24

The slap slap of the paintbrush provided a rhythmic counterpoint to Mike McElvoy’s staccato yap. Orrie Eberhard, applying the second coat to the rococo molding, said nothing.

“Emotional, rude, difficult—I mean, I can work with anybody, but she was a whistling bitch.” Mike slapped his clipboard against his thigh.

Orrie fought the urge to dump the bucket of Benjamin Moore paint right on Mike’s head. Some would have splashed on Cynthia Cooper, though, and he liked her, so he kept on doing his job.

“Show me the punch list.” Cooper reached for the clipboard, ran down the list quickly. “All right, Mike, let’s start with the kitchen.”

“Fine.” He thought he could blow his way through this, but her attention to detail was unnerving.

In the cavernous kitchen he pointed to the outtake-exhaust hole in the ceiling.

“Right. It says here that it needs to be widened by two inches.” Coop pulled out a little measuring tape and measured the hole. “Read the code last night. This is code.”

“Well,” he stammered, “she was bringing in one of those twenty-thousand-dollar stoves, and it needs a larger exhaust pipe.”

“That’s not what the code says.”

“Yes, but the county commissioners will change it soon enough, and she’d have to rip out everything. I was doing her a favor.”

“She wouldn’t have to rip out anything, Mike. This house met the code when it was built. To date, the building code has not been retroactive.” Cooper smiled indulgently, which further discomfited Mike. “All right, the disposal. Let’s have a look.”

By now he knew she was going to slide under the sink. He also knew he was sinking.

Two hours later, everything had been measured and written in her notebook, plus she’d snapped photos with a disposable camera, which she’d slipped in her shirt pocket. Cooper wallowed in damning detail.

“We’ve gone through the punch list.” Mike, no longer belligerent, wanted to get out of there.

He wanted to call his lawyer.

“Yes, we have, and you’ve been most helpful. I’m glad Jurgen will finish the house.” She looked up from her copy of the list, which she’d also written down while making him wait. Steely-eyed but quiet, she said, “I’ve kept you from your next appointment. Tell them it was my fault. They can call me if they want to do so.” She handed him two cards, one for him, one for the next poor soul building a house.

He read it, slipped it in his back pants pocket. “You still haven’t told me why you’re doing this. I know the general reason, but this crawl”—he emphasized “crawl”—“seems more than that.”

He used “crawl” in the old way, meaning she was crawling over him, not a crawl on a movie screen.

“We’re working with Bedford’s sheriff department. I know building this caused a lot of stress for Carla and for you. Have to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

“Well, I didn’t kill her.”

She chilled his blood when she said, “I hope not, but everyone is a suspect until we understand the motive. You were at Poplar Forest, and you’re on the list of those not at their table during the time of the murder.”

“She pushed Tazio Chappars over the edge. Motive enough for me.” He flared up.

“And convenient for you, too, Mike.” Coop needled him. “It takes strength to cut through the gristle and muscle of someone’s neck. Tazio, perhaps, could have sliced through, but I know you could have done it. You’re strong enough.”

His jaw dropped slightly. He looked at her, mouth agape, then closed it. “Wasn’t me.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“I need to go.”

“Mim Bainbridge—Little Mim,” Cooper added. “You’ve written down the name and address as well as the date, September thirtieth, Tuesday. The page behind this punch list. You saw me flip it up. Give her my apologies. I kept you too long.”

He nodded curtly, closed the front door without slamming it.

Cooper admired Orrie’s work. “I knew a lady once named Orrie. Guess it’s like Dana or Francis or Douglas. Spelling may be different between the male and female versions, but they sound the same.”

“Sidney is another one. A lot of them when you start counting. I was named for my uncle.”

“Can you tell me anything about this job?”

“Beautiful house. No shortcuts. Best materials. Best architect.”

“From your observation, do you think Tazio could kill someone like Carla? Let me be direct: would she?”

“I don’t know about that.” Orrie wasn’t being evasive but truthful. “I could have killed Carla. She got right under your skin. Raised in a barnyard. No manners. Oh, she had them with people she thought were on her level or above her or she needed, but with the likes of me or Mike or Tazio, she was one hateful bitch.”

“I can see you’re a fan.” Cooper laughed. “How do you feel about Mike?”

“A piece of shit.”

“Well,” Cooper laughed again, “tell me how you really feel.”

“Never liked him. Known him all my life. I was standing on this ladder last Monday when Carla and Mike had their loud creative disagreement—is that the bullshit phrase? Anyway, they were back in the guest room, but I overheard Carla offer him money. She would have paid cold cash to get him the hell out of here, and he refused.”

“Of course he did, Orrie, he knew you were on this ladder.”

“Thought of that myself, later.”

“Think he put the squeeze on people?”

“I never heard any loose talk. On the other hand, he sure buys anything he wants.” Orrie carefully wiped the brush on the rim of the paint bucket, then laid it across the top. He climbed down the ladder to be level with Cooper and because he wanted to stretch.

“Cramps?”

“Get tight. Painting ceilings is the worst. I’ll keep that crick in my neck for days.”

“You’ve won the contracts for a lot of these new houses, haven’t you?”

“I have. We really earned our reputation doing restoration work. I started out with just myself and Nicky Posner. Now I have twenty people working for me plus college kids in the summer. Not good to brag, but me and the boys can do anything.”

“How come you’re here alone?”

“Most everything is done except for this last bit of trim work. Got a crew at Penny Lattimore’s—that’s an outside job; wanted to put another coat on the gardening shed. You and I could live in the shed. Another crew is out in Louisa County at a big place. I figured this would give me a few days of quiet. Course, I never expected Carla to be murdered. Still, it has been quiet.”

“Jurgen came out?”

“No. He called me and told me to keep going.”

“Your jobs—has Mike always been the inspector?”

Orrie fetched a blue bandanna slipped through the loop on the side of his painter’s pants. He dabbed his brow.

“Orrie?” Cooper waited.

“Sorry. Mike and Tony about even.”

“Is there as much acrimony when Tony’s the inspector?”

“No.”

“Orrie, if you think of anything that might be relevant to this case, no matter how trivial it might seem to you, please call.” She handed him a card.

“I will.” He slipped the bandanna back through the pants’ loop. “Don’t think Tazio did it, do you?”

“I found her standing over the body with a bloody knife in her hand. I have to go with what I saw. If I were Bedford County’s prosecuting attorney, I’d have an open-and-shut case.”

“What does your gut tell you?”

“I thought I was supposed to ask the questions,” she said in a genial tone.

“I trust my gut more than my brain, what brain I have.”

“Actually, I do, too, but it takes years to learn that, and some people never do. Sometimes we know without knowing, and sometimes we know and we can’t prove how we know.”

“And?”

“My eyes told me she killed Carla. My gut…” She shook her head. “I’m not sure, Orrie. Doesn’t feel right.”

Orrie put his hand on the side of the ladder, paused. “There is something: I never saw Mike have a run-in with a man. Always the woman, when she was in the house without the husband. Don’t know if that’s important.”

“I think it is. Thank you.”

Twenty minutes later, Cooper pulled the squad car into the south side of the parking lot at Seminole Square, so named for the trail that led from the Mid-Atlantic states down to Florida. Two tobacco shops were relatively close to each other. One was in Barracks Road Shopping Center, the other here.

Charlottesville lacked a true town center. Someone might say it was Court Square at the county courthouse, but not so, not enough life there. Places like Richmond, or Charleston, South Carolina, or even Oxford, Pennsylvania, had true centers around a town square, but this place did not. Hives of activity dotted Albemarle County, and yet it lacked that one special place where every resident knew the core rested.

The proprietor of the shop, a well-groomed Cuban gentleman of some years, greeted her with a smile. She often accompanied Rick here when he’d splurge for a pack of Dunhills.

“How are you?”

“Good, and you?”

He shook his head. “Violence. So much violence lately.”

“Usually the outbursts occur during the sweltering summer days and nights. Can’t quite put this together. Well, Dr. Wylde’s killer I can.”

The gentleman nodded. “No way to solve a problem.” He brightened. “I am glad you are here. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to buy Rick a carton of Dunhills. What would be better, the blue pack, which are mild, or the red, regular?”

“For him, the red. For you, the mild. Have you ever tried the menthol? Clears the sinus.”

“No. I tell myself I don’t smoke, but I am forever cadging cigarettes off the boss. I owe him a carton.”

He bent over, pulled a carton from under the counter.

“Would you mind if I stepped into the humidor? I love the smell.”

“Go right ahead.” He sprinted out from behind the counter and slid open the glass door. Immediately the place filled with competing, rich aromas.

She stepped inside, looking at all the pretty cigar boxes. After a few huge inhales, she stepped out.

“Thank you.”

“Many ladies smoke cigars.”

“I don’t think I’m up to it.” She smiled.

“Mrs. Steinhauser was in here this morning with Mr. Lattimore. She bought her usual carton of cigarettes. He bought a box of Tito’s. Most people don’t know the brand. It’s not extremely expensive. She bought six Montecristo Petit Edmundos, a very nice cigar. She said she smokes cigars when no one except for Mr. Lattimore is looking.” He smiled like the Cheshire cat.

Neither one needed to comment on their friendship, which may well have tipped over into an affair.

Cooper knew Folly’s husband was jealous. However, he hadn’t stepped in to end the friendship, so maybe it was just that.

“Well, why don’t you select a very mild cigar for me and I will try it tonight?”

He came back with a fat, long Montecristo. “Don’t worry about the size. The longer, the smoother the draw. Just try it, and don’t try to smoke all of it. A few pleasant notes.” He smiled while he rang up the bill, throwing in a large box of cigar matches. “From me to you.” He handed her a blue pack of Dunhills. “You will enjoy them.”

“I know I will. Thank you.”

“You always use a match to light your cigarette, no?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.” His hand swept over the case in the middle of the room. “Expensive, very pretty to hold in the hand, but the tobacco remembers the butane. A match, yes, always use a match. And don’t tell, because I need to sell those lighters.” He laughed.

He was right, too. The oily note of butane could slightly taint the tobacco. Purists always used matches.

She walked out like a kid from the candy store who was given a swirled cherry sucker. She knew that smoking was bad for your health. She truly believed everyone would be better off without it, but in her job she could be dead in a minute. Right now. An alarm could go off in a car in the parking lot or a store. She’d answer the call and the perp could blow her away. The thought of her mortality stayed close. So why not take a nicotine hit? She told herself she wasn’t really a smoker. She only bummed a cigarette a day from Rick.

She opened the car, put the brown paper bag in the passenger seat, and fired the motor. He’d be thrilled with his carton of exquisite cigarettes.

         

As Cooper drove back to the station, Harry was leaning over a paddock fence with Paul de Silva, looking at the Mineshaft colt, now nine months old. Big Mim produced good results in everything she did. She’d bred her broodmares to a variety of good sires, most of them middle range in price. The Mineshaft colt was anything but middle range, the stud fee being one hundred thousand dollars.

Big Mim had been smart to take her best mare, the one with the best cross, to Mineshaft when she did, because the sire’s fee was bound to rise. The top end of the Thoroughbred market was very healthy. The middle and the low end had begun to sag, reflecting economic fear, punishing gas prices, and taxes that would most assuredly rise. The situation in the Mideast hardly engendered economic confidence, either.

“What’s she going to do?” Harry admired the dark-bay fellow.

“I think she’s going to keep him.”

“Really?” This was news.

“Says she hasn’t run a horse on the flat in decades.” Paul loved the horses, but Tazio’s situation had dampened his usual high spirits.

“Heard anything?”

“Ned sees her every day. Even when he’s in Richmond. I went down Sunday.”

“How did she look?”

“Beautiful.” A flash of the courtier returned. “Tired. Worried.”

“I thought I’d go down Friday.”

“Set bail.”

“I heard.” Harry folded her hands as she leaned over the top rail.

“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars. For a woman who has never even had a parking ticket.”

“Murder One.” Harry looked down at her boots. “I’m sorry, Paul. We’ll find a way. You know we’re all trying.”

The cats, Tucker, and Brinkley watched the Mineshaft foal and the others, too.

“I want Mommy.” Brinkley’s soft brown eyes filled with tears.

“Be strong. She needs you to be strong,” Tucker advised. “We’re here to help.”

“I miss her so much. Paul is a nice man, but I miss her scent, her voice. I love her. She loves me. She is my best friend.”

“We know how you feel,” Pewter commiserated.

For a moment, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker remained silent, for Pewter rarely admitted how much she loved Harry. She pretended to be aloof.

“Brinkley, did your mom ever say anything about Carla? Not how much trouble she was, but if she’d seen her, say, with another man?”

“No. She said that she thought Carla and Mike McElvoy would kill each other if she didn’t kill them first. She didn’t mean that. It was a figure of speech.”

“Can you think of anyone who hated your mom? Hated her enough to set her up?”

“No. Even Carla wouldn’t have done that. Carla needed Mom, even if she did treat her ugly.” The lab’s gorgeous coat appeared almost white in the afternoon sun.

“True.” Mrs. Murphy stretched. “And Tazio needed Carla. It was an important commission. She couldn’t afford to get a reputation that might turn other people away.”

“They’d only have to know Carla to know the truth of that.” Brinkley’s neck fur ruffled in indignation.

“People have to live here for a while to know those things. New people listen. Actually, even people who aren’t new listen. A gossip campaign does damage,” Mrs. Murphy sagely noted. “Humans are prone to it.”

“Remember the Republican primary in South Carolina in 2000?” Tucker followed these things with Harry as they both watched the TV or read the paper. “They saw that Karl Rove started a whispering campaign about John McCain having an affair with a woman of color. You’d think no one would believe it. Did. Carla’s gossip could have hurt Tazio if Tazio had really set her off.”

“Mother didn’t kill her, no matter what.” Brinkley was adamant.

“Who’s growling?” Harry turned from the fence.

Paul did, as well. “Brinkley, be nice.”

“I am.” Brinkley lay down, putting his head on his paws.

“He’s so sad, poor fellow,” Paul remarked. “I’m not much help. I feel…I can’t even describe how I feel.”

Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Brinkley. “Anything else, anything at all?”

“No. Mother said that Carla was an emotionally unrestrained person. She considered it irresponsible. After Dr. Wylde was shot, Carla called to cancel her meeting with Mom and Mike, and when Mom put down the phone she said Carla was behaving like an idiot, that you would have thought Dr. Wylde was her lover, the way she was sobbing.”

Mrs. Murphy stopped mid-rub. She said nothing, but a tiny piece of this wretched puzzle had fallen into place.