The Stars Shine Bright

by Sibella Giorello

  She jumped out of the car and walked down the drive, easily walking under the locked chain. She waited for me to follow, but I could see a cable strung through the chain and connected to several small transmitters screwed into the posts. Electricity. I backed up ten paces and ran, hurdling the chain—and falling down on the other side. Madame trotted over, licking my face.

  “I appreciate your concern.” I rolled on my side and opened my purse. When I picked up the dog, I also grabbed some Ziploc bags from the kitchen. No more Saran Wrap if I could help it. The driveway’s gravel was mostly uniform in color and size, a granite that had been quarried and delivered to the site. I placed several samples in a bag, then dug down to the soil beneath, which was in situ. Latin for “in the original place,” in situ soils testified to an area’s natural geology. In this case, sand and silt, the usual by-products of glacial erosion and deposition. I put all of it in my purse.

  Fields stretched out on either side of the gravel drive. Overgrown grass draped pieces of scrap metal and junk, including an old school bus. The yellow paint was rusting away and the black lettering on its side—Bainbridge Island School District—was riddled with holes. They looked like bullet holes.

  I turned around, glancing back to the main road. No sign of Jack.

  Fine. Be that way.

  Madame had already run up ahead. I opened my purse, making sure the Sig and Mace were easy to reach, when suddenly the dog was sprinting toward me. I’d never seen her move so fast. And then I saw why. A pack of dogs was chasing her down the driveway. I kneeled, caught her with one arm, and shifted the purse, grabbing the Mace. My finger was about to hit the red button when a guy appeared, running behind the dogs. I kept the canister poised, ready to fire at the first sign of aggression, but the dogs only sniffed around my shoes.

  The kid called out, “Who’re you?” He looked about fourteen. Dirty blond hair hanging past his shoulders.

  “I’m looking for Arnold Corke.”

  He stayed back a ways, letting the dogs circle us. “You with the county?”

  “No.” I lifted Madame. Exhibit A. “I’m not a social worker. Is he around?”

  The kid had a metal spade in one hand and pointed it down the driveway, from where he’d come. The dogs took it like an order and ran away. The boy turned and followed them and I followed him, while Madame offered low growls that vibrated her rib cage. At the end of the lane, a half-dozen staked goats were chewing circles in the overgrown grass, and an elongated house sat farther back. I counted four smaller buildings and two barns where chickens waddled across the dirt. When they saw the kid, the hens began flapping their useless wings, squawking. Madame twitched.

  “Easy,” I told her.

  The kid picked up a pail and dug the spade inside, flinging corn kernels on the ground. When I asked about Corke again, he pointed the spade at the house. Now that I wasn’t with the county, he didn’t seem threatened.

  Still carrying Madame, I climbed the porch steps to the house. I could hear a voice thundering behind the front door.

  “We have a duty to protect the most vulnerable.” A deep voice. Passionate. “I want you to always remember the needy. The imprisoned, the abandoned, the unloved.”

  I waited for a silence, since it sounded like a sermon. Then knocked on the door.

  Arnold Corke’s dark hair had thinned since his protest days and his skin had wrinkled. The lines crossed his low forehead and bracketed his wide mouth. But his eyes still held some of that belligerent expression. Until he looked down at Madame. Then his attitude shifted.

  “Sorry,” he said. “We’re full right now. Try the Humane Society.”

  I shifted the dog to my left hand and offered him my right. “Raleigh David.”

  He took my hand but it was a weak shake. “Arnold Corke.”

  “Oh, good,” I said. “I was hoping to talk to you.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. The room stretching out behind him was large and open, and picnic tables ran end to end down the middle. Boys and young men sat on benches. Hands clasped. Waiting to finish some prayer.

  Corke turned back to me, whispering, “Is this about the road spikes? I already told the county we’d pay for the damage.”

  “No, sir. This is about a horse.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve come at a bad time. I don’t have room for more horses either.”

  “It’s more urgent than that,” I said. “Can we talk, in private?”

  He glanced back once more. Platters of spaghetti were on the table. But the white dinner plates were bare.

  “Harris, finish up for me,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  When he stepped onto the porch, the dogs came running. But now they wagged their tails. At least, the dogs that had tails. They were a mangy bunch.

  “They’re friendly,” he said, reading my mind. “You can put your dog down.”

  But Madame only walked to the top step and glared down at the pack, panting below. Her erect posture said she was superior to their ranks.

  “I’ve already forgotten your name.”

  “Raleigh David.”

  “Raleigh, as in North Carolina? I hear an accent.”

  “Virginia, actually.”

  “Long way from home,” he said. “What do you need?”

  “This morning a horse at Emerald Meadows—”

  He held up his hand. “I just told you.” His voice was testy. “We’re beyond capacity. When I say we can’t take another horse, I mean it.”

  “Mr. Corke.” My frustration was rising. I wanted information, and I wanted it now. “Do you own a white horse trailer, license plate W-E-A-K-S?”

  “No.”

  My mouth opened. But I wasn’t prepared for that answer. “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  The kid who’d been feeding the chickens was walking toward us, apparently done with his chore. He came up the porch, looked at Corke, then me, and stepped inside. It was too quiet in the large room.

  “What is it you want?” Corke asked.

  “Is there somewhere more private?”

  “I hope you’re not a spy for the school district,” he said, stepping off the porch.

  The mangy dogs had run to the chicken yard, sniffing for kernels, but I picked up Madame again just in case. Corke walked to a rail fence. The wood was dry, splintering. And the grass behind it was overgrown like the rest of the fields.

  “Okay,” he said. “This is as private as it gets around here. I’m expecting you to be honest with me.”

  I set Madame down.

  “Somebody stole a horse this morning from Emerald Meadows. Kidnapped, actually. They left a note. Threatening to kill it. The trailer seen taking the horse had a license plate registered to you.”

  “Your horse was stolen?”

  “No. It belongs to a man named Salvatore Gagliardo.” I watched his lean and lined face, searching for any signs that he recognized the name. His frown deepened, but it was hard to read its meaning. I repeated the name. “Sal Gagliardo owns the horse.”

  “Okay, whoever. What’s this got to do with me?”

  “The plate. The trailer. Both registered to you.”

  “You called the police?”

  Smart question. What was I doing here, if I called the police?

  “Emerald Meadows called them.”

  He scrunched his nose, as if smelling something foul. “So the track called the cops, and the cops found the plate through DMW and everybody decided one of my boys stole the horse. Brilliant.”

  When I didn’t reply, he reached over the fence and yanked a handful of grass. The shafts squeaked out of their casings.

  “My kids have nobody,” he said, “for a lot of different reasons. No parents. Nobody who wants to adopt them. And foster care will only turn them into felons. I’m one guy, trying to fill in the gaps. But who cares.”

  “So it was your trailer.”

  “I sold it years ago.”

  “Who bought it?”
>
  But he was extending his long, thin arms over the fence rail. A thick gray horse plodded through the long grass. Its back looked as bowed as a ditch. Madame watched it approach, giving a low growl.

  “No, Madame.” I turned back to the man. “Who bought the trailer, Mr. Corke?”

  “Call me Arnie.” He held out the grass in his hand for the horse. “And this handsome guy here is called Pegasus. He’s been with us since the beginning.”

  The horse’s gray coat was thin, vaporous as mist over the hide. Blue cataracts clouded the big dark eyes, and when he drew back his lips to eat the grass, I saw most of his teeth were missing.

  “Isn’t he handsome?” Corke said.

  “I really don’t want to ask again. Who bought the trailer?”

  “Look.” He pointed across the field. More horses ambled toward us, the slow progress sending up a shushing sound from the long grass. Evening light bathed their coats in honeyed hues, but when they were closer it wasn’t so romantic. Black welts marred their coats. One jaw sagged as if some essential tendon had been sliced, and a Clydesdale pony held its head turned sideways, to look forward from its one eye.

  “These are my other foster kids.”

  The misshapen herd nibbled at his hands and nuzzled his arms. And more came. So many horses. And in a moment’s flash the answer came to me, like a word that suddenly fits a crossword puzzle.

  “Equus.” I turned to him. “ E-K-W-A-S.”

  His smile grew, deepening the lines around his mouth. “That just occurred to you?”

  “Yes.”

  Juan had seen four letters, which he gave in no particular order. Jack had found the missing letter, S, but our discussion was about Corke, not what the plate spelled.

  EKWAS.

  Equus. Genus classification for the biological family known as horses. Equus was also the name evolutionists ascribed to the first horse.

  “My wife’s idea,” Corke said. “She’s a poet. She names animals and vehicles. Sometimes kids. That trailer was our first purchase for this place. So the name fit. It was a cheap trailer, and we hoped that like Equus, it would evolve into a higher life form.”

  He laughed. But I only nodded out of politeness. Evolution fell into the same category as luck—the delusional belief that random chance operated with some significant point. And somehow it struck me as doubly sad that this man in particular had bundled his faith into something so empty. These wounded animals, the equally injured boys, they were all victims of cruelty or neglect. And Arnold Corke clearly hoped for changed lives. Better lives. But the real problem with boys, and girls, wasn’t something evolution could fix, if evolution existed—and there was no scientific proof for it whatsoever. Even the evolutionists admitted that. The fossil record told us horses had always been horses, not fish or birds. As for human beings, our problems weren’t so much biological as theological. Spiritual. Because no amount of physical change could alter man’s generally wicked heart. Only one person could do that. And He was invisible.

  But now I understood Corke’s hesitancy.

  “Mr. Corke—”

  “Arnie.”

  “Arnie, you give kids and horses second chances. But the guy who owns this horse that was kidnapped? He’s a bookie. And he’s angry. Get my drift?”

  He brushed the Clydesdale’s blond bangs from its eye. “Promise you’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I promise not to jump to conclusions.”

  He thought about it. “Some boys opened a breeding farm. They wanted to sell racehorses.”

  “On their own?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought of the stories Eleanor had told me about her and Harry’s time with horses. “Breeding requires money.”

  “That’s why I sold them that trailer for twenty bucks.” He sighed. “Paul Handler’s one of the brightest boys we’ve ever had. Gifted. Got a college scholarship but dropped out of premed to start his Dark Horse Ranch.”

  “And Handler has the trailer?”

  “I really don’t know. We don’t keep in touch. I don’t believe in breeding horses.” He nodded at the pack standing at the fence. “Not when we have horses like this.”

  “But you helped them.”

  “They wanted to work. To make a life for themselves. That’s a huge step for these kids.” He gave a sad smile. “And yet they still don’t know how to change a title with DMV.”

  It wouldn’t be that hard for the FBI to track him down. But Corke’s cooperation would tell me whose side he was on. “Where’s Handler’s ranch?”

  He said nothing for several moments. The horses nibbled at the grass and Madame crept under the fence, lifting her snout, catching their scents.

  “I’ll give you his address,” he said finally. “But only if you promise not to call the police. And if you promise to talk to him yourself.”

  Chapter Forty

  The night wind blowing across Puget Sound forced everyone inside the ferry. Except me and Madame, who ate a ham sandwich I purchased from the boat’s vending machine. I doled out the food so she wouldn’t choke it down all at once, and watched the city grow closer. The lights reflecting on the water shimmered in fugues of color.

  Jack never appeared.

  And twenty minutes later, we were back in the Ghost. I was heading south on the Alaskan Way when I realized another Mariner’s game was in town. And it was just letting out. Traffic cops kept us idling at First Avenue, and for seven minutes I watched fans stream from Safeco Field, some of them heading into the Pyramid Alehouse across the street. The stoplight changed several times, but another five minutes passed, and I started to imagine what would happen if “the big one” struck this instant, cracking open this street so the earth could swallow us whole. Without probability models, Madame grew bored and curled up for a nap on the passenger seat. I reached into my purse.

  Jack answered my call on the third ring.

  “It must’ve gone okay,” he said. “You’re not bleeding.”

  I wanted to know where he’d been, but refused to let him hear me asking. “Corke says he doesn’t own the trailer.”

  “Of course he said that.”

  “It seems credible.”

  “Why?”

  “He claims the trailer was sold to a kid who used to live there.” I spelled the name Paul Handler. “Corke helped them start a horse-breeding business. Some farm near Yakima.”

  The Volvo in front of me was creeping forward, the brake lights flashing on and off, as if the driver were anxious to plow through the pedestrians. I felt complete empathy.

  “So let me guess,” Jack said, “you want a background check on this Handler guy. Now.”

  “I’ll be driving to Yakima tomorrow.”

  “Harmon, do you really think that’s wise?”

  “Not really.”

  “Has anyone ever compared you to a Rubik’s Cube?”

  “I’ll be leaving at 6:00 a.m.”

  He hung up.

  Over an hour later, when I pulled into the parking lot at Thea’s Landing, I had the disturbing sensation of having traveled from Point A to Point B with no memory of anything in between. An autopilot trip. Full of preoccupied thoughts. Ideas that roamed and ricocheted and circled back again. But the worst thought was the most incriminating: I called Jack—for the diversion, a light skirmish to avoid the real battle—instead of DeMott.

  I wrapped Madame in my jean jacket and raced upstairs before anyone could see us. I filled her water bowl, changed into shorts and a T-shirt, and laced up my running shoes. My fingers were shaking. I kept the dog under a windbreaker, bolted down the stairwell, and burst outside.

  We ran along the water, the air tasting of sea salt and wet steel. The red cranes in Tacoma’s port loomed over us like claws, ready to pluck us from the street. We ran straight up the hill to the North End neighborhood, full speed, thighs burning, breath like sandpaper in my lungs. Madame took the steep hill like a thoroughbred mutt: all heart. From the top of the hill,
the world below seemed to be all lights. Harbor lights. The golden windows in the houses. A white lava of cars driving on the interstate, flowing with a sound like steady wind.

  We jogged through the neighborhood until we reached the big Victorian with the porte cochere. An amber light leaked through the curtains of a bedroom window upstairs. Standing on the front lawn, I panted and debated and checked my watch. But when I decided to walk to the door, the bedroom light suddenly went out. I stared at it for several minutes, hoping it would come on again. Until my mind started asking what, exactly, was I going to do? Tell Eleanor all my problems? I was her employee. Cry? And she wasn’t my real aunt.

  We turned and ran down the hill.

  It was past 9:00 p.m. when I carried Madame into the lobby. Sweat beaded at the nape of my neck, rolling down my spine, taking some stress with it. The lobby was empty and I decided there was time to grab Raleigh David’s mail. But as I turned toward the boxes, I remembered it was Sunday and I’d picked up the mail yesterday. I was walking away when I realized something was peeking from the metal slot. I turned around. It was a white corner sticking out. Envelope. But none of the other boxes had one. Uh-oh.

  Management. Notifying me about the building’s pet policy.

  “We’re busted,” I told the concealed dog.

  I keyed open the box and yanked out the white envelope. My first name was written on the front. Only my first name. And my condo number. In fountain pen ink.

  I wanted to rip it open right there. But Madame was squirming. I sprinted upstairs, refilled her water bowl, poured myself a Coca-Cola, and carried it out to the balcony. With the envelope. I sat in the deck chair for several moments. My fingers were shaking again. And a couple was arguing on the patio below. Something about a softball game and car keys that weren’t where they should’ve been. I closed my eyes and offered a convoluted prayer that reminded me, again, how little I deserved grace.

  I tore open the envelope.

  Dear Raleigh,

  Please excuse any illegible words. I’m writing in the backseat of a taxi. And please don’t be upset that I left this way. Yes, your car is very fast, but with security checks these days it seemed prudent to leave earlier than you wanted.