Harry and Susan, in charge of the Harvest Ball for their class of 1976, ruefully admitted that these were the best decorations they’d seen since their time. No crepe paper for these kids. The orange and black colors snaked along the walls and the outside tables with Art Deco severity and sensuality. Susan, bursting with pride, accepted congratulations from other parents. Her son Danny was the freshman representative to the decorations committee and it was his idea to make the demons fly. He was determined to outdo his mother and was already well on his way to a chairmanship as a senior. His younger sister had proved a help too. Brookie was already worried about what would happen two years from now when she had the opportunity to be a Harvest Ball class representative. Could she top this? Susan and Ned had sent the kids to private school in Charlottesville for a couple of years, the result being that both were turning into horrid snobs. They had yanked the kids out of the private school, to everyone’s eventual relief.
Blair observed it all in wonder and amusement. These young people displayed spirit and community involvement, something which had been missing at his prep school. He almost envied the students, although he knew he had been given the gift of a superb education as well as impeccable social contacts.
BoomBoom and Fair judged the livestock competition. BoomBoom was formally introduced to Blair by Harry. She took one look at this Apollo and audibly sucked in her breath. Fair, enraptured by a solid Holstein calf, elected not to notice. BoomBoom, far too intelligent to flirt openly, simply exuded radiance.
As they walked away Susan commented, “Well, she spared you the BoomBoom brush.”
“What’s that?” Blair smiled.
“In high school—on these very grounds, mind you—BoomBoom would slide by a boy and gently brush him with her torpedoes. Naturally, the boy would die of embarrassment and joy.”
“Yeah,” Harry laughed. “Then she’d say, ‘Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.’ BoomBoom can be very funny when she puts her mind, or boobs, to it.”
“You haven’t told me what your theme was when you two co-chaired the Harvest Ball.” Blair evidenced little curiosity about BoomBoom but plenty about Harry and Susan, which pleased them mightily.
“The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Susan’s voice lowered.
Harry’s eyes lit up. “You wouldn’t have believed it. I mean, we started working the day school started. The chair and co-chairs are elected the end of junior year. A really big deal—”
Susan interrupted. “Can you tell? I mean, we still remember everything. Sorry, Harry.”
“That’s okay. Well, Susan came up with the theme and we decorated the inside of the school like the inside of a Victorian mansion. Velvet drapes, old sofas—I mean, we hit up every junk shop in this state, I swear . . . that and what parents lent us. We took rolls and rolls of old butcher paper—Market Shiflett’s dad donated it—and the art kids turned it into stone and we made fake walls with that outside.”
“Don’t forget the light.”
“Oh, yeah, we had one of the boys up in the windows that are dark on the second floor going from room to room swinging a lantern. Boy, did that scare the little kids when they looked up. Painted his face too. We even got Mr. MacGregor—”
“My Mr. MacGregor?” Blair asked.
“The very one,” Susan said.
“We got him to lend us his bloodhound, Charles the First, who emitted the most sorrowful cry.”
“We walked him up and down the halls that were not in use and asked him to howl, which he did, dear dog. We really scared the poop out of them when we took him up on the second floor, opened a window, and his piercing howl floated over the grounds.” Susan shivered with delight.
“The senior class dressed like characters from the story. God, it was fun.”
By now they were outside. The Reverend Herbie and Carol Jones waved from among the wheat sheaves. A few people remarked that they’d miss Harry on Tomahawk this year. The local reporter roved around. Everyone was in a good mood. Naturally people talked about the grim discoveries but since it didn’t touch anyone personally—the victim wasn’t someone they knew—the talk soon dissolved into delicious personal gossip. Mim, Little Marilyn, and Fitz-Gilbert paraded around. Mim accepted everyone’s sympathy with a nod and then asked them not to mention it again. Her nerves were raw, she said.
One stalwart soul was missing this year: old Fats Domino, the huge feline who had played the Halloween cat every year for the last fifteen. Fats had finally succumbed to old age, and Pewter had been pressed into service. Her dark-gray coat could almost pass for black in the night and she hadn’t a speck of white on her. She gleefully padded over the tables, stopping to accept pats from her admirers.
Pewter grew expansive in the limelight. The more attention she received, the more she purred. Many people snapped photos of her, and she gladly paused for them. The newspaper photographer grabbed a few shots too. Well, that pesky Tucker had got her name in the papers once, the last time there’d been a murder in Crozet, but Pewter knew she’d be in color on the front page because the Harvest Festival always made the front page. Nor could she refrain from a major gloat over the fact that Mrs. Murphy and Tucker had to stay home, while she was the star of the occasion.
The craft and livestock prizes had been awarded, and now the harvest prizes were being announced. Miranda hurried over to stand behind her pumpkin. The gargantuan pumpkin next to hers was larger, indisputably larger, but Miranda hoped the competition’s imperfect shape would sway Jim Sanburne her way. With so much milling about and chatting she didn’t notice Pewter heading for the pumpkins. Mrs. Hogendobber felt no need to share this moment with the cat.
Mim, Little Marilyn, and Fitz-Gilbert stood off to the side. Mim noticed Harry and Blair.
“I know this Bainbridge fellow attended Yale and St. Paul’s but we don’t really know who he is. Harry ought to be more careful.”
“You never minded Fair as her husband and he’s not a stockbroker.” Little Marilyn was simply making an observation, not trying to start an argument.
“At the time,” Mim snapped, “I was relieved that Harry married, period. I feared she would go the way of Mildred Yost.”
Mildred Yost, a pretty girl in Mim’s class at Madeira, spurned so many beaus she finally ran out of them and spent her life as an old maid, a condition Mim found fearful. Single women just don’t make it to the top of society. If a woman was manless she had better be a widow.
“Mother”—Fitz-Gilbert called Mim “Mother”—“Harry doesn’t care about climbing to the top of society.”
“Whether she cares or not, she shouldn’t marry a person of low degree . . . I mean, once she’s established the fact that she can get married.”
Mim babbled on in this vein, making very little sense. Fitz-Gilbert heard her sniff that being a divorcée teetered on the brink of a shadowy status. Why was Mim so concerned with Harry and who she was dating? he wondered. No other reason than that she felt nothing could go on in Crozet without her express approval. As usual, Mim’s conversation did not run a charitable course. She even complained that the little witches, ghosts, and goblins overhead whirred too much, giving her a headache. The shock of recent events was making her crabbier than usual. Fitz tuned her out.
Danny Tucker, as Hercule Poirot, scooted next to Mrs. Hogendobber. His was the enormous pumpkin.
“Danny, why didn’t you inform me that you grew this . . . fruit?” Mrs. Hogendobber demanded.
“Well, Mom didn’t want to upset you. We all know you want that blue ribbon.”
Pewter arrived to sit between the two huge orange pumpkins, the finalists. Mrs. Hogendobber, talking to Danny, still didn’t notice her. Pewter was insulted.
Jim picked up Miranda’s pumpkin. He quickly put it back down. “These damn things get heavier every year.” Miranda shot him a look. “Sorry, Miranda.”
Pewter smelled pumpkin goo, as though the insides had been removed for pumpkin pie. She sniffed Miranda’s pumpkin.
“See, the cat likes my pumpkin.” Miranda smiled to the crowd.
“I don’t like any pumpkins,” Pewter replied.
“Do I want to pick this one up? I might fall over from the size of it.” Jim smiled but put his large hands around Danny’s pumpkin anyway. The enormous pumpkin was much heavier than the other pumpkin, oddly heavy. He replaced it. Puzzled, he lifted it up again.
Pewter, never able to control her curiosity, inspected the back of the pumpkin. A very neat, very large circle had been cut out and then glued back into place. If one wasn’t searching for it, the tampering could easily be missed.
“Look,” she said with forcefulness.
Danny Tucker was the only human who paid attention to her. He picked up his pumpkin. “Mayor Sanburne, I know my pumpkin’s heavy, but not this heavy. Something’s wrong.”
“That is your pumpkin,” Miranda stated.
“Yes, but it’s too heavy.” Danny picked it up again.
Pewter reached up and swatted the back of the orange globe. This led Danny’s eyes, much sharper than Jim’s or Miranda’s, to the patch job in the back.
* * *
* * *
“Jim, we’re waiting. We want a winner,” Mim called out impatiently.
“Yes, dear, in a minute,” he replied and the crowd laughed.
Danny pushed the circle and it wiggled. He reached into his jacket, retrieved a pocketknife, and slid it along the cutting line. The glue dislodged easily and he pried out the big circle. “Oh, wow!” Danny saw the back of a head. He assumed one of his buddies had done this as a joke. He reached in, grabbed the head by the hair, and pulled it out. A wave of sweet stink alerted him. This was no joke, no rubber or plastic head. Not quite knowing what to do he held the head away from him, giving the crowd a fine view of the loathsome sight. What was left of the eyes stared straight at them.
Danny, now realizing what he held, dropped the head. It hit the table with a sickening splat.
Pewter jumped away. She ran down to the squashes. If this was what the job of playing Halloween cat entailed, she was resigning.
People screamed. Jim Sanburne, almost by reflex, handed the ribbon to Miranda.
“I don’t want it!” Miranda screamed.
BoomBoom Craycroft fainted dead away. The next thud heard was Blair Bainbridge hitting the ground.
Then Little Marilyn screeched, “I’ve seen that face before!”
* * *
21
Therapists in the county agreed to work with the students at Crozet High to help them through the trauma of what they’d seen.
Rick Shaw wondered if they could help him. He disliked the sight of the decayed head himself but not enough to have nightmares over it. When he and Cynthia Cooper collected the head, the first thing they did, apart from holding their noses, was check the open mouth. Not one tooth remained in the head. No dental records.
Cynthia led Little Marilyn away from the sight and asked her to clarify her statement.
“I don’t know him but I think that’s the vagrant who was wandering around maybe ten days ago. I’m not certain as to the date. You see, he passed the post office and I walked to the window and got a good look at him. That’s all I can tell you.” She was shaking.
“Thank you. You’ve had more than your share of this.” Cynthia patted Little Marilyn on the back.
Fitz-Gilbert put his arms around her. “Come on, honey, let’s go home.”
“What about Mother?”
“Your father’s taking care of her.”
Meekly, Little Marilyn allowed Fitz to shepherd her to their Range Rover.
Cynthia stuck her notebook back in her pocket. As Rick was talking to other observers, the press photographer fired off some shots.
Cynthia took statements from Harry, Susan, Herb, Carol, Market, just everyone she could find. She would have interviewed Pewter if she could have. Market held the cat in his arms, each of them grateful for the reassuring warmth of the other.
Holding his wife’s hand, Cabell Hall mentioned to Cynthia that she and Rick might want to call the video stores and have them pull their more gruesome horror movies until things settled down.
“Actually, Mr. Hall, I have no authority to do that but as a prominent citizen you could, or your wife could. People listen to you all.”
“I’ll do it then,” Taxi Hall promised.
It took Cynthia more than an hour to get everyone out of there. Finally, Cynthia and Rick had a moment to themselves.
“Worse than I imagined.” Rick slapped his thighs, a nervous gesture.
“Yeah, I thought we’d find the head, if we found it at all, back in the woods somewhere. It would be something someone would stumble on.”
“You know what we got, Coop?” Rick breathed in the cool night air. “We got us a killer with a sick sense of humor.”
* * *
22
Firelight casts shadows, which, depending on one’s mood, can either be friendly highlights on the wall or misshapen monsters. Susan, Harry, and Blair sat before Harry’s fireplace. The best friends had decided that Blair needed some company before he returned to his empty house.
The Harvest Fair had rattled everyone and Harry found another surprise when she opened the door to her house. Tucker, in a fit of pique at being left behind, had demolished Harry’s favorite slippers. Mrs. Murphy told her not to do it but Tucker, when furious, was not a reasonable creature. The dog’s punishment was that she had to remain locked in the kitchen while the adults talked in the living room. To make matters worse, Mrs. Murphy was allowed in the living room with them. Tucker laid her head between her paws and howled.
“Come on, Harry, let her in,” Susan chided.
“Easy for you to say—they weren’t your slippers.”
“Actually, you should have taken her. She finds more clues than anyone.” Susan cast a glance at the alert Mrs. Murphy perched on Harry’s armchair. “And Murphy, of course.”
“Is anyone hungry?” Harry remembered to be a hostess.
“No.” Blair shook his head.
“Me neither,” Susan agreed. “Poor you.” She indicated Blair. “You moved here for peace and quiet and you landed in the middle of murder.”
The muscles in Blair’s handsome face tightened. “There’s no escaping human nature. Remember the men put off the H.M.S. Bounty on Pitcairn Island?”
“I remember the great movie with Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh,” Susan said.
“Well, in real life those Englishmen stranded on that paradise soon created their own version of hell. The sickness was within. The natives—by then they were mostly women, since the whites had killed the men—slit the Englishmen’s throats in the middle of the night while they slept. Or at least historians think they did. No one really knows how the mutineers died, except that years later, when a European ship stopped by, the ‘civilized’ men were gone.”
“Is that by way of saying that Crozet is a smaller version of Manhattan?” Harry reached over and poked the fire with one of the brass utensils left her by her parents.
“Big Marilyn as Brooke Astor.” Susan then added, “Actually, Brooke Astor is a great lady. Mim’s a wannabe.”
“In the main, Crozet is a kinder place than Manhattan, but whatever is wrong with us shows up wherever we may be—on a more reduced scale. Passions are passions, regardless of century and geography.” Blair stared into the fire.
“True enough.” Harry sank back into her seat. “How about Little Marilyn saying she recognized that head?” The memory of the head made Harry queasy.
“A hobo she saw walking down the tracks while she was inside the post office.” Blair added, “I vaguely remember him too. He was wearing old jeans and a baseball jacket. I wasn’t that interested. Did you get a look at him?”
Harry nodded. “I noticed the Mets jacket. That’s about it. However, even if these body parts belong to the fellow, we still don’t know who he is.”
“A student at U.V.A.?”
“Too old.” Blair folded his hands.
“It’s a little hard to tell.” Susan also called up the grisly sight.
“Ladies, I think I’ll go home. I’m exhausted and I’m embarrassed that I passed out. This is getting to me, I suppose.”
Harry walked him to the door and bade him goodnight before returning to Susan. Mrs. Murphy had taken over her chair. She lifted up the cat, who protested and then settled down again.
“He was distant tonight,” Susan observed. “Guess it has been right much of a shock. He doesn’t have a stick of furniture in his house, he doesn’t know any of us, and then they find pieces of a body on his land. Now this. There goes his bucolic dream.”
“The only good thing about tonight was getting to see BoomBoom faint.”
“Aren’t you ugly?” Susan laughed at her.
“You have to admit it was funny.”
“Kind of. Fair had the pleasure of reviving her, digging in her voluminous purse for her tranquilizers, and then taking her home. If she gets too difficult I guess he could hit her up with a cc of Ace.”
The thought of BoomBoom dosed with a horse tranquilizer struck Susan as amusing. “I’d say that BoomBoom wasn’t an easy keeper,” she said, using an equine term—quite accurate, too, because BoomBoom was anything but an easy keeper.
“I suppose we have to laugh at something. This is so macabre, what else can we do?” Harry scratched Mrs. Murphy behind the ears.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Are you?” Susan shot back.
“I asked you first.”
“Not for myself,” Susan replied.
“Me neither, because I don’t think it had anything to do with me, but what if I fall into it? For all I know the killer might have buried those body parts in my cemetery.”
“I think we’re all right if we don’t get in the way,” Susan said.
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