On the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains reposed the fertile and long Shenandoah Valley, running from Winchester, Virginia, by the West Virginia line all the way to North Carolina. The Allegheny Mountains bordered the huge valley to the west.
But on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains the land, although not as fertile, could be quite good in patches.
Harry’s tidy farm rested on one of those patches. Although lacking the thousands of acres of Tally Urquhart, she owned four hundred acres, give or take, plus she had kept her tobacco allotments current, allotments secured by her late father shortly after World War II. Still, like many a Southerner and especially a Virginian, Harry was land poor: good land, little cash.
Deputy Cynthia Cooper drove down the long drive with Harry in the front seat, her animals in the back of the squad car, stones crunching underneath her tires.
“House or barn?”
“House. Did my barn chores. Want coffee or tea?”
“Love coffee.” Cooper stopped, cut the motor as Harry opened the car doors for Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. The animals raced ahead, ducking through the animal door on the side of the screened door and then through the second animal door in the kitchen door.
Harry and Cooper followed them.
“Ten-thirty. I hadn’t paid attention to the time.” She ground coffee beans in the electric grinder as she put up water for tea. Harry loved the smell of coffee but couldn’t drink it, as it made her too jumpy. “There’s corn bread in the fridge. Miranda made a mess of it yesterday.”
Miranda Hogendobber, a lady in her sixties, worked with Harry at the tiny Crozet Post Office, where Harry was postmistress.
The light inside the refrigerator illuminated Cooper’s badge. She pulled out the corn bread and some sweet butter.
“Applesauce?”
Harry nodded. “Church of the Holy Light.”
Last fall the applesauce had been cooked up to perfection by the ladies of the small church to which Miranda belonged. Harry attended St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, where her friend the Reverend Herbert Jones was the pastor. She sat on the Parish Guild, impressing other, older members with her organizational skills.
“Here.” Harry refilled the cats’ dried-food bowl, then reached into a large stoneware cookie jar to give Tucker a smoked pig’s ear.
“Thank you.” The corgi solemnly took the tasty ear, remaining in the kitchen to chew it because she didn’t want to miss anything.
“You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s not every day you find a dead man.”
“Dying. He was dying when we reached him. Yeah, I’m okay. I feel terrible for him, but I’m okay.”
“Gurgling.” Pewter added the vivid detail.
“Right.” Cooper opened a drawer, grabbed two blue and yellow linen napkins, placing them by the plates. A country person herself, Cooper understood that country people lived much closer to life and death than most urban or suburban people.
“It was good of Rick to allow you to take me home. I could have walked.”
Rick Shaw was sheriff of Albemarle County, an elected position and one growing ever more difficult as more wealthy people moved to this most beautiful place. Wealthy people tend to be very demanding. He was understaffed, underappreciated, and underpaid, but he loved law enforcement and did the best with what he had.
“Rick’s more flexible than people realize,” Cooper replied. “Once he’d inspected the corpse, questioned you, no reason to keep you. Another thing about Rick, he doesn’t miss much,” she said. “I hope the autopsy will reveal something. No sign of struggle. No sign that he dragged himself there.” Cooper’s blond eyebrows pointed upward as her mind turned over events.
“I know.”
“And no scent.” Tucker spoke with her mouth full.
“So handsome.” Cooper sighed as she sat down while Harry served her a big mug of coffee, then took a striped creamer from the fridge and poured some of the rich eggshell-colored Devon cream into Cooper’s coffee.
“Every now and then a girl has to treat herself to the best.” Harry put the creamer on the checkered tablecloth as she sat down.
“Enemies—Barry?” Cooper knew Harry would know.
“He used to run with a wild crowd, but when he and Sugar started the business over at St. James Farm he sobered up.”
“Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Cooper reached for more corn bread.
“He was so good-looking and easygoing that he got away with a lot. Course, when his father wrapped his Nissan truck around a tree and died, that started to sober up Barry. He hasn’t any family left. When he started the breeding operation he really cleaned up his act.”
“I recall he left a trail of broken hearts.” Cooper sipped her delicious coffee. “The last one was, uh . . .”
“Carmen Gamble. She was mad enough to kill him six months ago.”
“But not strong enough to bite his throat out,” Cooper added. “For all we know a mad dog bit his throat.”
“Maybe.”
“Boy, what a way to go.” Cooper thoughtfully paused a moment.
“If I came up on Susan breathing her last, I’d—” Harry paused. “I think I’d never be the same.”
Susan Tucker was Harry’s best friend, married to a successful lawyer. They had one son at Cornell and a daughter in high school.
“Makes you wonder about war. Fifty-one thousand dead at Gettysburg. People get used to it. Or the siege of St. Petersburg, Leningrad. You just get used to it.”
“I don’t know if I could ever get used to the smell.”
“Yeah, that’s worse than the sight, for sure. Helps if you don’t breathe through your nose.”
“Certainly makes you understand why soldiers smoke—kills the odor a little bit and soothes your nerves.” Harry noticed a flaming red cardinal swoop by the kitchen window, heading for the large bird feeder hanging in the old tree by the kitchen.
“That’s another thing: Humans will drink, take drugs, anything to feel better. If you knew how many little drug busts we do . . . I mean, they aren’t exactly selling kilos of marijuana, but the law states it’s a crime and so I bust these guys. I can’t keep up with it and it doesn’t work, but it sure has made me think about why so many people do stuff.”
“Cooper, that’s easy. It feels good. Their body chemistry is a little different from yours and mine. Booze makes me sick. But for someone else, it’s heaven—temporarily.”
“Well, I’m thinking about drugs and alcohol in a new way. You and I know we’re going to die. Humans carry around all this anxiety that stems from that original anxiety: the knowledge of death. Hence drugs and drink. You don’t see Mrs. Murphy lapping up rum.”
“Tastes awful. But give me some catnip.” Mrs. Murphy’s green eyes brightened.
“I never thought about that. Coop, you’re a philosopher.”
“No, just a cop.” She finished her third piece of corn bread. “I’m surprised you haven’t called Susan or Miranda or Fair.” Fair was Harry’s ex-husband, who remained a dear friend. In fact, she was thinking how much a part of her life he was and, hopefully, would always be.
“Thought I’d wait until you left. Is anything off-limits?”
“No. We don’t even know enough to hold back evidence.” Cooper winked. “Not that Rick would ever do such a thing.”
“Right.” Harry smiled. “How’s he doing? I haven’t seen him for a while except for today.”
“He’s been down at the courthouse engaged in the battle of the budget.”
“No wonder I haven’t seen him. Hey, to change the subject, have you heard anything about the new post office being built?”
“No more than you have. The population increase even out here in Crozet warrants a larger building.”
“One of the gang called from Barracks Post Office and said a survey crew was coming out Monday. Miranda doesn’t know anything about it, either. You’d think Pug Harper,” Harry said, referring to the county postmaster, “would come down and talk to us.”