Hot Blooded Murder

by Jacqueline D'Acre

  I still had a sheaf of faxes to send and very soon, Simon’s hounds would be baying through this house. I was beyond needing the bathroom. There was a four-drawer file cabinet in a corner. Tempting. I opened the top drawer. Morgan Oaks Farm…stallion contracts, sales contracts, breeding forms…slammed it shut. Drawer two had pedigrees, photos, copies of ads. Drawer three, office supplies, blank paper, staples, blank pedigree forms, many copies of a sales brochure and I was guiltily flattered to see, reprints of my Hoofbeats column about Marcie’s farm. I paused, giving the fax machine another paper. Opened the bottom drawer. Mortgage, tax returns, insurance. Hard money goodies. Right. I opened the folder labeled Mortgage and extracted documents. Act of Sale…I scrutinized it. So. Marcie and her husband, Theodore, had bought the place from–Aimée Pritchard? I had to see this! I fed it into the fax, and stood, toe tapping, dealing in another paper and another….

  The fax stuttered through the last document. I was reading the insurance file, just finishing, when a horse neighed loudly outside. I looked out to see an unruly Lightning Strikes Once pull Teddy, a short guy with a beach ball paunch, from the dark barn into the bright sun. A chain glittered on the stallion’s nose. He capered angrily. Teddy blinked in the sudden light and brutally jerked the chain. The horse looked gorgeous. The man looked frightened. I realized, he thinks he’s leading a killer.

  The disorganized duo stumbled toward the trailer. MacWain shook his head. A gray blur streaked past them and disappeared into it. I recognized Gris-Gris, Marcie’s barn cat. Hadn’t Marcie told me the cat went everywhere with Once? Now Tuan yelled and Teddy used both hands to yank the stallion to a standstill. Tuan strode past them and jumped into the trailer. It swayed with his weight. He emerged carrying the spitting cat in his hands. He nodded. Teddy moved forward with the horse. Then he did a cowboy thing. I almost laughed out loud. At the trailer’s mouth, he tossed the lead shank over the stallion’s back and slapped him on the rump, just as if he hadn’t had to fight this horse for every inch of progress only seconds ago. I was surprised to see the horse jump in. Teddy and Tuan rushed to bolt the doors behind him. Then Teddy walked forward, got in the Suburban and the rig started down the drive. I shut the file cabinet and began re-stapling papers. With my slidey, rubbery fingers it was hard to get the staples in the exact same holes. I finally got the last one in and was leaving to put them back on the kitchen table, when a horse screamed. Were they killing him right now? I paused and looked out the dusty window. I saw the trailer rock as the rig crawled forward with far more than normal movement over a bumpy drive. The stallion’s screams continued. There were metallic bangs. Once was fighting hard against his doom. Dashing to the kitchen, I fanned the papers over the table. Then I started out the door, and bumped into Simon Asprey, lab guy, hair greased to his balding head with sweat, hands latexed like mine, carrying a black satchel.

  “Bryn. What’re you doing in here?”

  “Uh, Simon–hi!” What the hell am I doing in here?

  He stepped into the kitchen and stared at me.

  I heard another scream from the stallion and bangs as his steel shod hooves pounded the thin metal walls of the trailer. Any minute, I thought, a hoof might pierce through. There were highly responsive shouts from the men outside.

  Alarmed, Simon stared at me. It was widely known I was a horse person. Which meant to the layperson, I could immediately solve any equine problem.

  “Hmm. Guess I better go see what those cowboys are up to,” I said.

  Simon laughed. “Cowboys. You mean of the drugstore variety.”

  I was halfway across Marcie’s yard, zooming toward the horse trailer when my cell rang. I grabbed it, flipped it open, said, “Hey.”

  “Bryn,” said Lila, the owner of Lila’s Creole Diner and Gossip Central for the St. Tremaine horse industry. “I heard the sheriff went to the Goodall farm. What’s happening?–”

  “Oh, Lila. The worst.”

  “What?”

  “Marcie. I found her–she’s gone, Lila.”

  “Gone?”

  “Real gone. Deceased. Killed!” An uneasy feeling. “Keep it quiet for now though, will you, Lila?”

  “Of course.” Maybe she would. I shouldn’t have blurted out that information.

  “Oh my God,” Lila ran on. “I’m so sorry–”

  “They think her stallion did it–and–”

  “The horse? How–? Why are you panting?”

  “I’m running across Marcie’s lawn. I think that same stallion fell in the sheriff’s horse trailer–” The bangs were even more frantic. I picked up my pace.

  “Whoops! Drop by for a coffee on me when it’s sorted out, Bryn.”

  Not saying goodbye, I pressed Off, stowed the phone and arrived at the semi-circle of people around the suddenly still trailer. Too still. Was Once hurt?

  “That horse is crazy,” Teddy was offering. He got sage nods from everyone except Tuan.

  “Not necessarily,” I said, stepping up to the rear of trailer and unlatching the doors.

  The two-horse trailer suddenly thumped, then rocked so hard, I was afraid it might tip over. Holding the doors closed, I yelled, “Tuan, open the front–he might be strangling!” I pictured the horse slumped on the floor, but with head and neck tightly pulled upward by a short tie-down. Probably his halter had been fastened to the trailer tie-rope, which was often permanently attached to a metal loop soldered in the feed bin. Most trailer ties had panic clasps, which were easily snapped open. But not all of them. If this trailer didn’t have that safety device, the halter would choke him. Without air, he wouldn’t have the strength to get back on his feet to relieve the pressure. Strangulation by a caught halter was the number two cause of horse death in North America.

  After I heard the tinny squawk that was Tuan opening the small front door that gave access to the feed bin, I let the back doors swing open. Once was down. His sweating haunches and heaving belly filled one side of the trailer. His neck stretched abnormally upward. He was hanging as though already condemned, from his own halter. His near eye bulged from its socket. The stare held panic and confusion. And, I thought in relief, consciousness.

  One hind leg was caught under him, the other raised high. It pressed ineffectually against the outside wall of the trailer. The trailer had little room for a downed animal.

  “Once,” I yelled, “Get up! Get up now!” I leaned in and shoved hard on his buttocks. My latexed hands slipped on his sweat. The horse grunted horribly, expelling what might be his last breath. His eye rolled back to me, huge, terrified. His tail, lank with sweat, flopped to and fro. Wiry strings of it snapped wetly across my face. Fumes of leathery horse sweat mingled with a shampoo smell and just-dropped manure and filled my nostrils.

  “C’mon now, guy! You gotta get up!” I urged, pushing hard. I lifted my head. Yelled, “Tuan! You still round front?”

  “Yeah,” I heard him answer.

  “Good. Reach in. Unfasten that trailer tie.”

  “Can’t. He’s got it so tight there’s no slack.”

  Damn! I thought, but called, “Cut it! He’s strangling!”

  “I don’t have a knife–”

  “–I do!” yelled Teddy, and as I thrust at the horse’s greasy haunches, I saw a flash of silver. Teddy running by, knife in hand. Don’t fall, Teddy, I thought, close to hysterical laughter.

  “Hang on, guy,” I said to the stallion, whose eye rolled to look back at me. But I felt encouraged. He was aware of me. Then, suddenly, he shuddered. His entire body went slack, collapsing in on itself. Dying?! He’d had no water, no feed, for how long? Sheriff MacWain hadn’t let me water him: he didn’t want the horse moving from his position over Marcie’s body. Crime lab persons had to take pictures. Incriminating pictures.

  The stallion’s tongue lolled from his mouth. His lips went slack and showed long yellowed teeth. His gums were bluish. Lack of oxygen!

  “No!” I screamed. “Hurry! We’re losing him!” Stinging sweat poured into my eyes. />
  Behind me a mutter, “No loss…”

  Rage surged through me so I used it to shove and shout harder at the horse.

  “Once, get up! Get the hell up!“

  The knife sawed at the yellow nylon tie. I could see the shiny tip of it where it protruded over the shelf of the feed bin. It moved in and out of my sightline, like a tiny fish in a reef. The tie gave way. The knife tip disappeared.

  “Got it!” Tuan hollered.

  My hands were braced on the bulged rump. I was bent like a man pushing a stuck vehicle. I stared as Once’s head slithered down, neck turning at right angles to his body, head facing back at me. Eyes half closed. Dead? Or shock?

  “Once! Lightning Strikes Once!” I screamed at him. My throat was raw. I pounded my fists on his slick butt. Was his neck broken? Windpipe collapsed? I could not bear for him to die. I had to save him. For Marcie. For all the women and men who were passionate about breeding horses in this age of hard drives and Humvees. I heaved, punched, shrieked. The horse remained inert. The men stood around. Blinded by sweat, I gasped for breath. My face felt red-hot.

  A moan. An eyelid flickered. Once groaned. Inhaled hugely. I inhaled too. Slapped at the sweat on my forehead. My hair was soaked, the longer side slathered to my cheek; the short certainly plastered in pointy auburn fingers around my face. I knew I looked dreadful.

  “Gooood boy,” I purred, “Goood boy! You men! Get over here. Take out this damn partition!” Once’s eyes went wide open. “Good boy! Give a try now, Once.” I stood, met his eyes, mine hard as I could make them. None of the men moved.

  “Once. Stand up!” I commanded.

  The horse sucked air. His tongue went from beige to pink. Sweat streamed over his head making black strings of his forelock, like Simon Asprey’s comb-over. Only, I thought, the horse is better looking. His eyes rolled, then he pushed against the trailer wall with the rear leg that was thrust up. It slid down, ineffectual. Not enough. His forelegs, and one hind leg, were pinned under him. He had no leverage to rise from this position.

  The stallion was probably severely dehydrated. I took a pinch of his skin. Let it go. It stayed up in a small peak. He was, and stressed out of his mind. Strangulation in a strange trailer, water and food deprivation, the death of his mistress…Second Brain quietly said: Bryn. The horse was standing guard over her body. And I knew this was the truth. He wasn’t backing away from a murder he’d recently perpetrated. He was watching over his felled mistress, in profound bafflement. Too late to help her–with a shock, I thought: too late to help her? Could that mean–Marcie had been killed outside the stall, and then put there, by someone who wanted to frame the horse?

  I looked around and said, “Men! He’s cast. We’re gonna have to take out this partition.” Again, I pointed at the half-wall that divided the trailer. Grumbles. I jumped into the empty side and saw that with some testosteroned tugging, it should lift right out.

  “Tuan!” I called, “Need a big strong man here.”

  Tuan came round and stepped in beside me. I looked up at his golden-skinned face, my eyes ran down to his big hands grasping the partition, and I felt a quiver of attraction. Which instantly, I suppressed. Teddy stepped in also and between them the men raised the half-wall. Once’s body lolled through the new gap. They jumped from the trailer. Once rolled onto his back, all four legs stroking the air, then heaved himself over to his far side. He braced his legs against the side of the trailer and battered until he shoved his body closer to the center of the floor. Working hard. I urged him, saying, “C’mon guy, c’mon Once…thatta boy!” Metallic banging. He scrambled. Paused. Breathed. Shoved. Heaved. Gained his feet. He stood for a second, belly bellowsing, then ejected from the trailer like a pilot from a burning jet. I shrieked. The people shouted in alarm. All scattered to avoid the near-half-ton projectile that was the horse. Feeling solid ground beneath him, Once sniffed it, then snorting, raised his dripping head and looked around at the defensive group of humans. Sheriff MacWain held his hat up like a shield. Teddy was slung-back like a limbo dancer. Tuan was stolidly nearer, legs apart like a stone monument. The photographer took pictures. Three of the crime lab people were crouched far back, emitting peeps of fear.

  I stood closest, body still, arms wide, as if to contain or embrace the horse. I took a deep, calming breath and said, “Easy guy, easy,” and lowered my arms. I walked to his head and took hold of the severed, dangling tie. The horse dipped his nose and touched my arm as if reassuring himself I was real. Alive? Then he tossed his nose at the others, as if to say, Keep that nutty crew away from me.

  I stroked the wet nose and turned the horse to face the nutty crew.

  “Did any of you think to water this horse before you loaded him up?”

  Every eye sought the ground.

  “He may be a suspect, but he hasn’t been convicted yet. He deserves decent care. Even a horse is innocent until a judge says otherwise.” The photographer fired one off. I hated having my picture taken. I’d be in it for sure, looking worse than the horse.

  I was about to lead the stallion into the barn for water when the gray cat ran to us. Once tugged at the lead. I let my hand follow his head down. I watched amazed as the horse sniffed the cat. Gris-Gris arched her back then tail up, walked a circle around the horse’s muzzle. She purred. Once’s roiling eye softened. Her upright tail brushed softly over his foreface.

  What had Marcie said? “She’s Once’s pet. Goes everywhere with him.” From the window of Marcie’s office, I had seen the cat run into the trailer, but Tuan had brought it back out. Big mistake, Tuan! I thought, but decided I wouldn’t enlighten them about the cat just yet. I waved an arm imperiously. They all fell back. I guided the exhausted horse past them, back to the barn. I didn’t kid myself that he was back to stay. The stay was just that–of execution.

  Chapter Six

  May 21, 12:48 PM

  I led the stallion back into the barn. Just inside, I saw an empty stall. This would be a faster way to get some fluids into him. I led him forward. He took one step in and balked.

  “C’mon, guy, it’s not a horse trailer–” I pulled, he resisted. “Once! This is a nice clean stall, I don’t want to take you to your filthy old stall–” But the men were coming up behind and so far I’d dazzled them with my horsemanship. I backed the horse out and went down the aisle.

  He ran into the big stall, now empty of everything, even the straw bedding. I went for the hose. Again, I dragged it down the disarrayed aisle, where great swathes of the concrete had been laid bare. Near Once’s stall, I noticed long brownish-red streaks on the cement. I stepped over them and instead of feeding the hose through the grill, I went into the stall and began filling the bucket, standing at the horse’s side. Gris-Gris darted in and settled under the feed trough. Once drank, hard.

  This stall was not just larger than the other stalls. It alone had no ceiling: it went all the way up to the rafters. It was understandable that a prize stallion might have a larger stall–but three times larger? And why only this one with no ceiling? The other stalls had fans mounted in their ceilings. Not Once’s: too high. Instead there was a box fan attached to the grillwork at the far end. I switched it on, for both of us.

  As the hose ran and the stallion drank, I considered his extreme reaction inside the horse trailer. It was peculiar, unlikely–an animal that’d been a professional showhorse for years. He’d have traveled thousands of miles by trailer, all over the country, possibly even to Canada. But how could he, when he reacted so violently? Had his upset been just the absence of the cat? Did she calm him; make it possible for him to endure the long hauls? Most horses accept trailering well, and didn’t require pets to make it possible. Especially show horses: it was part of their job.

  And why did he balk at entering the other stall, an ordinary stall, with a lower ceiling…? I kinked the hose, stopping the water flow.

  “Better wait, guy, see how you handle that much water for now.”

  I didn’t think he�
��d been so overheated that a large amount of cool water could founder him: cause over-inflated blood vessels in his hooves to burst from the shock and cripple him. I bent and felt his hooves. Warm–not dangerously hot.

  MacWain arrived as I let myself from the stall.

  He stopped in front of me and took a wide-legged stance. We were eye to eye. “Vet’s comin’.” He paused, waited for my reaction. “He’s gonna shoot this crazy animal full of tranquilizer so’s we can get him on over to the pound.”

  I reacted. “He needs to eat first! Then wait until it’s safe to trank him–”

  “Nope, he don’t. He needs to get gone. Suivant’s on his way.”

  “Suivant? That butcher? I wouldn’t let him examine a flea, let alone tranquilize a former world champion.” I was pacing around in circles in the aisle, walking over the brown streaks. “Sheriff! He’s an idiot! He’s liable to overdose him! He could kill this horse!”

  MacWain didn’t move. “Save us the trouble then.”

  “You don’t know he killed Marcie.”

  “Bryndis Wiley. Ma’am. Did you not see those hoof marks all over her body? The Coroner thinks it was the horse too. So, don’t you start a ruckus now. You saw how wacky he is, almost wrecked that trailer. He’s mean.”