One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] (17 page)

“She is,” Peggy said. “I’d kill to have her abs.”

“Did any of those people have reason to get rid of Raleigh?” Geoff asked.

“He may have offended them all at some point, but probably not badly enough to get himself stabbed,” I said.

“Did he offend
you
?”

“Absolutely, but if I stabbed every driver or groom who offended me, the sport of carriage driving would take a major hit.”

Peggy had been listening to us without comment. Now she laid down her coffee spoon and asked, “Why was he out there at the crack of dawn with his four-in-hand? Isn’t that the big question?”

“Warming them up,” Geoff asked.

I shook my head. “Not that early. He wasn’t scheduled to drive his dressage test until late morning. The fog was so thick I couldn’t see his carriage and team until the horses nearly ran over me. Not the best atmosphere to warm up your horses. In the fog, he might have driven into the cable bounding the arena. That could have badly hurt his horses. So, how did someone know he’d be out there? I don’t see how killing him could have been premeditated. Wouldn’t the killer have brought a weapon to do the job? Using that stake was crazy.”

“So you’re saying a stranger spotted him in the dressage arena driving his horses, knocked him off the box somehow, rolled him over on his face and jabbed a six inch stake into his brain?” Geoff rolled up his napkin and set it beside his plate. “I don’t
think
so.”

“He must have arranged to meet someone,” Peggy said. “But why then and there? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to intercept whoever it was by the trailers or in the stable?”

“Seems better to me,” Geoff said. “But what do I know?”

“Not much,” I said.

“Back off, little lady, or I’ll call Stan and tell him to arrest you on general principles.”

“Fine with me, as long as you take over mucking and feeding and turning out the horses,” I said. “I could use the rest.”

“I could probably handle the horses, but not that little hellion with the long ears.” He grinned at me. “What was all that about this afternoon?”

“If the hellion is going to continue to eat my grass and feed, and require shots and worming and have the farrier trim his feet and such, he’s going to have to earn his living.”

“As what? A Hit Donkey?”

“He’s going to teach my young students to drive.”

“You truly are crazy,” Geoff said with a shake of his head. “If you can’t hold him, how can they?”

“You ought to see him with my granddaughter, Josie,” Peggy said. “The only thing I can figure is that he sees them as allies—just his size. He follows her and her friends around like a Labrador retriever. He even likes Li, Casey’s little girl. She’s too young to drive, of course, but he even endures having his ears pulled if Li’s doing the pulling.”

“But you’re outside the size limit, apparently,” Geoff said, grinning at me. “And you have to do the training.”

“We will do fine,” I said with much more assurance than I felt. “After his temper tantrum, he settled down and behaved like a normal equine.”

“Bet he’ll misbehave just as badly tomorrow—or whenever you plan to drive him again.”

“Put your money where your mouth is, G-man,” I said. “He may fuss, but I bet you he’ll give in quicker and behaves himself longer.”

“Even odds? Five bucks?”

“Five bucks.” I could afford to lose five bucks, and probably would, but I couldn’t let Geoff rag on Don Qui. He was a hellion, but he was
my
hellion. He’d come a long way since we started working with him in January.

“Peggy can call the bet. If she agrees he’s better, I’ll give in gracefully,” Geoff said. “If you wind up in the emergency room, I win.”

“You got it.”

As our waitress poured our second cup of decaf, Peggy said she was exhausted. Before I could stop her, she asked Geoff to drive me home so we could linger over our coffee. If that wasn’t transparent, I don’t know what is.

“I’ll go with you,” I said, and reached down to my purse.

Geoff put his hand on my arm. “How about I buy you a brandy down at the Hamilton Inn and you can tell me in detail how Raleigh annoyed you.”

I glared down at his hand, but by then Peggy was scooting out the door.

Geoff lifted a finger for the check, but Earline shook her head, pointed at the door and mouthed, “On her tab.”

He started to get out of his chair, then subsided. “So I owe you both another dinner.”

“Not me, you don’t. Does that constitute a bribe within the meaning of the act?”

“Probably. If I have to arrest Peggy for murder, her lawyer will no doubt bring it up.”

“That’s not funny.”

He blew out his breath. “No, it’s not. Nothing about this whole mess is funny. Why did everybody hate this guy, anyway?”

Geoff got that quizzical look he gets sometime. “Say he did find out, put her through hell, and she decided she’d had enough. She told me she wouldn’t divorce him yet, but admitted they weren’t Romeo and Juliet. We have only her word that she was asleep when he left her that morning. Maybe she was with him. She told me he’d won her with a moonlight carriage ride. Could be she conned him into an early morning ride to make up.”

“Raleigh would never get up at dawn for Sarah Beth.”

He shrugged. “But he might for some other woman.”

“Not me.”

“I didn’t imply it was you,” he said, and lifted his snifter of brandy to salute me. He pointed to my empty pony.

I shook my head. “I can feel that one already.”

“So, how about a walk around the square to clear your head?”

I wondered whether he planned to hold my hand. He didn’t. I knew from when he investigated my father’s murder, Geoff did not consort with suspects—not even a little.

“Merry, when this is over . . .” he said. “At the moment, I can’t . . .”

He was uncomfortable. Good. I considered grabbing his hand, swinging him around and planting one on him right out here in public. Then I relented. “So solve the damned thing fast.”

“I’m trying.” He sucked in a deep breath. “So, if you didn’t plan to accuse him of slander and libel, what did you plan to do?”

“Enlist my driving friends to speak to their show organizer friends and tell them the truth. If it came to a choice between listening to Pete and Tully Hull or Giles Raleigh, he didn’t stand a chance. It was simply another attempt to make me miserable. As for the emails—a lot of these folks don’t use computers, or they have secretaries that print them out. Emails aren’t real to them.”

“So what else did he do to you?”

We were passing one of the benches that lined the square when I realized I was even more worn out than I’d thought earlier. “Who said he did anything?” I sat and he sat beside me.

“Tell me.”

I avoided his eyes. “He hit on me. A lot. And hard.
Mean
hard.”

He kept his voice level, but I heard strain. “Attempted rape?” The corollary was unspoken, but there. Had I meant
rape
?

“How do you define
attempted
? A couple of times he ambushed me and tried to hold me down and shut me up. Once I managed to yell for help. Somebody intervened. Once, I kicked him in the crotch. After that I tried never to be alone with him.” I glanced down and saw that Geoff’s hands were in fists. “He didn’t single me out. I was simply another possible conquest. You know, newly divorced woman, should be grateful he was willing to service me.”

“Did he actually use that word?” he growled.

“Yep. When I kept turning him down, he seemed to have decided we were in a contest he would win only when he had me naked and flat on my back.”

“What about Saturday night?”

“He barely noticed me. Maybe he’d found some other woman to harass. When he was drunk—and that was often—he wasn’t too picky.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Any heterosexual with a minimal testosterone level would go after you like a hound dog after a pork chop.”

In the shadows I couldn’t tell whether his ears were red, but I’d seen them that way before when he’d been embarrassed.

“Come on, let’s get the car and I’ll drive you home,” he said.

Ten minutes later, when he pulled the Crown Vic into Peggy’s driveway, I didn’t wait for him to get out, walk around the car and open my door for me. I like courtesy as well as the next female, but that particular courtesy has always seemed ridiculous to me. I was sliding out the door before he put the car in park.

He did, however, catch my wrist as I slid out. Peggy’s driveway is secluded and dark and apparently private enough even for Geoff. “I have a lot more than the minimal amount of testosterone,” he said.

My insides turned over and my heart went into overdrive. “Glad to hear it.”

“When this is over, I intend to prove that to you.”

I sank back onto the edge the seat. “Sooner or later, we have to talk about something other than murder.”

“So we do. We have all sorts of hidden depths to plumb. Now we just have to find the time to explore them without a murder hanging over our heads.”

I gulped like a landed trout, whirled around and bolted inside my apartment. Just before his engine revved and backed out of my driveway, I heard him laugh.