“I did not,” Mrs. Murphy defended herself.
“Don't you dare fight in my bedroom. The last time, you knocked over Mom's crystal stag's head. Luckily it fell on the carpeted part of the floor. I love that stag's head.”
She bent over to fetch her boots.
“Take your gun,” Pewter said.
Harry pushed the gray box back in, then stopped. She pulled it out and opened it up. The polished chrome barrel shone. She liked revolvers. They felt better in her hand than other types of handguns. Being a country girl, Harry had grown up with guns and rifles. She knew how to use them safely. Guns made no sense in the city, but they made a great deal of sense in the country, especially during rabies season. In theory rabies occurred all year long, but Harry usually noticed an upswing in the spring. It was a horrible disease, a dreadful way for an animal to die, and dangerous for everyone else.
“Take the gun.” Tucker panted from nervousness.
Harry plucked out a clear hard plastic packet of bullets. She laid the bullets and gun on the bed, then pulled on her socks, stepped into her jeans, threw on her windowpane shirt, finally yanked on the old boots, and slipped the packet into her shirt pocket. Although the gun was unloaded she checked again just to be sure. Then she carried the gun to the truck and placed it in the glove compartment.
She walked back into the house for her purse and the animals, calling, “Rodeo!”
Tucker bounded through the screen door. The cats followed but then flew into the barn.
“Murphy, come on!” Harry put one hand on the chrome handhold she had installed outside both doors so she could swing up.
“Forget it.” Tucker sat on the seat.
Harry dropped back down. She trudged into the barn. The horses walked up to the gate to watch. Harry turned them out first thing each morning.
“Blown her stack,” Tomahawk said to Gin Fizz.
“Uh-huh.”
Poptart joined them. Human explosions amused them so long as they didn't take place on their backs.
“Let's go!” Harry stomped down the center aisle, not a cat in sight, not even a paw print.
Both cats hid behind a hay bale in the loft. A telltale stalk of hay floated down, whirling in the early sunlight.
“A-ha!” Harry climbed the ladder so fast she could have been a cat.
“Skedaddle.” Murphy shot out from her hay bale, streaking toward the back of the loft where the bales were stacked higher.
Pewter flattened as Harry tromped by, not even noticing her. Then the gray cat silently circled, dropping behind an old tack trunk put in the loft with odds and ends of bits, bridles, and old tools.
Harry craned to see around the tall bales. A pair of gleaming eyes stared right back at her.
“Go to work.”
“Come on out of there.”
“No.”
She checked her watch, her father's old Bulova. “Damn.”
“Go on.”
“I know you're saying ugly things about me.”
“No, I'm not.” Murphy didn't like Harry's misinterpretation of her meow. “Just go on.”
Harry checked her watch again. “You'd better be in that house when I come home.”
“I will be.”
“Me, too,” Pewter called out.
Harry put her hands outside the ladder and her feet, too, to slide down.
As she walked toward the truck a fat raindrop splattered on her cheek.
“The weatherman said it wouldn't rain until after midnight.”
Tucker, sitting in the driver's seat, said, “He lied.”
36
The two cats walked over to Simon's nest. He opened an eye, then closed it.
“I know you're awake.” Murphy tickled the possum's nose with her tail.
“I'm tired. I was out foraging all night,” he grumbled.
“In the feed room.” Pewter laughed.
“Go back to sleep. I'm borrowing this map that I stashed here. I'll bring it back.”
“Fine.” He closed his eyes again.
They carried the map to the opened hayloft door, unfolded it, and studied it.
“It's the watershed, like you said.” Pewter sat on the corner.
“Wish I knew what the separate squares meant. Any ideas?”
“No. They're in or adjacent to the watershed.”
“Well, let's put this back. There may be a good time to show the humans.”
The blue jay streaked past the hayloft, spied the cats, and shrieked, “Tuna breath!”
Pewter lunged for the bird but Murphy caught her. “Don't let him bug you like that. Do you want to fall out of the hayloft?”
“I will kill that bird if it's the last thing I do.”
“Self-control.”
Complaining, Pewter put the map in Simon's nest along with his ever-expanding treasures. The latest find was a broken fan belt.
“Mrs. Murphy, let's do nothing today. Nothing at all.”
“Good idea.”
37
The massive green Range Rover, outfitted for its owner with a hamper basket from Harrods, rolled down Blair Bainbridge's driveway at precisely 2:55 P.M. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, halfway across Blair's hay field, observed Sir H. at the wheel. He wore a bush hat, which offset his safari jacket nicely.
Sir H. Vane-Tempest never believed in buying a bargain when he could pay full price. He'd bought his attire at Hunting World in Paris. The French soaked him good.
The brief morning rain had subsided, leaving a sparkling sky with impressive cumulus clouds tipping over the mountains.
Pewter loathed mud. She hated the sensation when it curled up between her toes. She'd have to wait until it dried, then pick it out with her teeth. Mrs. Murphy, while not lax in her personal grooming, wasn't as fastidious as Pewter. But then Pewter was a lustrous gunmetal-gray, which showed any soiling, whereas Mrs. Murphy was a brown tiger with black stripes, her mottled coat hiding any imperfections.
Pewter felt that she was a rare color, a more desirable color than the tabby. After all, tabbies were a dime a dozen.
The cats reached the porch door as Sir H. Vane-Tempest stepped out of his Rover. He'd lost weight since the shooting and actually looked better than he had before he'd been drilled with three holes.
He knocked on the screened-porch door.
“Come in, H.” Blair walked out to greet him. “Arch is in the living room.”
Mrs. Murphy shot through Blair's tall legs. Pewter slid through, too. “You stinkers!” He laughed.
As Blair served drinks, Murphy and Pewter edged to the living-room door. Vane-Tempest noticed them when he entered the house, but he paid little attention. To him cats were dumb animals.
“Arch—” Vane-Tempest nodded.
“H.,” Arch replied coolly. “How did you leave Sarah?”
“I told you she'd do as I asked.” A wrinkle creased his brow. “Actually, BoomBoom came over to give her some soothing herbs. Don't look at me like that—it's what she called them, soothing herbs.”
“She still selling that herb stuff? What's she call it, aromatherapy?”
“Yes. The girls are going on a shopping spree. BoomBoom will share her latest catharsis. I'll come home. Sarah will forget to be out of sorts but she'll suggest that we both try Lifeline. That's BoomBoom's latest salvation—she's quite predictable.” He laughed.
Archie didn't laugh. “I don't think any woman is predictable. Mine threw me out.”
“Won't last. Make amends. Buy her a new car or something.”