Hounded to Death

by Rita Mae Brown

  The early settlers struggled to create a lawful society. Up until the early nineteenth century, seventeen others followed Lawrence Pollard to the grave. At sixteen hundred feet above sea level, the swinging bodies would have been seen for miles around. Their ghosts haunted the ridge.

  “When people commit suicide, usually they leave a note either to blame someone or excuse someone. Dan made no mention of a note. I keep turning it over in my mind; maybe I’ll find something. And you know she’d never fire a gun with a traumatized horse in the recovery room.” Sister paused to jump over a big puddle. “Made it,” she announced with pride, then continued, “Look, she didn’t commit suicide. I don’t care if her prints are all over that gun. How hard is it to shoot somebody, wipe down the gun and put it in the victim’s hand?”

  “Easy,” Shaker said. “When Ben studies the wound and the splatter pattern—gross but important—he’ll have a better idea of whether she killed herself or not.”

  “Even if it looks like she did, what if her killer were, say, a police officer? He’d know how to fake it.” Sister’s T-shirt was already soaked with sweat.

  “That’s stretching it,” Betty responded.

  “I know.” Sister sighed. “She was so special, always ready to help out. I can’t give it up. Actually, I just started.”

  “That’s what scares me,” Shaker replied.

  “Oh, come on, I’m not that bad, am I?”

  “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.” Tinsel was drifting out. He whistled low and she moved back.

  “If it were Paul, we’ll all be relieved.” Betty was sweating, too.

  “Guess we’ll find out soon enough.” Shaker noticed Georgia, a gray fox, pop out of her den as they walked along the orchard. “Saucy wench.” Sister smiled as Georgia watched the hounds walk along.

  When Diana turned to look Georgia’s way, the young vixen slipped back into her den.

  “Haven’t had as many litters of cubs as usual this spring.” Shaker kept up with the foxes, as did Sister. “It will be a hard winter, I expect. They know about the weather and the food supply long before we do.”

  “Amazing. If only I knew what a fox knows,” Betty said admiringly. “We’d have to chase you then,” Dasher teased.

  The hounds, overhearing the humans, had learned about Hope’s demise. As she was the equine vet, not theirs, they weren’t close to her but they knew who she was. She’d visited the farm many times on call and sometimes just dropped by. No one had an opinion on her death, since they hadn’t been in her presence for months. As well as fear, the hounds could smell serious illness in a human. On Hope’s last visit, no one had picked up on either of these.

  By the time Gray arrived at the farm at six, Sister’s chores were done. The light had softened; long thin wisps of clouds streaked through the sky.

  He found her in the kitchen and gave her a big hug and a kiss. “I’m glad to see you.”

  “How are you?”

  “Frazzled.” He opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of tonic water. “Want one?”

  “No.” She watched as he poured tonic over two ice cubes, then filled a jigger half full with scotch.

  He drank the scotch neat, chasing it with the tonic. “That will help.”

  “It must have been quite a day.” She smiled as she checked the chicken in the oven.

  “For starters, the news about Hope Rogers is deeply disquieting. I can’t get her off my mind. Next, my aunt about ran me crazy. Sam and I”—Sam was his younger brother, a recovering alcoholic—“spent Sunday with her. My sister, of course, was too grand to make the trip. But the old girl bitched and moaned the entire time. Sam and I puttied windows, fixed floors, cleaned behind the stove and refrigerator. Christ, she wore me out. Then I got home at three to find the pipe under the kitchen sink had broken. I needed a paddle to cross the kitchen floor.”

  “Oh, no! Did it ruin that beautiful hardwood?”

  “Funny. The pipe must have burst not more than ten minutes before I walked through the door. Now that I’ve mopped it up, the floor is cleaner than it has been for a long time. I’ll never convince Sam to remove his boots on the porch before he comes in.” The two brothers lived together in a clapboard house, federal style, built at the time of the Revolution.

  “Still want to go into reconstruction?”

  Gray, a former partner in a prestigious accounting firm in Washington, D.C., had retired but did consulting work. He needed a full-time job, although not for the money. The first year of retirement had proved pleasant enough, then massive boredom had set in.

  “I do.”

  “Who fixed the pipe?”

  “I did. I have extra pipe, all types and diameters, out in the shed from when I ran water to all the outbuildings. So I threaded a pipe and popped her in.”

  “I hate threading pipe. That’s why PVC is so good. Give me sturdy, heavy plastic any day.”

  “PVC’s fine for some purposes, but this was the hot water line. I used copper.”

  “Fancy.”

  “Only the best for a Lorillard.” He grinned. “That’s why I’m besotted with you.”

  • • •

  After dinner, Gray had the opportunity to demonstrate his besot-tedness;then they opened the bedroom windows. The night air had turned deliciously cool.

  Odd thing about death, Sister thought, it reaffirms life and sex begets life. Even if the human can’t reproduce, the body tries. One falls out, one comes in. Nature’s logic.

  “Sixty-nine looms ever closer.” Gray put his hands behind his head on the pillow.

  “Are you preparing me so I won’t forget? I already have your present.”

  He turned toward her. “No. Only that the next one is seventy. It sounds so old.”

  “It is old.”

  “You’re seventy-three, and you look maybe early fifties.”

  “Liar.”

  “It’s true. But I’m not you, honey. I’m starting to feel creaky.”

  “Gray, if I’d been switched on the back of my legs by my ancient aunt, then spent time on my hands and knees fixing a broken pipe, bending over to mop up the floor, I’d feel creaky, too.”

  “You’re right. It’s all attitude. Anyway, if I want to really feel rotten, I’ll focus on myself. I never have seen a happy narcissist.”

  “That’s a thought.” She turned on her side as he flopped back, hands behind his head again. “Just think, Gray, how much life we’ve lived and how much we still hope to live. Hope Rogers didn’t even make it to forty.”

  “That puts it in perspective.”

  “I wonder if this has anything to do with the club? Her murder. I’m viewing it as murder.”

  “Janie, no way.”

  “Well, I can’t find a thread, but as master my first thought is always the club. So many of our people were her clients—well, their horses were. You know what I mean.” She rubbed his close-cut hair. “And my second thought is I want revenge. She was a good woman.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The light played off Barry Baker’s platinum signet ring. Of all the men Sister knew, Barry and her late husband, Ray, were the only ones who wore platinum, a subtle metal. They noted who thought it was steel or silver and who recognized the expensive metal for what it was. Both men also understood the difference between a sport watch and a watch one wore to work. Neither man would have been caught dead wearing a sport watch to the office, which marked a man as socially off-key regardless of his achievements in other areas.

  While not quite as ready to make judgments based on inanimate objects, Sister recognized the wisdom in Barry and Ray’s observations.

  Barry swept his hand toward the kennels. “I remember when you two built the first section. Such practical yet pleasing architecture.” He gazed at the long rows of arches connecting the runs and sighed. “Couldn’t afford it today.”

  “I know. The bricks would cost plenty, but the labor cost would be ruinous. You know, Barry, the American w
orker has pretty well priced himself out of global competition.”

  “True enough. But as long as taxes keep going up, so will wages. It’s an ugly spiral.” He smiled broadly. “And I don’t give a damn.”

  She laughed. “You used to.”

  “Oh, I used to believe a lot of things.”

  As they walked under the arches, a cool breeze swept through, which was most welcome.

  “Asa’s still going strong but Aurora’s slowing down,” Sister said.

  “Your A line has been outstanding.”

  “What a memory you have.”

  “I always remember good hounds, fast horses, and beautiful women. I remember the fast women, too.” The twinkle in his eye made him look twenty years younger at that moment.

  “Some things never change.” Sister strode toward the boys’ yard. “Asa, come visit.”

  Asa raised his head where he’d been snoozing under a sweet gum tree. He roused, shook himself, and ambled over, tail wagging.

  Once inside the boys’ yard, Barry knelt down to speak to the hound. “Asa, you look just the same. I’d never know you were an old man.”

  Most people can be taught the basics of hounds’ language, but some are born with hound sense, that special ability to reach an animal. Barry had hound sense.

  “I remember you, too. When you visited, you rode a good-looking bay mare, light bay with dapples on her hindquarters.”

  Other hounds came over, Sister introducing each to Barry.

  Walking back toward the house, Raleigh and Rooster in tow, Sister asked, “What will become of Mo Schneider’s hounds?”

  “Funny you bring that up. I spoke to Fonz this morning.” He put his arm around Sister’s shoulders. He was the same height. “He asked O.J. to take some. You know, Mo bred a few good hounds, even though he couldn’t hunt them. Anyway, he has some good ones left. Obviously, O.J. has only so much room in her kennels. One of the things I was going to ask you was whether you wanted four couple. Bywaters blood, if you go back to the sixth generation.”

  “Yes, I’d be most appreciative. You know how I feel about the Bywaters blood.”

  “I do.” He opened the door to the mudroom.

  “Any leads on who tied up Fonz?” she asked.

  Barry just said, “No. Nothing.”

  Raleigh and Rooster waited for the humans to go in before they did. Golly hopped out the cat door into the mudroom and then hopped back into the kitchen.

  “What was that all about?” Rooster wondered.

  Raleigh smirked. “Showing how agile she is.”

  A voice came from the other side of the cat door. “Don’t get smart, Raleigh.”

  Raleigh, wisely, kept his peace.

  The wonderful aroma of roast lamb filled the kitchen. Sister ate early, which was fine with Barry. They enjoyed the meal and caught up on old friends.

  Barry, not a drinker, sipped unsweetened tea. “Sister, that beautiful young girl: Tootie. Was that her name? She has a gift with hounds.”

  Sister brightened. “She wants to work here for the summer. Her parents prefer a more ‘suitable’ job. Tootie has so many gifts. I pray when she’s finished with Princeton, and maybe even graduate school, that she returns to me. Whatever her profession, I just hope she can do it here. She has the makings of a master. I have to hand this hunt over to someone else someday. She could do it. Might could hunt hounds, too, if she studied with Shaker. Then the club could save one salary.” She smiled. “Tell you what, Shaker is worth every penny. The understudy would be good for him and the club.”

  “Melvin Poe’s hunting in his eighties.”

  “Melvin Poe is one of a kind.”

  Barry laughed. “What kind?”

  “The best. But remember he has a fabulous wife, and that raises up any man.”

  Barry smiled, remembering his own wife. “I always thought I’d die first. Men do.”

  “Fate.”

  “You never realize how much you’ve come to depend on someone until they’re gone. Oh, I knew I depended on Noddy to keep the social calendar, write the thank-yous—well, I wrote some—and manage all the details of life, down to how much starch I liked in my collars. What I didn’t realize is how much I relied on her judgment concerning people and her political insights. The first year after she passed I walked into walls. I still do sometimes.”

  “I know the feeling. Thank God I took an interest in our investments and didn’t turn the checkbook over to Ray. So many widows struggle with money. But I found out how much Ray did in other areas, down to figuring out seed mixtures for the pastures, when timber was properly dried, how to know when to hold and when to fold when it came to stocks. Ray could figure out most anything.”

  “Man possessed an uncanny sense of the market.”

  “Do you think everyone is born with some gift? His success with stocks, that was his biggest gift.”

  “No. Oh, when I was young and idealistic, I thought everyone had something special. But parking my rear end on the bench all those years, I saw the tail end of the human race. Talk about a bad gene pool. The only gift some cretins possess is that of making everyone around them unhappy.”

  “I go back and forth.”

  “Sister, trust me, there are billions of people on earth who add nothing to anyone’s life, and certainly not to the other creatures of the earth. We’ve overbred and inbred ourselves. When you look at the people and the nations breeding the most, it makes my blood run cold.” He suddenly smiled. “See why I never ran for public office?”

  “I do.”

  She served apple cobbler for dessert and made hot tea for herself. Barry stuck to his iced tea. They laughed over old times and dished about who was still kicking around. Then Sister returned to a subject they’d discussed earlier. “I think Hope was killed.”

  “So you said.”

  “It troubles me. Someone is literally getting away with murder.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, number one. And number two, people get away with murder every day. Trust me on that.”

  Before he could continue, she poked him with her forefinger. “You sound just like Ray.”

  “He kept you level.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “He did. I think men balance women and women direct men but, hey, I’m an old sexist. But don’t jump to conclusions. Obviously, I didn’t know Hope as well as you or Shaker knew her. But since I’m a member of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, I did talk to her now and again, and she seemed perfectly fine. Honey, people sometimes lead secret lives.”

  “Like what? I can’t imagine Hope having a secret that big. I know just about everyone that Hope knew in central Virginia anyway. Never a whiff of anything off-key. What kind of secret could she have had that we wouldn’t have known or suspected?”

  “Sexual perversion. Remember—oh, it must be ten years ago—when they found that Member of Parliament in London who had asphyxiated himself while masturbating? He put a plastic bag over his head to heighten the sensation and I guess it must have been pretty much of a blowout, because he didn’t get the bag off in time. People do strange things.”

  “Somehow I can’t feature Hope Rogers as one who skates near asphyxiation while masturbating,” she replied dryly.

  “You know what I’m driving at. Don’t be contrary.” He was an old friend and spoke directly. “She might have had some condition of which no one was aware, some medical problem, or she could have been on medication for, say, mild depression and the medication went haywire. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Yes, I agree there, but I can’t find a thread that leads me to Hope’s death.”

  “Did she ever have lawsuits brought against her for malpractice?” “No. Well, not that I heard of, and I think I’d know.”

  “Ever cross another vet? Or maybe she was engaged in a research project with commercial application. You know, like an injection to halt the progress of navicular.”

  He named a degenerative disease in a horse
’s hoof, often with multiple causes. The navicular bone rests on the back of the coffin joint. Oddly enough, for the condition is still poorly understood, the lameness almost always occurs in the front feet. Whoever solves the problems with navicular deserves the Nobel Prize.

  “She’d be given samples of products. She’d give us some, but I don’t think she was ever involved in a research project gone sour. She would have told us. Hope was usually forthcoming. She’d developed an interest in bourbon, partly because of her Japanese clients. This was a new thing—well, new to me. But I can’t see where that would lead to peculiarity or perversion.” She paused. “I’m going to miss her terribly.”

  “The divorce?”

  “That’s where everyone headed, and I know Sheriff Sidell questioned her not-yet-ex-husband first. But no charges have been pressed.”

  Barry put down his fork. “That’s not to say they won’t be in the future if Ben Sidell finds more evidence against the husband.”

  “Paul does seem to be the most likely possibility.”

  “It could be something from her past that set her off. Perhaps she had a child out of wedlock when she was a teenager. The child finds her. As I said, strange things provoke people to commit strange deeds. In time, it will come out. It almost always does.”

  “I remember something my mother used to say: ‘Everything matters but nothing makes sense.’ ”

  “Your mother was a pistol. Chip off the old block.” He smiled at her.

  “Isn’t it lovely to spend time with someone who knew people you knew, such as your parents, who have gone on? Much as I love Tootie and my juniors, there’s a wealth of relationships in my life that I can’t share.”

  “But you do.”

  “How?”

  “By being you.” He reached over to squeeze her hand, then dropped it. “Did I ever tell you that I first met Fonz in the courtroom?” He paused. “He’s a Southside Virginia boy. Came up before me years ago on charges of being drunk and disorderly. He pleaded guilty. I liked him. I threw him in the can for a weekend and made him go to AA afterward. He dried out, stayed dry, and came to my office two years after the incident to thank me. Anyway, we’ve kept track of each other over the years. I was the one who actually recommended him to Mo Schneider. I figured Fonz could handle him.”