Рита Браун - Fox Tracks

Gave her a chill.

She took a deep breath. Another one. Tobacco.

She followed her upturned nose until she found the place where the hay remnants were completely flattened. The odor was stronger here.

“You in here?” Tariq called out.

“I am.” She walked to the side of the hayloft.

“We’re ready to go,” Tariq said. “Think both Sam and I can make it.” He held up his hand to her.

“I’ll back down.”

After climbing down, she bent over once in the center aisle to pick up the baling twine she’d left there. Silly, but she didn’t want to leave any debris. A pack of the bogus American Smokes fell out of her breast pocket. She bent over to pick them up, a cigarette falling on the floor. She also scooped that up, slipping it back into the soft pack.

“Tootie Harris, when did you start smoking?” asked Tariq.

“I don’t, really.”

“You just carry around cigarettes for your friends?” He laughed at her. “I’ve never seen that brand.”

“Contraband.” She smiled broadly. “Really, I don’t smoke. It’s a long story.”

“If you do smoke, let me give you a Cleopatra.” Tariq reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a pack. “I never smoke on the grounds at Custis Hall.”

“I really don’t smoke. I’m just carrying this around for Sister. Actually, she doesn’t know I filched a pack.” Tootie lifted her shoulders in an innocent gesture, then smiled.

The young woman was so beautiful, Tariq, transfixed for a moment, had to snap back to reality. “Let’s go.”

With Gray leading the way, both men managed to drive their cars off the property.

In the passenger seat of Gray’s Land Rover, Tootie enthused about the barn on her way back. “Know what was really weird?”

“What?”

“It smelled like tobacco in the hayloft.”

Gray pulled over at Tattenhall Station, waved on Sam and Tariq, then called Ben Sidell.

The sheriff arrived an hour later, thanks to the roads. Gray had turned around and they had driven back to Old Paradise.

In the barn, Roger heard the door open and ducked back into his den. The corn oil on the kibble was delicious.

Tootie, Gray, and Ben hurriedly climbed the ladder.

Hands on hips, Ben said, “Sure smells like tobacco.”

“Here, smell this.” Tootie pulled out the pack, fetching one cigarette.

“It is or was tobacco,” Gray firmly noted.

Ben took the pack from Tootie’s hand. “What in the hell are you doing with this?”

Tootie explained why she had the pack.

Ben took her by the arm, looked into her eyes, and said, “You get rid of these. Better yet, give them to me.” He turned to Gray. “It’s one accident after another. Gray, you’re in charge of that crazy woman. Burn the packs. I will call her myself. I will cuss her out, too!”

CHAPTER 35

Water gushed from drain spouts, ran across low spots in roads, filled streams to the top of their banks and threatened to overflow. Tuesday’s cold temperatures were followed by mid-fifties on Wednesday, and even the low sixties on Thursday.

Unpredictable as central Virginia weather can be, this provoked comment from everyone. The elderly swore they’d never seen anything like this temperature bounce. Weathermen produced graphs, other dates in history, and all concluded this had to be in the top five temperature fluctuations. Sister canceled Tuesday’s and Thursday’s hunts, hoping still for Saturday. The weather report for the weekend predicted mid-forties, some clouds, no precipitation. She hoped it would be so.

Her mud boots were green wellies, but appeared brown right up to the tops. The house décor now included muddy paw prints. Even though Raleigh and Rooster had their sisal rug to wipe their paws on, there was just too much mud out there. When Golly made a foray outside, she allowed herself the pleasure of walking all over the cars, then shot back inside where she exhaustingly groomed her paws.

What’s the point of trying to keep the house clean? Sister decided she’d wait until the mud dried before mopping floors and wiping down all the surfaces. No matter how hard they tried, the humans, too, tracked in bits of mud, even after taking off their boots.

Betty and Sister stood next to each other in Sister’s big bathroom with the double sinks, washing their faces. Somehow, mud covered their faces, too.

Betty wiped off the brown. “That hot water feels good.”

“Did you ever use one of those face steamers?”

“No, did you?”

“Yeah. It did get the dirt out. But it’s like everything else, Betty, you have to make a regimen of it. Finally, I gave up.”

Cleaned up, they repaired to the den, where Sister checked her emails and Betty sat down with a stack of old studbooks for hounds. The two had promised each other to go back with Asa’s bloodlines to find the perfect nick to one of the girls’ bloodlines. If only it were that simple.

“After you check your emails, put in the MFHA disc on bloodlines, will you?” Betty asked.

“Hmm.” Sister read avidly. “Well, Betty, score one for the narrow-minded.”

“What?”

“Charlotte Norton has sent Tariq’s resignation letter to the board. He states this will be his last semester. He doesn’t wish to cause problems for Custis Hall and he feels he must go back to his family during these tumultuous times. There’s more, but that’s the essence.”

“Rickman did recant.” Betty opened another small red stud-book. “Don’t you wonder what Crawford threatened him with?”

“Money. Campaign funds from Crawford and his friends. You no sooner get in the House of Representatives than you have to run again, so Rickman is already fund-raising. Maybe there’s more to it than that, but I expect that’s the meat of it.”

“If I had that much money, I wouldn’t waste it on politicians.” She scribbled some names and dates—foxhunting club names, too—in her hound notebook. “Janie, you haven’t told me the whole story about Ben.”

“Uh, I guess I deserved it, but he told me in vivid terms to never do anything like making those cigarette packs without talking to him. He said I was exposing myself and others to serious danger.”

“Any more?”

“No. He also said acts like that could compromise an investigation.” She slipped the MFHA disc into her computer. “He’s right. I didn’t think our sheriff’s department was working seriously on this contraband matter but I guess they are. It’s not my business. Obviously, they have more on their plate than that Carter Weems murder, which is old, I mean in police terms—at least I guess it is.”

Betty got up, notebook in hand, and pulled up a chair next to her friend to study bloodlines. It was easier on the screen than pulling out a book for each year, although Betty did like to check the books.

“Name the puppies’ mother yet?” she asked.

“Tootie calls her Zoe, for life. She’s a sweet thing, those floppy ears and that boxer face.”

The two scrolled through different bloodlines for Sister’s prized Bywaters blood. A good match wasn’t so easy to find these days, as that type of American hound began to fall out of favor in the middle 1960s, though in recent years it was somewhat coming back.

“You just know that Zoe and those puppies will wind up in your house,” Betty remarked calmly.

“I was hoping they’d wind up in yours.”

They read some more as Betty wrote in her notebook. “Do you really think you’re in danger?”

“No,” Sister, fearless to a fault, replied.

This time it was a fault.

CHAPTER 36

The hounds, restless from being in the kennels all week, stood on their hind legs in the large draw pen in the kennels. Everyone wanted to go, so Sister and Shaker took most of the pack—with the exception of Asa, who needed rest, and Cora. Cora and Dragon did not get along; fangs would be bared and insults traded. This would go on even during hunting, if one tried to outrun the other. So master and huntsman decided to take the slightly younger hound.