Whisker of Evil

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Gag me.” Mrs. Murphy sat on the feathers for spite.

  37

  What do you make of it?” Cooper leaned toward Fair’s computer screen.

  Fair examined the latest data on reported rabies cases, nonhuman, in Virginia. “That we are, fortunately, in a valley of the rabies cycle.”

  Cynthia Cooper had brought over Jerome’s computer discs, his handwritten notes, plus a detailed U.S. Geographical Survey topographical map he’d had for the St. James area, since that’s where the rabies seemed to have broken out.

  It was seven-thirty in the evening, and long, late rays of sun were slanting over meadows outside.

  “Being at the bottom of the trough makes it unlikely for humans to be exposed?” Cooper asked.

  “In theory, yes, but we know there’s always a pool of the rabies virus in existence. It never goes away. It flares up, then subsides.”

  “Hmm, nothing new here. Go to his suspect file.”

  Fair clicked, bringing up Jerome’s icons, while at the bottom of the screen a bikini-clad woman walked across with a sign over her head reading “Suspects.”

  Laughing, Fair said, “Jerome was more of a computer nerd than I would have thought.”

  “I just saw the nerd.” Cooper felt guilty.

  “Here we are.” Fair opened the file and beheld photos of a raccoon, a skunk, a possum, a bat, a cow, and a horse. “And he had a sense of humor.”

  “I never was witness to it. When’s the last time you treated a horse for rabies?”

  “Never. I’ve given the shots. But there was a case years ago in Greene County.”

  She waved her hand. “I know. I was hoping we’d find something new.”

  “But your people have been over this.”

  “They aren’t veterinarians.”

  “What else is on here that you want me to examine?”

  “Jerome never used your services, did he?”

  “Cooper, Jerome didn’t know one end of a horse from the other.”

  “Well, look at this.” She reached across Fair’s broad chest, took the mouse, moved it, clicked, and brought up another file.

  “I’ll be.” Fair read out the list of Ziggy Flame’s progeny. “He traced all of Ziggy’s descendants. He must have had help from the Jockey Club.”

  “My question is, why would he be interested?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And it’s curious that neither Barry nor Sugar, although in the breeding business, had these records.”

  “Not so curious, Coop. A stallion like Ziggy would have had great influence had he lived long enough, but Ziggy only covered mares for three years. His percentage of stakes winners was, according to this”—Fair scrolled back to the beginning of Ziggy’s data on progeny—“seventeen percent. If he’d been in service longer he’d have gotten better and better mares. And seventeen percent is a terrific stat.”

  “What happened to the horses he sired that didn’t go to the track? Can we find them?”

  “Only if the owners registered them with the Jockey Club. If someone buys a horse that, for whatever reason, isn’t destined for flat racing or chasing, they often don’t register the foal.”

  “But for every foal registered, the Jockey Club will have records?”

  “You’d better believe it. The American records go back to 1873, and the English Jockey Club records go back to 1791.”

  “Forgive me if I ask stupid questions, but I really know nothing about how this works. Wouldn’t you register every thoroughbred born?”

  “No.” He leaned back in his office chair. “Registration is the responsibility of the owner. A breeder only goes through the process if they’re going to keep the foal or if, thinking the colt or filly will bring a bigger price as a two-year-old, they decide to hold it. Usually they don’t, for the simple reason that it’s expensive. Breeding is a numbers game. You’ve got to put a lot of foals on the ground and select. Most of the big breeding farms will stand four or more stallions. In the old days a farm could afford to stand ten or even twenty, but escalating taxes and costs have put a stop to that. One result is, fewer and fewer stallions get the good mares. People can’t afford to take a chance on an unproven stud. And given the laws of unintended consequences, we’re narrowing the gene pool, which I think is pretty awful.”

  Cooper ran her fingers through her blond hair. “I take a mare to a stallion. I register the offspring.”

  “Right.”

  “What about in-house breeding?”

  “Again, it depends on how deep someone’s pockets are. Most of the big farms will breed some of their own mares to some of their own stallions or to someone else’s stallions.” He swiveled to face Cooper. “You see, breeding is both a science and an art. On paper I can be a genius. What actually gets delivered usually proves that I am a mere mortal.”

  “But you think Ziggy was good?”

  His blue eyes lit up. “Coop, Ziggy was a star. He had bone, drive, brains. His stride was long and fluid. His heart girth was deep so he probably had a big heart, which means he could pump more blood throughout his body, oxygenate himself. It improves athletic performance. He had large nostrils and could suck that air right into his huge lungs. Ziggy had it all, except that he was a chestnut, a bright, gleaming red fellow.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Oh, some people are prejudiced against chestnuts. There’s an old saying among foxhunters that a red mare won’t hunt. I’ve never found it to be true. For instance, Federico Tesio, the great Italian master of matings, believed that grays were—well, mutants; they were weaker. The Aga Khan, another great breeder, thought the opposite. And he bred great grays.” Fair shrugged. “I think because there’s so much at stake, both money and emotion, people cling to their prejudices. A prejudice is kind of like a rabbit’s foot. You squeeze it real hard and hope you’ll have some luck.”

  “I never thought of it that way.” Cooper smiled.

  “Horsemen are the most opinionated lot. I’ve gone to vet school, specialized in reproductive medicine, have a pretty good track record, but I can go to a barn and have someone standing there without a high-school diploma swearing to me that Hershey bars will bring on his mare’s heat.” Fair held up his hand. “You can’t believe some of the stuff I see and hear. And fads. The horse world, like any other, goes through fad spasms. Remember the Horse Whisperer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Monty Roberts is an extraordinary man. He gives lectures to ordinary people. One lecture, they think they can do what he does. Not so much old horsemen—I don’t mean age, but people who grew up with horses—but the new people. One of these new guys, a rich lawyer from Washington, said to me, ‘I whisper. My horse doesn’t listen.’ Actually, I apologize, Coop, this is a lot more than you need to know, and I’m going off on a tangent.” He blushed.

  “Not at all. I see similar behavior but in different circumstances. Very often I’ll be questioning a witness to a crime or an accident and they will have a fact wrong—say, the color of the victim’s shirt. Even if you show them the shirt, they’ll cling to their perception. It’s a way the mind protects itself.”

  “So who can you rely on?”

  Cooper shrugged. “Who knows? But the more training you have in observation, the more reliable you are.”

  “Yes.” Fair turned his eyes back to the screen. “I wish I knew what Jerome was putting together. Do you know why he was out on Yellow Mountain Road at night?”

  “No.”

  “Big horse farms on Yellow Mountain Road.” Fair ran his fingers through his blond, close-cropped hair.

  “That’s the only thing I’ve come up with, but what would he see at night? Maybe he was driving around to order his thoughts. I do that.”

  “Maybe, but Jerome strikes me as having had a mission.”

  “The one tenuous link I have is Mary Pat’s notebook. Remember, we found it in Barry’s possessions?”

  “Right. Did Jerome read it? I know
you have it down at the office, but if he was as determined as I think, he would have wanted to read it.”

  “He did. That might be what set him on his search for Ziggy’s children and by now grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What happened to the thoroughbreds that didn’t race?” She paused a second. “By the by, I read Mary Pat’s notebook and didn’t understand a thing. It’s all Greek to me. Anyway, back to the thoroughbred that didn’t race.”

  “Like any other animal, some died young. Not many, but some might have had colic or a birth defect or run through a fence in a thunderstorm. Those that survived—the great number—usually wound up as show hunters or event horses or, if they were very lucky,” he smiled broadly, “foxhunters.”

  “Now, Fair, what’s so special about that?”

  “Their owners love them and they get to spend the fall out in the countryside with other horses. What a life!”

  “You know, it sounds pretty good to me.” She returned to the screen. “Keep going.”

  He scrolled down. “Ah.”

  On the screen were the names of other horses born the same year as Ziggy Flame. Those that had glorious careers on the racetrack appeared first, followed by those having glorious careers at stud. Sometimes the two overlapped, but often they did not. Ack Ack, Arts and Letters, Majestic Prince, and Shuree were all born the same year as Ziggy Flame: 1966.

  “What?”

  He pointed to the screen. “Ziggy’s sire was Tom Fool, an outstanding horse. You’ll find that blood in good pedigrees today.”

  “Two stood in Kentucky.”

  Fair added, “One in Maryland—a full brother, born a year later, 1967.” He rubbed his chin; a blond stubble rasped his palm. “Mary Pat bred that same mare back to Tom Fool the year after Ziggy. She didn’t yet know Ziggy would be so good, but it’s quite common for a breeder to send a mare back to the same stallion two years in a row.” He paused, thought long and hard, then shook his head. “Rabies and Ziggy Flame.”

  “It cost Jerome his life. He made the connection we’re missing.” Cooper, patient, knew she had to keep digging.

  “Harry called me late this afternoon. She, Alicia, and Aunt Tally were at St. James. It’s a long shot, but tomorrow let’s go back there.”

  Cooper smiled. “What are we looking for?”

  “Ziggy. An echo.”

  38

  Friday morning, nine-thirty, on June 25, Tazio Chappars opened the door of Carmen Gamble’s shop. She needed a quick trim, as she had to make a presentation to a client at one in the afternoon. Brinkley followed on her heels.

  Toby, the receptionist, looked up. “Oh, Tazio, Carmen called from the airport. She’s on her way to Bermuda. Her aunt is very sick.”

  “I didn’t know she had an aunt in Bermuda.”

  “Me, neither, but I know you need your haircut, and Cindy Green said she’d be glad to do it.”

  Cindy Green, twirling her scissors, called out, “Showtime!”

  Toby whispered, “Brinkley, I’ve got a cookie.”

  Brinkley’s ears perked up.

  Tazio was right. Carmen didn’t have an aunt in Bermuda.

  39

  Potlicker Creek flowed the four and a half miles from St. James to Harry’s farm. Along the way it widened, as other small creeks fed into it, until finally it spilled into the Mechums River.

  The waters, clear and cool, had been favored by the native population. Although the English had settled the eastern and central parts of Albemarle County before the Revolutionary War, only a handful ventured this far west, thanks to the vigilance and ferocity of the Monacans.

  Once Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the mood of the now-independent Americans swung upward and westward. Crushing war debts drove some far past the boundaries of Anglo civilization. Others knew fortunes would be made if they could only figure out how to get their produce and products to burgeoning cities and towns back east.

  Potlicker Creek, not being a mighty river, offered little in the way of transportation. But those who settled at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains discovered that the crystal creek water made soft whiskey or clear spirits, if that was your preference.

  A tangle of footpaths leading back to the stills tucked in the hollows crisscrossed the creek along its course. The revenue man had tried to tame the distillers. More than one never made it back home. Finally, the government ignored the distillers until the upheavals of the Great Depression.

  During that time, families along the Appalachian Chain were removed, bought out, or forced out to make way for the explosion of public works designed to revive the economy as well as to stave off revolt. Along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains the Skyline Drive was built, in use to this day, as a monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision and a sorrow to those families forced to leave home.

  The moonshine men became ever more adept at hiding or moving. Potlicker Creek would see a still erected for a season then moved deeper into a sheltering mountain crevice. As Albemarle County became more and more desirable, the distillers took their trade to Nelson County, meeting stout resistance from those Nelson County men already in the business.

  Harry, Fair, Alicia, and Aunt Tally, who was making a habit of visiting Alicia, stood at a narrow crossing of Potlicker Creek a mile behind the training track at St. James. The slick slide along the creek bank bore testimony to the work of muskrats, an animal as industrious as the beaver.

  Along the creek, mountain laurel and blackberries spilled over one another. A canopy of various oaks, hickories, maples, and black walnuts added to the cool stillness of the morning.

  Indomitable as she was, Aunt Tally couldn’t walk far on the uneven ground, slick with dew. Alicia, driving Big Mim’s second vehicle, a Land Cruiser—on loan so Alicia could see if she liked it—rolled along until the farm road played out near Potlicker Creek. The short walk to the creek took ten minutes, with Fair clearing away the low brush with a machete. Aunt Tally refused an arm under her elbow, gamely stepping forward with the help of her cane.

  “High winds.” Aunt Tally pointed to a tulip poplar broken in half across the creek. “Must have been that storm firing through here two weeks ago.”

  “When Mary Pat was alive she had the men keep the trails cleared. Remember, she had trails on both sides of the creek?” Alicia said.

  “Used to have wonderful hunts up here. Picnics, too. When I was a little girl, Sharkey Southwell kept a big still not four hundred yards east of here. Then he got religion and that was the end of the still. It was also the end of Sharkey’s easy money. He became a roofer after that,” Aunt Tally grumbled. “Sharkey added a few blackberries to his waters. In those days you could take your pick: blackberries, cherries, and, oh, the apple brandy. You never tasted anything so good in your life. Only one place makes apple brandy anymore. Down in Covesville. Legal, too. Never tastes as good when it’s legal.” She laughed, a dry laugh.

  “Alicia, aren’t there high pastures back there?” Fair inquired.

  “Yes, St. James goes to the top of the mountain. There are hundreds of acres of summer pastures, which we used for the cattle. Every May we’d drive them up, bringing them back in September. Royal Orchard still has high pastures.” Alicia mentioned a farm atop a spur of the Blue Ridge that ran east–west along Route 64. “Once Mary Pat was gone, I sold the cattle, and there wasn’t a reason to keep up the pastures. Also, the cost of labor kept going up.” She paused a moment. “I’m glad I kept St. James. You know, those three years I had with Mary Pat taught me to love central Virginia.”

  “Mary Pat’s up there, close by.” Mrs. Murphy remembered what the fox had told her.

  “Hush. Alicia was extra kind letting you tag along,” Harry admonished her.

  “Did the fox say the high meadows?” Tucker asked.

  “Yes. At least, that’s the story foxes have passed down. Her ring traveled a long way, didn’t it?” Mrs. Murphy looked up at Mary Pat’s ring on Harry’s finger.

  “If Mary Pat or what’s left
of her is up there under a cairn of stone, Ziggy’s up there, too,” Pewter said.

  “No.” Mrs. Murphy was putting the pieces of this strange puzzle together, but she was missing some large ones. “I think the killer, when all was safe, brought Ziggy down and got him out of here.”

  “He’d never stay up there by himself. He would jump those fences. Stallions need high, high fences, and those were cattle pastures,” Pewter sensibly replied.

  “Whoever killed Mary Pat knew horses. That’s why he kept Ziggy. He or she would have been smart enough to take a mare up there to keep him company if Ziggy had to stay up there for a while. I don’t know if this was a crime of passion or a crime of money, but whoever did it has kept it covered up for thirty years. Until now.” Mrs. Murphy wanted to get up to the high meadows. They’d be overgrown, but who knows what she might find? Her senses and sensibility were superior to the human variety.

  “How does Barry fit in?” Pewter, frustrated at not understanding, growled.

  “He rented the stables. He may have gone up to those meadows. It’d be a stiff hike but fun. Maybe it got him to thinking. But he did have Mary Pat’s breeding notes. He clearly was working toward something. And he was found two miles downstream. That part brings up questions.”

  “Mrs. Murphy, it would take a Hercules to carry a man like Barry two miles downstream.” Pewter was right.

  “Whoever killed him threw him in an SUV or the back of a truck and drove on the road. Regular road. Turned up an old farm road, came to the stream; there are old trails. He could have made it without too much effort. Then he picked up the body and walked downstream. He or she didn’t need to walk miles. It was a good plan. Few people come up to Potlicker Creek,” Tucker, voice low, said, her ears forward.

  “Why didn’t the sheriff figure that out?” Pewter played devil’s advocate.

  “Oh, I think he did, but too late. Too late,” Mrs. Murphy replied.

  “What do you mean?” Tucker walked to the edge of the creek. The bank was steep.

  “Rick was thorough. They combed the banks of this creek for miles in both directions, but by the time it occurred to him to come up the unused roads leading in, it was too late. And remember, whoever did this was smart enough not to pick a road that would come straight up to the creek. So walking along the creek wouldn’t get you any tire tracks. And it rained a few days after we found Barry. There’s luck involved in crime detection, not just science and observation. Rick has had bad luck. We’ve got to get up to those high meadows.” Mrs. Murphy, deep in thought, peered down at the muskrat slide.