After delicately dancing around the subject in Kelly’s office, now taken over by his wife, Harry felt the time was right. She quietly leaned toward BoomBoom and asked, “Did Kelly ever do business with Maude?”
A wave of relief swept over the sultry woman’s features. “Oh—sure. She packed up his Christmas business mailing for him. Is that what you mean?”
“No.” Harry noticed the photos of Kelly with the county commissioners, the president of the University of Virginia, the state representatives. “What about business on a larger scale?”
“There’s no record of it.” Just to make certain, BoomBoom jangled Marie on the intercom and Marie confirmed the negative.
“What about a more intimate connection?” Harry whispered, and waited for the reaction.
Extramarital sex, shocking to many, barely dented BoomBoom’s psyche. She expected it, even from her husband. “No. Maude wasn’t Kelly’s type, although she seems to have been Bob Berryman’s.”
“All over town?” Harry asked, knowing it was.
“Linda’s given to fainting spells. Next come the faith healers, I guess. Hard to believe either Linda or Maude loved him, but then you really never know, do you?” Her long eyelashes, which reached into next week, fluttered for an instant.
“No.”
BoomBoom’s face flushed. “Kelly wasn’t a saint and our marriage was far from perfect. If he strayed off the reservation, so to speak, he’d never have done it close to home. What do you think? You obviously believe something was going on between my husband and Maude.”
“I don’t know. My hunch is they were in business together. Illegal.”
BoomBoom stiffened slightly.“He made tons of money legally.”
“Kelly loved to screw the system. An enormous untaxable profit would have been a siren call to his rebellious self—if they were shipping drugs, I mean.”
Realistic about Kelly, BoomBoom hesitated. It was not as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her once or twice since his murder. “I don’t know, but I sure hope you keep these thoughts to yourself. He’s dead. Don’t go about ruining his name.”
“I won’t, but I have to get to the bottom of this. Do you think Kelly’s murder and Maude’s murder are connected?”
“Well, at first I didn’t think, period. The shock left me empty, and into the emptiness rushed anger. I just want to kill this son of a bitch. Barehanded.” She put her hands together in a choking motion. “As the days have gone by—seems like years, in a funny way—I go over it and over it. I don’t know why but yes, I believe they are connected.”
“Shipping something—that’s what I come up with no matter how I examine this.”
“Contrary to what the public has been told by government types, drugs are easy to ship. It’s possible. God knows they’re also easy to hide. They don’t take up that much space. You could cram two million dollars’ worth of cocaine into these desk drawers.”
“Whatever they did, they fell afoul of a partner or partners.” Harry said this, realizing as the words were out of her mouth that BoomBoom could be one of those partners. She’d be committed to profit, but Harry couldn’t imagine BoomBoom at her hardest doing business with Kelly’s killer.
“If you find out, Mary Minor Haristeen, tell me twenty minutes before you tell Rick Shaw. I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars for that information.”
Harry choked. Ten thousand dollars. God, how she needed it.
A silence wrapped around them, an air of static antagonism. BoomBoom broke it:“Think it over.”
Harry swallowed.“I will.” She paused. “Why do I feel like you’re holding out on me?”
BoomBoom’s face became suddenly still. “I’m telling you everything I know about Kelly. If he had a secret, then he kept it from me too.”
“What about Fair?” Harry’s lips were white.
“I don’t know what you mean.” BoomBoom’s eyes darted around the room. “Did you come here looking for clues about Kelly or clues about Fair? I mean, you threw him out, Harry. What do you care what he does?”
“I’ll always care what he does. I just can’t live with him.” Harry’s face flushed. “He just wasn’t … there.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t there emotionally.” She sighed. “It’s one thing to lose your marriage, but it’s just as bad to lose your friends. Everyone’s taking sides.”
“What did you expect?” No sympathy from BoomBoom.
That put the match to the tinderbox.“More of you!” Harry clenched her teeth. “He and Kelly were never the same after Fair made that pass at you, but we stayed friends.”
“That was last year. Everyone was drunk! Look, Harry, people don’t want to look at themselves. Let me give you some advice about Crozet.”
Harry interrupted.“I’ve lived here all my life. What do you know that I don’t?”
“That divorce frightens people. From the outside your marriage seemed fine. People want to accept appearances. Now you’ve gone and upset the apple cart. You might be looking inside yourself but no one in these parts will give you credit for it. This is Albemarle County. No change. Keep everything the same. You stay the same. To change is viewed as an admission of guilt. Hell, people would rather live in their familiar misery than take a chance to change it.”
Harry had never weathered blunt truth from BoomBoom before. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Finally she found her voice.“I can see you’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
“Yes. I have.”
The discussion had magnified tension instead of dispelling it.
As Harry drove home she noticed the late afternoon shadows seemed longer. A sense of menace began to haunt her.
She kept to her routine, as did everyone else. At first the routine cushioned the shock of the murders, as well as her separation, but now she felt off balance, the routine a charade. The macabre killings, the reality of them, began to sink in.
She touched down on the accelerator but she couldn’t outrun the shadows of the setting sun.
31
“‘Wish you were here.’ ” Harry’s hands shook as she read the postcard addressed to Mrs. George Hogendobber. The front of the postcard was a beautiful glossy photograph of Pushkin’s grave. Another carefully faked postmark covered the upper righthand corner.
Harry called Rick Shaw but he wasn’t in the office. “Well, get him!” she yelled at the receptionist. Next she depressed the button and dialed Mrs. Hogendobber.
“Hello.”
Harry never thought she would be thrilled to hear that hearty voice.“Mrs. Hogendobber, are you all right?”
“You call me first thing in the morning to see if I’m all right? I’ll be over there in fifteen minutes.”
“Let me walk over for you.” Harry fought for a deep breath.
“What? Mary Minor Haristeen, I’ve been walking to the post office since before you were born.”
“Please do as I say, Mrs. H. Go out on your front porch so that everyone can see you. I’ll be there in one minute flat. Just do it, please.” She hung up the phone and flew out the door, Tucker and Mrs. Murphy at her heels.
Mrs. Hogendobber was rocking in her swing, a perplexed Mrs. Hogendobber, an irritated Mrs. Hogendobber, but an alive Mrs. Hogendobber.
Harry burst into tears at the sight of her.“Thank God!”
“What in the world is wrong with you, girl? You need an Alka-Seltzer.”
“You must get out of here. Get out of Crozet. What about your sister in Greenville, South Carolina?”
“It’s just as hot there as it is here.”
“What about your nephew in Atlanta?”
“Atlanta is worse than Greenville. I’m not going anywhere. Are you suffering from heat stroke? Maybe you’re overworked. Why don’t we go inside and pray together? You’ll soon feel the hand of the Lord on your shoulder.”
“I sincerely hope so but you’re coming with me to the post office and you aren’t leaving until Rick Shaw gets there.”
Tucker licked Mrs. Hogendobber’s ankles. Mrs. Hogendobber shooed her away, but Tucker returned. Finally, Mrs. Hogendobber let her lick. She was sweaty already on this blistering morning. What were wet ankles?