Arch Saunders, not three miles away, had a devil of a time renting helicopters, because Kluge Estate Vineyard, White Vineyards, Oakencroft, and King Vineyards had rented
everything within a three-hour flight radius of Albemarle County.
He finally managed to procure four, at six hundred fifty dollars an hour each. By the time the noisy machines flew off like giant dragonflies, Arch figured they'd lost ten to thirty percent of the crop. Rollie was furious.
The following day, May 12, the countryside glowed in sixty-seven-degree warmth.
Harry had no recourse to helicopters, but her Petit Manseng proved a tough variety. The grape survived through the centuries not only because of careful cultivation but also because of hardiness. Indeed, Petit Manseng was so old it had been used to baptize Henry IV of France in 1553.
Early on the evening of May 12, thanks to Daylight Savings Time, Harry had enough light to keep working. The varieties of sunflowers, redbud clover, and alfalfa that she selected were either native to the area or especially rugged.
Central Virginia weather could provide cold winters as well as sizzling summers. It was a crapshoot.
As Harry finished up, returning to thebarn to check on the horses, she wondered at the shock those early English settlers must have felt in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The American climate was harsher, the indigenous peoples were so different from Europeans. The wildlife and plant life, much of it, was new to them.
"Fair."Tucker heard his truck.
"He'sbeen working so hard. The pace should be easing off by now,"Mrs. Murphy remarked.
Pewter sauntered into the barn."I'm here."
"So?"The tiger half-closed her eyes.
"Don't you want to know where I've been?"
"Sleeping in the house."Tucker trotted to the open barn doors to await Fair's arrival.
"If that's my reception, I'll keep my news to myself."Pewter walked out, pausing a moment for effect, then headed toward the back porch door, the flab of her belly swaying to and fro.
"If she thinks I'm going to beg, she's wrong."Mrs. Murphy watched the gray cat.
"Yeah, but what if she really knowssomething?"Tucker often fell for Pewter's machinations.
Mrs. Murphy considered this but forgot about it when Fair pulled up in his truck.
The two animals ran to greet him. He knelt down to make a fuss over them as Harry emerged into the fading sunlight.
"I'd like a kiss, too."
"With pleasure." He scratched Tucker's ears, then ran his forefinger along Mrs. Murphy's cheek before standing to embrace his wife. "Long day?"
"Yes, but the frost didn't hurt us, thank God."
"Got some other folks." He opened the driver's door again, running his hand where the seat back joined the seat bottom.
"What'd you lose?"
"Quarters. Fell out of my pocket."
"Don't you hate that?" she commiserated. "Always happens at one of the toll booths on Route 64 in West Virginia."
As they entered the kitchen, the phone rang.
Fair picked it up; his shoulders stiffened as he listened, then he said, "Good-bye."
"What was that all about?"
"Hy Maudant." Fair grabbed string cheese from the fridge.
"What does he want?"
"He said he saw me walking up the hill when he drove out. He's sorry he didn't stop, but he was, in his words, 'not in full possession of himself.' He said he was so rattled by the sight of Toby that he ran."
"How very convenient that Toby had his own gun in his hand."
Fair ate a long piece of string cheese, handing some to his wife. "Sure was. Saw Bo Newell the other day, and Arch, too, at the coffee shop. Wound up having breakfast with them once they got over themselves, and Arch actually paid. I figured he'd pay for Bo but not me. He'll never forgive me for winning you back."
"Honey, that was years ago, Arch and my time together. Tell me what happened."
"Oh, well, Bo said Hy wouldn't be that stupid."
"It's hard to believe he wasn't. He killed Toby and put Toby's own gun in his hand. What's so difficult to believe about that?" She played devil's advocate, because she'd begun to wonder herself.
"There's something to that, but it's not so far-fetched to think someone would lose their composure walking up to a freshly killed man. And there's something else that bothers me. I would have heard the shots. I didn't hear a thing."
"The other thing is, Toby called about Jed, and Jed's fine. How quickly did you get there after Toby called?"
"Couldn't have been ten minutes. I wasn't that far and I put the pedal to the metal."
"How long do you think Toby had been dead?"
"Minutes. Literally minutes. He had to have been shot just before I reached the barn." He took a long breath. "I pick on you when your curiosity spikes. Now it's me."
"I'm so glad you recognize that." She gloated ever so slightly.
"Something is missing."
"Professor Forland."
"The two aren't connected."
"We don't know that." Harry reached for more cheese.
"True, but say that Toby's murder is exactly what it seems to be: the end result of an ongoing feud, of bad feelings. There's still something we don't know."
"That's not consoling."
"No, it isn't."
Pewter, who had soaked up every word, turned to Mrs. Murphy and Tucker again."Don't you want to know where I've been?"
"Oh, Pewter."Mrs. Murphy dismissed her.
"All right, then."Miffed though she was, Pewter looked like the cat who swallowed the canary.
24
"I don't know." Big Mim stood in the middle of the quad in front of her old stable, originally built in 1802.
The new stable under construction, its back facing north, was sited at a right angle to the old stable.
Tazio Chappars had designed the new stable so it harmonized with the old, using the same graceful proportions and the same roof pitch.
The 1802 structure, which was brick and painted white, bore testimony to the enduring quality of the materials and the design. Both stables had excellent drainage.
The new one had pipes running underneath to two huge buried holding tanks, four thousand gallons each. Each drain in the new stable was covered with a perforated lid. This kept out much of the debris while allowing a stable hand to lift it and clean it out with a plumber's snake.
The new stable, instead of being infested with wires, had a small dish facing due south so Paul de Silva could use his computer without electricity.
A backup generator was housed in an insulated room that also contained a large hot water heater. A small heat pump for the office would be hidden outside behind the office once construction was finished and bushes could be planted.
The work stall had recessed lights, some of which were heat lamps controlled by a separate switch.
The brilliant design never shouted. The tranquillity of the stable would be further enhanced by the landscaping once the last truck rolled away.
Harry, next to Mim, admired Violet Hill, the stunning four-year-old blood bay that Mim loved.
"You know what you really want to do." Harry thought the filly one of the best movers she had ever seen.
"Mom will tell Big Mim to do what she wants to do,"Mrs. Murphy, resting underthe eaves of the old stable, commented to Press Man, the springer spaniel puppy Mim had purchased to enliven her old, much loved springer spaniel, currently asleep at the house.
The little guy, all of five months, thought Mrs. Murphy hung the moon because she talked to him.
Mim's barn cats hissed and swatted at Press.
Tucker observed Paul now running alongside Violet Hill, encouraging the beautiful horse to extend her trot, which she did.
Pewter, also under the eaves, kept her eye on purple finches eating fennel seed from a feeder hung not far from the barn.
"Paul, thank you. Any more and you'll have completed the marathon." The elegant older woman laughed.
"Anyone else you'd like to see, Senora?"