“She knows. Her sons don’t.”
“Someone is pointing the finger,” Susan blurted out.
“Know what’s being pointed out and you know your killer.” Harry believed this. “It’s grotesque but not horrible, like a beheading. You’re right. Pointing the finger.”
“Back to the skeleton caught up in the roots.” Susan was worried. “Is it possible that murder is connected to these new killings? I’m so upset my mind is just making things worse.” Susan sighed.
“It’s possible, but whoever was buried by that tree was buried there so long ago that the roots grew through them. Pete and Lou were left for us—well, not us, but you know what I mean—to find. It seems to me that the tree murderer wanted the victim’s memory to disappear along with the corpse. This killer wants to rub our noses in it, or the nose of whoever he is seeking to destroy.”
“Harry, why not just kill whoever he or she wishes to destroy?”
“Maybe he can’t.”
“Well, I’m confused, but at least I’m warm now.” Susan weakly smiled.
“Let’s put all this out of our minds for Christmas Eve and Christmas,” Harry offered.
“Coming from you, that’s saying something.”
“Yeah, well.” Harry got up and retrieved the morning paper that she’d put on the kitchen counter but had no time to read. “Maybe there will be cheering news about the Santa Fund.”
Each year the community raised monies through a Santa Fund, the daily total printed on the front page of the newspaper. Harry unfolded the paper, gave Susan the front page while she took the local news section.
“Oh, no,” Harry exclaimed.
Susan grabbed the section from her, read aloud, “A review by the sheriff’s department found irregularities in the accounting for Silver Linings that have prompted a deeper investigation. The part-time bookkeeper, Arden Higham’s lawyer, Dwayne Pellio, declares his client will fully cooperate. She has no statement to make at this time.” Susan looked up at Harry. “Good Lord, could Arden have stolen from a church or the charity?”
“Never.” Harry slapped the tabletop.
“Why?”
“Pointing the finger at herself. Forgive the pun. The fingers were in her pencil jar. Arden may not be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but she’s far from stupid.”
Susan brought both hands to her cheeks, holding them there for an instant, then dropping them. “Don’t they say some criminals want to get caught?”
“I don’t know if I believe that.”
“Nonetheless, Arden does the books for Silver Linings.”
“Susan, there is no way Arden Higham stole money from a nonprofit.”
“Stranger things have happened in this world.”
“Strange, yes. This stupid, probably not.”
Harry, Fair, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, the horses, and even the hayloft animals—Simon and Flatface, the great horned owl—didn’t open their presents until Christmas morning. Matilda, the hibernating blacksnake, didn’t receive fresh eggs until spring. Harry thought of that as an Easter present. While giving a snake eggs may seem strange, a blacksnake in one’s barn does a world of good, cleaning out vermin.
The temperature climbed to thirty-eight by noon. Water rattled down gutters, flowed in ditches alongside roads. For all the melting, the snow wouldn’t disappear unless a week of warm weather stayed over Central Virginia, and even then snow would pack in the crevices on the north side of the mountains or in deep, narrow ravines.
The robin’s-egg-blue sky, the snow, the drip, drip of melting icicles, with sunshine passing through them pleased Harry to no end. Outside, doing her chores, she’d stop to listen to the music of the water.
“Boy, this will pack the snow down,” she said to her crew as she swept out the center aisle.
“More snow is coming,” Mrs. Murphy chatted as she walked alongside. “I can feel it.”
“She can’t.” Pewter reposed on a center-aisle tack trunk bearing Harry’s initials front and center.
“You don’t think if she stood still outside, lifted her nose, she wouldn’t smell the edge of the front?” Tucker could never understand diminished human senses.
“No!” Pewter declared.
“She’ll feel it where she broke bones when it draws closer,” said Mrs. Murphy. “By tonight. But, Tucker, you know she can’t smell much. You have to stick whatever it is right under her nose.”
“I can’t imagine anything worse,” the intrepid dog said.
“Simon’s got a decent nose.” Pewter liked the possum. “But he’s a night creature, and I think scent is stronger at night.”
“It most certainly is.” Tucker was happy to discuss scent, a favorite subject. “And that’s why women should be careful how much and what type of perfume they put on at night. The scent is always stronger. Too strong and it makes my eyes water.”
“That’s why Harry spritzes her Amouage perfumes.” Mrs. Murphy loved to sit on Harry’s small makeup table. “Just a hint and it carries her through the evening. She’s smart about some things, but then again, she spends a lot of time with us.”
The high whine of an old four-cylinder engine sounded at the end of the long driveway.
Tucker rushed to the barn doors. “Stranger! Stranger!”
A beat-up old Toyota, a wire coat hanger twisted on for an aerial, skidded to a stop. No four-wheel drive and bald tires meant the driver was either poor, lazy, or just stupid.
Flo Rice crawled out, slamming the door. Poor seemed to be her category.
Seeing the dog in the open doors, then Harry, who stopped to turn around, she strode in.
“Give me that bracelet!”
“Miss Rice, I found that bracelet fair and square.”
“I found it!” Pewter crowed.
“We found it!” Tucker corrected.
“Bother.” The cat unsheathed her claws. She was on guard, thanks to Flo’s behavior.
Mrs. Murphy had climbed up to the hayloft. “Pewter, get up here. If there’s a problem, we can leap off and knock this lady off her feet.”
“I’ll do the rest.” At Harry’s heels, Tucker raised the hackles on her ruff.
“Where’d you find it?” Flo eyed her suspiciously.
“In the tack room. I’ll show you.” Harry walked to the room, opened the door, and the two walked in, Harry first.
“Rats!” Mrs. Murphy exclaimed, hurrying to back down.
Pewter was thinking ahead. “If we climb onto the highest saddle on the rack, we can still dive-bomb her.”
“Right.” Mrs. Murphy blew through the tack room animal door.
“The upturned helmet was here,” Harry explained. “My friend picked it up and out fell the bracelet. Finders keepers.” She smiled, hoping to diminish Flo’s anger.
“It’s not yours.”
“No. Is it yours?” Harry attempted her sweetest voice.
“No, no, but I should have it.” Flo’s voice quivered. “I worked hard. I should have something pretty.”
“Would you like something to eat?” Harry frantically thought of things to distract Flo, and then she hoped to send her on her way.
“No.” She paused. “Don’t tell Esther I came over here, please. She hates me. She has always hated me.”
“Oh, I hope not.”
Pleased to be able to recount old disagreements, Flo nearly shouted, “You don’t know. I was the pretty one. Esther hated me for that. I had more beaus. She’d try to steal my beaus. Ha. Never worked. Esther always wants what she can’t have. Finally, when I went away to college, I thought I was rid of her.”