A Stone's Throw by James Ziskin (best story books to read .txt) 📗

Audrey Shaw shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with the direction our conversation was taking. The waiter returned with our drinks just in time to give her a few seconds to regroup, and she blinked the briefest smile at him as thanks. She retrieved a cigarette from her purse and lit it.

“I assume the family trust owns it. It’s not as if Harrison spends his weekends out there shoeing horses and mucking out stables.”

“Did the Saratoga sheriff contact him about the fire?”

She took a long sip of her drink, professed her ignorance on the subject, and suggested I ask her husband. We sat in silence for a long moment. I was glad for the respite. For once I was dictating terms with Audrey Shaw. At length, however, she softened, perhaps as the whiskey worked its magic.

“Do you remember that afternoon we spent together?” she asked. “You impressed me, did you know that?”

“As a matter of fact, I understood exactly the opposite. I thought you despised me.”

“For what you wrote about Jordan? No, I know you only reported your story as you saw fit. It was what the great unwashed masses wanted.”

“I was very forthcoming with your husband about what I was going to write.”

“Enough, Miss Stone. That’s all in the past. You and I have suffered terrible tragedies.”

A few sips later, we’d achieved little to solidify a friendship, understanding, or even a truce. All I knew was that I disliked that woman, all the while pitying her and wishing I could decipher her intentions. I sensed she was trying to establish some connection with me, though I couldn’t quite figure what she wanted. She certainly didn’t consider me a surrogate daughter, which I didn’t want to be anyway. She’d made that clear to me two years before when she told me I couldn’t hold a candle to her Jordan. But now, in a relaxed state, she loosened up and even touched my hand.

“I can tell you loads about these ladies for your article,” she said with a wicked smile. “Most of them are from Kentucky or Virginia. Do you really think they care two whits about Negro children? Or anything beyond their own comfort and public image? Plus I know who’s sleeping with whom.”

“Perhaps they’re no different from us.”

“From me. Not you, Eleonora.”

I started at having heard her use my given name.

“Ellie,” she corrected herself. “Let’s have another drink, and I’ll tell you a story about Tempesta Farm.”

The light stretched across the lawn outside, its temperature cooling with the sinking sun, and Audrey Shaw told me of her first visit to New Holland.

She was barely twenty, recently engaged to Harrison, the future Judge Shaw. Their families knew each other, but not well, so naturally his parents wanted to spend some time with her before the wedding. Audrey Jeffers hailed from Baltimore, where her father had served on the state racing commission. He’d known Harrison’s uncle, Joshua, the famous horseman, and greatly respected his grandfather, Sanford Shaw, the man who’d built Tempesta Farm. Audrey confessed that her parents’ only hesitation at the prospective match was Harrison’s uncle Joshua, whose reputation as a playboy was known up and down the Eastern Seaboard and as far afield as Europe.

“To tell you the truth,” said Audrey Shaw, sipping her drink, “Uncle Joshua was the most interesting Shaw of them all, and I include my husband in that beauty pageant.”

The chaperoned visit in late August and early September of 1937 went off well, despite concerns over Uncle Joshua’s profligacies, and both families were amenable to the match.

Audrey Shaw corrected herself. “Actually, my visit was going well until the fire destroyed the Race Barn and took twelve of the Shaws’ finest Thoroughbreds with it.”

“You were there?” I asked.

“The August meet had just wrapped up, and I stayed on a little longer to be with Harrison.”

“How did it happen?”

She shrugged. “They never established for certain how the fire got started, though there were rumors a stableboy was to blame. Or maybe it was one of the farmhands. I don’t recall. But Harrison once told me that the fire was an accident. No one could have done that on purpose.”

She continued her tale. Audrey Jeffers had spent her days at the track, or riding at Tempesta, and split her evenings between soirées in Saratoga and quiet dinners at the Shaw family mansion on Market Hill. The fire erupted in the Race Barn after midnight on September 3, 1937. Nathan Shaw was roused from his sleep by his brother, Joshua, and together with Harrison they raced out to the farm in the dead of the night to take stock of the situation. By the time they’d arrived, the barn was gone, and so were twelve cherished horses.

“I was packed off back to Baltimore the next day while they dealt with the aftermath,” said Audrey Shaw. “Shall we have another?” She signaled to the waiter.

In for a penny . . . I nodded. “What happened next?”

“My father wasn’t sure the wedding would come off after the tragedy. As if perhaps the Shaws would associate the fire with my presence. But soon enough we discovered I was expecting, so not only was the wedding on but rushed forward.”

So much for the chaperoned visit. I must have looked shocked because she explained further.

“I miscarried, so the wedding was moved back to June of the next year as originally planned.” She offered a sad smile. “It was the event of the season.”

Back at the office, I dropped off my film at the lab then tapped out the skeleton of my garden party story. I still needed to interview the guest of honor, who was the chairwoman of the charity drive. Unlike Audrey Shaw, I believed subscribers would be interested in reading about Saratoga high society. The Spa City occupied a special place in the hearts of New Holland citizens. Each August, the racing season, and the glamour it epitomized, provided an escape for readers: the fancy garden