Shadow Roll (19 page)

“What happened to the tulip?”

“I ate it.”

“I believe you.”

The second surprise was when she pinched me.

“Ouch!”

“We have things to do,” she said, “so get up, wash your face and open that eye.  It’s creepy.  Then let’s go.”

“Things to do?”

“You bet.  Didn’t you get my note?”

“Sure I did.  Both of ‘em.”

“Then why act dumb?”

“I’m acting dumb?”

“Dumber than Joker.  Of course, Joker has an excuse.  He’s older than—who’s that really old guy in the Bible?”

“Methuselah.”

“Yeah, him.  Come on, before it’s too late.”

“Where are we going?”

“Where you should have been going ever since you proved those poor kids weren’t murdered.”

“Why do you think I proved—where’s that?”

“Confronting the killer.”

“What?”

“Oh shut up and come on.  I told you they weren’t accidents.  You know they weren’t accidents.  Even though everyone and their Auntie Sue wants ‘em to be accidents.  S’why I wore black today.  Mourning.”  By now I was on my feet with my face in a bowl full of cold water.  But I could still hear well enough.  “I’ll be damned if someone gets to bump off jockeys around me.  I know you’ve made assumptions about me—why wouldn’t you?  Just as I’ve made assumptions about you.  I married for money, you bet I did.  Any woman with an ounce of brains would.  But I married money that included horses.  You like horses?”

“More than— ”

“People.  Same here.  So I’ve been paying attention.  Done some sleuthing on my own.  Got my own ideas.  You want to know what my assumptions are about you?”

I wasn’t sure I did.  But I couldn’t stop myself saying, “Shoot.”

“You’re a greenhorn, but you’re game.  You aren’t stupid, but you talk too much and you miss things.  You talk too much and you miss things because your heart’s too soft.  You’re in this PI game a little longer and you’ll toughen up.  Or maybe you’re not that soft but something’s happened to make you soft for now, which means it’ll pass.”

Damn.  She was good.  Better than the crone who used to read palms anywhere she could in the St. George Ferry Terminal, luring passengers coming and going to Manhattan.  “Only a penny, madam, only a penny to know whatcha know you wanna know.”

Mrs. Willingford was still flapping her lips.  “That’s good and that’s bad.  But no time to discuss it now.  I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.  And you would have.  But we don’t have any more time for you to do it on your own dime.  So here I am.”

By now we were out the door and into an elevator.  I said, “You telling me you’ve come to—?”

“Help you catch up.  I’m telling you I have a good idea.  You figured out how it was done, and bully for you, but you still don’t know why.”

“I wouldn’t say that.  But okay.  You tell me why.”

“To get the ride on Fleeting Fancy.”

“Hold on, sister.  I already figured that was exactly why they were—”

We were out back where she kept her snazzy car.  “It’s worse than that.”

“Worse than killing three kids?”

“Tomorrow’s the Travers.  Tonight, I think a horse is going down.  And I won’t have it.”

Chapter 36

Ace Admiral, whose grandpappy was the tremendous Man o’ War, was a fine chestnut colt who’d had the sad misfortune of being born in the same year as Calumet Farm’s Citation and Citation’s stablemate Coaltown.

Being born in the same year as Citation was also the colt Coaltown’s misfortune.

Ace Admiral’s trainer was Jimmy Smith, son of the one and only Tom Smith who’d conditioned Seabiscuit—and you’d win big if you bet I was impressed by both father and son.  Once and once only this thought crossed my mind: if only Jimmy Smith was a suspect we’d talk, about jockeys, about horses, about his dad.  Too bad for me and good for him, he wasn’t.  For one thing, he wasn’t in town when all this happened; he was down in Lexington, Kentucky, at Maine Chance Farm, training the make-up dame’s horses.  Elizabeth Arden, that was her name.  She’d made an incredible amount of dough off every woman’s worry over her looks and her fear of aging.  Arden threw a lot of that dough into horse racing.  So god bless Lizzie.  Anyway, Jimmy, as well as Arden, saw the problem with Citation right off the bat—only two years old he’d run nine times and won eight of his starts, breaking records and other horse’s hearts.  Now, at three, he’d already won the Triple Crown of American horse racing and I’d make bet he wasn’t anywhere near finished.

Jimmy didn’t run Lizzie’s damn fine horse in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness Stakes—or even the Belmont Stakes, just in case Citation was tired.  Citation wasn’t tired.  He tied the Belmont Stakes record set by Count Fleet.

But whenever a good race came along where Citation or Coaltown were busy racing somewhere else, Ace Admiral ran in it.

He’d just come off a win in the same race Man o’ War had also won in the year of my “birth”: the Lawrence Realization Stakes over at Belmont Park.  So now he was here, along with Jimmy, both in the flesh at Saratoga Springs, going for the track’s most prestigious event, the Travers Stakes.  He was also favored to win it, although the betting was heavy on the Willingford filly Fleeting Fancy.

This was important stuff, what I was thinking.  Ace Admiral was the horse Mrs. Willingford was sure was going down.

Mrs. W’d parked her car behind a classy restaurant on Union Avenue—the place was jumping with people already celebrating the Travers—tossed the keys to the gimpy attendant who obviously knew her well, told him to watch both keys and car, and then we walked.  In the dark.  Together.  Straight up Union Avenue towards the track.  Which was closed this time of night.  Except, of course, to people like Mrs. Willingford.  Aside from any other reason, she had horses stabled there.  As for me, I may not of been banned, but I sure wasn’t welcome.

Creeping along, I told her I’d have to sneak in.  She told me that suited her fine since
she
was sneaking in.  Why else leave her car blocks away, hidden among a hundred other cars behind a restaurant?  Why else wear her sneaking-around-in-the-dark clothes?

I said, “Oh.”

My clothes weren’t as sneaky as hers because I didn’t have any sneaking-around stuff.  I was a PI.  I should of had clothes like that.  Note to Sam Russo: if you ever get another job as a sleuth, find the best sneaky clothes money can buy.  Especially the shoes.  Mine were squeaking with every other step.

For this, I was told to stop and take them off.

“But there’s rocks and stickers.”

“Knock it off, Mr. Whiny.  Those shoes’ll wake the horses if they don’t wake everything else.  Cripes.  I should be the PI here.”

Untying my shoes as I sat on a bale of hay, then stuffing one in my right jacket pocket and the other in my left jacket pocket, I had to agree with her.  But I didn’t have to tell her I agreed with her.

Her plan, which I was expecting to hear the details of any minute—although, not being entirely a fool as well as a person who was well read in these matters—I was fairly sure I knew the basics.

We were sneaking in to stop foul play.  Someone had killed three jockeys.  One of those dead jockeys was set to ride Fleeting Fancy.  The other two were on lesser horses.  With Fancy’s rider dead, some jock could of ditched his own ride and made a grab for Fancy’s empty saddle.  With all three dead, his chances of getting it was pretty good.  Until Toby picked up the mount.  But Toby wasn’t seasoned.  He could make a mistake.

He could also be the killer.

Whoever did this would need Fancy to win.  Killing three jockeys and having her lose was a waste of three dead jockeys.  But Ace Admiral was running and Ace was the favorite.  And rightly so.  Ace Admiral’d just done his grandpappy proud in the Lawrence Realization Stakes.  For icing, Ted Atkinson was riding him and Ted Atkinson was North America’s leading jockey in both 1944 and 1946.  Even worse for Fleeting Fancy, he was the first jockey to win more than a million bucks in one season.

Fancy could beat Ace.  I knew that the first time I saw her.  I also knew—who in the game didn’t?—any horse could be beaten on any given day.  In his entire career, Man o’ War never lost a single race, except one.  That was to a horse called Upset right here at this exact track.  Citation lost to a nag called Saggy.  Boston, vicious to the end, lost a couple, his great son Lexington lost one, and one of my favorite horses of all time, a seventeen-hand beauty called Longfellow, lost a couple more.

I loved Longfellow for more than being a horse; he was also part of one of the 19
th
century’s most gruesome and cruel multiple murder mysteries.  Two old folks, brother Jacob Harper and sister Betsey Harper, were hacked to death with a hatchet.  On the same night, there was an attempt on a third brother, John Harper.  Jacob and Betsey were at home.  John was miles away in a barn at the Old Kentucky Association track in Lexington.

Longfellow’s owner, John Harper, was in the barn instead of his bed at home, because he was watching over his beloved racehorse.  Back then, people did more than dope a rival horse.

Jacob and Betsey died because they were sound asleep in their beds.  John survived because he was wide awake with Longfellow and he wouldn’t open the barn door when someone outside called to him.

The surviving brother, John Harper, was a stinking rich man.  If he’d died alone, then his horse breeding farm, Nantura, and all else he owned would of gone to Betsy and Jacob.  But if they all three died—well, that was the idea.

When it was over, with nothing proved, the old man lived the rest of his life never breathing a word against his remaining kin.  But when the rich old man died in his bed, older and richer and wiser, his will was read to an assembled crowd of eager relatives.  They discovered he’d left money to each and every one of ‘em, and to some of his “darkies.”  But to two excited souls, a certain nephew and the nephew’s son—both hard up for cash and both ne’er-do-wells—not a penny.

The Harper case preceded Lizzie Borden and her furious ax by 21 years.

Horrible thought: if they’d succeeded in killing John Harper, two drunken killers would of owned Longfellow.

Anyway, that’s what Mrs. Willingford meant when she said a horse was going down.  If someone could kill three young jocks and a dog, what would stop them from killing Ace Admiral?  Or at least incapacitating him?  And then watch Fancy come home first.

We dashed across East Avenue, first making sure no one was coming either way, then worked our way through the bushes between the road and the first of the barns.  Muffling my eeks of pain when I stepped on whatever, I was figuring it out.  I was figuring it all out.  I was slow, maybe, but I was steady.  I was sentimental, maybe, but I could look truth square in the eye.  It was something you learned in a place like the Staten Island Caged Kids Home.  We grew up barely able to read, but we knew evil when we let ourselves look.  Everyone looked at Mister, but no one wanted to see him, too scary when you’re too young to do much.  Us not looking is how he got away for so long with what his god told him to do.  Growing up in that Dickensian pile with Mister and Flo did things to a kid, some good, some bad, some a little of each.

Whoever we were supposed to be when we arrived, most as innocent as babes if not actual babes, none of us turned out that way by the time we left.

There were some early years with moments of sun and moments of laughter and moments of love for my fellow kid.  But as time passed, the sun went away and the laughter got bitter and the love faded like the old clothes we wore.

When we reached the barns, I had it straight in my head.  I knew who and I knew why and I knew I didn’t have a shred of evidence.  I knew I would of, but Jane was probably dead.  I had to accept that.  I couldn’t keep pretending she’d survive an attack like the one I’d arrived too late to stop.  I also knew I didn’t give an almighty shit about evidence.  I wasn’t Lino.  I wasn’t a cop.  I didn’t have to do anything “by the book.”  Or appear to be doing it, like Lino and most of his cronies did.

Me and Mrs. Willingford weren’t on our way to make an arrest.  We were on our way to save a life.

Chapter 37

 “Be quiet.  He’s stabled at the end of this row.”

“Where’s the lights?  Shouldn’t there be lights?  Shouldn’t they be lit all night?”

“There should be,” she said, “but there aren’t.  Not good, wouldn’t you say?  Not only should there be lights, grooms should be around somewhere.”

“It’s late.  They could be sleeping in the straw.”

“Could be.  Better be.”

It was at that point I realized that not only Ace Admiral could be in for it, but so might some poor old faithful groom.  A relative of Thomas Clay Jefferson’s even, or a kid like I used to be, eager to do anything to be around the horses.  From where I’d been before, which wasn’t happy, now I was getting mad.

Mrs. Willingford pulled her hat down lower on her head and began creeping along the shed row.  Me too.  I was doing the same thing, but by this time I’d taken the lead.  Mrs. Willingford might be as smart as Eleanor Roosevelt and as slick as Mary Astor, but she still wasn’t as strong as me, and if she had a gun, I hadn’t seen it.

I suddenly stopped moving and turned.  Mrs. Willingford walked right into me with a soft whoof.  I asked: “You packing?”

“Am I what?”

“Carrying a gun.”

“No.  But I do have a sap.”

“What the hell are— ”

“Don’t ask.  Keep moving.  And don’t stop sudden like that again.  Shssssh, my lovely.”

That last was addressed to a horse who’d stuck a curious black nose over its stall door.

Aside from any noise we were making, and we weren’t making any once we’d both shut up, the night was as silent as a night of sleeping horses.  Small contented nickers, the rustle of hay, a cat sneezing, a snoring groom or two.  Even so, there should of been a light somewhere.  Which could mean, since people were paid to make sure things worked, someone’d turned off whatever ought to be dimly shining down on this particular shed row.