Trotting in three quarters time (a novel), Part 10

by A.J. Lencroy

Chapter 1 is here.

Chapter 2 is here.

Chapter 3 is here.

Chapter 4 ishere.

Chapter 5 is here.

Chapter 6 is here.

Chapter 7 is here.

Chapter 8 is here.

Chapter 9 is here.

CHAPTER 10

Onboard

Peter Pettigrew, horse trainer, smoothed the tape holding the leg wrap. He stood and gently slapped the bay horse on the neck, unhooked the chain from the bridle, led the horse into the stall, stepped outside, and latched the stall gate.

Wordlessly, he walked to the adjoining stall, led out a black horse, and hooked him to crossties. Hooley and Marchais watched the trainer put the harness and the bridle on the massive head.

“I’ve got to get this colt out before the track closes. Just a slow jog. He’s been sick. He needs some fresh air.”

Then Peter disappeared out the barn door and returned in a few moments, towing a two-seat jog cart. The narrow wheels rattled over the asphalt. Hooley looked at the cart and then at the horse.

“Two seats?”

Peter grinned. “Amazing detective work.”

Marchais, watching from his perch on the straw bale, clapped his palm on his forehead.

A few seconds later, the black horse stood between the shafts at the barn entrance, harness securely buckled, lines running back to Peter’s hands. Outside, the late afternoon sun lay across the empty racetrack, and somewhere in the distance, geese honked.

Hooley snapped the chinstrap of the helmet Peter offered and hopped on beside him. The trainer clicked his tongue, and the horse stepped forward.

The two-person cart rattled through the gap in the fence and onto the empty racetrack. The horse changed gears from a walk to a slow trot. Hooves struck the track in a steady beat, the cart floating behind them as they moved down the backstretch. For the first time since the case began, Hooley understood why people might spend money on a horse.

Hooley held the side of the cart with one hand. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me about the ugly turn this horse story has taken.”

“Ugly turns.”

“That bad?”

“My cousin is exhausting. He’s like a hornet buzzing around your head, and he keeps you swatting like a lunatic. The day after he surprised me with the announcement that the Kansas City ladies were each taking a quarter of the horse, he suggested we inflate the sales price for the new owners.”

“I told him that the sales price was published and I’m not padding anything. This didn’t faze him. He was on a crooked roll and said we could call it a surcharge for resale.”

I said, “Alex, I don’t even know what the hell that means, but the answer is a hard no.”

Hooley smiled. “People like your cousin make the ridiculous seem normal. They have a weird confidence. The woman he sucked into marriage, same thing. She is a decent person, a nice person. She’s vulnerable. Alex saw that and targeted her.”

“He’s always been like this, even as a kid. He lies so smoothly it’s scary. He’s a good-looking guy. The ladies were available, but only if Alex saw an angle. And when he moves on, and he always moves on, he does not have a hint of remorse about the damage he leaves behind.”

They jogged in silence. On the third slow lap, Hooley forgot that he was a few feet off the ground, pulled by a horse. He said, “The clopping is putting me in a Zen state.”

“Still Kentucky, but I know what you mean. That sound is one of the reasons most of us in the horse business are broke.”

“What do the twitching ears mean?”

“The horse is thinking, listening.”

After a pause, the trainer said, “Hooley, I’m looking out for the ladies from Topeka.”

“When you called the ladies, you made an excellent move. Not telling your cousin that you called them was an even better move. Alex thinks he is driving. But for once, he is a passenger.”

“Here’s another of Alex’s moves. Since I won’t ask them to pay over the purchase price, he wants me to pad their monthly bills, pad them so much that they cover his bills.”

“What a guy.”

“He goes on and on. He creates phony statements for me to use. He was smooth some days and pushy on others.”

“What happened?”

“I called the Topeka ladies. I told them my daily rate, which is low, and told them not to pay attention to any other bills. Doreen is very sharp; they pay me on an iPad using pictures of checks. Actually, Alex is paying his own inflated bills with scammed funds.”

Hooley said, “I find that news strangely comforting.”

Peter grinned. “Those women are smart. They enjoy jerking Alex around. And they were ready. They dragged it out and enjoyed every minute that Alex tried to work on them.”

“Which was?”

“As soon as the filly started looking like the real deal, he wanted to own three-quarters of the horse instead of his one-quarter. So, he goes into action. He drove to Topeka twice, each time with a bullshit story.”

Hooley asked, “Story about what?”

“His first story was that the horse was a loser, and Alex felt so bad that he would personally buy back their shares and absorb their losses.”

Hooley rolled his eyes. “What a prince.”

“The next time, Alex told them that his calculations were wrong and the tax deductions would not work. Adele said it was as close to groveling as she had ever seen in an almost human being.”

“They didn’t sell?”

“No, of course not, not even close. But they tortured him like a couple of cool cats with a mouse. Acting naive and telling him that they were thinking about it. I’m not even going to get into his phantom vet bills.”

Peter steered the horse off the track at the second gate. The horse slowed to a walk. Marchais had watched the entire jog with his chin on the back of his hands on the top of the gray fence surrounding the track. Both men hopped off in front of the door to barn 6.

Hooley looked directly at Peter. “Appreciate the ride; really enjoyed it. This horse business isn’t really a police matter, but it was a great case to close my career on. More fun than tragedy. One last thing – do you sense that Alex is possibly dangerous, physically dangerous?”

Peter did not answer for a few beats. Then he spoke slowly.

“Probably not. He has a temper when others call bullshit on him. When he gets cornered, he turns on the charm.” He paused and added, “But then again, he has never smelled a payday like this horse.”