“Tucker slobbers.” Mrs. Murphy giggled.
“It’s the needles!” Pewter’s eyes now widened.
“Yeah,” her buddy agreed.
“But back to people killing one another all the time. Gary must have done something wrong.” Pewter inhaled the scent of cleaned leather.
“Mom told Cooper as they waited for the ambulance that years ago, like fifteen, he went through a horrible divorce. It brings out the worst in people.”
“Fifteen years is a long time to wait.” Pewter thought this unlikely as a cause.
“Revenge is a dish best eaten cold,” Mrs. Murphy pronounced.
“I think if someone bloodies your nose you bloody them right back.” Pewter appeared fierce.
“Humans, if they do that, get caught. Impulse killing. Waiting makes sense for them. All those laws perverting nature pretty much.” The tiger believed humans got it all backward.
“Maybe fifteen years isn’t a long time to wait…but divorce, that’s…I don’t know.”
“Irrational.” Mrs. Murphy affirmed Pewter’s unspoken thoughts.
The tack room door opened, cold air entering with Harry and Tucker.
The corgi joined Mrs. Murphy on the saddle pad. “When the sun sets the mercury goes down with it. Going to be nasty cold tonight.”
“Is,” Mrs. Murphy agreed.
Harry checked her feed order, scribbled on a pad by the old landline phone, sank into her chair. She’d called her husband, who would be home from work shortly. She looked forward to Cooper joining them. Fair, sensitive to her distress, could always lift her spirits. As an equine vet his hours could be variable. One good thing about the winter was there were fewer injury calls than during the warm months, with the exception of ice. Horses, like people, could go down on ice.
“Dad,” Tucker barked.
The cats, too, heard the rumble of the big diesel-engine truck crunching down the driveway. Soon it stopped, the door slammed, the groan of the huge barn doors came next, then the clunk of their being shut.
The tack room door opened.
“Honey.” He walked over and kissed her, pulled up a chair.
“I am so glad to see you.”
“Heard a report on the local news driving home. The usual ‘too early to know anything’ stuff.”
“Out of the blue, Fair, just out of the blue.” She swiveled her chair to face his.
He slid the chair forward so his knees touched hers. “Thank God you weren’t standing next to Gary.”
“I was close enough to smell the gunpowder.” She shivered. “He grabbed his chest, a little blood trickled through his fingers, not much at all, he groaned, and sank. There was a split second that it seemed the gun was pointed at me. It was almost like a dream. It just didn’t seem real.”
“Cooper,” Tucker barked.
Hearing the motor, Harry looked up. “I told Coop to come by for soup. Let me go in and warm it up. Won’t take a minute. You fix her a drink.”
They rose, animals first, closed the door behind them and hailed their friend walking up the brick walkway to the back closed-in porch. In the warm weather the wooden sides were removed and it became a screened porch that kept out the bugs.
Once inside, Fair made Cooper a hot toddy and fed the animals while Harry warmed the soup.
Sipping her drink, Cooper smiled. “Warms you better than a down jacket.”
“True.” He toasted her.
“Won’t be a minute.” Harry pulled fresh bread and butter out of the keeper on the counter.
“Well,” Cooper started. “Simple .38 caliber, a handgun many people own. Unregistered, of course.” She held up her hand. “I am not anti-science but I think there can be many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.’ This will be a long, hard slog.”
“Why?” Fair asked.
“No criminal record. An ugly divorce years back. No complaints against his design company at the Better Business Bureau. A member of Keswick Golf Club. Well liked. I called his old Richmond employer, Rankin Construction. He left on good terms. Had always wanted his own small design company, working with construction companies instead of working for a construction company.”
“Is that awful yellow crime scene tape up?” Harry asked.
“It is. Front and back. Photographs of where he fell. The inside of his office. All done. The team, wearing latex gloves, checked drawers, cataloged mail. For now everything is in place as he left it. The forensics will be back tomorrow.” She lifted her hands, palms up. “Nothing out of the ordinary, so far. But I always hope for a clue, for a pattern to emerge,” Coop replied.
“I suppose you’ll need to examine his projects. Talk to customers and clients.” Harry tested the soup, turned down the burner.
“Yes. The most obvious problem would be if Gary ever overcharged or took a kickback from a client or construction company. That’s all I can think of right now.”
“He wouldn’t.” Harry’s voice was firm. “Gary would never do anything like that.”
“I hope you’re right, but if there’s one thing law enforcement has taught me it’s that you never really know. Look at how Bernie Madoff fooled people.”
“Coop,” Harry said as she ladled out the fragrant soup. “Gary didn’t live high on the hog like the Ponzi scheme guy. Other than golf and his annual vacations out of the country to see the architecture elsewhere, like the time he went to the Alhambra. Stuff like that. Madoff was an entirely different kind of person. Madoff had to drum up business constantly, whereas Gary really didn’t.” She put the bowls on the table while Fair cut the bread.
“Harry, this is so good.” Cooper swallowed a spoonful.
“Easy to make but time-consuming. It’s my grandmother’s recipe. I do it exactly as she did. No shortcuts.”
“Wonderful.” Cooper sighed. “Wonderful to be off duty, too. It’s been a day. Started with a false burglary alarm at Ivy Farms. Slid downhill from there. What about yours?” She looked at Fair.