A Stone's Throw

by James W. Ziskin

  “That’s news,” said Freddie, and he took a sip of black coffee. “Why did he change it?”

  “Some kind of gambling scandal. I spoke to his father last night on the phone.”

  “And he didn’t know the full story?”

  “Maybe. But he wasn’t telling. Claims he hasn’t heard from or spoken to Johnny in nine years.”

  “Gamblers might explain how he ended up in that barn.”

  “Say, Freddie. You’re something of a horseman. Did you ever hear of Johnny Sprague down in Maryland about nine or ten years ago?”

  “No.”

  “What about the racetracks? You must know them. Where might a nobody from Manitoba have ended up riding down there?”

  Freddie took a bite of the charred wheat toast I’d prepared especially for him and reflected on my question. I hadn’t burned it on purpose, of course. Cooking, alas, was not my long suit.

  “Not sure,” he said.

  “Didn’t you say you used to haunt those tracks? Isn’t there one where gamblers might have been fixing races?”

  Freddie chewed his toast like a trouper, too polite to complain about the blackened bread he was crunching between his teeth.

  “In Maryland, Pimlico is out, of course,” he said. “That’s where the Preakness is run. Not some backwater. Clean. Cheating’s pretty rare. And I’d rule out Keeneland, too. Nice place.”

  “What about in Kentucky?”

  “Not Churchill Downs, for sure. Can you imagine your Johnny what’s-his-name riding in the Kentucky Derby?”

  “Maybe not. Anywhere else?”

  Freddie gave it some thought, then said there were a couple of tracks he and his friends used to frequent several years ago. The Maryland Fair Racing Circuit. Not exactly the major leagues, but there were betting and fun times.

  “I remember Hagerstown and Marlboro,” he said. “Marlboro’s small enough, I suppose. And Hagerstown is about as glamorous as it sounds. And Timonium, too. Out of the way, but there’s some decent racing at those tracks.”

  “But you don’t remember any betting scandals anywhere in the region?”

  He shook his head.

  “How about a man named Robinson? Johnny Dornan wrote that he was meeting someone named Robinson on Friday at midnight.”

  He shook his head. “I know a couple of people named Robinson, but I don’t see how they could have been in contact with your jockey. Kent Robinson was a schoolmate at Woodberry Forest. Went on to divinity school. And Junior Robinson worked for my grandmother in Charlottesville. Nice old fellow. Taught me to tie my shoes. Of course he died fifteen years ago.”

  “Fat lot of help you are,” I said. “I thought you were a track rat.”

  “Not hardly. I love the sport, but I don’t live for it.”

  “And yet we met at seven in the morning at the training track. You were even armed with binoculars and a stopwatch. I figured you were a bridge jumper.”

  “You say the funniest things, Ellie Stone. Sometimes you sound like a gangster’s moll. But, no, I’m careful with my betting. Some fellows can’t sit out even one race. They simply have to be in the game, whether they’re confident of their strategy or not. It takes patience and discipline to win at this.”

  I told him I had a dear friend who also thought he could beat the system. “But he’s a plunger. He told me he once dropped two hundred dollars on a single race.”

  “There are more like him than you might think. Two hundred bucks is too rich for my blood.”

  I would have thought the opposite, at least in terms of his blue blood. It was clear that Frederick Carsten Whitcomb III came from money. I’d had tea with his mother, after all, and she threw off a healthy odor of greenbacks. And old ones at that. Still, even if one was swimming in the stuff, profligacy and lack of self-control struck me as wrong. Throwing away money in such a cavalier manner, when so many others were truly in need, was bad manners if nothing else. So Freddie’s responsible habits, despite his wealth and privilege, were to his credit.

  “I’ve got to run,” he said, dabbing his lips with a napkin. “How about I take you to the Travers tomorrow and squire you around like a Southern belle?”

  “I’m afraid I already have a date for the race.”

  “Your friend the plunger?”

  “The very one.”

  “Does he have a box in the clubhouse?”

  “No, but there’s a bench near the paddock where he sets up shop.”

  “Fine. I’ll pick you up here tomorrow at seven for the gala. That means you’ll have to leave after the Travers if you’re going to make it back here in time. It’s the sixth race, so the horses will probably be in the gate a little before five.”

  “I have a better idea. It’s a lot of driving to rush back and forth to Saratoga. And there’s no way my friend will ever miss the last three races. I was thinking of taking a room at a motel in Saratoga.”

  He grinned at me. “Sounds naughty when you say it.”

  “The Friar Tuck Motel on Route Fifty. Seven thirty. Be on time and I might invite you back later for a nightcap.”

  Yes, I considered myself a “modern girl.” And, as in the case of the horse that ran off, I saw no value in locking the barn door now. And though I spent little time analyzing my own behavior in this regard, I knew that I was happy with the freedom I granted myself. Freddie made me laugh. He was smart, athletic, and attractive. I owed explanations to no one. I smiled just thinking of that. Then the specter of my landlady, Mrs. Giannetti, invaded my thoughts and wrecked whatever self-satisfaction I was feeling. As I accompanied Freddie down the stairs to the street, I prayed she wouldn’t be watching through her chintz curtains to catch me at my most shameless once again. Hallelujah, the coast was clear. Freddie gave me a peck on the cheek and tweaked my nose as if I were a child. Then he slipped out the storm door, turned right, and strode down the sidewalk about fifty yards. He’d had the good sense to park his roadster a respectable distance from my apartment. What a gentleman.

  “Late night, dear?” came a voice to my left on the front porch. Damn it.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Giannetti,” I said and turned to trudge back up the stairs to sew a scarlet A onto my blouse.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Have you seen the Saratogian this morning?” asked Norma Geary over my shoulder.

  She placed it on my desk and folded her arms across her chest, as if to dare me to read the front page. I gathered up the newspaper and snapped it open. There in the upper-right-hand corner of the front page stretched the headline, “Tempesta Barn Victim Is Jockey Johnny Dornan: Sheriff Pryor.” The byline was Scotty Freed.

  “Isn’t he a track writer over at the Saratogian?” I asked Norma. She nodded. “And now he’s writing front-page copy? He must be the sheriff ’s man at the paper.”

  “At least you beat him to the punch.”

  “Yes, but this means the sheriff is willing to share information with Freed. It won’t be long before he’s a step ahead of me.”

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “This,” I said, tearing a page out of my trusty Underwood typewriter along with a sheet of carbon paper and the copy underneath it.

  Norma took it from me and, sitting on the corner of my desk, read out loud.

  “‘Was Johnny Dornan in the Pocket of Downstate Gamblers?’”

  Jimmy Burgh had agreed to go on the record for certain details, including that he’d been told by anonymous sources that Johnny Dornan was working under an assumed name. Then, quoting John Sprague Sr., I jumped to my late-night telephone conversation with the victim’s father. The details of that call provided the most stunning revelations of my investigation to date. He had, after all, corroborated the ubiquitous rumors of Johnny’s involvement with gamblers by establishing the connection between his son and the woman suspected of having died alongside him. To wit, Vivian Coleman/McLaglen.

  And I’d written a second story on the missing Micheline Charbonneau. I handed it to Norma,
who read it in a trice. Without actually naming Micheline as a girl for hire, I gave the facts. She’d accompanied Johnny Dornan to dinner after the races on Friday evening and hadn’t been seen since about 10:00 p.m. at Mrs. Russell’s Boarding House in Ballston Spa. I was sure the cantankerous landlady would be furious about the publicity, but you can’t always change names to protect the innocent. Or the wretched, for that matter. I quoted Micheline’s friends Joyce and Brenda as saying she’d gone to Montreal, but I left Jimmy Burgh’s name out of it altogether.

  Norma glanced at her wristwatch. A couple of minutes past ten. “I think we can still get these into this afternoon’s paper if we hurry.”

  “Yes,” I said, picking up the phone and asking the switchboard for Charlie Reese’s line. “But Charlie’s going to have to go to the mat for me on this. Artie Short will swallow his cigar at the cost of redoing the front page.”

  Charlie said Artie was out of town, and he approved the stories immediately. He sent my copy down to the typesetter via Norm Belcher, who glowered at me when Charlie wasn’t looking. Earlier that morning, I’d thumbtacked eight-by-tens of his sweet little derrière throughout the office. I’d heard several bouts of raucous laughter coming from the coffee urn and the watercooler before the lummox was put wise and ripped them all down. My pal Bobby Thompson from the photo lab—no relation to the Giant great, and his name was spelled differently to boot—had kindly provided me with four sets of prints, and I planned on exhibiting them in the weeks to come.

  “That’s some fine work, Ellie,” said Charlie once Norm had picked up his charm and dragged it out of the room.

  “You won’t catch any flak from Artie Short for redoing the front page at the last minute?”

  “I can handle him. He’s always harping on about losing circulation to Schenectady. I’ll remind him that Saratoga is a rival, too.”

  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling flattered. But then Charlie burst my bubble the next moment when he mentioned my society piece on the Saratoga fundraiser.

  “I liked it so much I want you to do more of that kind of thing. The social angle is popular with our female readers. Gives them something to aspire to.”

  “Charlie,” I whined. “I just handed you a major scoop on the Tempesta murders, and you want to send me back to covering tea and cucumber sandwiches?”

  He looked stunned. A little hurt, even. “I’m sorry, Ellie. I only meant you’d done a fine job.”

  I caught Fadge as he stepped out of the store. The guilty expression on his face told me half of what I needed to know. The keys in his hand told the other half.

  “Please say you’re not locking the door,” I said.

  “It’s just for a couple of hours.”

  “Fadge, you’ve got a problem.”

  “No. Zeke is the solution to my problem. He’s tied up today till three, but starting tomorrow, I’m all set.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You’ve got to take care of your business.”

  “It’s a couple of hours, El. Zeke will be here by three fifteen. He’s a good kid. Doing a great job. I should’ve hired him years ago.”

  “He’s fourteen.”

  “Gotta run.”

  “Wait,” I called after him. “I need to get that thing I gave you out of the safe and turn it over to the sheriff.”

  “No time. I’m late as it is.”

  I sighed. “I’m coming with you. I’ve got some business at the track.”

  “How’s the Johnny Dornan story going?” asked Fadge as he sped along Route 67.

  “His real name is John Sprague. It appears he was riding down in Maryland or Kentucky about nine or ten years ago.”

  “Johnny Sprague?” he asked. “That sounds familiar. But he would’ve been pretty young back then, wouldn’t he?”

  I shrugged. “Eighteen. Maybe nineteen.”

  “Then I doubt he was riding at Pimlico or Keeneland. Certainly not Churchill Downs. Too inexperienced. Must’ve been one of the smaller courses.”

  “Hagerstown maybe?”

  Fadge threw a surprised look in my direction. “Sounds about right. How do you know about an out-of-the-way track like Hagerstown?”

  “A girl has her secrets.”

  When we arrived around one thirty, Fadge made a beeline to the racecourse. I wandered across Union Avenue to the Oklahoma training track, looking for Mike the jockey. As promised, I had some nice shots of him and Purgatorio to deliver. A stableboy at the horse barns told me the place was closed. But he assured me that Mike would get the photos.

  “Is this where the Harlequin horses are stabled?” I asked.

  “Over there,” he said, pointing down the row of barns.

  After a few minutes of searching and a couple of inquiries of various grooms and stableboys, I found a magnificent stallion biding his time quietly in a shed. Someone had scrawled “Purgatorio” in white chalk across the bottom half of the Dutch door. My favorite Thoroughbred was alone, with an empty stall on either side of his, presumably to isolate him from the other horses. He stood still, facing the wall in the back.

  “Tory,” I called to him through the door. His long ears swiveled, and he turned his head to see me. “Come here, boy.”

  Motes of dust hung in the warm August air, swimming slowly, as if alive, out of the shadows into the light that streamed through the gap between two planks in the wall. The thick smell of horse leather, sweat, hay, and manure overwhelmed me, but not in an unpleasant way. The place smelled like a barn, of course. All was quiet except for a smithy hammering on some iron at the far end of the stables. I fancied he was fitting the shoes for a horse that would run for glory across the street someday soon. Purgatorio regarded me for a moment, his big black eyes clear and sober, and then he sauntered over and pushed his head through the Dutch door.

  I held out my palm, offering him a handful of Cheerios I’d brought along especially for him. He dipped his head and picked my hand clean with his long lips in a gentle, almost dainty fashion. Once he’d finished, he looked up at me, then back at my hand, as if searching for more. I obliged him with two more fistfuls of the cereal, but then I was tapped out.

  “I’m afraid that’s all there is,” I said and rubbed his muzzle.

  He seemed to like that. I stood there for several minutes chatting with him. He mostly listened, blinking, head still, level with my cheek and mere inches away. He breathed slow and deep. At length, I thumped him firmly on the neck as I’d seen Mike do a few days before, and told him I had to leave. He watched me go, his head and long neck protruding from the Dutch door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I spotted Freddie Whitcomb sipping a tall drink and chatting with four other swells—three well-heeled young men and a pretty young blonde woman—in a clubhouse box above the winner’s circle. He was glib, suave to the point of caricature, what with his bright smile, strong white teeth, and tanned face. The life of the party to anyone watching. As was I. The blonde was decked out in a flowery print sundress, with a rather silly white hat draped over the wooden rail separating her from the next box of blue bloods. The hat remained in place, despite the energetic batting of its owner’s eyelashes. I fancied Freddie’s hair was waving under the influence of the breeze, which was aimed in his direction.

  When the race began, all five turned to watch, cheering gaily as the horses streaked down the backstretch. They clutched rolled-up programs in their mitts and exchanged smiles of delight as the leaders rounded the turn for home. Then all five rose as one, jumping and exhorting their charges for the final push. The field thundered past them, hooves pounding the dirt, colors flashing by in a blur, until one reached the wire ahead of the rest. The crowd of sixteen thousand, including the five in the box I was fixated on, exhaled as one with the conclusion of the contest. I didn’t notice which horse had won. I only saw the blonde woman throw her arms around Freddie’s neck in celebration of what must have been a victory for her.

  I stood there green-eyed, pathetic, wonde
ring if Freddie had visited Blondie in her room—the way he had twice climbed my stairs in the dead of night—for celebrations of another kind. I felt deflated. Small and outclassed, as the Racing Form might describe a Thoroughbred that also ran and never challenged. And despite my best efforts to explain away the intimacy and familiarity I’d just witnessed, I failed. Yes, Freddie was taking me to a gala the following evening. But what would he be up to that Friday night?

  Why did I care? I barely knew Freddie. What did I expect was going to happen between us? Was he going to sweep me off my feet? Carry me back to Old Virginny? I was only interested in a little diversion, not a major commitment. So why should I begrudge him his friends? For all I knew, the blonde woman was his cousin. And I wasn’t forgetting that I was attending the races with a friend as well. True, whenever anywhere near a racetrack, Fadge paid as much attention to me as he might to a fly perched on a streetlamp across the street. But that was beside the point.

  I wandered over to the Jim Dandy Bar, where the bartender, having recognized me from previous visits, thought himself clever and served up a gin and tonic before I could order it. I smiled weakly and apologized.

  “No thank you,” I said. “I’d really rather have a Scotch.”

  “Troubles with the ponies?” he asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “Good day at the races?” I asked Fadge when I finally tracked him down at the concession stand after the eighth race. He was stuffing a hot dog with the works into his mouth.

  “That depends on how you define good,” he said.

  “I see. That means you lost, but you were ever so close to winning.”

  “I’m up six fifty,” he said with all the smugness he could muster. “That’s six hundred and fifty dollars, El.”

  I felt conflicted. On the one hand, I wanted him to develop some sense of responsibility toward his business. And for that, he’d probably have to learn the hard way. By losing. But at the same time, I was secretly thrilled that he’d won so much. Despite my better instincts, I was questioning whether Fadge had the right idea after all. He’d already banked three thousand in one day, and now more than six hundred another. Sure, he’d lost several hundred here and there, but he was sitting on an impressive pile of winnings for the August meet.