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

Toby didn’t remember me, but he smiled all the same when I produced a small brown bag of Cheerios that I had packed that morning for Purgatorio, in case I made it over to the stables later in the day. I was aware that I was guilty of dehumanizing Toby, equating him with a dumb animal, albeit with the best intentions, but his eyes lit up at the sight of the cereal. He picked one O from my hand and nibbled on it for a moment. Then he helped himself to three more, and that was all he wanted. He chewed on them, drooled on them, and ended up dropping them onto the floor. I smiled at Norma and told her what a great boy Toby was. She fidgeted and changed the subject.

“I finished off my list of Robinsons last night,” she said. “I’m afraid none of them panned out. Unless they were lying to me.”

“It was a long shot.”

“But on the Johnny Dornan front, I’ve located newspapers in the Hagerstown and Laurel Park areas. I’m about to telephone now, though they’re not major dailies. I’ll try Baltimore and Lexington and Washington, as well. But they might not have run anything on Johnny Sprague if all this happened at a small-time racetrack.”

“And it’s Saturday, so there might not be anyone at home at those small papers.”

“I’ve already got phone numbers of several libraries in the area. Librarians read and have good memories. And they tend to stay put in their jobs for years. I think I’ll get something before the day is through.”

I’d never thought of quizzing librarians for local race-fixing history, but it made sense. Norma Geary never failed to impress me. I retrieved a five-dollar bill from my purse and told her firmly that she was to buy herself and Toby lunch. When she bucked, I lied and said Artie Short had authorized the expense. That it wasn’t my money. In the end, she took it and thanked me with a stiff smile. It wasn’t easy to fool her. And she hated being pitied.

I spent a couple of hours working on several pieces that had been languishing in my Not Urgent folder. Then I tackled a couple of stories that Charlie Reese had asked me to finish for a colleague whose mother had passed away three days earlier. It wasn’t hard stuff. Some city council meetings, a tax assessor story, and a profile of an exchange student from France.

Next, I plotted out the dramatis personae of the Johnny Dornan case. There were the two victims, Johnny and his erstwhile love interest, Vivian McLaglen. They seemed an unlikely pair to me, but love, like water, seeks its own level. He’d been a wet-behind-the-ears kid from Midwestern Canada. A fine riding prospect, but headstrong and unwilling to follow the rules. According to his father, Johnny had turned his back on a fine future riding in Canada to pursue a redheaded tramp to Maryland. Other reports on Johnny Dornan’s character didn’t paint a rosy picture, either. Consorting with gamblers, he was variously described as a mean-spirited, unpleasant frequenter of professional girls.

Vivian McLaglen was twice married. Widowed, then remarried to her late husband’s younger brother, with whom she’d carried on a not-so-secret love affair. People who’d known her described her as selfish, demanding, conniving, and plain no good. That last characterization had come from the lips of her own father. Testimonials from Jimmy Burgh and her abandoned husband, Tommy McLaglen, did little to rehabilitate her reputation.

Next, assuming—perhaps mistakenly so—that Johnny and not Vivian was the key to the murders, I considered those closest to him: the Harlequin Stables team. There was his minder, Carl Boehringer, and his employer, Lou Fleischman, and even Nick Blakely the jockey. And what about Mike, the morning rider? I wasn’t sure how well he’d known Johnny or what reason he might have had to want to do him harm, but hadn’t he admitted that he disliked him? A long shot, perhaps, and a nice guy to boot, but who could say? I asked myself if he might not profit from Johnny Dornan’s death by inheriting some of his rides. After all, Johnny too had won his big chance and proven himself in part thanks to the injury of another jockey.

Carl Boehringer professed no love lost for Johnny. He’d called him a little prick, arrogant, and a midget. I’d been intrigued by Carl’s role in the Harlequin organization from the first moment I’d met him. He appeared to have no part in the racing or training side of the business. He wasn’t a veterinarian or an accountant or a lawyer. Both he and Lou Fleischman had declined to explain what his job was until I’d pressed the latter and been told that Carl was “like my right hand.” Like my right hand, not “He’s my right hand.” Did that matter? Was I overanalyzing the relationship? Might that right hand carry a pistol to defend his boss? Or perhaps enforce for his boss? That most certainly depended on my opinion of Lou Fleischman.

Lou looked like any zayde one might find sagging into a webbed lawn chair at a Catskill Mountains resort. I wondered if he was, in fact, a grandfather; we hadn’t touched on his personal life. I knew him to be a man of simple tastes. He didn’t keep Shabbos, cheated on his kosher diet, and smoked despite his doctor’s and wife’s wishes. A man who enjoyed the simple pleasure of a cold Schaefer’s beer. He struck me as a nice old man, but I’d sensed a darker side to the gentle soul who’d strolled through Congress Park with me, watching the ducks and enjoying the fountains. And there was the clever way he’d skirted my question about Vivian McLaglen. It was as if he’d been schooled by some shyster on how to avoid perjuring himself under questioning. And then there was the shadow that had crossed his face when I asked him