Cat on the Scent Read online

  Reaching the first creek dividing Harry’s property from Blair Bainbridge’s, the cat and dog were stopped by high water.

  “Ugly.” Tucker paced the bank.

  “Let’s go up to the beaver dam.”

  “If it’s standing.”

  “Hasn’t been that much water. Come on.”

  “I hate those beavers.” Tucker did, too.

  “We’ll be across before they know it.”

  A quarter of a mile upstream the log-and-sapling lodge dominated the creek along with the sturdy dam the beavers had constructed.

  Carefully, Mrs. Murphy put one paw on the dam. She tested its sturdiness, then sped across, small splashes of water in her wake.

  Tucker whined but followed. Her progress wasn’t as graceful but she made it. They were halfway across Blair’s easternmost meadow before the beavers emerged from their lodge to inspect their dam.

  Lights at Blair’s place caught their attention. A white Land Rover was parked in the driveway.

  “Wonder what Archie’s doing at Blair’s?”

  Mrs. Murphy kept moving. “Trying to borrow the Porsche.”

  They laughed until they reached the ridge, about seven hundred feet above sea level. They paused at the top, which bristled with rock outcroppings. Although only four miles across, the terrain was rugged in parts.

  * * *

  * * *

  After catching her breath, Mrs. Murphy nudged Tucker. “Ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  They swept down the ridge, skirting the thorn creepers and the underbrush, where they startled rabbits and one lurking fox. Mrs. Murphy hoped the bobcat was hunting somewhere else tonight.

  The last creek had an upturned tree fallen over it. Mrs. Murphy danced across it. Tucker chose to swim the creek.

  The abandoned buildings of the Urquhart farm shone silver in the moonlight, the slate roofs sparkling as though obsidian.

  The doors to the barn were shut.

  The two animals circled the barn, searching for burrows, preferably uninhabited. Mrs. Murphy looked up.

  The Dutch door of a stall was partially open, flapping in the gentle breeze.

  “I’ll try it.” Mrs. Murphy squatted down, paused a second, then sprang upward, reaching the slight opening before the top door banged back again. She dropped to the old hay on the stall floor.

  Walking over to the big doors, she pulled with her paw just enough to create a crack. Tucker wedged her nose in and both cat and dog pushed. The big door creaked back on its overhead track just enough for the powerful dog to push herself inside.

  Tucker stopped. Tommy Van Allen’s plane was still parked in the middle of the vast center aisle. “I’ll be.”

  “You sniff around the plane,” Mrs. Murphy ordered. “I’ll get in the cockpit.”

  The tiger unleashed her claws, vaulting at a stall post. She shimmied up, reaching a massive cross beam, and walked along the top of it until the white plane was directly underneath, ten feet below.

  “That’s a big drop, Murphy.”

  “I know.” Murphy stared down at the wing, backed up a bit, then jumped off the beam. She hit the wing with a thud, sliding a little in the process, leaving red clay marks to disturb the pristine whiteness.

  “You okay?” the dog called.

  “Yes, but it’s slick.” The cat tiptoed to the edge of the cockpit. She easily opened the door, as the handle was large and turned down, and the door was slightly ajar. Then she hopped inside, leaving the door hanging wide open. The odor of old leather filled her nostrils.

  “See anything?” Tucker called up.

  “Lots of dials and a throttle.”

  “Blood?”

  “No, squeaky-clean.”

  Tucker, somewhat disappointed, returned to the task of sniffing around the plane. The odor of gas killed other scents.

  Mrs. Murphy poked at knobs, put one eye close to the throttle to see if anything had fallen into the slidpath. She hopped around, unwittingly leaving muddy paw prints as a signature.

  Finding nothing, she readied to jump back down on the wing. Then, on the pilot’s-side door, she noticed a leather pocket like a map pocket on an old car door. She reached over but couldn’t quite get to it. She reached again and caught the very inside of the pocket, slowly moving the door toward her. She didn’t want to shut the door since the inside handle might not open easily.

  With one paw, claws out, she pulled open the pocket while with the other paw she held the door from closing. She fished in the pocket, pulling out the only thing in there, a folded-over map, used so many times, the creases were worn to nothingness. She grabbed it between her teeth, hopping onto the wing. She skidded on the flap side of the wing and launched herself to the soft center-aisle turf below.

  The two friends walked to the door, squeezed through, and opened the map in the moonlight. Mrs. Murphy carefully sat on the edge of the map so it wouldn’t blow away; she loved the smooth feel of paper under her bottom.

  “What is it?” Tucker strained to make sense of the colors and lines.

  “Your face is too close. Step back.”

  “Oh.” She did as instructed. “It’s the U.S. Geological Survey map for the county. Pretty colors.”

  “Can you carry this back home? I’ll hide it in Simon’s house.”

  “Why not leave it here?”

  “Because I think someone will come back for it.”

  “Tommy?”

  “No. Tommy’s dead.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t. Cat intuition. I saw two people leave this plane. One had to be Tommy, a very tall person, but it was raining, fog was swirling down, and I couldn’t get a good look. Plus I was already at the creek and had climbed up in the oak tree. The other person was short.”

  “Anyone would be short compared to Tommy Van Allen.”

  “Tucker, put your paw on both corners. If I can look down at this map maybe I can see better.” The cat drew herself to her full height, glancing down. “Hmm. Pieces are outlined.”

  “Maybe an old flight path.”

  “These are more like squares and a big outline outside that.”

  “Was there a flight plan up there?”

  “No.”

  “Why would two people take off, not tell anyone, and land here? And one of them is now missing.”

  “I haven’t a single idea. But they planned to put the plane in the barn. I really think they did.”

  “You don’t think the fog and bad weather drove them down?”

  “There are better place to land than Tally’s old airstrip. There are lots of airstrips in Albemarle County. To come down here you have to shoot between Little Yellow Mountain and that ridge we crossed. It’s not threading a needle but you have to be pretty darned good, especially with the downdraft and winds that swirl around mountains. Whoever landed here in the fog was a hell of a pilot.”

  “Tommy was good.”

  “But it wasn’t Tommy. I saw him hop out and open the doors. At least, I think that was Tommy.”

  “How will we ever get Harry over here?” Tucker wondered.

  “Only if she visits Tally or if she rides over. She hardly ever comes this way, because the second creek crossing changes every time there’s a storm. Who knows how long it will take the humans to find this plane?”

  “If Rick Shaw is logical he’ll eventually search each private airstrip.”

  “That’s true. I wonder when he’ll get to that?” The cat noticed Mars, pulsating red in the sky. “I do believe whoever flew that plane will be back for this map.”

  “There have to be thousands of survey maps of the county. This one isn’t valuable.”

  “If it has fingerprints on it, it is.” Mrs. Murphy studied the map again, paying attention to the hand-drawn lines. “That’s it.”

  “What?”

  “The big outline—it’s the watershed. I remember from the map posted on the bulletin board at the commission meeting. I was up on the desk. I
could see it clearly.”

  * * *

  10

  “Do I have to do this?” Harry leaned against the truck door.

  “Yes.” Miranda offered no hope of escape. “I’ll take Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker home with me. No one will miss supper. If you take them home, you’ll be late.”

  “All right.” Harry climbed up into the old Superman-blue 1978 Ford half-ton.

  “Good luck, Mom,” Mrs. Murphy saucily called out.

  She needed more than luck. She needed the patience of Job. Lifeline, held in the basement of the Lutheran church, provided support and direction for many seekers.

  Harry thought she had direction enough, and as for support, she was raised not to broadcast her troubles.

  The adherents of this self-discovery process really surprised her, though. Ridley Kent; Cynthia Cooper—of all people; Dr. Hayden McIntire, Larry Johnson’s much-younger partner; and several other people she’d known for years were among the crowd that filled the church basement.

  BoomBoom stuck next to her.

  The leader of the group, Bill Oster, worked at the University of Virginia library. It had taken years of training for him to become a group leader.

  “Each of us carries negative programming, negative information. The purpose of Lifeline is to clear that away so you can more fully experience the people around you and so you can more fully experience yourself. It’s strange, isn’t it? We are raised to practice good manners, we’re taught how to treat other people, but we’re not taught how to treat ourselves. The first task, therefore, is to establish a proper relationship with yourself.”

  BoomBoom beamed with each word, casting significant glances at Harry. By the end of the evening Harry couldn’t say she’d heard anything silly but she couldn’t say the program was for her either. By nature a self-contained person, she found the idea of exploring emotions or even cleansing herself of negativity in front of others to be anathema. Still, she had to admit the ideas were worth considering.

  “I hope you’ll return,” Bill Oster warmly said.

  “You are a motivating leader.” Harry, manners to the fore, complimented him.

  “And that means you won’t return.” He believed in constant honesty, which at times had a touch of ruthlessness to it.

  “No.” Harry hated to be direct in this fashion. It violated everything she’d been taught all her life. “It’s not for me but I think it’s a good process.”

  He clasped both her hands in his. “If you change your mind you know where to find us. We start new groups every six weeks.”

  BoomBoom, disappointed in Harry, said, “Would you go if I weren’t part of the group? I’m training to lead a group but I can put it off for another six weeks.”

  “It has nothing to do with you, Boom.”

  “Eventually you overcome your discomfort level.”

  “You have to want to and I don’t. Whatever my deepest inner flaws are, I’ve learned to live with them.”

  “That’s not the point.” BoomBoom felt rejected because Lifeline was rejected.

  Cynthia joined them. “Boom, Harry is the stubbornest woman I’ve ever met. Neither of us can talk her into anything. Besides, she kept her promise.”

  “That’s true.” BoomBoom offered her hand to Harry, who graciously shook it.

  “Thanks, Boom.”

  “Will we ever be friends?”

  “I—I don’t know, but our relationship has improved.” Harry was truthful. Ever since BoomBoom’s fling with Fair, the very sight of her set Harry’s teeth on edge, but she was able to have a civil conversation with her now.

  A somewhat mollified BoomBoom Craycroft bid them good-night.

  “You’re the last person I’d think to find in a group like this,” Harry confided to Coop. “Well, Ridley Kent is a big surprise, too.”

  “I was getting jaded,” Cynthia softly replied. “I see liars, drunks, irresponsible shits day in and day out. The drug dealers are a real treat, too. I was losing my faith in the goodness of people.”

  “Guess you would.”

  “I thought, this can’t hurt me and I might even learn something.”

  “Good for you. No wonder I haven’t seen you around much lately.”

  “Actually, this is my first night. I’ve been on overload because the spring flu is moving through the force. In the last month we’ve had two or three people out each week. I’m pulling a lot of overtime, anyway.”

  “When things even out, come on over. We’ll have a Chinese-and-video night.”

  “Great. I’ll bring the Chinese.”

  Harry walked Coop to her car, then hopped into her truck.

  As she walked through Miranda’s door she smelled freshly fried liver, not her favorite.

  Miranda sat at the table, the animals eating from places set for them. Sheepishly Harry’s hostess said, “They’re the only creatures I can get to eat fried liver with me.”

  “I’ll eat fried liver.”

  “You don’t really like it.”

  “I wouldn’t buy it in a restaurant but everything you make tastes good.”

  “I happen to have a piece left, smothered in my special sauce with caramelized onions. And I know you love brussels sprouts, a hint of molasses and lemon with them, but only a hint.”

  As Harry ate this unexpected feast, Miranda peppered her with questions to satisfy herself that Lifeline wasn’t leading people away from the Scriptures.

  “Didn’t mention the Bible. It’s about personal growth, not religion.”

  “The two are connected.”

  “Now, Miranda, I am not capable of a theological discussion. You take that up with Herbie. After all, the meetings are held in his church.”

  “People need the Good Book.”

  “Lifeline and Christianity are not mutually exclusive.” A brussels sprout melted in her mouth.

  “The essence of Christianity is forgiveness.”

  “I think in Lifeline they teach you to forgive yourself.”

  This thought hit Miranda like a Ping-Pong ball: It bounced off but left a small impression. She would have to ponder it. “Seems you got more out of Lifeline than you realize.”

  * * *

  11

  Pewter, wild-eyed and puffed up, charged through the animal flap at the back of the post office. “Come quick!”

  Without arguing, Mrs. Murphy rushed outside, closely followed by Tucker. Pewter’s short, furry tail disappeared around the corner to the front of Market Shiflett’s grocery store. She leapt onto the fruit display outside the front door.

  Mrs. Murphy followed, finding herself amid the banana display. “Ever see a banana spider?” she hissed.

  She soon forgot about the furry spiders hiding among the yellow bunches because inside, Sir H. Vane-Tempest and Archie Ingram were shouting at the top of their lungs. A small crowd was gathered, including Market Shiflett, who stood beside the screened front door of his store. It was still too cool for air-conditioning.

  “You’ve forgotten—” Vane-Tempest sputtered.

  “I’ve forgotten nothing.”

  “You’ve forgotten who your friends are.” Vane-Tempest stepped closer to Archie, who suddenly hit him on the left cheek. He lashed out so quickly that Archie surprised both himself and the Englishman.

  Reeling backward, Vane-Tempest lifted a soft hand to cover the red mark.

  Still in a fury, Archie taunted the old man. “You’re the one who forgets, Vane-Tempest, and it will catch up with you!”

  Before the Englishman could lunge forward, a rattled Archie had backed out of the store, parting the gaggle of people.

  Harry stuck her head out of the post office, since the shouts had penetrated even there. She stuck it back in. The altercation was none of her business. Besides, people were soon pouring into the post office, all telling their versions of the tale.