Small Town Filly (Sandbar Stables Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Bethanie Cushman

  "Okay. We'll just make sure we remember it's there. And the horses are safe from it. They won't be able to touch it."

  "I'll sleep in the house tonight. Then, in the morning, we'll see if we've caught anything."

  ***

  But for the next four nights, they caught nothing at all. The daily routine went on as usual, and the nights were quiet.

  Alex was almost disappointed. Catching something—or someone—would have been scary, but at least they would have known what they were dealing with.

  Finding nothing was far more disquieting.

  Then, on the fifth morning after Sunrise had been spray-painted, Alex arrived to see Lance at the hay barn getting out the bales for the morning feed. She got out and started over to him, intending to help out, but as soon as he saw the car he walked out to meet her.

  "What happened?" she said, instantly afraid of what she might hear.

  He raised one hand to stop her. "Didn't find anything. But Fanny did start barking last night around two in the morning."

  "Were you in the house?"

  "No. Since our little glue trap caught nothing, I just felt better staying out in the barn again. So that's where I was when I heard the barking."

  "Was…was somebody in the barn?"

  "No. This time, Fanny was behind the house when she sounded off."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "The house!" Alex turned to look at it. "Was somebody trying to break in?"

  "I don't think so. I crept over there fast and didn't see a thing. The doors were still locked." He sighed, and she could hear his frustration. "I really thought I'd catch them this time. But I didn't see or hear anything."

  "Nothing disturbed around the barn, either?"

  "No. It could have just been somebody out for a midnight walk on the beach. It happens."

  "Okay. Yeah, I guess it could have been anything. Even another stray dog." But as Lance started back towards the hay barn, Alex looked back at the house again.

  "I'm going to go take a look," she said. "I brought a few things from the store, and I've got to put them away. I'll be back out in a minute."

  "Sure thing," said Lance, and he went back to his work.

  Alex got the bag of groceries out of the car and took them to the house. She went in through the front door, which faced the inside of the property, and walked through the house to the kitchen. After putting away the bread, lunchmeat, chocolate chip cookies and grapes, she decided to make some coffee. They'd certainly be needing it throughout the morning.

  Alex took the carafe to the sink so she could fill it with water—and nearly dropped it as she jumped back.

  The small window over the sink had a hole in it. Shards of glass lay in the sink, along with a fist-sized rock that seemed to be covered in heavily taped paper.

  At first she was afraid to touch anything. Then she set down the carafe and, very gingerly, moved aside a couple of pieces of glass. Then she lifted the rock out of the sink and set it down on the counter.

  She pulled a paper towel from the roll and used it to brush off any bits of glass from the rock. Then she found a small knife and used it to cut through the layers of cellophane tape that held the paper around the rock.

  Finally, her hands shaking, Alex got the paper free. It appeared to have some kind of printing on it. She pressed it down flat on the counter so she could read it.

  The words had been spelled out with letters cut from a magazine and taped to the paper, which only made it creepier.

  YOU'RE BOOTED

  GET OUT

  HORSES ARE RUBBISH

  She could not decide whether she was more angry or frightened. In a moment, she was back outside and running to the barn with the awful note still in her hand.

  Lance heard her running and met her at the entrance to the barn aisle. "I found out why Fanny finally barked last night," she said. "Somebody threw a rock through the kitchen window!"

  "Through the window? You mean, the window's broken?"

  "Yes. It sure is. It's a small hole, but it's busted through."

  He sighed. "I swear, I never heard a thing until Fanny woke me up. I looked, checked the doors, and everything seemed fine."

  "It was the kitchen window—the small one over the sink. It would be easy to miss seeing that in the dark."

  "Yeah, I sure missed it, all right." He caught sight of the note in her hand. "What's that?"

  She held it out to him. He took it and studied it closely, running one finger over the awkwardly taped letters, and then looked up and frowned. "'You're booted?' What the hell does that mean?"

  "I guess it means we're kicked out. And they hate horses. But whatever it means, I sure am tired of it."

  She took the note back from him. "I'll call the cops. Again. And they can take the rock and the note and the broken window and add it to their collection of Sunrise's pictures."

  Alex looked down at Fanny, who stood close beside Lance while gazing up at him and wagging her tail. "Well, at least you tried this time," Alex said. "I sure wish you could talk."

  ***

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The horses were doing well during their schooling sessions, and Alex was getting to know them better all the time. And she was getting sorer all the time, too, from all the unaccustomed riding, but it was well worth it.

  The next morning while driving in, Alex told herself to keep her spirits up. There was no reason to believe that anything else would happen to the horses or the property. The police were making extra patrols on the road at night, and Lance was sleeping in the barn aisle at night with Fanny on guard duty—at least, guarding the place against anyone she didn't already know.

  But as she approached the stables in the early light, the first thing she saw was the flashing strobes of police cars and ambulances.

  Alex did not know whether to be furious or scared to death. She was filled with an awful combination of the two.

  As she got closer, she saw that there were two ambulances parked at the edge of the road with lights flashing, and two police cars pulled over on the other side of the road.

  Then she realized that the emergency vehicles were not at Sandbar Stables at all. They were pulling into Wood Marina next door.

  Alex threaded her car through the slow traffic and the parked cop cars and finally managed to turn into Sandbar's driveway. She threw the car in park, turned it off, and leaped out, running straight through the barn to the far end.

  Lance was already there, standing at the fence and watching the scene. Alex dashed over and stood beside him. "What's happened now?" she said. "Even though I'm afraid to ask!"

  "Not sure. They seem to have found something in the water, at the end of one of the docks. There's a diver down there."

  "Found something? Found what? Why would they send ambulances and a diver unless somebody…unless maybe somebody fell in?"

  "Yeah, you have to wonder. But they've definitely got something right there." He glanced at her. "At least it wasn't us having trouble this time."

  Alex nodded. "That's the first thing I thought of as I pulled up this morning. But somehow that doesn't make me feel any better."

  She took a breath, watching the scene next door with the many police and Florida Highway Patrol officers gathered at the end of the dock along with the emergency medical people. "Has somebody got it out for anyone catering to tourists out here? Is it possible that we're not the only target?"

  "I don't know. But after you found that rock thrown inside the house, I decided I wasn't going to wait for the local cops to figure it out."

  He turned to face her, and she could see the pistol in its holster strapped to his belt. "I haven't worn it since you got here, but I have a permit for it. And I've had plenty of training."

  Lance watched her closely, as though expecting her to object, but she only stared at the weapon for a moment and then slowly nodded her head. "Okay," she said quietly. "Maybe I should do the same."

  "I'll teach you anytime you want.
"

  "I guess it beats instant glue for dealing with crooks." Then she took hold of the fence and stretched up on her toes, trying to see out to the end of the dock. "It looks like they're bringing something up."

  First, the diver threw something up onto the wooden dock—something long and slim, with a shiny piece of metal at one end of it. "If I didn't know better," said Alex, "I'd say that was a belt."

  "It is. It's a brown belt with a big skull-shaped buckle in the middle of it."

  "In the middle–"

  "Yes. As if the belt had been buckled, but then cut in half up the back."

  Alex felt a chill. That was exactly the belt that Chuck Wood always wore. As she watched, one of the cops took the belt and carried it to his car. Alex and Lance just looked at each other without saying a word.

  Several of the medical people and a few of the cops all lined up at the very edge of the dock, looking down at the water.

  The diver had apparently been hard at work down there, because the men on the dock all reached down and took hold of what looked like a black rubber body bag. Working together, they dragged it up onto the end of the dock and then stepped back from it as the water poured off of the bag.

  They seemed to be arguing back and forth with the diver, although Alex could not imagine why. Then she noticed something.

  "Lance," she said, "I recognize that belt just like you do. But if that's him—if that's Chuck Wood in that body bag, then why is it…" She could not get the rest out.

  "Why is it so small?"

  She closed her eyes. "Yes. Yes."

  He only shrugged. "Could be any number of reasons. But there are sharks out there, you know. Bull sharks. Other kinds. If he fell off of one of his boats…"

  Alex looked out over the smooth waters of the gulf. It was so peaceful and beautiful out there. There was no way to tell that just under the glassy blue surface might be terrible danger.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Alex somehow got through the rest of the day at the stables. She'd expected hard work when she'd come out here, but nothing like this. Her only exposure to things like threats and vandalism and animal cruelty had only been through paperwork at the law office—at least, they had been until now, when she was dealing with such things almost every day on her own property.

  Along with the very real possibility that something far worse had happened right next door.

  Just as she was starting her car to leave that night, there was a tap on the window. She looked up to see Lance standing there and put the window down.

  "I was just going to say," Lance began, "that if Mr. Wood is now…gone…I don't think too many people will be sorry to hear it."

  "I don't think so, either," said Alex. "Especially his wife."

  "Yeah. And the other thing is—there's a real good chance he was the one doing all the damage over here. He sure wanted you to sell. With him living right next door, and being there all the time, he certainly had every opportunity to slip over and get away again anytime he wanted. And it would have been easy for him to make friends with Fanny by throwing a few fish over the fence for her."

  He glanced out at the gulf, and then looked back at Alex again. "What I'm trying to say is, maybe you don't have to worry about anything happening anymore."

  She smiled. "Maybe you're right. I sure hope so, whether that was Chuck Wood they found today or not."

  ***

  Driving in early the next morning, Alex watched carefully for any signs of emergency vehicles but saw nothing. All seemed quiet and normal, and as she turned into the driveway at Sandbar Stables she drew a sigh of relief.

  And slammed on the brakes.

  The driveway was blocked by a row of six big rocks—at least the size of cantaloupes—spray-painted red with white letters hand-painted on each one:

  STATIES

  CAN'T

  HELP U

  NOW

  GET

  OUT

  Alex groaned and eased the car forward as much as she could to make sure the back end wasn't hanging out in the road. How much worse could this get? At first she had been scared, but now she was just getting angrier.

  She left the car parked where it was and got out and stepped over the line of rocks. "Lance!"

  ***

  It wasn't long before Alex, Lance, and Officer Pitts stood together in the driveway looking at the row of rocks blocking the entrance. "Okay, I give up," said Pitts. "What's that first word supposed to be? Are they trying to say state and just can't spell?"

  Lance just shook his head. "No," said Alex. "It looks like statie to me."

  This time Lance looked at her with ever-growing exasperation. "What the hell does 'statie' mean?" he demanded.

  "I've heard it—or maybe seen it—from a couple of the lawyers I worked with up north. They were from New England. A statie is slang for a state trooper."

  She glanced back at Officer Pitts. "The State Highway Patrol was here yesterday, wasn't it? For the incident over at the marina?"

  "Yes. Florida Highway Patrol. There was one car here."

  "I guess that's what they saw—whoever left this little message here in my driveway, I mean." Alex looked past the rocks and at the long block barn that held her horses. "But that doesn't matter. All that matters is where it says 'get out.'"

  Her fists were clenched. "Whoever's doing this is just about to make me mad. This is my place now. I'm not going to let some cowardly somebody run me off when I just got here!"

  Lance turned to Officer Pitts. "What can you tell us about what happened yesterday at the marina?"

  Pitts nodded, even as he took out his phone to start taking pictures of the painted rocks in the driveway. "It's going to hit the news outlets this morning, so I might as well tell you," he said. "That was Chuck Wood that they pulled out of the water yesterday. At least, it was part of him."

  Alex was silent. "Was that his belt I saw them pull out, too?" asked Lance.

  "It was. That was partly how they identified him. Well, that and an old appendectomy scar on his belly."

  "But how did he end up dead in the water?"

  "We don't know that yet. And we don't know the cause of death yet, either. At least, not for certain."

  Lance continued to look steadily at the officer. "We were watching when the divers brought him up. It looked like there wasn't much left."

  Alex held her breath.

  Pitts continued to take pictures of the rocks from different angles. "Well, I'm afraid you're right about that. By the time we found him, it looked like a shark had gotten to him. Maybe a couple of them. They've been coming in closer to shore all the time." He continued to snap photos.

  "So," Lance said slowly, "if you had to identify him by his belt and a belly scar—and the sharks had been at him—then–"

  Alex looked at Pitts. "Then all you found was–"

  "Was his ass," finished Lance.

  Finally, Pitts lowered the cell phone and put it away. "I guess that's one way to put it," he said. "Both legs gone, and everything else missing from the waist up."

  "I guess even the sharks didn't want that," said Alex. Even though she knew she should be ashamed, she found herself fighting back a giggle.

  She stole a peek at Lance and saw that he was also trying to keep a straight face. "I guess that's a tough way to go. But all I can say is, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."

  Pitts opened the trunk of his squad car and began loading the painted rocks into it. "He's lived out here all his life, and I can honestly say he won't be missed. But we do have to investigate his death, of course."

  "I have to admit," said Alex, "that I really thought Chuck Wood was the one who was causing all our problems over here. And that I thought it would stop now that he's gone." She looked back at Lance. "I guess it wasn't him."

  Officer Pitts got back in his car. "We've got a lot to look into right now. We've got the problems at your place and then the unexplained death of Chuck Wood. If we have any more information
for you, we'll let you know."

  He drove away, leaving Lance and Alex standing in the now-empty driveway.

  ***

  Another week went by. Each morning Alex was almost afraid of what she would find at the stables, but each day passed by peacefully. She and Lance were able to spend their time riding and schooling the horses and getting them ready for the lesson program, which Alex hoped to start by the summer.

  Then, while sleeping very comfortably that night in her motel room, a distant sound began to draw her back to consciousness.

  At first she thought it was the television—sometimes she fell asleep while it was on. But the wailing sound continued and grew louder.

  Alex opened her eyes. Sirens. She was hearing sirens on police or fire vehicles, traveling fast down the two-lane road that passed right by her motel and led straight to Sandbar Stables.

  It was rare to hear sirens out here. This was the first time she remembered hearing them, even though she was right on the road and so was Sandbar. She saw, glancing at the little clock-radio on the nightstand, it was nearly one in the morning.

  Instantly, Alex got out of bed and grabbed her clothes. She had to see for herself. She had to know.

  In minutes, she was in her rental car and driving east towards the stables. She saw the flashing blue-and-red lights up ahead and realized that those lights were no longer moving away from her. They were parked at the side of the road.

  Alex could not get into her driveway because of the police cars that were there, so she just parked behind the nearest one and leaped out.

  Black smoke poured from the hay barn, which sat right near the fence at the edge of the road. Dashing up the driveway and dodging the parked vehicles, half-blinded by the blue, red and white strobe lights, Alex could see the glow of orange around the front of the hay barn. The firefighters had parked their big truck beside the front fence and were running the hoses over the top of it, aiming a blast of water inside the building.

  The entire hay barn was on fire.