Live and Let Growl

by Laurien Berenson

  “Have you met Erin Sayre?” he asked.

  “We met Erin last week,” I told him. “Aunt Peg has a broodmare at Six Oaks Farm and Erin gave us a wonderful tour.” I turned to Erin and asked, “Were you and Miss Ellie good friends?”

  “I’ve known Miss Ellie since I was a little girl,” she replied. “I’m not sure if we were friends exactly as she was more my mother’s generation than mine, but Miss Ellie always had my utmost respect. She was good at educating people. And she never let me forget, even for a minute, that when it came to horses I still had a lot to learn.”

  “She never let any of us forget that,” Gates said with a smile. “Mother was a tough taskmaster. She was raised with a strong belief in the value of good breeding and high standards and she applied those principles to all of us: horses, dogs, and people alike. Anyone who dared to step out of line around her would immediately discover their mistake. Mother had no qualms about putting people in their place no matter who they were.”

  It was too bad Miss Ellie wasn’t on hand to have a word with her cousin Sheldon, I thought. Maybe she could slap some better manners into him.

  “Excuse me. I hope I’m not interrupting?”

  The older man who’d approached us looked vaguely familiar. Gates turned to see who it was and then stepped to one side creating an opening for him to join our circle. The newcomer was tall and well dressed. He had a decisive manner and sharp gray eyes that flickered from face to face as he looked around the group.

  Our gazes met briefly. Abruptly I remembered where I’d seen him before. He was the client Aunt Peg and I had seen at the training center the previous week. He and Billy Gates had been evaluating two-year-old colts.

  “You’re not interrupting, Mr. Nash. Please join us. And thank you for coming today.” Gates quickly introduced Daniel Nash around.

  When that was done, Nash turned back to Miss Ellie’s son. “Gates, I’m so very sorry for your loss. Billy introduced me to your mother last week. She seemed like a wonderful woman. Even though I didn’t know her long, I felt it was only right to come and offer my most sincere condolences.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Gates replied. “This is a tough day for everyone in the family, but you can rest assured that Billy is nevertheless keeping your interests at the forefront of his thoughts.”

  “I’m not worried about that in the slightest,” Daniel Nash replied. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk about horses on another day.” He paused to let his gaze travel around the vast hall. “I’m from Boston myself. I’m afraid we Puritans don’t put on this much of a show. I was told that your family held a position of some eminence in Kentucky, but I never expected to see such a crush of people here.”

  I had to agree. This Southern funeral was very different than I was used to as well. It appeared to me that there were as many people in the room who had attended the event to be seen as there were who’d come to mourn the family’s loss.

  “Funny thing is,” Nash continued, “I’ve been in Kentucky more than a week and I don’t think I’ve met more than three people all together before today.”

  I saw Gates grimace slightly. “That’s the way cousin Billy does things. He likes to play his hand close to his vest. Billy never introduces his clients around. He prefers to keep them all to himself.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Billy just figures that there’s no point in letting someone else come along and horn in on a contact he’s already developed.”

  I wondered if that was business as usual for the horse industry. Based on my introduction to Sheldon and how quick he’d been to offer me other options for Lucky Luna—even as he presided over his cousin’s funeral—it sounded as though Billy was right to be cautious.

  “You mean he’s afraid that someone else might steal away his clients?” Aunt Peg sounded affronted by the very idea.

  “It happens all the time,” said Erin. “People change farms, they change trainers, they change bloodstock agents. Everybody’s always looking for a better deal, or an inside tip, or a way to get a leg up on the next guy. There are aspects of this industry that can be pretty cutthroat.”

  “You can tell your cousin that he needn’t have any worries on that score,” Nash said to Gates. “Billy and I are getting along splendidly and I’m sure his advice will prove invaluable, both during the sales process and afterward. This is my first foray into Thoroughbreds so I did my homework ahead of time. I wanted to make sure that I started out right, with someone whose opinion I could trust.”

  “That’s very wise of you, sir,” said Gates. “The horse industry has a well-deserved reputation for separating newcomers from their money. So it’s good that you’re taking things slowly and starting out with the best connections you can get.”

  Nash accepted the compliment with a satisfied nod. “Gates, I know this is a busy day for you so I won’t take up any more of your time. Ladies? It was a pleasure making your acquaintance. I hope we have the opportunity to meet again under more agreeable circumstances.”

  As Daniel Nash walked away, Erin’s gaze followed him. She mumbled something under her breath. I was standing right next to her and I barely caught the words, so I was pretty sure that no one else heard.

  “That poor man,” she said.

  Chapter 17

  “Gates, I think your cousin is looking for you,” said Aunt Peg.

  She gestured toward the arched doorway where Sheldon stood with his head lifted so that he could see over the crowd as he scanned the room. When his gaze came to rest on Gates, Sheldon lifted a hand and beckoned with an impatient motion.

  “I think you’re right,” said Gates. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute?”

  “Of course,” we all agreed.

  As he hurried away, I turned to Erin. “What did you mean by that?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she replied quickly.

  “What’s nothing?” asked Aunt Peg. She hates it when she misses anything.

  “When Daniel Nash was walking away,” I told her, “Erin called him a poor man.”

  Aunt Peg turned and nailed Erin with a quizzical gaze.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Erin insisted. “It’s not my place to have an opinion.”

  “Your place indeed.” Aunt Peg sniffed. “Where would you even get such an idea? Everyone is entitled to an opinion.”

  And some people felt more entitled than others, I thought.

  “Go on,” Aunt Peg prompted. “Tell us why you think you shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “It’s none of my business,” Erin replied.

  “What isn’t?”

  “Daniel Nash,” I guessed when the young woman didn’t answer right away. “And his dealings with Billy Gates.”

  “Can’t we change the subject?” asked Erin. “Talking about the Gates cousins behind their backs could get me fired.”

  “You don’t work for Billy,” I said.

  “No, but that wouldn’t matter if I said something I shouldn’t and it got back to him.”

  “Nothing you say to us here will be repeated,” Aunt Peg told her firmly. “I can assure you of that.”

  When Erin still remained stubbornly silent, I tried a different tack. “What if we speak hypothetically instead? Let’s not talk about Billy Gates at all. Tell us about newcomers getting involved in the Thoroughbred industry and wanting to buy racehorses. How does that work?”

  “There are several different ways that could happen,” Erin said. She sounded relieved that we were no longer pressing her to discuss Billy’s business affairs. “Some people start with a trainer who claims a horse for them at the track. Others prefer to buy young horses that haven’t raced yet and bring them along themselves.”

  “Or they start with a broodmare,” said Aunt Peg.

  “Not very often.” Erin shook her head. “Actually your situation is pretty unusual. Nobody ever wants to start with a mare.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  �
��Because it’s too slow. People who get involved in horse-racing like speed, and high turnover, and fast results. From the time you breed a mare until you have something ready to send to the track, nearly three years will have passed. Very few people want to wait that long.”

  “Pish,” said Aunt Peg. She’d devoted decades to lovingly creating her superb line of Standard Poodles. “The breeding is the fun part.”

  “No,” Erin corrected. She was warming to her subject now. “The winning is the fun part. In fact, if you took a poll in this room right now I bet most people would tell you that it’s the only thing that matters.”

  “Say I wanted to go to a sale and buy a horse that can win races.” I made a subtle attempt to steer the conversation back to Daniel Nash. “How would I do that?”

  “The first thing you’d need is a team of advisors,” said Erin.

  “Why do I need so many people?”

  “Actually you don’t. But important people are happier when they’re surrounded by a team. It makes them feel like they’re getting all the best opinions that money can buy. And though they may be newcomers here, the people who invest a lot of money in horses are already important somewhere else. They might run corporations or hedge funds. They could be celebrity chefs or quarterbacks. So your first step is to assemble your team.”

  “Excellent!” Aunt Peg sounded inordinately pleased by the prospect. She loves to be in charge. “Tell us more.”

  “You’ll start with a bloodstock agent. He’s like a team captain. He’ll analyze pedigrees and evaluate the conformation of horses you’re interested in. Then he’ll hire a vet to read each horse’s X-rays and to scope their throats to make sure that their airways are functioning properly. Another man will do heart scans. And you might have a guy to take the horse’s measurements and create a symmetry profile.”

  “That’s a lot of stuff to worry about,” I said. “How is someone who doesn’t know anything about horses supposed to figure all that out?”

  “That’s the beauty of the system,” Erin told me. “The buyer doesn’t have to worry about any of it. Because everyone reports back to the bloodstock agent. He’s the one who collates all that information and decides which horses should be rejected and which should remain on the client’s shortlist.”

  “So the bloodstock agent is the Big Cheese,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  Aunt Peg frowned. “I would have thought that the person whose money was being spent was the important one,” she said.

  “That would make sense,” Erin agreed. “But it’s not how things work. Because everyone knows that if they want to do business with the money-man, they have to go through his agent.”

  We’d circled right back around to Billy Gates, I realized. The man who was keeping his clients from meeting other people who might expose them to different opinions.

  “Lots of buyers don’t want to get that involved in the process,” Erin continued. “They figure they hired a top advisor, so it only makes sense to defer to his expert opinion. It’s not unheard of for an agent to sign for a horse he thinks his client ought to have and then tell the guy afterward what he bought.”

  “What happens if an agent buys someone the wrong horse?” Aunt Peg asked.

  “Good question,” Erin said. “But who gets to decide that a horse is the wrong horse? Much of what goes into making these decisions is totally subjective. Lots of times a group of good horsemen won’t agree on which horse is the best one.”

  “It sounds much like judging dogs,” Aunt Peg said thoughtfully. “It all depends on how you define breed type, and what virtues are most important to you. Then you decide which faults you can live with and which you consider to be deal breakers. It’s not unusual for two judges to see the same class of dogs entirely differently.”

  “But racehorses do have an objective measurement system,” I pointed out. “Because when the horses run in races some of them win and go on to fame and glory and others finish up the track. So ultimately there is a way to determine who made the right buying decisions and who didn’t.”

  “Yes, but don’t forget there can be months or even years between the time when a horse is bought and when it gets to the races. And all sorts of things can go wrong or change in the meantime. Poor performance can be blamed on the training center that broke the horse, or the trainer who has him at the track. There are plenty of ways to dodge responsibility when problems arise.”

  “I should have known you’d be talking about horses,” Gates said as he came back to rejoin us. He looked at Aunt Peg and me apologetically. “As you’ve probably guessed, Thoroughbreds are Erin’s favorite subject. She treats every event like it’s a Farm Managers meeting. I hope she hasn’t been boring you.”

  “Not at all,” I replied. “In fact, I was the one who got her started by asking questions. I guess it seems only natural to talk about horses when you’re in Kentucky.”

  “Not only that,” Aunt Peg chimed in, “but as the new owner of a Thoroughbred myself, I’ve found it slightly alarming to discover just how much there is to learn. In fact, I’ve made another appointment with Ben Burrell for tomorrow afternoon. I’m determined to educate myself on the topic of racehorses as thoroughly as I can before we have to go back to Connecticut.”

  “I’d be interested in hearing more, too,” I said, turning back to Erin. “Is there any chance you might be free for a short time while Aunt Peg is busy with Mr. Burrell?”

  “I think I can probably manage that. Call me when you get to the farm and I’ll come up to the office and get you.”

  “What a lovely young girl,” Aunt Peg remarked when the couple had left us and gone to greet more new arrivals.

  “She seems to have a great deal of knowledge about how things work in the Thoroughbred industry,” I said.

  “Not to mention a wonderful ability to change the subject. I assume you noticed that Erin never did tell us why she made that odd comment about Daniel Nash?”

  I nodded. I had indeed.

  “There’s always tomorrow,” I said brightly.

  Aunt Peg glanced my way with fresh appreciation. “I do love a relative who knows how to make herself useful.”

  Like that was news.

  * * *

  The funeral service began shortly after that. Sheldon, Billy, and Gates all took seats in the front row. They were surrounded by what appeared to be numerous other family members. Erin remained standing in the back of the room. Bertie had saved some space for us in a middle pew and I found myself sitting between Aunt Peg and Terry.

  The service was presided over by a Baptist minister who began by reading several passages from the scriptures. He then devoted nearly thirty minutes to expounding upon Miss Ellie’s excellent character and the numerous good qualities she had displayed during her long and virtuous life.

  Miss Ellie must have been an ardent church-goer to merit an homage like that, I thought. I was pretty sure that anyone asked to chronicle my virtues would find himself on and off the podium rather hastily.

  By the end of the minister’s long address I wasn’t the only person who was squirming on the pew’s hard seat. Beside me, Terry had long since stopped listening to what the pastor had to say. Instead he was shifting from side to side and spinning his head around like a swivel to check out the other congregants.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered, nudging him none too gently with my elbow.

  “Looking for Colonel Sanders. He must be here somewhere. Everybody else seems to be.”

  A laugh bubbled deep in my throat and I quickly clamped my lips shut to stifle it. Apparently I wasn’t entirely successful because Aunt Peg turned in her seat and glared daggers at me.

  Sure, I thought. Like she was a model of decorum.

  Finally the minister stepped away from the podium and Sheldon Gates took his place. Miss Ellie’s cousin delivered a heartfelt eulogy that seemed to be more about the venerable history and local consequence of the Gates family than about Miss El
lie herself. When he was finished, Gates Wanamaker read a poem by Ralph Emerson that left many in the congregation sniffling and wiping their eyes. After that, several of Miss Ellie’s friends got up to tell stories and to talk about how much they would miss her.

  Terry tried and failed to stifle a yawn. Once I’d noticed what he was doing, I found it impossible not to yawn, too.

  “I barely knew the woman,” he said in a low voice, “but I can tell you for sure that she was a whole lot more interesting when she was around than this place is after her death. Is there going to be a parade after this?”

  “A parade?” I said, frowning.

  “That’s New Orleans,” Aunt Peg snapped, leaning across in front of me. “You’re not that far south.”

  “Too bad,” Terry muttered, unrepentant. “A little singing and dancing would be an improvement.”

  Another interminable half hour passed before the service finally ended. The Gates family left first. Presumably they were on their way to the private graveside ceremony. When they were gone, the rest of us filed slowly out of the building.

  Aunt Peg and I were halfway across the parking lot when she stopped and looked back at the white columned building. “The Ellie Gates Wanamaker I used to know would have hated that whole display,” she said with a contemptuous snort. “Virtuous indeed. I’m not sure those people even knew who she was.”

  “Maybe they only wanted to remember the good things about her.”

  “The boring things, you mean. When I die, you be sure to let Terry plan my funeral. He’ll come up with something good. I want a proper send-off, starting with that parade he was talking about. And maybe some fireworks to cap things off. I intend to go out with a bang.”

  I’d never doubted that for a moment.

  * * *

  Back in Louisville later that afternoon, Faith and I had another reunion. Once again I gathered the big Poodle into my arms and issued an apology.

  “I wish things were different,” I said, hugging her close. “This trip isn’t turning out the way either one of us thought it would, is it?”

  Inside the hotel room I quickly changed my clothes. I pulled off my funeral dress and heels and replaced them with jeans, a sweater, and a pair of sneakers. Eyeing the leather leash that was lying on the dresser, Faith waited impatiently for me to be ready to go. As I was tying my second shoe, she swept her lead off the dresser, brought it over, and dropped it at my feet.