Рита Браун - The Hunt Ball

“You son of a bitch!” Knute flung himself forward, knife in the air.

That fast, Bill Wheatley ran him through.

The hounds reached the twitching figure first, blood oozing from Knute’s mouth.

“It’s a kill!” Dasher declared.

“Leave it,” Cora ordered.

The hounds surrounded Knute and Bill, who said, as the humans reached him, “Mad as a hatter.”

C H A P T E R 3 3

“ D id we do something wrong?” Little Diddy asked Ardent as they were being loaded on the party wagon.

“No,” Ardent stated authoritatively.

“Crawford did wrong.” Asa’s gravelly voice carried in the bitterly cold night air. “That’s why Sister slapped him.”

Sister, a floor-length mink over her white Balenciaga, was loading hounds with Gray, Sam, and Shaker.

Shaken as they were by what had happened, they had to take care of the hounds, their first responsibility.

Charlotte, Carter, Walter, and the other men of the club remained with Bill Wheatley as Ben Sidel’s squad car siren screamed in the distance.

The revelers, by twos, walked to their cars. This surely had been an unforgettable hunt ball.

Sorrel, frantically, made sure those who won their bids took their items, as she didn’t want anything of value left in the Great Hall. Marty couldn’t help since she was ministering to her husband. Marty loved him but knew he was wrong and feared Sister’s wrath. She guided him out of the hall to the parking lot. He was shouting and cursing but she managed to get him in the car.

The decorations needed to come down, but at that moment they couldn’t think about it. No one in the hall knew of Knute’s murder for twenty minutes until Felicity and Howard, sent back by Charlotte, informed them they should go home. When asked why, the two young people told the truth.

Tootie and Valentina, Betty and Sybil, stayed with Sister, helping to load hounds.

Lorraine, aghast at the turn of events, silently watched as Shaker calmly praised the hounds, loading them into the trailer.

“Good food!” Dragon enthused.

“Roast beef,” Trudy dreamily said, her belly full of it.

When the door was closed and latched, Shaker headed for the driver’s door.

“Shaker, I wouldn’t complain if you killed him,” Betty said.

“This isn’t over. You go. I’ll stay.” Sister half-closed her eyes for a minute.

“I’ll stay, too. You’re in danger.” He put his arms around his boss’s broad shoulders.

“No, honey, go. Hounds first. Gray and Walter are here.” She then opened the passenger door, opened the glove compartment, and removed the .38. She took out the box of shells, clicked open the chamber, filling the six holes with bullets. She put the box of shells in her left pocket, the .38 in her right. Usually Shaker or Walter rode with a .38 under his coat. If a deer had not been finished off by a hunter one of the men completed the unenviable but humane task.

Shaker looked at her. “Boss, for God’s sake, be careful.”

A broad smile crossed her face; she was energized by the danger. She said, “I’m a tough old bird. Go on.”

Tootie, shivering—her coat wasn’t heavy enough—said, “We should go to the cases.”

“Yes. Can you collect the girls who worked with Professor Kennedy to meet me at the Main Hall? Get Mrs. Norton, too.”

Shaker, Lorraine in the truck cab with him, fired up the motor and slowly pulled out, worried sick about Sister.

Gray put his hand on Sister’s shoulder. She turned to him; they started the long walk to Old Main Hall.

“I will kill Crawford myself. The point is a pack of hounds, any kind of hounds, has been bred, trained, developed, and loved for one purpose and one purpose only: to chase the quarry. I don’t believe in demonstrations before crowds. I don’t believe in marching hounds in parades on hot pavement. I don’t believe in taking hounds to county fairs so children can pet them. If we want to promote foxhunting in a positive light then the first thing we do is honor our hounds. Make videos if you must, but do not use your hounds for any frivolous purpose. I know I’m conservative on this but that’s what I believe and as long as I am master of Jefferson Hunt, these hounds will not be trifled with, and I know once Crawford’s rage passes he will find a way to make himself right and Shaker and myself wrong.” Her heel slipped on a bit of icy sidewalk. He grabbed her elbow. “Sorry, Gray, I didn’t mean to pontificate.” She took a deep breath, the frigid air hitting her lungs. “And I’m worried. We’ve got to find what’s in those cases. We aren’t going to like it.”

As the hounds were driven out, Ben Sidel pulled up to the theater building, an ambulance behind him.

Charlotte gave him what details she could. Ben whispered something to Ty Banks as the rescue squad removed Knute’s body.

Charlotte, Ben, Walter, and Carter walked Bill Wheatley to Old Main Hall. He professed to know nothing about the cases. As for why Knute Nilsson would suddenly turn on him with a knife, he accounted for it by the tremendous financial strain Knute was under.

“What strain?” Charlotte asked as they headed across the oldest quad, Old Main straight ahead.

“He bought that schooner. Do you know how much one of those things costs?”

“I don’t,” Charlotte said.

“He paid $575,000 for that thing. It has a navigation system, a galley, sleeps people. It’s incredible. He just lost his head. Midlife crisis, I guess.”

“Why would he take it out on you?” Ben asked, voice level as though this were a coffee-break conversation.

“Don’t you usually lash out at the people closest to you? Knute and I have been friends ever since I moved here. I told him he was losing it. Told him not to be impulsive. He wouldn’t listen. The bills mounted up and I think he just snapped. Even his wife didn’t know how bad it was.”

Charlotte, Carter, Walter, and Ben considered this as they walked up the long steps to the front doors of Old Main Hall, lights blazing inside.

Felicity, Howard, and Pamela Rene had joined Sister, Tootie, Valentina, and the others.

Sister greeted Ben, then said, “Whatever this is about, starting with the hanging of Al Perez, is in these cases.”

Ben’s eyes took in the artifacts. He turned to Tootie, Valentina, Felicity, and Pamela. “You worked with Professor Kennedy more than the other students, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” they replied.

“When she handled these objects, did she say anything that aroused your interest?”

“No. We gave Mrs. Norton our notes,” Pamela replied.

“They did. I reviewed them briefly. Seemed like a dry description to me.”

“What about the photographs?” Ben persisted.

“No,” Valentina answered. “She made us shoot every side or angle of the objects. But she didn’t say anything.”

Tootie thought a long time, then said, “The only thing she did that I noticed was sometimes when she was writing up her description she’d put a star by an item.”

“Did you put that in your notes?” Sister asked, her intuition about Tootie’s intelligence and plain good sense again confirmed.

“This ring a bell with any of you other girls?” Ben corrected himself, “Young ladies?”

“Well, I saw her do it, but I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t put a star in my notes. But my notes aren’t very good,” Pamela confessed.

Valentina shrugged, “I didn’t pay much attention. Sorry.”

Felicity chimed in, “Sometimes when I’d photograph an object—that was my job—I didn’t take too many notes, but Professor Kennedy would come over and pick up some things, not others.”