Hounded to Death Page 3

“Zurich.”

  Shaker stood to shake an outstretched hand once the newcomer had released Sister. “Been a long time.”

  “Too long, too long.” Judge Barry Baker, retired from Virginia’s Supreme Court, slapped Shaker on the back.

  “This young lady will be attending your alma mater.” Sister introduced Judge Baker to Tootie Harris.

  Barry took Tootie’s hand in both his own. “How I envy you. Some of the happiest days of my life were spent at Princeton.”

  Sister filled Tootie in. “Judge Baker was captain of the football team and the baseball team.”

  “But I liked foxhunting best, and when I could I’d slip away and hunt with Essex. In those days there was still country in New Jersey. Well, young lady, I wish you the best of luck. You have a grand teacher in Sister.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Her best friend at Custis Hall also got in. Unusual,” Sister said.

  “Princeton likes smart women, and Custis Hall specializes in them.” He smiled again, his bleached-white teeth giving him a more youthful appearance than his seventy-four years.

  “You just missed Mo Schneider,” Sister remarked.

  “Maybe someone will mix up a cyanide cocktail for him at the party. Do us all a world of good.” His gray eyes glinted at Tootie. “If he so much as looks at you cross-eyed, you come straight to me, hear?”

  “Yes, Judge.”

  “Are you showing hounds or spectating?” Shaker inquired.

  “O.J. asked me to be ring steward. American ring.” He threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Who doesn’t want to be in demand?”

  “You can show a hound. Drat.” Sister snapped her fingers. “I was hoping we could go head-to-head.”

  He kissed her on the cheek. “We can, dear heart, we can. Head-to-head!”

  After he left to go to the party, Tootie noted, “He’s very distinguished-looking.”

  “That he is. He could have been governor, but he said he didn’t have the stomach for electoral politics. He made the right choice.”

  “He really likes you. Not fake. Not like Mo.”

  Tootie, sensitive and observant, was right.

  “Men always like Sister. Women, too. She gets along with both sexes.” Shaker checked one of his tent poles.

  “Are you sure you want to sleep out here?” Sister said.

  “Boss, I do.”

  “You know you have a room next to mine.”

  “I’ll use it to shower. I want to stay here with the hounds.” He sucked in a breath. “Especially now I know Mo is here.”

  “Why?” Tootie was puzzled.

  “He’s been known to take a hound and then lie through his teeth, but we always know because two years later he’ll arrive at a show with get that look just like the dog that went missing. He can hide the stolen hound so no one sees it in his kennels, but blood tells.” Shaker crossed his arms over his chest. “Bloodlines are gold, you know. It’s just like stealing gold.”

  “But you-all allow people to breed to our hounds and you go breed from other kennels.” Tootie wasn’t contradicting Shaker, just being curious.

  “Tootie, we go to Middleburg or Deep Run, Casanova, Orange, Keswick, Farmington, or Colonial, and we do it properly, with permission. We know the people, and those hunts are within three hours’ driving distance. Sometimes we’ll drive to Maryland to Green Spring Valley for hounds. Not only do they have lines we want, the huntsmen take excellent care of their kennels. Mo doesn’t take care of anything. He starves his hounds and then fattens up the pretty ones for the shows. He hunts his own hounds and can’t hunt a hair of them. He’s really a despicable human being.” Sister felt that first chill of night air and shivered. “Although I did hear he hired a kennelman two years ago, so at least the starving and beating stopped. He once ran a horse to death, too.”

  “Why doesn’t the Master of Foxhounds Association throw him out?” Tootie asked the right question.

  “Because he’s sneaky. They have to catch him at it. Somehow he gets word of surprise visits to his kennels or stables in time to spirit away the raggedy-looking hounds and horses. He’s got so much money, who knows who he’s paying to spy on the MFHA? If he is. Sooner or later, I swear, he’ll get his,” Sister answered.

  “Ninety-nine percent of the people in this sport love animals, but there are a few who don’t.” Shaker shrugged. “Vicious creeps.”

  “I say we send them to Congress where they’ll be with their brethren.” Sister laughed.

  Shaker laughed, too. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you don’t believe in democracy.”

  “Don’t.” Sister inhaled. “All right, what’s left to be done?”

  “Nothing,” Shaker replied.

  “Let’s party, then.”

  “Okay,” Shaker said, “but I’m leaving early. I want to be fresh tomorrow. And I want to feed hounds, walk them out at six-thirty A.M., too. I’ll unhitch the dually. I know once you get there you won’t be able to get away. Going to be a big day.” Shaker felt the buzz of competitiveness begin.

  “You bet.” Sister grinned.

  Many competitors had already left for the party. Few people were around or, if they were, they kept out of sight.

  The three entered the house to freshen up before going to the party.

  Stepping back outside, Sister saw her hounds in full cry. She dashed back into the house as Shaker and Tootie emerged from the two bathrooms.

  “Our hounds are out and scorching the wind.”

  “Holy shit!” Shaker tore out the door, Sister and Tootie behind him.

  They reached the Subaru. Sister hopped in the driver’s seat. The back door of the trailer swung open like a slack jaw.

  “Horn?” Sister asked, before cranking the motor.

  “Goddammit.” Shaker, upset, got back out, ran to the truck, and pulled his horn from the glove compartment.

  Windows down, they listened to the hounds now turning toward the barn, perhaps half a mile from the house.

  “Hope they don’t go to Sixty-eight.” Tootie mentioned the paved road leading to Shaker Village.

  Sister gunned toward the barn as Shaker, hanging out the window, kept blowing the three long notes which asked hounds to return to him. With every rut in the road, he’d bob up, then drop down.

  Hounds were already beyond the barn. Running flat out, they climbed the steep hill on the northern side of the barn.

  The gate to that large pasture was shut.

  Sister stopped. Shaker and Tootie got out.

  “Locked. Goddammit to hell!” His face red, he threw his hands up in fury.

  “We can lift it off the hinges.” Tootie noticed the heavy chain.

  Shaker lifted the gate up while Tootie steadied it. Because of the manner in which the chain held the gate to the fence post, there was enough room for Sister to squeeze the car through. Once on the other side of the gate, Shaker put it back on its hinges.

  Back in the car, Sister drove to the top of the hill and parked, because it afforded them a commanding view. The pack was working beautifully together, the unentered hounds folded right in. Heartening as this was to behold, the three on the hill could only think of getting them back.

  Shaker continued to blow. The horn, air clear today, could be heard for three miles by human ears much as a train whistle can be heard for miles. Hounds can hear farther than that.

  He blew and blew, then called, voice booming. “Come to me! Come to me!”

  “Coyote.” Sister cursed.

  Tootie pressed her lips together; she knew what coyote meant.

  Coyote scent is heavier than fox so it’s easier for hounds to detect. Also, the coyote often runs in a blazing straight line, although he may make a big circle eventually to return to his den. Exciting though those runs may be, the larger predator lacks the skillful ruses, the engaging mental superiority of the fox. Hunting coyote, you want to stick in the saddle. Hunting the fox, you want to keep your senses razor sharp, since your quarry
is smarter than you.

  Often a coyote will run right out of the territory allowed to a hunt. This can create all manner of problems, of which a cranky landowner can be a big one.

  Shaker kept blowing and one by one, hounds slowed, stopped, and listened.

  Glitter, an unentered female, littermate to Giorgio, asked Diddy, “Why are we stopping?”

  “Huntsman’s calling us back.”

  “But,” inquired Glenda, another littermate, “we’ve been hearing those notes all along.”

  Dragon, handsome and in his prime, a trifle blocky in the body, chuckled. “Scent was so good we had to let ’er rip a little.”

  “Look at that!” Shaker slapped his thigh as hounds trotted back to him.

  “You know what my grandfather used to say.” Sister held up a finger pointing to the sky, presumably where her grandfather was.

  In unison, both Shaker and Tootie repeated his words. “Trust your hounds. If you don’t trust your hounds, don’t hunt them!”

  Sister opened the hatch of the Forester as hounds neared.

  Tootie counted heads. “Giorgio’s missing.”

  “Blow again, Shaker. Case he got far ahead.”

  Shaker did as his master commanded, but they both knew the stunning unentered hound would not outstrip Dragon, a strike hound. Dragon would have turned on him like a snake. Cora, another strike hound and back in the kennel, would have bumped the younger hound, too. Cora and Dragon had to be used separately. They refused to cooperate with each other, so great was their pride in being first.

  Diddy, first one to hop in the SUV, beamed. “Invigorating!”

  Soon they were all in the green vehicle, Tootie happy with hounds since they had to flip the back seat down.

  Tootie was one of those people who was most herself, most full of life, when with hounds. Her family, suburban people, just couldn’t understand it.

  Down at the gate, Tootie wiggled out of the back, and she and Shaker again lifted it off the hinges.

  As Sister drove through she wondered if they should have stayed on the hill and blown longer. But she knew Giorgio, inexperienced though he was, would have returned. This country was much more open than her hunting country. At home, a hound might get separated, lost and scared or confused. Occasionally, a youngster would do that. But here, she could see for miles. A tricolor hound is easy to spot.

  As Shaker and Tootie climbed back in the SUV, Sister, voice clipped, pronounced, “My hound has been stolen.”

  A silence followed. Then Shaker answered, “Yeah.”

  “You think . . . ?” Tootie’s voice trailed off.

  “Yes, I do,” Shaker, angry, replied. “How can we prove it?”

  “He created a distraction. Grabbed Giorgio and let the others out,” said Sister.

  “You think?” Tootie was appalled as the two in front nodded their affirmation.

  “I will kill that bastard.” Sister meant it, too.

  CHAPTER 2

  Woodford’s brand-new kennels rested little more than a mile from the Shaker Village entrance. Starting at six in the evening, a yellow flashing light drew human contestants to the party. Tables lined the grassy area outside the kennels, a tent had been set up, and brands of famous Kentucky sipping whiskey lined the bar, as well as some single-cask specials. As Shaker had predicted, there wasn’t a Tennessee bourbon in sight.

  Sister allowed herself the pleasure of a wee draft of Blanton’s Single Barrel No. 444, and what a pleasure it was. She needed to settle down. Externally she looked calm, but inside she seethed. Shaker stayed back with the hounds. There was little doubt in either of their minds that Mo had stolen Giorgio.The issue was how to find the hound and, more, how to keep their tempers in check in the meantime. Tootie, sitting next to Sister on a hay bale, watched everything with both interest and suspicion.

  “He’s not here at the party,” Tootie commented.

  “Mo primps more than a woman.” Sister brushed a paprika-colored ladybug off Tootie’s shoulder. “You’ll have luck since the ladybug chose you.”

  Smiling, Tootie replied, “Then we’ll find Giorgio.” She paused. “Maybe Mo didn’t take him. Why would he be so obvious?”

  “Arrogant. He figures he won’t get caught. He’s smart enough to hide Giorgio where we can’t find him. Tomorrow, after the show, he’ll pick him up on the way home. I’d bet my life on it.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell O.J.?”

  Sister shook her head. “She’s on overload. There’s nothing she can do since we can’t prove it. We all know his reputation, but that’s not proof. I’ll tell her after the show. Plus, we don’t want to tip off Mo. If we act as though nothing has happened we just might trip him up.”

  “How’d you get so smart?” Tootie admired Sister even as she teased her a bit.

  “Foxes. They’ve taught me a lot.”

  “Like?”

  “To expect the unexpected, for starters.”

  “I don’t need to go to Princeton. I need to study foxes.” Tootie dreaded leaving the place and the people she had grown to love, to say nothing of the hounds.

  Sister leaned her shoulder on Tootie’s. “Slip away and go over there and listen.”

  Sister indicated a large group of younger people—which is to say mid-teens to mid-thirties—clustered around Hope Rogers, who had inadvertently become the center of attention when she brought up the subject of West Nile virus, which can attack both horses and humans.

  Tootie walked over to join them. Judge Baker and O.J., immersed in deep conversation, stood at the entrance to the kennels.

  A plume of smoke curled up behind an exquisite Maserati. Mo Schneider loved to make an entrance. The machine ensured he’d attract attention. Next to him was his kennelman, Fonz Riley. For the past two years, whenever Mo had participated in a hound show, Fonz drove the rig; Mo drove whatever his latest purchase was. He changed cars like most men change socks. However, when Sister beheld the Maserati she thought he just might hang on to this car a bit longer. She caught herself wondering what a used one would cost. She couldn’t imagine Mo putting Giorgio in the Maserati so she concluded that the hound couldn’t be too far away.

  Mo cut the motor, unfolding himself from behind the wheel without turning back to look at Fonz. He zipped straight for the bar, asked for a double vodka straight up, knocked it right back, and held out his glass for a refill. The bartender, a club member, poured another double, and Mo sauntered over to the crowd around Hope.

  Fonz, another man who had battled the bottle, picked up a Co-Cola out of the huge cooler and joined other kennelmen.

  By now, Hope was urging the young people around her to get involved with the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.

  Mo listened for all of two minutes, then acidly interrupted, “Some of ’em aren’t worth saving, Hope. That’s what the knacker is for.”

  Knacker is an old horseman’s word for the fellow who kills horses. It has been expanded to include the man who takes the horses to the slaughterhouse.

  “It’s true some are difficult, Mo, but it’s worth trying to work with them,” Hope responded, even-tempered.

  “Bad horse costs as much to feed as a good horse.” He enjoyed needling the good-looking woman.

  “Mo, you can afford it,” replied Carl Matacola, a member of Woodford.

  Carl, at forty-one, was an associate professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Health Science. As director of athletic training, he also had a lot of experience in rehabilitation, making him very popular with Woodford’s walking wounded.

  The others laughed.

  Ignoring them, Mo kept on. “Now that slaughtering horses is outlawed, what happens? People leave them to starve. I say kill them. It’s more humane.”

  Those who knew Mo’s reputation smirked when he said humane.

  “Only if a horse is crazy—and some are, I agree,” Hope maintained. “Otherwise, give the animal a chance. You’d be crazy too if you’d been stuffed with steroids, fed high-ca
lorie grain, and stuck in a stall for twenty-three hours a day, only going outside to breeze a bit on the track and then be washed down.”

  “Oh, attacking the industry now, are you?” Mo stood up to his full height.

  Since he was skinny he looked even taller than he was.

  “Yes and no. Racing has to clean up after itself, or someone else will do it for us and then everyone loses.”

  “She’s right about that,” Jim Fitzgerald said, a stalwart of the Thoroughbred business, who’d walked up and heard the tail end of the discussion. “Anytime folks who aren’t horse people stick their noses into it, everyone suffers, most especially the horses. Kind of like the vegetarians a few years ago who said you could feed your cats high protein and not feed them meat.”

  As a blank look covered a few faces, Hope said, “Cats are obligate carnivores; they have to eat meat, whereas hounds can live without it so long as they get the correct amount of protein—which, of course, depends on their activity level.”

  Mo drained his vodka. “I didn’t come here for a lecture. When does the party start?”

  Carl, handsome and well-mannered—unlike Mo—said, “We’re enjoying ourselves. If you don’t like the conversation, find another.”

  Secure in his wealth and little else, Mo sneered at the shorter man, without noticing how fit Carl was.

  Before he could put his scorn into words, Hope moved toward Mo. “You obviously want to fuss at me, so why don’t we go somewhere where you can? No point in spoiling other people’s evening.”

  “Actually, Hope, I don’t have a goddamned thing to say to you.” Mo turned on his heel so fast that he tore up a little clump of grass and nearly knocked down Leslie Matacola, Carl’s wife. He bore down on O.J. and Barry, who viewed him with barely concealed distaste.

  Carl, curious, asked, “How do you know Mo Schneider?”

  Hope sighed. “Met him on the back stretch of a couple of racetracks. We didn’t hit it off—which is an understatement.”

  “Pretty much the story of his life.” Jim Fitzgerald couldn’t help but laugh. “Ever notice how someone can be so smart in one department and woefully deficient in others?”

  Hope laughed. “Makes me worry about myself.”