Cooper unzipped her heavy jacket. “I’ll start calling the people who were at St. Luke’s to see who came to this party.”
“Call Doris. She’ll have a list. Save yourself time and trouble.” He named the executive secretary to the head of the real estate company, Alex Corbett.
“I’m on it.”
Rick hit the button to push his seat back farther and stretched out his legs. “I’ve searched for a connection to Christmas. The holidays are emotional land mines,” he said in a flat tone of voice. “Nothing that I can find.”
“Doesn’t seem to be, unless this ruins Christmas for people we don’t know about. Obviously, it’s ruined for the order.”
Rick watched the rescue squad remove the body. “They’ve put their hands under his legs. Good move. Better balance than tipping him back with his legs out, bent. If his eyes weren’t glassy, he’d almost look alive.” He blinked, then turned to Cooper. “There has to be a connection between Christopher and Speed, apart from being Brothers of Love.”
“Well, they’re both dead.”
“Very funny.”
“Actually, there is a connection: money troubles before they became monks.”
“Then let’s find out how many brothers also came up short.” Rick wasn’t hopeful about this line of reasoning, but it might lead to something bigger.
Four hours later, Brother Speed had thawed on the stainless-steel table. Dr. Emmanuel Gibson carefully removed the brother’s clothes, with the help of a young intern, Mandy Sweetwater. Removing them proved difficult because of the blood. Fabrics stuck together.
When the corpse was finally unclothed, Dr. Gibson began his careful inspection before making the first cut.
Mandy, on the other side of the corpse, said, “Eyes aren’t bloodshot.”
“Good.” Emmanuel smiled. “So you know he wasn’t choked to death.”
The old doctor enjoyed working with young doctors.
As he went down the body, he talked, asking Mandy questions.
Two hours later, out of his scrubs, he called Rick.
“Dr. Gibson, what have you got for me?”
“Well, Sheriff, same cut as on Christopher Hewitt, left to right, killer behind the victim. No bruises. No sign of struggle. The killer stood behind Speed.” He took a breath. “Obol under the tongue.”
More snowflakes twirled down as Harry mucked stalls. Outside, the horses played in the snow, kicking it up and running about.
The cats cuddled on saddle blankets in the tack room, but Tucker stuck with Mom. The corgi dashed out of a stall.
Harry leaned the large pitchfork against the stall and walked into the center aisle.
Tucker barked, “Cooper!”
Pewter opened one eye. “Can’t that dog shut up?”
Opening the large double doors, Harry waved for Cooper to come inside the stable.
Stamping her feet, Cooper walked in.
“Coffee?”
“This time it’s my turn for hot cocoa,” Cooper said.
“Sounds like a winner to me.” Harry smiled as she led Cooper into the cozy room, redolent of sweet feed and leather with a hint of Absorbine, used to soothe aching muscles.
“Harry.” Cooper sank into one of the director’s chairs. “Brother Speed was found dead this morning. Same M.O. as Christopher.”
“Oh, no.” Harry put the cocoa tin down lest she drop it.
Both cats opened their eyes wide now, and Tucker sat beside Cooper.
“Tony Gammell found him on the tennis courts at the Keswick Club.”
“Good Lord. I hope Nancy wasn’t at work.”
“Luckily, Nancy Holt didn’t have any tennis lessons because of the high winds and snow.”
“Well, she’s tough enough to go out in anything. I bet this upset Tony, too.”
“Did.”
Harry sat down, waiting for the water to boil. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t, either. You knew Brother Speed.”
“Sure. He was a good horseman as well as rider.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, there are plenty of people who can ride a horse, but a horseman is someone who truly knows how to care for horses as well as how to train them. Not a whole lot of those, and Speed was good. Very sensitive.” Harry appreciated that quality.
“Ever see him gamble?”
“No.”
“What about Christopher?”
“He ran football pools—pretty primitive, but it was high school.”
“Ever see or hear about either one getting in trouble with women, especially married women?”
“Christopher left Crozet to go to college, so I didn’t hear anything. Who knows? As for Brother Speed, well, a racing life is full of temptation.”
“Both gambling and sex can run away with people, like drugs and alcohol. I’m looking for any kind of motivation for murder. Welched debts or angry spouses could qualify. Sometimes old habits reappear.”
Harry thought about that. “I suppose it is hard to break an addiction, whatever it may be. But don’t you think the other brothers would know or at least suspect that Speed and Christopher were struggling?”
“Time for another visit to the monastery.” Cooper rubbed her eyes. “I’m tired.”
“Low-pressure system. Running into walls will poop you out, too.”
“I’ve been doing enough of that,” Cooper ruefully said.
“Maybe the murderer was abused by a priest or a monk. Given the breadth of the abuse in America, it’s not a long jump to assume that there are some people in Albemarle County who were molested. Maybe not by local priests but elsewhere.” She added, “There are so many new people to the area, and we don’t know their histories. The old families you know for generations. I mean, look at the Urquharts.” She mentioned Big Mim’s maiden name. “Someone could have just lost it. Maybe the abuse started one Christmas. Who knows?”
“Once the trigger of an old, buried emotion is pulled, you can’t unpull it.” Cooper considered Harry’s idea.
“The thing about the Brothers of Love is they’d be easy to get to. They’re out with the public, at the hospice, at the tree farm. If only we could figure out the reason…at least it would lead to potential culprits.”
Cooper rose and walked to the hot plate. “Water’s boiling.”
“I’m not being a good hostess.”
“Hey, I’m your neighbor. You don’t have to dance attendance on me.”
Harry smiled. “Haven’t heard that phrase since my grand mother.”
“That’s what mine said. I think that generation used language better than we do. Their speech was so colorful. Now people imitate whatever they hear on TV or pick up off the Internet. Pretty boring.” Cooper poured water into her hot-chocolate powder, then poured water over Harry’s cocoa.
She returned to the director’s chair, which faced an old tack trunk serving as a coffee table.
“How nice to be waited on in my own tack room. Every time I go to Big Mim’s barn or Alicia’s, I suffer a fit of envy. My God, those tack rooms could be in Architectural Digest.” She looked around. “But this is tidy and it’s mine.”
“That’s what counts.” Cooper settled in, grateful for the hot chocolate. “Let’s go over what we do know.”
“Sure.”
“Not much,” Pewter sassed.
“Two men, late thirties, early forties. In fact, Brother Speed turned forty on December eleventh. Both of them belonged to the same order. Both raised Catholics. Both nice-looking men. Christopher was divorced. Speed never married.”
Harry jumped in. “Both ruined by money troubles.”
“Yep.” Coop’s notebook was filled with notes from questioning people. “Women just loved Speed. Probably because they could pick him up and throw him around.”
“Ha.” Harry appreciated that. “Wouldn’t that be fun? I can barely get Fair’s feet off the ground, and he even helps by standing on his tiptoes. He can bench-press me with one ha
nd.”
“He is one big, strong man. Good thing, too. His patients outweigh him by about a thousand pounds.” Cooper returned to the murders. “Both men had good personalities. People liked them. The calls I made to Phoenix—despite what Christopher did, people mentioned over and over again how likable he was. Can you think of anything I missed?”
“Both were estranged from their families.”
“Right. Forgot that. They were likable but not to their folks.”
“I expect they were still likable to them, but when you go through alcoholism and drug abuse with someone, I think a lot of times the family gets burned out. Plus, they don’t believe anything the addict tells them. Too many lies. Christopher’s family couldn’t handle the scandal,” Harry added.
“Anything else?”
“Their manner of death appears to be the same. Killed from behind. I take it there was no sign of struggle with Speed?”
“We’ll know more after the autopsy, but no apparent sign of struggle.”
“And I assume Brother Speed was killed quickly, too. You’d think someone would have missed him up at the monastery.”
“Rick called. Brother George said they figured he’d stayed overnight in town, given the roads and the fact that the party rolled on. George was scared.” She paused. “You know, when we catch the killer, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets off somehow.”
Harry nodded. “Everything’s backward. We punish the victim. We give money to people who won’t work. Old men sit in the legislature and send young men and women to their deaths. It’s all backward.”
“You and I aren’t going to fix it.”
“I think we can, but it’s going to take more than just us. Like these murders. We can’t bring back the dead, but if we use our wits and have a bit of luck, we’ll get him.”
“Think it’s only one person?”
“I don’t know. You’d know better than I do.”
“I’m not sure. If only I could figure out the Brothers of Love connection.”
“Doesn’t seem to be coincidence.” She frowned. “We don’t know what we don’t know.”
“Yep.” Cooper drained her hot chocolate. “Mind if I make another?”
“Course not.”
“Need more?”
“I’m good.”
Cooper filled the teakettle. Harry always kept a couple of bottles of distilled water in the tack room for that purpose.
“I’ve even tried to make odd connections. For instance: facial hair.”
“No connection. Speed was clean shaven and Christopher had that flaming beard.”
“I know.” A note of irritation crept into Coop’s voice.
“I’m saying that I’m looking at everything. The things that are important to a killer are not immediately obvious.”
“I understand that. Kind of like the serial killer who kills women who resemble his high school crush who rejected him.”
“Exactly.” Cooper stood over the teakettle.
“A watched pot never boils,” Harry intoned the old saying.
“Right.” Cooper flopped down in the director’s chair.
“They were both nice-looking. So far no ugly brothers have been killed,” Harry said.
“Well, that’s something.”
“See, I told you they don’t know a thing,” Pewter said smugly.
“Crabby Appleton.” Mrs. Murphy used the childhood insult.
“They know a lot. Didn’t you listen?”
“She only listens to herself talk.” Tucker rolled her eyes.
“I am sick and tired of being insulted by one snotty cat and one bubble butt.” Pewter showed her claws for effect. “It’s someone who hates Christmas.”
Her idea was as good as anyone else’s.
Don’t lie to me.”
“Racquel, I’m not lying to you.” Bryson felt exhausted.
“I know the signs.”
“I’m distracted, tired, and Christmas isn’t my favorite season.”
Both their sons were at the ice rink in downtown Charlottesville. Without the restraining influence of her children, Racquel let her emotions get the better of her.
“Who is she?”
“I swear to you I am not having an affair with a nurse, a secretary, a nurse’s aide, or any other woman.”
“One of those caretakers at the hospice is pretty. I noticed when I visited Aunt Phillipa.”
“I’m not.” He walked to the bar to fix himself a scotch on the rocks. “I am worried about the Brothers of Love. The murders could hurt donations. No one does what they do. They’re…well, you’ve seen the care.”
“Have.” Her eyes narrowed. “You do seem depressed. Maybe the affair is over.”
“Racquel, sometimes you make it hard to love you.”
“Ditto.” She strode to the bar. “Martini.”
He fixed her a dry one and they sat by the fire. “I’ve made mistakes. I was wrong. I can’t say more than that. How can we go forward if you mistrust me?”
“It’s hard to trust you. You’re accomplished at deceit.”
He took a long draft. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t men ever consider the damage they do for what amounts to fifteen minutes of pleasure?”
“Obviously not. But I am not having an affair. I told you that. You are the only woman in my life.”
“What would you do if I had an affair?”
“I don’t know.”
“It might be painful to have the shoe on the other foot.”
“Yes. Look, can’t we call a truce? It’s Christmas. The tension is so thick in this house you can cut it. For the boys’ sake.”
“I’ll try.”
“Thought I’d go over to Alex’s later for a poker game, but I’ll cancel. It’d be nice to have a little time together before the kids come back.”
She brightened at this and downed her martini. “Good idea.”
The snow-covered Leyland cypress swayed hypnotically in the wind. Harry, once again up since five-thirty, surveyed the orderly plantings of Waynesboro Nurseries’s stock on Tuesday morning. She’d arranged to have twelve of these lovely trees planted at Fair’s office as a Christmas present. Naturally, the evergreens wouldn’t go in the ground until spring, but she wanted to double-check to make certain of her decision.
Landscaping came naturally to Harry, probably because she loved it. She joked with her husband that if God gives you the skills in one department, he often leaves out another. This was by way of explaining her terrible taste in any clothing that didn’t involve equine pursuits. Once every two or three years, Susan would drag her to Nordstrom’s, often aided by BoomBoom, a clotheshorse.
After she’d conversed with Tim Quillen at the nurseries, she felt that itch to get something for herself, so she called Jeffrey Howe at Mostly Maples and ordered two good old-fashioned sugar maples, also to be planted in the spring.
She cranked the motor on the 1978 Ford, but before she could leave, her cell rang. Harry didn’t like to drive and talk on the phone, so she stayed put.
“Hello.”
“Honey, can you swing by Southern States and pick up extra halters and lead shanks? I forgot,” Fair said.
“Sure, honey.” Fair always kept extras in his truck just in case.
“How’s your day so far?” Harry inquired.
“Good, but it will be better when I’m home with you.”
When she clicked off her cell, she had a smile on her face.
In about thirty-five minutes she was back in Charlottesville, and she dropped by Bryson Deeds’s office. Harry had washed and dried Racquel’s pottery dishes from St. Luke’s Christmas party and offered to drop them off at the house, but Racquel told her to leave them at Bryson’s office. He would still be seeing patients right up to Christmas Eve, and she was doing last-minute shopping.
No one sat at the reception desk, so Harry put the dishes on the reception counter. As she walked out into the hall of the medical office building, she he
ard a door close behind her.
Brother Luther strode up to her.
“Merry Christmas, Brother Luther.”
His eyes darted around. “Merry Christmas to you.”
Noticing how nervous he was, she thought to console him. “If you’re a patient of Bryson’s, you’re in good hands. He’s a wonderful cardiologist.”
“Oh, I have a little heart murmur. Nothing to worry about. It’s extra fluttery. All these terrible events.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He grasped her hand. “Harry, if anything happens to me, call my brother in Colorado Springs.” He pulled a little notebook out of his coat pocket and scribbled the name.
Harry read it, “Peter Folsom. I didn’t know your last name was Folsom.” She smiled at him. “Your heart will tick along, but I promise I’ll call him. But, really, Brother Luther, don’t worry. You’ll just make yourself sick.”
He let go of her hand. “Someone out there is killing us. Our order. I could be next.”
“Maybe it isn’t about the order. Maybe it’s those brothers’ pasts catching up with them.”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear, even though no one was around. “It’s the order, and the past catches up with all of us.”
“Brother Luther, forgive me, but I can’t imagine what Christopher—I mean, Brother Christopher—or Brother Speed did to provoke such an”—she searched for the right word—
“end.”
“You don’t want to know.” With that, he scuttled down the hall.
Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, upset that Harry did not take them along for her errands, sat in front of the living-room fireplace. Embers still glowed from last night’s fire, a testimony to slow-burning hardwoods.
“Low-pressure system coming in,” Pewter drowsily announced.
“Windy now.” Tucker could hear the reverberations at the top of the flue as well as see the trees bending outside the windows.
“Something’s behind it.” Mrs. Murphy felt the change in atmospheric pressure, too.
“It’s cozy right here. I wish Mom would get back, to start up the fire.” Pewter snuggled farther down in the old throw on the sofa.
“She should have taken us,” Mrs. Murphy grumbled. “We can’t even tear up the tree, because she hasn’t decorated it. Of course, we could shred the silk lamp shades.”
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