Wish You Were Here by Rita Mae Brown Page B

much for one morning. I bid you adieu.”
    â€œAre you sure you don’t want me to see you home?” Josiah offered again.
    â€œNo . . . thank you.” And she was gone.
    â€œDidn’t they find that stuff stashed in a barn in Falling Water, West Virginia?” Fair asked.
    â€œThey did, and that was a stupid place to put it too.” Josiah shut his mailbox.
    â€œWhy?” Harry asked.
    â€œPutting exquisite pieces like that in a barn. Rodents could chew them or defecate on the furniture. The elements could expand and contract the woods. Just dumb. They knew good stuff from bad but they didn’t know how to take care of it.”
    â€œMaybe they packed them up or crated them.” Fair wasn’t very knowledgeable about antiques.
    â€œNo, I remember the TV reports. They showed the inside of the barn.” Josiah shook his head. “No matter, that’s small beer compared to . . . this.” He walked over to the counter where Fair was leaning. “What do you think?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhat about you, Harry?” Josiah’s face registered concern.
    â€œI think whoever did this was one of us. Someone we know and trust.”
    Josiah instinctively stepped back. “Why do you think that?”
    â€œWhat’s the killer doing? Flying in and out of Charlottesville to murder his victims? It has to be a local.”
    â€œWell, it doesn’t have to be someone from Crozet.” Josiah was offended at the idea.
    â€œWhy not? It’s not so strange when you think about it.” Fair ran his fingers through his thick hair. “Something goes wrong between friends or lovers; the hurt person blows. It can happen here. It has happened here.”
    Josiah slowly walked to the door and put his hand on the worn doorknob. “I don’t like to think about it. Maybe it will stop now.” He left and for good measure circled around the post office to Mrs. Hogendobber’s house to make sure she arrived home safely.
    â€œWhat can I do for you?” Harry, even-toned, asked Fair.
    â€œOh, nothing. I heard on the way to work and I thought I’d see if you were all right. You liked Maude.”
    Harry, touched, lowered her eyes. “Thanks, Fair. I did like Maude.”
    â€œWe all did.”
    â€œThat’s it. That’s what I need to find out. We all liked Maude. We mostly liked Kelly Craycroft. To the eye, everything looks normal. Underneath, something’s horribly wrong.”
    â€œFind the motive and you find the killer,” Fair said.
    â€œUnless he or she finds you first.”

12
    Harry paused before knocking on BoomBoom Craycroft’s dark-blue front door. She’d brought the cat and the dog along because when she left for her lunch break the animals carried on like dervishes. First the ficus tree, now this. Must be the heat. She glanced over her shoulder. Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, good as gold, sat in the front seat of the truck. The windows, wide open, gave them air but it was too hot to be in the truck. She turned around and opened the truck door.
    â€œNow, you stay here.”
    The minute Harry disappeared through the front door of the Craycroft house, that order was forgotten.
    BoomBoom’s West Highland white shot around from behind the back of the house.
“Who’s here? Who’s here, and you’d better have a good reason to be here!”
    â€œIt’s us, Reggie,”
Tucker said.
    â€œSo it is.”
Reggie wagged his tail and touched noses with Tucker. He touched noses with Mrs. Murphy, too, even though she was a cat. Reggie had manners.
    â€œHow are you?”
    â€œAs good as can be expected.”
    â€œBad, huh?”
Tucker was sympathetic.
    â€œShe’s just grim. Never smiles. I wish I could do something for her. I miss him too. He was a lot of fun, Kelly.”
    â€œDo you have any idea what happened? Did he take you places that humans didn’t know