Reining in Murder (19 page)

But was this good news? Latham might have followed through on his threat and been responsible for Hilda's death. But the similarity between his letter and the words on the digital voice message were too close for comfort. Had Marcus known Latham? Had they worked together, and Latham had then killed Marcus because he knew too much?

It was too much for Annie's brain to take in. She mentally added another question to the ones she wished she could ask Marcus. Then she reached for another sausage.

S
UNDAY
, M
ARCH
6
^TH

Gazing at the pelting rain in her pasture, Annie wondered how Judith Clare possibly survived these kinds of days. With five children under the age of ten, Judith must use every ounce of ingenuity to keep her family entertained inside without losing her cool. Annie wasn't doing as well. All she had were two puppies, one dog, one kitten, a half-witted half sister, and she was ready to go ballistic.

“Stop harassing the puppies!”

Lavender looked up, bewildered. “I'm only playing with them, Sister. They need attention from humans, you know.”

“Well, one has just vomited all over the floor, in case you hadn't noticed. Try not to get them so excited. Puppy chow isn't cheap.”

Lavender turned back to her charges with a childish pout. Wolf, Annie noticed, was hiding in the corner, looking, as only a dog can, thoroughly disgusted. Max, the kitten, was conspicuously absent. Annie knew he would emerge if, and only if, the house subsided into relative calm.

Midmorning, Annie had finally announced she would be in her room, where she intended to work undisturbed. It was a lie. The only work she possibly could have done in her bedroom was to clean up the clothes strewn on the floor from the past week and take a well-oiled cloth to her dusty bureau and bedstand. Both were admirable rainy-day activities, but Annie was not the least bit interested. Instead, she read through the Latham/Colbert correspondence for the fifth time. She'd practically memorized the letters, which was a good thing, because she realized she shouldn't have them in the first place.

In the middle of the night, she'd awakened with the sinking feeling that once again, she had screwed up. Dan's words came floating through her brain: “I promise no one will look over your shoulder if you promise that you'll make copies of anything you want and leave the originals.”

Well, Deputy Lindquist had certainly fulfilled his end of the bargain. She, on the other hand, had furtively—and stupidly—simply pocketed the file and left with it.
But it wasn't my fault,
the evil-twin side of her brain insisted.
I was getting the bum's rush to leave. Nonsense,
the rational, mature side of her brain responded
. All you had to do was ask for two more minutes to make copies. Get real.

Annie sighed. Good Angel's logic notwithstanding, she'd be hanged if she was going to 'fess up to Dan Stetson. She would simply have to find a way to undo the damage.

Reaching for the phone, she resolutely punched in Dan's cell phone number. She was prepared to be totally obsequious in order to gain access again to Hilda's ranch. She imagined Dan there now, covered in mud and soaked to the bone, barking out orders to deputies who probably looked like tin hats building trenches in preparation for the Battle of the Somme.

Instead, she heard the distant roar of a sports game and an announcer's excited pronouncements after Dan picked up the phone.

“What's up, Annie?” Dan sounded surprisingly peaceful.

“Some weather we're having, huh?” Annie regretted using such a trite opening, but having caught Dan at home, she wasn't sure how to begin.

“Yup. Makes me glad the county decided not to pay for more overtime. Supposed to let up by Monday. But I hear on the news that the Big Squill River is rising and might flood the folks down near Garver's Corner before end of day. In which case, I'll be pulling on my boots and hauling sandbags with the rest of them. But you didn't call me to ask about the weather, did you, Annie?

“No.”

“To answer your question, we haven't found a body on Hilda's ranch. But we're not done looking.”

“How much longer do you think it'll take to search?” Annie could hear the tension in her voice. She hoped Dan didn't.

“One more good day. I still maintain it's a long shot, but it had to be done. We're trying to level the areas we've dug, but we can only do so much on our meager budget. Too bad Hilda isn't still around. We've already dug the foundation for that tennis court she probably wanted.”

Annie laughed. “Why, Dan Stetson! I believe you're getting back your sense of humor.”

“Here I sit, feet up in my easy chair watching the game, a bowl of chips in one hand and a beer in the other. You know what Dory would say if she could see me now?”

“I can only imagine.”

“I'm happy as a pig in a poke. This bachelor life is growing on me. If I could just train the dog to do the dishes.”

“That's why God made dishwashers, Dan.”

“Yeah. I'm going to have to figure out how to use it one of these days.”

Annie fleetingly felt a small pang of sympathy for Dory Stetson even while acknowledging how badly she'd behaved exiting the marriage. Taking care of Dan could not have been easy. Or particularly fun over time, once the honeymoon was over.

“Uh, Dan? My work at the ranch isn't quite over yet, either. I didn't have time to make copies of the horses' files, which I'll need if I'm to find new owners for them.”

“What's the hurry? It'll take months to settle Hilda's estate, and that won't even start until we get a copy of her revocable trust. Hell, the coroner only declared her officially dead last Thursday.”

“I know, but eventually her estate will settle, and I need to be on top of the game.”

In the background, Annie heard the doorbell ring.

“Hold on, Annie. Someone's at the door. If it's the Girl Scouts, I'm buying six boxes of the caramel kind. Hold on.”

Annie waited patiently until Dan got back. She heard a ragged sigh as he again picked up the phone.

“Per usual, her timing is perfect.”

“What are you talking about, Dan?”

“I've just been served. With divorce papers. Right in the middle of the Lakers game. If that don't beat all. She planned this.”

He was going to cry, Annie thought. She'd heard the pre-emptive noises before.

“I'm so sorry, Dan. Do you want me to come over?”

“Nah, I'll be fine. And if you want to come out again on Monday, be my guest. Just let me know what you're copying.”

She heard a muffled sniff as he hung up.

* * *

Now Annie felt thoroughly guilty and frustrated. She'd misled Dan again, the second time in the past two weeks she'd ever acted anything less than honorably toward him. That was bad enough. But now she had to wait an entire day to rectify matters.

She glanced at the clothes on the bedroom floor that badly needed to be washed and the horse magazines on her bedstand that had yet to be read. She wavered for a moment; maybe housework would get rid of her funk. Suddenly, she was aware that the house was strangely silent. This could not be good.

She found the two Belgian pups once again ensconced under the kitchen woodstove and Wolf snoozing nearby. Lavender was at the counter, tunelessly humming as usual, both hands immersed in Annie's pot roaster. Surely she wasn't concocting yet another vegetarian casserole. Annie thought she'd made herself quite clear the previous day. No, the smell was too pungent. Lavender's casseroles, she'd noticed, erred on the side of healthful blandness.

“What's for lunch, Lavender? Tree bark?” Being a Bad Girl had put her in a bad mood.

“Very funny.” Lavender's humming stopped.

“Sorry,” Annie said, almost sounding as if she meant it. She walked over to the counter. “Smells like cedar.”

“It
is
cedar.”

“Oh.” Something stirred in Annie's memory.

“Um, you're not going to spread that stuff around the house, are you, Lavender?”

Lavender turned to her and gave an exasperated sigh.

“Of
course
I am. It's part of the smudging ceremony.”

“Great. I'll be following you with the fire extinguisher.”

“I'm just
releasing
the smoke, for heaven's sake, not scattering burning needles. The only thing I'll be spreading in our home is cornmeal.”

“Cornmeal? In
our
house?” Annie was so flabbergasted that she momentarily forgot to correct Lavender's presumptive remark. She glared at her half sister. “We
both
live here, as you well know. But the last time
I
looked, Anne Marie Carson was the only person on the property title.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Sister. I didn't travel all across the country to watch your life disintegrate because unwanted spirits have taken up residence in your home. I am trying to get rid of all the negative energy. I'm trying to help you. Don't you get it?”

The only unwanted spirit who'd taken up residence that Annie could see was standing right in front of her. She silently counted backward from twenty, the days remaining when her half sister's lease ran out. Lavender serenely continued to bundle sprigs of cedar with twine she'd obviously found in Annie's all-purpose tool drawer.

For a brief moment, Annie envied her half sister's oblivious disconnect with reality. The moment passed. It was time to get Lavender in sync with the real world.

“Okay, Lavender. Here's the deal. You can smudge my house. But first you have to help me outside with the horses.”

“Isn't that your job?”

“No, Lavender, it's
our
job,” Annie replied. She didn't bother hiding her irritation. “Since you consider this
our
home, then all the animals that live at
our
home are your concern, too. Look outside. It's been pouring for the last three days. The pasture is a soggy mess. The horses have been standing in water for days now, and I'm concerned about their hooves. This is the perfect time for thrush.”

“Thrush? I thought they didn't show up until the spring.”

Annie burst out laughing, but abruptly stopped when she saw Lavender's face crumple. “Sorry, Lavender, there's no reason you should know. Thrush is bacteria that grow on horses' frogs—not the kind you find on lily pads,” she hastened to add. “Frog is what we call the triangular patch on the bottom of their hoof. It sort of acts as a shock absorber.”

“So why do horses get this thrush?”

“Mud. Still water. Dirty stalls. I can clean the stalls, but there's not much I can do about the rain and the muck. That's why I need to check the horses' hooves and make sure no one's in trouble.”

“But, Sister, I don't know anything about taking care of horses. Daddy always called the vet when Flicka was sick.”

Flicka was the pony Annie never had.

“Well, there's a first time for everything. The horses should still be in their stalls munching hay, but put on boots and a slicker, anyway. One of them might decide to duck into the paddock before we have time to close the stall doors.”

“I don't have a slicker. Or boots.”

“Of course you don't. Well, grab what you can off the coatrack. Oh, and Lavender,” Annie said, glancing at her sister's Birkenstocks, “don't forget to put on a pair of socks. I don't have a remedy for thrush that works on people.”

* * *

As Annie anticipated, Lavender was more hindrance than help, and in truth, she hardly needed a second pair of hands. All of Annie's horses, including Trooper, showed no intention of venturing outside until the last blade of hay in their feeders was consumed, so confining the horses to their individual stalls, as Annie had expected, was a nonissue.

By the time Annie had examined Trotter and the bay, Lavender had succeeded in putting a string halter on Rover and had learned how to hold the halter rope so that she had control yet didn't apply undue pressure to the horse and thereby irritate him. Haltering the horses wasn't at all necessary; every horse, Baby included, knew to stand still and obediently comply when Annie asked for one of its hooves. But Annie decided it was high time that Lavender learned a few rudimentary skills when it came to equine care. How to halter and safely lead a horse was the first lesson in Horse Ed 101.

She was surprised at how reticent Lavender had first behaved around her large animals. Her half sister, Annie sourly reminded herself, had owned a pony for several years as a small child, yet she seemed totally intimidated by the horses she met today. Proud mother notwithstanding, Annie knew her horses were among the most gentle and forgiving animals in Western Washington. She'd trained them to trust any human being that Annie trusted to be around them, and to assume that any human's intent was good.

Old-timers referred to Annie's training as “sacking-out,” an exercise in which owners whooshed plastic bags on a stick around horses' bodies until the animals learned that they had nothing to fear from the strange noise or movements. But Annie's training had gone much further than that. She could mount each horse from either side and dismount in every direction except over the horse's head. She could walk underneath and around them without the least fear of a sudden skittish movement or, worse, a kick. The John Deere tractors that occasionally drove through Annie's pasture drew no more interest from them than a flick of an ear. The only thing that aroused the horses' concern and could still set them into instant flight mode was the scent or sight of a predator. For that, Annie had her .30-.30 Winchester.

Lavender, Annie noticed, did not suffer from lack of pride about her meager accomplishments. Once she'd mastered haltering and leading, she relaxed considerably and began to stroke the horses while Annie worked, whispering to them what “darling little horses they were” until Annie secretly wanted to throw up. Lavender had about one-fifth the horse sense of eight-year-old Hannah, Annie thought, but give her another decade, and she might catch up.