“Shit.” Ralston shrugged, the picture of noninterest.
This changed when Sulli, shawl over her head, snuck out to the woodshed, whistled low. William whistled back. She hurried into the shed, basket on her arm.
“Sulli, this is Ralston.”
She cast her light eyes on him, which shone even in the night light. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He put on his best behavior.
“Will, here’s food for both of you, two old sweaters. It will be colder tonight. I’ve got to run back. Elizabetta is cracking the whip because the Missus will be back in a week or more but soon. Elizabetta has sat on her fat ass for months. So now we all got to make up the time. Dust windowsills, wash every pane of glass. Would be easier to keep working, but that is one lazy woman.” She paused, a mischievous grin. “She’ll be easy to fool. Woman is dumb as a sack of hammers, which is why I think Miss Selisse uses her.” She glanced outside. “I’ll slip down tomorrow.” That said, she melted into the darkness.
William folded back the towel. Ralston wanted to grab whatever was in that basket but he waited.
The two sat side by side and ate.
“The Queen Bitch will be back and we’ll be out of here. The best time to ransack the house for money is during church. Sulli will beg off sick. She’ll show us where the house money is, in a box, she says. Shouldn’t be anyone in the house. We can bust it open and go.”
“But what if someone is in the house?” Ralston wanted a better plan than that.
“We give them some money and go.”
“Never work at Cloverfields.”
“This ain’t Cloverfields. Everyone on Big Rawly hates that woman. They’ll smile to her face, that’s for sure, but no one will turn on us unless we drag them into it. I don’t want no help other than Sulli.”
“Right.”
—
That same night at Cloverfields, Barker O walked to Bettina’s cabin, told her about the stolen money from the stable.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish, but I’m sorry it cost you.” The powerful woman sat opposite him as the rain pattered on the shake roof.
“He only got what I had rolled up in a saddle pad. Rest is in my cabin. Enough.”
“You’re a man who gets tips. All deserved.”
He smiled. “I try. I’m not telling the Master, not telling Miss Catherine about the money. Find him, bring him back, he’ll steal from us again.”
“Yes. I mentioned that to Miss Catherine because Mr. Ewing was furious. Wanted to put out signs, a reward. She talked him out of it. Miss Rachel, too. Said, ‘Father, let him steal from someone else.’ ”
“William, now he’s clever. Ralston, not exactly dumb as a post but close.” Barker O shook his head. “If they get caught, I don’t know.”
“Won’t be killed. Too young.”
“Well, Bettina, you’re right. They could work but even if separated, neither one is worth squat. I figure they’ll be sold to Miss Selisse’s birth territory, down there in the waters, and worked to death.”
“The Caribbean.” Bettina filled in the name he couldn’t remember.
“Damn fools.”
“They might get away with it.” Bettina heard a crack. “Thunder. I’ll be.”
Barker O looked out the little window. “They’re holed up somewhere.”
“What makes me fret is our young people. Running might look good to them. Where you run to is another matter, but the idea of being free…Oh, as Miss Catherine would say, ‘a siren’s song.’ But if they start slipping away we’ll all pay for it. Even Mr. Ewing has limits.”
He nodded, face serious. “Well, Bettina, that’s the thing, isn’t it? When you’re young you don’t think of anyone else.”
Indeed.
17
April 20, 2018
Friday
Harry picked up the old phone and dialed Susan.
“Hey.”
“Hey back at you. Did you read Mary Reed’s email? I just did.”
“Me, too,” Harry replied. “She sent it out last night, but I was making up lists of ideas for homecoming and didn’t check until this morning.”
“Same here. I was at a fundraiser,” Susan clarified. “Not for Ned. We’ve got another year before that, but for the Emily Couric Cancer Center. I didn’t invite you because you give to the Women’s Center. If I wrote checks to every organization asking for money, I’d be in the poorhouse.”
“Wouldn’t we all? There are good organizations out there. I pick what’s closest to me, like Hounds for Heroes.”
“Ditto,” Susan agreed. “I’ll call Liz Reeser. I’m assuming we can rent the cabin again. I sure hope so.”
“If not, let me know. I’ll call around. I think the Institute will be pretty full. Maybe that was one of the perks of the job,” Harry replied.
A deep breath later, Harry asked, “I Googled Jason. Did you?”
“No.”
“More information about his career, how important his work was in Ankara. There was a photo of him, maybe in his early forties, at a conference table. He was standing just behind our ambassador. The other men at the table, all men, represented different countries, and they, too, had a primary assistant behind them.”
“He didn’t talk much about it,” Susan remarked.
“Probably because the rest of us wouldn’t understand it or because we all talked about hunting, as did he. On his Facebook page, still up, he appeared in white tie at a Paris hotel, obviously another big conference, some of the same faces appearing in the background. He certainly ran in rarefied circles.” Harry stared into the distance for a moment.
“Switch gears. Homecoming,” she stated.
“I put Mags Nielsen and Janice Childe as cochairs of the hospitality committee, hoping that will direct their energy and they won’t be, shall we say, so questioning,” Susan told her.
“Good idea.”
They chatted some more. Then Harry hung up and dialed Cooper, who was driving to work.
“You’re the early bird.” Her neighbor teased her.
“Both are. But there’s more light in the mornings now.”
“Is, but I still get up in the dark.”
“Will you do me a favor?” Harry’s voice rose slightly.
“Depends on the favor. If it involves my work, again depends.”
“It does, but let me explain. You know a man was killed Sunday up at Aldie and Susan and I were there.”
“I know what you told me.”
“Coop, is there any way you can nose around as one law-enforcement officer to another? We have heard not one thing. Maybe the sheriff’s department up there has found something. The reason I ask is Susan and I will return there Friday the twenty-seventh and stay through the thirtieth. We’ll be helping with Hounds for Heroes and I, well, I’m not afraid, but I believe whoever killed Jason was working that day with all of us.”
Cooper braked for a stoplight, the morning rush hour in full swing. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The sheriff’s department in Loudoun County put Cooper through to the chief investigator for the county on the case. Cooper told the deputy, her counterpart, about her neighbor and asked forthrightly, as she should, was Harry in danger concerning the upcoming Hounds F4R Heroes?
“There’s always the possibility of danger,” Mark Jackson replied. “But we don’t anticipate it during Hounds for Heroes.”