Kasmir had built stiff jumps all along his fence line on that part of his considerable estate. On the other side of the road reposed Old Paradise, and as they had run there on the day the storm came up, Sister hoped they would not be doing so again. Crawford had been sensible about it, but two times on Old Paradise without asking permission was one time too many.
Hounds stopped cold at the fence line, then followed it toward Chapel Cross a few miles away. They passed the front drive into Beveridge Hundred, moved into Kasmir’s land. Working but not speaking, they couldn’t do much. What scent there was didn’t hold and where that fox went, who knew? But someone was here about dawn perhaps. They pushed.
Once Kasmir’s house was in sight they pushed harder but to no avail. They reached the station, crossed the road, stopping at the spot where Rory was found. Little bits of snow lay in the ditch.
Shaker called them away. Hounds and the field headed toward Close Shave. A tiny burst as they neared the farm offered hope of another run, but that was it.
Back at the trailers, the air brisk but not bitter, the small group gathered around Betty Franklin’s yellow Bronco, old but tough. She’d lifted up the back so people put in sandwiches, deviled eggs, brownies for the impromptu hunt breakfast. The drinks rested in the bed of Walter’s truck, hot thermoses of coffee and tea, water and soda, plus a bottle or two of spirits in case someone needed an early dose for medicinal purposes only.
“Thank you, Kasmir. I’d like to know just who that fox is.”
He smiled, his teeth brilliant white. “A Romeo.”
“We see them at dusk, sometimes in the morning, walking about, fearless.” Alida held up a cup of coffee. She had moved up from North Carolina, settled in recently. Things were working out and Kasmir was in a state of bliss. Then again, so was Alida. They were meant for each other.
“Have you all seen the route, one route, of the proposed pipeline?” Sister asked Kasmir. “Just cuts up Old Paradise, cuts a diagonal across your southernmost land. Doesn’t make sense, especially if you know this land.”
This immediately aroused the attention of the small group.
Freddie Thomas, Alida’s good friend, remarked, “I’ve seen it. Some is in floodplain down by the creek. Whoever did this has no idea of soils here or how the water flows.”
“Crawford and I lobbied our lawmakers as well as Soliden.” Kasmir paused. “I found Gregory easy to talk with, opaque, which is what one would expect. Crawford, which you would also expect, was anything but opaque.”
“Threats?” Walter asked.
“Veiled but he alluded to upcoming elections and, given his finances, he could bankroll any opposing candidate as well as hire a good PR firm.”
“Didn’t do Eric Cantor any good,” Sam, sharp although usually circumspect, observed.
Eric Cantor, a Republican congressman from Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District, had a big war chest, lots of coverage, and lost to a college professor, Dave Brat.
“Happens.” Freddie leaned against the side of the Bronco. “You forget your constituency and you’ll be sent packing.”
“Therein lies the problem with the pipeline.” Walter had thought about this. “In theory we are all in favor of disengaging from the Saudis. We’re all in favor of jobs, although how long those construction jobs last is a murky issue and never addressed by Soliden. However, when the pipeline goes through your land, it is an entirely different issue. Your land value will never recover. The twenty years or thirty years, whatever they say it will be today, will be a scar on your property. If a pipeline blows it’s your fields that will be ruined. And you won’t be able to clean them up.”
“I suspect the powers that be at Soliden, including the missing president, looked at a map of our county, saw huge tracts of undeveloped land, by their standards, and figured, ‘Aha!’ Easy peasy.” Betty hated this whole thing. “They don’t care about potential damage.”
“They underestimated us.” Kasmir grinned.
“They underestimated you and Crawford.” Sister laughed.
“Yes but”—Freddie raised her voice slightly—“what if they still come down over the mountains here and instead of going straight through the land they follow the road. There is a right-of-way. It’s better than nothing but still not great. A pipeline can rupture just as easy using a right-of-way as on private land.”
“I think they’ll swing through Nelson County.” Bobby Franklin crossed his arms over his chest. “Small population, not a lot of wealth, lower educational level. They’ll steamroll ’em.”
Margaret DuCharme, specialty sports medicine, shook her head. “I hope not. It’s such beautiful country. So many of those old apple orchards still exist, still giving us apples.”
Sister, knowing Margaret since she was a child, said, “You know Old Paradise better than anyone. Given the mysteries that still surround that land, even the old curse, I suspect the pipeline would be full of holes before it got into the ground.”
“People have threatened not to shoot the workers but to destroy equipment, expose the pipeline once it’s running, shoot into it. Can you imagine the explosion?” Margaret said. “I look at Old Paradise and wonder if this is the curse.”
Bobby spoke clearly. “You don’t mess around with country people. Or people with a great passion, which the environmental groups have. I respect them even if I think sometimes they go over the top. And you can’t dig up graves.”
“You might be surprised to hear this from me—after all I am a doctor—but I don’t think you disturb the dead,” Walter said.
“You know that’s a taboo almost every culture observes, no matter the country or the century. It’s thousands of years old,” Kasmir announced.
“You have dual citizenship, right?” Sam smiled, and when Kasmir nodded he suggested, “You could shoot the pipeline, anyone, go back to India. You wouldn’t be extradited.”
Kasmir, surprised, rejoined, “No, but I wouldn’t be hunting with Jefferson. I’d never risk that.”
“What is worth that risk? What could provoke you to kill?” Bobby wondered.
“Well, we’d all agree danger to our families, perhaps even to our way of life.” Betty put her two cents in.
“Was Rory killed over danger to someone’s family?” Sam couldn’t help saying that. “Or someone’s way of life?”
“If profit counts as a way of life, it is possible.” Margaret picked up a deviled egg. “Think of the crimes, thefts, drama that have happened here. We can start with Sophie Marquet, my illustrious ancestor. Her husband became a liability. After all manner of disagreement he disappeared. And then what happened to all the silver and much of the family jewelry after 1865? The Yankees never found it. Who knows?”
Walter smiled. “There isn’t one old place in this county that doesn’t have some story about murder or buried treasure.”
“Don’t forget the illegal stills.” Bobby laughed.
“Best country water in the South,” Margaret said with pride, using the term for moonshine.
If you said “moonshine,” it meant you were a little suspicious. If you used “illegal liquor” or any such flabby term, you were especially suspicious.
“We’re all standing here. Some of you were at Christmas Hunt. Does any of this make sense?” Sister wondered. “A wonderful man, a man who pulled himself through hell and high water is killed, and another powerful man disappears at the same location, or so we believe.”
“Gregory Luckham has to be dead.” Betty noticed the sun dipping behind a large cumulus cloud.
“We don’t know that,” Walter offered. “We’re standing here assuming this is about the pipeline. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But until Gregory Luckham is found, I wouldn’t bet on anything.”
CHAPTER 17
“I can’t do this as long as the ground is frozen.” Tootie held a two-b
y-four, leaning it on the doghouse.
“I know but we can look at it.” Yvonne, scarf wrapped around her neck, held a mudflap. “We can fix up a back door, double flaps to keep out the wind. Come spring, I can add up on the doghouse.”
“Mom, the fox doesn’t really need a tower.” Tootie knelt down on the cold ground, began sawing a back door.
“But won’t it be fun if I build a tower off this back door? He can climb up, look out. No one will be able to get to him if by chance he’s trapped in here.”
“That’s why I’m putting in this back door. Doesn’t have to be big, just has to be secure.” She lifted up her hand for a first mudflap.
Yvonne leaned the two-by-four against the doghouse, walked to her small wooden box, plucked out a second mudflap. She’d bought a big wooden toy chest, bought mudflaps, bought more sweets for the fox.
Tootie carefully nailed in the top of the mudflap, then placed a quarter round along the top once she affixed the second mudflap. Surely this would keep out the wind.
“What about if I build a fence in springtime?”
“No. He doesn’t need a fence. He needs to come and go and not become trapped in here. It’s not just hunting. There are other animals that like treats—raccoons, possums. You’re starting a restaurant in here.” Tootie stood up, checked her handiwork.
She knelt back down and pushed the flaps again. Satisfied, she stood up.
Now Yvonne knelt down, the cold earth hard beneath her knees. She reached all the way to the back of the doghouse—she was almost flat on her stomach—and she pushed the mudflaps from inside. “There.”
Tootie, now standing over her mother, waited for her to rise. Then she knelt down to test it from the inside. A metal food bowl clanked.
“Empty.”
“I know. I have kibble in the toy chest. Gumdrops, too.”
On her hands and knees, Tootie picked up the food bowl, handing it behind her while still down. Her mother took it. Tootie smoothed out the straw, fluffed the old, well, not so old towels. The Saint Hubert’s ring fell out of a plush towel. She picked it up, backed out.
“Mom, what’s this?”
“I don’t know.” Yvonne held out her gloved palm wherein Tootie dropped the lovely ring. “It’s a deer, a cross between the antlers.”
“Saint Hubert.”
“You’re right.” Yvonne, a Catholic, remembered her saints.
“Let’s put the two-by-fours in the mudroom.” Tootie picked one up.
Yvonne carried her toy chest while Tootie made the trips to put the four two-by-fours in the mudroom. They took off their coats, gloves in the pockets. Yvonne pulled the ring out of her coat pocket. Once in the kitchen, she placed it on the kitchen table.
“The metalwork is beautiful. I think this must have been done by hand. It’s too detailed for a stamp.”
Tootie picked it up, turning it in her fingers. “It is beautiful. I like the oak leaves on the side facing upward and the acorns on the sides. I wonder how it got into the doghouse.” She stared again at the top of the ring, a ten-point buck, his noble head looking left, the cross between those august antlers.
Yvonne then asked, “Anyone in the hunt club wear a Saint Hubert’s ring?”
“Not that I recall,” Tootie added. “But then everyone wears gloves even at the outdoor tailgates, because it’s cold.”
“Rory?” Yvonne inquired.
“Oh, Mom, he could never have afforded a gold ring.”
“A gift?”
“I would have noticed. I’d see Rory once or twice a month. He’d drop by, usually with Sam. Sam would come by for Gray and to see Sister. Sometimes we’d talk about restoring the home place, about the foxes there.”
“I like that old wraparound porch,” Yvonne mentioned.
“Remember the story of Saint Hubert?” Tootie asked her mother.
Twirling the ring in her fingers, Yvonne proclaimed, “I do. All those years of Catholic school, I know my saints. He was a rich kid, a pagan his mother had converted to Christianity and this was the eighth century in Belgium, much of which was still pagan. Anyway, his mother begged him to go to church with her on Good Friday. He refused, going hunting instead. The church bells could be heard in the forest at three P.M. ringing to signify the time of Jesus’s death. An enormous stag walked in front of him, turned his head, and the crucifixion cross shone between his antlers. That’s how Hubert converted. He wound up being the bishop of Maastricht and Liege. Kept on hunting but not on Sundays or Holy Days.” She laughed.
“Think those stories are true?”
“I expect there are elements of truth in all the saints’ stories. Mostly they provide examples. When you think of the suffering some of these people willingly endured.” She shrugged. “I’m not that good a Christian. Actually, I’m quite an awful one. I wish mountains of misery on your father.”
“He keeps texting me.”
“Why?” Her eyes widened.
“Stuff about my grades. I know he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want me to go to vet school. And he wants to know again if you are investing your money.”
Yvonne placed the ring on the table. “Your father never asks an idle question about money.” She blew air out of her nostrils. “I wonder if he’s losing money? Not my problem. However, since we are on the subject of money, I do wish you’d take it a little more seriously.”
“I have enough.”
“I’m not saying you should switch to a business major. I know you like science, you always have, but why don’t you pick a stock and follow it? Learn how the market works. Pay attention to what’s happening in the world.”
Tootie got up, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a ginger ale. “Want one?”
“No.”
“Mom, money doesn’t fascinate me. I think people do terrible things over it. But I will follow a stock.”
“Good.” Yvonne picked up the ring, slipping it on the third finger of her right hand. “Fits perfectly. I’ll see if Violet or Cecil is missing a ring. He’s becoming a little forgetful, or so Violet says. I don’t really know them enough to see that but if they haven’t lost a ring, this is mine. Finders keepers.”
CHAPTER 18
That same Friday, Gray and Freddie Thomas sat opposite each other in an office he rented at Old Trail, just to be safe. Gray had met Bill McBryde for a drink down at Shockoe Slip early in the week. Freddie called on her old friend, Sophie Riggs, at the Soliden offices, which made it easier on both of them. Gray dropped her off, then later picked her up.
Freddie liked the office, impressive, views of the James River. People worked but Sophie told her there was unease, worry, since Gregory’s disappearance. People kept their mouths shut. There wasn’t a lot of office gossip about this unsettling disappearance. For one thing, no one wanted their curiosity to be misunderstood and no one wanted to criticize the missing president, especially since Bill McBryde had been a friend of Gregory’s. At least they worked well together, socialized as do most people at the top management level.
Gray asked Bill directly over a whiskey, neat, did he suspect embezzlement? The question didn’t surprise the acting president. He, too, had considered it. Given Gregory’s handsome compensation plus stock shares, why steal?
Then Gray asked could there be a revenge motive? Infidelity?
Again, Bill never caught a whiff of same. Gregory and Liz seemed wonderfully suited to each other.
Soliden gave money to many legislators running for state office. Both Democrat and Republican were well supported because the corporation didn’t care who was in office, only that their programs not run aground. Anything fishy?
Again, Bill admitted the company had been supporting politicians for decades, not exactly buying them but supporting their runs for office. This eased the way for many projects, including the pipeline. The House o
f Delegates had been rubber-stamping Soliden projects consistently.
Bill also freely pointed Gray to the entire list of politicians who had enjoyed Soliden’s support. The Richmond Times-Dispatch had printed everyone’s name from recent elections when the pipeline issue blew up.
When Gray picked up Freddie, they compared notes.
Now they sat at two computers, laboriously going through every department’s expenditures. They’d get to income later. Bill couldn’t give Gray the passwords and stuff he needed to access the numbers, but he authorized the head computer geek to do so, which of course set off a red light in that man’s head, sworn though he was to secrecy.
The two accountants had wordlessly scanned and scrolled for days. Nothing jumped out at them. A mistake here or there, nothing unusual in a company that big. The sums were small. None of this looked like embezzlement so much as mistakes, most of which were corrected when the office did its own sweep up.
“Someone wrote a check for a dentist’s bill,” Freddie noted, “from the marketing department.”
“H-m-m. Freddie, we’ve got a lot still to do, but my hunch is if this is an inside problem, then it’s systemic. It’s not one department.”
“Could be. It could be that Luckham’s disappearance and expected death aren’t related to the company or to money.”
He looked away from his screen, his eyes tired. “I don’t know. Money is a powerful motivator.”
“You said that Bill McBryde thought Gregory’s compensation more than adequate. What, three million per annum plus bonuses?”
“Not bad, but chump change on Wall Street. Never underestimate greed.”
“But maybe this isn’t about his greed. Maybe it’s about someone else’s.”
CHAPTER 19
Spread over long tables pushed together in Crawford’s office, Ronnie, Margaret, Crawford, and Charlotte studied the U.S. Geological Survey topographical maps. Five thousand acres covers so much territory that they studied the maps in shifts.
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