“I’m hungry!” Pewter reached up again and Courtney cut her a hunk. Buying off Pewter was easier than disciplining her.
The cat seized the fragrant meat and hurried to the back door. Her hunger overwhelmed her curiosity but she figured she could eat, and listen at the same time. Another protracted howl convinced her the miserable dog was Tucker. She returned to Courtney, was severely tempted by the Lebanon baloney, summoned her willpower, and rubbed against Courtney’s legs, then hustled to the back door. She needed to perform this identical routine three times before Courtney opened the back door for her. Pewter knew that humans learned by repetition, but even then you could never be sure they were going to do what you asked them. They were so easily distracted.
Once free from the store Pewter sat, waiting for another howl. Once she heard it she loped through the backyards, and came out into the alleyway. Another howl sent her directly to the back door of Maude Bly Modena’s shop.
“Tucker!” Pewter yelled. “What are you doing in there?”
“Just get me out. I’ll tell you everything later,” Tucker pleaded.
Mrs. Murphy hollered behind the door: “Are there any humans around?”
“In cars. We need a walker.”
“Pewter, if you run back to the store do you think you could get Courtney or Market to follow you?” Mrs. Murphy asked.
“Follow me? I can barely get them to open and close the door for me.”
“What if you grabbed Mrs. Hogendobber on her way to the post office? She’s around the corner.” Tucker wanted out.
“She doesn’t like cats. She wouldn’t pay attention to me.”
“She’ll come down the alleyway. She walks it no matter what the weather. You could try,” Mrs. Murphy said.
“All right. But while I’m waiting for that old windbag . . . What is it that Josiah calls her?”
“A ruthless monologist,” Mrs. Murphy answered her, peeved that Pewter was insisting on a chat.
“Well, while I’m waiting why don’t you tell me what you’re doing in there?”
Mrs. Murphy and Tucker unfolded the adventure but only after swearing Pewter to secrecy. Under no circumstances was she to hint of any of this to Bob Berryman’s dog, Ozzie.
“There she is!” Pewter called to them. “Let’s try. Howl, Tucker.”
Pewter thundered over to Mrs. Hogendobber. She circled her. She flopped on her back and rolled over. She meowed and pranced. Mrs. Hogendobber observed this with some amusement.
“Come on, Pruneface! Get the message,” Pewter screeched. She moved toward Maude’s shop and then returned to Mrs. Hogendobber.
Tucker emitted a piercing shriek. Mrs. Hogendobber halted her stately progress. Pewter ran around her legs and back toward Maude’s shop, where Tucker let out another shriek. Mrs. Hogendobber started for the shop.
“I got her! I got her!” Pewter raced for the door. “Keep it up!”
Tucker barked. Mrs. Murphy meowed. Pewter ran in circles in front of the door.
Mrs. Hogendobber stood. She thought deeply. She put her hand on the doorknob, thought some more, and then opened the door.
“Gangway!” Tucker charged out of the door and hurried around the side of the house to relieve her bladder. Mrs. Murphy, with more bladder control, came out and rubbed Mrs. Hogendobber’s legs in appreciation.
“Thank you, Mrs. H.,” Mrs. Murphy purred.
“What were you doing in there?” Mrs. Hogendobber said out loud.
Tucker ran around and sat next to Pewter. She gave the gray cat a kiss. “I love you, Pewter.”
“Okay, okay.” Pewter appreciated the emotion but wasn’t overfond of sloppy kisses.
“Come on. Mom’s got to be at work by now.” Mrs. Murphy pricked up her ears.
The three small animals chased one another down the alleyway as Mrs. Hogendobber followed, deeply curious as to why Mary Minor Haristeen’s cat and dog were trapped inside Maude’s shop.
Harry hadn’t sorted the mail. She hadn’t properly thanked Rob for the French postcard he’d smuggled to her. She’d burned the telephone wires calling everyone she could think of who might have seen her animals.
The sight of Mrs. Murphy and Tucker along with Pewter and Mrs. Hogendobber puffing up the steps astonished her. Tears filled her eyes as she flung open the door.
Mrs. Murphy leaped into her arms and Tucker jumped up on her. Harry sat on the floor to hug her family. She hugged Pewter too. This enthusiasm was not extended to Mrs. Hogendobber, but Harry did get up and shake her hand.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hogendobber. I’ve been worried sick. Where’d you find them?”
“In Maude Bly Modena’s store.”
“What?” Harry was incredulous.
“We found a secret compartment! And Bob Berryman stole letters!” Tucker’s excitement was so great that she wiggled from stem to stern.
“Tucker bit the shit out of his ankle,” Mrs. Murphy added.
“Inside the store?”
“Yes. The door was shut and they couldn’t get out. I was walking down the alleyway—my morning constitutional on my way to see you—and I heard a ruckus.”
“You would have waddled right on by if it weren’t for me,” Pewter corrected her.
“What on earth were my girls doing in Maude Bly Modena’s shop?” Harry put her hands to her temples. “Mrs. Hogendobber, do you mind going back there with me?”
Mrs. Hogendobber would like nothing better. “Well, if you think it’s proper. Perhaps we should call the sheriff first.”
“He could arrest Mrs. Murphy and Tucker for breaking and entering.” Harry realized the instant the joke was out of her mouth that Mrs. Hogendobber wouldn’t get it. “Let me call Market over to mind the office.”
Market happily agreed and said he’d even sort the mail. He, too, wanted to read other people’s mail. It was an irresistible temptation.
The crepe myrtle bloomed along the alleyway. Bumblebees laden with pollen buzzed around the two women.
“I was right here when I heard Tucker.”
“Ha!” Pewter sarcastically remarked.
Harry followed Mrs. Hogendobber, who recounted in minute detail her every step to the door.
“. . . and I turned the knob—it wasn’t locked—and out they came.”
And in they ran too. “Come on!”
“Me, too.” Pewter followed.
“Girls! Girls!” Harry vainly called.
Mrs. Hogendobber, thrilled at the possibility of entering, said, “We’ll have to get them.”
Harry entered first.
Mrs. Hogendobber, hot on her heels, stopped for a second in front of the huge bags of plastic peanuts piled to the ceiling. “My word.”
Harry, already in the front room, exclaimed, “Where are they?”
Mrs. Murphy stuck her head out from under the desk. “Here!”
Mrs. Hogendobber, now in the room, saw this. “There.” She pointed.
Harry got down on her hands and knees and crawled under the desk. Pewter, grumbling, had to get out, as there wasn’t room for all of them.
Mrs. Murphy sat in front of the secret compartment that she had opened the night before. A small button alongside the thin molding on the seam was the key. “Right here. Look!”
Harry gasped, “There’s a secret compartment here!”
“Let me see.” Mrs. Hogendobber, negotiating gravity, hunkered down on her hands and knees. Tucker moved so she could see.
“Right here.” Harry flattened against the side of the desk the best she could and pointed.
“I declare!” Mrs. Hogendobber, excited, gasped. “What’s in there?”
Harry reached in and handed over a large ledger and a handful of Xeroxed papers. “Here.”
Mrs. Hogendobber backed up on all fours and sat in the middle of the floor.
Harry backed out and joined her. “There’s another ledger in the desk.” She got up and opened the middle drawer. It was still there.
“A second set of boo
ks! I wonder who she was filching from.”
“The IRS, most likely.” Harry sat down next to Mrs. Hogendobber, who was flipping through the books.
“I used to keep Mr. H.’s books, you know.” She laid the two ledgers side by side, her sharp eyes moving vertically down the columns. The hidden ledger was on her left. “My word, what a lot of merchandise. She was a better sales woman than any of us knew.” Mrs. Hogendobber pointed to the righthand book. “See here, Harry, the volume—and the prices.”
“I can’t believe she would get fifteen thousand dollars for seventy bags of plastic peanuts.”
This gave Mrs. Hogendobber pause. “It does seem unlikely.”
Harry took a page off the large pile of Xeroxed papers. They were the letters of Claudius Crozet to the Blue Ridge Railroad. Scanning them, she realized they involved the building of the tunnels.
“What’s that?” Mrs. Hogendobber couldn’t tear her eyes away from the accounting books.
“Claudius Crozet’s letter to the Blue Ridge Railroad.”
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Hogendobber looked up from her books.
“I don’t know.”
Harry had to get back to work. “Mrs. Hogendobber, would you do something if I asked you? It isn’t dishonest but it’s . . . tricky.”
“Ask.”
“Xerox these letters and the accounting books. Then we’ll turn it all over to Rick Shaw but we won’t tell him we have copies. I want to read these letters and I think, with your training, you may find something in the accounting books that the sheriff would miss. If he knows we’re studying the information he might take that as a comment on his abilities.”
Without hesitation, Mrs. Hogendobber agreed. “I’ll call Rick after I’ve completed the job. I’ll tell him about the animals. About us coming back here. And that’s all I’ll tell him. Where can I Xerox without drawing attention to myself? This is a great deal of work.”
“In the back room at the post office. I can buy some extra paper and reset the meter. No one will know if you don’t come out of the back room. As long as I put in the ink and the paper, I’m not cheating Uncle Sam.”
“Maude Bly Modena sure was.”
20
Ned Tucker was informed by Barbara Apperton at Citizen’s National Bank that the withdrawal from his account was correct and had been made with his credit card after hours. Ned fulminated. Barbara said she’d get a copy of the videotape, since these transactions were recorded. That way they’d both find out who used the credit card. Mrs. Apperton asked if the credit card was missing and Ned said no. He said he’d be down at the bank tomorrow.
The missing five hundred dollars wouldn’t break the Tucker family but it was unwelcome news when Ned was paying the bills.
Troubled by this small mystery on top of the grotesque ones, Susan entered the post office only to witness Rick Shaw grilling Harry.
“You can’t prove where you were Friday night or in the wee hours Saturday morning?” The sheriff stuck his thumbs in his Sam Browne belt.
“No.” Harry patted Mrs. Murphy, who watched Rick with her golden eyes.
Susan came alongside the counter. Rick kept at it. “No one was with you on the nights of the two murders?”
“No. Not after eleven P.M. on the night of Maude’s murder. I live alone now.”
“This doesn’t look good, with your animals in Maude Bly Modena’s shop. Just what are you up to and what are you hiding?”
“Nothing.” This wasn’t exactly true, because under the counter, neatly placed in a large manila envelope, were the Claudius Crozet letters. Mrs. Hogendobber had smuggled the copies of the accounting books to her home.
“You’re telling me your cat and dog entered the shop without your opening the door?” Rick’s voice dripped disbelief.
“Yes.”
“Bob Berryman let us in,” Mrs. Murphy said but no one listened to her.
“Buzz off, Shaw,” Tucker growled.
“You don’t leave town without telling me, Miz Haristeen.” Rick slapped the counter with his right palm.
Susan intruded. “Rick, you can’t possibly believe that Harry’s a murderer. The only people who can prove where they were in the middle of the night are the married ones faithful to their spouses.”
“That leaves out much of Crozet,” Harry wryly noted.
“And the ones who are together can lie for each other. Maybe this isn’t the work of one person. Maybe it’s a team.” Susan hoisted herself up on the counter.
“That possibility hasn’t escaped me.”
Harry put her mouth next to Mrs. Murphy’s ear. “What were you doing in Maude’s shop, you devil?”
“I told you.” Mrs. Murphy touched Harry’s nose.
“She’s telling you something,” Susan observed.
“That she wants some kitty crunchies, I bet.” Harry smiled.
“Don’t take this so lightly,” Rick warned.
“I’m not.” Harry’s face darkened. “But I don’t know what to do about this, any more than you do. We’re not stupid, Rick. We know the murderer is someone close to home, someone we know and trust. No one’s sleeping soundly anymore in Crozet.”
“Neither am I.” Rick’s voice softened. He rather liked Harry. “Look, I’m not paid to be nice. I’m paid to get results.”
“We know.” Susan crossed her legs under her. “We want you to and we’ll help you in any way that we can.”
“Thanks.” Rick patted Mrs. Murphy. “What were you doing in there, kitty cat?”
“I told you,” Mrs. Murphy moaned.
After Rick left, Susan whispered, “How did they get in the shop?”
Harry sighed. “I wish I knew.”
That night, after a supper of cottage cheese on a bed of lettuce sprinkled with sunflower seeds, Harry pulled out the postcards and her mother’s huge magnifying glass. She shone a bright light over the card to Kelly and placed the card Rob lent her next to it. The inks were different colors. The true Paris postmark was a slightly darker shade. Also, the lettering of the cancellation stamp on Kelly’s postcard was not precisely flush. This was also the case for the lettering on Maude’s postcard. The “A” in Asheville was out of line the tiniest bit. She switched off the light.
The postcards were a signal. She remembered when Maude received hers. She didn’t act like a woman under the threat of death. She was irritated that the sender hadn’t signed his or her name.
The floorboards creaked as Harry paced over them. What did she know? She knew the killer was close at hand. She knew the killer had a sense of humor and was perhaps even sporting, since he or she had fired a warning shot, so to speak. She knew the mangling of the bodies was designed to throw people off the scent. Just why, she wasn’t sure. The mess might have been to disguise the method of murder or it might have been to keep people from looking elsewhere, but why and for what? Or worse, it could have been a sick joke.
The other thing she knew was that Claudius Crozet was important to Maude. Tomorrow she was determined to call Marie, the secretary at the concrete plant, to find out if Kelly ever mentioned the famous engineer. She fixed a stiff cup of coffee—a spoon could stand up in the liquid—and sat down at the kitchen table to read the letters.
By one in the morning she was ravenous and wished that someone would figure out a way to fax a pizza. She ate more cottage cheese and kept reading. Crozet wrote in detail about the process of cutting the tunnels. The boring for the tunnels proceeded around the clock in three eight-hour shifts for eight solid years. The Brooksville tunnel proved extremely dangerous. The rock, seemingly sound, was soft as the men bit deeper into the mountain. Cave-ins and rockslides dumped on their heads like hard rain.
The physical difficulties occasionally paled beside the human ones. The tunnel rats were men of Ireland, but from two different parts of the Emerald Isle. The men of Cork disdained the Fardowners, the men of Northern Ireland. One bitter night, on February 2, 1850, a riot shook Augusta County. The mi
litia was called out to separate the warring factions and the jail burst at the seams with bloodied Irishmen. By the next morning both sides agreed that they’d only desired a little fight and the authorities accepted that explanation. After breaking a few bones and sitting out the night in jail, the men got along just fine.
The Blue Ridge Railroad Company ran out of money with alarming frequency. The state of Virginia wasn’t much help. The general contractor, John Kelly, paid the men out of his own pocket and accepted paper from the state—a brave man indeed.
When Claudius Crozet described the mail train rolling through the last completed tunnel on April 13, 1858, Harry was almost as excited as he must have been.
She finished the letters, eyes burning, and hauled herself into bed. She sensed that the tunnels meant something, but why? And which one? The Greenwood and Brooksville had been sealed since after 1944. She was going to have to go out there. She finally fell into a troubled slumber.
21
A full moon radiated silvery light over the back meadows, making the cornflowers glow a deep purple. Bats darted in and out of the towering conifers and in and out of the eaves of Harry’s house.
Mrs. Murphy sat on the back porch. Tucker’s snoring could be heard in the background. The cat was restless but she knew in the morning she’d blame it on Tucker, telling her that she’d kept her awake. Tucker accused Mrs. Murphy of making up stories about her snoring.
What was really keeping Mrs. Murphy awake was Harry. She wished her friend lacked curiosity. Curiosity rarely killed the cat but it certainly got humans in trouble. She feared Harry might trigger a response in the killer if she got too close. Mrs. Murphy had great pride where Harry was concerned, and if any human was smart enough to put the pieces of this ragged puzzle together it would be her Harry. But putting together a puzzle and protecting yourself were two different things. Because Harry couldn’t conceive of killing another human being, she couldn’t believe anyone would want to kill her.
Humans fascinated Mrs. Murphy. Their time was squandered in pursuing nonessential objects. Food, clothing, and shelter weren’t enough for them, and they drove themselves and everyone around them crazy, including animals, for their toys. Mrs. Murphy thought cars, a motor toy, absurd. That’s why horses were born. What’s the big hurry, anyway? But if people wanted speed she could accept that—after all, it was a physical pleasure. What she couldn’t accept was that these creatures worked and worked and then didn’t enjoy what they worked for; they were too busy paying for things they couldn’t afford. By the time they paid for the toy it was worn out and they wanted another one. Worse, they weren’t satisfied with themselves. They were always on some self-improvement jag. This astonished Mrs. Murphy. Why couldn’t people just be? But they couldn’t just be—they had to be the best. Poor sick things. No wonder they died from diseases they brought on themselves.
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