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

and Marlboro,” he said. “Marlboro’s small enough, I suppose. And Hagerstown is about as glamorous as it sounds. And Timonium, too. Out of the way, but there’s some decent racing at those tracks.”

“But you don’t remember any betting scandals anywhere in the region?”

He shook his head.

“How about a man named Robinson? Johnny Dornan wrote that he was meeting someone named Robinson on Friday at midnight.”

He shook his head. “I know a couple of people named Robinson, but I don’t see how they could have been in contact with your jockey. Kent Robinson was a schoolmate at Woodberry Forest. Went on to divinity school. And Junior Robinson worked for my grandmother in Charlottesville. Nice old fellow. Taught me to tie my shoes. Of course he died fifteen years ago.”

“Fat lot of help you are,” I said. “I thought you were a track rat.”

“Not hardly. I love the sport, but I don’t live for it.”

“And yet we met at seven in the morning at the training track. You were even armed with binoculars and a stopwatch. I figured you were a bridge jumper.”

“You say the funniest things, Ellie Stone. Sometimes you sound like a gangster’s moll. But, no, I’m careful with my betting. Some fellows can’t sit out even one race. They simply have to be in the game, whether they’re confident of their strategy or not. It takes patience and discipline to win at this.”

I told him I had a dear friend who also thought he could beat the system. “But he’s a plunger. He told me he once dropped two hundred dollars on a single race.”

“There are more like him than you might think. Two hundred bucks is too rich for my blood.”

I would have thought the opposite, at least in terms of his blue blood. It was clear that Frederick Carsten Whitcomb III came from money. I’d had tea with his mother, after all, and she threw off a healthy odor of greenbacks. And old ones at that. Still, even if one was swimming in the stuff, profligacy and lack of self-control struck me as wrong. Throwing away money in such a cavalier manner, when so many others were truly in need, was bad manners if nothing else. So Freddie’s responsible habits, despite his wealth and privilege, were to his credit.

“I’ve got to run,” he said, dabbing his lips with a napkin. “How about I take you to the Travers tomorrow and squire you around like a Southern belle?”

“I’m afraid I already have a date for the race.”

“Your friend the plunger?”

“The very one.”

“Does he have a box in the clubhouse?”

“No, but there’s a bench near the paddock where he sets up shop.”

“Fine. I’ll pick you up here tomorrow at seven for the gala. That means you’ll have to leave after the Travers if you’re going to make it back here in time. It’s the sixth race, so the horses will probably be in the gate a little before five.”

“I have a better idea. It’s a lot of driving to rush back and forth to Saratoga. And there’s no way my friend will ever miss the last three races. I was thinking of taking a room at a motel in Saratoga.”

He grinned at me. “Sounds naughty when you say it.”

“The Friar Tuck Motel on Route Fifty. Seven thirty. Be on time and I might invite you back later for a nightcap.”

Yes, I considered myself a “modern girl.” And, as in the case of the horse that ran off, I saw no value in locking the barn door now. And though I spent little time analyzing my own behavior in this regard, I knew that I was happy with the freedom I granted myself. Freddie made me laugh. He was smart, athletic, and attractive. I owed explanations to no one. I smiled just thinking of that. Then the specter of my landlady, Mrs. Giannetti, invaded my thoughts and wrecked whatever self-satisfaction I was feeling. As I accompanied Freddie down the stairs to the street, I prayed she wouldn’t be watching through her chintz curtains to catch me at my most shameless once again. Hallelujah, the coast was clear. Freddie gave me a peck on the cheek and tweaked my nose as if I were a child. Then he slipped out the storm door, turned right, and strode down the sidewalk about fifty yards. He’d had the good sense to park his roadster a respectable distance from my apartment. What a gentleman.

“Late night, dear?” came a voice to my left on the front porch. Damn it.

“Good morning, Mrs. Giannetti,” I said and turned to trudge back up the stairs to sew a scarlet A onto my blouse.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Have you seen the Saratogian this morning?” asked Norma Geary over my shoulder.

She placed it on my desk and folded her arms across her chest, as if to dare me to read the front page. I gathered up the newspaper and snapped it open. There in the upper-right-hand corner of the front page stretched the headline, “Tempesta Barn Victim Is Jockey Johnny Dornan: Sheriff Pryor.” The byline was Scotty Freed.

“Isn’t he a track writer over at the Saratogian?” I asked Norma. She nodded. “And now he’s writing front-page copy? He must be the sheriff ’s man at the paper.”

“At least you beat him to the punch.”

“Yes, but this means the sheriff is willing to share information with Freed. It won’t be long before he’s a step ahead of me.”

“So what’s your plan?”

“This,” I said, tearing a page out of my trusty Underwood typewriter along with a sheet of carbon paper and the copy underneath it.

Norma took it from me and, sitting on the corner of my desk, read out loud.

“‘Was Johnny Dornan in the Pocket of Downstate Gamblers?’”

Jimmy Burgh had agreed to go on the record for certain details, including that he’d been told by anonymous sources that Johnny Dornan was working under an assumed name. Then, quoting John Sprague Sr., I jumped to my