He ran hot water over the dishes he had used and placed them in the rack, then checked the three horseshoe-shaped farmer’s sausages hanging from the knobs of his kitchen cupboard doors. He had bought them fresh at the St. Lawrence Market a week earlier and was drying and hardening them. Over a period of several days, a drop of grease would collect and hang like a golden pearl from the bottom of each sausage. He’d placed a square of paper towel beneath the sausages to catch the drops.
Half an hour later, after showering and shaving and dressing, Young was behind the wheel of his minivan on his way to work. He wondered what his old partner, Arthur Trick, would have to say about Shorty’s death. He was usually pretty good at smelling out leads. But Trick wasn’t on the case. In fact, he wasn’t even on the Force anymore—all the result of a bullet in the neck he’d taken three years earlier during a stakeout, leaving him in a wheelchair. The stakeout had been part of an investigation into a series of hostage-takings. Young’s daughter, Debi, had been one of the hostages.
I’ll see both of them at the track on Sunday, he thought. When he had talked to Debi on the phone Thursday night, she’d told him that both the old lady Percy had mentioned and the secretary for Mahmoud Khan, the Internet King, had contacted her and asked her to continue looking after their horses. Not as groom, however. As trainer. At least for the time being, until things settled down. She hadn’t heard from the lottery winner yet, she said, which struck her as odd, because his colt, Someday Prince—as Percy Ball had told Young—was scheduled to run in Sunday’s minor stake for three-year-olds. Shorty was awful high on the horse, Young remembered as he turned into the parking lot behind Headquarters and pulled up beside Wheeler’s Sidekick, at least according to Percy. Maybe I should speak to Debi about the horse’s chances. A small wager may be in order.
As he shut off the engine, Young thought, Debi’s my favourite person in the world. Well, Jamal’s up there, too, of course. And Trick. And don’t forget Wheeler. In the three years that they had been partners, Wheeler had proven herself time and again to Young. Courage, smarts, dedication. And, Young smiled to himself, he liked to think that after a rocky beginning to their partnership he’d proven himself to her. He shook his head remembering the crush he’d had on her. How stupid could he have been? First of all, he was almost twenty-five years older than she was. A quarter of a century. Twice her age, for fucksake. Secondly, since his marriage to Tanya had gone belly up—his first and only marriage—he had pretty much avoided anything resembling attachment or domestic responsibility or falling in love. And then there was the fact that he was big and ugly and had kinky red hair, and whatever minute amount of charm he had once possessed where the ladies were concerned was long gone. And lastly, how stupid could he have been not to twig to the fact that Wheeler liked girls? It had been a shock to his system when she came right out and told him. He’d left her little choice, really, hitting on her as he had. Nevertheless, he thought, as he walked towards the rear entrance of HQ, I have four favourite people in the world. My daughter, my grandson, my best friend, and my partner. I’m a lucky man.
Shortly before eleven in the morning, Elliot Cronish showed up, unannounced, at Young’s cubicle.
“Clumsy, clumsy,” he said cryptically once he had Young’s eye, but Young wasn’t biting. Despite his happiness in the parking lot, he had turned surly. Some part of him still refused to believe Shorty’s death was an accident, but he had nothing to go on. He waited Cronish out. After fifteen seconds, Cronish sighed and continued. “I refer not to you, you great lummox, but to the murderer or murderers of your daughter’s employer.”
Young blinked. “I thought you said it was an accident.”
Cronish shrugged. “We were, if only momentarily, duped. Upon closer examination it was discovered that there were several horsehairs stuck to the wound on the side of the deceased’s head.”
Young said, “I already know that. You already told Wheeler that, and she already told me. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Cronish held up a hand like a stop sign and inclined his head. “Bear with me, please. After removing the horsehairs from the wound, what caught my eye—well, my technician’s eye, to be truthful—was that the horsehairs appeared to have been cut. I got Morrison to look at them under the microscope, and he agreed that they’d been cut with a sharp instrument, probably scissors. So then I phoned an associate of mine at the Guelph School of Veterinary Medicine. She works in the large animal department there. I sent the hairs to her.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday afternoon, by FedEx. The results came in an hour ago.”
“And?”
“I should tell you as well that I also sent along several other horsehairs. For comparison.”
It was as if Cronish had turned on a light bulb above Young’s head. “They didn’t come from the horse that was in the stall where Shorty died,” Young said. “Bing Crosby. You suspected the cut hairs weren’t his, so you cut some of his hairs and sent them along for comparison.”
Cronish patted his hands together in mock applause. “Very good. And guess what?”
“You were right, the hairs came from different horses.”
“Wasn’t that clever of me?”
“What made you think the horsehairs were planted?”
“Because we also compared the imprint of the horseshoe on the side of Shorty Rogers’ head with Bing Crosby’s horseshoes, that’s why. They didn’t match. The one on the side of his head had left an unusual impression. It left an extra mark. We made a diagram of it and sent it to my associate in Guelph, along with the hair samples, and she identified the impression as having come from what is known as an outside sticker, which is a special type of horseshoe—”
“Trainers put them on their horses when the track comes up muddy.”
“That’s right, that’s what my associate said, but when we checked Bing Crosby we discovered he was wearing normal shoes.”
Young nodded. “Debi was right. She said there was no way Bing Crosby killed Shorty.” He paused. “But tell me something, how would horsehairs have gotten into the wound anyway? The hoof would have hit him, not any part of the horse’s hide.”
“Believe it or not, compadre, the same question troubled me. So I asked my associate and she said that while it was unlikely, it was possible. The hide on the back of a horse’s leg runs right down into its hoof.”
Young nodded. “Plus it made the whole kicked-bya-horse scenario more believable.”
“There you go.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but maybe you need to find the outside sticker. If it’s an uncommon type of horseshoe—”
“It’s not, though. Every trainer has a stock of them in case of an off-track. Might as well look for a needle in a haystack.”
“All I’m saying is the one you’re looking for might have hair or blood on it.”
Young nodded again. “I hear you. Anything else?”
“No, that’s it. But I thought you would want to know about the horsehairs. Now you know what you’re looking for.”
“That’s right, I’m looking for a killer.”
The first task Young gave Wheeler