“What circumstances?”
“The body in the graveyard.”
“Oh, that.” Harry laughed. She’d thought he was talking about BoomBoom. “I don’t mean that quite the way it sounds, Blair, but I’m not worried about you. You’re not killer material.”
“Under the right—or perhaps I should say wrong—circumstances I think anyone could be killer material, but I appreciate your kindness to a stranger. Wasn’t it Blanche DuBois who said, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’?”
“And it was my mother who said, ‘Many hands make light work.’ Neighbors help one another to make light work. I was glad to do it. It was good for me. I learned that I knew something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I take bush-hogging, knowing when to plant, knowing how to worm a horse, those kinds of things, as a given. Helping you made me realize I’m not so dumb after all.”
“Girls who go to Seven Sisters colleges are rarely dumb.”
“Ha.” Harry exploded with mirth and so did Blair.
“Okay, so there are some dumb Smithies and Holy Jokers but then, there are some abysmal Old Blues and Princeton men too.”
“Have you ever tracked, after a snow?” Harry changed the subject, since she didn’t like to talk about herself or emotions.
“No.”
“I’ve got my father’s old snowshoes. Want to go out?”
“Sure.”
Within minutes the two suited up and left the house. Not much sunlight remained.
“These snowshoes take some getting used to.” Blair picked up a foot.
They trekked into the woods where Harry showed him bobcat and deer tracks. The deer followed air currents. Seeing these things and smelling the air, feeling the difference in temperature along the creek and above it, Blair began to appreciate how intelligent animal life is. Each species evolved a way to survive. If humans humbled themselves to learn, they might be able to better their own lives.
They moved up into the foothills behind Blair’s property. Harry was making a circle, keeping uppermost in her mind that light was limited. She put her hand on his forearm and pointed up. An enormous snowy owl sat in a walnut tree branch.
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She whispered,“They rarely come this far south.”
“My God, it’s huge,” he whispered back.
“Owls and blacksnakes are the best friends a farmer can have. Cats too. They kill the vermin.”
Long pink shadows swept down from the hills, like the skirts of the day swirling in one last dance. Even with snowshoes, walking could be difficult. They both breathed harder as they moved out of the woods. At the edge of the woods Harry stopped. Her blood turned as cold as the temperature. She pointed them out to Blair. Snowshoe footprints. Not theirs.
“Hunters?” Blair said.
“No one hunts here without permission. The MacGregors and Mom and Dad were fierce about that. We used to run Angus, and the MacGregors bred polled Herefords. You can’t take the chance of some damn fool shooting your stock—and they do too.”
“Well, maybe someone wanted to track, like we’re doing.”
“He wanted to track all right.” The sharp cold air filled her lungs. “He wanted to track into the back of your property.”
“Harry, what’s wrong?”
“I think we’re looking at the killer’s tracks. Why he wants to come back here I don’t know, but he dumped hands and legs in your cemetery. Maybe he forgot something.”
“He wouldn’t find it in the snow.”
“I know. That’s why I’m really worried.” She knelt down and examined the tracks. “A man, I think, or a heavy woman.” She stepped next to the track and then picked up her snowshoe. “See how much deeper his track is than mine?”
Blair knelt down also.“I do. If we follow these, maybe we’ll find out where he came from.”
“We’re losing the light.” She pointed to the massing clouds tethered to the peaks of the mountains. “And here comes the next snowstorm.”
“Is there an old road back up in here?”
“Yes, there’s an old logging road from 1937, which was the last time this was select-cut. It’s grown over but he might know it. He could take a four-wheel drive off Yellow Mountain Road and hide it on the logging road. He couldn’t take it far but he could get it out of sight, I reckon.”
A dark shadow, like a blue finger, crept down toward them. The sun was setting. The mixture of clear sky and clouds was giving way to potbellied clouds.
“What would anyone want back up here?” Blair rubbed his nose, which was getting cold.
“I don’t know. Come on, let’s get back.”
In the good weather the walk back to Harry’s would have taken twenty minutes but pushing along through the snow they arrived at Harry’s back door in the dark one hour later. Their eyes were running, their noses were running, but their bodies stayed warm because of the exercise. Harry made more cocoa and grilled cheese sandwiches. Blairgratefully accepted the supper and then left to take care of his kittens.
As soon as he left, Harry called Cynthia Cooper.
Cynthia and Harry knew each other well enough not to waste time. The officer came to the point.“You think someone is after Blair?”
“Why else would someone be up there scoping the place?”
“I don’t know, Harry, but then nothing about these murders makes any sense except for the fact that Ben was up to no good. But just what kind of no good we still don’t know. I think Cabell knows, though. We’ll find him. Ben died a far richer man than he lived. Bet that took discipline.”
“What?”
“Not spending the money.”
“Oh, I never thought of that,” Harry replied. “Look, Coop, is there any way you can put someone out in Blair’s barn? Hide someone? Whoever this is doesn’t intend to barge down his driveway. He’ll sweep down from the mountainside.”
“Harry, can you think of any reason, any reason at all, why someone would want to kill Blair Bainbridge?”
“No.”
A long sigh came through the phone.“Me neither. And I like the guy, but liking someone doesn’t mean they can’t be mixed up in monkey business. We called his mother and father—routine, plus I wondered why he didn’t go home for Christmas or why they didn’t come here. His mother was very pleasant. His father wasn’t rude but I could tell there’s tension there. He disapproves of his son. Calls him a dilettante. No wonder Blair didn’t go home. Anyway, there wasn’t much from them. No red flags went up.”
“Will you put a man out there?”
“I’ll go out myself. Feel better?”
“Yes. I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t. Now sleep tight tonight. Oh, you heard about the dead rat present to Mim?”
“Yeah. That’s odd.”
“I can think of about one hundred people who would like to do that.”
“But would they?”
“No.”
“Are you nervous about this? It’s not over yet. I can feel it in my bones.”
A silence from Coop told Harry what she needed to know. Cynthia finally said,“One way or the other, we’ll figure this out. You take care.”
56
The wind lashed across the meadows in the early morning darkness. Even silk long johns, a cotton T-shirt, a long-sleeved Patagonia shirt, and a subzero down jacket couldn’t stave off the bitter cold. Harry’s fingers and toes ached by the time she reached the barn.
Simon was grateful for the food she brought him. He had stayed in last night. Harry even tossed out some raw hamburger for the owl. Given the mice that crept into the barn when the weather became cruel, Harry needn’t have fed the owl. She dined heartily on what the barn itself could supply, a fact that greatly irritated Mrs. Murphy, who believed that every mouse had her name on it.
When the chores were finished and Harry ventured back out, the wind was blowing harder. She couldn’t see halfway across the meadow, much less over to Blair’s. She was glad she had kept the horses in this morning, even if it would mean more mucking chores.