Probable Claws

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Pewter, that spider’s almost as big as you are.” The kindly Lab complimented her.

  “She doesn’t scare me.”

  Tucker dropped her eyes. If she looked at the fat gray cat, she would burst out laughing, and then the fur would fly, literally.

  Tazio, noting that her dog remained in the back room, craned her neck. “Something’s going on.”

  “Well, three of those freeloaders are mine. I’ll check.” Harry walked to the back room, door half open.

  “I have a monster trapped. The world’s biggest spider. And she has multiple eyes, too!”

  Looking down at the gray cat, Harry remarked, “Your tail is puffed up.”

  “Make her think I’m big, too.”

  “You are,” Tucker slyly commented.

  “Careful,” Mrs. Murphy said quietly.

  Brinkley, innocent and sweet, asked the puffed-up cat, “How do you know the spider has multiple eyes?”

  “When she gets close to the opening, the light shines on her eye. Little red dots. Oh, it’s creepy.” Pewter pronounced judgment.

  “I don’t know what you all are doing back here, but if there’s pawprints on the walls or worse, big trouble. Big trouble.” With that, Harry turned on her heel to join her friends. “They’re fussing about something. I can’t see a thing.”

  “Political argument, I’m sure.” Tazio laughed. “Everybody else is having them.”

  “Taz, the animals are too smart for that.”

  “You’ve got me there,” Tazio replied as she searched for a big round tube in which to place the large drawings. “For now should I leave the work he’s done for Galbraith and Ix? The notes of Nature First’s offices? The original drawings Lisa’s coming for?”

  “Yes.”

  They heard a knock on the back door, then it opened. Lisa Roudabush called, “Cooper, I’m here.”

  “Don’t take another step. You will be attacked by a rabid spider!” Pewter warned.

  “Harry.” Lisa spoke loudly. “Your gray cat is having a fit.”

  Harry walked into the back entrance. “Pewter, you’re big as a horse. What’s the matter with you?”

  “You’re lucky I’m here. I have the killer spider at bay.”

  “Spiders don’t get rabies,” Mrs. Murphy coolly corrected a large Pewter.

  “This one does! That’s why her eyes are red. Her eyes should be black.” Pewter made it up as she went along, growing ever more emotional.

  “Come on, Lisa. Walk past her.”

  “Well…all right. I’ll be glad when Pirate is full grown. He can go first.”

  “Ha. Even when Pirate is full grown I will terrorize him. Death to spiders! Death to dogs!”

  As the two women walked into the large room, Mrs. Murphy advised, “There are two dogs here, Pewter. You’ve insulted them.”

  “Tucker and Brinkley are the exception that proves the rule,” Pewter proclaimed.

  Tucker turned, walked into the big room followed by Brinkley. “Sorry, Brinkley, she’s so rude.”

  The yellow Lab smiled. “I pay her no mind. She’s mental.”

  Mrs. Murphy tagged after the dogs.

  Lisa asked Cooper, “You said I could take our drawings, right?”

  “You can. We have what we need.”

  “I’ll grab another tube. Lisa, your drawings are already rolled up on the bookshelf.” Tazio pointed to the middle shelf.

  Lisa picked up the Nature First designs, pausing to look at the snow globes, rubber dinosaurs, trinkets. Her eyes scanned the large squared spaces.

  “A file box is missing,” Lisa noticed.

  “Did you ever read his files?” Cooper asked.

  “No, but I wondered about them,” Lisa replied. “Big and heavy.”

  “One is missing,” Cooper admitted. “We have no idea where it is or why it’s gone.”

  “Odd.” Lisa took the proffered tube, placing her rolled-up designs in it.

  “You never looked?” Cooper pressed.

  “No. He said they contained building codes, year by year. As long as he knew what was in them, that’s what matters.”

  A howl from the back entrance sent them to the room.

  “She attacked me! Jumped right in my face. I’m lucky to be alive!”

  “Where is she now?” Mrs. Murphy sensibly asked.

  “The bathroom. She’s holding the door shut, I know it!”

  Harry, beholding a dramatic Pewter, suggested, “I don’t know what’s going on back here but let’s go into the big room. Come on, Pewter!”

  Tucker slyly whispered, “I bet the spider has the missing file.”

  Cooper wanted a better look at the weather so she peered out the window in the back door. “Slush. And it’s going to freeze.”

  “We’re better off with snow.” Harry half believed that, then quizzed Cooper, “You never said if you found anything interesting in his desk.”

  “Why would I? Nothing but bills, inquiries. One letter from his old employer informing him about the hearings in Richmond over the Kushner Building. He was part of the project. Nothing electrifying.”

  She continued. “All right, ladies. Let’s pick it up and let me lock up. We’ve got about an hour before the sun sets and everything will freeze in a heartbeat. You all go home.”

  “What’s your shift?” Harry usually knew but, thanks to the weather, county employees were all on different shifts now, the sheriff’s department doing extra duty.

  “Off at seven.”

  They each got into their cars. Before Cooper could pull away, Harry got out of her Volvo station wagon, tapped on Cooper’s window.

  “Left my reading glasses on the drafting table.”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Cooper got out, unlocked the office door, walked in with Harry as Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, noses to the car window, observed with displeasure. Why were they left in the car?

  Harry snatched up her reading glasses, put them on, walked over to the shelves.

  “You rarely put on your reading glasses in public,” Cooper tormented her.

  “You, Taz, and Lisa are not public. And guess what, Smarty, it will happen to you.”

  “Come on, I need to get back to HQ.”

  “One little minute.” Harry read the bio of Gary’s great-great-grandfather under the sword on the wall. It was a small square under the impressive man’s photo. “I never took the time to read this. You don’t think this could be related to the fact that his great-great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier?”

  “No. He’d need to be sitting on a statue for that.”

  “Very funny.” Harry took a moment to look down at the returned files then up to the small trove of treasures, the large tooth, the heavy globes, a few old antique hand tools, the rubber dinosaurs.

  “Harry!”

  “All right.”

  The answer to Gary’s death was staring them right in the face. There was no way they could have known.

  15

  January 13, 2017

  Friday

  “How do you remember everything?” Harry tagged after Marvella, clipping along.

  “Good sense of direction,” the imperious woman replied then smiled just slightly. “And I am here two times a week, if not three, and I studied the building plans before the addition was added.”

  “Um. I’m still impressed.” Harry was.

  “I should think you would have focused on sporting art when you were an Art History major.”

  “Sporting art hid under a cloud, plus I was at Smith. Everyone wanted to discuss modern art. And there was always the Impressionist contingent. I never fit in.”

  “Good for you. People who never fit in are more interesting.”

  “You fit in. Marvella, you run Richmond.” Harry laughed.

  Marvella stopped at the top of the stairway, a stairway baffling to Harry because she didn’t remember it. “Yes. And no. The color of my skin, a factor over which I have no control, same as gender, created a standing outside
, for lack of a better word, view. I certainly wasn’t embraced when Tinsdale and I, newly married, moved here. But times change, we change. Being outside, having to think twice, so to speak, made me more resourceful, better able to look into people’s motivations.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  “You didn’t need to.” She reached for Harry’s hand as they descended the steps, Harry’s other hand on the guardrail. “I often wonder would I be the person I am if I had not endured institutionalized oppression? I doubt I would be. I think I’d miss more. Pierre and I used to talk about this all the time.” She named her recently deceased brother.

  “He didn’t leave detailed directives concerning his art collection, did he?” Harry knew how good Pierre’s collection was, and it was a hundred-eighty degrees opposite his sister’s tastes.

  Marvella sighed. “I’ve been working on it. There are places one would like to donate a fine painting, but the school or small gallery doesn’t have the means to support it, protect it.”

  “Aren’t you tempted to donate his collection to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts? Especially after all the work you’ve done here.” Harry and Marvella reached the bottom of the stairs, Marvella dropped her hand.

  “I am. I will, but I still must sort through it. I’d like some works to go to Howard, our joint alma mater. The Art History department is excellent, but everyone wants to be a lawyer, a politician, or a businessman now. I can’t stand it,” she said with feeling.

  Harry tweaked her. “You’re married to one of the most powerful lawyers in the mid-South.”

  Marvella twirled her hand. “Don’t I know it. When he talks to me like one of his business partners I let him have it.” She grinned. “I tell him he can go home from his business partners but he’d better pay first attention to me. Talk to me like your wife. He hears that.”

  “Bet he does.” They walked toward the dining room on the second floor.

  Once again Harry wasn’t sure how they had arrived at this point. She was certain that the sporting collection, one of the finest anywhere in the United States, was on the same floor around the corner. It wasn’t.

  “Do you ever have to put Fair in his place?”

  “No. It’s usually the other way around. I drift.”

  “You know what Tallulah said. ‘I used to be Snow White but I drifted.’ ”

  The two women laughed as the maître d’ inclined her head, showed Marvella her table. No waiting. No anything. When Marvella showed up, people jumped.

  After ordering a light lunch, Marvella looked out the expansive windows. “I like winter. You see the bones.”

  Harry knew exactly what she meant. “Me, too.”

  “All right. Back to Smith. You focused on Medieval Art.”

  “Not very many of us but the purity of it drew me. Most all of it is religious, or paintings of kings and queens. I love the colors. I love that each work should tell a story or celebrate a king. It’s right there in your face.”

  “True. I never thought of that.” A smartly dressed man, perhaps mid-forties, walked up to the table. “Sean.” She extended her hand. “This is Harry Haristeen. She was invaluable in solving my brother’s murder.”

  “A sorrowful task. Pierre was a man of many parts.” Then he beamed at Marvella. “As is his sister. I didn’t mean to disturb you but I have been thinking about your idea. Talked it over with Dad. We are very interested. Dad’s not getting around too much these days. Would you come over to the house?”

  “I’d love to. I’ve put some of the available works on a thumb drive. Do you have a way to show him the paintings?”

  “Do.” He picked up her hand, lightly kissing it. “You could talk a dog off a meat wagon, you know.”

  “You flatter me but, Sean, something like this does have political value. Especially in these times. You understand these things.”

  Pleased with the compliment, he subtly raised an eyebrow. “Tuesday? I’ll call. Dad is free Tuesday.”

  “I’m very excited. I think you will be, too.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Haristeen.” He slightly bowed to her, very slightly, very Southern, and left.

  Marvella glowed. “I’ll give you a copy. Said I would. Some of the work is quite extraordinary. One thinks of Russia separate from Europe, languishing in the far northern latitudes. But over the last three centuries, even with the interruption and destruction of the arts by the Soviets, the artists were as polished as any European nation. It’s quite extraordinary.” She paused. “A thumb drive is easier than all those catalogs.” She then said, “That was Sean Rankin.”

  “I figured that out and I forgot to tell you when we spoke by phone that a fellow who used to work for Rankin Construction was murdered last week. Gary Gardner.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know him, but I’m sorry to hear he was murdered.”

  “He was designing a special workshed for me. He said he wanted to build La Petite Trianon but I was too practical.” Harry smiled. “Anyway, he was an architect, obviously, and designed some of the early high-rise buildings here. Left in 1984 to come to Crozet. Said he grew tired of building big boxes.”

  “Sean’s father was one of the early proponents of modern architecture, modern materials. Of course, the early stuff was and remains hideous. Just hideous. Not just here but everywhere.”

  “The fads turned me away from perhaps appreciating the work as much as I might. When I was in grade school the rash of reflecting buildings began. Shiny windows in bronze or light blue or like mirrors. They are still being constructed,” Harry said.

  “Well, who is to say that flying buttresses weren’t a fad? However, they have stood for more than a thousand years.”

  “They have.” Harry smiled.

  “Given Richmond’s building codes, the new structures will stand. Unfortunately, most are undistinguished.”

  “Everywhere, don’t you think?”

  Marvella nodded. “One of the ways I know buildings are well constructed here is when the Kushner Building was torn down it proved difficult. It was built by Rankin back in the eighties. They will be building the replacement, the Cloudcroft Building. Forty stories. A Z shape. Very unusual with green space along the spine of the Z. At least it’s imaginative.” She exhaled.

  “Was there resistance?” Harry’s curiosity awoke.

  “On traffic problems, the time it will take to build the thing. A tax break for Cloudcroft for bringing business to Richmond has some people infuriated. They want tax breaks for themselves. We even have a group that is opposed to changing the Richmond skyline. I was unaware that there was one.” She slyly smiled.

  “The Federal Reserve building.” Harry smiled back. “That really is about it. Take comfort in saving the tobacco warehouses.”

  “I do, but they are rarely above two stories. I take that back, some were large, down by the river where the tobacco was held before being shipped out. I quite like them.”

  “Save the skyline,” Harry mused, returning to the skyline complaint.

  “Almost forgot. There is an environmental criticism but I don’t know their exact problem. I would think we’ve done all the environmental damage we can do.” Marvella laughed.

  On and on they talked, bouncing between current events, the spiritual meanings of colors in medieval art, Marvella’s urging Harry to travel to other museums, perhaps even to once again take classes.

  They became quite entranced by the thought of what perspective in art meant, how it changed painting, the movement of the eye.

  After all this, Harry followed Marvella to the gorgeous, understated old home that she and Tinsdale owned right on Monument Avenue, where she picked up the thumb drive.

  As Harry stood by the door to go home, Marvella encouraged her. “Now you call me the minute you see them. I must hear what you think.”

  “I will. You’ve made me curious about Cloudcroft. A Z structure.”

  Marvella waved her hand. “You’ll see for yourself. Next visit. If
the weather’s good we’ll walk to the excavation. On the outside wall Rankin has painted the building’s exterior, the landscaping for the green spaces. The wall surrounds the big dig. Each side has a painting. One is the interior, a look at the glamorous lights. Another is the penthouse. The last one is the Richmond skyline with the Z lit up. That word again. Skyline.”

  16

  March 16, 1787

  Friday

  Bleak, windy, raw, a typical March day kept Ewing inside, fire roaring in his library. Catherine, showing signs of her pregnancy, remained with him, sorting letters. Correspondence on the left, financial interests on the right.

  She sat across from her father, her shawl loose around her shoulders. The warmth from the fire proved sufficient.

  “You’ll want to read this one.” She handed him a letter, paper heavy, well laid, gorgeous handwriting on the envelope.

  He reached, checked the front. “Ah, the baron. He’s in the middle of everything.”

  When a young man on the Grand Tour of Europe, Ewing, in France, had met Baron Necker, also young, interested in the New World. The two men, eyes to the future, hopes high, became friends. Both became important in their nations. As for Baron Necker, he was born to it. Ewing made his own way, although his father gave him the advantage of a superior education and at his death bequeathed to him the tobacco lands south of the James. The baron would always compliment Ewing by saying that the Virginian had made his own way.

  Perching his spectacles on his nose, Ewing read, gasped.

  “What is it, Father?”

  “The Comte de Vergennes has died. The powerful foreign minister. A bad time to take leave of France no matter what one thinks of him. The king has summoned the Assembly of Notables. Necker writes the hall of the king’s Menus-Plaisirs, not one empty seat. Those most powerful sit in the front, vigilant of their privileges. But listen, my dear. The Comptroller General of Finance, Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, began a speech insinuating that he, only he, wooed the king to call this assembly. Furthermore, he, again alone, has restored confidence in the nation’s finances, which when he was appointed in 1783 languished in a disastrous state.” He looked over the rim of his glasses. “That’s a broadside against Necker.”