Phil gave another thumbs-up—the only gesture that seemed appropriate, since it was too noisy for conversation—and she sat back to watch the array of buildings pass by.
The bridge indeed was wonderful. With the expanse of sky above them and river below, they flew toward Queens on a highway that seem suspended by silver threads. The fact that they were really steel cables made no difference at all.
The speed and the wind, the blue sky above … Phil had a mad urge to stand up and spread her arms. However, she stayed put, clutching the sides of the car to keep from bouncing off her seat.
She glanced back to see Lily, looking somewhat like a bug in her goggles and cap, grinning and holding the basket of food steady.
As soon as they passed into Queens, the Manhattan hustle and bustle dimmed into a hum of activity, but more spread out, less hectic, a bit cleaner. And not nearly as interesting.
After an hour the houses became sparser and the sidewalks and curbs were replaced by trees and rolling green pastures. Phil felt a momentary jab of nostalgia for her childhood country estate in Sussex. But it passed quickly, shoved aside by the memory of Dunbridge Castle and its drafty rooms and nearly nonexistent plumbing.
She was in America. And free—more or less. The farmland was just as green as England, and there was Central Park, Broadway, and hot baths. If she could just see her way clear of this murder investigation, she saw a bright future ahead.
They sped past farmhouses and pastures enclosed by white rail fences, cows lowing in the closely cropped grass. It was much faster than a carriage ride, and the few times Bev had “opened her up” were quite exhilarating.
By the time Bev turned the auto down a dirt road that according to the whitewashed sign led to Holly Farm, Phil felt covered in dirt and was certain she had swallowed more than one insect.
At the end of the lane, a white wood-framed farmhouse nestled in a copse of trees overlooking a small lake where several ducks swam lazily in the sun.
Behind the house, a red-painted horse barn was surrounded by several outbuildings, paddocks, and an oval training track that cut across a flat green field. It was an impressive setup.
Bev stopped the Packard at the side of the house and honked the horn, which sent several chickens squawking and flapping to safety.
Bev turned off the engine and waved at a man who stood in the yard, arms akimbo, watching them.
Phil opened her door and lowered her feet to the ground, holding on to the Packard for support.
“I feel like I’m still vibrating,” Lily said, climbing carefully out of the back.
“So do I,” Phil said, and tested her balance by letting go of the door.
“Look alive, greenhorns.” Bev was already out of the motorcar and pulling off her cap, goggles, and duster; she threw them on the seat before striding up the path to meet the man.
“She’s wearing a split skirt,” Phil said. “How clever. I’ll order one for each of us.”
“Mr. Preswick will not approve,” Lily said seriously, but there was mischief in her eyes.
“He and the rest of the world. Men have such strange notions about women. They countenance our affairs but not our trousers.”
Phil wasn’t so naïve to think she could totally flout convention. Bev could be as modern as she liked, but that wasn’t Phil’s style. Phil would be eccentric but not brash. Intriguing but not vulgar. The path to success was a very thin line.
“Phil, this is Henry Cable, our trainer,” Bev said. “Henry, meet the Countess of Dunbridge.”
Henry’s eyes bugged and he scrubbed the cap from his head, uncovering sandy waving hair.
“How do you do, Henry.”
“Fine, ma’am.”
Bev laughed.
Phil didn’t think it was just the country air that was making Bev so animated. She had a sneaking suspicion that Henry Cable might have something to do with it. Bev’s “bit of rough,” as Phil’s father might say.
“You shoulda let us know you were coming. Half the boys are over to Belmont preparing for the training sessions. Crazy track is a right-hander. Don’t get why they do that. Not really fair to ask a horse to run both ways.” He licked his lips. “But don’t you worry. Thunder’s a prince; he’ll leave them all in the dust.”
“We mean to come up to the stable. I can’t wait to show him off,” Bev said. “But first we must—really must—rid ourselves of dust and dirt.”
“That’ll be fine. I think you’ll be pleased that the lads have kept it up in spite of Mr. Reggie being dead and all.”
He nodded to Phil. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” He turned and strode back up the path to the barn and stable.
Bev took Phil’s arm. “I’m parched.”
“Bev?” Phil asked.
Bev grinned. “Isn’t he just delicious? But I think he’s afraid of me.”
“He has every right to be. You’re not…?”
“Heavens no. He’s rough-and-tumble, but he smells of horses.”
Phil shook her head at Bev’s expression. “What’s to eat? I’m famished.”
They unloaded the Packard and carried everything into the farmhouse kitchen.
While Lily unpacked the hamper, Phil had a quick cleanup in the bathroom which, she was happy to see, had running water. She’d been imagining a pump at the sink and a chamber pot under the bed.
They had a quick snack, washed down by a glass of a cabernet Bev said came from a California winery. Phil was suspicious at first, but it turned out to be full-bodied and well aged, so much so that they decided on a second glass before making their way to the stables to inspect the horses.
“It’s just a short walk,” Bev said as they started up the path to the barn. “Much easier than taking the car, and looking like a fool while I try to handle the crank. We’ll get them to start us up when we go back to the city.”
When they reached the barnyard, Phil stopped to look around. It was a very sophisticated setup—and expensive, she thought, with several paddocks and a railed training track that cut a perfect oval through a field of lush green grasses. All bright paint, whitewash, and new money. Several men came out of the barn to greet them.
One of them stepped forward. “Mrs. Reynolds.” He dragged his cap from his head. “Don’t know if you remember me. Sid. Sid Murphy. It’s just that me and the boys”—he stopped to include them in a quick arm sweep—“all feel real bad about Mr. Reynolds.”
The four other men, all small and sparse like Sid, Phil noticed, pulled off their caps and mumbled their condolences. In comparison to the fresh clean look of the buildings, this was a motley crew. And they looked like they’d been in a brawl, and as she got closer, she was certain they had actually been fighting, with black eyes and swollen jaws and bruises everywhere.
“Thank you, Sid,” Bev said. “Gentlemen. These are my friends Phil and Lily.”
Sid and the others nodded again.
“I’ve come to see how Devil’s Thunder is doing.”
“Fine, ma’am. Running real good.” He looked at the others.
“Fast,” said one of the men behind him, and the others nodded.
“Sorry you had to come all this way,” Sid said. “Freddy and Bobby were out yesterday. They coulda told you things are going fine.” His brows creased, his fingers kneaded his cap. “Unless you think we oughta not run him, on account of Reggie and all, but he’s ripe. It’d be a shame—but you oughta talk to Henry about that.”
“Of course we’ll run him,” Bev said. “It’s what Reggie would want. But since I’ll be running the stables from now on, I thought I should come tell you that I’ve decided everything is a go.”
The men’s mouths fell open just like those mechanical banks that flipped pennies into a tank.
Behind her, Lily snorted, conveying a myriad of opinions about Bev’s uncharacteristic good sense. Even Phil blinked. This was a new Bev.
“Let’s take a look, shall we?” Bev strode into the barn; Sid hesitated then hurried after her
. The other jockeys stepped back to let Phil and Lily pass, then crowded in behind.
They followed Sid and Bev down a long corridor covered in straw. There were at least twenty stalls, the names of horses written above half of them. Some were empty as yet. It looked like Reggie had been planning on expanding his stock. Which also didn’t jibe with his leaving the country.
What had Marguerite implied? That Reggie cared more for his horses than for his women? And if the stables were any indication of that, Marguerite was correct.
“Are all of these Reggie’s horses?” Phil asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sid said. “We have a couple of new colts, but they’re still down in Virginia at the stud farm.”
“Ah, there he is.” Bev hurried over to a large stall at the end of the row. Devil’s Thunder snorted and tossed his head as they approached. The horse in the next stall poked his head out.
Phil looked from one to the other and laughed. “You have a perfectly matched pair.”
“Phil, these are not carriage horses.”
“I know, but look how alike they are. If you had two more just like these, imagine how splendid your arrival at the opera would be.”
Bev laughed. “Imagine the outrage of the Four Hundred.”
“My, but they are beautiful creatures.”
Henry came out of a back room office and hurried toward them.
Sid moved away.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” he said. “Or I would’ve been out to meet you.” Devil’s Thunder danced back in his stall, but the horse in the next stall snuffled and stretched his neck toward them. Henry ran his hand down that horse’s nose.
“This here’s Binkie’s Boy, ain’t that right, Boy-o?” He gave the horse’s shoulder a resounding pat. “He and Thunder had the same sire, different dames. Reggie was hoping to clean up with both of them on the circuit, but it ain’t gonna happen.
“Thunder is a bit high-strung, but he’s the fastest horse I can remember seeing. Boy-o will make back what he was bought for, and then some. He’s fast enough, but he won’t win any of the big ones. Just like his mama, starts fast, can’t finish.”
“Sounds more like a man than a woman,” Bev said sotto voce.
“But somehow they always make it the woman’s fault,” Phil retorted.
Henry moved on to the next stall. “Now this here’s Filly’s Cert. She’s a two-year-old. We’re running her on the straight today to see how she does. It’ll be her first race up here.”
Filly’s Cert pressed her nose into Lily’s shoulder. Instead of screeching and jumping away, Lily laughed and reached up to stroke her nose. The filly nuzzled her and Lily spoke to her, but Phil didn’t understand the words, not English or Spanish or French. How many languages did the girl speak?
While Bev and Henry discussed the horse and the race, Phil motioned Lily to follow her down the rows of horses. She stopped to look in a stall at a roan whose right foreleg was plastered.
Lily grasped the half door and stood on tiptoe to look inside. “Pfft, she’ll come up lame if they run her.”
Henry came up beside her. “Her name’s Carolina, and that’s what I told Mr. Freddy when he came out yesterday,” he said, stroking the filly. “But he says if she’s better, to try her out at Belmont. Without Mr. Reggie to say different…” He trailed off.
“Well, you have me to say,” Bev told him. She stood on tiptoe and looked into the stall. “Poor thing. Why’s her leg bandaged?”
“Buck shins. She oughta be all right if we rest her.”
“Well, if she’s not fit, scratch her from the roster.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Henry walked away and went into the tack room.
Phil came up to Bev. “I would have never guessed.”
“Guessed what?”
“That you would be so…”
“So what? Sensible? To listen to my trainer about the condition of a horse? Freddy only cares about the business. Reggie only cared about winning. Bobby”—she shrugged—“only cared about pleasing Reggie.
“But look at these beauties. Sleek, fast, proud. Amazing animals. I enjoy racing as much as the next person, but it can be cruel. Life can be cruel,” she added in a much quieter voice.
“Men are cruel,” Lily said. “They’ll run them to death. Then kill them when they can’t run at all.” She seemed to realize what she’d said. “Forgive me, madam. I forgot myself again.”
“Not at all,” Phil said. “We three are in perfect agreement. Racing is a beautiful thing to watch but can be tragic for the participants.”
“Yes.”
“Now I have work for you to do,” Phil said, taking Lily aside. “See if you can find out which of the men drove for Reggie and if any of them know who drove for him on the fateful day, and where he’s gone off to. The police may have already been here asking questions, they’ll be nervous, so be subtle. And be safe.”
Lily gave her a look and sashayed away.
“She’s something else,” Bev said. “Where on earth did you find her?”
“It’s a long story. Shall we repair to the house for some refreshment and I will tell you while we do a little rifling?”
“An excellent idea. You know, Freddy called yesterday, but he didn’t mention coming out here, or anything about the upcoming race. I dare say he didn’t want to bother me. They never do. Reggie dragged me to race after race but never asked my opinion about anything important.”
“It never enters their brains that we might be able to think for ourselves,” Phil agreed.
“But we can … when given the chance.”
Phil laughed. “Next thing I know you’ll be out carrying a sign and demanding the vote.”
Bev sputtered. “I think not. I’m a frivolous socialite at heart. But I could take more of an interest in my livelihood. Indeed, I’m afraid I must.”
“Like running the stables?”
“Reggie said to depend on Freddy and Bobby. And they’re obviously doing fine, and happily so, without me. But I don’t know. Do I really want to leave the running of everything to them while I go running off to … where? Doing what? With Reggie gone, the fun times don’t seem so fun.”
Now here was a change in her old friend. “Do you know anything about managing a racing stable?”
“No. But how hard can it be?” Bev frowned, then linked Phil’s arm in hers. “All this thinking has made me thirsty. Where is Lily?”
“She’ll be along in a bit.” And hopefully with a few tidbits of useful information.
“Aren’t you afraid to leave her with all those men?” Bev asked as they made the trek back down to the farmhouse. “Jockeys and stable boys are not the best bred men.”
Phil thought of Lily’s stiletto, gartered at her thigh. “I think she’ll be fine.”
“And Henry will be close by to make sure they don’t forget themselves.”
When they reached the house, Phil opened a second bottle of wine, carried it and two glasses into Reggie’s office, a small wood-paneled room with an overlarge desk and an underlarge window. The one glaring mistake in an otherwise charming country retreat.
Not only was the room dark, it smelled of stale cigars. Phil put down the bottle and glasses and cleared a space on a side table for the plate of bread and cheese Bev was carrying.
Bev poured out the wine and they stood in the center of the floor sipping and looking around the room.
“Is there a safe here also?”
“I would expect so.” Bev put down her glass and began inspecting the paneling for secret openings. They eventually found it in the closet, a narrow cubicle with room for only a huge standing safe and several jackets hung above.
Phil laughed. “No need to hide this. A thief would have to use dynamite to get inside. I don’t suppose it has the same combination as the other?”
Bev shrugged. “We hardly ever came out here. I wasn’t even sure there was a safe. God only knows what we’ll find.”
True, thought Phil. If they did
find anything, she hoped it led the police away from Bev to somewhere else. But it didn’t seem likely.
As it turned out, the combination was the same. And the contents were also the same. Nonexistent, except for one packet of trifolded papers.
“Why have this huge safe with nothing to put in it?” Bev wondered. “No, don’t tell me. Whatever he kept here, he took it with him, to start over in Argentina with that—” Bev yanked the packet of envelopes from the safe, dislodging something beneath them. It fell to the floor with a noticeable ping.
Bev reached down and lifted it to the light.
“A key,” Phil said. Bev held it closer to the lamp. “Lincoln Safe Deposit Company. That’s on Forty-Second Street. Hmm. We’ll stop by there on our way home tomorrow. I suddenly need to know if I have anything left.” She slipped the key into the pocket of her divided skirt.
“Excellent idea.” Phil was more than just a little curious herself.
With Phil leaning over her shoulder, Bev pulled the rubber band from the stack and opened the first paper.
“Deed to the farm. Thank you, Reggie.” The others turned out to be various deeds and agreements and bills of ownership for several horses, including Devil’s Thunder.
Well, it was a start. “Bev, you still own the brownstone. You didn’t sign it over to Reggie?”
“I may be flighty at times, but I’m not crazy.”
“That’s a relief,” said Phil and went back to her search.
They moved on to the desk drawers, but at the end of another hour they’d only found more IOUs, more bills, and more depressing bank statements. Reginald Reynolds was seriously in debt. But it would take Mr. Carmichael and an accountant to figure out just what could be done.
They gathered all the papers into a tapestry valise and returned to the kitchen.
Phil was beginning to worry about Lily when she heard an exchange of lively whispers just outside. She looked out the window to see Lily pulling a reluctant jockey up the steps.
Phil went out to meet them.
Seeing her, he pulled away his hand and snatched the cap from his head.
“Madam,” Lily said, “this is Rico. He has news I think you should hear.”
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