The Masters Ball

by Anne-Marie Lacy

  “What happened, ladies? Did one of your horses throw a shoe?”

  “No, Tiller,” answered Miss Felicia. “Annabelle got to feeling bad so I brought her in. She’s just overheated.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Annabelle”, said Tiller, as he tied Samson to the trailer. “Would you like a cold drink?”

  “Oh, do you have one? That would be great. Thanks, Tiller.” Annabelle gratefully accepted the cold Coke.

  “Tiller, we’ll leave the horses with you. I’m going to take Annabelle on home. Tell the boys for us, will you?” Miss Felicia unlocked her twenty year old pickup truck and climbed in.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” said Tiller, and began unsaddling

  Winston, Felicia’s horse.

  “Oh, Tiller,” said Miss Felicia. “Put my tack in the back of the truck, will you? I’ll get started on cleaning it when I get home.”

  Annabelle shook her head in amazement at Felicia’s dedication, and thought she would certainly not be doing any tack cleaning of her own, today.

  “Ready, Annabelle?” Felicia prepared to start the old Ford.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” answered Annabelle, climbing into the passenger seat, still feeling queasy and listless. She dreaded the long ride home when normally she would have loved spending an hour alone with Miss Felicia.

  “Thank you so much for helping me,” she said to her friend. “I’m sorry I caused you to miss so much of the hunt. I’ll try to make it up to you in some way.”

  “Nonsense,” said Felicia firmly. “They’ve already had the best run they’ll have all day and we were there for it. It’s too hot to hunt, anyway.”

  Annabelle, feeling deeply appreciative but still uncomfortable, settled down with her drink for the long ride home. Edmund had been invisible after she threw-up, and he seemed to have disappeared altogether. “Just like a man,” she thought, as if he would have been any help to her.

  CHAPTER XII

  MOTIVE AND OPPORTUNITY

  Annabelle woke the next morning still feeling weak, but hungry. She’d gone to bed early after having a supper of Pepto Bismol and another Coke, and downplayed her sick spell to Nick when he’d called. Surprisingly, she’d slept well and felt ready for a big breakfast, but, out of caution, she decided to have only a toasted bagel even though she craved a large plate of bacon and eggs.

  As she sat down to her meal, Edmund appeared on the window seat with his arms crossed, watching her.

  “Good morning,” said Annabelle, biting into the bagel.

  “Good morning yourself! I thought for a while yesterday you were going to join me on the other side.”

  Annabelle paused, bagel in hand. “What do you mean? When I jumped that log?”

  “No, no. Don’t you realize he tried to kill you yesterday?”

  The bagel fell back onto the breakfast plate.

  Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened—“D-d- do you really think so?”

  “I certainly do. Randall attempted to poison you with port from his flask. The fact that you threw-up so quickly is what kept you from getting any sicker.”

  “Oh, Edmund, I don’t know. In the first place, why would he want to kill me?” Annabelle shook her head, which immediately began to ache. “Well, you are right about one thing. I didn’t just get overheated, as Miss Felicia kept insisting, and I noticed you didn’t hang around too long after I was sick.”

  “Annabelle, you know I can’t stand the sight of vomit. As for Felicia Blackwell, I’ve known her all of my life and, as ‘dear as she is’, she’s never been long on imagination.” Edmund leaned back against the window and smiled with a faraway look in his eyes. “Did you know I asked her to marry me once? She had just won her first point-to-point race and I was overcome with admiration.”

  Annabelle smirked. “What number would she have been on the list? Ten?”

  Edmund smirked back, “One, actually. I was only sixteen at the time. You know she’s quite a few years older than I am—was,” he corrected himself. “Felicia was the daughter of one of the founding members of this Hunt, an heiress who chased foxes since the 1940’s.”

  “Edmund, I would love to hear all about your childhood romance, but you’ve just told me you think someone tried to kill me yesterday. I’d appreciate it if you would expound on that statement just a little before you get caught up on a trek down memory lane.

  “You’re right, of course,” said Edmund, genially. “Well, we know Charles told Randall you had been snooping around Huntersleigh because he asked you about it at the Robertson’s after the hunt on Saturday, right?”

  “Yes,” Annabelle agreed. “But he thought I was there because I was missing you. At least that’s what he said.”

  “That’s what he said, but I’ll bet he’s remembered sending me that fax by now and had been hoping to retrieve it, himself. He probably assumes I talked to you about my business dealings.”

  “Hmmph,” Annabelle cleared her throat loudly. “It seems to me I said that very thing on Sunday when we were talking in the tack room and you pooh-poohed the idea.”

  “That was before he tried to poison you.”

  “You mean I was right? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “Now that we have more evidence, it appears that you did guess correctly,” said Edmund airily. “Anyway, let me continue.”

  Annabelle snorted derisively, but let him go on.

  “He’s also been very concerned about the fact that you encountered him entering the Ballroom just minutes before you found me at the foot of the Pierre’s staircase.”

  “That’s certainly true,” said Annabelle. “He’s been trying to quiz me about whether or not I shared that little detail with anyone.”

  “Anyone like the “NYPD” is what he really wants to know. He was the last person to see me alive, but he omitted that fact when he was questioned—claimed to be in the men’s room.”

  “Wouldn’t he feel pretty safe after the coroner ruled your death an accident?” asked Annabelle.

  “You’re thinking like an innocent person, my dear. You must remember that this man has a guilty conscience. He’s not thinking rationally.”

  “I know, I know. I’ve read my share of mystery novels. The murderer appears to be totally in the clear, but then he cracks and tells on himself. I’ve always thought it was a little silly, frankly. I think if I killed someone and had gotten away with it, I’d just thank my lucky stars and move on to other things.”

  “Spoken with the true innocence of a clear conscience!” Edmund replied. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to anyone, Annabelle, edged them out of first place in a best dressed contest?”

  “I resent that. You have a fairly low opinion of my interests.” She thought for a moment. “I guess you’re right, though. I feel guilty if I think I’ve hurt someone’s feelings at a dinner party.”

  “You definitely wouldn’t make a successful killer, Kiddo, and this man won’t either. He’s much too emotional. He was feeling guilty about MotionTech when he confessed his concerns to me at dinner that night, or none of this would have happened.”

  Annabelle nodded in agreement. On the night Edmund had first appeared in her kitchen, he’d told her he had been pushed down the stairs at the Pierre Hotel by Randall Dodge, the suave New Yorker and Edmund’s friend. Edmund had been about to reveal the truth to the other Hill County members about a certain investment deal Randall had put together. He and Randall had clashed at dinner one night at Edmund’s house right before the Ball when Edmund had refused to keep his concerns a secret.

  Randall had persuaded several of Hill County’s wealthiest members, including Edmund, to invest large sums of money in a small, closely-held corporation called MotionTech that claimed to have rights to a new technology, something related to motion-generating properties in the molecular structure of certain substances, particularly those used in making explosives. Randall had assured his clients there was a huge market for such technology in detecting possible
threats to homeland security after the terror attacks on September 11th. While this was true as far as it went, he failed to mention MotionTech had no Federal patent for that particular technology and, more importantly, there was no actual product to sell. What they had was a good idea, and that was all.

  Reminding Annabelle again of the events that led up to Randall sending him the incriminating fax, Edmund said, “One night last January, Randall came down from New York to hunt and he and I had partaken generously of my best wine. Really soused, he told me that not only MotionTech did not have a patent, but that he had recently learned the prospect of being granted one was looking pretty doubtful.”

  Annabelle listened carefully as Edmund continued. “Upon sobering up the next day, Randall attempted to swear me to secrecy, but I declined. I felt Randall owed it to the other investors, some of whom were my lifelong hunting friends, to tell them the truth about MotionTech’s prospects. Randall returned to New York, furiously claiming I felt more loyal to my old friends than to him, but before the week was out he called me full of apologies. He even asked for my help.”

  Annabelle was aware that Edmund did not hold grudges. His tolerant attitude towards others had earned him forgiveness for his own transgressions on too many occasions. This time was no different. Edmund had agreed to intercede with the other investors in Randall’s behalf on one condition—he wanted the complete financial breakdown regarding MotionTech as to who had invested and in what amounts, the financial balance sheet of the company, and exactly what the prospects were for success. Randall had gratefully agreed to fax him the information that day, and had been as good as his word.

  However, the numbers on the fax showed a company deeply in debt and a group of investors who stood to lose their entire capital investments, some of which were quite large. Over half of the capital had been raised through Randall’s Hill County connections. There was also a personal apology from Randall Dodge handwritten at the bottom of the page.

  Annabelle and Edmund recollected the ensuing tragedy. The following week, Edmund and Randall had both attended the Masters Ball in New York. As everyone else was laughing and chatting upon entering the Ballroom, Randall had held Edmund back and at first expressed his appreciation to Edmund for agreeing to help him. He then attempted to persuade Edmund to keep his secret, arguing that the entire corporation would collapse if the Hill County investors withdrew their funding. Edmund was even less inclined to keep his friends in the dark after seeing the financial sheet and they had argued bitterly, making Edmund late for his dinner speech and eventually leading to his fatal shove down the staircase.

  Annabelle was not particularly interested in new technology unless it related to cookware or hair dryers, and her only experience with homeland security involved being insulted about the size of her makeup case. She did understand that no patent and no product meant no return on an investment, and why her friend, Randall Dodge, the man she felt was the height of New York sophistication, might feel threatened enough by her knowledge of his crimes to try to kill her. It was a sobering thought, to say the least, although she reflected if choosing a costume for eternity, her tweed coat and field boots would have done nicely as they would have been a perfect complement to Edmund’s scarlet and white ensemble.

  “So you think he fed me poison out of his flask?” “I do.”

  “Do you think it’s time for me to tell Nick about all of this?” she asked. “Maybe he could help us. I don’t seem to be doing too well on my own.”

  Edmund was silent for a moment. “Yes, I’ve always had a great deal of confidence in Nick Farley. He’ll be furious with Randall for trying to hurt you, but he’s not one to lose his head and do anything rash. Yes, I think you should tell him as soon as he gets home.”

  Annabelle sighed with relief. She, too, felt confident in Nick’s abilities, especially when it came to protecting her.

  “Well, I’m glad that’s settled, then. And, boy, am I glad I threw up yesterday!”

  “Me, too, Kiddo, me, too!” With that, Edmund gave a pat in the general direction of Annabelle’s head and faded slowly out of sight, leaving the comfortable padded window seat to the two terriers. Except for Annabelle, they, alone, seemed to know it had been previously occupied.

  Annabelle decided to have a second bagel. She deserved it—she was almost killed yesterday! She sat musing and munching, resolving to live every day to its fullest as she had heard many people say when they’ve had a brush with their own mortality. However, instead of frightening her and making her more cautious, the experience left her strangely energized. She resolved to bring Edmund’s killer to justice, and she was more determined than ever to ride Samson in First Flight before the season was over—she was tired of being afraid and hanging back. Who knew how many chances she would have to do the things that needed to be done?

  She also was, despite her cool attitude in front of Edmund, very hurt to think that Randall Dodge would plot to kill her in cold blood. Putting poison in a flask was not the spontaneous act of an angry person—it took planning and preparation—yet she had known for weeks he had pushed Edmund down the stairs at the Pierre. Many conflicting emotions were rolling around in her head, so she decided some activity would help clear it.

  One thing she didn’t particularly want to do, though unfortunately necessary, was to clean her mud-splattered tack. The streams and gullies at Waterford had gotten it filthy.

  She finished her second bagel and was putting on her Barbour coat to go to the barn when the telephone rang. She answered it happily, glad for an excuse to put off the inevitable.

  “Hello, Annabelle?” It was Shelley Fitzpatrick. “Hey there, what have you been up to?”

  “Listen, Annabelle, I have some very bad news. Warren thought you should be among the first to know.”

  Annabelle sat back down at the table. She couldn’t imagine what Shelley would say next.

  “Go ahead,” she said, grimly, feeling that nothing much could faze her after Edmund’s murder and her own brush with death only the day before.

  “Miss Felicia is dead. Her housekeeper found her this morning.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  BLACKWOOD FARM

  The Hill County Hunt was in a profound state of shock. Two of its oldest members, one a Master and the other the daughter of one of the Hunt’s founders and possibly the largest landowner, had died within six weeks of each other. The ‘Hill County Hotline’, as Shelley Fitzpatrick laughingly called it, had been buzzing with activity of late. However, instead of the usual gossip about who was seen driving off on a Friday afternoon with whom, this time the topic was grim. Information travels fast within every Hunt, and almost as quickly among the extended family of all other fox hunters. The specifics of Felicia Blackwell’s death, following so closely behind that of Edmund Evans, were the talk of every Hunt in the southeast.

  Miss Felicia’s body had been found by her housekeeper on Thursday morning, lying face down on the cold grass between her barn and house, a rather sudden and inappropriate way for a grand dame to die. She appeared to have suffered a fatal heart attack, but because she had no history of heart disease, the Hill County coroner had ordered her body to be autopsied.

  At first, Annabelle wondered if she would now have two ghosts to contend with, and considered that Miss Felicia would probably be more agreeable than Edmund. After a few days, however, it seemed that if Felicia had decided to appear to anyone, it wouldn’t be to her. Annabelle knew Miss Felicia didn’t have many living relatives. She thought there was a nephew in Maine who had dropped out of society to make pottery, and was rabidly against any form of hunting. Hunting had been Felicia’s life. He was not present at her memorial service.

  Most of the members of Hill County Hounds were in attendance, however, including Annabelle, Nick, and their friends the Fitzpatrick’s and Robertson’s. Warren Fitzpatrick spoke once again, as did Charles Collins, but there were fewer ‘famous’ folks than had attended Edmund’s service. Annabelle reflected t
hat Felicia had kept a much lower profile than Edmund, but, then, most people did.

  Annabelle decided to have a gathering at her house after the service. She had loved and admired Felicia and felt it was the least she could do to honor her friend. The weather had again turned cold as it often does in the south in early March. Annabelle’s farmhouse had been built in 1911, long before the invention of conveniences like central heating, so had a fireplace in every room. This was one of the features Annabelle loved best about her home—the fireplaces and the simple, elegant craftsman design. Today she put every hearth to good use, and as a result the interior of the house was warm and inviting.

  Shelley and Marguerite volunteered to help place food on the table and to set up areas for drinks and coffee. Many of the Hunt members had brought covered dishes beforehand. As the three women reheated casseroles and stacked plates and forks within easy reach of guests, they spoke somberly about the recent tragedies.

  “Funerals are getting to be a common occurrence around here,” said Marguerite, putting the cups and saucers next to Annabelle’s big silver coffee urn.

  “I know! Can you believe it?” said Shelley. “Two of the most influential members of this Hunt have gone in a little over a month! You know, they say ‘Death always come in threes’. I hope there’s no truth to that old superstition. We can’t afford to lose anyone else.”

  A chill ran down Annabelle’s spine as she thought about what had almost happened to her on Wednesday.

  “Well, at least Felicia got to hunt on the last day of her life,” said Marguerite. “She always said she wanted to hunt as long as she possibly could.”

  “That’s true,” said Annabelle. “She was always afraid of getting sick and infirm, having to spend her last years in a rocking chair instead of on a horse. In a way, we should be happy for her.”

  “I suppose,” said Shelley. “I sure will miss her, though. Exactly how old was Felicia? Do either of you know?”