Gray thought. “Short fellow, kind of heavy, not too bright. Art would use him to help move stuff once in a while.”
“Yes, I can’t remember his name, but I remember he had such red hair.”
Gray put down the paper. “He did, didn’t he?”
“Bright red.”
“There’s still some left,” Gray said, remembering the scene.
CHAPTER 16
Sunday, February 5, was a playoff Sunday. That meant sports dominated all forms of media. Sister liked football well enough although she wasn’t obsessed by it. Baseball was her game.
Gray had driven back to the Lorillard place so he, Sam, and a few of their unmarried, divorced, and temporarily single friends could watch the game. A big flat-screen TV filled the wall in the Lorillard brothers’ living room. Due to his past, Sam lacked close friends except for Rory, a fellow he’d met on Charlottesville’s Skid Row. Rory had also cleaned up his act. Gray, on the other hand, enjoyed many friendships, quite a few of them men from the hunt club.
Sister and Tootie helped Shaker with the hound chores so he, too, could go.
The two women, having finished the horse and hound chores, happily returned to the house.
Once in the kitchen, teapot boiling per usual, Sister said, “Why don’t you get it over with?”
Tootie slumped at the table, which brought the two dogs over to comfort her. “I know. First, I’ll call Val.”
“Don’t be surprised if she tells you you’re crazy.”
Tootie smiled. “Oh, she will. Val and I have been roommates for four years. Well, four and a half counting Princeton. We’re so used to each other and now”—she looked at Sister—“I’ll have a new roommate.”
“She already has a roommate. Me.” Golly announced from the window over the sink where she was drooling over the cardinals eating at the bird feeder.
Sister laughed. “Oh, Tootie, with Val you draw double the number of handsome young men. You aren’t going to get that with me.”
Tootie plucked her cell phone out of her jacket, which she’d draped on the back of the ladder-back chair. “You know, it gets tedious. I don’t care about that stuff. I really don’t. Val lives to be the center of attention.” Tootie hastily added, “I’m not criticizing. Just a fact, and it’s one of the things we had to learn about each other.”
“Go in the den and sit by the window. Better reception.”
“Thanks.”
“And Tootie, then call Mom and Dad. Get it over with. Steel yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tootie rose, removed her coat from the chair, and walked down the hall to the den.
Rooster followed her while Raleigh stayed with his beloved Sister. The Doberman hated it when she wasn’t within eyesight. Occasionally he wangled his way to a hunt where he would patiently wait in the truck, windows cracked. Usually, he was left home, convinced something dreadful would happen to Sister. Being a dog and therefore sensible, he imagined wolves, frenzied buck, mountain lions, or other dastardly humans. Trouble usually came in an official government letter in the mail or via a phone call. He couldn’t imagine that.
Tea steeping, fingers warming, the tall woman sank into a kitchen chair at last, Sunday paper before her. Reading the paper was a ritual she enjoyed as much as Gray. She could pull information off her DROID or from the computer, but it wasn’t the same as spreading out the paper, reading and listening to the rustle of the pages as she turned them.
The budget crisis soaked up ink, as did another sex scandal involving a married senator, one who had much publicized his virtue. Laughing, she flipped the page, suddenly finding an article of interest.
“Raleigh,” she told the dog, “the report on the body found at Gray and Sam’s say it is under investigation. Foul play may be involved, or it may be a hunting accident. A hunting accident? You shoot the deer, it falls on top of you? Come on.” She read further. “Cause of death is not yet determined. The remains will be sent to the medical examiner in Richmond.” She looked at the dog. “If anyone can find out what killed him, they can. Hmm, this is a curious report. Obviously, Ben and the department want to downplay violence. Oh, he’s been identified as Carter Weems. Couldn’t think of his name to save my life.” She lowered her voice, confiding in Raleigh, “He’s the only person I know who wore a Woolrich coat—the old kind, the heavy-duty, lasts-forever kind that people wore when I was a kid. It says Weems had been arrested in the past for hauling illegal guns and illegal whiskey in North Carolina. Also asks if he has any next of kin and will they come forward.” She took a long drink of hot tea. “Can’t stand it.”
She rose to call Betty.
“Betty, did you read the paper?”
“I was just going to call you. I vaguely remember him. Well, he must have been up to no good.”
“That or he crossed the wrong person. The little reference to him hauling moonshine, well, he knew what he was doing, but if someone wants to pin something on you that’s all too easy.”
“True.” Betty thought for a moment. “Who knows what’s being brought into the county or carried out of it? Albemarle is rich. Loaded with cocaine. Meth in the county, but for all those people with money to burn, cocaine is the drug of choice. And yes, we all know ’shine is driven out of our county, out of any county that has runoff from the Blue Ridge Mountains. That water is pure. Well, we think it’s pure.”
“I sure was glad that Sybil wasn’t mentioned. We don’t need the hunt club in the papers, even though finding the body is no reflection on any of us or any other foxhunter.”
“Why would that matter?”
“Crawford,” answered Sister. “He could find a way to use it against us.”
“Now, Janie, that’s a far stretch. Don’t let him get to you that way. He wouldn’t stir up the anti-hunters because he’s hunting. Finding a body shouldn’t arouse our other landowners.”
“You’re right.” She sighed deeply. “I’m jumpy. It’s a strange time.”
“Yes, it is. Oh, Bobby’s over at Gray’s watching the game. Actually, I’ll watch the playoffs by myself. He screams, jumps out of his chair, throws popcorn. Tell you what, girl, wears me out.”
Sister laughed. “It’s odd how men identify with teams, with other men who have athletic ability. It’s like they’re in love with them.”
“Bobby can still get misty-eyed over Bear Bryant,” said Betty, and they laughed.
“For Gray, it’s Roberto Clemente,” said Sister. “Here’s what gets me, all this focus nowadays on head injuries in football. Of course, they’re responsible for the early dementia and suicide of some of those retired players. Don’t you think?”
“Hell, yes.”
“But would we watch football, would it generate as much cash, were it not violent? See, I think we are violent by nature. We repress it, but we are thrilled to watch it in others, most particularly in sports. And I’m part of it, too. Not saying I’m not.”
“Too deep for me.” Betty laughed. “We’ve had violence enough. The man you and Tootie found in New York and now Carter Weems.” Betty paused. “Have you read through all the paper yet?”
“No, called you as soon as I read the article about finding the body.”
“Go to the business section. One of the Philip Morris warehouses was burned Saturday. That’s never happened before.”
“No.” Sister thought. “No suspects for that? Well, I’ll read it.”
“No. Could be one of the antismoking groups. I mean a lot of these organizations are becoming really radical like PETA, things like that. Now, the antismoking crowd could be going that route.”
“I sure hope not.”
“These days everything seems upside down,” Betty said, voice rising. “People say they believe in the sanctity of life, then blow up an abortion clinic killing everyone in it. Other people say there’s only one God, theirs, and they fly airplanes into buildings. I understand hate, I truly do. What I don’t understand is double-think.”
“Me n
either, but why assume that humans are rational?” said Sister. “I’ve done enough stupid things in my life to make me realize we can all be irrational. Mix in politics, power, profit, sex, or religion and the insanity goes global, doesn’t it?”
“Sure seems to. Well, this is a happy Sunday conversation.”
Sister laughed. “Sometimes you just have to get it off your chest. Then I think of our friends, those in the hunt club, those in church, those at Custis Hall. We know so many people and most of them are straight up. So if we have good people here, there have to be good people everywhere.”
“You’re right.”
After ending the call, Sister returned to the kitchen table. Sitting down, she tried to concentrate. From down the hall, she could hear Tootie’s voice while she spoke on the phone, louder than usual. Sister drummed the tabletop with her fingers.
“That is most irritating,” Golly said. Clamor of this sort really got on the cat’s nerves.
“You’re such a priss.” Raleigh walked over to the sink and stood on his hind legs to reach Golly on her windowsill perch.
She exposed one sharp claw. “Don’t you dare come closer.”
The Doberman didn’t, but he opened his jaws as though to clamp down on the cat. “You’d be so tasty.”
Furious hissing drew Sister’s attention from the paper. “Raleigh, leave her alone.”
The dog dropped back to all fours, returning to his master. “You always take her part.”
On her feet again, Sister walked to the phone. Even though the phone was close by, Golly ignored her. The cat licked her paw as though she hadn’t a care in the world, and pretty much she didn’t.
Pulling up a chair by the counter, Sister sat down after she dialed. “Ben, it’s the old lady.”
“Sister, good hunt yesterday, despite all.”
“Yes, hounds did well. The youngsters are stepping up to the plate. You can cuss me for this, but my nosiness got the better of me. Who identified Carter Weems?”
“Art DuCharme.”
“Funny, because Gray and I were talking last night, late, trying to figure out who it might be. Gray told me about the jacket and I remembered, sort of, a fellow who sometimes helped Art haul stuff. Couldn’t think of his name, plus that fellow can’t be the only person in the area to wear one of those jackets. They’re just about indestructible.”
“They are, but the body wasn’t. One of the men who helped extract the body from under the deer recalled the man. I got hold of Art and he came right down to the morgue.”
“I don’t wish that job on anybody. Identifying remains.”
“Poor Art passed out. When we revived him, he said it was Carter Weems. He’d wondered where he’d gone, but Carter was a drifter. Only worked when he had to. Art said he never suspected anything like this might have befallen him. Those were his words, befallen.”
Art passed out because Carter was a grisly sight. Sister wondered whether Art also feared what might befall him.
CHAPTER 17
The day’s hard hunting outside in the cold finally caught up with Sister. She leaned back in the kitchen chair to stretch out her legs.
Golly sprawled out on Lafayette’s equine gel pad, heard joints pop. “Getting old,” she said, reveling in the cozy spot.
Raleigh remarked, “You’re no spring chicken.”
“I’m no chicken.”
“A birdbrain, then?” Rooster laid his head on his paws.
“I’d have a battle of wits with you, but you’re unarmed.” Golly shifted on the gel pad.
“There’s an awful lot of noise in here,” Sister said to the three animals, then added, “and not much in the den.”
She rose, stretching her arms over her head before walking down the hall to the den. The dogs followed. Golly remained on the gel pad for it was comfortable, so comfortable that Sister, grumbling, let her have it. She’d buy another for Lafayette.
“Well?” Sister inquired of Tootie, who sat on the cushioned sofa, deep in thought.
“You know what he said? ‘You made your bed, you lie in it.’ Then he handed the phone to Mom. She recited all the reasons why it’s a bad idea, but she knew my mind was made up. It could have been worse.” Tootie looked from the fire to the deep darkness outside the window. “I’m not doing this to disappoint them. If I don’t follow my heart I’ll make a bigger mess later. Haven’t you ever noticed that the people who don’t do what they should—you know, don’t find the right work or follow their dreams—turn on themselves eventually or turn on everybody else?”
“Or both.” Sister sat next to her on the sofa. “You’re right, Tootie. It really could have been worse.”
“The first thing I’m going to do when I get back to Princeton is try to get Dad as much of his money back for this semester as possible.” A long pause followed. “That’s all he cares about.”
“Honey, that’s not true,” Sister said, taking the distraught Tootie’s hand. “Really. He loves you. He wants what’s best for you. He can’t see beyond what he believes is right. So everything comes out sounding like a financial transaction. You might say it’s your father’s metaphor for life.”
Turning her beautiful face to Sister, she said, “Well, he is right about one thing: I’m going to find out the value of money. Felicity sure has, but she has that kind of brain. You know she invested our kitty at Custis Hall? I don’t think like that, but I can pay bills. I can check my balance online. Like I said, I’ll learn.”
When Tootie, Val, and Felicity were students at Custis Hall, their senior year, each time one of the girls swore she had to put a dollar in the kitty. By graduation time, the sum neared one thousand dollars. Instead of having a party, the girls voted to let Felicity invest it. She had, and even in these hard times, she was making about fifteen percent on their investment.
“You’ll figure it all out,” said Sister. “In time, your father will see that you made the right decision.”
“I don’t know.” She paused. “Felicity should have been his daughter.”
“She’s had her own troubles with her parents,” Sister reminded Tootie.
“Getting pregnant before graduation—yeah, guess she did. The funny thing is, I think Mom and Dad would have handled that better than this. I’m in my freshman year, already Mom keeps talking about a suitable boy, graduation. I can’t think about that stuff.”
“I didn’t either until I met Ray. Once married I thought, well, an unmarried woman is incomplete. When she’s married, she’s finished.” She laughed.
Tootie laughed, too. “But you always knew what you wanted to do, didn’t you?”
“Not as clearly as you do. I loved geology, loved teaching, but when RayRay was born, I loved being a mother. Beyond that, I didn’t have much direction in life.”
“Hunting.”
Pondering this, Sister finally answered, “Now I see that hunting provided the framework of my life, but I wouldn’t say it gave me direction. I’m not complaining. It’s all worked out and it will work out for you, especially if you don’t make a big drama out of it.”
“Do you think I am?” Tootie worried.
“No. I think you’re remarkably self-possessed. I know you’re strong under pressure, I’ve seen you in the hunt field. And in New York, you handled finding a murdered man. But that’s not quite the same as something inside the family or with romance. A lot of people, young or old, blow everything out of proportion, making matters ten times worse.”
“No time to be dramatic,” Tootie said, nodding. “Val’s dramatic enough for both of us.” She laughed a little.
“Yes, well, if she wants that political career she keeps talking about, she’d better learn to squelch that. What time do you want to leave in the morning?”
“I don’t have a class until the late afternoon so I thought seven.”
“All right then. I’ll make you breakfast.”
“Sister, you don’t have to do that. You’re doing so much for me.”
�
��I have to eat, too. Oh, before I forget, the body found during the hunt has been identified. Carter Weems. A drifter from North Carolina who picked up odd jobs, mostly hauling.”
“I’m glad I didn’t see that.”
“Me, too,” Sister agreed. “It has to be murder. Human bodies don’t wind up under deer. No word from the authorities about how he was killed, or they aren’t saying. Actually, I think Ben would tell me.”
“Sometimes I think about dying,” Tootie said, then quickly reassured the older woman: “Not doing it to myself, don’t you worry. I’m just glad I don’t know when I’m going to die. Would you want to know?”
“Takes the fun out of it.”
“Death?” Tootie was incredulous.
“No, it takes the mystery out of life. It is possible to know too much,” stated Sister. “Most of it doesn’t matter anyway. I think of that line in Ecclesiastes, ‘all is vanity.’ Still, finding a body in my hunt territory makes me want to know who did it and why. Maybe I want to know too much.”
She did.
CHAPTER 18
“Do you think they’ll try to kill you?” Crawford asked, voice emotionless as he leaned back in his cozy den chair. Dismay crossed Tariq’s face. “No. I’m not that important.” He paused. “At least I hope I’m not.”
“You’re important enough for Congressman Rickman to accuse you of fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood.” The older man, well dressed even at home, twisted a half smile. “He is, of course, an idiot hoping to get publicity, which he has, claiming this whole hullabaloo is for the sake of national security. All right, you’ve come to me for help. You owe me the truth.”
“Yes, sir.” From his perch on the edge of a Morris chair, Tariq lifted his deep brown eyes to Crawford’s light ones.
“Are you a member of the Muslim Brotherhood?”
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