by Leigh Hearon
“It’s true, I talked to Ashley the day before she died,” Annie admitted. “She seemed fine to me, as well.” She rushed on. “But I would like to talk to Lisa, if it’s possible. Maybe we could help each other better understand what happened.”
She couldn’t believe she’d just uttered such a pathetic platitude. It was enough to make her gag.
“You sound like such a nice person. The kind of person Lisa needs in her life right now. Would it help if I gave you directions to her dad’s place? And what was your name again?”
* * *
Lisa’s family lived near Chester Bay, south of town, and near a well-used public horse trail that afforded spectacular views of the water. Many horse owners lived in this area; the proximity to riding trails was just too good, and the neighborhoods had none of the standardized suburban look found elsewhere. It was one of the few places where people could still build a substantial home on substantial acreage and keep their horses in their own backyard. Property values were twice what they were in the valley, where Annie had built her ranch. That was the price of being so close to the water.
A winding driveway led Annie into the Bromwell compound, which consisted of a large, new farmhouse-style building with a wraparound porch and several horse-related buildings in back. Annie parked her car and decided to eschew the front doorbell and try to find Lisa first.
She discovered her in the round pen, walking a tall chestnut gelding. She looked as if she’d been crying, and try as she might, Annie could not place her with any of the exuberant women who’d been so keen to talk to her. She approached slowly and cleared her throat before reaching the pen. Lisa turned around. It was clear by the look on her face that she was expecting someone else.
“Hi, Lisa, I’m Annie Carson.” Annie walked up with a smile. “We met yesterday, remember? You and your friends wanted to ask me some questions. Your aunt told me you were out here, so I thought I’d try to find you. I’m sorry about your horse; she told me that he’s been colicking.”
“Oh. Hi.” Lisa didn’t seem half as excited to talk to Annie as she had the previous day. “I thought you were the vet. Hunter’s doing a lot better now, but I thought I was going to lose him last night.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her flannel shirt, which was not very clean.
“May I come in and look at him?”
Lisa nodded. Annie unhitched the pen gate and walked inside. She was glad that she’d kept Wolf and Sasha at home; Hunter looked as if he’d been through a siege and didn’t need to meet two active dogs right now. His magnificent head hung low, and his eyes drooped. Lisa was now at his rear, combing out his tail, but Hunter seemed not to care very much if his owner made him beautiful or not.
Annie knelt down by his left fetlock and took his pulse. It was close to normal, thank goodness, and not racing. She next stood up and gently opened his lips. His gumline was pale pink—not the robust hue one would hope to see with a well-hydrated horse, but at least it wasn’t white, or worse, purple—a danger signal that something was seriously wrong. She turned to Lisa.
“Any piles yet?”
“He pooped a bit about three o’clock in the morning, and a bit more this morning. The vet’s supposed to be out to tube him again.”
Annie knew Hunter wasn’t out of the woods yet. His eighty-foot-long large and small intestines still weren’t operating normally, and if they didn’t get back on track soon, his condition could easily turn into a crisis, solved only by emergency surgery or—if Lisa couldn’t afford this expensive alternative—euthanasia. Annie felt intense sympathy for the young woman. Tending a colicky horse was every horse owner’s nightmare while the danger lasted, and the situation could persist, unresolved, for days. She observed Hunter’s owner, who looked as if she hadn’t slept well for several nights. She wondered why, considering Hunter’s condition, she had even bothered to attend Ashley’s celebration of life. But then, saying good-bye to a good friend was important, as well.
“Have you and the vet talked about hydrating him with an IV drip?” she asked. Every horse owner, she knew, no matter how long or short that title may have applied, knew best how to take care of their animal, so suggestions on health care had to be delicately phrased.
“I’ve told Dr. Wiggins we should do it,” Lisa said angrily. “Hunter’s not drinking. But he said it wasn’t necessary. He just keeps tubing him.”
Tubing a horse was not fun for the horse or for anyone to watch. The vet inserted a long rubber hose up the horse’s nose and, using a hand pump, transferred a large bucket full of saline and milk of magnesia into the horse’s system. Annie hated when this procedure was required, even though she knew it was pro forma for colic cases.
Annie arched one eyebrow, a skill she’d honed sitting through many boring high school classes, and replied, “I think you’re right. I once had a horse that colicked during one of our winter floods, and the only way he survived until he could be transported to the mainland hospital was to keep him on a continuous drip. I kept him on it for six days and nights until the water receded and we could move him. Of course, the vet was out every day. But that drip saved him.”
“Would you tell Dr. Wiggins that?” begged Lisa, starting to cry. “I can’t lose Hunter now. I’ve just lost Ashley. I can’t lose anyone else.”
Annie dug out a relatively clean bandanna from her Levi jacket and handed it to her.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s put Hunter in your foaling stall right now so the vet can set up the drip as soon as he arrives.”
* * *
Two hours later, Annie and Lisa sat on milking stools in the foaling stall while they watched Hunter shift his weight from one back leg to another. The horse’s eyes were closed, but the two horsewomen knew that Hunter was resting, and not in pain. A bag of fluid on an aluminum rack stood near him, where a slow but steady flow of electrolytes seeped into his body. A small pile of manure—the first that looked even remotely normal, according to Lisa—was in the corner. To the women, it was gold. It meant Hunter’s gut was beginning to move again, and his chance of survival had just skyrocketed.
“So you really think it’s the sand?” Lisa asked, handing Annie a can of Coke.
“Makes sense,” Annie replied, taking a long swig of the sugary stuff. “I’ve got it on my ranch, and I’m twelve miles inland. Your stables are practically waterfront property. I’m sure your pastures are full of it. I’m guessing he’s out on pasture pretty much all day?”
Lisa nodded morosely.
“There’s your cause for Hunter’s recurring symptoms. Over time, he builds up enough sand in his large colon to cause an impaction-type colic. You don’t see him ingesting sand; you see only the colic. So you treat the colic, Hunter gets better, but then he goes right out to where the sand is. Even Dr. Wiggins conceded it could be a problem. The stethoscope pretty much forced him to.”
At Annie’s gentle insistence, the vet had listened to Hunter’s gut, which was still dangerously devoid of the usual healthy gurgle of gut sounds. But what he did hear was the soft, rolling sound of the ocean—exactly the sound that sand in the gut mimics. He was none too happy to have a civilian nicely suggest that too much sand ingestion was what was causing the horse’s chronic colic attacks, but he also was too much of a professional to protest—much. He grudgingly wrote out a prescription for a sand cleanser, and Annie promised to bring some of her own over to Lisa in the next few days.
“I was so happy to put him out on fresh pasture again,” moaned Lisa, her head resting on her horse’s thigh. “All that new grass. I thought I was doing what was best for him.”
“Oh, stop.” Annie said the words humorously, but she meant them. “Isn’t that all we ever do—what we think is best for our horses? Anyway, now you know how to fix the problem. Stay on the sand clearance program and I’ll bet you Hunter doesn’t colic again, knock on wood.”
Lisa face softened and a tear slid down her face. But she looked immeasurably relieved.
“Thank you s
o much for coming over. You saved my horse’s life.”
Annie hated compliments to her face. She never knew how to react to them. She stood up, stretched, and walked over to Hunter.
“Oh, pshaw. Happy to help. But I’m curious. Did you and Ashley get your horses together?”
“How’d you know? Oh, of course—because of their names. Yes, we both got our horses when we were ten and big into 4-H. We thought it would be cute to name them Hunter and Jumper. That’s what we planned to do, of course. Dressage and eventing and all of that fancy stuff. Instead, Ashley ended up using Jumper for barrel racing, and Hunter was always the lead horse in drill team events and parades.”
“A perfect job for such a handsome guy. Ashley said Jumper had been sold. Do you know where he went?”
“Dunno. Ashley’s father sold him when we were both on a church mission one weekend. Ashley was so upset I thought she was going to . . .” She paused, then looked away. “For a while, I actually thought she might kill herself. Or her father. But then her dad took off with a new girlfriend a few months later and Ashley never saw him again. At least, she never mentioned him again.”
“That must have been tough.”
“It really was. Have you met Ashley’s mother? I mean, after seeing Candy, you can kind of understand why her dad left. But as much of a jackass as he could be sometimes, he still acted as a kind of buffer between Ashley and her mother. That woman is mean. Ashley couldn’t wait to leave. And Pete offered her a way out. For a while.”
“You know, Ashley didn’t say anything about her boyfriend when we talked.”
“That would be like her. She was embarrassed that she’d made such a big mistake, living with such a loser.”
“Do you think she was scared of him? I heard that she filed a restraining order against him not too long ago.”
“Nah. Pete’s really a wuss when you get to know him. He just sat around and smoked dope all day. And lived on handouts from his parents and from what Ashley earned from her job.”
“He wasn’t violent toward her?”
Lisa looked at the ground. “Well, he might have hit her once or twice, but only when he was high.”
“Seems to me that Ashley wouldn’t put up with that kind of behavior very long.”
There was no way for Annie to know if Ashley would have or not, but it seemed the appropriate thing to say to keep the conversation going. She was right.
“She didn’t. Ashley hated drugs. After the last time Pete freaked out on her, she left. She stayed with me and my family for a while. Then Pete got all misty eyed and convinced her to come back. But the truth is, by then, Ashley had found someone new.”
Now this was interesting.
“Really? She had a new boyfriend when she died? Even though she was still living with Pete?”
Lisa stirred the dust in the pen with the toe of her cowboy boot.
“Well, don’t tell anyone, okay? I didn’t want to tell that deputy, you know, Kim, anything bad about Ashley. Although I guess the police are going to find out soon enough.”
“Lisa, listen to me. You really should tell Kim the name of Ashley’s new boyfriend. It could be important.”
“That’s the problem. She never told any of us.”
CHAPTER 13
WEDNESDAY, MAY 11
“Annie, if you want to talk to Dan, you’re going to have to go where he is, right now. It’s the only chance you’ll have of catching him all day.”
Esther’s voice was kind but firm. She’d had forty years’ practice at the art of speaking to the public and was an undisputed pro. Annie knew there was little point in trying to convince the Sheriff’s Office’s only dispatch officer and sometimes receptionist that her news merited Dan’s special attention. She wasn’t the one who decided these things. Esther was.
“Fine. Where is the sheriff at the moment?”
“Port Chester Episcopalian Church.”
“What? Has Dan gone all religious on us?”
“Don’t be silly, Annie. It’s Eloise Carr’s memorial service today. Dan’ll be there, but then he has an all-afternoon meeting with the county commissioners. So if you want to tell him anything, now’s your time. Service starts at noon.” The click that followed told Annie that Esther had turned off her headset.
Annie was not amused by these marching orders. She’d deliberately waited until now to tell Dan about Lisa’s new information because, frankly, she wanted time to think about it herself. Obviously, Ashley’s list of potential killers had now doubled. But it would help if Annie could deliver a name. She was going to have to talk to all of Ashley’s friends, she knew, if she expected to get any new clues as to his identity. But she couldn’t justify putting off passing along the information that she had any longer.
But the little black dress, undoubtedly more appropriate attire in an Episcopalian church than a high school auditorium, would not be worn. It already had been put in a bag to take to the local Goodwill.
She arrived at the church a few minutes past noon, glad the slacks and blazer she’d worn allowed her to make full strides, because she needed them now. Entering the church through the nave, she stood for a few minutes to adjust her eyes to the low light; stained glass windows surrounding the interior were the only source of light, and today, not much sun was filtering in.
“What are you doing here?” She jumped before realizing it was Dan who had whispered the words. He was standing to the back of her, nearly invisible in a cloistered nook.
“I’m trying to find you,” she hissed back. “Do you think I like going to funerals?”
“No more than I do. Well, settle back in one of the rear pews with me. We’ve got a good hour before we come up for air.”
Annie fumed inwardly that if she’d only been on time, perhaps she could have caught Dan before the service began and then made a hasty exit. She would have been if she hadn’t had a last-minute visitor to the ranch, albeit a welcome one. Every month, Ian the Chip Man, as she privately called him, arrived on her farm, driving a Kubota with a small trailer hitched to it. She never knew when he was coming but was always glad that he did; he came bearing sweet-smelling cedar chips, which he wordlessly deposited into her shavings shed. The chips were perfect for layering the beds in her horse stalls, and the price was exquisitely right—zero. Cal and Mary Trueblood owned the local paper mill, which had been in the family since 1856. A few months back, they had graciously told Annie she was welcome to all the chips she wanted from their sawmill. Annie had eagerly accepted their kindness. She’d just learned that Trooper was allergic to pine shavings, and the cost of buying bags of the cedar replacement was wreaking havoc with her austere budget.
So, even though Ian’s arrival meant that she would be late for Eloise Carr’s service, she welcomed Ian in and hurriedly had told him to just put the shavings in the usual place, adding her effusive thanks. But today, Ian had a message to deliver.
“Mrs. Trueblood wants to talk to you,” was Ian’s blunt declaration. “She says she’ll call you, and it’s important. Said she’d be happy to come to you, or you can meet at her home.”
“Sure,” Annie said cautiously. “Did she say what she wanted to talk about?”
“Nope. Just said she wanted to talk to you.”
Annie spent the entire drive into town trying to fathom the reason for Mary’s interest in getting together. Aside from knowing that the Truebloods owned the local paper mill, she knew precious little about the family. She hadn’t the slightest idea of what Mary wanted to discuss. She was so focused on Mary’s mysterious desire to talk that she forgot she was about to attend her second memorial service of the week.
An organ started to play “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” music that always brought tears to Annie’s eyes—it had been played at her mother’s service as well. She tried to pay attention to the priest intoning a prayer in front of her but instead found herself surreptitiously looking across the adjoining pews for any familiar faces. Ron and Jane Carr were in
the front row, flanked by two families with small children—they must be Ron’s children and grandchildren, Annie realized. To her surprise, she caught a glimpse of Lavender’s long, brown hair in the row behind the Carrs. A shimmering, silvery halo was barely visible next to her. Ah, yes. It was entirely possible that Martha had known Eloise Carr. After all, they were in the same age category: old.
* * *
An hour later, Annie dutifully sang one last hymn while Dan hummed off key, and the service ended. They remained seated with the rest of the congregation as the priest and his entourage gravely made their way up the center aisle, followed by the Carr families. Ron, Annie noticed, looked as if he was going to burst into racking sobs any moment; his wife, Jane, patted him ineffectively on the arm and whispered something to him. His children—assuming they were the adults who followed—looked utterly solemn. Their kids just looked bored. Annie wondered if they even realized that they’d never see Grandma again; the oldest appeared to be about six, a bit young to assimilate the meaning of death, she thought. The baby in one woman’s arms would never know her grandmother’s touch or smile, or hear any of her stories.
Knowing that Eloise Carr had not died naturally now disturbed Annie more than before. Either Eloise had taken her own life or it had been taken from her. Neither was the way a life well lived was supposed to end. Annie had spent an hour learning just how well lived Eloise Carr’s life had been, and how much she would be missed.
Annie’s cell phone vibrated in her saddlebag purse. She pulled it out and saw a text from Lisa: “Hunter is better!!! Three piles this a.m.!!! U R wonderful.” A long series of happy emoticons trailed the message. Annie breathed a small sigh of relief and turned to Dan, who was looking over her shoulder. She snapped the cell phone shut.
“I visited Lisa Bromwell yesterday.”
“So I gather. Learn anything?”
“Ashley had a new boyfriend when she died. Someone other than Pete.”