"Huh?"
"Harry, are you paying attention?" her best friend said.
"Yes, but I was thinking I'd have to head home before too long. Miranda closes up shop by nine, you know." Harry referred to Miranda's lifelong habit of early retirement and early rising.
"Well, as I was saying before you drifted off, because the course is demanding jockeys stay focused. Sometimes when it's a bit easy they get sloppy."
"Mom, I'm hungry," Tucker pleaded.
Susan dropped a piece of cake for the dog.
"Susan, you spoil Tucker worse than I do." It was Susan who had bred the corgi. Harry noticed Larry taking Addie by the elbow and Rick whispering in Mim's ear. "Something's going on. Damn, I hope it's not some kind of late protest. I wouldn't put anything past Mickey Townsend. He hates to lose."
Five minutes passed before a howl of pain sounded from the library. All conversation stopped. Mim, holding her husband's hand, put her other hand on Chark's shoulder, guiding him to the library. Larry had wanted to inform Addie before bringing her brother into it. The confusion and concern on Chark's face upon hearing his sister's cry alerted even the thickest person in the room to impending sorrow.
Mim shut the library doors behind her. All eyes were now on her. She walked over to the three-sash window and collected herself. Then, her husband at her side, she addressed the gathering.
"I regret to inform you that there appears to have been a"— she cleared her throat—"murder at Montpelier." A gasp went up from the crowd. "Nigel Danforth, the English jockey riding for Mickey Townsend, was found dead this evening in the main stable. Sheriff Shaw says they know very little at this time. He asks for your patience and cooperation over the next few days as he will be calling upon some of us. I'm afraid the party is over, but I want to thank you for celebrating what has been a joyous day— until now." She opened her hands as if in benediction.
Little Marilyn, unable to conceal her agitation, called out. "Mummy, how was he killed?"
"Stabbed through the heart."
"Good God!" Herbie Jones exclaimed, and after that the noise was deafening as everyone talked at once.
"That explains it," Susan said to Harry, who understood she was referring to Fair's miserable countenance. "How about we pay our respects to our hostess and leave?"
Miranda bustled over. "My word, how awful, and how awful for Mim, too. It certainly casts a pall on her triumph. Harry, Herbie's offered to escort me home so I'm leaving with him."
"Fine. I'll see you on Monday."
"Good, then I'll ride with you." Susan piped up then called to her teenaged son, Danny, "One dent in that car and you are toast.
On the way home Harry, Susan, and Tee Tucker wondered why a jockey would be killed after the races. They ran through the usual causes of death in America: money, love, drugs, and gambling. Since they knew little about Nigel, they soon dropped the speculation.
"Another body blow for Addie." Harry cupped her hand under her chin and stared out the window into the sheltering darkness.
"Ever notice how some people are plagued with bad luck and tragedy?"
"King Lear?" Harry quipped, not meaning to sound flippant. "Sorry."
"I'm not sure I will ever understand how your mind works," Susan wryly said to her friend.
"There are days when it doesn't work at all."
"Tell me about it. Especially after you have children. What's left of your mind flies out the window." As a mother of two teenagers, Susan both endured and enjoyed her offspring. She pulled down the long driveway to Harry's farm.
"Bet you Boom Boom makes a beeline for Addie once she emerges from the library," Harry grumbled.
"Mim will shoo her out first."
"Ha!" Harry said derisively. "Boom Boom will volunteer to clean up after the party, the sneak. Bet you she pounces on Addie with an invitation to join her at Lifeline. Bloodsucker."
"She does seem to draw sustenance from other people's problems." Susan inhaled. "But then again this program of self-exposure or whatever it is has calmed her down."
"I don't believe it."
"You wouldn't." Susan stopped at the screened door at the back of the house. Mrs. Murphy was visible in the window and then disappeared. "A pussycat is anxious to see you."
"Come on in. She wants to see you, too. I'll feed her, then carry you home."
"Good. Then I can look for my black sweater. I know I left it here."
"Susan, I swear I've searched for it. It's not here."
"You won't believe what happened," Tucker called out, eager to tell her friend everything and also eager to watch Mrs. Murphy fume because she'd missed it.
"Tucker, hush." Harry opened the door and ushered Susan inside.
The temperature was in the forties and dropping, and the chill nipped at Harry's heels, so she hurried along behind her friend. The kitchen, deceptively calm, lured her into comfort.
"Here, kitty, kitty."
"I hate you," Mrs. Murphy called from the bedroom.
Harry walked into the living room followed by Tucker and Susan.
"Uh-oh." Tucker laid her ears flat.
Susan gasped, "Berlin, 1945!"
The arm of the sofa had been shredded, methodically destroyed. Lamps smashed to the ground bore witness to the tiger cat's fury. She had also had the presence of mind to scratch, tear, and bite magazines, the newspapers, and a forlorn novel that rested on Harry's wing chair. The piece de resistance was one curtain, yanked full force, dangling half on and half off the rod.
Harry's mouth dangled almost in imitation of the curtain. She slapped her hands together in outrage.
"Mrs. Murphy, you come out here."
"In a pig's eye." The cat's voice was shrill.
"I know where you're hiding. You aren't that original, you little shit!" Harry tore into her bedroom, clicked on the light, dropped to her knees, and lifted up the dust ruffles. Sure enough, a pair of gleaming green eyes at the furthest recesses of the bed stared back at her.
"I will skin you alive!" Harry exploded.
"You're in deep doo-doo," Tucker whined.
"She'll forget it by morning," came the saucy reply.
"I don't think so. You've wrecked the house."
"I know nothing about it."
Since Harry had closed off the animal door, Mrs. Murphy stayed inside. She would have preferred to go out to the barn just in case Harry woke up mad. As it was she prudently waited until she heard the cat food can being opened before she tiptoed into the kitchen.
"You're impossible." Harry, good humor restored by a sound night's sleep, scratched the cat at the base of her tail.
"I hate it when you leave me."
As Harry dished out shrimp and cod into a bowl upon which was prophetically written upholstery destroyer, Tucker circled her mother's legs.
"Why do you feed her first? Especially after what she's done."
"I'll get to you."
"She feeds me first because I'm so fascinating."
"Gag me." Tucker remembered that the cat knew nothing of yesterday's bizarre event. She forgot her irritation as she settled into the pleasure of tormenting Mrs. Murphy. "Beautiful day at the races."
"Shut up."
"Boom Boom swept down on Mom, though."
Mrs. Murphy, on the counter, turned her head from her food bowl. "Oh, did Mom cuss her out?"
"Nah." Tucker jammed her long nose into the canned beef food mixed into crunchies.
Harry brewed tea and rummaged around for odds and ends to toss into an omelet while the animals chatted. Tucker finished her food so quickly it barely impeded her conversational abilities.
The tiger, delicate in her eating habits, paused between mouthfuls, gently brushing her whiskers in case some food was on them. She surveyed the damage in the living room without a twinge of guilt. "How'd Mim do?"