Dark Horse

by Tami Hoag

  “Never say never, darling.” Sean finished his wine and went off to ready himself for a night on the town in Palm Beach. I went to the guest house and checked my e-mail.

  Special Agent Armedgian, my contact with the FBI field office in West Palm, had come through with the Interpol info.

  According to Armedgian, Van Zandt had no arrest record, but Interpol had a file on him, which said something. He had dabbled in a lot of business pies, always skirting the line of what was legal and what was not, but never quite crossing over it—or not getting caught, at any rate.

  There was no mention of him coming under scrutiny for anything of a sexual nature. I was disappointed, but not surprised. If there were other victims of his dubious charms, they were probably like Irina’s friend: young, inexperienced, alone in a foreign country, afraid to tell anyone.

  Needing to clear my head before the evening’s mind games, I changed into a swimsuit and went to the pool to let the warm, silky water soothe my body and clean the layers of grit from my brain.

  The sun was gone, but the pool shimmered midnight blue, lit from within its walls. I thought of nothing at all as I swam lazy laps with slow-motion underwater turns at the end of each. The tension washed away, and for a short time I was simply a sleek, aquatic animal, bone and muscle and instinct. It felt good to be something that fundamental and uncontrived.

  When I’d had enough, I rolled over onto my back and floated, looking up at the pinpoint stars in the black velvet sky. Then Landry came into view, standing at the water’s edge.

  I dove under and came back up, shaking the water from my head.

  “Detective. You got the drop on me,” I said, treading water.

  “I’m sure that doesn’t happen very often.”

  He was still in his work clothes, though he had jerked the tie loose and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

  “My fault for giving you the gate code,” I said. “Hard day turning the thumbscrews?”

  “Long.”

  “Sorry I missed it. No one makes a better bad cop than me.”

  “I have no doubt about that,” he said with half a smile. “Aren’t you going to invite me in? Say the water’s fine?”

  “That would be a cliché. I abhor predictability.”

  I swam to the ladder and climbed out, forcing myself not to rush to cover my body with my towel. I didn’t want him to know how vulnerable I felt. Somehow I thought that even in the dim light around the pool he would see every scar, every imperfection. It made me angry that I cared.

  I toweled myself off, rubbed my hair dry, then wrapped the towel around my waist like a sarong to hide the pitted, scarred flesh of my legs. Landry watched, his expression unreadable.

  “Nothing about you is predictable, Estes.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, though I don’t think you consider unpredictability a virtue. Do you have any good news?” I asked, leading the way to the guest house.

  “The deputies found Erin Seabright’s car,” he said. “Parked under about six inches of dust in a corner of that first lot at the truck entrance of the equestrian center.”

  I stood with my hand on the doorknob, holding my breath, waiting for him to tell me Erin had been found dead in the trunk.

  “The CSU is going over it for prints, et cetera.”

  I let go a sigh at the initial sense of relief. “Where was it?”

  “In the first parking lot as you come in the truck entrance, over by the laundry place.”

  “Why would it be there?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “She would have parked near Jade’s barn, not half a mile away. Why would it be there?”

  Landry shrugged. “Maybe she had dropped stuff off at the laundry.”

  “Then walked all the way to Jade’s barn? And then walked to the back gate to meet whoever she thought she was meeting? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t make sense for the kidnappers to move it there either,” Landry said. “They kidnapped her. Why would they care where her car was parked?”

  I thought about that as we went into the house. “To buy time? Monday would have been Erin’s day off. If not for Molly, no one would have missed her until Tuesday morning.”

  “And no one would have missed her then, because Jade claimed she’d quit and moved to Ocala,” Landry finished the theory.

  “How did he take the questioning?”

  “It was an inconvenience to him. The interview and the murder.”

  “Any nerves?”

  “Not worth mentioning.”

  “Well . . . the guy makes a living riding horses over fences taller than I am. It’s not a game for the faint of heart.”

  “Neither is murder.”

  A game. It would be difficult for the average person to consider murder and kidnapping a game, but in a macabre way it was a game. A game with very serious stakes.

  “Any word from the kidnappers?”

  Landry sat against the back of a chair, hands in his pockets. He shook his head. “No. The phones are rigged at the Seabright house. I’ve had a couple of guys checking out the neighbors. That’s a dead end.”

  “There’s a bar in that armoire under the TV,” I said, pointing into the living room. “You look like you need it. Help yourself while I change.”

  I made him wait while I took a quick shower, then stood in front of the mirror for five minutes, staring at myself, trying to read my own inscrutable expression.

  I didn’t like the anxious feeling lingering in my belly. The bubble of fear had been replaced by something I almost didn’t recognize: hope. I didn’t want it to mean so much that Landry had come back, that he was filling me in, including me.

  “You told Seabright you’re a private investigator,” he said. His voice was strong and clear. He must have been standing just on the other side of the bedroom door. “Are you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “That’s fraud.”

  “No. It’s a lie,” I corrected. “It would only be fraud if I were misrepresenting myself and accepting money from the Seabrights based on that misrepresentation. I’m not.”

  “You’d make a hell of a lawyer.”

  So my father had always said, which was the reason I had become a cop. I hadn’t wanted to be like him, bending the law like it was made of wire, bending it to suit the needs of corrupted people, corrupted wealth. I hadn’t realized at the time that as a cop I would end up bending it as many ways myself and excusing my actions because I believed my cause was just. I still wasn’t like him. That was the important thing.

  “I checked the Seabright kid’s record,” Landry said. “He’s never been in any trouble. Good student, lots of extracurricular activities.”

  “Like screwing his stepsister?”

  “And the math club.”

  “I don’t like that he’s lying about where he was Sunday,” I said.

  “Like father, like son.”

  I pulled on black underwear, checking over my shoulder, half-expecting to see Landry standing in the doorway. He wasn’t.

  “Seabright’s going to stick by his own flesh and blood,” I said. I put on a white tuxedo shirt and a pair of black cigarette pants. “He isn’t going to allow for the possibility Chad might be involved somehow.”

  “That’s assuming the father is the one providing the alibi. It works the other way too.”

  I tied the shirt at the waist and escaped the bedroom. Landry stood leaning back against the kitchen counter, a scotch in hand. He took in the outfit with hooded eyes.

  “You didn’t have to dress up for me,” he said.

  “I didn’t. I can’t see Bruce Seabright actively participating in the kidnapping. Even if he wanted Erin gone, he wouldn’t get his hands dirty. Too risky. So why would he need an alibi?” I asked. “Chad was the one involved with Erin.”

  “And Erin is the one with the juvie record,” Landry said. “Shoplifting. Possession.”

  “Of what?”

  “Ecstasy. Busted at a p
arty. She got a slap on the wrist. I’ve got someone in the Juvenile Division checking out the pals she was arrested with,” Landry said. “And I reached out to a guy I know in Narcotics to get a line on the dealer.”

  “Who in Narcotics?”

  “Brodie. You know him?”

  I looked at my feet and nodded. I stood across from Landry, leaning back against the other counter, my arms crossed over my chest. The room was so small, my bare feet were nearly toe-to-toe with his shoes. Good quality, brown leather oxfords. No tassels for Landry.

  Matt Brodie had been a friend once. Or so I had thought. I wished I hadn’t asked the question. Now Landry was waiting for me to elaborate. “He’s good enough,” I said.

  “I’m sure he’d be happy to have your approval,” Landry said with a dry edge of sarcasm.

  I wondered what Brodie might have said about me, not that it mattered. Landry would think what he wanted.

  “Jade is the one who claims the girl just up and left,” he said. “He’s the last one who saw her. I think it goes this way: Erin knew something about the dead horse. Jade wanted her out of the way. He set up the kidnapping to make some extra money for his trouble. The girl is probably as dead as the one in the shit pile.”

  “I’ll hope you’re wrong about the last part,” I said, knowing he could well be right. I’d had the thought myself.

  “Look, Estes, I owe you an apology,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. Maybe if I’d listened to you the first time you came in, Jill Morone wouldn’t be dead. Maybe we’d have Erin Seabright back by now.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  He was right and we both knew it. I wasn’t going to offer platitudes like some good wife excusing a husband’s minor transgressions. Nor was I going to grind the truth in his face. He had made a judgment call, a bad one. I was the last person with a right to criticize on that count.

  “It’s not all about you,” I said. “I was there ahead of you. I didn’t stop that girl getting killed. I didn’t find Erin. Sometimes things just play out the way they play out.”

  “You believe that?”

  “I have to. If I didn’t, then I’d be to blame for every rotten thing that ever happened, and I know for a fact I’m only to blame for two-thirds of them.”

  He looked at me for a moment that stretched on. I wanted to turn away or move, but I didn’t.

  “So, did Jade have an alibi for last night?” I asked.

  “A woman. A client. Susannah Atwood.”

  “She confirmed?”

  He nodded.

  “And did she have anyone to corroborate her story?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Sure. Jade. Why? Do you know her?”

  “I know of her. Sean knows her. She has a reputation as a social dragonfly.”

  “Don’t you mean butterfly?”

  “No.”

  He raised his brows.

  “I know her type,” I said. “Susannah might just think providing an alibi to a murderer is the oral sex of the new millennium. I wouldn’t trust her. Then again, I don’t trust anyone.”

  I checked my watch and moved away from the counter. “I’m going to throw you out now, Landry. I’ve got a dinner date with the devil.”

  “Which one?”

  “Van Zandt.”

  As I went in search of a pair of shoes, I told him what I’d learned through Sean and through Interpol via Armedgian. I had told Van Zandt I would meet him at The Players at eight. I had wisely declined his offer to pick me up.

  Landry stood staring into the closet, hands on his hips. “You’re telling me you think this guy could be a sexual predator, but you’re going out to dinner with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if he killed Jill Morone? What if he’s got Erin stashed somewhere?”

  “Hopefully, I’ll learn something to help nail him.”

  “Are you on crack?” he asked, incredulous. “Are you stupid?”

  “He won’t try to pull anything with me,” I said, coming out of the closet one heel on, one in hand. “First: He knows he doesn’t scare me and can’t control me. Second: He thinks I’m worth money to him as a client, not as a victim.”

  “And if he’s just a fucking pervert who wants to rape you and slit your throat?”

  “Then I will have made a gross misjudgment of his character—which I haven’t.”

  “Estes, he may have killed that girl last night, for all you know. He lied about seeing her. He was there at The Players. The bartender and the waitress said he was there, drooling all over the girl. We’d have hauled him in by now, but we don’t know where he is.”

  “What time did he leave the bar?”

  “No one could say for certain.”

  “So pull him in and rake him over the coals if you want,” I said. I stepped into the bathroom and looked at my hair. There was nothing to be done about it. “I’ll gladly spend the evening in the tub reading a book. But if he’s got Erin stashed somewhere, he’s sure as hell not going to tell you about it.”

  “And you think he’ll just up and tell you?” Landry asked, blocking the doorway. “Like that’s some kind of smooth line: wanna come back to my place and see the girl I kidnapped? Jesus Christ!”

  “So tail us! What are you getting so upset about?”

  He shook his head and turned around in a circle, moving back into the bedroom. “This is why I don’t want you involved in this,” he said, pointing at me as I came out of the bathroom. “You’ve got your own agenda, you run off half-cocked—”

  “So look the other way,” I said, pushing his finger out of my face, my temper rising. “I’m a private citizen, Landry. I don’t need your permission and I don’t need your approval. If I turn up dead, you’ll know who to arrest. I’ll make your fucking case for you. You’ll be a hero in the Sheriff’s Office—getting rid of me and catching a killer all in one fell swoop.”

  “It’s not my job to let you get yourself killed!” he shouted.

  “Believe me, if I haven’t done the job myself by now, I’m not about to let some hump like Van Zandt do it for me.”

  We were nearly nose to nose, the air in the scant inches between us charged with electricity. Landry held whatever it was he wanted to say tight in his chest. Maybe he was counting to ten. Maybe it was all he could do to keep from strangling me with his bare hands. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I was thinking I was standing too damn close to him.

  “I was good too, Landry,” I said quietly. “On the job. I know that’s not what anyone wants to remember about me, but I was good. You’d be a fool not to take advantage of that.”

  Another eternity came and went. We stood there staring at each other like a couple of angry porcupines—all defenses up. Landry blinked first and took a step back. I thought I should have been proud of that, but what I felt was more like disappointment.

  “Van Zandt wants to impress me,” I said. I went back into the closet and found a small clutch purse to stash my microcassette recorder in. “He wants to come across like a hotshot, but his mouth is bigger than his brain. I can get him to say things he shouldn’t. I’ll tape the conversation. I’ll call you after.”

  “After what?” he asked pointedly.

  “After coffee,” I said. “I draw the line at prostituting myself. Glad you have such a high opinion of me, though.”

  “I’m glad you have a line,” he muttered.

  He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialed a number, and stood staring at me while he waited for someone to pick up on the other end. I knew what he was doing. A part of me wanted to ask him not to, despite what I’d said earlier. But I wouldn’t allow it. I had come as close to begging as I was going to.

  “Weiss. Landry. Van Zandt is at The Players. Pick him up.”

  Never taking his eyes off me, he put the phone back in his pocket. “Thanks for the tip.”

  I wanted to tell him to go to hell, but I didn’t trust my voice. It felt like I had a hard, hot rock
stuck in my throat. I much preferred feeling nothing, caring about nothing but getting from one day to the next—and not caring very much about that. If you have no expectations, no purpose, no goal, you can’t be disappointed, you can’t feel hurt.

  Landry turned and walked out, taking the information I’d given him, taking my plans for the evening with him, taking my hope to make a break in the case. I felt like a fool. I thought he had come to me to include me, but all he had wanted was to absolve his conscience. The case was his case. He owned it.