Murder on the Prowl Page 8

  16

  Rumbling along toward St. Elizabeth's, Harry felt her heart sink lower and lower. The truck repairs cost $289.16, which demolished her budget. Paying over time helped, but $289 was $289. She wanted to cry but felt that it wasn't right to cry over money. She sniffled instead.

  “There's got to be a way to make more money,” Mrs. Murphy whispered.

  “Catnip,” Pewter replied authoritatively. “She could grow acres of catnip, dry it, and sell it.”

  “Not such a bad idea—could you keep out of the crop?”

  “Could you?” Pewter challenged.

  They pulled into the school parking lot peppered with Mercedes Benzes, BMWs, Volvos, a few Porsches, and one Ford Falcon.

  The game was just starting with the captains in the center of the field, Karen Jensen for St. Elizabeth's and Darcy Kelly for St. Anne's Belfield from Charlottesville.

  Roscoe had pride of place on the sidelines. Naomi squeezed next to him. April Shively sat on Roscoe's left side. She took notes as he spoke, which drove Naomi wild. She struggled to contain her irritation. Susan and Miranda waved to Harry as she climbed up to them. Little Mim sat directly behind Roscoe. Maury, flirtatious, amused her with Hollywood stories about star antics. He told her she was naturally prettier than those women who had the help of plastic surgery, two-hundred-dollar haircuts, and fabulous lighting. Little Mim began to brighten.

  Pretty Coach Renee Hallvard, her shiny blond pageboy swinging with each stride, paced the sidelines. St. Anne's won the toss. While Karen Jensen trotted to midfield, the other midfielder, Jody Miller, twirled her stick in anticipation.

  Irene and Kendrick Miller sat high in the stands for a better view. Kendrick had requested that he and Roscoe get together after the game. His attendance was noted since he rarely turned up at school functions, claiming work kept him pinned down.

  People commented on the fact that Sean Hallahan and Roger Davis weren't at the game. Everyone had an opinion on that.

  St. Anne's, a powerhouse in field hockey and lacrosse, worked the ball downfield, but Karen Jensen, strong and fast, stole the ball from the attacker in a display of finesse that brought the Redhawk supporters to their feet.

  Brooks, an attacker, sped along the side, then cut in, a basic pattern, but Brooks, slight and swift, dusted her defender to pick up Karen's pinpoint pass. She fired a shot at the goalie, one of the best in the state, who gave St. Anne's enormous confidence.

  The first quarter, speedy, resulted in no score.

  “Brooks has a lot of poise under pressure.” Harry was proud of the young woman.

  “She's going to need it,” Susan predicted.

  “Quite a game.” Miranda, face flushed, was remembering her days of field hockey for Crozet High in 1950.

  The second quarter the girls played even faster and harder. Darcy Kelly drew first blood for St. Anne's. Karen Jensen, jogging back to the center, breathed a few words to her team. They struck back immediately with three razorsharp passes resulting in a goal off the stick of Elizabeth Davis, Roger's older sister.

  At halftime both coaches huddled with their girls. The trainers exhausted themselves putting the teams back together. The body checks, brutal, were taking their toll.

  Sandy Brashiers, arriving late, sat on the corner of the bleachers.

  “Jody's playing a good game.” Roscoe leaned down to talk low to Sandy. “Maybe this will be easier than I thought.”

  “Hope so,” Sandy said.

  “Roscoe,” Maury McKinchie teased him, “what kind of headmaster are you when a kid puts your obituary in the paper?”

  “Looks who's talking. Maury, the walking dead,” Roscoe bellowed.

  “Only in Hollywood,” Maury said, making fun of himself. “Oh, well, I've made a lot of mistakes on all fronts.”

  Father Michael, sitting next to Maury, said, “To err is human, to forgive divine.”

  “To err is human, to forgive is extraordinary.” Roscoe chuckled.

  They both shut up when Mrs. Florence Rubicon, the aptly, or perhaps prophetically, named Latin teacher, waved a red-and-gold Redhawks pennant and shouted, “Carpe diem—”

  Sandy shouted back, finishing the sentence, “Quam minimum credula postero.” Meaning “Don't trust in tomorrow.”

  Those who remembered their Latin laughed.

  A chill made Harry shiver.

  “Cold?” Miranda asked.

  “No—just”—she shrugged—“a notion.”

  The game was turning into a great one. Both sides cheered themselves hoarse, and at the very end Teresa Pietro scored a blazing goal for St. Anne's. The Redhawks, crestfallen, dragged off the field, hurt so badly by the defeat that they couldn't rejoice in how spectacularly they had played. It would take time for them to realize they'd participated in one of the legendary field hockey games.

  Jody Miller, utterly wretched because Teresa Pierro had streaked by her, was stomping off the field, her head down. Her mother ran out to console her; her father stayed in the stands to talk to people and to wait for Roscoe, besieged, as always.

  When Maury McKinchie walked over to soothe her, she hit him in the gut with her stick. He keeled over.

  Irene, horrified, grabbed the stick from her daughter's hand. She looked toward Kendrick, who had missed the incident.

  Coach Hallvard quickly ran over. Brooks, Karen, Elizabeth, and Jody's other teammates stared in disbelief.

  “Jody, go to the lockers—NOW,” the coach ordered.

  “I think she'd better come home with me,” Irene said tightly.

  “Mrs. Miller, I'll send her straight home. In fact, I'll drive her home, but I need to talk to her first. Her behavior affects the entire team.”

  Jody, white-lipped, glared at everyone, then suddenly laughed. “I'm sorry, Mr. McKinchie. If only I'd done that to Teresa Pietro.”

  Maury, gasping for breath, smiled gamely. “I don't look anything like Teresa Pietro.”

  “Are you all right?” Coach Hallvard asked him.

  “Yes, it's the only time I've been grateful for my spare tire.”

  Coach Hallvard put her hand under Jody's elbow, propelling her toward the lockers.

  Roscoe turned around to look up to Kendrick, who was being filled in on the incident. He whispered to his wife, “Go see what you can do for Maury.” Then he said to April, hovering nearby, “I think you'd better go to the locker room with Coach Hallvard and the team, right?”

  “Right.” April trotted across the field, catching up with Naomi, who pretended she was happy for the company.

  Father Michael felt a pang for not pursuing Jody the morning she came to see him. He was realizing how much she had needed him then.

  Brooks, confused like the rest of her teammates, obediently walked back to the locker room while the St. Anne's team piled on the bus.

  Mrs. Murphy, prowling the bleachers now that everyone was down on the sidelines, jerked her head up when she caught a whiff, a remnant of strong perfume.

  “Ugh.” Pewter seconded her opinion.

  They watched Harry chat with her friends about the incident as Roscoe glided over to Kendrick Miller. Sandy Brashiers also watched him, his eyes narrow as slits.

  The two men strolled back to the bleachers, not thinking twice about the cats sitting there.

  Kendrick glanced across the field at a now upright Maury attended by Irene and Naomi. “He's got both our wives buzzing around him. I guess he'll live.”

  Roscoe, surprised at Kendrick's cool response, said, “Doesn't sound as if you want him to—”

  Kendrick, standing, propped one foot on the bleacher higher than the one he was standing on. “Don't like him. One of those dudes who comes here with money and thinks he's superior to us. That posture of detached amusement wears thin.”

  “Perhaps, but he's been very good to St. Elizabeth's.”

  Quickly Kendrick said, “I understand your position, Roscoe, you'd take money from the devil if you had to. You're a good businessman.”

>   “I'd rather be a good headmaster,” Roscoe replied coolly. “I was hoping you could illuminate me concerning Jody.”

  “Because she hit Maury?” His voice rose. “Wish I'd seen it.”

  “No, although that's an issue now. She skipped school the other day with a black eye. She said she got it in practice, but Coach Hallvard said, no, she didn't and as far as she knew there were no fights after practice. Does she roughhouse with neighborhood kids or—?”

  “Do I beat her?” Kendrick's face darkened. “I know what people say behind my back, Roscoe. I don't beat my daughter. I don't beat my wife. Hell, I'm not home enough to get mad at them. And yes—I have a bad temper.”

  Roscoe demurred. “Please, don't misunderstand me. My concern is the well-being of every student at St. Elizabeth's. Jody, a charming young girl, is, well, more up and down lately. And her grades aren't what they were last year.”

  “I'll worry about it when the first report card comes out.” Kendrick leaned on his knee.

  “That will be in another month. Let's try to pull together and get those grades up before then.” Roscoe's smile was all mouth, no eyes.

  “You're telling me I'm not a good father.” Kendrick glowered. “You've been talking to my bride, I suppose.” The word “bride” dripped with venom.

  “No, no, I haven't.” Roscoe's patience began to erode.

  “You're a rotten liar.” Kendrick laughed harshly.

  “Kendrick, I'm sorry I'm wasting your time.” He stepped down out of the bleachers and left a furious Kendrick to pound down and leave in the opposite direction.

  Sandy Brashiers awaited Roscoe at the other end. “He doesn't look too happy.”

  “He's an ass.” Roscoe, sensitive and tired, thought he heard implicit criticism in Sandy's voice.

  “I waited for you because I think we need to have an assembly or small workshop about how to handle losing. Jody's behavior was outrageous.”

  Roscoe hunched his massive shoulders. “I don't think we have to make that big a deal out of it.”

  “You and I will never see eye to eye, will we?” Sandy said.

  “I'll handle it,” Roscoe said sternly.

  A pause followed, broken by Sandy. “I don't want to make you angry. I'm not trying to obstruct you, but this gives us a chance to address the subject of winning and losing. Sports are blown out of proportion anyway.”

  “They may be blown out of proportion, but they bring in alumni funds.” Roscoe shifted his weight.

  “We're an institution of learning, not an academy for sports.”

  “Sandy, not now. I'm fresh out of patience,” Roscoe warned.

  “If not now, when?”

  “This isn't the time or place for a philosophical discussion of the direction of secondary education in general or St. Elizabeth's in particular.” Roscoe popped a hard strawberry candy in his mouth and moved off in the direction of the girls' locker room. Perhaps April had some information for him. He noticed that Naomi had shepherded Maury toward the quad, so he assumed she would be serving him coffee, tea, or spirits in her office. She had a sure touch with people.

  The cats scampered out from under the bleachers, catching up with Harry, who was in the parking lot calling for them.

  17

  Late that night the waxing moon flitted between inky boiling clouds. Mrs. Murphy, unable to sleep, was hunting in the paddock closest to the barn. A sudden gust of wind brought her nose up from the ground. She sniffed the air. A storm, a big one, was streaking in.

  Simon, moving fast for him, ran in from the creek. Overhead Flatface swooped low, banked, then headed out to the far fields for one more pass before the storm broke.

  “That's it for me.” Simon headed to the open barn door. “Besides, bobcat tracks in the creekbed.”

  “Good enough reason.”

  “Are you coming in?”

  “In a minute.” She watched the gray animal with the long rat tail shuffle into the barn.

  A light wind rustled the leaves. She saw the cornstalks sway, then wiggle in Harry's small garden by the corner of the barn. This proved a handy repository for her “cooked” manure. A red fox, half grown, sashayed out the end, glanced over her shoulder, beheld Mrs. Murphy, put her nose up, and walked away.

  Mrs. Murphy loved no fox, for they competed for the same game.

  “You stay out of my corn rows,” she growled.

  “You don't own the world,” came the belligerent reply.

  A lone screech froze both of them.

  “She's a killer.” The fox flattened for a minute, then got up.

  “You're between a storm and a bobcat. Where's your den?”

  “I'm not telling you.”

  “Don't tell me, but you'd better hike to it fast.” A big splat landed on the cat. She thought about the fox's predicament. “Go into the shavings shed until the storm blows over and the bobcat's gone. Just don't make a habit of it.”

  Without a word the fox scooted into the shavings shed, burrowing down in the sweet-smelling chips as the storm broke overhead.

  The tiger cat, eyes widened, listened for the bobcat. Another more distant cry, like a woman screaming, told her that the beast headed back to the forest, her natural home. Since the pickings were so good in the fall—lots of fat mice and rats gorged on fallen grain plus fruits left drying on the vine—the bobcat ventured closer to the human habitation.

  The wind stiffened, the trees gracefully bent lower. The field mouse Mrs. Murphy patiently tracked wanted to stay dry. She refused to poke her nose out of her nest.

  More raindrops sent the cat into the barn. She climbed the ladder. Simon was arranging his sleeping quarters. His treasures, spread around him, included a worn towel, one leather riding glove, a few scraps of newspaper, and a candy bar that he was saving for a rainy day, which it was.

  “Simon, don't you ever throw anything out?”

  He smiled. “My mother said I was a pack rat, not a possum.”

  The force of the rain, unleashed, hit like a baseball bat against the north side of the barn. Flatface, claws down, landed in her cupola. She glanced down at the two friends, ruffled her feathers, then shut her eyes. She disdained earthbound creatures.

  “Flatface,” Simon called up to her, “before you go to sleep, how big is the bobcat?”

  “Big enough to eat you.” She laughed with a whooing sound.

  “Really, how big?” he pressed.

  She turned her big head nearly upside down. “Thirty to forty pounds and still growing. She's quick, lightning-quick, and smart. Now, if you two peons don't mind, I'm going to sleep. It's turning into a filthy night.”

  Mrs. Murphy and Simon caught up on the location of the latest beaver dam, fox dens, and one bald-eagle nest. Then the cat told him about the false obituaries.

  “Bizarre, isn't it?”

  Simon pulled his towel into his hollowed-out nest in the straw. “People put out marshmallows to catch raccoons. Us, too. We love marshmallows. Sure enough, one of us will grab the marshmallow. If we're lucky, the human wants to watch us. If we're unlucky, we're trapped or the marshmallow is poisoned. I think a human is putting out a marshmallow for another human.”

  Mrs. Murphy sat a long time, the tip of her tail slowly wafting to and fro. “It's damned queer bait, Simon, telling someone he's dead.”

  “Not just him—everyone.”

  18

  The storm lashed central Virginia for two days, finally moving north to discomfort the Yankees.

  Harry's father said storms did Nature's pruning. The farm, apart from some downed limbs, suffered little damage, but a tree was down on the way to Blair Bainbridge's house.

  On Saturday, Harry borrowed his thousand-dollar power washer. Merrily she blasted the old green-and-yellow John Deere tractor, her truck, the manure spreader, and, in a fit of squeaky-clean mania, the entire interior of the barn. Not a cobweb remained.

  The three horses observed this from the far paddock. By now they were accustomed to Harry's
spring and fall fits.

  Other humans feeling those same urges worked on Saturday. Miranda aired her linens as she planted her spring bulbs. She'd need the rest of Sunday to finish the bulbs.

  The Reverend Jones stocked his woodpile and greeted the chimney sweep by touching his top hat. A little superstition never hurt a pastor.

  Fair Haristeen decided to run an inventory on equine drugs at the clinic only to repent as the task devoured the day.

  BoomBoom Craycroft, adding orange zest to her list of essences, peeled a dozen of them.

  Susan Tucker attacked the attic while Ned edged every tree and flower bed until he thought his fillings would fall out of his teeth from the vibrations of the machine.

  Big Mim supervised the overhaul of her once-sunk pontoon boat.

  Little Marilyn transferred the old records of St. Elizabeth's benefactors to a computer. Like Fair, she was sorry she had started the job.

  Sandy Brashiers made up the questions for a quiz on Macbeth.

  Jody Miller worked at the car wash with Brooks, Karen, and Roger.

  Because of the storm, the car wash was jam-packed. The kids hadn't had time for lunch, so Jody took everyone's order. It was her turn to cross Route 29 and get sandwiches at the gas station–deli on the southwest corner. The Texaco sat between the car wash and the intersection. If only that station had a deli, she wouldn't have to cross the busy highway.

  Jimbo Anson slipped her twenty-five dollars for everyone's lunch, his included, as they were famished.

  As the day wore on, the temperature climbed into the mid-sixties. The line of cars extended out to Route 29.

  Roscoe Fletcher, his Mercedes station wagon caked in mud, patiently waited in line. He had turned off Route 29 and moved forward enough to be right in front of the Texaco station. The car wash was behind the gas station itself, so the kids did not yet know their headmaster was in line and he didn't know how many cars were in front of him. The car stereo played The Marriage of Figaro. He sang aloud with gusto.

  The line crept forward.

  Jody headed down to the intersection. Five minutes later she dashed back into the office.