Fox Tracks (16 page)

“He doesn’t like too many people. Too competitive.”

Yet Sister admired the African American media mogul. “That’s what made him millions at a time after LBJ pushed through the Voter Rights Act. Didn’t he start his magazine business in the seventies?”

“Did. He waited until he was in his forties to marry because he said he didn’t want to worry that he couldn’t support a wife. All my father thinks about is money. Every single decision he makes is about money. He tells me the first question I should ask whenever I make a decision is ‘What is this going to cost me?’ Not, will I learn anything? Will I love what I’m doing? Will I do good for anyone else? I can’t live like that.
I won’t live like that
.” Her voice rose and she was no longer crying.

“Millions do,” Sister simply said. “Men think their money obsession is merely being logical. Women think it’s the new way to think now—in other words, they’re imitation men. I’m afraid most people only wake up and realize what’s truly important when death brushes by them or someone they love. Tootie, who knows what will happen tomorrow to any one of us? But at least we’ve lived, truly lived. Betty’s had a harder time than I have with money. I’ve been lucky there, but I’ve endured other painful lessons. I wouldn’t trade one minute of it. Not one. So you talk to your parents and best you do it before you go back to Princeton to pick up your gear.”

Leaping from her chair, Tootie hugged Sister and kissed her on the cheek. Then she bent over Betty and kissed her.

“Thanks,” said Betty rising painfully from the stool. “My leg hurts.”

“Betty, what’d you do now?”

“Knocked a tree when we were at Old Paradise. My feet were so wet and cold I didn’t pay attention until later when it started to throb. It will go away.”

They heard the big Land Cruiser churning up the driveway, Gray at the wheel.

Sister looked out. “Here comes Mr. Wonderful, and the lights are still on in the kennels.”

“I’ll go see if Shaker needs a hand,” Betty volunteered.

“Me, too,” said Tootie.

“All right, then,” said Sister. “See you up at the house. Betty, would you like some supper?”

“No, thanks. I ate enough at the hunt breakfast and Bobby will be wanting his supper. I’ve got him on a new diet. It’s working, but very, very slowly.” She pushed open the tackroom door and headed to the kennels, Tootie in tow.

Sister cut the lights in the tackroom. She walked into the center aisle to cut the lights there. Darkness fell so early in February, or so it seemed, even though a minute of sunlight was added each day after the winter solstice.

As he was dry, she threw on Rickyroo’s fancy blanket. Tootie and Betty had already put their horse blankets on. As the night promised to be another bitter one, she decided to bring in the other horses. Walking out the barn’s big double door, she whistled. Up ran Lafayette, Aztec, Matador, and Keepsake. Opening the gate for them, they all four entered the warm barn.

Aztec ducked into Lafayette’s stall for a second, just to see if his feed was better.

Lafayette bared his teeth as the younger horse hurried out.
“I’ll bite your hindquarters.”

“Yeah, but your teeth are getting worn down,”
the six-year-old sassed back as he trotted into his stall.

Sister shut each stall door after closing the outside doors. She rechecked each stall, even though she had filled the water buckets. She hoped it would stay warm enough inside the barn that the buckets wouldn’t freeze overnight. Usually the horses gave off enough body heat that the enclosed barn hovered above freezing, but on the coldest of nights those buckets could freeze—meaning more work in the morning.

A squawk drew her eyes upward. Bitsy hopped from a rafter into her nest. Sister waved to the little owl, then left the barn, closing the door tightly behind her.

Twilight turned the sky royal blue, then the blue darkened. A thin line of gold traced the top of the blue mountains. The evening star glittered brilliantly. The clouds of the morning’s hunt disappeared. Tonight, bright and clear, would be particularly cold.

The kennel door creaked opened and shut, and Sister waved to Shaker and Betty. Tootie ran up to Sister and the two walked up to the house.

The dogs greeted everyone. Gray had made a pot of green tea for Sister and Tootie. He kissed them both, then sat down at the kitchen table with the Sunday
Richmond Times-Dispatch
.

“Still a good paper, even if it is one quarter the size it was in my youth.”

Sister decided to tell him about Tootie later. She sat down next to him as the young woman brought over the teapot, then the cups.

“Thank you.” Sister knew how Gray liked to read the paper undisturbed, but she had to interrupt just for a moment. “Where’d you find this tea?”

“Tea Forte Citrus Mint,” he answered with a smile. “Harris Teeter. They make a Lemon Ginger, too. That has a bite. This is more soothing. For me, anyway, and I am chilled to the bone. I bet you two are as well.”

“You were out in the cold longer than I was,” Sister said.

Golly sashayed into the room, her tail straight up, waving grandly.
“I’m here,”
the cat announced.

“We know,”
Raleigh barked in reply.

Golly jumped into Tootie’s lap.
“From here, I can see everything on the table,”
she bragged.

“I can smell everything on the table and there’s nothing to eat.”
Rooster hoped for a dog treat.

Sister gratefully sipped the delicious tea. “A hot shower after this tea and I’ll feel good as new. Tired but good.”

“You first.” Tootie smiled.

“Thanks. I sort of want to pull off my boots and I sort of don’t. My toes are so cold.” Sister then patted her deep yellow vest, removing the cigarette case she’d bought from Adolfo.

Gray glanced over from the business section of the paper. “Isn’t that heavy over your heart like that?”

“A little bit. I suppose I could put it in a lower pocket but I like it close to my heart. Silly.” She drank another deep draft of the hot tea. “I promise I’ll let you get back to the paper, Gray, but we didn’t get to talk much at the breakfast. You said the sheriff’s department couldn’t make an ID. Could you see the body at all?”

“I saw the man’s jacket. One of the officers called it a Pennsylvania tuxedo.”

Sister sat up straight. “A Woolrich jacket? Heavy, red with a black plaid over it?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t see too many of those anymore, but there was that new fellow, hadn’t lived here long, who sometimes hauled odds and ends with Art DuCharme, he wore a really old one. Can’t remember his name, but you know who I mean?”

Gray thought. “Short fellow, kind of heavy, not too bright. Art would use him to help move stuff once in a while.”

“Yes, I can’t remember his name, but I remember he had such red hair.”

Gray put down the paper. “He did, didn’t he?”

“Bright red.”

“There’s still some left,” Gray said, remembering the scene.

S
unday, February 5, was a playoff Sunday. That meant sports dominated all forms of media. Sister liked football well enough although she wasn’t obsessed by it. Baseball was her game.

Gray had driven back to the Lorillard place so he, Sam, and a few of their unmarried, divorced, and temporarily single friends could watch the game. A big flat-screen TV filled the wall in the Lorillard brothers’ living room. Due to his past, Sam lacked close friends except for Rory, a fellow he’d met on Charlottesville’s Skid Row. Rory had also cleaned up his act. Gray, on the other hand, enjoyed many friendships, quite a few of them men from the hunt club.

Sister and Tootie helped Shaker with the hound chores so he, too, could go.

The two women, having finished the horse and hound chores, happily returned to the house.

Once in the kitchen, teapot boiling per usual, Sister said, “Why don’t you get it over with?”

Tootie slumped at the table, which brought the two dogs over to comfort her. “I know. First, I’ll call Val.”

“Don’t be surprised if she tells you you’re crazy.”

Tootie smiled. “Oh, she will. Val and I have been roommates for four years. Well, four and a half counting Princeton. We’re so used to each other and now”—she looked at Sister—“I’ll have a new roommate.”

“She already has a roommate. Me.”
Golly announced from the window over the sink where she was drooling over the cardinals eating at the bird feeder.

Sister laughed. “Oh, Tootie, with Val you draw double the number of handsome young men. You aren’t going to get that with me.”

Tootie plucked her cell phone out of her jacket, which she’d draped on the back of the ladder-back chair. “You know, it gets tedious. I don’t care about that stuff. I really don’t. Val lives to be the center of attention.” Tootie hastily added, “I’m not criticizing. Just a fact, and it’s one of the things we had to learn about each other.”

“Go in the den and sit by the window. Better reception.”

“Thanks.”

“And Tootie, then call Mom and Dad. Get it over with. Steel yourself.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tootie rose, removed her coat from the chair, and walked down the hall to the den.

Rooster followed her while Raleigh stayed with his beloved Sister. The Doberman hated it when she wasn’t within eyesight. Occasionally he wangled his way to a hunt where he would patiently wait in the truck, windows cracked. Usually, he was left home, convinced something dreadful would happen to Sister. Being a dog and therefore sensible, he imagined wolves, frenzied buck, mountain
lions, or other dastardly humans. Trouble usually came in an official government letter in the mail or via a phone call. He couldn’t imagine that.

Tea steeping, fingers warming, the tall woman sank into a kitchen chair at last, Sunday paper before her. Reading the paper was a ritual she enjoyed as much as Gray. She could pull information off her DROID or from the computer, but it wasn’t the same as spreading out the paper, reading and listening to the rustle of the pages as she turned them.

The budget crisis soaked up ink, as did another sex scandal involving a married senator, one who had much publicized his virtue. Laughing, she flipped the page, suddenly finding an article of interest.

“Raleigh,” she told the dog, “the report on the body found at Gray and Sam’s say it is under investigation. Foul play may be involved, or it may be a hunting accident. A hunting accident? You shoot the deer, it falls on top of you? Come on.” She read further. “Cause of death is not yet determined. The remains will be sent to the medical examiner in Richmond.” She looked at the dog. “If anyone can find out what killed him, they can. Hmm, this is a curious report. Obviously, Ben and the department want to downplay violence. Oh, he’s been identified as Carter Weems. Couldn’t think of his name to save my life.” She lowered her voice, confiding in Raleigh, “He’s the only person I know who wore a Woolrich coat—the old kind, the heavy-duty, lasts-forever kind that people wore when I was a kid. It says Weems had been arrested in the past for hauling illegal guns and illegal whiskey in North Carolina. Also asks if he has any next of kin and will they come forward.” She took a long drink of hot tea. “Can’t stand it.”

She rose to call Betty.

“Betty, did you read the paper?”

“I was just going to call you. I vaguely remember him. Well, he must have been up to no good.”

“That or he crossed the wrong person. The little reference to him hauling moonshine, well, he knew what he was doing, but if someone wants to pin something on you that’s all too easy.”

“True.” Betty thought for a moment. “Who knows what’s being brought into the county or carried out of it? Albemarle is rich. Loaded with cocaine. Meth in the county, but for all those people with money to burn, cocaine is the drug of choice. And yes, we all know ’shine is driven out of our county, out of any county that has runoff from the Blue Ridge Mountains. That water is pure. Well, we think it’s pure.”

“I sure was glad that Sybil wasn’t mentioned. We don’t need the hunt club in the papers, even though finding the body is no reflection on any of us or any other foxhunter.”

“Why would that matter?”

“Crawford,” answered Sister. “He could find a way to use it against us.”

“Now, Janie, that’s a far stretch. Don’t let him get to you that way. He wouldn’t stir up the anti-hunters because he’s hunting. Finding a body shouldn’t arouse our other landowners.”

“You’re right.” She sighed deeply. “I’m jumpy. It’s a strange time.”

“Yes, it is. Oh, Bobby’s over at Gray’s watching the game. Actually, I’ll watch the playoffs by myself. He screams, jumps out of his chair, throws popcorn. Tell you what, girl, wears me out.”

Sister laughed. “It’s odd how men identify with teams, with other men who have athletic ability. It’s like they’re in love with them.”

“Bobby can still get misty-eyed over Bear Bryant,” said Betty, and they laughed.

“For Gray, it’s Roberto Clemente,” said Sister. “Here’s what
gets me, all this focus nowadays on head injuries in football. Of course, they’re responsible for the early dementia and suicide of some of those retired players. Don’t you think?”

“Hell, yes.”

“But would we watch football, would it generate as much cash, were it not violent? See, I think we are violent by nature. We repress it, but we are thrilled to watch it in others, most particularly in sports. And I’m part of it, too. Not saying I’m not.”

“Too deep for me.” Betty laughed. “We’ve had violence enough. The man you and Tootie found in New York and now Carter Weems.” Betty paused. “Have you read through all the paper yet?”

“No, called you as soon as I read the article about finding the body.”

“Go to the business section. One of the Philip Morris warehouses was burned Saturday. That’s never happened before.”

“No.” Sister thought. “No suspects for that? Well, I’ll read it.”

“No. Could be one of the antismoking groups. I mean a lot of these organizations are becoming really radical like PETA, things like that. Now, the antismoking crowd could be going that route.”

“I sure hope not.”