Sister rarely questioned her huntsman. His abrupt departure keyed up her already heightened senses. She turned and followed, Walter, Crawford, Marty, Gray, Sam, Tedi, Edward, and others behind her.
No sooner had they moved into the rolling white field on the other side of the woods than the hounds struck again. This scent was older but strong enough to give another ripping twenty-minute run. Miraculously no one slipped and went down. At least going down in snow is better than on hard-baked earth.
By the time they returned to the trailers, wiped down their horses, and threw blankets over them, everyone was exhilarated and exhausted.
Marty had her cook prepare a hot breakfast at the long hunt table. The luxury of sitting at a table instead of balancing a plate on one’s lap couldn’t have come at a better time.
Sausages, bacon, hot flaky biscuits, eggs, steaming steel-cut oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, pastries as well as the ubiquitous ham biscuits covered the table. Marty even had the cook fill the tureen with bubbling chipped beef gravy.
Crawford sat at the head of the table with Sister at his right. Marty commanded the other end, Walter at her right.
Once the warm food hit everyone’s stomach as well as some bracing coffee or tea, a few coffees laced with bourbon, the volume of conversation in the room rose.
Shaker was usually reluctant to join a breakfast for he had many chores, but once he knew the hounds were snuggling down in deep straw and had plenty of fresh water, and Marty had Rory give everyone biscuits, he came to the table. His presence delighted everyone and he was peppered with questions. This hard-core group truly wanted to know about hound work. Even Crawford, not a hound man, feigned interest.
“Let the poor man eat first,” Marty good-naturedly ordered.
As the merriment continued, Crawford addressed Sister. “You know, Saturday, when we rode past St. John’s of the Cross, I thought what a good thing, to have a chapel of one’s own.”
Knowing him, she replied, “When are you going to start and are you using clapboard, brick, or stone?”
He smiled at her as he nibbled a piece of Canadian bacon. He put it on his plate. “Well, stone is impressive.”
“Your stone pillars certainly are.”
“I was thinking the same type of stone.”
“You know you place the altar facing south.” She ate her oatmeal laced with orange blossom honey. She didn’t know what she liked more, oatmeal or honey.
“No.”
“Always.”
Tedi, on Crawford’s left, gleefully told him, “Crawford, as you know, my father’s family was from Connecticut, so you might say I have double vision. I can see both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. When one is south of the line, the altar is south because no true southerner will worship with his face to the north.”
“Good God,” Crawford exploded genially, “doesn’t anyone ever forget?”
“No” was said in unison.
“Gray, Sam, doesn’t all this worship of the Confederacy worry you?” Crawford asked.
Sam deferred to his brother.
“Those who do not know their past are doomed to repeat it,” Gray stated.
This set off a lively conversation, which delighted Crawford. He considered himself a Renaissance man even if he appeared nouveau riche to others. Better nouveau riche than nouveau pauvre.
“What shall you name your church?” Sister returned to his building project.
“I was thinking of St. Swithun, a good English saint.”
Tedi wrinkled her brow. “Oh, dear, all I remember is if it rains on St. Swithun’s Day it will rain for forty days following. July 15. So much for my catechism studies.”
“We think of you as St. Tedi.” Sister laughed at her old friend.
“Lots of St. Theodores, but they’re men.” Crawford read history constantly and since saint days and the ecclesiastical calendar bound Western culture for close to two thousand years, he was a font of information on such subjects, as was Sister.
“We’ll make a new saint, then,” Sister said as she ate a second bowl of oatmeal.
“There’s a St. Teath, a woman of Cornwall, thirteenth century. Nothing is known of her,” Crawford expounded.
“Why St. Swithun? Is there another reason apart from his being English? I mean, you could have picked St. George. Who’s more English than the dragon-slayer?” Tedi was curious.
“Swithun had healing power. He was bishop of Winchester. Died in 862. I admire those people in the so-called Dark Ages. Think of what they accomplished and with so little, with such personal hardship.”
The breakfast broke up after an hour. More snow had fallen, and the drive home took longer.
Sister and Gray crept along in his Land Cruiser. Betty was driving the gooseneck loaded with horses. Sister liked hauling to the meets with Betty but Gray wanted Sister with him so they could talk and he adored showing off what his Land Cruiser could do. At a base price of $55,000 his sold for almost $60,000 since Gray couldn’t resist any gadget.
She had to admit, the vehicle could probably double as an armored car and it plowed through everything.
“Wonder how much Crawford will spend on his chapel? St. Swithun. I like that he’s naming it that,” she mused.
“He’ll use the best stonemason in the county so that’s forty dollars a cubic foot right there; he’s lucky because that price represents a bargain.”
“My God.”
“Sobering.”
“I keep forgetting how rich he is.”
“You’re the only one.” Gray laughed at her. “Hey, have I told you how much I love riding behind you?”
“Tell me again.”
“You’re bold, you know what the hounds are doing, but mostly I like seeing your little butt over the fences. Your butt is so little it’s like a boy’s.”
“More.”
“Your breasts aren’t bad either. Of course, I can’t see those when you’re leading the field.”
“Gray.” She just ate this up. Suddenly she sat upright out of the comfortable seat. “Honey, can I use your cell phone?”
“Sure, it’s wired through the car. All you have to do is push these buttons and the phone icon. When you want to hang up, push the icon where the phone is level.” He pointed to a green button, then a red button. “Forget something?”
“No, no, I’ve had a terrible thought.” She dialed the Widemans. “Henry, hello, we missed you Saturday.”
Sister’s voice was distinctive, so he knew immediately who it was. In fact, Sister rarely had to identify herself.
“Wish I could have been there. Heard that fox ran you clean to the old granary at Beveridge Hundred.”
“Did and thumbed his nose at us, too. How was your trip to Baltimore?”
“Good.” He paused. “City’s changing. Guess they all are. I worry that all this renewal will throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
“Excuse me for being nosy, but I was wondering if you’d gone out to St. John’s before you left for Baltimore.”
“I’ll get in there sooner or later.”
“Would you mind if Gray and I drove to it? We’re in the Land Cruiser so we’ll get in. I think I lost something there,” she half-fibbed.
“No, not at all. Anything I can do to save you the trip?”
“Thank you, no. Letting us come back and hunt Little Dalby is the best thing to happen to our club in years. I can’t thank you enough, and you know, we stand ready to make good on gates or if you have a project that takes strong backs, call. In fact, I’m sitting next to Samson here.”
After a few more pleasantries she disconnected.
“What are you up to? What have you gotten me into?” He shook his head.
“Honey, won’t take too long. You know the way.”
Gray, a good driver, was particularly alert if another vehicle was on the road. So many people, deluded by technology, would fly down a snowy road only to soar off into a bank, a ditch, or flip over. It was as though two generations o
f Americans had lost all sense of nature’s power.
Within twenty minutes they were at St. John’s of the Cross.
Sister stood before the doors. She opened them. Cold. No sign of change since she and Betty were there. A disturbed “Hoo” let her know who else was in there.
“What are you searching for?”
“Gray,” she rested her gloved hand on his chest, “Betty and I were here marking jumps and trails. We walked on back here and I guess I took a trip down Memory Lane. Anyway, it was apparent no one had been here in years. But when we hunted Saturday I noticed tire tracks, covered now, obviously, and the hounds went straight to the chapel rear. Shaker called them off. I didn’t pay attention. The chase was too good. But I did note somewhere in the back of my mind that the tracks didn’t pass over tracks coming from the other direction. Whoever came here came to the chapel. And I smelled rot.”
“It’s deer season, Jane. No reason a hunter wouldn’t park here and go deeper into the woods. Can’t drive into the brush. And you know as well as I that some hunters will leave the carcass or parts of it.”
“Got a flashlight in that tank of yours?”
“I do.”
Within seconds they were walking around the chapel.
“I’m looking for any recent disturbance.”
“Why?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know, except that I trust my hounds. Shaker called them from here in short order but they were highly interested. Of course it’s below freezing now so I can’t smell a thing.”
“Fox under the chapel?”
“Could be and if it is, I need to worm him or her. If I’m lucky maybe I can lure him into a humane trap and get one rabies and distemper shot in.”
They walked around to the back. The old stone foundation had some gaps in it large enough for a hound to crawl in, or a human for that matter.
With the biting cold the decaying leaf smell was not discernible, although a pleasant odor to the human nose.
She crouched down, shining the beam into the opening. She handed the flashlight to Gray as he hunched down next to her.
“Jesus H. Christ on a raft!” He dropped the flashlight and sprinted for the Land Cruiser.
C H A P T E R 2 5
The snow, still falling, drifted, creating waves that looked like Cool Whip. Ben Sidel, Ty Banks, and three other officers patiently worked in the cold. Although only three in the afternoon, the deep gray clouds hung low; visibility wasn’t too good.
On the one hand, the cold had preserved what remained of the body under the church. But the snow obscured any tracks or other bits of evidence that might have been there. Ben knew, when this snow melted, evidence would melt with it.
Ty rubbed his gloved hands together as he stood up. He shook his legs for circulation. “Sheriff, how long do you think she’s been under there?”
“Maybe a week. And we’re lucky. The animals that got to her didn’t take the head. We’ve got the teeth.”
“Looks like a big dog or something pawed away at the stones.”
“Yeah. Sticking her under the church was a hurry-up job but not such a stupid one. People rarely come back here. Whoever killed her shoved her under the church as far back as he could crawl, piled up leaves over her, then put some stones back in the foundation. Don’t know if he opened up the foundation or if the stones crumbled away. Not all of these,” he pointed to snow-covered stones, “match.”
“Guess there’s not enough for a visual I.D.”
Ben shook his head. “Been tore up pretty good. Nature’s recycling.” He grunted softly. “The teeth. We’ll get a positive I.D.”
Ty jammed his hands in his pockets as two men in orange hazard suits slid back out on their stomachs, body pieces in plastic bags.
Ty asked, “Do you think Mrs. Arnold knew who that was under there?”
“She probably has an idea despite the condition of the body. Sister’s uncanny. She said she should have trusted her hounds when they went to the chapel.”
“Do you want to call Mrs. Norton? I can if you—” Ty didn’t finish, for Ben interrupted.
“I’ll call. She knows it’s coming.”
“Because Brown University called her yesterday.”
Ben shrugged, “Well, she’s a bright woman. They asked her if she had seen Professor Kennedy, who has never missed a class. The conclusion has to be dismal. Now we have the evidence.” Ben rolled his eyes toward the slightly waving treetops. “Ty, we’re in the fog, but it’s about to lift.”
“Why?”
“Because our killer had to hurry. People who hurry make mistakes.”
“When are you going to give a statement to the press?” Ty considered what Ben had just said.
“Tomorrow. I need tonight to think.” He lifted his foot, shaking the cold out of his toes, snow spraying. “And I want to call on a few people.”
“Long night?” Ty’s expression was dolorous.
“Not for you. Tomorrow I want you to see if you can find Professor Kennedy’s backup system. Someone as meticulous as she had to be in her line of work wouldn’t have had only one copy of her data. It’s possible that whatever she found, whether it had to do with those artifacts or with something else at Custis Hall, might be encoded in that data.”
“Okay.”
“The other thing is this: My statement will simply be that the remains of an unidentified woman were found. I’ll give an estimate of age and race and say we won’t have any more information until the dental records are checked, which may take some time.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Find the killer.”
Ty’s eyebrows furrowed. “Sister said he knows the territory.”
“After this, there can’t be any doubt about that.”
C H A P T E R 2 6
Soft golden light flooded the snow-covered campus. Tracks crisscrossed the quads. The lovely diffuse December light somewhat made up for the long, black, cold nights. Last night the mercury had dipped to twenty-one degrees, but at eleven in the morning it shot up to forty-six with promise of further rising.
Tootie, Valentina, and Felicity, in riding clothes, walked toward their dorm.
“Did I bump Money? I swear I didn’t. Bunny’s in a mood. She always takes it out on me.” Valentina loved the look of the school after a snow.
“Didn’t see. I was in front of you,” Tootie said.
“Me, too.” Felicity noticed a determined squirrel stuffing acorns into her fat cheeks from a chinquapin oak.
Tootie noticed as well. “Mrs. Childers said chinquapins grow where the soil is alkaline. Sure are a lot of kinds of oaks.”
“I like water oaks. Don’t see them this far west.” Felicity liked botany. “There’s something romantic about water oaks.”
Valentina’s blue eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about oaks and I got my ass chewed by Bunny, the bitch.”
“One dollar,” Felicity grinned. “No, two.”
“Oh, pulease!” Valentina rolled her eyes. “Ass is a body part.”
Tootie stopped, holding up her hands. “I’ll make the call on this. Otherwise you two will go on for days. Val, you owe one dollar. I accept your explanation for ‘ass.’ Okay, F.?”
“Okay.” Felicity kept grinning as Valentina dug into her britches for a dollar.
“You’re such an accountant. How boring.”
“It won’t be boring when we throw our end-of-the-year party, funded mostly by your mouth.” Felicity laughed, her features relaxing from her normal strained visage.
“Did anyone ask for early acceptance?” Tootie wondered about college.
“No,” said Valentina as she shook her head. “We’ll get in to wherever we apply. We’ve got good grades and lots of extracurricular activities.”
“Don’t be so sure.” Felicity’s worried expression returned. “Places like Stanford and Yale, Smith, those places, the best of the best.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to Princeton
and they’ll be lucky to have me,” Valentina said with lightheartedness.
“Be funny if we wound up at the same college.” Felicity wanted the comfort of her dear friends even if they did bicker.
“Never happen,” Valentina pronounced. “What are the odds of the three of us getting in to Princeton?”
“Pretty good according to your analysis,” Tootie replied.
“Jennifer and Sari both got in to Colby.” Felicity liked the two college freshmen, having ridden with them many times.
“Colby isn’t Princeton,” Tootie remarked. “It’s a good school and all, but how many people want to go to Maine? Too cold.”
“If that was the criterion then no one would apply to Wisconsin or Michigan or Vermont.” Valentina saw the door of the dorm swing open and Pamela Rene emerge. “Chicago’s dream girl, in her own estimation,” she said under her breath.
“Okay, we all applied to Princeton. Tootie and I applied to Duke. You and I applied to Colgate. You and Tootie applied to Bucknell. At least two of us might make it.” Felicity kept on track.
“And I applied to Virginia Tech,” Tootie added.
“Yale,” Valentina said.
“Northwestern,” Felicity chimed in.
As Pamela approached them, Valentina asked, nicely, “Pamela, where’d you apply to college?”
Fingering her red scarf, Pamela stopped. “UVA, Tufts, Ole Miss.”
“Ole Miss?” Tootie’s eyebrows shot upward. “A Chicago girl like you at Ole Miss. Pamela, that surprises me.”
“I did it to piss off my mother.” She laughed. “She wanted me to apply to Radcliffe, Mt. Holyoke, Bard, and Vassar. If I get in to all three, I think I’ll go to Ole Miss anyway. But I put in a late application to Brown because I liked Professor Kennedy. Did it over Thanksgiving.”
“Did you have a good one?” Felicity didn’t like Pamela either but she tried to like her. Felicity tried to like everyone.
“No. But it was good to see my friends. What’d you guys do?”
The Hunt Ball Page 17