November 15, 2016 Tuesday

“We’ve kept track of the bald eagle nest in Sugar Hollow,” MaryJo Cranston reported. “All eaglets survived and I wouldn’t be surprised if more eagles come in this far.”

“Why?” BoomBoom asked.

“They’ve made a big comeback on the James River and the Chesapeake. More population usually means looking for more suitable places to nest. Anyway, all good news,” MaryJo responded.

The Virginians for Sustainable Wildlife met this Tuesday at Susan Tucker’s. Each month they marveled at how quickly the time had flown by. The reports made, accepted, they finally broke for drinks, food.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, and Susan’s wonderful corgi, Owen, full brother to Tucker, shot into the dining room.

“Sounds like a stampede,” Liz Potter noted.

Tucker ever so helpfully spoke up from under the table. “That’s all Pewter. Two-Ton Tessie.”

“Die, dog!” Pewter whapped the dog right across her tender nose.

“Ow. I’m mortally wounded by a psychotic cat,” Tucker wailed.

“Oh, Tucker, when will you learn to leave her alone?” the corgi’s brother reprimanded her.

Mrs. Murphy, never one for these dramatics, sat beside Harry’s chair just in case a moment of sharing would wash over the humans engaged in chatter.

“I smell ham.” Pewter, happy to have smacked Tucker, sidled up to Dr. Jessica Ligon.

Being a veterinarian might have inoculated the young woman from falling victim to Pewter’s charms but, no, she slipped the cat a morsel of ham.

The back door opened, Ned’s baritone rang out. “I’m home.”

“We’re in the dining room,” Susan called out as Ned walked in, said his hellos, and joined them.

“I am starved. That damned city council meeting droned on and on and on. I should be paid by the hour. I try to attend one a quarter, give reports from the House of Delegates, but I might just change my mind.”

“You are a good public servant,” Susan informed him.

As he took a seat next to BoomBoom, the tall beauty remarked, “Isn’t the budget in trouble? I mean, didn’t they cut the municipal band? Cutting one of the activities that brought us all together.”

“The budget is always in trouble.” MaryJo shrugged. “Show me a political meeting where there isn’t hand-wringing and finger-pointing.”

“What we need is a good sex scandal. That will wake us up.” BoomBoom laughed.

“Don’t look at me.” Ned held up his hands in innocence. “I married the best girl in the county.”

The ladies applauded and Susan laughed even as she filled a plate for him. He could fill his own plate but she was watching his sugar intake. While he was in good shape, diabetes ran in Ned’s family.

“Anything good happen at the meeting?” Jessica inquired.

“Yes, well, the beginning of good things. I first gave a report of how things are going at the House of Delegates, my usual report. Then I presented your ideas, those of you on Save Our Old Schools, concerning rotating studies there so young people could learn about the past.”

Harry perked right up. “And?”

“Here’s how any new idea is greeted. First, silence. Then someone says we should study that. Someone else remarks money would need to be spent so bathrooms would be in order, the woodburning stoves checked for leakage and healthy inhalation.”

Susan said, “Do we need birth certificates? Is the city going to fret over gender?”

“God, we haven’t reached that point. This is only the beginning but I’m sure a lively discussion of young people’s gender will ensue. However, no one instantly opposed the idea. I didn’t even feel that slight resentment from a council member that this wasn’t his idea first.”

Cooper knocked on the back door, letting herself in. “The law.”

“We’ve got our hands up,” Ned teased as everyone raised their hands when the deputy came into the room.

“Sorry I’m late.” She gratefully sank into a chair.

“Big day?” Harry asked her neighbor.

“No more than usual, but I finished up over at St. Luke’s. Two tombstones were knocked over. Reverend Jones said this is the second time.”

Ned put down the pickled egg he was about to eat. “Not Michael and Margaret Taylor’s?”

“How did you know?” the deputy asked him.

“Fair and I put it back up. If we’d used the front-end loader, we might have harmed the stone.”

“I saw it when I was in the second story of the western part of the main church.” Harry thought a moment. “October 15, 1786. There were odd marks in the dirt over the grave, like knife thrusts. Or that’s what it looked like to me.”

“You don’t think the stone could have gouged the soil?” MaryJo stated an obvious thought.

“No. These were thin marks just like a knife. No one thought too much about it but it would seem that grave exerts a fascination,” Harry offered.

“Oh, no.” Mrs. Murphy groaned.

“Maybe she’ll forget it.” Tucker gulped a bit of cheese.

“Ha. Fat chance.” Pewter tossed her head, looking lovingly up at Jessica.

“Maybe there’s something in that grave.” Harry’s mind started spinning.

“Two old dead people.” MaryJo laughed.

“Well, yes.” Harry smiled. “But all those stories about buried treasure at the various estates, at The Barracks, well, maybe there’s treasure at St. Luke’s.”

Ned remarked with quiet authority, “You’d need to come up with a compelling reason to exhume the Taylors. I say let them rest in peace.”

“I don’t know. I mean, yes, we shouldn’t disturb the dead but there have been odd, disconnected things. The driver with his face torn off—”

Cooper jumped in. “Harry, that was ruled a…shall we say death by misadventure. Something wild killed him. It doesn’t appear to be murder.”

“Okay. But Pierre Rice was murder and then his Tahoe was found at the old school with a wire cage in the back, eagle feathers inside. And the gravestones got knocked over twice.”

“If someone thought something was in there, don’t you think they’d be digging?” BoomBoom interjected.

“Maybe they were interrupted or maybe there wasn’t time. I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud,” Harry said just as the house shook slightly, the windowpanes rattled ominously.

Ned leapt up, hurried to the window while Susan punched into The Weather Channel on her phone.

MaryJo felt the wind hit the house. “Crazy weather. You know, I’d ask a meteorologist if there were severe crosswinds where that Volvo transport was found. Driver could have pulled over to get out of the wind, stepped outside from curiosity.” She paused. “Just a thought.”

Another blast pounded the house.

“Ladies, get home while the getting is good. The Weather Chanel reports high winds followed by lashing rains and flooding. Came up out of nowhere.”

Ned turned back from the window. “Looks ugly.”

“Wasn’t on my app before,” BoomBoom complained.

Susan advised, “Girls, go on while you have a chance. I’ll clean up.” She held up her hands before anyone could protest.

MaryJo took her coat from Susan, as did Jessica, who also had a hike to get home to Nelson County.

Harry carried dishes back to the kitchen, helped by Cooper. They left last, but within fifteen minutes of the others, as they worked fast.

Heads down they ran for their cars, winds ferocious.

Cooper, driving a squad SUV, hollered to Harry, “I’ll go first. If I stop just wait behind me.”

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker flew into the car as the door was opened and Harry slid behind the driver’s seat.

“Black as the Devil’s eyebrows,” Harry commented to her animals, who hunched down in the seat.

As she drove out she felt a hard thump behind her but kept going. She wasn’t dragging anything and a heavy tree branch hadn’t landed on the back of the Volvo.

It wasn’t until the next morning, fields soaked, some trees down, as she walked out to the barn that she noticed a hole at the rear of the Volvo.

“That looks like a bullet hole,” she said to Tucker.

It was.