Catch As Cat Can

                he was murdered. The noose isn't as easy to tie as you would think."

                "And?" Harry's tone raised up.

                "No. A simple knot like you tie when you're tying up a pack-age."

                "Honeybunch, what does that mean?" Miranda breathlessly asked, having regained full access to the receiver.

                "That either Wesley or his killer didn't know how to tie the knot, didn't care, didn't have time. Or that the climber's rope would hold."

                "I don't follow." BoomBoom honestly didn't.

                "One of the reasons the noose knot was used to hang people is that it would hold the weight of the body and snap the neck. It's more humane than choking to death, which is what happens if you tie a common package knot. In time the common knot will give even on good quality rope."

                "This gives me chills. You come on home." Miranda half laughed.

                "I will. Say bye to the girls."

                Miranda hung up the phone as the three animals pranced through the animal door, best friends again.

                "I didn't know that about a noose." Harry's hand instinctively flew to her neck."Choking and swinging at the same time. What an awful way to the."

                "I think we missed something." Mrs. Murphy quietly sat down on a chair by the table in the back.

                "We have only to wait. They're bound to tell another human. You know how they are." Pewter jumped on a chair at the table and began biting out the mud between her toes. She hated dirt.

                "All this talk of death. . ." Boom's voice faded away, then increased in strength."Roger's funeral is tomorrow. Are you all going?"

                "You know we will." Miranda frowned for a moment."Now, why would you even ask?"

                "I don't know." BoomBoom's shoulders hunched up, then she relaxed."I'm a little distracted. Aren't you?"

                "Well, it has been a strange couple of days but we may be making too much of it all." Miranda noticed the tiny mud pellets falling to the floor since Pewter was sitting in one of the chairs next to her."Pewter, pick up after yourself."

                "I'll clean it up." Harry opened the small broom closet in the back, fetching the dustpan and brush.

                "Well, I'm off."

                "You never said why you're wearing overalls." Harry knelt down, brushing up the mud bits.

                "I'm going to work."

                "What work?" Harry rather impolitely replied.

                "Welding. I have an order to make a hen and chickens for Opal Michaels."

                "Better make it a chicken with attitude," Harry said.

                "If I were making it for Big Mim I'd put a crown on that bird." BoomBoom laughed as she opened the front door.

                Miranda picked up Mrs. Murphy to pet her."I'm glad to see you and BoomBoom are getting along better."

                "She's always made more of an effort than I have."

                "Well, I'm glad to see you recognize that. Remember your Proverbs. 'A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.' " Miranda quoted Chapter Seventeen, Verse Seventeen.

                "I wouldn't go that far." Harry winked at her.

                Mrs. Murphy listened as the tiny mud bits hit the floor."Pewter, you have more mud between your toes than an elephant."

                "And you don't?"

                "Not as much as you."

                "Why aren't you grooming yourself?" the gray cat wondered.

                "I'm waiting until she sweeps up your mess. Then I'll make another one."

                "Murphy, you're awful," Tucker giggled.

                23

                St. Luke's Lutheran Church, pleasing eighteenth-century architecture with clean brick and white lintels, filled with those wishing to pay their last respects to Roger O'Bannon. The town residents crammed into the pews, the light streaming through the stained-glass windows.

                All rose when Sean O'Bannon and his mother, Ida, entered by the door next to the lectern to take their seats in the front row. The once numerous O'Bannon clan had dwindled over the decades. As neither Roger nor Sean had ever married, the line might well end with Sean.

                As the mother and son seated themselves, the congregation also sat down.

                People were surprised at the change in Sean's appearance. He'd cut off his dork knob, gotten a good haircut, and was clean shaven. A well-cut dark gray suit gave him a substantial, solemn air. No one could remember Sean wearing a suit since high school; he'd always been low-key, counter-culture. The Reverend Jones solemnly came out of a door recessed behind the pulpit. He bowed his head before the altar, then turned to face the congregation. Herb, no stranger to funerals, tried to invest this last event with meaning. He avoided platitudes, the easy phrase.

                Fair sat with Harry, Susan and Ned Tucker, Miranda and Tracy were on the other side of Harry. After the service they drove to the cemetery south of town, a pleasant site with a beautiful view of rolling pastures. When the casket was lowered into the grave, tears rolled down Sean's cheeks. He'd held up until then. His mother put her arm around his waist.

                When Harry drove away with Fair, Susan, and Ned in Ned's car, Sean was still standing at the gravesite.

                "Depressing," Susan tersely said.

                "Harry, do you want to go back to the post office or do you have time for lunch?" Ned turned left toward town.

                "Work. Miranda's having lunch with Tracy."

                "Want me to bring you a sandwich?" Susan volunteered.