“Mind if I ask how you got that?” Billie gestured toward a puckery scar on the back of Lucille’s hand.
Lucille sat back down. “Here in the South, we deal with dissension by burning and lynching. I haven’t been hanged, yet.”
“Someone burned you? Why?”
“You mean, why me? Well, I own this place and others. I have some clout around here, by which I mean I’ve got some money. I own walkers, I don’t let anyone hurt them, and I speak out about what’s done to other folks’ horses. I called the Times-Gazetteer and spoke with their reporter, Adeline. Told her what was what, used names. Blew the whistle. Next thing I know, there’s a bottle of acid that just shows up on this shelf here in my sweet little store and just happens to not have its lid on tight, and when I take a hold of it to see what it is, it slips and splashes on me. Could have been worse. Could have been my face, could have been one of my horses.”
“Did you report it to the police? Was there a trial?”
“Have you ever heard of Apple Hollow Farms?”
Billie remembered the name from the list of farms she had gathered on the internet. Judging by its website it was huge, with barns and outbuildings, a massive Tara-like home, three trainers, and an on-premises veterinarian.
“Well, our present chief of police owns it,” Lucille pronounced it po-lice and gave the word a contemptuous ring. “His daddy owned it before him, and he was chief of po-lice too. You getting my drift?”
“So that’s why you didn’t report it.”
“What would have been the point? Everyone knew what had happened and who had done it. I’d have been asking for a second helping of trouble.”
Lucille cut a huge slice of peach pie, slid it into the microwave, then topped it with a double scoop of vanilla ice cream. “You want some sauce on this? Caramel butterscotch?”
Frank’s disapproving face flashed in front of her. “You’ll get fat,” he’d said, as if it was any of his business.
“Sure,” Billie grinned. “Why not?”
The sauce Lucille ladled on cascaded into puddles around the pie and hardened to candy where it touched the ice cream. She handed Billie a spoon and another couple of napkins then fixed a plate for herself.
“How did they force you to display the sign out front?” Billie asked.
“Threats against my animals. I take them seriously, as you can imagine. A lot of barns around here catch fire after people make accusations. Horses burn to death.”
“Mine did,” Billie said. “In Arizona.”
“You met Richard out there?”
“Yes.”
“I’m betting you made some trouble in the walking horse world that brought attention to you.”
“I took a filly that a groom was hurting from their barn to my place, middle of the night.”
“Whoa! You got a set of nuts the size of Texas, girl!”
“My barn burned with the filly in it.”
“They were being kind to you. Could have been your house with you in it. Do not underestimate who’s playing on the other side in this game.”
Lucille ripped Billie’s check from her receipt book and tucked it under her coffee cup. “No hurry. When these signs first showed up the big guns in the industry offered them to us, the businesses in town, to display. They wanted us to put a sign outside that says we approve of horse abuse. If we objected, we got threatened.”
Billie was about to ask if she could take notes when the bell jingled, the door opened, and a Miss Marple-ish woman entered. She and Lucille were of a similar age and size, women thickening throughout their late fifties.
“Lucille, honey, how you spelling stupid these days?”
“This here’s Adeline. She’s the writer I told you about. Plus that, she’s the mother of one of our top trainers, right, Addie? Listen, Addie, this gal here’s writing a book.”
Billie didn’t correct her.
“Didn’t get your name,” Addie said.
“Billie Snow. Arabella Snow.”
The woman frowned. “You’re Arabella Snow? Why didn’t you tell me, Lucille?”
“Tell you what?”
Adeline plopped onto a stool and ordered fries.
“I’ve read your work,” Addie said to Billie. “In Frankly.”
“I work for them.” It was a stretch—she used to work for them; she might work for them again if Frank approved the article—but not an outright lie.
“What brings you here?” Addie asked.
“The magazine wants a piece on the walking horse industry, who’s behind it.”
“I told her you’d help out,” Lucille offered.
“Lucille, girlfriend, you are just begging trouble for me. I love my son and his pals as much as the next mother loves hers, but I don’t want to cross them, especially right before the Big Show. It’d be like dropping our new friend here into a pit of massasaugas. And by the way, you’re asking for a lawsuit unless you move that sign outside your door before someone trips over it and gets killed. You forgot you didn’t finish setting it up, right?”
“I didn’t forget.”
“What you want to know?” Addie asked Billie.
“Horses are sored so they’ll walk big and fast and win ribbons, and become champions and make money for their owners.”
“That’d be about it,” Addie said.
“Why don’t people who hate torturing animals rise up and shut them down?” Billie reached into her bag for her phone and held it up. “Mind if I record?”
“If someone comes in, you’d better hide that thing or turn it off or whatever you do,” Lucille said.
“I will.”
A passing truck caught Billie’s eye, a one-ton silver dually like Richard’s. She felt flooded with missing him and, like a schoolgirl with a crush, wished the truck were his. It pulled into the parking space at the corner of the block.
“Dang that girl! She’s doing it again!” Lucille said.
“You going to call the cops this time?” Addie asked. “That’s a handicapped slot,” she told Billie. “And she’s not one bit handicapped, physically.”
The truck door opened and Sylvie got out, slung her pink, fringed handbag
