A Hiss Before Dying

by Rita Mae Brown

  “No.”

  “Honey, I’m not going to buy it, but I like it.”

  “You can’t buy anything unless you try it on. Six-foot-five-inch men can’t buy online.” She stood her ground.

  “You have a point there, but I could go to Charleston. You could go with me. A getaway weekend.” He leaned toward her and kissed her cheek. “Romance. Church bells. Palmettos. Great restaurants.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You just want to go shopping.”

  “If the victim shopped here he really did have money, taste, and possibly power. Powerful men don’t wear flash. Entertainers do, but real power, never. Not in the English-speaking world, and have you ever noticed a powerful man never carries a briefcase?”

  This made her think. “You’re right.”

  “To call attention to yourself by dress means you’re insecure. A man should be smartly turned out, but not so people gawk. Think Cary Grant.”

  “Name someone alive.”

  “The Prince of Wales.”

  “Can you imagine his budget?” Harry laughed.

  “Another one. David Beckham. He’s sometimes a little out there, but when it matters, subtle.”

  “They are all three Englishmen.”

  “I guess it means we Americans still aren’t quite sure of ourselves.” He laughed.

  “I guess.” Harry evidenced no interest in fashion, a quality that drove her girlfriends crazy, and sometimes her husband as well.

  “You mentioned that the victim recognized the beadwork in the cases and even knew the tribes who had made the items. He could tell from the work, the patterns.”

  “Liz said he could.”

  “A man with aesthetic training.”

  “Then how does he wind up shot twice in the back on Mary and David Kalergis’s farm? It’s nuts. Furthermore, I think it upset the beagles.”

  “If they could talk they might know more than we do. Scent.”

  “Right,” Tucker called up from the floor.

  “I am sick of dogs getting all the credit for their noses. Cats have good noses,” Pewter fussed.

  “In good time, I’m sure the sheriff’s department will figure out what the murder is about. Cooper is highly intelligent, you know.”

  “The strangest thing, Fair. I mean, apart from Liz having done business with the man killed. I had an overpowering urge to buy one of those brass chits. Number Eleven. Overpowering.”

  He put his arm around her. “Past life?”

  October 26, 2016 Wednesday

  Mrs. Murphy and Pewter sat in the hayloft, the second-story doors thrown open, always good for hay to be aired. The front of the barn also had such doors. The farm produced outstanding clover and orchard grass hay but Harry twice a year paid good money for pure square alfalfa bales. The hay dealer could back up to either end of the barn, position the ladder with the rollers, and literally roll the bales up. Harry would be in the second story, pick up the bale, place it where she wished. As she had filled up the hayloft two weeks ago in preparation for winter, the aroma added to the pleasing stable smells. Pleasing to the cats, Harry, and horsemen, anyway.

  They sat there looking out at the back pastures at the horses as each one that was turned out would make a run, a little buck, and snort.

  “Doesn’t take much to make them happy,” Pewter noted.

  “All horses, cattle, and sheep need to do is put their heads down to eat, walk a bit, eat some more. They don’t have to catch anything,” the tiger cat wisely replied.

  “Until there’s a drought or a flood.” The gray cat watched as Shortro, a young horse, performed a pirouette to the snorting of the others.

  “Then we’re all in trouble.”

  Below, the morning frost, light, coated the world in silver. A ground fog lifted from the back meadows while pockets of mist, also silver, began to rise from the crevices and bowls on this east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  Tucker trotted out the back of the barn, unaware of the cats above. The corgi, watching the horses, sat down. For some strange reason, many humans don’t think animals can appreciate a beautiful day. Tucker, senses superior, could appreciate this perfect fall morning better than the humans. She breathed in the odor of the fall leaves, could smell the bark on the trees, the earth beginning to release the frost. She also knew a small herd of deer had walked behind the barn before daybreak with the pungent, heavy odor of scent mingled in with powder coming up from the fallen leaves. Foxes and deer ate very different food, but foxes, curious and sometimes sociable, might amble along with other species for a time, their sweetish scent trailing the deer scent. Tucker liked foxes, but then they possessed the canine mind. The feline mind was a different matter.

  Above her, Pewter pushed out a flake of hay. The rich-smelling hay fell right on target, which made the dog jump sideways.

  “Ha.” Pewter laughed.

  Tucker turned around, looked upward. “Come down here.”

  “Not a chance,” the gray cat fired back.

  “A good choice. You’re too fat to run fast for long and I’d catch you.”

  “Dream on, Bubblebutt.”

  Mrs. Murphy, in no mind to play referee, left the two of them to argue while she walked to Simon, in his possum’s nest. Simon, curled asleep, as he was nocturnal, snored a little. He made a lovely nest in a hay bale, which kept him warm in the winter. Harry’s closing up the barn on the very cold nights helped, but the hay proved a good insulator. He stole rags and towels to create a toasty bed. His treasures, neatly organized, filled his nest, a tube of shiny lipstick, half of an old but colorful crop, bright quarters and pennies, pencils, a purple ball cap in good shape which read Brookhill, a rawhide strip, and his biggest prize, a compact of Harry’s that he filched when she forgot to close the desk drawer in the tack room. When awake he would open and close it, fascinated by the mirror. If Harry missed it she kept the loss to herself.

  One eye opened, then the other. “I ate so much.”

  “Simon, you smell like sweet feed.” Mrs. Murphy inhaled.

  “Half a scoop was spilled in the feed room. Oh, what a treat.” He grinned, half sat up.

  “You’ve added some items to your collection.” She patted the golden-hued lipstick tube, rolling it a little.

  “Fell out of Susan Tucker’s car. She parks in the same place. I watched from the hayloft. Sunset. The tube glowed. I snatched it the minute she walked into the house.” He grinned.

  “Did I tell you she won the club golf championship after being runner-up these last few years? Pewter, Tucker, and I ride in the golf cart sometimes but we weren’t allowed on the course during the tournament. I love to ride in the golf cart.” The cat smiled then changed the subject. “Why do you have a rawhide strip, well, it’s a long one. Harry has plenty.”

  “She does, but I found this by the creek. Smelled like bird. And it’s longer than the strips Harry uses to tie stuff together.”

  Mrs. Murphy leaned down to sniff the strip. “Nothing left now, just smells like leather.” She hastened to add, “A really good smell.”

  “It’s one of the reasons I like being in the barn. I don’t know if I could ever build and live in a nest outside. This is heaven.” He yawned.

  Loud voices diverted Mrs. Murphy’s attention. Pewter thundered toward her, then turned around, backing down the hayloft ladder a few moments later, more arguing, barking, hissing.

  “I’d better get down there.”

  “Murphy, they’re impossible.” The possum curled back up.

  “What’s going on? You two settle down or you’re not riding around with me.” Harry emerged from a stall, walked up to the battling pets as Mrs. Murphy climbed down the hayloft ladder.

  “She started it!” Tucker pouted.

  “Bubblebutt, Bubblebutt, Bubblebutt.” Pewter relished every syllable.

  Tucker growled but Harry cut her off. “I’m not taking either one of you and I’m going to The Barracks.”

  Tucker’s ears fell, her mouth dropped
, distress registered in her gaze. “No, no. Take me. I protect you.”

  “Bubblebutt, Bubblebutt.” Pewter rubbed against the corgi’s chest to add to the dog’s torment.

  Poor Tucker couldn’t even curl her lip.

  “Are you going to behave?” Harry pointed a finger at the dog.

  “I’ll do anything, anything to go with you.”

  As the dog begged, Pewter, tail vertical, sashayed away from the dog, toward the barn doors. Burlesque music should have accompanied this parade.

  Harry turned to watch the cat. “I know you’re behind this.”

  Pewter didn’t even turn her head. Kept walking.

  “I hate her. I really hate her.” Tucker followed Harry into the tack room, where the human wiped her hands, checked the mirror, full-length on the wall, to brush off hay bits and dust.

  She walked out of the tack room, closing the door, and the minute she did so, the mice came out from behind the tack trunk.

  Mrs. Murphy walked alongside Harry, keeping in step.

  “Murphy, you are the only animal with sense.”

  “Thank you,” the lovely, sleek tiger cat replied.

  Jumping on the running board, the two cats leapt into the 1978 Ford F-150 when Harry opened the door. She then picked up Tucker, grunted a little at the dog’s weight, placed her on the seat. Tucker refused to look at Pewter so, of course, the cat leaned on her.

  Slipping her cellphone under the visor, Harry turned the key, and was rewarded with the rumble of a real, old-fashioned V-8.

  Gas mileage had improved, all manner of electronic devices festooned vehicles now, trucks boasted luxury interiors, some of them just over the top, but nothing sounded like a true old V-8 and Harry loved that deep purr.

  She popped the truck in gear, down the farm road they drove, deer still in the front meadows, lifting their heads, then returned to feeding.

  Once on Garth Road, the thin sunlight streaming from the east lighting some trees still in color, Harry turned left to The Barracks stables, passing Ivy Farms on her right. New, huge homes appeared over the last few decades at the edges of what was once all Garth land. And a high-end development, big wide tree-lined lanes; big homes, all colonial; Continental Estates, filled up the back side, out of sight of the stables. Harry continued on the curving road, turned right by the stables and slowly drove to a two-story clapboard house a mile from the stables, due east.

  She’d called ahead of time, filled a basket with Pippin apples as she had a few old-fashioned types. She and Fair filled baskets last weekend for their friends, themselves, and always for their horses as well as those of friends. The Pippin apple, harder to grow than the supermarket varieties, was once highly prized in central Virginia, being a favorite of Queen Victoria.

  Martha Henderson, hearing her truck, came out the door of the clapboard two-story house built in 1790.

  “Just what I wanted. Hootie’s been pestering me for apple pie.”

  “I expect he’ll be happy.”

  “Come on in. Come on, Tucker, Mrs. Murphy, and Pewter. I know you want to ask us about the slave chits.”

  “How do you know that?” Harry stepped over the swept threshold.

  “Because Deputy Cooper called on us yesterday and you can’t resist a mystery. There are so many here on this land, all those prisoners-of-war, then Ewing buying up the camp and, well, there’s no end to history, is there? It’s always around us.”

  “Sometimes I feel ghosts close to me. Silly, I know.”

  “Sit down, honey.” Martha, in her middle sixties, had always been motherly, even when young. “What can I fetch you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “I’ll take a treat,” Pewter piped.

  Harry ignored her as Martha put out a plate of scones that she’d made that morning. Who could resist?

  Then she made a pot of tea, set down fresh butter on a little plate, a few jams, and sat down herself.

  “Where’s Hootie?”

  “Upstairs. He wants to show you the old account books.”

  Just as she said this, a heavy footfall was heard on the wooden stairway. Carrying large, leather-bound books, Hootie, large himself, came in, placing them on the table. “Good to see you, girl. I don’t get to see enough of you.”

  “Nor I you. Farming, especially during the changing seasons, is no respecter of socializing.”

  He laughed as Harry spoke. “I couldn’t live any other way, could you?”

  “No.” She reached for a scone while Pewter emitted a piteous meow.

  “Poor kitty.” Then Martha roared. “Poor starving kitty. Oh, well, even if she’s fat she has to eat.” Martha, pleasantly plump, rose, opened a cupboard, and retrieved a box of cat treats and one of dog treats. Her pets, outside, hadn’t come in but they, too, evidenced too many good meals.

  “You won’t believe how many of these account books there are. I brought down the earliest ones. Starting in 1786. Goes right up to World War Two.” He flipped open Book I, revealing black cursive handwriting, beautiful, and the numbers, too, showed artistic flair.

  Harry followed his finger. “Shipped three hundred bushels of apples to Richmond. Fifty cents a bushel. Six wagon wheels over to Maureen Selisse Holloway and one full oaken wagon to Father Donatello.” She looked up. “There was an early Catholic church?”

  “The Italians. Remember there were Hessians and Italians imprisoned at The Barracks.” Hootie was a history buff. “Most stayed behind. They started St. Mary’s. Just like the Lutherans started St. Luke’s.”

  “What a find.” Harry whistled. “And in such good condition.”

  “Covered with dust. Martha cleaned them all up.” He smiled at his wife.

  “These have historical value.” Harry touched the page.

  “That’s why I’m not giving them away. You give them away and they wind up in storage at the university library or a historical group. No. If someone pays for these account books I bet they will actually read them. I called Jerry Showalter,” he named a local antique book dealer who traveled the country. “He’ll find the right home for them and Martha and I will enjoy a bit of profit. We reinsulated the attic, not cheap, which is how I found all this.”

  “And the slave chits?” Harry wondered.

  He carefully closed the book. “A leather bag of them.”

  “I don’t think this was a slave house.” Harry looked around.

  “Who knows? The Garths took good care of their people but as the business expanded Catherine added as much as her father once she took over. I expect they had to hire a true bookkeeper and some secretaries. No way one person or even the two sisters could handle all the paperwork.” Then he leaned back in his chair. “Imagine how many people you’d need today? I’d reckon that the average American loses four to five days a month on paperwork for the federal, state, and county governments. A hindrance to productivity.”

  “Hindrance, hell, a nightmare.” Harry pressed her lips together.

  “I figure all these questionnaires, tax papers, it’s all designed to create government employee jobs. Eventually half the population will be government employed. Jobs that don’t create profit,” Martha, once a schoolteacher, said. “Government can’t make money, can’t be for profit. I understand that but as more and more people no longer understand the necessity of private profit I think we’ll all go down the tube. As so many work for the government or take money from the government, contracts and such, they keep voting themselves more money.”

  “You all think much more deeply about this than I do. I’d better catch up.” Harry smiled.

  “Oh, we get riled up. Now, the chits? What are they? What were they doing here? That was the officer’s question. She’s a nice girl. And not married?” Hootie’s eyebrows shot upward.

  “Well, you are.” Martha poked at him.

  “She’s dating one of the baseball coaches at UVA. Back to the chits. Any ideas why they were here? Any idea at all?” Harry inquired.

  “No. Whoeve
r lived here was good with detail. Maybe that was another detail.” Hootie reached for a scone himself.

  “Pretty important.” Martha knew her history. “You can’t have chits out in the open. Were as valuable as money back then. ’Course, after 1865, I reckon they were worthless.”

  “I never thought of that.” Harry finished her delicious scone.

  “How very strange that that fellow, the one killed, was wearing Number Five and he’d just bought it. Deputy Cooper talked a long time with us and I don’t think we were much help. I have no idea why that fellow was killed or why he was wearing a chit. As I recall the five was quite elegant, just as the Garth name, in script, was elegant.”

  “I told Fair last night after I’d been to Liz’s shop and seen the chits that I had an irresistible urge to buy Number Eleven.”

  “That’s a pretty one, too.” Martha smiled. “Think you might? Buy it, I mean?”

  “I don’t know. I know I don’t want our past hidden, or anyone’s past, for that matter. We have to acknowledge it regularly. How else can we learn? I remind myself that most people did the best they could with what they had. They weren’t thinking about big issues. They were thinking about food, clothing, and shelter. Not much has changed there.”

  Hootie added, “Deputy Cooper told us Liz was selling the chits for one hundred dollars a pop.”

  “We sold them to her for fifty apiece after a lot of back and forth.” Martha pushed another scone toward Harry, who took it.

  “That’s retail. Called keystone. You double the price. You figure out rent on a good location store, utilities, advertising, the cost of decorating and display. The retail business is hard. How can someone anticipate what people will want to buy? At least with farming we know everyone’s got to eat,” Harry opined.

  Hootie laughed, a deep, throaty sound. “Got that right.”

  “Well, let me get back to work. I’ve thatched the pastures and want to put down fertilizer. I like a light dressing before winter. I think the freezing and thawing helps get the good stuff into the soil,” Harry said.

  “Does.” Hootie agreed, then added, “Glad you came by. If your mother were alive she’d read every one of those account books before I sold them.”