Simpatico's Gift

by Frank Martorana

  Peter was right out of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small — a gangly six-foot-four, an uncooperative head of sandy hair, and lots of tweed. He was raised outside of Birmingham, England, the heart of foxhunt country, and educated at the Royal Veterinary College. There was no better equine surgeon in the United States, and no one Kent trusted more.

  Before Kent could answer, Peter, intrigued by the mound of specimens, picked up one and read it.

  “Oh, the VinChaRo thing,” he said, ”I heard a few murmurings about it earlier today. Sorry.”

  Peter was the consummate professional. Kent knew Peter would not bother to ask the next obvious, but unanswerable question.

  Kent eased back onto the counter across from Peter. “I honestly don’t know what happened,” he said, without prompting. “I’ve considered everything from accidental electrocution to poison, to…” He held up his hands in frustration. “To — you name it. About all I can say for sure is that Simpatico was violent at the end. He had a nasty scapular fracture and a bunch of lacerations and contusions on his head. That’s it.”

  Peter toyed with one of the vials for a moment. “Any chance of foul play?”

  “I’m not ruling it out. Or anything else for that matter. But nothing really points to it.”

  “Well if there is anything you need from me, just ask,” Peter said, then added, “How is Elizabeth holding up?”

  “She’s okay. You know how stoic she is. Of course, it’s a huge loss. She loved that horse. But the farm will go on.” Kent hesitated. “Charles, on the other hand, I’m not sure. He’s hard to read. My guess is he feels it more as a personal financial blow than as the loss of a great horse.”

  “Yeah. I get that. How about Aubrey?”

  “She’s hurting. She was real close to Simpatico. She’s going to be messed up for a while.”

  “No doubt.”

  Kent looked around and saw that Emily had finished giving the samples to the tech and wandered off. “I’ve had enough for today. I’m going to find Emily and get out of here. See you in the morning.”

  “Good idea,” Peter said, pushing himself off the counter. “I have a couple of post-op checks, and I’m right behind you.”

  Kent found Emily in Sally’s office highlighting names on a computer printout.

  “Taking my helper?” Sally said, with a faux frown.

  “Yep. We have a birthday dinner tonight.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Happy birthday, Em.”

  “Thanks. I didn’t make it all the way down this list.”

  Sally waved it off. “No problem. You don’t sound too excited about your birthday.”

  Emily didn’t respond.

  Sally gently clasped Emily’s chin, and turned her to look her in the eye. “Hey, young lady, don’t get hung up on things out of your control. None of this Simpatico stuff is your fault. Your birthday is your birthday. You celebrate.”

  Emily smiled weakly. “Thanks, Sally.”

  Kent and Emily drove home to Pine Holt — to Margaret, the cows, and Emily’s pony, Flame.

  Margaret had prepared a birthday feast as promised. For her sake, they worked hard to maintain a party mood. Even so, it seemed forced. He hated it when his work interfered with his family, but he knew Simpatico’s death was going to be wedging its way into his life for a long while.

  CHAPTER 6

  The intruder ducked into the barn through a feed room door at Cedar Cut Farm, flattened his back against the wall, and squinted at the luminous face of his watch. Just after three. Right on schedule.

  He slipped a hand into his pocket to be sure the all-important vial was still nestled there. It was. Of course it was. Everything had been planned perfectly.

  Easing across the feed room, he paused to peek down the main alleyway. These barns were all alike at night — dark, silent, giant beasts lurking — creepy as hell. Every odd noise made him jump. He was wired. He needed a drink, bad. He wiped his palms on his thighs and told himself to be cool.

  For a moment he thought back to Simpatico with a twisted sense of pride. Damn fool had stood right there and let himself be suffocated. He exhaled a soft laugh, and then he swallowed hard as fear crept in again.

  This one would not be so easy. This stallion had a nasty rep — real nasty if he wanted to be — downright dangerous.

  The intruder moved slowly down the row of stalls. Next to the last one on the right. Hell, a couple of beers at Kolbie’s Tavern and the idiot farmhands had told him everything he wanted to know.

  A brass nameplate on the stall door read Charter Oak.

  A loud snort came from inside and the intruder glanced between the bars to size up his victim. Charter Oak flattened his ears against his head, bared his teeth, and came at the bars like a snake.

  “Ugly bastard,” the intruder whispered.

  He dropped to one knee in front of Charter Oak’s stall, pulled out a zip lock bag full of horse feed, opened it, and set it on the floor. More carefully, he took the small vial from his pocket, unscrewed its cap, and mixed the amber fluid into the grain.

  Maintaining a low voice, he said. “There we are, Your Highness. Your special treat is ready.” He held it toward the horse at arm’s length and entered the stall.

  Charter Oak caught the sweet scent of molasses. His nostrils flared.

  “Ha. Even you can be bought. Now you just take it easy while I slip this little snack into your feed tub and I’ll be out of here so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  The intruder kept a sharp eye on the stallion, moved cautiously to a corner of the stall, and deposited the grain mix into the feed tub. Then he stepped back out, eyes still on the horse.

  Charter Oak turned to the tub, sniffed inquisitively, and began eating.

  A satisfied grin crept across the intruder’s face.

  He remembered what he had been told. Forty-eight hours and that horse wouldn’t be worth shit. Two down.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kent took a late afternoon emergency call for a Quarter horse that had come in from the pasture three-legged lame. They shot a few radiographs with the portable machine and confirmed the coffin bone was fractured. He waited around to help the farrier get a bar shoe on the guy, and then he cast the leg. Before he left, he informed the owner that they would be seeing a lot of each other for a while.

  He arrived back at the Compassion Veterinary Center late, as usual. Dampness in the air was accentuated by a gusty wind that blew tiny tornadoes across the empty parking area.

  A week had passed since Simpatico’s death and, surprisingly, life had gone on pretty much as always. There were still animals to treat and family matters to juggle.

  A chill rattled down his spine as he entered the quiet warmth of the building. Hot dinner, hot shower. That’s what he needed. A hot woman, that’s what he wanted. He wondered what Aubrey was doing at the moment.

  The hospital was silent, in its night mode, with just a skeleton crew. He glanced through an observation window into the main equine treatment room, and smiled. He could see a horse standing in the stocks. Next to it Barry was on his knees, helping a young veterinarian dress a wound. As she worked, she was teaching Barry the correct way to bandage a horse’s leg.

  When he got to his office, he found his desk littered with veterinary journals, bills, invoices, statements in need of review, correspondence requiring his approval and signature, and little yellow stick-up notes. It was pretty much the way he had left it that morning, except for one new addition. Taped to his lamp in the place that had evolved as the spot reserved for items needing immediate attention was a small note:

  4:30 p.m.

  Ed Holmes is looking for you. Wants to talk about Simpatico. Will be in the dx lab till 5:30.

  Sally

  Finally, some information about the tissue samples. It seemed as though the
lab had taken forever to process them. Kent glanced at his watch.

  “Damn,” he said, as he picked up the phone. Why hadn’t Sally called him on the truck phone? Then he remembered that he’d been in a barn, away from the truck from about 4:00 till closing. She had probably tried.

  He dialed the extension for the diagnostic laboratory and got a recording.

  He was tempted to try Ed’s home number, but then reminded himself how much he disliked such arrogant exhibitions of self-importance when they interrupted him at home. No, he was doomed to wait till tomorrow.

  At Pine Holt, Kent fed the cows, then washed up and put on a tattered guayabera Emily had given him a few Christmases ago.

  Emily updated him on school and her progress with Flame. She was developing the little pony into quite the dressage horse, and he was learning quickly. School was boring. And today a letter arrived from Maria Castille, an Ecuadorian girl who had become a family friend when she did an internship at the CVC a year ago. In her letter, Maria said she wanted to come back for the summer. Emily had written her back immediately — of course she could, it was a great idea.

  Kent smiled and feigned interest at the appropriate times, but he couldn’t get into Emily’s running conversation.

  “I’d like to have Maria around again,” he said, without much enthusiasm. “She’s a lot of fun, and she was one of our best interns we ever had.” He gave Emily a five out of a possible ten stern look. “You probably should have asked me first.”

  Emily was just starting to catch on to her father’s glum mood, and not liking it, when Margaret stuck her head in from the kitchen.

  “Evening, Kent. We waited dinner for you. Lasagna. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

  “Thanks, Margaret.”

  “Also, I know you hate phone calls at home, but Dr. Holmes called about 45 minutes ago. It sounded important. He said you’d probably want to call him at his house this evening, and that it was okay. He made me promise to give you the message. Sorry.” She reached into the pocket of her apron and took out a grocery receipt.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to him, “his number is on the back.”

  Margaret and Emily expected a groan from Kent, and gave each other perplexed looks when he snatched the note and said, “Can you hold dinner ten minutes? Just ten minutes. That’s all I ask.”

  “Sure. No problem,” Margaret said. “Wow.”

  “I’ll just make this call and be right back. I mean it.” He disappeared into his study, and a moment later had Dr. Holmes on the line.

  “Ed, I appreciate your calling me at home. Sorry to bother you at night, but you’re right, I am eager to know what you found.”

  “No problem. Here’s what we’ve got.” Holmes’s voice dropped into an analytical drone. “All tissues were histologically normal except lung and heart. As you noted, there was petechial hemorrhage on the lung surfaces and some pulmonary emphysema. The lung histo just confirmed it. So that’s not too enlightening. But, I did find quite a bit of hemorrhage on the surface of the heart. You probably would have seen it on the gross, except that it was buried in pericardial fat. That was about it.” Holmes paused for Kent to take in the information, then he started again. “So, when I have a happy, apparently healthy horse that dies suddenly, and bleeding on the surface of the heart is all I can find, I start thinking, A, toxins, or B, acute anoxia.”

  Dr. Holmes paused again, no doubt expecting a response from Kent. When none came, he continued in the same objective tone. “The pulmonary emphysema, plus what you told me about the fractures and contusions, would support your suspicion that he died violently, too.”

  “So you’re thinking poison or suffocation?”

  “Right.”

  “I know there was nothing poisonous within a mile of the guy. Whatever. What kind of poison could cause the stuff you found?”

  “Plant poisons like bracken fern or sweet-clover would do it. Maybe chemicals like arsenic — unlikely knowing where he was. Maybe endotoxins.”

  “What about the stomach contents or the blood samples, any poisons there?”

  “I was getting to that. I had my techs run tests for everything I could think of. Nothing panned out. But remember, endotoxins would be virtually undetectable, at least with what we can do here.”

  “But wouldn’t endotoxins require an initial infection, or colic, or some sort of nasty sickness to set them off?”

  “Usually.”

  “There wasn’t any.”

  “Right. So, let’s say we can rule out endotoxins. That pretty much takes care of possibilities in our first group, poisons. Any chance of anoxia?”

  “I checked that horse’s airway from nostrils to alveoli. It was clear all the way, no obstruction anywhere.”

  “And his stall was well ventilated, right?”

  “Ed, come on. This was a multi-million dollar horse. He lived in the lap of luxury.”

  “Just asking. I’m grasping for anything here. Take it easy.”

  “Sorry. I was hoping for a cause of death that was totally out of our control. You know — some weird act of God, so that we could put this thing to rest.”

  “You’re dreaming.”

  “Asking quite a lot, isn’t it?”

  “I’d give it to you if I could. Unfortunately, things hardly ever work out that neatly.”

  “I know you’re doing your best. You are the best.”

  “I’ll get you a written report that summarizes everything. Officially, the cause of death is undetermined.”

  Kent blew a humorless laugh through his nose, too soft for Dr. Holmes to hear. Then he said, “Thanks again, Ed, for letting me bother you at home. You keep me posted, and I’ll do the same for you.”

  “You got it. Good talking to you.”

  When Kent returned to the kitchen, a hot meal and warm company was waiting. He hardly noticed either.

  CHAPTER 8

  Kent’s leather-heeled shoes clicked on the freshly buffed floors of the Syracuse airport terminal. Emily’s sneakers squeaked softly as her gait caused her foot to twist with each step. The drone of a maintenance worker’s vacuum cleaner harmonized with the hum of a huge ventilation system. Predawn blackness outside made the terminal windows reflect like enormous anthracitic mirrors. The security guard operating a metal detector dozed on a stool beside her machine. She still had an hour till the real hustle and bustle began.

  Within minutes Kent and Emily would be reunited with Maria Castille, and that thought raised Kent’s spirits. A mix of impatience and warmth roiled in his chest like a parent waiting for a long-absent child. He looked over at Emily. She hadn’t stopped talking about Maria since the letter arrived a week ago. Now she was beside herself.

  “Why do you figure Maria left her job in Kentucky?” Emily asked, as she dropped into a chair near the gate. “She didn’t say why in her letter.”

  Kent shrugged. “She’ll tell us when she gets here.”

  He was wondering the same thing. After graduation from Clinton College, Maria had taken the perfect job at Hector Figurante’s Farm, Criadero Del Jugador. It was one of Kentucky’s premier Thoroughbred horse farms. An occasional letter from her had indicated all was going well. Why would she give that up?

  Maria was the eldest daughter of one of Ecuador’s wealthiest men. Her father sent her to Clinton College, in Jefferson, because, even though it was a small school, it offered strong programs in both equine studies and business, which fit perfectly into Señor Castille’s plan to have Maria manage the family’s horse farm outside of Quito when she returned to Ecuador.

  During the spring semester of their senior year, all equine studies students at Clinton were required to work in a horse-related field. Maria pulled down a much-sought-after internship at the CVC. Since spring was the foaling season and generated so much night emergency work, Kent had arranged for
her to stay at Pine Holt. That way she could accompany him on night calls, where the real action was. Maria and Emily had become instant pals.

  “There she is, Doc,” Emily said, pointing through the glass. “That’s Maria.” She broke for the arrival gate, and yelled for him to hurry up.

  He waved for her to go ahead. He loved seeing Emily so happy and was content to watch the girls reunite from a distance.

  The double glass doors swung open and a herd of passengers pushed through splitting left and right to hugs of loved ones, car rental desks, and the bag claim area. Two heavyset businessmen peeled off, and there was Maria. Her normally springy stride was encumbered by the weight of two oversize carry-ons. The hem of her light wool coat nearly dragged on the floor with each step. Kent chuckled at the sight of her struggling. When Maria saw Emily, her face broke into a radiant smile. He had forgotten how captivating that smile could be.

  He saw instantly that Maria had matured in the year she was away. She had grown slightly taller into delicately framed womanhood. The erratic body movements of youth were now replaced by fluid grace. The foal had become a beautiful filly.

  Maria wrapped Emily in a swaying, sighing, from-the-bottom-of-the-heart embrace. Then, for a long moment they held each other at arms length, smiling and laughing, oblivious to other passengers skirting around them.

  Maria was endowed with utterly smooth black hair. Her mahogany eyes were embellished with long lashes and the Kentucky spring had changed her olive skin to a silky bronze.

  “Can I help you with your bags, Miss?” Kent said, and his greeting startled both girls.

  “Doc,” Maria said, forcing herself to show restraint. “It’s good to see you.” She extended her hand, politely.

  “Don’t give me that formal stuff,” Kent said, as he pushed her hand aside and lifted her in a bear hug. “If you’re going to be a member of our family, you’d better start acting like one.”

  Emily applauded. “Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.”