Josiah’s eyes opened wider. He’d rarely seen Harry angry. “She exhausted every adjective in describing to me her feelings about ‘the Stafford episode,’ as she calls it. Mim and I have an understanding of sorts. She doesn’t meddle in my personal life and I don’t meddle in hers, but she’s quite wrong about this. Of course, just why Little Marilyn selected Fitz-Gilbert remains a mystery. Any quieter and the man would be in a coma.”
“When’s he going to show his face?” Harry inquired.
“Mama plans a small ‘do’ at Farmington Country Club but she keeps moving the date. She’s more rattled than she lets on about . . . things.”
“Aren’t we all?” Harry pushed around the rubber-stamp holder.
He smoothed his salt-and-pepper hair. “Yes—but I prefer not to think about it. I can’t do anything about it anyway.”
33
Mrs. Murphy, ear cocked to catch mouse sounds, prowled in the barn. It had been a long day at the post office. When they arrived home Mrs. Murphy hurried toward the barn, accompanied by Tucker. High in the hayloft she caught sight of a black tail hanging over the side of a bale. She climbed up the ladder to the loft. “Paddy?”
He opened one golden eye. “You gorgeous thing. I’ve been waiting for you. It’s a good thing you woke me up or I would have slept right through until tonight.” He stretched. “I remembered our brief conversation under a full moon and a canopy of stars. . . .”
She twitched her tail. His flowery speech made her impatient. He continued.
“And spurned though I was, your words were engraved on my heart. I saw something odd. I didn’t think about it at the time and I wish I had, because I would have investigated, but my blood was up and you know how that is.”
“What?” Mrs. Murphy’s ears pitched forward; her whiskers swept forward. Every muscle was on alert.
“I was hunting out near the old Greenwood tunnel. A rabbit shot out of the tunnel and I chased him clear down to the Purcell McCue estate. That damned golden retriever of theirs lumbered out, mouth running, and I lost my rabbit.”
“Go up a tree?”
“Me? That toothless old hound. No, I dashed right in front of his nose and walked on home. Then I remembered what you said and I came here.”
“The tunnel’s sealed.”
“But I saw the rabbit come out of it.”
“Do you remember exactly where?”
“He moved pretty fast but I think it was near the bottom. It’s covered with foliage. Hard to see.”
“How do you know he wasn’t hiding in the foliage and you flushed him out?”
“I don’t, but I swear I saw him pop out of a hole at the very bottom. Can’t be sure but, well—I thought you’d like to know.”
“Thanks, Paddy. I don’t know how I can make it up to you.”
“I do.”
“Not that way.” Mrs. Murphy cuffed his ears. “Come on, let’s tell Tucker.”
The two cats joined Tucker. Conversation grew excited.
“We’ve got to get up there!” Tucker shouted above the voices. “That’s the only way we’ll ever know.”
“I know we’ve got to get up there but it’s a good day’s journey, and we can’t leave Harry now that she’s in danger.” Mrs. Murphy spat, she was so vehement.
“How are you going to convince her to go up there in the first place?” The human race didn’t rank high in Paddy’s book.
“Harry catches on if you keep after her.” Tucker defended her friend.
“If we can just think of something—”
“More dead birds and moles?”
“No.” Mrs. Murphy jumped on the water trough. “The Xeroxed papers. Let’s try that when we get inside.”
“Oh.” Tucker’s liquid brown eyes clouded. “That will fry her.”
“Better mad than dead,” Paddy said matter-of-factly.
34
“I’d better learn to quack, since I’m going to waddle for the next three days.” Officer Cynthia Cooper rubbed her stomach as she entered Harry’s house.
“Mim spends a fortune on her cook, and Susan Tucker’s much better—for free, too.” Harry dumped her satchel on the kitchen table, since they had come in through the back door. The last time Harry used the front door was for her father’s funeral party. “Let me show you the guest bedroom.”
“No, I’ll sleep in your room and you sleep in the guest bedroom. If anyone sneaks around looking for you, he or she will come to your bedroom first.”
“You don’t really believe the killer is going to sneak around up here in the middle of the night just because he or she knows I’ve figured out the postcard signal?” Harry wanted to think she was safe.
“It seems unlikely, but then everything about this crime is unlikely.”
“Follow me!” Mrs. Murphy shouted over her shoulder. She galloped into Harry’s bedroom, knocked over a lamp, and threw the Xeroxed papers on the hooked rug.
“Yahoo!” Tucker pretended to chase Mrs. Murphy. “Should I chew the papers?”
“No, nitwit. Circle the bed,” Mrs. Murphy ordered the dog. “When she gets here to spank us, hide under the bed with me.”
Harry, followed by Officer Cooper, charged into the room. “All right, you two!”
Mrs. Murphy hopped on the bed, performed a perfect somersault, and then as Harry reached for her she scooted off and flattened herself under the bed. Tucker was already there.
The muslin material underneath the mattress hung invitingly. From time to time Mrs. Murphy would lie on her back and pull herself, paw over paw, from one end of the bed to the other. Shreds of material gave testimony to her lateral rappeling technique. She reached up and sank in her claws.
“Don’t,” Tucker warned. “She’s furious enough as it is.”
“That’s enough, you two! I mean it. I really mean it this time. Damn, the lamp is broken.”
“Was it valuable?” Officer Cooper knelt down to pick up the pieces. She could see a doggie, ears down, staring at her. “That dog is laughing at me, I swear it.”
“A real comedienne.” Harry hunkered down too. “Mrs. Murphy, what have you done to my bed?”
“If you’d clean under here more often you’d have noticed by now,” Mrs. Murphy answered.
“The lamp not only wasn’t valuable, it was the ugliest lamp in three counties. I never got around to buying a good one. Actually, I barely have time to brush my teeth and eat.”
“H-m-m,” said Cooper.
“Oh, jeeze,” Mrs. Murphy moaned. “Here comes the lament of Father Time, gray hair and slowed reflexes. I wish she’d get over it! Dammit, Harry, the papers!”
“Don’t yowl at me, pussycat. I can sit on this bed and wait a long time for you to come out,” Harry threatened while still on her knees. “Might as well clean up this mess.” She began picking up the papers.
Officer Cooper read one as she helped. “Where’d you find these?”
“You know perfectly well, or doesn’t Rick Shaw tell you anything?”
“Oh, this and the ledger is what you filched from Maude’s desk? That got his knickers in a twist.” She giggled.