At Risk (14 page)

"Maybe he wiped out the tack rooms and used
the money to buy hisself a new load of shit."

I spun around. "Why do you think that?"

He grinned. "No reason. Just that he's jerk
enough for it. Why don't you mention it to the police?"

"Yeah, right. I can see it now. Officer, I
think he did it. And why do you think that, Mr. Cline? Oh, nothing
substantial, sir. It's just that I can't stand the guy."

Marty arched his eyebrows. "Guy?"

I chuckled. But Whitcombe did have
opportunity and knowledge and connections, not to mention the fact
that he was a jerk. I draped the bridle and girth across the saddle
and lugged the armload of tack into the aisle.

Marty cut in front of me and plopped the tote
of grooming supplies on the floor outside Fleet's stall. "I still
don't see how you put up with him," he said.

"I'm not going to let him ruin this job for
me, though most days I'd like to ram a pitchfork up his ass."

"Awh, man. Don't do that. He might like
it."

"Christ, Marty, you're sick." And I almost
didn't get Whitcombe's saddle onto the rack before I dropped it on
the floor, I was laughing so hard.

I handed Fleet over to Whitcombe--amazingly
he kept his mouth shut--and went into the lounge to get a cup of
coffee. Voices floated in from the office, and I walked over and
leaned against the doorjamb. A scrawny-looking guy, dressed in a
suit, tie, and wrinkled overcoat, had his hands pressed down on
Mrs. Hill's desk, his fingers splayed on the blotter. His mousy
brown hair was windblown, and his face was pinched with
displeasure.

"You'll have to talk to Mr. Ambrose about
that," Mrs. Hill said.

"But I can't get past his assistant."

Mrs. Hill shrugged. "Well, I'm sorry. I can't
help you."

He snatched his card off her blotter, glanced
at me, and stalked out the door.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"Real estate agent. Vultures. That's what I
call 'em. That one's been here before. Now that they're building
next door, I imagine they'll be crawling out of the woodwork."

The brothers' farm was now dotted with survey
flags, and I imagined it wouldn't be long before the heavy
earth-moving equipment rolled over the fallow fields.

"Thank God for the park," I said.

* * *

Early the next morning, the wheels of Greg's
truck hadn't slowed to a stop, and already some of the horses were
uptight. I rolled a utility cart out of the feed room and parked it
alongside the tailgate.

Greg popped open a side compartment on his
red vetmobile. "Well, Steve. You up to this?"

"More or less." I leaned against the back
fender.

"What's it been," he said, "three weeks since
you got pummeled?"

"There about." I watched him sort through a
bin and wondered if I was up to the day ahead. "Want me to do
anything?"

"Not yet. Just give me a minute to get
organized."

"Hey," a voice said in my ear.

I looked over my shoulder.

Marty was standing behind me, grinning. "Boy,
I hate this shit. Nothing like restraining a hundred
one-thousand-pound, pea-brained animals to liven up your day."

"Oh, come on, Marty," I said. "They aren't
that bad."

"Wasn't it you that got knocked down last
time?"

"No. Cliff." I pulled a crumpled sheet of
paper out of my pocket and handed it to Marty. "What do you think
of the people on this list?"

He squinted at my printing and ran his
fingers through his black hair. "Well, for one thing, they're the
wrong sex."

I rolled my eyes. "I mean, do you think any
of them could be behind what's going on around here?" I waved my
hand. "The horse theft and all."

He frowned. "I don't know, Steve. I'd put my
money on Sanders or Whitcombe. Well, maybe not Whitcombe. Not
personally, anyway. He doesn't have the balls for it."

I snorted.

"And don't forget Tony and Mark," he said.
"They both swore they'd get even after you fired them."

"That was almost two years ago."

Marty looked at me and shrugged.

"And they aren't organized enough for it," I
added.

"All right, gentlemen."

I turned around.

Greg had the cart loaded down with enough
paste wormers and vaccinations to do half the farm, and he was
watching us with a devilish grin on his face. "Ready?"

Marty and I groaned in unison.

While the rest of the crew mucked out the
other barn, the three of us worked our way down one side of the
aisle and up the other. Greg dropped an empty paste wormer and two
used syringes in the trash bag hanging off the cart and went into
the next stall where Marty was already restraining a bay mare. I
walked past them and realized I'd come up with the short end of the
stick. The next horse in line was Chase. Most of them offered
little resistance, but that particular gelding was difficult about
everything. I got the chain on his halter without too much trouble
and clamped the twitch on his nose before he realized what I was up
to.

When Greg slid the door open, the gelding ran
backward, bumped into the corner of his stall, then reared. He
lifted me off my feet. He was still balanced on his hind legs, when
he pivoted and crashed against the wall. My back smacked into a
support post. The sharp edge slammed into my back right between my
shoulder blades. I held on, knowing instinctively that it was safer
to go with him than end up on the floor under his feet. When he
came back down, he lunged forward, and I ran with him. Marty and
Greg were in the stall then. Greg cursed as he jabbed the gelding
with a needle.

"Let go of the shank and get out," Greg
yelled.

The three of us jumped out of the stall, and
the horse spun around as Marty rammed the door home.

"You all right?" Greg asked.

I nodded and tried to catch my breath. "What
about the other shots and the wormer?"

"That wasn't a vaccination. I gave him a
tranquilizer. We'll come back in a little while and finish the
job." He peered at me. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." I rolled my shoulders. "Next time,
bring a tranquilizer gun."

"How about a real gun?" Marty said, and I
didn't think he was joking.

Twenty minutes later, we went back and looked
in at Greg's patient. The gelding seemed unaware of our presence.
His legs were splayed, head lowered, nose close to the sawdust.

"Greg," I said. "Did you know James
Peters?"

"Who?" He was watching the horse, lost in
thought.

"James Peters. Owned Hunter's Ridge
Farm."

"Oh . . . yeah. I used to work for him, but
it's been ten years or better. He'd call me out to check on the
status of one of his mares or to check for uterine infections, that
sort of thing."

A breeding operation hadn't been what I'd
expected. "I thought he boarded show horses."

"Used to. About twenty years ago." Greg
rubbed the back of his neck. "They switched to breeding. It was
easier on them as they got older. No boarders to keep happy. Just
their own stock to take care of."

"How were they making out?"

"Good. As I recall, they were getting ready
to add on to their barn when he was killed."

"You didn't work for him . . . near the
end?"

"No. You know, it's one thing to die, we all
face that, but to be murdered." Greg shook his head. "You never
think you'll know someone who's been murdered. What an awful fate,
and for what? He was a nice man. Never hurt anyone in his
life."

"Is his family still running the place?"

"No. I don't think they had any children, and
his wife had a nervous breakdown after what happened. She's in a
nursing home, I think. They weren't young. Both of them had to have
been in their sixties when it happened."

"Do you recall who their barn manager
was?"

"They didn't have one. The place wasn't all
that big. They hired school kids to muck out. Far as I know, Peters
did everything else."

"Did they have any tack stolen before the
horse theft?"

"Not that I heard." Greg was no longer idly
watching the gelding but had turned around and was studying me with
his piercing blue eyes. "What's this about, Steve?"

"Do you know anybody who worked for him just
before he died, anybody I could arrange to talk with?"

"Not offhand." He glanced at the gelding.
"You're thinking the people who stole his horses were behind what
happened at Foxdale, aren't you?"

"The police consider it a possibility."

"Shit."

* * *

I dreamt I was lying in the woods.

The earth was hard and damp and cold, the
world thickly black. I tried to touch my face, to see if my eyes
were open, but my arms were stuck to my sides. I couldn't move.
Couldn't move because I was buried. Buried alive.

I bolted upright. Above me, the familiar
knotty-pine ceiling rose toward the ridge beam. Vast empty space. I
was safe in my own bed, not suffocating in a shallow grave. I
breathed in a great lungful of air and felt my heart pounding
against my ribs. The dream had been too real.

After a minute or two, I got up and walked
over to the kitchen sink. I turned on the tap, let the water run
until it was icy cold, then took a swallow and felt the chill
settle in my chest. I picked up the copy of Sanders' insurance
papers off the counter. I had been surprised when they'd arrived in
the mail and disappointed when I'd leafed through them. They looked
unremarkable, and I could see why the claim wasn't being contested.
The only thing that had caught my attention was Greg's signature on
the vet exam.

I set the glass on the counter and walked
around the loft. I paused at the north windows. The world was quiet
and still, everything peaceful and safe. So, why didn't I feel
safe? I got back in bed and thought about James Peters. Thought
about the awful terror he must have felt before he died. Like Greg
had said, no one deserved that.

Chapter 8

After the schooling show, when I had checked
the competitors' trailers and had almost gotten my teeth rearranged
for it, I had called Detective Ralston and told him what I had in
mind. We had agreed that preparations would take at least a week
and a half. So it wasn't until a windy afternoon toward the end of
March that I headed north to Westminster.

I pushed through the double glass doors of
Maryland State Police Barracks "G" and signed in at the desk. The
corporal handed me a pass that I pinned to my jacket, then I rode
the elevator to the second floor. Each door down the brightly-lit
hallway had an identifying sign protruding from the transom that
reminded me of a miniature street sign. Interview One, Two, and
Three, Storage, Records, Properties, Holding One and Two, and
directly across the hall, C.I.U. From the spacing of the doorways,
it looked like the Criminal Investigations Unit had been allotted a
generous slice of floor space.

C.I.U. was stenciled across the pebbled glass
in black rimmed with gold. I opened the door and stepped inside.
Two rows of pale blue partitions formed a wide central aisle that
stretched to the back wall. The room was freshly-painted in a
creamy yellow, and the slate gray wall-to-wall was new. A strong
odor of new carpet still hung in the air.

A heavyset black man with a pair of bifocals
perched low on his nose glanced up when he heard the door swing
shut behind me. He was leaning back in his chair with his ankles
crossed on the edge of his desk, a handgun magazine propped on his
belly. A glossy advertisement for a Sig Sauer P239 covered the back
page. I told him who I was looking for, and he directed me to
Ralston's cubicle.

Two other detectives were at their desks
midway down the room, one on the phone, the other writing on a
legal pad. Neither looked up as I walked past. Ralston's cubicle
was the last one on the left, and he was on the phone. He motioned
for me to join him. I sat in the chair alongside his desk and half
listened to his end of the conversation.

"No. There's no way we won't get an
indictment. . . . Tuesday at the latest."

Ralston's desk looked spare and neat. He'd
covered his blotter with Plexiglass, which he used to anchor lists
of information, and he'd angled his computer monitor so that
whoever sat in his visitor's chair couldn't see the screen. Above
his desk, a calendar featured a glossy photo of a dirt bike jockey
catching air as he flew over the edge of an embankment. The rider,
dressed in neon yellow and lime green, stood out against a
cloudless blue sky.

"Guerra won't play ball, but—" Ralston
frowned and shook his head impatiently. "No. He can dick around all
he wants, but we're running with it. We've got Menza locked in good
and tight."

A collection of pens and pencils filled a
navy blue mug with "The Man" printed in gold. The man himself
looked professional in a crisp white shirt and paisley tie. The
only thing that distinguished him from the rest of the business
world was the gun strapped into a shoulder harness.

Except for the mug, and maybe the wall
calendar, there was nothing of a personal nature in evidence. No
family photographs, no trinkets, and I wondered if the separation
of job and personal life extended to his home and thought it
probably did.

"He doesn't have to like it, and there's no
disputing the-- Relax Martin. You'll see. . . . Not this time."

Directly across from where I sat, a bank of
windows stretched across the back wall. I glanced at my watch.
Though it was only five-thirty, the glass behind the vertical
blinds was dark. Heavy black clouds hung low in the sky, and gusts
of wind whipped the top branches of a nearby tree. As I watched,
the first drops of rain splattered across the glass.

Below the windows, conference tables had been
shoved against the back wall and were loaded down with computer
monitors, a printer, and stacks of binders and reference books.
Cardboard boxes were jammed under the tables, and a collection of
wall maps, white boards, and rolled up posters leaned against the
wall in the corner.