The Big Cat Nap

but the odor lingers. Whatever you put in the freezer unit after that soaks up the odor.”
    “Never thought of that.” And indeed Harry had not. She continued, “How do you define a free-range chicken?”
    “I don’t. I just pick up chickens when the poultry farm calls. They all look the same to me.” He then quizzed her. “You found Walt Richardson. He used to work on my trucks.” Evan, not one to miss the opportunity to express his many opinions, held forth on the murders of the two mechanics at ReNu. “I’ll bet you it was drugs. When a man kills a woman, it can be lots of things, but men killing men: drugs.”
    “You’ve got a point there.”
    Leaning down toward her, he half-whispered, “They’re all in on it. I tell you, Harry, this crap goes all the way to the White House. Insider trading, stock-market manipulation, Ponzi schemes, and drugs. You don’t think half of Congress isn’t bought with drug money?”
    “I never thought about it.”
    “You should. As long as drugs are illegal, no taxes. Pure profit. Everyone on the take has a big—I mean big—reason to keep the stuff illegal.”
    “Yes, I can see that.” Harry really wanted to get going and pick up those T-shirts.
    “Tell you something else. This is a rich town. It’s full of good weed, good coke, and all those pills the doctors write prescriptions for. I mean, there are all kinds of druggies, right?”
    “Guess so.”
    “Meth. Out in the county. Lots of meth. It’s not a city drug. If those two dead men had bad teeth, meth. Otherwise, weed or blow. You just wait and see.” With a self-satisfied grin, he tipped his baseball cap and descended to his silver truck.
    Harry sighed, pushed open the door to Blue Ridge Embroidery.
    The proprietor, Greg, his ginger hair catching the light, looked up. “Heard the whole thing. Thought maybe I’d save you, but Evan was on a roll, wasn’t he?”
    “Isn’t he always, but, hey, Greg, at least he didn’t lecture me on how we’re descended from aliens.”
    “Maybe he is.” Greg laughed as he unfolded one of the T’s for Harry to inspect.
    “Perfect. Just perfect.”
    “Red T’s, white, blue. The flag looks good on everyone.”
    “Herb’s idea to use a small Old Glory over the heart turned out perfect. St. Luke’s was founded before the Revolution.”
    “Beautiful, beautiful church. Let me help you carry these down the stairs.”
    Harry paid him with a St. Luke’s check and they toted the boxes to the bottom. “Where’s the Mrs.?” she asked.
    “In the embroidery room.”
    “Business good?”
    Greg smiled a slow smile. “Coming back. We had two and a half bad years.”
    “We all did. You didn’t go under. Neither did we. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t call the vet when times are tough. Fair will work with them, spread the payments out, but they figure the horse will just cure himself.”
    “Kinda cruel.”
    “Is,” Harry flatly stated. “Sometimes I think I don’t understand people at all.”
    “I know what you mean,” the nice-looking man agreed. “Hearing Evan’s analysis of the ReNu murders brought that to mind. You think you know someone, a neighbor, an acquaintance. Then you find out he’s beating his wife or, in a situation like this, he’s killed those two men. It’s almost always a man.”
    “You know, Greg, I think you’re right, though I’m willing to bet more women kill than we know. They’re just smarter about it.”
    He laughed. “Hey, I knew that when I got married. Not that she’sa killer,” he hastened to add. “But my wife sees so much that I don’t. I’m focused on the job.”
    “Greg, you underrate yourself.” Harry thought him a good businessman. “But I do know what you mean about being fooled by people. ’Course, you can be fooled in good ways.”
    “Right. Let’s concentrate on that.”

T he thick odor of high-test gasoline, rich exhaust, and burning rubber assailed Harry’s nostrils. The screaming of the engines, on the other hand, thrilled her, just as Beethoven thrilled a music lover.
    Waves of heat wiggled up on the tarmac from the exhaust pipes. Friday night, 7:00 P.M. , the sun was still about two hours from setting at this exact spot in Waynesboro. The temperature was still in the high seventies, the day’s warmth hanging on.
    Racing continued throughout the weekend, but Friday nights drew the fellows fresh from work, eager to roll and without big-enough wallets to compete with the Saturday