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

there might be any connection at all to Hill’s bizarre death. It’s terrible.”
    “His murder, sure,” Harry responded.
    “No. The way the Virginia tribes are pushed around. The Commonwealth only recognizes eight tribes and the federal government doesn’t recognize Virginia tribes at all. It really stinks.”
    “That and much else.” Harry sighed. “I guess the feds didn’t take responsibility until after the 1870s. After all the Indian Wars, they had to do something. And Virginians with Native American blood were denied official status by the federal government. Since the seventeenth century, many Virginia Indians had intermarried with European descendants. Every Sessoms I know has blue eyes, bright blue eyes like Hester. Anyway, this gets the feds out of any form of repayment or protections as near as I can tell.”
    “That doesn’t let the Commonwealth off the hook,” Cooper shrewdly said.
    “Doesn’t.” Harry returned to the murder. “Well, you know a bit more than yesterday.”
    “Just enough to make this more confusing.” Cooper suddenly smiled. “But you know, sooner or later, a picture emerges. You geta feeling. For all the legwork in the world, for all the computer checks and cross-checks, I still rely on that hunch. It will come.”
    “Maybe it has something to do with fish. A two-thousand-dollar fly rod.”
    “Harry, you can be really awful.”
    “I know.”
    “So true!”
Pewter sat up to give her remark emphasis.

T hat same evening, glittering stars pierced the night. Looking out the tall, high windows of the old schoolhouse, Hester Martin could vaguely make out the obelisk in the cemetery a mile down the tertiary state road. Occasionally a truck would pass. She thought she heard a coyote.
    Sitting down at one of the small school desks, she took out her Moleskine notebook, flipped it open, pulled out a pen. Before she could write down her thoughts, a car pulled up outside, its headlights illuminating the windows, then both the motor and the lights turned off.
    Within seconds, Tazio entered the lovely room accompanied by her yellow Labrador retriever, the popular Brinkley.
    “Good to see you,” said Hester. “I know you’re busy, what with your job and various committees.”
    “Hester, I always have time for you and it’s important we run through the Halloween Hayride.” Tazio sat in the desk across the aisle from Hester’s.
    The desks remained in rows just as they were in 1965, when the school was abandoned.
    “Gets dark so early now,” Hester remarked. “Somehow it always affects me. Makes me sleepy.” She laughed at herself.
    “Makes me fat.” Tazio ruefully smiled. “I always put on weight in the winter. This year I am determined not to do it.”
    “Natural. It’s a natural cycle.”
    “You never gain weight. Neither does Harry,” Tazio said.
    “With me it’s high metabolism. That or worry. As to Harry, both her mother and father stayed slim. They worked hard, those people. So does Harry and so do you.”
    “Hard enough, but most of the time I’m sitting on my butt. If I go to a building site or walk through construction, that’s about it. I need to join a gym.”
    “You look just fine. I wanted you to see these buildings from the inside. This one, the middle one, was literally the middle school. Has some lab equipment, not much. Everything these students got was already used, passed down. The books especially were worn.” She thought a moment. “Your outstanding work for the library is almost done. We still have to raise money but your architectural work is complete and so practical. That’s why I wanted you to see this.”
    “Funny, I’ve driven by these schoolhouses from time to time but never stopped. I always wanted to.”
    “They’re built to last.” She pointed to the windows. “So much natural light saved lighting money. When my mother was small, each of these buildings had a wood-burning stove smack in the middle. You can’t see the hole for