The Purrfect Murder Read online

  “Someone who wants to challenge the queen,” Mrs. Murphy sagely noted.

  8

  Rose Hill, harking back to 1810, was nestled under a low ridge, this ridge being the last line before the Blue Ridge Mountains rose up in their ancient glory. Eons ago these were the highest mountains in the world.

  The drive to the lovely peach-painted clapboard house, four miles from Harry’s farm as the crow flies, took a little longer on the two-lane state road.

  The pink, red, yellow, and white climbing roses on the stone fences enlivened the winding drive. The rain had ended at four this Sunday morning, September 21, leaving a sheen on everything. Fair drove slowly, and Harry could see tiny raindrops tucked into the folds of the rose blooms.

  She’d called Little Mim last night after supper, and Little Mim said she’d be happy to see her. Harry felt that her friend needed to give her side of the story to someone sympathetic, which Harry was, although she truly believed the vice mayor needed to make a forceful public statement.

  Aunt Tally, silver-headed cane in hand, greeted them at the door. In her nineties, Big Mim’s mother’s sister had deeded her wonderful farm to Little Mim and Blair, with the proviso that she had life estate. The newlyweds lived in a stone two-story cottage one hundred yards from the main house, with a glorious formal garden between the structures. Aunt Tally’s high spirits bubbled over even more ebulliently, because she loved having them near.

  Old as she was, she evidenced not a jot of slowing down, apart from the cane, which she needed thanks to years of riding and a bit of hip damage. Nor did she pop pills. Long ago, in her forties, she discovered the medicinal benefits of doping her coffee. Each morning she poured in a dollop of Bombay Sapphire gin, another hit at noon, and one true cocktail when the sun passed over the yardarm. Worked a treat.

  “Aren’t you the best,” Aunt Tally enthused as Harry handed her a bottle of Bombay Sapphire adorned with a huge blue bow. “Come on in.” As she led them toward the sunroom, she asked, “What did you think of Herb’s sermon this morning?”

  Fair answered, “Provocative.”

  “But dead on.” She swung out her cane, then planted it on the hard maple floors.

  Old maple trees still dotted the landscape of the original land grant.

  “What he said about the sanctity of life was eloquent. That voice of his, you know—well, you believe everything that comes out of his mouth. Voice like Orson Welles. Maybe better.” Aunt Tally nodded as she sat down in a large, comfortable “summer” chair, which meant intricately woven willow, graced with wonderfully comfortable pillows.

  “Doodles.” Harry greeted the year-old Gordon setter.

  “You know, when my old buddy died I just went to pieces. Swore I’d never have another dog. Then every time I’d visit Alicia I noticed how lovely her Gordon setter was. When she gave me a puppy I was half thrilled. Now I’m all thrilled.” She smiled. “I think I’ll always have a Gordon setter.” She paused. “Where are your three hooligans?”

  “In the truck.” Harry leaned back in the seductive chair. She could have fallen asleep.

  “Well, for goodness sake, bring them in.”

  “Their paws will be wet,” Fair said.

  “That’s what mops are for.” Aunt Tally lifted up her cane like a marshal’s baton.

  “I’ll get them, honey.” Fair stood up, then left the room.

  “Smartest thing you ever did, remarrying that divinely handsome man. He’s a good man.”

  “He is.”

  Aunt Tally, shockingly white hair in a French twist, leaned forward. “Hell to pay. I’m so glad you’ve come over to talk to Little Mim. I know you’ll try to get her to come ’round, and I quite agree.” She shook her head. “Don’t think she’ll do it. She finally has an issue where she can square off against my niece, the tyrant, and it won’t look like a mother–daughter blowup.” She inhaled deeply. “Which, of course, it is.”

  “It’s delicate.”

  Aunt Tally leaned even farther forward. “I know exactly why, which is why I’m glad Fair went out to the truck. She told me everything. Riven with guilt. I understand—I do, you know.”

  “Yes, Aunt Tally, you would know better than anyone how painful this can be.”

  Tally had had an affair with Harry’s grandfather, a rollicking handsome devil of a man. Tally’s father put a stop to the affair and broke his daughter’s heart. The pain subsided, the scar remained.

  “You and Susan are the only other people who know. Blair knows nothing, and I told her to keep it that way.”

  “Right.”

  “We’re here!” In raced Tucker, Mrs. Murphy, and Pewter, although the gray cat, in sight of the humans, slowed down to affect a nonchalant entrance.

  “I have a fuzzy toy! Wanna see?” The glistening Gordon setter immediately picked up a well-worn green froggie, which Tucker grasped for tug-of-war.

  “I wouldn’t dirty my mouth with that thing,” Pewter sniffed.

  “Me, neither.” Mrs. Murphy found a wet, chewed toy unappealing. “Wouldn’t mind a ham biscuit.”

  “Think she has some?” Pewter showed some excitement.

  “Aunt Tally always has ham biscuits and cheese straws,” Mrs. Murphy replied.

  “She can keep the cheese straws.” Pewter hated those things almost as much as a slobbery toy.

  Fair didn’t sit down, but he said, “I’ll go over to Blair.” He patted his sport-coat pocket, where the cigars were. He couldn’t wait to try the H. Upmann Corona Junior. He also had a Romeo y Julieta Short Churchill for Blair.

  Just as he left, Little Mim came in and kissed Aunt Tally as well as Harry on the cheek.

  The two younger women, quite different in temperament and not good friends as children, had grown closer over the years. Both were remarried months apart, so discussing their upcoming weddings had brought out the happy side of each woman.

  “Precious, there’s a tray in the fridge. Would you bring it in? And the lemonade and tea, too?”

  “Of course.”

  Tally’s maid—really a majordomo—had Sundays off.

  When Little Mim returned, Aunt Tally gracefully excused herself under the pretext of catching up on her correspondence. Well, she did go to the den and sit at her desk, but not before she swept past the bar and poured a shot of gin in her iced tea. Sounds awful, but tasted divine to Aunt Tally. On Sundays she allowed herself some extra liquid cheer.

  “I’m glad you came. Mother’s being a beast, as only she can be, but this time it’s the worst. The worst!” Little Mim launched right in.

  “She does have a habit of living all our lives for us. Must get exhausting.” Harry lifted her iced tea in tribute. “In her defense, she’s often right. Look how she bore down on me for years to remarry Fair.”

  “She was right about that,” Little Mim ruefully conceded. “But not about this.”

  “Are you worried that it will look as though you’re breaking from the party?”

  “Yes and no. We all know that right now the party looks like the Party of Hatefulness and Repression.” She flopped back in the chair, but didn’t spill a drop of her drink. “Going to take us a long, long time to overcome the legacy of Karl Rove and Company.”

  “The problem was, he was effective in getting people elected. The radical Christian right is about five million people out of almost three hundred million, but they are organized and well funded. Rove gave them a political focus. The ends justify the means.”

  “Do you believe that?” Little Mim raised her eyebrow, looking very much like her good-looking, perfectly coiffed mother.

  “No, but millions of Republicans do. They aren’t right wing, but they’d rather have a Republican in office no matter what they have to do to get him or her there.”

  “It’s going to cost us power, for a long time. Two election terms, at least. I need to walk a fine line. I didn’t come in on right-wing coattails, but I soft-pedaled. Well, you know that. You remonstrated with me.”

>   “We did have a good fight about that, didn’t we?”

  “Ned Tucker’s always good for a fuss, too, but since he’s a Democrat that’s to be expected. He’s doing a good job down there in Richmond, and Aunt Tally counsels me not to buck him and not to run against him, so we have to divide up who will run for what and when. I fully intend to become the first woman governor of this state.”

  “You will.” Harry relaxed a little.

  “Give me your pitch, Harry.” Little Mim smiled slightly.

  “Oh, you know.” Harry shrugged. “This terrible shooting of Will Wylde is a Pandora’s box. It’s let out fear, recrimination, wild rumor. We need to pray retribution doesn’t follow, especially since there’s no perp in sight.”

  “That scares me. Although, you know, Harvey Tillach was there around the time of the shooting.”

  “Well, Sheriff Shaw hasn’t arrested him. We have to assume the killer is loose.”

  “Or killers. This could be the work of a group,” Little Mim said.

  “Because there’s so much rumor and fear, you should speak to the press. You don’t have to come out in favor of abortion. You only need to decry violence.”

  “Any statement I make, I’m going to be grilled. I’ll be forced into a discussion about abortion.” Little Mim reached for a thin lemon wedge to drop in her tea glass, which she refilled. “More?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Harry felt a heavy kitty run right across her foot.

  Pewter had found a little ball that emitted a glow when rolled. Mrs. Murphy ran alongside her, but Pewter, good at kitty soccer, maintained possession with fancy dribbling.

  “Harry, you understand.”

  “I do. I do, but it seems to me you’ll be grilled anyway, sooner or later. It’s one of those hot-button issues used to divert us from the real issues, the ones no one has the guts to solve.”

  Little Mim smiled appreciatively. “I’m not afraid of them. But I’d like to sidestep or downplay all the fluff stuff.”

  “Yep.” Harry leaned back and stretched out her feet. “If people want to get farted up about abortion, homosexual marriage, whatever, let them settle it in church. Doesn’t belong in politics.” She crossed her feet at the ankles just as Pewter, reversing field, leapt over them, as did Mrs. Murphy. “Do you really want to go to war with your mother?”

  “Oh,” Little Mim waved her hand dismissively, “it’s always something with Mother.”

  Finally, Harry fired her arrow. “Are you sure your reluctance isn’t because of your history?”

  Flushing suddenly, Little Mim almost barked, “Don’t tell me the personal is political. I hear that from Herself all the time. And she knows nothing.”

  “All I know is this is a deeply personal issue and many women have to face it. It’s been made political. You faced it.” Harry lowered her voice.

  A long pause followed where the only sounds were the cats batting the ball—since Mrs. Murphy had managed to snag it, then Pewter got it back—the dogs joyously tossing the fuzzy, and the pronounced breathing of Little Mim.

  “I feel terrible. I was wrong. You heard Herb’s sermon today about the sanctity of life, but the issue is when life begins. We all agree it’s sacred, or at least Christians do.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Better never say that in public.”

  “Just think what your Buddhist constituency would say.” Harry couldn’t resist the dig, although the Sangsters, remarkable souls, were the few Buddhists in Crozet.

  Little Mim folded her hands. “If I’m pushed by my constituency, I will say something. But I won’t do it because of Mother. I just won’t.” Her jaw jutted outward.

  “Back to feeling guilty: you were a sophomore in college. How could you have cared for a child? You weren’t ready.”

  “Millions of other women do it.”

  “They do, but you,” Harry chose her words carefully, “you are highly educated. You could make choices. Many of those other women really can’t, the law notwithstanding. And what comes of it? Poverty. A cycle of poverty that’s hard to break, and we all know the men tend to leave.”

  “Yes, for the most part they do.”

  “I don’t think men have any right to vote on women’s reproductive decisions. I feel the same way in reverse. What if vasectomy became a political issue? I don’t believe you or I should vote on it. I don’t have a right to make decisions about a man’s body.”

  “But we did when we sent them to war through the draft.” Little Mim hit the bull’s-eye.

  “Yes, but those days are gone.” Harry considered this. “And being drafted wasn’t about their reproductive equipment or their future as fathers.”

  “Fine line, I think.”

  “It’s absurd, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “The times in which we live. Do you think other Americans see the contradictions and the corruption?”

  Little Mim took a long sip. “I do, but no one has emerged to focus the anger, to build for the future. Most of what’s done is Band-Aids. It’s going to take tremendous courage to reform root and branch.”

  “Think you can do it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, you’re a lot like your mother.”

  Little Mim sat bolt upright. “No woman ever wants to hear that!” Then she flopped back. “But I suppose there’s some truth to it. I wish I were more extroverted, like Dad. I have to work at this shake-and-howdy stuff.”

  “You’re doing great. Well, I’ve said what I had to say. Obviously, your mother will hear all about it.”

  “She sent you?”

  “No. She wouldn’t do that. Miranda asked me to talk to you, because she’s worried that this will cause social rifts, and she’s worried about the fund-raiser for Poplar Forest. She told me your mother said you couldn’t sit at her table.”

  “Mother is being very petty. She also threatened to cut me out of her will. Go ahead, Mother. Just go ahead.” Little Mim waved her hand. “Aunt Tally named me as her heir, and that’s half the family fortune. It would kill Mother for me to be completely independent.”

  “Little Mim, none of us is ever completely independent of our mother. Even Hitler couldn’t shake his love and grief over his mother’s early death.”

  “I can try,” she uttered defiantly. “Come on, let’s go to the cottage. Blair and I are building an addition. You haven’t seen the plan.” As they left the main house, Little Mim called out, “Aunt Tally, we’re going to the cottage.”

  “All right, dear. Good to see you, Harry.”

  “Good to see you, Aunt Tally.”

  The formal gardens, with their boxwood clipped and crisp, overflowed with fall flowers. Aunt Tally kept up the old spring gardens, summer gardens, and fall gardens laid out with such thoughtfulness back in 1834. Her additions to the original plan were to have climbing roses on every fence line and over the old stone outbuildings and to nurture shiny dark-green ivy to embrace the gorgeous stone stables.

  Those stables finally housed four horses. Like all horsewomen, the first thing Little Mim did when she moved into the cottage was to refurbish the stables, fallow since 1982. Blair attacked the cottage, realizing, thanks to Harry, that horse people are in the grip of an obsession not addressed by logic.

  Doodles—the fuzzy in his mouth—Tucker, Mrs. Murphy, and Pewter scampered throughout the garden path, which was brick laid in a herringbone pattern. Pewter hated to leave the glowing ball behind, but outdoors provided the chance to snag a bug or maybe something bigger.

  Then something bigger slithered right across her path: a four-foot blacksnake.

  “Snake!” Pewter froze in her tracks.

  Mrs. Murphy pounced on the tail, which made the large snake curl up.

  “Don’t you dare,” Harry reprimanded her tiger cat. “Blacksnakes are friends.”

  “Oh, bother.” Mrs. Murphy stepped backward.

  The snake, flicking out his pink tongue, murmured, “I catch more mice than you do.” With that, he disappeare
d under the periwinkle ground cover.

  “What an insult!” Mrs. Murphy puffed out her tail, but Harry paid her no mind.

  “We’re home.” Little Mim threw open the cottage door, painted royal blue, as were the shutters.

  “In the back,” Blair called out.

  The wives came out on the patio to find two happy men, wreathed in smoke, drinks in hand.

  “I want to show Harry and Fair what we’re doing.”

  Blair stood up, kissed Harry on the cheek. “Let me get the plans.” He disappeared inside, then reappeared, unrolling the plans on the wrought-iron-and-glass table.

  “It’s a two-pronged attack.” Little Mim pointed to the south side of the cottage, where one bedroom now existed. “We can use the existing door so we don’t have to tear out stone, and we’ll create a master suite on that end, which will be warmer in winter than building on the north side.” She moved her finger to the west, to the patio on which they now stood. “Here we’ll build a great room and a new patio. No point in missing all those gorgeous sunsets over the Blue Ridge. I mean, I just love Aunt Tally’s view, so this will be our smaller view.”

  “What will you do when Aunt Tally finally goes to her reward? This place will be wonderful,” Harry wondered aloud.

  “We’ll move into Rose Hill, of course, and then we have to decide whether to make this part of a farm manager’s package or to rent it. Always nice to produce a little income.” Little Mim, though rich, respected profit and thought squandering resources sinful.

  This view was shared by her mother except in practice. If Big Mim wanted something, she bought it. Her daughter would search relentlessly for the best bargain and, if she couldn’t find it, would do without.

  “This farm isn’t what it used to be.” Blair slipped his arm around Little Mim’s small waist. “Given her age, Aunt Tally has done yeoman’s labor, but we want fields of corn, better grades of hay, cattle, and you know, Harry, you’ve inspired us to try a small vineyard.”

  “I have?”