Рита Браун: Murder At Monticello

“You got some wonderful stakes winners out of Dark Windows. She was a remarkable filly too.” Ansley praised her father-in-law. He needed attention like a fish needs water.

“A few, a few.” He smiled.

“I’ll be back around next week. Call me if anything comes up.” Fair headed for his truck and his next call.

Wesley followed him out of the barn while his son and daughter-in-law stayed inside. Behind the track, over a small knoll, was a lake. Wesley thought he’d go sit there later with his binoculars and bird-watch. Eased his mind, bird-watching. “Want some unsolicited advice?”

“Looks like I’m going to get it whether I want it or not.” Fair opened the back of his customized truck-bed, which housed his veterinary supplies.

“Win back Mary Minor Haristeen.”

Fair placed his equipment in the truck. “Since when are you playing Cupid?”

Wesley, gruff, bellowed, “Cupid? That little fat fellow with the quiver, bow, and arrows, and the little wings on his shoulders? Him? Give me some time and I’ll be a real angel—unless I’m going downtown in the afterlife.”

“Wesley, only the good die young. You’ll be here forever.” Fair liked teasing him.

“Ha! I believe you’re right.” Wesley appreciated references to his wild youth. “I’m old. I can say what I want when I want.” He breathed in. “’Course, I always did. The advantage of being stinking rich. So I’m telling you, go get that little girl you so foolishly, and I emphasize foolishly, cast aside. She’s the winning ticket.”

“Do I look that bad?” Fair wondered, the teasing fading out of him.

“You look like a ship without a rudder’s what you look like. And running around with BoomBoom Craycroft . . . big tits and not an easy keeper.” Wesley likened BoomBoom to a horse that was expensive to feed, hard to put weight on, and often the victim of a breakdown of one sort or another. This couldn’t have been a truer comparison, except in BoomBoom’s case the weight referred to carats. She could gobble up more precious stones than a pasha. “Women like BoomBoom love to drive a man crazy. Harry’s got some fire and some brains.”

Fair rubbed the blond stubble on his cheek. He’d known Wesley all his life and liked the man. For all his arrogance and bluntness, Wesley was loyal, called it like he saw it, and was truly generous, a trait he passed on to Warren. “I think about it sometimes—and I think she’d have to be crazy to take me back.”

Wesley put his arm around Fair’s broad shoulders. “Listen to me. There’s not a man out there who hasn’t strayed off the reservation. And most of us feel rotten about it. Diana looked the other way when I did it. We were a team. The team came first, and once I grew up some I didn’t need those—ah, adventures. I came clean. I told her what I’d done. I asked her to forgive me. Screwing around hurts a woman in ways we don’t understand. Diana was in my corner two hundred percent. Heart like Ruffian. Always giving. Sometimes I wonder how a little poontang could get me off the track, make me hurt the person I loved most in this world.” He paused. “Women are more forgiving than we are. Kinder too. Maybe we need them to civilize us, son. You think about what I’m saying.”

Fair closed the lid over his equipment. “You aren’t the first person to tell me to win back Harry. Mrs. Hogendobber works me over every now and then.”

“Miranda. I can hear her now.” Wesley laughed.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong. Harry was a good wife and I was a fool, but how do you get over that guilt? I don’t want to be with a woman and feel like a heel, even if I was.”

“That’s where love works its miracles. Love’s not about sex, although that’s where we all start. Diana taught me about love. It’s as gossamer as a spiderweb and just as strong. Winds don’t blow down a web. Ever watch ’em?” His hand moved back and forth. “That woman knew me, knew my every fault, and she loved me for me. And I learned to love her for her. The only thing that pleases me about my condition is when I get to the other side, I’m going to see my girl.”

“Wesley, you look better than I’ve seen you look in the last eight months.”

“Remission. Damn grateful for it. I do feel good. Only thing that gets me down is the stock market.” He shivered to make his point. “And Warren. I don’t know if he’s strong enough to take over. He and Ansley don’t pull together. Worries me.”

“Maybe you ought to talk to them like you talked to me.”

Wesley blinked beneath his bushy gray eyebrows. “I try. Warren evades me. Ansley’s polite and listens, but it’s in one ear, out t’other.” He shook his head. “I’ve spent my whole life developing bloodlines, yet I can hardly talk to my own blood.”

Fair leaned against the big truck. “I think a lot of people feel that way . . . and I don’t have any answers.” He checked his watch. “I’m due at Brookhill Farm. You call me about that mare and—and I promise to think about what you said.”

Fair stepped into the truck, turned the ignition, and slowly traveled down the winding drive lined with linden trees. He waved, and Wesley waved back.

4

The old Ford truck chugged up Monticello Mountain. A light drizzle kept Harry alert at the wheel, for this road could be treacherous no matter what the weather. She wondered how the colonists had hauled up and down this mountain using wagons pulled by horses, or perhaps oxen, with no disc brakes. Unpaved during Thomas Jefferson’s time, the road must have turned into a quagmire in the rains and a killer sheet of ice in the winter.

Susan Tucker fastened her seat belt.

“Think my driving’s that bad?”

“No.” Susan ran her thumb under the belt. “I should have done this when we left Crozet.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Mrs. H. pitched a major hissy when she reached into your mailbox and touched that rubber spider that Danny must have stuck in there. Mrs. Murphy pulled it out onto the floor finally.”

“Did she throw her hands in the air?” Susan innocently inquired.

“You bet.”

“A deep, throaty scream.”

“Moderate, I’d say. The dog barked.”

Susan smiled a Cheshire smile. “Wish I’d been there.”

Harry turned to glance at her best friend. “Susan—”

“Keep your eyes on the road.”

“Oh, yeah. Susan, did you put that spider in the mailbox?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now, why would you want to go and do a thing like that?”

“Devil made me do it.”

Harry laughed. Every now and then Susan would do something, disrupt something, and you never knew when or where. She’d been that way since they first met in kindergarten. Harry hoped she’d never change.

The parking lot wasn’t as full as usual for a weekend. Harry and Susan rode in the jitney up the mountain, which became more fog-enshrouded with every rising foot. By the time they reached the Big House, as locals called it, they could barely see their hands in front of their faces.