There wasn’t any doubt that Bulldog needed the money Sal Verdi could contribute, but so far he’d resisted the fat man’s attempts to buy in. Everybody wondered how long Bulldog could hold out.
We sat around staring at each other, the seven of us, and it seemed no amount of alcohol was going to ease the tension. Poor little Ramon had to be reassured that it was okay to sit down in his riding clothes, and still he looked like he was on a horse he expected to bolt for the fences.
I watched every one of them to see if I could catch any signs. In a way I gave them a preliminary grilling, just keeping it conversational-like but trying to see if they knew anything or had seen anything. After all, those years on the force had to give me some advantage.
Came up zero. Hauser had joined Whit for coffee early and then went to the barn to look at one of his horses due to race later in the week. Claimed he didn’t know Ginger was even at the track until Ramon had made his wild cavalry charge on Samarkand.
Bulldog had had an appointment with Verdi for seven o’clock. Ginger was found at a quarter to. Verdi said he’d just parked his car and was headed for the clubhouse when the noise Ramon was making attracted his attention. Same with Bulldog, except he’d come from the other direction. He lived in the old caretaker’s cottage on the south side of what had once been the Whitman Estate. That wasn’t far from where Whit Dunbar and Ginger boarded — ironically, as paying guests in the Big House that long ago had belonged to Whit’s own people. It couldn’t be more than five minutes from the training track.
Beau and I had been gassing in my rooms from about six. I remembered checking my watch just as he knocked on the door. We had gone over strategy for Little Bit, the nice colt he had scheduled for the Havenside Stakes on Saturday, against Whit’s horse and five others that didn’t really count.
I had been a little on edge, and we’d had some strong eye-openers in our coffee. With what I was tossing down now, I should have had some glow, but all I felt was empty inside about Ginger lying out there with that beautiful life oozed out of her.
As for Handsome Howard, he was losing his aristocratic look with every slosh of the Scotch, and I was just starting to get past his hemming and hawing as to where had been, when the lieutenant came in.
“Anybody confessed yet, Wyman?” he asked, lumbering his big frame through the doorway.
“Not funny, Lieutenant. We all knew her. We all liked her,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster.
“Yeah, well somebody didn’t like her. She’s plenty dead out there, and that red stuff all over her head isn’t sign paint.”
“Please, McLane, can’t you take it a little easy?” begged Howard Lanier in a cracked, queasy sort of voice. The cubes in his glass rattled as his hand shook. Hauser didn’t look too good, either.
I offered McLane a drink, knowing he wouldn’t take it because he was on duty, but it seemed the polite thing to do, what with all the rest of us drinking.
As I expected, he turned it down and started right in, going over the same ground with each of us that I’d just covered. He didn’t get anything more than I did, except a few nervous embellishments, until he moved to Howard.
“Well, as a matter of fact, Lieutenant,” Howard told him, with the start of a blush which did him no credit, “Ginger and I — well, we spent the night together.”
“You what?”
It wasn’t only McLane that shouted. At least four others sounded just as shocked.
“Yes, well, um — we’d had a little candlelight dinner at my place and one thing led to another...” Howard stammered.
Just thinking about what he was saying was enough to make me boil, even if I’d pretty much seen it coming. Luckily, Beau caught the rage in my eyes and held onto my chair, or I swear I would have run that rat Lanier into the wall.
Even Verdi looked mad; he was puffing up like a balloon ready to burst. I wondered how Whit Dunbar would feel when he heard about it, and then I thought: maybe he knew.
The lieutenant looked around at us and decided to continue the conversation in private. Not that it could stay private for long, with a murder at the end of it, but I could see where it was the wiser thing for the moment.
He took Howard by the arm with a “We’d better finish this elsewhere,” and left the rest of us with our chins hanging down.
After a stunned silence everybody began gabbling at once, and by the time they strayed off, my head was aching like the little men with the hammers were at work inside. I was squeezing out my anger by kneading one of my rubber exercise rods in my hands. I’d have liked to have been using it on Lanier right then.
Beau Jellife hung behind. He seemed to have some instinct about how I felt.
“Were you in love with her, Paul?” His voice was full of sympathy.
“I guess I was. I suppose everybody was a little. And dammit, Beau, it’s just such a waste. Stupid. Needless. I mean, her dead like that. It isn’t right. It shouldn’t have been Ginger.”
It was idiot’s talk, and I knew it. Certainly not professional, but I wasn’t hurting this way as a pro.
“No, Paul. It shouldn’t have been Ginger. Ever.”
I didn’t know whether he meant it shouldn’t have been Ginger getting killed or shouldn’t have been Ginger for me, but it didn’t make any difference now. I’d never told her how I felt about her, and I certainly had stood no chance with her except as a friend. So I’d made that be enough.
After a pause he asked, “Did you know Lanier had something going with her?”
My lips were dry, in spite of all the liquid that had been passing through them the last few hours.
“I guess I knew. I just wish he didn’t have to be talking about it now, bringing it all out and making her sound like one of his quickies. It dirties her,” I said.
Like a good friend, which he was as well as being my boss, he let it pass and changed the subject to Little Bit and his chances in Saturday’s race. It sounds abrupt and callous now, but it wasn’t. He handled it just right by trying to get my mind away from Ginger and onto the only other thing I gave a rap about. Trouble was, it wasn’t far enough away.
Little Bit had been scheduled — and still was, unless either Whit or Beau decided to cancel — to go against Whit Dunbar’s filly in that race. And the filly, registered in his daughter’s name, was called Ginger Peachy. Swell way to get my thinking off the girl.
Both Beau and Whit had a lot at stake in that race: Beau, because it could put him back in the running for the really good training jobs, and Whit because it would prove his thing about “the look.” Of course, Beau’s need was more immediate than Whit’s. After all, the filly belonged to Whit Dunbar. Beau was just on the line for the owner who, unfortunately, happened to be Lanier.
Beau stayed around a few minutes and then wandered off. I’d just begun to round up the glassware when McLane turned up again, all business and very official.
“Anybody out on the training track this morning before Ramon with that horse?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “You can check the sheet. There’s a work schedule. But of course it’ll only tell you if somebody was supposed to be there, not whether they really were.”
“How about you and Beau? You two looked like you’d been up and around a while.”
“Sure we were, and most of the regulars would have been, too. We start with the daylight. Beau and I had Little Bit set for a work at 8:30. Billy Winston was to ride. As a matter of fact, where the bleep is he? He was due here hours ago.”
“Who’s he?”