The Litter of the Law

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Powdery stuff,” Mrs. Murphy chimed in. “Goes right up your nose.”

  “Always smells a little like dead stuff, which I usually like,” said the dog, “but you can detect other things, man-made odors.”

  “Like car exhaust?” Pewter wrinkled her nose and the others laughed.

  Ivy Nursery, just west of Charlottesville and the Boar’s Head complex, contained long greenhouses as well as trees and other plants in rows outside the buildings.

  Harry pulled into the almost full parking lot right before 6 P.M., quitting time for Susan. She walked inside the main building and there to the side was Susan, creating a wonderful boxwood topiary.

  “Harry!”

  “Said I’d see you on your first day of work. That looks interesting.”

  “My inspiration is the gardens of Harvey Ladew in Harford County, Maryland. So I’m making this little fox.” She put down her shears, pulled off her protective but flexible gloves.

  “Let me be your first customer. I’ll buy your fox.”

  “Harry, you don’t have to do that.”

  “I’d love to. He’s cute as a button.” She touched his boxwood nose.

  “My boss saw right away that if I could make foxes and hounds, we’d do a big business. It’s taking me some time.”

  “What do you do, outline it first?”

  “That’s the thing, you can’t really make a good three-dimensional outline. I have all these photographs.” She swept her hand in front of six fox photographs leaning against the back of the long table at which she worked. A deep metal sink stood in the corner with glazed pots, terra-cotta pots, and square redwood containers on lined shelves. Ribbons—every color imaginable, including the fashionable gauze ones—lined another shelf, the spools affixed to the edge, a bit of ribbon hanging down from each. The trimming and cutting tools hung above the worktable on a magnetic strip. Filling the workroom were the fragrances of potted plants, small trees, and cut flowers.

  “You just eyeballed it?” Harry was incredulous.

  “Did.”

  “You always got A’s in art class. Not me.”

  Susan wiped her hands with a small terry-cloth towel. “You got them in physics.”

  “I like that he’s running,” said Harry of the topiary fox.

  “I thought it would be easier to do than a sitting fox. But I’ll get the hang of it. Hounds, too.”

  “Susan, you could do dachshunds, Labs, cats. People could give you pictures of their pets.”

  “Great idea. I’ll see if my boss will go for it.”

  “Who is the boss?”

  “Karen Corriss, you remember her? She was three grades ahead of us.”

  “You mean Karen Dillard?”

  “Yeah. She married Rudy Corriss.” She lowered her voice. “Apparently he’s not doing too well. Real estate.”

  “I can believe that, but, well”—Harry shrugged—“Ivy Nursery has to be an interesting place to work.”

  “For one day, it is.” Susan laughed. “Okay, let me take pictures of this on my cellphone so I can show Karen my work and my first sale. You’re a peach, you know that?”

  As Susan took pictures from every angle on her cellphone, Harry beamed. “You never called me a peach before.”

  “Oh, come on. I have so.”

  “Sometimes you’ve called me a good egg. I like peach better.”

  The two old friends laughed. Susan wrapped a beautiful gauze bow around the fox’s neck. “Charlie in gold,” she said, calling the fox by his English name. The French use “Reynard.”

  Harry held up the creation. “Let me get this through the cash register and I’ll meet you outside.”

  They met by Harry’s truck, animals in it.

  Opening the door, Harry placed the topiary fox on the passenger-seat floor. “Touch that and I pull your whiskers out.”

  “Why would I touch it? It’s not food.” Pewter tossed her head.

  “Tucker?” Harry stared right into her wonderful corgi’s brown eyes.

  “Not me,” the intrepid dog replied.

  “Don’t even ask, I don’t chew greenery,” Mrs. Murphy said.

  “No, you just wrecked last year’s Christmas tree,” Pewter reminded her.

  “I had help.” The tiger cat’s pupils enlarged as she growled at Pewter.

  “Enough.” Harry shut the door, the window open a crack. “These last two months all those cats have done is fight. And Pewter chases Tucker, too.”

  “Not for long, I assume,” Susan laughed.

  “She does need Weight Watchers, doesn’t she?”

  They stood there in the faltering light, coolness coming on. Shoppers left the nursery, purchases in hand.

  Wesley Speer emerged, two huge amaryllises in his arms. Harry, on seeing him, ran up. “Let me help. These are beautiful.”

  “Thanks, Harry. Hey, Susan. We could have a vestry board meeting right here.”

  “No quorum,” Susan said as she walked with them to Wesley’s Lexus SUV.

  He opened the back.

  “You bought my chest of drawers!” Susan exclaimed.

  “Huh?” He stepped back from the inside of the Lexus, a beautiful vehicle and an expensive one.

  “My chest of drawers!” repeated Susan. “Baby blue. You went down to Farmville, Number 9, didn’t you?”

  “I wanted to get something for Rebecca,” Wesley said, mentioning his wife. “We often go down there.”

  “Well, I wanted that one.”

  “Susan, I bet if you call down there, they’ll have another one or can get it for you. This just shows what good taste we both have. Rebecca dragged me down there, oh, weeks ago and she fell in love with this. I sneaked back today and bought it.”

  “She’ll love you for this.” Harry smiled.

  He smiled back. “Every now and then it does a husband good to surprise his wife. I thought I’d carry it up to her dressing room, put it by the window, and place the two amaryllises on it.”

  “Lovely.” Susan nodded. “Well, home to Owen. He needs to go outside. I’ll see you …?”

  “Halloween Hayride, if not before,” Wesley answered.

  The two women friends returned to Susan’s station wagon, parked not far from the old Ford.

  Susan kissed Harry on the cheek. “Thank you for making my day.”

  “You made mine. I have a fox.”

  Susan put her hand on the door handle. “I can’t believe he bought my bureau.”

  “Honey, Wesley’s right. Call them up. It’s kind of funny—I’m telling you to spend money and I just spent a little. I didn’t even make a fuss.”

  “Maybe we’re exchanging personalities.”

  “Nah.” Harry shook her head. “You can smooth over ruffled feathers, make people feel good. I say what I mean too often and suffer the consequences.”

  Susan hugged Harry, whom she truly loved. “Harry, I know we are both getting older, because nine times out of ten you now hold your tongue.”

  “Mmm, five out of ten.”

  “Six.”

  “Go on.”

  “I am,” Susan said, slipping behind the wheel.

  The hum of an overhead fluorescent light distracted Cooper. Outside the police station’s windows, the sun was setting. Opening her metal briefcase, she laid out the papers from Hester’s folder onto the long table in the conference room.

  “Precise,” observed Rick, the sheriff, rubbing his chin as he noted a large map with parcels of land and soil types outlined in different colors.

  “Sarah was helpful. We went through Hester’s papers a few times, and she reiterated that her aunt didn’t speak of these much, except to say she was extra vigilant about where and from whom she bought her produce.”

  He read the numbered key, checked the land to which it referred. “She had properties’ sales reports, too, with the price and when land changed hands, which wasn’t often.”

  “From everything we know of Hester, that makes sense. She liked to do busin
ess with people she’d done business with for years, preferably whose parents did business with her parents. If a family farm was sold, she wanted to know the new owner’s intentions.”

  “That’s one thing about this part of the world. There are times when you can see five generations at a crack.”

  “Makes you see quite clearly where bad blood galloped from generation to generation.” Cooper laughed.

  He laughed, too. “Does, but other things, little things—like have you ever noticed that Tally Urquhart, Big Mim, Little Mim, all favor bright blue? Blue signs, blue dresses, blue cars.”

  “Now that you mention it, they do. Looks like Aunt Tally is going to bust a hundred and one this winter.” She paused at the thought of the wise old woman. “I think I’ll call on Aunt Tally. She knows these farms, knew them before most of the roads were paved. Maybe there’s something we’re missing.”

  The sheriff pushed his chair back from the table. “Coop, any time spent with the old dragon is time well spent, but I don’t see the connection between the farms on this map and Hester’s death.”

  She sat staring at the paper, thin where it had been repeatedly folded and unfolded over the years. Pointing to Buddy Janss’s holding, she said, “Hester dealt with Buddy for decades. Land value and use are changing. Buddy is certainly aware of it. For one thing, the sale of even one of his parcels would be worth seven figures.”

  “To Buddy, not to Hester.”

  “She was opposed to development,” said Cooper.

  “So is Buddy, up to a point.” Tired, Rick’s voice betrayed it.

  “Chief, I told you about the tie between Josh Hill and Hester. The Virginia tribes connection.”

  “So they went fishing together,” said Rick, his voice now skeptical.

  “Here’s Morrowdale, where Josh was found,” said Cooper, now on a roll. “Hester has a soil outline for it. Also on this map, Hester has all of Neil Jordan’s purchases outlined and soil-typed. I keep coming back to this. It has to do with soil, crops, and organic farming, but as far as I know, no one has ever been killed for applying fertilizer.”

  He smiled. “Not yet anyway.”

  “But here’s where I’m heading. Some of these farms had to have been formerly owned by the Monacans.”

  He shifted in his seat. “Wouldn’t Hester have marked that as well?”

  “I don’t know. All the stuff Sarah and I found in a folder on land issues, Indian scholarship funds, housing funds, all hinged on proving one’s Indian blood to the federal government. I think she might have paid Josh Hill to research who was a Monacan tribe member. We just haven’t found his research.”

  “That’s a big jump,” he said, holding up his hand. “There is no solid connection between the murders themselves that we know of other than the costumes—no connection to farming practices and no connection to who owned what when.”

  “Here’s where I’m going. The Virginia tribes are not recognized by the federal government, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t work to repurchase such lands, nor does it mean they can’t continue their pressure on the government as well as the state. The state can’t deny them as easily as the feds, but the state would have a difficult time assisting in any purchases.”

  He threw up his hands. “So what?”

  “These lands are worth millions, but they sure wouldn’t be if returned or repurchased by a tribe, because they would never come on the market again.”

  “But if the land was sold now, wouldn’t the tribe have to pay fair market value?”

  Cooper leaned toward him. “Maybe. Maybe not. There are so many possibilities. Let’s say a landowner dies without any heirs. If the state takes over and the tribes create an outcry, they could possibly win the right to reclaim the land or maybe the right to purchase it at a reduced rate.”

  The lawman remained unconvinced. “But first the tribe has to come up with the money.”

  “They can open it for fishing and hunting, find new ways to create revenue based on their history and culture, and lastly, even though the Virginia tribes signed away the right to create casinos, they could possibly fight to reclaim those rights. As they are not now recognized by the federal government, think of the fight—a long fight, national attention, with billions at stake! The federal government would look really bad, and what if the timing was just right, say, during a presidential election? A great case could be made that the Monacans’ rights were signed away and stolen under duress. This could be huge.” She paused. “In Alexandria, preservationists want to save Carver School—built in 1944 for African American children, which means tribal children, too. The purchase price is $675,000. For Alexandria, right outside of D.C., that is not bad. If they succeed, it will energize other preservationists. Obviously, the focus is African American. They may not know about Plecker.”

  He drummed his fingers on the table. “Billions of dollars, that seems to me to be more motivation for murder than protecting an ancestral school or home.”

  “To us, but we’re white.”

  This struck the sheriff. “Coop, you’re grasping at straws, but one of those straws might be the right one. I’ll call the chief of the Upper Mattaponi. I don’t fully understand the hopes of the various Virginia tribes.”

  Cooper refolded the map. “Had another thought. Halloween is Thursday. We might want to assign extra people to the hayride.”

  “We’re stretched thin as it is,” he said. “I’ve assigned extra officers to the downtown mall. It’s bound to get rowdy. If a private function gets out of control, we’ll be called, but the mall is public. I can’t really spare anyone.”

  “If our killer is as arrogant as I think he is, the hayride could be a perfect venue for more of his showmanship.”

  “Arrogant, yes, but we still haven’t got a compelling motive for these murders, and I don’t see how the Halloween Hayride, a fund-raiser for the library, ties to the two killings, other than people will be in scary costumes.”

  The fact that October 29 was forever marked as Black Friday hovered in Harry’s consciousness. Not much of a history buff, she was reminded by the media, as were most people, of the dark day when Wall Street went to hell in a handbasket. Of course, panics and depressions had occurred before but, thanks to radio and newsreels, 1929 slid the whole country into debt, disillusionment, and death in front of the entire world. The news media fed the panic.

  Just lately, a second depression, called the Great Recession, was broadcast live by cable TV, radio, the Internet, and every possible form of instant communication. Same old, same old, no matter how you sliced and diced it. That was Harry’s logic as she pondered life from her tractor seat. She plowed under her harvested barley field. She allowed her sunflowers and the small patch of cornstalks to stand as she thought of how history is a shadow dogging your every step.

  Finishing up her work in bright sunshine, the temperature a remarkable sixty-four degrees, she bumped along in the old reliable machine, kicking up dust, driving back to the big shed. Next to her, Tucker had a little seat with a seatbelt. At every lurch, her corgi ears would jangle, then straighten out. Made Harry laugh. Sometimes her animals or the wild animals she watched proved so comical, tears would roll down her cheeks.

  “Got to check the vital signs,” she said, turning off the engine. After unhooking Tucker’s seatbelt, she held the dog in one arm, not easy, and climbed down backward off the vehicle.

  “You are very particular,” the dog accurately noted.

  Harry checked the tractor’s oil, the fuel line, and the hydraulic line. The only thing she didn’t check was tire pressure. She rarely worried about that, although if a big temperature shift occurred, she’d do it.

  “Tucker, waste not, want not,” said Harry. “If you keep things tip-top, saves money and saves worry, too.”

  “Right, Mom,” answered the corgi. “I don’t waste bones or greenies.”

  A flutter overhead made both domesticated creatures look up. A brilliantly colored male goldfinch pe
rched on a rafter, showing off his plumage. “Whatcha doing?” the little fellow asked.

  “Mom’s going over her tractor,” said Tucker. “She does this every time she finishes a job. Careful.”

  “Tell her to put out more seed, will you? The bird feeder’s getting low.” Thinking he saw something to eat, he pecked at the rafter. Nope. He spat it out.

  “I’ll try, believe me,” Tucker promised, “but she doesn’t understand. Hey, how come you’re on your own? You goldfinches are so social.”

  “Too much chatter in the flock. I needed a break. Who needs to know the sordid details of everyone’s nest? I like being in the tractor shed. Nice and quiet. No one else is here, although in the summers the swallowtails build nests. Pushy, those birds.”

  “Don’t the cats harass you?” the dog wondered.

  “The gray cat is too fat to harass anybody,” he chirped with pleasure. “Now, the tiger, got to keep my eye out for her. Fortunately, she’s usually occupied by something else.”

  “Do you talk regularly to any other birds? Birds that fly around farther away than you do?”

  As Harry wiped off her greasy hands on an old red cloth, the happy little fellow hopped down on the tractor seat and looked down at Tucker. “Sure,” answered the bird. “Birds do love to gossip.”

  “Ever run into those crows who ate the scarecrow?” asked Tucker.

  The goldfinch hopped down to a back fender to get closer. “I heard you were there with the cats. The crows complained you all spoiled a great find, but they didn’t know who killed the human, if that’s what you want to know. They said he was fresh meat. So he was killed close by, maybe even killed in a car or something.”

  “We kind of stumbled upon it. Did you talk to anyone who knew about the murdered witch at the church?”

  “No, but I heard about it. When you live in a flock, news travels fast. And I also socialize with birds other than goldfinches,” he said proudly, bragging at how cosmopolitan he was. “Anyway, I don’t know anything about that witch except people seem to like killing one another, so what’s it to you?”