Chapter Twenty-Six
After a sweep of the cabin for bugs — despite feeling it was an over-abundance of caution rather than a genuine threat — Lily and I set up shop again at our cabin’s small dining table, my laptop and phone gallery open between us.
Along with a mugshot of each horse in the rehab yard, we had body shots, and snaps of their injury charts.
Aside from the chestnut, my suspicions had been raised on two other horses. I could have sworn the black gelding had a streak of white across its flank that wasn’t there now. The other, a large bay, I remembered with three white socks; now she was entirely one uniform color.
“There’s only two good reasons someone disguises a horse,” said Lily. “One, it’s stolen. Or two, there’s an attempt to pass it off as something it’s not.”
“Given that none of them actually look injured, I’m leaning towards stolen,” I decided, reaching for my phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“The only man I know who’s investigating anything to do with horses. Maddox. We need a hint of where to look.”
My call went directly to Maddox’s voicemail so I disconnected without leaving a message. Just as I was placing my phone on the table, it rang.
“Hey, pony girl,” said Maddox. “How’s the case?”
“I need your help.”
“Music to my ears. Shoot. What do you need? Oh, no, hang on, wait… Say that again. The bit that started with ‘I need…’”
“Why?”
“I want to record it as my ringtone for you.”
“Absolutely not!” I stuck my tongue out at the phone. Even if Maddox couldn’t see the gesture, I found it immensely satisfying.
“That’ll do instead. ‘Absolutely not!’ is now your ring tone. Go ahead. What do you want to know?”
“Are you still on the horse gambling case?”
“I feel like I’ll never get off it. So, yes, but we’re pulling back surveillance and concentrating on other avenues.”
“Are you looking at any horses in particular?”
“No, we’re focusing on the people more than the horses.”
“Would you know if any horses are missing?” I persisted.
“Missing?”
“As in disappeared. Perhaps registered stolen, or maybe they haven’t appeared at a race they were scheduled to be in.”
“Yeah, I know what missing means. Let me ask Farid. Hold please!” he added chirpily.
When Lily gave me a quizzical look, I shrugged my shoulders at her. She turned to the laptop, pulling it towards her, calling up the search engine and beginning to type.
“Farid says there’ve been a couple of disputed horse sales recently, a few retired that have, literally, been put out to pasture, and two high profile thefts. I told you about one of them already.”
Lily nudged me and pointed to the screen. A headshot of a beautiful chestnut with a blazing white star filled the screen. DERBY WINNER STOLEN read the headline.
“The other stolen horse,” I began, “is it called Vengeance Star?”
“Yeah! How’d you know?”
“I’m putting you on speaker,” I said, tapping the speaker button then opening my photo gallery. I scrolled to the dyed chestnut and held the phone up, against the laptop screen. “I think I know where it is.”
“You’ve seen it at the farm?”
I exchanged another look with Lily and knew she was as unsure as I.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t be one hundred percent sure but…
Do you remember the part of the yard where you saw Lily and me snooping?
There’re a few horses there, all supposedly in rehab even though none of them look injured, and there’s a horse there that looks just like Vengeance Star.
I think the white star has been dyed to make the horse unrecognizable. ”
“Are you telling me my gambling case, and your suspicious death, have morphed into horse rustling?”
“Something like that.”
“This horse disappeared over a week ago,” said Lily. She pointed to the article.
“Did anything happen with your case a week ago?” I asked on a hunch.
“More like our leads seemed to dry up two weeks ago. Hence, why we’re pulling back. Surveillance hasn’t panned out like we hoped.”
“Huh. It’s reported that Vengeance Star was stolen from his stall at night, before his race the next day, at a race meet in this state, and there’s a reward for his discovery. Oh!” I gaped at the screen. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Vengeance Star is a big winner and only in the first couple years of his race career. He has the potential to earn his owners far more in prize money than the reward they’re offering,” explained Maddox.
“What happens if the horse isn’t ever recovered?”
“They’ll probably claim insurance money. That could be a significant amount too.”
“So it’s a win-win for the owners.”
“Yeah, I guess so, although you’d hope they’d be more concerned about the horse’s welfare than the money.”
“How do we confirm it’s Vengeance Star?” I asked.
“Either a tattoo or microchip. Let me make a few inquiries on my end.”
“Can you find out about any similar horses stolen?”
“Sure. I’ll call you back.”
I laid my phone on the table. “Let’s check the other horses,” I said to Lily. “I’m not sure what to search for.”
“I think I remember the correct labels and terms,” said Lily as she called up another search window.
I made us both coffees while Lily searched and by the time our cups were drained, Lily had several profiles for us to peruse.
“This horse could be the stallion Joel tried to use to breed,” said Lily.
She pointed to a beautiful photo of a big bay, rider by his side.
“Six-year-old stallion, sired by an Olympic champion. It disappeared before a big eventing show. The rider had a backup horse but didn’t place on it.
She was tipped to be the favorite on Magnum. It was an Olympic qualifying event.”
“So she lost out on going to the Olympics because her horse disappeared?”
“Possibly.”
“That’s awful.” I scrolled the screen, making a note of the horse’s name and the rider’s.
“It says here the horse was also stabled in its stall overnight. There was a power outage and the camera feeds cut out and the security gates failed. A horse trailer was seen at two AM in the morning a mile away but there weren’t any plates or identifying details. ”
“Is that the pony?” I asked as Lily clicked to the next page.
“Yeah, it’s owned by a junior show jumping champion. It was on a plane to a competition but when the owners went to collect it, the airport facility had already released it to someone else. Hasn’t been seen since.”
“So we potentially have three stolen horses,” I said.
“I think I found the bay mare too,” said Lily. “Paradise Found. Also a racehorse. Five-year-old mare. Won sixty percent of her races in the past season, got second in the others. Tipped for a big future. Also disappeared from her stall overnight. I’m not sure about the others.”
“Let’s try and find a connection between the horses, Harvey, Yvette, and the Caseys. Doesn’t matter which one, any of them works for now. We should look for crossover in competitions they attended, race meets, prize-giving ceremonies. Things like that.”
“Divide and conquer?”
“Sure.”
Lily took the laptop and I snatched up my phone. While she searched for the bay mare and the junior show jumper, I took Vengeance Star and the bay stallion.
It took me ten minutes of searching before I found what I was looking for, buried several pages deep. I turned the phone to Lily and smiled. “Got him,” I said.
Lily grinned. “Me too,” she said, and turned her laptop.
“We got different guys,” I said, wincing at the different photos. “You got Harvey. I got Joel. What did you find?”
“Harvey was at a race meet when the mare and Vengeance Star were both running in heats. There’s a picture of him celebrating with some of the other owners and trainers. That was six months ago. You?”
“Joel and Jessica were both at an eventing competition three months before the stallion disappeared.” I scrolled through the pictures, pausing when I struck gold.
“Harvey and Yvette were there too.” I kept scrolling and there in the background was Joel and Yvette, standing a little too close together.
Across the room from them, the camera caught Jessica staring directly at them.
If Jessica hadn’t known about her husband and sister’s affair before, she had to have known then. Or if she hadn’t known, her husband and sister’s unnatural poses must have sparked a suspicion. One that she’d gone to lengths to confirm on top of Yvette’s anonymous tip.
“We have a lot of theory but we can’t prove anything,” I said. “Not unless we can get the horses checked for microchips. I wonder if Solomon can get me one.”
“Of course he can. He’s Solomon.”
“I’ll call him. We need it now and we need to get back into that yard.
If we’re right, and those horses are stolen, and Joel knew about it and found out that Jessica suspected what he and Harvey were up to, and his affair, he might have wanted to get rid of her to secure his inheritance.
It’s the only way he gets the farm outright, gets Yvette, and gets away with grand larceny. ”
“What a shit,” said Lily. “I hate him.”
“Same.” I laid the phone down and took a deep breath. I could avenge Jessica. I could still give her that. “We need to prove several things. That the horses are stolen, and that Jessica was forced off the road or her car was tampered with.”
My first call was to Solomon. He didn’t have a microchip machine but he said he’d get one and meet me a half mile from the farm as soon as he could. My second call was to Garrett.
“How’s the undercover case going?” he asked.
“Full of leads.”
“Attached to horses?” he quipped.
“Haha, yes, you could say that. Did anything come up with the car?”
“Funny you should ask, I just finished reading the report. The car was in good condition. Tires good, the engine fine, brake and fuel lines all good. Everything you’d expect in a two-year-old car.”
“Jessica’s car had a flat tire when we saw it,” I said. “She was driving it when she came to see me at the agency so the flat must have been recent. Did they say anything about that?”