Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) (12 page)

Well, maybe I had a right. After all, I'd discovered two dead bodies and been shot at the day before.

When I let Blue back in the house I found a note on the table. It said, "Shoeing down at Steve Shaw's, Bret," in printing that resembled chicken scratch.

I glanced at the clock: 5:45. I had time, I thought, barely. It should only take me five minutes to change myself from a bone-tired vet to a femme fatale.

Peering into my closet, I studied my wardrobe of "dress-up" clothes. It wasn't extensive, since I lived the vast majority of my life in jeans, and was founded primarily on a simple concept: black pants. I had four pairs of black pants, ranging from dressy to casual, in a variety of fabrics suitable for winter or summer. Tonight I selected the most casual-stretchy leggings. I put on black lace trouser socks, shoved my feet into my all-purpose black shoes-slender suede flats-and the bottom half was done. For the top I picked a thigh-length dusty rose sweater with a deeply scooped neckline edged in scalloped stitches-something warm enough to be comfortable as well as elegant on a foggy evening. A string of freshwater pearls and my hair pulled high in two black combs and I was complete.

Scrambling back up my ladder "stairway," I scratched Blue on the back and told him to be a good dog and stay off the couch (not likely), grabbed a little black suede bag and stuffed my wallet in it, then dashed out to the truck. I had about five spare minutes, if I hurried.

Three minutes later, I pulled into Steve Shaw's barnyard. Steve's fancy dually pickup was absent, but Bret was very much in evidence. He was standing by a hitching rail in front of the big barn, holding a rasp in one hand, obviously in the process of shoeing the paint horse tied to the rail. He wasn't actually shoeing, though; he was talking to a girl.

She was young, in her late teens, with long yellow-blond hair, shy blue eyes, and a pretty, childish face. Probably one of Steve Shaw's many female clients, one who had managed to take her eyes off the trainer long enough to notice the horseshoer. She smiled at Bret like a puppy who hopes you'll throw a stick-half-playful, half-anxious. He was laughing back at her in a teasing way, his eyes lit up with fun. When I walked in their direction she looked embarrassed, said, "Well, see you later" awkwardly, and hurried away.

"She's too young for you," I said softly as he watched her departing rear view.

He gave me a sudden straight look. "Think I don't know that?" Then the cockeyed grin was back in place. "But just look at that butt."

I smiled. He didn't fool me. Bret was always careful that the victims of his charm were up to his weight. The girl was in no danger from him.

I sighed. Bret could be aggravating. I'd learned over the years that despite his carefree image he was a secretive, private person; getting information he didn't want to give was about as difficult as forcing Blue to do what he didn't want to do. Maybe shock would do it.

"Somebody shot at me last night," I told him. "I have no idea who or why, but the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me is that it's connected to my finding the bodies. I still don't have a clue what the connection is, but Lynnie came by this evening looking for you and informed me that Ed was a drug dealer, which I didn't know. I guess what I'm trying to do here is find out anything I can that might explain who killed them."

"Shit, Gail." Bret looked at me a long time. The paint horse shifted restlessly and he patted its shoulder absently. "I'd leave it alone if I were you," he said finally. "Why cause more trouble?"

"Come on, Bret. I don't like people shooting at me. For all I know, whoever did it will have another go. I want to find out everything I can."

Bret leaned on the hitching rail, tapping the rasp against his palm, his expression that of a wary animal. "Yeah, Ed used to sell a lot of coke," he said at last. "Cindy told me."

I waited.

He picked his words slowly. "I don't think very many people knew this, so I wasn't going to spread it around, but Cindy used to be a working girl."

Cindy had been unmistakably part of the local Yuppie group. With her white BMW, her expensive show horse, and her fancy house on the cliff, she seemed completely removed from anything as sordid as turning tricks. I couldn't imagine her in a run-down massage parlor.

Bret nodded. "I know. I wouldn't have guessed, either. She told me one night when she was drunk. She made me promise to keep it a secret. Her name was Diamond." He shook his head. "Diamond. She told me she met Ed because he supplied the house she worked in with coke. She said he had some kind of a thing about whores-thought the idea was a turn-on." Bret shook his head some more. "Can you believe it? They started dating and then she moved into Ed's apartment with him. He used to drive her to work every evening and kiss her good-bye at the door."

We both studied on that for a while. "Anyway, I guess they decided to get respectable and got married and bought that house. Cindy had a horse like she'd always wanted. She was pretty happy about it. I think she would have liked to forget her old life. But she couldn't exactly, because Ed was still selling coke."

"I don't get it. Why would Ed Whitney sell cocaine? I thought he had money from some big family trust fund."

"That's another thing most people don't know. Cindy told me that the trust fund money didn't kick in till he turned twenty-five, which was six months ago. Up until then, all his money came from ... uh, sales."

"Whoa. This is definitely stuff the cops should know."

Bret shrugged. "I figured they'd find it out for themselves. I also figured it was better to stay out of the whole thing."

"Well, apparently they haven't found it out yet. From what I heard they're planning to arrest that poor guy I saw in the garage."

"Maybe he did it."

"I just don't think so. Besides, I feel guilty, like it's my fault they suspect him at all."

Bret shrugged again. "Maybe you could find out where the guy was the night you were shot at. That would tell you something. "

"Keep me out of it, huh? I thought about it yesterday, before I talked to the cops, and I decided I'd better just keep my mouth shut."

I nodded, remembering his abstracted expression at the office and at lunch.

"It'll look pretty funny to that detective. Why I didn't talk, I mean."

"Yeah, okay. I won't mention you. I've got to go. Got a hot date." I slapped him lightly on the shoulder and turned away. When I looked back, he was bent over, picking up the paint horse's foot. In his dirty jeans and layers of battered sweatshirts, he looked like a derelict, and I could definitely see he wouldn't have a lot of credibility with the sheriff's department. Everything about Bret would seem suspicious from their point of view.

TEN

I was only ten minutes late at Lonny's. He lived in Aptos, a semi-rural community in the hills just south of Soquel; like Soquel, the Aptos area is thick with one-to ten-acre ranchettes, the homes of people who hold down fairly high-paying urban jobs. Lonny's place was just such a three-acre ranchette, but Lonny himself was somewhat of an exception to the "gentleman farmer" rule. He'd made his living and eventually his fortune running a pack station in the Sierra Nevada mountains; at forty-seven, he was semi-retired, with a younger partner to manage his business. He checked in once a month or so during the summer (the only season when a mountain pack station can operate), which was where he'd been for the last week.

As I turned in his driveway, I glanced automatically at his two horses, Burt and Pistol, checking to see that they looked healthy and content. They watched my truck curiously, aware that it wasn't Lonny's, two sets of ears pricked sharply forward. I smiled at them, knowing them well enough to see them as individual personalities, not just two big Quarter Horse geldings. Lonny'd been giving me team roping lessons on Burt, the bay, who was a real character, with a habit of pinning his ears back grumpily at the slightest provocation-a grouchy mannerism that belied a good heart. Pistol I knew less well. A roan with a flaxen mane and tail and a bald face, he was standoffish, carefully well-mannered, and one of the best heel horses in the state of California.

Driving up the hill past the horses, then through a tunnel of oak trees, I pulled up in front of Lonny's house with my usual sense of appreciative pleasure. Hidden from the road by its screen of oaks, the house was unique-a round house, a decagon, wainscoted in brick, with lots of big windows, a shake roof like a hat, and a cupola on top. Lonny had built it himself, and it was as carefully and interestingly detailed inside as out.

I got out of my truck and Lonny appeared in the doorway, a wide smile splitting his rough-featured face in two. Without a thought I stepped forward into his outstretched arms, feeling his big solid body pressed against me, connecting to what felt like an electrical current of warmth and affection.

"Hi. How are you?" He murmured into my hair.

"Okay. How about you?" My own speech was similarly muffled, being directed at his shoulder. At six two, Lonny was tall enough to make my five seven seem short.

After a minute we stepped back, giving each other appraising glances. "What's this I hear about you finding some bodies?" Lonny was always direct.

"It's a long story. Make me a drink and I'll tell you about it."

"Come on in."

He assembled vodka tonics while I curled myself on the Navajo-patterned couch in his living room. The room matched the couch-terra-cotta tile floor, natural pine walls, a sand-colored easy chair. Giant windows stretched up to the eaves, bringing the trees inside. Handing me my drink, Lonny settled himself on the couch next to me. "So tell me your long story." I told, going through the shock and horror of finding Ed and Cindy, seeing the Walker in the garage, and my subsequent questioning. "And that's not the half of it."

"So what else?"

Off I launched once again into the story of the barn on Pine Flat Road. Lonny's face grew still as I spoke and his eyes were somber. "Someone shot at you?"

"Yes. More than once, too. It wasn't an accident."

"My God."

"I know. And the strange thing is, I really have no idea who or why. It seems impossible that it's not connected to the Whitneys' murders-after all, both things happened on the same day. On the other hand, I can't see what in the world the connection would be. And," I looked into his eyes, voicing the thought I hadn't allowed myself to dwell on, "I'm scared."

"I don't blame you."

"I keep looking over my shoulder, especially when I'm alone, and I get this creepy feeling someone's watching me." I shivered, remembering that odd prickle of nerves down my spine when I'd walked Blue. "The worst part, for me, is I just don't know why. Why in the world would I be a threat? And there's more."

I told him about Gina Gianelli and Tony Ramiro, about the fact that the sheriffs seemed ready to arrest the Walker, and about Lynnie's and Bret's strange story concerning Ed and Cindy. "It sounds incredible, given what I knew about them, but I believe it. Bret wouldn't have any reason to lie."

"Bret, huh?" Lonny's mouth curled in an expression both humorous and exasperated. Lonny knew Bret slightly, had used him as a shoer once or twice, and seemed to regard my friendship with him as odd but unthreatening. "I don't know as I'd take what Bret says too seriously."

"No," I agreed, "except Bret didn't want to tell me all this; I more or less pried it out of him."

"Humph."

"I need to go down and talk to Jeri Ward," I finished up, "but I think I'll wait until I have a chance to talk to Gina tomorrow. She promised she'd either go to the sheriff's department herself about that phone call, or let me tell them, and I need to know which it's going to be."

"Gail," Lonny's voice was serious, "are you planning on getting involved in this?"

"Not exactly. I'm involved already, whether I like it or not. I found the bodies; I got shot at. Nothing I can do about that. Are you telling me I shouldn't get any more involved?"

"I'm not telling you anything." Lonny grinned. "I know better. What I'm saying is, I'm worried. The last time you got involved in investigating something you almost got killed."

I sighed. "I know, and I don't have a death wish or anything. Getting shot at and not knowing why really bothers me. But I can't think of any better way to make that fear go away than to make sure that whoever murdered Ed and Cindy is caught. Then maybe I'd understand why that person shot at me, and maybe I'd feel safe again. Assuming it was the same person who shot at me.