“Yes. Everyone who loved Ginger wants that.” Susan sank in her chair a bit, tired from the physical labor and everything else.
“The sheriff and that nice deputy, your neighbor, Harry, were very sensitive. They asked questions the day he was killed, and they’ve come back. You don’t realize how good a public servant is until you need him or her.”
“True,” Harry simply agreed. “Did they ask you anything that surprised you?”
“Yes, quite a few things surprised me.” Clearly, Trudy wanted to talk about this. “I know they also talked to the girls, but as both of them no longer live in central Virginia, they knew so little about current affairs. Olivia is the more emotional of the two. I’ve kept things to myself and, well, Rennie, too. I suppose parents always seek to protect their children.”
“What was it that surprised you?” Harry’s antenna vibrated, and she didn’t want to push, but she sure wanted to know.
“Oh. Well, they asked about Ginger’s investments. I said his retirement plan, a few stocks. Nothing, just enough to keep us through our old age. God, I hate the twilight years, don’t you?”
They both laughed and nodded in affirmation.
Trudy continued. “They asked had he suffered large losses? Well, no. Then they asked about anyone from years back, during the Sally Hemings blowup, what about those people? Had any of those hotheads from that time reappeared?” Her hand stroked her throat briefly. “They never left. Really, except for the far-flung family members, most are still here, some still teaching. And, of course, Monticello has gone from strength to strength. Water under the bridge.”
“Seems to be.”
Harry realized that Trudy knew nothing about Frank Cresey seeing Olivia. Nor had she been informed of Frank’s confession. Sheriff Shaw and Coop, both shrewd law enforcement people, probably decided to wait a bit on that news.
Susan ate another cookie. “These are divine.”
“I’ve been baking to keep my sanity.”
Susan took another. “Trudy, we’re all supposed to bring you food.”
“People did, and do. It’s gobbled up rather quickly, but cooking and baking have always settled my mind.” She looked at Harry. “For your mother, it was gardening.” Then she looked at Susan. “For yours, I guess it was tennis. I never asked you why you took up golf instead of tennis.”
“Because Mom always beat me. I hated it!” Susan’s eyes widened. “Even when I was supposed to be in my prime, Mom could wipe the court up with me.”
Trudy reached over, touched Susan’s hand. “Honey, you’re still in your prime.”
The clock struck three.
Harry dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Here we are taking up your afternoon.”
“No, you’re not. I enjoy your company.”
“I enjoy yours,” Tucker politely said, and was instantly rewarded with a treat.
Owen, no fool, imitated his sister. “Trudy, you are the best,” the corgi cooed. A treat, miniature lamb-chop shape, color and all, was handed down to him.
“Here, let us clear the table,” Susan offered.
“Don’t you dare.” Trudy needed things to do. “Oh, one thing I didn’t mention which surprised me. The sheriff and deputy wanted to see Ginger’s office. They couldn’t believe the books on the shelves, the piles of books on the floor, and his brand-new desktop computer.”
“When did he buy a new computer?” Harry asked.
“Come on. I’ll show you. Cost as much as a used Toyota.” She led them down the cross hall, off the main hall, to Ginger’s bright office. Lots of windows here too. Trudy, with trepidation, had let him decorate it himself. Apart from the flintlock rifle over the fireplace and the flintlock pistols used as paperweights, he did okay.
“I’ve never been in Ginger’s office.” From the doorway, Harry took in the hand-tinted old maps, the famous reproduction of Washington on horseback in a gold frame.
“Wait until you see this.” Trudy walked behind his desk. Everyone followed, dogs too, to stand behind Trudy. She turned on a super-expensive Mac with an enormous screen. “His baby.”
Always interested in anything mechanical or technical, Harry let out a gasp. “This did cost as much as a used Toyota! Maybe even a new one!”
Trudy sat down, punched in a password, and a crude drawing of The Albemarle Barracks popped up. “Drove him wild that everything at this site was destroyed or built over. He swore if we could dig there, we would find so much useful information. Funny, he was coming full circle. When he graduated from Yale, he became fascinated with two things: slavery in the North, and prisoners of war during the Revolutionary War. Then he moved away from that, focused on what we called ‘the common man.’ But Ginger’s curiosity, relentless, pulled him down many a byway. Can you believe one time he had to learn everything about marriage customs in seventeenth-century Poland?” She threw up her hands. “I have no idea why, and I don’t think he did either.”
They laughed. She clicked on an icon and opened another file.
Harry exclaimed, “This screen is fabulous. The detail.” She leaned over to peer at the text.
Susan did too, and read aloud, “A Memoir of the Exploits of Captain Alexander Fraser and His Company of British Marksmen, 1776 to 1777.”
Trudy said, “Ginger would still drive to read diaries and letters in private collections, or in small college and university libraries. But was he thrilled with how much information he could get using his monster machine.” Trudy turned the computer off, looked around the office. “I miss him. I miss his conversation. I knew when I married him that he was a remarkable man. The years only confirmed that.”
Harry smiled. “You could learn more from Ginger in a half hour than an entire semester’s course with someone else.”
They walked out of the office. Harry paused for a moment to study the Fry-Jefferson map framed on the wall. Trudy noticed. “I think half the old places in Virginia have that map on the wall. Can you imagine travel back then?”
“Sometimes,” Harry replied.
“I can’t,” Susan quipped. “Nor can I imagine what you endured if you had a toothache. And bleeding people. Probably hastened Washington’s death, all the bleeding.”
“We’ve come so far in some ways, and yet remain primitive in others,” Trudy thoughtfully said, then added, “I think the sheriff and the deputy were amazed at the little they saw of Ginger’s research. Sheriff Shaw asked if Brinsley Sims could read through what Ginger was working on because he would be able to put it into some kind of perspective. I said of course, as long as he does it in the house. I quite like Brinsley. Lord! He’s got to be close to retirement. Where does the time go?”
“I don’t know, but if you find out, let’s go bring some back,” said Harry.
After laughing at Harry’s idea, Trudy said, “I asked the sheriff, ‘Was Ginger’s research important to the case?’ They were very honest and said they didn’t know. They had to explore many avenues. Which I understand.” She took a breath as they walked to the front door. “Ginger’s refrain was ‘The past is always with us.’ Much as I believe that, it can’t have anything to do with his murder.”
—
Driving back to Harry’s in her truck, the dogs, satisfied, slept.
Susan turned to Harry, who hadn’t spoken a word since they left Trudy’s. “All right. What’s whirring through your overheated pea brain?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Thinking about the past.”
“Go on.” Sometimes Susan had to wheedle.
“What if Ginger’s murder has to do with a buried treasure? You know, maybe a robbed pay wagon.”
“Harry!” Susan’s voice registered disbelief.
“Well, you never know.” Harry shrugged. She was headed in the right direction, but on the wrong track.
April 20, 2015
Snoop was perched on a large planter of colored concrete, on the Downtown Mall. Half in the bag this morning, he was nevertheless alert and observant, watching the world go
by.
Harry never could tell what those enormous planters were made of, although the plants filling them reflected the season. In this one were daffodils, unfurling ferns for a background, along with small white teardrops. The gardeners serving the city could do only so much in the changing season. Had they filled these big pots with tulips, or many early colorful blooms, one hard frost would kill them off.
As it was on her mind, killing propelled her to the mall, not a place Harry normally patronized. If Harry were going shopping, a dreaded chore, it would be at Southern States Feed or AutoZone. If money were to leave her hands, it would be for something useful. This is why her friends, twice a year, would throw her in a car, drive her to Short Pump, and force her to buy new clothes at Nordstrom. They thought of it as a benevolent fashion intervention. She thought of it as kidnapping.
Snoop smiled when he saw the corgi and the attractive woman wearing jeans and cowboy boots approaching him. At his feet was a small bucket filled with hardwood letter openers he carved. Tucker, at her heels, added to the vision. Few women approached Snoop, once a successful and good-looking cabinetmaker. He had lost his battle with the bottle. It seemed doubtful he could ever fight his way back.
Harry didn’t understand addictions, nor did she evidence much sympathy for them. But, raised to respect people, she tried not to sit in judgment. Mostly she sidestepped the whole issue, but she didn’t want to sidestep Snoop. She had noticed him standing nearby the day Frank blew up at Olivia.
Holding out her hand, she said, “Hello, Sir. I’m Harriet Haristeen. Harry, for short.”
Fortunately for Snoop, he still had all his teeth, so when he smiled he looked fine. “I saw you before, you and the dog.”
The handshake was firm, and Harry then disengaged. “May I ask you a few questions?”
“You’re not from the Salvation Army, are you?”
“No, Sir.”
“Snoop, my name is Snoop.” He placed his hands on the edge of the planter, slightly tilting forward. “There’s room to sit if you like.”
Harry smiled, pleased somehow that he hadn’t forgotten his manners to a lady. “No, thank you. I won’t take much of your time.”
“Miss Harry, time is all I got.” He said this without rancor, just a fact.
“I see. Well, let me get to the point. So you saw me the other day, when Frank Cresey screamed at my friend, the lady with the blonde hair?”
“I remember.”
“Did you ever see Frank act that way before?”
“No.”
“Actually, I should back up. Do you know him well?”
Snoop drawled, “Well enough. We all live down here on the mall. Sometimes we sleep under the railroad bridge in bad weather. Winter, sometimes at the Salvation Army. Sometimes we tough it out. Best I can remember, Frank’s been here off and on for ten years, maybe more.”
“Does he ever pick up work?”
Snoop thought for a bit. “He does cleanup for construction, gardening. He works for old buddies. They slip him a few bucks. He gets them to hire some of us too. He’s good about that.”
“Ever talk about his past?”
“Nope.”
“Did you know he was a star halfback for the UVA football team in ’75? Made All-American.”
“Some of the other guys told me. Frank never mentioned it. Not much of a talker.”
“Ever talk about lost love?”
Snoop laughed low. “Hell, no!”
“Do you like him?”
“I do.” He rocked back and forth a little on the planter. “How come you’re asking?”
“I’m wondering if Frank knows reality from fantasy. I’ve heard the alcohol kills brain cells. People have hallucinations.”
“Screamers.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Usually they see things, they start screaming. Frank never screamed. Like I said, he was never much of a talker. Why would hallucinations matter? He knew who that woman was.”
Harry realized that Snoop was no dummy and, for now anyway, he thought clearly. “Well, first answer me one more question, then I can answer yours. Was Frank on the mall April eleventh?”
Snoop had no calendar, but counted days backward. “Don’t think he was. So what’s this about?”
“You’ve noticed he hasn’t been here for a couple of days?”
“Right. Figured he made enough for a bottle and he’s still drunk.”
“No. He confessed to a crime. He says he killed Professor McConnell, the father of the blonde woman he was yelling at. The professor was killed April eleventh on Farmington’s golf course.”
Snoop burst out laughing. “Old Frank couldn’t set foot on that golf course. Someone would throw him off. No bums allowed, except rich ones!”
Harry wryly smiled. “But he says he did it. Says he shot Professor McConnell, and he did get the location correct where the murder occurred.”
“Ma’am, why listen to a drunk?” Snoop stopped for a moment. “ ’Cept for me, of course.”
She couldn’t help but like the man. “Thank you. I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“You didn’t bother me. You talked to me like I’m a human being.”
This hit her. “Snoop, you are. Look, I don’t know you from a hot rock. Of course, I’m sad that you are in this state because you are intelligent and respectful.” She blurted out, “You’re a nice person.”
Snoop, dark brown eyes searching her face, replied in a hoarse voice, “I…Thank you.”
She reached into her pocket to hand him a ten-dollar bill. He put his hand over hers.
“Couldn’t you use a hot meal?” she asked.
“I will not take money from you. I’m afraid I’d go buy a bottle.”
Thrown for a loop, Harry paused for a moment, shoved the money back into her front pocket, reached into her back pocket, and pulled out her farm business card. “Here. If you need something, or you think of something that might help Frank, call me.”
He read the card in his hand. “Sunflowers. Bet your farm is something.”
“It is to me. Please, keep the card. And I mean it, you call me.”
As she walked away, Snoop watched. He pulled out the card, read it again. He wouldn’t lose it, no matter what.
—
Patiently accompanying Harry, Tucker said to her, “He’s telling the truth.”
“We’re almost at the car, Sweetie,” she said to the corgi.
“I can smell things. When humans lie or they are afraid, there’s a scent. That’s one of the ways I know how to protect you. Wrong scent, I get between you and that person. That Snoop, he’s okay, even if he does need a bath.”
Miracle of miracles, Harry had found a parking space big enough for the truck in front of David Wheeler’s office right by Jackson Square. A wooden door to the small front yard creaked as she pushed it open. David was Harry’s accountant and a good friend. She was bringing him documents she’d filled out for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The copies would be useful when she itemized her fertilizer and seed expenses.
After climbing a small series of wooden steps, she opened the office and found Marshall Reese and Paul Huber standing with David in the corridor outside his office.
“Well, hello.” Marshall beamed as the other two men also rushed to greet her and the corgi trailing her.
“Tucker and I just wanted to say hello. This looks like a UVA versus Tech standoff.” She knew David loved his alma mater and gloried in Virginia Tech’s football prowess.
David was never averse to expressing his opinion. “No standoff. The Cavaliers aren’t going to do squat.”
“I’m telling you, London is turning things around,” Marshall said, citing the UVA coach. “Look at the recruitment of outstanding high school players, and it takes a good two years to work those kids into any system.”
David grinned. “Marshall, we’re going to kick your butts into next week.”
“No way!” Paul protested.
&nbs
p; “Fellas, I don’t have a dog in this fight,” Harry smiled. “I went to Smith, remember.”
They laughed, then with a glint in his eye, David said, “Given the transgender people at Smith now, I expect you’ll have your own football team.”
That set the men off and running at the mouth. “Do you let transsexuals compete with the sex they changed to? Do you keep them out of the locker room or let them in?” None of the males were shy about their feelings on this.
Harry held up her hands, surrendering. “Hey, I’m not responsible for my alma mater.”
“You haven’t said a word,” said Marshall. “Would you want to be in the locker room with a girl who was becoming a guy?” he queried.
“I don’t much care,” she answered. “I just think it’s incredible that we live in a time when someone can make a choice. I mean, think about it! Choosing your gender. If you have the money, the inner you can match the outer you.”
“I don’t get it.” Paul really didn’t.
“Well, Paul, you don’t have to.” Harry punched him in the arm, and they all laughed. “Hey, I just spoke with one of the homeless men on the mall. Really nice guy, Snoop. I wanted to know if Frank was on the mall the day Ginger was killed. Snoop said he wasn’t.”
“Could have been anywhere.” Paul slipped his right hand into his pocket.
“This is such an unfortunate situation,” Marshall noted. “Obviously, Sheriff Shaw has to consider Frank no matter how unlikely a suspect. Rick put Frank in a halfway house. He’s pretty fragile right now.”
“He’s getting three meals a day,” David sensibly noted. “That’s something.”
“Might put on some weight,” said Marshall. “Look, like I said, this is such an unfortunate situation, and Trudy doesn’t need to be dragged into it.” He sounded adamant.
“True,” both Paul and David chimed in.
Harry had full confidence in Sheriff Shaw. “I’m sure Rick and Coop will do the right thing by police procedure as well as by Trudy.”
“While you’re here, Harry, Paul and I were talking about an endowed chair for Professor McConnell that we wanted to announce at the gathering at the lawn after the service. Would you and Fair care to contribute?”
Tail Gait Page 9
