by Kit Ehrman
* * *
I checked that everything was running smoothly in the barns, then drove home. Greg's vetmobile was parked at the barn entrance with the compartment doors popped open. As I headed for the steps, he walked out of the barn and set a stainless steel bucket on the gravel.
He flipped a towel off his shoulder and wiped his hands. "Cuttin' out early?"
"Nah. I'm heading back in a couple minutes." I crossed the lot and stood alongside the back bumper. "Remember Victor Sanders' horse? That steel gray draft cross that got stolen?"
Greg frowned as he uncapped a green bottle and squirted some sharp-smelling disinfectant into the bucket. He stretched the hose out of the back of the truck and lifted a dental float out of the sudsy water. "Vaguely."
I told him my theory while he hosed off and dried the floats and stowed them in a bin.
He shook his head. "I don't know Steve. Lots of horses have quirks like that, and now that the horse isn't around anymore, there's no way to prove it was the same one that was stolen from Ironsie's place."
Ironsie? "Well," I said, "I'll let the insurance company know, and they can take it from there."
I took the steps two at a time. When I reached the deck, I glanced over my shoulder. Greg had let the hose recoil back into the storage area under the compartment, and as he closed the lid, he looked up at me, his expression thoughtful.
I flipped through the clutter in the junk drawer until I found the packet Marilyn had sent me. I unfolded the copy of Sanders' insurance policy and smoothed out the pages on the countertop. On the first page of the mortality insurance application, question number fourteen asked: "Have you filed an insurance claim in the past three years for any of the proposed horses?" Sanders had answered no.
I got Marilyn's number from her brother and told her what I'd learned.
"And you said the company's name was . . . ?"
"Liberty South." I gave her the agent's name. "What will happen now?"
"We'll contact them," she said. "Start an investigation. If we can't prove it was the same horse, or that he was involved in the thefts . . . I don't know. Maybe we can get him for intent to defraud." She signed. "Depends on what we find."