“No. I’m keeping the one of Monticello in the snow. But all those knickknacks would drive me crazy. I don’t want to dust them. I’ll keep the dinosaurs, though. They make me laugh. Plus the dust won’t show so much.”
Laughing, Harry picked up a globe with a polar bear in it, blew some dust off it. “He didn’t dust.”
“Coop hasn’t found the 1984 file, has she?”
“Coop’s questioned everyone. She’s also tracked down every Ducati owner in Virginia. She works hard,” Harry remarked. “She doesn’t have a lot to go on. No, she hasn’t found it.”
“Ah.”
A scuffle by the back door sent Harry to the area. “What are you doing?”
“Protecting you.” Pewter, claws unleashed, sat in the middle of the small space.
“It’s the spider,” Tucker helpfully added.
Brinkley, sweet fellow, stood next to the gray cat. “It really is a big, big spider.”
“I am fearless!”
“Obsessed is more like it,” Mrs. Murphy dryly commented.
“Come on. Into the big room. I’m closing this door. I don’t know what you all are up to but it can’t be good with all this hissing. Come on.” She shepherded them into the room, closed the door tight, which she thought she probably should have done in the first place to keep out that wedge of cold air.
“What was it?”
“Goblins,” came the terse reply.
The two women worked for another two hours. What Tazio wished to keep was placed in the carton with tissue paper and newspapers.
“Keeping his pencils and T-square?”
“You bet. I’m keeping the files, too, as I said. It’s not a bad idea to have the building codes. He made marginal notes that would be helpful if I ever need to rebuild something built in 1979. I can download the codes but his notes are on the papers. A computer stores tons of material but you never get the marginal notes, the squiggles. And who is to say that a former client might not come in here someday and want an addition? It’s just a good idea. If we had building plans for the Colored School I would have poured over them. I mean, I haven’t studied them but I did notice odd citations regarding stresses, insulation ratings, new materials. Small initials, but I don’t know what they mean. Still, I’m keeping the files.”
“Well built, those three frame school buildings.”
“Sure are. I love the floor-to-ceiling windows. Natural light is always better than artificial. There was no electricity. Gary was right about structures from the past.” She sighed. “He was right about a lot of things.”
“What do we do with the cartons?”
“No inheritors. Well, no one wants his work things. I shouldn’t put it that way. No children. I’ll save stuff. You never know when something might be needed. There isn’t much storage space here. I can rent a storage unit for a hundred dollars a month, a small unit is less. This won’t even fill a small unit.”
“Think it will stay dry?”
“Oh sure. Can you imagine the lawsuits if those U-Stor things were sloppy? But this way it’s near but not in the way.”
Harry walked over to his desk. “I always like the blue light on his atomic clock.”
“Me, too.”
“And you’ve moved the tooth over here. Why are you keeping the tooth? It’s a big tooth.”
“It’s a dinosaur tooth.”
“No kidding.”
“I take it you weren’t one of those kids fascinated by dinosaurs?”
“No. I take it you were and Gary must have been if he kept a tooth.”
“I think this is from a meat-eater called Acrocanthosaurus. Big but not gargantuan compared to some other meat-eaters. I’ll find out when I have time.”
“Big. Big is the spider.” Pewter spoke from the floor.
“Spiders don’t have teeth,” Tucker said.
“No, but their mouth is sideways. Like little pincers.” Mrs. Murphy had observed spiders and other little crawlies. “Can bite you and inject poison.”
“Ugh.” Brinkley closed his eyes.
“Are we done?”
“We are. I’ll be open for clients next Monday. This location is so much better than where I was stuck in that cubbyhole at the edge of town. The rent isn’t bad.”
“Are you keeping his sign?”
“I’ll put it in here on the wall. Virginia Signs will hang mine tomorrow.” She was pleased. “It’s beginning to feel just right.”
They locked the door to the back as well as the front when they left. Cold air smacked them right in the face.
“This doesn’t only tighten your pores, it tightens your eyeballs,” Harry observed.
“Feels like snow, doesn’t it?”
Harry nodded, hurried past the space where Gary was shot. For one brief moment she, too, had been looking down the barrel of that gun. Then the killer slipped it back into his motorcycle jacket.
Harry didn’t know anything worth killing her over. Not yet.
18
March 18, 1787
Sunday
Sitting across from her in her petite parlor as she called it, was Catherine. Unlike Maureen, she didn’t much care about looks or allure. Yes, she wore beautiful clothes because her sister and Bumbee worked her over. No one would describe Catherine as warm, friendly but not especially warm, whereas Rachel was so warm she drew people like a magnet. In ways, Catherine frightened people. She was too beautiful, too logical, too in possession of her emotions. She loved the horses, loved commerce. People she endured. Working with her father opened the world to her.