27

Neither Harry nor Fair ate big suppers. A big breakfast sent them on their way and then a good lunch kept them rolling. All a big supper did was turn to fat because you couldn’t work it off.

She’d thrown together a nice salad with small bits of the leftover grilled chicken that was Fair’s triumph over the weekend. The scent of grilled chicken sent Pewter into a frenzy.

“Me! Me!” She stood on her hind legs, petting Harry’s calves.

“Oink. Oink,” Tucker grunted.

“Shut up, tailless wonder.” Pewter dropped back on her haunches and swiped at the corgi, who ducked in time.

“Dear God, give me patience, but hurry,” Harry grumbled, putting some chicken in three separate bowls on the floor.

Pewter whirled toward the bowl, her hind legs skidding out.

Once she gained traction, she sped past Mrs. Murphy and Tucker.

“Amazing how fast that fat cat can move when food’s the temptation.” Harry put her hands on her hips just as the big vet truck rumbled down the long dirt drive.

As Fair walked through the door, she set a glass of tonic water with a wedge of lime and four ice cubes by his plate; one for her, too. Both of them swore the quinine in the tonic kept them from getting leg cramps. Lately, medical researchers doubted this, but Harry doubted that medical researchers ever put in a full day’s work on a farm, especially in punishing heat.

Although it was almost October, the days could simmer but the nights brought relief. Then it would turn in a heartbeat, the mercury hanging in the low sixties, soon to drop into the fifties, and with November the plunge would continue. Nature always granted Virginia a respite with Indian summer, though, a few days or even a week of a return to temperatures in the mid-sixties to seventies. Indian summer, beautiful as it was with the fall foliage, tinged hearts with melancholy. It would soon vanish, to be followed by the hard frosts of winter, denuded trees, and a palette of beige, gray, black, silver, and, finally, white.

“Beautiful girl.” He kissed her on the cheek, washed his hands at the sink, and sat down.

Harry took her seat and they ate their salad, caught up on the day’s doings. They’d talked about the cigarette butt on the floor of the building adjacent to Will Wylde’s, so she told him she’d called Cooper about Folly smoking Virginia Slims. She didn’t tell of her conversation with Folly. A secret was a secret with Harry.

“Doesn’t it look barren without the sunflowers?” he said after he’d registered her report.

“You know, it really does, but those boys did a good job.”

The original plan was for Harry, Fair, and their friends to harvest the sunflowers. Eventually Harry realized that, while they could do the labor, this was only her first crop. Fearing she’d damage those big, rich heads, she broke down and hired a crew recommended to her by Waynesboro Nurseries, the same company that had put in Benita’s maples. Granted, labor cut into the profit, but there was very little waste. They got it all up in two days, Monday and today.

“I thought I’d make more.” She put down her fork for a minute. “I mean, I would have, but—”

“Harry, you did the right thing. If nothing else, you saved Miranda’s back. Our friends are very good to us, but sometimes it’s best not to ask for favors.”

“You’re right, but she’s on her hands and knees in her garden, remember. As it is, we made three thousand dollars.”

“Whenever you balance the books, if you wind up in the black, that’s good.” The slightly bitter taste of mesclun burst on his tongue. “These greens are so crisp.”

“Fresh out of the garden. The battle with the bugs.” She grinned. “I won this year.”

“You won because we policed the garden.” Pewter lifted her head from her bowl.

“What a liar you are.” Tucker laughed. “All you did was sleep under the walnut tree with your face pointed in the direction of the garden.”

“The barn swallows, tree swallows, and purple martins ate the bugs,” Mrs. Murphy reported. “Maybe even the blue jay ate a few, worthless though he is.”

“He’s funny. He imitates the call of a red-shouldered hawk, scares the other birds, then swoops down to eat, undisturbed. They figure it out, come back, and remonstrate with him.” Tucker studied birds, although in a different fashion from the cats, whose motives were murderous.

“People, a lot of them, don’t realize that blue jays will mimic other birds. They know that mockingbirds do it, but they forget about the jays. With his versatile voice, he can get close to the hawk notes.”

“Voice isn’t as smooth. You know, their throats are different from ours. They can make two different sounds at the same time. We can’t,” Tucker mused.

“Humans can talk out of both sides of their mouth at the same time,” Pewter added sarcastically, then looked at Mrs. Murphy’s empty bowl. “You sure ate in a hurry.”

“So you couldn’t steal my food,” Mrs. Murphy forthrightly replied.

“What is this, assassinate Pewter’s reputation day? Tucker calls me a liar, you say I steal food. I ought to box both your ears.”

Neither animal took the bait, remaining silent. Miffed, Pewter stuck her face back in her ceramic bowl to lick it since she’d gobbled up everything.

Harry and Fair finished their light supper. As he did the dishes, she turned on the TV in the living room.

“Thought I’d look at the weather before finishing the rest of the chores. Less light now.”

“I’ve been so busy I haven’t heard the weather or the news.”

“No candidate yet for office manager, chief factotum?”

“No. You know who I’d like to hire is Margaret Westlake. Don’t know what will happen to Will’s practice, so I thought I’d wait a bit to talk to her.”

“Don’t you think she’ll go with another human doctor?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Kylie Kraft?”

“She’s a nurse. Might know some office management. Anyway, Kylie goes through boyfriends liked toothpicks. Too much drama and you don’t need that in the office.”

“That she does.” Harry patiently waited for the weather.

“She done them wrong.” Fair wiped his hands dry and walked into the living room.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker also watched the news.

“She’s in her late twenties.” Harry lukewarmly defended Kylie.

He shook his head. “She’s got a mean streak where men are concerned.” He dropped his arm over her shoulder. “You crack me up.”

“Why?”

“You are out of the gossip loop. By the time I hear it, it’s old news, but I hear it.”

“I hear some things—but not too much.” She watched the world news; a picture of car-bomb debris in Baghdad, bodies everywhere, flashed before their eyes. “They can all kill one another for all I care.”

“Harry,” he chided her gently.

“I mean it. For thousands of years those tribes and religious factions have hated one another. We aren’t going to solve it. It’s civil war. They’ll kill one another until they can’t stand it anymore, just like what happened in the English Civil War and just like what happened here. When people become that irrational, only overwhelming pain brings them back to their senses.”

He sighed. “I wish you were wrong.”

“I wish I were, too.” She slipped her arm around his waist. “Hell, we’re killing one another, too. Even though I didn’t see her, the vision of Carla with blood all over her gown—ugh.”

“Isn’t it odd that humans will kill over an idea or for money?” Tucker cocked her head to one side.

“They don’t,” Pewter swiftly replied. “That’s the cover for the real reason.”

“Which is?” Tucker queried.

“The pantry. All wars start in the pantry.”

Conversation stopped as the local news came on and there was Little Mim, mikes thrust in front of her.

“My opposition to abortion came from my own experience. I don’t regret not sharing that experience. We are all entitled to a private life. Now that mine has been so vilely exposed, I want to go on the record to tell you all, this outing, if you will, and the murder of Dr. Wylde has changed my mind. I will support reproductive control. I will fight this violent fanaticism with all I have in me as Crozet’s vice mayor, and I know I can count on the support of the mayor. I want to say to every woman out there who may be considering a termination, think it over. It’s one of the biggest decisions you will ever make. If there’s any way you can keep the baby, do.”

She fielded a few more questions, said, “Thank you,” and walked back toward the small city offices to the waiting arms of her husband.

Big Mim stood next to Jim.

The newscaster, Dinny Suga, turned to face the camera, then read from a paper handed to her. She looked into the lens and, rephrasing the bulletin, said, “We have a missing-persons report. Mrs. Penelope Lattimore is reported missing by her husband—”

“What in the hell is going on?” Fair exploded, his voice overriding Suga’s report.

“I saw Penny this morning. How can she be missing?”

Fair turned to her. “This morning?”

“Keswick Country Club. I stopped by.”

“Harry, usually an adult, unless impaired, has to be missing for at least twenty-four hours before a report is filed. Something is very wrong here.”

“You mean if Penny’s disappearance made the news, they fear the worst?”

“Yes. Obviously, we’re supposed to be on the lookout for her, but she’s more than missing, I’m afraid.”