Рита Браун - Whisker Of Evil

“Umm, that’s a thought.”

“Can you make it by noon?”

“Uh, yes, I’ll be at the Orsinis first thing. Yeah, I can do it. If nothing else we’ll enjoy the view.”

Herb, having finished his main course, was visiting tables. On his way back to his table, he stopped at Aunt Tally’s.

“We’re planning a service for Mary Pat. Mim’s in charge.”

“She runs the world.” Aunt Tally was ready for dessert.

“Oh,” Tavener and Blair both said at once.

“We’ve just been discussing it. You haven’t been left out,” Herb’s deep voice reassured them. “Little Mim, I think your mother has put you in charge of the phone calls.”

“Okay.” Little Mim, who often rankled at doing her mother’s bidding, didn’t mind this chore.

“We’re inviting anyone who ever worked with Mary Pat, friends from afar. You know, we never really had a formal service.”

“Well, we never really knew.” Tavener sighed.

“When will you be doing this?” BoomBoom inquired.

“July third, Saturday. It’s a big weekend, of course, but we’re hoping people can make it.” He rested his hand on Aunt Tally’s shoulder for a moment.

When Harry arrived home at nine-thirty that evening, she found one smashed lamp on the bedroom floor, along with her formerly clean and folded laundry. Two cats, disgruntled at having been left behind, had misbehaved. They hid in the barn until they thought she would be asleep. Boldly, they sauntered into the house, lights out, at eleven. They hopped on the bed and, that fast, Harry grabbed them.

“Caught you! Thought I was asleep, didn’t you?”

“She made me do it,” Pewter wailed.

“You are disgusting!” Mrs. Murphy growled.

Harry clicked on her flashlight, hidden under the pillow. “I am looking at two bad pussycats.”

“Tucker, you could have warned us, you suck-up,” Mrs. Murphy, tail still fluffed out, grumbled.

The dog was laughing too hard to reply.

“No catnip for a week. All my laundry, and I’d just washed it, too.”

“We didn’t get it dirty,” Pewter defended herself.

“Holes in my red T-shirt. My fave,” Harry complained with feeling.

“That was an accident,” Mrs. Murphy explained. “I dug in too deep when I threw it off the bed.”

“HA!” Pewter shook herself after Harry let her go.

“I mean it, no catnip for a week, and I might not take you in the truck with me. Now I have to buy a new lamp. My fourth new lamp this year since you routinely smash them. You know how I hate to spend money.”

Catching and scaring her cats energized Harry. She couldn’t sleep. She grabbed a book, read a few lines, then laughed. She laughed harder and harder. “Scared the poop out of you two.”

Indignant, the two felines thumped out of the room and repaired to their bowl of crunchies in the kitchen, where Pewter proceeded to bite the tips off the little Xs of dry cat food.

“Eat the whole thing, Pewter. I’m not eating what you drop back in the bowl,” Mrs. Murphy said, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s like biting the little ends off pretzels. Tastes the best.” Pewter half-closed her chartreuse eyes.

“Selfish pig.”

“You are jus-s-s-t perfect.” She drew out the s-s-t .

Mrs. Murphy, furious at being outsmarted by a human, jumped up on the counter and sat in the window behind the kitchen sink. She could see the barn, the new shed, and the nearest paddocks. “Pewter, has it occurred to you that Marshall Kressenberg may not be the killer? Mother’s getting herself all fired up over this and she might be wrong. Dead wrong.”

“He’s in on it. Harry called Old Wampum Farm and asked if they’d fax the record of Ziggy Dark Star’s sale to Fair at the clinic. They had no such record.” Pewter brushed the tidbits of food off her whiskers.

“I know. The old man who supposedly sold the horse died in 1984. The subsequent owners say they don’t have adequate records. He wasn’t much of a record keeper. I reckon he was either in on it or Marshall paid him off. But what if there’s more than one—killer, I mean?”

“Harry’s thought of that.” Pewter, full, felt better.

“Yes, but she’s prepared for the wrong one.” Mrs. Murphy sighed. “She trapped us, but a human is much larger than we are. I’d feel better if I knew just what she was up to or what Big Mim had said to her. She isn’t going to hold down this killer.”

“You worry too much,” Pewter flippantly said, but Mrs. Murphy’s words had their effect. “What can we do?”

49

T he early-morning news carried the story of Carmen Gamble’s disappearance, along with footage of the sign at St. James Farm and the Shear Heaven beauty salon.

By eight o’clock the only people in Albemarle County not informed of this latest development were either dead themselves or about to be. And if any of those hovering at death’s door happened to revive, the clarion of democracy—the free press—would make certain they were aware of this latest bizarre event in Crozet. The whole rabies story was pumped up and rehashed, as well.

By nine o’clock, eleven stray dogs had been shot and killed by citizens convinced that panting equaled frothing at the mouth. Feral cats, being smaller, hid in outbuildings and barns. They escaped the vigilance of alert suburbanites living in the new developments that had sprung up in Crozet. Cats with human companions hid, too.

Harry and Miranda showed up at the post office to help Amy Wade, who would be swamped not with mail but with the media, citizens, and every crackpot in western Albemarle County. If no one else will listen to you, the poor soul behind the postal counter must.

Amy nearly cried when they came through the front door. The three of them knocked the mail out in forty-five minutes.

Wisely, Harry had left her cohorts at home.

Since the post office is a federal building, the doors cannot be locked against citizens. When the TV van with the antennae on top drove up, all three women groaned.

A reporter, hair perfectly cut and wearing tan pants, a navy blazer, a blue shirt, and red, white, and blue tie, sailed through the door. Cords trailed behind him, kind of like a Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish.

“I am here in the Crozet Post Office, a small, tidy building in this nondescript town.” He walked over to the counter as the cameraman walked in front of him, then swung behind for the reaction shot of Harry, Miranda, and Amy. The reaction shot suggested someone was flatulent.

The reporter’s cue cards were held up by an assistant behind the long-suffering cameraman. Now he lifted one with Harry’s name on it.

“The postmistress is Mary Minor Haristeen.” He then looked to see which one was Harry.

“I’m no longer the postmistress. That office belongs to Mrs. Amy Wade,” Harry said levelly.

“Ah, which of you is Mrs. Wade?”

“I am.” The dark-haired, pretty young woman with the merry freckles smiled.

“In a small town the post office is one of the nerve centers. What’s the feeling here in Crozet about this unprecedented epidemic of rabies?”

“Two cases don’t constitute an epidemic,” Harry tartly replied.

“And those two young men knew each other. They were in business together,” Miranda chimed in.

“We don’t think that’s an epidemic. We think it’s rotten bad luck.” Amy finally wedged a sentence in.