Рита Браун - Cat On The Scent

“Yeah, yeah,” Mrs. Murphy grumbled. “I think we should all go for a ride.”

“No room,” Tucker sensibly noted.

“I don't take up much room—unlike you.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Mrs. Murphy raised her tail straight up, sashaying toward the house as Blair backed out. Mrs. Murphy thought the baritone perfect, not too deep, yet velvety.

“Only one hundred Turbos made for the U.S. market each year,” Blair said as he straightened out the wheel.

Pewter waddled toward the house. She gave the $110,000 internal-combustion machine barely a look. “Don't go so fast,” she chided her cohort.

To torment her, the tiger cat bounded gracefully onto the screened-in porch, pawing open the unlatched screen door.

“I hate her,” Pewter muttered.

“Me, too.” Tucker walked alongside the gray cat. “The biggest show-off since P.T. Barnum.”

“I heard that.”

“We don't care,” Tucker replied.

“You're bored.” Mrs. Murphy ducked through the doggie door in the kitchen.

“Did she say I was boring?”

“No, Pewter, she said we were bored.”

“Nothing ever happens in May.”

Mrs. Murphy stuck her head out the magnetic-flap door. “Blair Bainbridge bought a Porsche Turbo. I count that as an important event.”

Pewter and Tucker, walking more briskly, reached the screen door. The corgi sat while the cat opened it.

“That doesn't count.” Pewter flung open the door.

Mrs. Murphy ducked back into the kitchen. Pewter dashed through the animal door first.

“What would you like to happen?” Mrs. Murphy inquired.

“A meat truck turns over in front of the post office.” Tucker wagged her nonexistent tail.

“Remember the Halloween when the human head turned up in a pumpkin?” Pewter's pupils widened.

“Yech!” Mrs. Murphy recalled the grisly event that happened a few years back.

“Yech? I found it. You didn't.”

“I don't like to think about it.” Mrs. Murphy fastidiously licked the sides of her front paws, then swept them over her face.

She noticed the side of the barn facing north, the broad, flat side where the paint was peeling. A painted ad for Coca-Cola, black background underneath, peeled out in parts.

“Funny.”

“What?” Pewter leaned over to groom her friend, whom she loved even though Mrs. Murphy often irritated her.

“How the past is bursting through—all around us. That old Coke sign—bet it was painted on the barn in the 1920s or '30s. The past bursts through the present.”

“Dead and gone,” Tucker laconically said.

“The past is never dead.”

“Well, maybe not for you. You have nine lives.”

“Ha-ha.” Mrs. Murphy turned her nose up.

“I bet the past wasn't as boring as today,” Pewter moaned.

“Things will pick up,” Tucker advised.

Truer words were never spoken.

3

Blair glided down Route 250 toward Greenwood at 60 miles an hour. He was only in second gear and the tachometer wasn't even close to the red zone.

Harry couldn't believe the surge of power or the handling. They hit 0 to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds. The balance of the car astounded her. The old farm Misfit blurred by, then Mirador (Misfit's big sister), then Blair downshifted, turned right, and headed back toward the Greenwood school, the road snaking and the car sweeping around each sharp curve without a shudder, a roll, or a skid.

“Don't you love it?” Blair laughed out loud.

She sighed. “Deep love.”

A short stretch of flat land beckoned. He smoothly shifted. The speedometer glided past 100, then Blair expertly down-shifted as a curve rolled off to the right.

Unfortunately, Sheriff Rick Shaw was rolling, too, right out of Sir H. Vane-Tempest's driveway. He hit the siren and snapped on the whirling lights.

“Damn,” Blair whispered.

“What's he doing out here in the boonies? He ought to be on Route 29.” Harry glanced in the rearview mirror.

“Is it Rick or Cynthia?” Blair squinted at the distant object, which was fast approaching.

“Rick. Cynthia doesn't wear her hat in the squad car.”

“That makes sense. Turn your head and the brim hits the window.”

“Rick's balding, remember.”

“There is that.” Blair half smiled as he pulled over. The Porsche stopped as smooth as silk. He lowered the window and reached in the side pocket of the door for the relevant papers as Rick lumbered up.

“As I live and breathe, Blair Bainbridge.” Rick bent over. “And our esteemed postmistress. License, please,” he sang out.

“Oh.” Blair fished around in his hip pocket, pulled out his crocodile wallet, and handed the license to Rick.

“Blair, do you have any idea how fast you were moving?”

“Uh—yes, I do.”

“Uh-huh. You know, of course, that the speed limit in the great state of Virginia is fifty-five miles per hour. Now I don't think that's the smartest law on the books, but I have to enforce it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When did you get this vehicle?”

“This morning.”

“Uh-huh. Why don't you get out of the car a minute.”

In a show of sympathy, Harry unfastened her seat belt and got out, too.

“Lemme see the engine.”

Rick popped up the back, revealing a giant turbo covering the engine.

“That's a pain in the ass,” the sheriff grumbled.

“It's the turbo, chief, it forces air back in here,”—Blair pointed to the inlet side—“which boosts the horsepower to four hundred. Here's the delivery side.”

“Four hundred horsepower?” Rick whispered reverently.

Blair smiled, knowing the sheriff was hooked. “The intake, or flow, is split toward the left and right exhaust turbochargers. The air gets reunited, flows past the throttle, and goes into the cylinder heads in virtually direct sequence.” He paused, realizing he was getting too technical. “The pollution level falls below government requirements, which is a good thing. Drive a turbo and be environmentally responsible.”

“Uh-huh.” Rick ran his hand over the rear fender, which slightly resembled a horse's hindquarters, then ducked his head inside the driver's side. “Not much room in the back.”

“Big enough for Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, and Pewter.” Harry finally said something.

“I'm surprised they aren't with you.” Rick pushed his hat back on his head. “Now in order to be fair here, I need to know a little more about this car. Can we all fit in?”

“Sure,” Blair said.

“Tell you what, guys, I'll stay with the squad car. You two roll on,” Harry said.

Rick furtively looked around. “Well—”

“No one will know a thing. If anyone stops, I'll say you're investigating a rustling call and I came along for the ride. You're out in the pasture.”

“Well—all right,” Rick agreed. “If H. Vane-Tempest happens to come by, don't say a word.”

“Got his nose out of joint again?” Harry casually asked.

Rick grunted. “He's a little different.”

“Different!” Harry giggled. “He's got more money than God and he acts like he is God.”

“He and Archie Ingram pester me with more calls than anyone else in the county, and this is a county full of nutcases.”

Archie Ingram, one of the county commissioners, a handsome man, courtly to women, was so violently opposed to most development schemes that he had attracted radical detractors and equally radical supporters.