CHAPTER 39
Given the jolt of the day, Cody spent that night at her parents' home. Bobby spent half the night on one phone line while Betty was on the other.
Cody imagined the county intersected with a series of actual lines and they'd glow when in use. Finally the entire country would be pulsating with talk.
She and Jen sat in the kitchen eating fruit while overhearing Mom and Dad.
“Any ideas?” Cody asked.
“No. He didn't look bad, did he? Asleep except for the hole in his coat. I've never seen a dead person before.” Jennifer took the clinical approach. “I was with the field but I could see he didn't look slimy.”
“Fresh is better than nonfresh.”
Jennifer sang. “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, and I'll play pinochle on your snout.”
“That's compassionate.” Her older sister peeled back an orange, tossing the rind at Jennifer.
“He was old.”
“Not as old as Mom and Dad. Early forties, I think.”
“Forty is old.” Jennifer bit into an apple. “I'll never live to be forty.”
“Bullshit. We'll live way beyond that. Don't give me this dying young crap. James Dean. Kurt Cobain. Elvis.”
“Elvis was old.”
“Forty-two. I don't exactly get Elvis.”
“See. You have to be old to get him. Like Nine Inch Nails. Old.”
“They're not old.”
“Yeah they are. Another decade. What matters is what's happening right this minute. The eternal present.”
“Have you been reading self-help books? That doesn't sound like something you'd say, Jennifer.”
“The therapy sessions are warping my mind.”
“Not enough.” She sighed. “So you have no compassion for Fontaine Buruss?”
“All he wanted was for someone to slob his knob. Yuck.”
Cody laughed and Jennifer laughed, too. Fontaine, driven by sex, gravitated toward a female as she lurched out of puberty. Maybe he didn't sleep with underage girls and maybe he didâwho knew? Or if they did, they weren't talkingâbut any sign of sexual maturity captivated him. He was handsome. Women are fools for handsome men.
Betty called from the next room, her small office off the kitchen also called the recipe room, since she kept file after file of recipes. “Keep it down. How will it sound in the background if you two are whooping it up?”
“Yes, Mother,” they both said.
“Who are you calling now?” Cody asked.
“Aunt Olivia.”
“Mom, she lives in Chicago.” Jennifer giggled.
“She grew up with Fontaine. She'll want to know.”
“Is there anyone you haven't called? What about the bag boy down at Kroger's?” Cody teased her.
“You two are taking this shock rather well.” Betty strode out of her office.
“Shit happens.” Jennifer burst out laughing again.
Betty's hand flew to the space between her breasts. “Jennifer.”
“Mom, it's not like he was my best friend. And he didn't look so bad dead.”
She walked across the kitchen floor, her slippers barely making a sound, opened the refrigerator, taking out a soda.
“Better take two. You'll be thirsty from all that talking,” Cody advised.
“And what do you think of all this?”
“I don't know.” Cody grew somber. “I got along with him.” This was an understatement but since her family had no idea of her affair, they couldn't appreciate her approach. “Once you knew what he was, he was easy. That's how I see it.”
“And that's how most women saw it.” Betty popped open the can. “But murder?”
“Yeah, well.” Jennifer suddenly darkened.
“Guess he pissed the wrong person off.” Cody tidied up her pile of orange parts.
“What if it wasn't personal? You're assuming it is. What if this is some nutcase who is opposed to hunting?”
“In Virginia. Mom.” Jennifer rolled her eyes.
“Pretty farfetched.” Cody supported her sister.
“Well, serial killers are around us. This could be some person's sick idea of power. Random killings in the country. It happens. No place is ever safe from that kind of sickness now. People kill to kill.”
“Bet he owed somebody money.” Jennifer had a pedestrian worldview so at odds with her heavenly beauty.
“He did owe money.” Betty sat down with her girls. “Cody, you used to see him at the barn. Weren't you trying out that horseâuh . . .”
“Keepsake.”
“That's the one. Ever notice anything off the mark?”
“He didn't talk business with me. If anyone had good reason to kill Fontaine, apart from someone he owed money to, it would be his wife, don't you think?”
“She'd never!” Betty's voice grew loud.
“I didn't say she did, only that she had more reason than anyone. That is, if your soon-to-strike-again serial killer idea is wrong,” Cody replied.
“I wouldn't laugh about that. There are serial killers in Virginia. There are too many unsolved murders.” Betty raised her voice. “And that's the thing, Cody, that's just the thing. How in the hell did Fontaine get separated from the field to follow a splinter group of the pack? It doesn't make any sense.”
CHAPTER 40
November resembles a curveball. Just when you think you know where the ball will go over the plate it shifts on you and you're swinging wind.
The rain morphed into tiny ice bits clicking on windowpanes; cars skidded off roads. Inky and Aunt Netty met at the base of Hangman's Ridge. They trotted to the kennels, a half-mile distance but seeming much farther in the biting weather.
“No hound will show his face in this. They're curled up in deep straw.”
Netty thought they were spoiled.
When Sister built the main building out of cinder blocks she had dropped fluffy insulation in each row before the next row was laid over it. The result was a structure that hounds couldn't chew to pieces when bored yet one that stayed cool in summer and warm in winter. Then, too, hounds threw off a lot of body heat, making the sleeping quarters toasty.
“We won't need to worry about Raleigh and Golly. They'll be in the big house.”
Inky squinted through the sleet.
“She takes good care of her pets.”
Aunt Netty said,
“Before you were born and the blizzards hit, she put on her snowshoes and fed us.”
“Don't most masters feed their foxes if the weather is bad?”
“Some do. Some don't. Some believe that a fox has to survive nature's tantrums. Others believe a little help now and then is a good thing.”
Netty paused. The kennel loomed up ahead.
“Might as well go right up to the chain-link fence and bark.”
She trotted up.
“Yoo-hoo. Cora. Archie.”
No one stirred inside.
“Do you mind if I try?”
Inky politely asked.
“Go right ahead.”
“Diana. Diana, it's Inky.”
They heard a few grumbles back in the bitch section of the kennel and then the magnetic door flap went
whap as
Diana, head down, pushed through. The lovely tricolor, lots of black on her saddle, hurried to the fence. She was surprised to see Aunt Netty.
“Diana, this is Aunt Netty.”
“Golly,”
the hound gushed,
“I've been on your line but I never thought I would see you.”
Aunt Netty, pleased, replied,
“I know a trick or two.”
“What are you all doing out on a filthy night like this?”
“Diana, we need your help.”
Inky came straight to the point.
“Reynard, Netty's nephew, was shot, then used as a drag to split the pack.”
“That's howâ“
Diana hoped Dragon wouldn't get into more trouble, since he'd led the split faction.
Netty interrupted, her sharp features ablaze, sleet stinging her face.
“We have only one clue.”
“What?”
“A rope left in the ravine to the northeast of the hog's-back jump. This weather will blot out any hoofprints but the rope should still be there. If we help you, do you think you can get the pack to go there on hound walk?”
“The humans will never stand for it. If we bolt, I mean.”
“I think I have a way.”
Netty raised her voice, as the sleet intensified.
“Since Raleigh goes on hound walk you must tell him this plan. His cooperation is the key.”
Diana listened gravely as Netty mapped out her idea to be used on the first clear day.
After the sleek red finished, Diana blinked her eyes.
“I'll talk to the others.”
“Thank you.”
Inky smiled.
“Diana, has anyone told you you're much like your grandmother, Destry?”
Before Diana could answer
“No,”
Netty chortled.
“Now, that was a hound.”
The foxes melted into the darkness as Diana walked back to the kennel. She was young. Who would listen to her? But she hadn't put a paw wrong since cubbing began. She decided to whisper to Cora while the others slept. If Cora listened, it meant two things. First, they might get the humans to the rope. Second, she had earned the respect of the pack's strike hound.
She softly picked her way through the sleeping girls, as Sister called them, to snuggle next to the hard-muscled, lightning-fast Cora.
“Cora,”
Diana whispered low.
“There's a rope in the ravine. It might have something to do with Fontaine's murder. We need to get the humans to it. Aunt Netty has a plan.”
At the sound of Aunt Netty's name Cora's eyes opened wide. Diana had her full attention.
CHAPTER 41
Puffs of breath rolled out of Sister's, Shaker's, and Doug's mouths like cartoon balloons. Each carried a knob-end whip with a long eight-plaited thong. A twelve-plaited thong existed but it was so expensive, almost two hundred dollars for twelve feet, that few staff members were fortunate enough to own one. At the end of the thong a brightly colored thin popper dangled.
The popper, if one were to be perfectly perfect, should be the same color as the hunt's colors. Made in Italy, woven of silk, long poppers could be ordered from Fennell's Tack Shop in Lexington, Kentucky, for 95 cents. Shorter ones were sold by Horse Country in Warrenton for about $1.25.
In desperation people had been known to use shoelaces for poppers, L.L. Bean duck boot laces proving the most reliable.
The knob-end whips, formed from ash, blackthorn, or even apple wood, were generally used only by staff members for walking hounds. A good knob-end was passed down from generation to generation, as was a good antler-handle formal hunt whip.
The three humans gathered in front of the kennel paid no mind to their knob-ends. Wearing down vests, thermal underwear, and other secrets of keeping warm at sunrise, they discussed who to take and who to leave in the kennel. They were as fooled by the weather, that sudden sharp turndown, as they were stunned by Fontaine's murder.
Raleigh, called aside by Cora, listened intently.
Golly, lounging in the house kitchen, thought Raleigh loony tunes to roar out on a frosty morning, thanks to last night's odd weather. She ate whatever crumbs were scattered on the countertops, then paraded into the pantry, where she jumped onto a shelf, throwing down dish towels until she succeeded in making a nest to her specifications in the remaining red-and-white-striped dish towels. Golly was very particular.
“Let's just take them all, Shaker. They've been penned up a full day because of the weather. Doug can take the right; I'll take the left. If our young group bolts, I think we can get them back. The longer we leave them in the kennel, the rowdier they'll be.”
“There is that.” He pulled his lad's cap further down on his head. “I've my doubts about this Dragon. Pity he's so handsome.”
“Took his father two years to mature and settle down. Don't give up on him yet.” She thought to herself that if he didn't learn his lessons she would couple him to Archie. Archie did not suffer fools gladly.
“Ready?” Shaker asked Doug.
“Yes.” Doug pulled up his turtleneck.
“Okay, then.” Shaker opened the draw run gate and out they ran, invigorated by the cold and filled with purpose.
“I'll go up front.”
Raleigh danced around.
They walked in good order through the hickory-lined back lane that spilled out onto the low meadows, long grasses mixed with lespedeza, bent over by the frost and last night's battering. As the sun rose each blade reflected its rays, thousands upon thousands of tiny rainbows.
Athena silently flew along the edge of the meadow, then disappeared into the woods.
She landed in the substantial pin oak by Netty's den.
“They've just plowed into the meadow at the bottom of Hangman's Ridge.”
Netty stuck her head out of her front entrance.
“Thank you, Athena. I'll be on my way.”
“You're not telling Target, I take it. Wise. Almost owl-like.”
A low hoot rumbled from the enormous bird.
“He's too emotional. And if St. Just shadows usâyou never know about St. JustâTarget might forget our mission.”
“I'll rouse Inky.”
“I've underestimated grays. She's very bright.”
Athena blinked that she agreed, then spread her wings, lifting off, moving quietly between the trees, then tilting upward to skim the tops.
As Netty hurried to her rendezvous spot with Inky, the humans and hounds reached the far edge of the ridge. A curious geological formation, with gneiss and quartz underneath, ancient rocks had been folded into an eight-hundred-foot-high ridge, quite flat on the top but blunt on the northern end as though someone had cut the end off with a cake knife. The other three sides tapered down to the plain. The northern face was a sheer drop.
Hunt staff's intent was to walk around the edges of the large meadow and then go back to the kennel, a distance of around two and a half miles at the most. A brisk beginning to the day for canine and human.
Fontaine's coop, the replaced boards blacker than the faded boards, separated the woods from this meadow.
For a moment the humans didn't notice that Aunt Netty and Inky sat on top of the coop.
Raleigh called out,
“One, two, three!”
Every hound lifted up his or her head, singing,
“Do you ken John Peel.”
Netty warbled,
“At the break of day.”
Then hopped off the coop.
Sister said, “We're foxhunters, aren't we?”
Shaker took off his cap, swinging it once around his head in a circle. “She's in there. She's in there.” He gave a little whoop.
The hounds trotted to the coop, each one leaping over. Sister, Shaker, and Doug followed.
Raleigh stayed up with Cora. His blinding speed would be useful if any hound's discipline began to waver. Raleigh would run the hound down, bump him hard, and stand over him. If that didn't work, he'd sink white fangs into a juicy hip. He didn't think it would come to that.
Inky and Netty ran at a steady speed, occasionally glancing over their shoulders. They reached the other side of the woods in fifteen minutes. Cora and Archie were behind them with the humans far in the rear. At the hog's-back jump leading onto the high meadows, the two vixens swerved left, hugging the fence line. The hounds reached it about three minutes later, moving single file along the fence. Even though most of the leaves had come down in the winds and sleet, the undergrowth hadn't died off. The humans fought their way through except for Sister, who trotted along the meadow side of the fence line in case her hounds swerved back out.
Instead they swerved deeper into the woods. She climbed over, fanning back to the left. Sister wasn't as fast on foot as she used to be but her powers of endurance were superb. Shaker stayed as close to his hounds as he could, slipping and sliding on the slick, icy leaves and pine needles. Doug swung out on the right once the hounds cut off the fence line.
They pushed on for another mile, perhaps more. The humans, tired, had slowed to a jog.
Archie yelled out,
“Slow down. Slow down. They're falling behind.”
The pack slowed to a fast walk. Netty and Inky stayed in sight range just ahead.
Dragon bolted but before he passed Cora, Raleigh hit him so hard he rolled over three times. The Doberman seized the young hound's throat, scaring the crap out of him.
Raleigh let go.
“You'll learn to be a team player or I'll rip your useless throat out.”
Tail between his legs, Dragon circled around to the back of the pack.
Panting, Sister was brought up short at the ravine, a fold in the land but a deep one. The hounds had stopped at the edge, too. The humans caught up just as Inky and Aunt Netty stopped at the rope.
“Here it is! Good job,”
Netty encouraged Cora.
“We'll leave you here.”
“See you in the hunt field,”
Cora replied.
Inky looked for Diana, whose tail was up, her nose to the ground, then scampered off in the direction opposite Netty.
As Sister, Shaker, and Doug skidded, slipped, and slid down the ravine, she said, “Never saw anything like that in my life.”
“Me neither.” Shaker lurched forward, grabbing a tree branch or he would have been pitched head over heels.
“You okay?” Doug asked. He moved down the side diagonally.
“Yes.” Shaker prudently decided to descend the way Doug was.
Sister, too, followed suit.
At the bottom of the ravine the hounds patiently waited.
Cora, Archie, and Diana sat around the rope, the other hounds behind them. Raleigh had joined Sister. If she fell, Raleigh thought he could help her up.
Doug reached the spot first. “Here!” He pointed.
Shaker, at last at the bottom, knelt down. “Damn fine rope.” He looked up at his employer and friend. “Thinking what I'm thinking?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Should we leave it here and bring Sidell out?” Doug sensibly asked.
“No. I'll tell you why. The rain and sleet washed out any prints. We're lucky this is still hereânot dragged off by an animal or dragged off by the killer. Sooner or later he'll realize he dropped it.”
“I don't think he dropped it.” Doug, sweating from the long run, unzipped the front of his jacket. “This ravine is a shortcut back toward Soldier Road. Or up to the high meadow, depending on the direction you're moving. Right?”
“Yeah.” Shaker ran his large hand over his chin. Vexed, he hated not having an answer.
“I think our killer came back through here, tossed the rope, and rejoined the hunt. He had to have hidden the rope somewhere in these woods or somewhere close by, cut out of the hunt, picked it up, tied it to the tree, and then when the deed was done, ridden down through here and tossed it.”
“He'd have to be a pretty good rider.” Shaker held his hand under his jaw as though holding back his words.
Doug took the rope from Sister's hand as she picked it up. “Can't buy a rope like this in Virginia. This is the real deal.”
“What do you mean?” Sister asked.
“Belongs to a calf roper or a steer roper. Rodeo. They use special ropes, special twists in the braid. Who would have a rope like this?”
“Nobody in our hunt field rodeosâI mean willingly.” Sister had to laugh, because a few people performed unintentional bronc riding out there.
“Let's walk out. Head down farther and climb out the west side. It's easier,” Doug suggested, since a massive rock face with an overhang and ledge loomed before them.
“Cora. Archie, D-puppies, and the children. You may be the best pack of hounds in Virginia. You're certainly the only detective pack.” Shaker praised his charges.
“Thank you,”
they cried in unison.
“And you were impressive.” Sister petted Raleigh. “Never saw anything like it. The hounds and Raleigh stayed behind those foxes at a steady pace.”
“The foxes knew.” Shaker's voice rang with conviction.
“Seemed to.” Doug shook his head.
As their bodies recovered from the run the cold set in. They zipped up their coats while sliding down in the bottom of the ravine, staying to the west of the creek running through it.
“Whoever did this sure knows the territory,” Doug said.
“That eliminates eighty percent of the hunt field.” Sister laughed. “They're so busy showing off for one another they don't look where they're going. God help them if they ever have to get back on their own.”
“Be easy to slip off. Especially during opening hunt. Clever. Damnably clever.”
Doug walked beside Shaker, since the hounds behaved impeccably. “I can't figure out how whoever it is got Fontaine to go with him.”
“Fontaine could have stopped to go to the bathroom.” Sister thought Fontaine was doing more of that lately, but then men did as they got on in years. He wasn't that old, though.
“He stopped and another fellow stopped with him. Then led him off? That sort of thing?” Shaker breathed out two straight lines of mist from his nostrils.
“Partly. But Fontaine would come back to the main group. He wouldn't get sidetracked by the splinter pack.”
“We were moving fast that day. His hearing wasn't as good as yours.” Doug paused. “Course, no one hears as good as you. You're uncanny . . . part fox.” He smiled at Sister. “Sounds bounce around out here. He might have followed the hounds that sounded the closest. He might not have heard the main pack. We really were flying. I mean, people ran out of horse the first hour. I watched them pull out,” Doug remarked.
“When did you have time to watch the field?” Shaker grumbled.
“When I reached Soldier Road. We were running so hard I headed straight for the road. I hoped I could turn the pack but they turned on their own. Almost one hundred eighty degrees. But they were heading back before that because I passed riders on the farm road early on. The pace was scorching.”
“Maybe Fontaine turned back,” Shaker said.
“Gunsmoke. No way.” Sister shook her head.
“He'll be fine,” Doug said. “Had to call the vet this morning about Trinkle. Asked about Gunsmoke.”
Trinkle was a bitch with uterus problems. She was going to have to be spayed, a pity, as she had great bloodlines and was a good hound in her own right.
“Maybe Fontaine stopped to help someone. Someone good-looking,” Shaker added.
“That's the best theory yet,” Sister agreed. “And if he or whoever stopped in the woods, they wouldn't be that easy to see. For one thing he wore that gorgeous black weaselbelly with the white vest. Made for him in Ireland. God, he always was one of the best-turned-out men in the hunt field. If he'd been in scarlet, he might not have slipped away so easily.”
“Huh.” Shaker was considering all this as they climbed upward.
“If you want to kill someone and you don't want to get caught, I guess you plan for years or you plan pretty intensely and wait for the wind to blow in your favor. I don't know if things had turned out differently, if the young entry hadn't bolted onto that drag, that Fontaine would be alive. But whoever did it was waiting. The drag was brilliant. If it didn't work, he would have tried later. Maybe something in the hunt field. Maybe something somewhere else. This strikes me as planned but still trusting to luck. That's what I'm trying to say.”
“Sister, what you're trying to say is our killer is one bold son of a bitch.” Shaker, breathing hard, was relieved to finally reach the top of the ravine.