Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

"Uh-huh." Cynthia was gravitating toward black calfskin.

"You know, if you had a pair of chaps made to your body, you might even learn to jump. I'd let you ride Gin Fizz. He's a sweetie. Then, too, chaps have other uses." She had a devilish glitter in her eye.

Coop weakened, allowing herself to be measured. She chose black calfskin, smooth side out, no fringe, and a thin green contrasting strip down the leg and on the belt, also calfskin. She had her initials centered on the back of the belt in a small diamond configuration. The waiting period would be three months.

All the way back to Crozet the two women discussed uses for the chaps as well as the pressing matter at hand: how to trap the killer or killers into making a mistake.

It only takes one mistake.

39

The two cats and the dog had heard about the trip to Upper-ville and Middleburg. They huddled in the back of the post office by the animal door. Outside a hard frost was melting as the temperature at ten in the morning was forty-five degrees and rising quickly. February could run you crazy with the wild weather fluctuations.

"That's what those machines are we found. The pumps that should have gone to Salvage Masters." Pewter held her tail in her paw. She'd meant to clean it but in the excitement of the news she'd forgotten.

Mrs. Murphy, already one step ahead of her, replied, "Yes, of course, but that's not the real problem. You see-" As the two animals drew closer to her she lowered her voice. "Those machines have to be rehabbed. That's why they're down there. Whoever is stashing them can't put them back into use without cleaning them, right?"

"Why not?" Tucker asked.

"Either they won't work or they'll work improperly. Which means complaints to Salvage Masters and the game is up. Whoever is doing this has to crawl down in that space and clean the pumps. I should think that part wouldn't be too hard. Well, the person has to get in and out undetected. What's difficult is if a machine needs more work than just cleaning. See?" Mrs. Murphy swept her pointed, refined ears forward.

"No, I don't see," Pewter confessed.

"I do." Tucker licked the gray cat's face. "Someone has to understand these machines."

"Oh." Pewter's face brightened. "I get it."

"Think it through," Murphy counseled patiently. "The infusion pumps are small. One person, a small person, a child even, can pick them up, roll them, move them around. The hospital routine isn't ruffled. For years these pumps have been removed for cleaning. Right?" The dog and other cat nodded in agreement. "Whoever picks them up is in on it."

"Not necessarily," Tucker contradicted her. "An orderly or janitor could pick them up and take them to the basement for shipping out. Then they could be removed to where we found them."

"True." The pretty tiger was getting excited because she felt she was getting close to figuring this out. "That's a good point, Tucker. The fewer people who know, the better. And someone has to run off the fake invoices. H-m-m."

"Okay, let's review." Tucker caught Murphy's excitement. "We have a person or persons good at using a computer. It sounds easy, copying a bill, but it isn't and the paper matches, too. So they're pretty good. We have a person or persons with mechanical skill. Right?"

"Right," the two kitties echoed.

"And there has to be someone higher up. Someone who can cover for them. Someone very, very smart because the chances are, that's the mastermind behind this. That person recruited the others. How often does an employee woo the boss into crime?" Tucker stood up, panting from her mental efforts.

"Well done, Tucker." Mrs. Murphy rubbed along the dog's body.

"How can we get a human to the hidden room?" Pewter cocked her head, her long whiskers twitching.

"We can't," Mrs. Murphy flatly replied. "First off, anyone we might lure there in the hospital could be in on it. We'd wait downstairs and who is downstairs but the plant crew, as Sam Mahanes calls them. You know one of them has to be in on it. Has to be. We'd be toast."

"Hank Brevard." Pewter's green eyes grew large. "He was the one. And he had his throat slit."

"Maybe he got greedy. If he'd kept at his task why kill him? Think about it. Whoever is on top of this sordid little pyramid is creaming the bulk of the profits. Hank figured out somewhere along the line that he was an important person in the profit chain and he wanted more. He asks for more or threatens. Sayonara." Murphy glanced at Miranda and Harry sorting out the parcels, tossing them in various bins or putting them on the shelves, numbers like the postboxes.

"Which means if the money is to keep rolling in, our Number One Guy will soon need to recruit someone else." Tucker was getting an uneasy feeling.

"He might be able to do the work himself," Pewter said.

"That's possible but if he's high up on the totem pole he isn't going to have the time, number one, and number two, he isn't going to be seen heading to the basement a lot. Eventually that would be a tip-off, especially after Hank's death." Mrs. Murphy's mind raced along.

"When Mom got clunked on the head-it must have been him." Tucker hoped Harry wouldn't go back to the hospital but she knew her mother's burning curiosity, which was why she'd been feeling uneasy.

"Everyone knows that Harry is both smart and curious. Smart for a human. I hope as long as she stays away from the hospital, she's okay, but she's friends with Coop. If I were the killer that would be worrisome. Look how fast he struck when Larry was finding discrepancies, and they probably weren't critical yet because if they were Larry would have gone straight to Sheriff Shaw. He wouldn't have waited." The tiger began to pace.

"If it were just one person . . ." Pewter's voice trailed off; then she spoke louder. "We've got at least two. Mom might be able to handle one but two-well, I don't know."

"And no bites yet on Bristol, the missing dog? We've got to find out who that is," Mrs. Murphy fretted.

"Mim would tell Rick if anything had happened," Tucker said.

"Well, nothing's happened on that front yet." Murphy sighed. They were wrong about that.

40

Fair stood at the divider counter sorting out his mail. "You know Dr. Flynn's got two gorgeous stallions standing at Barracks Stud."

"Yeah. I thought I'd breed Poptart in a few years. She's still pretty young and I need her. If she's bred . . ." Harry's voice trailed off as there was no need to say she'd be out of work for at least the last three months of her pregnancy and then out of work until the foal was weaned.

"I like Fred Astaire, too." Fair mentioned a beautifully bred Thoroughbred stallion at Albemarle Stud.

"Doesn't everyone?" Harry smiled as she threw metered mail in one pile, since it needed a second hand-cancellation for the date.

"Now's what's the difference between one stallion and another?" Mrs. Hogendobber, not a horse person, asked.

"Kind of the difference between one man and another." Fair laughed.

"Don't get racy. I'll blush." Miranda's cheeks did turn rosier.

"It depends on what you're looking for, Miranda. Let's say you have a good Thoroughbred mare, she's well bred and she has good conformation. She didn't win a lot of races but she's pretty good. You'll search around-and you can do this on the Net, by the way-for a stallion whose bloodlines are compatible and who also has good conformation. You might want more speed or more bone or more staying power. That's in the blood. Breeding is as much an art as a science."