Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery)

by Laura Crum

  I was at the front of the lift line now; to my relief no other single appeared to join me and I scooted onto the moving chair and prepared to ride up the mountain in solitary splendor.

  And it was truly splendor. As the chair topped the first rise Lake Tahoe was spread out before me once again, jewel of the Sierra. And the mountains themselves. The Sierra Nevada, the range of light, as John Muir had called them. I only knew that nothing I'd ever seen approached these mountains for sheer loveliness. Steep, rough-edged, spiky with silvery granite in the summer, softened by the white, powdery snows of winter, studded with vivid blue lakes and sunny green meadows, they were God's chosen garden.

  I was so lost in the view that I had to scramble to get organized when the moment came to get off the lift. One of my nightmares has always been to pile it up as I edge out of the chair and end up lying in the snow in a tumble of skis and poles while the whole ski lift comes to a stop and people behind me, halted in midair, glare balefully down at my prostrate form.

  Once again, though, I managed to scoot to the edge of my chair and disembark down the steep exit ramp without tangling up. After a moment to rearrange myself, I started off down the slope, marveling, as I often did, that these big clumsy appendages attached to my feet, when put into motion, could suddenly invest me with the speed and freedom of a bird. In fact, as I swooped back and forth down the snowy hillside, the chill wind brushing my face while the brilliant sun dazzled my eyes, I felt as I imagined a hawk might feel, soaring in great, gliding crescents across the sky.

  I spent several hours repeating the thrill until, at around two o'clock, my legs began to protest, reminding me that I hadn't been skiing in three years. Making my way back to the hotel after a leisurely keoke coffee in the ski-lodge bar, I felt satisfyingly exhausted. I walked Blue, took a quick shower, put on jeans and a wool sweater and headed out the door for lectures and dinner with no presentiment that disaster was about to overtake my vacation.

  It wasn't until seven-thirty the next morning that I got the first inkling. I was listening, chin on hand, to a lecture on equine eye problems; the lecturer was an extraordinarily knowledgeable man, and an even more extraordinarily dull speaker. Despite the fact that the material was fascinating, it was hard to keep my eyes open.

  I'd already noticed that both Jack and Joanna were missing from this lecture, a circumstance that seemed suspiciously suggestive to me, but I refrained from mentioning it to Larry and Rod-last night's dinner companions-feeling virtuous at my own restraint. My smug complacency vanished a second later when a woman entered the room and handed the speaker a note, which he read aloud.

  "Will Dr. Gail McCarthy please come to the desk to receive an emergency phone call.”

  Oh shit. Oh my God.

  I tried to keep a semblance of composure on my face as I bolted from the room, various horrible emergencies presenting themselves to my mind. Lonny had died in a car wreck, Gunner or Plumber (my two horses) had colicked and died, my house had burnt down. Fear twisted my bowels as I picked up the phone, but the speaker wasn't Lonny, or some minion of the law, it was Joanna.

  "Gail, please, I need you."

  At least that was what I thought she said; Joanna was incoherent. She seemed to be choking and crying and talking all at the same time, and I had to ask her twice to repeat herself.

  "Just come," was all she would say. "Room 33I."

  I hung up the phone and headed for the stairs, sprinting up them as fast as my tired legs would propel me. Joanna's room was on the third floor; I was certain I could beat the elevator.

  When I knocked on her door two minutes later I was gasping for breath, but Joanna didn't seem to notice. She wore a baggy terry cloth bathrobe, her hair was uncombed and tangled, and there were tear streaks on her face. Joanna did not look as if she'd just spent a happy night in the sack; she looked like hell, and obviously felt worse.

  Sitting her down on the bed, I put an awkward arm around her shoulders and tried to sound soothing. "What's the matter, Joanna? Whatever it is, I'll help."

  This didn't elicit any response except "It's too much."

  "Is it Jack?" I tried.

  Judging by her response, it was Jack. She buried her face in both hands and wept.

  "Please, Joanna." I was starting to feel a little distraught myself. "Tell me what's wrong. Did you sleep with Jack?"

  It seemed a logical question under the circumstances, but it inflamed Joanna. "No," she half screamed, "I did not, and I didn't want to, either."

  "Okay, okay," I said pacifically. "So what's wrong?"

  Her own anger seemed to help Joanna regain some control. She sat up straighter and swallowed the next sob. "No, I didn't sleep with him," she said forcefully, "and I didn't shoot him, either."

  "Shoot him? Did he treat you that badly?"

  Joanna gave me a sideways look out of wet eyes. "You don't understand, Gail. Jack Hollister's dead-and they think I killed him."

  THREE

  “Dead?" I repeated stupidly. "Jack's dead? How?"

  "Someone shot him. Oh God." Joanna sank back with a sound that was half a choke, half another sob. "It's too much."

  "Come on, Joanna." I gave her shoulders a hard squeeze. "Pull yourself together. If you don't tell me what happened, I can't help. Talk, don't cry. Why is it too much? Surely nobody really thinks you killed him?"

  My mind was roving wildly now, trying to imagine any sort of circumstance that would lead to Joanna shooting Jack Hollister, but none seemed possible. I couldn't really believe Jack had been shot; he simply wasn't the kind of person to be the victim of violent crime.

  Joanna was talking, finally; I tried to focus in on her words ... "It's Todd, really, not Jack."

  I'd missed something here. "Todd? Todd is the person who's shot? Not Jack?"

  "No, no. Todd's the reason it's too much."

  Joanna seemed to have recovered some of her composure-maybe she'd sobbed the hysteria out of her system. She kept talking, anyway, and slowly the whole sad story of Todd began to emerge.

  Todd was Todd Texiera, apparently, a cowboy on the biggest ranch in Joanna's part of the foothills, and the apple of every Merced County woman's eye. To hear Joanna tell it, anyway. Joanna had met him on a call out to the Hacienda Ranch, and he'd obviously charmed the socks off of her.

  The socks and everything else, in short order, it appeared. No matter that Joanna seemed to know he'd already loved and left a dozen other women she was acquainted with, she'd hopped right into bed with him, sure that this time it was different.

  Only, of course, it wasn't, and Todd Texiera had left her as he'd left everybody else. About a month ago, it seemed. Left her and proved entirely resistant first to demands and then pleas that he move back in and "work it out." Joanna had been desperate.

  Little by little I glimpsed the demeaning straits to which she'd reduced herself. She'd tried to dress more fetchingly to get his attention, she'd invented numerous imaginary reasons for calls out to the Hacienda Ranch, she'd called him constantly. All of which he'd ignored.

  He was always pleasant, Joanna said, and sometimes he'd tease her, just the way he used to, so she was sure the feeling was still there.

  Fat chance, I thought but didn't say. I recognized Todd Texiera's type from her description and I would have bet my life savings he already had another girl in tow and had no intention of returning to Joanna.

  "What about Jack?" I prodded gently.

  I'd suspected her interest in Jack had been along the lines of a rich boyfriend, possibly even a rich husband, but it seemed I was wrong. Joanna had wanted to acquire Jack out of an even less noble motivation-she wanted to make Todd Texiera jealous.

  "Everybody knows Jack Hollister," she said. "I thought maybe Todd would find out I was dating him."

  It was a pathetically revealing statement, and I cringed for her. Not to mention I was sure it wouldn't have worked. The Todd Texiera types were not susceptible to that sort of game playing. They were the ones who intended to
hold all the strings.

  "And now you say Jack's been shot and they think it was you? Who are they? The police?"

  "Yes." Joanna looked like she was ready to cry again; talking about Todd had calmed her, talking about Jack's murder seemed to do the reverse.

  "Come on," I urged her, "tell me what happened, so I can help." If that's possible, I added to myself.

  "We went to dinner," she began, obediently composing herself with an obvious effort, "at this place called Nevada Bill's."

  It was a combination restaurant, dance hall, and casino, it seemed, small, and relatively elegant. It was also a multiroom sort of an affair---card rooms here, barroom there, slot machines over there-with a balcony overlooking Lake Tahoe. Sometime in the latter part of the evening, after they had finished dinner and were gambling, Joanna had lost track of Jack.

  "I just wandered around looking for him for a while; I wasn't particularly worried. Then it got later, and I started hunting for him. I couldn't find him anywhere and it was late and I was tired. I thought he'd found some other woman and ditched me." Joanna choked back another short sob. The imagined rejection still rankled, apparently.

  "I finally decided I'd better call a taxi and go back to the hotel. Then I realized I'd lost my purse. I hunted through the whole place again, this time for the purse, though I kept an eye out for Jack, too. I didn't see either one. I had some money stuffed in my pocket to gamble with, so I had enough for the cab. I asked the man at the front desk to call me if anyone turned in my purse and gave him my name and room number here. Then I left.

  "The next thing I know is the phone is ringing at six this morning and it's the cops. They told me Jack had been shot; they found his body in the lake, they said. And my purse was out there on the deck they think he fell from."

  "Have they been here?" I asked her.

  "Not yet. They told me on the phone to stay in my room and a detective would be here to talk to me. After I hung up" Joanna looked at me appealingly-"I just couldn't stand it. My whole life is falling apart."

  It made sense in a way. Todd Texiera had probably been Joanna's first lover. Who knew what irrational impulse had led her to choose a lethal charmer, but it was clear the result had been devastating. Balanced as she was on the fragile edge of control and desperation, the notion that she might be a murder suspect really was too much.

  "Washoe County Sheriff's Department." The voice on the other side of the door was quiet and unaggressive, as was the knock, but we both jumped as guiltily as co-conspirators and stared at each other. Joanna's eyes were wide with fright, and her disheveled appearance was exactly what I might have imagined the perpetrator of a violent crime would look like the morning after. She had, I supposed, a motive of sorts. Distraught over Todd Texiera, she propositioned Jack on the rebound and was rejected. Hell hath no fury, etc.

  All these thoughts flashed through my mind as I looked from Joanna to the door. Too late to have her change into some clothes, too late to warn her to say nothing about her disastrous love affair. With a whispered "Just answer the questions," I got up and opened the door.

  The man who stood in the hallway met my eyes and said, "Ms. Lund?"

  "No, I'm her friend."

  He looked less than pleased for the merest fraction of a second, then said, "Detective Claude Holmquist."

  "Dr. McCarthy," I answered firmly. "Dr. Lund is waiting for you." I laid a little extra emphasis on the "doctor" as I held the door open for him, thinking that this was going to be easier than I'd expected.

  Detective Claude Holmquist was not an intimidating man. Small and narrow framed, he looked to be about forty-five, with a receding hair line and a Nordic face. In Joanna those Scandinavian genes had produced a snow-queenesque beauty; in this man they'd created a rabbitish look-his long nose, almost lashless pale eyes, and thinning, faded hair were innocuous at best.

  Joanna faced him with more composure than I'd expected; she still looked red-eyed and distressed, but her demeanor was calm. I crossed my fingers it would stay that way.

  In response to quiet questions from the detective, Joanna retold the story I'd just heard. The man gave no sign, either verbally or in his facial responses or body language, of what he thought. Unaggressive neutrality was the only quality he displayed. I began to revise my first impression.

  "And you, Dr., uh, McCarthy?" He turned those slightly watery eyes on me. "Can you add anything?"

  The question was ambiguous, deliberately so, I supposed. He watched me passively; nothing could have been less threatening than the slight sideways tilt of his head, yet I had the strong impression I needed to choose my words carefully.

  "Dr. Lund and I are friends and she called me up here this morning as she was upset-naturally."

  No response from the detective.

  "I should probably tell you that I knew Jack Hollister, Dr. Hollister, slightly, better than Dr. Lund did. In fact, I introduced them a couple of days ago, here at this convention." Again, no response, just a gentle inclination of Detective Holmquist's chin.

  I plugged on. "Jack Hollister is from Santa Cruz, my hometown. He and I are both horse vets, and we both participate in team roping, so I've run into him quite a bit."

  "Team roping?"

  "It's a sport. A rodeo event. Roping cattle from horseback."

  "Ah yes." Claude Holmquist nodded. Again I had no sense what he thought of team roping, of me, of this case, of anything at all. "Why do you think he was killed?"

  No inflection in his voice. Just a simple question. I thought about it. "Are we assuming he was murdered, then? It wasn't suicide?"

  "Do you have a reason to think he would shoot himself?"

  I stared at this man, wondering if he might possibly represent the epitome of the give-no-information-away school of bureaucratic thought.

  "No," I said finally, "I have no reason to think he would commit suicide. I was wondering why you seemed to assume he'd been murdered."

  Detective Holmquist gave the faintest upward twitch of the lips and said nothing.

  Since he clearly wasn't going to tell me what evidence he had, or anything else for that matter, I took a deep breath and tried again. "Okay. As far as I know Jack Hollister had no reason to kill himself or be killed by anyone else. He wasn't the type, if you know what I mean. My first reaction when Joanna told me was, that's impossible. Jack was successful, cheerful, and easy-going; that's the impression he gave, anyway. I didn't know him well enough to know if he had any serious problems under the surface."

  Detective Holmquist nodded slightly. We were all quiet. When the silence had lengthened to the point of stiffness and it was apparent Joanna and I were not going to volunteer anything more, he spoke. "I'll take down the names of anyone you think we should be in touch with and then get back to you. Would you two be able to wait here for me?"

  It was phrased as a request, but I didn't bother to suggest any other program. The alternative was probably waiting around in some police station.

  I gave him the name of Jack's foreman and that of his most current ex-wife, Tara, and left it at that. I couldn't remember, if I'd even known, the names of Jack's previous wives; no doubt the police could discover them.

  Detective Holmquist departed with this information and a promise to return shortly and left Joanna and me alone. She was huddled in a straight-backed chair, the hunch of her shoulders and droop of her head conveying her feelings more clearly than any words could have done. She'd remained absolutely silent while the detective had questioned me and she still said nothing, just stared vacantly at the blank gray screen of the silent TV set.

  "Joanna," I said tentatively. "Why don't you take a shower and get dressed. You'll feel better."

  She shook her head.

  I walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "Joanna, come on. This isn't the end of the world. I know you didn't kill Jack. It will all get straightened out."

  "It's easy for you to say." Her voice was a mumble. "Who's going to straighten out the rest of m
y life?"

  "Joanna." I was getting exasperated, tragedy or no tragedy. This new Joanna seemed very unlike the person I had known in vet school, and wasn't someone I found myself liking. I wondered briefly if it was true that we all hit some kind of major life change around the age of thirty, the boundless, somewhat mindless enthusiasm of our twenties smashing against the inexorable wall of mortality. Certainly it was true that several people I had known had changed radically around thirty, some lapsing into what appeared to be inertia and depression, others shifting from freewheeling liberals into aggressive conservatives. Joanna seemed to have changed from a hardheaded career woman into a piece of soggy toast.

  Come on, Gail, she's afraid she might be charged with murder, I reminded myself, and tried again to be sympathetic.

  "Losing what's his name, Todd, isn't the end of the world, either," I said, I hoped kindly. "We've all been dumped. Life goes on. You've got your work. You'll meet somebody else."

  "No, I won't. Todd was the only man I've ever loved, the only man I've ever slept with. Am I supposed to just go ahead and forget him?"

  I felt stymied. I'd outgrown this sort of obsessional, I've-got-a-crush-on-somebody-who-doesn't-care-about-me love, or at least I hoped so, but I could still remember what it felt like. It was at the heart of all the he-done-me-wrong country-western songs, and was certainly not peculiar to Joanna. It was, in fact, the glorified romantic love of novels. I wasn't sure how to say I thought it was stupid.

  "Joanna, I know you love this guy, but if he doesn't love you, or doesn't treat you with respect, then I think you ought to shut him right out of your life, no matter what it costs you. Don't kid yourself, it will never work out. Wait till you run into someone who loves you as much as you love him."

  My God, I sounded like a second-rate advice columnist. Joanna looked singularly unimpressed. She stared at the blank TV screen and wouldn't look at me.

  I tried again. "Okay, I know it sounds stupid, I know you think your life is ruined, but would you please, please just for now forget about Todd Texiera and try to remember anything you can about last night that could help explain what happened to Jack."