by Laura Crum
I found a parking place in the always-crowded lot and was following Bret through the swinging doors when someone, pushing their way out, grabbed my arm and said, "Gail." Focusing on the face, I recognized Gina Gianelli, one of my clients, along with a man I couldn't immediately place.
Shouting, "Calamari with pasta and veggies," after Bret, who was disappearing into the throng around the cash registers, I turned to Gina. She was in her early forties, a weathered-looking woman who trained and competed on her own horses in reined cowhorse classes-very successfully. Gina was one of the few amateurs who could beat the pros.
The man with her looked familiar-middle forties, overweight, and paunchy with it; his olive-skinned coarse-featured face had a brutish, forceful confidence that struck a chord. In a second I had it. Tony Ramiro, a well-known cowhorse trainer, a man I'd met once-when he'd stiffed me for my fee.
Something about the proprietary hand he had on Gina's shoulder sent an obvious signal. Shit, I thought. What was old Tony doing here? He trained near Sacramento, from what I remembered when I was trying to track him down to send him a bill. And what was Gina doing with the skunk?
She was clearly dressed to impress; I'd never before seen her out of battered work clothes (much like my own), and her pressed jeans, polished boots, clingy sweater, and overemphasized makeup were a new departure, as far as I was aware. Her short dark hair, with the gray just beginning to show, had been freshly permed into a fluffy mop and the whole effect was unfamiliar and (I thought) unappealing. But the story was an old one and easily readable-Gina and Tony were now an item.
Gina was performing introductions, unaware that Tony and I had met, and I wondered if I ought to bring up the hundred dollars he owed me for the emergency call to treat a bowed tendon on one of his show horses-at the Santa Cruz County Fair, almost a year ago. Tony was watching me as though he recognized me, all right, and wished he hadn't. Oh well, no use embarrassing Gina; I could take it up with him later.
"We've met," was what I said, and Gina, unaware of our mutual silent hostility, went on. "Gail, I read in the evening paper that you found Ed and Cindy Whitney."
"That's right." In a split second, all my tangled feelings about discussing the murders rushed back, and I realized that far from being over, my predicament was just beginning. I'd never thought about the papers; if they'd printed my name in connection with such a shocking crime, I'd be asked about it for the next month at least.
Recalling that I had several times seen Gina with Cindy at horse shows and had always assumed they were friends, I started, awkwardly, to say how sorry I was, but Gina cut me off.
"It's terrible. It shouldn't happen to anyone." She sounded sincere, but not sorrowful, and if she was feeling any grief it didn't show. Her eyes were fixed on mine and she said, "I need to talk to you."
I looked at her, puzzled. "Okay."
"Not now." She glanced at Tony, who was ostentatiously pretending not to listen and looking impatient. "We're on our way to a movie. Tomorrow. I've got a horse I want you to look at. I'll call in the morning and make an appointment. "
"Well, okay, fine."
At my words, Tony made a restless movement and Gina unlocked her eyes from mine with a visible jolt. "We'll be late," she said. "We'd better go."
He put an arm around her and shepherded her briskly toward the parking lot; I stared after them, wondering what was behind her odd intensity, and, for the second time, what in the hell she was doing with him. I would have said she had better judgment.
Back inside the restaurant, I found Bret ensconced at a corner table, watching girls. Amazingly, he'd remembered to order and had apparently paid for my dinner. Gratefully I dug into it, suddenly aware that I was starving. As I munched, tuning out Bret's comments about the girls who walked by, I puzzled over Gina Gianelli and Tony Ramiro, and Gina's strange behavior. I hadn't come up with any bright explanations, and was only halfway through my dinner when my pager went off.
Bret looked up from his Italian sausage sandwich. "What's the deal?"
"I'm on call tonight." Taking a couple more hasty bites, I got up. "I'll be right back."
Outside at the phone booth, I called the answering service. The woman who answered told me that Steve Shaw had a horse with some heat and swelling in its leg and needed me. She started to give me directions. "That's okay," I told her. "I know how to get there."
Back at the table, I told Bret, "Eat up. We've got to go see a horse."
He looked at me over his beer. "See a man about a horse? Not a bad idea. I'd better do that."
He got up and walked steadily, if a little carefully, toward the bathroom. Shaking my head, I finished my dinner. When Bret got back, I handed him what was left of his sandwich, wrapped in a napkin. "Come on, we've got to go."
He reached for the beer. "You don't need that," I told him. "You've had plenty. Come on."
I hustled him into the truck and headed back up Old San Jose Road toward Steve Shaw's horse-training operation, a big old barn a mile outside of Soquel that all the locals called the Larkin place. Steve called it Riverview Stables and was trying to establish it as the classy boarding and training barn in the area. He specialized in Western pleasure and reined cowhorses; he'd been Cindy Whitney's trainer and he was considered the expert on Western-type show horses in these parts. He was also wonderfully handsome and lethally charming, a combination that appealed to many women, including me, I had to admit.
We drove down the hill that sloped to the barn, and even in the last light of the summer day, I could see the signs of lots of money being spent. The pastures were fenced with brand-new pipe fencing, there were neat, colorful flower beds around the barnyard, and the barn had a fresh coat of paint. Business was clearly booming.
Bret's eyes took in the scenery. "This is Steve's place," he said in a disgusted tone. "He's a real piece of work."
Steve Shaw was one of the few men I'd met who could outdo Bret in the looks department, and I grinned. "You're just jealous."
"I don't even want to see the little twerp." At six foot or so, Steve was considerably taller than Bret.
"Well, stay in the truck. I've got to see him." I climbed out of the truck, hoping Bret would stay, but I should have known better. He slithered right out after me, looking around at the big barn with its covered arena.
"Pretty nice place he's got. I used to shoe a few horses here, once upon a time. Steve and I don't get along real well, though." That was obvious.
I heard a door open in the house that stood on one side of the barnyard and Steve's voice called, "Come on in; I'm on the phone."
Bret and I walked in that direction. Four-square, stucco, from the fifties-the house was practical, solid, and painted a boring beige that was entirely in character, with a neat lawn bordered by flower beds. The front door was open, and we walked in.
Inside, Steve Shaw's house was equally conventional--white walls and ceiling, wall-to-wall beige carpet-and decorated like a typical trainer's home, with pieces of fancy tack and paintings of horses on the walls. There were lots of framed photos of a smiling Steve accepting a trophy, and even more photos of Steve looking quietly composed aboard various shiny horses. Bret gave them a disgusted look.
Leather-covered couches dominated the living room; a brick fireplace, a wet bar, and an expensive looking entertainment center-TV, stereo, VCR, and so on-covered the length of one wall. I settled myself on a couch. Bret stood over by the fireplace. We could hear Steve's light voice from the other room, assuring someone that there was "no problem, no problem at all."
A few seconds later, he mouthed some regulation closing phrases, sounding as if he was placating a nervous client, and a moment after that he stepped into the room.
As always, I was struck by his physical presence. Steve Shaw lit up any room he entered as though someone had thrown the switch on an incandescent bulb. Dark hair with a premature sprinkling of silver, astonishingly blue eyes, smooth tanned skin, and a lean, hard body didn't hurt, but it was mo
re than that. His smile when he greeted me conveyed genuine interest and appreciation, and despite the fact that I knew charm was his stock-in-trade, I felt, well, charmed.
"Hi, Gail. Thanks for coming out. I've got a mare with a lot of heat and swelling in her leg. She's supposed to show at Salinas this weekend, so I thought you'd better have a look."
The warmth in his eyes as he gazed at me kept to the pleasant side of flirtatious, and I smiled back as I answered him matter of factly, "No problem. I'll see what I can do."
Steve noticed Bret at this point, who was still standing by the fireplace, sulking. They nodded coolly at each other-perhaps Steve, too, was conscious of Bret as competition-and Steve turned back to me. "I've got the mare's leg wrapped in ice packs; I just changed them ten minutes ago, so there's no rush. Can I get you a drink or something?"
I was about to decline when Bret spoke from behind me, "Sure. I'll have Jack Daniel's and soda in a tall glass. If you have it."
Steve's mouth tightened up, but he nodded civilly. "How about you, Gail?"
"The same, thanks."
He went to the bar at the other end of the room to get the drinks, walking like a dancer or a gymnast. In his Ralph Lauren polo shirt, casually untucked over khaki chinos, with his dark good looks and easy manners, he took all the shine out of Bret, who leaned against the hearth, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his old and dirty Wrangler jeans, as sullen as a cowboy who's mistakenly entered the "wrong" sort of San Francisco bar. I felt as if I were caught between a greyhound and a Queensland-both bristling and showing their teeth.
Steve came back with our drinks and handed them out, sitting down on the couch with me, close enough to be friendly, not so close he invaded my space. "Gail, I read that you found Ed and Cindy Whitney; that must have been terrible. "
"It was pretty bad," I admitted.
"I still can't believe it. I've got Plumber at the barn here, since the police didn't know what to do with him. They found my name in Cindy's address book and called me, and I went down and picked him up."
"That's good," I said, watching Bret take a long swallow of his fresh drink.
"It was the least I could do. I've known Ed and Cindy for ages. Plumber's just like one of my own horses."
"What's going to happen to the poor little guy?"
"In the long term, I don't know. He's entered in the hackamore class at Salinas this Saturday, paid up and everything, and I got in touch with Cindy's lawyers and they said to go ahead and show him. I know that's what Cindy would have wanted. I guess anything he wins will just be part of her estate."
"Do you know who inherits the horse?" I asked, thinking of Plumber and what a good-natured, friendly colt he was, a lot like Gunner, hoping he would end up with a good home.
"I've got no idea." Steve appeared to be thinking along the same lines I was. "I sure hope he goes to the right place." Shaking his head, he added somberly, "It just seems terrible. Ed and Cindy were great people."
"You knew them pretty well, didn't you?" I asked him.
"Oh, very well. We were all really good friends." He looked rueful. "Of course, the police wanted to know if I was particularly good friends with Cindy."
I bet they did, I thought to myself. Handsome Steve Shaw was a husband's nightmare. From what I understood, half of his female clients were in love with him.
Steve was still talking. "I told them it wasn't like that. We were all just close friends. I'm going to miss her," he said sadly. "She was a lot of fun."
That was a pretty good epitaph for Cindy, and one that she would have liked.
"And Ed, too," Steve was saying. "I don't think people understood Ed very well. Ed was a really genuine person."
Now, that was debatable, I added in my mind. Bret looked nauseated. He'd finished his drink, I noticed, and curled his lip at Steve. "Ed was an asshole."
Steve glanced over at him. "He was a friend of mine," he said briefly and, with smooth civility, changed the subject. "Still shoeing?"
Bret shrugged.
"My shoer left town last week, and all my horses are due. I could give you a couple of days of work, if you're interested."
Bret shrugged again. I felt mildly surprised that Steve would consider using Bret; he was a capable shoer, but notoriously unreliable, and he and Steve were clearly not on the same wavelength.
"Thirty dollars still your rate?" Steve asked.
"Uh-huh."
"Start tomorrow. I've got twenty horses that need doing."
Steve was brisk, and I thought I could guess his reasoning. Bret did a good-enough job, and thirty dollars was half of what horseshoers in Santa Cruz County were currently charging. When you were talking about twenty horses, it added up.
"All right." Bret still sounded sullen, but again, from his end, too, economics were probably the bottom line. I suspected Bret was broke.
Steve stood up and looked at me. "Do you want to have a look at that mare?"
"Sure."
"Go ahead and make yourself another drink." That got tossed at Bret over Steve's shoulder.
Bret grinned. "Don't mind if I do." Then in a stage whisper to me, "Never be daunted."
"I'm sorry to get you out after dinner, Gail." Steve was walking toward the door. "I know you've had a rough day."
I murmured agreement.
"Did you just drop by to visit Cindy and go in and find them dead?" Steve half-shuddered.
"Cindy called me out to see Plumber," I told him. "It was almost an accident that I found them at all. I sat out at the barn and waited for her for a while, and at the last minute, I tried the house. It was a pretty bad shock," I admitted.
Steve put a hand on my shoulder lightly, and I felt grateful for the sympathy as well as the absence of grisly questions.
We walked side by side through the summer night--cool, with the wet edge of fog-into his big barn, a covered arena with a row of stalls down each side and a huge hay shed at the back. Steve flicked a switch and one row of stalls lit up. We started down the lighted breezeway, Steve glancing into each stall in a horseman's automatic routine check.
I stopped when I saw Plumber, munching hay contentedly in the third stall down. Leaning over the half door, I reached a hand out to touch his shoulder. "How're you doing, buddy?"
Steve stopped with me and we both stared appreciatively at the colt. Plumber was a horse that took your eye; it was hard to say exactly why. At fifteen hands, he was medium-sized for a Quarter Horse, he had good but not outstanding confirmation, and his breedy head was attractive, but not at all halter horse "cute." His color was unusual-light brown-the color of coffee with cream in it, or freshly made cocoa. Still, unusual or not, it wasn't a flashy color, and Plumber had no fancy chrome-like white markings, only a tiny star in the center of his forehead. No, it was nothing external; it was the expression on his face-friendly, curious, intelligent-that said, this is a good horse.
Echoing my thoughts, Steve sighed. "He's a good one. The whole time I've trained him he's been just like a smart dog, right there with you, wanting to do what you ask. I'll be sorry to lose him."
"Well, maybe you won't."
"Who knows." Steve glanced at me curiously. "You know, one thing I wondered about. Was Cindy buting this horse?"
Remembering the bottles I'd seen on her desk, I told him, "Not that I know of. I saw quite a few bottles of bute in the tack room when I was looking for her, and it seemed kind of odd to me. She wasn't the type to just start giving her horse painkillers without having a vet check him first."
"I wouldn't have thought so either." Steve looked reflective. "I guess if something's wrong with him it'll show up. Well, that mare's down here," he added, turning away.
I followed him to a stall where a buckskin mare stood, one foot cocked in a relaxed way, her head down and her eyes half-closed. Her left front leg was carefully wrapped in cumbersome ice packs, but she didn't seem to be in any distress.
Steve walked in the stall with her and began unwrapping the leg, his f
ingers deft and competent. Bending down next to him, I caught the tang of his aftershave and was briefly conscious of a sense of intimacy. I put it out of my mind automatically; many of my veterinary calls involved moments like this one with overtones of linked physical closeness. The quiet barn, the gentle sigh of the mare's breath, Steve's soothing voice as he murmured to her-these were the ingredients of an awareness I'd learned to thrust away as inappropriate.
I could feel Steve's eyes on me, his face close to mine as we both crouched in the shavings, but I kept my own attention firmly on the mare's leg as I ran my hand up and down her tendon. There was swelling all right, quite a bit of it, but through the puffiness I could feel the tendon itself, and it felt smooth and firm, uninjured.
"I'm not one hundred percent sure," I said slowly, "but I think she's just nicked the tendon sheath. Is she lame?"
"No, not at all."
"Just keep icing it on and off, maybe three times a day for the next couple of days. If she stays sound, you ought to be able to use her this weekend, even if it's swollen. I'd ice her right before and after I showed her, and keep her wrapped."
Steve smiled in relief. "That's great." He seemed about to say something else when we both heard footsteps in the barn aisle. Abruptly his face tightened up. "That must be Amber. This mare belongs to her."
Oh shit, I thought but didn't say. Amber St. Claire had the dubious honor of being my least-favorite c1ient-a prize example of that type who calls the vet out to look at every little scratch and complains constantly at the size of her bill. The whole office down at Santa Cruz Equine Practice regarded her as a royal pain in the ass, and even Jim, my boss, capitalistic money grubber that he was, would probably have dispensed with her business if it wasn't for the fact that she was so incredibly rich.
Amber was the daughter of Reg St. Claire, a legendary figure in Santa Cruz County, one of our earliest millionaire transplants from the San Francisco Bay Area. He'd moved to the Santa Cruz Mountains to retire and raise Quarter Horses; Amber, his only daughter, had grown up on his glamorous Rancho Robles, inheriting it when he died. She was in her forties now, had never lifted a finger to do any sort of work, at least none that I knew of, had been married and divorced three times, and continued to raise horses-from a distance.