Tail Gait

by Rita Mae Brown

  Curled up in their beds, each of the cats opened one eye. Tucker, dead to the world, snored.

  She washed her hands properly this time, grabbed a paper towel, dried them, and quietly walked out the door. Mrs. Murphy shot out of bed to follow.

  Pewter rolled over, lifted her head. Did she want to vacate her cozy bed with her name on it? If she didn’t, she might miss something. She, too, roused herself, stretched fore and aft, then scurried after Harry and Mrs. Murphy, who had by now reached the truck.

  “Sleeping Beauty.” Harry laughed as she opened the door, picking up the gray cat.

  “She doesn’t need beauty sleep, she needs a beauty coma.” Mrs. Murphy giggled.

  “Says you,” Pewter called from the truck seat. As Mrs. Murphy was placed next to Pewter, the fat gray cat turned her back on the tiger, who didn’t mind a bit.

  Once in her seat, Harry took a deep breath, turned the key, listened to the glorious rumble of an old V-8 engine, popped her in gear, and drove down the long gravel driveway.

  Whistling with happiness, Harry rolled down her window a crack for fresh air. She liked old trucks, no frills, no extra doors, more cargo space. The only time she didn’t like her old 1978 F-150 was when she pulled up next to someone on her right side. Then she had to lean over and roll down the passenger window to speak. Also, she had to personally lock each of the two doors. Other than that, fewer things to go wrong and fewer upkeep expenses. Harry, careful with money, hated to waste or overspend.

  “Where are we going?” Pewter inquired.

  One hand on the steering wheel, Harry petted the cat with the other but didn’t answer.

  “You’d think after all these years she’d know what I was saying.” Pewter pouted.

  “Pewter, don’t sit under an apple tree and beg for a pear,” Mrs. Murphy wisely said.

  Turning onto Cynthia Cooper’s drive, Pewter brightened. “Good, she always has treats.”

  Pulling into the place by the back door, Harry spotted Cooper out in her small equipment shed. A pair of feet peeked out from under a smallish tractor, of which one end was raised up on cinder blocks.

  Harry walked over. “Cooper, get out from under there.”

  “I will in a minute. I broke a rod.”

  “No. Get out now. You should never be under any large piece of equipment jacked up like that. Come on.”

  Pushing herself out from under, Cooper looked up and blinked. “I’m careful.”

  “Sure you are, but weird things happen. If that tractorette tipped over for any reason, you’d be pinned, squashed.”

  “Dammit.” Cooper ran her hands over her jeans to get off the dirt.

  “Don’t cuss me. I want you safe and sound. Who else can I pick on?”

  Cooper smiled. “Well, I’m pissed because I know you’re right, and I’m pissed at this damned tractor.”

  Harry knelt down to look under the 20HP small Japanese tractor. While nothing is as well made or as expensive as a John Deere, the Kubota was a good product for considerably less.

  “You did break a rod. Know how it happened?”

  “I dropped the mower mount, started on the front, weeds high.” She pointed to part of the driveway encroached by high grasses; they weren’t really weeds. “Everything was fine and then I hit a stone. I heard it, naturally, but I didn’t know how bad it was until I rolled off it and the mount hung heavy on one side. Cut the mower, tried to raise the mount, still hung on one side, and I drove back here. Now I’m going to have to pay to have this thing hauled in to the dealer. Damn.”

  “Which dealer, the one in Staunton or the one in Orange?”

  “All the way to Orange. I got such a good deal.” She sighed.

  “Oh, well, there are worse things. Let’s go in and you can tell me why you wanted to see me.”

  As Harry followed her neighbor, she called to the cats, hovering over a mole hole as if the mole would be stupid enough to come out.

  Inside, the cats and Harry sank into the alcove. “I’ll come over and mow,” said Harry. “Don’t fret.”

  “I’ll pay you.”

  “You will not. Now shut up. I don’t want to hear another word. But before I do that, you and I need to walk where you want mowed. All that hard freezing and thawing has pushed up stuff, including tree roots as big as elephant trunks.”

  “I’m surprised some coffins haven’t pushed out of their graves.” Cooper put up coffee for herself and boiled water for Harry’s tea.

  “Make a good horror movie.” Harry quickly raised her voice. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Piffle.” Pewter took her paw out of the lower cabinet door, which she’d managed to wedge it into.

  Cooper walked over, opened the door, took out a bag of treats bought especially for two spoiled cats, then shook it into two bowls. “There.”

  “You are the best human, really the best,” Pewter meowed before shoving her face into the goodies.

  “So what’s up?” Harry asked as Cooper poured.

  “An odd thing, and I’ll need your help with Snoop again.”

  “Really?”

  Cooper told her about Snoop finding the letter opener yesterday. Snoop had informed Paul Huber, and events shot off from there. “Paul Huber drove over to talk to Rick and me. He was not far away from Snoop’s work site, as he was working on the huge Continental Estates project.”

  Paul was doing the landscaping. Rudy had already put in the roads.

  “I would imagine Paul was both upset and confused.”

  “He’s certainly organized. He pulled out his tablet, one of those expensive Macs, had the truck usage information in maybe two minutes. As it turned out, that was the same truck used to plant the birch over at Claiborne Bishop’s. I asked, Did he check mileage each day? I knew it was a long shot. He said the company checks it once a week for each vehicle.”

  “Because employees might be using trucks for personal use?” Harry inquired.

  “Right, especially one-ton and half-ton trucks. Paul said they hadn’t found a good daily mileage program but that once a week had been very helpful. If anyone had a notion to use a company truck a lot, it would show up.”

  “H-m-m. But the presence of the wooden letter opener doesn’t mean he was killed there.”

  “We crawled over that truck, and we also impounded it. By the time that truck returns to Paul Huber, there won’t be a fiber we haven’t investigated. He was fine with that. Shocked that Frank’s body might have been in his truck, but cooperative.”

  “What did Snoop say?”

  “Not much. He was shaken. He swears that it was a letter opener he gave to Frank. As to what appears to be dried blood, obviously, we have to run that through the lab, but there was a stain on the blade.”

  “Report on Frank isn’t back from the medical examiner’s office?”

  “Shouldn’t be too much longer. Luckily, his body was in decent shape. A couple of days packed in soil is better than weeks or months. We already know the cause of death is stabbing.”

  “Fundamentally, I’d say the cause of death was alcohol.”

  A tight smile crossed Cooper’s lips. “I figure most alcoholics are committing slow suicide. Frank received extra help.” She rose, picked up papers from her kitchen counter, and handed them to Harry, then sat again. “What Frank had been reading just this last year.”

  Harry scanned the list. “Ginger McConnell’s influence is apparent even if Frank hated him. May I copy this?”

  “I made that for you. You’re the reader. Thought you might recognize some of those books.”

  “I recognize a lot of them. One thing’s for sure, Frank still had an active mind. You don’t read books like these unless the lights are on upstairs.” She tapped her head.

  “I thought about Professor McConnell, too. But I still can’t find the crucial connection between the two.”

  Harry folded her hands together, elbows on the table, rested her head on her hands. “Here are two people, one the student of the oth
er back in the mid-seventies, both dead and both interested in the Revolutionary War, post-Revolutionary America. That isn’t a period overrun with novelists, historians—some academicians, sure. But for whatever reason, that war doesn’t stir up people like successive wars.”

  “Eighteen twelve. Who thinks about that?” Cooper knew a little about history, liked it some.

  “Every time you sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ ” Harry said and smiled.

  “Who can sing that? Too hard.” Cooper leaned over. “What about this book?”

  “The Men Who Lost America. What about it?”

  “Wasn’t that in Ginger’s office?” Cooper asked.

  “He has shelves filled with everything and from every writer since the Revolution, I swear. But this was written by a UVA professor. Probably had extra meaning for Ginger.”

  “M-m-m,” Cooper murmured, then said, “Will you go talk to Snoop again?”

  “Of course. What do you want me to ask?”

  “What he really thinks. He clammed up when Paul showed up. Of course, that makes sense. It’s his and Marshall’s companies that hire Snoop and the other mall residents for odd jobs. He has just complicated their lives.”

  Shrewdly, Harry replied, “Whoever killed Frank complicated their lives. Snoop simply realized Frank’s body had been in that truck.” She finished her tea. “I’ll make up a basket and go down today.”

  “If tomorrow is better, that’s fine. I know the weekends are about the only time you and Fair get to spend together.”

  “He’s worn out. Had to deliver another foal late last night. I’ll be back so we can watch a movie tonight. He loves that.” She stood up. “Now you’ve got me all fired up. I’ll call you as soon as I get back.”

  —

  Two hours later, basket in hand, Harry and Tucker found Snoop at his usual post on the large planter. He waved to her as she approached.

  “Lunch.” She sat next to him, placing the basket in his lap as people strolled by.

  Opening one end, he peeked inside. “I smell bacon.”

  “Bacon, avocado, turkey, and lettuce with Thousand Island dressing, and you get to choose between a Co-Cola, water, or sparkling grapefruit juice.”

  “Sparkling grapefruit.” She handed him a light green ice-cold can, as well as a sandwich.

  Tucker watched with soulful eyes as Harry unwrapped her own sandwich.

  “Here, beggar.” She gave the corgi a tidbit.

  They ate in the sunshine, the temperature now in the low sixties.

  After a few chocolate-chip cookies, with their debris back in the basket, Harry sat, soaking up the sunshine. A full stomach aids good feelings. Snoop sat wordlessly next to her, watching people go by: the piercings, blue hair, cutoffs, as well as those who sported preppy looks.

  She noted the painted bucket by his feet with carved letter openers, little boxes, nice things. “Snoop, heard about your discovery.”

  “Yeah.”

  “A shock, right?”

  He nodded. “I’m standing there in the middle of people, the driver, some of the other work crew, Mr. Huber, Mr. Reese, the sheriff, the deputy, and I’m thinking, What if one of these guys killed ol’ Frank? Know what I mean?”

  Put that way, she did know what he meant. “Makes a lot of sense. You were smart to shut up.”

  “I ask myself, What did Frank know? He wasn’t killed for his money. Maybe somebody stabbed him because they believed his raving about the professor, but I don’t think so. But I think Frank knew something.”

  “I expect you’re right, but it is hard to figure out what he might have known that got him killed.” She put her feet on the basket, Tucker watching every move.

  “Well, as I figure it, he knew someone had killed the professor,” said Snoop. “He might even have known who or why. That’s one possibility. Another is that whatever Frank knew could cost someone a lot of money. He wasn’t killed over drugs, or women, or an argument, or anything like that. I mean, his death was neat, right?”

  Harry turned to look at Snoop’s profile. His beard, while not long, needed attention; same with his hair. He looked like what he was, a man with no visible means of support who lives rough. It would be easy to discount him. She was glad she hadn’t, because Snoop was smart.

  “Ever see anyone talking to Frank?” she asked.

  “Yeah. People would pass by. Might have a word. Most looked the other way.”

  “Snoop, anyone who was a repeat offender?” She half smiled.

  He folded his arms over his chest, looked at his feet, then looked at her. “Nah. Just us down here. We talk to one another.” He breathed in, then added, “The crew bosses who hire us sometimes. That’s all I can think of.”

  “Frank talk about money?”

  “Just that he didn’t have any.” He grew silent, then said with some force, “Mrs. Haristeen, he was found under a tree planted by the landscaping company, he was in that truck dead or alive. Who knows? Whatever Frank knew had to affect those people. I’m not going on any more jobs out there.”

  This comment made her sit up straight. “You worried? For yourself?”

  Harry couldn’t steer clear. Her curiosity was getting the better of her.

  May 3, 2015

  Standing where the road splits into two driveways, right to Barracks Stud and Stables, and left to a private residence, Harry studied Google Maps on her phone. One was a larger view of the land, the other was close-up. Also in the truck were the most recent maps printed by the state.

  The ground rose up to her right, while on the left it dipped away slightly. Satisfied that she had memorized the topography, she climbed back in the driver’s seat and headed to where The Barracks stables’ road also forks. The left went to the distant brick house owned by the Bishops, the right to the indoor riding arena and stables. It was on this road, the right, that the river birch had been planted. There was new sod surrounding the tree, rubber-wrapped wires in place to hold it steady for the first year of growth; she could see more land than at the gateway drive-in.

  Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker watched as Harry pulled her truck to the side again and got out, maps in hand.

  The two-hundred-and-fifty-acre development to the north of this, Marshall Reese’s Continental Estates, was well screened—first, by the topography, which rose up, but also by a thick line of woods between the two properties. To the west of all this, open farmland abutted The Barracks. Not seen by the eye but clear on the map was a road at the edge of this farmland. This was a back way to the airport where the university trained its rowers on a reservoir. If one turned left, the airport was not far away. Development cut up the land west of this road, in contrast to the pristine farmland abutting The Barracks.

  No back roads led into The Barracks. Whoever disposed of Frank’s body had to drive onto the property in the same way Harry did, which was to turn right off Garth Road, where two light blue signs announced Barracks activities. The right turn was onto Barracks Farm Road. As a development from the 1980s, Ivy Farms eventually took up some of the old prisoner-of-war land on the right of Barracks Farm Road. A car or truck on this road or in Ivy Farms wouldn’t seem out of place. Land Cruisers, BMWs, Mercedes station wagons, Tahoes, and Suburbans rolled down this way, along with trailers filled with horses. In summer, the traffic would be enlivened by Miatas, Jaguar convertibles, and Porsches lovingly garaged over the winter. Once at the Ivy Farms turn, if the driver cut the lights it would be easy to glide into The Barracks. And as no one lived at the arena, who would know? From the Bishops’ house, vehicle lights might be visible, so they’d be turned off, the truck and its contents would be hidden, especially if this took place between one and four in the morning.

  Harry assumed the vehicle carrying Frank came from Continental Estates or from Huber’s fleet parking lot. Once back in her truck, Harry turned around and corrected herself. No. A landscaping truck would be parked at the nursery west of Crozet. It would not be left at the site.

  S
he called Cooper to tell her.

  “I’ve already been to Huber Landscaping,” said the deputy. “The trucks log in at night. The keys are locked in the office, and the trucks themselves are locked behind a chain-link fence.”

  “So, Coop, someone got into the office to get the key?”

  “Maybe. But if this was done by a worker, he could have been smart enough to get a key made on his lunch hour. These are simple keys, not like the ones that open doors from a distance. Work trucks. Basic. And someone working at Continental Estates, not for Huber, but a known person, trusted, might have access to a landscaping truck. Anyway, I asked you to question Snoop, but I didn’t tell you to go poking around.”

  “You’re right,” she quickly agreed. “But it strikes me as odd that Frank was planted, literally, at The Barracks. Frank had been reading a lot about the Revolutionary War, and we know that was Ginger’s territory.”

  A silence fell after that.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about my lunch with Snoop,” Harry continued. “Maybe you and Rick should place him somewhere until you know more about all this. He’s exposed down there.”

  Another silence followed this. “I’ll speak to Rick.”

  Her tacit recognition was enough for Harry.

  Driving back to the farm, she kept reviewing the same things over and over. Nothing made sense. Once inside the house, she called Nelson Yarbrough from the kitchen wall phone.

  “Harry, how are you?”

  “When you took Ginger’s classes, or at any time, did he ever discuss who owned the land the prisoner-of-war camp was built upon? Or who owned the land around it?”

  The tall former quarterback seemed to consider this, then spoke up. “He mentioned the difficulties with forfeiture after the war. Ginger could make those times come alive, like when he actually gave us recipes of that era, but I do recall that Virginia, once it became a state after the war, wanted to confiscate the land of anyone who had supported the king. And every one of the original thirteen colonies approached the problem differently. Courts were jammed with property disputes. If you owned the land, you owned the land, even if you supported King George during the war. That’s the short version. I guess the closest we come to that today is how the various western states deal with water rights.”