“Good. I’m always happy to mark somebody off my list. I will, however, need to speak to him personally. Does he speak English?”
“Probably better than you do. And Spanish, and Portuguese.”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“As soon as this mess is over with, you bet your ass. He’s going to train polo ponies, and I’m going to take over the breeding end of the business.”
“So you inherit the farm?”
“Of course I do. Unless Daddy changed his will recently, Sarah Beth gets a bunch of cash, and probably the condo in Atlanta. Maybe even the house on Jekyll Island. But the farm was always going to come to me.”
So she thought she knew the provisions of her father’s will when Sarah Beth swore she didn’t. Geoff made a mental note to check with that lawyer quickly.
Stan said he’d heard that at the show Raleigh threatened to disinherit Dawn. Maybe he was always threatening, but never made good on his threat. If she thought that this time he was serious, however, she might have wanted him dead before he could do it. She was her father’s daughter. She’d fight for what she wanted.
Without evidence of anyone besides Raleigh in the dressage arena before Merry, he and Stan Nordstrom had been working under the assumption that Raleigh had been driving his horses alone.
Merry had told him that putting to a four-in-hand of high-strung warmbloods wasn’t easy.
Raleigh could have done it, but so could Dawn and a number of other people. What if Raleigh hadn’t been the one to harness the horses and put them to the carriage? What if someone else had been driving them? If Raleigh had seen his carriage and team loom up out of the fog, with Dawn or someone else on the reins, he’d have hot-footed it across the arena to find out what the hell was going on.
Maybe two people were involved in the murder—one to decoy Raleigh with his own carriage, one to waylay him at the edge of the woods and kill him. Armando’s alibi had better be solid.
Merry said the fog dampened sound. Even if Raleigh had shouted, the sound might have been swallowed up, or simply ignored.
Could Dawn have done the job alone? If she’d taken his team without permission, Raleigh might have dragged her off the box in a rage. He was big and tough, but even big men overbalance. She might have tripped him so that he fell face forward. If she had the stake ready and waiting, she could have driven it into his brain before he’d had time to react.
He wished Arnie at the Atlanta medical examiners’ office would finish the autopsy. Even with a high profile case, the results might not be in for days, possibly a week. Tox screen and DNA results would take longer.
If Raleigh had been drugged, or if there’d been blunt force trauma, he’d have been easier to get down on the ground. The ME hadn’t noted bruising on the skull in his initial exam, but if the skin wasn’t broken, and there was no blood, he wouldn’t necessarily have seen anything at the scene. The bruises wouldn’t show up on the skull until he’d removed the skin.
“Agent Wheeler?”
He looked up, realized he’d let his mind wander. “Sorry. I’m told you assist in your father’s development company.”
She snorted like an annoyed mare. “Assist, my ass. I have a Wharton MBA, and I’ve been going to the office with my daddy since I could walk. I don’t assist. I run the business, and I plan to continue running it.”
“I thought you were going to run this place.”
“That too. Most of the time I can work from here. When necessary, I drive to Atlanta. One thing my daddy could do was pick staff. My barn manager Martin Brock handles the day-to-day operations, oversees the staff, and has for fifteen years. Daddy fired him at least once a week, but knew he couldn’t get along without him. They go way back.”
Changing tack, hoping to catch her off guard, he asked, “Why do you think your father was such a bastard?”
“I beg your pardon? Is that a proper question?”
“Everyone I’ve met says he was an SOB, including you. Has he always been like that? Must have made for an interesting childhood.”
She sank back, put her booted feet onto the coffee table—a polished slab of old-growth walnut tree—and thought for a minute. “People who knew him when he was just starting out say he was always tough and willing to do anything to get what he wanted, but he wasn’t mean, not the way he got later. We used to have good times, family times. Then when I was eight, momma got breast cancer. She was dead in six months. I don’t think Daddy ever got over it.”
“He loved her?”
“Yeah. I think he maybe actually did.” She waved a hand. “I don’t know if he’d have kept on loving her if she’d lived. It’s easy to love a memory, but nobody ever measured up to her. He was too damn mad at her for dying to grieve for her, so he nailed every female who’d lie still long enough. Trying to replace her, I guess. My first unofficial stepmother lasted less than six months.”
“Where is she now?”
“In Hawaii on a sugar plantation with a richer man than Daddy and three kids. Daddy didn’t legally remarry until Sarah Beth.”
“Why did he marry her?”
Dawn laughed. “Have you looked at her? She’s sweet and smart and good-natured, and until he got ahold of her, she was happy. That’s another thing, he liked to go for women who were happy, at least on the outside. Women in good marriages or relationships. Then he’d love ‘em and leave ‘em as miserable as possible. That was my daddy. Good ole Giles.”
“You have excellent insights,” Geoff said.
“My MBA is in finance. I had a double major at Emory. Business admin. and psychology. Four point oh in both, by the way. I hoped I could figure out my life and fix it, then make my own fortune. So far it hasn’t happened, but I’m working on it with Armando.”
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Brock. Do you know where I could find him?”
“Sure. He’s in the carriage barn.” She stood. “Far end of the stable. Trust me, if Brock wanted to kill Daddy, he’d have done it years ago.”
Martin Brock was tall, thin, and looked as though he worked out. He had a shock of gray hair, weathered tan skin, and the easy grace of a cowboy. Geoff guessed he had to beat women off with a stick.
“Mr. Brock,” Geoff called. He extended his hand as he walked to meet the man. “I’m Geoff Wheeler of the GBI. Can we speak? I have a few questions about Mr. Raleigh’s murder.”
“Can’t it wait? I’m busy. I got axles to repack.”
Geoff raised an eyebrow and gave a pointed glance at the two men kneeling on a plastic tarp beside the front wheel of a marathon cart. “I imagine they can do without your supervision for a couple of minutes,” he said.
“Oh, hell, come on.” He strode off through a door in the back wall. Inside was a small office, not as big nor as plush as the office where he’d found Dawn, but strictly utilitarian with file cabinets, a big laptop, printer, and combination fax. Except for driving bits hung from hooks on the walls, there was nothing horsey about the room.
Brock sat behind his desk in an office chair that looked as though it had given up stuffing to the local mouse population. Geoff took the hard chair on the other side.
“Ask away, but make it quick. I don’t know a damn thing about Giles’s murder. Makes my life a damn sight more complicated.”
“How so?”
“Dawn and I respect one another, but we’re not exactly bosom buddies. If that Armando guy decides to take over running the place, I could be out of a job. And that includes the guesthouse I live in. Jobs like this don’t come easy. So, if you’re looking for motive, I don’t have one.”
The man was tense, as if waiting for a blow to fall. And there was fear behind his eyes. What was he afraid of? Losing his job and his guest house? Or going to prison for murder?
“Miss Raleigh says her father fired you regularly. Several people heard you arguing on Saturday at the marathon.”
Brock pushed his gray hair back with gnarled fingers. Geoff had noticed that most horse
people, including Merry, had at least a couple of twisted fingers that had been broken and healed crooked.
His heavy hair fell back across Brock’s forehead. “You must ‘a heard we fought all the time. Whenever he was pissed at something—which was pretty much all the time—he took it out on the closest person. That was usually me. We both learned over the years to ignore him.”
“We?”
“Him and me. After he cooled down, we never mentioned the fight again.”
“Ah. So things were fine between you?”
“As fine as usual. He was in a good mood Saturday night.”
“I heard he fought with Dawn at the marathon.”
Brock shrugged. “That was nothing. Thing is, except for that, he was real cheerful. Now, that was scary.”
“Any idea why?”
Brock shook his head. “Must have screwed somebody over. That generally made him happy.”
“How hard is it to harness the four-in-hand alone?”
Brock blinked at the change of subject, but after a moment’s thought, he said, “Not hard. Complicated, maybe, but whatever Raleigh was personally, he could handle a horse.”
“How would you go about it?”
Brock tipped back in his chair and templed his hands over his flat belly. “Lemme see. We were using the stalls at the end of the stable farthest from the house. Nobody close to us. That’s the way he liked it. Nobody had any reason to go down there. We laid everything out and prepared the carriage on Saturday, so it was standing ready for the horses to be put to.”
“Also at the far end?”
Brock nodded. “If I was gonna do it alone, I’d fasten the harness on the horses in their stalls.”
“Dangerous?”
“Not if you know what you’re doing and don’t leave harness loose to be stepped on. Then you lead the horses out one by one—wheelers first—that’s the pair closest to the carriage—and put them to. Cross tie them so they don’t go wandering off while you put the leaders to, attach the traces, pole chains, coupling chain and reins. Usually you have somebody heading them to keep them from moving off, but those horses are trained to stand on command like all good carriage horses. He’d unclip them from the crossties, gather the reins, settle himself in the driving seat and tell them to walk off.”
“How long would it take?”
Brock shrugged his shoulders. “Half, three-quarters of an hour, if none of the horses was feeling uppity. It was barely dawn and kind of foggy even in the aisle outside the stalls, but you could see all the hooks and buckles all right up close.”
“So it was feasible that he was alone, that nobody saw what he’d done.”
“Uh-huh. Though Lord only knows why he would ‘a done it. Makes no sense whatsoever in my book.”
“Could he have been meeting somebody?”
Another shrug. “Maybe. He used that carriage to impress folks. New woman he wanted to lay, banker he wanted to screw out of a line of credit below prime, somebody looking to buy a horse or the whole team—who knows? I sure don’t.”
“Was the team for sale?”
Brock snorted. “All horses are for sale all the time for the right price, but he hadn’t said anything and he loved those ole boys much as he loved anything.”
“Would he be likely to impress a woman at six-thirty in the morning in the fog?”
“Good a time as any. Not easy to get it on in the front seat of a carriage, but, take it from me…” Brock tossed him a grin. “It can be done.”
“You know anybody with a new grudge against Raleigh? Anyone looking for revenge for a horse or business deal that had gone sour?”
“About business, I don’t know. That’s Dawn’s area. Haven’t sold any horses lately. Most people know enough to have any horse they plan to buy well vetted, X-rays and all.”
“Any particular vet?”
“We generally use Gwen Standish, but a buyer can bring in any vet he likes.”
“You ever hear he might have bribed her or any other vet to pass a horse that was marginal?”
Brock’s chair hit the floor with a thump. A moment later he guffawed. After he calmed down, he said, “Gwen Standish weighs maybe ninety-five pounds on her best day, but if Raleigh or anyone else ever offered her bribe, they’d wind up sitting on their butts nursing a black eye or a broken arm.”
“What about other vets?”
“Can’t say. If Raleigh was honest about anything, it was his horses. He wasn’t above offering a commission to a trainer to recommend one of his horses to a client for more than its value. Most buyers expect that. It’s standard to pay a trainer to find you a horse. Raleigh just added a tad from his end as well.”
“You ever do that?”
“Everybody does it. Part of the game. Why do you think they call it horse-trading?”
“Anybody find out he’d been scammed and get mad?”
“Told you, not recently.”
Geoff stood and shook Brock’s hand. “I’m sure I’ll have more questions, but at the moment that’s all I can think of. I’d appreciate a list of buyers and sellers from say, the last six months, and vets other than Dr. Standish that were used for pre-purchase exams.”
“Should I ask you to provide a court order?” Brock asked.
“If you like. I can have one faxed to you before the day is out.” Now, that one, a judge would sign.
“Let me check with Dawn and Sarah Beth. If they say it’s okay, then it’s okay.”
“Good enough.” As he followed Brock out of the office, he asked casually, “Just to cover all the bases, where were you on Sunday morning at six a.m.?”
Brock stopped and glared at Geoff over his shoulder. “Asleep in my motel in town. And, before you ask, I was alone. I didn’t have to be at the show until seven, and I could make it in ten minutes.”
Geoff nodded. “Thanks.” He handed Brock a business card. “I’m using a fax in the office of the chief of police in Mossy Creek. Here’s the number when you have that list ready for me.”
As he maneuvered the Crown Vic between the white fences that lined the long driveway, Geoff worried. He hadn’t considered Raleigh might have planned to seduce a woman at that hour. The nearest woman was none other than Merry Abbott. Committee assignments had been posted outside the stable, so Raleigh would know Merry was helping to set up cones and in what area she’d start. He also might know she generally got up very early to start work.
She said Raleigh’d been charming on Saturday night. Maybe because he’d laid his plans to waylay her on Sunday morning. If Geoff knew Merry, she wouldn’t scream even if Raleigh jumped off that box and took her down. She’d assume she could handle anything he threw at her. It wouldn’t occur to her that he’d try anything seriously sexual in such a public place. First she’d laugh it off. If he frightened her badly enough, she’d fight like hell.
But she wouldn’t scream for help. Not surrounded by the carriage crowd. How embarrassing would that be?
Would she grab the nearest weapon, the steel stake, to defend herself?
That didn’t compute either. She’d have kicked him, scratched him, bitten him, and then she might have screamed. She would not have carefully driven a stake through his skull, then hunkered over his body until Harry Tolliver found her. If anything like that had happened, she might not tell Stan, but Geoff knew damned well she’d tell him.
Chapter 12
Monday morning –
Merry
I had barely squeezed lemon into my second glass of iced tea when my cell phone rang. Police Chief Amos Royden. Great. If Mossy Creek’s bush telegraph works fast, cop telegraph must spring across the galaxies at warp nine. I clicked it on.
“What have you and Peggy got yourselves into this time?” he snapped.
“And good morning to you, Chief. Why do we get blamed when things happen to us?”
“You are a lightning rod, like that character in L’il Abner—the one with the dark cloud over his head all the time. Maybe Carrie?
Or that kid in The Exorcist whose head spun around?”
“We were simply there, Amos.”
“You simply stumbled on the corpse of one of the most connected rich men in Georgia. Generally hated by all, incidentally, to add a little more fuel to the fire.”
Peggy was giving me “what is he saying” signals. I turned my back on her.
“How’d you find out?” As if I didn’t know. Initials G.W.
“Had a conference call last evening with Geoff Wheeler and Stan Nordstrom. Stan wanted to arrest you on the theory that whoever finds the body is probably guilty, and where there’s smoke there’s fire.”
“What smoke? What fire?”
“That thing got a speaker setting?” Peggy whispered.
As a matter of fact, it did, but I’d forgotten it. I clicked it on. Wasn’t all that loud. Peggy leaned over practically on top of it.
I drank half my glass of iced tea in one long pull. I was suddenly terribly thirsty.
“Amos,” Peggy said. “Merry certainly had no reason to kill him, nor did I.”
“You can discuss that with Geoff. He’ll be here before suppertime.”
“Oh, for…” I said. “Why isn’t he up at Raleigh’s farm talking to the less-than-grieving widow and the daughter with the attached polo player?”
“He is. He’s coming down here from there. Raleigh’s place is less than an hour away. Asked me to make him a reservation for tonight at the Hamilton Inn because he’ll be too tired to drive back to Atlanta.”
I heard a faint snort of derision from the other end of the line and an answering snicker from Peggy. Good thing we weren’t on Skype because my face was undoubtedly flaming.
“Well, if he shows up around four, I’ll be out at the farm doing the afternoon feed,” I said.
“I thought we weren’t driving today,” Peggy said after I stuffed the phone back into the pocket of my jeans.
“Not Golden or Ned, but if I have the energy, I thought I might give Don Qui another lesson. He’s missed three days now and will probably act as though he’s never seen long lines or a bridle. No reason you have to come out, but I have to unsnarl, clean and hang all that harness, polish bits and hames, unload and clean both carriages, clean the shavings out of the trailer, clean manure out of stalls . . .”
One Hoof In The Grave Page 9