Cooper laughed as she saw her boss, Rick Shaw, the sheriff, come into the room. “He knows about the hooch, of course.”
“Always did.” Harry laughed. “It’s a wise law enforcement officer who knows when to turn a blind eye.”
“Ain’t that the truth? Let’s see if we can work our way over to the library. Doesn’t look like so many people there.”
The two edged their way through the crowd toward the mahogany-shelved library, chatting as they did so, which meant the short walk into the next room took a half hour.
Just before reaching the library, Harry bumped into Cindy Walters, whom she introduced to Cooper.
“This is so terrible.” Cindy spoke above the crowd noise. “I no sooner reached home than I turned around to come back. She would have done the same for me.”
“Yes,” Harry simply agreed.
Cindy looked at Cooper. “I don’t know if this will help you but Hester told me she was stepping on toes. Her refusal to sell sprayed crops, her opposition to development. She mentioned this in passing.”
“Any names?” Cooper was accustomed to people providing information.
“No.”
“Did she seemed frightened?”
“Officer, I don’t really know. Hester hid a lot.”
“Thank you, Miss Walters.”
“Where’s Heidi?” Harry asked.
“Upstairs. Couldn’t live without her.” The short, trim lady smiled.
Once inside the library, they looked at the books, many old, bound in Moroccan leather of deep colors.
Harry found a shelf dealing with agriculture. “She’s got books dating back to World War One; she’s got books released year by year from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
Coop bent down to read spines on the lower shelves. “Some of these are in French. Hey, here’s one on Percherons and it looks very, very old.”
Harry knelt down. “Percherons are French draft horses. I had no idea. I mean, I knew that Hester had a college degree, but look at all these books.”
“Here’re two rows on Indian affairs.” Cooper squinted to see better.
Harry joined her and looked closely at the titles. “She must have everything Virginia and the U.S. government ever released on the subject.”
“She’s got newer stuff, too,” said Coop. “Custer and Little Big Horn. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” The law officer read a few more titles out loud, then moved to the next shelf at her eye level. She stopped cold. “Harry.”
“Yeah?” Harry was utterly absorbed in her examination of the old volumes.
“Come here.”
Harry did as she was asked and beheld a photograph of Hester in an old silver frame. She had a fly rod in her hand, and her surroundings looked to be Bath or Highland County, Virginia counties adjacent to the state of West Virginia. Standing next to her in a stream was a man considerably younger, fishing rod also in hand. He held up a lovely trout.
Harry leaned closer.
“It’s Josh Hill,” Cooper said, her voice low.
Harry swallowed. “I never saw his face, I mean intact.”
Cooper had seen plenty of photographs of the accountant during her ongoing research. “It’s him all right, which makes me wonder: Were these two fishing for trouble together?”
Sunlight flooded Hester’s kitchen, which faced east. The morning after the reception, Cooper and Rick Shaw sat at the kitchen’s small square wooden table with Sarah Price. After apologizing for troubling her at such a time, the two law enforcement officers began their questioning of Hester Martin’s niece.
“Did you ever meet the young man in the photograph?” Rick Shaw asked Sarah. The silver-framed photo of Hester and Josh Hill sat on the table in front of them.
“Not that I remember,” the pleasant woman replied. “I don’t know who he is.”
“She never mentioned Josh Hill?” asked Rick.
Sarah looked again at the photo. “No.”
“Did she talk about fishing?” Cooper asked.
“Some. Aunt Hester and I would speak over the phone about once a week. She wouldn’t text me or email. She said she wanted to hear my voice, then she’d know if I was okay.”
“Did she talk about her other interests?” Rick folded his hands then unfolded them.
“Aunt Hester loved to lecture! That is, once she had inquired about my health, boyfriend status—I’m divorced—and my career advancement or lack thereof.” Sarah smiled. “After all that, I would be treated to discussions about the global food crisis, why agribusiness couldn’t meet the demand, and why she refused to sell foods treated with pesticides. She admitted organic farming was less efficient. A lot of goods are lost to bugs and stuff. You didn’t so much talk with my late aunt as you listened.”
Both Rick and Cooper smiled before Cooper spoke up. “Did your aunt ever talk about what she was reading? That’s a gorgeous library. All those books from the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. She must have loved reading or at least collecting.”
“Much of that library she inherited, but she was an avid reader. Often she read in French, especially plays and novels. We would laugh about something she quoted from Molière. But mostly, with me, anyway, she would talk about something she’d read in English about farming or about human impact on wildlife.”
“It’s funny, Miss Price,” said Cooper. “I have stopped at your aunt’s roadside stand for years and I never knew she could read in French, never knew she owned such beautiful things.” She looked around the kitchen, her eyes resting on the old wooden cupboards.
“That doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know as I would classify Aunt Hester as secretive so much as, uh, compartmentalized.” She leaned to her left, toward Rick. “Her friends and interests fell into categories, which didn’t overlap.”
“Did she talk about them with you?” Rick inquired.
“Not much. Most of what I knew came from my dad, who died about six years ago from lung cancer. He was older than Hester by two years. They got along but weren’t close. Too different.”
“How?” Cooper often found that an offhand comment, a recollection, pointed in the right direction.
“Oh, Dad was sophisticated, driven. And social. Houston is a great city in which to be social. He married very well. Both my parents loved fine things, evening-gown parties. You know the type. Aunt Hester thought he was superficial.”
“Was he?” Rick’s eyebrows lifted.
A silence followed this. “By Virginia standards, he was. He talked about money too openly. His suits were too flashy and he wore a big gold Rolex, which Aunt Hester called a Texas timepiece. But Daddy had a heart of gold, so if he wanted to wear a little gold, okay. He made sure I got the best education possible. He went to Houston to make money and he did. Sure, he indulged Mother and he indulged me, but he also made sure I knew right from wrong, and he could be tough. Can you tell? I loved my dad.”
“He sounds like a good fellow.” Rick nodded. “And Virginians can be snobs. Aunt Hester might have filled those shoes.”
“Oh, she didn’t mean anything by it. Dad took it with a grain of salt. He called her the Old Maid and declared if she’d find a good man she’d be much less judgmental. I remember Aunt H, as I would call her, used to say to my mother, ‘He’s my brother, I love him, but how can you live with him?’ Mom would laugh.”
“What did you think?” Cooper shrewdly asked.
“I guess in some ways I agreed with Dad, but you never got the full picture with Aunt H. Her interests were passionate but compartmentalized, as I said. Like the fishing, for instance. She rarely talked to me about it but she would talk about it for hours to Mom, who liked to fish, too. Once they went together to the Snake River in Wyoming. Dad paid for everything. Aunt Hester was appalled that Mother put on makeup to fish.” Sarah laughed, a tinkling, engaging laugh.