One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] (11 page)

“You really think that?”

“The name of the farm is on the back of this trailer,” Peggy said. “They knew who we were. They knew we had horses.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I thought we were dead,” she said.

“Me, too.”

“The minute we get home, I’m calling Geoff.”

I glanced at her. “To tell him what?”

“What we both believe. Somebody just tried to kill us.”

Twenty miles later, I asked, “Can we stop in Bigelow and pick up some cheeseburgers and fries? My stomach’s growling louder than the diesel.”

We took up half the parking area at Wendy’s. Peggy went in while I stayed with the truck. No matter how tired we were, we had to drive out to the farm, unload the horses, check them over, feed and turn them out to pasture for the night. The carriages and harness were fine where they were. I could lock them in the trailer.

Keeping an eye out for another attack of the killer SUV, I drove one-handed and practically inhaled the cheeseburger and fries.

In the foothills north of Mossy Creek close to Lackland Farm, I had to slow down to make the curves without knocking the horses off their feet. This would have been a much more dangerous place to try to force us off the road. On the left, a narrow shoulder gave way to a precipitous wooded drop off. We’d have rolled up in a big ball. On the right, a narrow shoulder gave way to a wooded hill that climbed steeply to the top of our plateau. We’d have been crushed against the hill.

“Why not go after us here?” I asked. “Wait. I can answer my own question. He couldn’t count on being able to get away from us here. He’d have to slow down for the curves too.”

By the time we turned in between the two boulders that marked the driveway leading up to Lackland Farm, the shadows were deep under the trees and in the valleys, although at the top, the sun was still shining.

One of Louise Sawyer’s grandsons, Pete, who was pre-vet at UGA, was barn-sitting for the weekend. He’d been working part-time between spring semester and summer school, knew the horses, and was completely trustworthy. With the horses in pasture and no training going on while Peggy and I were away, all he had to do was feed, water, and check to be certain none of the horses was hurt or colicking. He had our vet’s number on speed dial and knew when to call it. Pete also had the emergency cell phone number I used at horse shows. He hadn’t needed it.

Driving the big rig up the narrow, winding gravel road that led to the plateau where the farm was located required careful maneuvering, but eventually I turned around in the parking area and backed the rig into its regular spot. The food had given me a second wind.

Ned and Golden were so glad to be home that they trotted straight into the stable and waited in the aisle while we opened their stall doors.

“Bless Pete,” said Peggy, as she peered into the boys’ stalls. “He’s filled their water buckets and put out their oats and hay.”

He’d also left me a note on the white board beside the clients’ lounge telling me that everything was okay and that the other horses had been fed and watered.

I walked out to the pasture where the other horses—and one miniature donkey—waited to be greeted. The water trough was clean and full, they were all munching hay, and nobody was bleeding or limping. Even Don Qui seemed glad to see us. He let loose a series of outstanding brays.

When Ned and Golden finished eating, we didn’t bother to halter them before we opened their stall doors to let them into the pasture for the night. They were eager to greet their friends. Everyone bucked and snorted, then wheeled and took off running with manes flying and tails in the air.

“God, I love horses,” I whispered as I watched them gallop away.

Peggy dropped her arm across my shoulder. “Me too. Thank you.”

“What on earth for?”

“Letting me be a part of this.”

“How about I let you be a part of driving us back to Mossy Creek? I’ve reached my limit.” I handed her the keys to my aging pickup. I don’t normally drive the big diesel truck unless I’m hauling a trailer. Since I still lived in the garden apartment under Peggy’s house, we’d driven out to the farm together on Friday morning. Tired as we were, we didn’t even unhitch the dually from the trailer.

Tonight I was glad I would not be alone on top of Hiram’s hill, but tucked safely inside Peggy’s Tudor revival cottage only minutes from the Mossy Creek police station.

When we parked in Peggy’s driveway, she handed me my truck keys, opened her door and said, “I’ll call Chief Royden and tell him what happened to us on the road.”

Amos Royden is chief of police of Mossy Creek. Not the jurisdiction for either the murder or the near miss on the road. “What would be the point?” I followed her to the bottom of the steps leading to her kitchen.

“He needs to know about Raleigh’s murder and our involvement,” Peggy said.

“That I’m a suspect? That I may be arrested?” I unlocked the door to my apartment and stood with my hand on the knob. “He’ll love that.”

She leaned over her rail and said, “You don’t think Geoff or that sheriff person will call him first thing tomorrow morning? Or even tonight?”

“Right now I don’t care.” I was beyond bone tired. I pretty much shut the door in her face. Then I stood under a hot shower until I turned pruny.

That SUV might have been after me alone. Peggy and the Halflingers would simply have been collateral damage. Only Peggy wasn’t collateral
anything
to me, nor were Golden and Ned. If someone was after me, then let them come after
me
and not the people and animals I loved.

I brushed my teeth and ran a comb through my wet hair. Surely nobody at the show would take the chance of hurting horses to get to me. Would they?

I planned to lie awake and stew over finding Raleigh’s body and our narrow escape. Instead, I climbed naked into bed, pulled the duvet over me, and slept instantly.

She was no more than twenty, he guessed, and pretty, although beginning to plump up. Latina. No wedding ring. Possibly no green card either, but that wasn’t his problem. Knowing Raleigh’s reputation, he wondered whether she’d been one of Raleigh’s conquests, willing or not.

He assumed she was going for her mistress. He used the time to check out as much of the house as he could see.

In
Gone with the Wind,
Tara was actually fairly small and simple for an antebellum Georgia plantation house. Raleigh had therefore modeled
his
house on Ashley Wilkes’s Georgian mansion, right down to the double staircases in the front hall.

Sarah Beth Raleigh had been an interior designer in Atlanta before she met and married Raleigh. It showed. The house looked as though it had been plucked from a
Southern Living
or
Architectural Digest
photo shoot, complete with a head high arrangement of fresh flowers on the round table in the center of the foyer. Depending on how regularly they were replaced, a year’s worth would cost a fortune.

He bet money that the provider of the flowers would send a substantial spray to the funeral with an appropriate message of condolence. He supposed it was too early to deliver condolence arrangements, though they’d start showing up once people read Raleigh’s obituary.

Although the credenza in the front hall looked like an old family antique, Geoff would have given eight to five it was an expensive reproduction. Through the arch on his left a double parlor ran the depth of the house. On his right a dining room held a mahogany table and twelve tall chairs. Everything looked brand, spanking new from the heavy silk drapes that pooled on the floor to the freshly-polished silver epergne on the sideboard.

There was none of the shabby genteel elegance in houses owned by generations of the same wealthy family. He’d been in enough of those homes over the years. Those pieces were generally easy to spot, like the chip on the left corner of the plantation secretary where junior broke his tooth when he was seven, the fraying edge on the museum-quality Heriz in the living room, the marks of kitty claws in the Moroccan leather of a library sofa. Photos of children and pets in silver frames—not necessarily recently polished—that sat haphazardly on top of the baby grand piano, usually Steinway, Baldwin, or Bechstein, with keys yellowed from the touch of generations of fingers.

Raleigh’s house, on the other hand, was perfect. And soulless. Like an upscale funeral home. Surely there was at least one room where these people actually lived.

Sarah Beth came down the stairs to meet him. God, the woman was thin! She reminded him of his ex-wife Brittany. She wore a black cotton turtleneck and black silk slacks. Her streaky blonde hair and makeup were flawless. Her eyes were neither red nor swollen, but these days that could mean she used good cosmetics and prescription eye drops.

Like the house, she was built for show. He had yet to discover whether she was soulless as well.

She extended her hand palm down. For a moment Geoff wasn’t certain whether she expected him to shake it or kiss it. He shook. It felt frail and boneless. “What do I call you?” she asked. “Agent Wheeler?”

“That’s fine.” As formal as possible for as long as possible. If he needed to get chummy later to convince her he understood why she’d killed her husband, the contrast would be greater.

“I hate speaking in the living-room,” she said and walked down the hall between the two staircases. “I’m having coffee served in my morning room.”

He followed her into a relatively small room at the back of the house with French windows opening out onto a perfect garden. This must be where she did what living she could. It was as over-decorated as the rest of the downstairs, but the chintz-covered sofa and chairs looked comfortable, and the soft peach toile on the walls and at the windows looked feminine and cheerful. Beside the sofa sat a big basket full of some kind of needlework.

A white computer desk with printer sat in the corner. Good Feng Shui to sit with her back to the wall and her face to the door? Or did she want to be certain she was not caught unawares?

After they had settled themselves with excellent coffee brought on a silver tray by the maid, she asked, “What can I tell you?” Still no demand for a lawyer. Good.

“Why was your husband driving his team in the fog at six-thirty in the morning?”

She caught her breath. “I really have no idea. I didn’t even know he’d gotten out of bed, much less that he’d put the horses to.” She looked down. “I took a sleeping pill Saturday night. I had a migraine. That’s why I didn’t go to the exhibitors’ party.”

“Would you mind pushing up your sleeves?”

She jumped as if he’d struck her. “What on earth for?”

“Please. Is there any reason not to?”