Simpatico's Gift

by Frank Martorana

  So, year after year, Charles dumped a small fortune into maintaining the hundred-year-old building and grounds.

  He stood along the lakeshore looking back toward the house. Its peacefulness and permanence always made him uncomfortable, but it was worse today. He hadn’t slept since he and Aubrey had contrived their plan to question Burton Bush, and he knew nothing was going to put him at ease except being done with it.

  He called to Burton, who was unloading tools from a shed while Ninja circled at his feet. Together they walked out onto the narrow wooden pier. Charles pointed out several rotten planks green and slippery with mossy decay. Burton slogged along at his side.

  “I hired on to work with horses, not to be some dumb-ass maintenance man.”

  “I pay you to work. This is what needs to be done,” Charles said.

  They made it to the end and stood looking out across the lake for so long that Burton began to sense that something was up. He treaded nervously. Charles felt his hired man’s suspicion and figured the longer he stalled, the worse it would get. Finally, he blurted the whole story just as he had heard it from Aubrey, except he skipped the names of the individuals involved.

  “Which one of those bastards told you that?” Burton said, in a whiny voice. “I’ll beat the shit out of him. I didn’t kill your goddamn horse, Charles. You believe that bullshit? Come on.”

  Charles studied his lackey through squinted eyes. “Not necessarily, but the person who brought this to my attention is not a liar.”

  “Oh, but I am?” Burton’s face folded into a tearful expression. “Why am I always the one who gets accused of everything? No one ever takes my side.”

  Charles shrugged. “Let’s hear your side.”

  “Bullshit! I had no fucking thing to do with any dead horse!”

  “Take it easy. If you didn’t kill Simpatico, you and I are all good. But I’m telling you, we will catch whoever did it. And, so help me, I’ll see them fry.”

  Burton’s eyes widened. He jerked visibly, as if jolted by electricity. His mouth transformed from a pout to a sneer. He moved in, his face inches from Charles’s. “Fry? Fucking fry? You son-of-a-bitch! You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  Charles stepped back.

  Burton fed on his employer’s fear and let out a nasty little laugh. “All right, you rich fucking asshole, you wanna know how I killed your goddamn horse? I put a bag over his ugly face and watched him suffocate. Slowly. It took a hell of a lot longer than I figured, but I kinda’ enjoyed watching him go down.” He smiled a hideous smile. “And I’ll tell you why I — “

  Burton was cut off in mid-sentence by the impact of Charles’s fist on his jaw. There was rage on his boss’s face. He saw Charles coming at him, hands groping for his throat. Burton ducked, twisting under the smaller man, and allowing momentum to carry Charles past him. Charles braced a foot to recover. A loud cracking sound startled both men as a disintegrating deck plank gave way under Charles’s weight. He tried for firmer footing on the algae-laden surface of the old pier, but his feet slid as Burton lunged at him. The pier rocked and, for a moment, it seemed the whole thing would collapse into the water. Charles landed flat and hard on the boards as Burton’s colossal weight came down hard on top of him.

  Burton felt Charles shudder. It was more like a short convulsion. He scrambled off and crouched a few feet away, braced and ready for Charles to renew the attack. Charles didn’t move. Burton stared through terrified eyes. He’s dead, he’s not moving. The ex-con had dealt with death before. Death meant police, courts, and prison. He’d been there and wanted no part of it.

  For almost a minute, Burton sat petrified, not knowing what to do, watching. Then he noticed just the faintest movement of Charles’s chest — barely visible. Yes, it was there again. Charles was breathing. Relief waved over Burton. “I got to get an ambulance,” he mumbled in Ninja’s direction, then took off toward the house at a run.

  As he stepped from the pier onto the lawn, Burton’s pace slowed. He continued for a few more strides, then stopped, hands on hips, his back to the pier.

  “That asshole just accused me of murdering his horse,” he said to Ninja. “And I just confessed. I told him the whole goddamn story.”

  He turned and looked out at the pier. Charles had not moved. Burton scanned the shore. No observers. No nearby boats either. He hesitated for one more second, then turned and headed back out over the water. He squatted next to his unconscious employer, made some inaudible curse, and with one heave, rolled Charles’s flaccid frame into the water. It floated there, face down, rocking gently on the ripples. The sole witness to the entire gruesome event was Ninja, who seemed totally at ease with it.

  Burton watched for a moment, making sure that the water did not stimulate Charles to consciousness. He was no longer running on adrenalin as he moved in the icy, calculating mode of one who had successfully committed murder. He flashed a satisfied smile toward Ninja.

  Calmly, Burton left the pier, walked to the shed, retrieved a hedge trimmer, and proceeded to the front lawn. He played out an orange snake of electric cord to the yew near the road and, reveling in his own cleverness, began trimming with enough bravura to ensure that occupants of several passing cars would notice him at work.

  Eventually, he eased around the bushes, out of sight from the road, found a suitable maple branch and wedged it firmly between the steel teeth of the trimmer. He pressed the trigger and the little electric motor responded with a brief surge as it strained against the stick, then it settled into a monotonous electrical drone. Burton sat on the ground holding the trigger and waited. Within minutes the acrid smell of an over-heated electric motor wafted up to his nose, then he saw smoke. The drone changed to a whine for a few seconds, and then quiet. Burton picked up the burned-out hedge trimmer, flipped the wood from its blade, and set it in view of the road.

  He walked nonchalantly back to the house. It was 11:35 a.m. when Jefferson ambulance dispatchers took the call: Drowning at the St. Pierre’s Lake House.

  CHAPTER 21

  Kent knelt in the fresh straw in one of VinChaRo’s maternity stalls. His eyes rested on the two-week-old foal lying in front of him as it gulped air through purplish lips. It grunted with each painful breath. Kent knew the filly was dying and he knew he was utterly helpless — to relieve the foal’s agony, or to ease Aubrey’s sadness because of it.

  “She’s lost a lot of ground since yesterday,” Kent said.

  Aubrey wiped a tear off her cheek. “Uh-huh,” she said, her throat too tight for anything more.

  They used a bale of straw to prop the filly upright, hoping that changing her position would shift the fluid in her lungs and allow her to breathe easier. All she did was stretch her neck out and rest her chin in the straw. There was no improvement in her breathing. The filly’s anxious mother nickered nervously to her baby. Osvaldo held her in the corner and soothed her in Spanish.

  This was the part of the veterinarian’s job that Kent hated. It was always the same — he’d give the owner his opinion, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred they would take his recommendation. He’d never been able to rationalize it — all he was doing was making a suggestion, it was the owner who made the ultimate decision — when virtually all of them went the way he advised them. No, he was the professional, it was his decision. It was in the best interest of the patient, he truly believed that, or he would never recommend it, but it was devastating for the owners — and much tougher on the veterinarian than most clients imagined.

  He spoke slowly, allowing Aubrey to come to terms. “One day the foal looks better, the next day she is bad again. That’s typical of foal pneumonia. And it’s what makes it difficult to know when to quit. You’ve been through it before.”

  Aubrey knelt next to the frail creature, stroked her chestnut shoulder, and teased a piece of straw from the IV line coiling from her neck. “I know,”
she said, crying and talking at the same time. “But she was trying so hard. I mean until now, I kept thinking she could fight her way through this.”

  “I’m sure an abscess in her lung has ruptured into her blood stream. It showered particles of infection throughout her body. That’s why she has gotten so much worse overnight.”

  “She looks so pitiful.”

  “Yes, she does. And it’s not fair to leave her this way. I’m willing to control an animal’s suffering for a while, if it looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel, and there has been until now. But if there isn’t, then it’s our responsibility to see that the suffering ends.”

  Aubrey stroked the foal and did not reply.

  Kent handed her his handkerchief. “You’ve worked with this filly day and night for how long now? We can honestly say you did all you could do.”

  “But it didn’t work.”

  “No, it didn’t work.”

  “How much longer would she live like she is? I mean if we kept her on IVs and antibiotics?”

  “I don’t know. A day or two at the most. She can’t breathe. She’s drowning in her own body fluids.”

  “What if we give her more oxygen?” Aubrey’s tone was desperate.

  Kent bent down next to her, touched her chin, gently turned her to face him, and looked straight into her eyes. “We might prolong things a few hours, but we won’t change the outcome.”

  As Aubrey searched his face for an explanation of why this had happened. He hated himself for not having one. She buried her head against his chest and cried, her body quaking with deep sobs. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged until she was quiet. Then he gently kissed the crown of her head.

  Eventually, slowly, Aubrey turned back to the waning foal and petted her again. “Sorry, baby. I love you.” She nodded the consent that her heart would not allow her to verbalize, and she stepped out of the stall, leaving Kent and Osvaldo to perform the act of mercy.

  Kent stepped across the stall to his grip and extracted a vial of euthanasia solution, the infamous blue juice. Its cyanic iridescence was the result of the manufacturer’s intentional addition of a fluorescent blue dye. The color was unique and unmistakably different from any other medicine, making it impossible for a clinician to grab the lethal liquid by mistake.

  He inverted the bottle over a syringe and glanced once more at the frail creature. Estimating its body weight, Kent drew up the required dose, set the vial back in his case, stepped back to the foal.

  “We won’t let you suffer any more, little lady,” he said, as he delivered the solution into the IV line.

  The mare sent a mournful whinny echoing through the barn.

  Even before Kent retracted the needle, the foal’s rattily breathing stopped and her tortured body slacked into peacefulness.

  He closed his grip methodically and turned to Osvaldo. “The sooner we get the body out of here the better for the mare.”

  Osvaldo nodded. “Right now, jefe.”

  Kent was glad Maria and Emily had chosen to go trail riding today.

  He found Aubrey propped against the wall in dark shadows at the far end of VinChaRo’s long barn. She was staring blankly out into the sunlight.

  Kent leaned next to her.

  “How many times have we been through this?” she asked.

  He drew a deep breath and released it slowly. “Over the years? I don’t really know. Lots.”

  “You’d think we’d get hardened to it, wouldn’t you?”

  “No, Aubrey. We can’t ever get comfortable losing any of our horses, whether it’s a new foal, or Simpatico, or any other one. They are what we work for. They are a part of us.”

  As she looked up at him she smiled through red eyes.

  He pulled her close, and felt the softness of her hair against his throat as she nestled against him.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  As they were walking back through the darkened alleyway, they noticed a silhouette against the sunlight at the far end. Both of them knew instantly it was Elizabeth coming toward them. She was running. When she was closer, they recognized panic on her face.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you two. I just got a call from the police. There has been a terrible accident at the Lake House. They said Charles drowned!”

  “Drowned?” Aubrey covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my God. Are you sure?”

  “I’m on my way there this minute,” Elizabeth said.

  Aubrey could see her trembling. How horrible it must be to lose a son.

  “My car is out front. Kent and I will take you,” Aubrey more ordered than offered.

  The Lake House driveway was plugged with emergency vehicles parked haphazardly, roof lights still blinking ominously, two-way radios barking disjointed bits of dispatcher lingo to no one in particular. They parked on the road and walked in. At the pier an ambulance was already backed into position, rear doors swung wide open. The shoreline was swarming with police, EMT’s, and other first responders.

  Off to one side, away from the confusion, Kent noticed a local cop sitting next to a pair of State Troopers interviewing Burton Bush at a patio table. The local cop was his brother, Merrill. He was quiet. The Staties were doing all the talking. Kent took Aubrey by the elbow and directed her toward the interview as Elizabeth raced toward the ambulance.

  When they were within earshot, Kent heard Burton giving his version of the incident. His demeanor — pure shock and grief. One Trooper asked the questions. The other recorded notes on a pad.

  “So, I was out front trimming the hedge like Mr. St. Pierre told me. Then, the trimmer started quitting on me. So I . . .”

  “What do you mean quit on you?” the Trooper asked.

  “Well, it kinda lost power,” Burton whined. “It wouldn’t cut. And it started to hum funny and smell hot.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So I figured I’d find Mr. St. Pierre and see what he wanted me to do about it. You know, go get it fixed, find something else to do, like that. The rest is like I told you already.” His voice dripped helplessness. “I went around back and found him. Then I called for an ambulance.”

  “How’d you know where to find him?”

  “I guess I didn’t really, at first. He just said he was going to be working on the lakeside yard. When I couldn’t find him, I remembered he said something about checking out what it was going to take to get the pier fixed up. So I looked around and — there he was — floating.” He gave a theatrical shuddered.

  “Did you hear anything unusual?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear him shout for help?”

  “No.”

  “Was he moving?”

  “Just floating.”

  “Face down.”

  “Right.”

  “Then you pulled him up on shore.”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you attempt to revive him?”

  Burton stared down between his knees. “No,” he choked out, “I could tell he was dead.”

  “How?”

  Burton looked directly at the cop, his face twisted, recalling the horrible memory. “His eyes. They had that look. I knew he was dead.”

  He reached into the breast pocket of his tee-shirt, pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, then slowly tapped one out and lit it. He drew deeply, leaning back with eyes closed. When he reopened them, he jerked suddenly, this time for real, startled to see Aubrey and Kent staring at him. His face flushed. Anger shot from his eyes before he could force himself back into character.

  Kent could almost see the hairs on the back of Aubrey’s neck stir.

  “You called from the house phone?” the officer continued.

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it? Where in the house?”

  Burton gestured toward the house
. “Just inside the glass doors. On a table to the left.”

  “Why were you and Mr. St. Pierre out here anyway?”

  “He asked me to come down with him to do some work around here, like the lawns and pier and stuff. He’s the boss, so I came along.”

  “Was there anyone else?”

  “No. Just us.”

  The interrogation lapsed into a chronicling of details.

  Kent nudged Aubrey away to find Elizabeth. They got to the pier and muscled through the onlookers just in time to see the medical examiner complete the grisly task of confirming Charles’s death. The examiner nodded to the ambulance crew who zipped the body bag closed, lifted it into the back, and slammed the doors.

  Elizabeth turned to Aubrey. “I can’t believe this is happening. How can this be?”

  Aubrey steadied her with an arm around her waist. “We don’t know yet. Let me take you home, Elizabeth. There’s nothing more to do here.”

  Elizabeth followed submissively.

  CHAPTER 22

  Between the foal’s euthanasia and Charles’s drowning, Kent and Aubrey both were in dire need of consolation. They decided to meet at her place after work, since Barry had informed his mother that he had volunteered to monitor a particularly critical patient for Peter Murphy on the night shift at the CVC, and therefore would not be home till morning.

  They made drinks, then made love — several rounds of each.

  Kent managed to unwind to that perfect level of post-coital contentment that men live for, but Aubrey remained ill at ease. Several times she propped herself up, summoned her courage, and started to tell Kent how she and Charles had planned for him to meet Burton at the Lake House. But, each time she held back. It sounded so utterly stupid. Why had they thought there was even a ghost of chance it could work?

  Kent sensed her angst, and would have called her on it, had he not wanted to hold the moment. Instead, he caressed her, and coaxed her to relax. After a while, Kent dropped off into a death-like sleep, Aubrey tossed and turned the night away.