Saltwater in the Bluegrass (26 page)

She could wait it out. It wasn’t that big a deal.

Across town, it hadn’t taken long
for Lamar Jr. to make the connection he was looking for between the license plate and the address with the help of his school friend’s computer. Within ten minutes of booting up the system and hacking into the records of the Motor Vehicle Department, they had the address they were looking for.

Lamar Jr. still was not sure why he was so interested in this information, but he was driven to see it through. Now he had the first piece of the puzzle. He had the address: 8117 Bench Berry Road, Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Lamar left his friend’s place. He gave his thanks, even after being teased for trying to pick up some old woman in the stands. Lamar Jr. was sort of laughing at himself too, but he still felt that there was something bonding the two of them, and he had to figure out what that was.

Soon he would know.

That afternoon he drove across the bridge to the other side of the river and made his way down the windy streets heading east along the Ohio River. He counted the numbers and watched the street signs until he came to the house that displayed the address he was looking for. He slowed down. As he pulled into the driveway, he once again repeated the address in his head, 8117 Bench Berry.

This was the house; it was quaint. From the outside it looked to be a two-bedroom, one-bath house with flowers in the yard and on the porch.

Lamar Jr. felt nervous. He had been practicing what he would say all the way across town. It was rehearsed. It was well thought out. It was profound. It was all for nothing.

As he rang the door bell, ready to give his lines, he was suddenly taken aback. Not by his lack of speech, but by what happened next. She was waiting for him. When the door opened the little grayhaired elderly lady walked out

“Hi, boy, I’m Lizzy, your grandmother.”

Then there was a pause. Lamar Jr. could say nothing.

“I was beginning to wonder if this day was ever going to happen,”

Lizzy said.

She placed her left hand on his strong right arm to steady herself. With her right hand holding tightly to her cane, she walked out onto the front porch.

Katherine was exasperated
with the reading of the will, the manner and the process in which it had been carried out. She was infuriated with the outcome and with John Reynolds.

“No one treats me that way and gets away with it,” she shouted as though passengers were in the car, passengers who would hear every word she said.

She sped out of the parking structure and into traffic and headed down Market Street towards her office.

How could anyone, especially a reputable lawyer from a solid law firm, have pulled such an outlandish and devious trick as John Reynolds had done to her. And for what? His own amusement? For her brother’s amusement?

Katherine found what John Reynolds had done distasteful and simply incomprehensible. How dare he? Bad enough, Katherine had not received anything in her brother’s last will and testament. Nothing except a smart-ass last word and a non-responsive comeback. The way she was treated by her brother was horrible and the idea that she had been the victim of his joke appalling. It angered her to the very core.

Katherine spent the next three days and nights steaming over the reading of the will. She was enraged with the ridiculous manner in which she was treated. It was unintelligible what had happened, and without a doubt it was obvious that Lamar had planned this last laugh at her expense for quite a long time.

In Katherine’s mind, there was never an indication that something like this could ever happen, at least not to her, not from him. Nonetheless, it had been perpetrated by the brother that she had always cared for so much.

Katherine was not used to being made fun of. She had never been the butt of someone else’s joke before. She did not like the taste of it. Lamar had always run from controversy. His iniquities had always been few. His indignations shallow, especially when compared to what Katherine had done to him and others in the past. She would hate him for that. She would hate him for what he had done.

Then she stopped. Suddenly she began to smile, and then she laughed.

“That little sob got me back. I can’t believe it. Good for him,” she thought to herself.

For once she would toast her brother. She would toast him for going through what must have been a great, painstaking deliberation in planning, planning his revenge on her with what little formal training he had in the art of having brass balls.

Katherine relaxed. She was content to let it go. This round went to Lamar. She would spend the evening at her penthouse alone. There was no time in anyone’s
day to feel sorry for Katherine. She didn’t deserve it. Actually, no one in the family at the present time knew anything about what Lamar had given or not given Katherine, since she was the only one left in the room when the last part, her part of the will was read.

Everyone else in attendance had already been excused from the room. By now, everyone who had been asked to show up at the reading was busy celebrating in their own way what they had been given. They were not the least bit concerned about Katherine. They didn’t care what she received or what she didn’t get.

That included Kristina.

Kristina had already left the room. She had left in a burst of joy with her self-appointed foursome of gentlemen, leaving Katherine alone with John Reynolds and Lamar’s afterthoughts.

John Reynolds was a close friend to Lamar. He had always considered Lamar as a compassionate man and a man with conventional wisdom. The two of them had been more than just business partners for a long time. They had worked side by side on many projects in Kentucky.

Months back Lamar had come to John and asked for his help. Lamar wanted help in revising his last will and testament. He had not given a reason, and John had not asked why.

John had just been glad to help.

Thomas, Douglas,
and Milford were in the Baxter Room on Monday morning, ready to go to work by eight forty-five. The people in the room were standing, sitting, mingling. Several were discussing the outcome of the races two days ago up at Keeneland. Several were discussing the weather and what their plans were for the upcoming week, especially the fact that Cost Me Plenty was picked to win the Bluegrass Stakes on Saturday and that Milford’s horse was looking choice for the upcoming Run for the Roses.

In the Baxter Boardroom on the tenth floor of the Kentuckianna Tribune building, eleven men and one woman waited for Katherine so that they could start the corporate quarterly review.

The group had become accustomed to waiting for Katherine. She was always late. She obviously found it a simplistic and manicured way to show her importance and dominance to the rest of the members of the board.

No one ever really believed it was traffic or that she just wanted to be fashionably late. Katherine was not the type to fill her thoughts with the arrogance of being vane. It was not in her personal makeup. Finally, Katherine showed up
and the meeting was underway.
She stared vacantly around as she entered the large room, taking her seat at the head of the oval mahogany table.

Katherine always acted impervious to the ideas and thoughts from the board members. She had her own direction for the company. These people sitting around waiting for her to speak were mere pawns in her game. They didn’t need to know why she was late. It was none of their business. Her candor was more than most of her associates approved of, but her aggressive methods and talents had produced results for years, and her bluntness was simply tolerated. Katherine infuriated most people she came in contact with, but her methods, as bad as they were, continued to pay high dividends and steer the company in the right direction, and that is what the stockholders expected.

Besides that, she was standing at the top of the Ingram Empire, and no one was big enough to knock her off.

Changes were going to be made now that Lamar was out of the picture. Katherine was going to stir the pot up and the sooner the better. At least those were her intention. It was what everyone expected.

Lamar Jr. was not at the meeting. He had not been made
privy to it. Katherine had made it clear that the meeting was closed to everyone but the members that were present.

Lamar Jr. would miss this meeting, but this would be the last meeting he would ever miss. He had been well-versed by his father on the corporate bylaws and lingo of the boardroom. He was Lamar’s son.

Katherine did not know it, but her brother had raised an Ingram. Strong, smart, determined, and along with that he now owned all of his father’s stock, and that made him an equal in the boardroom, whether she liked it or not.

Lamar Jr. was educated and had been raised on the inside of the track. He knew what his aunt was capable of doing. He also knew what she might try to pull. Not only was he not going to let his Aunt Katherine change the game plan that had been set in place by the board members and his father, he was not going to let his aunt continue devaluing the integrity of the company.

It was going to stop and it was going to stop now.
Katherine had been detained
in her transit downtown to the meeting. Halfway out of the long driveway that runs from the house down to River Road, Katherine had run into the delivery driver that was driving up the narrow lane towards the house.

As unyielding as she wanted to be, she adamantly put her car in reverse and backed up the lane to where she could pull off. The driver of the truck pulled up beside her. She opened the Jaguar’s window, and he handed her the package, asking for a signature and saying thanks as he climbed back into his truck.

As obstinate as Katherine was about this bumbling fool delivering the last package for her to Kristina, she found enough restraint to, for once, keep her mouth shut. She was much more involved with opening the letter than giving the driver a five minute dissertation of stupidity, Ingram style.

The letter was from Sevil Ylime in Brazil. Katherine was glad to see that her instructions were still being carried out due to Willy B’s disappearance from the scene.

April had been an outstanding month. With the letter now pulled from the international envelope, Katherine could see what it said. She began reading:

(DMIA1F75FM1OA01)

(DMIA2F75FM2OA01)

(DMIA3F75FM3OA01)

That was it. No signature. No markings. Just the information Katherine required, and only she could understand it.

Katherine waited as the delivery driver pulled forward up to the driveway, turned around, and then passed her once again, heading down River Road. She placed the coded message back into the envelope. She then started the car and drove down the driveway, turning left and heading toward town.

Dusty Freedman and Marcus Lagoto were still more than capable of running the business, the everyday, blue collar portion of the operations for Katherine in Porto Alegre, but it was time to replace the managerial position that had become vacant with the erasing of Wiley B. from existence.

It was ten minutes after nine when Katherine finally made her way into the conference room. With briefcase in hand, she took her seat among the other members of the board.

Of course she was late. She was always late, but no one in the room seemed to care. No one in the room was going to ask why or make rumblings.

Actually, in the scheme of things, everyone in the boardroom thought that Katherine was considerably early for the meeting, only being ten minutes late. A large improvement over last month when Katherine was forty minutes late.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Baby.”

“I miss you, Daddy.”

“I miss you to, precious.”

“I’m so tired, Daddy.”

“I know you are.”

“When can I go with you, Daddy?”

“Soon, child, soon.”

“I am cold, Daddy. I’m so very cold.”

“I know you are, Baby. I know you are.”

“I miss you, Daddy.”

“I know you do.”

“Nobody likes me, Daddy.”

“Sure they do, Baby.”

“No, they do not. Nobody will play with me either, Daddy. No one wants to share their toys with me. I am all alone, Daddy. Daddy?”

“I am here, Baby.”

“Yes, Daddy, but you left me alone.”

“I’m here, Baby; I will stay with you.”

“But you will leave me too. Everybody leaves me, Daddy. Am I a bad girl?”

“I love you, Baby.”

“I love you too, Daddy. When will I see you again?”

“I am always here for you, Baby.”

“I love you, Daddy. I love you so much.”

“I know you do.”

“I am the only one, Daddy. I am the only one that loves you. I dressed up for you, Daddy. I dressed up just for you. I fixed my hair just for you. Just for you. I love you so, Daddy. I am your little girl, Daddy. No one loves you like I do, Daddy. Daddy? Daddy? Daddy, where are you?”

“I am here, Baby. I am here.”

“Daddy, will you stay with me?”

“I am right her, Baby. I am here.”

“I love you, Daddy. I love you so.”

“I love you too, Baby.”

“Daddy? Daddy? Where did you go? Daddy?”

It was now the last
Saturday
in April. An estimated sixty-five thousand people would attend today’s races at the Keeneland Race Track in Lexington. The featured event was the Bluegrass Stakes. By ten a.m., a large portion of the crowd was already making its way off Versailles Road into the surrounding grounds for the one forty-five post time.

Lexington, Kentucky, was alive with spring fever. It was colored in spectacular beauty with white and pink dogwoods and white azaleas lining the landscape. Facetiae were in bloom and copiously lined the roads with their brilliant, bright yellow flowers, and roses graced the racing grounds. Lilacs were giving off their perfumed scents, and tulips of red, yellow, and orange were popping up from all of the flowerbeds.

Morning abound. Spring abound. It was one week closer to the Derby.

The warmth of the morning grew as the sun continued to climb into the sky. Visitors, patrons, reporters, and enthusiasts from all around the world made their way into the grounds, many with cameras and recorders to catch a piece of today’s events and make this dream world of excitement a reality for all time.