Рита Браун - Pawing Through The Past

"You girls go back into the post office," Tracy soothingly directed, "because that's where people will gather and they'll need you to keep your heads."

"Quite right." Miranda nodded. Violent death shocked her. But she'd seen enough death in her life to accept it as inevitable, although she never could accept violence.

The cats and dog stayed at the scene of the crime. No one paid attention to them because they were careful to stay out of the way, even though Mrs. Murphy brazenly sat on top of Rick's squad car.

Joe glanced at the body, pulled a heavy wrench from his leather tool belt around his waist, and started turning a nut. "Harvey, you crippled?"

Harvey swallowed hard, walked over, and crouched down to work on the bottom bolt. He was eye-level with the loafers on the corpse but he did not look inside.

As the men worked, Diana Robb and the rescue squad crept down the alleyway, clogged with cars. The people moved away but they'd left their cars.

Diana hopped out, marched up to the opened dumpster, and peered inside. "Like Charlie. Powder burns."

"Uh-huh," Rick noncommittally grunted.

"You ready for us?" She noticed the crushed green and orange 7 Up cartons under the body.

"Yeah, you can take him." Rick leaned against the squad car to light a cigarette.

"Those things will kill you," Mrs. Murphy scolded.

He looked up at the cat looking down at him. "You don't miss a thing, do you?"

"Nope."

"Need a hand?" Tracy offered.

"We've got it, thanks." Diana smiled.

Tracy asked Rick, "If you don't need me anymore I'll be going."

"Where to?"

"The post office."

"I mean, where do you come from?" Rick inhaled.

Tracy briefly filled the sheriff in on his background. "Retired now. Came back to help with our high-school reunion."

Rick reached out to shake his hand. "Rick Shaw, sheriff."

"Deputy Cynthia Cooper." She shook Tracy's hand also, as did Fair.

"I'm renting rooms at Harry's farm. If you need me I'll be there." He opened the back door to the post office, slipping inside.

Fair, face white with upset, hands in jeans pockets, said, "Quite an ending for someone as fastidious as Leo Burkey. To be dumped with garbage."

"Harry made a similar comment," Rick noted.

Market bustled back again. "Sheriff, I hope you don't think I did this. I couldn't stand Leo, but I wouldn't kill him. Besides, he lived far enough away he didn't work on my mood." Market's voice was tremulous, his hands were shaking.

"Market." Rick paused. "Why didn't you like him?"

"Smart-ass. In high school-well, always."

"Yes, he was," Fair confirmed.

"As bad as Charlie Ashcraft?" Cynthia watched as Joe and Harvey lifted the blue metal door off its hinges, leaning it up against the side of the dumpster.

"What's worse, reaching in the garbage or picking up the body?" Pewter giggled.

Tucker whirled around, hearing before the rest of them. "What's worse is here comes Channel 29."

Diana, now seeing the van with the dish on top, as she was looking down the alleyway, urged, "Come on, let's get him out of here and in a body bag before they jump out with the damned cameras."

Too late. Even before the van pulled over the cameraman was running toward them.

"Stand back!" Rick barked, holding up his hand.

A brief argument followed but the cameraman and on-air reporter did stay twenty yards back as Diana, with three assistants, lifted out the body. Since rigor was taking over, getting him into a body bag required effort.

"Why don't they break his arms and legs?" Pewter sensibly suggested.

"They'd pass out. Humans are touchy about their dead." Mrs. Murphy noticed the outline of his wallet in his back pocket. It would appear robbery wasn't the motive.

Market returned to the question Cynthia had posed before they were interrupted by the television crew. "No, Leo wasn't as bad as Charlie Ashcraft. Charlie was in a class by himself. Leo wanted us to think he was a ladies' man but he was more bark than bite. He had a smart mouth, that's all. Hurt a lot of feelings. Or I should say he hurt mine. And he was handsome, I couldn't compete with him for the girls. Not too many of us could." He looked up at Fair. "Like you, the class ahead. You always got the girls."

"Hope I didn't have a smart mouth." Fair still watched fix-edly as they struggled with the body.

"You were a good guy. Still are," Market said. He leaned against the car with Rick, as he couldn't stop shaking. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel dizzy."

"The shock of it." Rick patted Market on the back. "No one expects to come to work in the morning and find a dead body in the garbage."

"If I'd kept those old garbage cans it wouldn't have happened," Market moaned. "That will teach me to leave well enough alone."

"Until they scattered all over the alleyway again," Fair reminded him. "You did the right thing. Someone took advantage of it, that's all."

"Someone who doesn't much care about how they dispose of bodies. Two men, same age, same high-school class, shot between the eyes and left for the world to see. There's a message here." Mrs. Murphy walked over the back window, careful not to smear paw prints on it. "Like those stupid mailings. I think the message will get more clear in time."

"Both senior superlatives, too." Pewter backed down the tree to join her friend. "That's odd."

"Mom's a senior superlative." Tucker barked so loud she distracted one of the rescue-squad men and he tripped, then righted himself.

"We know," the cats said. Then Murphy continued, "But so far the murdered are handsome men, well-off. Don't panic yet."

"I'm not panicking," the dog grumbled, "only observing."

"They say that when someone dies their features relax." Pewter walked toward the post office, her friends walking with her. "But Leo Burkey looked surprised, like a bear had jumped out at him, like something totally out of the blue had shocked him."

"We didn't see Charlie but it's a sure bet he was surprised, too." Tucker pushed through the animal door into the post office.

Mrs. Murphy sat in front of the door, irritating Tucker who stuck her head back through to see where the cats were. "There's human intelligence to this. That's the trick, you see. Killers often start from an irrational premise and then are completely rational and logical when they act."

24

Glad to be home after an extremely upsetting day, Harry wearily pushed open the screened porch door. It didn't squeak. She noted the hinges had been oiled. She heard pounding behind the barn.

Mrs. Hogendobber had given her freshly baked corn bread in a square pan which the older woman had thoughtfully covered with tinfoil. Harry placed the pan inside the refrigerator.

"Look!" Pewter trilled.

Mrs. Murphy, whiskers swept forward, bounded up to Pewter in front of the refrigerator. Tucker ran over, too, her claws hitting the heart pine floorboards with clicks.