Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

CHAPTER 24

“She kept good records,” said Mercer. Asked by Ben Sidell, he reviewed the pedigrees of horses on whom Dr. Hinson worked.

Also asked by the sheriff, Sister sat next to Mercer at Penny’s desk at the Westlake Equine Clinic. “Ben, certain strains in all the breeds carry problems. Penny was wise to know each horse’s background if she could.”

Mercer turned from the screen to Ben, in the chair next to him. “That’s one of the problems with what I call backyard horses. Often Old Jose is bred to Sweet Sue because the owners think they’re a good match. They have no idea what they’re doing.”

“Isn’t there hybrid vigor among horses as well as people?” Ben smiled slightly.

“Yes,” Sister answered. “We don’t need to know names, but I’m assuming nothing in Penny’s records points to crime. Or misuse of drugs?”

“No,” said Ben. “But I don’t know pedigrees like you two do. And what struck me is the amount of research she put in during the last month of her life,” he added. “Could have been just a notion, as you Southerners say.”

“Oh, come on, they say it in Ohio, too,” Mercer shot back.

“Sister, what do you make of this fellow here?” Mercer pointed out a Quarter Horse cross.

“Poco Bueno blood, if you go back four generations. A very good Quarter Horse line. The dam, his mother, was that line and the sire, you know well, a chaser son of Damascus.”

“Right.” Mercer tapped away on the computer keys.

“And?” Ben asked.

“Whoever bred the gelding used two very good lines, sturdy. They looked for a mating they could afford. Ben, very few people could have afforded Damascus’s stud fee when he was alive. So this person knew his or her stuff, and wanted an appendix, a Thoroughbred/​Quarter Horse cross. You can find good blood if you look hard enough at a reasonable price, and anyone breeding an appendix horse would do just that.”

Ben rubbed the flat of his palm on his cheek for a moment. “Do either of you have any idea why Penny would have studied all this, plus all her research on equine DNA?”

“Again, to see if a condition she was treating could possibly be passed by blood,” Sister repeated. “Things like the inability to sweat, or hip problems—you’d be surprised what can show up. It’s only in the last twenty years, really, that some of these conditions can be pinpointed genetically. Prior to that, a lot depended on a horseman’s memory.”

“And honesty,” chirped Mercer, always quick to find a financial motive. “If a yearling looks fabulous, moves well but, you know, is a little screwy, how many sellers will tell? I worry a lot more about mental states than, say, a slightly crooked leg.”

Sister crossed her arms over her chest. “Ben, you know her client list, we don’t. Did Penny have any pedigree research not connected to her clients?”

“No.”

“What about going back to the beginnings, like Eclipse or Matchem?” Mercer named two foundation sires of Thoroughbreds in the United States.

“Matchem 1748, right?” Sister was thinking.

“Right.” Mercer then added, “Eclipse 1764.”

“You can go back that far?” Ben interjected, amazed.

“Very often, you can,” said Mercer. “Sometimes further. For instance, we know the names of some of Charles the First’s horses in the royal stud long before the English started their stud book.” He leaned back in the office work chair, stretched out his legs under the desk. “For instance, Navigator, the great founding stallion at Broad Creek, goes back to Matchem, whereas Broad Creek’s two other founding stallions from the 1880s, Limelight and Loopy Lou, eventually trace back to Eclipse.”

“What about his new stallion, St. Boniface?” Sister asked. “Phil is very shrewd about stallions.”

“Goes straight back to Ribot 1952, which will finally get you back to Eclipse.” He swiveled his chair to face Ben again. “Any breeding establishment tries to go with the percentages. If a stallion has been able to throw a high percentage of Grade One stakes winners, naturally, you push him forward.”

“That’s where I differ.” Sister sat upright. “I pay more attention to the mare.”

“Well, true enough but a mare produces one foal a year, if she catches,” said Mercer. “Whereas a stallion can cover many mares. It’s all numbers or, as I like to think of it, the economy of scale.”

“So Broad Creek has great blood?” Ben, not versed in pedigrees, was interested.

“Kept the farm alive through thick and thin but the funny thing is, no one gave a fig for Navigator before he started to breed,” Mercer told them. “He goes back to Matchem but his immediate sire, Seneca and his grandsire, Naughty Nero, so-so. No one paid much attention to the horse but Old Tom Chetwynd said, ‘Hell, let’s try him.’ So he bred a couple of in-house mares. Those foals started winning at age three and every crop after that, there were a high percentage of winners. If you go back far enough, you’ll find Australian 1858 in Navigator’s pedigree, and finally you get back to Matchem. But you never know.”

“Old Tom bred to his own mares?” Sister was very curious.

“Initially he did,” said Mercer. “He loaded the dice and put Navigator to a few of his best. It was his only chance if the horse had any quality at all.”

“Why didn’t they race him?” Ben asked.

“As you know, Broad Creek has its own training track and I guess Navigator’s times were slow. I don’t know. Long before my time. Even Phil doesn’t know. You never ever know. A lackluster runner can produce wonderful foals. Some stallions produce great colts, others great fillies or broodmares. Some horses run better on turf than dirt. It’s roulette, genetic roulette.”

“But study helps,” Ben said.

“Sure.” Mercer flicked a few more pedigrees on the screen. “Sister, you know more about Warmbloods than I do.” He named a larger, heavier horse than a Thoroughbred, a horse much used for show jumping.

“Not a lot.” She peered at the screen. “Holsteiner. Lovely.” Then she smiled at Ben. “When I was a girl and even unto my forties, no Warmbloods. No horses of color in the field either. By that, I mean paints, palominos, et cetera. Because all you saw were Thoroughbreds. Anyway, the Warmblood craze started here in the 1970s. The old line is: When you start a hunt, you’re glad you’re on a Warmblood, when you finish you’re glad you’re on a Thoroughbred.”

Mercer filled in the blanks. “Warmbloods are calmer but they don’t necessarily have the extraordinary stamina of a Thoroughbred. However, if someone gets their horse-hunting fit, the animal can usually last at least two to three hours, depending on the pace.”

“Crawford rides a Warmblood, a lovely animal,” Sister informed Ben. “Okay, we’ve sat here and blabbed on. Why are we here, really?”

The sheriff turned his hands up, then let them drop. “Because I’m in the dark. I can’t see even a pinprick of light in Penny’s murder, so I’m trying anything.”

“Like whether she knew someone was breeding a horse with a passable flaw?” Mercer inquired.

“That was one idea.”

“Ben, that would certainly be an issue in terms of veterinary expense for an unsuspecting buyer but a lot of possibilities may never occur,” said Mercer. “Your mother may have diabetes, it may be in her family. Doesn’t mean you’ll get it. We go back to percentages. And the stud fees are really an issue only in the Thoroughbred world. Other breeds are less expensive, the fees.”

“And Penny couldn’t prove wrongdoing,” Sister added. “She could only note to a buyer, if asked to vet the horse, what those possibilities might be.”

Ben grasped the issue. “Still, it could be a sales killer.”

“Yes, but you take a field hunter. A vet comes along who vets the animal as though he is going to race. That’s a real sales killer.” She laughed.

Mercer, too, said with amusement, “You take someone new to horses, the vet comes along and points out every tiny flaw and the person panics, just panics. No sale. The key phrase for a foxhunter is ‘serviceably sound’ and some vets can’t do it. They are terrified of lawsuits. It’s like just about any other profession these days. There’s someone waiting in the wings to point the finger, bring a suit. I’m amazed any business ever gets done.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s quite that bad but what Mercer says is true,” Sister agreed. “But what he isn’t saying is that a vet can be paid off.”

This shut the other two right up.

“What?” Ben’s eyebrows shot up.

Sister frowned. “A vet can pass a horse with a serious flaw if given enough money under the table. Some do. Corruption appears in all lines of work, Ben, even law enforcement.”

A long pause followed this, then Ben, voice low, “Do you think Penny could have been party to that? Let’s take Broad Creek Stables, since they are the biggest Thoroughbred breeder here. Do you think Phil would have given her money under the table?”

“No,” both replied at once.

“But it happens,” Sister calmly repeated the idea. “When a couple of hundred thousand are at stake, a lot of folks with shaky ethics wobble.”

“Not Penny,” Mercer loudly defended her. “And not Phil. You have two of his youngsters. Look at how sound they are. They just aren’t that fast and furthermore, Midshipman doesn’t want to race. On the other hand, I am willing to bet he will love hunting. It’s more natural than running around an oval.”

“I don’t mean to imply that Phil paid off Penny,” said Sister. “It’s a kind of conjecture. A payoff would only be worth the risk if large sums of money lay on the table. And buyers for Broad Creek Stables horses usually have their own vets anyway, because the best of those animals are sold at Keeneland or Fasig Tipton.” She named two sales venues of high quality.

“I see,” said Ben. “So Penny wouldn’t be used?”

“No,” Sister replied. “She might be consulted here before the animals are shipped. Kind of an insurance policy. But she wouldn’t be a candidate for that kind of dishonesty. Nor would she have done it.”

Both men nodded in agreement.

“I looked at the drawings she had of horses,” said Ben. “You know, where the vet marks a problem. She was thorough.” He could read the illustration because when he bought Nonni, he was given one by the vet, who happened to be Penny.

“Ben, I don’t think we’ve helped you one bit,” Sister said sorrowfully.

“Actually, you have. You’ve helped me understand where other kinds of crimes could be hidden. First, I was thinking about drugs. And then seeing all her research, I wondered if there was some kind of tie-in, something I wouldn’t know because I’m not really a horseman. I’m just a rider. You two were born into horses. I wish I knew what you forgot.” He smiled.

As Mercer turned off the computer, Sister pointed to the screen. “Hey, turn that back on a minute. Go to the DNA stuff.”

Mercer did and she quickly read as he moved the text along for her.

“Forgive me. But now I’m curious. We know Midshipman goes ultimately back to Matchem.”

“Right.” Mercer looked at Sister.

“I want to run a DNA test and we’ll see how it works,” Sister said. “Maybe if I go through the process, there might be something in Penny’s research that resonates. It’s worth a try.”

Ben shrugged.

“Who can you use?” Mercer could think of a lot of good vets.

“I’ll tell you after the research. If word should leak out, it might look bad for Penny and Westlake. You know how people jump to conclusions and it might not be so good for the vet either, as he or she will be bombarded by a lot of people who stick their noses in other people’s business.”

“Not me.” Mercer smiled sheepishly.

She fibbed. “Never gave you a second thought.”

“So you don’t think Penny’s sudden interest in pedigree and DNA was just a notion?” Mercer posited triumphantly.

“No, I don’t.” Sister held up her hand to quiet him. “But I don’t know why. A hunch.”