Horse Race (7 page)

What is going on with these guys?
she wondered. Back home, this kind of thing never happened to her. All three Joshes seemed perfectly nice, and all three were cute and interesting in their own ways. But why had all three suddenly decided that Carole was the girl of their dreams?

As she pondered the question, Carole gradually became aware of a familiar voice talking quietly and urgently nearby. She started to listen. It sounded like Garvey. He was talking on one of the pay phones just around the corner.

Carole was about to step forward and say hello to the trainer, but his next words froze her in place.

“You’d better not back out now,” he said angrily, his voice getting a little louder, so that Carole could hear him more clearly. “You said you’d do it. And the race is tomorrow.”

Carole frowned. Who could Garvey be talking to that way? She hoped it wasn’t Toby. Garvey seemed to yell at the friendly jockey a lot.

“Ride her any way you want,” Garvey continued, still sounding irate. “But when the right time comes, you’d better come through. Don’t forget, it pays to be loyal to where you come from.”

Maybe he
was
talking to Toby, Carole thought. Maybe he was telling Toby that he had better prove his loyalty to Maskee Farms by winning on Cookie Cutter the next day. But why would he call the jockey from a hotel to tell him that?

“Would you stop worrying so much?” Garvey snapped after a moment of silence. “I told you, you’ll be well rewarded. And the stewards aren’t going to suspect a thing. You’ve got a good record, right? They’ll think it’s just an accident.”

Carole gulped. That didn’t sound good. The stewards were the officials who watched every race and made sure the jockeys rode clean and fair. They had the power to change the official order of finish if they decided that one horse had interfered with another’s performance or a jockey had done something improper or dangerous. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. Earlier, she and Lisa had made fun of Stevie for suspecting Garvey of something, but now it seemed she might really have stumbled onto another racetrack mystery.

She had to make sure it was really Garvey she was hearing
After all, a lot of people sounded alike, and she wouldn’t want to accuse him unfairly.

Feeling proud of herself for thinking so rationally, she carefully peered around the corner. It was Garvey on the phone, all right. Unfortunately he was facing her way.

Carole drew her head back quickly, but it was too late. A second later she heard the phone clattering back onto its cradle. Before she could move a muscle, Garvey was in front of her, looking furious.

“Were you spying on me?” he roared, grabbing her arm. His giant hand covered her almost from shoulder to elbow, and his grip was so tight that it hurt.

“Let me go!” Carole cried, trying to twist away. “I didn’t hear anything.” She looked around desperately, but nobody else was in the hallway. And she hadn’t seen anyone go into either of the rest rooms since she’d been standing there.

“You better not have,” Garvey growled, leaning down to stare into her face. “And if you
did
hear anything you shouldn’t have, you’d better forget it right away. Bad things happen to little girls who poke their noses into other people’s business.”

“Oh yeah?” Carole said, trying to sound braver than she felt. “Well, cheaters never prosper.” It was something one of her teachers was always saying, and it had just popped into her head.

“What?” Garvey looked confused, and his grip loosened for a split second.

That was all the time Carole needed. She yanked her arm away and raced for the women’s room. Once she was inside, she locked the door with trembling fingers.

“Hey!” Garvey pounded on the other side, sounding angrier than ever. “I know you’re in there. Just listen up. Whatever you may think you heard, you’re wrong. And don’t you forget it.” A second later there was the sound of heavy footsteps moving away.

C
AROLE DIDN
’
T UNLOCK
the door until she heard Stevie’s voice calling her name outside.

“Thank goodness you’re here!” Carole exclaimed, letting her in. “You’ll never believe what just happened.”

“You won’t believe what happened to me, either,” Stevie said. “I was just coming into that hallway outside to look for you, and guess who I ran into? Literally, I mean.”

“Garvey,” Carole said.

Stevie looked surprised. “How’d you guess?” she asked, leaning against the sink behind her. “He was in such a hurry I don’t think he even recognized me. He certainly didn’t stop to apologize for practically knocking me over.” She rubbed her shoulder. “When a guy like that runs into you, believe me, you feel it.”

Finally Stevie seemed to notice how upset Carole looked.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” she said. “Don’t tell me the other Joshes ganged up on you as you were crossing the lobby.”

“Worse,” Carole replied. She filled Stevie in on her encounter with Garvey.

Stevie’s eyes widened. “Wow,” she said. “It sounds like he was threatening you.”

“It sounded that way to me, too,” Carole said. “And just in case I forget it, the huge bruise on my upper arm will be there to remind me.”

“I think it’s time for a Saddle Club meeting,” Stevie said. “We were all almost finished eating when you left, and Deborah has to go meet someone for her article now, so we ordered our desserts to go. Come on, let’s go up to our room. If anything can help us figure out what to do about all this, it’s double-chocolate mud cake.”

“Sounds good to me,” Carole said. She already felt better now that her friends were ready to help. Still, she couldn’t help remembering the angry scowl on Garvey’s face as he had yelled at her. She shivered a little as Stevie led the way to the lobby, where Lisa was waiting. Suddenly the three Joshes didn’t seem like the worst of her problems.

“A
RE YOU SURE
he was talking to a jockey?” Lisa asked for the third time.

Carole licked some chocolate frosting off her plastic fork. The Saddle Club was sitting on one of the beds in their hotel room, polishing off their cake. “I’m pretty sure,” Carole replied. “He told the person, ‘Ride her any way you want
to tomorrow,’ or something like that. Who else could that be but a jockey?”

Stevie nodded. “I knew he was up to no good from the second I laid eyes on him,” she declared.

“Well, I guess it’s possible that you were right,” Lisa admitted slowly. “There’s only one question. What exactly
is
he up to?”

“I have no idea,” Stevie said. “Maybe it’s got something to do with gambling. Garvey could owe someone a huge amount of money and need to fix a race to pay off his debt. Or maybe the jockey he was talking to owes him money.”

“I don’t think so, Stevie,” Lisa said, flicking a few crumbs off the bedspread. “Garvey told us he doesn’t gamble, remember?”

Stevie shrugged. “Maybe he was lying.”

“I doubt it,” Carole put in. “Toby heard him say that, too, remember? He seems so honest that he probably would have said something if he knew Garvey was a big gambler.”

“If
he knew about it,” Stevie argued.

But Carole had just had another thought. “Actually, now that I think about it, are we sure Toby is so honest? I hate to say it, but we don’t know him that well. And if Garvey really was talking to a jockey, Toby would be the obvious suspect. He’s riding both of the Maskee horses that are racing tomorrow.” The bay colt was entered in a later race than the one in which Cookie Cutter was competing.

Lisa let out a sigh. “You know, the more we talk about this, the more I wonder if we’re not way off base here,” she
said. “I mean, we already know that the racetrack has all kinds of terms and stuff that we don’t know—like saying furlongs instead of yards or miles, and maiden races, and all sorts of other things. Isn’t it possible—maybe even probable—that what Carole overheard was part of some totally innocent conversation?”

“But Garvey was so mad when he saw me,” Carole protested, her hand automatically moving to rub her arm where the big man had grabbed it. It was still throbbing a little.

“He sure looked mad when I saw him,” Stevie added helpfully.

Lisa shrugged. “So what? He got mad when Toby asked him a simple question about C.C.’s training. He was furious when he saw that we were younger than he was expecting. And he was practically fuming when Deborah mentioned his boxing career. Face it. The guy isn’t exactly the most easygoing person in Kentucky. Maybe he was just angry because he thought you were eavesdropping.”

Carole thought about her encounter with the trainer. “I suppose that’s possible,” she said slowly. “He does have an awfully quick temper. And he didn’t really say anything that incriminating.” She felt slightly relieved at Lisa’s theory. Just because Garvey was gruff and easily annoyed didn’t mean he was out to get her.

“But my hunch—” Stevie began.

“That’s another thing,” Lisa interrupted her. “I think we’re just looking for mysteries because we found one the
last time we were at a racetrack. But just because we’re looking for one doesn’t mean we’re going to find one.”

Carole almost smiled at that. When Lisa said “we,” it was obvious she really meant “Stevie.” And it was true. Stevie had been ready to distrust Garvey from the moment she met him. That wasn’t fair—and it didn’t make any more sense than the three Joshes falling all over themselves to talk to her. “I think you may have a point, Lisa.”

“I think I do,” Lisa said with a nod. “Garvey is a young, well-regarded trainer with everything going for him. That’s why Deborah’s putting him in her article, right? So why would he want to mess that up by doing something shady?”

Stevie looked ready to argue, but then she gave in and smiled. “Okay, okay,” she said, swallowing her last bite of cake. “I still don’t think it would hurt to keep an eye on Garvey, but maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt. We’re going to be busy enough tomorrow without any mysteries anyway.”

“Good,” Lisa said. “Then we’re all agreed. Garvey’s just a jerk with a bad temper. He isn’t out to get us—at least, not any more than he’s out to get the rest of the world. Right?”

“I guess so,” Carole said. As she remembered Garvey’s angry eyes peering into her own, she just hoped Lisa was right.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
The Saddle Club was up early again. Deborah walked with the girls to the Maskee shed.

“I’ll see you around post time, I hope,” she said.

“Okay,” Carole said, remembering that Deborah had to go back out to visit more farms that day. “I hope you make it. C.C. will be counting on having you there to cheer her on.”

The girls greeted the horses and then helped the grooms with a few chores while they waited for Garvey to arrive. After her encounter with him the evening before, Carole was still feeling a little nervous about seeing the big man. But her friends had convinced her that he probably would have forgotten all about it by this morning.

Garvey arrived around six o’clock, just as the three girls stopped by Cookie Cutter’s stall to feed her a few cabbage leaves. Toby was with the trainer. They were talking about the filly’s chances in her race.

“I think if I can just keep her clear of the gray filly, she’ll have no trouble with the others,” Toby was saying.

“Don’t worry about the gray,” Garvey said. “You just steady her out of the gate like I said and give her some time to find her stride. If luck’s on our side and you can manage to keep her out of traffic, there’ll be no stopping her.” He reached out, almost absentmindedly, and knocked on a wooden pillar. Carole almost smiled when she saw that. Josh A was right when he told her that people around here tended to be superstitious. Obviously, Garvey was no exception.

“I hear you, boss,” Toby said. “I’ll catch you later.” He gave the girls a little wave and then hurried away.

Garvey glanced at them. “You three look like you need something to do,” he said gruffly. “C.C. isn’t working today since she’s running this afternoon, but she could use a walk. You there.” He pointed at Stevie. “Why don’t you walk her down that path toward the parking lot and back. Give her something to look at other than the shed row. Don’t let her graze too much along the way, though.”

“Sure,” Stevie said. She grabbed Cookie Cutter’s halter and slipped it on the chestnut filly as Garvey looked at the other two girls.

“You.” He pointed at Lisa this time. “Take the bay colt along with her. He’s running today, too.”

Lisa nodded and got to work. Carole glanced at Garvey but didn’t meet his eyes. He was acting perfectly normal. If anything, he was being nicer to them than usual. But she still felt nervous. “Maybe I’ll walk along with them in case they need help,” she suggested, taking a step back toward Cookie Cutter, who was just emerging from her stall.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the trainer snapped. “They’ll be fine. There’s too much work to do for you to start doubling up. I’ve got another job for you.”

“Okay,” Carole said weakly, watching out of the corner of her eye as Stevie and Lisa disappeared around the corner of the shed row with their charges. She suddenly felt very alone. Her friends were gone, Toby had left, and the grooms were nowhere in sight.