Рита Браун - Full Cry

“We’re lucky. We both have a strong circle of dear friends, and now it looks like we might have a bit of the other.” He blushed, and she continued. “The people who don’t have that love become bitter, or they dry out. Hateful. I think that’s what happened to Clay.”

“He had friends. Had a wife.”

“He was never honest. He lied since the time he was a kid. Always wanting to be something he wasn’t. Married for show, not for a deep emotional connection.”

“There’s no excuse for him.”

“No. But it’s funny some folks aren’t satisfied. More, always want more.”

“Ben call?”

“Briefly. Clay won’t confess to anything. Declaring mental anguish, breakdown.” She drew in her breath. “Some truth to it. Izzy’s clammed up, too, but Ben said the good Dr. Hill is singing like a canary.”

“And?”

“Drugs. Performance drugs. Like I suspected.”

“Too bad we didn’t get any.” Shaker stifled a guffaw.

“I know.” She laughed with him. “Course it’s one thing if someone my age takes HGH. Quite another if a fifteenyear-old high school kid shoots up, you know? And Dalton said their network covered the entire mid-South.”

“What did Mitch and Anthony have to do with it?”

“Delivered the drugs in the furniture. They never made the long runs out of state because Clay figured they’d go on a bender somewhere between here and Tennessee. Mitch figured it out and told Anthony. They decided to blackmail Clay. Remember, Shaker, those two might have had moments of lucidity, but they’d killed a lot of brain cells. Like dopes, they threatened Clay directly. He paid them, and they’d immediately drink it up. It was easy after a few months of this to put hemlock in two bottles of whiskey. Clay was a Pony Clubber, took the nature courses with me as a kid; he knew cowbane as well as I did. He could dig it up and not get sick. And there’s cowbane all over. We can’t get rid of it. That part wasn’t too hard for Clay. Jesus, it’s so bloody stupid.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“And Izzy sat down in the lap of luxury and didn’t want to get up again.”

“She was sleeping with Dalton, too. No surprise. She was perfectly ready to ditch Clay when the going got rough. Made me think of the hunt at Foxglove when Bitsy shadowed Uncle Yancy. Izzy and Dalton were sure looking out for each other. Poor Clay loved being rich. He loved it so much, he set aside right from wrong.”

“What happened to Donnie?”

“Made a dumb move. He saw Anthony and Mitch get extra money here and there. Anthony told him what they were doing, getting money out of Clay. Donnie wouldn’t have figured it out for himself. So Donnie got in the act, demanding a lot more once Anthony and Mitch were out of the way.”

“You’d think he’d know he was next.”

“You would, wouldn’t you? The human mind has a fabulous capacity for denial. Clay lured him to the warehouse; they had a brief struggle. Donnie lost consciousness, although not by a blow to the head. Gaston Marshall thinks Clay shut off Donnie’s air, hence the bruised windpipe.”

“He’s a good coroner. Had to be to figure anything out from that charred corpse.”

“And it was Clay who set the fire. The tip-off was the gas can being so close to Donnie. He wasn’t that woefully stupid, at least not about physical things.”

Yeah. Makes sense.” Shaker wiped his hand on his kennel coat. “Three people dead. For what? Three more will go to jail.”

“They lived high on the hog for a while.”

“Trinity.” Shaker walked over to the young hound.

“Over here.” He moved her to a less-crowded feeder. “Always wants to be next to her sisters, and they eat faster than she does.”

“She’s a lady about her table manners.”

“She’s the only one.” Shaker laughed.

“Well, I’m glad we switched to the higher-fat-content feed when we did, high protein, too. With this cold and the incredible runs we’ve been having, the children would have gotten down in weight quickly. I hate to see a weedy pack.”

“Once it goes off, it’s hard to get it back on until season’s over. They’re like people; some incline to weight and some do not. Most of our pack inclines to being lean.”

“Yes, they do. And I never praise you enough for your kennel practices and your attention to nutrition. Look at the shine on those coats.”

“That’s my job,” he modestly replied.

“Hey, there’s people out there doing the same job, ’cept they don’t know what they’re doing. Boy, if you get a master who doesn’t know hounds and the huntsman’s not worth squat, the poor pack suffers. Another reason why we need the MFHA and district reps.” She mentioned the Master of the Foxhounds Association of America, which divided Canada and the United States into districts, each one with a chosen representative.

One of the duties of that representative was to make sure every hound pack in his or her jurisdiction was properly kept.

“They’re getting like the government, sending paperwork.”

“To me.”

“Then you give it to me!”

“Some of it.” She poked him with her forefinger.

“Think Clay could have gotten away with it?” asked Shaker, returning to the dramatic events.

“He snapped. But he was sloppy, too. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to keep paying off Mitch and Anthony and then dispose of them later, somewhere far away? Makes me believe the pressure was already getting to him. Maybe Izzy was greedier than we know, or maybe Dalton got cold feet. Sounds like Dalton’s the type.”

Shaker’s eyes twinkled. “Committing perfect murders now, are you?”

“Me?”

“You said Clay could have handled this better than he did.”

Her face reddened. “You’re right.”

“Maybe it’s easy,” he said.

“What?”

“Murder. Stealing, other stuff. Maybe you think about what’s right for you, and you don’t think about what’s right for the rest of us. What’s the difference between Clay Berry and Kenneth Lay? Sure, boss, Kenneth Lay didn’t kill anyone, but is the impulse different?”

“It’s tricky, Shaker. I break rules. I go over the speed limit if I think I can get away with it. Maybe that’s the same impulse you’re talking about: a self-centeredness.”

“Not the same,” he replied.

“Okay, take another kind of rule: sexual behavior. I broke the rules when I was younger. Maybe I’m breaking them now. What’s the difference between that, and, say, thinking you’ll sell OxyContin because people want it? Is it a fixed set of morals? Are they written in stone? Is sexual behavior on a different plane than financial behavior? If you start to think about it, you’ll run yourself crazy.”

“No, you won’t.” His voice was firm. “Sex is about our animal self. That’s nature. Money, that’s man-made. Animals defend their turf, but we’ve created elaborate owner-ships that pass from generation to generation. In nature, each animal has to be strong enough to defend his or her territory, like the mountain lion we ran up or the badger. We’ve bent the natural rules and we keep bending them. It’s one thing to have an affair, it’s another to kill three people.”

“You’re right, but when I think about this stuff, I get dizzy. And when I started to figure out this really was Clay’s doing, it made me sick. It was under my nose, but I didn’t want to see it. I finally did, though.”

“Hard to look at an old friend in a new way.”

They chattered until all hounds were fed, yards picked up, runs cleaned and washed down.

Then they left the kennels, passing the paddocks, including the mare paddocks.

Secretary’s Shorthand stood in the snow, nuzzling a light bay foal who was wobbly, but nursing.