"What I was wondering is, was Professor Forland secretly working on a mutation? Not to harm our crops but if our government wanted to use biological warfare against someone else?"
"No." Coop's voice was firm. "He didn't work for our government. He was called in as an expert by the wine lobby to testify before House and Senate subcommittees."
"Ah."
"Harry?"
"I think this is about revenge. I don't know who was trying to destroy whom first, Hy or Toby. It escalated. Maybe Professor Forland found out Toby's intentions, which would have hurt everyone, and Toby killed him. Hy caught Toby later or figured it out. Hy knew his stuff. He made the big mistake of confronting Toby."
"And then finally overwhelmed with what he'd done, Hy shoots himself? It's all plausible, Harry, but it's not proven."
"But you've thought of this, too?"
"We have."
"Have you thought of why the sharpshooters were in my peach orchard?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"The intention was for you to find themand sounda warning—I think. Again, this is conjecture."
"Didn't work. The scare tactic. No one sold their vineyards because of it, although it's early in the game."
"Yeah, but, Harry, it was a red herring. At least that's what I think. Once you do the research, you find out there's no way that sharpshooters, those little stealth bombers, can live here. So a true vintner wouldn't panic and sell out, but latecomers to making wine might."
"The sharpshooters were brought up from farther down South." Harry paused. "There's no other way they could have gotten here."
"Clever."
"Somehow this gets back to me. I don't know why." Harry's frustration mounted.
"What do you know that I don't? Why would you be a target with three men dead, one apparently by his own hand?"
"I don't know. You said 'apparently.'"
"Forensics has a small question mark because of the nature of the powder burns. It was Hy's gun. Registered in his name. Like I said, it's a small question mark. We aren't yet treating it as a suspicious death,but the coroner sent his photographs to Richmond for a second opinion." Coop, with her window down, inhaled the fragrance of the earth.
"I keep coming back to those darned sharpshooters."
"Okay, listen to me. There is a very good chance that in some tangential way, you are... involved is the wrong word, but you know what I mean. If the tactic was simply to scare another grower, it seems putting the bugs in their vineyards would make more sense. But again, you would make sure to find out what the sharpshooters were and you'd go to the right people. It's a little more sophisticated than dumping bugs in White Vineyards, for example."
"Maybe my peach orchard was the experiment. They didn't want to use their vineyard or peach grove if they have one. And maybe I stumbled on it a day early. I don't know. I'm trying to think of everything."
"/found the stealth bomber." Pewter sat upright.
"You did."Mrs. Murphy supported Pewter, which gave the gray cat great satisfaction.
Harry and Coop batted ideas around. Allit did was make them dizzy with implication. Ideas aren't hard evidence.
After their discussion, Harry walked out into the center aisle. Movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Matilda dangling from a rafter; blacksnakes enjoy a good climb.
Matilda startled Harry for an instant. "I wish she wouldn't do that."
38
The heavy aroma of coffee from Shenandoah Joe's curled into Fair's nostrils. He sighed, inhaled deeply, then opened his eyes. He'd fallen asleep on the couch, but his boots were neatly lined up on the floor, a pillow was under his thick blond hair, and a blanket covered him.
Pewter, resting on his chest, opened her eyes when he did."Good morning. Breakfast!"
"Pewter, you must weigh twenty pounds."
The gray cannonball on his chest shifted her weight. "/do not. I have big bones."
From the kitchen Mrs. Murphy called out,"Ha!"
"Oh, shut up. You're no beauty basket, either."
"Maybe not, but at least I'm in shape."
Tucker, patiently waiting by her ceramic food bowl, groaned."Not a fight before breakfast."
"Come on, Pewts, I need to get up."
Grumbling, switching her tail furiously, Pewter vacated her spot.
Fair sat up, rubbed his eyes, then headed for the bathroom.
By the time he walked into the kitchen, Harry had made a cheese omelette, lots of capers in it, with fresh tomato slices on the side sprinkled with olive oil and fresh parsley ground like green confetti.
"Good morning." She smiled as she put the plate on the table along with an English muffin.
"Thanks. When did you get in?"
"Nine-thirty. You were out like a light." She sat down to join him.
Harry wore a cotton undershirt—the kind kids called wife beaters—and thin cotton boxer undershorts. Once the worst of the winter passed, she hated to wrap up in a robe.
"I don't remember. God, I must have been tired. I read your note on the blackboard, drank a tonic water, and sat down toread the newspaper." He watched the cream swirl in his coffee. "How's it going at Coop's?"
"She was smart. She unpacked the kitchen first. Since that's the worst job, anything after that is easy. I've got to remember to bring some flowers, something to make it like home." She rose, grabbed a little notebook on the counter under the phone, and scribbled "flowers" on the page. "Can you think of a good housewarming gift?"
"Does she have a coffee grinder?"
"No. Perfect." Triumphantly, she wrote, "Coffee grinder."
"See how smart I am?"
"I know. You married me." She demolished her omelette. "Horse okay?"
"Yeah. He'll make it. I'd hoped we could haul him down to Virginia Tech, but I don't think he would have made it; he was losing blood. We put down plastic tarps, clean, tranqed him, and he dropped on the tarp. Operated there. I don't know if he'll ever hunt again, but he might be able to amble on trails. He just shredded his suspensory, deep lacerations in his right shoulder. Had to stitch that up, but it's the suspensorythat's the real issue." He cited a ligament in the foreleg.
"Mandy will give him good care, and she'll never part with him." Harry named the owner, a kind woman in her fifties.
"All comes down to the owner."
"I've been thinking about Jed."
"Cuts make you think of him? He's finally happy. He's made friends at BoomBoom's with the other horses."
"Actually, I've been thinking about Jed ever since I talked to Coop yesterday, and then as we were organizing the house we talked some more."
"I'll bet." Fair grinned, then rose to pour more coffee. "Want more hot water for your tea?"
"No thanks."
"Well, what about Jed?"
"He was sound."
"Right."
"Why did Toby call you there?"
"I thought we talked about this."
"We did, sort of, and you mentioned that when you had that impromptu lunch with Arch and Bo that Arch thought Toby had lost his mind."
"Right. You said when you saw Toby at Alicia's he was irrational," Fair replied.
"He was. Alicia, Arch, and myself were witness to it. He wasn't a pretty picture. But Coop says that there is a slight question mark about Hy's suicide. The coroner sent the photos to Richmond."
"What does that have to do with Toby?"
"Just this: what if you were set up to look like Toby's killer? What if Hy really told the truth? He didn't kill Toby. He panicked when he saw the body and fled. One of those things—the killer has it all planned out and something unexpected happens. Pretty much life, isn't it? One unexpected thing after another."
"True." Holding his coffee cup in his hands, Fair thought. "Why me? I can't think of anyone that mad at me."
"I can't, either."
"And I don't have anything to do with vineyards. I figure that's the tie, the vineyards."
"I have a quarter of an acre."
"You do, but that's not my business. I'll put my back into it, but no one will ever accuse me of being a vintner."