by Valerie Tate
“And how do you propose we do that?” Alex said what Chris was thinking.
“It’s simple. We tell them that I am looking for a youngster to bring along and we’ve heard Marci has some nice young stock. We make an appointment to go and see them and while she’s busy with me, you and Chris can take some samples. You said all you need is some hair from the mane that has the roots on. That can’t be too difficult to get.”
Alex and Chris looked at each other. It sounded simple enough and relatively legal in an underhanded sort of way.
“Well?”
“OK. I’m in,” Chris said, ignoring further quaking of his law degree.
“Me, too,” Alex said, “I’ll call in the morning to make an appointment. Marci will love this.”
Chapter 9
Rain was coming down in sheets the next morning so they decided to wait to call until it let up. By noon the sun had started to come out and Alex phoned the farm but there was no answer. She waited an hour and tried again. Still no answer so she left a message asking Marci to call. When she hadn’t called back in another hour they decided to drive over and see if they could find her.
It was apparent something was wrong as soon as they turned into the drive. Several police cars and an ambulance were parked by the house. Marci, Jon and Claire were speaking to someone who was taking notes. Jon was holding Marci who looked visibly shaken.
They parked by the barn where Janey and another girl were standing, clinging to each other and crying. Climbing out of the car, they approached the distraught young women.
“Hi, Janey. Remember me? Alicia?”
Janey nodded and blew her nose.
“What’s happened? Is someone hurt?”
Janey nodded again and took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s Dean. He’s dead,” she said bluntly and then burst into body-racking sobs again. The dark-haired, older girl with her made soft, comforting noises trying to calm her.
“She’s very upset,” she said, unnecessarily, her own blue eyes red-rimmed and teary in her pale face. “ I’m Brooke.”
It hardly seemed the time for introductions but they made them anyway. Once they were out of the way, Alicia asked, “What happened to Dean? Was there an accident?”
“We don’t know anything more,” Brooke replied, wiping her eyes. “When he didn’t show up for work this morning, Marci went to his apartment to look for him. She came running back and called the police. She said he was dead but not how. The police have been here for hours but no one has told us anything. They just told us to wait here.”
Suddenly there was a commotion by the house and people started moving. The reason soon became clear. They were removing the body. Several officers were helping the paramedics carry the gurney down the stairs and then it was rolled to the back of the ambulance, the officers’ bodies mercifully blocking the view of what lay on it. The sight of the gurney caused a new torrent of sobs in Janey.
The man who it seemed was a police detective must have finished with Jon, Marci and Claire because they started walking in the direction of the bungalow and he turned and walked towards them.
Ignoring the sobbing girl, he went directly to the outsiders. “I’m Parker. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
Detective Inspector Parker was a tired-looking man in his mid-fifties with world-weary eyes that had seen too much he’d like to forget. His brown hair was becoming pepper and salt grey. His face wore the melancholy air of an aging bloodhound. There were fine lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth but whether from smiling or frowning was difficult to tell. His body in its grey suit was still trim and he had the loose-limbered gait of a younger man.
As Chris explained about the straws of semen and the immediate reason for their visit, Alicia saw a speculative look in the detective’s brown eyes.
“Well that explains a lot,” he said when Chris had finished. “We’ve had no motive for suicide. It looks like we have one now.”
“Suicide?!” The shock of the statement stopped even Janey’s sobs.
“Yes. Some time yesterday afternoon. He injected himself with something. The medical examiner isn’t sure what but he thinks it caused a heart attack. He left a note on his computer. It said he was sorry for doing it and couldn’t face his family and friends but it didn’t say what he was sorry for. I guess you just answered that question. Was it worth a lot?” The question came out of the blue.
“Was what worth a lot?” Chris asked.
“The semen.”
“I paid $20,000. for it,” Alex answered dully. Suddenly, it didn’t seem very important.
The detective whistled. “It must have been pretty special to cost that much. Still, it’s odd...” He left the sentence dangling but they had a pretty good idea of how he would have finished it. It was odd that he would kill himself over that.
“Where were you all yesterday afternoon,” he went on.
“We were all at my farm, Avalon,” Alex explained.
“Give the officer over there your names and contact info and you can go. We’ll be in touch.” Then he turned to the girls. They were dismissed.
Chapter 10
“Did we cause this?” Alicia asked in a small voice, huddled in Chris’ arms on the over-stuffed sofa in the living room at Avalon. “Did he kill himself because we meddled? Are we responsible for his death?”
Suddenly, something that had seemed like play-time to her; an intellectual exercise, a puzzle to be solved, a game of hide and seek; was now revealed to be what it had always been – the eternal juggling of gain and loss. Inevitably, when someone tries to gain something at the expense of another, whether it be monetarily, emotionally, politically or even spiritually, there is loss - loss of money, of honour, of hope, even of life. And occasionally, loss is a boomerang returning to strike back at the one who had set it in motion in the first place.
“If he did kill himself, it was because he couldn’t face the consequences of his actions, not because of anything we did.” Chris spoke sternly to try to dispel the rising tide of guilt that threatened to engulf them.
Alex, who had been pacing the floor, stopped abruptly. “What do you mean, ‘if he did kill himself’?”
“Why would he kill himself?” Chris asked in frustration. “Even if he was guilty of the theft of the straw, it wasn’t the end of the world. It just seems to be a huge over-reaction. A good lawyer would probably have gotten him off. After all, what evidence is there really? Nothing that could be proved in court and nothing that remotely connects him to the theft. It’s all circumstantial.”
He was right. No one kills himself over semen, even $20,000 worth of semen. The cold, hard lump that had settled in Alicia’s chest relaxed a little. “We’ll have to wait and see what the medical examiner says. Perhaps it was an accident,” she said hopefully. He wouldn’t be any less dead but at least she would be able to sleep at night knowing she wasn’t responsible. “He seemed like such a nice, open young guy. It’s hard to believe he could have stolen anything. Why would he have done it?”
“I can make a guess about that,” Alex said, sitting down on the loveseat beside her mom. “Do you remember what he told us when we were walking to the lab? His dream was to be a show jumper. There is an old proverb that says, ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’ This is a very expensive sport, especially if you want to ride in the big leagues,” she explained. “Compare it to say, the tennis professional who needs a racket and balls which can travel on the plane with him. The equestrian professional or amateur spends hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions for a really good, well-trained horse or takes years to produce one himself. Thousands of dollars to transport it to Europe or the US for competitions. The daily expenses to house and feed it. Vet bills. Farrier bills. Massage. Chiropractic... This list goes on and on. And you always have to have another one in training to replace it because the years of competition at the top levels go so fast. And there are very few big pay checks in equestrian sports, not like golf
or tennis. I remind myself every day just how lucky I am to be able to afford what I love to do.” She smiled at her mom in appreciation. “It is something I never take for granted and it is why I always have a couple of working students.
“Both Pippa and Leah are very talented but their families aren’t wealthy. Both families have sacrificed to keep their daughters in horses. Young Riders is extremely costly. They work for me in exchange for board for themselves and their horses plus a small salary. I also sponsor each of the girls to help defray their costs and their home-towns have held fund-raisers for them, as well.
“And the cost of Young Riders is nothing compared to the cost of taking your horse and competing in Europe. Both girls want to go and train in Germany and I’m going to use my contacts to find them working student positions over there when the time comes. Then I’ll find other talented young people to bring along as working students. It’s my way of giving back.”
Julie gave her daughter a hug and herself a mental pat on the back for having raised her so well.
“Perhaps he saw a way to make a lot of money quickly,” she went on. “In his eyes, it would be a victimless crime. The mare owners would ultimately get their foals. It might cost them a little more but most of them are very well off and they could afford it. The only ones who were really losing anything were the stallion owners and they could always get more. It is, after all, a renewable resource. If he hadn’t taken the Danzig straw, no one would have been any the wiser.”
What Alex said made sense, but something just didn’t feel right, even to left-brained Chris, something he couldn’t put his finger on that niggled, just out of reach, at the back of his mind.
The sombre mood was still prevalent the next morning when Detective Inspector Parker came to call.
“All right,” he said without preamble, “tell me all about the stolen semen.”
And so they did. Everything, even how they had searched the office and what they had found. The detective listened attentively watching their faces as they spoke, raised his eyebrows when they described the office search, smiled briefly at the mention of the latex gloves and nodded approvingly when Alex related what her phone calls had revealed.
When they’d finished, he asked a surprising question. “Were you surprised to learn it was Dean who had stolen it?”
That question clarified all the doubts they’d had.
“Yes, frankly, we were.” Chris replied finally grasping the niggling thought. “I just don’t see how he could have done it. They described their system. He didn’t sign for the semen. He wouldn’t know they had straws from the same facility. He didn’t carry out the inseminations. And if we’re right about the other cases, we don’t see how he could have done those either.”
Parker didn’t comment but his silence spoke volumes.
“How did he die?” Alicia finally found the courage to ask.
“He appears to have injected himself with potassium chloride. It caused a massive heart attack.”
His choice of ‘appears to’ wasn’t lost on them.
“Where would he get something like that?” Chris asked.
“I ask Jon Allardyce that. He said that it is something they routinely have in their dispensary and as a vet tech he would have known exactly how much he would need to inject and how to do it.”
“Were there signs of a struggle?”
“None. Yesterday was his afternoon off. They’d all had lunch in the lounge in the barn. Marci Allardyce had brought in cold meats, buns and salads.” He rolled his eyes, “It must have been pretty spicy stuff because his body still smelled of garlic when we got there the next day.
“Anyway, since he was off the clock, he went back to his apartment as soon as he finished. The others were still eating when he left. A while later, Marci remembered that they were scheduled to do a semen collection first thing the next morning so she had Janey call to remind him. As far as we know, that was the last anyone ever spoke to him.”
“No wonder Janey was so upset, poor kid,” Chris said.
“When he didn’t show up the next morning, Marci went to find him. She found his body instead.
“The medical examiner puts the time of death around 1:00 pm, not long after he returned to his apartment,” and, as if in response to an unasked question, “while the rest of them were still together in the barn.”
“So you’re satisfied that this was suicide?” Chris still found it hard to believe but the alternative was just as incredulous.
There was a brief hesitation before the detective replied, “That is what the medical examiner has concluded, however, until we’ve finished our investigation, we’re still treating the death as suspicious.”
“Why, what makes you still think it is suspicious?” Alicia asked.
“Just little things.”
“What sort of ‘little things’”
The detective considered for a moment then replied, “If I were going to give myself a massive heart attack, I’d do it sitting down. Not standing in the middle of the floor as he must have been. And then there’s the timing. He eats lunch and then goes back to his apartment and kills himself. Why? Why then?
“And the suicide note on the computer. It was very vague. And why on the computer? Why didn’t he write it himself, by hand? But then, you young people today do everything on the computer. I guess I should be surprised that he didn’t text it!” He laughed at his own joke, trying unsuccessfully to lighten the mood.
“Anyway, Miss Craig, when we’re satisfied that he was the thief then you can contact your insurance company.”
“No insurance, I’m afraid. It was insured with the courier company while it was in transit but once it was signed for at King Valley that finished. It never occurred to me anyone would try to steal it!”
“Too bad.” He stood to go. “By the way, Chris and Alicia ‘Mallory’? Are you from Dunbarton?” They admitted they were. “The missing cat, right?” They nodded. “Doug Samuel told me about you.” It didn’t sound like he’d heard anything good.
After the detective left, Chris followed Alicia out to the verandah and sat down on the step beside her.
“So what do we do now?” he asked without preamble.
“What do you mean?”
“The theft of the straw is now part of a police investigation. And even though Dean’s death is being considered a suicide at this point, even Detective Parker doesn’t quite believe it.”
“As far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t change anything,” she said stubbornly.
He slid over and put his arm around her tense little body. “Do you remember what Detective Inspector Samuel said last time we got mixed up in a murder investigation?”
Alicia nodded, thinking back to a time when the police almost didn’t arrive in time. “The police do know what they are doing,” she quoted.
“And we could get ourselves killed meddling in something that doesn’t concern us.” He paraphrased the rest of the detective’s words. “If someone has killed Dean, he or she could kill again. If we get involved in trying to solve his death, we could be putting ourselves in a killer’s headlights.”
Her lips tightened in a determined line. “We’re already involved in this,” she pointed out. “We haven’t found out what happened to the Danzig straw and we promised Alex we would. And besides that, I have trouble believing that Dean did it. So, we can continue to look for the thief and we may find a killer while we’re at it.” The obstinate look changed to one of entreaty.
He sighed. It was a look he couldn’t resist. “Okay. We’ll continue to investigate the theft and if that over-laps with Dean’s death, so be it. I have a feeling that Detective Parker isn’t going to be any happier about it than Detective Samuel.”
Chapter 11
The sun had finally come out again and the sand in the outdoor ring was slowly drying up. The everyday sound of the horses’ hooves landing in the soft footing made the events of the previous day seem less real.
“I don’t know whether he killed himself or not, but I’m convinced he wasn’t the thief.” The detective’s matter-of-fact manner had helped to dispel the gloom Alicia had felt since learning of Dean’s death and the steady rhythm of Harley’s trot was restoring her normal spunky outlook. “Perhaps he was in on it but there is no way he could have done it on his own.” She paused for a moment to concentrate on executing a shoulder-in, then went on, “And I’ve been thinking. If Dean stole the straw, he’d have the money that he got for it. Where’s the money?”
Chris who was watching from the rail, got out his phone. “Good question. I’ll call Parker and find out.”
A few more lateral movements later he had the answer. “There’s no sign of any money. They checked his accounts and he hadn’t made any large deposits in the past year and there was no cash found in his apartment.”
“I suppose it’s possible he had an account no one knew about.”
“They thought of that, too, so they contacted every bank in the area to check for accounts or safety deposit boxes. There was nothing in his name anywhere. So unless it’s in a locker at the bus depot or buried somewhere on the farm, he never had any money.”
Watching Alicia work on getting Harley to do a supple haunches-in down the long side, Chris said thoughtfully, “You know, we just assumed that Dean’s note saying he was sorry meant he was sorry for stealing the straw because that is what we’re looking for. But the note said that he was sorry for ‘doing it’. Perhaps he had done something else entirely, nothing to do with the stolen straw and we just have tunnel vision.”
“Well that’s certainly a possibility,” she admitted.
Alex sent Brin into a trot half-pass across the diagonal. “So what are we going to do next?”
Chris answered, “We go back to our original plan to get DNA evidence from the horses in Marci’s private barn. Our plan was sound. It can still work. It might seem a little insensitive to make an appointment to look at horses under the circumstances but...”