The Purrfect Murder

Mike doesn’t have to know. It’s not kosher, but, well…” Jim’s voice trailed off.
    “What about a safety-deposit box?” Alicia asked.
    “That might be more difficult. His accounts can be called up on a computer,” Blair told them. “And there is the problem of the second key for a safety-deposit box.”
    “They have skeleton keys,” Aunt Tally posited.
    “No doubt, but one step at a time. He’s not accused of a crime, and if he’s tipped off, we’ll never get to the bottom of it, at least where he’s concerned.” Fair comprehended the delicacy of the situation.
    “You think after what happened, if it is Mike, that Folly, Penny, and Elise aren’t nervous? They might be ready to talk.” Harry was hopeful.
    “If so, I’d hope they’d go to Rick,” Big Mim said.
    “That’s just it. If they go to Rick, they let their cat out of the bag, don’t they?” Harry began to feel that odd tingle when she’d get hooked on a problem. “Susan, let’s go back to Poplar Forest tomorrow and look in the daylight.”
    “We’ll go with you,” BoomBoom volunteered.
    Monday was one of Fair’s operating days, so he wouldn’t be making the trip.
    “Ears open. Come back to me with what you learn,” Big Mim requested. “Susan, have they set bail yet?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    Big Mim turned to Paul. “The bail will be very stiff. A couple of hundred thousand, I think. I agree that we need to get her out of there but, as I said before, not right away. It will take time to raise the bail, and then we have to secure her safety. This could get a lot worse before it gets better.” She then addressed her aunt, who was visibly improving from the effects of her martini, the little olive resting comfortably at the bottom of the glass. “You’re right, there have been two murders, but Will’s killer is in jail and he’ll never see daylight as a free man again.”
    “Still, it’s very strange, two murders so close together.” The old woman considered it.
    “Happens all the time in big cities. It’s a jolt for us. But at least one murder is solved. Now we’ve got to solve this one.” Jim, who’d bulked up over the years, loomed over the room, a large presence but a genial one.
    “I don’t like it.” Aunt Tally closed the matter.
    As they broke up to chat before leaving, Harry asked Aunt Tally, “Where’s your date?”
    “Home in bed. I wore him out.” She plucked the olive out of her martini, popping it into her mouth.

20
    P oplar Forest reflected Jefferson’s love of the octagon. The main entrance welcomed the visitor with seven wide steps. Four Tuscan columns, severe in their simplicity, supported a simple pediment with a fanlight in the center and, above that, a balustrade. A simple door with two twelve-paned windows on either side completed the entrance.
    Poplar Forest had not been built to inspire awe. This was no Sans Souci nor even a Trianon. The structure reflected the cleansing Palladian ideal. For Jefferson, this strict elegance was to be the externalization of the American political philosophy: a people’s nation, not one in thrall to the hereditary principle.
    He succeeded.
    Harry and Susan wound up coming alone because, at the last minute, Alicia’s housekeeper suffered a wicked angina attack and Alicia had rushed her to the hospital. BoomBoom drove over to Alicia’s to finish feeding the foals. Although Alicia could and did hire good people, she liked to manage the mares and foals herself. She’d learned so much from Mary Pat those thirty years ago. Mostly, Alicia learned she couldn’t live without horses. The longer she stayed in Hollywood, the more films she made, the more acclaim she received, the lonelier she ultimately felt. She came home to the warm estate willed to her by Mary Pat Reines. Alicia, in her mid-fifties, had shed two husbands over the years, so returning to the place of her greatest happiness was easy. When she landed in Crozet, she felt light as a feather.
    Harry wished she had Alicia with her today, because the gorgeous star had an original manner of seeing things, things Harry missed.
    Formidable as Harry’s powers of logic could be, she missed emotional nuance more often than not. The broad strokes, she saw, but the tiny feathered strokes on the emotional canvas, she missed. Alicia missed nothing; Fair missed very little, too.
    They’d arrived at seven in the morning, being indulged by the director, Robert Taney, who had known Harry’s mother in his