Colts Crossing...Unsolved - Episode 12

Blue Moon of Kentucky

Murder, Mystery & Mom Season 4

Standing in the dark with nothing but a Dollar Store flashlight, I was reminded of the highly specific, deeply sacred contract between a woman and her dog. In exchange for premium kibble, endless tummy rubs, and a custom purple fascinator, the dog was legally bound not to drag her owner into a dark, creepy patch of Kentucky woods at two o’clock in the morning.

Apparently, Goldilocks’s copy got lost in the mail.

Twenty minutes ago, the heavy brass bell hanging from the door of our Airstream let out a frantic, violent jingle, waking me from my tossing-and-turning. I lifted my sleep mask to see Goldilocks standing there, legs stiff, eyes wide, letting out a series of high-pitched, pathetic whimpers that practically screamed gastrointestinal emergency.

So, like a fool, I panicked. I didn’t grab a jacket. I didn’t put on jeans or anything halfway presentable.

Which was how I found myself standing in the damp, fifty-degree spring night wearing flannel Strawberry Shortcake pajamas and a pair of neon-yellow rubber muck boots that squished and squeaked with every step.

“Goldie, I swear to you, if you don’t pick a blade of bluegrass in the next thirty seconds, I am revoking your peanut butter privileges.” I shivered as I tugged gently on her leash.

Goldilocks did not care. The poodle side of her brain, usually so focused on being a glamorous, attention-seeking diva, had been completely hijacked by her retriever instincts. She hovered in a low, intense crouch, her snout practically vacuum-sealed to a patch of soggy clover.

I pulled my phone out of my boot, the screen casting a harsh, blue glow over my sleep-deprived face. I unlocked it and checked my notifications.

Nothing. No texts, no missed calls, not even a spam email trying to sell me a discounted timeshare.

Seriously? How does a jockey drop a massive, life-altering bombshell like I think someone is trying to frame me for murder in the middle of a crowded winner’s circle, get swept away by a tidal wave of reporters, and then just... ghost me? It was plain rude. If you tease a girl with prime, unsolicited true-crime podcast content, you can’t just leave her hanging.

I opened my call history and stared at the empty voicemail box. I’d tried calling the number Loretta hastily scribbled on the back of my racing program three times before bed and got a busy signal every time. What kind of phone plan did Artie have? Who didn’t have call waiting these days?

I was pretty sure the number actually connected to a very confused fax machine in Toledo.

The only logical explanation was Loretta gave me a bad number. Made sense—the FBI was about as organized as a junk drawer. The scribbled digits were totally illegible. It looked like a five, but could have been a six, or maybe a poorly drawn squiggle.

Honestly, I’d settle for a smoke signal at this point. Just a little puff of gray air rising over the stables that read: Hey Patsy, here is the scoop. Was that too much to ask?

I shoved the phone back in my boot. “That’s it. First thing tomorrow morning, I am marching straight down to the track to find Artie, and he is going to give me some actual answers. No more phone tag.”

I gave Goldie’s harness a gentle tug. “We about done?”

She snorted, nose muffled against the ground.

“It’s a leaf,” I whispered. “Not even from an interesting tree. Just a boring old oak. I promise you’ve seen the same thing before at home.”

She tilted her head and tapped it with a paw.

“Baby girl, we’ve been staring at this exact leaf for four minutes and thirty-five seconds.” I picked it up and put it in my pocket. “All gone.”

As clever as I thought my solution was, it didn’t speed up the process. She moved on from the leaf and found something new to smell. And this time, she didn’t just sniff; she investigated. It was a full, forensic reconstruction of a bunny rabbit’s hopping path from three days ago. She wove left. She wove right. She did a dramatic, looping circle around a rotting oak stump, wrapping her leash entirely around my ankles in the process.

“Oh, great. Now we’re a package deal,” I muttered, balancing on one foot in my oversized muck boots to untangle myself. “You know, back in the trailer, you rang that bell like your appendix was about to rupture. This is fraud, Goldie. Literal, class-action canine fraud.”

Goldilocks paused, looked up at me, and let out a soft, huffy little sneeze.

“No, don’t you sneeze-laugh at me,” I said, pointing a finger at her.

It was a sound I knew well. It translated roughly to: You do not understand the complexities of the perimeter check, Patsy. Peace is earned, not given.

Why did things like this always happen to me at two am in the middle of a spooky woods? Between the weird shadows, the owl noises, and my general tendency to spiral to worst-horror-movie scenario, I was ten seconds away from picking up the Goldendoodle and carrying her over my shoulder like a hero firefighter.

I tapped my boot in rhythm with her weaving. “There is a very real possibility that the ghost of a disgruntled stable hand is watching me argue with a dog while wearing vintage cartoon pajamas.”

She ignored me, shifting her focus to a patch of tall weeds near the edge of the tree line. She lifted her paw, her ears perking up as she began the slow, rhythmic, highly frustrating pre-bathroom circle. One. Two. Three spins.

“Yes! Go, team, go! Do your business!” I whispered, clenching my fists like a coach at the Super Bowl.

She stopped spinning, sat down, and looked back at me.

“I cannot believe my life,” I groaned, throwing my head back to look at the canopy of dark trees. “Why am I letting a sixty-pound golden furball hold me hostage in the middle of the night?”

Goldilocks froze. Her ears shot straight up. Her tail stopped swaying and went rigid as a steel rod.

“Goldie?” The humor instantly drained from my throat. “What is it?”

The crickets seemed to stop chirping all at once. Goldilocks let out a low, vibrating growl from deep in her chest—a sound she only made when she was absolutely serious.

Before I could yank her leash to pull her back toward the safety of the Airstream, a deafening, thunderous roar shattered the night.

BOOM.

The unmistakable, bone-rattling blast of a shotgun echoed through the trees, followed by the frantic, panicked flapping of dozens of birds launching into the dark sky.

A cold spike of adrenaline slammed into my chest. Goldilocks didn’t even bother with her usual dramatic flair—she let out a terrified yelp and bolted back toward the clearing.

“Whoa, whoa, wait!” I shrieked, my neon-yellow muck boots skittering wildly over the slick bluegrass as she yanked me along like a runaway freight train.

I sprinted right alongside her, my Strawberry Shortcake pajamas billowing in the night air. Every muscle in my body recoiled, expecting a second blast. We broke through the tree line and skidded rocks as we hit the gravel driveway where the Airstream was parked.

Mattie stood under the aluminum awning. She was fully dressed, wide awake, and holding a compact, matte-black pistol with the practiced ease of a woman who didn’t just know how to use it, but probably disassembled it and reassembled it out of sheer boredom.

Look out, Kentucky, Mama the super spy is ready for action. Step aside, James Bond. The real professional has arrived.

“Is that thing a good idea?” I asked, my voice a breathless, high-pitched squeak. “Maybe it was just an accidental shotgun blast. Like... a hunter? Or a really loud backfire?”

Mattie didn’t even blink. Her gaze scanned the dark horizon. “People don’t hunt at two in the morning, Patsy. And a 12-gauge doesn’t sound like a tailpipe.” She snapped the safety off with a terrifyingly clean click. “I’m checking the main property. Stay behind me.”

We hurried down the gravel path to the main house. Goldilocks, feeding off Mattie’s confidence, stalked like she’d been recruited to the K9 unit.

“Must you always show me up, Goldie?” I sighed. “I liked it better when we were both fraidy cats.”

“Quiet.” Mattie held a finger to her mouth as we neared the paddocks. Thoroughbreds whinnied in terror, their hooves thundering against the sod as they raced through the shadows, completely spooked by the blast.

My hand trembled as I pointed to the house. “Look!”

The heavy oak door of Darrow Manor was flung wide open, spilling a long, jagged rectangle of yellow light onto the porch.

Standing in the grassy courtyard halfway to the stables was Susannah Darrow, looking like a ghost in the moonlight. Her silky, floor-length housecoat frantically whipped and billowed in the midnight breeze.

But she wasn’t cowering. She held a shotgun, the barrel pointed at the earth. And maybe it was my imagination, but I swore I could see a faint wisp of white smoke still curling from the muzzle.

“What happened?” I gasped, lunging forward despite the absolute panic screaming in my ears. “What were you shooting at?”

Mattie stepped past me, her posture shifting into something rigid and unyielding. “Drop the weapon, Susannah.”

I blinked, glancing at my mother. Drop the weapon? Why did Mattie drop the antique-loving matriarch persona and go full on official field agent?

Susannah flinched at the authority in Mattie’s voice. Her pale hands trembled. The shotgun slipped from her fingers, clattering against the stone walkway.

“I fired into the air to scare him off,” she stammered, her voice breathless and frantic, a stark contrast to her usual ice-queen composure. “I swear I didn’t aim... I wasn’t trying to hit anyone.”

“Susannah, look at me.” Mattie closed the distance and kicked the shotgun safely away with the toe of her boot. “What happened?”

“He broke into the house.” The wind whipped Susannah’s hair across her eyes. “I heard someone downstairs, I grabbed Freddy’s gun, and I just wanted to scare him off…”

My gaze drifted past Susannah’s swirling silk robe, following the beam of my Dollar Store flashlight as it danced across the dark grass. The blue light caught on a crumpled, unmoving shape lying face down near the edge of the rose bushes.

My stomach dropped into my muck boots

Artie Grunwald.

The very jockey I’d been trying to track down all night—the one who held all the answers—stared blankly into the Kentucky dirt.

The flashing red and blue lights of the local sheriff’s cruisers sliced through the four am fog, turning the manicured lawns of the Darrow estate into a bizarre, pulsating disco. A pair of stoic-faced coroners in dark windbreakers rolled a gurney across the damp bluegrass. The metallic squeal of the wheels snapped me right out of my CSI: Bluegrass montage where I used a blacklight to find the single microscopic polyester fiber snagged on a rose thorn that perfectly matched the custom-stitched sole of a very specific, limited-edition riding boot worn by only one person in the continental United States.

Then again, it wasn’t much of a classic whodunit when you found a lady standing over a body holding the smoking murder weapon.

I stood near the edge of the driveway, hugging myself against the chill and trying very hard not to stare at the black zippered bag strapped to the cot.

My Strawberry Shortcake pajamas were officially damp from the dew, and my neon-yellow muck boots felt like lead weights on my feet.

“Direct hit to the chest,” Mattie said, appearing silently at my elbow.

I jumped about six inches, my heart doing a painful tap-dance against my ribs. “Geez, Mama! If you’re gonna sneak up behind me like a ninja, at least clear your throat.” I pressed two fingers to my neck, checking my pulse. “And what do you mean, direct hit?”

“I just spoke with the coroner.” Mattie’s eyes fixed on the retreating gurney. Her expression was entirely clinical, completely devoid of the cozy, grandmotherly warmth she usually wore like a favorite cardigan. “The entry wound and the pellet spread indicate a close-range, level-plane blast straight to the sternum. He died instantly.”

I shook my head, my brain struggling to assemble the pieces of a puzzle that didn’t make any sense. “How is that even possible? Susannah said she fired into the air. Is she just a really bad liar, or is she in some kind of shock-induced denial?”

“Or she’s a very good actress.” Mattie’s gaze shifted toward the brightly lit windows of the manor. “Look at the angle of those rose bushes, Patsy. Look at where the body was positioned. Something about this is very off.”

I took a step back, surprised she shared my doubts. “So, wait… we agree?”

“I won’t go that far, but we do need to see if she’s spinning the same yarn to the FBI,” Mattie said, already turning on her heel toward the front porch. “Come on.”

We slipped through the oak door and into the grand foyer. The warmth of the house hit me first, followed by the absurdly domestic sight of Goldilocks sprawled out on a velvet sofa in the parlor. She was fast asleep, her golden paws twitching in the middle of a dream, completely unbothered by the federal investigation unfolding three feet away.

Loretta sat next to her, looking exceptionally professional in her trench coat, taking rapid notes on a yellow legal pad. Agent West stood near the fireplace, his arms crossed, his face a mask of intense concentration.

Susannah sat in a wingback chair opposite them. She clutched a delicate porcelain teacup, her hands shaking so violently that the china rattled like teeth. Her silky housecoat was wrapped tightly around her, but her pristine armor was completely gone.

“...I’ve already told you three times,” Susannah said, her voice thin and highly irritated as we quieted our steps by the doorway. “I heard a loud banging downstairs in Freddy’s office. I thought... well, with everything that’s happened with Freddy, I panicked. I grabbed the shotgun from the hall closet and came down the stairs. It was pitch black, but I saw a small figure run out of the side door.”

She paused, taking a ragged breath and staring into her tea.

“By the time I got downstairs and flipped the porch light on... he was gone. Or, at least, I didn’t see anyone in the immediate courtyard. I was terrified he was going to circle back. I fired into the air to scare him off while I dialed 911 on my cell. I didn’t even realize Artie...” She choked back a sob, though her eyes remained entirely dry. “I didn’t mean to hit him. I didn’t even know he was out there.”

Wait a minute.

My internal bells rang so loud they could have woken the dead.

She saw a small figure run out of the office, hustled downstairs, flipped on the light, and fired into the air to scare him off?

But Artie was shot flat in the chest at close range.

Nothing about her story made any logical sense. If he was running away, how did she manage to shoot him backward while aiming at the clouds?

Before I could say anything—and risk getting booted from the room by the Feds—Mattie stepped forward. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a clear plastic evidence baggy, and handed it directly to West.

My jaw practically hit the hardwood floor. Where on earth did she get that? And why didn’t she share the clues with me?

West took the bag, his brow furrowing as he held it up to the light. Inside was a folded, yellowed piece of graph paper covered in neat, hand-drawn lines.

“What am I looking at?” West asked, his deep voice slicing through the tension in the room.

“The coroner found it in Artie’s pocket,” Mattie said. “It looks like a schematic.”

Susannah’s sculpted brows arched. “Of what?”

West squinted at the bag. “It looks like a detailed diagram for a hidden wall safe. Behind a wildflower painting.”

Susannah stiffened, her knuckles turning white around her teacup. “Why... why would Artie Grunwald have a diagram of my husband’s private safe in his pocket?”

Loretta leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand in a classic, textbook-perfect profiler pose. “How well did Artie know your husband?”

“Well. He’s been our jockey for five years. Ray Holt trained him. He is…” Susannah cleared her throat. “He was one of the best jocks in the state. It makes no sense why he’d break in and act like a burglar.”

Agent West smoothed a hand over his standard-issue FBI necktie. “Ma’am, it’s possible that Artie was a co-conspirator working with Freddy.”

“Working with him on what?” Susannah snapped, her irritation finally overriding her grief. “My husband is the one who’s dead, and yet you’ve been treating him like the criminal.”

“He was also drowning in debt,” Loretta said, her voice dropping into that smooth, analytical tempo she used when she was playing criminal psychologist. “From a behavioral standpoint, individuals facing catastrophic financial ruin and status-threat will often revert to highly familiar, previously successful coping mechanisms. In Freddy’s case, he was recycling a classic script.”

I blinked. English, Loretta. Please, for the love of God, use English.

“My sister did a deep dive into Freddy’s past,” Loretta said, giving me a warm, validating little nod as she gestured with her pen. “Patsy found the proof that your husband faked his own kidnapping fifteen years ago to squeeze a ransom check out of his own company—his wife and his business partners.”

My brain did a violent double-take.

Hold on. Now Loretta believes me?

After days of calling my theories wild, dramatic, and unsubstantiated, she suddenly presented my hard-earned research as absolute gospel. I wanted to feel vindicated, but instead, a cold knot of dread began to tighten in my chest.

“Freddy was many things but that…” Susannah trailed off, not quite believing her own denial. “Even if what you’re saying is true, obviously this time is different. Freddy didn’t murder himself. Somebody killed him.”

“A few weeks ago, right after he lost Double Jeopardy to Conley Boatwright in a poker game, Freddy hit a new low. He hedcf was backed so far into a corner he couldn’t see daylight, so he decided to play one of his greatest hits. It worked once, why not again?” Loretta swatted red curls over her shoulder.  “Only, a stunt that big is a massive undertaking. You can’t run a whole circus by yourself.”

Susannah held her breath. “What are you saying?”

“Freddy needed a helper, honey. Someone quiet, easily led, and eager to please. And bless him, poor Artie was just the perfect fit.”

If the FBI already suspected Freddy had a partner, why did they zero in on Artie so quickly?

Artie’s panicked words from the winner’s circle echoed in my head: I think someone is trying to pin this all on me.

“So what?” Susannah placed her teacup on the end table with a sharp clatter. “You think Artie helped my husband fake his kidnapping, then killed him for the money, and then broke into my house?”

Agent West shifted in his seat. “We believe Artie broke in tonight to find the ransom money.”

“Why would he think it’s here?” Susannah swiped a hand. “This is all just a little too ridiculous.” She huffed as she stood. “Am I under arrest?”

“The local sheriff’s department is handling tonight’s shooting, ma’am,” Agent West pushed off the fireplace mantle to match her posture. “They will take your formal statement tomorrow regarding the discharge of the firearm and decide whether or not to rule this a justifiable self-defense shooting.”

“I am the victim here! Someone broke onto my property, and I defended myself.”

“And to my knowledge, they are treating it as such, Mrs. Darrow.”

Susannah tugged her robe tighter. “So now it’s case closed, and the FBI just washes their hands of it?”

“We are far from washing our hands,” West said. “Because Freddy’s murder took place in Ohio, and the theft of Double Jeopardy involves interstate extortion, the federal conspiracy remains my case. As of yesterday, Artie Grunwald was our prime suspect in your husband's homicide. We believed they had a falling out over the ransom money.”

My stomach did a slow, nauseating flip. Artie? A cold-blooded killer? Not a chance. The kid had been shaking like a leaf in a hurricane when he spoke to me.

“And now?” Susannah asked, her voice cold.

“Now, my prime suspect is dead in your rose bushes.” Agent West buttoned his suit jacket. “But the money is still missing, which is why my team is executing a federal search warrant on Artie’s apartment first thing in the morning. If he was working with Freddy, he left a paper trail. We’ll find out exactly what his angle was.”

Mattie caught my eye and gave a barely perceptible jerk of her head toward the foyer. I didn’t need to be told twice. We quietly slipped out of the parlor, leaving West and Loretta to finish their official business with the ice queen.

The cool night air hit my face as we marched back down the gravel driveway, Goldilocks trotting happily beside us, completely recovered from her midnight terror.

My head spun so fast I was surprised I wasn’t dizzy. The questions came bubbling up, fast and chaotic, colliding in my brain.

If this was a setup, who actually built the trap? How many people were actually in on the kidnapping scheme from the start? What had Freddy’s original plan been, and where—exactly—did it go horribly wrong? Who stood in that secret Ohio hoard and swung the iron horseshoe that ended Freddy’s life? What happened to the two-million-dollar ransom?

And then there was Susannah. Her story about the intruder was practically Swiss cheese.

“My brain hurts.” I pulled the collar of my pajama top tighter against the wind. “The Feds are ready to wrap this up with a big, neat bow, but it’s completely wrong. Artie was terrified, Mama. He was a pawn, not a murderer.”

Mattie slowed her stride, looking back at the Darrow manor as the emergency lights painted her face in strobes of blue and red. Her eyes were calculating, and completely unconvinced.

“I’m not buying any of this either,” Mattie said. “Someone wants us to believe this is over.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Freddy and Artie faked a kidnapping. Artie murdered Freddy. Then Artie gets killed by the widow in an accidental shooting before he can ever speak a word in his own defense. Every loose end tied up in a single night.”

She shook her head, a cold smile touching her lips as she turned back toward the Airstream. “It’s too neat, Patsy. And in our line of work, ‘too neat’ usually means someone just swept the dirt under the rug.”

---

Thank you for reading Colts Crossing...Unsolved - Episode 12.

Episode 13 will be out next Thursday. In the meantime, click the link below to preorder now! 

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