Nine Lives to Die

by Rita Mae Brown

  Once back in the Highlander, Cooper called in to see if anyone had found Flo’s car. No one had.

  “Did anyone check the morgue?” Harry asked.

  “I called them before I called Esther Toth. Let’s pray she’s still among the living.”

  Fair, Pewter on his lap, put his hand on the back of Harry’s seat. “Have an idea. Go to the old Valencia farm.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “In Free Union. I’d tell you to go the back way, but I don’t know about the roads being plowed out. Plus, there’s that bridge construction.”

  They drove all the way round to Hunt Country Store, hung a left, and drove through rolling white acres, many fences wrapped with garlands, and almost every gate bore a boxwood wreath or evergreen with roses of red berries.

  “Used to be hunt country. That’s why the store is called Hunt Country Store,” Harry mused.

  “Now it’s Dollar Country.” Fair laughed. “Give them credit, most of them buy a horse or two, but the land’s all chopped up. Happening everywhere, really.”

  “Bet you can still find acreage at a bargain in Tornado Alley.” Cooper was referring to that part of the Southwest and Midwest frequently slammed by the killer storms.

  “Yeah.” Fair leaned back in his seat, much to the comfort of Pewter. “Some wonderful country out there, good hay country, cattle, and good people, too.”

  “Never met anyone from those parts who’s a lazy slug,” Harry chimed in.

  Cooper thought for a moment, then said, “You know, when people first move here they think southerners are lazy.”

  Harry and Fair laughed, then Harry said, “Well, so they do, until the first sticky, hot day they try to work the way they can, at their speed, up north. They drop like flies! No one can beat southern heat. You have to pace yourself and work with it.”

  “Hard to remember those sultry days now.” Fair leaned forward again as the gray cat grumbled. “Slow down, Coop. Left at the fork. Two miles up ahead you’ll see white fencing, river-stone gates with a big brass plaque set in front on the stone which reads ‘River Run.’ That’s the old Valencia farm.”

  “The Watts estate.” Cooper knew it by the current owner’s name. “What a beautiful place.”

  “When Mrs. Valencia owned it she’d throw these great picnics,” said Harry. “She’d invite everyone, workers, landowners, everyone from the hunt club, the churches, her children’s playmates. What parties. What wonderful days those were. Maybe it’s me, but I think people were more open then.” She spied the stone gates ahead.

  “Different times,” said Fair. “Even if someone with Mrs. Valencia’s resources displayed her kindness, lack of snobbery, threw parties, who would come? How many people have the time to enjoy themselves today like they did when we were kids?” Fair ran his forefinger under his nose, feeling the stubble, and he’d shaved that morning. “Everyone works all the time. I know I do.”

  “When you have the time, you don’t have the money. When you have the money, you don’t have the time,” Harry succinctly put it.

  Cooper drove up to River Run’s grand main house. She was in uniform, so when Horace Watts opened the door, his expression quickly changed to one more welcoming. She explained herself. He nodded assent, then closed the door without so much as a holiday greeting.

  “Mr. Comfort and Joy.” Cooper grimaced once back in the car.

  “He treats his horses well, but if anyone should be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past I expect it’s Horace Watts.” Fair laughed.

  “Honey, where do you want Coop to go?”

  “Sorry. Drive to the stables, the one with the double cupolas. Lucky everything has been plowed. Park in front of the stables.”

  As softly as they could, the crew of three opened the main double doors—beautiful heavy oak doors, paned glass on top—and closed them behind them. The stable’s interior was also heavy oak; brass fittings gleamed and a hand-laid brick floor added to the warm feel of the stable.

  Harry’s barn, also with a hand-laid brick aisle, had been built around the same time as River Run’s stables but by her ancestors, people of more modest means. Fair walked to the tack room door, also half glass.

  A little dog barked.

  Tucker barked back.

  “Hush,” Harry whispered.

  As Fair opened the door, Cooper stepped through. “Miss Rice, you’ve given people a fright.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” Flo defended herself, sitting in a chair with the farm’s name embroidered on the back.

  “Actually, ma’am, you’re trespassing,” Cooper informed her.

  “I used to work here, you know. I could still run this place and I’m not using up Mr. Watts’s money. I read by flashlight.” She stayed in the chair.

  “Ma’am, I can see that, and I bet it’s warmer in here than at home, isn’t it?”

  “It is, but I didn’t turn on his baseboard heat here. It was on, I guess so the pipes don’t freeze in the bathroom. Honest. I didn’t turn it on, and Mr. Watts doesn’t even walk down to check.”

  Fair, hoping to jolly her along, said, “Bet you could run it, Miss Rice. You know all Mr. Watts’s horses are in Camden, South Carolina, for the winter. Still, a place needs running.”

  “Does,” she answered as Buster, her dog, leapt onto her lap.

  Cooper asked, “Where is your car?”

  “What’s it to you?” Flo sassed.

  “Miss Rice, we’re trying to help,” said Cooper.

  “I’m not telling.”

  “Well, you can’t stay here, so I’ll have to take you home in my car. How will you get around? Maybe your sister will come pick up your car if you won’t tell us, but you have to leave.” Cooper’s voice was nice but firm.

  “My sister! Ha.”

  “Miss Rice, Deputy Cooper is right,” said Harry. “You are trespassing. You don’t want Mr. Watts to press charges.”

  “Watts, what does he know? I worked for Mrs. Valencia when this place was grand. Mrs. Valencia never cut a corner or a person. She was gracious. These new people don’t know how to act. They don’t know what’s expected of them. You take care of the people who work for you. You buy one of the old Virginia places, you have to come up to the mark.”

  Fair smiled at her. “Miss Rice, you’re right.”

  Pleased at this, she petted Buster. He was interested in the three animals and vice versa.

  Cooper wasn’t letting up. “Ma’am, gather up your things.”

  “I don’t have anything. A toothbrush.”

  “Miss Rice, please don’t force Deputy Cooper to call in more officers because you’re uncooperative,” Harry cajoled. “If you cooperate, things will be fine.”

  “Right.” Fair beamed at Flo. “Now, where’s your car?”

  She wiggled in her seat for a moment, then looked up at the tall, powerfully built man. “Next barn. The breeding shed. I drove it right in. No one’s there at all.”

  “May I have the key?” he asked.

  “In the ignition,” she replied.

  “All right. I’ll follow you girls”—he looked at Flo when he said “girls”—“and I’ll meet you at your house. I’ll take good care of your car.”

  “My house is so cold.” Flo made a face. “It’s old. I’m old.”

  Cooper stepped toward her, holding out a hand. Flo took it and was pulled up, Buster under one arm.

  “I built a fire before we drove over here,” said Fair. “I’ll stoke it when we get to your home.” He smiled.

  “What if I don’t go?” She hesitated for a moment.

  “I’ll have to call backup and we’ll have to hold you for an appraisal of your condition,” said Cooper. “And then I must put you in a cell.”

  Flo raised her voice to the officer. “No! You all won’t let me keep Buster.”

  “I will personally take him to the Albemarle County SPCA. He will receive good care. Now, what will it be, ma’am?”

  Buster whimpered, “Don’t
take me away.”

  Tucker comforted the small dog. “Don’t worry. Cooper’s bluffing. She doesn’t want to do any of this. Make your human see reason.”

  Buster licked Flo’s face.

  Flo announced, “I’ll go back home.”

  “Good. Your sister is worried about you,” Cooper said.

  “She wants to kill me.”

  Christmas underscored Arden and Tyler’s misery. She did her best to wrap gifts, place them under the silver tree with the blue lights, balls, and silver garlands that Lou adored.

  While Flo resisted Cooper and the Haristeens before finally coming around, the Highams sat in silence. Tyler fiddled with his iPad.

  Finally Arden said, “I don’t really like an all-silver-and-blue tree. What about you?”

  “I don’t care. Dad always had to be different.”

  Lou’s ashes, in the urn, wrapped in silver and blue ribbons, matched the tree.

  “He did. But if you gave in on the little things like silver and blue, you often won on the big things. Not that we argued all that much.”

  “He saved that for me,” Tyler sullenly replied.

  Arden put her feet up on the hassock. “He wanted the best and, like most fathers, he thought if he kept pounding away on the same note, you’d hear the music.”

  Tyler glowered. “He didn’t think I was smart enough to be a doctor. Said I’d fail organic chemistry. I’m not even in my junior year and I’ve read the eleventh-grade chemistry book. Done some of the experiments. I’ll pass organic chemistry. Just wait.”

  “Honey, organic chemistry is a long way away. You are a smart young man. The chemistry teacher at St. Anne’s certainly thinks so. That’s why he tutors you.”

  He returned his attention to his iPad, then said, “We do cool things in the lab.”

  She firmly said, “By the time you reach your junior year, St. Anne’s will have to send you to chemistry classes at UVA.”

  “Mom, I’ll bet Cal Tech has a great chemistry department.” A flash of enthusiasm crossed his face.

  She smiled, for one moment seeing his excitement. Cal Tech was years away.

  “Do you want me to drive you anywhere today?” she asked. “Maybe stop in and visit some friends?”

  “No.”

  “Another year and a half and you’ll get your license.”

  “Dad said he’d buy me a car. He wanted to buy me an old Volvo because he kept saying they’re safe. They’re ugly.”

  “Let’s see where we are in a year and a half.”

  Tyler’s eyes flashed. “Mom, I need a car.”

  “I didn’t say you didn’t need a car, but it’s a ways off.”

  “Why can’t I have Dad’s car?”

  “Never.” She heated up. “You are not driving that car, you’re not driving his car.”

  “The Acura dealer cleaned it up.”

  “Tyler, for God’s sake. I’m selling the car. I don’t want to look at it. We’ll talk about this when the time comes.”

  “You’re the one who says time flies.”

  “It does. And I hope next Christmas is easier than this one.”

  “Mom, all Dad cared about was his business. When was he ever even home? I wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted me to be like Mrs. Vavilov’s sons. You know, football players. He didn’t care about me.”

  “That’s not true. Tyler, whatever his failings, he was your father.”

  “Yeah.” He sank farther into the cushy chair.

  “I miss him.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “I don’t. I don’t have to hear about how lucky I am. I don’t have to hear about what kids at Silver Linings go through or what a good athlete Dad was. I hate sports. He would spy on me. He’d ask me weird questions like do I like boys. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  “Tyler, you don’t mean that.”

  “I do. Mom, he’d get the old jocks at Silver Linings to work with me. His words—‘work with me.’ That meant the weight room or throwing the football. All I want is my computer. I can do a lot more than those dumb jocks.” He raised his voice, then lowered it. “And I don’t like boys.”

  She glared at him, but there was an element of truth to her son’s accusations. Everyone loved Lou—Mr. Energy and Ideas—but he was never home.

  “Tyler, I never once thought you were gay, not that it matters. I love you. Your father had a narrow definition of manhood. He made so much of it, I wonder if he was afraid he wasn’t really a man despite appearances. He was hard on you, but he loved you.”

  Tyler sprang up, strode to the fireplace. He grabbed the urn off the mantel and threw it into the fire.

  “He can burn in hell.”

  That Christmas night, finally home, Harry asked her husband, “How hungry are you?”

  “I could eat a whole ham,” Pewter volunteered.

  “Not very,” said Fair. “I’d be happy with a sandwich. I told Coop to come by, but she’s on overload.”

  “Oh, it’s Christmas night. I’ll warm up the sweet potatoes and a few slices of ham. Just seems more like the holiday. Actually, I’m not too hungry either.”

  “I am.”

  “Pewter, pipe down.” Harry tapped the cat’s rear end with her toe.

  “Brutality!” Pewter could have been a student at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. “How can I survive winter with such insensitivity, without lots of calories to ward off the cold?”

  “Quite nicely, I think.” Tucker couldn’t hold it back.

  Whap! Pewter smacked the corgi hard on the shoulder.

  “Don’t you dare.” Harry raised her voice and the wooden spoon in her hand, which provoked the gray cat to hold her tail high and sashay away from the dog. “No fighting.”

  Still, Pewter hissed.

  “Sometimes these critters wear me out.” Harry watched the cat’s performance.

  “Imagine if she were as big as a horse.”

  “Fair, what an awful thought.”

  As the food warmed up, the aroma filled the kitchen. At least it smelled like Christmas.

  Pewter’s snit vanished when Harry cut ham into cubes, putting it in the three separate bowls.

  As she put food for herself and Fair on the table, she sat down. “Honey, thank you for going along with Cooper. I sort of dragged you into it.”

  “Didn’t mind a bit. She had to work at short notice. Cooper puts in a lot of hours, and on holidays, too.”

  “Her boyfriend is in Oregon. Maybe when he comes back, she’ll have some time. The department ought to give her time off. Really.”

  “How’s that going with Barry?” Fair inquired about Barry Betz, the new UVA batting coach Cooper had been dating for three months.

  “Okay. She put a framed photo of him on her desk at home. Always a good sign.” Harry scooped out some sweet potatoes. “Sad about Flo Rice, isn’t it? She acted mad as a hatter, but I can’t be angry with her. She really is sad. How many lonely people are out there on Christmas? It breaks my heart.”

  “You’d think that her sister and Coach could get someone to live with her.” Fair, too, was relishing his sweet potatoes.

  “Might be difficult. I mean, Flo might be difficult.”

  “Right. But I don’t see how they can leave her as she is. What if she keeps running away and her house stays cold? Seems well built enough. Poor Mr. Thompson’s is falling apart. Boy, he was tough when I had him for math senior year.”

  “Yes, he was. I took that class the next year and I had to work at it. He was a good teacher. I had him for eleventh and twelfth grade. That’s another person that could use some help.”

  “Yes. What’s sad about him is he was a brilliant teacher,” Fair said.

  “At least they both have dogs, and who knows, maybe Flo will settle down. Christmas triggers a lot of emotions, you know.”

  “Does for me. I think of my parents, their friends, my grandparents. People seemed happier then, or maybe as a child and then a young person I couldn’t look beneath the surfac
e.”

  “I don’t know. The past is always golden, isn’t it?” Harry thought for a moment. “Well, maybe not. I wouldn’t have wanted to live through Henry the Eighth’s Dissolution. Being Catholic may or may not be easy, depending upon which country you live in, right?”

  Fair looked at his wife. “Harry, there’s a thought, but St. Cyril’s is doing fine. Then again, we’ve had since 1607 to figure out religious differences.”

  “Oh, don’t give us credit. What we had was Maryland. The Catholics could go there. Religious intolerance certainly played a role in our beginnings.”

  The sweet ham melted in his mouth. “It’s your glaze that makes it so good.”

  “My secret is a little orange juice. But remember, it’s a secret.”

  He laughed.

  Later, the humans by the fire, Fair’s arm around Harry’s shoulders, the three animals slipped out to the barn.

  Odin came by, thrilled with the rich scraps.

  The two cats looked down as he looked up.

  “I’ve never tasted anything so good.”

  From the other side of the barn door, Tucker said, “It’s Christmas.”

  Pewter, filled with ham and importance, called down, “Yes, they found this baby in the bulrushes, put him in a cradle and lit torches and stuff to fight off the long winter night.”

  “When was this?” the coyote asked.

  “Over two thousand years ago,” Pewter said.

  “Pewter, it was Moses in the bulrushes. Jesus was born in a stable. There were cats,” Mrs. Murphy corrected her.

  “There had to be a dog,” said Tucker. “I know it. How can Joseph be a shepherd without dogs? Think about it!” Tucker was adamant.

  Odin did. “Any festival is a good festival. Coyotes follow the moon goddess. She’s young, and she hunts, too. But a god born in a barn is close to animals.”

  Pewter said to Mrs. Murphy, “Odin’s not a Christian.”

  “Isn’t there an Egyptian god who has the head of a coyote?” Tucker puzzled.

  “Odin, you’re named for a Norse god. Our humans read all the time. So we know,” Pewter called down. Then she said as an aside to Mrs. Murphy, “He’s kind of ignorant, and really, Murphy, he’s not a Christian.”