"Well?"
"At first he didn't seem too worried about it but now he's sending someone right over."
"You know at choir practice last night Ysabel Yadkin swore that Mickey is involved in a big gambling scam and that Nigel Danforth owed him oo-scoobs of money. I asked her what was the last steeplechase she attended and she gave me the hairy eyeball, I can tell you. 'Well, Ysabel,' I said, 'if you're going to tell tales, you ought to at least know the people you're talking about.' She fried. But then after practice she came over and declared that I was being snotty because I had horsey friends. Her Albert knows Mickey Townsend because he works on that expensive car of his."
"Since when did Albert start working on BMWs?"
Mrs. Hogendobber drained her mug, returning to the second mailbag. "Since they offered him more money than Mercedes."
"Mrs. H., sit down, you did that first bag all by yourself. I'll do this one."
"Idle hands do the devil's work. I don't mind."
Together they tipped the bag into the mail cart just as Boom Boom Craycroft sashayed through the front door at eight o'clock sharp.
"What a morning, and the temperature is dropping. I hope this doesn't turn to ice."
"We're a little behind, Boom Boom, and it's my fault."
"I can help."
"Oh, no, don't bother," said Harry, who knew that Boom Boom's idea of help would be to sort for five minutes, then have a fit of the vapors. "Why don't you run a few errands and come on back in about half an hour?"
' T guess I could.'' She plucked her umbrella out of the stand where she had dropped it. "Isn't it awful about Coty Lamont?"
Before she had the complete sentence out of her mouth a soaking-wet Mickey Townsend pushed open the door and sagged against the wall.
"Mickey, are you all right?" Boom Boom reached out to him.
"Yes, by the grace of God." He began shaking; he was chilled to the bone.
"Come back here." Miranda flipped up the dividing barrier. "You need a hot drink. I'll run to the house and get some of George's clothes. They're too big for you but at least they're dry."
"Oh, Mrs. Hogendobber, a cup of coffee will put me right." His teeth chattered, belying his words.
"Now you stay right here," Miranda commanded as Harry made him a cup of instant coffee.
"Sugar and cream?" Harry opened the tiny refrigerator to reach for the cream.
"Two sugars and a dab of cream." He held out his hand for the cup, then put both hands around it, vainly trying to stop shaking.
Boom Boom joined them as Mickey dripped water all over the floor.
"He's white as a sheet," Tucker noted.
"I stopped by your car." Harry threw her coat over his shoulders.
"How long ago?"
"Fifteen, twenty minutes."
"Just missed me." His teeth hit the rim of the cup. "I couldn't find a house. I headed into the cornfield there but realized I had to come back to the road because I couldn't see anything and I'd get lost. I mean, I know that territory but I couldn't see a damned thing and I was—" He gulped down a few warm mouthfuls of coffee. "God, that tastes good."
Miranda pushed open the back door, turned and shook her umbrella out the door, and then closed it because the wind was blowing the rain into the post office. A shopping bag of clothes hung on her arm. "You go right into the bathroom and towel off. There's a big towel here on top. And get into these clothes."
Mickey did as he was told, finally emerging in pants with rolled cuffs and the sleeves of George's old navy sweater rolled up, too, but he was warm.
"Mrs. Hogendobber never throws anything out." Mrs. Murphy laughed. "I guess it's a good thing."
He ate a glazed doughnut and continued his story. "I found the road again and knew if I could get into town you'd be in the post office early. Say, I'd better call a towing service."
"I already called Rick Shaw."
"What for?"
"I didn't know where you were or whether you were okay—things being what they are," Harry said forthrightly. "So I called him."
"Well, he's not worried about me. He treats me like the chief suspect."
"He sounded worried enough on the phone," Harry stated.
"Yeah—well." Mickey slumped a moment, then straightened his back. "I guess I'm a little worried, too."
"Everyone's worried." Boom Boom nibbled an oatmeal muffin.
"I know that road like the back of my hand. Someone swooped down behind me and ran me off the road."
"People don't pay attention to the weather—" Miranda prepared to launch into a diatribe about the bad driving habits of the younger generation, meaning anyone younger then herself.
Mickey cut her off, "No, whoever this was wanted to run me off the road—or worse."
"What?" Boom Boom stopped mid-bite.
"They nudged me from behind and then drew alongside and pushed me right off the road. If we'd been twenty yards further up the road, it would have been a steep drop, I can tell you that."
"Could you see who it was?" Harry asked.
"Hell, no, not in this rain. It was a big-ass truck, I can tell you that. I'm not even sure about the color, although I thought I caught a glimpse of black or dark blue. GMC maybe, but I don't know. It happened so fast."
"Why don't they ask him what he was doing down that road in the first place?" Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Tucker.
"Too polite." Tucker loved it when the cat rubbed on her.
"This is no time to be polite. And furthermore, I don't believe him."
"You don't believe he was run off the road?"
"I believe that." The cat's whiskers touched and tickled Tucker's nose. "But he's hiding something."
"Maybe he knows what's in Orion's stall?"
"Tucker, I don't know about that. I don't think we'll ever get the humans to dig down deep enough, and Orion can't help. He's switched to another stall, remember?"
"Yeah. So what is it about Mickey Townsend?"
"You can smell fear as well as I can."
Harry, Susan, Fair, Big Mim, Little Marilyn, and Boom Boom all had their noses out of joint because the rain had forced them to bag their long-planned foxhunting with Keswick Hunt Club. The only good thing about the rained-out Saturday was that Harry finally went grocery shopping.
As she wheeled her cart around the pet food aisle, always her first stop, she saw Cynthia Cooper piling bags of birdseed into her cart.
"Coop."
"Hey. Great minds run in the same direction."
"Mrs. Murphy will shred the house if I don't get her tuna. She tore the arm off the sofa last week. I still haven't put it back together."
"Because of tuna?"
"No. I left her home from Montpelier and took Tucker. Made her hateful mean."
Five years ago, hearing a story like that, Cynthia Cooper would have thought it a fabrication. However, she had grown to know Harry's cat and dog as well as other Crozet animals. The stories were true. In fact, Mrs. Murphy had pointed out a skull fragment to her on a case at Monticello. It could have been blind luck but then again—
"One of these days I'll get a cat, but I work the most terrible hours. Maybe I need a husband before the cat. That way he can take care of the cat when I'm on duty."
"Hope you have better luck than I did."
"Doesn't it make you crazy that everyone tries to get you and Fair back together—including Fair?" Cynthia laughed.
Harry rested her elbows on the push bar of the cart. "Lack of imagination. They don't believe another eligible man will come through Crozet."
"Blair Bainbridge." She was referring to the model who had bought the farm next to Harry's a few years back.
"His career takes him away for such long stretches of time. And I think Marilyn Sanburne the younger has set her cap for him.
"Quaint expression."
"I'm trying not to be rude." Harry inadvertently kicked the cart and almost fell on her face as it rolled out from under her.