Рита Браун - Hounded To Death

“I want to believe that.” He stopped. “What a mess, Sister, what a terrible mess. I’m a vet. I’m used to blood and tissue, but still—”

“What can I do for you? If you need help with horses, you know Shaker and I are good hands with a horse. We’ll do anything you need for as long as you need it.”

“I know. I know.”

Sister’s voice lowered. “Dan, steel yourself. We don’t know what will slither out of the investigation, but I know Hope did not take her own life. I don’t care how it looks.”

Dan fought back tears. “I’ll let you know what her family decides.”

“Would you like me to call Peggy Augustus? She and Hope were working on a big fund-raiser at Saratoga. They’d become very close.”

Peggy Augustus bred fabulous Thoroughbreds and was well known in horse circles.

“She was the second person I called after Hope’s parents. You’re the third. Couldn’t notify people until Ben left.” He paused. “If it is suicide, I don’t know why. I don’t understand it, but I can’t sit in judgment of another person’s life.”

“None of us can, Dan. That’s up to God.”

After hanging up the phone, Sister told Betty exactly what Dan had told her.

“No. Oh, no!” Betty’s eyes filled with tears as she reached for Sister.

The two women hugged each other.

“Betty, there is no way in hot hell that Hope killed herself. In my bones I know she didn’t do it; she would never do it.”

“I expect Ben made straight for Paul. He’d be my prime subject.” Betty wiped her eyes.

Betty was right. Ben was on his way.

“We’ve got to start the telephone tree.” Sister rubbed her temples. “The membership needs this information presented in a responsible manner. A lot of our people were her people, you know.”

“I’ll call Peggy and tell her we’ll fill in where we can on the fund-raiser.” Betty reached for the phone.

“While you do that, I’m going to find Shaker. Tell Peggy if she wants to change the date of the meeting or whatever, we’ll help with whatever she needs.”

“This will hit her hard. Peggy’s the brains behind the outfit, but Hope could go out there and say all the medical stuff. God, this is awful. It’s just awful.”

Sister gave Betty a kiss on the cheek, then hurried out to find Shaker on the back run of the kennels.

Shocked, he pushed back his baseball cap. “Why would anyone kill Hope Rogers?”

Sister touched his hand. “Strange. There’s a squadron of people who wanted Mo Schneider dead, but who would want to kill Hope? By God, I intend to find out!”

CHAPTER 7

Fifteen couple of hounds marched down the muddy farm road, water standing in the deep ruts. No matter what yesterday’s shocking news, hounds must go out. As heat came up earlier, hounds walked out earlier.

Trinity and Tinsel, second-year hounds, enjoyed splashing.

Giorgio had told everyone how Mo opened the trailer door and snatched him. No one wanted to hear it again, so he walked along quietly. The other G s babbled a bit.

Asa, an older hound, who after cubbing would be retired to lounge on the sofa this year, grumbled, “Damn kids.”

Diana and her littermate, Dasher, laughed.

Hounds loved their walks. As summer progressed, Sister, Shaker, and Betty might even go along on bicycles. This only worked if youngsters weren’t coupled to older hounds, since a confused youngster could drag the older hound right into the bicycle. Drawings of couple straps appear on Egyptian tombs thousands of years old. Humans learned early that yoking a younger hound to an older hound often shortened the learning time. The pharaohs or their minions had long ago figured this out, too. Foxhunters tend not to “improve” what works. If it was effective in 2000 b.c. or earlier, it would be effective now.

Today no one was coupled, a reward for how quickly the young entry were coming along.

Since everyone settled down, the humans could chat.

“What did Gray say?” Betty asked Sister, who had called her boyfriend to give him the horrible news.

“Shock. Dismay.”

“Seems to be everyone’s response.”

“One great thing is there are so many wonderful vets in the area,” Shaker said. “They’ll step in and help Dan. But that poor guy will have nightmares for a long, long time.”

Betty wore her wellies, now muddy up to the tops. “I didn’t see it and I’ll have nightmares.”

“You don’t suppose Hope ran afoul of one of the bigwigs, do you?” Shaker further explained his thoughts. “Her rescue work might have uncovered abuse or cheating with drugs. Big money in the Thoroughbred world can sometimes lead to big sins.”

“Long shot. After all, she was taking horses off their hands that weren’t winning and weren’t suitable for breeding. Wouldn’t matter if an owner was rich or not so rich; she was doing everyone a favor. Hell, she’d hook up her rig and go to Charleston, Mountaineer Track, Pimlico. She’d even haul all the way up to Saratoga and back. ’Course, if she threatened to expose someone, an abuser, you might be right. As for drugs, she wasn’t on the racetracks, so it’s doubtful she had knowledge of that.” Sister’s voice rose and Dragon turned to look at her. “Sorry, Dragon, you-all are fine.”

“Always want to be first, don’t you, boy?” Shaker liked Dragon, but his hardheaded ways tested the huntsman’s patience.

Diana and Dasher, his littermates, good as gold, just proved the axiom that breeding is Nature’s roulette.

“I do.” Dragon puffed out his broad chest.

“Idiot,” Asa remarked.

They walked toward Hangman’s Ridge, which loomed over Roughneck Farm. The ridge had earned its gloomy name in 1702 when the first criminal, Lawrence Pollard, was dispatched to the Hereafter from that very spot. There were precious few people this far west—the Wild West back then—it had been quite dangerous, so Pollard must have had it coming.

The early settlers struggled to create a lawful society. Up until the early nineteenth century, seventeen others followed Lawrence Pollard to the grave. At sixteen hundred feet above sea level, the swinging bodies would have been seen for miles around. Their ghosts haunted the ridge.

“When people commit suicide, usually they leave a note either to blame someone or excuse someone. Dan made no mention of a note. I keep turning it over in my mind; maybe I’ll find something. And you know she’d never fire a gun with a traumatized horse in the recovery room.” Sister paused to jump over a big puddle. “Made it,” she announced with pride, then continued, “Look, she didn’t commit suicide. I don’t care if her prints are all over that gun. How hard is it to shoot somebody, wipe down the gun and put it in the victim’s hand?”

“Easy,” Shaker said. “When Ben studies the wound and the splatter pattern—gross but important—he’ll have a better idea of whether she killed herself or not.”

“Even if it looks like she did, what if her killer were, say, a police officer? He’d know how to fake it.” Sister’s T-shirt was already soaked with sweat.

“That’s stretching it,” Betty responded.

“I know.” Sister sighed. “She was so special, always ready to help out. I can’t give it up. Actually, I just started.”

“That’s what scares me,” Shaker replied.

“Oh, come on, I’m not that bad, am I?”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.” Tinsel was drifting out. He whistled low and she moved back.

“If it were Paul, we’ll all be relieved.” Betty was sweating, too.

“Guess we’ll find out soon enough.” Shaker noticed Georgia, a gray fox, pop out of her den as they walked along the orchard. “Saucy wench.” Sister smiled as Georgia watched the hounds walk along.