“Shut up,” Pewter called out.
“Shut up yourself, fatso!”
“I have half a mind to go out there and teach him a lesson,” Pewter grumbled.
Murphy admired her tail. Having this appendage gave her better balance than Harry but the maintenance could be tiresome. If she forgot to hoist it, she picked up mud or dust. If she was caught in pouring rain, her tail looked like a very long rattail, which offended her exalted vanity. If she brushed by a lily she would smear her tail with sticky rust-colored pollen. In fall she picked up “hitchhikers.” Biting them out of her tail was a time-consuming process. Still, she'd rather have a tail than not.
She thought Harry would be much improved with a tail. Tucker could certainly use one.
A flurry of squawks, screeches, and whistles drew her from her grooming. She dropped her tail, which she had picked up in her paw.
“That jay family is pushing it too far.” Pewter shook herself and strolled to the barn door.
“Death to cats!” The jay swooped down on Pewter, flew through the barn, and zoomed out the other end.
“I'll break your neck!” the humiliated cat hollered.
“I'll help you.” Mrs. Murphy trotted over to Pewter.
Tucker joined them, too.
Again the jay swirled around the hayloft, then dove at a forty-five-degree angle.
Murphy leapt straight up, the swish of tail feathers by her ear. She clapped both paws together but missed.
“Ha!” the jay called out.
“Let's lure him into the hayloft. We'll cut down his air space,” Pewter sagely advised.
Mrs. Murphy blinked. “Forget him, I've got an idea. Follow me.”
The two animals trailed after Murphy as she loped across the field.
“Where are we going?” Pewter asked.
“To Tally Urquhart's.”
“Why?” The day was pretty enough that Pewter felt she could endure exercise.
“The blue jay made me think of it.”
“What?” Tucker's soft brown eyes scanned the fields.
“I should have thought of this before. We need to work in circles around the barn. A human can't see the nose on his face.”
The animals arrived at the abandoned barn a half hour later. Since the weather was good they had made excellent time.
“The sheriff has scoured the barn and the outbuildings. My plan is that we each work fifty yards apart in a circle. Pewter, take the closest circle. I'll take the second circle. Tucker, you take the farthest circle. If anyone finds something, yell. If we don't find anything let's work three more circles.”
“When you saw the two humans, where did they walk?” Tucker lifted her head to the wind.
“Down the dirt road.”
“If Tommy was killed out here he could be buried anywhere,” Pewter said.
“Yes, but the other human was little. He wouldn't be able to drag that heavy carcass far.”
“Let's go to work.” Tucker trotted out 150 yards from the barn and shouted back, “We'll use the road as our rendezvous point, but remember, I'm on the farthest circle, so it will take me longer to get back here.”
“Okay.” The two cats fanned out.
Murphy worked quietly. She found old smoothed-over bits of glass from long-ago bottles for poultices, worm remedies, even liquor. Here and there she turned up a rusted horseshoe or a rabbit's nest. She throttled her instincts to hunt.
They worked in silence for an hour. Murphy, on the second circle, came back about ten minutes after Pewter.
“What'd you get?”
Pewter shrugged. “Ratholes and high-topped shoes.”
“Come on.”
“A piece of an upper, I think, anyway. Humans sure put their bodies into some pinchy clothes and shoes.”
“Whee-ooo.”
The sound, to their right, sent them scrambling. Tucker sat on the edge of an old dump. Pieces of tractor stuck out through the brambles, which seemed to grow overnight.
“What have you got?” Pewter thought the graveyard of machines eerie.
“Nothing, but wouldn't this be a great place to dump a body?” Tucker said.
“Yes, but we would have smelled it when we led Harry to the barn.” Mrs. Murphy marveled at how quickly brambles grow in the spring. They were already twirling through an old discarded hay elevator.
“Yeah.” Tucker, disappointed, bulled through the thorns into the pile, her thick coat protecting her. “I'll just nose around.”
“No hunting, Tucker. We've resisted.”
“Pewter, I wouldn't dream of it.”
The cats stuck around just in case. The strong, low-built dog pushed straight into the dump. She would nose through some of the debris, a delightful prospect.
Being next to mountains, the area had shifted over the years with small tremors. A rusted truck, an ancient Chevy from the 1930s, had been turned on its side by quake tremors. Vines and rusting were slowly pulling it apart.
A faint but tantalizing odor curled in Tucker's nostrils. She sniffed around the truck, then started digging underneath it.
As she ripped into the soft earth, the corner of a sturdy, small suitcase appeared. It might once have sat on the seat of the truck but had probably slid out once the glass broke. Over the decades the truck had settled on top of it, and it was covered with fallen leaves and vines depositing layers of humus.
“Found an old suitcase.”
“So what?” Pewter catcalled.
“It's heavy leather, got steel corners. It has an alluring odor—faded, very faded.”
“What's she babbling about?” Murphy grumbled.
“Let's go see.”
Tucker gave a hearty tug on the suitcase, then another.
The latch gave just a bit. She tugged some more.
“Will you get back to work?” Murphy circled around the worst of the brambles, crawling low to avoid the others. She walked over an old Massey-Ferguson tractor, then dropped onto the side of the Chevy.
“I'm not going in there!” Pewter shouted.
“Who asked you?” Then Tucker yelled again. “Golly!”
The cat stepped up as the dog sniffed the musty odor of old death.
The two friends blinked.
“It's a tiny skeleton.” A bit of lace still hung over the skull. “A tiny human skeleton!” Mrs. Murphy gasped.
“What will we do?” Tucker's voice was almost a whisper.
“Will you come out of there?” Pewter paced, irritated to the point of putting up her tail.
“We've found a skeleton,” Murphy called out.
“You're just saying that to get me in there.”
“NO, we're not,” they answered in unison.
Pewter paced, sat, paced, cursed, then finally crawled in. “You're lying. I know you're lying.”
“Look.” Mrs. Murphy leaned back.
“Liar.” Nonetheless Pewter did look. “Oh, no.” She sat down.
“Nobody buries their baby in a suitcase.” Tucker was indignant.
“You're exactly right.” Murphy licked the dog's ear.