One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] (14 page)

“We generally use Gwen Standish, but a buyer can bring in any vet he likes.”

“You ever hear he might have bribed her or any other vet to pass a horse that was marginal?”

Brock’s chair hit the floor with a thump. A moment later he guffawed. After he calmed down, he said, “Gwen Standish weighs maybe ninety-five pounds on her best day, but if Raleigh or anyone else ever offered her bribe, they’d wind up sitting on their butts nursing a black eye or a broken arm.”

“What about other vets?”

“Can’t say. If Raleigh was honest about anything, it was his horses. He wasn’t above offering a commission to a trainer to recommend one of his horses to a client for more than its value. Most buyers expect that. It’s standard to pay a trainer to find you a horse. Raleigh just added a tad from his end as well.”

“You ever do that?”

“Everybody does it. Part of the game. Why do you think they call it horse-trading?”

“Anybody find out he’d been scammed and get mad?”

“Told you, not recently.”

Geoff stood and shook Brock’s hand. “I’m sure I’ll have more questions, but at the moment that’s all I can think of. I’d appreciate a list of buyers and sellers from say, the last six months, and vets other than Dr. Standish that were used for pre-purchase exams.”

“Should I ask you to provide a court order?” Brock asked.

“If you like. I can have one faxed to you before the day is out.” Now, that one, a judge
would
sign.

“Let me check with Dawn and Sarah Beth. If they say it’s okay, then it’s okay.”

“Good enough.” As he followed Brock out of the office, he asked casually, “Just to cover all the bases, where were you on Sunday morning at six a.m.?”

Brock stopped and glared at Geoff over his shoulder. “Asleep in my motel in town. And, before you ask, I was alone. I didn’t have to be at the show until seven, and I could make it in ten minutes.”

Geoff nodded. “Thanks.” He handed Brock a business card. “I’m using a fax in the office of the chief of police in Mossy Creek. Here’s the number when you have that list ready for me.”

As he maneuvered the Crown Vic between the white fences that lined the long driveway, Geoff worried. He hadn’t considered Raleigh might have planned to seduce a woman at that hour. The nearest woman was none other than Merry Abbott. Committee assignments had been posted outside the stable, so Raleigh would know Merry was helping to set up cones and in what area she’d start. He also might know she generally got up very early to start work.

She said Raleigh’d been charming on Saturday night. Maybe because he’d laid his plans to waylay her on Sunday morning. If Geoff knew Merry, she wouldn’t scream even if Raleigh jumped off that box and took her down. She’d assume she could handle anything he threw at her. It wouldn’t occur to her that he’d try anything seriously sexual in such a public place. First she’d laugh it off. If he frightened her badly enough, she’d fight like hell.

But she wouldn’t scream for help. Not surrounded by the carriage crowd. How embarrassing would that be?

Would she grab the nearest weapon, the steel stake, to defend herself?

That didn’t compute either. She’d have kicked him, scratched him, bitten him, and
then
she might have screamed. She would not have carefully driven a stake through his skull, then hunkered over his body until Harry Tolliver found her. If anything like that had happened, she might not tell Stan, but Geoff knew damned well she’d tell him.

“Oh, for…” I said. “Why isn’t he up at Raleigh’s farm talking to the less-than-grieving widow and the daughter with the attached polo player?”

“He is. He’s coming down here from there. Raleigh’s place is less than an hour away. Asked me to make him a reservation for tonight at the Hamilton Inn because he’ll be too tired to drive back to Atlanta.”

I heard a faint snort of derision from the other end of the line and an answering snicker from Peggy. Good thing we weren’t on Skype because my face was undoubtedly flaming.

“Well, if he shows up around four, I’ll be out at the farm doing the afternoon feed,” I said.

“I thought we weren’t driving today,” Peggy said after I stuffed the phone back into the pocket of my jeans.

“Not Golden or Ned, but if I have the energy, I thought I might give Don Qui another lesson. He’s missed three days now and will probably act as though he’s never seen long lines or a bridle. No reason you have to come out, but I have to unsnarl, clean and hang all that harness, polish bits and hames, unload and clean both carriages, clean the shavings out of the trailer, clean manure out of stalls . . .”

“Stop! Of course I’ll come. I do not want to be here when people start calling to hear what happened yesterday, and you have no business working Don Qui alone. Finding one body out there is enough.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Merry, what an awful thing to say.”

“But true,” I said firmly. I would never be over my father’s murder out at the farm, but no way would I let Peggy see that. “Have you looked at the news?”

“I’m avoiding it. If it’s gory, it’s a big story,” she said. “In other words, if it bleeds, it leads. Ghouls! Whoever invented the idea that the public deserves to know everything about everything and everyone all the time should have been drawn and quartered.”

After a moment spent stirring her already stirred coffee, she said, “So far, the media has concentrated on the Raleighs and the sheriff, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see a couple of news vans out at the farm.”

“If they drive onto my property, they’ll drive off with rumps loaded with rat shot.”

“You will say ‘no comment’ and shut the stable door on them.”

“You really don’t have to come,” I said, hoping that she’d hear the plea behind my words.

“Nonsense. I work there too, remember?”

“Has Marilou called?” Marilou is Peggy’s stuffy daughter who thinks her mother should sit by the fire and read mystery novels. I knew the minute she heard about Raleigh’s death she’d pounce on her mother to tell her she was in danger and to quit the farm at once. She’d been horrified when I’d hired Peggy to help me part-time. It’s turned into pretty much full time except for garden club days, but I think Peggy is happier working with the horses than she’s been since her husband died and abandoned her in Mossy Creek.

“What do you think? Marilou called first thing this morning. Did she ask how well we did in the show? Noooo. She started to say something about ‘allowing me’ to drive, but she stopped herself in time.”

Good thing.

Trying to control the whole world must give Marilou ulcers. Poor thing, she can’t even control her mother. Now Josie, Peggy’s granddaughter, has fallen in love with the farm, the horses, and driving, in no particular order. She and her little friends were the reason I wanted to train our recalcitrant donkey, Don Qui, to pull a cart.

I felt certain that with the proper training he could be safe to drive, but he wasn’t noted for behaving himself. Miniature donkeys are some of the kindest, hardworking equines in the world. Look at all the carts they pull, the huge loads they carry on their backs, the human hulks they haul up Santorini, the milk carts they take to market. Don Qui was, if anything, smarter than his equine cousins. There was no reason he should remain a psychopath all his life for lack of a little friendly discipline.

In the meantime, the kids were driving Golden, my Halflinger, who was completely unflappable and loved children. The odd thing was that Don Qui took to them as well. He could be nasty around adults, but perhaps since children were more his size, he considered them allies.

We generally took both our cars, and thank goodness, there were no TV trucks or reporters at the end of Peggy’s driveway waiting for us.

I paid Peggy a pittance for fifteen to twenty hours work a week, but she often worked longer than that. The farm Daddy left me was too much work for one person, and Peggy was the only help I could afford, so I was darned glad for every minute she could spare me.

When I was growing up, Daddy had plenty of help. He’d made an excellent living driving and training for wealthy sponsors who either had elegant training and stabling facilities of their own, or kept their horses in plush boarding barns with lots of staff. Daddy hadn’t been responsible for staff salaries, but in a sense they’d worked for him. As his kid, they’d let me hang around with them, taught me about the horse business, and usually kept me from doing anything too outrageous or dangerous.

Until the day I’d driven a carriage over my mother’s leg and damned near killed her. That’s when I gave up horses. Then my mother divorced Daddy. After that, I’d seldom seen him.

After Daddy retired from competition and moved to his new farm outside Mossy Creek, he divided his time among restoring carriages, working to get the farm on its feet, and training and driving horses sent him by a few old clients. I don’t know whether he felt lonely or relished the freedom.

In the year I had been running the place, I had taken in enough young horses from clients and managed enough horse shows to keep the place solvent so long as I didn’t spend much money on frills. Peggy was not a frill—she was a necessity.

My townhouse in Lexington, Kentucky, had taken six months to sell, but made a modest profit even in the recession. Since it had been mortgage free, it gave me enough money to build my log house at the farm.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that the building process was taking much longer than I had expected. However, now that the drive up to the site had been graded and regraveled at a cost that nearly gave me heart failure, and now that the spring mud had abated, I expected everything to go much faster. It had to.

I wanted to be in my own place by Labor Day, because driving from Mossy Creek and up my father’s hill was hair-raising in the fog, ice, and occasional snow that hit North Georgia in the fall and winter. The rest of the year we dealt with sudden, humongous thunderstorms that knocked out power and made the roads impassable. I couldn’t afford to get stuck in Mossy Creek where I couldn’t look after the horses.

Not that I wouldn’t miss Peggy, but having my pasture right outside my kitchen window would be a blessing. I also wanted my stuff that was stored in a rent-a-shed place in Bigelow. How do you live without your books?

I had no one else to stay at the farm at night. When a horse colicked or needed care around the clock, I slept on a cot in the clients’ lounge. Lord knows I’ve done it often, but I’ve never gotten used to it.

A stable at night can be one of the most peaceful places on earth. It can also be eerie. Sometimes in a dark stable at night I feel as though I am the last human being on earth. If Peggy was right and our near accident on the road back from the Tollivers’ had been a deliberate attack, might that person try again to hurt us? Or the horses?