Pawing Through the Past

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Dennis could have come back.” Miranda stuck to her guns.

  “It is possible but when we sent cars out to look for his van, it was nowhere to be found on any of the roads around here.”

  “He could have pulled off on a dirt road,” Miranda said, “or he could have used someone else’s car or a closed garage.”

  “Yes.” Cynthia put down her cup.

  “When I started up the stairwell, he was waiting. I think he was waiting for Hank. He knew Dennis had left—that is, if it wasn’t Dennis. He wanted the reunion to be his killing field—he set us up with Charlie and Leo. They were the overture. The reunion was going to be the big show. I swear it! And I got in the way.”

  “But the class of 1950 was in the cafeteria, that’s what galls me.” Miranda smacked her hand on the table. “Right there. He was over our heads and we never heard him. Nor did we see him come in and we may be old but we aren’t blind.”

  “He never left,” Harry said. “He may have gotten in his car when everyone drove away but he just circled around and hid his car. He’d been up there for hours. I can’t prove it but it makes sense. You had the building covered. And even if you’d walked the halls, there are plenty of places to hide: broom closets, bathrooms. He could have stood on the john. You wouldn’t have seen him. I tell you, he was there all the time.”

  “And you believe that he was going to kill Hank Bittner.” Cynthia started to rise but Miranda jumped up and refilled her cup, handing her the half-and-half.

  “If the stories are true then there are two witnesses or . . . participants alive from that rape.” Harry thought out loud. “If Hank Bittner had been killed and Dennis lived, I guess we’d have our answer.” She stopped abruptly. “Dennis has a car phone. Has he used it?”

  “No. We checked that, too.”

  “And you’ve called Hank Bittner, of course,” Miranda pressed.

  “We did. He left on the six forty-five A.M. flight for New York and showed up for work. We called again this afternoon to see if anyone from the class had called him. Nobody had. He didn’t seem frightened but that could be a bluff.”

  “What if you bring him back to flush the game?”

  “No go. He’s not coming back to Crozet until we find the killer.”

  “Doesn’t mean the killer won’t go to him.” Harry folded her arms across her chest. “Another thing. The gun that killed Rex and Bob. A different gun than Marcy Wiggins’?”

  “Yes.”

  “With a silencer?”

  “Exactly.”

  “They’re illegal,” Miranda exclaimed.

  “So is murder,” Harry said, and then they burst out laughing, relieving some of the tension.

  * * *

  54

  That evening, Tracy Raz and Fair took turns staying awake while Harry slept. Pewter again stayed in the bedroom with Harry while Tucker rested by the kitchen door and Mrs. Murphy curled up at the front door.

  At one in the morning Mrs. Murphy opened one eye. She heard the crunch of tires about a half mile away. Had she been wide awake she would have heard it earlier. With lightning speed she skidded down the hallway, turned through the living room, and soared through the kitchen, leaping over Tucker’s head. The corgi, eyes now opened wide, shot through the animal door after Mrs. Murphy. The two best friends ran under the three-board fence, down over the sloping meadow, jumped a ditch and culvert, zigzagged through the protective fringe of woods by the front entrance, and came out on the paved road in time to see the taillights of a late-model car recede in the darkness.

  “Damn!” Tucker shook herself.

  “Make that a double damn. Even a minute earlier, we might have identified the car. You can bet it wasn’t someone lost and turning around. No, that was our killer all right. Coming down the driveway. Saw Tracy’s car and Fair’s truck.”

  They turned, trotting over the light silvery frost covering the ground. The storm clouds still gathered at the mountaintops. The weather in the mountains varies from minute to minute. Although it appeared in the afternoon that a storm would hit by early evening, it waited. When the winds changed, those inky masses would roll down into the valley. Deer, raccoons, fox, and rabbits scampered about, each hoping to fill their bellies before the storm pinned them down.

  As the cat and dog broke into the open meadow, a low swoosh flattened them to the ground. Mrs. Murphy twisted her head to look upward. A pair of huge talons, wide open, reached for her.

  “Ha! Ha!” Flatface called as she brushed the edge of Mrs. Murphy’s fur. Then she rose again in the dark air.

  “She’s got a sick sense of humor,” Tucker, rattled, growled.

  “Flatface. Flatface. Come back,” Mrs. Murphy called out to the enormous owl.

  Huge shadowy wings dipped, the owl banked, then silently settled before them. Rarely were the ground animals this close to the owl, easily three times taller than they were, with a massive chest and fearsome golden eyes. When they spoke to her or were reprimanded by her, she was usually in her perch in the cupola in the barn.

  Speechless for a moment, Tucker swallowed. “You scared us.”

  “Groundlings,” came the imperious reply.

  “Did you see the car that drove partways down the drive?” Mrs. Murphy refused to back up even though Flatface took a step toward her, turning her head upside down for effect.

  “Wasn’t a car. It was a van. It flashed the lights on when it turned into the driveway, then cut them off. Drove down the road with no lights. Fool.”

  “Did you see who was driving it?” Murphy asked.

  “No.”

  “We think whoever is driving that van, most likely Dennis Rablan, will try to kill Mom,” Tucker, ears forward, said.

  “Humans don’t concern me.”

  “She’s different.” Murphy puffed out her fur a bit.

  Flatface swiveled her head around; a field mouse moved under the dried hay leavings. Full, she let the tiny creature pass. “If you were a kitten I’d eat you for supper.” She let out a low chortle, then stretched her wings out wide, a sight that would have frozen the blood even of the forty-pound bobcat who prowled this territory. To further emphasize her power she stepped forward, towering over the cat and dog.

  Mrs. Murphy laughed. “Have to catch me first. Maybe I’d put pepper on my tail.”

  Flatface folded her wings next to her body. She admired the sleek tiger cat’s nerve. “As I said, I don’t care about humans but I like the barn. New people might change the routine. One never knows. Then again, Harry seems less human than most of them. I shouldn’t like to see her killed.”

  “If you see anything or if that van returns, fly down and see who is driving it. We think it’s Dennis Rablan.” Tucker finally spoke up.

  “All right.”

  The wind shifted. Mrs. Murphy beheld the first inky octopus leg of the storm slide down the mountain. “Have you had any luck catching any of the barn mice?”

  The owl blinked. “No—and they sing the most awful songs.”

  “Ah, it isn’t just me then.” Murphy smiled.

  Flatface hooted, opened her wings, and lifted off over their heads, a rush of air from her large wings flowing over their faces as the wind from the west picked up.

  By the time they reached the screened-in porch, the first tiny ratshot of sleet slashed out of the sky. It hit the tin roof of the barn like machine-gun fire. Within seconds the rat-tat-tat increased to a steady roar.

  “Will be a hard night of it.” Murphy shook herself, as did Tucker.

  “Wonder where he hides that van?” Tucker shook the sleet off her fur.

  “Right under our noses.”

  “Do you believe Pewter slept through everything?” Tucker was appalled.

  “Tracy’s wide awake.” Murphy watched as the older man pored over Harry’s high-school yearbook.

  “If this is Dennis, he knows that Tracy is our lodger. He doesn’t take him seriously. I think it was Fair’s truck that backed him off.”

/>   “Maybe he was checking us out for later.”

  * * *

  55

  The sleet turned to ice bits which turned to snow by mid-morning. The first snow of the season arrived punctually, right on November first.

  Harry felt prepared, having driven her four-wheel drive F350 dually to work.

  It was also the day of Bob Shoaf’s funeral in Buffalo, New York, and Rex Harnett’s in Columbia, South Carolina, where his mother was living. No one had organized memorial services in Crozet. When shopping in Market Shiflett’s store, Ted Smith, a fellow in his seventies, displayed a little gallows humor when he said, “Funeral. You guys need a bulldozer to dig mass graves.” Market didn’t find that funny.

  Nor did he find it funny when he asked Chris Sharpton to the movies and she allowed as to how he was a good man but she wasn’t going out with anyone from his high-school class ever again, and if she ever saw Dennis Rablan again she’d tell him a thing or two.

  In a fit of loneliness he asked Bitsy Valenzuela, later that morning, if she had any unmarried girlfriends from her hometown. He’d travel for a weekend date. She very kindly said she couldn’t think of anyone off the top of her head, but if she did she’d let him know.

  Morose, he waved but didn’t smile when Harry threw a snowball at his window. She entered the post office as Miranda hung up the phone.

  “They found Dennis’s van!”

  “Where?”

  “Yancy’s Body Shop.” Yancy’s also specialized in painting automobiles.

  “No one noticed?” Harry was incredulous.

  “Yancy’s on vacation, hunting in Canada. The shop’s been locked since the weekend. Cynthia said they’ve cordoned off the place and are dusting for prints, searching for any other evidence.”

  “Locked, but is there anyone in town who doesn’t know where the key is? Over the doorjamb. It’s been there since we were kids.” She unwound her scarf. “Hey, it’s something, I guess.”

  Tracy came in, bringing them a pepper plant. “Needed something cheerful on the first snowy day.”

  “Tracy, I appreciate you keeping watch, but really, I have the animals.”

  The three furry creatures smiled.

  “Yes, but now you have me, too. And while it’s on my mind—”

  “Honey, they’ve found Dennis Rablan’s van!” Miranda interrupted him, then told him everything she’d just heard.

  Harry called Susan, who called Bonnie Baltier in Richmond. One by one the remaining senior superlatives heard the news, including Mike Alvarez in Los Angeles. BoomBoom called Hank Bittner in New York. More worried than he cared to admit, he thanked her for her thoughtfulness.

  “Dennis has to be hiding somewhere close by.” Pewter felt drowsy. Low-pressure systems did that to her.

  “Underground.” Tucker used the old term from the underground railroad days.

  In a manner of speaking, he was.

  * * *

  56

  The following day, clear in the morning, clouded up by noon. The bite in the air meant snow, big snow. Snowstorms usually did not hit central Virginia until after Christmas and then continued up to early April. Then spring would magically appear. One day it is a gray, beige, black, and white world and the next, pink, yellow, white, and purple cover the hills.

  The earliest snowstorm within Harry’s memory was an October snow, when the leaves were still on the branches, and the weight of the snow with the leaves brought down huge limbs throughout the region. She remembered doing her homework that night to the sound of branches being torn down, screaming since the sap was still in them.

  Market dashed in to get his mail. “No more toilet paper. Miranda, I put a six-pack inside your back door. People are crazy. You’d think the storm of the century was approaching.” He paused. “The barometer sure is dropping, though. Ought to be a couple of days’ worth or one big punch.”

  “I’ve got my snow shovel at the ready.” Miranda winked.

  “And Tracy to shovel it.” Harry tossed a pile of fourth-class mail into the canvas cart.

  “He’ll do yours, too. He is a charitable soul.”

  “Bet the supermarket is running low on canned goods. I should have ordered more last week. But you know, I watch the weather and you’d think it was one volcano eruption, tornado, or hurricane after another. It’s not weather anymore—it’s melo-drama. So I don’t much listen.”

  “I go by my shinbone.” Miranda reached down on the other side of the mailboxes. “Hey, almost forgot, Market, here’s a package from European Coffees.” She handed it over the counter, worn smooth and pale from use.

  “Thanks. Oops, looks like Bitsy at the store. Better head back.”

  As he left, Harry waved. They’d discussed the finding of the van yesterday. There wasn’t much more to say. Market didn’t like being in the store alone but he had to make a living. He said he didn’t think he was in danger. He wasn’t part of the Ashcraft-Burkey-Shoaf “in” group but things were so crazy, how could one be sure?

  “I’m going to walk about before the snow gets here. Anyone want to come along?”

  “Murphy, it’s twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit out there,” Pewter protested.

  “I’ll go,” Tucker volunteered.

  “You two are always showing off about how tough you are.” Pewter hopped in an empty mail cart, curling up with her tail draped over her nose.

  “See ya!” Both animals pushed through the dog door in the back. It hit the wall with a magnetic thwap.

  Harry looked up in time to see the gray door flop back. She figured they had to empty their bladders.

  Mrs. Murphy lifted her head, inhaling the sharp cold air. She and Tucker moved along, since they stayed warmer that way. They headed toward Yancy’s Body Shop, a block beyond the railroad track underpass. Both animals stayed well off the road, having seen enough squashed critters to know never to trust a human behind the wheel.

  They reached the closed-up shop within ten minutes.

  Rick Shaw had removed the yellow cordon tape but a few pieces of it had stuck to the big double doors of the garage. They circled the concrete structure. At the back a black plastic accordion-style drainpipe protruded from the corner. A cinder block was loose next to it, the mortar having crumbled away years ago.

  * * *

  * * *

  “Can’t you push it out? You’re stronger than I am.”

  “I can try.” Tucker leaned her shoulder against the cold block. Little by little it gave way.

  “Good!” Murphy wriggled in and turned around. “Can you make it?”

  “If I can push out the second block, I can.” Tucker wedged the cinder block sideways just enough so she could flatten and claw her way under.

  The light darkened with each minute as the clouds grew gunmetal gray outside. Mrs. Murphy squinted because the old odor of grease, oil, and gasoline hurt her eyes. Both animals walked over to where the van had been parked. It was easy to discern the spot since every other inch of space was crammed with vehicles in various states of distress or undress.

  “I give them credit,” Tucker, nose to the ground, said. “Usually they muck up the scent but it smells like only two people were here.”

  “Tucker, I can’t smell a thing. The gasoline masks everything. Makes me nauseous.”

  “Funny, doesn’t bother humans much.” Tucker lifted her black moist nose, then stuck it to the ground again. “Dennis was here all right. There’s a hint of the darkroom plus his cologne. Cold scent. I think the only reason there’s scent left is the closed van kept it safe and the moisture coming up through the concrete floor held some of it, too.” She sighed. “I have good powers but if we had a bloodhound, well, we’d know a lot more. There’s also that English Leather smell—the same smell I picked up in Crozet High, upstairs.”

  “Great,” Mrs. Murphy sarcastically said, for she was hoping that scent wouldn’t be found. Guarding against two humans is harder than guarding against one.

  Tucker looked at
Mrs. Murphy, her deep brown eyes full of concern. “Two. Two for sure.”

  Murphy wanted to sit down a moment but the greasy floor dissuaded her. “Tucker, let’s get back to the post office.”

  They ran back to the post office. Cynthia Cooper’s squad car was parked in the front.

  As they pushed through the animal door, Pewter bounded to greet them. “Dennis Rablan called! He threatened Mother.”