They slipped into the house as quietly as they had left it, with both animals doing their best to push shut the door. They were only partially successful, the result being that the kitchen was cold when Harry arose at five-thirty, and the cat and dog listened to a patch of blue language, which made them giggle. Discovering that the hook had been bent on the screen door called forth a new torrent of verbal abuse. Harry forgot all about it as the sun rose and the eastern sky glowed peach, gold, and pink.
Those extraordinarily beautiful October days and nights would come back to haunt Harry and her animal friends. Everything seemed so perfect. No one is ever prepared for evil in the face of beauty.
* * *
3
“He has not only the absence of fear but of all scruple.” Mrs. Hogendobber’s alto voice vibrated with the importance of her story. “Well, I was shocked completely when I discovered that Ben Seifert, branch manager of our local bank, indulges in sharp business practices. He tried to get me to take out a loan on my house, which is paid for, Mr. Bainbridge. He said he was sure I needed renovations. ‘Renovate what?’ I said, and he said wouldn’t I be thrilled with a modern kitchen and a microwave? I don’t want a microwave. They give people cancer. Then Cabby Hall, the president, walked into the bank and I made a beeline for him. Told him everything and he took Ben to task. I only tell you this so you’ll be on your guard. This may be a small town but our bankers try to sell money just like those big city boys do, Mr. Bainbridge. Be on your toes!” Miranda had to stop and catch her breath.
“Please do call me Blair.”
“Then to top it off, the choir director of my church walked into the bank to inform me that he thought BoomBoom Craycroft had asked Fair Haristeen to marry her, or perhaps it was vice versa.”
“His vice was her versa.” Blair smiled, his bright white teeth making him even more attractive.
“Yes, quite. As it turned out, no proposal had taken place.” Mrs. Hogendobber folded her hands. She didn’t cotton to having her stories interrupted but she was blossoming under the attention of Blair Bainbridge—doubly sweet, since Susan Tucker and Harry could see his black truck parked alongside Mrs. Hogendobber’s house. Of course she was going to walk him through her garden, shower him with hints on how to achieve gargantuan pumpkins, and then bestow upon him the gifts of her green thumb. She might even find out something about him in the process. Some time ago Mrs. Hogendobber had borrowed some copies of New York magazine from Ned Tucker, for the crossword puzzles. After meeting Blair the other day, she had realized why his name was familiar: She had read about him in one of those magazines. There was an article about high-fashion romance. When he introduced himself, the name had seemed vaguely familiar. She was hoping to find out more today about his link to the article, his ill-fated relationship with a beautiful model named Robin Mangione.
The doorbell rang, destroying her plan. The Reverend Herbert Jones marched through the door when Mrs. Hogendobber opened it.
Now this curdled the milk in her excellent coffee. Mrs. Hogendobber felt competitive toward all rival prophets of Christianity. The Right Reverend Jones was minister of the Lutheran Church. His congregation, larger than hers at the Church of the Holy Light, served only to increase her efforts at conversion. The church used to be called The Holy Light Church, but two months ago Miranda had prevailed upon the preacher and the congregation to rename it the Church of the Holy Light. Her reasons, while serviceable, proved less convincing than her exhausting enthusiasm, hence the change.
A cup of coffee and fresh scones were served to Reverend Jones, and the three settled down for more conversation.
“Mr. Bainbridge, I want to welcome you to our small community and to thank you for fixing up my family’s cemetery. Due to disc problems, I have been unable to discharge my obligations to my forebears as they deserve.”
“It was my pleasure, Reverend.”
“Now, Herbie”—Miranda lapsed into familiarity—“you can’t lure Mr. Bainbridge into your fold until I’ve had a full opportunity to tell him about our Church of the Holy Light.”
Blair stared at his scone. A whiff of brimstone emanated from Mrs. Hogendobber’s sentence.
“This young man will find his own way. All paths lead to God, Miranda.”
“Don’t try to sidetrack me with tolerance,” she snapped.
“I’d never do that.” Reverend Jones slipped in that dig.
“I can appreciate your concern for my soul.” Blair’s baritone caressed Mrs. Hogendobber’s ears. “But I’m sorry to disappoint you both. The fact is I’m a Catholic, and while I can’t say I agree with or practice my faith as strictly as the Pope would wish, I occasionally go to Mass.”
The Reverend laid down his scone, dripping with orange marmalade made by Mrs. Hogendobber’s skilled hands. “A Lutheran is just a Catholic without the incense.”
This made both Blair and his hostess laugh. The Reverend was never one to allow dogma to stand in the way of affection and often, in the dead of night, he himself found little solace in the rigors of doctrine. Reverend Jones was a true shepherd to his flock. Let the intellectuals worry about transubstantiation and the Virgin Birth—he had babies to baptize, couples to counsel, the sick to succor, and burials to perform. He hated that latter part of his calling but he prayed to himself that the souls of his flock would go to God, even the most miserable wretches.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Reverend, how did you find out about the cemetery being mowed?” Blair wondered.
“Oh, Harry told me this morning as she walked in to work. Said her little doggie dashed over there as she was doing her chores and she caught her in the cemetery.”
“She walks to work?” Blair was incredulous. “It has to be two miles at least, one way.”
“Oh, yes. She likes the exercise. By the time she gets to the post office she’s already put in a good two to three hours of farm chores. A born farmer, Harry. In the bones. She’ll make a good neighbor.”
“Which brings me to the subject of your renaming your place Yellow Mountain Farm.” Mrs. Hogendobber composed herself for what she thought would be a siege of argument.
“It’s at the base of Yellow Mountain and so I naturally—”
She interrupted him. “It’s been Foxden since the beginning of the eighteenth century and I’m surprised Jane Fogleman did not inform you, as she is normally a fountain of information.”
The Reverend shrewdly took a pass on this one, even though the land in question was part of his heritage. He hadn’t the money to buy it nor the inclination to farm it, so he thought he had little right to tell the man what to call his purchase.
“That long?” Blair thought a moment. “Maybe Jane did mention it.”
“Did you read your deed?” Mrs. Hogendobber demanded.
“No, I let the lawyers do that. I’ve tried to wrestle some order out of the place though.”
“Pokeweeds,” the Reverend calmly said as he downed another scone.
“Is that what you call them?”
“In polite company.” Herbie laughed.
“Herbert, you are deliberately sidetracking this discussion, which, for the sake of the Historical Society of Greater Crozet, I must conduct.”
“Mrs. Hogendobber, if it means that much to you and the Historical Society, I will of course keep the name of Foxden.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Hogendobber hadn’t expected to win so easily. It rather disappointed her.
The Reverend Jones chuckled to himself that the Crozet Historical Society sometimes became the Crozet Hysterical Society but he was glad the old farm would keep its name.
Both gentlemen rose to go and she forgot to give Blair one of her pumpkins, a lesser specimen because she was saving the monster pumpkin for the Harvest Fair.
Blair walked with Reverend Jones to his church and then bade him goodbye, turning back to the post office. He passed a vagrant wearing old jeans and a baseball jacket and walking along the railroad track. The man appeared ageless; h
e could have been thirty or fifty. The sight startled him. Blair hadn’t expected to see someone like that in Crozet.
As Blair pushed open the post office door Tucker rushed out to greet him. Mrs. Murphy withheld judgment. Dogs needed affection and attention so much that in Mrs. Murphy’s estimation they could be fooled far more easily than a cat could be. If she’d given herself a minute to think, though, she would have had to admit she was being unfair to her best friend. Tucker’s feelings about people hit the bull’s-eye more often than not. Mrs. Murphy did allow herself a stretch on the counter and Blair came over to scratch her ears.
“Good afternoon, critters.”
They replied, as did Harry from the back room. “Sounds like my new neighbor. Check your box. You’ve got a pink package slip.”
As Blair slipped the key into the ornate post box he called out to Harry, “Is the package pink too?”
The sound of the package hitting the counter coincided with Blair’s shutting his box. A slap and a click. He snapped his fingers to add to the rhythm.
Harry drawled, “Musical?”
“Happy.”
“Good.” She shoved the package toward him.
“Mind if I open this?”
“No, you’ll satisfy my natural curiosity.” She leaned over as Little Marilyn Sanburne flounced through the door accompanied by her husband, who sported new horn-rimmed glasses. Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton devoured Esquire and GQ. The results were as one saw.
“A bum on the streets of Crozet!” Little Marilyn complained.
“What?”
Little Marilyn pointed. Harry came out from behind the counter to observe the scraggly, bearded fellow, his face in profile. She returned to her counter.
Fitz-Gilbert said, “Some people have bad luck.”
“Some people are lazy,” declared Little Marilyn, who had never worked a day in her life.
She bumped into Blair when she whirled around to behold the wanderer one more time.
“Sorry. Let me get out of your way.” Blair pushed his carton over to the side of the counter.
Harry began introductions.
Fitz-Gilbert stuck out his hand and heartily said, “Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton. Princeton, 1980.”
Blair blinked and then shook his hand. “Blair Bainbridge. Yale, 1979.”
That caught Fitz-Gilbert off guard for a moment. “Before that?”
“St. Paul’s,” came the even reply.
“Andover,” Fitz-Gilbert said.
“I bet you boys have friends in common,” Little Marilyn added—without interest, since the conversation was not about her.
“We’ll have to sit down over a brew and find out,” Fitz-Gilbert offered. He was genuinely friendly, while his wife was merely correct.
“Thank you. I’d enjoy that. I’m over at Foxden.”
“We know.” Little Marilyn added her two cents.
“Small town. Everybody knows everything.” Fitz-Gilbert laughed.
The Hamiltons left laden with mail and mail-order catalogues.
“Crozet’s finest.” Blair looked to Harry.
“They think so.” Harry saw no reason to disguise her assessment of Little Marilyn and her husband.
Mrs. Murphy hopped into Blair’s package.
“Why don’t you like them?” Blair inquired.
“It helps if you meet Momma. Big Marilyn—or Mim.”
“Big Marilyn?”
“I kid you not. You’ve just had the pleasure of meeting Little Marilyn. Her father is the mayor of Crozet and they have more money than God. She married Fitz-Gilbert a year or so ago in a social extravaganza on a par with the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di. Didn’t Mrs. Hogendobber fill you in?”
“She allowed as how everyone here has a history which she would be delighted to relate, but the Reverend Jones interrupted her plans, I think.” Blair started to laugh. The townspeople were nothing if not amusing and he liked Harry. He had liked her right off the bat, a phrase that kept circling in his brain although he didn’t know why.
Harry noticed Mrs. Murphy rustling in Blair’s package. “Hey, hey, out of there, Miss Puss.”
In reply Mrs. Murphy scrunched farther down in the box. Only the tips of her ears showed.
Harry leaned over the box. “Scram.”
Mrs. Murphy meowed, a meow of consummate irritation.
Blair laughed. “What’d she say?”
“Don’t rain on my parade,” Harry replied, and to torment the cat she placed the box on the floor.
“No, she didn’t,” Tucker yelped. “She said, ‘Eat shit and die.’ ”
“Shut up, Fuckface,” Mrs. Murphy rumbled from the depths of the carton, the tissue paper crinkling in a manner most exciting to her ears.
Tucker, not one to be insulted, ran to the box and began pulling on the flap.
“Cut it out,” came the voice from within.
Now Tucker stopped and stuck her head in the box, cold nose right in Mrs. Murphy’s face. The cat jumped straight up out of the box, turned in midair, and grabbed on to the dog. Tucker stood still and Mrs. Murphy rolled under the dog’s belly. Then Tucker raced around the post office, the cat dangling underneath like a Sioux on the warpath.
Blair Bainbridge bent over double, he was laughing so hard.
Harry laughed too. “Small pleasures.”
“Not small—large indeed. I don’t know when I’ve seen anything so funny.”
Mrs. Murphy dropped off. Tucker raced back to the box. “I win.”
“Do you have anything fragile in there?” Harry asked.
“No. Some gardening tools.” He opened the box to show her. “I ordered this stuff for bulb planting. If I get right on it I think I can have a lovely spring.”
“I’ve got a tractor. It’s near to forty years old but it works just fine. Let me know when you need it.”
“Uh, well, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to drive one,” Blair confessed.
“Where are you from, Mr. Bainbridge?”
“New York City.”
Harry considered this. “Were you born there?”
“Yes, I was. I grew up on East Sixty-fourth.”
A Yankee. Harry decided not to give it another minute’s thought. “Well, I’ll teach you how to drive the tractor.”
“I’ll pay you for it.”
“Oh, Mr. Bainbridge.” Harry’s voice registered surprise. “This is Crozet. This is Virginia.” She paused and lowered her voice. “This is the South. Someday, something will turn up that you can do for me. Don’t say anything about money. Anyway, that’s what’s wrong with Little Marilyn and Fitz-Gilbert. Too much money.”
Blair laughed. “You think people can have too much money?”
“I do. Truly, I do.”
Blair Bainbridge spent the rest of the day and half the night thinking about that.
* * *
4
The doors of the Allied National Bank swung open and the vagrant breezed past Marion Molnar, past the tellers. Marion got up and followed this apparition as he strolled into Benjamin Seifert’s office and shut the door.
Ben, a rising star in the Allied National system, a protégé of bank president Cabell Hall, opened his mouth to say something just as Marion charged in behind the visitor.
“I want to see Cabell Hall,” he demanded.
“He’s at the main branch,” Marion said.
Protectively Ben rose and placed himself between the unwashed man and Marion. “I’ll take care of this.”
Marion hesitated, then returned to her desk as Ben closed the door. She couldn’t hear what was being said but the voices had a civil tone.
Within a few minutes Ben emerged with the man in the baseball jacket.
“I’m giving the gentleman a lift.” He winked at Marion and left.
* * *
5
The dew coated the grass as Harry, Mrs. Murphy, and Tucker walked along the railroad track. The night had been unusually warm again and the
day promised to follow suit. The slanting rays of the morning drenched Crozet in bright hope—at least that’s how Harry thought of the morning.
As she passed the railroad station she saw Mrs. Hogendobber, little hand weights clutched in her fists, approaching from the opposite direction.
“Morning, Harry.”
“Morning, Mrs. H.” Harry waved as the determined figure huffed by, wearing an old sweater and a skirt below the knee. Mrs. Hogendobber felt strongly that women should not wear pants but she did concede to sneakers. Even her sister in Greenville, South Carolina, said it was all right to wear pants but Miranda declared that their dear mother had spent a fortune on cotillion. The least she could do for that parental sacrifice was to maintain her dignity as a lady.
Harry arrived at the door of the post office just as Rob Collier lurched up in the big mail truck. He grunted and hauled off the mail bags, complaining bitterly that gossip was thin at the main post office in Charlottesville, hopped back in the truck, and sped off.
As Harry was sorting the mail BoomBoom Craycroft sauntered in, her arrival lacking only triumphant fanfare. Unlike Mrs. Hogendobber she did wear pants, tight jeans in particular, and she was keen to wear T-shirts, or any top that would call attention to her bosom. She had developed early, in the sixth grade. The boys used to say, “Baboom, Baboom,” when she went sashaying past. Over the years this was abbreviated to BoomBoom. If her nickname bothered her no one could tell. She appeared delighted that her assets were now legend.
She did not appear delighted to see Harry.
“Good morning, BoomBoom.”
“Good morning, Harry. Anything for me?”
“I put it in the box. What brings you to town so early?”
“I’m getting up earlier now to catch as much light as I can. I suffer from seasonal affect disorder, you know, and winter depresses me.”
Rest In Pieces Page 3