"Would you like a cup of coffee? I'll treat. I'm beginning to worry about repairs to the rectory and maybe we could have our own meeting before the meeting." Tazio's lipstick, a shiny burgundy gloss, accentuated her nice teeth when she smiled.
"Sure."
They walked into the coffee shop, quiet on Sunday morning. Harry ordered a cappuccino with mountains of frothy milk. The animals, pleased to be allowed in, actually sat by the table without making a fuss.
"Brinkley, you're looking better," Tucker complimented the young Lab.
"She's feeding me a high-protein diet because I'm still growing. And last night she put chicken gravy on it. The most delicious thing I've ever tasted."
"I killed a live chicken once," Pewter boasted. "A Rhode Island Red and she was huge. Laid huge eggs, too."
"Brinkley, don't listen to her. She is such a storyteller." Mrs. Murphy rubbed against the Lab's light yellow chest.
"I did so kill a chicken. She walked out in front of the barn. The biggest chicken in the universe and she tried to chase me but I jumped on her back." The gray cat drew herself up to her full height, becoming more impressive.
"Now for the real story." Tucker chuckled. "She really did jump on the back of the chicken and it was a most plump chicken. But Pewter scared the dumb bird so much she dropped dead of a heart attack. It wasn't exactly a life-and-death struggle."
"That doesn't change the fact that I killed the chicken. Brinkley, they never want to give me credit for anything. They've never killed a chicken."
"No." Tucker clamped her long jaws shut. "Harry would throw me out of the house if I did. And you were lucky she was in the barn watching you or you would really have gotten into trouble. She knew the bird had had a coronary."
"How many chickens do you have?" Brinkley asked.
"Not a single one." Mrs. Murphy laughed.
Brinkley put his nose down to touch Pewter's. "Did you kill them all?"
This went straight to Pewter's head. She puffed out her chest, she swished her tail, she tipped up her chin. It was the Mighty Puss pose. "I did not but I could have if I wanted to."
"Then what happened to the chickens?" The younger fellow was puzzled.
"Well, first you have to understand that our human is the practical sort. But every now and then she gets an idea that doesn't exactly work out. The money-saving venture actually loses and, well, she goes through three pencils doing her sums trying to figure it out. The chickens were one of those kind of things." Tucker smiled.
"At first things were okay." Mrs. Murphy picked up the story. "She bought peepies, put them under an infrared light. Well, Brinkley, you won't get one little egg for six months. But finally the great day arrived and a puny egg appeared. In time more eggs appeared from these twenty hens and the eggs got bigger and bigger as the hens got bigger. Finally, when the chickens became ever so plump, the red fox down the lane would just yank one out of the chicken coop. Locked doors, screened top, nothing stopped him except that one big Rhode Island Red. He never could kill that chicken until heart disease did her in. Too much corn, I reckon."
The front door opened and Cynthia Cooper came in and sat down. "Herb told me you all left church together. I checked around and here you are."
Harry knew Cooper fairly well. "What's the matter?"
"Another killing at the Clam." She motioned and the waitress brought her a cup of double latte.
"You're kidding!" Harry sat up straight, as did the animals.
"Mychelle Burns stuffed in the broom closet."
"What?" Tazio's hands shook for a moment.
"If I were the kind of person who jumped to conclusions, I'd say someone was trying to spook the team." Harry slapped her napkin next to her fork.
"At this point no theory seems far-fetched." Cooper took a deep draught of the restorative coffee. "But H.H. and Mychelle?" She turned to Tazio. "Harry told me that Mychelle was unpleasant to you at the Mountain View Grille?"
"She said she wanted to see me. It was important. Usually when she wanted to see me it was about one of my buildings. We never discussed anything but work."
"But wouldn't she give you a hint, something like, 'The copper pipes at the new house are crooked'?" Harry shrugged. "I know I'm not using terminology correctly but you know what I mean. To kind of get you thinking about the problem, real or made-up."
"Made-up is closer to the mark. You know, being a sister, I wanted to like her but I couldn't stand her. Not that I wished her dead. We had nothing in common and I felt she singled me out for particular abuse."
"At lunch the other day when she nabbed you, what did she say?" Harry jumped right in whether she had any business asking these questions or not.
"She was her usual hostile self or maybe 'demanding' is a better word." Tazio stopped herself a moment. "But there was something else."
"Fear?" Harry interjected.
"Well-no, not exactly. She baited me because she knew I didn't want to see her. Apparently, Fred loathes Matthew so much he'll carry garbage from other construction sites and dump it at Matthew's. And she said H.H. would get copies of blueprints on buildings Matthew had done. She admitted she was baiting me and said she had more to tell me so I'd better see her."
Cooper drained her cup, needing the caffeine and sugar. She started to perk up. "Did you ever hear of any improprieties about her? Payoffs? Under-the-table kind of stuff?"
Tazio vigorously shook her head no. "She was honest. She was . . . I guess the word is 'incorruptible.'?"
"Can you tell us how she was killed?" Harry wanted details.
"Stabbed to death."
"How awful," Tazio said.
"In the Clam. That's what I don't get. Why there?" Harry's mind raced along.
"Do you have any notes or correspondence from Mychelle?" Cooper waved for another latte.
"Official documents. Nothing personal."
"I'd like to look at them."
"Of course. I can take you over to the office right now when we've finished our coffee."
"Maybe she wasn't a betting woman but her luck sure ran out." Cooper sighed.
"Maybe she was another chicken the fox got at," Mrs. Murphy commented.
"Some fox." A note of bitterness crept into Tucker's voice.
22
As Cooper and Tazio drove off in their respective vehicles, Harry ordered a coffee to go. She needed the buzz this morning. She also ordered three doughnuts. One for her, one for Susan, and one to be shared among Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker.
As she shepherded her small brood into the 1978 Ford half-ton, she considered whether H.H.'s and Mychelle's murders were connected by anything other than location. Both were UVA fans, but their social circles didn't overlap. They shared no hobbies. Their connection through construction must have been rife with tension.
Of course, it was possible that the demise of both people was not connected. Yet both murders occurred within days of each other. It was too suspicious, at least in her mind.
Even though neither H.H. nor Mychelle was close to her, murder comes as a shock. To snatch life from another human violated everything she had been taught. Murder created disorder. Harry loathed disorder.
A morose Tucker, paws on the dashboard, watched the road.
"Tucker, you did what you could," Mrs. Murphy sympathized.
"It must have been a slow, agonizing death," Tucker said.
"Well, think of all the abandoned animals who die slow, agonizing deaths. Put it in perspective," Pewter counseled since she certainly didn't believe human life was more important than animal life.
"I guess." The strong little dog sighed, pushed back from the dash, and landed on Pewter who complained loudly.
"All right, you two." Harry cruised down Susan's driveway, lined with blue spruces. She cut the engine. "Back door. We are wiping paws." She held up the towel she kept in the truck for this purpose. "And we are not begging for food. Do you read me, Pewter?"
"I do not beg for food. I merely put myself in the vicinity of food."