“I’m tuckered out, too, forgive the pun,” Mrs. Murphy said to the dog.
“Me, too. Who would have thought our visit to Kentucky would be so”—Tucker searched for the right word—“depleting.”
Mrs. Murphy replied, “One murder, one stolen pin, and one horrible monkey, all in two days’ time. Oh, one stolen horse, too.”
Harry and Fair emerged from the shower, dashed for the bed, and bounced under the covers. They snuggled to keep warm. The bounce disturbed the cats on the pillows but only for a second, as the cats resettled to curl by the humans’ heads. Pewter went right back to sleep.
“Chilled to the bone. You don’t think about getting chilled in August.” Harry pulled the blanket under her chin. “Good for me you’re big. You warm me faster than I warm you.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He sighed with contentment as she rested her head on his shoulder. He looked at the alarm clock. “It’s two in the morning.”
“I lost track of time,” Harry murmured. “I feel like we’re inside a washing machine on spin cycle.”
“My mind feels like that.”
“What? I mean, what’s whirling around?”
“Jorge’s body temperature.” He exhaled. “Given that his temperature was pretty close to ninety-eight point six—didn’t have a thermometer, but he felt normal to the touch—what keeps going round in my head is, was this a planned execution or a crime of opportunity?”
“The storm and loss of power sure were convenient,” Harry said.
“Help me place everyone. Joan and her folks were with us. Larry, Manuel, and Jorge were getting horses ready, I assume.”
“Larry and Manuel were on the rail when Renata rode Shortro.”
“Right. Where were the other trainers?”
“Don’t know. Ward was on the rail. He had someone in the class. Charly wasn’t there. Guess he didn’t want to see Renata ride, or maybe he had someone in the next class, junior exhibition three-gaited show pleasure. I know Booty had a kid in the class, because we saw him in the practice ring with her when we first came to the show grounds yesterday. If he was there we missed him, but, Fair, the place had so many people it was like ants at a picnic.”
She sounded sleepy. “I’ll read my program in the morning to double-check clients, though. Seems to me what matters is the double cross. Noticed Sheriff Howlett questioning the Mexican workers.”
“Sure are a lot of them,” Fair idly commented. “Seems like the number doubled since the first day.”
“Big show. All hands on deck.”
“Big show. Workers shipped in.” Mrs. Murphy opened one eye. “Big profit, too, I bet.”
“What are you fussing about, pussycat?” Harry, warm now, pulled her arm from underneath the covers to stroke the cat’s silky forehead.
“Doesn’t matter.” Mrs. Murphy closed her eyes again.
“Pretty much everyone was on the rail, except for the grooms and trainers getting horses and clients ready for the next class.” Harry returned to who was where partly because she was losing steam and losing track of the conversation. “Watching Renata and Shortro. Great guy, Shortro.”
“Whoever killed Jorge had ice water in his veins. Cut it close.” He stopped. “Bad pun, sorry.”
“Mmm.”
“You falling asleep?”
“I’m resting my eyes,” she fibbed.
Fair glanced at the animals and his wife. “I’m wide-awake.”
“Drink milk.” Mrs. Murphy opened her eyes again, offering good advice.
He smiled at the cat. “You’re listening to me.”
“I’m trying, but I’m pretty sleepy, too.”
“This is my point: if Queen Esther was stolen in the open, Joan’s pin, as well, and Jorge was killed in the blink of an eye—if these things were in the open, what’s hidden?”
“Fair, you’re starting to think like Harry.” Mrs. Murphy sighed.
B loodlines have signatures, right?”
“Right.” Joan made a pot of coffee and a pot of tea while Harry cut into a big coffee cake as they sat in Joan’s kitchen.
“Certain animals breed true. You can spot their get.” Harry used the word meaning “offspring.” “In the past the credit usually went to the stallion, but the mare is as important, if not more so.”
“Actually, the latest research is leaning more toward the mare, but who knows? I’ve bred horses all my life, and if it were a matter of brains,” Joan tapped her head, “I’d be right one hundred percent of the time.”
“Know what you mean. Your foundation sire, Denmark, foaled in 1839, consolidated the look and the action of the Saddlebred, you think?” Harry enjoyed the soft light flooding through the kitchen window.
“Harrison Chief, too; he was foaled in 1872.” Joan listened to the coffeepot burble. “But like the Thoroughbred, there’s so much we’ll never know. You figure horses started coming over sometime after 1607. Not everyone kept good records.”
“Not everyone could read and write.” Harry paused a moment. “Although I read somewhere that our literacy rate was higher at the time of the American Revolution than it is now. Boy, that’s a smack in the face.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.” Joan shrugged. “But what we do know is that Thoroughbred blood, Morgan blood, and even Old Narragansett blood is in the Saddlebred.”
Narragansett blood is the blood of pacers, a type of racehorse that pulls a sulky. A pacer’s legs, unlike a trotter’s, move in parallel, so the right side—fore and hind—will move in unison, as will the left. The movement of the legs for a trotter—in fact, for the trotting gait in any horse—is diagonal.
“Who were the great foundation mares?” Harry asked as she watched a robin swoop down on a wriggling worm.
“Uh, Stevenson mare, Saltram mare, Betsey Harrison, Pekina, Lute Boyd, Lucy Mack, Daisy the Second, Queen Forty-eight, and Annie C.”
“You could teach a class.”
Joan smiled as she poured tea for Harry, coffee for herself. “You know your Thoroughbred lines, I know Saddlebred. The American Saddlebred Association, ASHA, started in 1891, helped concentrate breeding information.” She paused a second. “But when you close the books the problems arise.”
“Meaning you run out of blood?”
“Yes. Horses, dogs, whatever, can become inbred. I linebreed. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but you shouldn’t even dream of it if you haven’t studied and looked at a lot of horses—a lot of horses.”
In linebreeding, one dips back into the same bloodlines, the theory being it reinforces the strong points of that blood. Do it too close and one can breed weak animals or idiotic humans. It takes an incredibly intelligent human to successfully linebreed horses.
“Right.” Harry gratefully drank her tea once Joan sat down. “I shy away from it, but I lack your gift.”
Joan waved off this compliment as they both attacked the coffee cake.
“I should make you a real breakfast, but you know me.” Joan wanly smiled since she never had time nor much inclination to cook.
“I’m the same way. Fair usually brings something home after his last call, and he likes to grill.”
“Don’t they all. I mean, have you ever seen anything like men hovering over their barbecue? They’re even competitive about the sauces, and if they marinate the meat—” She rolled her eyes heavenward.
“Didn’t you say they were just as bad in Australia and even South Africa when you visited there?”
“Honey, they’re probably attacking one another with tongs in China. Show a man a grill and a piece of steak and he loses his mind.”
“True, but we get to eat it.” Harry winked.