Рита Браун - The Hounds And The Fury

These two, working cheek by jowl for decades—for Shaker had been hired as a young man to whip-in—had long ago divested themselves of connecting every sentence to the one prior.

“Angel had some arthritis, common enough in someone eighty-four. Walter suggested an over-the-counter remedy. Remember, Ben had questioned him thoroughly when the news about Angel came back from the labs. First he visited Margaret DuCharme. Later, after he saw me he questioned Walter, and Walter said he’d recommended cream with scopolamine in it. No big deal; we could go down to Rite Aid and buy a jar. Iffy mentioned to Angel that much faster relief could be had by putting a patch behind her ear.” Sister gratefully accepted her tea, the bag steeping. “She said this in front of Garvey. I mean Iffy was smart, and she was bold. Garvey told Ben that Iffy told him to try it if he stiffened up, and also to take shark cartilage pills.”

Shaker blushed. “I take them. Glucosamine and chondroitin, too. Works.”

“The things I find out.” She put the teabag on her teaspoon and wrapped the string around it to squeeze out the excess water, then dropped the spent bag into the wastebasket.

It landed with a plop.

“Try it.”

“Long as it isn’t a lethal dose.”

“Doesn’t it have that stuff in, soopy—”

“Scopolamine.” She pronounced each syllable. “There’s no way to know, but the logical conclusion is that Iffy brought in a patch loaded with the stuff and told Angel to put it behind her ear. If she didn’t, no one would know it was murderous. Who else would use it? Iffy would have to find another way to kill Angel as Angel’s suspicions of Iffy’s stealing intensified. But Angel did put the patch on. Iffy timed it, walked into Angel’s office forty minutes later—remember, Angel’s age played a part in the speed of this stuff—and she removed the ear patch.”

“But where’d the two million go? Iffy was tight as a tick.”

“Went to Jason, who obviously wasn’t.”

“Jesus. She killed for that bastard?”

“She was in love with him. We’ll never know what he promised her. Marriage?” She shrugged.

Shaker absorbed this. “Iffy in love.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“He must have really played her.” Shaker shook his head in disbelief and disgust.

“We can all be fools in love. I guess it just proves that Iffy was human.”

“I guess.” He sipped his tea. “Lorraine’s got me off coffee completely now. She says tea is better for me.”

“Reckon it is.” She rose and looked outside the window up to the house. “Gray’s still asleep. Light’s not on upstairs. Poor guy; he’s exhausted. First he finds the coverup at Garvey’s. Then Sam gets shot. Then he’s in the dark until I nearly bought the farm yesterday. I was lucky Jason didn’t shoot me. He was slick; I’ll give him that.”

“Why wouldn’t he shoot you?” Shaker quickly amended that. “Not that I wanted him to.”

“Ha. You say.” She teased him and sat back down. “Ben only had him on insurance fraud. Iffy was the embezzler, not Jason. He received the proceeds of her ill-gotten gains, but he was technically innocent. If he’d shot me yesterday he’d have had a much tougher time in court.”

“He shot Iffy.”

“We know that, but Ben still would have to prove it. And it wouldn’t be easy. Jason’s big bucks could have hired a lawyer that would make Sherman’s march look like trespassing.”

“That’s a fact.” Shaker appreciated the wiles of high-paid lawyers, thanks to a divorce many years earlier.

“That was my first clue that Jason was our man.”

“Damn. I sure didn’t have any idea. All I knew was that Iffy had been planted over Jemima Lorillard. How do you get to Jason from that?”

“He thought he was clever, but he was no fox. He didn’t know squat about hounds. I mean the man hunted with us and not once during the season did he really study the hounds at work. No, he was a run and gun.” She held up her hand as if holding off a protest. “I know, I know, they pay their dues and I am grateful so long as they don’t interfere with hounds or staff, but really, how can you foxhunt and not study hounds? I will never understand it. If they want to run and jump all the time they should take up three-day eventing.”

“That’s not easy.”

“Didn’t say it was.” She sat back down. “But it’s not foxhunting. You need to appreciate hounds a wee bit. Wouldn’t hurt to know something about quarry.”

“How did that get you to Jason?”

“The fox knows how fabulous hound noses are. You and I know. Jason didn’t. He stupidly buried Iffy over Jemima, but he only dug down about three feet. He knew Sam and Gray’s schedule. He was smart about that. And he was smart enough not to just throw her over a ravine somewhere because the vultures would circle round soon enough. His one bit of luck was the twenty-four-hour thaw. Guess he would have kept her in the freezer until there was one otherwise.”

“Ugh.”

She laughed. “I know; that was mean. Anyway, he was lucky there. But hounds can smell six feet down. Not even snow is going to stop them if the ground isn’t frozen deep. I suspect by planting Iffy at the Lorillard graveyard he thought to throw suspicion on Gray should Iffy come to light—which she did, a lot earlier than Jason expected. Since Iffy didn’t like Gray, the reverse could also be true. It’s not locked down, but I do think Jason was shrewd enough to do something like that. He had to get rid of the body somewhere; might as well create confusion with it.”

“He showed he couldn’t be trusted when he whipped-in to Crawford, pardon the expression.” Shaker meant that Jason’s performance couldn’t be called whipping-in.

“Oh, and wasn’t that a moment?” she gleefully recalled. “Crawford called Ben last night to say he knew nothing about Jason’s crimes. Ben called me, and we had a good laugh.”

“He didn’t. I mean I hate his guts, but I don’t think he was part of it.” Shaker grimaced.

“Never underestimate the greed of the rich.” She drank a large gulp. “But I agree. I don’t think he knew anything. Couldn’t really be part of it, anyway. Too busy chasing hounds all over Jefferson County.”

They both laughed.

She got up again to check the bedroom light. “Still out. I’m glad he stayed last night.”

“I was shook up. You really must have been rocked.”

“Jason thought the boar would kill me. He would still be clean of murder if he was caught. Like I said, I was lucky. It’s funny; you know, it didn’t really hit me until I finally got home. Gray came with me, and I walked into the kitchen. Golly ran up with Raleigh and Rooster. Hit me like a brick.”

“That would be a hard way to die, gored to death.”

“Even if I didn’t die; imagine the damage?” She exhaled. “Scares me, those pigs. Always has.”

A pair of headlights shone into the windows.

Shaker stood up, holding his heavy cup. “Betty.”

“What’s she doing out here? She should be primping for church.” Sister stood up, too.

Betty cut her lights, got out, hurried through the cold, and knocked three times on the kennel door, which she then opened. “I couldn’t sleep.” She threw herself on Sister. “We almost lost you.”

Sister hugged Betty. “Honey, we might have lost you, too, or that beautiful Magellan.”

They were all crying again, wiping each other’s tears, then laughing.

“Big girls don’t cry,” Shaker laughed as he reached in his pocket for a clean handkerchief and handed it to Betty.

“You need it as much as I do,” she sniffled as she laughed.

“I’ll be manly and use the back of my hand.”