Рита Браун - Crazy Like A Fox

“Which means he was half loaded most of the time. Everyone drank.” Sister thought. “But they knew how. Ray could put it away, but he held his liquor. Such a point of pride.”

She recalled her late husband, gone now just over twenty years.

“You’re right, they all did. Well, they might have held their liquor, but it didn’t do much good for their inhibitions.”

“Sometimes I think they all had more fun than we do.”

“Oh, coming from your mouth!” Marion let out a whoop.

“Well—” Sister paused then remembered Monica’s question at the restaurant. “Didn’t Monica say she heard three sets of footsteps? The stairs aren’t all that far from the ballroom where she was working. She could have heard things.”

“You know, you’re right,” Marion responded.

“What if she heard Weevil coming up the steps? He could have ducked into the Huntsman’s room at the top of the stairs, she could pass it and not see him. You only see a small part of the room from the open door anyway.”

“It’s possible. You think the third set of footsteps was Weevil’s?”

“Just a thought.”

“I thought ghosts could walk through walls,” Marion lightheartedly remarked.

“Well, we know drunks walk into them.” A sigh followed this. “Why blow the horn? Why steal it? I need to find out more about that cowhorn,” Sister said with conviction.

“All right. Send me your list of possible amours for Weevil. I’ll send you mine. And the sheriff hunts with you, right? Ask him to go back into the old files.” Marion waited a moment. “And lest you forget, all huntsmen are possessive of their horns. It is his horn. Anyway, talk to your sheriff. Maybe he’ll be more helpful than the one up here.”

“Good idea. I’ll be back at you but I want to go on record. You can talk me into anything. You talked me into serving on the board of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting. You talked me into focusing on the Huntsman Hall of Fame. Then you talked me into going over there to check out the glare on the display case. Wait, actually, first you worried about a fingerprint. We never got to the fingerprint. I want to go on record: If anything goes wrong, it’s your fault.”

This caused an eruption of laughter. “I feel your pain.” Then Marion added, “I didn’t forget the fingerprint. I asked the Sheriff’s Department to take a copy of the fingerprint, which was still there. Jake Carle’s. His fingerprints were everywhere. He’s determined to refresh things and he’s right.”

“Well, let’s get to it.”

“Right. One last question since it’s all over the news: Tootie’s father, I mean, accusing Yvonne of desertion. He’s a piece of work. Is Tootie okay?”

“Yvonne is at Tootie’s, for how long I don’t know.”

“Poor Tootie.”

“Tootie has dealt with them all her life. Poor us.” Sister laughed, for she did love Tootie and wished all to be well, but she didn’t especially want to be around her mother.

—

Sitting in the den, she replaced the phone onto the cradle. Given the location of the house, cell service was iffy. If she walked out to the stable, clear signal. But the landline stayed clear, when it worked.

A knock on the kitchen door sent her down the hall. “Just a minute.”

Opening the door, she found Yvonne standing there. “I know I’m intruding. I should have called and I did, but the line was busy.”

“Yvonne, please come in. I can offer you just about any libation you would prefer, plus a sandwich, a piece of coffee cake?”

“Tea. I’ve grown so fond of tea. Green tea.” Yvonne noticed Golly glaring at her as Sister flicked on the stove burner after filling the teapot.

“I accept all tribute.”

“She’s chatty.”

“She wants a treat.” Sister opened a cabinet drawer, plucked out a sealed bag, then dropped it in front of Yvonne. “If you don’t buy her off she’ll make your life miserable.”

Yvonne, not an animal person, knew everyone at Roughneck Farm was. Best to believe them. She offered Golly, now next to her chair, a rather large meaty treat pressed to look like a fish.

“Thank you.”

“You can leave now, Golly.”

“No.” The cat sassed Sister by ignoring her and patting Yvonne’s leg.

Sister scooped the offender up, opened the kitchen door to the mudroom, opened the mudroom door, and put her out, ensuring she’d stay out by sprinkling a bit of shredded catnip kept in a closed bucket on a shelf. Had the desired effect.

The teapot whistled, Sister pulled out the Brown Betty, measured out the tea leaves, put them in the pot, put the pot on the table, and pulled out two very old, elegant teacups and saucers.

“These are delicate.”

“My great-grandmother’s. I find I like old china, old silverware better than the newer things. Probably because it brings back memories. While that steeps, I do have some moist coffeecake. Won’t spoil your dinner. That’s far off.”

“Given Tootie, that’s nonexistent.” Yvonne smiled. “I’m taking her to dinner tonight. She never would learn how to cook, but I noticed last night she’s learned to make a proper pot of tea.”

“Has.” Sister checked the pot, then carefully poured out steaming tea into the fine bone china cups through a silver strainer. “Forgot to ask. Half-and-half? Sugar?”

“None, thank you.” As Sister sat down Yvonne started. “You and I got off on the wrong foot when we met at Custis Hall years ago. Not much improved since then, but I was always with Vic. He blamed you as an impediment to Tootie’s future. He wanted her to take over the empire, as he put it, or at the very least become a doctor or lawyer.”

“He made that abundantly clear. What do you think?” Sister leveled her cobalt blue eyes at Yvonne, who had light hazel ones like Tootie.

“At first I agreed, but over time I saw how unhappy his demands made Tootie. She’s not cut out for corporate life. Am I happy that she left Princeton and came here? No. I’m upset, confused. Everyone is so”—she paused—“white.” Then she added, “She could have hung on for four years.”

Sister, not a green tea drinker although her cupboard was filled with all manner of teas, took a sip. “We all thought that. I asked Gray to speak with her, given his success and the fact that he knows some of what she will encounter.”

“All my husband thinks about. He has reduced everything to race, cast it all on her, and while I know exactly what he’s talking about—I was a pioneer, after all—times are different for her. Easier in some ways. He resents that. I’d say, ‘Isn’t this what we worked for? What we all fought for and marched for and threw ourselves into elections for?’ Got nowhere, of course. Vic always has to be right.”

“What do you think now?”

“Tootie loves you. She loves this life. She takes her classes and I believe she will go to veterinary school, then return here.”

“But do you blame me?”

“Not anymore. Do I look at you and see my oppressor, a white woman of a certain class, education, and privilege? I used to. Were you raised with more privilege than myself? Yes. Do you have more privilege now? In some ways, yes, but I have made my way and I’m damned proud of it.” Her eyes flashed, her back straightened. “But to be brutally honest, I need you. I want to make amends.”

“Need me? For what?”

“To help me understand my daughter. I think she loves you more than me.”

“Yvonne, no. You’ve been far away. You stuck by your husband, and Tootie, well, there’s no other way to say it, Tootie hates her father.”

“So do I. That bastard. All those years in the magazine and then the talking heads on our TV shows, all of them talking about how African American men should stick with our women, our women, and, of course, we were to stick with them. Well, the bastard has been having affairs with white women half his age, beautiful, dumb, and blonde.”