“Sure. Tidy. Not too much furniture. She was renting down Mt. Tabor Road and she was actually looking for a place to buy.”
“Raynell.”
“I didn’t go inside. I picked up a pile of stuff from the Nature Conservancy that she wanted me to read.”
“Will we know how she died?” Felipe asked.
“I think so. It appears to be natural causes, but we need to be careful. The body will go to the medical examiner in Richmond.”
“You think she died of a heart attack?” Raynell asked.
“I have no medical expertise whatsoever. But given recent events, we need to be sure she did die of natural causes.”
“Who could kill her? We were here working all day. Harry came in for a minute, brought the book that Lisa had ordered from Over the Moon. No one else came by and that was around lunchtime. Who could have killed her? She was just slumped over.” Felipe was trying to make sense of a young person’s quiet passing.
“Well, it certainly appears natural, but the department has to make sure. When we know you will know, of course.”
“What will happen to Pirate? I can’t take him,” Raynell asked.
“Me neither. Irish wolfhounds are the biggest dogs there are, even bigger than Great Danes,” Felipe added.
“I have just the place for him. No point in taking him to the SPCA, good as they are. Don’t worry, he’ll have a nice home.”
“Where am I going? What’s going to happen to me? What happened to Lisa?” the puppy cried.
At nine that evening, Tucker let out a bark. “Cooper.”
Harry and Fair, sitting on the sofa in the living room, heard the corgi.
“I’ll go see.” Fair volunteered.
He reached the back door as Cooper knocked on it, then opened it. “Fair, please help.”
Fair looked down at the forlorn puppy. “What are the symptoms?”
“Heartbreak,” Cooper replied.
Harry came into the kitchen. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, luxuriating on the sofa before the fire, didn’t move.
“Pirate.” Harry knelt down to pet the fellow.
“You know this dog?” her husband asked.
“Pirate. He belongs to Lisa Roudabush. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”
“Harry, I hope he now belongs to you,” Cooper explained. “Given my hours I can’t take him. Lisa’s dead.”
“What!”
Cooper told her what she knew.
“Oh, this is terrible.” Harry held the big puppy in her arms.
Pirate was already getting too big to pick up.
Tucker, such a sweet dog, licked the puppy’s face when Harry put him down. “It will be all right.”
“If I take him to the SPCA he will get wonderful care. They’ll call the Irish wolfhound rescue people, but Lisa, well, I believe she would want her puppy to be with someone she knew. And he couldn’t have a better home. Harry, please take him.”
“Puppy, you’ve had a terrible shock.” Harry looked up at her husband. “Honey?”
Fair knelt down to pet the fellow. “I can’t really say no now, can I? But I think we’ll need a saddle for him someday.”
Tucker ran into the living room to tell the cats.
“We’ll manage.” Mrs. Murphy shrugged.
“Another dog. Living with you is bad enough!” Pewter wailed.
Harry led Pirate to Tucker’s bed, realized that wasn’t a good idea. She hurried into the bedroom, returned with an old blanket that she placed next to Tucker’s bed. She encouraged the puppy to investigate, put a little cracker on it.
Fair poured Cooper a drink. “Here. You’ve had a long day.”
“Thanks.” Cooper watched the puppy curl up.
Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker came into the kitchen. Worn out, the little big dog had already fallen asleep.
“Gross. I don’t want to live with another dog.”
“Oh, Pewts, it won’t be so bad.” Mrs. Murphy sniffed Pirate’s head.
“Bad. It’s the worst. Why does everything happen to me?”
“If I were you, I’d be good to this puppy,” Tucker advised. “He’s going to be huge.”
“If I’m not afraid of the world’s largest spider, I’m not afraid of a disgusting dog,” the gray cat spat.
“She’s got the bottle brush tail.” Cooper observed Pewter.
“She’ll settle down.” Harry sat at the kitchen table. “Lisa was only in her early thirties. Too young to die.”
Fair agreed. “Mother used to say ‘When the good Lord jerks your chain, you’re going.’ ”
Harry looked at Cooper. “You don’t think anyone helped jerk her chain, do you? I mean, you and Gary, the day he died, talked about Lisa getting an Irish wolfhound. You said Nature First disturbs vested interests.”
“Did. Anything is possible, but no one walked into the office after you dropped off Lisa’s book. I doubt she was killed, but for the sake of argument, if she was, it was incredibly clever.”
Indeed.
29
April 4, 1787
Wednesday
“You never know,” Catherine answered as they both walked through their mother’s garden.
Isabelle had lavished her attention on the large formal garden to the rear of the house. On each side of the house, a narrow band of English boxwoods hugged the outside walls. In front of those she had planted annuals that would peep out of the ground for each season but winter.
The two sisters strolled through the formal gardens that were impeccably kept by Rachel with help from the slaves, those with a green thumb. Percy, Bumbee’s husband, cussed daily by his wife if she saw him, evidenced just as much creativity with color, plant height, even statuary for gardens as Bumbee displayed in her weaving room. They were two artistic souls who couldn’t agree on anything. If Percy said “apples,” Bumbee answered “oranges.” Better for both that she now lived in the weaving room.