Hiss Of Death

Isn’t it late for this?” At Fair’s veterinary clinic, Harry watched as her husband carefully put the two straws of equine semen into the cylinder of liquid nitrogen. A sponge in the bottom of the cylinder had been filled with the liquid nitrogen; the sides of the cylinder helped maintain the temperature. He closed the lid, snapping it shut.

“Hey, hand me that pen, will you?”

Harry picked up a Pilot G2–07 medium-point black. Fair used this ballpoint because the ink wouldn’t wash out. Given the value of the semen, the last thing he wanted was for a shipment to go astray or for a careless FedEx employee to get the label wet. He had to admit he’d not met any careless FedEx employees, but Fair’s motto could have been “Better safe than sorry.”

He wrote out the address on preprinted FedEx labels. Then Harry held the cylinder as he affixed the labeling pouch and inserted the label, keeping the top copy for himself just in case.

She read the label: “Rosehaven. Fair, that’s Paula Cline’s operation in Lexington, Kentucky. Since when is she breeding Warmbloods?”

“She’s not. Paula is a Thoroughbred girl.” Fair smiled, thinking of the woman they’d gotten to know because her son attended UVA some years back.

It was serendipity. They’d met at a college baseball game, sitting next to one another, and were surprised to find each other involved in the horse industry. Then they discovered they were both friends with Joan Hamilton and Larry Hodge of Kalarama Farm. Like all people in that situation, they marveled at how small the world was or, in the parlance of the day, our collective six degrees of separation.

Fair explained, “Paula promised a friend she’d take care of this. Brie Feldman wants her stallion crossed with one of Paula’s Thoroughbred mares, the one with Forty-niner blood.”

Harry tried to be circumspect in public but was considerably less so in her husband’s presence. “Well, that’s just stupid.”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on, Fair, why ruin a beautiful Thoroughbred shoulder? Warmbloods are too straight up.”

“Harry, you were born around Thoroughbreds, and so was I, but even you have to admit that Warmbloods can jump the moon and most people are more comfortable with their temperament.”

“Slow.” Harry tapped her forehead.

“Amend that slow to mature. Anyway, Brie has made a good living with her Warmbloods. She goes to Germany annually to visit the Holsteiner Gestüt”—he used the German name for breeding station—“and she’s brought back very good horses.”

Harry, slightly peevish, said, “She can’t hold a candle to the late Virginia Klumpp.”

“Virginia really was special, but remember, it was Virginia that guided Brie. Give her a chance, Harry.”

Harry burst out, “Oh, Fair, all these wonderful people have left us. I miss Virginia. What a generous, funny, funny woman. Hell, I still miss my mother and father, and—”

He put his strong arm around her. “What’s up, Skeezits?”

Hearing her childhood nickname, she slumped against him. “I don’t know. I’m getting as crabby as Pewter.”

As Pewter reposed on the counter in the reception room, an instant comment flew out of her mouth: “I resent that!”

“Oh, shut up, Pewts, you are crabby.” Tucker, head on paws, rolled her eyes.

“I calls ’em as I sees ’em. You and Mrs. Murphy don’t.”

“We have the sense to shut up.” Mrs. Murphy defended herself and Tucker.

“Right.” Tucker smiled.

“Well?”

Harry sat down as Fair double-checked the cylinder. “It’s the scarab,” she said. “It preys on my mind. Pewter found it in Paula’s driveway when I found Paula. And then, God knows why, I also ride up on Thadia, and there’s the bracelet with a scarab missing. Coop picked it up, the tiger’s eye I kept. It fit in the bracelet perfectly.”

“I found it.” Pewter raised her voice.

“Honey, I expect most scarab bracelets come with small-, medium-, and large-sized stones. That the stone fit may be important, may not.”

“Probably.” She then blurted out, “There’s that rictus smile that mocks one. It’s horrible without being gross, if you know what I mean. I will never again think of Thadia without thinking of her in death, that frozen open jaw.”

“All mammals get it if they go into rigor mortis. I never thought of it as mocking. I sure have thought of a skull’s smile. Hard to miss, plus horror movies have burned it into our brain.” He continued to keep his arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, baby. You’ve been through a lot.”

The report from Thadia’s autopsy was that her heart did have scar tissue consistent with cocaine abuse, but the muscle showed no signs of disease, the valves were healthy, her arteries clean and clear. Her heart was just fine—as were her lungs, kidneys, liver, and brain. At least the people she had been counseling could keep on track, keep trying, knowing that Thadia hadn’t fallen back into her old bad habits. The small cardboard box had contained OxyContin, but none was in her bloodstream. The hospital administrator, Will Archer, did not tell anyone about the OxyContin. He had enough trouble as it was. He asked Rick to keep it out of news reports, which the sheriff did.

“Two.” Harry held up two fingers.

“Harry, just let Coop and Rick worry about this.”

“Paula had a familiar scent, but not so familiar we could identify it.” Poor Tucker tried one more time to get through to her people.

Pewter looked over the counter. “Describe it again.”

“Not bad. Faint. Like an old banana, but not really.” Tucker strained for some telling detail.

“She’s right. It wasn’t an odor that would snap your head around like gasoline,” Mrs. Murphy chimed in. “Or like a lot of perfumes humans slap on.”

“An assault on any dog’s nose.” Tucker laughed.

“Calvin Klein’s Obsession isn’t so bad.” Mrs. Murphy found it very interesting.

“Isn’t so good, either.” Tucker wrinkled her black nose.

Pewter lifted her head. “Better than decay, which you so adore. Can you imagine a human describing your ideal odor? ‘Deep, meaty smell with hint of toasted fingernails and deteriorating ligaments, with a dried coagulated blood finish.’ ”

At this, all three animals howled with laughter.

“What gets into them?” Harry laughed, too.

“Honey, we’re better off not knowing.”

“I guess, but sometimes I feel left out. Fair, I think they experience life more fully than we do, I really do.”

His lustrous blue eyes met hers. “If you and I didn’t have to pay bills, fill out endless income and other government tax forms, listen to the nightly reports of misery, terror, natural disasters, and murder all over the world, we might come close to their enjoyment.”

She seized on one word. “Murder. Did Thadia kill Paula?”

“If she did, she left no trace. Sugar, I doubt Thadia killed Paula. She was weird, had fried a lot of brain cells, and was terminally immature, but I don’t think even at her drugged-out worst, Thadia was a killer.”

Harry leaned against the counter, her face low so Mrs. Murphy could rub her cheek on hers. “Maybe.”

“Honey, what’s the motive?” He now leaned on the counter, too.

“Thadia was consumed by jealousy. She thought Paula was sleeping with Cory Schaeffer. Thadia was obsessed with him, according to Toni Enright. Toni’s not one to get in the middle of people’s stuff, but Thadia didn’t hide her feelings, at least to Toni.”

“The real question is, did she hide them from Cory?”

Harry stood up straight. “I am such a dolt. I never thought of that.”

“You never think of how aftershave soothes razor burn, either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s subjective. You and everyone else sees the world through their own eyes. You have to make an effort to think about how it looks or feels to be someone else. I wonder what it’s like to be five-six.”

“I’m five-seven, thank you very much.” Harry stretched her height and the truth a tiny bit.

“Of course. But you see what I mean? If you can turn your questions upside down or inside out, you might come up with an answer.”

“That will throw her for a loop.” Pewter giggled, a little puff of air being exhaled.

As Harry grappled with this, Fair called the 800 FedEx number for a pickup.

“Is there a cheaper way to send semen?”

“Uh-huh. Fresh cooled. But that only works if the vet or tech pulling the semen understands the rate of cooling. It’s a lot less expensive if you know what you’re doing. Now they’ve got these Styrofoam boxes for fifty bucks for shipping. They’re insulated, and you can use cans of water. It’s easier than liquid nitrogen, but the drawback is you’ve got to impregnate the mare within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. I know the Standardbred people use the Styrofoam boxes all the time. I prefer the blue boxes if I’m to send out fresh cooled semen, but those are three hundred dollars. Here’s the other problem: If your box sits on the tarmac on a hot day and isn’t promptly loaded into the hold of the plane, you can lose your investment. What I’m sending today is five thousand dollars’ worth of sperm. To one of the great Thoroughbred farms in Kentucky or Florida, that’s chump change.”

“Hey, don’t forget Pennsylvania’s coming way up in the horse world, as is West Virginia. Remains to be seen about New York. The legislature seems not to care if they harm the Thoroughbred industry.” Harry knew a lot about the economics of horses because of her husband and because she grew up with them. Like so many East Coast people, she forgot about all the good Thoroughbreds in California.

When Harry was young, Maryland was one of the great states of the equine industry. Blind legislators in less than a decade had destroyed a century and a half of labor, gutting the lifeblood of many a Maryland country resident. Those who held state office in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, or Kentucky determined who would eat and who would go hungry. Kentucky had its troubles despite a brilliant, horse-friendly governor, Steven Beshear.

“It’s pretty much a muddle.” Fair placed the yellow cylinder by the front office door in case he wasn’t there when the delivery driver arrived.

“I wish I could get those two bodies out of my mind.”

“I do, too. I have something that might help. Came in the mail here today. I was going to wrap it up, but you need it now.” He handed her a cardboard box, eight inches by eight inches.

Harry took her penknife out of her jeans’ pocket to slice open the flaps. Green Bubble Wrap enclosed the gift. She slit the Scotch tape, then peeled off the Bubble Wrap.

“Oh, wow.” She kissed him. “Can’t wait.”

Fair had bought her the DVDs for the television series The Tudors.

“I don’t want to watch a bunch of people in puffy sleeves.” Pewter was disappointed. “He could have ordered some little fake furry mice with that.”

“Be glad he didn’t order the Miss Marple series.” Tucker didn’t much feel like watching something about the sixteenth century.

“Why?” Pewter wondered.

“Miss Marple is a fictional detective, English, and she solves clever crimes. It would only inflame Mom,” Tucker said.

“I know that.” Pewter sniffed. “I’ve read over her shoulder. I don’t understand why people need to make up things. Why can’t they focus on real life?”

Mrs. Murphy rose, stretched, and offered this thought: “Their senses, except for sight, are so poor. They can’t take in as much information as we can. They don’t know as much real life. They try. But the made-up stories help them. They collect them from humans long dead. Calms them.”

“Twaddle,” Pewter pronounced judgment.

“If only they knew what we were saying, I’m sure it would help much more than their made-up stories,” Tucker teased her.

“It would.”

“Whether it would or not, I actually wish Mom would be watching All Creatures Great and Small instead of The Tudors.” Mrs. Murphy heard the FedEx truck coming down the paved drive. “That was fast.”

“In the neighborhood,” Tucker reasoned.

“Back to Miss Marple.” Pewter’s curiosity was aroused.

The tiger sighed. “Miss Marple had the sense to keep her mouth shut. Mother, and I truly love her, but sometimes she can be a fountain when she needs to be a well.”