Fair saved the day, because Harry was teetering on the brink of letting everyone know exactly what she thought about them. He sensed that she was coiled, crabby. He knew he no longer loved his wife but after nearly a decade of being with someone, learning her habits, feeling responsible for her, it was a hard habit to break. So he rescued Harry from herself at that moment.
“What were you doing in Rick Shaw’s squad car?” he asked.
A slow hush rolled over the room like a soft ground fog.
“We drove up to the Greenwood tunnel,” Harry said, nonchalant.
“In this heat?” Josiah was incredulous.
“Maybe that was Rick’s way of wearing her down for questioning,” Susan said.
“I think the tunnels have something to do with the murders.” Harry knew she should have shut her mouth.
“Ridiculous,” Mim snapped. “They’ve been closed for over forty years.”
Jim countered, “Right now no idea is ridiculous.”
“What about the treasure stories?” Mrs. Hogendobber said. “After all, those stories must have some truth in them or they wouldn’t have been circulated for over one hundred years. Maybe it’s a treasure of a rare kind.”
“Like my divine desk over there.” Josiah swung his hand out like a casual auctioneer. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Mim, that you need this desk. The satinwood glows with the light of the centuries.”
“Now, now, Josiah.” Mim smiled. “We’re declaring a moratorium on selling until your eyes and your nose heal.”
“If there were a treasure, the C and O would have found it.” Fair fixed himself another drink. “People love stories about lost causes, ghosts, and buried treasure.”
“Claudius Crozet was a genius. If he wanted to hide a treasure he could do it,” Mrs. Hogendobber interjected. “It was Crozet who warned the state of Virginia that Joseph Carrington Cabell’s canal company would never work. Cabell was a highly influential man in the decades before the War of Northern Aggression, and he deviled Crozet all his life. Cabell single-handedly held up the development of railroads, which Claudius Crozet believed heralded the future. And Crozet was right. The canal company expired, costing investors and the state millions upon millions of dollars.”
“Mrs. Hogendobber, I’m quite impressed. I had no idea you were so knowledgeable about our . . . namesake.” Josiah sat up in his chair and then lapsed back again with a muffled moan.
“Here.” Fair handed him a stiff Glenfiddich scotch.
“I—” Mrs. Hogendobber, unaccustomed to lying, couldn’t think what to say next.
Harry jumped in. “I told you not to volunteer to head the ‘Celebrate Crozet’ committee.”
“Me?” Mrs. Hogendobber mumbled.
“Mrs. H., you’ve got too much on your mind. Recent events plus the committee . . . I’ll come over tomorrow and help you, okay?”
Mrs. Hogendobber got the hidden message. She nodded in the affirmative.
“Well, Harry, what did you find at the Greenwood tunnel? Lots of florins and louis and golden Russian samovars?” Josiah smiled.
“Lots of pokeweed and honeysuckle and kudzu.”
“Some treasure.” Little Marilyn minced on “treasure.”
“Well”—Josiah breathed the scotch fumes—“I give you credit for going up there in this beastly heat. We’ve got to find out who this . . . person is, and nothing is too far-fetched.” He raised his glass to Harry in a toast and then proceeded to regale the group with his plans for Maude’s store.
Later that night, Harry, who forgot to eat a decent dinner, got the munchies. She cranked up her mother’s old blender, putting in whole milk, vanilla ice cream, wheat germ, and almonds. The almonds clanked as the blades ground them. She drank the concoction right out of the blender glass.
Tucker screeched into the kitchen, jumping on her hind legs. “That’s it! That’s it!”
“Tucker, get down. You can lick the glass when I’m finished.”
Mrs. Murphy, hearing the fuss, roused herself from the living room sofa. “What’s going on, Tucker?”
“It’s that smell.” Tucker spun around in circles, her snow-white bib a blur. “Close to the turtle smell, but much nicer, sweeter.”
Mrs. Murphy jumped on the counter and sniffed the bits of wheat germ and almonds. The ice cream smell was strong. She sniffed with intensity and then vaulted from the counter onto Harry’s shoulder.
“Hey, now, that’s enough! You didn’t learn these bad manners at home.” Harry put the milkshake on the counter and lifted Mrs. Murphy off her shoulder. Gently, Mrs. Murphy was placed on the floor.
Tucker touched noses with the cat. “What did I tell you?”
“Close. The almonds don’t smell exactly like a turtle, but then a turtle doesn’t smell exactly like whatever we smelled at the concrete plant and up at the railroad track. I wonder what it is?”
Mrs. Murphy and Tucker sat next to each other and stared up at Harry as she drained the last drop.
“Oh, all right.” Harry grabbed dog biscuits and kitty treats out of the cupboard. She gave one to each animal. They ignored them.
“Not only bad manners, but picky too.” Harry waved the kitty treat under Mrs. Murphy’s nose. “One little nibble for Mommy.”
“If she starts the Mommy routine she’ll coo and croon next. You’d better eat it,” Tucker advised.
“I’m trying to keep the smell of almonds. . . . Oh, well, you’re probably right.” Mrs. Murphy daintily removed the treat from Harry’s fingers.
Tucker, with less restraint, gobbled up her biscuit with its gravylike coating.
“Good kitty. Good doggie.”
“I wish she’d stop talking to us as if we were children,” Mrs. Murphy grumbled.
24
Saturday sparkled, quite unusual for sticky July. The mountains glistened bright blue; the sky was a creamy robin’s-egg blue. Mim Sanburne swaggered down to the little dock on the lake, which also gleamed in the pure light. Her pontoon boat, Mim’s Vim, sides scrubbed, deck scrubbed, gently rocked in the lap of the tiny waves. The bar overflowed with liquid delight. A huge wicker basket filled with special treats like cream cheese–stuffed snow peas sat next to the pilot’s wheel. Everything was splendid, including Mim’s attire. She wore bright-white clamdiggers, red espadrilles, a horizontally striped red-and-white T-shirt, and her captain’s cap. Her lipstick, a glaring red smear, reflected the light.
Jim and Rick Shaw were huddled up at the house. She’d heard her husband say they ought to bring in the FBI, but Rick kept repeating that the case didn’t qualify for the FBI’s attention.
Little Marilyn followed a servant carrying the lovely baskets filled with party favors. Upon seeing the baskets, Mim entertained a fleeting thought of Maude Bly Modena. She quickly pushed it out of her mind. Her theory was that Maude must have surprised Kelly’s killer and that was why she had been killed. She’d seen on many TV programs that a killer often has to kill again to cover his tracks.
After arranging the little favors on her boat, Mim languidly strolled up the terraces and walked around her house to the front. Day lilies shouted in yellow and burnt orange. Oddly, her wisteria still bloomed and the lavender was at full tide. She couldn’t wait for her friends Port and Elliewood and Miranda Hogendobber. Not that Miranda was their social equal but she had distinctly heard Harry say to her last night at Josiah’s that she was to head the newly formed “Celebrate Crozet” committee, and Big Marilyn meant to be a part of such a committee. Anyway, the lower orders were violently flattered at being included in little gatherings of the elite. Mim was confident that Miranda would fall all over herself when Mim suggested that she, too, help head the committee. The trick of the day would be to keep Miranda off religion, to keep Port off the grandchildren, and to keep Elliewood off the murders. No murder talk today—she absolutely forbade it.