“What exceptions?” Eli cracked his knuckles.
“Show jumping. Racing, especially racing. A crooked track vet could be useful. I can’t imagine Penny being part of a drug ring, distributing stuff. Then again, Eli, you never really know, do you?”
“That’s the truth. So let me get this straight. You pay for the drugs. They are delivered. But there has to be someone on the take who does the testing at the track.”
“Pretty much, but there’s a market besides the track. Anyone breeding horses who wants them to muscle up early might use steroids or growth hormone—both of them controlled substances. The horse looks mature, looks well muscled and impressive early. The muscle gains stick but the downside is the joints aren’t fully developed. Easier to sell a well-muscled youngster. Many kinds of equine discipline might benefit from steroid use. Rodeos don’t perform drug testing. Nor do most jumper shows or cross-country shows. Now some of those have vet checks, like endurance rides, to make sure the animal is okay, but that’s not the same as testing for steroids. There’s money to be made, a lot of money, but especially on the tracks.”
“Would a clinic legally carry them?”
“Most will have some controlled substances because they do have useful applications. Just like for people.”
“So this clinic would have, say, steroids?”
“Yes. When we talk to her senior partner, we’ll ask him to unlock cabinets, show us their supply and the tracking system.” Ben crossed his arms over his chest and looked out the window. “This rain just won’t let up.” Then he focused on Eli, now standing on the other side of the chair. “Westlake serves a few breeding Thoroughbred barns, dressage, jumper barns—everything from a big operation like Broad Creek Stables to someone like me, who owns one horse and loves that horse like crazy.”
“So your horse might be prescribed steroids?”
Ben nodded. “Maybe for an unusual illness. Foxhunters wind up with leg injuries, a tendon problem, an abscess in the hoof, maybe even an abscess in a tooth. Or we might see West Nile virus, things that call for specific medicines. Unfortunately, there are many problems for which there really aren’t good medicines. But a hunt horse would rarely be put on a controlled substance. Penny gave me joint supplements for Nonni, a little equine aspirin when Nonni needed it.”
Eli smiled. “I have a lot to learn.”
“We all do,” said Ben. “Like you, I have my hunches. I leave the medical investigation to those with that skill, but you and I have to think of all manner of things, no matter how odd. The only clue we have right now is that Penny probably knew her killer and trusted him or her.”
“We have her computer.” Eli cocked his head in its direction. It was still turned on, a letter to a magazine on the screen.
“She’d been reading The Blood Horse, Mercer Laprade’s letter. When our team goes through the computer, they’ll find accounts, all manner of barn calls, patient notes, magazines, professional newsletters. Getting back to hunches, my hunch is that Penny stumbled onto something.”
“Could be it has nothing to do with being a vet.”
“True.” Ben sighed deeply. “She was a good woman and a good vet. You didn’t know her but those of us who did trusted her with the lives of our horses, which is like trusting someone with the life of a family member.” He held up his hand. “I know that sounds silly to someone who doesn’t own a horse.”
“I have Joker, that counts.” Eli smiled.
Joker was a cat so fat he should have been named Two Ton.
“Counts.” Ben looked around. “Let’s go through each room one more time. We could have overlooked something, especially me, since I know the victim. No matter how experienced you are, when someone you like is murdered, it gets you.”
They opened the closet door in Penny’s office. Clean overalls hung on a hook, along with two lab coats. A pair of work boots and a pair of Wellies sat on newspaper, caked with mud. Leaving her personal office, the two men walked down the hall, turning into each partner’s room. There were three, counting Penny. They opened a supply room. The drug closet was locked. When her senior partner arrived, they’d tackle that.
Penny’s unlocked truck had been searched by the first team on the scene. Very neat, Penny even had a tray in her truck where small items like pens, notepads, and Scotch tape were organized in the center console. The large medicine cabinet on the back of the truck was locked, but the keys were in the truck so that was investigated, too. Pretty much, she carried what every equine vet would carry on a call: lots of elbow-length, thin rubber gloves, syringes, clenbuterol, magnesium-based drugs for joints, horse tranquilizer, and a metal box with scalpel and other tools. Occasionally, Penny had to operate on the spot. For this she carried a large canvas sheet and a plastic one, also. She had items for bacterial infections, vials with antiviral meds, many of them new to the market. She had thread to sew up wounds, needles for same, and she even carried a small steamer, which she used before she would operate. She’d wipe her scalpel with antibacterial fluid, then steam it for a second. Penny was nothing if not thorough. Her X-ray equipment, plates, and heavy lead-lined gloves—all very, very expensive equipment—were neatly tucked into the truckbed medicine cabinet.
Establishing a veterinary practice wasn’t cheap, nor was maintaining it to the highest standards. To Ben, it was clear that Penny cut no corners.
The two men walked back down the hall to the inviting lobby and receptionist’s long desk.
As they watched the deluge, waiting for Westlake’s senior partner, Ben softly said, “Had she lived, I think she might have gotten elected to national office in her profession. She was so bright, so forward thinking and she truly cared about horses. You know, Eli, the media harps on all the bad actors out there regardless of profession. There are so many good people doing their job, helping others, helping animals. Educators, doctors, carpenters, you name it. Good people. She was one of them.”
Eli thought. “You are, too, Sheriff.”
Sister, Gray, and Tootie, along with Raleigh, Rooster, and Golly, felt the warmth from the library’s fire. Sister’s favorite room, the library always felt peaceful, but especially on a difficult day. Photographs, some from the 1880s, reposed in polished silver frames. Sister was surrounded by her family, most gone. Sometimes she’d look at a photo of herself at thirty and wonder, “Was I ever that young?”
A wonderful photo of Sister—in a white evening gown dancing with Gray in his evening scarlet—sat on the corner of the desk, a testimony to the present.
They’d eaten a light dinner, discussing what had happened to Penny with surprise and sorrow. Now they listened to the crackle of the fire, inhaled the fragrance of the applewood burning with seasoned oak.
Gray read the paper: “The western bypass is like malaria. It keeps returning with exaggerated symptoms.”
A proposal for a western bypass around the heavily traveled north/south 29 corridor had been batted about for thirty years plus. With it came studies, meetings, outrage, presentations from those in charge at the state level, and innumerable environmental studies. It went on and on. So far, the public had been able to stop the bypass from being constructed.
“Gray, this will be going on into the twenty-second century, I swear. Tootie, your grandchildren will be fighting it.”
Tootie looked up from her book and smiled, but tears filled her eyes.
Gray noticed, rose, going over to her. He sat on the edge of her chair. “Honey, I’m so sorry. It was just a terrible shock.”
Tootie cried harder now, so Sister fetched a box of tissues and sat on the other chair arm.
“How could something like this happen?” the young woman sputtered.
“I don’t know.” Sister handed her a tissue.
“I expect Ben Sidell will eventually root it all out,” said Gray. “He adored her. Well, we all did.” His voice carried his own sorrow.
“Is it always like this?” Tootie’s voice wavered.
“Like wha
t?” Sister asked.
“Is life so sad?”
“Sometimes, yes, but you get through it,” Sister said.
Raleigh came over, putting his head under Tootie’s hand.
“They know. Animals always know.” Tootie cried a bit more.
“They do,” Gray agreed.
“I bet there’s an animal that knows who killed Dr. Hinson.” Tootie dabbed her nose.
The rain streaked across the windowpanes.
“Maybe so.” Sister put her palm on Tootie’s smooth cheek.
Tootie looked up. “Maybe this is about an animal.”
Gray and Sister looked at each other, then Tootie.
Sister said, “It’s possible. Let a little time pass, perhaps things will fall into place.”
CHAPTER 19
Uncle Yancy watched the somber group of humans make their way to the Lorillard cemetery. Yesterday two men had dug a neat rectangular grave, flinging mud over their shoulders. Sitting on the back stoop they had not noticed him, but today, the thirty-two people arrived. Uncle Yancy needed to hide. From under the front porch, the view was clear. Human behavior interested the older fox. Sometimes he thought he understood it, other times he found it very mysterious.
Mercer pushed his mother’s wheelchair, sending specks of mud onto his trousers. At the front of the stone-walled cemetery, the wooden gate with a cross cut into it was open. Plain yet aesthetically perfect for the place, the tombstones, some over two hundred years old, worn smooth, stood in neat rows. No tombstone was huge or gaudy. Some graves were covered with slate like Benny Glitters’s grave. Harlan Laprade’s grave would rest at the end of the middle row, next to his wife. Graziella Lorillard, sleeping forever, would be next to her sister when that time came.
Gray and Sam’s sister, Nadine, walked on the left side of Daniella Laprade. Both women, wrapped in furs against the cold, emitted streams of breath from their mouths. The ground, frozen since last night, forced people to take care where they put their feet.
After Kentucky authorities had confirmed the skeleton as Harlan Laprade’s, Mercer, his mother, and Nadine—who now insisted upon being called Chantal—had chosen Friday for the bones’ interment.
Most of the mourners were hunt club members who had taken off work. Phil Chetwynd walked to the right of Aunt D, as he called Daniella Laprade, thanks to the long association of the Laprades with the Chetwynds.
The service included a reading from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, an invocation, and a prayer for the peace of the soul.
Sister thought Friday a bad day to bury anyone. In some parts of the United States and Europe, executions were held on Friday, considered to be the Devil’s day. Of course, she kept this to herself. Gray had enough on his hands. Gray and Sam’s sister had flown up from Atlanta to be with Aunt D, who she loved more than she had her own mother. Nadine also intruded into decisions her male relatives had made without her.
Mercer had picked a funeral director to receive Harlan’s bones, plus the dog’s bones sent from Kentucky. The authorities saw no reason to keep what was left of the fellow. This was an old crime. Like any urban area Lexington had more pressing ones, not that Lexington considered itself urban. Cincinnati was urban, Louisville was urban, Lexington was beautiful. They had a point.
Nadine wanted a regular casket. Mercer, Sam, and Gray balked. A child’s casket would do, for there wasn’t enough to put into a large casket. The savings would be considerable.
She screamed, “You are rearranging your grandfather’s bones to save money?”
So Mercer and Gray had then split the normal-sized casket costs. Sam had driven to Arvonia, Virginia, in Buckingham County to pick up a beautiful piece of slate donated by Bill and Carolyn Yancy from their slate quarry. Then Sam, who barely had two nickels to rub together, paid to have the thick slate engraved with name, date of birth, and date of death—or, as close as they could approximate Harlan’s date of death. Ever sensitive, Sam also added under Harlan’s name, “His beloved dog sleeps at his feet.”
Nadine was one step ahead of a running fit. This in front of Daniella, ninety-four, whom Nadine had supposedly come to comfort. Earlier, the screaming, tears, and outpourings had taken place in Daniella’s living room, with the old lady present.
After twenty minutes of prime-time emotion, Daniella bellowed, her voice strong, “Shut up, Chantal. The boys have paid for everything. You haven’t paid a red cent. Furthermore, Phil has arranged for a catered lunch in the home place and the hunt club has paid for all the liquor. Shut your big flannel mouth.”
In a plaintive voice, Nadine warbled, “I paid for my plane ticket.”
Now, Harlan’s remaining daughter and grandchildren stood beside his grave. The men bowed their heads. Not one of them looked at Nadine while she dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. She handed one to Daniella, who clutched it in her begloved hand.
After the service, the assembled trod back to the house, spotlessly clean, as Gray had hired a cleaning service for their place. Not that it was so bad, but Sam worked long hours and Gray shuttled between D.C. and central Virginia. Also, they were two men—enough said.
At the front steps, Sister paused, sniffed. Eau de Vulpes vulpes. Ah, yes, the graveyard fox, which was how she thought of Uncle Yancy. Filling her lungs, a small smile at the corners of her lips, she stepped into the center hall.
After having been lifted up the stairs by all three of “the boys,” as she thought of them, Daniella reposed by the living room’s roaring fireplace, fruitwood lending a wonderful aroma to the gathering.
Nadine helped the nonagenarian out of her coat. The elderly well-dressed lady could walk with two canes, but the wheelchair was more reliable. She was loath to give it up. Nadine wasn’t the only drama queen in the family.
As Nadine hurried upstairs to hang her aunt’s coat, Daniella, hair white, close-cropped, crooked a finger at her son. “Bourbon,” she ordered.
“Yes, Mother.”
“A double.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“No cheap stuff, you hear me?”
“Yes, Mother.” Mercer sped to the kitchen, where Gray and Sam had set up a makeshift bar the night before.
Behind the bar, Xavier said, “Nice service. The slate was impressive. A lot of people here.”
The last act of the burial had the two gravediggers, in black suits, lift up the slate to lay it exactly right over the freshly dug grave. It was still to be filled in but the slate covered it for the mourners. Mercer had wanted people to see it. With the help of the generous Yancys, Sam had done a good job.
“If slate was good enough for Benny Glitters, it should be good enough for him. Thanks.” Mercer took the drink, hastening back to his mother.
Without a word, she grasped the offered libation and tossed it back. Handing him the empty, she ordered, “Another double with a chaser of ginger ale. I want old-fashioned ginger ale. The stuff that bites your tongue. I need more than a water chaser today.”
The boys knew her habits and her favorite brand rested under the bar with her name written on it.
Mercer reappeared in the kitchen. “Another double. A ginger ale chaser,” he told Xavier.
“Mercer, there’s not a lot of your mother to absorb this. Want me to lighten it?”
“Hell no. I would wheel her back here, drop a siphon in the Woodford Reserve, and she’d suck it right up. You’d never know the difference.”
“I don’t remember her drinking so much when we were kids.”
“Because we were drinking too much ourselves. Didn’t notice.” Mercer laughed, taking the drinks, one in each hand, to again attend to Mother.
Sister was talking—well, listening actually—to Daniella. She smiled weakly as Mercer approached.
“I tell you, that man could do anything with a horse. Had an eye, could calm the most fractious.” The crotchety old woman paused, then said loud enough for Phil, standing near her, to hear, “And our family built the business with
the Chetwynds.”
On cue, Phil turned. “Good luck for both families.”
“Not for my father, ultimately.” She swallowed half the bourbon, then downed the ginger ale.
Mercer watched wordlessly. “Mother, I’ll be right back but I need a drink myself.”
Chin jutting upward, she appraised him. “I’ll expect you back here shortly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Turning her face up to Sister, voice low, Daniella said, “I told my nephews to make Artillery Punch. Just knock people out. You need it after a funeral.”
“Excellent advice, Daniella.”
And indeed, an enormous punch bowl borrowed from the Bancrofts contained a lethal concoction.
With Phil kneeling to chat with Daniella, Sister walked over to Mercer.
“You are very good to your mother.” She recounted Daniella’s description of Harlan as an expert horseman.
Mercer burst out laughing as they reached the bar. “She has a vivid imagination. She was small. I doubt she remembered much of Harlan. No way. I expect she listened to her own mother. Me, I just nod my head.”
This made Sister envision a bobblehead doll in Mercer’s image. She put her arm through his for a moment. “You have much to bear.”
He shrugged. “We all do in our own way, don’t we?” Xavier handed Sister a tonic water with a lime wedge and a stiff bourbon for Mercer, who, eager to change the subject, said, “The attorney general for Kentucky ruled that Instant-Racing is a pari-mutuel game. Good. But the Kentucky Supreme Court passed the buck, excuse the pun, and wouldn’t make a ruling on the legal status of Instant-Racing. So it’s been bounced to the Franklin Circuit Court. That will be a circus, all the pros and cons argued before the bench.” He looked straight into her light hazel eyes. “You know, Sister, it’s the same old, same old. Doesn’t matter the issue.”
“There’s a lot of truth to that,” she agreed.
A brief interlude at the bar allowed Xavier to listen. “Mercer, what’s Instant-Racing?”
“An electronic racing game that the racetracks will run and they set the take-out. See, it’s gambling but it’s not casino. Indiana, as you know, has really put the hurt on Kentucky and the Kentucky legislature—well, don’t get me started. You all read my letter to The Blood Horse. Anyway, it will put money in the coffers.” Mercer wished he hadn’t used that word—too close to coffin.
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