“You’ll save money because I can do this with just one other man. We can work pretty fast together. The really good news is I have a source of slate shingles that should closely match yours. A huge old house was dismantled in Cumberland County. The heirs just let it go. Built in 1719.” He paused. “A little bit of history slips away but it takes money to restore and keep those old places going. I understand, but if you can’t do it, sell it to someone who can. Don’t wait until it falls apart.”
“Good advice, but when there’s more than one heir, things tend to get dragged out.”
“Boy, that’s the truth. Anyway, I can get on this next Monday. Figure a full day just in case. If all goes well, half a day. I don’t think the bill will go over four thousand dollars, and I will try to do it for less. Preacher’s price.” He smiled broadly.
“Seth, you’re a good egg.”
“You don’t know me,” he devilishly replied. “Want me to put the ladder back?”
“Sure. Thank you. I’ll walk with you to the shed.”
As Harry and Seth strolled away, chatting about SEC football, she noticed Neil Jordan drive up, followed soon after by Wesley Speer.
After Seth drove away, Harry returned to the chancery.
“There’s a lift to her step,” Lucy Fur noted. “Must be good news.”
“We’ll see.” Cazenovia hopped off the windowsill to hurry out of the room and down the hall to greet Harry, whom she very much liked.
Pushing open the back door, Harry beheld the beautiful longhaired calico cat already on her hind legs.
“Caz.” Harry knelt down and scooped her up. “Such a religious kitty. And such a good concierge.”
“I am.”
Carrying the contented cat, Harry peered into the large office. She didn’t want to disturb the reverend, as he seemed to be in the middle of a meeting. Neil and Wesley sat in the chairs around the coffee table. The reverend was standing at his desk, papers in hand. He looked up at her.
“I can come back,” said Harry.
“No, come on in.”
Putting Cazenovia down, Harry pulled off her work gloves. “Hi.”
Neil and Wesley stood up to greet her.
“Should I brace for the worst?” Neil joked.
“No. Good news. Seth can start on the roof next Monday, should finish the same day, and—here’s the good part—he’s got a source of old slate shingles and he feels sure he can keep the bill under four thousand. What luck.”
“I suppose if a bill can be said to be good, that is,” Neil solemnly replied.
“Neil, slate costs an arm and a leg,” said Wesley. “Old slate, especially. We’ll make up the shortfall if we have one, but I bet we don’t.” He beamed.
“Harry, sit down. Let’s all have a hot cup of cocoa or whatever. Betty!” Reverend Jones called.
A middle-aged woman stuck her head in the room. “Yes? Oh, hi, everyone.”
“How about cocoa?” The reverend looked at his small gathering.
“Cocoa sounds perfect.” Harry smiled.
“I’ll go with that,” Wesley agreed, as did Neil.
The young, pretty secretary usually outside the reverend’s office was now in her last months of pregnancy and on leave. Filling in was Betty Maddox, cousin to Dorothy, the sheriff’s department’s chief of forensics. You had to be careful what you said about people in Crozet, as most folks were related.
“While we wait, it’s good you’re here, Harry,” said Neil. “I’d like to give the church lawns a good dressing of fertilizer and put it down before mid-November. Give it plenty of time to get into the ground. Checked the soil. Good pH, selenium. Potassium okay. Needs a little magnesium.”
“Neil, that’s wonderful.” Harry smiled. “The little mini-drought that we had didn’t affect our lawns too much, but fertilizer always helps, and I’ll come on back in springtime and drill in some wonderful lush grass seed. I always throw some rye in, too. Give the clover and bluegrass early cover.”
Thanks to his real estate company, Wesley kept up with farming news. His largest sales were big estates and he had to know something about soil conditions and crop yields if selling to a true farmer, or even a new person who would lease out the land. Most new people wanted to live on a grand estate but didn’t want to actually farm, which was wise since they weren’t raised to it.
“Harry, did you see where the USDA”—he used the initials for the United States Department of Agriculture—“predicts the drought reduced our economic growth by almost half a percentage point? That’s extremely serious.”
“Sure is,” she agreed. “But I was talking to Buddy Janss and he said what was so bizarre was that sometimes fields on one side of a road twisted up while on the other side the crops were healthy. What crazy weather. Buddy has suffered some losses, though.”
Neil didn’t much like Buddy, in part because the large fellow didn’t buy his fertilizer. Buddy was so smart he’d worked out a deal years ago with horse owners to remove their manure and straw for free. This he put in piles, let it cook, then the next year used it himself, selling the extra for fertilizer. The horse owners, most of them owning but a few horses, gladly paid him to haul off the muck. Buddy used commercial fertilizers if a field needed extra potassium or another nutrient. That drove Neil crazy, but then, the two possessed such differing personalities they would have struggled to like each other no matter what. Neil was detail oriented and picky, whereas Buddy was expansive, and did his best but didn’t fret.
“Wasn’t Buddy friends with Hester?” Neil asked, as he had only lived in the area a few years.
“For years and years.” Harry smiled. “You know Hester wouldn’t sell anything that was sprayed or if the seeds had been genetically modified.”
“She was a crank,” Neil said. “Not that I wished her dead, but really.”
“Hester was an eccentric,” the reverend said in his most diplomatic tone, “but she worked hard for causes she believed in, she mentored younger people like Tazio, and I expect any of us could be considered a crank at one time or another.”
“Not you.” Harry grinned and the men laughed.
“You should live with him,” Elocution called out from her fuzzy den on the floor.
“He feeds us Fancy Feast and he even tried to see if we’d chew on greenies,” Cazenovia chided her from the windowsill. “He’s the best.”
“Yeah, Elo,” Lucy Fur chimed in. “Button your lip.”
“All right, all right,” the Lutheran cat said, giving in.
Betty arrived with a tray of hot cocoa and sugar cookies. The Reverend Jones jumped up to carry it and place it on the table.
Wesley returned to the subject of Hester. “Horrible. Harry, you have endured two shocks. Finding that young man and then Hester.”
“Did,” she agreed. “As I didn’t know the fellow who was killed, it was a shock and that was all, but Hester, that hurt. Yes, she had her ways, but she was a good soul and really pretty smart. I mean a lot smart, actually.”
“That she was,” Wesley agreed. “The last time I stopped by the stand, we got on the subject of crop irrigation. I don’t remember how we did get on it—you know with Hester, one thing didn’t lead to another, it jumped to another. But anyway, she was telling me that farmers have been pulling water out of the Ogallala Aquifer since the early 1950s and some of those irrigation booms are a half mile long. A half mile!”
“Great day,” Reverend Jones exclaimed.
“It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?” said Wesley. “A half-mile boom spinning around a fixed water pipe? But there’s a lot of talk, consideration in a lot of the affected states, about cutting back on irrigation because the droughts are dropping water levels, as is all the population growth.”