“Why do you think this is the work of one person?” BoomBoom had quieted enough to return to Susan’s earlier question.
“Two gruesome murders—spectacularly gruesome—and within the same week.”
“That’s superficial evidence. The second murderer could be a copycat. The details of Kelly’s murder covered the front page of the paper, the evening news, and God knows what else. A person wouldn’t have to be too clever to figure out that the time is right to settle a score, and goodbye Maude Bly Modena.”
“I never thought of that.”
“I thought of something else too.”
“What?”
“Susan, what if the police aren’t telling us everything? What if they’re holding something back?”
“I never thought of that either.” Susan shuddered.
15
Rick Shaw hunched over another coroner’s report. Normally, the office sank into a stupor on weekends except for the drunk-driving jobs. Not this weekend. People were tense. He was tense, and the damned newspaper was keeping a reporter on his tail. The bird perched in the parking lot after he threw him out of the office.
There was no evidence of sexual abuse. The victim had been dead for two hours before the train ran over her, which the coroner also reported. However, there were no bullet wounds, no bruises on the neck, and no contusions of any sort. Again, there was a tiny trace of cyanide in the hair. Whoever was killing these people with cyanide knew a great deal about chemistry. He or she wasn’t wasting the cyanide. The killer took the victim’s body weight into account.
Rick shook his head and closed the report, then sidled over to Officer Cooper’s desk, where he filched a cigarette from an open pack. Illicit pleasure soon to be replaced by guilt, but not until the cigarette was smoked.
A deep draw soothed him. He’d have to remember to buy a pack of Tic Tacs on the way home or his wife would smell his breath. He studied a map of the county on the wall. The positions of the two bodies were in the same general vicinity, a few miles apart. The killer was most likely a local but not necessarily a Crozet resident. Albemarle County covered 743 square miles and anyone could drive in and out of Crozet fairly easily. Of course, they knew one another out there. A stranger would be reported. No such report. Even a resident of Charlottesville or a friend from out of town would be noticed. No such notice.
The postmistress and Market Shiflett were poised at the hub of social activity. Officer Cooper had mentioned that the postmistress had an idea about postcards. People usually think what they do is relevant, and Mary Minor Haristeen was no exception. He checked out the postcards within an hour of Harry’s call and the postmarks were from different locales.
Still, he decided to call Harry. After a few pleasantries he thanked her for being alert, said he’d examined the postcards and they seemed okay to him.
“Could I have them—temporarily?” Harry asked him.
He considered this. “Why?”
“I want to match them with the inks that I have in the office—just in case.”
“All right, if you promise not to harm them.”
“I won’t.”
“I’ll have Officer Cooper drop them by.”
After Rick Shaw’s call, Harry called Rob, and he agreed to “borrow” the first postcard from France that he came across at the main post office. She swore she’d give it back to him by the next day.
Then she remembered she was supposed to interrogate Mrs. Hogendobber. She called Mrs. H., who was surprised to hear from her but agreed on a tea-time get-together.
16
Mrs. Hogendobber served a suspiciously green tea. Little chocolate cupcakes oozing a tired marshmallow center reposed on a plate of Royal Doulton china. Mrs. Hogendobber snapped one up, devouring it at a gobble.
She reminded Harry of a human version of Pewter. Stifling a giggle, Harry reached for a leaking cupcake so as not to appear ungrateful for the sumptuous repast—well, repast.
“I stopped drinking caffeine. Made me testy.” Mrs. H.’s little finger curled when she held her cup. “I purged soft drinks, coffee, even orange pekoe teas from my household.”
Obviously, she had not purged refined sugar.
“I wish I had your willpower,” Harry said.
“Stick to it, my girl, stick to it!” Another chocolate delight disappeared between the pink-lipsticked lips.
Mrs. Hogendobber’s neat clapboard house was located on St. George Avenue, which ran roughly parallel to Railroad Avenue. A sweeping front porch with a swing afforded the large lady a vantage point. A trellis along the sides of the porch, choking with pink tea roses, allowed her to see everything while not being seen. The Good Lord said nothing about spying, so Mrs. Hogendobber spied with a vengeance. She chose to think of it as being curious about her fellow man.
“I’m so glad you agreed to see me,” Harry began.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Uh, well, come to think of it, why not?” Harry smiled, reminding Mrs. H. of when Harry was a cute seven-year-old.
“I’m here to, oh, root around for clues to the murders. The telling detail, thoughts—you’re so observant.”
“You have to get up early in the morning to put one over on me.” Mrs. H. lapped up the compliment, and truthfully, she didn’t miss much. “My late husband, God rest his soul, used to say, ‘Miranda, you were born with eyes in the back of your head.’ I could anticipate his wants and he thought I had special powers. No special powers. I was a good wife. I paid attention. It’s the little things that make a marriage, my dear. I hope you have reviewed your marriage and will reconsider your acts. I doubt there are any men out there better than Fair—only different. They’re all trouble in their unique ways.” She poured herself more tea and opened her mouth but no sound escaped. “Where was I?”
“. . . trouble in their unique ways.” Harry hardly thought of herself in those terms.
“If you’d kick off those sneakers and buy some nice smocks instead of those jeans, I think he’d come to his senses.”
“Love usually involves losing your senses, not coming to them.”
Mrs. H. pondered this. “Yes . . . yes.”
Before she could launch on to another tangent, Harry inquired, “What did you think of Maude Bly Modena?”
“I thought she was a Catholic. Italian-looking, you know. The shop proved how shrewd she was. Now I never socialized with her. My social life is the Church, and well, as I said, I think Maude was Catholic.” Mrs. Hogendobber cleared her throat on “Catholic.” “I, like yourself, only knew her for five years. Not a great deal of time but enough to get a feel for a person, I guess. She seemed quite fond of Josiah.”
“What did you feel then?”
The bosom heaved. She was dying to be allowed to wander into the subjective. “I felt that she was hiding something—always, always.”
“Like what?”
“I wish I knew. She didn’t cheat anyone at the shop. I never heard of her shortchanging or overcharging but there was something, oh, not quite right. She spoke very little of her background.” Unlike Mrs. Hogendobber, who fairly galloped down Memory Lane, given half a chance to speak of her past.
“She didn’t tell me much either. I assumed she was discreet. After all, she was a Yankee.”
“Not one of us, my dear, not one of us. Her manners were adequate. She missed the refinements, of course—they all do. But then there’s Mim, who is overrefined, if you ask me.”
“I liked her. I even grew accustomed to the accent.” Uneasiness crept into Harry’s heart. She felt that poor Maude wasn’t here to defend herself and she was sorry for asking about her.
“I couldn’t understand much of what she said. I relied on tone of voice, hand gestures, that sort of thing. I bet she’s from a Mafia family.”
“Why?”
“Well, she was Catholic and Italian.”
“It doesn’t follow that she was from a Mafia family.”
“No, but you can’t prove otherwise
.”
Driving home, Harry started to laugh. It was all so horrible and horribly funny. Did a person have to die before you discovered the truth about her? As long as someone is alive the chance exists that whatever you have said about her will get back to her. Therefore, Harry and most of Crozet measured their words. You thought twice before you spoke, especially if you intended to say what you thought.
The other thing Harry learned from Mrs. Hogendobber was the time, occupants, and license plate number of every car that had rolled down St. George Avenue in the last twenty-four hours. The Citizens’ Alert was Mrs. Hogendobber’s opportunity to be rewarded for her natural nosiness.
17
Ned Tucker dreamed of sleeping late on Sunday mornings but the alarm clanged at 6:30 A.M. He opened his eyes, cut off the offending noise, and sat up. The digital clock blinked the time in a turquoise-blue color. It occurred to Ned that a generation of American children wouldn’t know how to tell time with a conventional clock. Then again, they couldn’t add and subtract either. Calculators performed that labor for them.
Harry said she hated digital clocks. They reminded her of little amputees. No hands. Ned smiled, thinking about Harry. Susan turned over and he smiled even more. His wife could sleep through an earthquake, a thunderstorm, you name it. He’d give her an extra forty-five minutes and feed the kids. The chores of fatherhood comforted him. What worried him was the example he set. He didn’t want to be a slave to his job but he didn’t want to be too lazy either. He didn’t want to be too stern but he didn’t want to be too lax. He didn’t want to treat his son any differently from his daughter but he knew he did. It was so much easier to love a daughter—but then, that was what Susan said about their son.
A shower and a shave brightened Ned; a cup of coffee popped him in gear. He’d need to awaken Brookie and Dan in twenty minutes to get them up for church. He decided to take what precious quiet time he had and peruse the bills. Everything was more expensive than it should have been and his heart dropped each time he wrote a check. First he scanned his bank statement. A five hundred dollar withdrawal last Monday really woke him up. He made no such withdrawal last Monday and neither did Susan. Anything over two hundred dollars had to be discussed between them. He wanted to crumple the statement but neatly put it aside. Couldn’t contact the bank until tomorrow anyway.
The telephone rang at seven o’clock. Ned picked it up. “Hello.”
“Ned, you’re up as early as I am so I hope I’m not being rude in calling.” Josiah DeWitt, mellow-voiced, sounded serious.
“What can I do for you?” Ned wondered.
“You are, were, Maudie’s lawyer, am I right?”
“Yes.” Ned hadn’t thought of Maude since he got up. Being reminded brought back the uneasiness, the nagging suspicions.
“Since she has no living relatives I’d like to claim the body”—he sighed—“or what’s left of it, and give her a decent burial. It’s not right that she be left to a potter’s field.”
As Josiah was tight as the bark on a tree, Ned was astonished. “I think we can work this out, Josiah,” he said, then added, “But if you’ll allow me, I’ll take up a collection for the interment. We should all pull our weight on this.”
“I’d be most grateful.” Josiah did sound relieved. “Do you know of anyone who might have a plot, who could help us out there?”
“I’ll ask Herbie Jones. He’ll know.” Herbie Jones was the minister at Crozet Lutheran Church.
“Do we even know what denomination Maude was?” Josiah asked.
“No, but Herb has always had a wide embrace. I don’t think he’d mind if she were a Muslim. Would you like me to inquire about a service also?”
“Yes—I think we should. And one more thing, Ned: I’d like to run her store and buy it when that’s feasible. I don’t know what paperwork will be involved but Maudie built a good business. It was her love, you know. I’ll keep it up in her honor, and for the profit too. She’ll come back to haunt me if I don’t make a profit.”
“She left her estate to the M.S. Foundation, so we will need to negotiate with them.”
“Really?” Josiah was consumed with interest but refrained from boring in.
“She had a brother who died from the disease.”
“You know more about Maude than any of us.” Josiah was envious.
“Not really. But I’ll do what I can. It would be wonderful to keep the shop going and I can’t see that the M.S. Foundation has the personnel or the desire to come out here to Crozet and sell packing materials. I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you.”
“No, Josiah, thank you. I wish Maude could know what good friends she had.” And he thought to himself that good friend or not, Josiah was quick to see a way to make more money.
18
A persistent owl hooted in the distance. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker padded in the moonlight toward Maude Bly Modena’s store. Tucker, restless, jauntily moved along, her tail wagging. They’d be back long before Harry woke up, so Tucker treated herself to small sniffs and explorations along the way.
As they approached the building Mrs. Murphy stiffened. Tucker stopped in her tracks.
“There’s someone in there,” Mrs. Murphy whispered. “Let me jump up on the window box. Maybe I can see who it is. You come sit by the front door. If he runs out, you can trip him.”
Tucker quickly hopped up the steps and lay flat against the door. The only sound was the click-click of her claws and the tinkle of her rabies tag.
Mrs. Murphy tiptoed the length of the window box. She pressed her face against the glass panes. She couldn’t see clearly because whoever it was had crawled under the desk.
Mrs. Murphy carefully dropped onto the earth. “S-s-st, come on.”
They circled to the back as Mrs. Murphy explained why she couldn’t see.
“I can’t smell anything with the windows and door closed but we can pick up the scent by the back door or by a window.”
Tucker, nose to the ground, needed no encouragement. She hit the trail by the back door. “I got him.”
Before Mrs. Murphy could put her nose down to identify the scent the back door opened. Tucker crouched down and tripped the man coming out as Mrs. Murphy, claws at the ready, leaped onto his back. He stifled a shout, dropping his letters, which scattered in the light evening breeze.
He thrashed around but couldn’t reach Mrs. Murphy, who was far more agile than he. Tucker sank her fangs clean into his ankle.
He yowled. A few houses down, a light clicked on in an upstairs bedroom. The man gathered up the letters as Mrs. Murphy jumped off and scurried up a tree. Tucker scooted around the corner of the house and they both watched Bob Berryman run with a limp down the back alleyway. In a few moments they heard the truck start up and peel out onto St. George Avenue.
Mrs. Murphy backed down the tree. She liked climbing up much more than she liked coming down. Tucker waited at the base.
“Bob Berryman!” Tucker couldn’t believe it.
“Let’s go inside.” Mrs. Murphy trotted to the back door, which Bob had left open in his haste to escape his attackers.
Tucker, head down, followed this trail. Berryman had entered through the back door. He passed through the storage room and went directly to and under the desk. He stopped at no other place. Tucker, intent on the scent, bumped her head into the back of the desk.
Mrs. Murphy, close behind her, laughed. “Look where you’re going.”
“Your eyes are better than mine,” Tucker growled. “But my nose is golden, cat. Remember that.”
“So, golden nose, what was he doing under the desk?” Mrs. Murphy snuggled in next to Tucker.
“His hands slid over the sides, the top, and the back.” She followed the line.
Mrs. Murphy, pupils open to the maximum, stared. “A secret compartment.”
“Yeah, but how’d he get it open?”
“I don’t know, but he’s a clumsy man. It can’t be that hard.” Mrs. Murphy stood
on her hind legs and gently batted the sides of the desk.
A loud slam scared the bejesus out of both of them. They shot out from under the desk. Mrs. Murphy’s tail looked like a bottlebrush. The hair on the back of Tucker’s neck bristled. No other sound assailed their sensitive ears.
Mrs. Murphy, low to the ground, whiskers to the fore, slowly, one paw at a time, headed for the back room. Tucker, next to her, also crouched as low as she could, which was pretty low. When they reached the storage room they saw that the door was closed.
“Oh, no!” Tucker exclaimed. “Can you reach the doorknob?”
Mrs. Murphy stretched her full length. She could just get her paws on the old ceramic doorknob but she couldn’t turn it the whole way. She exhausted herself trying.
Finally, Tucker said, “Give up. We’re in for the night. Once people start moving about I’ll set up a howl that will wake the dead.”
“Harry will be frantic.”
“I know but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re already in her bad graces for our work at the railroad tracks. Boy, are we in for it now.”
“No, she won’t be mad.”
“I hope not.”
Mrs. Murphy leaned against the door catching her breath. “She loves us. We’re all she’s got, you know. I hate to think of Harry searching for us. It’s been a terrible week.”
“Yeah.”
“If we’re stuck here we might as well work.”
“I’m game.”
19
Pewter, hovering over the meat case, first heard Tucker howl. The sound was distant but she was sure it was Tucker. A huge roll of Lebanon baloney, her favorite, beckoned. Courtney lifted the scrumptious meat from the case. Sandwich duty occupied her morning. By 7:00 A.M. the farm crowd had wiped out the reserve she’d made up Sunday night.
“Gimme some! Gimme some! Gimme some!” Pewter hooked a corner of the roll with a claw.
“Stop that.” Courtney smacked her paw.
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