Рита Браун - Probable Claws

The two worked for another hour, going over everything. The little Napoleon clock struck five.

“Where’d the time go?” Harry exclaimed.

Tazio looked up at the graceful hands. “Somewhere we can never retrieve it. Do you know I read about air? I thought the article was going to be about pollution, but it wasn’t. Air doesn’t disappear, and the article said that every two thousand breaths we inhale air that Julius Caesar inhaled.”

“No kidding.” Harry, impressed, then tidied up her pile of notes. “Let me put back the file box and head home. Dark already. I actually like winter but dark at five, not so much.”

“Me, too.”

Once home Harry called Cooper, told her everything about the file box for 1983 and what she thought. She urged Cooper to call Rankin Construction.

“I will but I want to go through the boxes myself before I do that. The research team mentioned marginal notes and rubber toys. No one thought it important, and I don’t know that it is, but I want to see for myself.”

“Can’t hurt.”

“Hold on one sec.” Cooper squinted at a message intruding on the computer screen.

“Harry, when you get home turn on the news. Forensics in Richmond has retrieved the rest of the skeleton and are laying it out on the spot.” She read more, looked at photos. “Male. Middle-aged. A bullet lodged in his left front rib. I doubt the news will show you what we see.”

“Front rib?”

“Probably shot from behind with a light caliber bullet. Stuck in the bone. Murder.”

“You were the one who told me amateurs spray bullets or fire too many.”

“I did.”

“Another marksman.” Harry’s heart was racing.

“A good shot at any rate.” Cooper sighed. “I don’t know how you do it, but you turn up at critical moments.”

“Dumb luck.”

“Let’s hope it isn’t bad luck.”

25

January 28, 2017

Saturday

Using the date Harry had given her with the dinosaur footprints, Cooper tapped into the newspaper reports from the Richmond Times-Dispatch for Thursday, June 2, 1983. She liked to circle around a subject to people who were involved. In the case of a fresh murder, of course, she zoomed straight for suspects like Dawn Hulme, Gary’s ex-wife. The spouse or ex-spouse looms large in any murder, but Dawn was clear. Then again, the divorce, years ago, lost much of its venom, not that Dawn had much good to say about the late Gary Gardner.

A column on the front page, “Accident on Broad,” caught her eye. The office building, the very one cited by Harry with notes in the margin made by Gary, had been the site where a worker died leaning next to his excavator. The victim, forty-three years old, Ali Asplundah, stepped down from the giant backhoe. No one saw him drop as he was on the other side of the large machine, other large pieces of equipment were running in the square space that would provide the foundation. When the machine, in neutral, continued to run for over an hour, one of the other heavy equipment men cut his motor, climbed down, walked over. He found Ali sitting on the dirt, slumped against the machine, dead. The medical examiner proclaimed it a heart attack.

Cooper read about Ali, highly skilled, an early Muslim resident of the city. Muslims had come to Richmond in the eighteenth century but in tiny numbers. Little by little a small population gathered. Those interviewed concerning the deceased all testified he didn’t touch alcohol, had a sterling work record, got along with everyone, and loved soccer.

She pulled up subsequent days, a few more reports, then months later the results of the investigation. Nothing was wrong with the backhoe. Mr. Asplundah had never evidenced any signs of heart trouble nor did his medical records indicate the same. It was a simple, unexpected heart attack.

She then researched murder for 1984 in Richmond. Nothing on work sites. She checked the obituaries for the year. That took one and a half hours. Nothing there either. Finally she pulled up missing person reports.

There was one for a construction worker, a welder. His wife reported he had not returned from work. He’d been welding a bent front fender for a friend. His day job was working on the Kushner Building.

Cooper knew the Richmond Police Department already had done what she did, were probably recording right on the site.

She had something. Just what, she wasn’t certain. She called Richmond’s department, identified herself, her search.

A young man confirmed they were looking for the son of Edward Elkins, the welder reported missing in 1984. They needed DNA.

She’d spent most of her workday in the office. Given the cold, it was better than cruising the streets, picking up drunks, examining bumper benders.

Dark already, she drove home, thinking as she drove. Driving helped her think.

She paid attention to Harry as much as Harry irritated her.

Her neighbor—whom she did love—could insinuate herself into affairs that were none of her business. To make it worse, Harry had no training in law enforcement but she’d become obsessed with something. Gary’s murder would arouse a friend’s sympathy. Being there, Harry was galvanized. Much as Cooper tried to tell her not to get involved in her soft-soap way, she knew it would do no good. If she told her off, Harry would become more devious, and that would be even more dangerous.

She parked near the side door. Often a walk outdoors cleared her mind. She opened the back door, picked up a box of dog treats and a small jar of corn oil. The temperature, according to the large outdoor thermometer, hung at 26º, Fahrenheit. Her face tingled. Walking into the shed, which doubled as a garage when she felt like parking there, she went over to a hole under the back wall. It opened on both sides of the wall and was not the only den opening. A tidy gray fox lived there. She broke up the treats, placing them in a pie tin saved for this purpose. Then she drenched them in corn oil. The fox would love it. Cold as it was in the shed, it provided protection from the elements, plus the little fellow had straw, rags, old towels to curl up in, along with his luxurious double coat.

Leaving, she pushed through the snow to the Jones family graveyard. The Very Reverend Herbert Jones rented the farm to Cooper, as he lived in the lovely clapboard pastor’s house at St. Luke’s. With Harry’s help, Cooper kept everything tidy. The snow on the gravestones added to the silence and beauty of this spot, a large gum tree in the middle of the place, and sleeping Joneses who stretched back to 1810.

Heading back to the kitchen warmth, she thought about how many Virginia farms cherished their dead. Gary had been cremated, spread over a pasture he had always admired. People’s last wishes ought to be carried out, but she liked reading headstones.

—

Lisa Roudabush, leash secure in her heavy mittens, walked down Mt. Tabor Road. There were no cars on the road, which was good as the roads could still be slick. “How are you doing, Pirate?”

“Okay.” The large puppy skipped through the cleared snow.

He had learned to avoid the piled-up snow.

“We’re almost home, buddy.”

“Good.” He looked up at Lisa.

“Stop.” She stopped.

He did, too.

“Good boy.”

About five minutes later they reached the small brick house that Lisa rented. Once inside, she emailed Kylie Carter. They congratulated each other on the continuing saga at the excavation site in Richmond.

“Now this will really cost Rankin Construction and Cloudcroft a fortune,” Kylie crowed.