Рита Браун - Cat On The Scent

He knew Sarah had been in the plane with Tommy. He had gotten up in the middle of the night, called Tommy to meet him at the food plant under the pretext of a Teotan emergency, shot him, and loaded him with cocaine. It took all of fifteen minutes. He was home in bed by three o'clock, with no one the wiser. Planting cocaine and a locker storage ticket in Tommy's car was child's play. Faking a set of accounting books was easy, too. He'd run numbers off his computer, then put them into a leather binder.

As for himself, he didn't fear Sarah. This episode, as he chose to consider it, only whetted his appetite for her. He saw her now for what she was, a tiger. And so was he.

61

Harry and Miranda sat on two chairs next to Blair's bed. Each woman had visited him two and three times a day since his shooting.

“Is any memory coming back at all?” Miranda politely inquired.

“No,” he truthfully replied. “But the doctor said bits and pieces may come back to me. Then again, I may never remember. The last thing I remember—and it's so stupid—is I heard a car come up the driveway. I opened the back screened door and I tripped. Just took a mistep. That's all I can remember.”

“You must be tired of everyone asking you.” Harry smiled. “You look good.”

“I feel pretty good. The swelling is down. Doc wants me to wait a few more days to be certain. I'll tell you what's driving me crazy.” He pointed to the bandages on his head. “My scalp itches like poison ivy. I can't scratch it.”

“Means it's healing.” Miranda patted his hand. “You'll be back to good health in no time. Thank you, Jesus.” She closed her eyes in fervent prayer.

“Yes. I have been very lucky.” Blair's eyes misted. “Thank God for you, Harry.”

“You've thanked me enough already.” Harry warmly smiled.

“And Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker.” Blair smiled broadly.

“Yes.” Harry hadn't told him or anyone the full extent of their efforts. She knew no one would believe her.

“Maybe it's better not to remember. You and Archie had been friends.” Miranda assumed Blair's attacker had been Archie.

“I just don't know, Miranda. I don't know if it's better to know or not to know and there's not much I can do about it. I'm just so grateful to be alive.” He stopped as his eyes filled with tears, and Harry's and Miranda's eyes filled also.

62

Miranda's hand flew to her face. “I hate to hear about drug deals. I so liked Tommy.”

Cynthia, in regulation sunglasses, continued her story. “He must have brought the stuff in by private plane after picking it up in Florida or from local airports closer by. You know those training runs that Tommy used to do? They weren't training runs.”

“Good job,” Miranda congratulated her.

“We've got the records. That's the real break. We found cocaine and a locker ticket from the bus station in Tommy's Porsche. So we went over to the bus station, of course, opened the locker, and that's where the accounting books were.”

“How about that?” Tucker watched people drive by the post office. Spring worked its magic on everyone. People were smiling.

It galled Cynthia that Blair could not remember whoever shot him. The bullet had never been found—the sign of a careful killer. She knew the other shoe hadn't dropped and she suspected H. Vane-Tempest. Whatever her suspicions might be, suspicions weren't facts, and Blair's doctors confirmed he could have “lost” the hours leading up to his being shot. She sighed. “How is Blair today?”

“His color is better.” Mrs. Hogendobber offered a biscuit to Cynthia after shooing Pewter off the table.

Too late, though, for Pewter had yet another fresh biscuit firmly clamped in her jaws. She chewed some of it, then tore the remainder with her claws. “That's what I'm going to do to that blue jay.”

“Dream on.” Murphy listened, unmoved, to the details.

“Doubting Thomas,” cooed Pewter, who at that moment felt glorious, since she had successfully stolen a biscuit.

“We're lucky.” Murphy hopped off the counter and rubbed against the corgi's snow-white chest. She dearly loved that dog, although she wouldn't say it out loud.

“We saved Blair.” Tucker licked Murphy's ear.

“Yes.” She rubbed her cheek against Tucker's cheek.

Big Mim, Little Mim, Herb, and Tally came in. Cynthia didn't tell them the news about finding the drug records because Big Mim already knew. If Rick Shaw didn't call her the second he knew something, she'd make his life miserable. It helped that she made major contributions to various law-enforcement events and charities.

“We're all feeling better, thanks to you.” Mim shook Cynthia's hand.

“I don't deserve any credit, really.”

“You're too modest. All those hours of questioning people, investigating sites, poring over evidence—no one sees how much work there is.” Mim smiled.

Tally spoke up abruptly. “This Saturday at three at my place, the old cemetery, you are invited to a funeral.”

“Oh, no! Who has—” Miranda rushed to console Tally, who held up her hand for silence.

“I'll explain at the funeral. Reverend Herb will conduct the service and afterward I will serve refreshments with the help of my niece and tell you who died and why. I won't live much longer myself. I need to tell you—” She paused, reaching for the counter to steady herself. “I need to tell you how things stay with you. The past, I mean. The past lives right through us. Even if no one ever reads another history book, even if whole nations resign themselves to ignorance, the past pulls like the moon on tides. Please come.”

“Of course we'll come.” Miranda's voice, filled with warm sympathy, almost made Tally cry.

“I'll be there. Thank you for inviting me,” Harry said.

“How about that?” Pewter was amazed.

After the group left, including Cynthia, Harry and Miranda sorted, then swept the floors.

“I wonder why Tally invited me to this funeral?” Harry asked.

“I believe it has something to do with you.”

“Me?”

“Your blood. There was talk about Tally and your great-grandfather. I was too young to pay attention. But there was talk. This was before my time. Mother remembered, though.”

“I guess we'll find out on Saturday.”

“You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” She put the broom back into the broom closet. “Redemption. I should think that whatever she tells us, Saturday is about redemption.”

“What chapter and verse?”

“First Peter, Chapter 1, Verses 18 and 19.”

“You amaze me.”

“In my day we learned by rote. Stays with you.”

Harry scooped up Murphy and kissed her head. She was thinking about the animals driving the Porsche and knowing she couldn't tell anyone.

“Miranda, do you really believe that people can be redeemed? A murderer can be redeemed?”

“Certainly I do, if he but accepts Christ as his savior.”

“What about Murphy and Tucker, and Pewter, even though she's a little thief?” She smiled.

“A thief is the only person guaranteed a place in paradise. Remember, it was a thief crucified with Christ who accepted him as the Son of God, and Jesus promised him everlasting life.”

“Hope for Pewter.”

Miranda, years ago, would have been offended at this discussion, at the idea that animals have immortal souls and spiritual lives . . . but working with them and watching them, she had changed her mind. Not loudly. Not even so much that others might notice by observation. “There's redemption for Pewter. God loves all his creatures and I believe we will be reunited in heaven.” She stopped, and this, for her, was a revelation. “Harry, sometimes I think that animals are closer to God than we are.”