Ned Tucker, Susan’s husband, took the view that we die when we want to, therefore P?re Randolph was ready to go and nobody should feel too bad about it.
By the end of the workday speculation had run the gamut. The last word on Wesley Randolph’s passing, from Rob Collier as he picked up the afternoon mail, was that the old man was fooling around with his son’s wife. The new medication Larry Johnson had prescribed for his illness had revved up his sex drive. Warren walked in on the tryst and his father died of a heart attack from theshock.
As Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber locked up, they reviewed the day’s gossip. Mrs. Hogendobber dropped the key in her pocket, inhaled deeply, and said to Harry, “I wonder what they say about us?”
“Gossip lends to death a new terror.” Harry smirked.
19
“You know, if I ever get tired of home, I’ll come live in your barn,” Paddy promised.
“No, you won’t,” Simon, the possum, called down from the hayloft.“You’ll steal my treasures. You’re no good, Paddy. You were born no good and you’ll die no good.”
“Quit flapping your gums, you overgrown rat. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.” Paddy washed one of his white spats.
A large black cat permanently wearing a tuxedo and spats, Paddy was handsome and knew it. His white bib gleamed, and despite his propensity for fighting, he always cleaned himself up.
Mrs. Murphy sat on a director’s chair in the tack room. Paddy sat in the chair opposite her while Tucker sprawled on the floor. Simon wouldn’t come down. He hated strange animals.
The last light of day cast a peachy-pink glow through the outside window. The horses chatted to one another in their stalls.
“I wish Mom would come home,” Tucker said.
“She’ll be at Eagle’s Rest a long time.” Mrs. Murphy knew that calling upon the bereaved took time, plus everyone else in Crozet would be there.
“Funny how the old man dropped.” Paddy started cleaning his other forepaw.“They’re already digging his grave at the cemetery. I walked through there on my rounds. His plot’s next to the Berrymans’ on one side and the Craigs’ on the other.”
Tucker walked to the end of the barn, then returned.“The sky’s bloodred over the mountains.”
“Another deep frost tonight too,” Paddy remarked.“Just when you think spring is here.”
“Days are warming up,” Mrs. Murphy noted.“Dr. Craig. Wasn’t that Larry Johnson’s partner?”
Paddy replied,“Long before any of us were born.”
“Let me think.”
“Murph.” Tucker wistfully stood on her hind legs, putting her front paws on the chair.“Ask Herbie Jones, he remembers everything.”
“If only humans could understand.” Mrs. Murphy frowned, then brightened.“Dr. Jim Craig. Killed in 1948. He took Larry into his practice just like Larry took in Hayden McIntire.”
Paddy stared at his former wife. When she got a bee in her bonnet, it was best to let her go on. She evidenced more interest in humans than he did.
“What set youoff?”
The tiger cat glanced down at her canine companion.“Paddy said he walked through the cemetery. The Randolphs are buried between the Berrymans and the Craigs.”
Tucker wandered around restlessly.“Another unsolved murder.”
“Ah, one of those spook tales they tell you when you’re a kitten to scare you,” Paddy pooh-poohed.“Old Dr. Craig is found in his Pontiac, motor running. Found at the cemetery gates. Yeah, I remember now. His grandson, Jim Craig II, tried to reopen the case years back, but nothing came of it.”
“Shot between the eyes,” Mrs. Murphy said.“His medical bag stolen but no money.”
“Well, this town is filled with weirdos. Somebody really wanted to play doctor.” Paddy giggled.
“In 1948,” Mrs. Murphy triumphantly recalled the details told to her long ago by her own mother, Skippy,“The town smothered in shock because everyone loved Dr. Craig.”
“Not everyone,” Paddy said.
“Hooray!” Tucker jumped up as she heard the truck coming down the driveway.“Mom’s home.”
“Paddy, come on in. Harry likes you.”
“Yeah, get out of here, useless,” Simon called down from the loft.
The owl poked her head out from under her wing, then stuck it back. She rarely joined in these discussions with the other animals since she worked the night shift.
The dog bounded ahead of them.
The tuxedo cat and the tiger strolled at a leisurely pace to the front door. It wouldn’t do to appear too excited.
“Ever wish we were still together?” Paddy asked.“I do.”
“Paddy, being in a relationship with you was like putting Miracle-Gro on my character defects.” Her tail whisked to the vertical when Harry called her name.
“Does that mean you don’t like me?”
“No. It means I didn’t like me in that situation. Now, come on, let’s get some supper.”
20
The upper two floors of Monticello, not open to the public, served as a haven and study for the long-legged Kimball Haynes. While most of the valuable materials relating to Mr. Jefferson and his homes reposed in the rare books section of the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia, the Library of Congress, or the Virginia State Library in Richmond, only a small library existed upstairs at Monticello.
One of Kimball’s pleasures consisted of sitting in the rectangular room above the south piazza, or greenhouse, which connects the octagonal library to Jefferson’s cabinet, the room he used as his private study. Kimball kept a comfortable wing chair there and a private library, which included copies of records that Jefferson or his white employees kept in their own hand. He pored over account books, visitors’ logs, and weather reports for the year 1803. As Mr. Jefferson was serving his first term as president during that year, the records lacked the fullness of the great man’s attention. Peas, tomatoes, and corn were planted as always. A coach broke an axle. The repairs were costly. The livestock demanded constant care. A visitor assigned to a third-floor room in November complained of being frightfully cold, a reasonable complaint, since there were no fireplaces up there.
As the night wore on, Kimball heard the first peepers of spring. He loved that sound better than Mozart. He thumbed the copies blackened by the soil on his hands. Ground-in dirt was an occupational hazard for an archaeologist. He had used these references for years, returning to the rare books collection at the University of Virginia only when he’d scrubbed his hands until they felt raw.
After absorbing those figures, Kimball dropped the pages on the floor and leaned back in the old chair. He flung one leg over a chair arm. Facts, facts, facts, and not a single clue. Whoever was buried in the dirt at Cabin Four wasn’t a tradesman. A tinker or wheelwright or purveyor of fresh fish, even a jeweler, wouldn’t have had such expensive clothing on his back.
The corpse belonged to a gentleman. Someone of the president’s own class. 1803.
Now, Kimball knew that might not be the year of the man’s death, but it couldn’t be far off. Whatever happened politically that year might have some bearing on the murder, but Kimball’s understanding of human nature suggested that in America people rarely killed each other over politics. Murder was closer to the skin.
He recalled a scandal the year before, 1802, that cut Thomas Jefferson to the quick. His friend from childhood, John Walker, accused Jefferson of making improper advances to his wife. According to John Walker, this affair started in 1768, when Thomas Jefferson was not yet married, but Walker maintained that it continued until 1779, seven years after Jefferson had married Martha Wayles Skelton, on January 1, 1772. The curious aspect of this scandal was that Mrs. Walker saw fit to burden her husband with the disclosure of her infidelity only some time after 1784, when Jefferson was in France.