Рита Браун - Murder At Monticello

“Miranda, are you implying that my generation does not honor the vows of marriage? That just frosts me!” Harry shoved a mail cart. It clattered across the floor, the canvas swaying a bit.

“I said no such thing, Missy. Now, you just calm yourself. She’s older than you by a good fifteen years. A woman in middle age has fears you can’t understand but you will—you will. Lucinda Payne was raised to be an ornament. She lives in a world of charities, luncheons with the girls, and black-tie fund-raisers. You work. You expect to work, and if you marry again your life isn’t going to change but so much. Of course you honored your marriage vows. The pity is that Fair Haristeen didn’t.”

“I kept remembering what Susan used to say about Ned. He’d make her so mad she’d say, ‘Divorce, never. Murder, yes.’ There were a few vile moments when I wonder how I managed not to kill Fair. They passed. I don’t think he could help it. We married too young.”

“Too young? You married Fair the summer he graduated from Auburn Veterinary College. In my day you would have been an old maid at that age. You were twenty-four, as I recall.”

“Memory like a wizard.” Harry smiled, then sighed. “I guess I know what you mean about Lucinda. It’s sad really.”

“For her it’s a tragedy.”

“Humans take marriage too seriously.” Pewter licked her paw and began smoothing down her fur. “My mother used to say, ‘Don’t worry about tomcats. There’s one coming around every corner like a streetcar.’ ”

“Your mother lived to a ripe old age, so she must have known something,” Mrs. Murphy recalled.

“Maybe Lucinda should go to a therapist or something,” Harry thought out loud.

“She ought to try her minister first.” Mrs. Hogendobber walked over to the window and watched the huge raindrops splash on the brick walkway.

“You know what I can’t figure?” Harry joined her.

“What?”

“Who in the world would want Samson Coles?”

6

The steady rain played havoc with Kimball’s work. His staff stretched a bright blue plastic sheet onto four poles which helped keep off the worst of the rain, but it trickled down into the earthen pit as they had cut down a good five feet.

A young German woman, Heike Holtz, carefully brushed away the soil. Her knees were mud-soaked, her hands also, but she didn’t care. She’d come to America specifically to work with Kimball Haynes. Her long-range goal was to return to Germany and begin similar excavations and reconstruction at Sans Souci. Since this beautiful palace was in Potsdam, in the former East Germany, she suffered few illusions about raising money or generating interest for the task. But she was sure that sooner or later her countrymen would try to save what they could before it fell down about their ears. As an archaeologist, she deplored the Russians’ callous disregard for the majority of the fabulous architecture under their control. At least they had preserved the Kremlin. As to how they treated her people, she wisely kept silent. Americans, so fortunate for the most part, would never understand that kind of systematic oppression.

“Heike, go on and take a break. You’ve been in this chill since early this morning.” Kimball’s light blue eyes radiated sympathy.

She spoke in an engaging accent, musical and very seductive. She didn’t need the accent. Heike was a knockout. “No, no, Professor Haynes. I’m learning too much to leave.”

He patted her on the back. “You’re going to be here for a year, and Heike, if the gods smile down upon me, I think I can get you an appointment at the university so you can stay longer than that. You’re good.”

She bent her head closer to her task, too shy to accept the praise by looking him in the eye. “Thank you.”

“Go on, take a break.”

“This will sound bizarre,” she accented the bi heavily, “but I feel something.”

“I’m sure you do,” he laughed. “Chilblains.”

He stepped out of the hearth where Heike was working. The fireplace had been one of the wooden fireplaces which caught fire. Charred bits studded one layer of earth, and they were just now getting below that. Whoever cleaned up after the fire removed as much ash as they could. Two other students worked also.

Heike pawed with her hands, carefully but with remarkable intensity. “Professor.”

Kimball returned to her and quickly knelt down. He was working alongside her now. Each of them laboring with swift precision.

“Mein Gott!” Heike exclaimed.

“We got more than we bargained for, kiddo.” Kimball wiped his hand across his jaw, forgetting the mud. He called to Sylvia and Joe, his other two students working in this section. “Joe, go on up and get Oliver Zeve.”

Joe and Sylvia peered at the find.

“Joe?”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Not a word to anyone, you hear? That’s an order,” he remarked to the others as Joe ran toward the Big House.

“The last thing we want is for the paper to get hold of this before we’ve had time to prepare a statement.”

7

“Why wasn’t I told first?” Mim jammed the receiver of the telephone back on the cradle. She put it back cockeyed so the device beeped. Furious, she smashed the receiver on correctly.

Her husband, Jim Sanburne, mayor of Crozet, six feet four and close to three hundred pounds, was possessed of an easygoing nature. He needed it with Mim. “Now, darlin’, if you will reflect upon the delicate nature of Kimball Haynes’s discovery, you will realize you had to be the second call, not the first.”

Her voice lowered. “Think I was the second call?”

“Of course. You’ve been the driving force behind the Mulberry Row restorations.”

“And I can tell you I’m enduring jealous huffs from Wesley Randolph, Samson Coles, and Center Berryman too. Wait until they find out about this—actually, I’d better call them all.” She paced into the library, her soft suede slippers barely making any sound at all.

“Wesley Randolph? The only reason you and Wesley cross swords is that he wants to run the show. Just arrange a few photo opportunities for his son. Warren is running for state senate this fall.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not the mayor of Crozet for nothing.” His broad smile revealed huge square teeth. Despite his size and girth, Jim exuded a rough-and-tumble masculine appeal. “Now, sit down here by the fire and let’s review the facts.”

Mim dropped into the inviting wing chair covered in an expensive MacLeod tartan fabric. Her navy cashmere robe piped in camel harmonized perfectly. Mim’s aesthetic sensibilities were highly developed. She was one hundred eighty degrees from Harry, who had little sense of interior design but could create a working farm environment in a heartbeat. It all came down to what was important to each of them.

Mim folded her hands. “As I understand it from Oliver, Kimball Haynes and his staff have found a skeleton in the plot he’s calling Cabin Four. They’ve worked most of the day and into the night to uncover the remains. Sheriff Shaw is there too, although I can’t see that it matters at this point.”