Рита Браун - Catch As Cat Can

“Don't worry about it. I'll mop up the floor before I leave tonight. It's that kind of day.” Harry scratched Pewter at the base of her tail.

“Do they know how long he was there?” Miranda asked.

“No. The coroner will figure it out,” Big Mim replied. “Did you know our county is getting so populous we have two coroners now, full time?”

“I didn't know that,” Miranda replied.

“I guess I'd better call Cynthia and tell her I found the Mercedes star and gave it back to Marilyn.” Harry headed for the phone while Miranda filled in Big Mim. Big Mim hadn't seen Little Mim since breakfast so she knew nothing of the returned star.

“I wish Mother hadn't found that star.” Mrs. Murphy sighed. The low pressure was getting to her.

“Who cares?” Pewter purred. “Wesley Partlow's nothing to her.”

“She's curious. She'll be especially curious now. You know how she gets,” Tucker agreed with Mrs. Murphy.

“If the kid killed himself, that's that,” Pewter, the hard-boiled, replied. “He didn't have much of a life to look forward to, did he?”

“I can't imagine a dog killing herself,” Tucker mused. “I think it's a peculiar thing to humans. Suicide.”

“If it's suicide we have nothing to worry about.” Mrs. Murphy joined Pewter on the counter. “But if it's not suicide then this will be a stormy spring.”

“Oh, come on,” Pewter said, a touch sarcastically. “Who would risk their own freedom to kill a loser like Wesley?”

21

The sodden ground could suck the shoes right off a horse. It held onto human shoes, too, as Harry and Cynthia Cooper trudged along the deer path not far from Durant Creek. Tucker, up to her knees in the mud, accompanied them. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, left back at the farm, planned even more retaliatory destruction.

Harry pointed. “Here we connect up to the old farm road. Jeez, it's loud.”

Coop stopped at the crossroads of deer path and farm road. “The ground's soaked. If we get any more rain, the creeks and rivers will jump their banks.”

“Spring.”

“Yep.”

“We were running back. I noticed a gleam. And that's about the size of it. We walked over, I discovered it was the hood ornament. I didn't notice footprints or tire tracks. It started to pour but it had been raining before, as you know. If a car or truck had come back here there would have been deep ruts. There weren't.” She moved over. “About here.”

Tucker, senses much keener, sniffed around. No trace of human scent remained, although a hint of coyote lingered. She was glad her mother couldn't smell it because coyote spelled a great deal of trouble for everyone. The force of the storms beat down small branches, brush, stripped some buds off trees. She couldn't gather any more evidence than the humans.

“Where does the farm road lead?”

“To the creek.”

“Any structures, sheds, anything like that along the way?”

“No. Marcus Durant's shack is the only building and that's back where we parked.”

“Well, let's head back.” Coop stuck her thumbs in her belt. “Whatever might have been on the ground is washed away by now, but”—she looked around again—“I've got to run down every lead I can. I just wonder what the hell he was doing out here, if he was here.”

“Come on, Tucker.”

“I'm coming,” the dog replied, irritated that she couldn't locate more scent.

A sharp breeze picked up as the two women and dog walked back.

“Sure doesn't feel like spring today,” Cooper commented.

“Cuts to the bone. Coop, what's going on? You wouldn't be out here with me if you weren't worried.”

“I don't think Wesley Partlow committed suicide. Marshall Wells can't get to the autopsy until tonight. I'll withhold judgment until I get his results.”

“Isn't it hard to perform an autopsy on an exposed corpse that's been hanging?” Harry grimaced.

“Those guys know what they're doing. They take tissue samples. I couldn't do it. I trust their opinion because they do such a thorough examination of the body, too. Rick and I have trained eyes but we're not doctors.”

“I wouldn't think a kid like Wesley could be hanged without a fight. Surely there are easier ways to kill someone than to hang them.”

“Not if all you have is rope. What if our killer, assuming there was one, didn't have a gun or a knife? Right now I don't know much of anything and I sure don't know why he was out here. I would figure from the time we released him to the time you found the Mercedes star would have been five to six hours.”

“He wouldn't knowingly throw away the star.” Harry was thinking out loud. “He could have lost it running or in a fight. From here to the elder-care home in Crozet is about three miles.”

“Yeah.” Coop opened the door to the squad car.

“Shut the door, Cynthia. Let me wipe off Tucker's paws first.”

“I can wash them,” Tucker grumbled.

Harry had had the presence of mind to throw an old towel in the squad car. She grabbed it, bending down to clean off the corgi's muddy paws. “I'd never know you had white feet, Miss Pooch.”

Coop leaned against the car door. “He wasn't on drugs. That's the first thing I think about. Wesley was clean as far as we know.”

“I'd have thought he'd take anything he could get. Maybe he had more sense than I gave him credit for—what little I saw of him. Some people are life's losers. It sounds harsh but it's true. Miranda gets mad at me when I say that because she believes everyone can be redeemed through the Lord. I hope she's right.”

“She hasn't been quoting as much scripture lately.” Coop smiled. “Tracy?”

“Yeah, though she was never what I'd call a Bible thumper. Okay, there were times when she came close but she has toned down a little. I actually like it when she quotes the Bible. I'm learning something. I never did memorize much except for Hamlet's soliloquy, which I hate.” Harry, meditatively rubbing Tucker's paws, got lost in thought.

“M-m-m, come on, she's clean enough.”

“All right, Tucker. In you go.”

“I told you I could wash myself.” Tucker sat down on the backseat and began washing her paws.

As they drove down Whitehall Road, Coop asked, “Is there anything unique about the farms out here?”

“Unique? Well, some of them are very beautiful but I can't think of anything unique. Many of them were filled with wounded soldiers during the War Between the States. They'd ship them in by train and folks would pick up soldiers, ours and the Yankees, down at the train station and take them home. God, it must have been a mess. Just about every house in central Virginia had soldiers in it.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“You were in as much danger from the surgeon as you were from the enemy. But no, there's nothing special unless you count architecture.”

“I sure wish I knew what he was doing down here.”

“Did anyone pick him up from the station?”

Coop shook her head. “Walked right out and kept going.”

“Creepy.”

“Wesley?”

“The weekend. Kind of a weekend of death. Roger and then Wesley.”

Cynthia said, “I heard Lottie Pearson hired a lawyer.”

“You're kidding.”

“Just in case we accuse her of poisoning Roger. Now, there's a paranoid woman. No one is accusing her of anything. It was her dumb luck to hand him coffee and cake.”

“Who told you?” Harry could think of a few people who would get the news first.

“Little Mim.”

“Lottie's been shining her on.”

“Oh, well, Little Mim knows it. She said she called BoomBoom to tell her she made the right decision in fixing you up with Diego and not Lottie.”