Miranda downed a cup of coffee herself. “You don’t. My George could have driven to Richmond and back, I’m such a sound sleeper, but well, you know things about your mate and about other people. Cabell was faithful to Taxi. His disappearance has nothing to do with an affair. And how do we know he wrote that letter voluntarily?”
“We don’t,” Rick agreed. A long silence followed.
“I have a confession to make.” Harry swallowed and told Rick about the misshapen earring.
“Harry, I could wring your neck! I’m out of here.”
“Where are you going?” Harry innocently asked.
“Where do you think I’m going, nitwit? To Little Marilyn’s. I hope I get there before she mails off that earring to New York. If you ever pull a stunt like this again I’ll have your hide—your hide! Do you understand?”
“Yes,” came the meek voice.
Rick charged out of the post office.
“Oh, boy, I’m in the shit can,” Harry half-whispered.
Rick opened the door and yelled at both of them, “Almost forgot. Don’t open any strange Christmas presents.” He slammed the door again.
“Just what does that mean?” Mrs. Hogendobber kicked a bag of mail. She regretted that the instant she did it, because there was so much mail in the bag.
“Guess he’s afraid presents will be booby-trapped or something.”
“Don’t worry. We can sniff them first,” Tucker advised.
Harry interpreted the soft bark to mean that Tucker wanted to go outside. She opened the back door but the dog sat down and wouldn’t budge.
“What gets into her?” Harry wondered.
“She’s trained you,” Mrs. Hogendobber replied.
“You guys are dumb,” Tucker grumbled.
“There goes our expedition,” Mrs. Murphy said to her friend. “Look.”
Tucker saw the storm clouds rolling in from the mountains.
Harry pulled a mail bag over to the back of the boxes. She started to sort and then paused. “It’s hard to concentrate.”
“I know but let’s do our best.” Miranda glanced at the old wooden wall clock. “Folks will be here in about fifteen minutes. Maybe someone will have an idea about all this . . . crazy stuff.”
As the day wore on, people trooped in and out of the post office but no one had any new ideas, any suspects. It took until noon for the news of Cabell’s vanishing act to make the rounds. A few people thought he was the killer but others guessed he was having a nervous breakdown. Even the falling snow and the prospect of a white Christmas, a rarity in Central Virginia, couldn’t lift spirits. The worm of fear gnawed at people’s nerve endings.
52
Christmas Eve morning dawned silver gray. The snow danced down, covering bushes, buildings, and cars, which were already blurred into soft, fantastic shapes. The radio stations interrupted their broadcasts for weather bulletins and then returned to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” A fantastic sense of quiet enshrouded everything.
When Harry turned out Tomahawk and Gin Fizz, the horses stood for a long time, staring at the snowfall. Then old Gin kicked up her heels and romped through the snow like a filly.
Chores followed. Harry picked up Tucker while Mrs. Murphy reclined around her neck. She waded through the snow. A snow shovel leaned against the back porch door. Harry put the animals, protesting, into the house and then turned to the odious task of shoveling. If she waited until the snow stopped she’d heave twice as much snow. Better to shovel at intervals than to tackle it later, because the weather report promised another two feet. The path to the barn seemed a mile long. In actuality it was about one hundred yards.
“Let me out. Let me out,” Tucker yapped.
Mrs. Murphy sat in the kitchen window. “Come on, Mom, we can take the cold.”
Harry relented and they scampered out onto the path she had cleared. When they tried to go beyond that, the results were comical. Mrs. Murphy would sink in way over her depth and then leap up and forward with a little cap of snow on her striped head. Tucker charged ahead like a snowplow. She soon tired of that and decided to stay behind Harry. The snow, shoveled and packed, crunched under her pads.
Mrs. Murphy, shooting upward, called out, “Wiener, wiener! Tucker is a wiener!”
“You think you’re so hot,” Tucker grumbled.
Now the tiger cat turned somersaults, throwing up clots of snow. She’d bat at the little balls, then chase them. Leaping upward, she tossed them up between her paws. Her energy fatigued Tucker while making Harry laugh.
“Yahoo!” Mrs. Murphy called out, the sheer joy of the moment intoxicating.
“Miss Puss, you ought to be in the circus.” Harry threw a little snowball up in the air for her to catch.
“Yeah, the freak show,” Tucker growled. She hated to be outdone.
Simon appeared, peeping under the barn door. “You all are noisy today.”
Harry, bent over her shovel, did not yet notice the bright eyes and the pink nose sticking out from under the door. As it was, she was only halfway to her goal, and the snow was getting heavier and heavier.
“No work today.” Mrs. Murphy landed head-deep in the snow after another gravity-defying leap.
“Think Harry will make Christmas cookies or pour syrup in the snow?” Simon wondered. “Mrs. MacGregor was the best about the syrup, you know.”
“Don’t count on it,” Tucker yelled from behind Harry, “but she got you a Christmas present. Bet she brings it out tomorrow morning, along with the presents for the horses.”
“Those horses are so stupid. Think they’ll even notice?” Simon criticized the grazing animals. He nourished similar prejudices against cattle and sheep. “What’d she get me?”
“Can’t tell. That’s cheating.” Mrs. Murphy decided to sit in the snow for a moment to catch her breath.
“Where are you, Murph?” Tucker always became anxious if she couldn’t see her best friend and constant tormentor.
“Hiding.”
“She’s off to your left, Tucker, and I bet she’s going to bust through the snow and scare you,” Simon warned.
Too late, because Mrs. Murphy did just that and both Tucker and Harry jumped.
“Gotcha!” The cat swirled and shot out of the path again.
“That girl’s getting mental,” Tucker told Harry, who wasn’t listening.
Harry finally noticed Simon. “Merry Christmas Eve, little fellow.”
Simon ducked away, then stuck his head out again. “Uh, Merry Christmas, Harry.” He then said to Mrs. Murphy, who made it to the barn door, “It unnerves me talking to humans. But it makes her so happy.”
A deep rumble alerted Simon. “See you, Murphy.” He hurried back down the aisle, up the ladder, and across the loft to his nest. Murphy, curious, stuck her head out of the barn door. A shiny new Ford Explorer, metallic hunter-green with an accent stripe and, better yet, a snow blade on the front, pulled into the driveway. A neat path had been cleared.
Blair Bainbridge opened his window. “Hey, Harry, out of the way. I’ll do that.”
Before she could reply, he quickly plowed a walkway to the barn.
He cut the motor and stepped out. “Nifty, huh?”
“It’s beautiful.” Harry rubbed her hand over the hood, which was ornamented with a galloping horse. Very expensive.