The Purrfect Murder

need rain.”
    They walked briskly toward the house.
    Susan met them halfway. “Hey, sugar.”
    Sweeping her arm wide, Harry beamed. “Can you believe it?”
    Susan stopped, putting her hands on her hips. “Promiscuous in fertility and abundance.”
    “Worried about rain.”
    “Me, me, me.”
Susan bent down to scratch Tucker’s ears.
    “More.”
    “Me, too.”
Pewter rubbed against Susan’s leg, so she petted the gray cannonball.
    Harry slipped her arm through Susan’s as they stood there for a moment admiring the yield. “Agriculture is still the basis of all wealth. Can’t have industry or high tech if people can’t eat.”
    Susan nodded. “Course, most people have forgotten that.”
    Harry smiled as they walked back to the house, the blue jay squawking after them.
    As they passed the barn, Simon, the opossum, stuck his head out of the open loft doors.
“Save me some cookies.”
    Harry and Susan looked up at him, for he was semitame.
    “If I don’t eat them first.”
Pewter giggled.
    “You need a diet, girl.”
Mrs. Murphy arched an eyebrow.
    “Shut up.”
Pewter shot in front of everyone to push open the screen, then squeezed through the animal door into the kitchen.
    Once in the kitchen, Harry poured sweet tea and put out some fruit and cheese.
    Susan approached the reason for her visit to her best friend. “You’re not going to believe this.”
    “What?” Harry leaned forward.
    “Folly Steinhauser pledged to pay for the entire St. Luke’s reunion on October twenty-fifth.”
    “What!”
    “She did.”
    “But she’s only attended St. Luke’s for two years. I mean, she’s only lived here for two years and,” Harry thought a moment, “been on the vestry board for one.”
    “Herb was politically shrewd to call her to the board.”
    “Well, Susan, if she’s going to cough up what will amount to thirty thousand dollars, give or take, I don’t wonder.”
    “He didn’t know that originally.” Susan closed her eyes in appreciation as she sipped the tea, a sprig of fresh mint from the house garden enlivening the taste. “He was smart because she’s a come-here and she knows how to talk to the other come-heres.”
    “I wasn’t aware that one talked to them. I thought, dumb rednecks that we are, we simply listened to their cascade of wisdom.”
    “Don’t be snide.”
    “All right, then. How about I’m tired of them telling me how they do it up North.”
    “Harry, they aren’t all from the North.”
    “Oh?”
    “Some are from the Midwest.”
    “That’s just as damned bad.” Harry burst out laughing.
    “You are so prejudiced. Now, shut up and do listen.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” She sighed. “Maybe turning forty has allowed me to enter the realm of crankiness.” She raised an eyebrow. “But I will listen to
you.
”
    “Folly’s on the board of Planned Parenthood, and she’s gotten the other new girls—Carla Paulson, Penny Lattimore, and Elise Brennan—to all pitch in with stuff for the silent auction. She’s even gotten some of the doctors who work at Planned Parenthood to give a free consultation.”
    “Do we have to get pregnant first?”
    “They aren’t all OB/GYNs, smart-ass. Come on, now, give Folly some credit. This is wonderful and takes so much pressure off Herb. Every year he had to scramble to get the money for the reunion.”
    “That’s a sore point with me. I’ve said for years, charge enough to cover the food.”
    “He won’t do that. Herb says everyone should come home to St. Luke’s without feeling they have to write a check.” Susan reminded Harry of what she already knew.
    “Fishes and loaves.”
    “Boy, there have been some years when we’ve had to pray for a miracle, but this year it’s delivered.”
    “Well,” Harry cupped her chin in her hand, her elbow on the table, which would have infuriated her long-departed mother, “it is, it is, but it irritates me that these people want to buy their way in.”
    “To St. Luke’s?”
    “Susan, you’re a political creature. You know as well as I do that the Episcopal church and the Lutheran church are the two most socially prominent churches. Worship is one thing. Mixing with people who can help business or make you feel like you’re with the A group is another.”
    “Where does that put us?” Susan sliced a thin wedge of Brie, positioning it on a large Carr’s cracker.
    “We were born to it. I don’t feel socially prominent. I don’t care about that stuff. I think it hurts