Steve Cline Mysteries - 01 - At Risk

by Kit Ehrman

  I scanned the page, recognized several names, questioned a few. Nothing jumped out as significant. With growing disappointment, I said, "How long ago was this?"

  "Be two years in June, and I'm still not full up. People get scared when somethin' like that happens. Word gets around, and before you know it, your customers are lookin' for someplace safer to keep their horses."

  He didn't know anyone who owned a white dualie and dark-colored six-horse. Didn't have a clue who was behind the theft. I thanked him for his time. As I drove home, I thought about his parting comment and the frustration I'd heard in his voice. "With the barn so close to the house, Nancy and I always thought we'd be safe from this sort of thing."

  Everyone thinks they're immune. Until it's too late.

  By the time I pulled into my parking space behind the foaling barn and climbed the steps to the loft, I'd decided that there was one other question I should have asked Mr. Irons. I fished the sheet of loose-leaf out of my back pocket and punched in his number.

  His wife picked up. I explained who I was and waited nearly five minutes before he came on the line, out of breath, his voice husky.

  I twisted the phone cord round my fingers and hoped he had never heard of my landlord. "I forgot to ask. Have you ever used Gregory Davis as your vet?"

  "No."

  I let out a breath.

  "Only 'cause he lives so damned far away. I keep tellin' him we need a good vet up here, but he don't wanna move away from his rich Maryland clients."

  I rubbed my forehead. "How do you know him then, if he's not your vet?"

  "We're neighbors."

  "Huh?"

  He chuckled. "That's right. Our cabins butt right up against one another on the banks of the St. Martin. We go motorin' up and down the Isle of Wight Bay, slip on over to the Ol' Woman's Ass when we're wantin' to get in some crabbin'--"

  "Woman's . . . ass?"

  He chuckled again. "Assawoman Bay. Indian name. Good crabbin'. Fair fishin' if you don't mind the sunnies."

  "If you say so." I learned more than I cared to about the teeming waterways and ecosystems of the Eastern Shore, and by the time I hung up, I had decided that his knowing Greg was simply a coincidence.

  I called Detective Ralston, gave him the name of the guy I'd run into at the show, who'd had tack stolen from his barn, then I told him how someone had stolen five horses from George Irons' farm in Pennsylvania and that they'd tried for seven.

  He questioned me closely, and when he disconnected, I wondered why I hadn't told him about Greg.

  * * *

  The next morning, two of the guys called in sick. Since Marty was in the other barn tacking up a horse for Anne, Foxdale's other trainer besides Whitcombe, the barn was unnaturally quiet. No rock 'n roll blaring from a cheap boom box, or worse--country. No arguing over who was going to do what. Only the muted rustling of a horse moving in his stall. A bucket being nudged. A soft exhalation like a sigh. I flung a load of manure into the wagon, and it hit the bare wooden floor with a dull thud. Despite the soreness in my ribs, I was already halfway down the aisle.

  Unlike most of the crew, I didn't mind mucking out. The job took little concentration, so there was plenty of time to think. I raked the wet sawdust into a pile, forked it into the wagon, and wondered who had it in for Foxdale and what, if any, connection existed between Foxdale and James Peters. If the horse and tack theft at Foxdale were committed by the same people, then all three events could be linked. But the police had no conclusive evidence, and without it, the connection was pure speculation.

  I smoothed out the sawdust with my rake, moved on to the next stall, and thought about motive. If it wasn't greed, then what was it? Maybe someone had a grudge against Foxdale. An ex-employee, perhaps. In the past two years, I had fired four employees. I'd also been responsible for Foxdale's discontinuing the services of two farriers, one vet, and several suppliers. But it was absurd to think they had anything to do with what was going on. Anyway, what did they have against James Peters?

  Foxdale and Hunter's Ridge could have been the targets of random theft and nothing more. I leaned the rake against the wall, pulled a tattered notebook and chopped-off pencil out of my back pocket, and made a list. I didn't have enough information. I didn't know enough about Hunter's Ridge or James Peters. But ignorance could be deadly.

  I ripped the page from my notebook, crumpled it into a ball, and flicked it into the wagon. Hopefully, it would be smooth sailing from now on. No horses going to slaughter . . . no cats hanging from the rafters with their throats slit . . . no bodies in shallow graves.

  "Hey? Whatju doin'?"

  I jumped.

  Marty was watching me through the stall's grillwork. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

  I swallowed. "Just thinking."

  The mischievous grin faded from his face. "Uh-huh." He propped his shoulder against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. "You want me to muck out or do the school horses?"

  I checked my watch. "Damn, we're running behind."

  Marty looked down the aisle.

  "Brush off the school horses first," I said. "Then--"

  Marty's easygoing features had dissolved into a look of pure dislike as thoroughly as if someone had reached up and wiped the expression off his face. I poked my head into the aisle and saw the reason for the transformation.

  Whitcombe stopped alongside the wagon. Marty pushed himself upright and took a step backward.

  "Cline, I want . . . What's so funny?"

  I cleared my throat. "Nothing, sir."

  "I want to ride Fleet." He glanced uncertainly at Marty, then looked back at me. "Get him ready."

  "Yes, sir."

  I stepped out of the stall. Whitcombe was standing in the narrow space between the wagon and stall front, twirling a riding crop between his fingers. I walked the long way around. "Marty, could you--"

  "Now, Cline."

  "Yes . . . sir." I gritted my teeth and gestured for Marty to follow.

  "So," Whitcombe said. "It takes two of you to tack up a horse, does it?"

  I paused and looked him straight in the eye. "No, sir. I was giving Marty instructions." Before you interrupted me, you shithead, I wanted to say, and for a brief second, I was sure he could read my thoughts. I started down the aisle.

  "Oh, and Cline?"

  Keeping my face neutral, I turned around.

  "I want a segunda bit on him today."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Hurry it up. And Cline . . ."

  "Sir?"

  "I'll be in the lounge." He turned and strolled down the aisle.

  I watched the departing view of his back and wholeheartedly wished I could fire his ass. Disgusted, I walked into the tack room and spun the dial on Whitcombe's locker.

  Though Whitcombe was long gone, Marty stood next to me and whispered, "What a fucking asshole. You better do what he says though, Stevie," he said with an exaggerated lisp, "or he might have to spank you with that crop of his."

  I went right past the last number on the combination. "Christ, Marty. Quit before we both get in trouble." I leaned my forehead on the locker and concentrated on the dial. "The way you backed away from him, I thought I was gonna lose it. You wouldn't be homophobic, now, would you?"

  "Me?" Marty said. "Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but more than once, I've seen you change course when you were headin' to the men's room and saw Whitcombe go in first."

  I grinned. "This may be true."

  "He sure likes to keep on going and going, don't he? Likes to jerk you around, see if he can piss you off."

  "Yeah," I said. "Like the Energizer Bunny. He keeps going and going and--"

  Marty snorted.

  "--going. He sure likes his little games." I rummaged through Whitcombe's locker. "You know, he threatened to get me fired last week."

  "What the fuck for?"

  "For nothing." I sorted through the crate until I found the segunda. "Guess he didn't like the way I said 'sir.'"

 
"Bet Mrs. Hill'd pick you over him if it came down to it." Marty said. "Who cares about his reputation? He's nothin' special."

  I shrugged. "He thinks he is. My only hope's that he'll get a job offer somewhere else, and seeing that trainers usually don't stay in one place for long, especially trainers who aren't as good as they think they are, I might luck out."

  "I heard him chewing you out the other day for the way you tacked up Nightshade."

  I grunted. "Ever notice how he makes sure he has an audience? I wouldn't be surprised if half the people around here think I'm an idiot."

  "Nah," Marty said. "It's pretty obvious who the idiot is."

  I selected one of Whitcombe's bridles and switched the bits. "I'll bet you a thousand to one, when I take Fleet down there, he'll find something to complain about."

  "Why don't you say somethin' to Mrs. Hill?"

  "She doesn't need that. Anyway, I have a game plan of my own when it comes to dealing with our Mr. Pretentious Whitcombe."

  Marty's eyebrows rose. "And what might that be?"

  "The more I keep my cool and don't respond to his digs, the more pissed he gets. It's almost comical."

  "Jesus. Remind me not to get on your bad side."

  I pulled Whitcombe's saddle off the rack and ran my fingers across the smooth, supple leather. The rich, earthy new-leather smell filled my head. "Damn, money must not be a problem for him. He's already replaced his old saddle, and this one's expensive big time."

  "Maybe he wiped out the tack rooms and used the money to buy hisself a new load of shit."

  I spun around. "Why do you think that?"

  He grinned. "No reason. Just that he's jerk enough for it. Why don't you mention it to the police?"

  "Yeah, right. I can see it now. Officer, I think he did it. And why do you think that, Mr. Cline? Oh, nothing substantial, sir. It's just that I can't stand the guy."

  Marty arched his eyebrows. "Guy?"

  I chuckled. But Whitcombe did have opportunity and knowledge and connections, not to mention the fact that he was a jerk. I draped the bridle and girth across the saddle and lugged the armload of tack into the aisle.

  Marty cut in front of me and plopped the tote of grooming supplies on the floor outside Fleet's stall. "I still don't see how you put up with him," he said.

  "I'm not going to let him ruin this job for me, though most days I'd like to ram a pitchfork up his ass."

  "Awh, man. Don't do that. He might like it."

  "Christ, Marty, you're sick." And I almost didn't get Whitcombe's saddle onto the rack before I dropped it on the floor, I was laughing so hard.

  I handed Fleet over to Whitcombe--amazingly he kept his mouth shut--and went into the lounge to get a cup of coffee. Voices floated in from the office, and I walked over and leaned against the doorjamb. A scrawny-looking guy, dressed in a suit, tie, and wrinkled overcoat, had his hands pressed down on Mrs. Hill's desk, his fingers splayed on the blotter. His mousy brown hair was windblown, and his face was pinched with displeasure.

  "You'll have to talk to Mr. Ambrose about that," Mrs. Hill said.

  "But I can't get past his assistant."

  Mrs. Hill shrugged. "Well, I'm sorry. I can't help you."

  He snatched his card off her blotter, glanced at me, and stalked out the door.

  "What was that about?" I asked.

  "Real estate agent. Vultures. That's what I call 'em. That one's been here before. Now that they're building next door, I imagine they'll be crawling out of the woodwork."

  The brothers' farm was now dotted with survey flags, and I imagined it wouldn't be long before the heavy earth-moving equipment rolled over the fallow fields.

  "Thank God for the park," I said.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, the wheels of Greg's truck hadn't slowed to a stop, and already some of the horses were uptight. I rolled a utility cart out of the feed room and parked it alongside the tailgate.

  Greg popped open a side compartment on his red vetmobile. "Well, Steve. You up to this?"

  "More or less." I leaned against the back fender.

  "What's it been," he said, "three weeks since you got pummeled?"

  "There about." I watched him sort through a bin and wondered if I was up to the day ahead. "Want me to do anything?"

  "Not yet. Just give me a minute to get organized."

  "Hey," a voice said in my ear.

  I looked over my shoulder.

  Marty was standing behind me, grinning. "Boy, I hate this shit. Nothing like restraining a hundred one-thousand-pound, pea-brained animals to liven up your day."

  "Oh, come on, Marty," I said. "They aren't that bad."

  "Wasn't it you that got knocked down last time?"

  "No. Cliff." I pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of my pocket and handed it to Marty. "What do you think of the people on this list?"

  He squinted at my printing and ran his fingers through his black hair. "Well, for one thing, they're the wrong sex."

  I rolled my eyes. "I mean, do you think any of them could be behind what's going on around here?" I waved my hand. "The horse theft and all."

  He frowned. "I don't know, Steve. I'd put my money on Sanders or Whitcombe. Well, maybe not Whitcombe. Not personally, anyway. He doesn't have the balls for it."

  I snorted.

  "And don't forget Tony and Mark," he said. "They both swore they'd get even after you fired them."

  "That was almost two years ago."

  Marty looked at me and shrugged.

  "And they aren't organized enough for it," I added.

  "All right, gentlemen."

  I turned around.

  Greg had the cart loaded down with enough paste wormers and vaccinations to do half the farm, and he was watching us with a devilish grin on his face. "Ready?"

  Marty and I groaned in unison.

  While the rest of the crew mucked out the other barn, the three of us worked our way down one side of the aisle and up the other. Greg dropped an empty paste wormer and two used syringes in the trash bag hanging off the cart and went into the next stall where Marty was already restraining a bay mare. I walked past them and realized I'd come up with the short end of the stick. The next horse in line was Chase. Most of them offered little resistance, but that particular gelding was difficult about everything. I got the chain on his halter without too much trouble and clamped the twitch on his nose before he realized what I was up to.

  When Greg slid the door open, the gelding ran backward, bumped into the corner of his stall, then reared. He lifted me off my feet. He was still balanced on his hind legs, when he pivoted and crashed against the wall. My back smacked into a support post. The sharp edge slammed into my back right between my shoulder blades. I held on, knowing instinctively that it was safer to go with him than end up on the floor under his feet. When he came back down, he lunged forward, and I ran with him. Marty and Greg were in the stall then. Greg cursed as he jabbed the gelding with a needle.

  "Let go of the shank and get out," Greg yelled.

  The three of us jumped out of the stall, and the horse spun around as Marty rammed the door home.

  "You all right?" Greg asked.

  I nodded and tried to catch my breath. "What about the other shots and the wormer?"

  "That wasn't a vaccination. I gave him a tranquilizer. We'll come back in a little while and finish the job." He peered at me. "You sure you're okay?"

  "Yeah." I rolled my shoulders. "Next time, bring a tranquilizer gun."

  "How about a real gun?" Marty said, and I didn't think he was joking.

  Twenty minutes later, we went back and looked in at Greg's patient. The gelding seemed unaware of our presence. His legs were splayed, head lowered, nose close to the sawdust.

  "Greg," I said. "Did you know James Peters?"

  "Who?" He was watching the horse, lost in thought.

  "James Peters. Owned Hunter's Ridge Farm."

  "Oh . . . yeah. I used to work for him, but it's been ten years
or better. He'd call me out to check on the status of one of his mares or to check for uterine infections, that sort of thing."

  A breeding operation hadn't been what I'd expected. "I thought he boarded show horses."

  "Used to. About twenty years ago." Greg rubbed the back of his neck. "They switched to breeding. It was easier on them as they got older. No boarders to keep happy. Just their own stock to take care of."

  "How were they making out?"

  "Good. As I recall, they were getting ready to add on to their barn when he was killed."

  "You didn't work for him . . . near the end?"

  "No. You know, it's one thing to die, we all face that, but to be murdered." Greg shook his head. "You never think you'll know someone who's been murdered. What an awful fate, and for what? He was a nice man. Never hurt anyone in his life."

  "Is his family still running the place?"

  "No. I don't think they had any children, and his wife had a nervous breakdown after what happened. She's in a nursing home, I think. They weren't young. Both of them had to have been in their sixties when it happened."

  "Do you recall who their barn manager was?"

  "They didn't have one. The place wasn't all that big. They hired school kids to muck out. Far as I know, Peters did everything else."

  "Did they have any tack stolen before the horse theft?"

  "Not that I heard." Greg was no longer idly watching the gelding but had turned around and was studying me with his piercing blue eyes. "What's this about, Steve?"

  "Do you know anybody who worked for him just before he died, anybody I could arrange to talk with?"

  "Not offhand." He glanced at the gelding. "You're thinking the people who stole his horses were behind what happened at Foxdale, aren't you?"

  "The police consider it a possibility."

  "Shit."

  * * *

  I dreamt I was lying in the woods.

  The earth was hard and damp and cold, the world thickly black. I tried to touch my face, to see if my eyes were open, but my arms were stuck to my sides. I couldn't move. Couldn't move because I was buried. Buried alive.

  I bolted upright. Above me, the familiar knotty-pine ceiling rose toward the ridge beam. Vast empty space. I was safe in my own bed, not suffocating in a shallow grave. I breathed in a great lungful of air and felt my heart pounding against my ribs. The dream had been too real.