Racing the Devil (11 page)

He’d moved downstairs a few months after his status went from borderline to full-blown AIDS. “I don’t want to wait until I have no choice,” he’d said. “Until I can’t get up and down the stairs.” I hated to see him preparing for his own death. It felt too much like giving up, but he seemed to take comfort in it. “Jared,” he’d say, “I intend to live another hundred years. But just in case I don’t . . .”

When he had gone, I went in and looked up Mr. Perfect’s number in the phone book. It was listed. I wrote down the number and address and tucked it into my wallet, just in case. I’d give Eric some time to do the decent thing before I paid him a visit.

I flipped through the Nashville listings, looking for Valerie Shepherd. No luck. I worked my way through Brentwood and Belleview and finally found her in the Franklin section. I didn’t plan to go there yet, but it was good to have the address. At least I felt like I was gaining information, finding trails to follow. Even blind trails tell you something. They tell you when you’re headed the wrong way. Or as Edison once said, “I didn’t fail to make a light bulb ninety-nine times; I learned ninety-nine ways not to make a light bulb.”

Or words to that effect.

On Sunday afternoon, I drove over to the Cedar Valley Motel and asked for the clerk who’d been on duty the night of the murder.

“You a reporter?” The young man behind the counter had lime green hair and an acne problem.

“Detective.” I flashed my I.D., knowing he wouldn’t challenge me.

“You want Marcie. Just a minute. She’s in the back.”

After a few minutes, he came back, followed by a violet-haired girl with a ring through one nostril. She could have been his sister. I bought her a Coke in the motel restaurant and asked her to repeat her story. It had been a slow night, she said. She remembered the man who had rented the room because she thought he was cute.

“Do you think you’d recognize him if you saw him again?”

Frank had said the results of the lineup had been inconclusive, but, presumably, the killer hadn’t been in it. If he had been, could she have picked him out? Since she seemed oblivious to the fact that I’d been in that lineup, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in her powers of observation.

“I don’t know.” She swirled her ice around with her straw. “The police asked me to check out some guys, but I wasn’t sure. He must’ve, like, shaved since he killed her.”

“Anything else happen that night?”

She shook her head.

“See anyone else?”

“Just the usual. Some guy started, like, pissing on the bushes around midnight, and a couple of crazy-ass women had a few too many and had to, like, help each other across the parking lot. Oh, and some guy got lost trying to find the Waffle House. Had to stop and ask directions, like, three times.”

There was nothing else. I paid for the colas, thanked her for her time, and went home to spend the rest of the weekend catching up on my caseload and making sure the pasture was clear of toxic plants. Jimson, buckeye, milkweed, red maple . . . Tennessee is a fertile land. I had other things to do, and this wasn’t my favorite part of horsekeeping, but it was better than finding one of the boys comatose or colicking. Or worse. The symptoms of plant poisoning varied from distress to paralysis, permanent neurological damage, and death. In the face of that, a little weeding seemed like a small price to pay.

I woke up early Monday morning with my mind full of dismal thoughts, darkened my hair with a temporary dye, dabbed spirit gum onto my upper lip and pressed on a matching mustache, and changed into clean jeans and a short-sleeved denim shirt. I left the shirt untucked to hide the Colt, which was snuggled into a leather small-of-back holster.

My image had been shown on Channel 3 news, but with a different hair color and a little facial hair, I might as well be a different man. I debated whether or not to wear the cowboy hat and decided it would help the disguise.

Besides, I liked it.

It was a little after twelve by the time I headed south down I-65 toward the small, historic town of Franklin and the address I’d gotten for Amy Hartwell’s sister.

I passed the driveway twice before I realized I’d found the place, a sprawling, western-style ranch house tucked among softly rolling hills that undulated like a rumpled quilt. White vinyl fencing made neat stitches across the green.
ValeSong Stables
, said the sign beside the entrance.
Quality Arabians
.

Vale, from Valerie, I guessed.

The third time I passed the driveway, it was on purpose. There was a tack shop, Dark Horse Saddlery, just a little farther down the street, and I went there first, on the theory that a horsewoman who lived this close to a tack shop would probably buy some of her equipment there.

I picked up a new lead rope, a bucket of horse treats, and a jar of Hooflex. Then I left them on the counter while I went into the back room to look at the advertisements.

Business cards and flyers covered one wall. The other three were obscured by boxes of riding boots and helmets. I scanned through ads for equine massage, riding lessons, Quarter Horses, and Jack Russell Terriers, until I came to a stack of business cards that read, “ValeSong Stables. Pure Egyptian Arabians. Training, Breeding, Sales. Victory’s Flame at stud.”

I unpinned the stack, stuffed one into my pocket, and re-pinned the others. Then I went back out front to show it to the girl behind the counter, a gangly girl with work-callused hands, long black hair, and features like a Greek statue.

“I’m looking for a good endurance horse. This place any good?” I pulled out the card and showed the girl the name.

“ValeSong? Sure. I guess so. I jump Thoroughbreds myself.” She pointed to a photo under the glass countertop of herself on a light bay mare. “That’s me and Moxie.”

“Moxie. Good name.”

“Yeah. She’s still young, but she’s got a lot of promise. My trainer says we might be able to make Grand Champion at Shel-byville in a couple of years.”

Shelbyville is Horse City. They have the big Tennessee Walking Horse Festival there every year, although that’s come under fire because of the “soring” controversy. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who sores a horse should have to walk across hot coals, then race around a half-mile track with ten-pound shoes strapped to his feet. My Walker is flat shod, and his walk is just as pretty as God made it, which is pretty enough for me.

But Moxie was no Walking Horse, so I suspected the girl was talking about one of the specialty or all-breed shows held there almost every weekend.

“That would be something,” I said. “You ever see this Valerie at a show?”

“Sure. Victory’s Flame won High Point Champion three years in a row at the Festival of Horses.”

“Know her?”

“Victory’s Flame?”

“Valerie Shepherd.”

“She comes in here a lot. Being so close and all.”

I gave her a grin I hoped said Harmless, Friendly, and Not Too Bright. “The reason I’m asking is, if I’m going to consider buying a horse from her, I’d want to know if she’s any good.”

“You mean, as a breeder, or a trainer?”

“Both. Either.”

“Well . . .” She picked at a corner of a photograph that protruded from beneath the glass. “I don’t really have a lot of dealings with her, you know. But she does real good at the shows.”

“Any complaints?”

“There’s always complaints. Some people are never happy. There was something about a horse being abused once, but she fired the guy who did it. And one woman came in and said Ms. Shepherd came on to her husband. But who knows? Could just be gossip. Or paranoia.”

I gave a sympathetic nod. “Plenty of that to go around. You think I could talk to any of these people?”

“We don’t take their names. But the guy who used to work for her comes in here sometimes. I could give you his name and number.”

“The one she fired?”

“Uh huh. He’s training for himself now. Does good business, from what I hear.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand it myself. Would you hire a trainer who was fired for beating a horse?”

“Nope.”

“That’s what I thought.” She wrote the name and number down for me. Asa Majors.

“Ms. Shepherd and her husband run the place?” I asked, fishing.

“Actually, I think she got the place as part of her divorce settlement.”

“Jeez.” I grinned. “I’m glad my ex-wife didn’t have her lawyer.”

“Lotta guys say that.” She flashed me a flirtatious smile.

She looked fresh out of college, which made her about a decade too young. Still, it gave me a lift like I hadn’t felt in a while. I gave her a wink and a smile and left. I slid behind the wheel of the Taurus, surprised to find myself whistling.

T
HE DRIVEWAY LEADING
to Valerie Shepherd’s house and barn was long, winding, and surfaced with a layer of fine, dusty gravel. The grassy slopes that rose and fell to either side were a lush, uniform blue-green that meant they had probably been seeded with Kentucky bluegrass. In the rippling heat, the white barn with its brick-red roof looked like a mirage.

To my left, several horses, including a couple of spindle-legged foals, grazed in one of the pastures. They looked like fine stock. Sleek, healthy-looking Arabians with good conformation.

I parked beside a candy-apple red Chevy LS with a red and white cooler and a bag of sweet feed in the back. Before I got out of the car, I dabbed at my fake mustache with a Kleenex. It itched, and my upper lip sweated beneath the spirit gum. It wasn’t comfortable, but I was pretty sure it would hold.

It was another steaming day, and by the time I stepped into the comparative coolness of the barn, my shirt already had dark patches at the armpits. Sweat trickled down my stomach and into my waistband. I pressed the Kleenex to the beads of perspiration on my forehead and looked around.

Two cement-floored corridors stretched to my left, each with a row of ten stalls along each side. To my right was an arena strewn with rubber granules ground from old tires. They were more expensive than sand or dirt flooring, but eliminated the need to hose down the arena to keep the dust down.

The wash bay and the office were at one corner of the arena, next to a rotating fan and two Pepsi machines. Above it all, on a loft that rested over the entire middle section, were the hay bales that would supplement the feed mix and the sweet Kentucky bluegrass in the pasture. Through the opening at the far end of the corridor to my left, I saw a chestnut mare circling sleepily on a hot walker.

All in all, it was a beautiful setup.

In the arena, the woman I’d seen in the Hartwell driveway was riding patterns. She was a good rider, though a little sharp with the spurs, and I noticed that she kept the sorrel gelding thinking, bending him first right, then left, doing two turns on the forehand, then three on the rear.

I leaned my forearms on the top of the arena fence and watched as she did a near-perfect figure eight. Then she noticed me.

“Hey,” she called, then trotted over to the fence in front of me and pulled the gelding to a stop. She was wearing tight jeans, a sleeveless blouse knotted just below her breasts, and a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots with sharply pointed toes. Her strawberry-blond hair had been pulled back into a long braid that lay along her back like a copperhead. A drop of perspiration trickled down her neck. Watching it, I felt an almost overwhelming desire to trace it with my tongue.

In Calvin’s driveway, with the heavy makeup and the big-blown mall hair, she’d looked like just another pretty woman. With her hair pulled back and her skin bare, she had a primal beauty that seemed independent of her wide, mobile mouth and the sharp planes of her face.

“May I help you?” she said. Her voice was sultry and a little hoarse. She sounded like she should be singing from the top of a piano.

I gave her the same story I’d used back at the tack store, that I was looking for a good Arabian horse, a mare or gelding between three and seven, fast and supple, with good wind and a willing temperament. Also, no vices.

She cocked her head and gave me an appraising look. “What would you use the horse for?”

“Trail work. Poles and barrels. Endurance.” I’d never ridden Endurance, but Arabians excelled at it. “And I have an eight-year-old son, so whatever I end up with has to be gentle.”

“Your son would be riding the horse?”

“Not necessarily. I just don’t want anything that might strike at him. No biting, no kicking.” I imagined Paulie’s head struck by a hard, sharp hoof, his pudgy body falling, the startled look on his moon-shaped face, the fair hair splashed with blood. I imagined myself in slow motion, unable to stop it. Every father’s nightmare.

One of many. I have one for every occasion.

“Truth to tell,” she said, “I only have one horse for sale right now. Two-year-old. But he’s not broke yet, and he’s only got one eye. He’s still intact, but you could geld him. I could sell him to you cheap.”

“Could I see him? When you’re finished here, I mean.” I gestured toward the gelding she was riding.

“I’ll only be a few more minutes.” She made a face. “I hate this part of it, but I’m between trainers. Why don’t you take a look at the colt? He’s in the last stall on that row.” She pointed to the corridor that included the wash bay. “Right side. Name’s Dakota.”