The Big Cat Nap

from lunch by now.”
    “I’ll just go back and find them,” Herb declared. “The keys are back there?”
    “They are.”
    “And you’re in touch with my insurance company?”
    “Oh, yes. Safe and Sound is always on time paying the bills. I can go back if you’d prefer,” Kyle said.
    “We can’t service a customer in the front office as well as you can.” Herb smiled. “We’ll go back—I don’t mind. If there’s a problem, you’ll see me again.”
    With that, Herb headed to the garage, Harry and Susan with him.
    Entering the spacious garage, they saw all the pits clean, cars raised on every lift. ReNu had two buildings set fifty yards apart, with cars parked in between. The garage sat on the left, the body shop on the right. The inner parking lot was jammed. Miranda’s Outback sat on an outside row.
    Not a soul was to be seen in the garage.
    “Long lunch,” Susan stated.
    Harry noticed a tire iron sticking out from a stack of engine parts under a wall of shelves. Ever curious, she walked over.
    “What the—” Blood and brains coated one end of the heavy metal iron.
    Then she saw a pair of work boots peeking out from behind the cartons.
    “Come here.”
    Due to the urgent tone of Harry’s voice, Herb and Susan hurried over.
    They stepped behind the cartons to view the body of a mechanic, still in his greasy uniform, his brains bashed over the floor.
    There was a problem.

D eputy Cynthia Cooper stepped out of the squad car. While Albemarle County hosted a few murders a year, most of them lacked much mystery or spectacle. X shot Y or stabbed him. The victims were usually men. A woman might be killed in a domestic dispute or a female student snatched from the University of Virginia only to be found months later. Fortunately, such loathsome killings happened rarely. Years would go by before another female was murdered, but the males could be relied upon to dispatch one another with regularity.
    The sheriff, Rick Shaw, with whom Coop usually rode in the squad car, happened to be in Richmond with other sheriffs for a meeting with the governor to discuss crime.
    Compared to that of other states, Virginia’s homicide rate was reasonable, but as far as Coop was concerned, one murder was one murder too many. Then, too, how would the state ever live down or recover from the horror in 2007 at Virginia Tech? Much as the long, lean blonde officer hoped people could settle their differences responsibly, experience had taught her otherwise.
    She walked in to the garage, where the mechanics and men from the body shop were still absent. “Where is everybody?” Coop asked, hoping the forensics team would soon appear. Harry, Susan, and Herb waited for her.
    Coop was Harry’s neighbor, renting the old farm that had been the Reverend Jones’s home place.
    “Couldn’t take it,” Harry tersely replied. “Half of them ran outside to throw up when they finally came back from lunch. I believe they’re now in the front waiting room.”
    “Ah.” Coop strode over to inspect the body. Putting on thin rubber gloves, she knelt down to feel his flesh.
    “How long do you think he’s been dead?” Susan curiously inquired.
    “I expect when you found him he’d just been killed,” Coop said before standing up. “He’s still warm, cooling a little.”
    “Whoever did it must have been frightfully angry,” Herb said. “Such a violent act.”
    Coop looked at Herb with her pale eyes. “He—” She glanced down to read the name sewn onto the mechanic’s uniform. “
Walt
faced his killer. I’m pretty sure of that based on how he’s sprawled.” She then walked around Walt Richardson. “Why don’t you all vacate the premises before the circus arrives? I’ll take your statements later. Actually, once you get home, write it all down before you forget.”
    They heard a siren traveling in their direction.
    “Where’s Rick?” Harry asked her neighbor and friend.
    “Richmond. Politics.” Coop sighed. “All life is politics. Someone, somewhere, will find a way to make this murder serve their political ends, just watch.”
    “I hate it all.” Harry’s voice carried an edge. “And whoever did this must have hated Walt. I mean, to crack open a skull, take off part of his face. That’s hate.”
    “And power,” Herb added. Then, gently, he began to herd the two women toward the door into the waiting room. The Volvo was parked out front.
    “Don’t say anything to the folks in the waiting room other than