Murder at Monticello

by Rita Mae Brown

  As a kitten, Mrs. Murphy used to sleep in a large brandy snifter. She never acquired a taste for brandy, but she did learn to like odd shapes. For instance, she couldn’t resist a new box of tissues. When she was small she could claw out the Kleenex and secrete herself into the box. This never failed to elicit a howl and laughter from Harry. As she grew, Mrs. Murphy discovered that less and less of her managed to fit into the box. Finally, she was reduced to sticking her hind leg in there. Hell on the Kleenex.

  Usually the cat contented herself with the canvas mail bin. If Harry, or on rare occasion, Mrs. Hogendobber, wheeled her around, that was kitty heaven. But today she felt like squishing herself into something small. The scudding, frowning putty-colored clouds might have had something to do with it. Or the fact that Market Shiflett had brought over Pewter and three T-bones for the animals. Pewter had caused an unwelcome sensation in Market’s store when she jumped into Ellie Wood Baxter’s shopping cart and sunk her considerable fangs into a scrumptious pork roast.

  Harry adored Pewter, so keeping her for the day was fine. The two cats and Tucker gnawed at their bones until weary. Everyone was knocked out asleep. Even Harry and Mrs. H. wanted to go to sleep.

  Harry stopped in the middle of another massive catalogue sort. “Would you look at that?”

  “Looks like a silver curtain. George and I loved to walk in the rain. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but George Hogendobber was a romantic. He knew how to treat a lady.”

  “He knew how to pick a good lady.”

  “Aren’t you sweet?” Mrs. Hogendobber noticed Mrs. Murphy, front end on the ledge, back end jammed into Mim’s box. She pointed.

  Harry smiled. “She’s too much. Dreaming of white mice or pink elephants, I guess. I do love that cat. Where’s the culprit?” She bent down to see Pewter asleep under the desk, her right paw draped over the remains of her T-bone. The flesh had been stripped clean. “Boy, I bet Ellie Wood pitched a holy fit.”

  “Market wasn’t too happy either. Maybe you ought to give him a vacation and take Pewter home tonight. She certainly could use a little outdoor exercise.”

  “Good idea. I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m as bad as these guys.”

  “Low pressure system. The pollen ought to be a factor soon too. I dread those two weeks when my eyes are red, my nose runs, and my head pounds.”

  “Get Larry Johnson to give you an allergy shot.”

  “The only person an allergy shot does any good for is Larry Johnson.” She grumbled. “He’ll come by soon to give us a lunch hour today. He’s back working full-time again. Remember when he first retired and he’d come in so you could take time for lunch? That lasted about six months. Then he was back working at his practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. Soon it was every morning, and now he’s back to a full schedule.”

  “Do you think people should retire?”

  “Absolutely not, I mean, unless they want to. I am convinced, convinced, Mary Minor, that retirement killed my George. His hobbies weren’t the same as being responsible to people, being in the eye of the storm, as he used to say. He loved this job.”

  “I’m trying to find a business I can do on the side. That way, when I retire, I can keep working. These government jobs are rigid. I’ll have to retire.”

  Miranda laughed. “You aren’t even thirty-five.”

  “But it goes by so fast.”

  “That it does. That it does.”

  “Besides, I need money. I had to replace the carburetor in my tractor last week. Try finding a 1958 John Deere carburetor. What I’ve got in there is a hybrid of times. And I don’t know how much longer the truck will hold up, she’s a 1978. I need four-wheel drive—the inside of the house needs to be painted. Where am I going to get the money?”

  “Things were easier when you were married. Anyone who doesn’t think a man’s salary helps isn’t very realistic. Divorce and poverty seem to be the same word for most women.”

  “Well, I lived just fine on my own before I was married.”

  “You were younger then. You weren’t maintaining a house. As you go along in life, creature comforts get mighty important. If I didn’t have my automatic coffee maker, my electric blanket, and my toaster oven, I’d be a crab and a half,” she joked. “And what about my organ that George bought me for my fiftieth birthday? I couldn’t live without that.”

  “I want a Toyota Land Cruiser. Never could afford it though.”

  “Does Mim have one of those?”

  “Along with one of everything else. But yes, she’s got the Land Cruiser and Jim’s got the Range Rover. Little Marilyn has a Range Rover too. Speak of the devil.”

  Mim pulled up and sat in the car, trying to decide if the rain would let up. It didn’t, so she made a dash for it. “Whoo,” she said as she closed the door behind her. Neither Harry nor Mrs. Hogendobber informed her of Mrs. Murphy’s slumber. She opened her post box. “A cat’s tail. I have always wanted a cat’s tail. And a cat’s behind. Mrs. Murphy, what are you doing?” she asked as she gently squeezed the feline’s tail.

  Mrs. Murphy, tail tweaked, complained bitterly. “Leave me alone. I don’t pull your tail.”

  Harry and Miranda laughed. Harry walked over to the cat, eyes now half open. “Come on, sweet pea, out of there.”

  “I’m comfortable.”

  Sensing deep resistance, Harry placed her hands under the cat’s arms and gently removed her amid a torrent of abuse from the tiger. “I know you’re comfy in there, but Mrs. Sanburne needs to retrieve her mail. You can get back in there later.”

  Tucker raised her head to observe the fuss, saw the situation, and put her head down on the floor again.

  “You’re a big goddamned help,” the cat accused the dog.

  Tucker closed her eyes. If she ignored Mrs. Murphy, the feline usually dropped it.

  “Did she read my mail too?” Mim asked.

  “Here it is.” Miranda handed it over to Mim, whose engagement diamond, a marquise cut, caught the light and splashed a tiny rainbow on the wall.

  “Bills, bills, bills. Oh, just what I always wanted, a catalogue from Victoria’s Secret.” She underhanded it into the trash, looked up, and beheld Harry and Miranda beholding her. “I love my cashmere robe. But this sexy stuff is for your age group, Harry.”

  “I sleep in the nude.”

  “True confessions.” Mim leaned against the counter. “Heard you all have been helping Kimball Haynes. I guess he told you about the pathology report, or whatever they call those things.”

  “Yes, he did,” Miranda said.

  “All we have to do is find a thirty-two-year-old white male who may have walked with a slight limp in his left leg—in 1803.”

  “That, or find out more about Medley Orion.”

  “It is a puzzle.” Mim crossed her arms over her chest. “I spoke to Lulu this morning and she said Kimball spent all of yesterday over there and Samson’s mad at her.”

  “Why?” asked Harry innocently.

  “Oh, she said he got out of sorts. And she admitted that maybe she should have waited until Samson was home. I don’t know. Those two.” She shook her head.

  As if on cue, Samson stamped into the post office with customers from Los Angeles. “Hello there. What luck, finding you here, Mim. I’d like you to meet Jeremy and Tiffany Diamond. This is Marilyn Sanburne.”

  Mim extended her hand. “How do you do?”

  “Fine, thank you.” Jeremy’s smile revealed a good cap job. His wife was on her second face-lift, and her smile no longer exactly corresponded to her lips.

  “The Diamonds are looking at Midale.”

  “Ah,” cooed Mim. “One of the most remarkable houses in central Virginia. The first to have a flying staircase, I believe.”

  Samson introduced the Diamonds to Harry and Miranda.

  “Isn’t this quaint?” Tiffany’s voice hit the phony register. “And look, you have pets here too. How cozy.”

  “They sort the mail.” Harry di
dn’t have the knee-jerk response to these kinds of people that Mim did, but she marveled at big city people’s assumption of superiority. If you lived in a small town or the country, they thought, then you must be unambitious or stupid or both.

  “How cute.”

  Jeremy brushed a few raindrops off his pigskin blazer, teal yet. “Samson’s been telling us about his ancestor, Thomas Jefferson’s mother.”

  I bet he has, Harry thought to herself. “Samson and Mrs. Sanburne—Mrs. Sanburne is the chair, actually—have raised money for the current restorations at Monticello.”

  “Ah, and say, what about the body in the slave quarters? I know why you look familiar.” He stared at Mim. “You were the lady on Wake-up Call with Kyle Kottner. Do you really think the victim was a stalker?”

  “Whoever he was, he posed some danger,” she replied.

  “Wouldn’t it be ironic, Samson, if he were one of your relatives.” Tiffany sank a small fishhook into Samson’s ego. Her unfortunate obsession with looking young and cute, and her faint hint of superiority, hadn’t dimmed her mind. She’d endured enough of Samson’s genealogical bragging.

  Harry stifled a giggle. Mim relished Samson’s discomfort, especially since she hadn’t fully forgiven him for his behavior at Wesley’s funeral.

  “Well,” he gulped, “who knows? Instead of living up to the past, I might have to live it down.”

  “I’d rather live in the present,” Tiffany replied, although her penchant for attempting to keep her face in the twenty-year distant past stated otherwise.

  After they vacated the premises, Mim walked back over and leaned against the counter. “Sharp lady.”

  “She’s got Samson’s number, that’s for sure.”

  “Harry”—Mim turned to Miranda—“Miranda, have you found anything at all?”

  “Just that Medley Orion lived with Martha Jefferson Randolph after 1826. She continued her trade. She had a daughter, but we don’t know her name.”

  “What about searching for the victim? Surely the possibility of a limp could give him away. Someone somewhere knew a lame man visited Medley Orion. And he wasn’t a tradesman.”

  “It’s baffling.” Miranda leaned on the opposite side of the counter. “But I’ve turned this over and over in my mind and I believe this has something to do with us now. Someone knows this story.”

  Mim tapped the counter with her mail. “And if we know, it will upset the applecart.” She grabbed a letter opener off the counter and opened her personal mail. Her eyes widened as a letter fell out of a plain envelope postmarked Charlottesville. Letters were pasted on the paper: “Let the dead bury the dead.” Mim blanched, then read it aloud.

  “Already has,” Harry said. “Yeah, the applecart’s upset.”

  “I resent this cheap theatric!” Mim vehemently slapped the letter on the counter.

  “Cheap or not, we’d better all be careful,” Miranda quietly commented.

  35

  Ansley, in defiance of Warren, allowed Kimball Haynes to read the family papers. She even opened the safe. After she heard about Lulu’s trouble with Samson, she figured the girls ought to stick together, especially since she didn’t see anything particularly wrong with allowing it.

  Reflecting on that later, she realized that she felt a kinship with Lulu since they shared Samson. Ansley knew she got the better part of him. Samson, a vain but handsome man, evidenced a streak of fun and true creativity in bed. As a young man, he was always in one scrape or another. The one told most often was how he got drunk and ran his motorcycle through a rail fence. Stumbling out of the wreckage, he cursed, “Damn mare refused the fence.” Warren had been riding with him that day on his sleek Triumph 750cc.

  They must have been wild young bucks, outrageous, still courteous, but capable of anything. Warren lost the wildness once out of law school. Samson retained vestiges of it but seemed subdued in the company of his wife.

  Ansley wondered what would happen if and when Lucinda ever found out. She thought of Lucinda as a sister. Conventional emotion dictated that she should hate Lucinda as a rival. Why? She didn’t want Samson permanently. Temporary use of his body was quite sufficient.

  The more she thought about why she allowed Kimball access to the papers, the more she realized that Wesley’s death had opened a Pandora’s box. She had lived under that old man’s thumb. So had Warren, and over the years she lost respect for her husband, watching him knuckle under to his father. Wesley had displayed virtues, to be sure, but he was harsh toward his son.

  Worse, both men shut her out of the business. She wasn’t an idiot. She could have learned about farming or Thoroughbred breeding, if nothing else. She might have even offered some new ideas, but no, she was trotted out to prospective customers, pretty bait. She served drinks. She kept the wives entertained. She stood on high heels for cocktail party after cocktail party. Her Achilles’ tendon was permanently shortened. She bought a new gown for every black-tie fund-raiser on the East Coast and in Kentucky. She played her part and was never told she did a good job. The men took her for granted, and they had no idea how hard it was to be set aside, yet still be expected to behave graciously to people so hideously boring they should never have been born. Ansley was too young for that kind of life. The women in their sixties and seventies bowed to it. Perhaps some enjoyed being a working ornament, the unsung part of the proverbial marital team. She did not.

  She wanted more. If she left Warren, he’d be hurt initially, then he’d hire the meanest divorce lawyer in the state of Virginia with the express purpose of starving her out. Rich men in divorce proceedings were rarely generous unless they were the ones caught with their pants down.

  Ansley awoke to her fury. Wesley Randolph had crowed about his ancestors, notably Thomas Jefferson, one time too many. Warren, while not as bad, sang the refrain also. Was it because they couldn’t accomplish much today? Did they need those ancestors? If Warren Randolph hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he’d probably be on welfare. Her husband had no get-up-and-go. He couldn’t think for himself. And now that Poppa wasn’t there to tell him how and when to wipe his ass, Warren was in a panic. She’d never seen her husband so distressed.

  It didn’t occur to her that he might be distressed because she was cheating on him. She thought that she and Samson were too smart for him.

  Nor did it occur to Ansley that a rich man’s life was not necessarily better than a poor man’s, except in creature comforts.

  Warren, denied self-sufficiency, was like a baby learning to walk. He was going to fall down many times. But at least he was trying. He pored over the family papers, he studied the account books, he endured meetings with lawyers and accountants concerning his portfolio, estate taxes, death duties, and what have you. Ansley had waited so long for him to be his own man that she couldn’t recognize that he was trying.

  She took a sour delight from the look on his face when she told him that Kimball had read through the family papers from the years 1790 to 1820.

  “Why would you do a thing like that when I asked you to keep him and everyone else out—at least until I could make a sound decision. I’m still—rocky.” He was more shocked than angry.

  “Because I think you and your father have been selfish. Anyway, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”

  He folded his hands as if in prayer and rested his chin on his fingertips. “I’m not as dumb as you think, Ansley.”

  “I never said you were dumb,” came the hot retort.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Since the boys were in their bedrooms, both parents kept their voices low. Warren turned on his heel and walked off to the stable. Ansley sat down and decided to read the family papers. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

  36

  The dim light filtering through the rain clouds slowly faded as the sun, invisible behind the mountains, set. The darkness gathered quickly and Kimball was glad he had driven straight home after leaving the Randolphs’. He wanted
to put the finishing touches on his successful research before presenting it to Sheriff Shaw and Mim Sanburne. He was hopeful that he could present it on television too, for surely the media would return to Monticello. Oliver would not be pleased, of course, but this story was too good to suppress.

  A knock on the door drew him away from his desk.

  He opened the door, surprised. “Hello. Come on in and—”

  He never finished his sentence. That fast, a snub-nosed .38 was pulled out of a deep coat pocket and Kimball was shot once in the chest and once in the head for good measure.

  37

  The much-awaited movie date with Fair turned into an evening work date at Harry’s barn. The rain pattered on the standing-seam tin roof as Fair and Harry, on their knees, laid down the rubberized bricks Warren had given her. She did as her benefactor suggested, putting the expensive flooring in the center of the wash stall, checking the grade down to the drain as she did so. Fair snagged the gut-busting task of cutting down old black rubber trailer mats and placing them around the brick square. They weighed a ton.

  “This is Mother’s idea of a hot date.” Mrs. Murphy laughed from the hayloft. She was visiting Simon as well as irritating the owl, but then, everyone and everything irritated the owl.

  Tucker, ground-bound since she couldn’t climb the ladder and never happy about it, sat by the wash stall. Next to her was Pewter, on her sleepover visit as suggested by Mrs. Hogendobber. Pewter could climb the ladder into the hayloft, but why exert herself?

  “Don’t you think the horses get more attention than we do?” Pewter asked.

  “They’re bigger,” Tucker replied.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Mrs. Murphy called down.

  “They aren’t as independent as we are and their hooves need constant attention,” Tucker said.