by Sasscer Hill
As she spoke, her sapphire earrings and the small diamond in her nostril glimmered as they reflected light from the candle burning in the wine bottle on our table. The pride and happiness in her eyes far outshone the glitter of her jewelry.
When dinner arrived, Patrick scarfed his pizza and went through his salad like a runaway lawn mower. When he finished, he yawned several times and stared at the ceiling. No wonder Rebecca had left.
Jilly said, “So you used to ride for my granddad, right?”
“I was just an exercise rider in the mornings,” I said, after finishing a bite of lasagna. “I was never a jockey or anything like that.”
“Yeah, but you used to work horses out of the gate at Pimlico. That is so cool. And Granddad had some really good horses, right? Like, stakes horses.”
“Jilly has school tomorrow,” Patrick said abruptly. “We should head home.”
Jilly and I exchanged a look just short of an eye roll.
When we got back to the house, she wanted me to meet Cody, but the way Patrick’s lips compressed made me say, “You know what, Jilly? I’m starting to crash and should probably hit the pillows.”
Her shoulders slumped and she threw me a sour look. “Yeah, sure,” she mumbled, veering away from me and stalking down the hall.
“You see?” Patrick said before she was out of earshot.
“I guess it’s not easy,” I said quietly.
“You don’t have a clue!”
And you need to get one. “It wouldn’t have hurt to let her spend a few minutes showing me her horse, Patrick.”
He made an impatient noise, “She has classes tomorrow!”
“There’s more to life than school.” I headed to my bedroom. “Good night, Patrick,” I said, and closed the door behind me.
* * *
I awakened abruptly. The glowing clock on the night table read 2:00 A.M. Sitting up, I glanced at the sliding-glass door to the pool terrace. I’d left it open after closing and locking the screen. I stared into the night, listening. I could smell chlorine from the pool but heard nothing except the endless Florida breeze and the soft chirping of crickets. Ambient light and chilly damp air spilled into the room. Something had broken my sleep. A noise.
I eased off the bed and padded to the screen, straining my ears for a sound. A dim light flickered briefly inside the barn. When I’d gazed at the stable earlier, I’d noticed it had a center aisle that faced the back of the house and my bedroom. It was open and the light had come from there.
What was Jilly up to?
I knotted my nightshirt at my waist, pulled on a pair of jeans, and stepped into my Crocs. As I slipped my phone into a pocket, a horse whinnied anxiously in the distance, maybe from the next farm over. I shoved my Walther into the waistband at the small of my back, slid the screen open, and slipped out to the pool terrace.
Movement—outside by the rear of the barn. A shadowy outline of what looked like two people on a golf cart. The cart towed a wagon and rolled quietly away from the barn. I ran across the terrace, the lawn, and onto the drive leading to the barn.
What was this? Kids on a joyride? Stealing tack or Patrick’s tools and equipment? Whatever it was, it wasn’t right.
I sped down the drive, my rubber shoes silent. The cart had headed to the right on the far side of the stable, and it looked like the fastest way to catch up would be to run straight down the center aisle and out the other side. Plunging into the murk of the barn, I smelled a horrible, familiar odor before skidding in what had to be blood. I wound up on my hands and knees, staring at a dark lump on the floor.
God, no. “You sons of bitches!” I yelled. I staggered up, skirted the slick, sticky pool and ran out the back. In the distance I heard a couple of thumps. A truck engine started, but no lights came on. The sound of a motor rapidly faded into the distance.
Feeling helpless and sickened, I searched for a light switch and found it. Okay, Fia, get a grip. I flipped the switch.
Blood was everywhere. Cody’s black tail like a paintbrush dipped in blood looked. I fought a wave of nausea. They had butchered him in his own barn, removing the large cuts of meat. I wanted to kill them. I grabbed my phone and called 911.
I told the dispatcher what had happened, exactly where I was, and to please roll in quietly because I didn’t want my niece to see this. It would brand her brain. At least I could spare her that. What if I’d come to the barn with her earlier to meet Cody? Would I have seen something, noticed something? I should have come. Damn everything.
As I stood by the light switch, the smell of blood grew more metallic, the cloying scent bringing another wave of nausea. I had to get air. Dizzy, I moved toward the back entrance and froze.
A man dressed in camouflage with a gun holstered on his hip stood where the lighted aisle merged into the darkness beyond. He wore a bulletproof vest. Black greasepaint was smeared under his eyes.
My gun was in my hands and trained on his chest. “Stop. On the pavement, face down. Do it.”
“Easy, sister,” he said, sinking to his knees. “I’m on your side.” Putting his palms on the concrete floor, he glanced at Cody. “I’m following the guy who did this.”
“Except you’re dressed like the killer. Pull that gun and toss it across the floor.”
He did.
“All the way down,” I said, trying to keep the nerves out of my voice. Please, God, don’t make me have to shoot this guy.…
He shrugged. “Sure.” He eased his hard-looking, six-foot frame onto the pavement. Beneath the greasepaint, dirt, and three-day stubble he was probably good-looking. He lay his right cheek on the concrete, never taking his left eye off me. “Was he your horse?”
“None of your business.” Quickly, I stepped over to his gun and kicked it behind me, putting my body between him and his weapon. Lowering my 9mm to my side, I said, “Who are you?”
“Zanin. I run an outfit called PAL. We protect animals from this kind of crap.”
“Sure you do.”
“Think what you want,” he said.
The anger in his voice and the tensed muscles in his forearms made me raise my gun again.
Headlights swept around the side of the house from the front yard. As the car rolled along the drive toward the barn, the outline of a light bar was visible on its roof. A Broward County sheriff. The car rolled to a stop outside the barn. The officer inside used his microphone, addressing us through his PA system.
“Ma’am, I need you to lower your weapon.”
I did. His voice, blasting from the speaker in the front grille, had ripped open the night air. So much for hiding this from Jilly.
“Lay it on the ground nice and slow,” he said.
I obliged and stepped a few feet away from the gun, praying Zanin, or whatever his name was, would stay put. I turned sideways so I could see them both.
The deputy, his service weapon drawn, climbed from his cruiser and walked toward me. He stopped as he took in the remains of Cody. When he carefully stepped around the pool of blood, his face turned a pale shade of green. I knew just how he felt.
Zanin raised his head from the pavement and squinted. “Rodriguez? If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get up now.”
I stared at the name badge on the cop as he drew closer: Rodriguez. The deputy, who was neat as a pin with perfectly shined shoes, looked at Zanin, then at me. He grinned like something was amusing.
“Sure, Zanin. You’re safe now. I’ll keep this little gal covered for you, seeing as she took your weapon and put you on the ground.”
Rodriguez was an ass, but at least the guy in the SWAT outfit hadn’t lied about his name. The cold look in his eyes suggested he found Rodriguez’s humor as annoying as I did. When Zanin climbed to his feet, the breeze coming through the rear of the barn carried his scent to me. Sweat, dirt, and testosterone.
Rodriguez still had his gun on me. He glanced at Zanin. “This guy, I know. Runs that Protect the Animals League. He didn’t do this. But who the hell are you?”
>
I told him my name. “My brother owns this place. The … horse on the ground belonged to my niece, and the people who killed him just left.” I gestured at the shadows behind the barn. “Out there. In a truck.”
“They have a golf cart with them?” Zanin asked.
I suddenly felt very tired. “Yeah … they did.”
“Damn it.” Zanin turned toward the deputy. “I was tailing those guys out of the C-Nine basin. They went down one of those one-way tracks and disappeared. I knew they were gonna hit someone tonight.”
I moved two steps toward him. “So you know who they are. Do you have a license number?”
He shrugged. “Unless you witnessed the slaughter and got a video, we can’t do anything.”
He was right, of course. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t put a little pressure on these horse-killing assholes. “But you do know who they are, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “His name is Luis Valera.”
“That’s enough,” Rodriguez said to me, holstering his gun. “Let the police handle this.”
“Except you won’t,” Zanin said quietly.
A shout came from the darkness beyond the parked cruiser, causing me to whirl that way. I heard a light pounding of feet and from farther back more shouting.
“Jilly, stop!” Patrick’s voice.
Damn it. It had to be her footsteps approaching. As I ran to stop her, Jilly sped into the lights glowing from the rear of the cruiser. I sprinted toward her, blocking her path as she reached the side of the car.
“Cody!” she screamed, like she already knew what she’d find inside.
I tried to grip her arm, but she took me by surprise, shoving me, and kicking me hard in the shin with her cowgirl boot. As I fell to one knee, she raced by me, on course to collide with a horrific and indelible image.
Scrambling to my feet, I heard her scream. But it was a scream of anger, not anguish. Zanin had grabbed her shoulders, lifted her from the ground, and spun her away from the barn. But as he started to set her down, she kicked him in the balls, and Zanin doubled over with the pain. The second he dropped her, she ran into the barn.
Then the real screaming started.
6
Patrick, Zanin, and I sat at the McKee kitchen table working on double shots of iced Stolichnaya vodka. Zanin had just told us his first name was Kerameikos, making it easy to see why he went by his last name. His eyes were so deep-set and shadowed by thick, dark brows that even in the bright light of the kitchen it was hard to determine their color. My best guess was a very dark shade of gray.
Behind us, the refrigerator motor cycled off, leaving an intense silence in the room. Rebecca’s decorator had been busy here, too, doing the kitchen in an orange and white motif that reminded me of a Dreamsicle. The table was inlaid with orange tiles and the obligatory gold accents hadn’t been forgotten; the ornate metal weighed down the ceiling fixtures, knobs, and handles.
Zanin swirled the ice in his drink, stirring up the scent of the lime he’d squeezed into his glass. He wore his brown hair short, in an unyielding military style. His bulletproof vest hung on the back of his chair, leaving him in a sleeveless tee, and now that he’d washed the greasepaint off his face, he didn’t look so tough—more the other way around, like life had been hard on him.
I’d bet my last bullet he was driven by an underlying need to help others. He’d insisted on being the one to clean the barn, telling me the members of PAL were used to it, that Patrick and I should stay with Jilly. Apparently, he kept plastic bags and disinfectants in the SUV he’d parked on Lead Pony Lane, telling me his outfit needed these supplies way too often, giving me an unpleasant insight into the world of PAL.
Patrick took Jilly back to the house, and Zanin produced a Nikon and took multiple shots of the scene. I used a hose and watched Cody’s blood swirl through the grate and down into the floor drain. Zanin used his plastic bags to do the real dirty work, saying he’d take the parts that used to be Cody and bury them.
Shuddering at the memory, I pushed back from the dining table, went to the refrigerator for more ice, and poured another healthy slug of vodka into my glass.
The entrance to the dining room was at one end of the kitchen, with an access to the hall at the other end. Jilly was in her room back there, hopefully still asleep. Patrick had given her a Xanax, and when I’d come back from the barn, I’d stayed with her until her sobs stopped and she’d drifted off.
Her anguish had brought back the image of Dad’s body stuffed between the wall and the back of the Dumpster outside his barn at Pimlico where I’d found him. The mental picture cranked up the pilot flame that burned in me, fueling it into a furnace. I’d never found justice for Dad. I wanted to hurt the men who’d done this to Jilly. And to Patrick. And Cody.
“Are you all right?” Zanin stared from across the table.
I nodded, sank into my chair, and sipped more vodka. The liquor had a nice cold bite, chilling some of my anger and easing my adrenaline crash.
“Now that we’ve all had a chance to decompress,” Patrick said, his gaze shifting to Zanin. “I want to know what happened out there. That useless Rodriguez didn’t say much.”
My brother could be so annoying. “For God’s sake, Patrick. He had a domestic dispute call. Rodriguez had no choice but to leave.”
Patrick waved me off with a “whatever” motion, never taking his eyes off Zanin. He’d always ignored what I said if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“Your horse,” Zanin said, “was butchered by Cuban Americans who live in the C-Nine Basin. By now, they’ve delivered his meat to a specialty butcher shop in Miami.”
Patrick shook his head as if denying the whole thing. “That’s disgusting. It doesn’t make sense. There can’t be enough money to outweigh the risk.”
“I’m betting the horse was young,” Zanin said. “Maybe a little fat?”
Recalling Jilly’s conversation at dinner, I said, “Cody was only three.” An image struck me. Cody plump and happy in the paddock with Jilly that afternoon. “Oh, God. He was fat. Is that why they killed him?”
“Yeah,” Zanin said. “They like ’em young and well-marbled. Brings the highest price, like beef.”
I dropped my head into my hands. It was impossible to shut out the images. Glancing at him, I said, “Who are these people? And what’s the C-Nine Basin?”
“It’s the Wild West of Florida. Straddles the western edge of Broward and Miami-Dade counties, along one side of the Everglades. Mostly men live there, Cubans and Haitians and almost everything they do is outside the law—cockfights, horse slaughter, dogfights.”
“But Patrick’s right,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense. Horse slaughter is legal in so many places now.”
Zanin gazed at me intently. “Think about it.”
I cringed as it hit me. “It doesn’t matter if it’s legal because if those animals are old and tough…”
Zanin nodded. “They bring less money. The men in the C-Nine, they’re renegades, squatters, really rough people. These guys build shacks and pilfer from electric lines. They don’t care about right and wrong, especially when money in the form of prime meat is available just down the road. Believe me, the police are afraid to go in there.”
“This is horrible.” Patrick’s voice sounded weak.
I stared at him. Tears glittered in his eyes. Was Patrick crying? My brother Patrick?
“Hey, man. I’m really sorry,” Zanin said. “I shouldn’t have lost Valera earlier.”
And I should be comforting my brother, but I’d feel like a hypocrite if I did. Patrick had never cried when our dad died, or earlier when our mother had left us all for another man. Patrick had remained her little darling, and they stayed close. Me? I avoided the bitch.
So instead of comforting him, I glanced at Zanin. “Maybe we could do something about Valera.”
Patrick forgot his tears and slammed a hand on the orange tile, causing the ice in my glass to rattle. “Forget it, F
ia! We’ve had enough trouble. These people operate outside the law.” He waved a hand toward Zanin. “He just said the police are afraid to go in there!”
“Somebody has to.”
“Take it easy, you two,” Zanin said. “Fia, he’s right. People disappear in the C-Nine.”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t scare the hell out of me. It does. But I’ll go in there if—”
“Listen to you!” Patrick shouted. “You may be a cop, but you have no jurisdiction down here. The Everglades are nothing like Baltimore. You have no idea what you’d be getting into!”
“You’re a cop?”
Zanin had missed my little talk about that with Rodriguez. “Yeah, I am.”
He shifted toward me, moving his body closer. The man needed a shower but there was some scent emanating from him that wasn’t altogether unappealing.
“So why are you here? Vacation?”
“Something like that,” I said.
His expression became thoughtful. “Maybe you could—”
“She’s here to help me with Jilly. That is, if she hasn’t forgotten why she came.” Patrick made a helpless palms-up gesture to Zanin. “You see how she is? And Jilly is just like her.”
A noise from the hallway made me turn. Jilly stood there, wearing pajamas printed with baby zebras. She looked confused, her eyes unfocused, her legs trembling. When I pushed my chair back and rushed toward her, her eyes opened wide, as if she were waking up. She started screaming. When I reached her and put my arms around her, the screams turned into wails and she clung to me like she’d never let go.
Stroking her dark hair, I glared at Patrick. “I haven’t forgotten why I came here.”
Patrick dropped his gaze to the floor, and my phone’s familiar ringtone went off. I’d left it next to my glass on the kitchen table, close to Zanin.
Keeping my arms wrapped around Jilly, I said, “Zanin, could you check the ID?”
He slid a muscular arm across the table and looked at the phone. “Baltimore Police Department.”
I squashed the impulse to grab the phone. “They can wait.” Placing my hands on Jilly’s shoulders, I set her back far enough to study her face. “You want to sit with us for a while?”