Archer had company when we pulled up to his house. A car sat in the drive, a racy little Porsche convertible. For a brief moment I was jealous, but then I considered the repair bills on such a vehicle and was grateful for my Mustang. I had barely planted my feet on his front walk when I heard shouting from inside.
“It doesn’t belong to you, and that’s final.” A tall woman with red hair a darker shade than Madeleine’s slammed open the front door. Under other circumstances, I might have found her features beautiful, but at the moment they were ugly, distorted by anger. Archer stood in the hallway behind her, reaching out in a gesture of supplication.
“It was Daddy’s, and now it’s mine,” the woman hissed.
She rushed down the steps and pushed past me, throwing herself into the driver’s seat and laying rubber as she sped out of the drive.
“That’s no way to treat a classy car like that,” I said to Archer. He frowned when he saw me, but my remark must have caught him off guard because the scowl was replaced by a grin and then by laughter.
“Ms. Appel, to what do I owe this visit?” His laughter stopped when he caught sight of Nappi and Grandy getting out of the car behind me.
I introduced them, and since I wasn’t certain his good will toward me would hold up for long, I decided to get right to the point.
“How keen were you to get that contract for the mud bog event?”
He shrugged. “Not very. Not upset that Jenny got it, so if you’re asking if I killed her, the answer is why would I?” He gestured toward the large herd of cattle grazing on his property.
“So why even look into the possibility?”
“It was my wife’s idea. I thought it was an unnecessary intrusion into the way we were using the property, but she insisted we find some way to utilize the swampy area near Jenny’s land. Audra—that’s my wife—doesn’t like to see potential go untapped.”
I’d been thinking Jenny was murdered by a man, but could a woman have done her in? Decapitated her? Audra was as tall as Jenny.
Archer wrinkled his brow in disbelief. “If you’re thinking Audra might have killed Jenny, you’re off the mark. Audra lost interest in the mud bog idea, like she loses interest in a lot of things.”
Like she lost interest in you?
“I told your detective friend all this when she questioned me.” There was that defensive edge to his voice again.
“This is a big ranch, Mr. Archer. You must need a lot of hands to work it,” said Nappi, his gaze taking in the cattle as well as the house and the outbuildings.
Archer chuckled. “At one time I employed several men, but now I work it alone. If I need help, I hire temporary. I’ve got time on my hands now that my wife—actually my about-to-be-ex-wife—lives in Boca Raton.” He hesitated, then added by way of explanation, “She used to keep me busy with charity and volunteer events. Now I spend my time with the cattle. I find them better company.” Although he wore a grin, this last sentence sounded bitter.
“You must have had to sell off some of your cow ponies since you don’t need all of them now,” observed Nappi.
“Yep, I did. I still have three good little cracker horses left. You know about cracker horses? Their bloodlines go back to the horses the Spanish conquistadors brought over here. You interested? One of them is about to foal.”
“Could be,” said Nappi.
“Come this way, and I’ll let you see. Ladies.” He gestured us ahead of him toward one of the barns.
He flipped on the barn light and walked down toward the end stall. A chestnut mare raised her head at our approach.
“Sadie is her name.”
The horse blew gently as Archer reached out and stroked her nose. Her sides bulged out, showing her pregnancy. I thought of Madeleine and worried that she was too little to manage a pregnancy.
“This gelding might interest you, Mr. Napolitani. He’s a clever little cow pony, but he rides like a dream. He just needs a firm hand. He’s probably not a good horse for a woman, unless she can command him. He’s picky about who holds the reins. He can read hesitancy and will give you a ride you’ll never forget if you let him.”
The gelding’s ears went back. I knew just enough about horses to keep my hands away from his teeth.
“Maybe you could handle him, Ms. Appel. I hear you’re not one to back down from a challenge.”
I shook my head. “Horses and me, we’re not a good match. One did save my life once, however, so I have a soft spot in my heart for her.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there,” Archer said.
Before I could reply, Grandy said, “I might try a ride on this fella sometime.” We hadn’t noticed her approach the gelding and begin stroking his nose and neck. The horse seemed to like it.
“You, Grandy?” I laughed.
“I rode almost every day when I was in Connecticut. Don’t you remember, Eve?”
I had forgotten that when I was growing up in Connecticut Grandy was friends with a woman and her husband who ran a riding stable. Grandy had tried to get me interested, but my tastes ran more to cheerleading, basketball, and hanging with Madeleine, and as I grew into my teen and young adult years, shopping and fashion. I knew Grandy spent time at the stables, but I didn’t consider that she might have been doing more than chatting with her friends.
“I even tried a little jumping,” she said. “I’m too plump for that now, but I’d love to come out and ride this guy sometime, maybe consider buying him if he’s for sale.”
This was too much for me to wrap my mind around. The image of Nappi, fedora and silk suit, mounted on a cow pony accompanied by my chubby grandmother, white curls blowing in the breeze as they wrangled a herd of cattle, was more than I could handle.
“What would Max think? Where would you keep a horse on your boat?” I asked.
“We’re not going to run that boat forever, Eve,” Grandy replied. “We’d like to buy some land, maybe around here where you are. Get a few horses.”
Now my mind’s eye added Grandy’s husband Max to the picture: a man who looked like Ernest Hemingway—white beard and stocky build—sitting in the saddle with his short, sunburned legs wrapped around his mount. I shook my head.
“It looks like you’d better learn to get along with horses, Ms. Appel, or your friends and relatives will leave you in the dust, so to speak.” Archer smiled at me. I was beginning to like him a bit more than I had the evening at the Biscuit he told me to mind my own business.
Grandy and Archer talked a bit more about horses. Nappi said he was interested in the other horse in the barn, another gelding.
“Give me a call and you can come out and ride,” said Archer.
Back at my car, Archer shook hands goodbye with me and said, “I apologize for my rudeness before. Perhaps we could start over.”
“That would be nice,” I said.
“I’ll give you a call. We could have coffee.”
Driving away from Archer’s ranch, I mulled over the conversation. I was beginning to change my mind about Clay Archer as a possible murder suspect when Nappi said, “There’s something odd about that situation. It’s as if he’s selling off his ranch.”
“He’s downsizing now that he has time on his hands,” I said.
“Is he? Maybe,” Nappi replied.
I looked over at him, but he said nothing else.
“Where to now?” asked Grandy.
“Let’s stop at Jay Cassidy’s place. He’s the second name on the mud bog list I recognized. So while we’re examining possible suspects—” I began, but was interrupted by Grandy.
“And setting up coffee dates with admirers ….”
“And gathering information pertinent to this case,” I continued, ignoring her. “And who acted interested in buying a horse, anyway? You two.”
“We are interested in buying horses. Those were wonderful animals,” Grandy and Nappi said in unison.
I snorted in derision. “Right. Now let’s see what Jay has to say about mud
bog racing. And try to keep your feigned interest in horses under control ’cuz he’s got lots of them.”
As we headed toward Jay’s place, I realized that the most direct route was to skirt the western edge of Sabal Bay.
“Tom Riley, the other rancher interested in the bog-racing event, has his small ranch near here. Let’s pay him a quick visit. It’s on our way to Jay’s.”
I saw the driveway to the ranch on my right, up ahead, but I also spied something else—a For Sale sign at the turn-off to the Riley ranch. As I pulled off into the drive, my lights caught the “sold” sticker pasted across the sign. The gate across the drive was closed, and no lights shone from the house.
“It looks like Mr. Riley isn’t in residence any longer,” Nappi said.
“This is a dead end. We’ll ask Jay about Riley and get the story.” I backed into the road and turned around.
Jay’s house stood back from the road, as did most of the ranch houses in this area, but the drive leading to Jay’s place was more impressive than most around here. Live oaks lined both sides, and the large single-story ranch house perched on a small rise, unusual for the area. The change in elevation was surely not natural, but it directed the eye to where the architect wanted it to go—the wide veranda running the length of the front. I’d been here several times before, but the place still impressed me with its simple, understated classiness. Like Clay Archer, Jay once had a wife who left him. I wondered what it was about ranch life, ideal on the face of it, that resulted in so many marital split-ups. Or was my sample somehow skewed?
Jay’s black SUV was parked in front of the house. As we drove up, the entryway light came on, and Jay emerged from the door. The light silhouetted his lean figure and created russet highlights in his brown hair.
I waved at him as we got out of the car. He didn’t acknowledge my greeting. Not good. Was Jay still angry at me for the stand I took on mud bog racing?
“I see you brought reinforcements,” he said, stepping off the porch step and confronting us before we got to the house. “Knowing you, I assume you’re doing your own investigation into Jenny’s murder.”
Jay knew my snoopy nature well. He and his foreman Antoine had helped me when I was searching for the person who killed a West Palm matron found on the floor in one of the dressing rooms in our consignment shop.
“I’m trying to help out a friend of mine who’s in jail for a crime he didn’t commit,” I said.
“That Miccosukee, Mr. Egret,” Jay said.
“You’re not one of those folks who would make him guilty because of his race, are you?”
I watched his face darken in the porch light. “You know me better than that, Eve.”
“Do I? I thought you were my friend, regardless of my political views.”
“And I thought you knew better than to step on my toes.”
Grandy moved in front of me. “Your toes? No one stepped on your toes, Mr. Cassidy. Eve was executing her right of public assembly.”
Jan might have been willing to be nasty with me, but he wasn’t used to confronting a woman who looked as if her picture belonged on a cake-mix box.
He chose to ignore her and addressed his words to me. “I don’t like your views, Eve. You’re a Yankee who’s interfering with the peoples’ right to use their land in any way they want.”
“You need to get over thinking of me as an outsider. I may have been at one time, but now I’m as much a part of this community as you are.”
“It was Jenny’s right to set up mud bog races on her private property. Listen, Eve, the people around here love the life they have.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“You love this land. I get that. And that’s why I’m trying to make certain this area stays the way it is, untouched by overzealous developers or companies trying to make money at the cost of wildlife. I get that people around here need money, too. There has to be a middle ground. I’d like to help look for that place. But for now, I’m concerned about my friend, Mr. Egret.”
Jay dropped his arms and toed the dirt with his boot. “Okay, let’s talk. About everything.” He gestured for us to come into the house.
Jay acted almost like his old self—friendly, flirtatious, and welcoming. He offered Nappi and me Scotch and Grandy her favorite wine, a California merlot. We sat in his living room with Nappi and Grandy on his leather sectional, Jay in a distressed-leather recliner while I sunk onto the floor at Grandy’s feet.
He took a sip from his Scotch while we waited for him to speak. With Archer, I had gotten right to it, but Jay seemed to be tossing something around in his mind, and I wanted him to work it through before he spoke. Besides, it was great Scotch, and I figured I could sit here sipping it all night if that was what it took to get him talking.
He set his glass on the table beside his chair, a signal he was finally ready. “I talked to Frida.”
I nodded.
“I left out a few things. It’s about Jenny and me.”
Chapter 16
“I assume you got my name through some ingenious deception you played on the bogger guy in West Palm. I won’t ask for the details,” Jay said.
I nodded, eager for him to get on with his story.
“I don’t know what he told you about the selection process, but you have to apply. You submit a bid, which includes the money you’re willing to put up front for the event and the amenities you can provide. You also describe your property with respect to its boggy and swampy terrain, parking facilities, electrical and water hook-up. Some venues can offer camping. The company comes out for an inspection of the property and examines your paperwork to make certain everything is in line. While you can make a lot of money doing one of these events, the bogger company takes a percentage of the fees you charge, and you have to provide the land as well as good-faith money up front in case something happens at the event.”
“You mean something like a murder?” I said.
Jay gave me a disdainful look. “I mean something like you fail to provide the services you contracted for. The folks in West Palm aren’t willing to lose their shirts. They want a guaranteed return on their investment.”
“Like what? It sounds like you do all the work.”
“They pull permits and get the necessary insurance. They also provide the machinery to sculpt the area into a challenging bog-racing venue.”
“But Jenny didn’t have any money. How was she going to put up the cash needed?”
“That’s where I came in. I liked Jenny. We helped each other out at times. I know she got a bad deal with her husband’s death. That property he bought and bankrupted their savings with was garbage land. Mostly swampy. No pasture for grazing cattle and too expensive to fill areas for sod farming.” Jay took another sip of his Scotch.
“I submitted my papers, but I had reservations about using the property for the event. Once I gave it further consideration, it seemed foolish to destroy wildlife habitat that way when I had the means to just let it sit and keep it wild. I was about to withdraw my bid when Jenny approached me. We’d talked about doing a mud bog event, so she knew of my interest. I told her I’d submitted my application but was thinking of withdrawing it. She was desperate for money, and she knew I wasn’t, so she asked me what my application looked like. She wanted to put in a lower bid, ensuring she’d get the nod from the bogger company.”
“Why didn’t you just withdraw your bid once you let her know what it was?” Nappi asked.
“We were worried the bogger company would go looking for other bidders. We knew there were folks around here who were interested but hadn’t submitted papers. If they had, Jenny wouldn’t know what their bids were. We talked, and I said I’d go along with her plan. I also promised to loan her the upfront money.”
“That’s very generous of you, and probably illegal, too,” said Nappi.
“I know, but as I said, I felt sorry for Jenny.”
Nappi looked as if he didn’t quite believe Jay’s story.
“Okay, okay. For my generosity, Jenny promised me a cut.” He set his glass down on the table with a thud. “It was stupid, I know. And I really had no intention of taking her money, other than to recover what I loaned her.”
“But what about the other people interested in doing the event? They could have made their bids sweeter than either yours or Jenny’s.” Suddenly I saw clearly what Jenny had in mind. “She must have gone to the others interested and tried to make the same deal with them. And you’d never know. If she did approach anyone she knew was interested in the event, she’d know the money amount and other features of a proposal.”
“I don’t think so. Tom Riley had already put up his property for sale. He just hadn’t let the mudder company know.”
“What about Clay Archer?” asked Nappi.
Jay shrugged. “He’s a good businessman. He would have put together a package to make money. Jenny’s would have been absurdly low, but knowing what I was willing to provide for the event, she would have made a bid too sweet to reject. The woman was desperate for money. If she hadn’t done something quick, she wouldn’t have been able to pay the taxes on her crummy land this year or send her daughter to school.”
Grandy said, “If you were really so concerned, why didn’t you just loan her some money? You certainly appear to have enough.” She waved her arm at the room and furnishings. “Instead you tried to make money off the poor woman by taking a share of her profits.”
Yep. I came by my in-your-face stance honestly. Grandy was telling it like it is.
“I wouldn’t have taken any of the money she got—I told you.” Jay sounded defensive.
“But she didn’t know that, did she? And she never found out how generous you intended to be,” Grandy added.
Mud Bog Murder Page 16
