Murders on the Round

 
The foals were dying, no one knew why. Dying before birth but stillborn. Always got stopped short by the evocative edge of that—“still” as in "undisturbed", but forced into motion nonetheless. This was a dangerous thing because the farm was kept afloat financially through one big purchase at auction in Saratoga Springs each year. The owner would pool his earnings to beat everyone at bid, usually a Derby winner or Preakness winner or winner of the Belmont Stakes. A thoroughbred to bring back to the yearling complex, set out to stud. Mare after mare, a forced mount, one quick impregnation after another. Dozens of mothers about the place carrying their foals to term. The foals born, babied, raised carefully to be fast of hoof, sure earners. These would learn to run and get sold into the racing system.
              

All well and good, millions spent and multiplied through breeding. Then one year, ten, fifteen years ago, mares began to miscarry. Others carried their foals to term but birthed them dead. This cost the farm a fair share of its future—seed money for next summer’s purchase at auction. The farm’s accountant projected a number, how much lost. They put themselves so far out on a limb year-in year-out they couldn’t afford a fallow year, a year with no sellable product. They’d have to file for bankruptcy by Christmas.
              

The stillborns were sent to a lab, the amniotic fluid, the umbilical cords, everything was tested. Results came back and left everyone confused: trace amounts of a chemical similar to cyanide. Strong enough to kill an embryo or fetus but not in any amount to harm the mother. Each corpse to varying degrees suggested the same cause of death but each provided little evidence for what delivered the poison.
              

Environmental researchers were hired to survey the farm, the stables, the surrounding fields. Two of the outlying farms had been purchased years before; their old fence lines, torn down after purchase, replaced by fresh fencing, had been covered in creosote. Maybe over the years chemicals in the creosote had wept off planks and posts and leeched into the ground? It took weeks to ferret out the source of the poison. Grass blades in one of the fields where several mares had been set to pasture were tested and came back positive. How had the grass been tainted? After more careful field investigation the environmental people discovered a species of caterpillar peculiarly abundant around the area—the Green Eastern tent caterpillar. Trace amounts of the poison in their slime trails left behind on the grass. Mares ate the grass; grass was digested; poison worked its way to the fetus and slowly killed it, all without the mother knowing. The caterpillars’ appetites made them lethal: they’d eat the leaves of a certain cherry tree, many of which were nearby, in view from any direction. The poison was native to the leaves of this cherry tree and unbeknownst to them these caterpillars became weaponized via digestion. Innocent of their own kill potential, like many things in nature. The solution? Chop the trees down, burn them. Clear the contaminated fields. Spray them with targeted poison. Caterpillars dead by the thousand. Problem solved, that season three lucky foals were born. All three healthy and strong the following spring. Ready for sale.
              

As a reminder to himself, the farm’s owner had one specimen preserved in a jar of formaldehyde. A caterpillar, one leaf off a cherry tree, a blade of tainted grass. Kept it in his office, on a shelf behind his desk. When business associates would visit, inevitably they’d notice and ask. That there, the owner would say, those three? My little Grim Reaper Trinity. Together they almost sank this place. And now look where I have them.