The Purrfect Murder

you?”
    “I have. We really earned our reputation doing restoration work. I started out with just myself and Nicky Posner. Now I have twenty people working for me plus college kids in the summer. Not good to brag, but me and the boys can do anything.”
    “How come you’re here alone?”
    “Most everything is done except for this last bit of trim work. Got a crew at Penny Lattimore’s—that’s an outside job; wanted to put another coat on the gardening shed. You and I could live in the shed. Another crew is out in Louisa County at a big place. I figured this would give me a few days of quiet. Course, I never expected Carla to be murdered. Still, it has been quiet.”
    “Jurgen came out?”
    “No. He called me and told me to keep going.”
    “Your jobs—has Mike always been the inspector?”
    Orrie fetched a blue bandanna slipped through the loop on the side of his painter’s pants. He dabbed his brow.
    “Orrie?” Cooper waited.
    “Sorry. Mike and Tony about even.”
    “Is there as much acrimony when Tony’s the inspector?”
    “No.”
    “Orrie, if you think of anything that might be relevant to this case, no matter how trivial it might seem to you, please call.” She handed him a card.
    “I will.” He slipped the bandanna back through the pants’ loop. “Don’t think Tazio did it, do you?”
    “I found her standing over the body with a bloody knife in her hand. I have to go with what I saw. If I were Bedford County’s prosecuting attorney, I’d have an open-and-shut case.”
    “What does your gut tell you?”
    “I thought I was supposed to ask the questions,” she said in a genial tone.
    “I trust my gut more than my brain, what brain I have.”
    “Actually, I do, too, but it takes years to learn that, and some people never do. Sometimes we know without knowing, and sometimes we know and we can’t prove how we know.”
    “And?”
    “My eyes told me she killed Carla. My gut…” She shook her head. “I’m not sure, Orrie. Doesn’t feel right.”
    Orrie put his hand on the side of the ladder, paused. “There is something: I never saw Mike have a run-in with a man. Always the woman, when she was in the house without the husband. Don’t know if that’s important.”
    “I think it is. Thank you.”
    Twenty minutes later, Cooper pulled the squad car into the south side of the parking lot at Seminole Square, so named for the trail that led from the Mid-Atlantic states down to Florida. Two tobacco shops were relatively close to each other. One was in Barracks Road Shopping Center, the other here.
    Charlottesville lacked a true town center. Someone might say it was Court Square at the county courthouse, but not so, not enough life there. Places like Richmond, or Charleston, South Carolina, or even Oxford, Pennsylvania, had true centers around a town square, but this place did not. Hives of activity dotted Albemarle County, and yet it lacked that one special place where every resident knew the core rested.
    The proprietor of the shop, a well-groomed Cuban gentleman of some years, greeted her with a smile. She often accompanied Rick here when he’d splurge for a pack of Dunhills.
    “How are you?”
    “Good, and you?”
    He shook his head. “Violence. So much violence lately.”
    “Usually the outbursts occur during the sweltering summer days and nights. Can’t quite put this together. Well, Dr. Wylde’s killer I can.”
    The gentleman nodded. “No way to solve a problem.” He brightened. “I am glad you are here. What can I do for you?”
    “I’d like to buy Rick a carton of Dunhills. What would be better, the blue pack, which are mild, or the red, regular?”
    “For him, the red. For you, the mild. Have you ever tried the menthol? Clears the sinus.”
    “No. I tell myself I don’t smoke, but I am forever cadging cigarettes off the boss. I owe him a carton.”
    He bent over, pulled a carton from under the counter.
    “Would you mind if I stepped into the humidor? I love the smell.”
    “Go right ahead.” He sprinted out from behind the counter and slid open the glass door. Immediately the place filled with competing, rich aromas.
    She stepped inside, looking at all the pretty cigar boxes. After a few huge inhales, she stepped out.
    “Thank you.”
    “Many ladies smoke cigars.”
    “I don’t think I’m up to it.” She smiled.
    “Mrs. Steinhauser was in here this morning with Mr. Lattimore. She bought her usual carton of cigarettes. He bought a box of Tito’s.