Nine Lives to Die Read online

  Nine Lives to Die is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by American Artists, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BANTAM BOOKS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Michael Gellatly

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, Rita Mae.

  Nine lives to die : a Mrs. Murphy mystery / Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown; illustrated by Michael Gellatly. pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-345-53050-9

  eBook ISBN 978-0-345-53974-8

  1. Murphy, Mrs. (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Haristeen, Harry (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Women detectives—Virginia—Fiction. 4. Women cat owners—Fiction. I. Gellatly, Michael, illustrator. II. Title.

  PS3552.R698N57 2014

  813’.54—dc23 2014000989

  www.bantamdell.com

  Jacket design: Beverly Leung

  Jacket illustrations: © Shutterstock/Nebojsa S (cat), © Shutterstock/Alhovik (claws marks)

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Cast of Characters

  The Really Important Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Authors

  Cast of Characters

  Mary Minor Haristeen—“Harry,” just forty-one, a Smith graduate who wound up being Crozet, Virginia’s postmistress for sixteen years, is now trying to make some money by farming. She survived breast cancer and prefers not to think about it. She more or less lives on the surface of life until her curiosity pulls her deeper.

  Pharamond Haristeen, D.V.M.—“Fair” specializes in equine reproduction. After graduating from Auburn he married his childhood sweetheart, Harry. He reads people’s emotions much better than his wife does. He is a year older than Harry.

  Susan Tucker—Outgoing, adept at any and all social exchange, she’s Harry’s best friend since cradle days. She loves Harry but worries about how Harry just blunders into things.

  The Very Reverend Herbert Jones—A Vietnam Veteran, Army, he is pastor at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, which is well over two hundred years old. He is a man of deep conviction and feeling. He’s known Harry since her childhood.

  Deputy Cynthia Cooper—Tall, lean, and Harry’s next-door neighbor as she rents the adjoining farm, she loves law enforcement. Harry meddles in Cooper’s business from time to time but the Smith graduate has an uncanny knack of finding important information.

  Aunt Tally Urquhart—This 101-year-old aunt of Marilyn Sanburne, Sr., does what she wants when she wants. She’s not in too much evidence in this volume, which gives everyone a rest.

  Marilyn Sanburne, Sr.—“Big Mim,” known as The Queen of Crozet. She runs everything and everyone except her aunt. Big Mim is a political animal.

  Miranda Hogendobber—A second mother to Harry, a devout member of the evangelical Church of the Holy Light, she, too, isn’t much in evidence in this volume. Like Big Mim, she’s in her seventies and has no idea how she got there so fast.

  Sheriff Rick Shaw—The sheriff of Albemarle County, he is overburdened, underfunded, and overworked. Despite that, he likes law enforcement and has learned to trust Cooper. Originally, he wasn’t thrilled about having a woman in the department.

  BoomBoom Craycroft—Another childhood friend of Harry’s, she had an affair with Harry’s husband years back. It was a mess, of course. Everyone has recovered and in many ways is the better for it. BoomBoom runs her late husband’s concrete business. She is conventionally beautiful.

  Alicia Palmer—Now here’s a showstopper. Alicia was a movie star in the fifties, whipped through a few husbands, affairs, etc., made pots of money, inherited more from an old flame. She returned to Crozet, fell in love with BoomBoom, and is blissfully happy.

  Jessica Hexham—Well-educated, outgoing, ready to help a good cause, she’s becoming part of the girls’ group with Harry and her old school friends.

  Brian Hexham—Jessica’s husband leads a nonprofit, Silver Linings, organized to help disadvantaged boys. No one involved in this organization, housed at St. Cyril’s Church, takes any salary.

  Arden Higham—A bit high-strung, married to a successful businessman, she tries to keep peace between her husband and her son. She does the books, again for no pay, for Silver Linings.

  Louis Higham—Started and runs an ad agency that is quite profitable. He’s a former high school football star as are many of the men involved with Silver Linings. He has a domineering streak.

  Tyler Higham—At fourteen he’s a tech head, gets along well enough with his classmates but is woefully unathletic to the embarrassment of his father.

  Coach Al Toth—Retired and in his early seventies, he was head coach at Crozet High School during their glory football days throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He helps at Silver Linings and is admired by all.

  Esther Mercier Toth—She, too, does her bit for Silver Linings and is utterly devoted to Al. Once one of the math teachers at Crozet High, she is burdened by caring for her older sister.

  Peter Vavilov—Another football star guided by Coach Toth, he became a Ford dealer, makes pots of money, and loves the car business.

  Charlene Vavilov—She, too, runs the dealership and like her husband has learned to love a tough business. She hopes her two sons, once out of college, wind up somewhere in the auto industry.

  Father O’Connor—As a young parish priest at St. Cyril’s, he was sent to help the aging Father O’Brien. Regarding church politics, he keeps his head down and concentrates on his parishioners.

  Cletus Thompson—Once one of the math teachers at Crozet High, a school well regarded for their math department. He is retired and lives with his ancient dog, The Terminator. Battles with the bottle have ravaged his once handsome face. He is a decent man struggling with a demon.

  Flo Rice—Peculiar doesn’t really cover it, but she’s bright, well-read, suspicious of most people. She fights with Esther Toth, her younger sister. Buster, her dog, is a happy spot in her life.

  Odin—A young coyote who lives behind Harry’s farm on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains, leads Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker to a frightening discovery.

  The Really Important Characters

  Mrs. Mu
rphy—She’s a tiger cat who is usually cool, calm, and collected. She loves her humans, Tucker the dog, and even Pewter, the other cat, who can be a pill.

  Pewter—She’s self-centered, rotund, intelligent when she wants to be. Selfish as this cat is, she often comes through at the last minute to help and then wants all the credit.

  Tee Tucker—This corgi could take your college boards. She is devoted to Harry, Fair, and Mrs. Murphy. She is less devoted to Pewter.

  Simon—He’s a possum who lives in the hayloft of the Haristeens’ barn.

  Matilda—She’s a large blacksnake with a large sense of humor. She also lives in the hayloft.

  Flatface—This great horned owl lives in the barn cupola. She irritates Pewter, but the cat realizes the bird could easily pick her up and carry her off.

  Shortro—A young Saddlebred in Harry’s barn who is being trained as a foxhunter. He’s very smart, young, and good-natured.

  Tomahawk—Harry’s older Thoroughbred. He and Harry have been friends a long time.

  The Lutheran Cats

  Elocution—She’s the oldest of the St. Luke’s cats and cares a lot about the “Rev,” as his friends sometimes call the Very Reverend Herbert Jones.

  Cazenovia—This cat watches everybody and everything.

  Lucy Fur—While she’s not interested in church dogma, she is interested in the Very Reverend Herbert Jones whom she thinks of as “Poppy.”

  “Gin!”

  “I don’t believe it.” Susan Tucker stared at the cards that her childhood friend, Harriett Haristeen, “Harry,” had smacked down.

  The six other women in the room, all slack-jawed, came over to view the winning card.

  “Well, Susan, she did,” BoomBoom Craycroft, another childhood friend, said and smiled.

  “Harry can’t play cards worth squat,” Susan complained.

  “Well, I did tonight.” Harry beamed. “Susan, mark your calendar, Tuesday, December third, my best friend Harry knocked the stuffing out of me at gin.”

  Jessica Hexham was petite and middle-aged, well dressed even though the evening was relaxed. She murmured, “Maybe something less exuberant for the calendar—just a red-letter day?”

  “Do you remember when Miss Donleavey lectured us about red-letter days on the ancient Roman calendar?” Susan rolled her eyes.

  BoomBoom, Susan, and Harry had been in the same class at old Crozet High School. While the buildings still stood, students now attended Western Albemarle High School, a large complex consolidating former small community schools. Jessica Hexham, Alicia Palmer, Charlene Vavilov, and Arden Higham had not. Jessica had attended Miss Porter’s; Alicia, Orange High School; Arden, Buckingham High; and Charlene, older than the others, had attended St. Catherine’s in Richmond.

  With the exception of Jessica, all were central Virginia natives. Jessica, born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts, often found them amusing while contradictory at times, and they were reliably solid friends.

  “Alea jacta est,” Susan pronounced with emphasis.

  Harry translated. “The die is cast. Said when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 B.C. at the head of the Thirteenth Legion. He knew civil war would follow.”

  “Talk about a red-letter day,” said BoomBoom.

  “Isn’t it something, though, how a device thousands of years old still works, I mean, a red-letter day? God bless Miss Donleavey. She taught us well.”

  Jessica also recalled her Latin teacher at the expensive private school, perhaps less fondly. “I would never bless Miss Greely.”

  The others laughed.

  “Charlene, bet you took Latin at St. Catherine’s,” Alicia wondered.

  “You couldn’t go to college without two years of it,” said Charlene. “I took four. It’s helped me more than I could know when I hated memorizing those conjugations.” She laughed.

  “Funny, isn’t it?” the uncommonly beautiful Alicia said. “What we use? What we remember?”

  “What I remember, apart from amo, amas, amat, was Miss Donleavey’s mysterious disappearance. Never found her.” Harry picked up the cards to shuffle.

  Susan reached across the card table, placing her hand on Harry’s forearm. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Huh?” Harry blinked.

  “I’ll shuffle.”

  “Are you calling me a cheat?” Harry’s voice rose.

  “No, but you won the last hand, so it’s my turn to shuffle. Plus, what if you have a hot hand?” Susan used the gambling term.

  “I’d better tell that to my husband.”

  This evoked more laughter.

  The lights flickered, once, twice, then no light.

  “Dammit,” Susan cursed the dark. “Stay put, ladies. I’ll get the candles.”

  “You need my little flashlight.” Harry reached into her pocket, pulling out a two-and-a-half-inch LED flashlight made in China.

  Susan pressed the button. “Wow.”

  “What else do you have in your pocket?” Jessica asked.

  “One pocketknife,” BoomBoom answered for Harry. “She always has a pocketknife and a little money.”

  “The emphasis is on little,” said Harry, emptying her pockets onto the card table as Susan returned with candles.

  “Let me help you.” Thanks to the tiny LED flashlight, Alicia could see. She reached for some candles.

  “There’s a hurricane glass lamp. Well, here, let’s do it together. Girls, we’ll be right back.”

  True to her word, Susan and Alicia returned to the living room with small brass candleholders, which they placed about and lit. The large hurricane candleholder glowed on the card table. All held six- to eight-inch candles.

  Susan noticed the small pile of debris.

  “Harry, what’s your stuff doing on the card table?”

  “Jessica wanted to know what was in my pocket.”

  “In the dark?” Susan questioned.

  “We knew there’d be light,” Harry shot back.

  Jessica dutifully investigated the contents: one Case pocketknife, a folded cotton handkerchief, twenty-two dollars in small bills, one dog cookie.

  Harry pointed out the cookie. “Never know when I might get hungry.”

  The ladies laughed again as Alicia walked to the large triple-sash windows. “Girls, we’re in for it.”

  “No kidding?” Harry hurried over, as did the others.

  “The storm’s early.” BoomBoom, like all country people, paid intense attention to the weather.

  “We have a little time before we need to worry about the roads,” Harry confidently predicted. “Everyone has four-wheel drive, right?”

  “If not, I’m happy to sell you one.” Charlene smiled. She and her husband, Pete, owned the Ford dealership.

  “We’re good,” the others replied.

  “Well, let’s not play cards by candlelight. Ladies, I whipped up vegetable hors d’oeuvres, and they’re really tasty, if I do say so myself. I can’t eat them all. You have to help me. Harry, use your flashlight again and let’s bring the food out from the kitchen. BoomBoom, you know where the bar is. Give the girls what they want.”

  BoomBoom picked up a candle as she glided to the well-stocked bar. Susan’s husband, Ned, was a delegate to the state legislature in Richmond, and the couple entertained frequently. In this part of the world, good liquor was considered an essential by any host and hostess. Southerners did drink wine, but many still preferred a high-octane bourbon or scotch, and then there were the legions of vodka drinkers who believed it didn’t linger on their breath.

  Once settled in the living room, comfortable in decidedly not-modern décor, Jessica, curious, asked, “So what did happen to your Latin teacher?”

  “Nobody knows.” BoomBoom shrugged. “She disappeared after a Friday-night football game. Her car was in the parking lot. Monday, she didn’t come to school.”

  “We played the Louisa Dragons that night,” Harry recalled. “Good game. Miss Donleavey never missed a football game.”

>   “She dated the coach, Mr. Toth,” Susan filled in. “Handsome, handsome, handsome.”

  “Coach Toth? That Toth?” Jessica asked. “Silver Linings?” She mentioned a youth organization the coach supported, as did all the husbands of the women in the room. Apart from helping young men, business leaders and former athletes ran Silver Linings. To belong was beneficial to one’s career.

  “Jessica, this must be irritating, being in the middle of a bunch of old friends.” Harry handed her a napkin.

  “No, it’s fascinating. A vanished Latin teacher.”

  “You know the stereotype of the old-maid Latin teacher? Well, not Miss Donleavey. She was voluptuous, raven-haired, so pretty,” BoomBoom noted, herself voluptuous.

  “Suspects?” Jessica’s eyebrows raised.

  Miranda answered. “At first, people thought it might have been a rival of the coach’s. Men were crazy for her.”

  Susan added, “Lots of men were questioned. Everyone had an alibi.”

  “Anyone else?” Jessica persisted.

  “Esther Mercier. Hated Miss Donleavey, just hated her.” Harry bit into a carrot incised with a tiny trench filled with rich cream cheese.

  “In love with Coach Toth.” BoomBoom filled in facts. “An attractive enough woman, but not in Miss Donleavey’s league.”

  “What was her first name?” Jessica asked. “Miss Donleavey?”

  “Uh, Margaret. It’s funny, but I still have a hard time calling my teachers by their first names. I mean, Coach Toth is always Coach Toth.” Susan smiled. “And eventually he did marry Miss Mercier, one of the math teachers.”

  “You’d think someone would have known something. Crozet is still a small place,” Charlene wondered.

  “If they did, no one noticed. Crozet, like any place anywhere in the world, is full of secrets that people take to their graves,” Harry remarked. “Miss Donleavey’s kin, all older, are gone. It’s one of those persistent small-town mysteries.”

  “Well, people don’t just disappear off the face of the earth.” Alicia twirled a fresh bit of broccoli.

  “The Black Dahlia,” BoomBoom countered.

  “You’re right, to a degree,” said Alicia. “ ’Course, I wasn’t in Hollywood then. And she didn’t disappear, Sweetie. They never found the killer.”