'This will excite a riot,' Ehrhart exclaimed, moving in closer to the crime scene, a Canon Sure Shot in hand. 'Nothing like this has even happened before this.'
'I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that,' Hammer replied. 'Not so long ago someone painted graffiti on the statue of Robert E. Lee.'
'That was different.'
'He wasn't changed into a black basketball player,' Fling agreed. 'Not saying he wouldn't have been, but he's on a horse with a sword, and right there on Monument Avenue where if you spent a lot of time, someone's bound to notice. So I really don't see how you could easily do him. Or doing anybody on Monument Avenue. Arthur Ashe's holding a tennis racket and the other guys are on horses. Unless you did polo, I guess.'
'I want to know how you're doing about this?' Ehrhart said to Hammer as a sudden gust of wind stirred trees and whipped the Southern Cross at Davis's feet. 'And where were your officers when some vandal came in here like Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel?'
'The cemetery is private property,' Fling reminded her.
'If a serial killing shows up on my private property, is that a so-what also?' Ehrhart replied indignantly.
'Not if we know he's a serial killer,' Fling retorted.
'The truth is,' said Hammer, 'we do patrol the cemetery.'
'That's even worst,' Ehrhart said. 'You certainly must have somewhere been elsewhere last night.'
'The beat car is very busy in that area, Lelia. We've got VCU, Oregon Hills. We get many, many calls," Hammer said. 'When calls involve living people, they take priority.'
'As if I would know this!' Ehrhart indignantly answered.
'It's confusing what's city and what isn't.' Fling tried to gloss over his misinformation. 'And Mrs. Ehrhart, my earlier point that I wanted to emphasize was you shouldn't take this so hard when it may simply be a random choice because of how remote being in a place like this is if you're up to no good.'
That's easier to say,' said Ehrhart.
Hammer felt as if she were listening to aliens.
'When about Bobby Feeley?' Ehrhart was becoming more accusatory.
'We're working hard on this, Lelia,' Hammer replied.
'He's twelve,' she persisted. 'That ought to add up for something.'
'We are investigating this with great seriousness,' said Hammer, who frankly thought the statue was much improved by the new outfit.
'He probably alibied his way from there to here and you take it at fact value.' Ehrhart wouldn't let it rest.
'I think he wasn't feeling good last night and didn't go out,' Fling offered. 'There are witnesses.'
Hammer glared at Fling, who had just divulged sensitive information about the case.
'Well, we'll put this up at my meeting. And by the way, I've had to move it earlier to seven A.M. in the morning, Judy.' Ehrhart started taking photographs of the crime scene. 'The Commonwealth Club private boarding room. If you don't know where it is, they'll ask you at the door when you cash your coat.'
'It's a little warm for a coat,' Fling said.
For the past century, Lelia Howell Ehrhart's alleged ancestors had been laid to rest in stately family plots and tombs, and remembered by obelisks and urns, and blessed by crosses, and guarded by Carrara marble angels of grief and a cast-iron dog, and embellished with ornamental metalwork.
It was well known that her family tree included Jefferson Davis's wife, Varina Howell, although genealogists had thus far been unsuccessful in tracing Ehrhart's bloodline back to any geographic region even close to Mississippi, where Mrs. Davis was from.
Ehrhart was traumatized and personally outraged. She took the vandalism personally and couldn't help but think it was directed at her, and therefore gave her the right to find the monster who had done it and lock him up for the rest of his life. Ehrhart didn't need the police. What good were they anyway?
What mattered most and got things done was connections, and Ehrhart had more than the Internet. She was married to Dr. Carter 'Bull' Ehrhart, a millionaire dentist and alleged descendant of Confederate General Franklin 'Bull' Paxton. Bull Ehrhart was a University of Richmond alumnus. He was on the Board of Visitors. He had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to U of R and rarely missed a basketball game.
It had been no great matter for Lelia Ehrhart to call Spiders head coach Bo Raval and find out exactly where she might get her hands on Bobby Feeley. Probably the gym, she had been told. She turned off Three Chopt Road onto Boatwright and followed it to the U of R campus. She turned into the private lot, where members of the Spiders Club parked during the games. She tucked her Mercedes at an angle, taking two spaces, far away from those less expensive cars that might hit her doors. She walked with purpose up the Robins Center's front steps.
The lobby was empty and echoed with the memory of many games won and lost that Ehrhart had not enjoyed. Eventually, she had refused to attend them with her husband, nor would she subject herself to football. She simply would not watch sports on TV anymore. Bull could get his own beer and make his own microwave popcorn. He could point the remote as often as he wanted, playing God, controlling, master designing, making things happen, and she didn't care.
A basketball bouncing beyond shut doors sounded lonely and determined. Ehrhart entered Milhouser Gym, where Bobby Feeley was shooting foul shots. He was tall, as expected, with long sculpted muscles and a shaved head and a gold loop earring, like all basketball players. His skin glistened with sweat, gray tee shirt soaked in back and front, shorts baggy down to his knees and swirling as he moved. Feeley paid no attention to Ehrhart as he tried again and hit the rim.
'Shit,' he said.
She said nothing as he dribbled and faked, rushed, elbows flying, turning, faking again, fast breaking, leaping and slam-dunking, hitting the rim again.
'Fuck,' he said.
'Excuse me,' Ehrhart announced herself.
Feeley slowly dribbled the ball, looking at her.
'Are you Bobby Feeley?'
She stepped onto the gym floor in high-heeled shoes with brass butterflies.
'That's not a good idea,' he said.
'Excuse me?'
'Your shoes.'
'Who's not right with them?'
'They aren't tennis shoes.'
'Yours aren't wearing tennis shoes,' she said.
He dribbled some more, frowning.
'What do you call these?' he asked.
'Basketballs shoes,' she said.
'Ah. A purist. Okay,' said Feeley, an honors English student. 'But you still can't walk on the floor in those shoes. So you can take them off or go somewhere else, I guess.'
Ehrhart slipped out of her shoes and drew closer to him in knee-high hose.
'So, what can I do for you?' Feeley asked as he pulled the ball away, elbows out and dangerous, eluding an imaginary adversary.
'You're number twelve,' Ehrhart said.
'Not that again,' Feeley exclaimed as he dribbled. 'What is this anyway? You people think I have nothing better to do? That I would do something as sophomoric as painting graffiti in a cemetery?'
He dribbled between his legs and missed a jump shot.
This is not just graffiti as you watch on subway trains. It's not 'The Screech' and schmucks you watch on buildings.'
Feeley stopped dribbling and wiped sweat off his brow, trying to interpret.
'I think you mean scream,' he tried to help her out. 'As in Edvard Munch's 'The Scream'. And maybe you mean schmoeP Schmuck's not a nice word, although those unfamiliar with Yiddish usually don't get it.'
'Spray-painting Mountain Rushmore, how about then?' she said indignantly.