Free Lead a Horse to Murder by Cynthia Baxter

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    “But he handled it all with amazing ease. The man was truly one of a kind. In fact,” MacKinnon went on, his voice becoming strained with emotion, “he was like a son to me. Of course I love my daughters. Peyton and Callie are the center of the universe, as far as I’m concerned. But Eduardo . . . Eduardo was something special.”
    He shook his head slowly. “Losing him would have been a great loss to the game.”
    “Excuse me?” I asked, confused.
    MacKinnon glanced up, looking surprised. I got the impression he’d been thinking out loud. For the moment, at least, he seemed to have forgotten there was someone else in the room.
    “I said, ‘Losing him is a great loss to the game.’ ” His gaze traveled back to the polo player’s photograph. “Damn shame,” he muttered. In a few hearty gulps, he emptied his glass, then rose to get himself a refill.
    “Can I offer you another drink?” he asked politely, without looking up.
    “I’m fine.” I glanced at my glass, which was just as full as it had originally been. I put it down on one of the tables, hiding it between two framed photographs and hoping that someone would dispose of it later. “In fact, I should really be on my way.”
    I hesitated, wondering if our conversation had come to an end. But MacKinnon had picked up the photograph of Eduardo and was holding it in his hand, just staring at it. I slipped out of the room, not wanting to disturb him during what was obviously a private moment. Or maybe it was that, for the moment, at least, I’d had about all of the MacKinnons I could handle.
    As I came out of the study, I nearly ran smack into the man who was striding down the hall.
    “Excuse me!” I cried. “I didn’t see—”
    “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Dr. Jessica Popper. You sure have a way of showing up in the most interesting places.”
    I blinked, caught off guard by the sight of the small, wiry man with the piercing dark eyes. But I immediately realized I shouldn’t have been at all surprised that Lieutenant Anthony Falcone, Chief of Homicide, was among today’s attendees. Still, seeing him here confirmed that the police believed that Eduardo Garcia’s death hadn’t been accidental, after all.
    “Dare I ask what you’re doin’ here today?” he asked in his thick Long Island accent.
    “If you’re asking if I’m here because of Mr. Garcia’s suspicious death, the answer is no. I happen to be treating one of Andrew MacKinnon’s horses.”
    “You sure get around, don’t you?” Lieutenant Falcone folded his arms across his chest. He reminded me of Napoleon—with a New York attitude. He was short, not even as tall as I was, and slight of build. His blue-black hair was slicked back, held in place by some substance so shiny I could have used the top of his head as a mirror.
    “I hope you’re not planning on gettin’ involved in this investigation,” he warned. “Murder is dangerous business.”
    “So I’ve learned,” I replied coolly. “Although I seem to recall that the last time you and I met, even you had some complimentary things to say about how I handled myself.”
    I watched with no small sense of satisfaction as his mouth dropped open.
    “Besides,” I couldn’t resist adding, “it seems to me that this investigation should be a cinch.”
    “Yeah?” Falcone’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “And why, may I ask, is that?”
    “Apparently the medical examiner’s office believes the man was poisoned. So all you have to do is find out who had access to his food right before he died and you’ve got your murderer.”
    “Sounds simple, doesn’t it?”
    “Like I said, a cinch.”
    “Except for one small problem,” he growled. “The night before Eduardo Garcia died, he was one of three hundred guests at a party at the Old Brookbury Country Club, a celebration of the club’s seventy-fifth anniversary. During the autopsy, the partially digested food that was found in his system indicated that the last