The Tail of the Tip-Off

by Rita Mae Brown

  “No fair,” Tucker barked.

  “What, that Brinkley gets to play in the snow and you don’t?” the Brittany asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’d whine to be taken on the toboggan. Then you’d wiggle. They’d crash into a tree. Aunt Tally would break a leg and it would be all your fault.” Pewter helpfully created a dismal scenario.

  “Would not,” the corgi pouted.

  “Get over yourself,” Pewter admonished her.

  “Do you think BoomBoom wears a support bra?” Mrs. Murphy wondered.

  “Well, of course she does,” Pewter replied seriously.

  Mrs. Murphy giggled, the Brittany guffawed, and Tucker’s mood improved.

  “I’d never wear a bra,” the corgi declared.

  “Four in a row. How awful.” Pewter rolled on her back to display her tiny pink bosoms.

  “Four bras. How expensive.” Mrs. Murphy flopped over onto the gray kitty, she was laughing so hard.

  “Tit for tat,” the Brittany said, tongue in cheek.

  “No, for cat,” Mrs. Murphy replied and they all howled with laughter.

  * * *

  36

  The pure silence of the snow had a calming effect on Harry, who usually couldn’t sit still. “Idle hands do the Devil’s work.” If she heard it once in her childhood she heard it a thousand times. But occasionally one needed to be idle, to sit still and allow energy to flow back into the soul.

  Chores done, Harry took a hot shower and stirred up the fire in the lovely old fireplace in the living room. Her robe, worn at the elbows, the shawl collar frayed, no longer provided as much warmth as it should. She plopped on the sofa, draped her mother’s cream-colored alpaca afghan over her legs, plumped up a needlepoint pillow, opened The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell. She plucked this off a pile which contained David Chandler’s The Campaigns of Napoleon, Jane Jacobs’s Cities and the Wealth of Nations and G. J. Whyte-Melville’s Riding Recollections. Harry’s tastes encompassed just about everything except for medicine and math, although she’d soldier through the math to solve an engineering or building problem. Her mind was completely open to any and all ideas, which isn’t the same as saying her ethics were. But she was willing to entertain different concepts whether they be Muslim, Buddhist, or the difference between Boswell and Gladstone. She wanted to know whatever could be known, which might explain why she couldn’t bear a mystery.

  “You take the feet, I’ll take the chest.” Mrs. Murphy settled on Harry’s chest.

  “I’m reading up here.” Pewter delicately curled herself on top of the pillow, her tail resting on Harry’s head.

  Tucker leapt onto the sofa to Harry’s feet.

  “If the sofa were an inch higher, you’d never make it,” Pewter teased.

  “Anyone ever tell you, you have a fat tail?” Tucker considered rolling over on her back but decided if Harry moved her feet she might land on the floor.

  “At least I have one,” the gray cat shot back.

  “Lot of talk around here.” Harry peeped over the top of the book.

  “Why don’t you read aloud something we can all enjoy? You know, like Black Beauty,” Tucker suggested.

  “Oh, that’s such a sad story.” Mrs. Murphy’s whiskers drooped for a moment. “I want a happy story.”

  “There are no happy stories,” Pewter grumbled. “In the end everyone dies.”

  “That’s life, not fiction. In fiction there are happy endings. Lassie Come Home has a happy ending.” Tucker liked novels with dogs as central characters.

  “Maybe dying’s not so bad. There is such a thing as a good death,” Mrs. Murphy thoughtfully said.

  “You mean a brave death?” Pewter asked.

  “That’s one way. To die before the walls of Troy or at Borodino. Fighting. Or to die at home surrounded by those who love you, like George Washington. Better than getting run over by a car.”

  “If you ask me, not enough humans get run over by cars. Too many of them.” Pewter dropped her tail over Harry’s eyes with malicious glee.

  Harry pushed the gray tail back.

  “I was thinking about us, not them,” Mrs. Murphy replied.

  “Oh. Well, there can never be too many cats.” Pewter dropped her tail again.

  “Quit it.” Harry flicked the tail away again.

  “Hee hee.” Pewter was enjoying herself.

  “There can be too many cats. There can be too many anything if we overrun the food supply. Look how the deer population has ballooned because hunting laws have changed. They’ll walk right into people’s backyards in the suburbs and eat everything. Wouldn’t dare try it here. Not with me around.” Tucker puffed out her chest.

  “You are good at that.” Mrs. Murphy complimented the corgi.

  “If only we could kill that hateful blue jay,” Pewter said wistfully.

  “Arrogant.” Tucker thought it was funny the way the blue jay tormented the cats with name-calling and ferocious dive-bombing. However, she wouldn’t want her skull pecked at by the loudmouth bird.

  “He’ll slip up someday. Patience,” Mrs. Murphy counseled.

  “Think the person or persons who killed H.H. and Mychelle will slip up? Think they’re arrogant?” Pewter swished her tail over Harry’s eyes this time but brought it up on her head before she could grab it.

  “Pewter! I am trying to read.”

  “Well, read a Dick Francis or one of those seafaring novels. Or that series about Richard Sharpe during the Napoleonic Wars. Read something that doesn’t tax us too much but we get to learn,” Pewter sassed back.

  “I don’t know if the killer will slip,” Mrs. Murphy replied to Pewter’s question. “Think about how smart you have to be to drive an object into someone’s neck without the victim feeling it, it doesn’t bleed, and you do this in front of an auditorium full of people. That was planned. Carefully.”

  “Mychelle’s death didn’t seem well planned,” Pewter remarked.

  “Back to our discussion. Did H.H. die a good death?” Tucker still felt terrible about Mychelle so she changed the subject.

  “Yeah,” Pewter said.

  “Why?”

  “Because it was swift, maybe not too painful. Better than operation after operation. Lingering. Ugh.” She shuddered, which made Harry reach up to steady her.

  “What is your problem?”

  “Read something we want.” Pewter batted at Harry’s hand.

  “H.H. wasn’t very old.” Mrs. Murphy would have preferred more innings for the fellow.

  “There are worse things than dying young,” Pewter said with conviction.

  “Like?” Tucker asked.

  “Like living for eighty years and not doing a damn thing. Like being afraid of your own shadow. When the Great Cat in the Sky jerks your string, you’re going home.”

  “Dog,” Tucker countered.

  “Cat.” Pewter remained steadfast in her spiritual belief.

  “Harry thinks it’s a human up there. Christians think there’s a man with a white beard who has a son with a dark beard.” Tucker couldn’t figure out where to fit in the Holy Ghost.

  “M-m-m, Harry isn’t a dogmatic person. She’s a Christian. She goes to church, but she’s not rigid. I bet if she ever told us what she thinks we might be surprised.” Tucker snuggled into the blanket. She loved the way the old alpaca throw felt.

  “I don’t mind, really, that every species thinks whatever is spiritual and powerful is a version of themselves. I really don’t, but you’d think they’d figure out that the spiritual is all-encompassing. It’s got to be more than we are, don’t you think?” Mrs. Murphy rubbed her cheek with her paw.

  “It’s too complicated for me,” Tucker honestly replied. “If I think about a Big Corgi, I feel much better.”

  Pewter leaned forward, reached down with her paw and touched Harry’s nose. “Gotcha.”

  Harry snuffled, then laughed. “Okay. You have made yourself crystal clear. You don’t want me to read this book.�
� She closed the book, reached onto the pillow, steadied Pewter while she sat up. “Time for a squeaky toy for Tucker and two little furry mice for you two.”

  “’Ray!” they cheered.

  The prized furry mice were kept in a cardboard box in the kitchen cabinet. Milk-Bones, catnip, and new squeaky toys were housed there, too, because the animals would throw them all over the house at once. They didn’t believe in delayed gratification.

  With three upturned faces at her feet, Harry opened the cabinet door, pulled out a squeaky bone. She tossed it for Tucker who skidded across the kitchen floor. Then she threw a white mouse for Murphy and a gray one for Pewter.

  The cats pounced, grabbed the toys by their skinny tails, threw them over their heads, pounced again. Curiosity got the better of Pewter who ran over to see if Murphy’s mousie was better than hers.

  Mrs. Murphy growled. Pewter huffed but returned to her own mouse.

  Harry placed another log onto the fire, settled herself again, but this time picked up the Whyte-Melville book.

  The two cats knocked their mice around like hockey pucks. They collided into the kitchen cabinets and one another.

  Pewter, eyes large from excitement, slapped one paw on her gray toy. She said in a low voice, “This mouse will die a good death. Crack.” She imitated snapping its neck.

  Mrs. Murphy whispered, “Mychelle—not a good death.”

  They both glanced at Tucker, under the coffee table in the living room, merrily chewing on the bone which squeaked with each chomp.

  “It’s a good thing Harry doesn’t know. Think how guilty she’d feel,” Pewter said. “I’m surprised she hasn’t figured out that’s why we were in front of the broom closet at the Clam.”

  “She has. She’s not saying anything. It’s one of the reasons she wants to solve this. She feels guilty.”

  “Could be,” the gray cat mumbled, then her voice became clear. “BoomBoom was there. She knows then, too.”

  “BoomBoom’s got a lot of unnecessary stuff up there, but I expect she kind of knows.” Mrs. Murphy tapped Pewter’s head.

  The phone rang. Harry reluctantly rose to answer it, swearing she was going to buy a cordless phone. “Hello.”

  “Harry, it’s Coop.”

  “Hey, girl, apart from a few cars sliding off the road maybe this will be a slow night.”

  “Actually, I’m not working tonight but on my way home I stopped by Anne Donaldson’s. You haven’t happened to see her, have you?”

  “No. Is this light surveillance?”

  “Uh—”

  “Okay, don’t answer that.”

  “Well, she could have stopped at a friend’s or her sister’s and decided to stay there.”

  “If you’re calling me you’ve already called them.”

  “Sometimes I forget just how smart you are,” Cooper half-laughed. “Yes, I have called them.”

  “Do you think she ran off?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve sent out her license plate number. Maybe someone will see her.”

  “Any officer on duty tonight can’t see the hand in front of his face,” Harry said.

  “You’re just hopeful tonight, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t mean to sound negative but it is a difficult night.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Rick worried?”

  “Concerned. Not worried.”

  “Ah.”

  “Next question.”

  “I thought you were off duty.”

  “I am.”

  “And you’re smoking a cigarette, too.” Harry smiled.

  “I already have a mother.”

  “Did I tell you to stop?”

  “No. Harry, how well do you know the girls on the basketball team?”

  “The only one I know is Isabelle Otey because she came to our volleyball games while her knee was healing from surgery. So you know her, too.”

  “Tammy Girond.”

  “No. Just see her at the games.”

  “Frizz Barber.”

  “Uh, she came into the post office once with a friend. But no.”

  “Jenny Ingersoll, Sue Drumheller, the Hall sisters?”

  “No, I just watch them play.”

  “Well, you know the coach.”

  “Not well, but yes. She’s terrific.”

  “Honest?”

  “You know she is.”

  “Yeah, I do know but I’m interested in your opinion. What about Andrew Argenbright, her assistant?”

  “M-m-m, seems pretty good. Occasionally I’ll see him in Charlottesville out and about but I don’t know him other than to say hello. Why are you asking me about the team?”

  “Well, I’ve been sequestered in the equipment room with Tim Berryhill. There was so much stuff we finally brought in two other officers, and, Harry, we counted every single piece of gear in that huge room. I thought I’d lose my mind. I hate stuff like that.”

  “And?”

  “And there’s no doubt equipment is being pilfered to the tune of about twenty-five thousand dollars last year. We don’t know about other years.”

  Harry exclaimed, “What tipped you off?”

  “Tracy was hit on the head two nights ago.”

  “He never told me.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Now that we’ve run the inventory it’s not quite so crucial.”

  “I hate not knowing these things.” Irritation crept into Harry’s voice.

  “You’re getting as bad as Mim.”

  “Did you call her?”

  “About Anne Donaldson, yes. Not about this,” Coop answered.

  “She won’t be happy when she finds out.”

  “Maybe. You watch people. You notice things. Did you ever see H.H. at the Clam other than for a game?”

  “No.”

  “Any ideas who’s stealing the stuff?”

  “Not right off the bat, forgive the pun. Since you’ve been running inventory whoever’s been stealing knows you know,” Harry sensibly said.

  “Well, sometimes guilt or fear or both will flush the pup right out of the woods.” Coop inhaled again, grateful for the nicotine.

  “Do you think this has something to do with the murders?”

  “I wish I knew. I’m starting to get irritated.”

  “Me, too.” Harry watched as a gray mousie was batted by her feet. “You called Mim about Anne and Cameron, of course—”

  “Yeah, I told you that.”

  “I know but you interrupted me.”

  “Sorry. Yes, and Mim, as smart as you are, knew it would be too obvious if I called around, so she is doing it. Her excuse is she heard Anne’s four-wheel-drive is in the shop and she’s happy to lend Anne hers.”

  “Then Mim knows, too.”

  “What?”

  “That Anne is your suspect.”

  “That’s why she’s calling and not me. Except for calling you.”

  “Are you worried that Anne’s slipped the net?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What if she’s not your killer? What if the killer wants her?”

  “That thought has occurred to me.”

  “Damn.”

  * * *

  37

  The sky, clear but pitch-black the next morning, was filled with stars. Some seemed white, others bluish, one had a red tint. The first hint of dawn, a slender thread of dark blue underneath the black, gave way to a lighter blue by six-thirty. A pink haze shimmered on the horizon.

  Harry had already accomplished her barn chores. She was shoveling snow, making a walkway between the house and the barn. She stopped to watch the sun’s rim, deepest crimson, nudge over the horizon. The snow, blue now, turned pink and then crimson itself. The icicles, some over a foot long, exploded into hanging rainbows. The dazzle was so intense, Harry had to squint.

  The mercury shivered at seven degrees Fahrenheit but as long as Harry was working, she didn’t mind. A muff covered her ears but they still stung a bit. She heaved snow to the ri
ght as the crimson, pink, and gold colors with blue still in the shadows made this an exceptionally beautiful morning.