The Litter of the Law (16 page)

“If I drink this, I will pass out,” Coop protested.

“First your legs will lock up. But I’ll carry you home,” he promised.

He was irresistible, so Coop took a too-big swig. Harry wisely sipped hers.

Coop gasped. “My throat is on fire.”

Buddy laughed. “Well, go on and talk to people. That will cool you down. Neil, come on, your turn.”

Neil Jordan accepted a silver cup, drank a bit. His eyes watered. Reverend Jones squeezed in next to him and laughed.

“Did Hester really drink this stuff?” Neil sputtered. “My God, what a tough broad.”

“You’re just now figuring that out?” Reverend Jones slapped him on the back.

Neil didn’t spill a drop. He reached into his pockets, pulled out tickets to the Halloween Hayride, and began moving through the crowd—with difficulty, but he was selling those tickets.

“Reverend, did you have a clue that Hester had such impeccable taste in home furnishings?” Harry asked as he was now pushed next to her.

“Well, I’d been here once or twice. Knew her people, of course, as did you. All of them quiet living. Well, you knew her mother and father and her older brother.”

“I was pretty little and they seemed so old. I don’t remember her brother except that he was tall,” Harry responded.

The party grew louder as the punch took effect. Faces red, people in the crowd talked over one another as they each recalled their favorite Hester stories. Some burst into tears, but that’s the way of a Virginia celebration. Emotions rise right up to the surface.

“She was not lonely,” said the reverend. “People thought she was, because in this part of the world you march in twos. Crozet is a Noah’s ark.” The preacher took a sip, peered over the silver rim. “And, Coop, you’ll be walking side by side with someone before you know it.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“A good-looking woman like you? Just you wait.” He beamed at her, then returned to the subject of Hester. “She threw herself into good works. I believe she was a fulfilled person, a good person. Granted, sometimes the notions about black gum trees or the fact that food modification would make us all idiots took me aback, but we all have our pet peeves.”

As the conversation continued, Wesley Speer moved toward Buddy. A funeral gathering is as good a place as any to patch up hard feelings.

Buddy held out a full cup. “Wesley.”

“Buddy, I’ve been pushing you a little hard about those one hundred acres. I’m overanxious.”

Buddy took a deep breath. “Wesley, in these times I think we are all overanxious. Let’s just set it aside for now and we can talk maybe after Thanksgiving. I can’t sell rich soil without replacing it, you see?”

“I do, Buddy, I really do.”

The two men clinked cups and Buddy then nodded to the next person pressing at the punch bowl.

“I can hardly breathe,” Cooper whispered.

“What?” Harry inclined her ear toward her.

A bit louder, Coop repeated herself.

“It’s the punch,” said Harry. “It’ll stay with you for a while. Don’t drink any more,” she advised.

“I’m sorry I drank what I did. This can’t be legal.” Cooper ruefully smiled.

“Well, dear Deputy, if you run a roadside stand and you’ve lived here all your life and your people have lived here since way back, your friends know where to find the best country waters to see you off with.”

Cooper laughed as she saw her boss, Rick Shaw, the sheriff, come into the room. “He knows about the hooch, of course.”

“Always did.” Harry laughed. “It’s a wise law enforcement officer who knows when to turn a blind eye.”

“Ain’t that the truth? Let’s see if we can work our way over to the library. Doesn’t look like so many people there.”

The two edged their way through the crowd toward the
mahogany-shelved library, chatting as they did so, which meant the short walk into the next room took a half hour.

Just before reaching the library, Harry bumped into Cindy Walters, whom she introduced to Cooper.

“This is so terrible.” Cindy spoke above the crowd noise. “I no sooner reached home than I turned around to come back. She would have done the same for me.”

“Yes,” Harry simply agreed.

Cindy looked at Cooper. “I don’t know if this will help you but Hester told me she was stepping on toes. Her refusal to sell sprayed crops, her opposition to development. She mentioned this in passing.”

“Any names?” Cooper was accustomed to people providing information.

“No.”

“Did she seemed frightened?”

“Officer, I don’t really know. Hester hid a lot.”

“Thank you, Miss Walters.”

“Where’s Heidi?” Harry asked.

“Upstairs. Couldn’t live without her.” The short, trim lady smiled.

Once inside the library, they looked at the books, many old, bound in Moroccan leather of deep colors.

Harry found a shelf dealing with agriculture. “She’s got books dating back to World War One; she’s got books released year by year from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”

Coop bent down to read spines on the lower shelves. “Some of these are in French. Hey, here’s one on Percherons and it looks very, very old.”

Harry knelt down. “Percherons are French draft horses. I had no idea. I mean, I knew that Hester had a college degree, but look at all these books.”

“Here’re two rows on Indian affairs.” Cooper squinted to see better.

Harry joined her and looked closely at the titles. “She must have everything Virginia and the U.S. government ever released on the subject.”

“She’s got newer stuff, too,” said Coop. “Custer and Little Big Horn.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
.” The law officer read a few more titles out loud, then moved to the next shelf at her eye level. She stopped cold. “Harry.”

“Yeah?” Harry was utterly absorbed in her examination of the old volumes.

“Come here.”

Harry did as she was asked and beheld a photograph of Hester in an old silver frame. She had a fly rod in her hand, and her surroundings looked to be Bath or Highland County, Virginia counties adjacent to the state of West Virginia. Standing next to her in a stream was a man considerably younger, fishing rod also in hand. He held up a lovely trout.

Harry leaned closer.

“It’s Josh Hill,” Cooper said, her voice low.

Harry swallowed. “I never saw his face, I mean intact.”

Cooper had seen plenty of photographs of the accountant during her ongoing research. “It’s him all right, which makes me wonder: Were these two fishing for trouble together?”

S
unlight flooded Hester’s kitchen, which faced east. The morning after the reception, Cooper and Rick Shaw sat at the kitchen’s small square wooden table with Sarah Price. After apologizing for troubling her at such a time, the two law enforcement officers began their questioning of Hester Martin’s niece.

“Did you ever meet the young man in the photograph?” Rick Shaw asked Sarah. The silver-framed photo of Hester and Josh Hill sat on the table in front of them.

“Not that I remember,” the pleasant woman replied. “I don’t know who he is.”

“She never mentioned Josh Hill?” asked Rick.

Sarah looked again at the photo. “No.”

“Did she talk about fishing?” Cooper asked.

“Some. Aunt Hester and I would speak over the phone about once a week. She wouldn’t text me or email. She said she wanted to hear my voice, then she’d know if I was okay.”

“Did she talk about her other interests?” Rick folded his hands then unfolded them.

“Aunt Hester loved to lecture! That is, once she had inquired about my health, boyfriend status—I’m divorced—and my career advancement or lack thereof.” Sarah smiled. “After all that, I
would be treated to discussions about the global food crisis, why agribusiness couldn’t meet the demand, and why she refused to sell foods treated with pesticides. She admitted organic farming was less efficient. A lot of goods are lost to bugs and stuff. You didn’t so much talk with my late aunt as you listened.”

Both Rick and Cooper smiled before Cooper spoke up. “Did your aunt ever talk about what she was reading? That’s a gorgeous library. All those books from the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. She must have loved reading or at least collecting.”

“Much of that library she inherited, but she was an avid reader. Often she read in French, especially plays and novels. We would laugh about something she quoted from Molière. But mostly, with me, anyway, she would talk about something she’d read in English about farming or about human impact on wildlife.”

“It’s funny, Miss Price,” said Cooper. “I have stopped at your aunt’s roadside stand for years and I never knew she could read in French, never knew she owned such beautiful things.” She looked around the kitchen, her eyes resting on the old wooden cupboards.

“That doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know as I would classify Aunt Hester as secretive so much as, uh, compartmentalized.” She leaned to her left, toward Rick. “Her friends and interests fell into categories, which didn’t overlap.”

“Did she talk about them with you?” Rick inquired.

“Not much. Most of what I knew came from my dad, who died about six years ago from lung cancer. He was older than Hester by two years. They got along but weren’t close. Too different.”

“How?” Cooper often found that an offhand comment, a recollection, pointed in the right direction.

“Oh, Dad was sophisticated, driven. And social. Houston is a great city in which to be social. He married very well. Both my
parents loved fine things, evening-gown parties. You know the type. Aunt Hester thought he was superficial.”

“Was he?” Rick’s eyebrows lifted.

A silence followed this. “By Virginia standards, he was. He talked about money too openly. His suits were too flashy and he wore a big gold Rolex, which Aunt Hester called a Texas timepiece. But Daddy had a heart of gold, so if he wanted to wear a little gold, okay. He made sure I got the best education possible. He went to Houston to make money and he did. Sure, he indulged Mother and he indulged me, but he also made sure I knew right from wrong, and he could be tough. Can you tell? I loved my dad.”

“He sounds like a good fellow.” Rick nodded. “And Virginians can be snobs. Aunt Hester might have filled those shoes.”

“Oh, she didn’t mean anything by it. Dad took it with a grain of salt. He called her the Old Maid and declared if she’d find a good man she’d be much less judgmental. I remember Aunt H, as I would call her, used to say to my mother, ‘He’s my brother, I love him, but how can you live with him?’ Mom would laugh.”

“What did you think?” Cooper shrewdly asked.

“I guess in some ways I agreed with Dad, but you never got the full picture with Aunt H. Her interests were passionate but compartmentalized, as I said. Like the fishing, for instance. She rarely talked to me about it but she would talk about it for hours to Mom, who liked to fish, too. Once they went together to the Snake River in Wyoming. Dad paid for everything. Aunt Hester was appalled that Mother put on makeup to fish.” Sarah laughed, a tinkling, engaging laugh.

“Maybe the fish liked it.” Rick laughed with her.

“They must have, because Mom caught more than Aunt H, and that didn’t sit well.”

“Do you know if she traveled to other places?” Cooper kept on.

“I do know, again through Mom, that Aunt Hester usually fished in Bath or Highland County in Virginia. They both swore it was the best fishing on the East Coast.”

“I’ve heard that,” Cooper said. “Do you fish?”

“No. I’m a golfer. Love being out there surrounded by such green vistas, sometimes all by myself. Other times in a foursome. Houston has some wonderful courses. Of course, Charlottesville, for such a small place, does, too.”

“Farmington?” Rick raised his voice as a question.

“Those long fairways. Keswick Club is a challenge. Glenmore. A short drive to the Country Club of Virginia. And in four hours I can drive down to Pinehurst, North Carolina, to one of the most fabled golf courses in the country.”

“Did Hester golf?” Cooper pressed on.

“No. Her interests were, as you know, varied: fishing, farming, the library, old buildings. She loved the Library of Virginia in Richmond. Loved Monument Avenue. She had a quiet, longstanding interest in the Virginia tribes.”

Cooper sat up straighter. “Why do you think she was interested in Virginia Indians?”

“Our maternal line is Sessoms, a Cherokee name,” Sarah explained. “But they adapted so well to the early colonists—I mean early as in eighteenth century—that the Sessoms farmed, wore English clothing, spoke English, and intermarried with Europeans. Over time they became so much like the English that they didn’t have the trouble the other tribes did, including the Cherokees in the more southern states. Those people went through hell. Sessoms is a common last name in the tribe, just like Adams is a common last name for the Upper Mattaponi.”

“Did you know that Josh Hill was an Upper Mattaponi?” Cooper
felt that little buzz when she knew she was finding her way on a case.

Where it was going, she didn’t know.

Sarah shook her head. “I knew nothing about this fellow, but he appears to have been a fishing buddy, and if he was a member of a Virginia tribe, Aunt H would have been fascinated.”