“Oh, ignore her, Rooster. She just wants attention.Think of her as a tiny woman in a fur coat.”
Golly, purring for all she was worth, watched as Sister put on lipstick, considered it, wiped it off, put on a more pinkish, subdued color, considered it, threw the tube in the trash in disgust. Finally Sister wiped her lips and rubbed in a little colored gloss.
“She’s losing it,”Golly grandly announced.
“No. She’s finding it,”Raleigh answered.
By the time Sister reached the gathering, darkness enveloped the town, the white church steeples contrasting against the darkness. A light snow fell.
Marty Howard, a force in the reading group, urged people also to get involved in the Committee to Promote Literacy.
Clay and Izzy Berry moved through the group. Izzy had a sister who was blind and was passionate about the work of this group. Xavier and Dee were there, as well as Dalton Hill and Ben Sidell.
“Ben, this is the first time I’ve seen you at one of our functions. Thank you for coming,” Sister warmly greeted him.
“Marty asked me to drop by. You gave us great sport today, Master.” He smiled at her.
“Thank you. Mostly I was trying to hang on and stay up with the hounds. Coyote, as I’m sure you know.”
“That word filtered back to us. Bobby Franklin galloped as fast as I’ve ever seen him go.” He nodded in the direction of the genial, plump Bobby.
The Franklins donated printing to this group.
“Big as he is, he can go.” Sister smiled. “He’s trying the Atkins Diet now. Let’s all encourage him. Betty sure looks fabulous. She put her mind to losing weight last summer, got it off, kept it off.”
“Well, you don’t see too many fat whippers-in, do you?” Ben absentmindedly rattled the cubes in his glass. “Guess you heard about the brief exchange between Xavier and Sam?”
“I did,” Sister tartly responded.
“Gray intervened, and Clay moved Xavier up. Lends spice to the proceedings.”
“Maybe too much.” As Xavier and Dee came over, Sister pecked him on the cheek, then her. “Haven’t I just left you?”
“What a day.” Xavier, face drawn, complimented her.
“X, thank you for your restraint.”
He shrugged.“I’ve got bigger things on my mind than that worm.”
“Honey,” Dee gently chided him.
“Well, I don’t mind telling you all how I feel. It’s not like we don’t know one another. And Ben, you’re out there riding, so I count you in.” Xavier inhaled. “The storage fire is turning into a nightmare.”
Sister sympathized.“I’m sorry. It’s got to be a strain.”
“The investigator won’t release the money until the situation, as she calls it, is clarified. How can I clarify Donnie Sweigert winding up as Melba toast? Melba toast that committed arson. It’s crazy.”
“Honey.” Dee squeezed his arm.
“Sorry. I’m a little stressed.”
“These investigators are good, sugar. She’ll figure it out,” Dee reassured her husband.
Ben glanced briefly to the floor, then looked up.
“Sorry, Ben. Dee didn’t mean it that way. This is a tough situation. I know you’re doing all that you can.” Xavier, for all his troubles, was sensitive to the feelings of others.
Clay and Izzy joined them. Politically wise, Clay didn’t want the tension between Xavier and himself to become gossip fodder. Yes, he wanted the check, but he didn’t know what more to do about it either.
After a few moments of social chat, the group broke up. Ben remained with Sister. She noticed Clay moving off to talk to one group of people while Izzy moved over to another, chatted briefly, and then left the room. She noted that Dalton also left the room by another door.
“Meant to ask you, you know the high school and college coaches around here, don’t you?”
“Some better than others,” Sister answered.
“With the exception of the university men’s basketball coach, most of these guys have been working a long time, great stability.”
“Winners don’t get fired,” Sister replied, knowing the same applied in the hunt world.
Few people understood the pressures on a professional huntsman. He or she has to produce, just like the quarterback for a major league team. Huntsmen are professional athletes minus the endorsement, media hype, and titanic salaries. Many of these men and women could have had careers in the lucrative sports. They chose love instead of loot.
“What’s the problem with men’s basketball at the university?”
“Boy, it’s a yo-yo, isn’t it? Let’s hope they’ve turned the corner.” She touched his arm. “Look at these kids playing basketball and football now. They’re hulks.”
“That they are.” Ben lowered his voice. “Sam Lorillard mentioned something to me at the breakfast. Mitch and Anthony did some odd jobs for Berry Storage. We knew that. Donnie Sweigert was always the driver, never any other driver.”
“I don’t see the significance.”
“I’m not sure I do, either. Sam’s friend, Rory Ackerman, who’s now in rehab in Greensboro, was the one who told him this. Anyway, Sam said Mitch and Anthony only delivered furniture to coaches or trainers.”
“Have you asked Clay?”
Ben nodded that he had.“Said he’d check his records. Said he couldn’t trust Mitch and Anthony or any of the railroad denizens to stay sober long enough for a long haul. They only made the short runs, and Donnie drove those because he didn’t like going cross-country. Also Clay said he felt Donnie could control the drunks. I think Donnie himself drank more than Clay knew.”
“What a pity.”
Ben shifted his weight from one foot to the other.“You know these people. Can you think of anything—no matter how far-fetched—that would tie in Mitch, Anthony, and Donnie to the delivery of expensive furniture to coaches?”
“Drugs,” she replied. “These days it always seems to come down to that. We have a countereconomy in America, not one tax dollar produced from it. Billions.”
“I know,” Ben said with feeling.
Sister replied,“I can’t see that Clay or X would be involved in drugs. They don’t appear to use them. But,” she inhaled, “an insurance scam fits the bill, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Worried?”
Ben looked her right in the eyes.“Yes.”
“You don’t think it’s over?”
“No.”
She rubbed her forehead a moment.“They aren’t afraid to kill.”
“Selling OxyContin can yield hundreds of thousands of dollars. Prozac, Percodan, anything like that. Even Viagra.” He smiled slightly. “Off market, the drugs can make one very rich very fast. As for cocaine and other party drugs, they can make you rich fast, but they’re more dangerous because the other people dealing them are smart, tough, quick to kill.”
“Ben, have you ruled out the furniture and silver theft entirely?”
“No. No evidence so far for linking the fire to that, but,” he said, with emphasis, “these people are highly intelligent, very well organized. This may be a warning to someone else in the ring or to competition. They’d be stupid to burn down a warehouse full of stolen goods, wouldn’t they?”
Sister agreed, then asked,“What can I do?”
“The Jefferson Hunt is one of the hubs of the county. Can you think of any one or any group who might be involved in a high-class theft organization or involved with drugs? For example, and I certainly don’t mean she would do this, just as an example, can you imagine Betty Franklin buying illegal diet drugs in this country on the black market?”
“No.” Then Sister chuckled. “Bobby would be thinner.”
Ben smiled.“Keep your eyes open. Keep thinking. We’re right next to it, Sister, but we can’t see it.”
When Ben walked away, she thought about the ghosts on Hangman’s Ridge. She shuddered. Those ghosts appeared when someone was going to die. She used to think it was a tall tale, but over the years she had learned to believe it.