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

by Janet Dawson

  The bartender looked as though he didn’t quite believe me. He picked up a glass and polished it with a blue bar towel. “She was here,” he said finally. “Came in around six, with Deakin Kelley.”

  I frowned. “You’re sure? About the time? And who she was with?”

  “Fairly sure about the time, though we were busy right about then. And I know Kelley from way back. Benita bought the first round. She was carrying quite a roll.”

  “A lot of cash?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. A wad big enough to choke a horse. Enough to make me take notice. It was stuffed into an envelope in her purse. I saw it when she got out her wallet to pay for the drinks.” He pointed toward a table at the end of the bar, close to where Moody and Trask now stood. “They sat at that table over there, and talked to another jock, a guy named Zeke. Looked like they were having quite a conversation. Not all of it friendly.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  The bartender drew himself a club soda and sipped it before answering. “Benita’s got a temper on her.”

  “I know. I’ve seen it.” I’d been on the receiving end of it too.

  “I couldn’t hear, but it looked like she was lighting into Zeke about something. I thought she was going to come across the table at him. But Kelley called time out, and Zeke left.”

  “What time did Benita leave?” I asked.

  “About six-thirty, quarter to seven,” the bartender said. “She made a couple of phone calls. Then she and Deakin left together.”

  “Any idea where they were going?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I heard. What’s this all about, anyway?”

  “I told you, she bailed out on our dinner date. I’m worried about her.”

  “Maybe she got a better offer,” the bartender said, his implication plain.

  “I think they went over to the track,” a twangy baritone voice with a hint of Southern syrup said. “Reggie Trask. I’m a trainer. And this is Dick Moody.” Tall and broad, Trask towered over his fellow trainer.

  Moody, the ex-jockey, gave me a gimlet-eyed stare. “We’ve met,” he said, his mouth barely moving as he kept it in a tight line that no one could interpret as a smile.

  “I saw you at the track today,” Trask continued. “In the paddock with Molly Torrance. Your name’s Jeri, right?”

  “Yes, it is.” I flashed what I hoped was a disarming smile. “Say, I had some money on Polly’s Pride. Had even more when I cashed my ticket at the windows.”

  Trask laughed. “Truth be told, I had a few bucks on him myself. Just in case. I had a feeling he was improving. I was real happy with that second, and so was his owner. That’s the best that colt’s done, and I think he’ll do better. But I have to say, I didn’t think Molly’s horse, Good and Ready, would finish first. I figured the horse to beat was Travel Light. Or Megahertz.”

  Moody made a sour noise at the mention of Travel Light, who’d finished third. Clearly he’d been hoping for a better result.

  I took a sip of my beer. “What happened to Megahertz? It looked like he quit in the turn.”

  “Bleeder,” Moody said. He was certainly economical with words.

  “Lasix didn’t do the job,” Trask commented. “Or so I hear.”

  “Benita didn’t look happy after the first race. Or the second,” I said, steering the conversation back to why I was there.

  “Hates to lose. Hell to be around when she does.” Moody was getting positively loquacious.

  “Jockeys always hate to lose,” Trask said philosophically.

  I knocked back some more beer and directed my next question to Trask. “You said you thought they went over to the track. Did you overhear them? Why would Benita Pascal and Deakin Kelley go over to the track at this time of night?”

  Trask shrugged. “Only heard some of it. Zeke Ramos was here earlier, and the three of ’em sounded like they were having words. Didn’t they, Dick?” Moody nodded, a quick up-and-down jerk of his chin. “Ramos left, and I got the impression Benita wanted to track him down and continue the argument. Kelley was trying to talk her out of it. That’s about the time they left. So I’m just guessing they went over to the track. Ramos has been bunking in Barn Three. And like the bartender says, Benita had a lot of money on her. Always does. It’s dangerous. Carrying a roll like that, she could get mugged.”

  “I’d pity the mugger who tangled with that little lady,” Moody said with a snort.

  I took a few more swallows of my beer, wondering what Benita and Zeke Ramos had been arguing about, and whether it had to do with Zeke’s win aboard Stella Darling that afternoon. What had happened to make her miss our appointment at seven, particularly after her insistence that she had to talk to me?

  And what did she mean when she said I was asking the wrong questions?

  I left the Anchor Steam unfinished on the bar and drove over to Edgewater Downs. The track looked deserted, even though the barns were full of horses and people. I’d been surprised earlier in the day when Nate Abernathy told me how many people lived here during the racing season. More than two thousand, practically a small town. A village with a very particular focus — the constant care of those magnificent yet delicate running machines called thoroughbred racehorses.

  I parked at the horsemen’s entrance and walked up to the guard shack, illuminated now by harsh white floodlights high above. I showed my pass, then said, “I’m looking for Benita Pascal, Deakin Kelley, Zeke Ramos. Have you seen any of them tonight?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. And I know ’em all by sight.”

  “Is this the only entrance to the barn area?”

  “Nope. There’s a back way in, over by Barn Four. Most of the grooms and exercise riders park along that access road and walk in.”

  He told me how to get to the access road, and I drove over there, but the guard at that gate hadn’t seen any of the three jockeys, either. I felt frustrated as I headed for my car. When she’d called me earlier, it was plain Benita had something she wanted to discuss with me. She must have changed her mind.

  But I couldn’t shake a feeling of disquiet. What if someone had changed Benita’s mind for her?

  It was now after nine. I didn’t have any idea where to look for Benita. So I drove home to Oakland. As I turned off College Avenue onto Chabot Road, I saw a young woman striding briskly along the sidewalk. It was Darcy, walking home from the Rockridge BART station. I pulled into the red zone near the curb and honked my horn. “Want a ride?”

  “You’re getting home late.” She opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

  I shifted into first and moved the car out into the street. “I’ve been chasing wild geese. How about you?”

  “I took BART over to the city to have dinner with my grandmother. Are you still hanging out at that racetrack?”

  “Yes, I am.” I grinned and told her about winning the exacta in the first race.

  “That’s a lot of money,” she said, impressed.

  “It’s not the money, as much as the excitement of seeing the horses run. Sometimes all the handicapping in the world can’t predict the outcome. And when a long shot pays off like that, it’s a real kick.”

  “I never thought watching horses run around a track would be interesting,” she declared. “But obviously you enjoy it. I guess I’m going to have to see for myself. I’m busy Saturday, but I could go on Sunday. Mind if I tag along?”

  I turned the car into the driveway and shut off the engine. “It’s a date.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  GETTING UP BEFORE DAWN FRIDAY MORNING WAS only slightly less difficult than it had been Thursday morning. I suppose one could get used to it, I thought as I main-lined a cup of strong black coffee. The racetrackers certainly had, generations of them.

  I parked at the horsemen’s entrance at Edgewater Downs just before six and headed through the gate. The track kitchen was open, doing a brisk business in coffee. I saw a few people inside eating breakfast, but most were already sta
rting their workday, with horses and riders moving toward the track for their first workout under the artificial glow of the overhead lights.

  When I reached Barn Four and the shedrow where the Torrance horses were stabled, I saw the younger groom, José, carrying a metal feed tub with morning rations for one of the horses. The big red chestnut, Chameleon, whinnied and shook his mane. In front of a nearby stall was Belladonna, the roan filly. Carlos was readying her for her morning workout. But I didn’t see Deakin Kelley, who was supposed to take the horse out on the track.

  “Damn it,” Molly said as I entered the tack room. She was standing in front of her desk with the cordless phone to her ear. “Where the hell is Deakin? He said he was going to be here at six to exercise Belladonna.” She punched one of the buttons on the phone and returned the receiver to its cradle with an irritated bang.

  “Overslept?” I suggested.

  “He has insomnia most of the time. Unless he took one of his sleeping pills. If he did, he could be out but good. I can’t go all the way over to Niles and haul him out of bed, not at this point. I’ll have to get someone else to exercise the horse. You want some coffee?” She gestured at the coffeemaker, where I saw viscous black liquid dripping into the glass pot.

  “Only if you have enough milk for me to cut it,” I said dubiously.

  “Thank you, Julia Child,” she retorted, raking a hand through her brown curls. “If you’re going to keep up with the track schedule, you’ll need the caffeine.”

  “I might as well just chew coffee beans.”

  I opened the little refrigerator, found a quart carton of milk, and gave it the smell test. Then I looked around for a cup and didn’t see any. On a shelf, shoved back behind an untidy pile of catalogs and magazines, I saw a stainless steel commuter mug with a lid and a wide bottom. As my hand moved toward it I heard Molly say in a sharp voice, “No, not that one.”

  Her tone made me straighten and look at her. Her voice smoothed out as she explained. “Sorry. That was Dad’s. He carried it around with him all the time. Had it in his hand when the heart attack hit. Carlos must have picked it up and put it on the shelf. I should take it home but —” She stopped, that bleak look back on her face. Then she opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out a blue mug. “Here. It’s clean, I swear.”

  “If it’s got cooties in it, I’m sure the coffee will kill them,” I told her.

  The sad look vanished and she laughed. “I’ll be right back, as soon as I nab another exercise rider. If Deakin shows up, tell him he’s in trouble.”

  I poured coffee and milk into the mug, tasted the concoction, and shrugged. I must have been getting used to Torrance coffee. It wasn’t half bad.

  Deakin didn’t show up during the next ten minutes, at which time Molly returned, accompanied by a young woman about twenty, wearing boots, blue jeans, and a ragged mustard-colored sweater. She had a helmet over her long braided hair and she looked sleepy and cold.

  “Jeri, this is Heather,” Molly said.

  Heather muttered something that sounded like “Good morning.” Molly offered her coffee and unearthed another mug. Heather poured a shot of black oil, and I watched her face as she took her first sip. “Yowza,” she said, her eyes popping open.

  In the shedrow Belladonna was acting up, pawing the dirt with her hooves and shaking her head. I heard Carlos speaking Spanish as he tried to soothe her. Then I heard the clatter of metal as the horse kicked something. Molly and I went to look. Belladonna had knocked over one of the feed tubs, spilling grain onto the dirt floor of the shedrow.

  “Put her in that empty stall at the end of the shedrow,” Molly told Carlos. “Then help José clean this up.”

  Carlos stroked the skittish filly’s head and led her to the empty stall. But the filly didn’t want to go in. She tossed her head and pulled away. He tugged on the lead rope, coaxing her with his voice, but she still wouldn’t go. Molly swore under her breath. “That horse. Sometimes she’s a real pain in the ass.” She ran to help Carlos. I moved closer, curious but cautious, watching as they maneuvered Belladonna into the stall. The filly pulled at the lead rope, reared, and struck out with one of her forelegs. I heard a metallic thud as her hoof hit the side of the stall.

  “What the hell is wrong with this horse?” Molly cried. “Something’s got her spooked.”

  “Something in the stall?” I asked. I was guessing along the lines of small rodents. Or maybe one of the barn cats, like Pug, the orange tom, had taken up residence there, to deal with a small rodent. It might even be a snake, but it was November, too cold for reptiles, I thought.

  “Could be,” Molly said. “Back off. I’m going to take her out.”

  I moved away. Heather and I watched as Molly and Carlos moved Belladonna out of the end stall. Carlos tied the filly in front of another stall farther down the shedrow. Molly reached for the rake José was holding, then entered the stall. I followed her.

  The stall looked like all the others, I thought at first, but then I decided it didn’t. All the other stalls had straw evenly spread on the dirt floor. In this stall, a good half of the straw had been heaped into a pile in the far corner. Molly poked at the pile with the business end of the rake. I didn’t hear the scuffle of claws. Whatever had spooked the horse wasn’t alive, I thought.

  Molly took another pass with the rake. This time when she dislodged more straw, I saw a scrap of blue amidst all the yellow.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. I moved closer and reached for it. It was fabric, soft and silky between my fingers. I tugged at it and pulled it out about six inches before I encountered resistance. Blue, with a green border. And wasn’t that a chameleon painted on this end?

  “That looks like a chameleon scarf,” Molly said, echoing my thoughts. “What is it doing here?”

  Something told me I was about to find out. And I wasn’t going to like it.

  I took the rake from Molly’s hand and carefully removed another layer of straw. When she saw what was underneath, Molly gasped and the color drained from her face.

  “Madre de Dios!” Carlos said from the stall entrance. I glanced back in time to see him cross himself. Over his shoulder José and Heather were craning their necks for a look. They didn’t like what they saw any more than I did.

  Benita Pascal lay cradled on a bed of straw, but she wasn’t asleep. The blue silk scarf had been wrapped around her throat. Then it had been pulled tight until it cut off all her oxygen. Now her face was ghastly, bloated and dark red.

  I heard a low wordless moan coming from Molly as I backed away from the corpse that had been hidden in the pile of straw. I grabbed Molly by the arm and hauled her out of the stall. In the shedrow I took a deep breath. Then I walked into the tack room and picked up the phone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “WHAT’S YOUR CONNECTION TO ALL THIS?” Detective Eddy Maltesta of the Fremont Police Department unwrapped a piece of his favorite cinnamon-flavored chewing gum and popped the stick into his mouth.

  I didn’t answer right away. Instead I looked over his shoulder at the yellow crime scene tape that now cordoned off the shedrow near Molly’s tack room. A camera flashed inside the stall as a police photographer took shot after shot of Benita’s body. The technicians were gathering evidence both inside and outside the stall. The one nearest me was dusting the area around the door for prints.

  Carlos Gomez and the other groom, José, were being questioned by a Spanish-speaking officer. I was listening, translating from Spanish to English in my head. The officer wanted to know if the grooms had heard or seen anything last night. They shared a bunkroom on the outer, south wall of the shedrow, opposite the stalls where the Torrance string was stabled, which put them less than twenty feet from the stall where Benita’s body had been found.

  Surely she would have made some noise, put up a fight, I thought. I hadn’t moved enough straw to look at her hands, but I was betting the police would find skin and blood under her nails. Unless she’d been taken by surprise and
didn’t have a chance to fight. I wondered if she’d been killed somewhere else and her body hidden in the stall.

  Carlos was shaking his head. I heard him say he’d gone to bed about eight-thirty last night. He hadn’t heard anything out of the ordinary, he added. Nothing that didn’t sound like the noises horses make at night in their stalls. Kicking, snorting, the occasional whinny.

  José, however, had a look on his face that made me wonder where he’d been, what time he’d gone to bed, or what he’d heard. I didn’t hear his answer to the officer, because Eddy Maltesta moved his stocky frame in its off-the-rack navy blue suit between me and the grooms. He popped his gum. “I said —”

  “I heard what you said, Eddy. I’m a friend of Molly Torrance, the trainer.”

  I nodded in the direction of the tack room, where I could see Molly with another plainclothes detective. She sat at the desk, her elbows on its surface, her chin resting on her folded hands. She stared straight ahead, at the bulletin board, but I had a feeling that she wasn’t seeing the racing schedule or the snapshots of her father. Then the detective asked her something. Her mouth moved as she responded.

  “And you happened to be hanging around a racetrack, at dawn on a Friday, just for the hell of it?” Eddy chomped down on his gum and raised his thick black eyebrows, a couple of question marks on his round face. I saw skepticism in his dark brown eyes. “C’mon, Jeri, I’ve known you a long time. You wouldn’t be here unless you were working on something. What gives?”

  “In that case, you’ve heard the one about client confidentiality.”

  He sighed audibly, wafting cinnamon breath in my direction. In all the time I’d known him, he’d never yet veered off in the direction of peppermint or spearmint. “Yeah, I know the name of that tune. Sing me another.”

  I looked at Eddy’s expression carefully, hoping he might reveal something. But the detective had a good face for playing poker. How much could I tell him without compromising my client? I’d met Eddy several years ago when I was still working for Errol Seville, the private investigator I considered my mentor. Errol had retired, sidelined by age and a heart condition, and I’d started my own business. Since then, Eddy and I had crossed paths several times while I was working cases. He was a good cop, and he’d always been straight with me.