Cat on the Scent

            The cats stuck around just in case. The strong, low-built dog pushed straight into the dump. She would nose through some of the debris, a delightful prospect.

            Being next to mountains, the area had shifted over the years with small tremors. A rusted truck, an ancient Chevy from the 1930s, had been turned on its side by quake tremors. Vines and rusting were slowly pulling it apart.

            A faint but tantalizing odor curled in Tucker’s nostrils. She sniffed around the truck, then started digging underneath it.

            As she ripped into the soft earth, the corner of a sturdy, small suitcase appeared. It might once have sat on the seat of the truck but had probably slid out once the glass broke. Over the decades the truck had settled on top of it, and it was covered with fallen leaves and vines depositing layers of humus.

            “Found an old suitcase.”

            “So what?” Pewter catcalled.

            “It’s heavy leather, got steel corners. It has an alluring odor—faded, very faded.”

            “What’s she babbling about?” Murphy grumbled.

            “Let’s go see.”

            Tucker gave a hearty tug on the suitcase, then another.

            The latch gave just a bit. She tugged some more.

            “Will you get back to work?” Murphy circled around the worst of the brambles, crawling low to avoid the others. She walked over an old Massey-Ferguson tractor, then dropped onto the side of the Chevy.

            “I’m not going in there!” Pewter shouted.

            “Who asked you?” Then Tucker yelled again. “Golly!”

            The cat stepped up as the dog sniffed the musty odor of old death.

            The two friends blinked.

            “It’s a tiny skeleton.” A bit of lace still hung over the skull. “A tiny human skeleton!” Mrs. Murphy gasped.

            “What will we do?” Tucker’s voice was almost a whisper.

            “Will you come out of there?” Pewter paced, irritated to the point of putting up her tail.

            “We’ve found a skeleton,” Murphy called out.

            “You’re just saying that to get me in there.”

            “NO, we’re not,” they answered in unison.

            Pewter paced, sat, paced, cursed, then finally crawled in. “You’re lying. I know you’re lying.”

            “Look.” Mrs. Murphy leaned back.

            “Liar.” Nonetheless Pewter did look. “Oh, no.” She sat down.

            “Nobody buries their baby in a suitcase.” Tucker was indignant.

            “You’re exactly right.” Murphy licked the dog’s ear.

            “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Pewter asked.

            “Someone killed this little thing.” Mrs. Murphy sighed. “Tucker, do you think we can pull the suitcase out of this rubble?”

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            “No.”

            “The rats will get at it, or raccoons.” Pewter felt quite sad. “Can you cover it again?”

            “Yes. It wasn’t very deep. If you two help it won’t take long.”

            Tucker pushed the suitcase back, then turned around, throwing dirt on their discovery with her hind legs.

            The cats threw dirt on it as well.

            Once it was covered they took a breather, then crawled back out.

            “Let’s go home,” a subdued Pewter requested. “We won’t find Tommy Van Allen.”

            26

            At the eastern end of Crozet, on Route 240, the large food plant, which had been through successive corporate owners, dominated the skyline. On the south side of the white buildings ran the railroad tracks, a convenience should they need carloads of grain shunted off onto sidings. These days huge trailers pulled in and out of the parking lot, a sea of macadam. Each time a driver shifted gears a squelch of diesel smoke would shoot straight upward, a smoke signal from the internal-combustion engine.

            The giant refrigerator trucks hauled the frozen foods to refrigerated warehouses from whence the product made it directly to the freezer sections of supermarkets.

            Loading the behemoths in the docking area plunged men from cavernous freezers into the baking temperature outside and then into the long, cold trailers. This was not the most desirable job in the United States and many a Crozet High School graduate working on that platform rued the day he had decided not to try for college.

            While a lot of the town’s residents worked in the food factory, just as many did not. It was odd, really, how little social impact the big corporation had on the town except for creating traffic in the morning and then again at quitting time.