"Humor. Small, pathetic, but an attempt at humor nonetheless." Harry loved it when her friends teased her.

"Is that true?" Miranda appeared scandalized. "You're a s.e.x bomb?" The words "s.e.x bomb" coming out of Miranda's mouth seemed so incongruous that Harry and Susan burst out laughing and were at pains to explain exactly why.

Tucker, dead asleep in the hallway to the bedroom, slowly raised her head when the cats broke away from one another, ran to her, and jumped over her in both directions. Then Pewter bit Tucker's ear.

"Pewts, that was mean." Mrs. Murphy laughed. "Do the other one."

"Ouch." Tucker shook her head.

"Come on, lazybones. Let's play and guess what, there are leftovers," an excited, slightly frenzied Pewter reported before she tore back into the living room, jumped on the sofa, launched herself from the sofa to the bookcases, and miraculously made it.

Mrs. Murphy followed her. Once she and Pewter were on the same shelf, they had a serious decision to make: which books to throw on the floor.

Harry, sensing their plan, rushed over. "No, you don't."

"Yes, we do." Mrs. Murphy pulled out The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder.

Crash.

"I will smack you silly." Harry reached for the striped devil but she easily eluded her human.

Pewter prudently jumped off but not before knocking off a silver cup Harry had won years before at a hunter pace. As the clanging rang in her ears, the cat spun out, slid around the wing chair, bolted into the kitchen where Miranda was putting Saran Wrap over the remains of the honey-cured ham, stole a hunk of ham, and crouched under the kitchen table to gnaw it.

"I've seen everything." Miranda shook her head.

"Wild." Susan knelt down as Tucker walked into the kitchen. "Aren't you glad you're not a crazy kitty?"

"Got her a piece of ham," Tucker solemnly stated.

Harry surveyed the house. "We did a good job."

Mrs. Murphy joined Pewter under the table.

"I'm not giving you any. I stole this myself with no help from you."

"I'm not hungry."

"Liar," Pewter said.

Harry peered under the table. "Radical."

"That's us." Murphy purred back.

Harry examined the ham before Miranda put it in the refrigerator. "She tore a hunk right off of there, didn't she?"

"Before my very eyes. Little savage."

"Might as well cut the piece smooth." Harry lifted up the corner of the Saran Wrap and sliced off the raggedy piece. She divided it into three pieces, one for each animal. "Hey, anyone want coffee, tea, or something stronger? The coffee's made. Will only take me a second to brew tea."

"I'd like a cuppa." Miranda wrapped the last of the food, then she reached into the cupboard, bringing down the loose Irish tea that Harry saved for special occasions. "How about this?"

"My fave." She turned to Susan. "What will you have?"

"Uh, I'll finish off the coffee and sit up all night. Drives Ned nuts when I do it but I just feel like a cup of coffee. Hey, before I forget, is that possum still in the hayloft?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I saved the broken chocolate bits for him."

"He'll like that. He has a sweet tooth."

"I don't know how Simon"-Mrs. Murphy called the possum by his proper name-"can eat chocolate. The taste is awful."

"I don't think it's so bad." Tucker polished off her ham. "Although dogs aren't supposed to eat it. But it tastes okay."

"You're a dog." Murphy shook her head in case any tiny food bits lingered on her whiskers. She'd follow this up with a sweep of her whiskers with her forearm.

"So?"

"You'll eat anything whether it's good for you or not."

Tucker eyed Mrs. Murphy, then turned her sweet brown eyes onto Pewter. "She eats anything."

"I don't eat celery," Pewter protested vigorously.

As the animals chatted so did the humans. The hunt was bracing, the breakfast a huge success, the house was cleaned up, the barn ch.o.r.es done. They sat and rehashed everything that had happened in the hunt field for Miranda's benefit as well as their own. Then all shared what they'd seen and heard at the party, laughing over who became tipsy, who insulted whom, who flirted with whom (everybody flirted with everybody), who believed it, who didn't, who tried to sell a horse (again, everybody), who tried to buy a horse (half the room), who tried to weasel recipes out of Miranda, various theories about Hank Brevard, and who looked good as well as who didn't.

"I heard only twenty people attended Hank's funeral." Miranda felt badly that a man wasn't well liked enough to pack the church. It is one's last social engagement, after all.

"As you sow so ye shall reap." Harry quoted the Bible not quite accurately to Miranda, which made the older woman smile.

"Some people never learn to get along with others. Maybe they're born that way." Susan lost all self-restraint and took the last cinnamon bun with the orange glaze.

"Susan Tucker," Harry said in a singsong voice.

"Oh, I know," came the weak reply.

"You girls have good figures. Stop worrying." Miranda reached down to scratch Tucker's head. "I wonder about that. I mean how it is that some people draw others to them and other people just manage to say the wrong thing or just put out a funny feeling. I'm not able to say what I mean but do you know what I mean?"

"Bad vibes," Harry simply said, and they laughed together.

"These aren't bad vibes but Little Mim was working the party. She's really serious about being mayor." Susan was amazed because Little Mim had never had much purpose in life.

"Maybe it would be good," Harry said thoughtfully. "Maybe we need some fresh ideas.

"But we can't go against her father. He's a good mayor and he knows everybody. People listen to Jim." Harry wondered how it would all turn out. "I don't see why he can't take her on as vice-mayor."

"Harry, there is no vice-mayor," Miranda corrected her.

"Yeah," she answered back. "But why can't we create the position? If we ask for it now either as a fait accompli or charge the city council to create a referendum, it's a lot easier than waiting until November."

"Oh, ladies, all you have to do is tell Jim your idea and he'll appoint her. You know the city council will back him up. Besides, no one wants to see a knock-down-drag-out between father and daughter-not that Jim would fight, he won't. But we all know that Little Mim hasn't much chance. Your solution is a good one, Harry. Good for everybody. The day will come when Jim can't be mayor and this way we'd have a smooth transition. You go talk to Jim Sanburne," Miranda encouraged her.

"Maybe I should talk to Mim first." Harry drained her teacup.

"There is that," Susan said, "but then Jim hears it first from his wife. Better to go to him first since he is the elected official and on the same day call on her. She can't be but so mad."

"You're right." Harry looked determined, scribbling the idea on her napkin.

The phone rang. They sat for a moment.

"I'll get it." Mrs. Murphy jumped onto the counter, knocking the wall phone receiver off the hook.

"Her latest trick." Harry smiled, got up, and picked up the phone. "h.e.l.lo." She paused. "Coop, I can't believe it." She paused again. "All right. Thanks." She turned to her friends, her face drained white. "Larry Johnson has been shot."

"Oh my G.o.d." Miranda's hands flew to her face. "Is he-?" She couldn't say the word.

25.

The revolving blue light from Rick's squad car cast a sad glow over the scene. Cynthia stood with him behind the three barns at Twisted Creek Stables. The parking lot for trailers and vans was placed behind the barns, out of sight. Those renting stalls could use the s.p.a.ce for their rigs.

Larry Johnson, who lived in town, boarded his horse here. He'd always boarded horses, declaring he wasn't a farm boy and he wasn't going to start now. He'd boarded his horses ever since he started his practice after the war.

Facedown in the gra.s.s, one bullet in his back, another having taken off part of the back of his skull, he'd been dead for hours. How long was hard to say, since the mercury was plummeting. He was frozen stiff.

He would have lain there all night if Krystal Norton, a barn worker, hadn't come to the back barn to bring up extra feed. She thought she heard a motor running behind the barn, walked outside, and sure enough, Larry's truck was parked, engine still humming. She didn't notice him until she was halfway to the truck to cut the motor.

"Krystal," Cynthia sympathetically questioned, "what's the routine? What would Larry have done after the hunt breakfast?"

"He would drive to the first barn, unload his horse, put him in his stall, and then drive back here, unhitch his trailer, and drive home in his truck."

"And he'd unloaded his horse?"

"Yes." Krystal wiped her runny nose; she'd been sobbing both from shock and because she loved Dr. Johnson. Everybody did.

"n.o.body noticed that he hadn't pulled out?" Cynthia led Krystal a few steps away from the body.

"No. We're all pretty busy. There's people coming and going out of this hack barn all the time." She used the term "hack barn," which meant a boarders' barn.

"You didn't hear a pop?"

"No."

"Sometimes gunfire sounds like a pop. It's not quite like the movies." Coop noticed a pair of headlights swerving into the long driveway and hoped it was the whiz kids, as she called the fingerprint man, the photographer, and the coroner.

"We crank up the radio." Krystal hung her head, then looked at the deputy. "How can something like this happen?"

"I don't know but it's my job to find out. How long have you worked here?"

"Two years."

"Krystal, go on back to the barn. We'll tell you when you can go home but there's no need to stand out here in the cold. This has been awful and I'm sorry."

"Is there some-some deranged weirdo on the loose?"

"No," Cynthia replied with authority. "What there is is a cold-blooded killer who's protecting something, but I don't know what. This isn't a crime of pa.s.sion. It's not a s.e.x crime or theft. I don't believe you are in danger. If you get worried though, you call me."

"Okay." Krystal wiped her nose again as she walked back into the barn.

The headlights belonged to Mim Sanburne's big-a.s.s Bentley. She slammed the door and sprinted over to Larry Johnson. She knelt down to take him up in her arms.

The sheriff, gently but firmly, grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't touch him, Mrs. Sanburne. You might destroy evidence."

"Oh G.o.d." Mim sank to her knees, putting her head in her hands. She knelt next to the body, saw the piece of skull missing, the hole in his back.

Rick motioned Coop to come on over fast.

Cynthia's long legs covered the distance between the barn and the parking lot quickly. She knelt down next to Mim. "Miz Sanburne, let me take you back to your car."

"No. No. I want to stay with him until they take him away."

Another pair of headlights snaked down the driveway. Miranda Hogendobber stepped out of her Ford Falcon, which still ran like a top. Behind her in Susan's Audi station wagon came Susan, Harry, and the two cats and dog.

Rick squinted into the light. "d.a.m.n."

Coop, voice low, whispered, "They can help." She tilted her head toward Mim.

"Help with what?" Mim cried. "He's gone! The best man G.o.d ever put on this earth is gone."

Miranda hurried over, acknowledged Rick, and then knelt down next to Mim. She shuddered when she saw Larry's frozen body. "Mim, I'm going to take you to my place."

"I can't leave him. I left him once, you know."

Miranda did know. Friends since birth, they shared the secrets of their generation, secrets hardly suspected by their children or younger friends who always thought the world began with their arrival.

Taking a deep breath, Miranda put her cheek next to Mim's. "You did what you had to do, Mimsy. And your mother would have killed you."

"I was a coward!" Mim screamed so loud she scared everyone.

Susan and Harry hung back. They wouldn't come forward until Miranda got Mim out of there.

"Make a wide circle so the humans don't notice," Mrs. Murphy told Pewter and Tucker. "We need to inspect the body before other humans muck it up."