Carl … My eyebrows shot up, my hand going limp in his. “Torrence? Like … the horse family I was just reading about? No. No way. Did you change your name? Was it Joe? Is that why you’re hiding here?” The questions tumbled out of my mouth faster than I could keep up with them, but I was afraid he was going to move to Canada and become Lion Man or something, and I had to know.
But at the mention of Joe, he shook his head. “Joe was my brother. My oldest brother. He died a long time ago. I was the third son.”
“Joe was a horse trainer,” I said.
He nodded. “We all worked with horses. It was the family business. We were all in love with those animals, but for most of my family, it was also about the adrenaline of a race. Of knowing you bred a winner. Of being lauded for your work in the most prestigious circles in the industry.” His eyes dropped to JJ again. “Me and Joe, we just loved horses.” He looked at me again. “I’m presuming you read Mr. Holt’s notes and found out about Koda by now.”
I nodded. “It’s horrible.”
“It certainly was,” he agreed. “And my brother never recovered. It’s why he killed himself a few years later.”
“Oh no.” I covered my mouth with my hand. “I’m so sorry.” I was incredibly sad to hear that. As an animal person, I understood that deep connection to an animal. “So if … Anna killed, or helped kill, Koda, why are you friends with her?”
Leopard Man frowned. “My dear Maddie, she had nothing to do with it. That awful Krump character got one of her vet assistants to help him, and they tried to put the blame on Anna. It ruined her life. So much so that she fled, too. But it took her an awfully long time to get her life back together. And she had to become a new person to do it.”
My head was kind of spinning from all this. “So why did you leave?” I asked.
“Because I couldn’t be part of that life anymore,” he said simply. “We all loved Koda, but we all had a hand in her death by forcing her into that kind of life. I realized it, Anna realized it. Joe knew it, but he stayed, and he got more miserable and withdrawn and finally, he just couldn’t take it anymore. Personally, I realized I needed to get as far away from it as possible. So I left. Came to the East Coast. My family was so angry at me. But I packed up Koda’s trailer and got out. Racing would always be a reminder to me of what we’d done, and what had been lost.” He smiled a little. “And I tried to make up for it by making friends with all the cats I could find.” He gave JJ’s tummy another scratch and glanced at me. “I didn’t want you to think less of me. Your opinion … matters to me.”
“Thank you,” I said, because it was really all I could think of. I was trying to process everything he was telling me. I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around my quirky, Shakespearean friend being part of a family who raised and trained Thoroughbred horses for racing out west.
It certainly proved that old adage that you never really knew anyone.
“Wait. Koda’s trailer,” I said as the light dawned. “Is that what I saw?”
He nodded a little sheepishly. “That’s where I live. It was one of the fancy trailers back then, with living quarters in addition to the horse stalls. It works for me. I don’t need much space. Or much anything, for that matter. I move it around, too, depending on my mood. I don’t like the same scenery.”
“Do people know this?” I asked. “Or is it just me who’s been clueless all this time?”
Now he laughed out loud. “Most people don’t pay attention, Maddie. Your granddad always knew where I lived.”
And he’d stayed silent about it all these years. I definitely had admiration for my grandpa’s ability to hold people’s secrets close.
“But how do you get it around?” I asked. “I didn’t think you had a car.”
“I use an old junker pickup that the gentleman at the salvage yards keeps on hand,” he said. “I only use it when I need to move the house around.”
Fascinating. There were so many directions to take this conversation. But the most urgent, really, was to Jason Holt’s death and Thea Coleman’s role in it.
“That’s great,” I said. “But it doesn’t explain why Thea is here at all, why she thinks JJ is her cat, and the fact that she did time for running someone down and now Jason Holt, who was clearly researching this story, gets run over as soon as she comes to town?”
“Thea and I have been friends all these years,” Leopard Man said. “I kept in touch when no one else did, when she was at her rock bottom and in jail. I was one of the only people from her old life who stuck by her. I helped convince her to go to AA. She’s been coming to visit me out here for years. And she did not kill that poor man,” he said emphatically. “The accident in Arkansas was just that—an accident. She took to drinking after … everything. But she did not kill that writer.” He punctuated each word by drilling his finger on the table between us.
“But she knew him,” I persisted. “I could see she knew him. When she came to my cafe and tried to take my cat. And he knew her. And I heard … you knew him, too.”
“She did know him,” he said simply. “So did I. Jason Holt’s father used to bring him to the track for every race. Back in ’77, he was little. But already a writer in his heart. And he was fascinated by the horses. Anna used to let him help her take care of them. Little things that made him feel like he was doing something. In fact, it’s a well-kept secret that Anna used to date Jason’s father. They were very close for a long time.”
I sat back, trying to take this all in. First, I was fascinated with this entire conversation. I’d known this man my whole life, basically, and we’d never exchanged so many words. At least, not our own words. Usually Shakespeare’s words, but he was much better at that than I was. And second, what he was telling me was just so crazy. How had this whole sordid cast come to assemble on Daybreak Island?
“Besides,” he said, answering my unasked question. “She was with me that night. When he died. She’d seen Holt at your cafe and been very upset. She’d left this behind years ago, and she was afraid he was going to dredge it all back up again. I took her for dinner—we were at Moe’s when that poor man was hit—and then I took her to my trailer, and came back to talk to your grandpa. He thought it best I stay at your place that night and avoid any questions until we could sit down and really talk this through.”
Thea Coleman and Jason’s father. My head was definitely spinning now. I needed coffee. “What happened to Holt’s father?” I asked.
“He died about ten years ago. Cancer. But after this scandal, Thea fled and never spoke to him again. She thought he would believe the worst about her and didn’t want to give him the chance to do that.” He shook his head. “It was very sad. He loved her. I believe he would’ve stood by her, but she never believed in herself enough to believe it of anyone else.”
It was sad. We were all so good at screwing things up for ourselves, even things that didn’t ever need to be screwed up. If we all just believed in ourselves a little more, life could turn out differently for so many of us. Maybe that was true for Anna Wakeland. Maybe she’d never have had to become Thea Coleman if she’d just given the people who loved her a chance.
But something still wasn’t sitting right with me. “So she recognized him at my place. So what? He’s known for spending time here. Why would she know to be suspicious of what he was doing here?”
“Someone we knew from back then got in touch. Told her Jason Holt had located him and had been asking a lot of questions,” Leopard Man said. “She told me about it before she came to visit. I told her not to worry. That she should just come for her visit and enjoy herself. It’s an old story, and if he did use the material he would fictionalize it. But she was obsessed.”
“Who told her?” I asked, but I thought I already knew.
“It was a man who used to work at the track. He helped in the stables with the horses. His name is Dante.”
The name of the guy in Holt’s notebook. I wondered whose side he was on—Holt’s or Thea’s. “So the whole JJ thing. Was that just a cover for her to come to the cafe and see Holt?”
He shook his head. “No. She really thinks JJ is hers.” He glanced down at our mutual friend. “But Maddie. I told her JJ belongs with you, and she’s accepted it. You don’t need to worry about her anymore. I imagine it’s been bothering you.”