Whisker of Evil (4 page)

6

F
air Haristeen and Sugar Thierry turned out a lovely gray mare, which Fair had just vetted.

“Going to run her first. Then I'll breed her.”

“Chaser?”

Sugar nodded. “Someone has to give Tavener Heyward competition.”

“He's had a couple of great seasons.” They walked back to Fair's truck. He tossed his clipboard on the front seat.

“Can you put this on account?” Sugar, muscles tight in his face, requested.

“No charge.”

“Fair, you're good to me.” Sugar's facial muscles relaxed.

“Starting out in the horse business is hard, really hard when you aren't rich.”

“You can say that again.”

“You doing okay?”

“I don't know.” Sugar's eyelids closed, then opened slowly. “Shook up.”

Fair's voice dropped. “A blow like that just blindsides you. You don't know what hit you, literally.”

“Rick came here. Asked a lot of questions. It stung me.” Sugar's voice grew louder.

“He has to do his job. You were Barry's partner.”

“He acted as though I killed him!”

“Like I said, he has to ask uncomfortable questions. It's his job.”

“Barry and I were a good team. Why would I cut off my right arm?”

“You wouldn't. We all know that. But like I said, Rick has to do his job, and the statistics show most people are killed by people close to them.”

“Barry wasn't killed. I mean he wasn't murdered.” Sugar's expression darkened as the grief cut him anew. “Poor Barry.” He breathed in. “Is Harry okay?”

“Yeah,” Fair replied. “She's tough.”

“She was good to call me. You know, she called and asked if I needed help with the horses. No one else did that.”

Fair stepped up into the truck. “She's a wonderful woman but she doesn't want anyone to know it.” He smiled, then asked, “Do you need a hand here?”

“I can manage for a while.” Sugar looked out over the white stables of St. James, Mary Pat's racing colors painted on each support post of the shed row barns. A one-foot band of emerald green with a thin band of gold was in the center, and an even thinner pinstripe of black in the gold enlivened the middle of each post.

“I'll keep my ears open for affordable help. But call me or Harry. You know we'll pitch in. We're all horsemen.” He placed his hand on Sugar's shoulder.

“One of the reasons we were starting to break even was that we did all the work. Barry was a good hand with a horse.”

“I know,” Fair agreed. “Sugar, I'm really sorry.”

Sugar squinted up at Fair, then shaded his eyes with his palm. “What's that saying, ‘Life's a bitch. Then you die'?”

“Something like that.” Fair cut on the motor. “You know where I am. Call if you need me, and, Sugar, it's okay to need people.”

7

A
long blue fingernail with tiny stars and a sliver of moon pointed in Sheriff Rick Shaw's face. “I didn't kill him, but I gave it a thought.”

“Miss Gamble, when was the last time you saw Mr. Monteith?”

“You mean Shithead?” A streak of vulgarity ran through the undeniably pretty and petite Carmen Gamble. “And why are you on me like white on rice? An animal killed him. Leave me out of it.”

Rick, a solid presence, leaned toward her. “Carmen, get over yourself.”

He'd known her for years and decided that correct procedure as to proper address wasn't going to work with her.

She tossed her crimped curls. “Well, I don't like being a suspect.”

“You just said you thought about killing him; now, calm down and answer my questions. I don't think you killed him. Does that make you feel better?”

“Why don't you think I killed him?”

“Because you would have castrated him.” Rick pulled out a cigarette from his Camel pack, offered Carmen one, which she took.

He sat back down in the questioning room at headquarters.

“Okay, the last time I saw Shi—I mean, Barry, was at Georgetown Veterinary Clinic. I was taking Ruffie to see Mrs. Dr. Flynn.” She said “Mrs. Dr.” because Mrs. Virginia Flynn's husband was also a veterinarian, an equine vet, and one of the most respected men in his field nationally.

Dr. Dan Flynn was a contemporary of Tavener Heyward as well as a friend of Fair Haristeen. Fair was decades younger than the other two men, and he thought very highly of them.

“And what did Ginger Flynn have to say about Ruffie?”

“Oh, he just needed his rabies booster shot, all his other boosters, and I got him a heartworm shot, too. They've got shots now so you don't have to remember to give them the heartworm pills each month. Ruffie hates pills.” Like most pet owners, Carmen adored her wirehaired dachshund and assumed everyone else did, too, which in Crozet was a relatively safe assumption.

Rick, not a pet owner himself, thought animal lovers were all addled, but he nodded, feigning interest. “When was that?”

“Thursday.”

“What did you say?”

“Hello, Shithead.” She burst out laughing.

Rick couldn't help it, but he laughed, too. There was an insouciance about Carmen, a rowdy spiritedness, that made you like her even when she was crude.

“And what did he say?”

“Actually, he, um, he surprised me. I thought he'd say something ugly back, but he didn't. He nodded hello sort of and climbed into his Ford Harley-Davidson truck and drove off. Do you know how much he paid for that truck? Had to be the special issue Harley-Davidson. That truck broke us up.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Would you want to play second fiddle to a truck?”

“In my line of work, Carmen, playing second fiddle would be a step up.” He inhaled then exhaled from his nostrils, two blue plumes curling over his upper lip.

“Yeah, you have to kiss ass a lot. I could never do it. That's why I opened my own beauty shop, Shear Heaven. I'm my own boss. They don't do it my way, it's the highway.”

“Business is good?”

“Business is great. I specialize in color. A woman turns thirty and, Rick, she turns to me.” She rubbed her forefinger and thumb together. “I've got no competition in Crozet. Well, I take that back. West Main, but they're in Charlottesville. They're good and we all get along. But other than that, no one can do color for squat. I even colored Barry's hair once. Gave him a magenta streak for sideburns. Cool.”

“Who would want to kill Barry other than yourself?”

“I thought an animal killed Barry.” Her eyes narrowed.

“Looks that way. But there's enough that's unusual about his passing that makes me want to know more.” He smiled. “And it's been a slow week. I might as well keep busy.”

“Nothing's slow around Charlottesville anymore.”

“Well, let's just say the weather's been good, hardly any accidents, the kids are out of school so that lightens the load, and there haven't been many break-ins. A slow week. Anyway, I might as well justify the trust you place in me.”

“Oh, brother.” She rolled her eyes, a dark shade of blue thanks to colored contacts. “What was unusual?”

“No marks on him. No tire tracks. No animal tracks. No struggle.”

She held the cigarette at her lip, paused a long time, then took a deep, deep drag. “Yeah, that is pretty unusual. I mean, if Barry was going to get it, I figure a woman would just let him have it with a thirty-eight, you know? Or he'd piss off some boyfriend and die in a brawl, a tire iron wrapped 'round his neck. I never figured on anything like this.” A wistful note crept into her voice.

“Maybe he wasn't all that bad?” Rick placed the cigarette pack on the table.

She tilted her chin upward. “He wasn't all that good.” She pulled the ashtray toward her. “Oh, hell, he was just a man. Men think of themselves first.”

“When we're young I think that's a fair assessment. But, Carmen, some men do grow up.”

“Barry? Never. He was a big kid who wanted to play with his truck, dance, hang out, and have sex. I used to think he loved me, but I think I was just kind of there. I was convenient. That's when I walked. If I'm not special, I'm walking.”

“Did he have enemies?”

“Nah. Oh, ex-girlfriends for a while, but most of them got over it. I guess I would have, too.” She stared at the ashtray, then up at Rick for a minute. “I don't really want him dead.”

“I didn't think so.” Rick felt in his pocket for change. “I need a Co-Cola. How about I fetch you one?”

“Sure.”

“While I'm down the hall, maybe something will come into your mind. Anything.” He left and walked to the bank of food machines. The place was quiet. The dispatcher sat at her desk. Most of the force on this first Tuesday in June prowled around in their patrol cars. When he returned, Carmen had finished her cigarette and awaited him with her hands folded on the table.

“Here you go, girl.”

“Thanks, Rick. I guess I should call you Sheriff, seeing as how this is an official visit.”

“Better than calling me Shithead.”

“I'd never call you that. I'd give your wife that privilege.”

He smiled. “You won't believe this, but she has never called me that.”

“I can believe it. She's such a lady.” Carmen cut and colored Bettina Shaw's hair. Betts was an attractive forty-one, perhaps ten pounds overweight. Like most women she obsessed about her weight, but Rick thought she looked just fine. It was a strong marriage.

“Think of anything?”

“Nah.”

“Do you know if he was dating anyone new?”

“He wanted to go out with Tazio Chappars, but she was way above his head.”

“He told you that?”

“No, but I could tell. Barry was transparent.”

“Hmm. Carmen, you've been helpful and thanks for your time. If you think of anything, let me know.”

“I will. Was it true he was still alive when Harry found him?”

“Yes.”

“Funny.”

“How so?”

“That was another one he had a crush on, but she was above his raisins, too.”

“She know that?”

“No.”

“I guess if I was with someone who looked around as much as Barry did, it would pluck my nerves, too,” Rick said.

“I could just tell. He wouldn't do anything. Not while we were together. And if he did he would be singing soprano. You're right about that.” She reached for another cigarette from his pack as Rick nodded that was fine. “Did think of one thing.”

“Oh?”

“He said he sold a yearling. His share gave him enough to buy that Ford model Harley-Davidson truck.”

“Yes.”

“I never believed him.”

8

H
uge carpenter bees buzzed under the eaves of the barn.

“Talk about big butts.”
Pewter sniffed as a tiny thread of fresh-chewed wood sprinkled on her black nose.

“They make those holes up there and they're as round as if they had measured them.”
Mrs. Murphy, too, watched the bees, which could have been mistaken for bumblebees except that the carpenter bees' black bottoms weren't fuzzy.

Tuesday, the first of June, perfect, a light breeze, low seventies, grass as green as emeralds, produced a euphoria in the animals. Although six o'clock in the evening, the light gilded the weathervane, the barn, the outbuildings, and the neat clapboard house. The sun wouldn't set until around nine, and the summer twilights lingered, filling the sky with colors of surpassing beauty.

Harry's three horses, Poptart, Gin Fizz, and Tomahawk, dined on redbud clover, which enlivened the green pastures with dark pink dots. She mixed redbud clover, orchard grass, and a little rye in her fields. This year she experimented with some alfalfa down by the creek bottom, between her farm and that of Blair Bainbridge.

She was out on her old 1958 tractor, bushogging the sides of her long driveway. Once Harry fired up her tractor it was hard to get her to step down. The pop-pop-pop of the upright exhaust pipe thrilled her as much as a Brandenburg Concerto thrilled a music aficionado. Which was not to say that Harry didn't like Bach. She did. She just liked her tractor's pops and rumbles better.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter hated the dust this chore stirred up. Furthermore, they'd worked diligently in the post office that day and felt they were entitled to a snooze amidst the lilies that Harry had planted in front of the low boxwoods by the barn. She was going all out on her beautification program since BoomBoom Craycroft—a former adversary turned, if not friend, then warm acquaintance—had gotten a whopping good price on all the stock of a nursery going out of business. The nursery had specialized in only trees and shrubs, no flowers. BoomBoom, Susan Tucker, Miranda Hogendobber, and Harry bought up maples, hickories, crepe myrtles, Italian lilacs, redbuds, dogwoods, a new disease-resistant chestnut, and even some red oaks. The four women divided up the trees and shrubs between them. Harry had lined her drive and farm roads with her bounty. Of course, the girls, as they called themselves, nearly broke their backs putting in all this plant material, but Harry had a drill on the back of her old tractor so she could dig the holes. Then BoomBoom, operating her new tractor, scooped up the trees, and the huge root bundles in a ball of dirt were perched on the front-end loader of her tractor. And throughout March and April, when weather permitted, they got the trees and shrubs in the ground at each of their houses.

As Harry bounced around on the tractor seat covered with remnants of a sheepskin, she thought about how much she loved working outdoors. Even those raw days when the drizzle ran down the back of her neck and the temperature chilled at thirty-six degrees, she loved it.

When she wasn't puzzling over Barry, her mind returned to her present job—postmistress. Everybody trooped through the post office. She adored seeing everyone she knew, as well as the occasional stranger. But the threat of a new building, more employees, and more rules nagged at her. She and Miranda did as they pleased, and as long as they met the dispatcher in the morning and in the late afternoon, they were just fine. The building was as neat as a pin, the mail sorted and in the boxes by nine most days. And since they knew everyone, they knew who drove by on their way in to work in Charlottesville in the morning. Those people could always expect a wave, a smile. Best of all, Harry's three four-footed friends worked with her. What if a new post office and new people changed that? She would never work without her animals. It was unnatural. It would make her sick to just hang around with humans all the time.

A large rock outcropping near the drive necessitated a swerve. A groundhog nibbled grass to the side of the outcropping.

As she neared the dirt state road, she pulled over again, because Susan Tucker turned onto the gray stones, number five from the quarry in Staunton. Harry put a load down in April and complained for a month about the expense.

Stopping, Susan rolled down her window. “Looks good. Why don't you come up the other side—I know you hate to leave a job in the middle of it—and I'll make supper.”

“You will?”

“I will. Brooks and her dad drove down to Sweet Briar this afternoon.” She pointed to a bag of groceries on the passenger seat of her Audi station wagon. “Voilà.”

“Susan, you are the best!” Harry, who rarely cooked, beamed.

“In fact, give yourself forty-five minutes. You ought to knock a mess of bushogging out by then.”

“Roger.” Harry touched the brim of her straw cowboy hat.

Each year she bought a new Shady Brady and wore it hard. By the end of the year that hat was tired, plus she'd invariably forget to bring it in the house and would leave it in the tack room, where the mice would chew on it.

Tucker, snoring next to the tack trunk in the barn, lifted her head when she heard Susan come down the drive. She roused herself, hoping that Susan had brought along Owen, her corgi brother.

As the two dogs played tag, the bemused cats watched.

“What's funny about those two is they have no idea they're shrimps.”
Pewter rested her head on her outstretched paw.

“Dwarfs.”
Mrs. Murphy accurately described the two corgis, large animals bred down to shortened legs but with the torso and head of larger dogs.

As corgis go, Tucker and Owen were on the large size of the breed. Tee Tucker weighed forty pounds and her brother weighed about forty-six, but he carried a little potbelly. Neither dog was terribly overweight, and both could turn on a dime and give you a nickel's change. Given that their function was herding cattle, their size and demeanor were perfect for the task. A small dog like a miniature pinscher might not get the respect of the cattle, but a corgi with a stout bark and strong jaws could nip heels, duck or leap sideways, and drive those cattle down the road.

“Murphy, I've been thinking about Barry. No, we couldn't smell another animal, but he had the stench of fear on him. We didn't talk about that,”
Pewter said.

“Hmm.”
Mrs. Murphy sat up.
“I attributed that to nature. He was afraid of what killed him.”

“Me, too,”
Pewter replied.

“What's on your mind?”

“Well, let's say a bear grabs him or even takes a swipe so only his throat is touched.”

“Yeah . . .”
The tiger nodded, waiting.

“Wouldn't Barry have thrown his right arm up to protect his throat? That's the natural human reaction. They have no other defense in that situation and, God knows, the poor things can't outrun a rabbit.”

“Pewter, you're right. And there wasn't a mark on him, at least not that we could see. No dirt on his right arm or bruises or blood. It's—”

“Unnatural.”
Pewter finished her thought for her.

“Even if a huge raptor swooped down on him, he'd still throw his arm up.”
Mrs. Murphy considered other possibilities.

“Okay, suppose the bird hit him from behind with his talons balled up. Barry stumbled and somehow fell faceup. Well, he'd have a big knot on the back of his head.”

“Thought you didn't care much about humans except for Harry and a few of her friends.”
Mrs. Murphy taunted Pewter just a bit.

Pewter drawled,
“I don't. But I was thinking about what kind of animal would kill Barry without him having any time to defend himself at all.”

“You're it!”
Tucker roared by, too close for comfort, as she chased her brother.

“Watch it!”
Mrs. Murphy swiped at the white rear end.

The possum, Simon, awakened for a night's foraging, peered out of the hayloft door, open to let the breezes through the hay.
“Pipe down.”

The cats looked up at Simon, whom they liked well enough.
“Good luck. Tucker's about to go into her frenzy. Give her another minute and she'll chase the tail that isn't there.”

Simon, half-domesticated, had endured every shot and test for EPM, a degenerative, complicated disease that would be passed to the horses, and emerged a remarkably healthy possum, if a disgruntled one.

“I'm not coming down until those two are in the house. They'll chase me. Tucker forgets her manners when Owen's around,”
Simon grumbled.

As Susan stepped out back to ring the large bell hanging by the screen door, the dogs decided that the prospect of food was more alluring than chasing each other to exhaustion.

“Simon, have a good evening.”
Pewter shook herself, then trotted to the screen door.

Pewter was never one to hang back when food was on the table.

Mrs. Murphy called up,
“Peppermints in Mom's barn coat. She forgot to give them to the horses.”

“Thanks!”
Simon could taste those candies already.

Harry, hungry, pulled her tractor into the old shed the minute she heard the bell. Johnny Pop, the old John Deere, belched a few times, black puffs of exhaust rising like smoke signals from the exhaust pipe. Harry disengaged the PTO—the power takeoff—a rotating axle that powered attachments. Tomorrow before climbing back on she would dutifully check fluids on her old tractor. She had a mania for maintaining all equipment properly because she assumed she'd never be able to buy any more.

The two friends caught up on their own doings as well as everyone else's. The animals gratefully ate the chicken that Susan had made for them.

“Susan, no wonder Ned married you.” Harry smiled as Susan put apple crisp before her for dessert.

“Bet he has days when he wonders,” Susan laughed as she sat down to the apple crisp topped with vanilla ice cream. “Oh, ran into Fair, and he said he's off this coming weekend if we want to go to the furniture stores in Farmville.”

“Do you want to go?”

“Can't make up my mind. If I go I'm afraid I'll buy that chest of drawers I keep dreaming about. My husband won't be happy about it.” She sighed, then smiled as she delivered ice cream and apple crisp to her mouth.

“Let's wait until we get closer to the weekend. I don't want to be tempted, either.” Harry savored the crunch of another mouthful of apple crisp. She changed the subject. “Is Mim going to Keeneland this year?”

“She's waiting for Saratoga.”

“I'd love to go!” Harry adored Saratoga Springs, a beautiful city north of Albany, New York, and the center of the thoroughbred world in August.

“She's selling this year.”

“She had those two yearlings by, uh, one's by Fred Astaire and the other is by J. C. Smells, the Pennsylvania horse. But the mares are granddaughters of Secretariat. Everyone wants that blood, especially from the mares.”

“Mim is shrewd. Ran into her, too, and she said you had found Mary Patricia Reines's class ring. I can't believe you didn't call me.”

“I'm sorry.” And Harry was. “I've been on overload and I didn't know who it belonged to when I found it. Took it to Coop only because I found it not far from where I found Barry, poor guy. And she took it to Aunt Tally. It's a long story about why she took it there instead of to Rick, but, anyway, Big Mim knew. And Mary Pat's initials are inside the ring plus the date, 1945. Oh, Coop and I came back here after Aunt Tally's and used Mom's big magnifying glass. The inscription, which is reversed so you can use the ring for stamping, is
Victuri te salutamus
.”

“We salute you, Victory?” Susan's Latin was rusty but serviceable. “Or, we who are about to be victorious salute you?”