Рита Браун - Pay Dirt

Harry, not knowing much about high finance, said, "Is it difficult to get one of those numbered accounts in Switzerland?"

"Not really."

"I would think the temptation to spend the money would be overwhelming. I'd buy a new tractor and truck today."

"Whoever did this is patient and highly skilled at deceit, but then, I suppose we all are to one extent or another."

"Patient or deceitful?" Harry laughed.

"Deceitful. We learn early to mask our feelings, to be polite."

"Who would be smart enough to pull this off?"

"Someone with a more rapacious appetite than the rest of us ever realized."

Just then Reverend Jones stepped into the post office.

Mrs. Murphy looked up at her mother just as Mim did. Mim and Harry looked at the portly reverend and said, "Never."

"What are you girls talking about?"

"Appetites," Harry answered.

Kerry McCray nibbled at carrot sticks and celery. She wasn't hungry and she'd cried so much, she felt nauseated. Reverend Jones, just back from the post office, shepherded her to the slate patio in the back of his house, scrounged in the refrigerator for something to eat, and made some iced tea.

"I don't know what to do." She teared up again, her upturned nose sniffing.

"Everyone loses his or her temper. I wouldn't worry too much about that."

"I know, I know, but I love him and I don't think she does. Oh, she fawns all over him for show, but she doesn't really love him. How could she? All she thinks about is herself. She hasn't changed much since grade school except she's better-looking. The boob job helped."

Herb blushed. "I wouldn't know about that."

"How can you miss it?"

"Now, Kerry, if you dwell on Aysha and Norman, you'll worry yourself to a shadow. You've lost weight. You've lost your sparkle."

"Reverend Jones, I pray. I ask for help. I think God's put me on call-waiting."

He smiled. "That's my Kerry. You haven't lost your sense of humor. We are each tested in this life, although I don't know why. I could quote you Scripture. I could even give you a sermon, but I don't really know why we have to suffer as we do. War. Disease. Betrayal. Death. Some of us suffer greater hardships than others, but still, we all suffer. The richest and the poorest alike know heartache. Maybe it's the only way we can learn not to be selfish."

"Then Aysha needs to suffer."

"I've felt that way about a few people I don't much like, too, but you know, leave them to heaven. Trust me."

"I do, Reverend Jones, but I'd like to see her suffer. I don't feel like waiting until I'm forty. In fact, I'd like to kill her." Kerry's lower lip trembled. "And that's what scares me. I've never hated anyone like I hate her."

"It'll pass, honey. Try to think about other things. Take up a new hobby or a vacation, something to jolt you out of your routine. You'll feel better, I promise."

As Reverend Jones counseled Kerry with his mixture of warmth and good sense, Susan and Harry finished up the fence repairs. Mrs. Murphy chased a mouse. " Gotcha !" She grabbed at the mouse, but the little devil squirmed from under her paw to scoot under a pile of branches that Harry had made when she pruned the trees in the back.

Tucker, also in on the chase, whined, " Come on out, coward ."

" They never do . "Murphy checked the back of the woodpile just incase.

"Locust posts are hard to find." Harry admired the posts her father put in twenty years earlier. "The boards last maybe fifteen years, but these posts will probably outlast me."

"You'll live a long time. You'll replace them once before you go." Susan picked up her hammer. "I should do this more often. No wonder you never gain an ounce."

"You say that, but you look the same as when we were in high school."

"Ha."

"Don't accept the compliment, then." Harry grinned, checked the ground for nails, and stood up. "Wish we had a little more light. We could take a trail ride."

"Me too. Let's go over the weekend."

"Did I tell you what Mim said to me at her party? She said that men and women couldn't really be friends. Do you believe that?"

"No, but I think her generation does. I've got scads of male friends and Ned has women friends."

"But you still have to settle the issue of sex."

Susan swung her hammer to and fro. "If a man doesn't mention it, I sure don't. I think it's their worry not ours. Think about it. If they don't make a pass at a lady, have they insulted her? I suppose it's more complicated than that, but it seems to me they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they take the cue from us that it's okay to forget about it, then I think most of them do. Anyway, after a certain age a man figures out that the first three months sleeping with a new woman will be as thrilling as always. After that it's the same old same old."

"Are we getting cynical?"

"No. Realistic. Everyone you meet in life has problems. If you dump one person and pick up another, you've picked up a new set of problems. It might be that person number two's problems are easier for you to handle, that's all."

"I'm between person number one and person number two and I'm sick of problems. I'm considering being a hermit."

"Everyone says that. Fair's person number one and—"

"It galls me that he thinks he can waltz back into my life."

"Yeah, that would get me too, sometimes, but hey, give him credit for knowing you're the right person and he screwed up."

"Screwed around ."

" Mother, give him a break , "Tucker said.

"Nonetheless, my point stands. As for Blair—"

"Blair hasn't declared himself, so I'm not taking him as seriously as everyone else is."

"But you like him—I mean, likehimi" Susan's voice was expectant.

"Yeah—I like him."

"You can be maddeningly diffident. I'm glad I'm not in love with you." Susan punched her.

"Don't be ugly."

They trudged toward the barn in the distance. Mrs. Murphy raced ahead, sat down, and as soon as they drew near her, she'd race off again. Tucker plodded along with the humans.

As they put away the tools, Harry blurted out, "Susan, when did the money disappear from the bank?"

"Last week, why?"

"No one has pinpointed an exact time, have they?"

"Not that I recall."

"There's got to be a way to find out." Harry grabbed the phone in the tack room and dialed Norman Cramer. She peppered the tired man with questions, then hung up. "He said he doesn't know for certain the exact time, but yes, it could have started on August first."

Susan rolled the big red toolbox against the corner of the tack room. "The damn virus did work, but doesn't it seem weird to you that other banks aren't reporting missing funds?"

"Yeah, it does. Come on into the house."

Once inside, Harry sat cross-legged on the floor of the library just as she did when she was a child. Books surrounded her. She paged through an Oxford English Dictionary . Susan, in Daddy Minor's chair, propped her feet up on the hassock, leafing through a book on the timetables of history.

Mrs. Murphy prowled the bookshelves as Tucker wedged her body next to Harry's.

"They'vegot all the books they need."

The cat announced, " There's a mouse in the walls. I don't care about the books ."

"You won't get her out. You haven't been having much luck with mice lately."

"You don't know."

" Say, where's Paddy ?"Tucker wondered where Mrs. Murphy's ex, a handsome black and white torn with the charm and wit of the Irish, was living these days.

"Nantucket. His people decided the island would be dull without him, so I guess he's up there chasing seagulls and eating lots of fish."

Harry flipped to "thread." It covered two pages of the unabridged version of the O.E.D .