Rest In Pieces (7 page)

“Yes, do you know her?” Mrs. H. spoke as though the animal were a parishioner.

“Cleaned her teeth last year.”

“Has she gotten in the wine?” Harry laughed.

Mrs. Hogendobber struggled not to join in the mirth—after all, the bread and wine were the body and blood of our Lord Jesus—but there was something funny about a cat taking communion.

“Harry, want to have lunch with me?” Fair asked.

“When?” She absentmindedly picked up a ballpoint pen, which had been lying on the counter, and stuck it behind her ear.

“Now. It’s noon.”

“I barely noticed, it’s so dark outside.”

“Go on, Harry, I’ll hold down the fort,” Mrs. Hogendobber offered. Divorce troubled her and the Haristeen divorce especially, since both parties were decent people. She didn’t understand growing apart because she and George had stayed close throughout their long marriage. Of course it helped that if she said, “Jump,” George replied, “How high?”

“Want to bring the kids?” Fair nodded toward the animals.

“Do, Harry. Don’t you leave me with that hoyden of a cat. She gets in the mail bins and when I walk by she jumps out at me and grabs my skirt. Then the dog barks. Harry, you’ve got to discipline those two.”

“Oh, balls.”
Tucker sneezed.

“Why do people say ‘balls’? Why don’t they say ‘ovaries’?”
Mrs. Murphy asked out loud.

No one had an answer, so she allowed herself to be picked up and whisked to the deli.

The conversation between Fair and Harry proved desultory at best. Questions about his veterinary practice were dutifully answered. Harry spoke of the storm. They laughed about Fitz-Gilbert’s blond hair and then truly laughed about Mim’s pontoon boat taking a lick. Mim and that damned boat had caused more uproar over the years—from crashing into the neighbors’ docks to nearly drowning Mim and the occupants. To be invited onto her “little yacht,” as she mincingly called it, was surely a siren call to disaster. Yet to refuse meant banishment from the upper echelon of Crozet society.

As the laughter subsided, Fair, wearing his most earnest face, said, “I wish you and BoomBoom could be friends again. You all were friends once.”

“I don’t know as I’d say we were friends.” Harry warily put down her plastic fork. “We socialized together when Kelly was alive. We got along, I guess.”

“She understands why you wouldn’t want to be friends with her but it hurts her. She talks tough but she’s very sensitive.” He picked up the Styrofoam cup and swallowed some hot coffee.

Harry wanted to reply that she was very sensitive about herself and not others, and besides, what about
her
feelings? Maybe he should talk to BoomBoom about
her
sensitivities. She realized that Fair was snagged, hook, line, and sinker. BoomBoom was reeling him into her emotional demands, which, like her material demands, were endless. Maybe men needed women like BoomBoom to feel important. Until they dropped from exhaustion.

As Harry kept quiet, Fair haltingly continued: “I wish things had worked out differently and yet maybe I don’t. It was time for us.”

“Guess so.” Harry twiddled with her ballpoint pen.

“I don’t hold grudges. I hope you don’t.” His blond eyebrows shielded his blue eyes.

Harry’d been looking into those eyes since kindergarten. “Easier said than done. Whenever women want to discuss emotions men become more rational, or at least you do. I can’t just wipe out our marriage and say let’s be friends, and I’m not without ego. I wish we had parted differently, but done is done. I’d rather think good of you than ill.”

“Well, what about BoomBoom then?”

“Where is she?” Harry deflected the question for a moment.

“Bridge washed out.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Once the water goes down she’ll find a place to ford.”

“Least the phone lines are good. I spoke to her this morning. She has a terrible migraine. You know how low pressure affects her.”

“To say nothing of garlic.”

“Right.” Fair remembered when BoomBoom was rushed to the hospital once after ingesting the forbidden garlic.

“And then we can’t forget the rheumatism in her spine on these cold, dank days. Or her tendency to heat prostration, especially when any form of work befalls her.” Harry smiled broadly, the smile of victory.

“Don’t make fun of her. You know what a tough family life she had. I mean with that alcoholic father and her mother just having affair after affair.”

“Well, she comes by it honestly then.” Harry reached over with her ballpoint pen, jabbed a hole in the Styrofoam cup, and turned it around so the liquid dribbled onto Fair’s cords. She got up and walked out, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker hastily following.

Fair, fuming, sat there and wiped the coffee off his pants with his left hand while trying to stem the flow from the cup with his right.

9

The creek swirled around the larger rocks, small whirlpools forming, then dispersing. Tucker paced the bank, slick with mud deposits. The waters had subsided and were back within their boundaries but remained high with a fast current. A mist hung over the meadows and the trees, now bare, since the pounding rains had knocked off most of the brilliant fall foliage.

High in the hayloft Mrs. Murphy watched her friend through a crack in the boards. When she lost sight of Tucker she gave up her conversation with Simon to hurry backward down the ladder. Cursing under her breath, she surrendered hope of keeping dry and ran across the fields. Water splashed up on her creamy beige belly, exacerbating her bad mood. Tucker could do the dumbest things. By the time Mrs. Murphy reached the creek the corgi was right in the middle of it, teetering on the tip of a huge rock.

“Get back here,”
Mrs. Murphy demanded.

“No,”
Tucker refused.
“Sniff.”

Mrs. Murphy held her nose up in the air.
“I smell mud, sap, and stale water.”

“It’s the faintest whiff. Sweet and then it disappears. I’ve got to find it.”

“What do you mean, sweet?”
Mrs. Murphy swished her tail.

“Damn, I lost it.”

“Tucker, you’ve got short little legs—swimming in this current isn’t a smart idea.”

“I’ve got to find that odor.”
With that she pushed off the rock, hit the water, and pulled with all her might. The muddy water swept over her head. She popped up again, swimming on an angle toward the far shore.

Mrs. Murphy screeched and screamed but Tucker paid no heed. By the time the corgi reached the bank she was so tired she had to rest for a moment. But the scent was slightly stronger now. Standing up on wobbly legs, she shook herself and laboriously climbed the mudslide that was the creek bank.

“Are you all right?”
the cat called.

“Yes.”

“I’m staying right here until you come back.”

“All right.”
Tucker scrambled over the bank and sniffed again. She got her bearings and trotted across Blair Bainbridge’s land. The scent increased in power with each step. Tucker pulled up at the little cemetery.

The high winds had knocked over the tombstones Blair had righted, and the bad side of the wrought-iron fence had crashed down again. Carefully, the dog picked her way through the debris in the cemetery. The scent was now crystal clear and enticing, very enticing.

Nose to the ground, she walked over to the tombstone with the carved angel playing the harp. The fingers of a human hand pointed at the sky in front of the stone. The violence of the wind and rain had sheared off the loose topsoil; a section was rolled back like a tiny carpet. Tucker sniffed that too. When she and Mrs. Murphy passed the graveyard last week there was no enticing scent, no apparent change in the topsoil. The odor of decay, exhilarating to a dog, overcame her curiosity about the turf. She dug at the hand. Soon the whole hand was visible. She bit into the fleshy, swollen palm and tugged. The hand easily pulled out of the ground. Then she noticed that it had been severed at the wrist, a clean job of it, too, and the finger pads were missing.

Ecstatic with her booty, forgetting how tired she was, Tucker flew across the bog to the creek. She stopped because she was afraid to plunge into the creek. She didn’t want to lose her pungent prize.

Mrs. Murphy, transfixed by the sight, was speechless.

Tucker delicately laid down the hand.
“I knew it! I knew I smelled something deliciously dead.”

“Tucker, don’t chew on that.”
Mrs. Murphy was disgusted.

“Why not? I found it. I did the work. It’s mine!”
She barked, high-pitched because she was excited and upset.

“I don’t want the hand, Tucker, but it’s a bad omen.”

“No, it’s not. Remember the time Harry read to us about a dog bringing a hand to Vespasian when he was a general and the seers interpreting this to mean that he would be Emperor of Rome and he was? It’s a good sign.”

Mrs. Murphy dimly remembered Harry’s reading aloud from one of her many history books but that was hardly her main concern.
“Listen to me. Humans put their dead in boxes. You know that if you found a hand it means the body wasn’t packaged.”

“So what? It’s my hand!”
Tucker hollered at the top of her lungs, although with a moment to reflect she knew that Mrs. Murphy was right. Humans didn’t cut up their dead.

“Tucker, if you destroy that hand then you’ve destroyed evidence. You’re going to be in a shitload of trouble and you’ll get Mother in trouble.”

Dejected, Tucker squatted down next to the treasured hand, a gruesome sight.
“But it’s mine.”

“I’m sorry. But something’s wrong, don’t you see?”

“No.”
Her voice was fainter now.

“A dead human not in a box means either he or she was ill and died far away from others or that he or she was murdered. The other humans have to know this. You know how they are, Tucker. Some of them kill for pleasure. It’s dangerous for the others.”

Tucker sat up.
“Why are they like that?”

“I don’t know and they don’t know. It’s some sickness in the species. You know, like dogs pass parvo. Please, Tucker, don’t mess up that evidence. Let me go get Mother if I can. Promise me you’ll wait.”

“It might take her hours to figure out what you’re telling her.”

“I know. You’ve got to wait.”

One miserable dog cocked her head and sighed.
“All right, Murphy.”

Mrs. Murphy skimmed across the pastures, her feet barely grazing the sodden earth. She found Harry in the bed of the truck. Nimbly Mrs. Murphy launched herself onto the truck bed. She meowed. She rubbed against Harry’s leg. She meowed louder.

“Hey, little pussycat, I’ve got work to do.”

The twilight was fading. Mrs. Murphy was getting desperate.
“Follow me, Mom. Come on. Right now.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Harry was puzzled.

Mrs. Murphy hooted and hollered as much as she could. Finally she sprang up and dug her claws into Harry’s jeans, climbing up her leg. Harry yelped and Mrs. Murphy jumped off her leg and ran a few paces. Harry rubbed her leg. Mrs. Murphy ran back and prepared to climb the other leg.

“Don’t you dare!” Harry held out her hand.

“Then follow me, stupid.”
Mrs. Murphy moved away from her again.

Finally, Harry did. She didn’t know what was going on but she’d lived with Mrs. Murphy for seven years, long enough and close enough to learn a little bit of cat ways.

The cat hurried across the meadow. When Harry slowed down, Mrs. Murphy would run back and then zip away again, encouraging her constantly. Harry picked up speed.

When Tucker saw them coming she started barking.

Breathing hard, Harry stopped at the bank. “Oh, damn, Tucker, how’d you get over there.”

“Look!”
the cat shouted.

“Mommy, I found it and it’s mine. If I have to give this up I want a knuckle bone,”
Tucker bargained. She picked up the hand in her mouth.

It took Harry a minute to focus in the fading light. At first, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Then she did.

“Oh, my God.”

10

Albemarle County Sheriff Rick Shaw bent down with his flashlight. Officer Cynthia Cooper, already hunkered down, gingerly lifted the digits with her pocket knife.

“Never seen anything like this,” Shaw muttered. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

The sheriff battled his smoking addiction with disappointing results. Worse, Cooper had begun to sneak cigarettes herself.

Tucker sat staring at the hand. Blair Bainbridge, feeling a little queasy, and Harry stood beside Tucker. Mrs. Murphy rested across Harry’s neck. Her feet were cold and she was tired, so Harry had slung her around her neck like a stole.

“Harry, any idea where this came from?”

“I know,”
Tucker volunteered.

“Like I said, the dog was sitting on the creek bank with this hand. I ran back home and called, then hopped in the truck to meet you. I don’t know any more than that.”

“What about you, uh . . .”

“Blair Bainbridge.”

“Mr. Bainbridge, notice anything unusual? Before this, I mean?”

“No.”

Rick grunted when he stood up. Cynthia Cooper wrapped the hand in a plastic bag.

“If you follow me, I can show you!”
Tucker yapped and ran toward the cemetery.

“She’s got a lot to say.” Cynthia smiled. She loved the little dog and the cat.

Shaw inhaled, then exhaled a long blue line of smoke, which didn’t curl upward. Most likely meant more rain.

Tucker sat by the graveyard and howled.

“I, for one, am going to see what she’s about.” Harry followed her dog.

“Me too.” Cynthia followed, carrying the hand in its bag.

Rick grumbled but his curiosity was up. Blair stayed with him. When the humans reached the iron fence Tucker barked again and walked over to the angel with the harp tombstone. Cooper flung her flashlight beam over toward Tucker.