Something Most Deadly

by Ann Self

  “Something is very wrong in this barn,” he mused, “someone here is not quite right. I wish I could spot it.” He was constantly searching faces, but they revealed nothing he didn’t already know. They were all hiding their true selves under masks applied layer by layer since childhood. If he could mentally peel them like an onion, he might be able to discover which one had the rotted, molding soul; the psyche black and damaged beyond repair.

  “No way that bird could’ve escaped on his own,” Reggie mumbled around his pipestem, “this time or last time. Some deranged mind is giving him help...”

  The smoke from his pipe swirled around his head and a draft sucked it through the screen. It floated up into massive trees watching quietly over the barn. A small tendril of the smoke wafted up to the ceiling over Reggie, where it was drawn to a pencil size-hole, and blocked a staring eye.

  FIVE

  Jane sat comfortably sprawled in the shade on a white plastic chair outside the west wing on Monday afternoon with her paddock boots propped up on an over-turned bucket. Since her classes were done until evening, she was casually dressed in an old tee shirt and faded dungarees. She would’ve liked to have worn a good pair of shorts for just hanging around, but they were against Elliot’s dress code. In fact, he would not like the outfit she had on now, but he was in New York after all, and Cecily was gone.

  As she sat, Jane was hard at work watching Reggie paint the trim on one of the small doors on the side of the west wing. While she “supervised” the painting work and enjoyed the beautiful summer day, she lazily scrolled over the astounding events of the weekend show in her mind. In spite of a sleepless night, frayed nerves and an extremely sore hand, she’d pulled herself together and made it to the horseshow. Catering to the hysterical nightmare that was Lucinda, however, caused her to scratch some classes—classes that she desperately needed. Lucinda was as bad as Lars had predicted, maybe worse; demanding all of Jane’s attention and leaving her little time at first to get into the show ring herself. Money she had paid for entry fees went down the drain.

  Not surprisingly, Charmante had been an unresponsive wreck with Lucinda in the saddle—and at one point the horse actually leapt out of the low Dressage arena fence causing Lucinda to suffer the embarrassment of being eliminated. She had responded to the announcer’s dismissive thank you by flying off Charmante’s back in a screaming rage, kicking at the horse’s legs and being so startlingly loud that the multi-ring show fell silent as a tomb. At least one competitor suffered a lowered score because of the distraction of a loose stallion and screaming woman.

  It took Jane, Dylan, Owen and three other riders thirty minutes to capture Charmante in an open field; thirty minutes of high anxiety running around the field with grain buckets and praying that the valuable horse wouldn’t trip on a loose rein or run out onto a nearby street and get hit by a car.

  After the disgraceful public display—while everyone else was occupied trying to catch Charmante—Lucinda had stomped off and commandeered Ashley Parker’s Navigator. She’d jumped into the driver’s seat and gunned the huge SUV out of the meadow/parking area, the tires flinging wads of damp grass and dirt in all directions. Fishtailing up an incline, she’d scattered pedestrians and hit pavement in a smoky whine of burning rubber and grass—her clumsiness easily transferring to fine machinery. The Navigator’s stability-enhancement system was unable monitor the driver’s intent and the vehicle chirped, bucked and lurched forward on the pavement nearly out of control as Lucinda alternately stomped on the gas and brake.

  Jane shook her head as she recalled watching Lucinda’s exit, while she herself was in the middle of a side field trying to catch the woman’s horse. Another female rider helping Jane gasped and almost screamed as Lucinda—tires screeching and smoking—nearly collided with a loaded horse van before rushing out of the grounds and tearing off towards home; blowing up at least two pages of the USDF’s manual of show etiquette. Jane could still see the irate van driver screaming in her wake.

  The upside of Lucinda’s disaster was that it allowed Jane the freedom to show General unfettered by distractions in the only class that was left to her. For once she could concentrate on herself and her own performance; not exactly what Elliot or Gladys had in mind. In that single class, the team of Husted and General scored a whopping 75.5%, and she had leapfrogged closer to qualifying for the regional championships. Owen had also been in the ribbons; but despite turning himself inside out and showing a horse worth ten times General, he never managed better than second, and his mood was extremely foul—even for Owen.

  Ashley Parker stuck it out to show her new pedigreed Hanoverian to mild success, and was not happy with yellow and white ribbons and let everyone know it. She could not bear to look at the long blue ribbon pinned on General’s stall, and quickly called her father for transportation out of the “two-bit” show as fast as possible. When a photographer showed up to take photos of Jane and General, Ashley trounced off in a snit and sulked until her father’s limo showed up to shuttle her home. Charmante and the young Hanoverian were left for the others to handle and trailer back to the stable.

  “God, Reggie, it was awful!” Jane switched to thinking out loud as she adjusted herself in the wobbly plastic chair. “Even Owen’s never put on a raging tantrum like Lucinda did, especially not in public.”

  Reggie made a disgusted noise in his throat as he painted a sanded doorframe, sitting in a plastic chair himself to save his knees as he painted the lower section. “That’s one spoiled little brat. She never even bothered to come out to the barn and check on the horse her father paid so much money for. Just sittin up in the mansion on her fanny, sulking.”

  Jane nodded in agreement. “We’re very lucky that Charmante is unharmed. I’m dreading Elliot coming home. Where is Cecily?”

  Reggie jammed white paint into a molding. “She flew off to some symposium. Some important international horse thing. F-Y-I or something like that.”

  “FEI— Federation Equestre Internationale?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” he nodded. “She won’t be back ‘till late Thursday.”

  Jane idly turned her right hand over, examining the dark brown scratches that ran from her knuckles to her wrist.

  “How’s the hand?” Reggie inquired, not even looking away from his painting.

  “Not bad. It’s healing. It hurt a little under my gloves when I was showing, but it’s no where near as bad as it could’ve been.”

  “No where near as bad as it was supposed to have been.”

  Jane looked stricken. “You really think it was deliberate?”

  He looked at her now, resting the painting arm on his knee. “Of course it was. How else could the bird have gotten through your door? You would have been quite a sight in the show ring if you resembled a pound of ground-round. I think that’s exactly what someone planned.”

  An icy shrill crackled along her nerves. The fact that an unknown faceless person actually meant her physical harm was hard to come to terms with, and something her mind kept trying to rationalize: the rooster was already hiding in there when she went to bed—he found a new way in, etcetera.

  Not too convincing.

  The temperature was moderate for July and there was a dry, refreshing breeze that ruffled overhead pines and oaks, and carried threads of white paint off the brush onto Reggie’s overalls. The wind gusted a little stronger and Jane looked up at the massive boughs of a pine tree swaying overhead in a soft moan. Pleasant sunshine sparkled between the shiny green needles in a piercing-blue sky, but that didn’t dispel a feeling of stark foreboding that suddenly enveloped her—a moment of a precognition so strong she had to shake it off and ignore it or else check herself into the loony-bin. Because of the breeze on her bare arms, she didn’t notice the prickling of gooseflesh. The smell of pine needles was staggering, but then it faded and the breeze returned to gentle. She felt silly.

  “Has Sam seen your hand yet, did you tell him?” Reggie questioned as he continued
painting.

  “What...? No. I had no chance to tell him last night and I had lessons all morning. I think he’s been busy supervising new fence work out in the fields. I was headed there to check, but I never got past this chair and the fine entertainment. So...is the rooster gone for good?”

  Reggie laughed. “Yep. My younger half brother has him. He lives alone on a small farm. That rooster won’t give Will no trouble if he knows what’s good for him.” As Reggie spoke, Sam eased out the doorway that he was painting, carrying a folded newspaper. He was covered in dust and carried big dirt and grass stains on the knees of his Levis; evidence he’d done more than supervise the new fence work.

  “Hey Reggie—have you seen...oh there you are! Looking quite comfortable in the shade I see,” Sam addressed Jane.

  “I love to watch work,” she joked lazily.

  “See yourself on today’s front page?” he asked as he unfolded the paper and held it under his chin for them to look. Right under the heading BROCKTON ENTERPRISE was a giant color photo of Jane and General. It was a stunning picture; she was next to General’s alert head, wearing a black top-hat and a snow-white stock tie, and holding a silver bowl. A brilliant smile lit up her face and she had an arm around General’s nose, hugging the dark bay gleefully while a long blue ribbon streamed from his headband. The caption read: SOUTHBROOK BEAUTY IN THE BLUE AND SILVER.

  Jane pinked slightly. “My God, they put it on the front page?”

  “Yep. No sports page for you.” Sam said, and then read the copy:

  “Jane Elizabeth Husted, the assistant trainer and coach at the sumptuous Springhill Estate of Elliot Whitbeck, seemed to spring from out of nowhere to snag a blue ribbon and silver bowl, scoring better than 75% on her horse General…”

  “Oh, God,” Jane groaned.

  “What?” Sam held the paper up to look at the picture, tilting it from side to side. “It’s not your best angle, what?”

  “The Whitbeck’s aren’t going to like this. And the horse isn’t mine.”

  Sam spat out their name: “The Whitbecks! I’m getting sick of worrying about what they like and don’t like!”

  Jane sighed heavily and stretched back in her chair. “I was supposed to put Lucinda on the front page. They’ve paid out truckloads of cash so that she’d be smiling out of that picture with Charmante; not me and the...” she made quotes with her fingers, “cheap horse. They will not be pleased.”

  “Hardy har!” Reggie crowed. “This will rot Gladys’s garters. All their money can’t buy talent or class!” Reggie had been fuming ever since Sam told him about the front office argument between Elliot and Gladys over Jane.

  “I notice,” Sam said, “neither Elliot nor Cecily had the guts to go to the show with their nasty little brat. They both flew the coup and put all the pressure on you and Lars.”

  “Trying to wring their money’s worth out of us I guess,” Jane said.

  Reggie turned to her. His faded blue eyes, nearly the same shade as his denim overalls, twinkled with afternoon sun as he squared them on her face. “In Lars’s case, he lives in a plush rent-free gatehouse near the mansion,” he jabbed the brush in the direction of the gatehouse, “and he’s being paid a pretty penny to take the heat. You aren’t. And Lars doesn’t have to put up with that other nonsense...” Reggie rotated the brush and pointed the handle towards her hand.

  Sam’s eyes fastened on the deep scratches that resembled his own Chicken handiwork. “How’d that happen?” he asked, closing and rolling the newspaper and tucking it under his arm.

  “Someone tossed Mean Chicken into her room Friday night, that’s how!” Reggie clued Sam in.

  He looked astonished. “Someone put that idiot rooster in your room on purpose?!”

  “It’s true Sam. I woke up in the middle of the night to find a very unpleasant guest, and my door was shut tight.”

  “God, right before your show, too. Is that your only decoration?” he asked, nodding towards her hand.

  “I golfed him with my lamp before he could turn me into mincemeat, and then Reggie came to the rescue once again.”

  Sam laughed. “Hey, good work, you fared better than I did. And Reggie rescued you faster than he did me.”

  “Well, you never did scream for help,” Reggie answered dryly.

  “True. I thought I could get the beast under control all by myself and impress the reporter,” he joked. Then he sobered. “Jesus, this really isn’t funny, who around here would do such a thing deliberately?”

  “A lot of people pop up in my mind,” Reggie commented as he painted.

  “Yeah, I know, someone like Lucinda,” Sam said, “but the bird weighs more than she does.”

  “Owen hates me,” Jane stated.

  Sam looked at her. “He just hates you not liking him.” Then he said: “Boy, it doesn’t do any good to nail that thing in a pen does it—he still manages to cause trouble.”

  “Owen?” Reggie joked.

  Sam laughed, “Owen should be nailed up in a pen too. But seriously, how do you think the damn rooster got out?”

  “He had a little help from someone,” Reggie answered. “But they’ll have to go far to get him now.”

  “He’s gone?”

  “Gone,” Reggie confirmed.

  “Good!” Sam exclaimed. “I’m not even going to ask where or how.”

  “Don’t worry, he’s still breathing—just not the air around here.”

  “Wouldn’t care if you nailed him to the cross beams in the hayloft.”

  Reggie sniffed at that, and then stopped painting and swung around to look at Jane. “From now on, just before a show, or anytime actually, be extra careful. And since it’s the fourth of July today, please don’t get too near any fireworks. Dylan’s going to be setting some off tonight, in the north forty, and I think it would be best if you kept your distance.”

  “Probably a wise idea,” Sam agreed.

  *****

  Tuesday afternoon Jane charged around her room to get ready for Olivia Canaday’s first riding lesson. She’d managed to live through the previous night’s fireworks and pizza party without incident, but the fact that she now needed to be extra watchful was a chilling thought. She stepped into her better pair of breeches, and a crisp white shirt. Once again, she selected a baseball cap—this time a blue PATRIOTS hat, and hoped it was enough of a disguise. Since it was a very bright hot day, it wasn’t outrageous to wear a billed cap for Olivia Canaday’s riding lesson in an outdoor paddock. I read somewhere, she mused, that the shape of a person’s head is the most identifiable part of the body. Please let it be true... She slapped it over her loose hair, firmed the cap down over her eyes and rushed down to the north wing.

  Jane paced around the quiet front tackroom trying to get her nerves to stop singing. Her arms were crossed tightly, her boots tapping on the varnished floorboards as she breathed in the leathery, saddle-soap scent of gleaming saddles and bridles. Every so often she would lean into an open screened window to survey the front parking lot. She made a quiet gasp in her throat when the black Mercedes appeared in the distance, zipping between large oaks. It vanished for a minute, then rolled out of mounds of giant rhododendrons to park in the front tarmac. Her heart roiled at the sight of Brian’s SUV and did double back-flips when he stepped out of the driver’s side.

  Jane shook her head. Why does he cause me such anxiety? she asked herself. He’s almost a stranger to me. She decided it must have something to do with all the years spent distancing herself from the girl of the past. Seeing Brian threatened her carefully constructed new image—spooking her with visions of bad hair and a wardrobe by Monsieur Seconds and Mr. Goodwill.

  If he recognizes the scrawny waif I was, she thought, it would be devastating. More than I can deal with. I’ll just have to learn to be an actress—play a role and dump all the baggage! She sucked in her breath, and firmed the cap on her head. “Okay, time to meet Brian Canaday, complete stranger.” No baggage.

  He was wearing
a white polo shirt with a PebbleBeach logo over the pocket, and jeans; clothes that clung pleasingly to a tall, athletic frame. She judged him to be about six-foot three, and noticed that—unlike Elliot—his shoulders did not come off with the suit coat. Brian’s dark hair feathered around his face as he straightened after prying a little girl free of the boxy SUV.

  He watched Jane’s approach with interest. The brilliant navy-blue of his eyes locked on her and she could almost feel them sliding over every angle and plane of her face that was visible under the shadows of the cap. He frowned at the baseball cap. Jane didn’t falter beneath the scrutiny; she was after all—someone else. She advanced on the father and daughter smartly in her long shiny boots; secure in the phony personality. Acting felt so much safer. Hide all the bogeymen and slam the door on the past. Why didn’t I think of this before?

  “Hello! Welcome back to Springhill!” Jane held out her hand and oozed sugary charm, smiling like a Miss America contestant, but just ever so slightly avoiding real eye-contact. Brian’s frown deepened, but he shook her hand. The lightning bolt of electricity that shot through her when their hands touched caught Jane by total surprise, and almost blew the whole charade apart; but after a slight pause and blink she quickly withdrew her hand and mentally scrambled back into cover.

  “And this must be Olivia.” She looked down at the smiley, dimpled child with hair the color of dandelions. Her eyes were the same glittery-blue as her father’s as they peeked out from under heavy Raggedy Anne bangs. She had on straight-out of-the-box breeches and a riding shirt, both of which looked about a half-size too large, and still held the folding creases. Jane’s heart started to melt, her protective armor sliding like a hot penny off butter.