“Who goes there?“T’t’tc’taa bounded outside.
Blair Bainbridge’s dually pulled into sight. Blair stopped and hopped out, shaded his eyes with his hand, saw Harry and sprinted out into the field.
“That’s odd, “Tucker said to herself. “He always says hello,”
Mrs. Murphy, yawning in the doorspan, replied to Tucker’s unspoken thought. “Maybe he’s realized he’s in love with Mom.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.” Tucker sat down, stood up, sat down, finally stood up, and trotted toward the tractor.
Mrs. Murphy rolled over on her other side. She wasn’t going anywhere. “Seeyou later, Alice Gator.”
Tucker tore after Blair, caught up with him, then blew past him.
Harry, seeing diem both, cut the engine. One couldn’t hear very well with Johnny at full throttle. “Blair. Hi.”
Out of breadi, he gasped, “There’s been a murder.”
“Who?” Harry’s eyes enlarged.
“They don’t know.”
“How’d you find out?”
He put one hand against the seat of die tractor. “Accident.”
“Accident or accidentally?” She smiled at herself because she realized rJiat was exacdy the kind of question her mother would have asked.
He caught his breath as Tucker circled the tractor. “Accident on 810 at Wyant’s Store. I slowed down and noticed Cynthia Cooper just mad as hell, so I pulled over. It was a kid in an old Trooper, driving it like a car. He went off the side of the road, overcor-rected, and then sideswiped Cynthia, who was coming from the opposite direction. I mean, she was steamed. The kid was crying, of course, begging her not to tell his parents.”
“Is she okay?”
He nodded yes. “Kid too. Anyway, I stayed to help, not that there was much to do, but she isn’t the type to get upset. She told me she’d just come out of Sugar Hollow, where a nature group had discovered a dead man. Said it was the grossest mess and she wouldn’t be eating dinner tonight. She described whatthe man was wearing—Harry, I think it’s the biker.”
Harry jumped down. “What?”
He nodded again. “Heavy black boots, leather vest with symbols and studs—who else fits that description?”
“Blood on the saddlebagst’Tuckcr yipped.
“Well, he can’t be the only man in the country with a black leather vest.” She stopped a minute and shrugged. A chill overcame her. “Damn, he about ran me over coming out of Sugar Hollow. Covered from head to toe in leather.”
“Better talk with Cynthia.”
“Did you tell her what you thought?”
“Yeah.” He stared at the huge tractor wheel. “He was a little strange. The wheel of fortune, you know.”
Harry watched the sun vanish. “Someone’s up and someone’s down—or dead.”
“Won’t somebody listen to me? There’s evidence on the motorcycle’s saddlebags!”
“Tucker, hush, I’ll feed you in a minute.”
Dejected, Tucker sat on Blair’s foot. Blair reached down to pet her.
Blair’s lustrous hazel eyes bored into Harry’s. “Do you ever get a feeling about somebody? A real sense of who they are?”
“Sometimes.”
“Despite his appearance and his manner that day, I just felt he was an okay guy.”
“Blair, he can’t have been so okay, or he wouldn’t be dead.”
11
A small crowd gathered at the post office parking lot. Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, Reverend Jones, Market Shiflett, Aysha, Norman, Ottoline, Kerry, the Marilyn Sanburnes—senior and junior, Blair, Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter watched as the sheriff’s men loaded the motorcycle onto a flatbed gooseneck. Hogan Freely, president of the Crozet National Bank, with his wife, Laura, walked over and joined the crowd.
Cynthia supervised.
Reverend Jones spoke for all of them. “Do you know anything, Cynthia?”
As Cynthia replied, Susan Tucker pulled in. “Wait, wait for me.”
“What is this, a town meeting?” Cynthia half joked.
“Kind of.” Susan slammed the door of the new Saab. “Fair’s on call. He can’t make it, but I’ll see that your report gets to Fair and BoomBoom, who has a doctor’s appointment.”
“There’s not much to report. A decayed body, a white male most likely in his early thirties, was found in Sugar Hollow yesterday, late afternoon. We have reason to believe, thanks to Blair’s accurate description, that the body is that of the owner of this motorcycle. We’re running dental checks and we hope to know something soon. That’s it.”
“Are we in danger?” Mim asked the sensible question.
Cynthia folded her arms over her chest. “There’s no way to accurately answer you, Mrs. Sanburne. We suspect foul play, but we don’t know for sure. At this point the department isn’t worried that there’s a killer on the loose, so to speak.”
But there was a killer on the loose. The little gathering felt safe because they didn’t know the victim and therefore falsely believed they couldn’t know the killer.
As Deputy Cooper drove off behind the truck with the motorcycle, the assembled folks squeezed into Market’s for some drinks. The motorcycle had conveniently been removed during lunch hour. The sun beat down on them. An ice-cold drink and air-conditioning were welcome.
The animals scooted between legs.
“Come back here. “Pewter led them to the back shelves containing household detergents. “If we get up here we can see everything.” She jumped onto boxes from the floor to the top shelf. Mrs. Murphy followed her.
“Raw deal, “Tucker grumbled.
“You can go behind the counter. Markets so busy, he won’t notice.”
“All right.” Tucker, happier now that she could participate in gleaning information from the humans, worked her way back through the legs to the counter.
Susan, a born organizer, addressed the gathering. “Any of us that’ve seen the motorcycle before it was parked at the post office ought to write it down for Sheriff Shaw and Deputy Cooper. Obviously, anyone having contact with the deceased should do likewise.”
“Contact? He barged into Ash Lawn and made such a scene!” Laura blurted out.
“Well, did you tell Deputy Cooper?” Mim inquired.
“No, but I will. I mean, how could I tell her? We just this instant found out—if it really is that same man. Could be someone else.”
Miranda happily watched as people bought her doughnuts, brownies, and tarts—today’s batch of goodies. Each day she baked larger quantities and each day they disappeared. She tore herself away from her own products to say, “Those of you who were up at Ash Lawn can go see Sheriff Shaw tomorrow. It would save him time if you go together.”
“What happened at Ash Lawn?” Herbie Jones asked the obvious.
“This disheveled man, this dirty biker, pushed open the front door after we were closed—” Laura started to say.
“He wasn’t that disheveled,” Blair interrupted.
“Well, he certainly wasn’t well groomed,” Laura protested.
“Jeez.” Market brought his hand to his face. “If you can’t agree on how he looked, I can’t wait to hear the rest of it.”
“I was in the back, so I can’t add anything.” Aysha bought a lemon curd tart. She couldn’t resist despite her mothers glowering gaze.
Harry added to the picture. “Blair and I were in the living room. We didn’t see him come in but we heard him. He wasn’t rude, really, but he was, uh, intense.”
“Intense? He was cracked.” Kerry put her hands on her hips. Kerry was a bit of an overreactor. She’d only come in from the slave quarters to catch the tail end of the incident. “He wouldn’t leave, and Marilyn, who was in charge that day—”
“I asked him to leave,” Little Marilyn chimed in. “He wouldn’t go. He said he wanted Marin—”
“Malibu,” Harry interrupted.
“Yes, that was it. He wanted this Malibu and he claimed she was at Ash Lawn. Well, of course she wasn’t. But he was so insistent.”
“Who’s Malibu?”
“An old girlfriend,” Blair told them.
“That doesn’t tell us who she is.” Mim, as commanding as ever, hit the nail on the head.