Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery)

by Laura Crum

  Cops arrived; so did a fire truck and an ambulance, which were sent on their way. The girl's father returned, helpful and apologetic. Nobody wanted to sue anybody. A little of my faith in human nature was restored.

  Details got taken care of one by one, but eventually I realized no one had a clue what to do about the mare's body.

  "Shall I call the tallow truck for you?" I asked.

  The man, who had turned out to be one Bob Walford, gulped a little over this. "Poor Shelly," he said anxiously. "She'd hate that. "

  "You've got to do something with the body," I pointed out. "You could bury her, if you've got a place that's suitable and a backhoe handy, though I believe it's technically illegal."

  "No, no we can't do that. I guess you'd better call the ... what do you call it?"

  "The tallow truck."

  "What does it cost?"

  "It's free. He makes his money on the carcass."

  It sounded brutal, I knew. But what else was there to say? The mare was gone; the living creature the girl had called Mandy had fled. All that remained was inanimate, dead flesh, the waste of her empty body, which did need to be disposed of.

  I arranged for the truck to come, and eventually got myself disentangled. I'd felt I'd been there for hours and was amazed that the dashboard clock only said six.

  Jesus, what a day. I needed a break.

  Stopping at a little Mexican restaurant down the road, I ordered a margarita from the waitress. "On the rocks, Cuervo Gold, fresh lime juice and lots of salt."

  I had two of them, then ordered an enchilada, though I wasn't really hungry. Sometimes it seemed that all there was to being a veterinarian was facing tragedy head-on. There would be better days, I knew, days when I saved lives and saw tears of joy on my clients' faces, rather than tears of sorrow, but they seemed far away. I stared at the painting of a bullfighter on black velvet that hung on the wall next to my table and wondered, not for the first time, if I'd chosen the right profession.

  I got home an hour later feeling drained and sad. The welcome jingle of Blue's collar on the other side of the door as I unlocked it announced that he was fine, and Bonner came scooting in from parts unknown with a loud meow, slithering between me and the dog as I walked in the house.

  Relief, deep as it was temporary, filled my heart. I rubbed Blue's head, then took him outside for his required walk. For the moment, at least, my little animal family was okay. Gunner and Plumber were safe with Lonny; the cat and dog were here with me. The dark, twisted thing that coils in our very cells, human as well as animal, that waits on the highways and lurks in the weather, the thing that had reached out and laid a finger on Rebby and taken the girl's Mandy, was elsewhere tonight. Soon I would grapple with it again; for all I knew my first call tomorrow would be another life-and-death struggle, but for now I tumbled into bed and fell instantly asleep, my mind empty of everything but sheer fatigue.

  SIXTEEN

  At six the next morning, I got up, climbed my ladder stairway to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, then showered and dressed. By the time I'd settled myself at the end of the couch with my favorite blue willow cup steaming into the cold air of the living room, first light was just graying the ridge top. Picking up the phone, I dialed Kris's number, hoping Rick wouldn't answer.

  "Hello?" It was Kris.

  "It's Gail. So how are you doing?"

  "Okay."

  "How's Reb?"

  "The same." Her voice was flat.

  "What did Rick say when you told him?" Kris's husband, though wealthy, had a marked aversion to spending money on medical treatment for horses. "I didn't tell him. Rick couldn't care less whether Reb lives or dies. He's already gone to work." Kris's tone was bitter.

  I was startled. I didn't like Rick Griffith at all. I thought his good looks and superficial charm thinly masked a domineering and aggressive personality, and I noticed that Kris seemed dimmed in his presence, her normally forthright manner growing several shades more submissive. But I'd never heard her acknowledge any resentment toward him before. I'd always assumed she was unaware or unconcerned with the (to me) unpleasant dynamics between them, and simply enjoyed Rick's obvious looks, wealth, and, let's say, forcefully polite manners, well enough. Apparently I was wrong.

  "Is something going on with you and Rick?" I asked hesitantly. "Oh, just the usual; nothing in common anymore. Not to mention I'm sure he has a girlfriend."

  "Do you care?"

  "I don't know. The one thing I do know is he'd fight me like a son-of-a-bitch for custody, and I'd never be able to keep the place, either. I'm not sure a divorce would be worth it."

  "Oh." I was silent, thanking my lucky stars I was single and dependent on no one but myself for what I had. Losing her daughter, her property, her security-it would be a big price for Kris to pay. "I'm sorry," I said at last. "I didn't know things were like that."

  Kris caught my awkwardness and jumped in. "There's nothing anyone can do. It's not that bad. Anyway, you'll call me when the blood work comes back."

  "Right away," I said.

  "Thanks, Gail." Kris hung up quickly.

  I hesitated a second, then looked Joanna's number up in my personal book and resolutely dialed it. Joanna was a vet and no doubt operated on a schedule just like mine; early in the morning was probably the best time to call her. She answered on the second ring, sounding reasonably alert and cheerful. "Hello?"

  "Hi, Joanna, it's Gail." Despite my good intentions, I was sure the primary emotion in my voice was the discomfort I was feeling. Striving for a more upbeat tone, I asked, "So, how are you doing?"

  "Good." Joanna's tone was as emphatic as my own. "I'm doing good."

  "Well, I was worried about you, after all you went through up there in Tahoe," I fumbled, hoping I was saying approximately the right thing.

  Silence on the other end of the phone. Joanna's voice, when it finally came, sounded cool. "I'm doing better now."

  Resisting the impulse to say, I hope you're getting over what's his name, I asked, "Keeping busy?"

  "With this job, you don't have a lot of choice."

  I certainly knew about that.

  "Uh, Joanna," I blurted out, "what did Jack talk about that night you went out to dinner?"

  More silence. Then, "You're not still worrying about that, are you?"

  "Sort of." I didn't feel like mentioning that I hadn't done a whole lot of good so far; my chief contribution had been an attempt to implicate Tara, a woman I had no real reason to suspect other than pure dislike. "Did Jack say anything that night, anything about his life and what he was doing-anything about anything?" I added lamely.

  "He talked a lot about himself," Joanna said, "but I didn't really listen."

  "Did he say anything about any of his ex-wives?" I asked, grasping at straws.

  "No." Very brusque. "He just talked a lot about some big land deal he was working on that would make him all this money. I mean, I'm sorry he's dead and all that, but he sure went on and on about himself and his deals. He bored me, pretty much. That's all I know." Joanna's tone had grown decidedly curt.

  "If you think of anything else," I asked her, "call me, okay?"

  "Okay." I barely heard her hasty good-bye as she hung up the phone.

  The clock on the wall said quarter after seven. I got up and ran a comb through the damp tangle of my hair, then pulled my boots on. Calling for Blue, I headed out the door.

  When I reached the office; Jim's pickup was in the parking lot, though it was only seven-thirty, and we were all due in at eight. No one else was there.

  Going in the back door, I greeted my boss, who was sitting at his desk, compiling the day's schedule. I sat down next to him.

  "Gail. Good to see you back at work." There was the faintest sarcastic edge to his voice. In theory, Jim had agreed that it was a good idea for me to attend the Winter Equine Seminar and work the endurance ride, and he'd been willing for me to take Monday morning off to attend the trial. But in practice I knew he'd
rather I spent twenty-four hours a day down at the clinic, working my butt off. To be fair, this was the schedule he more or less followed himself; Jim was a working fool.

  In the three years he'd employed me, I'd had no vacation time other than the seminar, and I worked an average of six days a week, ten hours a day. Nothing in my veterinary training had prepared me for this sort of schedule, nor for the fact that Jim was as tight with money as he was generous with hours. Still, whenever I grew frustrated it always came down to the same bottom line: I couldn't afford to set up a practice of my own, I was committed to living in Santa Cruz County, and Jim was the only decent horse vet in the area. On the plus side, he was more than a decent diagnostician, he was a great one. I'd learned more from him in three years than I had the whole time I was at vet school, and I continued to learn all the time. That in itself was worth a lot of grief.

  We discussed Rebby's odd condition for a while. Jim agreed that EPM seemed as likely a diagnosis as any, given the circumstances, but like me, had had little experience diagnosing and treating it. "Let me know how it goes," he said.

  Turning back to the schedule, which he had been finishing as we spoke, he ran one square, stubby finger down the page, pointing out several calls he'd set up for me, explaining the ongoing problems he was dealing with. He never looked at me as he talked; his eyes stayed on the page, his square, stocky body shouldered me out of his space unconsciously. I had to virtually peer around him to see what he was pointing at.

  One thing about Jim: sexual harassment was not a factor. I wasn't sure he was aware I was a woman; he certainly wasn't interested in me in that sense. He had a wife and four kids, but it was more than good, old-fashioned monogamy. Jim didn't really see me as a person, merely a tool.

  I'd gotten used to this, in a way I even liked it. I did my job as well as I could, which he expected and demanded, and that was that. We weren't friends. I accepted that he wouldn't pay a penny more than he had to. End of story.

  It didn't surprise me, though, that he'd gone through a junior vet a year before I came along, and that the office and barn staff came and went with unceasing regularity. Jim was not an easy man to work for, by most folks' standards.

  "You heard about what happened up at the seminar?" I asked him.

  "Jack Hollister got killed. Yeah, I heard."

  Jim was never talkative, but this was oddly brusque, even for him.

  "Did you know Jack?" I ventured.

  "Yeah, I knew him." Jim stared at the list on his desk, eyes cast firmly down, mouth a straight, expressionless line.

  "I take it you weren't friends."

  Jim shrugged. "He tried to put me out of business when I moved here-it must be twenty years ago now."

  I was shocked. "Why?"

  "He didn't want me poaching on his territory. He told everybody he knew, which was everybody in the county who owned a horse, pretty much, that I was no good as a veterinarian."

  This didn't sound like Jack to me. And yet, I reminded myself, how well had I really known the man?

  "Eventually people figured out I wasn't so bad and I got a few clients, and Jack got so rich buying and selling ranches he retired. But no, we weren't friends. Of course, I'm sorry he was murdered." Jim didn't sound terribly sorry. "Now about this mare you need to preg check up in Felton ..." He launched into the reproductive history of the horse in question, but I wasn't really listening.

  Easygoing, handsome, wealthy, flirtatious Jack Hollister-everybody's friend-that was how I had seen Jack. The sort of vindictive, petty behavior Jim was describing didn't fit my picture at all. And yet, Jim had no reason to lie.

  "There's a gelding in Aptos who needs his teeth floated ..." Jim was still talking. I tried to focus on what he was saying when we both heard the noisy rattle of a truck and trailer pulling into the back parking lot.

  "Damn." Jim said it with feeling and I knew what he was thinking. An unscheduled emergency-the client had simply hauled the horse down without calling, assuming we'd be here. Not a good start to the day.

  Before either of us could get up and start out the door, a figure burst through it, talking volubly in my direction as he came. "I need you to come with me right now. That goddamn Tara stole Willy and I need a witness."

  It was Bronc, as agitated as I'd ever seen him. "Come on," he said, grabbing my elbow and propelling me toward the door.

  "What are you talking about, Bronc," I said firmly, digging my heels in. "And why do you need me?"

  "Because I need a witness, goddammit, when I take the son-of-a-bitch away from her. Someone who knows Willy and knows he's my horse. The closest goddamned brand inspector is in Salinas and I don't have time for that. Now, come on."

  I looked at Jim and was amused, even under the circumstances, to see that his usual rocklike composure had deserted him; his face looked startled and aghast. "You'd better go," he said.

  I made one last-ditch effort. "Bronc, what you need is the police."

  "I do not need any goddamn cops. Now are you going or not, 'cause if you're not I'm going without you and if I kill that bitch it's on your head."

  "I'm going, I'm going." Following him out the door, I gave a moment's thought to the wisdom of this course, but dismissed it with a mental shrug. Oh well. Looked like I was on board.

  Five minutes later I wished I'd thought harder. Bronc was driving eighty miles an hour plus down the freeway, the stock trailer rattling wildly behind us. I wedged myself into the corner of the seat, searching for a seatbelt; either the old one-ton pickup didn't have them or they were buried out of reach.

  "Slow down, Bronc," I commanded. No result except he stepped on the accelerator. "That bitch is not gonna steal that horse and get away with it," he muttered.

  Closing my eyes as the speedometer crept up toward ninety, I said, "Bronc, if you don't slow down, I am jumping out of this truck at the first stop sign and finding my own way back to the clinic. "

  I could hear him smile, that quick wolfish smile, as he said, "I ain't gonna kill you, honey."

  "I don't care. Slow down or I'm getting out as soon as I can."

  "This okay?"

  I opened my eyes to find the speedometer at seventy; we were already halfway to Watsonville and, thankfully, the freeway was reasonably empty.

  "Okay, but no faster," I said firmly.

  "Deal."

  Shit. Some deal. I stared out the window at the Monterey Bay, vividly blue in the winter sunshine, the towers of the power plant standing out sharp and tall at Moss Landing, many miles away. Santa Cruz County was at its best in the winter, I sometimes thought; the scenery outside the window was markedly lovely-too bad it was passing so damn fast.

  "Bronc," I warned. The speedometer had risen to eighty while I looked away. His foot lifted ever so slightly off the gas pedal and I asked him peevishly, "What in the hell is the point of going so fast?"

  "I don't want that bitch to have time to move the horse."

  "How do you know it was Tara who stole him? How do you know he was even stolen? Maybe he got out."

  Bronc looked at me and looked back at the road, appearing by his expression to be pondering the stupidity of women in general.

  "Wire was cut," he said curtly. "Down by the road where I can't see the fence from the house. There were tire tracks outside the fence in the wet ground. A few of Willy's hoofprints. Someone cut the fence and led him out and loaded him in a trailer."

  "How do you know it was Tara?"

  "I know, all right," was all he would say.

  "So, where exactly is it we're going?" I asked him as he took the Elkhorn Slough exit.

  "Right smack up to the bitch's front door." Bronc's face had a hard set to it and his voice held a quality I'd never quite heard from him before. Another question occurred to me.

  "You don't have a gun, do you?" For a second he looked startled; it appeared if he was contemplating mayhem it wasn't of that sort.

  "Naw, I don't have a gun. If I kill her it'll be with my bare hands."
The humorous tone had returned to his voice, but the other quality was still there. I began to worry in earnest.

  Bronc was pulling the trailer down a long dirt driveway-a pair of muddy ruts barely encrusted with gravel. Crooked board corrals lined the drive, which led to a house I would be inclined to call a shack. It wasn't that my own abode was any bigger or more intrinsically glamorous, it was just that this place was so palpably uncared for. The paint was faded and peeling, the rough patch of lawn unmowed, pieces of rusting junk everywhere. Behind the house stood a big, old barn, and it was on this building that Bronc's eyes were fixed as he climbed out of the truck. Without a word he began to walk toward it.

  Not having any better ideas, I followed him.

  Tara's truck, with a trailer hitched to it, was parked in front of the barn. Tara herself came out of the open barn doorway and planted her body in front of Bronc as he strode toward her.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I came to get my horse." Bronc faced her without an atom of give; I had the sense he would have just tossed her out of the way and gone on if I hadn't been there.

  "What horse?"

  "My buckskin gelding."

  "I don't have him."

  "I'm gonna walk through your barn and see."

  "You damn well are not."

  Tara stepped inside the doorway of the barn and reappeared almost instantly. To my absolute disbelief she was holding a gun. Moreover, she was pointing it straight at us. In sick fascination my eyes fixed themselves on the round black hole at the end of the barrel. Oh my God were the only words that came to mind.

  "You all better stop right there," Tara ordered.

  Her voice sounded shrill with strain, and my eyes flew up to her face. Tense and jittery, her expression gave me no confidence that she knew better than to shoot us.

  Stopping obediently, I raised both hands placatingly in the air. Bronc, however, kept walking.

  "You stop, you son-of-a-bitch, or you're dead. This is my property and you're trespassing." Tara pointed the gun right at the center of Bronc's body.