Catch As Cat Can

                Wesley, perplexed, stepped back into the living room."It's gone! I keep my license in the pocket of my bomber jacket except for when it's really hot, then I just stick it in the visor of my truck."

                "Do you have any idea how long you've been missing your license?"

                He thought a moment."I remember getting gas. Had it then. Last week. I-" He paused."You know, it's kind of hard to remember. I just never think about my license."

                "Do you recognize the man in the photo?"

                He peered intently at the likeness."Kinda. I've seen him around but I don't know his name."

                "Whoever he is, he can sure doctor a driver's license or he knows someone who can." Cooper smiled.

                "Yeah. Looks valid to me."

                "Me, too," Mrs. Partlow chimed in.

                "Mr. Partlow, think. Any guidance you can give me will be a big help."

                "He's dead, right? Mom said the Augusta cop came by to tell her I was dead."

                "I think I surprised him more than he surprised me." Mrs. Partlow smiled tightly.

                "Yes, he's dead. Could you have seen him at the gas station?"

                "Uh, no." Wesley cupped his chin in his hand as he took a seat."Might have seen him at Danny's, the bar behind the post office downtown." He furrowed his brow."Yeah."

                "And when you go to Danny's, what do you do with your coat?"

                "Hang it up or put it over the back of the chair."

                After a few more questions, Cooper left, driving over to Danny's. The bartender, Louis Seidlitz, was just setting up, preparing for the evening's traffic.

                Louis recognized the face but couldn't recall a name to go with it.

                As she drove back toward Charlottesville, climbing up over Afton Mountain, she thought how quick-eyed and light-fingered the false Wesley Partlow had been. Quick enough to pilfer a driver's license. How many pockets did he touch before finding pay dirt? Apparently he rifled them without drawing attention to himself. She was reminded of that expression, "Opportunity makes a poet as well as a thief."

                25

                Although the ground remained soggy, the next day the sky, a robin's-egg blue, presaged a spectacular spring day. The late-blooming dogwoods covered the mountainside. Earlier blooms had their petals knocked off by the storms but fire stars still dotted banks with their brilliant red.

                Tucker inhaled the heady fragrances of spring as she sat on the back step of the post office.

                Harry often walked the four miles to work but given the rains of the past week she drove. On the way to work she'd swung by the small lumberyard outside of town. Luckily, there was enough sawdust to shovel into the truck bed. Usually by Wednesday or Thursday there was enough sawdust for the horsemen to drive down and load up. She'd filled up her truck, pulled a tarp over it, and arrived at work by seven-thirty A.M.

                Tucker told the cats, once they arrived at work, that she was going on a jaunt alone.

                "Suits me," Pewter declared.

                Murphy, a little miffed, said, "Why alone?"

                "Want to check in with my dog friends. Not all of them like cats."

                "Get new friends." The tiger turned her back to her.

                With anticipation and a heady sense of freedom, Tucker took another deep breath, then trotted merrily down the alleyway behind the post office. She turned north, which meant she would swing past private homes, past the new grade school, and then she'd be in the open countryside. Despite her short legs, the corgi moved at a fast clip. In fact, she could run very fast, and on occasion she enjoyed the delicious victory of outrunning a hound, a spaniel, or once even a Great Dane. It should be noted that the Great Dane had a splinter in its paw. Still, Tucker was a confident, cheerful dog. She edged along well-manicured lawns, dogs in the houses barking empty warnings. In no time she was in farmland.

                Early corn, tiny shoots just breaking the furrows, gave the red clay fields a green cast. The hay in other fields already swayed over her head. She pushed through a field of rye and timothy mix. Tucker could identify any grass crop by its odor. She reached a rutted farm road and thought she'd go down to the old Mawyer place. Booty Mawyer, seventy-

seven, farmed his three hundred acres pretty much as he always had. A shrewd fellow, he sank no money into large purchases like tractors, manure spreaders, hay balers, and the like. He kept four Belgian horses and worked them in teams of two. The cost of feeding and shoeing his horses proved far less than tractor payments. And he managed to get everything done. His grandson, Don Clatterbuck, helped him in the evenings, and during hay-cutting time, Don worked full-time with him.

                Tucker could hear the old man and his horses in the distance. A faint whiff of onion grass floated across the light southerly breeze. Tucker stopped and sniffed. Wind from the south usually meant moisture and lots of it, yet the day was achingly clear. Still, the dog trusted her senses. She figured she'd better get back to the post office by lunchtime.