Murder on the Prowl

by Rita Mae Brown

  “That would be greatly appreciated. See you there.” He breathed in sharply. “I don't know what we're going to find.”

  As Harry hung up the phone, Susan stood up expectantly. “Well?”

  “Let's shoot over to the Fletchers'. Herbie's on his way.”

  “Know anything?” They'd been friends for so long they could speak in shorthand to each other, and many times they didn't need to speak at all.

  “No.”

  “Let's move 'em out.” Susan made the roundup sign.

  Tucker, assisted by Brooks, sneaked into the roundup. She lay on the floor of the Audi until halfway to Crozet. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, both livid at being left behind, stared crossly as the car pulled out of the driveway.

  Once at the Fletchers' the friends endured another shock. Fifty to sixty cars lined the street in the Ednam subdivision. Deputy Cynthia Cooper directed traffic. This wasn't her job, but the department was shorthanded over the weekend.

  “Coop?” Harry waved at her.

  “Craziest thing I've ever heard of,” the nice-looking officer said.

  “What do you mean?” Susan asked.

  “He's not dead.”

  “WHAT?” all three humans said in unison.

  Tucker, meanwhile, wasted no time. She walked in the front door, left open because of the incredible number of friends, acquaintances, and St. Elizabeth's students who were paying condolence calls. Tucker, low to the ground, threaded her way through the humans to the kitchen.

  Brooks quickly found her friends, Karen Jensen and Jody Miller. They didn't know anything either.

  As Harry and Susan entered the living room, Roscoe held up a glass of champagne, calling to the assembled, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated!” He sipped. “Bierce.”

  “Twain,” Sandy Brashiers corrected. He was head of the English department and a rival for Roscoe's power.

  “Ambrose Bierce.” Roscoe smiled but his teeth were clenched.

  “It doesn't matter, Roscoe, you're alive.” Naomi, a handsome woman in her late thirties, toasted her husband.

  April Shively, adoringly staring at her florid boss, clinked her glass with that of Ed Sugarman, the chemistry teacher.

  “Hear, hear,” said the group, which contained most of Harry's best friends, as well as a few enemies.

  Blair Bainbridge, not an enemy but a potential suitor, stood next to Marilyn, or Little Mim, the well-groomed daughter of Big Mim Sanburne.

  “When did you get home?” Harry managed to ask Blair after expressing to Roscoe her thanks for his deliverance.

  “Last night.”

  “Hi, Marilyn.” She greeted Little Mim by her real name.

  “Good to see you.” It wasn't. Marilyn was afraid Blair liked Harry more than herself.

  Fair Haristeen, towering above the other men, strode over to his ex-wife, with whom he was still in love. “Isn't this the damnedest thing you've ever seen?” He reached into the big bowl of hard candies sitting on an end table. Roscoe always had candy around.

  “Pretty weird.” She kissed him on the cheek and made note that Morris “Maury” McKinchie, Roscoe Fletcher's best friend, was absent.

  Meanwhile Tucker sat in the kitchen with Winston, the family English bulldog, a wise and kind animal. They had been exchanging pleasantries before Tucker got to the point.

  “What's going on, Winston?”

  “I don't know,” came the grave reply.

  “Has he gone to doctors in Richmond or New York? Because Harry heard from Herb Jones that he was healthy.”

  “Nothing wrong with Roscoe except too many women in his life.”

  The corgi cocked her head. “Ah, well,” she said, “a prank, I guess, this obit thing.”

  “Roscoe now knows how many people care about him. If people could attend their funerals, they'd be gratified, I should think,” Winston said.

  “Never thought of that.”

  “Umm.” Winston waddled over to the backdoor, overlooking the sunken garden upon which Naomi lavished much attention.

  “Winston, what's worrying you?”

  The massive head turned to reveal those fearsome teeth. “What if this is a warning?”

  “Who'd do a thing like that?”

  “Tucker, Roscoe can't keep it in his pants. I've lost count of his affairs, and Naomi has reached the boiling point. She always catches him. After many lies, he does finally confess. He promises never to do it again. Three months, six months later—he's off and running.”

  “Who?”

  “The woman?” The wrinkled brow furrowed more deeply. “April, maybe, except she's so obvious even the humans get it. Let's see, a young woman from New York, I forget her name. Oh, he's made a pass at BoomBoom, but I think she's otherwise engaged. You know, I lose count.”

  “Bet Naomi doesn't,” the little corgi sagely replied.

  4

  That evening a heavy fog crept down Yellow Mountain. Harry, in the stable, walked outside to watch a lone wisp float over the creek. The wisp was followed by fingers spreading over the meadow until the farm was enveloped in gray.

  She shivered; the temperature was dropping.

  “Put on your down vest, you'll catch your death,” Mrs. Murphy advised.

  “What are you talking about, Miss Puss?” Harry smiled at her chatty cat.

  “You, I'm talking about you. You need a keeper.” The tiger sighed, knowing that the last person Harry would take care of would be herself.

  Tucker lifted her head. Moisture carried good scent. “That bobcat's near.”

  “Let's get into the barn then.” The cat feared her larger cousin.

  As the little family plodded into the barn, the horses nickered. Darkness came as swiftly as the fog. Harry pulled her red down vest off a tack hook. She flipped on the light switch. Having stayed overlong at Roscoe Fletcher's to celebrate, she was now behind on her farm chores.

  Tomahawk, the oldest horse in the barn, loved the advent of fall. A true foxhunting fellow, he couldn't wait for the season to begin. Gin Fizz and Poptart, the younger equines, perked their ears.

  “That old bobcat is prowling around.” Mrs. Murphy leapt onto the Dutch door, the top held open by a nickel-plated hook.

  Tomahawk gazed at her with his huge brown eyes. “Mean, that one.”

  Two bright beady black eyes appeared at the edge of the hayloft. “What's this I hear about a bobcat?”

  “Simon, I thought you'd still be asleep,” Tucker barked.

  The opossum moved closer to the edge, revealing his entire light gray face. “You-all make enough noise to wake the dead. Any minute now and Flatface up there will swoop down and bitterly chastise us.”

  Simon referred to the large owl who nested in the cupola. The owl disliked the domesticated animals, especially Mrs. Murphy. There was also a black snake who hibernated in the hayloft, but she was antisocial, even in summertime. A cornucopia of mice kept the predators fat and happy.

  The hayloft covered one-third of the barn, which gave the space a lighter, airier feeling than if it had run the full length of the structure. Harry, using salvaged lumber, had built a hay shed thirty yards from the barn. She had painted it dark green with white trim; that was her summer project. Each summer she tried to improve the farm. She loved building, but after nailing on shingles in the scorching sun, she had decided she'd think long and hard before doing that again.

  Mrs. Murphy climbed the ladder to the hayloft. “Fog is thick as pea soup.”

  “Doesn't matter. I can smell her well enough.” Simon referred to the dreaded bobcat.

  “Maybe so, but she can run faster than anyone here except for the horses.”

  “I'm hungry.”

  “I'll get Mom to put crunchies in my bowl. You can have that.”

  Simon brightened. “Goody.”

  Mrs. Murphy walked the top beam of the stalls, greeting each horse as she passed over its head. Then she jumped down on the tall wooden medicine chest standing next to the tack-room doo
r. From there it was an easy drop to the floor.

  Harry, having fed the horses, knelt on her hands and knees in the feed room. Little holes in the wooden walls testified to the industry of the mice. She lined her feed bins in tin, which baffled them, but they gobbled every crumb left on the floor. They also ate holes in her barn jacket, which enraged her.

  “Mother, you aren't going to catch one.”

  “Murphy, do something!”

  The cat sat next to Harry and patted the hole in the wall. “They've got a system like the New York subway.”

  “You're certainly talkative,” Harry commented.

  “And you don't understand a word I'm saying.” The cat smiled. “I'm hungry.”

  “Jeez, Murphy, lower the volume.”

  “Food, glorious food—” She sang the song from Oliver.

  Tucker, reposing in the tack room, hollered, “You sing about as well as I do.”

  “Thanks. I could have lived my whole life without knowing that.”

  Her entreaties worked. Harry shook triangular crunchies out of the bag, putting the bowl on top of the medicine cabinet so Tucker wouldn't steal the food.

  “Thanks,” Simon called down, showing his appreciation.

  “Anytime.” Murphy nibbled a few mouthfuls to satisfy Harry.

  “I suppose Pewter will be hungry.” Harry checked her watch. “She's not an outdoor girl.” She laughed.

  “If she gets any fatter, you'll need to buy a red wagon so you can haul her gut around,” Mrs. Murphy commented.

  Harry sat on her old tack trunk. She glanced around. While there were always chores to be done, the regular maintenance ones were finished: feed, water, muck stalls, clean tack, sweep out the barn.

  As soon as the horses finished eating, she would turn them out. With the first frost, usually around mid-October, she would flip their schedule. They'd be outside during the day and in their stalls at night. In the heat of summer they stayed inside the barn during the day; it was well ventilated by the breeze always blowing down the mountain. Kept the flies down, too.

  She got up, her knees cracking, and walked to the open barn door. “You know, we could have an early frost.” She returned to Fizz's stall. “I wonder if we should get on the new schedule now.”

  “Go ahead. If there are a couple of hot days, we'll come inside during the day. We're flexible.”

  “Let's stay inside.” Poptart ground his sweet feed.

  “Who wants to argue with the bobcat? I don't,” Tomahawk said sensibly.

  Harry cupped her chin with her hand. “You know, let's go to our fall schedule.”

  “Hooray!” the horses called out.

  “Nighty night,” she called back, turning off the lights.

  Although the distance between the stable and the house couldn't have been more than one hundred yards, the heavy fog and mist soaked the three friends by the time they reached the backdoor.

  The cat and dog shook themselves in the porch area. Harry would pitch a fit if they did it in the kitchen. Even Harry shook herself. Once inside she raced to put on the kettle for tea. She was chilled.

  Pewter, lounging on the sofa, head on a colorful pillow, purred, “I'm glad I stayed inside.”

  “You're always glad you stayed inside,” Tucker answered.

  Harry puttered around. She drank some tea, then walked back into her bedroom. “Oh, no.” In the turmoil of the day, she'd rushed out with Susan and Brooks, forgetting the mess she had left behind. The contents of her bureau drawers lay all over her bed. “I will not be conquered by underpants.”

  She gulped her tea, ruthlessly tossing out anything with holes in it or where the fabric was worn thin. That meant she had only enough socks left for half a drawer, one satin bra, and three pairs of underpants.

  “Mom, you need to shop,” said Mrs. Murphy, who adored shopping although she rarely got the opportunity for it.

  Harry beheld the pile of old clothes. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

  “You can't wear these things. They're tired,” Pewter, now in the middle of the pile, told her. “I'm tired, too.”

  “You didn't do anything.” Murphy laughed.

  Harry stomped out to the pantry, returning armed with a big scissors.

  “What's she going to do?” Pewter wondered aloud.

  “Make rags. Mother can't stand to throw anything out if it can be used for something. She'll cut everything into squares or rectangles and then divide the pile between the house and the barn.”

  “The bras, too?”

  “No, I think those are truly dead,” Mrs. Murphy replied.

  “Harry is a frugal soul,” Pewter commented. She herself was profligate.

  “She has to be.” Tucker cleaned her hind paws, not easy for a corgi. “That post office job pays for food and gas and that's all. Luckily, she inherited the farm when her parents died. It's paid for, but she doesn't have much else. A little savings and a few stocks her father left her, but he wasn't a financial wizard either. Her one extravagance, if you can call it that, is the horses. 'Course, they help in ‘mowing' the fields.”

  “Humans are funny, aren't they?” Pewter said thoughtfully. “Big Mim wallows in possessions, and Harry has so little. Why doesn't Mim give things to Harry?”

  “You forget, she gave her Poptart. She and Fair went halfsies on it.”

  “I did forget. Still, you know what I mean.”

  Tucker shrugged. “They're funny about things. Things mean a lot to them. Like bones to us, I guess.”

  “I couldn't care less about bones. Catnip is another matter,” the tiger said gleefully, wishing for a catnip treat.

  “Ever see that T-shirt? You know, the one that says ‘He who dies with the most toys wins'?” Pewter, snuggling in the new rag pile, asked.

  “Yeah. Samson Coles used to wear it—before he was disgraced by dipping into escrow funds.” Tucker giggled.

  “Stupid T-shirt,” Mrs. Murphy said briskly. “When you're dead, you're dead. You can't win anything.”

  “That reminds me. The bobcat's out there tonight,” Tucker told Pewter.

  “I'm not going outside.”

  “We know that.” Mrs. Murphy swished her tail. “Wonder if the Fletchers will find out who put that phony obituary in the paper? If they don't, Mother will. You know how nosy she gets.”

  The phone rang. Harry put down her scissors to pick it up. “Hi.”

  Blair Bainbridge's deep voice had a soothing quality. “Sorry I didn't call on you the minute I got home, but I was dog tired. I happened to be down at the café when Marilyn ran in to tell me about Roscoe dying. We drove over to his house, and I—”

  “Blair, it's okay. She's crazy about you, as I'm sure you know.”

  “Oh, well, she's lonesome.” Since he was one of the highest paid male models in the country, he knew perfectly well that women needed smelling salts in his presence. All but Harry. Therefore she fascinated him.

  “Susan and I are riding tomorrow after church if you want to come along.”

  “Thanks. What time?”

  “Eleven.”

  He cheerfully said, “I'll see you at eleven, and, Harry, I can tack my own horse. Who do you want me to ride?”

  “Tomahawk.”

  “Great. See you then. 'Bye.”

  “'Bye.”

  The animals said nothing. They knew she was talking to Blair, and they were divided in their opinions. Tucker wanted Harry to get back with Fair. She knew it wasn't unusual for humans to remarry after divorcing. Pewter thought Blair was the better deal because he was rich and Harry needed help in that department. Mrs. Murphy, while having affection for both men, always said that Mr. Right hadn't appeared. Be patient.

  The phone rang again.

  “Coop. How are you?”

  “Tired. Hey, don't want to bug you, but did you have any idea who might have put that false obit in the papers?”

  “No.”

  “Roscoe says he hasn't a clue. Naomi doesn't
think it's quite as funny as he does. Herb doesn't have any ideas. April Shively thinks it was Karen Jensen since she's such a cutup. BoomBoom says Maury McKinchie did it, and he'll use our reactions as the basis for a movie. I even called the school chaplain, Father Michael. He was noncommittal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Father Michael, the priest of the Church of the Good Shepherd between Crozet and Charlottesville, had close ties to the private school. Although nondenominational for a number of years, St. Elizabeth's each year invited a local clergyman to be the chaplain of the school. This exposed the students to different religious approaches. This year it was the Catholics' turn. Apart from a few gripes from extremists, the rotating system worked well.

  “He shut up fast,” Coop replied.

  “That's weird.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “What does Rick think?” Harry referred to Sheriff Shaw by his first name.

  “He sees the humor in this, but he wants to find out who did it. If kids were behind this, they need to learn that you can't jerk people around like that.”

  “If I hear of anything, I'll buzz.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don't work too hard, Coop.”

  “Look who's talking. See you soon. 'Bye.”

  Harry hung up the phone and picked up the small throw-out pile. Then she carefully divided the newly cut rags, placing half by the kitchen door. That way she would remember to take them to the barn in the morning. She noticed it was ten at night.

  “Where does the time go?”

  She hopped in the shower and then crawled into bed.

  Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker were already on the bed.

  “What do you guys think about Roscoe's fake obituary?” she asked her animal friends.

  Like many people who love animals, she talked to them, doing her best to understand. They understood her, of course.

  “Joke.” Pewter stuck out one claw, which she hooked into the quilt.

  “Ditto.” Tucker agreed. “Although Winston said Naomi is furious with him. Mad enough to kill.”

  “Humans are boring—” Pewter rested her head on an outstretched arm.

  “See, you think like I do.” Harry wiggled under the blankets. “Just some dumb thing. For all I know, Roscoe did it himself. He's not above it.”