Racing From Death: A Nikki Latrelle Mystery

by Sasscer Hill

  "Him and Slippers were on the step earlier. I let the cat in and that feather duster busted in behind him. I was afraid he'd peck me or something. He boogies in, flaps up there on that chair. Hasn't moved since. I put some newspaper under him."

  "I can see that," I said and headed to get fresh newspaper. "Got a name for him?"

  "Nope." She glanced at the bird. "He does kinda grow on you, though."

  My grin was interrupted by Cormack's knock. When I opened the door, he came in, cop eyes darting around the cottage, his close-cropped sandy hair covered with a black ball cap. He circled the room, glancing inside both bedrooms and the bath.

  "Evenin' ladies." He took his hat off, rubbed his head, put the cap back on, and glanced at me. "I have some questions about what you told me earlier."

  "Sure," I said.

  Lorna stared. "What happened?"

  "It's about Susan Stark. And maybe some other stuff I should tell Investigator Cormack."

  "Call me Jay, please. Why don't we sit down?" he said. "Coffee would be nice." He moved over to the wood-plank table, then leaned over the rooster and stroked the bird's breast feathers with an index finger. "Hello there, Mr. Chicken."

  The rooster made an odd trilling noise and closed one eye. Mr. Chicken? Worked for me.

  Lorna got cups out, put milk and sugar on the table, while I brewed a pot of coffee. We sat at the table with our coffee and the bird. Slippers surprised me by arranging himself in Cormack's lap.

  Cormack petted the cat with one of his neatly manicured hands. "Tell me again why you think Susan Stark was on drugs."

  I explained how hopped up she'd been, how she went on about some awesome diet drug. "She told me her provider was at the party, in the room where we were talking."

  Cormack's eyes narrowed. "Who was it?"

  "I don't know. The place was crowded. People were dancing." I avoided Lorna's gaze by staring at Cormack. "I got distracted and Susan disappeared. I never had a chance to ask her. But I will."

  "Go back a minute," Cormack said. "What distracted you?"

  I struggled for a poker face. "Uh, I saw Bobby Duvayne." I studied the chicken's speckled black-and-white feathers. "I saw a guy with light, maybe blond hair running from the room, through this door in the paneling. Like he didn't want me to see him. At least that's the feeling I got."

  "Know who it was?"

  I shook my head. "Only got a glimpse." Could it have been Cheswick's silver hair? Had the man been tall enough? Why couldn’t I remember? I held my coffee mug with both hands, comforted by the warm, smooth china.

  "And you say young Duvayne was there?"

  "Bobby doesn't sell drugs!" Lorna said. "He was there with his father."

  "Didn't say he does," Cormack said easily.

  He might not sell them, but he sure handed the stuff out to Lorna.

  "Jay, you did ask me to call you Jay?" When he nodded, I continued. "Susan Stark worries me. She's super thin and she had a weird odor, like chemicals. She looked almost as bad the last time I saw her at the races. I didn't say anything to you. I should have said something."

  "Better now than too late." He made that soft whistling sound through his teeth. "I don't want to spook her, though. I'll see if I can get the track doctor or the chaplain to talk to her."

  Lorna opened her cell and pressed a speed dial number, no doubt trying Bobby again.

  Cormack gently grasped Slippers, set the cat on the floor, and stood up.

  "Y'all be keeping this information to yourselves, right?"

  "Yes," I said.

  Lorna glared at her phone, snapped it shut, and dropped it on the table. Cormack stared, waiting.

  "Sure," she said. "My lips are zipped."

  Except for what she'd repeat to Bobby. But Cormack wasn't stupid. Maybe he just wanted to shake the tree, see which varmints fell out.

  I followed him so I could lock up after he left. He swung the door open, revealing a night sky where scudding clouds played across the moon, and shadows moved among the cedar trees.

  The shifting tree line evoked a memory. "Wait," I said. "There's something I meant to ask you. I'll walk you out to your car." I grabbed my coat from a hook and shrugged it on.

  We stepped into the yard, and Cormack turned to me. "What?"

  "There's this weird guy. He drags a shovel around at night in the woods next to the backstretch. A real creep. Do you know anything about him?"

  "Unhappy eyes, tall and thin?"

  "That's him," I said. "Who is he?"

  "Mike Talbot. Not a happy story." Cormack paused by his SUV. "It's been maybe 10 years now. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but he had some kind of nervous collapse. Comes from a good family, local people. But they had trouble dealing with him. Finally had him institutionalized. For almost a decade."

  "But he’s out now. Is he dangerous?"

  "Nah. Hospital in Richmond cleared him. Shrink says he's harmless. A cousin has taken him in, makes sure Talbot goes to the walk-in clinic once a week."

  A soft breeze rustled through the evergreens, branches rising and falling. Mello had said the same thing, that Talbot wasn't dangerous.

  "He doesn't look harmless. What's with the shovel?"

  "Wondered that myself," Cormack said. "The man used to be a riding instructor, a normal guy, well liked in the area. He's only been out a few weeks, but we keep an eye on him. Gave him a hot-walker's license so he could work for a trainer up near the stable gate.”

  "Talbot said something weird to me. He talked about finding her. Do you know what that means?"

  "No," he said. "But the way you ask questions I might just put you on payroll." He grinned, folded himself into his SUV and drove away.

  What had driven Talbot to insanity?

  The breeze worked itself into a little wind, moaning softly through the pine needles. Things moved and shifted in the dark around me. I hurried, anxious to get back in the cottage.

  Chapter 25

  I awoke with a tongue swollen like a toad sitting in my mouth. My head felt worse than that, but after a pot of coffee, Lorna and I managed to leave the cottage before six. A warm front from the south had left the air damp and humid, the ground wreathed with fog. I drove carefully along the farm road, slowing each time gray mist obscured our path.

  When the Toyota hit a pothole in the gravel drive, I groaned and Lorna grabbed her head. She'd gotten into the Wild Turkey after Cormack left. Unable to reach Bobby, she'd had no trouble finding the bourbon in the kitchen cabinet. I'd escaped to my bedroom and crawled under the covers.

  "Watch those bumps," she said. "My head feels like an overripe pumpkin." She pressed fingers to her forehead. “Bobby better have a good explanation."

  I admired the bravado in her voice. The previous night, I'd heard her crying after I went to bed. Better to be angry. As we rolled through the backstretch to our barn, she looked over the grounds for Bobby, while pretending not to.

  Ramon had already fed the horses their light breakfast. We were met by eight pairs of bright eyes, heads over stall gates, and body language straining with an impatience to train.

  "We could stay in the car," Lorna said. "They might forget we're here."

  Yeah, right.

  We rode the first set out, warming up the horses with a brisk jog the "wrong way" around the track. We passed the five-eighths pole, eased the horses down to a walk, and turned to head counterclockwise – racing direction.

  I was aboard a five-year-old gray mare. The minute I turned her the "right way" she danced and fretted, anxious to go. We kept the gray and Lorna's bay head-to-head, and just before we hit the pole, we urged them into a speedy two-minute-lick. The rail flew past us as we powered five-eighths of a mile, covering each eighth in 15 seconds.

  At the wire, we stood in our stirrups and galloped the horses out another quarter mile. They blew hard as we walked back, having just moved at the speed it takes to cover a mile in two minutes. The pair had shipped off a training farm in Virginia and were hard
ly as fit as the owner claimed. Of course, Lorna and I weren't in great shape either.

  Lorna's eyes searched the track, but Bobby had either ridden back to his barn or hadn’t come out yet. He might not be around at all. Might be afraid I'd told Lorna about the blonde. But I'd let him have that pleasure.

  We rode back to our shedrow at a conservative walk, turned the horses over to Ramon and Mello, climbed on the next two, and headed back out. Will Marshall rode alongside us onto the sandy oval. He was astride a fractious youngster.

  "Mind if I ride with you?" he asked.

  "Sure," I said, taking in the sleeveless black shirt and jeans over his wiry, trim body. The morning's warmth had reduced Lorna and me to short sleeve tees beneath our protective riding vests. Sweat ran between my breasts. The stuff dripped from beneath Lorna's helmet and trickled down her temples. I hoped the previous night's toxins flushed out with the sweat.

  Will's colt tossed his head high and slammed into my roan gelding, forcing Will's knee into my thigh, and a smile onto his mouth. "Looking a little rough there, Latrelle. Late night?"

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  "Will," Lorna said, “have you seen Bobby this morning?"

  "No," he said, his lips tightening. "Don't care to, either."

  "Let's move on," I said, and we eased into a gallop, Will against the rail, me in the middle, and Lorna on my right. Our pace was slower than originally intended, but Will's colt needed to learn. People at the track help each other out. It was one of the things I loved. I had no doubt Will would return the favor.

  #

  Lorna and I were in the feed room measuring up lunch when I heard Mello's voice.

  "You hurt yourself, Mr. Bobby?"

  Lorna whipped past me into the shedrow. I stuck my head out the door to see Bobby limping toward us.

  "Oh my," Mello said, shaking his head.

  An ugly bruise marked Bobby's jaw, reminding me of the damage done to my face by that speed addict.

  "What happened?" Lorna asked. She'd stopped a few feet away from him, as if unwilling or uncertain about closing the gap.

  "I fell off earlier." He placed his fingertips lightly on his swollen jaw. "Grazed the rail on the way down."

  He wouldn't look at any of us and I knew he was lying. Somebody goes off and hits the rail, you hear about it. Everyone would have. Lorna would probably pry out the real story.

  They were a sorry pair. Lorna's eyes were puffy from crying, her skin color sickly from hangover, and Bobby looked like his horse had run over top of him. I ducked into the tack room, dug in my purse for a bottle of Ibuprofen, then offered them around. The three of us ate the pills like candy, washed them down with Coke. I returned to scooping grain into buckets and when I came out, Bobby had left, and Lorna sat on Mello's rickety green bench with her eyes closed. What had Bobby said?

  "I wanna go back for a nap," Lorna said. On the way she asked me to stop by the Providence Forge Rite Aid. She wanted Sudafed.

  We wasted time in the store's allergy aisle looking for the decongestant. I finally asked a girl stocking paper products one aisle over.

  "You have to get it from the pharmacy," she said, stabbing a box cutter into a cardboard carton of paper towels.

  "Why?" Lorna asked.

  "It's the law," the girl said, struggling to pry paper towels from the box.

  The man behind the pharmacy counter wore a fussy little mustache, had nervous fingers and thin, disapproving lips. Behind him white laminate shelves rose to the ceiling stacked with bottles of pills, liquid medicines and medical supplies.

  "You got any Sudafed back there?" Lorna asked through the narrow opening in an inch-thick wall of Plexiglass. Probably bulletproof.

  "We sell it," he said, staring at Lorna, taking in her brow ring and tattoo.

  "So, could I buy some, or what?"

  "You got a driver's license?"

  "You gotta see my driver's license to sell me Sudafed?"

  "State and federal law." He folded his arms across his chest. "It's you young people causing the paperwork and trouble."

  "I don't know anything about that." Lorna twisted a lock of red hair.

  "Kids use it to make methamphetamine."

  "Seems like the law punishes the innocent," I said.

  "You don't like it? How do you think we feel?" He leaned to the side and grabbed a clipboard, slammed it on the counter. "I have to have proof of identity, disclosure forms, copy your license number and address down." He waved a clipboard at us, white paper flapping. "I have to contact the Attorney General if –”

  "Stop!" Lorna said, pulling a wallet from her jacket. "Please, here's my driver's license. I've got this headache. My sinuses are all stopped up."

  They glared at each other a moment, then the pharmacist grabbed Lorna's license and wrote the information down. When they finished, I could see the guy had trouble handing the medicine over.

  Lorna snatched the pharmacy bag and turned to me with a gleam in her eye. I could see a smart comment coming.

  "Don't," I said. "Guy's just doing his job. Remember what that meth addict did to me?"

  She sighed. "Yeah. But it's ridiculous to go through this bullshit." She paused a beat. "You know, almost looks like the same guy mugged you got a hold of Bobby. He didn't go off any horse this morning."

  "No," I said. But why had he lied? It was time to find out more.

  Chapter 26

  I left Lorna at the cottage, telling her I wanted to get a book at the Providence Forge library. What I really wanted were newspaper articles relating to the death of the Cheswick boys, especially any mentioning Bobby Duvayne.

  Like everything else in Providence Forge, the library appeared to be caught in a 1960s time warp. It had a flat roof, that old style that’s usually maintained with tar and gravel. Time and sun had bleached the parking lot’s asphalt to a pale gray. Potholes pitted the surface and loose gravel spun beneath my wheels as I parked outside the library. Pushing through a heavy glass door, I spotted the librarian behind a counter. A bald man, maybe 40 years old, hunched over a computer screen, typing rapidly with intense concentration.

  I stood there a moment, finally saying, “Excuse me.”

  He glanced up. “Yes?” His fingers still flew on the keys.

  “I’m looking for information on an incident that happened a year ago August.” I spoke fast, competing with the rapid pace of his fingers. “So, how would I do that?”

  “Local or national?”

  “What?”

  “The incident, was it local or national?”

  “Oh, local. I was thinking the Richmond Paper . . .”

  “What incident?” he asked, fingers still galloping along, his eyes never leaving the screen.

  “Two boys were murdered.”

  The typing stopped as he met my gaze. “The Cheswick boys, you mean?”

  “Yes. Do you know about them?”

  His mouth grew prim. “Let me direct you to the Richmond Times Dispatch.”

  I wasn’t going to get any gossip from this guy. He stood up and walked me over to a shelf with stacks of the newspaper.

  “Copies up to one year old are here. For older articles you’ll have to access the Dispatch’s morgue on a computer.” He waved a hand at several machines on a long rectangular table.

  “Can you show me how?”

  He did, and in no time I was typing “Cheswick” in a keyword box. A craft show featuring Bunny’s dolls and an article about a blue-ribbon rooster at the New Kent County Fair popped up. They were dated about six years earlier. So Bunny’d had a life. I studied her picture, younger, happier. The days that were no more.

  Then I noticed a range-of-dates box and typed in August and the year the Cheswick boys died.

  A flurry of articles came up. Staring at a photo of Todd and Tim, their life and death suddenly became real. They looked cute and bright. The younger son, Tim, looked mischievous, the way his brows raised and his lips curved in a half smile. Bunny, losing
both sons. No wonder . . .

  They’d been found in a parking lot behind a bar in Sandston, Virginia, not far from the Richmond Airport. Shot at close range, suffering chest and head wounds. A picture showed two black body bags. I turned my eyes back to the rows of type.

  I found nine articles in the three-month period, from August through October of the previous year. Headline news at first, they tapered down to one paragraph buried on the last page of the metro section.

  Only two articles mentioned Bobby. They carried similar information, but the second expanded a bit:

  LOCAL BOY QUESTIONED IN CHESWICK MURDERS

  Investigators are questioning Providence Forge resident Robert Duvayne, 18, in the August 16 murders of brothers Todd, 18, and Tim, 15, Cheswick. Duvayne allegedly met the Cheswicks at Sandston’s Riviera Bar & Grill shortly before the brothers were shot to death, according to police. The shooting occurred in the bar’s parking lot at 11:30 p.m. There were no witnesses. Police have not determined the reason for the shooting.

  “It was a drug deal gone sour,” said Riviera employee Vincent Argulie. “I’m convinced of it. They were pumped up on something, talking tough, dropping hints about some ‘big deal’ they were into. It’s sad. Underage, all of them. The youngest hardly looked fifteen.”

  Argulie identified Duvayne as the man accompanying the Cheswicks, police said. Information about what role, if any, Duvayne might have played in the brothers’ death is not known. Calls to the Duvayne home were not returned.

  So Bobby was there. But he hadn’t been shot. Had he left in time or did he know the shooters? More importantly, how could I get Lorna away from this guy?

  I rolled my shoulders to ease a growing muscle tension, took a deep breath, drawing in the smell of paper, ink, and plastic dust jackets that layered the room. Time to get some newsprint on my hands. I walked to the shelves holding the last twelve months of the Dispatch, and dug in.

  No reference to the case until late December of the previous year. A follow up article appeared with a short headline.

  NO LEADS IN CHESWICK MURDERS