He sat up straighter.“Clay makes sense because of the warehouse. Isabelle, well, hard to say. Why Xavier and Dalton, unless you think this is an insurance fraud?”
“No. I think this is about illegal drugs such as steroids, HGH, OxyContin, stuff like that. Dalton has the knowledge, he can get that stuff readily.”
“Then Xavier would look better.” Gray half laughed.
“I don’t know, but I am ninety-nine percent sure I’m on the right track. If only I could figure out a way to flush them out, get them in open territory.”
“Jane,” he said sternly, “this isn’t a foxhunt. This is murder.”
CHAPTER 39
February, although two steps closer to spring than December, feels far away from that first bright crocus. Usually the coldest month of the year in central Virginia, February dragged some folks down into a bad case of the blues. Fortunately, foxhunters usually escaped this dive in emotional fortunes because hunting reached its apogee. Only the toughest hunted, the others having retired to their fireplaces or even to Florida until spring. The foxes gave delicious sport. By now the pack worked like a well-oiled machine; the young entry were part of the pack, bringing vigor and curiosity to the hunt. The horses, hunting fit, were keen. The humans, if they hadn’t eaten themselves insensate over the holidays, were also lean and mean. Truly, February was perfect.
Sister loved whatever day she was in: cold, hot, cloudy, sunny, rainy, dry, she didn’t care. She was alive, healthy, and doing what she loved. This particular day, February 6, she fought off the sadness of Ray Jr.’s birth by remembering her labor. Doctors tell you, as do psychologists, that you won’t recall physical pain. Clearly, they had never given birth. To this day, she could remember the contractions. For a brief period there, she would gladly have killed Big Ray for getting this upon her. Then Ray Jr. made his appearance after eight hours of nausea, heaving, and pushing. Red, wet, wrinkled, he was a shock until she held him in her arms. Mother love is the most powerful, the most irrational force on earth, even more powerful than sexual love. However, one does lead to the other, so best not to spurn the former.
She had had fourteen years with a boy of uncommon good humor and generosity. Little Ray loved animals, loved sleeping with kitties, loved falling down in the kennels as the hounds swarmed over him, licking him. He gurgled to the horses even when he was in his mother’s arms. He kissed their soft noses and laughed if they blew air out of their nostrils. He held her hand when they walked, even into his fourteenth year. He kissed his father without embarrassment. He hugged his friends, boys and girls, without thinking twice about it. His path was physical,touching, connecting through flesh. He showed his love by touching your arm, smoothing a hound’s head, patting a horse’s hindquarters. Like all happy people, Little Ray was a magnet to others, as well as animals.
She loved him even when he committed the childhood sins we all commit—telling that first lie, stealing a candy bar from Roger’s Corner, doing someone else’s homework. Ray always polished off his homework in record time. When he erred, she’d discipline him, and Big Ray would back her up. Then, when the first flush of puberty showed on her son’s cheeks,father and son drew much closer. The minutiae of masculinity is best taught by a loving father, which Big Ray was.
He showed his son the difference between a regular tie knot and a Prince of Wales. He instructed his son in the duties and courtesies due women. Given that they lived in central Virginia, of course, this process had really begun when the boy was a toddler. Southern men, especially Virginians, adhere to a strict code concerning the ladies. Doesn’t mean they can’t keep a harem busy, but the proper tokens and forms must be observed.
Both parents worried about sex. Young Ray hadn’t quite gotten to that yet; his voice was only beginning to crack when he was killed. But she and her husband wondered what would happen because he was so affectionate and loving. They worried that he’d be misunderstood, and they worried that he wouldn’t understand himself. Learning about sex, love, lust, and friendship with the opposite sex takes restraint, compassion, and a wealth of common sense. There’s not one of us who doesn’t learn a few of those lessons the hard way. They prayed the hard way wouldn’t mean a baby born out of wedlock.
One of the great things about her husband was that they could talk about anything, anything, even their affairs, if it came down to that. Usually it didn’t, but on those occasions when it did, they evidenced a rare understanding of each other. They agreed if their son fathered a child before he was ready to be married, they would take care of it and make young Ray fully aware that he must provide financial assistance to the mother if she wouldn’t give him the child. Big Ray summed it up, “You play, you pay.”
When Little Ray’s flapping T-shirt tail got caught in the tractor PTO, the power transfer axle, choking the life out of him in seconds, he had never slept with a woman. That haunted Sister. She wished he had known the richness, the power, even the fear of that connection. He died a virgin. His death causedslashing grief among his classmates and friends, among the members of the hunt club. The hounds, his horses, his beloved cats, all mourned him as deeply as his parents. Their mute suffering tore out Sister’s heart. For three months after his son’s death Big Ray couldn’t go past Tijuana, young Ray’s favorite hunter, without bursting into tears.
On Little Ray’s forty-fourth birthday, gunmetal gray clouds swung down from the mountains. Athena brazenly sat in front of the stable in the big pin oak, Bitsy on the branch beneath her. The two owls made crackling cackling sounds at each other. Sister noticed them when she looked out the kennel window.
Sister remembered odd bits of information. When Ray was born, she flipped through history date books, delighted to find that Julius Caesar had beaten King Juba II in 46 B.C., J. E. B. Stuart had been born on that day in 1833. As Stuart remains the beau ideal of the cavalryman to this day, February 6 seemed a good omen.
Sister had reached the point in her life when she was able to thank God that she had fourteen years with her remarkable son. She’d learned, in her own quiet way, to trust the good Lord. It had been her son’s time.
Shaker dripped in water tracks from his rubber boots as he stepped into the kennel office.“Dragon can go Saturday.”
“Good.”
They’d exhausted the Westminster Dog Show as a topic. The show had ended Tuesday, but being hound people, they had to discuss it in minute detail for days running. And there was a ripe disagreement about who won, who was reserve, et cetera. Needless to say, a hound did not win Best in Show.
“Boss, I know this is Ray Jr.’s birthday. Anything I can do for you?”
“Shaker, you’re good to think of me. No. Just the fact that you remembered makes it a better day. I was lucky to have him.”
“He was lucky to have you.”
Later, when she arrived back at the house, she found a huge bouquet from Gray. The card simply read,“Love is eternal.”
That brought tears to her eyes.
The biggest surprise of the day was when she took a break from chores for four o’clock tea. A new Lexus SUV pulled into the driveway, disgorging Ronnie, Xavier, and Clay.
They stamped in the mudroom door just as they had as boys. Ronnie carried champagne, Clay a hamper basket of treats, and Xavier gingerly held an arrangement of white long-stem roses interspersed with lavender.
They burst through the door, calling,“Hi, Mom.”