After a bit more discussion, Harry hung up the phone. She felt she’d need to keep an eye on Janice and Mags. Something wasn’t right, but that something was going to have to wait, for Aldie commanded her complete attention.
40
May 12, 2018
Saturday
Harry leaned over the porch railing. “Perfect timing.”
Arlene shut the door to her Subaru Forester, looking up. “I was in the Army, remember. Zero dark forty and stuff like that.”
They both laughed as Harry came down the stairs to greet her, her four friends behind her. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Harry, although I truly believe I am safe.”
“Let’s walk a bit.” She started away from the Institute, passing the stables, the canary cart visible as only yellow can be. “The ground isn’t soggy. Feels good.”
“Does.”
“My neighbor and dear friend is a deputy for the Albemarle County Sheriff’s Department, Cynthia Cooper. I bedevil her. I’ve asked her, since she can procure information that I can’t, would she keep me informed if there’s a development here or with the medical examiner before anything is made public, if it is. She told me yesterday that Clare’s autopsy showed she had been poisoned with tetrodotoxin. From blowfish liver, can you believe it? Just a small amount, one to two milligrams, can kill. Causes paralysis, slow at first, just a little woozy, a little numbness. Then the nerve systems begin to fail, then the throat muscles, finally asphyxiation.”
“Tetrodotoxin?” Arlene looked skeptical. “How can you test for that? It can’t be detected.”
“So you’ve heard of it?” Harry watched Arlene.
Arlene dropped her head. “You were right. Two deaths, connected most likely.”
“This isn’t about selling cars.”
“No,” Arlene replied evenly.
“Let’s go to where Jason was found.”
They walked up the farm road, crossed the creek burbling along, reached the top of the hill, pastures on both sides, woods at the edge of the pastures. Good bunny territory, as there was cover.
Arlene, hands on hips, looked around. “Odd, isn’t it? Cavalrymen buried out here. Jason dropped here. Not that we know exactly where those men are, but sometimes I think Aldie truly is haunted.”
“Me, too. You don’t seem especially worried about Clare being poisoned.”
“I told you. I don’t think I’m going to be murdered.”
“But you knew them for years.” Tucker nudged closer to her as Ruffy bounded up to join them.
“In a professional capacity and not that well. Jason more than Clare because I was assigned to the State Department for a time.”
“But you liked Jason and Clare?”
“I got along with them. I enjoyed hunting with them. I hunted with them at their territory, but I wouldn’t say we were close, which is why I’m not worried.”
Harry swept her eyes over the pleasant land, heard some birds chirping loudly.
Bud the chickadee swooped low near the dogs but not too close to the cats. “Six eggs!”
“Congratulations.” Tucker praised the bird, who swooped again, then headed for a bird box at the woods’ edge.
The Beagle Club had put out quite a few bird boxes to encourage all manner of them.
“Saucy.” Harry grinned.
“They are.” Arlene also swept her eye over the area. “He was just off the road, over this little rise here.” She stepped to the place that they had revisited with Clare. “I don’t think he suffered.”
“I’m not sure either one did, Arlene. Quick deaths. He knew who killed him. I’m convinced of that.”
“Yes, me, too.” Arlene inhaled the fresh odor of spring. “I wonder how many are out there. Who? When? Where?”
“We know the when,” Harry posited. “Back to our time. I have racked my brain and I know this language stuff matters. So hear me out. What if they had discovered someone or someones here who were working against our country’s interests? We know that Clare was CIA. As to Jason, no, but he surely had access to sensitive information as he advanced in his career. They would suspect before the rest of us. Maybe they got too close.”
“No,” Arlene replied emphatically.
“Well, why not?”
“Neither of those two had that kind of courage. I know Clare was a captain in the Navy. I don’t doubt she was good at what she did, but she wasn’t on anyone’s front line.”
“She listened.”
“That she did, and I don’t doubt that over time she could recognize voices, as could Jason. Jason, of course, was expected to contact people in the Turkish government. He had an easy way about him. He made friends, I bet.”
“The other thing I’ve thought about is Paula Devlin. She, too, had a sensitive career and she disappeared. Three people.”
“Two were married. They ran a business. Paula wasn’t tied in to them.”
“But they knew her.”
“We all knew one another. Paula was a bubbly person, always up for something. She knew French and German. Think I got that right. I could understand basic French conversation, you know, stuff like ‘May I have a glass of water?’ I’m not too good with languages.”
“Me neither, except for Latin. Started in middle school. You could then and I went straight through. Helped me at Smith.”
“I forget you attended Smith. That’s probably why you’re so smart. Let’s sit on this log here. My legs are tired. I walked for miles yesterday with my Blastoff kids.”
“Maybe Paula knew something or maybe she was selling secrets?”
Arlene’s back stiffened. “Paula was blue chip. She would never, never do anything to jeopardize our country.”
“Well, she’s dead. She must have figured out something, and now Jason and Clare are dead. Maybe there’s a political reason for that, too.”
“No doubt.”
“We should go to the sheriff’s department.”
“We should not.” Arlene reached over to scratch Pirate’s ears.
“Well, you need protection.”
“I do not. You’re jumping to conclusions. I am in no danger, not a bit. Your theory is interesting, but no one is going to listen to a ‘what if.’ ”
“We should at least go to Geoff and Jan Ogden. They’ll know what to do and they liked Paula.”
“They will know what to do, which is to stay quiet.”
“Aha. So you do think this has something to do with national secrets.”
A long pause followed this. Ruffy rubbed against Arlene’s leg. She felt a cool little puff of breeze.
“I do.”
“I knew it. I knew it.” Harry was triumphant as her animals looked up at her.
“Do you think murderers should be punished?”
“Of course I do.”
“All right. In the main I agree with you, but what if someone is killed to protect our country or to even the score.”
“Well—I don’t know.”
The animals could smell Arlene and knew that she knew something. People give off various scents. Sweat is obvious, but there are others. The one that amused the dogs and cats the most was when a human was attracted to another human. The scent changed. The other human might also be attracted but neither knew their noses were leading them to a possible union.
“I don’t know if you will correctly figure this out, but you’ll dog me, hound me, forgive the pun since we both hunt behind the hounds.”
“You do know something. You are in danger.”
“I am not in danger but yes, I do know something.” She opened her arm, moving it across the meadows, as it were. “I believe Paula is out there somewhere. I know she was killed. Ruffy, her shadow, never came home, so I think Ruffy was killed with her. I mourned her for a long, long time. I still pray for her. A devoted public servant deserves our memory. A woman who loved her country, she was a spy. Not a pretty word, but she was. Her work involved risk. Her cover was good but nonetheless.”