Ride a Painted Pony (Superromance) (21 page)
Read Ride a Painted Pony (Superromance) Online
Authors: Carolyn McSparren
Taylor shook her head.
He blew out a breath. “Okay. Charlene went through a period when she doted on antiques. She bought stuff from Eberhardt before she got smart and started going to New York and London.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “I saw Clara Eberhardt at the shop a couple of times.”
“I got the impression she didn’t have much to do with the shop.”
Cato shrugged. “Sure she did. At least in those days. That’s probably ten years ago now.”
So Cato knew the Eberhardts too. As she was forming another question, he leaned back and slapped his long hand against the leather of the sofa.
Taylor jumped.
“Dammit, woman, I want you to get whoever did this. Rounders matters to me.”
“I wouldn’t have thought Rounders would be anything to you except a casual pastime when the weather’s too sloppy for golf.”
“Don’t you believe it. I hate golf. Stupid little white ball that doesn’t ever go where you hit the goddamn thing.” He wrinkled his nose. “You ever hear the only difference between doctors and God is that God doesn’t think he’s a doctor? I’ve got more faith in me than in God, and I got plenty in Him. If I’m standing over your brain, you better pray I got that faith in myself. I walk that hospital like I own the place. Patients and nurses look up to me. But at Rounders, all they care about is that I can carve a fur saddle pad so perfect you’d swear the buffalo just stepped out of it. I wouldn’t screw that up for all the money in the Chase Manhattan National Bank.”
“Do you have money in Rounders?”
“No.” He frowned at her. “You think Nick’s in trouble financially?”
“He could be. It’s odd that Max and Josh are investors when you’re the one with the big bucks.”
“Yeah, but Rounders was already up and running when I discovered it.” He gestured at the oversize Muller. “’Course, everybody except Nick turned up their noses when I turned it into a bar. But hell, it works and I like it.” He grinned at her. “And what I like, I do.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I
KNOW ABOUT THE CAROUSEL,” Nick said. He walked into the sunroom, but this time he didn’t sit down.
KNOW ABOUT THE CAROUSEL,” Nick said. He walked into the sunroom, but this time he didn’t sit down.
Max stiffened. “What carousel?”
“Last night I took Taylor to look at the carousel. I found the horse you substituted.”
Max went still. A muscle worked at the corner of his mouth.
“Why’d you do it?”
Max turned away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t give me that crap. I never told you, but every one of my animals has a special mark on it. I found that mark. You were the only one who could have substituted the horse.”
“You had more opportunity than I did,” Max said coolly.
“You must have had a good reason.”
Max’s shoulders sagged and he sank onto the wicker sofa as though his legs wouldn’t support him. “Why does anyone do something like that? For money.”
Nick shook his head.
“Sit down, my naive friend.”
Nick sat warily on the edge of the wicker chair.
“It was all very innocent—at first.” Max leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I was filling surface cracks on one of the Denzels, and I started thinking how closely one of yours resembled the one I was working on. I checked yours in the storeroom and couldn’t tell the difference. That might have been the end of it, except that night after I got home—that very night—Michael called me from California. Mike Junior had been diagnosed with osteomyelitis and a resistant staph infection. Michael was crying. He wanted to try a new surgical technique and some experimental drug not covered by insurance. I couldn’t believe I’d never seen my grandson and now he might be dying.”
“You just got a card from him. I saw it.”
“He’s fine now, but it was close.” Max looked Nick full in the eyes. “Christ, Nick! This was my grandson we were talking about!”
“So you stole the horse.”
“The next day I went to my bank for a loan, tried to take out another mortgage, cash in my life insurance—anything. Everyone was sympathetic but not helpful.” Max sounded bitter.
“You never let on to me. I thought I was your friend.”
“You were. You are.” Max reached out a hand, then drew it back as though he’d realized he had no right to the gesture. “But you were struggling. I couldn’t ask you for the money I’d put into Rounders.”
“I’d have given it to you.”
“How? It was spent. The place was barely making a profit, you didn’t have enough money to pay the utility bills on time. I decided to take your horse and sell it.”
Nick moved restively.
“Not the Denzel, but your copy. I knew I could get five or six thousand dollars for it quickly. That would pay the immediate bills. Then when I started spraying the Denzel, I thought how much more money I could get for a real restored Denzel with provenance. You know there are collectors who don’t ask questions as long as it’s authentic. Hell, we could both name half a dozen off the tops of our heads right this minute.”
“So you called one of them.”
“I’m not proud of it, but yeah.” Max shrugged. “He offered me twenty thousand cash on the front end, no questions asked. I wired the money to Michael the same day, then I took the Denzel home and hid it upstairs while I painted it. I damn near gave myself a heart attack living on coffee and no sleep for a week, but I finished it and shipped it.” He stared defiantly at Nick. “And by God, given the same circumstances, I’d do it again.”
“Did anyone know?”
“Of course not. Why?”
“You said you had it here for a week. Where?”
“Upstairs in the back room. When people were here, I hid it in the closet.”
“What people?”
“On top of everything else, that was the week we had the Rounders end of the year party. There must have been fifty people in the house that night.”
“Did anyone go upstairs?”
Max snorted. “Everyone who wanted to use the bathroom. It was the only one I had working at the time.”
“Was the closet locked?”
“Hell, no. Who goes snooping in other people’s closets?”
“But someone could have seen the Denzel and recognized it.”
“Why wouldn’t they say something?”
“Maybe it meant nothing at the time. Max, did you steal the other animals?”
“That’s the only time I’ve ever stolen anything in my life.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Did you kill Clara Eberhardt?”
Max came off the sofa in one swift lunge. “Of course I didn’t.”
“Because if you did,” Nick continued as though his friend had not spoken, “turn yourself in. We’ll get Rico to work out the details with the police.”
Max gaped. “You really think I did it?”
Nick shook his head miserably. “I don’t want to, but you’ve admitted to stealing one horse and lying about it.”
“To save my grandson’s life,” Max said with growing hysteria. “Nick, Nick, my boy, I didn’t steal your animals, and I swear I didn’t kill Clara.”
Nick sat back and watched his old friend in silence. After a moment, he said, “How are we going to handle the Denzel?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ll have to go to the management, tell them about the substitution.”
“No! They don’t know the difference.”
“But I do,” Nick said quietly. “Maybe they’ll want to let sleeping dogs lie. I hope so. The publicity for Rounders could be pretty bad. But if they don’t, you’re going to have to give up the person who bought it and repay the money. Even then, they may still press charges.”
“Nick, I’m too old to go to prison.”
“I think Rico can get them to let you repay the money. We’ll find it somehow.” Nick thought with near despair about the thirty-five thousand dollars he owed Pete Marley, now topped by an additional twenty. Even if the Eberhardt estate paid off, getting the money would take years.
“You’d send me to prison over a goddamn Denzel horse?”
“You’ve got to tell the truth.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I will.”
“I need a drink,” Max said. He went to the kitchen and came back with a beer. He didn’t offer Nick one.
“The police will think I killed Clara,” Max said when he sat down again. “You do.”
“I think you’re responsible even if you didn’t use the chisel.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think that during the party somebody found the horse stashed in the closet, and that led to the rest of it.”
“Nonsense.”
“Is it?”
“Christ, Nick, I hope it’s nonsense.” Max drained his beer. He seemed to have aged fifteen years in fifteen minutes. “Give me some time before we deal with the amusement park. Give me until the police find who killed Clara. Then I won’t be on the hook for that as well.”
Nick thought about it. “Yeah. Okay.” He smiled sadly at his old friend. The smile turned to a look of deep concern. “You won’t do anything dumb will you?”
“Like kill myself?” Max laughed ruefully. “No. I haven’t lived a particularly honorable life, but I’m not going to put a forty-five to my head in the officers’ club for the good of the regiment.”
“I REFUSE TO SLEEP on that damn sofa bed again tonight,” Nick said.
For a moment he thought Taylor had broken the telephone connection, then he heard her sigh. “I understand. Take the loft.”
“After dinner we’ll feed Elmo, you pack a bag and come to Rounders for the night. I have a futon.”
He heard her laugh. “You got a deal. Wagons in a circle?”
“And triple-lock the doors.”
“Mel says to meet him at Veda’s right now. He’s got some financial information and I want to hear from you how it went with Max.”
“Yeah.”
“Nick, are you all right?”
“Not really. See you in a few minutes.”
He pulled into the parking space right beside Veda’s compact just as Taylor pulled in on the other side. Mel’s land yacht sat two spaces down.
The front door of Veda’s townhouse opened before either of them could get out of their cars. “Get in here,” Mel said. Veda peered from behind his shoulder the same way she’d first peered at Taylor from behind Harvey.
“What’s the urgency?” Taylor asked.
“I’m hungry,” Mel rumbled. He shut the door behind them. He held a cup of coffee in his left hand and seemed thoroughly familiar with the place. “I’ve been talking to Veda for the last hour and hoping you two weren’t dead in a ditch somewhere. I thought I told you to stay together after dark.”
“It’s not dark,” Taylor answered.
“Good as.”
“So where are we dining, master?”
“Right here,” Veda said. “Just chicken and a green salad.”
Nick turned to Taylor. “Veda’s a hell of a cook. She brings me brownies all the time.”
During dinner Taylor and Nick reported on their day.
Taylor watched Veda’s face drain of color when Nick told them about the theft of the animal. “I would have given him the money,” she whispered. “Why didn’t he ask me?”
Taylor noted she didn’t say “lend” but “give.”
“And I’ll bail him out now if it comes to that,” Veda continued.
Mel harrumphed like an angry bull and helped himself to his third piece of chicken. Taylor caught him looking at Veda and wondered if there was something going on between them. Mel hadn’t looked at another woman in the eight years since his wife walked out on him to marry an engineer from Phoenix she’d met on a camping trip. If he was falling for Veda, she was going to break his heart. She watched Nick and thought the Borman Agency was batting zero for two: Nick was probably going to break her heart as well.
They moved into the living room for coffee. Mel settled in the leather recliner that had probably been Bill Albright’s, and groaned with pleasure. “You want to bear what I found?”
“Give.”
“First, Chessman makes eighty-five thou a year in salary and half again as much in consulting fees. Margery brings in about forty thou, tax free, from a trust fund she inherited when her mother died. She pays for the parties and the charity balls. She’s mounting quite a campaign to get into society and get Josh a cushy job.”
“Nothing unusual?”
Mel shook his head. “Not that I can find. They live up to their income, but Josh could well afford the money he put into Rounders three years ago. It doesn’t make much money, but it’s a good tax write-off.”
Nick nodded. “I’m the only one who takes a salary, and I don’t take much.”
“Max Beaumont has some investments, his army pension, and not much else. He’s way overextended on that money pit he lives in. He’s got a second mortgage and pays off the interest on his credit-card debt without making much of a dent in the principal. I can see why he wasn’t a good risk when he needed money for his grandson. If he told the truth.”
Nick raised his head. “What do you mean?”
“How would you have reacted if he’d said he stole the Denzel to get enough money to take some twenty-year-old floozie to Vegas for a week?”
“Max wouldn’t do that!” Veda said.
“Tomorrow I’ll find out. If the boy was treated, there will be records.” He leaned back in his chair. “Rico Cabrizzo is no tough little Boston hood. His family runs canning and bottling plants all along the northeast coast. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, went to a fancy prep school before he went to Harvard.”
“So he never ran away to join a carnival?” Nick asked.
“He worked at Old Orchard Beach amusement park a couple of summers while he was in high school.”
“So does he need money?”
“He plays the ponies, drives a Porsche. He could use the money. Thing is, I don’t see any sign that he’s getting an infusion of capital from anywhere.”
“How about Marcus Cato?” Taylor asked.
“He and his family spend money like water, but he makes megabucks in his practice. I doubt he’s hurting for cash.”
“Great. We’ve learned nothing.”
“Not quite,” Mel said. “The one who needs money the most is you, Nick.”
“Now wait a minute,” Nick said.
“Rounders pays you a subsistence salary, gives you a place to live and lets you write off most of your expenses. You have less than a thousand dollars in your checking account and less than five thousand in savings. If Rounders stays closed because of this, you could lose everything.”
“I will anyway if I have to pay off Marley. Selling my remaining animals and getting another mortgage on Rounders may possibly keep me from bankruptcy if I can unload them quickly. Are you saying that gives me a motive for the murder?”
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