Puss 'N Cahoots

anything about Charly?” Booty asked loud and clear.
    “No, but Charly’s too mean to die.” People laughed, and Ward continued, “I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if Charly was on the operating table at this moment getting some kind of bypass surgery or a little balloon in an artery. He blued up on us there.”
    “Charly doesn’t have a heart,” someone said jokingly but with a bite.
    “Well, he sure tried to knock me in the dirt tonight.” Booty smiled triumphantly. “Hey, it’s competition that makes a good horse race, right? I bet you he’ll be back at it at Louisville. By the way, anyone see Miss Nasty after her disgraceful conduct?”
    “No.”
    Benny piped up. “Last I saw her, she was heading down to Charly’s barn.”
    A panicked look crossed Booty’s face. “She’s always where she shouldn’t be. One of the really great things about Miss Nasty, as opposed to the real Miss Nasty, is she can’t use my credit cards.”
    This called forth an uproar of mirth, so Booty continued in this vein. He did, however, want his monkey.
             
    Spike retreated when the humans came into Charly’s barn, but he then came out to sit on a director’s chair.
    “Smell the champagne.” Harry pointed to the bottle.
    One by one, Fair, Joan, and then Renata smelled the champagne, still inviting.
    “No wonder he fell off his horse,” Joan joked.
    “Does he usually drink before a big class? Calm his nerves?” Fair wondered.
    “I’ve never seen him take a drink, smoke a cigarette, or take a toke before a class,” Renata offered. “He was in pain, though. His right hand might have been broken.”
    “Well, smell this.” Harry pointed to the glass, took a red grooming rag, and picked it up by the stem.
    Fair gingerly took the glass and rag from her first. “Doesn’t smell like champagne.” He noted the yellow crystals still forming. “Smells like poison.”
    Joan, next, inhaled. “I don’t know what it is.”
    Renata then inhaled. “How do you know it’s poison?”
    Fair answered, “I’m around a lot of substances that can kill horses, remember. I’m pretty sure this is poison, natural poison. He didn’t clutch at his heart. Charly’s face blued up a little, and my hunch is he was either bitten or drank snake poison. It stops your respiratory system if you’re full of a fatal dose. And when snake venom dries, it crystallizes. Pour liquid on it and it will melt again.”
    “I didn’t see a deputy anywhere. I wanted Fair to smell it because, well, because I didn’t want to make a mistake,” Harry said. She knew Booty kept snakes, as did the others. Now it was a game of flushing out your quarry.
    “You didn’t. Anyone have a cell phone? I left mine in the truck. Maybe we can call the sheriff down here.”
    The ladies didn’t have their cell phones, either, as they didn’t fit in their dresses.
    Miss Nasty called down,
“I know where there’s a cell phone.”
    Joan looked up and wondered if she’d ever get that pin back, although given the immediate circumstances the fluted champagne glass was more important. “I’ll walk up to the barn and get mine. It’s in the changing room.”
    “Where’s the cell phone?”
Tucker asked the monkey, sidling down the rafters to reach the top of a stall beam.
    “I told you I had the pin.”
Thrilled with herself, Miss Nasty strutted, ignoring the request.
    “Where’s the phone?”
Mrs. Murphy inquired.
    “I said I knew where it was, I didn’t say I’d tell you.”
Miss Nasty grinned.
    “I’ll kill her.”
Pewter danced on her hind paws.
    “Shut up,”
the tiger cat advised.
“And don’t climb up the stall post.”

    Joan, moving through all the people back at Barn Five, smiled and kept saying, “Excuse me, I’m on a mission.” She finally stepped into the changing room, took her purse from the tack trunk, grabbed her thin phone.
    Her mother ducked her head in and said, “Joan, what’s wrong?”
    Joan’s polite behavior to the crowd didn’t fool Mom. “Found Miss Nasty. I’ve got to get that pin, Mom.”
    Frances looked at Joan’s face, looked at the phone. “With a phone?”
    “I’ll explain later.” Joan left the room, saying to people who stopped her for a chat, “I’ll be right back, right back.”
    Frances left the room and found Paul standing out in the main aisle with sixty other people. She pointed toward Joan, who was already heading down the slight slope to Charly’s barn, and said, “Paul,