Рита Браун - Pawing Through The Past

Each person confirmed what the other said. Nothing was different. Charlie was Charlie.

Cooper stuck her notepad in her back hip pocket. "Harry, I need to see you alone." She shepherded Harry out to the squad car. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter watched through the window. They could clearly see from their perch on the divider.

"What's going on?" Tucker, intently staring out the window, asked.

"Mother is frowning, talking, and using her hands a lot."

"I can see that. I mean what is really going on?" the dog snipped.

"H-m-m." Pewter blinked, not pleased with the turn of events.

The air-conditioning hummed in the squad car. Empty po-tato chip bags lay on the seat. Harry removed them to the floor.

"Whatever possessed you to tell Charlie Ashcraft he'd die before you'd sleep with him?"

"Coop, I don't know. I was mad as hell."

"Well, it doesn't look good. Because of that outburst I have to consider you a suspect. It was a dumb thing to say."

"Yeah . . ." Harry bent over, picked up the potato chip bags, and folded them lengthwise. "I hated that guy. But you know perfectly well I didn't kill him."

"Can you account for your whereabouts from six-thirty to eight last night?"

"Sure. I was on the farm."

"Can anyone corroborate this?" Cooper wrote in her steno pad.

"Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker."

"That's not funny, Harry. You really are a suspect."

"Oh come on, Cynthia."

"You are a member of the country club. It wouldn't have been difficult for you."

"No, I'm not," Harry quickly spoke. "Mom and Dad were but after they died I couldn't afford the dues. I'm allowed to go to the club once a month, which I usually do with Susan if she needs a tennis partner."

"But your presence at the club wouldn't seem unusual. Everyone knows you."

"Coop, let me tell you: there are old biddies, male and female, who have nothing better to do than cast the searching eye. If I had been there, you can be sure someone would have reported me because I've already played with Susan this month. I've used up my allotted time."

Cynthia flipped her book closed. "Do you think you could kill?"

"Sure, I could. In self-defense."

"In anger?"

"Probably," she replied honestly.

"He sexually baited you."

"He'd been doing that since high school."

"You snapped."

"Nope." Harry folded her arms across her chest.

Cynthia exhaled through her nostrils. "Rick will insist on keeping you an active suspect until better shows up. You know how he is. So don't leave the state. If an emergency should arise and you need to leaveVirginia , call me."

"I'm not leaving. Now I'm insulted. If you don't find the killer, I will."

"What I'd advise you to do, Harry, is watch your mouth. That's why we're sitting in my squad car on a hot August day."

"I suppose BoomBoom couldn't wait to tell how I lost my temper."

"Let's just say she performed her civic duty."

"That bitch."

"Yes, well, if that bitch winds up dead you are in trouble."

"Coop, I didn't kill Charlie Ashcraft."

Relenting, dropping her professional demeanor, Cynthia replied, "I know-but shut up. Really."

Harry smoothed the folded potato chip bags on her thigh. "I will. I don't know what's come over me. It's like I just don't give a damn anymore." She stared out the window. "You think it's this reunion? I'm getting stirred up?"

"I don't know. Your high-school class seems, well, volatile." She paused. "One more question."

"Sure."

"Do you think this murder has anything to do with your high-school reunion?"

"Nah. How could it?"

10

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" Tucker inquired of Mrs. Murphy and Pewter as the animals watched Harry fall in love with her new truck.

"She's read the manual twice, she's crawled under the truck, and now she's identifying and playing with every single part she can reach in the engine. Humans are extremely peculiar. All this attention to a hunk of metal," Pewter said.

A little breeze kicked up a wind devil in front of the barn door where the animals crouched in the shade. Harry worked in the fading sunlight.

"It's a perfect red." Mrs. Murphy felt more people would notice her riding in a red truck than in any other color. "Look who's rolling down the road."

They heard the tire crunch a half mile away, saw the dust and soon Blair Bainbridge's 911 wide-body black turbo Porsche glided into view, a vastly different machine than the dually but each suited for its purpose.

Harry put down the grease gun she'd been using and wiped her hands on an old towel as Blair stopped. "Hey, had to see the new truck. I didn't believe it when Little Mim told me, but when Big Mim said you truly had a new truck, one that could haul your trailer, I had to see it."

"Big Mim is interested in my truck?" Harry smiled.

"The only topic of conversation hotter than your red truck is the end of Charlie Ashcraft. Everyone has a suspect and no one cares. Amazing." He stretched his long legs, unfolding himself from the cockpit of the Porsche. "It seems like everyone knew Charlie but no one really knew him."

"You could say that about a lot of people."

"Yes, I guess you could," he agreed.

She lingered over the big V-8 engine, admiring the cleanliness of it, touching the fuel injection ports, which meant she had to stand on an old wooden Coca-Cola box to lean down into the compact engine. "Blair, men talk. What are they saying?"

"Oh," he waved his hand, "I'm not in the inner circle." He took a breath.

"You know I value your judgment. You were born and bred here and, uh . . ." He stopped for a moment. "I find myself in a delicate situation."

"Too many women, too little time." Harry laughed.

He laughed, too. Harry relaxed him. "Not exactly, but close. Over the years we've become friends and I think I would have committed more blunders without you. I'm afraid I'm heading for a real cock-up, as the Brits say."

"Little Mim."

"Yes." He glanced up at the sky. "See, it's like this: women accuse men of being superficial over looks. Trust me. Women are equally as superficial."

"You would know." She smiled at the unbelievably handsome model.

Blair flew all over the world for photo shoots. The biggest names in men's fashions wanted him.

"You're not going to put up a fight? You're not going to tell me men are worse than women?"

"Nope." Harry jammed her hands in her back pockets. "Now tell me what's going on."

"Little Mim has a crush on me. Okay, I've dealt with crushes before and I like her. Don't get me wrong. But over the weekend I was at a fund-raiser and, of course, the Sanburnes were there. Big Mim pulled me away from the crowd, took me down to the rathskeller, and closed the door."