Racing From Death: A Nikki Latrelle Mystery

by Sasscer Hill

  I’d had trouble with a gang of thugs, and the police, a while back at Laurel. Lorna had been a true friend, standing by me when others turned away. I wanted to make it up to her, or at least keep her safe.

  #

  We found the entrance into the track grounds at dusk, driving slowly along Colonial Downs Parkway, a four-lane road with wide grassy shoulders. About a mile in, we reached an entrance to the grandstand. I slowed, but a small sign indicated the stables still lay ahead.

  I almost blew by the turn at Horsemen's Road, an abrupt left with no advance warning. A chainlink fence crowned with four or five strands of barbed-wire surrounded the grounds. A sign announced we were entering the jurisdiction of the Virginia Racing Commission. It felt like a warning.

  I was surprised to see the commission and racing secretary's offices in a long cinder block building just outside the gate to the backstretch. Usually these structures were inconveniently located at the grandstand on the far side of the track, instead of here, where the horsemen spent their time. I turned the Ford to the right, toward the stable gate with the inevitable guard house.

  I eased to a stop, grabbed a folder with the horses' papers, and hopped from the truck. Lorna unfolded herself from the cab, and we made little groaning noises stretching out the road kinks.

  A young blond guy, wearing a big cap with "Security" printed on it, hustled out of the guard house. He gave us a narrow-eyed stare.

  "What have you got in there?"

  “Six for Jim Ravinsky.” I handed him the folder. He marched back to the trailer, opened a small human-sized door and stepped into the rig. He compared the descriptions on the Jockey Club papers to the markings on the horses, then studied the attached health certificates, verifying the lab results were current. Probably disappointed that everything was in order. He strolled back to Ramon's trailer, looking inside to make sure it was filled with equipment like I'd said and not contraband.

  The guard returned and handed back the paperwork, then unfolded a typed sheet and studied it a moment. "You're in barn 23, stalls 50-60. Use only your assigned stalls." Another hard stare. "Follow this road to the very last barn."

  We cranked our engines and rumbled past the guard house into the Colonial Downs backstretch.

  The sun had set a while back, and the few pink clouds riding the western horizon dimmed to a purplish blue. I thought I'd reached our stable, but it was only number 21. I kept going, not happy when the trees closed in around us, tall pines crowding against the edge of the paved road. The path curved, and I was relieved to see space open up, even if only two barns remained before the asphalt dead-ended at a dark expanse of forest.

  No lights. No cars. Nobody.

  "This place gives me the creeps." Lorna's fingers fussed with the rip in her jeans.

  "Meet hasn't started," I said. "Most people haven't shipped in yet."

  "I don't see why we had to get here so early."

  "Jim likes the horses to get acclimated." When the truck headlights picked up the number 23 painted on the end-wall just below the roof, I rolled to a stop beside the last barn.

  We got out, groping our way through the dark since the truck lights lit the darkness ahead, not the building to its side. Like most racing stables, the rectangular barn held about 60 stalls, 30 per side, backed up, with doors facing out. Wood posts supported a roof overhang that sheltered a dirt aisle outside the rows of stalls. The short ends of the rectangular building had rooms for tack, storage or a cot for a groom. The dirt path continued here, circling before these rooms, too.

  The barn, or section of barn that housed a particular trainer's horses and supplies was commonly called a "shedrow," possibly a shortened version of row-of-sheds. Maybe not found in most dictionaries, but the name’s been around forever.

  I stepped carefully into this one, my fingers scrabbling along the wall outside the nearest stall for light switches. I found one and flipped it. A single bulb cast a dim light onto the dirt path outside the nearby stalls. The second switch flooded the first two stalls with light. Now we were in business. I soon had our stalls located, with lights blazing all over the place.

  Still, Ramon gestured at the woods. "Why they put us here? I don't like. Is so far away."

  "Hey, they bedded us down." Lorna stared with relief inside the first stall.

  Jim had arranged for supplies with a local feed company. They'd agreed to bed our stalls with straw before we arrived, but you never knew. We had enough work to do without having to shake out sixteen bales of straw.

  "They put the hay here." Ramon held a wooden door open, peering into a stall about halfway along our shedrow. He disappeared inside, emerging with a handful of green hay. He sniffed it for mold, then shoved some in his mouth, tasting the quality of the dried grasses. His white teeth flashed. "Is good."

  I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief. It was one thing we wouldn’t have to worry about.

  Manuel and Ramon set buckets, wire-and-metal gates, and rubber-covered chain ties outside each stall. We got a system going where I wound screw eyes into the inside walls, Lorna snapped buckets on them, and Manuel set up a hose and filled the buckets with water. Ramon worked on hanging the gates across the stall entryways.

  Forty-five minutes later, we unloaded the six horses and led them into their stalls. Lorna and I unwound their shipping bandages, feeling through the hair on their legs for scrapes or unexpected heat. Ramon and Manuel loaded feed pails with late dinners. The horses picked up its scent, sweet and fragrant with molasses. They pawed and nickered, impatient for their grain.

  Hellish prowled about her new lodgings, inspecting her fresh water, snatching hay from the rack filled with timothy and alfalfa. She shoved her head over her stall gate and stared briefly into the night, finally relaxed and got serious about her feed tub. Her contentment soothed me as few things can.

  A moaning cry rode the pine scented air. It came again, soft, pitiful, and far away. I heard a rustling noise, as if something moved through the trees in our direction. A clank sounded just inside the pines, like metal striking a stone. The mournful wail echoed again deep in the woods, stirring the hairs on my neck.

  Horse heads emerged over stall doors, their eyes boring into the woods, nostrils flared.

  "What the hell was that?" Lorna stepped closer to me. Manuel picked up a metal pitchfork. Ramon whipped out a knife from his jacket pocket, and I grabbed the long metal bar I'd used to turn the screw eyes.

  Armed and scared. Welcome to Virginia.

  Chapter 7

  "Madre de Dios," Manuel said, clutching the pitchfork with both hands.

  Movement in the pines, the snapping of a branch. Our visitor moved closer. The pine needled forest floor muffled the person's footsteps. A dark image emerged from the woods to my left, a human form taking shape as it approached the stable lights.

  Adrenalin sent my heart pumping overtime as a tall, thin man with hollow eyes walked toward us. Long scraggly hair grazed his shoulders. One hand dragged a shovel behind him. He stopped and I saw bits of soil clinging to his pant's legs. Dirt smeared his shovel blade.

  "What do you want?" My voice cracked.

  The man stood still, his eyes wandering and unfocused. Ramon stepped forward, the blade of his knife catching a sliver of light from the crescent moon just rising over the trees. The man's attention fixed on the knife, as if his mind finally escaped the forest and caught up with his body. He gazed at us, his face etched with an anguish I didn't want to know about.

  "Do you need help?" I took a half step forward.

  He shook his head, muttered unintelligible words.

  "Look, man. You scare the horses. Maybe you should go." Ramon punctuated his words by stabbing the long serrated knife into the air.

  The man pulled his shovel forward, appeared to examine it, then raised haunted eyes. "You know. Don't pretend you don't."

  "What are you talking about?" Irritation rose in me. The guy was obviously crazy, and we'd had a really long day.
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  "Everybody knows, but they won't tell." Anger and frustration edged his voice. His arm repeatedly jabbed the pointed end of his shovel into the earth.

  My fingers tightened around the cold metal bar, but the man walked away from us along the grassy area outside the barn, his shovel trailing behind. He turned the corner and disappeared, the dark patch of sliced and disturbed earth the only evidence he existed.

  "What was that?" Lorna asked.

  I had no idea, but was grateful when the next half hour remained uneventful. The horses quieted, their interest returning to feed buckets. Ramon hosed down the horse trailer, while Lorna and I ran damp sponges over bridles and martingales, making sure they were ready for morning exercise. But I'd learned things could always get worse and kept the metal pipe close by.

  Manuel sprayed a fine mist along the shedrow to dampen it down, then raked the aisle, the long metal tines leaving smooth patterns in the dirt. I watched from the grass as he locked the rake in the tack room. Out of habit he kept close to the wall so he wouldn't disturb his work. If anyone ventured into the aisle that night, we'd see the footprints in the morning.

  Ramon and Manuel drove over to the small grooms' apartments closer to the backstretch entrance. Lorna and I pulled the big horse trailer into a gravel lot and unhooked it, leaving it next to a couple of empty horse vans. The grooms would return the rigs to Laurel the next day. Ramon would then drive back to Colonial in my Toyota.

  On the way out, I stopped the Ford outside the stable gate and slid the electric window down. The security guard adjusted his cap and strolled over. I told him about the weirdo with the shovel. He looked at me in disbelief.

  "Never heard of anything like that around here." His lips curled into an insolent smile. "You girls been drinking?"

  "Asshole." Lorna's voice, low enough he didn't hear.

  "Never mind," I shoved the truck into gear, sketched a brief wave at the guard and pulled out. I glanced at Lorna. "See if you can find directions in the glove box." Jim had rented us a cottage on a farm owned by a couple named Chuck and Bunny Cheswick. Lorna wrestled the paper from the glove box as I swung the Ford onto Colonial Downs Parkway.

  Flashing lights bounced off the trees ahead, and curving around a bend, I eased off the gas, not sure what lay ahead. Police cars and an ambulance came into view. Beyond them a fire engine idled in the middle of the road, its shiny grill reflecting the red, blue, and yellow lights spinning from the emergency vehicles.

  Looked like there might be room to slide past the fire truck, but curiosity and a memory of that cry in the woods slowed me down. I stopped in front of the fire truck and opened my window again. The smell of engine heat and oil drifted on the evening air.

  On the left side of the road, a few firemen and cops stood motionless, staring at a lifeless form on a stretcher being lifted through the back doors of the ambulance. One of the paramedics shifted as he set down his end of the stretcher and the interior light revealed the victim's face.

  "Oh, my God. Don't look," Lorna said.

  Too late for that. I'd seen a face that looked like melted cheese. The image stunned me, and though my eyelids snapped shut, I could still see it.

  "Excuse me, miss." A police officer had moved up to the Ford's window. "You should drive on through. There's room on the shoulder."

  "Right," I said. "But officer, we heard some strange sort of wailing – "

  "I can't discuss this." His hand motioned toward the ambulance. "Police business. We've got an investigation going on."

  "Okay." I took a breath and swallowed my questions. "I'll see if I can get this truck past." I raised the window and steered slowly alongside the massive hook-and-ladder. What had I gotten myself into? Would Colonial’s track investigator, Cormack, know anything the wailing sounds and Shovel-man? Except, I didn’t want to talk to him.

  We remained silent as we spun down the dark parkway, the strobe lights diminishing behind us. Ahead, the slice of moon rose high above the tree line. Lorna picked at the ripped fabric in her jeans, and I tried but failed to push the horrific face from my mind.

  The exit appeared ahead and Lorna held the directions near the dash light. "Go left when you come out of here." She paused a few beats. "That had to be the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. It's like somebody threw acid on his face."

  "Or burned it. I felt a little sick and rolled down the window to drink in the cool night air. What had happened back there? I kept breathing until my stomach settled. "Let's find this farm."

  I drove south and passed through a tiny town called Providence Forge, making note of a Food Lion grocery and a small drug store next door. Might be our best bet for household supplies.

  A mile later I made a right onto a narrow road called Hemlock Lane. The directions said three miles, but with no streetlights or paint lines for guidance, the unfamiliar, twisting road seemed endless.

  "There." Lorna pointed to where the headlights revealed a sagging wooden sign with the name "Cheswick." A rooster painted with an abundance of feathers glared at us from one corner. Across the bottom faded letters read, "Prize Cochins."

  Apparently we were staying at a chicken farm. We bumped down a long and abusive gravel drive before stopping in front of the main house. A huge Victorian. Lorna followed me up a broken brick walk where dead summer weeds sprouted through the brick-joints. A big porch wrapped around the front of the house. A low wattage overhead bulb revealed crackled and peeling paint on the gingerbread woodwork. A half-moon window sat above the door and I could see a light on inside.

  My fingers had just touched the cold brass of an antique knocker when the door swung open. A woman in her late forties hesitated in the doorway. She wore a long pink-and-green flowered skirt that looked about 20 years old, and a shapeless brown sweater that had a loose button hanging from a thread. Behind her stacks of magazines, cardboard boxes, newspapers and a pile of clothes cluttered the hallway. A musty smell floated out the door.

  "Nikki Latrelle," I said. "And this is Lorna."

  "Bunny." She shook my hand. She glanced over her shoulder into the house then stepped onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind her. "I expected you earlier."

  I explained about the traffic and she nodded. "You must be tired. Let me show you the cottage. You can follow me in your truck if you want."

  The drive wound to the right of the house, past a garage, a structure that looked like a workshop, and a long low building with chicken wire pens on the side. I had time to see all this because the woman moved with the speed of a tortoise. A slow motion tour that made me want to scream.

  Lorna hid a smile. "You could honk."

  Then, on a small rise behind some cedar trees our rental came into view.

  "Wow. Way nicer than I thought it'd be." Lorna leaned forward, staring.

  The place looked like a picture-book English cottage. Smooth white stucco covered a solid foundation of maybe brick or stone. The walls were thick, the windows recessed, the roof a simple gable. Ivy covered the walls.

  We collected the essentials we'd need for the night, I grabbed Slippers in his cat carrier, and we headed for the cottage door. Bunny pulled a key from her skirt pocket and let us in.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped into a simple and tidy interior. A long rectangular living room stretched across most of the front of the cottage, with a small kitchen at the left end. In the back were two bedrooms, a bath in between.

  Bunny wandered around the place touching the couch fabric and the back of a side chair. She plodded into the kitchen, pulled out a couple of drawers and fingered the contents.

  "We'll let you know if we need anything." I moved to the open front door, hoping it might encourage her to leave.

  The woman leaned over and opened a cabinet. With a low cry she pulled out a softball. "My boys used to stay here." She cuddled the ball against her chest. "I don't come here much anymore."

  A part of me felt like I should help this woman. Something in her voice when she m
entioned her boys. But we had to get up at five and the horses came first. In the distance, I saw lights flash, then heard the sound of a motor.

  Bunny's soft shoulders tightened, her breath sucked in, and an edge of terror showed briefly in her eyes before she clamped down her agitation. She moved with surprising speed from the cottage and rushed away into the dark, still clutching the softball.

  Lorna's fingers worried a lock of red hair. "That woman's afraid of something."

  I shut the door and fidgeted with a brass box lock until I drove the bottom bolt home.

  What had happened to Bunny’s boys?

  Chapter 8

  At six a.m., a thin and chilly light slanted across the Colonial Downs backstretch. The November sunrise was so pale Ramon's gold earring appeared flat and lusterless against his olive-brown skin.

  He gave me a leg-up onto my chestnut filly. She promptly skittered, then bucked beneath me, reminding me why I'd nicknamed her Hellish. Ramon led us along the aisle, whistling a soft tune to instill calm, while I adjusted my stirrups and gathered the rubber-covered reins before Lorna and I rode out to gallop the Colonial dirt course.

  So far, this highly regarded track gave me the creeps – weird noises in the nighttime woods, a disturbed man with a shovel, and that horrible disfigured face. I had questions about the place Jim had found for Lorna and me to stay, too. I needed to shrug it off, get to work.

  Lorna, astride a bay gelding named Impostor, fell in step next to us as we left the barn. Scanning the grounds, I found the openness of Colonial appealing. The barns weren't crowded together, shoulder to shoulder with manure sheds like at Laurel. A stretch of woods separated the backstretch stables from the track, and we followed a wide dirt path that wound through pine trees like a painting before reaching a gap in the rail.

  Hellish spotted the distant grandstand and planted her feet, refusing to move forward.

  Ahead of us Lorna stopped her horse, then turned back to me. "What's with her?"