Рита Браун - Sour Puss

"Then why did he kill Hy? He confessed to that, didn't he?" BoomBoom felt some relief in that Fiona no longer had to bear the 'stigma of her husband's supposed suicide.

Such things shouldn't stick to family and friends, but people were harsh about suicide, it seemed.

"Hy, no slouch either when it came to protecting against parasites and fungi, had been studying the sharpshooter as soon as the news hit. His worry, according to Arch, was that global warming was allowing these things to move ever northward."

"Boll weevil." Miranda knew her bugs.

"How about the parasite that kills honeybees that finally made it this far north in 1980 and is wreaking havoc? There sure might be something to this warming stuff." Harry worried, as did every farmer.

"Hy drove out to your peach orchard to see for himself." Cooper continued with Arch's confession. "He determined as did Toby that the sharpshooter had been planted there. Hy thought they hadn't flown up here, because they would have alighted in other orchards and vineyards between here and North Carolina. He definitely knew the sharpshooters were planted. He tried to find out why. Obviously, there was no way Hy would communicate with Toby over anything. The natural person to discuss this with was Arch, thanks to his extensive knowledge. That turned out to be a fatal mistake."

"Hy wouldn't have made the connectionto revenge against Fair and Harry, would he?" Susan thought of three lives needlessly cast away.

"Arch wasn't taking any chances. Hy was piecing things together about the sharpshooters. And Arch was shaken that Hy had driven up before Fair when he'd just shot Toby. Arch's plan backfired, and that was just dumb luck. He drove out the back way when he heard Hy's truck coming in the front. He couldn't see because of the hill there, but he assumed it was Fair. Fair would have been parked in the penitentiary for a good long time or bankrupted by the legal fees regardless of outcome. Arch said he couldn't believe it when he found out we apprehended Hy. He thought if Fair were put in jail he could win back Harry. If Fair got off and they were bankrupted, well, he'd have some pleasure in seeing her suffer by staying with Fair."

"Flatface flew over Hy when he drove into the peach orchard,"Mrs. Murphy casually reminded Pewter and Tucker.

"No way to tell Harry."Pewter belched.

"Pewter. Mind your manners," Harry said.

"You never burp,"Pewter sassed.

"Could be worse. Could have come out the other end."Tucker giggled.

"I'm leaving."Pewter, miffed, jumped off the bench seat. She jumped back up, though.

"Ha! The day you walk away from food, the sun will rise in the west."Mrs. Murphy swung her tail with vigor.

"The next thing Arch realized, obvious now, is that Harry would figure it out, too. It might take her a little longer; she'd have more resistance to the thought. Dominos." Cooper finished off her ham sandwich and longingly stared at the cherry cobbler. She'd wait until everyone else finished their meal before grabbing dessert.

"If it weren't for Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, Arch might have gotten away with it." Harry glanced up at Mrs. Murphy, who was glowing with the praise.

"He wouldn't have gotten away with it, Harry. He might have killed you, God forbid, but we would have nailed him, because I think he would have run," Cooper said forcefully.

"Where's Rollie in all this?" Fair wondered.

"Shocked. Chauntal, too. I had to tellRollie he had been a suspect and why. Didn't much like that, either, but he admitted he had been, in his words, 'extremely aggressive in business.' His next concern was if he might be sued. Arch is his business partner. I told him he wouldn't be the first person to have a business partner in jail. I also told him," Cooper looked to Harry, then Fair, "that you weren't the kind of people to do that."

"Thank you," Fair simply replied.

"Guess I should thank Matilda, Flatface, and little Simon, too. I told you all what happened earlier." Harry smiled.

"Matilda didn't do it because she cares about you. She was pissed that Arch squished her eggs."

"You don't know that."Tucker used her paw to wipe her whiskers.

"They lay their eggs and forget them. Snakes don't take care of their babies,"Pewter announced with authority.

"Could be that Matilda is different."Tucker defended the blacksnake, although she didn't much like her.

"She's different, all right. She's working on being the largest blacksnake in America."Mrs. Murphy inhaled the clean air, a lightcurrent swirling down from the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"Isn't that the truth!"Pewter said in a burst of animation. "Bet her bite hurt so bad, Arch saw an hour's worth of fireworks in a minute."

"Flatface came through."Tucker smiled.

"She complains about us, calls us groundlings, but she does come through. She can't admit we're all together."Pewter puffed out her chest.

Mrs. Murphy, noticing the expansion, said, "Are you going to burp again?"

"No,"came the swift, indignant reply.

Mrs. Murphy lowered her voice. "Is it going to be worse?"

"I am not going to hurl. I didn't eat that much. I was actually sensible."

This barefaced lie struck both Mrs. Murphy and Tucker speechless.

Mrs. Murphy sat up, stretched, and looked at Simon. "He ate his raspberry penny candy. Now he's playing with the cell phone."

"Wait until she gets billed from Rio de Janiero."Pewter's good humor was restored by imagining another's distress.

"He can't use the phone. Simon's notbright enough to figure it out,"Tucker said. "/ don't mean to be ugly, but really, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed."

"He'll push buttons. He may not know what he's doing, but he'll get something going. He's pulled out the antenna."Pewter was loving this.

"Harry will cut off the service to the phone. Might take her a day to think of it, but she'll go get another phone and transfer the numbers. Of course, who knows? By that time maybe he will have made a call."Mrs. Murphy entered into the spirit of this.

"And when that music plays he'll throw the cell phone in the air, squeal, and run for his nest."Pewter laughed loudly.

The humans, not privy to the animals' conversation, had been talking about why anyone would kill, but especially someone like Arch, as it was hopeless. How could he dream of winning Harry back by harming Fair?

Of course, Arch didn't think she'd know he set Fair up.

"Finally, he snapped and figured if he couldn't have Harry, no one could have her." BoomBoom felt she'd settled the issue.

" 'Beloved, never avenge yourselves, butleave it to the wrath of God.'" Miranda quoted Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 19.

"The grapes of wrath!"Pewter piped up.

"Oh, Pewter."Mrs. Murphy wrinkled her nose.

"You're just jealous that you didn't think of it"Pewter again puffed out her fluffy chest. "Sourpuss."

Dear Reader,

All this study of grapes interested me because birds come to grapes. But really, I would have rather written a book about cultivating catnip. Mother declared that would have limited application.

Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not giving up on my catnip idea. Sooner or later, I'll get my way. For one thing, I hid her favorite pair of socks. Small revenge, you say. Ha. Imelda Marcos has shoes. Mother has socks. For one thing they are more affordable than a closet full of shoes. So if she sees things my way, I will retrieve the socks.

On May 16, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 that laws banning direct shipment of wine to consumers in other states is unconstitutional. Impromptu celebrations filled Virginia. I note here that a Virginian will use any excuse for a party; they are excessively convivial.

All's well here. Hope your life is full of mice, moles, voles, butterflies, and the occasional inattentive bird.