Рита Браун - Pawing Through The Past

"Yes, I guess. He has to be careful. Well, I hope you feel better. I'll see you in the P.O. tomorrow."

"You bet." Harry hung up the tackroom phone.

She and Fair finished the barn chores and had decided to strip all the stalls to fill in the low spots and places where the horses had dug out.

"You need rubber mats or Equistall." Fair rolled in a wheelbarrow of black sand mixed with loam.

"Equistall costs me four hundred and fifty dollars a stall."

"It is expensive. Our alfalfa cube experiment was a big success."

"So far. I've been able to cut back on my feed bill but everyone's getting good nutrition. Maybe a little too much," she laughed, as she indicated Tomahawk in the paddock.

"If he were a man that'd be a beer belly." Fair shoveled the sand into the stall. "Tracy was up early this morning. At least their reunion is a smashing success. They're meeting for breakfast in the cafeteria."

"Chris sure wanted to know everything. Maybe I'm being suspicious. I guess it's natural since she and Denny have been pretty close. Right now I-" A car motor diverted her attention.

"Who goes!" Tucker barked, running out of the barn.

Pewter and Mrs. Murphy, sitting in the hayloft, saw BoomBoom's Beemer roll down the dusty drive.

"Wonder what she wants?" Mrs. Murphy said.

"Fair," Pewter sarcastically replied.

"We'll soon find out." The tiger cat tiptoed to the edge of the hayloft. She stayed still as she peered down into the center aisle.

Once BoomBoom parked her car and got out, Pewter joined her.

"Harry!" BoomBoom called out.

"In here," came the reply.

BoomBoom walked into the barn, saw Harry in the aisle, and then noticed Fair as he stepped out of the stall. Her expression changed slightly. "Oh, hello."

"Hi," he said.

"Has Bob Shoaf come by?"

"No. Why would he?" Harry said.

"I thought he might stop off to say good-bye before flying back up north. He always liked you."

"BoomBoom, I don't believe a word of this. What's wrong?" Harry leaned her rake against the stall door.

Her voice shot up half an octave. "I wanted to say good-bye myself, really."

"Why don't I go inside or why don't you two go inside? Maybe you can have this discussion without me." Fair tossed a shovelful of the sand mix into a stall.

"Uh . . . yes." BoomBoom backed out of the barn.

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter climbed down backwards from the ladder to the hayloft. They followed the two women, who stopped at the BMW.

BoomBoom, voice lowered, said, "He left without saying anything. I thought if he was still around I'd find out what was the matter."

"He's a jock, Boom. He's used to being fawned over and getting what he wants. As long as he didn't leave money on your dresser, I wouldn't worry." Harry immediately guessed what really happened.

BoomBoom's face flushed. "Harry, you have the most off-putting way of speaking sometimes." She reached in her skirt pocket. "He left this, though." A heavy, expensive Rolex gold watch gleamed in her hand.

"That costs as much as my new truck."

"Yes, I think it does. I really ought to return the watch but I can't send it to his house, now, can I?"

"Ah. . . . ?" Harry had forgotten about Bob's perfect wife and two perfect children. She took the watch from BoomBoom's palm. Nine-fifteen. She checked the old Hamilton she wore, her father's watch. Nine-fifteen.

"One other thing, I ought to check the school. I know you and Susan cleaned up last night but I am the Chair, and I should double-check everything."

"Well, go on."

"I'm afraid."

"Great. Why come to me?"

"Because Susan is at church with Ned and the kids and because-you're not afraid of much."

Within ten minutes Harry, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, BoomBoom, and Fair reached Crozet High.

The front main entrance was open because of the class of 1950's breakfast, the last scheduled event. The first place they checked was the gym, which was locked. BoomBoom had a set of keys. She unlocked the door. They looked around quickly. Everything was fine.

"I'm going back upstairs," Tucker said. "Maybe I missed something in the dark."

"I can see in the dark. I didn't see anything," Pewter said.

"There was a lot going on." Tucker headed up the stairs.

Pewter followed. Mrs. Murphy stayed with Harry as the humans checked the hallways and garbage cans.

"You all cleaned up everything. I don't have anything to do," BoomBoom said gratefully.

"Murphy!" Pewter howled from the top of the stairs.

Murphy hurried up the stairs, met Pewter and raced with her as she flew over the polished floor to the classroom next to the back stairwell.

Tucker sat in the classroom. The window was open. The blinds, pulled all the way to the top, had the white cord, beige with age, hanging out the window. That wasn't all that was hanging out the window.

Mrs. Murphy jumped to the windowsill. Bob Shoaf, tongue almost touching his breastbone, hung at the end of the venetian blind cord.

"Should I get Mom?" Pewter asked.

"Not yet." Mrs. Murphy coolly surveyed the situation. "The humans will track up everything. Let's investigate first." She asked the dog, "Anything?"

"English Leather fading-and Dennis's scent."

Pewter jumped up next to Mrs. Murphy. "His face is-I can't describe the color."

"Don't worry about him." Murphy noted that the end classroom jutted out by the stairwell. The windows in a row could be seen from the road out front but the back window, set at a right angle to the others, was hidden from view. Bob probably wouldn't have been found until sometime Monday if they hadn't come upstairs. The frost preserved the body but even without a frost the humans wouldn't have smelled him for twenty-four to forty-eight hours, depending on the warmth of the day. She also noticed that rigor had set in. Nothing lay on the ground below.

The three animals prowled around the classroom. They walked the windowsills, checked under desks, sniffed and poked. Then they split up. Mrs. Murphy walked to the far stairwell. Tucker and Pewter checked the stairwell closest to the classroom.

They met in the downstairs hallway. No one had found anything unusual.

"Do you think the killer would have done this to Mom?" Tucker asked.

"No. But I think he would have killed her if she'd gotten too close. I know he would. But he wasn't hanging when she was attacked. Whoever did this in the wee hours of the morning hauled him back here. That's a lot of work." Mrs. Murphy spied the humans coming out of the cafeteria, each one eating a muffin from the class of 1950's breakfast.

"They'll wish they hadn't eaten," Pewter sighed.

"Well, let's get them upstairs." Tucker thought she'd pull on Fair's pants leg.

"BoomBoom is going to have a terrible time explaining that watch." Murphy headed toward the group.