Hotspur

by Rita Mae Brown

  “They’d better not hurt Sister. Human or stag, I don’t care. I’ll kill them,” Raleigh growled.

  “Can’t,” Bitsy shrieked. “They’re already dead.”

  Sister jumped at the sound of Bitsy’s voice. “Good God, that bird could wake the dead.” Then she realized what she’d said and she had to laugh.

  By the time Sister reached her kitchen, she needed that second cup of coffee. She wondered if she also needed prayer, psychiatry, or a good knock on the head.

  Instead, there was a knock on the back door.

  She opened the door and was happy to see Shaker’s familiar, placid face.

  “Morning, Boss,” he said as he walked in.

  At seven in the morning, it was not too early to call.

  “Thick as pea soup out there,” she said. She wanted so badly to tell him what she thought she saw.

  “Yes it is. Patty’s ready. I called Tony over at Keswick and he said I could bring her by.” Patty was a gyp who was at the right time in her cycle for breeding. The huntsman at Keswick Hunt had a hound, Mischief, whose pedigree and conformation, hopefully, would match up well with Patty.

  “Mmm, fine. Here, have a cup of coffee. I make better coffee than you do.”

  “You look a little peaked. You all right?”

  “Well, I had a scare.”

  “I have them every month when my bills come due.”

  She smiled. “I have those, too. Next board meeting, I’ll bring up the subject of a raise once again. And you know, if they don’t vote it through I’m going to Crawford.”

  “I don’t want his money!”

  “If he wants to throw it around, I say we take it. I can handle him.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You won’t have to—but don’t worry. I’ll get this past the board. It’s been four years since you’ve had a raise, and it’s not right. I’m tired of it. He offered to buy a Dually for the club. Much as we need the truck, this is more important.”

  Sister Jane was in charge of hunting and everything to do with the hunting, but the board of governors was in charge of the purse strings and the social direction of the club. It could make for friction.

  “That’s not why I came over. Really it was about Patty.” He sipped the delicious coffee, a perfect mixture of blends to start the day.

  “Now that we don’t have Doug’s salary to pay, I know I have the ammunition to get this through.” She paused. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “I’m Irish. Of course I believe in ghosts.” He laughed. “I remember the time you thought you saw the Grim Reaper. And he held someone’s claim ticket, didn’t he?”

  “But you didn’t believe me at the time, Shaker. You accused me of drinking.”

  Sheepishly he put his mug down. “I did.” He glanced out the window. “Too bad we aren’t hunting this morning.”

  “We’d need fog lights on our bridles.”

  He laughed again. “That we would, but I love casting on a foggy morning.”

  “Shaker, I walked up to Hangman’s Ridge this morning. Before sunup. I don’t know why. I felt like something was calling me up there. And I thought I saw a ghost. Actually, I won’t be wishy-washy about it. I did see a ghost. He quoted from Psalms. All about misery. Scared me half to death. Then that damned little screech owl flew by and let out a hoot. I don’t know why my heart is still beating.”

  He roared at this. “She’s scarier than the ghost.”

  “Ah, so you do think there’s a ghost up there?”

  “More’n one. Earth’s full of spirits, I think. Don’t know why, although my mother would say we have to pray them into Purgatory and then up to Heaven.”

  “Even the murderers?”

  “God’s grace.”

  “Yes, I guess forgiveness is His trade. I’m not sure it’s mine. I wish I knew why I felt drawn to that tree. I’ve lived here for forty-eight years, Shaker. I know that old pin oak very well. But until this morning I never felt a call to go there.”

  “Maybe it’s a warning, something to prepare you. You know, sometimes I have dreams. I think we get, uh, premonitions.”

  “I suppose. Yesterday after hunting I remembered something about the day Nola and Guy disappeared. Nola hunted. We pulled up at the Lorillard graveyard.”

  “My second season carrying the horn. Still a little nervous. Not at all anymore.” He winked. Like any good athlete, Shaker always felt a twinge of nerves before an event.

  “We’d run hard. Horses were blowing, people, too, and I stepped away from the field to listen for you. Anyway, Nola, Guy, Ralph, Xavier, Ron, Ken, and Sybil formed a small group a bit away from the others. Nola was the center of attention. It’s not that they were coffeehousing, it was just the men’s eyes. Sybil was staring into the graveyard. She knew she was invisible then. Even her husband couldn’t take his eyes off Nola at that moment.

  “When Nola disappeared and Guy didn’t show up, my mind was focused on finding them. I didn’t think of what I felt. I certainly didn’t think of that moment at the Lorillard graveyard.”

  “And what was it you felt?”

  “That Sybil would always be overshadowed by Nola even though she was the better woman. At least I think so.”

  “Me too.”

  “That Nola had conquered each of those men there, except Ken, I suppose. Maybe she slept with Ralph and Xavier, I don’t know, but she could have had them had she wanted them. Even Ron. If she’d put her mind to it.”

  “Could have had Ken, too, I’ll reckon.”

  “You think?”

  He nodded, then got up and opened the bread box. “I’ll owe you one.” He took out a package of chocolate-covered doughnuts.

  “Or two or three.”

  “Nola could have had most any man. Maybe not for life, but for a night. She was, I don’t know, I can’t think of the word, like some potion.”

  “You, too?”

  He smiled, breaking the doughnut in two. “I was a young huntsman. She wouldn’t have looked at me twice.”

  “Plenty of other women have. Huntsmen can pretty well have their pick of the litter.” Sister stated one of those hunting facts that everybody knows but few people say out loud. Huntsmen are like rock stars to many female members of the field. It doesn’t seem to work so strongly in reverse. If the huntsman is a female, the male members don’t automatically fawn over her.

  He shook his head. “Not me.”

  “By the end of the season maybe,” Sister said, teasing him. “But you knew even then, young as you were, twenty-five or so, that Nola could be . . .”

  “Cruel. Nola was cruel to men.”

  “Well, I don’t know as that’s the right word, but if you knew that about her, you would still have gone to bed with her?”

  He straightened his back. “No, ma’am, I would not, but I would have wanted to.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s a guy thing. You can know a woman is pure poison and still want her. For some men, they only want her more.”

  “Women, a lot of them, anyway, always want the man who will hurt them. The Bad Boy. Maybe it’s the same.”

  “Maybe. All I know is when she’d fix me with those blue eyes and start smiling, I could feel the blood in my body burn.”

  “She affected women, too. That kind of beauty is erotically charged for both sexes, but to different degrees.”

  “Guy kind of had that quality, too. He could have most any woman he wanted. Probably why Fontaine Buruss hated him. Fontaine thought they all belonged to him.”

  “Did men dislike him?” Sister asked.

  “I think most men didn’t trust him around their women. Or maybe they didn’t trust their women around Guy,” Shaker astutely commented.

  “Do you think Guy was sleeping with other women when he was going with Nola?”

  “No. Funny, I don’t think he was.”

  “What about her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “
Ralph Assumptio, for one.”

  “Who else?”

  “Fontaine.”

  “Jesus.” She paused. “Raymond?”

  “No.” Shaker would have lied, but it was true. Sister’s husband had not been sleeping with Nola. Raymond had slowed down a bit by then. Got caught too many times and made too many messes.

  “That’s a relief.” Sister exhaled. “I would hate to think Raymond was mixed up in this. But he wasn’t, I mean, he wouldn’t.”

  “Raymond was a good man. He had a weakness.”

  “He did, God bless him.” Sister had spent enough emotion on her deceased husband. She wasn’t going to waste any time dwelling on the negative. “Do you think Ralph, Fontaine, or some jilted lover could have killed Nola?”

  “I don’t know. You think you know people, but they can surprise you.”

  She waited, lowered her voice. “Sybil?”

  “Kill her own sister?” Shaker was genuinely shocked.

  “She’d spent her life in Nola’s shadow. And what if Nola decided to make a conquest of Ken?”

  “Nola flirted with everyone. And Ken would have to be one of the dumbest men, dumber that snot, to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”

  “Nola?”

  “His marriage. He’d just married into the Bancroft family, and his people don’t have doodly-squat.”

  “I thought that, too. Well, what about Xavier?”

  “She was done with him before first day of cubbing.”

  “He held a grudge.”

  Shaker shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, you think you know someone and then they fool you.”

  “You’re a good huntsman. You trust your instincts. What’s your instinct?”

  “That the killer is going to break cover.”

  “And?”

  He reached for his third doughnut. “I don’t want to accuse a man of murder, but I remember that Ralph Assumptio was courting Frances that fall.” She nodded that she remembered and he continued. “He married her at Christmas, and he wasn’t especially happy at his own wedding.”

  “Everyone said he got loaded the night before.”

  “More. I think Ralph was still in love with Nola.”

  “Their marriage seems happy enough.”

  Shaker shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “You’re right. Who does know?”

  “I’m not saying he killed her. I’m saying I think he was in love with her and I think her body being found has shaken him up.”

  “Did Guy know she was sleeping with other men?”

  “It would have killed him. I don’t think he knew, but time was coming when he would have found out. Too many of us knew her, I mean. Those of us in our twenties. It was bound to come out sooner or later.”

  “Would he have killed her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sister frowned. “Maybe he found out that last day.”

  Shaker refilled his and Sister’s coffee cups, then sat back down. “Or maybe Nola really fell in love. It happens. Maybe she said good-bye to whoever else.”

  “I remember Guy bumped Ralph going over a jump that day. Caused a fuss.”

  “They were fixing to fight sooner or later.”

  She reached down to pat Raleigh’s head. “Did you tell Paul Ramy what you thought about Ralph back then?”

  Shaker shook his head. “No. First off, I couldn’t prove it. Yes, I saw Nola kiss Ralph, oh, spring of ’81, something like that. But that doesn’t mean I could prove she slept with him. At the time I didn’t think it served any purpose other than to upset Paul, who was already upset.”

  “Upset him because his son’s girl wasn’t faithful?”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded in agreement.

  “Well, have you told Ben Sidell?”

  “I did. He’s okay, Sidell.”

  “Yes, I think so, too. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He put down his coffee mug. “When have we had time to talk? We’ve been working nonstop to get ready for cubbing, and now we’re cubbing and,” he paused, “I don’t like saying things I can’t prove, things that could hurt people, even to you, and I know you won’t talk.”

  “I understand. Oh, before I forget, Jennifer Franklin and her friend Sari Rasmussen are going to work here on weekends, and I expect they’ll show up after school sometimes, too, now that Jennifer’s got her driver’s license. Do you want them to work any of your horses?”

  “No. Too hot for them. Especially Showboat.”

  “Okay.” She looked out the window. “Fog hasn’t lifted a bit. Well, let’s clean the kennels.” They stood up and took their cups to the sink.

  “You know, when Nola first disappeared I figured she was cutting a shine,” Shaker said. “Either she ran off with Guy or she dumped him and ran off with the Prince of Wales. I didn’t worry until a week passed.”

  “I did. I figured she’d at least call her mother or sister to laugh about what she’d done,” Sister replied.

  “Women like Nola provoke people.”

  “This sounds suspiciously like blaming the victim.”

  His melodic tenor voice rose. “No. Anyone who lives above the rules gets pulled down eventually. Might take a long time, but people will take their revenge.”

  “You’re right.” She washed the cups while he leaned on the counter. “Oh, to change subjects, you know Sari’s mother, Lorraine, is a very attractive woman. She’s been divorced for two years.”

  “And?”

  “Just some information,” she said, smiling.

  “Cupid.”

  CHAPTER 25

  The Board of Governors of the Jefferson Hunt met the third Wednesday of each month except for July. This month’s meeting would be September 18, which gave Sister a little time to gather the votes for Shaker’s pay raise. She hoped the discussion about when and where to locate the Hunter Trials would wear them out so the raise would slide through.

  As Thursday’s hunt and Saturday’s hunt both produced bracing runs, the buzz around town was that this was going to be a good season. Sister knew the numbers in the cubbing field would swell and she could expect a sizable field on Saturday, the twenty-first. She was already wondering which young entry to subject to the increased numbers of people and had an evil moment where she thought about pushing up the first cast to six-thirty in the morning. They’d revolt. No, she’d keep it at seven-thirty but deliver a little lecture about cubbing’s purpose being for young entry, hounds first, last, and always.

  Monday was her town day, meaning errands, including the most hated shopping for groceries. Well, she’d combine politicking with shopping. Her first stop was Ken Fawkes’s office, in a discreet modern building that blended into the landscape. Unlike most of her contemporaries, Sister liked modern architecture so long as it was good. Perhaps she preferred Palladian architecture, but something as beautiful as the Seagram Building in New York City deserved to be praised.

  This was Ken Fawkes’s first year on the board. She’d called ahead and was instantly ushered into his office, decorated in a minimalist style that was a total contrast to the way in which Sybil had decorated their home. She realized she’d never been in Ken’s office and this reflected something new about him, an aesthetic sensibility all his own.

  “How good of you to stop by,” he greeted her, his white broadcloth shirt offset by a simple royal blue tie.

  “Well, you’re kind to let me barge in. I won’t take much of your time.”

  They sat down facing each other over a coffee table of highly polished black marble with thin green veins snaking throughout.

  “Coffee? Anything to drink?”

  “No, thank you. Ken, I’ll get right to the point. As you know, thanks to Doug leaving to take the horn at Shenandoah Valley, we have his salary in the till.” He nodded and she continued. “Shaker hasn’t had a raise in four years, and that one was negligible, another thousand a year. We’ve just got to give this man more money.”

  “I agree.” He folde
d his hands together, his elbows on his knees, and leaned toward her with a grin. “Means you want to keep my wife as a whipper-in, does it? She’s free.”

  “She has talent.” Sister smiled. “Where would we be without your contributions, the contributions of the Bancrofts? I am grateful.”

  He demurred. “That’s foxhunting. If you have it, you give. Like church.”

  “I find I’m closer to the Good Lord out there than with my butt parked in a pew.”

  “Me too.”

  “You know, I have this terrible confession.” She leaned toward him, their heads closer over the exquisite marble. “I can tell you this because you’re an Episcopalian, too. I’ve always thought of Episcopalians as junior varsity Catholics,” she said, grinning mischievously.

  He laughed, leaning back into his seat. “Wait until I tell that to Sybil.”

  “Ken, I may not get to Heaven with thoughts like that.”

  “You know, they say foxhunters don’t go to Heaven because they have their Heaven on earth.” He paused. “Of course, you have my full support for a raise. Would five thousand dollars be acceptable?”

  “Yes, I think that would be.” She beamed at him. “Now, one more thing. Ralph Assumptio has been a true-blue hunting member and I value him, but he is obsessed with money matters. I actually think that helps us on the board because he goes over every single thing with a fine-tooth comb.” She cleared her throat. “I expect resistance from Ralph. He’ll be swayed by you before he’ll be swayed by me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, but I will talk to him.”

  What neither acknowledged was that Ken had sent Ralph a lot of business over the years. Ralph could just keep quiet and come through on this one thing.

  Sister thanked him and as she reached the door she asked one more question. “You know, I recalled a lovely picture of you and Sybil. Funny how things come into your mind. I was remembering that first day of cubbing back in 1981 for the obvious reason—well, we’d such a good run and we pulled up at Lorillard graveyard. Do you remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “You, Sybil, Ralph, Nola, Xavier, Guy, all together, all so young, flushed from the run. It was a pleasant memory. Being up front, I can’t see what goes on behind me on a run. Did you see Guy bump Ralph?”