Homeward Hound

by Rita Mae Brown

  Once together again, Yvonne reminded him, “Aunt Dan says she’s making spoon bread. Don’t be late.”

  “I won’t. You all have been good to me. Everyone has been good to me.” He sighed. “Finding out that Rory had no alcohol in his system has helped a little.”

  Freddie Thomas, another accountant, was deep in discussion with Gray and Ronnie. Sister didn’t intrude but she did signal to Weevil and Tootie, also deep in conversation, to join her.

  “Clever.” Tootie smiled. “I have never seen a den in a tree like that.”

  Sister, glad to talk about foxes, related. “Sometimes a fox will create a den under a large fallen log. The exits and entrances are around it, some at a distance, and there’s usually one in the middle of the log’s bottom. You can’t see it from outside. Just looks like a big log.”

  “That drop jump brought people to the Lord.” Weevil laughed.

  “I got to go over the coop at the far end of the pasture but I could see everyone else. The shock was, no one came off.”

  “Surprised me, too. Tomorrow let’s do the kennel chores, give the kids a good rest, take three horses and go to Tattenhall Station. I know Ben Sidell has been over it and I know he’ll go back until he’s satisfied they haven’t missed something. Maybe we can be of some help. We’ll be looking at it with new eyes. Preys on my mind, Rory and Gregory, too, short though our acquaintance was. It’s like finding scent, you know. Surely we’ll get a whiff of something.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The first thing Sister, Tootie, and Weevil noticed was the place where Rory was found had been carefully dug out. Snow had been removed onto the road as well as up on the land above the ditch. Ben and his crew tried to examine everything.

  Kasmir offered to join them but she asked if she and her staff might repair to the station when finished. He readily agreed, promising to join them.

  Sister looked up from the excavation to the church. “Ben and his people have gone all through the grounds, had Adolfo open all the outbuildings as well as the church. Let us first ride through Tollbooth.”

  Tollbooth, a sizable farm—they all were this far out—lay immediately to the east of Chapel Cross, next to the chapel grounds and another fixture, Old Orchard. Nothing grand, clean simple structures from the mid-eighteenth century survived. The earlier ones had been replaced but drawings were made that hung in the center hallway of the main house, a large clapboard with the additions that accrue over decades.

  As there was no traffic, they rode down the center of the road, turning left into the drive. A dangerously leaning tollbooth listed to port. It needed restoration but the owners, quite precise about these things, wouldn’t do so until the head of the architectural history department from the University of Virginia visited this structure. They also wanted someone from the Virginia Historical Society to see it. Unique though it was, no other tollbooths being around or discovered, these things take time when schedules are crammed.

  “What do you think they charged?” Weevil asked.

  “It varied a lot throughout the eighteenth century in Virginia, as the conditions of the roads varied a lot. When the Valley Turnpike was built, it would cost about four dollars and forty cents in overall tolls to travel from the north end in Winchester all of the sixty-eight miles to Harrisonburg on the southern end,” Tootie replied having studied a bit of early area history. “It crept up over time.”

  “Inflation is nothing new.” Sister patted Aztec’s neck as his ears swiveled forward.

  “Doesn’t sound like much,” Weevil replied, “but I guess it was at the time.”

  “The toll would have equaled about seventy-eight dollars in 2007 dollars,” Tootie informed him.

  “The going rate, I expect,” Sister added. “When you think about it, it paid for all this over those early decades.”

  “Weevil, this was the only path from east to west until you got up to what is now Ruckersville and south down to what is now Lynchburg. North and south travel proved so much easier and I expect it was the same for Canada, too. It’s the way North America is made.”

  “Did you two know that we reached the West Coast before Lewis and Clark?” Weevil allowed himself a flash of pride.

  “I did.” Sister smiled. “What courage. Well, what courage they all had back then.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Tootie confessed.

  “I’ll give you a book.” Out of the corner of his eye, Weevil saw Gris. “Tallyho,” he quietly said.

  “Gris.” Sister grinned. “Gris, we know it’s you.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop and talk.”

  He walked at a leisurely pace to make his point, then ducked into his den in the equipment shed with the sliding doors. So what if they saw him? They knew where he lived as he’d given them a few merry chases over the years.

  “More people?” His mate, Vi, swept her whiskers forward.

  “Too many lately.” He snuggled next to her. “It’s easy to baffle the hounds and I don’t mind the people who live in the big house, but for the last two weeks cars with flashing lights, people over there at the chapel. People at the station for the big hunt, too much.”

  “Who is out there now?” Vi asked.

  “The Master and the two young assistants. Young, pretty. I sometimes forget that humans can be good to look at. But if the Master is here without the hounds, that means either she’s looking to improve the fixture or something really is wrong.”

  “How do you know all this?” she said admiringly.

  “I’ve watched them for two years. Sometimes I like to give them a run. It’s really fun when the humans fall off and their horses run away.”

  She licked his face. Gris, a year older than his mate, thought she hung the sun and the moon. It took him until he was three to find a mate. His first year used so much energy. Being a young male, he had to find a place to live, safe, warm, but where he could observe goings-on. Then digging, expanding the space, creating hidden entrances and exits, figuring out the food supply and the territory of the other foxes. He had no time for romance.

  Once he could search, he had to convince this very pretty vixen that he was the one. She had suitors from as far away as five miles. Fortunately he was large and not afraid of a fight, but he still had to convince her. Finally, tipped off by the half-grown Sarge, half-grown at the time, he visited the special doghouse at Beveridge Hundred, bringing Vi wrapped grape gumballs. Any fox who could perform such a feat could certainly provide protection and food. Gris, being no fool, would visit that doghouse about once every two weeks.

  The owners of Tollbooth Farm allowed a thorough search by the sheriff’s department, which yielded nothing.

  The ride yielded nothing for Sister and her two whippers-in either. They rode out as they had come.

  “Let’s try Mud Fence.”

  This property, so named because the original owners couldn’t afford fencing or the labor to cut their timber, built mud fences. In time finances improved. They built wood fences. Slowly they prospered, getting enough money to hire a Cherokee indentured servant.

  Mud Fence abutted the chapel. Over the years acreage had been sold off in the bad times until the thousands of acres whittled down to three hundred and fifty. Most of Mud Fence’s former acreage provided Old Paradise’s northern border.

  One house, one small barn, one outbuilding had withstood the ravages of time being built of brick, easy material to make in this part of the world. Ben crawled all over Mud Fence’s buildings as well as Tollbooth.

  They covered the three hundred and fifty acres in an hour. The footing was slick. Nothing unusual appeared. No scrap of clothing now visible in the melting snow, no vultures pointing the way. They rode back to the border with the chapel, Adolfo Vega’s little house, small equipment shed, and the tombstones visible.

  Turning to her companions Sister
asked, “How far do you think the chapel is from here?”

  Weevil said, “One hundred yards.”

  “Close enough. Now how far do you think the chapel is from the ditch, from the road?”

  “It’s hard to tell.” Tootie spoke up. “The land rises a little.”

  “Enough to hide behind a tombstone?” Sister wondered.

  “Sure, but the snow was so thick, why hide?” Weevil thought. “Plus if you really wanted to hide, wouldn’t it make more sense to hide in the woods between Tollbooth and the place where Rory was found?”

  “Yes, but if you wanted to get away, you would need to pass Tattenhall Station and we were there.”

  “Sister, I said ‘found,’ not ‘killed.’ He could have been killed and dropped there. There were enough leaves in the ditch to cover a body and the snow did the rest.”

  “Risky, Weevil, very risky.”

  “But we were out hunting. Someone could have killed him as it started to snow. Who would know?”

  “Weevil, there are always a few people left at the trailers, grooms who don’t ride or hunt, husbands who fall asleep in the cab of the truck the minute the field is out of sight. It’s possible they might remember a vehicle passing by. Not a lot of people out this way. A strange truck or car would be noticed.”

  “But what good would it be to come back here?” Weevil asked.

  “If you had hidden your car, say behind the small barn at Mud Fence, you could drive out north and no one would see.”

  Tootie piped up. “But Sister, that’s just it. No one could see. The snow came on like”—she thought—“boom. Just like that. The killer wouldn’t be able to see either. Let’s say he got into his car or truck. He wouldn’t be able to see for some time. You’d be driving at about ten miles an hour.”

  Sister considered this. “You’re right. I’m trying everything.” She tapped her helmet with her crop. “But the killer could have stayed in his car until the snow slowed enough to see.”

  “But it didn’t for a day.” Weevil wasn’t being argumentative.

  “I know. I know.” She appreciated that they wanted to figure this out. “I can’t stand that nothing makes sense.”

  They’d ridden, looked, pondered for two hours. Back at the station, horses tied to the rig, blankets on, hay bags full, they sat in the inviting station where Kasmir had brought them lunch from the house and made a pot of coffee as well as tea. The six of them drew diagrams on large sheets of paper, threw out all manner of scenarios no matter how absurd. Dewey had joined Kasmir and Alida when he saw the station light on. He’d come out to check on the Van Dorns.

  Sister changed the subject. “Dewey, we missed you at Welsh Harp. The hounds put a gray in his den, which happened to be in the big old walnut tree trunk.”

  “No kidding? Sorry I missed that. The company had its New Year’s party.”

  “How many people work at Milford Enterprises now?” Kasmir asked.

  “Fifteen sales people, all high end. I’ve got a small construction crew but I usually job the work out. I like to go over potential development areas with my people though. Can save you a bundle when the real work starts. Construction costs can get away from you superfast.”

  “People padding the bill?” Alida asked.

  “When I first started out I got taken to the cleaners a couple of times by that. But I’ve learned with the help of my small crew to be pretty accurate about supply costs. What can blindside you is a spike in oil costs or even something like copper.”

  “Copper roof?” Sister asked.

  “The old farmhouse look, a copper roof or standing seam tin. These days anything that’s metal costs.” Dewey shifted his weight in his chair.

  “I’m curious. Never asked you.” Kasmir looked at the big man. “How do you know where to build? Sometimes you have to put in roads and that’s expensive.”

  Dewey enjoyed describing his business. “The very first thing I look at is topography. Is there a pleasing aspect to the land? Are there mountain views? Perhaps some running water or a place where I can create a small lake? People like water.” He paused. “Given escalating expenses, I create syndicates for various developments. Nothing elaborate, but this reduces cost to me, provides profit to others. Some syndicates have more than one project but anything, anything on water is so much more expensive to buy.”

  “Never thought of that,” Alida confessed as Weevil and Tootie also paid more attention.

  “The Virginia Department of Transportation has maps in Richmond identifying future expansion, often with a timeline. When I started out I’d have to drive to Richmond to see them. Now you can pull it up on your computer. But those offer clues to development possibilities. Will the roads be good? How far are you from the interstate? Stuff like that.”

  “Schools?” Tootie finally spoke.

  “Critical.” Dewey nodded, thinking how much she resembled her mother. “But really the main thing is the land. People want to live someplace pretty. Of course, I intend to build them beautiful houses, but what’s more beautiful than a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains?”

  “We certainly have that here.” Kasmir beamed.

  “You have one of the best views in the state of Virginia,” Dewey complimented him.

  Kasmir grinned. “I have that when I look at my beautiful Alida.”

  “Will you stop!” She blushed.

  Weevil stared at Tootie, then looked away.

  Dewey teased him. “I know what you’re thinking, brother.”

  Tootie, embarrassed, said, “Mom’s the looker.”

  Sister patted her shoulder. “Tootie, the apple did not fall far from the tree.” She glanced up at the old railroad clock running as good as it did seventy years ago. “We’d better head out. Kasmir, Alida, thank you, as always, for your hospitality.”

  “Yes.” Dewey stood also.

  “Our pleasure.” Kasmir stood, too, then said, “We’re all troubled by these terrible events.”

  Kasmir tidied up the papers, offering them to Sister.

  “Thank you. No. We aren’t any closer than when we started and we’ve come up with everything except Martians landing in the blizzard.”

  “There is one other possibility.” The others leaned forward. “What if Rory was killed by one of us? Someone in Jefferson Hunt. We all know this territory and even in a snowstorm, close to the station, someone could have slipped off, killed him—why he was there is another issue—but killed him and then walked his horse across the road as though coming back with everyone. A man off a horse in a blizzard walking to the trailer and close to the trailers would not be suspicious. Even if we saw him, would we know who he was in those conditions?” Tootie surprised them, normally quiet as she was, with this disturbing idea.

  “That’s hard to believe. I can’t believe anyone in our hunt club would kill,” Dewey replied.

  “Who has the most to lose by the pipeline?” Kasmir said to his guest. “I do. Crawford. To a lesser extent the Van Dorns. Certainly not Rory, although I doubt he wanted to see the land torn up.”

  “What you say is logical, Kasmir. It’s impossible for me, at least, to think any of us, especially you, Kasmir, would kill over the pipeline.” Sister didn’t want to believe it.

  Dewey nodded in agreement, then grew serious. “It is impossible, but something has gone terribly wrong and it keeps coming back to that damned pipeline.”

  “When we find out, we’ll be shocked,” Sister said.

  “We may never find out,” Alida replied.

  * * *

  —

  As this impromptu lunch was occurring, Ronnie Haslip sat in Gray and Sam’s kitchen. He had called first. Sam was at work and Gray was home, tools out, repairing a hole in the floor by the back door he hoped hadn’t been caused by a leak.

  They sat at the small kitchen tab
le, Ronnie having passed on a drink.

  “I couldn’t talk on the phone. Too many ears, you know?”

  “A law firm is filled with people who want to know or think they should know.” Gray smiled.

  “The acting president of Soliden and I had lunch yesterday at Sunset Grill in Manakin Sabot, far enough away from Richmond,” Ronnie said.

  Gray sat upright. “It’s noisy in there and the food is good, just in case he or you might be recognized. Good food is always an excuse.”

  “Fortunately my work to identify historic sites, potential problems, and”—Ronnie turned up his hand—“broker payoffs is a good cover. Manakin Sabot is full of historic sites. Bill wants me to find a crackerjack accountant. That’s you, Gray. What if Gregory found embezzlement or theft in Soliden or, worse, if he was stealing?”

  Bill McBryde was Soliden’s acting president.

  “Thank you, but Ronnie, by the time I stepped off that elevator, someone at Soliden would know.”

  “I’ve thought of that and so has Bill. We send in Freddie Thomas to visit a friend.”

  “Well—”

  “Gray, Freddie has a lot of friends and if she doesn’t have one there, Bill will find a woman in accounting to be one.”

  “All right.” Gray intently listened.

  “Women are less threatening. Freddie is quite attractive, middle-aged, and smart, very smart. She can feed into your computers. For one thing, if you can’t ferret out what we need, then the next step presents itself. Soliden calls in the police.”

  “Hold on, Ronnie. If the numbers we need we can’t get, we’re locked out, that’s a red flag. This isn’t my first time at the rodeo. My work involved entire federal bureaucratic divisions. Careers were at stake as well as party trust. You can get killed doing this. If Gregory is dead, and I think he is, it’s possible an enormous amount of money is at stake.”

  “I’m sorry. This is out of my field. You know I wouldn’t—”

  Gray was quick to put him at ease. “I know. I need to meet with Bill McBryde. Not here. Not at Soliden.”