CHAPTER 35

“Amputate. It’s the only way to save her,” Dr. Middleton gravely said.

Walter and Sister bent over the stainless-steel table where the anesthetized vixen lay. Using Sister’s instructions and a Havahart trap, Walter had caught the red fox with the infected paw.

He’d watched her limping about down by the ruins. When she went off her feed he knew the infection was worsening.

“How much of her paw do you think you’ll need to remove?” Walter stroked the animal’s beautiful head.

“I won’t really know until I get in there and see how far the infection has spread. It’s in the bone, and that worries me. Her white cell count is hitting the stratosphere. I’ve got to do this now.”

“Of course, we must save her. I’ll pay all expenses,” Sister said. She loved all foxes, and this perfect young vixen with her spotless white tip had to be one of Target’s daughters.

“My concern is she won’t be able to survive in the wild.” Dr. Middleton removed his glasses.

A compassionate veterinarian and also a foxhunter, Chris Middleton was a trusted figure in the community.

“She’ll have to live in a kennel, then,” Walter replied. “I can build her a wonderful home with a doghouse, plus I’ll dig a big den for her, too.”

“You’ll have to dig two feet down, lay in the chain-link fence. Even with one paw she’s going to try to dig out.”

“By the time she’s ready to come home, she’ll have everything she needs.” Walter rubbed her ears.

“All right, then. I’ll get to work.”

“Do you mind if I stay?” Walter asked.

“No. Be glad to have you.” Chris was already scrubbing up.

“Gentlemen, I’ll leave you to it, much as I’d like to watch.” Sister reached over and patted the vixen’s side. “You’ll get through this, miss. You’re in good hands.” She looked at Walter and smiled. “Maybe I should say a pair of good hands.”

“He’s smarter than I am.” Walter smiled back. “I only had to learn one animal inside out. He had to learn dozens.”

“Bird bones. Now, that’s something.” Chris pulled on a pair of thin latex gloves. “Walter, scrub up. I might need you.”

“Okay, boys. Walter, call and give me a report.” Sister opened the large, heavy swinging doors, passed down the short hall and back into the waiting room.

Sybil Fawkes, trying to get out the front door with her arms full of a large bag of cat food, was surprised when Sister appeared to open the door for her. “Where’d you come from?”

“Operating room.”

“Not a hound, I hope, or Raleigh?”

“No. Walter managed to trap that injured vixen at his place. Chris’s working on her now.” She flipped up the hatchback of Sybil’s Mercedes wagon.

“Thank you. Usually the girl at the front desk will help me, but today everybody’s busy.” She exhaled heavily. The forty-pound bag of food seemed heavier than usual. She closed the hatch. “Sister, I wanted to tell you that I know I’m not Doug Kinser, but I’m learning a lot out there.”

“I’m grateful for your help and I think you’re doing very nicely.”

“Thank you. I get nervous, you know.”

“No one day is like any other. If you think about it, this is a sport that has no time-outs, no manicured playing field, no time limits. And when I watch other sports, you know how I love baseball and football, I watch man pitted against man. At least, usually it’s men.” She smiled. “But with us, it’s man against fox. Guess who wins?”

“Humbling.” Sybil noticed the dogwoods turning red. “Won’t be long till Opening Hunt.”

“No. I’d guess the first frost is two weeks away, max.”

“Sister, thanks for all you’ve done for Mom and Dad. Me too.”

“Your mother and father helped me get through Ray’s death, and then Big Raymond’s. That’s what friends do, and I am so lucky to have you all for my friends. This is an odd time. Or maybe it’s me. I hope everyone at After All is—”

“Coping?” Sybil filled in for her. “Horrible as it was to find Nola, in a way it was also an ending of sorts. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I called on Frances this morning. She’s bearing up, but she hates that there are people who think Ralph brought this on himself somehow. Maybe it’s easier to think that.”

“Why?”

“Blame the victim. It eases the threat. People are always looking for easy answers, aren’t they?”

“Do you feel threatened?”

Sybil paused, then looked Sister straight in the eye. “Yes.”

“Has anyone verbally threatened you?”

“No, but”—she fumbled around for a moment—“I feel watched. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel a tension building.”

“Yes.” Sister knew exactly the feeling.

“And Ken said to me after Ralph’s service, that night, he said this all gets back to Nola and Guy. And then he really upset me because he said some people might think I killed Nola for the inheritance.” Her creamy complexion darkened. “I nearly slapped him, even though he doesn’t believe it. I don’t know when I’ve been that upset. Never.”

“I would be, too.”

“Have you heard that, Sister?”

She didn’t lie. “Yes.”

“You don’t believe it—do you?” Sybil’s voice rose, plaintive.

“No. If you were going to kill Nola you would have done it when you two were teenagers. Like normal siblings.” She smiled, hoping to relieve Sybil.

Tears filled her light blue eyes. “The times I told her I hated her. That I wished she were dead. The time I threw a bottle of Coke at her head. God.”

“You were kids. She gave as good as she got. What about the time she sewed shut the legs on all your breeches just before Opening Hunt?”

“Oh that!” Sybil smiled.

“The time she put ginger under your horse’s tail. That was a rodeo show.”

“I still don’t know how I hung on.” Sybil brightened. “I look at my two boys and wonder how I’ll live through their teens.”

“You will. Everyone lived through your teens and my teens, and well, that’s just how it goes.” She put her hand on Sybil’s forearm. “You said you felt watched. Is there anyone in particular?”

“It’s kind of a general feeling. I guess some people really do think I killed her. Maybe others wonder if I’ll crack under the strain. They don’t think I’m a murderer, or should I say murderess, but you know. Hard times and all that. And maybe I’m supersensitive. I’m jumpy. I can’t help it. I feel this . . . this . . . awful creepy something. Like there’s a monster hiding under my bed.”

“Honey, I’m going to ask you a very offensive question. Under the circumstances, I hope you will forgive me.”

“Go ahead.” Sybil wondered what this lady could ever do to offend her.

“Did you ever sleep with Guy Ramy?”

Sybil blinked. “No. That doesn’t offend me, but no. Why?”

“Revenge for all the beaux Nola took, so to speak.”

“Oh that.” Sybil shrugged. “She was beautiful. Kissed by the gods. I knew before first grade that I could never compare with Nola.”

“That must have been very difficult.”

“It hurt like hell. What could I do? She was my sister. I loved her.”

“If it’s any consolation, she loved you, too, and you are also a beautiful woman. But we all paled standing next to Nola. She was like Ava Gardner or Vivien Leigh. Otherworldly beautiful.” She smiled. “Showing my age by my points of reference.”

“Not at all. You’ll never get old.” She changed the subject. “You can tell Mother’s feeling better because she visited the Tarot reader, Madame Pacholi. You know her real name has got to be Smith or Schwartz or something like that. Anyway, Mother had her cards read and a card came up that supposedly represented justice. So Mother feels certain justice will be done. Oh, and you’ll love this. She asked about you, so Madame Pacholi read your cards in your absence. Let’s see, I think some kind of queen came up, but the long and short of it is that you will be foxhunting when you are one hundred. Nifty, huh?”

“Tell that to Crawford Howard.”

They both laughed.

“You know, speaking of being watched, there’s this little screech owl who hangs around our place now and she doesn’t seem to care if we see her. She blinks and winks. And sometimes the big one, the horned owl, will be with her. Maybe we have more mice than we thought.”

“Every now and then I’ll see the little one.” Sister thought the little owl adorable, as long as she kept quiet. “I guess she’s taken a shine to you and Tedi.”

“Oh, she winks at Dad, too.”

“The hussy.”

“Why did you ask if I’d slept with Guy? There’s more to it than revenge.”

“Ken.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Ken found out, he’d have killed Guy.”

A kind of secret pride shot through Sybil, the thought that her husband would kill a man out of jealousy. This rapidly dissipated. “He’s not the type. Ken’s just not that passionate.” She shrugged.

“It’s a funny thing about men. We want them passionate and out of control and then we don’t. One of the great things about getting old is qualities like kindness, humor, reliability, compassion—oh, how sexy they become.”

“Raymond had all those.”

“Actually, he did. But he was a passionate man and rarely met a beauty he didn’t try to conquer, within reason.”

“God, you don’t think he slept with Nola, do you?”

“No.” Sister laughed. “He’d always consider a woman ten years younger, and then when he reached his sixties, twenty years younger, but Nola was always safe. However, I expect your mother had to slap him once or twice and always had the supreme good manners never to tell me.”

“How did you stand it?”

“I loved him. You don’t really know someone until you live with him, and every day Raymond exploded with energy, love of life. That’s why I fell in love with him, and he never lost that energy.”

“He was the most fun. He’d let us kids ride up front sometimes when he led the field. He’d make us feel important.”

“Charm. Irresistible charm.”

“Funny thing, you said you don’t know a man until you live with him. But I think you can live with a man and not know him. I think any two people, whether it’s husband and wife, or lovers, or parents and children, can miss seeing things. And sometimes they’re things everyone else knows. It’s peculiar.” She paused a moment. “You say Ken could have killed Guy out of jealousy. What about Nola? Could she have killed Guy?”

“It’s possible that two different people killed them,” Sister replied.

“One. I believe it was one.”

“I do, too, but I’m letting my mind go anywhere and everywhere.”

“You know I would have never gone to bed with Guy Ramy even if he’d been attracted to me before I got serious about Ken. He was too—flash.”

“That he was.”

“Like a red Corvette. Nola ate that up.”

“When she was sexually done with a man was she really done? She had an affair with Ralph. When it was over, did she leave him alone or would she come back just to exert power over him?”

“Done,” Sybil simply said. “Poor Ralph. I loved him.”

“Childhood friends. The best.” Sister exhaled through her nose.

“And you know what else? I keep thinking about Peppermint, that Pepper led us to Nola. There’s some kind of poetry to that, something I don’t understand, I can’t put it into words, but”—she closed her eyes— “God, I want this to be over!”

“It will be.”

“Do you know something I don’t?”

“No, but the discovery of Nola’s and Guy’s bodies certainly can’t have added to their killer’s tranquillity. He’s arrogant and opportunistic, but stupid, too. His arrogance has made him stupid. Killing Ralph like that.”

“Maybe he thought it was kill or be killed.” She scuffed at the bluestone in the parking lot. “I hope I get to see him caught and punished.”

“I think every person in our hunt field feels that except one.”

“Who?”

“The killer.”