Cat's Eyewitness (27 page)

39

I
’m listing to starboard,” Harry remarked as she and Susan once again trudged through the snow. The cats and dog walked ahead of the humans since the thin crust on the snow, an eighth of an inch of ice, didn’t break under their light weight. Harry and Susan crunched through, sank ankle deep in powder, lifted their boots out again, and kept going. Their thighs felt the effort after twenty minutes. The going was slow.

“I’m just listing,” Susan grumbled.

“The gun. It’s heavier than I thought,” Harry replied. She’d slipped in her coat pocket the Les Baer competition series handgun, a .38 Super that Fair had given her for her birthday. Harry’s hand–eye coordination was excellent. Fair knew she’d like target practice with the competition series gun, as it was extremely accurate and reliable.

A gaggle of buzzards turned their long necks to gaze at the five creatures fumbling in the snow. They’d settled on what was left of a deer. One huge bird stretched her wings wide, holding the posture.

“Jeez, that wingspread must be four feet.” Susan respected the buzzard’s task in life.

“Hope it’s not an omen.” Harry’s right foot sank deeper into the snow than her left.

“That’s a happy thought,”
Pewter, claws gripping the ice, said sarcastically.

“If these two think they’ll be incognito up there, they’re lunatics.”
Mrs. Murphy had to laugh.

“Mother knows she’ll be spotted sooner or later. But coming this way at least they didn’t pass through the gates. Mother’s afraid she’ll be stopped since Brother Handle and Brother Frank think she’s a pest. And maybe she doesn’t want to disturb the people praying at the statue,”
Tucker remarked.

“Tucker, why get on your knees in the snow?”
Pewter thought the whole posture ridiculous.

“Slaves kneel. Freemen stand up,”
Mrs. Murphy commented.

“Huh?”
Pewter gripped the ice again.

“In Roman times, a slave knelt before his or her master sometimes. So humans are showing the Virgin Mary they are her slaves. She’s the boss,”
Mrs. Murphy deduced.

“I thought Christians weren’t supposed to worship idols.”
Tucker found human religions baffling.

“They don’t consider Mary an idol,”
Mrs. Murphy confidently replied.

“Wait a minute. Moses pitches a fit because the Hebrews are worshiping a golden calf, but these people can lay down and sob in front of a statue?”
Pewter’s tiny nostrils flared when she caught a whiff of the buzzards as the wind shifted.

“That’s why people are what they are, Pewter. They can rationalize anything. Reality is pretty much irrelevant to them. It’s what they make up. It’s why they suffer so much mental illness. How many alcoholic cats do you know? Cats on Prozac? Because sooner or later in human lives, in the life of their nation, reality intrudes and it’s always unwelcome, a big, fat shock. They just go off.”
Mrs. Murphy wobbled her head to make her point.

The other two laughed.

“Can’t reconcile reality with illusion or delusion,”
Tucker noted.

“Tucker, that’s almost poetic.”
Pewter’s pink tongue unfurled when she spoke.

As they neared the site of the statue, the animals could hear people saying their rosaries. Harry and Susan couldn’t hear it yet.

Harry stopped. Susan collided into her and they fell down.

“Dammit, Harry, you should have given me warning.”

“Sorry.” Harry sat on the cold frosty snow for a moment to catch her breath.

“Come on.” Susan, up first, held out her gloved hand.

Harry scrambled up. “Let’s start with the outbuildings closest to the statue.”

“The glassed-in greenhouse below, the garden cottage, the chandler’s cottage. The other outbuildings and shops fan out all along the back high ridge.”

“I wish we could go over the Virgin Mary with a fine-tooth comb.” Harry sighed.

“Springtime,” Susan answered.

“That will be too late.” Harry stayed down on the slope away from the statue.

They passed the pumphouse and the greenhouse, electing to go to the chandler’s cottage first since they could see figures inside the greenhouse.

The heavy door to the chandler’s cottage was shut against the cold, snow piling by the door. Smoke spiraled out of the chimney, then swooped down low as though a large hand pushed the gray smoke flat.

Harry opened the door.

“Harry.” Brother Mark smiled. “I’m glad you’re here. Business has been light given all this weather. Hi, Susan. You know, it’s not the same around here without Brother Thomas.”

“I can well imagine.” Susan loved the odor of the different candles. “What are you doing in the candle shop?”

“Brother Frank put me here today since Brother Michael, who usually runs this shop, you know, is coming down with a cold.” He watched as Mrs. Murphy and Pewter marched directly to a small hole in a floorboard by the corner. “I knew there were mice in here! Every now and then Brother Michael complains of a chewed candle—never one of the tallow candles, always beeswax.”

“Does Brother Michael make all these candles?” Susan admired a huge taper.

“He has help.”

“Do you ever make any?” Harry inquired.

“No. It’s a little too artistic for me. I mean, I can pour the wax in the molds, that part is okay, but it’s when Brother Michael wants colors. I mess it up.” He brightened. “I can collect beeswax with the best of them. They call me when they get stuck.”

“Mountain honey.” Susan could drink an entire jar of honey and savor every drop. However, the calories would send her right over the edge.

“Brother Prescott has charge of the hives. Funny to think of him in beekeeper’s garb. Of course, the hives are in the same places they have been since the nineteenth century. Got ’em at the edge of every meadow.”

Harry had sidled up to the computer as Susan and Brother Mark chatted. She noted that the computer was new, sophisticated.

Brother Mark caught her observation out of the corner of his eye. “Something, isn’t it?”

“I thought you all had old stuff.” Harry admired the thin flat screen in front of her.

“We did. Brother Prescott and I talked Brother Handle into a new system. Every shop is connected. Brother Frank can sit in his office and call up sales figures when they are transacted.”

“What about Brother Handle?” Susan asked with seeming innocence.

“He’s got the best.” Brother Mark leaned forward and said conspiratorially, “About all he can do is turn it on. Great piece of equipment wasted.”

“I would guess a lot of the brothers don’t know how to use a computer.” Harry couldn’t take her eyes from the screen, its resolution crisp and clean.

“Uh, it’s an age thing. I mean mostly it’s an age thing. The brothers running the shops had to learn, didn’t much like it. The others don’t use them.”

“Did my great-uncle know how to use one?” Susan asked.

“He could do anything. If it had a motor or was wired, Brother Thomas could figure it out.”

“He was pretty amazing,” Susan agreed.

“I know you’re down there,”
Mrs. Murphy called into the mouse opening.

A high voice called back,
“And down here we’ll stay.”

Another voice yelled,
“Hairy brute.”

Mrs. Murphy stuck her paw in the hole.

“Wouldn’t you love to grab one!”
Pewter’s pupils grew large in her chartreuse eyes.

As the cats fiddled with the mouse hole, Tucker sniffed everything. All was in order.

“Do you own a computer?” Harry asked.

“No.” Brother Mark pointed out a candle in the shape of a cat.

“Girls.” Harry pointed to the candle.

The cats glanced at the object, then returned their focus to the mice between the floorboards and the joists.

“I’ll buy this for the kitties.” Susan reached into her jeans’ pocket for bills. “Brother Mark, do you think you’ll remain a monk?”

He paused a long time. “It was easier when I had Brother Thomas to turn to, to work with. Now I feel pretty much alone. I don’t know if I’m cut out for the contemplative life.”

“Darn.” Susan dropped her money, bills fluttering to the floor.

Harry bent down to retrieve them and her .38 gun handle clearly showed in her jacket pocket.

“What are you doing with a gun?” Brother Mark’s voice rose to a higher register.

“Forgot to put it away after target practice,” she fibbed.

“Stuff it down in your pocket. Everyone’s jumpy around here.”

“You think Brother Andrew killed my great-uncle?” asked Susan.

“I don’t know.” Brother Mark accepted the bills, his palm open. “He had the best opportunity for it.”

“It is strange,” she concurred. “Don’t all those people at the statue work on your nerves?”

“No, not really. They need help and comfort. And they’re generous. Even the poor ones leave something. I believe that Our Lady will intercede for them. She may not give them what they ask for, but she’ll give them what’s best.”

“Yes,” Susan simply said.

“She ought to do something about these mice,”
Pewter piped up.

Slyly, Harry reached for the keyboard but didn’t touch it. “Brother Mark, did you know there’s a Web site dedicated to Our Lady of the Blue Ridge? If you send money, the person posing as a brother will pray for you or say a rosary.”

“No.”

“I’m not kidding.” Harry’s hands hovered over the keyboard. “Want to see?”

“Uh—well, yes, but if a brother walks in here you’ll have to bail. No personal use.”

Deftly, Harry typed in the Web site address, Brother Mark hanging over her shoulder. When the photo of the Blessed Virgin Mother, tears bloody on her cheeks, appeared, he gasped.

Harry scrolled up text and Brother Mark read quickly. Then the door opened and she clicked off the computer, stepping back so Brother Mark could step forward as though he was making a sale.

Brother Frank walked in, his face soured at the sight of Harry. “Here to meddle?”

“That’s a Christian greeting,” she shot back.

He considered this. “Well, what are you doing here?”

“Candles.” Susan pointed to the bag into which Brother Mark was placing the cat candle and a fat beeswax candle.

“Are the cats and dog buying, too?” Brother Frank scowled.

“Mice.” Brother Mark indicated the hole in the floor.

“Well, put rat poison in it!” Brother Frank commanded.

“I can’t do that, Brother. It will kill the mice, but I can’t get them out without tearing up the floor, and the shop will stink to high heaven.”

“Get a cat,”
Mrs. Murphy suggested.

“Right,”
Pewter seconded the motion.

“You’ve always got an answer.” Brother Frank fumed, then abruptly conceded, “You’re right in this case.”

Susan picked up her bag, smiled at Brother Mark. “Nice to see you.”

As Harry, Susan, and the animals left the shop, Brother Frank peered through the window. “She’s on a search-and-annoy mission. Ah, heading for the greenhouse. Stopped. Talking to Susan. Going behind the greenhouse. Now, why would she do that?”

Brother Mark shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Nothing back there but the pumphouse.” Brother Frank turned from the window. “I came in here for a reason and I forgot it. Damn that Harry. She made me forget it.” He peered out the window again. “There goes Brother Handle. He’s going behind the greenhouse, too. Oh, he won’t be happy when he finds Harry and Susan.” Brother Frank chuckled. “He won’t be happy at all. All right, then, I’m going. If I remember why I came here in the first place, I’ll tell you.”

“Good-bye, Brother.” Brother Mark’s eyes squinted as the treasurer closed the door with a thud.

Because of the runoff from the greenhouse and garden cottage, the ice crust was thicker behind those buildings. The cats and dog dug in, but Harry and Susan looked like skiers without skis.

Harry hit the side of the stone pumphouse with a thud. She noticed the shoveled-out railroad-tie steps at the rear leading up to the path. “Dammit.”

Susan noticed it at the same time and laughed. “Be easier getting out than getting in. Think a monk can use a computer in the middle of the night and get away with it?”

“Yes. What I need to find out is if that information is fed back into Brother Handle’s computer. Every time you log on, it’s recorded in the computer, right?”

“Right.”

“It seems to me, if all the computers are tied in, it wouldn’t be that hard to keep track of who is watching what. But even without that, each of these computers will have that stored inside. A whiz will know how to get the traffic pattern out of the motherboard.”

“Right.” Susan pushed open the door with Harry’s help.

The animals dashed in.

“Flip on a light,” Susan said, smelling the kerosene.

Harry hit the switch. “Wow, this baby is powerful.”

“Why isn’t she worried about someone seeing the light?”
Pewter wondered.

“At this point she doesn’t care if she’s yelled at or not. If someone was looking out of the garden cottage or the greenhouse, they’d have seen us all come in here.”