Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

"She'll be thrilled."

"You can be so sarcastic."

"Oh, and you are beauty, truth, and light. You're bored, Harry. When you get bored you get into trouble. I have half a mind to call your ex-husband and tell him just what I think."

"Of what?"

"Of you."

"You think I'm terrific." A raffish grin appeared on Harry's lips, glossy with lip protector.

"So modest."

"Don't call Fair."

"Make up your mind."

This was a subject of fruitful contention. Fair wanted his ex-wife back. She had forgiven him at last. They'd been divorced four years. She loved him but she didn't think she was in love with him one day and then the next day she thought she was.

Harry scrunched down in the seat. "Oh Susan, why is life so damned complicated?"

"It just is. Even here in Crozet. But you have to be fair, forgive the pun. If there's someone out there for you, go look. If you want Fair, then just do it. Get it over with. Take him back and make a life again."

"That's what everyone wants me to do."

"I never said I did."

"Actually, you haven't, for which I am grateful."

"Are you confused?"

"No."

"Then let him go if you don't want him. It will be easier than watching him fall in love without you letting him go."

Harry sat upright, her head sharply turning in Susan's direction. "What do you know that I don't?"

"Nothing. I really don't. But people can only wait so long. He's repented. He's been respectful. I don't think he will have another episode like the one that, well, you know. He got it out of his system." Susan held up her right hand for Harry to shut up since her mouth had opened wide. "Listen. I'm telling you what I observe and what I think. I'm not telling you to take him back. But make up your mind. Just damn well do it. Fish or cut bait."

Harry exhaled, blowing the hair on her forehead up. "I hate this."

"Oh, come on, it's not as bad as when your marriage broke up."

"That's true."

"We aren't getting any younger, you know. Forty sure draws closer."

"So what?" Harry replied.

"You're a pretty girl. You need a partner. Life is just better with the right person. I ought to know. I married Ned when I was nineteen, nineteen years ago, and it was one of the smartest things I ever did."

"Ned is pretty wonderful, although he may not be so wonderful once the campaign starts. Maybe you can paint on a smile."

"I'll manage."

"Guess you will. You usually do. But here's the thing, Susan. I can respond to other men. Remember when Diego from Uruguay visited here? He started my motor. If I can feel that way about another man I don't know if I'm doing the right thing getting tied down again. Maybe this time I'll be the unfaithful one . . ."

"Revenge?"

"I've been through the revenge fantasies. I'm over it. I'm even over not trusting him. I'm just"-she shrugged-"stuck."

"Love changes over time. It can't be like when you were first together. The fire burns more steadily. It's better, I think. If you're looking for that falling-in-love high, no, you won't find that with Fair. But what you have is genuine."

"There are advantages to getting back together permanently with Fair. He knows me and I know him. He has his work here and I have mine. I'm not leaving Crozet. I don't care how alluring another man is. I can't imagine not living here."

"Maybe you should take a year off? Rent the farm and live somewhere else. Just to experience it."

"I lived in Northampton, Massachusetts. College was great but I belong here, right here in dowdy Crozet."

"The town's not much," Susan agreed. "Of course, central Virginia is one of the most beautiful places on earth."

"Right, and think about this. Suppose I rented a place in-in-I got one, Montana? I haul my horses out there. I'm not living without my horses. I take the kitties and Tucker. To do what? Think great thoughts? I have no great thoughts. I don't even have medium-sized thoughts."

"I'm glad you have decisively reached that conclusion. Now how about the other one?"

"You're right"-her voice dropped, then rose again-"you are. But you know, I look around and I think I know everyone and they know me and then I remember that we still don't know who Charly Ashcraft's illegitimate child is, nor the mother, and that's a mystery of what, twenty years? I think about that and I think about other things and, well, I can't stand it. I can't stand not knowing things. Poor Fair, I drive him crazy."

Charly Ashcraft, the handsomest boy in Harry's high school class, had fathered two illegitimate children before he graduated from high school. The first one was never identified, nor was the young woman who was the mother. The second one was known to live out of town, but the unknown first child remained one of those mysteries that would every now and then crop up in conversations. Charly himself had been shot a few days before his twentieth high school reunion in a pure revenge killing. Many thought he had it coming.

"Forget Charly's child," Susan firmly said. "It's not possible to know everything about everybody."

"You're right, you know, and that kind of scares me. Do I even know myself? Does anybody?"

"Yes. If you want to learn, time teaches you."

"H-m-m."

Susan pulled into her driveway. "Think about what I've said."

"I will. I always think about what you tell me even if I don't agree."

Susan cut the motor. "And Harry, for God's sake, don't run around and tell people that H.H. and Mychelle were killed because they were lovers."

"I wouldn't do that."

"I guess you wouldn't but you did give me a jolt when you went straight for Tazio like that."

"She can take it."

"Why do you say that?"

"I've gotten to know her a little bit by being on the guild with her. She's tough."

"You know what bothers me?"

"What?"

"I don't think those murders have one thing to do with an illicit romance. I don't know why but I just don't. I'd feel better if they did. But I have this weird sensation that all this is about something else, something way out of our league."

As Susan rarely said things like that, Harry paid attention. She was usually the one with hunches, dragging Susan along.

"Could be."

"And because we can't imagine it, it's dangerous. I think what you don't know can hurt you."

"So you do think the murders are related?" Harry couldn't hide the note of triumph in her voice.

"Yes, I do, and once you've killed two people, what's a third?"

25

The basketball game that evening was a subdued affair made even more dolorous by a poor performance. UVA lost by seven points.

Mychelle's body had only been found that morning, but the story was already on the television news. Those not watching the news soon heard about it from their neighbors on the bleachers. People, being the curious creatures that they are, walked by the broom closet and stopped to stare. A few were disappointed that blood wasn't smeared on the floor.

Even Matthew Crickenberger, ever ebullient, was quiet. He handed out drinks as always but didn't have the heart to blow his noisemakers. BoomBoom dispiritedly shook her blue and orange pennant a few times but that was about it.

Fred Forrest, too shaken by Mychelle's murder, didn't attend the game.

After the game, Harry sprinted to her truck. She had talked with Fair on the phone earlier. Both of them decided this wasn't the night for him to take Harry and BoomBoom out for a drink.

The lights of the university receded as she rolled down Route 250 passing Farmington Country Club on the right, Ednam subdivision on the left. About a mile from Ednam the old Rinehart estate reposed on the left. Subdivisions like Flordon and West Leigh were tucked back into the folds of the land but much of it remained open. A sparkle of light here or there testified to a cozy home, a plume of smoke curling up out of the chimneys.