“Maybe the added mileage on the trucks reflects hauling the materials back here?” Harry said.
“It’s three hours to Greensboro and three hours back. We’re looking at thousands of miles.” BoomBoom’s misty-mocha fingernail pinned down the long number as though it were a butterfly. “Another thing. I asked around the plant if anyone had done extra hauling over the last four years. No one had. This isn’t to say that someone might not be lying but my hunch is, whatever was being carried, Kelly drove it.”
Officer Cooper flipped through the four years of mileage figures. “There’s no way to tell if these were short hops or long ones. You only have the monthly figures.”
“Right. But I subtracted them from Marie’s figures, or rather I subtracted Marie’s figures from these, and it averages out to one thousand miles per month for the big panel truck. The other trucks have less mileage on them.”
“Jesus, that’s a lot of resin.” Harry pushed back her chair. “Anyone want a drink?”
“No, thanks,” they both said.
“He wasn’t transporting resin and epoxy. I found one bill for that. I mean, there could be others but that’s all I found, so I think he was taking something else in the panel truck as well as occasionally using a smaller truck.”
“BoomBoom, one thousand miles a month is a one-way trip to Miami, drug capital of the U.S.,” Coop observed. “I take that back. Any city over five hundred thousand people is a drug capital these days.”
“If Kelly was moving drugs he’d certainly be smart enough to disguise it as something else.” Harry had always liked Kelly. “And he often drove the trucks. He liked being outside; he liked physical work. I suppose he and Maude linked up four years ago. She must have helped him package the stuff—if it was drugs.”
“Don’t get fixated on cocaine, or even heroin,” Officer Cooper advised. “There’s a big market in speed and steroids. He’d avoid the South Americans that way. Those boys play rough.”
“He brought in drugs before, though, didn’t he?” Harry asked.
BoomBoom closed her mouth.
“He’s dead. There isn’t anything I can do about crimes of the past,” Coop said.
BoomBoom sighed. “He gave it up. He gave up using the stuff. He used to say that the drug lords and high government officials were in collusion over the drug trade. The congressmen and senators on the take, as well as the people under them, didn’t want their nontaxable income removed. ‘It’s a damned sin,’ he’d say. ‘The American people are losing billions of dollars in taxes from drugs, taxes that could help people. Why is alcohol a state-supported drug to the exclusion of other drugs? You can’t stop the trade. You can’t legislate human behavior.’ He was impassioned about it.”
“Tobacco,” Officer Cooper added laconically.
“What?” BoomBoom asked.
“It’s a legal drug. Most addictive drug we’ve got. Ask Rick Shaw.” The vision of Rick sneaking another cigarette made Coop laugh.
“Here in Virginia we know all about tobacco.” Harry examined the yellow pages. “Where’d you find these?”
“Behind the frame of the poster he had on the wall. You know, the one where the duck is sitting in the lawn chair sipping a drink and there are bullet holes over his head. It was the last place I looked, and the corner of the backing was bent.”
“I’m going to confiscate these.” Cooper reached for the papers in Harry’s hand.
“I don’t want any of this in the paper. When you finally find out who the killer is you’ll find out what they were really doing. The publicity has been grueling enough. No more!”
“I can’t control the press, BoomBoom,” Cooper truthfully replied.
“That’s up to Rick, not Officer Cooper,” Harry reminded BoomBoom.
“Do what you can, please,” BoomBoom begged.
“I’ll try.”
BoomBoom left. Harry and the policewoman watched her pull out of the driveway.
Mrs. Murphy, who had politely listened to the coversation, emitted a loud shout. “Go up to the tunnels. That’s why I threw the papers on the floor. It’s worth another look.”
“What lungs.” Cooper grinned.
“You ate leftovers from Susan’s tonight.” Harry used her Mother voice.
“Listen to me!” Mrs. Murphy bellowed.
Tucker sniffed at Mrs. Murphy’s tail, hanging over the table. “Save your breath.”
“Damn.”
“All right.” Harry got up and opened the big jar of Best Fishes. She placed four of the delicious tidbits under the cat’s bright whiskers. Mrs. Murphy, in a fit, knocked the treats off the counter and stalked out of the room.
“So emotional,” Officer Cooper said as Tucker scarfed down the treats.
“Like people,” Harry said.
36
At seven forty-five the next morning, the phone rang in the Crozet post office.
“Hello,” Harry answered.
“Did you catch the killer yet?” Mrs. Hogendobber’s voice boomed.
“How are you?” Harry was surprised at how happy Mrs. Hogendobber’s call made her.
“Bored. Bored. Bored. Being under threat of death isn’t as much torture as being out of the swim. Did you catch him?”
“No.”
“Any clues?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me. I’m far away. I can’t blab.”
“Get thee behind me, Satan.”
“Mary Minor Haristeen, how dare you quote the New Testament to me like that? Why, I’m appalled at the suggestion that I would tempt you. I’m not tempting you. I’m simply trying to help. Sometimes a person considering the same evidence will see something new. Many cases have been solved that way.”
“If you’re far away, Rick Shaw can’t make your life miserable. He can sure muck up mine.”
This idea dawned on Mrs. Hogendobber and set. “He’d be thrilled for an answer. Now, I’ve known you since the day you were born. Prettiest little baby I ever saw. Even prettier than BoomBoom Craycroft—”
“Don’t stretch the truth,” Harry interrupted.
“You were—upon my soul, you were. You know I won’t breathe a word of this and I do have good ideas.”
“Mrs. Hogendobber, I can’t speak as freely as I would wish.”
“Oh, I see.” Mrs. Hogendobber’s voice registered her thrill with the development. “Someone we know?”
“Yes, but not of the inner circle.”
“Reverend Jones.”
“Now why would you mention his name?”
“He’s a lovely man but he’s not of my denomination. I don’t consider him of the inner circle.”
“Hardly any of us attend your church. I’m an Episcopalian.”
Mrs. Hogendobber, a self-confessed expert on Protestant churches, corrected Harry. “You are entirely too close to the Catholic church and so is Reverend Jones. The real Reformation came when churches such as mine, The Holy Light, freed The Word to the people. However, you don’t even attend Saint Paul’s, so you ought to stop claiming that you are an Episcopalian. You are a lapsed Episcopalian.”
“Is that like fallen arches?”
“Harry, such subjects are not humorous and it grieves me that you don’t see the light. That’s why we’re called The Holy Light.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who’s there? Will they be offended if you tell?”
“I don’t think so. It’s Officer Cooper.”
“Really?” The husky voice shot upward.
“Really. Now I’ve got to get back to work. You take care of yourself.”
“I want to come home.” Mrs. Hogendobber sounded like a miserable child.
“We want you to come home.” Harry thought to herself: Some of us do. Harry missed her.
“I’ll call tomorrow. I can’t give you my number. ’Bye.”
“’Bye.” Harry hung up the phone. “She’s a pip.”
“There’s another one at the door.”