Claws And Effect Part 28

"We could burn them," Fair suggested.

"They'd just come back," Harry ruefully observed.

"Somewhere in this vast nation exists a person with an incredible mind, a person who can crack computer codes. I pray that person will wipe out everyone's IRS files and save our country. I dream about it at night. I believe in a national sales tax. Then everyone knows what they're paying. No hidden taxes. If the government can't run itself on those monies then the government can cut back. If I have to cut back as a private citizen I can expect my government to do the same. That's exactly what I think."

"Bravo." Harry finished canceling the metered mail. "Run for office."

"Little Mim has beat me to it." He shuffled his mail, organizing it into a pile according to letter size.

"That rebellion has taken second place to the mess around here. Maybe that's a good thing. Little Mim doesn't seem to know what she's searching for but young people worry more these days than we did."

"I don't know," said Harry. "Maybe after a long time you forget. You know, you forget the pain but hold on to the good part of the memory."

"Could be. Could be." Miranda smiled at Fair, who smiled back, as both were hoping Harry had done this with memories of her marriage.

"Tucker, why don't we sneak out tonight and go to the hospital? I bet those pumps get brought in as well as cleaned at night."

Pewter called out from the mail cart. "That's a seven-mile hike and it's cold at night, real cold." Her voice lowered.

"I don't mean from the farm, dimwit. I mean just before Harry leaves work we run off."

"Oh, I don't know. She'll catch us." Pewter wanted to go home after work. Supper beckoned.

"Not if we run under Mrs. Hogendobber's porch."

"Murphy, we could head straight to the hospital. All we have to do is go through yards. One road crossing but we can handle that." Tucker was thinking out loud.

"If we do that, she'll follow us. If we get close enough to the hospital I know she'll go in. She'll forget her promises and just go right in. Can't have that." Mrs. Murphy knew her human to the bone.

"It will be cold," came the mournful whine from the mail cart.

"That's why you have fur," Murphy tartly replied.

"Fine."

Murphy and Tucker looked at one another and shrugged.

At closing the tiger and corgi blasted out the back animal door. Pewter stuck close to Harry as she chased her bad pets. Although curious, the gray cat wanted to snuggle up on the sofa in front of the fire after her tuna supper. She wasn't that curious.

Harry and Miranda tried to cut off the cat and dog but the animals easily eluded them.

"Every now and then." Harry shook her head.

"I'll keep my eyes open for them."

"Thanks, Miranda. I'll leave the animal door unlocked, too. I don't know what it is. They get a notion." She glanced up at the sky. "At least it looks like it will be a clear night. No storms rolling in."

Defeated, Harry bundled Pewter into the cab of the old truck to head home.

"They're very naughty." Pewter sat right next to Harry.

"You're a good kitty." Harry rubbed her head.

"I'd like fresh tuna, please," Pewter purred, half closing her eyes, which gave her a sweet countenance.

Murphy and Tucker reached the hospital just as the loading dock was shutting down. They scooted in, hearing the big rolling doors lock behind them.

"Going to be a long night," Murphy observed.

"Yeah but someone might open the back door later. We'll get out."

"No matter what, we know we can escape in the morning. I bet if we scrounge around we'll find something to eat."

They could hear the elevator doors open and close. The s.h.i.+ft was changing. Day workers were going home and the night crew, much smaller in number, was coming to work. Then silence. Not even a footfall.

Just to make sure they remembered the layout they walked down the halls, checked the boiler room in the center, poked their heads into those closet doors that were open.

Finally they walked into the carton room.

"Clever, leaving this door open, filling it with cartons. As though there is nothing to hide," Murphy noted.

"You can hide better than I can." Tucker searched the room. "What if I lie flat over here in the darkest corner and you push a carton over me. I think that will work. After all, no one is expecting a corgi here."

"Right."

As Murphy covered up Tucker they both heard a footfall, a light footfall.

Wordlessly, the cat climbed to the top of the cartons, wedging herself between two of them. She could see everything. Tucker's face, ears covered, poked out from the carton in the dark corner. Both held their breath.

Tussie Logan softly walked inside carrying a pump. She pressed the stone in the wall. The floor door slid aside. She climbed down the ladder, pressed a b.u.t.ton down there, and the floor quietly closed up.

Neither animal moved. Three hours later the floor yawned open. Tussie climbed up the ladder, then pressed the stone. She watched the flagstone roll back, tested it with her foot, brushed off her hands, put her nurse's cap back on, and left, yawning as she walked.

They could hear her move down the hall but she didn't go to the elevator bank. Instead she opened the back door and left.

Tucker grunted as she shook off the carton. "That floor is cold."

"Let's see if we can get out of here."

The two hurried to the lone door at the end of the hall.

Tucker stood on her hind legs. "You maybe can do this."

Murphy reached up but it was a little high. "Nope."

"Get on my back."

The cat hopped onto the corgi's strong back. She easily reached the doork.n.o.b and her clever paws did the rest. They opened the door and scooted out without bothering to close it.

Within twenty minutes they were scratching at Miranda's back door.

She opened it. "Nine-thirty at night and cold. Now just what were you two bad critters doing out there?"

"If only we could tell you," Mrs. Murphy sighed.

"Come on. Bet you're hungry," said the kindly woman, who would feed the world if she could figure out how.

When the phone rang at ten that same cold night Mim, early to bed, grudgingly picked it up.

A m.u.f.fled voice said, "Your barn, tomorrow morning at nine." Then hung up.

Mim had caller ID and quickly called Sheriff Shaw at home.

"8239497." He repeated the number as she read it to him.

"She must have had fabric or something over the mouthpiece but it was a woman," Mim stated, "and she sounded familiar."

"Thanks. You've done good work. I'll have someone in the hayloft tomorrow and another officer flat in the backseat of your car. Park your car at the barn."

"I will."

When Rick checked the phone number it turned out to be the pay phone in the supermarket parking lot.

Harry chastised Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, neither of whom appeared remorseful, which only infuriated her more. She thanked Miranda for keeping them overnight. That was at seven in the morning.

By seven-thirty Rob Collier had dropped off two canvas sacks of mail, a light day. As Harry sorted mail and Miranda tackled the packages and manila envelopes, the two bold creatures told Pewter everything.

"Nurse Logan. Tussie Logan?" Pewter couldn't believe it. "It's hard to imagine her as a killer."

"We didn't say she was the killer. Only that she went down into the room and came back out three hours later. We a.s.sume she's cleaning the infusion pumps." Mrs. Murphy allowed herself a lordly tone.

"Remember the first three letters of a.s.sume." Pewter smarted off.

41.

A spiral of blue smoke lazed upward for a few feet, then flattened out. Whenever smoke descended hunters felt that scent would be good. Rick, not being a foxhunter, would have gladly picked up a good scent, figuratively speaking. He felt he was on the cusp of knowledge yet it eluded him like a receding wave.

The temperature hovered in the low forties but the air carried the hint of snow. He looked west at the gunmetal-blue clouds peeping over the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Turning up the collar of his jacket, he stood on a knoll a half mile from Mim's barn. Coop, next to him, held a cell phone in her hand. They waited for the call from the barn.

"You know I've always felt that killers, like painters, eventually leave a body of work behind so distinctive that you can identify them-by looking at the canvas. Some people kill out of self-defense. Understandable. Admirable even, and hard to fault." A plume of air escaped his lips.

"As long as those killers are men. If a wife kills in self-defense against an abusive husband people find reasons why she shouldn't have done so. In fact, boss, killing seems to still be male turf."

"Yep, for the most part it is. We jealously guard our propensity for violence. That's the real reason the services have trouble with women in combat. Scares the men." He half laughed. "If she's got an Uzi, she's as powerful as I am."

She hunched up. The wind picked up. She checked her watch. Nine-fifteen. No call.

They waited until ten-thirty, then walked back to the barn. Mim and the two officers at the barn were bitterly disappointed.

Mim returned to her house accompanied by one of the officers.

"Stay in the barn office until noon unless you hear from me," Rick ordered the other man. Then he and Cooper trudged through the woods to their squad car parked in the hay shed on a farm road. The ground was frozen. They'd drive out without getting stuck.

Once inside the car they sat for a moment while the heater warmed the vehicle and Rick squashed his cigarette in the ashtray.

"Boss." Coop unzipped her coat. "Harry had an idea."

"Sweet Jesus." He whistled.

"The Cramers foxhunt with Middleburg Hunt and Orange, too."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He turned toward her, his heavy beard shadow giving his jaw a bluish tinge.

"According to Harry it means they hunt with fast packs, they're good riders."

"So what?"

"So, she said invite them down to hunt. It might rattle our killer."

"Harry thought of that, did she?" He leaned back, putting both hands behind his head. "Remind me to take that girl to lunch."

"The sight of them might provoke our guy to do something stupid."

"We still have to keep somebody with them. No chances. Can you ride good enough to stay with them?"

"No, but Graham Pitsenberger can and so can Lieutenant-Colonel Dennis Foster. They're both tough guys. They'll be armed, .38s tucked away in arm holsters or the small of the back. We can trust them."

"You've asked them?"

"Yes. Graham will come over from Staunton. Dennis will drive down from Leesburg. Harry said she'll mount them."

"That sounds exciting," he wryly noted.

"I'll go with the Hilltoppers."

"G.o.d, Cooper, I can't keep track of all this horse lingo."

"Hilltoppers don't jump. It will take me a while before I can negotiate those jumps. I will though." A determined set to her jaw made her look the way she must have looked as a child when told no by her mother.

"I'll stick to fis.h.i.+ng. Not that I have the time. I've been promising Herb we'd go over to Highland County to fish for the last four years." He sighed, cracking his knuckles behind his head.

"You haven't spit on dogs or cussed Christians so I guess it's all right?"