Puss 'N Cahoots (15 page)

“Even the CIA and Pentagon stuff?” He felt an odd flutter at the thought.

“A genius hack could get into anything they have. We really have painted ourselves into a corner. You and I will be the last generation to know privacy.”

It frightened Charly that she had so much power: physical power, financial power, and mental power.

“I hope you're wrong.” He meant that.

“I wish I were.” She dropped the subject, as it was deeply depressing the more she thought about it. “Thought I'd leave Kalarama at the end of the show. I'll pay them extra for the time and trouble, all the media stuff, but I'll tell the truth. I'm going back to you. I just won't say why I left.”

“Joan isn't going to take extra money.”

“Then I'll give it to her favorite charity in Kalarama's name. I've put them through a fair amount, and they have Jorge's murder to deal with, as well.” She shuddered. “That sight will haunt me forever.”

“Ward didn't kill him.”

“How can you be so sure?” She responded to the conviction in his voice.

“He's not the type.”

“That's what neighbors say about serial killers when they're discovered.”

“Ward isn't some psychopath who can fool the neighbors. He wouldn't kill Jorge. If nothing else, the stakes aren't high enough. He agrees to hide Queen Esther. He's part of a harmless ruse. No one's hurt. No one loses money, except ostensibly me. Yes, Joan and Larry juggle a media circus, but, hey, it throws a great big klieg light on Kalarama, and that's good for them and good for Saddlebreds. They run a good barn. They're at the top of the food chain. No, Ward couldn't.”

“I suppose.” Her voice trailed off. “But it's unsettling.”

“It's some kind of personal vendetta. Doesn't have anything to do with our world.” Charly believed this, especially after breakfast with the boys.

Four grackles landed on the luxurious grass, walking with their bird waddle. A large bird feeder lured them, but they had landed a few feet away just in case anything juicy appeared in the emerald grass.

After a long silence, Renata asked, “How much?”

“For what?”

“Captain Hook and the yearling filly. Really how much. Your bottom line.”

He turned to her, put his coffee cup on the rattan coffee table. “Free. If you marry me, they will be your wedding present.”

“Charly, don't tease me.” She rolled her eyes upward.

He rose from the chair, then knelt before her. “Marry me. Do me the honor of being my wife. I am dead serious.”

T
hankful for a quiet morning, Fair was reading
Equine Disease Quarterly,
published by the Department of Veterinary Science at the University of Kentucky. The research carried out at the Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center at the university benefited horsemen the world over. Since he specialized in equine reproduction, his office filled up with reports, technical papers, as well as more general publications aimed at horsemen. However, he particularly enjoyed
Equine Disease Quarterly
for its concise reportage of projects.

At just the time that Charly went down on bended knee, Fair removed his reading glasses, his first concession at forty-one to encroaching middle age. The concession irritated him.

Harry returned from the ladies' room. “Ready.”

“I am, too.”

They'd driven into Lexington for breakfast at the country club, which had been arranged by Alicia Palmer. She knew everybody and everybody knew her, thanks to her Olympian career in film. When she'd called the night before, they caught up about everything on the farm—hers and theirs, since BoomBoom, Susan Tucker, and Alicia were taking turns managing it until their return.

Once in the truck, the animals happy to see them, Fair drove out toward Iron Works Pike.

Since many of the three hundred plus Thoroughbred farms fell into a half circle from the little town of Paris in Bourbon County to the town of Versailles in Woodford County, they thought they'd start out by going to Paris, northeast of Lexington, and work their way back toward Versailles, which was due west.

Harry marked the farms she wanted to see, starting with Claiborne. Not that she knew anyone there, but she wanted to peek at the back pastures.

Each farm displayed a distinct personality. Some, such as Calumet Farms, were covered in glory for decades, only to fall from grace. Others, like Dixiana, once a great Saddlebred place and now breeding Thoroughbreds, covered a century of ups and downs, after each down rising again like the phoenix.

“I'm so happy the grapes are flourishing. Alicia said I won't believe how big they've grown when we get home.”

“It will be interesting to see if the crop proves profitable.”

“Not for three years,” she quickly replied.

“I know that, honey. Remember, I heard the lead-up to this, then the purchase of rootstock, and, well, I'm probably as excited as you are.” He inhaled the refreshing morning fragrance of dew, grass, horses in rich limestone-enriched fields.

“You're right. I get nervous about my grapes. I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have put more in when I did, but I could only afford a quarter of an acre. An acre would have cost fourteen thousand dollars. Of course now, given the hideous spike in oil prices, the cost would be fifteen thousand dollars. Every item that is transported by truck just goes up in price. Scares me.”

“I told you to plant an entire acre. You're too conservative,”
declared Pewter, who really had tried to reach her human when Harry prepared the ground for her rootstock.

“She's brave about some things and cowardly about others.”
Mrs. Murphy also breathed in the wonderful summer odors.
“She gets scared about money, and that's not going to change.”

“But she has Fair, and he makes a good living.”
Pewter was quite happy that she didn't have to balance checkbooks.

“Years of living off a postmistress's salary.”
Tucker left it at that.

“Sunflowers look good, everything looks good. I'm so glad the girls are out there. Alicia said that Miranda has been the biggest help.” Harry beamed at mentioning the older woman, a surrogate mother. “But then, Miranda is such a natural with plants.”

Fair laughed. “She really is, and it plucks Big Mim's last nerve. All the thousands of dollars she spends on her gardens and gardeners, yet Miranda's outshines hers every year.”

Big Mim, also known as the Queen of Crozet, had grown up with Miranda. They adored each other, but when it came to their gardens, each burned with competitive fire.

They reached Paris, passing the large courthouse. One could gauge the wealth of a county by the size of its courthouse in Kentucky. In Virginia, the telling detail was the size of the monument to the heroic Confederate dead.

Claiborne, a few minutes away, made Harry's heart skip a beat. Fair drove around the perimeter.

“Well?”
Pewter, already bored with sightseeing, thought it was time for a crunchy treat, something with fish flavor today.

“Well what?”
Mrs. Murphy, on the other hand, loved sightseeing.

“Did she see a horse for Alicia?”
Pewter turned a circle on Harry's lap.

“No. Great horses in those pastures. Great prices.”
Mrs. Murphy, paws on the dash, noticed a redwing blackbird as they passed a low creek bed. She even spied a tanager in a bush by the same creek bed.

“Then why are we doing this if the horses are so expensive? Why can't she find one in Virginia?”

“Oh, she likes looking around.”
Tucker did, too.

“And you never know.”
Mrs. Murphy sounded hopeful.

“Got behind on this project.” Harry stroked Pewter with her right hand; her left rested on Tucker's silky head as the corgi wedged between her and Fair.

Mrs. Murphy, hind paws on Harry's knees, intently watched everything.

“Extraordinary events.” Fair headed west out of Paris.

“Sure have been, but it's starting to make sense, vaguely—I emphasize vaguely.”

“What?” He turned a moment to stare at his wife.

“Renata succeeded. Publicity up the wazoo, and when she rides tonight, her class will be covered by news channels, entertainment channels, you name it. No fool, that one. But, no, that's not what I'm thinking about. It's Jorge.”

“Ah.” He, too, had fretted over the murder.

“I think it's connected to the raid, but I don't know why.”

“How do you come up with that?”

“So far nothing has turned up—the usual causes of murder, you know, thwarted love, greed. The only thing I can think of is that he was somehow connected to the illegal workers.” She bit her tongue, because she wanted to tell him about the diesel motor she'd heard in the middle of the night when she slipped out to the fairgrounds. The next day when Joan questioned Jorge he said he hadn't heard it. However, Fair still didn't know she'd gone out, and she thought it better to keep that to herself. The problem was, she still didn't know what cargo the truck had carried. She could only guess.

“What else? No women. No booze. No drugs. I mean, he might have visited prostitutes, but that wasn't going to get him killed. What could he do that would create that kind of danger?”

“That's a big jump, Harry.”

“I know it is, but I believe his death is connected. I can't prove it, that's all.”

Fair turned onto one of the north–south roads that would head back toward Lexington, which was now about forty minutes south. “Let's go by Payson Stud. They're real horse people. They understand bloodlines and stand some stallions that retired sound after years of racing. Then we can drive west to Paula's.”

“Funny, isn't it, how the business has changed?”

“True everywhere. Saddlebreds have changed; the necks seem to get longer and longer. Thoroughbreds—well, we've discussed this ad infinitum—are bred for five to seven furlongs. I can't bear it.” His voice carried more emotion than usual. “Even the black-and-tan coonhound. Now that the AKC recognizes them, they're being bred racier. Well, that may be pretty to a lot of people, but pretty is as pretty does. Whenever Americans start fiddling with breeds, they lighten them, lighten the bone most times. Look at the difference between a German shepherd from Germany and one from here.”

“Kind of shocking.” She agreed wholeheartedly with her husband.

“The fanciers ruin a breed, and then thirty or forty years later someone tries to revive it along proper lines. The worst thing that can happen to any dog is to become popular, and I tell you, it's not so good for horses, either, although, thank God, it's a lot more expensive to breed horses than dogs, so there aren't as many people mucking it up. You never, ever remove an animal from its purpose.”

Delighted by his outburst, since he was usually buttoned up, she said, “Honey, you should go on television. You can make complicated matters easy to understand.”

“Really?” He was flattered.

“You can.” She paused. “That's what worries me about Ned a little bit. He does the reverse.”

“He's a lawyer.”

Ned, Susan Tucker's husband, had been elected to the Virginia assembly. As this was his first year, it meant many adjustments for him and for Susan, Harry's friend from cradle days.

“It's good that Alicia's given you this project.”

“She'll even pay me a commission for finding the horse and then training it.” Harry beamed. “I like earning my way.”

“I know. Hey, that willow tree may be the largest I've ever seen.” He pointed to a willow down near an old springhouse, with a creek running through it.

“Probably bodies buried underneath it.”

“Harry.” Fair shook his head.

“Well—” She couldn't explain why murders, crimes riveted her. “Joan told me all about the murder of Verna Garr Taylor, allegedly by General Denhardt, and then when he got off, how her three brothers gunned him down.”

“No more murders in Shelbyville.” He sighed. “Jorge was enough.”

“You never know.” Harry actually sounded hopeful.

“Harry.” He reached over with his long arm to punch her left shoulder.

“I'm resting.”
Pewter opened her eyes when Harry rocked slightly to the right.

“I didn't say I was hoping for another murder. I'm hoping to find Joan's pin. I hope someone finds Jorge's murderer. I'm just saying,” she slowed her words, “you never know.”

She was right.

B
ecause stall rents bit into Ward's slender budget, a horse finishing his or her class at the end of the evening would be driven back to the farm, unless a client was riding the animal the next night. Ward would sit down to figure out if the extra trips cost more than the stall rent for that day, given the horrendous increase in gas. He solved this problem by vanning other people's horses to the various stables when he took one of his own horses back to the farm. His van could carry six horses. Since clients paid by the mile the savings came out to be about thirteen dollars a day—pin money, but pin money was better than no money.

Prudently, Ward placed the cash from smuggling illegal workers in a half-size fireproof vault. He marked down these funds according to each transaction as profits from hauling mulch to landscape sites. Not that he expected anyone to break into his vault or authorities to sweep his records, but he thought ahead. His motto could well have been “Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”

Ward intended to buy one young stallion and perhaps three exceptional broodmares when the sum reached four hundred thousand dollars. He wanted to play safe, so he was looking for just the right stallion from the Rex Denmark line. Since Supreme Sultan, foaled in 1966, led the list of sires of Hall of Fame broodmares, he wanted mares from that line. Whether or not he had the breeding gift would be apparent in a few years. One stallion would lead to more if he enjoyed any kind of success, and those stud fees would prove a nice augmentation to his training fees and board income.

He'd figured out the cost to put up six-board fencing for the first stallion's paddock, the cost of a clean but small breeding shed, and the costs for shipping semen.

Ward left nothing to chance save for the Russian roulette of breeding. It wasn't as easy as Mendel's peas. He envied Joan Hamilton her extraordinary success. Some people had the gift, just as Donna Moore of Versailles had the gift of finding incredible prospects and making them better.

He and Benny parked by the practice arena at ten-thirty in the morning to take home a gelding for an amateur owner in Barn Three and to take one of his clients' horses back to his barn. He'd already driven back to his farm in his pickup after breakfast, checked on everything, turned everyone out, then hopped in the van with Benny, who regaled him with stories of a busted date last night. She had a bust, all right, but the rest of her screamed nonstop neurosis. Benny could make Ward laugh, and the two of them had laughed all the way to Ward's rented stalls at Shelbyville. Ward had two horses going tonight. It should be an easy day, more or less.

         

Harry and Fair pulled into the opposite lot near Route 60. Both were elated, since the gelding at Paula's Rose Haven farm impressed them. Fair did a thorough check, asking Paula to call in her vet for X-rays when possible. Fair didn't have his portable X-ray equipment with him.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker strolled down to visit Spike. Cookie, still at Kalarama Farm, wouldn't come in until the evening's classes. This pleased Tucker, since she'd have gossip for the pretty little Jack Russell.

“Hope Spike has some dirt.”
Tucker snapped at a monarch butterfly who flew low.

“Wouldn't you rather he had bones?”
Pewter, food never far from her mind, replied.

“Wouldn't mind, but I wouldn't give you any.”
Tucker smiled devilishly.

“Dog bones taste like cardboard.”
Pewter had gnawed a few Milk-Bones and overstated her case.

“Good, I don't have to share.”

“But a knucklebone, a real true bone, that's a different story.”
Pewter's eyes half closed in remembered bliss.

“You two ate a big breakfast. How can you think about food?”
Mrs. Murphy liked her tuna, chicken, and beef, but food wasn't her obsession.

“You need to surrender more to the rituals of pleasure,”
Pewter declared.

Both Mrs. Murphy and Tucker stopped for a moment to stare at each other. Where did Pewter come up with that? The large gray kitty sashayed on, her tummy swinging from side to side. She certainly indulged in her rituals of pleasure. The two friends lifted their silken eyebrows, then followed Pewter, in as good a mood as anyone had ever seen her.

Charly Trackwell was not yet in the barn. Carlos had watered the horses, checked everyone's feed, double-checked them after they'd eaten, and was now going from stall to stall lifting hooves. The barn cats reposed on the tack trunks, a mid-morning nap being just the thing on a day that promised to get into the nineties with high humidity.

Spike, on his side on an old saddle blanket in navy and red, snored. His paws twitched.

“Let's not wake him,”
Mrs. Murphy whispered.

A startled horse caused the ginger cat to open one eye, and then a hellacious shriek sent him bolt upright along with the other barn cats.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker craned their necks to view Miss Nasty, in an orange and white polka-dot dress, swinging from a barn rafter. The horse eyed her with the greatest suspicion.

Carlos, hearing the horse shy, quickly looked into the stall but didn't see Miss Nasty at first. The monkey swung down, grabbing his grimy baseball cap. She then scurried across the beams, cap in one paw.

“Mine, mine, mine!”
the brown creature triumphed.

Carlos, furious, ran under the beam. “Diablo!”

“Ha, ha.”

“I hate that disgusting thing.”
Pewter curled her lip.
“So dirty.”

Spike, wasting no words, climbed up the stall post and hurried across the wide beam toward the monkey.
“You're on my turf, bitch. Get the hell out of my barn.”

Benny, walking by the barn, heard the monkey's shrieks. He stuck his head in.

“I'll shoot her,” Carlos threatened.

“Don't do that, Carlos.” Benny smiled. “Booty will shoot you. If you turn your back on her, she'll be disappointed and eventually drop your hat.”

“No, I won't. I'll tear it to shreds,”
Miss Nasty boasted as she kept one jaundiced eye on a puffed-up, approaching Spike.

“You'll pee on it, Miss Nasty.”
Mrs. Murphy hoped to distract her so Spike could knock her hard.
“We know you pee on things.”

“And you don't?”
Miss Nasty twirled the cap in her paws, then put it on her head, but it slipped over her eyes. She quickly pulled it off, then waved it at Spike.

Carlos walked with Benny to the end of the barn toward the parking lot. “Not working.”

“Give it time.” Benny took off his green ball cap with the white logo. “Use mine. Hate to see your bald spot.”

“I don't have a bald spot.”

“If you tear your hair out over that goddamned monkey you will.” Benny laughed and headed toward the van.

The old van would grumble, belch, smoke, start, then cut off. He didn't know if it was the starter or the battery, and he'd attend to it later, but he wanted to get the motor turned over and let it run for a few minutes before putting the horses on.

As Carlos returned to his duties, Miss Nasty, having lost her human audience, waved the cap at Spike.
“Cats are stupid. Humans are descended from me. That's why I'm smart.”

“You have a lot to answer for,”
Mrs. Murphy sarcastically said as she, too, climbed up on the opposite stall so the monkey would be between herself and Spike.

Seeing this, Spike advanced slowly.
“I'm descended from a saber-toothed tiger. You're lunch.”

“Don't forget to take off her ridiculous dress first,”
Mrs. Murphy reminded Spike.

Miss Nasty stood up as tall as she could on her hind legs.
“I look good in orange.”

“Dream on.”
Pewter laughed from down below as Tucker sat right underneath the chattering monkey.

“Yeah, you'd have to shop in plus size,”
Miss Nasty called down just as Spike leapt toward her.

The monkey emitted a shriek, jumped over the ginger cat, dropping the hat in the process. She ran hellbent for leather toward the other end of the barn. Spike gave chase.

Tucker picked up the ball cap and waited for Carlos to come out of the stall, which he did since the monkey created havoc.

“She keeps getting away from Booty.”
Pewter stated the obvious.
“And she steals things. Charly cussed a blue streak yesterday because she got into his barn and ran off with the colored brow bands he uses on his bridles.”

Mrs. Murphy, running on the opposite beam parallel with the monkey, yelled down,
“That's it!”

“What?”
Pewter asked as she tracked their progress from down below.

“She stole Joan's pin!”
Mrs. Murphy hollered.

Tucker, silent because she had Carlos's hat in her mouth, dropped it.
“Miss Nasty, where's the pin?”

“You'll never know!”
The monkey slid down the end stall pole and, tail out, ran as fast as she could away from the barn.

Spike shimmied down and chased her to the end of the practice arena, then turned back just as Benny walked into the barn. The old van rumbled, warming up in the lot. Benny picked up Carlos's hat as the head groom stepped out of the stall, too slow to swat the monkey with a broom.

As the two men swapped hats, Spike, puffed up like a conquering hero, walked back into the barn.
“Showed her.”

“She admitted it! She has the pin.”
Mrs. Murphy was beside herself.
“We have to get it from her.”

An enormous explosion shook the rafters of the barn. Dust rose up, then fell below.

The animals flattened on their bellies. The horses whinnied, terrified. Carlos and Benny rocked sideways. They regained their equilibrium as the animals crept toward the parking-lot end of the barn.

Ward's green and white van, front torn off, engine parts scattered over the lot, burned, thick black clouds rising upward.

“Oh, my God.” Benny put his right hand over his heart.

“God had nothing to do with it.”
Mrs. Murphy wanted more than anything to get her humans back to Crozet, Virginia.