by Laura Crum
I shook my head with a sense of shock. That would be the Walker. "What do they have on him?" I asked her.
"Mike said he's been arrested for assaulting people. He hasn't got an alibi and I guess they think he had some kind of obsession about Cindy. Anyway, his fingerprints were in the kitchen."
"Was he supposed to have a gun?"
Teresa shrugged. "I don't know. But Mike said there were half a dozen guns hidden in that house. A gun in every drawer, he said. I guess the guy must have picked one up." She sighed. "This has been a bad week. First hearing about Cindy and now poor old Toby."
"Did you know Cindy well?"
She shook her head. "No. She was friendly, though. I saw her at a couple of horse shows. It just seems so terrible." Teresa's eyes were filling. "Thanks, Gail," she whispered.
I knew it was time for me to leave. She probably wanted to be alone to cry. Stifling my desire to ask her more questions about the Whitneys' murder, I got in my truck.
"Okay, Teresa. I'm sorry about Toby," I added awkwardly.
She gave me a faint smile. "Thanks. I know it was the only thing to do."
I could see her walking back to the barn in my rearview mirror. Her head was bent forward. Poor Teresa. I felt bad for her and a little bit bad for myself. Situations like this were the hardest part of being a vet.
NINE
I spent the rest of the day looking at horses. A mare with a messy uterine infection turned out to be a smelly job that took me an hour. Next I stitched up a stallion that had climbed on top of a pipe corral fence in an overeager attempt to get to a mare in heat. He had a gaping hole in one side that looked worse than it was. I stitched it up neatly, put a drain in it, and told the man who owned him that he'd be as good as new in a couple of weeks.
After that I saw three horses that were lame for various reasons, none of them serious, and one mild colic case. I didn't get home until 5:30 and I was due to meet Lonny at 6:00. The sun was low in the western sky, and the evening fog put a cold edge in the air as I pulled into my driveway. There was a car parked there. Not Bret's old red pickup, but a little white convertible Volkswagen Bug. I recognized the car.
The girl who went with the car was sitting on my porch, obviously waiting. Her name was Lynnie. I had met her at one of Cindy Whitney's parties, and she had a barrel racing horse named Tucker that I treated occasionally. Bret had dated her some last winter. All in all, I'd spent enough time around Lynnie to know I didn't care if I ever spent any more. I didn't dislike her exactly, but she was a type I tended to avoid. Lynnie was a pretty girl; that was her definition and her whole intent in life. In her twenties, with wildly kinked hair, tanned skin, and huge brown eyes, she had a face that was usually animated, with lots of sparkle in the eyes and a big smile. The only trouble, I discovered, was that all that sparkle wasn't wit or intelligence or even charm, but just a kind of forced gaiety, a routine she'd learned the way she'd learned to do her hair and put on her makeup.
She smiled at me now, but the smile was automatic. I didn't think Lynnie liked me any better than I liked her. I wasn't her type, though I doubt she would have put it that way. She would probably have said that I wasn't any fun.
"Hi, Gail." I detected a lack of interest in her greeting and wondered again what she was here for. She didn't leave me waiting. "Where's Bret?”
Ah hah. Somehow or other, Lynnie had discovered Bret was back in town and staying with me. I didn't bother to ask how. Lynnie probably had her ways.
"I don't know where he is," I answered truthfully.
Lynnie gave me a suspicious look, but I didn't volunteer any more information. Not just because I didn't have it but also because I made it a rule never to interfere with Bret and his women.
Lynnie's look changed from suspicious to curious. "I read in the papers that you found Ed and Cindy Whitney. Do you think it was a hit?"
"A hit?"
"You know, like a professional hit man. Because of what Ed sold."
"Because of what Ed sold?" I parroted, feeling stupid.
"I thought you knew. You were over there all the time."
"Actually, I'm not sure what you're talking about. You mean Ed was selling drugs?
Lynnie shrugged one shoulder. "Everybody bought it from Ed."
"What's 'it'?"
"Coke." Lynnie was looking at me as if I had just fallen off the turnip truck, but I didn't really care. A light was beginning to dawn somewhere inside my brain. Ed had offered me some cocaine once, when I was over at their house for a party; I'd declined and thought no more of it. It had seemed all of a piece with the fancy car and sophisticated, rich playboy attitude he put on. It had never occurred to me that he sold it on a regular basis.
"I didn't know he sold it," I said slowly. "I don't buy it."
"Well, he did. He always had lots of it, and it was always good stuff, too. That's why I thought maybe it was a hit. Everybody says the Mafia's behind all the drugs." She got up off my porch in a graceful tangle of long tanned legs. "Tell Bret I came by, will you?"
"Sure. You want him to call you?"
She was already turning away. One shoulder flipped casually. "Whatever."
She got in her car and the white Bug made a U-turn in my driveway, spraying a little gravel in my direction. I saw her license plate zipping away from me-FOXI LYN. I grimaced; I'd always hated that license plate.
Blue was still in the truck and he yipped pointedly at me now. I let him out, and he shuffled toward the stairs, telling me by his demeanor that he was ready to water some trees. I waited for him, hunching my shoulders against the chill of the fog and thinking hard.
What Lynnie had said about Ed surprised me, even shocked me. It seemed unbelievable, given the Whitneys' young and rich high-society image, but why would Lynnie bother to lie? I wondered if the sheriff's department had heard about this. If Ed had been a drug dealer, it might well be something to do with drugs that had caused these murders.
If I could stumble over this, the cops would too, I told myself. After all, I wasn't Sherlock Holmes or anything.
Blue looked at me and then into the trees and growled, as though at an intruder. I looked where he was staring and couldn't see anything. Gnats played in a single remaining beam of sunlight; squirrels chattered in the redwood trees, squawking like birds. The breeze stirred the branches along the creek, a cold, foggy breath. I listened; the dog listened. Nothing. You're getting nervous, I told myself.
Well, maybe I had a right. After all, I'd discovered two dead bodies and been shot at the day before.
When I let Blue back in the house I found a note on the table. It said, "Shoeing down at Steve Shaw's, Bret," in printing that resembled chicken scratch.
I glanced at the clock: 5:45. I had time, I thought, barely. It should only take me five minutes to change myself from a bone-tired vet to a femme fatale.
Peering into my closet, I studied my wardrobe of "dress-up" clothes. It wasn't extensive, since I lived the vast majority of my life in jeans, and was founded primarily on a simple concept: black pants. I had four pairs of black pants, ranging from dressy to casual, in a variety of fabrics suitable for winter or summer. Tonight I selected the most casual-stretchy leggings. I put on black lace trouser socks, shoved my feet into my all-purpose black shoes-slender suede flats-and the bottom half was done. For the top I picked a thigh-length dusty rose sweater with a deeply scooped neckline edged in scalloped stitches-something warm enough to be comfortable as well as elegant on a foggy evening. A string of freshwater pearls and my hair pulled high in two black combs and I was complete.
Scrambling back up my ladder "stairway," I scratched Blue on the back and told him to be a good dog and stay off the couch (not likely), grabbed a little black suede bag and stuffed my wallet in it, then dashed out to the truck. I had about five spare minutes, if I hurried.
Three minutes later, I pulled into Steve Shaw's barnyard. Steve's fancy dually pickup was absent, but Bret was very much in evidence. He was standing by a hitching r
ail in front of the big barn, holding a rasp in one hand, obviously in the process of shoeing the paint horse tied to the rail. He wasn't actually shoeing, though; he was talking to a girl.
She was young, in her late teens, with long yellow-blond hair, shy blue eyes, and a pretty, childish face. Probably one of Steve Shaw's many female clients, one who had managed to take her eyes off the trainer long enough to notice the horseshoer. She smiled at Bret like a puppy who hopes you'll throw a stick-half-playful, half-anxious. He was laughing back at her in a teasing way, his eyes lit up with fun. When I walked in their direction she looked embarrassed, said, "Well, see you later" awkwardly, and hurried away.
"She's too young for you," I said softly as he watched her departing rear view.
He gave me a sudden straight look. "Think I don't know that?" Then the cockeyed grin was back in place. "But just look at that butt."
I smiled. He didn't fool me. Bret was always careful that the victims of his charm were up to his weight. The girl was in no danger from him.
He turned his grin in my direction. "You don't look so bad yourself. Going out on the town?"
"You bet." My mind jumped back to the problem at hand. "I need to ask you something."
"So ask away."
"Did Ed Whitney sell a lot of cocaine?"
Bret's green-brown eyes were clear and blank, like a cat. "Why is it important, now that he's dead?"
"Of course it's important," I snapped in exasperation. "It might be the reason they were killed."
"So why are you so interested?"
I sighed. Bret could be aggravating. I'd learned over the years that despite his carefree image he was a secretive, private person; getting information he didn't want to give was about as difficult as forcing Blue to do what he didn't want to do. Maybe shock would do it.
"Somebody shot at me last night," I told him. "I have no idea who or why, but the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me is that it's connected to my finding the bodies. I still don't have a clue what the connection is, but Lynnie came by this evening looking for you and informed me that Ed was a drug dealer, which I didn't know. I guess what I'm trying to do here is find out anything I can that might explain who killed them."
"Did it ever occur to you it might be smarter to lay low and keep out of it?"
"I'd sort of like to know why I got shot at."
"Maybe getting shot at was an accident."
"It wasn't an accident." I told him the story of the barn on Pine Flat Road. It seemed to impress him a little.
"Shit, Gail." Bret looked at me a long time. The paint horse shifted restlessly and he patted its shoulder absently. "I'd leave it alone if I were you," he said finally. "Why cause more trouble?"
"Come on, Bret. I don't like people shooting at me. For all I know, whoever did it will have another go. I want to find out everything I can."
Bret leaned on the hitching rail, tapping the rasp against his palm, his expression that of a wary animal. "Yeah, Ed used to sell a lot of coke," he said at last. "Cindy told me."
I waited.
He picked his words slowly. "I don't think very many people knew this, so I wasn't going to spread it around, but Cindy used to be a working girl."
"A working girl?"
"Working girl is what they call it." He looked at me. "The ones who do it."
"Okay. So I'm naive. It's the last thing I'd ever have guessed about Cindy."
Cindy had been unmistakably part of the local Yuppie group. With her white BMW, her expensive show horse, and her fancy house on the cliff, she seemed completely removed from anything as sordid as turning tricks. I couldn't imagine her in a run-down massage parlor.
Bret nodded. "I know. I wouldn't have guessed, either. She told me one night when she was drunk. She made me promise to keep it a secret. Her name was Diamond." He shook his head. "Diamond. She told me she met Ed because he supplied the house she worked in with coke. She said he had some kind of a thing about whores-thought the idea was a turn-on." Bret shook his head some more. "Can you believe it? They started dating and then she moved into Ed's apartment with him. He used to drive her to work every evening and kiss her good-bye at the door."
We both studied on that for a while. "Anyway, I guess they decided to get respectable and got married and bought that house. Cindy had a horse like she'd always wanted. She was pretty happy about it. I think she would have liked to forget her old life. But she couldn't exactly, because Ed was still selling coke."
"I don't get it. Why would Ed Whitney sell cocaine? I thought he had money from some big family trust fund."
"That's another thing most people don't know. Cindy told me that the trust fund money didn't kick in till he turned twenty-five, which was six months ago. Up until then, all his money came from ... uh, sales."
"Whoa. This is definitely stuff the cops should know."
Bret shrugged. "I figured they'd find it out for themselves. I also figured it was better to stay out of the whole thing."
"Well, apparently they haven't found it out yet. From what I heard they're planning to arrest that poor guy I saw in the garage."
"Maybe he did it."
"I just don't think so. Besides, I feel guilty, like it's my fault they suspect him at all."
Bret shrugged again. "Maybe you could find out where the guy was the night you were shot at. That would tell you something. "
"That's not a bad idea. You'd think it would be the first thing the sheriffs would check out, though."
Bret watched me closely. "Are you planning to go down there and tell them all this stuff?"
"Well, yeah, I am."
"Keep me out of it, huh? I thought about it yesterday, before I talked to the cops, and I decided I'd better just keep my mouth shut."
I nodded, remembering his abstracted expression at the office and at lunch.
"It'll look pretty funny to that detective. Why I didn't talk, I mean."
"Yeah, okay. I won't mention you. I've got to go. Got a hot date." I slapped him lightly on the shoulder and turned away. When I looked back, he was bent over, picking up the paint horse's foot. In his dirty jeans and layers of battered sweatshirts, he looked like a derelict, and I could definitely see he wouldn't have a lot of credibility with the sheriff's department. Everything about Bret would seem suspicious from their point of view.
TEN
I was only ten minutes late at Lonny's. He lived in Aptos, a semi-rural community in the hills just south of Soquel; like Soquel, the Aptos area is thick with one-to ten-acre ranchettes, the homes of people who hold down fairly high-paying urban jobs. Lonny's place was just such a three-acre ranchette, but Lonny himself was somewhat of an exception to the "gentleman farmer" rule. He'd made his living and eventually his fortune running a pack station in the Sierra Nevada mountains; at forty-seven, he was semi-retired, with a younger partner to manage his business. He checked in once a month or so during the summer (the only season when a mountain pack station can operate), which was where he'd been for the last week.
As I turned in his driveway, I glanced automatically at his two horses, Burt and Pistol, checking to see that they looked healthy and content. They watched my truck curiously, aware that it wasn't Lonny's, two sets of ears pricked sharply forward. I smiled at them, knowing them well enough to see them as individual personalities, not just two big Quarter Horse geldings. Lonny'd been giving me team roping lessons on Burt, the bay, who was a real character, with a habit of pinning his ears back grumpily at the slightest provocation-a grouchy mannerism that belied a good heart. Pistol I knew less well. A roan with a flaxen mane and tail and a bald face, he was standoffish, carefully well-mannered, and one of the best heel horses in the state of California.
Driving up the hill past the horses, then through a tunnel of oak trees, I pulled up in front of Lonny's house with my usual sense of appreciative pleasure. Hidden from the road by its screen of oaks, the house was unique-a round house, a decagon, wainscoted in brick, with lots of big windows, a shake ro
of like a hat, and a cupola on top. Lonny had built it himself, and it was as carefully and interestingly detailed inside as out.
I got out of my truck and Lonny appeared in the doorway, a wide smile splitting his rough-featured face in two. Without a thought I stepped forward into his outstretched arms, feeling his big solid body pressed against me, connecting to what felt like an electrical current of warmth and affection.
"Hi. How are you?" He murmured into my hair.
"Okay. How about you?" My own speech was similarly muffled, being directed at his shoulder. At six two, Lonny was tall enough to make my five seven seem short.
After a minute we stepped back, giving each other appraising glances. "What's this I hear about you finding some bodies?" Lonny was always direct.
"It's a long story. Make me a drink and I'll tell you about it."
"Come on in."
He assembled vodka tonics while I curled myself on the Navajo-patterned couch in his living room. The room matched the couch-terra-cotta tile floor, natural pine walls, a sand-colored easy chair. Giant windows stretched up to the eaves, bringing the trees inside. Handing me my drink, Lonny settled himself on the couch next to me. "So tell me your long story." I told, going through the shock and horror of finding Ed and Cindy, seeing the Walker in the garage, and my subsequent questioning. "And that's not the half of it."
"So what else?"
Off I launched once again into the story of the barn on Pine Flat Road. Lonny's face grew still as I spoke and his eyes were somber. "Someone shot at you?"
"Yes. More than once, too. It wasn't an accident."
"My God."
"I know. And the strange thing is, I really have no idea who or why. It seems impossible that it's not connected to the Whitneys' murders-after all, both things happened on the same day. On the other hand, I can't see what in the world the connection would be. And," I looked into his eyes, voicing the thought I hadn't allowed myself to dwell on, "I'm scared."