Рита Браун - Tall Tail

All gone. Well, not the stamps, but the wonderful feeling of being crowded into an old building hard by the railroad, where before her time the mail sack hung on a large hook, the arriving mail tossed onto the siding.

The Ivy post office was not nearly as charming or old as her old post office, but it had a nice young fellow as postmaster. Harry liked to stop in and catch up on the news among her old colleagues throughout the area.

“James!” she called, as he wasn’t up front.

“Be right there.”

And he was. “Harry, what’s new?”

“Good hay crop, sunflowers look good.”

“So far, a good year.”

“How are you doing?”

“Okay. I was so sorry to hear about Barbara Leader dying in that car accident. All of Ivy”—he mentioned the little crossroads—“everyone’s in shock.”

The Leaders owned a pretty house on the south side of Route 250 not far from the post office. They were regulars at the post office; at Duner’s, the restaurant; and at Ivy Family Chiropractic, where both Barbara and her husband got the kinks out.

“Me, too. She was a year behind me in high school. Isn’t it funny how you know more kids older than you or in your class than younger?”

“Because they boss you around. I was so glad when I became a senior. I thought I’d boss around people, but I was too busy.” He laughed at himself, then pulled out a sheet of drawings. “Look what stamps are planned for next year. I know how you like stamps.”

Harry examined the ones drawn from nature. “I liked the songbirds issued in 2014. The color was extraordinary and maybe people learned something about goldfinches, painted buntings. I like color.”

“Me, too. Did you ever pick a favorite?”

“Yes. Martin Johnson Heade’s painting from the American Treasures series.”

“Remind me.”

“Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth, circa 1890. My all-time favorite. Oops, here comes a customer. Good to see you. When you have a minute, look up the stamp on your computer.”

“Will do. Good to see you, too.” He greeted a lady wearing Bermuda shorts. “What can I do for you?”

As she pushed a small package onto the counter, Harry returned to the parking lot, turned on the motor, air-conditioning filling the interior immediately. She sat there for a minute, but before she backed out, Cooper, in a patrol car, pulled into a spot in front of the store next to the post office. This little place carried such healthy hanging baskets, small shrubs in pots, a wide variety for such a small place.

Harry left her Volvo running, no worries about theft, and sprinted through the rain over to Cooper.

“Coop.”

“Get out of the rain.”

“I can sit with you or you can sit with me. I have the kids.”

“I’ll sit with you for a minute, but I need a drink. Want one?”

“No, I’ve got my little cooler in the car as always. I can give you one of those carbonated grapefruit drinks.”

“I’ll take it.” Cooper got out of the squad car, locked it, followed Harry back to the station wagon.

“Coop!” All three animals greeted her.

She turned and smiled. She wanted a dog, but her hours were just terrible. Wouldn’t be fair to the dog. Harry handed her the grapefruit drink, Pompelmo, made by Sanpellegrino.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Oh, a complaint. Some new people who bought near Verulam woke up to see cattle in one of their fields. The wife wanted me to get them out of there before they destroyed her hydrangeas. I said, ‘Ma’am, your hydrangeas are up here at the house.’

“She then complained that I wasn’t taking her problem seriously.” Coop was still feeling the anger. “I handed her my card, pointed out the HQ number, and suggested she call if she was unsatisfied. She blinked, surprised, I think, then said was I going to get the cattle out of her pasture? I replied with the greatest pleasure that no, I was not. She needed to call Animal Control.”

“Good for you, Coop. You’re not a hired farm worker.” She paused, then shifted gears. “Been thinking about Barbara Leader. I know you’ve been checking out hospital records and doctors’ records concerning thallium chloride. I’m assuming since you haven’t told me anything you haven’t found anything unusual.”

“Not yet.”

“I keep coming back to what did she know?” Harry seemed to be deep in thought. “Something about a doctor, another nurse, a hospital administrator. Any of those people could steal drugs and use or sell them, and obviously they wouldn’t be using thallium chloride. It would be one of the opiates.”

Cooper looked at Harry. “Right.”

“Maybe Barbara knew something about another patient, like Governor Holloway, for instance.”

Cooper said, “We thought of that. So far nothing. Politicians of Governor Holloway’s time, their secrets almost always involved extramarital affairs or booze or both. We’ve investigated his past and that of a few of Barbara’s other patients who were high-profile doctors or businessmen. They all drank. It was a big part of the culture, but no one was a raging alcoholic. As for affairs, they indulged, but Governor Holloway did not, or if he did, not a hint of it.”

“It appears that once he married Penny he had no interest in other women,” said Harry. “Millicent would have sniffed that out. Susan’s mother can’t keep a secret.”

“It’s not usually a daughter who ferrets that secret out.” Cooper smiled. “The worst blunder that Governor Holloway appears to have made was his anti-integration stand. Aroused a lot of passion for and against at the time, and I bet there are still people who can get worked up about it. Maybe we’re too young, but I think it’s all water over the dam.”

“For which we can be grateful. I’m glad I didn’t live through it. I mean, we aren’t out of the woods. There’s lots to be done, but not like then. It’s hard to believe people believed that stuff.”

“Believed and screamed about it.” Cooper at that moment wanted a cigarette, which she had given up for the second time this year.

“Anyway, why would a nurse be killed over an old segregation issue?” Harry pondered, then brightened. “Maybe this is something we’ve never dreamed of.”

“I don’t know, Harry. How many ways can you frighten or outrage people so they will kill you?”

“Maybe more than I’d like to consider,” Harry somberly replied as the rain splattered the windshield.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Harry, animals in tow, turned left into a big development, Old Trail. The first row of commercial buildings matched the homes not in size but in style. Nice balconies jutted out on top of the two-story buildings. She parked in front of a mint-green clapboard-frame building. The rain intensified.

They sat.

“I can’t leave you until the rain slows a little,” Harry announced to her friends, not that they cared. They were happy to be on a ride with her.

Pewter settled down in the leather seat. “She could leave us. Just keep the air-conditioning on.”

“If she keeps the engine running, someone can steal the Volvo,” Tucker said.

“Who would steal a car or wagon? When is the last time a car was stolen in our county?” Pewter huffed for a moment.

“True, but if someone did steal this, we’d be in the wagon,” Mrs. Murphy explained.

“There is that,” the gray cat agreed. “But tell me this, all these new cars have every screen, knob, push-button whatever. So why can’t they build a car that you can turn off the motor, leave, but keep the air-conditioning running?”