Death by Equine

by Annette Dashofy

  “The feds?”

  “United States Department of Agriculture. I’ve already called and alerted them we may have an outbreak. I’ll let them know what the initial tests show. They’ll decide where we go from there.”

  “When will you get the tests back?”

  “At least twenty-four hours, but I’ll bet it won’t be until the first of the week. No one wants to work in a lab on a beautiful spring weekend.”

  Milt swore under his breath.

  There was another call she’d been avoiding. “I imagine Daniel’s heard the news by now.”

  “Maybe not. He hasn’t come in yet. At least he hadn’t when I was over at the front office fifteen, twenty minutes ago.”

  Jessie knew the quarantine, especially if it went track-wide, would be costly. She wondered how Daniel would deal with the situation. She wondered how he would deal with her.

  Milt had grown pensive.

  Jessie looked around the room at the battered file cabinets, the ratty sofa, the faded winner’s circle photos tacked on the wall. Her eyes settled on the framed veterinary license bearing Doc’s name. “He could’ve prevented this, you know.”

  “Daniel?”

  “No. Doc.”

  Milt’s face became a portrait of perplexed amusement. “Now, Jessie, I know you think Doc was some kind of superhero, but even he couldn’t have stopped this.”

  “That’s not what I mean. He’d been falsifying Coggins tests. His signature is on the papers for that horse. If it turns out they were faked...” The ramifications made her queasy. “The blood test would’ve caught the presence of the virus. The horse would never have made it through the gate.”

  Milt remained silent, watching her. She waited for a response that didn’t come.

  “I’ve been learning a lot about Doc,” she went on. “I thought I knew the man. Obviously, I didn’t. Now, besides all the other nonsense, he’s put the lives of his patients in jeopardy.”

  Milt still didn’t utter a word.

  She wished he’d try to argue the point, if only to make her feel better. With a sigh, she set her phone on the desk in front of her. “I have to call Daniel.”

  Milt drew a noisy breath in through his teeth. “What are you gonna tell him?”

  “About the falsified Coggins results. That we may have more horses on the premises that haven’t been properly tested.”

  Milt rested his elbows on his knees and stared between them at his boots. “Shumway already knows.”

  Sixteen

  “What do you mean, he knows?”

  Milt didn’t meet her gaze. “Doc used blood from a ringer. He’d send it to the lab instead of bothering to draw blood from some of the horses. Especially the ones that were hard to handle. Shumway knew about it.”

  Jessie struggled to comprehend what she’d just heard. Daniel knew? She stared at Milt as another realization struck her. “You knew.”

  His head bobbed.

  Jessie suddenly felt like a complete outsider. It was an experience she’d known all too well growing up. As if everyone was in on the joke but her. Worse, this time she felt like the joke was on her. In addition to Doc, Daniel and Milt were fast becoming total strangers.

  She dug her fingernails into the surface of the desktop hoping it would somehow anchor her in the reality that was spinning out of her grasp. “How could Daniel know about this and not put a stop to it?”

  “He wanted to. But Doc had the goods on him and threatened to spill if he said anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Milt climbed to his feet and rammed his hands into his jeans’ pockets. He paced to the file cabinets and stood there, his back to her. “Daniel Shumway isn’t his real name. I don’t know what it is, but Doc did. Just like Doc knew he’d spent time in prison. Shumway, or whoever he is, killed a man. It was years ago, mind you, but the fact of the matter is he’s a convict.” Milt turned, meeting her eyes for the first time since the topic of Daniel had come up. “He’s got a criminal record, you see. No way should he be able to hold a gaming license and run a racetrack. When Shumway caught wind of Doc swapping blood samples for Coggins tests and threatened to go to the authorities, Doc told him two could do that dance. If Shumway turned him in, Doc would go to the racing commission. This track is all Shumway’s got and he’d lose all of it. So he kept quiet, and Doc went right on doing what he’d been doing.”

  Jessie closed her eyes and wished she could shut out her thoughts as easily. “Daniel killed a man?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “When? Where? What happened?”

  “I wish I could tell you more, but as far as I know, Doc took Shumway’s secret to his grave.”

  “How’d Doc find out?” She opened her eyes to see Milt shaking his head.

  “He never told me the details, and I never asked.”

  “That’s how you know about all this? Doc told you?”

  Milt lowered his head. He didn’t reply. He didn’t need to.

  Jessie buried her face in her hands. “No. This is a mistake. You misunderstood. Or Doc was lying. I don’t believe Daniel’s a murderer.”

  Milt moved to her side. He put a hand on her shoulder. Gave a gentle squeeze. Then he left without another word.

  WHEN JESSIE WAS GROWING up, her parents’ response to adversity involved packing up her and her brother and leaving town. She’d hated it. Hated running. Hated being on the move. But after talking to Milt, she wanted more than anything to climb into her truck and just drive.

  Daniel? A murderer?

  She stuffed her phone in her pocket and made it halfway across the exam area before coming to a stop. Where did she think she’d go? To her trashed house? She wheeled and returned to the office where Molly had climbed onto the desk and sat looking at her with big yellow eyes.

  Jessie closed the door and leaned against it, watching the cat watch her. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  She removed the phone again and slid into her chair before keying in Greg’s number. When his voicemail answered, she let out a disgusted growl and left a message to call her.

  She stroked Molly as the seed of an idea sprouted.

  According to Milt, Daniel had already served time for his crime. She’d known him as “Daniel Shumway,” upstanding citizen, for just shy of ten years. Whatever he’d done had to be ancient history. It wasn’t like he was a serial killer lurking in their midst.

  Jessie almost talked herself into leaving Daniel’s past buried. Except if Doc had threatened Daniel, would the charming and handsome racetrack CEO revert to old ways?

  Just like Jessie almost reverted to running away?

  The idea bloomed, and her gaze settled on the file cabinets. Steeling for whatever she might find, she rose and approached them.

  The files she’d taken home, now largely ash, had only been from “A” to “H.” Shumway should still be here. Although, knowing Doc’s odd filing system, she couldn’t be sure. She dove into the drawer marked “S” and was relieved to find a folder with Daniel’s name scrawled across the tab. She carried it back to the desk. What did she expect to find in there? What she hoped to find was nothing. Nothing incriminating, nothing out of the ordinary. She might not be able to prove him guilty or innocent by strict legal standards, but perhaps she could put her mind at ease. She flipped the folder open.

  Daniel didn’t own any racehorses. Conflict of interest, she imagined. He did, however, own two Appaloosas, which were used as lead ponies to escort the racehorses to the track and starting gate. She thumbed through the stack of paperwork and noted the usual assortment of minor emergencies and standard inoculations and tests. Nothing abnormal.

  Until the last page. A notation dated a week before Doc’s death listed a vial of acepromazine had been dispensed to Daniel. But the handwriting didn’t match the rest of the entries.

  Jessie closed the file. Sherry had given Daniel the same drug responsible for Doc’s death. Or had she? Maybe s
he’d penned the notation to set Daniel up to take the fall for her own crime.

  The word premeditation screamed inside Jessie’s head.

  She picked up her phone. Tried Greg’s number again, and again she got his voicemail. Maybe he was at the house. She tried that number. Her voice on the answering machine greeted her. At least the phone line had been repaired. She hung up without leaving a message. “Where are you when I need you?” she asked Greg and slapped the phone down on the desk.

  She opened the desk’s top drawer and removed the silver and turquoise barrette. Rubbing the smooth stone with her thumb, she contemplated what to do next. No doubt the wisest choice would be to wait until Greg returned her call. Let him play connect the dots with all her new information.

  The barrette stared up at her.

  She picked up the phone again and entered a different number. This time the phone at the other end picked up.

  “Milt?” she said. “I need your help.”

  “ARE YOU SURE ABOUT this?” Milt waved away a fly buzzing around his head.

  Jessie gazed doubtfully at the front of the rec hall. They’d asked five or six different people before someone reported seeing Sherry there. “I’m not sure about anything anymore.”

  Milt and Jessie weaved around a crowd gathered outside the building. He paused and let her climb the wooden steps ahead of him.

  “Maybe you oughta hold off a while. Think this through.” He swatted at the fly again.

  She was tired of thinking. She wanted to do something—anything—to disprove her suspicions about Daniel.

  The weathered wood and screen door screeched open. Milt let it slam behind him once they were inside. Four wiry-looking men sat in a huddle at one table discussing the day’s events or yesterday’s race results or maybe the threat of quarantine. Two young women in dirty sleeveless t-shirts and blue jeans occupied another table. A TV perched high in one corner aired televised races from another track. As Jessie’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, she spotted Sherry at the back of the room, alone, playing pinball.

  The treads of Jessie’s boots squished against the tacky floor as she headed toward Doc’s daughter.

  “About time you showed up.” Sherry kept her eyes on the game.

  Milt grabbed a chair, turned it around, and straddled the back.

  Jessie walked around the machine and shouldered the scoreboard. She wanted to see Sherry’s face. “You were expecting us?”

  “You anyway.” She tipped her head in Milt’s direction. “Didn’t expect you’d bring reinforcements to help rub salt in my wounds.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You haven’t heard? I got a call today from my dad’s attorney. It seems he changed his will before he died.” Sherry bumped the machine hard with her hip. “He didn’t leave me his practice after all.”

  “Oh?” Jessie realized her voice carried too much pleasure. She noticed one corner of Milt’s mouth slanting upward.

  “Don’t get too excited. He didn’t leave it to you either.”

  Had he left his illegitimate daughter anything at all, or had killing her father netted her absolutely nothing?

  Sherry must’ve had mindreading skills. “He left me money instead.” She rocked the machine. “Not enough to buy his practice from Amelia, as if she’d ever sell it to me. But enough to repay some money I owe.”

  Jessie pondered the source of those loans, but then she spotted the plain brown leather clip in Sherry’s hair. She fingered the silver and turquoise one in her pocket, regaining her focus. “I notice you’re not wearing that pretty barrette you usually have in your hair.”

  Sherry removed a hand from the button on the side of the pinball machine to touch the back of her head. “I lost it the other day.”

  Jessie considered revealing where she’d lost it but decided to keep her ace in the hole concealed for now. Instead, she shifted topics. “How long have you known about Doc falsifying Coggins tests?”

  Sherry slammed her hip into the machine again. “Yes,” she hissed at the metal ball hurtling from flipper to bumper beneath the glass. To Jessie, she said, “Does it really matter?”

  “You knew the gray was sick. You suspected EIA. I’d say it matters.”

  Sherry jiggled the machine like a pro, keeping the ball in action. “I don’t know how long. It was just something Doc would do every so often if he knew the horse was healthy.”

  “Healthy?” Jessie exclaimed. “You think that gray was healthy?”

  Sherry didn’t reply.

  “And you covered for him.”

  A muscle in Sherry’s jaw twitched, but she didn’t respond.

  Time to change direction. “Tell me about Daniel Shumway.”

  Sherry glanced up just long enough for the pinball to get kicked into the oblivion between the flippers. “Goddamn it,” she muttered when the machine’s electronic music spiraled downward. Then she stepped back and met Jessie’s gaze for the first time since she’d arrived. “What about Shumway?”

  “According to Doc’s records, a vial of acepromazine was dispensed to Shumway a week before Doc’s death.” Jessie’s fingers traced the shape of the barrette in her jeans’ pocket. “Except it wasn’t Doc’s handwriting. It was yours.”

  Sherry’s face remained impassive. “So?”

  “You admit giving it to him?”

  Sherry gave a one-shouldered shrug. “He runs the place. If he wanted the stuff, I gave it to him. Lots of people use ace, you know. Most of the time it’s no big deal.”

  Most of the time. Not this time.

  Back at their trucks, Milt parked a hand on Jessie’s door, keeping her from opening it. “What was that all about?” he asked incredulously. “I thought you said you needed a bodyguard.”

  “I thought I might,” Jessie said. “But since Sherry’s playing things close to the vest, I decided I should too.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I get the feeling you’re fixin’ to do something stupid.”

  “Probably.” The plan started to form the moment Sherry hadn’t reacted when Jessie accused her of dispensing the ace to Daniel. Jessie preferred to give it more thought, but from the look on Milt’s face, he clearly wasn’t about to back down. “Every other notation in Daniel’s records was made by Doc, except that one. That one was made by Sherry.”

  Milt didn’t budge.

  “Either Daniel did request a vial of ace from Sherry and she gave it to him...”

  “Or?”

  “Or she made it up. Wrote it in the records to throw suspicion in Daniel’s direction.” Jessie lowered her voice, thinking out loud. “Sherry knows about Doc falsifying the Coggins tests. Heck, she helped him. He’d have shared with her what he knew about Daniel. She knew he had a motive, and if he didn’t come under suspicion on his own, she could easily point the police in his direction.”

  Milt looked like he’d caught a whiff of something foul. “I hate to tell you, darlin’. You might be trying to play your cards close to your vest, but you just showed your king, asking her about Shumway. Her giving him the drug and all. She won’t have to tell the police anything. She knows you will.”

  Jessie flinched. Milt was right about showing too much of her hand. If Daniel was innocent, Jessie might’ve set herself up to be part of the frame job.

  Seventeen

  The hour before dawn suggested a gray day ahead with clouds blocking the stars. The air carried a promise of rain.

  The reality of Jessie’s plan set in, making her queasy as she drove past the clinic. A few of the shedrows displayed lights and activity—horses being saddled and prepared for their early morning exercise. But most remained dark and still.

  Jessie kept the truck at a crawl all the way to the chain-link fence at the edge of the Monongahela River. She braked to a stop at the corner of Barn A where Daniel stabled his horses. It was deserted. She exhaled a relieved sigh.

  An idea struck her. She shifted into reverse, backed up, and swung the truck into the road ab
ove the barn, even though Daniel’s stalls were located on the lower side. As an afterthought, she pulled closer to Barn D across the road. Hopefully, if anyone spotted her Chevy, they’d assume she was attending to a patient there.

  She slid down from the cab, shivered, and zipped her hooded sweatshirt. With a pair of Latex gloves stuffed in her hip pocket and her stethoscope draped around her neck, she dumped a few supplies in a white bucket to cover the items in the bottom. Should she be caught, she’d say she received a text about an emergency. If pressured, she’d claim they must have typed in the wrong barn.

  Yeah, right.

  She picked up the bucket and crossed the road to enter the upper side of Barn A. She tried to act nonchalant. Professional. Relaxed. Just another routine call.

  Except her teeth were chattering, and she’d broken out in a nervous sweat.

  She made her way toward the center of the shedrow and slipped into the covered walkway that separated Barns A and B, reaching the door to Daniel’s tack room. The flashlight from her phone revealed a sign that read, “Private Property. Keep Out.” She’d made it. So far, so good.

  She lowered her light to a padlocked hasp and hoped it had been left unlocked. A quick yank proved it hadn’t. This couldn’t possibly be that easy.

  She rummaged through the bucket to find the short length of wire and screwdriver she’d stashed beneath the boxes of sterile pads, bandages, and tape. She bent the wire and inserted it into the slot at the base of the lock. The absurdity of the situation struck her. Dr. Jessie Cameron: Secret Agent. Maybe she should consider a change in careers.

  She worked the wire this way and that to no avail, removed and re-shaped it before making another failed effort. This always worked on TV.

  The crunch of tires on gravel alerted her to the approach of a vehicle. The humor of her predicament quickly faded. The makeshift key didn’t operate any better with sweat dripping in her eyes.