Рита Браун: Fox Tracks

“We needed a distraction.” Sister glanced out at the dance floor. The song had changed. “She’s a strong person and she didn’t want to disappoint Baxter.”

“The boys are staying somewhere down in the Forties, I think. I asked Derek how it was, and he said clean. At least it’s not a flophouse.”

“Good for them.”

“Maybe so, but after the Ball the girls are in one room, the boys downtown. I don’t like to think of one of them going downtown and one staying here. I mean I don’t like the idea of either Val or Tootie at a cheap hotel.”

Sister pondered this. “Well now, Betty, let us trust their resourcefulness. Tootie did mention that she and Val had double beds so perhaps they will work it out.”

Betty laughed. “It’s better that mothers don’t know these things, especially their mothers.”

“Val’s mother would be better than Tootie’s but still, you’re right. Better mothers don’t know.”

“Can I get you a drink?”

Sister shook her head. “No. Let’s make our dates do that. I’m about ready for a tonic water with lime.”

“Neither one of us are drinkers. Oh well, many of our hunt club members make up for us.” She paused. “You know that Crawford will make trouble the minute he can. My bet is he’ll cast his pack at Old Paradise. If not Tuesday, he’ll be sure to try and screw up one of our hunts in the next week.”

“He’s the kind of man that keeps score.” Sister felt a rush of anger rise again. “I try not to hate anybody, but I do hate him. Then I remember the good things he’s done for Custis Hall, for Felicity.” She mentioned a classmate of Tootie’s and Val’s who became pregnant at the end of her senior year. Crawford gave her and her brand-new eighteen-year-old husband a place to live.

“He’s a walking contradiction.”

“Maybe we all are.” Sister shrugged, returning to the day’s event. “What I can’t get out of my mind, Betty, is the slightest whiff of gunpowder when Tootie and I returned to the tobacco shop. I discounted it, you know, city pollution. You don’t think of guns in the city, not like home, but I smelled it.” She paused for a long time. “We were detained, as we should have been, so we got to watch some of the police procedure, and do you know Betty, there were thousands and thousands of dollars in the glass display case? Lighters, jeweled cigarette cases, long cigarette holders, some with jewels, plus the cash register was crammed full of money. Nothing was touched. Nothing that one could see. You kill a man for cigars? Or cigarettes? I simply can’t fathom it. And poor Adolfo had a pack of cigarettes set right on his chest. American Smokes was the name.”

“Might be some kind of revenge thing,” said Betty. They fell silent, and Sister’s thoughts wandered. “I bought a cigarette case from him. I’ll show you when we get back home. How can I look at it without thinking of him? Betty, he was so warm. You know how Latin men radiate warmth, and Cubans ooze charm along with it. The man was delightful.”

“Even delightful people have enemies.”

“Yes.” Sister paused, then raised her voice a bit. “I have never heard of American Smokes,” she said, furrowing her brow in thought.

CHAPTER 5

Ornate wrought-iron lamps, installed in 1877, on the long curving main drive at Custis Hall, contrasted with the clean Federal architecture of the earliest buildings on campus built in 1812. The building bordered quads named after the trees planted on them. One could readily see when the money poured into the school, as it was reflected in the architecture.

Those buildings constructed in the 1980s were mercifully hidden around the Blue Spruce quad, way in the back, a half mile from the original Federal building. One good thing about these particular three long, low-slung buildings was they looked better than the examples from the 1970s.

At the rear of the blue glass building, Art DuCharme with Donny Sweigart, both men in their thirties, maneuvered a heavy wooden crate off the back of a small moving van onto a forklift. A Custis Hall groundskeeper drove the forklift and the two men followed him into the building.

A service elevator, thankfully huge, had enough room for the forklift to deposit the large box.

When the elevator reached the fourth floor, Tariq Al McMillan met Art and Donny. He rolled a low metal dolly over and the two delivery men jiggled it onto the dolly. Art steadied the end of the box while Donny walked beside it.

Tariq rolled the large, heavy object into a large office with floor to ceiling windows. The entire campus unfolded before him, to the west.

“Do you need a crowbar?” Donny asked, staring at the crate.

“Here, let’s put it right here.” Tariq directed them to the windows. “I think my big claw hammer will do.”

Knowing it wouldn’t, Donny left without a word, returning with a crowbar and a power drill with a Phillips head. Reversing the direction, he could spin out screws.

After twenty careful minutes, an ultramodern desk emerged. A heavy glass top—so heavy the sides were green—was supported by two graceful steel legs and supports. Like bridge cables, they ran diagonally between each side’s front and rear legs. The desk resembled a suspension bridge.

“Ah.” Tariq clapped his hands once the desk sat in place, directly in front of the large window.

“Pretty amazing.” Donny admired the cool piece of furniture.

Tariq dug into his pocket, giving each man a fifty-dollar tip.

Donny looked at Ulysses S. Grant. “Tariq, this is too much. You paid enough to get the desk here.”

“It’s not too much. I’ve been waiting six months for this desk. I’m grateful for your help. And I’m grateful in the hunt field, too. Teenage girls can be a lot to handle.”

Donny laughed. “I’m practicing. Sybil is pushing forty and she’s a lot to handle.”

The three men laughed.

Art checked his watch. “We’ve got one more pickup. Tariq, thanks for the tip.”

As they left, Tariq settled in his comfortable desk chair, leaned his elbows on the desktop, and admired the steeple on the campus chapel, noticing clouds piling up behind the mountains.

Donny and Art walked to the small moving van, a square-box Chevy Topkick from the late nineties. Art said, “Margaret went to school here. She got a scholarship.”

“She’s made the most of it. I bet being a sports doctor she makes good money.”

“You know, I make more than she does and I don’t pay as many taxes.” He laughed.

“Yeah, but you have to worry about getting caught.”

Both men laughed as Art drove west from Custis Hall to Walter Lungrun’s place, Mill Ruins. They did not go in the main entrance, a long gravel driveway that led to the huge mill where a two-story waterwheel still turned.

Instead, Art turned down a rarely used rutted farm road. “It’s Lungrun’s operating day. He wouldn’t notice the tracks anyway. No one uses this road. Well, hardly.”

The truck hit a deep rut sending Donny, not wearing his seat-belt, upward. “Jesus.”

“Yep. Sometimes in the spring or summer, maybe Lungrun drives back here. He’s got that Wrangler.”

“Well, let’s hope no one comes back here. Anyway, it’s supposed to snow. That should cover our tracks.”

“Place used to be full of people. Shootrough was what they called it because it was full of high grasses. Everyone would come in the fall, expensive shotguns. Walking through here, the quail would fly up—I bet there were hundreds of them. A lot of farms had shooting places then, but this one was special, more natural and full of game.”

“Can’t much do it now. The laws against shooting hawks and falcons means the big birds have about wiped out the ground nesters. Not that I’m a big fan of shooting anything but deer. Still. Seems too barren.”