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

inadvertently, when I’d asked him if he knew anyone named Robinson. He’d answered smartly, and surely unawares, “Crusoe.”

But the revelations of the October 2, 1953, Racing Form didn’t end with the horse Johnny Sprague had ridden. There were two other names in the race that I recognized. First, the owner of the winning horse, Bomber Jacket, was listed as M. Hodges. This was the infamous race, all right, I told myself. But the name that sent my skin to crawling was the owner of Robinson’s Friday, Johnny’s horse. I blinked and had to read it twice. It was L. Fleischman.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I sat there in the low light of Fadge’s kitchen, trying to piece together the significance of what I’d just discovered. I’d been all wrong about Johnny Dornan’s midnight appointment on the night he died. Now I realized that he wasn’t meeting anyone named Robinson on Friday. He’d scribbled Robinson’s Friday, the horse he’d ridden into exile, but why? I pictured the torn piece of newspaper Fadge had swiped from Johnny’s room. It was possible that the apostrophe hadn’t come through on the ink transfer, or that, in his haste or ignorance, Johnny hadn’t included it at all. But I was sure now that it was the name of his horse, not some mysterious, unknown person.

Was Johnny simply musing over his past transgression when he wrote the note? I doubted that. He’d taken the trouble to write “midnight” next to the name Robinson’s Friday, which told me he was meeting someone who either knew about the thrown race or had actually been involved in the fix. Whoever it was murdered him and Vivian McLaglen that night. I wondered if someone was killing off the conspirators one by one. After all, Mack Hodges had died in January or February in a similar fashion, burned to death. As best I could tell, only two possible conspirators remained alive: the elusive Dan Ledoux and the grandfatherly Lou Fleischman. I had no idea where to find the former, but I knew Lou would be at Grossman’s Victoria Hotel. And I figured he was either the killer or he was in great danger. I bounded down the front stairs, the October 2, 1953, Racing Form in hand, leapt into my car, and sped off toward Saratoga.

“He’s not here,” said the elderly woman who answered the door of room 312. It was a little after seven. “Who are you, and what do you want with Lou?”

“My name is Eleonora Stone. I’m a friend—an acquaintance of your husband’s. I’m a newspaper reporter.”

She eyed me guardedly, distrustful of my motives or perhaps even my intentions. She appeared to be sixty-five, a little stooped in her posture, dressed in a dark skirt and untucked blouse. A crooked brunette wig was perched atop her head. My knock on the door must have caught her by surprise.

Her ashen face betrayed a premonition of bad news. “What is it? Is Lou in trouble?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Fleischman. I need to find him right away.”

“He said he was meeting someone at the track. The training track.”

I didn’t stick around to exchange pleasantries or reassure Rose Fleischman that everything would turn out all right. I certainly didn’t know that. What was I thinking, driving over to the Oklahoma training track as the sun was sinking into the August gloaming?

I was relieved to see Lou Fleischman’s drooping figure was neither alone nor in danger. He was reviewing some kind of chart with three men near the entrance. I recognized two of them. Carl Boehringer stood a few feet away from the conference, which included Mike, the morning rider who’d been training Purgatorio the week before. The third man, short and slender with graying temples and horn-rimmed glasses, was doing all the talking, citing horses’ names, distances, and times. I pegged him for the trainer, Hal Brown.

I kept a respectful distance, loath to interrupt their business, but Mike saw me first. Then Lou, noticing the jockey had glanced up, followed suit and spied me not ten feet away.

“Hello, Ellie,” he said. I may have been imagining things, but I fancied he was put out by my sudden appearance. “I’m almost finished here.”

I assured him I was in no hurry and he should take his time.

“Why don’t you go visit your friend Purgatorio?” he suggested. “I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

I wandered off in the direction of the stables, where I located my favorite thousand pounds of horseflesh, facing the back wall of his stall as was his habit. I clicked my tongue, and he wheeled around and approached—not quite at a gallop—but as quickly as a horse could manage in such tight quarters. He blustered and bobbed his head at me, then presented it gently against my cheek before resting his chin on my shoulder. I stroked his muzzle and greeted him by name. Then I pulled back and retrieved a carrot from my purse. I’d packed it that morning in anticipation of giving him a treat. He took it whole from my hand and crunched it seven or eight times before sending the orange mash down the hatch.

I reached into my purse again, this time for my camera. But Tory thought I was digging out another treat, and surely couldn’t understand why I hadn’t any Cheerios or apples in my bag. He submitted to my attentions all the same, posing and showing off with the humility of a peacock on parade. I shot an entire roll of Kodachrome in the falling light, adjusting the aperture and shutter speed to compensate. When I’d finished I complimented him on his beauty. Then Carl Boehringer appeared.

“Oh, miss,” he called.

“Ellie,” I prompted.

“Lou says you should meet him in his car. It’s the green Buick Eight in the parking lot. Past the barn over there.” He pointed the way.

I confess the summons alarmed me. Why shouldn’t we meet in the open as he had with