Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

Harry followed him back. He didn't notice that Cazenovia and Elocution disappeared. Mrs. Murphy, determined to stand her ground, watched her tail swishing. Why would he think she had eaten the wafers? Pewter leaned on Murphy, but she wasn't so certain they wouldn't come in for a blast. Tucker headed up the stairs in the church cats' footsteps.

Harry, knowing her children well, sensed they were guilty of something.

Herb opened the door. "Here we go." He reached in. No box on the shelf. He looked down. Shredded cellophane. Torn boxes. Communion wafer bits scattered like Hansel and Gretel's crumbs.

"Elo! Cazzie!" His face turned beet red.

"The dog did it," Elo called from her hiding place.

Harry stared at the desecration, then threw back her head and laughed. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks.

Herb sputtered. He fumed. He kicked the tattered boxes out of the closet. He sighed. Finally he laughed, too. "Give me a sign, Lord."

"He has." Harry wiped her eyes, laughing even harder. "He's sent you two very holy cats." She wondered if her animals had participated in this. After all, they attended the Parish Guild meetings. She knew Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker were capable of it. She thought it wise not to point the finger.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter watched, their eyes large, their tails twitching too much.

Tucker, flat on her belly, was just around the corner at the top of the stairs. "Elo, I'll kill you for that," the dog threatened.

Harry knelt down to pick up the wafer bits.

"Wonder if Father O'Mallory has any to spare?" Herb's brow furrowed as he held a box, cellophane tatters spilling over his reddened fingers which still stung. More evidence covered the floor.

"If he doesn't, I'll go to the market and buy crackers, you know, little cocktail crackers. If you bless them why aren't they as good as communion wafers?"

"Well, they might be but if they're salty everyone will be sitting in their pews thirsty."

"Give them more wine." Harry smiled devilishly.

"Harry, you've got a point there. Wait, don't go until I know." He hurried into his office, handing her one of the fang-marked boxes. She tagged after him.

"Thanks, Dalton." Herb hung up the phone. "He's got them. Oh dear Jesus, thank you for Father Dalton O'Mallory. Well, I'd better go pick them up." He stopped. "Harry, you know I forgot to ask why you dropped by." He slapped his hand against his thigh. "I'm sorry."

"You had a lot on your mind and, uh, don't you need shoes?"

"Uh-yes." He walked to the closet in his office, pulling out a pair of galoshes and a heavy loden coat.

"I dropped by to tell you Tracy Raz closed on the old bank building yesterday and I thought if we all chipped in twenty dollars each we could afford to have a sign painted for him, whatever he wants, 'Raz Enterprises' or something."

"Why, sure." He slipped his foot into the rubber boot. "More rubber. I'll watch where I put my foot down." He stared at the old wooden floor for a minute. "When I come back, hopefully this will be covered up. Good thing Fred Forrest isn't here. He'd find something wrong with the floor. You don't notice the tilt when it's covered up."

"It's a couple of centuries old. He can get over himself. Anyway, all he can do is make trouble on new construction."

Herb shook his head. "No. If he wants to be a butthead he can march right in here and declare this floor unsafe."

"No way."

"He can. If Fred has it in for you, watch out. I'm not just worried about Matthew's taking on the sports complex. I wouldn't put it past Fred to worry him over buildings already up, and let me tell you, that gets really, really expensive."

"He wouldn't. There's enough upset in his office."

"He would. Something's wrong with Fred."

Yes, there was.

41

Later that day Harry shopped with Susan at Foods of All Nations. As she owned two trucks, no car, a big market shopping tested her ingenuity-especially where to put the stuff when rain or snow poured into the bed of the truck.

Usually she borrowed Susan's wagon or they both shopped together, which was the case today. Also in "Foods" as it was known was BoomBoom.

The three women emerged, heading to their vehicles in the cramped parking lot.

Harry closed the back wagon door and noticed out of the corner of her eye two cars side by side, noses in opposite directions. BoomBoom observed it, too, as she filled up her Explorer. Matthew Crickenberger was in one. Fred Forrest was in another.

Harry couldn't hear what they were saying but she noticed that Fred rolled up his window, driving off without looking to the right or the left. Matthew's electric window glided up as he shook his head in anger, his face red.

"See that?" Harry asked Susan who had been moving stuff in the wagon's backseat.

Susan, sliding behind the wheel, answered, "What?"

"Matthew and Fred. Appeared they had another, uh, moment."

"Missed it."

BoomBoom walked over. "Well, I didn't. Fred said, 'Cover your ass.' Wish I'd caught the rest of it."

"Been a day of moments," Mrs. Murphy observed.

"Yeah and it's only one-thirty." Tucker wanted to stick her nose in the grocery bags.

"Saturday's Harry's day off. And we're spending it shopping. I want to do something fun." Pewter slid over the gearshift onto the front seat and Susan's lap. Harry bid BoomBoom goodbye and got into the passenger seat as Susan started the engine.

"The Reverend Jones provided excitement," Mrs. Murphy tittered, recalling the scene.

"And you were such a chicken," Pewter called back at Tucker.

"I was not. Elocution and Cazenovia were the chickens."

"Well, I want excitement. The day is young." Pewter stood on her hind legs, her paws on Harry's left shoulder as she looked back at the others.

"Excitement comes in both good and bad varieties," the corgi sagely noted.

42

Each time he thought of Fred, Matthew gripped his steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He'd catch himself, then stop. He pulled his dark green Range Rover onto Garth Road and headed west.

As late as the 1960s, these rolling hills sported few houses. Horse farms, hay farms, and down at White Hall, apple orchards dotted the road.

Berta Jones, former Master of the Farmington Hunt Club, kept three retired Kentucky Derby winners at her farm, Ingleside. She hunted those fast Thoroughbreds, too.

But the redoubtable Berta had been long gone. Her daughter, Port Haffner, another bold rider, kept to the old Virginia ways, but surrounding the beautiful farm were expensive houses on anywhere from two to twenty acres.

The homes, red brick with white porticos, security systems, sprinkler systems, and big-ass family rooms, were built for the "come heres" to impress one another. Natives wondered why anyone would pour their money into a house instead of the land.

But the new people gave Matthew his start in building. He soon realized the money was in commercial construction and by the mid-1970s, quick to master new technologies and materials, Matthew pulled ahead of larger, more established firms. Now he was the large established firm.

He got along with most people, newcomers or old families. He often wondered why the newcomers didn't learn the ways of the place-"When in Rome"-but so often these people whipped out their checkbooks expecting that to supplant simple good manners. They'd write a check for a charity but would keep their maid on starvation wages. The Virginian would not write a check for charity but would properly take care of the maid.

The law of Virginia was, "Take care of your own."

The problem was the new people didn't know who "their own" were. Maybe they wrote the checks to cover their bases.

Well, Anne knew the rules. Matthew pulled into the crushed-stone drive on the north side of Garth Road, a little winding road tucked away, and soon he was at the door of a charming 1720-inspired frame house, simple, well built, and of pleasing proportions. Charleston-green shutters framed the sash windows, the white of the house blending in with the snow.