Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

Harry checked the addressee, Mrs. Tucker. "H-m-m." She slid out the letter and read it aloud:

"Dear Susan,

As you know, I will be running for the office of mayor of our great town of Crozet.

I need your support and the help of all our friends. I hope that you and Harry will throw your weight behind my campaign.

My top two priorities are keeping Crozet's rural character intact and working closely with the Albemarle Sheriff's Department to decrease crime.

Please call me at your earliest convenience.

Yours truly, Marilyn Sanburne."

Harry rattled the paper a bit. "Call her? She can nab any of us in the street. Waste of postage."

"It is rather formal but I don't think staying neutral is as easy as you do. And if we waffle too long we will gain her enmity," Miranda sensibly said.

"The thing is, did Little Mim get the support of the party?" Harry was surprised that Little Mim would write Susan. It seemed so distant.

"No. Not yet. Called Rev. Jones. He's on the party's local steering committee. He said that yes, they voted to support Marilyn at their monthly meeting, which was Saturday. They wouldn't make the vote public until the state steering committee gave them the okay. Herb said they would probably hear from them in Richmond today. He didn't anticipate any problems. After all, Jim Sanburne, as a Republican, has run unopposed for nearly twenty years. The Democrats ought to be thrilled with their candidate. Not only is someone challenging Jim, it's his own daughter."

Mrs. Murphy rubbed against her mother's leg. "We checked in your mailbox, Mom. You only have bills."

She reached down, scooping up the beautiful tiger cat. "Mrs. Murphy, you are the prettiest girl."

"Ha," came a croak from Pewter, reposing on her side on the small kitchen table in the rear. She wasn't supposed to be on the table but that never stopped her.

"Jealous." Harry walked over to rub Pewter's ears.

"I'm not jealous."

"Are, too," Murphy taunted her friend.

"Am not." Pewter stuck out her amazingly pink tongue, hot pink.

Murphy wiggled out of Harry's arms, pouncing on Pewter. They rolled over and over until they fell off the table with a thud, shook themselves, and walked in opposite directions as though this was the most natural event in the world.

"Cats." Tucker cocked her head, then looked up at Harry. "Mom, I don't like these chain letters. Something's not right."

Harry knelt down. "You are the best dog in the universe. Not even the solar system but the universe." She kissed her silky head.

"Gag me." Pewter grimaced, then turned and walked over to sit beside Mrs. Murphy, their kitty spat forgotten as quickly as it flared up. "Obsequious."

"Dogs always are." Murphy knowingly nodded, but Tucker could have cared less.

Within the hour Coop drove up and ducked into the front door of the post office just as rain began to fall. "Is this weather crazy or what?" she said as she closed the door behind her.

"Find anything out?" Miranda flipped up the divider to allow her in the back.

"Yes." Cynthia stepped through, removed her jacket, and hung it on the Shaker peg by the back door. "Crozet Hospital is in turmoil. Jesus, what a petty place it is. Backstabbers."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I guess a lot of businesses are like that." Mrs. Hogendobber was disappointed. "No suspects?"

"Not yet," Coop tensely replied.

"Oh great. There's a killer on the loose."

"Harry." Mrs. Murphy spoke out loud. "You humans rub shoulders with killers more than you imagine. I'm convinced the human animal is the only animal to derive pleasure from murder."

As though picking up on her cat's thoughts, Harry said aloud, "I wonder if Hank's killer enjoyed killing him."

"Yes," Cooper said without hesitation.

"Power?" Harry asked.

"Yes. No one likes to talk about that aspect of murder. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. No one has the right to take another human life."

"Miranda, people may read their Bible but they don't follow the precepts," Cooper told her.

"You know, the post office is in the middle of everything. Action Central, sort of." Harry's eyes brightened. "We could help."

"No, you don't." Cooper's chin jutted out.

"Yeah." Mrs. Murphy fluffed her tail. "A little skulking about is good for a cat."

"Which cat?" Pewter grumbled.

Cynthia Cooper waggled her finger at Harry and Miranda. "No. No. And no."

15

A meeting that evening brought together the faithful of St. Luke's Lutheran Church, presided over by the Reverend Herbert C. Jones. While Harry considered herself a lapsed Lutheran she adored the Rev, as she called him. She liked that the Lutheran church-as well as the other churches in the area-hummed, a hive of activity, a honeycomb of human relationships. If someone was sickly, the word got out and people called upon him or her. If someone struggled with alcoholism, a church member who was also in Alcoholics Anonymous invariably paid a call.

The other major denominations, all represented, cooperated throughout major crises such as when someone's house burnt down. It wasn't necessary that the assisted person be a member of any church. All that mattered was that they lived in Crozet or its environs.

Reverend Jones, warm and wise, even pulled together the Baptist and Pentecostal churches, who had often felt slighted in the past by the "high" churches.

Mrs. Hogendobber, a devout member of the Church of the Holy Light, proved instrumental in this new area of cooperation.

Tonight the meeting concerned food deliveries and medical services for those people unable to shop for themselves and who had no families to help them. Often the recipients were quite elderly. They had literally outlived anyone who might be related to them. In other cases, the recipient was a mean old drunk who had driven away family and friends. The other group involved AIDS patients, most of whom had lost their families, self-righteous families who shrank into disapproval, leaving their own flesh and blood to die alone and lonely.

Harry especially felt a kinship with this group since many were young. She had expected to meet many gay men but was shocked to discover how many women were dying of the insidious disease, women who had fooled around with drugs, shared needles, or just had the bad luck to sleep with the wrong man. A few had been prostitutes in Washington, D.C., and when they could no longer survive in the city they slipped into the countryside.

Harry, well educated, was not an unsophisticated person. True, she chose country life over the flash and dash of the city, but she hardly qualified as a country bumpkin. Then again few people really did. The bumpkin was one of those stereotypes that seemed to satisfy some hunger in city people to feel superior to those not in the city. Still, she realized through this service how much she didn't know about her own country. There was an entire separate world devoted to drugs. It had its rules, its cultures, and, ultimately, its death sentence.