Horse Sense (Dunbarton Mysteries Book 2)

by Valerie Tate

  Chapter 4

  Breakfast the next morning was served on the patio over-looking the pool and the paddocks in the distance. The air was fragrant with spring bloom and the sweet scent of new-mown grass. Chris could tell that Alicia was having a ‘Velvet’ moment. Horses!

  Over plates of scrambled eggs and back bacon with toast and Julie’s homemade strawberry jam, Alex wanted to know how Chris planned on proceeding.

  “Well, there are two possibilities. Either, it was a mistake on the part of either the lab in Germany or the vet clinic here, or it was a deliberate fraud. If it was a fraud, I believe it was more likely to have taken place at the vet clinic since it would be extremely foolhardy of the lab in Germany to have made an exchange considering the international exposure of the lottery results.

  “I think we should start with the possibility of a mistake before jumping to criminal conclusions so I would like to see the foal and the DNA report and then contact the vet clinic and make an appointment. Have you told them anything?”

  Alex shook her head. “No. I wanted to wait until I’d spoken with you before doing anything. I haven’t contacted the lab or the agent in Germany, either.”

  “Good. We can spring it on them at the clinic and see what kind of reaction we get.”

  After breakfast, Alex led them across the lawns, velvety green in the morning sun, passed the outdoor sand ring to the barn. Suddenly, Chris had a sudden over-whelming feeling of inadequacy, not about the home he had built for Alicia, but the one he was building for her as yet unpurchased horse! He had known that Alex’s family was wealthy, but had not understood exactly what that meant until just then. Was there such a thing as barn envy? He glanced at Alicia but saw only pleasure on her face.

  The barn rose in front of them, pale silver in the soft morning light. Sunlight glinted off the cupolas on the tile roof. The walls were board and batten, the colour of driftwood, above a fieldstone foundation. The front of the barn faced south with over-sized stall windows on the ground floor and gables on the roof taking full advantage of the available light. Window boxes full of flowers hung below the windows and large tubs stood on either side of the double Dutch doors which opened on the east and west sides of the barn taking advantage of the prevailing breezes. A brick walk-way led under a portico and into the barn.

  Inside, twelve oak-paneled stalls stretched in a long line down the brick aisle. Pale gold in colour they were topped by black-enamelled bars that let in light and air. Brass fixtures and knobs that topped each stall completed the elegant appearance. A U-shaped opening in the stall doors allowed each horse to hang his head out in the aisle.

  They followed Alex as she turned down an aisle leading to the arena, passing grooming and wash stalls. She opened a door and they entered the tack room where the saddles, bridles and grooming materials were kept. It, too, was oak-paneled. A couple of steps led up to a viewing room that over-looked the indoor arena. There was a fireplace, kitchen and a seating area with a comfortable sofa and armchairs. Chris was astounded at how clean and orderly everything was. Not his idea of a barn.

  Through the glass, they could see someone riding in the large, airy arena. Mirrors along the sides and across the far end reflected the elegant movements of the imposing horse.

  “That’s Pippa, one of my two working students. She’s competing in the Young Rider’s FEI division and hoping to make the team that will compete in the US later this summer. She and Leah, my other student, live in the apartment upstairs. They each have a horse stabled here.”

  They sat down on the leather sofa.

  “When my parents bought this farm,” she explained to Chris, “it was a thoroughbred breeding farm. The original barn is on the other side of the arena. We use it primarily for hay and shavings storage now, but there are a couple of quarantine stalls as well for horses coming and going to Europe. I also use them for the rescues I pick up for the first week or so after they arrive, just to be on the safe side.

  “Mom and I had the new barn and arena built when I began to try for Young Riders. We used Euro-Style Equestrian Design for everything except the stalls. They came from the original barn. They were so ornate and beautiful we decided to reuse them.”

  “That’s the company Tony consulted about our barn,” Alicia jumped in, excitedly.

  “They are the best.”

  “I’m supposed to look over the designs and make choices about stalls and flooring and layout. It’s quite over-whelming. I want to pick your brain about it all while I’m here.”

  “Absolutely! It will be fun.”

  “It won’t be anything as grand as this,” Alicia reminded her. “Just four or five stalls, a feed room and a tack room. It will be nice though, because the old barn is a mix of stone and wood like this one.”

  “I’m sure it will be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be big. Small barns can be beautiful, too. We can look at your plans this evening. Right now, let’s go see my little mystery boy.”

  The surrogate mare and foal were in the paddock closest to the barn. In the distance they could see Brin eating grass with two old ponies in one field, another couple of paddocks with two or three horses and one with a horse out by himself.

  Alex opened the gate and let them in under the wary eye of the mother. The inquisitive little foal immediately started towards them but his mother whickered nervously seeing the strangers and he stopped, head in the air, eyes wide, nostrils flared.

  “What a little beauty!” For Alicia it was love at first sight.

  “He is that. You can see why I was so thrilled with him.”

  He was endearing as all youngsters are, leggy with tiny feet, a short tail that swished excitedly, big eyes and perfectly shaped ears that pricked forward towards the now suspicious newcomers. He had a white blaze down the length of his face and his coat was bright chestnut but on his neck and his rump patches of an almost silver grey showed through where the foal coat had started to shed. Chris took out his phone and snapped a couple of pictures.

  “Evidence,” he noted.

  Alicia was too entranced to worry about anything as commonplace as a fraud investigation.

  “What have you named him?”

  “Well, that is up in the air. Originally, I had named him Donegal and we were calling him Donny, but now, since he is by Par Hasard, I need to come up with something else.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, he is a Hanoverian and they are always named according to the first letter of the stallion’s name so now I have to come up with a name beginning with P. I was thinking of calling him Pericles – Perry for short – although perhaps it should be Perry Mason since he is at the centre of a mystery!”

  “Or Poirot,” Chris added, taking another picture.

  “I think Pericles is perfect!” A totally smitten Alicia had edged forward, her hand outstretched and the now curious baby was sniffing it. Slowly and gently she stroked the silky neck while he nuzzled her fingers.

  “Ow!” She snatched her hand away and the startled colt ran back to his mother and safety. “The little beggar just bit me!”

  Alex merely laughed. “He’s sweet but a little devil. You have to watch him every minute. If he isn’t trying to bite you with one end he’s kicking with the other! It takes two of us to get his little halter on. He’s getting better, though, and when he’s weaned in a few months it will take the stuffing out of him. Right now he knows he can always go to mom for protection. Daisy is a very indulgent mother. She lets him get away with murder! Did he break the skin?”

  Alicia checked her hand. “No.”

  “Then you’ll live. It’s a long way from your heart,” Alex said, quoting the old horseman’s saying.

  They left the paddock, closing the gate carefully, and strolled down towards the large field that held Brin and her two companions. Alex pulled a carrot from her pocket when she got to the gate and the chestnut mare nickered and trotted up for her treat. The two ponies followed after her and claimed their treats and t
heir share in the attention.

  “This is Fonzi,” Alex told Chris, patting the neck of the large grey pony. “He was my last pony before I outgrew them and moved up to horses. He’s twenty-eight and still going strong. Brin and he are best buddies.

  “This little guy,” pointing to the smaller, palomino pony, “is Peaches. I don’t know how old he is except he is over twenty. I out-bid the meat man for him at a local auction. He keeps Fonzi company when Brin is being ridden or away at competitions.”

  Alicia had been patting the shiny, golden neck. “What do you mean, you ‘out-bid the meat man’?”

  Alex looked at her friend’s shocked face and wished she hadn’t mentioned it. “That’s where a lot of horses that aren’t wanted end up,” she said gently. “Especially older horses, although the meat man prefers younger ones. They have more meat on their bones. He can get between $500. and $700 on average for them at the abatoire. But there are people who try to rescue these horses. They keep the ones that are too old or lame to be ridden and try to find homes for the rest.”

  “What happens to the ones the meat man buys? Do they end up in dog food?”

  “No, they’re primarily for human consumption, mostly in Quebec and Europe.”

  Alicia had an instant vision of the ponies or even Brin or the baby ending up as steak on someone’s dinner plate, a vision she quickly pushed aside.

  “Over there are Shadow and Bailey,” Alex said, trying to dispel the gloom her comment had created. She pointed to another grey and a paint in the distance. ”They’re also rescues but they’re young and sound. The girls and I are training them and when they’re ready, I’ll sell them to good homes. Pippa and Leah will get two-thirds of the sale money and the rest will go to buying two more rescues and we’ll start again. I can’t save all of them but every little bit helps.”

  Alicia looked at her friend with new eyes. Alex had recognized the seamy under-belly of her world and instead of closing her eyes to it or looking the other way, she had quietly set about trying to make it right. Alicia resolved to do the same when her small barn was finished.

  “Beside them to the west are Dominic and Raleigh. They’re my two youngsters that I have in training. One, or perhaps both of them, will replace Brin when she retires to be a broodmare but, hopefully, that will be a while yet.

  “The grey that is out with them is an old friend of yours, Ali. You remember Harley.” At the sound of his name, the grey stopped grazing and looked up.

  “He looks wonderful!” Harlequin, AKA Harley, had been Alex’s mount when she made the Young Riders Team many years earlier and had been Alicia’s schoolmaster in those halcyon days when she had finally realized her dream of learning to ride.

  “He’s 18 now but still going strong. I thought you might want to ride him while you’re here.”

  “I’d love to!” It was what she had secretly hoped for but had been afraid to ask.

  “The last one, who is out by himself, is Sully. He is Leah’s Prix St. Georges horse that she is trying for Young Rider’s on. And you saw Pippa riding her horse, Westminster. That’s the lot.”

  “Do the three of you look after all this?” Chris asked incredulously, indicating the barn the paddocks and the fields in the distance.

  Alex laughed, always surprised at how little knowledge or awareness ‘Townies’ had of farm life. “Goodness, no! We have two hundred acres here. I have a barn manager, Rebecca. She runs the barn and looks after things when I’m away. We also have a girl who just works weekends. Jenny is my show groom. She helps look after the horses and goes to shows with us. Peter and Robbie are the farm managers. They look after all of the maintenance, the fences, mowing the lawns and paddocks and the hundred acres we have in hay.” She pointed to the hay fields in and distance beyond the turn-out paddocks. “We also hire seasonal staff when it’s time to bring the hay in.”

  She turned and looked at Chris and Alicia. “So, what do we do now?”

  Chris was suddenly all business. “Now you tell me everything, in detail, right from the beginning. Let’s go back to the house. I want to make notes.”

  Sitting once more on the patio, waiting for Alex to bring some cold drinks, Chris took out his phone and had a look at the pictures he’d taken. They clearly showed the grey hair beneath the chestnut.

  “I see Jason came through,” Alicia teased. Chris grinned but didn’t comment.

  Putting the tray of drinks on the table, Alex noticed the phone. “Oh, you’ve got the new smartphone. I just got one, too. I’m having a little trouble figuring it out, though.”

  Ever the loyal wife, Alicia assured her, “Chris is brilliant with electronics! I’m sure he can help you!”

  Chris smiled ruefully. “I’d be happy to show you what I know and if I can’t help you, I know a twelve year old that can.

  “Now, tell me what happened, right from the start.” He took out a notebook and pen. He wasn’t quite ready to trust important information to the still dubious workings of the smartphone.

  “Well,” she began, “about two years ago, Danzig died suddenly of a heart attack on the way to the breeding shed. It was a terrible shock to the dressage community. He was the top Grand Prix horse in the world at the time and also the top breeding stallion. Fortunately, they had a good supply of frozen semen from him and his owners decided to hold a lottery. I was successful in obtaining one straw to use with Brin. Because frozen semen is more difficult to use, it was necessary to have it sent to a professional breeding station. I was lucky that there is one nearby and so I contacted them and made arrangements for the semen to be sent there. The vet’s name is Jonathon Alardyce. He and his wife, Marci own the farm and the lab. They run it together.”

  “They must have some employees.”

  “Yes, there is the farm manager, Claire (I don’t know her last name.), a vet tech named Dean and a couple of girls who work in the barn.

  “Anyway, when Brin was due to go into heat I took her and Daisy to the centre. They had to stay there for about three weeks. Frozen is tricky. There is a very narrow window of opportunity. The mare has to be ultra-sounded every couple of hours and then bred immediately following ovulation because frozen semen can only survive twelve to twenty-four hours inside the uterus. They called me when she was ready and I was there when it was done. A week later, the embryo was collected and transferred to Daisy. A couple of days later I brought them home. Brin went back to work and it was a totally textbook pregnancy for Daisy. Eleven months later the foal was born.”

  Chris checked his notes. “Who was present for the insemination besides you and the vet?”

  “They all were. It was a big deal because of the stallion and the circumstances. It was also good advertising for the centre. They were annoyed that I took them home as soon as I did.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Well, frankly, I wasn’t too keen on their attitude. Jon isn’t so bad but Marci is a supercilious bitch and Claire isn’t much better!”

  Shocked, Alicia blinked but said nothing. Alex was one of the most easy-going people she knew and Alicia couldn’t remember her ever getting so worked up about anyone. Alex always looked for the inherent good in people and then, if she couldn’t find it, looked for reasons why. She thought it her moral duty to help anyone who needed it even if they had let her down in the past. Something cataclysmic must have happened!

  Chris, equally surprised, glanced at Alicia to gage her reaction but she was looking steadfastly downwards, wearing her, ‘I’m not going there!’ look.

  “I didn’t want to deal with them any longer than I had to. When you consider how much I was paying them, you’d think that I could at least expect common courtesy. They really didn’t like it that I went every day to check on my girls.”

  “Do you think they were hiding something?”

  “No. I asked around and it seems they are like that with everyone. If it weren’t for the fact that they are the only game in town, I don’t think they would have much bus
iness. However, the general consensus is they know what they’re doing even if they aren’t very pleasant while they’re doing it!”

  “OK. I’ve got enough to go on.” Chris shut his notebook. “The next thing is to call and make an appointment to meet with them at the clinic. Don’t tell them who I am or why we want the meeting. I want to see their reactions when we tell them.”

  “So do I,” Alex said, her face set in grim lines.

  Alicia still wasn’t going there.

  Chapter 5

  When she awoke the next morning and flung back the drapes, Alicia felt that first inkling that spring was making way for summer even though, by the calendar, it was still three weeks away. It was a rare moment such as one that happens early in March each year when, even though there is still snow on the ground something whispers ‘spring’! There was a change in the quality of the light. Just as the pale, cold rays of winter had made way for the soft, pearly rays of spring, now a warm mellow light caressed the fields.

  Summer is a short, blissful time in Southern Ontario. A time that seems not quite real, when routines are non-existent and the whole world dons shorts, tee’s and sandals. After five months of ice, snow and road salt, Ontarians flock to parks and beaches to bask in the warmth of the sun under cobalt blue skies. Children run through sprinklers on hot afternoons and families eat their meals outside on decks and patios. Cars clog the northbound routes on Friday evenings as those lucky enough to own a sliver of the cottage country pie fight the crush to grasp every possible minute in, on or by the water. Time appears to stand still for those few precious months until suddenly, it’s September, the kids are back at school, the trees have, without their realizing it, begun to frame the horizon with crimson, umber and gold and winter is inexorably on its way once more.