Rita Brown - Whiskers in the Dark

“Inheritance wasn’t a motivation?”

“No. Granted, a wife or husband is always the first in the line of suspects, then comes family and friends, but I think, like this murder here, it goes back to something else.”

“Fascinating.”

Warming to someone interested in her ideas and not telling her to forget it, Harry went on. “He was in the foreign service, had a good career, became a communications expert, and she rose in the Navy. They met in Paris, hit it off. They were on the same wavelength. Obviously, they built a successful business together in a competitive field. But I believe this is connected to their language skills.”

Pamela blinked. “What languages?”

“He was fluent in Turkish and she in Russian. I know this is important. I know it. I don’t know why.”

“It’s a volatile part of the world,” Pamela volunteered.

“Isn’t every part of the world volatile eventually?”

A smile crossed Pamela’s lips, a light coating of coral lipstick. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Makes me wonder if we’re due.” She held up her hand. “Don’t get me started. Turkey and Russia. Two hereditary enemies.”

“My other idea does involve the dealership, maybe a sour business deal. But their company’s record is awfully good.”

“I see. Back to whoever is underground in front of us. Murder, as we know. Why are people killed? Well, the old motives are dragged out. Love. Money. Revenge. Drugs, but that gets to money. What else? Well, sheer perversity and sadism, I guess, but I doubt any of our considered victims would qualify.” Pamela, an educated woman, rarely strayed into her own emotions when considering a problem.

“Information. People will kill for that. We know money wasn’t a motive for this woman. The jewelry would have been taken. What kind of information would someone have at the end of the eighteenth century? Our forefathers delighted in accusing one another of sexual peccadilloes. I doubt she was killed for that, even if she was a kept woman. For her I believe it was love or revenge.”

“Possibly.”

“This sounds damning in a way, but I don’t think either Jason or Clare would arouse another human being to the heights of amorous recrimination. Not love. So I come back to money, and I don’t know why, information. Clare was Naval Intelligence. She may have stumbled on something.”

“Now? Her career was over.” Pamela didn’t argue, merely presented the idea.

“Maybe not. Russian, remember. Whatever is happening over there, they are poisoning people in other countries.”

“Harry, that’s a terrible thought.”

Harry waved her hand somewhat dismissively. “I know. I’m out in left field. I’ve got to let this go. But I think I’ll drive back up to Aldie, look around again. I have missed something. Then I can let go.”

“Well, don’t drink the water.” Pamela half teased her.

Harry smiled. “Do you think we will ever know about this mystery?”

“I’m not sure, but given that the Taylors’ grave was oddly disturbed, perhaps. But I don’t think any of us will reason this one out. I think whoever poked around the Taylors’ grave will make a mistake or simply come forward. No crime has been committed in our time.”

“Speaking of coming forward—” Harry inclined her head and Pamela turned. Janice and Mags approached them, carrying a pot of unbloomed something.

“Hello,” both Harry and Pamela said to their sister Dorcas Guild members.

“How about finding you two here?” Janice cradled the pot.

“We’ve brought marigolds, will soon open up. The big ones, orange and yellow. Thought they might brighten this grave. It’s rather sad.” Mags carried a hand trowel. “Harry, you don’t mind if I plant these, do you? I’ve been nurturing them in my kitchen window.”

“Of course not.”

“You are in charge of building and grounds.” Janice cited her title. “We want to stay on the good side of you.”

“It’s a lovely idea. I was here to see how the grass was doing. Good, I think, and Pamela joined me.”

“What about me?” Pewter pouted.

Pamela checked her watch. “Off I go. The reverend is expecting me. Has more ideas about the homecoming. He’s fallen in love with the idea.”

As she left, Harry thanked Janice and Mags and she, too, walked up toward the church, as her old truck was parked in the side parking lot. As she walked, it occurred to her that Pamela, in her good-natured way, had warned her indirectly, as Geoff Ogden had done directly.

She also remembered that May fifth was the Kentucky Derby day, and Harry walked a little faster. She wanted to watch the Run for the Roses.

38

October 29, 1787

Monday

The sprinkling of sand over wet ink, allowing it to dry, then tipping the fine-grade paper into a wastebasket focused Ewing’s attention. The sound of the sand, tiny granules, moving across the paper always made him feel that he was properly working, not wasting time.

His quill, goose, of course, was perched in its stand. The ink bottle had been carefully closed. The odor from the fire infused the room. With two days remaining in October, late fall nudged toward winter. Outside a cold mist enveloped Cloverfields.

Bettina and Serena sang in the kitchen. Every now and then he could hear a pot tapped with a spoon. Even on the coldest winter day, those two women kept warm in the kitchen. Catherine and Rachel were in there, too. They wanted to talk to Bettina. Also, Rachel was determined to see how Bettina tenderized a large loin of pork. Small pottery bowls, filled with herbs, sat in a row like little culinary soldiers.

Ewing knew his girls were in there, but he didn’t know what they were doing. For the most part he believed in the gender division of labor, with particular gifts being accounted for such as Catherine’s gift with horses, Rachel’s with people. But men did not belong in the kitchen and he kept his distance.

The letter, concisely expressed in his quite good penmanship, concerned Bettina’s manumission. He could have simply written a document in his own hand freeing his cook, but Ewing did not trust to lawyers but so much now and he had no idea what they would be like in the future. As to those men who had gathered in Philadelphia, members of Congress, he’d heard enough over time, starting with the prosecution of the war, to fear them all with the exception of Washington. He began to entertain good thoughts of Hamilton. However, wherever men gathered to discuss affairs, to make laws, a citizen should be cautious. Then again, no matter how well educated, how well meaning, no one, not one single human being, can see into the future. We can feel things, Isabelle surely did, and those things can be prescient, but to behold the whole picture and the temper of men, no.

Here he was in his late forties, he didn’t care to be too precise about the date; he had observed a great deal and the trip to Europe when he was young gave him valuable insights, at least he thought it did. Exciting, new as the United States was, in many ways it had much in common with England or those nations on the Continent that he had visited.

He held up the paper again, ink dry, knowing he was doing what his wife would have wanted ultimately but wondering was he truly doing Bettina any favors? What was freedom anyway? Was it the opposite of bondage, of physical slavery? That question, hazy at first, sharpened over his lifetime. As a young man in France the money, the manners, even the way the royals walked, the nobility spoke, dazzled him. But they weren’t totally free. Each one of those people had to preserve and advance the family’s fortunes through the King. No one could be honest with the King and Queen or with one another. Perhaps at night before the fire with family members after yet another ghastly, expensive soiree, they could tell the truth. Still it was better than physical bondage.