“Do you think he’ll kill me? Is that what you’re saying?” Her voice was quite calm.
“I hope not.”
“If I tell Rick Shaw he’ll know what we’ve done.”
“I think we’d better tell him. What’s he going to do? Arrest us? Listen to me. You have absolutely got to remember who was there after I left.”
“Myself, Mim, Little Marilyn, Jim, old Dr. Johnson, and Ned. That reminds me, what is going on with Ned and Susan? Oh, Susan was there, of course.”
“Just remember the names and I’ll tell you about Ned.”
This encouraged her.“U-m-m, Fair and Josiah—well, that’s obvious.”
“No, nothing is obvious. Are you certain there wasn’t anyone else? What about Market? What about any of the kids?”
“No, Market wasn’t there, nor Courtney.”
“This isn’t good.”
Mrs. Hogendobber put her back to the wall for support. She wiped her brow.“I’m not used to not trusting people. I feel horrible.”
Harry’s voice softened. “None of us is used to that. You can’t be expected to change a behavior overnight—and maybe it’s better that you don’t. Except until we catch this killer, well, we’re going to have to be on our toes. Why don’t you have Larry’s wife stay with you tonight, or better yet, go over there.”
“Do you think it’s that bad?”
“No,” Harry lied. “But why take chances?”
“You believe that Maude and Kelly were shipping out dope, don’t you? I do. They had to be in business together. So who’s the kingpin?”
“Some sweet Crozet person we play tennis with or go to church with. A woman or a man we’ve known for years.”
“Why?” Mrs. Hogendobber might preach about evil, but when confronted with it she was at a loss. She expected the Devil with green horns or a human being with a snarling face. It had never once occurred to her in her long and relatively happy life that evil is ordinary.
Harry shrugged in answer to Mrs. Hogendobber’s question. “Love or money.”
After Mrs. Hogendobber drove off, Harry returned to work with renewed vigor. Since she felt helpless about Mrs. Hogendobber, she could feel purposeful in cleaning the office. She could get one thing to work right in her life.
Then Fair walked into the post office.
“I tried to be a good husband—you know that, don’t you?” Fair cleared his throat.
“Yes.” Harry held her breath.
“We never discussed what we expected from each other. Perhaps we should have.”
“What’s wrong? Come out and say it. Just come out with it, for chrissake.” Harry reached out to touch him and stopped herself.
Fair stammered,“Nothing’s wrong. We made our mistakes. I just wanted to say that.”
He left. He wanted to tell her about BoomBoom. The truth. He tried. He couldn’t.
Harry wondered, Was he mixed up in these murders? He was acting so strange. It couldn’t be. No way.
28
Mrs. Hogendobber’s fears were justified. Rick Shaw seethed when Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber confessed about Xeroxing the second ledger.
By the time Harry got home she decided if this wasn’t the worst day in her life, it certainly qualified as so bad she didn’t want it repeated.
She called Susan, telling her about Fair’s peculiar behavior. Susan declared that Fair was in the grief stage of the divorce. Harry asked her to come to the post office in the morning for a long coffee break. After she hung up she decided she’d tell Susan about the bug postcard she had received. She needed Susan’s response. Anyway,if she couldn’t trust her best friend, life wasn’t worth living.
29
Tucker chewed a big knucklebone behind the meat counter. Market Shiflett, in a generous mood, gave her a fresh one. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter received smaller beef bones. They happily gnawed away while catching up on recent events. Ozzie, Bob Berryman’s Australian shepherd, had been down at the mouth. Pewter claimed he hardly wagged his tail and barked. Mim Sanburne’s snotty Afghan hound had lost his testicles yesterday. The animal news, usually rich in the summer, lagged behind the human news this year.
Tucker recounted Rick Shaw’s livid explosion. Poor Mrs. Hogendobber thought she was going to jail.
Courtney paid scant attention to these three animals cracking bones and talking among themselves. Her large hoop earrings clattered.
“When did Courtney start dressing like a gypsy?” Mrs. Murphy, conservative about attire, wanted to know.
“She’s trying to attract Danny Tucker’s attention. He’ll be mowing Maude Bly Modena’s lawn today. He’ll hear her before he sees her.” Pewter had eaten so much she lay down on one side and rested her head on her outstretched arm.
“Guess you heard what he did?”
“Mrs. Murphy told me yesterday while you were out doing potty, as Harry calls it.” Pewter laughed.“I don’t mind Harry’s expressions so much except when she tells you to go potty her voice rises half an octave. Say, not only is Courtney sticking big hoops in her ears but last night when Market was out she made herself a martini. She wants to be sophisticated and she thought drinking a martini would do it. Ha! Tastes like lighter fluid.”
“She’s young.” Mrs. Murphy tore off a slender thread of red meat.
“Tell me about it. Human beings take forty years to grow up and half of them don’t do it then. We’re ready for the world at six months.”
“We’re not really grown up though, Pewter.” Mrs. Murphy licked her chops.“I’d say we’re fully adult at one year. I wonder, why does it take them so long?”
“Retarded,” came Pewter’s swift reply.“I mean, will you look at Courtney Shiflett. If she were a child of mine those earrings would be out of those ears so fast she wouldn’t know what hit her.”
“At least she works. Think of all those humans who don’t even earn a living until their middle twenties. She works after school and she works in the summer. She’s a good kid.” Mrs. Murphy thought most humans lazy, the young ones especially.
“If you like her so much, you live with her. If I hear her George Michael tape one more time, I’m going to shred it with these very claws.” She flashed her impressive talons.“Furthermore, the girl will make herself deaf—and me, too—if she doesn’t turn down that boom box. Sometimes I think I’ll walk out the door and never come back—live on field mice.”
“You’re too fat to catch mice,” Mrs. Murphy taunted her.
“I’ll have you know that I caught one last week. I gave it to Market and he went ‘O-o-o.’ He could have thanked me.”
“They don’t like mice.” Tucker slurped at her bone.
“Try giving them a bird.” Mrs. Murphy rolled her eyes.“The worst. Harry hollers and then buries the bird. She likes the moles and mice I bring her. I break their necks clean. No blood, no fuss. A neat job, if I do say so myself.”
Pewter burped.“Excuse me. A neat job … Mrs. Murphy, the human murders were messy,” she thought out loud.
“Why?” Tucker sat up but put her paw on her bone just in case. Pewter was known to steal food.“It’s not efficient to kill a person that way. Throw one in a cement mixer and tie another one to the railroad track. Originally, it was a neat job. After they were dead the killer ground them into hamburger.”
Pewter lifted her head.“The killer’s not a vegetarian.” Then she dropped her head back and laughed.
Mrs. Murphy pushed Pewter with her paw.“Very funny.”
“I thought so.”
Tucker said,“The police aren’t revealing how Kelly and Maude died—if they know. The mess has to be to cover up something inside the bodies or to divert us from what the people were doing before they died.”
“That’s right, Tucker.” Mrs. Murphy got excited.“What were they doing in the middle of the night? Kelly was at the concrete plant. Working? Maybe. And Maude willingly went out to the railroad tracks west of town. Humans sleep at night. If they were awake it had to be important, or”—she paused—“it had to be something they were used to doing.”