“They all are,” Cabel stated flatly. “I’m amazed that Clayton didn’t make a pass at one of them. Too loaded.”
“Never stopped him before,” Ilona said uncharitably.
“Ramsey’s better?” Cabel fired back.
“Ladies, good to talk to you.” Betty backed away.
“Oh, Betty, don’t be so goddamned proper. You’ve seen us fight before. We’re joined at the hip. We’re bound to fuss sometimes. If you want to know who I think has really been dipping his stick throughout the county, let’s discuss High Vajay. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts he was sleeping with Faye Spencer. All he had to do was fall out of his own bed to fall into hers.” Cabel warmed to her subject.
“Wouldn’t want to be in his boots right now.” Betty avoided the sex suspicions. “He’s the main suspect for the Lady Godiva murders.”
“Boots? How about pants? I’m surprised he isn’t singing soprano. Mandy must have an iron will and a forgiving patience,” Ilona marveled.
“There are worse things than a husband who cheats.” Betty opened her mouth before thinking.
“Such as?” Cabel and Ilona said in unison, both incredulous. “Wanton cruelty. Loss of honor.”
“You don’t think sex outside of marriage isn’t cruel?” The pheasant feather bobbed on Cabel’s hat.
“I think it hurts, but I don’t think the intent is cruel.” Betty held up her hand to stay the protests. “Would I be devastated if Bobby ran off the reservation?” She used the old phrase. “I would, but I would be far more upset if he was cold, critical, and cruel to animals and people. Or if he proves a coward when Gabriel blows his trumpet. A man with no honor isn’t worth having and neither is a woman. As to sleeping around—well, sex is irrational and in a different category from other human endeavors.”
“You have a point.” Ilona was thoughtful. “But consider the intimate betrayal. I don’t know if I will ever completely trust Ramsey. I love him but I don’t trust him. That’s not good. And have you ever considered that your straying husband might bring home a gift that keeps giving, like AIDS?”
“I know it’s terrible. It must eat you from the inside out.” Betty was compassionate. “But look at Sister. Neither she nor Ray was monogamous, and they had a good strong marriage. Gay men are like that too, or so it seems to me, and their relationships last longer than most heterosexual ones, a fact the sex Nazis can’t concede. I don’t want Bobby fooling around, don’t misunderstand me, but I truly believe there are worse sins. We make a small god of monogamy.”
“I hope you never find out.” Cabel headed back to the food.
“I’m sorry. I’ve upset her,” Betty said to Ilona.
“She’s having a hard time. She’ll get over it.” Ilona smiled. “We all do and if we don’t, we’re pretty stupid, aren’t we? You can’t spend your life massaging old wounds.”
“Plenty do,” Betty said. “Virginians mistake personal injustice for history.”
“Isn’t that the truth! There are a lot of embittered injustice collectors out there.” Ilona started for the food, then turned back to Betty. “I was on my way to becoming one of those people. Finally couldn’t stand myself, and I said, ‘Ilona, you’ve got to do something or you’ll turn into a snitz.’”
Snitz is a dried apple.
“Glad you got hold of yourself,” Betty complimented her.
“Me too.”
Betty then joined Al and Mary, the whippers-in, the Custis Hall girls, and Sister. She slipped her arm around Sister’s waist.
Neither woman thought a thing about that. They loved each other deeply and were not afraid of touching. Touch is healing. Men are denied this except with their wives and their children; they don’t get the same loving reinforcement from their own gender.
“Master.” Tootie addressed Al, who was a natural teacher. “Why did you draw the first covert up one side and then down the other? Shaker doesn’t do that.”
“Because Shaker is hunting a predator. I’m hunting prey. A rabbit will survive more often than not if it is still, if it sticks in its warren. The bassets have to bolt them. When you hunt foxes, you usually pick up their line when they themselves are hunting or returning to their den from a night’s hunt. So I have to make good the ground in a very different way.”
Mary chimed in. “And fox scent is heavier than rabbit scent.”
Sister and Betty were as enthralled with this information as were the young folks. True hunters find no bottom to their enthusiasm, much to the despair of those around them.
Al thought things through in systems, in checklists. He broke down complicated problems into discrete parts, which is natural for a combat pilot. A man has a much better chance of living through a war if he does this, and the equipment Al flew was the most sophisticated for its time. You’d better have a checklist or else. He applied this relentless logic to hunting the bassets, but like all good huntsmen he could be flexible.
Tired but full from all the food, the Jefferson Hunt gang bid their Ashland friends good-bye as they piled into trucks, SUVs, old station wagons still providing service, and Val’s Jeep.
Tootie hesitated for a moment before stepping over the lip into the sturdy vehicle that really could go anywhere.
“Will you stop being a prima donna!”
“Val, you’re not sitting in the back,” Tootie said.
Pamela replied, “Neither am I. Come on, Tootie, I rode back there on the way up.”
“All right, all right.”
Sister walked by. “Be grateful you don’t have old bones.”
“They’ll be old by the time I get to school.” Tootie laughed and climbed in, the door swinging shut behind her.
Sister and Betty drove past Marion, who was starting her car.
Stopping, Betty lowered her window. “Come on down. We’re hunting Mill Ruins Saturday. You’ve never seen Peter Wheeler’s old place. The mill still works.”
“I don’t know if I can take off work, but it’s a wonderful invitation.”
As Sister and Betty rolled down Route 29 they reviewed the hunt, the tailgate, their lengthy discussion with Marion as to the status of the Warrenton murder, and the murder at Foxglove. Then they replayed Al’s wonderful talk on hunting with bassets.
“It’s funny, all the years I’ve whipped in and I never thought about hunting a hunter. All I know is fox. Well, deer occasionally, but hunting with hounds, all I know is fox,” Betty said.
“Since a prey animal is in some respects weaker than a predator, camouflage and stillness are essential.” Sister loved talking about these subjects. “But you know, a cow is prey and a horse is prey, but of course they’re large. They don’t have to remain still and they have hooves to kick the daylights out of a predator.”
“Or me.” Betty laughed. “Remember the time that doe charged Archie?” She named a now-departed beloved hound. “When was that? I remember, 1997. Outlaw was green then, his first season, and after the doe charged Archie she charged us. Scared the hell out of both of us. Outlaw came up with all four feet off the ground.”
“Bet your heart flew up too.” Sister smiled. “Every now and then something happens out there and the rush is incredible. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad, but at least you know you’re alive. Hard to believe the season’s almost over. Always gives me the blues. Then I snap out of it. When the puppies start coming and the garden blooms, I pick up again.”
“You’ve got a green thumb.”
“Thanks.” Sister sat upright, making Betty look ahead, wondering if something ran across the road. “Betty, what if our killer is a prey animal?”
“What?”
“What if our killer feels weak? Here we’ve been assuming this is some kind of sex thing, which it may be, or that it’s tied into wireless competition. But what Al said about a prey animal sitting tight, then having to be bolted? Maybe that’s our killer, sitting tight, only coming out to kill when the coast is clear. Aashi and Faye were seen as predators.”<
br />
Betty thought hard. “Weak things can kill, can fight back. After all, the doe did.”
“One has to provoke them, right? The first defense is to hide. I guess the second is to flee, but if we can bolt the killer, we’ll know him.”
“High Vajay doesn’t strike me as weak,” Betty said.
“Too smart.”
“You don’t think High’s the killer?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt it. He has too much to lose by committing that kind of felony.”
“Unless he had more to lose with the two women living.”
“True.” Sister noted a streak of turquoise over the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“I thought weak people poisoned their victims. Guess that’s one of those stereotypes. You know, kill by stealth.” Betty wondered how to flush out the murderer.
“Still a useful way to send someone off planet earth. All the labs in the world can’t point to who put the poison in the cup. They can only identify the poison. But, see, this is what bothers me. If someone used poison, wouldn’t you assume they don’t want to be caught?”
“Sure.” Betty reached up for the Jesus strap as they took a curve. Reaching for the strap was force of habit.
“Part of me thinks our killer, like most murderers, wants to get away with it, and part of me thinks not. The Godiva part is too public.”
“People do get away with public murders. What about all those political murders in places like Ireland, Serbia, Iran, and Iraq? I’m not even counting Africa. I guess it’s a matter of scale. The more people you kill the better your chances of escaping justice.”
“Pinochet proved that.” Sister pointed to the flaming sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains. “But, on the other hand, we judge everything by the comfort of America. Look at Spain, a hideous civil war. Did that war lay the groundwork for Spain’s resurgence today? Same with Chile. Did all those murders of Allende’s people lay the groundwork for that country’s economic revival? We don’t like to think about things that way. I mean, we don’t like to think that sometimes forests have to be burned for fresh growth.”
“Yeah, it’s repulsive.”
“I guess it is. The Chileans slit the bellies of those they killed, then dropped them from airplanes into the ocean so they’d sink without a trace. I consider that gross.”
“Isn’t that always the problem with a human corpse? How do you destroy the evidence?”
“Right. But here we have a killer who wants everyone to admire the evidence. I just don’t get it. What I do get is, he’s here.”
“And was at the Casanova Hunt Ball.”
“Right. I’ve gone over the list. It’s half our club.”
“Ben Sidell has it?”
“Of course, he’s questioned everyone methodically as to when they left the ball and what they saw. As far as I can tell, everyone has been cooperative.”
“Too bad Crawford wasn’t there, we could pin it on him.” Betty laughed.
“He’s like a bad penny, he’ll show up when we least want to see him.” Sister sighed. “Maybe I’ll have a brainstorm.”
“I rather hope not,” Betty said firmly. “The last time you thought you could pin a murder on someone he nearly killed you. This person puts the silver bowl in your stable office, drops off a movie, parades a corpse at Cindy Chandler’s. You stay out of it.”
“How can I stay out of it? I’m in the middle and I don’t even know why.”
“Well, that makes two of us. Where you go, I go.” Betty smiled.
CHAPTER 26
True to form, Crawford did show up on Saturday morning. He called first.
Both Crawford and Sister sat on the Board of Governors for Custis Hall. The administration had been searching for a new theater director as well as a head of alumnae relations. Crawford strongly opposed one of the candidates, personally visiting every board member. Sister was first on his list because he wanted to get it over with.
After hearing his objections, Sister replied, “Thank you for doing the homework. I support your nonsupport of Milford Weems.”
Crawford folded his hands together. “Good. I won’t take up more of your time.”
“Before you go, I have a question for you. Do you intend to rent the Demetrios place?”
“I’d like someone who can farm. The house needs some fixing too.”
“Allow me to suggest a young couple, very young but clean-living and hardworking, Felicity Porter and Howard Lindquist. They’ll be married this summer, so I guess I should think of them as the Lindquists. He’ll be working with Matt Robb’s construction company, so he has the skills to repair the buildings.”
“Felicity’s not going to college?” He was incredulous, worried. “Night school. Piedmont Community College.”
“What a waste. That girl belongs at an Ivy League school.”
“Most people feel that way, and you’re in a position to help them. Obviously, they haven’t a cent, although she is working part-time for Garvey Stokes and that will be full-time when she graduates. He’ll be making some money but they don’t even have a car yet.” She held out her hands as a supplicant. “If they repair the house and paint the interior, would you consider a significant reduction in rent? They’re good kids and”—she smiled—“they’re in love.”
He perceived the situation. “I’ll talk to young Lindquist.” He half smiled too. “Thank you for your suggestion. If I don’t get someone in that place it will slide into ruin.”
“They’ll be good neighbors.”
“Well, I don’t know Howard but I think Felicity is mature for her years, very sensitive.”
This time he stood up; Raleigh and Rooster stood too. Golly, lounging on the back of the den sofa, couldn’t be bothered to see a guest out, even an unwelcome one.
Sister walked Crawford into the wide center hall, built to allow a breeze to cool the house in Virginia’s sweltering summers, and to the front door, with its overhead fan and glass panels on either side.
“Awful thing about Faye Spencer,” Crawford said.
“Yes, it was.”
“Vajay is the man most under suspicion, but Ramsey Merriman had a lot to lose.”
Sister perked up. “Have you told Ben?”
“Yes. I don’t like saying stuff like that, but under the circumstances Ramsey should pay the consequences for his affairs.” He shook his head. “Bragged about it. Said he seduced that Indian girl on one of his trips with High to Washington. Said High never suspected or perhaps never cared, I don’t know. Then he said he tried to talk the woman into sex with him and Clayton. They’d pay her thousands. She refused and cut him off. What a fool. Anyway, he called and cussed me out and so did Ilona. I did the right thing.”
“Yes, you did.”
As she watched him drive away in his metallic dark-red Mercedes, she felt more confused than ever but she had accomplished two important things: She found a home for the kids because she knew Crawford would respond to them, and she put loyal people around one who was not loyal.
Always keep your enemy in front of you.
CHAPTER 27
Had Sister known her enemy had been in front of her all the time, the day might have been different. Some things are so unthinkable one doesn’t see them, even though they’re as close as the nose on your face. Not only do individuals suffer from these blind spots, entire nations do as well.
The lulling lap and spray of the water off the three-story waterwheel at Mill Ruins was beautiful, spellbinding. Century after century, people in the western world took this sound for granted. Only in the twentieth century did it finally subside, along with the clack of wagon wheels and shod hooves on cobblestone streets, vendors shouting their wares as they toddled down country roads, the constant swish of large overhead fans in the South, the ringing of church bells to signify the hour. A few places preserved these sounds so tourists could imagine themselves in another time.
Time without end people kill one another. If sounds and sights chan
ge, this dolorous fact does not.
It was Saturday, March 8, and twenty couple of hounds waited on the party wagon. The mercury at quarter to nine read 48 degrees, the barometer falling, good sign.
March, a breakheart month, raises the average person’s hopes for spring. Daffodils, early ones, display their yellow heads, and crocuses cover lawns or dot woods tucked back where old foundations remain from prior centuries. Buds swell a tiny bit on the trees, the red glow apparent to those who study nature.
Then a snowstorm or a freezing rain will pound down as Old Man Winter once more reminds all creatures that he is not ready to relinquish his grasp.
Foxhunters liked that, of course. Better to keep that scent on the ground, for the warmth would lift it up over hound noses. But even the most dedicated foxhunter eventually longed for spring, the cascade of white apple blossoms, pale pink cherry blossoms, and deep magenta crab apple blossoms, the fragrance filling entire counties. Redbud bloomed along with peaches and pears, tulips held sway for a while, and the world rejoiced in new life.
Even Sister, who inevitably passed through a period of mourning after the season ended, discovered rejuvenation in her garden at last.
Today the field swelled with the regulars and visitors too. Tedi and Edward brought guests from Marlborough Hunt in Maryland. The Merrimans and Cabel, parked side by side, burst with good spirits. The Custis Hall girls turned out in full force along with Charlotte Norton and Bunny Taliaferro. Charlotte joked that if she was a golf widow in the summer her husband could be a foxhunt widower in winter.
Gray was repenting his promise to ride with his brother on a steeplechaser fresh off the circuit. Even before he mounted up, Gray noticed the nervousness of the rangy bay.
“You’re crazy to ride these horses right off the circuit, Sam.”
“It’s the only way I’m going to know how he’ll go in company. I know how he goes alone and he’s a good horse, Gray. Just a little up.”
As the brothers bickered, Lorraine Rasmussen chatted with Felicity on Parson. Sister had mentioned to Lorraine that Parson was a suitable and kind horse but that Felicity couldn’t afford him once out of school.
The Tell-tale Horse Page 20