Sister hovered over the second skillet. “Betty, I don’t know what to do.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
She waved her hand. “I know, I know, but I don’t know what to do for Ronnie.”
Betty walked over and placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We’re here. That’s the best we can do.”
“When RayRay was killed, Ronnie and Xavier”—Sister named another of her deceased son’s best friends—“visited me. Came to the house, did chores. Stacked the hayloft, and then, as they moved through high school, they invited me to their football games, to their graduations.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t know what’s got into me. I hate to see Ronnie upset.”
“Ronnie and Xavier look on you as another mother, I think, and you, well, you love them. You think of them as your boys.” Betty smiled. “Your boys who are now in their mid-fifties.”
Sister, too, began to crack eggs. “Betty, where does the time go?”
“I don’t know but if I find out, I’ll go bring some back.”
Sister leaned over and kissed Betty on the cheek.
The smells were bringing everyone down. Whatever happened, they’d face it together.
CHAPTER 5
“Honey, drink your coffee and eat your eggs. You’ll feel a little better. Your mind will wake up.” Sister sat across from Ronnie, normally fastidious but today with morning stubble.
Gray sat next to him after putting a plate of biscuits on the table.
The old friends ate. Ronnie gulped his coffee, hoping it would help. Betty rose and refilled his cup.
A lovely small bone china creamer sat on the table filled with real cream. Sister always put the heavy-duty stuff on the table. Her theory was if you eat or drink fat in the morning, rich stuff, you won’t get so hungry the rest of the day. Sure worked for her.
Gray glanced out the wavy glass windows, from the late eighteenth century. “This won’t let up.”
“At least it’s not so heavy,” Betty replied. “Spoke to my best husband this morning. He said the drifts were piled against the door.”
“Do you have a second-best husband?” Sister teased her.
“Oh, there are days.” Betty smiled. “I don’t know how he shepherded Second Flight back yesterday. We have a few nervous Nellies in that group.”
“Well, I was in First Flight and felt like a nervous Nellie,” Gray confessed. “I don’t know what it is, but I think of the times we have run into trouble at Old Paradise.”
“Given that it’s five thousand acres, I suppose that increases the chances for trouble.” Sister nibbled sausage, succulent farm sausage, a bit browned on the edges.
“Oh, I sometimes think Sophie Marquet cursed the place.” Betty also savored her food. “Dashing as her life was in wartime, peacetime had to be one problem after another, especially after she married.”
“Didn’t she shoot him?” Gray wondered.
“He lived. She caught him in flagrante delicto.” Betty did so like gossip, especially old gossip, because no one would fuss at you for retelling it. “She swore she forgave him and he wandered no more.”
“Would you?” Ronnie livened a bit.
“That’s a very loaded question.” Gray got up to refill everyone’s cups, tea for Sister.
“Do you think people can truly forgive?” Betty asked. “I mean especially something like that, something where you are publicly humiliated? I mean sooner or later it always comes out.”
“I don’t know, Betty, Aunt Daniella has held her cards close to that famous bosom for decades, must be seven decades now because she sprang into action in her late teens.” Gray smiled. “If anyone can understand the long departed Sophie, it’s my aunt.”
“You’ve got us there but”—Sister drew this out so they all leaned toward her—“she came close to spilling some of the beans when she saw Weevil. Melted. Just melted. He is the spitting image of an old flame.”
“Most women melt when they meet your newest professional whipper-in.” Betty thought him gorgeous.
“Well.” Sister shrugged. “My only paid whipper-in. You have done unpaid service for over thirty years.”
“Yes, I started whipping-in to the Jefferson Hounds at age six.”
This brought a roar of laughter. Even Ronnie, distracted as he was, appreciated and loved Betty. Old friends, dear friends, age gaps between them only tightening the bonds. Gray and Sister had known each other for most of their adult lives although Gray, after graduate school, spent the weeks in D.C., married to a socially conscious woman who felt central Virginia much beneath her. After producing a son, they both raised him. She decamped to New York City where her light would shine more brightly. The son, a bovine veterinarian in Colorado, had started practice in Nebraska, and was considered one of the leading veterinarians in the country. So whatever the then married Lorillards did, they raised a good son. The lightning struck Sister and Gray twelve years ago. A surprise to all, especially them.
Betty, having grown up in Orange County, knew of Sister. Once she married Bobby and they started their printing business, she came into the orbit. Ronnie grew up with Sister. He couldn’t imagine life without her, nor she him.
Old friends. Old friends who knew one another’s good points and not so good points. Somehow the non-perfections only made them all more lovable.
“I am wide awake. Your usual magical breakfast.” Ronnie looked at Sister. “I’m ready to call Ben now.”
“Would you like to use the landline in the library? It will be private.”
“No. I’ll use the phone here. I don’t mind if you hear me. Maybe you can help me remember what I said. When I get rattled I can forget what I’ve just said or done.”
“Of course.” Sister agreed.
Ronnie moved his chair to the phone on the kitchen counter. Golly, reposing there, lifted her head for Ronnie to pet. She knew him. He stroked her, which calmed him a little.
Raleigh and Rooster on the floor moved to sit down by him. They felt his unease, his worry.
“Ben.”
“Ronnie. We’re out here now. It’s heavy going.”
“Deep snow. But can you see one another?”
“We can. We’re working quadrants based on Sister’s report about the storm coming up while you were at Old Paradise. She said the columns loomed in the distance so we started there. I’ve got one man on the road. One to my south, Jackie in front of me, and Carson back at Tattenhall Station moving around the buildings checking everything.”
“Tattenhall?”
“It’s possible he slipped or slipped away as you approached the station. Sister said you told her you didn’t look back until you reached the station. Tell me what you did, what you saw.”
Ronnie repeated what he had told Sister. “Pokerface was right behind me. I could just see him and he was on Corporal’s flank.” He named his two horses. “So I didn’t know Greg was gone until Pokerface came alongside me at the trailer.”
“Taking a rough gauge of distance, you rode for about four miles without looking behind?”
“If I retrace my steps, we turned toward Chapel Cross once the snow came down, all at once. No warning. I’d say we rode toward the road maybe a mile. We were pretty deep into Old Paradise. We saw the Corinthian columns, after all, as I said. Sister picked up a trot. We made it to the road oh, fifteen, twenty minutes. We were in the front of First Flight. Second Flight had more people, they fell back. I heard a car, then nothing as we neared the road. Couldn’t see. I don’t know how long it took them. But I was up front. I couldn’t hear anyone’s voice, front or rear. Anyway, we knew we were on the road even if we couldn’t quite see it because a few people waded through the drainage ditch filling up with snow. They stepped off the road by mistake. The snow had to be coming down at least three inches an hour. By the time we reached Chapel Cross, you couldn’t
see the cross on the steeple. I kept my head down. The wind was howling but I knew Pokerface was at my flank. He kept his nose close to Corporal’s hindquarters. Couldn’t hear anything, as I said. I’m repeating myself. Sorry. Couldn’t see Sister ahead of me. Then we reached Tattenhall Station.”
Ronnie could hear Ben’s labored breathing as he pushed through the snow. “What is your relationship to Gregory Luckham?”
“Business friendly. Our law firm represents Soliden Enterprises. My specialty is protecting historic sites, that sort of thing, and usually our firm works out accommodation between say a cemetery and a developer. Sometimes it’s simply money changing hands. If a family is involved like over a cemetery, it can drag on and become emotional. A wants the money from the developer. B thinks Great-aunt Gertrude must rest in peace forever.”
“And were you involved in something like this for Soliden?”
“Greg was anticipating trouble. The final route of the pipeline, still in flux, needed to consider drawn-out lawsuits. The state issues were pretty much cleared by the McAuliffe administration.” Ronnie named a former governor of Virginia who supported the pipeline as great for Virginia business, job creation. “I wanted Greg to really see the territory and what better way to see it than to ride it?”
Ben, who read the papers avidly, understood what was at stake, including what wasn’t said. Careers.
The sheriff stopped to catch his breath. “Did Mr. Luckham know of your historical and environmental concerns?”
“He did. He was a very good CEO. He could incorporate opposing views, make room for same. I would not, could not unless I resigned my own position, work against Soliden, pipeline or no pipeline. He knew that. I think that’s why he wanted to know what I thought. Where the historical hot spots rested. Perhaps that’s why he agreed to be my guest at Christmas Hunt. I could point out significant areas.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. For every change the company makes for the route, I know or can quickly find out what is at issue. This is still hanging. Naturally, I hope to divert the route for many reasons, not the least of which is the incredible historical value of an undisturbed Old Paradise, Beveridge Hundred, or Tattenhall Station.”
“You developed enough of a friendship where you’d lend him a good horse to hunt? Pokerface is a saint.”
“He hunts with Deep Run. He can ride and ride well.”
“Was that all? I know you well enough, Ronnie, to think you had a card up your sleeve.”
“Yes and no. Crawford Howard and Kasmir Barbhaiya made common cause, hired McGuire Woods”—he named a powerful mid-Atlantic law firm—“to make certain the pipeline did not come through here. Each man had received a letter declaring a surveyor would be on their property and that did it. Given that their combined wealth is probably half the budget of the state of Virginia, my law firm would like to avoid a protracted lawsuit. McGuire Woods is a very good firm.”
“Made the papers. Kasmir and Crawford,” Ben recalled.
“Crawford Howard, much as he respected McGuire Woods, hired Charlotte Abruza. He would have them in reserve if it came to that. Crawford even brought her to a dinner I hosted for Gregory at Farmington Country Club where Gregory was staying.
“As for Kasmir, he donated handsomely to the Virginia Outdoor Foundation, Piedmont Environmental Council, anything that preserved the beauty of this part of the world. Having been raised in India, he was keenly aware of what happens when ‘progress,’ in quotes, is the only value. He made common cause with Crawford.
“I wanted him to really see this area. He’d been driven through it but if he rode it, met the people, he’d understand the passion, the resolve to turn that pipeline away.”
“And?”
Ronnie waited a bit. “Well, we had two good runs. He rode over hill and dale, got within sight of those Corinthian columns. I think he was impressed. He had a big smile on his face. A good run will do that.”
“I see.” And Ben did.
“I figured Greg would have a terrific time at Tattenhall Station. Then I’d get him, not on horseback, to see the restoration Crawford is doing. Also show him old photography of Tattenhall Station, how it was once a small nerve center in central Virginia.”
“You’re not worried about your law firm?”
“No. I am working for our client. If I can save the client protracted lawsuits and bad publicity, my God, they’ve had enough, I am doing my job.”
“Is there a route that won’t raise hackles?”
“No, but this can be made much easier if the company will utilize existing rights-of-way. Yes, it will make it a longer route if they abandon their route. There are other paths. It will add to the cost but so will lawsuits. Truthfully, Ben, they’ve done a piss-poor job of protecting themselves, of reaching the public.”
“Yes. You’d think a company that big would have a better public relations department.”
“They’re living in the nineteen seventies and eighties. No concept of how quickly news disseminates today. And if this grows worse, Gregory Luckham will be out of a job. The blame will fall on him.”
“Would it matter?”
“Ben, you hunt now. You didn’t when you took the job as county sheriff. What do you think? What have you learned?”
“I see. Okay, better to have a foxhunter running a huge company than not, even though profits must trump everything.”
“This really must be fought by individuals. The federal and state governments rolled over and played dead.”
“Did he ever mention to you fear he would be killed?”
“Yes. He had received death threats.”
“Someone would have to be highly motivated to venture out in a blizzard to kill him.”
“Not if they were riding with the hunt. Someone could have ridden up beside him, stuck a knife in his ribs, pulled him off Pokerface. At that point no one would have heard him or seen him. I don’t like to think of such things, but I’ve been thinking of nothing else.”
A few more exchanges and Ronnie hung up the phone to confront three silent people staring at him.
He squared his shoulders. “It’s the only thing I can think of.”
“It does make sense, but who in the field is that impassioned about the pipeline?” Sister replied. “Irrational enough to kill if that’s what they did.”
“What if they are impassioned about something else?” Gray leaned back in his chair.
They each looked at one another.
“An irate husband?” Betty half whispered.
“A woman who has been what, pushed around. Felt he was a predator. Oh, it’s all too far-fetched. Not out there in the hunt field.” Sister threw up her hands.
Ronnie rejoined them after giving Golly another stroke under her chin. “People do crazy things.”
“That’s the truth,” Betty declared with feeling. “I have an older daughter in jail who blew up her life with drugs. And another who graduated summa cum laude from Colby College. You never know.”
“Betty, Sarah had help.”
“Ronnie, you are kind but no one puts a gun to your head and says you will take drugs.”
“People don’t just disappear in the middle of a hunt.” Ronnie felt so frustrated.
But they do.
CHAPTER 6
Blue shimmered off the snow, the glaze of ice adding to the shine. Sarge poked his head out of his den now that the snow finally stopped. The ice, thick enough to support his weight, still wasn’t inviting. Lifting his head, he sniffed. Deer had passed perhaps at sunrise but few scents enticed him. Hunger enticed him, drove him on. As everything was covered with deep snow, so were his caches. No point trying to dig them out.
The footing was good thanks to the glaze. He headed east toward Beveridge Hundred. Mice lived in the outbuildings; often the garbage wasn’t secured. Lit
tle things were beginning to get away from the Van Dorns like pressing down hard on the garbage cans. Better yet, the human in the dependency, the perfect cottage, put out treats. She even purchased a doghouse, the door facing away from the northwestern winds. Sarge was especially grateful for the treats and the deep straw bedding.
Moving quickly, the light wind biting, he reached Beveridge Hundred in ten minutes at an easy lope. Running kept him warm. He noticed few tracks on the way. Knowing every shortcut for a good two-mile radius from his den, not only could he dump the hounds, he could visit other creatures along the way if he had a mind to, but today no one was lounging at a den’s opening, sitting in a tree, or nestling in a stall. The Van Dorns kept a tidy two-horse stable even though they no longer rode, age overtaking their ability to do so.
A curl of smoke, the wood smelling wonderful, rose from Yvonne’s chimney. Tootie stacked up a full load of wood for her mother. As Yvonne was not a country girl, she had no idea what she would need. Tootie and Weevil brought over two truckloads for her with Sister’s permission. The wood was from Sister’s farm. Tootie, handy with chores, cut up the fallen trees while Weevil split them. Naturally, they also created a huge pile for the Master, stacking it in her woodhouse at the corner of the entrance to the mudroom. The last thing anyone wants to do in bad weather is walk far for wood.
Sarge stopped to peer into the living room windows. Yvonne, a Christmas tree in the corner of the room, presents under the tree, sat in a chair as she read. Yvonne was not handy but she could throw together clothing in five minutes, walk out looking beautiful, which she was clothed or unclothed.
Good woman that she was, the cozy doghouse had kibble, little milk bones, tiny grape candies, and Jolly Ranchers. Sarge loved candy. Tootie told her mother that foxes often had a sweet tooth as she helped her mother set up the doghouse.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sarge. He darted into the doghouse, having to plow his way through a small drift to get into the house. The blizzard’s swirling winds created interesting shapes, opened some areas, closed up others. Yvonne watched the young red fox enjoy the kibble while plucking at candies. She had to smile.
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