She threw the Saab into gear and took off, cruising to make sure there were no neighbors left. Night had fallen, but Bennie could see how much the terrain had changed. Streetlights lined the newly paved roads, and large homes rose from formerly verdant horse pastures. Chandeliers shone through curved Palladian windows in the darkness, and the air didn’t smell of manure anymore, which wasn’t necessarily an improvement. The shiny brown horses had been replaced by shiny brown Jaguars. She took a left and right, then stopped at a light. She signaled for a right turn and was about to head toward the highway when she saw a handmade sign stuck into the new curb by the side of the road.
MACK’S TACK SHOP CLOSEOUT-EVERYTHING MUST GO, it read, with a hand-drawn picture of a horse. Bennie considered it as the Saab’s breathy engine idled. A tack shop was where they sold stuff for horses, wasn’t it? The family that had owned the farm where her father had lived had owned horses. Maybe someone at the tack shop would know the family, and maybe even where they’d moved. Also Bennie’s father had been their caretaker. Maybe he’d gone in there for hay or whatever food horses eat. It was possible. Bennie switched her blinkers to signal left, and when the traffic light turned green, followed the hand-drawn arrow on the sign.
Giddyap!
12
Bennie got to the tack shop fifteen minutes before nine o’clock, the closing time on the door. It was a small and chummy store; three small rooms joined together, with a plain green rug, and no-frills fluorescent lights on the ceiling illuminating a dwindling supply of horse supplies. At least, Bennie assumed it was horse supplies, since she was from Philly. A golden retriever was the closest she’d come to wildlife.
“Be with you in a minute!” called out a young girl in a green polo shirt that read MACK’S TACK. Her dark ponytail swinging, she hit the keys on the cash register with a rhythmic beat, hunka-hunka-hunka, and was concentrating too hard to look up. “I’m just cashing out. Can you hang in there for two minutes?”
“Sure,” Bennie said, and looked around to kill time. To her left, on a wall of Peg-Board hooks hung a few ropes of leather straps looped around horse bridles, and to her right, the Peg-Board held a group of silvery metal things she guessed must be the bits, some qualifying as cruel and unusual punishment. Orange crates of shiny stirrups lined the floor, and a funny odor emanated from an open basket of weird brown cookies.
The cashier behind the counter glanced up. She had intelligent blue eyes behind her glasses and her nametag read Michelle. “Thanks for being so patient.”
“No problem. You’re the first person perceptive enough to call me patient.” Bennie crossed to the counter, a rectangular wooden affair beside a magazine rack filled with titles like Dressage, Practical Horseman, and Equus. Next to the cash register sat a bin of clear soaps labeled Soapy Ponies, apparently because little toy ponies were cryogenically frozen inside. Bennie picked the last one up with a pang. This could be her business in a few weeks. “So you’re going out of business, huh? All the horse farms gone?”
“Yeah,” the girl said with a sigh. “The county got a new board of supervisors and everybody sold. The land goes for two hundred thousand dollars an acre now. No horses, no tack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s sad, but people gotta live somewhere.” Michelle shrugged.
“Actually, I’m looking for someone who used to live around here, a family who used to own one of the horse farms nearby. It stood where the development is now, Hunt Country Estates. This would be about two years ago.”
“I don’t know.” The cashier shook her head, setting her ponytail swinging. “I’ve only worked here a few months.”
“Damn.” Bennie was tired of saying damn all the time. It just didn’t go far enough. “They had horses, and a caretaker, and I was guessing they came in here for their horse stuff, or for horse food, like hay. Don’t horses eat hay?” She was pretty sure horses didn’t eat Iams.
“They do, and grain, but we’re not feed or hay dealers. We sell tack, bridles and saddles, and gift items like books, mugs, and computer games.” The young woman gestured helpfully at a shelf behind Bennie.
“Well, do you have records of customers, or mailing lists I can look at? I know the family’s address, but not their name.”
“No, I think any mailing lists are all packed up, if the owner even kept them. He’s retiring, and our lease is up in two weeks, then we’re outta here. The mailing lists wouldn’t have helped anyway, they were only in order of names. If you didn’t know their name, you’d have to look through every entry.”
“I’ve done dumber things,” Bennie said. “You think the mailing lists have been sold to anyone? It would seem like too valuable a thing to throw away.”
“Maybe Janet would know. She’s worked here forever.” Michelle gestured behind Bennie, to a petite older woman walking toward them with a thick key ring that jingled closing time. Her gray hair was cut in a neat feathery bob, and with her green Mack’s Tack polo shirt she wore loose jeans and tan Birkenstocks. The cashier waved her over. “Janet, you know what happened to our mailing lists?”
Bennie turned around. The older woman has worked here forever. “Or did you know the family who owned the horse farm that became Hunt Country Estates?”
“Hi, I’m Janet, and sure, I knew the Rices,” the woman answered, and Bennie’s heart leapt up.
“The Rices? They lived on Owen Road? They had a horse farm?”
“Of course, Peg Rice came in here all the time. A very active horsewoman, even at her-our-age. She hunted regularly with her son. They even hunted in Ireland, with the Galway Blazers.” Janet thought a minute. “Yes, they had a thoroughbred and an old paint pony, Buddy. Cute, and a good little mover. The pony was her daughter’s. She was a pony clubber.”
She clubbed ponies? Bennie knew that wasn’t right. Horse people had a language of their own. She was feeling more left out than St. Amien.
“And Peg’s husband had the Apps. Four Apps.”
Forget the Apps, Bennie could barely believe her luck. “Janet, do you know where they moved? Maybe they mentioned it?”
“Ocala, Florida.”
“Great! Then it would be no trouble to find them.”
“Not at all, I have their address. We just sent Peg a new bridle she’d ordered for Sewanee. He’s in between a horse and a cob and it makes her crazy.”
Bennie was too happy to ask what a cob was. She always thought it came with corn. “The Rices had a caretaker, right? For the estate?”
“Bill?”
“Yes, Bill Winslow!” Bennie was astounded. It was the break she’d been waiting for! “You know him?”
“Sure, he used to come in here all the time, to pick up orders for Peg. A quiet man. I don’t think he ever said two words to anyone.”
“That’s him, all right,” Bennie said, with a tight smile of recognition. Practically the only words he’d said to Bennie were “hello” and “good-bye.” And she remembered how he’d recoiled from her touch when they’d met. “Very quiet.”
“A bookish man, too.” Janet was gesturing at the wall of books behind her. “In fact, most of the books behind you belonged to Bill, the used ones. We’re trying to sell them.”
“They’re his?” Bennie turned to the wall she hadn’t looked at before. It was full of horse books, obviously used, and worn in a friendly way. Centered Riding, A Horse of Your Own, and A Horse Around the House. She flashed on her father’s small white cottage, filled with every sort of book imaginable, many bought at library sales. She doubted that he’d been a rider, and she remembered him collecting the classics and lots of other books, almost randomly. She ran an index finger along the spines of the books, as she had the time she’d seen him at the cottage.