The Purrfect Murder

good money, and she’s in love with a great-looking, terrific guy who loves her back. She’d have to be certifiably insane to muck that up.”
    “Is she impulsive?”
    Susan shook her head no as the words came out of Robert’s mouth. “If anything she’s too controlled. Too cool. It’s completely out of character.”
    “People do fool you,” Robert replied simply.
    “They do, but if Tazio had cut Carla’s jugular, given the force of the first pulsations, wouldn’t her dress have blood on it?” Harry, ever logical, asked.
    “Not if she jumped out of the way fast enough,” Robert came back, although chances were the killer couldn’t have gotten out of the way fast enough.
    “But she’d have to have some knowledge of how the jugular shoots. I mean, it really shoots, and I know that because my husband is a vet, but he has had to work on people in extreme situations.”
    “Harry, most people know if you cut an artery it spurts. They may not know how much and how far the jugular can spurt, but it’s not a secret. Whoever killed her faced her, then jumped away.” Susan bought the idea.
    “Do they know she wasn’t surprised from behind?” Robert rubbed his chin.
    “Sheriff Grundy believes she was killed face to face. And she didn’t defend herself.” Harry told him what they’d all discussed prior. “She wasn’t scared.”
    “Not until the knife flashed.” Robert shuddered. “It’s too awful.”
    “It is, but if you knew Carla you would understand how she could provoke it.” Susan was beginning to wonder where the pets were.
    “Isn’t the spouse a suspect? I mean, it’s usually people we know well who kill us.” Robert was right.
    “Jurgen? He was at the table.” Susan had gathered some of the table information from Ned, who, wisely, had called each table head; he knew he wouldn’t be getting the napkins with names on them.
    “Ah.” Robert seemed disappointed.
    “He’s rich. He could have paid someone.” Harry couldn’t explain why, but she was feeling better, feeling she could clear Tazio with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work.
    “And this was a good place. Activity, enough alcohol to raise the spirits and maybe dull the senses. The moon was about full, but in the front of the house the trees provided some cover and there were no artificial lights. It was a good place for someone bold with a plan.” Harry looked around one more time. “Robert, I know we’ve disrupted you and your routine. Thank you for helping us.”
    “Not at all. I want to get to the bottom of this, too. Anything that touches Poplar Forest is critical to me. I love this place. You know,” a wistful note crept into his voice, “I imagine I can hear Jefferson sometimes, the slaves, the horses. Oh, it’s silly, but when I’m here alone, I feel them.”
    Susan remarked, “At least you said slaves and not servants.”
    “Our ancestors put a good face on it.” Robert thought about slavery quite a lot, since he could see so much evidence of those long-ago lives. It hadn’t been plowed under or paved over.
    “The hard-nosed could always use the Bible to justify it.” Susan knew her history, as did the other two.
    “Yeah, but I think most people felt something…oh, I don’t have the word, but something. Virginia would have had to end it.” Harry was convinced of that, perhaps rightly. “The Mid-Atlantic states would have done it probably before the turn of the century, but the Delta, probably not.”
    “Hopefully, folks would have put a stop to it before 1900.” Susan thought Harry’s time frame too long.
    “I don’t know. It’s like a nuclear reaction, isn’t it? You reach a critical mass. Then boom! I hope you’re right and it would have ended earlier.” She stopped herself from musing further. “Robert, you’re a Virginian, as are we. You may have noticed that Tazio is part African-American.”
    “I noticed she was beautiful and, yes, African-American—to what percent, I don’t know.”
    “Do you think she’ll encounter trouble in jail or in court if we can’t spring her before a trial?” Harry was worried.
    “God, Harry, I hope we’re past that in Bedford County.”
    “They’re racist in Boston.” Susan, anger in her voice, started back toward the house. “But the South takes the rap for it; we’re the scapegoat. Do you know they still had slaves in Delaware after the war’s end?”
    “Lose a war and all sins are heaped on your head. That’s just the way it