Puss 'N Cahoots

by Rita Mae Brown

  The worry was that Renata would become needy. Amazing how many women clients became needy the longer they worked with handsome Larry. Joan kept a good perspective about it, but it could be wearing.

  Fortunately, Renata carried no bad reputation on that score, nor did she suffer from the jumping-bean disease—jumping from barn to barn and trainer to trainer. Whatever had happened between Renata and Charly happened after a fruitful and relatively long association.

  Once Joan handed the phone back to Krista to hang up, she filled Harry and Fair in, then asked Harry, “Do you think Renata’s going to be a pain in the ass?” Joan liked to double-check her own feelings.

  “How do you mean, apart from her horse being stolen?” Harry countered as Tucker walked behind the desk to visit Krista.

  “Needy.”

  “No, I don’t get that sense of her, but,” Harry paused, “I don’t believe her even though I like her.” Joan and Krista sharply looked at the slender Virginian. “I don’t believe her concerning her split with Charly, and I have even deeper doubt concerning Ward Findley. He had to have known and she let him off the hook. She called you from the van?” Joan nodded in the affirmative. “Joan, they’re in cahoots.”

  “Ward and Renata?” Astonishment shone on Joan’s face.

  Even Krista blurted out, “He’s such a small-fry. Why?”

  “Maybe because he’s a small-fry.”

  “What on earth could she gain by this? And it’s a hell of a risk to the mare.” Joan thought a minute. “Maybe not. She did say Queen Esther likes to ride in vans.”

  Krista, who had known Ward from childhood, added, “He’s not exactly a liar and not exactly a cheat, but if you left one hundred dollars on the table and walked away, he just might pick it up and say the dog ate it.”

  “That’s a recommendation.” Joan laughed as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Harry, get to the point.”

  They were dear friends and Harry took no offense at Joan being direct. Besides, Joan was under tremendous pressure. “What if Renata stole her own horse?”

  “What!” both women loudly replied.

  “What if she knew Queen Esther would be in good hands? Ward runs a tidy little barn, but he needs money, he needs big horses. He’s young, on the way up. She makes a deal with him and off goes the Queen. My cats and Tucker demolished the deal.”

  “Publicity. Her career needs a lift.” Joan put two and two together.

  “Maybe a juicy role will come of this. Someone in Hollywood will send her agent a better script than she’s been receiving in the past. Or…?” Harry held up the palms of her hands, pleading ignorance, but she felt she was on the right track.

  “Maybe Ward was going to find Queen Esther. He’d look like a hero. Well, there are a lot of ways to slice the baloney, but, Harry, you might be on to something. I wonder if she promised to send her horse to Ward eventually,” Joan said.

  “Time will tell,” Krista succinctly replied.

  “Sure will.” Harry seconded Krista’s evaluation. “And maybe that is too obvious. But maybe she promised him rich clients, friends from the business who want to get into Saddlebreds. If she goes over to Ward herself it’s a bit obvious.”

  “Like William Shatner.” Krista cited the Star Trek star who also made some very funny commercials. “Bring Ward big clients like Mr. Shatner?”

  “He can really ride.” Harry had witnessed him many times at shows, and the man wasn’t a passenger.

  “The perfect client for Ward would be someone young, rich, and needing heavy-duty training, as well.” Joan’s brain whirred. “Damn.”

  “It’s a theory.”

  “And a good one, but,” Joan uncrossed her arms to hold up her right forefinger, “Jorge.”

  “His death may have nothing to do with this.” Harry felt a heavy kitty run right across her sneakers as Pewter hurtled in from the gathering room for clients. Harry looked down to behold a tasty piece of chicken, thin sliced, in the cat’s mouth. “Uh-oh.”

  Joan saw it, too. “There goes someone’s lunch.”

  “I can help you with that,” Tucker volunteered.

  Pewter growled ferociously, then gobbled the prize.

  “If someone pounds in here cursing a cat, we’ll know where it came from.” Joan giggled.

  Harry returned to Jorge. “But we don’t know. Joan, did the sheriff take anything from Jorge’s trailer?”

  “No.”

  “We should have a look. Going to have to clean it out, anyway.”

  “I hate to think of that.” Every now and then the loss of Jorge hit Joan anew, but one thing that prevented her from fully mourning was the nagging feeling that she wouldn’t truly grieve until she understood why he was killed. Was he in the wrong? Did she do anything to inadvertently hasten his end?

  Krista offered, “Why don’t I call Trudy and see if she can come out Monday?”

  Trudy ran a high-powered cleaning service.

  “All right, Harry, let’s go.”

  The two walked out the front door of the main barn, turned right, then turned right again, dipping down behind the main barn and the indoor arena. Within a few minutes they walked through a privacy fence where a trim trailer sat along with other outbuildings and trailers. One could walk by the privacy fence, a palisade, and have no idea people lived back there. The married men usually lived in rentals Joan found for them, since she thought it unwise to have little children running all about the horses. They might be in the trailers for months, but eventually she’d find them other quarters. No mother can be on duty twenty-four hours a day, and a child’s piercing voice could set off a yearling.

  Currently no one else was living back there. Manuel rented a tidy house in Springfield.

  Joan opened the door; a blast of air-conditioning hit her. Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, and Cookie followed. “I didn’t even think to turn the air-conditioning off.”

  “Joan, in a way it hasn’t sunk in yet.”

  “I know. Well, where do we start?”

  The two women glanced around the Spartan surroundings. Harry spoke up. “I’ll check the refrigerator, you open the cabinets.”

  This took five minutes. The refrigerator had half a carton of milk, three Cokes, one beer, and one pizza slice. The cabinets reflected Jorge’s bachelor status, coupled with a genuine lack of culinary concern. Harry poured out the milk.

  “Trudy sure isn’t going to have much to do in the kitchen.” Harry shrugged.

  The living room contained nice furniture that Joan had bought years ago but it remained in decent condition, all sturdy stuff, and one TV. No books or magazines dotted the coffee table.

  His bedroom yielded girlie magazines, though. His closet contained a few shirts, one nice coat for church, a few ties. Socks, boxer shorts, and T’s filled one drawer, jeans another, and the bottom drawer carried but two sweaters, one sweatshirt.

  The bathroom—surprisingly clean, as the women thought the shower and sink would be filthy—also offered nothing by way of explanation for Jorge’s demise.

  “Nothing.” Joan slapped her hands on her hips. “Nothing. One bottle of Motrin.” She paused. “Is there a rider who doesn’t use Motrin or Advil? You know, he made a good wage. We pay better than most farms.”

  “Didn’t spend it.”

  “He didn’t spend it on himself,” Joan shrewdly observed.

  Friday, August 4, began to feel like the longest Friday of Harry’s life. Back at the Best Western by four-thirty, she took a shower to rouse herself.

  Fair, already showered, handed her a steaming cup of tea when she stepped out of the shower. They’d brought a traveling teapot, since one could never get a truly hot cup of tea in even the best hotels in America. An even greater sin was a coffeepot in the room, teabags in a bowl. Who could possibly drink tea from a pot that made coffee? Terrible.

  “Honey, I love you.” She gratefully took a sip while he toweled off her back.

  Harry had told him about Jorge’s trailer while
they drove back from Kalarama to the hotel. He was as mystified as Harry and Joan about Jorge’s whistle-clean trailer and, by extension, life. No one could be found to utter a disparaging word about the hardworking man.

  Once dry, her hair tousled, Harry leaned against the headboard of the bed and stretched her legs out.

  Fair joined her. The day had proved full for him, too. After the Queen Esther drama he’d delivered a foal, a long and difficult birth, at a small quarter-horse establishment. In a panic, the owners, new to Springfield, called Larry, not knowing it was Shelbyville week. Their vet was out of town and they thought Kalarama might know of a reputable equine vet.

  Fair drove over, saving them much time. Like most veterinarians or medical people in general, he did not shy away from a crisis regardless of when it appeared. The middle-aged couple tried to overpay him, they were so grateful. He refused it, but when he climbed into his truck he found an envelope with four hundred dollars cash, which really was over the top. No point giving it back, they wouldn’t take it, so he decided to put it toward the lovely diamond and ruby horseshoe ring Harry had admired at the jewelry booth at the show.

  As a vet, Fair paid special attention to horseshoes. Each type of equine activity called for a specialized shoe. Racing shoes made of aluminum with no grabs or caulks cost a bloody fortune and lasted all of three weeks. Titanium shoes, of any stripe, cost even more, but they could be reset, sometimes twice, which actually offset the cost. Fair carefully examined hooves, shoes, proper shoe size, because a good farrier—and there were but so many—could save an owner thousands of dollars in vet bills. Most lameness problems in horses involved the hooves and the foot; a good farrier would stop a problem before it started, as well as correctly shoe the horse for balance, angle, and size of the hoof.

  The horseshoe that people saw in pins, pictures, and good-luck charms was usually a keg shoe, a common shoe, like sneakers for humans. The ring Harry kept returning to admire was a keg shoe in miniature.

  “More tea?”

  “No, I’m slowly coming back to life.” She had commiserated with him on the drive to the hotel about the delivery. “Don’t you wonder why some foals or babies won’t come out headfirst? You turn them, they turn back around.”

  He smiled. “I turned that little bugger three times. The last time I held on and pulled him out. He could have torn the mare to pieces if he came out feet first. He was determined. Loud, too.” By “loud,” Fair meant brightly colored, a paint. “People pay for color.”

  “Seems silly to me. Always has.”

  “Me, too. The right horse is the right color, but I am partial to blood bay.”

  “Let me know when you see one.” Harry knew the spectacular coloring described as mahogany or oxblood showed up rarely. The mane, tail, and usually the lower part of the leg, by contrast, were black.

  “I love a flaming chestnut.” She noted all three animals fast asleep on their sides at the end of the bed. “The television interviews exhausted them. I’ll bet your shoulders are sore.”

  “Hands, too.”

  “Let me slide behind you and I’ll rub your shoulders.”

  “Ah” was all Fair could say as Harry’s strong fingers worked his knotted muscles.

  “Thought about drugs—maybe Jorge was selling. I mean, most of the noncorporate crime in America is drug-related somehow. But he wasn’t doing that. His little place was clean as a whistle, too.”

  “If he’d been on drugs, Larry and Joan would have known. I figure users often turn into sellers.”

  “I know.” She quickly added, “Not if they’re smart.”

  “You’d think he’d have flashed a little bit of the money if he was doing anything illegal to make money.”

  “Yeah.” Harry dug her thumbs into his rhomboids, then bumped them down over his vertebrae all the way to his waist. “I keep coming back to selling even though I know that’s not it, because the murder wasn’t passionate. It was swift and brutal, efficient but not passionate. It wasn’t about a woman. And he wouldn’t have a double cross carved in his palms, now, would he?”

  “I doubt it.” Fair groaned when she came back to rub the big knot under his right shoulder blade.

  “Sorry.”

  “No, it will unkink if you keep at it.”

  “How much did the foal weigh?”

  “Quarter horses are supposed to be small,” Fair humorously replied, “but not this one. I swear he was three hundred pounds. I’m exaggerating, but he was thick-built. If I were a team-roping man, I’d snap him right up. You should see the momma. Built like a freight train. All she needs to do is set her haunches and slide.”

  “So you’re the guy who throws the calf, is that what you’re thinking?” She smiled, because Fair was imagining himself riding Western, an odd transition for a hunt-seat rider accustomed to close contact with the horse due to the small, light saddle. The bulky Western saddle removed “feel” from the hunt-seat rider, and the longer stirrups made them think they were almost standing up on the horse. The reverse was equally true: a Western rider switching to an English saddle would figure they might as well ride bareback.

  Fair closed his eyes because the darned knot hurt. “Being that Jorge was Mexican, what kind of things could he do or be involved in where that would be an advantage?”

  “Silver.”

  “What?”

  “Silver jewelry. The Mexicans create gorgeous stuff, and for a lot less than we or anyone else does, I suppose.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “Honey, you’re a man. Men don’t care about jewelry.”

  He smiled to himself, because he did at least care about his wife’s jewelry. “We care about watches. And every man needs one ring besides his wedding ring.”

  “Cuff links.”

  “Nah. Too much trouble. But, yeah, you need ’em for the monkey-suit nights.”

  “You’re awful.”

  “I don’t like getting trussed up.”

  “You look better in a tuxedo than anyone, and in tails or morning suit, sweetheart, you could have any woman in the world.”

  “Just you.” He breathed deeply as she finally worked out the knot. “You’re being very, very good to me. What’s cooking?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Honey.”

  “Really.” She was a rotten liar; her voice or eyes gave her away.

  Fair couldn’t see her eyes, but he could hear well enough. So, being a highly intelligent man, he dropped it. Sooner or later she’d come ’round with what she wanted.

  And being a smart man, he also knew there would be no delight for a Virginian to ask her husband flat out for what she wanted or needed. No, this had to be a sport, like fishing. The woman picked her spot, sat down under the trees or perhaps on a nice little craft. She baited her hook depending on the size and type of fish, maybe a little crank bait, then she cast it lazily over the river to drift. For a Virginian and Southerner in general, sure, the result was important, but the means of obtaining it should be worthy of the result. The bobbing down the river proved as much fun as catching the fish. Engagement was everything to a Virginian, even if you were only with them for two minutes. Well, he was in it for life.

  “You got it.” He rotated his shoulders.

  “Good. I’ll keep rubbing because I don’t want to stop on the one side. Have to balance the muscles.”

  “You could have been a masseuse.”

  “I would have hated it. I don’t like touching people, but I like touching you.”

  “Whew.” He exhaled. “Had me worried there for a minute.”

  The phone rang.

  Fair reached over for it, since his arms were a lot longer than Harry’s. “Hello.”

  “Fair, how are you? It’s Paula Cline.”

  “Paula, good to hear your voice. Will you be at the show tonight?”

  “Overload.” She said by way of explanation.

  “I bet you want to speak to my bride.”

  “I do.” />
  “Honey.” Fair twisted to hand Harry the phone and sighed because his upper back didn’t ache when he did.

  “Paula, I hope you haven’t been too virtuous.”

  “Oh, Harry, if only. I’m working so hard I don’t have time to get into trouble. It’s depressing.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. Of course, that’s nothing compared to what’s happened to Joan and Larry.

  “And Jorge. And then I caught the early-afternoon news and there you were with the cats and dog. You all are stars for finding Queen Esther.”

  Harry laughed. “It’s gone to Pewter’s head. She wants an agent.”

  “Hey, Lassie had one.” Paula laughed, too. “Renata looked divine; maybe she needs a new agent. She and Pewter could share one.”

  “Movie stars are supposed to look divine. What is she, thirty-two?”

  “She’s an eyelash away from forty. Girl’s thirty-eight. One of my girlfriends went to high school with her.”

  “Then she really looks divine.” Harry was impressed.

  “They have to. It’s their job. If you had the facials, manicures, and three-hundred-dollar haircuts, to say nothing of the color jobs, the massages, personal trainers, and clothes designed just for you, hell, you’d look better than Renata.”

  At this Harry burst out laughing, really laughing. “Liar.”

  “True. Hey, the reason I called, apart from complimenting you on the industry of Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, is to tell you I think I have the right horse for Alicia.”

  “Really.” Harry was intrigued.

  “He’s a spectacular gelding by Sir Cherokee and he’s here for a low bow. He’s been here six months, healed up, but Fair can make that judgment. If given time to heal, low bows usually don’t cause future problems. But you know how some people are, they won’t ride a horse with jewelry.” Paula used the term that meant a horse who carried scars on its legs, wind puffs or low bows, a bowed tendon, or a variety of other blemishes caused by use or silliness in the paddock.