“Dawn!”
“I’m down here,” she called from one of the stalls.
“Come here now and write this up before I forget.”
Dawn chuckled. Ben’s announcement was brief and to the point: “Nottingham Downs mourns the death of one of our own. We support the criminal investigation into Billy Martin’s untimely passing and trust justice will be served.” Dawn was impressed. But, Ben wasn’t done. “I urge you all now to observe a moment of silence.” He paused. “Thank you.”
Tom returned then and was given the note to pass on to Dusty. “I just saw him,” he said. “He’ll be right down.” He handed Wee Born to Dawn and dismounted Red.
“Holy shit,” Dusty said, entering the tack room. “I just heard Hollywood Park is closing.”
“What?!” Ben sat down heavy in his chair.
“Yep, it was just on the radio.”
Ben propped his head in his hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What’s with giving me such bad news?”
Dusty sat down on the cot next to him. “I raced there once, you know. God, it was a nice track.”
Tom counted on his fingers. “Okay, in the last ten years, that’s Longacres, Sportsman Park, Hialeah and Bay Meadows, not to mention….”
Ben looked at him. He’d heard enough. If racetracks of that caliber could go belly-up, what on earth was going to save them? He observed Dusty as he read the announcement he was to make. The man nodded. “This is good.”
“Thank you.” Ben shook his head. This was ludicrous. “So, uh…did you have any luck with Linda?”
“Well, yeah, in a way. She told me to get the hell out of her shedrow, and I told her to get the hell off the racetrack.”
Ben glanced at Tom. He was smiling, grinning actually.
“I gave her until tomorrow.”
Ben stared. This was all going too fast for him.
“I figure she’ll head to Mountaineer, so I gave them a call to give ‘em a heads up.”
Ben nodded. It was about all he could do in response. He motioned to the note. “I figure as soon as training’s over would be the best time for that.” Dusty agreed.
It was still early in the morning and the Miller barn had three more horses to track. Randy checked in around nine-thirty. “You ready for a break? We need to talk,” he said to Dawn.
She climbed into his truck and leaned her head back. She too, hadn’t slept well last night. She looked at Randy and smiled. He needed a haircut. When it got this long, it curled over his collar. She combed her fingers through it. “So what’s going on?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I just got a call from my mom. Apparently Dad’s had a heart attack.”
“Oh no.”
“She said he’s stabilized. They may have to do bypass surgery.”
“Are you going to go see them?”
He nodded. “I’ve got two more calls to do and then I’ll head out. It’ll be easier just to drive than try and book a flight.” Randy’s parents’ farm was a six-hour road trip.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
He shook his head. “Nah, not with everything you have going on here, and the kids.”
“The kids will be fine with Carol.”
“I know. I love you,” he said, kissing her.
“I love you too. Call me.”
“I will.”
Ben took the news harder than Dawn would have expected. He and Randy’s father had spent some time together last year when Randy’s parents visited the farm. But aside from that, they hardly knew one another personally. “The man’s so young,” Ben said. Randy’s father was sixty-two years old. “I’m old enough to be his father.”
Tom had cooked chili for dinner, brought it down to Dawn’s, and the three of them were just about to sit down to eat. D.R. and Maeve had played hard all day. Carol had fed them earlier and they were already in bed for the night. “You better not have put hot sauce in that,” Dawn said.
Tom frowned. “I did not, but....” He took out a bottle of Tabasco from his pocket. “I’m packing.”
Once, Dawn had put a big mouthful of Tom’s famous chili in her mouth and couldn’t taste food for a week. “Oh, this is good,” she said, of today’s batch.
Tom shook five blasts of hot sauce onto his. “Well, the announcement went well.”
Dawn and Ben agreed.
“Here.”
“No thanks,” Ben said, when Tom tried passing the Tabasco to him. He motioned to the bread instead, and then the butter.
“Are you trying to clog up your arteries, old man?” Tom said.
Dawn kicked him under the table.
“What?”
Dawn rolled her eyes.
“Listen,” Ben said. “I’m an old man, I know it. My days are limited.”
Dawn sighed.
“I’ve been thinking. I’d like to leave a mark. I’d like everyone to know I lived and that I did something with my life.”
Tom looked at him. “What, like, raise some of the finest Thoroughbreds Ohio has ever seen?”
Ben smiled. Tom was indeed the best friend a man could have, pain in the ass and all. “No, I’d like to do more’n that.”
“Okay.” Tom shrugged. “What’s the one thing you’d change about your life?”
Ben looked at him. “My life? I’m not talking about my life. What’s wrong with you? My life is great. I’m talking about racing.”
The three of them laughed and then grew quiet, eating. “I personally would like to do away with the whip,” Dawn said. “That’s what I’d like to do. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.”
“It’ll never happen,” Tom said, with his mouth full.
“You’re kidding me.” Dawn shook her head. “Do you really believe that? Come on, how much difference can it make?”
“A lot coming down the stretch,” Tom said, matter-of-factly. “On the average, it’s what separates the winners from the losers.”
“I disagree,” Dawn said, in that way of hers that always tweaked a sparring nerve in Tom.
“Oh yeah, and how many horses have you ridden to the wire?”
“None,” Dawn said. “But if I did I would never use a whip.”
“They’re called crops,” Tom said. “Crop is the politically correct term.”
Ben laughed. “And since when are you politically correct?”
“Since yesterday,” Tom said, reaching for the chili ladle. “Wait a minute. Didn’t I see you smacking Wee Born just this morning?”
Dawn laughed. “She bit me! It was an eye for an eye. And I didn’t hit her with a whip; I smacked her with my hand.”
Ben looked at the two of them, as close to a son and daughter as he’s ever had. “I don’t like a whip either, excuse me, a crop, but I honestly don’t see stretch runs without them. How do you keep the horse going when it’s tired and wanting to pack it in?”
“Precisely my point,” Dawn said. “When they’re tired, they shouldn’t have to….”
Ben’s cell phone rang, interrupting them. He looked at it as if it were alive. “I’ll never get used to that damned thing going off.”
It was Dusty. Ben handed the phone to Tom.
“She did what?” Tom said, and then a sigh. “Feed them. Just give them hay. I don’t know if she grains her horses. We have extra water buckets.”
Ben and Dawn correctly surmised the conversation was about Linda Dillon, the pony girl. Tom brought them up to date. “Apparently she called and was turned down for stalls at Mountaineer and left here in a huff, took everything she owned but her ponies. The bitch left them standing in their stalls with a note saying we could all stick the ponies up our….”
“Tom! We get it, okay?” Dawn said.
Ben shook his head. “I never did like that woman.”
“Are the ponies all right?” Dawn asked.
Tom nodded. “Dusty said they’re okay, or at least they will be. We’ll have to get some groceries in them and find them a home.”
“How did Dusty hear about this?” Ben feared another scandal on the backside, feared everyone talking about it and him being the last to know.
“He didn’t. He went to check to make sure she’d left and found the ponies and the note. That’s as far as it’ll go.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know. I know Dusty. Come on, old man. What did he ever do to you?”
Ben looked off and sighed. “He used to flirt with Meg.”
“What? When?”
“A few years back.”
“A few years back?” Tom raised an eyebrow. “How many?”
Ben sat for a moment, counting in his head. “Thirty-two. Yes, I know the exact year, because I ….”
Tom laughed. “Thirty-two years ago.” He looked at Dawn; she was smiling.
“Ben, Meg was a beautiful woman. Men flirt with beautiful women.”
There was a knock on the door. Tom got up to answer it and a moment later, returned. “Ben, there’s two detectives here to see you.”
“What about?”
Tom tugged at his ear, a nervous habit of his when facing the unknown. “They wouldn’t say.”
Ben motioned for him to show them in and when they entered the room, stood and shook their hands rather formal-like. “What can I do for you?”
“We wanted to let you know about the preliminary report on Billy Martin’s death. Apparently he died of suffocation.”
Ben sat down. “You mean someone smothered him?”
“Well, we don’t know. This is just a preliminary. Apparently there are many ways one can suffocate.”
“Oh Jesus,” Tom said.
The detectives looked at him.
“Could he have been strangled?”
“No, there are no signs of strangulation.”
“Well,” Ben said. “Thank you for the uh….” He figured that was it. They were being courteous, there just to give him the news.
“We cannot locate any of his family.”
Tom fidgeted. “He has a daughter.”
The detectives looked at him. “Had a daughter. Apparently she is deceased also.”
Tom stared at the floor, an image of the last time he saw Cathy Martin flashing in his mind. She was eating sprouts. “What did she die from?”
“We don’t have that information.”
“Is there anything you want us to do?” Dawn said.
Both detectives nodded. “Apparently he owed a large debt to a booking agent.”
Ben dropped his head. The last thing they needed at the moment was a betting scandal.
“For how much?” Tom asked.
“We are not at liberty to say. But apparently it was for quite a large amount.”
“Apparently,” Tom said, nodding with authority.
When Dawn’s cell phone rang, she excused herself to take the call. It was from Randy with news of his father’s condition. By the time she hung up, the detectives were gone.
“Well?” Ben asked.
“He’s doing good. Randy said they still don’t know about surgery but he’s comfortable and in good spirits.”
Tom and Ben acknowledged the good news and then Tom motioned to the door. “They want us to pay for Billy’s funeral.”
Dawn looked at him.
“Burial actually, is the way they put it.”
Dawn poured herself another cup of coffee. “I thought they were leading up to wanting us to pay his debts.”
“Nope, just the burial,” Tom said. “I wonder how much a burial costs.”
“That coffee’s too weak,” Ben said, pointing. “It tastes watered down.”
“It’s decaf, remember?” Decaf was Ben’s doctor’s orders and when Ben said after all these years he wasn’t about to stop drinking real coffee, Dawn suggested as a show of support that they all switch to decaf. “Watered down coffee” was taking some getting used to for all of them. She took a sip. “I like it.”
“Yeah right,” Tom said, pinching his nose. “It doesn’t even smell good.”
Dawn changed the subject. “The article I wrote will come out tomorrow.”
“Is it good?” Ben asked.
“I hope so. I’m a little out of practice.”
Dusty Burns showed up at the barn first thing in the morning with a copy of the article. “I posted copies in the track kitchen and also the secretary’s office.”
Dawn poured over it word for word as if she’d never seen it before. It was a short article by most standards, but by the time she finished reading it, she had sweat on her brow. “What’s everyone saying about it?”
“They like it! They think it shows a side of them that most people don’t see.”
“Good point,” Ben said, reading it a second time. “Is that how you spell liaison?”
Dawn smiled. “Yes.”
“It looks funny.”
The morning barn routine proceeded as usual. Three horses were galloped, one hand-walked, one was ponied. By eleven o’clock, Dawn was getting ready to leave. “Where are you going?” Ben asked. “We have a meeting scheduled.”
“What? Where? I want to stop by and see Linda and little Alice Marie.”
“But we need to decide what we’re doing about Billy Martin.”
Dawn looked back from the tack room door. “What do you mean? I thought they just wanted us to pay to bury him. Write a check.”
Ben smiled. “Come on, Dawn. That’s not like you.”
Dawn just looked at him for a moment and then with a sigh, walked back and sat down on the cot. “What’s the debate?”
“Well, Tom thinks even though no one liked Billy, that he should have a proper funeral. He’s up talking to Pastor Mitchell about it now.”
“You mean we’d have it here at the track?”
“Yes, a service up in the chapel.” The chapel was a small room above the track kitchen that also served as a meeting place for the HBPA.
“What if no one shows?”
Ben looked at her. “Then you and I and Tom and Dusty will be there alone.”
Tom walked in the tack room all excited. “Pastor Mitchell had a great idea! A funeral procession for Billy down through the barn area. He said ole’ Billy was a son of bitch but that God loved him, and Billy loved his horses. We can have the procession go right past his barn.”
“Oh, good grief,” Dawn said. “Tell me you’re not serious.”
“Well, yes. What gave us the idea is Billy’s from New Orleans. We think he’d really like a funeral procession, a proper send-off.”
Dawn shook her head. “Do I need to remind you that no one liked this man and that as Pastor Mitchell said he was a son of a bitch.”
Tom smiled. “Well, actually, those were my words.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Dawn said, waving her hands.
Tom chuckled. “Dawn, seriously, it is precisely because Billy wasn’t liked that we need to do this. We need to show compassion.”
“To who? He’s dead,” Dawn said.
Tom looked at her. “To his memory,” he said. “And to the will of God.”
Dawn sighed. “When’s this all supposed to take place?”
“Well, Dusty’s checking on a horse-drawn carriage now.”
Dawn bowed her head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Since there was no racing today, Tom headed across town to the address listed on Billy Martin’s trainer’s license and arrived at a vacant lot. He sat there wondering. The house to the right of the vacant lot looked abandoned. The one on the left was boarded up with a charred roof.
“What’s going on?” he heard a male voice ask. It startled him. A uniformed cop stared into the open passenger-side window.
“I’m looking for the home of a Billy Martin,” Tom said. “This is 1428 Benson, right?”
The cop nodded. “There hasn’t been a house here in years.” He motioned to the trainer’s license Tom had in his hand. Tom handed it to him. “Yeah, that’s the address all right.” He handed it back.
“Well, maybe he just didn’t update it,” Tom said. “Thank you kindly for your time.”
“You’re welcome,” the cop said, adding, “You’re not from around these parts, are you?”
Tom smiled. The cop was having fun with him.
“You best be moving along,” he said. “I don’t to want get a call saying someone’s stolen this fine truck.”
Tom tipped his hat, thanking him, and drove away. Instead of going home he drove back to the racetrack and to the secretary’s office. Joe Feigler looked up from his desk. “What do you want?”
Tom laughed. “I need you to confirm something for me.”
“What?”
Tom was just about to hand him Billy’s trainer’s license, but had second thoughts about it. Joe wasn’t one to keep things to himself. “Uh…I want to know what the arrangement Rupert’s tack shop has with the track.” It was the first thing he could think of right off the top of his head. He’d been to Rupert’s earlier and complained about why Vetwrap was so expensive there.
“What do you mean?”
“Do they pay the track for use of the building they’re in?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, who would know?”
“Maybe the accountant, but Ben fired him.”
Tom laughed. “Okay. All right. Thank you for your time.”
“Try upstairs, maybe they’ll know.”
Upstairs Tom went. There was no one there. As he started back down the stairs, he heard a familiar voice. It was Dusty. He was sitting on one of the steps talking on his cell phone. He motioned to Tom he’d only be a minute. Tom sat down next to him.
“So what’s going on?” Tom asked when he hung up. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I was following you, and then I got this call. Did you know Cathy Martin only died about a month ago?”
“No.” Tom shook his head. “Did you know Billy lived in a vacant lot?”
Dusty looked at him and sighed. The two men just sat there for a moment.
“I’ve been trying to find a place for Linda’s ponies,” Dusty said.
“Any luck?”
“No, I was going to talk to you and Ben about that. I need to know how much you can pay. They haven’t been on grass so we can’t just turn ‘em out and the only stalls available at the stables I know of are full board.”
Winning Odds Trilogy Page 54