The Litter of the Law is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by American Artists, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Michael Gellatly
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Brown, Rita Mae.
The litter of the law : a Mrs. Murphy mystery / Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown; Illustrated by Michael Gellatly.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-345-53048-6
eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-53857-4
1. Haristeen, Harry (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. Murphy, Mrs. (Fictitious character) —Fiction.
3. Women detectives—Virginia—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.R698L58 2013
813’.54—dc23
2013007940
www.bantamdell.com
Jacket design: Beverly Leung
Jacket illustrations: © Daniel Pelvin (cat),
© Shutterstock/MisterElements (yarn)
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Cast of Characters
The Really Important Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Dedication
Other Books by these Authors
About the Authors
Cast of Characters
Mary Minor Haristeen—“Harry,” just forty-one, a Smith graduate who wound up being Crozet, Virginia’s, postmistress for sixteen years, is now trying to make some money by farming. She survived breast cancer and prefers not to think about it. She more or less lives on the surface of life until her curiosity pulls her deeper.
Phararond Haristeen, D.V.M.—“Fair” specializes in equine reproduction. After graduating from Auburn he married his childhood sweetheart, Harry. He reads people’s emotions much better than his wife does. He is a year older than Harry.
Susan Tucker—Outgoing, adept at any and all social exchange, she’s Harry’s best friend since cradle days. She loves Harry but worries about how Harry just blunders into things.
The Very Reverend Herbert Jones—A Vietnam veteran, Army, he is pastor at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, which is well over two hundred years old. He is a man of deep conviction and feeling. He’s known Harry since her childhood.
Deputy Cynthia Cooper—Tall, lean, and Harry’s next-door neighbor as she rents the adjoining farm, she loves law enforcement. Harry meddles in Cooper’s business from time to time but the Smith graduate has an uncanny knack of finding important information.
Tazio Chappars—She’s an architect in her early thirties often assisted by her yellow Lab rescue, Brinkley. Italian African heritage gives her dazzling good looks. She hails from St. Louis, Missouri.
Buddy Janss—A huge fellow and a successful farmer; he can be counted on to pitch in for fund-raisers. He and Harry like to discuss crops, weather, and new equipment.
Hester Martin—A middle-aged graduate of Mary Baldwin, she runs a roadside produce stand. Odd, opinionated, but blessed with a good heart, she drags people into her projects.
Aunt Tally Urquhart—This 101-year-old aunt of Marilyn Sanburne, Sr., does what she wants when she wants. She’s not in too much evidence in this volume, which gives everyone a rest.
Marilyn Sanburne, Sr.—“Big Mim,” known as The Queen of Crozet. She runs everything and everyone except her aunt. Big Mim is a political animal.
Marilyn Sanburne, Jr.—“Little Mim” has just had a baby, Roland. Her mother doesn’t like the name. Often Little Mim doesn’t like her mother.
Miranda Hogendobber—A second mother to Harry, a devout member of the evangelical Church of the Holy Light, she, too, isn’t much in evidence in this volume. Like Big Mim, she’s in her seventies and has no idea how she got there so fast.
Sheriff Rick Shaw—The sheriff of Albemarle County, he is overburdened, underfunded, and overworked. Despite that, he likes law enforcement and has learned to trust Cooper. Originally, he wasn’t thrilled having a woman in the department.
Neil Jordan—The treasurer for St. Luke’s, Neil can be picky, picky, picky. He drives Harry crazy and vice versa but they have to work together as both are on the vestry board. He owns a fertilizer business that is lucrative.
Wesley Speer—He’s also on the vestry board and brings a business perspective. He works sometimes with Neil since Wesley owns an upscale realty firm. He’ll often refer clients to Neil. Wesley, like any high-end Realtor, is slick.
BoomBoom Craycroft—Another childhood friend of Harry’s, she had an affair with Harry’s husband years back. It was a mess, of course. Everyone has recovered and in many ways is the better for it. BoomBoom runs her late husband’s concrete business. She is conventionally beautiful.
Alicia Palmer—Now here’s a showstopper. Alicia was a movie star in the fifties, whipped through a few husbands, affairs, etc., made pots of money, inherited more from an old flame. She returned to Crozet, fell in love with BoomBoom, and is blissfully happy.
Sarah Price—Hester Martin’s niece comes up to Crozet from Houston.
Paul Diaz—Tazio’s boyfriend, who trains Big Mim’s horses.
The Really Important Characters
Mrs. Murphy—She’s a tiger cat who is usually cool, calm, and collected. She loves her humans, Tucker the dog, and even Pewter, the other cat, who can be a pill.
Pewter—She’s self-centered, rotund, intelligent when she wants to be. Selfish as this cat is, she often comes through at the last minute to help and then wants all the credit.
Tee Tucker—This corgi could take your college boards. She is devoted to Harry, Fair, and Mrs. Murphy. She is less devoted to Pewter.
Simon—He’s an opossum who lives in the hayloft of the Haristeens’ barn.
Matilda—She’s a large blacksnake with a large sense of humor. She also lives in the hayloft.
Flatface—This great horned owl lives in the barn cupola. She irritates Pewter, but the cat realizes the bird could easily pick her up and carry her off.
Shortro—A young Saddlebred in Harry’s barn who is being trained as a foxhunter. He’s very smart, young, good-natured.
Tomahawk—Harry’s older Thoroughbred. They’ve been friends a long time.
The Lutheran Cats
Elocution—She’s the oldest of the St. Luke’s cats and cares a lot about the “Rev,” as his friends sometimes call the Very Reverend Herbert Jones.
Cazenovia—This cat watches everybody and everything.
Lucy Fur—She’s th
e youngest of the kitties. While ever playful, she obeys her elders.
Fair Haristeen, doctor of veterinary medicine, and his wife, Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen, loved to steal a Saturday and cruise the back roads of central Virginia. It reminded them of their courting days, back in high school, when Fair, bruised from Friday night’s football game, would pick up Harry, dirty from the stable, and they’d drive around in his 1958 Chevy pickup. Now, over two decades later, Fair was at the wheel of their station wagon, Harry beside him, the pets in the back seat, as they rode through the countryside.
Mrs. Murphy, the tiger cat, Pewter, her gray, overweight sidekick, and Tucker, the corgi, usually accompanied their people everywhere except in high heat. On a mild day like today, windows down a crack, the three could sleep or chat while the humans talked.
“Perfect weather,” Fair declared.
October 12 was indeed a ravishing fall day—early fall, for the summer warmth lingered late this year. Forests looked spray-painted with yellow, orange, flaming red, deep red, old gold.
“Hey, Miranda got the respiratory flu.” Harry mentioned a former co-worker and dear friend. “She’s swearing that drinking electrolytes will cure her. She saw it on TV.”
Fair shook his head. “Electrolytes will help, but our beloved Miranda seems susceptible to quacks.”
Watching the passing scenery, Pewter noticed a lovely yellow clapboard farmhouse. “Quack—duck. Why call a crook a quack?”
“I don’t know,” Tucker replied. The corgi was well used to Pewter’s inquiring mind. “They also use the term ‘snake oil.’ A quack sells snake oil. It’s confusing.”
“Ha!” Pewter whooped. “If they’ll buy snake oil, maybe we can get them hooked on catnip.”
“Humans don’t sniff catnip,” Tucker replied with dignity.
“They can learn.” The gray cat spoke with conviction.
“Pewter, sometimes I think you’re cracked as well as fat,” the dog unwisely said.
“Fat!” Pewter raged.
“You need a seat all your own. Every time we take a turn, the flab on your belly sways,” Tucker teased.
Pewter lashed out, a quick right to the shoulder.
Tucker growled, showing her fangs.
“That is enough!” Harry turned around.
“I haven’t done a thing.” Mrs. Murphy distanced herself from the combatants, who now rounded on her.
“Brown-noser!” Pewter whacked the tiger cat, who gave as good as she got.
The hissing and barking irritated Fair to the point where he pulled over to the side of the road, near where Hester Martin’s vegetable and fruit stand was located.
Harry got out of the car, opened the back door. “I am going to give you such a smack.”
All three animals jumped to the far back of the Volvo station wagon. Harry walked around to the rear of the car and opened the hatch door; the animals jumped back into their original seats.
Slamming both doors shut, Harry cursed as Fair couldn’t help but laugh. She walked over to the driver’s side; he had the window down.
“They know how to pluck your last nerve,” said Fair, laughing.
“Yours, too. I’m not the one who pulled the car over.” Harry looked down the road at the produce stand, a small white clapboard building with a large overhang, goods displayed in orderly, colorful rows. “Hey, let’s get some pattypan squash. Bet Hester still has some.” She walked around the car, getting in the passenger side before turning to face her animal tormentors. “If I hear one peep, one sniff, one hiss while I am shopping, no food tonight. Got it?”
“Hateful.” Pewter turned her back on Harry.
As Tucker hung her head, Mrs. Murphy, the tiger cat, loudly defended herself. “I didn’t do one thing.”
“Of course not, the perfect puss.” Pewter curled her upper lip.
Fair coasted to the stand, where Hester—orange apron, black jeans, and an orange shirt—was talking to customers, most of whom lived in Crozet or nearby.
“I’ll stay here.” Fair knew how Hester could go on, plus Buddy Janss was there, all three hundred pounds of him, and he could outtalk Hester.
Orange and black bunting festooned the roof overhang. Scarecrows flanked the outdoor wooden cartons overflowing with squashes, pumpkins, every kind of apple imaginable. Inside, one could buy a good sandwich. Little ghosts floated from the rafters; big green eyes glowed in the room’s upper corners. Brilliantly gold late corn and huge mums and zinnias added to the color.
Almost as big as Buddy, a sign sat catty-cornered to the entrance, announcing the community Halloween Hayride to raise money for the Crozet Library. No doubt Tazio Chappars, an architect, had designed the impressive sign. She worked hard for the library and the sign really grabbed you: From a large drawn skeleton, one bony arm actually reached out to get your attention.
Hester looked up. “Harry Haristeen, I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
Buddy turned. “How’d you do with your sunflowers?”
Buddy, a farmer who rented thousands of acres along with cultivating his own holdings, enjoyed Harry’s foray into niche farming. Who knew better than Buddy the cost of equipment and implements for wheat, corn, soybeans? Harry had made a wise choice in focusing on her field of sunflowers, her quarter acre of Petit Manseng grapes, and the ginseng she grew down by the strong deep creek that divided her property from the old Jones farm.
“Pretty good,” she said, not wanting to brag that this year’s field of sunflowers was her biggest yet. “How’s your year so far?”
He hooked his thumbs in his overalls. “Tell you what, girl, that mini-drought thinned out my corn crop. I did better than most because my lower acres received enough rain. Others didn’t. Never saw anything like it. On one side of the road the corn would be twisted right up, and on the other just as plump as you’d please. The corn behind the old schoolhouses looks poorly.”
Hester jumped in. “Government’s fault. All that stuff they have circling around up there in space. Gotta affect us.”
Both Harry and Buddy nodded politely, for Hester was a little in space herself. Sometimes a lot out there. Middle-aged, good-looking, with glossy light brown hair hanging to her shoulders, she applied just enough makeup to draw attention to her symmetry and health. Every small town as well as big city has its Hesters, it’s just they can’t hide in the small towns. Good-looking people, often bright, but they don’t quite fit in and often they never marry. Hester had gone to Mary Baldwin, excelled in her studies, but came back over the Blue Ridge Mountains to run this roadside stand. Her brother, more ambitious, moved to Houston right out of the College of William and Mary. He had perfect timing, hitting Texas on the cusp of a building boom and making the most of it. Her parents had built the stand more as a hobby than a business, but it flourished. Her father had been a banker; her mother had run the stand. These days Hester seemed happy enough, engaged with a steady stream of regulars and tourists.
Buddy kindly semi-agreed. “What scares me is what we don’t know. I mean, just in general, look at this drought and, hey, we came out a lot better off than they did in the Midwest, where everything burned up. Right now our water table is good. I planted more Silver Queen corn because I think the weather will stay warm longer. I’ll get it harvested and if not, I’ll make a lot of critters happy.” He let out a booming laugh.
Hester asked, “You’ve got crop coverage, Buddy? After the drought of 1988, surely you started paying for an insurance policy, revenue protection.”
“I do. I elected an eighty percent revenue protection policy. Yes, I did learn from 1988 but, girl, every time I turn around I’m writing another check and I see my return diminish. Farming gets harder and harder,” said the well-organized man, a true steward of the land. “Just to keep up, I have to plant more acreage. Plant an early crop, then come back and throw soybeans down. I feel like I’m running to stay in place.”
“Think we all do,” Hester agreed.
“Only way I can buy or
rent—and renting makes sense in the short term—is to sell some of my land closer in to Crozet or Charlottesville.”
Hester’s shoulders snapped back. “Don’t do that, Buddy. Don’t ever do that.”
“Before I forget, Hester, do you have any pattypan squash?” Harry didn’t want to keep Fair or the arguing animals in limbo.
“I do. Wait until you see it.” Hester nodded to Buddy, who winked at Harry.
The two women walked inside, where there was crooknecked squash, acorn squash, and Harry’s favorite, cream-white pattypan squash that looked like scalloped discuses.
“Beautiful! And the right size.”
“Right about now the pattypan is usually over, but this year with the long, long summer, I’m still getting some,” said Hester. “The melons are over, though. I do so love melons. Before I forget, now, you and Fair are buying tickets for the hayride. You must. The library is built but there’s a lot to be done. We need $59,696 just for adult computers and, oh my, the adult area needs tables and we need furniture for a meditative reading room. The list is endless.”
“Of course we’ll buy tickets. I’ll even buy tickets for Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker.”
“If that gray cat of yours gets any fatter, I’ll have to find a special wagon and pony just for her.” Hester laughed.
“You’re looking pretty Halloweeny yourself, all orange and black.”
“Oh, this is just my warm-up. Next week I’ll be out here in my witch’s costume.”
“So long as you don’t scare customers away.”
“I could be a Halloween fairy except I’ve never seen a Halloween fairy.”
They kept chatting as Harry picked out two succulent squashes, then paid at the cash register run by Lolly Currie, a young woman looking for a better job but making ends meet at Hester’s stand until then.
Back on the road, Fair grinned. “That is the shortest time you have ever spent at Martin’s Stand.”
The Litter of the Law Page 1