At Risk

by Kit Ehrman

  Chapter 6

  Five-thirty Saturday morning, and already bands of color had spread across the eastern horizon. The horses watched as I walked down the barn aisle, flipping through my farm keys, looking for the right one. I had too many damn keys. Even with color-coded tape, I was still sorting through them when I stopped outside the tack room door.

  Sensing something wrong, out of place, I looked up. I wouldn't be needing my keys. Not that morning, anyway.

  The door was half open, and the jamb was cracked and splintered and dented with pry marks.

  With nerves on high alert, I pushed the door inward with the toe of my boot and flipped the light switch with my key.

  Locker doors hung askew or lay on the floor. Most of the saddles were gone. I walked into the center of the room and surveyed the damage. Some of the more expensive bridles were missing, too. I checked the other boarders' tack room. Everything of value that could easily be sold was gone. On my way out, I stopped outside the school horses' tack room. It was still locked. I frowned at the undisturbed door and considered the implications.

  I walked over to barn A, knowing I'd find the same thing.

  I pushed the door in with my boot, hit the light switch, and froze. A thin trail of blood snaked across the floor and disappeared around the corner of the central island of lockers.

  I looked at my hand. Blood darkened my fingertips. The light switch had been smeared with blood, and it was still tacky.

  The lockers were eight feet tall. I couldn't see around them. I inched toward the first row of lockers.

  Before I made it around the corner, a hollow thump resounded in the barn. The muscles in my gut tightened. I looked back at the doorway. No one was there. The sound had come from one of the stalls. It was simply one of the horses across the aisle, knocking a hoof against the wall.

  I looked down at the floor, realized I was holding my breath, forced myself to breathe. I stepped around the corner and followed the trail with a gaze so intent, I could see nothing else.

  Something touched my hair.

  I jumped back. The heel of my boot caught on the edge of a broken locker door, and I crashed backward into the row of lockers. Hanging from the rafters, and now gently swaying, was Boris the barn cat. Baling twine was tied around the tip of his tail, and his throat had been cut. His head dangled from a thin ribbon of flesh and matted fur. My stomach lurched, and saliva flooded my mouth. I swallowed and stumbled out of the room.

  My muscles felt rubbery from the flood of adrenaline. I rubbed my face, then remembered the blood on my fingers. I wiped my hand on my jeans and looked up and down the aisle. Everything looked peaceful. Normal. The horses were watching, wondering what I was up to.

  "Just having heart failure, guys," I said and didn't recognize my own voice.

  After a minute or two, I went back in. Most of the saddles in that barn were ridiculously expensive. They were all gone. I crossed the room and examined the door that opened into aisle two. It was still locked. Blood had been smeared on that light switch, too. Whichever door I chose, I would have put my hand on a bloody light switch.

  I walked back into the center of the room. The flies hadn't taken long to find the cat. They buzzed and flitted around the gaping wound in his neck and crawled over the matted fur. He'd been the only cat on the farm--a mascot of sorts--and wasn't aloof like most of them. Many of the boarders brought him treats. I doubted he'd ever caught a mouse. He wasn't going to now.

  I thought about the room's layout and how his body had been strategically placed for maximum effect. I hadn't seen him until I was right on top of him. Someone had a very sick, twisted mind. Tack theft was all too prevalent, but this was cruel, wicked. Designed to terrify. Judging by my physical state, it had been, on the whole, entirely successful.

  I headed for the office. The buildings were bathed in an early-morning wash of gray, and a ground-hugging mist had settled in the swales that cut through the pastures. The farm looked like a latent photograph come to life. As I walked down the sidewalk, it occurred to me that the office and lounge weren't immune to vandalism, either. I quickened my pace.

  I peered through the glass as I unlocked the office door and saw that everything was secure. In the quiet room, my footsteps echoed hollowly on the cheap linoleum. I snatched up the phone and punched in the familiar number.

  Mrs. Hill answered in three rings, fast for her. I glanced at the clock. Five-forty-three.

  "Yes?" An element of dread in her voice.

  "Mrs. Hill, this is Steve. . . ." When she didn't respond, I said, "There's been more trouble at the farm--"

  "Oh, no."

  I told her about the saddles and Boris and the blood.

  She didn't say anything . . . not a word.

  "Mrs. Hill?"

  "I can't believe this. Are you okay?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Are any of the horses missing?" Her voice was tight.

  "No, ma'am."

  "Well, there's that at least. I'll be in as soon as I can. It'll be a while, though. I have to wait until the bus comes for the kids."

  She told me to notify the police, and I could hear her yelling to her husband as she hung up the phone. I slumped into her chair and rubbed my face. It was too much. Too damned much. I sat up, tapped my fingers on the blotter, and looked at the phone. Made another call.

  The voice at the other end said, "C.I.U., Ralston."

  "This is Stephen Cline from Foxdale Farm. You interviewed me last week, about--"

  "What's up?"

  "Last night, someone broke into the tack rooms on the farm. Most of the saddles are gone, and I think it might be the same people who took the horses."

  He cleared his throat. "What makes you think that?"

  "Well, whoever was here last night couldn't keep it simple. They killed a barn cat and smeared its blood around. Then they hung the body from the rafters." Christ, I had walked into the damn thing.

  "How?"

  "How what?"

  "How was the cat killed?"

  "Oh. They slit its throat."

  After a pause, he said, "Did you see anyone when you arrived?"

  "No, sir."

  "You're sure no one's there now that shouldn't be?"

  I glanced reflexively at the door. "Yes."

  "Okay. I'll give Howard County a call." He paused, and I could hear papers rustle in the background. "And I think I'll drive over there myself. Do me a favor, Steve. Keep everyone clear of the barns. Don't let anyone drive all the way down there, okay?"

  "Sure."

  He disconnected, and I thought about the exhaustion I'd heard in his voice and didn't envy him his job.

  I grained the horses early--they didn't object--then lugged hay bales out of the storage area at the end of the barn and spaced them down the center of the aisle. I slid my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the knife that was successfully wearing a hole through my jeans. The smooth plastic sheath was warm from my own body heat. It wasn't until I pulled the blade out that I thought how someone, just hours before, had used a knife to slit the cat's throat.