Cat on the Scent (10 page)

18

Sarah Vane-Tempest slept at the hospital for two nights. When her husband was moved out of intensive care and onto the critical list, she allowed Miranda to take her home.

Exhausted, raccoon-eyed, Sarah invited Miranda in for tea.

“Honey, I brought some quiche. I'll warm it up for you while you take a shower. By the time you're finished the food will be ready.”

“If the hospital calls, come get me even if I'm in the shower.”

“I will, and don't worry. You've worried enough for three women.” Miranda smiled. “Anyway, Blair Bainbridge is taking a turn with your husband. I had no idea they'd gotten that close.”

“Outsiders. They both feel like outsiders since their families aren't from Virginia. Oh, well, it is like the Cotswolds, so H. mostly loves it here.” Vane-Tempest had been born in a particularly lovely part of England.

“Go on now.” Miranda pushed her in the direction of her bedroom.

She warmed the oven and unwrapped her homemade breads, the dishcloths slightly damp to prevent them from drying out. She hummed a hymn as she set the table.

Miranda held that the way a woman organizes her kitchen tells you everything you need to know about her—that and her shoes.

Sarah's kitchen, the latest in high-tech gadgetry, boasted an enormous brass espresso maker from Italy. It rested on the marble countertop.

Velvet-lined drawers contained Tiffany silver for everyday use. The evening silver was locked in the pantry. Miranda couldn't imagine using Tiffany silver for breakfast and lunch.

The refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave, and double oven had black, shiny surfaces. At the top of the wall, six inches from the ceiling, a green neon line acted as molding. It was all very playful and hideously expensive, but at least it was extremely well organized.

While the quiche warmed, Miranda opened the closet. Two Confederate uniforms hung there, each of them clean. Both sported the blue facings of the infantry.

Sarah walked back into the kitchen, her slippers scuffling.

Miranda turned around. “Two uniforms?”

“You know how H. gets when he suffers these—deliriums.”

“Mmm.” Miranda did know.

Like many wealthy people, H. Vane-Tempest rarely glided into an activity. He jumped in with both feet, spent oo-scoobs of money for equipment, only to abandon the passion a year or two later. Since he had nothing to work for anymore, he needed constant new challenges to occupy his mind. He had bought every possible book on the War Between the States, going so far as to pester the government of England to let him see any correspondence Queen Victoria might have penned on the matter.

Sarah sat down, eyes half closed as the moist aroma of fresh bread curled into her nostrils. “Rye?”

“And cornbread.” Miranda opened the oven, removing the warming breads. Hotpads at the ready, she pulled out the quiche.

They ate in silence, Sarah haggard from the crisis. Anyone who knew Miranda Hogendobber longer than a half hour would figure out that the good woman made a lot of room for both your personality and your situation.

“Herb says port is fortifying. Might it pick you up?”

“Put me down. I'm so worn-out I don't trust my system,” Sarah replied. “Do you think he'll be all right, Miranda?”

“I don't know. He's in God's hands.”

“God's hands are full.”

Miranda smiled. “‘Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.'” She drew a breath. “First Peter. I forget the chapter.”

“How do you remember all that?”

Miranda shrugged. “Just do. When I was a little girl my sister and I would have memorizing contests. You've never met my sister, have you?”

Sarah shook her head.

“Lives in Greenville, South Carolina. Loves it.” She cut another piece of quiche for Sarah.

“I'm full.”

“Just a nibble. You need your strength.”

Sarah poked at the bacon-and-cheese quiche. “You draw such comfort from the Bible.”

“Were you raised in the church?”

“Yes. Episcopalian.
Very
high church.”

“I see.” Miranda sipped sparkling water. “You might enjoy a more, mmm . . . personal church.”

“Perhaps,” came the noncommittal reply.

Miranda marveled at how beautiful Sarah was, even exhausted. Impeccably groomed, hair the perfect shade of blond, eyes startlingly blue, strong chin, full and sensuous lips—Miranda noted these visual enticements. She herself felt no pull toward female beauty. It was rather like watching a sleek cat. She felt men paid dearly for such wives.

“A cup of coffee?”

“No. I've imbibed enough caffeine in the last two days to qualify me for a Valium prescription.”

“Well then, I'll just clean up and be on my way. Would you like me to call someone to stay with you tonight? I'd hate for you to wake up and be frightened.”

“BoomBoom will come over, after one of her interminable Lifeline meetings. I don't know why. She keeps meeting the same men over and over again.”

“Yes.” Miranda wanted to say that was probably the point. “Will you be all right until then?”

“Of course I will. You were a dear to tend to me.”

“I wasn't tending to you. I was enjoying your company.”

19

“Bite her leg,”
Mrs. Murphy ordered Tucker.

“I will not. That will get me in trouble. You get away with everything.”

“No, I don't.”

“You bite her, then.”

“Cats scratch. Dogs bite.”

“Bull.”

Pewter piped up.
“Nothing's going to work. Forget it.”

They looked out the truck window forlornly as Harry passed Rose Hill, Tally Urquhart's place.

“Bite her!”

“We'll go off the road.”
Tucker bared her fangs at Mrs. Murphy.

“My, what big teeth you have, Grandma.”
Mrs. Murphy burst out laughing, joined by Pewter.

“I hate you.”
Tucker laid her ears against her pretty face.

“What's going on here?” Harry, eyes on the road, grumbled. “If you all can't behave I'm not taking you out again.”

“She told me to bite you.”
Tucker indicated Mrs. Murphy by inclining her head.

A lightning-fast paw struck the dog on the nose. A bead of blood appeared.

“Oo-oo-oo,”
the little dog cried.

“Dammit, Murphy.” Harry pulled off the road onto the old farm service road of Rose Hill. She stopped, checked the dog, opened the glove compartment for a tissue and held it to the long nose. “You play too rough.”

“Tough.”
The tiger thought the rhyme funny. Pewter had to laugh, too.

“Bunch of mean cats,”
Tucker whined.

“Play it for all it's worth, bubblebutt.”
Mrs. Murphy stepped on Tucker's back, then stepped on Harry's lap.

The driver's-side window, halfway open, was her goal. She soared through it off Harry's lap.

“Mrs. Murphy!” Harry shouted.

The cat sat outside by the driver's door, her lustrous green eyes cast up at her mother's livid visage.
“I've got something to show you.”

“Good idea.”
Pewter stepped on the dog, then on Harry's lap, and then she, too, jumped out of the truck, although not as gracefully as Mrs. Murphy.

“You don't know where I'm going.”

“Yes I do.”
Pewter loped down the grassy lane.

“Don't go without me. Oh, don't you dare go without me,”
the dog howled.

“Jesus.” Harry opened the door, struggling out with the dog in her arms. The corgi was heavy.

Before Harry's feet hit the ground Tucker wiggled free, landed, and rolled. She hopped to her feet, shook her head, and tore after the cats.

“Tucker, you come back here!” Harry called. “I don't believe them.”

She ran after them. Little good that did, as all three barreled on, out of reach but clearly in sight. The cats didn't deviate or dash off the lane as usual. Harry watched, cursed, then hopped into her truck and followed them at fifteen miles an hour.

In ten minutes Tally Urquhart's stone cottages and the huge stone hay barn came into view.

Harry pulled into the middle of the buildings, cut the motor, and got out just as the cats pushed open the barn door a crack and flattened themselves to get inside. She beheld two paws—one tiger, one gray—sticking through the slight gap in the door. It was as though they were waving at her to follow.

Tucker put her sore nose in the door and pushed. She, too, squeezed inside.

“They're trying to drive me crazy,” Harry said out loud. “Really, this is an orchestrated plan to send me round the bend.”

She walked to the door, rolled it back with a heave, and blinked.

“Holy shit.”

“You got that right,”
Mrs. Murphy catcalled.

20

Warm spring light flooded the barn, illuminating Rick Shaw's face as he stood under the wing of the Cessna. Behind him a young woman dusted for fingerprints.

Not a drop of blood marred the shiny surface of the airplane or the cockpit, although there were muddy paw prints on the wings and the cockpit. No dings, dents, or smears of oil hinted at foul play.

The wheels of the small plane were blocked. In fact, everything was in order. The gas tank was almost full. They could have crawled up into the Cessna to cruise through creamy clouds on this, a gorgeous day.

Cynthia spoke to Tally Urquhart. Miss Tally's sight remained keen, her hearing sharp, but her powers of locomotion had diminished. After fervid wrangling sprinkled with the utterance of unladylike epithets, she had agreed to stop driving. No longer able to ride astride, she allowed herself the pleasures of driving a matched pair of hackney ponies, to the terror of the neighbors. Her majordomo, Kyle Washburn, had the honor of transporting her to her many clubs and good deeds. It was also his duty to hang on when she took the reins. There were many in Albemarle County who thought no amount of money was too much to pay Kyle.

“I told you that,” Tally snapped.

“I know it's irritating, ma'am, but my job is to check and double-check.”

She tossed her white curls, hair still luxuriously thick. “Tommy Van Allen put his plane in my big hay barn and walked away, never to return. And I heard nothing.”

“At no time did you hear a plane buzz the house?” Cynthia braced herself for the blast.

“Are you deaf? No.”

Kyle stepped in. “Miss Tally is in town a lot, Deputy. Anyone who knows her and her busy schedule would have no trouble landing here when she was out of the house.”

“You hear anything?” Cynthia smiled at him.

“No.”

“Mr. Washburn.” She leaned toward his weathered, freckled face. “How could this plane sit here and you not know it?”

“Winter hay barn,” Tally snapped as though that simple description would be enough for any intelligent person.

“Miss Tally fills this barn up with hay in the fall. Usually I open it wide in May. Air it out. I'm behind this year—a little.”

“So you two think whoever parked the plane here—do you park a plane?—well, whoever did this knows Miss Tally's schedule?”

“Yes,” Kyle answered while Tally glared. This was damned inconvenient and she knew the situation would bring her bossy niece over to once again interfere.

Using her cane with vigor, hand clutched over the silver hound's head, Tally stalked Harry.

“I don't know any more than you do.” Harry shrugged.

“You know a good deal less.” Tally pointed her cane at Harry. “You say you chased these varmints here?”

“I'm no varmint,”
Tucker yipped.

“They led me right to the barn.”

Tally studied the animals at Harry's feet.

“Sometimes animals know things. Your mother had a marvelous sense of animals. She could talk to them and I swear they talked back,” Tally said, her smile momentarily tinged with melancholy. Then, steeling herself, she again eyed Harry. “You get used to it. By the time you're my age everyone's dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. No use crying over spilt milk.” She took a little breath. “And if you ask me, Tommy Van Allen is dead, too.”

Rick, respectfully silent until now, asked, “Why do you say that, ma'am?”

“Tommy Van Allen is wild as a rat. He'd be here if he were alive.”

“Some people think he was selling drugs, made a big haul and disappeared,” Rick suggested.

“Piffle.”

“Ma'am?”

“He might use them. He wouldn't sell them. That boy was a lot of things but stupid wasn't one of them. He wouldn't sell drugs.” She pointed her cane at Rick's chest. “Every time something happens around here everyone yells ‘Drugs.' Too much TV.” She turned to Harry. “You're a nosy kid. Always were. In the blood. Your great-grandfather was nosy.”

“Which one?”

“Biddy Minor. Handsomest man I ever saw. Had to know everything, though. Killed him, of course.”

Rick, a student of local crime, said gently, since it wouldn't do to correct her, “It was never proven.”

She raised an eyebrow, barely deigning to refute his prattle. “Proving and knowing are two different things, Sheriff. Just like I know Tommy Van Allen is dead. I know it. You have to prove it, I suppose.”

“Ma'am, we can't convict anyone without proof.”

“Convict them?” Her thin voice rose. “Convict them—they're out on the streets in six months.”

Rick blushed. “Miss Tally, I feel exactly the same way but I have a job to do. I'm elected to this position.”

She softened. “And so you are. Well—what else do you want to know?”

“Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill Tommy Van Allen?”

She paused thoughtfully. “No more than anyone else. By that I mean he had his share of angry ex-girlfriends, his share of people who plain didn't like him.”

“Can you think of any reason why someone would shoot Sir H. Vane-Tempest?”

“Pompous, silly ass.” She shrugged her bony shoulders. “You're going to canvass my neighbors, aren't you? Surely one of them heard this airplane.”

“We'll speak to everyone,” Rick assured her.

A crunch of tires on gravel turned all heads in the direction of the Bentley Turbo R pulling into the open barn.

Tucker barked as the motor was cut off and one elegant leg swung out the driver's side.
“Mim!”
The little dog rushed forward to greet the haughty Mim, who nonetheless loved dogs. She bent over to pat Tucker's head, and the dog happily tagged at her heels.

“Don't you start telling me what to do.” Tally's lower lip jutted out.

“I'm not. I'm here to help.” Mim stopped to study the plane. “Extraordinary,” she said quietly.

“If you all don't need me any longer I'll go.” Harry began to move toward the open door.

“Go on.” Sheriff Shaw nodded.

Cynthia called out, “I'll catch you later.”

Miss Tally placed her left hand on Harry's arm. Her thin ring gleamed. “Mary Minor, you never believed the story about my brother shooting your great-granddaddy because Biddy walked up on his still, did you?”

“No.”

She nodded, satisfied. “Good girl.”

Harry herded Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker into the truck, hearing Mim say, “Now, Aunt Tally, why would anyone put a plane in your barn?”

“To give me excitement in my declining years.”