A Killing At The Track (The Jeri Howard Series Book 9)

by Janet Dawson

  “Does she have family here?” I said, joining in the conversation. “Maybe that’s keeping her here.”

  Sholto shook his head. “Her folks live in some little town up north in Sonoma County. She doesn’t talk about them much. I got the impression they don’t approve of her being a jock. That’s too bad. She’s got the talent, the hands. I’m telling you, she could go all the way. But not here. We’ve got to go back East.”

  “I’ve heard it’s better for women riders on the East Coast,” I said. “Why is that?”

  “Northern California, no offense to anybody who’s riding here, but this ain’t the big leagues,” Sholto said, and I saw Abernathy nod in agreement. “Unless your name’s Russell Baze. You want to make a name for yourself as a jock in California, you better be riding at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, and Del Mar. But there’s a hell of a lot of big name competition down in Southern California. You’re up against jocks like Desormeaux, Stevens, and Chris McCarron. Back East, you got more tracks, from New York to Maryland to Kentucky, all the way down to Miami. More opportunities, more trainers willing to put your jock on a horse.”

  “I wish Deak had stayed out of Southern California,” Abernathy said. “We were doing great in Miami. If he’d stayed put in Florida he never would have met that woman.”

  “You mean Ann Barnstable?” I asked. “The one who killed her husband and tried to frame Kelley?”

  Abernathy winced. “Don’t even say her name. I knew she was poison the day I first laid eyes on her.”

  I heard the distinctive ring of a cell phone. It wasn’t mine, though. I looked at my two companions. Mickey Sholto reached into the pocket of his fleece jacket and pulled out a tiny phone that was swallowed by the palm of his big right hand. He pressed a button, then raised the phone to his ear and mouth. “Sholto here,” he said. He listened for a moment, then glanced at his watch. “Yeah. Five minutes.” He ended the call and stuck the phone back into his pocket, then got to his feet, looming over us. “Gotta go,” he said, more to Nate Abernathy than to me. “See you later.” He swallowed the last of his coffee, then left the mug in a plastic tub near the door that led back into the track kitchen.

  Abernathy and I watched him walk away from the patio, toward Barn One. “Poor bastard,” the agent said. “He’s got it bad.”

  “What do you mean by that, Mr. Abernathy?”

  “Call me Nate,” he said, with a sidelong glance from his sharp blue eyes. “I mean you should never let personal feelings get in the way of business. He’s in love with her. If he had any sense he’d write her off, go back to New York, and forget about her.”

  “That does put a different spin on things.” I recalled the scene I’d witnessed earlier near Barn Three, the argument between Benita and Sholto, the look on his face as he walked away, and the look on hers when he’d gone. Did Benita know how he felt about her? She must. But something else was going on, I was sure of it. “People in love frequently don’t have any sense,” I commented. “Didn’t Deakin Kelley fall in love with Ann Barnstable?”

  Nate looked pained. “So he told me at the time. I can’t think of any other reason a sensible guy like that would get sucked into that black widow’s web.” He shook his head. “Anyway, the track rumor mill’s working overtime. I heard it from a couple of usually reliable sources that Benita fired Mickey. But he’s not talking like a man who’s been fired. So I’m not sure it’s true.”

  Or Sholto was good at masking truth. “What else does the rumor mill say?”

  Nate smiled behind the rim of his coffee mug. “Plenty. The backside’s a small town, you know, and small towns like to talk. There’s a lot of conversation about you.”

  “Me?” That wasn’t good. I’d known the insurance investigator cover would wear thin after a while. I’d just hoped it would hold up longer than this. “I’ve only been here a few hours. What are they saying about me?”

  “That you’re Vanitzky’s girlfriend,” Nate said, ticking off each rumor with a raised finger. “That you’re an investigative reporter, not an insurance investigator, working on an exposé about life on the backside of a racetrack. That you’re really working undercover for the California Horse Racing Board, looking into some sort of race-fixing scam. That somebody is hassling Molly Torrance and you’re here to find out who.”

  Bull’s-eye on the last rumor. I wondered who had been on target. I kept my face disinterested, amused. “Those are some truly bizarre rumors. I won’t confirm or deny anything.”

  “Not even the one about Vanitzky?” Nate grinned at me.

  “Better to keep people guessing, don’t you think? You said the backside was like a small town. How many people live here during the race meeting?”

  “Couple of thousand. Grooms, exercise riders, even some trainers. These nags,” he said, pointing a stubby finger in the direction of a thoroughbred being led toward the barns. “They take a lot of looking after.”

  “You mentioned race fixing. Does the rumor mill have something to say about that?”

  “To hear the railbirds tell it,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, “the fix is always in. Some guy picks a loser, he blames it on the jock or the trainer, most likely. Says the jock held the horse back, or the trainer told the jock to give the nag an easy ride, not try to win. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. But most of the time, racing’s a pretty straight ahead game.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” I pointed out.

  He grinned. “No, I guess I haven’t. I picked up a little something floating on the wind, just a whisper, saying that maybe one of the jocks is doing a little buzzing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Using a buzzer, on the horses. An electrical gizmo, gives the horse a shock, the horse runs faster.”

  “The horse wins,” I finished, recalling the scene I’d witnessed outside Barn Three, when the Frenchman handed Zeke Ramos an envelope, and the jockey hid it down the front of his pants. I’d have to find out if Ramos had ridden any winners lately. “What about drugs?”

  Nate shrugged. “It happens. But I haven’t heard anything on the wind. These days they make the horses and the jocks pee in the bottle. And the horses gotta give blood samples, too.” He cocked his head and rubbed his chin. “Now, with all these questions you’re asking about fixing races, I’m inclined to believe the rumor that says you’re working for the CHRB.”

  I laughed as I stood and put my empty coffee mug in the plastic tub. “Thanks for the conversation, Nate.”

  I returned to Barn Three, but Dick Moody was nowhere to be found. Then I went looking for Hector Melquiades, the jockey who’d been on the receiving end of Benita Pascal’s fists, and was told he’d picked up a few mounts down at Santa Anita. Two strikes, I thought, and headed for Barn Four. As I walked the shedrow where the Torrance horses were stabled, I glanced to my left and saw Molly and Carlos inside one of the stalls. They were fitting some sort of rubbery device, stretchy like a diver’s wet suit, around the right foreleg of a small horse.

  “There you are,” Molly said, looking up. “I wondered where you’d gotten to.”

  “I was over at the track kitchen, talking with a couple of people. What is that thing?” I pointed at the device.

  “It’s an ice boot,” Molly explained. “The horse’s joints are swollen. We put ice inside the boot, and it helps bring down the swelling.”

  I looked at the horse’s black mane and tail, and its ruddy color, identifying it as a blood bay. “There are certainly a lot of bays at this track.”

  “Everywhere,” Molly told me. “It’s the most common color variation. There are lots more bays than chestnuts.” She glanced down the shedrow at Chameleon, her big red horse, and at the skittish filly. “Roans like Belladonna, and grays like that horse we saw yesterday with the goat, they’re not as common.”

  The phone rang in the tack room. Molly wiped her hands on her jeans and crossed the shedrow. I followed her, watching as she reached for the cordless rec
eiver and tucked it between her head and shoulder. “Torrance Stables,” she said in a cheery voice. Then her face changed, her eyes showing anger and fear. With her free hand she scrabbled over the messy surface of the desk and found a small handheld tape recorder. She fumbled for the controls and held it up to the receiver. I moved closer, straining to hear. But I was just in time to hear the click as the caller on the other end hung up.

  Molly swore and slammed the cordless phone back in its cradle. “I hadn’t gotten any calls for days. I thought maybe this was over.”

  “Was it a man or woman?” I asked as I took the recorder from her hand and hit the Rewind button.

  Molly pulled out the old office chair and flung herself into it. “I couldn’t tell.”

  Neither could I, when I hit the Play button on the recorder. The caller’s voice was difficult to hear. There was lots of static, which might indicate a cell phone or car phone. I turned up the volume on the recorder and listened to the litany of obscenities and threats recited in a monotone, as though the caller was reading from a script. But the script contained something disturbing. I rewound the tape again, glancing down at Molly, who sat hunched over like a little old lady, looking as though someone had punched her in the stomach. As I listened to the tape I heard threats against both Molly and Chameleon, the horse she so prized. I didn’t like the sound of what I was hearing, particularly when the caller talked about killing Molly.

  “Why is this happening?” Molly shook her head tiredly. “I don’t understand. Why would anyone threaten me like that? I’d convinced myself it was Benita, because I fired her. I could see her doing it to rattle me, to get back at me. But she wouldn’t threaten to kill me. I just don’t get it.”

  Neither did I. From all reports, Benita Pascal had a hot temper. She’d physically attacked another jockey after a race. I pictured her flailing away with her whip and fists. Then I recalled her with her agent, attacking Mickey Sholto with words. It appeared she was capable of either type of violence. But when I’d talked with her that morning, she had been direct, in my face. She didn’t seem the type to resort to anonymous phone threats. On the other hand, I’d heard from three sources — Molly, Deakin Kelley, and now Mickey Sholto — that Benita had been behaving oddly since she arrived in Northern California, losing races when she should have been winning them.

  Something was going on with the woman rider, and I felt no closer to the truth than I had been when I started this investigation. Now I had to wonder if the questions I’d been asking had prompted this latest phone call.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I HEARD A CHEERY WHISTLE COMING FROM THE SHEDROW. A moment later Deakin Kelley appeared, framed in the tack room doorway. Molly wiped the troubled look off her face and smiled at him. She pointed to her wristwatch and I glanced at mine. It was nearing eleven-thirty.

  “Shouldn’t you be heading for the Jockey Room?” she asked. Post time for the first race was twelve-thirty, and all jockeys riding on that day’s card had to report to the Clerk of the Scales an hour before the first race.

  “I’m on my way,” Deakin said. “Just stopped by to see if you want to get some dinner later. I’m done after the seventh race.”

  Molly shrugged. “I don’t know, Deak. I’m awfully tired. I’ve only got the horses running in the first and third. After that I think I’ll go home and get some rest. Why don’t you check with me later?”

  A look of concern flashed across Deakin’s face, which he quickly masked with a grin. “Okay. I’ll call you. Say, have you seen Nate? I need to talk with him about that nag I’m supposed to ride in the second race tomorrow. I just heard through the grapevine the trainer’s thinking of scratching him.”

  “I just had coffee with Nate over at the track kitchen,” I told him. “His tie was so bright it hurt my eyes.”

  Deakin laughed. “You gotta love a man who dresses like that. Makes me look good by comparison.”

  “How long has he been your agent?”

  Deakin greeted this question with a flicker of wariness, as though any question coming from me, the private investigator, was suspect. “Nate’s been my agent for almost eight years. Don’t let the package fool you. He’s one of the best in the business.”

  “He was with Mickey Sholto,” I said. “From what he said, Sholto’s been trying to persuade Benita to go back East. But she won’t.”

  “I wondered about that. Why she stuck around after —” Deakin looked at Molly and didn’t finish the sentence. “Women jocks seem to do better on the East Coast. But maybe Benita figures she’s got a good mount on Kilobyte. He’s a good horse.” He smiled at Molly. “Chameleon’s better.”

  “Sholto said the same thing you did,” I continued. “That something’s bothering Benita. But he doesn’t have any idea what.”

  Deakin shrugged. “I could give it another try. Talking with her, I mean. We’re gonna be cooped up in the Jockey Room all afternoon, when we’re not riding. Of course, there will be other people around. Maybe I’ll buy her a drink after.”

  “You didn’t have much luck talking with her on Saturday,” I pointed out. “Nor did I, this morning.”

  “Third time’s a charm.” He grinned as he repeated the old saw, then bent over and kissed Molly on the forehead. “Gotta go. If I don’t see you tonight, I’ll see you in the morning when I exercise Belladonna.”

  “Call me later,” Molly said.

  “I will,” he said fondly, eyes only for her. “I’ll call you tonight.”

  She seized his hand and squeezed it hard, then released it. When he left, we could hear him whistling again as he walked down the shedrow. A moment later Carlos stuck his head in the doorway, an inquiring look on his face. Molly got out of the chair. “I’ve got to get my horse over to the receiving barn. You want to come with me?”

  The horse in question was a small, well-proportioned bay with a white blaze running down between his eyes. His name was Good and Ready, and maybe he was. As Molly and Carlos readied him for the race, he looked alert and eager to run.

  I reached into my jacket pocket for the program and the Daily Racing Form I’d picked up earlier in the track kitchen. According to the program, this was a one-mile maiden claiming race for three-year-old colts, with a purse of $10,000 and a claiming price of $20,000. The term maiden meant that none of the entries had ever won a race.

  Claiming races are the bread-and-butter of horse racing, or so Molly told me. Any horse entered into the race Good and Ready was about to run could be claimed for that $20,000. Molly explained that owners and trainers were supposed to run horses in races that reflect their value.

  “So if I’d paid $100,000 for this horse, instead of the $15,000 he really cost Dad and me,” she added, “I sure as hell wouldn’t be running him in this race. A drop in class, that’s what the handicappers call it. If I do that, everybody gets suspicious. They wonder if I’m trying to unload this guy because he’s got problems.” She stroked the bay’s neck and he tossed his head, as though disdaining the very idea. “Or people might think I’m trying to outfox other trainers by running a good horse in a lower class. Usually it works the other way around, though. This guy’s got some promise, even if he hasn’t won a race. He’s got a third, and the last time we raced him he finished second. So I’m bumping him up a notch in class.”

  “What if you’re right about him showing some promise, and someone claims him?”

  Molly shrugged. “Then somebody claims him. That’s the way it is. You can’t get too attached to the horses in this business. Except Chameleon.” She made a clicking sound and the big chestnut stuck his head out of a nearby stall. “I’ll never enter him in a claiming race, because I don’t want to lose him.”

  I glanced down the list of entries on the card for the first race. Good and Ready was number five in a field of seven horses. There was a little logo next to his name that told me he was California-bred. I also noticed that four of his competitors had the letter L by their names, which meant they were being tr
eated with a drug called Lasix. I’d heard of both Lasix and Bute, but I wasn’t up to speed on why they were so commonly used on racehorses. I asked Molly about it as she, Carlos, and I left Barn Four. Carlos was leading Good and Ready. We walked toward the receiving barn.

  “Some horses are bleeders,” Molly said. “That’s pulmonary hemorrhaging. That means when they run, alveoli in the lungs rupture and blood sprays all over the lungs. It interferes with their breathing and slows them down. Sometimes, but not very often, you’ll see horses bleed from the nostrils. Usually you can’t see they’ve been bleeding unless you run an endoscope inside the horse and find streaks of blood in the trachea.”

  “Must be fairly common,” I said, leafing through the program. “I see lots of horses here with an L by their names.”

  Molly nodded. “Yeah, it is. I read once that more than two-thirds of the horses in California are bleeders. The vets don’t know why. Some of our horses are on Lasix. Dad always used it sparingly. We try different kinds of feed, vitamins. Even changing their bedding from straw to something else if they’ve got allergies.”

  “Horses get allergies?”

  “Sure, why not?” Molly grinned. “We had a horse once, I swear, was allergic to the barn cats. He’d start sneezing every time he saw Pug.”

  I hadn’t seen the orange tomcat since Saturday, but now, probably because Molly had mentioned his name, Pug strolled into view. He meowed at Molly, then leaped for her shoulder.

  “I think you’re pulling my leg,” I told her. “About the horse sneezing, I mean.”

  She laughed and batted at the cat’s tail as he crossed from right shoulder to left, winding his body behind her neck and butting his head against her curly brown hair.

  “What about Bute?”

  “That’s another judgment call,” she said. “Horses get sore and have physical problems, like arthritis. Bute’s an anti-inflammatory. It decreases inflammation, but it doesn’t block pain. Some people say it allows horses to run when they’d be better off resting. If you use too much Bute, that could be a problem. But there are rules about how Bute’s used. It has to be given twenty-four hours before the race, and the horse is tested afterward. If the Bute level’s too high, the trainer gets a warning. Or a fine.” She shrugged. “Now, some trainers inject cortisone into the horses’ joints. But Dad and I think that’s a mistake. It makes the horse feel and look great. But if you run a horse that’s not rested and cooled, the cartilage in that joint starts wearing out. In the end, you’ve got a horse with arthritis.”