The Purrfect Murder

neck. “Banamine.”
    A voice called from the back. “Mine. Left it on the table when I heard Benita’s voice.”
    “Since when are you taking Banamine, Sophie?”
    “Since I grew four legs and ate hay.” She appeared and snatched the bottle from Kylie, but with humor. “Duke is a little ouchy. He’s getting on, you know.”
    “I know the feeling.” Benita smiled. “I haven’t seen Duke in forever.”
    Sophie reached into her smock pocket, withdrawing a photo of a sleek chestnut Thoroughbred. “My baby. You know, Dr. Haristeen said he is the youngest sixteen-year-old he has ever examined.”
    Benita eyed the large bottle. “I might try some of that myself.”
    She stayed another hour at the office, going over items with Margaret, who, as her job demanded, was on top of every little detail.
    Before leaving, Benita asked, “Margaret, do you and the girls know who has had procedures and who has not?”
    Margaret answered, “We do. We don’t tell tales out of school. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know.”
    “Fear?”
    Margaret shook her head vigorously. “No. The nuts will go after the doctors, not us, until we get organized enough to go after them.” Anger filled her voice, but then she quelled it. “When I see someone come in for their third termination, it makes my blood boil. Termination is not birth control. It’s a last resort. There are women out there who are so flagrantly irresponsible I want to slap their faces. Like to slap their boyfriends and husbands, too.”
    “It’s an imperfect world, Margaret, filled with imperfect people. I’m one of them, although my imperfections aren’t centered around sexual irresponsibility.”
    Margaret changed the subject. “Isn’t it just awful about Tazio?”
    “Rather incomprehensible. She’s such a nice girl.”
    “Nice girls can do terrible things.”

27
    N either Harry nor Fair ate big suppers. A big breakfast sent them on their way and then a good lunch kept them rolling. All a big supper did was turn to fat because you couldn’t work it off.
    She’d thrown together a nice salad with small bits of the leftover grilled chicken that was Fair’s triumph over the weekend. The scent of grilled chicken sent Pewter into a frenzy.
    “Me! Me!”
She stood on her hind legs, petting Harry’s calves.
    “Oink. Oink,”
Tucker grunted.
    “Shut up, tailless wonder.”
Pewter dropped back on her haunches and swiped at the corgi, who ducked in time.
    “Dear God, give me patience, but hurry,” Harry grumbled, putting some chicken in three separate bowls on the floor.
    Pewter whirled toward the bowl, her hind legs skidding out.
    Once she gained traction, she sped past Mrs. Murphy and Tucker.
    “Amazing how fast that fat cat can move when food’s the temptation.” Harry put her hands on her hips just as the big vet truck rumbled down the long dirt drive.
    As Fair walked through the door, she set a glass of tonic water with a wedge of lime and four ice cubes by his plate; one for her, too. Both of them swore the quinine in the tonic kept them from getting leg cramps. Lately, medical researchers doubted this, but Harry doubted that medical researchers ever put in a full day’s work on a farm, especially in punishing heat.
    Although it was almost October, the days could simmer but the nights brought relief. Then it would turn in a heartbeat, the mercury hanging in the low sixties, soon to drop into the fifties, and with November the plunge would continue. Nature always granted Virginia a respite with Indian summer, though, a few days or even a week of a return to temperatures in the mid-sixties to seventies. Indian summer, beautiful as it was with the fall foliage, tinged hearts with melancholy. It would soon vanish, to be followed by the hard frosts of winter, denuded trees, and a palette of beige, gray, black, silver, and, finally, white.
    “Beautiful girl.” He kissed her on the cheek, washed his hands at the sink, and sat down.
    Harry took her seat and they ate their salad, caught up on the day’s doings. They’d talked about the cigarette butt on the floor of the building adjacent to Will Wylde’s, so she told him she’d called Cooper about Folly smoking Virginia Slims. She didn’t tell of her conversation with Folly. A secret was a secret with Harry.
    “Doesn’t it look barren without the sunflowers?” he said after he’d registered her report.
    “You know, it really does, but those boys did a good job.”
    The original plan was for