Murder, She Meowed Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Note from Sneaky Pie Brown

  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

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Letter from Sneaky Pie Brown

  Books by Rita Mae Brown with Sneaky Pie Brown

  Preview of The Mrs. Murphy Series

  Copyright Page

  Dedicated to Pooh Bear and Coye

  who love and guard Mrs. William O. Moss

  Cast of Characters

  Mary Minor Haristeen (Harry), the young postmistress of Crozet, whose curiosity almost kills the cat and herself

  Mrs. Murphy, Harry’s gray tiger cat, who bears an uncanny resemblance to authoress Sneaky Pie and who is wonderfully intelligent!

  Tee Tucker, Harry’s Welsh corgi. Mrs. Murphy’s friend and confidante; a buoyant soul

  Pharamond Haristeen (Fair), veterinarian, formerly married to Harry

  Mrs. George Hogendobber (Miranda), a widow who thumps her own Bible!

  Market Shiflett, owner of Shiflett’s Market, next to the post office

  Pewter, Market’s fat gray cat, who, when need be, can be pulled away from the food bowl

  Susan Tucker, Harry’s best friend, who doesn’t take life too seriously until her neighbors get murdered

  Big Marilyn Sanburne (Mim), queen of Crozet

  Rick Shaw, Albemarle sheriff

  Cynthia Cooper, police officer

  Herbert C. Jones, Pastor of Crozet Lutheran Church, a kindly, ecumenical soul who has been known to share his sermons with his two cats, Lucy Fur and Elocution

  Arthur Tetrick, distinguished steeplechase officer and lawyer

  Charles Valiant (Chark), young to be a steeplechase trainer but quite talented

  Adelia Valiant (Addie), she turns twenty-one in November, catapulting her and Chark into their inheritance. She’s a jockey—headstrong and impulsive

  Marylou Valiant, Chark and Addie’s mother, who disappeared five years ago

  Mickey Townsend, a trainer much loved by Addie and much deplored by Chark

  Nigel Danforth, recently arrived from England, he rides for Mickey Townsend

  Coty Lamont, the best steeplechase jockey of the decade

  Linda Forloines, vicious lying white trash whose highest value is the dollar

  Will Forloines, on the same ethical level as his wife but perching on a lower intelligence rung

  Bazooka, a hot ’chaser owned by Mim Sanburne

  Orion, Mim’s hunter, who displays an equine sense of humor

  Rodger Dodger, Mim’s aging ginger barn cat, newly rejuvenated by his girlfriend, Pusskin. Rodger likes to do things by the book

  Pusskin, a beautiful tortoiseshell cat, she dotes on Rodger and irritates Mrs. Murphy

  Dear Reader:

  Thank you for your letters. While I try to answer every one I can answer some of the more frequent questions here.

  Do I use a typewriter? No. Mother does. I use a Toshiba laptop that costs as much as a used Toyota. I like the mouse.

  Do I write every day? Only when the real mousing is bad.

  Do I live with other cats and dogs? Yes, and horses, too, but I’m not giving them any free advertising. After all, I’m the one who writes the books therefore I deserve the lion’s share of the attention.

  Is Pewter really fat? Well, parts of her have their own zip code. And I just saw her eat a mushroom not ten minutes ago. A mushroom is a fungus. What self-respecting cat eats fungus? She drinks beer, too.

  Is Mother fun? Most times. She slides into the slough of despond when she has to pay bills. She had a lot to pay this year because floods washed out part of our road and bridge. The insurance didn’t cover it but I could have told her that. She’s been working very hard and while I sympathize it does keep her out of my fur.

  Am I a Dixiecat? Well, I was born in the great state of Virginia so I believe we’re not here for a long time but we’re here for a good time. I sure hope you’re having as good a time as I am!

  Love,

  SNEAKY PIE

  1

  The entrance to Montpelier, once the home of James and Dolley Madison, is marked by two ivy-covered pillars. An eagle, wings outstretched, perches atop each pillar. This first Saturday in November, Mary Minor Haristeen—“Harry”—drove through the elegant, understated entrance as she had done for thirty-four years. Her parents had brought her to Montpelier’s 2,700 acres in the first year of her life, and she had not missed a race meet since. Like Thanksgiving, her birthday, Christmas, and Easter, the steeplechase races held at the Madisons’ estate four miles west of Orange, Virginia, marked her life. A touchstone.

  As she rolled past the pillars, she glanced at the eagles but gave them little thought. The eagle is a raptor, a bird of prey, capturing its victims in sharp talons, swooping out of the air with deadly accuracy. Nature divides into victor and victim. Humankind attempts to soften such clarity. It’s not that humans don’t recognize that there are victors and victims in life but that they prefer to cast their experiences in such terms as good or evil, not feaster and feast. However she chose to look at it, Harry would remember this crisp, azure day, and what would return to her mind would be the eagles . . . how she had driven past those sentinels so many times yet missed their significance.

  One thing was for sure—neither she nor any of the fifteen thousand spectators would ever forget this particular Montpelier meet.

  Mrs. Miranda Hogendobber, Harry’s older friend and partner at work, rode with her in Harry’s battered pickup truck, of slightly younger vintage than Mrs. Hogendobber’s ancient Ford Falcon. Since Harry had promised Arthur Tetrick, the race director, that she’d be a fence judge, she needed to arrive early.

  They passed through the gates, clambering onto the bridge arching over the Southern Railroad tracks and through the spate of hardwoods, thence emerging onto the emerald expanse of the racecourse circling the 100-acre center field. Brush and timber jumps dotted the track bound by white rails that determined the width of the difficult course. On her right, raised above the road, was the dirt flat track, which the late Mrs. Marion duPont Scott had built in 1929 to exercise her Thoroughbreds. Currently rented, the track remained in use and, along with the estate, had passed to the National Historic Trust upon Mrs. Scott’s death in the fall of 1983.

  Straight ahead through more pillared gates loomed Montp
elier itself, a peach-colored house shining like a chunk of soft sunrise that had fallen from the heavens to lodge in the foothills of the Southwest Range of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Harry thought to herself that Montpelier, built while America labored under the punitive taxes of King George III, was a kind of sunrise, a peep over the horizon of a new political force, a nation made up of people from everywhere united by a vision of democracy. That the vision had darkened or become distorted didn’t lessen the glory of its birth, and Harry, not an especially political person, believed passionately that Americans had to hold on to the concepts of their forefathers and foremothers.

  One such concept was enjoying a cracking good time. James and Dolley Madison adored a good horse race and agreed that the supreme horseman of their time had been George Washington. Even before James was born in 1752, the colonists wagered on, argued over, and loved fine horses. Virginians, mindful of their history, continued the pastime.

  Tee Tucker, Harry’s corgi, sat in her lap staring out the window. She, too, loved horses, but she was especially thrilled today because her best friend and fiercest competitor, Mrs. Murphy, a tiger cat of formidable intelligence, was forced to stay home. Mrs. Murphy had screeched “dirty pool” at the top of her kitty lungs, but it had done no good because Harry had told her the crowd would upset her and she’d either run into the truck and pout or, worse, make the rounds of everyone’s tailgates. Murphy had no control when it came to fresh roasted chicken, and there’d be plenty of that today. Truth be told, Tucker had no self-control either when it came to savoring meat dishes, but she couldn’t jump up into the food the way the cat could.

  Oh, the savage pleasure of pressing her wet, cold nose to the window as the truck pulled out of the farm’s driveway and watching Mrs. Murphy standing on her hind legs at the kitchen window. Tucker was certain that when they returned early in the evening Murphy would have shredded the fringes on the old couch, torn the curtains, and chewed the phone cord, for starters. Then the cat would be in even more trouble while Tucker, the usual scapegoat, would polish her halo. If she had a tail, she’d wag it, she was so happy. Instead she wiggled.

  “Tucker, sit still, we’re almost there,” Harry chided her.

  “There’s Mim.” Mrs. Hogendobber waved to Marilyn Sanburne, whose combination of money and bossiness made her the queen of Crozet. “Boiled wool, I see. She’s going Bavarian.”

  “I like the pheasant feather in her cap myself.” Harry smiled and waved too.

  “How many horses does she have running today?”

  “Three. She’s having a good year with Bazooka, her big gelding. The other two are green and coming along.” Harry used the term that described a young animal gaining experience. “It’s wonderful that she’s giving the Valiants a chance to train her horses. Having good stock makes all the difference, but then Mim would know.”

  Harry pulled into her parking space. She fished her gloves out of her pocket. At ten in the morning the temperature was forty-five degrees. By 12:30 and the first race, it might nudge into the high fifties, a perfect temperature for early November.

  “Don’t forget your badge.” Mrs. Hogendobber, a good deal older than Harry, was inclined to mother her.

  “I won’t.” Harry pinned on her badge, a green ribbon with OFFICIAL stamped in gold down the length of it. “I’ve even got one for Tucker.” She tied a ribbon on the dog’s leather collar.

  The Hepworths, Harry’s mother’s family, had attended the first running of the Montpelier Hunt Races in 1928 when it was run over a cross-country course. It was always the “Hepworth space” until a few years ago when it became simply number 175.

  Harry and Tucker hopped out of the car, ducked under the white rail, sprinted across the soft, perfect turf, and joined the other officials in the paddock area graced by large oak trees, their leaves still splashes of orange and yellow. In the center sat a small green building and a tent where jockeys changed into their silks and picked up their saddle pad numbers. Large striped tents were set up alongside the paddock in a restricted area for patrons of the event. Harry could smell the ham cooking in one tent and hoped she’d have time to scoot in for fresh ham biscuits and a cup of hot tea. Although it was sunny, a light wind chilled her face.

  “Harry!” Fair Haristeen, her ex-husband and the race veterinarian, was striding over to her, looking like Thor himself.

  “Hi, honey. I’m ready for anything.”

  Before the blond giant could answer, Chark Valiant and his sister, Adelia, walked over.

  Chark, so-called because he was the sixth Charles Valiant, hugged Harry. “It’s good to see you, Harry. Great day for ’chasing.”

  “Sure is.”

  “Oh, look at Tucker.” Addie knelt down to pet her. “I’d trust your judgment anytime.”

  “A corgi official or an Official Corgi?” Chark asked, his tone arch.

  “The best corgi,” the little dog answered, smiling.

  “You ready?” Harry peered at Addie, soon to be twenty-one, who’d followed her older brother into the steeplechasing world. He was the trainer, she was the jockey, a gifted and gutsy one.

  “This is our Montpelier.” She beamed, her youthful face already creased by sun and wind.

  “Mim’s the nervous one.” Chark laughed because Mim Sanburne, who owned more horses than she could count, paced more than the horses did before the races.

  “We passed her on the way in. Looked like she was heading up to the big house.” Harry was referring to Montpelier.

  “I don’t know how she keeps up with her dozens of committees. I thought Monticello was her favorite cause.” Fair rubbed his hands through his hair, then put his lad’s cap back on.

  “It is, but she promised to help give elected officials a tour, and the Montpelier staff is on overload.” Harry did not need to explain that in this election year, anyone running for public office, even dogcatcher, would die before they’d miss the races and miss having a photo of themselves at the Madison house run in the local newspaper.

  “Well, I’m heading back to the stable.” Chark touched Harry on the shoulder. “Find me when the races are over. I hope we’ll have something to celebrate.”

  “Sure.”

  Fair, called away by Colbert Mason, director of the National Hunt and Steeplechase Association, winked and left Harry and Addie.

  “Adelia!” Arthur Tetrick called, then noticed Harry, and a big smile crossed his angular, distinguished face.

  Striding over to chat with “the girls,” as he called them, Arthur nodded and waved to people. A lawyer of solid reputation, he was not only acting race director for Montpelier but was often an official at other steeplechases. As executor of Marylou Valiant’s will, he was also her two children’s guardian—their father being dead—until Adelia turned twenty-one later that month and came into her considerable inheritance. Chark, though older than his sister, would not receive his money, either, until Addie’s birthday. His mother had felt that men, being slower to mature, should have their inheritance delayed. She couldn’t have been more wrong concerning her own offspring, for Chark was prudent if not parsimonious, whereas Addie’s philosophy was the financial equivalent of the Biblical “consider the lilies of the field.” But Marylou, who had disappeared five years earlier and was presumed dead, had missed crucial years in the development of her children. She couldn’t have known that her theory was backward in their case.

  “Don’t you look the part.” Addie kidded her guardian, taking in his fine English tweed vest and jacket.

  “Can’t be shabby. Mrs. Scott would come back to haunt me. Harry, we’re delighted you’re helping us out today.”

  “Glad to help.”

  Putting his hand over Addie’s slender shoulder, he murmured, “Tomorrow—a little sit-down.”

  “Oh, Arthur, all you want to do is talk about stocks and bonds and—” she mocked his solemn voice as she intoned, “—NEVER TOUCH THE PRINCIPAL. I can’t stand it! Bores me.”

  With an avuncu
lar air, he chuckled. “Nonetheless, we must review your responsibilities before your birthday.”

  “Why? We review them once a bloody month.”

  Arthur shrugged, his bright eyes seeking support from Harry. “Wine, women, and song are the male vices. In your case it’s horses, jockeys, and song. You won’t have a penny left by the time you’re forty.” His tone was light but his eyes were intense.

  Wary, Addie stepped back. “Don’t start on Nigel.”

  “Nigel Danforth has all the appeal of an investment in Sarajevo.”

  “I like him.” She clamped her lips shut.

  Arthur snorted. “Being attracted to irresponsible men is a female vice in your family. Nigel Danforth is not worthy of you and—”

  Addie slipped her arm through Harry’s while finishing Arthur’s sentence for him, “—he’s a gold digger, mark my words.” Irritated, she sighed. “I’ve got to get ready. We can fight about this after the races.”

  “Nothing to fight about. Nothing at all.” Arthur’s tone softened. “Good riding. Safe races. God bless. See you after the day’s run.”

  “Sure.” Addie propelled Harry toward the weigh-in stand as Arthur joined Fair and other jovial officials. “You’ll adore Nigel—you haven’t met him, have you? Arthur’s being an old poop, as usual.”

  “He worries about you.”

  “Tough.” Addie’s face cleared. “Nigel’s riding for Mickey Townsend. Just started for him. I warned him to get his money at the end of each day, though. Mickey’s got good horses but he’s always broke. Nigel’s new, you know—he came over from England.”

  Harry smiled. “Americans don’t name their sons Nigel.”

  “He’s got the smoothest voice. Like silk.” Addie was ignoring the wry observation.

  “How long have you been dating him?”

  “Two months. Chark can’t stand him but Charles the Sixth can be such a moose sometimes. I wish he and Arthur would stop hovering over me. Just because a few of my boyfriends in the past have turned out to be blister bugs.”

  Harry laughed. “Hey, you know what they say, you gotta kiss a lot of toads before finding the prince.”

  “Better than getting a blister.”

  “Addie, anything is better than a blister bug.” She paused. “Except drugs. Does Nigel take them? You can’t be too careful.” Harry believed in grabbing the bull by the horns.