Рита Браун - Whisker Of Evil

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Oh, some people are prejudiced against chestnuts. There’s an old saying among foxhunters that a red mare won’t hunt. I’ve never found it to be true. For instance, Federico Tesio, the great Italian master of matings, believed that grays were—well, mutants; they were weaker. The Aga Khan, another great breeder, thought the opposite. And he bred great grays.” Fair shrugged. “I think because there’s so much at stake, both money and emotion, people cling to their prejudices. A prejudice is kind of like a rabbit’s foot. You squeeze it real hard and hope you’ll have some luck.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Cooper smiled.

“Horsemen are the most opinionated lot. I’ve gone to vet school, specialized in reproductive medicine, have a pretty good track record, but I can go to a barn and have someone standing there without a high-school diploma swearing to me that Hershey bars will bring on his mare’s heat.” Fair held up his hand. “You can’t believe some of the stuff I see and hear. And fads. The horse world, like any other, goes through fad spasms. Remember the Horse Whisperer?”

“Yes.”

“Monty Roberts is an extraordinary man. He gives lectures to ordinary people. One lecture, they think they can do what he does. Not so much old horsemen—I don’t mean age, but people who grew up with horses—but the new people. One of these new guys, a rich lawyer from Washington, said to me, ‘I whisper. My horse doesn’t listen.’ Actually, I apologize, Coop, this is a lot more than you need to know, and I’m going off on a tangent.” He blushed.

“Not at all. I see similar behavior but in different circumstances. Very often I’ll be questioning a witness to a crime or an accident and they will have a fact wrong—say, the color of the victim’s shirt. Even if you show them the shirt, they’ll cling to their perception. It’s a way the mind protects itself.”

“So who can you rely on?”

Cooper shrugged. “Who knows? But the more training you have in observation, the more reliable you are.”

“Yes.” Fair turned his eyes back to the screen. “I wish I knew what Jerome was putting together. Do you know why he was out on Yellow Mountain Road at night?”

“No.”

“Big horse farms on Yellow Mountain Road.” Fair ran his fingers through his blond, close-cropped hair.

“That’s the only thing I’ve come up with, but what would he see at night? Maybe he was driving around to order his thoughts. I do that.”

“Maybe, but Jerome strikes me as having had a mission.”

“The one tenuous link I have is Mary Pat’s notebook. Remember, we found it in Barry’s possessions?”

“Right. Did Jerome read it? I know you have it down at the office, but if he was as determined as I think, he would have wanted to read it.”

“He did. That might be what set him on his search for Ziggy’s children and by now grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What happened to the thoroughbreds that didn’t race?” She paused a second. “By the by, I read Mary Pat’s notebook and didn’t understand a thing. It’s all Greek to me. Anyway, back to the thoroughbred that didn’t race.”

“Like any other animal, some died young. Not many, but some might have had colic or a birth defect or run through a fence in a thunderstorm. Those that survived—the great number—usually wound up as show hunters or event horses or, if they were very lucky,” he smiled broadly, “foxhunters.”

“Now, Fair, what’s so special about that?”

“Their owners love them and they get to spend the fall out in the countryside with other horses. What a life!”

“You know, it sounds pretty good to me.” She returned to the screen. “Keep going.”

He scrolled down. “Ah.”

On the screen were the names of other horses born the same year as Ziggy Flame. Those that had glorious careers on the racetrack appeared first, followed by those having glorious careers at stud. Sometimes the two overlapped, but often they did not. Ack Ack, Arts and Letters, Majestic Prince, and Shuree were all born the same year as Ziggy Flame: 1966.

“What?”

He pointed to the screen. “Ziggy’s sire was Tom Fool, an outstanding horse. You’ll find that blood in good pedigrees today.”

“Two stood in Kentucky.”

Fair added, “One in Maryland—a full brother, born a year later, 1967.” He rubbed his chin; a blond stubble rasped his palm. “Mary Pat bred that same mare back to Tom Fool the year after Ziggy. She didn’t yet know Ziggy would be so good, but it’s quite common for a breeder to send a mare back to the same stallion two years in a row.” He paused, thought long and hard, then shook his head. “Rabies and Ziggy Flame.”

“It cost Jerome his life. He made the connection we’re missing.” Cooper, patient, knew she had to keep digging.

“Harry called me late this afternoon. She, Alicia, and Aunt Tally were at St. James. It’s a long shot, but tomorrow let’s go back there.”

Cooper smiled. “What are we looking for?”

“Ziggy. An echo.”

38

F riday morning, nine-thirty, on June 25, Tazio Chappars opened the door of Carmen Gamble’s shop. She needed a quick trim, as she had to make a presentation to a client at one in the afternoon. Brinkley followed on her heels.

Toby, the receptionist, looked up. “Oh, Tazio, Carmen called from the airport. She’s on her way to Bermuda. Her aunt is very sick.”

“I didn’t know she had an aunt in Bermuda.”

“Me, neither, but I know you need your haircut, and Cindy Green said she’d be glad to do it.”

Cindy Green, twirling her scissors, called out, “Showtime!”

Toby whispered, “Brinkley, I’ve got a cookie.”

Brinkley’s ears perked up.

Tazio was right. Carmen didn’t have an aunt in Bermuda.

39

P otlicker Creek flowed the four and a half miles from St. James to Harry’s farm. Along the way it widened, as other small creeks fed into it, until finally it spilled into the Mechums River.

The waters, clear and cool, had been favored by the native population. Although the English had settled the eastern and central parts of Albemarle County before the Revolutionary War, only a handful ventured this far west, thanks to the vigilance and ferocity of the Monacans.

Once Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the mood of the now-independent Americans swung upward and westward. Crushing war debts drove some far past the boundaries of Anglo civilization. Others knew fortunes would be made if they could only figure out how to get their produce and products to burgeoning cities and towns back east.

Potlicker Creek, not being a mighty river, offered little in the way of transportation. But those who settled at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains discovered that the crystal creek water made soft whiskey or clear spirits, if that was your preference.

A tangle of footpaths leading back to the stills tucked in the hollows crisscrossed the creek along its course. The revenue man had tried to tame the distillers. More than one never made it back home. Finally, the government ignored the distillers until the upheavals of the Great Depression.

During that time, families along the Appalachian Chain were removed, bought out, or forced out to make way for the explosion of public works designed to revive the economy as well as to stave off revolt. Along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains the Skyline Drive was built, in use to this day, as a monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision and a sorrow to those families forced to leave home.