“Whoever killed him threw him in an SUV or the back of a truck and drove on the road. Regular road. Turned up an old farm road, came to the stream; there are old trails. He could have made it without too much effort. Then he picked up the body and walked downstream. He or she didn’t need to walk miles. It was a good plan. Few people come up to Potlicker Creek,” Tucker, voice low, said, her ears forward.
“Why didn’t the sheriff figure that out?” Pewter played devil’s advocate.
“Oh, I think he did, but too late. Too late,” Mrs. Murphy replied.
“What do you mean?” Tucker walked to the edge of the creek. The bank was steep.
“Rick was thorough. They combed the banks of this creek for miles in both directions, but by the time it occurred to him to come up the unused roads leading in, it was too late. And remember, whoever did this was smart enough not to pick a road that would come straight up to the creek. So walking along the creek wouldn’t get you any tire tracks. And it rained a few days after we found Barry. There’s luck involved in crime detection, not just science and observation. Rick has had bad luck. We’ve got to get up to those high meadows.” Mrs. Murphy, deep in thought, peered down at the muskrat slide.
“Murphy, there’s rabies here. At St. James.” Pewter sat down. “And for all you know it’s sweeping down from those high meadows. I’m not going up there.”
“Don’t be a chicken. You have your rabies shot.” Tucker pushed through the blackberries to a clear space on the bank. She peered over the side, seeing the opening to the muskrat den.
“I’m not a chicken. I’m cautious, that’s all. Anyway, how do you think you’re going to get up there? If you run away now, Harry will never take you out again.” Pewter puffed out her chest, secure in her conviction.
“Harry will get up there. I bet you one catnip sockie.” Mrs. Murphy’s green eyes twinkled.
The plump gray cat considered this. “I’m not taking that bet.”
The three animals laughed.
Tucker addressed Mrs. Murphy. “You know, you said this was a crime of passion or money. If Alicia is the killer it would be both.”
Pewter perked right up. “She came back to see the ring. Aha! I knew it.”
“You two.” Mrs. Murphy shook her head. “And where was Alicia when Barry was killed?”
“Barry has nothing to do with this.” Pewter didn’t like to be refuted. “I believe Carmen Gamble killed him. Or Sugar. But Carmen was in the middle of it.”
“Well, if it’s Carmen, Harry sees her often enough, and if it’s Alicia, our dear human is standing right next to her.” Tucker marveled at Harry’s ability to land in the middle of danger.
40
Rick hung up the phone. “Jerome didn’t have rabies.”
Cooper, at her desk, cheered. “Thank God.”
Rick celebrated by lighting up a Camel. He’d returned to his favorite brand after trying others. Two blue plumes escaped his nostrils. “If those tests had come back positive, we’d be answering the calls of people shooting one another’s dogs and cats and then one another. Thank God for small favors.”
It was a very small favor, indeed.
41
Black clouds, their undersides limned with darkest silver, began peeking over the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The temperature dropped. The wind rustled the tops of the trees, sending a few leaves flying.
Mrs. Murphy, awakened by a persistent whippoorwill, jumped off the bed. Tucker snorted as she was stretched on the rug, but she didn’t waken. Pewter, as usual, was dead to the world and draped over Harry’s head.
As the tiger padded through the kitchen, the old railroad clock’s black hands announced three forty-five. The short pendulum with the gold disc at the end swung monotonously to and fro. Seconds and minutes ticked away, but Mrs. Murphy rarely worried about time. She thought of it as a human invention. They drove themselves crazy with clocks, phones, machines. She thought time was an illusion and age a conceit. A cat lives every moment intensely. Pewter slept intensely. Mrs. Murphy brushed through the animal door intensely. Alive, alert, in the present, whiskers forward, that’s the way to live.
She scampered to the barn just as the owl flew through the opened hayloft door.
“Hoo, hoo-hoo.”
Mrs. Murphy climbed the ladder to the hayloft. Simon, sound asleep in his nest, clutched the broken Pelham curb chain, his prized possession. Simon wanted shiny things. A broken curb chain was as good as a Tiffany diamond to him.
Flatface the owl bent over from her large nest in the cupola, climbed to the side, opened her wings, and effortlessly floated down, landing exactly in front of the cat.
“Good evening,” Mrs. Murphy greeted her.
“And a good evening it’s been, Mrs. Murphy. Hunting’s good before a storm, and how is it that I so often have the pleasure of your company as the old barometer is dropping?”
“You know, I never thought of that. I think it wakes me up, although tonight that whippoorwill did the job. I was going to go to the edge of the woods to give him a piece of my mind. Have you ever noticed when the moonlight strikes their eyes just right, they are ruby red?”
“So they are. I personally don’t understand ground nesters. Why on earth, forgive the pun,” she hooted, “would any self-respecting bird want to sit in the dirt or leaves or a bunch of twigs? Even a silly house dog can eat them.”
“Better not let Tucker hear you say that.”
“Tucker is the exception that proves the rule. And Tazio’s Lab is all right,” Flatface conceded.
“The ground nesters rely on camouflage,” Mrs. Murphy, her own stripes a good cover, replied.
“That’s like humans relying on prayer. Work then pray, I say. It’s blasphemy that they believe the Almighty is a human. I try to overlook this offense and their stupidity. We all know the Great Omnipotent Owl watches over us all.”
“Doesn’t seem to be watching over this part of Virginia right now,” Mrs. Murphy wryly commented. She wasn’t going to get drawn into a religious discussion, since she devoutly believed spiritual life was guided by a heavenly cat of epic proportion.
“Why, things are wonderful. I haven’t had such good hunting in years. Years.” She fluffed out her large chest, then turned her head almost upside down.
“It makes me dizzy when you do that.”
“Hoo hoo-hoo, ha.” The big bird righted her head.
“You’re right, hunting is superb, but I was thinking about the human deaths, murders.”
“Oh, that? I did ask my friends if they’d heard of rabies over the mountains. Word came back: ‘No.’ I just haven’t seen you to tell you.”
“Thank you for asking around.”
Simon rolled over in his sleep.
Flatface observed him sternly. “He’s supposed to be a nocturnal animal. Lazy sod.”
The whippoorwill sang out again just as the first raindrops splattered on the roof.
“Simon tries, but he doesn’t get any further than the feed room. He picks up under the horse buckets, I’ll give him credit for that. He keeps things tidy. Then he gets full and goes to sleep.” Mrs. Murphy laughed at the funny-looking possum, a very sweet soul.