A Three Day Event (21 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“T
hat was Roch,” Bridget said pensively, her hand
lingering
on the receiver. “There’s to be an emergency breakfast meeting at nine. For both of us. And most of the others.”

There was no reply to this statement, though Guy was within easy hearing distance. His attention was focused elsewhere.

“It’s serious, Guy,” Bridget continued sternly. “Roch says it’s something the police might have to deal with eventually, and he wants us all there to discuss it. And it’s not about Rockin’ Robin.” She frowned and stared at him, willing a response. Silence. “He mentioned Liam,” she prodded teasingly. “Roch says he didn’t just run off. He says something happened to the little bastard.”

Guy burst out petulantly, “He’s dead! And it’s entirely my fault. As fascinating as he is, I had no business bringing that vicious little predator home in the first place.”

Totally nonplussed by this startling confession, Bridget gazed at her housemate, making no effort to conceal her irritation. In measured tones, laced with the excruciating irony of the British upper class at its most theatrically frosty, she replied, “Guy, do you think I might possibly intrude on your grief over your dead anemone–”

“It’s not an anemone! It’s my shrimp! And there were only two like that, all red and white striped! And this damned hawkfish is so clever–look, look, do you see him? He’s stalking the other one already, he–”

“
Guy!”

Guy swivelled obediently round to face her, although his pale eyes twitched, magnetically pulled to the massive, 500–gallon reef tank, explosively colourful and dense with tropical marine life, where so much real eco–drama was in progress. “Sorry, Bridget, but this really is a bit of a crisis. I may have to take the whole tank apart to get at that hawkfish. A net isn’t the slightest use with a character like–”

“
Guy!”

“Sorry, Bridget,” Guy said meekly, frowning in concentration and not daring to look away from Bridget’s menacing topaz eyes. “Did you say something about Liam? Everyone thinks he ran away…”

“Yes, I am saying that there is something very much wrong about Liam. I am saying that Roch is saying that he’s dead. Let’s see, how did Roch put it? Oh yes,
H’its priddy damn serious, dat’s all what I’m saying, là, and we don’ want la police mixing demselves in h’our affair, là…”
she went on in an exaggerated, but devilishly accurate parody of Roch’s confused syllabic stresses and synthetic verbal structures.

“Oh Bridget, you really are very cruel sometimes. Roch is always so nice to you.” He did not dare add that it seemed doubly insulting to make fun of Roch who had at least gone to the trouble of actually
learning
a second language, however
approximativement
it came out at times.

“Oh, it’s just for fun, Guy. Lighten up, for God’s sake,” she snapped. “I can’t help it. It’s how I deal with stress. Everyone has their way, and that’s mine.” She glanced at her watch. “Look, I’m going to the barn first to check on Robin and see if he can take a little grass. There’s still plenty of time. You’ll look in on him before we go to this meeting, won’t you?”

“Of course, Bridget,” Guy said crossly, already turned back to the tank. “When did I ever
not
start the day checking your horses? I just want to–”

“If you forget, I’m not kidding, you can kiss all your little mates good–bye: Mr. Purple Fins, Mr. Polka Dot and the rest, not just Mr. Shrimp,” Bridget added sardonically, nodding at the tank as she shrugged into her nylon windshell.

“That really isn’t very funny,” Guy retorted uneasily.
She would, too.

* * *

Polo knocked on Thea’s door and her timbred contralto called out immediately, “Come in, please.”

As he entered she emerged from the bedroom, impeccably groomed and attractively dressed in a khaki cotton pantsuit. Tilting her head to adjust a pearl earring, she smiled so warmly that Polo was taken aback. The cobweb of diffidence that she had spun between them was gone. Her eyes sparkled and her voice was vibrant with purpose as she greeted him. Her colour was fresh and healthy. A different person entirely. What had happened?

His eyes swept around the tiny space. They came to rest on the drainboard at the sink, where two plates, two wine glasses and two cups and saucers were plainly visible in the drying rack. A dinner guest. An overnight guest? But he would have heard a car pull away in the morning. Dinner, then. Who?

“Roch just called. I gather we have something far more important to talk about than my horse at the moment,” she said briskly.

“Maybe we can do both. It’s still early. If you like, we can walk over to the barn first to look at your horse and I’ll tell you what’s up on the way.”

Thea was almost as tall as Polo and an energetic walker. She matched his stride without effort as they made their way to the stables under a lowering sky. Listening intently as he recounted the events of the previous evening, she received the news of Liam’s death with characteristic detachment and aplomb.

“Dead? Strangled?” she murmured. There was a pause. “With what, do they say?”

“Whatever it was had been removed. Wire, probably, or very thin rope. But there weren’t any rope burns, as far as I know, and the skin was broken, according to what the police said, so I would assume wire.”

“Wire would be faster, I should think. Harder to get your fingers under once it was tight.” She paused to reflect. “Even a woman, if she used wire, might have an added advantage. He wasn’t tall, or big…” Polo did not reply, waiting to see where this speculation would lead her.

She thought a moment and added, “I suppose you have already considered the coincidence–the stallion, I mean, and the wire used on his tongue”–

“Yes, we did, of course.”

“And you say there were no distinguishing signs? What was he wearing?” Thea demanded.

“T–shirt, jeans. Sneakers.”

“Not the sweatshirt?”

“What sweatshirt? The blue and brown vet school thing?”

“Yes,” she replied curtly. “He wore it all the time. It used to make me sick to see it.”

“–?”

“You didn’t know? That Stephanie–she–that’s my daughter, she”–her voice faltered for a second, “she was a student there. She was going to be a veterinarian. She was so proud of that, she loved wearing that sweatshirt.”

“And Liam was wearing your daughter’s sweatshirt?” Polo struggled to find a connection between a girl dead a year and a groom hired only months ago.

“No, no,” she shook her head impatiently as they continued on up the rough path through long grass that painted their pants with dew as they passed. “Not Stephanie’s. I mean the Tufts sweatshirt in general. Guy was a visiting lecturer there, you see. At Tufts. He was one of Stephanie’s advisors in the Large Animal program for a semester. He was helping her with a study she was doing on cattle–on growth promotion.”

“Cows?” said Polo. “I would have thought horses would be her line, and Guy’s too.”

“Guy isn’t really a practicing horse vet, except here in this barn, although I can see where you got that impression. He’s a research freak. Cows are his actual academic expertise, although all large animals are his general domain. Taking care of Bridget’s horses is their quid pro quo arrangement. He shares her house, you know.” Polo hadn’t known this, thought it quite interesting, and mentally filed it for future reference.

Thea continued, “Of course it’s wonderful for Roch to have a kind of resident vet around for emergencies, and I think he gives him small perks, office space, clerical time from Marie–France, that kind of thing. As for Stephanie, of course horses would have been her preference but, you see, it’s always a question of funding, and what topics are available. A veterinary pharmaceuticals company wanted work done on this cow business, the money for it was there, so there really wasn’t much choice. Anyway, Guy and Stephanie became friends over that research–very good friends, actually.” Her voice drifted off a bit here, as if other thoughts had diverted her attention.

Then she was back. “So it was Guy who gave the sweatshirt to Liam. For helping him when one of the horses colicked. It was touch and go, apparently. Liam stayed up all night with him. It was cold. And Guy lent him the sweatshirt. And then gave it to him.” She shrugged. “Stupid of me, but when I first saw that sweatshirt, I almost screamed. He must have thought I was crazy.”

“I’m glad you told me that. It means that if he was wearing it when he was killed, then the killer knew it would be a clue and might lead somehow to an investigation of stables in the area. I’d already noticed that they didn’t mention a belt. The buckle he had was distinctive, too. Which makes it all the more probable”–

“–that it’s very likely one of a very small group of people, one of–well,
us
, not to put too fine a point on it. And that’s the reason for the meeting.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why the police haven’t been told. Because it’s–in–house, so to speak.”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re assuming that it wasn’t Liam who cut up the horse, then.”

“No.”

Thunder rolled faintly in the distance and the sky darkened.

“So the obvious question now is–why are
you
up to your ears in this? You’re a transient here, like me.”

“Friendship. Roch and I go back a long way. Hy and I even longer. Manon–she’s become a friend since they married.
Le Centre
, too.
If anything happens to
Le Centre
, Michel won’t have a base. His career would be in trouble.”

She smiled bitterly. “Personal loyalty, in a word.”

Polo searched her face to read the emotion behind her words. He felt judged and defensive. “Loyalty isn’t a bad reason for doing something. It counts a lot for me.” He shrugged. “I guess I assumed most of us would feel loyal to Roch at least. If not for him, most of the people here wouldn’t have jobs, or at least not such a good place to work. You know how few stables in Canada have the kind of resources
Le Centre
has to offer.”

“You haven’t mentioned C–FES and the Young Riders show. Don’t you feel loyal”–she swished a mocking hand to her heart–“to us too?”

Stupidly, Polo did not pick up on her irony immediately. “I’m sorry, I don’t really have much of a group mentality and, to be honest, I’ve never had more to do with C–FES than was necessary when I was competing–”

He said this, tensely conscious of who she was in the sport and whose wife she had been, and broke off. She gave no outward sign of discomfort, but she was suddenly looking down at her sensible leather walking shoes, not at him. He added a little lamely, “I didn’t mean to minimize your particular loyalties–”

“Polo, really, you’re a hoot,” Thea laughed, flinging her head up, “or is that something people ever say anymore? Probably not. Don’t you know sarcasm when you hear it?”

“As a matter of fact,” Polo retorted coolly, “I was surrounded for a good part of my youth by geniuses in the field and I consider myself something of an expert at recognizing it. I just never expected it from you. I never thought you had”–

“–a sense of humour?”

“I wasn’t going to say that. But let’s just say I’ve only ever seen one side of your personality. Why should I imagine you’d be sarcastic about an institution you’re so obviously devoted to?”

Tears glittered suddenly in her eyes and she turned quickly away from him. “Look down there,” and she pointed at the cross–country course below them. They had been climbing steadily towards the stable, and the view from their rutted path, strangely luminous in the pre–storm light, encompassed a slew of cross–country obstacles, tiered embankments, water crossings and the entire steeplechase oval. He looked. To the left he could also make out the stadium and the mound of sand waiting to be spread in the arenas.

“Isn’t it pretty? Isn’t it green and bright? Doesn’t the water look pure? Don’t you just long to gallop over it? Don’t the jumps seem like they’d be fun to just–you know–pop over?” Emotion thickened her beautiful voice.

Polo’s gut tightened in anticipation.
Jesus, what is it about me that makes women want to start bawling all the time?
“Thea, listen, maybe this is all too much for you right now. I shouldn’t have just thrown this murder story at you. Think a minute before you tell me something you may be sorry for later.”

“Loyalties. Loyalties.” She stared hypnotically down at the course below. “A lot of things turn on them, don’t they?”

She poked with the tip of her umbrella at a crouched toad hiding in the long grass, and it leaped away. “Are you politically inclined, Polo? I mean, who would have a better right than you, after what my husband and the others tried to do to you? And you must have known it wasn’t just him. They all felt the same in those days.” She laughed harshly. “Even I never saw how ludicrous and wrong it was. I didn’t like it, but I never said anything. I was so
loyal
, you see.”

“You mean trying to keep me off the team because I was French–Canadian?” Polo shrugged. “That was a long time ago. Not worth joining a political party over. I told you, groups aren’t my thing. And anyway, it was no big deal. He changed his mind within a day. So I don’t see–”

“
Changed his mind?”
Thea whipped back fiercely. “You know very well he would
never
have changed his mind if your sponsor hadn’t done what he did!”

“My sponsor? You mean Morrie?” Polo stared at her uncomprehendingly. “You’ve got it wrong, Thea. Morrie wasn’t even at that show. They had a wedding to go to. He only found out when I called after the show, later that night when he got home. Morrie didn’t do anything. He didn’t even say very much about it.”

Polo frowned as memory washed back the disappointment he had felt at Morrie’s almost detached reaction on the phone, his too–easy acceptance of the bad news.
‘Cultural homogeneity’, eh? That’s rich. That’s a good one. Ankstrom, eh? What’s his first name? These guys, they’re real handy with the words when they wanna fuck you over without any bruises showing. Hey, don’t sweat it, kid. What goes around comes around…I gotta go, some stuff I gotta do, speak to you tomorrow, eh kid?’