"Second in the second race, won the fourth race, and she won the big one."
"Wow." She swatted her food bowl, angry all over again at being left out. "I grew up with horses. I don't know why Mother thinks I won't behave myself at Montpelier. As if I've never seen a crowd before."
"You haven't. Not that big." Tucker licked her lips, relishing her breakfast and the cat's discomfort.
"I can handle it!" She glared down at the dog. "I ride in cars better than you do. I don't bark. I don't ask to be fed every fifteen minutes, and I don't whine to go to the bathroom."
"No, you just do it under the seat."
Mrs. Murphy spit, her white fangs quite impressive. "No fair. I was sick and we were on our way to the vet."
"Yeah, yeah. Tapeworms. I'm tired of that excuse."
The pretty feline shuddered. "I hate those tapeworm shots, but they do work. Haven't had a bit of trouble since. Of course, flea season is over."
She had heard the vet explain that some fleas carry the tapeworm larvae. When animals bite the spot where a flea has bitten them, they occasionally ingest an infected flea, starting the cycle wherein the parasite winds up in their intestines. Both cat and dog understood the problem, but when a flea bites, it's hard not to bite back.
Harry sat down to her hot omelet. Mrs. Murphy kept her company on the other side of the plate.
"I am not giving you any, Murphy. In fact, I'm not forking over one more morsel of food for days—not until I clean up the wreckage of this house. I've half a mind to leave you home from work tomorrow, but you'd run another demolition derby."
"Damn right."
Tucker, annoyed at not being able to sit on the table, plopped under Harry's chair, then rose again to sit by her mother's knee. "Oh, Murph, one little thing ... a jockey was murdered last night at the Montpelier stable, the big old one."
The green eyes grew larger, and the animal leaned over the table. "What?"
"Mrs. Murphy, control yourself." Harry reached over to pet the cat, who fluffed her fur.
"A jockey, Nigel somebody or other—we don't really know him although Adelia Valiant does—he was stabbed. Right through the heart." Tucker savored this last detail.
"You waited all this time to tell me?" Murphy unleashed her claws, then retracted them.
Tucker smiled. "Next time you tell me cats are smarter than dogs, just remember I know some things you don't."
Murphy jumped down from the table, put her face right up into Tucker's, and growled. "Don't mess with me, buster. You get to go with Mom to the races. You come home and tell me nothing until now. I would have told you straightaway."
The little dog held her ground. "Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn't."
"When have I withheld important news from you?"
"The time you and Pewter stole roast beef from the store."
"That was different. Besides, you know Pewter is obsessed with food. If I hadn't helped her steal that roast beef, I wouldn't have gotten one measly bite of it. She would have stolen it herself, but she's too fat to squeeze into the case. That's different."
"No, it isn't."
Harry observed the Mexican standoff. "What's got into you two this morning?"
"Nothing." Murphy stalked out of the room, taking a swipe at Tucker's rear end when the dog's head was turned.
Harry prudently reached down and grabbed Tucker's collar. "Ignore her."
"With pleasure."
The phone rang. Harry answered it.
"Sorry to call you so early on a Sunday morning," Deputy Cynthia Cooper apologized. "Boss wants me to ask you some questions about the races yesterday."
"Sure. Want to come out here?"
"Wish I could. You ready?"
"Yes."
"What do you know about Nigel Danforth?"
"Not much, Coop. He's a new jockey on the circuit, not attached to a particular stable. What we call a pickup rider or a catch rider. I met him briefly yesterday."
Hearing this, Mrs. Murphy sourly returned to the kitchen. She didn't so much as glance at Tucker when she passed the dog, also eavesdropping.
"Crab."
"Selfish," the cat shot back.
"Did you ever speak to Nigel?"
"Just a 'pleased to meet you.' "
"Do you know anything about his relationship with Addie?"
"She told me yesterday morning that she liked him." Harry thought a minute. "She intimated that she might be falling in love with him, and she wanted us to get together after the races at the party."
"Did you?"
"Well, I was at Mim's party. Addie was there, too." She added, "First, though, I waited on standby at the tower after the last race to see if Arthur Tetrick or Mr. Mason wanted me to file a report. There was a nasty incident at my fence, the east gate fence, between Nigel Danforth and Linda Forloines."
"I'm all ears."
Harry could hear Cooper scribbling as she described the incident.
"That's quite serious, isn't it? I mean, couldn't they get suspended?"
"Yes. I told Arthur and Colbert Mason, he's the national director, but I guess you know that by now. Neither of the jockeys lodged a protest, though. Without a protest there's nothing the officials can do."
"Who has the authority in a situation like that?"
"The race director. In this case, Arthur."
"Why wouldn't Arthur Tetrick haul both their asses in?"
"That's a good question, Coop." Harry sipped her tea. "But I can give you an opinion—not an answer, just an opinion."
"We want to hear it," the cat and dog said, too.
"Shoot."
"Well, all sports have umpires, referees, judges to see that mayhem is kept to a minimum. But sometimes you have to let the antagonists settle it themselves. Rough justice."
"Expand."
"If an official steps in, it can reach a point where Jockey A is being protected too much. I mean, Coop, if you're going to go out there, then you've got to take your lumps, and part of it is that some riders are down and dirty. If they think no one is looking, they'll foul you."
"But you were looking."
"I don't understand that." Harry recalled the brazenness of the situation.
"Is Linda dumb?"
"Far from it. She's a low-rent, lying, cunning bitch."
"Hey, don't keep your feelings to yourself," Cynthia teased her.
Harry laughed. "There are few people that I despise on this earth, but she's one of them."
"Why?"
"I saw her deliberately lame a horse temporarily, then lie about it to Mim. She took the horse off Mim's hands and sold it at a profit to a trainer out of state. She didn't know that I saw her. I—well, it doesn't matter. You get the point."
"But she's not stupid, so why would she commit a flagrant foul, one that could get her suspended? And right in front of you?"
"It doesn't figure." Harry was stumped.
Coop flipped through her notes. "She can't keep a job, any job, longer than a year. That could mean a lot of things, but one thing it most certainly means is, she can't get along with people over an extended period of time."
"Obviously, she couldn't get along with Nigel Danforth." Harry sipped her tea again.
"Do you have any idea, I don't care how crazy it sounds, why Linda Forloines would hit Nigel in the face?"
Harry played with the long cord of the phone. "I don't have any idea, unless they were enemies—apart from being competitors, I mean. The only other thing I can tell you—just popped into my head—is that people say Linda deals drugs. No one's ever pinned it on her though."
"Heard that, too," Cooper replied. "I'll be back at you later. Sorry to intrude on you so early, but I know you're out before sunup most days. Pretty crisp this morning."
"I'll wear my woollies. Let me ask you a question."
"Okay."
"Can everyone account for their whereabouts at the time of the murder?"
"No," Cooper flatly stated. "We've got a good idea when he died, within a twenty-minute frame, but really—anybody could have had the time to skip in there and kill him. The commotion of the event wears people out, dulls their senses, to say nothing of the drinking."