“A mess. Some got hysterical, others cried, others sat like stones. They’re lost, and we’ve got to find a counselor fast, a really good rehabilitation person.”
“Won’t be easy.” Annalise slung her purse over her shoulder. “She was an odd duck.”
“Nicely put,” Toni responded.
“Well, speak no ill of the dead,” Annalise advised.
Harry felt that she’d heard that before recently. A flash of disquiet was followed by telling herself it was a stock phrase thousands of years old.
Maybe the ancients knew more than we did. Who is to say spirits should not be propitiated? Is there such a thing as the unquiet dead?
“Harry.” Toni spoke louder than usual.
“Huh?”
“Where are you?”
“Sorry, my mind traveled back to my Latin teacher.” Harry’s reply was almost true.
“If you’re going to vacation in the past, couldn’t you pick a more exciting time?” Toni laughed.
Harry mused, “Athens and Rome. They make us look so dull.”
“Then you and I better make up for it.” Toni lightly punched Harry’s arm.
Isn’t it late for this?” At Fair’s veterinary clinic, Harry watched as her husband carefully put the two straws of equine semen into the cylinder of liquid nitrogen. A sponge in the bottom of the cylinder had been filled with the liquid nitrogen; the sides of the cylinder helped maintain the temperature. He closed the lid, snapping it shut.
“Hey, hand me that pen, will you?”
Harry picked up a Pilot G2–07 medium-point black. Fair used this ballpoint because the ink wouldn’t wash out. Given the value of the semen, the last thing he wanted was for a shipment to go astray or for a careless FedEx employee to get the label wet. He had to admit he’d not met any careless FedEx employees, but Fair’s motto could have been “Better safe than sorry.”
He wrote out the address on preprinted FedEx labels. Then Harry held the cylinder as he affixed the labeling pouch and inserted the label, keeping the top copy for himself just in case.
She read the labeclass="underline" “Rosehaven. Fair, that’s Paula Cline’s operation in Lexington, Kentucky. Since when is she breeding Warmbloods?”
“She’s not. Paula is a Thoroughbred girl.” Fair smiled, thinking of the woman they’d gotten to know because her son attended UVA some years back.
It was serendipity. They’d met at a college baseball game, sitting next to one another, and were surprised to find each other involved in the horse industry. Then they discovered they were both friends with Joan Hamilton and Larry Hodge of Kalarama Farm. Like all people in that situation, they marveled at how small the world was or, in the parlance of the day, our collective six degrees of separation.
Fair explained, “Paula promised a friend she’d take care of this. Brie Feldman wants her stallion crossed with one of Paula’s Thoroughbred mares, the one with Forty-niner blood.”
Harry tried to be circumspect in public but was considerably less so in her husband’s presence. “Well, that’s just stupid.”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on, Fair, why ruin a beautiful Thoroughbred shoulder? Warmbloods are too straight up.”
“Harry, you were born around Thoroughbreds, and so was I, but even you have to admit that Warmbloods can jump the moon and most people are more comfortable with their temperament.”
“Slow.” Harry tapped her forehead.
“Amend that slow to mature. Anyway, Brie has made a good living with her Warmbloods. She goes to Germany annually to visit the Holsteiner Gestüt”—he used the German name for breeding station—“and she’s brought back very good horses.”
Harry, slightly peevish, said, “She can’t hold a candle to the late Virginia Klumpp.”
“Virginia really was special, but remember, it was Virginia that guided Brie. Give her a chance, Harry.”
Harry burst out, “Oh, Fair, all these wonderful people have left us. I miss Virginia. What a generous, funny, funny woman. Hell, I still miss my mother and father, and—”
He put his strong arm around her. “What’s up, Skeezits?”
Hearing her childhood nickname, she slumped against him. “I don’t know. I’m getting as crabby as Pewter.”
As Pewter reposed on the counter in the reception room, an instant comment flew out of her mouth: “I resent that!”
“Oh, shut up, Pewts, you are crabby.” Tucker, head on paws, rolled her eyes.
“I calls ’em as I sees ’em. You and Mrs. Murphy don’t.”
“We have the sense to shut up.” Mrs. Murphy defended herself and Tucker.
“Right.” Tucker smiled.
“Well?”
Harry sat down as Fair double-checked the cylinder. “It’s the scarab,” she said. “It preys on my mind. Pewter found it in Paula’s driveway when I found Paula. And then, God knows why, I also ride up on Thadia, and there’s the bracelet with a scarab missing. Coop picked it up, the tiger’s eye I kept. It fit in the bracelet perfectly.”
“I found it.” Pewter raised her voice.
“Honey, I expect most scarab bracelets come with small-, medium-, and large-sized stones. That the stone fit may be important, may not.”
“Probably.” She then blurted out, “There’s that rictus smile that mocks one. It’s horrible without being gross, if you know what I mean. I will never again think of Thadia without thinking of her in death, that frozen open jaw.”
“All mammals get it if they go into rigor mortis. I never thought of it as mocking. I sure have thought of a skull’s smile. Hard to miss, plus horror movies have burned it into our brain.” He continued to keep his arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, baby. You’ve been through a lot.”
The report from Thadia’s autopsy was that her heart did have scar tissue consistent with cocaine abuse, but the muscle showed no signs of disease, the valves were healthy, her arteries clean and clear. Her heart was just fine—as were her lungs, kidneys, liver, and brain. At least the people she had been counseling could keep on track, keep trying, knowing that Thadia hadn’t fallen back into her old bad habits. The small cardboard box had contained OxyContin, but none was in her bloodstream. The hospital administrator, Will Archer, did not tell anyone about the OxyContin. He had enough trouble as it was. He asked Rick to keep it out of news reports, which the sheriff did.
“Two.” Harry held up two fingers.
“Harry, just let Coop and Rick worry about this.”
“Paula had a familiar scent, but not so familiar we could identify it.” Poor Tucker tried one more time to get through to her people.
Pewter looked over the counter. “Describe it again.”
“Not bad. Faint. Like an old banana, but not really.” Tucker strained for some telling detail.
“She’s right. It wasn’t an odor that would snap your head around like gasoline,” Mrs. Murphy chimed in. “Or like a lot of perfumes humans slap on.”
“An assault on any dog’s nose.” Tucker laughed.
“Calvin Klein’s Obsession isn’t so bad.” Mrs. Murphy found it very interesting.
“Isn’t so good, either.” Tucker wrinkled her black nose.
Pewter lifted her head. “Better than decay, which you so adore. Can you imagine a human describing your ideal odor? ‘Deep, meaty smell with hint of toasted fingernails and deteriorating ligaments, with a dried coagulated blood finish.’ ”
At this, all three animals howled with laughter.
“What gets into them?” Harry laughed, too.
“Honey, we’re better off not knowing.”
“I guess, but sometimes I feel left out. Fair, I think they experience life more fully than we do, I really do.”