Рита Браун: The Litter Of The Law

Both Harry and Mrs. Murphy looked up when they heard a motor, then a door slam. Harry hurried outside to catch whomever it was before they ran through the rain to the back door.

“Coop, I’m in the barn,” Harry hollered.

The tall blonde deputy smiled and hurried into the barn. “Can you believe how much cooler it is all of a sudden?”

As she walked down the center aisle to the tack room, Harry replied, “October.”

Once inside, Cooper sank into a director’s chair. She leaned over to peer under the desk.

“So much for Tucker being a guard dog.”

Harry laughed. “She really is dead to the world, isn’t she?” Then she indicated the fat gray cat on the tack trunk. “Another one.”

“You need to tie a roller skate under Pewter’s stomach.”

“Coop, that’s a great idea.”

Mrs. Murphy giggled.

“How was church this morning?” Cooper inquired. “I overslept.”

“Herb gave a really good sermon, as always. He talked about harvesttime and read some passages from the New Testament about gathering. He always holds my interest.”

“He makes it real. Not a bunch of rules.” Cooper rented the Reverend Herb Jones’s homeplace, as the pastor of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church had moved in to the beautiful vicarage on the church grounds.

“Can you imagine building St. Luke’s? This used to be the Wild West. The Monacans”—Harry mentioned an Indian tribe—“weren’t happy to see us.”

“Still aren’t, I bet,” Coop said.

“Small wonder.” Harry inhaled. “Anyway, Albemarle County didn’t really start rolling until after the Revolutionary War. That’s when the first stone was laid for St. Luke’s. Don’t you love the church building that evolved?”

“I do. I love people that evolve, too.” Coop sighed.

“Okay, what’s on your mind?” Harry knew her friend and neighbor well enough to tell from the tilt of the conversation that Coop was turning something over in her mind.

“University of Virginia football, for one. Every time there’s a home game, it’s one scrape after another, plus we have to really keep our eyes out for the kids who are flat-out loaded. Hey, I was in college once, too. I don’t mind if you get drunk. Everyone has to learn that one, how to handle the bottle, but I don’t want them behind the wheel of a car.”

“That’s not going to change. Do you know who the scarecrow is yet?”

“No. We found a class ring.” Cooper leaned closer. “The crows had eaten the flesh from his fingers and hands. It slipped off. Actually, crows like shiny things. If we hadn’t gotten there when we did, that Virginia Tech ring would be in a nest somewhere.”

“Did it have initials and a year inscribed?”

“J.H., 1998.”

“Did you find anything else?”

“Nothing. Pockets empty. But we’ll get an ID soon enough. Well, I speak too soon. But the faster you have an ID, the easier some links of inquiry are. For all we know, the killer is in Paraguay by now.”

“I don’t think so.” Harry leaned forward.

“Actually, Harry, I don’t either.”

“I’ll see that scarecrow forever. The sight itself was unpleasant enough, but the whole idea of it is really disturbing, you know?”

“I do.” Cooper sat quietly for a moment. “Pewter snores.”

“Yes, she does.” Harry laughed.

“No one wants to sleep next to her,” Mrs. Murphy informed them to no avail.

“Where’s Fair?”

“He got an emergency call. Sometimes that man works around the clock. It’s a good thing he loves what he does.”

“Me, too,” Cooper chimed in.

“The horrible part of police work, like finding a corpse scarecrow, doesn’t get to you?” Harry wondered.

“I can’t say that finding murder victims thrills me, but finding their killer does.”

“You know I read the paper, magazines. There are articles claiming that there are identifiable traits in children who grow up to become violent. Some writers even suggest putting them away before a crime has been committed.”

“Even if we could violate individual rights that way, there would still be murders,” Cooper stated.

“The human condition?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Pulling his veterinary truck up to the house that Sunday evening, Fair opened the truck’s door, then got out and wearily leaned against it.

Tucker, hearing the motor, dashed out the house’s animal door to greet him. “Hi, Pop. I missed you. I’m glad you’re home.”

The tall man bent down to pet the dog. “Hey, buddy.”

“You’re covered in blood and you’re sad and tired. Can I help?” Tucker implored him with her soft brown eyes.

Fair stroked the smooth head once more before standing. Taking a deep breath, he walked to the house.

In the kitchen, Harry heard his footfall but didn’t look up as she stuffed a Cornish hen. “First frost tonight, I think.”

“Feels like it.”

She turned and took in his bloodied, bedraggled appearance. “Oh, no! Honey, is the horse all right?”

He sank into a kitchen chair. “Couldn’t save her. She’d nicked her aorta. By the time Paul Diaz found her out in the pasture, she’d already lost so much blood. What a beautiful filly.” He rested his head in his hands. “The Medaglia d’Oro filly.”

“Oh, no.” Harry washed her hands. “Big Mim had such hopes for her.”

Medaglia d’Oro was a Thoroughbred stallion with a big career. Even in these hard economic times, his stud fees had been creeping up, and Big Mim had selected a mare to breed to him. He’d been siring winners on the track. The Queen of Crozet, as she was called behind her back and even to her face, had a knack for breeding, whether for steeplechasing or flat racing. It ran in her family. Her mother had it, too, and Big Mim passed it on to her daughter, Little Mim, who had recently given birth to a boy. Perhaps the magic would pass to him.

“That filly was one of the most correct horses I’ve ever seen. We all thought she was bound for greatness.”

Coming from Fair, that meant something.

“Is Big Mim okay?”

He thought a moment. “She’s a horsewoman. She accepts fate. But she’s upset. Seeing any animal you love die …” He shrugged.

Harry put her arms around him. “I know you did your best. I’m so sorry, honey.”

“The poor girl was down in the pasture. She’d lost so much blood, she couldn’t stand up, so I ran out, cleaned the wound, and she died while I was stitching her up. If she’d lived, I think we could have rolled her onto a canvas and dragged her into the barn, gotten her in a stall. I was prepared to give her massive transfusions and drip antibiotics into her. Whatever it took.”

“Big Mim would have sat up with you.” Harry warmed at the thought of the svelte septuagenarian sitting in the aisle, wrapped in a blanket.

“She would; Paul would, too. I think even Jim”—he named Big Mim’s husband, who was not a horse person—“would have taken a turn.”

“Me, too.” She kissed him. “You are such a good veterinarian. Such a good man. I love that you care.”

He kissed her hand. “Most of us do. A person should only go into medicine, veterinary or human, if they really care.”

“Well, that’s a subject for a long discussion, and my money is on the vets.” She kissed his cheek again.

“Let me get out of these clothes, shower. I’ll throw them in the washer.”

“Fair, how did it happen?”

“No idea. Honestly, honey, if I knew how half my patients did the stuff they did to themselves, I would be a genius. Horses are pretty careful animals but they can do the dumbest things sometimes, and she was young.” He smiled. “That doesn’t help.”