Рита Браун - Pawing Through The Past

The cat came alongside, brushing against her friend. "You're right. I'm awful." She walked a few steps, then stopped. "What bothers me is that we're missing something and I won't feel reassured until we know it. I don't like that Mom knew these two as well as she did."

"She wasn't romantically involved with either of them."

"For which we should be grateful."

"And no women have been killed."

"Grateful for that, too."

Tucker blinked, then sneezed. "Lily pollen."

"It's on your coat, too."

"Don't want Miranda to know I was in her lilies."

"Roll in the dirt."

"Then I'll get yelled at."

"Better to be yelled at for that than for creeping through the lily beds."

"You're right." Tucker rolled over.

When they slipped through the animal door no one noticed them, since everyone was ministering to Marcy Wiggins.

Tucker crawled under a mail cart. Mrs. Murphy hopped into it, landing on a recumbent Pewter, who jumped up, spitting and hissing.

"Pewts, Pewts, I'm sorry," Murphy laughed.

Pewter, not yet in a forgiving frame of mind, lashed out, cuffing Mrs. Murphy on the cheek.

Mrs. Murphy returned the favor and soon the mail cart was rolling, thanks to their violence. Tucker's rear end stuck out behind the cart.

"Hey, you two!" Harry clapped her hands over the mail cart, which diverted the cats' attention. Then her eye fell on a dirty corgi behind. "What have you done?"

"Nothing," came the meek reply.

"Fleas," Mrs. Hogendobber declared. "Rolling in the dirt because of fleas."

"Guess it means a bath and flea powder when we get home." Harry sighed.

"Thanks, Murphy," Tucker growled.

"How was I to know?" she said, then whispered to Pewter what had happened. Pewter giggled.

"It's like having children," Chris laughed.

"Marcy, feeling better?" Mrs. Hogendobber offered her more iced tea.

"Yes, thank you." She nodded, then turned to Harry. "I told BoomBoom and Chris I'm not working on your reunion anymore. Who knows what will happen next?"

"I understand." Harry didn't believe in trying to convince people to do what they didn't want to do.

"And I'll thank you all to stop talking about me."

"We aren't talking about you." Harry wrinkled her brow, puzzled.

"Everyone is. You think I don't know." She stood up and whirled on BoomBoom. "And don't tell me I need to drink chamomile tea or some other dipshit herbal remedy! You all think I'm having marital problems. You think I slept with Charlie Ashcraft and-"

"Marcy, you need to go home." Chris grabbed her friend under the elbow, pushing her out the back door as Marcy continued to babble.

"Paranoid," BoomBoom flatly said.

"That's a pretty harsh judgment," Harry countered.

"Call it what you like then."

"Well, BoomBoom, try to see it from her point of view. She doesn't have the advantage of being one of us," Harry said.

"Right now I'd say that was not such an advantage," Pewter called out from the mail cart.

"Boom, you seem out of sorts today." Miranda hoped to calm the waters.

"I am." She glared at Harry. "Cynthia Cooper called on me this morning before I left for golf and do you know what she asked me? If I had had any illegitimate children with Charlie Ashcraft or if I had any sexually transmitted diseases!"

"How come you're yelling at me?"

"Because you baited her into it."

"Boom, I don't know anything about such . . . matters."

"Well, you obviously think my life is one big promiscuous party!"

"Girls." Miranda held up her hands. "I do wish you two would make some kind of peace."

"Peace? She nips at me like a Jack Russell. Sex. Always sex. Right, Harry?"

"Wrong." Harry's face darkened as the animals watched, fascinated. "I haven't said a word to Cynthia, and why would I even think about venereal disease? God, BoomBoom."

"Then who did?"

Miranda looked heavenward. "Please, dear Lord, don't send anyone into the P.O. for a while." She returned to the battling pair. "Time out. Now you two sit down, be civil, and discuss this or I am throwing you both out. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," they both said, startled at Miranda's vehemence.

"Sit down." She pointed to the table. They sat. "Now, questions such as BoomBoom is asking do not come out of the blue. Instead of accusing Harry, why don't you both think back. Think back as far as you have to go."

They sat mute.

Harry fingered the grain on the old table. "Remember in our junior year, people whispered that Charlie got someone pregnant?"

BoomBoom thought about it. "Yes, but no one left school."

"If the baby was due at the end of the summer she might not have had to leave," Miranda said. "Some women show less than others."

"There's always gym class. If someone was packing on the pounds, we'd know," Harry said.

"Did anyone get an excuse from gym class?"

"Lord, I don't know. That was twenty years ago."

"Perhaps it wasn't someone at your high school. There's St. Elizabeth's, or it may have been someone already out of school," Miranda offered.

"That's true. Cynthia must be getting desperate, running down ancient rumors." BoomBoom folded her arms across her ample chest.

"Charlie's death could have old roots."

"Twenty years is a long time to get even," BoomBoom said.

"Depends on how angry you are," Mrs. Murphy said. "Someone hurt badly enough might live their entire life waiting for revenge."

"What do you want in there?" Harry called out to the cats in the mail cart.

"Nothing. We're trying to help," Murphy replied.

"There were rumors about Charlie right up to the present." BoomBoom softened somewhat. "I'd heard that he'd gotten AIDS. Heard that at the club. He'd slept with some society queen in Washington, no surprise, but I heard she died a year ago. The papers hushed it up. Said she had heart failure."

"Did you tell Coop?"

"Yes. And I also told her that anyone infected with the AIDS virus by him could be mad enough to kill."

"A mother wishing to protect a child might also have plenty of motivation," Miranda added. "But it's a dreadful thing to do. I would think the child would find out who her father was, sooner or later."

"Her?" Harry looked quizzically at Miranda.

"Him."

"Do you know something we don't?" BoomBoom's voice grew stronger.

"No, I don't. But remember your Bible. Numbers. Chapter thirty-two, Verse twenty-three. 'Be sure your sin will find you out.'"

Chris popped her head back in the door. "BoomBoom, if you need more time, I'll run Marcy home. She's having a hard time."