The Tail of the Tip-Off

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Yes.” Anne’s nostrils flared, she blinked. “It doesn’t seem real.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Little Mim agreed.

  “Let me fix you some Plantation Mint tea, a big teaspoon of honey, and a pinch of whiskey. It’s very soothing.” Susan turned on the stove. “What about you, Marilyn?”

  Little Mim nodded. “Yes.”

  “I guess there are women crying all over the county,” Anne quietly said.

  Little Mim and Susan looked at each other.

  “Tea will be ready in a minute.”

  “You thought I didn’t know.” Anne shrugged. “I knew. I just didn’t always know who or where. After a while I didn’t really care.” She grasped the table’s edge with both hands. “And that’s that.”

  “This is a terrible shock.” Little Mim rose to help Susan with the tea. “Think about the good times.”

  “I will. Every time I walk into my little greenhouse H.H. built for me, I smile.”

  Anne was a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Virginia’s famous architecture department. Her breadth of knowledge was impressive for she had minored in chemistry. Plants represented whole worlds to her from their carbon chain all the way to their utilization in re-creations of eighteenth-century gardens.

  The three women drank their tea.

  “Honey, do you think you can sleep?” Susan refilled Anne’s cup.

  “If I drink this second cup, yes.” Anne smiled wanly.

  “Good. I’ll stay here tonight,” Little Mim announced.

  “I’d feel better if you did.” Anne placed the cup in the gold-rimmed saucer.

  “Me, too,” Susan volunteered. “Tomorrow will be overwhelming as people start to pour in. You rest. Little Mim and I can take care of things.”

  “But I must arrange the funeral. And Cameron.” Anne’s lower lip quivered.

  “It might be best if Cameron could stay at a friend’s house. Someone she could play with and talk to,” Susan advised.

  “Yes. Once my mother and mother-in-law arrive the drama will intensify.” Anne stood up, picked up her cup and saucer, taking them to the sink. “Polly Bance’s youngest is Cameron’s age.”

  “I’ll call Polly first thing in the morning.” Little Mim reached for Susan’s cup.

  Anne leaned against the sink then turned around. “Guest room on this level. Another upstairs.”

  “Don’t worry about us.”

  “You’re good to do this for me.”

  “Anne, you’d do it for either of us,” Susan replied.

  Anne blinked, the tears came and the two friends hugged her, crying themselves.

  * * *

  8

  Murder.” The word escaped Harry’s lips in a cloud of breath. She dropped the flake of hay she was tossing into Tomahawk’s stall, bent over to pick it up.

  Pewter, warming herself in the tack room, called out to Mrs. Murphy up in the hayloft. “What did she say?”

  “Murder. H. H. Donaldson was murdered.” Mrs. Murphy hung her head down over the center aisle. “Come out here and you’ll hear better.”

  Tucker, at Harry’s heels, walked back to the animal door located at the bottom center of the tack room door, a wooden door with a glass window on top. A screen door, inside that, was open inside the tack room. In summer the process was reversed.

  The dog cocked her head, her large ears catching the sounds of Pewter jumping off a folded horse blanket.

  Just as the gray cat poked through the animal door, Tucker grabbed her by the back of the neck. “Gotcha!”

  Pewter rolled over on her back, grasping the dog’s face with all four sets of claws. “You think.”

  Susan, who had just walked into the barn a moment ago, stepped over the rolling ball of fur, cat and dog. “It’s one nonstop party with those two.”

  Susan, having left the Donaldson house this morning, Anne securely in the care of her mother and sister, received a phone call from Little Mim at eight this morning. Sheriff Rick Shaw had just paid a visit, and Little Mim called the second he was out her door.

  “I came straight over. Actually I would have stayed on with Anne but Marcia Dudley”—she named Anne’s mother—“took over. In no uncertain terms. She’s a perfect ass. I don’t know how Anne can stand her.”

  “Susan, the phone would have been faster.” Harry was digesting the information.

  “I wanted to see you. I always feel better if I’m with you.” Susan held up her hands helplessly.

  “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “We’re going to the Clam.”

  “Ned and Fair were there until four in the morning along with the entire Sheriff’s Department. I haven’t even seen Ned. He called on the cell phone. He said he’s going to bed. I said I was driving over to you. Poor Fair had a morning call, too.” Susan paused. “A vet’s life.”

  “Yes, it’s his weekend to be on call.” Harry quickly tidied up the barn. She’d fed everyone at the crack of dawn, as was her routine, and her horses—Tomahawk, Gin Fizz, and Poptart, her youngest—were turned out. Although a crisp, cold day, it would probably warm into the low forties. The horses stayed out in the light and would be brought back at sunset.

  She liked to have their stalls cleaned, water buckets scrubbed and refilled, their rations of hay in the stalls, crimped oats in their feeders. She fed half their rations in the morning and half in the evening.

  Susan had walked in just as Harry finished filling the water buckets.

  “We’ll never get into the Clam,” Susan predicted.

  “You have no faith. Come on.” Harry flung open the barn doors, the sunlight on the snow, brilliant.

  “Hurry,” Pewter and Tucker called up to Mrs. Murphy, climbing headfirst down the ladder.

  As Harry started to close the door, Mrs. Murphy hit the center aisle. “Wait for me.”

  Harry, hearing her cat, held the door open a crack as the tiger cat scooted through. Then she closed it.

  “Your car or my truck?”

  “We’ll fit better in the station wagon.” Susan lifted up the hatch for the three animals to jump in.

  Although the temperature was climbing, now up to thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, the road remained treacherous because of the patches of black ice, the worst because you couldn’t see it. A trip that would normally take twenty minutes on a good day took forty-five minutes today.

  Finally they turned into the parking lot. Yellow tape still cordoned off where H.H. had fallen, but no tape barred the doors into the structure.

  The sheriff’s squad car along with other cars were parked at the back entrance by the large Dumpster.

  Once inside the building, they didn’t hit more yellow tape until reaching the basketball court. The doors were shut.

  “Damn,” Susan said.

  “Faith.” Harry circled around the court, checking every door at the main level. Then she herded everyone up the stairs to the next level for another door check. She found one that wasn’t locked. Quietly they slipped inside.

  Rick was seated below at the timekeeper’s table, alone.

  A door closed and Harry caught a glimpse of a uniformed person carrying a small carton.

  Boldly, she walked down the steps to the floor. Susan followed. The cats slunk down and Tucker, too, crept close to the steps.

  “When we get to the floor, check every row,” Mrs. Murphy ordered. “Check out everything.”

  The seats were built along solid rows and unlike a high school football stadium there was no walking under the stands.

  “Where does Mom sit?” Tucker asked.

  “I don’t know but let’s start sweeping. She might show us.”

  “Harry and Susan, what in the hell are you doing here?” Rick, a study in irritation, looked up from the timetable of events in front of him.

  “I thought we could help. H.H. sat in front of me.”

  “I know that. Fair was here. And your husband, too, as you well know.”


  “Yes, sir,” Susan sheepishly replied.

  “You’re tired. Want me to get you some coffee?” Harry had that solicitous tone to her voice.

  “If I drink any more coffee, you’ll peel me off the scoreboard.” He rose as the women walked to the table. “Go on, get out of here.”

  “Well, let me go to my seat. Susan, too. Maybe it will help.”

  Not awaiting a reply, she bounded up the steps. Susan stayed riveted to the spot.

  “Good.” Mrs. Murphy trotted toward Harry, who sat down.

  “H.H. sat right there.”

  “I know that, goddammit!” He saw Tucker, then spied the cats, all working their way toward Harry but on different rows. “Not them. Thank God, we’ve already combed this place. You’d pollute the site. Do you know that? You could destroy valuable evidence.”

  “But I haven’t and their senses are sharper than ours. Who knows what they’ll find?”

  “I can hardly wait to put them on the county payroll.” His voice dripped sarcasm, but he didn’t blow up. In the past, Harry’s two cats and the corgi had sometimes turned up clues or even body parts. It was quite strange.

  Susan, in an effort to deflect his wrath, murmured, “You must be very tired. We hoped we might be able to help because at least we got a good night’s sleep.”

  He sat down again, defeated. “All right. Harry, come down here. Since you’re here, I might as well make use of you.”

  Gleefully, she returned to Rick, whose badge reflected the light. “Yes, sir.”

  “Sit down.”

  Both Harry and Susan sat in the folding metal chairs at the table.

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  Each woman succinctly described H.H.’s death as they saw it. He was in the parking lot, he stared up at the sky, jerked his head straight up, then dropped.

  “Anything unusual during the game?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “All right.” He held up his hand. “Now think. Who disliked H.H.?”

  “Fred Forrest. He got ugly after the Clemson game. Yelled at H.H.”

  “Uh-huh.” Rick had had this described to him by Fair. “What about a consistent enemy?”

  Both women shrugged.

  “You mean like someone who got mad over a building? A disgruntled client?”

  “Yeah, or what about someone next to the building? You know when he put in that shopping center up on 29 North they were all screaming and hollering.” He rubbed his eyes.

  “I don’t know any of those people, the ones in the subdivision now next to the shopping center,” Harry replied.

  “Well, I hate to mention this”—Susan’s voice was low, conspiratorial—“but he left Anne the day before the game, yet they were back together at the game. Maybe the woman, whom we don’t know—”

  Harry interrupted, something she rarely did. “Oh, I bet we know her all right, we just don’t know her identity at this moment.”

  “Right. Well, what if she killed him? The girlfriend?” Susan finished her thought.

  “Uh-huh.” Rick listened noncommittally. “Seems there was a string of girlfriends over the years.”

  Harry’s dark eyebrows shot upward. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Maybe the girlfriend flew into a rage because he backed out.”

  Rick put his elbow on the table, resting his forehead on his hand. “Now look, you two, we have swept up every crumb, every piece of paper, every sticky gob of bubble gum. I am tired. I appreciate your help, but—and I mean you, Harry, because you’re the worst—spare me your interference.” Harry started to protest. He held up his left hand. “If H.H. has been murdered, and I won’t commit to that until I have those lab sheets, but if he has been murdered, then whoever did this is walking around out there. Whoever it is is an incredibly intelligent person. This was not a crime of passion although passion may have inspired it. This was methodical, well thought out, ingenious, and committed in front of about six hundred people. And no one saw a goddamned thing.”

  “Or we saw it and didn’t know we saw it,” Harry, with no intention of obeying the sheriff, replied. She wasn’t going to openly cross him but, after all, H.H. had been smack in front of her, one seat to the right. Her natural curiosity was as aroused as her ego. How dare the murderer? “Will you tell us what killed H.H. when you get the lab report?” Harry pushed her luck.

  “Don’t put your nose into it. Now will you pick up Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker and leave me in peace?” he grumbled, his voice low.

  “Yes, sir.” Harry whistled.

  The three walked toward her from their various places, Mrs. Murphy bounding over the seats.

  Rick looked down at the three animals, coats shining, in perfect health. “Keep her out of trouble.”

  “We will,” came the chorus, which made him laugh.

  He needed a laugh.

  As they walked around the outside corridor, Mrs. Murphy complained, “Nada.”

  “Old food, old smells.” Tucker had so hoped she’d find something.

  “I didn’t find anything except a little trickle of water on the top row. Guess the roof leaks a tiny bit,” Pewter said.

  “Are you sure it was water?” Mrs. Murphy’s whiskers swept forward.

  “I’m sure. Like I said, I didn’t find anything.”

  * * *

  9

  Harry, I am not driving you up there.” Susan shut the door to her station wagon with great determination.

  “Oh come on, Susan, we’re halfway there. If you take me home in a snit, then I’ve got to drive all the way back up 29.” She mentioned Route 29 simply by its number.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have gone into the Clam with you. Now Sheriff Shaw is half-pissed at me and Ned will hear about it. I don’t much feature a lecture from him.” She sighed.

  Ned Tucker, a good and gentle man, would not be thrilled with the news that his wife was meddling.

  The animals, in the back, kept quiet. No reason to further irritate Susan.

  “Don’t you have any shopping to do?”

  “Harry, that is so transparent. It isn’t worthy of you.”

  As Susan drove out of the parking lot, Harry sullenly stared out the window.

  “Groceries. You always need groceries. There’s that expensive delicatessen up there. Expensive coffees. Fresh rutabaga.”

  “Rutabaga?”

  Harry laughed. “Just wanted to see if you were listening.”

  Susan turned left onto Route 29. “I hate you, Harry. You get me to do things I would never do.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  “Great, then you come home with me and let Ned tear you a new one.”

  “What a pretty way to talk.” Harry smiled, her spirits restored.

  “It’s the truth. He doesn’t get mad very often but when he does, watch out.”

  “All the more reason not to go home right now.” Harry paused. “Ever notice how when you’re wiped out you get these weird energy surges, and then there are times when your mind just goes blank? Zero. Clean slate.”

  “Mine does that on a daily basis,” Susan mused. “Children will do that to you.” She considered her statement. “It’s not so much the big problems, you know, ‘Mom, I wrecked the car.’ It’s the constant interruptions, although I must say with Dan at Cornell I have only one interrupter who interrupts less as she gets older. I don’t remember my mother working as hard as I do teaching children good manners.”

  “It was good to see Danny over Christmas vacation. College is good for him.”

  Danny, a smart boy, was excelling at Cornell University, but he found upstate New York a lot colder than Virginia.

  “He’s a man now, although it’s hard for me to see that. I mean intellectually I know it but emotionally I think he’s my little boy and I am determined, determined not to be one of those mothers who won’t let go.”

  “You’ll be cool.”

  “If you’re going to have children you’d better do it soon
.”

  “It just happens. I’m not planning anything.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you. That sounds almost, almost irresponsible.”