by Laura Crum
Blue followed my eyes and smiled. "It's like one of those complicated pictures where you're supposed to pick out so many of one kind of object. Find four cats in this barnyard."
"That's it," I agreed.
We both stepped back away from the bowl so that the cats would feel comfortable and watched them come in to eat. First Baxter, then Mama and Jiji, and last, like a puff of drifting smoke, little Woodrow.
I stared at the crime scene tape in its role as absurd backdrop to this bucolic scene. Then I looked at Blue. "You once said that Dominic might have lied to protect his killer. Is that what you think?"
"I'm not sure." Blue watched me closely. "It seems possible."
"Why would he do that?"
"Perhaps it was someone he cared about."
"But the person had just finished shooting him in the guts."
Blue's long, slender fingers selected a hay stalk and began to twist it. Without looking up, he said, "Perhaps he felt that he deserved being shot."
"Well," I said. "That's a thought. In some ways, I think he did deserve to be shot. But I can hardly imagine that Dominic would buy into that idea."
"Men can have odd ideas of what's noble or heroic."
I considered this. "Dominic was being chivalrous? In some ways, that does sound like him. Or an idea that would appeal to him, anyway. By the way," I added, "Jeri Ward says Dominic had money, which I wouldn't have guessed, and a collection of pistols, which I might have."
I filled Blue in on my conversation with Jeri and finished up with, "And the only sure thing about it all is, I'm bound to be grilled numerous more times by that god-awful Matt Johnson."
"Poor you." Blue put his arm around my shoulders and began to walk me back up to the house. "How about I make you a drink and cook you some dinner?"
"Sounds great, but you did all the work last night."
"Doesn't mean I can't do it again. Remember, I'm trying to convince you to marry me. Once the knot's tied, all bets are off."
I laughed and gave him a quick hug. "That doesn't sound like much of an incentive. But don't worry, I haven't forgotten."
"Good. So what do you want to drink?"
"Not margaritas," I said firmly. "I know they're your favorite, but I've had them two nights in a row. Something different, something elegant."
"What sort of elegant?"
"I don't know. Something straight up and made with gin," I ad-libbed. "But not a martini."
"I've got just the thing."
Five minutes later Blue presented me with a melon-colored drink in a chilled cocktail glass. One sniff assured me that it did, indeed, contain gin, and bitters, too, or I missed my guess.
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's a Pegu."
"So, what's a Pegu?"
"Well, the original Pegu was a little bar in Rangoon, back in the days when it was the capital of Burma." Blue picked his glass up off the counter and clinked it against mine. "To you," he said and grinned. "Just try it, Stormy."
I took a sip. "Wow," I said. "That's different. Almost medicinal. I like it, though."
Blue bent his head over his glass and sniffed briefly, then took another sip. "My cocktail bible says the taste complexity is high."
"Your cocktail bible?"
"That's right. Great book. By somebody who calls himself 'the Alchemist.' "
I laughed. "A wizard with cocktails. Well, I do like this one. Thanks. It was just what I needed. The prospect of being questioned yet again by that detective is distinctly stressful. I erased all the messages he left on our machine and I don't plan to be in touch with him until I have to, but I know it will happen eventually."
Blue sighed. "Is that wise?" he asked neutrally.
I shrugged. "I don't owe the guy to bend over backwards for him. He's been nothing but an ass. And answering machines screw up all the time."
Blue said nothing. Familiar with my stubbornly recalcitrant nature, he knew better than to argue.
"I'm not about to lie down like a doormat for any hostile and aggressive guy, cop or otherwise," I said firmly.
"Spoken like a true feminist."
I swirled my drink and sipped. One thing about this cocktail, it forced you to take your time with it.
"I'm not sure I'd call myself a feminist, exactly," I said. "I'm more of an individualist. I don't so much identify myself as a woman, any more than I do as a Caucasian, or a tall person, or a horse lover. I'm a combination of characteristics, like all people.
"And that's how I relate to others, I guess. I don't see a man as better or worse than a woman, though if I were hiring someone to buck hay, I'd probably hire a man. There're exceptions, of course, but generally speaking men are physically stronger than women. And, equally generally, women are less prone to the particular kind of macho asshole behavior that Detective Johnson displays."
"I'd agree with that," Blue answered reflectively. "Women are also a lot less likely to commit violent crimes."
"Good point," I agreed. I bit my lip. "Hot-tempered men are probably the most likely. Which makes me wonder."
''About what?"
"Sam Lawrence. Who is, by all accounts and my own observation, an extremely hot-tempered horse trainer."
"Does he beat on the horses?"
"Sometimes. But he's not without talent. He's more of the old
school type of horseman, likes a horse to be a little afraid of him. In some ways, it's understandable. What Sam mostly gets are spoiled backyard horses that have developed terrible, even dangerous habits. The owners want them retrained so they can get along with them again. It's a tough job."
"I imagine."
"Sam's actually pretty good at it, but when he loses his temper, watch out. He's as likely to take it out on a human as a horse; he's lost numerous clients as well as stable help because he bawled them out."
"Has he ever done anything violent?" Blue asked.
"I heard he slugged someone just last month. A client who came on to Tracy. After he'd had a couple of drinks," I added, glancing down at the beverage in my hand.
Blue stood up. "What do you say to a simple fried rice for dinner? Something light."
"Suits me," I said.
Blue headed for the refrigerator. "Sounds like your friend Sam might be an ideal candidate for a questioning session with Detective Johnson," he said over his shoulder.
"Yeah," I said slowly. "I've got to admit you're right."
EIGHT
Monday morning began like every other Monday morning-busy. Damn busy. The receptionist read off a list of at least a dozen people who had called since we opened at eight o'clock. Sick horses, colicked horses, lame horses. And Lee Castillo wanted to float the teeth on a new horse she'd just bought.
"Did she ask for me or Jim?" I pointed at Lee's name.
"You." Nancy sounded surprised. We both knew that Lee usually used my partner as her vet.
"Give Jim the colic up in Boulder Creek and I'll take the one in Watsonville and do Lee's horse after that."
In another minute Nancy and I had finished divvying up the calls and I was back in my truck headed for the first client of the day. We need another vet to help us here, I thought, not for the first time.
Jim and I once had another vet on our staff for a brief six months last year. But John Romero had quit and moved on, and I for one didn't miss him. Perhaps this next time around Jim, with my assistance, would manage to hire someone who wasn't a closet woman-hater.
At the thought, I had to smile. Blue had called me a closet man-hater the other night, and then a feminist. Sometimes life seemed to sort itself out into this odd battle of the sexes, men siding with men, women with women. I had never seen myself as part of that particular army, but there was no denying that a certain dismissive attitude on the part of an ignorant man made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Like Detective Johnson, for instance. Damn. My most fervent wish was to have nothing further to do with the guy. But it was a wish that was unlikely to be g
ranted.
The thought of Detective Johnson led me to the thought of Lee Castillo and the rather peculiar fact that she had requested my services rather than Jim's. Lee had been using Jim by preference for almost twenty years. I'd seen her horses only when she had an emergency and I was the vet on call. Thus I knew her, but not well.
I had to wonder if today's call wasn't the result of Dominic's demise in my barnyard. After all, teeth that needed floating could usually wait. Perhaps Lee Castillo's curiosity couldn't.
Working my way through a minor gas colic in a broodmare in Watsonville-the horse had been brought in from a pasture and put on straight alfalfa hay, free-choice-I reassured the owner that all should be well and headed out to Lee Castillo's place in nearby Freedom.
An older ranch that had been chopped up into ten-acre parcels formed the framework of the small and not very upscale housing tract. A dirt road led the way in; Lee's property was the last one and included the original ranch house and barn, as well as various outbuildings.
Lee herself stood in front of the barn, directing what I thought were her two teenage children in the process of mucking out stalls. I parked my truck and got out.
"Gail. Good to see you." Lee pulled a pair of leather gloves off her hands and marched in my direction.
"Hello, Lee. How are you?" We shook hands, both of us, I thought, evaluating.
Lee Castillo was a striking woman. About my age-late thirties-she had prematurely gray hair that was a true silver color. It was also long and thick and shiny, usually worn, as now, in a ponytail down her back. The hair, combined with relatively unlined skin and strikingly large light brown eyes with dark lashes, created a disconcerting dissonance; Lee looked ageless-not young, not old, not middle-aged, a creature outside of time. This impression was enhanced by her tall, broad-shouldered frame, extremely fit body, and direct, even hearty manner. A hard woman to categorize.
As we made the requisite small talk, I was struck, as I had been before, at what an odd pairing she and Dominic Castillo must have been. I couldn't imagine what had drawn them together.
Apparently I was right about the possible reason for this call. Lee wasted no time in coming to the point. "I heard my ex was shot in your barnyard."
"So it seems," I said guardedly.
"I also hear that the cops are treating it as a possible murder."
"I hear that, too," I admitted.
"What do you think?" Lee demanded.
"I don't know what to think exactly," I said, wondering what Lee Castillo wanted from me. I noticed that her children had both stopped shoveling horse manure and were drifting in our direction, for all the world like my barn cats coming in to eat.
Lee caught my glance and looked over her shoulder. "You know my kids, don't you, Gail? Dam and Sophy."
"I think we've met," I said, smiling at each in turn.
Dam was a shock. No longer the pudgy teenager I'd last seen several years ago, he was instead a tall and heavily muscled young man with flat, expressionless eyes of the exact same shade as his mother's. Sophy, too, had changed-the rounded body more woman than girl, the expression on her face guarded. Neither of them smiled back at me.
"How old are you guys now?"
Dom looked down at his feet; Sophy shrugged.
After a minute Lee answered. "Dom just turned nineteen; Sophy's seventeen." Once again Lee's focus shifted back to my face. "According to the paper, you found Dominic and he said something to you. What was it? Was he murdered?"
I stared at Lee. "What did you read in the paper?" I hedged.
"Just what I told you," she said impatiently. "A quote from the investigating detective. I can't remember his name. That you had found Dominic and he'd spoken to you. That was it. No mention of what he said. Just that it was being treated as a potential homicide."
"Oh," I said.
"You can't blame me for being curious," Lee said firmly.
"No, I guess not." I was aware of Dom's eyes on me as I spoke and the unnerving intensity of Sophy's stare.
Lee seemed to catch the meaning in my glance. "Kids, could you go finish up with the barn?"
Neither kid moved or spoke.
Lee shrugged. "Oh, all right. I know you guys are curious, too. Gail, don't mind them. We all want to know."
Now I was really stuck. Whatever I may have thought of Dominic Castillo, these were his children. I felt totally unequal to the task of describing his last moments in a suitable manner.
As I took a deep breath, Dom spoke for the first time. "We can handle it," he said. The gaze that accompanied the words was the implacable, slightly sullen stare of adolescence.
"They can," Lee asserted. "Dominic wasn't part of their lives. They always understood how poorly he treated me; neither one of them had anything to do with him."
I wondered. It seemed unlikely to me that these kids were as indifferent to their father as Lee seemed to think.
Taking in my hesitation, Lee spoke again. "Gail, Dominic was a shit. He ran around on me constantly when we were married, and once we were divorced he reneged on the alimony and child support that he owed. And he didn't lack for money. Dom and Sophy know this. It's not surprising they didn't want anything to do with him."
"He never took an interest?" I asked.
Lee paused. Then she said forcefully, "He never lived up to his responsibilities. So, in the end, I got full custody. And none of us were interested in seeing Dominic."
I tried to find some emotion in either Dom's or Sophy's face in response to this statement. I couldn't. That steady mask of indifference so common to teenagers was firmly in place. I had the sense that no adult was likely to penetrate the facade.
I sighed. "There's not much to tell," I said finally. "Dominic said that he shot himself accidentally while he was cleaning his gun. I held his hand until the ambulance came. That was it."
For a moment no one spoke, but I could feel the ripple of shock go around the group.
"He said he shot himself," Lee repeated slowly.
"That's right."
"Then why are the cops calling it murder?"
"I'm not sure," I said honestly. "And now I've got a question for you. Do you know who Carlos Castillo is?"
"What?" Lee's jaw snapped shut as her eyes shot back to focus on mine. "How does he come into this?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "I heard the name. I was curious. Just like you," I reminded her.
"Oh," Lee said slowly. Then, "Kids, I really need you to finish up the barn. And Dom, go get that new horse so Gail can do his teeth." This time she spoke with some emphasis.
After a second, Dom and Sophy moved off toward the barn.
"They're great kids, really." Lee smiled proudly at the departing backs. "Dom's my right-hand man."
"So, who's Carlos?" I asked.
"Dominic's illegitimate son," Lee snapped. "Born the same year as Dom."
I did some quick thinking. "Oh," I said.
"That's right. Born while we were still happily married, or so I thought. I didn't find out the kid existed for several more years."
"How did you find out?"
"The mother came and told me. She was fed up with Dominic by then, too. It was her idea of revenge."
"Oh," I said again.
"Right," Lee agreed. "Not pretty. That's what life with Dominic was like. There was always one woman after another."
"And eventually he left," I hazarded.
"Are you kidding?" Lee laughed. "No way would Dominic have left me. No, that wasn't his idea. He wanted to have the wife and kids and numerous girlfriends on the side. I just got tired of it."
"Oh," I said again. "And you say he had money?"
"Not when we were together," Lee huffed. "Oh no, then it was pretty much hand-to-mouth; I had to take a job as a waitress for a while. But after we were divorced, Dominic's father died and left him a great deal of money."
"But he still worked as a horseshoer?"
Lee laughed. "Dominic was as tight with money as he
was promiscuous with his sexual favors. Can you believe it? He wouldn't even pay his child support. His own kids. I was always taking him to court. Or trying to, anyway. He was pretty slippery, old Dominic."
I could see Dom leading a black horse out of the barn and tried one final question on Lee. "Do you think Dominic left his money to Dom and Sophy?"
"I sure hope so. Who else did he have to leave it to?" Lee shrugged.
Carlos, apparently, I thought but didn't say. Instead I got the electric floats we used for teeth out of my truck and filled a syringe up with tranquilizer.
Dom handed the horse's leadrope to his mom and I gave them both my best professional smile.
"Let's do some dental work," I said.
NINE
I left Lee Castillo's place having successfully smoothed and leveled her black gelding's teeth, but with my mind buzzing with speculation. Detective Johnson had asked me point-blank if I knew of anyone with a motive to murder Dominic Castillo. Well, here was someone with a very obvious motive. Money. Alive, Dominic had failed to pay what Lee thought he owed her and her kids. Dead, it seemed, she believed he'd pay handsomely.
And from what Jeri Ward had told me, Lee was right. Though it sounded as though she had a surprise coming in the form of Carlos Castillo and his inheritance. But still, surely this was a good solid motive.
I worked my way through several relatively routine calls-shots and worming for a Morgan mare, a sole abscess on a Peruvian Paso, another bit of equine dentistry on an ancient gelding who was teaching a seven-year-old girl to ride. Just as I was leaving this last job, my cell phone rang.
"Gail, it's Nancy. Doug Hoffman just called to say he's bringing a horse in. He thinks it may have broken a hind leg up high. Jim's in the middle of another emergency call up in Felton. Can you come?"
"Yeah, I can. I don't have anything that's too important. Call Elaine Delgado and tell her I'll be at least an hour late to do her preg check."