“He’s always wanted Lorraine! I’ll kill him if he touches her.”
Lorraine, hanging on to Shaker’s free arm, tried to placate him. “Honey, he didn’t mean it.”
“They all want you.”
Gray said in a soothing voice, “She’s a beautiful woman, Shaker. You’re right to protect her, but in this case Crawford was pushed by Bill Wheatley.”
“Did you see the way he looked at her!” Shaker wanted to kill Crawford.
As Bill pushed his way through the dancers to apologize, leaving his wife high and dry, Crawford was being lifted to his feet by Walter and Sam Lorillard. Marty kept patting her husband’s jaw. He held his hand over the red mark and as he was coming back into focus he was rip-shit mad.
The girls watched with fascination. The others watched as they danced. The music was too good to stop.
Gray and Lorraine walked Shaker outside, now bitterly cold. Lorraine was shivering. Shaker wrapped her in his scarlet tails. Bill Wheatley sprinted out.
“Shaker, I’m so sorry. This is my fault.”
“It’s Crawford’s damned fault and don’t make excuses for him.”
Gray said, “Bill, the silent auction will close in half an hour. Why don’t you make an announcement after the next dance for people to go in there and close out the bids? Your voice will carry over the noise.”
Bill assented and left.
“I know he’s a big landowner. I know he’s paid for this ball and pumps money into the club, but he better never put a hand on Lorraine again or I will kill him.”
Lorraine, still shivering, said, “Honey, if he values his teeth he won’t even look at me.”
This brightened Shaker up a bit. “Here I am blowing off steam and you’re shivering. Come on. Let’s go back inside.”
As Gray was steering Shaker and Lorraine in a direction where he hoped they would not run into Crawford or Marty, Crawford, white-lipped with rage, stormed out of the Great Hall, leaving Marty in the lurch.
He was so mad he was deaf to his wife’s entreaties.
Walter put his arm through Marty’s as she started after Crawford. “Let him walk it off.”
“You don’t know Crawford. When he gets like this nothing good can come of it.” Concern shone on her face. “He’s unpredictable.”
“Would you like me to talk to him?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Let me find him.”
“Then let me go with you. And get your coat. No point freezing as we search the grounds.”
By the time they emerged, sufficiently bundled up, Crawford was roaring down the road to the kennels, eight miles away. Marty threw up her hands, as she was left in the lurch again.
A hired hand hit him. That was bad enough. But this hired hand thought he was a fool, couldn’t ride, and knew nothing about hounds. He’d show that arrogant son of a bitch huntsman that he could handle hounds as well as Shaker.
It wasn’t rocket science. It’s a bunch of dogs.
He screeched to a halt by the kennels. He knew the party wagon would be parked by the draw run.
He backed the trailer to the gates, got out, slid them open, then closed them on either side of the trailer so hounds couldn’t scoot out.
That wasn’t so hard.
Then he walked to the dog run, opened the gate, walked to the bitch run, opened the gate, and watched as the hounds, a bit confused but willing, walked down the large kennel aisle. He opened the door to the draw run. They filed in, then walked onto the party wagon. He shut the doors to the trailer, closed the runs. Then he walked into the office and took Shaker’s walking-out horn and placed it through his white vest buttons.
He double-checked the back trailer door when he pulled away from the gates. Soon he was on his way back to Custis Hall.
“Anyone can handle hounds,” he said to himself, his jaw still aching.
In a way he was right. The Jefferson Hunt hounds were easy to handle because Sister and Shaker poured their love and life into their pack.
Meanwhile, Bill Wheatley announced the silent auction had but a half hour to run. The band took a break so people walked back into the room to bid anew. Valentina, Tootie, and Pamela finally got into the room as they’d had no time up until now. Felicity and Howard also walked in.
The girls admired the saddle from Horse Country in Warrenton. There was even a bridle of English leather with the bit, English steel, the best, sewn in, which Jim Meads, the famous photographer, had sent over from England. As they slowly walked down the long rows of tables they marveled at the items.
They stopped dead in front of the gold ring with the oval onyx stone. The script on a white card read, “Ring donated by Target, the red fox living at After All Farm.”
For a moment no one said a word. Knute Nilsson, also getting into the room for the first time, was moving toward them. He didn’t want to buy anything, but knew he had to put his name on some small item and hope someone would soon outbid him.
He stopped at the ring, too, noticing the stunned expressions on the girls’ faces.
“Girls, are you unwell?” Then his eyes took in the ring, a flicker of the eyelids.
“Mr. Nilsson, this is Professor Kennedy’s ring.”
“Well, perhaps she donated it,” he replied.
“No, it says Target the fox,” Pamela answered.
“Professor Kennedy wasn’t a foxhunter,” Valentina said.
“She knew everyone here was and this is a hunt ball.” He shrugged, seeing Bill walk toward him out of the corner of his eye.
“Professor Kennedy had no sense of humor.” Tootie felt her stomach sink, a nameless dread overtaking her, but she kept her wits. “It must be some mistake. Come on, gang.” She smiled brightly at Knute and Bill, who now reached him, and dragged the girls with her. “Shut up. Just shut up,” she hissed under her breath.
As the girls walked away, Sam Lorillard noticed a heated, whispered conversation between Knute and Bill, both men’s faces red as fire.
Tootie dragged Valentina, Pamela, Felicity, and Howard to Sister, luckily talking to Charlotte during the break in the music.
“Hello, girls,” Sister smiled. “This is the best ball we’ve ever had, thanks to your efforts.”
“Sister, Mrs. Norton, something’s really wrong.” Tootie kept her voice low, her breath in short gasps.
“What is it?” Charlotte instinctively put her arm around Tootie’s shoulders as the others looked on.
“Professor Kennedy’s ring is in the auction.” Valentina supplied the answer.
The release of the identity of the corpse would be made Monday. The girls did not know that Professor Kennedy was dead. Only Charlotte, Sister, Gray, and Ben Sidel knew that. Even Walter didn’t know.
“Oh, God!” Charlotte blurted out.
Very calmly Sister said, “Girls, not a word. Not yet.” She almost said “Your life may depend on it,” but figured they were upset enough.
She motioned to Gray, who came over. The little group walked back to the silent auction.
The ring, not a hot item, had garnered few bidders, but Knute Nilsson was one. He bid $100.
“It’s Professor Kennedy’s ring,” Tootie declared.
Charlotte nodded, “Yes, it is.”
“Mrs. Norton, she wouldn’t part with her ring,” Tootie said.
“What are you saying, Tootie?” Pamela began to feel Tootie’s fear.
“She’s dead,” Tootie barely whispered.
“Why? And wouldn’t we know?” Pamela resisted this.
Sister stepped in. “Girls, come with me.”
Sister, Gray, Charlotte, Tootie, Valentina, Pamela, and Felicity followed, as did Howard. Sister and Charlotte spoke low to each other.
Charlotte quietly told the girls that Professor Kennedy was the corpse under St. John’s of the Cross. The positive I.D. would be released Monday. Until the lab in Richmond verified the remains, she wouldn’t announce Professor Kennedy’s death.
“Where’s the sh
eriff?” Felicity asked.
“On duty. That’s why he’s not here tonight,” Charlotte said.
“Shouldn’t he see the ring?” Tootie asked.
“Yes,” Charlotte answered.
“I’ll call him. Honey, do you have your cell phone stuck somewhere?” Sister asked Gray, who pulled the tiniest, flattest phone out from his inside breast pocket.
As she was calling, Pamela said to Charlotte, “This is about the slave work, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte honestly replied. “But I believe it certainly has something to do with whatever is in those cases.”
Before anyone could respond to that a hell of a commotion erupted in the Great Hall.
Crawford let loose the hounds, horn to lips, and he was bearing down on Shaker, stunned at this perfidy.
“You dumb son of a bitch!” Crawford bellowed. “I can hunt these hounds.”
Sister, Gray, Charlotte, the girls, and Howard ran into the room as fast as their finery would allow them.
Tootie, wearing not high heels but dancing slippers, lifted her skirts, ran up the steps to the bandstand, then jumped off. She reached Crawford before Shaker did. The hounds milled around causing havoc, eating leftovers on plates. Tootie put her body in front of Crawford’s as Shaker reached them.
Shaker pushed through the crowd toward Crawford. He had the presence of mind to say to the hounds, “Steady, steady.”
“Don’t, Mr. Crown, don’t,” she said quite calmly, but with true command.
The sight of this slip of a girl, ravishingly beautiful, in front of a man he couldn’t abide, made him realize Crawford wasn’t worth hitting. He snatched the horn from Crawford’s vest.
Hounds gobbled leftovers, gleefully pulling plates off tables or getting on the tables.
Valentina looked over the astonished crowd and saw Knute, knife in hand, pursuing Bill. Both men crashed through the double doors.
“Sister! Sister! It’s Knute and he’s got a knife, chasing Bill.”
Sister walked up to Crawford and slapped him hard across the face. “I will see you rot in Hell.”
This stunned the onlookers more than the hounds filling the Great Hall.
Shaker put the horn to his lips, blowing three long notes.
Cora, Diana, Ardent, the Ds, the Ts, all came, although they hated to leave the feast.
That fast, Sister, holding up her own long skirts, hurried out of the building. “Come on, huntsman, come on.”
There was not a moment to load the hounds, much as Sister wanted to put them up. In fact, there wasn’t a moment to lose.
Shaker, Gray, Charlotte, Sam, Walter, Valentina, Tootie, Pamela, Felicity, and Howard followed.
Rarely had Shaker seen that urgency in his master. He trusted her completely and followed her with the pack.
Betty yelled over to Sybil, “Whip in, Sybil. You take the right. I’ll take the left.”
Holding up their skirts, they plunged outside into the deep cold, caught up with the hounds, and, shivering, running along, ensured order.
In the distance they could see Knute, a fitter, faster man, gaining on Bill Wheatley, who was heading for the theater department. He made it, slamming the door in Knute’s face, but Knute got it open before Bill could lock it.
The hounds and humans ran faster, Gray up front with Shaker. “Hurry, man, hurry!”
By now, the rest of the celebrants spilled out onto the quad to watch in fascination and wonder at the sight.
Gray hurled open the door, hounds moving ahead of him.
“Get ’em up,” Shaker called, as he was beginning to get the picture.
Naturally, they looked for foxes, and there were some tatty old furs in the costume storage room. The hounds heard the human feet ahead, running, as Bill bolted into the costume room, hoping he could somehow hide from Knute.
Knute was quickly in the room, brushing costumes aside, tearing them off hangers in a silent, efficient rage.
Bill tiptoed through the rows of costumes until he came to the back of the room where the fake guns, battle-axes, and swords were stored. He flipped open a cabinet and pulled out Zorro’s sword, sharp enough to cut rope and ribbon, which the play demanded. He waited.
Gray and Shaker opened the door. They could hear the costumes being pulled off hangers. The hounds were silent. As the men moved forward so did the hounds.
Sister, Charlotte, and the girls were right behind the hounds, as were Betty and Sybil. Howard had moved up with the men. He was young, strong, and confident.
“I know you’re here.” Knute was oblivious to the hounds and humans moving through the costumes.
Bill waited, listening intently for Knute’s footfall. He was coming from the right.
Knute pulled aside the last row of costumes and saw Bill, who hid the sword behind his back.
“Knute, fancy meeting you here.” He smiled genially.
“You son of a bitch!” Knute flung himself forward, knife in the air.
That fast, Bill Wheatley ran him through.
The hounds reached the twitching figure first, blood oozing from Knute’s mouth.
“It’s a kill!” Dasher declared.
“Leave it,” Cora ordered.
The hounds surrounded Knute and Bill, who said, as the humans reached him, “Mad as a hatter.”
C H A P T E R 3 3
“Did we do something wrong?” Little Diddy asked Ardent as they were being loaded on the party wagon.
“No,” Ardent stated authoritatively.
“Crawford did wrong.” Asa’s gravelly voice carried in the bitterly cold night air. “That’s why Sister slapped him.”
Sister, a floor-length mink over her white Balenciaga, was loading hounds with Gray, Sam, and Shaker.
Shaken as they were by what had happened, they had to take care of the hounds, their first responsibility.
Charlotte, Carter, Walter, and the other men of the club remained with Bill Wheatley as Ben Sidel’s squad car siren screamed in the distance.
The revelers, by twos, walked to their cars. This surely had been an unforgettable hunt ball.
Sorrel, frantically, made sure those who won their bids took their items, as she didn’t want anything of value left in the Great Hall. Marty couldn’t help since she was ministering to her husband. Marty loved him but knew he was wrong and feared Sister’s wrath. She guided him out of the hall to the parking lot. He was shouting and cursing but she managed to get him in the car.
The decorations needed to come down, but at that moment they couldn’t think about it. No one in the hall knew of Knute’s murder for twenty minutes until Felicity and Howard, sent back by Charlotte, informed them they should go home. When asked why, the two young people told the truth.
Tootie and Valentina, Betty and Sybil, stayed with Sister, helping to load hounds.
Lorraine, aghast at the turn of events, silently watched as Shaker calmly praised the hounds, loading them into the trailer.
“Good food!” Dragon enthused.
“Roast beef,” Trudy dreamily said, her belly full of it.
When the door was closed and latched, Shaker headed for the driver’s door.
“Shaker, I wouldn’t complain if you killed him,” Betty said.
“This isn’t over. You go. I’ll stay.” Sister half-closed her eyes for a minute.
“I’ll stay, too. You’re in danger.” He put his arms around his boss’s broad shoulders.
“No, honey, go. Hounds first. Gray and Walter are here.” She then opened the passenger door, opened the glove compartment, and removed the .38. She took out the box of shells, clicked open the chamber, filling the six holes with bullets. She put the box of shells in her left pocket, the .38 in her right. Usually Shaker or Walter rode with a .38 under his coat. If a deer had not been finished off by a hunter one of the men completed the unenviable but humane task.
Shaker looked at her. “Boss, for God’s sake, be careful.”
A broad smile crossed
her face; she was energized by the danger. She said, “I’m a tough old bird. Go on.”
Tootie, shivering—her coat wasn’t heavy enough—said, “We should go to the cases.”
“Yes. Can you collect the girls who worked with Professor Kennedy to meet me at the Main Hall? Get Mrs. Norton, too.”
Shaker, Lorraine in the truck cab with him, fired up the motor and slowly pulled out, worried sick about Sister.
Gray put his hand on Sister’s shoulder. She turned to him; they started the long walk to Old Main Hall.
“I will kill Crawford myself. The point is a pack of hounds, any kind of hounds, has been bred, trained, developed, and loved for one purpose and one purpose only: to chase the quarry. I don’t believe in demonstrations before crowds. I don’t believe in marching hounds in parades on hot pavement. I don’t believe in taking hounds to county fairs so children can pet them. If we want to promote foxhunting in a positive light then the first thing we do is honor our hounds. Make videos if you must, but do not use your hounds for any frivolous purpose. I know I’m conservative on this but that’s what I believe and as long as I am master of Jefferson Hunt, these hounds will not be trifled with, and I know once Crawford’s rage passes he will find a way to make himself right and Shaker and myself wrong.” Her heel slipped on a bit of icy sidewalk. He grabbed her elbow. “Sorry, Gray, I didn’t mean to pontificate.” She took a deep breath, the frigid air hitting her lungs. “And I’m worried. We’ve got to find what’s in those cases. We aren’t going to like it.”
As the hounds were driven out, Ben Sidel pulled up to the theater building, an ambulance behind him.
Charlotte gave him what details she could. Ben whispered something to Ty Banks as the rescue squad removed Knute’s body.
Charlotte, Ben, Walter, and Carter walked Bill Wheatley to Old Main Hall. He professed to know nothing about the cases. As for why Knute Nilsson would suddenly turn on him with a knife, he accounted for it by the tremendous financial strain Knute was under.
“What strain?” Charlotte asked as they headed across the oldest quad, Old Main straight ahead.
“He bought that schooner. Do you know how much one of those things costs?”
“I don’t,” Charlotte said.
The Hunt Ball Page 22