The Tell-Tale Horse

CHAPTER 4

Crawford Howard slapped down his copy of Barron’s, which he read cover to cover, as he did the London Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and a host of specialized financial reports. Not that he swallowed whole what was written therein, but he liked to have an overview of world markets. He invested prudently in stocks, bonds, and land. Once he’d tried platinum but found that metals, like corn futures, demanded highly specialized knowledge as well as impeccable timing.

His waistline had expanded in his middle years, as had his concept of himself. Crawford, who unlike Edward Bancroft did not start this life with a silver spoon in his mouth, made his first fortune building strip malls in Indiana and Iowa. After that, he steamrolled his fortune with brilliant land acquisitions and deep forays into blue chip stocks. Moving to Virginia thirteen years ago appeared to be retirement. Instead, he began purchasing small pharmacies and medical supply companies, and just last week a company that disposed of biohazardous waste from hospitals and doctors’ offices. He invested in a few high-tech stocks, not many. But he did invest in a local start-up company, Warp Speed, run by Faye Spencer.

Crawford irritated people. Sam Lorillard, Gray’s brother, ran his steeplechase barn. Rory Ackerman, another recovering alcoholic and friend of Sam’s, also worked there. Crawford treated them well. He also treated his wife well. Marty truly loved him, something he learned only after she forgave his affair with a young tart whose breasts were so enhanced she struggled to remain upright. The bimbo with the big rack had only loved his money.

Perhaps his greatest vanity was when he lost face at the last Jefferson Hunt Ball. Earlier in the season, he had deserted Jefferson Hunt Club and bought a pack of hounds just like you’d buy a loaf of bread. He couldn’t hunt a hair of them. Big English hounds, Dumfriesshire, black and tan and good-looking. He made a fool of himself among the foxhunting community. This tormented him like a thorn that breaks off in the lip. Determined to show up Sister Jane at her own game, he’d been casting about for a huntsman. Marty soothed his ego by saying he didn’t have the time to hunt hounds. He really should be field master. That was a joke too, but one step at a time.

Marty hoped she could eventually lead her proud, bullheaded, but adoring husband back into Jefferson Hunt. She missed her friends, and she missed the bracing runs too. Knowing Crawford, she guessed about two years would do it if she was patient and careful.

She stood behind him in the den he had paneled in rich deep rosewood as he pointed to his enormous computer screen. “See, I can follow the market in Japan”—he hit a button—“or Germany or London.” He inhaled. “London always bears watching, you know.”

As London is the financial epicenter of the world, this was an understatement.

“Well, what little I’ve learned about money moving around the world, I’ve learned from you,” Marty said. She placed her hand on his shoulder, and he reached up with his left hand to cover hers.

“Honey, this computer does everything but go to the bathroom for you.” He smiled. “I know, don’t say it. I can’t resist toys. What I’m studying now is how a surgeon in, say, Edinburgh can operate while a surgeon at Johns Hopkins in Maryland consults with him. Actually, the surgeon from Johns Hopkins could be fishing out in Chesapeake Bay, watching the operation on the latest incarnation of a cell phone.”

“Amazing, isn’t it? Do you ever wish you’d hopped on the dot-com bandwagon?” She knew the answer, but he never tired of telling his story.

“Sure I do, but now is a better time to invest in technology. Okay, maybe not nanotechnology because that hasn’t shaken out. I mean, scientists can figure out molecular engineering. The trick is profit. Just because something is high tech doesn’t mean it will turn a dollar.”

“I know you.” She ran a finger over the back of his neck. “Buying these small pharmacy companies and Sanifirm; you’re working up to something. You’re learning the business side of medicine. Once you see where the holes are, you’ll plug them and hit another big home run right out of the park. You have a genius for reading the tea leaves.”

He beamed. “It’s what I learned after I knew it all that gave me the edge.”

She laughed. “Me too.” She looked out the tall paned windows. “Looks like another front coming in.”

He ducked his head around the big screen. “Does look nasty. Three fifteen. Hmm.”

“I was so hoping we could take the hounds out tomorrow.” Marty had discovered she liked being around the hounds. She’d been spending two to three hours a day in the makeshift kennel.

Crawford planned to build a true kennel come spring, once the heaving and thawing stopped. Fortunately, St. Swithin’s was framed up so the workmen could continue despite weather. The stone chapel, another vanity but an appealing one, was dedicated to the very late Bishop of Winchester, who died in 862. Those early Wessex Christians believed heavy rainfall was a manifestation of his power.

“We’ll just see when we wake up. That’s what’s great about having our own pack of hounds. We go when we please.”

He neglected to say that his was an outlaw pack, since he refused to have truck with the MFHA, the Master of Foxhounds Association of America. This meant that no recognized hunt could draft him a hound, and no members of a recognized hunt could hunt with him without getting suspended from their own hunt. At this juncture, that helped him. No one would see what a dreadful mess he made of it. Although once his pack ran right through the Jefferson pack, and he’d likely never live it down.

“Heard they had a good one today.”

“Who told you that?” A flicker of irritation crept into his voice, a rather nice baritone.

“Sam. Gray called him about one thing or another.”

“Oh.” He paused and looked over at his wife, now standing at the window, the sky darkening. “Bizarre about Lady Godiva.”

“Still don’t know a thing.”

“Even though she sets my teeth on edge, if anyone can handle that situation, it would be Sister.”

“Actually, honey, you could have handled it. I thought you and Sister got on quite well. She valued your every word when you sat on the board. She told everyone you brought a rigorous approach to projects, and your financial acuity was amazing.”

“Well….” His voice trailed off. “You know the legend of Lady Godiva.”

“It’s true. It’s not a legend. I looked it up.”

He smiled sheepishly. “I did too.”

“Funny, isn’t it, how the past keeps grabbing us around the ankles?”

“The past is prologue.” He was a keen student of history. “She was a Saxon lady married to Leofric, earl of Mercia. He taxed his people mercilessly and she pleaded for them for years. One day I guess he got tired of the nagging. He told her he’d lift the taxes if she’d ride through Coventry naked. That was about 1040, give or take a year. Anyway, she did it and he kept his word.”

“He must have loved her.”

“Perhaps. He certainly loved his reputation. How would it appear if he broke a vow after her sacrifice?”

“And that’s where we get Peeping Tom.” She laughed.

“Not much wick in his candle, stupid oaf.”

The townspeople, knowing full well how great an act this was for such a grand lady, withdrew, shutting all their windows. Tom, a tailor, drilled a hole in his shutter so he could see the beautiful woman, her body shielded only by her long hair. Some folks said back then he was struck blind. Others said that one of the two soldiers walking with the lady to guard her thrust his sword in the hole when he saw the white of Tom’s eye. However it happened, the name Peeping Tom has stuck in the English language to this day.

Godiva had a good heart, for she convinced her husband, a rich and powerful man, to found a monastery at Stow, Lincolnshire. In 1043 Leofric built and endowed a Benedictine monastery at Coventry, thanks to her urging. She became a benefactress of monasteries at Leominster, Chester, Wenlock, Worcester, and Evesham. Surely she possessed energy as well as beauty.

“Her brother, Thorold of Bucknall, was sheriff of Lincolnshire.” Crawford stood up, stretching. “Seems the family were all doers, for lack of a better word.” He walked up to her, standing next to her at the window. “When you hear of something like that murder at Horse Country, you can’t help running scenarios through your mind.”

“Such as?”

“Was this a sex killing?”

“Wouldn’t we know by now? I mean, that would show up during the autopsy. The papers said nothing about it.”

“You’re right.” He inhaled deeply. “Unless the police are withholding information. Sometimes they’ll hold something back to provoke the killer.” He paused. “I wonder if this has something to do with taxation?”

“Or some unjust practice. But Crawford, why make a beautiful innocent pay for it?”

“Maybe she wasn’t innocent.”