Рита Браун - Hotspur

Nola, while always friendly to Ray Junior, was too busy conquering men even as a fourteen-year-old to pay much attention to the boy. Nola had discovered her powers early and was determined to use them.

“I will.” Sybil sniffed.

Ken joined them. “Thank you for coming.” He embraced Sister.

“I’m just so glad you and the children are here.”

“We haven’t told the children all of it. Only that their Aunt Nola was finally found. What do you tell a ten-year-old and a six-year-old in a situation like this?” Ken shrugged.

“The truth—as gently as you can, because if you don’t, someone else will,” Sister forthrightly replied. “They’re strong.”

“Mother wants us to move back into the big house, but we can’t. We’re staying at Hunter’s Rest, but I’ll be with Mother every day,” Sybil said.

Hunter’s Rest, a two-story frame house, was located at the southernmost border of the large estate. It once housed the farm manager.

“If you need to get the children away, drop them with me. The S litter”—Sister mentioned a robust litter of foxhound puppies whelped in mid-May—“need walking out and handling. And you know they’re always as welcome as you are.”

“Thank you.” Ken placed his large hand on her shoulder. Apart from a slight paunch, he was holding his own against middle age. A few strands of gray appeared in his sandy hair and eyebrows. A small bald spot like a tonsure bore testimony to the encroaching years, but one had to be taller than Ken to see it.

Later, as Sister and Shaker drove back through the continuing rain, Shaker loosened his dark blue tie. “Had the damndest feeling.”

“What?”

“Well”—he paused, then sheepishly looked over at Sister—“I think I’ve seen too many TV mysteries.”

“What?” she persisted, knowing he’d have to work up to anything that couldn’t be proven by logic.

“Well, I felt that somebody in that room knew—knew what had really happened to Nola.”

CHAPTER 4

The windshield wipers on the Mercedes S500 flipped at their highest speed as Crawford Howard and his wife, Marty, drove back toward town. They had met and married at the University of Indiana, made a fortune in strip malls, moved to central Virginia, divorced, and remarried, all before age forty-seven. Surprisingly, neither of them appeared exhausted by this process.

“Honey, slow down.” Marty involuntarily shrank back as the water from puddles splashed against her side window.

“This machine can handle everything.”

“This machine must still obey the laws of physics,” she wryly replied. But knowing how he loathed being corrected, she hastened to add, “Edward was glad to see you. I know you’ve had a long day, but thank you for making the effort.”

He slowed to forty-five miles an hour. “That girl must have been something. Those photographs of her all over the house—really something.”

The Howards had moved to Jefferson Hunt Country after Nola’s disappearance.

“Don’t you think people are jumping to conclusions?” Marty’s voice rose.

“What? That she was murdered?”

“Right.”

“Honey, people don’t commit suicide and bury themselves. If they commit suicide, sooner or later the body is found. And she disappeared in September, so you know she would have been found quick enough.”

“Betty Franklin said the last time anyone saw her alive was at a party Sorrel Buruss gave for the first day of cubbing. But you’re right. It’s still hot in September.”

“A first-day-of-cubbing party. That’s a good idea.”

Foxhunting rarely opened with a home run, more like a base hit. Cubbing introduced young entry, those hounds hunting for their first year, to the young foxes, being hunted for the first time. The older hounds and hunt staff helped steady the youngsters, keeping them running between the bases instead of straying off into center field. The young foxes, with a bit of luck, learned the rules from the older foxes, but in case a youngster was caught unawares, many a huntsman would steer his pack away to save the fox. If the pack couldn’t be deterred, if scent was just flaming, a whipper-in would do his or her best to warn the fox. If hounds were far enough away, the whipper-in would speak to the fox. The sound of a human voice usually set the fox to running. If hounds were close, the whipper-in would smack his or her boot with their crop. The sound alerted the fox. The whipper-in didn’t want to use his or her voice, if possible, in those circumstances, for the hounds would know the human’s voice.

No one wanted to kill a fox under any circumstances, whether in cubbing or later in formal hunting. American foxhunting was purely about the thrill of the chase—the joy of good hound work and hard riding. Unfortunately, most Americans formed their concept of foxhunting from the English traditions. This was a misunderstanding American foxhunters fretted over continually.

“Wonder why we don’t have a party like that anymore?”

“Bad organization.” Crawford rarely let slip the opportunity to criticize, implicitly suggesting he could do better.

Foxhunting clubs, like all volunteer organizations, rolled with the ebb and flow of individual enthusiasm. One member might host an annual breakfast or party for years, then grow weary of it. The master might suggest that someone else pick up the slack, but she or he couldn’t exactly give orders. Orders usually attend paychecks.

“Well, darling, perhaps we should host one. Bring back a lovely tradition.”

He braked sharply as a deer shot across the road. “Big rats, that’s what they are.” Then he returned his attentions to his recently remarried wife. “Wouldn’t hurt. And let’s do it properly. None of this platter of ham biscuits and a pile of doughnuts. Mumm de Cramant.” He mentioned a champagne of which he was particularly fond.

“Cristal.” She loved Louis Roederer.

“I’m not serving $270 bottles of champagne. As it is, the de Cramant is running about $70, although if I order a few cases from Sherry-Lehmann I can get the price down. Don’t worry, sweetie, they’ll be damned impressed when they taste it.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” She noticed the sign to the entrance of the Franklins’ small farm swinging wildly in the increasing wind. “Turning into a filthy night. Almost as if Nola’s ghost has stirred up the winds.”

“Now, Marty.” He laughed.

“I believe in spirits. What about the ghosts at Hangman’s Ridge? People have seen them, and people who aren’t”—she weighed her next word—“flighty.”

“Pure bunk. Anyway, this will all blow over, forgive the pun. If there’s any evidence left on the body at all, I guarantee you it will lead back to Guy Ramy. It just figures. So the real work is finally tracking him down. You know someone around here knows where he is or helped him get out of town. Boy’s father was the sheriff. Man might have been the sheriff, but I’ll bet you he protected his own.”

“But honey, everyone who knew them said Guy loved her.”

“Men kill the women they say they love every day.”

“Makes me wonder why the compliment isn’t reciprocated.”

“Women are more moral.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I do. I know you’re my moral superior. And I wished when we were younger I’d asked you about things, deals, people. But I didn’t.” He shifted in his seat. “Although I still think you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Not that I’m condoning smashing people to bits, but competition is the lifeblood of trade, it’s the lifeblood of this country. Someone has to win and someone has to lose.”

“I guess Nola lost.”

“Don’t worry over it, Marty. This will get settled now that the body has surfaced. Really. And there’s nothing we can do about it except do whatever the Bancrofts need done.” He slowed for the entrance to their farm, Beasley Hall. It was named long before they bought it. It was named for Tobias Beasley, the original holder of the land grant from Charles II. “Wonder if Edward Bancroft has more money than I do? If I’d inherited what he inherited I’d have turned it into four or five billion dollars by now. You know, these people who inherit fortunes let gentlemen investors manage their money. The investments return maybe three percent or four percent a year. I can’t understand anyone being that passive about their money.”