Dead Head: A Dirty Business Mystery

by Rosemary Harris

  “Pete is outdoing himself,” I said, jumping up and holding the door for her. “Are they twice baked?”

  “Yeah, he’s getting good.” Babe bunny-dipped the tray onto the coffee table. “How are you girls doing?” she asked. “Playing nice?”

  I didn’t want Becka to regret having confided in me, so I kept mum. She did the same.

  “Right. Don’t leave any food in here, okay? The raccoons are killing me. I’m this close to getting a pellet gun. I’ve only got one key to the new lock. Just press the button to lock the door when you leave.

  Babe left us, and Becka and I picked at the biscotti and used the coffee mugs to keep our hands warm. She hadn’t given me much to go on, just one or two details about the new rider’s habits and schedule, but I planned to talk to O’Malley about what information could have been gleaned from Caroline’s driver’s license. Then I’d visit the stables to ask Hank Mossdale about his new customer.

  I went to Mossdale’s regularly during the gardening season for free horse manure. Hank might open up to me—maybe I’d even get to meet the man who had spoken to Caroline.

  “Was there anything or anyone else new in Caroline’s life that you know of?” I asked. “Had she signed up for any new classes?” I remembered her telling me about all the craft projects started, then tucked away on her garage.

  Nothing. Apart from the ticket and the brief encounter with the man at the stables, Caroline’s life had been stultifyingly routine, detailed and color-coded in erasable marker on the large whiteboard in her otherwise pristine kitchen. Soccer, dentist, when to pick up this one, when to drop off that one. As far as I knew, there’d been no new entries since she’d been arrested.

  When we finished we locked Babe’s office and brought the tray inside. I walked Becka to her car.

  “I’m sorry we never talked before,” she said, shaking my hand. “We will, I promise. And I can use some help with my garden next season if you have the time. I know how pleased Caroline is with your work. She was so excited about the venture you two were starting. I confess I was jealous. She might have asked any of us to go in with her, but she asked you. And Chiaramonte’s is a perfect location for a gift shop and small garden design center. I guess that won’t happen now.”

  “Grant said me someone else was interested in the property,” I said, “unless Roxy was just trying to push him into making an offer. I wouldn’t put it past her to do that.”

  “Oh no, it’s probably true,” Becka said. “I think you met him. Attractive man, around fifty years old? He spent a lot of time at the Paradise Diner the day you worked on the planters. He asked if we happened to know of a nursery for sale. Can you beat that for coincidence? I guess he’s the one.”

  Now I had two mysterious strangers on my suspect list, so that’s where I started looking for my tipster.

  Fifteen

  It was time to whip out the blow-dryer.

  There was an unfortunate truism that the better you looked and felt, the more people gave you what you wanted. Ordinarily I raged against this unfair fact of life and would have protested bitterly if anyone had suggested that I’d ever taken advantage of a situation with a flick of the hair or a well-timed laugh. But these were extraordinary times.

  I made a lunch date with Mike O’Malley. I rummaged through the bags of Lucy’s cast-off purchases and laid out my clothes more carefully than I had for the wedding we’d attended. Some of my makeup was dried out or clumpy, but there was enough of the old magic left in that neglected basket of tubes and pots to help me look smoky-eyed and full-lipped.

  My first stop was Mossdale Stables, located on one of Springfield’s many back roads. A series of swoops and rises past a small stream and over a stone bridge led me to Mossdale’s, where privileged kids worked on their seats and I occasionally went to collect horse manure to spread around flower beds.

  When they’ve finished sharing their favorite tips on how to keep the deer at bay (human hair, coyote urine, Irish Spring soap), gardeners frequently debated the value of different kinds of manures, bat guano being the most highly prized and most expensive—think how long it must take to get a full barrel. Gardeners discussing manure was as lively a conversation as die-hard baseball fans arguing about the designated hitter.

  Cow manure is right up there, but there aren’t too many farms left in Connecticut. Most of that product is imported, bagged, and shipped from who knows where. On the other hand, in Connecticut, we had no shortage of little girls bobbing up and down in those cute little riding outfits—the velvet hats preparing them for their velvet headbands. There were more than seven million horses in the United States, and I’d have bet a large number of them were here in the Nutmeg State.

  I liked The Black Stallion as much as anybody, but I’m not much of a rider. Like most things I did once or twice a year—skiing, riding a bike, baking bread—I was a perennial novice, never doing it often enough to get better. When I rode, the horse never had any doubt who was in charge, and it was never me. For me, it was all about the horse poop. Black gold, plentiful and free.

  Hank Mossdale was a quiet, capable guy in his forties whom I’d never seen in anything other than jeans and a chambray work shirt. He had thick brown hair, a year-round tan, and a body that looked rock hard from riding and manual labor.

  Hank had gotten into the business late and through an unlikely path. He wasn’t to the saddle born; he’d been an accountant. At some point in the late 1990s the firm he worked for was recommending livestock as a tax shelter. At the time, you could take a large depreciation on the animals for the first few years and thereby shelter income. And it worked until the IRS changed the rules.

  One day on a visit to a horse farm in upstate New York where he was breaking the bad news to the owners that their silent partners were soon to be even more silent, Hank had an epiphany. He realized that livestock was alive. Horses weren’t just items on a balance sheet, they were magnificent creatures, and he became obsessed with the idea of owning a stable.

  Most people—if they had the horse fantasy at all—saw themselves at the Kentucky Derby sipping mint juleps, wearing outlandish hats they’d never wear in real life, and paying experts to train their horses. Hank’s plan—he was after all an accountant—was more conservative. He would buy one horse and train it himself for the somewhat less elite world of harness racing. No juleps. Less cachet, but an easier field to enter. He’d use the money from purses to buy the stable.

  If he’d bothered to ask any professionals what they thought of his idea, they would have told him it was insane. It could take a hundred thousand dollars of care and training to win an eight-thousand-dollar purse. But he didn’t ask—he just went ahead and did it.

  His first wife, smelling the horse manure but not the potential roses, left him for a more reliable breadwinner, a cardiologist; but she should have had more faith, because eventually Hank made it work.

  He and his partner, Karen, a professional horse trainer, bought a horse that went on to win two of harness racing’s most prestigious races and, ultimately, more than one million dollars. By that time the ex-wife had unhappily relocated to St. Louis, where she was in the process of getting another divorce. Between the purses and the horse’s stud fees, five hundred dollars a, um, pop, they were able to buy a defunct riding academy on eight acres adjacent to the highway and state land, where riders where permitted to go. Hank and Karen were up to their elbows in horse manure for the foreseeable future.

  I pulled into the long dirt driveway and parked next to a black Audi. Hank was leaning on the paddock fence, watching a minibus disgorge a load of kids and their teachers, who tried to keep their changes from spreading out in all directions. He waved and walked over to me.

  “Karen will have her hands full with that lot. They always ask how fast the horses can run, as if that’s all there was to it. The urge for speed. I guess life’s a video game at that age.”

  Hank Mossdale was always friendly, but that day he seemed warmer than
usual. And he smiled a lot more. “You’re not dressed for mucking out.”

  So that was it. I’d thrown a barrel and a pitchfork into the back of my Jeep, but I wasn’t kidding anyone. (Note to self: leave the blow-dryer out.)

  “Just visiting, really. Got a few minutes?”

  “For the woman who hauls away horse apples for me? Of course.” We left the horse trainer to her charges.

  Owners who boarded their horses at Mossdale’s were considered members. I’d heard that was the business model that worked for Mossdale’s—not unlike membership in a county club. I guess that was the accountant in him. Horses were available for day use, but it was the members who kept his business afloat. Becka Reynolds had told me the man who’d spoken to Caroline generally rode at around 8 A.M.

  There was the tiniest bit of frost of the ground and it crunched under our feet as Hank and I strode over to the barn where his office was located. I waited for one of his workers to lead away the horse she was grooming before telling him why I’d come.

  “Only one new rider here on any kind of regular basis,” Hank said. “He’s in the locker room now, as a matter of fact. Said he had real estate business this morning, that’s why he’s riding later than usual. Name’s Ellis Damon.”

  According to Hank, Damon was new to the neighborhood. He didn’t ride his own horse. The mare he took out belonged to a older woman who’d stabled her horses here for twelve years, even before Mossdale owned the place. She often let Hank rent the horse to responsible, accomplished riders so the animal would get more exercise than she could give him herself.

  “Damon said he moved here for work a few weeks back, but he’s just been here three or four times. Doesn’t seem to be too entrenched in suburban life yet. Short guy. Pretty good rider.”

  “You think I could talk to him?”

  “I don’t see why not. Seems like a sociable guy. Want me to tell him you’re looking for him?”

  “You mind?”

  Hank shook his head and left for the men’s locker room. He tucked his shirt into his jeans almost as if he knew that I enjoyed watching the fabric stretch across the V of his back. Five minutes later, Hank came out with tiny, fussy-looking Ellis Damon. The latter was running his hands through his still wet hair, and adjusting his clerical collar.

  “She looked troubled. I told her I was the new pastor at the Church on Fallsview Road and that if she wanted to talk to someone I was available.” He sounded apologetic. “Perhaps I was too forward, trying too hard. I may have frightened her off. People have said that about me.”

  Or maybe the speeding ticket had shaken her up and Caroline Sturgis had started to feel exposed, the protective layers falling away. One of my mysterious strangers was in the clear. Whatever had troubled Caroline, it probably wasn’t a suburban priest, however clumsy and pushy. Maybe seeing a priest at just that moment made her want to confess. Who knows?

  I thanked Father Damon and walked him to his car, a white SUV crammed with his belongings.

  “I’m still something of a nomad,” he explained, “staying with one friend and then another until I find a permanent place.”

  “What are you looking for?” I asked. “I have some friends in the real estate business.”

  “Some place between five and ten acres that we can use as a retreat house. Nothing fancy, mind you. But preferably somewhere with a lot of greenery. Where people can come to reflect.”

  “Like a former nursery?”

  “Yes, do you know of one?”

  Sixteen

  Why all this sudden interest in Guido Chiaramonte’s old nursery? It had been virtually abandoned for years and now there were two interested parties? Right after Caroline Sturgis announces her intention to buy it in a crowded diner? Had the recession ended and Gretchen Kennedy and I hadn’t gotten the e-mail? Or was the two men’s interest in the property more complicated than a love of greenery and contemplative spaces?

  “Rhodes Realty”

  “It’s Paula Holliday. Any chance Roxy can see me today for a few minutes?”

  A few minutes was all Roxy Rhodes would spare unless she smelled the blood of a client with deep pockets. Maybe she had agreed to the meeting because of my relationship with the Sturgises. It wasn’t because I was a high roller.

  Rhodes Realty was a stone and clapboard building with a wraparound porch in a good neighborhood and would have commanded a high price itself if it had been for sale. Fat chance. Town lore had it Roxy acquired the house as part of the settlement from her first divorce decades ago and that had sparked her love of real estate. Three husbands later, she owned quite a lot of property in Springfield and even more in neighboring towns, as well as in Boca Raton and San Diego.

  Roxy’s waiting room was filled with postmodern furniture, meant to impress but not to be comfortable. The walls were covered with plaques honoring her for this or that real estate accomplishment and as many for service to the community. Her assistant had me cool my heels for about ten minutes, presumably so I could read them all, then she led me into a room four times the size of the first. It, too, had a collection of Danish modern furniture mixed with chrome and black leather accents. Roxy sat curled up on a red velvet loveseat behind a sleek glass desk that could have accommodated twelve for dinner. Her leopard print flats were tucked underneath.

  “Paula, what can I do for you?” She extended limp fingers in my direction but didn’t get up or lean forward, so I had to stretch my upper body over her desk to reach her powdery hand. “Has Grant Sturgis finally sent you to make an offer on the Chiaramonte place?”

  I hated it when people put words in my mouth.

  “Not exactly. But I am here to talk about the nursery.” I took that exchange to mean I could sit down, so I did, balancing my butt on one of the less comfortable spaghetti chairs and trying not to let my butt cheeks slip through. “I understand there’s been another offer on the place.”

  “You’re rather well-informed yourself.”

  “Just doing some reconnaissance for my friends. Is it true?”

  Roxy loved competition—it got her juices flowing. Yes, she had shown the property to another gentleman, an out-of-town buyer who had specifically asked if there was a nursery for sale.

  “Was he, by any chance, a priest?”

  “If this man was a priest, it would be an absolute tragedy. It was a week or so ago. Maybe two, my calendar is so full it’s hard to remember. He was looking for a business opportunity. He certainly wasn’t a clergyman, but I wouldn’t have guessed he’d be a gardener, either. Still, you never know about people.”

  There was an insult in there somewhere, but I chose to let it pass.

  “What did he look like?”

  Roxy ticked off the man’s assets as if she’d written them down in a ledger. “Elegant, well-spoken, beautifully dressed, but with that broken nose he looked like a gorgeous linebacker or one of those French boxers from the forties.”

  It sounded like the man at the diner who had charmed the Main Street Moms, not Ellis Damon.

  “He said he’d been in sales before, but the nursery property would be a departure for him. He was vague about how he was planning to use the space. I thought it might be as a banquet or meeting facility, not a nursery.”

  “Did you happen to mention there was another party interested in purchasing the property?” I asked.

  “Do I look stupid, Ms. Holliday? Of course I did. I may have even mentioned Caroline’s name and yours—at least, your company, Dirty Business. Very provocative, by the way. He was definitely considering the place,” she said, fingering a crystal paperweight. “I could see him working out something in his brain…something. I have a sixth sense for the serious buyers. It’s my famous mojo, you see.”

  To go with her famous ego. I shifted in my seat.

  “He didn’t ask about financing. Just said he’d be back. And he will.” She drove now the point with a well-manicured finger.

  “Can you tell me his name?” I asked.

>   “I don’t see why not. It was Brookfield, Kevin Brookfield. Easy to remember because of Brookfield Road.”

  “Was he the only man you showed the property to? Could someone else have taken out another client? A priest?”

  “No one else. It’s an exclusive and only I handle the AAA properties. What is this obsession with priests? Is Oxygen airing The Thorn Birds again?”

  I wasn’t obsessed with priests, and if I’d been Meggie Cleary I’d have figured out a way to make it work with the handsome sheep-shearer. But what were the odds that the two newcomers to Springfield would both claim to be interested in purchasing a nursery? Unless they thought that saying they were would somehow lead them to Caroline.

  I stood up and thanked Roxy for her help.

  “I don’t suppose Grant is in a position to do anything now. I can’t sit on the property for another twenty years.”

  Ouch. Did she really say that? Harsh, very harsh.

  “Don’t go. Who’s the other prospective buyer?”

  She was still mumbling when I left the outer office and headed for my next stop.

  Seventeen

  The central police station in Springfield was located downtown at a busy intersection in the shape of a Y. On one side stood a fleet of silver and blue patrol cars; on another was the visitors’ parking area. I couldn’t see what was in the back.

  It never occurred to me they’d have anything as mundane as visitors’ parking. I suppose I thought trips to the station house were made by people who were marched in, gnashing their teeth, the way Grant and I had been.

  I parked out front and was checking myself out in the rearview mirror when I heard a tap on the driver’s side window. I lowered the window.

  “You look good,” he said. “You’re early.”

  “If you’re here, that makes you early, too.”

  Three blocks away was Sabatini’s, the restaurant where Mike O’Malley and I had agreed to have lunch.

  “Should I leave the car here, or should we drive?”