Death by Equine

by Annette Dashofy

  Greg’s gaze shifted between them. “Hey, Jess. Daniel.”

  Daniel gave a nod of acknowledgment.

  “What’s going on?” Greg said to Jessie. “I got your message that you wanted to talk to me.”

  “I did.” But alone.

  Daniel crumpled his empty cup and tossed it in the trash before turning toward Greg. “You missed the mob scene.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was nothing.” Jessie tried to sound nonchalant. “Concerned horse owners and trainers. That’s all.”

  “She handled them like a pro. You should use her for riot control.” Daniel grinned as if nothing were wrong.

  Jessie marveled at his acting skills.

  “Are you okay?” Greg asked her.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What did you call him about?” Daniel asked. “Have you come up with anything new about Doc’s death?”

  Was she imagining the ominous tone in Daniel’s voice? She looked at Greg, her eyes wide, and hoped he’d be able to read her silent plea. “Nothing new. I just needed to talk to you. About personal stuff.”

  One of Greg’s eyebrows hiked up his forehead.

  “The lawyer you’ve hounded me to get. I wanted to ask you about a few names I’ve come up with.”

  Greg’s second eyebrow joined the first one. “Really?” He sounded pleased. The bastard.

  “Well, you don’t need me for this.” Daniel stepped between Jessie and Greg, stopped, and looked at her. “Unless you want me to stick around.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She hoped her relief didn’t show.

  “By the way, did you happen to see anyone hanging around my barn this morning when you were there?”

  Her mouth went dry. “No. Why?”

  “Someone broke the lock on my tack room door.”

  “Really?” Greg said. “Did they take anything?”

  Daniel glanced over his shoulder at him. “I didn’t notice anything missing.”

  Greg pulled out his notebook. “Do you want to file a report?”

  “That won’t be necessary. Nothing appeared tampered with. No signs of anyone being in there at all. Except the broken lock.” Daniel’s gaze stayed on Jessie.

  “Do you want me to take a look at it?”

  “No. Thanks just the same.”

  Jessie fought to remain expressionless. It had been way too long since she played poker in college. And she was never very good at it. She studied Daniel’s face, struggling to read his expression. Apparently, he was a much better poker player than she.

  “I’ll leave you two to your personal business. Keep me posted about the testing, okay?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Daniel caressed her cheek with the back of one finger and then strode out of the clinic.

  Once he was gone, Jessie let out the breath she’d been holding and sank against the doorframe.

  “What the hell was that all about? You didn’t call me here to talk about lawyers.”

  “No, I didn’t.” She motioned for Greg to follow her into the office. “I need to sit down.”

  Eighteen

  “You know, Jess, of all the idiotic things you’ve done, breaking into Shumway’s tack room ranks right up there.”

  Exasperated, Jessie deposited the tabby, who had been snuggling in her lap, onto the office floor. “I admit it wasn’t my finest moment. But seriously. I just told you Shumway may not be his real name. He may have killed someone and served time for it, and Doc was probably blackmailing him. And all you can say is I’m an idiot?” She stood and stormed around the desk to lean against the file cabinets.

  Greg remained seated on the sofa, Molly in his lap. “What exactly did you hope to accomplish? You can’t verify the drug you found was the same one injected into that horse.”

  “I hoped I wouldn’t find anything. I hoped to prove he’d never taken possession of the stuff in the first place.” She’d hoped—and failed—to prove Sherry was trying to throw suspicion on an innocent man.

  “Still wouldn’t prove anything. What if he’d left it in his truck? Or at his house? Or what if he’d tossed what was left in the trash?”

  “Okay,” she snapped. “I’m a lousy detective. I get it.”

  Greg rubbed Molly’s black ears in silence. When he spoke again, his tone was softer. “You really care for this guy, don’t you?”

  She remembered how Daniel had looked in his suit. Thought of the kiss at her back door. God, she wanted things to be different. To be easy. She wanted to look into Daniel’s eyes and feel safe in his arms. She wanted a little sappy romance in her life.

  Greg’s voice sliced through her fantasy. “I really wish you’d let go of your obsession with a murder that never happened.”

  She wheeled on him. “You still don’t believe Doc was murdered?”

  Greg hesitated before replying. “I think you’re stirring up stuff that could get you into trouble. You’re not making a lot of friends over this, you know.”

  “I can’t help the quarantine.”

  “I know you can’t, but it’s more than that. Shumway saw you by his stable and now the lock to his tack room is broken. He’s not a moron, Jess. And there’s everyone else you’ve been accusing. Whether or not one of them had anything to do with Doc’s death, none of them are looking too favorably at you right now. You’re poking a sleeping bear with a stick.”

  He had a point. “So what do we do?”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” His annoying grin had returned.

  “I mean about Daniel. I have the vial of ace from his tack room. It looks to me like it’s missing about one dose.”

  “Damn, you’re good. You can tell just by looking at it, huh? Besides, that vial doesn’t mean a thing. How many partially used bottles of tranquilizer do you suppose there are around this track? Twenty? Thirty maybe?”

  At least. “But not everyone who has one also has a reason to want Doc dead. Or a past conviction for murder.”

  The patronizing smile vanished. “I admit that bothers me. Do you know anything at all about his conviction?”

  “Just what Milt said Doc told him. And if it got out, Daniel would lose his gaming license.” She eyed Greg. “Can’t you use your cop database and quietly do some digging?”

  “Not if I value my job. It’s criminal behavior to misuse law enforcement databases.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Greg nudged Molly off his lap. “Nope.”

  Jessie let out a discouraged growl. She realized she had one more straw to grasp. One more shot to confirm her belief that Sherry was setting Daniel up. Jessie strode out of the office.

  Greg’s voice trailed after her. “Where are you going?”

  She unlocked and opened the medicine cabinet, removed a small brown paper bag marked with the initials D. S., and turned to find Greg had followed her, as she knew he would. “This is the bottle I took from Daniel’s tack room.”

  “You mean stole.”

  She glowered at him. “I wore gloves when I handled it.”

  “What do you want me to do with it? It’s not evidence. If it was, you’ve destroyed any chain of custody, rendering it completely inadmissible in court.”

  “Just check it for prints. Daniel’s or...” Or Sherry’s. “Or anyone else’s.”

  “It’s not that simple. A case number would have to be assigned. And since there is no criminal investigation—”

  “Because Doc’s death was an accident.” Jessie made no effort to camouflage her disgust.

  “Exactly. I can’t run fingerprints without good reason. Not to mention you wanted me to dig quietly. Once they go in the system, there is no ‘quietly.’” But he took the bag.

  “Then what are you going to do with that?”

  “Nothing.”

  She studied his poker face and wasn’t sure she believed him.

  “Try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said doubtfully as he
headed for the door.

  By noon on Sunday, Jessie felt as though she was the one carrying a contagious disease. She had all the usual calls for post-workout problems, a couple of hock injections, and one filly with a mystery gash above her eye that required stitches. But there was no jovial banter or small talk on the part of the trainers. Every single human Jessie encountered treated her quietly, professionally, and with a chill that threatened to freeze every water bucket on the premises.

  She could only wonder how they would treat her after the test results came in.

  The warmth of the spring sun made up for the frigid attitudes on the backside. A perfect day for a drive to the Dodds’ farm.

  “Thanks for coming out. I know you’re terribly busy.” No stray wisp of hay or bits of dust sullied Catherine’s flawless black jeans tucked into Dan Post boots. Her auburn hair was gathered high on her head in a ponytail that hung down the back of a curve-hugging red tank top.

  Jessie made a feeble attempt to brush off her own dusty Wranglers.

  “I don’t really know what I expect from you,” Catherine said. “I guess I hope you’ll tell me it’s all been a big mistake. That Blue’s going to be just fine.”

  Jessie smiled at her. She knew Catherine was holding onto a dream and could sympathize. Letting go—admitting defeat—sucked.

  Catherine led the way into the stable. She lifted a lead shank from a hook on the barn wall and unlatched a stall door. Jessie watched as Catherine fed the chain through the big gray’s halter. He followed her out of the stall, jittery but obedient.

  Jessie studied the horse. Mexicali Blue was about as nice a piece of horseflesh as she was likely to encounter. She approached him and placed a hand on the broad space between his large, dark eyes then slid the hand up between his small ears, running her fingers through his steel-gray forelock. She touched his jaw, which was the size of a holiday platter, and then traced the heavy muscle of his neck, from behind his jaw all the way to his perfectly sloped shoulder. Not a rib showed beneath his coat. Everything about him was round and hard and powerful.

  Then Jessie’s gaze dropped to his feet. What a shame. She understood Catherine’s frustration.

  “It’s a pity, isn’t it?” Catherine said. “He looks like a gray version of Secretariat. But that damned foot...”

  “Let’s have a look and see if anything’s changed for the better, okay?” Jessie hoped her optimism didn’t sound as false as it felt.

  “That’s why I called you.”

  “Let’s take him out on the cement.”

  Jessie headed outside to her truck and pulled her portable x-ray machine from the back of the storage unit. Catherine led the gray stallion to the paved apron in front of the barn. Jessie set the console on the ground and uncoiled the cables, watching as Blue tossed his head and nipped at Catherine.

  “Cut it out,” Catherine scolded the horse. Then to Jessie she said, “Milt told me about the quarantine and the sick horses at the track. With everything going on, I was relieved you agreed to drive out here.”

  “Actually, it’s only one sick horse.” So far.

  Catherine seemed not to notice the correction. “There’s another reason I’m glad you could come. I wanted to talk to you. Privately.”

  “What about?”

  “You know that conversation we had a few days ago?”

  Jessie froze. “About you and Doc?”

  “Yeah. About that.” Catherine shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I was hoping you could forget what I said. I overreacted, thinking Milt could possibly be sleeping around.” She shifted back to the first foot. “I shouldn’t have burdened you with my unfounded suspicions.”

  Jessie went back to plugging in the cables. “I kind of thought that myself,” she said under her breath.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. You don’t believe Milt was having an affair?”

  When Catherine didn’t respond, Jessie looked up. Catherine’s eyes seemed to be searching the distant hillside for something. An answer, maybe. “I choose to believe he’s been faithful to me.” She emphasized each word. Jessie wondered which of them she was trying to convince.

  Choose to believe. Jessie let the comment hang while she concentrated on tapping her patient’s information onto the screen. When she finished, she looked up at Catherine. “What about you and Doc? Do you choose to forget that ever happened too?”

  Catherine’s voice dropped an octave. “I would prefer if you did.”

  Jessie positioned the digital sensor panel and ordered Catherine to hold it still. “Steady there, old man,” she said to Blue and tapped the touch screen to capture the image.

  “Look,” Catherine went on as Jessie set up the next angle. “The whole thing was silliness on my part. None of it meant anything. But if Milt ever found out about it, it would destroy him, don’t you see?”

  Not to mention what it would do to their marriage.

  “So?” Catherine’s voice sounded like a taut rubber band, stretched to its limit. “Are you going to tell Milt?”

  “Why should I?” Jessie repositioned the sensor panel. “It’s none of my business. Besides, I like Milt. I would never do anything to hurt him. Knowing his wife slept with his best friend would tear him apart.”

  “You’ll forget we ever had that talk?”

  “I promise, I’ll never tell another soul.” Forgetting might be asking too much.

  Catherine seemed satisfied. “Thanks. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  Jessie snapped a second picture. She set up and captured several additional angles without further comment from Catherine. “That does it.” Jessie shut down the machine.

  Catherine patted the gray’s neck. “When should we know anything?”

  Jessie hadn’t liked what she saw in the digital previews but wasn’t about to comment until she had a closer look. “I’ll view these as soon as I get a chance and call you later with the results.”

  Catherine started to lead Blue into the stable but paused and looked back. “Thanks, Jessie. For everything.” Then she turned and clucked to the stallion.

  Jessie watched the gray’s muscular rump as it disappeared into his stall. No sign of a limp, but that wasn’t unusual for the kind of break she remembered from the previous radiographs. She had no trouble understanding how Catherine had fallen in love with Mexicali Blue and dreamed of great things with him in her stable. Funny, Jessie thought, how the truth could lie just under the surface, unseen. Unless you knew where to look.

  Sunday night had been anything but restful. An emergency farm call from an old client awakened Jessie at three in the morning. Rather than bothering Meryl, Jessie left her makeshift bed in the clinic’s office to drive through the pre-dawn fog and pull a mare through a rough foaling. Mother and baby survived.

  Two hours later, Jessie was tired, but too wide-awake to sleep on that ratty old sofa. With the office supply website pulled up on her phone, she sat at her desk and began adding items to her virtual shopping cart. It’d been over a week since her laptop had fallen victim to the scuffle with Frank Hamilton, and five nights of fitful sleep on the too small, too uncomfortable sofa were plenty. Long before she began her morning routine, she’d placed an order for two new laptops, a printer, a router, and a futon.

  At seven o’clock, she climbed into the Chevy and started her rounds. Paranoia had spread through the backside. Assorted owners, trainers, and grooms flocked toward her truck, waving her down with a non-stop parade of patients. One horse seemed sluggish over the weekend. Another didn’t finish his morning ration of grain. Did Jessie think yet another one looked a little on the thin side? When she wasn’t holding hands, soothing nerves, or taking temperatures, she was repeating her answer to the question of the day. No, she hadn’t received any test results yet.

  Jessie intentionally avoided Barn K, certain Emerick was ready to spontaneously combust.

  At noon, she stopped at the rec hall for an order of fries. While she waited
for it to be filled, her phone rang. The screen showed the call was from the lab. The Coggins tests results were complete. She canceled the order and gave the lab the number for Doc’s fax machine, grateful it hadn’t suffered the same fate as her laptop. By the time she returned to her office, the old dinosaur was spitting out paper.

  Jessie collected the stack and picked up one that had fallen to the floor. Her gaze shot to the bottom of each. The section marked For Laboratory Use Only. The box marked Test Results. Negative. Negative. Negative.

  Then she came to the sixth sheet. The report on the sickly gray. Jessie looked at it. Wiped a hand across her eyes to clear the fog, willing the results to change.

  Positive.

  JESSIE CHEWED HER LIP as she stood outside Daniel’s door. Time to suck it up. She raised a fist and knocked.

  “Come in.”

  Clutching the stack of papers to her chest, she entered his office.

  His smile faded. “You don’t look like someone with good news.”

  “It could be worse, I suppose.” She crossed to where he sat behind his desk and set the pile in front of him.

  He pushed them away. “Just tell me.”

  “The gray tested positive for the EIA virus. All the others tested negative.”

  “That’s good. Isn’t it? It means the disease hasn’t spread, right?”

  “Not definitively.”

  He studied her, a question in his eyes.

  “We can be cautiously optimistic. More than the one positive would have been bad. Very bad. As is, we need to keep Barns K and F quarantined. The infected horse will need to be euthanized.” She hated that word almost as much as she hated following through with it. “Then we need to test those horses again until they all continue to show negative—”

  “For two months,” he interrupted. “I remember. What about the rest of it?”

  She looked down at the stack of papers. At the pen and paper on the desk. Anywhere but at Daniel’s piercing blue eyes. “I have to call the USDA. They’ll consider the situation. Between them and the track stewards, a decision will be made.”