Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

"None."

"Then my guess, which I'm sure is yours, too, is the killer came up behind him, was Hank's height or taller, grabbed his mouth and cut so fast Hank barely knew what hit him. I suppose there's comfort in that."

"How long did it take him to die?"

"Two minutes, more or less."

"There'd be no shortage of suitable knives in the hospital," Coop said.

"Or people who know how to use them." Tom opened the door to the corridor.

Flames darted behind the glass front of the red enamel wood-burning stove. Tussie Logan hung up the phone in the kitchen.

When she returned to the living room, Randy Sands, her housemate and best friend, noticed her ashen face. "What's wrong?"

"Hank Brevard is dead."

"Heart attack?" Randy rose, walked over to Tussie, and put his arm around her shoulders.

"No. He was murdered."

"What?" Randy dropped his arm, turning to face her.

"Someone slit his throat."

"Good Lord." He sucked in his breath. "How primitive." He walked back to the sofa. "Come on, sit down beside me. Talking helps."

"I don't know what to say." She dropped next to him, which made his cushion rise up a little bit.

"Who just called to tell you?"

"Oh, Debbie, Jordan Ivanic's secretary. I guess we're all being called one by one. She said Sheriff Shaw or Deputy Cooper would be questioning us and-" She bit her lip.

"Not the most hospitable man but still." He put his arm around her again. "I'm sorry."

"You know, I was just in the post office with him and he was bitching and moaning about working a late shift because someone was sick or whatever. Half the time I tuned him out." She breathed in sharply. "Now I feel guilty as hell about it."

Randy patted her shoulder. "Everybody did that. He was boring."

A log popped in the stove.

Tussie flinched. "You never know. How trite." She rocked herself. "How utterly trite but it's true. Here I work in a hospital with these desperately sick children. I mean, Randy, we know most of them haven't a prayer but this shakes me."

"Working with terminally ill children is your profession. Having an associate or whatever you call Hank is quite another matter . . . having him murdered, I mean. Sometimes I open my mouth and I can't keep my tongue on track," he apologized.

"Start one sentence and bop into the second before you've finished the first." She smiled sadly. "Randy, I have to go back and work in that hospital and there's a killer loose." She shuddered.

"Now you don't know that. It could have been a random thing."

"A homicidal maniac goes to the hospital and selects Hank."

"Well," his voice lightened. "You know what I mean. It's got nothing to do with you."

"God, I hope not." She shuddered again and he kept patting her shoulder, keeping his arm around her.

"You'll be fine."

"Randy, I'm scared."

9

Once a human being reaches a certain age, death, while not a friend, is an acquaintance. Sudden death, though, always catches people off guard.

Lisa Brevard, in her early fifties, was stunned by her husband's murder. To lose him was bad enough, but to have him murdered was doubly upsetting. She knew his faults but loved him anyway. Perhaps the same could have been said of him for her.

After Harry left the Brevards' she, Susan, Miranda Hogendobber, and Coop had lunch at Miranda's, she being the best cook in Crozet.

"When does Tracy get back?" Coop asked Miranda about her high-school boyfriend, who had struck up a courtship with her at their reunion last year.

"As soon as he sells the house." She placed the last dish on the table-mashed potatoes-sat down, and held Harry's and Coop's hands. Coop held Susan's hand so the circle was complete. "Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy bounty to us both in food and in friendship. We ask that Thou sustain and comfort Lisa and the family in their time of sorrow. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen."

"Amen," the others echoed, as did the animals, who quickly pounced upon their dishes on the floor.

"You look wonderful, Miranda." Susan was proud of Miranda, who had lost forty pounds.

"Men fall in love with their eyes, women with their ears." Miranda smiled.

Coop glanced up, fork poised in midair. "I never thought of that."

"The Good Lord made us differently. There's no point complaining about it. We have to accept it, besides"-Miranda handed the bowl to her left-"I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Wh-o-o-o." Harry raised her eyebrows.

"Don't start, Harry." Miranda shot her a glance, mock fierce.

"I hope Tracy sells that house in Hawaii fast." Harry heaped salad into her bowl.

"I do, too. I feel like a girl again." Miranda beamed.

They talked about Tracy and others in the town but the conversation kept slipping back to Hank Brevard.

"Cooper, are you holding back?" Harry asked.

"No. It takes us time to piece together someone's life and that's what we have to do with Hank. Whatever he was, whatever he did, someone wanted him dead. Big time."

"He couldn't have, say, surprised someone doing-" Susan didn't finish her sentence as Harry jumped in.

"In the boiler room of the hospital?"

"Harry, someone could have been throwing evidence into the boiler," Susan defended herself.

"Most likely the incinerator." Cooper then described the bowels of the hospital building to them. "So you see, given the corridors, whoever did this knew their way around."

"Someone who works there," Miranda said.

"Or someone who services equipment there. We have to run down every single contractor, repairman, delivery boy who goes in and out of that place."

"What a lot of work," Miranda exclaimed. "Like that old TV show, Dragnet. You do throw a net over everything, don't you?"

Cooper nodded. "And sooner or later, Miranda, something turns up."

And so it did, but not at all where they thought it would.

10

"Oh boy." Harry closed the post office door behind her just as Rob Collier pulled up to the front door. She hurried through and opened the front door. "Monday, Monday."

"I've got stuff for you," he sang out as he hauled canvas bags stuffed with mail.

"Valentine's Day. I forgot." She grimaced as he tossed two extra bags onto the mailroom floor.

"Just think of all the love in those bags," he joked.

"You're in a good mood."

"I already got my Valentine's Day present this morning."

"No sex talk, Rob, I'm too delicate."

He grinned at her, hopped back in the big mail truck, and took off in the direction of White Hall, where a small post office awaited him.

"Think Mom got any love letters?" Tucker tugged at one of the bags.

"I don't think she cares. She has to sort her mail the same as everybody else's," Murphy replied.