“Plus they’re breeding sick ones because they won’t cull.” Tucker’s eyes were troubled. “Sick in body and sick in mind. If I have a weak puppy, I’ll kill it. It’s my obligation to the rest of the litter. They won’t do that.”
“Do it! My God, they scream murder, and when they have to raise taxes to pay for the criminal acts of the sick in mind, or pay for the increased care of the physically weak, they pitch a fit and fall in it. They just won’t realize they’re another animal and the laws of nature apply to them too.” Pewter’s pupils expanded.
“They think it’s cruel. You know, Pewter, you are right. They are crazy. They won’t kill a diseased newborn but they’ll flock by the millions to kill one another in a war. Didn’t World War II kill off about forty-five million of them? And World War I axed maybe ten million? It almost makes me laugh.” Mrs. Murphy watched Harry and Officer Cooper leave Maude’s shop by the back door. “I don’t much care if they die by the millions, truth be told, but I don’t want Harry to die.”
Pewter trilled, a sound above a purr. “Yeah, Harry’s a brick. We should make her an honorary cat.”
“Or an honorary dog,” Tucker rejoined. “She says that cats and dogs are the lares and penates of a household, the protective household gods. Harry’s big on mythology but I fancy the comparison.”
Harry and Officer Cooper walked over to the crepe myrtle.
“A kitty tea party.” Harry scratched Pewter at the base of her tail. Tucker licked her hand. “Excuse me, a kitty and doggie tea party. Well, come on, troops. Back to work.”
38
Bob Berryman prided himself on his physical prowess. Stronger in his early fifties than when he played football for Crozet High, he’d grown even more vain about his athletic abilities. Time’s theft of speed made Berryman play smarter. He played softball and golf regularly. He was accustomed to dominating men and accepting deference from women. Maude Bly Modena didn’t defer to him. If he thought about it, that was why he had fallen in love with her.
He thought about little else. He replayed every moment of their time together. He searched those recollections, fragments of conversation and laughter for clues. Far more painfully, he returned to the railroad tracks today. What was out here halfway between Crozet and Greenwood?
Immediately before her death, Maude had jogged this way. She took the railroad path once a week. She liked to vary her routes. Said it kept her fresh. She didn’t run the railroad path more frequently than other jogging routes, though. He backtracked those also, with Ozzie at his heels.
Kelly and Maude had never seemed close to him. He drew a blank there. He reviewed every person in Crozet. Was she friendly to them? What did she truly think of them?
A searing wind whipped his thinning hair, a Serengeti wind, desert-like in its dryness. The creosote from the railroad tracks stank. Berryman shaded his eyes with his hand and scanned east toward town, then west toward the Greenwood tunnel.
She used to joke about Crozet’s treasure, and given Maude’s thoroughness, she’d read about Claudius Crozet. The engineer fascinated her. If she could only find the treasure she could retire. Retail was hard, she said, but then they shared that thought, since Berryman moved more stock trailers than anyone on the East Coast.
It wasn’t until ten o’clock that evening, in the silence of his newly rented room, that Berryman realized the tunnel had something to do with Maude. Impulsively, driven by wild curiosity as well as grief, he hurried to his truck, flashlight in hand, Ozzie at his side, and drove out there.
The trek up to the tunnel, treacherous in the darkness on the overgrown tracks, had him panting. Ozzie, senses far sharper than his master’s, smelled another human scent. He saw the dull glow at the lower edge of the tunnel where dappled light escaped through the foliage. Someone was inside the tunnel. He barked a warning to his master. Better he’d stayed silent. The light was immediately extinguished.
Berryman leaned against the sealed tunnel mouth to catch his breath. Ozzie heard the human slide through the heavy brush. He dashed after him. One shot put an end to Ozzie. The shepherd screamed and dropped.
Berryman, thinking of his dog before himself, ran to where Ozzie disappeared. He crashed through the brush and beheld the killer.
“You!”
Within one second he, too, was dead.
39
Rick Shaw, Dr. Hayden McIntire, and Clai Cordle and Diana Farrell of the Rescue Squad stared at Bob Berryman’s body. He was seated upright behind the driver’s wheel of his truck. Ozzie, also shot, lay beside him. Bob had been shot through the heart and once again through the head for good measure. In his breast pocket was a postcard of General Lee’s tomb at Lexington, Virginia. It read, “Wish you were here.” There was no postmark. His truck was parked at the intersection of Whitehall Road and Railroad Avenue, a stone’s throw away from the post office, the train depot, and Market Shiflett’s store. A farmer on his way to the acres he rented on the north side of town found the body at about quarter to five in the morning.
“Any idea?” Rick asked Hayden.
“Six hours. The coroner will be more exact but no more than six, perhaps a little less.” Hayden thought his heart would break every time he looked at Ozzie. He and Bob had been inseparable in life and were now inseparable in death.
Rick nodded and reached into his squad car. Picking up the mobile phone, he commanded the switchboard to get him Officer Cooper.
A sleepy Cynthia Cooper soon greeted him.
“Coop. There’s been another one. Bob Berryman. But this time the killer was in a hurry. He abandoned his usual modus operandi. No cyanide. He didn’t have time to slice and dice the body either. He just left two bullet holes and a postcard. Stick to Harry. I’ll talk to you later. Over and out.”
40
Mrs. Murphy and Tucker learned the news from the town crier, Pewter. The fat gray cat, asleep in the store window, heard the truck in the near distance early that morning. Pewter was accustomed to hearing cars and trucks before dawn. After all, the drunks have to come home sometime; so do the lovers, and the farmers have to be up before dawn. Ozzie’s death hit the animals like a bombshell. Was he killed protecting Berryman? Was he killed so he couldn’t lead Rick Shaw to the murderer? Or was the murderer losing his marbles and going after animals too?
“If only I’d known, I would have jumped on the ice cream case and seen who did this,” Pewter moaned.
“There was no way for you to know,” Tucker comforted her.
“Poor Ozzie.” Mrs. Murphy sighed. The hyper dog had tried her patience but she didn’t wish him dead.
Bedlam overtook the post office. Harry had time to adjust to this latest horror because Officer Cooper prepared her, but nobody was prepared for the onslaught of reporters. Even the New York Times sent down a reporter. Fortunately, Crozet had no hotels, so this swarm of media locusts had to nest in Charlottesville, rent cars, and drive west.