Probable Claws

by Rita Mae Brown

  Laughing, Harry picked up a globe with a polar bear in it, blew some dust off it. “He didn’t dust.”

  “Coop hasn’t found the 1984 file, has she?”

  “Coop’s questioned everyone. She’s also tracked down every Ducati owner in Virginia. She works hard,” Harry remarked. “She doesn’t have a lot to go on. No, she hasn’t found it.”

  “Ah.”

  A scuffle by the back door sent Harry to the area. “What are you doing?”

  “Protecting you.” Pewter, claws unleashed, sat in the middle of the small space.

  “It’s the spider,” Tucker helpfully added.

  Brinkley, sweet fellow, stood next to the gray cat. “It really is a big, big spider.”

  “I am fearless!”

  “Obsessed is more like it,” Mrs. Murphy dryly commented.

  “Come on. Into the big room. I’m closing this door. I don’t know what you all are up to but it can’t be good with all this hissing. Come on.” She shepherded them into the room, closed the door tight, which she thought she probably should have done in the first place to keep out that wedge of cold air.

  “What was it?”

  “Goblins,” came the terse reply.

  The two women worked for another two hours. What Tazio wished to keep was placed in the carton with tissue paper and newspapers.

  “Keeping his pencils and T-square?”

  “You bet. I’m keeping the files, too, as I said. It’s not a bad idea to have the building codes. He made marginal notes that would be helpful if I ever need to rebuild something built in 1979. I can download the codes but his notes are on the papers. A computer stores tons of material but you never get the marginal notes, the squiggles. And who is to say that a former client might not come in here someday and want an addition? It’s just a good idea. If we had building plans for the Colored School I would have poured over them. I mean, I haven’t studied them but I did notice odd citations regarding stresses, insulation ratings, new materials. Small initials, but I don’t know what they mean. Still, I’m keeping the files.”

  “Well built, those three frame school buildings.”

  “Sure are. I love the floor-to-ceiling windows. Natural light is always better than artificial. There was no electricity. Gary was right about structures from the past.” She sighed. “He was right about a lot of things.”

  “What do we do with the cartons?”

  “No inheritors. Well, no one wants his work things. I shouldn’t put it that way. No children. I’ll save stuff. You never know when something might be needed. There isn’t much storage space here. I can rent a storage unit for a hundred dollars a month, a small unit is less. This won’t even fill a small unit.”

  “Think it will stay dry?”

  “Oh sure. Can you imagine the lawsuits if those U-Stor things were sloppy? But this way it’s near but not in the way.”

  Harry walked over to his desk. “I always like the blue light on his atomic clock.”

  “Me, too.”

  “And you’ve moved the tooth over here. Why are you keeping the tooth? It’s a big tooth.”

  “It’s a dinosaur tooth.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I take it you weren’t one of those kids fascinated by dinosaurs?”

  “No. I take it you were and Gary must have been if he kept a tooth.”

  “I think this is from a meat-eater called Acrocanthosaurus. Big but not gargantuan compared to some other meat-eaters. I’ll find out when I have time.”

  “Big. Big is the spider.” Pewter spoke from the floor.

  “Spiders don’t have teeth,” Tucker said.

  “No, but their mouth is sideways. Like little pincers.” Mrs. Murphy had observed spiders and other little crawlies. “Can bite you and inject poison.”

  “Ugh.” Brinkley closed his eyes.

  “Are we done?”

  “We are. I’ll be open for clients next Monday. This location is so much better than where I was stuck in that cubbyhole at the edge of town. The rent isn’t bad.”

  “Are you keeping his sign?”

  “I’ll put it in here on the wall. Virginia Signs will hang mine tomorrow.” She was pleased. “It’s beginning to feel just right.”

  They locked the door to the back as well as the front when they left. Cold air smacked them right in the face.

  “This doesn’t only tighten your pores, it tightens your eyeballs,” Harry observed.

  “Feels like snow, doesn’t it?”

  Harry nodded, hurried past the space where Gary was shot. For one brief moment she, too, had been looking down the barrel of that gun. Then the killer slipped it back into his motorcycle jacket.

  Harry didn’t know anything worth killing her over. Not yet.

  18

  March 18, 1787

  Sunday

  The glow of the fire behind her snatched some years from Maureen Selisse Holloway’s face. Very feminine, narrow nose, full lips, blond hair maintained with a secret remedy, she proved attractive. In her youth she exuded a potent allure. Two sumptuous perfect breasts added to this, as well as a very sizable inheritance. Now perhaps fifteen pounds heavier, in her early forties, she remained attractive but no longer devastating. She vowed to regain her girlish figure but those French sauces, the piecrusts so light they might fly away, and the fine wine. Too much temptation.

  Sitting across from her in her petite parlor as she called it, was Catherine. Unlike Maureen, she didn’t much care about looks or allure. Yes, she wore beautiful clothes because her sister and Bumbee worked her over. No one would describe Catherine as warm, friendly but not especially warm, whereas Rachel was so warm she drew people like a magnet. In ways, Catherine frightened people. She was too beautiful, too logical, too in possession of her emotions. She loved the horses, loved commerce. People she endured. Working with her father opened the world to her.

  Maureen, shrewd, silver quick with money, appreciated Catherine’s qualities although she wished the younger woman was less beautiful.

  “Have you ever attended mass?” Maureen asked as a well-dressed young servant poured tea.

  “Yes. Mother took me once when we visited Philadelphia. Very dramatic, colorful, magical for a child.”

  “Your mother must have been a woman of wide interests.”

  “She had such curiosity about the world. She’d whisper to me that an Anglican was just a Catholic with an English accent.”

  Maureen laughed. “There’s truth to that. Of course with Mother being Irish and Father Spanish not only did I go to mass, I was schooled by nuns. Oh, they were so strict.” She shook her head. “Much of the Caribbean is Catholic, most of the New World is except for America and Canada.”

  “This room shines. You have a touch.”

  Maureen beamed. “Color, fabrics, furnishings. Mother trained me to look for proportion, color, harmony. She would say, ‘Fashion is one thing but be cautious. You don’t want to look like everyone else!’ ”

  “Indeed.” Catherine liked that thought.

  “Did you, John, and Ewing go to church this morning?”

  “Roads were treacherous but we managed. Father says it makes him feel close to Mother.” Catherine nibbled a tiny meat pie. “Wonderful.”

  “High praise from a woman who has the best cook in Virginia. Bettina is a treasure.” She paused. “A treasure with many opinions.”

  They both laughed for Bettina was not shy, but she was smart enough to keep much to herself. Then again, people expected an outgoing cook.

  “Do you know, driving over here, I realized you and I have never been alone to chat,” Catherine remarked. “I have always been curious as to your farsightedness concerning things like the foundry down by the James, your surprising and successful importation of French fabrics, even some Italian ones.”

  “Father entertained ships’ captains. He would pose questions to the Englishman, the Frenchman, the Spaniard, his countrymen. He would inquire about where the aristocrats were putting
their money. This provoked a laugh because have you ever met an aristocrat or a royal who could turn a profit? But of course their managers must or they would get the sack. And my father was trusted by these captains to handle their money. I listened. I was usually in the next room pretending to embroider with the governess, after they would leave, I asked my father questions.”

  “Seems we both learned from intelligent men. Quietly, of course.”

  Maureen nodded. “It would never do for a woman to discuss business but I learned how to work through Francisco.” She inhaled. “That could be a chore. My late husband thought he knew everything.” She lifted a bit of crust with her fork. “My current angel has no head for business. I tell him what to do and he readily does it. I must add that he does understand timber whereas I, from the islands, am weak in that crop, if you will. He is a sweet man, Jeffrey.”

  “And so handsome. The two of you together make a fine pair,” Catherine complimented her, and it wasn’t an outright lie.

  “You are too kind.” She changed the subject. “What do you and your father hear from France?”

  Catherine knew Maureen had her own sources as they both did business with the French. Maureen was double-checking.

  “Great uncertainty. The foreign minister, de Vergennes, has died. Those with whom we trade are beginning to ask for us to extend their terms. And my father’s friend from his Grand Tour, Baron Necker, writes that Calonne, all bombast and twaddle, his exact words, can’t settle the crown’s debts.”

  Maureen stared at Catherine, her hazel eyes bright. “No one can, my dear. Not even Crassus could solve their problems.”

  She named the richest man in Rome during the time of Julius Caesar.

  “Ah, so you, too, have heard.”

  “My father did brisk business with bankers in Paris and I have kept many of them as friends. Mostly through their wives, of course, but one does learn, one does learn. This king is unkingly. Now, Louis XV was every inch a king.”

  “So I have heard.”

  “Mother and Father took me to Paris as a young girl, just on the cusp, so to speak, and I saw the king. Impressive, as were his mistresses.” She lifted an eyebrow. “No wonder the treasury is low.” She couldn’t help but laugh.

  “We may well have to endure losses, but strange to say, Yancy Grant wants to create horse races down on The Levels with large purses. He mentioned in passing to Father that we had best find other sources of income.”

  “Did he now?” Maureen loathed Yancy, who insulted her husband and wound up in a duel with him.

  “You have suffered from his drunken rage.” Catherine meant that. “But he may have come up with something worth examining, which is looking to ourselves as opposed to Europe.”

  Maureen, turning this over in her mind, nodded but said nothing.

  They ate in silence until Catherine said, “You know that Bettina and DoRe are courting.”

  “Yes.”

  “We shall have to hope for the best.”

  Noncommital, Maureen shrugged. “We’ll see. I have endured enough uproar on this estate from slaves.” As Catherine said nothing, she continued. “But I will bear in mind what you have said about not looking toward France or England.”

  “Well, I think you have the answer right here.”

  “I do?”

  “Look at the beautiful coach Jeffrey built. He borrowed ours, reproduced it, and made one even better.”

  Maureen’s eyebrows shot upward. “Yes, he did.”

  “To find a good coach one must go to Philadelphia or import one from England or from the Continent. Much too expensive and now unreliable. If you can keep a foundry going, this ought to be easy.”

  Maureen, shorn of sentiment, knew better than to ask “What’s in it for you?” but she circumnavigated the direct questions. “However did you come up with this idea, which I must think about?”

  Catherine smiled. “We are both women who understand profit, one must grow. And I think Yancy is right. What beautiful horses will pull your coaches, phaetons, gigs?”

  “Ah.”

  “A thought.”

  Catherine left knowing she’d put a tantalizing idea in front of Maureen. She could breed coach horses. They wouldn’t be in business together. Catherine couldn’t abide that, but one would bolster the other.

  As she was helped into the coach by Barker O., who had stayed in the stables with King David and Solomon, the elegant coach horses, she smiled at DoRe.

  Barker O. and DoRe, while competitive, had great respect for each other. Discussing horses, training methods, enlivened them.

  William, a young man Jeddie’s age, nineteen, quietly listened. It wouldn’t do to interrupt one’s elders.

  As Barker O. drove the coach away, William said to DoRe, “Is it true she memorizes bloodlines?”

  “She knows them back to the old king, Charles II: He had a mare, Creme Cheeks.”

  Still watching the coach, putting his hands in his pockets, William looked from the coach to the formidable DoRe.

  “A man good with horses can go anywhere in the world.”

  DoRe stepped back into the barn, William behind him. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “You go everywhere.” William’s lower lip jutted out.

  “I drive the Master and Missus. I see things.” He shrugged.

  “I want to ride. I want to make money. I hear they race all the time in England and France and jockeys grow rich.”

  “You think the Missus will send you to France? She won’t even send you to Richmond or Williamsburg. She cares nothing about racing. Best you keep your thoughts to yourself.”

  “Your son got away from here.”

  DoRe rounded on William. “My son was falsely accused of murder. If he hadn’t run, that bitch”—he couldn’t help it, he used that word—“would have seen him hang.”

  DoRe, circumspect, was grateful no one else was in the barn. Maureen set her people against one another spying. Someone might have tattled on him, receiving money or preference. Trust was in short supply on Big Rawly.

  Defiant, reckless, William glared. “I’ll be free even if I have to kill someone.”

  “Don’t be a fool, William. Don’t ever say that again. You know she has eyes and ears everywhere.”

  “I’ll get away and you’ll watch me.”

  With that William returned to the tack room to clean a bridle.

  DoRe shook his head. The young, he thought to himself, as he also thought best to keep his distance from a hothead.

  Rocking in the coach, feet on a brazier, wrapped in a fur blanket, Catherine felt a tingle of excitement. Risk pushed her on, provoked her to do better. Not a fearful person, she’d try new things. And she wanted to make money, pots of it.

  She hoped France would pull things together, honor debts. Then again, she hoped other states would honor debts.

  If one couldn’t make a profit, if one couldn’t get credit, commerce would be strangled. Catherine rarely wished to be a man, but when it came to business, she felt she knew more than many of the men she had observed. And she knew she could never let them know that. She would fight the anger rising in her throat by realizing how easy they were to influence. Maybe it evened out. Who was to say?

  But she wanted to win and win big.

  19

  January 23, 2017

  Monday

  Square holes cut in the safety walls around the Cloudcroft Building allowed people to watch the progress. Renditions in color of the imaginative Z building covered the high wooden safety walls.

  Harry and Marvella peered through two squares.

  “This thing is huge,” Harry exclaimed.

  “Is. Sean said they must dig out the entire foundation, go down to bedrock, sink in the enormous support beams to about eight feet, fill it in to finally realize the Z shape for the foundation. It’s complicated.” Marvella scanned the heavy machinery for sight of Sean. “Ah, come along, Harry. We need to go to the other side.”

  The two hu
rried along watching for icy spots on the temporary sidewalk. Reaching the two-lane road into the cavernous excavation site, they waited. The heavy machinery was kept in the pit but foremen needed to drive their cars into the area.

  Marvella checked her watch. “Ten. He’s good about time.”

  Indeed he was.

  Her cellphone rang. “Marvella, it’s Sean. Stay where you are. I’ll pick you up.”

  Within minutes he drove up the incline in a bespattered Range Rover, the beast Rover not the pretty Velar. He hopped out, opened the door for Marvella first and then the back door for Harry.

  “Ladies.” He smiled as he turned around the expensive SUV, drove them down, down, down. “Before you endure the cold, let me explain.” He pointed to the digging. “The basement, the underpinning of this structure, will of course bear five hundred thousand tons of weight, as much as the Twin Towers did. The I-beams will bear a great deal of weight. We’re building this the old way. The Twin Towers were pods affixed to a huge central steel core. When the planes hit, the spokes under the floor crumpled. The floor folded almost like a round filter in a coffee machine.”

  “What an awful thing,” Marvella said.

  “It’s perhaps the main reason so many people and firefighters were killed. Everything collapsed. Here we have designed supports that transverse the Z. So the ends of the Z sink deep into the diagonal. Other than that this is a conventional structure. A series of crossbeams, squares. It’s still the safest way to build a high building, a true skyscraper.”

  “And you will light the top and the bottom?” Marvella had studied the design.

  “We’ll use thick translucent glass cladding on top of the Z as well as the bottom. So, for instance, on St. Patrick’s Day the Z will glow in green, an inner and outer outline.”

  “Sounds wonderful.” Harry loved the idea.

  “One of the advantages of Richmond growing now as opposed to the early twentieth century is we are freed from building big boxes. Even if you cover them in bronze mirrors, they are still big boxes.”

  “The Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art opened all this up, don’t you think?” Marvella asked.