Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

CHAPTER 9

“Don’t you have a brighter lamp?” Mercer fussed as he peered at old photographs.

“Use this little flashlight.” Phil pulled open the narrow desk drawer, retrieved a small promotional LED light, and handed it to him.

Looking at the light, Mercer remembered. “This thing has to be four years old.”

“It is. Gave them out at Keeneland back at the stables.” Phil sat shoulder to shoulder with Mercer at his office desk in the old main barn.

“Last really good sale anyone had. This economy has to get better,” Mercer grumbled.

“It will. Always does. The secret is to pare down and hang on. I forgot that Daddy saved all this stuff. Fortunately, he kept it in a metal box up at the house. Glad you made me look for old family photos.”

“We don’t have any that go that far back. That’s my granddad Harlan,” Mercer said, squinting at the sepia photograph. “Can’t be anyone else.” He flipped it over, and along with the filly’s name, Topsail, was Harlan Laprade.

Shirtsleeves rolled up, bowtie, what looked like summer flannel pants and a snappy boater, Harlan stood next to the filly. Both stared straight at the camera.

“Knew how to show a horse,” Phil said admiringly.

Mercer carefully sifted through more photographs in the pile from the metal box. A few were of back barns and run-in sheds being built, the main barns in front. Others cataloged mares, colts, fillies, and four standing stallions.

“Navigator. 1923. Bone.” Mercer appreciated the bay stallion. “He had some age on him in this photo but he looks incredible. Just incredible.” Mercer remarked on the heavier denser bone the horse displayed compared to so many of today’s horses, who are more fragile.

“Had to have bone then. Still should. But so many races were a mile, a mile and a quarter. Few seven furlong runs then, I think.” Phil tidied up the photographs. “Dad said that was the biggest change he’d seen in his lifetime, the jigging of race conditions to favor weaker horses.”

A furlong is one-eighth of a mile.

“Mmm,” Mercer half listened, his eye again drawn to his grandfather. “Good clothes run in the family.”

“Seems so. Funny, I didn’t know Dad kept so many photos.”

“Mother advised me to ransack the old barn for photographs, files. I think my dear mama lost some things like photographs between moves and husbands back in the day.”

Phil took the photograph of Navigator from Mercer’s hand. “Would you like me to make a copy of this?”

“Mother would like that,” said Mercer. He was a bachelor and lived just next door to Daniella Laprade, which most folks would think was too close by.

“Looking at these photos, I wonder if they were happier then. Was life really simpler?”

“No. Nothing changes, Phil. I’m convinced of that. Technology changes how fast we can travel, communicate. Medicine changes, but people, no. People don’t change.”

“Yeah, I guess. You know, maybe I’ll make two copies of this and send one to the Lexington Police Department.”

“What can they tell from a photograph? All they have are bones, but now I’m sure they are my grandfather’s. Did anyone at the farm keep records? Not breeding records and accounts but, you know, a diary?”

“Not that I know about but, Mercer, even if my great-grandfather Old Tom did or his son, my grandfather, did, no one would record the clothing being found in a house of ill repute, then send it on to the family. One didn’t talk about stuff like that, especially if a woman might find the records and Dad always said that Grandpa and Great-grandpa were circumspect, especially where women were concerned. A trait I’m trying to pass on to my boys, but maybe they’re too young.”

“Ten and twelve, that’s not too young.”

“If whoever was in that grave had his throat slit, any kind of flesh wound, there won’t be a trace. The only way to know how he was killed is if a bone was shattered or lead pressed into it.” Phil switched back to the unidentified bones in the equine grave.

“Maybe our dentist has records. Worth a try. We’ve gone to the same family dentist since Christ went to Chicago,” Mercer replied.

The old Southern expression made Phil chuckle. “A long time and I don’t know as the Good Lord was able to reach the Chicago heathen.”

“O ye of little faith,” Mercer chided him. “Thanks for finding this stuff. It’s not like you don’t have other things to do.”

“We all do,” said Phil. “Overcommittment is the great American vice.” He smiled. “Anyway, I enjoyed looking at the photographs. I think both our grandfathers were driven men—had to be, to be successful. People like that usually accomplish a lot but they miss a lot, too. Dad said he hardly ever saw his dad and when he did, the old man paid little attention to him. Maybe that’s why he was such a good father to me.”

“Different times.” Mercer shook his head. “Look, I know in my bones that was my grandfather, Harlan, in that grave. He didn’t return to Virginia, obviously, from delivering the slate memorial. Has to be him that was under it.”

“It’s a good guess but don’t jump the gun, Mercer. All that does is create confusion.”

“It’s Mother that worries me. She wants to know. She’s looking for dental records. She wants to know now.”

“Mercer, no one can handle your mother and you aren’t going to learn now. If you find Harlan’s dental records and if they match the corpse’s, what then? There’s only so much you can do.”

“If they match, Mother will not rest until the story is told. Who murdered him and why.”

“Even if it leads to the whorehouse?”

“Even so. This is a different day. That won’t embarrass her. I think it probably offends me more.”

Phil closed the metal box, looked at his old friend with surprise. “Why?”

“I really believe prostitution harms women.”

Phil turned his chair to face Mercer more directly as they’d been sitting side by side at the big desk. “Not if a woman chooses the profession.”

“If they had equal opportunity, would any woman?”

“Hell, yes.” Phil slightly raised his voice. “It’s fast money and you know the Sims sisters from central Virginia? They opened and ran the most elite whorehouse in Chicago, The Everleigh Club, at the turn of the last century. Those two girls made millions, millions.”

That gave Mercer pause. “Millions?”

“Millions before income tax!”

“Well, maybe the Sims sisters chose running a house but what about the women who worked for them?”

“Mercer, I don’t know. People make choices in life and some are made for you. If I were a young, poor woman, had beauty, I’d rather do that than flip burgers. It’s one way to work your way through college, as well.”

“Maybe,” Mercer said, unconvinced. “How did we get on prostitution?”

“Harlan’s clothes being found in a house of prostitution.”

“Oh, right.”

“Mercer, are you all right?”

“I am. I am.” He breathed deeply. “It’s Mother.”

“Sorry.” Phil, having grown up with the Laprades around him, knew how demanding and imperious Daniella could be on her good days. The bad days were hell.

Daniella’s sister, Graziella—Gray and Sam’s mother—exhibited a totally different personality. Diplomatic, polite, reserved, you never knew what the older sister was thinking. With Daniella, the world knew. Both women had been smashingly beautiful as had their mother, Andrea. Suspicion lingered that Phil’s father, Roger Chetwynd, flourished in Andrea’s company. Knowing winks, nods, whispers behind hands, fueled the suspicions. The boys, when boys, had no idea and both their parents shielded them from loose talk. As they grew to manhood, of course, they heard. Neither one discussed it with the other. Nor did Gray or Sam ever bring it up with their cousin.

Many were the beautiful women, nowhere near prostitution, who made the most of their beauty. Then and now. Mercer’s mother and grandmother were no exception, as Phil now pointed out.

“Andrea and Daniella received a monthly stipend from my grandfather as long as he lived. Mother said when Roger would visit she’d be sent to Graziella’s. I learned early to not ask questions about that.” Mercer rose, rolled his chair back to the wall. “You know, I want to know and I don’t. Part of me wants to know if my mother is your grandfather’s daughter. Part of me doesn’t. Part of me feels if those bones are Harlan’s, I should give him a respectable funeral.” He shrugged. “I really won’t have a choice.” Then he returned to Phil’s desk, snatched the little LED flashlight off the top. “I need one of these. ‘Broad Creek Stables’ green and gold. Easy to find. Anything black is hard to find.”

“Chiseler.” Phil smiled at him.

Mercer pocketed the flashlight, made in China. “I’m just recognizing your marketing skills.”

“Get out of here.” Phil laughed at him. “See you in the morning.”