There are two basic types of carriage harness. One uses a breast strap that goes across the horse’s chest. The other, frequently seen in draft hitches or pairs pulling larger carriages, uses a big leather horse collar that fits over the horse’s head and lies against his neck and shoulders. The harness itself is attached to hinged metal pieces that fit into the grooves of the horse collar and buckle at top and bottom. The metal pieces are called hames. Anyone who has watched the Budweiser Clydesdale hitch has seen the big horse collars fitted with shining silver hames that rise like wings high above the horse’s neck and end in big silver balls that are often decorated with streaming ribbons or fat rosettes.
Heinzie’s harness was much less elaborate, but its hames did end with a pair of steel balls that stuck up over his shoulders. Perfect for ribbons.
“Can you do that?” Peggy asked.
“Piece of cake. I’m sure Hiram has a braiding kit with everything I need somewhere.”
“I haven’t seen anything like that,” Peggy said dubiously. “Would he have red yarn and ribbons?”
“Probably ten colors of yarn, gel to comb the mane smooth, braid hooks, little bitty rubber bands . . . A complete grooming kit and buckets as well, so he wouldn’t have to pack and repack every time he went to a show.”
“I don’t remember seeing anything like that in his truck.”
“I’m sure it’s all in the trailer tack room. Up to now we haven’t needed anything from it. You sweep the trailer bed. I’ll check out the tack room.”
When I opened the tack room at the front of the gooseneck, I felt a tremendous jolt. Here was the essence of Hiram, my professional horseman father, in a way almost as palpable as the scent of his aftershave.
The trailer tack room was as excessively neat as the stable and his workshop. Much neater than his apartment in Peggy’s basement.
Trailer tack rooms run the gamut from landfill filth to laboratory cleanliness. Hiram kept his immaculate. A film of dust coated everything, but he’d organized and labeled every hook.
He’d stacked clean water buckets and feed tubs in one corner beside a square feed container built to keep out moisture and vermin. He’d hung perfectly coiled lead, lunge and long lines on hooks beside oiled halters and bits of harness and buckles handy for emergency repairs on harness and carriages. A polished brass whip rack held lunge and buggy whips, each carefully coiled around its personal whip roller.
I opened the lid of the plastic step stool sitting against the gooseneck and found woolen horse coolers and fly sheets folded and interleaved with blocks of cedar to prevent moth damage.
No braiding kit, however. It must be tucked away in the gooseneck, which was taller than my head and deep in shadows this late in the spring afternoon.
When I came back five minutes later with a hand lantern and flashed it into the recess, I could see several grooming boxes, and in the very back, a couple of metal boxes the size of computer printers.
The first box I opened held brushes, curry combs and other normal grooming supplies. The second held the braiding stuff.
I had to climb into the gooseneck to grab the two metal boxes. The first held a horseman’s pharmacopoeia of drugs, ointments, liniments and fly sprays.
The second felt heavier and was locked. It didn’t make any sound when I shook it. I dragged it out, set it on the floor and perched on the top step while I juggled keys on Hiram’s key ring to find one small enough to fit.
I thought I was out of luck, but finally a key that looked small enough to fit a woman’s jewelry box clicked in the lock.
When I opened it I realized I’d found Hiram’s records. His logbooks for the last two years lay on top of a hanging file of manila folders.
I opened the current log. Suddenly he spoke to me as clearly as though I heard his voice. He might not have noted my birthdays, but he wrote down the date when each horse was wormed, or given a rhinopneumonitis or strangles shot, and when the next would be due. Between us, Peggy and I horsed the box into my truck and my apartment while we repeated “no comment” endlessly to the media.
The twenty copies of Hiram’s death certificate had arrived, so the first minute I had free, I could start transferring Hiram’s assets to my name, and beat my American Express bill. Since we knew we’d be trapped at home once we got there, we’d made a side trip to Bigelow and loaded up on Chinese take out. No Chinese restaurant yet, in Mossy Creek.
We decided to eat in my apartment for a change, although Peggy said the cats were annoyed. She’d been away more than she’d been home lately.
“I’ve been taking horrible advantage of you,” I said as I opened one of the little paper boxes and found egg rolls.
“I haven’t done one thing I didn’t want to do,” she said as she opened the Moo Shu pork and searched for the pancakes and black bean sauce. “I don’t know why, but I have the feeling we’re nearly finished.”
“It’s finding Hiram’s log books,” I said, and divided a box of shrimp fried rice between our two plates. “I’m certain it must all be there, if we have the sense to understand it.”
“When are you going to tell Geoff you have the box?” She concentrated on unwrapping her chopsticks to avoid looking at me.
“After dinner.”
“He’ll be furious that you moved the box, and he’s going to ask why it’s taken this long to find it.”
“It never occurred to me that Hiram would put paperwork and bills into the trailer where they could mildew. Stuff in that trailer nose is entirely too hard to get ahold of, and it was never part of the crime scene. Geoff never asked for a search warrant for the trailer. He wouldn’t have gotten one anyway. I suppose I could have given him permission to search the trailer, but why would I? Why would he? What was Hiram thinking?”
“That Jacob Yoder or someone else would come looking.”
*
When I called Geoff at the Hamilton Inn, they refused to put me through, so I used his cell phone. After I told him what I’d found, he started to yell at me, then he went very, very quiet. Uh-oh. I was in deep doo-doo. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said. “Don’t touch anything.”
“I already have.”
When he walked, no, stalked in, I handed him a cold beer with one hand and a sheaf of papers with the other. “The ground water on the governor’s side of the hill stinks.”
“I know.”
“So does Ken Whitehead. Hiram made a note in his log book that he’d sent copies of the reports to Ken with a cover letter telling him politely to back off, or he’d go public.” I sat on the sofa and pulled my legs up. “Those are Hiram’s copies. Did he kill Hiram to shut him up?”
“Possibly.”
“And Jacob?”
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
“Maybe blackmail,” he said. “What else have you found, and don’t hide anything. I am not feeling charitable toward you at the moment.”
“There’s the box, here are the log books for this year and last. Knock yourself out. Don’t you dare remove a single piece of paper. I intend to watch you.”
Actually, I fell asleep on the sofa again. I was exhausted, but I also felt the release of tension as though by delivering the box to Geoff I had delegated the responsibility of finding Hiram’s killer to him.
When I woke, he was gone and I was snuggled under the quilt off the bed. Falling asleep on the man was getting to be a habit. I probably slept with my mouth open and snored. Not the best advertisement for a possible hookup when this was over.
At which point he’d go back to Atlanta and I’d never see nor hear from him again. Nuts. Long distance relationships never worked out.
What the heck, this one was never going to get off the ground.
He did leave me a note and a slip of paper marking a page in Hiram’s log book.
Lackland bought carriage with provenance from Darnell for two thousand dollars. See notation. Tom Darnell lying.
Suddenly I was wide awake. I sett
led down to read the log book and check the paperwork in the box.
All the information I needed about Hiram’s operation was right here. I now knew who the two Dutch warmbloods belonged to and could discuss their future with their owner. I had copies of board bills, vet bills, feed bills, bank statements, brokerage statements—everything for the last two years.
I read Hiram’s notation of his purchase of the carriage with proof of provenance, but neither the original sales slip nor the provenance was in the box. Odd. Everything else was.
One of the bank statements listed a charge for a safety deposit box. Probably where Hiram had stashed his most important papers, possibly including that sales slip and provenance.
Why on earth would he consider a puny two thousand dollar sales slip and an old provenance valuable enough to put in a safe deposit box?
*
Friday no media waited for us. We could drive Heinzie down to the road and maybe some distance along it. Saturday Dick would arrive and he and Peggy could practice driving the vis-à-vis on the road as they would do on Easter.
While I watched Don Qui. “The only thing I can figure,” I said, “is that he throws his body against the stall door until he jars the latch loose, then somehow gets his nose or his hoof into whatever space he’s created and shoves until he has room to squeeze through.”
“An animal that smart deserves to get loose,” Peggy said. “He’s not really doing any damage.”
“We cannot take him to Mossy Creek. We just can’t. I’m going to put a halter and lead line on him and physically hold him inside his stall this morning.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Then I’ll shut the front and back doors of the stable and let him run free inside.”
“He’ll destroy everything.”
“I swear you’re on his side,” I said.
“Maybe. I like him.”
“I don’t dislike him, although he seems to have taken a major dislike to me. He’s driving me nuts is all. Okay, you win. I’ll shut him in his stall as usual. If he gets out, so be it.”
Chapter 32
Friday
Geoff
Friday morning, the Bigelow County medical examiner’s office called Geoff before he’d even taken his shower. “Agent Wheeler?” said a young female voice. “You asked us to call as soon as the autopsy results were in.”
“Blunt force trauma, right?” He held the phone against his shoulder while he poured coffee from the coffee maker on his bureau and took it back across the room.
“The blows to the head would have killed him, but maybe not right away. Somebody made sure. After the killer shoved him face down in the manure, he put a forty-five slug into his skull, right in the middle of the blood.”
Geoff sat down hard on the edge of his bed. “You find the bullet?”
“Uh-huh. I’m amazed that it didn’t go straight through his forehead and into the manure pile, but it was old ammunition that hasn’t been used in thirty years. Maybe the powder was unstable.”
He’d barely finished shaving when Amos called. Geoff brought him up to speed on the autopsy report. “You know anyone with an old forty-five hanging around?”
“Not off hand,” Amos said, “Everybody around here has guns. I called to tell you that Whitehead has a solid alibi. He was in Atlanta all weekend.”
“If he’s telling the truth, he didn’t shoot Jacob personally.”
“Think he hired somebody to do it?” Amos asked.
“He’s smarter than that. Beat somebody up, maybe. Put himself in a killer’s power? I don’t think so.”
“I’ll have Sandy check gun permits in his name.”
“Unlikely Whitehead would keep old bullets.”
“Tom Darnell would. He doesn’t have any permits, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any guns.”
“Give me twenty minutes to grab a sweet roll and I’ll pick you up. I assume you want to go with me to talk to Darnell,” Geoff said.
The two men found Tom Darnell in his office. When he looked up from his desk and saw them, his face flamed, and his shoulders tightened. “What do you want?” he whispered. “You can’t just walk in here . . . ”
“Sure we can,” Geoff said. “Any place private we can talk?”
“Or we could take you back to Mossy Creek,” Amos said with a smile.
“You can’t arrest me. I didn’t do anything.”
“Who said anything about arrest?” Amos said, still smiling. “Couple of questions. Simple. Five minutes, tops.”
“My boss . . . ”
“Will understand you’re helping us to fight crime,” Geoff said. He didn’t smile.
Darnell’s eyes swept the office. The four other people went back to their computers and acted uninterested, but they were obviously dying to hear what was happening. He stood up. “We have a break room down the hall.”
“Perfect.”
The Darnell that led them down the acid green hall was not the cocky, argumentative Darnell from the funeral. He was scared.
The small break room was set with three beat-up Formica tables, a dozen chairs, and three vending machines, one drinks, one candy, one snacks. At nine-thirty in the morning it was empty.
The three men sat at the table closest to the machines.
“Why don’t you people leave me alone?” Darnell straightened his shoulders tried to sound truculent. It didn’t work.
“We’d like to borrow your forty-five,” Amos said.
“I don’t have a forty-five. I don’t keep guns in the house. Darlene would kill me. Not with the kids.” He started to add something, then stopped and caught his breath.
“So you keep it out at your mother’s house.”
He shook his head. “She . . . no.”
Geoff sat back. “Easy for you to borrow and put back without her knowing.”
“I didn’t! It was my daddy’s gun from Korea. I haven’t seen it since Daddy died. She probably sold it.”
“You ever buy ammunition for it?”
“I told you, no. ”
Amos and Geoff looked at one another. Amos nodded almost imperceptibly.
“When did the pair of you drive out to Lackland’s? Sunday night? Monday morning before work?”
“You’re crazy. I didn’t drive her anyplace except church on Sunday morning. Why would I drive her out to Lackland’s place? He’s dead and that lawyer says Momma can’t get her carriage ‘til the will is probated.”
“Who else might have driven her?”
“Nobody! She lives too far out of the way for those funeral ladies. Most of the time I have to tote her.” He dug a cigarette out of a beat up pack and lit it from a book of matches.
Amos grabbed his wrist and took the matchbook from him, careful to touch only the edges of the book.
“Hey! Give that back. We can smoke in here. It’s the only place we can smoke.”
“Not at the moment,” Amos said. He raised an eyebrow at Geoff who shrugged.
“Could be,” Geoff said. “Your mother smoke?”
Tom laughed. It turned into a cough. After he recovered, he said, “Made my daddy smoke in the yard. She’d kill me if she knew I smoked.”
“So why are you so anxious to get that carriage back?” Amos asked.
“It’s no secret. She knows I want to move her into that retirement home. Got to have money for that. She can’t stay out at the home place alone any longer. I’m spending a fortune on gas, not to mention time waiting on her hand and foot. Nobody else will put up with her temper. Lord knows what else she’s got in that old barn. The minute I move her out I’m having one hell of an estate sale.”
“How does she feel about that?” Geoff asked.
The smile Darnell gave him made his skin crawl. “The old bitch wants to die at the home place. I wish to God she would.”
Amos said. “If anybody in that family has a temper, it’s you, not your mother.”
Abruptly Darnell stood, went to the drink machine, fed
in quarters until he got a Coke. When he came back and popped the lid, his hands were shaking. “When I was little and did something she didn’t like, she used to make me cut my own switch so she could switch my legs.”
“Yeah,” Geoff said. “You learn real fast not to pick the thin ones. They hurt worse.”
Darnell looked up at him gratefully. “I think my daddy died to get away from her. With strangers like y’all, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but when she gets mad, she goes flat crazy.”
“You said she didn’t drive. Could she have borrowed your car?”
“Listen, she can’t drive. She’s not touching my keys and I’ve got hers. I’m the only one drives her car. Got to keep the battery charged, don’t I? If she ever lets me sell the thing, it’s got to run.”
The two men froze. “She has a car?”
“Probably get a thousand dollars for it. It’s twelve years old, not but thirty-five thousand miles on it.”
“Where does she keep it?”
“In the barn of course, along with a hundred years of junk. That’s why I never thought that old carriage was worth anything.” He made a sound. “Now she swears it’s worth twenty thousand bucks to one of those fools put on Civil War uniforms and act like they’re fighting.”
Amos leaned forward. “Why does she think it’s worth that kind of money? I’ve seen it. It’s a mess.”
Tom took a deep breath and said as though he were explaining the ABC’s to a very small child, “It’s a family heirloom is why. One of Momma’s great-uncles was a doctor. Bought it from another doctor along with a journal proving it’s the carriage Dr. Mudd drove when he went to set John Wilkes Booth’s leg after he shot Lincoln. Don’t know why that would make it so damned valuable. It’s still just an old carriage. She says Lackland took the journal when he took the carriage to restore. She’s got to have ’em both back to sell the thing.”
*
Back in Geoff’s car and headed for Imogene Darnell’s farm, Geoff said, “Some of those re-enactors are rich doctors who like to act like they’re running a field hospital. With proof Dr. Mudd drove that carriage it might well be worth twenty-thousand.”
TheCart Before the Corpse Page 25