinced the barn swallows to throw down tail feathers. She picked them up and ran to the humans. Disgraceful.”

The owl's golden eyes glittered as she laughed.
“And they believed her?”

“That's the terrible part, they did!”

“Even Harry?”
Flatface asked.

“Even Harry.”

“I thought she had more sense than that. I heard she left the post office. How's she doing?”

“Mmm, her attention is focused on the murders. I don't know what she'll be like once she can think about her future.”