Рита Браун - Hounded To Death

“Funny you bring that up. I spoke to Fonz this morning.” He put his arm around Sister’s shoulders. He was the same height. “He asked O.J. to take some. You know, Mo bred a few good hounds, even though he couldn’t hunt them. Anyway, he has some good ones left. Obviously, O.J. has only so much room in her kennels. One of the things I was going to ask you was whether you wanted four couple. Bywaters blood, if you go back to the sixth generation.”

“Yes, I’d be most appreciative. You know how I feel about the Bywaters blood.”

“I do.” He opened the door to the mudroom.

“Any leads on who tied up Fonz?” she asked.

Barry just said, “No. Nothing.”

Raleigh and Rooster waited for the humans to go in before they did. Golly hopped out the cat door into the mudroom and then hopped back into the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” Rooster wondered.

Raleigh smirked. “Showing how agile she is.”

A voice came from the other side of the cat door. “Don’t get smart, Raleigh.”

Raleigh, wisely, kept his peace.

The wonderful aroma of roast lamb filled the kitchen. Sister ate early, which was fine with Barry. They enjoyed the meal and caught up on old friends.

Barry, not a drinker, sipped unsweetened tea. “Sister, that beautiful young girl: Tootie. Was that her name? She has a gift with hounds.”

Sister brightened. “She wants to work here for the summer. Her parents prefer a more ‘suitable’ job. Tootie has so many gifts. I pray when she’s finished with Princeton, and maybe even graduate school, that she returns to me. Whatever her profession, I just hope she can do it here. She has the makings of a master. I have to hand this hunt over to someone else someday. She could do it. Might could hunt hounds, too, if she studied with Shaker. Then the club could save one salary.” She smiled. “Tell you what, Shaker is worth every penny. The understudy would be good for him and the club.”

“Melvin Poe’s hunting in his eighties.”

“Melvin Poe is one of a kind.”

Barry laughed. “What kind?”

“The best. But remember he has a fabulous wife, and that raises up any man.”

Barry smiled, remembering his own wife. “I always thought I’d die first. Men do.”

“Fate.”

“You never realize how much you’ve come to depend on someone until they’re gone. Oh, I knew I depended on Noddy to keep the social calendar, write the thank-yous—well, I wrote some—and manage all the details of life, down to how much starch I liked in my collars. What I didn’t realize is how much I relied on her judgment concerning people and her political insights. The first year after she passed I walked into walls. I still do sometimes.”

“I know the feeling. Thank God I took an interest in our investments and didn’t turn the checkbook over to Ray. So many widows struggle with money. But I found out how much Ray did in other areas, down to figuring out seed mixtures for the pastures, when timber was properly dried, how to know when to hold and when to fold when it came to stocks. Ray could figure out most anything.”

“Man possessed an uncanny sense of the market.”

“Do you think everyone is born with some gift? His success with stocks, that was his biggest gift.”

“No. Oh, when I was young and idealistic, I thought everyone had something special. But parking my rear end on the bench all those years, I saw the tail end of the human race. Talk about a bad gene pool. The only gift some cretins possess is that of making everyone around them unhappy.”

“I go back and forth.”

“Sister, trust me, there are billions of people on earth who add nothing to anyone’s life, and certainly not to the other creatures of the earth. We’ve overbred and inbred ourselves. When you look at the people and the nations breeding the most, it makes my blood run cold.” He suddenly smiled. “See why I never ran for public office?”

“I do.”

She served apple cobbler for dessert and made hot tea for herself. Barry stuck to his iced tea. They laughed over old times and dished about who was still kicking around. Then Sister returned to a subject they’d discussed earlier. “I think Hope was killed.”

“So you said.”

“It troubles me. Someone is literally getting away with murder.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions, number one. And number two, people get away with murder every day. Trust me on that.”

Before he could continue, she poked him with her forefinger. “You sound just like Ray.”

“He kept you level.”

“Oh, please.”

“He did. I think men balance women and women direct men but, hey, I’m an old sexist. But don’t jump to conclusions. Obviously, I didn’t know Hope as well as you or Shaker knew her. But since I’m a member of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, I did talk to her now and again, and she seemed perfectly fine. Honey, people sometimes lead secret lives.”

“Like what? I can’t imagine Hope having a secret that big. I know just about everyone that Hope knew in central Virginia anyway. Never a whiff of anything off-key. What kind of secret could she have had that we wouldn’t have known or suspected?”

“Sexual perversion. Remember—oh, it must be ten years ago—when they found that Member of Parliament in London who had asphyxiated himself while masturbating? He put a plastic bag over his head to heighten the sensation and I guess it must have been pretty much of a blowout, because he didn’t get the bag off in time. People do strange things.”

“Somehow I can’t feature Hope Rogers as one who skates near asphyxiation while masturbating,” she replied dryly.

“You know what I’m driving at. Don’t be contrary.” He was an old friend and spoke directly. “She might have had some condition of which no one was aware, some medical problem, or she could have been on medication for, say, mild depression and the medication went haywire. Stranger things have happened.”

“Yes, I agree there, but I can’t find a thread that leads me to Hope’s death.”

“Did she ever have lawsuits brought against her for malpractice?” “No. Well, not that I heard of, and I think I’d know.”

“Ever cross another vet? Or maybe she was engaged in a research project with commercial application. You know, like an injection to halt the progress of navicular.”

He named a degenerative disease in a horse’s hoof, often with multiple causes. The navicular bone rests on the back of the coffin joint. Oddly enough, for the condition is still poorly understood, the lameness almost always occurs in the front feet. Whoever solves the problems with navicular deserves the Nobel Prize.

“She’d be given samples of products. She’d give us some, but I don’t think she was ever involved in a research project gone sour. She would have told us. Hope was usually forthcoming. She’d developed an interest in bourbon, partly because of her Japanese clients. This was a new thing—well, new to me. But I can’t see where that would lead to peculiarity or perversion.” She paused. “I’m going to miss her terribly.”

“The divorce?”

“That’s where everyone headed, and I know Sheriff Sidell questioned her not-yet-ex-husband first. But no charges have been pressed.”

Barry put down his fork. “That’s not to say they won’t be in the future if Ben Sidell finds more evidence against the husband.”

“Paul does seem to be the most likely possibility.”

“It could be something from her past that set her off. Perhaps she had a child out of wedlock when she was a teenager. The child finds her. As I said, strange things provoke people to commit strange deeds. In time, it will come out. It almost always does.”