Small Town Filly (Sandbar Stables Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Bethanie Cushman

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As soon as the water hit it, the dark smoke turned to white where it rose up into the night sky. Alex stood out in the open space between the hay barn and the house, gasping for breath and trying to take it all in.

  Suddenly, she looked around. "Lance! Lance, where are you!"

  A tall silhouette walked out of the horse barn, with a smaller one trotting after it. "Oh! Lance!" Alex cried, running over to him. "Are you all right? Are the horses all right?"

  "Everybody's okay. I just checked them again. It's only the hay barn."

  "At least the fire department got here fast!"

  "Yeah. I was asleep on the bales, as usual, in the barn aisle. I called them as soon as I saw the smoke." He tried to smile. "Good thing you made me take that cell phone."

  She shook her head. "So, you weren't in the house?"

  "I usually do sleep in the house. But tonight, I just had a feeling. I don't know. So I stayed in the barn. The smell of the smoke woke me up."

  "Fanny didn't bark?"

  "No. Maybe we need a new watchdog. It seems like she only barks during the day."

  Alex turned back to look at the fire. It seemed to be out, and the firefighters were beginning their cleanup.

  She turned to see Officer Pitts and another cop walking up to them. "Everybody all right here?"

  "Yes," said Lance. "The horses were never in danger."

  Pitts nodded. "Whoever built this place was smart enough to put the hay storage well away from the animals."

  "How did it start?" asked Alex, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  "It wasn't spontaneous," Lance said. "I'm sure of it. That's a cinderblock building, open to the sea breeze in front, and the weather's been cool. I've found no hot bales whenever I've gone in there."

  "I don't think it was spontaneous combustion, either." Officer Pitts held out a small object to Alex. "We found this blowing around at the edge of the hay building."

  Alex took the object very gingerly, and in the glare of the strobe lights she saw that it was a half-burned book of matches. "So," she whispered, "somebody did this deliberately."

  "Yes. But unless one of you saw something, it's really not enough to go on."

  "So are you saying you're not going to investigate?"

  ''Yes, we will investigate, Ms. Byrne, but as I said, with no witnesses it's going to be difficult."

  The second officer—Fowler, by the name on his badge—took a step forward and glanced around the property. "It might be that you really should just sell this place and be done with it."

  Alex could only stare at him. Her eyes flicked to Lance, who also stood very still. "You're saying you think I should sell, too?"

  Fowler looked down. "It's got to be expensive keeping horses out here. It'll be tough to make the place pay."

  There was silence between them for a moment. In the background was the loud sound of the fire truck's idling diesel engines and the shouts of the firefighters as they put away the hoses and checked through the hay barn for any hot spots.

  "See," Fowler went on, "you and your hired hand—I mean—you're new here. Most of the folks living permanently in Argentina Shores have been here for at least two, three generations, and sometimes more. You're brand-new and you're just—you're just not familiar with this part of the world."

  "It's a small town," said Pitts, trying to be helpful. "And it's also a booming area. Argentina Shores has to move into the twenty-first century with everyone else, and there's far more money and jobs in another high-rise hotel than there is in a little riding concession that could never even pay its own bills."

  "Just think about it, all right?" said Fowler. "And call us if you need anything."

  The two of them turned and walked away.

  Alex could only stand and stare at the two officers, and at the firefighters, and at her still-smoldering bales of hay. Finally she turned to Lance.

  "They think we should go, too," she said quietly. "Even the police don't think we belong here. We're just a nuisance that's making extra work for them."

  Lance crouched down to ruffle Fanny's coat, and glanced up at Alex. "I don't know," he said. "In one sense, they're right – we are newcomers here, compared to most of the folks who live here. And I don't doubt that a riding stable did very well back in the '30s and '40s, but these days? Everybody wants jet skis and parasailing and high-powered, high-tech fishing boats."

  Alex nodded slowly. Her eyes burned, but it was not from the drifting smoke. "Maybe our little pony ride is part of the past. Maybe that's where it should stay."

  ***

  As the sun came up, Alex worked alongside Lance to get the horses fed and turned out. She was finding out that now, with her property and her horses threatened by something as hideous as fire, all of her fear had been forever replaced by anger.

  She placed Violet's halter back on its hook and slammed the stall door shut. Lance looked up at her, and she saw him grinning. "You're gonna break things if you keep that up."

  Alex sighed heavily. "Yeah. I guess I am pretty mad. Nothing worse than fire. And the cops barely seemed to care at all whether or not they catch who did it."

  "Well," Lance said, putting away the last two halters on the stall doors, "we care about catching them. Why don't we sit down and take a look at all the evidence we've got? Maybe something will jump out."

  Alex stared at him, and then nodded. "Yes. Yes. Maybe we'll see something they haven't."

  "Nobody's going to care about your home like you do," said Lance. Alex started towards the house, and he followed closely.

  ***

  Lance set two cups of coffee down on the kitchen table—cream, no sugar. "Thanks," she said, and took a sip of the hot coffee.

  In front of her were a pen and some blank paper. "All right." Alex set down the coffee cup. "Let's make a list of exactly what we know about whoever's been trying to drive me away from Sandbar. First, it's not Chuck Wood. He's dead, but the harassment still continues. Like the fire last night."

  Lance nodded slowly.

  "Second, it's someone Fanny knows. She doesn't bark when this person comes around, but she'll bark like crazy at any other stranger. Third, it's someone who can spell and use words. Both the note and the message on the rocks were spelled correctly, even words like knacker's, rubbish, booted and statie. They even put the apostrophe in knacker's."

  She began writing down all of the words in the mysterious notes and painted on the rocks. "I don't think I'd know how to spell statie," Lance said as she wrote. "And English was my best subject in school."

  Alex smiled quickly, but kept working on her list. She sat back and ran her finger over the words she'd just written down, and then she noticed something.

  "Rubbish," she said out loud and looked up at Lance. "Have you ever heard anybody around here use the word rubbish?"

  He shrugged. "I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it means trash. I think that's what they say over in England, but I've never heard anybody around here say it in a normal conversation."

  "Neither have I. But you know where I have heard it?"

  He shrugged. "No idea."

  "Remember, I was a paralegal up in Ohio before I moved here. I talked to a lot of lawyers, and our firm dealt with a lot of other lawyers, especially lawyers from Boston. And I know I've heard it from them, even if you barely hear it anywhere else in this country."

  Lance sat up a little straighter.

  "And that's where I've heard things like 'statie.' Ever heard that one?"

  "Nope. Never. I thought it must have been 'state' misspelled when I saw it on that rock. I don't even know what it means."

  "I'd never heard it, either, until I worked on a few court depositions taken from people living in the Northeast. Up there, it's a common slang expression for a state trooper. But not here!”

  "Okay," Alex went on, "who do we know who wants to buy this place, is not Chuck Wood, is someone Fanny knows, and is not from around here?"

&nbs
p; Lance thought about it. "Well, there's that woman Lisa, who went with us on the beach ride. She's a buyer for her company, and isn't it an English company?”

  "Yes," Alex said slowly. "Yes, it sure is. But Lisa Bell is from Atlanta and is as Southern as grits."

  "She might be, but if her company is English, she'd certainly be used to hearing and using their expressions."

  "Hmm. You make a good point. But she's not that desperate to make the buy. She's got others in the works, too, and she knows you can't get every piece of property you want. I'm convinced it's not her," Alex went on. "If nothing else, Lisa Bell loves all these horses. I just can't see her trying to harm them by turning them loose on the road or spray-painting them—or paying someone else to do it."

  She kept thinking. "Now, Fanny's not saying, but there sure is one person who fits the other criteria, and that would be one Mr. Stuart Gray from Boston."

  They looked at each other. Lance nodded quickly. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. It could be. It really could."

  Alex picked up her cell phone and quickly called the police department. She told them everything that she and Lance had just figured out.

  "Did they believe you?" asked Lance, as she clicked off the phone.

  She grinned at him. "Looks like it. They're going to get a warrant and search Gray's hotel room. They'll let us know whether or not they make an arrest."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The rest of the day passed slowly. Alex wasn't sure how long it would take for the local police force to get a search warrant and get to Gray's hotel room. Then, just as they finished bringing the horses in and doing the evening feeding, Alex's cell phone rang.

  She listened intently, nodding her head and glancing up at Lance the whole time. "Okay. Thank you. We'll be there."

  Finally, she turned to him. "They've made an arrest. They want us to come down to the department building tonight, so they can tell us what they found."

  "Let's go, then," he said, and they started off towards the rental car.

  ***

  A short time later, Alex and Lance walked into the large modular building that served as the headquarters for the local police force. Officer Pitts showed them into a little meeting room, where a table holding a folder of papers was waiting.

  "Okay, have a seat," said Pitts. "And let me be the first to congratulate you. You were right. Stuart Gray has been arrested, and will be charged in the murders of both Fred Lucas and Chuck Wood. And with several counts of trespassing, vandalism, and animal cruelty for coming onto your property, turning four horses loose, stealing one, and spray-painting one."

  Alex closed her eyes. "Thank you, Officer Pitts. Thank you."

  "So," said Lance, "what evidence did you find to arrest him?"

  "Quite a bit. He seemed to think nobody would ever look at him as a criminal. Right there in his hotel room we found the can of blue spray paint, the same paper that he used to write the note wrapped around the rock, and even the pistol that we feel certain was used to kill both Fred Lucas and Chuck Wood."

  Alex whistled. "Wow, he left all that stuff in his hotel room? I guess that would make it easy to charge him."

  "Yes. That and the fact that he sang like a bird the minute we walked in and found his can of spray paint."

  "He didn't even try to deny it?" asked Lance.

  "Nope. I guess he thought we'd go easier on him if he confessed right away." The officer grinned. "I've lived around here all my life. My family's got a couple of horses, too. Not a chance he'll get away with this."

  Lance nodded. "And he did all that just so he could run Alex off the property and buy it cheap?"

  "Yes. It turns out there was a big bonus in it for him—near seven figures, plus a promotion—if he could get that piece of land for his hotel company. That's why he wasn't about to give up."

  "But why kill the first caretaker? That happened before I even got here—before anybody knew I was the new owner."

  "Yes. But as soon as the Norman family actually vacated, Gray's company got wind of it and they sent him right down. At first, Gray was just trying to scare the caretaker and, he hoped, the unseen new owner—Ms. Alexandra Byrne. But on the very first night, Fred Lucas caught Gray red-handed in the barn with a pair of scissors. He'd intended to cut off Violet's mane and tail."

  Alex sat up. "Oh, my god," she whispered.

  "That's what Fred Lucas thought, too," said the officer. "He told Gray he was going straight to us and to the local newspapers. Stories about guys hurting horses don't set too well with people, and that would have hurt Gray's chances to get that bonus and promotion. Poor Fred didn't stand a chance."

  "So I guess Gray's the one who let the horses out onto the road, and stole Starfish and left him in Jonni Lowe's back yard."

  "That's right."

  "At first," said Alex, "we thought it must have been Chuck Wood who was trying to run me off. He was right next door and sure didn't like having the horses next to him."

  "Well, that's true, he didn't," said Officer Pitts. "But he was all bark and no bite."

  "So you're saying Gray killed him, too? What for? Wood almost ran me off all by himself! I was ready to sell to him and get the horses out, just to get away from the misery of living next door to him."

  "And that was exactly the problem. If you sold to Wood, no bonus for Gray. So Wood had to go, too."

  "Wow," she murmured. "Just…wow."

  "That only leaves one question," said Lance. "How did Fanny know Stuart Gray? She never barked when he was around, and I actually saw her go up to him once and sniff his hand."

  "Yes. The dog." Officer Pitts was smiling. "Until a couple of months ago, she belonged to Gray."

  Lance and Alex looked at each other. "Belonged to him? How is that possible?" asked Alex. "He doesn't seem much like the dog type."

  "Well, he isn't, really," said the officer. "Apparently, some friends in Boston gave him a border collie puppy as a Christmas gift about a year ago. He loves status and fancy things, you see, and border collies are a very bright and popular dog.

  "So, he kept the puppy, but didn't realize how much exercise these dogs need. They won't do well in an apartment, especially with an owner who works long hours and doesn't have time for any kind of dog."

  "Poor Fanny," said Alex.

  "I guess that's how she got that strange name—Faneuil," said Lance. "Because she's from Boston."

  Pitts nodded. "Probably. So, Gray really didn't want the dog, but wasn't about to give her back to his friends or turn her in to a shelter. That would be admitting failure. So he arranged for her to fly down with him on this trip."

  Alex snorted. "I'm sure his friends were very impressed by his devotion to his dog to bring her with him. I've seen the type."

  "Maybe," Pitts continued. "But his real plan was, as you said, to impress his friends—and then leave the dog out on a beach somewhere in hopes she wouldn't come back. And that's exactly what he did."

  "That explains why I found her wandering around the motels looking for food," said Lance. "No telling where he dumped her or how far she had to go to get back to town."

  Alex shook her head. "You can add abandoning an animal to the list of charges, Officer. Too bad it can't be worse than that."

  "Oh, I think we've got plenty to put him away for the rest of his life—or worse," said Officer Pitts. "And as for the dog, I'd say things have ended up far better for her here with you than they ever would have up in Boston with that guy." He shrugged. "Ever been up there? I was in Boston once for a seminar. It's dark. Cold. Gray. Not anything like Argentina Shores."

  Alex looked at Lance and grinned. "I think he's right. Things have turned out better than I ever could have expected. All three of us have got a home now, right here on this beautiful sunny beach."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A week later, on a beautiful spring morning, Alex drove down the familiar two-lane road through Argentina Shores. She grinned when she saw the large white wooden sign with blue lettering th
at now stood just behind the fence:

  SANDBAR STABLES

  BEACH RIDES

  LESSONS

  HORSE TRAINING

  Even better was the moving van following right behind her, which had finally arrived with all of her furniture and possessions. She waved at Lance, who waved back, and then got right to work directing the movers on placing her things inside the right rooms in the house.

  Just as the light was fading outside, Alex began putting away a few scarves and extra purses in the master bedroom closet. She reached up to place the scarves on the shelf, but it seemed that something was already up there.

  It was something made of paper. She wasn’t quite tall enough to see it and hadn't noticed it until now. Carefully, she reached up and took down a manila envelope—a very old and well-worn one, by the look of it.

  Inside was a 5 x 7 in black-and-white photograph of a girl who appeared to be about ten years old. Alex just stared down at it, blinking. The girl in the photo had very light eyes that could have been pale green, and long hair in two curly ponytails that could have been light brown.

  The photo looked very much like her own school photographs when she'd been about ten years old. Alex turned the picture over and saw only 1959 handwritten in faint blue ink on the back.

  She slid the photograph back into the envelope and carefully put it away in her desk drawer. As she unpacked the rest of her things, all she could think of was the face of that young girl, who must have once lived in this house and who looked just like a young Alexandra Byrne.

  ~~~

  NEXT IN THE SANDBAR STABLES MYSTERIES:

  Rocky Mountain Mustang

  High Stepping Murder