RMBrown - The Hunt Ball

by The Hunt Ball (v1. 0) [lit]

  Sister and Gray crept along in his Land Cruiser. Betty was driving the gooseneck loaded with horses. Sister liked hauling to the meets with Betty but Gray wanted Sister with him so they could talk and he adored showing off what his Land Cruiser could do. At a base price of $55,000 his sold for almost $60,000 since Gray couldn’t resist any gadget.

  She had to admit, the vehicle could probably double as an armored car and it plowed through everything.

  “Wonder how much Crawford will spend on his chapel? St. Swithun. I like that he’s naming it that,” she mused.

  “He’ll use the best stonemason in the county so that’s forty dollars a cubic foot right there; he’s lucky because that price represents a bargain.”

  “My God.”

  “Sobering.”

  “I keep forgetting how rich he is.”

  “You’re the only one.” Gray laughed at her. “Hey, have I told you how much I love riding behind you?”

  “Tell me again.”

  “You’re bold, you know what the hounds are doing, but mostly I like seeing your little butt over the fences. Your butt is so little it’s like a boy’s.”

  “More.”

  “Your breasts aren’t bad either. Of course, I can’t see those when you’re leading the field.”

  “Gray.” She just ate this up. Suddenly she sat upright out of the comfortable seat. “Honey, can I use your cell phone?”

  “Sure, it’s wired through the car. All you have to do is push these buttons and the phone icon. When you want to hang up, push the icon where the phone is level.” He pointed to a green button, then a red button. “Forget something?”

  “No, no, I’ve had a terrible thought.” She dialed the Widemans. “Henry, hello, we missed you Saturday.”

  Sister’s voice was distinctive, so he knew immediately who it was. In fact, Sister rarely had to identify herself.

  “Wish I could have been there. Heard that fox ran you clean to the old granary at Beveridge Hundred.”

  “Did and thumbed his nose at us, too. How was your trip to Baltimore?”

  “Good.” He paused. “City’s changing. Guess they all are. I worry that all this renewal will throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

  “Excuse me for being nosy, but I was wondering if you’d gone out to St. John’s before you left for Baltimore.”

  “I’ll get in there sooner or later.”

  “Would you mind if Gray and I drove to it? We’re in the Land Cruiser so we’ll get in. I think I lost something there,” she half-fibbed.

  “No, not at all. Anything I can do to save you the trip?”

  “Thank you, no. Letting us come back and hunt Little Dalby is the best thing to happen to our club in years. I can’t thank you enough, and you know, we stand ready to make good on gates or if you have a project that takes strong backs, call. In fact, I’m sitting next to Samson here.”

  After a few more pleasantries she disconnected.

  “What are you up to? What have you gotten me into?” He shook his head.

  “Honey, won’t take too long. You know the way.”

  Gray, a good driver, was particularly alert if another vehicle was on the road. So many people, deluded by technology, would fly down a snowy road only to soar off into a bank, a ditch, or flip over. It was as though two generations of Americans had lost all sense of nature’s power.

  Within twenty minutes they were at St. John’s of the Cross.

  Sister stood before the doors. She opened them. Cold. No sign of change since she and Betty were there. A disturbed“Hoo” let her know who else was in there.

  “What are you searching for?”

  “Gray,” she rested her gloved hand on his chest, “Betty and I were here marking jumps and trails. We walked on back here and I guess I took a trip down Memory Lane. Anyway, it was apparent no one had been here in years. But when we hunted Saturday I noticed tire tracks, covered now, obviously, and the hounds went straight to the chapel rear. Shaker called them off. I didn’t pay attention. The chase was too good. But I did note somewhere in the back of my mind that the tracks didn’t pass over tracks coming from the other direction. Whoever came here came to the chapel. And I smelled rot.”

  “It’s deer season, Jane. No reason a hunter wouldn’t park here and go deeper into the woods. Can’t drive into the brush. And you know as well as I that some hunters will leave the carcass or parts of it.”

  “Got a flashlight in that tank of yours?”

  “I do.”

  Within seconds they were walking around the chapel.

  “I’m looking for any recent disturbance.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I don’t rightly know, except that I trust my hounds. Shaker called them from here in short order but they were highly interested. Of course it’s below freezing now so I can’t smell a thing.”

  “Fox under the chapel?”

  “Could be and if it is, I need to worm him or her. If I’m lucky maybe I can lure him into a humane trap and get one rabies and distemper shot in.”

  They walked around to the back. The old stone foundation had some gaps in it large enough for a hound to crawl in, or a human for that matter.

  With the biting cold the decaying leaf smell was not discernible, although a pleasant odor to the human nose.

  She crouched down, shining the beam into the opening. She handed the flashlight to Gray as he hunched down next to her.

  “Jesus H. Christ on a raft!” He dropped the flashlight and sprinted for the Land Cruiser.

  C H A P T E R 2 5

  The snow, still falling, drifted, creating waves that looked like Cool Whip. Ben Sidel, Ty Banks, and three other officers patiently worked in the cold. Although only three in the afternoon, the deep gray clouds hung low; visibility wasn’t too good.

  On the one hand, the cold had preserved what remained of the body under the church. But the snow obscured any tracks or other bits of evidence that might have been there. Ben knew, when this snow melted, evidence would melt with it.

  Ty rubbed his gloved hands together as he stood up. He shook his legs for circulation. “Sheriff, how long do you think she’s been under there?”

  “Maybe a week. And we’re lucky. The animals that got to her didn’t take the head. We’ve got the teeth.”

  “Looks like a big dog or something pawed away at the stones.”

  “Yeah. Sticking her under the church was a hurry-up job but not such a stupid one. People rarely come back here. Whoever killed her shoved her under the church as far back as he could crawl, piled up leaves over her, then put some stones back in the foundation. Don’t know if he opened up the foundation or if the stones crumbled away. Not all of these,” he pointed to snow-covered stones, “match.”

  “Guess there’s not enough for a visual I.D.”

  Ben shook his head. “Been tore up pretty good. Nature’s recycling.” He grunted softly. “The teeth. We’ll get a positive I.D.”

  Ty jammed his hands in his pockets as two men in orange hazard suits slid back out on their stomachs, body pieces in plastic bags.

  Ty asked, “Do you think Mrs. Arnold knew who that was under there?”

  “She probably has an idea despite the condition of the body. Sister’s uncanny. She said she should have trusted her hounds when they went to the chapel.”

  “Do you want to call Mrs. Norton? I can if you—” Ty didn’t finish, for Ben interrupted.

  “I’ll call. She knows it’s coming.”

  “Because Brown University called her yesterday.”

  Ben shrugged, “Well, she’s a bright woman. They asked her if she had seen Professor Kennedy, who has never missed a class. The conclusion has to be dismal. Now we have the evidence.” Ben rolled his eyes toward the slightly waving treetops. “Ty, we’re in the fog, but it’s about to lift.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our killer had to hurry. People who hurry make mistakes.”

  “When are you going to give a statement to the p
ress?” Ty considered what Ben had just said.

  “Tomorrow. I need tonight to think.” He lifted his foot, shaking the cold out of his toes, snow spraying. “And I want to call on a few people.”

  “Long night?” Ty’s expression was dolorous.

  “Not for you. Tomorrow I want you to see if you can find Professor Kennedy’s backup system. Someone as meticulous as she had to be in her line of work wouldn’t have had only one copy of her data. It’s possible that whatever she found, whether it had to do with those artifacts or with something else at Custis Hall, might be encoded in that data.”

  “Okay.”

  “The other thing is this: My statement will simply be that the remains of an unidentified woman were found. I’ll give an estimate of age and race and say we won’t have any more information until the dental records are checked, which may take some time.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “Find the killer.”

  Ty’s eyebrows furrowed. “Sister said he knows the territory.”

  “After this, there can’t be any doubt about that.”

  C H A P T E R 2 6

  Soft golden light flooded the snow-covered campus. Tracks crisscrossed the quads. The lovely diffuse December light somewhat made up for the long, black, cold nights. Last night the mercury had dipped to twenty-one degrees, but at eleven in the morning it shot up to forty-six with promise of further rising.

  Tootie, Valentina, and Felicity, in riding clothes, walked toward their dorm.

  “Did I bump Money? I swear I didn’t. Bunny’s in a mood. She always takes it out on me.” Valentina loved the look of the school after a snow.

  “Didn’t see. I was in front of you,” Tootie said.

  “Me, too.” Felicity noticed a determined squirrel stuffing acorns into her fat cheeks from a chinquapin oak.

  Tootie noticed as well. “Mrs. Childers said chinquapins grow where the soil is alkaline. Sure are a lot of kinds of oaks.”

  “I like water oaks. Don’t see them this far west.” Felicity liked botany. “There’s something romantic about water oaks.”

  Valentina’s blue eyes narrowed. “You’re talking about oaks and I got my ass chewed by Bunny, the bitch.”

  “One dollar,” Felicity grinned. “No, two.”

  “Oh, pulease!” Valentina rolled her eyes. “Ass is a body part.”

  Tootie stopped, holding up her hands. “I’ll make the call on this. Otherwise you two will go on for days. Val, you owe one dollar. I accept your explanation for ‘ass.’ Okay, F.?”

  “Okay.” Felicity kept grinning as Valentina dug into her britches for a dollar.

  “You’re such an accountant. How boring.”

  “It won’t be boring when we throw our end-of-the-year party, funded mostly by your mouth.” Felicity laughed, her features relaxing from her normal strained visage.

  “Did anyone ask for early acceptance?” Tootie wondered about college.

  “No,” said Valentina as she shook her head. “We’ll get in to wherever we apply. We’ve got good grades and lots of extracurricular activities.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” Felicity’s worried expression returned. “Places like Stanford and Yale, Smith, those places, the best of the best.”

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to Princeton and they’ll be lucky to have me,” Valentina said with lightheartedness.

  “Be funny if we wound up at the same college.” Felicity wanted the comfort of her dear friends even if they did bicker.

  “Never happen,” Valentina pronounced. “What are the odds of the three of us getting in to Princeton?”

  “Pretty good according to your analysis,” Tootie replied.

  “Jennifer and Sari both got in to Colby.” Felicity liked the two college freshmen, having ridden with them many times.

  “Colby isn’t Princeton,” Tootie remarked. “It’s a good school and all, but how many people want to go to Maine? Too cold.”

  “If that was the criterion then no one would apply to Wisconsin or Michigan or Vermont.” Valentina saw the door of the dorm swing open and Pamela Rene emerge. “Chicago’s dream girl, in her own estimation,” she said under her breath.

  “Okay, we all applied to Princeton. Tootie and I applied to Duke. You and I applied to Colgate. You and Tootie applied to Bucknell. At least two of us might make it.” Felicity kept on track.

  “And I applied to Virginia Tech,” Tootie added.

  “Yale,” Valentina said.

  “Northwestern,” Felicity chimed in.

  As Pamela approached them, Valentina asked, nicely, “Pamela, where’d you apply to college?”

  Fingering her red scarf, Pamela stopped. “UVA, Tufts, Ole Miss.”

  “Ole Miss?” Tootie’s eyebrows shot upward. “A Chicago girl like you at Ole Miss. Pamela, that surprises me.”

  “I did it to piss off my mother.” She laughed. “She wanted me to apply to Radcliffe, Mt. Holyoke, Bard, and Vassar. If I get in to all three, I think I’ll go to Ole Miss anyway. But I put in a late application to Brown because I liked Professor Kennedy. Did it over Thanksgiving.”

  “Did you have a good one?” Felicity didn’t like Pamela either but she tried to like her. Felicity tried to like everyone.

  “No. But it was good to see my friends. What’d you guys do?”

  “Stayed at Sister Jane’s. We hunted with her and she took us to other hunts. We hunted almost every day,” Tootie bubbled.

  “Yeah, we cleaned the kennels with Shaker and we learned all the hounds’ names.” Felicity’s eyes sparkled.

  “Cleaned all the tack, too.” Valentina’s stomach rumbled. Time for lunch.

  “I like cleaning tack.” Felicity heard Valentina’s stomach, reminding her that she was hungry, too. “It’s therapeutic and Sister cleaned with us so she told us stories about hunting when she was our age. It was really cool. Back then people stayed out so long they brought two horses,” she enthused.

  This happiness weighed on Pamela. “Guess you all are the favorites.”

  “If you’d stayed here, Sister would have invited you, too.” Pamela knew Sister was evenhanded. “You’re a good rider, Pam.”

  This caught Pamela off guard. “You think?”

  “Yeah,” Valentina backed Tootie up.

  “You couldn’t hunt your horses every day.” Pamela was curious as to what she missed.

  “Sister let us ride hers!” Felicity boasted.

  “She said, ‘Light hands, keep out of his mouth, and be still,’ ” Tootie added.

  “Wish I’d been there.” Pamela told the truth.

  This struck all three friends because they knew enough about Pamela to know she went to great pains to hide her emotions. What you saw was not what you got.

  “Maybe she’ll let us have a sleepover some weekend after Christmas,” Felicity suggested.

  “Sister might but I don’t know if my adviser will let me go. They’re all mad at me. The administration and the faculty, too.” Pamela overstated the case.

  “Maybe some are, but Mrs. Norton isn’t like that. If your grades are good and Bunny says ‘okay,’ Mrs. Norton will flash you the green light.” Valentina liked the headmistress.

  “Dad says I’m costing Custis Hall money. He says I’m right to raise the issue but wrong the way I did it. And he said I should never have gone behind Mrs. Norton’s back to find Professor Kennedy.” The usual defiance wasn’t in Pamela’s voice.

  “What’d your mother say?” Tootie asked.

  “She didn’t care. I’m overweight. Okay, maybe I’m ten pounds overweight but I’m not Queen Latifah. She doesn’t care what I think or what I do. She cares about how I look and that I meet ‘the right people.’ ” Pamela’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “You are meeting the right people.” Valentina smiled her politician’s smile. “Hey, you’re with us, aren’t you?”

  “You’re so modest, Val.” Pamela listened as the bells chimed noon. “Lunch. I’m starved.
”

  “Me, too,” Valentina and Felicity said in unison.

  They fell in step, walking to the dining hall.

  Pamela remarked, “I can’t wait for Professor Kennedy’s report.”

  “You missed the point, Pamela.” Val sounded as though she were talking to a child. “The stuff in those cases is just stuff. What matters is how Professor Kennedy interprets it, and I still don’t see how she can be sure who made what.”