Racing From Death: A Nikki Latrelle Mystery

by Sasscer Hill

  Bobby’s name came up about midway through the article:

  Investigator Norman Jasper of the New Kent County Sheriffs Department, in a statement issued Monday, said Mr. Duvayne was cleared of involvement in the murders, and is no longer a suspect.

  The report did not say why Bobby was cleared. Maybe some woman came forward saying she’d spent the night with him. Probably dragged her feet with the alibi because she was married. Be just like Bobby. At least Lorna wasn’t running with a murderer.

  But whatever the alibi, it meant nothing to me. Bobby knew something about those Cheswick boys. I’d lay money on it.

  Chapter 27

  Lorna and I returned to the backstretch that afternoon to find Mello dozing on his bench, his head resting against the brick wall, a brown paper bag at his feet. He roused himself, yawned, and began humming a soft, nameless tune. The old man had a history with alcohol, whiskey in particular, but since he'd arrived in Virginia he'd been on the wagon. Living in the backstretch grooms' quarters without a car probably played a role in his sobriety.

  I stared at the bag. "What you got in there, Mello."

  "Miss Nikki, you don't needs to be worrying about me."

  I did worry, but didn't want to say it. "It's just that I need you at your best for the horses, Mello."

  "Don't you be fretting like some old broody hen. I always takes care of my horses."

  I clammed up. I was hardly in a position to criticize. I still had a hangover.

  "That Mr. Pemberton, now he be a gentleman. Brought me a bottle from that party last night."

  "Gilded Baron?" My stomach churned.

  Mello stretched his arm down, slid a gnarled hand into the bag and withdrew a liquor bottle. He squinted at the label. "That what it says here."

  He unscrewed the cap, took a swig. "Mighty sweet, but kicks like an old mule. Yes sir, like an old mule." He sighed and rested his head against the wall again.

  "Mello, didn't you say you found a grill?" When he nodded, I said. "It's warm enough we could cook outside. I brought some chicken and salad stuff."

  "Sounds mighty fine, Miss Nikki. Let me get that grill."

  I'd hoped to dump out some of that rot-gut while he was gone, but he picked up his bag and took it with him. No flies on Mello. The man had a gift for "finding" things, too. Like grills, rubber stall mats, and extra feed tubs just when they were needed. Oddly, nobody ever complained about missing items. Many things about Mello remained a mystery.

  "Are you gonna help me scoop grain, or what?" Lorna stood at the door to the feed room.

  Nodding, I stepped inside and began adding glucosamine, corn oil, and other supplements to the buckets she'd lined up.

  "Bobby told me what happened last night," she said.

  "Yeah?" I studied the fine print on an electrolyte box.

  "He said he might've had too much to drink. Might've gotten a bit too friendly with this woman. Said you saw him."

  "Huh," I said.

  "So was he, like, doing the lip lock or what?"

  "Yes," I said. "I interrupted them."

  "Was she pretty?"

  "She was old enough to be his mother." I didn't need to add "sexy blonde bombshell" to my description.

  "What did they do after you interrupted them?"

  "The woman stormed off, and that was the end of it."

  "He could have been with me. Why didn't he want to be with me?"

  I didn't have an answer. I gave her a hug instead.

  Bobby appeared a short time later in figure molding jeans, a white tee, and a suede jacket. His mother's ruby cross glowed at his neck. I glanced at him and Lorna. All was not lost in paradise. He reached a hand to her face, his long fingers gently tucking a lock of red hair behind an ear. He traced the line of her cheek. Lorna leaned into him. I looked away.

  Mello rolled his grill over, fired up the charcoal, and returned to his bench. The paper bag rested at his feet again.

  The simple meal swept out the last of my hangover. Bobby, Lorna and I consumed quantities of iced coke. Mello nursed his bottle throughout the evening, and at some point his attention settled on Bobby and remained there.

  A motherless boy. Could that be one of the things that attracted me to Bobby? I'd always been one to pick up strays, Hellish being my latest.

  "Bobby," I said, "what happened to your mother?"

  Lorna's eyes widened, Mello leaned forward abruptly, and Bobby's face had that deer-in-the-headlights expression. He stared at me a moment, then spoke in a voice so low I had to strain to hear.

  "She ran out on me."

  "Were you young?"

  "Ten." He seemed to draw inside himself, and Lorna, who sat next to him, closed her hand over his.

  "I'm sorry." I didn't know what else to say. Why had I pried at him like that? In the chair opposite me, Mello's eyes never left Bobby.

  "Your Mama didn't leave you. She loved her baby, ‘deed she did."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  Lorna leaned closer. "Mello doesn't mean anything. He's just been into that bourbon, is all."

  "I knows things, and I knows Miss Catherine didn't walk on you."

  Bobby snatched his hand from Lorna's and stood, knocking his lawn chair over. His face darkened with that angry flush I'd seen at the party. His bruise seemed to swell and grow uglier.

  "Listen, old man. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. My mother left me, snuck away in the middle of the night, and I never saw her again. I don't need you telling me what happened."

  Mello cringed. He unscrewed the top from his bourbon bottle and downed a long swallow.

  Bobby whirled and faced Lorna. "You coming with me, or what?"

  Lorna stood without answering, passing me as she followed Bobby toward his car. She looked rattled, almost afraid.

  That had gone well. What was wrong with me? I almost reached for Mello's bottle. Almost.

  "Mello, please don't drink any more."

  "I'd like to oblige you, Miss Nikki, but I just don't knows if I can." He sighed and stared at the amber liquid still rolling inside the glass. "Terrible thing that boy been led to believe his mama ran off."

  He'd caught my attention. "What do you mean ‘led' to believe?"

  "Someone told that boy she ran off. I knows she didn't."

  "How do you know?"

  "I get my little visions, messages from the other side."

  If Mello hadn't drunk so much whiskey, he might not have disclosed such doubtful information. Messages from the other side? Was I supposed to think he sat around conversing with Catherine Tasker? Then again, what did I know?

  Mello began to tear strips of paper from the brown bag and watch them drift to the ground. "Then too," he said, "I got a Pinkney cousin lives here. She kept house for the Tasker family, back when Catherine was a girl. My cousin always said Miss Catherine was a kind lady and real beautiful, too."

  I knew Bobby hadn't gotten those looks from his father. John Talbot's face had all the refinement of a brick. Had Bobby's intoxicating sexuality come from Catherine, as well? If so, she'd have stirred up the local male population.

  "Does your cousin know what happened to Catherine?"

  "She won't say, she scared about something." He set the bottle down, hummed for a bit, yawned, and closed his eyes.

  I cleaned up the dinner trash, grabbed a carrot from the tack-room refrigerator, then walked the shedrow to check the horses. Stinger had taken longer than most to recover from his race stress, but tonight his eyes glowed. He'd put on some weight, too.

  Next door, I admired Daffodil's glossy coat, long clean legs and elegant manner. I'd see if the racing secretary would let Daffodil work the turf course. I needed to know if she'd take to the grass like I thought she would.

  Moving down the row, checking each horse, I kept remembering Bobby's anger. I understood the source all too well, but it didn't give him the right to mess up Lorna's life. At the end of the line, I stopped outside Hellish's gate.


  She pinned her ears, swishing her tail like an irritated cat.

  "You're such a head case," I said. "That starter allowance is coming right up and you'd better behave."

  I'd made the mistake of wagging my finger at her. She bared her teeth, rushed the stall gate, and snapped at my finger. I jumped back just in time.

  "Bitch." I pulled the carrot from my jacket pocket and held it out. She pricked her ears, arched her neck, and warmed her eyes with kindness.

  "Deceitful, too." I handed her the carrot. Her front teeth chopped it in half, her tongue rolling it back to crunch between her molars.

  I could hear Mello snoring from his chair, so I stopped in the tack room, found a clean horse blanket and draped it over him, tucking the ends around his shoulders. He never stirred. I left him to sleep it off.

  #

  I was in bed when Bobby dropped Lorna off before ten. I hadn't planned on getting up until I heard her crash into the kitchen table and break what sounded like china.

  I flipped on the light. Lorna sat on the floor next to an overturned chair and the blue shards of a smashed coffee mug.

  She blinked in the sudden brightness, focused on me, and began to giggle.

  "Thick a fork in me. I'm done." Another peal of laughter. "Bobby done me so good."

  Her slurred speech and lack of coordination said "drunk," but her expression was intent as she stared at her right leg. She tapped her thigh with a finger, then smiled.

  "Lorna, what are you doing?"

  Slowly, she glanced up, gave a little start as if surprised to find me standing over her.

  "Stuff makes me numb," she said tapping her thigh again. Feels weird."

  "What stuff?"

  "Awesome shit. ‘Ludes’ or somethin. Makes me like I got no bones, you know?" She smiled a dreamy smile, gave me a sly look. "Bobby did some Ecstasy and man, he was all over me like he'd never stop. And I –"

  "I don't want to hear that part! Are you talking about Quaaludes?"

  Lorna's smile grew uncertain. "Yeah."

  "This is bullshit, Lorna. This guy's gonna put you in jail. At the very least, get you ruled off."

  "No," Lorna said, her voice soft. "We took the stuff because it's, like, magic sex potion. I couldn't get enough, and he couldn't give enough."

  I stared at her.

  Her gaze drifted away. "Bobby loves me."

  "If he loves you why does he put you at risk?"

  Lorna's finger still poked at her thigh, but tears fell on her hand. Her shoulders shook, then sobs filled the room.

  I went to the kitchen sink, snatched a paper towel off the roll and knelt next to her, placing the towel into her hand.

  "I'm not gonna let that son of a bitch ruin your life, Lorna."

  She wouldn't look at me.

  Damn Duvayne. "Come on," I said. "Let's get you to bed."

  I knew something about the illegal muscle relaxer, Quaalude, and was pretty sure Lorna just needed to sleep it off. I waited for her to mop her face, then helped her up, got her into her room, and finally to bed.

  A boy who'd been held back in my Baltimore grade school had called himself The Quaalude King. The powerful drug had been banned from the prescription market, but the "King" took the downer regularly and sold it to classmates. Rumor had it the King had a violent home life, took the pills to cope. He should have run away.

  "Worked for me," I said, my words sounding hollow in the silent cottage. But Lorna had a family that loved her. She deserved better.

  Chapter 28

  A bit groggy, but otherwise functional, Lorna stood in Daffodil's stall holding the filly’s halter. She watched while I repeatedly looped a strip of white cotton under the horse's jaw and over the tongue, finishing with a knot.

  Most racehorses wear a "tongue tie" during morning speed works and afternoon races. Pre-race tension, or a rush of adrenalin often triggers an anxious swallowing reflex, causing the horse to roll his tongue back and block his air passage. A horse without air is a horse that slows dramatically, usually about the time he’s supposed to be flying down the home stretch.

  "That tongue ain't going nowhere," Lorna said.

  "I hope not."

  When Lorna pulled a set of blinkers over Daffodil's head, the double cue of tongue tie with blinkers caused the filly's muscles to tense to a marble-like hardness.

  "Grab that stopwatch, Lorna. You need to get her time in case the clocker doesn’t. Go stand at the finish wire."

  Lorna scooted away while Ramon gave me a leg up. He led Daffodil for a turn around the shedrow. With all that equipment on, she might feel like bucking or plunging. Better to have someone at her head.

  We made it to the track without incident. I warmed Daffodil up with a slow gallop, then nudged her through the inside rail-gap with my heels. I felt those long legs hit the bouncy sod, her first step onto the springy turf of a professionally maintained course. Probably hadn't seen an expanse of green since the last time she'd been loose in a pasture.

  Daffodil nodded her head rapidly up and down, as if excited by the grass beneath her hooves.

  "Good girl,” I said, pushing her into an open gallop, aiming for the five-eighths pole. We hit the pole and I set her down, the ground seeming to rise as her tremendous stride grew long and low. Racing speed.

  Daffodil hit the turn, banking through it like a fighter-jet before exploding down the stretch. My body screamed from the effort of keeping up – pumping, breathing, balancing. Lorna and the finish line flew at us fast, flashing by in a blur.

  Breathless, I stood in the irons, asking the filly to ease back, fearing she'd run off with me. But like a pushbutton machine, she bowed her neck and collected herself into a rocking horse gallop, then slowed so she could turn and head back. No drug in the world could produce a high like the one she’d just given me.

  Daffodil's performance had knocked the grog from Lorna. The redhead snapped a shank on Daffodil. "Look how fit she is! This filly wouldn't blow out a match."

  Hard as I was gasping I could have extinguished a blow torch. When I could, I said, "The time Lorna, what's her time?"

  Lorna looked up at me, her hazel eyes filled with trepidation. "Uh, think I messed up, didn't hit the right button till you'd passed the pole."

  "That's just great, Lorna." Who was this lackadaisical, incompetent person? I stroked the fur that glistened with sweat on Daffodil's neck. My fingers left streaks where they slicked her coat, leaving the air filled with the hot scent of horse.

  Nearing the barn, I spotted Amarilla's yellow Cadillac with the brown vinyl-top parked by our shedrow.

  "She know you were working Daffodil this morning?" Lorna asked.

  "Not exactly."

  "I thought she didn't want the horse to run on the turf. She have a change of heart?"

  "Not really."

  "Oh boy." Lorna's enthusiasm seemed inappropriate. "She's tapping her foot."

  We reached the barn and Amarilla, dressed in yellow and brown leather, was indeed, tapping her boot-encased foot. Her arms were crossed over her chest and a scowl transformed her mouth into something released from hell.

  Didn't look promising.

  "Didn't she throw a book at you the last time she saw you?" Lorna sounded gleeful.

  "Why don't you . . .” I breathed in, rubbed my jaw, . . . "see if the clocker caught Daffodil's time."

  She remained motionless, her glance switching back and forth between Amarilla and me.

  "Now."

  She undid Daffodil's lead and scurried away. I wished I could go with her. I rode the filly onto the shedrow's dirt aisle and booted her inside her stall. Ramon came in behind us with her halter, and I slid off.

  "That Amarilla, she not too happy," he said.

  "Doesn't appear to be." I sighed and stepped outside to face the venom.

  Amarilla hovered near the stall, almost buzzing. "Are you deaf? You not hear me say no turf? I try very hard be nice to you. And how you respond? Insolence!"

  "Ama
rilla, you pay me to train the horse. It's my job to make her the best race filly I can. She's made for the turf." Hadn't Daffodil just proven that?

  "You estupido, like disobedient child. I –”

  “You know what? Why don't you just take your horses and make some other trainer's life miserable, because I'm done."

  My outburst left her speechless. I enjoyed my little victory. It probably wouldn’t last.

  Lorna appeared around the corner of the barn with trainer Lilly Best in tow. "Tell ‘em what the clocker said!"

  "I will, if you'll stop draggin' me. Let me catch my breath." Lilly pulled her hand from Lorna's grip. Her substantial figure came to a halt as she blew air in and out.

  "Who is this woman?" Amarilla demanded.

  "Nice to meet you, too." Lilly ignored Amarilla's nasty scowl and turned to me. "That chestnut you worked on the turf just now? Everybody's talking ‘n gawking, she was that fast."

  "Lilly," I said, nodding at Amarilla. “This is Miss Chaquette, the owner."

  "Got a nice horse, Miss Jacket. Stake's potential on the grass with that one."

  "She run even better on the dirt, no?"

  Lilly stared at me. I answered with a "beats me" expression.

  "Lady, you need to get real," Lorna said. "That was a bullet work out there. Clocker said no horse has ever worked this turf so fast. And you want to run her on the dirt?"

  "How fast she go?" Amarilla's anger dissolved into palpable, greedy interest.

  We turned to Lilly. "Y'all wanna sit down first?" she said, enjoying her moment.

  "Lilly," I said. "Spit it out."

  "Fifty-seven flat."

  "Holy shit." I clapped my hand over my mouth, afraid I might start shrieking.

  "This is not unheard of," said Amarilla. "Many times I see horses race the, how you say, five-eighths, like this."

  "Yeah, but this was around the cones," Lorna said.

  "What is this cone?" Amarilla's frown deepened. She didn't understand.

  Lilly, shifted her considerable weight to her right foot, used that placating, soft Virginia drawl. "Track sets cones out – those red and white things about yea tall?" She bent her knee a bit, lowered a hand to the height of a cone tip.