Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

A blade of wind slipped behind the cracks of the big doors as Harry hadn't shut them tight. She dropped the bolt to secure them.

Harry double-checked each stall, then she hung up her broom.

Simon peeped over the hayloft.

"You'll be happy to know I remembered you." Harry smiled up at the endearing creature.

She walked into the tack room, reaching into a brown paper bag. Out came the marshmallows. She returned to the center aisle, tossing about five up into the loft. Joyfully, Simon scrambled for his special treats.

"Thank you! Thank you!"

"Do shut up," the owl grumbled.

The phone jingled in the tack room. Harry stepped back inside, closing the door behind her. The tack room was cozy as it had a long strip of baseboard heat. When the barn was originally built back in 1840, a huge wood-burning stove sat in the center of the tack room on the herringbone-patterned brick floor. Fortunately, no sparks spiraling out of the chimney ever landed back into the hayloft. The efficient potbellied cast-iron stove was ripped out in 1964 and replaced by baseboard heat when Harry's mother and father rewired and replumbed the barn.

Her father, a practical man, had run all the wire through narrow galvanized metal tubes. That way dust wouldn't collect on the wires, creating a potential fire hazard, and the metal tubing also ensured the mice wouldn't gnaw through. Once a month Harry lifted off the baseboard cover to clean the unit, a long string of flat squares placed closely together. She'd kneel down, wipe down everything, wipe down the cover, then pop it back on.

She kept the thermostat at sixty-five degrees. Since she usually wore many layers plus her old red down vest, sixty-five was a toasty temperature.

She lifted the receiver off the back wall phone. "Yes."

Susan launched right in. "The you-know-what has hit the fan big time."

"What are you talking about?"

"Fred Forrest called, his term, mind you, an emergency press conference, at the county office. He says he has to halt construction of the new sports complex until he examines the steel bearing I-beams called for in the blueprints. He says he is not convinced they can bear the load for which they are intended."

"Load of what?"

"The roof."

"What a mess."

"It gets better. While one TV crew, the one from Channel 29, was interviewing Fred, another mobile unit sandbagged Matthew at the site. At the site! He had no idea what was going on. Not a hint of warning. All he could say was the county had raised no objection before. The design and materials had passed all criteria, et cetera. And then, I mean these guys had a wild hair, let me tell you. They got footage of Tazio just as she was leaving her office."

"What did Tazio say?"

Susan chuckled. "She was great. She and Brinkley invited the crew into her office. In they trooped. She unrolled the blueprints. She opened the file cabinet. Pulled out all the paperwork with Fred's or Mychelle's signature on it, right? Close-ups of signatures. Close-ups of the plan's acceptance papers. I don't know what you call that."

"Doesn't matter. I know what you mean."

"She's cool, collected. She asks the interviewer why Fred is questioning plans he, himself, had approved. She says she would comply with any additional studies, nothing could be more important than safety and so forth. Then she brings up the issue of cost and delay, mentioning how important this structure is going to be to the university and really the entire Atlantic Coast Conference as the newest sports complex. Certainly this will spur other institutions to upgrade their facilities. I'm telling you, that woman could be a politician. I hope Little Mim was watching."

Little Mim, a Republican, was vice-mayor of Crozet. Her father, a Democrat, was the mayor. It made for interesting times.

"Did the TV interviewer bring up Mychelle's death?"

"You bet. To both Fred and Tazio. Did they think Mychelle's death was related to the sports complex project."

"Is that how the question was worded?"

"Oh, Harry, I don't remember the exact phrases but watch the eleven o'clock news if you can stay awake."

"Try to remember."

"What the heck is going on?" Tucker, like the cats, sat attentive, ears pricked forward.

"S-h-h," the cats said.

Susan hummed a minute, collecting her thoughts. "Not word for word but the question was something like, 'Do you think the murder of your assistant might be related to your new findings?' Not word perfect but close."

"And?"

"Fred said he didn't know."

"Tazio?"

"The question was leading. Uh, 'Isn't your relationship with the county building inspector sometimes adversarial?' 'No,' she said. Then they hit her with Mychelle's death. Could it be related to these new questions about the worthiness of her design? That kind of thing. Again, she was amazingly cool and she said, 'I don't see how it could be.' And someone obviously had pumped those guys because they asked about Mychelle wanting a meeting with Tazio Monday morning. Tazio said that wasn't uncommon and, in fact, she had been looking forward to it and was shocked when she received the dreadful news. I mean the goddamned interviewer all but accused her of having a hand in Mychelle's murder. Sensationalism."

"Jacks up the ratings. They don't care if they ruin careers and lives."

"But you would have been proud of Tazio."

"How do we know she isn't involved?"

"Harry, you have a suspicious mind."

"Well-maybe. Why don't you call Tazio and see if she needs emotional support or anything? You're good at that."

"She doesn't have our network. We should both call her." Susan meant Tazio hadn't grown up with all of them and was a newcomer. "What are you going to do? I know you're up to something." Susan hoped Harry would tell her.

"I'm going to eat macaroni and cheese. Then I am going to call Coop to see if she can pull up on the computer all those buildings Mychelle had inspected in the last two years. Pull up the paperwork."

"Clever girl."

"Actually, I bet Coop's already thought of it."

"Are you really going to make macaroni and cheese?"

"Yes."

"Microwave?"

"No. Never tastes as good. Cold rolled back on us. Have you been outside? I need macaroni and cheese."

"Darn," Susan softly said.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Now I want some."

"Come on over. I'll make enough for both of us."

"Thanks, but that doesn't solve the problem of my extra ten pounds."

"Oh, Susan, you are not fat."

"You haven't seen me naked recently."

"Do I have to?" Harry laughed. "And we had this discussion."

"You know what I'm going to do? Now I'm going to make macaroni and cheese. Ned doesn't really need it, either." She sighed. "Bum."

"Ta-ta," Harry laughed and hung up the phone.

When she walked into her kitchen, the phone was ringing. Miranda told her about the interviews. Then BoomBoom called, which surprised Harry. Fair called. Herb called. By the time she made her macaroni and cheese she was starving but she fed the animals first.

After she ate and cleaned up, she called Cooper who had indeed pulled up everything on the county computers. Nothing seemed amiss.

They batted ideas back and forth, none of them illuminating.

Mrs. Murphy sauntered back into Harry's bedroom where she caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror on Harry's door.

She stopped. She leapt sideways. She huffed up. She jumped sideways to the mirror. She spun around. She leapt upward, her paws outstretched, her formidable claws exposed. Then she performed a backflip, again attacking her own image.

Tucker ambled in during this fearsome performance. After five minutes of hissing, smacking, and subduing the mirror, the tiger cat hopped onto the bed.

"Cats are mental." Tucker giggled.