Рита Браун - Murder She Meowed

Mim carefully took the proffered hand. Her face flushed. She was wary against her own happiness. After all, the results weren't official yet. "Thank you." She blinked. "I'll find Chark and Addie. Quite a smart race she rode, staying with the pack until the stretch."

"You're having a sensational day." Harry smiled. "And it's not over yet."

"The official results of the Montpelier Cup, second division, are Royal Danzig, Isotone, and Hercule." The announcer's voice crinkled with metallic sound.

Mim relaxed. "Ah—" She couldn't think of anything to say.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Sanburne." Tucker panted with excitement.

Mim said, "Tucker wants something."

"No, I'm just happy for you," Tucker replied.

"Tucker."

"Why do you always tell me to be quiet when I'm being polite?" Tucker's ears swept back and forth.

"I'd better head up to the winner's circle. Oh, here comes my knight in shining armor."

Jim Sanburne rolled down in the Land Rover. "Come on, honeybunch."

"Well done, Mim The Magnificent!" Larry laughed.

"Hi, guys." Harry poked her head in the window. "Tell Fair to check on the horse Linda Forloines rode. He looks wrung out."

"Will do," Larry Johnson said as Jim kissed his wife, who was sliding into the front seat.

Larry Johnson moved to the back, and for an instant as Mim swung her attractive legs under her, close together as befits a proper Southern lady, Harry had an intimation of what Mim must have been like when young: graceful, reserved, lovely. The lovely had turned to impeccably groomed once she reached 39.999 and holding ... as Miranda Hogendobber had put it when she reached sixty herself. However, the graceful and reserved stayed the course. That Mim was a tyrant and always had been was so much the warp and woof of life in these parts that few bothered to comment on it anymore. At least her tyrannies usually were in the service of issues larger than her own ego.

Harry walked to Mim's tree, leaning against the rough bark. Tucker sat at her feet. The temperature climbed to the high fifties, the sky's startling pure blue punctuated with clouds the color of Devonshire cream. Harry felt oddly tired.

Miranda, her brogues giving her firm purchase on the grass, strode straight over the hill, ducked under the inside rail, crossed the course, and ducked under the outside rail. Her tartan skirt held in place with a large brass pin completed an outfit only Miranda could contemplate. The whole look murmured "country life" except for the hunter-green beret, which Miranda insisted on wearing because she couldn't stand for the wind to muss her hair. "No feathers for me," she had announced when Harry had picked her up. Harry's idea of a chapeau was her Smith College baseball cap or an ancient 10X felt cowboy hat with cattleman's crease that her father had worn.

"Tired blood?" Miranda slowly sat down beside her.

"Hmm, my daily sinking spell."

"Mine comes at four, which you know only too well since I collapse on the chair and force you to brew tea.'' Miranda folded her hands together. "Mayhem up there. I have never seen so many people, and Mim can't take a step forward or backward. This is her Montpelier."

"Sure seems to be."

"Isn't it wonderful about the Valiant children?" Miranda still referred to them as children. "They're giving Mim what she wants—winners!

"Uh-huh."

'"When I think of what those two young people endured— well, I can't bear it. The loss of both parents when they were not even out of their teens. It makes me think of the Fortieth Psalm." She launched into her spiritual voice. " T waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure—' " She caught her breath.

Harry broke in, "Miranda, how do you remember so much? You could recite from the Bible two weeks running."

"Love the Good Book. If you would join me at the Church of the Holy Light, you'd see why I lift up my voice—"

Harry interrupted again; not her style, but a religious discussion held no appeal for her. "I come to your recitals."

Miranda, possessed of a beautiful singing voice, responded, "And so you do. Now don't forget our big songfest the third weekend in November. I do wish you'd come to a regular service."

"Can't. Well, I could, but you know I'm a member of the Reverend Jones's flock."

"Oh, Herbie, the silver-tongued! When he climbs up in the pulpit, I think the angels bend down to listen. Still, the Lutheran Church contains many flaws that"—she tried to sound large-minded about it—"are bound to creep in over the centuries."

"Miranda, you know how I am." Harry's tone grew firm. "For some reason I must be today's target. Boom Boom appeared to force a heart-to-heart on me. Large ugh. Then Senator Satterwaite came over, but I didn't give him a chance to turn on the tapedeck under his tongue. And now you."

Miranda squinted. "You get out on the wrong side of bed today?"

"No."

"You shouldn't let Boom Boom control your mood."

"I don't," fired back Harry, who suspected it might be true.

"Uh-huh." This was drenched with meaning. Miranda crossed her arms over her chest.

Harry changed the subject. "You're right, the Valiants have been through a lot. These victories must be sweet."

"What would torment me is not knowing where my mother's body was. We all know she's dead. You can only hope but so long, and it's been five years since Marylou disappeared. But when you don't know how someone died, or where, you can't put it to rest. I can go out and visit my George anytime I want. I like to put flowers on his grave. It helps." George, Miranda's husband, had been dead for nine years. He had been the postmaster at Crozet before Harry took over his job.

"Maybe they don't think about it. They don't talk about it— at least, I've never heard them, but I only know them socially."

"It's there—underneath."

"I don't guess we'll ever know what happened to Marylou. Remember when Mim offered the ten-thousand-dollar reward for any information leading to Marylou's discovery?"

"Everyone played detective. Poor Rick." Miranda thought of the Albemarle County sheriff, Rick Shaw, who had been besieged with crackpot theories.

"After Charley died, Marylou kept company with some unimpressive men. She loved Charles Valiant, and I don't think any man measured up for a long time. Then too, he was only thirty-eight when he died. A massive heart attack. Charley was dead before he hit the ground." Miranda held up her hands, palms outward. "Now I am not sitting in judgment. A woman in her late thirties sliding into her early forties, suddenly alone, is vulnerable, indeed. You may not remember, but she dated that fading movie star, Brandon Miles. He wanted her to bankroll his comeback film. She went through men like popcorn . . . until Mickey Townsend, that is."

"Next race!" Harry got up suddenly. The timber jump was alongside the brush jump.

The fifth race, the $40,000 Virginia Hunt Cup, the final leg of the Virginia Fall Timber Championship Series, provided no problems apart from two riders separating company from their mounts, which served to improve the odds for those still in the saddle. Mickey Townsend and Charles Valiant evidenced no antagonism. Their horses and jockeys were so far apart in the four-mile race that neither could cry foul about the other.

As for Linda Forloines, she had picked up Zack Merchant's other horses and had come in third in the Virginia Hunt Cup. She'd take home a little change in her pocket, 10 percent of the $4,400 third-prize money.

The sixth race, the first division of the Battleship, named in memory of Mrs. Scott's famous horse, was two miles and one furlong over brush and carried a $6,000 purse. Miranda, weary of the crowd, stayed with Harry. The tension swept over the hill. They could feel the anticipation. Back on the rail, Mim, wound tighter than a piano wire, tried to keep calm. The jockeys circled the paddock. Addie, perched atop Mim's Bazooka, a 16.3-hand gray, would blaze fast and strong if she could keep him focused. She still avoided Chark. Nigel, wearing Mickey Townsend's red silks with the blue sash, joked with her. Both riders looked up when the low gate was opened so they could enter the grassy track. Linda Forloines, in the brown-and-yellow silks of Zack Merchant, spoke to no one. The sixth race would be difficult enough for those jockeys who knew their horses; she didn't. Coty Lamont exuded confidence, smiling to the crowd as he trotted onto the turf.