Sour Puss Page 14

  Many a knacker pretended to give a good home to a retiree or a homeless quadruped, only to cart the creature off to the slaughterhouse and pick up about eighty cents to a dollar a pound. Bad enough to cart an animal to a slaughterhouse. It’s another sin to deliberately lie to people who trusted you.

  Harry patted him on the neck. “Poor Jed. It’s like he knows.”

  “Let’s see if Christy’s home.” BoomBoom wiped Jed’s eye with a handkerchief from her coat pocket.

  They walked out and knocked on the back door of the farmhouse.

  “Just a minute.”

  They heard footsteps, then the door opened and pretty Christy Hahn opened it. Thirty-four and trim, she possessed a bubbling personality. “Come on in, Harry and BoomBoom. What a nice surprise.”

  “Actually, Christy, we’ve got to walk back to Pittman’s farm. Jed’s been missing, and we thought he might have come here and he did. When did he show up?”

  “What?”

  “He’s in your barn; the stall door is open. We closed it.”

  “I bet he’s in Hokie’s stall. I turned him out early.” Christy thought for a second. “Is he all right?”

  “Fit as a fiddle.” Harry smiled.

  “Come on, girls, step inside. It’s raw out today.” Christy tugged them inside.

  The three animals, muddy paws and all, walked inside, too. They had to stay in the mudroom.

  The kitchen, completely remodeled by a New York interior-design firm, dazzled Harry and Fair.

  “This is beautiful. The cabinetwork looks original.” BoomBoom noted the white-oak cabinetry.

  “It is. Came from England.” Christy was pleased by the compliments.

  Harry had other things on her mind. “Excuse me while I call the sheriff, then Fair, will you?”

  As Harry gave Rick the particulars, then called Fair, Christy showed BoomBoom the downstairs of the house. The whole interior was English country. The floors had been sanded, stained again. The walls glowed with subtle colors. The patina on the furniture whispered “money.”

  BoomBoom couldn’t wait to tell Alicia.

  The two women reentered the kitchen.

  “Perfect timing.” Harry smiled. “The sheriff told me to take Jed. I’ll go back home and bring the rig over.”

  “Harry, why don’t you let me take Jed? Your horses aren’t accustomed to looking at or smelling a donkey. Mine have at least gotten used to Burly.”

  “What’s going to happen to Jed?” Christy folded her hands together.

  “I don’t know. Toby has a sister in Charlottesville, but they didn’t get on. I doubt she’ll want Jed. We’ll work something out. He’ll be safe and sound.”

  “It’s upsetting.” Christy shivered involuntarily. “This dreadful murder next door.”

  “They hated each other. It’s a sad end.”

  “Scares all of us,” BoomBoom replied.

  “It will take me about an hour and a half. Will you still be here?” Harry inquired.

  “I’ll be here.”

  Harry and BoomBoom opened the back door to the mudroom.

  Christy offered, “Let me drive you back to Pittman’s.”

  “We’d better walk, because we have the cats and the dog. Muddy paws,” Harry said.

  “That’s what station wagons are for.” She smiled, grabbed a Buffalo plaid jacket off the hook by the back door, and walked out to lift the hatch on her red Volvo XC70.

  Within minutes they were back at Pittman’s farm.

  “Thanks, Christy,” Harry said.

  “I’ll look for you all later.”

  As she drove off, BoomBoom turned to Harry. “Why would Toby lie about Jed?”

  Why, indeed?

  22

  Fair had left the house at four in the morning without a cup of coffee. He delivered a healthy filly out on Route 810 and was now glad to be pulling into the coffee-shop parking lot.

  The three men emerged from their vehicles simultaneously. Bo took one look at Arch, then at Fair.

  “You sorry son of a bitch!” Bo growled.

  “What the hell did I do?” Fair kept levelheaded.

  “Not you. Arch.” Bo stepped in front of Fair toward Arch, who wisely came up next to Fair.

  “Bo, it wasn’t my idea.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “Arch, you are the most competitive piece of shit I know. You cover it up. You’re worse than your goddamned arrogant, idiot boss!”

  “Bo, tell us how you really feel.” Fair tried to lighten the moment.

  Bo’s sense of humor rarely failed him, even when angry. He stopped. “You’re right. You’re right.” He took a deep breath. “Why’d you do it?”

  “I told you, Bo, Rollie sent me downtown to Toby’s sister yesterday. And she’s a damned mess.”

  “Over Toby?” Fair’s curiosity grew with each exchange.

  “Hell, no. She hated his guts. He was the one who told her she was manic-depressive and needed heavy-duty tranqs.”

  “She is. All the Pittmans are crazy,” Fair agreed.

  “True, the whole goddamned family is nuts. They’ve been nuts since before the Revolutionary War. If any family ever made a case for free abortion on demand, it’s the Pittmans.” Bo added his two cents.

  “I don’t suppose either of you would like to tell me why you’re cussing?”

  “He’s cussing. I’m not,” Arch answered Fair.

  Of course, he’d used the word “damned,” but that must have slipped his mind.

  “Arch went down to Tabitha—what’s her married name now? She’s married to some crackhead.”

  “Martin. Don’t know that he’s a crackhead, but he’s as cracked as she is.”

  “Maybe they’re in treatment together,” Fair said, again joking.

  “Guess what? It’s not working.” Arch showed a flash of humor. “All right. Here’s what went down. Rollie waited about ten minutes. He said under the circumstances that was all that was necessary. I then offered to buy Toby’s farm from Tabitha once the estate was settled.”

  “And?” Fair raised an eyebrow.

  “She said it would take a year to settle it all.”

  “By which time the grapes will be ruined. Someone has to tend to them and harvest them. All that work.” Bo’s cheeks flushed.

  “That’s what I told her. So anyway, after a long, drawn-out process during which I heard everything she loathed about her brother, I offered to rent the farm. When the estate is settled Spring Hill will buy it.”

  “Did she sign a contract?” Bo, keen to the letter of the law, leaned forward.

  “She did. Look, Bo, I know you’ve got this Belgian couple looking for suitable land for a vineyard, and Toby’s place is perfect. The vines are established; the land drains quickly. He’s got equipment. It’s perfect. Rollie might have been insensitive in timing, but you know if we hadn’t grabbed it, you or someone else would have.” He stopped a minute. “Truth is, Bo, we beat you to it.”

  Bo grimaced slightly but didn’t reply.

  “Competition is the lifeblood of trade.” Arch smiled slowly.

  Fair agreed, then remarked, “Arch, what do you think about Toby’s murder?”

  “I’m not surprised.” Arch folded his arms across his chest. “Toby pushed Hy and I guess Hy snapped.”

  “Do you look heavenward and say, ‘Toby’s at peace now’?”

  “Not me,” Arch said.

  “Guess you’re right,” Bo said.

  The three went inside and slipped into a booth. Bo had a double order of waffles with local honey poured over them; Arch ate eggs and bacon, as did Fair. A moment of contented silence followed, as it so often does. The world becomes charming on a full stomach.

  Finally Bo asked Fair, “Anyone hear anything about Hy?”

  “No, and Fiona isn’t talking to anyone but her lawyer. She engaged McGuire Woods.”

  “That was smart.” Arch put down his heavy white coffee
cup.

  McGuire Woods, a large, prestigious firm, had depth in every manner of law in which one could become entangled.

  “Smart. See, that’s where I keep running into a wall.” Bo leaned back. “Hy is damned smart. Why would he be so incredibly stupid?”

  “Maybe there was more to it than we know. I mean to Hy and Toby’s bad blood,” Fair offered.

  Bo shook his head. “Still, Hy acted like an idiot. It just doesn’t compute.”

  “Guess we didn’t know Hy.” Fair lifted his cup for more coffee, which the waitress supplied.

  “Does anybody know anybody? Really?” Bo enjoyed philosophical discussions.

  “Do you know yourself?” Fair smiled. “My way of looking at the world is: deeds, not words. I watch what people do and I don’t listen so much to what they say.”

  “Good program,” Arch agreed.

  Bo turned to Fair, and directly asked, “What the hell were you doing at Toby’s?”

  “He called all upset and told me I had to rush right over because Jed cut his hind leg. When I got there I couldn’t find Jed. What I found was Toby.”

  “Where’s Jed? Did they find him?” Arch asked.

  “Don’t you watch the morning news?” Bo inquired.

  “I’m out in the fields by six,” Arch replied.

  “Seven o’clock news reported Jed was found yesterday at the old Berryhill farm. All’s well with Jed, I guess.” Bo shrugged.

  “What about his leg?” Arch asked Fair.

  “Not a scratch.”

  “Huh?” Bo dropped his arms.

  Arch stared down at the table for a second. “Poor guy. Toby was really losing it.”

  “What? Toby was hallucinating?” Bo sharply asked.

  “Who knows? But strange as he could be, Toby in his right mind wouldn’t see a wound that wasn’t there.” Arch’s voice rose. “It is weird. It’s like Forland’s disappearance pulled a loose thread and the whole cloth unraveled.”

  “The Pittmans are peculiar, as we’ve noted,” Fair added.

  “For Christ’s sake, every family in Virginia is peculiar. You all have been nursing your peculiarities since 1607.” Bo poked a finger at both Virginia men but in good humor.

  “Hey, you weren’t born a Virginian, but you got here as soon as you could,” Fair poked back.

  “I deserve that.” Bo smiled. “Well, I don’t know about you two, but I have to earn a living.”

  As Arch paid the bill to mollify Bo—he paid Fair’s, too, which was gracious—Bo begged Fair to call him if anything suitable became available for the Belgian couple.

  As the three men drove their separate ways, Rick, Coop, and an entire team combed Toby’s house. The department computer whiz hunched over the new computer Toby bought in the winter. Toby had bragged about its ASUS motherboard.

  So far, every single thing that turned up in the computer, on his desk, and on his bookshelves related to grapes, agriculture. He had everything Professor Forland had published plus unpublished materials, works in progress. One had to be proficient in organic chemistry to read the late professor’s work. Toby was. The computer whiz was not.

  Toby Pittman’s entire narrow existence—like that of his mentor, who had a somewhat wider sweep—was dedicated to the grape, to making wine.

  In vino veritas.

  23

  Hy Maudant was back at White Vineyards by Wednesday. Bail had been set at one million dollars. When Hy’s attorney paid it without comment, all of Crozet—indeed, all of Albemarle County—gasped at how rich he must be.

  Hy strolled out of jail an almost free man. Paying the bail was his way of giving everyone the finger. Since he did not discuss his net worth, this cool forking over of the money made him appear really rich, powerful, and confident.

  That’s what he wanted people to think.

  He no sooner arrived home than within twenty-four hours another crisis struck: a very late springtime frost.

  Usually frost disappears by mid-April, not to return until mid-October. In recent memory, a frost blanketed central Virginia once as late as May 22. But on the other side of the dreaded—courtesy of the IRS—April 15, farmers and vintners usually breathed a sigh of relief.

  This May 11, man and beast awoke to silvery meadows.

  Hy immediately called in ten huge helicopters to hover over the vineyards at 120 feet. The ground temperature was twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. He ordered the machines an hour before daybreak. Had the frost been predicted, he would have called them the night before.

  Jack Frost snuck up on everyone, especially the weatherman.

  The helicopters, each at the cost of five hundred dollars per hour, pushed warmer air down to the ground. Four hours later, with the help of the choppers and the sunshine that bathed the hills and valleys, the mercury rose to forty degrees.

  Hy saved his grapes. Whether or not he could save himself remained to be seen.

  Arch Saunders, not three miles away, had a devil of a time renting helicopters, because Kluge Estate Vineyard, White Vineyards, Oakencroft, and King Vineyards had rented everything within a three-hour flight radius of Albemarle County.

  He finally managed to procure four, at six hundred fifty dollars an hour each. By the time the noisy machines flew off like giant dragonflies, Arch figured they’d lost ten to thirty percent of the crop. Rollie was furious.

  The following day, May 12, the countryside glowed in sixty-seven-degree warmth.

  Harry had no recourse to helicopters, but her Petit Manseng proved a tough variety. The grape survived through the centuries not only because of careful cultivation but also because of hardiness. Indeed, Petit Manseng was so old it had been used to baptize Henry IV of France in 1553.

  Early on the evening of May 12, thanks to Daylight Savings Time, Harry had enough light to keep working. The varieties of sunflowers, redbud clover, and alfalfa that she selected were either native to the area or especially rugged.

  Central Virginia weather could provide cold winters as well as sizzling summers. It was a crapshoot.

  As Harry finished up, returning to the barn to check on the horses, she wondered at the shock those early English settlers must have felt in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The American climate was harsher, the indigenous peoples were so different from Europeans. The wildlife and plant life, much of it, was new to them.

  “Fair.” Tucker heard his truck.

  “He’s been working so hard. The pace should be easing off by now,” Mrs. Murphy remarked.

  Pewter sauntered into the barn. “I’m here.”

  “So?” The tiger half-closed her eyes.

  “Don’t you want to know where I’ve been?”

  “Sleeping in the house.” Tucker trotted to the open barn doors to await Fair’s arrival.

  “If that’s my reception, I’ll keep my news to myself.” Pewter walked out, pausing a moment for effect, then headed toward the back porch door, the flab of her belly swaying to and fro.

  “If she thinks I’m going to beg, she’s wrong.” Mrs. Murphy watched the gray cat.

  “Yeah, but what if she really knows something?” Tucker often fell for Pewter’s machinations.

  Mrs. Murphy considered this but forgot about it when Fair pulled up in his truck.

  The two animals ran to greet him. He knelt down to make a fuss over them as Harry emerged into the fading sunlight.

  “I’d like a kiss, too.”

  “With pleasure.” He scratched Tucker’s ears, then ran his forefinger along Mrs. Murphy’s cheek before standing to embrace his wife. “Long day?”

  “Yes, but the frost didn’t hurt us, thank God.”

  “Got some other folks.” He opened the driver’s door again, running his hand where the seat back joined the seat bottom.

  “What’d you lose?”

  “Quarters. Fell out of my pocket.”

  “Don’t you hate that?” she commiserated. “Always happens at one of the toll booths on Route 64 in West Virginia.
”

  As they entered the kitchen, the phone rang.

  Fair picked it up; his shoulders stiffened as he listened, then he said, “Good-bye.”

  “What was that all about?”

  “Hy Maudant.” Fair grabbed string cheese from the fridge.

  “What does he want?”

  “He said he saw me walking up the hill when he drove out. He’s sorry he didn’t stop, but he was, in his words, ‘not in full possession of himself.’ He said he was so rattled by the sight of Toby that he ran.”

  “How very convenient that Toby had his own gun in his hand.”

  Fair ate a long piece of string cheese, handing some to his wife. “Sure was. Saw Bo Newell the other day, and Arch, too, at the coffee shop. Wound up having breakfast with them once they got over themselves, and Arch actually paid. I figured he’d pay for Bo but not me. He’ll never forgive me for winning you back.”

  “Honey, that was years ago, Arch and my time together. Tell me what happened.”

  “Oh, well, Bo said Hy wouldn’t be that stupid.”

  “It’s hard to believe he wasn’t. He killed Toby and put Toby’s own gun in his hand. What’s so difficult to believe about that?” She played devil’s advocate, because she’d begun to wonder herself.

  “There’s something to that, but it’s not so far-fetched to think someone would lose their composure walking up to a freshly killed man. And there’s something else that bothers me. I would have heard the shots. I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “The other thing is, Toby called about Jed, and Jed’s fine. How quickly did you get there after Toby called?”

  “Couldn’t have been ten minutes. I wasn’t that far and I put the pedal to the metal.”

  “How long do you think Toby had been dead?”

  “Minutes. Literally minutes. He had to have been shot just before I reached the barn.” He took a long breath. “I pick on you when your curiosity spikes. Now it’s me.”

  “I’m so glad you recognize that.” She gloated ever so slightly.

  “Something is missing.”

  “Professor Forland.”

  “The two aren’t connected.”