Рита Браун - Whisker Of Evil

“Mmm.” Pewter sat next to her as Tucker climbed up on top where stones had fallen away, giving her an easier climb.

Tucker watched Susan, carrying a long thick stick, swat at underbrush as she fought her way through. “Well, if no one renting the stables was using this pasture, I guess it cost too much in time and labor to keep it up.”

“Or the farm manager was lazy.” Pewter noticed a high cloud shaped like an arrowhead move eastward.

“Or the worker was in on it and didn’t want people coming up here,” Mrs. Murphy said. “Marshall Kressenberg was a groom here when Mary Pat disappeared. He moved to Maryland and has had such success breeding and raising thoroughbreds. That was before our time. If we’d been here and could have smelled him, we’d know.” She knew she could smell fear, and she believed she could smell guilt.

Both Pewter and Tucker looked at her. “That’s a thought.”

“According to Cooper—at least what I’ve been able to overhear these last four weeks—the prime suspect was Alicia, but they didn’t have enough evidence to charge her. She wasn’t here on the exact day Mary Pat disappeared. Everyone else who worked at St. James or who was involved with Mary Pat in one way or the other checked out. Police figured she was missing a minimum of twenty-four hours before she was reported missing by Kressenberg. Well, if Alicia and Marshall were covering for each other, that would work. Alicia’s in L.A. Her alibi is airtight. Marshall reports Mary Pat’s disappearance late, a day later.” Mrs. Murphy had given the matter a great deal of thought.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with Barry. At least that’s one murder out of the way.” Pewter batted at a bright yellow milk butterfly.

“I think Barry figured out Mary Pat’s murder or was close to figuring it out.” Mrs. Murphy’s beautiful green eyes opened wider. “And as for Carmen, I think you are right. She’s guilty. I don’t think she killed him, but she’s guilty. She did something or said something that exposed him.Think about it.”

Pewter began to feel uneasy.

“Harry found him. Okay, that was fate or bad luck, I reckon, but as usual she’s putting her foot right in it. She’s got no business up here.” Tucker fretted over her human’s boundless and dangerous curiosity.

Pewter took a deep breath, scanning down the long length of this southernmost fence. “Didn’t the fox give you any direction?”

“No. She said it was a story passed along. Nobody knew any more, but she reported that Mary Pat hadn’t been buried deep enough under some stones. Some creature managed to get her hand and part of an arm. At least that’s what she’d heard. But she also said there were human remains that had never been found all over the county, some going back before the Revolutionary War.”

Tucker looked at Mrs. Murphy. “That’s comforting.”

They laughed, got up, and started moving again along the stone wall. By the time they reached the easternmost corner, the humans were working in their second quadrant.

“Break time.” Pewter sat down.

“A corner would be a logical place, wouldn’t it?” Tucker said. “Easy to remember.” The corgi used her front paw to wipe away a cobweb that dangled from her eyebrows. “In case the killer wanted to come back.”

“Gross.” Pewter made a face.

“ Maybe it would be easier to dig under a corner, because the stones wouldn’t give way as easily. Maybe. I don’t know that. Of course, some kind of marker like a huge tree is a possibility, too ,” Mrs. Murphy said.

“But the fox said stones?” Tucker’s ears drooped for a second as her tone was questioning.

“Yes, she did,” Mrs. Murphy answered.

Tucker carefully inspected the inside of the corner and the outside. “Woodchucks used to be here.” She squeezed down in the hole, then backed out. “It’s promising. I’ll dig a little. You two move up the wall.”

“ I can dig ,” Pewter offered.

“Not as fast as I can. I can ruin a rose garden in fifteen minutes.” Tucker smiled, then ducked back into the hole, digging her way down to the nesting area.

“Come on, Pewter.” Mrs. Murphy moved off.

Twenty minutes later a dirty Tucker, with a heavy bone resembling a femur in her mouth, triumphantly raced on top of the wall, leaping over fallen branches and thick entwining vines to reach the cats.

“Tucker!” Mrs. Murphy shouted with excitement.

“Let’s take this over to them.” Tucker, who had dropped the bone for the cats to inspect, picked it up again.

“First let’s see if we can get them here. Then you can lead them straight to the spot,” Pewter suggested. “And we won’t have to go back and forth through the underbrush.”

The three meowed, yowled, barked, and whined. Eventually Harry made her way over, thinking someone had cornered a snake or upturned a tortoise.

Upon seeing the bone she gasped, then put both fingers in her mouth and whistled.

Fair, Susan, and Cooper hacked their way toward her from their separate directions.

Upon seeing the whitened long fragment, Cooper immediately called Rick on her cell phone.

44

T he sweet smell of honeysuckle filled the late-afternoon air. Midsummer could fall anywhere between June twenty-first and June twenty-third, but Harry celebrated the entire week right up to July, since she loved the festivals and myths surrounding the longest day of the year.

However, this last Sunday in June she was anything but celebratory. That morning, as soon as Cooper called Rick regarding the long bone proudly displayed by Tucker, part of her was thrilled that this might be one of Mary Pat’s bones and part of her was sickened. The idea that the vivacious Mary Pat was killed, then dragged to a lonely grave undiscovered until now, made her sad, far sadder than she could have imagined.

Cooper, to protect Harry, Fair, and Susan, waited for Rick Shaw. When he arrived she asked Harry to direct Tucker to lead Cooper to the spot. But both Cooper and Rick sent the three humans partway down from the meadows. The two law-enforcement officers didn’t want any of them to know the exact spot if more bones were buried there. Why take the chance that Harry, Susan, or Fair might slip, say something to the wrong person?

Once Tucker took Cooper and Rick to the site, Cooper walked the corgi down to Harry, ordering all of them to go home.

Fair promised he’d visit Harry tonight after he checked pedigrees on his computer. He said he had an idea. Before leaving he also asked Rick to call him at the clinic should the sheriff find the remains of Ziggy Flame, as well.

Rick promised he would but cautioned them all not to jump to conclusions. One bone that looked like a femur did not constitute the solution to the disposition of Mary Pat Reines’s remains. Nor were they even sure the bone was human. Rick especially cautioned Harry, who was known to jump the gun.

Harry, as always, sought solace in hard work. She was installing large rectangular trellises reaching from the ground to the roofline of her new shed. Her tools already hung neatly inside. The old but serviceable 1958 John Deere tractor rested inside, the manure spreader hooked up to the PTO. Her two-horse trailer was now sheltered along with the big Ford F350 dually that pulled it. Only the 1978 Ford endured the elements. That venerable machine remained parked near the back door. That way, should it rain, she could make a dash for it.