Рита Браун - Hounded To Death

He pushed the paper back. “You never cease to amaze me. Speaking of which, here’s the background on Grant Fuller.” He handed her a sheet of paper.

Their sandwiches came, and a refill of Sister’s Co-Cola.

“Tennessee, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia.” She tapped the side of her plate once with her knife and then put it down quickly, realizing what she’d done. “He was expanding the business.”

“How well did you know him?”

“Just socially, and even then I saw him infrequently. The dog food he gave me to test was quite good.”

“After you called me last night I got to thinking about all this. The three people seem to have nothing in common—mind you, I believe that Hope did kill herself—but then I thought, ‘Well, the Silver Fox’”—he used one of Sister’s nicknames—“‘told me to put my nose down.’ What I did find is that both men had been charged with cruelty to animals.”

“Grant?” This surprised her.

“That’s why he sold his slaughterhouses. The newspaper report quotes him as saying he didn’t know any easy way to kill large animals, and they performed this act as humanely as possible. Of course, the poor animals can smell the blood, the panic. They die in dreadful fear; we all know that. Much as I hate it, I’m not going to stop eating beef, pork, or lamb chops. Still, there ought to be a better way.”

“I’m sure there is, if we’d apply ourselves to finding it. And I expect in future there will be less meat-eating because it’s cheaper to get the calories from grain. This assumes that humans continue to breed like flies, outpacing the food supply.”

“Um—well, Sister, as you know there’s nothing I can do about that. My job takes effect after the act, not before.”

She studied the states and dates again. “West Virginia. The date is the same as that terrible storm. Charleston, West Virginia. The same as the night Hope died.”

“And?”

“Oh, nothing. Coincidence.” She opened the small jar of mustard served with her sandwich. “Were there any other charges of cruelty against Grant?”

“No, the animal rights activists stuck to the slaughterhouse issue.”

“If Grant Fuller is ever found, maybe we’ll be closer to the truth. He certainly never struck me as a brutal man—unlike Mo.”

“No break in that case yet.”

“Too many people are still cheering.” She smiled. “Thank you for going to the trouble of getting this information on Grant from the sheriff in his county.”

“Turns out Grant is a meticulous record keeper. Once Grant’s wife filed a missing person’s report, his secretary handed the sheriff his desk daybook. It listed all his purchases. The sheriff said Grant must have had a hollow leg.”

“Really?” Sister’s voice rose. “I saw him exceedingly happy a few times but never bombed.”

“Cases of Jack Daniel’s Black and some Kentucky bourbons, too. Also cases of vodka.”

“He lived in Tennessee; he would drink Jack. Also, Ben, much of his work involved socializing. I’ll bet he had a traveling bar in his car. He was a student of bourbon. I know that and he got Hope into distilleries to meet the real artists, the actual distillers. Then his wife put an end to that.”

“Too bad his wife was suspicious but maybe she had just cause. About his traveling bar, well, lubricate the customer.” Ben polished off the last of his sandwich. “Feeding them first doesn’t hurt either.”

“Is that a hint for more?”

“I’m not a customer.”

“You’re right. You’re a valuable member of the Jefferson Hunt Club who is learning the subtleties of hunting God’s most intelligent creature. You truly have come a long way.”

The praise made him blush. “Thank you. I had no idea how complicated it is.”

“There are people who hunt for forty years and don’t know what’s going on. Don’t know when a whipper-in has blundered into the covert; don’t know when hounds have overrun the line; never take into account the angle of the sun, the wind, or the time of the month.”

“Time of the month?”

“Can’t get foxes to run the day after a full moon. If they’re out they’ll pop right back into their den.”

“Why?”

“Full as ticks. Hunting is fabulous during a full moon. Every creature is moving about. A predator doesn’t have to work as hard to flush game.”

“See? I learn something every time I’m with you.”

“You flatter me. Dessert?”

“I want the bomb.” The bomb was a huge round dome of chocolate-chip ice cream on a thin shortbread wafer. Over this was poured either chocolate syrup or crème de menthe.

“That sounds good.”

He ordered one with chocolate syrup; she ordered the crème de menthe. They ate themselves silly.

After lunch, he walked her back to her car. “Now that the hound shows are over, maybe things will settle down. No murders, no disappearances.”

“I was straining for a connection,” said Sister. “Probably didn’t have a thing to do with hound shows.”

She was as right about that as Ben was wrong about future events.

CHAPTER 14

“All we want right now is for them to come happily when called,” said Shaker. He was wearing a white light canvas tool bag filled with cookies.

Sister walked on the left side of the puppies while Tootie walked on the right.

The sweltering summer heat would kick in soon enough, but at seven in the morning the air still felt as fresh in mid-July as it ever did.

Puppy minds, like those of very young children, can concentrate for one minute, perhaps two. It’s a good huntsman who knows to keep everything fun and not to push beyond that point. This way the puppies, like children, don’t know they’re learning their ABCs.

“Hold up,” Shaker said softly. He hunkered down and held out his arms and the V puppies ran to him, as did Momma Violet, whose presence ensured cooperation.

Fat and wiggly, the thrilled little seven-week-old foxhounds ran up, some tripping in excitement. Shaker patted their heads and solemnly gave each one a cookie. The puppies daintily took the treat, aware that they must have done something right, given his tone. However, just why they were being rewarded was not yet clear. It would take a week or so for the lesson to sink in. Violet also took a cookie. Shaker ran his hands over her crown, telling her she was the world’s best mother.

Then they walked back from the front of the kennels, where the puppies were put in the puppy run, with more cookies liberally distributed.

The rumble of Betty’s ancient Volvo station wagon, followed by Sybil’s new truck, told the humans that the two whippers-in had arrived for hound walk—something the hounds had known from the time the vehicles turned off the state road, a mile and a half away.

Betty burst through the door. “Battery died, just as I pulled into the kennel.”

“I’ll give you a charge after hound walk,” Shaker volunteered.

“Time to buy a new station wagon. Volvo has a six-cylinder one now.” Sister enjoyed keeping up with current automotive models.

Sybil, picking a stone out of the heavy tread of her work boots, glanced up. “Why don’t you call Dan? Hope’s Volvo is probably for sale. It’s only a year old, I think.”

Betty considered this, her blonde hair shining as a shaft of morning light came through the window. “You don’t think that’s ghoulish? And how come Dan controls the estate, not Paul?”

“It’s not ghoulish, Betty. Her estate has to be settled,” said Sybil. “Remember when Hope bought the station wagon? She was already considering divorce, so she registered it in the clinic’s name. What good is the station wagon to Dan Clement? He’ll refer you to the lawyer, of course, but you’d be doing him a favor. Hope didn’t have much by way of family after her aunt died. You know, I hadn’t thought about it before, but I wonder what kind of will she left?”