The Litter of the Law

by Rita Mae Brown

  The two cats joined her.

  Pewter sniffed. “Smells, though.”

  “Does,” Mrs. Murphy agreed, then jumped on the back of the boom hitch and up onto the tank, where she balanced herself and tapped at the screw-on cap.

  Harry laughed. “Looks like we’ve got a Future Farmer of America here.”

  “Open it up. Come on. There’s no chemicals in here. We’d know,” the cat pleaded.

  Smiling, Harry did untwist the cap as Mrs. Murphy jumped off. Harry peered into the tank. “Buddy,” she said, sniffing, “Buddy, look at this.”

  He dutifully did and immediately became enraged at the sight. “Goddammit to hell!” Then he apologized. “Sorry.”

  “Buddy, I’d have said worse.”

  The tank had smut in the bottom. With his own system, Buddy had infected his crop.

  “Harry, I calibrated the gallons per acre. I flushed the system clean, I checked every screw, nozzle, everything. And I refilled this tank each morning.”

  “Well, Buddy, someone drained your tank halfway, put a smut slurry in, then refilled it. How would you know? And I bet they cleaned it after you left the day’s work. Someone who knows farming also knows your schedule. And smut spores are easy to grow. You can do it in your kitchen.”

  His face blanched, then turned scarlet. “Why? Who would do such a thing?” He paused, color deepening. “I’ll kill the S.O.B.”

  Harry said nothing. Any talk of killing right now gave her a chill.

  Adjustable wrench in hand, Fair frowned as he worked in the big red shed near the barn. “That’s strange,” he said, squinting at the dismantled ATV in front of him.

  “Honey, there’s so much weird stuff going on around here, this is just one more thing, but to deliberately put smut in a spray tank …” Harry shook her head. “Why?”

  “You don’t think it could have occurred naturally?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it will all come out in the wash.” He checked the sun, now low in the sky above the fields. “I’d better start putting this back together.”

  “Did you find the problem?”

  “The first problem was the fuel line clogged. The second problem—I’m not sure but this generator isn’t going off.”

  Harry peered down into the ATV’s engine. “It’s a bitty thing.”

  “Anything compared to the engine in your ’78 Ford is a bitty thing. Well, let me put this back together. We need it.”

  “If we can’t get it back working, I’ll call Wayne’s Cycle.” She mentioned the place where they had bought the ATV years back in Waynesboro, then realized her husband didn’t want to hear that.

  “It will run,” he loudly announced.

  As she walked back to the house, Tucker beside her, she looked over her fields, the sunflowers all harvested. “Time to plow stuff under,” she said to the corgi.

  “If you leave it alone, rabbits will come in,” Tucker said. She liked to chase rabbits.

  Pushing open the screen door, Harry heard a frantic scramble on the kitchen countertops.

  “You forgot to completely close the toaster oven,” said the corgi. “I smell the corn bread.”

  Stepping into the kitchen, no cats in sight, Harry noticed corn bread crumbs strewn across the counter in front of the toaster oven.

  “Those boogers!”

  The cats had hooked the corn bread inside the toaster oven, tearing pieces off, pulling them out of the oven and onto the counter, where they ate them. However, they had been interrupted in their thievery, so crumbles—golden evidence—lay scattered on the counter and on the floor.

  Since some was on the floor, Tucker ate it. No point in letting food go to waste.

  Before Harry could cuss, the phone rang.

  “Susan,” Harry greeted her.

  “I got a job,” came her enthusiastic voice.

  “Where?”

  “At Ivy Nurseries. I’ll be making arrangements and stuff like that.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Well, I learned a lot from you.”

  “You learned more from Miranda.”

  Miranda Hogendobber, a passionate gardener and former co-worker at the post office, possessed a gift for arranging height, color, breadth. If it involved a flower, Miranda could grow it, then display it.

  Susan replied warmly, “How about I give you both credit? I need to do more than I’ve been doing.”

  Harry then told her about the corn smut and Buddy. “Never saw him so mad.”

  “Remind me, what’s corn smut?”

  “It’s a fungus. It can survive during the winter if it finds the right place to hide. It can survive in old cornstalks, but usually the wind has blown spores all over the place after the swollen infected kernels explode. Not a lot left in the stalks. You and I could grow smut ourselves in corn. The later-maturing corn varieties are more susceptible to it. Has a lot to do with the change in nighttime temperature from midsummer. And when kernels explode, you can see the stuff. It’s actually not that hard to control if you spray before you get it. Once you get it, though, you might as well forget it, and sweet corn is pretty vulnerable.”

  “Doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Before I forget, when do you start your job?”

  “Monday.”

  “I’ll drop by the nursery around quitting time.”

  “Great.”

  They hung up. Harry looked out the window over the sink. She could tell from her husband’s walk that he hadn’t fixed the ATV. She wouldn’t bring it up but she would make sure the magnetic card for Wayne’s Cycle was moved to the front of the refrigerator.

  Given the scowl on his face, she thought she’d better distract him. She disappeared into the small workroom and turned on the computer.

  Mrs. Murphy and Pewter smelled the computer. Humans couldn’t detect the smell computers gave off when they were working, but for the cats the odor was coppery, distinctive.

  “She gets wrapped up with that nonsense,” Pewter gloated. “She’ll forget what we did.”

  “She won’t forget but she will be occupied. That corn bread, oh, full of butter.” Mrs. Murphy smiled.

  The two cats wiggled out from under the bed where they’d been hiding and silently made their way into Fair’s small office, where Harry peered at the screen.

  Fair, calmer now, stuck his head in. “What’s cooking?”

  “Lasagna,” answered Harry.

  “No, I mean, what’s cooking here?” He pointed to the computer.

  “Lasagna,” Pewter said, sounding crushed. “Not my favorite but it’s okay.”

  “You’ll eat. You’ll eat anything,” said Mrs. Murphy.

  The culprits tiptoed to one side of the desk, sitting to listen.

  “I’m looking up corn stuff,” Harry explained to her husband. “Like, did you know that people living in what is now Mexico domesticated corn fourteen thousand years ago?”

  “Isn’t corn basically a grass crop?”

  “Yeah, but says here that the original plant didn’t look anything like modern corn. They called it teosinte.”

  He stood next to her now. “Fourteen thousand years ago. Imagine if you got a toothache back then. Ouch.”

  “Hurts enough now.” She looked up at him, then back at the screen.

  “Says here that what we call sweet corn was first grown in Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s. The first commercial variety was introduced in 1779.” She scrolled up more stuff. “Hey, hey, honey, how about this?”

  He leaned down and read along with her. “Corn invaded by corn smut is considered a delicacy in Mexico. Infested corn was cooked even before Columbus.”

  “Guess every culture enjoys its delicacies.” She touched his hand. “But maybe Buddy can make a little money. I’m going to call him.”

  “Okay. I’ll shower.”

  “Thirty minutes to supper at the most.”

  He kissed her on the cheek.

  She dialed Buddy Janss, launched ri
ght in with her discovery.

  “They eat that stuff?” replied an incredulous Buddy.

  “Buddy, if you go to your computer, Metapathogen.com has a little section on corn smut, under its Latin name, Ustilago maydis. Yeah, Mexican restaurants think it’s terrific.”

  “Well, I already walked the insurance agent through.”

  “You did, but if you call around to some really fancy Mexican restaurants, maybe you can figure prices. Obviously, if they’ll pay more than the crop insurance, that’s an easy decision.”

  “You bet.” His voice picked up energy.

  “Before it slips my mind, when Cooper and I walked through Hester’s library looking at her beautiful books, we found some on fishing, and a picture of her with a friend fishing. She ever talk about this with you?” Harry pointedly did not mention the friend was scarecrow Josh Hill.

  “Oh, well now, over the years maybe once or twice. Hester and I mostly stuck to business.” He chuckled. “Her version of business.”

  “Had you ever been in her house before the reception?”

  “No. What about you?”

  “Me neither. I was surprised at how lovely it was. And the expensive things she owned.”

  “Life is full of surprises.”

  Saturdays Harry and Fair liked to join their friends for foxhunting. As the fox was chased, not killed, they especially enjoyed riding behind hounds, land rolling before them like green waves, Blue Ridge Mountains behind, a splendid theatrical backdrop.

  Today’s hunt lasted three hours. Once back at their trailers, people wiped down horses and threw sweat sheets over them, since it was warm, in the mid-fifties. After putting out buckets of water, they hurried to join everyone else at the tailgate. Literally it was a tailgate: The tailgates on trucks were dropped, a few card tables were put out and little oil tablecloths were tossed over them.

  The talk always began with the day’s sport before rapidly moving to other subjects. Many of today’s hunters had also attended Hester’s service.

  Big Mim, hot coffee in hand, mentioned, “I believe Sarah Price will take over Hester’s house.”

  “Wonderful,” Wesley said, nodding.

  “I’d think you’d feel otherwise,” said Neil with a hint of sarcasm. He was a non-rider who’d come to join the group, as did others, food and drink being a reliable magnet.

  “Why? It’s a piece of old Virginia, and better that such places stay in the family.”

  “Ah.” Neil swilled his scotch. “You’re right. I was thinking of the commission on a sale. Would sell for a lot, that place.”

  Harry said, “I couldn’t possibly afford my farm today. It’s kind of crazy.”

  “Prices go up and down,” said Wesley, “but when it comes to beautiful farms in Virginia, they have held steady despite all. Now, I’m not saying I’ve sold a lot lately, mind you, but we are in a better position than most of the country.”

  “Not the boom towns,” Neil pressed.

  “Like Oklahoma City?” Fair asked. “You know, it’s exciting when something hits like the boom in the Dakotas and Oklahoma. Hope, energy, jobs, but you wonder how it will all turn out down the road.”

  “Honey, that’s true for everything.” Harry smiled, then focused on Neil. “How about fertilizer samples? Just enough to, say, put on three small patches, four feet by four feet. I’ll make little squares back behind the sunflowers.”

  “Be happy to. I know if you have a good experience and endorse my products, others will follow.” Neil was right about that. “Have you thought about what you would be growing?”

  “Have.”

  Tazio and her boyfriend, Paul Diaz, joined them. As Paul rode and trained Big Mim’s horses, Tazio had realized she’d better learn to ride.

  To Paul’s credit, he was studying architecture, and the two, on his weekday off, would drive to Richmond, Washington, and other places to look at buildings constructed at different periods in our history. He found he liked it, just as Tazio found she liked riding.

  “She’s going to move up to Second Flight,” Paul bragged of Tazio, referring to the foxhunting group closer to the action.

  Tazio rode in the back on an adorable babysitter of a horse, but as she gained skill and confidence, she would move up a notch.

  “Never doubted that for a minute,” Fair told her.

  “How’s it coming for the Halloween Hayride?” Neil asked.

  “Frankenstein will be ready,” said Tazio. “He’ll snap the restraining belts, climb off the table, attack the good doctor”—she nodded at Wesley—“then run out the door.”

  “I’m scared already,” Harry said.

  Neil laughed. “It’s going to be the scariest hayride ever, and we will raise a bundle. I’m committed to that and others are, too.”

  “I think a room in the library should be named for Hester,” Harry thought out loud.

  “You’re right, honey,” Fair agreed.

  “After the hayride, we can bring it before the library board. I’m getting excited about this.” Neil smiled.

  “You get excited about anything that makes money,” Wesley teased him.

  “Profit motive. Built this country,” Neil fired back.

  Big Mim, who had left the group, sailed back into their conversation, changing the subject. “Given the dryness, not a bad hunt. We do need rain, though. Desperately.”

  “That we do,” Fair said. “The ground is so hard it’s like running on brick.”

  “Tazio,” Big Mim addressed the architect, who looked stunning in hunt kit, “you’ve been over there at the school buildings. Are they salvageable?”

  With a big grin, Tazio replied, “They are in great shape. The real expense in fixing them up would be plumbing, heating, air-conditioning. But those buildings were solidly built, well sited, and there’s not even a leak in those roofs. You could actually still use the huge cast-iron furnaces.”

  “Good,” Big Mim said. “Lot of history there.”

  “I wish older people would write down what they lived through—the good, the bad, and the ugly,” Harry said with some emotion. “History books can be dry or filled with speculation about this world force and that armament technology. I want to hear what people who lived through it all thought and felt.”

  “Good point.” Tazio rested her hand on Harry’s shoulder for a moment.

  “Speaking of knowing, the TV reporters and the newspaper say that Hester was shot,” said Neil. “And so was that fellow you found in the Morrowdale field. But how and where were they shot, exactly?” he asked, not realizing that Harry might not wish to recall any of this.

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  Fair stepped in. “When we found the scarecrow, he was fully dressed. Hester was, too. No wounds were evident.”

  “Neil, I don’t really want to know,” Harry lied. Cooper had told her they were shot through the heart. Cooper had also told her the sheriff’s department was withholding the exact M.O. “They’re both gone, a young man and a neighbor. That’s enough.”

  Neil shrugged. “I guess I get too curious. Too many crime shows on television.”

  “It’s always so antiseptic, those shows. No faces frozen in horror.” Tazio reached for Paul’s hand. “What I want to know is why our society is so enthralled by crime and violence. Why can’t we be enthralled by beauty, harmony, or perfect proportion?”

  “Because they demand sensitivity.” Fair surprised them by coming right out with this. “Anyone can see a beautiful sunrise or hear great music, but not everyone can feel it. Yet everyone can feel violence.”

  “I never thought of that,” Wesley remarked.

  “And I suppose everyone can kill,” Tazio said, “but how many people can compose a symphony?”

  “I’m not sure everyone can kill,” Neil replied. “Then again, I don’t want to find out.”

  To change the subject, Harry asked Tazio, “That old slip of paper you found—did you by any chance check to see if it was a student? I mean,
I wonder if they have the old rolls.”

  “I didn’t find out yet.”

  “What was the name?” Wesley was nosy.

  “Walter Ashby Plecker,” Tazio answered.

  Later that afternoon, after Harry finished her barn chores, she set up shop at the computer in the tack room. Outside, the sun was already setting as Simon, the possum, peeped over the hayloft.

  Patrolling the barn’s center aisle while the horses munched away, Mrs. Murphy heard the possum’s squeak.

  “Murphy?”

  “What, Simon?”

  “What does she do in there? I see that bluish light. She sits there for hours! It’s unnatural for people to sit still that long.”

  “Ha.” Pewter, faking her patrol, stopped to look up. “Millions of people sit on their butts for weeks and years. After a while, part of them is in the next zip code.”

  “Look who’s talking,” sassed Tucker, plonked down on an aisle tack trunk.

  For a fat girl, Pewter could move. She flew down the aisle, jumped onto the tack trunk, batted the corgi with an extended claw, then leapt off in an attempt to flee the barn, Tucker in pursuit.

  “I loathe violence.” Simon closed his eyes.

  “Mmm,” was the tiger cat’s reply, since she often considered batting Pewter, as well as Tucker. Well, more Pewter than Tucker—she could reason with Tucker.

  Heavyset though she was, Pewter easily flummoxed the dog. She could zig and zag so quickly that Tucker would skid out trying to catch her. Then Pewter would run straightaway, Tucker would make up lost ground, and once again the cat would turn. She even stopped dead in her tracks, faced the onrushing dog, then soared right over Tucker, who by now was barking nonstop.

  “I hate you!” barked the corgi. “I really, really hate you.”

  “Peon!” Pewter gleefully tormented the dog.

  “What now?” Hearing the clamor, Harry pushed away from the computer and walked outside. “All right, you two. Calm down.”

  “Kill. I want to kill!” Tucker practically foamed at the mouth.

  “Bubble Butt, Tailless Wonder!” Pewter was merciless as she climbed a gum tree, then spread out on a lower branch like a courtesan, tail swaying to and fro. “You’ll never catch me,” she taunted.