Рита Браун - Pawing Through The Past

BoomBoom rose. "I'll be right there." She paused before Miranda. "Do you think it's a sin to have a child out of wedlock?"

"No. I think it's inadvisable but not a sin. To me the sin is in not caring for the child."

BoomBoom silently opened the door and left.

"Miranda, you surprise me."

"You thought I'd say the woman should be stoned?" The older woman smiled ruefully. "Harry, I've lived long enough to know I can't sit in judgment of anyone. So many young women out there want to be loved and don't know the difference between sex and love."

"Then what sin were you referring to when you quoted Numbers?"

"Oh." She dropped her head for a moment. "The sin of cruelty. The sin of bruising another's heart, of abandoning someone to pain that you have caused. The sin of carelessness and callousness and self-centeredness. I don't know what Charlie's sins were, I mean, other than gossip. And I certainly don't know what Leo's sins were, but someone out there feels he or she has suffered enough."

29

"You're sure you want to do this?"

Mrs. Hogendobber tossed her head. "Absolutely. I used to be on the lacrosse team." She paused. "Granted that was some time ago but my athletic abilities haven't completely eroded."

Tracy placed two skateboards on the macadam surface. The parking lot at the back of the grade school was empty. Nobody driving by would see them, which was just how Miranda wanted it.

"H-m-m." He gingerly put one sneakered foot on the board to test the rollers.

Knee guards, elbow guards, and helmets made the two senior citizens look like creatures from outer space, or perhaps older space.

"Before I hop on, how do I stop?"

"Make a sharp turn in either direction and as you slow, tip the nose forward. At least, I think that's what you do."

"M-m-m." She breathed in. "Here goes." She put her right foot on the back of the board, her left foot on the front. Nothing happened.

Tracy, now aboard himself, coached, "Push off with your right foot."

She reached down and shoved off with more force than she had intended. "Whoa!"

Mrs. H. rolled along the level parking lot, her arms outstretched to balance her, laughing and hollering like a third-grader.

Tracy pulled alongside. "Not bad for our first time out!"

"Harry is going to die when I fly past her in the hallway."

"Cuddles, you won't be able to wait until the reunion. You'll surprise her before then." He started to wobble and hopped off.

"I thought you said turn sharply." Which she did.

"Didn't take my own advice." He bent over to pick up the skateboard. "I'll do it right this time." He hopped back on, pushed off, then practiced a stop. "I get it. Twist from the waist."

Miranda, watching him, tried it. She lurched to the side but didn't lose her balance. "Stopping is harder than moving on."

"Is in skiing, too."

"I don't know how young people go down banks, circle around in concrete pipes." She recalled footage she'd seen on television.

"We don't have to do that." He laughed as he rolled along even faster.

She picked up the skateboard, examined the brightly colored rollers, put it back on the macadam, and got on again. "You know, I don't do enough things like this. Oh!" She picked up speed.

"You're busy every minute. That's what Harry says." He executed another stop, better this time.

"Sedentary stuff. I need to get out more. Maybe then I'll lose a little weight. I don't know how you managed to keep your figure. I guess for men we don't say figure."

"Thank you, ma'am, but you look good to me."

"I don't believe you, but I love to hear it." She stopped. "I'm quite out of breath."

"Walk. You don't have to jog. Walking will do the trick. And if you really want to lose weight cut out the fats and sugars."

"Oh dear." She grimaced.

"It's either that or exercise for three hours a day. I work out for an hour in the gym, always have. Now that I'm doing farmwork, I'm getting double workouts."

She twisted her lower body and did a turnabout, didn't have enough speed and slipped off but caught herself, merely falling forward with three big steps. "Say, that's hard."

He tried it. "It is."

"How do you like Harry? They say you never really know someone until you live with them."

"I like her fine. She's paying off her ex-husband for the old truck, you know. Hardheaded, isn't she? He just redeposits the check in her account and then they fight about it."

"Has a fear of obligation. Whole family was like that. But she especially doesn't want to be beholden to him. He dropped by and told me he'd had a talk with Harry. He says he's going to aggressively win her back."

"Faint heart ne'er won fair lady." He crouched low to pick up speed. "This is fun, you know?"

"Yes, it is. Hate the helmet, though."

"They are weenie but your head is precious-Precious." He called her "Precious," then stood up, slowed down, and hopped off while the skateboard kept going. "Those babies are well balanced."

"And so are you."

They both laughed as Miranda cut sharply to the right and neatly stepped off.

A siren far away pierced the late-afternoon quiet.

"Heading east," Miranda observed.

Within a few moments another siren attracted their attention. A squad car roared down from Whitehall, past the grade school, into town. Then it, too, headed left.

"Good heavens, what could it be this time?" Miranda wondered.

30

Harry, tape measure around Tomahawk, heard the phone ring in the tackroom. She ignored it, then gave in.

"Hello."

"Marcy Wiggins has shot herself." Susan Tucker's voice had none of its customary lilt.

"What?"

"Shot herself in the temple with a .38. Bitsy Valenzuela found her when she stopped by to pick up a picnic hamper she'd lent Marcy."

"When?"

"About an hour ago. Maybe longer. Bill Wiggins called Ned asking for legal representation in case it isn't a suicide. Bill was the first person Rick questioned, too. That's all I know."

"Is she dead?"

"Yes."

"That poor woman." Harry put her hand to her tem-ple. "She was definitely strange at the post office yester-day. Chris and BoomBoom took her home. She said everyone was talking about her and she couldn't stand it. Stuff like that. I should have paid more attention. Did she leave a note?"

"I don't know. Ned left the instant he hung up the phone. I believe this has something to do with Charlie."

"Yeah," Harry weakly replied. "What a September this has turned out to be."

31

Marcy's autopsy report revealed she had been HIV-positive. This, of course, was kept confidential. Leo Burkey's autopsy revealed him to be robustly healthy.

But the real shocker was when ballistics tests proved the gun that Marcy used to kill herself was the same one used to kill Charlie and Leo.