Рита Браун - Homeward Hound

“Hounds first, madam.” Weevil smiled a little.

“Thank God for them.” Sister called out to Tootie on her way to the wash stall. “Don’t bother to clean the tack. We can do that tomorrow. Let’s tidy ourselves up, go to the breakfast, and well, maybe we’d better plan on what to say and what to do.”

“What did the sheriff think?” Weevil asked.

“He didn’t say, but he also didn’t say for us not to report what we saw. The best thing would be for me to make a brief announcement, tell everyone that Ben, the forensics team, and his individual crew are there. Tell them there’s nothing they can do and ask who actually saw the hanging tree. Best to put it that way and inform them that Ben will be taking statements today or tomorrow. At any rate, the important thing is to blunt panic. Kasmir and Alida will be a great help with that. Sam and Gray, as well. They are all sensible people, as are you.”

“Do you think we’re in danger?” Tootie asked.

“I wish I could answer that. I don’t know.”

“Maybe not danger, but we’d better be alert. Two hands were found in the hunt territory and now this.” Weevil placed the saddle on a rack, unfastened the nice thick saddle pad. “Tootie, you shouldn’t be alone. No one knows anything. So either you come stay with me at After All or I come stay with you.”

“There are people around. Shaker’s in his place and Sister and Gray are in the big house. I’m okay.”

“He’s right, Tootie. We don’t know what we’re up against. Tell you what. If you all don’t wish to be in either one’s house, then you can stay in mine. It’s big enough. If you don’t get along I can stick each of you at opposite ends.” She smiled.

“Well.” Tootie halted, thought. “Weevil, come here. We have to work hounds and horses anyway. It’s more efficient. Sister’s given us a way out if we fight.”

“Is it true, you don’t cook?” His blond eyebrows shot up while Sister observed all this, grateful to have her mind off the hanging tree.

“Kind of.”

“Then I’ll make bangers and mash.” He smiled.

“What’s that?”

“You’ll have to find out.”

“I love bangers and mash.” Sister did, too.

“Then I’ll make some for you, too.” He picked up the saddle, opened the tack room door, and placed it on a saddle rack as Tootie hung the bridle from the big wrought-iron bridle hook that looked like a grappling iron.

Sister, in the aisle, prayed something good would come from all this. Perhaps Tootie would learn to open her heart, to love. She thought of all the rules, rules about age, race, class, the debris of conformity, that people spout about love or even careers. Love knows no age, no color, no anything, really. It just is.

As they walked up to the house, lights shining over the winter landscape, she remembered falling in love with Big Ray. One supposed friend told her Ray was beneath the salt. Granted, he was from a lower class, but she didn’t give a rat’s ass. And the delicious part was Ray studied, worked hard, became an investment broker, and made a lot of money. Trixie Biglow, the so-called friend, married very well and he turned out to be a worthless drunk.

Smiling to herself, she also steeled herself for the little speech she must give. She glanced again at these two impossibly beautiful young people, realizing she loved them. She was worried and grateful that Weevil was forceful about protecting Tootie although he did this in a gentlemanly way.

Thank God for real men, she thought, and then she also thought, Love just happens. No rules. And then it occurred to her that that could also apply to murder.

CHAPTER 33

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Sister wrote down what Gray had just said, then she came back with, “Sticky fingers.”

“I thought you wanted hand phrases.”

Pencil poised over the grid-lined paper, she replied, “I do, but fingers, palms, anything or any part of the hand.”

Golly, lying on her side on the kitchen counter, said, “Paws for effect.”

Rooster, at Sister’s feet, corrected her. “Human stuff, not paws.”

“Just a thought. You and Rooster roam all over. You go up to Hangman’s Ridge sometimes.” The cat reminded them of their travels.

“Not often and usually with Sister if she’s riding up there. I hate it.” Raleigh grimaced.

“I do, too. It’s creepy. You can hear the dead whisper. Athena and Bitsy” —he named the two owls, one huge and the other tiny— “say they can see the dead.”

“Bitsy is given to idle gossip and drama.” The long-haired cat now sat up. “But you can hear the dead and sometimes you can catch a fleeting glimpse, movement.”

Thoughtfully, Raleigh added to that. “I think some humans can see and hear, too. They say they’ve seen a ghost and the others pooh-pooh them but for some the ability hasn’t vanished.”

“If you’d run up there, you would have found him,” Golly posited. “With your great noses, the hounds’ noses, I’d think someone would have known.”

“But that’s just it, Golly. Hounds didn’t know he was up there until they came onto the ridge. They told me as they got closer they could smell the wool in his coat but not him. He was preserved,” Rooster related.

“Why would someone hang up a dead human, preserve him? Wouldn’t it make better sense to just dump the body in one of those deep ravines in the mountains or throw the body on I-64 in the middle of the night? That would create a fuss. This seems like a lot of work to me.”

“He was mutilated. Hands cut off,” Raleigh said.

“I remember when hounds found one in the woods and then Sister told Gray about his aunt and Yvonne finding one. Is that why they’re thinking of hand stuff? Seems funny. I mean phrases.”

“Is,” Rooster affirmed.

“Sister thinks there’s symbolism,” Raleigh told her.

“Hand to mouth.” Gray thought of another one.

“Red-handed.”

“That’s a good one.” He watched her write in her elegant style. “How about a winning hand?”

“See, once you start, things pop into your head.” She then said, “All hands on deck.”

“An iron fist.”

“Oh, that’s another good one. Um-m, beat you hands down.”

“Bite the hand that feeds you. Maybe he betrayed someone.”

“Can’t see the hand in front of your face. Well, you certainly couldn’t during that storm. Oh, cash in hand.”

He smiled. “Cold hands, warm heart.”

A knock on the mudroom door, followed by a knock on the door to the kitchen. “Master.”

“Come in.” She glanced up from her notebook to see Weevil, dish towel around a large plate. Behind him walked Tootie carrying a bowl, also covered.

“Bangers and mash.”

“Weevil! You did cook me bangers and mash. Well, let’s eat it.”

Sister and Gray hastily set the table; the four sat down.

“I didn’t make anything last night because the breakfast was so much food. You settled everyone’s nerves. You’re a good speaker.” Weevil complimented her.

“Didn’t used to be. Becoming a Master forced me to learn lots of new skills. Maybe the most important one is keeping my mouth shut.” She looked at the empty glasses. “Milk, beer, wine, water, tonic water, and, Gray, have I forgotten something?”

“Already at the refrigerator door.” Gray teased her. “Nectar and ambrosia.” He returned with two bottles of beer, two tonic waters for the ladies, with limes and a cutting board.

Tootie filled the glasses with ice while Weevil cut their limes. “Are you making notes?” She saw the leather-bound notebook.