Million-Dollar Horse (8 page)

A few minutes later, a quiet and humbled Benjamin Stookey slunk out of Max’s office and headed for his Volvo. He never even glanced at the three girls still pinned to the wall.

The girls were about to unpin themselves when another person didn’t notice they were there.

Veronica diAngelo swept past them, crying, “Max!”

“This is not a good—”

“Max! It’s Danny! He’s
gone
!”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“Not there. Gone. Empty stall. Flown the coop! It’s Red, you know. He left the stall unlatched again and Danny—everybody knows that he’s curious and wanders. He left. Gone. It’s Red’s responsibility. I’ve told you repeatedly that that man doesn’t know the first thing—”

“Red’s—
Red’s
responsibility?” Max stammered. For the second time in as many minutes, Stevie, Lisa, and Carole were hearing Max’s fury.

“That horse belongs to
you
!” Max’s voice thundered out of his office. “
You
were riding him.
You
are responsible for seeing that he’s secure in his stall!”

“I told Red to look after him!” Veronica said, but her voice was quieter than before. Her arguments weren’t working and she was beginning to realize it.

“And I told you before that you cannot be careless with the latch on Danny’s stall. This is inexcusable, Veronica. Danny is a strong and headstrong horse. There’s no telling where he’s going to go and what kind of trouble he can get into. The fields and woods around here are filled with hazards for a horse like Danny. You may think it’s okay to risk your Thoroughbred’s
health—or even his life—to make a stupid point with Red, but it’s not. Latching your horse’s stall door is your job. Not anybody else’s. If he comes back here—and I suppose he will, though why he’d want to return to your care is beyond me—you will remain solely responsible for his care.

“Now, since, in all likelihood, Danny has headed for the woods, probably toward the creek, perhaps you’d like to rent a horse from the stable to see if you might be able to find him. I’m sure a horse could be found for you.”

“Well, I, uh—just one of the stable horses?”

It was totally typical of Veronica to despise the idea of riding just any horse.

“Danny isn’t available,” Max said, the anger dripping from his voice.

“But Max, shouldn’t Red—”

“No!” he shouted. “Danny is your horse. This is your fault, and it’s your responsibility to fix it. Now go. Solve the problem!”

Max slammed his office door behind Veronica.

Veronica stomped off down the hall, pulling a sleek cell phone out of her jacket pocket. Nobody had to tell Stevie, Lisa, and Carole what she was up to. She was calling her father.

By the time The Saddle Club had changed out of
their riding clothes and picked up their overnight bags to leave for Stevie’s house, Veronica had solved the problem at least as far as she was concerned. She had walked into the locker area and headed straight for the bulletin board. There she posted a note:

Once the note was pinned to the board, Veronica marched out of the room without saying a word to The Saddle Club.

Stevie shook her head. “Only Veronica would think money could make up for carelessness,” she observed.

“Her parents, too, I guess,” Lisa said.

“A lesson she learned well at her father’s knee,” said Carole.

L
ISA ALWAYS ENJOYED
a meal with the Lakes because it was so unlike anything that ever happened at her house. Dinner in the Lake house was managed mayhem. Amid shouts and playful teasing, Mrs. Lake managed to put all the food on the table with the help of an assigned child, and Mr. Lake managed to serve it up with the help of another assigned child. That night, Alex was carrying food out of the kitchen while enjoying a heated argument with Chad about whether the Willow Creek High School basketball team had a snowball’s chance in July of beating Cross County. Michael was talking with his mother about the history of protest in the United States, centering
on the Vietnam era, and Stevie was trying to get her father to tell her what
fiduciary responsibility
meant while she doled out the plates he filled.

Carole and Lisa watched and listened, absorbing. Lisa felt a little like someone trying to catch a bus that was already moving. Eventually she might learn how fast to run and how firmly to grab, but for now it seemed safer to stand on the curb and wait for the next bus.

“That guy can’t rebound for beans!”

“But if the country was wrong, why were some people fighting the war at all?”

“It’s a passing game!”

“Civil disobedience …”

“Foul shots! He’s three for fourteen!”

“
Fidoosh
, something like that. It sure sounded like a lawyer’s word to me.”

“Ah,
fiduciary
!”

“Yeah, that’s it!” Stevie almost dropped the plate she was holding in front of Chad. It landed with such a loud noise that Chad himself was momentarily silenced.

“What does it mean?” Carole piped up.

“It has to do with trusts,” said Mr. Lake.

“Huh?” Stevie never minded letting on that she was confused.

“The person who is in charge of a trust—”

“What’s a trust?”

“It can be a lot of things, but mostly it has to do with money that’s being held and managed for someone else. When there’s a trust, the person in charge is a trustee and has fiduciary responsibility. In other words, they are accountable. It might be helpful if you know that it comes from the Latin word—”

“
Semper Fi!
” said Carole. “It’s the Marines’ motto.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Lake. “Only it’s actually
Semper Fidelis—fi
is a shortened version. Anyway, what
Fidelis
means, literally, is ‘faithful.’
Semper
means ‘always,’ so the Marine Corps motto means ‘always faithful.’ A fiduciary must be faithful to the terms of the trust. Does that answer your question?” he asked.

“What does that have to do with horses?” Lisa asked.

By then all the plates had been filled and everyone was seated. The noise abated as Stevie’s brothers concentrated on eating; so The Saddle Club had Mr. and Mrs. Lake’s full attention.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with horses, as far as I know,” Mr. Lake told her.

Stevie looked at the notebook where she’d jotted down the confusing words Mr. Stookey had used in his conversation with Max. She’d intended to use the pad to write down all the things Max wanted the girls to do with Honey-Pie. Instead, she’d written
fiduciary responsibility
, though she was sure she’d spelled it wrong. Next to that was another confusing term.

“What’s a residual beneficiary, then?” she asked.

“Sometimes when someone dies, they leave their money and goods directly to someone else—to their children, for example. When the money is left in a trust, if the person who’s supposed to benefit from the trust dies, the money goes to the residual beneficiary—”

“Like the next person on the list?” Lisa asked.

“I’m not sure most lawyers would let you put it that way, but it’s close enough.”

“And what does that have to do with horses?” Carole asked.

“Nothing,” said Mr. Lake. He was looking more and more confused by the girls’ questions. “What is all this about?”

“Well, there’s this guy,” Stevie began.

“And this horse,” said Carole.

“The guy is Benjamin Stookey,” said Stevie.

“And there’s this other guy named Paul Fredericks,” said Lisa.

“Honey-Pie?” asked Mrs. Lake. “Is she at Pine Hollow?”

Stevie, Lisa, and Carole looked at her in astonishment.
How on earth could she know? Then they looked at Mr. Lake. He was laughing.

“What’s the joke?” Stevie asked.

“Oh, boy!” he said. “Old Emma really did it, didn’t she?”

Mrs. Lake laughed, too.

“What’s going on?” Carole asked Lisa.

“Oh, it’s the talk of wills and trusts departments everywhere in Virginia!” Mr. Lake said, still laughing.

“So?” Stevie crossed her arms over her chest and waited impatiently for more information.

By then even her brothers were interested. All six of the kids at the table wanted to be in on the joke.

“You tell,” said Mr. Lake.

“No, you tell,” said Mrs. Lake. “You went to law school with Ben.”

“Okay,” Mr. Lake agreed. He took a drink of water and sat back in his chair. “This is all about Emma Fredericks,” he began.

“Aunt Emma?” Lisa asked.

“Is that what Paul calls her? I guess so,” Mr. Lake said. “Well, she was a strange old gal, that’s for sure. She was married to Bart Fredericks. He was a schemer and a dreamer, and in his lifetime he went through about six fortunes. The world never knew whether he’d just lost a million dollars or earned it or was somewhere in between,
but it was a sure thing that whatever he had, he wasn’t going to keep it for long. When he died, he had lost it. He left Emma absolutely nothing. Or almost nothing. Turns out he’d owned a portion of a retired racehorse, and that racehorse happened to be a mare. That mare just happened to be in foal. And under Bart Fredericks’s will, Emma inherited the foal.

“Emma took that foal in. At the time, she was living in a trailer and had a tiny yard where the foal, a filly she named Honey-Pie, lived. She raised that horse as if it were a puppy, playing with it and loving it. It can’t have been easy for her, either. She had to work hard enough to feed herself—she and Bart never had children—and she also had to feed the horse. As some people in this room know, caring for a horse is a very expensive prospect.

“Anyway, eventually the mare got old enough to train and ride, and that just brought the two of them closer, and when she was fully mature, Emma began breeding her.

“It turned out that Honey-Pie was the best investment Bart ever made. As a riding horse, she wasn’t worth much, but as a breeder, she was valuable. A number of Honey-Pie’s foals became prizewinners, and she was sought after as a broodmare. Emma got a lot of offers for Honey-Pie, but she wouldn’t consider
selling. Instead she made a nice living on the foaling fees.

“But she also invested her money, very wisely, and before she knew it, Emma was able to move out of the trailer park and into a nice house, then a nicer house, and then a mansion. When the old girl died, she was worth almost three million dollars. It was like a joke on everybody who’d ever laughed at Bart. But the bigger joke was still to come.

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell this part?” Mr. Lake asked his wife. “I mean, you do more will and trust work than I do.”

“Keep going,” said Mrs. Lake. “I’m enjoying eating.”

“Okay, so Emma and Bart never had any children. All of Emma’s family was gone. The only one left who was related to either of them was a nephew on Bart’s side.”

“Paul?” Carole asked.

“Paul,” Mr. Lake confirmed. “Paul figured he was going to get every penny. While Emma was lingering on life support, he’d sold his own little house and was totally prepared to move into her house. He’d opened accounts at all the fancy stores in downtown Washington, and he’d put a down payment on some kind of—”

“Yacht!” Stevie supplied.

“Exactly,” said her father. “And a—”

“Jaguar!” said Carole.

“I guess. I just heard it was a sports car. Anyway, when Emma died and the will was read, Paul was in for a big surprise. Ben Stookey was her attorney, and I heard he’d done everything he could to talk her out of it, but he couldn’t. She left Paul a portion of her estate. There are rumors, but you never know. The rumors say it was about two hundred fifty thousand dollars. The rest of it she left in trust, with Ben as the trustee. For Honey-Pie.”

“The million-dollar horse!” said Carole, understanding for the first time.

“A good deal more than that,” said Mr. Lake. “Estimates—and, again, this is just rumor—are that the horse is worth about two and a half million dollars.”

“And Paul?”

“He spent every penny he had even before he had it. Paul is in deep debt.”

“So, why doesn’t he sell the yacht and car and stuff?” Stevie asked.

“Ah, there comes the residual beneficiary stuff. Paul will get most of Emma’s money eventually. When Honey-Pie dies.”

Stevie’s mind was working so fast her mouth didn’t have a chance to catch up. Everything was becoming clear. Neither Ben nor Paul knew the first thing about horses—except that Paul seemed to know enough to
know what wasn’t good for Honey-Pie. He wanted the mare dead, and he thought The Saddle Club could make that happen for him!

“Uh, may we please be excused?” she asked. Before her parents could even answer, the girls were taking their plates out to the kitchen. They needed to talk.