by Valerie Tate
“People sign these breeding contracts where they pay for a breeding but don’t own the straws of semen. They get three straws and whatever straws aren’t used to get the mare in foal have to be sent back. Then they’re destroyed. What a waste! We used them ourselves or sold them at half price to people who couldn’t afford to pay the full price and didn’t care if they couldn’t register the baby.
“Do you think Brentina or Ravel wouldn’t have been great horses if they hadn’t been registered? Ultimately, it’s what they accomplish that makes them great, not a fancy brand on the hip or a piece of paper that says they’re Hanoverian, Oldenburg or Trakehner.
“We said our own babies were by Marci’s stallion, Woodstock, who isn’t approved for breeding so they can’t be registered anyway. The funny side of this is that we have such stunning foals that people are willing to breed their mares to him even if they can’t register them. What a laugh!”
Alicia had had about all she could stomach of Claire. “So you prey on their dreams, too!”
“He’s a decent stallion. Marci just made the mistake of thinking she could train him herself for the stallion testing instead of getting a pro to do it. His conformation is good but he didn’t score well enough on the riding test to be approved. They get their money’s worth. People are always pleased with his foals and let’s face it, most amateur riders don’t need a foal by a top international stallion. A lot of times those babies become horses that are just too much for their owners to ride. I’ve worked at barns with those Dressage Queens and their huge imported warmbloods that they can’t ride. Either the movement is too big for them to sit to or the temperament is too much for an amateur to handle. They either don’t show or if they do it’s at Training or First Level where they’re beaten by someone riding a well-mannered Quarter Horse who may not have big, lofty gaits but who is willing and can be ridden forward in a steady rhythm which is all that is really looked for at those levels.
“As for Faith Dennis, she would have received more semen at no extra charge because she had purchased a breeding. It was her decision to wait until the next spring to try again. That’s not our fault!”
It is amazing the blinkers some people wear, Chris thought. “And Dean’s death? Was that our fault, too?”
“In a round-about way, it was. When he heard about the Danzig straw and then saw all of the extra staws in the tanks he put two and two together and decided to try a little blackmail. He wanted to be cut in on the deal or he would go to the police with his suspicions about our little business operation. Jon and Marci were going to go along with it. It was OK for them, they would still get half of the profits but I didn’t want my third reduced to a quarter.
“It didn’t matter to them. They already had it all – this place, the lab, the practice. Alex Craig certainly has it all! It was handed to her at birth!” Her bitterness was corrosive. “And you, I’ve heard about you. Some day you’ll have it all, too!”
Alicia felt for Chris’ hand. “That’s where you’re wrong,” she said quietly. “We already have it all.”
Claire looked at them with hungry eyes. “Well it was my turn to have it all!’
“Some people would look at your life and think you had it pretty good – a great job, working with your best friends at something you love ...”
“Sure, I’m with them during the day. I get to share their life, but at the end of the day they go home together and I go home alone. I go to bed alone and I get up in the morning alone. The only thing I have is my dream and Dean was threatening that. So I took care of him. Jon and Marci didn’t know anything about it until later when they heard about the suicide note. Then they figured it out.
“It is unfortunate that you figured it out, too.” Was there an implied threat in that or just resignation on her part? “As I said, you should have just minded your own business. Everyone would have believed that the lab in Germany made the mistake. Alex Craig has plenty of money. She would have been able to get another straw from Danzig, Jon would still be alive and all would have been right with the world. Except for Dean, of course,” she added matter-of-factly.
“So it was you who tried to set fire to the barn and tampered with the truck breaks.”
Claire shrugged. “You just wouldn’t let it go.”
“And you poisoned Daisy and tried to ride over me.”
“Yes. Jon and Marci were at the Hunt dinner so it gave me the perfect opportunity. Woody is a great jumper, don’t you think?”
Alicia wanted to wipe the smirk off her face but knew it wasn’t the right moment.
“And the threatening letters? I suppose you sent those, too.”
Claire looked confused. “I don’t know anything about any letters. If someone is threatening you then you must have pissed someone else off!” she laughed and then went on. “I told Jon not to take the risk with the Danzig straw but when Shawna Talbot offered him $25,000 he couldn’t resist. Shawna Talbot, a Dressage wannabe, who has more money than talent. And it was all for nothing. The mare didn’t catch.
“Did you know that the police called to tell Marci that Faith Dennis was out on bail?” she asked, seeming to changing the subject. “Now that Jon is dead, Marci’s going to try to blame everything on him.” Lady Macbeth, indeed! “Her lawyer has advised her to make a good faith gesture and offer the foals and weanlings to the people who paid for the semen, so I called Faith to tell her she could come and get the DNA results. I told her that if she sent that to the agent she had purchased the semen from, they might be willing to send her a stallion certificate and then she would be able to register him since his dam is a branded Hanoverian mare. She’s on her way to pick it up. Hopefully, the police will pin this on her as well.”
And that’s when they knew what she had planned for them. Unbelievably, there was a small gun in her hand.
Seeing their surprise, she laughed. “I know. How un-Canadian of me! It’s Jon’s. He bought it for protection when someone broke into the barn. The dog chased them off that time.” She laughed again at their expressions of guilty awareness. “Ironic, isn’t it. It’s unregistered so it can’t be traced.”
“I don’t see how you can possibly imagine getting away with this,” Chris said, hoping Jake was coming up with a rescue plan. “If nothing else, Marci knows you’re meeting us.”
“Marci is out cold with a sleeping pill. I’ll be suitably hysterical when I tell her I found you here, shot. Jon never told her about the gun and no one ever suspects me. I’m just Claire, the employee. And if Marci does suspect, she won’t say anything. That’s what best friends are for.”
Chris knew by the triumphant look in her eyes that she thought she had them. He thought it only fair to try to put her straight.
“You don’t know how big a mistake you just made,” he warned her.
“I made a mistake? I don’t think so!” She was very confident.
And that is when it happened. There was a soft, sibilant sound like the warning hiss of a snake and Alicia’s right foot sailed out in a flying front kick, knocking the gun from Claire’s hand. That was followed by a second flying kick to the solar plexus which threw her into the wall.
“At last!” breathed his wife with great satisfaction.
Jake rushed in and together he and Chris trussed Claire up like a heifer in a calf-roping competition with the binder twine from a hay bale.
Jake then turned to Alicia. ”Ali, all I can say is WOW!”
Gratified, she smiled and said, “Thanks, Jake!”
While he went to get his car, Chris and Alicia sat down on a straw bale to wait for the police. Alex had called Detective Parker the minute she heard Claire confess to Dean’s murder. What he would say about this new interference they couldn’t imagine but somehow they knew it wouldn’t be pleasant.
Chris put his arm around Alicia. “You know, if I weren’t as secure in my manhood as I am, my male ego would just have taken quite a beating!”
“I told you not to miss class,” she r
eplied unsympathetically.
Parker did have a few choice words for them. Claire tried to accuse them of an unprovoked assault and confinement, but when she saw the video demanded a lawyer and then lapsed into stony silence which suited them all just fine.
Chapter 33
For the last time, they were all sitting in the family room, sipping cold drinks and waiting for the new barbeque to finish grilling the chicken. They thought it a fitting meal, following the grilling they’d had that morning at the police station. Detective Parker had agreed to join them, but only if they (looking at Julie as he said it) agreed to call him Dan.
“We should have guessed.” Chris admitted ruefully. “Janey told us on the first day. Best friends. Of course she would have been in on it.”
“And with a lot more to gain or lose than the others,” Alicia agreed, remembering Claire’s words, her ‘turn to have it all’. Someone who felt left out, cheated by life and love. Someone who thought money and things could fill the void.
It was Claire who had suggested to Marci that they have the deli meats for lunch, Claire who had said Marci should remind Dean about the collection the following morning and Claire who had also told Marci that the mare needed the DMSO on her leg and that Dean should take care of it, neatly setting Marci up to take the fall if Dean’s death was not declared a suicide as planned. Clearly, friendship did have its limits or at least Claire’s friendship did.
Alex looked at her friend and didn’t want to think about how much she would miss her once they’d gone. At least Alicia was committed to a weekly training visit.
Parker took a sip of his drink, “I sent a copy of the video to Samuel,” he teased. “He said to tell you you’re going to have to register your feet as lethal weapons! Also, he wondered if you’ve ever considered joining the OPP?”
Alicia laughed but declined. “I don’t want to lose my amateur standing. However, I have been thinking of taking up Karate. I’d like to learn how to break concrete blocks!” That was a thought that filled Chris with dread, wondering how long it would take her to move from breaking blocks to breaking husbands.
“By the way,” Parker continued. “we caught the guy who was leaving the threatening letters.” He took out his phone and showed them a photo. “Recognize him?”
Julie looked and exclaimed angrily, “I do. He’s the smarmy developer who bought the Harrison farm, the one we’ve been fighting over rezoning.”
“That’s him. He’s been leaving those warnings for anyone in the area who has opposed him. We’re charging him with making threats.”
Julie thought for a moment. “Don’t be so hasty,” she said.
Parker looked incredulous. “Not charge him?”
“Well, not if we can make a deal. A trade. He goes free if he agrees to sell me the Harrison farm, for what he paid for it. I’m sure I could convince the others to agree for a good cause.”
“What would you do with it?”
“Lease it out. It’s a nice little hobby farm. I wouldn’t have any trouble finding interested parties. And it would save another piece of rural land.”
Parker gazed at her appreciatively. “We’ll have a little chat with him, together.”
Alex looked from her mom to Parker and grinned. ‘Something good that had come out of this whole mess,’ she thought and then asked, “Speaking of charges, what’s going to happen to Shawna Talbot?”
“Probably nothing,” Parker said. When the others started to protest he waved them aside. “I know, but there isn’t a lot I can do about it. Mrs. Allardyce has no desire to press charges for the break-in, something you should be happy about,” he added looking at Chris and Jake. “We can try to get her on receiving stolen property but with no real evidence and, again, no help from Mrs. Allardyce who is claiming no knowledge of anything and laying all the blame on her husband, it will be hard to get a conviction.”
“But she admitted it to us,” Alicia sputtered.
“And that is our only evidence. My guess is her lawyers (yes, plural) will make some deal that might involve financial retribution. We’ll have to see about that. You,” he said to Alex, “can press charges of trespass but I doubt much will come of that since she didn’t actually break in and nothing was stolen. I think you’ll have to be satisfied that, with the publicity of this case, everyone will know what she did.”
“And that is what she wanted to avoid at all costs.” Alex took a deep breath and let it out, releasing the anger she had felt since discovering the fraud. “You’re right. We’ll leave it to Karma.” She turned to look fondly at her friends. “I can never thank you two enough. This turned out to be a lot more than you bargained on when I asked for your help,” she said. “And I want to give you a small token of my gratitude. I want you to have the foal.”
Alicia and Chris looked shocked, but for different reasons.
“The baby? You want me to have Perry?”
Alex nodded, seeing her friend’s ecstatic face and knowing it had been the right decision.
Alicia could hardly believe it. A foal of her own. Her unspoken dream come true. She threw herself on Alex and hugged her until she cried for mercy. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“He’ll have to stay here until he’s weaned, then he can join Harley at your barn.”
“Harley?”
“Yes. He’s just a loan until Perry is old enough to be ridden. I’ll bring him to Dunbarton when you’re barn is ready. And until then, Harley and I will be expecting you here every weekend.”
“I don’t know what to say. Yes, I do. Harley is going to need company. I’d like to rescue a couple of older horses. They can be pasture mates and baby-sitters for Perry. We could even get a husband horse.”
“What’s that?” Chris asked, looking alarmed.
“A big, quiet, bomb-proof horse. We could ride around the farm together.”
Chris’s head was swimming. First it was one horse. Now it was four! And a foal! He had just learned the second rule of having horses. (The first rule is, if the woman in your life wants a horse, don’t stand in her way if you want her to continue to be the woman in your life.) Rule number two is, one horse is never enough!
“Also, mom and I have been talking and if you would like them, we would like you to have the extra stalls from the old barn. They are in great condition and with the money you would save you could put in the wash stall.”
Alicia was beyond words. She threw herself on Alex and hugged her until she begged for mercy.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Alex said when she could speak. “Once your barn is ready, we’ll load them in the trailer and deliver them personally.” Alicia still couldn’t express her gratitude but her radiant face was all the thanks Alex needed. “If you really want to thank me, you can help me with Tai Kwon Do. I’ve decided to take lessons. It really comes in handy!”
Chris shot a sympathetic glance at Jake. The poor guy didn’t know what he was in for.
The chicken had been grilled to perfection, sliced and mixed with sautéed vegetables and fettucini in a Primavera sauce. They were praising Chef Julie when Alicia’s phone rang.
“It’s Hugh,” she told Chris after a brief conversation. “They just raided another puppy mill and there is a litter of Jack Russell puppies. The mother is in bad shape and he doesn’t think she will pull through. The puppies are going to need to be bottle fed. There is one male in the litter and he is ours if we want him!” She looked at Chris expectantly.
“We can stop at the pet store on the way home,” he said, smiling. “Tell Hugh we’ll see him in a couple of hours!”
Epilogue
He took the front steps two at a time, opened the door and walked in. Throwing the mail on the table by the door, he went into the living room. It had been a long, hot day and he wanted a cold drink before starting the barbeque.
Suddenly, he heard a soft, sibilant sound, like the warning hiss of a snake.
“Alex, no!”
About the Author
Valerie Tate lives in a 19th century heritage cottage in Ontario, Canada. She has a degree in English Literature and a teaching degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto.
When not working on her mystery novels, she can be found at the barn with her horse and her Jack Russell Terrier.
CATNIP is the first in the series of Dunbarton Mysteries.
www.valerietate.weebly.com
Table of contents
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
About the Author