by Janet Dawson
But a fistfight with a fellow jockey was immediate, a white-hot flash of anger, over as soon as it began. Anonymous phone calls, full of invective — what Molly had described was more disturbing, a deliberate campaign of harassment. Was the fire on the Torrances’ property an escalation of that harassment?
Maybe, I thought. And if I confirmed that Benita Pascal was indeed responsible, what did Molly Torrance intend to do about it?
“Okay, suppose I look into this, as David has asked me to do, and I find out who’s making those calls. Then what? Will you bring in the police?”
“I don’t know,” Molly said. “I haven’t gotten that far. I just want it to stop.”
Chapter Five
I GLANCED UP JUST THEN, AND SAW A MAN STANDING at the end of the shedrow, rubbing his fingers down the nose of the horse occupying the stall there. Then he turned and walked toward the tack room. As he stopped in the doorway, I recognized Deakin Kelley, the jockey David and I had seen earlier as we walked through the backside. A quick sidelong glance at David revealed the flicker of dislike in his gray eyes as he looked at the other man.
Kelley gave no indication that he was aware of David’s enmity. He did, however, seem taken aback by the three pairs of eyes gazing at him. I had a feeling he’d expected to find Molly alone. Then a smile teased the corners of his lips. He directed his words to her.
“Hi. I didn’t realize you had visitors.”
Molly regarded him with a distracted frown as she ran her hand through her hair. “Hi, Deak. Was there something you wanted?”
Now he grinned. “I told you if Chameleon came in first, I’d buy you dinner. Don’t tell me you forgot?”
“No, I just got sidetracked.” Molly looked at her watch. “I’m not letting you off the hook either. There’s this outrageously expensive place I’ve been wanting to try.” She got to her feet and waved a hand at David and me. “You’ve met David Vanitzky. This is a friend of his, Jeri Howard.”
Kelley gave David an economical nod, just as he had when we encountered him earlier. Whether he showed it or not, I sensed he knew David didn’t have much use for him. I also had a feeling he returned the disfavor.
Then Kelley turned his gaze to me. His bright blue eyes held a friendly glint of humor. He looked as though he could charm the birds out of the trees, or a woman into bed, if he wanted to. I noted once again the muscles on his small, slight frame, muscles that he’d gotten from wrestling with horses that outweighed him many times over. His hair was brown, cut short, and his clothes looked as though they’d been tailored for him. Since he was only about five feet two, it was quite possible that they had.
“We should be going,” I told David. Then I turned to Molly. “I’ll call you tomorrow, if you like. We can continue our discussion then. What time is good for you?”
“I’m here at the barn at five or five-thirty in the morning,” Molly said. She pulled a slim leather wallet out of her back pocket and opened it, retrieving a business card that was crumpled at the edges. “Those are my numbers, here and at home.”
I tucked it into my purse. Now that I was just a few feet away from Deakin Kelley, I noticed for the first time that there was some sort of design on one end of the sky blue scarf he wore. I glanced at Molly and saw the same thing. “By the way, what’s that figure on these scarves you and Mr. Kelley are wearing?”
Molly untied her scarf and handed it to me. “It’s a chameleon, of course.”
The jockey grinned. “Call me Deakin, please. Mr. Kelley sounds too damn formal.”
“That’s an unusual name,” I said, returning his smile. “Especially the way you spell it.”
“It was my mother’s maiden name,” he told me.
I held the scarf up to the light. The long rectangle was sky blue silk with a dull green border, just like Molly’s silks. The fabric was soft and light as air. The dull green chameleon crawled along one end of the scarf, painted there by a skilled hand.
“It’s lovely,” I said, returning the scarf. “And very unusual.”
She looped it around her neck again. “Yeah, they’re gorgeous. My friend Tina Lakey is a fabric artist. She made several of these scarves. David has one too. Which he doesn’t wear.”
“And what I would give to see him in it,” I said.
Everyone laughed but David, who retorted, “I don’t wear scarves.”
We said goodbye, then David and I retraced our path along the shedrow. Once we were out into the wide passageway between the huge barns, I turned to him. “Why don’t you like Deakin Kelley? And don’t just give me the line about the guy being bad news. Does it have something to do with Molly Torrance?”
He took his time answering. “Bad news has a lot to do with it. Kelley’s been in more than his share of scrapes. Frequently with women. He and Molly were involved once, a long time ago, and the relationship ended badly. She got hurt. So I guess I feel protective of Molly.”
Protective in what way? I wondered. “Molly’s thirty years old. She’s an adult. She looks like she can take care of herself.”
Any woman who could train and condition thoroughbred racehorses was fairly capable, in my book. But being emotionally vulnerable was different. I’d been there a time or two myself, and I knew how it felt. And it was clear that Stan Torrance’s death two weeks ago had left his daughter feeling rocky. The harassment she’d been subjected to during her bereavement hadn’t helped.
Rocky enough to turn to an old boyfriend for solace? She’d certainly turned to Kelley when she needed someone to ride her horses. That was business. Did her need extend further? Evidently David thought so.
“How do you know the Torrances?” I asked.
“Met them at the racetrack,” David said. “As you may have guessed, I’ve been a horseplayer since I was —”
“A wee small child, to hear you tell it.” I laughed. “Did you learn handicapping at your mother’s knee?”
He chuckled. “My uncle’s knee, actually. Mom preferred poker. Her brother, my uncle Jake, he loved to play the ponies. He was a great handicapper. He taught me a lot. He’s the one who used to take me out to Arlington, when I was growing up in Chicago. That’s where I met Stan Torrance, about twenty years ago. Molly was just a kid then, nine or ten years old.”
“Was he from Chicago, like you?” I asked.
David shook his head. “Oh, no. He was a gypsy trainer, moving from track to track. Stan was originally from Kentucky, some little town between Louisville and Lexington. That’s where Molly was born. I never met his wife, Noreen. She died of breast cancer when Molly was eight. Stan was training at Keeneland. He left Kentucky shortly after Noreen died. I guess he wanted a change of scene.”
“Do the Torrances still have family back in Kentucky?”
“None on Noreen’s side, as far as I know. And Stan’s sister is here, living in Hayward. Her name’s Rose Grover. She’s divorced and has a son about Molly’s age, named Byron. I never met the Grovers, until Stan’s funeral.”
We’d reached the end of Barn Four and we stopped as a small horse van drove slowly into the space between Barn Four and Barn Two. The vehicle parked and a man hopped out of the passenger side. He opened the door on the side of the van and extended a metal ramp. As David and I watched, a groom appeared from Barn Four and led a bay horse up the ramp into the van.
We started walking again, along the side of Barn Two. “So Stan packed up Molly and they went to Chicago.”
David nodded. “He trained horses at Arlington and some of the other Midwest tracks. They were in Illinois three or four years, then they moved on to the tracks in Arkansas and Louisiana. By the time Molly was ready to graduate from high school, they were in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Then they moved to Southern California. I guess it’s been about...” He thought for a moment. “Eleven years ago. Yeah, that would be about right. Molly was nineteen then, and she’s thirty now. After that trouble she told you about eight years ago, they moved up here.”
“And you kept in touc
h with them, all these years.”
“Yes, I did,” he said. “I was still in Chicago for most of that time, but I’d pick up the phone and call every now and then. And I did a lot of traveling, of course. If I happened to be where the Torrances were, we’d get together, even if it was only for a cup of coffee at the track kitchen.”
We neared the northwest corner of Barn Two when three people suddenly emerged from the shedrow along that barn’s north wall. One of them, a tall husky man wearing jeans and a fleece jacket over a red-and-black-checked flannel shirt, stopped abruptly to avoid running into us. He had a wide brow that looked even broader because of his thinning blond hair.
“Sorry,” he said, sounding as though he thought the encounter was David’s fault. Then he recognized David and something flickered across his face, something that aroused my curiosity. Was it surprise? Enmity? Wariness? In the artificial light from the fixtures high above our heads, I couldn’t tell.
The couple with him was a mismatched set. The ascetic-looking man was tall, his black slacks and turtleneck accentuating his thin frame. His hair was pale yellow, almost white, longer than mine, and he wore it pulled back in a ponytail. He had the kind of wide fair face I’d seen on people from Scandinavia. A pair of glasses with round frames perched on the end of his long nose.
His companion was as voluptuous as he was not. As I looked at her I realized I’d seen her earlier. She was the woman in scarlet silk and high heels I’d seen talking with the Frenchman in the clubhouse, right before the race Chameleon had won. The shoes had looked uncomfortable then, and they looked worse now, straw clinging to them as she teetered on the dirt pathway. Her face, below a haystack of platinum hair, was artfully layered with makeup designed to make it look as though she wasn’t wearing any, and her pale blue eyes held a mixture of exasperation and boredom. She’d wrapped herself in a triangular black wool shawl with red beads glinting at the edges, but that wasn’t enough protection against the cold, damp wind that was blowing off San Francisco Bay. She shivered and slipped her hand into the crook of the bespectacled man’s arm. It was clear she was ready to haul him out of there, her objective someplace warmer and cleaner.
David said hello to the first man, then we moved on, walking toward the receiving barn and the horsemen’s entrance. “Who were those people?”
“The man in the checked shirt was Gates Baldwin.”
“Kilobyte’s trainer?” I didn’t say anything about the strange look on Baldwin’s face when he saw David.
“Right. And the couple with him were the horse’s owners, Mr. and Mrs. Cliff Holveg.”
“I’ve heard Holveg’s name before. Enlighten me.”
“Silicon Valley venture capitalist,” David said. “Otherwise known as filthy rich in Palo Alto.”
“Ah. Computer chips. I should have guessed. That’s why they named the horse Kilobyte. Mrs. H looks as though she’d be more at home in Malibu than the Peninsula.”
“You could be right,” David said with a laugh. “Her name’s Pam Cullen. Supposedly she’s an actress. I’ve never heard of her, or anything she’s been in.”
At the horsemen’s entrance we went through the gate, out to the small lot where the racetrackers left their cars and trucks. My Toyota was angled into a space at the end of the row on the far side, and I headed toward it, David walking at my side. The wind picked up, rattling a discarded soft drink can across the pavement, blowing into my face, with a hint of moisture, a promise of rain to come. It was colder out here in the open. I saw headlights on Highway 84, some heading east to the interstate, others west toward the Dumbarton Bridge.
“What made you decide to invest in a racetrack?”
“I’ve always wanted to get into horseracing,” David said. “Never got around to actually owning a horse. Too busy. So maybe a racetrack’s the next best thing. When the other investors approached me, I jumped at the chance.” He grinned. “Since I’ve spent so much time and money at the racetrack in this lifetime, I thought it might be interesting to get a little of my investment back. On something other than betting the horses.”
“Should be a little more interesting than stocks and bonds and leveraged buyouts. What does Frank Weper think about your latest toy?”
Weper was the financier at the helm of Weper and Associates. He looked deceptively like a kindly college professor until you got close enough to see the steely corporate raider. David ranked as Weper’s number one associate — and heir apparent, judging from what I read in the business press.
“He’s not particularly happy about it,” David admitted. “He’s hoping it’s a phase I’m going through. When you come right down to it, I think Frank’s a Puritan. He doesn’t approve of gambling.”
I laughed. “Gambling is what you guys do over in the Financial District.”
“That kind of gambling Frank understands,” David said, smiling. “He can manipulate those odds. Cards, dice, horses — well, the risks are different. He says a racetrack’s a lousy investment.”
“Risky, with two other major tracks in the Bay Area. That’s not even counting the fair circuit.”
“I like a little risk now and then,” he informed me with a wolfish grin.
I stuck my key into the lock and opened the driver’s side door, but I didn’t get into my car right away. “So... who do you think is making those calls?”
David rested his left hand on top of the door frame. “Benita Pascal — maybe.”
“A big maybe. She certainly looks good for it. But I wouldn’t want to limit the field to just one horse. I got the impression there was some bad blood between the Torrances, Gates Baldwin, and Dick Moody.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “I heard Baldwin can be difficult, with owners, jockeys, and other trainers. And Moody’s a crusty old codger. Molly and Stan have had run-ins with people over the years. It happens, in this business, like any other business.”
“Anyone in particular you can think of? Off the top of your head.”
“The top of my head?” David repeated. As if for emphasis, he ran his right hand through his curly gray hair. “Hell, it could be anyone, for any reason. Anyone with a grudge, real or imagined.”
“You seem sure it’s someone here at the racetrack.”
“Whoever is making the calls knows Molly’s routine,” he pointed out. “That would indicate the caller is a racetracker, someone who’s familiar with the track.”
“A good point. But the neighbor needs to be ruled out. I’ll run some background checks when I get to the office Monday morning.” A gust of wind ruffled my hair. It was getting colder, so I got into the car for some shelter. I shut the door, but cranked down the window so David and I could talk. “This one’s tricky, you know. It’s hard to accuse people without some sort of proof. And getting proof’s not going to be easy.”
“I know,” he said, leaning down toward me. “There’s not much to go on. When she told me about the calls, I wanted her to report them to the cops, or at least track security. But it’s not a track matter. Not yet, anyway. And Molly said no to the cops, for the same reason she gave you. So I want you to look into it.” He favored me with one of his sardonic smiles. “I’ll pay your usual rate, of course.”
“Of course. And I’ll need a retainer, of course.”
“How much?” he asked, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and pulling out a checkbook.
I named the usual figure and he scribbled out a check, using the roof of my car as a desk. “I’ll send my standard contract over to your Embarcadero Center office, and work on a cover story. Since you’re hiring me on behalf of a third party, I do have to ask the question. Will Molly cooperate with my investigation?”
David smiled. “Despite the fact that I’m paying the bills, we’re both working for Molly. And yes, I think she’ll cooperate. She was more rattled by that fire than she’s letting on. And those calls have her spooked.”
Chapter Six
DRIVING OUT OF THE PARKING LOT, I PILOTED MY Toyota s
outh on Paseo Padre Parkway, then took the curving ramp onto Highway 84 eastbound. I was thinking about the controversy the track’s location had engendered. When the property had come up for sale, I recalled, there had been a move to add it to the existing parkland along the eastern shore of the bay. But David Vanitzky and the other racetrack investors had evidently been able to come up with more money.
The track had been built on land just to the north of Highway 84 and west of Paseo Padre Parkway, where there had once been open space and a quarry, and the property butted up against Coyote Hills Regional Park as well as the San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge. It’s not as though the area was zoned residential, I thought, glancing at my surroundings as I approached the interchange leading to Interstate 880, known to locals as the Nimitz. To the east of the track were houses, to be sure. But there were also office buildings on the north side of Highway 84, and a shopping center on the south side, which was part of the town of Newark.
Where the two freeways joined was Ardenwood Historic Farm, a park run by the East Bay Regional Park District. Ardenwood was a place where one could glimpse the past, seeing how farming was done back in the late nineteenth century, when the Bay Area was covered with farms and small villages. The property had once been owned by a man named George Patterson, who named his farm after Shakespeare’s forest in As You Like It. Now the city of Fremont owned Ardenwood. I’d visited the farm several times with my father, who was a history professor at California State University at Hayward. At Ardenwood, docents led tours of Patterson’s Victorian farmhouse, while on the farm, park workers took care of animals and gave demonstrations of blacksmithing and hay hoisting.
Once on the Nimitz, I headed north toward Oakland, thinking now of horses. Not racehorses, but my own childhood fantasies about horses, which had been fueled by reading and rereading such favorite books as Black Beauty and Misty of Chincoteague.