Colors of Blood, page 18
As was Evangeline. I asked, “Mr. Lombard, after Frank left, did he ever come back to your farm—maybe to visit?”
His attention came back into the room. “Uh, I never saw him. I never tell my people they can’t have visitors, so, yes, he could have visited.”
“When he worked here, was he a friend of Gerlaine Morris’s?” Travis asked.
“Gerlaine’s friend?” Lombard seemed startled. “Wouldn’t think so. More like a competitor for the rides.”
“She was a jockey, wasn’t she? He was not.”
Lombard looked at the sheriff. “Travis, remember I told you that Frank was a troublemaker. He wanted a rise in his status, he pushed to be a jockey. Maybe if he’d have been a bit nicer, I’d have helped him get his steward’s ticket.” He tapped the pencil. “Anything else?”
Andy popped up, ready to go.
Travis seemed to be mulling something. “Gerlaine was a good rider, but riding horses is a dangerous thing. Wonder is more don’t get hurt.”
Hurt?
Lombard look at the sheriff askance like: What?
Travis said, “The male body in the morgue had a lot of broken bones like maybe he fell from a horse, then hit his head and broke his skull. That’s what killed him, the skull knocked in.”
“Well, Travis, Dupain was last at Hollow Meadow, so I might be worried if it was here that he last rode. But he was not here.”
“You have many rider accidents?” I asked.
“It’s a dangerous sport, Miss Dru. There are those individuals who court danger in their everyday lives. Jockeys are one of many like that. But I insist, for the horses’ safety, they ride responsibly.”
“There is someone I’d like to talk to.” By the tilting of his head, I read that his patience was nearing an end. “I’d like to speak with Eugene Roup. He was friends with Soire.”
Lombard shook his head. “I don’t know about friends. I guess they got along. He’s a special needs person. We employ him as a hot walker.”
“Can I speak with him?”
“He’s in Saratoga now. We’re pretty busy there—as I indicated—getting our barn up to speed.”
I looked at Otis. “Can I ask you a question or two about Eugene Roup?”
He looked at Freddy Lombard and got a nod. “What about Eugene?”
“How old is he?”
“I didn’t see Eugene’s birth certificate but when he came here his New Orleans school records showed him to be twelve, so he’d be twenty-three, but that’s an immature twenty-three. He has some serious disabilities beginning with ADHD and dyslexia. We require school records for those under sixteen transferring here to work/study. It’s a state and an insurance thing.”
“What proof of age did Soire offer?
“She was vouched for by Whitehead’s agency. That was good enough for me.”
“Was Roup learning anything?”
Lombard put the pencil down. He’d had it.
Otis stood, saying, “He was learning the horse worker business. He had no interest in school so best he could be was a hot walker.” He walked to the door. “Mr. Lombard sent him to a health clinic so he could get his meds. I think sometimes he didn’t take them. He was good with the horses. Babied them. That’s about it.” With that, he walked out briskly.
Lombard stood, a weary line stretching his mouth. He stared at the sheriff. “Andy and I are getting things arranged for our trip tomorrow, so I must bid you good evening, otherwise, I’d break out the bourbon and we’d have a drink.”
I rose with Travis and said with a newly acquired determination, “Mr. Lombard, my inquiries are taking me to Saratoga where I hope to find Cici Soire unharmed and mad as hell that we’ve been checking up on her. I owe that to her foster parents.”
Lombard’s patrician nostrils flared. “I hope Frank Dupain is with her.” Then he got control of his anger. “Have you made arrangements to stay in Saratoga Springs?” I shook my head no. “That’s the official name of the town even though it’s called simply Saratoga.”
I said, “My agency is booking me.”
“Try the Lincoln Inn and Pub. It’s an historic place. Expensive as hell, but if you can pay I will release one of my rooms for you.”
“I never thought that I’d be up against the racing crowds. Thanks, I’ll tell my colleague to inquire.”
“Whatever you find out, will you come to Green-on-Springs Farm or look me up at the racecourse?”
“Yes, I will do that.”
***
“Did you get what you aimed for?” Travis asked when we hit the road.
“More or less,” I said.
“You like Freddy Lombard?”
“I learned this. He’s a complex man. Tell me about him.”
He leaned back, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel now that the inquiries were over. Or so he thought. “He married Abigail. We all believed it was for her money, and maybe it was. But she married him for his management abilities. After her daddy died, Abigail and her brother—you just met him, Andy—inherited this farm and the farm in New York. They divided the farms and Abby got Loblolly. Her brother did her wrong. And I believe he did it on purpose to run her out of business, or make her come crawling to him to rescue the business at Loblolly. But Abby got the best of him when she went looking for a man who could run her business, and steal the New York farm from him.”
“Where did she find Freddy Lombard?”
“Right here. He was Hollow Meadow’s manager before Harry. Lombard was a poor man with some breeding, it was said. We reckon with breeding of man and beast in these parts, just so you know. It was said he was the son of a Kentucky horse trainer. Anyway, he was always sweet on Abby, but then Freddy’s always been sweet on some girl or the other. He’s a man that’s made that way. Keeps his options open with a stable—and not just the four-legged kind.”
“So she got sweet on him.”
“They got married and together they ran her brother out of Loblolly. Then they stole the New York farm from him. With Lombard at the helm, no one was surprised and it’s been a good partnership, I’d say.”
“Let me ask you something you may not want to answer. Is he a faithful man?”
“If it’s women you’re talking of, that would be talking out of good ol’ boys school.”
“I’ll take that as an answer.”
“You’re a smart girl, you know that.”
“I do.”
“If it’s business your talking of, he’s loyal to everyone who’s loyal to him.”
I think the sheriff was loyal to Freddy, even though he brought up the dead jockey. It was something I had forced him to do—his job.
27
I turned down Travis McElroy’s invitation to join him and his wife for dinner at the best seafood place in Aiken and headed out on the two-lane highway toward the bed and breakfast Web had reserved. Even though dusk was a couple hours away, it was dark. Today’s gloom held within me a longing for a relaxing gin and tonic, a warm bath and grouper for dinner. It was on the menu at the B & B. My cell rang with its customary concerto. Lake. We spoke briefly about my interviews and then he told me that they’d gotten a bead on the heroin truck, Devus Dontel Big DD’s second shipment was on I-10 going west—the GPS heading it straight to New Orleans. Within the truck, Lake said, the heroin, guns and cash was hidden in a legitimate cargo of mattresses.
I laughed. “Mattresses! For God’s sake. Money and mattresses? What was Big DD thinking?”
“He’s known to have a sense of humor, Dru. Just last year—”
Behind me, I heard a motor rev and checked the mirror. “What the hell?”
Lake’s voice yelled through the cell. “What!”
The bright headlights coming on fast were blinding. Adrenaline jetted through me. The twin headlights swerved into the oncoming lane and when the truck was at my rear bumper, the impact was loud and hard.
I was belted in, but my body hurled forward into the steering wheel and then sideways as the car began to slide right. The airbag, I thought. Used car, no airbag. I looked out and saw the slick, wet road disappearing on the left side and the red taillights of my attacker.
Instantly the car began to tumble down an embankment, the crunching of steel and shattering of glass sharp in my ears as it flipped once, then twice. I was whipped around like a rag doll until the car finally came to a metal-grinding stop on its wheels at the bottom of the ditch.
I don’t know how long I was out, if I was out, but when I opened my eyes the sheriff stared through the broken window on the passenger side. In the glare of blue flashing lights, I saw his head ducking, roving around the crush of roof, now supporting itself on the seat.
“My God, are you all right?” he said, yanking the door. To no avail. “I’m coming around to your side,” he said. “Stay still.”
Yeah.
He tried my door. It was stuck shut. He pulled harder and the door came at him like a tension spring had released it. He threw the door aside. “You’re lucky.” I didn’t answer. He said, “My house is a little ways from here. I was five minutes behind you. I radioed in. We need to get you out of there. Might be an explosion. I don’t smell gas. Can you unlatch your seatbelt?”
I mumbled I thought I could. But I could not.
He said, “We got to take care. There’s glass every where.”
My arm hurt like hell, and he reached over and released the belt. I fell sideways into his arms enflaming a dozen sore spots on my body. I groaned and slowly tried to scoot myself while Travis pulled at my arms, further shooting more pain into me than I’d ever felt. He instructed me to turn my back to him. I did, somewhat, and he pulled me out, then fell backward himself. I landed on top of his body. He scooted out from under me, pulled me further from the wrecked car, and then felt my arms and legs. “Lay still,” he said, “you might have injured your back.”
Wheezing, I felt blood run into my eyes. “Did—you see who?” I said. He sat by me and shook his head. “Truck—dark—large,” I gasped.
“Like a hundred around here,” he said. “I might have to move you back further. I’ve seen these things fire up in an instant.” Far up, I almost laughed, but it hurt too much.
“Lucky you wasn’t on the other side.”
The passenger side with the caved in roof. “Yeah—lucky.”
He wiped blood that flowed from my eye down the side of my face. “You see—who hit me?” I asked, huffing.
“I didn’t see the truck hit you, but I was back there when a black pickup flew around me. I hit the siren, but he kept going. I knew he wasn’t going to stop. He didn’t have no lights on and he was too fast to get the license number. I figured it was one of them farm boys in his souped-up truck tearing over the roads like daredevils. Then I heard the racket from the crash. Your car was over the shoulder and rolling down the ditch when I got here. Good thing it made a racket like that.”
“Yeah,” I breathed through hurting lungs. “Had his brights—came up fast.”
Siren sounds pierced my sore soul. But I wanted to talk to the sheriff before the posse got here. “What happened—made someone run me over?”
“Miss Dru, I don’t know as—”
“Hear me. The hit—intentional—a PIT.”
A Precision Immobilization Technique. Cops use the maneuver to stop fleeing suspects or assorted maniacs.
The sheriff’s eyes popped. “Don’t you dare think it was me.”
I shook my head that I didn’t as I watched his squad car’s bar lights rotating into the sky. “Someone—didn’t like—”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this, Miss Dru. You’re going to the hospital now. Here’s our ambulance.”
I heard it back up as I thought who that someone could be: Travis himself, Whitehead, Ezra Cranston, Harry Wells, Aaron Otis, Lombard, and Andy, his disenfranchised relative.”
“You have to trust me,” Travis said, as the ambulance sounded, backing up.
I did trust him. He could have killed me right there in my car, but I didn’t see how, unless he paid someone, then came to the rescue. My brain was scrambled, I did know that.
“My—phone,” I stuttered. “Lake.”
Three men and a woman appeared on the road’s shoulder and began the slide step down hill.
“Don’t worry about your phone,” Travis said. “You’re on your way to the hospital.”
“No. Lake.”
He stood up. “Relax now. Easier that way.”
The paramedics had reached the bottom of the slope, a stretcher between two men. I did not want this. I tried to raise up. “Help me—up.”
Walking to the ambulance was not to be.
“They handled me gently onto the rolling stretcher and pushed it up the hill. Travis was beside me. “Lake, I was—talking to him.”
“I’ll tell him if he’s hanging on.”
***
I woke from a morphine sleep, smelling roses, my body on a thirty-degree slant, my head tilted left on a pillow. Out of one eye I saw Lake sitting on a chair by my hospital bed. The other eye was bandaged. A spray of spectacular deep red roses sat on the wheeled bed tray. I smiled at him. “They sent out the president of the get-well committee,” I croaked like a dying frog. “How long?”
“God, Dru.” He reached for the hand that didn’t have an IV in it. “Your beautiful eye.”
“I have two, thank the Lord.”
I said, “How’s the Audi?”
“Your doctors are worried about your bloody eyeball and cracked ribs and you wonder about your car?”
“Yes.” His face, I saw, was ash-colored despite his olive complexion and year-round tan. “It saved me. It landed on its wheels.”
“What?”
“It started to flip while it was on its wheels.” I bucked up and made my voice stronger. I didn’t want him moping over me. “Center mass issue.”
“Ah yes,” he said. “You’ve explained the center mass-coin toss points.”
People think there’s a fifty-fifty chance of a coin landing heads or tails, but actually it tends to be fifty-one to forty-nine odds. The larger percentage going to the side that is up at the flip. There’s the center mass to consider, too. One day when I had nothing better to do than go to the dentist, I perused the Smithsonian website on my laptop. How things land involves aerodynamics and axis of the spin—like when you spin a penny, most of the time it lands tails up because Lincoln’s head is slightly heavier than the Lincoln Memorial on the back. The heavier center mass makes the coin land heads down.”
Lake said, “Thank God it wasn’t sliding across the pavement wheels up when it started to flip.”
I breathed in, but not deeply. “You didn’t answer. How long have I been out?”
“You were in and out of semi-consciousness for twenty-seven hours while they X-rayed, MRIed, Catscanned, and took vampire quantities of blood. Good to see some color in those apple cheeks.”
What’s happening with Big DD’s second shipment of heroin?”
“GPS lost it in Mobile. Nothing for him in Alabama, just taking a break, probably in a garage rented somewhere. Unless the satellites are all down, and the tracker is disconnected, he’s not on the move.”
“Any DD sightings?”
“Nope, which may mean he’s with his shipment. Staying close by is my guess.”
My lungs were starting to ache, but I ignored the morphine squeeze. “Maybe he’s giving credit to the APD after all.”
“The boys will handle Big DD McFersen and the shipment when it surfaces. I’m only concerned about you.”
He managed a grin making my heart feel like it was bumping against raw ribs. “I’m all right. Banged up, but ready to find the bastard who ran me off the road.”
“I heard you call out on the cell. I’ll fry the bastard’s ass personally.”
“We do these things together,” I said.
“Frying’s a man’s job. But listen, there’s been a death in the Lombard household last evening.”
“Who?
“The nanny, Annalie Ericsson.”
My sharp intake of breath hurt. “What time is it?” I asked.
“It’s two-thirty in the morning here and in New York, why?”
“Get me out of here.”
“I can’t. You’ve got that thing in your arm and I’m not going to get in trouble for taking it out. It’s an antibiotic drip. The doc won’t be in until morning.”
“Damn. What happened? How was she murdered?”
“I said a death, my love, not a murder. She fell off a cliff on the Lombard farm in New York. The private plane carrying Lombard’s wife, daughter and the nanny landed yesterday afternoon. Lombard stayed behind.”
So did the creepy Uncle Andy.
Lake continued, “After the news, this morning Lombard fired up his plane to New York.”
“They didn’t wait.”
Lake asked, “Wait for what?”
I truly did not know why I said that, although it seemed to sum up several things that rattled around in my brain box. I shook my head, picturing the brother-in-law Andy in it. “That’s all you know?”
“About. She was at cliff’s edge last evening and off she went. No wits, at least none are talking. Nobody knows how it happened. She could have taken a flying leap for all they know now.”
“Not hardly,” I said.
“I trust your instincts, you know that. But we always wait for facts, don’t we?”
I looked at Lake. The man of facts. Me, the woman of instincts. I said, “You know Webdog pretty well, don’t you.”
“Super Geek, sure.”
“You wouldn’t call him Mr. Sensitive, would you?”
“A man of science, not of woo-woo.”
Lake calls my intuitive inspirations woo-woo, meaning supernatural divinations. “Web sensed something terribly wrong in that house. I haven’t kept you up with the case because you’re ass over elbows with Devus Dontel and his pond scum.”
“Pond scum is getting an undeserved dump-on.”
“The lord and master, Freddy Lombard, was obviously in love with Annalie Ericsson the nanny. He didn’t bother to hide it from his wife.”
“The man’s an idiot.”
