His lustrous blue eyes met hers. “If you and I didn’t have to pay bills, fill out endless income and other government tax forms, listen to the nightly reports of misery, terror, natural disasters, and murder all over the world, we might come close to their enjoyment.”
She seized on one word. “Murder. Did Thadia kill Paula?”
“If she did, she left no trace. Sugar, I doubt Thadia killed Paula. She was weird, had fried a lot of brain cells, and was terminally immature, but I don’t think even at her drugged-out worst, Thadia was a killer.”
Harry leaned against the counter, her face low so Mrs. Murphy could rub her cheek on hers. “Maybe.”
“Honey, what’s the motive?” He now leaned on the counter, too.
“Thadia was consumed by jealousy. She thought Paula was sleeping with Cory Schaeffer. Thadia was obsessed with him, according to Toni Enright. Toni’s not one to get in the middle of people’s stuff, but Thadia didn’t hide her feelings, at least to Toni.”
“The real question is, did she hide them from Cory?”
Harry stood up straight. “I am such a dolt. I never thought of that.”
“You never think of how aftershave soothes razor burn, either.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s subjective. You and everyone else sees the world through their own eyes. You have to make an effort to think about how it looks or feels to be someone else. I wonder what it’s like to be five-six.”
“I’m five-seven, thank you very much.” Harry stretched her height and the truth a tiny bit.
“Of course. But you see what I mean? If you can turn your questions upside down or inside out, you might come up with an answer.”
“That will throw her for a loop.” Pewter giggled, a little puff of air being exhaled.
As Harry grappled with this, Fair called the 800 FedEx number for a pickup.
“Is there a cheaper way to send semen?”
“Uh-huh. Fresh cooled. But that only works if the vet or tech pulling the semen understands the rate of cooling. It’s a lot less expensive if you know what you’re doing. Now they’ve got these Styrofoam boxes for fifty bucks for shipping. They’re insulated, and you can use cans of water. It’s easier than liquid nitrogen, but the drawback is you’ve got to impregnate the mare within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. I know the Standardbred people use the Styrofoam boxes all the time. I prefer the blue boxes if I’m to send out fresh cooled semen, but those are three hundred dollars. Here’s the other problem: If your box sits on the tarmac on a hot day and isn’t promptly loaded into the hold of the plane, you can lose your investment. What I’m sending today is five thousand dollars’ worth of sperm. To one of the great Thoroughbred farms in Kentucky or Florida, that’s chump change.”
“Hey, don’t forget Pennsylvania’s coming way up in the horse world, as is West Virginia. Remains to be seen about New York. The legislature seems not to care if they harm the Thoroughbred industry.” Harry knew a lot about the economics of horses because of her husband and because she grew up with them. Like so many East Coast people, she forgot about all the good Thoroughbreds in California.
When Harry was young, Maryland was one of the great states of the equine industry. Blind legislators in less than a decade had destroyed a century and a half of labor, gutting the lifeblood of many a Maryland country resident. Those who held state office in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, or Kentucky determined who would eat and who would go hungry. Kentucky had its troubles despite a brilliant, horse-friendly governor, Steven Beshear.
“It’s pretty much a muddle.” Fair placed the yellow cylinder by the front office door in case he wasn’t there when the delivery driver arrived.
“I wish I could get those two bodies out of my mind.”
“I do, too. I have something that might help. Came in the mail here today. I was going to wrap it up, but you need it now.” He handed her a cardboard box, eight inches by eight inches.
Harry took her penknife out of her jeans’ pocket to slice open the flaps. Green Bubble Wrap enclosed the gift. She slit the Scotch tape, then peeled off the Bubble Wrap.
“Oh, wow.” She kissed him. “Can’t wait.”
Fair had bought her the DVDs for the television series The Tudors.
“I don’t want to watch a bunch of people in puffy sleeves.” Pewter was disappointed. “He could have ordered some little fake furry mice with that.”
“Be glad he didn’t order the Miss Marple series.” Tucker didn’t much feel like watching something about the sixteenth century.
“Why?” Pewter wondered.
“Miss Marple is a fictional detective, English, and she solves clever crimes. It would only inflame Mom,” Tucker said.
“I know that.” Pewter sniffed. “I’ve read over her shoulder. I don’t understand why people need to make up things. Why can’t they focus on real life?”
Mrs. Murphy rose, stretched, and offered this thought: “Their senses, except for sight, are so poor. They can’t take in as much information as we can. They don’t know as much real life. They try. But the made-up stories help them. They collect them from humans long dead. Calms them.”
“Twaddle,” Pewter pronounced judgment.
“If only they knew what we were saying, I’m sure it would help much more than their made-up stories,” Tucker teased her.
“It would.”
“Whether it would or not, I actually wish Mom would be watching All Creatures Great and Small instead of The Tudors.” Mrs. Murphy heard the FedEx truck coming down the paved drive. “That was fast.”
“In the neighborhood,” Tucker reasoned.
“Back to Miss Marple.” Pewter’s curiosity was aroused.
The tiger sighed. “Miss Marple had the sense to keep her mouth shut. Mother, and I truly love her, but sometimes she can be a fountain when she needs to be a well.”
Nervously sitting in the small booth with the fabric curtain, Harry waited for the results from her first mammogram since the surgery. She knew if she was called back for a second set of images, it wasn’t good.
Nurse Denise Danforth called outside the booth. “Harry.”
“Yep.” Now clothed, Harry pulled the curtain back.
“You’re good to go. No abnormality at all after your surgery.”
“Thank God.” Harry exhaled.
Denise, late thirties, put her hand on Harry’s back. “You caught it early, girl. Good for you, and good for Regina MacCormack for getting you into surgery pronto. When she retires, what will we do?”
“Regina still makes house calls.”
“The only people who do that these days are thieves.” Denise smiled, then added, “Charlotte told me you were cool as a cuke when they found Thadia.”
Charlotte Lunden, Denise’s sister, had photographed the deceased Thadia Martin. The Charlottesville area remained a tight community, so many people had known one another all their lives. Denise had graduated from high school three years before Harry. They were tied by geography and generation. Some families had five generations alive and breathing who knew other families of five generations.
“I didn’t think about it.”
“A terrible end to an unhappy life.” Denise walked Harry down the long aisle to the waiting room.
“So it seems,” Harry murmured.
“Being a nurse, I see so much: people who have brought their conditions upon themselves, those who had a misfortune drop out of the sky. Seeing how people handle this is a privilege. You wouldn’t think that, but it is. The smallest, most unassuming woman can have the greatest courage.”