"Don't know that I am." Harry stuck her jaw out.
"Charlie Ashcraft was a big mistake. That was obvious even in high school. But I had to make the mistake first." Boom's face was pink. "I know you think little of me, Harry Haristeen, and not without just cause. I've apologized to you before. I can't spend my life apologizing. I am not promiscuous. I do not go around seducing every man I see and furthermore when my husband died my judgment was flawed. I did a lot of things I wouldn't do today. When are you ever going to let it go?"
Harry, amazed, blurted out, "It's easy to be gracious now-I even believe you. But it wasn't your marriage that hit the rocks."
"That was my fault." Fair finally spoke up. He'd been too stunned to speak.
"Why don't you three go out back and settle this?" Miranda saw more people pulling into the parking lot. "I know this is federal property and you have a right to be here, but really, go out back."
"All right." Harry stomped out, slamming the back door behind her.
"I think we're on duty." Mrs. Murphy jumped down, then scooted across the back room.
Pewter followed. Tucker walked out the front door when Fair held the door for BoomBoom. She tagged at their heels as they walked between Market Shiflett's store and the post office to the parking area in the rear.
In the parking lot by the alleyway they stood mutely staring at one another for a moment.
"Come on, Mom, get it out. Get it over with," Mrs. Murphy advised.
"I'm being a bitch. I know it." Harry finally broke the silence.
Fair said, "Some wounds take a long time to heal. And I am sorry, truly sorry. Harry, I was scared to death that I was missing something." He paused. "But if I hadn't made such a major mistake I wouldn't have known what a fool I was. Maybe other people can learn without as much chaos, but I don't think I could have grown if I hadn't gone through that time. The sorrow of it is, I dragged you through it, too."
Harry leaned against the clapboard side of the post office, the wood warm on her back. All three animals turned their faces up to her. She looked down at them, opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
"Go on," Mrs. Murphy encouraged her.
Harry picked up the tiger cat, stroking her. "I don't guess there is another way to learn. I don't know if it's worse being the one who goes or the one who stays. Does that make sense?"
"It does, sort of," BoomBoom replied. "We're so different, Harry, that if this hadn't happened we still wouldn't be best friends. I'm driven by my emotions, and you, well, you're much more logical."
"I apologize for my rude remarks. And I accept your apology."
"Mom is growing up at last." Tucker felt quite proud of her human.
Before more could be said, Mrs. Hogendobber opened the back door. "Cynthia Cooper here to see all three of you."
They trooped back in, feeling a bit sheepish.
Cynthia noticed their demeanor and after a few pleasantries she asked them about the shoot, if they noticed anything un-usual about Charlie, if they had any specific ideas.
Each person confirmed what the other said. Nothing was different. Charlie was Charlie.
Cooper stuck her notepad in her back hip pocket. "Harry, I need to see you alone." She shepherded Harry out to the squad car. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter watched through the window. They could clearly see from their perch on the divider.
"What's going on?" Tucker, intently staring out the window, asked.
"Mother is frowning, talking, and using her hands a lot."
"I can see that. I mean what is really going on?" the dog snipped.
"H-m-m." Pewter blinked, not pleased with the turn of events.
The air-conditioning hummed in the squad car. Empty po-tato chip bags lay on the seat. Harry removed them to the floor.
"Whatever possessed you to tell Charlie Ashcraft he'd die before you'd sleep with him?"
"Coop, I don't know. I was mad as hell."
"Well, it doesn't look good. Because of that outburst I have to consider you a suspect. It was a dumb thing to say."
"Yeah . . ." Harry bent over, picked up the potato chip bags, and folded them lengthwise. "I hated that guy. But you know perfectly well I didn't kill him."
"Can you account for your whereabouts from six-thirty to eight last night?"
"Sure. I was on the farm."
"Can anyone corroborate this?" Cooper wrote in her steno pad.
"Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker."
"That's not funny, Harry. You really are a suspect."
"Oh come on, Cynthia."
"You are a member of the country club. It wouldn't have been difficult for you."
"No, I'm not," Harry quickly spoke. "Mom and Dad were but after they died I couldn't afford the dues. I'm allowed to go to the club once a month, which I usually do with Susan if she needs a tennis partner."
"But your presence at the club wouldn't seem unusual. Everyone knows you."
"Coop, let me tell you: there are old biddies, male and female, who have nothing better to do than cast the searching eye. If I had been there, you can be sure someone would have reported me because I've already played with Susan this month. I've used up my allotted time."
Cynthia flipped her book closed. "Do you think you could kill?"
"Sure, I could. In self-defense."
"In anger?"
"Probably," she replied honestly.
"He sexually baited you."
"He'd been doing that since high school."
"You snapped."
"Nope." Harry folded her arms across her chest.
Cynthia exhaled through her nostrils. "Rick will insist on keeping you an active suspect until better shows up. You know how he is. So don't leave the state. If an emergency should arise and you need to leaveVirginia , call me."
"I'm not leaving. Now I'm insulted. If you don't find the killer, I will."
"What I'd advise you to do, Harry, is watch your mouth. That's why we're sitting in my squad car on a hot August day."
"I suppose BoomBoom couldn't wait to tell how I lost my temper."
"Let's just say she performed her civic duty."
"That bitch."
"Yes, well, if that bitch winds up dead you are in trouble."
"Coop, I didn't kill Charlie Ashcraft."
Relenting, dropping her professional demeanor, Cynthia replied, "I know-but shut up. Really."
Harry smoothed the folded potato chip bags on her thigh. "I will. I don't know what's come over me. It's like I just don't give a damn anymore." She stared out the window. "You think it's this reunion? I'm getting stirred up?"
"I don't know. Your high-school class seems, well, volatile." She paused. "One more question."
"Sure."
"Do you think this murder has anything to do with your high-school reunion?"
"Nah. How could it?"
10
"Have you ever seen anything like it?" Tucker inquired of Mrs. Murphy and Pewter as the animals watched Harry fall in love with her new truck.
"She's read the manual twice, she's crawled under the truck, and now she's identifying and playing with every single part she can reach in the engine. Humans are extremely peculiar. All this attention to a hunk of metal," Pewter said.
A little breeze kicked up a wind devil in front of the barn door where the animals crouched in the shade. Harry worked in the fading sunlight.
"It's a perfect red." Mrs. Murphy felt more people would notice her riding in a red truck than in any other color. "Look who's rolling down the road."
They heard the tire crunch a half mile away, saw the dust and soon Blair Bainbridge's 911 wide-body black turbo Porsche glided into view, a vastly different machine than the dually but each suited for its purpose.
Harry put down the grease gun she'd been using and wiped her hands on an old towel as Blair stopped. "Hey, had to see the new truck. I didn't believe it when Little Mim told me, but when Big Mim said you truly had a new truck, one that could haul your trailer, I had to see it."
"Big Mim is interested in my truck?" Harry smiled.