Cat's Eyewitness

by Rita Mae Brown

  “BoomBoom, you will, too.” Alicia laughed.

  “May I have your attention, please,” Jim Sanburne called out.

  Took a few minutes, but everyone quieted as the band set up in the ballroom.

  Big Mim stood alongside her husband. “Merry Christmas,” she greeted the guests.

  Jim raised his arms, a big smile on his face. “Every Christmas Mim and I love to have you with us. The Urquharts have kept Christmas in these rooms since 1809. Guess before that they celebrated in the log cabin.” He paused and smiled. “I like to think of Christmases past; I like to imagine that those guests who danced before us are with us. And I like to think that Christmas brings out the best in each of us. This Christmas is very special to my wife and me, because we are pleased to announce the engagement of our daughter to Blair Bainbridge. Come on up here, honey.”

  “Daddy,” Little Mim demurred, but Blair took her elbow and led her next to her father.

  “To the future union of Marilyn Sanburne the Second and Blair Bainbridge.” He stopped and held his glass over his head. “To the future!”

  “To the future!” the assembled called back.

  An eruption of noise followed this, as did the sounds of the band tuning up, then breaking into “The Virginia Reel,” to announce that the dancing should commence.

  As guests surged forward to congratulate Blair and to wish Little Mim the best, Harry, Fair, Susan, Ned, BoomBoom, Alicia, Tazio, and Paul slowly moved into the line.

  Alicia mentioned to Harry, “Have you visited the Greyfriars’ Web site?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Tepid. Nothing about the tears,” Alicia replied.

  Harry moved along, hoping Fair wasn’t listening to their conversation. He was bending down to listen to Paul, a shorter man than himself—but then, most men were.

  Harry motioned toward Fair. BoomBoom winked.

  Alicia understood and whispered, “Have you visited Web sites about the Virgin Mary?”

  “Yes,” Harry said.

  Susan squeezed closer to hear.

  “I found one mentioning the statue at Afton. Goes through the whole history—you know, the legend of the tears before World War One and World War Two. Tells about the tears now, and the Web master promises to pray for you at the statue, say a rosary if you like.”

  “No kidding?” Susan raised her voice.

  “Susan.” Harry elbowed her. “Don’t let him hear you.”

  “Harry,” BoomBoom whispered, “he was married to you. He knows you’re up to something.”

  “He doesn’t have to know what,” she whispered back.

  “The Web master—a pseudonym, I’m sure—is called Brother Love.” Alicia reached for BoomBoom for balance when a large group of people crowded up behind them. “Brother Love is making a pretty penny.”

  “I know,” Harry replied. “Cooper knows, too. I was playing around one night and found it. I called Coop, but she already knew.”

  Glorious though the party was, Harry couldn’t wait to get home. Fair came home with her, and there was nothing to do but park him in front of the computer, too.

  Silently, he read everything.

  After they’d gone through it all, the cats on either side of the computer, Fair remarked, “Brother Love will take your Visa card number for a rosary. Extra prayers are available, too. Irritates me.”

  “That’s capitalism.” She anticipated his next question. “I didn’t mention this to you because you were busy—me, too, and, really, I just found it myself yesterday.”

  “You should have told me right off the bat, dammit.”

  Harry squinted, took a deep breath. “Susan said something to me once. She said, ‘Sometimes it’s not who has the most to gain, it’s who has the most to lose.’ ”

  Neither Harry, Fair, nor the animals could have known that as they scrolled through the Bleeding Mary Web site, Brother Handle was suffering the long, dark night of the soul. He knelt on the cold floor of the chapel as he prayed. He knew the killer was in his flock, and he didn’t think it was Brother Andrew. If he called in the sheriff, that would warn the killer, who must be relaxing thanks to Brother Andrew’s arrest. He hoped he could flush the man out. He still couldn’t imagine the reasons for anything so foul. He didn’t know about the Web site, but even if he had, it wouldn’t have led him to the murderer. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t think of how to set a trap. He couldn’t confide in anyone. He didn’t trust anyone.

  As he prayed, tears falling down his cheeks, he thought this would be the worst night of his life. It was a blessing he couldn’t have known what was to follow.

  38

  A massive lone oak, well over three hundred years old, graced the middle of the family cemetery at Blair Bainbridge’s farm, which touched Harry’s farm on the western border, a strong-running creek being the dividing line.

  This cemetery contained the remains of the Rev. Herbert C. Jones’s ancestors. The Rev always considered this farm the old home place, lost by his uncle’s frivolous nature. The now departed man had sat under the oak among the hand-carved tombstones and read his life away. Fond of Russian novels, he had learned Russian, but he also devoured literature in French, Italian, and German. Brilliant though he was, the stout fellow hadn’t a grain of common sense.

  A parson barely makes enough to keep body and soul together. Herb couldn’t step in to repair the outbuildings or the house. When hard necessity dictated the farm must be sold, he was glad a young, well-to-do man bought it. Blair transformed the farm into a tidy, working place, helped by Harry’s country wisdom.

  A light snow fell on the oak as Harry and Blair stood underneath. At 7:45 A.M. the skies promised even more snow to come, for clouds darkened in the west. In the country, people meet early, since the workday begins by six A.M. In summertime, it often begins at five A.M., so people and animals can beat the heat.

  “There you have it.” He smiled wanly. “I’ve poured my heart into this farm.” He laughed. “If I’d known how much work these couple of hundred would be!” He whistled. “I would never have made it without you.”

  “You’re a very intelligent man, Blair. You would have figured it out,” she demurred.

  “What I would have done is hire a consultant who would have charged me an arm and a leg. You did it all because you’re a good neighbor. I don’t think there’s anything you don’t know about farming.” He sighed deeply. “It’s so beautiful in this graveyard, with the wrought-iron fence, this oak, which was a sapling seventy years before the American Revolution. Guess you know why we’re here.”

  “Well, Blair, I have a pretty good idea.”

  “You asked if I would come to you first if I decided to sell. I love this farm, but Little Mim wants to live at Aunt Tally’s. She’ll inherit that farm, and I guess both she and Stafford will inherit Dalmally someday.”

  “Be a cold day in hell, because the Urquharts live forever.” Harry laughed.

  “I thought of that. I expect that Dalmally will go to Stafford’s children and to ours. We hope to have children. Mim’s spoken to her brother in New York about all this. They’re on the same page. But I hate to leave this place, I really do, even though Rose Hill is only another two miles down the road.”

  “It’s a lovely, lovely place, and you two will make it your own.”

  “I expect Aunt Tally will drive us both crazy sometimes, but you know, she’s a good woman. I’m glad to know her. She’s a free thinker. To have that kind of energy at ninety-nine, she really has become one of my heroes.”

  “Mine, too.”

  He paused, watching a blue jay fly onto a tombstone, bitch and moan at the cats below, then fly off, dusting them with snow. “Jane Fogleman at Roy Wheeler Realty says I can ask one point two million and probably sell for a million, but—” Harry’s face fell. He held up his hand. “You and Herb can’t come up with that kind of money. Here’s what I propose. You’ve saved me plenty. You laid out my pastures. Took me to the tractor dealers.
Introduced me to the honest workmen and craftsmen in the county. You hauled me over to Art Bushey and got me a deal on two trucks. You even sat down and explained to me what a four-ten axle is compared to a lesser one and why I needed that to haul cattle although it would make for a bouncier ride. You spent weeks with me that one summer showing me the different kinds of cattle, the ratio of meat to bone. You were patient. You’re a good friend to me. Let me be a good friend to you. I’ll sell the farm to you and Herb for five hundred thousand dollars. I’ll write you up a lease-to-buy contract for all my equipment. It will be simple, five thousand dollars a year. You maintain the equipment and you give me the right to borrow it from time to time should Aunt Tally’s tractors or implements break down. How does that sound?”

  Stunned, Harry opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “Yes!” Mrs. Murphy spoke for her human.

  “But we don’t have the money.” Tucker’s brown eyes implored the tiger cat to think of something.

  “You don’t pass on a deal like that, Tucker. And she’ll get the money. Risk drives people forward. This kind of scramble separates the sheep from the goats.”

  Her mind racing, Harry gulped the cold restorative air. She held out her hand. “Blair, I accept your offer. How much time do I have to raise the money?”

  “If you can do it in four months’ time, great. If not, a year.”

  “All right.”

  He touched a tree limb, low and so old the thickness of it was as big as a man’s thigh. “I’m not a poor man. My profession, silly as it is, has made me a lot of money, but I’m a piker compared to the Sanburnes and the Urquharts. They must have triple-digit millions.”

  “Easily, but they’re responsible people. They manage their wealth with wisdom and they’re the mainstays of important charities.”

  “Oh, I know. I admire them but I keep asking myself, how do I raise children in this wealth and teach them that other children are starving?”

  “Tally and Big Mim will pass that on. Take your cues from them, and you’re good with people, you’ll be good with children. Actually, I don’t know how anybody does it. I can raise cats, dogs, horses, and cattle, but I don’t know how I’d do with the human variety.”

  He beamed. “You’d do just fine. Probably have them cleaning tack by the time they could walk.”

  She laughed, a sense of relief and fear bearing on her with equal measure. “Blair, you’re probably right.”

  As she walked back through the snow, passing the ever-growing beaver dam in the creek, she thought about how unpredictable was life. Then she laughed out loud because she was glad of it.

  “Happy,” Pewter, jumping from human footstep to human footstep, remarked.

  “For once, she’s taking a big chance. Even if she falls on her face, and I know she won’t,” Mrs. Murphy said, “this will be good for her. She’ll finally make good in the world, the human world.”

  Once beyond the beaver dam, beyond the low hillock at a right angle to the pond the beavers had created, Harry noticed fox tracks heading to the den on the hillock. “Smart,” she said to her companions.

  “Too smart,” Tucker replied.

  Harry lifted her head. “Hey, come on.” She ran through the snow, breathing heavily. Snow wore you out.

  Opening the door from the kitchen was Susan, and Harry reached it just as Susan was leaving. Before she could open her mouth to exclaim her good fortune, Susan grabbed her by the arm, pulling her into her own kitchen. She helped Harry with her coat.

  “Susan, I can—”

  “Harry, Ned ran a check on the Brother Love site. Ned forgot about it until this morning. He’s on overload and gets forgetful. As an elected official Ned can get information from the phone company, from the Internet services that we can’t. He can ask the sheriff to get information, too.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Brother Love was Nordy Elliott.”

  “What?” Harry had one arm in her jacket, the other arm out, the jacket dangling to the floor as the cats attacked it.

  “Nordy Elliott set up and ran the Web site.” Susan became more clear. She was rattled.

  “What a total creep.”

  “If Nordy set it up and now he’s dead, there had to be someone else in on the deal.” Pewter stated the obvious.

  “I hate this,” Mrs. Murphy said. It was all much too clever, almost catlike.

  “Susan, we’ve got to get up on that mountain.” Harry slipped her arm back into her jacket.

  “Take your thirty-eight, Harry. I left the house in such a fit I forgot mine.”

  39

  I’m listing to starboard,” Harry remarked as she and Susan once again trudged through the snow. The cats and dog walked ahead of the humans since the thin crust on the snow, an eighth of an inch of ice, didn’t break under their light weight. Harry and Susan crunched through, sank ankle deep in powder, lifted their boots out again, and kept going. Their thighs felt the effort after twenty minutes. The going was slow.

  “I’m just listing,” Susan grumbled.

  “The gun. It’s heavier than I thought,” Harry replied. She’d slipped in her coat pocket the Les Baer competition series handgun, a .38 Super that Fair had given her for her birthday. Harry’s hand–eye coordination was excellent. Fair knew she’d like target practice with the competition series gun, as it was extremely accurate and reliable.

  A gaggle of buzzards turned their long necks to gaze at the five creatures fumbling in the snow. They’d settled on what was left of a deer. One huge bird stretched her wings wide, holding the posture.

  “Jeez, that wingspread must be four feet.” Susan respected the buzzard’s task in life.

  “Hope it’s not an omen.” Harry’s right foot sank deeper into the snow than her left.

  “That’s a happy thought,” Pewter, claws gripping the ice, said sarcastically.

  “If these two think they’ll be incognito up there, they’re lunatics.” Mrs. Murphy had to laugh.

  “Mother knows she’ll be spotted sooner or later. But coming this way at least they didn’t pass through the gates. Mother’s afraid she’ll be stopped since Brother Handle and Brother Frank think she’s a pest. And maybe she doesn’t want to disturb the people praying at the statue,” Tucker remarked.

  “Tucker, why get on your knees in the snow?” Pewter thought the whole posture ridiculous.

  “Slaves kneel. Freemen stand up,” Mrs. Murphy commented.

  “Huh?” Pewter gripped the ice again.

  “In Roman times, a slave knelt before his or her master sometimes. So humans are showing the Virgin Mary they are her slaves. She’s the boss,” Mrs. Murphy deduced.

  “I thought Christians weren’t supposed to worship idols.” Tucker found human religions baffling.

  “They don’t consider Mary an idol,” Mrs. Murphy confidently replied.

  “Wait a minute. Moses pitches a fit because the Hebrews are worshiping a golden calf, but these people can lay down and sob in front of a statue?” Pewter’s tiny nostrils flared when she caught a whiff of the buzzards as the wind shifted.

  “That’s why people are what they are, Pewter. They can rationalize anything. Reality is pretty much irrelevant to them. It’s what they make up. It’s why they suffer so much mental illness. How many alcoholic cats do you know? Cats on Prozac? Because sooner or later in human lives, in the life of their nation, reality intrudes and it’s always unwelcome, a big, fat shock. They just go off.” Mrs. Murphy wobbled her head to make her point.

  The other two laughed.

  “Can’t reconcile reality with illusion or delusion,” Tucker noted.

  “Tucker, that’s almost poetic.” Pewter’s pink tongue unfurled when she spoke.

  As they neared the site of the statue, the animals could hear people saying their rosaries. Harry and Susan couldn’t hear it yet.

  Harry stopped. Susan collided into her and they fell down.

  “Dammit, Harry, you should have given me warni
ng.”

  “Sorry.” Harry sat on the cold frosty snow for a moment to catch her breath.

  “Come on.” Susan, up first, held out her gloved hand.

  Harry scrambled up. “Let’s start with the outbuildings closest to the statue.”

  “The glassed-in greenhouse below, the garden cottage, the chandler’s cottage. The other outbuildings and shops fan out all along the back high ridge.”

  “I wish we could go over the Virgin Mary with a fine-tooth comb.” Harry sighed.

  “Springtime,” Susan answered.

  “That will be too late.” Harry stayed down on the slope away from the statue.

  They passed the pumphouse and the greenhouse, electing to go to the chandler’s cottage first since they could see figures inside the greenhouse.

  The heavy door to the chandler’s cottage was shut against the cold, snow piling by the door. Smoke spiraled out of the chimney, then swooped down low as though a large hand pushed the gray smoke flat.

  Harry opened the door.

  “Harry.” Brother Mark smiled. “I’m glad you’re here. Business has been light given all this weather. Hi, Susan. You know, it’s not the same around here without Brother Thomas.”

  “I can well imagine.” Susan loved the odor of the different candles. “What are you doing in the candle shop?”

  “Brother Frank put me here today since Brother Michael, who usually runs this shop, you know, is coming down with a cold.” He watched as Mrs. Murphy and Pewter marched directly to a small hole in a floorboard by the corner. “I knew there were mice in here! Every now and then Brother Michael complains of a chewed candle—never one of the tallow candles, always beeswax.”

  “Does Brother Michael make all these candles?” Susan admired a huge taper.

  “He has help.”

  “Do you ever make any?” Harry inquired.

  “No. It’s a little too artistic for me. I mean, I can pour the wax in the molds, that part is okay, but it’s when Brother Michael wants colors. I mess it up.” He brightened. “I can collect beeswax with the best of them. They call me when they get stuck.”