Four Furlongs

by C. K. Crigger

“About Neva?” He sort of rocked me in his arms.

  “Yes. Nor did her mother or her grandfather, the evil old coot. All they care about is the horse and the money he earns for them.”

  “If I can catch up with them, I’ll ask a few questions of my own,” Grat said. He kissed the top of my head. “I assume Neva is all right, or you’d be raising the roof. Do you know where she is? Or the horse?”

  I pulled back and scowled at him. “Not precisely, no. Twice no. And I don’t want to. All I want is for Neva and her horse to both be safe.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” He stared down at me, expression serious. “My advice? Don’t go borrowing trouble. And stay far away from Neva O’Dell.”

  No need to worry, I told myself. She’s with Porter.

  20

  I stopped shivering after a while and Grat let me go. I hadn’t given a thought about being seen through the window until now, but we were in plain sight of any pedestrians passing on the sidewalk. A man peeked in, grinning to see Grat holding me.

  Grat’s arms stiffened. I looked up to see him glaring out at the peeping Tom; a glare fierce enough to send the man scurrying on his way.

  Stepping back, I smoothed my skirt and ran my hand over my unruly hair.

  “I’m surprised to see you here at this time of day.” I smiled shakily at Grat, forgetting about my lip until it zinged. “I’m glad you arrived when you did, though. I was on the verge of shooting Mr. Warren Poole.” I gave a dramatic sigh. “And then where would we be?”

  He grinned. “My guess is you’d be in jail. Don’t worry. I’d help break you out. And hide the body, too.”

  “Why, thank you, kind sir.” I poked at his jacket. One of the pockets was missing, completely torn away, the woolen fabric ripped and hanging loose. “What happened to you? Have you been in a fight?” I studied him a moment. His face was all right, but his knuckles were split and bloody. Turning purple with bruises, too. “Sure you have. And I’m not sure you won.”

  He shrugged out of the jacket and started on his shirt buttons, fingers stiff as though they might hurt. “Not sure I did either. This isn’t my blood though. Mostly. Funny thing is, I usually know how a fight starts. And why.”

  “But not this time?”

  “Nope. It kinda crept up on me.”

  Galluses hanging loose, his shirt, stuck to him with dried blood and whiskey, tore loose from his chest as he shed the offending garment. He grimaced.

  Me? I admired his manly chest and forgot to blush.

  “Damn.” He held up the ruined coat. “Look at this. I’m gonna need a new jacket before winter.”

  Sartorial splendor is not one of Grat’s indulgences.

  “Worst part is, this feller made off with my handcuffs.” Grat scowled in disgust. “Only reason I came over to the office is to arm myself with another pair.” He brushed at his chest. “And make myself presentable. Otherwise I would’ve missed this dustup you had going with Poole.”

  Gratton keeps a change of clothing at the office just for occasions like this. He went to the storage closet—the very one I’d caught Louis Duchene ransacking—and donned a shirt. Old, although not raggedy, it went well with the barn jacket he found there, the two pieces making a matched set. At least the garments were clean and didn’t stink.

  Galluses up, jacket on, he sat on the corner of my desk idly swinging his free leg.

  “Now,” he said, “I think you’d better tell me why you had a gun on Poole.”

  I wanted to. I really did. But something was tickling at the back of my mind and it just didn’t seem right to tell a half-developed tale. I needed to think what bothered me most about the encounter with Warren Poole.

  Lying. Horse stealing. Were’t those accusations enough?

  Somehow, for some reason, no.

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “And I will. I just need to collect my thoughts.”

  “Not thinking up some kind of story to put me off, are you?” He arched a brow.

  “No.” It didn’t seem worthwhile to take umbrage because, after all, he was right. I’d done it before. Told him stories, I mean. And truthfully? Probably would again. “Will you come around after the fair closes this evening? I’ll have everything sorted out by then and I can talk with you and Monk together.”

  He gave me the eye, but nodded. “Guess it’ll have to do.”

  He stood, ready to leave, but I called him back.

  “Wait. Aren’t you going to tell me what happened to you?” I wasn’t about to let him leave without me hearing the whole story. He’d lost his best set of handcuffs, which were not cheap, and considering the damage to his clothing, I would’ve thought he’d be ranting. It really wasn’t like him not to be. Which meant he was putting on an act.

  He shrugged carelessly. “Guess we can wait till later.”

  And maybe we could’ve, but I said, “A tall bruiser with big fists and a knife didn’t happen to waylay you, too, did he?”

  I wished the words back as soon as they escaped.

  His smile faded. “How—” he said. Then, “Too?”

  What a time I had wiggling out of that mistake! The regular kind of excuses poured from my mouth: slip of the tongue, good guess, stood to reason, meant something else, he misunderstood. Grat didn’t believe a single one. He knows me too well.

  It didn’t take nearly as much effort to extract his tale of woe, one way in which his anger worked for me. Nor to learn whoever we found running this race-fixing affair—my money was still on Warren Poole—had meant it when he said ... or no. Wait. It was Lars Hansen who’d cautioned me to have a care for the people I talked to.

  Lars or Poole, either one, it seemed to mean Monk was most likely in danger of being the next victim. As for Neva, thank the good Lord I’d gotten her to safety with Porter before the gang caught up with her.

  Grat’s account did nothing to relieve my worry.

  He had been escorting a drunk from the fairgrounds because the inebriated man had been bothering a respectable woman with a couple terrified little boys in tow, he told me.

  “Should’ve been the bluecoats’ job,” he grumbled, “but it landed on me. This yahoo had an open bottle of whiskey. The fool about drowned me with it, waving the jug around like a club. Spilled hootch all over my clothes. Threw it in my eyes. I figured him a danger to anybody even halfway close, so I decided to hurry him out through the stable yard entry. Get him away from the woman and her boys.”

  I hadn’t known about a stable yard entry. In retrospect, I suppose it was how Neva spirited Mercury away.

  “The big galoot was waiting around the side of the barn. I had the drunk—only he turned sober as a judge when we got out of sight of the crowds—by his collar and his belt, about to give him a toss, when the other feller clobbered me. He almost took me down with a kidney punch.” He rubbed the offending area reminiscently.

  “But I fended him off with an elbow. I’d gotten the cuffs on one of his wrists when the little one came at me.” He took a moment to observe his bruised knuckles. “I subdued him, but then the big guy grabbed on and he had a knife.”

  My eyes widened.

  He grinned at me again, as cocksure as ever. “Don’t look so stricken, China. Here I am, fine as frog’s hair. He got his knife tied up in my jacket pocket before he could do any real harm. Got a scratch is all. I pulled my gun and both of them took off running like stripe-ended apes. Only I’m out a pair of good shackles.” He shrugged. “And a jacket. So there you have it.”

  I swallowed. Judging by the amount of blood run down his front, the fight hadn’t been as simple or fast as he described. A knife in his pocket? It had been so close. A quarter of an inch from his skin. From his heart?

  “I don’t think that is it. Monk will be next on their list. Please, warn him to be on the lookout when you get back to Corbin Park, will you? And maybe travel together tonight after the fair closes?”

  “Monk can take care of himself.” Grat knew I’d be worrying. “But I’ll tell him
. I figured this to be personal, not random. I’m not a fool. And neither is my partner.”

  I wasn’t reassured. Nor was he, according to the look on his face.

  The afternoon shadows lengthened to evening. Streetlights came on, casting small pools of light at street corners. Traffic dwindled as folks went home to supper. The fairgrounds at Corbin Park would probably still be crowded, although the last horse race of the day would’ve been run in full daylight. But the carnival and food vendors were no doubt doing good business. I almost imagined I could hear the merry-go-round’s calliope from here and catch the scent of burning fat and hot roasted peanuts. An illusion.

  I felt exposed, alone in the office. Uneasy. Vulnerable. What if the big galoot, as Grat had called him, came back? I’d rather have been busy, some of my tension, false alarm or not, relieved in work. Alas.

  At six o’clock, having had neither visitor nor telephone call in the last hour, I turned the sign to closed, pulled the shades, and locked the doors. Both doors, back as well as front. The men had keys.

  Nimble and I went upstairs to make a start on supper. Monk and Grat would be home soon. As long, I reminded myself, as all was well.

  I’d had plenty of time to think during the last few hours. A thing or two stood out and I couldn’t wait to discuss them with Monk and Grat. Too bad it meant confessing what I’d been doing the past couple days. My menfolk weren’t going to be happy.

  I peeled potatoes and put them on the stove to boil, grated cabbage and apples together with a creamy sweet-tart dressing, and whipped up some biscuits. We’d have pork chops. Monk always liked my pork chops. Anything to put him in a better mood to receive my news. All mindless work.

  When Nimble, distracted from her close supervision of my cooking by the sound of a key in the lock, ran down to greet the men I put the floured and seasoned chops in sizzling bacon fat to cook. Two sets of footsteps thumped on the stairs. Both sounded firm and healthy.

  The knot in my stomach unfurled itself.

  Monk was quite boisterous when he entered. Boisterous for him, I mean. An act. He looked worn to the bone.

  “Something smells good,” he said. “I’m hungry.”

  “Ready in ten minutes,” I promised.

  I rushed around, laying the table while Monk and Grat took turns in the bathroom. It was all so normal. Mundane. How could anything be wrong when the world continued on its ordained course? I had to remind myself that a boy was dead and a young girl on the run, sheltered from harm and in the care of strangers.

  Oh, yes. And a horse was missing from his stall.

  A half hour later we finished our meal, and while Nimble chewed a meaty bone under the table, small talk ceased and the confab, to use Monk’s term, began.

  “You first, China,” my uncle said, settling back and, patting his belly, loosening the bottom button on his vest. “Seems this deal started when you met up with the O’Dell girl.”

  “Unless it began with the Doyle and Howe Detective Agency hiring out to the Spokane Horse Racing Commission for the duration of the fair,” I shot back. I’d detected a little something in his tone that concerned me.

  “You heard Branston on the scope of our job. Nothing out of the ordinary. Sounded pretty straightforward to me.” Grat sat back in his chair and took a swig of coffee, hot off the stove. Cowboy fashion, and just like Monk, he drank it much hotter than I can abide. “Still does,” he added, twirling his cup. “And we needed the work.”

  “Doesn’t it strike either of you as strange that the racing commission would hire detectives and then not use them to investigate the death of a jockey? Dead during a race discovered to be rigged, no less?” I frowned at him.

  Grat’s face reddened.

  “Accidents happen,” Monk said. “Nobody thought the death anything but an accident until you and the girl started poking around and stirred the coroner into action. The police had gone out and looked around. Said everything was A-one.”

  I couldn’t help it. I glared at him. “Even though I reported what Neva told me. That her mother and granddad had demanded Robbie throw the race, and he wouldn’t. And they’d taken someone’s money to do it, which probably didn’t settle well when the scheme played out like it did.”

  “Not much doubt about that,” Grat said, catching the tension between my uncle and me. “But the order of who found out what when didn’t exactly come together in a straight line.”

  I had to admit he was right.

  Monk slapped his hand on the table, making the dishes jump. Me too. Nimble scrambled from under the table and took her bone into the other room.

  “You haven’t been very forthcoming yourself, China,” he said. “Otherwise, finding a man tied up in my office when I walked in might not have been such a surprise.”

  “Yes, well, that’s why I wanted to catch the two of you together.” I got up and went into the parlor where I’d stashed some notes on the case. Typing them is how I’d spent a good part of the afternoon. Each copy said the same thing. I handed one to Monk and one to Grat. “This is everything I know.”

  “Know?” Grat asked. “Or speculate?”

  “Maybe some of each. Read it and see.”

  Monk, having settled his spectacles on his nose, had already made good progress. After all, I really didn’t know much. After a bit, he looked up, sputtering with anger. “Lars slapped you?”

  “Ignore that. Pay attention to the fact he threatened me. And you. And Grat.”

  “And you’re just now telling us?” Grat seemed about to blow up.

  “Read on,” I said airily. “That’s just the beginning. Time wise, after Neva’s and my trip to the morgue, that is.”

  Next came my personal observations of Mrs. O’Dell and Poole. Check.

  Neva’s battered little self, mentioned more than once. Check.

  Manhandler man looking for some unspecified item. Check.

  The big man with the knife. Check. This one drew a great deal of comment, some of it a little crass.

  Poole’s visit this morning. Check.

  Grat’s set-to with a couple of toughs. Check.

  Monk looked up from his reading. “So where’s the girl?” he asked.

  “Where’s the horse?” Grat asked.

  “I can’t say.”

  “Can’t?” Grat asked.

  Monk completed Grat’s question with, “Or won’t? See, being lost in the fog just don’t sound like you.”

  I smiled at them. “Can’t. I made sure of that.”

  Grat shook his head. “You may be sorry.”

  “Will I? But listen, I’ve been thinking. Does it strike either of you as odd that Poole didn’t ask for the return of whatever the first man said is missing? But equally as odd is the first man, the one who tripped me, never asked about the horse?”

  They stared at me in silence. Thinking, I hoped.

  21

  My uncle Monk, being a person of equable disposition, soon recovered from his fit of pique just as I’d counted on him to do. He was back to calling me “lambie” long before Gratton left for his own place.

  I walked Grat out, loosing Nimble in the backyard for her evening perambulation while he watched over us. Have I mentioned the night and the wind rustling through the bushes always makes me uneasy? Well, they do. I see shadows lurking and bogeymen waiting in the dark places between buildings. Grat knows my fears. And, after being ambushed earlier by those two men at the racetrack, he may have been acting a bit more cautiously than usual.

  His head cocked to one side, he scanned the area for anyone or anything that shouldn’t be there.

  It was all rather silly, I scoffed to my inner self. Me with my fears; Grat with his. I knew for a fact he had his own. In truth, Nimble would’ve let us know of strangers soon enough, had there been any. Instead she darted from bush to bush marking territory and choosing just the right spot to do her business. The same spot she always chose to do it, I might add. Her light-colored fur made a pale blur against the night.r />
  “See,” Grat said, as if he’d known we were safe all the time and was just catering to a Nervous Nellie out of the goodness of his heart, “there’s no one out here. Nothing to worry yourself over.”

  “Yes, no worries.” I shivered anyway. I’d come down without a wrap and, with the turn of season, the weather changed fast. There’d be frost tonight, with the temperature already dipping.

  Grat, seeing my shiver, wrapped his arms around me. The rough fabric of his old barn coat scratched my arms through the thin cambric of my blouse. Even so, it felt good. He hugged me against him and rested his chin on the top of my head. I nestled, making myself comfortable.

  “Only two more days.” He blew one of my curls out of his mouth.

  “Two more days?”

  “Until the fair closes. Come Sunday evening our job will be done, your little friend will be safe, and the horse will have either won or not.”

  “A case of ‘let the chips fall where they may.’ ”

  “As far as we’re concerned, yes.”

  But I sensed a lack of conviction in his words, very like what I, myself, felt. What might a man who’d had a surefire moneymaking scheme thwarted by a young girl and her horse do in reprisal? He’d manufactured one death already—or had his cohorts do it for him. If his temper got the best of him and his wrath fell on Hazel O’Dell and Louis Duchene, Neva would be left alone to fend for herself. And her horse. If his wrath fell on her, well—

  We, meaning Doyle & Howe, and Bohannon, couldn’t let that happen.

  “You’re sure you don’t know where to find the girl?” Grat asked, rocking me slowly as we stood on the back stoop. A rhythmic motion almost like we were dancing. “Or the horse? Although I suppose they’re together. Maybe we ought to keep a watch on them. Make sure they’re protected.”

  I thought I should come clean. “I only know where she is in a general way. I do know she’s under the protection of a trustworthy person.”

  “You’re sure?” Grat, finally, had decided to take the situation seriously. And about time, too.