Рита Браун - Scarlet Fever

“Pretty good.”

“Could I get you something to drink? I’m Kathleen Dunbar, by the way.”

“Jean Roberts. Here for a day with Jefferson Hunt. I hunted with Harry and thought I’d see the store. Looks wonderful.”

“Thank you. These are all his acquisitions. In time I hope to add things I find. There’s a hand-tinted old hunt print on the wall.” Kathleen walked over. “1850s. Don’t you like to look at the clothing?”

“I do.” Jean walked through the store, picked up an ashtray from the 1930s with a sculpted fox on the outside. It was a deep ashtray, the kind that used to be in expensive hotels.

“How do you like it here?” Jean asked.

“So far so good.” Kathleen smiled. “Did you hunt often with Harry?”

“Until I retired six years ago, I did. I occasionally fill in at Horse Country and a few of the other girls there hunt. We all would go out together and Harry,” she smiled, “would take each of us to a different hunt ball annually. He could have started an escort service.”

“He could talk to anybody.” Kathleen wrapped the ashtray.

“None of us knew he had a wife until he passed,” Jean confessed. “Do come up sometime to Warrenton. You’ll like Horse Country and I see you have a Welsh terrier. Two Scotties run Horse Country. They are our best marketers.”

“Hear that, Abdul? You’ve got a lot to learn.”

When Jean left, Kathleen sat down at the desk in the back. She knew Jean had come in to look at her, but then many people did. She’d turned into a bit of an attraction.

CHAPTER 28

March 27, 2019 Wednesday

“Jean, you walk Bunsen, I’ll walk Aga. Let’s have a walking lunch.” Marion carried two leather leashes in her hand, waited by the front door.

“Where’s your scarf? The sun may be shining but it’s not that warm.” Jean grabbed her own cashmere scarf, soft. “I’ll get yours from the back.”

Marion slipped on her coat as the two Scotties looked up, ready to go.

“Why does it take them so long?” Aga grumbled.

“No fur,” Bunsen, beard perfect, replied.

“Here.” Jean handed Marion her own scarf, which she had bought in Scotland years ago.

Marion, while not a Scot, displayed an affinity for Scottish terriers and vice versa, plus her keen eye for fabrics prized those tight Scottish weaves. She handed Bunsen’s leash to Jean as she knelt down to clip their leather collars onto them. Nothing plastic for these two.

The two women stepped outside. Sunshine made old town Warrenton bright again. Winter had dragged on, gray skies plus all that snow and rain. The day seemed a tonic, although the mercury had only nudged into the low fifties and the slight breeze made both women glad they wore their scarves and gloves.

“Let’s walk up to the Courthouse,” Marion suggested.

Alexandria Pike, the road on which Horse Country sat, ended at the Courthouse door. The building, a soft yellow, originally constructed in 1764, glowed. The polished walnut doors appeared bright in the early-afternoon sun, although perhaps not welcoming. One did not usually go into any courthouse in a good frame of mind.

The two humans and two dogs turned left, nodding to people they knew, as a few were out shopping. Mostly people blinked, for it was a long time since the sun had shone this brightly, or so it seemed.

“I miss the old work-clothing store. They carried Red Wing shoes. Lasted a long time, those old work boots.” Jean looked into the large plate-glass window now offering fancy stuff.

“When you consider how many new people, people with money, have moved here it’s surprising so many of the old stores are left. At least the buildings are undisturbed, even if the goods have changed.”

“More restaurants.” Jean looked across the street.

“True. People who don’t know the area can walk to decent places. I’m hooked on that wonderful place down at the old train station. I think of it as the Station Restaurant.”

Jean smiled. “Do you have a destination in mind?”

“I do. First Baptist Church.”

“Oh. Well, okay.”

The church, clean lines, red brick, built in 1867, added to the allure of Main Street.

If someone time-traveled from the nineteenth century, they would know where they were. They might be surprised at the contents of the stores, but Warrenton remained Warrenton. The difference now was that with such improved highways people could commute to Washington, D.C. The nation’s capitol was forty-eight miles away. It wasn’t the distance that got you, it was the traffic, the subdivisions, the two airports.

“Over there.” Jean stopped, pointing across the street to where the old insurance agency once stood. “That’s where Fred Duncan, hunting Warrenton’s hounds, wound up, his whole pack inside. I would have given anything to see it. Pack ran right down Main Street in the middle seventies. Made the papers, made the TV news. They’d switched to a deer, who ran down Main Street and turned into the store. As did the pack.”

“I think Fred told me that story.” Marion remembered with affection the late Fred Duncan and his irrepressible wife, Doris, both missed.

“Well, the deer actually crashed through the front window but lived. Made it to wherever home was. And Fred, mortified, snapped back when Melvin Poe,” Jean mentioned another famous huntsman now also gone, “told everyone that Fred and the Warrenton Hounds got foxhunters more good publicity than they would have gotten otherwise.”

“Ah.” Marion turned onto the walkway to the church, opening the front door.

“Can Bunsen and Aga go inside?” Jean wondered.

“They’re Christian dogs. Being Scots, they’re Presbyterian.” Marion smiled. “We can sit in the back. They’ll be quiet.” She opened the door.

Jean glanced around. “No one is here. Is it always this empty?”

“That’s one of the things I like about Catholic churches. There’s usually someone in the pews, or lighting candles. The Protestant churches, not so much.”

“You were raised Episcopalian, right? Why do I remember that?”

Marion smiled. “Because my last name is Italian, people think I was raised Catholic. But I find comfort sitting in a church, any church.”

Jean slid into a pew, Bunsen also, and being a good fellow he lay down. Aga showed more curiosity about the altar but Marion convinced him to also walk into the pew and rest.

The four remained silent, then Marion spoke. “How long have we known each other?”

“Decades.” Jean felt the years fly by.

“Do you think we know each other well?”

“Given that we’ve traveled overseas together, worked in the store for years, I’d say we know each other as well or even better than our own families.” Jean smiled.

“You are one of my best friends. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

This startled Jean. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Your health is good?”

“Of course it is. Maybe I should ask if you’re okay.”

Marion nodded that she was. “Harry’s death has affected you. You cover it well but you can’t hide your feelings from me. You two were old hunting buddies.”

“We were.” Jean wondered where this was heading. She looked down at Bunsen then up at the altar. A long, long silence enveloped the two dear friends.

“Jean.”

“He left the store with me. He knew I had an Ashland Basset meeting so he left a bit before I did.”

“Go on.”

“We agreed to meet back in the lower parking lot in two hours. He said he’d take me to dinner after my meeting. It was dark, pitch black and cold. One of those nights.”

“And?” Marion waited.

“I parked next to his car, got into his passenger side. He had his coat off and his sleeve rolled up. He handed me a needle, one of those tiny butterfly needles. He asked me to shoot it into his vein.”