The Hunt Ball (23 page)

“Shouldn't he see the ring?” Tootie asked.

“Yes,” Charlotte answered.

“I'll call him. Honey, do you have your cell phone stuck somewhere?” Sister asked Gray, who pulled the tiniest, flattest phone out from his inside breast pocket.

As she was calling, Pamela said to Charlotte, “This is about the slave work, isn't it?”

“I don't know,” Charlotte honestly replied. “But I believe it certainly has something to do with whatever is in those cases.”

Before anyone could respond to that a hell of a commotion erupted in the Great Hall.

Crawford let loose the hounds, horn to lips, and he was bearing down on Shaker, stunned at this perfidy.

“You dumb son of a bitch!” Crawford bellowed. “I can hunt these hounds.”

Sister, Gray, Charlotte, the girls, and Howard ran into the room as fast as their finery would allow them.

Tootie, wearing not high heels but dancing slippers, lifted her skirts, ran up the steps to the bandstand, then jumped off. She reached Crawford before Shaker did. The hounds milled around causing havoc, eating leftovers on plates. Tootie put her body in front of Crawford's as Shaker reached them.

Shaker pushed through the crowd toward Crawford. He had the presence of mind to say to the hounds, “Steady, steady.”

“Don't, Mr. Crown, don't,” she said quite calmly, but with true command.

The sight of this slip of a girl, ravishingly beautiful, in front of a man he couldn't abide, made him realize Crawford wasn't worth hitting. He snatched the horn from Crawford's vest.

Hounds gobbled leftovers, gleefully pulling plates off tables or getting on the tables.

Valentina looked over the astonished crowd and saw Knute, knife in hand, pursuing Bill. Both men crashed through the double doors.

“Sister! Sister! It's Knute and he's got a knife, chasing Bill.”

Sister walked up to Crawford and slapped him hard across the face. “I will see you rot in Hell.”

This stunned the onlookers more than the hounds filling the Great Hall.

Shaker put the horn to his lips, blowing three long notes.

Cora, Diana, Ardent, the Ds, the Ts, all came, although they hated to leave the feast.

That fast, Sister, holding up her own long skirts, hurried out of the building. “Come on, huntsman, come on.”

There was not a moment to load the hounds, much as Sister wanted to put them up. In fact, there wasn't a moment to lose.

Shaker, Gray, Charlotte, Sam, Walter, Valentina, Tootie, Pamela, Felicity, and Howard followed.

Rarely had Shaker seen that urgency in his master. He trusted her completely and followed her with the pack.

Betty yelled over to Sybil, “Whip in, Sybil. You take the right. I'll take the left.”

Holding up their skirts, they plunged outside into the deep cold, caught up with the hounds, and, shivering, running along, ensured order.

In the distance they could see Knute, a fitter, faster man, gaining on Bill Wheatley, who was heading for the theater department. He made it, slamming the door in Knute's face, but Knute got it open before Bill could lock it.

The hounds and humans ran faster, Gray up front with Shaker. “Hurry, man, hurry!”

By now, the rest of the celebrants spilled out onto the quad to watch in fascination and wonder at the sight.

Gray hurled open the door, hounds moving ahead of him.

“Get 'em up,” Shaker called, as he was beginning to get the picture.

Naturally, they looked for foxes, and there were some tatty old furs in the costume storage room. The hounds heard the human feet ahead, running, as Bill bolted into the costume room, hoping he could somehow hide from Knute.

Knute was quickly in the room, brushing costumes aside, tearing them off hangers in a silent, efficient rage.

Bill tiptoed through the rows of costumes until he came to the back of the room where the fake guns, battle-axes, and swords were stored. He flipped open a cabinet and pulled out Zorro's sword, sharp enough to cut rope and ribbon, which the play demanded. He waited.

Gray and Shaker opened the door. They could hear the costumes being pulled off hangers. The hounds were silent. As the men moved forward so did the hounds.

Sister, Charlotte, and the girls were right behind the hounds, as were Betty and Sybil. Howard had moved up with the men. He was young, strong, and confident.

“I know you're here.” Knute was oblivious to the hounds and humans moving through the costumes.

Bill waited, listening intently for Knute's footfall. He was coming from the right.

Knute pulled aside the last row of costumes and saw Bill, who hid the sword behind his back.

“Knute, fancy meeting you here.” He smiled genially.

“You son of a bitch!” Knute flung himself forward, knife in the air.

That fast, Bill Wheatley ran him through.

The hounds reached the twitching figure first, blood oozing from Knute's mouth.

“It's a kill!”
Dasher declared.

“Leave it,”
Cora ordered.

The hounds surrounded Knute and Bill, who said, as the humans reached him, “Mad as a hatter.”

C H A P T E R   3 3

“
D
id we do something wrong?”
Little Diddy asked Ardent as they were being loaded on the party wagon.

“No,”
Ardent stated authoritatively.

“Crawford did wrong.”
Asa's gravelly voice carried in the bitterly cold night air.
“That's why Sister slapped him.”

Sister, a floor-length mink over her white Balenciaga, was loading hounds with Gray, Sam, and Shaker.

Shaken as they were by what had happened, they had to take care of the hounds, their first responsibility.

Charlotte, Carter, Walter, and the other men of the club remained with Bill Wheatley as Ben Sidel's squad car siren screamed in the distance.

The revelers, by twos, walked to their cars. This surely had been an unforgettable hunt ball.

Sorrel, frantically, made sure those who won their bids took their items, as she didn't want anything of value left in the Great Hall. Marty couldn't help since she was ministering to her husband. Marty loved him but knew he was wrong and feared Sister's wrath. She guided him out of the hall to the parking lot. He was shouting and cursing but she managed to get him in the car.

The decorations needed to come down, but at that moment they couldn't think about it. No one in the hall knew of Knute's murder for twenty minutes until Felicity and Howard, sent back by Charlotte, informed them they should go home. When asked why, the two young people told the truth.

Tootie and Valentina, Betty and Sybil, stayed with Sister, helping to load hounds.

Lorraine, aghast at the turn of events, silently watched as Shaker calmly praised the hounds, loading them into the trailer.

“Good food!”
Dragon enthused.

“Roast beef,”
Trudy dreamily said, her belly full of it.

When the door was closed and latched, Shaker headed for the driver's door.

“Shaker, I wouldn't complain if you killed him,” Betty said.

“This isn't over. You go. I'll stay.” Sister half-closed her eyes for a minute.

“I'll stay, too. You're in danger.” He put his arms around his boss's broad shoulders.

“No, honey, go. Hounds first. Gray and Walter are here.” She then opened the passenger door, opened the glove compartment, and removed the .38. She took out the box of shells, clicked open the chamber, filling the six holes with bullets. She put the box of shells in her left pocket, the .38 in her right. Usually Shaker or Walter rode with a .38 under his coat. If a deer had not been finished off by a hunter one of the men completed the unenviable but humane task.

Shaker looked at her. “Boss, for God's sake, be careful.”

A broad smile crossed her face; she was energized by the danger. She said, “I'm a tough old bird. Go on.”

Tootie, shivering—her coat wasn't heavy enough—said, “We should go to the cases.”

“Yes. Can you collect the girls who worked with Professor Kennedy to meet me at the Main Hall? Get Mrs. Norton, too.”

Shaker, Lorraine in the truck cab with him, fired up the motor and slowly pulled out, worried sick about Sister.

Gray put his hand on Sister's shoulder. She turned to him; they started the long walk to Old Main Hall.

“I will kill Crawford myself. The point is a pack of hounds, any kind of hounds, has been bred, trained, developed, and loved for one purpose and one purpose only: to chase the quarry. I don't believe in demonstrations before crowds. I don't believe in marching hounds in parades on hot pavement. I don't believe in taking hounds to county fairs so children can pet them. If we want to promote foxhunting in a positive light then the first thing we do is honor our hounds. Make videos if you must, but do not use your hounds for any frivolous purpose. I know I'm conservative on this but that's what I believe and as long as I am master of Jefferson Hunt, these hounds will not be trifled with, and I know once Crawford's rage passes he will find a way to make himself right and Shaker and myself wrong.” Her heel slipped on a bit of icy sidewalk. He grabbed her elbow. “Sorry, Gray, I didn't mean to pontificate.” She took a deep breath, the frigid air hitting her lungs. “And I'm worried. We've got to find what's in those cases. We aren't going to like it.”

As the hounds were driven out, Ben Sidel pulled up to the theater building, an ambulance behind him.

Charlotte gave him what details she could. Ben whispered something to Ty Banks as the rescue squad removed Knute's body.

Charlotte, Ben, Walter, and Carter walked Bill Wheatley to Old Main Hall. He professed to know nothing about the cases. As for why Knute Nilsson would suddenly turn on him with a knife, he accounted for it by the tremendous financial strain Knute was under.

“What strain?” Charlotte asked as they headed across the oldest quad, Old Main straight ahead.

“He bought that schooner. Do you know how much one of those things costs?”

“I don't,” Charlotte said.

“He paid $575,000 for that thing. It has a navigation system, a galley, sleeps people. It's incredible. He just lost his head. Midlife crisis, I guess.”

“Why would he take it out on you?” Ben asked, voice level as though this were a coffee-break conversation.

“Don't you usually lash out at the people closest to you? Knute and I have been friends ever since I moved here. I told him he was losing it. Told him not to be impulsive. He wouldn't listen. The bills mounted up and I think he just snapped. Even his wife didn't know how bad it was.”

Charlotte, Carter, Walter, and Ben considered this as they walked up the long steps to the front doors of Old Main Hall, lights blazing inside.

Felicity, Howard, and Pamela Rene had joined Sister, Tootie, Valentina, and the others.

Sister greeted Ben, then said, “Whatever this is about, starting with the hanging of Al Perez, is in these cases.”

Ben's eyes took in the artifacts. He turned to Tootie, Valentina, Felicity, and Pamela. “You worked with Professor Kennedy more than the other students, didn't you?”

“Yes, sir,” they replied.

“When she handled these objects, did she say anything that aroused your interest?”

“No. We gave Mrs. Norton our notes,” Pamela replied.

“They did. I reviewed them briefly. Seemed like a dry description to me.”

“What about the photographs?” Ben persisted.

“No,” Valentina answered. “She made us shoot every side or angle of the objects. But she didn't say anything.”

Tootie thought a long time, then said, “The only thing she did that I noticed was sometimes when she was writing up her description she'd put a star by an item.”

“Did you put that in your notes?” Sister asked, her intuition about Tootie's intelligence and plain good sense again confirmed.

“This ring a bell with any of you other girls?” Ben corrected himself, “Young ladies?”

“Well, I saw her do it, but I didn't think anything of it. I didn't put a star in my notes. But my notes aren't very good,” Pamela confessed.

Valentina shrugged, “I didn't pay much attention. Sorry.”

Felicity chimed in, “Sometimes when I'd photograph an object—that was my job—I didn't take too many notes, but Professor Kennedy would come over and pick up some things, not others.”

“What's unusual about that?” Bill was curious.

“At first I didn't think anything, but then I began to see that what she picked up was usually in good shape. She didn't touch other things at all and some things no one touched. They were too delicate. She had me photograph them in the cases.”

“Charlotte, would you get Tootie's notes?” Ben asked the headmistress.

“Of course.”

As Charlotte left for her office, Ben said, “Why don't you first show me what she wouldn't touch?”

“Sure.” Pamela walked right over and pointed to a large basket made of soaked strips of wood. Small bits of yarn, the balls long ago removed, remained inside along with a pair of horn knitting needles.

“Was the area underneath, around these kinds of things, clean?” Ben asked.

“Depends.” Valentina led him to the case next to the one where Pamela had pointed out the basket. “See this baby's bonnet? It's been dusted around it but we were afraid to pick it up because it's disintegrating.”

“I see.”

“But most of the stuff is clean, shelves, too.” Valentina wondered what they'd find.

“Are the jewels real?” Ben asked, just as Charlotte returned with Tootie's handwritten notes as well as the ones she'd typed into her computer. She also had the key to the cases.

“She didn't say anything about that. I mean, Professor Kennedy didn't say if the jewelry was expensive.” Felicity studied a fancy brooch as Charlotte returned.

“Charlotte, have any items ever been removed from these cases with your knowledge?”

“The only time I know anything has even been taken out of these cases is during Professor Kennedy's investigation.”

“Tootie, point out from your notes anything Professor Kennedy starred.”

As Tootie's eye ran down her lists, Sister asked Bill, “Would it be possible to sew diamonds onto dresses without anyone noticing?”

“You mean noticing that they were real diamonds?”

“Yes.”

“It's possible.” He shrugged. “Seems like a lot of work. Wouldn't it be easier to put them in a safe-deposit box?”

“Old Main Hall is always open, right?” Gray asked.

“No, it's locked at night,” Charlotte answered.

“So who could get in?” Ben raised an eyebrow.

“Any member of the school's administration or Jake Walford, in charge of buildings and grounds.”

“You could unlock the doors?” Ben asked.

“I could. My secretary could. Knute. The entire administration is housed in Old Main.”

“Al Perez?” Sister was beginning to get an idea of how the crimes were committed but she still didn't know what it was—was it diamonds, was it drugs?

“Yes,” Charlotte answered.

“Could Bill get in?” Sister persisted.

“No, not without one of us.” Charlotte, too, was seeing the pattern.

“But Bill, you could come in the middle of the night with Al or Knute?” Sister focused on Bill, who was calm.

“I could. I didn't, but I could.”

“Were Al and Knute close?” Ben asked. “I didn't think they were. If they were, it didn't come out when Custis Hall people were questioned.”

“They had a good working relationship,” Bill offered. “I wouldn't say they were close.”

Charlotte nodded in assent.

Tootie quietly asked the sheriff, “Do you want me to point out the items?”

“I do, in one minute, Tootie. Charlotte, who knows about the key to the cases?” Ben could feel his own excitement rising.

“Teresa, my assistant. Knute, the treasurer. I think that's it.”

“Did you ever notice the key had been moved?”

“No,” she answered Ben.

“Is it locked up, the key, I mean?”

She blushed. “Well, no.”

“Do you have it now?”

“Yes.” Charlotte opened her hand, a key on a wide, dark blue ribbon nesting within.

“Charlotte, if you have no objection, I'd like you to open these cases and for Tootie to remove those items that Professor Kennedy starred.”

“Of course.”

Bill interjected, “Charlotte, what if something falls apart in your hands?”

“I'll take full responsibility. Under the circumstances, I think harming an item is the lesser of two evils.”

Bill said nothing, but his disapproval was apparent.

“Carry them over here to this table,” Ben instructed.

Tootie removed a gold snuff box with a small ruby in the center. She took out General Washington's epaulettes, his dress sword, shoe buckles, and a beautiful brocade vest.

Sister, Charlotte, Ben, Pamela, Felicity, Howard, Gray, and Valentina crowded around the table. Bill stood just behind this group as did Walter and Carter.

“May I touch this?” Ben pointed to the snuff box.

“Of course,” Charlotte assented.

Delicately, Ben picked up the snuff box, examined it, flicked open the lid. He sniffed the inside; no hint of tobacco remained. He replaced it.

As he reached for the epaulettes, Sister remarked, “Aren't they in remarkable condition?” It hit her. “Ben, too remarkable.”

A collective intake of breath followed. Sister pulled the .38 from her coat pocket.

Bill took a step back, turned.

Walter grabbed his arm but Bill shook him off.

“Bill!” Charlotte called.

“Bill, stop or I'll shoot,” Sister also called.

“Ty's outside the door. You won't need to exercise your marksmanship.” Ben's dry sense of humor somehow fitted the rigors of his profession.

Bill flew through the front doors, only to be brought back in a matter of minutes, hands handcuffed behind him.

Ty marched him to Ben and the gathering. “He thought he'd rather live.”

“Bill, what have you done!” The enormity of his betrayal was seeping into Charlotte's consciousness.

“You might as well tell us, Bill. If you cooperate, things will go easier for you.”

“Sheriff, that's what you guys always say,” Bill said, his lips pressed together.

“I'll say this for you, Bill Wheatley. You're a fabulous costume and set designer. You've obviously stolen the original items and faked these”—Sister picked up the epaulettes—“under our noses.”

Bill remained silent.

“You killed for this?” Tootie asked her teacher.

“Tootie,” Bill smiled sardonically, “there are six and a half billion people in the world. What's one more or less?”