Driving into town on Thursday, Sister was glad she had canceled the day’s hunt. Although it had been well ploughed, Soldier Road, a two-lane east–west road, proved slick in spots. The sun lit up the eastern side of Hangman’s Ridge. It loomed a quarter of a mile to Sister’s right. She was by the western side, still dark. Angled on a northeast, southwest plane, it rose one thousand feet above the rolling wild meadows surrounding it. With the sun behind it, shining through the black branches, she could clearly see the enormous old hanging tree.
Forever windswept, if foxes ran up the ridge they always gained at least ten minutes. Also, generations of foxes had expertly dug rangy dens up there, some impressive, others just places to duck into when pursued. She wondered if these present-day foxes were descended from foxes who had seen the hangings. In the early days of the Virginia colony, a corpse would be left up there to swing and decay as a warning. By the mid-1750s, the relatives were allowed to cut down the criminal and give him a proper burial. If he had repented prior to his hanging, his body could be buried in consecrated ground.
A rational person, seeing the hanged, eyes plucked out by greedy birds, might reconsider his plans to clean out a bank. But the impulsive human, probably not terribly bright, would blunder on, despite such gruesome public displays. There appeared to be no truly successful deterrent to crime.
Then again, why rob a bank? The easiest way to rob a bank is to own one.
Laughing to herself, she slowly made her way into Charlottesville, up 29 North to Seminole Shopping Center. Parking was no problem. Hardly anyone was there. She popped into Dover Saddlery for a gel pad, after which she decided to stop in the small tobacco shop.
The daughter of the owner, Elizabeta, an attractive woman with lustrous black hair, greeted Sister. “Hello. Are you looking for yourself, or picking up something for someone else?”
Leaning across the glass top counter, Sister admitted, “Actually, I’m hoping you can tell me about American Smokes.”
“The murders?”
“Have other people asked? I suppose they might. It’s been in the papers.”
“Come ’round here and sit.” She warmly invited Sister to join her behind the counter. “Given the weather, I suspect we will be uninterrupted.” She sighed. “You’d be surprised at how weather affects sales of almost any product. Anyway, have people asked us about it? A few, but mostly we’ve read about the murders in the papers, too, and are baffled.”
“Why? Because nothing was stolen?”
Elizabeta sat upright. “It’s bizarre. If you’re running the risk of committing murder, you might as well go on a spending blowout before you’re caught.”
Sister laughed. “That’s one way to look at it. But it’s also so odd that in each case a pack of American Smokes was on the victim’s chest. Do you carry the brand?”
“We’ve never heard of American Smokes.”
“What?”
“When I read about the murders, I thought American Smokes might be a new brand, but we’ve yet to get a sales call. The market has room for old-time cigarettes—by that, I mean premium tobacco. Everything mass-produced is made cheaper and the companies figure no one will notice the drop in quality. But no salesperson has called on us. Other stores in the county and in Richmond don’t know anything about it either.”
“You called around about American Smokes?”
“Both Dad and I did. If anyone knows anything, they aren’t telling us.”
“When you say cigarettes are made cheaper today, do you mean the grade of tobacco?”
“Well, some high-priced brands are still using the finest grade, but most aren’t. What sends me into a spin is that cigarettes contain thirty percent less tobacco than they did years ago.”
“I had no idea.”
“That’s why they burn so fast. A couple of deep draws and the darn thing’s about to burn your nose off, even if you buy king size. It’s such a rip-off. Same price. Less product.”
“You think this is due to the high taxes on cigarettes?”
“Pfft.” Elizabeta waved her hand. “Smoking has dropped in America, but it’s booming in Asia, Africa, and much of South America. Booming.” She lifted her nose, sniffed. “I think I can smell some exhaled smoke right now blown across the Pacific.” She giggled.
Sister giggled, too. “Next thing, we’ll be ordered to wear gas masks.”
“Who knows what legislation will be passed next? But I can swear that tobacco is the most heavily taxed product in the country, even more than liquor.”
Sister thought about this. She wasn’t going to question a woman whose income depended on the plant. She expected it was true.
The younger woman continued, “It’s not like beer, you know all those microbreweries? Cigarettes and tobacco are a whole different ball game. A brewery has a physical place. People can go in and sample the beer. I can’t put out a cup full of sticks, like Dad did when he was young. You’d buy a cigarette for a penny, or maybe a few, and test them out at your leisure.” She paused. “Like beer, there are so many different tobacco tastes. Well, anyway, there’s no way to test a product unless you buy a couple of packs or you borrow a cigarette from a friend. Who is going to buy a bunch of expensive packs to see if they like the product? And for you, or any customer, a company needs shelf space. You come in here or you go to the supermarket or corner store for one of the huge brands, you can find it. A new brand from a start-up company would have to contact every single small outlet, as well as the people who run the big chain stores to beg for space. Obviously, the big boys want to hog as much shelf space as they can. Remember back when Coca-Cola and Pepsi had a soda war? It was all about shelf space.”
“Fascinating,” said Sister. “I’ve never worked in retail.”
“What was your trade?”
“I was a geology professor at Mary Baldwin.” Sister slyly smiled. “I got my rocks off.” Then she laughed. “I think it would be funnier were I male.”
The lady tossed her head, black hair shining. “Still, pretty good. Sometimes I wish I had gone to college. I’m not much for books.”
“It’s overrated. We’re all born with special abilities, and college is only for some.”
“Well, it wasn’t good for me. But retail is hard, especially when the laws keep changing.” She threw up her hands. “When Dad goes, I really don’t know if I will keep the shop. I’ll hope to sell it, but who knows?” She shrugged.
“Your father is Cuban?”
“Yes, he is. Did he tell you that?”
“Every now and then I come into the store with my gentleman friend and the two of them rattle on about cigars. Like every Cuban I have ever met, along with being incredibly courtly, he said there is no cigar tobacco like Cuban.”
“God’s honest truth.” She thought for a moment. “Another reason why there are hardly any start-up tobacco companies. Too hard to learn about it and too hard to grow. People have no idea.”
“That I do know,” said Sister. “I remember when I was a kid we’d drive down to Charleston, passing huge fields of tobacco.”
“Even today when they’ll come along and cut the entire plant, it’s not easy,” said Elizabeta. “Someone still has to go out when the plant blooms and pick off the buds. It’s sticky. The best of the best still do everything by hand. Take the top leaves first, watch the leaves change color, know when to pick and throw out the bottom sand lugs. Know whether to air cure, flue cure, all that stuff. That’s why you pay a pretty penny for a premium cigarette. But it tastes like nothing else. There is no cheap way to grow and harvest good tobacco, even with so-called modern improvements.”
“Who will do the field work?”
She raised then dropped her shoulders. “Not white people, I can tell you that. The only white people I ever see in a tobacco field are the people who own it, and a lot of them have to work it. The Mexicans smoke cigarettes, but they don’t have a culture of growing tobacco like the U.S. used to have. The black folks that knew so much, well, most of them have passed on and a world of knowledge passed with them.”
“We’ve lost years of hard-earned knowledge in so many fields,” Sister said. She, too, felt the loss of the old people and the old ways. “Everyone is too good for fieldwork now. Hell, I cut my own hay. Have help baling it, but I get out there and toss those bales. Keeps a person strong and healthy. It’s a lot less expensive than a cabinet full of pills and a trip to the doctor every time you get an ache.”
“Dad says that, too. He says everyone is scared of their own body.”
Both women laughed.
Sister returned to the topic of fascination for both women. “Since both murder victims were Cuban or second-generation Cuban, they might have been mixed up in some anti-Castro group. I mean, have you thought maybe it’s political?”
“Could be, or maybe they just pissed somebody off.” The pretty woman shrugged.
Sister paused. “It is strange. I was looking up stuff on the Internet, never a good idea. I waste so much time online, but I was shocked to find that since our country has demolished its tobacco industry the world’s largest tobacco grower is China. The Turks grow a lot, as does Brazil.”
“Inferior. All inferior. And if you really want to pass out, smoke an Egyptian cigarette. My God, the worst. Their most popular brand, Cleopatra, could kill a cow. If Cleo came back from the dead, she should throw asps at the manufacturers.”
Sister laughed at the vision of a resurrected queen tossing snakes in a cigarette factory. She looked out the large windows.
“Sky’s getting dark again. Well, I’d better head home. Thank you for your time.”
They both stood up and the woman asked, “You said you come in with your boyfriend?”
“Gray Lorillard.”
“The black fellow with the silver moustache? He’s so handsome he could be a model.”
“Please don’t tell him that.” Sister spontaneously hugged the woman, as it had been such a pleasant visit.
As she headed home, she mused about how her parents would have been shocked that she had just hugged someone she barely knew. Well, a lot of things would have shocked Mom and Dad, but they would have adjusted.
She thought, too, how strange that the equine business bounced back from nearly going kaput after the automobile became affordable. Horse numbers plummeted, then rose again. Albemarle County alone is presently home to fourteen thousand horses. The tobacco industry once appeared invulnerable, the horse industry seemed doomed. Now the reverse proved true. Odd. Even stranger was that no one seemed to know anything about American Smokes. Gliding past Hangman’s Ridge, Sister wondered why. She had seen the cigarette soft pack on Adolfo’s chest. Someone was making and selling the brand.
She pulled into the long unpaved drive to her house and then saw where she’d run over some brick walkways when plowing snow.
“Dammit. I bet I knocked off some bricks. Well, nothing I can do until spring.” She parked the truck by the mudroom door.
The animal door flew open as Raleigh and Rooster rapturously ran out to greet her.
“You didn’t take us,” Rooster complained. “You should never go anywhere without us.”
“And you were gone so long. Forever!” Raleigh leaned against her leg as she retrieved her everyday bag, the bottom wearing badly.
Golly stuck her head out the animal door to observe the dogs’ thrill at Sister’s return. “Suck-ups.” She ducked back in.
Once inside, Sister removed the gel pad from the shopping bag, placing it on the kitchen counter.
She checked her messages, one being from Walter reminding her they could drive together to meet with Alfred, then Binky DuCharme.
“I really don’t want to go,” she said to her animals.
She thumbed through her All Saints calendar. Today was the presentation of Christ at the Temple, so it was a day dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mother. Jeanne de Lestonnac (1556–1640)—another French saint named Jeanne—had nursed plague victims in Bordeaux. She’d also dedicated herself to the education of girls.
Raleigh nosed up at her, placing his paws on the table as she read from the calendar.
“Raleigh, get down.”
“Tell me.” The Doberman stared at her with soulful eyes.
“Théophane Vénard—1829 to 1861—was persecuted and killed when he was sent to Vietnam to serve as a priest. It was called Tonkin then. I look at this calendar and it always overwhelms me how some of these people suffered.”
“That’s why you need to take us with you wherever you go,” Rooster said. “So you don’t suffer.”
Sister stood up, placing her hands in the small of her back, stretching backward. Then she noticed Golly curled up on the gel pad.
“Pussycat, that is not for you.”
“Oh, yes it is.”