On horse racing days, Lucky Meadows reverberated with the clamor of cheers and groans of anguish, stands packed with bettors, bookmakers processing wagers, with fortunes teetering on the razor wire of chance. Money changed hands based on the swiftness of stallions and the nerves of their jockeys. The beseechers followed intuition, whispering prayers and shouting encouragement as the galloping hooves thundered by, and each bead of anxious sweat and penny placed on the line was an offering to the nameless gods of luck.

The privileged few that occupied the top boxes threw their money at the bookmakers—more money was placed on the betting board than most of the rabble below would see in a lifetime, liable to evaporate or multiply in a matter of minutes. Some men walked away rich, even more hobbled home defeated, left in ruin by the bookmakers, by miscalculation and misfortune. My horse was in the lead! It was leading the pack up until the last five yards! What happened?!

The analyzers studied the horses, the jockeys, the condition of the track, the direction of the wind, the heat of the sun, the volume of the crowd—each factor tipped the scale of probability, if only by the slightest margin. They crunched the numbers and saw their gambles as sound investments, diversifying the types of bets, always aware of exactly how much they stood to gain or lose. But the true analyzers were the track managers and the bookmakers, as they had analyzed the larger game at stake. It was a meta-analysis. Lucky Meadows functioned as a clearing house that redistributed funds to its contributors while taking a steady cut of its own.

But it wasn’t a horse racing day. That was tomorrow.

Alec and Clay were greeted outside the race track by a stablehand, a young man with a scar over his milky left eye. The investigators hadn’t expected any welcome. The man was pale with shock, mouth hanging slightly agape.

“Are you with the constabulary?” said the stablehand. “Hurry, Hubert is this way!”

“What’s going on?” said Alec.

“He’s dead,” said the stablehand. “Hubert is dead in the stable.”

“No time to waste,” said Clay, stepping forward and gesturing toward the door. “Lead the way.”

Alec wondered how long he and Clay would have before the genuine constabulary showed up at Lucky Meadows, this scarred and scared stablehand having mistaken the two Detecting Company investigators for constables. He wondered if the deathly scene that they were being led to had any connection to their search for Rufus Napper. They were guided through a maze of trainers’ offices and stables, typically off limits to the common folk, arriving at a stable near the end of the building to find Hubert Lowe’s corpse sprawled on the floor.

Hubert was short and stocky, curly brown hair wet with fresh blood from a wound above his left eye. Blood had pooled beneath his head, and the left side of his face and neck were slick with blood that had dripped down. He appeared to be otherwise unscathed. His dead eyes stared blankly to the side, no breath escaping his parted lips. He had been a jockey for Thunderfoot, one of the larger horses housed at Lucky Meadows, currently residing in the stall at the other end of the room. There were two men and two women standing around Hubert, horse trainers and stablehands, unsure of how to act in the face of such abrupt loss of human life.

“Joe saw it happen,” said the scarred stablehand. “Isn’t that right, Joe? Tell them what you saw.”

Joseph Brant, a heavyset stablehand with calloused, bloody hands, looked up from Hubert. There were white spots on Joseph's hands as well, like dry paint. He stood to full height, over six feet tall. “Hubert mounted Thunderfoot and was trotting out to the track when he was bucked off. He must have gone ten feet up, and then came down right on his head. And then…” He glanced back to the dead body before closing his eyes tightly. “It was all over. He just twitched for a few seconds, and then nothing.”

“Did anyone else see it happen?” said Clay.

Joseph shook his head. “I was the only one here, helping him saddle up.”

“Kind of wet outside for a trot around the track,” said Clay.

“We’ve had races in worse weather than this,” said Joseph.

“And then what happened?” said Clay. “Who was next on the scene?”

“Me,” said the stablehand with the scarred eye.

“Name?” said Clay.

“Luther McLelland,” said the man. “I happened to be coming this way, I needed the broom from the wall rack. I walked in to see Joe standing over Hubert. Thunderfoot was loose from his stall. Then I saw the blood.”

“I was trying to resuscitate him,” said Joseph. “To do anything.”

Clay paced around the body, emulating the poise of an official constable. He glanced across the stable to the wall rack, mentally taking inventory of the tools: broom, rake, pitchfork. A few of the hooks on the wall rack were empty.

“Have any of you seen Rufus Napper lately?” said Clay. “I understand that he used to work at this establishment.”

“I don’t believe I caught your name,” said Joseph.

At that moment, two constables entered the stable from the door that Alec and Clay had come through, led in by a hale old horse trainer. They were donned in dark blue uniforms. Joseph’s eyes darted between Clay, Alec and the constables.

“Hold on, now,” said Luther. He whipped around to face Clay. “Who exactly are you?”

Alec stepped in, ending the ruse. “We’re investigators for the Detecting Company.” He flashed his ID.

“No one called for the two of you,” said Joseph. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re looking for Rufus,” said Alec.

“Well no one’s seen him!” said Joseph. “What’s wrong with you two? There’s a man dead here and you walk around posing as constables!”

“Perhaps we have a misunderstanding,” said Clay.

“Detecting Company, eh?” said one of the approaching constables in a gruff voice. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you both need to leave. We didn’t ask for any of your lot.”

The deception was spoiled. Luther brought Alec and Clay back the way they had come, muttering angrily under his breath all the way. He told them that Rufus hadn’t been to Lucky Meadows in weeks. Alec asked to see Moonshine, or Moonshine’s jockey, Emrys Sandry, but Luther refused. Alec snagged a racing schedule on their way out.

“Well, that’s just great,” said Alec sarcastically once he and Clay had been left outside Lucky Meadows in the drizzling fog. “I can’t blame them for being uncooperative after that stunt.”

“I never said that we were constables,” said Clay. “Not my fault that they assumed so quickly without asking for verification.”

Alec took out the racing schedule and flipped through the pamphlet pages. There was an index of jockeys and their horses, and their performances throughout the current season. “Armand told us that a short guy was hanging around with Rufus before he disappeared. What are the chances that it was a jockey from Lucky Meadows?”

“Worth a shot,” said Clay. “If it was, then hopefully it was one of the living ones.”

“Let’s split up these names and run them through the database at the Detecting Company,” said Alec. “Maybe we can find some current contact information.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Clay.

Alec and Clay parted ways for the remainder of the day. Alec tracked down a handful of the jockeys from his list, zig-zagging across the city for several hours, but none claimed to have seen Rufus. Most of them didn’t even know who Rufus was. By the time the gas lamps started illuminating the streets, glowing in the thickening evening fog, Alec decided to call off his hunt until the next morning. His feet were sore, his stomach was growling, and a headache had set it. He returned to his crooked apartment, shared with three roommates, two of which were working shifts at the mill that night. Alec devoured a few scraps of bread, cheese and pear jam from the closet pantry, and collapsed in his cot. Bluestone Recovery would need to wait at least one more day to recoup their lost money.

When Alec closed his eyes, he had visions of the blood on Hubert’s face.

In the morning, Alec rose early. The sky was still dark. He had a few more jockeys on his list that he wanted to investigate, hoping that he wasn’t wasting his time and that one of them was the man that Armand had described. He perused the racing schedule again, and saw that Moonshine was to be competing in a morning race. Alec decided to go back to Lucky Meadows and catch a glimpse of the horse, if only because Rufus seemed to have some unknown interest in it, and any deeper understanding of Rufus’s thoughts and intentions could prove useful in tracking him.

Yesterday’s rain had cleared, the fog had thinned, and the air was cool. Conditions were more than serviceable for horse racing.

Alec scoped out the race track from the Lucky Meadows stands, looking down at the trainers and jockeys beginning to prepare the horses below. Eleven horses were out on the track, and one more was being walked out of the west stable, out of the total fifteen that would be racing. Alec checked his race schedule and counted the horses off by the numbers on their saddles; only Firefoot, Gypsy and Moonshine were absent. Firefoot and Gypsy were both housed in the west stables, while Moonshine was in the east. Alec didn’t see Emrys Sandry, Moonshine’s jockey, either. He slipped the schedule into his pocket and headed toward the east stables.

The audience was thickening with each passing minute, the race scheduled to begin within the hour. Alec moved inconspicuously through the crowd, ducking into the staff-only area as the doorman was taking a smoke break. He managed to arrive at the east stables without running into any disturbance. Moonshine’s section was up ahead, just around the corner, and Alec caught a chemical whiff, like petroleum—he could taste it on his tongue. He peeked around the corner—Alec was alone with Moonshine. It could be mere minutes before one of Moonshine’s handlers reappeared to finish getting him ready for the race. The heavy scent grew stronger in the black steed’s presence. Alec was a few feet from the horse, he could smell its hot breath as it snorted, dark little eyes peering down at him. Moonshine was donned in his racing outfit, a red saddle and reins, but something was irregular. Alec couldn’t pin it at first, it started as a subtle offness, like looking into a warped mirror.

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Moonshine looked more muscular than in the photos that Alec had seen, and the mane was bushier. The white spot between his eyes was misshapen. Alec stepped closer and climbed up on the chair in the stall. The white mark was painted on. This isn’t Moonshine at all. A real dark horse… Alec stepped down from the chair and followed his nose, pulling back a torn burlap tarp in the corner of the stall to find a half-open can of smelly, white paint.

Footsteps approached from around the corner, and Alec heard two men conversing. He was cornered, at a deadend with no more than a few stalls around him.

“How does he look?” said the nasally man from around the corner.

“Good, really good,” said the man with a deep voice. “The fog helps too, it’s perfect.” Alec recognized the voice.

Alec covered the paint and darted into the shadows of the adjacent stall, crouching down out of view before the two men appeared. The nasally man was Emrys Sandry, donned in his brightly-colored jockey uniform. He was about a foot shorter than his companion, Joseph Brant, the stablehand from yesterday that witnessed the death of Hubert Lowe. He had white spots on his fingers again, just like the paint on the black horse’s forehead. There was a duplicitous look in their eyes.

“Did you hear something?” said Emrys.

“It was just the horse, he’s a hot blooded one, he is,” said Joseph. “Part wild horse, I heard. Crazy blood.” Joseph’s gaze was locked on the black horse, trembling hand running down its mane

Emrys stole a wary glance at Joseph. “Yeah, yeah, just quiet down about it,” said Emrys. “He looks good, you were right. Let’s get him out to the track. Grab me that brush off the wall.”

“Don’t worry about it so much, just focus on riding,” said Joseph as he went to get the hair brush for the horse’s mane. “All you need to do is win this race, which should be easy with a beast like this.”

Alec held his breath. Joseph lumbered by to the back wall, passing within a few feet of him. He took the brush off the wall and turned his head, grin dropping as he spotted Alec in the corner of the end stall.

“Who in the hell are… you’re the guy from yesterday! The gumshoe!” said Joseph.

Emrys leapt into view, brandishing his riding crop. “I knew it! I knew I heard someone over here! What are you doing back here?”

“I was looking for the sauerkraut vendor, isn’t he around here somewhere?” said Alec. He rose to full stature, poised to make a swift move.

“Funny guy,” said Joseph. He stretched his right shoulder, rolling it in a slow circle. “No need to get up.” Joseph’s eyes darted to the pitchfork on the wall.

“Sorry about this, but we can’t just let you leave,” said Emrys.

Alec lunged at the pitchfork, then juked toward the exit as Joseph made a move toward the wall. Emrys landed a numbing blow to Alec’s leg with the riding crop as he ran by, pushing him off balance and sending him tumbling to the stable floor. He was nearly crushed by the Moonshine-impersonating horse, rolling to the side as a stomping front hoof came down. Alec scrambled back to his feet only to be struck down by the blunt side of the metal pitchfork. Joseph took a boot to Alec’s side, kicking the air out of his lungs, then pulled him by the collar and threw him into the black horse’s stall.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” said Joseph as he advanced, grip flexing around the wooden handle.

“Wait, Joe!” said Emrys. “Calm down!”

“Like you killed Hubert?” said Alec.

Joseph paused in his tracks. “What?”

“Well, it was pretty obvious, I’m sure the constabulary will figure it out,” said Alec. “They probably already have.” As Alec spoke, he inched toward the burlap tarp at the back of the stall. “Firstly, the blood flow was all wrong. Blood dripped down to his neck, like he was standing when struck, even though you claimed he suffered the wound upon landing head first. Second, Hubert’s arms weren’t injured, and Luther didn’t mention hearing anyone cry out before he stumbled onto the scene, so Hubert must have already been unconscious or dead before he hit the dirt. I’m guessing you took him out with one good crack of the shovel—it was missing from the tool rack—maybe you didn’t mean to kill him, I don’t know, but you did.”

A shadow fell over Joseph’s face. He breathed slowly, staring down at Alec, then turned toward Emrys, who had begun backing away. Emrys had suspicions from the moment he heard about Hubert’s death. He didn’t want anyone to die, but his partners in crime didn’t seem to share the same convictions. He watched the sharp prongs of the pitchfork, imaging what they were capable of in the hands of a killer.

“What, don’t tell me you believe him,” said Joseph. “He’s talking out of…”

Joseph noticed movement in his peripheral, and spun back to Alec as he threw the can of white paint from under the tarp. Joseph was doused in oily paint, splashing in his open eyes and mouth. He staggered backward, disoriented. Emrys dodged most of the paint, but the black horse wasn’t so lucky. The right side of the horse was splashed with white paint, starkly contrasting with the ink black coat.

“Ahrg!” Joseph swung the pitchfork wildly. “I’m blind, damnit!”

“The horse!” said Emrys. “The horse is ruined! How are we going to get this cleaned up?!”

Alec made his getaway in the confusion, pushing past Joseph and Emrys, and sprinting out of the stall. He came to a skidding halt as he spun around the corner, finding himself in point-blank pistol range. Rufus Napper stood over Alec, blocking his path, derringer trained on his chest, hand unwavering with focus. He was a gangling man with a twisted dark beard and a head of thick curls topped with a homburg hat. Alec recognized him from the photographs, though they did little to capture the wild intensity of his eyes. Now faced with his quarry, Alec wished that he had never found Rufus at all.

“What’s going on back here?” said Rufus. His voice was hoarse, and his eyes didn’t leave Alec.

“Put that away!” said Emrys.

“Who is this guy?” said Rufus. “I came down here to check on the horse, to make sure everything is going smoothly, so what exactly happened?”

“He’s some sleuth,” said Emrys. “He was looking for you yesterday. He was saying things about Joe.”

Joseph managed to get one eye partially open, rubbing the paint away. “He’s a dirty liar! But what are we going to do with him?”

“I vote that we resolve this nonviolently,” said Alec.

“Your vote doesn’t count,” said Rufus.

“What about mine?” Clay stepped through the doorway behind Rufus, sneaking up behind him with a revolver in hand. He stood about fifteen feet back. “Not to say I’m set on a nonviolent resolution. Put down the pistol and kick it over here. And put down that pitchfork.”

“That’s the other sleuth,” said Joseph.

“Oh God, don’t shoot!” said Emrys.

The five men in the stable were frozen, the only sound and motion from the agitated clip-clopping of the black horse shuffling its hooves in place. The distant sounds of the growing crowd reverberated through the walls, unaware of the high stakes scenario that was unfolding.

“You put your gun down too,” said Rufus, peering over his shoulder at Clay’s revolver. “I’m sure we can all come to a compromise.”

“No,” said Clay. “I don’t like being outnumbered.”

“You want money?” said Rufus.

“You don’t have any money,” said Clay. “That debt you’ve racked up is actually part of the reason we’re here at all.”

“So, you’re just another collector,” said Rufus. “A hired goon. Pathetic, really.”

The black horse snorted, and Rufus twirled around in a desperate countermove. Two cracks of gunfire sounded within the same second—Rufus’s bullet shot a hole in the wall, spraying splinters of wood into the air, and Clay’s bullet struck Rufus in his pistol-hand, knocking the derringer away. The black horse neighed at the loud noise, bucking angrily and connecting with Joseph in his half-blinded state, sending him crashing into the wall. Emrys cowered against the back wall, hands over his face.

Alec dove out of the way as the horse charged through the stable, narrowly missing him and plowing through Rufus. Clay dodged to the side, letting the paint-splattered horse gallop past. The horse burst out onto the race track, barreling through the bewildered track staff, and putting on a show for the stands of spectators. It took five trainers to calm the horse down.

Track security investigated the origin of the gunfire, finding Alec and Clay standing over Rufus, Joseph and Emrys, unarmed, disoriented and cowering, paint splashed around the stable. The constabulary were quick to arrive.

After the commotion had subsided, statements had been taken, the horse-painters had been apprehended, and Moonshine had been officially scratched from the race, Alec and Clay regrouped in the back stands of the race track. The constabulary let them go without too much trouble owing to their affiliation with the Detecting Company. All around them, people buzzed and speculated about the brief moment of pandemonium. I heard gunshots! Whose horse was that, the black and white one running around on the track?! Did you see how many constables went into that stable? And they didn’t let anyone else in!

“Thanks for the save back there,” said Alec. He stretched his stiff leg, still tender from Emrys’s riding crop.

“Don’t mention it,” said Clay.

“Not to sound ungrateful, but why were you there at all?” said Alec. “Your timing was impeccable.”

“Same reason as you, I suppose,” said Clay. “Just following my instincts.”

“Is that right?” said Alec. “So, you weren’t betting on Moonshine? Or, in actuality, that horse that was painted to look like Moonshine? You should probably go get your refund, all bets are void now.”

Clay chuckled. “You just had to go nosing around, didn’t you? They were giving thirty-to-one odds. You really screwed me. I would have made a fortune.”

“How long did you know about the scam?” said Alec. “You knew that Moonshine was going to be switched out for a ringer.”

“I suspected as much since yesterday,” said Clay. “There was a newspaper clipping at Rufus’s apartment, crumpled up on the floor, about a race horse from the countryside, Midnight Emperor. You must not have noticed it. An all black steed with a great winning record, and it looked so similar to Moonshine. Then I noticed the white paint on Joseph’s hands yesterday, and I got the idea that they were going to secretly switch the horses. No one thought Moonshine had a chance of winning, but Midnight Emperor would be a different story. I mean, there had to be some motivation for Hubert’s murder—I assume that he figured out the scam too, and maybe he threatened to expose Joseph. It’s not a wholly original racket.”

Alec shook his head. “You knew that Joseph killed Hubert too?”

“Oh yeah, almost immediately,” said Clay. “That was no accident. An accomplished jockey like that, dying like that? The physical evidence contradicted Joseph's testimony.”

“And you weren’t going to tell anyone?” said Alec.

“Well, I would have reported him eventually,” said Clay. “After the race was over. I’m surprised the constabulary didn’t arrest him yesterday, to be honest.”

“Unbelievable,” said Alec. “So, what then? You came here early to make a bet, and then you came to the stables to check on the horse?”

“I came here early to make a bet, and then I spotted Rufus,” said Clay. “He was trying to be discreet, but he’s not too good at it. I figured he was going to be at Lucky Meadows, and that he probably planned on skipping town after the race. I saw him heading for the stable, so I followed him. Just because I wanted to win some money doesn’t mean I didn’t want to catch him too.”

“You could have let me in on all this, you know,” said Alec. “We were supposed to be working together on this case.”

“Teamwork isn’t my strongest suit,” said Clay.

“But skirting the law clearly is,” said Alec.

“Look, the guys that run these races are always tilting the scales,” said Clay. “They skirt the law every day. This time, I was pretty sure which direction the scales were tilted. But we nabbed Rufus, we busted the scam, and neither of us got shot, so I’ll count it as a win.”