The Purrfect Murder

around you uncomfortable. Babs likes Benita. Well, who doesn’t? Obviously, they weren’t close.”
    “How’d you meet Babs?”
    “Blind date, would you believe it? At the end of the date—she lived in D.C. then, and I’d drive up to go to the Kennedy Center with her—well, anyway, she looked at me and said, ‘You’re not the first man to be betrayed by his wife and best friend. If you stay bitter, they win.’ I drove all the way back to Charlottesville furious. I mean bullshit mad. I got up the next morning and I was going to call her and tell her just what I thought about that statement. When I heard her voice on the line, I knew she was right. I asked her out. Any woman sensitive to me that way, telling me the truth, I wanted to know her.”
    “And Will?”
    “He knew better than to cast one sidelong glance at her. I swear I would have killed him, and I know I’m under suspicion now.”
    “Harvey, did it ever occur to you that Linda lied to you?”
    “Why?” His eyes grew larger, since it never had once crossed his mind.
    “Some women like to hurt men, like power over us. Maybe she was one of them. She wanted to hurt you.”
    As this sunk in, Harvey breathed deeply, then said, “She richly succeeded, but I’m grateful. I found the right woman, and she gave me a daughter who is truly the joy of my life.”
    “You never could forgive Will, assuming Linda told you the truth?”
    “No. Betrayal is betrayal. Maybe someone else could forgive, but I couldn’t.” He folded his hands together. “In time the wound healed. Scar faded. It’s still there, but I don’t much notice it.”
    “You had motive and the skill to kill him.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “One clean shot straight through the heart.”
    “An easy death.” Harvey struggled with conflicting emotions. “So be it.”
    “Did you kill Will?”
    “No. Wouldn’t it have made sense for me to kill him a long time ago?”
    “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

7
    T he rain continued, slackening at times only to pick up again. Harry, frustrated since she wanted to paint the tack room in the barn, decided to clean out the trunks in the center aisle. She no sooner opened the first one by the tack room than she closed it.
    “It’s too damp.” She looked at Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, all looking up at her. “Let’s make a run for it.”
    “Use the umbrella.”
Pewter didn’t like getting wet.
    “The one in the tack room?”
Tucker asked.
    “Yes,”
Pewter said.
    “Has holes in it,”
Mrs. Murphy answered.
    “Then why doesn’t she throw it out?”
Frustrated, Pewter walked to the end of the barn, knowing she’d be drenched by the time she reached the porch door.
    Tucker laughed.
“Pewter, you know Harry never throws out anything.”
    “What can anyone do with a Swiss cheese umbrella?”
the gray cat wondered.
    “She’ll convince herself that the silk can be cut up and used to patch things.”
Mrs. Murphy jumped back as a gust of wind sent rain inside the large open double doors.
    “You might want to wait,”
Tucker advised Harry, who had jumped back also.
    “Know what? Let’s sit in the tack room until the worst of this passes.”
    Before the sentence was completed, all three animals rushed to the tack room.

    Once inside the cozy little place—its odor of cleaned leather was pleasing to Harry—she knelt down to turn the dial on the small wall heater.
    “Chill in the air.”
Pewter snuggled on a lambskin saddle pad.
    “September can fool you.” Harry dropped into the director’s chair by the old desk.
    The phone, an old wall unit, rang. Harry picked it up, smiling when she heard Miranda Hogendobber’s voice. The two had worked together for years at the post office.
    “Harry, what are you doing?”
    “Waiting out the rain in the tack room.”
    The older woman’s voice was warm. “Going to be a long wait. I called to see how you’re doing. Haven’t seen you at all this week.”
    “Busy as cat’s hair.” Harry smiled as Mrs. Murphy hopped onto her lap. “What about you?”
    “Pretty much like you. Not enough hours in the day.” She paused. “I liked it better when we saw each other Monday through Friday.”
    “Me, too.”
    “Isn’t it awful about Will Wylde? I can’t believe it.”
    “It’s a shock, but I’m starting to think evil is the norm and good is unusual.”
    Miranda paused. “Oh, I hope not, but people have changed. They’ll say and do things we would never have done way