Quickly, Addie said, “I don’t do drugs anymore,” then changed the subject. “Hey, is Susan coming today?”
“Later. The Reverend Jones will be here, too. The whole Crozet gang. We’ve got to root for Bazooka.”
Chark waved for his sister to join him.
“Oops. Big Brother is watching me.” She dropped Harry’s arm. “Harry, I’ll see you after the races. I want you to meet Nigel.”
“After the races then.” Harry walked over to get her fence assignment.
Harry, as usual, had been assigned the east gate jump, so-called because it lay closest to the east gate entrance to the main house. She vaulted over the rail to the patrons’ tents, put together a ham biscuit and a cup of tea, turned too fast without looking, and bumped into a slender dark man accompanied by a jockey she recognized.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Another woman falling over you,” Coty Lamont said sarcastically.
“Coty, you aren’t using the right cologne. Old manure doesn’t attract women.” The other man spoke in a light English accent.
Harry, who knew Coty slightly—the best jockey riding at this time—smiled at him. “Smells good to me, Coty.”
He recognized her since she occasionally worked other steeplechase races. “The post office lady.”
“Mary Minor Haristeen.” She held out her hand.
He shook her hand. He couldn’t extend his hand until she offered hers . . . rough as Coty appeared, he had absorbed the minimum of social graces.
“And this here’s Nigel Danforth.”
“Pleased to meet you Mr. Danforth.” Harry shook his hand. “I’m a friend of Addie’s.”
Their faces relaxed.
“Ah,” Nigel said simply, and smiled.
“Then be ready to part-tee,” Coty said.
“Uh—sure,” Harry, a bit confused by their sudden enthusiasm, said softly.
“See you later.” Coty headed for the jockeys’ changing tent.
Nigel winked. “Any friend of Addie’s . . .” Then he, too, hurried to the tent.
Harry watched the diminutive men walk away from her, struck by how tiny their butts were. She did not know what to make of those two. Their whole demeanor had changed when she mentioned Addie. She felt as if she’d given the password to an exclusive club.
She blinked, sipped some tea, then walked out the east side of the tent area and stepped over the cordon. Tucker ducked under it.
“Come on, Tucker, let’s check our fence before the hordes arrive.”
“Good idea,” Tucker said. “You know how everyone stops to pass and repass. If you don’t get over there now you’ll never get over.”
Harry glanced down at the dog. “You’ve got a lot to say.”
“Yes, but you don’t listen.”
From the east gate jump Harry couldn’t see the cars driving in, but she could hear the steady increase in noise. Glad to be alone, she bit into the succulent ham biscuit and noticed Mim walking back through the gates to the big house, toward the races. She thought to herself that the political tour must be over, another reason she was happy to be in the back—no handshaking.
Working in the Crozet post office allowed Harry weekends and a minimum of hassle. The P.O. was open Saturdays from 8 A.M. to noon. Sally Dohner and Liz Beer alternated Saturdays so Harry enjoyed two full days of freedom. Her friends took their work home with them, fretted, burned the midnight oil. Harry locked the door to the small postal building on Crozet’s main drag, drove home, and forgot about work until the next morning. If she was going to fret over something, it would be her farm at the base of Yellow Mountain or some problem with a friend. Often accused of lacking ambition, she readily agreed with her critics. Her Smith College classmates, just beginning to nudge forward in their high-powered careers in New York, Boston, Richmond, and far-flung cities in the Midwest and West, reminded her she had graduated in the top 10 percent of her class. They felt she was wasting her life. She felt her life was lived from within. It was a rich life. She used a different measuring stick than they did.
She had one thing they didn’t: time. Of course, they had one thing she didn’t: money. She never could figure out how you could have both. Well, Marilyn “Mim” Sanburne did, but she had inherited more money than God. In Mim’s defense, she used it wisely, often to help others, but to be a beneficiary of her largesse, one had to tolerate her grandeur. Little Marilyn, Harry’s age, who glowered in her mother’s shadow, was tiring of good works. A flaming romance would take precedence over good deeds, but Little Mim, now divorced, couldn’t find Mr. Right, or rather, her mother couldn’t find Mr. Right for her.
Harry’s mouth curled upward. She had found Mr. Right who’d turned into Mr. Wrong and now wanted to be Mr. Right again. She loved Fair but she didn’t know if she could ever again love him in that way.
A roar told her that the Bledsoe/Butler Cup, the first race of the day, one mile on the dirt, $1,000 winner-take-all—had started. Tempted as she was to run up to the flat track and watch, she knew she’d better stay put.
“Tucker, I’ve been daydreaming about marriage, men”—she sighed—“ex-husbands. The time ran away with me.”
Tucker perked up her big ears. “Fair still loves you. You could marry him all over again.”
Harry peered into the light brown eyes. “Sometimes you seem almost human—as if you know exactly what I’m saying.”
“Sometimes you seem almost canine.” Tucker stared back at her. “But you have no nose, Harry.”
“Are you barking at me?” Harry laughed.
“I’m telling you to stop living so much in your mind, that’s what I’m saying. Why you think I’m barking is beyond me. I know what you’re saying.”
Harry reached over, hugged the sturdy dog, and kissed the soft fur on her head. “You really are the most adorable dog.”
She heard the announcer begin to call the jockeys for the second race, the first division of the Marion duPont Scott Montpelier Cup, purse $10,000, two miles and one furlong over brush for “maidens” three years old and upward, a maiden being a horse that had never won a race. She could see people walking over the hill. Many race fans, the knowledgeable ones, wanted to get away from the crowds and watch the horses.
A brand-new Land Rover drove at the edge of the course, its midnight blue shining in the November light. Harry couldn’t imagine being able to purchase such an expensive vehicle. She was saving her pennies to replace the ’78 Ford truck, which despite its age was still chugging along.
Dr. Larry Johnson stuck his head out the Land Rover’s passenger window. “Everything shipshape?”
“Yes, sir.” Harry saluted.
“Hello, Tucker.” Larry spoke to the sweet-eyed dog.
“Hi, Doc.”
“We’ve got about ten minutes.” Larry turned to Jim Sanburne, Mim’s husband and the mayor of Crozet, who was driving. “Don’t we, Jim?”
“I reckon.” Jim leaned toward the passenger window, his huge frame blotting out the light from the driver’s side. “Harry, you know that Charles Valiant and Mickey Townsend are fighting like cats and dogs, so pay close attention to those races where they’ve both got entries.”
“What’s the buzz?” Harry had heard nothing of the feud.
“Hell, I don’t know. These damn trainers are prima donnas.”
“Mickey accused Chark of instructing Addie to bump his jockey at the Maryland Hunt Cup last year. His horse faltered at the sixth fence and then just couldn’t quite pick it up.”
“Mickey’s a sore loser,” Jim growled to Larry. “He’ll break your fingers if you beat him at checkers—especially if there’s money bet on the game.”
“Goes back further than that.” Harry sighed.
“You’re right. Charles hated Mickey from the very first date Mickey had with his mother.” Jim ran his finger under his belt. “Takes some boys like that. But you know Charles had sense enough to worry that Townsend only wanted her money.”
&n
bsp; “Chark couldn’t understand how Marylou could prefer Mickey to Arthur.” Larry Johnson recalled the romance, which had started seven years ago, ending in shock and dismay for everyone. “I guess any woman who compares Arthur to Mickey is bound to favor Mickey. I don’t think it had to do with money.”
“Off the top of your head, do you know what races—”
Before Harry could finish her question, Jim Sanburne bellowed, “The third, the fifth, and the sixth.”
“Nigel Danforth is riding for Townsend,” Larry added.
“Addie told me,” Harry said.
“You heard about them too.” Jim smiled.
“Kinda. I mean, I know that Addie is crazy for him.”
“Her brother isn’t.” Larry folded his arms across his chest.
“Hey, just another day in Virginia.” Harry smacked the door of the Land Rover.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Jim said. “Put two Virginians in a room and you get five opinions.”
“No, Jim, put you in a room and we get five opinions,” Larry tweaked him.
Jim laughed. “I’m just the mayor of a small town reflecting the various opinions of my voters.”
“We’ll come by after the first race. Need anything? Food? Drink?” Larry asked while Jim was still laughing at himself.
“Thanks, no.”
“Okay, Harry, catch you in about a half hour then.” Jim rolled up the hill as Larry waved.
Harry put her hands on her hips and thought to herself. Jim, in his sixties, and Larry, in his seventies, had known her since she was born. They knew her inside and out, as she knew them. That was another reason she didn’t much feel like being the Queen of Madison Avenue. She belonged here with her people. There was a lot that never needed to be said when you knew people so intimately.
This shorthand form of communication did not apply to BoomBoom Craycroft, creaming over the top of the hill like a clipper in full sail. Since BoomBoom had once enjoyed an affair with Harry’s ex-husband, the buxom, tall, and fashionable woman was not Harry’s favorite person on earth. BoomBoom reveled in the emotional texture of life. Today she reveled in the intense pleasure of swooping down on Harry, who couldn’t move away since she was the fence judge.
“Harry!” BoomBoom cruised over, her square white teeth gleaming, her heavy, expensive red cape moving gently in the breeze.
“Hi, Boom.” Harry shortened her nickname, one won in high school because her large bosoms seemed to boom-boom with each step. The boys adored her.
“You’re dressed for the job.” BoomBoom appraised Harry’s pressed jeans and L. L. Bean duck boots—the high-topped ones, which reached only nine inches for women, a fact that infuriated Harry since she could have used twelve inches on the farm; only the men’s boots had twelve-inch uppers. Harry also wore a silk undershirt, an ironed flannel tartan plaid, MacLeod, and a goosedown vest, in red. If the day warmed up, she would shed her layers.
“BoomBoom, I’m usually dressed this way.”
“I know,” came the tart reply from the woman standing there in Versace from head to foot. Her crocodile boots alone cost over a thousand dollars.
“I don’t have your budget.”
“Even if you did you’d look exactly the same.”
“All right, Boom, what’s the deal? You come over here to give me your fashion lecture 101, to visit uneasiness upon me, or do you want something from Tucker?”
Tucker squeezed next to her mother. “She’s got on too much perfume, Mom. She’s stuffing my nose up.”
BoomBoom leaned over to pat the silky head. “Tucker, very impressive with your official’s badge.”
“Boom, those fake fingernails have got to go,” the dog replied.
“I’m here to visit and to watch the first race from the back.”
“Have a fight with Carlos?”
BoomBoom had been dating a wealthy South American who lived in New York City and Buenos Aires.
“He’s not here this weekend.”
“Trolling, then?” Harry wryly used the term for going around picking up men.
“You can be so snide, Harry. It’s not your best feature. I’m here to patch up our relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
“Oh, yes, we do.”
“They’re lining up, the starter’s tape is up,”—the announcer’s voice rang out as he waited for the tape to drop—“and they’re off.”
“I’ve got to work this race.” Harry moved BoomBoom forcibly back, then took up her stance on the rail dead even with the jump. If a rider went down, she could reach the jockey quickly, as soon as all the other horses were over the fence, while the outriders went after the runaway horse.
The first jumps limbered up the horses and settled the jockeys. By the time they reached Harry’s jump, the competition would be fierce. The first race over fences covered a distance of two miles and one furlong; competitors would pass her obstacle only once. This race, and in fact all races but the fifth, the Virginia Hunt Cup, were run over brush, meaning the synthetic Grand National brush fences, which had replaced natural brush some years ago. The reasoning behind the change was that the natural brush varied in density. Because steeplechase horses literally “brushed” through the top of these jumps, any inconsistency in texture or depth or solidity could cause a fall or injury. The Grand National fences provided horses with a safer jump. Timber horses, on the other hand, had to jump cleanly over the whole obstacle, although the top timbers were notched on the back so they would give way if rapped hard enough. Even so, the last thing a timber trainer or jockey wanted was for one of their horses to “brush” through a timber fence.
Harry heard the crowd. Then in the distance she heard the thunder. The earth shook. The sensation sent chills up her spine, and in an instant the horses turned the distant corner, a kaleidoscope of finely conditioned bays, chestnuts, and seal browns, hooves reaching out as they lengthened their stride. She recognized the purple silks of Mim Sanburne as well as Addie’s determined gaze. The Urquharts, Mim’s family, had registered the first year that the Jockey Club was organized, 1894, so their horses ran in solid color silks. Harry also saw the other silks: emerald green with a red hoop around the chest, blue with yellow dots, yellow with a diagonal black sash, the colors intense, rippling with the wind, heightening the sensation of speed, beauty, and power.
The first three horses cleared the brush, their hooves tipping the top of the synthetic cedar, making an odd swishing sound, then she heard the reassuring thump-thump as those front hooves reached the earth followed by the hind. The three leaders pulled away, and the remainder of the pack cleared the jump, a Degas painting come to life.
She breathed a sigh of relief. No one went down at her fence. No fouls. As the hoofbeats died away, moving back up the hill toward the last several jumps and the home-stretch, the crowd screamed while the announcer called out the positions of the horses.
“Closing hard, Ransom Mine, but Devil Fox hanging on to the lead, and here they come down the stretch, and Ransom Mine is two strides out, but oh, what a burst of speed, it’s Devil Fox under the wire!”
“Hurray for Mim!” Harry whispered. “A strong second.”
BoomBoom drew alongside her. “She didn’t expect much from Ransom Mine, did she?”
“She’s only had him about six months. Picked him up in Maryland, I think.”
“Changing trainers helped,” BoomBoom said, “Chark is working out really well for her.”
“Will and Linda Forloines are still going around telling horror stories about how much they did for Mim, and how vile she was to fire them.” Harry shook her head, recalling Mim’s former trainer and his wife, a jockey. “Will couldn’t find his ass with both hands.”
“No, but he sure found the checkbook,” BoomBoom said. “And I don’t think Will has a clue as to how much Linda makes selling cocaine or how much she takes herself.”
“They’re lucky Big Mim didn’t prosecute them, padding the stable budget t
he way they did.”
“She’d spend thousands of dollars in court and still never see a penny back. They’ve squandered all of it. Her revenge will be watching them blow out. Mim’s too smart to directly cross druggies. She’ll let them kill themselves—or take the cure. Thank God Addie took the cure.”
“Yes,” Harry said succinctly. She hated people who took advantage of others and justified it by saying the people they were stealing from were rich. If she remembered her Ten Commandments, one said, Thou Shalt Not Steal. It didn’t say, Thou Shalt Not Steal Except When the Employer is Wealthy. Will and Linda Forloines still hung around the edges of the steeplechase world. The previous year Will had been reduced to working in a convenience store outside of Middleburg. Finally they had latched on to a rich doctor who moved down from New Jersey and who wanted to “get into horses.” Poor man.
“They’re here.”
“Here?” Harry said. BoomBoom’s deep voice could lull one, it was so lovely, she thought.
“You’d think they’d have the sense not to show their faces.”
“Will never was the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.” Harry peeled off her down vest as BoomBoom changed the subject.
“I’m here to tell you that I’m sorry I had a fling with Fair, but it was after your divorce. He’s a sweet man, but we weren’t the right two people. I hadn’t dated anyone seriously since Kelly died, and I needed to put my toes in the water.”
Harry didn’t think it was BoomBoom’s toes that had fascinated Fair, but she resisted the urge to make a comment. Also, she didn’t believe for one minute that the relationship had magically started right after the divorce. “Can you understand how it would upset me?”
“No. You divorced him.”
“That didn’t mean I was over him, dammit.” Harry decided not to try to pinpoint the exact date of BoomBoom’s liaison with Fair. At least they hadn’t appeared in public until after the divorce.
“Why take it out on me? Take it out on him.”
Murder, She Meowed Page 2