Hiss Of Death

Pud and John Benton had selected real estate agent Julie Bendel to market their daughter’s house. The next day, Julie asked Harry to accompany her to the site.

Julie Bendel, a petite fireball, put a special lock that realtors use on the door. She liked the house, as did Harry, who’d never walked all through it. Even in this difficult market, it would be an easy sell. Paula’s remodeling preserved the integrity of the farmhouse while enhancing it. She kept the old wavy handblown glass in the windows, but upstairs in the main bedroom she’d installed a large skylight, which let the light pour in. Wisely, she’d also installed louvers for the skylight, to shut off the burning sun in the summer. The floors had all been refinished, revealing rich variations in the color of the heart pine. The marble countertops in the kitchen, Paula’s one concession to flashiness, brought the room to life.

“You okay to go to the barn?” Julie asked Harry.

“Yeah, I made myself go back there when we packed up the house.”

“I wanted you to look at this with a horseman’s eyes. You’re conservative with money, and whoever buys this will probably be a middle-income person. I think it’s a great property for horses.”

“Is.” Harry walked in step with Julie.

Before reaching the barn, Julie stopped. “The distance from the back door of the house to the barn door is enough to keep the odors at bay but not so far that a trip in bad weather is a mess. I see that as a selling point.”

“Sounds about right.” Harry mentally measured off the distance, which she figured to be about fifty yards. “But if whoever buys this has good stable practices, it isn’t going to smell, anyway. Keep it really clean, toss a bit of cedar shavings in with your bedding.”

“I’ll remember that.” Julie pushed back the big sliding doors as they entered the barn. “So?”

Harry, peering into the stalls, walked along the center aisle. “Packed earth. That’s what most stall bases are, but if the new owner wants to make their life easier, he or she will dig down about a foot and a half, put in various layers of stone, various sizes, I mean, just like a layer cake. The top six inches pack down with masonry sand. Put Equigrid over that. Expensive. Fill it with masonry sand.”

“Why?”

“It keeps the horse from digging holes. Takes a lot of time to keep filling them back up, but you have to. If you don’t, it’s not good for a horse to stand on uneven ground. Out in the pasture, an animal can keep moving. In a stall, they can’t. Think what you’d feel like if you stood for six or eight hours with one foot in a hole.”

“Gotcha.”

“The rough-hewn heavy oak boards for the stalls and the dividers are great. Originally, marine oil was slapped on them. That’s why they aren’t brittle, even though no horses have been in here for years. If the new owner power-washes everything, lets it dry, then reapplies marine oil, it will be good. The only real expense is the floors, if they want to incur it. You can put down the Equigrid yourself, but it runs around one thousand dollars for a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot stall. The other thing, and this really is important: Have the new owner check the wiring. If it’s old, rewire the whole structure. So many fires are caused by faulty wiring, and there’s nothing more horrible than hearing horses scream as they burn to death.”

“God, Harry.” Julie’s face registered dismay.

“Well, one has to think about these things. If you take animals into your care, it should be done properly. I mean, would you have children and not feed them, clothe them, make sure they sleep in safe bedrooms?”

“After five children, you know the answer.” Julie smiled.

“I can understand a woman having the first one; it’s the second and the third I question.” Harry poked her.

“You sort of forget the pain in between the deliveries. Anything else?”

“No. It’s a serviceable barn, set so the wind hits the back. The fences need painting, but they’re in good order. This is a very attractive holding for a horseman.”

“Okay. Next. Ready?”

“Yeah.” Harry followed Julie into the potting shed.

“Now, she used the old tack room and one stall to make this. How difficult would it be to convert it all back?”

“The tack room is pretty much undisturbed. All Paula did was take down the saddle racks and bridle brackets. She left the wooden floors and the small baseboard heater. What must come down is that plastic barrier she put up on the stall wall. She also cut a door into the side of the tack room. That should be filled in with heavy oak to match the original wood. If you can’t find rough-hewn oak, they’ll need thick pressure-treated pine.”

Julie opened the door into the area where Harry found Paula. “Okay?”

“Julie, I made myself come here. I’m fine.”

“Sorry.” Julie stepped down into the potting shed. “Earthen floor.”

“Good. A new owner won’t have to rip anything up if they want to turn this back into a stall, and if they don’t, it’s a nice little shed. You have to remove the glass out of the back stall door, obviously. And if they keep it for a potting shed, no need to fill in the door to the tack room.”

Paula, a practical person herself, had kept the outside Dutch doors. She pinned back the top one, putting glass into the opening, which helped her force her bulbs, such as hyacinth. Four evenly spaced rows filled the space so the pots received lots of light.

A two-foot-wide piece of planed pine ran from one end of the stall to the other, facing the back door. As the wood was smooth, Paula could use it as a makeshift desktop. It was here that Harry had found the well-liked nurse.

“I wonder why she didn’t put shelves under this,” Julie noted.

“Probably didn’t need them. She had plenty of room, and how many bulbs do you need to force if you aren’t a commercial nursery?” But Julie had piqued Harry’s curiosity, so Harry knelt down to peer under the wide top. “Hey, everyone missed this.”

Julie knelt down, too. “Looks like an old cartridge box.”

“It is.”

On her hands and knees, Harry grabbed the sides to back out with it. “Not heavy.”

Once out from under, Harry and Julie popped open the wooden box. Most old cartridge boxes had a wooden top the same thickness as the sides. Affixed with a simple latch, it kept the ammunition dry. Given the weight of cartridges, these boxes needed to be sturdy. Artillery ammunition was so heavy it took two men to carry those boxes. Even a Remington box like this, fully loaded, took muscle to move.

Inside were a few bulbs in Ziploc bags. A white tab marked each bag, identifying the fall bulb.

“What in the hell is this?” Julie pulled out a yellow cylinder that was more than a foot in length, with perhaps a ten-inch diameter. The thickness of one cylinder wall left a somewhat narrow interior.

“Here.” Harry took the cylinder and flipped the metal fastenings on each side, designed to keep the top as tight as possible.

The inside of the cylinder was a thick wall to keep the contents cold.

“Harry, what is it?”

“Breeders use this to ship semen. It’s filled with liquid nitrogen, which, as you know, is incredibly cold. The semen is in narrow straws. You overnight it to wherever. Semen loses motility pretty rapidly if improperly preserved. When you figure that some stud fees can run a hundred thousand dollars or more, the container is critical.” Harry paused. “Not to belabor it, but Thoroughbred people still use live covers, so they rarely have need of a cylinder. These containers are used by some of the Warmblood breeders, Saddlebreds, quarter horse breeders who are at the top. People want to AI mares, hence the cylinders. The Saddlebred, quarter horse, and various Warmblood registers do not demand a live cover.”

“I had no idea.”

“No reason why you would, Julie. I just know about it because of Fair.”

“Right.”

At that moment, Harry wished she had her animals with her. Something was off-kilter here. She trusted their senses more than her own.

“Paula was no horseman.”

“No, but she was a nurse. Is it possible to ship human semen this way?”

“Well, I’m sure you could. I don’t know a whole lot about that. Fair and I use the old-fashioned method.”

At this, both women cracked up, then Julie said, “Always worked for me.” Then she studied the cylinder, holding it in her hands. “Could someone run a business on the sly?”

“Sending out stolen semen?”

“Yes. Isn’t it a whole lot of paperwork, tests, endless crap, for a woman who wants to become pregnant without marriage? Or without a man, I should say?”

“I think it is, but Julie, Paula was not a reproductive specialist. I know people can fool you, but I don’t think she was the type of person to be involved in the black market.”

“What was her area?”

“Surgical nurse.”

“Could you send tissue samples in this?”

“I don’t see why not, but there’s no reason to use a cylinder used for horses. And given technology, doctors can send pictures of tissue to another doctor halfway around the world.”

Julie closed the lid. “This business about artificial insemination. Who do you ask for, Brad Pitt?”

Harry laughed. “I’d ask for Henry Kissinger. Imagine the mind.”

They both laughed. Julie knelt down to push the cartridge box back. Harry knelt with her.

“Think her parents want the bulbs?”

“No. Julie, if the farm is sold by late summer, the new owner can plant these. If not, I’ll come back and put them in. Do you mind if I take the cylinder home? I’d like Fair to see it.”

“Not at all. It’s a sure bet I won’t be using it.” Julie inquired, “Is it easy to get one of those?”

“If you know anyone with a good stallion, it is. And this area is filled with reasonably priced good stallions. Smallwood is just down the road.” Harry cited Phyllis Jones’s establishment, noted for the now-deceased Castle Magic, but his male progeny continued the blood.

Show people particularly flocked to Smallwood, but central Virginia had something for everyone. After all, Secretariat had been bred right outside Richmond.

As the two women walked back through the growing grass, the afternoon sun brought the mercury up to sixty-eight degrees. There was a lovely breeze, and Harry felt that tingle, that challenge to figure out a mystery. Why would Paula Benton have a shipping cylinder?

Toni Enright had tweaked Harry by telling her Dr. Schaeffer was having an affair, but Harry rarely became intrigued by sexual peccadilloes: They were all too common. But this intrigued her.