Probable Claws

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Why do you think Roger Davis writes Maureen?”

  He stopped, looked at his daughter. “I don’t know. In fact, I didn’t consider that until you brought it up.”

  “You know Maureen never engages in anything that doesn’t redound to her advancement.”

  “Can you imagine if she could be in politics?”

  “But, Father, she is.”

  Confusion, then a ripple of fear followed this statement for Ewing. “How?”

  “Perhaps it takes a woman to fathom another woman’s methods.” She hastily added, “Which isn’t to say I approve.”

  “Well?” His interest skyrocketed.

  “I believe, I can’t prove, but I believe Maureen has kept all of her former husband’s financial friends, bankers, sugarcane planters, shipbuilders, and captains. I believe she has stayed at the center of that net.”

  “You don’t say.” He frowned. “She is uncommonly shrewd.”

  “I believe most of her money remains in the Caribbean. And I also believe she lends it at a high interest from time to time.”

  “So much for usury.” He half smiled.

  “Always honored in the breech. It’s an easy profit and should the lender fail, you take back whatever he has of value. I have no doubt she owns ships, plantations in the Caribbean and she’s angling for something here. Why else would Roger Davis keep her informed?”

  “She’s paying Madison under the table?” Ewing was shocked.

  “It is possible but I think she’s more clever than that, and truly I don’t think the highly intellectual Madison is a person of finance or greed.”

  “I don’t know about that. His father wasn’t slow and truthfully neither is his mother, although she hides it behind her stream of illnesses. I believe she knows where every penny is. Every penny.”

  “You know them far better than I, Father.”

  “Maureen is a formidable enemy, as was Francisco. I always stayed on the good side, did some business with Francisco.”

  “She’s ruthless. She would steal the pennies off a dead man’s eye.” Catherine used the old phrase. “And she’s not above killing a slave.”

  “Herself!” Ewing was horrified.

  “I think if Maureen sets her mind to something, anybody who gets in the way courts danger.”

  “But personally kill a slave?”

  “I think…” Catherine almost let it slip about Maureen’s attempted murder of Ailee. “Well, I suspect she could.”

  “One hears of men who kill in a fit of rage, but a woman. Oh, that is unnatural.”

  “So you think murder is natural?” Catherine loved to talk to her father about anything.

  “I suppose I do. Humans have been killing one another for thousands of years. We just emerged from a brutal war. Look what the British did to our prisoners. They let them die in the holds of prison ships off Boston. Unforgivable. We treated their prisoners with decency. Thanks to Washington. But yes, I think murder, killing, theft, all the sins are part of humankind wherever we are in the world. In deepest Africa, one tribe kills another. In Europe all they do is start wars. China. The hoards of the East marching and killing across the plains. Finally stopped at Vienna in 1683. I’m afraid, my dear, it’s what we are. But women. Women are morally superior to men.”

  She smiled. “Or Father, perhaps we haven’t had the chance.”

  He walked more briskly with her. “You know, Catherine, sometimes you scare me.”

  “I don’t mean to but ideas cross my mind. And thanks to you, I received a good education.”

  “Do you talk to John in this fashion?”

  She shook her head. “John deals with what’s in front of him. And remember, he did not have much education, just a bit of schooling in that tiny town in Western Massachusetts. Hardscrabble there.”

  “Indeed,” her father agreed.

  “I tell you, he is not a learned man nor an intellectual one, but he is brave, believes in Christ devoutly, far more devoutly than I do. And well…” She paused. “I think the early death of the baby has affected him even more than myself. There are times when I look at him, he doesn’t know I am watching him, and he’s so sad, so deeply sad.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  “He wants to make everything all right. But he can’t. So he struggles to accept why God would do this to our baby, to me. I mourn the child, of course I do, but in a way women are prepared for these things.”

  A long, long silence followed this as Ewing stared at the mountains. “Your mother bore her loss with incredible courage. You may be like me, my dear, but you are also much like her.”

  “It’s a woman’s lot, Father.”

  “Yes, yes, it is.” Then his voice grew stronger. “In life there is death and in death life. We must endure.”

  “I am. I am.” Her hand slid from his forearm and she held his hand. “The future is not given to any of us. We must fight for it.”

  33

  February 8, 2017

  Wednesday

  Rankin Construction, five years ago, built a media room. Just as in a television studio, screens lined the walls, with a large center screen in the middle.

  “I built this to combat theft as well as politically motivated vandalizing of construction sites. As you can see, each site has multiple cameras trained on it.” Sean couldn’t help bragging.

  “Do your workers know they’re there?” Harry’s curiosity bubbled over.

  “The foremen know where the cameras are. We try to hide them. Can’t always.” He sighed. “But our losses to theft and, for lack of a better term, urban terrorism, have fallen.”

  “Urban terrorism. I’ve never heard you speak like that.” Marvella, sitting in the chair next to Sean, questioned.

  “I can’t think of a better term. We’ve got these groups that want to save butterflies, flying squirrels, you name it. Now look, I am not in the business of destroying wildlife but there has to be some common sense. Richmond needs buildings, new buildings. People are pouring in. Businesses are relocating. We’ve got to build.” He took a long pause. “Intelligently.”

  “Yes.” Marvella sighed. “I had no idea all this was going on.”

  “Thanks to the skeleton being found at the Cloudcroft site, people want to crawl over everybody’s building sites. Not just ours,” he replied. “And if a company has a Middle-Eastern name, Turkish, anything not European, if you know what I mean, there’s even more dissatisfaction.”

  Dryly, Marvella intoned, “Fortunately, Rankin is quite Northern European.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “Well, yes. Then again, so is Lawson.”

  “Touché.” She smiled back. “Well, given all this current uproar what better time to put forward Rankin Construction as a patron of the arts and especially as a benefactor to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts?” She took a breath. “Did you see the paintings?”

  “You know I did or we wouldn’t be together.” He smiled at her again.

  Sean knew when he was being managed and Marvella was an expert.

  Harry watched in amusement.

  “As I mentioned before, these are not well-known artists here or even in Europe. They’re good. Not great. We aren’t talking about a Russian Matisse but this is excellent work, hidden from all of us on the other side of the Iron Curtain.” Marvella stopped again. “Have you ever read that speech given in Fulton, Missouri, by Churchill? Where he first uses the term ‘Iron Curtain’?”

  “No, I haven’t. Unlike you, I’m not a history buff.”

  “What about you, Harry?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you can read it online. Do. Apart from Lincoln I don’t think there has ever been an American leader with a true gift for language.”

  “Not even Jefferson?” Harry inquired.

  “Too busy, and remember, he had a committee, essentially, for the Declaration of Independence. But he certainly was an extraordinary man. So far ahead of his time in some ways and so much a part of his time in ot
hers. I guess that can be said of us all in good time. Well, I digress. Sean, what I have been able to assemble with Sotheby’s help, they have been wonderful in pointing me in the direction of, shall we say, lost artists?”

  “I especially liked Stepan Kolesnikov.” Harry watched as Sean pulled up subjects from the thumb drive.

  “The wolf?” Sean studied the work.

  “Emotional. For me, anyway. A lone animal in a harsh landscape, winter in Russia. Does it get any worse?” Harry wondered.

  “I don’t know, but I always thought Napoleon’s siege of Moscow was where the French developed their taste for horse meat,” Marvella said without rancor.

  Sean nodded. “He threw away over a million of his own men, and God knows how many of his enemies he killed, but he’s a hero. Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin are not. Imagine if an American behaved in such a way?”

  “I find it odd a culture with such a rich, elegant appreciation of the arts thinks nothing of mass death.” Marvella shrugged. “But I suppose every nation rationalizes its worst decisions. Well, back to the hoped-for exhibit. Sean, was there any artist who you especially liked?”

  “This one.” He clicked on Ivan Pokhitonov’s painting, Snowy Garden. “These have sold, have they not?”

  Marvella nodded they had. “But with help we may be able to assemble many of them. If you and the board of directors for the company are willing to sponsor this, the first thing I will do is track down former ambassadors to Russia. They will know the right people and a few may even have an interest in the arts. Russia has produced gorgeous items over the years. Their uniforms, court dresses, extraordinary.”

  “I think we can do this and we do need some positive P.R.” He shook his head. “If you take any construction company, there are workers who leave, workers who work a brief time and never return after collecting their paycheck. And remember, this Edward Elkins worked here before drug testing. You’d be surprised what a difference that has made.”

  “I suppose there’s something good about violating your constitutional rights.” Marvella laughed.

  Sean laughed, too. “I can’t say as I like random drug testing. It’s a cushy job for a doctor but drugs are rampant not just here, everywhere. And they grow ever more sophisticated.”

  “Sports.” Harry uttered one word.

  “Oh, they’ve known that for years.” Marvella waved her hand. “Just like they’ve known for years about concussions. Is there a Virginian who doesn’t remember Ray Easterling?”

  She named a famous and beloved pro-football player, one of those men whom everyone liked, who took his own life in 2012. Turned out he had a damaged brain.

  “We don’t give money to any form of sporting event and drugs are one of the reasons.” Sean leaned back in his chair. “We give to environmental groups, we give to schools where they still teach shop.”

  “Do they?” Marvella was surprised.

  “A few do. We need a big trade school actually. But we give supplies and we’ll send, say, an electrician to show them some of the more sophisticated wirings. Everything is connected now. It’s not just turning on the lights.”

  “Never thought of that,” Harry commented, then inquired, “You give to Nature First?”

  “We do. Ducks Unlimited gets most of our environmental funding, but as Nature First started here, we give.”

  “Weren’t you surprised when Nature First took out a one-page ad criticizing you?”

  “I was and I called Kylie Carter that morning. She apologized, said this was Lisa Roudabush’s idea, but she did agree that Nature First couldn’t appear to be bought off. Bought off!”

  “I’m afraid, dear Sean, it’s the way of the world.”

  “I was raised that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” He folded his arms across his chest.

  “True,” Harry agreed. “But people in nonprofits aren’t always the most realistic. Often they’re driven by passion.”

  “Did they find out how Lisa died?” he asked.

  “No. The results aren’t back from the medical examiner’s office. Just found dead at her desk.”

  “People can suffer strokes at a young age,” Marvella said to Harry.

  “Heart attacks.” Sean chipped in.

  “This is a happy discussion,” Harry said wryly.

  “You’re right.” Marvella smiled. “Sean, thank you so much for getting behind this. I do think it will be helpful. Cast a positive light.”

  As the two women took their leave of his office, Sean made a request. “When the medical examiner’s report does come back, let me know. It is odd.”

  It was more than odd. It was murder.

  34

  April 16, 1787

  Monday

  Stacked along one side of the coach building wall rested planed maple. Even without veneer, the tight surface of this readily available hardwood glowed.

  Jeffrey lost no time in developing a workplace in one of the old outbuildings at Big Rawly. Maureen, inflamed by his excitement, was already having a new building twice the size of this one constructed. Any piece of equipment Jeffrey wanted, she bought. The wheelwright, a very focused slave, also worked in the space so it was convivial, as the two men appreciated a high degree of skills. They had much in common as people. Slavery was the confusing wedge.

  “Most impressive,” Yancy complimented Jeffrey on the frame for a large coach, one that could handle almost all types of weather.

  “My lady is determined that this venture will succeed. I am hopeful as you can see. And I’ve already received two more orders. One for a phaeton and one for a children’s cart.”

  “Quite a difference in scale.” Yancy appreciated the particulars.

  “So it is and you, more than anyone, can imagine what will become of my handiwork if the children’s cart is hitched to a naughty pony.”

  Yancy smiled and Jeffrey, remembering his bad knee, offered, “Please sit down.” Then he turned to one of his apprentices, a very light-skinned young man of perhaps seventeen, who looked suspiciously like the late Francisco. “Pompey, run to the kitchen, will you, and bring back libations and something to entice Mr. Gates to eat?”

  The younger man, considered an easy target, shocked Yancy when he shot the older man’s knee in a duel. It was shoot or be shot, so Jeffrey shot.

  “No need.”

  Jeffrey smiled. “Well, I’m famished. Perhaps you’ll join me. One never knows what they’re up to in the kitchen.”

  “I am here”—Yancy cleared his throat—“to seek your help. Given our past that may seem most forward of me, but I would not ask if I didn’t have something to offer in return.” Sensing Jeffrey’s interest, he continued. “My lad, Ollie, has broken his leg. One of those accidents. He hit the ground hard and on the wrong foot, so to speak, and now his leg is broken. As the races will be on us in a month, I would like to rent your William.”

  “He is good, isn’t he?”

  “Working with DoRe would improve anyone and William has talent, plus he’s lean and light. How old is he, by the way?”

  “Twenty, I think.”

  “I would pay a dollar a day for his services, but even better, should Black Knight win his race, I will split the winnings with you and Mrs. Holloway, as well as reward William, of course.”

  “Very generous.” Jeffrey considered how to present his position. “As you know, these are my wife’s people. She has known them far longer than I.” He paused, clearing his throat. “She evidences a keen interest in their skills.” He now held up his hand. “Yes, I know as her husband her possessions are mine but to keep harmony, I defer to her. As I said, she has lived with many of them for close to twenty years.”

  “Very wise.” Yancy nodded.

  “What I will do is present your offer to her, suggest it is much to our benefit. Of course, we will arrive at the races in the coach I built from Ewing’s model.”

  “You will be besieged with orders. So many people east of here have not had the pleasure of
viewing your creations. Tell me, how do you determine the colors?”

  “The coach-in-four, the frame there, Mr. and Mrs. Volpe adamantly want a maroon body with gold pinstriping, black wheels with black spokes and a thin maroon and gold pinstripe on each spoke. As to the interior, we could live in it once done. Mrs. Volpe craves comforts.”

  Yancy laughed. “The ladies do seem to incline that way. But it does sound arresting.”

  “It does. My secret fear is one day someone will want a white coach.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “That’s exactly why. No one else will have one.”

  Two ladies in bonnets and aprons carried trays of food while Pompey rolled down a food cart obviously built by Jeffrey. Tea, afternoon sherry, and a sparkling decanter of something a bit stronger was secured to the top of the cart by indentations cut down to fit the various pots. Jeffrey had thought of everything. On the bottom shelf rested heavier food items. The two cook’s assistants carried the sweets.

  “My word, this is a feast,” Yancy exclaimed.

  “I really am hungry. Your visit has given me the opportunity to indulge.”

  The two men ate, chatted, somehow the better for their duel. It was done. Over. Yancy considered Jeffrey socially beneath him, but Jeffrey’s marriage to Maureen turned that upside down. As for Jeffrey, he craved male company. Maureen kept him on a short tether.

  They talked about the expansion of Pestalozzi’s Mill, the number of people coming this far west now that their energies could be directed toward a free future.

  “Have you seen Catherine Schuyler?” Jeffrey inquired.

  “No. I heard she suffered a loss. She’s young and strong. But these things cast heavy sorrows.”

  “Indeed.”

  Yancy nodded as he cut a large chicken breast into smaller pieces.

  “My lady will visit her. She said she wanted to give Catherine time and she also said fevers can accompany such a loss. Just carry away the woman.”

  “Yes. Yes. Fortunately, that time seems to be past.”

  “That’s what Maureen—I mean Mrs. Holloway—says, too. And if she agrees to your offer she will go to Catherine.” Jeffrey took a deep breath. “We will be racing against her Reynaldo.”