On October 1, 1953, Johnny Sprague finished third out of eight in a six-furlong stakes race at Hagerstown Race Track. I studied the chart. Thanks to Fadge, I knew how to read the summary and understand which horse had led at several points in the race. Johnny’s horse had jumped out to the lead at the start, holding onto the first position through the quarter pole. That was when he dropped to second. Then fourth, then sixth. The recap said he’d been boxed in at the rail before finally managing to rally and finish third.
I scanned the summary, as I looked for anything that might help solve the mystery of who killed Johnny Dornan. Of course that was a fool’s errand. This was a simple chart showing the horses, their jockeys, owners, and the order of finish. It wasn’t going to unmask a killer or provide any epiphanies for me. But then it did. The name of Johnny’s horse. It fairly leapt off the page. My God, how could I have been so blind to the evidence right under my nose all that time? On October 1, 1953, in the third race at Hagerstown Race Track, Johnny Sprague had been aboard a horse named Robinson’s Friday. I slapped my forehead. Bruce Robertson had been on target, albeit inadvertently, when I’d asked him if he knew anyone named Robinson. He’d answered smartly, and surely unawares, “Crusoe.”
But the revelations of the October 2, 1953, Racing Form didn’t end with the horse Johnny Sprague had ridden. There were two other names in the race that I recognized. First, the owner of the winning horse, Bomber Jacket, was listed as M. Hodges. This was the infamous race, all right, I told myself. But the name that sent my skin to crawling was the owner of Robinson’s Friday, Johnny’s horse. I blinked and had to read it twice. It was L. Fleischman.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I sat there in the low light of Fadge’s kitchen, trying to piece together the significance of what I’d just discovered. I’d been all wrong about Johnny Dornan’s midnight appointment on the night he died. Now I realized that he wasn’t meeting anyone named Robinson on Friday. He’d scribbled Robinson’s Friday, the horse he’d ridden into exile, but why? I pictured the torn piece of newspaper Fadge had swiped from Johnny’s room. It was possible that the apostrophe hadn’t come through on the ink transfer, or that, in his haste or ignorance, Johnny hadn’t included it at all. But I was sure now that it was the name of his horse, not some mysterious, unknown person.
Was Johnny simply musing over his past transgression when he wrote the note? I doubted that. He’d taken the trouble to write “midnight” next to the name Robinson’s Friday, which told me he was meeting someone who either knew about the thrown race or had actually been involved in the fix. Whoever it was murdered him and Vivian McLaglen that night. I wondered if someone was killing off the conspirators one by one. After all, Mack Hodges had died in January or February in a similar fashion, burned to death. As best I could tell, only two possible conspirators remained alive: the elusive Dan Ledoux and the grandfatherly Lou Fleischman. I had no idea where to find the former, but I knew Lou would be at Grossman’s Victoria Hotel. And I figured he was either the killer or he was in great danger. I bounded down the front stairs, the October 2, 1953, Racing Form in hand, leapt into my car, and sped off toward Saratoga.
“He’s not here,” said the elderly woman who answered the door of room 312. It was a little after seven. “Who are you, and what do you want with Lou?”
“My name is Eleonora Stone. I’m a friend—an acquaintance of your husband’s. I’m a newspaper reporter.”
She eyed me guardedly, distrustful of my motives or perhaps even my intentions. She appeared to be sixty-five, a little stooped in her posture, dressed in a dark skirt and untucked blouse. A crooked brunette wig was perched atop her head. My knock on the door must have caught her by surprise.
Her ashen face betrayed a premonition of bad news. “What is it? Is Lou in trouble?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Fleischman. I need to find him right away.”
“He said he was meeting someone at the track. The training track.”
I didn’t stick around to exchange pleasantries or reassure Rose Fleischman that everything would turn out all right. I certainly didn’t know that. What was I thinking, driving over to the Oklahoma training track as the sun was sinking into the August gloaming?
I was relieved to see Lou Fleischman’s drooping figure was neither alone nor in danger. He was reviewing some kind of chart with three men near the entrance. I recognized two of them. Carl Boehringer stood a few feet away from the conference, which included Mike, the morning rider who’d been training Purgatorio the week before. The third man, short and slender with graying temples and horn-rimmed glasses, was doing all the talking, citing horses’ names, distances, and times. I pegged him for the trainer, Hal Brown.
I kept a respectful distance, loath to interrupt their business, but Mike saw me first. Then Lou, noticing the jockey had glanced up, followed suit and spied me not ten feet away.
“Hello, Ellie,” he said. I may have been imagining things, but I fancied he was put out by my sudden appearance. “I’m almost finished here.”
I assured him I was in no hurry and he should take his time.
“Why don’t you go visit your friend Purgatorio?” he suggested. “I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
I wandered off in the direction of the stables, where I located my favorite thousand pounds of horseflesh, facing the back wall of his stall as was his habit. I clicked my tongue, and he wheeled around and approached—not quite at a gallop—but as quickly as a horse could manage in such tight quarters. He blustered and bobbed his head at me, then presented it gently against my cheek before resting his chin on my shoulder. I stroked his muzzle and greeted him by name. Then I pulled back and retrieved a carrot from my purse. I’d packed it that morning in anticipation of giving him a treat. He took it whole from my hand and crunched it seven or eight times before sending the orange mash down the hatch.
I reached into my purse again, this time for my camera. But Tory thought I was digging out another treat, and surely couldn’t understand why I hadn’t any Cheerios or apples in my bag. He submitted to my attentions all the same, posing and showing off with the humility of a peacock on parade. I shot an entire roll of Kodachrome in the falling light, adjusting the aperture and shutter speed to compensate. When I’d finished I complimented him on his beauty. Then Carl Boehringer appeared.
“Oh, miss,” he called.
“Ellie,” I prompted.
“Lou says you should meet him in his car. It’s the green Buick Eight in the parking lot. Past the barn over there.” He pointed the way.
I confess the summons alarmed me. Why shouldn’t we meet in the open as he had with everyone else? I rubbed Purgatorio’s nose and stalled.
“Are you joining us?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I glanced toward the parking lot with some trepidation, still patting the horse.
“Will you tell me the truth, Carl?” I asked. He said he would if he could. “What’s really going to happen to Purgatorio?”
He shrugged. “He’s never going to win a race, I can tell you that much.”
“Then will Lou sell him off? To be slaughtered for meat?”
“Lou wouldn’t do that. He’s got a soft heart.”
I was relieved.
“But there’s no telling what the guy who buys him off Lou will do. That horse of yours costs a lot of money to buy and to feed. The next owner might not be as sentimental as Lou.”
I thanked him for his honesty. As I set off down the path toward my rendezvous with Lou, Purgatorio nipped at my shoulder and tore a tiny bit of fabric from my sleeve. He swallowed it before I could even say ouch. Then he withdrew into his stall.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The old Buick Eight sat at the far end of the lot, parked amid some high grass. It was a little after eight, and the sun had set a few minutes before. There was one other car in the area—and it was mine—at least thirty yards away. All the windows of the Buick were down, and cigarette smoke was oozing from the dr
iver’s side.
“Lou? Is that you?” I called.
“Come, Ellie,” he answered, and I climbed into the front passenger seat.
The heavy door took some pulling to close, but when it did a loud, metallic bang was the result. The bench seat was worn, the fabric fraying where I sat, and I wondered why Lou didn’t drive a nicer car. But I wasn’t there to ask him about his set of wheels.
“Why the intrigue, Lou?”
“Intrigue? What do you mean?”
“The car? Making me come to you?”
He drew a puff from the last half inch of his cigarette, then dropped it out his window. “Are you crazy? My hips are killing me. My left foot, too. Do you know how hard it is to stand all day when you got rheumatism and gout?”
“Does smoking help?” I asked.
He waved me off. “Can’t hurt. So what did you want to see me about?”
“Hagerstown,” I said, diving right in.
He looked trapped.
“October first, nineteen fifty-three.”
He regarded me for a long moment with something akin to terror in his eyes. He was sizing me up, wondering what or how much I knew. What should he say? Deny everything? Brush it off, play it down, or act dumb? He decided to feel me out.
“Hagerstown?” he asked at length.
“Were you there that day? Or was the advance planning all that was required of you?”
“Tell me what you know, Ellie.”
“I know that you were the owner of Robinson’s Friday, the horse Johnny Sprague rode that day.”
He nodded, eyes still betraying hesitation, still unsure of where our conversation was headed and what it spelled for him.
“You can imagine what’s going through my head,” I continued.
“Actually, I can’t. I have no idea what you want from me.”
“The truth.”
“And what will you do with the truth?”
Now I studied him with unsure eyes. We were getting down to brass tacks. “You know what I’ll do. I’ll put it in my news story.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear,” he said with a sigh. “Ellie, you’ve got to realize that Robinson’s Friday was a long time ago. Even the poor horse is dead. Died two years ago, fat and happy after a peaceful retirement as a stud.”
“And he’s not the only one. They’re all dead. Everyone except you and Dan Ledoux.”
Lou shifted in his seat, the grimace on his face the result of his rheumatism or perhaps our conversation. “You’re not suggesting I killed Johnny, that Vivian woman, and poor Micheline, are you?”
“I’m asking you about that day in October fifty-three. Who planned the fix?”
“Ellie, it’s ancient history. Times were different back then. I was struggling to make a living. Today things are better. I’ve had some success, traded some good horses. I’ve won my share of races that pay enough to make a good life for me and my family.”
“Fair enough, Lou. But I still want to know who approached whom. Was it Mack Hodges who proposed the fix?”
He chewed on that question for a moment, possibly reasoning that since Hodges was dead, where was the harm in placing the blame at his feet? Or maybe Hodges had indeed devised the plan. Whichever way, Lou Fleischman confirmed that Hodges had suggested the idea that would make some money for all concerned.
“Robinson’s Friday was the heavy favorite. He was the best horse I had back then. Pretty good up to seven furlongs. Couldn’t last in the longer distances.”
“So Hodges asked you to throw the race in favor of one of his horses?”
Lou nodded. “The idea was that we would all bet on his horse, Bomber Jacket. And we’d put a jockey on Robinson’s Friday who could get himself boxed in along the rail. By the time he broke out it would be too late, but he’d finish in the money to make it appear legit. Place or show.”
“But not win.”
“No,” he said softly. “Anything but win was the deal.”
“And you all cleaned up with nobody the wiser.”
“Not exactly. There was a gonif who used to hang around the stables for tips. A right little meeskite named Bruce Robertson. He found out from someone—Dan Ledoux, maybe—and he must have blabbed to someone else. Next thing we knew, everyone seemed to be suspecting our scheme. Mack and I had to pay off a couple of shady types to quash the story. We avoided an investigation by the state racing commission by a whisker. After that I decided never to race again in Maryland, in case someone remembered Bomber Jacket and his unlikely win.”
I let his words fade into the August night. We sat quietly for a long moment before I asked him if he’d had anything to do with the murders.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Then who do you think did? Dan Ledoux?”
“Maybe. Another unreliable little man. Him and his red hair. And an anti-Semite, to boot.”
“Were any of the victims Jewish?” I asked.
“No, but he’s a Jew-hating bastard all the same.”
Despite the situation, ignoring that I might at that very moment have been sitting trapped in a ten-year-old Buick Eight with a killer, I thought of Georgina Whitcomb. She, too, was an anti-Semite. But hers was a civilized hatred. No brawler she. No cussing, no ugly slurs to describe the Hebrew race and our greed, hooked noses, and depravity. She smiled and opened her arms wide, seemingly to welcome, but, in fact, the gesture was a trap, not an embrace. I felt disgust for her, much as, I was sure, Lou Fleischman did for Dan Ledoux.
“I have another question,” I said. “How did you end up hiring Johnny again a year ago?”
Lou shrugged. “Why not? He was a damn good rider. What happened in Maryland was a distant memory, and we hardly knew each other. We spoke only once back then, and that was to review the strategy for the race. I told him, all things being equal, Robinson’s Friday liked to save ground and hug the rail. So we agreed Johnny would get himself boxed in if possible. That would make everything believable. If not, he was to run wide and make sure he lost.”
“And he did his duty.”
“Performed exactly as instructed. I knew then he was a good rider.”
“So you sidled up to him at Aqueduct and said how’d you like to ride for me again?”
Lou pulled out his package of cigarettes and popped one into his mouth. He lit it from a book of matches.
“Not exactly. Johnny found me and asked for a job. I wasn’t for it at first, but he was persistent. And he hinted that he had nothing to lose. Maybe he’d let slip to the wrong people what happened at Hagerstown.”
“He blackmailed you?”
“It wasn’t so obvious as that. He said he paid a worse price than anyone else. He was the one who got banned, and I was doing good now. So I said okay and gave him a chance. It worked out for both of us.”
“Then what did you think when you heard he was dead?”
“I felt bad for him, even if he was an unlikeable sort personally. He was talented. The kid was putting his life back together, and then this happened. He made a mistake of youth.”
I wondered how Lou would explain away his own error. He certainly couldn’t blame it on youth.
“Are you going to print my name in the paper?” he asked, puffing billows of smoke into the close air of the car. “About the fixing?”
I thought about it. How could I possibly leave him out? The murders all traced back to the thrown race in ’53. To ignore it would amount to a breach of ethics. Or would it? I wondered if I could expose the plot to fix the outcome without mentioning Lou by name. Perhaps just give the horse’s name? I was confused and wasn’t sure what I would do.
“I’m sure the statute of limitations has expired,” I said, though, in fact, I had no idea.
“It’s not jail that I’m afraid of, Ellie. It’s banishment. I’ll be kicked out of racing in all fifty states and Canada, too.”
“Lou, your job is to race horses, isn’t it? And my job is to report the news, as truthfully and accurately as
I can.”
“Maybe this once you could blur the line? Look the other way? It was so long ago, after all.”
“If I blurred the line, I’d be guilty of the same sin as you.”
He nodded and drew a sigh. His hand, holding the burning cigarette between his fingers, rested on his knee. The ash, which had grown long as we spoke, succumbed to gravity and dropped onto his trousers then to the floor.
As I climbed down from the rusting old Buick, I told Lou that I’d try to protect his name and reputation, but I could make no promises. I stood in the high grass and watched as he started the engine and backed away. Then he drove off, his tires kicking up dust from the unpaved lot as he went.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I waited in the dim light of a booth at Gloria’s Dancing and Cocktail Lounge on Jay Street in downtown Schenectady. The taxi dancers had disappeared years before, of course, surely retired and relaxing in an old folks’ home somewhere. But there was an orchestra of sorts—Sid Barker and the Chromatics—consisting of an upright piano, a bass fiddle, an electric guitar, a trombone, and a snare drum. They played a mite too loud and out of rhythm, as if they were used to performing at burlesque shows where patrons didn’t come in for the music. And when my watery Scotch arrived on the tray of a shuffling old waitress, the Chromatics, in fact, broke into a limping rendition of “Night Train.”
I glanced at my watch—10:05 p.m.—wondering what was holding up my appointment. Then I saw him wading through the congested bar, scanning the crowd, presumably searching for me. I waved until he spotted me.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Jimmy Burgh, taking the seat opposite me on the Naugahyde bench. “I had to see a fella about something that’ll interest you.”
“What’s that?”
He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and retrieved an envelope. Inside was a photograph.
A Stone's Throw Page 27