“Yeah,” Harry paused, “but it bothers me that I’ve seen these dead men. I didn’t know them, but seeing them so close to life, so recently dead, it’s eerie, know what I mean?”
“I think so. All right, Harry, what have you got?”
“Questions. I’ve been in an early-morning fog. I could see shapes. Little by little, that morning fog is lifting. What I saw was that this could be tied to gambling or drugs, but now I don’t think so. But I definitely think it has to do with whatever the mechanics know at ReNu. Of course, that could still be gambling and drugs, but—I don’t know why I think it has to do with some kind of specialized knowledge. I’ve asked Coop to slip me the report on Tara Meola’s death.”
“That was an accident.”
“Was, but I want to read the disposition of her car.”
“What do you mean?”
“A deer caused her death. Official version, and indeed it likely was the catalyst, but I think there’s more to it.”
“Oh, come on, Harry, she wasn’t murdered.”
Taking a deep breath, then a deep swallow of Coca-Cola, Harry lifted her eyebrows just slightly. “Her air bags deployed.”
“Hell, yes, they did. That’s what they’re for. A deer crashed through her windshield.”
“But when did they deploy? Look, when Miranda and I careened off the road, the air bags blew up. She couldn’t see. How she got us to the side of the road and stopped, I have no idea. Air bags are supposed to deploy in a collision. We had no collision or hard bumps really. They shouldn’t have deployed. Miranda’s a lot better driver than I thought—not that I’d say that to her, because then I’d let her know I had qualms about both her abilities and her age.”
“Sometimes you actually can do the right thing.” Susan smiled at Harry.
“I’m trying. I’ve got to find out about Tara’s car.”
“You’re not going to trouble her parents? Harry, you can’t do that.”
“I won’t. I really would like to talk to them, but I promise I won’t. I asked Herb a little about it, since he’s been calling on them. She was insured by Safe and Sound.”
“So are a lot of other people. It’s a huge mid-Atlantic company.”
“A very successful one, and we all more or less like Latigo Bly. Somehow, though, it’s hard for me to completely trust a man who changed his name legally from Alphonse to Latigo.”
Susan put down her BLT lest she drop it, she was laughing so hard. “Harry.”
“Really? Latigo? He could have changed his name to Tom, John, Robert. If he wanted to sound younger, how about Jordan? But Latigo?”
Susan laughed all the harder. “Dakota, Travis, Brett, Randy, Caleb. Are those in the same category?”
“No. They’re generational, but Latigo? Have you ever heard of anyone named after a rope?”
“You’re right. He could have picked a horse—Secretariat. Secretariat Bly.”
The silliness escalated, which meant it was turning out to be a perfect lunch.
On the way back, Harry drove, loving the short throw between shifts. “Victor is Lucifer. He knew I’d fall in love with this car.”
“Anyone who knows you would know you’d go gaga over high performance. Didn’t take a rocket scientist. BoomBoom driven it yet?”
“I’ll pick her up at the concrete plant tomorrow.”
“Think this car’s haunted?”
“No.” She climbed Afton Mountain. “I think about Nick, though, sitting in this seat.”
“It will do me no good to tell you to be careful.”
In her own way, Harry was being careful. She didn’t tell Susan what her hunch was, because she was afraid it would set her friend off and, also, she was far from sure. Why cast a shadow on a seemingly good person until one was sure?
So Harry changed the subject, a favorite tactic. “Yancy Hampton is coming back to check out my ginseng in July, when the little berries show up. Do you know in some places ginseng is bringing five hundred dollars a pound! Growers in New York get that—not all of them, but they’re averaging between three hundred and four hundred dollars a pound.”
Drily, Susan said, “Yancy isn’t going to offer you that.”
“I know.” Harry shifted into fourth gear. “I have both cultivated and wild ginseng down by the creek. Ginseng loves it there, with all the shade and moisture.”
“Takes ginseng a long time to produce seeds, doesn’t it?” Susan remembered sitting down at the creek with Harry as children, dipping their toes in the cold water.
“Three to four years. But, remember, my wild ginseng is well established. The cultivated stuff I planted last year—well, I have a wait on that.”
Susan changed the subject. “Ever miss the P.O.?”
“All the time. Really was Crozet’s hub.”
“Yeah. The new building is big, clean, and light, but you can’t hang out there like we could at the old P.O. George Hogendobber used to give us licorice sticks. Who would have ever thought you’d graduate from Smith College and become our postmistress?”
“Not me. I thought I was filling in until I found my real job and the postmaster general found a real postmistress.”
“You never talk about it.” Susan looked at her friend’s profile.
“What’s to say? The new building outgrew me, I guess. Couldn’t take Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, or Tucker to work. Those two cats could roll the mail carts as well as I could.” Harry smiled. “Everything’s changed, Susan. Sometimes I feel old. I know I’m not, but … oh, I don’t know.”
“We have memory now. We can compare things. Couldn’t do that at age six.”
Harry thought about that. “Change is life, I guess.”
“It is.” Susan took a breath as Harry shifted around a curve, sliding nicely. “Show-off.”
“Couldn’t help it.” Harry laughed. “Ever go into the café at Fresh?”
“Couple of times. He’s done a nice job. Sometimes I see friends. Sometimes I don’t. I think Yancy hoped it would be a central place, but who goes into an organic market? People with some money. Nobody poor can pay those prices.”
“Got that right. I really don’t like Yancy. Can’t put my finger on exactly why he rubs me the wrong way.”
“Me, too.”
“You play golf with Barbara. You like her.”
“I do. But she’s a nervous type. And she never talks about him. Not one word, which I think is a bit strange. It’s not as if you and I and the rest of us don’t occasionally discuss our significant others.”
“Or insignificant others.”
“That, too.”
They were still laughing when Harry pulled in front of the barn.
“Why didn’t you take me?” Tucker asked as the two women disembarked. Harry leaned down to pick up the cigarette lighter, reminding herself to call Victor, since it must be his.
“ ’Cause you rolled in horse poop,” Pewter helpfully suggested.
“Do you know, Pewter, when you talk, your belly sways from side to side?”
“Do you know, Tucker, when I’m behind you, tailless thing, I see things I’d rather not?”
Harry and Susan had just set foot in the kitchen when the wall phone rang.
Harry picked it up. “Hello.”
“You’ll never guess,” Franny breathlessly spoke. “They found my tires.”
“Where?”
Susan helped herself to iced tea, then moved next to Harry to hear better.
“A warehouse at Zion Crossroads.”
At the junction of I-64 and Route 250 in Louisa County was Zion Crossroads. For so many years it had been sleepy and nondescript, but in the last ten, it had morphed into a hotbed of business, food, and gas. I-64 could carry one all the way to St. Louis if traveling west. Then it turned into I-70, rolling through until the Rockies. Even those drivers on a short hop to Richmond pulled in, grabbed a Coca-Cola or coffee, and stretched their legs.