"Feed man."
Chark, at the other end of the barn, called out, "I'll attend to it. You finish up what you're doing."
As Addie rubbed blue mineral ice on the gray's legs, she could hear the metal door clang up on the truck, the dolly clunk when it hit the ground, and the grunts of her brother and the delivery man as they loaded fifty-pound sacks of 14 percent protein sweet feed onto the dolly.
After filling up the zinc-lined feed bins—Mim thought of everything in her stable, but still the mice attacked—the delivery man murmured something to Chark and then drove off.
As her brother, a medium-built, well-proportioned man, ambled toward her, Addie asked, "Are we behind on the bill?"
"Up to date—" He smiled. "—for a change."
"What did he want then?"
"Nothing. Said he was sorry to hear about your friend."
The lines around her mouth relaxed. "That was kind of him. People surprise me."
"Yeah." Chark jammed his hands in his jeans. "Sis, I'm sorry that you're sorry, if you know what I mean, but I didn't like Nigel, and you know it, so I can't be a hypocrite now. Not that I wished him dead."
"You never gave him a chance."
"Oil and water." He ground his heel into the macadam aisle.
She led the gray back to his stall. "You don't much like any man I date."
"You don't much have good taste." Chark sounded harsher than he meant to sound. "Oh, hell, I'm sorry. You have to kiss them, I don't." He stopped making circles off his heel. "Nigel was a fake."
"You hate English accents."
"That I do. They smack of superiority, you know, talking through their noses and telling us how they gallop on the downs of Exmoor. This is America, and I'll train my way."
She put her hands on her hips. "Thought we settled that in 1776. You don't like anyone telling you what to do or making a suggestion that you perceive as a veiled criticism."
"I listen to you." His eyes, almond-shaped like his sister's, darkened.
"Sometimes"—she restlessly jammed her hands in her pockets—"you treated Nigel like dirt. And I—I—" She couldn't go on. Tears filled her eyes.
He stood there wanting to comfort her but not willing to give ground on the detested Nigel. Brotherly love won over and he hugged her. "Like I said, I didn't wish him dead. Maybe Linda Forloines did it."
Addie stiffened. "Linda . . . she made a move like a dope fiend." Addie referred to the whipping incident in stable slang.
"That's just it." Chark released his sister. "I'm willing to bet the barn that those two are selling again. Where else would the Forloines get the money for a new truck?"
"Didn't see it."
"Brand new Nissan. Nice truck." He rubbed his hands together. He had arthritis in his fingers, broken years ago, and the chill of the oncoming night made his joints ache.
She shrugged. "Who knows." But she did know.
"She's probably doping horses as well as people."
"I don't know."
"It wouldn't surprise me if she and Will are—uh, in the mix somehow. A feeling."
"I don't know," she repeated. "But I had my own Twilight Zone episode today.
"Huh?"
"I picked up the mail, and Harry and Mrs. H. were really wonderful except Harry's worse than the sheriff—she asks too many questions. Anyway, I lost my temper and said if I found out who killed Nigel before the law, I'd kill him. They both about jumped down my throat and said, 'Don't even say that.' "
"They're right. Crazy things happen."
' 'What gave me the shivers was their saying that if I got too close to the murderer, maybe he'd turn on me."
"Damn," he whispered.
The dagger that killed Nigel Danforth, tagged and numbered, lay on Frank Yancey's desk. Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper sat on the other side of the desk.
"That's no cheap piece of hardware." Rick admired the weapon.
Frank touched it with the eraser on his pencil. "The blade is seven and a half inches, and the overall length is twelve and three quarters inches. The blade is double-edged stainless steel, highly polished, as you can see, and the handle is wrapped in wire, kind of like fencing uh—''
"Foils." Cooper found the word for him.
"Right." Frank frowned. "I think this was an impulse killing. Why would someone leave an expensive dagger buried in Nigel's chest?"
"If it was impulse, why the Queen of Clubs?" Rick countered.
Frank stroked the stubble on the side of his jowls. "Well—"
"And another thing, Sheriff Yancey," Cynthia respectfully addressed the older man, "I've been at the computer since this happened. I've talked to Scotland Yard. There is no Nigel Dan-forth."
"I was afraid of that." Frank grimaced. "Just like I was afraid we'd find no fingerprints. Not a one."
"Well, there are no inland revenue records, no passports, no national health card, no nothing," Cynthia said.
"Who the hell is that on the slab in the morgue?" Frank rhetorically asked.
"About all we can do is get dental impressions and send them over the wires. That will work if the stiff, I mean deceased," Cooper corrected herself, "had a criminal record. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine."
"I don't like this." Frank smacked his hand on the table. "People want results."
"Don't worry, it's not an election year for you, Frank, and it's not like a serial killer is stalking the streets of Orange. The murder is confined to a small world."
"We hope," Cynthia said.
"I don't like this," Frank repeated. "I'll get Mickey Towns-end in here. Why would he hire a man without a green card?"
"Same reason a lot of fruit growers hire Mexicans and don't inquire about their immigration status. They figure they can get the crop in before Immigration busts them. Any American employer whose IQ hovers above his body temperature knows to ask for a green card or go through the bullshit of getting one for the employee." Rick crossed his right leg over his left knee.
"It's the modern version of an indentured servant. You get someone a green card and they owe you for life," Cynthia added.
"Well, we know a few things." Rick folded his hands over his chest, feeling the Lucky Strikes pack in his pocket and very much wanting a cigarette.
"Sure," Frank said. "We know I'm in deep shit and I have to tell a bunch of reporters we're on a trail colder than a witch's tit."
"No, we also know that the killer likes expensive weapons. Perhaps the dagger has symbolic significance, as does the Queen of Clubs. We also know that Nigel knew his killer."
"No, we don't," Frank said stubbornly.
"I can't prove it, of course, but there are no signs of struggle. He was face-to-face with his killer. He wasn't dragged or we'd have seen the marks on the barn floor."
"The killer could have stabbed him and then carried him to the chair." Cynthia thought out loud.
"That's a possibility, meaning the killer has to be strong enough to lift a—what do you reckon—a hundred-twenty-pound jockey over his shoulder."
"Or her shoulder. A strong woman could lift that." Cynthia scribbled a few notes in her spiral notebook.
"Wish Larry and Hank would call." Frank fidgeted.
"We could go over there, see what they've turned up." Rick stood.
"Bad luck having the county coroner out of town. He's as good as new." Frank, irritated, didn't realize the irony of his remarks.
Just then the phone rang. "Yancey," Frank said.
Hank Cushing's high-pitched voice started spouting out organ weights and stomach contents. "Normal heart and—"
"I don't give a damn about that. Was he stabbed twice or once?" Frank barked into the receiver.
"Twice," Hank responded. "The condition of the liver showed some signs of nascent alcohol damage and—''
"I don't care about that. Send me the report."
"Well, you might want to care about this." Hank, miffed, raised his voice. "He'd put his age down as twenty-six for his jockey application with the National Steeplechase Association, and I estimate his age to be closer to thirty-five. Might be worth sticking that fact in your brain and the fact that he had a serious dose of cocaine in his bloodstream. I'll send the file over as soon as I've written up my report." Miffed, Hank hung up on him.