“You aren’t one pound overweight.”
“You don’t squeeze into my jeans.”
“Harry, you’re reading too many fashion magazines. The models are anorexic.”
“I don’t subscribe to one fashion magazine,” Harry proudly proclaimed.
“Of course not. You read whatever comes into the post office.”
Harry sheepishly curled her noodles onto the fork. “Well, I suppose I do.”
“You’re the best-read person in Crozet.”
“That’s not saying much.” Harry laughed.
“The Reverend Jones reads a lot.”
“Yes, that’s true. How’d you know that?”
“Called on him yesterday in the course of my duties.”
“Oh.”
“I wondered how well he knew Coty Lamont, Mickey Townsend, and the rest of the steeplechase crowd, and if he knows any knife collectors.”
“He knows more people than anyone except Mim and Miranda, I swear. Did he know anything about those—”
“More!” Tucker barked.
“No.” Harry sternly reprimanded the greedy dog.
“Said he knew Coty Lamont from years back when he was a groom. I also asked him about Rick’s bait and switch idea. Put a fake tattoo on a horse’s upper lip and sell it for a lot of money. Herb said it just wouldn’t work today. Rick’s having a hard time giving up his pet theory since we’re running into dead ends. The boss can be very stubborn.”
“That’s a nice way to put it.” Harry scooped more pasta on her plate and used just a little of the clam sauce, which was delicious. “Did he have any ideas about what’s going on?”
“No. You know Herb, he likes to rummage around in the past. He took off on a tangent, telling me about when Arthur Tetrick and Mickey Townsend were both in love with Marylou Valiant. Coty Lamont used to spy on Mickey for Arthur.”
“Spy?”
“Wrong word. He’d pump the grooms at Mickey’s for news about when and if he’d dated Marylou that week. She dated both of them for about six months and then finally broke it off with Arthur.” She giggled. “It’s hard to imagine Arthur Tetrick being romantic.”
“Guess it was hard for Marylou, too.”
They both laughed.
Cynthia recounted what the minister had told her. “After Marylou disappeared, Herb said Arthur suffered a nervous breakdown.”
“He did. They had to hospitalize him for a week or two, which made him feel even worse because he wasn’t there for the Valiants. Larry Johnson admitted him.”
“Mim took care of the Valiants. That’s what Herb said.”
“Yeah. It was pretty awful. She offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for any information leading to Marylou’s whereabouts. As soon as Arthur was released, he wanted the Valiants with him. Mim told him a woman was better able to look after their needs than a man. Arthur didn’t want Mickey to see them at all and Mim disagreed with that, too. Addie was hurt enough. She needed Mickey. This provoked another huge fight between Arthur and Mickey. So Adelia was sent away to school, Charles graduated from Cornell and worked in Maryland for a while. Addie always came home to visit Mickey during her vacations. Arthur and Mickey really hate one another. Mickey didn’t get a cent from Marylou. He wasn’t mentioned in her will. They hadn’t been together long enough, I guess. Mim did her best for the Valiants—well, for Marylou, I would say. She was a true friend.”
Coop asked, “Did Mim inherit anything from Marylou?”
“A bracelet as a memento. I don’t think Mim ever accepted money from Arthur for the kids’ bills, except maybe tuition. Addie didn’t stay at school long, of course. Hated it.”
“I was brand-new to the force when all that was going on . . . the disappearance. Had nothing to do with the case. Mostly I answered the telephone and punched information into the computer until I had it out with Rick.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yeah. I told him he was giving me secretarial work and I was a police officer. He surprised me because he thought about it and then said, ‘You’re right.’ We’ve gotten along ever since. More than that. I adore the guy. Like a brother,” she hastened to add.
They ate in silence for a few moments. Mrs. Murphy reached onto Harry’s plate, pulling off a long noodle. Harry pretended not to notice. Cynthia knew better than to say anything.
“Coop, what is going on?”
“Damned if I know. The autopsy report came back on Coty Lamont. Full of toot. So was Nigel. No fingerprints on the body. No sign of struggle. It’s really frustrating.”
Harry shook her head. “I bet a lot of those guys are on cocaine. Maybe they owed their dealer.”
“Drugs are responsible for most of the crime in this country. One other little tidbit you have to promise not to tell.”
“Not even Miranda?”
“No.”
Harry sighed deeply. It pained her to keep a secret from Miranda or Susan. “Okay.”
“There is no Nigel Danforth.”
“Huh?”
“Fake name. We can’t find out who he is or was. We’re hoping that sooner or later someone who doesn’t know he’s dead will look for him, file a missing persons report.” She rested her fork across the white plate. “That’s a long shot though.”
“Mickey Townsend doesn’t know who he is?”
“No, and Rick put it to him. None too kindly either.”
“Whoeee, bet Mickey doubled for Mount Vesuvius.”
“He kept it in check.”
“That’s odd.”
“We think so, too.”
“Mickey’s scared,” Mrs. Murphy interjected.
“Honey, you’ve had enough.” Harry thought the cat was talking about food.
“I wish just once you would listen to me,” Murphy grumbled. “He’s scared and there’s something in Mim’s barn.”
“Something not nice,” Tucker added.
Harry stroked the cat while Cynthia fed Tucker a bit of buttered bread. “She has the most intelligent face.”
“Oh, puleese,” the cat drawled.
“Do you think Mickey’s in on the murders?”
“I don’t think anything. I’m trying to gather facts. He’s got an alibi for the first murder because so many people saw him at the time of the murder. He was loading horses from the smaller barns. But then everyone’s got an alibi for that murder. As for the second murder—anyone could have done it. And when we review the principals’ time frame at Montpelier, most anyone could have done in Nigel Danforth. We’ve even reconstructed Charles Valiant’s moves about the time of the murder because he and Nigel had an argument at the races. Nothing hangs together.”
“Did you go through mug shots to try and find Nigel?”
“We punched into the computer. Nothing. We’ve sent out his dental records. Nothing. I think the guy is clean.” She shrugged. “Then again . . .”
“Before the races Jim Sanburne and Larry Johnson told me to watch out because Charles and Mickey had gotten into it at the Maryland Cup last year,” Harry said. “They thought there’d be trouble between the jockeys, but then they didn’t know that Addie had fallen for Nigel. That’s not where the trouble came from, though. Odd.”
“Linda Forloines and Nigel. Yes, we’ve tried to piece that together. Frank Yancey interrogated Will and Linda separately. We’re getting around to them. Rick’s instincts are razor sharp. I wanted to drive right up Fifteen North and flush them out, but Rick said ‘Wait.’ He believes some other bird dog will flush their game.”
“You think they’re in on this? Actually, I detest Linda Forloines to such a degree that I’m not a good person to judge.”
“Lots of people detest her,” Cynthia said. “She’s a petty crook and not above selling horses to the knackers while telling the owner she’s found them a good home.”
“She’s so transparent that it’s ludicrous—if you know horses.” Harry piled more pasta on her plate.
“She’s selling cocai
ne again. Rick thinks she’ll lead us to the killer—or killers.”
“You do think she’s in on it.” Harry’s voice lowered although no one else was there.
“Linda was the one who indirectly accused Fair of doping horses.”
“I’ll kill the bitch!”
“No, you won’t,” Cynthia ordered her. “Frank Yancey saw right through her when she planted her ‘suspicion.’ When Colbert Mason at National got a little worried, we sat back to see what he would do. Mim’s faxing off the lawyer’s letter pushed Colbert to contact Linda and tell her she had to file a formal complaint. She backed off in a hurry.”
“What a worthless excuse for a human being she is.”
“True, but why did she do that, Harry?”
“Because she likes to stir the pot, fish in muddy waters, use any phrase you like.”
“You can do better than that.” Cynthia gathered up the dishes.
“She’s throwing you off the scent.”
“We’ve been watching her. She scurried straight to some of the people she’s been supplying. Less to warn them than to shut their traps. At least that’s what we think. We can’t keep a tail on her around the clock, though. We don’t have enough people in the department. We’re hoping she’ll lead us to the supplier.”
“Did she sell coke to Coty Lamont?”
“Yes. She also sold it to Nigel Danforth. His blood was full of it, too. Jockeys are randomly tested, and we believe they were tipped off as to when they would be tested.”
Harry whistled in amazement. “Poor Addie.”
“Why?”
“Jeez, Cynthia, she was about to get mixed up with a user.”
“My instincts tell me she’s back on it again.”
“I hate to think that.”
“You can help me.” Cynthia leaned forward. “The stiletto used in these murders is called a silver shadow. They retail for anywhere from ninety to one hundred ten dollars. I’ve checked every dealer from Washington to Richmond to Charlotte, North Carolina. They don’t keep records of who buys knives. It’s not like guns. Apparently a stiletto is not a big seller because it’s not as useful as a Bowie knife. Only six have been sold in the various shops I called. Anyway I’m still checking on this, but it’s slipping down on my things-to-do list because we’re being overwhelmed after the second murder. The pressure from the press isn’t helping. Rick’s ready to trade in the squad car for a tank and roll over those press buzzards.” She paused. “If you should see or hear anything about knives—tell me.”
“Sure.”
“One other thing.” Harry’s expression was quizzical as Cynthia continued. “If this is about drugs, the person committing these crimes might not be rational.”
“Do you think murder can be rational?”
“Absolutely. All I’m saying is, keep your cards close to your chest.” She winced. “I wish I hadn’t said that.”
“Me, too,” the cat chimed in.
24
The foxes stayed in their burrows, the field mice curled up in their nests, and the blue jays, those big-mouthed thieves, didn’t venture out. The rains abated finally, but temperatures plummeted, leaving the earth encased in solid ice.
Fortunately, since it was Sunday, there wasn’t much traffic. While this cut down on the car accidents, it also made most people feel marooned in their own homes.
Mrs. Murphy hunted in the hayloft while Tucker slept in the heated tack room. Simon, the opossum, was fast asleep on his old horse blanket, which Harry had donated for his welfare. The owl also slept overhead in the cupola.
The tiger knew where the blacksnake slept, so she avoided her. By now the snake was five years old and a formidable presence even when hibernating.
Hunched on top of a hay bale, an aromatic mixture of orchard grass and alfalfa, Murphy listened to the mice twittering in the corner. They’d hollowed out a hay bale in the back corner of the loft and into it dragged threads, pieces of paper, even pencil stubs until the abode was properly decorated and toasty. Mrs. Murphy knew that periodically a mouse would emerge and scurry across the hayloft, down the side of a stall, then slide out between the stall bars. The object was usually the feed room or the tack room. They’d eaten a hole in Harry’s faded hunter-green barn jacket. Mrs. Hogendobber patched it for her because Harry couldn’t imagine barn chores without that jacket.
Harry fed Tomahawk, Gin Fizz, and Poptart half rations, which caused no end of complaining down below. If the horses couldn’t be turned out for proper exercise, Harry cut back on the food. She feared colic like the plague. A horse intestine could get blocked or worse, twisted, and the animal would paw at its belly with its hind hooves, roll on the ground in its torment, and sometimes die rapidly. Usually colic could be effectively treated if detected early.
The three horses—two geldings and one mare—sassy in their robust health, couldn’t imagine colic, so they bitched and moaned, clanged their feed buckets against the walls, and called to one another about what a horrible person Harry was to cheat on food.
Mrs. Murphy had half a mind to tell them to shut up and count themselves lucky when one of the mice sped from the nest. The cat leapt up and out into the air, a perfect trajectory for pouncing, but the canny mouse, seeing the shadow and now smelling the cat, zigzagged and made it to the side of the stall.
Mrs. Murphy couldn’t go down the stall side, but she walked on the beam over it, dropping down into Poptart’s stall just as the mouse cruised through the stall bars. Mrs. Murphy rocked back on her haunches, shot up to the stall bars, grabbed the top with her paws, then slipped back into the stall because her claws couldn’t hold on to the iron.
“Dammit!” she cursed loudly.
“You’ll never get those mice, Murphy.” Poptart calmly chewed on her hay. “They wait for you to appear and then run like mad. She’s eating grain in the feed room right now, laughing at you.”
“Well, how good of you to tell me,” Murphy spat. “I don’t see you doing anything to keep the barn free of vermin. In fact, Poptart, I don’t see you doing much of anything except feeding your face.”
Placidly rising above the abuse, the huge creature stretched her neck down until she touched Murphy’s nose. “Hey, shortchange, you’re trapped in my stall, so you’d better watch your tongue.”
“Oh, yeah.”
With that the cat leapt onto the horse’s broad gray back. Poptart, startled, swung her body alongside the stall bars. With one fluid motion Mrs. Murphy launched herself through the stall bars, landing on the tack trunk outside.
Poptart blinked through the stall bars as Mrs. Murphy crowed, “You might be bigger but I’m smarter!”
Having a good sense of humor, the horse chuckled, then returned to her orchard grass/alfalfa mix, which tasted delicious.
The cat trotted into the feed room. Sure enough, she could hear the mouse behind the feed bin. Harry lined her feed bins with tin because mice could eat their way through just about anything. However, grains spilled over and the mice had eaten a tiny hole in the wall. They’d grab some grains, then run into the hole to enjoy their booty.
Mrs. Murphy sat by the hole.
A tiny nose peeped out, the black whiskers barely visible. “I know you’re there and I’m not coming out. Go home and eat tuna.”
Murphy batted at the hole and the little nose withdrew. “I’m a cat. I kill mice. That’s my job.”
“Kill moles. They’re more dangerous, you know. If one of these horses steps into a mole hole? Crack.”
“Clever, aren’t you?”
“No, just practical,” came the squeak.
“We’re all part of the food chain.”
“Bunk.” To prove the point the mouse threw out a piece of crimped oat.
“I will get you in good time,” Mrs. Murphy warned. “You fellows can eat a quart of grain a week. That costs my mother money, and she’s pretty bad off.”
“No, she’s not. She has you and she has that silly dog.”
“Don�
��t try to flatter me. I am your enemy and you know it.”
“Enemies are relative.”
Mrs. Murphy pondered this. “You’re a philosophical little fellow, aren’t you?”
“I don’t believe in enemies. I believe there are situations when we compete over resources. If there aren’t enough to go around, we fight. If there are, fine. Right now there’re enough to go around, and I don’t eat that much and neither does my family. So don’t eat me . . . or mine.”
The tiger licked the side of her paw and rubbed it over her ears. “I’ll think about what you said, but my job is to keep this barn and this house clean.”
“You already cleaned out the glove compartment of the truck. You’ve done your job.” The mouse referred to Murphy’s ferocious destruction of a field mouse family who took up residence in the glove compartment. They chewed through the wires leading into the fuse box, rendering the truck deader than a doornail. Once Murphy dispatched the invaders, Harry got her truck repaired, though it cost her $137.82.
“Like I said, I’ll think about it.”
“Murphy,” Harry called. “Let’s go, pussycat.”
Murphy padded out of the feed room. Tucker, sleepy-eyed, waddled behind Harry. Fit as she was, Tucker still waddled, or at least that’s how she appeared to Mrs. Murphy.
“Whatcha been doing?”
“Trying to catch mice. You should have heard the sneak holed up there in the feed room where I finally trapped him with my blinding speed.”
“What did he say?”
“One argument after another about how I should leave him and his family alone. He said enemies were relative. Now that’s a good one.”
As Harry rolled open the barn door, a blast of frigid air caused the animals to fluff out their fur. Tucker, wide-awake now, dashed to the house through the screen door entrance and into the kitchen through the animal door. Mrs. Murphy jogged alongside Harry, who was sliding toward the back porch.
“I can handle snow but I hate this ice!” Harry cursed as her feet splayed in different directions. She hit the hard ice.
Murder, She Meowed Page 13