Homeward Hound Page 20

  “Mostly.”

  “And the new people are all horrified by foxhunting?”

  “Some, but they don’t know about it. I mean all they know is what they’ve seen in movies, mostly English ones or Downton Abbey. So I’ve trained all my people to emphasize, underline three times, ‘We don’t kill.’ Mostly it gets through and I always invite a new person to a hunt.”

  “Good for you.” Betty smiled. “Well, let me get rolling here. I’ll soon be out of daylight although we’ve gained a minute each day since December twenty-first. I need those minutes.” She stood up, as did Dewey. Then she said, “Did you hear that Gregory Luckham’s boots were found?”

  “No.”

  “Middleburg Tack Exchange.” She informed him of the rest.

  “Great day.” Dewey used the old Southern expression although he, himself, was in his forties. “To think that someone would remove boots off a dead body. Well. I’m assuming a dead body. Hey, before I forget, if you know anyone in the market for an SUV, I’m going to sell my Range Rover. I need something smaller, better on gas.”

  “And before I forget, Thursday we’ll be at Jerusalem Field. First time. I’ll let you know if I think of anyone wanting a ghastly expensive car.”

  He laughed. “Usually I can slip away for Tuesdays, not Thursdays, but I’m always curious about a new fixture. And by the way, I thought Weevil did a great job. And thanks for updating us with emails concerning Shaker. So he’s out for the rest of the season?”

  “Yes. He’s taking it about as good as can be expected.”

  “Got to be hard, and it’s got to be hard being replaced by a younger man whom I predict will be brilliant. He’s got it.”

  “He does.” Betty agreed. “We can work that out next season. Obviously I will do what my Master tells me to do, but Sister wants this to work out for everyone. She’ll do the right thing.”

  “She always does.” Dewey walked Betty to the door. “Thanks for the fixture cards.” He paused a moment. “Betty, do you know the size of those boots?”

  “Nine and a half.”

  Dewey looked down at his feet. “Damn.”

  “Dewey, you’re awful.”

  “I know but still, a pair of superexpensive boots used.”

  She looked down at his feet, too. “Never work.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “In the fall these meadows are smothered with Jerusalem artichokes, hence the name Jerusalem Field. It’s a sea of yellow,” Aunt Daniella told Yvonne as they slowly cruised along the farm road.

  “Sam mentioned they are new people. Want to foxhunt,” Yvonne replied.

  “Good. I can’t abide it when people move here and this is the country but want to keep their city ways. They come because it’s beautiful but then they want things like Noise Ordinance laws.” She shook her head. “Will never work. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

  “Until Attila.” Yvonne laughed.

  “True, but they had one thousand years. We’ve had two hundred and forty-two years and we’re making a mess of it.” Aunt Daniella waved her left hand, her old wedding ring and engagement diamond, impressive, gleaming. “I count our beginning to be 1776. So I am ninety-four. How much of our history have I lived?” She said this with feeling. “I have seen systematic mistreatment addressed. Certainly those kinds of things are better than when I was young, but a hell of a lot more is worse. Just get out of people’s way. If people talk to one another, we work it out. I believe that because I’ve seen it.”

  “I don’t know, Aunt Dan. What I see is entrenched interests, be it corporate or racial or gender-based. Now granted, human rights is different than, say, foreign policy, but I think we’re screwing up both.”

  “Well, we always have, but then it straightens out. In my lifetime, foreign policy, I saw Stalin make a fool out of Roosevelt, Khrushchev do the same to Kennedy. Reagan got the better of Gorbachev and for a while the Cold War ended. So it swings and sways, but I am getting old and I’m getting bored. If you’re going to be corrupt, then at least be interesting.” She let out a peal of laughter.

  Yvonne joined her, then asked, “Wind devils?”

  A swirl of wind twirled around, then dissipated, a common occurrence near the mountains as tendrils of wind rolled down, often meeting crosswinds at the bottom.

  “Sends scent everywhere.” Aunt Daniella noticed Weevil trying to figure it out. “There’s a lot more to hunting hounds than people realize. He’s sitting still. I know he doesn’t know what to do about a wind devil but he’s not stupid. He’s waiting to see what the hounds will do.”

  “I imagine everyone will be glad when Shaker can follow by car. He can tell Weevil what to do about things like wind devils.” Yvonne watched as the hounds cast themselves.

  “There they go. They’ve figured it out, which means Weevil will figure it out. Let them cast themselves. Scent had to be blown somewhere. They’ll find it.”

  Hounds opened running toward a steep ravine. The farmland continued on top of the hill. Aunt Daniella and Yvonne could see a flash of gray horse or a hint of scarlet, but that was that.

  “What do you think about the TV coverage of the grave sites at Old Paradise?” Yvonne asked as they waited.

  “Good. The historical society added a lot to the seriousness of it. Not that Crawford didn’t present himself well and his historical concerns, but the people from Richmond really put it over.” She paused. “Why don’t we drive down there, to Old Paradise? We’re not far and who knows when the field will be back?”

  “You don’t think we’ll get into trouble?”

  “I do not,” the old lady said with authority.

  Jerusalem Field, ten miles from Chapel Crossroads, just on the other side of Close Shave, was close so Yvonne turned around, edged out on the two-lane paved country road. Once she reached the Chapel Crossroads she turned right, cruised a few miles west, then turned left onto the long, winding drive, itself undergoing renovation.

  “I can’t believe he’s got a subfloor over that basement. Half of the county contractors must be here.”

  “At the Bancrofts’ breakfast Dewey Milford was talking about that. Said it was good for the trades but he was needing to hire people from as far as Goochland County.”

  “Now there’s a name, Gooch. A governor appointed by the king, but what I wonder is why he didn’t change his name.” Aunt Daniella laughed as they slowed, stopping in front of the Corinthian columns. “How I would have loved to see this place in its glory.”

  “Slaves?” Yvonne raised her eyebrows.

  “There were slaves in Connecticut. Slaves were everywhere.” She thought a moment. “The DuCharmes, well, how does one say this? The good blood watered down from 1812.”

  Now Yvonne had to laugh. “See that everywhere. Wasn’t that why the French had the Valois, the Capets the Bourbons, and the English the Plantagenets, the horrendous war between those two branches, and so it goes.”

  “Mercer, my son, used to say you see it in horses, too. He also said a good mare’s first foal isn’t usually her best. I told him to be careful as not only was he my first foal, he was my only foal.”

  “Tootie is mine.” Yvonne smiled.

  “Beautiful girl like her mother.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Daniella.” Yvonne started the engine again, mostly to keep the heater running. She slowly drove toward the stables, then past the Carriage House.

  “There’s tape over there.” Aunt Daniella pointed behind the Carriage House, just visible in the distance.

  “Hey, that’s why I’ve got four-wheel drive. I bought that Continental, which I love, but I wasn’t out here two months before I realized I needed, what is it you call some horses, mudders?”

  They bounced over frozen ground, stopping in front of a marked-off area. “I suppose they’ll dig up some people. But then what is he going
to do?”

  “He’ll have to raise some kind of marker. Create some kind of graveyard.”

  “But what if it’s where the Monacans are or the people they think are the Monacans? Won’t Crawford have to revisit tribal burial practices?”

  Yvonne considered this. “He doesn’t have a choice as I see it. You know, Aunt Dan, this is going to turn into a big project.”

  They silently looked over the land, a gentle roll at this part.

  “I’m willing to bet Crawford has stopped the pipeline or at least stopped this route,” Aunt Daniella predicted.

  “Good bet.” She headed back toward the elegant outbuildings in various stages of reconstruction. “You’ve been in the stables since they’ve been restored?”

  “Last fall when Tom Tipton was here. All that stonework and then the wood inside, mahogany.”

  “Lucky horses when the day comes that the stalls are filled.”

  “That was one grave found early, the one inside the stable. Old Paradise, who knows what’s here?” Aunt Daniella then launched into Tom Tipton. “I know that you and your husband built an empire on African American concerns. Marvelous, really, think of the people you reached with first the magazine and then the media empire, but you know, Yvonne, the older I get the more I feel closer to those left of my generation. I don’t much care what color they are. When Tom Tipton was here, oh the memories and our reference points are the same. Getting old can make you lonesome. You lose your friends.”

  “But you are surrounded by people, Aunt Dan.”

  She nodded in assent. “I am fortunate but it’s not the same as your own generation. Maybe you have to get old to understand this and you are far from it.”

  “I’m in my early fifties.”

  “Fifty is nothing. Nothing.” Aunt Daniella laughed at her. “The late Joe Carstairs used to say that.” Realizing that Yvonne had no idea who that was, Aunt Daniella added, “Carstairs Liquor. The heiress. English. Gay. You know there were a lot of fabulously wealthy gay women when I was young and I give them credit. The girls they kept they kept well. Money creates responsibility. I suppose it doesn’t matter who you’re sleeping with.”

  “Bet their lovers were beautiful.”

  “Yes. Ravishing.”

  “Did any of them try to keep you?” Yvonne’s lip curled in a secret smile.

  “No, but I wasn’t usually taken where I would wind up at parties with the girls. They knew how to have a good time. I’m not so sure people do these days. Oh, there I go again, I really am getting old, but while we’re here let’s peek into the Carriage House.”

  “Sure.”

  Within minutes they parked at the Carriage House close to the restored stables, with still untouched stables behind the Carriage House that housed the driving horses.

  The two peeked past the huge door.

  “Let’s go inside.” Yvonne struggled with the door but she got it and the two slipped in. “You’d think there’d be security or something here, so much is going on.”

  “Most of it up at the house and what is there to steal? Once Crawford has this place up and running, I’m sure there will be security, which I must say is so out of place at Chapel Cross.”

  They both inhaled the odor of the fresh wood, for the lumber was piled up for future work, as they walked down the extra-wide aisle, peeking into the special parking places for carriages. That’s the only word they could think of, parking places.

  “He’ll buy a Brewster Carriage, I’m telling you.” Aunt Daniella stopped to admire an old photograph still hanging on the wall.

  “What?”

  “The Rolls-Royce of American coaches. Crawford will have to have one and he’ll pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for it, too.” She looked up at Yvonne, slightly taller than herself. “Every activity has its vertical scale. And let me tell you, coaching is expensive.” She walked toward the middle of the expansive place. “The tack room door is slightly ajar.” She pushed it open. “Yvonne!”

  Yvonne hurried up right behind her. “Aunt Dan, this scares me. It really does.”

  The two women stepped back into the huge aisle and Yvonne called the sheriff’s department. “Hello, may I speak to Sheriff Ben Sidell? This is Yvonne Harris. I am at Old Paradise and there is another body part.”

  She was patched through in a second.

  “Ben, I’m in the Carriage House with Aunt Daniella. We’ve found the other hand or what’s left of it.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “When was the last time you were in the Carriage House?” Ben Sidell asked Crawford Howard, who had freely agreed to come down alone to the sheriff’s office.

  “Wednesday, January thirty-first, yesterday.”

  “Was anyone with you?”

  “No. I try to check on work progress at least every other day at Old Paradise. I’d been up at the house so I checked on the Carriage House to see if they’d gotten started.”

  “What is it you intend to do in that building?”

  “Repair and refurbish all the stalls, if you will, for carriages. Like garage bays, roof’s good. Flooring is good because the roof held. Anyway, the bays had been scrubbed out. The lumber was still stacked in the center of the aisle. A start.”

  “Did you go into the tack room?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing seemed out of place?”

  “Well, there’s nothing in there to be out of place.” Crawford controlled himself, although he thought the questions irritating.

  “No odor. Decay odor?”

  “No.”

  “You were alone in the Carriage House?”

  “I was. The foreman stayed at the big house. Charlotte was outside measuring grave sites. As you know, we found one containing, so far, two hundred graves. No markers. But no one came with me.”

  “And were you also in the Carriage House during Christmas Hunt?”

  “I’d driven down with Rory to check the lumber that had been delivered the day before. Wasn’t there long.”

  “When you drove out, you saw the field?”

  “You’ve asked me this before. After Gregory Luckham disappeared. After Rory was found.”

  Ben calmly agreed. “Yes, but I am asking you again.”

  “Couldn’t see a thing. The storm obliterated everything but both Rory and I heard the horn.”

  “You saw nothing?”

  “No.”

  “How did you hear the horn?”

  “As I told you, I put the window down slightly. Could hear the horn.”

  “I thank you for coming down here so promptly. I expected you would have your lawyer with you.”

  Crawford shrugged. “If I’m charged with anything or I’m a so-called person of interest, I will. But I came alone. I have nothing to hide. I find this shocking. You said the hand had been torn apart. Bones more than anything but remnants of a cotton glove were on those bones, in tatters. That’s why I came down. At Farmington Country Club, at Ronnie’s dinner, I noticed Gregory’s left hand was in a thin white cotton glove. It wasn’t a subject of discussion and I didn’t ask. My assumption was he had injured it, wanted to cover the injury.” Crawford shrugged again. “You’ll test those remains, if you can call a hand remains. That will be Gregory Luckham’s hand.”

  “We found the other hand. Actually a hound did. Both these hands are on the west side of the Chapel Crossroads road. We’ve gone over the quadrants from where the first hand was found. Nothing. So this is important. He’s out there somewhere.”

  “I expect.” Crawford agreed.

  “I’ll be back with the cadaver dogs tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Crawford tersely replied.

  “You had good reason to kill Gregory Luckham.”

  Crawford leaned forward. “Sheriff, a lot of people wanted him dead. Do you think I would b
e stupid enough to kill him when I can fight by other means and I have? Thank God for ground-penetrating radar.”

  “Yes,” Ben simply said.

  “Look, I don’t care about Gregory Luckham. He’s dead. I had nothing to do with it. I do care about Rory. He was a good hand. Why he was killed makes no sense. Luckham. Makes a lot of sense. People are outraged about the pipeline.”

  After Crawford left, Ben knew he would be on the phone with his lawyer. Ben didn’t have enough to arrest him but he knew that Crawford could make his life miserable, just as he could impact Crawford’s. Not that he was in the business of revenge. He was in the business of solving crimes, upholding the law.

  * * *

  —

  Bourbon in hand, Aunt Daniella glumly sat surrounded by Gray, Sister, Sam, and Yvonne. Both women described how they had found the hand.

  “That’s what I get for being nosy.” Aunt Daniella sighed.

  “Something like your experience is beyond the norm. Who would have thought of dismembered hands? The other hand was found miles down the road, as you know, but in the general vicinity. You would think the body would be down there somewhere but nothing else, nothing.” Sam consoled his aunt.

  “Aren’t there political careers at stake over this pipeline?” Yvonne asked a sensible question. “If it were Illinois, it would be on the news every night. The public would know what state elected officials were for it, those against.”

  Gray had a scotch in hand, for he, too, wished for something soothing. “We do know, Yvonne, but apart from this being the most contentious issue in the state, people are riveted by Washington, right now. They might stay on the pipeline for a week or two. People were aroused when a federal judge threatened to sue Red Terry and her daughter a thousand dollars a day if they didn’t come down from their tree stand protesting the pipeline. Two non-rich women, a mother and daughter, a thousand dollars a day by a federal judge. Officials hide behind the law obviously, which is what Soliden is counting on. People were outraged.”