Case file
The Morning Line
The premise
Louisville, Kentucky. The first Saturday in May, 1935. Derby day. In Barn 7 on the backside stands Roman Candle, the morning-line favorite — bay colt, white blaze, the best horse Kentucky has seen in a decade.
At 05:10 the trainer walked his shed row and stopped at stall 9. The blaze was painted on. The horse in the stall is a bay, all right — but he is not Roman Candle. The night watchman slept from 02:00 to 04:00 with bourbon in his coffee and heard nothing. The gate log shows one van out at 02:40, waved through on a standing pass.
The stewards owe this barn enough to wait. At noon they scratch the horse and call it public — police, papers, all of it. The race goes off at 17:30 either way. You have three rounds.
Who is at the table
Everyone introduces themselves with one public line before a word is said. Nothing below is a clue — this is only what the whole table already knows.
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Ambrose Tate
Trainer of Roman Candle. Eight Derbys behind him, and the barns say this colt is his last great one.
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Doc Sisler
The track veterinarian. Thirty years of Derby legs in his ledger, and a living made of keeping his mouth shut.
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Dill Foss
The groom. He has fed, brushed and slept beside Roman Candle since the colt was a yearling.
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Garland Lee
The owner. Bourbon money, a farm older than the county, and a colt whose price is set by five o'clock today.
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Cassie Byrne
The exercise rider. She gallops Roman Candle every dawn, and nobody spends more honest hours on his back.
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Ferris Coyle
A bookmaker with a licensed stand and an unlicensed everything else. When the favorite's odds move, his year moves with them.
Where you are
Barn 7 before sunrise: the shed row, stall 9, the tack room, the feed shed, the barn office with a nail by the door, and the backstretch gate a furlong off. Fog on the infield, dew on the grass. Six of you had business in this barn last night. The horse in stall 9 is eating hay like he owns the place. He does not.
Everyone at the table gets a character, three cards and one rule: you may hide things, you may not invent them. Between the acts a dossier appears on every phone with a new fact about somebody in the room — and it never clears anyone.
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