“Seen a lot of that. Fortunately, neither of my husbands was inclined that way. One ran a studio and the other one refitted 747s and other big flying cows for rich Saudis and rock stars.”
“Did you think of Mary Pat as a husband?”
This question took Alicia off guard; she thought a moment, then burst out laughing. “No. God, she’d laugh to hear that. No, I thought of her as an angel. Even when I just had to have my career, I loved her but she knew better than to move kit and caboodle to Los Angeles. It would have killed her. She belonged in the country and, sad to say, that killed her, too, but Boom, when your time is up it’s up, even if the agent of your death is another human being.”
“Yes, I believe that.”
The phone rang and Alicia reached for it. “Hello.”
“Alicia, hello, this is Nordy Elliott. I called to tell you to watch the eleven o’clock news. Pete used the story about you and BoomBoom at the SPCA. I didn’t think he’d use it until tomorrow. I tried BoomBoom but she’s not home. I made copies of the story if you’d like, a DVD.”
“I’d love one, and I’ll be sure to watch. Thank you for calling me.”
“I know it’s late, but like I said, Pete decided to use it tonight. You wouldn’t know where BoomBoom might be, would you? I’d like her to see it if she’s near a set.”
“Hold on.” Alicia handed the phone to BoomBoom as she mouthed the name, “Nordy.”
BoomBoom listened as Nordy effused over how the camera liked her; he didn’t say he liked her, rather, the camera liked her. She had trouble getting him off the phone. “Yes, I’ll be at Jill and Paul Summers’s Christmas party. It’s always the high point of the season.” She listened. “I’ll see you there if not before. Thank you for tracking me down.” Once she was able to disengage him, she rolled her eyes, dropping her head back on the sofa. “He’s such a wimp.”
“Handsome.”
“Still a wimp. If you want to ask a woman out, then do it.”
“Men face a lot more rejection than we do. Each one handles it a bit differently. Don’t be too hard on the fellow.”
“You’re right.” BoomBoom handed her the phone. “We’d better watch our debut as the team of Palmer and Craycroft.”
They walked into the den, and Alicia picked up the remote, clicking on the huge, flat-screen TV. After teasers and ten minutes of so-called hard news, they were rewarded with the footage of the two of them at the SPCA delivering a truckload of cat and dog food. Alicia was in the bed, handing down sacks of kibble and cat crunchies to BoomBoom. A stream of smiling workers lined up behind BoomBoom to carry sacks.
Nordy cut away to dogs and cats inside the pound, a clean and spacious one. There were also hamsters, one cockatoo, and an aging black goat. Then he cut back to the women, the truck now half full as workers continued to carry sacks of feed. He did a great job, even making a pitch for adoption and singling out some special animals.
BoomBoom started to cry. “I can’t stand it.”
“Sugar, what’s wrong?” Alicia looked around for a hanky or tissue. She stood up. “Let me get you a—”
“I don’t care if I have a runny nose and eyes if you don’t. I can’t stand seeing those animals. I don’t know how anyone could abandon an animal.”
“They abandon children. There are thousands of irresponsible shits out there. Excuse my foul language. Personally I’d like to bring back the stocks, put them in the town squares, and lock the creeps in. Then I’d show up with a big basket of rotten eggs and tomatoes.”
“You’re better than I am. I just want to shoot them.”
Alicia dashed into the kitchen, returning with a box of Kleenex. “Here. Speaking of shooting, skeet?” She sat back down. “Sometime this week?”
BoomBoom nodded. “Where?”
“There’s that wonderful club west of Staunton, or if Patricia’s in the mood, we could go up to Albemarle House.” She mentioned Patricia Kluge, who along with her husband, Bill Moses, was a good shot.
“If she’s in town let’s go there, then we can pick up stuff for Harry. Patricia is helping with Harry’s wine research. Just look what she’s done with Kluge Vineyards.”
“Good idea. You know, it speaks well of you that you are friends with Harry. You genuinely like her.”
“I always liked Harry, although she didn’t like me, even in high school. Then I slept with Fair, and she loathed me. They were separated, but I was the focus for her discontent, not that she blabbed about it. Harry really does have class. You know, we didn’t become friends until we were trapped together at University Hall.”
“Yes. I heard that was quite an adventure.” Alicia remained standing. “More cider? Port? Libations?”
“No.”
The television again caught their attention. The footage was Nordy back at the monastery, the gates opened. He noted that it was Sunday. The camera panned the cars and trucks parked as far as the eye could see, many teetering on the edge of the road. It wasn’t a wide road. He informed the viewers that numbers had steadily increased and that the statue still cried blood. Cut to the statue, tears actually running now that the mercury had climbed. While it was fifty-two degrees in The Valley, it was forty-five at the statue, still warm enough to melt snow and ice, warm enough to thaw Mary’s tears. The cardinal flew onto her outstretched hand, tilted his head, unfurled his crest, whistled out his distinctive four long notes followed by many short ones, trebled. Then he flew away. Nordy interviewed people who weren’t at the statue, since he had sense enough to keep it reverent. He nabbed them at the shops. The monastery did a big business between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The interviews were touching. Some came to expiate their sins, others came to be healed, many prayed for peace or for someone in need. All interviewed radiated a hope, a peacefulness.
After that segment passed, Alicia turned to BoomBoom. “Nordy’s going to get a big career boost out of this. He’s improving by leaps and bounds.”
“Did it bother you that he didn’t refer to you as a movie star?”
“God, no. I’m relieved. That’s the past. This is now.”
“What are you now?”
“A farmer.” She stared at BoomBoom’s face. “How about some Badger lip balm? You can rub it on your nose.”
“I’m not going to get chapped from a few tears and a runny nose, but thank you.”
“I can’t live without the stuff.” Alicia put a round tin about two inches from a Tiffany’s silver box on the coffee table. “Here.”
“Thanks.” BoomBoom smeared the pleasant concoction of virgin olive oil, castor oil, beeswax, aloe vera, and other emollients on her nose, then also put a sheer film on her lips. “Smells wonderful.”
“Comes in Cinnamon Bay, Tangerine Breeze, Highland Mint, Ginger-Lemon. There are other variations. I have a big tin of hand salve, too.”
A long pause followed this. BoomBoom knew it was eleven-thirty, late for both of them. “Roads will be icy.”
Alicia rose to check the thermometer in the window. “Still forty-two degrees Fahrenheit. You’re in luck, although there might be a few places where the road is packed down. It’s the black ice that gets you.”
BoomBoom blushed. “I’d be in luck if the roads were icy.”
Alicia laughed. “You say.”
“I don’t get it. If you were a man you’d have lunged for me months ago. Maybe I do get it. I’m not your type.”
“BoomBoom.” Alicia’s voice sounded like dark honey. “You are very flattering. You’re full of energy and ideas. You’re a beautiful woman. I’m not immune to you.”
“You’re not?” BoomBoom brightened.
Alicia laughed. “Of course not, but you’ve taken a year off men. And furthermore, you haven’t walked down this road before. It’s not about gender, it’s about learning another person. That takes time. And you’re barreling down on your midlife crisis, if you’ll indulge me in being older and a tiny bit wiser at this exact moment.”
“You aren’t part of
my midlife crisis. I’ve got three years left.” She smiled. “But I see it in Harry and Susan and even Little Mim. Forty lurks just over the horizon, so they must see it in me. That shift. That discarding what doesn’t work, finding what really matters in life.”
“It’s only a number, but our culture makes such a to-do about it. I’m not that far from sixty, and you know what, I don’t give a fig.” She snapped her fingers.
“Does this mean you aren’t going to jump my bones? I mean, what do women do? Who makes the first move? You’re driving me crazy. I don’t know what to do. Am I supposed to hit you with a flying tackle?”
“Bruising.” Alicia felt every molecule of air in her lungs, going in, going out.
“Well, what am I supposed to do? I know what to do with men. I haven’t a clue what to do with you, but I know that I have felt happier with you, even without sex or declarations of, what, amor, than I have ever felt in my life. I feel”—she searched for the word—“connected. Like I know you. Like I’ve always known you. I just don’t know about the romance part of it, and I don’t know how you feel. I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”
“You couldn’t wear out your welcome. I never thought I’d feel this way again,” Alicia honestly replied. “And I suppose deep down I didn’t think I should make a move. I was afraid I might spoil our friendship.”
“You mean you didn’t know how I felt?”
“I hoped, but I wasn’t going to push it.”
BoomBoom got up, walking over to the window where Alicia remained. “Alicia, for the first time in my life I can’t hide.”
Alicia reached for BoomBoom’s hand, and the younger woman felt a bolt of lightning blast up her arm.
She wasn’t the only person who couldn’t hide that night, but for the other one, the circumstances couldn’t have been more alarming.
21
Black asphalt glistened as the snow runoff covered the road with a sheen of water. Nordy Elliott, hopes raised by his conversation with BoomBoom, drove too fast past the supermarket and Patterson’s Florist. His spirits remained high even though he suffered bouts of irritation at driving into Crozet this late. No sooner had he clicked off with BoomBoom than his cell rang. The voice on the other end demanded that Nordy meet him at the Crozet Post Office.
Irritated though he was, the bright lights of the Amoco station amused him. Clean and well located, the modern station seemed out of place.
Turning left, he dipped beneath the railroad underpass, the senior home immediately to his right on the south side of the tracks. To his left, a series of small shops were strung out, including two restaurants. Ombra, with its booths, was Nordy’s favorite. Right now Nordy wasn’t hungry. He wanted to get this impromptu meeting over with and hurry back home to write copy for J&J Tire Service.
Being a reporter, he had grown accustomed to strange demands, personal meetings, behavior calculated for airtime. By now most Americans had learned that the more outrageous you looked and talked, the better your chances of getting your face, product, or cause covered. Anyone who appeared sober, reliable, and thoughtful was at an immediate disadvantage. Nordy had learned to puff them up, egg them on, thereby getting even better stories.
Within a hundred yards the new post office construction, set back, was visible. On Nordy’s left, a temporary post office had been set up in a brick building, and that’s where his contact had asked to meet him. Post offices are unlocked, with the back part shut up but postboxes available to their patrons. Occasionally, Sheriff Shaw of Albemarle County or his deputy, Cynthia Cooper, responded to a call about a drunk sleeping in the P.O. when the weather was bitter. Apart from that, anyone going into and out of the building, even in the wee hours, would attract scant attention.
Nordy pulled to the back and parked. His mind returned to BoomBoom. Every single woman in his viewing area thought he was hot. A young, single man, he took advantage of that, but the one he really wanted was the tall, cool blonde. There was something about her, not just her obvious physical attributes, that pulled him toward her. He knew her reputation as a heartbreaker. He could turn the tables. After all, he was handsome, slick as an eel, and on the way up.
He walked around to the front of the post office, opened the door. As the door was closing, his attacker leapt at him so quickly Nordy didn’t have time to step back. He threw up his left hand, too late. He dropped like a stone from a ballpoint pen driven up through his left eyeball clean into his brain. Not a drop of blood fell on the floor.
The killer calmly took a chamois cloth to wipe the footprints where he had stood, flattened against the wall. Then he wiped up prints as he backed out the front door.
When Amy Wade entered the back door at seven A.M., she hung up her coat, then unlocked the thin corrugated metal pulldown, which came down to the countertop like a garage door, and pushed it up over her head. It took a moment for her to realize a dead man lay on the floor. She flipped up the divider, hurried over, and beheld the grisly sight. She sucked in her breath, holding it, and raced for the telephone.
Cynthia Cooper happened to be cruising through town, and when she arrived minutes later, she noted the position of the body and saw that the small muscles had gone into rigor. She’d never seen anyone killed with a ballpoint pen. She wasn’t an unfeeling woman but one who, like every other law-enforcement officer who has to witness brutal things, had developed a balancing sense of humor. When her boss, Sheriff Rick Shaw, pushed open the door, she gave him a moment to assess the situation, then said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”
22
The orange cordon around the area where Nordy’s body had been discovered stopped everyone walking into the post office. Human nature being what it is, plenty of people who didn’t rent a postbox in Crozet filed through the door.
Harry and Miranda feverishly worked to sort the mail, deal with people who truly did wish to buy stamps, fend off inquiries, and smile at their friends.
Amy Wade, undone by the horrible sight, had asked to go home for the day. The postmaster called Harry and she immediately filled in, as did Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. Miranda, always a port in a storm, hurried from her home across the alleyway to help.
The two friends worked like a well-oiled machine.
Big Mim strode in, removed her Robin Hood hat with the pheasant feather with one hand as she supported her ancient aunt Tally with her other. Aunt Tally used an ebony cane, elegant with a silver hound’s head for the handle, but Big Mim liked to keep close when sidewalks were slick or steps wet.
“Incomprehensible!” the queen of Crozet pronounced judgment.
“Mimsy, it’s perfectly comprehensible.” Aunt Tally gently shook off her niece’s hand to study the outline of the body chalked on the worn wooden floor. “He was uncommonly handsome, a little cock of the walk.”
“Roosters are stupid.” Pewter lounged on the counter, the better to see everyone.
Mrs. Murphy, next to her, agreed.
Tucker, sitting patiently by the table in the back, called out, “Yeah, but they’re fun to chase.”
“’Til they hit you up with those spurs.” As a kitten, Mrs. Murphy learned the hard way that even the lowly rooster had survival tools.
“What has that got to do with a gruesome end?” Big Mim didn’t at first follow her aunt’s line of thought.
Harry, slipping mail into the boxes, listened, as did Miranda, who sorted through the mail that arrived in canvas bags and was then dumped into a rolling cart.
“Couldn’t keep it in his pants.”
“Oh, Aunt Tally!”
“Sex. He jumped the paddock and mounted the wrong mare. Bet you even money.” The old lady, still quite attractive although thin as a blade, tapped her cane on the floor.
“Doesn’t murder usually come down to sex, money, or power?” Harry peeked out from around the back of the brass mailboxes.
“That’s what they say.” Miranda paused for a moment. “But such an end. So violent.”
�
��And clever.” Mrs. Murphy spread open her toes, unleashed her claws, then retracted them.
“What’s so clever about jamming a ballpoint pen in someone’s eye?” Pewter wondered.
“Simple. Nothing to trace. The pen was left in the eye, and I guarantee you—in fact, I’ll give you my catnip if I’m wrong—there won’t be one print on that ballpoint pen, no fibers or anything, either.”
Tucker, interested now, padded over to sit beneath the kitties. “And cheap. Everyone in the universe has ballpoint pens.”
The very tip of Pewter’s fat, thick tail moved to and fro as she thought about this angle. “Because the weapon was a pen, does that mean the killer was opportunistic or thought it out? I mean, anyone could grab a ballpoint pen, right?”
“Thought out. Well executed.” Mrs. Murphy watched the nonagenarian. Aunt Tally reminded her of a twenty-four-year-old cat that she had known years ago. The fire of life burned brightly, more brightly with age. The gift of any animal that old is they know a lot and they no longer care much what other cats or people think.
“Has anyone spoken to Rick?” Big Mim asked Harry and Miranda, who both knew that Big Mim had nabbed him the instant she heard of the death.
“No. What did he say?” Miranda, being Big Mim’s contemporary, could let her know they were on to her question.
“Well”—the elegant lady made no attempt to explain her asking them first—“he said there was no blood. Of course, when they remove the pen there will be blood, I guess.” Big Mim stopped herself, because the image was too gross. “Sorry. Anyway, he said they will go over Nordy’s clothing and an autopsy will be performed, naturally. But he warned me that there wasn’t one footprint by the body and the runoff of the melting snows took care of any hopes for one outside the building.”
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