Death By Bridle

by Abigail Keam

  “I thought you were so sophisticated. The two of you would have cocktails before dinner and play old jazz records on a big old-fashioned console. We’d eat and watch the sun go down together.”

  I joined in. “Then you, Asa, and I would go for a late night swim. We’d sit in the pool and talk, listening to the owls and watching the stars twirl ’round in the sky.”

  “That’s when you smoked,” laughed Kelly. “You would sit on the pool steps smoking one cigarette right after another, telling us stories about history and art.”

  I joined in his laugher. “When Brannon and I started out it was all hearts and diamonds, then it turned to clubs and spades.”

  Kelly gave me a quick smile. “You know I write because of you.”

  I cocked my head. “Really?”

  “I remember you saying that each individual had a responsibility to do something beautiful in his or her life, even if it was painting a horse fence. The quest for beauty kept us from becoming enamored of evil.”

  “Oh dear, I don’t think I could have said anything that profound.”

  “You did. I’ll swear to it,” whispered Kelly, touching my fingers with his. We smiled at each other, remembering the wonderful times we had shared.

  As my eyes began to tear, a clean handkerchief was thrust in front of me. I twisted in my booth seat to see Jake, frowning and towering over me.

  “She cries at the drop of a hat now,” said Jake. “A squirrel crosses the road in front of the car and she begins to cry.”

  “Damn it, we were having a moment,” I snapped. “And I cry because I’m happy the squirrel made it to the other side. Life is fragile.”

  “I’m Jake Dosh,” said Jake, extending a thick hand that was scarred and nicked. Though he didn’t look it because he was so wiry, Jake was incredibly strong. Once he had leaned over a boat’s side, lifting me from the ocean with one hand. Holding me suspended in air, he dropped me back into the water when a shark lost interest. And that was when I was quite chunky. Oh hell, let’s call it what it was – I was fat, very fat.

  After my husband, Brannon, had left me for a younger woman, I had gone on a three-year eating binge. Only after the “accident” did I lose weight, and not because I wanted to.

  Kelly shook Jake’s hand and invited him to sit. His emerald green eyes gave Jake the once-over, taking in his clothes, age, physique, and obviously the weapon under his shirt. Jake gave Kelly the same appraisal. He gave Kelly a look that said he was the new gun in town.

  “Naw, man. We gotta go,” barked Jake, helping me to my feet. He handed me my cane. “Say goodbye, Josiah.”

  Kelly grabbed my hand and whispered so that Jake couldn’t hear. “Be careful, Miss Josiah. Arthur was found with stones in his pockets and a bucket of water underneath him.” He looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Look for the widow’s son.”

  With that, he stood. “Hey, Dosh!”

  Jake turned around. “Yeah, man?”

  “Keep her safe, will ya.”

  Jake’s golden brown eyes flickered for a brief second and then narrowed. “Do my best, hoss.”

  4

  We stopped the car in front of Lady Elsmere’s door, which was immediately opened by Charles, her African-American butler. He ushered us in but not before I brushed against a black wreath on the door. As Charles escorted us to the back terrace, I noticed black chiffon had been draped over all the mirrors.

  Jake hung back. “What’s with the coverings over the mirrors?”

  “So the soul of the departed doesn’t get trapped behind the mirrors. Mirrors are considered portals. It was originally a Roman custom. Reflective water also had to be covered in the ancient world after death as well as coins put on the eyelids for payment to the ferryman, Charon. Southern people still cover mirrors as well as Jews who do it out of respect for the dead. Some Europeans put coins on the eyes to this day,” I replied.

  “Okey dokey,” replied Jake, rubbing his chin. He was not impressed.

  Charles noticed my noticing. “She got word this morning about Mr. Greene’s death. It’s been quite a shock for her. So please, go softly.”

  “What’s with the mourning display? She’s not his widow,” I admonished curtly. “Only the house of the deceased is supposed to cover the mirrors.”

  I sometimes despised Lady Elsmere’s sense of drama. It set my teeth on edge.

  Ever loyal, Charles said nothing, but just shook his head as he opened the glass double doors to the brick terrace and announced me.

  June, sucking on a whisky soda, motioned me to sit beside her with a frail but diamond-laden hand. It looked like a claw dripping with glitter. She was wearing a bright yellow pantsuit with a black mourning band encircling the upper left arm. Her eyes looked red from crying and she had forgotten to pencil in her eyebrows. She looked drunk, sick, and eyebrowless. “Bring Josiah something,” begged Lady Elsmere to Charles. “What do you want, dear?”

  I shook my head.

  “Bring her a Bloody Mary,” cackled June.

  “No thank you, Charles. I won’t be here that long.”

  “Bring some hot tea then with some of her honey.”

  Charles gave a quick little nod and was gone like a puff of smoke.

  Opening an antique gold case, June took a ciggy out. She tapped it on the patio table and looked out upon her vast back pastures that held grazing Thoroughbreds.

  “Do you know how old I am?” asked June as I bent to light her cigarette with a gem-studded lighter from the table.

  Were those real rubies and diamonds?

  “Not really,” I lied.

  “I’m old enough to remember hemp being the major crop grown. Then that was outlawed and tobacco was king. Now that is gone too. Nothing left in the Bluegrass but horse breeders grabbing a fast buck and heirloom tomato farmers.”

  She spat out a fleck of tobacco. “This town used to be a place of grace and culture. Now it’s a rat hole with a mall on every corner. Half the antebellum houses I used to visit have been torn down for subdivisions. Every time a field is paved over, a bit of our collective soul is chipped away until nothing will be left but rot. I hate the new Lexington. Hate it.”

  “You’re being a little hard, aren’t you?” I replied. My feelings were hurt since Brannon, my late husband, and I had built one of those subdivisions.

  June ignored me as usual. “I heard it on the news. I was just finishing breakfast when they announced that Arthur had been brutally murdered. Murdered!” She took a deep draw and then exhaled a stream of smoke. “I never thought I’d outlive him. Never.”

  “The reason I am here, June, is that you were fond of Arthur and knew him for many years, but I am kind of surprised by how hard you’re taking this. I don’t mean to pry but you are acting like . . . I don’t know, like a . . .”

  “Like a wife. Like a lover.” She turned, staring at me.

  There was silence between us.

  “Is there something I’m missing here?”

  She gave me a knowing look.

  “Uhmm, how connected were you and Arthur?”

  “Arthur was the great love of my life.”

  I sat for a moment, taking in what June had just said. There was no use quitting now. The hat was out of the box. “Like a platonic admirer or are you talking about a lover as in sex?”

  June puffed on her cigarette and said nothing.

  “Jumping Jehosaphat!” I sat back in my chair, surprised. No one really thinks of old ladies having grand passions.

  She arched the place where an eyebrow should have been. “That shocks you.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I really am speechless. I mean, he was so much younger than you.”

  “Twenty-eight years to be exact. We met at the Rolex Event. He was forty-two and I was seventy. We were lovers for many years until I became too frail and then we became even better friends.”

  “Did his wife know?”

  June spat out, “I don’t know if she knows and don�
��t give a big rat’s fanny. I never cared. Arthur was my last chance for happiness and I took it.”

  She watched the trail of cigarette smoke dissipate. “I loved all my husbands, you know, but in different ways. My first husband was my high school sweetheart. Then Lord Elsmere . . . we were fond of each other, but he lived his life and I was left to live mine. He loved the ladies, but didn’t like to love the ladies.”

  “He was what Thomas Jefferson referred to as a ‘Miss Nancy’?”

  “Yes, but he was very good to me. Made sure that I would be taken care of after his death.” She paused as though remembering. “He had such a dry wit about him . . . and such a gentleman. Rather courtly manners. In the thirty-five years since his death, I’ve met only one man who is only a crude facsimile to my Bertie, and that is your Matt.”

  Charles came out with a tray and poured some hot tea into a cup for me. June waved him away impatiently.

  I sipped on my tea, waiting for June to continue.

  She continued to puff away.

  “Then he dies and you come back home to Kentucky,” I said, prodding her to the good part about the infidelity and sex.

  “Years later I met Arthur at the Rolex Event and we just hit it off.”

  “Okay, you met Arthur at the Rolex Event in Lexington.”

  June looked at me with irritation written all over her pale, wrinkled face. “I just said that.”

  “Hey, it was less than a year ago that I got my skull cracked open, so if it takes me a little longer than most to get the facts straight, do forgive me, your majesty.” I instantly regretted my words.

  “Well, at least my loves died on me. I didn’t throw love away like . . .”

  “Like I did? Is that what you were going to say?”

  June squared her shoulders and looked at me with spite. “You did that with Brannon. If you had asked him to come home, he would have, but you were too proud. You threw away a good marriage just because he wanted to play patty cake with some young thing for a while. Don’t all men at some point?”

  I stood, furious. “I guess not with you. Seemed like every time you needed a man, one popped up from nowhere. How convenient is that? How many seventy-year-old broads get another go-around with a man half her age and a married man at that? You never paid any consequences.”

  “You mean, paid for my sins? What rubbish that is.”

  “You make me so mad, June.”

  Lady Elsmere shrugged, “I thought you came to comfort me. All you want to do is to judge, and it’s Lady Elsmere to you!” she cried, pointing a dragon claw at me.

  “I came to ask some questions to help a friend. I didn’t know that you were doing the nasty with the dead guy. Then you start busting my chops about Brannon. What the hell do you know about it, anyway? You think you’re the only one who’s ever shed a tear? I’m getting out of here.”

  June shushed me. “Go on then. I want to be alone with my memories anyway.” She turned her back.

  “That went well,” I murmured.

  Charles must have been watching as he opened the terrace door and beckoned. Once I was inside he confided, “She’s been like this all morning. Drinkin’ like a fish. Cussing everybody out. Just hateful. Now she wants to go parading to that man’s funeral with his family there. I’m afraid she’ll say something to Mr. Arthur’s wife and there will be a scandal. It’s not fittin’. Not fittin’.”

  I placed my hand over my heart trying to calm its ragged thumping. “What a beating I just took. Let me think for a moment. Why don’t you call her doctor and have him prescribe some sedatives to calm her nerves. If she still insists on going to the funeral, I’ll offer to go with her.”

  “That’s a good idea, Miss Josiah. I’ll do just that. I’ve got my grandchildren stationed around the house to keep an eye on her. She won’t be able to go to the bathroom without me knowing about it.”

  “Lady Elsmere’s got a good friend in you, Charles.”

  “She’s your good friend too, Miss Josiah. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s half out her mind with grief. You need to let this roll off your back.”

  “I know it, but she just knows how to push my buttons.” I grabbed his arm.

  “Charles, is it true what she told me about Arthur?”

  Charles nodded.

  “How could I have missed that? I was with them both many times and I never suspected their true relationship. I feel so dumb.”

  “They both wanted it kept very quiet.”

  “They did a good job. I was never even suspicious.”

  Charles did not reply.

  “I’ll take my leave then. Keep me informed, will you, Charles?” I told him about Lincoln and why I had come.

  Charles assured me he would let me know of anything pertinent to Lincoln. His nut-brown face was full of concern as I left.

  Jake was waiting for me in the grand staircase hallway. Seeing my strained face, he put his arm around my waist and helped me to the car. It felt good to lean into his hard body. “Here we go again . . . you doing too much.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “You hungry?”

  “Nope.”

  “How’s the pain doing?”

  “Manageable at the moment. I can live with it.”

  “Well, that’s a first. You go straight to bed. I’ll call the hospital and talk to Shaneika. I heard everything Kelly told you. Maybe when you wake up, Linc will be up and about.”

  I reclined the car seat and was asleep before he drove out of the driveway.

  5

  When awakened from my nap, I heard Matt and Jake talking in the great room. I washed my face and combed my hair after changing from my wrinkled day clothes into a green silk caftan, which set off my eyes. I had to keep pushing the kittens, which were now sizable, away from my things as they thought this was a great opportunity to either crawl up my back or knock lipstick tubes off the vanity.

  These were the progeny of a barn cat who had taken up residence in my clothes closet along with her boyfriend. She used my favorite cashmere sweater as a bed. I didn’t have the heart to throw her and the family out until now.

  “First opportunity, boys, and you’re going to the barn,” I threatened, picking up a black and white kitten trying to chew my hairbrush. I kissed his nose.

  Baby padded in, gave me a brief nod and went into the bathroom so he could drink out of the toilet. He looked up in annoyance as I scolded him. “You have fresh bowls of water in the kitchen and outside. Yet you insist on drinking out of my toilet. It’s disgusting.”

  Water dripped from his massive face folds only to be followed by strings of drool. I tried to wipe his face off with a towel but he fought, so I gave up. I didn’t want to risk falling. Baby, knowing that he had won the battle, burped and thudded out of the bathroom, no doubt on the prowl for something to eat. The kittens skedaddled after him in delight. Whatever he got to eat, Baby shared with them calmly, if not happily.

  Finally at peace in my own bedroom suite, I put on some makeup. I looked in the mirror satisfied. I was ready to see Matt, who was the most gorgeous human being I had ever beheld. He strongly resembled Victor Mature, the matinee idol of the forties and fifties. Dark thick wavy hair, piercing blue eyes that accentuated a Roman patrician nose. Pronounced lips that gave way to a strong chin and jawbone. Wide shoulders tapered to a narrow waist and then jutted out to perfectly sculpted thighs and calves. Yes, indeedy, Matt had won the genetic jackpot.

  I ventured into the great room without Jake and Matt knowing, for they were deep in conversation. I couldn’t help but compare them. Jake looked like a scrappy mutt next to Matt’s cultured looks but that still had its attractions. Jake was not as tall but his body looked powerful with its sinewy muscles. His hair was also black but longer and thicker with a blue tint to it. While Matt’s features were refined, Jake’s were blunt and the skin seemed stretched tightly across his skull, but somehow the features worked together to make Jake look rough and sexy while Matt looked
beautiful, yet cold and unapproachable.

  Both men were hard workers. Both men were confident in their abilities, but that’s where it ended. Matt had had a classical education and spoke Latin with ease. We both loved art, vintage movies, and fine clothes. We paid homage to beauty.

  Jake could have cared less about art. His training had been in the Marines and medicine. He was practical and observant, making those hard decisions about life from which Matt and I shied away. Jake loved nature and understood how to keep balance with it, but as much as he loved life he could take it easily. For him death was a part of life.

  Matt was always brooding about the big questions of life. Jake already understood them.

  I cleared my throat, causing them to look up.

  Matt smiled when he saw me. He must have been pleased, as he liked me to dress up a little bit. It had given him great pleasure when he and Franklin, his boyfriend, had raided my closet while I was in Key West and burned all my stained, torn, and faded shirts and pants. Franklin even raided my underwear drawer and replaced my granny underwear and bras with cute little lacy things that were totally impractical to wear in my condition . . . or at my age.

  I walked over to a chair and slowly sat.

  “Where’s your cane, Josiah?” asked Matt.

  “I’m only using it when I go out. I feel confident walking in the house.”

  Matt looked pleased. “Well, that’s another improvement, isn’t it, Jake?”

  “I think she’s doing better and better each day. Pain seems to be under control,” he said.

  “For now,” I interjected.

  “For now,” Jake repeated. “She’s sleeping better and we’ve cut down on a lot of medication. She’s not a pill jockey anymore. Going in the right direction.” He smiled at me.

  I knew he was pleased at his part in my recovery as well. Indeed, my improved health was largely due to him.

  “What were you guys discussing?” I asked.

  Matt scratched his arm. “I went to the hospital after work. The good thing is that Linc is awake, but he refuses to say anything . . . even to his mother. And Shaneika’s having a time keeping the cops out of the room.”