“I give Matilda a wide berth,” the tiger cat admitted. “She’s okay, but still…”
Most of the expensive alfalfa and orchard grass/clover mix hay had been used up, and the hayloft was almost empty. Harry was reminded to clean the rafters. Cobwebs in summer catch flies, but by this time of the year, those cobwebs hung in dark clumps and strings. Time to take the leaf blower, bring them down, and sweep up the debris. The next generation of spiders would build silky new webs to catch the next generation of flies.
Climbing down, Harry walked into her tack room, sat down at her desk, and made a note to clean. Under it, she added the need to purchase more square alfalfa hay bales. Harry ran a tight ship. She grew her own orchard-grass hay, round-baled it, and if the hay was exceptionally good, when she needed square bales, she’d unroll a round bale and square-bale it. All this took expensive equipment. When he died, her father left hay equipment behind. Harry used the same equipment today as had her father, who had kept things in the best order. Sooner or later some of it would wear out. However, if well cared for, farm equipment from good manufacturers could last decades and decades.
Scribbling on a notepad designed by Gustave Eiffel, she whistled. The day was beautiful. She actually loved making lists and planning. She’d like to think it was in part due to her efficiency that her crops had brought in enough money last fall so she now had a little cushion. Purchasing alfalfa wasn’t going to crack her budget. Harry counted her blessings.
The phone rang. Susan’s voice sounded as if she was in the next room. “Hey, I called the house. No answer, so I’m calling the barn.”
“What’s up?”
“Frank Cresey tried to kill himself.”
Harry thought for a moment. “What did he have to live for? Poor devil, he even failed at suicide?”
Knowing how Harry’s mind worked, Susan was not put off by this response. “I don’t know what he’s got to live for, but maybe if he makes it, he’ll find something.”
“How’d you find out?”
“Olivia called me. Sobbing. Feels this is her fault.”
“How could it be her fault? He started his love affair with the bottle a long, long time ago.” Harry marveled at the human capacity to feel guilt. And then there were those who felt no guilt at all, regardless of what they’d done. Did Ginger’s killer feel guilt?
Susan stated the obvious. “Olivia’s a very emotional woman.”
“Trudy’s not. Where did she get that?”
“Harry, it doesn’t matter. She just is, and she’s upset. She didn’t tell her mother or Rennie about the scene on the mall. She called me because, well, you know, it’s obvious.”
“I guess,” said Harry, to whom it wasn’t obvious at all. “Is there anything I can do, or we can do?”
“Yes, meet me at the McConnell house. We’ll take Olivia for a drive or something. Her mother and sister know she’s upset. They don’t know much more.”
“All right. I’ll be over there shortly. Right now I’m in my work clothes. And I have to put the animals in the house. I don’t think Olivia would mind them, but it’d just be us.”
“That’s fine.”
—
Harry reached the house in Ednam Forest in twenty-five minutes. In the driveway, she stepped out of her truck and into the backseat of Susan’s Audi station wagon. Olivia sat in the front seat.
As Susan backed out, Harry reached forward, putting her hand on Olivia’s shoulder. Olivia covered Harry’s hand with her own.
The women talked in the car as Susan drove all the way to Sugar Hollow.
“I set him off,” Olivia cried. “I never imagined he would recognize me.”
“You’ve changed very little,” Susan remarked, observing from the road here that this part of Albemarle County was about one week behind the rest with its spring flowers and such.
“How did you find out, Olivia?” asked Harry.
“Sheriff Shaw.”
“What!” Both Harry and Susan exclaimed.
Olivia stared straight ahead, but didn’t seem to see the road. “When Frank was picked up on the mall after a nine-one-one call, he was writhing, retching, screaming in pain. So the ambulance driver obviously took him immediately to UVA Hospital, which is close by. They stabilized him, washed him, cleaned him up, and put him in a room by himself. He was unconscious by then, plus the doctor had given him something to calm him down.”
“Poor devil!” Susan exclaimed, checking in the rearview mirror to see Harry’s expression.
Olivia composed herself. “Well, when he became conscious, he asked for the sheriff. Sheriff Shaw and Deputy Cooper came to the hospital. Frank confessed to killing Daddy.”
“What!” Both Harry and Susan exclaimed again in unison. They were a regular Greek chorus.
“Frank said he shot Daddy with a .45.”
Harry’s keen mind was like a blade being sharpened. “Frank yelled on the mall that he wished he’d killed your father. Now he says he did.”
“Yes, I told the sheriff that, too.”
“And?” Harry’s voice lifted.
Olivia turned all the way around in the seat and looked Harry in the eye. “He pointed out that Daddy was killed by a .45. But Frank says he walked up, faced him at a distance, called out his name, and shot him. Obviously, he didn’t. Brinsley Sims said no one was on the fairway when Dad was shot.” Brinsley Sims, a longtime friend of Ginger’s, had been playing golf with him that horrible day.
“I’ve read where people confess to crimes they haven’t committed,” Susan thoughtfully mentioned as she slowed for a curve on the old gravel two-lane road.
Olivia’s tears slowed. “Why? To save someone else?”
“That, or for attention,” and Susan. “And then there are always those who are crazy, flat-out crazy,” she added.
“Frank would seem to fit the bill,” Olivia softly replied.
“Being a drunk makes someone deceitful, shrewd even, but not necessarily crazy,” Harry said.
“Alcohol kills brain cells. Sooner or later, the mind unravels.” Olivia stared out the window. “Frank had a good mind. He remembered all those complicated football plays. How he could run, how he could run and fly through tackles as though they weren’t there.” She sighed at the memory. “And he was a good history student. Daddy liked him until we started dating.”
“Somehow, seeing someone with a good mind, with athletic talent, ruin themselves with alcohol, it seems worse than if they were average.” Susan pulled to the side of the road.
“Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have become a drunk. Think of all the brilliant people who destroy themselves and everyone around them by drinking,” Harry replied.
A flash of humor enlivened Olivia. “Harry, you sound like Carrie Nation!”
“I’ll bring my hatchet next time.” Harry was glad to see Olivia bouncing back just a touch. “She wasn’t really wrong, but Prohibition was. You can’t legislate human behavior. Murder. Right! The Ten Commandments: ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal,’ but we’ve been fleecing one another for thousands of years. And how does one circumvent ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’?”
“Nations always come up with a reason. Daddy used to say there are times when the only answer is war. Without that, some problems will never be settled.”
Harry’s curiosity rose up. “Did he mention murder?”
“Funny you ask that, because I was trying to remember if he talked about that, and I don’t think he did. Oh, if there was something in the news, he would discuss it, but other than something like that, no. Dad concentrated on the grand sweep of history, on the lives of our ancestors. Sometimes he might talk about the crime rate, such as after the Revolutionary War.”
Susan turned around to head back toward town. “There is a difference between murder and war. At least I think there is.”
“Volume, for one thing.” Harry tossed that off.
“There is that,” Olivia agreed.
“For whatever reason, Frank’s confession
is peculiar,” said Susan. “Peculiar, unbelievable, some weird fantasy.”
Harry turned sideways to put her right leg up on the rear seat. “Did Sheriff Shaw say how Frank tried to kill himself?”
“Rat poison, but he didn’t take enough. He also said that all that retching only brought up alcohol. Frank hadn’t eaten for days, and that seems not to have been unusual.”
“Forgive me for asking this, but it could be important.” Harry leaned forward. “Did you ever sleep with Frank?”
“Oh, my God, no! Not back then. I mean, if I had, and Daddy had found out, he would have killed Frank.” Harry looked into the rearview mirror and saw Susan looking back at her.
Harry changed the subject. “Ginger, as always, was hard at work on something. He said that he was returning to the Revolutionary War and immediately after. He also said that he had to have lived this long to ask the right questions.”
Olivia smiled, remembering her father’s enthusiasm. It was like a kid’s. “Oh, Daddy would say to me when we talked on the phone, ‘Before now, I never wondered how those who secretly thought we were wrong to separate from England accepted the new order. The really passionate ones fled to Canada or returned to England.’ ”
Harry knew something about early history. “It is interesting, but apart from the Whiskey Rebellion, people did accept the new ways. Trying to figure out how to run a new country, how to make money, no doubt took up everyone’s time,” she mused.
“Your father really was enthusiastic,” said Susan. “He bubbled over. When I was in school, they’d focus on the wars only, and you had to memorize the dates. But the periods leading up to war and then their aftermath are critical. If you don’t get it right, boom!, another war, or at least some form of collapse.” Susan smiled. “That’s what Ned says. He’s the reader, not me.”
“Maybe we all need to go back and read about that time,” Harry suggested, although she couldn’t understand what had set off Ginger’s killer. Sometimes, nearly anything sets off a new idea or radical course of action.
April 17, 2015
Nelson Yarbrough, Marshall Reese, Paul Huber, and Rudy Putnam sat in Frank’s hospital room.
When the admitting doctor had asked Frank his next of kin, he had given Nelson Yarbrough’s name. Despite being no relation, Frank put Nelson’s name down, as he’d always looked up to the quarterback. As a kid, he had worshipped him. Nelson, shocked to receive the call from the hospital physician, called the alumni in town. With the exception of Willis Fugate, who was in D.C. that day, they all showed up at the hospital in support—of Nelson Yarbrough rather than Frank Cresey.
Gasping for breath, hooked up to an IV, Frank couldn’t believe his bloodshot eyes as he looked at this gathering of football players: his childhood heroes, all of whom had tried to help him over the years. “Will you all bury me?”
Nelson answered simply, “Frank, you’re going to live.”
Frank flinched. “Why? I’ve made a mess of it, and I killed Professor McConnell.”
Paul took a chair beside the hospital bed. “That doesn’t seem possible.”
But Frank just nodded.
His four visitors exchanged glances.
Paul Huber said, “Frank, what you did was swallow rat poison, but not enough. You’ll come through this. This is a blessing in disguise. You can come back. I know you can.”
“He’s right.” Nelson seconded the idea.
“Better I die. I don’t want to go on trial.”
Not one of the men thought Frank had killed Ginger McConnell. Too many gaping holes in that scenario.
Marshall grinned, trying to jolly Frank along. “You drank too much, buddy. We all know a Wahoo can drink, but you are in a class by yourself.”
Frank smiled weakly. “Not this time.” Then, suddenly animated, he sat up and spoke louder. “I saw her. I saw her, and she was beautiful.”
They all knew who, even though they didn’t know of the incident with Olivia on the mall. The four stayed another half an hour. At last Frank, wearied, fell asleep.
The men stepped outside into the hall.
A nurse walked by.
Marshall whispered, for they were in a hospital. “No way in hell he could have killed Professor McConnell. Christ, he couldn’t hold a gun without it shaking. He’s delusional. Do you think he really saw Olivia?”
“He thinks he did,” Nelson noted.
“Complicates things. If he pulls through, where does he go? Back on the mall?” Paul hated seeing a former All-American in this condition.
Rudy folded his arms across his chest. “No. We’ll think of something.”
“He might come up with something,” said Marshall. “I’ll call Lionel.”
Lionel had returned to L.A., but was coming back to Charlottesville for the professor’s funeral. Good thing he was successful, as those coast-to-coast flights cost a bundle.
“There’s a halfway house, city owned, on the east side of the mall,” said Paul, who volunteered, “I’ll check into it.”
“I don’t think he’ll live with other people.” Marshall gratefully sank onto the bench along the wall. The others took seats as well.
“Everything at once.” Rudy’s shoulders sagged. “But the endowed chair seems to be coming along.”
“Tim Jardine knows money better than anyone,” said Nelson. “I think we should each give Frank’s physician and the nurses on this floor our cell numbers. If he does anything foolish, tries to leave, makes a scene, one of us might be reached. I also think we could make a schedule so that one of us visits him every day until he’s discharged. With luck, by then the police should know more about who shot Ginger.”
“God, what a mess!” Rudy dropped his head for a moment.
“Yes, it is, but it’s gotten us back together, working as a team.” Nelson stood up, slapped Rudy on the back. He looked for the head nurse to give her his cell number.
April 18, 2015
Trudy stepped out through her front door as Harry and Susan set the last dwarf crepe myrtle in a hole. “Girls, come on in and have some lemonade.”
“Wonderful idea,” Susan enthused. “Be another ten minutes at the most,” she called to Trudy. “Don’t you think planting these four balances the ones we put in earlier? It bothered me that you’d have all this color on the right side of the house. Needs balance.”
“You’re right, but then, Susan, you’re the gardener,” said Trudy. “Don’t bother to knock. Just come in.” She closed the door.
The two friends finished up, watered the crepe myrtles, washed their hands under the hose, checked their shoes. Had they tracked dirt in the house, Trudy wouldn’t have minded, but Susan would have pitched a fit. Harry, not so much.
Tucker and Owen, who had accompanied Harry and Susan, got their paws wiped before entering the house. Tucker wiggled with happiness—in part because she could go home and lord it over Pewter, expressly not invited.
As they entered the front door, Trudy called out, “In the kitchen.”
The four creatures walked down a wide center aisle to the rest of the house. The kitchen sparkled. Ginger and Trudy had lavished attention and money on a colonial kitchen with a walk-in fireplace on the western wall. Fieldstone covered that entire wall. The one non-colonial element they had insisted on when they were building the house was a wall of windows. She hated a dark house. So the kitchen, apart from the windows overlooking the backyard, also had two large French doors with paned glass. The kitchen glowed with light at two o’clock in the afternoon.
Trudy put the finishing touches on a tray, on which was a large lemonade pitcher, glasses with polka dots, a china plate filled with peanut-butter cookies, and a smaller plate loaded with dog biscuits.
“Oh, Trudy, you’re the best.” Harry filched a cookie before they even sat down. “The Devil made me do it!”
Susan carried the tray to the kitchen table. Too hot outside. Glad for the company, Trudy chattered about the weather, the ongoing struggles over a pro
posed bypass, the state’s response to federal guidelines for schools. Trudy’s passion had always been education, and when she and Ginger first married, she had taught at an elementary school until her children were born.
Tucker and Owen sat on either side of Trudy, who fed them a treat now and then. The reward was a love-drenched look.
“Did I tell you the girls drove to Richmond to pick up Adrian?”
Susan bit into a fat-filled cookie. “No. I wondered where they were.”
“Adrian will be here through the next week. He apologized over and over for not coming with Olivia, but I told him I understood. Running a big company has to be both exciting and frustrating.” Adrian Gaston made a fortune by perfecting a special plastic packaging. Starting with two other workers, his factory had expanded to 650. His product was used by almost every food service, shipper, and supermarket in the eastern United States.
“An amazing man.” Harry admired anyone who started their own business, whether it was an artisan cabinetmaker or someone who made it big like Adrian.
“Olivia.” Trudy paused. “So many gentlemen callers, as my mother would say. That girl would walk into a room and men would trail her like ducklings.” She smiled. “Rennie wasn’t a wallflower by a long shot, but Olivia has that magnetic personality. Well, Ginger had it.”
“In spades.” Susan smiled.
Trudy was solemn for a moment. “Thank you for the crepe myrtles, for spending some time with Olivia, and most of all for not coming around here with long faces just oozing sympathy.”
“It was terrible,” said Susan. “It’s still terrible, but, well—” She considered her words carefully. “People think that’s the right thing to do. And really, how does one express sympathy? You’re such a positive and strong woman, but others need all the props. Maybe I shouldn’t say props?”
Trudy waved her hand, Tucker and Owen intently focusing on every move just in case any food fell. “For some people, it’s the one time they get to be the center of attention. Their marriage, the birth of their children, and then passing. Personally, I don’t want to be the center of attention.” She stopped then, and with clarity and some volume, said, “What I want is an answer!”
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