“It cost Jerome his life. He made the connection we’re missing.” Cooper, patient, knew she had to keep digging.
“Harry called me late this afternoon. She, Alicia, and Aunt Tally were at St. James. It’s a long shot, but tomorrow let’s go back there.”
Cooper smiled. “What are we looking for?”
“Ziggy. An echo.”
38
Friday morning, nine-thirty, on June 25, Tazio Chappars opened the door of Carmen Gamble’s shop. She needed a quick trim, as she had to make a presentation to a client at one in the afternoon. Brinkley followed on her heels.
Toby, the receptionist, looked up. “Oh, Tazio, Carmen called from the airport. She’s on her way to Bermuda. Her aunt is very sick.”
“I didn’t know she had an aunt in Bermuda.”
“Me, neither, but I know you need your haircut, and Cindy Green said she’d be glad to do it.”
Cindy Green, twirling her scissors, called out, “Showtime!”
Toby whispered, “Brinkley, I’ve got a cookie.”
Brinkley’s ears perked up.
Tazio was right. Carmen didn’t have an aunt in Bermuda.
39
Potlicker Creek flowed the four and a half miles from St. James to Harry’s farm. Along the way it widened, as other small creeks fed into it, until finally it spilled into the Mechums River.
The waters, clear and cool, had been favored by the native population. Although the English had settled the eastern and central parts of Albemarle County before the Revolutionary War, only a handful ventured this far west, thanks to the vigilance and ferocity of the Monacans.
Once Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the mood of the now-independent Americans swung upward and westward. Crushing war debts drove some far past the boundaries of Anglo civilization. Others knew fortunes would be made if they could only figure out how to get their produce and products to burgeoning cities and towns back east.
Potlicker Creek, not being a mighty river, offered little in the way of transportation. But those who settled at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains discovered that the crystal creek water made soft whiskey or clear spirits, if that was your preference.
A tangle of footpaths leading back to the stills tucked in the hollows crisscrossed the creek along its course. The revenue man had tried to tame the distillers. More than one never made it back home. Finally, the government ignored the distillers until the upheavals of the Great Depression.
During that time, families along the Appalachian Chain were removed, bought out, or forced out to make way for the explosion of public works designed to revive the economy as well as to stave off revolt. Along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains the Skyline Drive was built, in use to this day, as a monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision and a sorrow to those families forced to leave home.
The moonshine men became ever more adept at hiding or moving. Potlicker Creek would see a still erected for a season then moved deeper into a sheltering mountain crevice. As Albemarle County became more and more desirable, the distillers took their trade to Nelson County, meeting stout resistance from those Nelson County men already in the business.
Harry, Fair, Alicia, and Aunt Tally, who was making a habit of visiting Alicia, stood at a narrow crossing of Potlicker Creek a mile behind the training track at St. James. The slick slide along the creek bank bore testimony to the work of muskrats, an animal as industrious as the beaver.
Along the creek, mountain laurel and blackberries spilled over one another. A canopy of various oaks, hickories, maples, and black walnuts added to the cool stillness of the morning.
Indomitable as she was, Aunt Tally couldn’t walk far on the uneven ground, slick with dew. Alicia, driving Big Mim’s second vehicle, a Land Cruiser—on loan so Alicia could see if she liked it—rolled along until the farm road played out near Potlicker Creek. The short walk to the creek took ten minutes, with Fair clearing away the low brush with a machete. Aunt Tally refused an arm under her elbow, gamely stepping forward with the help of her cane.
“High winds.” Aunt Tally pointed to a tulip poplar broken in half across the creek. “Must have been that storm firing through here two weeks ago.”
“When Mary Pat was alive she had the men keep the trails cleared. Remember, she had trails on both sides of the creek?” Alicia said.
“Used to have wonderful hunts up here. Picnics, too. When I was a little girl, Sharkey Southwell kept a big still not four hundred yards east of here. Then he got religion and that was the end of the still. It was also the end of Sharkey’s easy money. He became a roofer after that,” Aunt Tally grumbled. “Sharkey added a few blackberries to his waters. In those days you could take your pick: blackberries, cherries, and, oh, the apple brandy. You never tasted anything so good in your life. Only one place makes apple brandy anymore. Down in Covesville. Legal, too. Never tastes as good when it’s legal.” She laughed, a dry laugh.
“Alicia, aren’t there high pastures back there?” Fair inquired.
“Yes, St. James goes to the top of the mountain. There are hundreds of acres of summer pastures, which we used for the cattle. Every May we’d drive them up, bringing them back in September. Royal Orchard still has high pastures.” Alicia mentioned a farm atop a spur of the Blue Ridge that ran east–west along Route 64. “Once Mary Pat was gone, I sold the cattle, and there wasn’t a reason to keep up the pastures. Also, the cost of labor kept going up.” She paused a moment. “I’m glad I kept St. James. You know, those three years I had with Mary Pat taught me to love central Virginia.”
“Mary Pat’s up there, close by.” Mrs. Murphy remembered what the fox had told her.
“Hush. Alicia was extra kind letting you tag along,” Harry admonished her.
“Did the fox say the high meadows?” Tucker asked.
“Yes. At least, that’s the story foxes have passed down. Her ring traveled a long way, didn’t it?” Mrs. Murphy looked up at Mary Pat’s ring on Harry’s finger.
“If Mary Pat or what’s left of her is up there under a cairn of stone, Ziggy’s up there, too,” Pewter said.
“No.” Mrs. Murphy was putting the pieces of this strange puzzle together, but she was missing some large ones. “I think the killer, when all was safe, brought Ziggy down and got him out of here.”
“He’d never stay up there by himself. He would jump those fences. Stallions need high, high fences, and those were cattle pastures,” Pewter sensibly replied.
“Whoever killed Mary Pat knew horses. That’s why he kept Ziggy. He or she would have been smart enough to take a mare up there to keep him company if Ziggy had to stay up there for a while. I don’t know if this was a crime of passion or a crime of money, but whoever did it has kept it covered up for thirty years. Until now.” Mrs. Murphy wanted to get up to the high meadows. They’d be overgrown, but who knows what she might find? Her senses and sensibility were superior to the human variety.
“How does Barry fit in?” Pewter, frustrated at not understanding, growled.
“He rented the stables. He may have gone up to those meadows. It’d be a stiff hike but fun. Maybe it got him to thinking. But he did have Mary Pat’s breeding notes. He clearly was working toward something. And he was found two miles downstream. That part brings up questions.”
“Mrs. Murphy, it would take a Hercules to carry a man like Barry two miles downstream.” Pewter was right.