Catch As Cat Can

                told Rick when Rick gave him the bad news. But, of course, it has. He said sometimes Don would move hay from one shed to another-but, you know, Booty's getting on in years and it would be easy to fool him. Well, he wouldn't know anything unless he saw it with his own eyes.

                "And before I get to why we're together-in the back of the truck, on the seat, was the Dallas Cowboys windbreaker exactly as Sean described it."

                Tracy got up to pour the tea. He motioned for Miranda to stay seated. He put the pot on the table, set out four cups, smacked the Maker's Mark bottle directly in front of Harry, then opened the refrigerator and brought out cold cuts. He figured, correctly, that Harry and BoomBoom hadn't eaten. He also put a chilled green bottle of Tanqueray gin in front of BoomBoom.

                "Honey, let me do that." Miranda got up to arrange the food, bringing out the homemade seven-grain bread, fresh butter, and local honey.

                Within minutes an impromptu cold supper sat before the two hungry women.

                "Thank you." BoomBoom gratefully buttered a piece of bread cut thick.

                Harry chattered as she, too, made herself a sandwich, surreptitiously dropping food bits to her pets."Coop said the only thing in the windbreaker was a matchbook from Roy and Nadine's, a hot restaurant in Lexington, Kentucky. She called the restaurant, gave them the fake Wesley's description, and the manager said he had no recollection of anyone like that, nor did it seem that would be the kind of customer Roy and Nadine's would attract. He did, however, promise to ask his employees if they remembered anyone looking like that. She's sending on the mug shot.

                "But, well, Boom should tell you what happened next."

                "Donny has that huge safe in his shop, the kind that's taller than I am. Harry suggested I call Rick and offer to open the lock using my welding torch. She was right because Rick couldn't get a service representative for twenty-four hours plus there was the expense of

                getting him here. So over I went, cut out the lock, and what do you know . . . there's a ton of money inside the safe! Five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Five hundred and twenty-five thousand!" BoomBoom repeated.

                "Stacked neatly. So new you could smell it. Rick says it isn't counterfeit either." Harry sipped her tea.

                "Where in the world would Donny Clatterbuck get money like that?" Miranda brought both hands to her face in surprise.

                "New? Directly from a bank or someone who had access to new bills, who dealt in large sums often." Tracy's mind whirred along."Someone who either needed Donny to stash the money, giving him a cut, or someone who needed Donny."

                "For what?" BoomBoom poured honey over a piece of buttered bread.

                "He was good with his hands." Harry tried to feed Tucker another small piece of meat under the table. Pewter snatched it before the dog could get it so Harry tore another small piece for the corgi. The mild altercation revealed Harry's feeding the "kids" from the table-not that anyone really cared that much.

                "I'm here, too," Murphy reminded the humans.

                Miranda gave her a tidbit."This is so-so hard to believe. Donny never threw money around."

                "No, he didn't," Harry confirmed.

                "He could have put the money in the bank but he didn't. This points to his doing something illegal." Tracy, hand poised in midair with a butter knife, said, "And it seems obvious that he knew in some fashion the young man found hanged. The question is, how and why? That kid looked as though he didn't have a dime."

                "Coop can't find a trace of him anywhere. Wesley's not his real name," Harry said.

                "I wonder if Marge knows about the money." Miranda thought about Donny's mother, worrying for her welfare.

                "Highly doubtful, my love," Tracy replied.

                BoomBoom finished her sandwich, which made her feel more conversational."Wait until Lottie Pearson hears this."

                "What's Lottie Pearson got to do with this?" Miranda asked.

                "She blew him off just like she spurned Roger. She wants money and prestige or what passes for it. When she hears that Donny Clatterbuck had a small fortune in his safe, she'll pass out."

                "Five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars." Miranda couldn't imagine that much money.

                "We helped count it. Had to wear plastic gloves that Rick and Coop keep in the squad car. They have to avoid blood because of AIDS so they carry these hospital gloves around." Harry thought a moment, then excitedly said, "When I took my woodpecker to Don, I noticed the safe. I asked him if that's where he kept his millions and he said, 'Only half a million.' I thought he was kidding."

                " 'He who loves money never has money enough, he who loves wealth never has enough profit; this, too is vanity.' Ecclesiastes, Chapter Five, Verse Ten," Miranda quoted.

                "What a memory," Tracy marveled.

                "Miranda is a marvel." BoomBoom smiled.

                "Mim really must not know what's happened." Harry's mind stayed on the murder."Or she would have called you. Rick usually gets to her."

                Miranda said, "She's in New York this weekend visiting Stafford and his wife."