Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

"Saint Valentine. There ought to be a Saint Catnip or how about a Saint Tuna?" Pewter, having eaten a large breakfast, was already thinking about lunch at seven-thirty in the morning. "I bet there wasn't even a real person called Valentine."

"Yes, there was. He was a third-century martyr killed in Rome on the Flaminian Way under the reign of Claudius. There are conflicting stories but I stick to this one," Mrs. Murphy informed her gray friend.

"How do you know all that?" Pewter irritatedly asked.

"Whatever Harry reads I read over her shoulder."

"Reading bores me," Pewter honestly answered. "Does it bore you, Tucker?"

"No."

"Tucker, you can hardly read."

"Oh yes I can." The corgi glared at Murphy. "I'm not an Afghan hound, you know, obsessed with my appearance. I've learned a few things in this life. But I don't get what a murdered priest has to do with lovers. Isn't Valentine's Day about lovers?"

With a superior air, Murphy lifted the tip of her tail, delicately grooming it, and replied, "The old belief was that birds pair off on February fourteenth and I guess since that was the day Valentine was murdered somehow that pairing became associated with him."

"I'm sorry I'm late." Miranda bustled through the back door. "I overslept."

Harry, up to her elbows in mail, smiled. "You hardly ever do that."

They had spoken Sunday about the murder of Hank Brevard and, with that shorthand peculiar to people who have known one another a long time or lived through intense experiences together, they hopped right in.

"Accident?" Miranda placed packages on the shelves, each of which had numbers and letters on them so large parcels could be easily retrieved.

"Impossible."

"I guess I'm trying to find something-" A rap on the back door broke her train of thought.

"Who is it?" Harry called out.

"Miss Wonderful."

"Susan." Harry laughed as her best friend opened the door. "Help us out and make tea, will you? Rob showed up early and I haven't started a pot. What are you doing here this early, anyway?"

Susan washed out the teapot at the small sink in the rear. "Brooks' Volvo is in the shop so I dropped her at school. Danny's off on a field trip so I had to do it." Dan, her son, would be leaving for college this fall. "I swear that Volvo Ned bought her must be the prototype. What a tank but it's safe."

"What's the matter with it?" Miranda asked.

"I think the alternator died." She put tea bags in three cups, then came over to help sort mail until the water boiled. "You'd think most people would have mailed out their Valentine's cards before today."

"They did, but today"-Harry surveyed the volume of mail-"is just wild. There aren't even that many bills in here. The bills roll in here next week."

The teakettle whistled. "Okay, girls, how do you want your tea?"

"The usual," both called out, which meant Harry wanted hers black and Miranda wanted a teaspoon of honey and a drop of cream.

Susan brought them their cups and she drank one, too.

"Murphy, what are you looking at?"

"This Jiffy bag smells funny." She pushed it.

Pewter and Tucker joined her.

"Yeah." Pewter inhaled deeply. "Addressed to Dr. Bruce Buxton."

Puzzled, Tucker cocked her head to the right and then to the left. "Dried blood. Faint but it smells like dried blood."

The cats looked at one another and then back to Tucker, whose nose was unimpeachable.

"All right, you guys. No messing with government property." Harry snatched the bag, read the recipient's name, then placed it on the bookshelves, because it was too large for his brass mailbox. "Ned tell you anything?" she asked Susan.

"No. Client relationship."

Susan's husband, a trusted and good lawyer, carried many a secret. Tempted though he was at times, he never betrayed a client's thoughts or deeds to his wife.

"Is Bobby Minifee under suspicion?" Miranda put her teacup on the divider between the public space and the work space.

"No. Not really," Susan replied.

"Anyone seen Coop?" Harry shot a load of mail into her ex-husband's mailbox.

"No. Working overtime with all this." Susan looked on the back of a white envelope. "Why would anyone send a letter without a return address, the mail being what it is. No offense to you, Harry, or you, Miranda."

"None taken." Harry folded one sack, now emptied. "Maybe they get busy and forget."

At eight on the dot, Marilyn Sanburne stood at the front door just as Miranda unlocked it.

"Good morning. Oh, Miranda, where did you get that sweater? The cranberry color compliments your complexion."

"Knitted it myself." The older woman smiled. "We've got so much mail-well, there's some mail in your box but you'd better check back this afternoon, too."

"Fine." Little Mim pulled out her brass mailbox key, opened the box, pulling out lots of mail. She quickly flipped through it, then loudly exclaimed, "A letter from Blair."

"Great." Harry spoke quickly because Little Mim feared Harry had designs on the handsome model herself, which she did not.

"I also wanted you ladies to be the first to know that I've rented the old brick pharmacy building and it's going to be my campaign headquarters."

"That's a lot of space," Harry blurted out.

"Yes." Little Mim smiled and bid them good-bye.

They watched as she got into her car and opened Blair's letter. She was so intent upon reading it that she didn't notice her mother pull up next to her.

Mim parked, emerged well-dressed as always, and walked over to the driver's side of her daughter's car. Little Mim didn't see her mother, so Big Mim rapped on the window with her forefinger.

Startled, Little Mim rolled down the window. "Mother."

"Daughter."

A silence followed. Little Mim had no desire to share her letter, and she wasn't thrilled that her mother saw how engrossed she was in it.

Shrewdly, she jumped onto a subject. "Mother, I've rented the pharmacy."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"Zeb Berryhill called your father and wondered if he would be upset and your father said he would not. In fact, he was rather looking forward to a challenge. So that was that."

"Oh." Little Mim, vaguely disappointed, slipped the letter inside her coat. She was hoping to be the talk of the town.

"It must be good."

"Mother, I have to have some secrets."

"Why? Nobody else in this town does," said the woman who had secrets going back decades.

"Oh, everyone has secrets. Like the person who killed Hank Brevard."

"M-m-m, there is that. Well, I'm off to a Piedmont Environmental Council meeting. Happy Valentine's Day."

"You, too, Mumsy." Little Mim smiled entirely too much.

As she drove off, Big Mim entered the post office just as Dr. Buxton pulled into the parking space vacated by her daughter. At that moment her irritation with her daughter took over the more pressing gossip of the day.