Probable Claws

by Rita Mae Brown

“I’ll help you, Tulli.” Jeddie never shied from work.

  “Sit with me for a minute, then you can help Tulli. He’s big now. He can take care of himself.”

  Music to Tulli’s ears.

  Catherine and Jeddie walked into the large tack room, a small iron potbellied stove keeping things warm as it squatted on a thick piece of slate that rested on packed earth. The wooden floor started a foot and a half from the slate.

  Catherine sank in an old wooden chair.

  Jeddie pulled up a small wooden tack trunk to sit.

  “When it’s slick like today you can still do hill work. The hill isn’t that steep, but going down is less appealing than going up. And don’t do anything without me.”

  “Yes, Miss Catherine.”

  “We’ve got close to eight weeks until the races. Yancy couldn’t run them in early spring. Too much planting and calving. People won’t be there. Some city people would attend, but for big crowds we have got to get on the other side of spring chores. By the time we race, Reynaldo’s wind will be good, his stamina strong. I mean to win this race, I’m sick of hearing how great Yancy’s Black Knight is.”

  “People say Reynaldo’s hot. I won’t be able to rate him.”

  “They don’t understand horses. I smile, say little. I don’t waste time on fools.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  She inhaled the aroma of cleaned tack, drying chamois cloths. “Your leather jacket cuts the wind. Lem sold you a good skin and Otto made a nice jacket. You were smart to do that.”

  “Lem let me scrape the hide, clean up in his tannery for a week. Did all kind of things. Sold me the hide for five dollars. I didn’t have it, but my father gave it to me from his secret hiding place.”

  “Hiding from whom?”

  “Mother.”

  “Ah.” Catherine shrugged. “He does extra things. My father will let him do chores on another farm. Well, you know that, but your mother never sees the money? How is she now that you have your own place?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “Glad I’m out of her house but she’s still at me about getting married.” He paused, looked straight at Catherine. “You knew Mother before I was born.”

  “I was small, but yes.”

  “Was she ever happy?”

  Catherine took a deep breath then exhaled. “No. I don’t think Felicity has ever been happy. The irony is her name means happiness in Latin.”

  “I’m happy. I like the horses. I like the work and I like my cabin. It’s big enough for me and easy to keep warm as long as I remember to stack up the fireplace. The nights stay cold.”

  “I hate that moment in the morning when my bare feet touch the floor.” She shuddered. “Wakes me up though. Well, you did good work today with Reynaldo. I’m going up to Father. Feels like rain, sleet, or snow. March is so unpredictable. Just is. If it’s clear tomorrow we can work him more. If not, he still gets a rubdown.” She stood, put her hand on his shoulder, patted it, then left the stables.

  Catherine opened the back door, stepped into the kitchen. The odors and the warmth lifted her spirits. She hung up her heavy shawl, wiggled out of layers, opened the door to the hall. She heard voices in the parlor.

  Walking down the polished floor, she then walked into the parlor filled with Hepplewhite furniture, a large good painting of her mother over the fireplace.

  “What are you all doing in here? Thought you’d be in the library?”

  “Sit down, my dear.” Ewing patted the brocade sofa on which he sat.

  John had folded himself into a large stuffed chair, as had Charles, while Rachel sat on the other side of Father.

  “I wish you wouldn’t go outside,” Ewing chided her.

  “I’m fine. I can’t sit in my house one more minute. My strength is coming back. Really, I’m fine.”

  “You aren’t riding, are you?” Rachel knew her sister well.

  “Not yet.” Catherine sounded vague.

  John, rare for him, said, “We’ll make that decision together. But she is much stronger and see the color in her cheeks.”

  Charles, fingers like a steeple, opened his mouth, but Rachel spoke before he could.

  “Charles received a letter from his brother, Hugh, the baron. He is mired in their father’s debts. Sees no way out of the quagmire.”

  “How much debt?”

  “Close to a million pounds. My father lived a profligate life,” Charles said without rancor. “He had no discipline. Lived for society. Pookie is left holding the bag.”

  “Pookie?” Catherine’s eyebrows lifted.

  “His nickname. He actually has some sense. He tried to marry a few heiresses, but better placed men than he snapped them up, including one dissolute duke. Well, dissolute he may be. The beautiful Amelia Marlin is now Her Grace. Seductive, that title.”

  “Can’t he sell and leave?” Rachel innocently asked.

  “He can but he would never have a place in society again. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but place is so important. One’s entire life revolves around it. And those who make money, commercial men, practically kill themselves trying to become ennobled. A baronet is better than nothing. All this uproar about a coat of arms. People pay fortunes under the table for false quarterings going back centuries. I know it’s hard to fathom.”

  “Your brother needs a way to survive?” Catherine asked.

  “He does. Being a younger son, I have nothing with which to help him. I live such a different life. He couldn’t understand. Having said that, I do want to take my wonderful wife to England someday.”

  John spoke up. “The flintlock your father gave you. It has gold and silver mountings. Made by Nicolas Noël Boutet. Might that bring in money?”

  “John, it would bring in ninety pounds, perhaps a bit more. A drop in the bucket. You won that from me. Spoils of war. It’s your gun.” He smiled. “My father gave that to me. I’m not giving it to Pookie. Let’s say we spare the Boutet.”

  John nodded. The flintlock was exquisite.

  Catherine sat upright. “Don’t despair, Charles. Let me think on it.”

  He looked at his sister-in-law. Charles respected Catherine’s mind, her business acumen.

  Rachel, too, stared at her sister. “You’re cooking something up. I can always tell.”

  “Mmm.” She wiggled her hand, which to Rachel meant that whatever it was, it was outrageous.

  Later, as Catherine and John walked back to their house, Bettina and Serena looked from the kitchen window.

  “Too thin.” Bettina shook her head.

  “Sorrow. Such a sorrow.”

  Bettina nodded. “The fate of women. We birth stillborn children, those that live, you thank God for their lives. Take two brothers. Both come down with the cough. One lives. One dies. Why? I know of no woman who has raised all her children to adults. Not one.”

  “Even Mrs. Ewing?” Serena was a child when the mistress had died.

  “Even Miss Isabelle. She had a son who lived four days.” She threw up her hands. “You never forget the ones who slipped away. You can still remember their voices, the light in their eyes, the way they smelled in your arms when you held them. You carry them forever.”

  She knew of what she spoke, having lost two children. Bettina looked back at Catherine. She was strong. She’d go on. But there’d be questions now in the back of her mind.

  The front of her mind was a different matter.

  27

  January 30, 2017

  Monday

  The small staff at Nature First answered phones, sent emails, talked to anyone who would listen. The Daily Progress, the Charlottesville paper, which though small had won many awards, called Lisa for a comment on the one-page ad in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about why city council needed to be serious about city planning, about including Nature First and other groups into early discussions.

  “Every city should do this. Our environmental future is too important to be left to mayors or city managers.” Lisa spoke on the ph
one to a reporter from what locals called “The Daily Prog.” Those who were not liberal—for it was a liberal newspaper—called it “The Daily Regress.”

  The young man on the other end of the line fed her an easy lob. “Even Charlottesville?”

  “Especially Charlottesville. The University of Virginia is one of the architectural treasures of our nation. What has been allowed to be built in the city is a disgrace. Ugly doesn’t cover it.”

  “I see.” And he did. “And habitat?”

  “We’re intruding on other species. Building without any consideration for their highways, so to speak, and their food supply. Suburbanites get hysterical about a bear in the garbage can. The bear lived there first.”

  Another half hour of this and the young man had more than enough material. Lisa hung up the phone.

  Felipe stuck his head in her office. “Need a break? It’s been a madhouse.”

  “I could use a potty break,” Pirate suggested.

  Lisa glanced at the atomic clock on her desk. “Eleven o’clock. Have I been on the phone that long?”

  “We’ve all been answering emails or the phone,” Felipe replied.

  “Well, let me walk my guy here. He’s been very good.” She picked up the leash hanging on the back of her chair, snapped it on his collar, grabbed her coat, and walked out. “I won’t be long.”

  And she wasn’t. Within twenty minutes she was back.

  “Anyone else need a break?”

  “I can pick up lunch,” Raynell offered.

  The building contained two food places, one a stand-up place and another offering fuller service. Both Lisa and Felipe gave Raynell their orders. Lisa asked for a sandwich for Pirate, as he’d earned a treat.

  Once Raynell brought back lunch they repaired to the small meeting room to eat, go over all that had transpired.

  “The ad was worth it.” Lisa fed Pirate his sandwich tidbits.

  “It will be worth it if we do get invited to the planning meetings.” Felipe thought the cost outrageous.

  “We’ll know in time. Those planning commission meetings usually take place once a month.” Lisa bit into a hot sandwich.

  “Food.” Pewter raced into the room followed by Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and lastly Harry.

  “Sorry.” Harry picked up the fat gray cat, placing her outside the room, closing the door.

  “I am starving. I’m going to call the SPCA!” Pewter hollered.

  “She has good lungs.” Felipe laughed.

  “Sit down, Harry. Would you like half my sandwich? It’s huge.”

  “No. I stopped by—don’t stop eating, by the way—I stopped by to tell you your ad has everyone talking, as does the skeleton found in Richmond. Kind of worked in your favor, didn’t it?”

  “Not that we wish anyone murdered, but since that happened even before there was a Nature First, we might as well use it,” Lisa realistically answered.

  “Yeah.” Harry knitted her eyebrows for a moment. “First Gary is killed.”

  “Awful,” Raynell loudly spoke.

  “He once worked for Rankin Construction. If he were still with us he might have some insight.” Harry continued her line of thought.

  “Like what?” Raynell asked.

  “Did anyone have an argument with, say, a foreman, or did anyone steal something?”

  “Even so. Doesn’t mean he was murdered. And the medical examiner hasn’t yet established a time when he died or how long he was there,” Felipe said.

  “I know, but there’s something about this that just eats at me. Something I can’t identify.”

  “Harry, we all lost a friend. Someone who designed wonderful spaces for us. Eats at all of us,” Raynell said.

  “I hear you talking about eating!” Pewter banged on the door.

  “Well, I’d better go before I have to replace your door.”

  “It’s terrible the way you don’t feed that cat,” Lisa teased.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Tucker chimed in.

  Pirate replied, “She’s mean to me.”

  “Don’t pay any attention, Pirate. She thinks the universe revolves around her,” Tucker said.

  Harry, her hand on the doorknob, paused. “I’m going to Over the Moon. Need anything?”

  “See if Books for Living by Will Schwalbe has come in,” Lisa asked.

  “If it has, I’ll set it on the table by the front door.”

  The book had come in. After a bracing discussion with Anne, Harry walked back to Nature First, quietly opened the door. They were all on the phone or at their computers. She placed it on the table by the door.

  Two hours later, Felipe called to Lisa. “Hey, your book is here.”

  “Been there for hours.” Raynell looked up from her computer.

  “I’ll take it to her.” Felipe picked it up, placed it on Lisa’s desk, as she had the phone to her ear.

  She was bored so she opened the volume, began licking her fingers as she turned the pages. She leafed through it, she knew she needed to work but she couldn’t help peeking into the book she had ordered.

  At five, Raynell wrapped her scarf around her neck, pulled on her coat. “Felipe, I’m going home. Lisa’s still working, I think.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell her.”

  A half hour passed. Felipe didn’t hear any phone conversation. He stuck his head into Lisa’s office, the door was always open. Pirate was licking her hand.

  “Something’s wrong,” the handsome fellow cried.

  It was. Lisa was dead.

  28

  January 30, 2017

  Monday, 7 PM

  Felipe and Raynell sat in the conference room with Cooper. Pirate sat with them, confused as his human’s body was wheeled out of her office. The sheriff’s department crime team arrived at Nature First within twenty minutes of Felipe’s call. Cooper, across the street at the large post office investigating a tampered P.O. box, stepped into their office within seven minutes of Felipe’s call to the department.

  Ashen-faced, Felipe stared straight ahead with his hands folded on the table. Raynell kept wiping away tears.

  Notebook open, Cooper gently asked questions. “First, I am not assuming this is an unnatural death but, given the ad in the paper, Nature First right now is in the public eye. Did either of you notice any health problems these last few days?”

  Both shook their heads. “No.”

  “Her mood?”

  “Exuberant. Finding the skeleton in Richmond gave us an opening to insist for more involvement in city planning, environmental issues, history stuff.” Felipe took a deep breath. “You know.”

  “I think I do. But she didn’t seem stressed?”

  “The reverse.” Raynell found her voice. “She was energized.”

  Cooper dropped her hand, placing it on the puppy’s head.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Pirate asked.

  Cooper patted him, turned to Felipe. “Tell me again what you saw.”

  Clearing his throat, he replied, “Lisa and I were working late. It had been a crazy day. She’d been giving interviews much of the day on the phone. Also she must have checked in with our state headquarters in Richmond every two hours. She and Kylie Carter, state director, work closely together. Anyway, I looked up from my computer at about five-thirty and realized I hadn’t heard any talk or noise from her office. Of course, I assumed she was working on her computer but something told me to check. That’s when I found her slumped over her desk, computer on. She’d knocked a book she’d just bought onto the floor. Oh, Pirate was pawing at her.”

  “No signs of, say, a convulsion? Great pain?”

  “No. And no one had been in the office since after lunch. It was just the two of us. Raynell left at five. I walked behind Lisa’s desk, shook her a little, and she didn’t move. I was horrified but I could still think. I took her pulse. No pulse. That’s when I called the sheriff’s department.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “Just Lisa. I didn
’t even pick up the book. I brought Pirate back to my office.”

  “Who did you call after you called the department?”

  “Kylie first. She kept me on the phone asking a million questions, none of which I could really answer. I can give you her phone number.”

  “Thanks. Anyone else?”

  “Just Raynell. She’d just gotten home. She came back immediately, which took about fifteen minutes.”

  “I rent a room in Cascades subdivision,” Raynell offered.

  “So when did you arrive here?”

  “Maybe one minute before you did.”

  “Did you look at the body?”

  “Yes.” Raynell’s tears flowed again. “It doesn’t seem real.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “No. I only stood in her doorway.”

  “Are either of you aware of any condition she might have had?”

  Felipe said, “She had an irregular heartbeat. She’d joke and say if anything ever happened to her make sure emergency services knows.”

  Raynell let out a small sob. “Now she doesn’t have any heartbeat at all.”

  “I don’t want to disturb you, but what you can recall so close to the event of her death can be very helpful. Did she take drugs?”

  “Like recreational drugs?” Raynell asked.

  “Anything,” Cooper tersely answered.

  “No,” Felipe said. “Once or twice she might tell us she smoked weed at a party, but Lisa wasn’t really a user. Sometimes she’d get a headache and take an aspirin. We keep the aspirin in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.”

  “Drink?”

  “A glass of wine. Sometimes at the end of the day we’d go down to Fardowners Restaurant and have a glass. I never saw her tipsy.” Raynell provided that information.

  “Have either of you ever been to where she lived?” Cooper continued.

  “Once,” Raynell replied.

  “Well, I’ve worked here longer than Raynell so I would pick up stuff from her house at times. I don’t know, maybe five or six times a year I’d stop by.” Felipe unfolded his hands, then folded them back again.

  “Did you ever go inside?”

  “Sure. Tidy. Not too much furniture. She was renting down Mt. Tabor Road and she was actually looking for a place to buy.”