Probable Claws

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Raynell.”

  “I didn’t go inside. I picked up a pile of stuff from the Nature Conservancy that she wanted me to read.”

  “Will we know how she died?” Felipe asked.

  “I think so. It appears to be natural causes, but we need to be careful. The body will go to the medical examiner in Richmond.”

  “You think she died of a heart attack?” Raynell asked.

  “I have no medical expertise whatsoever. But given recent events, we need to be sure she did die of natural causes.”

  “Who could kill her? We were here working all day. Harry came in for a minute, brought the book that Lisa had ordered from Over the Moon. No one else came by and that was around lunchtime. Who could have killed her? She was just slumped over.” Felipe was trying to make sense of a young person’s quiet passing.

  “Well, it certainly appears natural, but the department has to make sure. When we know you will know, of course.”

  “What will happen to Pirate? I can’t take him,” Raynell asked.

  “Me neither. Irish wolfhounds are the biggest dogs there are, even bigger than Great Danes,” Felipe added.

  “I have just the place for him. No point in taking him to the SPCA, good as they are. Don’t worry, he’ll have a nice home.”

  “Where am I going? What’s going to happen to me? What happened to Lisa?” the puppy cried.

  At nine that evening, Tucker let out a bark. “Cooper.”

  Harry and Fair, sitting on the sofa in the living room, heard the corgi.

  “I’ll go see.” Fair volunteered.

  He reached the back door as Cooper knocked on it, then opened it. “Fair, please help.”

  Fair looked down at the forlorn puppy. “What are the symptoms?”

  “Heartbreak,” Cooper replied.

  Harry came into the kitchen. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, luxuriating on the sofa before the fire, didn’t move.

  “Pirate.” Harry knelt down to pet the fellow.

  “You know this dog?” her husband asked.

  “Pirate. He belongs to Lisa Roudabush. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”

  “Harry, I hope he now belongs to you,” Cooper explained. “Given my hours I can’t take him. Lisa’s dead.”

  “What!”

  Cooper told her what she knew.

  “Oh, this is terrible.” Harry held the big puppy in her arms.

  Pirate was already getting too big to pick up.

  Tucker, such a sweet dog, licked the puppy’s face when Harry put him down. “It will be all right.”

  “If I take him to the SPCA he will get wonderful care. They’ll call the Irish wolfhound rescue people, but Lisa, well, I believe she would want her puppy to be with someone she knew. And he couldn’t have a better home. Harry, please take him.”

  “Puppy, you’ve had a terrible shock.” Harry looked up at her husband. “Honey?”

  Fair knelt down to pet the fellow. “I can’t really say no now, can I? But I think we’ll need a saddle for him someday.”

  Tucker ran into the living room to tell the cats.

  “We’ll manage.” Mrs. Murphy shrugged.

  “Another dog. Living with you is bad enough!” Pewter wailed.

  Harry led Pirate to Tucker’s bed, realized that wasn’t a good idea. She hurried into the bedroom, returned with an old blanket that she placed next to Tucker’s bed. She encouraged the puppy to investigate, put a little cracker on it.

  Fair poured Cooper a drink. “Here. You’ve had a long day.”

  “Thanks.” Cooper watched the puppy curl up.

  Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker came into the kitchen. Worn out, the little big dog had already fallen asleep.

  “Gross. I don’t want to live with another dog.”

  “Oh, Pewts, it won’t be so bad.” Mrs. Murphy sniffed Pirate’s head.

  “Bad. It’s the worst. Why does everything happen to me?”

  “If I were you, I’d be good to this puppy,” Tucker advised. “He’s going to be huge.”

  “If I’m not afraid of the world’s largest spider, I’m not afraid of a disgusting dog,” the gray cat spat.

  “She’s got the bottle brush tail.” Cooper observed Pewter.

  “She’ll settle down.” Harry sat at the kitchen table. “Lisa was only in her early thirties. Too young to die.”

  Fair agreed. “Mother used to say ‘When the good Lord jerks your chain, you’re going.’ ”

  Harry looked at Cooper. “You don’t think anyone helped jerk her chain, do you? I mean, you and Gary, the day he died, talked about Lisa getting an Irish wolfhound. You said Nature First disturbs vested interests.”

  “Did. Anything is possible, but no one walked into the office after you dropped off Lisa’s book. I doubt she was killed, but for the sake of argument, if she was, it was incredibly clever.”

  Indeed.

  29

  April 4, 1787

  Wednesday

  “Think the worst is over?” A light wind out of the west blew Rachel’s hair.

  “You never know,” Catherine answered as they both walked through their mother’s garden.

  Isabelle had lavished her attention on the large formal garden to the rear of the house. On each side of the house, a narrow band of English boxwoods hugged the outside walls. In front of those she had planted annuals that would peep out of the ground for each season but winter.

  The two sisters strolled through the formal gardens that were impeccably kept by Rachel with help from the slaves, those with a green thumb. Percy, Bumbee’s husband, cussed daily by his wife if she saw him, evidenced just as much creativity with color, plant height, even statuary for gardens as Bumbee displayed in her weaving room. They were two artistic souls who couldn’t agree on anything. If Percy said “apples,” Bumbee answered “oranges.” Better for both that she now lived in the weaving room.

  “Did Percy come up with that low serpentine wall?” Catherine asked.

  “He said too many straight lines create fatigue.” Rachel laughed. “I never know what that man is going to say or do. He talked me into camellias and I don’t like camellias, but when they first bloomed, the white against the dark waxy green leaves, he was right. Just set off the front gardens.”

  “Hmm. Well, the daffodils have broken through the ground. Mother always said, daffodils first, then tulips will follow. Once the tulips have bloomed, spring is truly here. She had such a gift.” Catherine sighed. “You’ve inherited it.”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel murmured. “When I asked do you think the worst is over, yes, I did mean winter, but allow me to ask it again. Do you think you are all right?”

  “My body has recovered. John holds me at night but we don’t yet mingle. He’s fearful. He’s more fearful than I am. Still, I should perhaps wait a bit.”

  “Yes,” Rachel simply replied, then stopped to admire a forsythia, buds swelling, ready to open in a riot of yellow. “You’ve heard about Maureen? You and I haven’t had a minute to catch up.”

  “You’ve been at St. Luke’s every day.” Catherine smiled.

  “What a beautiful job Charles has done. I can’t wait for you to see it. We’re almost there. The men can begin painting as soon as the temperature stays fifty degrees or above and we’re almost there. But I digress.” She smiled sweetly because Rachel, like her mother, could wander off on tangents. “Maureen is allowing Jeffrey to begin a carriage business. He will build everything. The tools alone will cost plenty. She will build him a shop impervious to all weathers.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Catherine’s eyebrows lifted up.

  “DoRe.”

  “Bettina?”

  “Well, yes, but DoRe told her the shop alone will be huge. He swears it will be fifty by fifty yards. There will be room for ironwork, copperwork, even gilding. Gilding!”

  Catherine put her hand on her hip. “Help us dear Lord. She will build herself a carriage of gold.”

  “I believe you’re right.” Rac
hel burst out laughing.

  “He is good. Once people see how well crafted his work is—look at the carriage he imitated from ours—I think people will come to him. Especially people from Philadelphia and Charleston. God forbid they don’t own the latest or the best.” She paused, grinned widely. “Including matched pairs as well as four-in-hand horses. Hard to find. Hard to train, and we’ve got Barker O. No one can make a carriage horse like that man.”

  “DoRe?”

  Catherine considered this. “Close. A terrific whip.” She used the correct term for a coachman who drives. “Uncanny. I wish I had both men. What we are losing to France we would recoup here. Nothing we can do about DoRe until he asks Bettina to marry him.”

  “He will, won’t he?” Rachel frowned for a moment.

  “He will, but he’s a cautious man who works for a difficult but clever woman.” Catherine stopped to examine a green daffodil shoot. “Isn’t it a miracle how plants know when to grow, when to open their blooms? It really is a cycle of life and then death.”

  “Yes.” Rachel changed the subject. “What have you heard from Yancy? Of course, he will want the last race to be Black Knight against Reynaldo. I certainly wouldn’t leave Reynaldo alone in any stall down by The Levels. Nor would I allow anyone else to touch him.”

  Catherine smiled. “Jeddie and I have thought of that. No one will get near my boy. But Yancy did put in writing—the letter came yesterday—that whoever wins their race takes the entire purse. He also said the entry fee will be one hundred dollars.”

  “What! That’s an enormous sum.”

  “It is. I expect he thinks this will weed out the bit players and really pump up the purses. John, Jeddie, and I will travel down to The Levels next week. I’m not agreeing to anything until I see the place.”

  “You don’t trust him, do you?”

  “Not one hundred percent,” she confessed. “But I do know he has more to lose than I do if I don’t race or if my horse is mysteriously injured. He needs Reynaldo.”

  “I suppose…” Rachel’s voice trailed off.

  “Aren’t the mountains ravishing.” Catherine shielded her eyes, for the sun had just touched the rim of the Blue Ridge.

  “I never tire of gazing at them.” They turned to go back to their respective homes.

  “Has Charles heard more from his brother?”

  “All dismal.” Rachel grimaced.

  “I have an idea. You will need to broach it with him.”

  Rachel, knowing her sister well, held up her hands, palms upward. “Catherine?”

  “Just listen. If Hugh becomes bankrupt he will be ruined in more ways than one. No heiress will marry him now. Think what will happen if he loses everything? By the way, is he good-looking?”

  “I asked Charles that. He said it’s hard to judge one’s own brother, plus women look at men differently than men do. So I asked, ‘Do you all resemble each other?’ To that he answered ‘Yes.’ He can’t be all that bad-looking.”

  “No. You must convince your husband to convince Hugh to adopt Jeffrey Holloway.”

  “Catherine, you can’t be serious.”

  “Hear me out. Maureen, after I talk to her, which means after Hugh agrees, will bail him out plus give him a monthly allowance. Jeffrey will visit once a year but stay here. However, he will be the son of a baron.”

  “How do you know or even think that Jeffrey will outlive Hugh? They aren’t that far apart in age.”

  “Doesn’t matter. He is the heir.”

  “I don’t think Jeffrey wants any of this.” Rachel’s lower lip protruded slightly.

  “He doesn’t. He is a sensible man in many ways, but she wants it. She can’t stand the fact that people think she married a nobody. A handsome nobody, but still. He could at least come from a Tidewater family.”

  Rachel weighed this. “Well…yes, but it is absurd.”

  “Nothing is absurd if she gets her way.”

  “Catherine, how rich do you think Maureen is?”

  “Millions. She is one of the richest people in our country, certainly in the Caribbean. All we know of is the money her father made honestly. God knows where she’s got the rest of it stashed. She learned from her father. She told me as much and she, like a smart dog, buries her bone. In fact, I would not be surprised if Maureen isn’t playing politics quietly. Slipping people money, you know, like Alexander Hamilton. She wouldn’t give Jefferson a penny. She believes he spends what he doesn’t have and knows nothing about money. As she once said, ‘He lives in the clouds.’ ”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Rachel, we don’t want to know.”

  Rachel looked into her sister’s intense light eyes. “Why would you do this?”

  “First, I would do it for Charles. He’s distressed.”

  “He is,” Rachel admitted.

  “Secondly, Maureen will owe us.”

  “You’re going to charge her?” Rachel was aghast.

  “No. Consider this, Sister. If France goes to hell we lose a great deal of money. Father has spread the risk. We aren’t going to be in Hugh’s position thanks to father’s business acumen, but we may well be in tightened circumstances. If need be, Maureen will be our banker.”

  Stunned, Rachel stopped in her tracks. “Dear God.”

  “God doesn’t care about our finances. Listen to me. Our beloved father will not live forever. For decades I hope and pray, but someday you and I must carry this estate.”

  “We have our husbands.”

  “Neither one of our husbands is a businessman. My husband is a war hero. He commands great respect and I respect him, but he comes from poor farmers in Massachusetts. He knows nothing about money, how it moves, what it truly buys, which is power. Your husband knows a bit more but he is an artist, an architect. He would have to walk away from what he has learned to love and learn a new business. He’d be an innocent among rapacious, greedy men. Not every businessman is without conscience but many are. After all, our father takes care of his people, is unfailingly generous, backed the colonials during the war. But our father is an extraordinary man. We must run this place when that sad day comes.”

  “Catherine, I know nothing. You’re the one. You’ve inherited our father’s brain. Plus you work with him.”

  “I may be the one but both of us must work through our husbands. I don’t think John will balk, and I do know the shrewd men among us know he is no businessman, but they can’t cross him nor try to make a fool of him. I will destroy them.”

  “Catherine.”

  “Sister, it’s kill or be killed.”

  Rachel remained silent for a long time. “What is it that I must do?”

  “What our mother did. Be beautiful. Be sweet. Host wonderful parties and soirees. Invite everyone. Look up into the eyes of the gentlemen who visit. Be adoring of their achievements. Men like you. You are exactly what they want a woman to be.”

  “Well, you’re far more beautiful than I am.”

  “No, I am not, plus I struggle to flatter their vapid egos. I do it but you are an angel. Men adore you. Children adore you. Even other women adore you.”

  “Now, now, you’re laying it on thick.” Rachel put her arm around her sister’s waist.

  “It’s the truth. And the truth is I am somewhat dazzling. Men fall over when they see me but I frighten them. You draw them. And Charles is a wonderful husband. You work well together. His manners are Old World, aristocratic, and he is a kind man, a very kind man, as is my John. I worry about both of them. They lead with their hearts.”

  Rachel sighed, pulled her sister with her as they walked down to Ruth’s cabin, where the children stayed many days, playing with one another. “They do.”

  Catherine smiled. “Some days I fear I may need to guard against them as well as rivals. It is possible to be too good, you know.” She laughed.

  “What is it really that you want me to do?”

  “Listen to me. We can argue. We are sisters after all, but when it c
omes to business, to profit and to power, listen to me.”

  “Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you were father’s son instead of his elder daughter?”

  Catherine threw back her head and laughed. “I’d be in more duels than the men around us. Thank the Lord I am a woman. And truthfully, Rachel, it’s so easy to work through men. Takes a bit of time but it is so easy.”

  Rachel smiled. “We had a mother who taught us well.”

  “Walking through her gardens, which you keep so beautifully, I miss her. If only she could see her grandchildren. If only she could see Father and he her. I don’t know as any love is perfect but theirs came close.”

  Rachel, voice low, said, “I don’t understand love. I try but I don’t. But I feel it.”

  “Yes, I do, too. I just don’t talk about it.”

  30

  February 1, 2017

  Wednesday

  “Another month if there are no more delays.” Sean spoke to Tony as both men observed the work site now that Rankin Construction could resume operations.

  “Overtime?” Tony asked his boss.

  “No other way.”

  The foreman folded his arms over his chest, his flannel-lined overall helping to keep him warm in the February cold. “You’ll have to hire more men. These guys aren’t going to work around the clock. They’ll pull some overtime but not a solid month.”

  “I know. Fortunately, when we create a budget we try to factor in these things. I’m not worried…yet.” Sean grimaced. “Damnest thing finding Elkins.”

  “You know what I remember? He was a whiner. ’ Course I wasn’t a foreman then. He was above me but nonstop bitching and moaning. I couldn’t stand the guy.”

  Sean half smiled. “Obviously someone else couldn’t either.” He looked skyward, and it was getting darker at midday. “Well, it was a long time ago. We were both wet behind the ears. Dad made me work from the ground up, literally. Best thing he ever did. What I do remember is less the whining because Elkins was smart enough not to look like a candyass in front of the boss’s son. I remember he’d make trips to the library, books. Lots of books on Richmond, throughout history, this area. The falls, anyway, books on what it was like. Williamsburg men used to send their recalcitrant slaves here. Pretty rough, I guess.”