“There had to be a dog,” said Tucker. “I know it. How can Joseph be a shepherd without dogs? Think about it!” Tucker was adamant.
Odin did. “Any festival is a good festival. Coyotes follow the moon goddess. She’s young, and she hunts, too. But a god born in a barn is close to animals.”
Pewter said to Mrs. Murphy, “Odin’s not a Christian.”
“Isn’t there an Egyptian god who has the head of a coyote?” Tucker puzzled.
“Odin, you’re named for a Norse god. Our humans read all the time. So we know,” Pewter called down. Then she said as an aside to Mrs. Murphy, “He’s kind of ignorant, and really, Murphy, he’s not a Christian.”
“What are you saying up there?” Odin swept his ears forward.
Pewter opened her mouth and Mrs. Murphy said low, “He’s also bigger than us.” She stared down at the golden eyes looking up at her. “She’s wishing you a Merry Christmas, Odin, as do I.”
“I hate this.” Harry threw grosgrain rolled ribbons, a tape measure, Scotch tape, old ballpoint pens onto the counter as she rummaged through the catchall drawer in the kitchen.
“She’s making so much noise,” Pewter complained, watching from the kitchen chair. “My delicate ears.”
“Keys,” Mrs. Murphy said.
“The keys aren’t in the drawer. They’re in the station wagon.” Tucker also observed the fuss.
“Aha.” Triumphant, Harry plucked the metallic key ring, and the key to the storage unit dangling from it, from between the pages of the phone book, where it had migrated.
“If she’d buy a key holder, screw it beside the door, this would never happen,” the dog posited.
“Too logical.” The tiger cat moved toward the door.
Pausing a moment, Harry plucked the gold buckle bracelet out of the oversized shot glass where she had dropped it yesterday. She had grown to love that bracelet. She moved to the door, lifted her winter work coat off a hook, slipped it on, wrapped a scarf around her neck, checked the pockets for gloves, opened the door.
Pewter surprised everyone by shooting past Harry. “You can’t go without me.”
Happy in the back seat of the vehicle, the animals remained on the warm seat cover made for animals on the ride to the grocery store.
“Hope she buys chicken.” Pewter watched the human trudge toward the large supermarket after parking the wagon. “I’d like roast chicken.”
“What about tuna?” the dog inquired, as she’d heard enough about the wonders of tuna in their life together.
“Time for a change,” the gray cat replied.
The supermarket was jammed with people running out of food for the holiday. Harry checked her list, hoping she could make short work of it.
Being a farmer, she marveled at the fresh produce. Here, in the dead of winter, crisp lettuce, carrots, endive, squash, and all kinds of fruits were displayed. It often crossed her mind how rich Americans were and how much we take for granted. She bagged some potatoes, lettuce, then headed for the meat department. She actually was going to buy a capon. If Pewter had accompanied her, the cat would have jumped into the case and tried to steal everything. Pewter believed “Never steal anything small.”
“Harry.” Esther Toth rolled her shopping cart next to Harry’s. She stared at the beautiful bracelet, then looked directly into Harry’s eyes. “I hope you had a happy Christmas. You certainly made ours one.” She smiled. “You, Fair, and that nice Deputy Cooper, all the trouble you went to to find my sister. I can’t thank you enough.”
“We wanted to find her,” said Harry. “She found a warm place. I think that was a lot of the motivation of her taking off.” She smiled back.
“Well, Al and I didn’t know if she was sick or injured. We couldn’t reach her by phone.” She took a deep breath. “Flo’s means are slender, but I want you to know that Al and I don’t want her sitting there with only a fireplace and a small heater to keep heat in the house. We are more than willing to install a new furnace. She won’t hear of it.”
“Maybe she’ll come around now. It’s a cold, cold winter.”
“I hope so. Sorrowful, in a way, that she hid at the old Valencia place. So many fond memories for Flo, I guess, and, well, Mrs. Valencia was such a kind person.”
“She was. I can’t decide if more people were nicer then or if they were kind because I was young.”
“Maybe a bit of both,” Esther replied. “My sister has her odd moments, but she is clever, really. She knew the stable wouldn’t be too patrolled. I hear that Watts has as much or more money than Mrs. Valencia. Not much of a social person, though. Well, it’s a beautiful place. Al and I drove down once.”
“Yes, it is,” Harry agreed. “Is Flo all right today? She didn’t want to leave the tack room at River Run.”
“Let’s say she’s composed.” Esther tightly smiled. “One day she’s fine and the next day she runs off or accuses me of keeping her from seeing people. I just don’t know.”
“Could those mood swings be a sign of dementia?”
Esther took a long time, then said, “Yes. But I don’t think someone has to have senile dementia or Alzheimer’s to be angry. Maybe it’s fury at your own body, your mind slipping. I don’t think Flo is ill exactly. Or maybe I don’t want to face it.”
As Esther and Flo were close in age, Harry wanted to say, “But you aren’t failing,” but she thought better of it. “Maybe she’ll snap out of it.”
“Take some advice from your old teacher: Stay involved in things and with people. I really believe that’s Flo’s problem. She’s not involved with the church anymore. Occasionally she’ll visit Cletus Thompson, but she really doesn’t have friends, and she used to have a circle of pals. No stimulation other than Buster. I truly think that’s the problem, and I can’t pull her out of it, nor can Al. She gets along with Al better than with me, but that makes sense.”
“Maybe she wants to be alone. Some people are solitary by nature, or life makes them so.”
“True, but Harry, you didn’t know my sister when she was young. By the time you met her, she was already middle-aged. Flo was pretty, outgoing. I don’t think she missed a party within a fifty-mile radius when we were young.” Esther smiled. “Well, you don’t need my trip down Memory Lane. Again, I do thank you.”
That Thursday, the day after Christmas, Cooper sat across from Arden in her peach-colored living room. Somehow the blue and silver Christmas decorations clashed with the peach. The women had been talking a bit, Cooper easing Arden into the more pointed questions.
“So you never brought the Silver Linings books home?”
“No,” Arden stated. “As you know, Jessica does the church books. I do Silver Linings. We thought it best to have two different people keep track of things, even though we’re both involved in many of the same activities. Also, this way, if we run into a snag, we can check each other.”
“The drawer of the desk is unlocked?”
Arden nodded. “We both use the big double bottom drawer. I expect it will be locked from now on.”
“Anyone can walk into the office?”
“No. The door to the hall is locked when no one is in the room, but the door between the office and Father O’Connor’s usually isn’t.”