Photo Finish by Bonnie Bryant Read Free Book Online Page A

busy I am.”
    He handed the moldy hay back to Carole and quicklystepped inside several of the other stalls nearby, checking the hay in each. “Nothing in any of these. Looks like Monk was the only unlucky one. It’s a good thing you girls caught it in time. Otherwise Monk would have ended up out of the race with a bad case of colic.” He shook each of the girls’ hands in turn. “Thanks.”
    “You’re welcome,” said Carole. “Although Blackie probably deserves most of the credit. How do you think that moldy hay got in there anyway?”
    Eddie shrugged. “Who knows? I fed the horses myself this morning and I know the hay was fine then. I also know that Monk polished off every bite of his breakfast—the trainer wouldn’t let him run today if he hadn’t. Someone must have given him some more hay later and not checked it carefully enough.”
    “That seems kind of strange …,” Lisa began to say slowly.
    “Hey, stranger things have happened,” Eddie said with another shrug. “It was a close call, but luckily it seems to have turned out okay. I’ll ask Judy to give Monk a close look when she shows up, but other than that, all we can do now is forget about it.”
    “But—” Carole objected.
    “Don’t worry about it,” Eddie said. “It was probably an accident.” He hurried off down the aisle.
    Carole, Stevie, and Lisa traded glances. They were silent for a moment.
    “Do you think it was an accident?” Carole asked at last.
    “No way,” Stevie said. “How could moldy hay just accidentally end up in the feed bin of one horse—one horse who happens to be running in the Preakness that very day?”
    “It does seem kind of suspicious,” Carole agreed, staring down at the hay in her hand. “This isn’t just a little moldy—it’s moldy through and through. It would have been hard for someone to miss it.” She shuddered as she thought about Monkeyshines’s close call. If he’d eaten the hay and gotten colic, he would have been very sick—he might even have died. From all her experience of working with horses, Carole had learned that it was always better to be too cautious than not cautious enough. That meant always checking hay and other feed for spoilage. And right now that also meant wondering if there might be some other explanation for the moldy hay than “accident.”
    Lisa looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, you guys,” she said. “I agree that it’s strange, but it must be an accident. What other explanation is there?”
    “I’ll tell you: Someone was trying to poison Monkeyshines,” Stevie said darkly. “Someone knew that his owner and trainer and most of the other people from the stable were out with the other horses. Eddie was over getting hay, so he was out of the way. It was a perfect opportunity to knock Monk out of the race.”
    Carole stared at her friend. “But why?” she asked. “Why would someone do that?” She reached out and stroked Monkeyshines’s nose. “What a horrible thing to try to do!”
    Stevie nodded in agreement. “It is terrible,” she said. “And we’ve got to find out who did it. This calls for a Saddle Club investigation! Lisa, why don’t you get a few pictures of the scene of the crime?”
    Lisa still looked unconvinced. “I don’t know, Stevie,” she said. “Why do you think it was a crime and not just a stupid mistake? Everyone around here is so busy today—maybe someone just didn’t check the hay carefully enough, like Eddie said.”
    “Well, it’s possible,” Stevie said grudgingly. “But we should try to find out who it was so it doesn’t happen again.”
    “I guess you’re right,” Lisa said uncertainly. She snapped on her flash attachment and quickly took a few photographs of Monkeyshines’s stall and manger, though she wasn’t sure what good it would do—there was obviously no evidence there now.
    “Here, get a shot of this,” Carole suggested, holding up the moldy hay she was still clutching.
    Lisa obligingly