Murder at the Racetrack

by Otto Penzler

  His attempt to picture Jimmy feeling happy about much of anything caused the vision to evaporate.

  So far, nothing had gone according to plan. Shackel was the sort of man Eric thought of as a Forceful Personality, so Eric couldn’t help feeling a bit wound up in anticipation of this encounter—after all, Eric came here to fire him. And the truth was, he was doing the firing at the insistence of a twelve-year-old. He trusted Jimmy when it came to horses, but that didn’t make this task a pleasant one. He would do it, though. He would stick to what he planned to say and be done with it.

  No sooner had he stepped into the trainer’s cramped office than he realized that things might not follow his hoped-for script.

  Shackel was standing behind his desk, frowning, holding an unopened bottle of a sports drink. Several inches taller than Eric, who was just under six feet tall, right at that moment Shackel appeared to be a broad-shouldered giant. When he saw Eric, his expression suddenly changed, and he looked for all the world as if he were struggling not to weep. He set the drink down and came out from behind the desk to take Eric’s hand in a firm grip. “Eric, my God—I’m so sorry. You’ve had a difficult time of it, haven’t you? I can’t believe we haven’t had a chance to talk since Mark…” He let the sentence trail off, then went on in a soft, choked voice. “Since the funeral. I hope you know that if there’s anything I can do for you or Jimmy, you just say the word. That kid practically grew up here, you know.” Shackel guided him to the oversized guest chair, while Eric tried to quickly figure out a way to go from condolence and reminiscence to telling the man that he was taking a horse away from him.

  Shackel moved back behind his desk and said, “You’ve had a long drive out here. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Bottled water? I’ve got some cold Pellegrino.” He motioned toward a refrigerator behind the desk. He picked up the sports drink and said, “I’d offer you one of these, but they’re warm. But anything else… ?”

  “No, thank you,” Eric replied, the only words he managed to speak before Shackel’s intercom buzzed.

  Shackel excused himself, saying, “Sorry, the vet’s here and needs to talk to me. Make yourself at home, this shouldn’t take long. And I want to get the times for Zuppa’s workout this morning…” but he was closing the office door behind him as he said this.

  The window air conditioner wasn’t keeping up with the late summer afternoon heat. After fifteen minutes of waiting for Shackel’s return, Eric’s nervousness got the better of him, and he began pacing around the small office, trying to learn a little more about the man he was going to confront.

  The desk was cleared of any business papers, so Shackel was apparently neat and private. The other objects on its surface gave few hints: a notebook computer, closed and quiet. A phone, a radio, and a marble and brass penholder. Eric walked around the desk to see the office from Shackel’s point of view and nearly tripped over a big case of the sports drinks. It was pulled halfway out from beneath the kneehole. A couple of bottles were missing, and apparently Shackel hadn’t pushed it back beneath the desk. No points away from neatness, though—Eric had obviously interrupted him before he had a chance to put them away. A small stack of the Daily Racing Form and another of The Blood-Horse. A remote control for a television.

  He saw a small television set mounted on one wall, cables running from it to a VCR on a long shelf beneath it, the rest of the shelf taken up by a row of videotapes, all marked with what he eventually realized were names of races. A tray atop a little cabinet had a few expensive brands of liquor and some handsome crystal tumblers on it, but either the bottles were new or Shackel didn’t drink much. Something for visiting owners as they watched a replay of races?

  A short bookcase held thick tomes similar to ones Mark owned, which Jimmy had told him were called “stud books,” and were horses’ family trees. Eric spent a while studying the spines of Shackel’s books. A number were about breeding racehorses; many more seemed to be professional general textbooks on horses and their care; a few were highly specialized titles, mostly about equine medical issues.

  Along the other walls of the room were certificates and licenses from the state horse-racing board and various associations for horse racing, horse training, and horse breeding. There was a small, gaudy, red-and-white shirt and cap made of silk, with “SHF” for Shackel Horse Farm worked into the design. Jockey’s silks—Eric knew that from seeing something equally gaudy at Mark’s house, although the Halsted colors were different, blue and green in a diamond pattern. The wall opposite the bookcase was covered with finish line and winner’s circle photographs, and a large painting of a handsome horse who looked down at him with an air of serene self-assurance. A brass plate on the frame identified him as Pete’s Cake.

  The name was familiar. Eric had been told by Jimmy that this horse’s parents were Pete’s Bread and Cakewalk. How did they come up with these names? Shouldn’t a name sound fast? “Lightning,” or something like that? Well, somebody else probably took that name a long time ago. He shrugged and kept pacing.

  He did know a little about some of these horses. Mark had once been a part owner of Pete’s Cake, he knew, and the horse had won some races. Mark had sold his share to Shackel in a complicated arrangement that Eric could hardly grasp, one that somehow allowed Pete’s Cake to have sex with one of Mark’s other horses—a mare named Don’t Trifle With Me, a fact that Eric found amusing, given her role in the proceedings. The baby of the mother horse—no, no, Jimmy said to call her “the dam” and Pete’s Cake was “the sire,” and the baby was the foal. That’s right. The foal was Zuppa Inglese.

  Pete’s Cake was in several of the photographs. Eric studied the jockeys’ names. Were they famous? Were the races important ones?

  He sighed. He might as well have landed on another planet. His nephew’s immediate, scornful, but accurate appraisal of Eric’s understanding of this milieu ran through his mind in a continuous loop as he paced. You don’t know anything about horse racing. You don’t even know what you’re looking at when you see a horse.

  One additional part of Jimmy’s assessment Eric had deemed going a bit too far: I’m not sure you can tell a mane from a tail, so if you ever get close to a horse, watch where you put your hands.

  The pacing made him feel a little too warm, so he decided to look for that Pellegrino. He opened the refrigerator and saw beer and a bunch of carrots—well, horses liked carrots. He knew that much, didn’t he? Probably some sugar cubes in here, too. There were other vegetables, a couple of apples, some sealed plastic containers, a box of baking soda, what looked to be a wide variety of veterinary medications (perhaps this was the horses’ refrigerator, too?), some nondairy creamer, and a bag of coffee beans. He looked at the racks in the refrigerator door: two bottles of fume blanc and at long last, the Pellegrino. He thought of putting away some of the sports drinks, decided he didn’t owe Shackel any favors, and shut the refrigerator door. He found a bottle opener at the wet bar, poured himself a crystal tumbler’s worth, and sat back down.

  He was finishing off the last of it when Shackel returned. For a moment, surprise registered on Shackel’s face, and he glanced toward the desk. Eric felt a little bloom of confidence. Didn’t think I’d get out of the chair, eh? No, I didn’t go through jour desk or computer.

  “I shouldn’t have left you in here alone for so long. I’m sorry,” Shackel said. “I’m glad to see you made yourself comfortable, though. Good, good.”

  The bloom faded. Eric suddenly felt criminal for taking even this small bit of water from a man he was about to fire. But he glanced at his watch and regained his resolve. A forty-minute wait!

  “Zuppa’s a youngster, a two-year-old that hasn’t let us really see his stuff yet,” Shackel said, “but I’ve made some changes and—”

  “Mr. Shackel, forgive me, I’ve arranged to have the horse trained elsewhere. ”

  Shackel went pale. “You can’t— ”

  Eric explained that yes, indeed, he could.

 
“You—you don’t blame me for what happened to Mark, do you?”

  “For my brother’s suicide? No.” Was that a lie? Not for the first time, Eric wondered if he did irrationally blame Shackel, and if that were really what lay beneath his willingness to move the horse from this trainer. He chose his words carefully. “Mr. Shackel, this has been a difficult time for everyone, but I assure you my decision is final.”

  He had no sooner said this than the intercom buzzed again. Shackel answered it, his frown deepening as he listened. “Wait a minute…” He looked up at Eric. “Eric, they tell me a transport truck you ordered is here, and that Donna Free-point followed it in. If she’s your new trainer, well—you really couldn’t be making a worse mistake. Not just in taking Zuppa from here at this point in his training, but in choosing her.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, but there’s nothing more to be said, really.”

  Eric discovered that from Shackel’s perspective, this was not quite true. The trainer treated him to a tirade that included a great many terms that Eric was not familiar with and few that he knew well and seldom used, and ended with, “You don’t know anything about horses! ”

  “On that we agree,” Eric said, feeling much better about drinking the Pellegrino now, and walked out of the office.

  He stayed on the grounds only long enough to ensure that the horse was actually led into the trailer and that Donna Freepoint did not meet with physical harm. The daughter of a retired trainer, she was a slender, athletic blonde in her early thirties, who had a no-nonsense air about her. Eric found her incredibly attractive and completely out of reach. Not only was he sure the difference of perhaps as much as ten years between their ages would make him seem too old to her, he was certain his ignorance of horses doomed whatever slight chance he might have. And because he was almost always (eventually) honest with himself, he owned up to the fact that she had not shown the slightest degree of romantic interest in him.

  He saw her watching as Shackel followed him out of the office, still shouting, and so he did his best to appear completely unruffled. This was not easy, given Shackel’s rage, and only the thought that she might need him to defend her kept him from hurrying away from the man.

  She managed to silence Shackel with one look, and Eric realized that not even the burly driver of the transport truck, who had just come to her side, was going to need to intervene on her behalf.

  Although Eric had seen a number of horses being ridden or walked around the track grounds, when he saw the big dark horse being led toward them, he suddenly felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. There was something… some something about this horse that made Zuppa Inglese stand out. He was tall, but not really more of a giant than some of the other big horses in the stables. Well, now that Eric looked around, he wasn’t any bigger than average. He just seemed taller. He held himself differently, Eric decided. He had an attitude.

  Zuppa Inglese let Donna look him over without making a fuss, even letting her pull his lip to take a quick look inside his mouth. “The tattoo checks—he’s your colt,” she said to Eric, further baffling him. Shackel took offense at this, and tried to come nearer, but the horse flattened his ears and tried to nip at him.

  Shackel evaded the colt’s teeth and turned to Donna. “The track lip reader not good enough for you?”

  “Don’t worry, everything will be done by the rule book,” she said. She smiled at Shackel in a way that seemed designed to further infuriate him.

  A moment later, a pair of Shackel’s workers tried to approach to help load the horse, and Zuppa Inglese tossed his head at one and kicked at the other. “I’ll do it,” Donna said, and led the horse up the ramp without further incident.

  “Go on ahead, Mr. Halsted,” she told Eric when this operation was completed. “We’ll see you at Copper Hills.”

  Mr. Halsted. He refused to let himself sigh in disappointment.

  So he began the long drive to Copper Hills Farms, where Jimmy was waiting. Even before Eric had met Donna Free-point, he had been pleased with the place. He had visited it twice to make arrangements for Zuppa Inglese’s transfer, and he liked it even better now that he had spent time with Shackel. Copper Hills was well equipped—or so Jimmy had said—but it wasn’t showy. The grounds were clean and neat, and obviously well-cared-for. The staff was smaller than Shackel’s, but they struck Eric as being friendlier. Which was just the sort of observation that would probably make Jimmy roll his eyes.

  At twelve, Jimmy was an expert eye-roller and had a repertoire of other facial expressions designed to let Eric know he didn’t think much of his uncle’s intelligence. This was a novel experience for Eric, who held advanced degrees in engineering. He also held eleven lucrative patents for robotic devices in use in a variety of manufacturing applications. He knew most other people didn’t want to hear about his “widgets,” as Mark had called them. He had wealth from those widgets, though, and had been generous with his younger brother and his family. Not that they had ever tried to sponge off him. There had been no need.

  Mark and Eric’s parents had started their family late in life, and both parents had died before Eric reached thirty. Eric— six years older than his brother, and already a successful entrepreneur by his mid-twenties—never questioned that he should support Mark, and took over tuition and room and board payments.

  To Eric’s dismay, Mark dropped out of school before the end of his sophomore year, his head full of dreams of being a restaurateur. He convinced Eric to loan him enough money to start an upscale eatery, money Eric had little hope of seeing again. But he had been wrong—the restaurant was a hit, and Mark repaid the loan within a year.

  That same year, Mark married his pastry chef, a lovely, lively woman named Carlotta, and together they opened four more restaurants—each doing better than the last. Two years after they married, Jimmy was born.

  In those years, Eric thought Mark and Carlotta had a near perfect life. They loved each other. They loved their son. They owned a successful business. And they had enough money to pursue their mutual love of racehorses. Jimmy was no less devoted to horses than they were. Eric, running his own business and caught up in the world of invention, was pleased for them, saw them on holidays, and tried not to yawn when the talk turned to horses.

  Late one spring evening, not quite two and a half years ago, Mark and Jimmy were at Shackel Horse Farm, where Don’t Trifle With Me was in labor with Zuppa Inglese. Carlotta was on her way there from one of the restaurants. Mark became irritated when she was late, then worried. She had been so excited about the foal, had even chosen the name. Mark called her cell phone. No answer. He tried the home phone, wondering if she had misunderstood where they were to meet. No answer there, either.

  The birth of the foal occupied their attention for a time, but both Mark and Jimmy were disappointed that Carlotta had missed the event.

  An hour later, a deputy sheriff had finally located Mark. He was the one who told them that Carlotta had apparently lost control of the family SUV on a curving stretch of rural road about ten miles away, just over the county line. Another vehicle may have been involved. They were still investigating the cause, he said, but these high-profile vehicles also rolled on their own if the driver took a curve too fast… In any case, the SUV had rolled, going over a steep embankment. She had not survived the accident.

  Thinking about that night, Eric wondered if Jimmy associated Shackel Horse Farm with his mother’s death. It certainly had some association with Mark’s death—he had shot himself in a wooded area not far away from it, after watching morning workouts. Was that association why Jimmy was so adamant about changing trainers? Had Mark made some recommendation to Jimmy? And if so, was Mark’s judgment impaired by his depression?

  Eric shuddered, thinking of how Mark had changed after Carlotta’s death. Mark lost weight—too much weight. He looked haggard, and when Eric mentioned this, he simply shrugged and said he wasn’t sleeping well. The doctor had given him some pills, but he didn�
�t like taking them, didn’t like how groggy they made him feel the next day.

  He had seemed listless in any case, Eric thought. It was as if all of Mark’s past pleasures had lost meaning. He sold the restaurants, saying his heart was no longer in the business. Within a year, he also sold off all of his horses except Zuppa Inglese. This had all been noted in the investigation of his death by Detective Delmore and seen as indications of his depression and preparation for suicide.

  Eric had asked him about the sale of the horses, but Mark had been evasive, saying only that he now wished he had never gotten into the racing business in the first place. When Eric had tried to convince him that he needed to start up another business or at least find a hobby, Mark fobbed him off, saying he was “working on a project or two,” but wouldn’t say what they were. Eric now doubted their existence and deeply regretted not being more persistent.

  Mark was still a wealthy man at the time of his own death, but his income had declined sharply in the past year. Shortly after Carlotta died, Mark made out a will, telling Eric he was finally forced to believe in his own mortality—but Eric knew that Mark was fearful about what might become of his son if anything happened to him, the boy’s only surviving parent.

  He left almost everything in trust to Jimmy, with Eric as trustee. One notable exception was Zuppa Inglese. A recently added codicil regarding the horse was nearly longer than the original will. He left the horse to both Eric and Jimmy, with instructions to Eric not to sell the horse without Jimmy’s permission. He made it clear that Eric was being given part ownership so that the horse could be entered in races, and that Eric should definitely do so, provided the horse was sound. He was to rely on Jimmy’s advice to the greatest extent possible.