Рита Браун - The Tell-Tale Horse

“Hmm,” was his reply. “I’ve been thinking.”

“I’m scared.” She tapped him with the clipboard with the hound names on it.

“No, really. About what happened in Warrenton.” His craggy face, serious, briefly made him look older than his forty years. “Do you think that woman was put there for Marion to see as a warning?”

“I don’t know. She was meant as some kind of warning. Whether it was for Marion or not, who knows?”

“And that huge punch bowl was stolen, right?”

“Yes. That thing is heavy. I lifted it once to help Marion clean it.”

“You and Cabel keep competing for it in the Corinthian Hunter Class. Actually, a lot of our members want their names inscribed on that bowl. Worth a fortune.”

“Worth a lot, that’s for sure. But you know, Shaker, it doesn’t add up.”

“No, it’s like one of those in-between days you mentioned for scenting. You have to find a line, and even when you do, it breaks. Hounds cast and find again. The day is like that, hard close work between huntsmen and hounds, but you can turn it into reasonably good sport if you and hounds keep thinking, keep feeling temperature changes and wind currents. Why am I telling you this? You know.”

“True.” She nodded.

“Well, what crossed my mind is maybe Lady Godiva is a clue.”

A car pulled up outside. They heard the door slam.

Ronnie Haslip burst through the kennel office door, waving a check. “Kasmir paid for the whole thing!” He slapped the check on the big square schoolteacher’s desk.

Sister, eyes wide, stared at it, picked it up, and uttered the old expression: “Jesus H. Christ on a raft.”

Shaker looked at Ronnie, then Sister. “What’s up?”

“Kasmir Barbhaiya bought Kilowatt for you. Gunpowder’s getting age on him, Showboat’s no spring chicken.” Ronnie glowed.

“That’s a great horse!” Shaker clapped his hands together.

Sister hugged Ronnie. “How’d you do it?”

“I didn’t do anything. High and Kasmir came up to me. Kasmir said, his exact words, Please allow me the pleasure to help your most excellent and beautiful master.”

“He said beautiful ?” Sister felt a flush.

“He did!” Ronnie puffed out his chest, his victory making him giddy.

Sister smiled. “From now on, February nineteenth is St. Kasmir Day.”

CHAPTER 4

Crawford Howard slapped down his copy of Barron’s, which he read cover to cover, as he did the London Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and a host of specialized financial reports. Not that he swallowed whole what was written therein, but he liked to have an overview of world markets. He invested prudently in stocks, bonds, and land. Once he’d tried platinum but found that metals, like corn futures, demanded highly specialized knowledge as well as impeccable timing.

His waistline had expanded in his middle years, as had his concept of himself. Crawford, who unlike Edward Bancroft did not start this life with a silver spoon in his mouth, made his first fortune building strip malls in Indiana and Iowa. After that, he steamrolled his fortune with brilliant land acquisitions and deep forays into blue chip stocks. Moving to Virginia thirteen years ago appeared to be retirement. Instead, he began purchasing small pharmacies and medical supply companies, and just last week a company that disposed of biohazardous waste from hospitals and doctors’ offices. He invested in a few high-tech stocks, not many. But he did invest in a local start-up company, Warp Speed, run by Faye Spencer.

Crawford irritated people. Sam Lorillard, Gray’s brother, ran his steeplechase barn. Rory Ackerman, another recovering alcoholic and friend of Sam’s, also worked there. Crawford treated them well. He also treated his wife well. Marty truly loved him, something he learned only after she forgave his affair with a young tart whose breasts were so enhanced she struggled to remain upright. The bimbo with the big rack had only loved his money.

Perhaps his greatest vanity was when he lost face at the last Jefferson Hunt Ball. Earlier in the season, he had deserted Jefferson Hunt Club and bought a pack of hounds just like you’d buy a loaf of bread. He couldn’t hunt a hair of them. Big English hounds, Dumfriesshire, black and tan and good-looking. He made a fool of himself among the foxhunting community. This tormented him like a thorn that breaks off in the lip. Determined to show up Sister Jane at her own game, he’d been casting about for a huntsman. Marty soothed his ego by saying he didn’t have the time to hunt hounds. He really should be field master. That was a joke too, but one step at a time.

Marty hoped she could eventually lead her proud, bullheaded, but adoring husband back into Jefferson Hunt. She missed her friends, and she missed the bracing runs too. Knowing Crawford, she guessed about two years would do it if she was patient and careful.

She stood behind him in the den he had paneled in rich deep rosewood as he pointed to his enormous computer screen. “See, I can follow the market in Japan”—he hit a button—“or Germany or London.” He inhaled. “London always bears watching, you know.”

As London is the financial epicenter of the world, this was an understatement.

“Well, what little I’ve learned about money moving around the world, I’ve learned from you,” Marty said. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and he reached up with his left hand to cover hers.

“Honey, this computer does everything but go to the bathroom for you.” He smiled. “I know, don’t say it. I can’t resist toys. What I’m studying now is how a surgeon in, say, Edinburgh can operate while a surgeon at Johns Hopkins in Maryland consults with him. Actually, the surgeon from Johns Hopkins could be fishing out in Chesapeake Bay, watching the operation on the latest incarnation of a cell phone.”

“Amazing, isn’t it? Do you ever wish you’d hopped on the dot-com bandwagon?” She knew the answer, but he never tired of telling his story.

“Sure I do, but now is a better time to invest in technology. Okay, maybe not nanotechnology because that hasn’t shaken out. I mean, scientists can figure out molecular engineering. The trick is profit. Just because something is high tech doesn’t mean it will turn a dollar.”

“I know you.” She ran a finger over the back of his neck. “Buying these small pharmacy companies and Sanifirm; you’re working up to something. You’re learning the business side of medicine. Once you see where the holes are, you’ll plug them and hit another big home run right out of the park. You have a genius for reading the tea leaves.”

He beamed. “It’s what I learned after I knew it all that gave me the edge.”

She laughed. “Me too.” She looked out the tall paned windows. “Looks like another front coming in.”

He ducked his head around the big screen. “Does look nasty. Three fifteen. Hmm.”

“I was so hoping we could take the hounds out tomorrow.” Marty had discovered she liked being around the hounds. She’d been spending two to three hours a day in the makeshift kennel.

Crawford planned to build a true kennel come spring, once the heaving and thawing stopped. Fortunately, St. Swithin’s was framed up so the workmen could continue despite weather. The stone chapel, another vanity but an appealing one, was dedicated to the very late Bishop of Winchester, who died in 862. Those early Wessex Christians believed heavy rainfall was a manifestation of his power.

“We’ll just see when we wake up. That’s what’s great about having our own pack of hounds. We go when we please.”

He neglected to say that his was an outlaw pack, since he refused to have truck with the MFHA, the Master of Foxhounds Association of America. This meant that no recognized hunt could draft him a hound, and no members of a recognized hunt could hunt with him without getting suspended from their own hunt. At this juncture, that helped him. No one would see what a dreadful mess he made of it. Although once his pack ran right through the Jefferson pack, and he’d likely never live it down.