Shadow Image

by Martin J. Smith

  “We’re truthseekers,” Pearson began.

  Christensen chided her with a look. Doti maintained the practiced smile of someone accustomed to dealing with the rich and eccentric.

  “Beg pardon?” he said.

  “She said we’re researchers,” Christensen said. “From the Harmony Brain Research Center near Pittsburgh. Alzheimer’s research, specifically.”

  Doti smiled on.

  “What’s happened is there’s this patient we deal with from time to time who apparently spent a lot of time here before she got so sick,” Pearson said. “I teach an art therapy class, and practically everything she paints has the Muddyross logo in it, that yellowish MR thing that’s plastered all over everything outside.”

  Doti nodded. “It’s a special place.”

  Christensen sat forward, probably too quickly, but he didn’t want Pearson steering the conversation. “Special to her, for sure, at least from what we can tell. And we’re trying to figure out why, just as a way of understanding how memory works in Alzheimer’s patients. I’m focusing on patients who seem to have strong memories about something, trying to understand why some memories stay strong and vivid and why others get lost. There’s so much about Alzheimer’s we don’t understand.”

  He tried to read Doti’s face. Confused? Concerned?

  The ranch manager got up and poured himself a cup of coffee, finishing the pot, then sat back down. “So you’ll want to look around, I guess?”

  Christensen and Pearson looked at one another.

  “Actually, we’ve sort of done that,” Christensen said. “Hope you don’t mind. Just around the stables here, not out on the trails.”

  Doti’s face clouded. He took a deep swallow from the steaming cup. “I’d have been happy to show you around.”

  “We should have stopped by here first, I guess,” Pearson said.

  Doti appraised them over the cup’s rim. When he lowered it, the smile was back. “Naw, really, it’s no problem. It’s just the members, they know us all here. Know each other, too. Unfamiliar faces just kind of stand out, and we always end up hearing about it. Just let us know you’re coming next time and we’ll walk you around, maybe even saddle up a couple of lesson horses for the grand tour.”

  The three sat a moment in silence, each sipping from their cup. Now didn’t seem the right time to start asking questions about the gray horse, but neither was Christensen ready to leave without bringing it up. He was phrasing and rephrasing an artful segue when Pearson spoke up.

  “What do you know about that gray gelding out there?” she said.

  Doti slowly turned to face Pearson. “We must have a hundred horses out there, ma’am, probably a dozen of ’em gray. Beyond getting ’em fed and watered every day and making sure the trails are in good shape, I can’t say I’ve got the time to get to know ’em all.”

  Christensen tried to buffer the comment. “See, in this patient’s paintings—”

  “King was the name on the stall.” Pearson leaned forward. “And there was a number, L12. A gelding.”

  “Oh, King.” Doti shuffled some papers on his desk, straightened his executive desk set so that both the pen and pencil formed perfect 45-degree angles to the base. He stood and slowly walked toward his office window. “That’s one of the lesson horses, ma’am. King. Use him for lessons, like I said.”

  “Had him a while?” Pearson said.

  “A while.”

  “Since when?”

  Doti twisted the rod on the miniblind of his window. The room darkened, then lightened again as he twisted it back. Then he did it again.

  “Mr. Doti?”

  When he turned back, the smile was unchanged. “Ma’am, he’s just one of about sixteen or so lesson horses we keep here. He’s been here a few years, maybe more. I’d have to check on something like that.”

  Doti stepped back to his desk, but made no effort to sit down. He set his coffee cup down and leaned on the palms of his hands so far that the chain around his neck fell forward. The gold charm caught briefly on his chest hair, then tumbled free. Perfect smile. “Be more than happy to get hold of you folks if I find anything out,” he said, plucking the pen from its holder. “Care to leave a number or some way to get in touch with you?”

  The dangling gold figure stopped swinging and hung straight down from Doti’s neck. It was small, tasteful in its way, and Christensen knew without a second look what it was: a golden winged horse. If Christensen had had any doubt that Warren Doti was the man Floss Underhill spoke about that day at the hospital, it evaporated once he saw him wearing the same flying horse symbol that turned up in so many of Floss’s paintings. Even more than the unexpected presence of the gray horse, Doti’s relationship with Floss suddenly seemed critical to understanding the images in her art.

  “How long did you work for the Underhill family?” he said.

  It was more a reaction than a question. Christensen didn’t think before he blurted it, but from Doti’s reaction, he was glad he didn’t. The coffee cup stopped halfway between Doti’s desk and his mouth, and stayed that way an uncomfortably long time. “I’m afraid I don’t follow,” he said finally. “I still work for them.”

  “Here? You mean at Muddyross? They own it?”

  A nod. “Managed their private stables before this. Why?”

  Christensen pushed the gambit. “Mrs. Underhill, Floss, mentioned your name recently, that’s all. She says you’re quite a horseman.”

  Doti lowered the coffee cup and sat down lightly on the front edge of his chair like a man who’d just gotten bad news. His eyes were open, but behind them his mind was clearly reeling.

  Christensen poker-faced it, but the conversation’s unexpected turn had caught them both by surprise. “Something wrong?”

  “Been running their stables for a lot of years, Mr. Christensen. Mrs. Underhill, that’s the patient you’re talking about?”

  Christensen and Pearson looked at each other, then back at Doti. Christensen nodded.

  “Sorry. It’s just—” Doti ran a thumb around the rim of his cup, then looked Christensen in the eye. “How’s she doing?”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Three years now. I hear it’s bad.”

  Christensen nodded. “Alzheimer’s has three stages, the third being terminal. She’s late second stage.”

  “I hear things, just bits and pieces from people.” Doti smiled suddenly. “Mrs. Underhill remembers me, though?”

  What had she said? Her words bubbled up quickly: The man knew horses like I don’t know what. Women, too.

  “She said you really know horses,” Christensen said.

  Doti seemed to relax. “Before I got into this, I was a trainer. Mrs. Underhill’s trainer when she was competing about two hundred years ago.” Doti nodded toward the hardware along the opposite wall. “We did okay.”

  Christensen turned, his eye fixing on a 2-foot-tall trophy topped by a golden horse and rider leaping a rail jump.

  “I’d say better than okay,” Pearson said.

  “Won our share.”

  “Show jumping?” Christensen asked.

  “Equitation. Hunting and jumping. Mrs. Underhill’s got what I call ‘touch.’ Best hands of any rider I ever saw.” Doti’s eyes faded again. “Had ’em, I mean. Before we all got old, before she took sick. Such a goddamned waste—” He ran one of his rough hands through his hair and drew a deep, ragged breath. He looked first to Pearson, then to Christensen. “Sorry. Lost my wife this past year. Cancer. Been rough, is all.”

  “Our questions probably made it rougher,” Pearson said. “We’re sorry, too.”

  Christensen nodded his sympathy, but he wasn’t finished. �
��We were wondering about the gray horse. See, Mrs. Underhill sometimes paints a gray horse with markings just like the one out there in the stall, the one you said was a lesson horse. What can you tell us about him?”

  Doti shifted in his seat. “I’d have to check his papers. Like I said, we’ve got a hundred or so boarded here.”

  “You said he’s a lesson horse, though, one of the ones owned by the ranch.” Christensen leaned forward and leaned an elbow on Doti’s desk. “There’s only a handful of those, right?”

  Doti nodded, but the muscles in his jaw knotted and rolled.

  “Because here’s the thing: The Underhills used to own a horse named Gray, see, a jumper.” He turned to Pearson. “Maura, do you still have the calendar?” She fished it out of her shoulder bag. Christensen took it, opened it to April, and slid it across the desk.

  Doti stared a long time. “Some Crazy Story about Gray,” he read.

  “That horse turns up a lot in her paintings, Mr. Doti, and that’s where my research comes in. For some reason she remembers that horse. And she remembers you, and this place. We want to find out why those memories remain so—”

  Doti stood up suddenly. The smile was back. “I really wish I could help you folks, ’cause Lord knows I’d do anything for Mr. and Mrs. Underhill. Decent people. But we’ve sorta lost touch, me being out here and all. They stopped coming once she took sick.” He checked his watch, made a face. “God’s honest truth, I’m running a little scant on time right now. One of the members is expecting me down at the ring, and I shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

  Christensen stayed in his chair. So did Pearson.

  “When would be a better time?” Christensen said.

  Doti looked from one to the other. If they’d stood, Christensen was sure Doti would start ushering them out the door. Since they hadn’t, Doti seemed a little self-conscious. But he didn’t sit down.

  “Muddyross is a private riding club, Mr. Christensen. Much as I’d like to help you out with your research or whatever, much as I think the world of the Underhills, I don’t think the Underhills would much cotton to me talking about club matters with anybody who wanders in. This kind of puts me in a prickly situation, so there’s not much point in us talking again. Maybe you should just talk to them.”

  Christensen felt himself tense.

  “No offense,” Doti added. “Sure you understand.”

  The three of them waited in strained silence. The man clearly wanted to end the conversation, making Christensen that much more determined to push on. What did he have to lose? Suddenly, Pearson stood up. She stuck her hand out. “Well, then, Mr. Doti. We sure thank you for your time.”

  Doti shook it warmly despite the moment’s chill, then reached across the desk for Christensen’s hand. When they shook, Doti all but pulled Christensen out of his chair.

  Christensen retrieved the calendar from the desk and handed it back to Pearson. “Just one more question, Mr. Doti. It’s personal, so I can’t imagine the Underhills would mind you answering.”

  Doti’s jaw knotted again.

  “That pendant around your neck?” Christensen pointed to the winged horse. Doti reached up and tucked the chain back into his shirt. “Does it have any special significance that Floss Underhill might be aware of?”

  He waited for Doti to react, but all he got was that stiff smile and an unblinking stare. The ranch manager motioned them toward the door, then walked over and opened it, saying, “You folks drive carefully on your way back to the city.”

  Pearson revved the Special’s engine again, kicking up another whirlwind of dust in the Muddyross parking lot. She insisted on letting the car warm up for three minutes, no less, before putting it in gear. The brown cloud behind the car was thinning, but also drifting across the lot toward the stables and administration building. When Christensen turned around, he saw at least one reedy blonde waving a hand in front of her face to clear the air. The interior was a broiler, but when he’d tried to roll the window down, Pearson stopped him with a lesson about the deceptive delicacy of vinyl upholstery and how important it was to keep it clean.

  “Let’s just go, Maura. We weren’t here that long. It probably hasn’t even cooled down.”

  “Not till you fill me in,” she said.

  “On what?”

  “What was I missing in there?”

  Christensen didn’t know if his hunch was right, but the unassembled pieces of Floss Underhill’s life had started to fit together as he watched Doti’s guarded reactions. He again considered Floss’s suggestive description of Doti, her apparent fascination with the ranch where he now worked, and the winged horse he wore around his neck, as well as the behavior of a man who acted as if he had a secret.

  “A possibility,” he said. “Just a theory.”

  “Spill.” She revved the engine again, seemingly oblivious to the heat inside the car. Christensen’s shirt already was stuck to his back, and his armpits were damp.

  “I’m just thinking back to Vincent Underhill’s years as governor. Remember the big deal about Floss staying in Pittsburgh?”

  Pearson eased the three-on-the-tree gearshift into reverse and let out the clutch. The mighty Special began to move. It bumped through a rut and rolled into the middle of the dirt lot. “Didn’t she hate Harrisburg?”

  “He served two terms,” Christensen said. “Think about that. Eight years they lived apart.” Dust swirled around the car in a billowing cloud as she stopped and shifted into first. Christensen did the subtraction in his head. “She was probably in her late-thirties.”

  “So?”

  “Still competing, from what I can tell.”

  Pearson looked exasperated. “So?”

  If he said it out loud, would it sound ridiculous? “So maybe Warren Doti was the real reason she wanted to stay home.”

  Pearson leered. “Lovers?”

  “Who knows? They were grown-ups. They must have spent a lot of time together training and competing. Things happen.” He glanced over to gauge her reaction.

  Pearson shrugged as she eased the clutch out. The car groaned forward. “Interesting.”

  Christensen looked back a last time through the thinning brown cloud, startled to see a tall figure in denim standing at the edge of the parking lot. Warren Doti jotted something on a piece of paper as he watched their car recede. They were half a mile down the road before Pearson gave the clear signal, and they both cranked open their windows and gulped cool air like swimmers too long underwater.

  Chapter 18

  Brenna set the parking brake, lowered the driver’s-side window, and turned off the Legend’s engine, startled at first by the eerie Fox Chapel silence. She listened more closely, catching only the faint rustle of fresh green oak leaves overhead. Straight ahead, through the car’s windshield, the elaborate wrought-iron driveway gate defended the Underhill estate from unwanted visitors.

  On her previous visits, she’d found the gate stately and secure, a privacy measure she expected from a family of the Underhills’ stature. This time, though, she noticed something she hadn’t before. In a maple tree just beyond the gate, about halfway up, a video camera mounted beneath a small, shingled shelter swept back and forth across the mouth of the driveway. Another just like it was hidden behind the antique lantern atop the gate’s left brick pillar. It was aimed directly at her, or at any driver who stopped in this particular spot. In her rearview mirror, she saw another mounted in a tree across the street, presumably documenting the license plate of any car that approached. It bordered on Nixonian.

  If she didn’t approach the intercom, just sat there, how long would it take for someone on the other side of the cameras to do something about it? Would they simply offer a crackling, amplified greeting through hidden speakers? Or dispa
tch Alton Staggers or some other emissary to find out what she was doing there? She wanted to wait, just to see. On the other hand, these didn’t seem like the kind of people who enjoyed playing games.

  Brenna opened her car door and stepped out, smiling at the pillar-mounted camera about five feet above her head. She blew it a kiss, then pressed the glowing button on the intercom. “Hello?”

  The answer came immediately. “Welcome back, Ms. Kennedy.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Staggers.”

  “Thanks for your affectation.”

  Brenna tilted her head, trying to decipher. After a few seconds of confused silence, he reminded: “The kiss you blew.”

  “So those cameras aren’t just for show?” she said.

  Staggers either didn’t hear or ignored the question. “Did I somehow faux pas? I don’t have you on today’s visitor list.”

  “No.” She resisted the urge to speak directly to the maple-mounted camera. “I was out this way and thought I’d stop by. Is the governor in?”

  Staggers laughed. “Past or future?”

  Before she could answer, the heavy lock on the massive gate buzzed and sprang. In silence, the gate swung slowly open. “Thank you,” she said, waving to the pillar-cam as she climbed back into the car.

  Brenna had come for one reason, though she intended to disguise her mission among a number of other fact-gathering chores: She wasn’t leaving until she talked to Enrique Chembergo. Staggers and the Underhills had thwarted her attempts to interview the man who said he heard Floss Underhill struggling on the gazebo deck just before she fell. “You don’t have to defend these people, Bren,” Jim had said the night before. “Are you sure they’re being straight with you?”

  Vincent Underhill met her at the top of the drive, directing her into a parking spot to the right, standing in almost the exact spot where his son, Ford, had greeted her on the first day she was summoned here. The men seemed to think it a courtesy; she thought it a little weird. She parked next to Staggers’s Thunderbird and quickly opened her door, just in case the former governor felt the need to do so. When she stepped out, he stepped forward with an outstretched hand.