Murder at Royale Court by G. P. Gardner

Author:G. P. Gardner [Gardner, G. P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2019-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The shuttle bus was late and half full when it finally arrived at the big house, where another twenty people were waiting. We climbed aboard and set off for the polo field.

Banners hung on rail fences all around the entrance to the event. The shuttle bus pulled in at a circular drive, and thirty-six of us were processed into the arena through side-by-side lines. Tickets to the Grand Concours were expensive, but there was a discount if you bought two days at once.

“One day,” I told the man at the gate and handed over my credit card. Ridiculous. How did young families afford to go anywhere?

“My treat,” Riley volunteered, as he usually did.

I refused flatly, as usual, but he paid twenty-five bucks for a slick, illustrated program and offered it to me. “Let’s share one.”

Every outdoor exhibit should be held at a polo club, I decided right away. There were open pastures on both sides of the road, enclosed with rail fences. One side had low hills with a few trees, a series of paddocks, and handsome ponies grazing or whinnying at the crowd from a distance. The other side, where the car show was set up, was almost flat and divided into three big paddocks.

There was a parking lot with valet service for VIPs.

I pointed to a white BMW as Riley and I walked side by side across lush, bright-green grass. “Is that Handleman’s car?”

He looked where I was pointing and gave a nod. “I don’t think there’d be two with Indiana tags.”

The biggest field, in the middle, looked like the scene of a large wedding and accommodated both the concours exhibit and, near the entrance, a comparatively bland display of American sports cars.

A weathered wooden pavilion, draped with garlands of silk flowers and gauzy fabric that billowed in the breeze, stood on a little rise between the two exhibits and functioned as a tearoom. I didn’t know about Amelia Island and Pebble Beach, but there were no port-a-potties at the Fairhope/Point Clear Grand Concours. Instead, a row of restroom trailers, with attendants, was provided for the ordinary visitors. For dignitaries, there was a clubhouse atop a little rise and a fleet of golf carts to get people there and back.

The third and smallest field was a sale paddock with an odd mixture of antique cars, about fifty in all, and three times that number of wheeler-dealers.

A few people stopped to look at the sports cars but most of the group I arrived with headed straight to the back, where the antiques and classics were on display.

It would be hard to pick a favorite among the seventy-five or eighty cars arranged in circles or squares or rows, but I tried.

The Baker Electric was cute and looked like Daisy Duck should be driving it. It was tall and glossy black, with a lot of glass, over a hundred years old, and powered by a whole flock of lead-acid batteries, according to an observer.

Nearby was a cream-colored Cord with disappearing headlights.

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