Рита Браун - The Big Cat Nap

“Remember that Dodge Dart you had junior year?”

“Tinker Bell.” Susan smiled. “Hey, Tinker got me where I wanted to go.” She paused. “With some help from you and BoomBoom. She suffered from chronic conditions.”

“Brake fade, numb steering, faulty timing, bald tires. Tinker was a basket case.”

“Half the time so was I. Why anyone looks back on their high school days with fondness is beyond me. Every day was an invitation to a new drama.”

“Well, every day you fell in love. You were a hot mess.”

“You always had Fair. But you were still a mess.” A gleam shone from Susan’s eyes, which never left the road.

“Oh, we all were. What scared me the most was taking the college boards.”

“You aced them. Got you a scholarship to Smith.”

“Scared me to death. Actually, I do sort of look back fondly sometimes. When we were tiny, we saw the world as so wondrous: butterflies, horses, shiny cars, listening to the car radio. But high school was more about emotions for the first time—adult emotions, I guess.”

“Coming from you, that’s a statement.”

“Why?”

“Harry, I think of you as a part-time adult.”

“You know, I could cancel our lunch, even if you did turn my hay. Mean . You are just hateful mean.”

Susan laughed. “The truth hurts.”

They cruised along, secure in the love of deep friendship, cruising down Memory Lane, as well.

Susan pulled in to the parking lot of The Blue Mountain Brewery, their favorite place. The restaurant, on Route 151 in Afton, had good food and was much less expensive than any equivalent place in Charlottesville.

Charlottesville was working hard on appealing to the foodies, the result being an array of restaurants with small portions artfully displayed, followed by big bills.

Once settled in their booth, orders given and tall, ice-cold glasses of Coca-Cola in their hands, they jabbered about this, that, and who shot the cat, to use the old Southern expression.

When Susan’s rather big BLT arrived, a moment of guilt affected her. “I have no self-discipline. How can I lose weight eating bacon?”

“Oh, Susan, shut up about your weight. You look great. If Ned still revs his motors when he sees you, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“That’s the best way to look at it.”

With a devilish smile, Harry added ever so sweetly, “And, Susan, a little fat fills the wrinkles.”

Susan took her unused fork and jabbed Harry lightly on the hand. “You’ll eat those words instead of your salad. You’re too skinny anyway.”

“A woman can never be too rich or too thin,” Harry replied. “Who said that?”

“Someone who lived an unhappy life. Some days you have to eat fat or fried chicken or even a little sugar. I really do try to limit myself, but if I gave up everything, I’d be downright miserable.”

“A lot of women sure are.” Harry speared a wedge of egg. “Susan, I’ve been thinking.”

“God, no.”

“Really. This is serious, and I can tell you, knowing it will go no further. I can’t get the murders out of my mind. With my dumb luck, I found two of the corpses. Well, the cats and dog found the second one. But no one can believe they’re unrelated anymore.”

“No.” Susan’s eyes widened. She knew that Harry, in part because she didn’t have to observe law-enforcement protocol, often stumbled upon connections before others did. Then again, Harry often got it nearly right but not right enough, to the sheriff’s discomfort.

“I’ve investigated the gambling angle—gambling rings—as best I could. I called Tessa Randolph, who works at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. You remember her. Anyway, she told me that, no matter what type of illegal gambling, there has to be a drop or a mule, a place where the money is bet or a person who takes the bets. The drag track could be a good spot for an operation like that. But I can’t find a thing there. I’ve hinted to Sammy at ReNu that I want to bet. He races at the track, so I called him up. He said he didn’t know anything. He could be playing dumb.”

“You’re not the brightest, honeybun.”

“Well, do you have another suggestion?”

“Yes. Don’t call anyone at ReNu, for starters. We pay taxes, so Sheriff Shaw and Coop will deal with it. If there’s an illegal ring, you just tipped them off.”

“Yeah,” Harry paused, “but it bothers me that I’ve seen these dead men. I didn’t know them, but seeing them so close to life, so recently dead, it’s eerie, know what I mean?”

“I think so. All right, Harry, what have you got?”

“Questions. I’ve been in an early-morning fog. I could see shapes. Little by little, that morning fog is lifting. What I saw was that this could be tied to gambling or drugs, but now I don’t think so. But I definitely think it has to do with whatever the mechanics know at ReNu. Of course, that could still be gambling and drugs, but—I don’t know why I think it has to do with some kind of specialized knowledge. I’ve asked Coop to slip me the report on Tara Meola’s death.”

“That was an accident.”

“Was, but I want to read the disposition of her car.”

“What do you mean?”

“A deer caused her death. Official version, and indeed it likely was the catalyst, but I think there’s more to it.”

“Oh, come on, Harry, she wasn’t murdered.”

Taking a deep breath, then a deep swallow of Coca-Cola, Harry lifted her eyebrows just slightly. “Her air bags deployed.”

“Hell, yes, they did. That’s what they’re for. A deer crashed through her windshield.”

“But when did they deploy? Look, when Miranda and I careened off the road, the air bags blew up. She couldn’t see. How she got us to the side of the road and stopped, I have no idea. Air bags are supposed to deploy in a collision. We had no collision or hard bumps really. They shouldn’t have deployed. Miranda’s a lot better driver than I thought—not that I’d say that to her, because then I’d let her know I had qualms about both her abilities and her age.”

“Sometimes you actually can do the right thing.” Susan smiled at Harry.

“I’m trying. I’ve got to find out about Tara’s car.”

“You’re not going to trouble her parents? Harry, you can’t do that.”

“I won’t. I really would like to talk to them, but I promise I won’t. I asked Herb a little about it, since he’s been calling on them. She was insured by Safe and Sound.”

“So are a lot of other people. It’s a huge mid-Atlantic company.”

“A very successful one, and we all more or less like Latigo Bly. Somehow, though, it’s hard for me to completely trust a man who changed his name legally from Alphonse to Latigo.”

Susan put down her BLT lest she drop it, she was laughing so hard. “Harry.”

“Really? Latigo? He could have changed his name to Tom, John, Robert. If he wanted to sound younger, how about Jordan? But Latigo?”

Susan laughed all the harder. “Dakota, Travis, Brett, Randy, Caleb. Are those in the same category?”

“No. They’re generational, but Latigo? Have you ever heard of anyone named after a rope?”

“You’re right. He could have picked a horse—Secretariat. Secretariat Bly.”

The silliness escalated, which meant it was turning out to be a perfect lunch.

On the way back, Harry drove, loving the short throw between shifts. “Victor is Lucifer. He knew I’d fall in love with this car.”

“Anyone who knows you would know you’d go gaga over high performance. Didn’t take a rocket scientist. BoomBoom driven it yet?”

“I’ll pick her up at the concrete plant tomorrow.”

“Think this car’s haunted?”

“No.” She climbed Afton Mountain. “I think about Nick, though, sitting in this seat.”