Rita Brown - Whiskers in the Dark

“Update them again.” Cooper stood up, as did Reverend Jones. “You have crosses, candelabra, expensive embroidered vestments. The chalice alone is worth a fair amount of money. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Have the locks changed on your house, too,” Cooper suggested, a bit forcefully. “You don’t think about it, but everything in this church, even the baptismal font, is from right after the Revolutionary War.” She smiled. “And your office, Reverend Jones, well, Victoriana.”

He smiled back. “It is. I will call today.”

“Do you have any idea what they wanted?”

He shook his head no.

“Harry?”

“I do have an idea. I wonder, are we stirring the pot? I wonder if this isn’t about that body, or more likely the jewelry. It’s not here, but whoever is trying to get in doesn’t know that.”

“Possibly.” Cooper raised her eyebrows.

“I believe the jewelry belongs to the church. We should sell it and put the funds into our small endowment,” Harry said.

“Set aside some for treats. We work hard,” Elocution, one of the Lutheran cats, meowed.

Herb picked her up, rubbed her ears. “Well, I hope not. Keller and George has been extremely helpful keeping the jewels, but maybe we should move them or give them to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.”

“Rev, why?” Harry was aghast.

“The exquisite workmanship. The museum has that incredible Fabergé collection, Mellon’s equine art, and even those Degas figures that Degas worked with, so wouldn’t something like this be special? Maybe the sight of this ought to be available to all. Sometimes the museum sets up clothing exhibits.”

“You are too kind, Rev. I say it belongs to us and we should use it for our endowment and even take a few thousand for work here. The church itself could use a new heating and cooling system, one that is more efficient and cheaper to run.”

He furrowed his brow. “Actually, this is a puzzle for the board.”

“What do we really know about the victim? A female, thirties at the most, and probably African American. Isn’t that what the medical examiner told you?” Harry looked at Cooper.

“That’s what she told the sheriff. She also said that one can be about ninety percent sure on race. Also, with what they could tell from bones alone, she was probably healthy.” Cooper shone her light beam above. “Have the locksmith check the roof, too.”

Harry bristled a little, thinking about the work she had put in, but thought better of saying anything.

“Thank you for responding so promptly. I’d best be getting back to work. Need to write Sunday’s sermon,” Reverend Jones said.

“You could just say, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ ” Harry teased him.

He laughed at his longtime parishioner. “That’s at the bottom of all my sermons, but I think I’d better expand.” With that, he walked back to his office at the end of the western arcade.

Harry, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, and Pirate escorted Cooper back to the squad car.

“I Googled Jason Holzknect,” Harry told Cooper outside. “Funny, when you hunt with people you don’t really care what their business life is or was. His career was a lot bigger than I thought. Then I switched to Facebook and found photos of him from his career.”

“We did, too. Then I set about, with help from our forensics folks, identifying the other people in those photos. Lots of translators, policy wonks. Some faces recurred regularly. Usually translators from Russia or Greece. Not one Kurd, by the way.”

“If you sit down at the table to talk to a political group, then you have recognized that group politically. The Kurds don’t really have a state, so they aren’t invited to the table,” Harry added thoughtfully. “How can thousands of people be denied basic rights?”

Cooper leaned against the squad car door. “How terrible is it to give them a bit of land to call their own? It’s a big, wide world.”

“Not if it’s your land. What are wars fought over? Land, money. This business about wars being fought over ideas or ideology or improving someone’s lot is pure bull.” Harry wasn’t the historian Susan was, but she had studied a bit.

“The point is to always look like the good guy. I guess you’re right—it’s always smash and grab. Which keeps bringing me back to those damned pearls. Why not grab them?”

“I want to know who she was. And I also want to know why Jason had his throat slit ear to ear,” Harry commented.

Cooper crossed her arms over her chest. “We have a much better chance of finding Jason’s killer than the woman found buried here. When is Hounds for Heroes, by the way? I’m sure you told me but it’s slipped my mind.”

“Next weekend, but I think Susan and I will go up earlier. There’s still some cleanup to finish. When you think about it, there’s been so much death at Aldie. Well, that’s not exactly murder, the war, I mean. It’s an impressive place and yet I feel a kind of sorrow. Especially when I walk along the path by the slightly raised mound, I feel a little cold air at my ankles and sometimes I feel that elsewhere.”

Cooper said, “Little wind currents?”

Tucker raised her head. “Ruffy.”

Harry glanced down at her corgi and the others. “Well, let me haul this crew back to the farm and put them to work.”

“I’m not working without more tuna,” Pewter declared as she leapt into the back of the Volvo station wagon.

“Then you’ll fall asleep,” Tucker teased.

Mrs. Murphy, right behind Pewter, said, “Given recent events, we’d better stay wide awake.”

20

April 21, 2018

Saturday

“You did it.” Cooper teased Harry as they studied her garden’s neatly plowed rows.

“Yes, I did.” Harry, hands on hips, looked for even one little shoot in the kitchen garden, then focused on the garden. “You know the weather has been too crazy. Eventually the corn will come up and the tomatoes, but we are late this year. So, what did they decide happened at the church?”

“Nothing. Someone had simply tried to pry the lock on the front door. Pretty stupid. They would have had even more trouble if they had known the pearls were at Keller and George. All these businesses have security systems, some better than others. Jewelry stores have good ones. The unearthed pearls are safe.”

“Yeah, but if someone understands electronics, I bet any of these expensive security systems can be disarmed.”

“Maybe,” Cooper responded. “A thief would need to be tremendously well trained plus have the means to disarm a system. Some of these systems cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Granted, the actual size of the store reflects some of that cost. Can you imagine the security system for Tiffany’s, what is it, five floors?”

“Something like that. It’s been years since I passed through those doors on Fifth Avenue.” Harry knelt down to brush the moist soil with her gloved hand. “Still holding moisture. Then again, we got enough of it.”

“No more snow,” Cooper pronounced with finality.

“I doubt it. Then again, we aren’t living in Wyoming or Montana. Can snow there in May. Well, upstate New York, too. But we’ll get rain. Actually, the year has been wet and I think it will get wetter.”

“Good for the water table.” Cooper, not a country girl, was learning.

“That it is. We’ll be grateful come August and September. I love the changing seasons.”