The Princess Stakes Murder by Kin Platt

Author:Kin Platt [Platt, Kin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4047-9
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 1973-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

I was ahead of the railbirds and form-sheet jugglers. Del Mar was yawning, getting up and ready for another day. The hay smelled good as I walked past the stalls. The sleekly groomed horses whinnied and pawed the ground nervously. I couldn’t see what they had to be nervous about. They weren’t running behind two unsolved murders and a missing person.

Joey Zale glanced up and smiled crookedly when he saw me in the stall opening. He was taping up a nag’s foreleg. “This one’s a real lady,” he told me. “Never tries to kick me.”

“Ask her if she has a friend. Can we talk, Joey?”

He patted the young mare’s foreleg gently and whispered something soft. The horse nodded and pawed the ground as if testing the new bandage. It whinnied, telling Zale it worked fine. Zale got to his feet, stepped outside, and lit a cigarette. “How’s it going? You getting anywhere?”

“If I am, I don’t know it. Did Pam Clayton spend much time down here?”

“Yeah. Quite a bit. We got that filly of hers, you know. Mary Jane. Good two-year-old.”

“How did she act? Throw her weight around?”

“No. The kid never made waves. You’d never know she was worth a zillion on the hoof. Nobody knew she was alive.”

“They still don’t.”

“She’ll turn up. Hell, it’s only been three days.”

“I found one last night that only took twelve hours.”

He scowled. “A stiff?”

“Kid from around here. Shiv in her back. She could have made some man happy.”

“Maybe she did,” he growled. “But I can’t figure anybody knocking off the Clayton kid. I mean, what for? What’s the percentage?”

“Like you said, it could be for kicks. Let’s have it, Joey. You’ve been holding out.”

“You’re punchy,” he said. “What the hell would I know?”

“I understand a stranger’s blown into town. He’s been trying to contact Clayton’s kid. I figure a smart operator would track her down here once he found out horses are her hobby.”

He looked up, frowning. “Where’d you get that?”

“There’s more, Joey. This dude came straight from Mexico. He checked in at the Rover House. He’s been trying to see Pam. He’s also been missing since Labor Day morning.”

Zale smacked a gnarled fist into his open hand.

“Any time you’re ready, Joey.”

“Willie set it up,” he said. “I don’t think the dude is exactly a stranger. I think Willie knew him from away back.”

“Willie set what up?”

“The guy came down here a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure if he met Clayton’s kid here or not. Maybe, but I don’t know about that. All I know about is Labor Day, and I know about that because Willie told me.”

“I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Zale.”

“The Clayton kid had a morning appointment at the Gilded Cuckoo spa out in Poway. Willie must have set it up for the dude to meet her here and he forgot about her beauty-parlor bit. So he dropped over here early that morning to give me the message to forward to the guy. That

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