Рита Браун - The Tail Of The Tip-Off

At one time in her life, Harry might have been censorious about an affair but she'd grown up. She realized quite literally that nobody is perfect, including herself.

"Ladies. Oh, Harry, before I forget, quick meeting about the flooring. Won't take long. Tomorrow night, weather permitting."

"Fine."

Pewter opened one eye. "Wonder if he found the wafers?"

"Don't ask. Don't tell." Mrs. Murphy rolled on her side.

"Wasn't that a contretemps in the parking lot last night?" Herb shook his head. "And Fred will get them. Remember when I extended the gardening shed next to the garage? A fourteen-by-ten building and he said it wasn't up to code. He cost me five hundred dollars. He's impossible. I wouldn't give you a nickel for H.H.'s or Matthew's peace of mind until Fred gets over this."

"Or is mollified," Big Mim sarcastically said.

"That's the problem. He can't be mollified. He takes offense at any kindness. Everything is a bribe in his mind. And Matthew's finishing up a big project and about to start another. H.H. is busy, too. There will be hell to pay, forgive the expression." He smiled a lopsided smile.

"There's a game Friday. Let's see what happens then," Miranda said.

"Well, that's the whole thing, isn't it? Intimidation." Herb slipped the key in his brass mailbox. "He's intimidated Josef."

"He won't intimidate Tracy." Miranda winked.

"Fred lives and breathes women's basketball ever since his daughter played for UVA," Harry mentioned. "Guess she's doing pretty good as assistant coach out at University of Missouri."

"He can just move to Columbia." Miranda laughed, mentioning the location of the University of Missouri.

"Say, anyone met Hayden McIntyre's new partner?" Herb asked.

"I think he flies in today." Harry looked out the window. "Then again, he might not be here until tomorrow."

"That's my guess. I bet there are people tied up in airports along the East Coast. The Right Coast." Miranda smiled.

"As opposed to the Left Coast." Harry enjoyed batting ideas and phrases with Miranda.

"Gold Coast. That's Florida." Herb sorted his mail.

Big Mim opened her mailbox. Like Herb she pitched unwanted advertisements and junk mail into the wastebasket.

"Mim, that was a three-pointer." Herb teased her.

As he left, Pewter whispered, "He hasn't found it. He would have said something."

"We're safe. He'll never know it was us." Mrs. Murphy wished she could be there when he did find the chewed-up wafer box.

"He might not know but Mom could figure it out." Tucker had confidence in Harry's deductive abilities.

"Never. She'd never believe she had pagan pets." Mrs. Murphy laughed so loud she rolled off the chair and embarrassed herself to the hilarity of the others.

As she was picking herself up off the floor, trying to salvage her dignity, H.H. walked in.

"Ladies."

"Hi, H.H.," they replied.

He opened his box, took out his mail, then came to the counter, propping both elbows on it. "Miranda, I'm on the horns of a dilemma. Just can't make up my mind."

The older woman came over to the other side of the counter, her dark orange sweater casting a warm light on her face. "Well, you could flip a coin."

"Works for me." Harry laughed.

He tilted his head, light streaks of gray already appearing at his temples. "This dilemma is bigger than that. It's not so much right and wrong. I'd hope I'd choose right. It's more like," he paused, "right versus right."

"Ah yes, that is difficult." Miranda rapped her fingertips on the counter. "'Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind.'?" She stopped short. "Have a better one: 'And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord,' Isaiah, chapter eleven, verse two."

"I knew you'd dispense your wisdom."

"Not my wisdom. The Good Book's."

Harry folded an empty mail sack. "If there were a TV game show on biblical knowledge, Miranda would win."

"Go on." She waved off Harry.

"I believe she's right." H.H. spoke to Miranda. "I'll reflect on what you've quoted."

"I can quote." Harry grinned.

"This I've got to hear." H.H. squared his mail, tapping it on the counter.

"'Between two evils I choose the one I haven't tried before.' Mae West."

H.H. laughed as he headed for the door. "I'll tell that to Anne."

"You are awful." Miranda shook her head as the door clicked shut.

"Hey, if you're going to dispense virtue, I'll dispense vice just to keep things equal."

"How about vice versa?" Miranda winked.

"Touché." Harry laughed.

4

The darkness troubled Harry far more than the cold. On the winter solstice the sun set behind the mountains at four-fifteen in the afternoon. She took comfort in the fact that sunset had now inched forward to about four thirty-five. Of course, with the driving snow she couldn't see the sun but there was always that moment on a snowy, rainy, or cloudy day when the filtered light failed and the underside of clouds turned wolf gray followed by navy blue.

She'd finished her barn chores as another half inch of snow covered the ground. She hated to be idle; this was the perfect time to pull out everything in the odds-and-ends drawer in the kitchen. She carefully spread a newspaper on the counter, opened the drawer, gazed into the turmoil, and plucked out a tailor's measuring tape. She reached in again. This time a fistful of rubber bands was her reward. It was fun, a real grab bag.

Even the neatest person, and Harry came close to qualifying, had to have a junk drawer. Before she could scoop up all the pencils needing sharpening, the phone rang.

"Hello, Joe's Poolroom. Eightball speaking."

"Harry, that is so corny," Susan replied.

"You call your best friend corny?"

"Someone has to. Now will you shut up? I've got scoop."

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, lounging on the kitchen counter just behind the newspaper, perked up their ears. It was plenty exciting considering there were rubber bands to steal, pencils to roll onto the floor, but Harry's alertness was promising on this snowy evening.

"Tell."

"H.H. walked out on Anne."

"What?"

"She's over at Little Mim's crying her eyes out. Cameron's with her and being a great support to her mother."

"Who told you?"

"Little Mim. She thought Anne should talk to Ned. Before Ned could get to the phone she told me everything. I could hear Anne crying. It really is awful. What an SOB. He could have waited until spring."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"It's easier to take bad news when the weather's good."

"If that's the case then why did T. S. Eliot write 'April is the cruelest month'?"

"Because he's from St. Louis. I'm sure it is there," Susan puffed into the receiver. "Then he became more English than the English. I knew there was a reason I took all those poetry classes at school. See, you did it again. You got me off the track. I hate that."

"I didn't do anything, Susan. God, apart from being a good lawyer your husband has to be a saint to put up with you. And is he talking to Anne?"

"On the other line."

"I'm surprised you aren't glued to his side trying to catch anything she might say."

"He'd never let me do that. You know that." Susan's voice registered disappointment.

"Are you smoking?"

"Why do you ask that?" said the woman holding a Churchill cigar in her hand.

"I heard you puffing."

"Oh-well-yes. Harry, I am not going to put on weight this winter. Every damned winter I pack on five pounds and then I turned thirty-five and the next thing I knew it was seven pounds. So I am smoking this big, fat cigar. The little ones are too harsh. Big ones are smoother."

"Can't you take diet pills?"