As the humans slowly moved along, the animals stayed together, walking along the westernmost outside stone wall.
“A good stone fence lasts for centuries. Needs a tap or two.” Mrs. Murphy, like Harry, appreciated value for work and effort.
“Aren’t many people who can build a stone fence. Takes a good eye and a strong back.” Tucker closed her eyes as she pushed through thorns. “And who can afford it?”
“Mom could do it—the work, I mean.” Mrs. Murphy stopped to sniff where a long-tailed mouse had scurried into a crevice. “Cootie,” she insulted the mouse.
“Domesticated twit,” came the saucy reply.
“Did you hear that?” Mrs. Murphy stuck her paw into the crevice.
Pewter joined her. “Mice go to school to learn how to insult cats.”
“Leave it. We’ve got a lot to cover.” Tucker, nose to the ground, pressed on.
“You’re lucky I have obligations.” Mrs. Murphy whapped at the stones, then left the unperturbed mouse, who stuck his head out of his refuge to see the two cats, tails high, moving down the stone line.
“Boy, that gray one is really fat.” He giggled as his friend came out from his nest in the stone fence.
“I heard that.” Pewter whirled around and in two pounces almost caught the smart-mouth.
“Pewter,” Tucker chided.
“Almost!” the gray called out triumphantly. “A split second earlier and I’d be enjoying mouse tartare.”
The two mice, who had repaired to the same nest, huddled together until Pewter rejoined her companions.
The younger mouse said, “Amazing how fat creatures are light on their paws.”
The cats and corgi scrambled over tumbled gray stones as a flash of blue, a skink, sped along the tops.
“It was nice of Cooper to come along, given that she worked late last night.” Tucker liked Cynthia very much and thought she should have a corgi.
“Susan fixed lunch. Wonder when the humans will take lunch break?” Pewter hoped a chicken sandwich had been made all for her, no sharing with Mrs. Murphy and Tucker.
“If we do find Mary Pat or some sort of evidence, Cooper needs to be here,” Mrs. Murphy sagely noted, ignoring Pewter’s focus on food.
“Harry won’t screw it up,” Pewter said.
“No, but—well, better that she’s here.” The tiger cat stopped, lifted her head, inhaling the tart odor of deer.
Pewter turned left at the corner, now moving along the southernmost wall.
Mrs. Murphy stopped, sitting on top of a flat stone. “Let’s take a quick breather. This stuff is tough going. So much has grown over the stone. You know, it’s wasteful to let a pasture go. Really.”
“Mmm.” Pewter sat next to her as Tucker climbed up on top where stones had fallen away, giving her an easier climb.
Tucker watched Susan, carrying a long thick stick, swat at underbrush as she fought her way through. “Well, if no one renting the stables was using this pasture, I guess it cost too much in time and labor to keep it up.”
“Or the farm manager was lazy.” Pewter noticed a high cloud shaped like an arrowhead move eastward.
“Or the worker was in on it and didn’t want people coming up here,” Mrs. Murphy said. “Marshall Kressenberg was a groom here when Mary Pat disappeared. He moved to Maryland and has had such success breeding and raising thoroughbreds. That was before our time. If we’d been here and could have smelled him, we’d know.” She knew she could smell fear, and she believed she could smell guilt.
Both Pewter and Tucker looked at her. “That’s a thought.”
“According to Cooper—at least what I’ve been able to overhear these last four weeks—the prime suspect was Alicia, but they didn’t have enough evidence to charge her. She wasn’t here on the exact day Mary Pat disappeared. Everyone else who worked at St. James or who was involved with Mary Pat in one way or the other checked out. Police figured she was missing a minimum of twenty-four hours before she was reported missing by Kressenberg. Well, if Alicia and Marshall were covering for each other, that would work. Alicia’s in L.A. Her alibi is airtight. Marshall reports Mary Pat’s disappearance late, a day later.” Mrs. Murphy had given the matter a great deal of thought.
“That doesn’t have anything to do with Barry. At least that’s one murder out of the way.” Pewter batted at a bright yellow milk butterfly.
“I think Barry figured out Mary Pat’s murder or was close to figuring it out.” Mrs. Murphy’s beautiful green eyes opened wider. “And as for Carmen, I think you are right. She’s guilty. I don’t think she killed him, but she’s guilty. She did something or said something that exposed him.Think about it.”
Pewter began to feel uneasy.
“Harry found him. Okay, that was fate or bad luck, I reckon, but as usual she’s putting her foot right in it. She’s got no business up here.” Tucker fretted over her human’s boundless and dangerous curiosity.
Pewter took a deep breath, scanning down the long length of this southernmost fence. “Didn’t the fox give you any direction?”
“No. She said it was a story passed along. Nobody knew any more, but she reported that Mary Pat hadn’t been buried deep enough under some stones. Some creature managed to get her hand and part of an arm. At least that’s what she’d heard. But she also said there were human remains that had never been found all over the county, some going back before the Revolutionary War.”
Tucker looked at Mrs. Murphy. “That’s comforting.”
They laughed, got up, and started moving again along the stone wall. By the time they reached the easternmost corner, the humans were working in their second quadrant.
“Break time.” Pewter sat down.
“A corner would be a logical place, wouldn’t it?” Tucker said. “Easy to remember.” The corgi used her front paw to wipe away a cobweb that dangled from her eyebrows. “In case the killer wanted to come back.”
“Gross.” Pewter made a face.
“Maybe it would be easier to dig under a corner, because the stones wouldn’t give way as easily. Maybe. I don’t know that. Of course, some kind of marker like a huge tree is a possibility, too,” Mrs. Murphy said.
“But the fox said stones?” Tucker’s ears drooped for a second as her tone was questioning.
“Yes, she did,” Mrs. Murphy answered.
Tucker carefully inspected the inside of the corner and the outside. “Woodchucks used to be here.” She squeezed down in the hole, then backed out. “It’s promising. I’ll dig a little. You two move up the wall.”
“I can dig,” Pewter offered.
“Not as fast as I can. I can ruin a rose garden in fifteen minutes.” Tucker smiled, then ducked back into the hole, digging her way down to the nesting area.
“Come on, Pewter.” Mrs. Murphy moved off.
Twenty minutes later a dirty Tucker, with a heavy bone resembling a femur in her mouth, triumphantly raced on top of the wall, leaping over fallen branches and thick entwining vines to reach the cats.