Cat of the Century (30 page)

She didn’t think I’d read that. Thought she’d slide it right under my nose. It was my idea to set this mystery at William Woods University. All the horses, ducks, some dogs, and barn cats made me want to highlight a place where the animals mean as much to the community as the people.

Don’t listen to her. She’s an old windbag.

                                         Sneaky Pie

Read on for an exclusive sneak peek at
Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown’s
next Mrs. Murphy Mystery

Hiss of Death

Available in hardcover in Spring 2011

And don’t miss Rita Mae Brown’s

A Nose for Justice,

the first in a new dog series!
Keep turning the pages to read a preview.

S
till tight and colored deep magenta, the redbuds bent slightly westward as a stiff breeze charged down the eastern face of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Wild white dogwoods threatened to open, and the forsythias—already huge splashes of yellow—were peaking.

The old 1978 Ford F-150 truck, big engine growling, carried Harry, her two cats, and dog just west of the nondescript Virginia town of Crozet. Born there, suffering no inclination to live anywhere else, she smiled at the riches of early spring. Any winter was worth enduring for the luxury, the new life that inevitably followed.

She recited a line from Shelley, hoping she got it right, “Blow, blow thou winter winds, can spring be far behind.”

“What’s she babbling about?”
wondered Pewter, the often-peevish gray cat.

The sleek tiger cat, Mrs. Murphy, paws on the dash, hind feet on the bench seat, replied,
“She’s quoting poetry.”

“Bother.”
The gray cat grumbled as she joined Mrs. Murphy to gaze through the brand-new windshield.

So many windshields in this part of the world cracked, although they didn’t shatter. Even though the local gravel trucks now covered their loads with heavy canvas, motorists hereabouts were forced to acknowledge that sooner or later a stone would fly off, or a preceding vehicle would kick up stones from one of the many dirt roads.

Harry would rather buy a new windshield than see the tertiary roads paved. Paved roads meant development. Development cannibalized farmland. It also meant an influx of “comeheres”—as locals dubbed new residents.

Suspicious but always friendly, Harry belonged to every preservation and environmental group she could find. Her husband proved less xenophobic. Much as Harry wanted to be open, deep down she hotly resented what she considered the flaunted superiority of the new people. The fact that they all had a lot of money fanned the flames.

At this moment she was driving to the home of a comehere. A flash of guilt filled her because Paula Benton, an operating room nurse, was one of the most helpful, lovely people she’d ever met.

Then she told herself, Paula was the exception that proved the rule. Harry had learned just how organized Paula was by working with her on the 5K. Like everyone, Paula had her quirks. Although a very competent nurse, one of her peculiarities was she couldn’t give herself a shot. Once a week, Annalise Veronese gave Paula her B
₁₂
shot.

How the group teased Paula, who took it all with good humor. She also feared spiders, as do many people. The girls gave her a big fuzzy stuffed toy spider to overcome her phobia. Didn’t work, but she kept the toy anyway.

Pulling into the long dirt drive down to Paula’s farm, Harry marveled at the work the divorced, quite pretty nurse had done in two years’ time. Lined with glossy green Nellie Stevens hollies, the drive funneled to the restored frame farmhouse.

Even in her crabby moments, Harry was grateful for the number of old farms and larger estates the new monied people had not only saved but improved. There
were
those that built the McMansions on five acres, but all of America was jam-packed full of those. Couldn’t blame the comeheres for that environmentally disastrous fad.

As she approached Paula’s farmhouse, Harry noticed that the hollies encircling the drive had now reached five feet. The effect was pretty. In a few years time it would be dramatic, for Nellie Stevens could top out at thirty feet.

Due to the odd hours she kept, Paula had no pets. This disappointed Tucker, the corgi, who evidenced a social streak. Nothing better than catching up with another canine. Living with two cats could pluck one’s last nerve.

Paula’s brand-new Dodge half-ton, sparkling silver, was parked off to the side of the house.

Harry cut the engine and let her animals out in the crisp spring air, then walked onto the porch and knocked on the door. No answer.

“She knows I’m coming,” Harry said aloud to her animals. “She’s got the extra runner numbers for me. They came in late. Sure glad they made it or I’d be sitting up cutting out paper.”

“Paula!” Harry called.

Harry would happily ride a horse anywhere but running she avoided since she did quite enough walking, trotting, and lifting on the farm. By the end of the day her thighs often ached; hence her willingness to do the “bench work” for the 5K.

The door was unlocked, Harry peeked in. “Paula?”

She walked around the house to the old barn in the back, to Paula’s potting shed refuge, a pleasant place to force bulbs.

Pewter, feeling she already had enough exercise this morning, turned to go back to the truck.

Tucker paused to watch, then waited for Mrs. Murphy to join her, said,
“No wonder she’s fat.”

“I heard that,”
the gray cat called over her shoulder.

“You heard me, yet you’re doing nothing about it,”
Tucker persisted.

“Bubblebutt.”
Pewter raised her head, her tail upright as she marched toward the truck.

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker fell in behind Harry. As the temperature hung in the low fifties and probably would stay there all day, the barn doors were closed, but a light shone in the area Paula had closed off.

“Knew it. She lost track of time.” Harry smiled as she pushed open the barn doors.

She opened the door to the potting room, lit by both skylights in the roof and some infrared lights, casting their odd color. The smile froze on her face.

“Paula!” Harry rushed to the woman slumped at her potting table, head on the table. Next to Paula, a dead hornet lay on the table, too.

Harry touched her. Cool. She took her pulse. None.

“She smells funny. I’ve smelled that odor before, but I can’t place it,”
the corgi commented, her powers of smell surpassing anything a human could imagine.

“Yes, I know what you mean,”
said Mrs. Murphy, no slouch in the nose department either.

Not one to panic, Harry gently placed Paula’s hand back on the table, then left the room, the animals with her.

Now she ran. Sprinting for the truck, she nearly stepped on Pewter’s tail, for the cat was under the truck playing with something she’d found.

Opening the glove compartment, Harry pulled out her cell. She kept it in there so she wouldn’t be tempted to call while driving. This strategy forced her to pull over to make calls. Taking your eyes off country roads could wipe you out in a skinny minute.

She dialed 911, gave information, directions, and waited. Then her mind started spinning. Paula Benton, in her late thirties, was a runner. She didn’t smoke and drank alcohol only in moderation. She regularly endured mammograms and her annual checkup, passing with flying colors. Her death appeared peaceful, but what could have taken her from life? Harry knew high school football players perished from heart attacks. Impatient to know what had happened to lovely Paula, Harry understood no one would really know until an autopsy was performed. Already Harry wanted to know and already the shock was wearing off, and sadness settling in.

She picked up Tucker since Mrs. Murphy had jumped up onto the truck. Then she got down on her knees. “Pewter, come on.”

“No.”
The gray batted something to and fro.

“Dammit, I’m in no mood to fool with you!” Harry grabbed her tail and pulled out the protesting cat, who had the sense to put whatever she was playing with in her mouth.

Once Pewter was in the truck, Harry closed the door. She climbed in on the driver’s side.

Mrs. Murphy and Tucker wanted to know what Pewter had. Finally, the gray dropped it; a tiger stone, brown with a golden stripe, fell from her mouth. The size of an oblong nickel, it had been carved into a scarab beetle.

“I thought it was a mole.”
Mrs. Murphy was disappointed.

“It glitters in the sun. It’s a good size to play with.”
Pewter didn’t protest as Harry picked it up.

She wiped it on her jeans then held the stone scarab in the palm of her hand. “Isn’t this an Egyptian symbol for death?”

Then she thought “How morbid.” She so liked Paula. Henry wasn’t the weepy type, but her heart raced and she felt a sinking sensation in her stomach.

The sirens of Crozet’s rescue squad howled in the near distance. Hearing it’s shrill call, she slipped the scarab into her pocket.

Within two minutes, she saw the flashing lights at the turn of the farm driveway. She would have to see Paula’s body again for Harry would need to lead the paramedics to it. Her one comfort was that Paula had died doing something she loved. Then she wondered what comfort that was? A good woman had died much too young.

A
steady, increasing wind blew dust and sagebrush across the path of Magdalene Rogers. The graceful curving skeleton of a snake long ago disturbed from its resting place formed an
S
, straightened out, then broke up, its delicate white head carrying four vertebrae with it.

Mags, as she was called, looked down and hoped this wasn’t a portent. Putting her hand palm inward to the left of her left eye, she craned her neck upward. Pieces of debris flew harder now. She watched as one small, crooked slip of sagebrush fastened itself to the P-47 propeller in the middle of the high crossbar forming the entrance to Wings Ranch. Just as quickly the brush dislodged, sailing farther into Red Rock Valley. Great sheets of Confederate-gray clouds interlaced with charcoal ones crested the Peterson Mountains, which in essence divided Nevada from California.

Looking west toward that range, Mags saw that the ridgeline at its highest point—2,250 feet—was already engulfed in snow. Within ten to fifteen minutes the snow’s advance guard would be swirling through the Wings Ranch gate.

Baxter, her three- year- old wire-haired dachshund, sat alert in the passenger seat of the rental car. Better Mags stand out there in the cold wind than himself. It had been a long day for the fastidious, very proper canine and he’d hated every last minute of it. The worst was the flight from JFK Airport to Reno. At least that was over— never to be repeated, he hoped fervently.

She flipped up the collar of her shearling jacket—a long-ago Christmas present from her great-aunt who owned this sprawling, 10,000-acre ranch located about twenty-two miles south of Reno.

The first snowflake tentatively appeared as Mags stood under the propeller blade. Aunt Jeep never did anything halfway, so her western entranceway was wide and high. Each spring, the old prop blade would be lovingly cleaned, touched up if needed, and a sprig of evergreen was tucked behind its nose for good luck.

Magdalene was named for her aunt. As Magdalene is a three syllable name, Americans shortened it. Who wants to say a mouthful? Hence, Mags. Aunt Jeep earned her nickname in 1941 when she first began driving Jeeps. She still had an old war issue that ran like a top. If you had any sense, you ran when Aunt Jeep took the wheel. The old lady craved speed whether driving or flying—both of which she had always done with sangfroid.

In the time it took her to fondly recall the sight of her small but imposing great-aunt blasting down a dirt road leaving a plume of dust behind her, Mags was wearing a shawl of snow. Since she wasn’t wearing gloves, she rubbed her cold hands together and climbed back into the Camaro. She might be flat broke but damned if she was going to rent something that didn’t possess some style. And power.

Closing the door, she reached over to rub the dachshund’s russet head. “Buddybud, home. I hope.”

“I’d like to eat.”

Mags smiled as she heard what sounded like a muffled bark. Then the tears came.

“Oh, Momma. Everything will be all right.”
Baxter stepped over the center console to lick her tears.

She hugged him. “Damn if I’ll let anyone see me cry. Just you.” She took a deep breath. “You’re the only one who loves me. Well, maybe Aunt Jeep does, too. In her fashion.”

She popped the transmission into drive. GM products, while possessing virtues, often had an off-center feel to the steering wheel, a numbness, slowness to respond. The silver Camaro surprised her; its steering wasn’t as crisp as a Porsche’s, but it was much improved from prior models. She took pleasure in it. Just like her great-aunt, if it had an engine in it, Mags liked it. These days she needed a dash of pleasure.

“Damn, I can barely see the road,” she said peering over the wheel. “Everything’s different here, Baxter. Everything. You blink and the weather changes. We’re in the high desert, but we’re in it together.”

Poking along at twenty miles an hour she finally reached the old white rambling ranch house. Its first section had been built in 1880, a long time ago in these parts.

Cutting the motor, she sat for a moment, took another deep breath, then brightened. “Hey, I’m not doing great, but at least I’m doing better than my lying, cokehead of a sister.”

With that, she jumped out and popped the trunk. Hoisting one bag onto her shoulders, she dragged the other up the steps to the wraparound porch. Returning, she shut the trunk lid and opened the passenger door.

“At your service.”

Baxter nimbly negotiated the distance to the ground as snowflakes dotted his wiry fur.

Mags opened the front door, which was never locked, threw in the biggest bag, then set down the other. “Aunt Jeep!”

“In the kitchen,” answered a resonant, deep alto voice.

“Who goes there?”
King growled as he hurtled himself out of the kitchen to draw up short in front of Mags, whom he knew—although not well—from her infrequent visits.

But what was this low-to-the-ground lowlife with a trimmed Vandyke?

Faced with the shepherd mix, Baxter stood his ground, saying nothing.

Jeep Reed strode out of the kitchen, her slight limp apparent but in no way impeding her progress. “King, he’s your new best friend.”

“That?” The much bigger dog was incredulous. With a handsome black face with brown points and a regal bearing, he had no patience for what he thought of as inferior breeds.
“I’ve seen snakes higher off the ground than that.”

Baxter curled back his upper lip.
“And I can strike just as fast, you
ill
-bred lout.”

“All right, boys. Get along or I’ll get out the bull whip.” Aunt Jeep wagged her finger at the two dogs as she walked toward her beautiful, thirty-two-year-old great-niece. “Mags, sweetheart, welcome home.”