25
Mondays made Harry feel as if she were shoveling a ton of paper with a toothpick. Susan’s junk mail piled up like the Matterhorn. Harry couldn’t fit it in her mailbox. Josiah receivedCountry Life magazine from England and a letter from an antiques dealer in France. Fair’s box was jammed with advertisements from drug companies:End Heartworms Now! Mrs. Hogendobber would be happy to receive her Christian mail-order catalogue. Jesus mugs were a hot item, or you could buy a T-shirt printed with the Sermon on the Mount.
Harry envied Christ. He was born before the credit card. Owning a credit card in the age of the mail-order catalogue was a dicey business. Bankruptcy, a phone call away, could be yours in less than two minutes.
Cranky, she upended the last duffel bag, and letters, postcards, and bills poured out like white confetti. Mrs. Murphy crouched, wiggled her behind, then pounced into the delicious pile.
“No claws. Citizens will know you’re fooling with their mail and that’s a federal offense.” Harry scratched the base of her tail.
Tucker watched from her bed under the counter while Mrs. Murphy darted to the end of the room, rose up on her hind legs, pulled a 180, and charged back into the pile.
“Gangbusters!”
Tucker twitched her ears.“You love paper. I don’t know why. Bores me.”
“The crinkle sounds wonderful.” Mrs. Murphy rolled in the letters.“And the texture of the different papers tickles my pads.”
“If you say so.” Tucker sounded unconvinced.
By now Mrs. Murphy was skidding on the mail, much like kids skidding on ice without skates.
“That’s enough now. You’re going to tear something.” Harry reached for the cat but she eluded her. Harry noticed a postcard on top of the latest pile Mrs. Murphy had assaulted. A pretty etching of a beetle was printed on the postcard. Harry picked it up and turned it over.
Written in computer script and addressed to her, it read:“Don’t bug me.”
Harry dropped the postcard as if it were on fire. Her heart raced.
“What’s the matter with Harry?” Tucker called to Mrs. Murphy, still sliding on the letters.
The cat stopped.“She’s white as a sheet.”
Harry sorted the mail slowly, as if in a trance, but her mind was moving so quickly she was nearly paralyzed by the speed. The killer had to be someone at Josiah’s house, telling her to mind her own business. Her amateur sleuthing had struck a nerve. What the killer didn’t know was that Harry knew the postcards were his or her signal. Nor did the killer realize that both Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber knew more about Maude than they were letting on. Harry sat down, put her head between her hands, and breathed deeply. If she put her head between her knees she’d pass out. Her hands would have to do. Her thoughts going back to Mrs. Hogendobber, Harry realized she would have to impress upon her the absolute necessity of not telling anyone about the second ledger. Even if Mrs. Hogendobber had a guardian angel, there was no point in testing him.
If flitted through her mind that Fair could have sent the bug postcard. This was his idea of sick humor. Really sick. The card might not have come from the killer. She clung to this hope for an instant. Fair had his faults but he wasn’t this weird. Like a dying light bulb, her hope fizzled out. She knew.
Harry dialed Rick Shaw and gave him her latest report. He said he’d be right over. Then she finished sorting the mail, the one bright spot being another postcard from Lindsay Astrove, still in Europe.
Mrs. Hogendobber appeared on the doorstep. Tucker ran to the door and wagged her tail. Ever since Mrs. H. had released them from Maude’s shop, Tucker harbored warm feelings for her.
Harry opened the door, reached for Mrs. Hogendobber, and yanked her into the post office. She shut the door behind her.
“Harry, I am capable of self-propulsion. You must have heard about my near-death experience on Mim’s boat. I thank the Lord for my deliverance.”
“No, I haven’t heard a peep. I do want to hear about it but not right this instant. I want to remind you, to beseech you, not to tell anyone about those accounting books. You’ll be in danger if you do.”
“I know that,” Mrs. Hogendobber replied. “And I know more than that, too. I’ve studied those books to the last penny, the last decimal point. That woman ordered enough packing to move everyone in Crozet. It makes no sense, and the money she was getting! Our Maude would never have been on food stamps.”
“How much money?”
“She’d been here for five years—a rough average of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year on the left side of the ledger, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s a lot of plastic peanuts.” Fear ebbed from Harry as her curiosity took over.
“I haven’t a clue.” Mrs. Hogendobber threw up her hands.
“I do—sort of.” Harry peered out of the front window to make sure no one was coming in. “We have as our first victim a rich man who owned a concrete plant and heavy, heavy hauling trucks. The second victim was a woman who operated a packing shop. They were shipping something.”
“Dope. Maude could fix up anything. She could pack a diamond or a boa constrictor. Remember the time she helped Donna Eicher ship ant farms?”
“That!” Harry recalled three years back, when Donna Eicher started her ant farms. Watching the insects create empires between two Plexiglas plates held an appeal for some people. It lost its appeal for Donna when her inventory escaped and devoured the contents of her pantry.
“If Maude could ship ants, she sure could ship cocaine.”
“They’ve got dogs now that smell packages. I read it in the newspaper.” Harry thought out loud. “She’d have to get it past them.”
“We can smell anything. My nose detects a symphony of fragrance,” Tucker yapped.
“Oh, Tucker, can it. You’ve got a good nose. Let’s not get carried away with it.” Mrs. Murphy wanted to hear what the women were saying.
“Piffle.” Mrs. Hogendobber waved her hand. “She’d wrap the drugs with some odor to throw them off—Vicks VapoRub would do the job. A hundred fifty thousand a year, well, where else would one make profits like that?” Her back was to the door, which had just opened.
Harry winked at Mrs. Hogendobber, who stopped talking. Harry smiled.“Hi, Courtney. How’s your summer going?”
“Fine, Mrs. Haristeen. Good morning, Mrs. Hogendobber.” Courtney was down at the mouth but polite.
“How bad is it?” Harry asked.
“Danny Tucker is under house arrest for the rest of the summer. He even has a curfew! I can’t believe Mr. and Mrs. Tucker are that cruel.”
“Did he tell you why?” Harry inquired.
“No.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Tucker aren’t that cruel, so whatever he did, it was a doozy,” Harry said.
“Doozy is such a funny word.” Courtney wrinkled the mail by twisting it in her hands. She wasn’t paying attention to it.
“Comes from Dusenberg,” Mrs. Hogendobber boomed. “The Dusenberg was a beautiful, expensive car in the 1920’s but to own one you also needed a mechanic. It broke down constantly. So a doozy is something spectacular and bad.”
“Oh.” Courtney was interested. “Did you own one?”
“That was a little before my time, but I saw a Dusenberg once and my father, who loved cars, told me about them.”
Courtney thought the 1920’s were as distant as the eleventh century. Age was something she didn’t understand, and she wasn’t sure if she’d just insulted Mrs. Hogendobber. She did know that her question would have insulted Mrs. Sanburne. Courtney left under this cloud of confusion.
“She’s a dear child.” Mrs. Hogendobber swung her purse to and fro. “No one ever forgets anything in this town. I know I never do.”
“Yes?” Harry waited for the connective sentence.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Hogendobber said. “Just crossed my mind. Now listen, Harry, I was due at the Ruth Circle five minutes ago but I’ll be in constant touch and I want you to do the same.”