“He will. Everyone’s on overload. We’re supposed to be in a recession, right? That’s when businesses fire people and government won’t hire. So everyone is doing his job and the job of the guy who got fired—or I should say let go.”
“If they do build a bigger post office, the postal service has to hire new employees. Miranda and I can’t handle it. We’re struggling now. Every day, it seems, a new person comes through the door and needs a postbox or stamps or information. The only reason we get the mail in the boxes by nine every morning is that we’re there by seven-thirty and so is Rob Collier.” She mentioned the driver who dropped off mailbags from the main post office.
“Changes things, new people. Every time a new person comes on the job the composition of the team changes. Not necessarily bad or good. Just different.”
“Hey, I’m the postmistress of Greater Crozet, so they do it my way.” Harry smiled wryly.
“Do you want to manage people?”
This stopped Harry for a minute. “No.”
“I thought so.”
“What are you saying?”
“Change is gonna come.”
“That’s profound,” Harry teased.
“Can you change?”
“I don’t know. It depends. If there’s a new and better bushog for my tractor, I’m happy to change. But if I personally have to change, I’d like to do it at my own speed. I suppose that’s true of everybody.”
“We all have different speeds. I find that I’m more innovative than Rick, but once he sees the benefit of a change, whether it’s in technology or personnel, he accepts it.”
“Is this a roundabout way of telling me you don’t think I’m going to like the changes at work?”
“How do I know?”
Harry leaned back in her chair, tapping the side of her plate with her knife. “Actually, Cooper, I don’t think I am going to like it. Miranda and I have a good system where we are; we can read each other’s mind. It’s so easy and, besides, we have such a good time together. The only fly in the ointment is, the volume of mail is increasing.”
“Oh, I forgot to ask you. Back to Barry. Rick may have asked you this when I was back with the ambulance crew. Do you think he was conscious?”
“His eyes were open but, no, he was leaving life quickly. But I remember once someone telling me—maybe it was you or maybe it was Dr. Mary O’Brien—that hearing is the last sense to go, so I held his hand and told him everything would be all right. Maybe where he is now, it is.”
3
After Sunday services, Harry slipped back to Herb’s office. He was just removing his surplice, a rich green color embroidered with gold, signifying the season of Trinity in the ecclesiastical calendar.
“Rev.” She often called him this.
“What can I do for you, honey? Here, sit down.” He motioned to the Chesterfield sofa, and the long sleeve on his black robe, a design unchanged since the Middle Ages, swept with the motion.
“Thanks.” She sank into the old, comfortable leather.
“Heard you had an upsetting day yesterday.” He unzipped his robe from the front, exposing a Hawaiian shirt underneath.
“I can’t believe you gave the sermon in a Hawaiian shirt.” Harry’s brown eyes widened.
“Ned Tucker dared me to do it. Said I could use his new fly rod if I did. I’ll collect after lunch.” He hung his robe on a padded hanger, placing it in the closet. “But don’t tell, now. It will offend some of”—he paused and winked—“the faithful.” He sat opposite her. “Now tell me what’s on your mind.”
She launched right in. She’d known Herb all her life. He’d baptized her, confirmed her, and married her as well as consoled her during and after her divorce.
“. . . not as tough as I thought.”
“Oh, you’re tough, all right.” His deep voice filled the room. “When bad things occur, our minds are focused on what needs to be done. Afterward the emotions flow. Think of when old Mrs. Urquhart died.” He mentioned Mim Sanburne’s mother, Tally Urquhart’s sister. “Mim bore up all through the illness, and that poor woman suffered. And even after the burial, Mim seemed fine, and then three months later she burst into tears at the stable and sobbed for a whole day. Scared Jim to death.” Jim was Mim’s husband and the mayor of Crozet.
“Funny.”
“The mind protects itself. Some people are never strong enough to face emotions. They tuck them further and further in the recesses of their mind, and one day they freeze up. Prayer is a way to thaw out those frozen fears and pains. You thaw them out and the Good Lord gives you the strength to deal with them and the wit to be thankful. You don’t grow up, Harry, until you thank God for your troubles as well as your joys.”
“Mother used to say that.”
“I know.” He smiled broadly, for he highly regarded Harry’s deceased mother.
Harry was like her mother in that she was well-organized and friendly, but she was more taciturn, more skeptical, more like her father in that respect.
“I feel terrible. I feel terrible for Barry.”
Cazenovia and Elocution, Herb’s two cats, had been lounging in the window, cruising the squadrons of robins on the verdant quad lawn. Hearing Harry’s distress, they left their sightseeing to jump in her lap. She rubbed their ears.
“In the prime of life. I hear it was some sort of animal attack.”
“I guess, but apart from his throat—not a mark on him. I could have missed something. I didn’t examine him once he died. I just ran like hell for the phone in Tally’s barn. Sorry to swear, Herb.”
“You’re upset.” Herb waved away the apology. He, himself, could make the air blue on certain occasions.
“I am.” Harry exhaled.
“Tally said she heard there were no animal tracks by the body—other than Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker’s paw prints.”
“No tracks of him crawling, either,” Harry said.
“And his feet weren’t wet?” Herb inquired.
“No.”
“Hmm.” The older man rubbed his clean-shaven chin.
Herb, a very masculine man now in his early sixties with a rumbling bass voice, had been athletic and handsome in his youth, but over the years he’d allowed the pounds to accumulate until now he was portly. His and Harry’s dear friend Miranda Hogendobber had also picked up tonnage over the years, but she’d gone on a sensible diet and in one year’s time had lost thirty pounds. She was now the same size she’d been in high school and looked years younger in the bargain. But, then, Miranda had been inspired by the reappearance of her high-school sweetheart, Tracy Raz, all-state halfback during his years at Crozet High. Herb, on the other hand, had lost his wife and hadn’t found anyone else, so he’d let himself go a bit.
“You’d think there’d be tracks from a heavy animal.”
“Now, Mary Minor, I hear that tone in your voice. Hold your horses.” He held up his hand to stop. “You let our esteemed sheriff and his deputy take care of this, and I bet when the autopsy report comes in this will all be explained. You are cool in a crisis, but under the circumstances you probably did miss things. I know I would, and you did the right thing running for the phone. You couldn’t have done him any good by staying there or by searching the area. Rick did that once he got there.”
“Now that I think about it, I should have recited the Last Rites. Maybe it would have eased him. In extremis, laymen can give the Last Rites, can’t we?”
Herb nodded yes. “You did all you could and you did the right thing. You usually do. Your downfall—well, downfall is too strong a word—your weak spot is curiosity. You’re like Cazenovia and Elocution, just as curious as a cat and you can’t stand not knowing something. Hepworth.” He named her maternal family line, all of whom were known for their curiosity and bright minds.