Рита Браун - Hotspur

“Well, exactly how do you think this will affect us? Will people not pay their dues or something like that?” Diana asked.

“No. People drop out when it’s a bad season. No hunt club has control over the weather, but people act as though they do, the fair-weather hunters, I mean.” Cora observed human behavior closely. “Or when there’s a club blowup, which happens about every seven years. Archie always said humans do things in seven-year cycles. They just don’t recognize it.”

“Crawford Howard.” Golly curled her upper lip as she said his name.

“Up to his old tricks?” Cora snapped at a low-flying dragonfly.

“Cat intuition.” Golly smiled. “I have an idea. Whatever happened to Nola in 1981 was well done, if you will. When you’re hunting you all go places humans don’t. Sometimes even Shaker can’t keep up with you when territory’s rough. You might find something or smell something out there that could help solve this mess. After all, the best noses in the world are” —she paused for effect— “bloodhounds, but you all are second.”

“Second to none!” Cora’s voice rose, which caused a few sleepers to open one eye and grumble.

Humans ranked the noses of bloodhounds first, followed by bassets second and foxhounds third, with all other canines following. Foxhounds thought this an outrage. Of course they were best. Besides, who in the world could hunt behind a bloodhound? The poor horse would die of boredom. This was a pure article of foxhound faith.

“This has to do with hunting? Is that what you’re really thinking, Golly?” Diana noticed a few of the boys in the kennel were quarreling over a stick. How they had the energy to even growl in this heat mystified her. One of the troublemakers, of course, was her brother, Dragon.

“Yes, think about it. Cubbing starts September seventh. It’s the end of July. Stuff happens when you’re hunting. Everything speeds up. People reveal themselves out there.”

“We sure hear them scream for Jesus.” Diana giggled as she recalled a few of the oaths elicited by a stiff fence.

“I have never figured that out. The horse jumps the fence, not them,” Cora said, laughing.

“Oh, but that’s just it, Cora. Sometimes the human takes the fence and the horse doesn’t.”

They all laughed at that.

“We’ll keep our nose to the ground,” Cora promised.

“I have the strangest feeling that Guy Ramy will be coming back.” Golly lowered her voice again. “More cat intuition.”

In a way, Golly was right.

CHAPTER 6

The Hapsburg saphhire glittered on the small glass-topped table. Outside, the long summer twilight cloaked the grand old trees surrounding Roughneck Farm, and scarlet tendrils of sunset seemed to ensnare the wisteria that climbed all over the back porch. The rose and gold light reflected off the windowpanes of the neat gardening shed, casting intricate designs across the emerald lawn.

Tedi and Sister sat on the screened-in back porch. The humidity was particularly oppressive this evening. Sister drank dark hot tea while Tedi nursed a martini as well as a glass of iced green tea. The mercury was dropping with evening’s approach. The humidity seemed determined to hang on. Sister believed drinking a hot drink on a hot day kept you healthier. No one else could stand anything hot.

Raleigh and Golliwog were curled up together in Raleigh’s Black Watch plaid dog bed. Rooster, Peter Wheeler’s lovely harrier, was stretched out in his own bed, covered in the Wallace tartan, next to Raleigh. Peter, an ex-lover of Sister’s, had bequeathed his handsome hound to her and his entire estate to the Jefferson Hunt to be administered solely by the master—not the Board of Directors. Peter’s eight decades on this earth had taught him a benign dictatorship was infinitely preferable to democracy. He died peacefully last year, a quiet end to a productive life.

Both Sister and Tedi now knew Nola had not died peacefully, a fact they were currently grappling with.

The animals listened intently, even Golly, who under normal circumstances would have told Raleigh how lucky he was to have her in his special porch bed.

“I knew. I always knew. So did you,” Tedi said sadly.

Sister heard a squirrel clamber up the wisteria on her way to her nest in the attic. “We hoped. We always hoped.”

“I’m done crying. I know, Janie, that I can be all over the map, as you say.” She held up her hand to quell the protest. “I am a little different. I was never able to think the way you do. You think in sequences, you see patterns. Edward’s like that. I don’t. I gather it all up in one big basket, then dump it on the table and start sorting. But I eventually find what I’m looking for even if I drive everyone crazy doing it. It’s just the way my mind works.”

“You are an original,” Sister said, smiling. “I’m lucky to know you.”

“Do you realize we’ve known each other all our lives? But it seems like a split second. I don’t understand it. We’re seventy-one years old and I don’t feel old, I don’t act old, at least I don’t think I do. I don’t know where the years are. Are they hiding in my pocket? Are they wherever Nola is? What happened?”

Sister shrugged. “Wherever they are we sure packed a lot into them.” She sipped her tea.

“Yes, we did.” Tedi inhaled, her bright blue eyes flickering for a moment. “I’m not avoiding the subject.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I know Nola was murdered. I didn’t need the dental chart to prove those bones were Nola’s any more than I needed Ben Sidell to tell me her skull had been crushed. A blunt instrument, he said, or a large rock. They aren’t going to find the answers to this under a microscope, it’s been too long. Too long.”

“Well, he has to go by the book. Otherwise he won’t stay sheriff for long.”

“I know that. I just want to know who killed her. I still think it was Guy Ramy. Dog in a manger. I can’t have her, so no one else can have her.”

“But Nola was perfectly capable of running off with Guy and he was madly in love with her.”

“They all were. And she wouldn’t have run off with Guy. Headstrong as she was, Janie, Nola loved money. I think she might have allowed herself a flaming affair. And enjoy it all the more knowing I did not approve nor did her father. But marry Guy?” She shook her head.“No.”

“I think she would.”

“Why?”

“She knew in time you and Edward would forgive her. You’d have made a settlement on her with the appearance of the first grandchild. After all, you acquiesced to Ken in time.”

A silence followed this.

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it. Nola could play her father like a harp, and eventually you’d have given in as well. So long as she was happy.”

“He wouldn’t have made her happy.” Tedi’s voice dropped a quarter of an octave.

“Tedi, there’s ripe disagreement on that subject. People started talking about it in 1980, when Nola and Guy first fell in love. Opening Hunt. You could feel the electricity.”

“Odd. They’d known each other all their lives.”

“Not so odd. He went away to college, graduated, put in two years in the service. She hadn’t seen him, hardly, for six years.”

“I don’t understand it.”

“No one does. That’s why love is love.” Sister smiled. “Freshen your drink?”

“I’ll do it.” Tedi rose, walking to the small bar in the pantry just off the kitchen, the wide, uneven heart pine planks creaking underfoot.