Рита Браун - A Hiss Before Dying

“Crows and vultures. Eagles are fish eaters,” Mrs. Murphy replied. “I suppose any animal, including a human, will eat carrion if nothing else is available. Some protein there.”

“Remember the time we came upon the corpse dressed as a scarecrow and the crows mobbed it? Sang a song about eyes, too, which was really horrible.”

Pewter puffed her tail out more. “Birds have no respect.”

“Neither do humans. It was a human who hoisted the body up on the pole,” Tucker wisely noted.

They chattered on. Being creatures of the moment with no need for ideologies, they accepted the habits of other animals. Humans attached theories and ideologies to habits, some correct, some not correct. The two cats and dog never did that. They looked life square in the eye, which doesn’t mean they always liked what they saw.

“It’s getting close to Halloween. Might have something to do with it. I hate Halloween, too.” Pewter spoke as though she was on Mt. Olympus.

“I’m not overly fond of it either,” Mrs. Murphy confessed.

“What I don’t understand is why do they want to look like skeletons, dead things? Zombies? Monsters? They’ll all be dead soon enough, why push it?” Pewter sensibly said.

“If I knew the answer to that, I’d think like a human, God forbid.” The sturdy dog raised her nose in the air. “Girls, up a tree. Someone’s coming. A coyote.”

The two cats needed no further prodding, for coyotes would kill and eat anything.

Within a minute, Odin, a young fellow, approached Tucker, legs farther apart, braced, in case. On seeing a friend, the corgi relaxed.

“Scared me there for a minute.”

“I didn’t think anything scared you.” The handsome fellow smiled at the dog.

The cats and dog had helped Odin survive a bitter winter when he was scrawny and half grown. They’d debated about it but then moved by his plight, pulled food and garbage out to him behind the barn. Odin never forgot and would bring the threesome tidbits of gossip from the wild animals, things he’d observed at other farms.

“Heard about the body at Sugarday?” Tucker asked.

“No, that’s pretty far away. Might hear about it in a day or two, but there aren’t many of us that far east of here. Coyote, I mean,” Odin replied. “The only thing I heard was a human was found under a boulder up by 250.”

The cats in the tree and Tucker related the details of the beagles finding a body, shot twice in the back. As Harry had seen the body, their information was good. Pewter also, in glowing detail, described the eagle carrying an eye, which she was sure belonged to the corpse under the big rock.

The coyote sat on his haunches. “Guess he didn’t stand a chance. Either one.”

“Maybe they didn’t deserve one,” Pewter called down.

“If we ever get to see the Waldingfield beagles, we’ll ask them. The humans usually miss something.” Tucker didn’t mean that as a slam, but it was what she’d observed in her lifetime.

—

As it was, Deputy Cooper, in her tidy office, was going over the known facts of the two corpses.

Sheriff Shaw popped in. “Anything strike you?”

“If we can get an ID on the second body, that might help. For the first guy, good record, truck driver for a Louisville company for eight years. No accidents. Everything we found out has checked out since the day we called the trucking company. No record of any sort. Clean. The trucking company, mid-South, obviously, ships east as far as Boston and as far west as Denver. No problems there that have shown up, anyway. All trucks state inspected. All drivers vetted for criminal records. Random blood tests to determine if anyone is on drugs or drink. Noland Charmin was clean. Married. Father of two. No one can think of what happened to him. Waiting for the medical reports. I’ll track down habits, you know, did he like basketball? Sometimes interests tell you more than records.”

“Mmm,” Rick said.

“Second victim still unidentified, obviously.”

The sheriff stared at Cooper for a moment. “Patience. It always takes patience.”

And so it would. But like so many things in a criminal investigation, by the time they found out what they needed, they would be a day late and a dollar short.

January 2, 1786 Monday

T he storm seemed tethered over the mountain. Flurries would fade, then an hour later more heavy snow would fall accompanied by fierce gusts.

Catherine joined the boys in the barn, to check on the horses. Jeddie, eighteen, almost nineteen, wiry, a good rider getting better, delighted her no matter what.

Serenissima, a quality mare she bought from Maureen Selisse, dozed in her stall, a warm blanket over her. All the horses, whether the blooded horses or the draft horses, contently ate or dozed, happy to be inside. With fresh hay, constant water changes if the water froze in the buckets, and their stalls picked clean, life was good.

Chores done, Catherine sat down in the tack room, warmed by a small woodburning stove placed on thick slate that sat on packed earth. The rest of the floor, unplaned oak, had been worn smooth over the years. Tired, she removed her gloves, blew on her hands, then held them toward the stove.

“Miss Catherine, I can make tea on the stove,” Jeddie offered.

“No, thank you.” She looked up at his open, honest face. “Aren’t we getting close to your birthday?”

He smiled. “Not too close.”

“Nineteen?” Her eyebrows raised.

“Yes.” He grinned. “I’m old enough to get married.”

She tilted back her head, laughing. “Jeddie, I had no idea you wanted to get married.”

He laughed with her. “I don’t. Momma’s lecturing me about it.”

“And your father?” she asked.

The young man shook his head. “Saying nothing. He doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of Momma.”

“Wise man. No one wants to get on the wrong side of your momma.”

“She’s saying if I marry the right girl, I can be happy. A wife will take care of me.”

“She’s right.”

“And I’ll get my own cabin. Ours is crowded. I think Momma wants me out.”

She grinned. “Oh, I don’t know about that.” She paused. “Springtime. I’ll talk to Father about building more cabins. We have enough, he’ll say, and we do, but I’ll remind him that it’s best to be prepared and some of our younger people will be married soon, new babies. You know Father loves babies.” Her eyes twinkled. “Wants to pick them up. I remember the first time Marcia wrapped her tiny fingers around his finger. His eyes misted, he fell in love. Tell me, Jeddie, what would we have done if he hadn’t fallen in love with her?”

“She’s a pretty little thing,” Jeddie remarked.

“We can’t hide the fact that she’s an outside child, but we can hide whose outside child. It’s been fun watching ladies talk behind their hands about how our cousin fell from grace, the one in South Carolina. Then someone else whispers, ‘No, it was the cousin in Charlottesville.’ People love to talk and they don’t much care if it’s the truth or not. What they care about is looking as though they have the real story.”

He nodded. “I listen, especially when we’re at another barn or a horse race. Lot of puffed-up people.”