The Stars Shine Bright

by Sibella Giorello

  I nodded. Please.

  But the SAC had the cold water ready. “I don’t see how Raleigh can get enough information in two weeks.”

  “That’s where Eleanor Anderson comes in. She’s asked her niece, Raleigh David, to come learn the horse business. She wants an heir to inherit it when she dies.” McLeod offered me the file. “Actually, Eleanor’s words were ‘if I die.’ ”

  Keeping my head down, I read through the false information while McLeod relayed more details to the SAC. Eleanor was providing a condo in Tacoma. And a vehicle. I would keep my FBI-issued firearm concealed at all times. And there would be no contact with the Bureau, except through my case agent.

  “Jack Stephanson,” the SAC said. “That’s your case agent.”

  I looked up. “Jack—?”

  “OPR wants him on oversight. He reported the incident on the cruise ship. They trust him.”

  I felt sick. Jack?

  McLeod misread the expression on my face. “Don’t worry. I already explained that your relationship with Jack is plutonic.”

  My tongue was made of lead. ”Can’t Lucia Lutini be my case agent?”

  “Lutini’s not a full agent,” the SAC said. “She’s a CPA who works profiling.”

  “But,” McLeod added, “Lutini offered to get your UCA wardrobe.” He stole a glance at my blazer and slacks. “She says you need the help.”

  I looked down at the folder’s contents. Two keys. The condo, I guessed. And the vehicle. The driver’s license for Raleigh David had my picture, staring back at me.

  McLeod reached behind his back again, then held out a cell phone.

  “It’s not programmed like your agent phone. Your name will show on anyone’s caller ID. So be careful phoning your case agent.”

  Case agent. Jack Stephanson. No. Please?

  “One more item,” the SAC said. “And this is nonnegotiable.”

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “As you’re probably aware, undercover agents are required to have periodic psychological exams. We’ve had too many agents struggle with their double identity. Furthermore, OPR has pointed out that with your mother’s condition, you should undergo extra visits with a psychiatrist.”

  I felt a humming sensation. It filled my ears. High and strained, it sounded like electricity getting ready to blow. Somehow I knew OPR would be checking the shrink’s notes.

  “Don’t look so concerned,” McLeod said. “Jack found a convenient shrink. You won’t have to go out of your way.”

  I closed the folder. I tried to smile. The men waited for me to say something.

  Finally, the SAC said, “You do realize, if you found actual hard evidence of race fixing, it would benefit you in other areas.”

  “Yes, sir.” Success on the UCA would dilute, or even negate, any ruling from OPR.

  “But,” he continued, “you only have two weeks. And given the circumstances, it’s doubtful your forensic geology will help you.” He gave a tight smile, barely conciliatory. “As they say in horse racing, good luck.”

  I didn’t believe in luck. But I also didn’t believe in shoving my foot in my mouth.

  Clutching my new identity, I stood to shake the SAC’s hand. Then I told him exactly what he wanted to hear.

  “Thank you for this opportunity, sir. I won’t let you down.”

  Chapter Two

  Four days later, I was already doubting my pledge.

  It was Monday evening. The weekend was spent dutifully following Eleanor Anderson around Emerald Meadows. From the barns to the betting office to the private dining room. Shaking hands, learning names, cataloging potential suspects. And now it dawned on me that two weeks, minus four days, wasn’t enough time to build a case.

  OPR would win.

  “I’m spending the night,” I said.

  “No, you’re not,” Eleanor said loudly.

  I glanced over. We were walking down an empty backstretch under a dusky sky. The stars were just winking into view, that gentle moment of evening. Eleanor, however, was anything but delicate. Trained as a thespian, she still had a dancer’s light step. But her actress voice always projected to the cheap seats.

  “Go home!” she bellowed. “Sleep!”

  I lowered my voice, hoping it would give her a stage cue. “Time’s running out.”

  “Time!” she called out, raising her chin. “Do you know there’s a clock in every room? It goes tick-tock quieter than your heartbeat.” She paused. “Who said that?”

  “You did.”

  “Princess Kosmonopolis, act one. We staged Sweet Bird of Youth in Los Angeles. Sadly, the themes were lost on movie producers.”

  With ten days left, I had nothing to fight OPR with except lines from Tennessee Williams’s plays. Lines that Eleanor dropped like philosophical bombs. In her younger days, she toured with an acting troupe devoted to the Southern playwright. During a 1959 performance of Streetcar Named Desire at Seattle’s Moore Theatre, an industrialist named Harry Anderson took one look at the woman playing Blanche and swept her off the stage. They married, and Eleanor took up her husband’s favorite hobby: horse racing. When Harry passed away in 1981, Eleanor did the unthinkable. Or what was unthinkable to everyone but her. She took over the horse racing business, and today the Hot Tin Barn was the most prosperous thoroughbred racing enterprise in the Northwest.

  And still the playwright’s words tumbled from her lipsticked mouth, with most of the lines intact.

  “I’m paying the bills, Raleigh,” she trumpeted. “And I will not have you bedding down with the animals.”

  We had crossed the backstretch now and stood beside a low-slung building that separated the horse barns from the general public. Above us, in the amethyst evening sky, Venus twinkled as though it enjoyed my misery. I reached for the door, holding it open, hoping Eleanor would continue her exit. But she didn’t budge.

  “And if you attempt such nonsense,” she continued, “I will make sure—”

  I held a finger to my lips. “Quiet, please.”

  She gazed down the backstretch, shaking her head. She wore oversized glasses with rhinestones embedded in the corners, glittering like more stars. She waited for a security guard to amble past the drug testing barn. He checked the lock, casually, then moved down the rest of the backstretch, whistling on his way. Tomorrow was Tuesday, the track’s single day off. Most of the trainers and owners had left for the night and the bustling arena suddenly had an odd sort of silence. Like some mutually agreed-upon truce from the competition and money, but not the greed. The grooms remained in the barns, cleaning out the horse stalls, each worker with listening ears.

  “Keep your voice down,” I reminded her.

  “And that’s another thing,” she said, in some behind-the-curtain whisper. “It looks suspicious if you stay in the barn all night.”

  “Not if I do it right.”

  “And how is that?”

  “None of your business.”

  “You feel sorry for the horse because it’s sick?”

  One of Eleanor’s prize fillies, Solo in Seattle, had suddenly come down with the mysterious ailment after winning for weeks. The horse’s rise and fall fit the pattern perfectly: a favorite now struggling to place while long shots came from behind to win big money.

  Eleanor wagged a finger at me. The gold ring she wore contained a garnet so large it looked like a deadly hematoma. “Do not fall in love with the horses, Raleigh. They’re heartbreak. Every one of them. Pure heartbreak.”

  “You told me already.”

  “Then what about the suspicion?”

  “I’m your niece. And it’s just one night.”

  “You are a stubborn girl.”

  I leaned in close. “And you hired me to find out what’s happening to these horses. I can’t do that if I’m not here.”

  “My answer is still no. You look worn out. You cannot stay.”

  Biting my tongue, I held the door. She marched forward, passing under my arm. Her red ballet slippers ma
de soft sashaying sounds down the hall. We passed the betting office. It was closed for the night. But a big brass scale waited for jockeys and saddles, its enormous round face encircled with numbers. It reminded me of a stopwatch. Time, running out. Time, sifting through my fingers. Time, I needed more to keep my job.

  “Do you ever sleep?” Eleanor asked.

  “Not really.”

  “I’m going to ask Doc Madison to give you a tranquilizer.”

  “The vet?”

  “With your stubborn disposition, he wouldn’t even need to dial down the dosage.”

  A security desk was situated by the exit leading to the private parking lot. No general public was allowed in this part of the track.

  “Clement!” she called out.

  The guard behind the desk jumped. He was reading a newspaper.

  “Evening, Miz Anderson.” He pushed aside the sports section. Headline: Emerald Fever. The media’s nickname for the mysterious illness plaguing horses at the track.

  “I want you to swear an oath, Clement!” Her voice rattled a small slider window above the guard’s desk. “Are you ready?”

  “Uh, sure.” His watery eyes looked uncertain.

  “My niece intends to spend the night with an ailing horse in my barn. You are not to allow her back into this building. Do you swear?”

  He frowned. “You want me to . . . ?”

  “Keep her out! I won’t have her getting sentimental about the horses. If she defies my order, telephone me immediately. Especially if something untoward happens.”

  Great, I thought. Way to keep things undercover.

  “You got it, Miz Anderson,” he said. “Have a nice night.”

  “Night!” She raised her chin, signaling an approaching line. “Night was made for everything except what’s nice.”

  The guard glanced at me, shaking his head. “Your aunt, she’s got words for everything.”

  Eleanor signed us out for the night and I opened the door to the parking lot. She torpedoed for her battleship, a granite-gray Lincoln Town Car docked beside the building under an engraved brass plaque that designated the spot for E. Anderson. The other vehicles still here at this late hour were muddy trucks and wheezy Impalas, cars owned by the grooms who were mucking the stalls.

  “Go home, Raleigh. Do you hear me?”

  My only hope was that all this nagging made our relationship appear real, authentic. The bossy aunt. And I had to say, after four days her constant hectoring was already feeling habitual. A small part of me actually wondered if I enjoyed her steady stream of opinions about my life—sleep habits, food choices, why I should marry my fiancé in Virginia—because it reminded me of my mother. When she was well.

  “You’re not listening.” She jangled her car keys, filling the dusky air with sleigh bells. “Take my advice.”

  “Yours, or Tennessee Williams’s?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, young lady.” She was already lifting her chin. “We all live in a house on fire, with no fire department to call. All we can do is stare out the window, trapped inside, and watch the house go down.” She paused. “Who said that?”

  “You did.” I opened her car door.

  “Chris, in The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.”

  “And it’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Of course not.” She deposited herself on the front seat, delicate as a ballerina. “My point is, quit trying to save the world. It’s on fire. And you’re one girl with one bucket.”

  I closed the door, but the window came down.

  She said, “I’m writing the checks, you know.”

  I leaned down, catching night air that clutched her jasmine perfume and pulled floral ribbons through the dark. “I’m fine.”

  “You’ve undoubtedly fed that line to people your entire life. Some people might even believe you. But I’ve heard every line ever written, so let me put this in plain terms. If I discover you stayed in that barn, I’ll fire you.”

  The window glided up and the big car roared from the parking lot. I waited, watching it follow the wide curvature of road that connected to the interstate pointed south to Tacoma, where Eleanor would swing that battleship into the safe harbor of her historic Victorian. Even after the car was gone, I waited a moment longer, just in case she came back.

  Then I walked to my car.

  Or the car that I wished belonged to me.

  An automotive thoroughbred, the Ghibli was part of Harry Anderson’s vintage car collection. Maserati made only three thousand models of this particular version, and Harry bought one so that Eleanor could tool around Seattle looking like a movie star. The car had a full-width grill with pop-up headlights and a long bonnet that stretched back sail-like to the sharply angled windshield, its glass so smooth it seemed melted in place. The paint was an elegant white, almost ivory, and in the back two fuel tanks waited under the high rear end, begging for hundred-mile-an-hour speeds.

  I dubbed it “the Ghost.”

  Turning the key, I listened to the feline engine growl with predatory glee. I cruised out of the parking lot, crossed the railroad tracks, and drove as far as the road leading to the interstate. Then I pulled a U-turn, which the Ghost took on a dime, and circled back to the parking lot, sliding between two jacked-up big-wheel trucks, in case Clement looked out the door.

  I rummaged through my duffel bag until I found my Levi’s, a T-shirt, and my brown Frye boots. The denim jacket on the floor in back covered two large bags of Lay’s potato chips—in case Eleanor poked her nose in here. Sliding down the front seat’s buttery leather, I ducked beneath the wood-grained dash and wiggled out of Raleigh David’s linen trousers and silk blouse. I tossed her sandals in back. Girly things. Made by somebody named Ferragamo.

  I let out a long sigh. My old duds felt like second skin. But something was still missing. I reached under the front seat, patting for the cold stippled steel.

  My gun.

  It was waiting for me. A girl’s best friend.

  Chapter Three

  The Glock was shoved deep inside my left boot, and seriously pinching my calf. I limped across the parking lot, then crouched behind some bushes beside the betting office building. After Clement, the only other entrance to the backstretch was a small gatehouse. It divided two lanes used for horse trailers and delivery trucks. The security light over the green shack was bright enough that I could see the wooden arms were down, blocking the way. I could also see the guard inside. His hair was as white as his uniform and his head tilted forward, the neck crooked at a loose angle, suggesting sleep. I counted to eighty-four, in honor of Eleanor, who somehow believed my getting more sleep would reveal who was fixing the races, and on the count of eighty-five, I pushed through the bushes. The guard never looked up.

  I walked slowly, trying to disguise the limp. There were four barns on the backstretch, each about forty yards long. A young groom was hosing down the pavement outside the first building, spraying away manure and hay and sawdust. Night had fully fallen and the lights inside glowed with a soft yellow hue, as if the sawdust on the floor was shaved gold. I nodded at the groom, acting like I belonged here, and continued down the wet pavement to the third barn. Hot Tin shared the barn with two other outfits—Abbondanza and Manchester stables. I was interested in Abbondanza because it was run by Salvatore Gagliardo, aka Sal Gag. Our Organized Crimes unit once tried to nail Mr. Gagliardo for running a bookie operation at the track. But the case went nowhere. Sal Gag had an ideal cover as a legitimate owner of thoroughbreds, and as I passed by the Abbondanza stalls, I saw his female groom watering the horses. Sort of. She was lifting a gallon bucket but swaying. Suddenly she placed one hand on the plank wall, steadying herself. She closed her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She jumped. Her eyes were large and blue and scared.

  “I don’t need any help,” she said, tugging at her shirt. It was pink. Bright pink. For reasons beyond my investigative skills, the barn’s racing colo
r was Barbie pink. She lifted the bucket again, tipping the water into the metal basin hanging beside the horse’s stall. “I can do it.”

  I smiled, friendly and harmless, and tried not to limp as I walked down the sawdust path toward Hot Tin. The barns smelled of alfalfa and horse dander and worn dollar bills. Each barn was shaped like two Es facing each other. The long sides held horse stalls, connected by three lanes. I was walking down the middle lane when I heard a voice ask, “When did she run?”

  “In the third,” a man replied. “Came in last.”

  “Her stomach sounds bad.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “And there’s too much fluid in her lungs,” the second man added. “You shouldn’t have run her; she needs rest.”

  “Are you lecturing me, boy?”

  I recognized that voice. The sharp gravel of Bill Cooper. Head trainer for Hot Tin’s horses.

  “Nobody wants your advice,” Cooper continued. “You just get her ready to run on Wednes—”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Hit her with some Lasix. Or do you want me to call Doc Madison and tell him you don’t know what you’re doing?”

  I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. The girl in the pink shirt waited at the end of the gallery, head tilted with curiosity. She had long pale blond hair that fell like bleached rain. I gave a friendly wave, then walked around the corner.

  Bill Cooper stood at the edge of the stall. The top half of the Dutch door was open and I could see Solo in Seattle lying on the sawdust floor. The man kneeling beside her was the veterinarian’s assistant, Brent Roth. Skinny and handsome in a scruffy sort of way, he had a permanent squint around his eyes that made him look thoughtful, and perpetually annoyed. But he was so young that his skin still had acne spreading across his cheeks and neck. It was half the reason Cooper called him “boy.” That, and Cooper was a bully.

  The trainer looked at me. His eyes were a cold gray-blue, like zinc. “What’re you doing here?”