“Ever notice how friends love you for what you are? Lovers try to change you into what they want you to be.” Susan drank the rest of Harry’s beer.
Harry laughed.“Mom used to say, ‘A woman marries a man hoping to change him and a man marries a woman hoping she’ll never change.’ ”
“Your mother was a pistol.” Susan remembered Grace’s sharp wit. “But I think men try to change their partners, too, although in a different way. It’s so confusing. I know less about human relationships the older I get. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. I thought I was supposed to be getting wiser.”
“Yeah. Now I’m full of distrust.”
“Oh, Harry, men aren’t so bad.”
“No, no—I distrust myself. What was I doing married to Pharamond Haristeen? Am I that far away from myself?”
Back home, Mrs. Murphy prowled.
Tucker, in her wicker basket, lifted her head.“Sit down.”
“Am I keeping you awake?”
“No,” the dog grumbled.“I can’t sleep when Mommy’s away. I’ve seen other people take their dogs to the movies. Muffin Barnes sticks her dog in her purse.” Muffin was a friend of Harry’s.
“Muffin Barnes’s dog is a chihuahua.”
“Zat what he is?” Tucker, stiff-legged, got out of the basket.“Wanna play?”
“Ball?”
“No. How about tag? We can rip and tear while she isn’t here. Actually, we should rip and tear. How dare she go away and leave us here. Let’s make her pay.”
“Yeah!” Mrs. Murphy’s eyes lit up.
An hour later, when Harry flipped the lights on in the living room, she exclaimed,“Oh, my God!”
The ficus tree was tipped over, soil was thrown over the floor, and soiled kittyprints dotted the walls. Mrs. Murphy had danced in the moist dirt before hitting the walls with all four feet.
Harry, furious, searched for her darlings. Tucker hid under the bed in the back corner against the wall, and Mrs. Murphy lay flat on the top shelf of the pantry.
By the time Harry cleaned up the mess she was too tired to discipline them. To her credit, she understood that this was punishment for her leaving. She understood, but was loath to admit that the animals trained her far better than she trained them.
11
The prospect of the weekend lightened Harry’s step as she walked along Railroad Avenue, shiny from last night’s late thunderstorm, which had done nothing to lower the exalted temperature. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, forgiven, scampered ahead.
The moment she caught sight of them, Pewter tore down the avenue to greet them.
“I didn’t know she could move that fast.” Harry whistled out loud.
When Pewter ran, the flab under her belly swayed from side to side. She started yelling half a block away from her friends.“I’ve been waiting outside the store for you!”
Panting, Pewter slid to a stop at Tucker’s feet.
Harry, thinking that the animal had exhausted herself, stooped to pick her up.“Poor Fatty.”
“Lemme go.” Pewter wiggled free.
“What is it?” Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Harry’s legs to make her feel better.
“Maude Bly Modena.” The chartreuse eyes glittered.“Dead!”
“How?” Mrs. Murphy wanted details.
“Train ran over her.”
“In her car, you mean?” Tucker was impatient waiting for Pewter to catch her breath as they continued walking toward the post office.
“No!” Pewter picked up the pace.“Worse than that.”
“Pewter, I’ve never heard you so chatty.” Harry beamed.
Pewter replied.“If you’d pay attention you might learn something.” She turned to Mrs. Murphy.“They think they’re so smart but they only pay attention to themselves. Humans only listen to humans and half the time they don’t do that.”
“Yes.” Mrs. Murphy wanted to say“Get on with it,” but she prudently bit her lip.
“As I was saying, it was worse than that. She was tied to the track, I don’t know where exactly, but when the six o’clock came through this morning, the engineer couldn’t stop in time. Cut her into three pieces.”
“How’d you find out?” Tucker blinked at the thought of the grisly sight.
“Unfortunately, Courtney heard about it first. Market let her come in and open up for the farm trade, the fiveA.M., crew. The Rescue Squad roared by—Rick Shaw too. Officer Cooper, in the second squad car, ran in for coffee. That’s how we found out. Courtney phoned Market and he came right down. There’s some weirdo out there killing people.”
“Like a serial killer, you mean?” Tucker was very concerned for Harry’s safety.
“It’s bad enough that humans kill once.” Pewter sucked in her breath.“But every now and then they throw one who wants to kill over and over.”
Mrs. Murphy murmured,“I liked Maude.”
“I did too.” Tucker hung her head.“Why don’t people kill their sick young like we do? Why do they let them live and cause damage?”
“Well, as I understand it, these psychos”—Pewter had an opinion on everything—“can appear mentally normal.”
“That’s no excuse for the ones they know are nuts from the beginning.” Mrs. Murphy couldn’t cover her distress.
“They think it’s wrong to weed out litters.” Tucker’s claws clicked on the pavement.
“Yeah, they let the sickies grow up and kill them instead.” Pewter laughed a harsh laugh.“No one better come after Courtney or Market. I’ll scratch their eyes out.”
Harry noticed the three animals were attentive to one another.
“Whoever this is has something to cover up,” Mrs. Murphy thought out loud.
“Yes, they have to cover up that they’re demented and they’ll kill again, during a full moon, I bet,” Pewter said.
“No. I don’t mean that.” Mrs. Murphy’s eyes became slits. Tucker had lived with Mrs. Murphy since she was a six-week-old puppy. She knew how the cat thought.“This person is after something—or has something to hide. It might not be a thrill killer.”
“Don’t you find it peculiar that he or she leaves the bodies about? Doesn’t a killer try and bury the body?” Pewter figured that’s what vultures were for, but then, people were different.
“That struck me about Kelly’s body.” Mrs. Murphy ignored a caterpillar, so intense was her concentration.“The killer is displaying the bodies …” Her voice drifted off because Market Shiflett emerged from his store and was waving at Harry.
“Harry, Harry!”
Harry heard the fear in his voice and ran down to the store.“What’s the matter?”
“S’awful, just awful.”
Harry put her arm around him.“Are you all right? Want me to call the Doc?” She meant Hayden McIntire.
Market nodded he was fine.“It’s not me, Harry. It’s another murder—Maude Bly Modena.”
“What?!” Harry’s color fled from her cheeks.
“I’m keeping my girl inside. There’s a monster out there!”
“What happened, Market?” Harry, shocked, put her hand against the store window to steady herself.
“That poor woman was tied to the railroad tracks like in some silent movie. The fellow saw her—the brakeman, I guess, on the morning passenger train—but too late, too late. Oh, that poor woman.” His lower lip trembled.
“Who else knows?” Harry’s mind was moving at the speed of light.
“Why do you ask?” Market was surprised at the question.
“I’m not sure, Market, I … Woman’s intuition.”
“Do you know something?” His voice rose.
“No, I don’t know a damn thing but I’m going to find out. This has to stop!”
“Well”—Market rubbed his chin—“Courtney knows, Rick Shaw and Officer Cooper, and Clai and Diana of the Rescue Squad, of course. Train people know, including the passengers. Train stopped. A lot of people know.”
“Yes, yes.” Her voice trailed off.
“What are you thinking?”
“That I wish so many people didn’t know already. Controlling the information might have been a way to snag a clue.”