Whisker of Evil

by Rita Mae Brown

  A silence followed this, then Carmen said, “Barry wanted to know everything. He used to watch you. He said he learned a lot from Fair about reproduction, but he said you knew the blood, knew it in your sleep.”

  “You watch a lot of horses, you study a lot of pedigrees.”

  “A little luck never hurts.” BoomBoom smiled. “And you had the good fortune to see Mary Pat’s organization when you started out.”

  “Impeccable. Tell you another one I studied: Peggy Augustus. Her mother was good, and Peggy—what an eye, I tell you.” He folded his hands under his smock. “Paul Mellon. Any chance I had to drive up there to Upperville, I took it. Another great breeder and a great man. Learn from the best.”

  The door opened as Little Mim came in, and Pewter scooted right between her legs.

  “What the—”

  “Pewter, what do you have?” BoomBoom called out.

  “Mine. All mine!” The gray cat dropped a fried chicken wing, then picked it up, hurrying to the supply closet, door open.

  Just then Harry pushed through the door, her face red. “Pewter.”

  “She’s not here,” Pewter called from the closet.

  Carmen pointed to the closet, as did the others.

  “Your lunch?” Tavener laughed jovially.

  “Worse. Herbie’s.”

  “It’s half a block from the post office to here. That’s a long haul for such a tubby pussycat.” Tavener thought this was pretty funny.

  “The Rev is back in the post office blessing her this very minute.” Harry strode to the closet. “I see you in there.” She stooped down, scooped up the cat, who would not release the chicken wing from her jaws. “God will get you for this, Pewter.”

  The cat refused to open her mouth.

  As Harry left, Tavener laughed and laughed. “Would you like to hear Herb right now? The air is blue. Then he’ll remember himself and apologize profusely.”

  “It’s amazing how strong a little animal can be when it’s defending itself or wants something.” BoomBoom loved all animals.

  “That’s what upsets me about Barry.” Carmen looked up at BoomBoom. “His throat was ripped out. Why didn’t he fight? I think there’s something out there.”

  “Now, Carmen, don’t let your imagination get the better of you,” Tavener said soothingly.

  27

  The old wood from the shed, neatly stacked, bore testimony to Harry’s hard work and essential frugality. She wasn’t cheap but she saved anything that might be useful, and the boards could repair breaks in the fence line.

  Blair’s new fence posts, in bundles, rested next to the old wood.

  She’d worked each night of the week to dismantle the old shed. The supporting posts she pulled out with her tractor, then filled in the holes with pounded rock dust.

  At five-thirty Saturday morning, June 19, she fed the new mares, as well as Tomahawk, Poptart, and Gin Fizz. Her tea steamed from the small slit in her carrying cup as she put it down on the desk in the tack room. The mice, sound asleep behind the tack trunk, didn’t stir.

  Harry’s favorite time, early morning, was shared by Mrs. Murphy and Tucker. Pewter liked breakfast, but she wasn’t by nature an early riser. Today she awoke, ate, then curled up on the kitchen chair, her tail covering her nose.

  “Mrs. Murphy! What a good girl you are.” Harry held up a dead mouse.

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Murphy had caught a field mouse and put it on the tack-room desk.

  Harry didn’t know where the mouse came from, but she believed her barn was being expertly patrolled.

  Harry placed the mouse on the floor. She’d take it outside and bury it as soon as she checked her barn list. Each evening, her last chore in the barn was making tomorrow’s list. A big notepad with different colors of paper sat on the left-hand back corner. Each day she pulled off a different color; today’s was neon yellow. That way she wouldn’t confuse her chores. It irritated her to carry one day’s chores to the next day. She felt she had failed or, worse, had been idle.

  “Idle hands do the devil’s work.” This phrase looped through her head regularly, for she had heard it since childhood from her grandparents and her parents.

  “Hmm.” Mrs. Murphy read the list with Harry as she was sitting in Harry’s lap. “You’d better stake out the outside wall of your shed before you start digging new post holes.”

  Tucker guarded the dead mouse. “We should put this under Pewter’s chair, then listen to her fib about how she killed it. She can tell stories.”

  “She’s an honest cat until it comes to hunting. Even a fisherman can’t keep up with her lies.” Mrs. Murphy laughed, the distinctive odor of dark tea curling into her nostrils.

  Harry’s list ran in two parallel columns. The left-hand column was the chores she needed to accomplish. The right-hand column was the calls she needed to make.

  “All right, let’s go stake this thing.”

  “She listened.” Tucker’s ears pricked up.

  “Luck, plus it’s the obvious thing to do.”

  Harry scooped up the mouse, buried it under the big lilac bush. Since it was a little mouse this took two minutes. Then she grabbed a ball of chalk-impregnated orange twine out of the truck. She’d bought the twine at the building-supply store. She had enough odd wood bits to make stakes.

  She walked over to the site. “All right, you two, the trick is to double the size of the old shed and enclose ten feet by twenty feet for tools. I want a workbench, a band saw, and Peg-Board, too. Everything up on the wall, and I’ll put in a sturdy door that I can lock. Might as well do it right. And I’ve still got three huge bays, so I can put the dually and horse trailer in the shed with my tractor. Guess I can put the old Ford truck in, too, but it’s so handy to have that truck by the back door. Oh, this is exciting. And a standing seam tin roof, yes.”

  She’d totaled up her sums and knew she could afford it, because Tazio, as clever as she was brilliant—the two qualities being unrelated—had been squirreling away odds and ends from her other jobs.

  Harry would need to pay for the roof, gutters, and downspouts, but other than that, she and Tazio had scavenged the other materials, including two windows for the toolroom/workroom.

  At eight in the morning, Tazio, Cooper, Blair, and Paul showed up to help. Susan came around ten with a cooler full of fried chicken, macaroni salad, sandwiches, cookies, and a second cooler with drinks. Fair was on call that weekend, so he couldn’t be there.

  Butterflies floated overhead. Robins sang as goldfinches and cardinals darted from tree limb to tree limb. The noisy bluejay contented himself by squawking at Pewter, who, now wide awake, was watching the workers from the open door of the hayloft.

  “I will kill that bird if it’s the last thing I do,” Pewter swore.

  Simon, playing with a broken Pelham chain that once hung on Gin Fizz’s bit, one of his many treasures, said, “Ignore him. He’s a blowhard.”

  Mrs. Murphy, hidden under enormous peonies, all of them blooming late because of the unusually cool, long spring, stifled a laugh. The bluejay, intent on tormenting Pewter, swooped in front of the gray cat, then dove like a fighter jet to the lilac bush that was at the corner of the yard by the back door. The peonies, which should have been in a better line, meandered out across the lawn. Mrs. Murphy’s big showy white ones were near the lilac bush.

  “Stupid fat cat!” the handsome bluejay rasped, then hopped from the lilac bush to the newly mown lawn. He strutted and screamed more obscenities. He walked straight toward the white peonies, his tail feathers spread and his head high.

  Like lightning, Mrs. Murphy sprang from her hiding place, one swift paw slamming onto his tail, but he was quick. He twisted and narrowly escaped, leaving Mrs. Murphy with two long blue-striped tail feathers.

  “You almost got him!” Pewter, in her excitement, leaned too far out the hayloft opening and began to fall. Her sharp claws dug into the wood and she hung on, finally hauling herself up.

  “Pewts, I wo
uld have broken your fall,” Tucker, now looking straight up, promised.

  “Thank God for claws.” The gray cat breathed a long sigh.

  “I’d have made a hole in the dirt,” Simon said. “My claws aren’t that good.”

  “Bet he doesn’t come back for a while.” Mrs. Murphy, fur fluffed, laughed.

  “I hate that bird.” Pewter stomped to the hayloft ladder, turned around, and backed down, rung by rung. She joined Tucker and Mrs. Murphy outside. “How’s it going?”

  “Framing goes fast. Even got the roof joists up. Now, Mom had to buy those, you know. It’s easier to buy them than make them. By tomorrow night, weather permitting, they’ll have the siding up, T-111. Mom will put batten boards on the T-111 to make it look better. Then all that’s left to do will be the sheathing on the roof. Roofer can’t get here until the middle of the week. They’re all pounding and talking.” Tucker liked being around humans when they were happy. “Every time Tazio drops something, Brinkley brings it to her. He’s smart, that Lab, besides being big and strong.”

  The three friends sauntered over. Brinkley, head in a big water bucket there just for him, enjoyed the cool water. He lifted his head up, licking his lips. “Isn’t this something?”

  “Yes. Mom’s going to paint it that dark green, Charleston green. She says the dark green holds up better than black paint. She doesn’t like black sheds.” Tucker had covered herself in paint last time Harry painted the eaves of the barn.

  “When will they break for lunch?” Pewter focused on the important stuff.

  “Soon.” Brinkley wagged his tail.

  Blair called out from his perch to the others, “Hey, let’s eat. We’ve been hard at it.”

  “Guess he heard you,” Brinkley told Pewter.

  “I’m sure.” Pewter dashed to the cooler, which Susan was opening.

  “Do you all want to eat in the kitchen?” Harry asked.

  “It’s so beautiful today. Let’s eat right here. Our own picnic.” Susan spread a tablecloth on the ground and, with help from Tazio, placed the food on it.

  Outdoor work made them all very happy, Pewter especially. Soon the humans were eating and sharing tidbits with the cats and dogs.

  “Coop, what’s your schedule this week?” Susan asked.

  “Mornings. I actually have the evenings to myself. I wish the county would hire more law-enforcement officers, though. We’re all working overtime. The money’s good, but I have no life. I can’t believe I actually have off every evening this week. I can buy groceries. I can get my hair cut. I can mow the lawn.” She grinned.

  “I’ll mow your lawn,” Blair offered.

  Cooper, who found Blair very attractive, smiled. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in years.”

  “Not only will I mow it, I’ll edge your walkways and whatever. Bought a new edger yesterday.” He smiled.

  No one said what they were thinking, which was, “How would Little Mim take this?”

  Paul, next to Tazio, reached for mustard. “Harry, the mares look good.”

  “They’ve settled in. Hey, did anyone look at the Weather Channel?”

  “Storms tonight,” Susan succinctly answered.

  “That one in the beginning of the week kind of brushed us. Thought it would be much worse. The weathermen overdo.” Tazio ate a crunchy sweet gherkin.

  “There will be a raindrop in Richmond. It will be two miles wide!” Susan mocked.

  Harry made a mental note to ask Blair about his property when they were finished today. She didn’t want anyone else to overhear, not because she felt they would be indiscreet but because she’d promised Herb to be delicate in the matter.

  They caught up on gossip, traded opinions about their favorite baseball teams.

  Tazio, on her third pickle, asked, “Coop, any progress about Barry?”

  Harry reached for the pickle jar.

  “No. I keep hoping we’ll get a break. We did do one thing, though, for which I thank Fair. He tested each of the mares to make sure they were what Barry and Sugar said they were—you know, had the correct bloodlines. And when the babies come next year, he’ll test them.”

  “He didn’t tell me.” Harry was surprised.

  “And?” Paul’s dark eyebrows raised up.

  “He called me this morning on my way over,” Cooper replied. “Said they were legit.”

  “But wouldn’t someone find out? I mean soon enough?” Blair, not a horseman, was puzzled.

  “Yes. But if the paperwork were faked and, say, Person A bought a mare, he might not know he was duped until the foal was born. The owner would go to register the foal, thinking she was a granddaughter of Secretariat, and find out otherwise. Then they’d take saliva to check the DNA from the mare and discover she wasn’t what the seller said she was.”

  “But the owner would come right back on Barry and Sugar,” Harry declared.

  “If they were still in town,” Coop laconically replied.

  “Barry wouldn’t do that. Sugar neither. I can’t believe they would.” Paul defended them. “I’m new to Crozet, but I think they were straight up.”

  “They were,” Harry simply responded.

  “I have to track down any and every possibility.”

  “Do you think Barry’s murder has something to do with his business, then?” Harry shrewdly asked.

  “Well”—Cooper paused and held her breath, while everyone stared at her—“it might prove a fruitful avenue. He wasn’t alcoholic, no drugs—maybe a joint occasionally, I heard, but a pretty clean guy. No gambling debts. His debt was on the property he rented. He’d paid for the mares outright, he and Sugar. He paid for his truck outright. He hadn’t paid for the stud fees, but as I understand it those aren’t due until the foal stands and nurses.” Coop looked at Harry.

  “Right.”

  “So what’s left?” Tazio held up her hands, a pickle in the left one.

  “Business or romance?” Coop reached for another piece of fried chicken.

  “Carmen. She’s got a temper but not that bad.” Susan laughed.

  “We’ll find out. It takes time.” Coop had faith in herself and in Sheriff Rick Shaw.

  “I think it’s connected to Mary Pat.” Harry opened a can of Coke.

  Everyone looked at Harry, waiting for more. She smiled and shrugged.

  She decided not to say more, but she thought, Mary Pat disappeared with Ziggy Flame in 1974. Thirty years later a young man, infected with rabies, is killed. He was just starting out in the breeding business, but Barry definitely had the gift. Did he find out what happened to Ziggy Flame? Did something occur to him as he pored over bloodlines, walked St. James Farm, visited the sales? And if he found out what happened to Ziggy, surely Mary Pat’s killer would be in Ziggy Flame’s shadow.

  28

  Silvery mist enveloped the sleeping countryside. A faint gray light on the eastern horizon announced dawn, dragging in its wake a new day, bright as a freshly minted copper penny. Church bells would not call the faithful to service for hours on this Sunday morning.

  Alicia Palmer learned to awaken before dawn when she lived with Mary Pat, who was a happy early riser. This chore became a habit, one that served her well in her glory days in Hollywood, where she’d be ensconced in the makeup chair at five-thirty in the morning.

  Fence lines hugged rolling terrain and rambling roses spilled over road banks as Alicia walked down the long curving drive toward the graceful brick pillars, whose twelve-foot wrought-iron gates stood open.

  If Alicia reversed her walk, the drive, lined with majestic pin oaks, would fork, one half twisting toward the outbuildings and barns. The other half of the Y, the left prong, swung to the main house.

  Alicia stopped at the juncture of the Y, the house and barns enshrouded in mist. Although beautiful, a ghostly aura permeated St. James: it was never the same without Mary Pat.

  The cool tang of the morning, of the rambling roses, filled her nostrils. She’d loved St. James as much as she’d loved
Mary Pat. She’d been young here, full of energy, pride, and naïveté. She wondered that she could ever have been that young, and yet here she was standing at her favorite spot, standing where she stood at age twenty-five. What a trickster time is.

  Tears filled Alicia’s luminous eyes. She leaned against the white fence and thought if she closed her eyes Ziggy Flame would gallop over to her. Ziggy, being surprisingly tractable for a stallion, favored Alicia.

  The untractable creature was Mary Pat, a woman who lived at full blast. During her life Alicia had met the rich and powerful of Hollywood and, by extension, the political hangers-on eager for vote magnets, yet none of them ever measured up to Mary Pat. The sheer raw energy of her could become an irritant as people tried to keep up physically and intellectually.

  Alicia realized early on she could keep up physically but not intellectually. She didn’t mind. She’d never thought of herself as particularly bright, but she was sensitive.

  “A thorn was given me in the flesh,” Alicia mouthed the words from Second Corinthians, Chapter 12, Verse 7.

  Miranda had quoted the Scripture to her in relation to the Japanese beetles currently invading her garden.

  Alicia felt that the thorn in her flesh was the memory of Mary Pat. If she’d been more attentive, if she’d been less ambitious, she knew in her heart all would have been well. She felt a vague and growing guilt. If she’d stayed, she believed, Mary Pat would never have been killed. She left for her screen test and returned to desolation and accusation.

  She could prove nothing. Not her innocence nor lack of complicity. She had only her own sensitivity for a guide, that same sensitivity that had made her one of the best actresses of her generation. The star part of her life meant nothing to her. Being a fine actress meant something.

  Nostalgia overwhelmed her. A slash of pink illuminated the eastern sky. Mary Pat used to say, “Live each day as though it were your last.”

  Echoes from the past seemed louder in the fog. Alicia felt the fog would lift in all respects.