“I’m staying at the Best Western.”
“Okay, thanks.” Blair smiled.
“I’m not going anywhere until I find that bitch.”
“You seem determined. I’m sure you will.”
The biker tapped his head with his fist. “Box of rocks, man, box of rocks, but I never give up. Until then, buddy.” He hopped on his machine, turned the key, a velvet purr filling the air. Then he slowly rolled down the driveway.
Mrs. Murphy watched him recede. “Motorcycles were invented to thin out the male herd.”
Tucker laughed as they fell in with Blair.
“What were you doing out there?” Harry asked as the other women came out of the house and crowded around Blair.
“Talking about motorcycles.”
“With that certain?” Marilyn was incredulous.
“Oh, he’s not so bad. He’s searching for his girlfriend and he’s staying at the Best Western until he finds her. I might even have a beer with the guy. He’s kind of interesting.”
Both Kerry and Aysha had been informed of the search for Malibu.
Laura said, “You’re not afraid of him?”
“No. He’s harmless. Just a little loaded, that’s all.”
“Long as you’re not Malibu, maybe he is harmless.” Harry laughed.
“Can you imagine anyone named Malibu?” Aysha’s frosty tone was drenched in social superiority.
“Think my life would improve if I rechristened myself Chattanooga?” Kerry joked for the others’ benefit. She wanted to smash in Aysha’s face.
“Intercourse. Change your name to Intercourse and you’ll see some sizzle.” Harry giggled.
“Ah, yes.” Laura Freeley’s patrician voice, its perfect cadence, added weight to her every utterance. “If I recall my Pennsylvania geography, Intercourse isn’t far from Blue Ball.”
“Ladies”—Blair bowed his head—“how you talk.”
3
The John Deere dealership, a low brick building on Route 250, parked its new tractors by the roadside. These green and yellow enticements made Harry’s mouth water. Probably a thousand motorists passed the tractors each day on their way into Charlottesville. The county was filling with new people, service people who bought enormous houses squeezed on five acres—riding mowers were their speed. They probably didn’t lust after these machines sitting in a neat row. But country people, they’d drive by at dusk, stop the car, and walk around the latest equipment.
Harry’s tractor, a 1958 John Deere 420S row crop tractor, hauled a manure spreader, pulled a small bushhog, and felt like a friend. Her father had bought the tractor new and lovingly cared for it. Harry’s service manual, a big book, was filled with his notations now crowded by her own. The smaller operator’s manual, ragged and thumbed, was protected in a plastic cover.
Johnny Pop, as Doug Minor dubbed his machine, still popped and chugged. Last year Harry bought a new set of rear tires. The originals had finally succumbed. Given this proven reliability, Harry wanted another John Deere, the Rolls-Royce of tractors. Not that she planned to retire Johnny Pop, but a tractor in the seventy-five-horsepower range with a front end loader and special weights for the rear wheels could accomplish many of the larger, more difficult tasks on her farm that were beyond Johnny Pops modest horsepower. The base price of what she needed ran about $29,000 sans attachments. Her heart sank each time she remembered the cost, quite impossible on a postmistress’s wage.
Mrs. Murphy and Tucker waited in the cab of her truck, another item that needed replacing. The Superman blue had faded, the clutch had been repaired twice, and she’d worn through four sets of tires. However, the Ford rolled along. Most people would buy a new truck before a tractor, but Harry, being a farmer first, knew the tractor was far more important.
She strolled around the machines, not a speck of mud on them. Some had enclosed cabs with AC, which seemed sinful to her, although if you ran over a nest of digger bees, that enclosed cab would be a godsend. She liked to dream, climb up to touch the steering wheel, run her fingers along the engine block. That’s why dusk appealed to her. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t want to talk to the salesmen. She’d known them for years, and they knew she hadn’t a penny. She hated to waste their time since she wasn’t a serious customer.
She opened the door of her truck; a tiny creak followed. She leaned onto the seat but didn’t climb in right away.
“Well, kids, what do you think? Pretty fabulous?”
“They look the same as last time. “Tucker was hungry.
“Beautiful, Mom, just beautiful. “Mrs. Murphy would occasionally ride in Harry’s lap when she drove Johnny Pop. “I vote for the enclosed cab myself and you can put a woven basket with a towel in it for me. I believe in creature comforts.”
“Ah, well, let’s go home.” She climbed into the truck, cranked the motor, and pulled onto the highway, heading west.
In fifteen minutes she was at the outskirts of Crozet. She passed the old Del Monte food packaging plant and decided to pull into the supermarket.
“/want to go home. “Tucker whined.
“If you want to eat, then I’ve got to get you food.” Harry hopped out of the car.
Tucker inquisitively looked at the cat. “Do you think she understood what I said?”
“Nah. “Mrs. Murphy shook her head. “Coincidence.°
“I bet I could jump out the window.”
“I bet I could, too, but I’m not running around this parking lot, not the way people drive. “She put her paws on the window frame and surveyed the lot. “Everyone must need dog food.”
Tucker joined her. “Mim.”
“Bet it’s her cook. That’s the farm car. Mim wouldn’t do anything as lowly as shop for her own food.”
“Probably right. Well, there’s the silver Saab, so we know Susan is here…”
“Aysha’s green BMW. Oh, hey, there’s Mrs. Hogendobber’s Falcon.”
“And look who’s pulling in—Fair. Um-um. “Tucker’s eyes twinkled.
Hurrying down the aisle with a basket on her arm, Harry first bumped into Susan.
“If you’re not buying much, you could have gone to Shiflett’s Market and saved yourself the checkout line.”
“He closed early tonight. Dentist.”
“Not another root canal?” Harry counted items in Susan’s cart. “Are you having a party or something? I mean, a party without me?”
“No, nosy.” Susan pushed Harry on the shoulder. “Danny and Brookie want to have a cookout. I said I’d buy the food if they did the work.”
“Danny Tucker behind the barbecue?”
“Well, you see, he’s got this new girlfriend who wants to be a chef, so he thinks if he shows an interest in food beyond eating it, he’ll impress her. He’s talked his sister into helping him.”
“Talked or bribed?”
“Bribed.” Susan’s big smile was infectious. “He’s promised to drive her and a friend to the Virginia Horse Center over in Lexington and then he’ll look at Washington and Lee University, without Mom, of course.”
Mrs. Hogendobber careened around the aisle, her cart on two wheels. “Gangway, girls, I’ll miss choir practice.”
The two women parted as Miranda roared through tossing items into her cart with considerable skill.
“Great hand-eye,” Susan noted.
Nearly colliding with Mrs. Hogendobber, since she entered the aisle from the opposite end, was Aysha Cramer, with her mother, Ottoline. “Oh, Mrs. Hogendobber, I’m sorry.”
“Beep! Beep!” Mrs. Hogendobber experdy maneuvered around her and was off.
Ottoline, wearing an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse that revealed her creamy skin and bosoms, plucked the list out of Aysha’s cart. “If you’re going to waste time talking, I’ll work on this list.”
Aysha shrugged as her mother continued on and turned the corner. She rolled her cart over to Harry and Susan. “We know she’s not DWI.”
Mrs. Hogendobber didn’t drink.