The Purrfect Murder

McElvoy handed her a punch list of things that are supposedly not up to code at the house. It’s bullshit. I know the code. Unfortunately, she offered him money.”
    “Oh, good God.” Susan rolled her eyes.
    “A box of rocks.” Harry tapped her forehead.
    “Much as I can’t stand her, Carla’s not stupid. I think she underestimated Mike. And I don’t know what his game is. I had some trouble with him on Penny Lattimore’s house and on Folly’s job, but nothing like this. I mean, Carla is raving mad, raving. She called me ‘incompetent,’ ‘high-handed’—it goes on.”
    “Bet she’s sorry that the committee invited Mike and Tony Long.” Harry named the other building inspector going to the fund-raiser.
    “That was the committee’s decision. There’s some sense to it. Mike and Tony get to see restoration in process, which can only help as more people try to be historically accurate. That’s the thinking, anyway.”
    Harry offered an explanation. “Tazio, maybe she drinks. I mean, to explode like that or do something stupid like try to obviously bribe Mike. We all know palms get greased every day, but for God’s sake, she could have been subtle.”
    “Now I have to deal with Mike pretending to be outraged. I loathe him, and she really was stupid,” Tazio complained.
    Susan commiserated. “You’ve got your hands full.”
    Tazio’s phone rang again. Carla, with more expletives.
    Harry smiled when Susan glanced briefly in the rearview mirror. “Glad I’m not building anything.”
    Tazio pressed the off button. “I am going to kill that bitch!”

14
    E ach day contains twenty-four hours, except Monday, the longest day of the week. It contains thirty. That’s how Harry felt when she opened the back door, dropped her gear bag on the bench outside the kitchen door, and walked inside.
    The phone rang just as she closed the door behind her.
    “Hello.”
    “Honey, I won’t get home until late,” Fair apologized. “I’m behind on the billing.”
    “How about if I leave a casserole in the oven? You can heat it up when you get home.”
    “Thanks, but I’ll order something.”
    “Crozet Pizza,” she teased him.
    “I love Crozet Pizza.” The little pizza joint was his favorite.
    “You know how you’re always at me to streamline, become more efficient? Why don’t you hire a true office manager? Someone who can bill, answer the phones, and code.”
    A veterinarian’s files, like a physician’s, have colored stripes called codes on their edges.
    The process is so complicated that people take courses to understand it. If the bill doesn’t go out on time, the vet doesn’t get paid. If insurance companies are involved—and increasingly they were for horses—the cycle slowed even more.
    “I can’t make up my mind. It’s not just the salary, it’s the payroll taxes, their insurance. Remember, I’m a small business, and there aren’t insurance packages that won’t blast the budget. We get by with workers’ compensation, another government cook-up. By the time I’m done paying out, that’s fifty or sixty thousand a year.”
    “Be so much better if you could just hand the money to your employee.”
    “What? Just think what would happen to all those sticky fingers along the way. No money would be on them. The whole thing is a giant con, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why people just go along.”
    “Me, neither.” Harry’s impulse was to fight.
    It seemed to Harry that most other people’s impulse was to allow themselves to be used, robbed, herded, so long as they could buy what they wanted. They told themselves, “You can’t fight city hall.” Funny, Harry thought, our ancestors did.
    “How’d today go?”
    “Poplar Forest—you won’t believe how much they’ve done. We stayed outside. I can’t wait to get inside, but the foundations for the old outside offices are uncovered. It’s just amazing.”
    “I’ll soon see. How about Will’s murderer getting caught? That’s a blessing.”
    “Sure is.” She paused. “But I’m suspicious. I don’t think it’s the whole story.”
    “You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t, but, Harry, stay out of it,” Fair warned. “Let me go back to the salt mines. Love you.”
    “Love you, too.”
    After hanging up the phone, Harry fed the kids. The Fancy Feast smelled so good that she realized she was hungry.
    “I hope you know, your food costs as much as mine.” She washed out the two tiny tins of cat