On weekends Jennifer Franklin, a senior in high school, and her best friend, Sari Rasmussen, cleaned and tacked up the horses for Sister, Shaker, and Betty. When the hunt was over, the girls would cool down the horses, wash them if necessary, clean all the tack. When the horses were completely dry, they’d put on their blankets and turn them out, an eagerly anticipated moment for the horses.
The two attractive girls would then attack five pairs of boots, which included their own two. However, this Saturday their high school was having a special late-afternoon basketball tournament, so Sister had given the two girls time off.
During weekday hunts, Betty saw to the horses while Sister and Shaker fed the hounds after a hard hunt. This gave them time to check each hound, making sure no one was too sore or had gotten torn by thorns or hateful barbed wire. If anyone sustained an injury, he or she would be taken to the small medical room, lifted on the stainless steel table and washed, stitched if necessary, or medicated. The hardy hounds rarely suffered diseases, but they did bruise footpads, rip ears, cut flanks.
When Betty finished with the horses, Sister would usually be finished with the hounds. Then the two women would stand in the stable aisle cleaning their tack, the bucket of warm water loosening stiffened, cold fingers as well as softening up the orange glycerin soap.
While the ladies performed this convivial task, Shaker used a power washer on the kennels. Sister would clean his boots when she cleaned hers during the weekdays.
The familiar routine was comforting, but the hunt club really did need at least one more employee. While wealthy members like Crawford would build show grounds because it was flashy, they didn’t throw their money in the till for a worker. An employee lacked the social cachet of a building, and the slender budget left no room for another pair of hands. Since Sister and Shaker performed most all of the work, their days were long: sunup to past sundown.
Sister and Betty stood side by side, cleaning their bridles. They were almost finished.
“Read the paper this morning?” Betty asked.
“I don’t get to it until supper. What have I missed?”
“Oh, those antique furniture and silver gangs are at it again. TheRichmond Times-Dispatchhad an article about how they’re moving through the west end.”
“Every couple of years that happens in Richmond. Smart thieves,” Sister said.
“Well, what I found interesting was these rings work full-time. They move through Richmond, Charlotte, Washington, even the smaller cities like Staunton or ritzy places like Middleburg. Apart from knowing real George II silver from silver plate or a Sheraton from a Biedermeier, they’re obviously well organized.”
“I get the Sotheby’s catalogues. Some of those pieces sell for the gross national product of Namibia.”
Betty laughed.“I’ve always wondered why people become criminals. Seems to me if they put all that energy into a legitimate career, they’d make enough money.”
“I wonder. I can understand a thirteen-year-old kid in the slums not wanting to work for McDonald’s when he or she can realize a couple of thousand a month dealing and delivering drugs. But a furniture gang? I know what you mean. The same effort could just as well produce profit in an honest trade.”
“Well, maybe there’s more profit than we realize. Guess there’s a chain of people to make it all work, too, like crooked antique dealers.”
“Hmm. It’s one thing to steal money, but family silver, furniture—so much emotion tied up in those things. Like all those little silver plates and big trays we won in horse shows when we were young.”
“Or my great-grandmother’s tea service.”
“Are you going to lock your doors?”
“Oh, they won’t come out here.”
“Hope not, but still, glad I’ve got my Doberman,” Sister said.
The phone rang. As Sister hung up her tack on the red bridle hook, she picked it up. Betty reached up next to her, putting up her hunting bridle with the flat brow and nosebands, its simple eggbutt-jointed snaffle gleaming from rubbing.
“Hello, Ronnie, I’d thought you’d had enough of me today.”
He laughed.“It’s all over town, hell, all over the county about Donnie Sweigert being, uh, quarry. Guess his nearest and dearest will take to calling him fox urine.”
“Bet they shorten that.”
“Bet they do, too.” He laughed harder.
Ronnie, a man who, besides being fashionable, needed to be the first to know everything, enlivened every hunt. Usually discreet, he could let it rip and surprise everyone.
“What can I do for you? I hope you aren’t calling about the board meeting. It’s not for three more weeks, and I haven’t even thought of my agenda. Well, except for more money.”
“Oh, that.” His voice registered sympathy. “I say we get each hunt club member to buy a lottery ticket for a dollar each week. If they win, they give half to the hunt club.”
“Ronnie, that’s a great idea!” Betty leaned close to the earpiece of the phone upon hearing Sister’s enthusiasm. Sister put her arm around Betty’s waist. A fabulous thing about being a woman was touching, hugging, being close to other women without worrying about repercussions. Men misunderstood affection for sexual interest, and it caused no end of difficulty.
“I was joking.”
“But it’s a great idea, I mean it. Oh, please propose it at the board meeting. And Betty’s right here next to me. I’ll tell her all about it so you have two passionate supporters.”
“Really? I mean, really?” His tone rose.
“I mean it. You are so creative.”
“Actually, that’s not why I called.” He breathed in, a moment of anticipation and preparation. “You are not going to believe this. I just heard it from Marty Howard at the Subaru dealership. She was picking up her Outback, and I was dropping mine off for its sixty-thousand-mile service.”
“I’m waiting… .”
“I’m setting the stage.” He loved to tease a story. “Anyway, we chatted. I so like Marty, and I will never know why she puts up with that man, but that’s another story, so—waiting with bated breath?”
“Yes. So is Betty, whose ear is also jammed to the phone.”
“Ah, a larger audience. Well, here it is. Ta da!” He sang the “ta da.” “Ready?”
“Ronnie, I’ll slap you the minute I next see you.”
“I might like it. Well, my dear master, Crawford Howard has hired Sam Lorillard to train his steeplechasers.” The silence was so long Ronnie raised his voice. “Sister, did you hear me?”
“I’m trying to fathom the information.”
“Can you believe it?”
“No.”
Betty shook her head.“Me, neither,” she said into the mouthpiece.
“Isn’t this gossip too good to be true?”
“I’ll say.” Sister released her hold on Betty’s waist.
Betty reached for the phone.“May I?”
“Of course.” Sister then pressed her ear to the earpiece as the women reversed positions, Betty’s arm around Sister’s thin waist. “Ronnie, it’s the Big Betts here.”
“Cleavage.”
“As if you cared.”
“I do care. I’m a highly attuned aesthetic being.” He was proud of Betty losing twenty-five pounds last season, and she was working hard on the last ten. “Knowing you, you’ll pepper me with questions.”
“Right. Since I haven’t heard a breath of this, and I know you didn’t either or I’d already know, shall I assume Crawford didn’t talk to any of the gang?”
“Yes.”
“Did Marty say how he hired Sam?”
“She did. We must have talked twenty minutes. The landscape business always slows down to nothing in winter, so she had all kinds of time. Anyway, madam, what she said was, and I quote, ‘Crawford called trainers in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, all the big names. They swore that Sam had oo-scoobs of talent.’ ”