The Tell-Tale Horse

CHAPTER 13

Tattenhall Station glowed blue in the twilight, the western sky still showing traces of scarlet and gold. Sister drove through and turned right, down the long lane leading to Faye Spencer’s farm. She’d called Faye at work, asking if she might drop by.

The door opened the minute Sister’s boots touched the front porch, the overhead light already shining.

“Come on in, stranger,” Faye greeted her. “Tea? Hot chocolate? You name it. I even baked cookies yesterday. Still fresh.”

“Hot chocolate.”

Once the chocolate was poured, Faye and Sister sat in the living room. The old clapboard farmhouse had been built when the railroad first came through, for the foreman who oversaw Tattenhall Station’s construction. The fire crackled. On the baby grand piano, its top down, a shawl artfully draped over the ebony, stood a photograph of Gregory Spencer in uniform.

“We’ve missed you in the hunt field.”

Faye, pretty and in her early thirties, sighed. “Oh, Nighthawk threw a shoe, took a little chunk of hoof with it. We’ll be back once my farrier gets to work on it.”

“How’s everything else?”

Faye ran her fingers through her glossy auburn hair, cut in a pageboy. “Coming out of it. Two years. Sometimes time flies, sometimes it crawls.”

“Sounds about right. The first year of Ray’s death I hurt, plain hurt. The second year I felt numb. Then in high spring of that year I started to revive. I suppose we grieve in our individual ways and you’re young, whereas I was in my fifties. I don’t know if that made it easier or not.”

“I miss him. Don’t get me wrong. I do, but now I can think of Greg without bursting into tears.”

“He was a focused man.” Sister smiled at the memory of him. “He loved the army. You know what they always say about war, it’s the brave lieutenants and captains who die in the largest numbers among officers. Those who survive usually become senior officers if they stay in the service.”

“I do know that.”

“Greg would be proud to see how far you’ve come with the company.”

“There are days when I think the name Warp Speed is so-o-o wrong.” She drew this out humorously.

“You could change it to Three Speed.” Sister laughed.

“Might be a good idea. Three Speed. Some days I think we’re almost there; other days I feel sucked back by an ebb tide. It’s exciting, though, Sister, to think we may be on the cusp of developing a twenty-first-century Rosetta Stone. You write the phrase you want to speak into computer or cell phone and you receive a script of the translation. If you’re online with someone from another country, their input is translated. We’re so, so close. I believe the day will come when this can be done phonetically. Right now, though”—she held up her hand as if to stave off an onslaught—“we’re concentrating on text.”

“Sounds like a miracle.”

“No, just hard work. Every language can be broken down into nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on. Structure is relatively similar among the Indo-European languages. It’s when we reach into Chinese and Japanese that we go back to the Bible and read about the Tower of Babel.”

“Ideograms?”

“Oh”—Faye waved her hand, her wedding ring golden in the reflected firelight—“no way. Everything has to be put in our alphabet; that’s just the first hurdle.”

“What about Russian?”

“That’s easier because the Cyrillic alphabet mostly parallels ours. And the structure does too. Russian will be next; we aren’t working on it now. I love this. I really do. I’m glad I’m not the linguistic expert, though. I stick to the nuts and bolts.”

“Bucknell University served you well.”

“Did.” She drank more hot chocolate. “Met Greg there. Funny, because we were both from Virginia. That’s what connected us in the first place.”

“Leave home to find home,” Sister said.

“Greg had this calling,” she recalled fondly. “He followed it and I followed him and then I found mine. He was so sweet. When he was posted to Iraq, he said, Honey, you supported me. I’ll support you.”

“Think he would have stayed in the army?”

“No. His idealism tarnished in Iraq. He wanted to complete his tour of duty and his time in the service, and then he said he’d work for me. I don’t know if that would have been a good idea, but I suppose we’d have found out.”

“What would he have done? He wasn’t in your field.”

“Sell. Greg could talk a dog off a meat wagon.”

Sister nodded. “Yes, he could.” She changed the subject. “Only three weeks left in the season. Can’t you borrow a horse while Nighthawk heals?”

“Clayton Harper stopped by and said I could borrow his young mare. Think I will.”

“Have you seen Marty Howard lately?” Sister was glad Faye would be back hunting.

“No, but Crawford comes around the office. He likes to check on our progress. I keep meaning to call Marty for lunch.”

“Me too.”

“Well, I don’t know what you’re going to do about her.” Faye knew the situation. “Say, High Vajay dropped by Saturday after the hunt with his friend, Kasmir, can’t say his last name—”

Sister filled in. “Barbhaiya.”

“Couldn’t have been more polite. Anyway, he asked me some questions about Tattenhall Station and the community. He said he was in contact with Norfolk and Southern. You gave him the information.”

“The grass doesn’t grow under his feet.”

“Seems like he’d be a good addition to the place.”

“Does.” Sister placed her cup on the woven coaster. “Well, I’ve got to get back. A new horse came in yesterday, settling in, but I’ll check on him.”

“Kilowatt?”

“News travels fast.”

“Yes, it does,” Faye agreed.

“It occurs to me that you’re—I guess the phrase is cutting edge—on the cutting edge of technology. What do you think about the murder of the woman in research at Craig and Abrams?”

A shadow crossed the young woman’s features. “I don’t like it. I wonder if she knew something.”

“Technical?”

“That or sabotage.”

“Political?”

“Hmm, probably not. I was thinking, what if one company wanted to destroy or drive down the stock prices of another? Let’s stick to price. If she had information about development, it’s possible for someone in a competing company or one that wanted to gobble up, say, Company A, to delay the development project. It’s not that difficult if you have information. Look in another arena. Toyota overtook General Motors as the number one carmaker in the world. Yet even with all their resources in every department, it took Toyota years to develop a full-sized truck to compete with the American half-tons. And then they had to delay its entry onto the car lots by almost six months. Now I’m not saying there was sabotage, but even without, launching a new product is hazardous.”

“Back to what you first said. Could such information be worth millions?”

“Yes. If the shark company bought up Company A after stocks were depressed thanks to a delayed product release or whatever, it would save millions for the buyer, then ultimately make them billions. The lady in question, had she lived, could have wound up in a high position with stock options Midas would envy.”

“Good Lord.”

“Business can be ruthless.”

“What if the situation were reversed?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if she refused to tell?”

“Actually, that’s worse.”

“Why?”

“Because, Sister, anyone with valuable information can usually be scared into giving it away. If she didn’t, she was brave and it cost her her life.”

Sister leaned back. “Seeing her”—she stopped and thought—“got to me. You’re in a field somewhat similar to hers. My curiosity is getting the better of me.”

“Curiosity killed the cat. I’d be very, very careful.” Faye said this protectively.

“By the way, Ben told me someone shot out the night-light.” Sister changed the subject again.

“That’s not all. When I was at work, someone hooked up the garden hoses, ran water in them, shut off the water, didn’t drain the hoses. So of course they froze. Little irritating shit. Excuse my French.”

“Do you know why someone would want to bother you?”

“No idea.”

“Odd.”