Whisker of Evil

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Where?” Harry flipped up the counter divider and walked to the front door, Miranda right with her.

  “We’ll clean all that off there, take the parking lot right up to the barber shop—well, what used to be the old barber shop—and at the back we’ll put in a brand-new post office. Next to it the bank’s building a new branch. As soon as I get the architect’s plans, I’ll bring them by.”

  Harry, hiding her lack of enthusiasm, said, “What will happen to this P.O.?”

  “Well, I don’t know. As you know, we don’t own this building. I expect whoever rents the space will change the interior to suit.”

  “I expect.” Harry didn’t notice two kitty heads pop up out of the mail cart, paws on the side.

  “A brand-new building!” Pewter exclaimed.

  “Might be nice. Might not. Sounds like too much traffic with the bank, and we’ll be across the street with the elder-care high-rise.” She mentioned the tallest building in town, at six stories.

  “Mother won’t like it,” Tucker, finally awake but still immobile, declared. “She doesn’t like change.”

  “She’s not that bad.” But Mrs. Murphy had her doubts about the new building, too.

  “How big is the proposed post office?”

  “Six thousand square feet.” Pug thought this was wonderful.

  “My word.” Miranda’s hand flew to her chest. “The two of us will rattle around in there like two peas in a large can.”

  “You won’t be alone. We’ll add more workers, plus we’ll also have shifts. There will be three scales at the counter with computers, of course. So at any given time there will be two people in the back sorting, stacking, getting ready for the pickups. We have so many types of mail now, so many new services, which I know you know, and I just read in The Daily Progress”—he mentioned the county’s daily newspaper—“that our growth rate right here in Albemarle County exceeds the population growth of India. Plan ahead!” He returned to the building. “There will be one large garage door in the rear so Rob can back in. It’s going to be very efficient as well as attractive.”

  “Who’s going to be the postmaster?” Harry got right to the point.

  “I hope you,” Pug said. “No doubt, Harry, our federal government in their wisdom may wish for you to take some extra administrative tests. I think it’s all pretty silly given that you’ve been the postmaster here—I mean, postmistress—ever since you graduated from college. But if there’s any way I can waive some of the paperwork for you, I will.”

  “How long before you start building?”

  “As soon as we get the permit through the county. August. Southwell Construction will be building it. Naturally we’ll buy our cement and stone from Craycroft Industries, who I bet will give us the best bid. That BoomBoom is a genius at bidding jobs.” BoomBoom’s business had been started by her late husband.

  As Pug left, it was as though backwash from a large ocean liner was tossing about a slender craft.

  “Damn!” Harry cursed.

  “This place is home. A new building might be larger, but it’s going to be antiseptic.” Miranda returned the blueberry muffins and oatmeal cookies to the table.

  “I don’t want to manage people.”

  “Harry, you’d be good at it.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, but I don’t think that I would. I know I fell into this job. But I like it.”

  The summer that Harry graduated from Smith College, George Hogendobber, the postmaster in Crozet and Miranda’s husband, died. Harry took the job thinking it would be temporary. The position had first been offered to Miranda, but she was too emotionally distraught to consider a regular job.

  Fair breezed through the door. “Distemper.” Then he noticed the expression on Harry and Miranda’s faces. “What’s wrong?”

  They told him of Pug’s visit.

  “. . . August. And you know what else?” Harry’s voice rose. “He didn’t say anything about Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Fair evenly replied.

  “I think it does. I think he’ll wait until we’re ready to move across the street and then tell me my friends can’t work there. And if my cats and dog can’t go where I go, I’m not going. I don’t want any job without my pets.”

  “Now, honey, don’t jump the gun,” Fair said soothingly.

  “He’s right. Wait and see.” Miranda also sounded comforting.

  The two cats and dog said nothing. They observed this exchange with great interest.

  “Sorry. I guess I did jump to conclusions.” Harry exhaled deeply. “And I’m glad the raccoon only had distemper.”

  Fair held up his hand. “That he did, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t also have rabies. We still need the report from Richmond, and that can take days.”

  “Oh, great, half the town will be in a tizz.” Harry threw her hands up in the air.

  “Well, you see all the town, not just half. You can tell them the results of my own little lab work.” Fair smiled.

  “Where are you coming from, or maybe I should say where are you going?” Harry knew that Thursday mornings Fair operated at his clinic.

  “Out to Big Mim’s. She’s culling her broodmares and wants my opinion. Then she’ll make her annual pilgrimage to Lexington, Kentucky, and pick up a few more black-type broodmares. You know Big Mim. But I’ll tell you, she really does have a gift for finding a good mare, and usually at an off time. I think even if Mim hadn’t inherited money, she could have made it herself.”

  “Quite true,” replied Miranda, who had known Mim all her life.

  “It’s so hard to make money in the horse business,” Harry opined.

  “That it is, but some people do—I mean, some people apart from the people who have tons of money made from something else. Tavener has done well. Debbie Easter runs a good operation up there at Albemarle Stud. There are a couple of good folks out there with one or two well-bred stallions. They manage but, you’re right, it is hard. Think of the heartbreak in Kentucky in 2001 when all those foals died. First you fight to save the poor little critter’s life, then lose him or her. You have very little to take to the sales. It’s desperate. I admire anyone who sticks with it in this business.”

  “Me, too,” Miranda agreed. “I had no idea it could be so difficult or I guess so emotional.”

  Miranda was not a horse person, but in working with Harry she’d learned a little bit. Mostly she learned that Harry loved her three horses and would be happy sleeping out in the stable.

  As Fair left to keep his appointment, Carmen Gamble, in her haircutting smock, picked up her mail. “Heard we’ve got rabies.”

  “No, we don’t.” Harry went on to explain.

  “Well, I know that Barry had rabies.” Carmen pressed her lips together. “And I have to go in and get a test, but Sugar says it won’t do any good. No one bit me.” A flicker of worry passed over her face.

  Miranda, who liked Carmen, encouraged her. “Well, honey, it can’t hurt. And since the paper reported that Barry had rabies, people will get all worried. Not that you have a thing to worry about.”

  “In a small little column. Like they don’t want us to panic, you know.” Carmen had jumped back to the newspaper report.

  “There isn’t any reason to panic. For one thing, Carmen, Barry showed no signs of the disease. I imagine he would have, but he was still normal, for lack of a better word.” Harry wanted to head off a rabies scare.

  “He would never listen to me.” A pair of expensive scissors hung from a holder on her belt. “He’d go out and pick up dead things. He’d work without gloves. Like the time he nearly got killed with the old Massey-Ferguson tractor. He had on an old T-shirt and he leaned over the PTO. The only thing that saved him when the shirt got caught, it was so worn it ripped right off him instead of pulling him into the PTO, you know. I mean, people get killed with spreaders and all kinds of stuff. The PTO whirls and sends them right into the tractor atta
chment. He never listened to anything I ever said.”

  “He must have listened to some things, Carmen, as you are so pretty. Men tend to listen,” Miranda warmly said, because she knew Carmen was more upset about Barry than she let on.

  “Men think they know everything.”

  “Some do. Life usually takes care of them,” Miranda again spoke.

  “Took care of Barry.”

  “Who had it in for him?” Harry asked.

  “Me.” Carmen slapped her mail on the counter. “He must have irritated someone else. Someone more violent. All I ever did was throw a spray bottle at his head. But Barry could stick his nose in the wrong business. Kind of like you, Harry.”

  “Gee thanks, Carmen.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, it came out backward.”

  “You’re digging that hole deeper,” Harry, somewhat offended, said.

  “Barry would go through my mail. My drawers. He was nosy that way. He didn’t respect privacy. You’re not like that—except you do go through our mail, of course, but you don’t open it.” Carmen dumped junk mail in the trash can as she babbled on. “Barry would even open my glove compartment in the car. I don’t know what he thought he would find.”

  “Love letters.” Miranda smiled. “Like I said, you’re very pretty. He was probably nervous.”

  “Barry?”

  “Yes.” Miranda nodded.

  Harry asked, “Do you think he was nosy like that with other people? Like rooting around at St. James Farm?”

  “Uh”—she thought a moment—“yeah, I expect he was.”

  After Carmen left, Harry said to Miranda, “I wonder what Barry found out.”

  “Now, Harry, you know what Fair said: ‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ ” Miranda said sternly.

  “Oh, that was about the new post office. This is about murder.” Harry had already jumped to a conclusion, an accurate one.

  17

  Tazio Chappars, BoomBoom Craycroft, and Harry served on the Parish Guild of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church. Last year, after exhaustive dickering, the board raised the money to install new carpeting. In the process, Harry, Tazio, and BoomBoom drew closer to one another. In the case of Harry and BoomBoom this was an important development, since it meant Harry had finally forgiven BoomBoom for having an affair with Fair after they had separated. Harry had also forgiven Fair. The more difficult emotional task was forgiving herself for hanging on to resentment and anger. And sometimes in the quiet of a country night she thought that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t the warmest, most loving woman God had ever put on earth. Maybe Fair had strayed because of that.

  The three ladies, along with Susan Tucker, who’d served on the board before Harry was elected, met at Harry’s farm. It was an impromptu gathering urged by Miranda Hogendobber, who reminded the ladies that July 17 would be the thirtieth anniversary of the Rev. Herbert Jones taking over the parish.

  Outside, the late-afternoon light cast long golden shadows over the barn, the rolling pastures.

  Harry had intended to shepherd the little group into the living room, but they all plopped down at the kitchen table. She opened the back door to the screened-in porch; all the windows were open and a fragrant breeze filled the house.

  “. . . never happen.” BoomBoom rapped the table with the golden dolphin ring she wore on her right hand.

  “Oh, Boom, don’t be a cynic.” Susan was at the kitchen counter helping Harry put together a plate of cold meats.

  “I’m not a cynic, but this is Crozet and no one can keep a secret. I’m not even sure Claudius Crozet could keep one.” BoomBoom mentioned the famous engineer, a soldier in Napoleon’s army, for whom the town was named.

  “What a life. Fight with Napoleon. Get captured on the retreat from Moscow. Napoleon marched into Russia with about a million men and only one hundred thousand survived, give or take a few.” Harry loved history. “Crozet must have been tough.”

  “Harry, let’s not get off the track,” Tazio gently chided her.

  “You’re right.” Harry put the plate on the table. “Cold cuts, and you’ll just have to make the sandwiches yourselves.” She set a huge jar of mayonnaise on the table, a pot of country butter, and a smaller jar of imported mustard. “Notice the lovely crockery.”

  “First class, all the way.” Susan laughed as she set out a plate of cheeses. “Everyone have what they want to drink? Good. I’m sitting down, Harry; you, too.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Harry looked out the kitchen window to watch Brinkley, Tucker, and the two kitties, ferociously puffed, taking turns chasing one another. “We’ve got a hot game of tag out there.”

  “I can never thank you enough for talking me into taking Brinkley.” Tazio spread butter on whole-grain bread. “And can you believe how handsome he is?”

  “Gorgeous,” Susan agreed, as she well remembered the starved half-grown puppy Tazio had rescued as a terrible winter storm crept over the mountains.

  BoomBoom got up and walked to the refrigerator.

  “What did I forget?” Harry stood up.

  “Pickles. I can get them. You forgot them so you wouldn’t have to share.”

  “You put pickles on your sandwich?” Tazio feigned shock.

  “On my good days. On my bad days I use olives.” Jar in hand, BoomBoom rejoined them. “Plus, Harry loves pickles.”

  They chatted, teased one another, and devoured their sandwiches.

  “I was hungrier than I realized.” Susan patted her mouth with her napkin.

  “Save some room, there’s dessert.” Harry had picked up a carrot cake as well as brownies on her way home.

  “Well, let’s get back to the subject at hand.” BoomBoom dueled with Harry, both having their forks in the pickle jar. “There is no way we can keep this thirtieth-anniversary bash a secret.”

  “She’s right.” Tazio seconded this opinion.

  “We could try.” Harry wanted to surprise her pastor and friend.

  “But then it’s half baked.” Susan turned this over in her mind. “We probably should print up invitations. Do it properly. That’ll let him prepare himself. He’d prefer being prepared, I think.”

  “Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that.” Harry hopped up to make another pot of coffee and to refill the creamer. “Tazio, you’re missing a good one. Mrs. Murphy has Brinkley’s tail and she won’t let go.”

  Tazio couldn’t resist. She walked over to the window and, sure enough, Mrs. Murphy was clutching the yellow Lab’s considerable tail. He’d sat down to discourage her, but it wasn’t working. Mrs. Murphy, eyes big, was thrilled silly with herself.

  “Girls,” Susan called them back.

  Harry returned. “Do we know what we’re going to do? And remember, we have to present this to the rest of the board.”

  “They’ll go along with whatever we devise,” BoomBoom said with assurance. “We saved them a meeting by having this one.”

  “Picnic on the quad,” Susan suggested.

  Tazio added to Susan’s suggestion. “The quad is a good idea, and lots of people will fit in there. Let’s decorate with green and gold, St. Luke’s colors.”

  “Mary Pat’s racing colors,” BoomBoom mused. “I still can’t believe her ring showed up.”

  They batted ideas back and forth with a few digressions, finally agreeing on a huge picnic. Once everything was settled and the dishes washed, they all walked outside to pet the horses. Harry ran back into the kitchen for carrots.

  Poptart delicately took a carrot from Susan’s fingers.

  Pewter watched this and said, “I don’t see how you can eat carrots.”

  Gin Fizz, the older gray mare, replied, “I don’t see how you can eat mice.”

  “She doesn’t. She’s too fat to catch them,” Mrs. Murphy sassed.

  “Die, peasant!” Pewter whirled and chased Mrs. Murphy under the lilac bushes, through the small rose garden, and into the barn.

  The two dogs thought this looked like fun, so they joined in.<
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  BoomBoom said, “Harry, while Tazio is here why don’t you show her your old tractor shed?”

  “Why? It’s on its last legs.”

  “That’s my point. Maybe she can design something or think of something better.” BoomBoom headed in the direction of the tractor shed.

  “Tazio, I can’t afford you,” Harry sheepishly said.

  “You can if it’s free.” Tazio put her arm around Harry’s waist for a moment.

  As they headed for the shed, Deputy Cynthia Cooper drove down the long driveway in her squad car. The dogs rushed up to greet her as she disembarked.

  “Hey, Coop, there’s sandwich stuff left in the house.” Harry hugged her.

  “Are you going on duty or off?” Susan asked.

  “Off.” Cooper smiled. “But I thought I’d swing by to tell that we’ve been sifting through Barry’s things over at St. James. We found a bound notebook of Mary Pat’s.” Everyone looked at her expectantly, and Cooper continued. “It’s mostly her breeding ideas—what mare she took to whom. There’s a few scribbles in there about farm-machinery purchases. Odd, isn’t it?”

  18

  Looking good.” Fair beamed as he watched the ultrasound image on the small screen early Friday morning, June 11.

  “Finally.” Sugar Thierry smiled.

  Ultrasound helped determine whether a mare was in foal or not. A tiny little camera on a thin, flexible hose was inserted into the mare’s vagina and gently pushed up into the womb. The other end, attached to a small box with a screen, allowed the veterinarian to see if a breeding had been successful. This was usually done fourteen days after the breeding took place.

  Most mares allowed this intrusion without too much fuss. A gentle handler and a handful of hay, if needed, distracted her from whoever was fiddling around her nether regions. Danzig’s Damsel endured this but sighed a long sigh once Fair had finished observing her womb.

  Sugar walked Danzig’s Damsel, whose barn name was Loopy, into her stall. As most thoroughbreds have long names often indicating their bloodlines for their Jockey Club registration, a barn name is a must. She was an old-fashioned thoroughbred of substance and good bone. Her great-granddam had been in Mary Pat’s band of broodmares. Mary Pat favored distance runners as opposed to sprinters, which put her in the minority.