The Big Cat Nap (29 page)

“Yes,” Coop replied.

“Messages about what?” BoomBoom had returned to her place at the table.

“ ‘Shut your mouth. Don’t get greedy.’ The mechanics knew what Victor and Latigo were doing. And they were well paid to shut up.” Cooper swung one leg over the long wooden seat so she now sat at the end of the table facing all of them. “The mechanics received big payoffs to keep quiet about the substandard parts. In return, they received a cut of the action. Now that we have forensics accountants in law enforcement, we can find the holes in anyone’s books eventually. Walt started the ball rolling. He wanted more money to keep silent. Not only did he try to shake down Victor and Latigo, he tried to shake down his co-workers. No love lost there.”

“How much do you think the whole scheme made?” Franny inquired, ever interested in profit.

“Millions. We can only work off percentages—in other words, the cost of genuine manufacturing parts versus the cost of knockoffs—but the profit is huge.”

“So Latigo sent clients to Victor?” Fair finished his steak, thinking he’d done a great job, which he had.

“He did. Both men profited handsomely, obviously. Jason indicated that first Walt got greedy, then Nick and Bobby wanted more. Nick stupidly threatened to tell the media about the Chinese parts, the whole scam. A collision-repair shop is under no obligation to identify whether parts are from the original manufacturer or aftermarket. All Victor had to do was undercut his competition by fifteen percent. Latigo referred everyone to Victor. Both made a lot of money.” Cooper then pointed to Harry. “What really tipped you off? You were ahead of us.”

“When Herb’s truck was declared a total wreck, I knew it had many years left. That’s why I went to the lot and pulled out the radiator.
I knew it wasn’t right, because the drill holes to fit it had been altered. They were elliptical, and for that I thank Dabney Farnese. When he came to repair the John Deere, he told me about substandard parts for tractors, especially the holes. He said they were dead giveaway signs, because a substandard replacement part never fit exactly right. The holes had to be altered, and he said those alterations tend to be elliptical instead of perfectly round.

“So that was it? My radiator.” Reverend Jones reached for a cupcake with thick vanilla icing.

“But I became surer about my theory when I drove over to Haldane’s Salvage and Millie Haldane showed me cracked wheels, two of which were on Tara Meola’s Explorer on the lot for scrap. Safe and Sound uses Millie’s salvage yard. That lady knows a whole lot. By the time I left there, I knew, I just knew, but I couldn’t prove that Safe and Sound was behind it. If Tara’s Explorer had had true Ford wheels, there was a chance she might have lived when she veered off the road. The copycat wheels cracked.

“And when Miranda went off the road, it was a wheel problem. She’d had that wheel replaced the year before.”

“Where is Miranda?” Franny loved the older lady.

“Choir practice. Her choir has been asked to sing at the swearing-in ceremony on the Fourth of July at Monticello.” Harry mentioned a moving event at Mr. Jefferson’s home, where people became American citizens.

“What an honor.” Alicia smiled.

“She has a solo, too. That beautiful, beautiful voice,” Reverend Jones added.

“Why did declaring Herb’s truck a total loss alert you?” Franny was curious.

“No investigation when a vehicle is declared totaled. My curiosity must have set off those two. They didn’t want me to go over the truck. I mean, Victor towed the Chevy out of St. Luke’s right away. I should have smelled a rat when he dropped off the WRX STI. He had a tracking device in the car. He knew my every move in that Subaru. I never imagined that. I was really dumb.”

“Well, stubborn is closer to the mark,” BoomBoom said.

“I was too dazzled by the WRX STI. It was easy to track me—you can watch a person’s movements on your phone GPS; hunting guys even get map printouts with their dogs’ trails overlaid on them. That’s what they did to me. When they knew I was in an isolated place where they could get me, they did. They’d obviously shadowed me to Millie’s and knew I was getting close to the truth.”

Reverend Jones thought out loud. “Greed, one of the seven deadly sins. You might have been the fourth victim.”

“Thank God my baby can drive,” Fair said. “She’s the NASCAR type.” He wiped his hand on the wet towel. “They never imagined she could control a car as well as they could.”

“I could have told them that.” BoomBoom smiled. “Reflexes like a cat.”

“Not even close,”
Pewter responded.

The blue jay swept down on all those people at the table, making off with more delicious seeds from the tops of some muffins.

“That damned bird!” Franny allowed herself a curse.

Franny, who knew Millie Haldane, asked Harry, “What’d you think of Millie?”

“She’s lonely, you know. She knows a lot. Cooper, I’d pay a call on her or use her for an expert witness once you have a talk with the prosecutor. Actually, I want to see her again, too.”

“A real character.” Franny nodded.

“Look who’s talking.” Susan giggled, then became serious. “Harry, I think our phone call to Vivien Bly tipped them off, too. I mean, tipped them off that you were getting closer. I bet she ran straight to Latigo and told him everything. We should have thought of that. Just because we know he’s a two-timing you-know-what doesn’t mean she doesn’t love him. Maybe she doesn’t know.”

“She does,” Alicia said with conviction. “She’s going to stick by him; she’ll try to come up with alibis. Just wait until this goes to court.”

“How can she do that?” Harry threw up her hands.

Quietly, Reverend Jones replied, “How can she not? We have
thousands of years of written history extolling women who put their love for a man before the common welfare. She was being a ‘good wife.’ ” He looked at the celebrants intently.

Harry plowed right in. “It’s one thing if infidelity occurs, but it’s quite another if you know your husband or son or daughter is killing people. How can what she’s doing be construed as good?”

“It’s a confusing issue. Standards are shifting,” Alicia wisely stated. “Personally, I don’t know what I’d do. I mean, do any of us know until it happens to us?”

“She’ll run the empire when he goes to jail.” Franny shrugged.

“Well, it’s entirely possible she’ll be on the carpet, too. How much did she know? Is she an accessory?” Cooper knew all too well how these things worked.

“This will drag on and drag on,” said Franny. In the meantime, Harry’s got a Subaru WRX STI, because I doubt anyone is going to think to take it back at the moment. Safe and Sound owns it, right?” She laughed.

“Guess they do,” Harry replied.

“Well, make hay while the sun shines,” Franny enjoined her.

“That’s just what I’ve been doing.” Harry swept her arm to indicate the cut hay fields, to much laughter.

Just then, the blue jay returned. The light on the iced-tea pitcher, mirrored almost, fooled him, and he flew smack into it, falling between the glasses and the sugar and lemon.

For a fat girl, Pewter burned the wind jumping on that table.

She’d just put her paw on the bird’s plump chest when Harry scooped her up.

“That’s my bird. I’ve waited years for that monster!”

Fair picked up the bird, stroking its head, feeling its neck. “Not broken.”

A bright black eye opened. The blue jay moved his head.

Pewter wriggled in Harry’s arms, her rage escalating.

“Get your tail out of the cake icing.” BoomBoom gingerly picked up the tail.

“Mine. That bird is mine!”
Pewter reached out.

“No,” Fair said, as he plucked a baked oat off a muffin and put it into the bird’s beak. Then he threw the blue jay up. A flutter of wings and the thief landed on his branch.

Swallowing the oat, he stared straight down at the distraught gray cat.
“Ha.”

“I will kill you,”
Pewter vowed.
“I don’t care how long it takes. I will kill you.”

Mrs. Murphy walked over to her emotional friend, leaned on her shoulder, and said,
“Pewts, don’t you worry. Someday that blue jay will get his. You know that crime doesn’t pay.”

I sometimes worry that readers mistake my characters for me. For what it’s worth, I’m pretty middle-of-the-road and am appalled at the entrenched dishonesty, self-centeredness, and lack of concern for our citizens that I perceive in Washington. That loss of confidence and belief knows no party, really. I think most of us are stunned.

In the interests of clarity, I am not Harry, although we share a love of farming and nature. In most other respects, we are markedly different. Still, Harry and I both live in central Virginia, where people are not liberal. They aren’t to the right of Genghis Khan, either. Sure, a few are, but most are not. By and large, the residents of Virginia adhere to Jefferson’s ideal: “That government is best which governs least.”

Thank you for keeping up with Sneaky Pie and the Crozet family. My hope is that Sneaky Pie will run for president. I trust her; she’s sensible and reliable.

As for me, I’m doing my best to keep body and soul together, as are you. No matter what folly humans are committing, the great blue heron flying in front of a sun setting behind the Blue Ridge Mountains restores me. I hope you have something equal to such beauty in your life.

Always and ever,

Rita Mae Brown

Cats do like riding in cars and trucks, but we need to learn to do it as kittens. If I’m not looking out the dash, I like to get up in the rear window.

This story interests me because of zooming around with my human. I’ve even ridden in her lap when she drives the tractor. Not often, as it’s a rough ride, but I do like the view from high up.

Pewter, on the other hand, only goes along for the ride because she’s afraid she’ll miss something. If she gets scared, she makes a mess. She should just stay home.

Hope all is well where you are.

Yours,      
Sneaky Pie

She’s full of poop, not me! I can ride with the best of them.

Sincerely, honestly, truthfully,
Pewter

Erica Eversman tops the list, but she tops my list always. The Automotive Education & Policy Institute is hers (
www.autoepi.org
). This good woman drove all the way from Akron, Ohio, to stay in my barn, calling it headquarters despite no air-conditioning or Internet service. She soldiered on in punishing heat, brought me all manner of hard copy, and had the incredible patience to explain just what’s at stake with this issue.

We are so accustomed to seeing any of the Big Three auto manufacturers as the bad guys. In this case, they are not. For one thing, they don’t want you to die in their vehicles. Let’s leave it at that.

Thanks seem inadequate for all that this tall, blonde smarty has done for me and by extension for all Americans, although you may not know about it. Erica and others are fighting the good fight for auto safety.

Mrs. Donna Packard, Academic & Professional Services, always prepares my manuscripts. For this mystery, she actually researched some agriculture questions. Nothing like a last-minute call. She came through, but then Donna always does, whether it’s for her profession, her children, her husband, or her friends.

Thanking a jewelry store—well, is there a woman who doesn’t love a good jewelry store? Keller & George has served Charlottesville for well over one hundred years. Bill Liebenrood of Keller & George, whom I think of as the Big Cheese, asked me to kill him off in this book so he wouldn’t have to go to work anymore. Only Bill. I like him so much I just couldn’t do it, but perhaps in subsequent books I can make him suffer.

I am especially grateful to Bill and Gayle Lowe for their kindness to me during a spectacular reversal in my life. It didn’t help them, or Keller & George, either, but they handled it with their good humor and grace, and I am forever in their debt.