Hot Blooded Murder

by Jacqueline D'Acre

  He was an arm’s length from me. Worriedly, he spat, hitched up his khaki pants, then shook his head. “You-all are one stubborn fee-male.”

  I smiled, no doubt a ghastly sight, and draped my arm back around his shoulders. The starch in his khaki shirt felt comforting. “Just steady me a bit, please, Teddy.”

  We hobbled back into the tack room. I resumed my seat on the sofa and made suggestions on how much to feed. Teddy got me a coffee, black, and then went to feed and water the horses, a task that could take well over half an hour. Domino came and leaned against my knees. “Teddy,” I called, “this dog needs water and feed too.”

  “Sure thing, Mz Bryn.”

  “I am working you to death, Teddy.”

  “S’okay,” he called back. “I jus’ want to take you to the hospital.”

  “I am feeling better every single second. Your coffee is delicious.” Thick and dark enough to pass for bayou water, it was working. Adrenaline began its progress through my arteries.

  Swaying like a junkie, I rose to my feet. Grasped the armrest for support. Breathed and took a step. I lurched over to the TV, held onto it, then using a progression of shelves and other objects, I made my way to the door behind the leathery-fragrant saddles to the welcome sign: ‘Restroom.’

  I took care of that necessity, then dabbed at the rivulets of dried blood on my forehead with a wet, crumpled hunk of brown paper towel. The blood had run forward, I supposed, when I fell. The actual bump was on the crown of my head. Just dabbing though, reignited pain. I left some pink spots in place and departed the washroom. The world was still blurred. I seized upon suitable handholds and made it out into the barn aisle, Domino following anxiously, whether concern for me or for some food, I wasn’t sure. Teddy was at the far end of the barn. I waved like a shipwreck survivor. “Hey. Look at me! Getting better, Teddy.”

  He stopped, arms loaded with hay, and stared. “You’re crazy.”

  “Probably. No worry though. I’ve had a concussion before. It’s just rest and don’t go to sleep. Then you’re fine. You just keep feeding those critters, Teddy.”

  He nodded at the dog. “What’s the dog’s name?”

  “Domino.”

  “Domino!” Then Teddy whistled, and the dog looked at me as if for permission. I said, “Go on now, Dom.” He jumped up and trotted to him.

  “Stay by me, boy, I’ll feed you right now,” said Teddy. This activity engaged Teddy even more, freeing me to go back to Marcie’s house and check around. Make sure I hadn’t missed anything yesterday. I had planned to scout the house last night.

  I let go of the barn wall and turning, began my long lurch toward the house. I made it past the pool without falling in, and inside the house, I took a serious look around the kitchen. It might be the actual murder scene–the deathblow delivered here?–or was Marcie knocked out here, then carried or dragged to her horse’s stall, and finished off there? Dragged–those brownish, long stains I’d noticed on the concrete barn aisle? The cups I’d seen yesterday still sat on the table. Every surface was dark with fingerprint powder. Why hadn’t Asprey taken the cups with him to his lab? Not to put MacWain down, but were they all so confident the horse was the killer they weren’t bothering with a thorough investigation?

  The heat in the house was already oppressive. Grabbing walls as I moved, I went through the house. Saw again room after room stripped of furnishings. At the end of a hallway, I came to the office I’d faxed from. There was the window which overlooked the drive, where Once’s near-death experience in the Sheriff’s horse trailer had occurred. Beyond, I saw the hugely pregnant mare. Her coat shone copper red in the sun. Her back was swayed, but still, I thought, she was a handsome old girl. Who would sit mare-watch for her when her time came? Being so old, she might need a hand.

  With the stallion falling in the trailer, and having just found Marcie’s body, had I been so stressed I’d missed things? And what about Asprey, head forensics man? He was usually meticulous, but maybe not if MacWain was whispering ‘Don’t bother,’ at him.

  Then I saw the blinking red light of the answer machine. A call had come in since I was in here yesterday morning, and most likely after Simon had left, or he surely would have listened to it. I hit Play. Despite the continuing buzz in my head, I listened intently. The beep, then, “Mz Goodall? Anton Delon. Cade asked me to manage the property forah him while you vacate. You have twenty-nine days. I just want to make sure you’ll be leavin’ in a timely fashion. You know the number.” Beep. Roll of tape. Another message. “Marcie. Cade. Good of you to sign the place back without any fussin’. A course ah hepped you–let you stay on all those months when you couldn’t pay your mortgage. Need to know you’re packin’ girl. Call my cell.” Beep. A third! I had gotten lucky! “Uh, hi Mz Goodall, Fil here. Sorry the deal fell through. But Tammi’s real innerested in buyin’ that Twice colt a’ yours. Give us a call. Might help you out financially. Even if we can’t get the place now.”

  So this ‘Fil’ must be Mr. Filmore Takeur! If he couldn’t buy the farm, and had annulled his Agreement to Purchase, how can he afford a horse? Marcie had sobbed to Arthur that Fil wasn’t buying because he’d lost his job. I wasn’t familiar with Morgan pricing, but I expected the son of a World Champion Park Horse, even a weanling, would be somewhere in the five figure range. Of course, a champion show horse never commanded near the exalted price of a promising racehorse. Besides, it’s helpful to have a country place when you have a horse, especially a young stallion.

  There were no more messages. Asprey had missed all this. I wanted to pop the lid and extract the tiny cassette from Marcie’s antiquated machine. Slide it into my pocket. But, I couldn’t make myself. I hit Play, found a pencil and a pad of Post-it notes and carefully wrote down names and phone numbers. I felt sorry Cade Pritchard hadn’t left a number. Caller I.D. indicated nothing. Feeling noble for not swiping the tape–faxing the paperwork and my B&E had been criminal enough–I staggered back down the hall, wondering if any of the three voices was the murderer. I paused at a staircase. Gazed up its dusty length with longing. The grand lives that once been lived here! I made my way into the other side of the house, a part I had not gotten to yesterday. I also reminded myself Teddy was in the barn, feeding the animals would not take forever, and he might become suspicious of someone like me wandering around in the house of a recent murder victim. I decided I would alert him to the messages. I moved up to closed ornate doors. I opened them and saw I was at the threshold of a ballroom. A shadow of the old South. Dusty chandeliers overhead. Gilded mirrors on formerly ivory walls, grayed with grime. The ancient pine floor had long lost its luster, but not the workout equipment arrayed before me. There’s a whole gym here, I thought. From a set of costly chrome dumbbells, to a huge weight machine. Expensive stuff. I’d thought the husband got all this in the divorce! Correction: Property Settlement.

  After a moment, I retraced my steps and explored the rest of the main floor of the house. Nothing else remarkable. I returned to the kitchen, then went out on the gracious verandah. The world still had a foggy look to it, but I was certain I’d be okay in a few hours. I looked out over the quiet farm. The heat was like a low hum emanating from the soil, the structures, the sky. The graying fences, the swaying grasses, even the distant grazing mare, looked forlorn. The pool in the backyard was developing verdigris from algae, the place of Aimée’s demise. Was the place hexed? I shivered in the stagnant heat. Then holding tight to the rail, I eased down the steps. I hoped Teddy would drive me to my hidden car without too much comment.

  Chapter Eleven

  May 22, 7:18 AM

  Loud knocking. Inside a musty motel room, an air conditioner roared, but didn’t block the sound of the pounding. Cade Pritchard lifted his head from a sweat-soaked pillow. He was wound up in bedcovers in the room, which remained humid despite the air conditioning.

  “What the fu–?” He threw off the covers–a thin, overwashed sheet, a faded navy comforter. His potbelly was a hard mou
nd beneath his grayed muscle shirt. His scrawny arms and hands, thick with black hairs, came to rest upon the mound. The knocking continued.

  Cade began to feel uneasy. No maid would pound this hard.

  He yelled, “Do not disturb, hear?”

  “Open the door before I kick it down,” came the answer. It wasn’t the maid. Slowly he got up, took khaki pants from a chair, pulled them on. “I’m comin’.”

  Two sharp bangs. “Make it before Mardi Gras!” came the voice.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Cade muttered, too low for the knocker to hear. He pulled on a short-sleeved madras shirt, buttoned it, tucked it into his pants, and then fastened his belt. Bang! Bang! He shoved his wallet into his pants pocket. With enormous reluctance, he walked to the door, undid the chain and opened it. He was rushed, as he expected, backwards into the room. The rusher was a man shorter than himself. A man almost wider than his height in muscle mass. A huge hand held the madras shirtfront, propelled Cade past the bed and then flung him onto the floor. Going down, Cade whacked his head on the edge of the vanity counter. “Je-sus!” he yelled. “What yew want, Bean?”

  Bean stepped back and glanced around the cheap motel room. “Mr. Pritchard. You know what you owe, sir. You missed two payments. My superior is not pleased.”

  Cade whined. He started to rise but Bean placed a foot, clad in fine English leather, upon Cade’s chest and exerted pressure. Cade oofed.

  “I’ll put this foot right through your ribcage, Mr. Pritchard, if you do not come up with that four grand.”

  “I’ll have it–” press, press, “Oof. Have it–Friday.” Greater pressure. He choked, and moved his hairy arms toward the foot but he dared not touch it. Bean, he knew, was being gentle.

  Bean smirked. The door stood open and hot outside air invaded the man-smelly room. “Stinks in here, Cade.” He laughed. “How the mighty have fallen!” Bean disregarded the tiny beads of sweat that had gathered on his brow ridges and twinkled on his huge bald head.

  “How do we know you will have it by Friday, Mr. Pritchard?”

  “S’when–” gasp, “paperwork is goin’ through.” Bean’s foot pumped Cade Pritchard’s chest. Cade continued.

  “That’s when–lawyer’s gonna–have the–check ready.”

  “What check is that, sir?”

  “Sold the place. Uh. Oof.”

  “You sold that farm of yours?” Bean gave Cade’s chest one more thrust then removed his foot. Cade nodded a yes up at him. Bean offered a hand to Cade. Cade looked at it for a moment then took it. Bean hauled him to his feet and when Cade was nearly upright, he deftly inserted a hard punch into the inverted V of his ribs, smack into the solar plexus. Cade doubled up but didn’t go back down. Instead he leaned against the counter and murmured, chant-like, numerous colorful words.

  Bean stepped back. “I feel bad that you haven’t bled a little, Mr. Pritchard.”

  Cade raised an arm. “No. No. That ain’t necessary, Bean. Friday. Three o’clock. I’ll deliver it.”

  “Sir, I will look for you in Pirate’s Alley. Better be there with the cash. I wouldn’t mind making you bleed, you know. Maybe still should.”

  “No! No! I’ll be there.”

  Bean inhaled through his fleshy nostrils, met Cade’s eyes, then turned and strode from the room, his huge muscled legs chafing in the elegant gabardine slacks he wore.

  Chapter Twelve

  May 22, 8:06 AM

  My concussion hadn’t subsided, but I’d managed to complete my reconnoiter of Marcie’s house. I got halfway down the verandah steps and saw a vehicle approaching. Oh damn! Caught! Sheriff’s car. No–deputy. The car stopped and Tuan got out. I felt relief it wasn’t MacWain. Still. Tuan was nothing like Teddy. He was The Law. Over-cheery, I hailed him.

  Tuan swung from the car and flashed a big smile. “Contaminating a murder scene, Bryn?” he called. I flushed with guilt.

  But we laughed, me thinking, if you only knew.

  Tuan approached and stopped at the base of the stairs. Standing on the second from the bottom step, I was eye-to-eye with him.

  “You’ve got a pink forehead,” he said.

  “Does it clash with my hair?”

  “Yep. Looks like blood. How’d you get that, Bryn?”

  “I stopped by last night to check a few things out, worried about the mares.” I paused to see if he’d whip out handcuffs and slap them on me, but he just held my eyes. “Someone knocked me out.” I touched the crown of my head. “Got a bump on my noggin. Teddy got here this morning and made me a coffee and I’m still a bit rocky but mending.”

  Tuan stared at me, quite serious. “You don’t look so good. You are dead-white and pink and red. Maybe we better get you over to emergency.”

  “Teddy already offered. It’s just a mild concussion. Had one before. No problem. In a minute, I’ll go home and get under some ice. But now that you’re here–”

  “I dropped by to see how Teddy’s making out.”

  “He’s in the barn right now, feeding.”

  Tuan stepped aside to let me pass and we strolled, me lurching a bit, into the barn. The horses neighed as one.

  “Smells like someone needs to clean these stalls,” he said. No one was volunteering. The air was fetid. “Let’s at least turn on these fans.” Tuan looked around and found a switch. He threw it and eight ceiling fans roared into action, churning up the thick humid air as if it were heavy cream, but regurgitating the odors of rotted straw, manure, and urine.

  “Phew. Almost makes it worse,” I said. “Is Teddy going to clean the stalls?” I was holding onto a wall to stay upright.

  “Doubt it,” shrugged Tuan, “it’s plenty he feeds.”

  “Why not turn the horses outside then? It’s clean out there. The pastures have water to them. The mares need to graze.”

  “We can do that?”

  “Of course! Unless there’s some legal reason not to.”

  “Not now. Simon’s been all over the place. Maybe when Teddy gets finished….”

  “Why wait?” I plucked a halter from a stall front, unlatched a door, and slid it open. “You open the big gate for me, I’ll bring a horse.”

  “You sure?”

  “If I fall over you’re big enough to pick me up.”

  The stalled horse eagerly stuck its head into the halter. I used the mare for support and followed Tuan down the barn aisle. She strolled alongside me, shoulder at my shoulder. I draped my arm over her withers. Her foal capered behind. I wavered over the gravel drive and turned left down a grass alley that led to a big main pasture at the rear. I had to pause and hang onto a fence rail for a moment. I stood there, breathed and let the world re-tilt to its correct axis. The mare waited patiently and the foal moved jauntily before me. Tuan was just ahead. Past the barn, the air smelled of sweet grasses. The alley had small turnout paddocks on each side, which jutted to the width of the property borderlines. The turnouts to my right were foreshortened to allow for the bite of land the Word of God Church cemetery took. One of them had been my pathway last night. At the end of the alley was a twenty-some acre pasture and this was the obvious place for Marcie to turn out her broodmares. I admired the planning that had gone into the design. These small turnouts would be great for yearlings and weanlings. I let go of the fence, leaned on the mare and resumed my blurry-eyed walk down the aisle.

  Tuan held the end-gate wide open. I undid the halter and let the mare loose. She took off into the field and the foal raced after her whinnying. We smiled to see the baby caper.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Bet you all these mares will herd down here by themselves. We just have to keep this gate open and one of us stand by the entrance to shoo them around the corner,” I said.

  Tuan looked skeptical.

  “I know something about horses, Tuan.”

  “Okay. If you say–” He was looking at my pink forehead. Probably thought I’d also suffered some brain damage. More brain damage.

  “Leave the big ga
te open. That mare isn’t going anywhere. You get the stall doors. I’ll shoo them around the corner.”

  I could stand with my arms outstretched for a few moments, I thought, before I got my head iced. Those poor horses in those awful stalls.

  Back at the barn, as instructed, Tuan moved down the aisle, sliding doors open. Teddy was in the loft getting more hay.

  I stationed myself outside the barn door. The mares stepped from their stalls, hesitant at first, but when a lead mare saw daylight and green grass, she broke into a trot and by the time the group exited, they were a thundering herd. I yelled things like Yee-haw and waved my arms. I was careful to keep my legs planted wide apart to prevent myself from falling over. Tuan watched me in alarm. The horses galloped past. One kick by an excited foal and my head could split like a honeydew melon. My flailing arms prevented that.

  I yelled to Tuan. “Hurry! Get after them. Close that gate! And check their water trough. See if it’s full.” He jogged after the herd to the gate.

  All the horses made it to the pasture. After a few frisky bucks, heads dropped, they settled into the serious business of eating.

  Tuan’s sharply pressed khaki shirt was sweated through in a bib shape, but he was grinning as he trudged back to me. “Never realized horses could be so stimulating. And such good exercise.”

  “Yep. When I had my breeding farm, I was rock-hard, and no health clubs either.” I turned into the hot dimness of the barn. Teddy was dragging the hose around filling water buckets. Couldn’t hurt. The horses would have to come back in sometime.

  “I may have found the murder weapon last night, Tuan. I was only over here to check if the horses were okay. You know some of these mares are pregnant and they need watching?” I didn’t mention it was at two a.m.

  Tuan nodded. He let out a little sigh over my behavior.

  We went into the tack room, me informing him as we moved along, “It was so damn hot I came in here to turn on the air conditioning. While I was here, I thought I’d just look at Once’s championship horseshoes. I knew Marcie kept all of the shoes Once wore when he won his big championships. I opened this chest-type coffee table.” Now we stood in the room, beside the sofa. I flopped back down into it. I was developing a real fondness for its leathery embrace. Now its coolness was welcome. I lifted the lid to show Tuan inside. There lay two blue-ribboned incomplete sets of the champion horseshoes, three shoes in each and each still labeled: 1998 and 1999. The tag for 2000 lay crumpled on the floor of the chest.