Brazen Virtue

dangerously close to his crotch.
    “Boris likes you. Isn’t that nice?” The old woman sat back and stroked her cat. “We were meditating last night. I’d gone back to the eighteenth century. I was one of the queen’s handmaidens, you know. Such a trying time.”

    “Uh-huh.” Enough was enough. Ben stood and struggled to detach the cat from his leg. “Well, we appreciate your time.”
    “Not at all. Of course, I wasn’t surprised to hear about all of this. Been expecting it.”
    Ed, who’d been more than concerned that Boris would let loose on his shoes, looked back at her. “Have you?”
    “Oh, absolutely. The poor dear never had a chance. Past sins catch up with you.”
    “Past sins?” Interested again, Ben hesitated. “Did you know Mrs. Breezewood well?”
    “Intimately. We survived Vicksburg together. A dreadful battle. Why, I can still hear the cannon fire. But her aura …” Mrs. Kleppinger gave a sad shake of the head. “Doomed, I’m afraid. She was murdered by a group of Yankee raiders.”
    “Ma’am, we’re more interested in what happened to Mrs. Breezewood last night.” Ed’s patience, usually generous, was running thin.
    “Well, of course you are.” Her glasses slipped down her nose so that she stared myopically over them. “Such a sad woman. Repressed, sexually, I’m sure. I thought she might be happy when her sister came to visit, but it didn’t seem so. I can see her leave for work each morning while I’m watering my gardenias. Tense. The woman was tense, bundle of nerves, just as I remember from Vicksburg. Then there was the car that followed her one morning.”
    Ben sat back down, cats or not. “What car?”

    “Oh, a dark one, one of those rich cars, so big and quiet. I wouldn’t have thought a thing of it, but as I was watering my gardenias, one has to be so careful with gardenias. Fragile things. Anyway, as I was watering, I watched the car drive down the street behind Mrs. Breezewood’s, and I got such palpitations.” The woman waved her hand in front of her face as if to cool it. The glass on her fingers was too dull to sparkle in the light. “My heart just pounded and skipped until I had to sit right down. Just like Vicksburg—and the Revolution, of course. All I could think was poor Lucilla—that was her name before, you know. Lucilla Greensborough. Poor Lucilla, it’s going to happen again. Nothing I could do, of course,” she explained as she went back to stroking her cat. “Fate is fate after all.”
    “Could you see who was driving the car?”
    “Oh my goodness no. My eyes aren’t what they were.”
    “Did you notice the license plate?”
    “My dear, I can hardly see an elephant in the yard next door.” She pushed her glasses straight again, and surprised her eyes into focusing. “I have my feelings, sensations. That car gave me a bad feeling. Death. Oh yes, I wasn’t surprised at all to hear the news on the radio this morning.”
    “Mrs. Kleppinger, do you remember which day you noticed the car?”
    “Time means nothing. It’s all a cycle. Death is quite a natural event, and very temporary. She’ll be back, and perhaps finally, she’ll be happy.”
    B EN CLOSED THE FRONT door behind him and breathed in hard and deep. “Christ, what a smell.” Cautious, he pressed a hand to his upper thigh. “I thought that little bastard had drawn blood. Probably didn’t have shots either.” As he walked to the car he tried vainly to brush off clinging cat hair. “What did you make of her?”
    “She’s lost a few bricks since Vicksburg. She might have seen a car.” Glancing back, he noted that several windows of her house would afford a clear enough view of the street. “Which may or may not have been following Breezewood’s. Either way, it doesn’t mean shit.”
    “You’ve got my vote.” Ben took the driver’s seat. “You want to stop in for a minute?” he asked with a nod toward the house down the street. “Or head back in?”

    “Let’s go back. She probably needs time with her parents.”
    G RACE HAD PLIED HER mother with spiked tea. She’d held her father’s hand. She’d wept again until she simply had no energy for more. Because they had needed it, Grace had lied. In her version, Kathleen had been well on the way to establishing a new life. There was no mention of pills or controlled bitterness. Grace was aware, if Kathleen hadn’t been, that their parents had had great hopes for their elder daughter.
    They had always