Nine Lives to Die

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Yeah, we got Thor and Wōden’s day.” She twirled a big bow she’d made with a flourish. “Saturn is an odd choice, but it’s a reminder. He brings harsh lessons, which I suppose we must learn.”

  “M-m-m. I loved it when we read the myths. Wasn’t so happy when we had to read twentieth-century poetry.”

  “Fair, we read about four poems.”

  “And I didn’t like a one.” He smiled.

  Harry rose again, walked to the kitchen window over the sink. “Boy, it’s dark. No wonder there was Saturnalia, then Christmas, then Yule Girth—all those festivals from pre-Christian times to now. Can’t really wipe them out so we co-opt them.”

  “And a lot else.” He finished wrapping Blair’s gift. “What do you think?”

  “He’ll pick it up and wonder what it is, especially when he tips it and feels the level marker, that little roll of liquid.”

  “Think he’ll like it?”

  “Of course he’ll like it, it isn’t a pair of booties. People go overboard. The baby is too little to know about Christmas. Give to the parents. Actually, the best thing you can give them is a good night’s sleep.”

  In the distance, they heard Odin call a long, high-pitched howl.

  Harry heard an answer from another coyote. “How many of them do you think are out there?”

  “If you see one, you know there’s a family somewhere. They’re established here now. We will never get rid of them.” Fair picked up a GPS system for Reverend Jones to put in his truck.

  “Fair, the new truck the church bought him has a screen in the dash.”

  “I know, but he can use this when he’s out fishing.” Fair grabbed shiny bright green metallic paper. “Honey, you were the one who suggested this, since he wanders about so when he goes fishing.”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess I did. I don’t know, Fair. All this stuff that’s happened. I’m forgetful. Preoccupied. I forgot to tell you that Rick, Cooper, and others from the department are going to try to get up the mountain Monday and look at our skeleton. Everyone needed this last weekend for shopping.” She peered up at the sky, then over at the Chinaman’s hat light at the edge of the barn roof. Below, the hayloft doors were shut tight, as were all the barn doors. “It’s snowing again. This wasn’t on The Weather Channel.”

  Fair got up, stood beside her. “Who can predict weather on mountainsides or on the top of mountains?”

  “I predict we’ll get socked.”

  Pewter sauntered back in the kitchen, leapt onto the table. Mrs. Murphy joined her. Tucker prudently took to her bed. You could never trust those cats around paper or ribbons. Tucker had seen them steal and shred stamps. They were obsessed with paper.

  As the cats selected what they wanted to play with, the humans stared at the snow, which shimmered in the halo of the Chinaman’s hat light. It wasn’t heavy, but small flakes were coming down.

  Odin howled again.

  All the animals looked at one another. The cats leapt over to the kitchen counter. They, too, peered out the window.

  Odin howled. “Danger!”

  The last Sunday in Advent, a special Sunday in that wonderful season, used special hymns, special liturgy, and special vestments at St. Luke’s, as well as at all the high churches, which is to say the Catholic and the Episcopal. The Baptists and evangelicals probably celebrated the most, but of course there were no vestments or other adornments. The Greek Orthodox church on Route 250 wouldn’t be celebrating for two more weeks, as they were still on the Julian calendar.

  After the church service, Harry, Susan, BoomBoom, Alicia, and the various husbands and helpers settled in the meeting room—which was now clean and shining, a few late boxes of donations on one table.

  “What do we do with these?” Harry poked her nose inside.

  Susan, who had gone through everything and organized the donations, replied, “I’ll drop these off tomorrow. Cooper gave me a few more names.”

  “Have the other churches received late boxes, too—foodstuffs and whatnot?” asked Harry.

  Susan nodded. “Cooper has given everyone extra names, dependent on where the church or parish is. She and the sheriff’s department have been supportive, above and beyond.”

  While bending down to pet the three cats, Fair’s deep voice rumbled, “Coop’s been extra-busy.”

  BoomBoom picked up Lucy Fur, who felt any additional attention her due. “I believe you can judge any community by its police force,” said BoomBoom.

  “Why do you say that?” Fair wondered.

  “If the sheriff’s department or the police force are corrupt, I promise you the entire judiciary in that county is rotten. And trust me, there are places in Virginia that are still fiefdoms.” BoomBoom kissed Lucy Fur.

  Cazenovia and Elocution investigated the boxes, as the meeting room had been shut to them until now.

  “Nothing we can shred,” Elocution mumbled, disappointed.

  “Or eat.” Cazenovia popped out of the box.

  “I expect it isn’t just Virginia,” said Alicia. “There have to be fiefdoms throughout the country. The proverbial big mean fish in a small pond.”

  “Makes for a lot of misery in that small pond,” BoomBoom agreed.

  “On the other hand, maybe those places are well run even if undemocratic,” Harry postulated. “In fact, they’re well run because they aren’t democratic.”

  “Aha, our dictator in training.” Susan urged Elocution to come out of the box. Susan clapped her hands once. “This is it. We’re done.” She pointed at Harry. “Mussolini and I can take care of this. You all did so much. I am grateful.”

  BoomBoom answered, “Everyone did, Susan, but you had to organize it. We owe you.”

  Harry’s phone beeped. She opened it, read the text. “What?”

  All eyes riveted on her as the others watched her shocked expression.

  “Honey, what?” asked Fair.

  “Two more fingers showed up at St. Cyril’s.” Harry looked up from her Droid in disbelief.

  “Who sent you that?”

  “Jessica Hexham. Here.” Harry handed the device to BoomBoom, Alicia reading over her shoulder.

  “Hanging on the Christmas tree in the meeting room.” Susan also read over BoomBoom’s shoulder. “Sick!”

  Everyone started chattering at once. Harry wanted to tell the others about the skeleton, but she knew she shouldn’t. She had told Susan to come over tomorrow, as the sheriff was going up to the mountain. After all, the remains were on Susan’s timber tract. They could deliver the boxes after that.

  “Body parts have significance,” Alicia remarked. “Or maybe I made too many historical movies. Heads on pikes, that sort of thing.”

  “Fair and I have talked about what these missing fingers mean. We can’t figure it out. You point with your index finger. You flip the bird with your middle finger.” Harry absentmindedly stroked Cazenovia, who was sitting by the open box.

  “I remember that piece of that Omar Khayyám poem,” Alicia incorrectly recited. “ ‘The moving finger writes; and, having writ, not all your piety nor your wit can hasten back a word of it.’ ”

  Trudging through the light flurries, Harry noticed that in the last few days perhaps four inches of snow had fallen on the mountain. Often clouds would pile up on the crest, snow on the ridge, slide down to fill lower meadows, pastures, and roads with snow. The eastern slope of the Blue Ridge didn’t reduce rain, sleet, or snow’s intensity. Nor did the wind blow right over your head. Rather, it, too, slid down the mountain like a great invisible toboggan.

  Harry and Susan, Cooper and Rick parked at the turnaround. The animals traveled with Harry. She was glad to have them because she thought Tucker would keep them on course.

  Her footprints and Fair’s footprints had disappeared, but as they moved along she could see the great uprooted tree ahead.

  “Come on.” Mrs. Murphy ran as fast as she could, given the conditions. The other two followed.

  The humans arrived a few mom
ents later.

  Harry, astonished, raised her voice. “I swear this is the place.”

  No skeleton hung in the roots.

  Cooper didn’t doubt her friend and neighbor. Harry might stick her nose in the wrong place, but she was not given to illusions or telling lies.

  Pewter, who had not been trapped up here by Odin, now paid close attention to everything. She carefully walked down into the hole, roots over her head.

  As the gray cat looked around, the humans looked down.

  Rick pointed. “Tracks. Can hardly make them out.”

  Cooper walked over, as did Harry. They began following the pair of human tracks, which led straight up. Had they followed them on foot, it would have taken an hour in good conditions.

  “Harry, there’s a footpath on the top, right?” Cooper spoke.

  Susan said as Harry knelt down, “There are high meadows up there. If you travel four miles north you’ll come to the monastery. The high meadows were used for cattle in the summer by farmers on both sides of the mountains. There are farm roads for that, but few roads down that a vehicle could use. The monastery rented them out, and Mary Pat,” she named a long-deceased wealthy lady, “owned thousands of acres up here, which the government bought from her during the 1930s.”

  “Can a Jeep negotiate them?” Rick was following Cooper’s line of thinking.

  “With a good driver. The closest climb up the mountains from here zigzags up to the monastery. Switchbacks, but it can be done. The next one big enough is down by Royal Orchard.” Harry cited a large, impressive private tract. “Miles away.”

  “Coyote tracks, mostly snow-covered.” Tucker pointed them out.

  Harry had enough sense to pay attention to her dog in this situation. She followed the tracks as they paralleled the remnants of the human tracks.

  “Coop.” Harry pointed them out.

  “Is it possible coyotes took the bones?” Cooper wondered.

  “They could have taken some, but there’d be dropped parts or we’d see a trace of drag marks,” Harry replied.

  The four people, along with Tucker, stood there, eyes lifting upward. Rick pulled out his phone, cursed, then put it back in his pocket.

  Cooper stated the obvious. “No service.”

  “Let’s get back down so I can call,” said Rick. “I want a team up here and I want a team up top.”

  “Does anyone in the department know either of those routes to the top?” Harry inquired.

  “The monastery route,” said Rick. “Every now and then we’ll get a call in the summer about a lost hiker. I want people up there coming down here and vice versa. And the light won’t last that long.” Rick started back.

  “Wait—” Mrs. Murphy, now down in the pit with Pewter, called out.

  Harry walked thirty yards back down to them. The two cats’ pupils were huge.

  Pewter, something in her mouth, was scrambling out with difficulty.

  Balancing on a huge tree root, Mrs. Murphy climbed higher. They jumped onto the snow-covered earth.

  Cooper knelt down. “Pewter. Kitty, kitty.”

  Pewter eyed her, didn’t budge.

  “Pewter, come on.” Harry also knelt down.

  Thrilled to be the center of attention, the gray cat simply glared back, jaw clamped tight.

  “Pewter, that is of no worth to you,” Mrs. Murphy scolded her.

  “Boss, come back,” Cooper called over her shoulder.

  Rick turned, heading back.

  Pewter finally released her prize just as Rick reached them.

  Cooper, heavy gloves on, picked it up, held it in her palm.

  Rick nearly shouted, “What the hell is this with fingers!”

  ——

  Back in Harry’s kitchen, Susan, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker warmed up before going out to deliver the last of the donation Christmas boxes.

  “I took a chill up there.” Susan wrapped her hands around hot chocolate Harry had made for her.

  Susan sometimes even drank hot chocolate in summer, she loved the taste so much.

  Harry joined her. The animals crowded in together in Tucker’s bed, as it was bigger. They, too, wanted to warm up.

  “Pewter”—Harry looked over at the gray cat, tail curled over her nose—“you get the gold star.”

  “Tuna,” she said through her tail fur.

  “What made you jump down there?” Mrs. Murphy asked.

  “Remember when Odin ran across the back pasture with a part of the arm and the bracelet fell off?” Pewter recalled. “A few tiny pieces of bone fell off with the bracelet. I figured if someone moved that skeleton, bones might have fallen off then. All I had to do was dig around the fresh snow.”

  “Smart.” Tucker praised the cat who in general drove her crazy.

  Mrs. Murphy joined the praise, which brought large, loud purrs from Pewter.

  “I envy that.” Susan smiled at the cats, too. “Owen is beside himself when I come home, happy with any toy, any attention. We want too much.”

  “Yes, we do,” Harry agreed, took a delicious sip. “Not as good as Miranda’s, but not bad.”

  “I think your hot chocolate is as good as hers. Apart from that, she’s in a class by herself with anything creative, like gardening. Such an eye for proportion, color, balance. I think one is just born with something like that.”

  “Susan, so you think there are born killers?”

  “Yes.” Susan paused. “But I suspect most killings are circumstantial. You know, there’s gain, revenge, or maybe even relief from pain.”

  “What do you mean?” Harry had never thought of it that way.

  “A mother kills her husband, who beats the children.”

  A long, long silence followed this. “Personally, I think we should give her the gun.”

  “Don’t say that publicly. Thousands, millions maybe, think violent people like an abusive husband can be taught not to be violent. I can almost understand all forms of violence except thrill killings, I guess, but harm a child or someone unable to fight back, I haven’t a scrap of sympathy for whatever happens to that monster. But I can’t say a word. I have a husband in the House of Delegates.”

  “All that’s left of what Fair and I saw is a knucklebone, part of the forefinger attached to it. I have to believe that skeleton is a murder victim. As far as we know, there weren’t serial killers around here back whenever. That happened—what, at least a decade, probably more? We’d remember.” Harry paused. “We’ve had murders since, but once the perpetrator was caught, there was a twisted logic to what they did.”

  “What is the logic to hanging fingers on a Christmas tree?” Susan’s lips began to get color back.

  “It’s logical to whoever cut them off. Both sets of fingers have shown up now. Sure, they have to do the DNA thing, but we all know those fingers belonged to Pete Vavilov and Lou Higham.”

  “Pete Vavilov?” Susan’s voice grew loud.

  “Oh, dammit!” Harry had let it slip.

  “What do you mean Pete Vavilov? He died of a heart attack.”

  “Yes, it appears he did but—” Harry took a deep breath. “When the sheriff’s people went to the site of the accident, the body was missing those fingers. They kept it from everyone.”

  “Why do that? I mean, it’s so strange, they should have made it public. Maybe it would drive the worm out of the woodwork.”

  “They took the opposite gamble. Say nothing and hope someone trips up.” Harry appreciated both approaches.

  “Does Charlene know? Has she kept quiet, too? If so, she’s one cool customer.” Susan said this with admiration.

  “She knows. Her sons don’t.”

  “Someone is pointing the finger,” Susan blurted out.

  “Know what’s being pointed out and you know your killer.” Harry believed this. “It’s grotesque but not horrible, like a beheading. You’re right. Pointing the finger.”

  “Back to the skeleton caught up in the roots.” Susan was worried. “Is it
possible that murder is connected to these new killings? I’m so upset my mind is just making things worse.” Susan sighed.

  “It’s possible, but whoever was buried by that tree was buried there so long ago that the roots grew through them. Pete and Lou were left for us—well, not us, but you know what I mean—to find. It seems to me that the tree murderer wanted the victim’s memory to disappear along with the corpse. This killer wants to rub our noses in it, or the nose of whoever he is seeking to destroy.”

  “Harry, why not just kill whoever he or she wishes to destroy?”

  “Maybe he can’t.”

  “Well, I’m confused, but at least I’m warm now.” Susan weakly smiled.

  “Let’s put all this out of our minds for Christmas Eve and Christmas,” Harry offered.

  “Coming from you, that’s saying something.”

  “Yeah, well.” Harry got up and retrieved the morning paper that she’d put on the kitchen counter but had no time to read. “Maybe there will be cheering news about the Santa Fund.”

  Each year the community raised monies through a Santa Fund, the daily total printed on the front page of the newspaper. Harry unfolded the paper, gave Susan the front page while she took the local news section.

  “Oh, no,” Harry exclaimed.

  Susan grabbed the section from her, read aloud, “A review by the sheriff’s department found irregularities in the accounting for Silver Linings that have prompted a deeper investigation. The part-time bookkeeper, Arden Higham’s lawyer, Dwayne Pellio, declares his client will fully cooperate. She has no statement to make at this time.” Susan looked up at Harry. “Good Lord, could Arden have stolen from a church or the charity?”

  “Never.” Harry slapped the tabletop.

  “Why?”

  “Pointing the finger at herself. Forgive the pun. The fingers were in her pencil jar. Arden may not be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but she’s far from stupid.”

  Susan brought both hands to her cheeks, holding them there for an instant, then dropping them. “Don’t they say some criminals want to get caught?”

  “I don’t know if I believe that.”

  “Nonetheless, Arden does the books for Silver Linings.”