Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) (2 page)

Slow, cold quiet pressed in around me, as if it were part of the fog. I could just hear the muffled boom of the surf on the cliffs. Doves cooed in a clump of Monterey pines, the trees a black shape against gray. Reaching for the thermos on the seat beside me, I poured a cup of coffee; it steamed into the cold air as I cradled the cup, savoring the look and feel of it as much as the taste. Slowly, the muscles across my back began to relax, though I hadn't realized I was tense. Tension, it seemed, was an occupational hazard.

All my life I'd wanted to be a horse vet; it was only after I'd achieved my goal that I'd realized my dreams hadn't prepared me for the reality. Somehow I hadn't pictured how frantically busy I would be, or how stressed. Neither had I supposed that my starting salary, when I calculated it in terms of a wage, would work out to be about eight bucks an hour. It was my bad luck that I'd graduated from vet school at a time when there was a glut of young vets on the market; competition for available positions was intense and salaries were low. I'd been delighted and relieved when I was promptly hired by Dr. Jim Leonard, the resident horse specialist in my hometown. Little did I know that Jim would expect something akin to slave labor; the expensive fees I charged clients went to his coffers, not mine.

Sipping more coffee, I watched Plumber's face, the white star on his forehead giving him an aristocratic look as he stared at me over his stall door. "Where's breakfast?" his eyes asked.

I felt cheered just looking at him. Plumber, and horses like him, made veterinary work worthwhile. He was the exact opposite of the horse I'd worked on earlier; he wanted to help you, not hurt you. Like people, horses are individuals, and one of the disadvantages of this job was that you got some assholes-human and equine. But you got some Plumbers, too.

Stretching back into the truck seat, I contemplated without pleasure an extremely uncooperative mare due for a pregnancy check at the next call, and the side mirror caught my reflection-dark brown hair that looked black in the cold morning light and blue-green eyes, a legacy from my Irish ancestors. There were some faint lines at the corners of the eyes-not so much age as strain. I was only thirty-two, after all.

Not an easy thirty-two years, though. Both my parents had been killed in a car wreck when I was eighteen, claimed by Highway 17, a notorious stretch of road between Santa Cruz and San Jose. Grades and football games, boyfriends and parties, the trappings of an ordinary upbringing had all vanished in a night. Alone and unconnected, my pain had resolved into a determination to turn my childhood dream of becoming a veterinarian into reality. Since then all my energy had gone into building a new life for myself-one that appeared to be carving wrinkles in my face at a high rate.

Ah, well. The job was deeply interesting and absorbing, as I had always believed it would be, and I was practicing in my hometown, a stroke of good luck that I hadn't expected. On the whole, I wouldn't complain.

Plumber neighed hopefully, bringing me back to the present. My fifteen minutes were almost up and there was still no sign of Cindy, which was very odd. Cindy was a horse person, and to horse people, horses are the center of the universe. The ones I know think and talk mostly of their horses, with brief breaks for food, drink, and other minor necessities of life. To them, and Cindy was no exception, forgetting, or even being late with a horse's breakfast is in the neighborhood of a mortal sin.

The clock on the dashboard said 8:30; I finished my cup of coffee and screwed the top back on the thermos. Plumber nickered at me eagerly when I got out of the truck and went over to him. As I tried to pat his neck, he swung his head away from me and toward his empty manger. The message was plain. Quit trying to pet me, you dummy, and feed me.

Another quick scrutiny of the barn didn't reveal anything new. I was headed for my truck, but my feet slowed to a stop before I reached it. Like a puzzle drawing in a child's magazine, something was wrong with this picture.

A newspaper lay in the driveway, getting damp in the fog. Plumber, still hungry, watched me intently. On impulse, I walked around the comer of the garage.

Inside the open doorway, Cindy's white BMW and Ed's red Ferrari crowded together, leaving a narrow walkway to the back door of the house. A nerve was twanging inside of me as I knocked on the door. Getting no response, I turned the knob and felt it open under my hand. My "Cindy" shuddered off into the dim interior as I stepped through the doorway.

Narrow windows leaked the cold light of the foggy morning into the back hall. I followed it into the living room, yelling, "Cindy" again, and the sound seemed to go up in spirals, bouncing off the walls and finally hitting the cathedral ceiling.

Ed and Cindy's living room had always felt cozy and comfortable when I'd been in it before; a huge stone fireplace and chimney and natural-wood paneling gave it a rustic hunting lodge ambience. This morning, unlit, chilly, and smelling faintly of the cold ocean, it seemed dank and cavernous. Skirting a few scattered armchairs and couches and calling Cindy's name, I stuck my head in the kitchen.

Two bodies sprawled on the floor, utterly still. Blood, dark and slimy, blotched their clothes. The back of the body nearest me was covered with it. That heavy mane of white-blond hair, it had to be Cindy; next to her, I recognized Ed's white face staring upward. My God. Oh my God.

I stood frozen in place, staring helplessly. This wasn't real. This couldn't be. There was a strange rushing in my ears and I felt suddenly dizzy. Abruptly, I sat down and put my head between my knees. My ears roared; everything grew dark. You will not pass out, I commanded myself; you will not.

I sat there for what seemed like a long time, with my nose inches from the tile floor, oblivious of everything but the need not to faint. When the roaring in my ears receded, I lifted my head, keeping my face firmly averted from the bodies.

Okay, so far. Tentatively, I got to my feet. My legs felt shaky, but I stayed up. I took a hesitant step forward. Then step by careful step, I inched into the room until I was next to Cindy's body. One arm was stretched out toward my feet, palm up, as if imploring me to help. The back of her white T-shirt was a solid dark red stain. Next to her, Ed's chest showed two horrific dark holes surrounded by clots of blood.

My mind jumped chaotically. The silent room was grotesquely unreal, as if I were trapped in an old black-and-white science fiction movie. I forced myself to think. Gritting my teeth, I bent down and touched Cindy's arm, choosing the inside of the wrist, pressing the cold, rubbery flesh just long enough to be sure, to know that there was nothing I could do. Shuddering, I stepped around her, carefully avoiding the blood on the floor, and did the same for Ed. Then I walked across the room to the phone, noticing with surprise that my hand was steady as I punched the numbers.

The operator's voice was brisk. "Nine one one."

"I need police, sheriffs, whoever, to come to one two eight Rose Avenue." My own voice sounded absurdly calm-the voice I used to reassure clients who called in frantic emergencies at 2:00 A.M.

"And what is the nature of the problem?"

"The two people who live here have been murdered."

The words weren't right, or maybe there were no right words. Keeping my voice composed and my eyes on the kitchen counter, I answered some more questions and hung up the phone.

When I turned back toward the room, the dead bodies hit me like a punch in the solar plexus. I had seen death before, I had caused it myself, plenty of times, when I put animals out of their pain, but this violent human death was blindly, all too personally final. I stared at what had been Cindy and Ed. Their bodies sprawled on the floor, empty as bags of old clothes. A coppery sweet scent seemed to emanate from the dark bloody patches. Something rose in my throat and I jerked my eyes away. I wanted out of that room.

Half-walking, half-running on unsteady legs, I pushed through the house, sharply aware of all the rooms where he, she, whoever had done this, could be, might be, waiting. My heart was thudding as I reached the back door, my hands fumbling for the knob, and I yelped, scared out of whatever composure I had left, when a knock reverberated on the other side of the door, right at the level of my face.

The police-it had to be the police. Hands shaking, I pulled the door open, to find a man staring at me. Not the police. A man, with an odd look on his face that I couldn't fathom, standing in Ed and Cindy's garage. I took a step backward. "Who are you?" I demanded with all the iron I could muster.

He looked as surprised as I felt. His mouth dropped open, and he mumbled some words I couldn't catch. At least he didn't seem to pose an immediate threat; he was obviously as alarmed as I and was backing away. With a shock, I realized I recognized him.

Vacant round blue eyes, snub-nosed boyish face, tightly curled blond hair-he was one of the regular Santa Cruz street people; I called him "the Walker." Unlike most of them, he always looked clean, and I never saw him pushing a shopping cart full of cans or carrying armloads of junk. He just walked. I'd seen him dozens of times, all over town, walking and talking to himself.

Maybe the recognition on my face alarmed him. Suddenly, for no reason that I could see, he turned and ran out of the garage. I stood where I was as if frozen, replaying his expression in my mind. Startled-like a wild animal. He reminded me of surprising a buck in the woods. He had the same look-distant and wary, almost otherworldly, and in the split second before he knows you for a human, not unfriendly.

TWO

No one was in sight when I walked out of the garage. The Walker seemed to have vanished into thin air. Plumber neighed at me; a human being emerging from the house looked promising to him. I could hear sirens in the distance as I went into the feed room, got a flake of hay, and put it in his manger. By the time I walked back out of the barn the sirens were close, coming down Rose Avenue.

I stood by my truck as the two sheriff's cars pulled into the driveway. They'd turned off the noise, but the red lights were flashing and the four uniformed sheriff's officers got out of the cars fast. I half-expected them to pull their guns and yell, Freeze. Instead, the oldest one, a man with a square chin and some gray in his hair, walked up to me and said, "We were called out here on a possible homicide?"

It took a few minutes of explaining on my part and checking on theirs, but when they figured out it wasn't just a possible homicide but a definite double murder, they worked fast. In no time at all, it seemed, there were half a dozen cars in the driveway, and a full dozen men, in uniform and out of it, walking in and out of the house. That was all I got to see of police procedure, because I was kept politely but firmly from leaving my position out in the driveway. I was watched by a man who struck me as too young to be carrying a gun; he seemed to devote all his energy to holding his face and body as stiffly as possible.

"All right," he said, and positioned himself where he could hear my conversation with the office. I canceled all my appointments for that day, not knowing what would happen. Then we waited.

Eventually another car pulled into the driveway and two plainclothes people got out. The short female figure looked familiar-blond hair in a wavy bob, neat olive green wool suit, an air of cool self-possession.

"Oh, no," I muttered.

The woman was Detective Jeri Ward, who had investigated the murder of my friend Casey Brooks last fall. I'd gotten involved in the investigation and Detective Ward had not been happy about it-not at all. In fact, I was pretty sure Detective Ward thought I was a first-class pain in the butt.

"Would you care to come down and give us a statement?" It might be phrased as a request, but I knew perfectly well it wasn't. Without pausing for an answer she went on briskly: "I need to go inside and have a look at things. If you'll wait here, I'll be out in a minute."

Leaning on my pickup, I waited. The young sheriff's deputy watched me out of the comers of his eyes, keeping his face turned rigidly away. Time crawled. I got in the truck and rubbed Blue's head awhile, adjusted both windows so he'd have plenty of air, and told him I'd be back soon. He cocked an ear and curled up a little more comfortably. Blue was old and stiff enough that he preferred to sleep in the truck unless there was something interesting to do-attack a bigger, younger dog maybe.

As I watched various official-looking people arrive and leave from my vantage point in the driveway, I thought about the man I'd seen in Cindy's garage; what in the world had the Walker been doing there? Santa Cruz was a mecca for the homeless; they thronged the city itself, particularly Pacific Avenue and the downtown area, where they mingled indistinguishably with the students from the local university. Mild climate and the liberal atmosphere that had dominated Santa Cruz since the university was opened drew them, and they presented a problem that the city had, as yet, been unable to deal with very effectively. Shelters affiliated with churches and staffed by volunteers were still the main coping mechanism, though it was hard to see just what else could be usefully done to help that large proportion of street people affected with some type of mental illness-victims of the Reagan administration's wholesale shutdown of government care.

The Walker didn't really fit the street person mold, though. For one thing, he always looked clean-shaven and neatly dressed; for another, I usually saw him over in this area. Rose Avenue, where I stood, is on the outskirts of Capitola, a high-dollar little resort city on the beach, which fancies itself another Catalina and is as conservative in its leanings as Santa Cruz is liberal. Capitola is the hangout of upwardly mobile young stockbrokers and lawyers; it runs to expensive clothing stores, Yuppie bars, and pricey restaurants. The street people in general avoid Capitola-perhaps they find the atmosphere not to their taste-and the Walker was unique in that he was a regular feature here.