The Litter of the Law by Rita Mae Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

outfit.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “So what’s next?”
    “Tracking down clients. Rick questioned everyone at Morrowdale the day you and Fair found the body on their property. They were horrified, but no one had driven out that way, so they hadn’t seen it. Everyone on the farm was questioned.” She sat down across from her friend.
    “You have a lot of patience,” Harry complimented her. “You’re dogged and determined.”
    “I have to be. I live next to you.”
    Harry laughed. “Hey, look at my little garden drawing. Maybe I’ll get it right this time.”
    “You taught me to plan my garden in the fall or winter, and so I have. Along with trying to focus on this case, I’m going through the possibilities.”
    “Is there anything I can do to help?”
    “With my garden, I can always use your help. With the case, I live in fear.”
    “I’m not that bad.”
    “Yes, you are,”
Mrs. Murphy said.
    “Let’s say you have a way of stumbling onto things like the Number 9 scarecrow today,” said Coop. “What if the killer had been the decorator? Or someone in there observed you studying the scarecrow? Someone involved in this murder. You can’t take chances like that.”
    Harry didn’t reply.
    “Harry?”
    “I know you’re right.”
    “Knowing Cooper is right doesn’t mean she’ll stop,”
said Pewter.
    “We know so little,” said Coop. “This could be a revenge killing. If you dig enough into people’s lives, you eventually find someone who can’t stand them or someone who is unbalanced.”
    “Kind of scary,” Harry mumbled.
    “Well, it’s almost Halloween.”
Pewter giggled.
    “I dug down a little deeper.” Cooper crossed one leg over the other, pulled at her anklet to stretch her leg. “Hill loved fly-fishing. Had a two-thousand-dollar fly rod. How can a fishing rod cost that much?”
    “Beats me.” Harry held up her hands.
    “Me, too. I don’t need one,”
Pewter bragged, lifting her head off her arm.
    Tucker was astonished at such a bold-faced lie.
“What? You can’t fish.”
    “I didn’t say I fished. I wait for Mom to open a can of tuna. Now, that’s real fishing.”
    Mrs. Murphy laughed at her gray friend.
    “Two thousand dollars.” Cooper dropped her crossed leg. “Boxes of flies. He was very organized and had quite a few books on fishing, according to the team that searched his house today. Fishing was his passion in life, so it seems. On his computer we found what you would expect—a list of clients, a list of other accounting firms and legal firms as well as IRS agents for his area. Pretty cut and dried. Oh, one strange thing: Hester Martin’s name. No tagline, nothing, just ‘Hester Martin’ and the farm stand address, phone number, and her email.”
    “Did you talk to Hester about him?”
    “Drove over earlier today. She said she knew him some. He was a member of the Upper Mattaponi tribe. She seemed a little bit resentful at being questioned. I don’t know. Maybe she was in a bad mood. That was the extent of it.”
    “Hester does attend those annual powwows. Every year she says she’s going. Never says why or what happens.” Harry thought a moment. “She’s not a tribe member, but she’s so interested in proper use of the land, I think that’s the real draw.”
    Cooper furrowed her brow. “She told me she’s always had aninterest in the Virginia tribes. Her mother was a Sessoms, which is a Cherokee name.”
    Harry drew a long breath. “That’s right. I think my mother once mentioned it back when I was in fifth grade.”
    “How can you remember fifth grade?”
    “Because that’s when we learn about the peoples who were here before we came. I loved it.”
    “Anyway, that was that. Hester was shocked that such a nice fellow, as she put it, was killed. As far as she knew, he wasn’t a crook. Said Josh Hill always treated her kindly.”
    “Coop, did you know there are eleven Virginia tribes?”
    “I do now. I started looking this stuff up to see if