Pink-cheeked and overweight, Big Urmson roused himself to a more erect posture in his chair, wiped the icing sugar off his fingers with a paper napkin, and began to read from his notes. “Stirling Smith-Gower is fifty-six years old. He’s married and has a grown-up daughter. He writes a column on birdwatching for the King City Chronicle. He used to be president of the Save the Birds campaign and is worried about the vanishing wetlands and what’s happening to certain kinds of birds, such as the King Rail, the Least ... Bittern, I think it is, some kind of ... shrike, I think it is, and a whole bunch of different kinds of warblers. Mr. Smith-Gower is six feet tall, skinny, is messy in his personal appearance, smokes a pipe almost all the time, has a habit of latching onto complete strangers and trying to get them to sign up for his Save the Birds campaign, and smells bad.”
Young cocked his head. “He smells bad?”
“That’s right. Body odour. I didn’t get to talk to him personally because his secretary told me he just left yesterday for South America, but I did talk to a few of the Save the Birds people, and they all mentioned it. Apparently he stinks big time.”
“What’s he doing in South America?”
“Apparently he’s looking for some rare kind of bird.”
Young said, “Okay, good work.”
“Sarge,” Big Urmson said, “don’t forget we got a game tonight.” Big Urmson played second base for the precinct softball team.
Young, who was the catcher and team captain, said, “I won’t forget. Just don’t you forget that when the batter hits the ball in your direction, the idea is you’re supposed to catch it, not let it roll between your fat legs into right field.” He turned to Wheeler. “What’ve you got on Richard Ludlow?”
Wheeler cleared her throat. “Married for thirty years to the same woman, but by all reports a bit of a Casanova. Two sons working in the same business—real estate. He was the underbidder on the purchase of Cedar Creek Stud Farm by your man, Sarge, Mahmoud Khan. Still resentful about it, from what I can gather, even though he made a pile of money brokering the housing development that’s going in. Because he’s a high mucky-muck at the golf and country club, he wanted to push through a proposal that Mr. Rogers’ land be turned into a housing development beside the fourteenth tee. Grew up with money. Attended Ridley College and the University of Western Ontario. No criminal record. Squeaky clean except for the womanizing.”
“How do you know about the womanizing?”
“Miss Sweet mentioned it when I interviewed her.”
“Miss Sweet?”
Wheeler nodded. “She admits it’s just hearsay, but there’s an authoritative tone to anything she says.”
“What about Miss Sweet herself? Anything new on her?”
“Not at the moment. I’ve left messages indicating that we still want to talk to Mr. Rogers, but either she’s been out a lot or she’s ignoring me. She’s number one on my list as soon as we’re done here.”
“Good.” Young turned to Priam Harvey. “What have you got on Percy Ball?”
Harvey lowered his eyes. “Nothing, actually. I’ve been so busy with my magazine assignments that I haven’t been able to get to it yet. I didn’t realize you were all such keeners here.”
There was a pause while Young narrowed his eyes at Harvey.
Barkas said, “Chief, maybe this is a good time for me to ask a question. Is this a good time?”
Young slowly shifted his gaze. “Go ahead.”
“Well, these horsehairs that aren’t Bing Crosby’s, who do they belong to? By that, I mean which horse did they come off of?”
Wheeler said, “To figure that out, we’d have to take hairs from other horses and compare them.”
“Which horses?” asked Big Urmson.
“Mahmoud Khan’s,” Young said.
“Why his?” asked Barkas.
“I’ve been sniffing around a bit with regards to Mr. Khan. Everything about him looks copacetic, except I’ve got this nagging suspicion that the horse that died a couple of months ago is a tie-in. What was its name?”
Wheeler said, “Download.”
“Download. Mahmoud Khan owned Download. My guess is that Download’s death might not have been natural. One minute he’s young and healthy, but he’s a complete failure as a racehorse. Next minute he’s dead in his stall. There’s something not right.”
Barkas said, “You think somebody killed the horse on purpose?”
“What kind of an animal would kill a horse?” Big Urmson said.
“There was a guy in the States not too long ago,” Young said. “The Sandman. Real name Tommy Burns. Fat cats in the hunter-jumper set would hire him to murder horses that were no longer wanted or, for whatever reason, had outlived their usefulness.”
“But why?” said Wheeler.
“For the insurance.” Young turned to Harvey. “You know more about it than I do, Mr. Harvey.”
Harvey leaned forward in his chair. “The horses the nouveaux riches buy for their princess daughters often cost over a hundred thousand dollars. Some of these people, they’ll import these magnificent Dutch Warmbloods that Olympic riders would kill to have and give them to their daughters who, more often than not, aren’t skilled enough to ride them, let alone jump them, let alone show them, then they lose interest in them, preferring fast cars and fast boys, and the horses end up languishing in their stalls.”
“But why not just sell the horses and get their money back?” Barkas asked.
Harvey shrugged. “I’m sure a lot of them do, but in certain cases—not very many—the princess will lapse into a crying jag if Daddy tries to sell her precious pet, or maybe the horse is chronically lame or has suffered an injury that ruins its value, so Daddy has it killed.”
“And that’s where The Sandman comes in?” Wheeler asked.
“Right. He’d sneak into the horse’s stall in the middle of the night and kill it.”
“How?”
“All sorts of methods have been used to kill horses and make it look natural, from an injection of insulin to ping pong balls jammed up the nostrils, but from what I understand The Sandman used an extension cord and alligator clips. Basically, he electrocuted the horse, and it looked like a heart attack or colic killed it. The insurance company had no choice but to pay up.”
Wheeler said, “But those were jumpers. Download was a racehorse.”
“A very expensive racehorse,” Young said. “Khan paid a quarter-million for him, and it turned out he couldn’t run a lick. But you can bet he was insured.”
“If you’re right,” Wheeler continued, “who killed him? Not Mr. Khan.”
“No, somebody he hired. Somebody on the inside. Somebody who’s used to being around horses, who isn’t afraid to get in a stall with a twelve-hundred-pound thoroughbred.”
Barkas said, “Maybe someone was about to kill Bing Crosby, and Shorty stumbled upon the situation, tried to be a hero and save the horse, and got killed for his efforts.”
“Maybe it was Shorty himself,” Big Urmson said. “Wasn’t it strange for him to be in that horse’s stall at midnight? Maybe he was going to kill the horse for the insurance, but someone killed him instead.”
Young shook his head. “No, Bing Crosby’s just an old claimer. He’s not worth anything. Besides, he does-n’t belong to Khan. The old lady owns him. He’ll wind up a pensioner on somebody’s hobby farm. He’s probably