Рита Браун - Full Cry

Sister had grown up with horses and hounds. She didn’t even know what she knew, for it was like breathing to her. However, she was still willing to learn and never minded reading about hoof studies, new medications, new exercise therapies. She noted that many horsemen were fanatically resistant to new methods. She thought a lot of the new stuff bunk, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t keep abreast. Occasionally there was value in something new.

She could think in the stable better than in the kennels. With the hounds she was busy talking to them, assessing their abilities or working with them one on one. But with the horses, she could truly think. She’d adjust a blanket, check legs, listen to breathing just in case. The large animals relaxed her, their scent intoxicated her, and her love for them was unconditional. She had always loved horses, hounds, cats, and dogs more than 99 percent of the people she had met in her life. She was, however, wise enough to keep this to herself, or she thought she was. The human race is so grotesquely egocentric that any human who finds another species more worthy of affection is branded a misfit, a misanthrope, someone with intimacy issues, oh, the list went on. She paid them no mind. She knew she was closer to God when with his creatures than she ever would be with chattering people.

She needed that closeness this morning. Bouncing between elation and worry, her chores helped her concentrate.

Thinking of Gray made her smile, while the thought of the club’s troubles caused distress. The hostility between Xavier and Sam upset her. She also secretly worried about working closely with Crawford. He would not easily set aside his large ambition. She hoped he wouldn’t work to undermine Walter. The tension between Clay and Xavier was a new cause for concern, and this dreadful mess at Berry Storage made her sick. With the instinct of a good foxhunter, she knew the two deaths at the railroad station were connected with Donnie’s. She felt as though the snow was covered with tracks that ran in circles.

If Jennifer and Sari could get through the roads, they’d arrive after church to groom each horse, so she didn’t attend to that. Instead, she walked into the tack room, dogs behind her, and sat down in the old, cracked-leather wing chair, the heady fragrance of leather, liniment, and horse filling her nostrils.

With the door closed, the tack room was pleasant. Its small gas heater looked like a wood-burning stove; a glass door in front kept the fifteen-by-fifteen room toasty. In the old days, tack rooms had real wood-burning stoves, but sparks flying out of the chimneys, in a downdraft, could swirl onto the roof or find their way into haylofts. Constant vigilance and many buckets of water were necessary.

“Could I have a bone?” Raleigh asked. He’d left the house without breakfast, as had Sister.

“Me, too,” Rooster begged.

“I know, I didn’t feed anyone. I’ll make a good breakfast when we get back up to the house. Just let the horses eat, give it another half hour. I always like to see how much each has eaten. You know how fussy I am with them.” She rose from the chair, opened a midsize dark red plastic garbage can, almost a little art object in its own way, and handed each dog a large milkbone.

She sat down again, talking to them as they chewed. “Boys, I keep thinking about all this. There is such a thing as the criminal mind. I can’t say that I understand that mind, but Ben Sidell does, I’m sure. There are people born without a conscience, psychopaths, sociopaths, I don’t know all the technical terms. It boils down to a criminal brain. I don’t necessarily believe a criminal mind is an insane mind, although some are. If you think about it, every single society on earth since B.C. has faced criminal behavior and destructive people. We think we’ve advanced in our handling of it, but I think we’ve backslid, abandoned our responsibility to the law-abiding. That’s not what worries me at this moment. You see, boys, I’m thinking about Donnie, Mitch, and Anthony, especially Anthony. Three people who have died of unnatural causes in a short period of time. Three people loosely connected by work.”

Raleigh stopped chewing a minute. “I’m listening.”

“Are these deaths the work of a nutcase? I think not. What is this about? There’s no element of passion. That shows on the corpse. This is cold murder, just getting people out of the way and trying not to make too big a mess out of it. With Mitch and Anthony, it appeared natural until the autopsy. Then, the question: Is it murder? Of course it is. I think so. They were thought out. But they weren’t thought out quite well enough, were they? Could Donnie really have been stupid enough to soak the warehouse and light a match without making sure of his escape? That’s pretty stupid. This mess isn’t about love, lust, or revenge. It’s greed. So I ask you, my two friends, where is the money? Show me the money.”

CHAPTER 34

“Are you dog tired and ready to bite?”

“Tired. No biting. Not you, anyway.” Walter gratefully accepted the hot soup Sister placed before him. He’d had an emergency call with a patient at four in the morning, Monday. He had finally reached home at eleven to find Sister waiting for him with food.

Tonto, a bundle of energy, ran laps in the big old kitchen as Rooster and Raleigh watched. Bessie stayed in her carpet-covered box. She didn’t like Raleigh and Rooster.

“You’ve transformed this kitchen. I wish Peter could see it.” She admired the patina of the hand-polished maple cabinets, the granite-topped counters, the built-in appliances, unobtrusive except for the huge Wolf stove, gleaming in stainless steel. A welling of lust for this stove filled her.

“Maybe he can.” Walter waited for Sister to sit before putting the large spoon in the chicken rice soup. “This is exactly what I needed.”

From the small bowl in front of her she tested the soup, which she made last night. “Not bad. Soups seem perfect in the winter. This has been one hell of a winter.”

“The roads are bad. I sure appreciate your coming here.”

“Drove slow. It’s four-wheel drive, not four-wheel stop.”

He broke off a bit of pumpernickel from the fresh loaf.

“Do you have a bread oven?” she asked.

“No.” He pointed to a square machine, two feet high and built in flush with the wall. “I put the ingredients in, set the timer, the bread is ready. It’s remarkable.”

“What’s remarkable is that you think of it.”

“I like cooking. A transitory art form.”

She smiled. “Extremely transitory. Well, I am in love with your stove. Forgive me, it’s rude to ask prices, but how much is that thing? I mean, it has six gas burners, a griddle, which is perfect for me, a big oven. It’s really impressive.”

“That particular model was nine thousand dollars. There are less-expensive models, four burners instead of six.”

“Good God.”

“A lot of money, but it should last generations, and you saw how wonderful it is to work on. You can get them without griddles, but you like the griddle.”

“I do.” She drummed her fingers on the farm table. “Nine thousand dollars. And where does one purchase this thing?”

“You can go online or shop around, but I wasted too much time doing that. I finally went down to Ron Martin and got it. They delivered, installed it, the gas company came and hooked up the line after burying the gas tank. It wasn’t nearly as big a mess as I thought it would be. Kind of like plumbing. You know, I fooled around and then woke up and went down to Maddox in Charlottesville, bought my shower, hot tub, old restored 1930s sinks. Had some of the sinks and johns that were here rebuilt for me. They stand behind what they do. That’s the problem with online shopping. The only person you can call when something goes wrong is the manufacturer, and he’ll bounce you to the dealer, and, if the dealer is in Minnesota, you’re cooked. Forgive the pun.”