Arch frowned for a second, then said "More power to her, but she's another one who could cash in and walk away a rich woman."
"She's already rich, plus she gets back the million dollars of Hy's bail. Just think of all that money at one time. It's overwhelming." Harry's eyes lit up.
"See you, ladies." Arch waved and drove on.
"What're you doin' now?" Harry asked Susan.
"Thought I'd go home and see if I can't find southern hawthorne saplings, little guys for us to plant come fall. I ordered the sugar maples, did I tell you?" Susan found that she enjoyed researching tree varieties, then finding them.
"No."
"They'll come in late September. Boy, I'm not used to thinking ahead like this. I'm used to school calendars." She sighed. "Where does the time go? Danny is a junior at Cornell and Brooks goes to Duke next fall."
"Sure goes fast," Harry agreed. "All right, I'm going back to the farm. Have to see if I can work the boom on the tractor. Never used one before. I might wait and cut hay instead. I'll ask Fair to help with the boom."
"Good luck with the boom." Susan kissed Harry on the cheek, then hopped into her Audi and drove off.
Two hours later Harry happily perched on the cushioned tractor seat as she cut the back acres; this was her orchard grass with regular alfalfa. The mix was popular with horsemen. She'd cut the quadrant with drought-resistant alfalfa later. She had to time it just right and allow the rows to dry out completely. Small wonder farmers obsessively watched the weather. But if she didn't give the blister bugs time to get, out of the drying hay, nothing good would come of it.
She made the animals stay back in the barn when she cut hay.
The cats dozed on the tack trunk in the center aisle, the day was so pleasant. Tucker was sprawled in the middle of the barn aisle.
Riding on a tractor always got Harry to thinking. As the diesel engine rumbled, the newly mown hay exerted a hypnotic quality. The symmetry pleased her. The aroma intoxicated her. She hummed to herself, jouncing along. When she cut the last row, she disengaged the blades and slowly bumped back to the shed. As she washed down the equipment, the tiny beads of water caught the sun, thousands of moving rainbows then shattered on the John Deere green paint. Satisfied that she'd done a good job, she strode into her small vineyard, walking down the short rows filling the quarter acre. Not a glassy-winged sharpshooter in sight.
She whistled on her way to the tack room, sat down at the heavy old schoolteacher's desk, and dialed Rollie Barnes. Luckily he was in his office.
"Rollie, this is Harry Haristeen. I was wondering if you'd give me a minute of your time."
"What can I do for you?" Rollie liked women asking him for advice.
"Well, as you know, I have this piddling quarter of an acre in Petit Manseng. I haven't followed this case going before the Supreme Court about shipping wine out of state. What really is this about?"
"First, let me say that for the most part I favor states' rights, but when they interfere with the free movement of goods and services, I believe there has to be a uniform federal law." He sounded like a politician.
"I'm with you." She was, too.
"Many states ban direct shipment of wine to consumers. Obviously, this puts a huge dent in profits."
"So if a person from Missouri calls Kluge Vineyard for a case of wine, Kluge Vineyard can't send it to a private customer?" Harry asked.
"Right. It's outrageous." His voice rose. "Of course, we have no way of knowing how the court will rule, but the case is about to come up. If it rules that banning direct shipment is unconstitutional, that will be a huge victory for everyone in this country who makes wine. It's a victory for the consumer, too. Instead of going through a middleman with their markup, we can ship directly to the customer."
"Any idea how the court will rule?"
"No." His voice deepened, the register became less emotional. "The Supreme Court is erratic. Then again, I'm not a lawyer, thank God. I have to be rational or I lose business."
Harry laughed. "Thank you, Rollie. I knew you'd know. I guess a ruling in favor of direct shipment means business will boom and land prices will shoot up higher."
Pleasure purred in his voice. "Oh, yes."
"You're sitting in the catbird seat."
"Is that a good thing?"
She laughed. "Sure is. Ever look up in a tree and see where the catbird sits? Best place, and no one can get him."
"Well, then, you're right."
After a few more pleasantries, Harry hung up, then called Cooper. "Hey."
"Hey back at you," Cooper, in the squad car, answered.
"Need any more help over at the house? I can come over tonight and tomorrow, too. Fair's going to be making late calls tonight."
"He needs to take in a partner or even two."
"Yes, he and I will have that discussion when we go on our vacation end of July."
"I'll believe it when I see it."
"No, we're really going. BoomBoom will take care of the horses and Paul de Silvasaid he'd help, too. Of course, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker will go along with us."
At the sound of their names the two cats opened their eyes.
"Vacation?"Pewter murmured."Where?"
The tiger rolled on her side."Kentucky. They're going to a horse show and to look at horses."
"That will be nice."Pewter noticed another little bit of peppermint candy by the tack trunk."Think they have good tuna in Kentucky?"
"Pewter, there's good cat food all over the country."Mrs. Murphy lifted her head to listen to Harry.
"Coop, I've been thinking about the two murders and Hy's suicide. I know Rick thinks I get in the way—"
Coop interrupted. "Let's just say that since you don't have to follow police procedures, you can find things that are critical to us, but you can also put yourself in harm's way. Furthermore, Harry, you can compromise evidence."
"I know, I know. Well, I haven't been in the way about the grape murders—that's how I think of them."
"Because you're still recovering fromgetting remarried. Obviously, you're returning to reality." Coop laughed. "Not that being married to Fair isn't wonderful."
Harry laughed at herself. "God, am I that obvious?"
"Yes." Coop pulled off the road behind White Vineyards. "What's up?"
"Toby's storage room in his barn contains an unusually large amount of flypaper."
"It did seem like a lot, but he must have been someone who buys in bulk. He had enough paper tablets, toilet paper, pencils, and aspirin for the next year." Coop and Rick had combed Toby's property.
"What about Hy Maudant's place? Did you find boxes of flypaper there?"
"No. In fact, I'm on the dirt road behind White Vineyards now. Harry, most people who keep horses or cattle in a barn resort to flypaper." Cooper was amused.
"You're going to walk up in the back of the grape rows, right?"
A pause followed. "I am. You're really waking up, aren't you?"
"Looking for sharpshooters?"
"Yes." Cooper knew there was no point lying to Harry.
"Anything else? Like black rot?"
"I'm not too well versed on these things, but if the vines are diseased or the young leaves spotted, I'll find out what's wrong."
"But if there is something wrong, Arch and Rollie would know."
"And they'll take measures. They're over there a lot."
"When you went through Toby's and Hy's files, was there material about the sharpshooter?"
"Not in Hy's files. All he had was one sheet of laminated paper with photos. Toby's computer was bursting with information on every possible enemy to his grapes."
"Hmm, was there an extra large amount about the bugs?"
"The problem is, I don't know what an extra large amount is, given the sheer volume of information he had on everything, and I mean everything."
"What about Professor Forland's files?"
"We've been working with the Blacksburg authorities. Professor Forland had the latest research, like Toby, on everything."