The Purrfect Murder (12 page)

“Where is that man with my martini?”

“Fighting the crows. Hold on.”

Carla Paulson stopped by for a moment. “Aunt Tally, you remember my husband, Jurgen?”

“So nice to see you, sir.” Aunt Tally extended her hand.

He shook it, then repeated the process with Harry.

Carla, with bracelets obscuring her arms, a huge necklace, and enormous earrings of white and black pearls with sprays of diamonds arching over them, presented a contrast to Harry, who appeared restrained. She was wearing her mother's five-carat emerald-cut diamond ring, along with emerald-cut earrings at three carats each and a matching bracelet.

The diamonds were perfect. Harry knew exactly how to wear jewelry even though she wasn't much interested in it. She could never have afforded her mother's diamonds, but once upon a time, before the Great Depression, the Hepworths, Harry's maternal family, had money.

Aunt Tally wore a diamond choker and two-carat drop diamond earrings, quite subtle but the diamonds were perfect.

In Virginia, less is more.

“Darling, you must get a safety-deposit box.” Aunt Tally smiled at Carla, who missed the point.

Fortunately, before the old girl could further sharpen her tongue, Dolf and Fair appeared.

Dolf performed the obligatory hand kiss, which made Carla titter.

Mike McElvoy passed by, Noddy on his arm. “Good evening, folks.”

“Mike.” Fair smiled at him.

Carla curled her lip, but Jurgen had the manners to wish him a good evening.

“Mike, with all your building inspections, do you ever have time to build for yourself?” Harry asked.

Noddy answered for him. “You should see his shop. Well, he calls it a shed. It's sacred. I don't go in there.” She tittered. “It's where he buries the bodies.”

Mike gruffly replied with humor, “I am banished to the shed because I'll dirty her house.”

As Mike left, Carla hissed, “I truly hope I see him roasted on a spit.”

“Now, Carla, don't let that temper get the better of you. Redhead.” Jurgen genially explained her temper due to hair color.

As the Paulsons left to distribute themselves among the throng, Aunt Tally said, “Lucille Testicle red.”

Harry, tonic water in one hand, champagne in the other, decided the only way to survive this evening was to knock back the champagne immediately.

Fair smiled as she did so, placing her fluted glass on the tray as yet another serving girl passed by.

“Another?”

“No, honey. I really will stick to the tonic water, but I needed help.”

“Oh, Harry, loosen up,” Aunt Tally ordered. “A little medicinal application of spirits enriches life.”

“Mutes the harshness.” Dolf sipped his champagne.

A melody of trumpet notes called the assembled to the tables.

As each gentleman seated each lady, then sat down himself, a moment of hush fell over the lawn. The variety of glasses on the table was truly spectacular.

The band of strolling players left the scene, and an orchestra playing period pieces sat near the back of the platform, itself a wonder of ribbons, topiary, and birds. The tableau commenced on stage.

Tazio, next to Fair, flushed from the praise.

He leaned down to tell her, “All deserved.”

Harry noted that Little Mim indeed graced Folly Steinhauser's table—the Number 1 table, too. Her eyes cast over the scene. She was amused to see Mike McElvoy and his wife seated at a back table with Tony Long and his wife. Folly, no doubt, was working these two over for some grand building plan she envisioned for the future. Might work with Tony, but who knew about Mike?

Will Wylde's table was filled with his staff and their dates and husbands. Kylie leaned on her date. She wore the gold Rolex, which, being a sport watch, wasn't proper. However, she wanted the world to view her treasure.

This reminded Harry how generous Benita Wylde was, because “the girls” would not have been able to afford this evening on their own. Benita had told them Will would be horrified if they didn't attend. He wanted people to live, to enjoy life.

Dr. Harvey Tillach's table, on the other side of the lawn, was also filled.

Miranda and Tracy, at Harry's table, which wasn't all that far from Big Mim's table, filled it with laughter. Miranda turned into the lively high-school girl she once was in Tracy's company. Not that she couldn't be lively on her own, but the years and the loss of her husband, George, had subdued her for a long, long time.

A young man quietly poured the first serving of wine. Harry turned her glass upside down. One glass of champagne was all she could handle. She felt its titillating effects already.

Miranda held up her glass. Cooper, seated beside Tracy, wondered at the nature of Miranda's toast.

Her deep, honeyed alto voice flowed over the table. “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm One Eighteen, Verse Twenty-four.”

Everyone joined Miranda's toast.

The first course, served in a coordinated, balletic fashion, added to the conversation.

Cooper, surprisingly feminine in her bottle-green gown, had a blind date, Lorenzo McCracken, a Nicaraguan. Before the twentieth century, an outpouring of Scots had settled in Central America. The crossing of the Scots with the Spaniards had resulted in some progeny taking the best of both. Lorenzo possessed the square, manly features of a Scot, with intense Spanish coloring.

Cooper, who hated blind dates, was thrilled with this one.

Hard to tell how Lorenzo felt, since his manners were not only perfect but infused with charm.

Cooper kept telling herself, “I know I'm a fool for Spanish-speaking men. On guard.”

Yes, but for how long?

This was a happy, happy crowd. Even Big Mim was happy, so long as she didn't look over at Little Mim. And at Table 1. That grated.

Herb Jones did his best to keep her distracted. If the good reverend's genial patter didn't occupy her, her increasing alarm at Aunt Tally's alcohol intake did.

Aunt Tally was becoming the belle of the ball. Not for the first time.

Tazio, not wearing a watch—which was wise for a lady in a ball gown—asked Paul the time. Most of the courses had been served. She was getting a little nervous about her upcoming presentation.

“Seven forty-five.”

“What time does the show begin?” Harry asked.

“After dessert, per usual.” Tracy laughed. “If you drink enough wine, you can fall asleep during the speeches.”

“Now, honey.” Miranda winked at him, although he was in scant danger of falling asleep.

“Let me just slip away. I'm going to be on that dais for some time.” Tazio headed for the Porta-Johns out of sight of the tables.

Ten minutes passed.

“She's taking a long time.” Paul glanced at his watch again.

Cooper said, “Probably a line. She's not the only one trying to get in ahead of intermission.”

A moment of silence prevailed on the dais, the lovely bit of Mozart completed. The violinist spoke something to the others, picked up his bow again, tapped his foot. Before he could draw it across his resonant instrument, a bloodcurdling yell scared even the birds settled in their nests for the night.

Harry's eyes opened wide.

Another scream followed.

Cooper rose. “Excuse me.”

“Allow me to go with you.” Lorenzo knew she was a deputy.

“You swore you weren't going to work tonight.” Harry rose, and Fair pulled her down.

“Let's hope I don't have to.”

Wrong.

Cooper hurried to the front of the house. There on the lawn, the twilight wrapped around like a shroud, lay Carla Paulson, her throat slashed.

Standing over her, knife in hand, was Tazio Chappars.

18

T
he head violinist, a puzzled look on his face, held his bow in midair.

Folly Steinhauser remained in her seat, confused.

Big Mim stood up, held up her hands in a conciliatory gesture, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy your desserts.” Prudently, she added, “Please stay in your seats until further notice.” Then, nodding to the violinist, she sat down.

Folly may be a good organizer, but she's not up to a crisis, she thought to herself, then she turned to her husband and whispered, “Where's Marilyn?”

Little Mim was not in her seat.

“I don't know, honeybun.” He started to rise.

She put her hand on his forearm. “Wait. If she's not back in five minutes, then look. More than likely she went to the bathroom.”

As the music filtered over the now-murmuring crowd, Little Mim, ashen-faced, walked not to Table 1 but to her mother.

Leaning over, she whispered, “Carla Paulson's lying on the front lawn. Her throat is cut. Coop is there. So is Tazio Chappars—she had the knife in her hand.”

Face composed, Big Mim lifted her eyebrows and forced a smile. “Thank you, dear. Sit down and tell no one. That's the best path for now.”

As Little Mim returned to Table 1, Aunt Tally said, “Shall I assume that's the end of the feud?”

“I think you may,” Big Mim replied to her aunt.

“What's up, Mimsy?”

“I can't tell you, Aunt Tally. But I will at the opportune moment.”

Emitting a long, irritated sigh, Aunt Tally returned to her exquisite sherbet nestled next to a sliver of divine chocolate cake, the layers so thin they looked like tissue paper.

Jim, worried, said, “I ought to go out there.”

“Honey, Coop is there. If anyone can handle the situation, it's our own good deputy.”

And Cooper did handle it. She told Tazio to simply put the knife on the grass and to remain with her.

Kneeling down, Coop carefully examined Carla, her gorgeous dress's bodice, even the voluminous skirts, red with fresh jugular blood. She felt for a pulse. None. She'd figured that, but one could hope.

As far as the deputy knew, if a jugular was slashed, trying to stop the bleeding by pressure was ineffective. The time for even that measure had passed. This one was cut halfway through.

Cool and clinical, Cooper looked around the scene. The only other persons she had seen were Little Mim and Harvey Tillach, whom she told to return to the party.

“Tazio, you don't have a cell on you, do you?”

“No,” Tazio, still stricken, replied.

“Did you kill Carla?”

“No.”

“What were you doing with the knife in your hand?”

“I—I saw her sprawled there and I ran up. All that blood. All that blood. I've never seen so much blood, and it was still squirting up, like a fountain, a dying fountain.”

Cooper waited patiently, saying only, “Go on.”

“I don't know, Coop. I saw the knife right by there.” She pointed to Carla's left hand. “And I picked it up. I don't know why.”

“All right. Listen to me. Listen hard now. In a few moments the law-enforcement people here who helped with parking will come up. They are going to take you with them. I can't stop them. You are the prime suspect.”

“I didn't kill her. I loathed her, but I didn't kill her.”

“For your sake, Tazio, I truly hope so. You'll need to compose yourself and go quietly. You'll have the opportunity to make one phone call to your lawyer.”

“He's here. Ned.”

“All right, then, I'll fetch him after they take you to jail. Say nothing, Tazio. I mean it. Say nothing until you can talk to Ned. I hope he can extradite you up to our facility, but I doubt it. You're in for a rough time. You have to be strong.”

“God.” Tazio swallowed more tears.

Cooper could see an officer walking toward them. “I wonder if Little Mim alerted them. You know she's never without her cell. It's attached to her like an enema bag.”

“You think I killed her, don't you?” Tazio gulped.

“I hope you didn't, but I can't let emotion sway the evidence. You were standing over the body with the knife in your right hand. Her wound indicates she was slashed by a right-hander. Of course, that's about ninety percent of the population. I have to do my job, Tazio.”

“I understand.” Tazio fought to control her emotions.

“I'm sorry.”

“I am, too, but I swear to you by all that's holy, I did not kill Carla Paulson.”

A young officer with a buzz cut arrived. Clearly this was the first murder victim he'd seen.

Cooper had to hold her tongue, because she almost said, “Cadet.” Instead, she introduced herself, said her rank, and gave a brief rundown.

He quickly called a superior officer.

Cooper sighed for so many reasons, not the least of which was she had so looked forward to this evening.

“Who's he?” The cadet tilted his head in the direction of a man in white tie, standing off to the side out of Cooper's range of vision.

She said, “Lorenzo McCracken.”

He stepped toward them and said, “This beautiful lady is my date. I worried when she didn't return to the table, so I came looking for her. When I perceived the situation, I thought it best not to disturb her since she was”—he thought a moment—“working.”

Within minutes a gaggle of officers was there, including the sheriff. He'd had the presence of mind not to drive over the lawn or turn on sirens and lights.

Again Cooper recounted what she'd witnessed and how long she thought the victim had been dead.

The sheriff, Eli Grundy, knelt down, felt the side of Carla's neck. “You're right, Deputy, it couldn't have happened more than ten minutes before you found her.” He stood back up, grass stains on his knees. He nodded at his deputy, who began reading the Miranda Act to Tazio. “Take her away.”

Tazio said nothing but looked at Coop, and Coop smiled slightly.

“Sheriff, we'd better get back there before people leave,” the novice said.

“Son, let me handle this,” Sheriff Grundy grunted.

Cooper spoke up. “Currently, they know nothing and the speeches are about to begin, followed by dancing. If I might make a suggestion, Sheriff, it could save time.”

Although not a fan of women in law enforcement, Eli Grundy had bowed to the inevitable. And this woman had done everything by the book, so he listened. “What?”

“If you and your men stayed unobtrusively in the background, that wouldn't be unusual. After all, you are security. Allow me, if you will, to go to each table and ask them to write on a napkin who was absent from their table during the time of the murder. The organizing committee has all the table names, so we don't need to waste time with that.” She took a breath. “While it certainly appears that you have apprehended the murderer, it is possible there's an accomplice or more to it than meets the eye.”

He pondered this. “And we can keep anyone from leaving.”

“Right. If we go in now, with your people in uniform, and try to get this information, it will upset people. My experience is if they are calm they recall more clearly.”

“We have to tell them.”

“We do, Sheriff Grundy, but if I could secure this information first, I think you'll have much of what you need, in addition to the prime suspect. As Lorenzo and I are in evening clothes, we aren't going to arouse suspicion.”

“Go ahead.” He crossed his arms over his chest and for a moment wished he had someone that sharp on his force. He was staring at the novice officer when he thought that, but the kid had to learn sometime.

As Lorenzo walked with Cooper back to the tables, he said, “You're something, you know that?”

She didn't, really. She smiled and replied, “Thank you. You take the first twenty-five, I'll take the last. They can write on napkins.”

“Good.”

The two quickly went from table to table.

Cooper swept by Harry's table, Number 11, leaned down, and whispered into Ned's ear. “Tazio's being taken to jail. Can you help her?”

Ned's face registered surprise as he said, “Of course.”

“You can't leave until the sheriff gives the all-clear. He's over under the south portico. Lorenzo and I will take Susan home.”

“Okay.” A grim look passed over Ned's face before he could rearrange his features as though this was a social conversation.

Within fifteen minutes Cooper and Lorenzo had scribbled-on napkins from each table.

Lorenzo returned to Table 11, while Cooper delivered the napkins to Sheriff Grundy.

“Thank you.”

“Sheriff, the deceased's husband, Jurgen Paulson, is seated at Table One. He knows nothing except that his wife hasn't returned to the table for a half hour.”

“I'll take care of it.” The sheriff knew who Big Mim was, an Urquhart before her marriage, thanks to Cooper's tip-off. Like most Virginians of many generations, he knew his pedigrees. The Virginian—indeed, the Southern—obsession with blood seems silly, even punitive sometimes, to non-Southerners. However, Harry's grandmother and mother used to intone like a mantra, “Know your people.” Knowing bloodlines meant you knew your people. While it could be used in the pettiest forms of snobbery, it could also be extremely useful. Certain traits, as well as certain medical conditions, tended to run in families. Socially, of course, the knowledge was invaluable.

The rich Urquharts had always been forces for progress and justice, even if high-handed in manner.

Given his station in life, Sheriff Grundy had not met Big Mim before. He looked at Cooper and smiled tightly. She'd helped him twice tonight. He'd remember.

Cooper memorized as many of the Albemarle County names as she could. Margaret Westlake, Kylie Kraft, Harvey Tillach, Ron Steinhauser, and Little Mim had left their tables. She made a rhyme out of it, hoping the names from her county wouldn't drop out of memory. The people she had already thought of knew Dr. Wylde. The minute she had a chance, she'd write all this down.

As Jurgen Paulson strode toward the dais, an officer came up and gently led him away.

Folly Steinhauser, who was announcing the names for thanks, looked down to behold the sheriff walking toward her. She hoped she could finish her thank-yous.

He waited. She concluded and held her hand over the mic and said, “Sheriff.”

“I need to address the folks, ma'am, and I need you to help keep order.”

“Something's wrong, isn't it? That scream.”

“I'm afraid it is, ma'am.”

He stepped up to the mic, his very pleasant voice contained in the tone of command. “Ladies and gentlemen, we ask for your forbearance and cooperation tonight. There has been an unfortunate occurrence. We have, we believe, apprehended the perpetrator. It is my duty to inform you that Mrs. Jurgen Paulson has been murdered—” The crowd gasped. He continued, “If anyone feels they have information relevant to this event, please contact one of my men.” He swept his arm and, as if by magic, the uniformed officers stepped forward. “I know this will spoil this very special occasion, and I'm sorry for it. No one will be allowed to leave until I tell you to do so.”

The moment he released the mic, Folly stepped up to it. “Will the organizing committee please raise your hands? Sheriff, if you need any of us to help expedite matters, we are only too willing to serve.”

He nodded thanks. The place exploded with talk. Kylie Kraft screamed and then fainted. Sophie fanned her. Margaret said to her husband, “One murder too many for Kylie.” He replied, “High-strung.”

Sophie rejoined, “Young,” as Kylie's eyelids fluttered. Once they sat her up she asked for a cigarette, which made Margaret laugh.

Kylie, smoking from a pack of borrowed Marlboros, lit one with the stub of another.

Thanks to Cooper's securing of names, the brief questioning at each table proceeded with efficiency. Within an hour, the initial questioning was completed, and the gathering was dismissed.

Crestfallen, Folly slumped in her seat, watching people stream out to their cars.

“Cheer up, Folly, you raised a great deal of money,” Big Mim said as she stopped by on her way out. “And no one will ever, ever forget the event.”

Smiling weakly, Folly replied, “I guess not.”

At Table 11, Cooper took Susan in tow as Ned hurried to the Audi wagon.

“I can't believe Tazio killed her,” Harry stated flatly.

Cooper, tired by now, replied sharply, “Harry, she was standing over the body with a dripping knife in her hand. People we like, we admire, can do terrible things.”

“Not Taz.” Harry was going to say more, but Fair squeezed her arm and said to Cooper, “You know how Harry is. If it were you, she'd be on your side. Seems you rarely get a break, Coop. Here it was to be a night of dancing and you wind up working.”

Cooper, appreciating Fair's sensitivity, touched his shoulder. “Thanks.” As Lorenzo touched her elbow she apologized, “I am so sorry. I've hardly asked you one thing about yourself. Please forgive me.”

He smiled gently. “No apology needed, and if you will allow me, I'll give you plenty of time to ask me questions.”

Suddenly, Cooper didn't think her evening had been spoiled at all.