Cat's Eyewitness

by Rita Mae Brown

  Brother Frank replied, a hint of playfulness in his voice, “Best foot forward.”

  “Quite right.”

  Brother Frank crossed his arms again, then slipped his hands back up the long folds of his sleeves. “So you haven’t treated anyone in the last two days?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, I counted one head missing tonight.”

  “No, no one’s sick that I know of.” Brother Andrew now stood up. “Let’s check the rooms. If someone was too sick to come to our evening meal I should know about it. It’s quite possible in this aura of silence”—he tried not to be sarcastic but was anyway—“that someone is ill and told no one. We’re all concentrating so hard on remaining silent, we aren’t paying attention to one another. I didn’t notice anyone missing.”

  “Someone is.”

  “Then I suggest, Brother Frank, that we get to it.”

  Together the two men walked down the east corridor. All was well there. Then they inspected the west corridor, nodding and smiling as they looked in on each brother. When they reached Brother Thomas’s cubicle, it was empty.

  “If we ask the other brothers whether they’ve seen him, we break the vow of silence imposed by Brother Handle,” Brother Andrew whispered.

  “Let’s go to Brother Handle.”

  The two knew they’d find him in his office, books and papers piled high, his computer screen blinking. If they were lucky maybe the TV would be on. It was turned only to the news. He glanced up, not at all happy to be disturbed from his work—scheduling, which he loathed doing.

  “Forgive us, Brother.”

  Brother Handle glared at Brother Frank. “What is it?”

  “We can’t locate Brother Thomas.”

  “Look in the carpenter’s shop.”

  “He wouldn’t be there, Brother Handle. He’d be in the chapel or at private prayer in accordance with your orders.”

  Remembering his recent order, Brother Handle’s expression changed. “Where did you look?”

  “In the infirmary. I counted heads at table. Brother Andrew, whom I forced to speak”—for this Brother Frank gained Brother Andrew’s favor—“informed me that no one has been there for two days and the only case he or Brother John have seen within the week was a nasty cut on Brother David’s forearm.”

  A long silence followed. “It’s not like Brother Thomas to be disobedient or frivolous. He must be here somewhere.”

  “We can’t find him.” Brother Andrew spoke at last.

  Brother Handle knew that Brother Thomas, despite his strong constitution, would most likely meet his maker before the other monks. Worried, he rose. “Brother Andrew, if he suffered a heart attack but not a fatal one, might he be disoriented?”

  “Yes. We must find him.”

  Brother Handle said to Brother Frank, “Ring the bell, gather the brothers.”

  Within ten minutes all the brothers sat on benches in the great hall. Meetings were conducted there, not in the chapel. After lifting the ban on silence, Brother Handle asked if anyone had seen Brother Thomas.

  The last time anyone could recall seeing the elderly fellow was the night before at chapel.

  “Each of you go to your place of labor. See if, by chance, our brother is there, if he needs assistance. Brother Prescott, divide the remaining brothers into teams, give each a quadrant, and search the grounds. Oh, give them a whistle, too. You know where they are.”

  Twenty minutes later, those outside in the cold and the dark heard a shrill whistle rise above the stiff wind. All the monks outside hurried to the call.

  When they reached the statue of the Virgin Mary, they found Brother Thomas. Brother Prescott had found him first. He had a hunch that the older man might have come to this place, a favorite place of his, so he took this quadrant along with Brother Mark and Brother John. Brother John was ministering to Brother Mark, who had passed out at the sight.

  Brother Prescott quietly recited First Corinthians, Chapter 15, Verse 22: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

  13

  Dead as a doornail,” Harry called to Fair as she hung up the phone.

  “What?” He stuck his blond head in the tackroom.

  “The monks found Brother Thomas dead in front of the statue, which is still crying blood. That was Susan.”

  “Poor Susan.” Fair worried that Susan was on emotional overload.

  “She’s sad, of course, but he was eighty-two and she said he had a premonition. I think she’s okay.”

  Mrs. Murphy pricked her ears. “So that’s who it was.”

  Tucker grimaced. “Poor fellow. Frozen like that.”

  Pewter helpfully remarked, “Freeze-dried. You know, there are people who freeze-dry their pets or deer heads. It’s an alternative to taxidermy.”

  When both Mrs. Murphy and Tucker stared at her, she turned her back and licked her paw.

  “Think it hurt to die like that?” Harry wondered aloud.

  “How does it feel when you get cold? It stings, throbs. Yes, it hurt, but maybe by the end he was so disoriented he didn’t feel much.” Fair hoped that was what happened, as he brushed hay off his sleeves. “Why would he go out there in this weather?”

  “Because of the tears. He wanted to see it again.” Harry finished wiping off a steel bit, the chamois soft in her hands.

  “I guess.” Fair pulled his leather gloves off, revealing red fingertips.

  “I’m going back up there.”

  “Now?”

  “No, daylight. After all, I saw the tears first.”

  “Stay out of this.”

  “Aha!”

  “What? Aha what?” He blew on his fingertips.

  “You think it wasn’t a natural death.”

  He clapped his hands together, the fingers stinging. “For God’s sake, Harry.”

  “You told me to stay out of it. You only say that if I’m, uh . . .” She groped for the word.

  “Nosy.”

  “I prefer curious.”

  “Call it what you will; you stick your nose in places where it doesn’t belong. This is one of them.”

  “Now, Fair, Susan, and I did see the apparition. The cats and Tucker saw it, too. It was unnerving.”

  “Couldn’t smell, though. Too cold and too high up.” Tucker heard that tone in Harry’s voice and knew nothing would stop her.

  “I’m sure the testimony of Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker will comfort the monks greatly. You keep away from Afton. For one thing, Harry, they’ve suffered a loss, and you don’t go snooping in those circumstances.”

  “There will be a service. They’ll have to blast the ground out. Frozen solid. Guess they’ll have to thaw him out, too, or bury him in a kneeling position, which isn’t so bad.”

  “Harry, you think of—”

  “Practical things.” She completed his sentence.

  “Graphic.”

  “Fair, do you think I think like a man?”

  Accustomed to these abrupt shifts and the land mines that usually accompanied them, he stalled. There are some questions a woman asks that can’t be answered by a man, no matter how he answers them, without a fight or a fulsome discussion. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Susan said that to me. Actually, I’ve heard that since I was a child. You know that.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “You think logically. That’s not specific to gender, despite cultural stereotypes.”

  She was relieved. “It doesn’t bother you that I’m not . . . oh, you know.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not frilly or gushy.”

  “If it’s never bothered me before, why would it bother me now?”

  “Good answer.” Mrs. Murphy giggled.

  “She wants more than that,” Pewter wisely noted.

  “Well, BoomBoom is feminine. Her body is very feminine. Mentally she’s not really girly. Kind of middle of the road.”

  “Harry, I’m not going there.”

 
“All right. All right. I will say for BoomBoom that she’s no coward, that’s for sure.” Harry put another bridle on the four-pronged hook hanging from the ceiling. She rubbed it. “Wonder what it’s like for her to have someone in town as beautiful or maybe even more beautiful than she is.”

  “Alicia?” He placed a bridle on the opposite prong, then reached for a sponge. “There’s close to twenty years between them—fifteen or twenty, I guess. They get on like a house on fire. Maybe the age difference lowers Boom’s natural competitiveness.”

  “I really like Alicia.”

  “I do, too.” He smiled. “I liked her when I was in grade school. She didn’t put on airs, she spoke to me as if I was an adult.”

  “I know why you like her,” she teased.

  “Only you, Skeezits.” He called her by her childhood nickname.

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Why did he have to keep proving himself to her? he wondered. But, then, most guys wondered the same thing, so he didn’t feel alone.

  “Miranda brought over her chicken corn soup. Want some when we finish the chores?”

  “Did she bring over corn bread, too?”

  “She did.”

  “Call her and see if she’ll come out and have dinner with us; after all, she made it.” He laughed.

  “Date with Tracy.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll make brownies.” He glanced at the old large clock on the wall. “Half an hour.”

  “That’s a deal.” She loved brownies—anything chocolate.

  The minute Fair left the tackroom, she wiped down a rein with one hand while dialing with the other.

  “BoomBoom.” Harry proceeded to tell BoomBoom what she’d just heard from Susan. Then she asked her to go to the top of the mountain with her. She knew BoomBoom would do it.

  When she hung up the phone, she was thrilled with herself; she had a partner in crime. Harry liked doing things with people, and BoomBoom suggested that Alicia come, too. Three of them would deflect some of Fair’s criticism—not that she’d tell him. Of course, he’d find out, but it might take a day or two.

  She hummed to herself as she inhaled the odor of Horsemen’s One Step, a whitish paste in a bucket. When she’d strip down her bridles, once a year, she’d wash them with harsh castile soap, rinse with pure water, then dip them in a light oil and hang them outside over a bucket to drip-dry. In the cold she used Horseman’s One Step, which kept the leather supple after she cleaned it.

  “Don’t let me forget to put out candies for Simon,” Harry cheerfully instructed her animals.

  Simon, the half-tame possum, loved his candies.

  Harry would occasionally put out little bits of raw beef for the huge owl in the cupola, but the owl was such a mighty hunter she needed little augmentation; Simon, on the other hand, was lazy as sin.

  She chirped and chatted to her pets.

  “She’s going to get into trouble.” Pewter shook her head.

  “Never a good sign when she gets all bubbly like this,” Tucker agreed.

  “Then we’d better all hope that the Blessed Virgin Mother really can work miracles.” Mrs. Murphy sighed.

  14

  BoomBoom sank into a snowdrift up to mid-calf. Shaking off her foot, she gingerly stepped ahead, hoping for more-solid ground. She sank again.

  Alicia, also struggling, with a royal blue scarf over her mouth to ward off the bitter cold, couldn’t help but laugh.

  Harry, head down, pressed forward, slipping on the new powder over the compacted snow, which was like a layer cake with thin sheets of ice between the snow.

  Tucker stayed immediately behind Harry. The cats, left at home, would exact their revenge for this slight.

  A blush touched the snow. This Monday morning a thin mauve line appeared on the distant eastern horizon.

  The three women, accustomed to rising early, rendezvoused at BoomBoom’s house, drove to the top of the mountain, and parked BoomBoom’s truck at the cleared parking lot of the Inn at Afton Mountain. They were hiking into the monastery the back way, which from the parking lot was only a quarter of a mile. However, the property covered over two thousand acres, and the statue of the Virgin Mary stood a good mile and a half from the property’s northernmost edge.

  It was a testimony to each woman’s spirit that she elected to do this. Then again, Harry could talk a dog off a meat wagon.

  The wind blew snow down the back of Alicia’s neck, tiny cold crystals working their way behind her scarf. It occurred to her that this adventure prevented them from doing anything about Christmas. She felt overwhelmed at Christmas. When she lived in Hollywood, her staff decorated everything, and her husband—it didn’t matter which one—wrote the check. This Christmas she was going to face it with Fred and Doris, who could always lift her spirits.

  As the sky lightened in the distance, Mary was standing as a lone sentinel on the highest part of the mountain.

  Harry paused for a moment. The image, stark against the bare trees, was compelling.

  BoomBoom gave a low whistle. The other two floundered toward her. She’d found a deer trail snaking down toward the gardens below Mary as well as to the stone pumphouse that serviced the gardens, the greenhouse, and the garden cottage. They fell in line, Tucker still right on Harry’s heels. The going was better now.

  Native Americans invented the snowshoe. Tribes in the Appalachian chain had need of them. Harry wished she had a pair.

  The three women and Tucker arrived at the statue just as the sun cleared the horizon, a deep-scarlet ball turning oriflamme.

  It always amazed Harry how fast the color of the sun changed, how the world suffused with light seemed to smile.

  Chickadees, goldfinches, cardinals, and small house wrens tweeted, swooped in and out of bushes, many heading for the places where the monks had put out seed. One bold male cardinal flew to the top of the Virgin Mary’s head. He peered down at the humans and canine.

  BoomBoom’s gloved hand involuntarily flew to her heart. “My God.”

  Alicia, without thinking about it, put her arm around BoomBoom’s waist, as she, too, stared at the tears on that face, radiant in the sunrise.

  Harry, even though she’d seen it before, stood transfixed.

  “Is it blood?” the dog asked the cardinal, as birds possess marvelous olfactory powers. The hunters were especially keen, but even a seed-eater like this flaming cardinal had a sense of smell beyond anything a human could imagine.

  The cardinal cocked his head, one eye on the intrepid corgi, snow on her long snout. He then cocked it toward the tears, bent over low. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure? Blood has that odd coppery smell.”

  The cardinal, knowing the corgi wasn’t going to chase him, carefully walked toward Mary’s brow, the little bits of snow that fell from his pronged feet catching the light, falling as tiny rainbows. He bent over as far as he could. “I know that, you dim bulb! It’s blood, human blood. I can tell the difference, can you, doggie doodle?” He threw down the challenge.

  “Of course I can.” Tucker puffed out her white chest, then said, “To humans this is Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, so she’s very holy. Even a statue of her is holy. Her tears set them off. Not these three humans, but other humans.”

  “Mmm.” The cardinal unfurled his brilliant crest as his mate flew onto a tree limb nearby. “I know about her. Jesus, too. You can’t live among the monks and not learn their stories. Every species has its stories, I reckon.” He puffed out his own plump chest. “The church has cardinals, you know, imitating us, which shows some sense, don’t you think?”

  “I never thought of that.” Tucker had seen a Catholic cardinal, resplendent in his red cassock.

  “Oh, yes,” the bird confidently replied. “That’s why they’re called cardinals. They realize that we are closer to God than they are. I can fly nearer, you see. They’re stuck on earth.”

  “Chirpy fellow, isn’t he?” Harry whispered.

  “Happy.” Alicia smiled,
pulling her scarf below her mouth.

  “Never thought about flying.” Tucker pondered the cardinal’s remark.

  “How could you? You’re earthbound, too. I get to see everything.”

  “Have you seen God up there?” The strong little dog didn’t think God sat on the highest tree branch.

  “No.” The cardinal, crest falling back down slick, lifted one foot from the snow, the tiny sharp claws on the end glistening. “The great cardinal in the sky is beyond my comprehension.”

  “How do you know it isn’t a bald eagle?” Tucker had seen quite a few bald eagles in the last four years. The symbol of the United States was making a comeback along the great rivers of Virginia as well as near the incomparable Chesapeake Bay, one of the wonders of the world.

  He blew air out of the two tiny beak holes. “Ha! What do they do but eat fish? Sit in trees, swoop down, and snag a fish. So self-regarding, those eagles. Wouldn’t give you a nickel for the lot of them.” He leaned forward a bit, toward the dog. “If the mature males didn’t have that white hood—a little like the true Carmelite monks, you see, white hood over brown—well, you wouldn’t look twice at them.”

  “They’re pretty darn big.” Tucker’s brown eyes stared upward. Even she found the sight of the bloody tears peculiar.

  “Piffle.” The cardinal tossed his head and his crest again unfurled, which made his mate laugh. “Piffle, I say piffle. If I flew next to a bald eagle, you’d look at me first.”

  As the women examined the base of the statue, the huge boulder on which it was placed, and the area around it, they couldn’t even determine where Brother Thomas’s body had been found, because the fierce winds and snow squalls at this altitude swept away any depressions in the snow, depositing yet more snow.

  “You say you can see everything when you fly? Did you see Brother Thomas’s body?”

  “Of course.”

  His mate lifted off the branch, landing gracefully on Mary’s outstretched hand. “We saw everything,” she boasted.

  “What do you mean?” Tucker’s ears pricked up and her mouth opened slightly, revealing strong, big fangs as white as the snow.