Whisker of Evil

by Rita Mae Brown

  Leaning against a spectacular oak, Harry thought about three of her contemporaries gone to eternal rest—Barry, Sugar, and Jerome. She didn’t like to dwell on her own demise, but under the circumstances it was hard not to think about it.

  “Tucker, ever notice that skulls are grinning?”

  “Can’t say that I’ve thought about it,” the corgi replied seriously, the slanting rays of the early sun burnishing her coat red-gold.

  “Don’t,” Pewter, sitting on a flat long slab, said. “Morbid.”

  Just then a fat caterpillar, green with spiky outgrowths, traversed over her tail, all those caterpillar feet in her fur. Pewter jumped straight up, flipping the caterpillar onto another flat slab tombstone.

  Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker laughed.

  “Mighty Puss!” Murphy mocked her.

  “Oh, shut up.” Pewter turned her back on them all, picked up her tail, and licked the fur back down.

  The sky, a brilliant blue, promised a spectacular day.

  Harry exhaled through her nose. “Up and at ’em.”

  “Is she going to cut hay today?” Tucker wondered.

  “Think so, but at the moment,” Mrs. Murphy paused as Harry opened the gate and headed toward Blair’s, “she’s going to pay a social call. Pewter, are you coming?”

  “No, I’m going to stay here and commune with nature,” came the haughty reply.

  “Oh, I thought the caterpillar was more nature than you could handle.” The tiger bounded out of the graveyard along with Tucker.

  “I’ll show them. Bunch of snots. I’m not afraid of a caterpillar. It felt creepy, that’s all. Too many chubby legs, and there’s sticky stuff on the feet. O-o-o.” She wrinkled her nose as she turned to watch her family skip toward the farmhouse.

  Her nemesis, the bluejay, zoomed into the oak, shrieked, squawked, shook the branches, and then, conceit to the max, floated down to perch on top of a vertical tombstone not four feet from Pewter, who was nursing her pride.

  “Where’d you put the caterpillar, idiot cat?”

  Pewter’s pupils widened. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking at your sorry self,” the jay whistled.

  “I’m not sorry. I’m sitting here amongst the dead, which provokes me to philosophical musings.” She wished that the hateful bird were even six inches closer. She knew she’d nab him for sure then.

  “Don’t make me regurgitate!” The bluejay’s topknot stood straight up as he laughed, which sounded like “queedle, queedle,” the little happy sound jays make.

  “Actually, I didn’t think your range would be this far. There’s plenty to eat at our place.”

  “I fly from one state to the other if I feel like it. Bluejays migrate, you know. Life’s too good here, so I stay. Course, right now it’s getting a little exciting, what with Tucker finding Mary Pat’s thigh bone. All the wild animals and birds are talking about it.”

  “I helped, you know.” Pewter puffed out her chest, as did the jay. They looked like odd mirrors of each other.

  “Queedle, queedle,” the jay’s beak clacked.

  “I did!”

  “Pewter, you’d run the other way if you saw a dead anything.”

  “Bull! I picked up a dead pileated woodpecker, and I’ve seen plenty of dead old things.” She stopped for a moment as she inched a tad closer. “The smell. Hate the smell. Tucker, of course, loves it, but dogs are—well, I don’t have to explain.”

  As birds have a sharp sense of smell, the jay shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me one way or t’other. I’m not a carrion eater so I don’t much care, but the crows, now, they’ll tell you that the eyes and the tongue are the greatest delicacy. Whenever a large mammal dies, they hurry to get there before the buzzards.” He slicked down his handsome crest for a moment. “I love acorns and seeds. I bury them, you know.”

  “You don’t remember where you buried them.”

  He cocked his head. “Sometimes I do forget. Tell you what, whoever planted Mary Pat up there on that high ridge didn’t forget.”

  “Don’t know if it’s Mary Pat for sure.” Pewter scooted a tiny bit closer.

  “It is. We birds can get the word out faster than you guys. And I’ll tell you something else, fatty: No Ziggy Flame up there. I bet you Ziggy was right under the human noses all the time.”

  A thin tongue of breeze licked the distinctive pin-oak leaves.

  “That was before my time, but everyone says that Ziggy was charismatic and bright, a bright chestnut. I don’t think anyone could hide him. Not for long. He wasn’t under their noses.” Pewter refuted the jay.

  “You know, if you fly over those high pastures there are old trails, and some will take you east, some west. But the most interesting one, considering what’s going on, is the one that will take you right down into Greenwood and Route 250. Whoever killed Mary Pat could have hidden Ziggy, then walked him down to Greenwood, loaded him on a trailer, and been out of town before you can say ‘caterpillar.’ ”

  “Guess that’s one of the reasons—the disappearance of Ziggy Flame—that Alicia wasn’t as solid a suspect as the cops hoped she was.” Pewter swished her tail. Since the caterpillar had crawled on it, she felt like other things were crawling over her. “I mean, the woman inherited everything but a couple of broodmares. Ziggy Flame was hers. Why steal him?”

  The jay gurgled, then spoke clearly. “Throw everyone off the track.”

  “Do you think Alicia Palmer killed Mary Pat?”

  He shrugged, fluffed out his feathers. “I don’t know Alicia, but one human’s pretty much like any other. They’re killers by nature.”

  Pewter didn’t dispute this. The human predatory drive seemed out of proportion to their needs. “Harry’s different.”

  The bluejay liked to needle Pewter, but Harry did seem closer to animals than most humans. He decided not to disparage Pewter’s favorite human. He watched as Blair opened the back door of his farmhouse. “Aren’t you going to join them?”

  “No.”

  “What if a whole bag of tent caterpillars fell on you?”

  Pewter shuddered. “Ugh.” Then she leapt at the bluejay, who simply flew straight up, circled, and dive-bombed her.

  “Fat cat!”

  “I will get you,” Pewter spat as he circled her one more time, then sped away.

  Harry, like the Sanburnes, recognized that Blair was from other parts. But much as it cut against the grain, she decided to come straight to the point with him. This denied her the pleasure of coming to the point by those decreasing concentric circles that gathered in a wealth of information. That information might appear extraneous, but in good time it was always money in the bank. The other reason she shied away from this was she would go straight to the point only with a dear friend. Such communication was a sign of love and respect. Much as she liked Blair, he wasn’t as close to Harry as Susan, Miranda, or Herb.

  After Harry and Blair exchanged ideas about Carmen’s disappearance, the strange events going on, Amy Wade’s settling in at the post office, and other sundry things, Harry thought she might as well get to it.

  “More tea?” Blair offered.

  “No, thank you. I’ve overstayed my welcome as it is. I know you’ve got a lot to do.”

  “Not as much as you.” He smiled.

  “The shed is wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for your help, and the fence posts are a godsend.”

  “Harry, you’ve bailed me out of so many things. If it weren’t for you, I don’t think my cattle would be looking as good as they do.”

  “Oh, Blair, you would have learned sooner or later.”

  Harry had built him a cattle chute, which made worming, giving shots, and tagging so much easier. Blair had been trying to catch his cattle one by one in the field.

  “I hope you will forgive me for being direct.”

  He leaned forward, his sensitive eyes welcoming. “You know I think it saves time.” Saving time is quite a virtue among Northerners.

&n
bsp; “That it does. As you know, this is the old Jones place, and you’ve done a beautiful job restoring the cemetery. Herb can’t keep up with that and his duties, too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Actually, I should tell you that he and I have spoken and he’s asked me to broach this subject.” She took a deep breath. “Blair, should you sell this place for any reason, Herbie and I would like to buy it together. We’d work with you any way we can because, as you know, neither one of us is exactly cash heavy.”

  A broad smile crossed Blair’s face, a face instantly recognizable to anyone who read magazines or looked through clothing catalogs. “No kidding.”

  “We celebrate his thirty years at St. Luke’s next month on the seventeenth. I reckon he’ll retire sometime in the next ten years, maybe even the next five. He’d like to live in the farmhouse. And I’d like to farm the bottomland.”

  “I see. Is the next question about my intentions regarding Little Mim?” Blair, in his sweet way, tried to be Southern by saying intentions.

  “Actually, no.” Harry exhaled, relieved that she had spoken about the land. “I don’t think that’s my business.”

  “Harry, you really are different, you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Trust me. You are. You are the strangest combination of curiosity and rectitude. You can’t resist being a detective, but you don’t want to pry into someone’s personal life.”

  She flashed her crooked smile. “If I thought you were a murderer, I’d pry.”

  “Oh, Harry.” He tapped the table with his knife. “I didn’t want to fall in love with Little Mim. I thought she was just another spoiled, empty, rich snob, but I was wrong. She’s not. And becoming vice-mayor has brought her out of herself and out from under her mother’s shadow. She’s a remarkable lady.”

  “She is.” Harry, while not feeling especially close to Little Mim, could appreciate her good qualities.

  “Aunt Tally is for me. Jim and I get along great, but the mother—oh, she’s not thrilled about my line of work, and she thinks I’ll fall prey to temptation. All those female models. Since most of them are anorexic or bulimic, I’m not attracted one bit!” He laughed.

  “Big Mim’s much better about you than she used to be.”

  “I guess. I do wonder how much longer I can model. I think I’m about due for a big life change.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Well, you’ve already started on yours. It’s weird to go into the post office and not see you.”

  “Weird for me, too. I don’t know what comes next. I have to sift through dreams and reality.”

  “Your dream?”

  “To farm.”

  “The reality?” His eyebrows raised.

  “You can’t make a thin dime.”

  “Bet if you found the right crop or crops you could.”

  “That’s one of the things I have to think about. Like ginseng—it’s a good cash crop. Soybeans can be, too. All kinds of things are going through my head, although I’m caught up in what’s been happening around here.”

  “I guess we all are in one way or another.” He laid his knife across his plate. “Harry, I promise you I will give you and Herb first option, should I sell. And I will be as fair as I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you want to tell Herb or should I?”

  “I will, since he spoke to me in confidence. Which means we should keep this between ourselves,” she said warmly. “If you do sell this wonderful old place, I hope you don’t leave Crozet. I’ve grown to like you very much. We all have.”

  “Thank you. I feel the same way about you. If I move from here it will be to Dalmally or—and this is my hope—over to Rose Hill. Aunt Tally could use us over there, and Little Mim would be a tiny bit farther away from her mother.”

  “I hope you don’t expect Aunt Tally not to meddle.” Harry laughed.

  “No, but she’s not as bad.”

  As Harry walked out the back door to leave, she and Blair shook hands on the first-option deal. A piece of paper was only as good as the person who signed it. A handshake staked your reputation on it.

  46

  Using the Jockey Club software, Fair spent all night checking every registered offspring of Ziggy Flame, those horses born between 1971 and 1974. Then he checked their offspring. He did the same for Ziggy’s full brother standing in Maryland. Ziggy Dark Star had a great career at stud. The printout of his offspring was almost book-length.

  This only covered horses registered with the Jockey Club. During Ziggy Flame’s brief career, he’d also produced hunters and foxhunters from non-black-type mares. Mary Pat generously allowed good horsemen who were not in the race game to breed to her rising star. Big Mim benefited from this generosity and was riding a third-generation hunter with Ziggy Flame blood, as was Harry. Her Tomahawk had Ziggy blood, since his grandfather, Flaming Tomahawk, came from one of Big Mim’s best mares.

  As hunters and foxhunters have no central registry such as the Jockey Club, there was no way Fair could get statistics on those horses. While Ziggy’s brother may have been bred to non-black-type mares in the beginning of his stud career, he proved a powerful sire so early that the chances of him covering a less than stellar mare were thin. His stud fee had been seventy-five thousand dollars, payable when the foal stood and nursed, as is the custom. Show-ring people and foxhunters were shut off from that blood.

  As Fair feverishly worked, he thought about the limitations of equine breeding. In America, it’s every man (or woman) for himself. There is, as yet, no sense of genetic capital, no commitment to improving bloodstock nationwide. This translates into money and brains or both. Those with the big bucks have access to the best thoroughbred blood. Those without have to be highly intelligent and figure out a way to tap into those bloodlines through a sister, brother, or offspring of a great horse. These horses might never have raced or they retired early with an injury, therefore their get—the term for offspring—would bring little at the yearling sales. But it’s the get of these horses that make the great eventers, jumpers, hunters, and foxhunters. The people who own them, if professional horsemen, have spent their lives combing the back pastures of the large breeding farms, haunting the smaller sales, traveling from Maryland to Oklahoma to Ocala to New York, always searching. Others would select a few well-made mares and start a small broodmare band, as Barry Monteith and Sugar Thierry had done. They would then find that half-brother to Lord At War or Pleasant Colony, breed their mare, and pray.

  Fair had intended to have dinner with Harry but was so caught up in his research, he canceled. She understood, as he told her what he was looking for and why. Since he had been so attentive of late, she knew he had to be totally wrapped up in his research. Rather than be put out, she was excited he was working late. She wanted to see the results.

  It was now nine o’clock, Monday morning, June 28. Fair carried a banker’s box filled with printout sheets to Deputy Cynthia Cooper and Sheriff Rick Shaw.

  “Can you condense this?” Rick lifted the white lid off the box.

  “More or less.” The tall veterinarian appreciated how well organized and sparse the county sheriff’s headquarters were. Rick ran a tight ship.

  “Fair, sit down. Can I get you coffee or a Coke or anything? A doughnut. Rick’s big on Krispy Kremes.”

  Fair waved off Cooper’s offer. “Caffeine to the max. I stayed up until four-thirty this morning.”

  “It must be good.” Rick smiled as he dropped into his chair, which he pulled out to face Fair.

  “I think it is. I wanted to see if there was consistency in the offspring of Ziggy Flame. The Jockey Club has his records concerning registered breedings. His first year he was bred to fifteen mares. This only counts horses registered with the Jockey Club; remember, no records for the others unless Mary Pat left them.”

  “She did.” Cooper told him. “That’s in the notebook we found in Barry Monteith’s effects.”

  “May I see the
m later? It’d be good if I could take them home.”

  “We can do that.” Rick nodded, thankful that Fair, a specialist in equine reproduction, wanted to study the notebooks.

  “Ziggy’s second year he bred twenty-two mares, and the last year he bred thirty-one. Those are pretty good numbers for a stallion in central Virginia. Ten or fifteen would have been more usual. Granted, Mary Pat had fabulous connections, one being Paul Mellon, one of the best breeders America has seen. So she had a wider cast to her net than most people starting out with an unproven stallion but one who had a good racing career.”

  “What were you looking for?” Rick’s eyebrows knitted together.

  “Sorry, I got off the point, didn’t I?”

  “That’s all right.”

  “I was looking for color. Ziggy was a flaming chestnut, hence his name. Color in horses is complicated. But I was looking for percentages. You see, a chestnut stallion bred to a chestnut mare means one hundred percent of the offspring will be chestnut. So all of Ziggy’s offspring bred to chestnut mares must be chestnut. On the cover letter there, I’ve broken down the colors of his offspring according to the color of the mare he bred.”

  “Great.” Cooper smiled.

  “Okay, I’m a little dense here. All I know about horses is they eat while I sleep. Why is this important?” Rick reached for his cigarette pack.

  “This is why.” Fair handed him the stats for Ziggy Dark Star, Flame’s full brother, a bay—which is a dark brown horse with a black mane and tail—born in 1967. Ziggy Dark Star’s lip tattoo started with a W. “This horse, a full brother to Flame, was a bay. But look at the number of chestnut offspring each time Dark Star was bred to a chestnut mare.”

  “Same percent as Ziggy Flame,” Rick read the cover letter.

  “Yes.” Fair was jubilant. “If he were bay, there would be more color variation in the offspring.”

  “And you’re sure a bay stallion wouldn’t produce this same percent of chestnut fillies and colts?” Cooper was fascinated.

  “That’s why I’ve brought you the box. There’s the printout of every mare bred to Ziggy Flame and Ziggy Dark Star. Her age, her breeding, her color, the color of her offspring, her own breeding, the color of her progenitors. And everything is broken down in the cover letter, but all the research is in that box.”