However, this week’s tape proved substantially different. Tareq handed over the legal-sized folder, then swiftly left.
* * *
49
The brass buttons rolled around in the palm of her hand with a dull clank. Harry pushed them with her forefinger.
“First Virginia.” Blair leaned against his 110 HP John Deere tractor—new, of course, like everything on his farm. “They’re genuine. Cost five hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Wonder who wore them and if he survived the war?”
Blair shrugged. “I don’t know.”
The warm sun skidded over Mrs. Murphy’s coat; she glistened as she lounged on the hood of the 911 Turbo. Neither human had yet noticed her chosen place to display her glories.
Pewter prowled around Blair’s equipment shed with Tucker. She was on a blue-jay kick. Determined to find and bait the raucous bird wherever she could, she had sharpened her claws on the side of the shed. Pewter could perform surgery with those claws.
“Looks like you’re throwing yourself whole hog into reenacting,” Harry said.
“I kind of thought it was silly at first. But I felt something at Oak Ridge, and, Harry, that wasn’t even a true reenactment. We weren’t on sacred ground, if you will. I want to go to the Seven Days, Sharpsburg.” He looked sober at the word; Sharpsburg was the scene of the worst carnage in that bloodiest of wars. “I can’t explain what I felt, just—just that I have to do this.”
“Have you ever noticed that all the reenactors are white?”
“The combatants were mostly white.”
“I’ll feel a little better about this when someone resurrects the 54th Massachusetts.” Harry cited the all-black regiment renowned for its courage.
“Harry, I’m sure someone is already doing that. Really, I don’t think this is a racist program.” His warm hazel eyes flickered.
“Maybe you’re right.” She sighed. “Maybe it’s me. Maybe I don’t like being reminded of a war of supreme foolishness, a foolishness that soaked this state in blood. So many battles have been fought here in Virginia since the Revolutionary War. All that blood has soaked into our soil. Makes me sick, kinda. I think I fail to see the romance of it.”
“Maybe it’s a guy thing.” He smiled.
“Guess so.” She paused, then swung up into the cab of the elegant, expensive, coveted John Deere. “Blair, I’ve been thinking. A guy thing?” she said, louder than she intended. “What if Sarah was in uniform? What if she shot H. Vane?”
“What?”
The animals stopped in the shed. Mrs. Murphy, on the Porsche, pricked her ears.
“I know it sounds crazy but today in the post office when I tried on the jacket, it occurred to me—she could have worn the trousers under her hoop skirt, stepped out of it. . . . Of course, she’d have to run back like mad, get out of the uniform, stash it, and get back into her dress—but it’s not impossible. Heavy smoke covered everything. You couldn’t see the hand in front of your face sometimes. And it was pandemonium. Who would notice one person sneaking off? And besides, nobody noticed H. had been shot for quite a while. She’d have had time.”
He blinked. “I don’t know. Never thought of it.”
“Mrs. Woo made lots of the uniforms—too many to remember. But she probably kept receipts, if not records. So what happens? Her store gets burned down.”
Blair wondered if Sarah was capable of murder. “Harry, that’s pretty extreme.”
“But why? Everyone just jumped to the conclusion that it was Archie Ingram.”
Slowly, his deep baritone low, Blair said, “Well, I don’t know. It’s possible. But why kill him? She’ll eventually inherit his estate anyway, most of it.”
“He’s a tough bird and a demanding one. She’s in the prime of life. Servicing H. Vane, you’ll forgive the expression, may be losing some of its luster.”
His face reddened. Mrs. Murphy carefully slid off the Porsche hood. She walked over to the tractor as Pewter and Tucker joined her. Harry stepped down from the cockpit.
“Nice, huh?”
“Beautiful. If I had to pick between your Porsche and your John Deere it would be one of the hardest decisions of my life.” She laughed, leaning against the giant rear wheel. “I think I’d better talk to Coop.”
“Don’t do that,” he said too rapidly.
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t ruin someone’s name like that.”
“She’s not ruining her name,” Mrs. Murphy said. “She’s only conveying an idea. Coop has tact.”
“Hadn’t thought of that.”
“Mother, you’re not ruining her name. And you’re right!” Pewter meowed.
Harry picked up the cat, putting her on her shoulder. “Hush.”
“Put me down.” She wiggled.
“Pewter, stay put. You’ll get her mind distracted. Humans can’t focus for very long. That’s why they can’t catch mice.”
Pewter glared at Mrs. Murphy but settled down on Harry’s shoulder.
Tucker lifted her nose in the air. “Blair’s body temperature is rising. He’s upset.”
“The other flaw in your theory is that if Sarah shot at H. Vane, then who killed Tommy Van Allen?” Blair said.
“There’s no proof that the two murders are connected. We’ve all been assuming. They could be unrelated.”
“They’re related. We just don’t know how.” Tucker was resolute on this point.
Blair blushed. “Yeah.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Took her a while,” Pewter dryly commented.
“Oh.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Nothing. Say, would you like to borrow my tractor? You could disc your fields in one-third the time.” He pointed to a disc, its round metal spheres tilted slightly inward toward a center line.
Murphy noted, “That’s a quick change of subject.”
Harry eyed the huge implement, which would make short work of her chores. Good farmer that she was, she disced first before plowing. She disced the fields for hay, too. They didn’t need plowing but she was a great believer in working the soil thoroughly before planting. If the hay was already established she’d merely thatch and aerate every few years. She loved farming, desperately wishing she could make a good living from it. But she just squeaked by.
“This is brand-new.”
“Hell, you know how to use this equipment better than I do.”
“Tell you what.” Harry would feel better if she could make a trade. “I’ll show you how to prepare that cornfield you want to put in down on your bottomland. Then I’ll borrow this baby.” She patted the field-green side of the square, powerful tractor.
“Deal.” He stuck out his hand then withdrew it. “Sorry. Forgot my manners.”
“Oh, Blair, I don’t care. I think that stuff’s outmoded.” She referred to the fact that a man wasn’t supposed to extend his hand to a lady, but wait for her to extend hers first.
“Big Mim would kill me.” He grinned.
Harry noticed Archie’s U-Haul. “Is he ever leaving?”
“Today, in fact.”
“Bet you’re relieved.”
“Archie is curiously stubborn.”
“What a nice way to put it.” Harry smiled as she headed for her truck. “Where’s he going?”
“Tally Urquhart’s.”
“What?”
“She’ll let him live in one of her outbuildings if he’ll restore it. He said he needs a positive project.”
“I’m nervous.” The tiger walked over to Harry’s truck. “We’ve got to get her to call Coop.”
It was too late for that.
* * *
50
Sir H. Vane-Tempest noticed the peculiar waxiness of the magnolias—grandifloras—he’d planted along his southern drive. The long shadows of late afternoon heightened the colors and the sense of melancholy at the day’s passing.
A troop of gardeners worked behind the house.
Usual
ly the garden delighted him. Vane-Tempest was not a man to delight in people, since he viewed all relationships as a power struggle, a struggle he must win in order to feel important. He saw people in terms of a vertical scale. Perhaps the Windsor family ranked above him, certain Rothschilds and Von Thyssens, but he believed he sat very near the pinnacle. Usually that fact thrilled him.
Since reading Tareq’s transcription he’d been unthrilled, indeed, deeply miserable.
“The days are drained into time’s cup and I’ve drunk it dry,” he whispered to himself, turning on his heel to go inside.
He stopped, turned around, and looked again at the gardens. He noticed Sarah walking among the workers. Her beauty soared beyond explanation, like the beauty of creamy peonies. It just was.
He turned once more and walked into the house. He strolled down the long parquet-floor hallway, barely noticing the Monet. He strode into Sarah’s room, opened her closet, clicked on the lights, and closed the door behind him.
Row upon row of cashmere sweaters in plastic see-through boxes attested to her acquisitiveness as well as to her insight into the fact that she was valuable only as long as she was beautiful.
He headed for the long rows of canvas garment bags. He unzipped them one by one. Sumptuous evening gowns of emerald, sapphire, ruby, silver, white, and gold spilled over the sides of the opened bags. He could picture his wife in each of these extravagantly expensive confections.
He reached into the bottom of each garment bag, swished around with his hand, then moved to the next one. The last bag tucked in the cedar-lined closet swayed slightly.
He opened it. The zipper clicked as the tab moved down. Her shimmering peach gown fluttered. He reached down. Nothing.
The door opened. “H., what are you doing?”
“Where is it?”
“What?” She noticed the shine on his brow, the gleam in his eye.
“Your uniform.”
“What uniform?”
“Don’t play games with me. You dressed up and shot me. Archie doesn’t have the guts.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Liar!” He lunged toward her but the closet was huge.
She slammed the door, locked it, and cut off the lights. She took her unregistered snub-nosed .38 out of the nightstand by her bed and threw it into her purse. Then she ran like hell for her car.
* * *
51
Harry was just turning into her driveway when Sarah flew past her without waving, her car a blur.
She stopped at her mailbox, watching as Sarah turned into Blair’s driveway a quarter of a mile down the road.
“I wonder—” she said out loud, then shook her head. “Nah.”
Sarah roared up to the house, parked her car next to the Porsche, and ran to the door.
“Archie! Archie!”
Archie, who’d just come back from dragging the U-Haul to Tally’s, was surprised to see Sarah burst through the doorway, even more surprised when she flung herself into his arms.
“I think I’ll go to my office.” Blair, who’d been helping Archie, put his papers in a box, then walked upstairs.
Sarah waited until she heard the door close. “He’s going to kill me.”
“H.?”
“Archie, I’ve got to get out of here. Help me!”
“Why does he want to kill you?”
“Because I tried to kill him.”
“What!”
“It was me at Oak Ridge. You were right. I dressed as a soldier, just as you said. Those damned old rifles—it’s a wonder anybody hit the broad side of a barn during that war.”
Archie held her at arm’s length. “Sarah, you really shot H. Vane?”
“I’m only sorry I missed killing him.”
“He knows?” Archie was amazed.
“He thinks he knows. I caught him in my closet going through my garment bags—looking for the uniform, damn his eyes. Well, he won’t find it. I’m not stupid. I burned the thing.”
“So he has no proof?”
“No, but what does that matter? He’s in a rage. He’ll kill me if he finds me and he’s so rich he’ll get off. People like him always do.”
“Why did you want to kill him?” Archie coolly asked.
“Because I couldn’t stand his fat body one more minute. Because I hate him. I hate the sight of him. You’ve never been a servant, Archie, you wouldn’t understand.”
“You were a very well-paid one.”
Sensing his withdrawal, she said, “I couldn’t tell you. You would have tried to stop me. As long as he’s alive I can’t be with you. And why should I go to the poorhouse? I’ve worked for that money. If he caught us together my divorce would be an open-and-shut case. Shut the door. Bang.”
“I see.”
“Archie, help me!” She threw her arms around him.
“Where is he now?”
“Locked in my closet. He’ll eventually break the door down. His shoulder still hurts but he’s strong. You’ve got to hide me until I can figure something out.”
“Jesus, Sarah, didn’t your mother tell you, Look before you leap?”
“If I’d done that I’d never have fallen in love with you.”
“I wish I believed that.” He sighed. Beautiful women acquired men like dogs acquire fleas. All they had to do was walk through a room.
“Did you shoot Tommy? Tell me the truth this time.”
“No. I loved Tommy once.” She looked him square in the eye. “He had magic. It didn’t last long but I was so miserable with H. Archie, can’t you understand?”
“I—”
“He’ll kill me!”
“All right. All right.” He stroked her hair.
Try as he might, he couldn’t stop loving her. He kissed her. “Everything will be all right.” He walked to the foot of the stairs. “Blair.”
The door opened. “Yes.”
“I’m taking Sarah to the airport.”
Blair clomped halfway down the stairs. “Everything okay?”
“No,” Sarah tearfully confessed. “Blair, I can explain everything later. I just have to get out of here.”
Archie hustled her into his Land Rover. Blair watched them start down the driveway. If he’d watched longer he would have seen that Archie turned right out of his driveway, not left toward the airport.
* * *
52
Pewter wedged herself underneath the camellia bush. She felt certain the blue jay would perch there and since she’d squeezed herself in and was still, he wouldn’t notice.
Hunting was best in the morning or late afternoon. No animal likes to go to bed on an empty stomach. She knew she could grab the blue jay. She’d even gone to the trouble of scattering about bread crusts, which she fished out of the garbage when Harry’s back was turned.
Pewter dreamed of ways to dispatch the bird, her favorite being a straight vertical leap, grasping the offender between her mighty paws, pulling him to the ground, and staring him in the eye before breaking his neck.
“She who laughs last laughs best!” she told herself, revving her motor.
She was ready!
Pop.
Mrs. Murphy, sitting on the haywagon next to the barn, out of Pewter’s way, heard it, too. She looked out toward Harry, who’d been inspired by the vision of that new John Deere to get up on Johnny Pop and overseed the front acres. Harry rolled along, the small seeder attached to the back of the tractor.
“Pewter.”
Pewter wouldn’t answer.
Tucker, half-asleep under the haywagon, did. “What?”
“Hear that?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t Johnny Pop.” Mrs. Murphy was worried.
The old tractor would pop, pop, pop along but this pop was crisp.
Pop!
“Pewter, get out from under there. We’ve got to get to Blair’s.”
Pewter backed farther underneath the camellia bush. She’ll do anything to spoil this. She doesn’t thi
nk I can kill the blue jay. She thinks she’s the Great Striped Hunter. I’ll show her, she thought to herself.
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