Barnstorming (Gail Mccarthy Mysteries)

by Laura Crum

  Jeri turned and glanced behind the camper. I could see the wheel of a mountain bike. “Is that your bike?” Jeri asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Been riding it much?”

  “Every day.” Buddy was muttering now, looking down. In a barely audible tone he added, “Not that it’s any business of yours.”

  Jeri glanced up at me. “All right then. We’ll be going.”

  Taking Gray Dog’s reins from me, she remounted. Buddy continued to look at the ground, ignoring us as we turned our horses and rode back down the hill. I did not look over my shoulder, but I could feel ripples of discomfort up and down my spine. I did not trust Buddy one little bit.

  “That guy’s not normal,” I said, once we were around the bend and out of his sight.

  “Yep. I need to talk to him some more. And I’ll bet this cartridge came from his gun. As soon as we get done with this ride, I’m gonna grab one of the guys and come back up here.”

  Jeri and I were both silent as we took the trail that led to the swingset. “This is where I saw what I guess was Ross Hart,” I said finally, as we came to the hill that led up through scattered oak trees to the crest of the ridge. “Loping along.”

  “Yeah,” Jeri said absently. I could tell she was lost in her own thoughts. For that matter so was I.

  And my thoughts were making me really uncomfortable. Talking to Buddy had caused me to think for the first time that Jane might have been shot not by accident, or for a reason, but for no reason. Somehow, previous to this, I had supposed that if she were murdered, it was by someone who had a motive to kill her. Not by someone who had simply and randomly chosen to shoot an unknown woman riding through the hills. Someone crazy.

  The thought made my shoulders twitch. Almost involuntarily, I looked over my shoulder. The trail stretched, empty and quiet, behind Jeri and Gray Dog. No one there. Or so it appeared.

  I thought of Jane Kelly riding her steady horse down the trail, as we were doing now, with no thought of danger. I thought of someone hidden in the woods, aiming the gun, pulling the trigger. For no particular reason, or no reason that would make sense to anyone else. I thought of Buddy. And for the first time since the shooting, I seriously wondered if I ought to be riding back here.

  Jeri and I were out of the trees and in a small meadow, passing the abandoned swingset that had given this trail its name. I remembered another time that Sunny and I had galloped past this swingset on a stormy day and sincerely hoped I would not see a repeat of that event. Looking off to the left, I glanced at the remains of an old house, half buried in twining vinca. For a moment I pictured the children who had once lived in the house and played on the swingset.

  Movement ahead of me in the dark woods caused me to look quickly back at the trail. The movement resolved itself into someone riding toward us through the shadows on a dark horse. As the horse and rider emerged from the trees, I recognized Trish O’Hara on her black gelding, Coal.

  Trish pulled her horse up with a look of relief on her face. “Oh, it’s you, Gail. I swear, I’m completely paranoid right now. Every time I see anyone I’m afraid it’s the person who shot Jane.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. Gesturing at Jeri, I added, “This is Sergeant Jeri Ward, who’s investigating the shooting. This is Trish O’Hara, Jeri. She keeps her horse at Lazy Valley.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Trish said. “I think I saw you at the barn yesterday afternoon talking to Doug and Sheryl.”

  “That was me,” Jeri agreed.

  “Sheryl wasn’t too happy about that,” Trish said, and grinned. I got the idea that Trish’s opinion of Sheryl was about like mine.

  “Is that right?” Jeri asked in a friendly way.

  Trish shrugged, but didn’t say anything more. I wondered if I ought to warn her not to go near Buddy’s camper. But then, I knew no real reason to speak ill of the guy. In the end, we wished each other a nice ride and went on, Jeri and I leaving the bright meadow for the shadows of the forest.

  In another minute we were in the midst of a big grove of redwood trees, with views between their trunks all the way down the long valley. Beyond lay the crumpled folds of the coastal mountains, blue with distance. Sunny paced calmly on; Gray Dog followed. Through the scrub, and out into the sunshine again, with a view through the oak trees of the Monterey Bay.

  “Wow,” Jeri said. “This is sure beautiful.”

  “Yep,” I agreed. “Even if we are working on an ugly crime.”

  The trail wound slowly down the hill toward Moon Valley. Some ten minutes later we were riding through Lazy Valley Stable. I glanced in the direction of the barn where Doug Martin kept his horse. There he was, with the bay gelding tied to the hitching rail. Doug was apparently rewrapping the foot with the abscess. Next to him stood Sheryl Silverman, holding her saddled mare by the bridle reins. She was talking to Doug and it seemed to me there was real intensity in her face and posture. I couldn’t hear her words. Neither Doug nor Sheryl had noticed Jeri and me yet.

  Doug’s face was turned up toward Sheryl now; there was something there that I couldn’t read. Not anger exactly, more like fear. Doug’s usually relaxed, handsome features definitely held an expression of alarm and yes, frustration. He answered Sheryl with the same intensity in his face and body language that I saw in hers.

  I glanced at Jeri and saw she was watching the two of them. In that moment Sheryl looked over her shoulder and spotted us. It was actually pretty comical. For a second we registered as just two riders walking down the dirt road that led through the stable. Sheryl’s eyes narrowed as she focused closer and recognized me. But when she identified Jeri her jaw literally dropped and she turned instantly to Doug. Both of them watched us ride towards them with wide, startled eyes. Deer in the headlights.

  To my surprise, Jeri smiled a greeting but kept on riding. I followed suit. As we rode out the gate at the other end of the ranch, I looked a question over my shoulder at her.

  “I talked to those two yesterday. Didn’t learn much. Sheryl admits to riding up in the woods during the time Jane was shot. She heard something that might have been a shot. Doug has no alibi. Says he was running errands. His horse is lame so he can’t ride. And then he told me all about how he was taking care of Jane’s home and animals. Very devoted guy, or so he says.”

  “Yeah, I wonder about that, too.”

  “I sure wish we could have heard what they were saying to each other back there. It was something more than trivial chat,” Jeri said.

  “That’s what I thought, too. They looked pretty intense.”

  “So, where are we going now?” she asked me.

  “Back to my place. We’ll ride over this ridge here and then back across the high school. It’s a nice ride.”

  Famous last words. We had only gone a short way up the steep slope, riding a narrow single-track trail that snaked between the trees and brush when, on a particularly vertical sidehill in the midst of tangled vines and bushes, we came to a downed tree. A recently fallen tree. Like maybe yesterday.

  I stared at the trunk in consternation. A pretty good-sized oak, it lay across the trail in such a fashion that it was too high to step over and too low to duck under. The trail was effectively blocked.

  “Is this another example of somebody trying to keep horses off the trails?” asked Jeri from behind me.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “This tree looks like it’s tipped over naturally and it’s too big for someone to place here. I think it’s just an act of nature.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Sunny stood perfectly still as I studied the situation. The trail was narrow, the hill it traversed was steep, and the brush was thick. The path was completely blocked. I wasn’t sure that we could turn around safely. I wondered if we could detour around the tree. It had fallen with its crown to the uphill side and the more I looked the more I thought that maybe we could detour around it. If our horses were willing to go straight up t
he hill while pushing through tangled bushes, vines, and small branches.

  “How’s your horse at bushwhacking?” I said over my shoulder to Jeri.

  “He’s fine,” came the laconic answer.

  “Okay then. Here we go.” And I aimed Sunny straight up the hill and clucked to him.

  My little yellow horse knew how to push through brush, and steep didn’t bother him. With only a half a second’s hesitation, he put his head down and trudged up the hill through the shrubbery, following my cues as I chose a path around the crown of the oak tree. Branches snapped underfoot and vines tore and rustled as we crashed through. In another minute we ducked under the branches of the toppled oak and were picking our way back down the steep slope to the trail.

  “Whew,” I said, once we were back on the path. “Glad that went okay.”

  “No problem,” Jeri said. I could see she had a grin on her face. “We got a couple of damn good trail horses.”

  I smiled back. “Yep, we do.” Despite the unsettling investigation we were embarked on, I found my spirits had risen and I once more felt as if I were on a pleasant walk in the woods.

  We topped the ridge and rode past a water storage tank, with another big view out over the bay, and then dropped down a steep hill to a long flat trail that lay in an old roadbed. “Want to lope?” I asked Jeri.

  “Sure.”

  I kicked Sunny up to the lope and we rocked along for a while, enjoying the breeze and the rhythmic gait. Sunlight flashed and sparkled in my eyes, shadows were like cool pools, and the tangled green forest moved by in a streaking blur. Until I saw the bridge ahead of us.

  I slowed Sunny to a walk, knowing he would check himself soon. “He doesn’t like this bridge,” I told Jeri.

  “No?”

  “I don’t know why exactly. He slipped on it once; maybe that’s it. He’s pretty good about most things, but he’s liable to balk here.”

  The bridge was not a big one. Only three feet high, it spanned a ditch that had been washed out by erosion. There were no rails and the span was all of six feet. Not a big deal. But Sunny had been suspicious of it, and crossing it last winter he had slipped. He’d stayed up, but had approached the bridge with much caution on the return trip. I wasn’t sure how he was going to feel about it now.

  As I’d predicted, Sunny came to a stop in front of the obstacle and snorted. I could read his thoughts. “I want no part of this slippery little bugger.”

  I kicked him and clucked to him, but I could feel his resistance. He did not dance or skitter, but he took a step backward rather than forward.

  I hesitated. I could “over and under” the horse with the reins and he’d go forward, but he might jump onto the bridge and perhaps slip again.

  Jeri answered my unspoken question. “Why don’t you just let me give you a lead. It would be safer. This horse doesn’t mind bridges.”

  “All right,” I said.

  The trail was wide enough here to allow Jeri to pass me easily, and Gray Dog walked forward willingly, gave the bridge a good long look, and stepped up on it. The bridge made a hollow thunking sound under his hooves, which caused Sunny to snort again, but Gray Dog walked across it calmly and without mishaps.

  I clucked to Sunny and bumped his sides with my heels. “Your turn,” I said out loud.

  Sunny hesitated. Once again, I knew what he was thinking. “I don’t want to cross this, but the other horse did, and that’s the way home.” Sunny was not a stupid horse. He knew home lay across the little bridge. He snorted again, lowered his head for a better look, and then stepped cautiously forward, virtually tip-toeing onto the boards.

  The bridge gave its hollow, wooden noise, but Sunny did not slip, and tip-toed safely off the other side, where Jeri was waiting.

  “Why don’t you lead,” she said. “I don’t know where I’m going.”

  So Sunny and I headed off down the trail again. Sunlight and shadow, tangled vines and hanging gray Spanish moss, live oaks and eucalyptus trees blended around us as we rode. We passed the high school, headed up a hill, and were once again on the ridge trail, dropping down towards the Red Barn boarding stable.

  I explained to Jeri where we were. “In a minute,” I said, “we’ll see Ross Hart’s house.”

  The horses picked their way carefully down the steep trail. We stepped out from behind a big manzanita bush to see the three-story A-frame below us on our left. With no less than a dozen cop cars parked around it.

  Chapter 12

  “What the hell?” Jeri demanded as she rode up next to me.

  I was too startled to say anything. I halted Sunny and gazed down at the busy scene in astonishment. There were men everywhere, some in uniform, some not, some, to my amazement, with drawn guns. The cars were green, which indicated the sheriff’s department.

  “Are you busting him?” I asked.

  “I’m not,” Jeri answered grimly. “I have no idea what this is about. But I’m going to find out. Let’s go.”

  We trooped on down the ridge to the Red Barn and turned left, up the hill, to the house surrounded by cop cars. Quite a few spectators were gathered, including a couple, like us, mounted on horses. They’d clearly ridden up from the boarding stable to see what was going on.

  Several uniformed officers were holding the spectators back from the driveway. A guy in plainclothes with a big and very obvious gun in his hand stood near them. Something about this thick-necked cop was familiar to me.

  Jeri dismounted from her horse, handed me the reins, and walked up to the thick-necked cop. They looked at each other with what seemed to me to be mutual dislike, and though I couldn’t hear their conversation, I had the sense it was an argument.

  I rode Sunny and led Gray Dog up to a woman mounted on a paint mare. “Hi,” I said. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “Not exactly.” The woman looked about my age and had hair that was equally blond and gray and many lines around sharp blue-gray eyes. Her mare stood in a relaxed slouch, unalarmed by all the excitement around her. The rider looked over at me and my horses and seemed to decide that as a fellow equestrian I must be all right. “That’s where the trainer and barn manager live,” she said quietly. “I think they’re getting busted. Judging by the plants I saw those cops carrying out of the house, it’s for growing pot.”

  “Oh,” I said, thinking that Blue and I had been right about that light. “Have you seen Tammi or Ross?” I asked her.

  “Nope. I heard somebody say that they took off when they saw the first cop car drive up to the house. Apparently they were down in the arena at the time.”

  “So they just drove away?”

  “Um, I heard they rode away.”

  “On their horses?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  I stared at the woman, somewhat disbelieving. Ross and Tammi had simply taken off on their horses and ridden up into the hills at the sight of cops pulling up to their house?

  “Wow,” I said, “if that’s true, I wonder where they plan to go. It’s not like they can hide out up there forever with no gear or food.”

  “I know.” The woman half smiled. “I thought it was pretty funny, actually. Do you suppose the sheriffs will bring in a mounted posse to chase them down?”

  We grinned at each other; the notion clearly amused both of us.

  Jeri seemed to be done with her conversation; she came walking my way with an annoyed look on her face. Once she was back on Gray Dog and we were headed down the road and well away from the house she said, “That damn Matt Johnson.”

  “Is he the cop you were talking to?”

  “Yep. He’s head of narcotics. He and I have never gotten along. Apparently he got a tip last week that these people were growing pot and decided on the big bust. Without informing any other department. Communication isn’t always real good around the sheriff’s office.” I could see Jeri shake her head. “He’s supposed to let everyone know in case there’s a conflict. And guess what?”

  “What?
” I said as we rode across the vacant lot between the boarding stable and the road.

  “The person who called in the tip was Jane Kelly. Last Friday.”

  “The day before she was shot. Oh my God.” I was adding two plus two and getting the inevitable four. “She told me she’d seen Ross Hart out riding and that he’d been up to some stuff he shouldn’t be up to. Then she said, ‘I told him so.’ And then she got shot. What if she called him on this pot growing thing and threatened to turn him in?”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Jeri said grimly. “If Matt had only told me what was going on, I could have had a nice little interview with Mr. Ross Hart. But now he’s disappeared.”

  “Along with Tammi. I was told they took off into the hills on their horses.”

  “Is that right?” Jeri laughed. “Matt didn’t mention that part to me. I wonder how he plans to handle that?”

  By this time we’d reached the road and were halted, side by side on the shoulder, waiting for a traffic-free moment to cross. When no cars were in sight, I kicked Sunny up. Jeri was right beside me as we clip-clopped over the pavement and up the narrow strip of road that led to my front gate.

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked her.

  “Haul this horse back to his pasture. Then I’m gonna have a couple of the guys meet me and go check out Buddy and his camper. I want to see if he’s got a gun up there—I think he has, judging by the shells I found. They looked fresh. After that I want to talk to that guy with the white dog. And I’ll find out if Matt and his guys have managed to pick up Ross and Tammi.”

  “Sounds like a busy day,” I said, thanking my lucky stars that I had no further plans besides watering the garden and exercising Henry.

  “Oh for a quiet life,” Jeri said, as if she could read my mind. “Thanks for taking me on this ride; it really helped me get a feeling for the situation.”

  We’d reached my barnyard and Jeri swung off her horse briskly. “I’ve got to get going,” she said as she slipped his bridle off and loaded him in the trailer.