TheCart Before the Corpse by Carolyn McSparren Page B

bridge player. He taught me the difference between a straight and a flush when I was six, but the gambling bug never bit me. My allowance was much too precious to me to risk it on anything I couldn’t stuff into my mouth. Preferably chocolate.
    He gave up playing because he always won. If he was playing against the rich patrons who could afford to lose the money, they didn’t like losing bragging rights. If he was playing against the grooms and other professionals, he didn’t like taking their hard-earned cash. That same ability to assess the odds and play them consistently kept him in the winner’s circle with his carriage horses. He didn’t win every class, but he won often and well. He knew instinctively which chances to take and which to avoid.
    “Oh, bridge comes back like riding a bicycle,” Mrs. Cecil said in that soft voice. “I know it’s too early for you to be thinking of these things, but I do want to keep up my driving lessons. I’ll call to schedule the next one.” She left trailed by her husband who had not said a single word.
    “What lessons?” I whispered.
    “Didn’t Jacob tell you?” Peggy leaned toward me and lowered her voice.
    I shook my head.
    “Hiram was teaching us to drive.”
    I gaped at her. “Us? As in you?”
    She looked down at her plate and actually blushed. “I was his first lesson after he put in the dressage arena, and before that, we were driving the Halflinger in the pasture.” Then she met my eyes and her chin jutted as though I had threatened her. “I’ve even driven Heinzie to the big Meadowbrook. We were talking about my buying a horse and carriage to show. We have several driving shows in this area, you know.”
    I gulped my iced tea and composed my face as though this was the first time I’d heard of them. “I know. Several.” I managed a couple of them.
    “I was his star pupil.” Peggy waved a hand at the woman who had told me my bridge skills would come back. “She’s got a husband, but the others are widows. Hiram was an attractive man.”
    “You think they might want to continue taking lessons now that Hiram’s . . . not available? Surely they’re not interested in seducing Jacob.”
    Peggy choked on her iced tea. “There’s not a widow in Mossy Creek that is that desperate. Let’s face it, after you mulch the azaleas and cover the roses, there’s not much to do in a garden in the winter except read seed catalogs and plan for next spring.”
    “Gardeners?”
    “I don’t think Ida tried driving. She’s the mayor and has her own beau, so she didn’t hit on Hiram. Amos wouldn’t like it.”
    “Amos Royden? The police chief would have been jealous of Hiram?” Oh, boy, that was all I needed. First I ran afoul of Sheriff Campbell in Bigelow, a considerably bigger jackass than Don Qui and unlikely to do anything to rock the boat about Hiram’s death. Now I found that the Mossy Creek chief of police would have reacted badly if this Ida person came on to Hiram. Knowing Hiram, he would have, unless she looked like the Goodyear blimp or the Wicked Witch of whichever direction she came from. Even then, he might have reconsidered it if she was funny and rich. “What’s Ida like?”
    “Rich as Croesus, clever as a mongoose, and tough as pig iron.”
    “How old? And how thin?”
    “Thin enough. Early fifties. She was the most beautiful woman in Mossy Creek, and would still give our Miss Georgia a run for her money.”
    Just Hiram’s type. If I’d been able to cadge a sports’ agent’s fifteen per cent of all the money Hiram had talked women out of, I could buy my own horse farm and sit on my tush while illegal immigrants did all the work.
    “So what’s for dinner, ladies?” Ellen asked. I turned the menu over to Peggy.
    ”Evening, Peggy, Ms Abbott. I’m Amos Royden. We met this morning.”
    We shook hands across the iced tea glasses. He looked even better out of uniform. What a pity he was already taken, although not actually married.