Ben looked her right in the eyes. “Yes.”
“You don’t think it’s over?”
“No.”
She rubbed her forehead a moment. “They aren’t afraid to kill.”
“Selling OxyContin can yield hundreds of thousands of dollars. Prozac, Percodan, anything like that. Even Viagra.” He smiled slightly. “Off market, the drugs can make one very rich very fast. As for cocaine and other party drugs, they can make you rich fast, but they’re more dangerous because the other people dealing them are smart, tough, quick to kill.”
“Ben, have you ruled out the furniture and silver theft entirely?”
“No. No evidence so far for linking the fire to that, but,” he said, with emphasis, “these people are highly intelligent, very well organized. This may be a warning to someone else in the ring or to competition. They’d be stupid to burn down a warehouse full of stolen goods, wouldn’t they?”
Sister agreed, then asked, “What can I do?”
“The Jefferson Hunt is one of the hubs of the county. Can you think of any one or any group who might be involved in a high-class theft organization or involved with drugs? For example, and I certainly don’t mean she would do this, just as an example, can you imagine Betty Franklin buying illegal diet drugs in this country on the black market?”
“No.” Then Sister chuckled. “Bobby would be thinner.”
Ben smiled. “Keep your eyes open. Keep thinking. We’re right next to it, Sister, but we can’t see it.”
When Ben walked away, she thought about the ghosts on Hangman’s Ridge. She shuddered. Those ghosts appeared when someone was going to die. She used to think it was a tall tale, but over the years she had learned to believe it.
She moved around the party. Marty Howard caught up with her for a moment. “Thank you for coming. If you ever have any time, Sister, we’d love for you to read. It’s not just books we need, but magazines and newspapers. It’s often hard for the blind to keep up with current things.”
“I never thought of that. I could read for an hour to two. Let’s see how I do.”
“I’ll call Monday and we can check calendars.”
As Marty moved away, Dalton Hill joined her. “The hunting has been very good. I’m glad I joined.”
“Me, too.” Sister noticed he wore an English school tie, quite expensive. “Beautiful tie.”
“Eton.” He blushed slightly. “Actually, I didn’t attend Eton. I went to St. Andrews College, Aurora, but I liked the thin Eton blue diagonal stripe.”
“I can see why. I heard you purchased the Cleveland bay.”
“Yes. I’m going to have my two hunters brought down from Hamilton, too.” He named the town where his horses were boarding. “I want to hunt as much as I can. One of the great things about teaching is I can set my schedule, so I have arranged all my classes to be in the late afternoon.”
“Perfect.” She paused, then addressed him. “Dr. Hill—”
“Do call me Dalton. I’m trying to downplay the doctor,” he interrupted, a conspiratorial note in his voice. “I really don’t want to hear about someone’s gallbladder.”
“I promise never to discuss mine.” She smiled. “In Canada certain drugs are available that aren’t available here, am I right?”
“Not hard drugs, of course, but yes. Canada’s laws are more patient-oriented. Forgive me a bit of national pride, but in the United States, Master, everything is driven by profit, by the huge pharmaceutical companies.”
“Call me Sister. But surely those mega companies—and not all of them are American, I mean the Germans and the Swiss have giant pharmaceutical companies, all those companies do business in Canada.”
“They do, but we have them more in check. The whole point is to heal the patient. If you can’t heal the patient, then you make him or her as comfortable as possible; it’s cruel to deny a suffering person relief.”
“What about performance drugs? Not drugs for illness, but drugs to enhance performance?”
“Sexual performance?” His eyebrows rose.
“Now there’s the elixir of life as well as profit,” she wryly exclaimed. “I wasn’t thinking of that, but let’s include it. I was thinking along the lines of drugs to retard aging, and yes, I would be the first in line.”
“No need.”
“Dalton, thank you. You’re fibbing, but it falls sweetly upon the ear.” She smiled broadly. “I was thinking of anti-aging drugs and athletic-performance drugs. Guess I was remembering that fabulous runner, Ben Johnson, the Canadian sprinter who set a record for the hundred-meter dash at the 1987 World Championships, and won the Gold Medal at the 1988 Olympics, and then forfeited it when he admitted to steroid use.”
“Athletes are far beyond that. The coaches, the team doctors— everyone is more sophisticated now, and the drugs are more sophisticated, too.”
“And some of these drugs are legal in your country?”
“Not steroids.”
“Do you condone their use?”
Hesitating, he replied, “There is no way any professional athlete can make a living, can hold down his or her job, without chemical help. I find nothing wrong in trying to advance human performance. The caveat is abuse. Aspirin is a drug. Caffeine is as well. Bodybuilders routinely drink a cup of coffee before working out. Actually, I find your country’s drug laws backward, repressive, opening a wide door for crime.”
She sighed deeply. “I’m afraid you are right.”
“The entrenched interests here, meaning those people making tax-free billions, have churches and politicians on their side. It’s hypocritical. It’s shocking. It’s big business.”
“Prohibition on a higher plane.” She sighed again.
“Exactly.” His lips compressed. Then he relaxed. “I apologize. Being an endocrinologist, I study human chemistry. We really can improve performance with drugs. We really can retard aging. And we really can begin to solve the riddles of some dreadful degenerative diseases with stem cell research.” He threw up his hands. “I cannot for the life of me understand why any human being would deny a cure for Parkinson’s to another, and yet that’s exactly what’s happening.”
“For many people, these are complex moral issues.”
“There’s nothing moral in watching a human being die by inches.”
“I agree, Dalton, I totally agree. But I am one lone woman in Virginia without one ounce of political clout.”
“You can vote, and you are a master. Masters are members of Parliament in training.” He was warm to her now. “Same skills.”
“Perhaps they are.”
“Why did you ask me about drugs?”
“Oh, Ben and I were talking about the university basketball team. One thing led to another. And then you said you wanted to shy away from being called a doctor. I thought I’d better ask while I could, especially about the aging stuff.” She laughed as she evaded telling the truth.
“I’ll tell you what. If you come to my office, I’ll pull blood, run an EKG, do a few other tests. I can tell you, with accuracy, the true age of your body. Not your years but the true age of your body. In fact, you’d be a fascinating subject. Without the tests, I’d hazard a guess that internally you are between forty-five and fifty. You have never abused alcohol, drugs, or smoked. Am I correct?”
“You are.”
“Come see me.”
“I shall. I appreciate the offer.”
“You’d be doing me a favor.” He paused a moment. “I believe, no, I know we can live longer, stronger lives than we imagine. Aging must be recast in our minds as a slow disease that can be fought. I can envision a day when men can live to be a hundred and fifty with full productive lives.”
“Women?” she asked slyly.
“Ah.” He smiled. “A hundred seventy-five.”
“Right answer. Can you envision a future where a woman can run the hundred-yard dash, well, I guess it’s a hundred meters now, in nine seconds?”
“Yes. And a man will d
o it in seven and a half.”
“Are you being sexist?”
“No. Men really are faster. Yes, the fastest woman in the world will be faster than eighty percent of the men but, at the top, the men are faster. That’s the real difference in professional tennis. It’s not upper-body muscle, which people focus on, it’s speed. Men can return shots that women can’t. So if a woman plays a man, she’s not used to her ‘winners’ being fired back that fast.”
“Never thought of that.”
“In your favor, women have much more endurance, and, this I can’t quantify scientifically, but also much more emotional strength.”
She studied his earnest features. “Perhaps. But there’s so much we can never know accurately because our concepts of male and female are formed in a rigid cultural grid. Even scientific research reflects unconscious bias.”
“I agree. It does.” He noticed a pretty woman talking to Marty Howard.
“That’s Rebecca Baldwin, Tedi Bancroft’s grandniece. Thirty-one, I should say. Used to hunt, but she went back to school to get her doctorate in architectural history. Lovely girl. Allow me to introduce you.”
After Sister performed this service, she smiled to herself at how Dalton’s demeanor changed in the presence of a pretty woman. Ah yes, though he was an endocrinologist, his hormones pumped just like in the rest of us.
She found Gray, whispered in his ear. “You are so handsome. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m having fun.”
He slipped his arm around her waist for a moment, inhaling her fragrance, her hair. “I’m walking on air. And I do want to take you to a proper dinner. Let’s go Sunday. And sometime, too, let’s go up to the Kennedy Center. I have season seats, box seats, for the opera. Do you like the opera?”
“I can learn.” Sister knew nothing except she loathed recitatives.
He hugged her tighter. “We’ve both got a lot to learn. We’ll never be bored.”
Tedi noticed this exchange and prayed silently. “Dear God, let this be something special. Bring love into her life. She deserves it. And help us all get over this black/white stuff.” Then she glanced across the room, filling with more people, catching sight of the man she had loved for fifty years. Her eyes misted over. When she had stood before the altar next to a black-haired Edward Bancroft, she could never have dreamed that fifty years later she would love him more deeply, more passionately, with more insight into the man than when he slipped that thin gold band on her finger. She prayed again, “Thank you.”
Sister checked her watch as she made the rounds. Time to get home. She thought to herself that she didn’t give Gray much of a chase. So many men love the chase. Well, seductive gamesmanship wasn’t her style. Then she thought to herself, Admit it, I’m seventy-two. I haven’t any time to waste. She nearly laughed out loud at the thought.
As she was ready to leave, she overheard Clay and Xavier inside the cloakroom.
“… a real bind.”
“Clay, I know. I’m doing everything I can. I can’t just write a check out of my company’s funds.”
“It’s not just the money, X. It’s the suspicion. People are looking at me like I’m an arsonist, a scam artist, like I’m a murderer. Do you know what this is doing to my wife and children?”
Xavier’s voice rose, almost pleading. “What can I do? Neither Ben Sidell nor the investigator can figure it out. What can I do?”
“Can’t you write me a small check? Even five thousand dollars?”
“You’re putting me in a terrible position. If I do that, I’m undercutting the carrier. I have hundreds of clients placed with them, and Worldwide Security has been excellent. I can’t screw up that relationship for myself or my other clients.”
“So you’ll screw up our friendship?”
“Clay, my hands are tied.”
CHAPTER 33
At five-thirty Sunday morning, the snowflakes swayed as though on invisible chains. Heavy clouds blocked the pale light of the waxing moon, this February 1.
The winter solstice was forty-one days behind this morning; roughly forty more minutes of sunlight washed over central Virginia since then. Gaining that minute of sunlight a day put more spring in Sister’s step, though she wouldn’t see any sun today.
She walked through the fresh snow, tracks beginning to fill even as she lifted her boots out of them. Raleigh and Rooster faithfully accompanied her, although both were loath to leave the warm house.
“Rooster, leave it,” Sister softly said, for she spied Inky carefully exiting the stable. She’d been eating up the gleanings, the sweet feed being a particular favorite, as well as the little candied fruits she craved. “Morning, Inky.”
Inky turned a moment, blinked, then scampered toward the kennels where the hounds slept. Occasionally, Diana would be up walking about. Inky enjoyed speaking with her. She didn’t like Rooster, though, but then he wasn’t behind a chain-link fence. Being a harrier, Rooster was keen to prove his nose could follow fox scent just as readily as rabbit.
“Bother” Rooster complained.
“Can’t do much in the snow anyway,” Raleigh commented.
Although not a hound, Raleigh possessed a good nose, but his obligation was to protect Sister, her other animals, and her property. He took this charge quite seriously.
Most animals operate on an internal clock. Sister’s alarm sounded between five and five-thirty every morning regardless of when she crawled into bed at night. A day’s work is more easily accomplished if one has had seven or eight hours sleep, so Sister was usually in bed by ten.
She noted that Shaker’s old Jeep Wagoner was gone. Scrupulous about Sister’s equipment, he wouldn’t use the old Chevy truck unless he asked her. As many times as she told him to take a day off, he’d be at the kennels no later than seven-thirty in the winters, usually six in the summers. He was a huntsman to the bone.
She whistled at the paddock. The horses ran up, their hoof-beats muffled in the snow. She brought Lafayette and Keepsake in, then Rickyroo and Aztec. Each had his own stall, nameplate prettily painted and fastened to its door. Then she brought in Shaker’s mounts: Gunpowder, Showboat, Hojo.
Although puffs of breath came from her mouth, the temperature hung right around forty degrees in the barn. The barn, well built and well ventilated, provided enough warmth to keep the horses happy but not enough to make them ill. Each horse had his blanket on with a thin white cotton sheet underneath, sort of an equine undershirt. Too tight a barn causes respiratory problems for horses, plus they shouldn’t be overly warm in cold weather.
Pawing, snorting, and whinnying filled the barn as Sister rolled the feed cart to each stall, sliding the scoop through the opening to dump the crimped oats with a bit of sweet feed into the bucket. Everyone received the amount appropriate to his weight and level of work. As all of these horses worked hard, they received as much high-quality hay as they wished and one or two scoops of food depending on their individual metabolisms. If an animal needed a special supplement, it was crumbled into the oats. Usually, the good grain and particularly the hay kept them tip-top. Of all that they consumed, hay was the most important. It kept the motility in their intestines. So many people—not horsemen, but horse owners—fed pellets or too much grain in the winter. Their poor animals would come down with blocked intestines.
Sister had grown up with horses and hounds. She didn’t even know what she knew, for it was like breathing to her. However, she was still willing to learn and never minded reading about hoof studies, new medications, new exercise therapies. She noted that many horsemen were fanatically resistant to new methods. She thought a lot of the new stuff bunk, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t keep abreast. Occasionally there was value in something new.
She could think in the stable better than in the kennels. With the hounds she was busy talking to them, assessing their abilities or working with them one on one. But with the horses, she could truly think. She’d adjust a blanket, check legs, listen to breathing just in case
. The large animals relaxed her, their scent intoxicated her, and her love for them was unconditional. She had always loved horses, hounds, cats, and dogs more than 99 percent of the people she had met in her life. She was, however, wise enough to keep this to herself, or she thought she was. The human race is so grotesquely egocentric that any human who finds another species more worthy of affection is branded a misfit, a misanthrope, someone with intimacy issues, oh, the list went on. She paid them no mind. She knew she was closer to God when with his creatures than she ever would be with chattering people.
She needed that closeness this morning. Bouncing between elation and worry, her chores helped her concentrate.
Thinking of Gray made her smile, while the thought of the club’s troubles caused distress. The hostility between Xavier and Sam upset her. She also secretly worried about working closely with Crawford. He would not easily set aside his large ambition. She hoped he wouldn’t work to undermine Walter. The tension between Clay and Xavier was a new cause for concern, and this dreadful mess at Berry Storage made her sick. With the instinct of a good fox-hunter, she knew the two deaths at the railroad station were connected with Donnie’s. She felt as though the snow was covered with tracks that ran in circles.
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