our own flesh and blood, as a result?”
Rosco considered the question. For a weird moment, he almost imagined he was talking to Walter Gudgeon. “Mr. Collins, let me ask you something—”
“Go ahead. It feels good to finally get this stuff off my chest.”
“You said your daughters made other attempts to expose your wife—”
“And Chip, too. In their own way, each of my kids tried to tell me she was cheating. Hell, Chip went so far as to call her a tramp, and I slapped him across the face.”
“Is it possible that one of them killed her? You know the police love to play the inheritance card. I understand you intended to leave the farm, pretty much everything, to your wife?”
Collins shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe they would do that. Not because they’re not capable of rage, or keeping their eyes on a buck. My kids are definitely a chip off the old block—no pun intended—and they’re damned used to getting their own way, and can be ferocious when they don’t. But I believe their concern over me would have prevented them from killing Ryan out of spite. Oh, sure, they wanted to prove her to be the trollop she was and hoped and prayed that I’d toss her out . . . but bashing her head like that, and letting me find the body? No, that’s not their style. Ryan would have to do something pretty abhorrent to push them over the top.” Collins smiled a weary smile. “And that’s saying a lot, because they surely must have hated the woman. But I didn’t raise any murderers, Polycrates.”
Again, Rosco was silent. He was aware of a clock ticking on the mantelpiece, of the distant whir of a vacuum cleaner moving through the second floor, of a leaf blower working the far end of the garden: all homey and comforting sounds intruding into a space that was far from peaceable. “So you must not believe that Heather killed Jack Curry.”
Todd Collins didn’t immediately answer. “I’ve been struggling and struggling with that one. I know Fee went off the deep end last night, accused Heather of all sorts of nasty things . . . but I simply can’t see her shacking up with Curry when she knew her sister was about to marry him again . . . let alone murder him.”
“Would Curry have cheated on Fiona in that fashion?” Rosco prompted.
“Well, that’s another story. I don’t hold with speaking ill of the dead, but I don’t believe I’m doing so when I say that Jack was a diamond in the rough. He had flaws that no amount of polishing was going to remove. Fee knew that. Hell, she’d been married to the guy once, and she’d also spent a sizable amount of time on the show circuit with him. There’s a lot of testosterone flying around out in those pony rings—and, believe me, it’s not just the stallions. People who engage in that type of winner-take-all experience need to put their pent-up energy somewhere. And let me tell you, the women trainers and riders are just as wild as the men.”
Rosco nodded while Collins continued, “I’m going to miss Jack Curry, I’ll tell you that much. I’m going to miss the heck out of him. He was one fine trainer, and a good friend. And he was also the only man who could keep Fiona in line. It was the one good thing Ryan did, insisting I bring him back here, and I never regretted my decision for a minute.”
Rosco made a mental note of the fact. “How long ago was that, again? That you rehired him?”
“Shortly after we were married. Ryan thought it would be good for the stable, as well as for Fiona—even though Fee was already hitched to that jackass Whitney Applegate. Of course, I never explained to my daughter that her love life had played a part in my decision. I just said I was damn glad to have Curry back working the Wenstarin horses. And if you have a child who’s unhappy with a spouse, a parent has an obligation to shake things up a little, get them back on the right track.”
“So your wife was interested in making your daughters happy?”
Collins didn’t immediately respond. “I don’t know about other occasions, but she was then, yes. And, yes, I also realize people suspected that she and Jack had been an item when they were both kicking around in the smaller southern circuits a few