Рита Браун - Hounded To Death

When Diana turned to look Georgia’s way, the young vixen slipped back into her den.

“Haven’t had as many litters of cubs as usual this spring.” Shaker kept up with the foxes, as did Sister. “It will be a hard winter, I expect. They know about the weather and the food supply long before we do.”

“Amazing. If only I knew what a fox knows,” Betty said admiringly. “We’d have to chase you then,” Dasher teased.

The hounds, overhearing the humans, had learned about Hope’s demise. As she was the equine vet, not theirs, they weren’t close to her but they knew who she was. She’d visited the farm many times on call and sometimes just dropped by. No one had an opinion on her death, since they hadn’t been in her presence for months. As well as fear, the hounds could smell serious illness in a human. On Hope’s last visit, no one had picked up on either of these.

By the time Gray arrived at the farm at six, Sister’s chores were done. The light had softened; long thin wisps of clouds streaked through the sky.

He found her in the kitchen and gave her a big hug and a kiss. “I’m glad to see you.”

“How are you?”

“Frazzled.” He opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of tonic water. “Want one?”

“No.” She watched as he poured tonic over two ice cubes, then filled a jigger half full with scotch.

He drank the scotch neat, chasing it with the tonic. “That will help.”

“It must have been quite a day.” She smiled as she checked the chicken in the oven.

“For starters, the news about Hope Rogers is deeply disquieting. I can’t get her off my mind. Next, my aunt about ran me crazy. Sam and I”—Sam was his younger brother, a recovering alcoholic—“spent Sunday with her. My sister, of course, was too grand to make the trip. But the old girl bitched and moaned the entire time. Sam and I puttied windows, fixed floors, cleaned behind the stove and refrigerator. Christ, she wore me out. Then I got home at three to find the pipe under the kitchen sink had broken. I needed a paddle to cross the kitchen floor.”

“Oh, no! Did it ruin that beautiful hardwood?”

“Funny. The pipe must have burst not more than ten minutes before I walked through the door. Now that I’ve mopped it up, the floor is cleaner than it has been for a long time. I’ll never convince Sam to remove his boots on the porch before he comes in.” The two brothers lived together in a clapboard house, federal style, built at the time of the Revolution.

“Still want to go into reconstruction?”

Gray, a former partner in a prestigious accounting firm in Washington, D.C., had retired but did consulting work. He needed a full-time job, although not for the money. The first year of retirement had proved pleasant enough, then massive boredom had set in.

“I do.”

“Who fixed the pipe?”

“I did. I have extra pipe, all types and diameters, out in the shed from when I ran water to all the outbuildings. So I threaded a pipe and popped her in.”

“I hate threading pipe. That’s why PVC is so good. Give me sturdy, heavy plastic any day.”

“PVC’s fine for some purposes, but this was the hot water line. I used copper.”

“Fancy.”

“Only the best for a Lorillard.” He grinned. “That’s why I’m besotted with you.”

• • •

After dinner, Gray had the opportunity to demonstrate his besot-tedness;then they opened the bedroom windows. The night air had turned deliciously cool.

Odd thing about death, Sister thought, it reaffirms life and sex begets life. Even if the human can’t reproduce, the body tries. One falls out, one comes in. Nature’s logic.

“Sixty-nine looms ever closer.” Gray put his hands behind his head on the pillow.

“Are you preparing me so I won’t forget? I already have your present.”

He turned toward her. “No. Only that the next one is seventy. It sounds so old.”

“It is old.”

“You’re seventy-three, and you look maybe early fifties.”

“Liar.”

“It’s true. But I’m not you, honey. I’m starting to feel creaky.”

“Gray, if I’d been switched on the back of my legs by my ancient aunt, then spent time on my hands and knees fixing a broken pipe, bending over to mop up the floor, I’d feel creaky, too.”

“You’re right. It’s all attitude. Anyway, if I want to really feel rotten, I’ll focus on myself. I never have seen a happy narcissist.”

“That’s a thought.” She turned on her side as he flopped back, hands behind his head again. “Just think, Gray, how much life we’ve lived and how much we still hope to live. Hope Rogers didn’t even make it to forty.”

“That puts it in perspective.”

“I wonder if this has anything to do with the club? Her murder. I’m viewing it as murder.”

“Janie, no way.”

“Well, I can’t find a thread, but as master my first thought is always the club. So many of our people were her clients—well, their horses were. You know what I mean.” She rubbed his close-cut hair. “And my second thought is I want revenge. She was a good woman.”

CHAPTER 8

The light played off Barry Baker’s platinum signet ring. Of all the men Sister knew, Barry and her late husband, Ray, were the only ones who wore platinum, a subtle metal. They noted who thought it was steel or silver and who recognized the expensive metal for what it was. Both men also understood the difference between a sport watch and a watch one wore to work. Neither man would have been caught dead wearing a sport watch to the office, which marked a man as socially off-key regardless of his achievements in other areas.

While not quite as ready to make judgments based on inanimate objects, Sister recognized the wisdom in Barry and Ray’s observations.

Barry swept his hand toward the kennels. “I remember when you two built the first section. Such practical yet pleasing architecture.” He gazed at the long rows of arches connecting the runs and sighed. “Couldn’t afford it today.”

“I know. The bricks would cost plenty, but the labor cost would be ruinous. You know, Barry, the American worker has pretty well priced himself out of global competition.”

“True enough. But as long as taxes keep going up, so will wages. It’s an ugly spiral.” He smiled broadly. “And I don’t give a damn.”

She laughed. “You used to.”

“Oh, I used to believe a lot of things.”

As they walked under the arches, a cool breeze swept through, which was most welcome.

“Asa’s still going strong but Aurora’s slowing down,” Sister said.

“Your A line has been outstanding.”

“What a memory you have.”

“I always remember good hounds, fast horses, and beautiful women. I remember the fast women, too.” The twinkle in his eye made him look twenty years younger at that moment.

“Some things never change.” Sister strode toward the boys’ yard. “Asa, come visit.”

Asa raised his head where he’d been snoozing under a sweet gum tree. He roused, shook himself, and ambled over, tail wagging.

Once inside the boys’ yard, Barry knelt down to speak to the hound. “Asa, you look just the same. I’d never know you were an old man.”

Most people can be taught the basics of hounds’ language, but some are born with hound sense, that special ability to reach an animal. Barry had hound sense.

“I remember you, too. When you visited, you rode a good-looking bay mare, light bay with dapples on her hindquarters.”

Other hounds came over, Sister introducing each to Barry.

Walking back toward the house, Raleigh and Rooster in tow, Sister asked, “What will become of Mo Schneider’s hounds?”