Lead a Horse to Murder (20 page)

Pancho hesitated. “He cheated,” he finally replied with a shrug. “Ees as simple as that.”

“Really!” My astonishment was sincere. “But he didn’t get caught?”

“Not the gr-r-reat Eduar-r-rdo Garcia!” he sneered. He glanced around before continuing, as if wanting to make sure we were alone. “You see, he and I were not on the same team at that time. Like any sport—baseball, basketball, whatever sports in which the stakes are high—there is much trading of players, much buying and selling of talent. Eduardo was playing for Andrew MacKinnon, as he always has. But I was playing on another team, Rosewood. During one game early in the season, I was right behind Eduardo on the field, trying to get the ball away from him. And then, with no warning, he violated one of the most basic rules of polo.”

“Which rule?” I prompted.

“If you miss the ball, never stop short. If you do, the horses behind you will run right into you.” His expression darkened. “And that is exactly what he did. He missed the ball and lost control of it. And then he stopped. My horse collided with his, and I fell off. I broke my leg and was unable to play for the rest of the season.

“I have always known he did it on purpose,” Pancho went on. “There was a special competitiveness between us from the start, one that went far beyond a normal desire to be the best. He didn’t like me, and there ees no doubt in my mind that he was prepared to do whatever it took to get me out of the game. And that is exactly what he did.

“Of course, it was impossible to prove that what he did was intentional. Eduardo claimed his horse had stumbled. But I knew the truth. I was close enough to see him pull on the reins. And if there had been any doubt in my mind, I could see from the look in his eyes as they carried me off the field on a stretcher—a look of triumph—that he knew exactly what he had done.”

“Did you tell anyone?” I asked.

He laughed coldly. “I tried, but of course no one would listen. No one could believe that Eduardo Garcia was capable of such behavior. But the cost to me, both financially and in terms of my ability to play, was tremendous. So my heart was not broken when soon afterward, I heard rumors about Eduardo being in serious financial difficulty.”

“I haven’t heard any of those rumors,” I lied, hoping he’d fill me in on the details.

“Ah. Then you are one of the few. Eduardo Garcia, the patron saint of polo, at least in Old Brookbury, was badly in debt. You see, he had this nasty habit of spending much more than he made. Even though he was paid handsomely, he could not resist indulging in baubles for his lady friends and toys for himself. He also insisted upon having the finest polo ponies in the world. Nothing but the best would do for our friend Eduardo!”

“I see.”

And I
did
see. Pancho was right; with the exception of Andrew MacKinnon’s immediate family, just about everyone who had known the dashing young polo player
did
talk about him as if he was in the running for sainthood. Yet no one could possibly be that pure, especially someone who was plucked out of a poverty-stricken village and thrown in with some of the wealthiest people in the world—including some of the most beautiful and desirable women imaginable.

But Eduardo wasn’t the only person surrounded by questions. Pancho raised a few of his own. His appearance in the barn—unannounced and unexpected—troubled me. Did he make a habit of hanging around in the shadows, waiting for the opportunity to spread the word about the
real
Eduardo Garcia?

Or had he been watching me? Was it possible that he’d noticed I’d been asking a lot of questions—and that he wanted to make sure I got the right answers?

I was still ruminating over our odd conversation as I made my way toward the main house. When Luisa answered the door, it took me a second or two to remember what I’d come for. Fortunately, the MacKinnons’ motherly housekeeper helped me out.

“I am so sorry, Dr. Popper,” she said. “Meester Mac ees not here. The car took him to the city—”

“Luisa, who is it?” Peyton sashayed down the dramatic circular staircase that dominated the front hallway, the skinny straps of her sheer sundress slipping down her shoulders. “Oh, it’s you. The animal doctor.”

Somehow, she managed to make my chosen career sound extremely unflattering.

“Hello, Peyton,” I said evenly. “Nice to see you again.”

“Eef you will excuse me,” Luisa said, bowing her head and dropping her shoulders. “I have work in the kitchen.”

“Of course, Luisa.” Somehow, I got the feeling Luisa didn’t like her employer’s older daughter very much. I also got the feeling she was completely justified.

With the housekeeper gone, Peyton focused her attention on me. “Your timing is excellent. The rest of my luggage just arrived from Europe. Would you be a dear and help me carry these suitcases into my bedroom? You must be as strong as a bull, working around horses and all that. The stupid FedEx people just left them at the front door. You’d think they’d have the decency to deliver them to the room they’re headed for, wouldn’t you?”

If not wash and press everything inside,
I thought, decrying the low standards we’d all settled for.

However, the chance to do a little snooping was irresistible.

“Sure,” I told her. “I’d be happy to help.”

Without so much as a thank-you, Peyton picked up the smallest piece of luggage—pretty much a cell phone carrier with a handle—and headed back upstairs, leaving the two humongous valises for me. I gritted my teeth, telling myself that the possibility of learning something interesting about Eduardo was worth a few pulled muscles.

I followed her up the stairs and down a long hallway, lugging the two suitcases. Finally, we reached a large bedroom that was decorated in soft shades of peach and mint green. French doors that led out onto a balcony had been left open, sending the sheer white curtains that covered them billowing in the breeze.

“Put them down anywhere,” Peyton instructed me.

I was about to ask her if I should expect a bigger tip than the one she’d given the taxi driver when she let out a long, loud sigh.

“I absolutely
despise
unpacking,” she grumbled, flicking a strand of hair over her shoulder. “I’d have Inez do it, but she always puts things in the wrong place. I swear, I don’t know
why
Daddy keeps her around.”

“She seemed really upset when she learned Eduardo was dead,” I interjected. I held my breath, hoping Peyton wouldn’t notice how quickly I’d changed the subject from the cruel hand fate had dealt her—that is, having to unpack all by herself after her difficult summer of clubbing and sunbathing all over Europe—to the dead polo player.

“You know, I’m not stupid,” Peyton said calmly. “I know exactly what you’re doing.” In response to my blank look, she added, “You’re trying to figure out who killed Eduardo.”

“Well, no, I was just—”

“I’m not judging you,” she insisted. “It’s a natural thing to wonder. Except you don’t have to work at it this hard. All you have to do is ask me.”

“Ask . . . you?”

“Right. Ask me who killed Eduardo.” She shrugged. “I’m not going to lie.”

“Okay, then. Who killed him?”

She frowned, then placed her hands on her nearly nonexistent hips and glanced around the room. “Where are my cigarettes? I can’t imagine . . .” She spotted her pocketbook lying on the bed, grabbed it, and spilled the contents out. In addition to the Chanel wallet, Tiffany keychain, Gucci credit card holder, MAC lipstick, Mont Blanc pen, and all the other items that came pouring out, was a packet of Silk Cuts. British, I thought, pleased that I’d learned something useful from reading
Bridget Jones’s Diary
. She wasted no time lighting up with—what else?—a gold Cartier lighter, then turned her attention back to me.

“My father.”

I didn’t even try to hide my astonishment.

“It was almost inevitable,” she went on, pausing to take a puff. “You see, he’s very possessive.”

“Possessive of what?” I asked.

“Of me.” Her matter-of-fact tone was chilling. “He knew Eduardo and I were lovers. Even more importantly, that we were madly, passionately in love. And Daddy had no intention of ever letting us do anything as extreme as get married.”

I studied her, thinking that I had yet to see any indication that Peyton had had even fond feelings for Eduardo, much less that she’d been “madly, passionately in love” with him. In fact, it was difficult to imagine someone so wrapped up in herself feeling that way about anyone besides the reflection she saw in the mirror.

“My impression is that your father adored Eduardo,” I told her.

“Oh, he did. At least, on the polo field. Eduardo was a great player, but he was still an Argie. Believe me, my father wasn’t about to let his precious daughter marry one of
them
.

“You see, my father isn’t quite what he seems,” Peyton went on. “The Argies are good enough to ride his horses and share his table and make him look good on the polo field. But letting one of them marry his daughter—and gain serious access to his money—well, that’s something else entirely.”

She paused, smoking her cigarette and thinking. “Of course,” she finally said, “it could have been me who murdered Eduardo, too.”

“You?”
Her remark caught me entirely off guard. “Why would you have done something like that?”

She shrugged. “Jealousy, most likely. I know perfectly well that Eduardo had other lovers. That vile Chase woman, for example, who’s had so much fat pumped out and so much collagen and Botox and Lord knows what else pumped
in
that it’s amazing she doesn’t float into the air like a badly dressed helium balloon.” She took a few more puffs, then mused, “I have to change. What should I put on?”

She strolled over to her closet and studied a row of white blouses. From where I stood, they all looked pretty much the same. Finally, she pulled out one that was hanging neatly on a padded satin hanger. “There
is
one small problem with that theory, of course. I have an airtight alibi. I was out of the country until Sunday, five days after he died. Even
I’m
not clever enough to murder someone from three thousand miles away. Which, of course, brings us back to Daddy.” She focused on the blouse, sticking out her lower lip in her usual childish pout. “For heaven’s sake, will you
look
at what Inez did to this blouse? You’d think someone who claims to be such a skilled housekeeper could manage to get a simple caviar stain out of linen, wouldn’t you? Honestly, if this happens one more time . . . Inez? Inez, where are you?”

She stalked off, her high heels clicking angrily against the wooden floor in the hallway as she went to chastise her servant. It was a very Marie Antoinette moment.
Maybe there really
is
something to this reincarnation
business,
I thought.

I was about to leave her bedroom when I noticed that all the items from her pocketbook were still lying in a heap on the bed. One in particular caught my eye. An oversized envelope, the kind the airlines give out with a boarding pass. I glanced at the doorway. There was no one in sight. I could hear Peyton downstairs, berating poor Inez, shrilly lecturing her on the importance of maintaining high standards in the workplace—a topic on which she obviously considered herself an expert.

I stepped over to the bed, trying to get a better look at the boarding pass. The printing was facedown. Glancing around one more time to make sure I was alone, I picked it up. Paris to New York on Air France, just as I’d expected. This was the ticket Peyton had used to come back to the United States.

But my stomach lurched when I focused on the date: September 2, five days
before
Eduardo’s death.

She
lied,
I thought, my head spinning as I maneuvered the curves of Turkey Hollow Road and headed back to what I’d come to think of as my real life. Not that it was the least bit difficult to believe that someone who was that spoiled—and that full of herself—was capable of dishonesty. But she’d gone out of her way to tell me her alibi, then either carelessly or craftily laid out the evidence that it was completely invalid.

Is Peyton MacKinnon so out of touch with reality that she thinks she’s above suspicion—and perhaps even above the law? I wondered. Or is she playing some other game—a game that for some reason has something to do with me?

Thanks to the full day of appointments I had scheduled, I quickly forgot all about Peyton and Eduardo. In fact, it wasn’t until I got home that evening that I remembered that I had something much more personal than the polo player’s murder to deal with.

The sight of Nick’s black Maxima, parked in what I considered the van’s unofficial parking space, reminded me.

Of course. Today was the day Nick had moved in.
Temporarily,
I reminded myself, taking a few deep breaths before opening the front door.

The dogs were instantly all over me, ecstatic that the leader of their pack was home. Prometheus also squawked his hello. And there was a new addition to the household: Leilani, the Jackson’s chameleon Nick and I had brought home from Hawaii, blinking at me from her glass tank on the coffee table.

But Nick was nowhere in sight. And here I’d expected to find him relaxing in the comfortable upholstered chair in a velvet smoking jacket, reading the paper and sipping brandy from a snifter.

“Nick?” I called. “I’m, uh, home.”

He poked his head out of the kitchen, looking unusually frazzled. “I’m so glad you’re here! The leader of my study group called an emergency meeting. And it’s my turn to host. Don’t we own an ice bucket?”

I let his use of the word “we” breeze by me. “They’re meeting
here
?” I demanded. “But this place is so tiny! Can’t they meet at your place?”

“It’s too chaotic, Jess. I stopped in before to pick up some stuff I forgot to bring over this morning. There are drop cloths all over the furniture, the entire place smells so strongly of paint that I practically gagged . . .”