Tucker put her paws on the bumper, her nose edging over the top.
Mrs. Murphy leaned down, grabbing the towel with her left paw. "Got it."
Pewter, half hanging over the tailgate, quickly snatched the towel before Murphy dropped it—it was heavy. With Pewter pulling and Mrs. Murphy pushing, the two cats dumped the towel into the truck bed. Mrs. Murphy gaily leapt in, and the two of them placed the towel over the kill, bunching it up to avoid its looking obvious.
"I'll be," Simon said admiringly.
"Teamwork," Mrs. Murphy triumphantly replied.
"What are you going to do with those bodies?" Simon giggled.
"Lay a trail to the killer. Mom's going over to St. Elizabeth's today, so I think we can get the job done."
The possum scoffed. "The humans won't notice, or, if they do, they'll discount it."
The tiger and the gray cat peeped over the side of the truck. "You might be right, but the killer will notice. That's what we want."
"I don't know." Simon shook his head.
"Anything is better than nothing," Murphy said forcefully. "And if this doesn't work, we'll find something else."
"Why are you so worried?" Simon's furry nose twitched.
"Because Mother will eventually figure out who the murderer really is."
"Oh." The possum pondered. "We can't let anything happen to Harry." He didn't want to sound soft on any human. "Who else will feed me marshmallows?"
71
The animals, exhausted from running back and forth across the playing fields, sacked out immediately after eating.
Pewter and Mrs. Murphy curled up on either side of Tucker on the sofa in front of the fire. Pewter snored, a tiny little nasal gurgle.
Fair brought Chinese food. Harry, good with chopsticks, greedily shoved pork chow mein into her mouth. A light knock on the door was followed by Cynthia Cooper, sticking her head in. She pulled up a chair and joined them.
"Where are the critters?"
"Knocked out. Every time I called them, they were running across the football field today. Having their own Homecoming game, I guess. Can I get you anything else?"
"Catsup." She pointed at her plate. "My noodles."
"You're kidding me." Harry thought of catsup on noodles as she opened her cabinet. "Damn, I had a brand-new bottle of catsup, and it walked away."
"Catsup ghost." Fair bit into a succulent egg roll, the tiny shrimp bits assaulting his taste buds.
"What were you doing at St. E's?"
"Like a fool, I agreed to help Renee Hallvard referee the field hockey games if she can't find anyone else. She can't for the next game, so I went over to review the rules. I wish I'd never said yes."
"I have a hard time saying no, too. The year I agreed to coach Little League I lost twenty pounds"—Fair laughed—"from worrying about the kids, my work, getting to practice on time."
"Is this a social call, Cynthia? Come on," Harry teased her.
"Yes and no. The corpse, Winifred Thalman, was a freelance cinematographer. I called April Shively before anyone else—after I stopped at the post office. She says Thalman was the person who shot the little movies the seniors made their first week back at school."
"Wouldn't someone have missed her in New York? Family?"
Cooper put down her egg roll. "She was estranged from her only brother. Parents dead. As a cinematographer, her neighbors were accustomed to her being absent for months at a time. No pets. No plants. No relationships. Rick tracked down the super in her building."
"You didn't stop at the post office to tell me the news first, did you?" Harry smiled.
"Saw Irene's car."
"Ah."
"Kendrick's got to be lying. Only reason we can come up with for him to do that is he's protecting his wife or his daughter."
"They killed Roscoe and Maury?" Fair was incredulous.
"We think one of them did. Rick's spent hours going over Kendrick's books and bank accounts, and there's just no evidence of any financial misdoing. Even if you buy the sexual jealousy motive, why would he have killed this Thalman woman?"
"Well, why would Irene or Jody have done it?" Harry asked.
"If we knew that, we'd know everything." Cynthia broke the egg roll in two. "Irene will be at the field hockey game tomorrow. We'll have her covered by a plainclothesman from Waynesboro's department. You'll be on the field. Keep your eyes open."
"Irene or Jody stabbed Maury? Jeesh," Fair exclaimed. "Takes a lot of nerve to get that close at a public gathering."
"Wasn't that hard to do," Harry said. "Sometimes the easiest crimes are the ones committed in crowds."
"The killer confessed twice to Father Michael. Since Kendrick has confessed, Father Michael hasn't heard a peep. Nothing unusual about that—if you're a murderer and someone has taken the rap for you. Still, the impulse to confess is curious. Guilt?"
"Pride," Harry rejoined.
"Irene or Jody ... I still can't get over it."
"Do you think they know? I mean, does one of them know the other is a killer?" Harry asked.
"I don't know. But I hope whoever it is gets sloppy or gets rattled."
"Guess this new murder will be on the eleven o'clock news"— Harry checked the old wall clock—"and in the papers."
"Whole town will be talking." Cynthia poured half a carton of noodles on her plate. "Maybe that'll rattle our killer. I don't know, she's been cold as ice."
"Yeah, well, even ice has a melting point." Fair tinkled the ice in his water glass.
"Harry, because you're in the middle of the field, you're secure. If it is Jody, she can't stab you or poison you without revealing herself. Are you willing to bait her? If we're wrong, there will be plenty of time to apologize."
"I'll do it." She nodded her head, "Can you set a trap for Irene?"
"Fair?"
"Oh, hell!" He put down his glass.
72
The colored cars and trucks filling the St. Elizabeth's back parking lot looked like jelly beans. The St. Elizabeth's supporters flew pennants off their antennas. So did the Chatham Hall fans. When the wind picked up, it resembled a used-car parking lot. All that was missing were the prices in thick grease crayon on the windshields.
Harry, despite all, read and reread the rule book in the faculty locker room. She knew the hardest part of refereeing would be blowing the whistle. Once she grew confident, she'd overcome that. And she had to establish her authority early on because if the kids thought they could get away with fouling, some would.
Mrs. Murphy sat on the wooden bench next to her. Pewter and Tucker guarded the door. Deputy Cooper waited in the hall.
The noise of a locker being pulled over, followed by shouting, reverberated down the hall.
"What the hell?" Harry ran out the door toward the commotion.
Cooper jerked her head in the direction of the noise. "It's World War Three in there, and the game hasn't even started."
"Well, it is the qualifier for state." Harry tucked her whistle in the whistle pocket.
Pewter giggled. "She found it."
The animals ran down the hall. Tucker, losing her hind footing on the slick waxed surface, spun around once. They reached the locker room and crept along the aisle.
"What a dirty trick! I'll kill whoever did this!" Jody kicked her locker again for good measure. Dead mice, moles, and shrews were scattered over the floor. A bottle of catsup, red stuff oozing out of the bite marks, splattered everywhere. Jody's stick had catsup on it, too.
"Gross." Karen Jensen jumped backward as the tiny dead animals spilled everywhere.
"You did this!" Jody lost her composure, accusing the last person who would do such a thing.
"You're crazy," Karen shot back.
Jody picked up her hockey stick and swung at Karen's head. Fortunately, Karen, the best player on the team and blessed with lightning reflexes, ducked. Brooks grabbed Jody from behind, but Jody, six inches taller, was hard to hold.