The Big Cat Nap

by Rita Mae Brown

  Gigi tossed her dark bay head. “If she makes money, she overseeds the pastures in alfalfa. We all want Harry to succeed.”

  The other broodmares nodded in agreement. Their foals, the youngest only a month old, hung by their sides.

  Blissfully unaware that she was the topic of conversation, Harry chatted with her house animals. “I can put up scarecrows and big plastic owls, but, you know, gang, sooner or later the birds figure that out, so I mustn’t do that too soon. I’ll wait until the grapes appear—tiny—on the vine, then I’ll put that stuff up.” She shook her head in exasperation. “Tell you what, birds and deer can wipe you out.”

  “I can take care of the deer.” Tucker puffed out her broad chest.

  “They’re nothing more than big rats.” Pewter was never one to keep her opinions to herself.

  “Oh, but they’re so beautiful.” Mrs. Murphy loved watching herds of deer, with fawns still dappled, as they crossed the pastures and meadows before melting back into the woods.

  The 1812 Overture began to play. Harry fished her cellphone out of her jeans’ hip pocket.

  “Yes, baby.”

  Her husband’s deep voice answered, “Good greeting.”

  “What do you want?” She laughed.

  “You and only you.”

  Pewter could hear Fair’s voice, as could the other two animals, their senses much sharper than a human’s.

  “So sappy.”

  “Oh, Pewter, you’re such a spoilsport.” Tucker wagged her nonexistent tail.

  “Heard anything from Miranda?” Fair asked.

  “No. Latigo Bly picked us up himself. Drove her home, then me. He said not to worry. The company would take care of everything. The car was hauled to ReNu, where there’s a backlog. Latigo said they’ve been overwhelmed with claims. There were quite a few accidents during all that rain.”

  “Never thought of that.”

  “Fair, we aren’t in the insurance business.” She laughed.

  Fair believed that if you did business with friends, you had the advantage of speaking with someone whose native language was English. Although growing fast, Safe & Sound still seemed like a local outfit to Harry’s husband. Fair got his insurance from Hanckle Citizens, as did Harry. Both their parents had used the company and been well served. “We’ll hear about it tomorrow. Herb sure had a tussle when he had his little accident. He could only use ReNu, when he actually wanted to use Tom Harvey’s garage. He told me Safe and Sound insisted on ReNu, since the repairs are cheaper. That was the only time I heard our Very Reverend Jones cuss a blue streak.”

  Harry smiled. “I’d pay to hear that.”

  “Called to tell you that I ran into BoomBoom”—Fair named a childhood friend of theirs—“and she told me to be sure to tell you if you intend to sell your sunflower seeds this fall, you ought to get down to the health-food store right away. Yancy Hampton is buying now.”

  “Yancy is what? Why on earth now? The crop’s not nearly ready.”

  “She didn’t say. Oops, call on the other line, and it looks like Big Mim. See you tonight, darlin’.”

  Harry hung up with the thought that he’d be late for supper, as one of Big Mim’s best mares suffered from lactation problems and the foal needed that milk. If the mare couldn’t produce, Fair would need to find a surrogate. Since the stud fee had been $75,000 for this particular breeding and the foal was correct, it was imperative to keep the little guy healthy as well as get Mama back right.

  Harry flipped shut her cellphone. She neither liked nor disliked Yancy Hampton, but, for Harry, neutrality bordered on suspicion. Still, money was money. She’d think on it.

  The triple-sash windows, wide open, allowed a fresh breeze to fill the comfortable room at St. Luke’s Church, where the vestry-board meeting was now in progress. The administrative offices were connected to the church itself by an old stone arcade, so one could walk without getting soaked in those sudden hard Virginia rains. The St. Luke’s complex was built around a lovely symmetrical inner quad, and parts of the church were some two hundred thirty years old. The entire site radiated calm and encouraged contemplation.

  The early parishioners and pastor rested in a large rectangular cemetery behind the huge quad at a lower level. This lower large square was surrounded by a row of eighty red oaks, in front of which a border of climbing roses cascaded over the stone retaining wall. The current pastor’s living quarters anchored the far southern side of the large outer quad. The Very Reverend Jones’s fishing gear could be seen leaning against the garage. It was a hopeful sight.

  Also attending the vestry-board meeting were the Lutheran cats, Elocution, Lucy Fur, and Cazenovia. As the humans—Harry being one—discussed and occasionally argued about funds or the social calendar, the feline parishioners languidly sprawled on the windowsills. Their kind were once gods in ancient Egypt, but all had the good sense to keep that to themselves. Then, too, they loved their reverend. Why upset him with a competing theological view? Humans could understand so little of cat communication. So all felines—not just Elocution, Lucy Fur, and Cazenovia—recognized that the feline–human relationship was often one-way. They pitied the two-legged creatures, but when that tin of Fancy Feast was opened, they utterly adored them.

  “The riding mower needs a new air filter, and the blades must be sharpened.” Susan Tucker, Harry’s childhood friend, now in charge of buildings and grounds, read from her monthly report. “This isn’t terribly expensive. Jimmy Carter is excellent and more than reasonable, but because of that there’s a long, long wait time.”

  “We can’t let the grass grow. It will look awful.” BoomBoom Craycroft, a smashing beauty, knew people would grumble about unkempt grounds, and not just parishioners.

  “Can’t we borrow a mower?” Harry sensibly inquired.

  Craig Newby, in his first year on the board, replied, “In theory, yes, but everyone is mowing. It’s been a wet spring. Some people are mowing three times a week.”

  Herb’s gray eyebrows shot upward. “Three times?”

  “Martha Stewart, maybe,” BoomBoom quipped, and all laughed.

  As the problems of mowing the large expanse of church lawns and the cemetery occupied the board, Elocution looked out the window. “Brown creeper.”

  The creeper was a small bird, rather large chested, with a slightly curving slender bill. It worked its way up a locust tree.

  “Bet we could catch it.” Lucy Fur’s eyes widened.

  “They’re pretty quick,” Cazenovia remarked.

  Lucy Fur murmured her agreement, then wondered, “They’re so social, always hanging out with woodpeckers and chickadees. The chickadees you can sometimes distract and nail, but the woodpeckers, never. Doesn’t matter what kind of woodpecker.”

  “I wouldn’t want to eat a woodpecker,” Elocution declared. “Now, a fat little mole—tasty.”

  As to the mowing problem, Harry agreed to haul in her zero-turn mower until the church’s old John Deere was repaired. The discussion moved on to moles.

  “Put poison down the holes.” Craig shrugged his shoulders.

  “All creatures bright and beautiful, all things great and small, the Lord God made us all.” Herb folded his hands. “Did I get that right?”

  “Sounds good to me.” BoomBoom beamed a megawatt smile, then turned to Craig. “There’s an ultrasonic deterrent. You put a small stake in their tunnel and they’ll leave. Doesn’t kill them.” She glanced at Harry. “Not expensive.”

  “Yes, but do we have to buy them luggage?” Harry laughed.

  Finally the meeting drew to a merciful end, after which they all stayed for coffee, tea, or a Coke. Usually these meetings started at 6:00 P.M., but it so happened that this one had been scheduled in the morning.

  Miranda’s odd accident was discussed, as was Herb’s truck problem.

  “Did I ever tell you all the story of when I had three accidents in one day?” Herb smiled.

  “Another trip down memory lane,” Elocution, the mi
ddle kitty of the three, remarked.

  “I was sixteen, had my first vehicle, an old 1939 Chevy. Ran like a top. Anyway, I pulled out of the farm, didn’t get a mile down the road, and was rear-ended by old Kitchie Richards. Remember her?”

  The older board members did. They also remembered that Kitchie was deep in the grape.

  “Then what happened?” Craig asked, as if on cue.

  “Aunt Tally drove by, turned around, drove back to Rose Hill, and called the sheriff. While I waited for the sheriff, wouldn’t you know I was rear-ended again, this time by John Barrow. He just wasn’t looking where he was going.”

  “What happened to Kitchie?” BoomBoom asked.

  “Kitchie apologized as best she was able, turned around, and left. So up drives the deputy, sees that I’ve been hit twice. I hated to finger Kitchie, but I didn’t know what to do. Anyway, it was Tom Ix, still living, who was on duty. Took down everything, including John’s statement. So he told me to go on. I get in the Chevy—engine, wheels fine—and head toward Charlottesville. Didn’t get two miles down that road when I was hit again. As luck would have it, Tom passed me as I sat by the side of the road with the culprit. None of these accidents were my fault. Well, Tom looked at me and said, ‘Son, you need to go home.’ So I did.”

  They laughed, chatted, then the group dispersed. Harry, BoomBoom, and Susan remained to clean up.

  “Are you taking Herb down to ReNu?” BoomBoom asked, tying up a trash bag.

  “I am,” Harry answered, while placing glasses in the cabinet. “Two accidents. Things go in threes.”

  “Harry, don’t say that,” superstitious BoomBoom reprimanded her.

  “Well, they do.”

  “Maybe we’d better do like old Deputy Ix told Herb. Go home.”

  “Finished!” Susan called out to Herb, who’d ducked back into his office.

  “All right. Any of you other girls want to ride along?”

  “What? I thought I was your only girlfriend,” Harry teased him.

  “Yes, but what man doesn’t want to be surrounded by beautiful women?” Herb’s eyes lit up.

  “Good answer.” BoomBoom smiled at him, then kissed him on the cheek. “I need to get out to the farm. We’re putting in a new well down at the main barn. The storms finally ruined the barn well. We’re still cleaning up the debris.”

  “I got some of that, too, but I think you got more than me,” Harry replied.

  “Mother Nature doesn’t pick favorites.” Susan added her two cents. “I’ll ride along as long as you brought the station wagon, Harry. Otherwise, we can go in mine.”

  “I did.”

  Soon the three sat comfortably in Harry’s Volvo station wagon, a gift from her husband. Harry—a motorhead, as was BoomBoom—marveled at how well the wagon handled, given its dimensions. If she put the seats down, she could haul a lot in the back.

  They drove out Route 240, turned left on Route 250, heading into Charlottesville. After twenty minutes in medium traffic, they moved along Route 29 north and pulled in to ReNu Auto Works. Harry stepped out of the Volvo, as did BoomBoom. They’d wait to make sure. So often a vehicle was supposed to be ready, then you’d show up and it wasn’t finished yet.

  The front office had a counter with a young man behind it. Herb said he was there to pick up his truck.

  A badge on the young man’s left pocket read “Kyle.” He spoke into a phone. The three friends could hear the announcement in the back to bring up the 1994 Chevy half-ton.

  Nothing happened. Kyle asked for the Chevy again. No Chevy.

  Slightly irritated, he looked up at Herb. “They should be back from lunch by now.”

  “I’ll just go back and find them,” Herb declared. “The keys are back there?”

  “They are.”

  “And you’re in touch with my insurance company?”

  “Oh, yes. Safe and Sound is always on time paying the bills. I can go back if you’d prefer,” Kyle said.

  “We can’t service a customer in the front office as well as you can.” Herb smiled. “We’ll go back—I don’t mind. If there’s a problem, you’ll see me again.”

  With that, Herb headed to the garage, Harry and Susan with him.

  Entering the spacious garage, they saw all the pits clean, cars raised on every lift. ReNu had two buildings set fifty yards apart, with cars parked in between. The garage sat on the left, the body shop on the right. The inner parking lot was jammed. Miranda’s Outback sat on an outside row.

  Not a soul was to be seen in the garage.

  “Long lunch,” Susan stated.

  Harry noticed a tire iron sticking out from a stack of engine parts under a wall of shelves. Ever curious, she walked over.

  “What the—” Blood and brains coated one end of the heavy metal iron.

  Then she saw a pair of work boots peeking out from behind the cartons.

  “Come here.”

  Due to the urgent tone of Harry’s voice, Herb and Susan hurried over.

  They stepped behind the cartons to view the body of a mechanic, still in his greasy uniform, his brains bashed over the floor.

  There was a problem.

  Deputy Cynthia Cooper stepped out of the squad car. While Albemarle County hosted a few murders a year, most of them lacked much mystery or spectacle. X shot Y or stabbed him. The victims were usually men. A woman might be killed in a domestic dispute or a female student snatched from the University of Virginia only to be found months later. Fortunately, such loathsome killings happened rarely. Years would go by before another female was murdered, but the males could be relied upon to dispatch one another with regularity.

  The sheriff, Rick Shaw, with whom Coop usually rode in the squad car, happened to be in Richmond with other sheriffs for a meeting with the governor to discuss crime.

  Compared to that of other states, Virginia’s homicide rate was reasonable, but as far as Coop was concerned, one murder was one murder too many. Then, too, how would the state ever live down or recover from the horror in 2007 at Virginia Tech? Much as the long, lean blonde officer hoped people could settle their differences responsibly, experience had taught her otherwise.

  She walked in to the garage, where the mechanics and men from the body shop were still absent. “Where is everybody?” Coop asked, hoping the forensics team would soon appear. Harry, Susan, and Herb waited for her.

  Coop was Harry’s neighbor, renting the old farm that had been the Reverend Jones’s home place.

  “Couldn’t take it,” Harry tersely replied. “Half of them ran outside to throw up when they finally came back from lunch. I believe they’re now in the front waiting room.”

  “Ah.” Coop strode over to inspect the body. Putting on thin rubber gloves, she knelt down to feel his flesh.

  “How long do you think he’s been dead?” Susan curiously inquired.

  “I expect when you found him he’d just been killed,” Coop said before standing up. “He’s still warm, cooling a little.”

  “Whoever did it must have been frightfully angry,” Herb said. “Such a violent act.”

  Coop looked at Herb with her pale eyes. “He—” She glanced down to read the name sewn onto the mechanic’s uniform. “Walt faced his killer. I’m pretty sure of that based on how he’s sprawled.” She then walked around Walt Richardson. “Why don’t you all vacate the premises before the circus arrives? I’ll take your statements later. Actually, once you get home, write it all down before you forget.”

  They heard a siren traveling in their direction.

  “Where’s Rick?” Harry asked her neighbor and friend.

  “Richmond. Politics.” Coop sighed. “All life is politics. Someone, somewhere, will find a way to make this murder serve their political ends, just watch.”

  “I hate it all.” Harry’s voice carried an edge. “And whoever did this must have hated Walt. I mean, to crack open a skull, take off part of his face. That’s hate.”

  “And power,” Herb added. Then, gently, he
began to herd the two women toward the door into the waiting room. The Volvo was parked out front.

  “Don’t say anything to the folks in the waiting room other than that someone will be with them shortly. Anyone know where Victor is?” Coop added as an afterthought.

  Victor Gatzembizi was the owner of ReNu; besides this one in Charlottesville, there was a large shop in Richmond, one in Virginia Beach, one in Norfolk, and one in Alexandria.

  “No. When we arrived, there was only the office fellow, Kyle.”

  “Okay. Move on out.”

  The deafening siren cut off, which meant one law-enforcement team had just arrived. And soon to follow would be the vans for the TV stations.

  The three friends walked silently through a somber waiting room, where five mechanics sat looking glum and dazed.

  Once in the car, Harry turned north to the next stoplight, then made a legal U-turn.

  In the back, Susan leaned forward. “At least we know we all have strong stomachs.”

  “Farming will give you one.” Harry reached fifty-five miles per hour and held steady.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Susan answered. Though not a farmer, she’d spent plenty of time way back when on Harry’s farm, even when it was owned by Harry’s parents.

  Arms crossed over his chest, Herb’s voice was deep. “It’s always a shock, sad. Even when you find a dead deer. Sad.”

  Harry thought about this. “But no one there was crying.”

  “All men.” Susan spoke as though this was a hard fact of behavior.

  Herb unfolded his arms and reached for the door bolster. “Harry has a point. When something is that shocking, a lot of men would break down or show some emotion other than physical illness. No one would think less of them. It’s not like how workers perceive a woman who cries because her feelings are hurt or she’s frustrated on the job. This is different, and, Harry, you’re right—no tears.”

  “Maybe no one liked Walt.” Susan accepted Herb’s analysis.

  “It’s for sure someone didn’t.” Harry knew she’d remember that split-open head for the rest of her life.