Chapter 6

They sat on two overturned buckets at the end of Barn A, away from the buyers, with the binder open on Alma's knees. The morning light came in over the doors and laid a long stripe of gold across the concrete.

"First," Alma said, "you weren't on the tagging crew. I checked the work log. You were on Kestrel's Last, and I have the colic treatment notes with your name on them for the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth. Coyle told the deputy you helped him tag. That's a lie, and I can prove it."

Hollis nodded. That part he had known.

"Second." She turned pages. "The security log. Coyle said it places you in Barn B, Stall 6, at two fifty-eight this morning. Let's look at what it actually says."

She ran her finger down the sheet. Hollis leaned in. The log was a printed list of badge scans, one per line, with the barn, the stall, and the time. His own number appeared four times that night.

Barn A, Stall 3, 11:12 p.m. Barn A, Stall 3, 1:40 a.m. Barn A, Stall 3, 3:05 a.m. Barn A, Stall 7, 4:22 a.m.

"Barn A," Alma said. "Not Barn B. Whoever wrote that note for Coyle put the wrong barn on it, because they were reading the stall number off a chart and didn't check the letter. Stall 3 in Barn A is the mare-and-foal stall."

Hollis sat very still.

"Sabella's Run's foal from this year," Alma said. "The one you pulled at two in the morning on the twelfth. He scoured. You sat up with him for three nights."

"That's right."

"And last night he scoured again. Mild. You were in there at eleven, at one forty, and at three o'clock, with a bucket of electrolytes and a blanket."

"That's right."

Alma closed the binder. "So the note that was supposed to bury you puts you exactly where you should have been, doing exactly what you've done for forty-four years. Coyle didn't check the barn letter. He just needed a stall number."

Hollis looked out at the paddock. A groom was walking a yearling in a slow circle, and the colt's coat shone in the light, and it occurred to him that he might, by the end of this day, be able to go back to that kind of ordinary morning. Or he might not.

"Why did he pick me?" he said.

Alma was quiet a moment. "I think you know."

"Three weeks ago," Hollis said. "I came in at six and he was at the tag board. Alone. With tags in his hand."

Alma's eyes came up.

"I didn't think anything of it," Hollis said. "I went to bed."

"Did he see you see him?"

"He laughed at me."

Alma nodded slowly, the way she did when a diagnosis finally lined up with the symptoms. "Then we know why. And we know what he was doing at that board."

She stood, and Hollis stood with her, and she looked down the aisle toward the folding table where the consignment papers sat, and where Coyle was now walking back into the barn with the deputy behind him, his blazer still on, his face set, his folder tucked under his arm like nothing had happened.

"One more thing," Alma said quietly. "The registry record on Sabella's Run. There's a name on it you haven't seen yet."