The Purrfect Murder

stonework would be the least of their problems.

9
    A mazing how heavy your boots get when they’re caked with mud.” Harry lifted up a foot, displaying the red clay embedded in the sole.
    Fair lifted up his right foot, his work boot covered with wet red clay, too. “Could be worse.”
    “Like what?”
    “Oil sludge. Then we’d slip across the field.” He pushed his baseball cap down over his eyes, for the sun was fierce. “Your black-seed sunflowers are about ready.”
    “Grey Stripe, too.” Harry, hands on hips, surveyed the seven-foot giants, their massive golden heads pointed straight up to the sun. “You know,” she grabbed his hand, “I love this. I wish I’d quit work at the post office years ago.” She paused. “Course, I don’t know if I’m going to make a dime, but I truly love it.”
    “Well, you know you won’t make any money on the grapes. You have to let the fruit hang until it falls off this first year.”
    “I know. Seems so wasteful, but if Patricia Kluge tells me what to do with my Petit Manseng, I’d better do it. The foxes will be happy.”
    “Yes, they will. They’ll start eating the grapes even before they fall.”
    “The one that makes me laugh is Simon.” Harry mentioned the opossum who lived in the hayloft along with Matilda, the blacksnake, and Flatface, the owl. “He’s got a sweet tooth.”
    Matilda—no sweet tooth there—was actually on her hunting range. The large circle that she made around the barn and the house took up spring and summer. She’d return to her place in the hayloft in another three weeks. Right now she was hanging from a limb in the huge walnut tree in front of the house. It pleased her to frighten the humans and the animals when they finally caught sight of her. Nor was she above dropping onto someone’s shoulders, which always provoked a big scream. Then she’d shoot off.
    Harry and Fair walked over to the pendulous, glistening grapes. Although the vines would produce better with each year, Harry was delighted with what her first year had brought.
    Fair draped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Abundance.”
    “Lifts the heart. I was worried that yesterday’s hard rain would just pepper these guys right off the vine.”
    “Tougher than you thought.”
    They turned for the barn. The four mares and foals lazed in their pasture. The three hunt horses and Shortro, a gray three-year-old saddlebred, munched away, pointedly ignoring the youngsters born in March. Every now and then, a little head would reach over the fence to stare at one of the “big boys.”
    Tomahawk, the most senior of the hunters, looked back at the bright chestnut filly begging him to play with her along the fence line.
    “Worm,”
he said, returning to the serious business of eating.
    “Momma, do you know what he called me?”
The little girl romped back to her mother, a patient soul.
    “Oh, he gets all grand and airy. Pay him no mind.”
She touched noses with her child.
    Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, who were walking ahead of the humans, heard the exchange.
    Pewter called out,
“He’s a meanie.”
    “Shut up, fatso.”
Tomahawk raised his head.
    “When’s the last time you got on the scale?”
Pewter noticed a big belly.
    “Pewter, leave him alone,”
Mrs. Murphy counseled.
“If you irritate him he’ll start picking the locks on the gates. That’s the only horse I’ve ever known who can actually open a kiwi lock.”

    A kiwi lock, shaped like a comma, slipped into a round ring secured on the post. A smaller ring then flipped up on the comma to securely hold it in place and to prevent horses from opening the lock, something for which the species evidenced a marked talent. Tomahawk would work the kiwi with his lips. Granted, it took him at least an hour—his determination remarkable—but he would finally release the little ring, then pluck the kiwi out of the big ring and push the gate open with his nose. Off he’d go, tail straight out, to rush around the pastures. After doing this enough times to become both tired and bored, he’d walk into the barn, go to his stall, flop down on his side, and sleep, complete with musical snoring.
    It infuriated the other horses that they couldn’t pick the locks.
    Just as Harry and Fair reached the barn, Coop drove up in an old beat-up pickup truck she’d bought so she could haul stuff. A deputy’s slender salary prevented her from purchasing a new truck, much as she lusted after one.
    “Hey,”