Ghost from the Holocaust
by
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The leading horse suddenly reared into the air with more of a scream than a whinny. A second before it looked like a sure winner, now the driver in the sulky was holding on for dear life, the other horses quickly caught up and passed them on the way to the finish line. The horse still jumping and whinnying loudly bolted toward the infield. The driver fell off. The horse crashed into the infield fence and was hung up. He had broken his leg, it was dangling loosely from the stump. It would have to be put down. I hated that part of this business. Sundown Sheila, John’s mare had won. We went down to the winner’s spot on the track to help John celebrate his win. “What do you think it was that frightened that horse?” I asked John. “I couldn’t say. I didn’t see anything unusual,” said John. “That’s the second one he’s lost in a similar way in the past month. The other one broke stride like that in the middle of race and tried to jump the fence at the end of the turn. It was injured and had to be put down as well. That stable seems to be plagued this year.” “Who owns the horse?” asked George. “A fellow by the name of Norm McKenzie. He has a horse farm out near Norwood. Toronto is where he mostly has his string,” said John. “The scream the horse let out made my hair stand on end. That’s the first time I ever saw a horse do that without prompting. I had a book with an illustration once, it was called ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, it showed Ichabod Crane’s horse rearing like that when confronted by the headless horseman,” I said. “There’s no headless horseman around here but something certainly frightened it,” said George. Morrow Park Peterborough, was quite usual as a gathering place for the gang on a Friday or Saturday. I owned a couple of standardbred horses which John trained for me. George, Robert and myself could be found at the track on these occasions helping John cheer home his four footed charges. We didn’t bet we just liked to watch them race. That being the last race we had an interest in, we headed for the exit. With John’s win it had been a successful afternoon. The horse that was put down had been a heavy favorite. John and Will, who was John’s race driver as well as farm hand and assistant in every way, had bet on their horse and had gotten very good odds.
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About the Book
The victim, a Jew who had survived the holocaust gets murdered at the harness race track in Peterborough. His friends are war veterans who form an amateur sleuth group to catch the murderer. The police have few clues and give up. The group is made up of retired men, who would rather spend their time fishing and playing golf than be the only ones to track down the killer. During their search for the murderer they come up against a clever thief who leads them a merry but violent chase. This thief is their chief suspect. The leader of the group is a well to do retired school teacher. Part of the pursuit is experienced at his cottage were they run up against an unexpected obstacle. Another of their group, George is an ex-policeman and is a joker who is egged on by the jokes their church secretary unwittingly puts in the church bulletin on Sundays. George provides the comic relief, until they finally solve this puzzling crime. Robert the third member of the core group is an immigrant from Scotland. He flew spitfires in the Battle of Britain and was aloft dog fighting when his family gets wiped out by Nazi bombers. He comes to Peterborough to get away.
About the Author
Born in the small town of Coboconk in south central Ontario. Joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1960. Received his wings in 1961 in Winnipeg, Manitoba and spent the next few years boring holes in the air over the ocean, flying anti-submarine patrol out of Summerside Prince Edward Island.