“Heaven.”
Miranda glanced at the old railroad wall clock. “Heaven at seven-thirty in the morning.” A clap of thunder made her laugh. “I don't remember so many storms. One after the other. I'll get over there in a minute to help you. Oh, tea?”
“Yes, thanks. Don't rush. There's not that much mail, which is surprising. Enjoy the lull. The summer postcards will fire up soon enough. Before that we'll have the graduation notices. Never ends.” She sorted postcards as though shuffling playing cards.
Miranda brought her tea. She herself poured a bracing cup of coffee. Miranda had let Mim talk her into joining a coffee club, so each month she received another type of pricey coffee from France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland. This delicious coffee was from a famous café in Vienna.
A light rap on the door, next to the animal door, brought forth a “come in” from both women.
“Hi.” Susan quickly stepped in, for the rain had intensified. “Have you ever?”
“No,” they said in unison again.
“What are you two, a duet?” Susan laughed, shaking the raindrops from her auburn hair, cut in a sleek pageboy.
“Hogendobber and Haristeen. Has a ring to it. How about H and H?” Harry laughed.
“That sounds like a candy.” Susan breathed in the moist aroma.
“Vienna.” Miranda poured her a cup.
“You'll be our expert. Next thing we know, Miranda, you'll open one of those upscale coffee shops where a cup costs three bucks.”
“It is outrageous but a good cup of coffee is special, especially that first cup.” A louder boom lifted all eyes to heaven. Miranda cast hers down first. “Oh, Tucker, poor baby, it's all right.” She knelt down to pet the shivering corgi.
Pewter, deep in the mail cart, said in a high-pitched voice, “I don't like it either.”
Harry walked over to give love to the rotund gray kitty.
“Chicken,” Mrs. Murphy tersely criticized them.
“Hateful bitch,” Pewter promptly replied.
“I'm glad I don't know what they're saying.” Harry laughed. “Hey, we all went coon hunting last night with Jack and Joyce Ragland. Got soaked. Hunted until the storm really hit, but it was a great night anyway. The voices on those Ragland hounds are something special. Goose bumps. I didn't get home until one this morning.”
“You didn't shoot any, did you?” Miranda hated the thought of shooting animals.
“No.”
“Well, while you were coon hunting, I took my two cherubs to see their grandparents. Danny”—Susan mentioned her son—“wanted to see the new Audi sports car that Mamaw bought for herself. He told her she looked like a teenager in her TT. I think that's what it's called. Anyway, it's a fabulous design and drives nicely. There's my mother, seventy-one, driving a high-tech sports car. I love it! What'd you do, Miranda?” Susan asked.
“Sewed curtains for Tracy's apartment. He fixed my washing machine. Romantic. Actually, it was. We'd spent the weekend doing all the Dogwood Festival things. It was kind of nice to be home doing chores. You girls will have to see his apartment, right over the old pharmacy. He's got the entire floor for three fifty a month. It needs a lot of work but Eddie Griswald couldn't give it away. Everyone in Crozet wants their own house. Tracy's very happy for now.”
“I can paint,” Harry offered.
“He'd like that.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Look what I found last night.” Harry walked over to her bag, an old Danish schoolbag, worn through in spots. She fished around in the bottom, retrieving the Mercedes star.
Susan took it from her. “Remember there was a fad in the eighties and early nineties? City kids would snap these off and wear them.”
“Before my time,” Harry joked.
“Oh, puh-lease.” Susan's eyebrow shot upward as she dragged out the syllables.
“Where'd you find it?” Susan asked.
“Near Durant Creek, where we were hunting.”
“That's what that boy had around his neck.” Miranda reached for her first and only orange-glazed cinnamon bun, an act of discipline. Last year she would have had three eaten by this time but she'd cut back dramatically on sweets and had lost over thirty-five pounds in the past year. She could have worn her high-school clothes if she'd kept them.
“It might not be his,” Susan volunteered. “Then again, how many disembodied Mercedes stars are there?”
“Here comes another one,” Mrs. Murphy warned Tucker and Pewter as a bright flash of lightning presaged a mighty rumble.
“So,” Susan's voice rose merrily, “when do you see Diego again?”
“Uh—I don't know. If not next weekend maybe the weekend after. I like him.”
“That's obvious.” Susan smiled. “And he likes you.”
“Seems to.”
“What man wouldn't?” Miranda thought of Harry as her own daughter in ways.
“What a nice thing to say.” Harry blushed.
“Was Fair at the coon hunt?” Susan's curiosity bubbled over.
“He was.”
“And?”
“Pretty much as you'd expect,” Harry said, tossing a package onto the A–B section of the package shelf.
Miranda and Susan looked at one another, then back to Harry.
“Jealous.” Mrs. Murphy stated the obvious, something she usually didn't do but among humans it was often a necessity.
Little Mim drove up to the front of the post office. The rain poured. She sat in her $83,000 Mercedes waiting for the rain to lighten, but it didn't. It only rained harder.
Murphy, eyes sharp, noticed the star was missing from Little Mim's exquisite car. “Aha.”
“What are you aha-ing about?” Pewter grumbled from the bottom of the mail cart.
“The star is missing from Little Mim's silver-mist Mercedes.”
“Really?” Pewter clambered out of the mail cart, sending it rolling about a foot in the opposite direction of her progress. She jumped up next to Murphy. “It is.”
The humans noticed the cats staring out at Little Mim so they looked, too.
“Oh, my gosh, the star is missing from her car!” Miranda noticed first.
“You're right.” Susan giggled.
“Boy, Wesley Partlow will be sliced and diced.” Harry sighed. “Guess I'd better give her this when she comes in.”
“Well, what would you do with it?” Susan wondered.
“Mount it on a block of wood and put it on my bookcase. It's the closest I'll ever come to a Mercedes.” Harry reached for an umbrella in the stand by the front door. “I'll go out and walk her in. You know, that kid must be dumber than snot.”
“Harry, what a vulgar thing to say.”
“Sorry, Miranda.” She opened the door a crack. “I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.”
Truer words were never spoken.
19
Cut him down,” Rick Shaw ordered one of his men.
The photographs had been taken, the body dusted for fingerprints, the ground under the corpse inspected.
Two kids crossing in the rough patch of land behind Crozet Elder Care, a home for the aged, had found Wesley Partlow dangling from a fiddle oak. His tongue hung down on his chest, his face was purple-black, his eyes bugged out, and his feet and hands were swollen from the fluids collecting there. The storms hadn't improved his appearance but they probably saved his eyes from the birds.
Naturally, the gruesome sight scared the bejesus out of the kids, but they had the presence of mind to call the sheriff. Although Rick and Cynthia Cooper had witnessed plenty of unpleasant sights over the years, it didn't mean they liked seeing it.