Dead Ringer

“Yeah,” the girl said with a sigh. “The county got a new board of supervisors and everybody sold. The land goes for two hundred thousand dollars an acre now. No horses, no tack.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s sad, but people gotta live somewhere.” Michelle shrugged.

“Actually, I’m looking for someone who used to live around here, a family who used to own one of the horse farms nearby. It stood where the development is now, Hunt Country Estates. This would be about two years ago.”

“I don’t know.” The cashier shook her head, setting her ponytail swinging. “I’ve only worked here a few months.”

“Damn.” Bennie was tired of saying damn all the time. It just didn’t go far enough. “They had horses, and a caretaker, and I was guessing they came in here for their horse stuff, or for horse food, like hay. Don’t horses eat hay?” She was pretty sure horses didn’t eat Iams.

“They do, and grain, but we’re not feed or hay dealers. We sell tack, bridles and saddles, and gift items like books, mugs, and computer games.” The young woman gestured helpfully at a shelf behind Bennie.

“Well, do you have records of customers, or mailing lists I can look at? I know the family’s address, but not their name.”

“No, I think any mailing lists are all packed up, if the owner even kept them. He’s retiring, and our lease is up in two weeks, then we’re outta here. The mailing lists wouldn’t have helped anyway, they were only in order of names. If you didn’t know their name, you’d have to look through every entry.”

“I’ve done dumber things,” Bennie said. “You think the mailing lists have been sold to anyone? It would seem like too valuable a thing to throw away.”

“Maybe Janet would know. She’s worked here forever.” Michelle gestured behind Bennie, to a petite older woman walking toward them with a thick key ring that jingled closing time. Her gray hair was cut in a neat feathery bob, and with her green Mack’s Tack polo shirt she wore loose jeans and tan Birkenstocks. The cashier waved her over. “Janet, you know what happened to our mailing lists?”

Bennie turned around. The older woman has worked here forever. “Or did you know the family who owned the horse farm that became Hunt Country Estates?”

“Hi, I’m Janet, and sure, I knew the Rices,” the woman answered, and Bennie’s heart leapt up.

“The Rices? They lived on Owen Road? They had a horse farm?”

“Of course, Peg Rice came in here all the time. A very active horsewoman, even at her-our-age. She hunted regularly with her son. They even hunted in Ireland, with the Galway Blazers.” Janet thought a minute. “Yes, they had a thoroughbred and an old paint pony, Buddy. Cute, and a good little mover. The pony was her daughter’s. She was a pony clubber.”

She clubbed ponies? Bennie knew that wasn’t right. Horse people had a language of their own. She was feeling more left out than St. Amien.

“And Peg’s husband had the Apps. Four Apps.”

Forget the Apps, Bennie could barely believe her luck. “Janet, do you know where they moved? Maybe they mentioned it?”

“Ocala, Florida.”

“Great! Then it would be no trouble to find them.”

“Not at all, I have their address. We just sent Peg a new bridle she’d ordered for Sewanee. He’s in between a horse and a cob and it makes her crazy.”

Bennie was too happy to ask what a cob was. She always thought it came with corn. “The Rices had a caretaker, right? For the estate?”

“Bill?”

“Yes, Bill Winslow!” Bennie was astounded. It was the break she’d been waiting for! “You know him?”

“Sure, he used to come in here all the time, to pick up orders for Peg. A quiet man. I don’t think he ever said two words to anyone.”

“That’s him, all right,” Bennie said, with a tight smile of recognition. Practically the only words he’d said to Bennie were “hello” and “good-bye.” And she remembered how he’d recoiled from her touch when they’d met. “Very quiet.”

“A bookish man, too.” Janet was gesturing at the wall of books behind her. “In fact, most of the books behind you belonged to Bill, the used ones. We’re trying to sell them.”

“They’re his?” Bennie turned to the wall she hadn’t looked at before. It was full of horse books, obviously used, and worn in a friendly way. Centered Riding, A Horse of Your Own, and A Horse Around the House. She flashed on her father’s small white cottage, filled with every sort of book imaginable, many bought at library sales. She doubted that he’d been a rider, and she remembered him collecting the classics and lots of other books, almost randomly. She ran an index finger along the spines of the books, as she had the time she’d seen him at the cottage.

“They’re yours for a song,” Janet said. “Most of them are his, I believe. Were his. Peg donated them to us after Bill died.”

Bennie’s finger froze on the spine of one of the books. She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She turned from the bookshelf and found that she couldn’t speak.

“I’m sorry,” Janet said quickly. Her hooded eyes searched Bennie’s from behind her bifocals, and her expression softened, her wrinkled mouth turning down at the corners. “You didn’t know that Bill had passed. It happened last year, of a heart attack.”

Bennie was trying to find her voice, to get over the awkwardness of learning from a complete stranger that her father had died. When her father was no more than a complete stranger, in fact. She experienced the moment outside her own body, where she saw herself standing, hollow, in a tack store in the middle of Delaware, holding a Soapy Pony and hearing this news. Feeling it rock her to her foundations, even as she knew that it could not. She struggled to absorb the information, only vaguely aware that the women were staring at her.

“Did you know Bill well?” Janet asked.

Not really. He was only my father. Bennie had momentarily misplaced her voice. Her heart hammered away. The little store seemed suddenly so quiet, the fluorescent lights white-hot. She shook her head.

“Well, Bill did keep very much to himself. He was taciturn.” Janet and the young cashier exchanged tense looks. “Would you like a glass of water?”

Bennie finally swallowed. “No, thanks. I’m okay. It’s just… I didn’t know.” Know what? Him? That he had died? Anything? She couldn’t specify.

“Bill worked for the Rices for decades, tending the grounds.”

Maybe they have the wrong man. Bennie had to make sure it was him they were talking about. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe he was still alive. “He was tall, right? Real tall, maybe six three. With blond hair, used to be before it went gray.”

“Yes, that’s him. We saw quite a bit of him. He worked for them for a long, long time.”

“But he took some time off, not too long ago, right?” When Alice had been arrested for murder, their father had come to Philly to tell Alice about Bennie, so Alice could get the best defense on the charge. He saw it as taking care of his daughters, but given what had happened next, Bennie saw it as something else.

“Yes, he did disappear for a while. Said he was taking some time off. Peg was quite concerned. When he returned to work, he wasn’t the same.”

“How so?” Bennie asked, though she wasn’t sure enough what “the same” was to know what qualified as different.

“He seemed tired the times he came in here. Thinner. He had aged quickly. I guess it was his heart. You understand.” Janet gave a final sigh and walked to the counter, picked up a sales slip, and slid a pencil from a pencil cup. “Now, if you tell me your name and address, I can contact the Rices and perhaps they’ll give you a call.”

Bennie noted she had just been demoted from getting the Rices’ address to giving her own. The saleswoman must have thought she was some kind of nut. She doubted the Rices would call her, but she told Janet her name and address anyway. It was something to say. An answer she knew.

“Good, I’ll let them know.” Janet folded the slip and slid it into her back pocket, then checked her watch. The movement set the keys jingling on her ring. “Now, if you don’t mind, we really should be closing. Will you be