“You’re right about Mickey though. He twisted Mom around his little finger and Addie thought he could do no wrong. Know what else I don’t get?” Chark stood up, found he was a trifle shaky, and started to sit back down.
“Here, Chark, you’re hurt.” Arthur put his hand under Chark’s arm to steady him.
“I’m shook up, not hurt. I can’t believe I lost control like that.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.” Arthur discreetly glanced at his wristwatch, then sat next to Chark for a moment. “Now, what is it that you don’t understand? You lost your train of thought.”
“If Mom was so in love with Mickey, why did she refuse to marry him?”
“Ah—” Arthur tipped back his head. “I’d like to think because she knew it wouldn’t work in the long run.”
“Addie says it was because I didn’t like Mickey. Makes me feel guilty as hell.”
“Oh, now—”
“You know how she was. She’d do anything for Addie. I used to beg her to marry you. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Not to me,” Arthur said sadly.
“I used to scream at her that Mickey was a gold digger. When I think of the stuff I said to my mother,” he hung his head, covering his eyes, “I feel so terrible.”
Arthur put his arm around Chark. “There, there. You’re overwrought. You were young. She forgave you. Mothers always do, you know.”
Chark shook his head. “I know, but—”
“Let’s talk about something pleasant. I picked up Adelia’s birthday cake. It’s three tiers high since I figured everyone will wind up back at Mim’s place anyway. It’s got a jockey’s cap on it, Mim’s colors, with two crossed whips. Chocolate inside, vanilla icing on the outside. Her favorite.”
“That’s great, Arthur—just great.”
“Big birthday, twenty-one.” His own twenty-first had receded into memory, a kind of warm blur. “I’ve got to go. I’ll do my best to find Harry or Mim before I take up my post.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Arthur walked away, the sandy soil crunching underfoot.
39
Addie found Mickey under a huge sweet gum tree on the back side of the course. His stopwatch in his hand, he furtively checked between it and the announcer’s stand.
“You mad at me, too?” he said.
“Nah.” She drew alongside him.
“’Bout five more minutes,” he said.
“You might win this race.”
“Oh, I might win every race.” He smiled weakly. “Just depends who the gods smile on that day, right?”
“I think it depends upon the brilliance of the jockey and the heart of the horse.”
“That helps.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Do you know why Nigel and Linda beat each other up at the Montpelier Races? He never would tell me, and I think it might be why he’s dead.”
“Nigel bought a kilo of cocaine from Linda. Or at least I thought he bought it. He was going to sell it to pay off debts, yours being one, and then buy a little place and start training horses himself. He said he knew he couldn’t be a jockey forever.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t just go from being a jockey to being a trainer.” Mickey folded his arms across his chest. “Think he was hooked?”
“No.”
“Did you tell the sheriff?”
“Finally I did. I mean, I’m in a lot of trouble because I stashed the kilo in my safe deposit box.”
“Addie—”
“Yeah, well, I told them that, too. They’ve impounded it.”
Mickey chewed the inside of his lip. “What else did you tell them?”
“Not any more than I had to. Look, just because you’re a riverboat gambler doesn’t mean you killed anybody. It wasn’t enough money to kill someone over.”
“What do you think?”
“No way.” She grinned.
“Tell you one thing, pretty girl.” He felt protective toward Addie, who reminded him a lot of Marylou. “We need a soothsayer to help us.”
“Soothsayer won the Eclipse Award. Hell, if we had a soothsayer life would be perfect.”
He laughed. “You’re too young to remember that horse.”
Her face darkened a moment. “There’s one thing I did lie about, though.”
“Huh?” His senses sharpened.
“Nigel never paid for the cocaine. He said he’d pay as soon as he sold it. He only paid for about a fourth of it. I told Sheriff Shaw that Nigel paid for it.” She helplessly held up her hands. “I don’t know why I lied.”
“Addie!” He blanched.
“I don’t want Linda coming after me.” Her face flushed. “If Linda thinks I set her up, hey . . .” She didn’t need to finish the thought.
Mickey rolled his shoulders forward and back, something he did to relax his muscles. “She’s in so much shit. Hell, they know she sells it. She’s a suspect with or without your help.”
“Selling ain’t killing. You coming to my birthday party?” She fell in with his step.
“No.”
“I’ll talk to Chark.”
“Don’t. Let well enough alone, Adelia. I’d be a wet blanket.”
“Oh, please come. You’d make me happy.” She sighed. “Be a lot happier if Nigel were still here.”
He patted her on the back. “Believe it or not, honey, I know how you feel. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss your mother.” He waited, cleared his throat. “Addie, you aren’t the only person withholding information from the sheriff.” He reached into his pocket, placing the beautiful St. Christopher’s medal into Adelia’s hand.
She stared, blinked, then the tears gushed over her cheeks. She brought the medal to her lips, kissing it. “Oh, no. Oh, no.” Although she knew her mother must be dead, the medal brought home the full force of the loss; not a vestige of hope remained.
“Where did you get this?” she whispered.
Mickey, crying too, said, “From Nigel Danforth’s down jacket.” He explained the whole sequence of events to her. “This will lead us to her murderer. My gut tells me it wasn’t Nigel. But how did he get this medal?”
“Mickey, let me have it.”
“After we flush out the rat.”
“No. Let me have it now. I want to wear it just like Mom did.”
“Addie, it’s too dangerous.”
“Please. You can stick close to me. I want Mom’s medal, and I want everyone to see it.”
40
Despite being on a leash, Tucker wiggled with excitement. The smells alone thrilled her: aromas of baked ham, smoked turkey, roast beef, and fried chicken mingled with the tang of hot dogs, hamburgers, and mustard. Three-bean salad, seven-layer salad, simple cole slaw, and rich German potato salad emitted a fragrance not as tantalizing as the meats, but food was food and Tucker wasn’t picky. The brownies, angel food cakes, pound cakes with honey drizzled on top, and pumpkin pies smelled enticing, too. The sour mash whiskey, bracing single malt scotches, sherries, port, gin, and vodkas turned her head away because these odors stung her nostrils and her eyes.
For Tucker, the Colonial Cup was a kaleidoscope of smells and of more people than she could possibly greet. Tucker knew her social obligations. She was to rush out and sniff each human nearing her mother. If she knew them, she would wag her nonexistent tail. If she didn’t, she’d bark her head off, the cheapest and most effective alarm system yet devised. But with thousands of people swarming about, she couldn’t bark at everyone. Instead she practiced her steely gaze technique. If someone approached Harry, she braced herself, never removing her eyes from the person’s face. Once she felt sure the person was not going to lunge for Harry or Mrs. Hogendobber, she relaxed.
Although bred for herding, corgis are also mindful of their special human and will defend that person to the best of their ability. In Tee Tucker’s opinion the best dog for human defense was and ever would be a chow chow. Fanatically devoted to their masters, chows first gro
wled a warning and then, if the warning was ignored, the dog would nail the potential attacker, whether it was another canine, a human, or whatever. Tucker wasn’t that ferocious but she was devoted to Harry. Sometimes she wished Harry had another dog. Mrs. Murphy could be so superior sometimes, and she hated it when the cat looked down at her from a table or a countertop. She loved Murphy, but she couldn’t play rough with her or the cat would shred her sensitive nose.
“Mother, these tailgates tempt me. If I have to walk by you, you should beg food for me.”
The day had warmed up, and the time between races was more exhausting than the races themselves. Miranda, parched from the dust and the sun, pulled Harry toward a drink stand.
Harry longingly viewed the bar set out on the back of a station wagon, but since she didn’t know the jolly people celebrating the sunshine, the horses, the day, and one another, she moved on, to the stand.
“I thought Fair wasn’t going to work this race,” Miranda said.
“You know how that goes.” Harry bought a Coke, glanced down at her panting pooch, and asked for an empty paper cup. She walked over to the water fountain, filled it up, and Tucker happily slurped.
“Guess being married to a vet is like being married to a doctor.”
“I’m not married to him.”
“Oh, will you stop.”
“Yes, it’s like being married to a doctor, and Fair is so conscientious. He works on animals whether the people pay or not. I mean, they always tell him they’re going to pay, but they don’t. If an animal is in trouble, he’s there.”
“Isn’t that why you loved him?”
“Yes.” Harry finished her Coke.
“Mmm.” Miranda watched the three jockeys, their silks brilliant, standing in the paddock.
Harry followed her gaze, particularly noticing one wiry fellow, hand on hip, crop in hand. “Funny, isn’t it? Those behemoth football players get paid a fortune and we worship them for their strength, but these guys have more courage. Women, too. Pure guts, gristle, and brains out there.”
“Well, I’ve never understood how—” Miranda stopped. “Harry, is it rude to talk to jockeys before they ride? I would guess it is.”
“They aren’t up next. I recognize the silks.”
Miranda charged over to the three men. One looked much younger than the others—about sixteen. “Excuse me,” she said.
Tucker bounded forward, surprising Harry, who was pulled off balance.
“Ma’am.” The eldest of the three, a man in his middle forties, removed his cap.
“Did you know Nigel Danforth?” Miranda demanded.
“I did.” The teenager spoke up.
“This may sound like an odd question, but, did you like him?”
“Didn’t really know him.” The older man spoke up quickly.
The youngest one, in flame-orange silks with two black hoop bands on each sleeve, said, “He acted like he was better than the rest of us.”
Harry smiled. That English accent set off people every time.
As if reading her thoughts, the middle jockey, twenty-five or so, added, “It wasn’t his accent, which sounded phony to me. He used to strut about, cock of the walk. And brag.”
“That he was a better rider?” Harry joined in.
“No,” the younger one said. “That he was going to marry Addie Valiant. Addie deserves better than that.”
“Yes, she does,” Harry agreed.
Now the oldest jockey, in deep green silks with pale blue circles on them, decided to talk. “Don’t get me wrong. None of us hated him enough to kill him, and he wasn’t a dirty rider, so you have to give the man credit for that, but there was something about him, something shifty. You’d ask him a question, any question, and he’d dance around it like he needed time to think of an answer.”
“What did Addie see in him?” the youngest one asked, eyebrows quizzical. His longing tone betrayed a crush on Addie.
Miranda, in her “Dear Abby” voice, replied, “She wasn’t thinking clearly. She would have come to her senses.”
“Why do you want to know about Nigel Danforth?” the older man asked.
Harry jumped in. “Guess we were as curious as you all were—we couldn’t figure out what she saw in him either.”
They exchanged a few more words, then Harry, Miranda, and Tucker hastened to the small paddock where jockeys mounted their horses before they were led out onto the track.
Addie, riding for a client other than Mim in this race, walked around led by Chark. Her mother’s medal gleamed on her neck. She had the top button of her silks undone. Chark, taut before the race and upset over Mickey Townsend as well as his argument with his sister, didn’t notice.
Colbert Mason, the Sanburnes, Fair Haristeen, Arthur Tetrick, Mickey Townsend, Rick Shaw, and Cynthia Cooper, plus hundreds of others, observed the horses. Within a few minutes they’d be called toward the starting cord.
Miranda’s mouth fell open. “It can’t be,” she half-whispered.
“What?” Harry leaned toward her.
“Look at Adelia’s neck.”
Harry peered, the light bouncing off the royal blue enamel. “Some kind of medal. I don’t remember it. Must be an early birthday present.”
“No early present. I’d know that medal anywhere. It was Marylou’s. She never took it off her neck after Charley died. Not even for fancy balls. She’d drape her rubies and diamonds over it.”
Harry focused on the medal. “Uh—yes, now that you mention it. I recall Marylou wearing that.”
Mim, across the paddock, also stared at the medal. She grabbed Jim’s arm.
Mim, Miranda, and Jim converged on Rick Shaw, pulling him away from the rail and possible eavesdroppers.
Once he persuaded them to talk in sequence, he listened intently as did Deputy Cooper.
“You don’t know if it’s the exact medal. Someone could have given her a replica,” Rick said.
“Flip it over.” Mim’s lips were white from emotion.
“Even if it carries the same message, it could be a replica.” Rick pursued his line of thought.
“It was made by Cartier expressly for Marylou.” Mim wrung her hands.
“I appreciate this. I really do. After the races we can ask Adelia to remove the medal so you all can have a closer look, and she can tell us where she got it.” Rick hoped the medal was meaningful, but he needed to keep Marylou’s old friends calm. He wanted to approach this evidence quietly and sensibly.
“The minute the Colonial Cup is run.” Mim was pleading, unusual for her.
“I promise,” Rick said firmly.
The trumpet called contestants from the paddocks to the track.
Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, the Sanburnes, and Tucker raced to the stands. The horses lined up, the cord sprang loose, and they shot off. Addie hung in the pack, easily clearing the fences, but on the second lap the horse was bumped over a fence and lost a stride or two. She couldn’t make it up by the finish line, and they were out of the money.
As the humans hollered and exchanged money among themselves, Tucker, happy to see another dog come up into the stands, a jaunty Jack Russell, called out, “Hello.”
“Hi,” the Jack Russell answered. “I hope we sit near one another. I’ve had about all the humans I can stand. My name is The Terminator.”
“Mine is Tucker.”
Fortunately, the owner, a nervous-looking, thin, middle-aged woman, took a seat in front of Tucker. “This is good luck. Are you with anyone in the races?”
“Mim Sanburne,” Tucker replied.
“She might win the cup this year,” the Russell said sagely. “My human, ZeeZee Thompson—she’s a trainer, you know—thinks Mim has a good chance. In fact, my human has been in the top five trainers in winnings for the last ten years.”
“Oh.” Tucker sounded impressed.
“ZeeZee used to ride in England, but she took a bad fall, ruptured her spleen and damaged her liver plus she broke some ribs. So as soon as
she recovered, she learned how to train.”
“She must have known Nigel Danforth in England.”
The Terminator paused, lowering her voice. “Nigel Danforth is no more a Brit than you or I, my friend. My mother’s afraid to talk about him ’cause of the murders, you see. She doesn’t want to be next.”
“Is she in danger?” Tucker surged forward on her leash. Harry paid no attention, so Tucker moved next to the smooth-coated Jack Russell.
“I hope not, but you see, she is the only person who knows where Nigel came from, and if the killer figures that out, she might be in trouble.”
“The killer’s only taking out jockeys.” Tucker comforted the other dog.
“I don’t know, but whoever is doing this knows ’chasing inside and out.”
“How did your mother know Nigel Danforth?”
“Montana. One summer—I guess it must have been six years ago, when I was a puppy—we went out to Bozeman. He was a ranch hand, but he was good with a horse. Mom told him the money back East was better than punching cows. He had a full mustache and beard then. Men look real different to humans when they shave them off. They smell the same, of course.”
“What was his real name? Do you remember that?”
“Sargent Wilcox.” Tucker’s eyes widened as the little dog continued. “I sure hope my mother is safe. Wilcox only worked for Mom for a little bit. He was too wild for her.”
Tucker hoped so, too, because she was beginning to get the picture, not the whole picture but the very beginning, and it was terrifying.
41
The Colonial Cup, for which they had waited, was about to be run.
Mim joined her husband, Harry, Mrs. Hogendobber, and Fair in the box in the grandstand. She’d run up from the paddock where she’d smiled at Addie and wished her well, all the while keeping her eyes on the St. Christopher’s medal. When Chark gave his sister a leg up, Mim returned to the grandstand for fear her own nerves would make the Valiants agitated. Her beige suede outfit topped with her ubiquitous Hermes scarf showed not a wrinkle, crease, or stain despite her dashing about. She sat down, jaw tight. Little Marilyn would have gladly tightened the scarf around her mother’s neck. She hated it when Mim tensed up like this, so she sat with ZeeZee Thompson down the aisle.
Murder, She Meowed Page 19