Death on the Diagonal (2 page)

Moon-dog was the first to smell it. In fact, he’d heard the unusual noises that had initially triggered the problematic situation, watched the culprit flee the scene, and so knew precisely how the predicament had begun. The only thing the animal didn’t know was how to unlatch the gate to his stall—or how the story would end.

Horses do not react well to smoke. As with most mammals, humans being one notable exception, their internal mechanisms take them rapidly to the logical conclusion: Fire! Danger! Death! This intelligent insight creates in them a burning desire to put large distances between themselves and the smoke as quickly as possible. Moon-dog first snorted and then began anxiously pawing at the straw that covered the dirt floor of his roomy box stall. The acrid smoke tickled at his flaring nostrils. He whinnied and backed solidly into the wooden gate that barred his exit. The iron hinges creaked, and the steel latch jumped, but both held the gate in place. It would be only two minutes before Moon-dog would begin to do some serious damage to the stall and to himself.

The large round clock positioned in the center of the immaculate wall that rose above the stable’s entry read 7:06 P.M., when Moon-dog began his nervous pacing and the building’s equally gleaming windows revealed a deep-blue sky and a bright full moon hanging low and orange as it turned the autumnal leaves a molten silvery red. The color eerily replicated the light from the fire that was now brewing in the tack room located at the west end of the stable. Known as the “small” stable, the space had room for only sixteen stalls, eight of which were presently occupied.

Moon-dog’s antics swiftly attracted the attention of the other seven equine residents. Willow-whisp, three other mares, and three additional geldings trusted the chestnut-colored Warmblood, like baby ducks trust their mothers; and if the big guy wanted out, so did they. After fifteen additional seconds, all eight horses were rearing and bucking in their stalls, their eyes huge and terrified, and their whinnies panicked, while the smoke grew thicker and the brightness of the tack room fire illuminated the stable’s center aisle from one end to the other.

“Fire! Fire at the lower stable! We need some help down here!”

Orlando Polk, the barn manager, seemed to appear from nowhere as he shouted the warning up the hill toward the Big House and the horse farm’s owner, Todd Collins. Polk rightly surmised that the tack room’s telephone and intercom system had most likely been reduced to melted balls of plastic, and he also realized that trying to call the local fire-house, five miles away at best, would be a futile exercise. The barn would be ash long before the boys in helmets and waterproof gear could possibly arrive.

Orlando had been working at King Wenstarin Farms for six years. He was forty-two years old and had been around horses his entire life. He was proud to say he was one hundred percent Pequot Indian. He kept his raven black hair tied in a ponytail that reached halfway to his slim and sinewy waist, and his nose for smoke was as good, if not better, than Moon-dog’s. He was already cursing himself under his breath for not having smelled the fumes sooner. But even if he had, he couldn’t have stopped the blaze; it was spreading far too quickly, and he had a good idea why. Unlike Moon-dog, however, Orlando had heard no strange noises or spotted anything out of the ordinary. He shook off questions of how the fire had begun and concentrated, instead, on logistics. He realized that if the horses weren’t freed soon they would claw at the sides of their stalls, pointlessly attempting to climb their way out and tearing their pricey flesh, or worse, fracturing their fragile bones.

With this assessment in mind, he ran up the aisle to the double barn doors at the stable’s east side, shoving them open and outward and latching them in place before heading toward the structure’s west end. A less-seasoned horseman might have made the mistake of freeing the horses from their stalls before opening the doors, thereby creating pandemonium and probably getting trampled to death in the process, but Orlando prided himself on remaining calm in times of crisis. At least where horses were concerned.

As he raced back to open the west-facing doors, he passed the tack room, which was now completely engulfed in flame. The air in the building had turned as thick and dark as mud, but fortunately the stalls directly opposite the blaze were empty. No animal could have remained that close to the fire without killing itself out of fear. Polk pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth and forged his way to the western doors, but before he could reach them, they seemed to swing open on their own. He then saw the farm’s owner, Todd Collins, yanking them back and securing the latches.

Collins was seventy-four years old with a lean and angular six-foot-three-inch frame, a full head of wavy white hair, and an ample, matching mustache. He’d made millions in the importation of Irish whiskey to the United States, and his passion was horseflesh, especially the elegant creatures trained in the hunter-seat equitation discipline. A limp that was the result of a riding spill four years earlier sometimes made strangers imagine Collins was a frail man, but they were wrong. Todd Collins was weak neither in body nor mind.

Orlando gaped at his boss, the fire now reflecting vividly in Collins’s craggy face and making him look as if he’d just stepped directly from the gates of Hell. Polk swore again, but too softly to be heard, while his boss’s irate eyes bore into him.

From Todd Collins’s point of view, it appeared as though Orlando had done nothing to try to save the horses or extinguish the blaze. At first sight, his barn manager seemed to be standing in the smoke dumbfounded, like a lost child.

“Dammit, man, get these horses out of here. What are you waiting for? An invitation? Get those stalls open. Force them out the other end. If any head this way stay with them; drive them through the smoke and up toward the Big House lawn.”

Orlando stood frozen for a second too long, and Collins grabbed his shoulders and shoved him toward the far end of the stable.

“You work the right side stalls; I’ll do the left,” Collins barked.

Orlando stumbled slightly, but then sprang into action, hurrying his supple dancer’s body from stall to stall, releasing the horses then swatting them hard on their rumps to direct them away from the tack room and toward the open east end of the barn. Collins duplicated the action on the other side of the stable until all eight animals had been safely driven from the building. The older man then turned to his manager and shouted, “Get to that sprinkler valve and turn it on. I don’t care if we flood the entire state of Massachusetts. I’m going to drive these babies down to B paddock. If the stable goes up in smoke, they’ll panic where they are now. We need to give them some distance.”

“Right, boss.” Orlando Polk turned and headed back into the burning barn, while Collins unlatched the gate at the far end of the paddock and began moving the horses farther from the blaze.

By the time the manager reentered the stable, the entire building had filled with smoke. He pulled his shirttails up to cover his mouth and nose and worked his way back toward the tack room. The main sprinkler valve was located on the wall a few feet away from the room, but fortunately the fire had moved up rather than out and hadn’t yet reached the valve. The system was old and had been shut down only the prior week because of leakage over a few of the stalls—which had resulted in a work order but no actual repair as yet. By the time he reached the valve, he was choking and coughing uncontrollably. The smoke clogged his lungs, and his eyes felt as though they were burning up. Tears coursed down his cheeks as he reached for the round handle of the valve.

But the moment he got his hands on the metal ring, a sharp pain shot through the back of his head. In the split second that Orlando remained conscious and aware of his surroundings, he heard a pinging noise he couldn’t quite identify and assumed it was produced by whatever had slammed into the back of his head. Then his thoughts returned to the sprinkler valve, and he was able to twist it open even while his body began crumpling to the dirt floor where it remained, inert as a rag, as water cascaded from the ceiling.

After securing the horses in B paddock, Todd Collins hurried back to the lower stable. When he reached the east entrance, he found his trainer, Jack Curry, standing near the barn door, and noticeably out of breath. Jack was another large man, but only in his mid-forties and more solidly built than his boss. Curry loved to affect any posture and attitude that remotely resembled John Wayne. Stance, swagger, speech, laconic grin, penetrating scowl: Jack had each characteristic memorized, and his private impersonation brought results. People instinctively respected and trusted Jack Curry. In Todd’s opinion, the trainer was a class act; “the best damn horseman on the East Coast,” who also happened to have once been married to Todd’s eldest daughter, Fiona—the emphasis being on ex. In her father’s estimation “Jack was, and continues to be, the only man capable of steadying such a high-strung filly. And look at her now,” he’d add with a rueful shake of his white mane. “I swear, a brood mare has got more sense than that woman.”

“I ran up the moment I saw the flames, Mr. C,” Jack now told his boss in his typically easy drawl. He coughed, then spit emphatically into the dirt. “How’d this damn thing get started?”

“No telling.” Todd glanced into the barn. “Good . . . Orlando was able to get the sprinklers going. Have you seen him?”

“No, sir. I thought he was off today.”

“No, no, he’s around. He helped me get the horses out, then went back in to monkey with that blasted sprinkler system.” Todd peered into the steamy, belching murk. “He must still be inside.” Collins moved toward the stable entrance, but the trainer grabbed his arm.

“I wouldn’t go in there, Mr. C. There’s no guarantee those sprinklers are gonna do their job. They’re old as the hills. Those pipes fail, or break along the line, the place’ll go up like a haystack. Orlando probably scooted out the other end. He’s no hero.” The final comment held a note of cowboy disdain, as if the barn manager could never hope to compete with someone whose stock in trade was saving damsels in distress and rescuing wagon trains that were under savage attack.

Todd pulled his arm free. “I don’t like it. If Orlando were outside, he would have come down to check on the horses. I say he’s still in there. We’ve got to get him out.” With that, Todd’s tall frame limped decisively into the stable.

Jack watched his former father-in-law disappear in the smoke and shook his head. “Crazy old coot; gonna get us both killed over some lousy greaseball.” He pulled a handkerchief from his rear pocket, pushed it into a neighboring horse trough, rang it out, covered his nose, and ran inside.

Jack had no idea whether the sprinkler system was going to win its battle or not. The crackling and sighing of burning wood appeared to be getting louder with every step he made, as though the barn were getting ready to collapse around him. He couldn’t help second-guessing the wisdom of entering the structure. “Mr. C,” he shouted through the swirling smoke, “where the hell are you?”

“Over by the valve. Polk’s been knocked unconscious. Get over here and give me a hand.”

Coughing and blinking back acid tears, Jack worked his way over to the valve, where he found Todd crouched over Orlando’s prone body. “Is he alive?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get him out of here.”

“This place is gonna come down on top of us, Mr. C. Any second.” Jack ducked to the side as a bale of burning hay thudded down from the loft above, hissing when it hit the water on the ground.

“I don’t think so,” the old man shouted back. “I think it’s going to hold. Let’s get Orlando out of here pronto, though. I don’t want to push our luck any more than we already have.”

Jack bent down and slid his arms under Polk’s shoulders and lifted his chest, while Todd took hold of his feet.

“Ready?” Jack said.

“You betcha.”

They stood in unison, hefting the limp form and moving gingerly toward the east end of the stable. A loud and continual hissing sound now prevailed in the barn, and the smoke was heavy with steam and the smell of charred wood and ruined saddle leather.

Exiting the stable they heard the muffled sirens of approaching fire engines. After they set the body down in a grassy patch, Todd straightened and looked at Jack. “Did you call the damn fire department?”

“No.”

Todd kicked at the dirt with his good leg. “Damn . . . It must have been Ryan. Why can’t she listen?”

“Something wrong with the fire department, Mr. C.?”

Collins knelt down and checked Orlando’s pulse. “I like to keep situations like this in-house.”

2

Contrary to the sleepy atmosphere that presently prevailed at Newcastle’s
morning
newspaper, the
Herald,
the offices of its
afternoon
rival, the
Evening Crier,
were rife with scurrying and worried feet, with furrowed eyebrows, grim expressions, and the kind of terse remarks that can’t help but sound insulting even under the most benign of moments—which “deadline” at a daily city newspaper definitely was not.

Although the dreaded moment was nearly four hours away, the
Crier
’s editors, reporters, columnists, and advertising account executives knew full well that the time could evaporate in the blink of an eye; and most were secretly en-vying the
Herald
employees as they did almost each and every day. Not that the folks at the
Herald
didn’t go through the same hysteria on a regular basis; it’s just that for them it rolled around at nine at night, not nine in the morning.

Annabella Graham stepped off the elevator on the third floor of the
Crier
building and into this tense melee, just as she had every Friday for the past seven years: equipped with a manila envelope tucked under her arm. Belle, as she preferred to be addressed after suffering too many puns of the
anna-gram
variety, was the crossword puzzle editor at the
Evening Crier.
She was thirty-three years old, bouncy, and lithe, with quizzical gray eyes, blond hair the color and consistency of dandelion down, and a radiant smile that revealed how little she cared about her looks. She was also smart.