Last Man Standing (40 page)

They continued their ride and Gwen dutifully pointed out all the buildings and their associated history until Web was having
a hard time keeping track of everything. He was very surprised to look at his watch and see that three hours had passed.

“We should probably head back,” said Gwen. “For your first ride, three hours is plenty. You’re going to find yourself a little
sore.”

“I’m good,” said Web. “I really enjoyed it.” The ride had been peaceful, tranquil, relaxing, everything he hadn’t been experiencing
for practically all of his life. However, when they got back to the equestrian center and Web climbed off Boo, he was surprised
to find that his legs and back were so stiff he could barely walk upright once his feet hit the ground. Gwen noted this and
smiled wryly. “Tomorrow it’ll be another part of your body that hurts.”

Web was already rubbing his buttocks. “I
feel
what you mean.”

A couple of hired help came out and took the horses from them. Gwen told Web that they would take off the gear and scrub and
wash down the horses. That was usually the job of the person riding the horse, Gwen said. It helped you bond with the animal.
“You take care of the horse, and the horse takes care of you,” she said.

“Kind of like having a partner.”

“Exactly like having a partner.” Gwen looked over at the complex’s small office and said, “I’ll be back in a minute, Web,
I want to check on a few things.”

As she walked off, Web started taking off his chaps.

“First time on a horse in a while?” Web looked up and saw Nemo Strait heading his way. A couple of other guys in baseball
caps were sitting in the cab of a pickup truck that had large hay bales in the back. They were watching Web closely.

“Damn, how could you tell?”

Strait came up next to Web and leaned against the stone mounting block. He looked off in the direction where Gwen had gone.

“She’s a good rider.”

“I’d say she is too. But then, what do I know?”

“She pushes the horses sometimes further than she should, though.”

Web looked at him curiously. “She seems to really love them.”

“You can love something and still hurt it, now, can’t you?”

Web had not anticipated this sort of mental process from Strait. He thought he had the big, dumb Neanderthal figured out,
and here the guy was being thoughtful and maybe even sensitive. “I take it you’ve been around horses a long time.”

“All my life. Folks think they can figure them out. You can’t. You just have to go with the flow and never make the mistake
of thinking you have them pegged. That’s when you get yourself hurt.”

“Sounds like a good formula for people too.” Strait almost smiled, Web noted.
Almost.

Strait glanced over at the truck where his men still were watching the two closely. “You really think Mr. Canfield might be
in danger?”

“I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“He’s a tough old cuss, but we all respect him. He didn’t inherit his money like most folks around here; man earned it with
his sweat. Got to respect that.”

“Yes, you do. You have any ideas on how that phone might have got into his truck?”

“Been thinking about that. See, thing is, nobody drives that car ’cept him and Mrs. Canfield. We all got our own vehicles.”

“When he got in it, it was unlocked. And do they keep their vehicles in the garage at night?”

“They got lots of cars and trucks, and the garage at the house is only two bays, and one of them is filled with supplies.”

“So somebody, particularly at night, could have accessed the Rover, left the phone and probably nobody would have seen him.”

Strait scratched the back of his neck. “I guess so. You got to understand, out here lots of folks don’t even bother to lock
the doors to their homes.”

“Well, until this is over, tell everybody to lock everything they can. You have to understand that threat can come from everywhere,
inside and out.”

Strait stared at him for a long moment. “This Free Society thing, I’ve heard of it.”

“You know anybody who might be a member or a former member?”

“No, but I could ask around.”

“Well, if you do, keep it low-key. We don’t want to spook anybody.”

“We all got a good gig here, don’t want to see nothing happen to the Canfields.”

“Good. Anything else you think I need to know?”

“Look, if somebody here is in on this, you got to understand that a farm can be a real dangerous place. Big tractors, sharp
tools, propane gas tanks, welding equipment, horses that’ll kick your brains out if you let down your guard, snakes, steep
slopes. Lot of ways to get killed and make it look like an accident.”

“That’s real good to know too. Thanks, Nemo.” Actually, Web didn’t know if that was advice or a threat.

Strait spit on the ground. “Hey, you keep up that riding, you’ll be Roy Rogers in no time.”

G
wen rejoined Web and showed him through the equestrian center. There were eleven buildings in total.

The foaling stalls were their first stop and Gwen showed Web how they were equipped with closed-circuit television to monitor
the expectant mares. The floors were rubber-matted and had a covering of straw to keep the dust down.

“We have really high hopes for some of the foals coming next year. We had several mares bred out in Kentucky by stallions
with remarkable bloodlines.”

“How much does that stuff run?”

“It can run six figures a pop.”

“That’s expensive sex.”

“There are a lot of conditions attached to that payment, of course, the most important being that the foal is actually born
alive and can also stand and nurse. But a great-looking yearling sired by a successful racehorse can bring enormous amounts
of money. It’s a very picky business, though. You have to think of every contingency, and yet simple bad luck can still ruin
your chances.”

Web thought that sounded very much like being an HRT man. “Yeah, the way Billy described it to us, it doesn’t sound like a
business for the faint of heart.”

“Well, the money is nice, Web, but that’s not why I do it. It’s the rush you get from seeing a horse you raised, nurtured
and trained thundering around that track; the most beautiful, the most perfect racing machine every created. And seeing the
finish line, watching this truly noble animal prance into the winner’s circle, knowing that for at least a few minutes everything
in your life is absolutely perfect. Well, there’s no other feeling quite like that.”

Web wondered if the nurturing of horses had replaced the lost son. If it had, he was glad that Gwen Canfield had found something
in her life she could feel good about.

“I guess you probably feel the same way about your work.”

“Maybe I used to,” he replied.

“I didn’t put two and two together before,” she said. “I didn’t know you were part of what happened to those men in Washington.
I’m very sorry.”

“Thanks. It’s a pretty sorry situation all around, actually.”

“I never really understood how men could do that sort of job.”

“Well, I guess the easiest way to look at it, Gwen, is that we do that job because there are people in the world who make
us do it.”

“People like Ernest Free?”

“People just like him.”

As they finished at the center, Gwen asked him what Strait had wanted.

“Just some friendly neighborly advice. By the way, did he come with the farm or did you hire him?”

“Billy did. He and his crew came with good references.” She looked around. “So what now?”

“How about the main house?”

As they drove up to the mansion in an open Jeep, Web heard a roaring overhead and looked up. A small chopper was coming in
low and fast. It flew past and disappeared over the treetops.

Web looked over Gwen. “Where is that going?”

She frowned. “The neighboring farm. Southern Belle. In addition to the chopper pad, they also have an airstrip. When their
jet comes over, it scares the horses to death. Billy’s talked to them about it, but they go their own way.”

“Who are they?”

“
What
are they is more like it—a company of some sort. They run a horse farm too but a pretty strange one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they don’t have all that many horses, and the men they have working for them don’t look to me to know the difference
between a colt and a filly. But they must be doing something right. The house at Southern Belle is even bigger than ours.”

“I guess they have a lot of buildings, like you.”

“Yes, although the ones we have came with the spread. They’ve built a bunch of new ones there, massive ones, almost like warehouses,
though I don’t know what they’d be storing in that sort of quantity. They only came here about two and a half years ago.”

“So you’ve been over there?”

“Twice. Once to be neighborly and they weren’t. The second time to complain about their low-flying aircraft. We weren’t thrown
off the place, but it was pretty awkward, even for Billy, and he’s usually the one making people feel uncomfortable.”

Web sat back and thought about all this even as he glanced in the direction where the chopper had disappeared.

It took them a while, but they covered the stone mansion from top to bottom. The lower level held a billiard room, a wine
cellar and a dressing area to change into swimsuits. The pool itself was thirty by sixty feet and made entirely of steel from
a World War II–era battleship that had been decommissioned, she said. There was a lower kitchen with a Vulcan stove that had
a big chrome hood dating from 1912, working dumbwaiters and a laundry room. In the boiler room Web got to see big McLain units
kicking out radiant steam heat, and there was a room containing nothing except wooden bins for storing firewood. Each woodbin
was labeled for a particular room.

The main-level dining room had the heads of English stags on the walls and an antler chandelier. The kitchen was impressively
large, with delft wall tile and a genuine silver closet. There were three ballrooms, assorted studies, parlors and living
rooms and an exercise room. On the upper floors there were seventeen bathrooms, twenty bedrooms, a library that seemed to
have no end and numerous other spaces. The place was truly enormous, and Web knew he was incapable of making it totally secure.

As they ended the tour, Gwen looked around with a wistful air. “I’ve really come to love this place. I know it’s too big and
grandiose in parts, but it’s also very healing, you know?”

“I guess I can see that. How many staff do you have in the house?”

“Well, we have three women who come and clean and do laundry and look after things and then they leave, unless we’re having
a lot of guests of dinner and then they’ll stay and help. They’re all local folks.”

“Who does the cooking?”

“I do. It’s something else I enjoy. We have a handyman of sorts. He looks like he’s a million years old, but he’s just lived
life really hard. He comes most days. Nemo and his men run the rest of the farm. Racehorses have to be exercised every day,
so we also have riders, three young women and one man. All of them live at the equestrian center.”

“And there is a security system. I noted the alarm pad as we came in.”

“We never use it.”

“You will now.”

Gwen said nothing to this. She showed Web into the last room. The master bedroom was vast but curiously sparsely furnished.
Web also noticed the anteroom off the master bedroom that also had a bed.

“Billy works late a lot and doesn’t want to disturb me when he comes to bed,” explained Gwen. “He’s always considerate that
way.”

The way she looked when she said this made Web think Billy wasn’t all that considerate.

She continued, “Most people only see the hard side of Billy, and I guess there were more than a few people that were a little
skeptical of our getting married. I guess half of them thought I was marrying Billy for money and the other half thought he
was robbing the cradle. But the fact is, we just clicked. We enjoy each other’s company. My mother was in the last stages
of lung cancer when we started dating, and Billy came to the hospice every day for four months. And he didn’t just sit there
and stare at my mother dying. He brought her things, talked with her, argued with her about politics and sports and made her
feel like she was still living, I suppose. It made it a lot easier for all of us and I’ll never forget that. He’s had a rough
life and he’s rough around the edges because of it. But he’s been everything in a husband that a woman could ask for. He left
Richmond, a place he loved, and gave up the only business he’s ever known to start over on a horse farm because I asked him
to. And I think he knew we had to get away from it all, too many bad memories.

“And he was a wonderful father to David, did everything with him. He didn’t spoil him because he thought that would make David
weak, but he loved that boy with every ounce of his being. If anything, I think losing him destroyed Billy more than it did
me because, while he had children from his first marriage, David was his only son. But if he considers you a friend, there
is absolutely nothing he wouldn’t do for you. He’d spend his last nickel to help you. There aren’t many people like that left.”