Night Mares in the Hamptons (17 page)

D
AWN AND I WERE NOT USUALLY on speaking terms. It was more like sending a Christmas card once a year. Not that I had anything against a pretty sunrise, but when you've seen one, you've got bags under your eyes.

It looked like another nice day, so I threw on a T-shirt and cutoffs, brushed my teeth, and did what I could with my hair, then fed the dogs.

While they ate—all two minutes of inhaling the kibbles—I thought about Ty and his intentions. Not toward me, which was obvious, but toward the mares. He was focused on talking with them, finding them, finding if he could communicate with them. He was like a Star Fleet ship commander excited to find intelligent life. The problem was, we needed to find the colt more.

Ty would be no help to me if he slept all day, which seemed likely. I'd had a few hours of rest before the raunchy dream, the one I'd never think of again, and was almost ready to go knocking on doors. If it weren't so early in the morning, I'd skip breakfast and get on the road with my maps, but I didn't want the hotshot horse whisperer making plans with the others without me.

I wanted Susan to come to Grandma Eve's. I used the raspberries I knew Grandma's crews had been picking as a bribe. And the hope for Grandma's crepes that she sometimes made in fresh berry season.

So Susan scrubbed the mascara off her face and put on a clean Hello, Kitty T-shirt, and her hair in pigtails. She looked about fifteen, and innocent.

When we got across the road, Susan hung back until Doc came forward from where he was scooping out melon balls and took her hand in both of his. “Just the person I was hoping to see. Evie says your omelets are inspired.”

“They are,” Grandma seconded, while she dipped bread for French toast. No crepes, but close enough.

Aunt Jasmine was whipping heavy cream for the berries. “Better than mine ever were.”

Susan's father stopped feeding oranges to the juicer. “I've been missing my omelets since you moved in with Willow to keep her company.”

Susan came to keep me company? That was news to me. She said she couldn't stand living by her parents' rules and their disapproval.

While everyone else was cooking, Ty was at the kitchen table making lists and phone calls. He did look up at me, then up and down. “Nice legs, blondie.”

I wasn't really blonde, not without Janie's bottles and bleaches. Since I hadn't been back to the salon, my hair was more sandy-colored streaks, if not mousy. But Ty didn't even look at adorable Susan, who was laughing as she grabbed eggs, bowls, and whatever else she found in Grandma's extensive pantry. So I didn't say anything about this new nickname, just “Hiya, Tex.”

He looked tired, and he wasn't wearing his hat, but he winked at me.

We were so many, we'd have to eat in the dining room instead of the kitchen, so I started to set the table the way Grandma liked: tablecloth, cloth napkins, pottery plates, fresh flowers in a vase. Just like breakfast at my house. Hey, a granola bar looks just as appetizing on a paper towel as it does on a porcelain plate.

Omelets, scones, fruit salad, French toast with raspberries and cream, fresh OJ. Maybe I ought to jog door-to-door instead of driving. But then I'd likely have a heart attack from clogged arteries. I was definitely going to have a salad for lunch.

I worried about Doc, who'd already had a stroke, until I saw Grandma refill his bowl with fruit.

I was amazed at how much food Ty consumed—to Grandma's delight and Susan's pride—and how much could be accomplished so early in the morning.

The police dispatcher reported they'd had no problems in the precinct last night and hoped Doc would hang around. The chief was thrilled the mares were out at the farm—but don't tell Eve—and he'd do anything to keep them away from Main Street. Ty wanted apples and carrots? A truck would be there by the afternoon. Lights? Uncle Henry'd put new batteries in the squad cars so they could stay on all night. A water trough? How about his niece's wading pool?

The school was cooperating; so was the fire department. The grapevine was warning everyone to keep the plan quiet. The last thing we needed was reporters or photographers from the East Hampton papers coming to stake out my backyard. Paumanok Harbor had enough trouble keeping out of the public eye without a hunt for wild horses . . . ones that disappeared in daylight.

The rest of the plan was for everyone to go back to bed when their assigned chores were completed.

Not me. My chore was covering as many Paumanok Harbor miles as I could. I went back home, showered, and changed to jeans and sneakers for trudging through high grasses. Then I designed, printed out, and cut quarter-page notices: A picture of the colt. “Have you seen this young white horse?” and my name and cell number for any information. I didn't offer a reward this time, but I intended to put one of these in every hand or mailbox I could.

Susan refused to come with me. She had to work that night and needed her sleep. I was kind of glad, because Ty wanted me to take Connor. I didn't think a day in the car together would be good for either of them.

When I got to Rosehill to pick up my passenger, I punched in the combination at the estate's electric gate, that I knew from my stay here as Cousin Lily's replacement. Then I drove around to the back, past at least a dozen vans and pickups.

A huge horse trailer filled most of the rear gravel parking area. Paloma Blanca and Lady Sparrow might have traveled in comfort; now they were living in Hamptons luxury.

Rosehill's three-car garage had been converted to a stable, with hay and straw and brand-new feed bins and buckets. Outside, on the vast parklike lawns, the groundskeeper was directing an army of workers setting fence posts into holes in the grass. I'd have thought Emmanuel would be crying at the destruction of his green carpet handiwork, but he was smiling. Who wouldn't smile, watching Paloma Blanca prance across the yard? Emmanuel was talking to her in Spanish. I didn't have the heart to tell him she was born in Austria, then trained in obsolete Paiute with a Texas drawl.

Connor was walking every inch of the new enclosure inspecting the ground for wires, staples, poisonous plants, broken glass. As if Emmanuel would permit as much as a fallen branch.

An electrician's crew was starting to run wires to electrify the new corral, and a security specialist was up a spruce tree installing cameras and alarms. I wasn't sure about the pinto, but Ty's Lipizzan mare had to be worth more than me, my house, and my mother's Outback combined. I couldn't blame him for taking every precaution, especially with a horse thief already in the neighborhood.

Connor was ready as soon as the last wire was tied off and the gate secured. The horses had water, shade, a radio playing music and, if I wasn't mistaken, Emmanuel's nephew standing guard. I never saw Ty, which was aggravating since I'd put on a gauzy gypsy blouse. And I'd left Little Red home.

Connor was not a great conversationalist. Which was to say he didn't talk at all. I couldn't tell what he thought as I pointed out the local sights, not through his sunglasses and a wide-brimmed baseball cap from a rodeo association.

I started to explain about Susan, so he'd be prepared and could handle the situation in his own way. He grunted. He already knew.

I drove through Main Street and then out toward small pockets of residential neighborhoods between thick wooded preserved areas, interspersed with hidden drives. I decided to start on Osprey Street, where I knew some of the old-time residents.

Before we got out of the car, I had to ask Connor if he had any sense that could help us detect a hidden horse.

“Nope.”

I was hoping I did. Meantime, I wished we had Big Eddie and his nose, but the young policeman was out on patrol. Even Vincent the Barber might have helped. He could see a nimbus around persons of psionic power. Today was his day off, and he'd gone fishing.

I asked Connor if he wanted to take one side of the street of modest homes while I took the other.

“Nope.”

So he walked beside me up an impatiens-planted path to the Desmonds' house. Mrs. Desmond taught English at Aunt Jasmine's school, where I'd met her many times.

I handed her one of the flyers. “Do you know anything at all about a young white horse?”

“Dear me, no. I thought you'd found it by now, since things have settled down.”

“Honestly, I don't even know if the colt is still alive.”

“Oh, I can help you with that. I can make alphabet soup.”

“Huh?”

She led us to the kitchen, set a small pot of water on to boil, then asked for the colt's name.

“I've been calling him Hetty, but that can't be right.”

“We'll use the H for horse anyway.” She sifted through a baby food jar filled with macaroni letters and found an H. “If it floats, the horse is alive.”

We all held our breath. The tiny H bobbed right up to the surface.

Connor looked at me.

I shrugged. “They use Mrs. Desmond on ambulance runs sometimes.”

 

The next house was larger, with a Jag in the circular driveway. I never knew what the Merriwethers did for a living, except that they traveled a lot. Mrs. Merriwether spent a lot of money at Grandma Eve's on plants and vegetables.

Mrs. Merriwether hadn't heard anything about the little pony. But she shut her eyes, opened them, and scrawled a nine on a scrap of paper. She handed it to me.

“Nine? Nine what?”

“I have no idea, dear. I can't be more help than that, but the number is certainly connected to what you are looking for.”

“Do you ever play the lottery, Mrs. Merriwether?”

She grinned. “Every state that has one. We don't always win, but how do you think we bought this house and the ones in Maui and Vail, and the car and the boat and all those trips abroad?”

 

Margaret was a weaver who sold her work at the craft shows in Montauk and Amagansett. I had one of her scarves. We could barely find our way through the living room to her studio, for all the looms, baskets of yarn, dyestuffs, and finished goods. She hadn't seen or heard anything about the colt either.

“I don't suppose you have any of the horse's hair, do you?

“No, no one's seen him at all.”

“Let me think . . .” She looked at Connor, leaned over, and pulled a long white hair from his dark western shirt.

“But that's from Paloma Blanca, Mr. Farraday's horse,” I told her. Then said “Ouch” as she plucked one of my hairs.

“Yes, but I'll weave it, your hair, and your intense desire to find the colt all together with my favorite wool. I spun it from a shaggy dog your mother found for me. He could find a dog biscuit no matter where I hid it.”

Connor shrugged, pulled a long black hair from his braid and handed it to her. When their hands touched, he didn't pull his back fast enough. “Ma'am, you don't have to keep worrying about that biopsy. It's just a cyst.”

She looked startled, then looked at the bit of hairs and fibers her fingers were already braiding together and smiled. If her magic was possible, anything was. In five minutes she had a long enough chain to knot around my wrist.

“But won't it fall apart when I take a shower?”

“It will last until you find what you are looking for.”

 

No one was home at the next two houses, but I left flyers under the doors. We peeked into the backyards to see if any sheds or playhouses were big enough for a small horse. They weren't.

At the last house, a man answered the door. He must have thought we were handing out bibles or selling something, because he slammed the door in our faces. I shoved a flyer in the mail slot and shouted, “Have a good day.”

We looked over the fence into his backyard, too, but the whole width was filled with a swimming pool. He was breaking the building laws, but not harboring a stolen horse.

We crossed to the other side of the street.

 

They called her Leather Lips because her skin was so tanned and hardened from her years outdoors. She used to give trail rides along the beach until the town made her stop. Too many people complained about stepping in horseshit. My mother complained about how she left the horses out in the sun, saddled up and waiting for paying customers. I knew she still kept a couple of horses in her backyard, grandfathered into the zoning code, and gave pony lessons to kids.

“No, I haven't seen your weanling. And if any of my horses know anything about him, they're not talking. Of course, if that good-looking horse whisperer of yours wants to come chat, I'd be willing to let him try.” She looked at Connor. “This one needs to age, like good wine.”