Hiss of Death: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery (21 page)

W
hen Harry arrived at Heavy Metal Gym the next morning at 5:30, the weight room teemed with people. A smaller room off the weight room had mats on the floor for stretching. In the boxing area, two young men did rope work; another hit the speed bag.

Dr. Annalise Veronese and Toni Enright were already there. Harry flopped down and took her orders from Noddy. Chitchatting was at a minimum, because everyone here attacked their exercises seriously. Two bodybuilders arrived at 5:45
A.M.
They, too, stretched. Easy as stretching appears compared to a three-hundred-pound bench press, it took concentration. It bored Harry, but she trusted Noddy’s wisdom.

“Hold that for one minute,” Noddy commanded.

On her back, left knee to the ground over her right side, Harry started to sweat. By the time she finished twenty minutes of stretching, she knew why the bodybuilders carried towels with them. She wiped her sweat off the mat.

“We’ll concentrate on your core. I’ll give you isolated exercises for your arms, back, legs, but today it’s your abs and obliques. We’ll work on strength, twisting for flexibility. Given your riding, there are times when you need to swivel in the saddle. Well, I’ve put together a program for you.”

“I don’t have any weights at home.”

“The exercise program uses the floor, chairs, and a low tree branch
for you to do chin-ups. If you don’t have anything low, then buy a bar and put it up in a doorway. In time, you might want to work on a bodybuilder’s schedule. That means you isolate the muscle groups, and for three consecutive days work each one, take a day off, then back again. You always begin with stretching, and you end with running or the stationary bike. You can possess the best core strength in the world, but if you haven’t wind or stamina, what good is it?”

“Right.” Harry was beginning to realize there was a lot more to this than was at first apparent.

However, she was enthusiastic. All the more so when she saw how much Annalise and Toni were accomplishing.

“On your back.” Noddy pointed down. “Now bring your legs up a foot off the floor; keep them straight. Arms out to your sides straight. Fold yourself together so you’re on your butt. Back’s off the floor. There. Now hold it.”

After one hour, plus twenty minutes for the stretching, Harry felt exhilarated even if tired. She headed for the locker room.

Annalise showered, dressed, and applied light makeup in the mirror near her locker. She stepped into her jeans, putting a pocketknife in one pocket, a list of chores in the other. She looked over at Harry.

“How’d you like it?”

“It’s harder than I thought, but I thought it was great.”

“I didn’t hear about your finding Thadia until last night. You have an odd knack for finding dead people.”

“Let’s hope this is the last. Will you perform the autopsy?”

“No. Richmond has one of the best forensic pathology departments in America. They’ll do the work.”

“I don’t know how pathologists do it.”

“Most people don’t,” Annalise answered in good humor. “A pathologist is always right but a day late. There may be something we can take from the dead that will help the living.”

“Forgive me if I’m asking this the wrong way, but how did you get interested in dead things?”

The attractive doctor laughed. “I didn’t think of it quite that way. When I was little we had such a wonderful family doctor. That was the beginning, but I didn’t know I had an interest until biology class. I loved
dissecting things, just loved seeing how everything fit together. Once I got into med school, it all fell into place. I feel like a detective when I’m working. I enjoy the challenge.”

Harry changed the subject. “Don’t you find it odd that two women who knew each other, both from Central Virginia Medical Complex, have died, one clearly murdered?”

“It is unfortunate. And yes, it is odd.”

Toni returned from the showers, towel wrapped around her. She twirled the combination lock for her locker. “Talking about recent events?”

“Yes,” both women said.

“Jigs for Coke,” Harry quickly said.

In the South, if two people say the same thing at the same time, the first who utters the words “jigs for whatever” gets it.

“All right.” Annalise laughed. “Do you want money for it so you can drink one on the way home, or do you want one on different terms?”

“Medical skills
and
negotiating skills. We’re lucky to have you,” Toni teased.

“Now.” Harry grinned.

“All right.” Annalise opened her purse and pulled out a five-dollar bill.

“That’s too much,” Harry protested.

“You might need more than one. You had quite a workout.”

“I feel great.”

The well-built, strong physician added, “Wait until the second day.”

“We’ll see.” Harry then turned to Toni. “How’d it go—telling Thadia’s groups, I mean?”

“A mess. Some got hysterical, others cried, others sat like stones. They’re lost, and we’ve got to find a counselor fast, a really good rehabilitation person.”

“Won’t be easy.” Annalise slung her purse over her shoulder. “She was an odd duck.”

“Nicely put,” Toni responded.

“Well, speak no ill of the dead,” Annalise advised.

Harry felt that she’d heard that before recently. A flash of disquiet was followed by telling herself it was a stock phrase thousands of years old.

Maybe the ancients knew more than we did. Who is to say spirits should not be propitiated? Is there such a thing as the unquiet dead?

“Harry.” Toni spoke louder than usual.

“Huh?”

“Where are you?”

“Sorry, my mind traveled back to my Latin teacher.” Harry’s reply was almost true.

“If you’re going to vacation in the past, couldn’t you pick a more exciting time?” Toni laughed.

Harry mused, “Athens and Rome. They make us look so dull.”

“Then you and I better make up for it.” Toni lightly punched Harry’s arm.

I
sn’t it late for this?” At Fair’s veterinary clinic, Harry watched as her husband carefully put the two straws of equine semen into the cylinder of liquid nitrogen. A sponge in the bottom of the cylinder had been filled with the liquid nitrogen; the sides of the cylinder helped maintain the temperature. He closed the lid, snapping it shut.

“Hey, hand me that pen, will you?”

Harry picked up a Pilot G2–07 medium-point black. Fair used this ballpoint because the ink wouldn’t wash out. Given the value of the semen, the last thing he wanted was for a shipment to go astray or for a careless FedEx employee to get the label wet. He had to admit he’d not met any careless FedEx employees, but Fair’s motto could have been “Better safe than sorry.”

He wrote out the address on preprinted FedEx labels. Then Harry held the cylinder as he affixed the labeling pouch and inserted the label, keeping the top copy for himself just in case.

She read the label: “Rosehaven. Fair, that’s Paula Cline’s operation in Lexington, Kentucky. Since when is she breeding Warmbloods?”

“She’s not. Paula is a Thoroughbred girl.” Fair smiled, thinking of the woman they’d gotten to know because her son attended UVA some years back.

It was serendipity. They’d met at a college baseball game, sitting next to one another, and were surprised to find each other involved in the
horse industry. Then they discovered they were both friends with Joan Hamilton and Larry Hodge of Kalarama Farm. Like all people in that situation, they marveled at how small the world was or, in the parlance of the day, our collective six degrees of separation.

Fair explained, “Paula promised a friend she’d take care of this. Brie Feldman wants her stallion crossed with one of Paula’s Thoroughbred mares, the one with Forty-niner blood.”

Harry tried to be circumspect in public but was considerably less so in her husband’s presence. “Well, that’s just stupid.”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on, Fair, why ruin a beautiful Thoroughbred shoulder? Warmbloods are too straight up.”

“Harry, you were born around Thoroughbreds, and so was I, but even you have to admit that Warmbloods can jump the moon and most people are more comfortable with their temperament.”

“Slow.” Harry tapped her forehead.

“Amend that slow to mature. Anyway, Brie has made a good living with her Warmbloods. She goes to Germany annually to visit the Holsteiner Gestüt”—he used the German name for breeding station—“and she’s brought back very good horses.”

Harry, slightly peevish, said, “She can’t hold a candle to the late Virginia Klumpp.”

“Virginia really was special, but remember, it was Virginia that guided Brie. Give her a chance, Harry.”

Harry burst out, “Oh, Fair, all these wonderful people have left us. I miss Virginia. What a generous, funny, funny woman. Hell, I still miss my mother and father, and—”

He put his strong arm around her. “What’s up, Skeezits?”

Hearing her childhood nickname, she slumped against him. “I don’t know. I’m getting as crabby as Pewter.”

As Pewter reposed on the counter in the reception room, an instant comment flew out of her mouth:
“I resent that!”

“Oh, shut up, Pewts, you are crabby.”
Tucker, head on paws, rolled her eyes.

“I calls ’em as I sees ’em. You and Mrs. Murphy don’t.”

“We have the sense to shut up.”
Mrs. Murphy defended herself and Tucker.

“Right.” Tucker smiled.

“Well?”

Harry sat down as Fair double-checked the cylinder. “It’s the scarab,” she said. “It preys on my mind. Pewter found it in Paula’s driveway when I found Paula. And then, God knows why, I also ride up on Thadia, and there’s the bracelet with a scarab missing. Coop picked it up, the tiger’s eye I kept. It fit in the bracelet perfectly.”

“I found it.”
Pewter raised her voice.

“Honey, I expect most scarab bracelets come with small-, medium-, and large-sized stones. That the stone fit may be important, may not.”

“Probably.” She then blurted out, “There’s that rictus smile that mocks one. It’s horrible without being gross, if you know what I mean. I will never again think of Thadia without thinking of her in death, that frozen open jaw.”

“All mammals get it if they go into rigor mortis. I never thought of it as mocking. I sure have thought of a skull’s smile. Hard to miss, plus horror movies have burned it into our brain.” He continued to keep his arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, baby. You’ve been through a lot.”

The report from Thadia’s autopsy was that her heart did have scar tissue consistent with cocaine abuse, but the muscle showed no signs of disease, the valves were healthy, her arteries clean and clear. Her heart was just fine—as were her lungs, kidneys, liver, and brain. At least the people she had been counseling could keep on track, keep trying, knowing that Thadia hadn’t fallen back into her old bad habits. The small cardboard box had contained OxyContin, but none was in her bloodstream. The hospital administrator, Will Archer, did not tell anyone about the OxyContin. He had enough trouble as it was. He asked Rick to keep it out of news reports, which the sheriff did.

“Two.” Harry held up two fingers.

“Harry, just let Coop and Rick worry about this.”

“Paula had a familiar scent, but not so familiar we could identify it.”
Poor Tucker tried one more time to get through to her people.

Pewter looked over the counter.
“Describe it again.”

“Not bad. Faint. Like an old banana, but not really.”
Tucker strained for some telling detail.

“She’s right. It wasn’t an odor that would snap your head around like gasoline,”
Mrs. Murphy chimed in.
“Or like a lot of perfumes humans slap on.”

“An assault on any dog’s nose.”
Tucker laughed.

“Calvin Klein’s Obsession isn’t so bad.”
Mrs. Murphy found it very interesting.

“Isn’t so good, either.”
Tucker wrinkled her black nose.

Pewter lifted her head.
“Better than decay, which you so adore. Can you imagine a human describing your ideal odor? ‘Deep, meaty smell with hint of toasted fingernails and deteriorating ligaments, with a dried coagulated blood finish.’ ”

At this, all three animals howled with laughter.

“What gets into them?” Harry laughed, too.

“Honey, we’re better off not knowing.”

“I guess, but sometimes I feel left out. Fair, I think they experience life more fully than we do, I really do.”

His lustrous blue eyes met hers. “If you and I didn’t have to pay bills, fill out endless income and other government tax forms, listen to the nightly reports of misery, terror, natural disasters, and murder all over the world, we might come close to their enjoyment.”

She seized on one word. “Murder. Did Thadia kill Paula?”

“If she did, she left no trace. Sugar, I doubt Thadia killed Paula. She was weird, had fried a lot of brain cells, and was terminally immature, but I don’t think even at her drugged-out worst, Thadia was a killer.”

Harry leaned against the counter, her face low so Mrs. Murphy could rub her cheek on hers. “Maybe.”

“Honey, what’s the motive?” He now leaned on the counter, too.