Hiss of Death: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery

by Rita Mae Brown; Sneaky Pie Brown

  When you walked into Harry’s barn, you saw perfection. When you trod into the equipment sheds, you saw old equipment fanatically maintained, everything in order, down to the jars of screws, marked with sizes and head types. When you cast your eyes over the vines, the sunflowers, the corn rows, the acres filled with hay just now popping up in force, you saw what mattered to this woman. She never stinted on her horses, who gleamed, or her land.

  Harry good-naturedly endured the jibes of her friends. She even submitted to Susan and BoomBoom once dragging her to Nordstrom in Short Pump, outside of Richmond, where they forced her to try on clothes. She had resisted the prices, so they each bought her one outfit, which shamed her into buying the rest. Her husband proved far more grateful for this fashion intervention than Harry.

  When the 5K group met at her house, it was invariably clean and tidy. She served fried chicken, the ubiquitous ham biscuits, corn bread, and a wonderful salad with mandarin oranges. She would spend money on food for her friends and for her animals, as well as the wild animals she had befriended. Harry just had a hard time spending it on other things. The credit card debt the average American carried, about fifteen thousand dollars’ worth, sometimes made her wonder if she was as American as she should be.

  As they caught up on gossip, politics, taxes, and the effects the severe winter had had on Virginia, each woman was, in her own way, happy to be part of the group. Their work gave them a purpose outside of their own lives, and that seems to make people content.

  As they sat at the graceful table—Alicia could never bear to eat with her plate on her knees; she always set the table—they discussed the school budget cuts. They passed on to postal service cuts. Harry was once the postmistress of Crozet. Then on to other things, and Alicia pulled from her blouse a little newspaper clipping.

  She rapped her crystal glass with her knife. “Ladies.”

  “Is this a pronouncement from Mount Olympus?” BoomBoom, the person Alicia loved most in the world, rolled her eyes.

  “No. This is a clipping from The London Sunday Times. I’m not going to read all of it, but you’ve got to hear it. Ready? The Times has converted Australian dollars into pounds, so when I get to that part, bear with me. I’m not converting it back.”

  “Can’t wait.” Harry smiled as the others agreed.

  “In Adelaide, Australia, a restaurant, Thai Spice, was ordered to pay compensation to a blind man. Ian Jolly, the blind man, wanted to take his dog into the restaurant. Obvious enough. But the waiter, who we shall assume does not speak English as a first language, turned him away because he thought the dog was gay.”

  “What!” Nita exploded with laughter.

  “Are you making this up?” Paula, too, was disbelieving.

  “I couldn’t possibly make this up. No one could. I’ll pass this around. But let me finish. Okay. Thai Spice must pay nine hundred pounds’ compensation. The waiter thought the dog—whose name is Nudge, by the way—was gay. He misunderstood Mr. Jolly, who said this was a ‘guide dog.’ Thought the blind man said ‘gay dog.’ It gets worse. At what must have been a very unusual hearing before the judge, the staff at Thai Spice reported that they thought Nudge was a pet dog who had been de-sexed to become gay!”

  How they laughed. That absurd story brought up others. They laughed until they cried.

  Later, each woman would look back and recall that at that meeting they were all together and so very happy.

  Slut,” Thadia Martin spit.

  “Look who’s talking,” Paula Benton fired right back. “And just what the hell are you doing in my driveway at six at night?”

  “I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’m sick and tired of your lying.”

  “Thadia, you’re back on drugs.”

  “How convenient. My past. I haven’t taken a drink or a toot in eleven years. I’m as sober as a judge, and you know it.” Thadia pulled the soft cashmere scarf tighter around her neck, exposing a graceful scarab bracelet on her left wrist. She jammed her hands back into her pockets as the air turned sharp, cold, this Thursday early evening.

  “So what are you talking about?” Paula crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Cory Schaeffer.”

  “What has Dr. Schaeffer got to do with this? I assist him in the operating room.”

  “You’re in love with him.”

  Paula involuntarily smacked her forehead with her gloved hand. “You’re certifiable. Get out of my driveway.”

  “You’ve been sleeping with him for the last year, I know it. I see how you look at him. How you make unnecessary trips to his office, and if he isn’t there you leave disappointed.”

  Realizing that insulting Thadia wasn’t going to drive her away, Paula settled down as best she could under the volatile circumstances. “One, I am not sleeping with Cory Schaeffer. Two, he’s not my type. Three, he’s not my type emotionally. He asks for me whenever he operates, so, naturally, I see him in his office as well as in the operating room. If you’re this crazed about Cory, it must be you that’s in love with him. Not me.”

  Good-looking Cory had boxed as an undergraduate at Iowa State. He continued as an amateur throughout medical school, still doing bag work, rope jumping, and speed bag work at Heavy Metal Gym. He participated in boxing matches if he felt he was in good condition. Certainly, he looked good to Thadia, or to any woman who admired a well-muscled man.

  Thadia’s baby face mottled. “There’s more to it. You’re a liar.”

  “People have been shot for calling someone that in Virginia. That’s what the natives tell me.”

  “Well, I’m a native, and I’m telling you you’re a liar and a slut.”

  “If it isn’t too much of an effort, upon what do you base your erroneous conclusion?”

  “He always, always asks for you when he operates. Toni Enright is just as good an operating nurse as you are. This way the two of you can pretend to go over stuff after the operation and before the operation. I’m not fooled. Like I said, he could use Toni Enright at least some of the time.”

  “Look. You’re not a doctor, and you’re not a nurse. You’re a drug rehab counselor. You don’t know as much as you think you know about procedure and protocol. A family practitioner sees or feels a lump. An X ray, mammogram, or MRI is administered. The patient does, in fact, have cancer. The family practitioner sends that person to Cory or another surgeon who might order a second set of diagnostics. Cory’s very good at pinpointing anything murky in the first set or looking for more in the tests he’s ordered. He sees things others don’t. If he operates, I go over those tests with him before the operation. I don’t always see what he sees. He doesn’t have to do that. He feels we’ll be a better team if I have seen the test results.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Paula threw up her hands. “Why am I wasting my time talking to a crazy woman? I’m going inside, and you can go back down the driveway.”

  As Paula turned around, Thadia reached for her shoulder and clamped her bare hand on it. She spun Paula around. Paula threw up her arm, expecting a blow. Thadia reached up to pull her arm down. She hadn’t intended to hit Paula, but her scarab bracelet snagged Paula’s old coat and a stone flew out. Thadia, enraged, didn’t notice. Neither did Paula.

  “Don’t you turn your back on me.”

  Paula, one hand in her coat, felt for her cellphone. If she had to, she’d call the sheriff’s department—whatever it took to get away from this nutcase.

  “Thadia, if you do not take your hand off me, if you do not get in that sorry old heap of yours and haul ass down my driveway, I am calling the sheriff.”

  As furious as Thadia was, she immediately dropped her hand, pulling herself together. She’d been in prison. She’d endured three years of parole. She now had a good job working with people who had been what she once was. She understood her clients. Most drug counselors who were not former addicts did not. No matter how shaky she felt at this moment, she had enough self-possession to know that if the sheriff’s departme
nt came and wrote a complaint or, worse, took her away, she’d lose her job. It would be a long, long time before she’d find another. Her family had already disowned her. Rich though they were, she’d never inherit a penny. Her old friends had no time for her anymore, either.

  “I’m sorry.” Tears came.

  “You should be. You’re in love with someone who will never love you back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he loves himself too much.”

  “I thought you liked him. I thought you loved him.” Thadia blinked, confused.

  “I wouldn’t love Cory Schaeffer if he was the last man on earth, but I’ll work with him until one of us dies.”

  Thadia was more upset than ever, but no longer angry at Paula, she walked toward her car. “He’s a brilliant man. He’s a good man. He’s not afraid to try new methods.”

  “No, he’s not. I wish he’d be a little less experimental, but that’s me. He has a wife and three children. Thadia, he cheats on his wife a lot. Forget him.”

  “I can’t.”

  “In fact, forget any man who works in the hospital but most especially a doctor. Hospitals are like petri dishes: Infidelity flourishes.” With that, Paula strolled back into her modest but attractive farmhouse.

  Thadia got in her car and left. She worried that she was probably a nicer person when she was on drugs. She’d been happier inside until she had reached the point where she couldn’t afford her habit. She also knew that if you become addicted, you stop maturing when you start drinking or drugging. Emotionally, she was about twenty-five. Intellectually, she knew that, but that didn’t mean she could control her emotions in a mature manner. The irresponsibility that attends immaturity and all addictions was so much easier than growing up. However, it was hell on everyone else.

  Most of all, Thadia felt wretched because she was in love with Cory Schaeffer. She wanted the attention and respect he gave Paula.

  Thadia wanted a lot of things that she would probably never get.

  • • •

  Taking off her coat in the front hall, Paula wanted a glass of wine. Already fatigued, and now more tired out from Thadia’s outburst, she wanted only to relax. Tomorrow she wasn’t working, and she’d happily spend the day fooling around in her potting shed—an area she’d fixed up in the old barn. That gave her something to look forward to.

  She smiled at last, grateful she wasn’t Thadia Martin.

  Still tight, colored deep magenta, the redbuds bent slightly westward as a stiff breeze charged down the eastern face of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Wild white dogwoods threatened to open, and the forsythias—already huge splashes of yellow—were peaking.

  The old 1978 Ford F-150 truck, big engine growling, carried Harry, and her two cats and dog, just west of the nondescript Virginia town of Crozet. Born there, suffering no inclination to live anywhere else, she smiled at the riches of early spring. Any winter was worth enduring for the luxury, the new life, that inevitably followed.

  She recited a line from Shelley, hoping she got it right: “Blow, blow thou winter winds, can spring be far behind.”

  “What’s she babbling about?” wondered Pewter, the often-peevish gray cat.

  The sleek tiger cat, Mrs. Murphy, paws on the dash, hind feet on the bench seat, replied, “She’s quoting poetry.”

  “Bother,” the gray cat grumbled as she joined Mrs. Murphy to gaze through the brand-new windshield.

  So many windshields in this part of the world cracked, although they didn’t shatter. Even though the local gravel trucks now covered their loads with heavy canvas, motorists hereabouts were forced to acknowledge that sooner or later a stone would fly off, or a preceding vehicle would kick up stones from one of the many dirt roads.

  Harry would rather buy a new windshield than see the tertiary roads paved. Paved roads meant development. Development cannibalized farmland. It also meant an influx of “comeheres”—as locals dubbed new residents.

  Suspicious but always friendly, Harry belonged to every preservation and environmental group she could find. Her husband proved less xenophobic. Much as Harry wanted to be open, deep down she hotly resented what she considered the flaunted superiority of the new people. The fact that they all had a lot of money fanned the flames.

  At this moment she was driving to the home of a comehere. A flash of guilt filled her, because Paula Benton, an operating-room nurse, was one of the most helpful, lovely people she’d ever met.

  Then she told herself, Paula was the exception that proved the rule. Harry had learned just how organized Paula was by working with her on the 5K. Like all of us, Paula had her quirks. Although a very competent nurse, one of her peculiarities was that she couldn’t give herself a shot. Once a week, Annalise Veronese gave Paula her B12 shot.

  How the group teased Paula, who took it all with good humor. She also feared spiders, as do many people. The girls gave her a big fuzzy stuffed toy spider to overcome her phobia. It didn’t work, but she kept the toy anyway.

  Pulling into the long dirt drive down to Paula’s farm, Harry marveled at the work the divorced, quite pretty nurse had done in two years’ time. Lined with glossy green Nellie Stevens hollies, the drive funneled down to the restored frame farmhouse.

  Even in her crabby moments, Harry was grateful for the number of old farms and larger estates the new-monied people had not only saved but improved. Then there were those who built the McMansions on five acres, but all of America was jam-packed full of those. Couldn’t blame the comeheres for that environmentally disastrous fad.

  As she approached Paula’s farmhouse, Harry noticed that the hollies encircling the drive now reached five feet. The effect was pretty. In a few years’ time it would be dramatic, for Nellie Stevenses could top out at thirty feet.

  Due to the odd hours she kept, Paula had no pets. This disappointed Tucker, the corgi, who evidenced a social streak. Nothing better than catching up with another canine. Living with two cats could pluck one’s last nerve.

  Paula’s brand-new Dodge half-ton, sparkling silver, was parked off to the side of the house.

  Harry cut the engine and let her animals out in the crisp spring air, then walked onto the porch and knocked on the door. No answer.

  “She knows I’m coming,” Harry said aloud to her animals. “She’s got the extra runner numbers for me. They came in late. Sure glad they made it, or I’d be sitting up cutting out paper.”

  “Paula!” Harry called.

  Harry would happily ride a horse anywhere, but she avoided running since she did quite enough walking, trotting, and lifting on the farm. By the end of the day her thighs often ached—hence her willingness to do the “bench work” at the 5K.

  The door was unlocked; Harry peeked in. “Paula?”

  She walked around the house to the old barn in the back, to Paula’s potting-shed refuge, a pleasant place to force bulbs.

  Pewter, feeling she already had enough exercise this morning, turned to go back to the truck.

  Tucker paused to watch, then waited for Mrs. Murphy to join her. “No wonder she’s fat.”

  “I heard that,” the gray cat called over her shoulder.

  “You heard me, yet you’re doing nothing about it,” Tucker persisted.

  “Bubble butt.” Pewter raised her head, her tail upright, as she marched toward the truck.

  Mrs. Murphy and Tucker fell in behind Harry. As the temperature hung in the low fifties and probably would stay there all day, the barn doors were closed, but a light shone in the area Paula had closed off.

  “Knew it. She lost track of time.” Harry smiled as she pushed open the barn doors.

  She opened the door to the potting room, lit by both skylights in the roof and some infrared lights casting their odd color. The smile froze on her face.

  “Paula!” Harry rushed to the woman slumped at her potting table, head on the table. Next to Paula, a dead hornet lay on the table, too.

  Harry touched her. Cool. She took her pulse. None.

/>   “She smells funny. I’ve smelled that odor before, but I can’t place it,” the corgi commented, her powers of smell surpassing anything a human could imagine.

  “Yes, I know what you mean,” said Mrs. Murphy, no slouch in the nose department, either.

  Not one to panic, Harry gently placed Paula’s hand back on the table, then left the room, animals with her.

  Now she ran. Sprinting for the truck, she nearly stepped on Pewter’s tail, for the cat was under the truck, playing with something she’d found.

  Opening the glove compartment, Harry pulled out her cell. She kept it in there so she wouldn’t be tempted to call while driving. This strategy forced her to pull over to make calls. Taking your eyes off country roads could wipe you out in a skinny minute.

  She dialed 911, gave information and directions, and waited. Then her mind started spinning. Paula Benton, in her late thirties, was a runner. She didn’t smoke and drank alcohol in moderation. She regularly endured mammograms and her annual checkup, passing with flying colors. Her death appeared peaceful.

  She picked up Tucker, since Mrs. Murphy had jumped up onto the truck. Then she got down on her knees. “Pewter, come on.”