Out Of Hounds

CHAPTER 12

February 17, 2020 Monday

President’s Day seemed like a cheat to Sister. When she was in school, Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, was a full holiday, as was Washington’s birthday, February 22.

Sunrise sneaked in earlier about a minute a day. She hated to rise in the dark but like most country people, she did. Then again, those people sitting in traffic often got up before the sun.

Today Tootie and Weevil fed the hands, cleaned the kennels, then had the day off. Sister would check at sundown. She enjoyed being with the hounds just as she enjoyed hearing the horses in their stalls rattle their buckets because they wanted to be fed right that minute. Sometimes they’d rattle their buckets for play. Keepsake had a large rubber ball hanging from the beam across his stall. He’d bat it around with his nose, making her laugh.

Having finished up in the stable she flipped up the sheep fleece collar on her ancient leather jacket, also lined in fleece, to walk back to the house flanked by Raleigh and Rooster.

The three of them happily entered the kitchen, the warmth enveloping. Mondays, errand day, gave Sister the chance to visit friends as well as pick up noodles, cat food, what was needed for the house.

Her cellphone, on the kitchen table, beeped. She couldn’t get into the habit of carrying a phone with her but she did remember to put it into the car when she drove.

“Hello?”

“Sister, Marion.” Marion Maggiolo’s distinct voice filled her ear.

Marion owned Horse Country in Warrenton, Virginia, a store filled with treasures, be it old silver or a tweed coat that could protect you from the wind on those bye days.

“Good to hear your voice.”

“O.J. called me about the theft of the Mrs. Oliver Filley painting. That makes three.”

“Without any idea what’s going on.”

“I called Nancy Bedford first.” She named the head of the Museum of Hounds & Hunting. “She said she’d talked to each of the painters that the museum highlighted in 2018. Larry Wheeler, Linda Volrath, Booth Malone, Sally Moren, Reverend Michael Tang, Christine Cancelli, Joanne Mehl, Morgen Kilbourn. Just out of curiosity she wanted to talk to working artists. The one idea that seemed to be paramount was given the price of Munnings’s work, this has to be about money. She also asked did they know of modern sidesaddle paintings.”

“And? You are so smart, I wouldn’t have thought of that.” Sister was so often surprised by Marion’s creative intelligence.

“The Andre Pater one. It’s quite large, of Catherine Clay-Neal on her horse, Dude. He’s 18.1 hands.”

“Wish there were more modern sidesaddle paintings,” Sister said.

“Yes, but then again, nobody is selling their work for millions.” A pause followed this. “Linda mentioned Heather St. Clair Davis, the late English painter. Given that Davis passed in 1999, Linda did say her works were fetching higher prices. No surprise, but also no sidesaddle. All those wonderful hunting scenes but no focus on a lady riding sidesaddle.”

“Not many paintings of people driving carriages either.” Sister walked to the stove to turn on water for tea. “That is a beautiful sport. Can you imagine the cost for the tack and harness alone, much less the carriage?”

“That’s why only rich people do it.” Marion laughed. “You know the rich are going through a period of being demonized, but so many old beautiful things are saved by people with great resources. You’d think others would have the sense to be grateful.”

“Envy is a low emotion.” Sister pulled a heavy mug out of the cupboard. “Envy and spite, which reminds me, before I forget: Someone is putting up posters against foxhunting.”

“There are people out there against just about any sport involving animals.” Marion laughed. “Back to the thefts. Do you know anyone at Sotheby’s? They might have an idea?”

“No, but I’ll tell our sheriff. They’ll talk to him and I expect someone on Sotheby’s staff knows these works well, an early twentieth-century expert, sporting art expert. They have everything. Gives me an idea. I’ll ask O.J. to call Cross Gate, the art auction house in Lexington.”

“I’ll call The Jockey Club, I have an old friend there, and you call your sheriff and then O.J. There has to be some tiny idea, some odd fact that can help us figure it out.” Marion’s brain was spinning. “Well, who is getting the most money right now? Sporting art, I mean?”

“Munnings.”

“Sorry, Sister, I meant a living painter. Horses, not dogs, although some of those paintings are rising in value. I guess that’s why the American Kennel Club now has a museum. I really don’t know.”

“A living painter.” Sister thought. “Andre Pater. Much of his work, depending on the size of the canvas, sells for six figures. His draftsmanship is superb, as is Heather St. Clair Davis’s, but that’s my response, someone else might differ.”

“Andre Pater paints silks that look as though you could touch them. Kind of like the great Renaissance painters. They all were in thrall to fabrics.” Marion relished fine painting and fabrics, especially fabrics, which is why she made two trips a year to Europe, for fabrics.

“Booth Malone is pretty good with silks, but you know more than I do, Marion. For one thing, everyone comes into the store. But you know the first theft was that extraordinary painting of Munnings’s wife, standing next to Issac, the dappled gray. And it was owned by Crawford Howard, who unfortunately bragged about it. Whatever this is, it started right here in central Virginia.”

“If it had simply been Crawford, I would hazard a guess that he offended someone so this would be elegant revenge, but now we’re up to three. Whoever this is has impeccable connections. One has to know where treasures rest.”

“Marion, if this were just money, why not steal one of those breathtaking Munnings of the racetrack? Why sidesaddle?”

“It is peculiar. Well, let me track down my calls, you track down yours. Get O.J. to go over to Cross Gate. Those gallery owners surely have some ideas.”

“Right. Hey, if you have a navy blue stock tie with tiny white bird’s-eye dots, send it down.”

“Okay.”

Sister hung up, poured the hot water over the tea ball she’d filled with the phone tucked under her chin, no mean feat.

Raleigh and Rooster curled in their large fuzzy beds. Golly patrolled the counter.

“Yellow Bronco. Betty,” the cat announced.

Not three minutes later, Betty opened the mudroom door, knocked on the kitchen door, then opened it. “Your favorite person.”

“Indeed.” Sister walked back to the stove to boil the water, which was still hot. “English Breakfast? Irish? Name it.”

“Whatever you’re having.” Betty opened the cabinet, took out a mug with a rabbit painted on it. “Where did you get this?”

“Ashland Bassets; Diana Dutton sent it down.”

Once seated, Betty wrapped her hands around the cup. “Spring is close but it’s so cold.”

“ ‘O, wind, if winter comes/can spring be far behind’?” Sister quoted Shelley.

“Do they teach Shelley in English anymore? I read him twelfth grade.”

“Something tells me if it’s difficult or exceptionally beautiful, no, it won’t be taught; then again, we should ask Charlotte Norton at Custis Hall. Anyway, you aren’t here to talk about poets or spring. What’s cooking?”

“News.” Betty beamed. “Will be on the news tonight but I have my sources.”

“I’m sure you do, which means you ran into Ben.”

“Don’t spoil my moment.” Betty took a sip. “The oaf that was killed at Showoff had a criminal record.”

“Did Sabatini know?”

“That’s who told Ben when he questioned him. Sabatini hires former prisoners, nothing vile, but stuff like petty theft, growing dope, stealing cars. No armed robbery or murder.”

“And shall I assume his record will be discussed or printed in the paper?”

Betty nodded. “Illegal gambling. Cards. Betting on football games, the spread, that sort of thing. Anyway, he served his time. That’s the story, or that’s the story I heard.”

“Was he married?”

“No mention of that or next of kin.”

“What about the severed fingers?” Sister’s curiosity was climbing.

“Now, that’s what is perhaps significant, or what Ben knew but kept from others until he spoke to Sabatini.”

“Betty, as our sheriff he is not obliged to tell us anything.”

Betty thought about this. “No, but he does have to ask questions and he did. It seems the amputated fingers may be what one did as a young man once accepted into a gambling gang. It was the mark of belonging, so they always wore gloves. Gangs often have some mark or tattoo.”

“If gambling had been his road to prison, you think he might have made money or the gang would take care of him. Those crime families do take care of their own, I think in the old days and maybe even today.”

“You would think so, but Mr. Sabatini…I can’t get used to calling a man Gigi…anyway, he believes this is a warning. He never mentioned Parker Bell except to Ben.”

Neither woman spoke, then Betty said, “So maybe he fell back into illegal betting? Being choked to death is violent. Whoever kills you has to get close.”

Sister grimaced. “Get close and carry a lead shank.”

“Maybe it was someone who knows horses.”

“Maybe, or maybe he grabbed one off a stall hook. Parker Bell could have been killed in the morning or anytime, and the person who did it could have gotten away easily. Like our coyote, maybe he slipped through the woods. And what if the killer wore a hoodie? Wouldn’t see his face. If a person has time to plan a murder I expect it’s easily committed. Again, all those TV shows about killers being caught makes for good TV, but I think the number of unsolved cases is…well, still unsolved.”

Betty nodded then took another long sip. “Ben had to thoroughly question Kasmir, of course.”

“Dot the i’s and cross the t’s. Don’t you think so much of police work is tedious?”

“It would be for me, but I do think we won’t be hunting from Welsh Harp anytime soon.”

“No,” Sister agreed, then relayed her conversation with Marion.

“Certainly seems to be an eventful February.” Betty shook her head. “Fortunately, neither Crawford’s painting or Bell’s murder have anything to do with us.”

“No,” Sister again agreed. “It is a little unnerving that these events have happened here. So close.”