Рита Браун - Cat On The Scent

“H. Vane is a big noise in the environmental group. I guess he and Archie have to work closely together.”

“Ideas are one thing. Temperament's another.” Rick hooked his thumb in his gun belt. “I predict those two can't stay on the same team for long.”

“Sheriff, would you like to drive?” Blair asked.

“Well—”

“Go on.”

Rick slipped behind the wheel.

Blair winked at Harry, then folded his six-foot-four-inch frame into the passenger side. “That button will push the seat back or forward. There you go. And you can raise or lower the seat, too.”

“Isn't that something?” Rick's seduction would be complete once he touched the accelerator. He reached to the right for the key.

“On the left.”

“That's weird.”

“A leftover from the great racing days when drivers had to sprint to their cars. If the ignition was on the left it gave them a split-second advantage. The driver could start the car and shift into gear simultaneously.”

“I'll be damned.” Rick turned the key. The pistons awakened like Sleeping Beauty.

Rick stalled out.

“Takes a while to get used to the clutch. Everything is much more sensitive than you or I are accustomed to—it's not so much about technology, it's about feel.”

“Yeah.” Rick engaged the clutch and touched the gas, then shot down the road.

Harry folded her arms across her chest, watching the car lurch into second. It would take Rick a few more tries.

She walked back to the squad car, sat down, and clicked on the two-way radio.

Milden Hall, the estate of Sir H. Vane-Tempest, was immediately behind her. The overlarge sign, emblazoned with a gold griffin on a bloodred field, swung slightly in the breeze.

Harry turned off the radio, swung her legs out, and closed the door. The day was too pleasant for sitting in the car. She walked back toward the sign. A car cruised around the corner, having turned off 250.

Harry waved and Susan Tucker pulled her Audi to the side of the road.

“What are you doing out here?”

Harry walked over to her best friend. “Joyriding. Blair bought a Porsche Turbo and as luck would have it, Rick Shaw came out of H. Vane's driveway just as we slowed down to eighty-something.”

“Where's Blair now? In jail?”

“No. He's letting Rick drive the Turbo.”

Susan laughed. “That's a good one.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“On my way to drop off books for Chris Middleton. I want to persuade him to give a talk at the high school for career day.”

Chris was a small-animals veterinarian, one of the best.

“Good idea.”

“And then I have to meet Mim, Her Royal Pain in the Ass, at the club. She's fussed up about this board meeting over the water supply. The county's been fighting about the reservoir so long I don't know why she still lets it get to her.”

“We've got to do something with the development in the northwest corner of the county. They need water.”

“Exactly, but the reservoir plan is already outdated and it hasn't been built yet.” Susan pouted for a minute. “Archie Ingram, as usual, wants to turn the clock back to 1890.”

“Make it 1840. Then he could own slaves.” Harry approved of conservation but Archie Ingram took it too far.

“Good one, Harry.” Susan smiled. “Oh, that reminds me, the battle reenactment at Oak Ridge—you have to be there.”

“No I don't.”

“Yes you do, because Ned needs camp followers.”

Ned was Susan's husband, a lawyer by trade and a reenactor in Civil War battles on weekends. The latter was becoming a passion.

“Susan, I hate that war stuff.”

“Living history.”

“I'll think about it.”

“Harry . . .” Susan lowered her voice.

“Susan . . .”

“You do it.”

“Takes two women to keep your husband happy these days.”

“That's right, girlfriend. And I even have your costume.”

“Susan, you're both nuts.”

“You'll look fetching in a bonnet.”

“I'm not wearing period clothes—period!”

Harry heard the distant, distinctive sound of the Porsche. “Push on, because Rick will be embarrassed if he gets back and finds you here. We don't want Blair to get a ticket.”

“Tell Blair that Ned expects him in the First Virginia.” That was the name of Ned's unit. The reenactors were fanatical about detail, down to the last button.

“I will.” Harry kissed her on the cheek. Susan kissed air in return, then drove away.

By the time the Porsche drove into view, Harry was back leaning against the squad car. A beaming Rick Shaw stayed behind the wheel.

“You deserve a car like that, Sheriff.”

“I never drove anything like that in my life,” Rick said, his voice full of wonder. He wouldn't get out of the car. He was like a child at Christmas, sitting under the tree, fondling his favorite present.

“I just had to have it.” Blair smiled. “Boys with toys, as Harry would say.”

“Hate to leave this baby.” Rick finally slid out from under the wheel. He walked alongside the front of the car, running his top finger over the curving, graceful lines. “Kind of like an egg on its side.”

“Yes.”

Rick opened the creaking door of the squad car. “Blair, stay inside the speed limit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Harry, mum's the word.”

“Okay.” She smiled at Rick, whom she liked even though he chided her about being an amateur detective. His word was busybody .

He flicked on the radio.

“Car 1. Car 1.”

“Car 1,” Rick answered.

“Where you been, boss?” Deputy Cynthia Cooper's voice crackled.

“Sir H. Vane-Tempest's. His wife says Archie Ingram threatened her husband with bodily harm. H. pooh-poohs it. Said they simply had a disagreement over sensitive environmental issues.”

“Oh la!” Coop sang out.

“See you in ten. Over and out.” Rick started the motor and Harry backed away from his window. Rick winked at her, then pulled out, made a U-turn, and cruised back to 250.

Blair folded his arms across his muscled chest. “Man fell in love before my very eyes.”

“Doesn't everyone?” Harry enjoyed her double entendre, for Blair was stunning to the point of leaving women breathless—and a few men, too, for that matter.

“How about you, then?” He held open the driver's-side door, ushering her into the cockpit.

Harry sat still, inhaling the rich leather smell as she reached for the key on her left. Blair closed the passenger door behind him.

“Ready, Eddy?” She turned over the key.

“Shoot the goose, Bruce.”

“I never heard that.”

“Maybe it's shoot the juice.” Blair laughed.

She did and they roared into Greenwood, around the little town, and back to Crozet by every back mountain road she could remember.

When they finally pulled into her driveway, Tee Tucker burst through the animal door of the house, then pushed open the screen door, happy to see her mother.

Mrs. Murphy turned to Pewter, both of them reposing on the kitchen table, forbidden to them and therefore more appealing. “That dog will never learn.”

Pewter tapped her skull with one extended claw. “Dog brains.”

Mrs. Murphy jumped over to the window over the kitchen sink. “They're coming inside. Off the table.”

Pewter waited until she heard the screen door slam before leaving the table.

“Hi, kids,” Harry greeted her cats, who ignored her.

“Make her suffer for leaving us here.” Mrs. Murphy stalked into the living room.

Pewter, knowing some manner of food would be placed on the table, decided to be mildly friendly.

Harry spied the cat hair on the table and wiped it off with a wet dishrag. “You were on the table.”