“‘Love, Lindsay’ ”
Susan and Harry laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks. Once they finally got hold of themselves they realized they hadn’t laughed, true laughter, since Kelly’s murder. Stress was exacting its toll.
“How many postcards did that take?”
Susan shuffled them like playing cards. “Twenty-one.”
“Who are they addressed to?”
“You. You’re the only one she could write this to.”
Harry smiled and took the postcards. “I’ll be glad when Lindsay comes home. Maybe this will be over by September.”
“I hope so.”
“Shred it up, like this.” Mrs. Murphy ripped into the sparrow corpse, and feathers flew everywhere. A squeamish expression passed over Tucker’s pretty face. “Oh, come on, Welsh corgis are supposed to be tough as nails. Tear that mole I caught into three pieces.”
“She’s going to hate this.”
“So she hates it. Our message might sink in subliminally.”
“She’s smart for a person. She knows there’s a connection between Kelly and Maude.”
“Tucker, stop shilly-shallying. I want her to know we know. Maybe she’ll start to listen to us for a change.”
Tucker, with singular lack of enthusiasm, tore the still-warm mole into three pieces. If that wasn’t bad enough, Mrs. Murphy made her carry the hunks to the back door of the post office.
The cat reared up on her hind legs and beat on the door. A soft rattle echoed in the post office.
Harry opened the door. Neither animal budged. Instead they sat next to their kill, carefully placed together by Mrs. Murphy.
“How revolting,” Harry exclaimed.
“I told you she’d hate it,” Tucker snapped to the tiger cat.
“That’s not the point.”
“What?” Susan called out.
“The cat and dog brought back the remains of a mole and what must have been a bird only a short time ago.” Harry peered for a closer look. “Ugh. The mole’s in three pieces.”
Susan stuck her head out the back door. “Like Maude.”
“That’s horrible. How could you say that?”
“Well—it’s not hard to think of those things.” Susan petted Tucker on the head. “Anyway, they’re doing what comes naturally and they brought these pathetic corpses back to you as a present. You should be properly grateful.”
“I’ll be properly grateful after I clean them up.”
Whether or not the bird and mole corpses inspired Harry, the animals couldn’t say, but she did drive her blue truck to Kelly’s concrete plant, leaving them outside while she went in for a chat.
After delicately dancing around the subject in Kelly’s office, now taken over by his wife, Harry felt the time was right. She quietly leaned toward BoomBoom and asked, “Did Kelly ever do business with Maude?”
A wave of relief swept over the sultry woman’s features. “Oh—sure. She packed up his Christmas business mailing for him. Is that what you mean?”
“No.” Harry noticed the photos of Kelly with the county commissioners, the president of the University of Virginia, the state representatives. “What about business on a larger scale?”
“There’s no record of it.” Just to make certain, BoomBoom jangled Marie on the intercom and Marie confirmed the negative.
“What about a more intimate connection?” Harry whispered, and waited for the reaction.
Extramarital sex, shocking to many, barely dented BoomBoom’s psyche. She expected it, even from her husband. “No. Maude wasn’t Kelly’s type, although she seems to have been Bob Berryman’s.”
“All over town?” Harry asked, knowing it was.
“Linda’s given to fainting spells. Next come the faith healers, I guess. Hard to believe either Linda or Maude loved him, but then you really never know, do you?” Her long eyelashes, which reached into next week, fluttered for an instant.
“No.”
BoomBoom’s face flushed. “Kelly wasn’t a saint and our marriage was far from perfect. If he strayed off the reservation, so to speak, he’d never have done it close to home. What do you think? You obviously believe something was going on between my husband and Maude.”
“I don’t know. My hunch is they were in business together. Illegal.”
BoomBoom stiffened slightly. “He made tons of money legally.”
“Kelly loved to screw the system. An enormous untaxable profit would have been a siren call to his rebellious self—if they were shipping drugs, I mean.”
Realistic about Kelly, BoomBoom hesitated. It was not as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her once or twice since his murder. “I don’t know, but I sure hope you keep these thoughts to yourself. He’s dead. Don’t go about ruining his name.”
“I won’t, but I have to get to the bottom of this. Do you think Kelly’s murder and Maude’s murder are connected?”
“Well, at first I didn’t think, period. The shock left me empty, and into the emptiness rushed anger. I just want to kill this son of a bitch. Barehanded.” She put her hands together in a choking motion. “As the days have gone by—seems like years, in a funny way—I go over it and over it. I don’t know why but yes, I believe they are connected.”
“Shipping something—that’s what I come up with no matter how I examine this.”
“Contrary to what the public has been told by government types, drugs are easy to ship. It’s possible. God knows they’re also easy to hide. They don’t take up that much space. You could cram two million dollars’ worth of cocaine into these desk drawers.”
“Whatever they did, they fell afoul of a partner or partners.” Harry said this, realizing as the words were out of her mouth that BoomBoom could be one of those partners. She’d be committed to profit, but Harry couldn’t imagine BoomBoom at her hardest doing business with Kelly’s killer.
“If you find out, Mary Minor Haristeen, tell me twenty minutes before you tell Rick Shaw. I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars for that information.”
Harry choked. Ten thousand dollars. God, how she needed it.
A silence wrapped around them, an air of static antagonism. BoomBoom broke it: “Think it over.”
Harry swallowed. “I will.” She paused. “Why do I feel like you’re holding out on me?”
BoomBoom’s face became suddenly still. “I’m telling you everything I know about Kelly. If he had a secret, then he kept it from me too.”
“What about Fair?” Harry’s lips were white.
“I don’t know what you mean.” BoomBoom’s eyes darted around the room. “Did you come here looking for clues about Kelly or clues about Fair? I mean, you threw him out, Harry. What do you care what he does?”
“I’ll always care what he does. I just can’t live with him.” Harry’s face flushed. “He just wasn’t . . . there.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t there emotionally.” She sighed. “It’s one thing to lose your marriage, but it’s just as bad to lose your friends. Everyone’s taking sides.”
“What did you expect?” No sympathy from BoomBoom.
That put the match to the tinderbox. “More of you!” Harry clenched her teeth. “He and Kelly were never the same after Fair made that pass at you, but we stayed friends.”
“That was last year. Everyone was drunk! Look, Harry, people don’t want to look at themselves. Let me give you some advice about Crozet.”
Harry interrupted. “I’ve lived here all my life. What do you know that I don’t?”
“That divorce frightens people. From the outside your marriage seemed fine. People want to accept appearances. Now you’ve gone and upset the apple cart. You might be looking inside yourself but no one in these parts will give you credit for it. This is Albemarle County. No change. Keep everything the same. You stay the same. To change is viewed as an admission of guilt. Hell, people would rather live in their familiar misery than take a chance to change it.”