Wish You Were Here (6 page)

6

The coroner's report lay opened on Rick Shaw's desk. The peculiarity in Kelly's body was a series of scars on the arteries into his heart. These indicated tiny heart attacks. Kelly, fit and forty, wasn't too young for heart attacks, but these would have been so small he might not have noticed when they occurred.

Rick reread the page. The skull, pulverized, yielded little. If there had been a bullet wound there'd be no trace of it. When the men combed through the mixer no bullets were found.

Much of the stomach was intact. Apart from a Big Mac, that yielded nothing.

There was a trace of cyanide in the hair samples. Well, that was what killed him but why would the killer mutilate the body? Finding the means of death only provoked more questions.

Rick smacked together the folder. This was not an accidental death but he didn't want to report it as a murder—not yet. His gut feeling was that whoever killed Kelly was smart—smart and extremely cool-headed.

Cynthia Cooper knocked.

“Come in.”

“What do you think?”

“I'm playing my cards close to my chest for a bit.” Rick slapped the report. He reached for a cigarette but stopped. Quitting was hell. “You got anything?”

“Everybody checks out. Marie Williams was right where she said she was on Monday night, and so was BoomBoom, if we can believe her servants. BoomBoom said she thought her husband was out of town on business and she was waiting for him to call. Maybe, maybe not. But was she alone? Fair Haristeen said he was operating late that evening, solo. Everyone else seems to have some kind of alibi.”

“Funeral's tomorrow.”

“The coroner was mighty quick about it.”

“Powerful man. If the family wants the body buried by tomorrow, he'll get those tissue samples in a hurry. You don't rile the Craycrofts.”

“Somebody did.”

7

BoomBoom held together throughout the service at Saint Paul's Episcopal Church at the crossroads called Ivy. An exquisite veil covered her equally exquisite features.

Harry, Susan, and Ned discreetly sat in a middle pew. Fair sat on the other side of the church, in the middle. Josiah and Mim, both elegantly dressed in black, sat near the pulpit. Bob Berryman and his wife, Linda, were also in a middle pew. Old Larry Johnson, acting as an usher, spared Maude Bly Modena a social gaffe by keeping her from marching down the center aisle, which she was fixing to do. He firmly grabbed her by the elbow and guided her toward a rearward pew. Maude, a Crozet resident for five years, didn't merit a forward pew, but Maude was a Yankee and often missed such subtleties. Market and Courtney Shiflett were in back, as were Clai Cordle and Diana Farrell of the Rescue Squad.

The church was covered in flowers, signifying the hope of rebirth through Christ. Those who could, also gave donations to the Heart Fund. Rick had to tell BoomBoom about the tiny scars on the arteries and she chose to believe her husband had suffered a heart attack while inspecting equipment and fallen in. How the mixer could have been turned on was of no interest to her, not today anyway. She could absorb only so much. What she would do when she could really absorb events was anybody's guess. Better to bleed from the throat than to cross BoomBoom Craycroft.

8

Life must go on.

Josiah showed up at the post office with a gentleman from Atlanta who'd flown up to buy a pristine Louis XV bombé cabinet. Josiah liked to bring his customers down to the post office and then over to Shiflett's Market. Market smiled and Harry smiled. Customers exclaimed over the cat and dog in the post office and then Josiah would drive them back to his house, extolling the delights of small-town life, where everyone was a character. Why anyone would believe that human emotions were less complex in a small town than in a big city escaped Harry but urban dwellers seemed to buy it. This Atlanta fellow had “sucker” emblazoned across his forehead.

Rob came back at eleven. He'd forgotten a bag in the back of the mail truck and if she wouldn't tell, neither would he.

Harry sat down to sort the mail and read the postcards. Courtney Shiflett received one from one of her camp buddies who signed her name with a smiling face instead of a dot over the “i” in “Lisa.” Lindsay Astrove was at Lake Geneva. The postcard, again brief, said that Switzerland, crammed with Americans, would be much nicer without them.

The mail was thin on postcards today.

Mim Sanburne marched in. Mrs. Murphy, playing with a rubber band on the counter, stopped. When Harry saw the look on Mim's face she stopped sorting the mail.

“Harry, I have a bone to pick with you and I didn't think that the funeral was the place to do it. You have no business whatsoever telling Little Marilyn whom to invite to her wedding. No business at all!”

Mim must have thought that Harry would bow down and say “Yes, Mistress.” This didn't happen.

Harry steeled herself. “Under the First Amendment, I can say anything to anybody. I had something I wanted to say to your daughter and I did.”

“You've upset her!”

“No, I've upset you. If she's upset she can come in here and tell me herself.”

Suprised that Harry wasn't subservient, Big Marilyn switched gears. “I happen to know that you read postcards. That's a violation, you know, and if it continues I shall tell the postmaster at the head office on Seminole Trail. Have I made myself clear?”

“Quite.” Harry compressed her lips.

Mim glided out, satisfied that she'd stung Harry. The satisfaction wouldn't last long, because the specter of her son would come back to haunt her. If Harry was brazen enough to speak to Little Marilyn, plenty of others were speaking about it too.

Harry turned the duffel bag upside down. One lone postcard slipped out. Defiantly she read it: “Wish you were here,” written in computer script. She flipped it over and beheld a gorgeous photograph, misty and evocative, of the angel in an Asheville, North Carolina, cemetery. She turned it over and read the fine print. This was the angel that inspired Thomas Wolfe when he wrote
Look Homeward, Angel
.

She slipped it in Maude Bly Modena's box and didn't give it a second thought.

9

A pensive Pharamond Haristeen drove his truck back from Charlottesville. Seeing BoomBoom had rattled him. He couldn't decide if she was truly sorry that Kelly was dead. The zing had fled that marriage years ago.

No armor existed against her beauty. No armor existed against her icy blasts, either. Why wouldn't a woman like BoomBoom be sensible like Harry? Why couldn't a woman like Harry be electrifying like BoomBoom?

As far as Fair was concerned, Harry was sensible until it came to the divorce. She threw him out. Why should he pay support until the settlement was final?

It came as a profound shock to Fair when Harry handed him his hat. His vanity suffered more than his heart but Fair seized the opportunity to appear the injured party. The elderly widowed women in Crozet were only too happy to side with him, as were single women in general. He moped about and the flood of dinner invitations immediately followed. For the first time in his life, Fair was the center of attention. He rather liked it.

Deep in his heart he knew his marriage wasn't working. If he cared to look inward he would discover he was fifty percent responsible for the failure. Fair had no intention of looking inward, a quality that doomed his marriage and would undoubtedly doom future relationships as well.

Fair operated on the principle “If it ain't broke, don't fix it,” but emotional relationships weren't machines. Emotional relationships didn't lend themselves to scientific analysis, a fact troubling to his scientifically trained mind. Women didn't lend themselves to scientific analysis.

Women were too damned much trouble, and Fair determined to live alone for the rest of his days. The fact that he was a healthy thirty-four did not deter him in this decision.

He passed Rob Collier on 240 heading east. They waved to each other.

If the sight of BoomBoom at her husband's funeral wasn't enough to unnerve Fair, Rick Shaw had zeroed in on him at the clinic, asking questions. Was he under suspicion? Just because two friends occasionally have a strained relationship doesn't mean that one will kill the other. He said that to Rick, and the sheriff replied with “People have killed over less.” If that was so, then the world was totally insane. Even if it wasn't, it felt like it today.

Fair pulled up behind the post office. Little Tee Tucker stood on her hind legs, nose to the glass, when she heard his truck. He walked over to Market Shiflett's store for a Coca-Cola first. The blistering heat parched his throat, and castrating colts added to the discomfort somehow.

“Hello, Fair.” Courtney's fresh face beamed.

“How are you?”

“I'm fine. What about you?”

“Hot. How about a Co-Cola?”

She reached into the old red bin, the kind of soft-drink refrigerator used at the time of World War II, and brought out a cold bottle. “Here, unless you want a bigger one.”

“I'll take that and I'll buy a six-pack, too, because I am forever drinking Harry's sodas. Where's your dad?”

“The sheriff came by and Dad went off with him.”

Fair smirked. “A new broom sweeps the place clean.”

“Sir?” Courtney didn't understand.

“New sheriff, new anything. When someone takes over a job they have an excess of enthusiasm. This is Rick's first murder case since he was elected sheriff, so he's just busting his . . . I mean, he's anxious to find the killer.”

“Well, I hope he does.”

“Me too. Say, is it true that you have a crush on Dan Tucker?” Fair's eyes crinkled. How he remembered this age.

Courtney replied quite seriously, “I wouldn't have Dan Tucker if he was the last man on earth.”

“Is that so? He must be just awful.” Fair picked up his Cokes and left. Pewter scooted out of the market with him.

Tucker ran around in circles when Fair stepped into the post office with Pewter on his heels. Maude Bly Modena rummaged around in her box, while Harry was in the back.

“Hi, Maudie.”

“Hi, Fair.” Maude thought Fair a divine-looking man. Most women did.

“Harry!”

“What?” The voice filtered out from the back door.

“I brought you some Cokes.”

“Three hundred thirty-three”—the door opened—“because that's what you owe me.” Harry appreciated his gesture more than she showed.

Fair shoved the six-pack across the counter.

Pewter hollered,
“Mrs. Murphy, where are you?”

Tucker walked over and touched noses with Pewter, who liked dogs very much.

“I'm counting rubber bands. What do you want?”
Mrs. Murphy replied.

Harry grabbed the Cokes off the counter. “Mrs. Murphy, what have you done?”

“I haven't done anything,”
the cat protested.

Harry appealed to Fair. “You're a veterinarian. You explain this.” She pointed to the rubber bands tossed about the floor.

Maude leaned over the counter. “Isn't that cute? They get into everything. My mother once had a calico that played with toilet paper. She'd grab the end of the roll and run through the house with it.”

“That's nothing.”
Pewter one-upped her:
“Cazenovia, the cat at Saint Paul's Church, eats communion wafers.”

“Pewter wants on the counter.” Fair thought the meow meant that. He lifted her onto the counter, where she rolled on her back and also rolled her eyes.

The humans thought this was adorable and fussed over her. Mrs. Murphy, boiling with disgust, jumped onto the counter and spat in Pewter's face.

“Jealousy's the same in any language.” Fair laughed and continued to pet Pewter, who had no intention of relinquishing center stage.

Tucker moaned on the floor.
“I can't see anything down here.”

Mrs. Murphy walked to the edge of the counter.
“What are you good for, Tee Tucker, with those short stubby legs?”

“I can dig up anything, even a badger.”
Tucker smiled.

“We don't have any badgers.”
Pewter now rolled from side to side and purred so loudly the deaf could appreciate her vocal abilities. The humans were further enchanted.

“Don't push your luck, Pewter,”
Tucker warned.
“Just because you've got the big head over knowing what happened before we did doesn't mean you can come in here and make fun of me.”

“This is the most affectionate cat I've ever seen.” Maude tickled Pewter's chin.

“She's also the fattest cat you've ever seen,”
Mrs. Murphy growled.

“Don't be ugly,” Harry warned the tiger.

“Don't be ugly.”
Pewter mocked the human voice.

Mrs. Murphy paced the counter. A mail bin on casters rested seven feet from the counter top. She gathered herself and arched off the counter, smack into the middle of the mail bin, sending it rolling across the floor.

Maude squealed with delight and Fair clapped his hands together like a boy.

“She does that all the time. Watch.” Harry trotted up behind the now-slowing cart and pushed Mrs. Murphy around the back of the post office. She made choo-choo sounds when she did it. Mrs. Murphy popped her head over the side, eyes big as eight balls, tail swishing.

“Now this is fun!”
the cat declared.

Pewter, still being petted by Maude, was soured by Mrs. Murphy's audacious behavior. She put her head on the counter and closed her eyes. Mrs. Murphy might be bold as brass but at least Pewter behaved like a lady.

Maude leafed through her mail as she rubbed Pewter's ears. “I hate that!”

“Another bill? Or how about those appeals for money in envelopes that look like old Western Union telegrams? I really hate that.” Harry continued to push Mrs. Murphy around.

“No.” Maude shoved the postcard over to Fair, who read it and shrugged his shoulders. “What I hate is people who send postcards or letters and don't sign their names. For instance, I must know fourteen Carols and when I get a letter from one of them, if the return address isn't on the outside I haven't a clue. Not a clue. Every Carol I know has two-point-two children, drives a station wagon, and sends out Christmas cards with pictures of the family. The message usually reads ‘Season's Greetings' in computer script, and little holly berries are entwined around the message. What's bizarre is that their families all look the same. Maybe there's one Carol married to fourteen men.” She laughed.

Harry laughed with her and pretended to look at the postcard for the first time while she rocked Mrs. Murphy back and forth in the mail bin and the cat flopped on her back to play with her tail. Mrs. Murphy was putting on quite a show, doing what she accused Pewter of doing: wanting to be the center of attention.

Harry said, “Maybe they were in a hurry.”

“Who do you know going to North Carolina?” Fair asked the logical question.

“Does anyone
want
to go to North Carolina?” Maude's voice dropped on “want.”

“No,” Harry said.

“Oh, North Carolina's all right.” Fair finished his Coke. “It's just that they've got one foot in the nineteenth century and one in the twenty-first and nothing in between.”

“You do have to give them credit for the way they've attracted clean industry.” Maude thought about it. “The state of Virginia had that chance. You blew it about ten years ago, you know?”

“We know.” Fair and Harry spoke in unison.

“I was reading about Claudius Crozet's struggle with the state of Virginia to finance railroads. He foresaw this at the end of the 1820's, before anything was happening with rail travel. He said Virginians should commit everything they had to this new form of travel. Instead they batted his ideas down and rewarded him with a pay cut. Naturally, he left, and you know what else? The state didn't do a thing about it until 1850! By that time New York State, which had thrown its weight behind railroads, had become the commercial center of the East Coast. If you think where Virginia is placed on the East Coast, we're the state that should have become the powerful one.”

“I never knew that.” Harry liked history.

“If there're any progressive projects, whether commercial or intellectual, you can depend on Virginia's legislature to vote 'em down.” Maude shook her head. “It's as if the legislature doesn't want to take any chances at all. Vanilla pudding.”

“Yeah, that's true.” Fair agreed with her. “But on the other hand, we don't have the problems of those places that are progressive. Our crime rate is low except for Richmond. We've got full employment here in the country and we live a good life. We don't get rich quick but we keep what we've got. Maybe it isn't so bad. Anyway, you moved here, didn't you?”

Maude considered this. “Touché. But sometimes, Fair, it gets to me that this state is so backward. When North Carolina outsmarts us and enjoys the cornucopia, what can you think?”

“Where'd you learn about railroads?”

“Library. There's a book, a long monograph really, on Crozet's life. Not having the benefit of being educated in Crozet, I figured I'd better catch up, so to speak. Pity the railroad doesn't stop here anymore. Passenger service stopped in 1975.”

“Occasionally it does. If you call up the president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and request a special stop—as a passenger and descendent of Claudius Crozet—they're supposed to stop for you right next to the post office here at the old depot.”

“Has anyone tried it lately?” Maude was incredulous.

“Mim Sanburne last year. They stopped.” Fair smiled.

“Think I'll try it,” Maude said. “I'd better get back to my shop. Keep thy shop and thy shop keeps thee. 'Bye.”

Pewter lolled on the counter as Harry put the Cokes in the small refrigerator in the back. Mrs. Murphy stayed in the mail bin hoping for another ride.

“Are these a peace offering?” Harry shut the refrigerator door.

“I don't know.” And Fair didn't. He'd gotten in the habit, over the years, of picking up Cokes for Harry. “Look, Harry, can't we have a civil divorce?”

“Everything is civil until it gets down to money.”

“You hired Ned Tucker first. Once lawyers get into it, everything turns to shit.”

“In 1658 the Virginia legislature passed a law expelling all lawyers from the colony.” Harry folded her arms across her chest.

“Only wise decision they ever made.” Fair leaned against the counter.

“Well, they rescinded it in 1680.” Harry breathed in. “Fair, divorce is a legal process. I had to hire a lawyer. Ned's an old friend.”

“Hey, he was my friend too. Couldn't you have brought in a neutral party?”

“This is Crozet. There are no neutral parties.”

“Well, I got a Richmond lawyer.”

“You can afford Richmond prices.”

“Don't start with money, goddammit.” Fair sounded weary. “Divorce is the only human tragedy that reduces to money.”

“It's not a tragedy. It's a process.” Harry, at this point, would be bound to contradict or correct him. She half knew she was doing it but couldn't stop.

“It's ten years of my life, out the window.”

“Not quite ten.”

“Dammit, Harry, the point is, this isn't easy—and it wasn't my idea.”

“Oh, don't pull the wounded dove with me. You were no happier in this marriage than I was!”

“But I thought everything was fine.”

“As long as you got fed and fucked, you thought everything was fine!” Harry's voice sank lower. “Our house was a hotel to you. My God, if you ran the vacuum cleaner, angels would sing in the sky.”

“We didn't have money for a maid,” he growled.

“So it was me. Why is your time more valuable than my time? Jesus Christ, I even bought you your clothes, your jockey shorts.” For some reason this was significant to Harry.