The Mezzo Wore Mink (10 page)

“
I concur,” I said.

“
Ditto,” added Nancy.

“
We aim to please,” said Pete. “I got the mix from the Mennonite bakery. Not bad, eh?”

“
Definitely not bad,” I said. “By the way, Mr. Mayor, have you checked out any of our new businesses in town? Nancy and I did a walkabout yesterday afternoon.”

Pete flushed. “How was I to know? Everybody wanted some new stores in town. ‘The town is drying up!’ they said. Well, they asked for ‘em and now they’ve got ‘em.”

“
No need to get defensive,” said Nancy. “May I have some more waffles?”

“
Me, too,” said Dave.

Pete waved a vague hand in the direction of Noylene and she came right over.

“
Waffles,” muttered Pete, “and coffee.” Noylene sniffed and headed for the kitchen.

“
Don’t get depressed,” I said. “At least you attracted some interesting folks to our fair community. If I’m not mistaken, that’s what Cynthia wanted you to do.”

“
If you think she won’t make a big deal of this, you’re mistaken,” answered Pete. “A bookstore run by a nutty clairvoyant, a refugee from a Renaissance Fair, and a Christian massage parlor—that’s not going to play very well in the
Tattler.”

“
Not to mention the fact that the Christians are also nudists,” said Nancy.

“
What!?
Oh, that’s just
great!
” said Pete in disgust.

“
We’re off to visit Blueridge Furs this morning,” said Nancy. “Have you been out there yet?”

Pete shook his head.

“
We’re all going,” said Dave. “You should come along. After all, you are the mayor.”

“
They’re outside the city limits,” Pete exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “I can’t be blamed.”

“
You don’t know anything about them,” I said. “It may be that you can take credit for bringing them to the area.”

“
Not the way this month is going,” said Pete, as Noylene showed up at the table with a heaping plate of waffles in one hand and a coffee pot in the other. “I’ll go with you though. When are you heading over?”

“
Soon as we’re finished,” I said as I looked at the fresh plate of steaming Belgian waffles. “In an hour or so.”

“
Who’s gonna watch the town?”

“
Let’s leave Noylene in charge,” suggested Dave. “These waffles are delicious.”

•••

Pete and I got into my ’62 Chevy pickup and I turned on the stereo adding the sounds of Zoltan Kodaly’s
Psalmus Hungaricus
to the roar of the engine and the squeaks and rattles of the old chassis.

“
Nice selection,” said Pete. “I can’t tell where the music leaves off and the truck begins.”

“
Spoken like a true jazzer. When was the last time you pulled out your sax?”

“
I played with a little combo last month. At the Jazz Parlor down in Lenoir. Nobody was there, of course, and it didn’t pay anything, but it helps keep up the chops.” He looked down at the seat and picked up the old gray felt hat.

“
Is this it? Is this
the
hat?”

“
That’s the one. I figure that as long as I have it, I might as well wear it.”

“
May I try it on?”

“
Sure.”

Pete put the hat on his head, but it was big on him and slid down comically around his ears. He sat thoughtfully for a couple of moments.

“
Doesn’t do anything for me. I can’t think of a single bad sentence. I don’t even feel like dangling a participle.”

I laughed, took my hat back, and headed out of town on Old Chambers Road, followed by Nancy and Dave in Dave’s Ford Escort. Four miles later, I turned right on Highway 53 and soon saw the newly painted sign for Blueridge Furs. We followed a long dirt drive up a meandering hill and came to what looked like an old dairy farm.

“
Did you know this was back here?” I asked Pete.

“
I had no idea. It looks to me like it hasn’t been in operation for a long time.”

“
It’s pretty clean though,” I said, getting out of the truck and slamming the door behind me. “I mean, it all looks in pretty good shape. A lot of these old farms are completely falling down.”

Nancy and Dave pulled up right behind us and joined Pete and me in our assessment.

“
Hey,” said Nancy, “you’re wearing the hat.”

“
Yep,” I nodded and turned to Dave. “Have you ever been up here?” I asked. “You grew up in St. Germaine, right?”

“
Well, practically,” said Dave. “This is the old Pierce place—Jed Pierce’s grandfather. It hasn’t been a working farm since the ’80s. Old Man Pierce left it to Jed’s father and he sold it to Locust Grove Dairy Farms. They never did open it though. Locust Grove Dairy Farms went belly-up soon after.”

“
How do you know all this?”

“
My mom worked for Old Man Pierce till he sold the place.”

Today there wasn’t a house on the property but there were three large dairy barns and an office. Most of the fences and chutes had been torn down, but there were a few of the whitewashed posts still standing. In front of the office were two matching, dark green Land Rovers with ‘Blueridge Furs’ printed on the back doors in white script. We walked up the steps and knocked. After a moment, a very attractive red-haired woman—
very
attractive—opened the door and greeted us.

She was a dish with more curves than a shoebox full of garden snakes, eyes like pimentoed olives, and a face that would make Jimmy Swaggart dress Pat Robertson in petticoats, buy him a beer, and take him dancing.

I immediately whipped off the hat, afraid that, in a moment, I’d have entire chapters racing through my head. “Wow,” I said, under my breath. Unfortunately, Nancy heard me and shot me a nasty sideways look, but before I could explain, we were interrupted.

“
Hi, y’all!” the redhead said cheerfully. “Won’t y’all come in? My name’s Muffy.”

“
Muffy?” said Nancy. “What an
interesting
name. And you know, I’ve never seen Hayden’s hat come off his head quite so fast. Is that spelled with a ‘y’ or with an ‘i’?”

“
A ‘y’,” Muffy said with a small giggle. “Although I spelled it with an ‘i-e’ when I was in high school. You know how sometimes you can dot the ‘i’ with a little heart?”

Nancy nodded.

“
But then I changed it back.” Muffy stepped back from the door. “It was too hard to remember. Come on in.”

We entered the spacious office.

“
I’m Pete Moss,” said Pete. “I’m the mayor of St. Germaine. Running for re-election, by the way. I’d appreciate your vote.” He gestured to the rest of us. “And this is Chief Konig, Lieutenant Nancy Parsky and Officer..uh…Dave.”

“
Dave Vance,” said Dave, suddenly remembering that his hat was still on and whisking it away. He was grinning like an idiot. Nancy growled.

“
Y’all are police? And you’re the mayor? Is there a problem?” She looked nervous for a moment. Nervous looked good on her. So did the light blue angora sweater.

“
No, no,” I answered. “We just came to say hello.”

Muffy relaxed. “Whew! That’s a relief. My husband’s went into Boone with Mr. Bateman to get some more fencing. Roderick Bateman is the owner of Blueridge Furs. My husband’s the foreman and I’m the bookkeeper.”

“
What’s your husband’s name?” asked Pete. “Maybe I know him.”

“
Maybe,” shrugged Muffy, “but we’re from Greensboro. His name is Varmit Lemieux. That’s my last name, too. We got married last month.” She proudly held her left hand aloft so we could admire her ring.

“
Beautiful,” said Dave, dodging a withering look from Nancy.

“
Breathtaking,” said Pete.

“
Stunning,” I agreed.

“
Oh,
brother
,” muttered Nancy.

“
How many others will be working out here?” Pete asked, hoping for an employment figure that he could tout in the newspaper.

“
We have six now, but Mr. Bateman says probably a dozen before long.”

Pete smiled happily. “Excellent. A dozen new jobs. That’s great!”

“
Can I get y’all some coffee and cookies?” asked Muffy.

“
Absolutely,” I said. “We haven’t had anything to eat for a good half hour.”

“
Hey, wait a minute! Ain’t you the choir director over at the Episcopal church?”

“
Yes, I am,” I answered in surprise. “Have you been over to St. Barnabas?”

“
Why, sure! Varmit and I are Episcopalians. Well, Varmit was a back-slid Methodist and I was a Catholic so we sort of ended up in the middle. Anyway, we came over to St. Barnabas last Sunday. We heard the choir sing, but we had to get back here before lunch and I didn’t get to talk to anybody.” Muffy offered me a homemade chocolate-chip oatmeal cookie from a nicely filled platter. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“
Sure.”

“
Can me and Varmit join the choir? I have a real good voice and Varmit likes to follow along. It gives him something to do instead of sittin’ at home drinking while I’m at choir practice.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve been told,” she said, in a confidential tone, “that I sound exactly like Loretta Lynn.”

“
I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Choir practice is at seven on Wednesdays.” I shot a quick glance at Nancy, but she decided that it was the better part of discretion to suddenly look down at her feet and concentrate on nibbling her cookie. “Why don’t you come for a couple of weeks and see how you like it?”

“
We will!” said Muffy happily. “We’ll be there on Wednesday.”

We were drinking our coffee and enjoying our snack when we heard a truck drive up outside. I looked out the window and saw another Land Rover, identical to the other two, pull up to the office. A moment later the door opened and two men walked into the office, one of them in jeans and a sweatshirt, the other dressed in khakis with a button down collar jutting out of his v-neck cashmere sweater. Both of them smiled affably when they saw us.

“
Pleasure to meet you,” said the nattily dressed Roderick Bateman, once we had all introduced ourselves. “I wondered if someone would eventually make a trip out this way to check our operation.”

“
We’re not here to check on anything,” I said. “Just to say ‘hello.’ I expect the Fish and Wildlife Commission has some sort of jurisdiction over fur farms.”

“
They do,” said Roderick, “but we also answer to the Fur Commission of America. They’ll be coming in to do our certification.”