“And you, out there all alone?” Mim stamped the snow from her feet as she addressed Harry.
“Good. It was a good Christmas. My best friends gave me certificates to Dominion Saddlery.”
“Oh.” Mim’s eyebrows shot upward. “Nice friends.”
Mrs. Hogendobber tilted her head, earrings catching the light.“How about these goodies? Harry gave them to me.”
“Very nice.” Mim appraised them. “Well, Jim gave me a week at the Greenbrier. Guess I’ll take it in February, the longest month of the year,” she joked. “My daughter framed an old photo of my mother, and she gave me season’s tickets to the Virginia Theater. Fitz gave me an auto emergency kit and a Fuzzbuster.” She smiled. “A Fuzzbuster, can you imagine? He said I need it.” Her face changed. “And someone gave me a dead rat.”
“No.” Mrs. Hogendobber stopped sorting mail.
“Yes. I am just plain sick of all this. I sat up last night by myself in Mother’s old sewing room, the room I made my reading room. I’ve gone over everything so many times I’m dizzy. A man is killed. We don’t know him or anything about him other than that he was a vagrant or a vagabond. Correct?”
“Correct.”
Mim continued:“Then Benjamin Seifert is strangled and dumped in Crozet’s first tunnel. I even thought about the supposed treasure in the tunnels, but that’s too far-fetched.” She was referring to the legend that Claudius Crozet had buried in the tunnels the wealth he received from his Russian captor. Theyoung engineer, an officer in Napoleon’s army, was seized during the horrendous retreat from Moscow and taken to the estate of a fabulously wealthy aristocrat. So useful was the personable engineer, building many devices for the Russian, that when prisoners were finally freed, he bestowed upon Crozet jewels, gold, and rubies. Or so they said.
Harry spoke.“And now Cabell has …” She clicked her fingers in the air to indicate disappearance.
Mim waved a dismissive hand.“Two members of the same bank. Suspicious. Maybe even obvious. What isn’t so obvious is why am I a target? First the”—she grimaced—“torso in the boathouse. Followed by the head in the pumpkin when my husband was judging. And then the rat. Why me? I can’t think of any reason why, otherthan petty spite and envy, but people aren’t killed for that.”
Harry weighed her words.“Did Ben or Cabell have access to your accounts?”
“Certainly not, even though Cabell is a dear friend. No check goes out without my signature. And of course I studied my accounts. As a precaution I’m having my accountant audit my own books. And then”—she threw up her hands—“that earring. Well, Sheriff Shaw acted as though my daughter was a criminal. Forgive me, Harry, but a possum with an earring doesn’t add up to evidence.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Harry concurred.
“So … why me?”
“Maybe you should review your will.” Miranda was blunt.
This knocked Mim back. But she didn’t lash out. She thought about it. “You don’t mince words, do you?”
“Mim, if you think this is somehow directed at you, then you may be in danger,” Mrs. Hogendobber counseled. “What would someone want of you? Money. Do you own land impeding a developer? Are you in the way of anything that converts to profit? Do you have business ventures we don’t know about? Is your daughter your sole beneficiary?”
“When Marilyn married I settled a small sum upon her as a dowry and to help them with their house. She will, of course, inherit our house and the land when Jim and I die and I’ve created a trust that jumps a generation, so most of the money will go to her children should she have them. If not, then it will go to her and she’ll have to pay oodles of taxes. My daughter isn’t going to kill me for money, and she wouldn’t bother with a banker.” Mim was forthright.
“What about Fitz?” Harry blurted out.
“Fitz-Gilbert has more money than God. You don’t think we let Marilyn marry him without a thorough investigation of his resources.”
“No.” Harry’s reply was tinged with regret. She’d have hated for her parents to do that to the man she loved.
“A shirttail cousin?” Miranda posited.
“You know my relatives as well as I do. I have one surviving aunt in Seattle.”
“Have you talked to the sheriff and Coop about this?” Harry asked.
“Yes, and my husband too. He’s hiring a bodyguard to protect me. If one can ever get through the snow. And another storm is coming.” Mim, not a woman easily frightened, was worried. She headed for the door.
“Mim, your mail.” Miranda reached into her box and held it out to her.
“Oh.” Mim took the mail in one Bott?ga Veneta–gloved hand and left.
A bit later Fitz arrived. He and Little Marilyn had indulged in an orgy of spending. He listed the vast number of gifts with glee and no sense of shame.“But the best is, we’re going to the Homestead for a few days starting tonight.”
“I thought Mim was going to the Greenbrier.” Miranda was getting confused.
“Yes, Mother is going, she says, in February, but we’re going tonight. A second honeymoon maybe, or just getting away from all this. You heard that Mim received an ugly present.” They nodded and he continued: “I think she ought to go to Tahiti. Oh, well, there’s no talking to Mim. She’ll do as she pleases.”
Blair came in.“Hey, I’ve got good news for you. Orlando Heguay is coming down on the twenty-eighth and he can’t wait to see you.”
“Orlando Heguay.” Fitz pondered the name. “Miami?”
“No. Andover.”
Fitz clapped his hand to his face.“My God, I haven’t seen him since school. What’s he doing?” Fitz caught his breath. “And how do you know him?”
“We’ll catch up on all that when he gets here. He’s looking forward to seeing you.”
“How about dinner at the club Saturday night?” Fitz smiled.
“I’m not a member.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Fitz clapped him on the back. “Be fun. Six?”
“Six,” Blair answered.
As Fitz left with an armful of mail, Blair looked after him.“Does that guy ever work?”
“He handled a real estate closing last year,” Harry laughed.
“Are you going to be home after work?” Blair asked her.
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll stop by.” Blair waved goodbye and left.
Alone again, Miranda smiled.“He likes you.”
“He’s my neighbor. He has to like me.”
55
Four bags of sweet feed, four bags of dog crunchies, and four bags of cat crunchies, plus two cases of canned cat food astounded Harry. Blair unloaded his Explorer to her protests that she couldn’t accept such gifts. He told her she could stand there and complain or she could help unload and then make them cocoa. She chose the latter.
Inside, as they sipped their chocolate drinks, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small light-blue box.
“Here, Harry, you deserve this.”
She untied the white satin ribbon. TIFFANY CO. in black letters jumped out at her from the middle of the blue box.“I’m afraid to open this.”
“Go on.”
She lifted the lid and found a dark-blue leather box with TIFFANY written in gold. She opened that to behold an exquisitely beautiful pair of gold and blue-enameled earrings nestled in the white lining.“Oh,” was all she could say.
“Your colors are blue and gold, aren’t they?”
She nodded yes and carefully removed the earrings. She put them in her ears and looked at herself in the mirror.“These are beautiful. I don’t deserve this. Why do you say I deserve this? It’s … well, it’s …”
“Take them, Mom. You look great,” Murphy advised.
“Yeah, it was bad enough you tried to give back our crunchies. You need something pretty,” Tucker chimed in.
Blair admired the effect.“Terrific.”
“Are you sure you want to give me these?”
“Of course I’m sure. Harry, I’d be lost out here without you. I thought I was hardworking and reasonably intelligent but I would have made a lot more mistakes without you and I would have spent a lot more money. You’ve been helpful to someone you hardly know, and given the circumstances, I’m grateful.”