Free Pawing Through the Past by Rita Mae Brown Page A

high-school class seems, well, volatile.” She paused. “One more question.”
    “Sure.”
    “Do
you
think this murder has anything to do with your high-school reunion?”
    “Nah. How could it?”

10
    “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
Tucker inquired of Mrs. Murphy and Pewter as the animals watched Harry fall in love with her new truck.
    “She’s read the manual twice, she’s crawled under the truck, and now she’s identifying and playing with every single part she can reach in the engine. Humans are extremely peculiar. All this attention to a hunk of metal,”
Pewter said.
    A little breeze kicked up a wind devil in front of the barn door where the animals crouched in the shade. Harry worked in the fading sunlight.
    “It’s a perfect red.”
Mrs. Murphy felt more people would notice her riding in a red truck than in any other color.
“Look who’s rolling down the road.”
    They heard the tire crunch a half mile away, saw the dust and soon Blair Bainbridge’s 911 wide-body black turbo Porsche glided into view, a vastly different machine than the dually but each suited for its purpose.
    Harry put down the grease gun she’d been using and wiped her hands on an old towel as Blair stopped. “Hey, had to see the new truck. I didn’t believe it when Little Mim told me, but when Big Mim said you truly had a new truck, one that could haul your trailer, I had to see it.”
    “Big Mim is interested in my truck?” Harry smiled.
    “The only topic of conversation hotter than your red truck is the end of Charlie Ashcraft. Everyone has a suspect and no one cares. Amazing.” He stretched his long legs, unfolding himself from the cockpit of the Porsche. “It seems like everyone knew Charlie but no one
really
knew him.”
    “You could say that about a lot of people.”
    “Yes, I guess you could,” he agreed.
    She lingered over the big V-8 engine, admiring the cleanliness of it, touching the fuel injection ports, which meant she had to stand on an old wooden Coca-Cola box to lean down into the compact engine. “Blair, men talk. What are they saying?”
    “Oh,” he waved his hand, “I’m not in the inner circle.” He took a breath.
    “You know I value your judgment. You were born and bred here and, uh . . .” He stopped for a moment. “I find myself in a delicate situation.”
    “Too many women, too little time.” Harry laughed.
    He laughed, too. Harry relaxed him. “Not exactly, but close. Over the years we’ve become friends and I think I would have committed more blunders without you. I’m afraid I’m heading for a real cock-up, as the Brits say.”
    “Little Mim.”
    “Yes.” He glanced up at the sky. “See, it’s like this: women accuse men of being superficial over looks. Trust me. Women are equally as superficial.”
    “You would know.” She smiled at the unbelievably handsome model.
    Blair flew all over the world for photo shoots. The biggest names in men’s fashions wanted him.
    “You’re not going to put up a fight? You’re not going to tell me men are worse than women?”
    “Nope.” Harry jammed her hands in her back pockets. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
    “Little Mim has a crush on me. Okay, I’ve dealt with crushes before and I like her. Don’t get me wrong. But over the weekend I was at a fund-raiser and, of course, the Sanburnes were there. Big Mim pulled me away from the crowd, took me down to the rathskeller, and closed the door.”
    “This is getting serious,” Harry remarked. The rathskeller was a small stone room in the basement of the Farmington Country Club.
    “She offered me cash if I would stay away from Marilyn. She said modeling was not a suitable profession for her son-in-law.”
    “No!” Harry blurted out.
    “I make a lot of money, but let’s just say my business is timesensitive. I’d be a liar if I said I’m immune to a big bribe. And I’ve had enough scrapes and breaks to my body to wake me up to that fact. My Teotan Partnership