Tucker jerked up her head. "Someone's coming. On foot!"
"Tucker, chill." Harry heard nothing.
Both cats ran to the kitchen door. A towel was stretched across the bottom of it to keep out the draft.
A knock on the door surprised the humans.
"Chris, what on earth are you doing here in this weather?" Harry opened the door.
"I was coming back from Waynesboro. I did a big shop at Harris Teeter in preparation for the storm and my car died. Absolutely dead. No lights. No nothing. Do you think you could run me home in your truck? I could throw everything in the back."
"Sure."
"I'll do it." Tracy plucked his coat off the peg.
"Thank you so much." Chris smiled. "I'm sorry to bother you on such a cold night. I saw Fair's truck parked at Mountain Stables when I came down the mountain. He never gets a break, does he?"
"No." Harry smiled. "Comes with the territory."
Tracy, his hand on the doorknob, said, "Call Fair, will you?" What he really meant was, call Rick Shaw and tell him you're alone, but he didn't want to say that in front of Chris since the sheriff had told them to keep it quiet.
"I will." She waved as the two walked out the door.
Harry picked up the phone, dialing the sheriff's number. "Hi," she said, but before she could finish her sentence Chris was back in the kitchen, a gun in her hand, leveled at Harry.
"Hang up. Come outside."
Tucker grabbed Chris's ankle but she leaned over and clunked the faithful creature on her head. Tucker dropped where she was hit.
"Tucker!" Mrs. Murphy screamed.
Pewter, thinking fast, shot out the kitchen door and through the screened-in porch door, which was easy to open. Much as Mrs. Murphy wanted to lick her fallen friend's face, she knew she had to follow.
The two cats ran into the barn. Nearly six inches of snow were already on the ground and the snow was so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
Tracy Raz lay in the snow facedown, blood oozing from the back of his head.
Again the cats couldn't stop to help him. They raced into the barn, climbing up into the loft. Once there, Mrs. Murphy stood on her hind legs, pushing up the latch. They wedged their paws at the side and pushed the door open.
"If she'll come this way we can jump down on her. The height will give us force."
"And if she doesn't?" Pewter breathed hard.
"We follow and do what we can."
Simon waddled over and saw Tracy. "Uh oh."
"Simon, help us push a bale of hay over to the opening," Murphy commanded.
The three small animals tried but they couldn't do it. Pewter kept running back and forth from the hay bale to the loft door opening.
"Here they come!"
Chris walked behind Harry. At least she let Harry pull on a jacket. On seeing Tracy lying in front of the barn, Harry rushed over.
"Forget him!"
"But he's . . ."
"Forget him."
"I take it you're not really Chris Sharpton." Harry kept talking as she knelt down and felt Tracy's pulse, which, thanks-be-to-God, was strong.
"No. Come on."
"Where's Dennis?"
"You'll see soon enough."
Murphy wriggled her rear end, then launched herself from the loft opening. She soared through the snowflakes with Pewter right behind her.
"Ooph!" Chris fell backwards as Mrs. Murphy hit her on the chest. A split second later Pewter hit her square in the face. Chris slipped in the snow, falling on her back.
Harry jumped on her.
The gun discharged.
The cats clawed and bit but couldn't do much damage through the winter clothes. Also, the humans were rolling in the snow. Harry, strong, wasn't as strong as Chris. Harry bit Chris's gun hand but Chris wouldn't drop the gun. The cats leapt off when the humans rolled back on the ground. They'd get up, slip and fall, but Harry never let go of Chris's gun hand no matter how hard Chris hit or kicked her.
"We've got to get the gun!" Pewter hollered.
Harry hung on as Chris flung her around, her feet off the ground. Harry dragged Chris down again but they struggled up. The cats kept circling the humans while Simon watched in horror, not knowing what to do.
Finally, Chris pushed Harry away far enough to hit her hard on the jaw with a left hook. The blow stunned Harry enough that she relaxed her grip. Chris hit her again. Harry let go of the gun hand as she slid back into the snow, the blood running from her mouth. The cats again climbed up Chris's legs but she barely noticed them.
She aimed her gun at Harry, who neither begged for life nor flinched. Chris fired, missing her, because Flatface had suddenly flown low overhead and scared her for an instant.
Murphy climbed up Chris's leg, her back, and reached up to claw deep into her face. Chris struggled to rise and throw off the cat. Pewter climbed up and hung on to Chris's gun hand, sinking her fangs into the fleshy part of the palm. Chris tried again to throw off the cats, slipped in the snow, and fell down, cats shredding her face and hand.
Harry scrambled and grabbed the gun as Chris flailed, screaming, struggling to her knees. Harry had gotten up and smashed the butt of the gun into her skull. Chris dropped face first into the snow. Harry kicked her in the ribs, then kicked her again, rolling her over. Chris was out cold. Harry wanted to kill her. But some voice inside reminding her "Thou shalt not kill" prevented her from her own rage and act of revenge.
She looked into the falling snow, the flakes sticking to her eyelashes. Half-dazed herself, she sank to the ground.
Mrs. Murphy, on her hind paws, licked Harry's face. "Come on, Mom. You've got to tie her up before she comes to-come on."
Pewter licked the other side of her face.
Harry blinked and shook her head, then stood up, swayed a little but walked into the barn, grabbed a rope lead shank, and made quick work of tying Chris's hands behind her back and tying her feet up behind her, the rope also around her neck. If Chris kicked her feet she'd choke herself.
She hurried over to Tracy, who was slowly awakening. She rubbed snow on his face. He opened his eyes.
"Tracy, can you get up?"
She put his arm around her shoulder and they both slipped and slid into the kitchen, where a groggy, sore corgi wobbled to her feet.
59
Harry, Miranda, Tracy, Fair, Susan, and Cynthia sat before Harry's roaring fire in the living-room fireplace. It was past midnight but the friends had gathered together as the snow piled up outside.
Fair treated Tucker's knot on the head by holding her in his lap, applying an ice pack periodically.
"You were saved by the grace of God," Miranda, still terribly upset, said. "He sent his furry angels of deliverance." She started to cry again.
Tracy sat next to her on the sofa, putting his arm around her. "There, there, Cuddles. You're right, our guardian angels worked overtime." A bandage was wrapped around his head and one eye was swollen shut.
"Mrs. Murphy and Pewter are heroes." Harry sat cross-legged before the fire, her cats in her lap. "You know, I would never have figured this out. So much for my deductive powers."
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think I would have figured it out either," Cynthia consoled her. "We waited for a mistake and he finally made one. Had it not been for Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, you all would be dead and Ron would be heading for New York to get Hank Bittner."
"Has he confessed?" Fair, both hands on Tucker, asked.
"Yes. He didn't expect to live. His plan was to kill Dennis and then himself after killing Bittner. He felt no particular animosity toward Harry, but toward the end, the power went to his head. He chained Dennis in his basement, forcing him to cooperate. He told Dennis if he didn't help him he'd kill Dennis's children as well as others from the class of 1980. If Dennis would help-with a gun in his ribs-he'd confine himself to the locker room boys. He broke his promise, of course."