Whiskers in the Dark

by Rita Mae Brown

  Cindy, a hot cup of tea warming her innards, which she needed, told her, “St. Luke’s is the Lutheran church, first one here, and it was built, finally finished, in 1787. You’ve driven by it. It’s the lovely fieldstone with the church in the center, steeple on top, white, and then an arcade on each side with white simple pillars, Doric, I think. And at each end there are two duplicate two-story square buildings that were originally used one side for men’s meetings, another for the women’s. The pastor’s big office is in the men’s. The courtyards are beautiful. There’s the one between the arcades and then there are descending levels and each level is a rectangular courtyard finally ending in the graveyard, surrounded by a stone wall, same stone as the buildings. It’s a sort of terraced effect, but flat with steps between levels. People built things to last back then. It’s in remarkable shape and was the design of a British war prisoner who stayed and married here.” She smiled, looking to Nelson. “Did I get that right?”

  “Always do.” He adored Cindy. Everybody did.

  “Really? A Lutheran church? I thought they were up in Pennsylvania,” Catherine wondered.

  “Well, ours was and remains special, but we even had a Catholic church then and that was very unusual, for the prejudice ran so deep, except in Maryland, of course.” Cindy paused. “I am always curious about these things because I’m Catholic.”

  “Me, too.” Catherine felt a kinship with the good golfer.

  “Then there was Jefferson. You know I read the Jefferson Bible. Interesting.” Nelson had been the quarterback at UVA in 1959 and a good student to boot. “When you go to Mr. Jefferson’s university, you pay attention to things that might otherwise elude you.”

  “Curious.” Rick leaned back in his chair. “Back to the body. Catherine, it is that of an African American woman. She was laid, no casket, on the caskets of Sara and Michael Taylor, the first people to be buried at St. Luke’s. We think, according to the notation in the Bible at church, they perished of tuberculosis. They were buried October 15, 1786, before the church was totally finished. Someone last year kept knocking over their tombstone. And really, that’s about all we know.”

  “Vandalism?” Catherine’s eyebrows raised.

  “At first that’s what the Reverend, actually the Very Reverend Herbert Jones thought. He’s usually in his office at the church, so he believed this had been done in the night. Really cold nights, I add.” Rick filled her in.

  “But Harry, you’ve met Harry,” Cindy added. “She’s in charge of building and grounds. She noticed and she told her husband, the big guy, six foot four, an equine vet. So Fair, her husband, and Ned Tucker, a friend who’s also a member of the church, muscled the tombstone upright. All seemed to be well. It snowed. More snow. No problems. The snow melted and boom, tombstone over again. This time Harry noticed incursions like stabbing marks had been made into the earth. Not true digging but stabbing. That’s the word she used.”

  “How strange.” Catherine was intrigued.

  “And it was stabbing,” Rick chimed in. “Finally, after fulsome discussion, the grave was opened. Those caskets were as good as the day they were built, but on top, no effort to cross her hands over her chest, had been what I think was dumped, but at any rate, there was a woman’s body. Bones, a scrap of mustard silk fabric. What was shocking was she wore a pearl necklace. Large, large pearls, two long strands, and earrings to match with diamonds surrounding the pearls. We had Keller and George appraise it.” He looked at his audience. “Six hundred thousand dollars if a penny. Can you believe it?”

  Keller and George, in operation since 1875, could be relied upon to carefully study antique jewelry. They cleaned it, took photographs from every angle. Called in an expert from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts who came to the same conclusion they had concerning value and approximate age based on design.

  “Who was she apart from being rich?” Catherine asked.

  “We have no idea. The medical examiner’s office thought she died in the late 1780s. Probably near the time the Taylors were laid to rest. But she didn’t die. Her neck had been snapped cleanly by someone who was powerful and knew what he or she was doing.”

  “I checked her teeth.” Nelson looked up as his hamburger arrived. “Little decay. She had eaten some refined sugar but her teeth were better than a lot of what I see today. I’d estimate her age, based on wear, maybe early thirties at the most.”

  “The medical examiner came to the same conclusion concerning her age.” Rick smiled as his lunch arrived.

  They were all hungry.

  “That’s one of the strangest stories I’ve ever heard.” Catherine dug into her Cobb salad, a cool lunch but filling.

  “And she was African American.” Cindy, too, thought this quite strange. “Granted, there were rich African Americans as there were rich tribal individuals who owned slaves, too. But wouldn’t you think someone that wealthy would have been reported missing?”

  “You’d think,” Catherine responded.

  Rick cut his sandwich in half. “We have good records from that time. The constable did his job and with clear handwriting, too. No mention at all.”

  “Why didn’t the killer take her jewelry? That could have set someone up for life.” Nelson couldn’t understand that at all.

  “No records at St. Luke’s?” Catherine inquired.

  “No, and St. Luke’s has fine records kept in a temperature-controlled vault. Every year’s offerings and expenses are noted to the penny. All illnesses are recorded. All deaths and probable causes of death. Births are recorded, as are baptisms. Nothing. Not one iota.” Rick shook his head.

  “Well, if she was a businesswoman, someone would have noticed. If she was local or even from as far as Richmond.” Cindy, having seen those pearls at Keller and George in the vault, imagined the wealth that purchased them.

  “Herb canvassed the congregation. No one came forward regarding disturbing the grave. Obviously, whoever was fooling around at the Taylors’ grave had some kind of suspicion about the body’s whereabouts and maybe even about the pearls.” Nelson waved to a club member leaving the nineteenth hole. “If they found out, why can’t we?”

  “What if she was kept by a wealthy man?” Cindy was practical.

  “With six hundred thousand dollars’ worth of pearls plus the diamonds around the earrings! What did she know that we don’t?” Catherine queried and the others laughed.

  “There were people of enormous wealth at that time. The Garths, the Selisses. She became a Holloway after her husband was murdered. And there were people like Yancy Grant who had a lot of money but ultimately lost it. Still, I can think of no one who would buy that kind of jewelry for a mistress. We’d know. You can’t hide something like that.” Rick was firm about that. “I mean even Jefferson couldn’t hide, you know?”

  “They all tried.” Cindy bit into her sandwich.

  “Still do.” Nelson laughed.

  “Maybe I should retire from medicine and go into detective work. This is really fascinating.”

  “Well, I know one thing,” Rick stated. “She was hated. You don’t kill like that, hide the body, and leave great wealth if you don’t completely hate the victim.”

  “Maybe she deserved to be a victim. My mother used to say, ‘Some people need killing.’ Maybe she did something horrible. Women can be bad guys, too,” Cindy stated.

  “Equal rights.” Catherine winked.

  “I make one prediction.” Rick shrugged. “This is close to home.”

  4

  April 9, 2018

  Monday

  Harry, Susan, and the animals awoke to 43ºF, gray skies, light winds. Bright embers glowed in the fireplace as Harry had awakened in the middle of the night to put more logs on the fire. She added more to keep the cabin warm as the windows rattled a bit in the wind. Both women pulled on extra layers of clothing.

 
“What’s your weather app say?” Harry peered at her phone.

  Susan stared at hers. “Spring snowstorm. Predicted to start early evening.”

  “Didn’t say that yesterday. Mine says the same thing as yours. Certainly looks threatening.”

  Susan wrapped a scarf around her neck. “Supposed to snow from Maine to North Carolina. A nor’easter. Those are hateful and my phone says it’s already snowing in New England. Moving down.” She looked around for heavier gloves than yesterday’s light work gloves.

  “The changing seasons. You never know but usually by April fifteenth we’ve seen our last hard frost. By then the forsythia’s in bloom. Guess not this year.” Harry zipped up her lightweight down jacket, which did keep her warm. “Let’s make a run for the bathroom. Got your toothbrush?”

  “Do.”

  They charged out of the cabin, sprinting up to the stone house, where running water was actually running and hot. There was no bathroom or kitchen in their cabin. Their items, even towels, were at the stone house.

  After brushing their teeth and tidying up their hair, they put their items in bags, a Dopp kit for Harry, a baby blue bag with a ribbon for Susan. Harry usually bought men’s things because they were better made, lasted longer. She always bought men’s work boots.

  “Let’s leave our bags here. No one will care.” Susan slipped her blue bag on a shelf. Harry did likewise.

  They clambered upstairs for breakfast.

  “Susan, I’ll be right back. I need to make sure I closed the door to the cabin. Tucker will push it open if I didn’t.”

  “Okay.” Susan sat next to Jason Holzknect, set to talk about his Chesapeake Beagles in Maryland, while Harry dashed back to the cabin.

  “We want to go with you,” Tucker announced.

  “All right, you all. Stay inside. It’s cold outside, the barn will be cold, too. You’ve got your food and water.” She put two more large logs on the fire, checked the fire screen. “I think we’ll probably leave early today and I don’t want to go on a search and annoy mission. I search, you annoy.”

  “Not me,” Pirate protested.

  “Perfect.” Pewter flopped on the bed.

  Harry had brought her comforter and Susan brought her heavy sleeping bag, so the kitties snuggled into them while the dogs sat in front of the crackling fire.

  “I should go with you. You need protection,” Tucker grumbled.

  Harry walked to the door, looked back. “Be good. I’ll see you soon enough.” She opened the door and closed it firmly behind her.

  Once in the dining hall, muffins on the tables, the president announced that those who had come from the North, north of the Mason-Dixon Line, should leave now as the storm, according to her app, was sweeping down and would be in New York and Pennsylvania by noon. They just had almost enough time to outrun it—some snowflakes but the worst would be later.

  Jason leaned toward Harry. “Heard you’ve got a lot of miles on your Volvo station wagon. Let me sell you a Highlander. Great car for snow. I’ll give you a preacher’s price.”

  Harry’s eyebrows raised. “What denomination?”

  Those around her laughed, then Arlene smiled. “He would sell you one, too. Actually, I think Jason could sell ice to Eskimos.”

  None of the people from the northern hunts rebelled. Everyone had endured a tough winter and knew what was coming: yet another storm to dump inches of snow everywhere.

  Jason remarked, “Well, I can work for maybe two hours. Maryland will be later. I am so tired of winter.”

  “We all are,” Liz Reeser said, and everyone agreed. “Okay, those who are staying. Two groups. Work until about noon. Clear what you can and then let’s all pack up and go. We aren’t going to get lucky with this storm.”

  Jason folded his arms across his chest. He looked out the windows. “It’s the wind I worry about. Well, ladies, let’s go.”

  Susan, Liz, Jason, Harry, and Mary Reed comprised one work party. Clare, the other Liz, Mag Walker—all from Hermit’s Hollow Beagles, who had driven down early this morning—made up another with Arlene and Jessica Anderson. They headed toward the first creek crossing, which wasn’t far from the stone building. Branches were down; some had fallen into the creek.

  The mound could be seen to their right.

  “The mound looks clear.” Susan pulled a branch out of the water. “You’d think because it’s higher, the winds would have done more damage there than here.”

  Mary said, “Well, sometimes the wind almost funnels down here. I think it’s worse.”

  “Maybe the wind wants to leave the arms and legs alone.” Jason half smiled. “Every now and then some historian from a university wants to dig up there. What good does it do to find arm and leg bones? You don’t know who they once belonged to. Just let everything be.”

  “I agree.” Harry slipped a pair of sharp clippers into a leather pouch on her belt.

  Jason, cut branch in hand, said to Harry, “Highlander’s perfect in snow, mud, sleet, rain. Think about it. Preacher’s price.”

  She smiled at him. “I will.”

  The two groups labored intensely and by noon returned to the stone building.

  Arlene Billeaud and Jessica Anderson, from the other group, came into view. Jessica hailed from New York, a northern hunt, but was staying with Mary Reed in Warrenton. The two groups waved at one another.

  “How’d you do?” Arlene asked.

  “Pretty good. Got the big stuff off the trails. Most of the limbs, too, but the wind is really picking up. We’ve quit in time,” Susan offered.

  “We’ve done all we can do but we’ll have to come back and lop off the hanging branches.” Mary noted a necessary chore. A branch coming down during a hunt couldn’t be risked.

  The sky was darkening. Amy Burke Walker looked up. “Maybe this is starting early. We’d all better pack up.”

  When Harry and Susan reached their cabin and opened the door, the two dogs shot out, ran around in circles.

  Pewter, on the bed, rolled over. “Dogs are stupid.”

  The dogs, free, didn’t hear it. Not that her opinion would change anything.

  As the two women packed up Susan’s station wagon, Harry left to retrieve their kits from the bathroom in the stone building, where she ran into Jason in the hall.

  “I guess I’ll see you next weekend. We’ll need to come back.”

  “We will.” He stepped outside, Harry beside him.

  A sapling was bent over the mound area.

  Harry inquired, “How many died?”

  “There’s a cenotaph on the road, not in the direction you’re going. If I remember, it was placed there by the First Massachusetts Cavalry twenty-eight years after their defeat. Out of two hundred and ninety-four troopers in combat, one hundred ninety-eight were counted as casualties, many wounded but enough killed for it to be infamous.”

  “That many?”

  “If I remember it correctly, yes. Out here, far from much help, no wonder they were carried to this stone building, and I guess surgeons were commandeered from the Confederate men. Probably local women came in to help, too.”

  “You know what I think about? How seeing what metal does to the human body—grapeshot, stuff like that—seeing that, how it affected those women who came in to nurse. I remember reading how many sat by bedsides to write letters home for the wounded. Those women must have gotten close, gotten to care about the men, whether they were Yankees or our boys. When you think of it, really they were kids.”

  Jason nodded. “What’s the saying: Old men make the wars, young men fight them? That’s why we have Hounds for Heroes. Nothing changes. All right, gear’s in the truck. You and Susan have a safe journey.” He climbed up, as Clare was already in the truck, turned the key, a satisfying rumble announcing a true eight-cylinder engine. Driving off, they both wa
ved.

  Susan slid in her bedroll, followed by the comforter. It’s one thing to work outside in the cold; it’s another thing to be cold inside.

  “Drinks?” Harry asked.

  “In the cooler in the front. You can put your feet on it.”

  “Okay. Ran into Jason when I was picking up my Dopp kit.”

  “Saw you two talking at his truck.” Susan wiggled her fingers in her gloves.

  “Like you, an amateur historian, I guess. But we were talking about how civilians must have felt as they nursed the wounded, the wounded of both sides.”

  Susan breathed in, the air tingling in her lungs. “I guess if you read about that terrible war when you’re in school in Montana, it might not affect you. We live with it. See battlefields every day. What astonishes me is that the estimate of those enlisted was seven hundred and fifty thousand. Harry, if we had that percent of men in combat with our current population, that would number about eight million, give or take. It’s incomprehensible.”

  “Is. I always thought the state should have funded former governor Doug Wilder’s museum of slavery. Didn’t.”

  “Yeah, well, Ned”—she named her husband, a representative in the House of Delegates—“can talk about that. For one thing, it wasn’t a good time financially. Biz is picking up.”

  “Depends on the biz.” Harry walked back into the cabin for her PLP, paranoid last peek.

  Nothing left, everything tidied up, the fire put out, she closed the door. “Remind me to bring a picture to hang on the wall. A beagle or a basset, I know.” She grinned.

  Both women leaned on the wagon for a moment, looking around. “Didn’t get to the tree branch that crashed right through that kennel roof.” Susan pointed it out.

  “Next weekend. I’m assuming we’ll be back next weekend, kennel repairs and lopping off the low hangers. We’re running out of time.” She peered at the kennel maybe one hundred fifty yards away. “Can you think of the force? That branch crashed straight through the roof.”

  “Where are the cats?” Harry asked.