The Hidden Horses of New York: A Novel

by Natalie Keller Reinert

“Oh, very,” Jenny said, throwing caution to the wind along with calorie-counting. “I’ve been in love with him for years. He’s always been my best friend, though. He’s had one girlfriend after another, as long as I’ve known him. He has one now, actually.”

  “Oops,” Caitlin said. “I guess we should consider her, too.”

  “Lana said she was going to break up with him. But that was weeks ago, before we even came up here, and they’re still together.” Jenny paused, considering. When was the last time Aidan had mentioned Lily? Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t said a thing about her since they’d left the city. “I mean, I think they’re still together.”

  “You mean, maybe he’s breaking up with her right now?” Caitlin lifted her eyebrows. “Maybe that’s why he went back to the city.”

  “No, I mean—I guess that’s possible, but he didn’t give me that impression, that sort of, I don’t know, he was changing his life because he wanted to be with me. There’d be a vibe for that, right? But he hasn’t said anything about her in weeks. I haven’t even heard him calling her or anything. Maybe they already broke up, and he didn’t want to talk about it.”

  They ate cake in silence for a few minutes. There were some things too monumental to really discuss properly while sober, and this felt like one of them. The best they could do was just acknowledge that, at this point, anything could happen with Aidan.

  The key was waiting for Aidan to figure out what he was going to do next. Because as long as he was back in the city, Jenny considered him off-limits, the property, for as long as he was willing to define it that way, of the artistic Lily—and she certainly wasn’t going to get in a train and go running after him.

  Jenny walked home from the bagel shop slowly, the twilight gathering around her in dark velvety folds, violet light silhouetting the dark treetops and the fanciful rooflines of the Victorian houses along her streets. Dining rooms were filled to bursting, light spilling through tall windows and parties spilling onto graceful verandahs, a dark day at the track no reason to take a pause from racing-season frivolity. She turned down an alley in search of silence, and found a respite from the carousing back between the old garages and quiet gardens, candle-eyed cats watching her from the shadows.

  So much still on her mind, and no one to spill it to: Aidan, the bay horse, the woman with the rusty trailer. The big empty house just a few blocks away, the size menacing for a woman on her own. She imagined getting caught up in the hunt for the bay horse, angering some low-life horse hustlers, a brick through the big front window, a note telling her to mind her own business if she knew what was good for her. Maybe in the movies journalists welcomed the opportunity to duke it out with organized crime and dangerous unknowns, but Jenny had just wanted to write feel-good stories about horses.

  She dragged her feet going up the stairs, a few sparkles of light from the grass reminding her of last night’s shattered iPhone screen. The incident felt like a hundred years ago. Her repaired phone was safe in her bag, the glass shining and new.

  As if nothing had ever happened.

  She put her keys down on the console table and let her eyes wander around the dark hall. She would have to leave all the lights on if Aidan was gone, she thought. It was too nerve-racking to come home to a darkened Victorian mansion, even if she didn’t anger any crime-lords with her cub reporter snooping. She flicked on all of the switches next to the front door.

  The print above the console table was suddenly bathed in light from a little lamp all its own, and she realized it was actually a real painting, brush-strokes and everything. A carriage with two gray horses pulling it, gamboling down Broadway, right past the Grand Union Hotel. She looked at the carriage horses, the faceless driver on the box, and then a name chimed in her brain.

  Janice.

  What had Janice said, that day in the park? Something about a barn in Queens where Cherry had come from, something about giving homes to horses who needed a place in a hurry, lots of ex-racehorses moving through. Those had been her very words.

  Did Janice know anything about the funnels trainers used to quickly move horses out of their barns? Could she help with the bay horse problem?

  It was a long shot, Jenny knew, but she didn’t have anyone else.

  She went up to her bedroom and quickly composed an email. It would have been a relief to call, get some answers right away, but horse-people went to bed early.

  Even if Jenny would be up all night.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Mr. Denham, can I just ask you a few questions about Silky Susan?”

  “Oh, Laura, just the person I was looking for! Can we chat for a minute about Lady Makes Trouble?”

  “Hi, Walter! It’s Jenny Wolfe from the—Jenny, Jenny Wolfe, from Full—yes from Florida, how are you! Great! Listen I’m with Full Stride and—oh, of course. Right.”

  Jenny plopped onto the hard wooden seat of a picnic table near the backside cafe. The air was sizzling with the scent of bacon, and pounding with the hoofbeats charging across the nearby track, but neither were enough to raise her spirits. It was nearly nine o’clock and she’d struck out entirely this morning. Every single trainer with a horse in the afternoon’s headline race had turned her down for even the most brief of interviews, and a few had looked right through her as if she didn’t even exist. To make matters worse, she could see Mark Denham talking to a reporter from another turf rag. There they were: leaning against the rail watching the horses gallop by and blabbing away like old friends. While she couldn’t even convince old friends of her parents like Walter O’Dowd to give her the time of day. What had happened? Only yesterday, she’d been chit-chatting with all of these old men like they were best friends.

  She had one more chance, and she didn’t like her odds.

  She drafted a text to Lana; then deleted it; then tried again. What to say to the boss who thought she knew everything? Hi Lana, something’s up and no one is talking to me. Hi Lana, what about a restaurant review for today instead? Hi Lana, I’m going to have to turn in my notice, effective immediately.

  After a few abortive attempts, she gave up and slid her phone back into her pocket. She watched the horses approaching the gap, the trainers arriving and departing on horseback, on foot, in golf carts, and then she saw him. Her last chance: Tommy Vargas.

  He wasn’t accompanying any horse in particular; just rolled his golf cart up to the others parked along the access road and got out, swaggering across the gravel towards the cafe. Jenny stood up, her palms sweaty. If Tommy wouldn’t talk to her about Cinnamon Sin, the gorgeous filly they’d met months ago at Belmont, and her stakes debut this afternoon in the Lovely Lass, she’d have completely struck out on her assignment.

  And, somehow, lost the fragile trust she’d had with every single veteran trainer at Saratoga.

  What had she done to deserve this?

  She pushed the frantic thought down. It wasn’t helpful. Right now, she was a reporter.

  “Tommy! Over here, it’s Jenny Wolfe! It’s so good to see you!”

  Tommy looked over at her, and even from a distance of a good twenty feet, she could see the wariness in his features. “Jenny Wolfe,” he said after a pause so long she could feel her smile slip from genuinely warm into something curling and dead. “How is Saratoga treating you?”

  Rough. “It’s amazing, just like everyone always said. I see you got Cinnamon Sin up here for her stakes debut. Could I ask you a couple of questions about her for Full Stride? We still have those lovely shots of her in our library, and I’m always looking for an excuse to trot them out.”

  He looked her over. He considered it. He even wavered a little, his body leaning towards her, as if he might actually walk over and give her the quotes she needed. Then he shook his head. “I don’t have time this morning, Jenny. I’m sorry.” He started towards the cafe counter, turning his back on her.

  Jenny sat back down at the picnic table, keenly aware of the gazes trained on her. Everyone knew but her. Ev
eryone was in on the joke but Jenny. She took out her phone and started typing random nonsense into it, ignoring the errors she created, just desperate to look like she was doing something. This was an introvert’s nightmare. She really was the center of attention, and not for anything good.

  Eventually, though, the conversations went back to full volume. The heads turned away from her. Everyone got back to gossiping about horses and grooms and riders and other trainers, and Jenny was left out of the mix. She surveyed the damage she’d just done to her phone: it looked like she had deleted a few apps and sent a nonsense text to her father, but nothing too bad had happened. It was time for a pick-me-up, time to figure out what to do next. And since there wasn’t a handy martini bar open at this time of morning, it would have to be caffeine—even if it was the muddy depths of track kitchen coffee that provided it.

  She was on her way to the counter when Caitlin came up, a wad of cash in her hand.

  “The coffee machine in the tack room broke,” she explained as she joined Jenny. “Everyone’s about to quit if I don’t bring them back the lightest, sweetest coffee you’ve ever seen. Can you help me carry it back? Or are you busy?”

  “Very not busy.” Jenny tried and failed to hide a twist of her lips.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t get any interviews. No one wants to talk to me.”

  “Huh. That’s weird. I haven’t heard anything.”

  Jenny was momentarily comforted—maybe there wasn’t a massive racetrack conspiracy afoot to cancel her career—and then remembered that Caitlin, young and female and recently divorced from a well-liked trainer, would not be included in most racetrack drama just yet. She was still on the outskirts of the community, and probably needed a few more years of service before she’d be considered one of the gang.

  She accepted a cardboard container laden with coffees from the hair-netted counter worker and then turned to Caitlin, who was similarly weighed down. “How are we schlepping all of this back to the barn?”

  “Well, I brought the golf cart. We just have to not spill it all over ourselves on the way there.”

  Jenny was very glad she’d worn an old pair of jeans to the track this morning.

  Dabbing at coffee stains a little while later, she looked up from her seat outside Caitlin’s shed-row and saw a familiar woman standing nearby, arms folded, watching her. She quickly looked around for back-up; the grooms were in the tack room, talking to Caitlin; the riders were gone for the day. There was no one to come defend her from Laura Lawson.

  Not, Jenny reminded herself, that she had any reason to fear the woman. She’d done nothing wrong. The Lawsons, on the other hand…

  Jenny stood up to face her fears, balling up the wet napkin in her hand. “Hi, Mrs. Lawson,” she called, deciding to pretend everything was fine and normal between them. “How are you enjoying Saratoga so far this year?”

  Laura Lawson was not a demonstrative woman; unlike her husband, who was quick to anger, she was capable of measured responses and civilized behavior. Even so, the look on her face, cold and furious, was enough to make Jenny back up a step—until she realized the wooden railing of the shed-row was at her back.

  Mrs. Lawson’s short strides slowly closed the space between them, until she stopped just a few feet from Jenny. She fastened her brown eyes on Jenny, and narrowed them threateningly. “It’s time for you to go home,” she said softly.

  Jenny’s eyebrows went up. Despite the real fear pumping through her veins, she had enough of a sense of humor, and had spent enough time in the city, to find a cynical reaction to this kind of cryptic, action-movie threat. Who did Laura Lawson think she was: Steven Segall? When she spoke in reply, the combination of nerves and amusement made her voice annoyingly shaky. “Mrs. Lawson, I’m really sorry but I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Mrs. Lawson smirked, clearly enjoying the tremor in Jenny’s voice. “The nosing around? It’s done. You can pack up and head back to Florida, because the trainers here aren’t going to put up with your snooping around anymore. We know what you’re up to. We know why you’re trying to get into our barns every morning. You’re looking for dirt and we’re not going to give it to you. So just go home.”

  “That’s not why I’m here. My column is the literal opposite of looking for dirt! I’m sharing feel-good stories, Mrs. Lawson. I’m here to help.”

  The older woman just shook her head as she turned away, ready to end the interaction on her terms. “You’ve been warned. You saw what happened this morning. Head home,” she called over her shoulder, heading back towards her own barn. “You’re done here.”

  Jenny clenched her fists. There was nothing to lose now. “Laura, where did that horse go?”

  Laura Lawson’s feet stopped moving. She turned around slowly, and despite the distance between them, Jenny could see a dangerous rage twisting the woman’s face. A fresh tremor of fear overtook her, but she kept her fingers clenched tightly, all of her muscles held rigidly in check. She wasn’t going to show this woman how frightened she was. She wasn’t going to let her win. After all of her other failures, what did it matter if the Lawsons threatened her?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mrs. Lawson said through clenched teeth. “We didn’t have any shippers this week.”

  “I saw him. You’re lying to me.”

  “Jenny!” Caitlin was suddenly at her side. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Nothing,” Mrs. Lawson said tightly. “Nothing is going on.”

  They watched her walk away until she disappeared behind another row of stabling. Caitlin was the first to break the very awkward silence.

  “Um, Jenny? Why were you yelling at that woman?”

  “Don’t you know her?”

  “I don’t know everyone here yet. That’s like learning the names of everyone at your college in two weeks. It’s not gonna happen. New York winter racing was tough enough; summer is going to take me years.”

  “Well, I know her from Florida,” Jenny sighed. “And we aren’t friends.”

  “But—excuse me for saying so, please understand this is a friendly observation—but you’re here to work. You can’t just be yelling at people like that. And if you are planning on it, can you not do it from my barn? I really don’t need the reputation.”

  “Oh, Caitlin, I’m sorry.” A wave of shame washed over Jenny, sweeping away the adrenaline of yelling back at Laura Lawson. “I didn’t even think of that. Of course I won’t. That will never happen again, either way. I shouldn’t have yelled. I just—she’s the reason no one’s talking to me. And I didn’t know the Lawsons were that influential. It’s weird. I wouldn’t have thought so.” The more Jenny thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Why would all of those trainers, most of whom were much higher in the racetrack pecking order than the Lawsons, have given her the cold shoulder on their orders? It didn’t add up.

  “Maybe you’re still worked up from Aidan leaving,” Caitlin said comfortingly. “Is he coming back today?”

  “He better be,” Jenny said. “Or Lana’s going to murder both of us.”

  Jenny took a long shower and a nap back at the house, the windows shut and the bedroom’s window-unit air conditioner humming away at full blast. The July afternoon was simmering-hot, with distant storms towering on the western horizon. She knew these upstate thunderstorms could get violent, but after a childhood spent in Florida, she wasn’t too concerned about a washout this afternoon. Aidan would arrive just in time to photograph the late-afternoon running of the Lovely Lady Stakes, she’d make up a bunch of copy about how great the winning horse looked, and hopefully Lana wouldn’t realize she hadn’t actually spoken to any of the trainers. And then tomorrow morning she’d… well, she would deal with that tomorrow morning. For now, the sheets were freshly laundered, the room was cool, and the window-shade was pulled down. She set her alarm, then set two more for good measure, and went blissfully to sleep.

  She awoke to her first alarm, and
several weather warnings on her phone, all predicting dire consequences should she venture outside this evening after six p.m. Well, the Lovely Lass post time was five-fifty, so she was going to have to risk it. She absently scrolled through the predictions: hail, high winds, heavy rains, and then changed out her originally planned outfit from dress and flats to blouse, leggings and short rain boots. No point in getting racetrack dirt all over her legs and a dry clean-only dress if the monsoons were coming.

  Satisfied with her choices for the afternoon, if not in life, Jenny settled down on the chaise lounge where she had recently tumbled with the love of her life and flicked through her email. Junk, junk, junk—hello. A reply from Janice!

  I know a guy up there who does a lot of recon at those cheap auctions. His name is Jay Ames. I can’t find his contact info though. But if you see him, you’ll know him—guy wears a duster and a hat like he’s some kind of Man from Snowy River impersonator. Hah! He catches horses that can still live a useful life. Guy’s got a good eye because some of those horses come out of those kill pens looking like they got run over by a truck, but they’re real nice once they’re cleaned up and back in good weight.

  Jenny tapped his name and description into the notes app on her phone, alongside the license plate number of the trailer. It wasn’t much, and she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it, but it was a start. She glanced at the clock as she finished up: time to head out.

  The short walk over to the track was unpleasant. The muggy air was more Floridian than upstate New York, and she was sweating through her blouse by the time she got to the gate and showed her press pass.

  She had already begun to push through the turnstile, thinking of a cold bottle of water and a shady spot in the paddock, when the gate attendant held up a hand. “Just a moment, Miss Wolfe.”

  Jenny looked questioningly at the elderly man behind the glass, but he was already picking up his heavy black phone and hitting the buttons to call an extension. Her press pass, usually casually left under the curved gap under the window so that she could slide it back into her hand as she passed through, was still clutched in his free hand. A chill ran through her from head to toe, raising improbable goosebumps on her sun-reddened skin.