Stifling the urge to smack the gray cat, Mrs. Murphy simply agreed, then ordered, “Tucker, take Mom’s hand. Pewter, you and I need to get behind each leg, stand on our hind legs, and push. Sooner or later, she’ll get it.”
Tucker, on her hind legs, grabbed Harry’s hand gently in her mouth. The two kitties started pushing. Standing just inside the limed sidelines, Harry resisted them.
“Guys.” Harry shook off Tucker.
Fair, amused by their antics, returned his attention to the evenly matched game. The contestants were now showing the effects of hard running.
“Mother, pay attention!” Mrs. Murphy screeched as loud as she could.
Tucker barked, taking Harry’s hand again, leading her a few steps.
“What is wrong with you all?”
Arms across his massive chest, Fair looked down at the animals. He could read their behavior better than most humans could. Not that Harry was oblivious to their methods of communicating, she just had never been accused of being overly sensitive.
“Honey, I’ll follow them. You can’t leave your ref duties.”
“Damn, these people are hard work.” Tucker allowed herself a brief complaint.
Looking at the dog, Pewter unleashed her claws. “It’s refreshing to hear you not defend Mom for once. You’re always sticking up for her.”
“I love her, although at this moment I’m loving her a little less,” the dog replied.
“They’re all idiots, even her.” Pewter retracted her claws, since Harry had taken advantage of a time-out and called to BoomBoom to fill in.
She handed off her ref’s shirt to BoomBoom and followed the threesome. “I’ll be right back.”
The cats ran ahead, occasionally stopping and looking back. Tucker followed them. The animals hoped this would encourage the two people to move faster.
The cats jumped on the stone wall. Tucker raced to the iron gate, wiggling underneath.
Fair lifted his wife up on the stone wall.
“I can climb,” she said.
“You can, but why deny your husband the pleasure of feeling your body?”
“Oh, you big, strong thing.”
This playfulness abruptly ended when they rounded the Trumbull monument. Gathered there were all the cats. Tucker barked once for good measure.
Harry’s hand flew to her mouth. It was Bobby Foltz.
Fair was smart enough not to touch the body, but he knelt down for a closer look. “Dead, obviously.”
He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his cellphone. Although not on call this weekend, he knew that certain of his clients preferred only him and would fuss if they couldn’t reach him—hence, he carried the damned phone. He dialed the sheriff’s department.
“Honey, what would you rather do?” Fair, once finished, asked his wife, whose curiosity was now overtaking shock. “Stay with the body or go tell the reverend to move people into the inner quad?”
“You’re a medical person. You stay. I’ll go.” She hurried back through the graveyard, looking over her shoulder. “Tucker, come on.”
Harry filled in the reverend with the news as the blue team came within a whisker of winning.
Reverend Jones said to Harry, “Let them finish the game. It will be much easier to move everyone in. I have to present the trophy anyway.” He paused. “This is just terrible. What in the world is going on?”
Harry then ran along the sidelines to go and ask BoomBoom to help after the game.
As Reverend Jones had anticipated, herding people into the stunning inner quad after the game proved easy. Tucker was a big help, snapping at people’s heels. The corgi did this respectfully. Harry was too distracted to call her off.
Once in the inner quad, Herb presented the trophy to the triumphant blues, then said, voice commanding, “We’ve had a bit of an accident. I ask that you all go home, and, Craig, as people leave, please have them sign a—Susan, get a notebook from the supply room. Have them sign the notebook with their name and the names of their family members. I’m sorry to do this, folks, but all of this will be clear later. We need a record of who was here today, as best as we can get one.”
The crowd grumbled in confusion, and then sirens split the air.
Cooper had intended to come to the celebration but was delayed, thanks to an accident on the old bypass. Fortunately it wasn’t serious. She’d picked up Fair’s call and informed Marcie, the dispatcher. Rick would arrive shortly after her, she hoped.
As people left, the murmur became a roar, especially when they saw Coop’s vehicle fly down to the reverend’s garage. She hit the brakes and jumped out.
Cool in a crisis, BoomBoom continued to move people along. She glanced back at Harry. “Whatever happened must be big.”
Harry simply nodded.
Susan stood at one end of the quad with the notebook. She, too, quizzically looked at Harry, who made the wrap sign with her forefinger.
Thanks to the vestry-board members’ expert people-management skills, the place was cleared out in twenty minutes. By that time, Harry had run back to the graveyard.
Standing on the big quad looking down, BoomBoom asked Alicia, Susan, Craig, and Reverend Jones, “What’s going on? Should we go down there?”
Herb grimaced slightly. “No. Let’s wait up here for the sheriff. There’s always the danger of evidence being trampled.”
“What do you mean? Evidence of what?” Alicia inquired in an even voice.
“There’s a dead man propped up at the Trumbull tombstone. Let’s wait here. If Rick needs us or wants us, he’ll let us know.”
“Of all times and all places,” BoomBoom blurted out. “No wonder Harry’s face looked so white.”
Staring into the dead man’s eyes, Cooper wasn’t saying anything. She was puzzled by the disposition of the body.
“I can’t disturb him. We’ve got to wait for the team.” She checked her watch. “Dammit to hell.”
“Neat work. No marks,” Fair observed.
“No marks that we can see. It is remotely possible that he sat there and had a heart attack.”
“He looks awfully young for that,” Fair rejoined.
“Well, we can’t dismiss anything until the report comes back from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.”
Rick arrived within ten minutes. Slamming the door of his squad car shut, he hurried over to the small group at the grave.
“Not happy,” Elocution observed.
“Finding bodies affects their equilibrium,” Lucy Fur sagely opined.
Pewter sat up straight. “A dead human always means trouble. It’s not like a squashed squirrel on the road. The fellow seemed familiar, but I can’t quite place him.”
The forensics team arrived right after Rick. Weekends were slow, but the department maintained a skeleton crew. Rick had learned long ago that the damnedest things could and would happen on weekends.
The forensics team’s Nina Jacobson carefully observed the body. She donned thin rubber gloves while asking her two assistants to move the body slightly away from the tombstone. She then carefully examined his back.
“No obvious wounds. No gunshot, knife, blunt trauma.”
Tucker lifted her nose in the air. “Skull.”
“Ah.” Mrs. Murphy agreed, for she, too, could smell the very faint signature of fresh bone.
Nina, no slouch, peered at the back of the fellow’s neck, ever so slightly brushed back his hair at the nape of his neck, then moved higher. “There it is.”
Rick and Cooper moved closer to eyeball where she pointed.
“So it is.” Fair whistled.
Rick, voice crisp, said, “Someone drove a thin needle or ice pick from the base of his skull into his brain. One hard, hard blow. Instant.”