Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery)

by Laura Crum

  I watched her as she talked, trying to see what Jack might have seen in her, trying to decide if she could be a murderer. Put boldly like that it was hard to believe. Tara looked too tacky in her ugly dress, too dumb, too insubstantial somehow, to have planned and executed a murder. The idea that she had arranged for someone else to do it seemed to carry more weight.

  As for what Jack had seen in her, I simply couldn't imagine. You're not a man, I reminded myself. But I had eyes. I noted the fit curves beneath the clingy rayon, the harsh country-western bar singer's sex appeal on her overly made-up face. What I couldn't understand is why the self-centered, low-IQ, no-heart expression in her eyes hadn't glared out at him as loudly as it did at me.

  I was jerked away from my thoughts by the sound of my name, spoken in Tara's rough voice. "Dr. McCarthy treated my horse. She'll tell you what it died of."

  Tara was addressing the judge, who looked inquiringly at the group of us. Obediently I stepped forward, identified myself, and began to describe the condition in which I'd found JD, and his subsequent deterioration. This took a while, as the judge was clearly unfamiliar with horses. A middle-aged Latino man with glasses and a bright expression, he asked several careful questions about the nature of azoturia, as tying up is technically called.

  I explained that some horses did have a chronic problem with this, and that I did not know if this was true of JD. I mentally added that I was fairly sure it was not, and that the horse had simply been ridden to death, but I kept this to myself, no one having asked for my opinion.

  Tara didn't ask me any questions; in fact, she wouldn't look at me, and the judge seemed to be done, so I backed up a step and merged into the group, half listening to the two rough-looking roping kids as Tara elicited from them a favorable description of her horse handling in general and the way she had treated JD on the night in question in particular. Nobody seemed inclined to speak up and tell the judge that neither of these guys would know proper treatment of a horse if they saw it. When, occasionally, they were not too broke to own a horse, both of them treated the unfortunate animal as an inexhaustible machine.

  At long last Tara seemed to be done, and Harvey stepped forward to announce himself as the defendant; I breathed an inward sigh of relief. It was difficult to listen to so much bullshit and keep my mouth shut.

  Harvey was obviously pissed as hell. He wasted no time on preliminary explanations, but simply said, "I would like to call Dr. Gail McCarthy."

  Once again I stepped forward out of the group and faced the judge.

  "Did you perform a vet check on JD when I bought him?" Harvey's tone was belligerent, but I knew the anger wasn't directed against me.

  "Yes."

  "At the time did you find anything wrong with the horse?"

  "Nothing major. He had a few signs of arthritic changes."

  "No sign he'd ever tied up before."

  "Well no, but I don't think there's any way of determining that."

  Harvey was like a bulldog with a hunk of German shepherd in his mouth. Tenacious. "But as far as you knew, or I knew, there was nothing of that sort wrong with the horse when I bought him."

  "That's right."

  "Did I ever call on you to treat the horse for being tied up while I had him?"

  "No."

  "Did I call on you to treat him at all?"

  "Yes. Once. For colic."

  "Not for tying up, for colic, right?"

  "Right."

  Here Harvey turned from me to the judge. "Your Honor, Dr. McCarthy, here, has been my vet the whole time I owned JD, which was about two years. The horse colicked once and I had him treated and he was fine. He never tied up in his life, as far as I know."

  The judge looked at me and asked for an explanation of the difference between tying up and colic.

  I tried not to be too technical. "Tying up, or azoturia, is a condition where the muscles produce an overabundance of lactic acid, which they can't absorb. The symptoms include pain and stiffness, a reluctance to move, and brown urine, as the kidneys try to dispose of the excess acid. The cause is often too much grain. A horse that is tying up should immediately be rested. On no account should he be asked to move until his muscles relax."

  I stopped for a breath. "Colic, on the other hand, is a term covering any sort of upset in the digestive system. Colics can be very mild and pass unnoticed, or they can be serious enough to be fatal. A horse with colic will also show pain; however, that is about the only real similarity. A colicky horse can often be helped by light exercise, while a horse who has tied up should remain still. People sometimes get confused about this; there's a tendency to think you should walk a tied-up horse, but that's wrong."

  I stopped again. Shit. This judge didn't want to know what to do when a horse tied up. I felt like I was rambling on to no point in my efforts to make azoturia and colic plain to a non-horseman.

  "So there is no connection between the two conditions?" The judge had obviously grasped the main idea.

  "No, none at all."

  "You may go on, Mr. Reynolds."

  Harvey went on. And on and on. He called several people to describe the way in which Tara had overridden the horse that night, after which I was recalled to pronounce on whether such overriding could produce a fatal case of azoturia. Naturally I had to admit that it could. I could feel Tara's eyes slicing into the back of my neck as I spoke.

  Harvey called a good many more people; the clock on the wall said noon by the time he was done. I was feeling both impatient and annoyed when the judge asked to speak with me one more time.

  "In your opinion, Dr. McCarthy, this horse could have died as a result of being fed a large amount of grain on a daily basis and being ridden to excess on the night in question, even if the horse did not have a prior history of"-the judge hesitated-"tying up?"

  "That's right." I snapped, shutting my mouth firmly. I'd had enough of this.

  Apparently the judge had, too. Without hesitation, he turned back to Tara and Harvey and announced, "The court finds in favor of the defendant. Case dismissed."

  That's torn it, I thought, feeling relief and apprehension in equal measure. Tara would be absolutely one hundred percent furious at me.

  The group of ropers was trooping docilely out of the court room. I joined them, keeping my eyes firmly away from Tara. Things might have gone all right if it weren't for Harvey. Clearly seething, both with anger and triumph, he grabbed Tara by the shoulder, just as the group of us emerged into the hallway.

  "So how does it feel to know you rode a good horse to death?"

  Tara's hands clenched into fists; she looked up at Harvey in direct, murderous fury. However, Harvey was big and looked angry enough to deck her then and there. She contented herself with a "Shut the fuck up, asshole," whirling away as she spoke.

  The movement brought her up against me, face to face. I took a step backward, and Tara, seeing a smaller, more vulnerable target, seemed to coil. "You lying bitch."

  I took two more fast steps backward, my heart pounding. I'm five foot seven and a reasonably strong human being; I definitely outweighed Tara Hollister. But I've never in my life engaged in a fistfight and I didn't intend to start now.

  "I did not lie," I bleated out, sounding for all the world like a startled sheep.

  This seemed to inflame Tara; she moved toward me, those red fingernails curling, her mouth stretched tight over her teeth.

  I turned and walked. My heart was pounding loud enough to deafen me, my hands shook. I waited for the impact of her leap on my back, but it didn't happen. Only her harsh angry voice taunting after me, "Chickenshit bitch."

  I kept walking. My head was literally throbbing with rage. I wanted to tear Tara Hollister limb from limb. I wanted to see her mangled body lying on the floor in front of me.

  The thought brought me to myself in a sudden rush. Was this how people murdered? Could I actually kill someone?

  Well, no, the other half of my mind said coolly, you couldn't even bring
yourself to fight. Of course, it added, that was the right thing to do. It would have been entirely unprofessional for a veterinarian to be seen duking it out with a client in a public place.

  But I hate her guts, I answered back. I want to see her locked up and the key thrown away. Sentenced to the electric chair, preferably.

  I'd reached the bank of elevators at the end of the hall by this time. I looked back. The group of ropers had disappeared out the front door. Out there was where my truck was, too. But I was damn sure not going in that direction until they were all gone.

  I looked back at the elevators. On the third floor of this building was the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department offices. Among the people who worked there was a detective, Jeri Ward, whom I could almost consider a friend. That was stretching it a bit. An acquaintance. At any rate, someone who might talk tome.

  I pushed the button with the number 3.

  THIRTEEN

  I felt a little nervous waiting for Detective Ward. After all, I had no business being here. Just a busybody's sort of business. And I wasn't sure, really, if Jeri Ward liked me or thought I was a meddling idiot. It was hard to tell. Our last encounter had been mildly positive. Still, I'd given my name at the desk diffidently, uncertain as to whether Detective Ward would make time for me.

  And now I was waiting in a sterile cubicle, wondering what the hell I was doing here. Well, that wasn't quite true. If I was honest with myself, I knew exactly what I was doing here. Making sure Tara wasn't overlooked as a suspect in Jack's murder.

  Damn. It struck me that this was a pretty shitty thing to be doing. And that I was doing it primarily because Tara had just embarrassed me in a very public way. All right, I'd done the only reasonable thing, but I still felt like a coward, as Tara had put it to me so much less gracefully. I was getting back at her.

  You don't need to do that, I remonstrated, resolving firmly that I would not bring up Tara's name. So then, what was I doing here? Why, clearing Joanna of course, my mind retorted, ever glib. Never mind that I'd pretty much forgotten about Joanna and hadn't a clue as to how I might clear her, even assuming she needed clearing.

  At this enlivening thought the door opened and Detective Jeri Ward stepped into the room. As always, my first impression of her was not positive. A blond woman with short, neatly cut hair, Detective Ward had fair skin and even, unremarkable features. She wore a suit-a quiet navy blue plaid with a white blouse and a red silk tie-and her face matched the clothes. A cool, distanced, professional face with those unnervingly impersonal eyes that most cops seem to have, looking out at me. A power face. This was part of her job, of course, to be in charge, but I still didn't like her demeanor.

  As a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen, I tend to find that typical cop-behavior mannerism-you're guilty until proven innocent-annoying, and this woman and I had not gotten along well at all during our first few meetings. As I'd grown to know her a little better, however, I'd realized that her expressionless, aloof manner concealed a fair-minded, intelligent human being, and I'd come to understand that she needed to put her emotions on hold, so to speak, in order to do a good job. Still, I found that superior attitude ("can't trust a member of the goddamned public to do anything right") got under my skin.

  "So, Dr. McCarthy, what can I do for you?" Jeri Ward's greeting was formal; no one watching us would have guessed we'd cooperated on two previous problems.

  "Hello, Detective Ward, how are you?" I smiled at her and her expression unbent a trifle, the muscles of her face relaxing in almost imperceptible ways.

  "I'm fine, Dr. McCarthy, and you?"

  "Gail," I said. "I'm okay."

  She didn't ask me to call her Jeri-she never had-but she smiled slightly. The smile vanished instantly when I asked, "You've heard about Jack Hollister's murder up in Tahoe?"

  Once again Jeri Ward's eyes were the dead, inhuman eyes of a cop. "Yes. I understand you were involved?"

  "Sort of. A friend of mine went out to dinner with him the night he was murdered. The cops were interested in questioning her, naturally. As it happened, I was the one who introduced them, so I got questioned, too. We were all-Jack, Joanna, and I-up there at a veterinary convention."

  Jeri Ward nodded intently, making no comment, her silence meant to encourage my talk. I looked back at her, matching her silence with my own, waiting for a question.

  "Do you have something to add to the investigation?" she asked me after a moment, her face betraying no sign of our minor skirmish.

  "I'm not sure. You probably have all the information I do. I'm mostly concerned about Joanna. She seemed to be the number one suspect for a while, and I feel responsible for that, since I introduced her to Jack." What the hell. It was almost true. Ought to be true.

  Jeri Ward regarded me levelly, seeming to look right through the white lie to my less than noble motivations. After a minute, she answered my unspoken question. "Joanna Lund is not a primary suspect at the moment."

  "So the gun wouldn't have fit in the purse," I said without thinking.

  A flash of surprise unsettled the detective's composure and was gone instantly. "What do you mean, Dr. McCarthy?"

  "I wondered, when Joanna described her purse to me, if the gun would have fit inside. That detective up in Tahoe said it was a twenty-two, which could be pretty small, but I figure it would have to have had a silencer on it for the shot to have gone unnoticed."

  "Yes." Deliberately, it seemed to me, she added, "The gun was an old long-barreled twenty-two revolver; it was actually about sixteen inches in length-too long to have fit in the purse. The silencer was homemade, a length of lead pipe fitted over the barrel. The shot would have made a sound no louder than snapping your fingers."

  "Where did you find it?" I was pushing my luck.

  "In the lake." As I had guessed.

  "So someone shot Jack in the back of the head without anyone in the casino hearing, pushed his body off the deck and threw the gun into the lake, then walked back into the casino through that back door by the restrooms without a single person noticing a thing. It could have happened in the space of five minutes."

  "It's possible."

  "And Joanna's purse being out there was strictly a coincidence. Jack probably brought it with him."

  "We think that's likely. His fingerprints were on it."

  "So whoever did have the gun must have been carrying it in a bigger bag, a suitcase maybe?"

  She shrugged. "Or a duffel bag, or a backpack, or a larger purse. An overcoat with a roomy pocket."

  "I see. Lots of choices. And whatever it was, it wasn't noticed."

  "Apparently not." Jeri Ward looked right into my eyes, her expression hard. "So does this bring any ideas to mind, Dr. McCarthy?"

  I thought about it. "Not exactly. Since Jack wasn't robbed, it does make me think he was shot by someone who knew him, who knew or guessed he would be at that casino, and who had a reason to kill him. Do you know the terms of his will?" I was getting around to Tara now.

  "Yes."

  "His three ex-wives inherit everything equally?"

  Again, she looked briefly surprised. "More or less."

  "Except the Hollister Ranch, which goes to the state."

  "Possibly." Her expression was guarded.

  "So the ex-wives have the best motive. Do they have alibis?" Now I was headed for Tara in earnest.

  "I'm sorry. That's not information I can give you."

  I wasn't surprised. I was a little surprised, though, when she added, "Do you know anyone else who might have a motive to kill Jack Hollister?"

  I'd answered this question before, what seemed years ago, in Tahoe. But I knew considerably more now than I did then. On the other hand, none of it added up to anything but what I'd just said. The three ex-wives had a motive, and of the three, I'd pick Tara every time. But I could hardly say that. Not to mention I'd never met the other two.

  Jeri Ward watched me think. When I shook my head negatively, she said, "I happen to be assigned to assist th
e Washoe County Sheriff's Department on this case. Detective Holmquist and I are conferencing this afternoon."

  "He's here?" I was shocked; I'm not sure why. I associated Detective Holmquist strictly with those two miserable days in Tahoe, and the thought of him walking down a sunny Santa Cruz street, perhaps at this very moment, was disconcerting. My mental image-rabbit face, keen mind-raised immediate feelings of nervousness and guilt.

  Jeri Ward half smiled. "He'll be here at two o'clock. If there's anything you could add that might help us, I wish you'd tell me now."

  I struggled with my emotions a bit-some vestige of a British boys' -school ethic lingering in me, a resistance to "tattling." Logic finally compelled me to say, "Tara Hollister seems to need money pretty badly."

  There, now it was out, what I'd really come to do, what I'd promised myself I'd avoid. I'd done it. I'd pointed a finger straight at Tara. Part of me felt like a cowardly, back-stabbing piece of shit. Another part felt vindictively triumphant. I tried to persuade myself that the dominant emotion really was a virtuous, rational desire to assist the cops in any way I could to find Jack's murderer. I didn't believe it, though.

  Predictably, Jeri Ward was not about to let this piece of information lie. Instantly she was prodding at it, and at me. "Do you know Tara Hollister?"

  "Barely. We're acquaintances." Honesty compelled me to add, "We don't like each other much." I probably should have told Detective Ward that Tara had virtually attacked me in this very building not an hour ago, that was how much we didn't like each other, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I felt enough of a fool already.

  "Scuttlebutt has it that Tara's gone through the money she got from the divorce, and it certainly seems to be the case. That's all I really know." The sheriff's department was not going to be interested in my inward conviction that Tara was an amoral person-one who could kill. She'd ridden a horse to death and had no more sense of the wrongness of what she'd done than a cat who tortures a quail. She had both a motive and the temperament for murdering Jack-what more did they want?