The Big Cat Nap

A red-shouldered hawk, tiny mouse in her talons, swooped in front of the 2007 Outback rolling along the wet country road. She landed in an old cherry tree covered in pink blossoms, which fluttered to the ground from the hawk s light impact.

Will you look at that? Miranda Hogendobber exclaimed from behind the Outback s wheel, as she drove to the garden center over in Waynesboro.

Raptors fascinate me, but they scare me, too, Harry Haristeen remarked. Poor little mouse.

There is that. Miranda slowed for a sharp curve.

Central Virginia, celebrating high spring, was also digging out from torrential rains over the weekend.

Harry, forty and fit, and Miranda, late sixties and not advertising, had worked together for years at the old Crozet post office.

When Miranda s husband, George, died, Harry, fresh from Smith College, took his position as head of the P.O., never thinking the job would last nearly two decades. Miranda, despite her loss, showed up every day to help orient the young woman whom she d known as a baby. Harry s youth raised Miranda s spirits. In mourning, it s especially good to have a task. Over the years they became extremely close, almost a mother daughter bond. Harry s mother had died when Harry was in her early twenties.

Noticing fields filled with the debris of the now-subsiding waters, Harry observed, What a mess. Can t turn out stock in that. You just don t know what else is wrapped up in all those branches and twigs.

Hey, there s a plastic chair. Might look good in your yard. Miranda smiled.

Well, Harry drawled the word out, like the native Southerner she was.

The younger woman, generous with her time and happy to feed anyone, could be tight with the buck. Miranda couldn t resist teasing Harry about a free if ugly chair.

This is sure better than my 1961 Falcon, the older woman said. Initially I resisted the Outback s fancy radio. I mean, this is a used car and had the Sirius capabilities, but I didn t

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Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of the Sneaky Pie Brown series; the Sister Jane series; A Nose for Justice and Murder Unleashed; Rubyfruit Jungle; In Her Day; and Six of One, as well as several other novels. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, Brown lives in Afton, Virginia.
 
Sneaky Pie Brown, a tiger cat born somewhere in Albemarle County, Virginia, was discovered by Rita Mae Brown at her local SPCA. They have collaborated on numerous Mrs. Murphy mysteries in addition to Sneaky Pie s Cookbook for Mystery Lovers and Sneaky Pie for President.

As feline collaborators go, you couldn t ask for better than Sneaky Pie Brown. The New York Times Book Review