Cat's Eyewitness

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Miss it?”

  “I do and I don’t.” Harry stared out the window as they drove north toward White Hall. “I miss seeing Miranda every day, and I really miss her orange-glazed cinnamon buns.” Harry laughed. “I still see her, but it’s not the same as working together. She spends more time with Tracy now.” She paused a moment, turned toward Susan. “I expect she’ll marry Tracy, don’t you?”

  “I expect.” Susan laughed.

  “Know what I miss about the post office?” Harry returned to Susan’s original query. “Reading other people’s postcards.”

  Susan smiled. “You were right to leave. It was time. You can do more and you will.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence.” Harry meant it. “I alternate between not having a care in the world and dire panic.”

  “If you would remarry Fair, honey, much of your financial stress would lift.”

  “Is that why you married Ned?” Harry bit her lip.

  “I married Ned because I was nineteen and pregnant with Danny, which you well know.”

  “Would you have married him anyway—later?”

  “Yes.” Susan nodded.

  “This love stuff is too complicated.” Harry sighed.

  Susan braked as a squirrel foolishly dashed in front of the station wagon. “It can be.”

  “Do you love Ned?”

  “Where did that come from? Oh, never mind.” Susan took her right hand off the steering wheel and waved it dismissively for a second. “I do love him—more than I knew I did. I’m scared to death I’m going to lose him.”

  “Could you cheat?”

  “Anyone could, given the right or wrong circumstances.”

  The temperature had soared to fifty-four degrees, and the melting snow and ice created flooded ditches, jammed culverts. In some places, creeks had jumped their beds. All one could hear was melting water, running water, water sloshing underfoot or overfoot. Susan slowed on some curves as water flowed over the black asphalt. The road to White Hall was twisty.

  “A secret love?” Harry prodded. “Ever have a secret love? One you never told anyone—even me—about?”

  “When I look back at how I felt when I was Brooks’s age, you know, I can remember the events better than the emotions. When you’re feeling powerful emotions for the first time, it’s confusing and overpowering. My mind said one thing, my body another. That’s not a secret love, but I suffered secret crushes.

  “Let’s get something to drink. I’m thirsty. I put too much salt on my eggs this morning. I’m on a sea-salt kick, but salt is salt and I’ve got to cut it from my diet.” Susan wearied of reflecting on her past.

  They crossed the road. There wasn’t much traffic out in White Hall. One other car, a BMW X5, was parked at the white clapboard convenience store.

  “Nordy Elliott’s car cost a pretty penny. He must be making good money.” Harry had a memory for horses and cars. “What’s he doing in White Hall?”

  The answer was quickly forthcoming when she slid out of the station wagon and glanced across the street. On the southwestern corner of this small crossroads reposed a large, pretty crèche. Nordy was there, microphone in hand, as Priscilla Friedberg held the camera on her shoulder.

  “What would you like?” Susan knew Harry would have to go over and find out what he was doing.

  “Uh, Co-Cola.”

  “Food?”

  “Mmm, I’ll wait until we get to town.”

  As Susan pushed open the door to the store, Harry walked across the paved two-lane road. She waited behind Priscilla until Nordy finished.

  “—the joys of the season. Nordy Elliott. Channel Twenty-nine News.” He waited a moment as Priscilla cut off the camera. “Harry, how are you?”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Every day until Christmas I shoot a crèche or Christmas decorations.”

  “We cover a lot of territory.” Priscilla patted the compact professional Panasonic, the latest in equipment. The flat image of video didn’t bother her, because she was shooting reportage. Had she been shooting a television film it would have driven her crazy.

  “Bet you do. The Virgin Mary story is good for you, Nordy. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  He smiled broadly as he walked with Priscilla back to his car. “National feeds. It’s a hell of a good story. Guess I shouldn’t say hell.”

  “The Blessed Virgin Mother isn’t revengeful,” Harry replied. “However, Brother Handle might be.”

  “He’s not too happy with me,” Nordy acknowledged.

  Susan emerged from the store with her hands full. Harry started up the wet steps to help Susan before she came down.

  “Hi, Nordy. Hi, Priscilla,” Susan called as they said their hellos.

  Nordy bounded up the steps, passing Harry, stopping before the top one. He held out his hand for Susan to take it.

  “It’s nice to see you,” he said.

  “You’re doing a great job with the Virgin Mary story.” Susan appreciated his chivalry.

  Harry, meanwhile, enjoyed her Coke. In her left hand she held the bag containing Susan’s sandwich. Nordy carried the cup of coffee Susan had bought.

  As they leaned against the car, Nordy asked the two friends, “Is BoomBoom dating anyone?”

  Priscilla laughed. “Come on, Nordy. She’ll never look at you in a million years.”

  He ignored his sidekick. “I asked her out and she said she’s ‘keeping clear of entanglements for a year,’ but that doesn’t mean she isn’t dating.”

  “She’s not.” Susan thought the coffee tasted pretty good.

  “What’s her favorite flower?” he asked.

  “Pink roses,” Harry answered. “She also likes those big white lilies with the pink throats.”

  “Thanks.” He smiled.

  “She really is taking a year off. I know you’re keeping count,” Susan added.

  “After months of no-go, you might look good,” Priscilla teased Nordy.

  “I always look good.” He smiled, flashing strong, straight teeth.

  As Nordy and Priscilla drove off to their next location in downtown Charlottesville, Susan and Harry lifted their faces to the warming sun.

  “God, that feels good.” Harry’s cheeks flushed.

  “Whenever winter wears me down, I look at the calendar and tell myself, no matter what, the first snowdrops will be up by mid-March and the crocuses soon follow, even if they have to peep up through the snow.”

  “Yeah. Winter is beautiful.” Harry appreciated all those hidden things now visible with the leaves off the trees. “But nothing beats spring here in the foothills.”

  “Fall.”

  “Mmm, toss-up.” She finished her can of Coke. “Looks like BoomBoom has another conquest.”

  “If she had a dollar for every man who tripped over his own feet in her presence, she’d be almost as rich as Big Mim.” Susan wondered what it must feel like to have that kind of power.

  “They fall in love with her but she doesn’t fall in love with them.” Harry crossed her arms over her chest.

  “She’s falling in love now.”

  “BoomBoom?”

  Susan nodded her head in affirmation. “And you know, I think it’s for real.”

  “How could she sneak out on us like that?”

  “She hasn’t. She’s falling right in front of us.”

  “She is?”

  “Alicia,” Susan flatly stated.

  “Alicia? Oh, never. BoomBoom isn’t gay.”

  “I didn’t say she was gay.” Susan crumpled the paper bag her sandwich had been in, aimed for the big open garbage can, and sank her shot. “I said she was falling in love.”

  “In an ideal world you fall in love with the person, not the wrapping paper. Still. It’s hard for me to believe.” Harry frowned.

  “Why? Makes you nervous?”

  “No. Yes. Not because she’s in love with a woman, but because I never saw it coming. Because I thought I knew BoomBo
om. This changes things. I hate not knowing.”

  “Harry, she probably didn’t know she could feel this way. And it doesn’t change anything. She’s the person we’ve always known. BoomBoom’s a strong woman. She’s endured social censure for her many affairs, for flaunting her beauty. She took it with good grace.”

  “You’re right. I never thought of that.”

  “Once she figures out that she really is in love with Alicia, she’ll be just fine.”

  “What about Alicia?”

  “Alicia? She’s crazy about BoomBoom.”

  “She is?”

  “Harry.” Susan threw up her hands in despair. “Come on, I’ll take you to the John Deere dealer; you’ll be in your element.”

  Harry brightened. “Have you seen the new compact tractors? Susan, they are something else.” She stopped. “Oh, you’re not going there, are you? You’re pulling my leg.”

  Susan hugged Harry. “Sure. Come on, Skeezits.”

  Back in the car, heading east toward town, Harry asked, “Is there anything Brother Thomas ever said to you that stuck in your mind?”

  “He was such a sweet man. He used to tell me to trust God. And, um . . . well, I do remember once when I was in high school I was upset about something—I don’t even remember what it was—and he told me to thank God for my troubles. They’re gifts in disguise.”

  “Do you?”

  “No. I haven’t learned that lesson.” Susan powered up the steep hill near what used to be a farm called Rustling Oaks, owned by a fabulous horseman, Billy Jones. It was a subdivision now. Susan hoped Billy haunted the big, flashy homes.

  “Me, neither.”

  “You’re usually the one with the hunches about everything but romance,” Susan smiled at her friend, “but this time I have a hunch that there are troubles up ahead. I hope I have the guts to get through them.”

  “You will.” Harry’s voice resonated with conviction. “I have a hunch, too. Brother Thomas did not die a natural death.”

  “Harry, don’t let your imagination run away with you.” Susan didn’t want to think her great-uncle had been murdered.

  “Why go out in that hellish cold? At his age? Remember Dante’s Inferno? The lowest circle of hell is ice. Why would he go out?”

  “He wanted to pray before the tears of blood.”

  Harry put her hands together, resting her chin on her forefingers. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You know how you get. You eat up any conspiracy theory that you hear or read. Why, the last book you read was about the British poisoning Napoleon by degrees when he was exiled on St. Helena.” She sighed, then continued. “G-Uncle Thomas was sweet and gentle. No one would kill him.”

  “Sweet and kind people are blasted every day all over the world.” Harry marveled at the human capacity for evil.

  “Why G-Uncle?”

  “I don’t know. But you feel that BoomBoom is falling for Alicia. I trust you about those things. You have amazing radar for human relationships. My radar is different. I pick up blips about these kinds of things, about secrets.”

  “Not my secrets.” Susan said this with humor as they passed the left turn to Barracks Stud and the Barracks, two equine facilities.

  “Yours aren’t big enough.” Harry lifted her eyebrow.

  “That’s what you think,” Susan’s voice slightly darkened.

  “Then you’re really, really good.”

  A long pause followed, traffic increasing. “Why would anyone kill Thomas? Really, Harry, it’s incomprehensible.”

  “People are often killed just because they’re inconvenient.”

  20

  Large, round balls studded with pyracantha berries filled an enormous silver bowl that Mary Pat Reines had won at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show in 1962. Ropes of fresh garland hung over every mantelpiece, doorway, and even the front hall mirror. Alicia and BoomBoom were artfully placing oranges, apples, walnuts, and sprays of wheat throughout the garlands. Before the heavy evergreens were embedded with treasures, a thin red ribbon was entwined with a three-inch-wide gold mesh ribbon, and both were then woven through the garlands. The mesh ribbon’s sides bolstered with thin wire proved easy to maneuver. The stunning finished effect lightened Alicia’s spirits.

  The shimmering melancholy veil lifted from Alicia’s shoulders as she and BoomBoom worked this Sunday. She kept up a good front during Christmas, but the holidays made her dwell on those she loved who were no longer living. Bach’s Magnificat played throughout the house.

  “Every culture fights the dark,” Alicia noted, selecting a robust red apple and placing it next to a pale green one. “Hmm, think I’ll get one equal in size to the green. What do you think?”

  “Your eye is better than mine, but balance is everything.” BoomBoom’s gold fox mask earrings with ruby eyes caught the firelight.

  “Takes so long to find it. Balance.” Alicia stepped back. “Better. Another half hour and we’ll be about as festive as possible—well, except for the tree, and that monster won’t get here until Thursday or Friday, a Douglas fir on steroids.”

  “Did you decorate in California?”

  “Mm-hmm. One year I thought I’d use plants native to the great state of California. I used eucalyptus for wreaths. One eucalyptus wreath would have done the trick, but no, I filled the house with them. The place smelled like a spa. When one was greeted at the door, I’m sure they expected me to come out in a bathrobe. Sherry thought it was hysterical, but he had a pungent sense of humor.” She smiled slightly.

  “The studio head?”

  “Driven man. Brilliant, really.”

  “Ever speak to him?”

  “Once or twice a week. We couldn’t live together, but once we gave that up, this amazing, supportive friendship flourished in marriage’s place. I am a very lucky woman.”

  “It’s not luck. You’re good to people and they’re good back.”

  “Thank you. I try, but once sex is in the mix, one becomes irrational. You know, I think men are more irrational about it than women. Women talk about it and are afforded the luxury of acting irrational, but men really are irrational.”

  “That’s been my experience, except for Fair Haristeen.”

  Alicia sipped hot cider, put the white gold-edged porcelain cup down, and began tying the large gold mesh and thin red ribbon bow that would be the final touch. “Well?”

  BoomBoom wedged in the last of the walnuts, the rough, roundish shell rubbing against her fingertips. She thought whole walnuts brought luck so she had one in the glove compartment of her car, her truck, and her purse. “Alicia, you’re supposed to beg for details, not just a ‘Well.’ ” She imitated Alicia’s voice.

  “Details at eleven.” Alicia glanced at her watch. “Do you know, it’s ten-thirty. I can’t believe it. It feels like we’ve only been doing this for an hour.”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  “It does and I do. With you. You’re marvelous company.” Alicia smiled. “All right. Details. Really. How was or is Fair not irrational?”

  “Scientific mind, I guess. Think of it: a human doctor needs to learn one circulatory system, one set of bones, etc., but the veterinarian has to learn different species. I think vets need to be smarter.”

  “Debatable but good point. All right, he’s logical. Right?”

  “Logical. Considerate. Not especially passionate but not a dullard. We enjoyed each other, but I never felt he was mine. You know how men get when they’re crazy about you, they can’t take their eyes off you, they touch you constantly even in public, they want to sit close and they become territorial. Jealous. All of that.”

  “Perhaps he was still in love with Harry but didn’t know it. A man under other circumstances would kill to be with you.”

  BoomBoom beamed. “You think so?”

  “Oh, now, you know that. We both do. We have the looks they want, and men fall in love with what they see. It takes them longer to find out who you are, and some
don’t want to know. Then again, I can accuse some women of not wanting to know the man in their life but they’ll take his paycheck in a skinny minute.”

  BoomBoom laughed. “Haven’t heard ‘skinny minute’ in a long time. I’ve heard ‘New York minute,’ though.”

  “Well, were you angry with Fair?”

  “No. He’s handsome, strong, and very masculine. I suppose when you deal with life and death, you’re covered with blood, you’re pulling a foal out of a mare, probably you see life differently than someone who sits in front of a computer in a squeaky clean white office.”

  “Yes. If anything will cut the balls off men, excuse my bluntness, it will be the computer.”

  “I wonder about that myself.”

  “Men—women, too—aren’t meant to sit still for hours on end. Oh, companies and commerce dress it up by using words like ‘burn,’ ‘download,’ ‘firewall,’ making anything to do with computers sound butch, but there’s nothing masculine about clicking away at keys all day, staring into a blue screen. The body turns to mush and the mind alters, as well. You aren’t fighting, you aren’t cutting trees, plowing fields, hoisting up a steel girder. You’re sitting, sitting, sitting. I suppose sneaking onto a porno site offers scant relief, but that’s not real, either. Images. We’re a nation duped by images, and I know that better than anyone. I used to be a twenty-foot image on a movie screen in films shot on seventy millimeter. You know, BoomBoom, it frightens me; what we are becoming frightens me because we run counter to nature, and creatures that violate nature die or cause catastrophe and everyone dies.”

  BoomBoom picked up her cup of cider and sat on the sofa facing the fire. Alicia had affixed the bow, and she sat down, too, beside BoomBoom. “Funny that we’re having this discussion, because I think of it, too. I can do a lot of business on the computer. I can contact accounts, keep accounts, keep up with inventory, but my business sells a real product. I have to go to the quarry, and I’m searching for new quarries or relationships with other companies that have a product I don’t, like marble. What I do is still real.”

  “You like business.”

  “I do. I’ll give Fair that, he encouraged me. Most of the other men in my life, like my husband, either disregarded that part of me, patronized me, or, worse, tried to come into the business. Sort of the way nonacting husbands begin managing their wives’ careers, I guess.”