Murder at Monticello (2 page)

2

One of the things that fascinated Harry about the four distinct seasons in central Virginia was the quality of the light. With the advent of spring the world glowed yet retained some of the softness of the extraordinary winter light. By the spring equinox the diffuse quality would disappear and brightness would take its place.

Harry often walked to the post office from her farm on Yellow Mountain Road. Her old Superman-blue pickup, nursed throughout the years, needed the rest. The early morning walk awakened her not just to the day but to the marvelous detail of everyday life, to what motorists only glimpse as they speed by, if they notice at all. The swelling of a maple bud, the dormant gray hornet's nest as big as a football, the brazen cries of the ravens, the sweet smell of the earth as the sun warmed her; these precious assaults on the senses kept Harry sane. She never could understand how people could walk with pavement under their feet, smog in their eyes, horns blaring, boom boxes blasting, their daily encounters with other human beings fraught with rudeness if not outright danger.

Considered a failure by her classmates at Smith College, Harry felt no need to judge herself or them by external standards. She had reached a crisis at twenty-seven when she heard her peers murmur incessantly about career moves, leveraged debt, and, if they were married, producing the firstborn. Well, at that time she was married to her high school sweetheart, Pharamond Haristeen, D.V.M., and it was good for a while. She never did figure out if the temptations of those rich, beautiful women on those huge Albemarle County farms had weakened her big blond husband's resolve, or if over time they would have grown apart anyway. They had divorced. The first year was painful, the second year less so, and now, moving into the third year of life without Fair, she felt they were becoming friends. Indeed, she confided to her best girlfriend, Susan Tucker, she liked him more now than when they were married.

Mrs. Hogendobber originally blew smoke rings around Harry's head over the divorce. She finally calmed down and took up the task of matchmaking, trying to set up Harry with Blair Bainbridge, a divinely handsome man who had moved next door to Harry's farm. Blair, however, was on a fashion shoot in Africa these days. As a model he was in hot demand. Blair's absence drew Fair back into Harry's orbit, not that he was ever far from it. Crozet, Virginia, provided her citizens with the never-ending spectacle of love found, love won, love lost, and love found again. Life was never dull.

Maybe that's why Harry didn't feel like a failure, no matter how many potentially embarrassing questions she was asked at those Smith College reunions. Lots of squealing around the daisy chain was how she thought of them. But she jumped out of bed every morning eager for another day, happy with her friends, and contented with her job at the post office. Small though the P.O. was, everybody dropped in to pick up their mail and have a chat, and she enjoyed being at the center of activity.

Mrs. Murphy and Tee Tucker worked there too. Harry couldn't imagine spending eight to ten hours each day away from her animals. They were too much fun.

As she walked down Railroad Avenue, she noticed that Reverend Herb Jones's truck was squatting in front of the Lutheran church with a flat. She walked over.

“No spare,” she said to herself.

“They don't pay him enough money,”
Mrs. Murphy stated with authority.

“How do you know that, smarty-pants?”
Tucker replied.

“I've got my ways.”

“Your ways? You've been gossiping with Lucy Fur, and all she does is eat communion wafers.”
Tucker said this gleefully, thrilled to prove that Herbie's new second cat desecrated the sacrament.

“She does not. That's Cazenovia over at St. Paul's. You think every church cat eats communion wafers. Cats don't like bread.”

“Oh, yeah? What about Pewter? I've seen her eat a doughnut. 'Course, I've also seen her eat asparagus.”
Tucker marveled at the gargantuan appetite of Market Shiflett's cat. Since she worked in the grocery store next to the post office, the gray animal was constantly indulged. Pewter resembled a furry cannonball with legs.

Mrs. Murphy leapt on the running board of the old stepside truck as Harry continued to examine the flat.
“Doesn't count. That cat will eat anything.”

“Bet you she's munching away in the window when we pass the store.”

“You think I'm stupid?”
Mrs. Murphy refused the bet.
“But I will bet you that I can climb that tree faster than you can run to it.”
With that she was off and Tucker hesitated for a second, then tore toward the tree as Mrs. Murphy was already halfway up it.
“Told you I'd win.”

“You have to back down.”
Tucker waited underneath with her jaws open for full effect, her white fangs gleaming.

“Oh.”
Mrs. Murphy's eyes widened. Her whiskers swept forward and back. She looked afraid, and the dog puffed up with victory. That fast Mrs. Murphy somersaulted off the tree over the back of the dog and raced to the truck, leaving a furious Tucker barking her head off.

“Tucker, enough.” Harry reprimanded her as she continued toward the P.O. while making a mental note to call Herb at home.

“Get me in trouble! You started it.”
The dog blamed the cat.
“Don't yell at me,”
Tucker whined to Harry.

“Dogs are dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb,”
the cat sang out, tail hoisted to the vertical, then ran in front of Tucker, who, of course, chased her.

Murphy flipped in the air to land behind Tucker. Harry laughed so hard, she had to stop walking. “You two are crazy.”

“She's crazy. I am perfectly sane.”
Tucker, put out, sat down.

“Ha.”
Mrs. Murphy again sailed into the air. She was filled with spring, with the hope that always attends that season.

Harry wiped her feet off at the front door of the post office, took the brass keys out of her pocket, and unlocked the door just as Mrs. Hogendobber was performing the same ritual at the back door.

“Well, hello.” They both called to each other as they heard the doors close in opposite ends of the small frame building.

“Seven-thirty on the dot,” Miranda called out, pleased with her punctuality. Miranda's husband had run the Crozet post office for decades. Upon his death, Harry had won the job.

Never a government employee, Miranda nonetheless had helped George since his first day on the job, August 7, 1952. At first she mourned him, which was natural. Then she said she liked retirement. Finally she admitted she was bored stiff, so Harry politely invited her to drop in from time to time. Harry had no idea that Miranda would relentlessly drop in at seven-thirty each morning. The two discovered over time and a few grumbles that it was quite pleasant to have company.

The mail truck beeped outside. Rob Collier tipped his Orioles baseball cap and tossed the bags through the front door. He delivered mail from the main post office on Seminole Trail in Charlottesville. “Late” was all he said.

“Rob's hardly ever late,” Miranda noted. “Well, let's get to it.” She opened the canvas bag and began sorting the mail into the slots.

Harry also sifted through the morass of printed material, a tidal wave of temptations to spend money, since half of what she plucked out of her canvas bag were mail-order catalogues.

“Ahhh!” Miranda screamed, withdrawing her hand from a box.

Mrs. Murphy immediately rushed over to inspect the offending box. She placed her paw in and fished around.

“Got anything?”
Tucker asked.

“Yeah.”
Mrs. Murphy threw a large spider on the floor. Tucker jumped back as did the two humans, then barked, which the humans did not.

“Rubber.”
Mrs. Murphy laughed.

“Whose box was that?” Harry wanted to know.

“Ned Tucker's.” Mrs. Hogendobber frowned. “This is the work of Danny Tucker. I tell you, young people today have no respect. Why, I could have suffered a heart attack or hyperventilated at the very least. Wait until I get my hands on that boy.”

“Boys will be boys.” Harry picked up the spider and wiggled it in front of Tucker, who feigned indifference. “Oops, first customer and we're not halfway finished.”

Mim Sanburne swept through the door. A pale yellow cashmere shawl completed her Bergdorf-Goodman ensemble.

“Mim, we're behind,” Miranda informed her.

“Oh, I know,” Mim airily said. “I passed Rob on the way into town. I wanted to know what you thought of the ceremony at Monticello. I know you told me you liked it, but among us girls, what did you really think?”

Harry and Miranda had no need to glance at each other. They knew that Mim needed both praise and gossip. Miranda, better at the latter than the former, was the lead batter. “You made a good speech. I think Oliver Zeve and Kimball Haynes were just thrilled, mind you, thrilled. I did think that Lucinda Coles had her nose out of joint, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.”

Seizing the bait like a rockfish, or small-mouthed bass, Mim lowered her voice. “She flounced around. It's not as if I didn't ask her to be on my committee, Miranda. She was my second call. My first was Wesley Randolph. He's just too ancient, poor dear. But when I asked Lucinda, she said she was worn out by good causes even if it did involve sanitized ancestors. I didn't say anything to her husband, but I was tempted. You know how Samson Coles feels. The more times his name gets in the paper, the more people will be drawn to his real estate office, although not much is selling now, is it?”

“We've seen good times and we've seen bad times. This will pass,” Miranda sagely advised.

“I'm not so sure,” Harry piped up. “I think we'll pay for the eighties for a long, long time.”

“Fiddlesticks.” Mim dismissed her.

Harry prudently dropped the subject and switched to that of Lucinda Payne Coles, who could claim no special bloodlines other than being married to Samson Coles, descended from Jane Randolph, mother to Thomas Jefferson. “I'm sorry to hear that Lucinda backed off from your wonderful project. It truly is one of the best things you've ever done, Mrs. Sanburne, and you've done so much in our community.” Despite Harry's mild antipathy toward the snobbish older woman, she was genuine in her praise.

“You think so? Oh, I am so glad.” Big Marilyn clasped her hands together like a child at a birthday party excited over all those unwrapped presents. “I like to work, you know.”

Mrs. Hogendobber recalled her Scripture. “‘Each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.' ” She nodded wisely and then added, “First Corinthians, 3:13–14.”

Mim liked the outward appearance of Christianity; the reality of it held far less appeal. She particularly disliked the passage about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. After all, Mim was as rich as Croesus.

“Miranda, your biblical knowledge never ceases to amaze me.” Mim wanted to say, “to bore me,” but she didn't. “And what an appropriate quotation, considering that Kimball will be digging up the foundations of the servants' quarters. I'm just so excited. There's so much to discover. Oh, I wish I had been alive during the eighteenth century and had known Mr. Jefferson.”

“I'd rather have known his cat,”
Mrs. Murphy chimed in.

“Jefferson was a hound man,”
Tee Tucker hastened to add.

“How do you know?”
The tiger cat swished her tail and tiptoed along the ledge under the boxes.

“Rational. He was a rational man. Intuitive people prefer cats.”

“Tucker?”
Mrs. Murphy, astonished at the corgi's insight, could only exclaim her name.

The humans continued on, blithely unaware of the animal conversation which was more interesting than their own.

“Maybe you did know him. Maybe that's why you're so impassioned about Monticello.” Harry almost tossed a clutch of mail-order catalogues in the trash, then caught herself.

“You don't believe that stuff,” Mrs. Hogendobber pooh-poohed.

“Well, I do, for one.” Mim's jaw was set.

“You?” Miranda appeared incredulous.

“Yes, haven't you ever known something without being told it, or walked into a room in Europe and felt sure you'd been there before?”

“I've never been to Europe,” came the dry reply.

“Well, Miranda, it's high time. High time, indeed,” Mim chided her.

“I backpacked over there my junior year in college.” Harry smiled, remembering the kind people she had met in Germany and how excited she was at getting into what was then a communist country, Hungary. Everywhere she traveled, people proved kind and helpful. She used sign language and somehow everyone understood everyone else. She thought to herself that she wanted to return someday, to meet again old friends with whom she continued to correspond.

“How adventuresome,” Big Marilyn said dryly. She couldn't imagine walking about, or, worse, sleeping in hostels. When she had sent her daughter to the old countries, Little Marilyn had gone on a grand tour, even though she would have given anything to have backpacked with Harry and her friend Susan Tucker.

“Will you be keeping an eye on the excavations?” Miranda inquired.

“If Kimball will tolerate me. Do you know how they do it? It's so meticulous. They lay out a grid and they photograph everything and also draw it on graph paper—just to be sure. Anyway, they painstakingly sift through these grids and anything, absolutely anything, that can be salvaged is. I mean, potsherds and belt buckles and rusted nails. Oh, I really can't believe I am part of this. You know, life was better then. I am convinced of it.”