At Risk (13 page)

Chapter 7

Late Monday afternoon, I pointed the truck
northward and soon found myself negotiating a narrow, winding road
in northern Carroll County. I slowed to a crawl when I saw a
three-story brick home set close to the road. One-hundred feet
beyond, I braked to a halt next to the wide doors of a bank barn. I
got out and stretched, then lifted my notebook off the dash and
looked around. The pasture's tidy four-board fence dipped and rose
with the hilly terrain, and the trees that were clumped on
hillsides too steep to be mown were in full bud, their colors an
echo of autumn.

I heard a scuffing noise behind me and turned
to see a tall, broad-shouldered man, going fat round the middle,
walking toward me down the steep, gravel drive across the road. The
driveway led to a red pole-building that served as in indoor riding
arena. A girl on a heavily-muscled gray with a naturally high head
carriage trotted past the open doorway.

He held out his hand. "George Irons. You're
Foxdale's manager?" His eyebrows rose, and I saw in his brown eyes
a rapid assessment of my age and a hint of surprise.

I shook his hand. "Barn manager, yes."

Although it had been warm enough at Foxdale,
it was chilly here, where the steep wooded hills channeled cooler
air along the valley floor. My T-shirt felt inadequate, and I
noticed wryly that my host wore a long-sleeved, flannel shirt.

"Lemme show you the layout." He continued
past me, down the sloped lane alongside the barn, and entered the
lower level. "They just led the horses out of these stalls, pretty
as you please. Took 'em on up the path we come down on and loaded
the lot into a trailer. Right across the road from the house like
that, took some balls, I'll tell you. The wife and I slept right
through it. Didn't know the horses were gone 'til I came out in the
morning to feed."

"What time was that?"

"Five-thirty."

"Do you always come out that early."

He nodded. "Yeah. I work off the farm. First
shift. Always feed 'em before I leave, then all Nancy's gotta do is
turn 'em out when she gets up."

The lower level of the barn was three-sided,
open to the wind on the south, and decidedly dank. Deeper within
the bowels of the old barn, ten stalls surrounded a common area.
With its low ceiling, the barn was more suited for cows than
horses.

"Had a full barn one second," Irons said,
"then I'm down five horses the next."

"I thought they took four," I said.

"Four were mine. The biggest ones which, as
it turned out, happened to be the best." His voice was bitter with
the memory. He ran his fingers through his thick, windblown hair
and sighed. "Other one was a boarder's. The thieves must of tried
for seven, though."

"Why?"

"When I came out that morning, I found two of
'em on the lawn behind the house, and they had their halters
on."

"They don't normally?"

He shook his head. "Those two are the devil
to load, so I'm not surprised they gave up on 'em and just let 'em
go. They ran back into the barn and got into the bags of grain I
keep on the pallet over there," he gestured to a far corner,
"before they tore up the garden and went strollin' round the back
yard. I was damn lucky they didn't colic."

"When did you last check on them?"

"I come out before I go to bed. Make sure
everybody's okay. Must of been

around ten 'cause I had to work the next
day."

"Six-and-a-half hours," I mumbled. "Which
night? Do you remember?"

"Lemme think." He tugged upward on his jeans.
It didn't do him any good, because his belly was in the way. "Oh,
yeah. It was a Sunday. I lost a bunch of overtime 'cause I didn't
go in that morning like I'd planned."

The weekend. Why wasn't I surprised?

He slid two fingers into the breast pocket of
his shirt, pulled out a sheet of loose leaf, and unfolded it.
"Here's the information you said you wanted. Grain supplier, vet,
farrier. Anybody I could think of who comes here regular and would
know what's what." He handed me the list.

I scanned the page, recognized several names,
questioned a few. Nothing jumped out as significant. With growing
disappointment, I said, "How long ago was this?"

"Be two years in June, and I'm still not full
up. People get scared when somethin' like that happens. Word gets
around, and before you know it, your customers are lookin' for
someplace safer to keep their horses."

He didn't know anyone who owned a white
dualie and dark-colored six-horse. Didn't have a clue who was
behind the theft. I thanked him for his time. As I drove home, I
thought about his parting comment and the frustration I'd heard in
his voice. "With the barn so close to the house, Nancy and I always
thought we'd be safe from this sort of thing."

Everyone thinks they're immune. Until it's
too late.

By the time I pulled into my parking space
behind the foaling barn and climbed the steps to the loft, I'd
decided that there was one other question I should have asked Mr.
Irons. I fished the sheet of loose-leaf out of my back pocket and
punched in his number.

His wife picked up. I explained who I was and
waited nearly five minutes before he came on the line, out of
breath, his voice husky.

I twisted the phone cord round my fingers and
hoped he had never heard of my landlord. "I forgot to ask. Have you
ever used Gregory Davis as your vet?"

"No."

I let out a breath.

"Only 'cause he lives so damned far away. I
keep tellin' him we need a good vet up here, but he don't wanna
move away from his rich Maryland clients."

I rubbed my forehead. "How do you know him
then, if he's not your vet?"

"We're neighbors."

"Huh?"

He chuckled. "That's right. Our cabins butt
right up against one another on the banks of the St. Martin. We go
motorin' up and down the Isle of Wight Bay, slip on over to the Ol'
Woman's Ass when we're wantin' to get in some crabbin'--"

"Woman's . . . ass?"

He chuckled again. "Assawoman Bay. Indian
name. Good crabbin'. Fair fishin' if you don't mind the
sunnies."

"If you say so." I learned more than I cared
to about the teeming waterways and ecosystems of the Eastern Shore,
and by the time I hung up, I had decided that his knowing Greg was
simply a coincidence.

I called Detective Ralston, gave him the name
of the guy I'd run into at the show, who'd had tack stolen from his
barn, then I told him how someone had stolen five horses from
George Irons' farm in Pennsylvania and that they'd tried for
seven.

He questioned me closely, and when he
disconnected, I wondered why I hadn't told him about Greg.

* * *

The next morning, two of the guys called in
sick. Since Marty was in the other barn tacking up a horse for
Anne, Foxdale's other trainer besides Whitcombe, the barn was
unnaturally quiet. No rock 'n roll blaring from a cheap boom box,
or worse--country. No arguing over who was going to do what. Only
the muted rustling of a horse moving in his stall. A bucket being
nudged. A soft exhalation like a sigh. I flung a load of manure
into the wagon, and it hit the bare wooden floor with a dull thud.
Despite the soreness in my ribs, I was already halfway down the
aisle.

Unlike most of the crew, I didn't mind
mucking out. The job took little concentration, so there was plenty
of time to think. I raked the wet sawdust into a pile, forked it
into the wagon, and wondered who had it in for Foxdale and what, if
any, connection existed between Foxdale and James Peters. If the
horse and tack theft at Foxdale were committed by the same people,
then all three events could be linked. But the police had no
conclusive evidence, and without it, the connection was pure
speculation.

I smoothed out the sawdust with my rake,
moved on to the next stall, and thought about motive. If it wasn't
greed, then what was it? Maybe someone had a grudge against
Foxdale. An ex-employee, perhaps. In the past two years, I had
fired four employees. I'd also been responsible for Foxdale's
discontinuing the services of two farriers, one vet, and several
suppliers. But it was absurd to think they had anything to do with
what was going on. Anyway, what did they have against James
Peters?

Foxdale and Hunter's Ridge could have been
the targets of random theft and nothing more. I leaned the rake
against the wall, pulled a tattered notebook and chopped-off pencil
out of my back pocket, and made a list. I didn't have enough
information. I didn't know enough about Hunter's Ridge or James
Peters. But ignorance could be deadly.

I ripped the page from my notebook, crumpled
it into a ball, and flicked it into the wagon. Hopefully, it would
be smooth sailing from now on. No horses going to slaughter . . .
no cats hanging from the rafters with their throats slit . . . no
bodies in shallow graves.

"Hey? Whatju doin'?"

I jumped.

Marty was watching me through the stall's
grillwork. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

I swallowed. "Just thinking."

The mischievous grin faded from his face.
"Uh-huh." He propped his shoulder against the doorjamb and crossed
his arms. "You want me to muck out or do the school horses?"

I checked my watch. "Damn, we're running
behind."

Marty looked down the aisle.

"Brush off the school horses first," I said.
"Then--"

Marty's easygoing features had dissolved into
a look of pure dislike as thoroughly as if someone had reached up
and wiped the expression off his face. I poked my head into the
aisle and saw the reason for the transformation.

Whitcombe stopped alongside the wagon. Marty
pushed himself upright and took a step backward.

"Cline, I want . . . What's so funny?"

I cleared my throat. "Nothing, sir."

"I want to ride Fleet." He glanced
uncertainly at Marty, then looked back at me. "Get him ready."

"Yes, sir."

I stepped out of the stall. Whitcombe was
standing in the narrow space between the wagon and stall front,
twirling a riding crop between his fingers. I walked the long way
around. "Marty, could you--"

"Now, Cline."

"Yes . . . sir." I gritted my teeth and
gestured for Marty to follow.

"So," Whitcombe said. "It takes two of you to
tack up a horse, does it?"

I paused and looked him straight in the eye.
"No, sir. I was giving Marty instructions." Before you interrupted
me, you shithead, I wanted to say, and for a brief second, I was
sure he could read my thoughts. I started down the aisle.

"Oh, and Cline?"

Keeping my face neutral, I turned around.

"I want a segunda bit on him today."

"Yes, sir."

"Hurry it up. And Cline . . ."

"Sir?"

"I'll be in the lounge." He turned and
strolled down the aisle.

I watched the departing view of his back and
wholeheartedly wished I could fire his ass. Disgusted, I walked
into the tack room and spun the dial on Whitcombe's locker.

Though Whitcombe was long gone, Marty stood
next to me and whispered, "What a fucking asshole. You better do
what he says though, Stevie," he said with an exaggerated lisp, "or
he might have to spank you with that crop of his."

I went right past the last number on the
combination. "Christ, Marty. Quit before we both get in trouble." I
leaned my forehead on the locker and concentrated on the dial. "The
way you backed away from him, I thought I was gonna lose it. You
wouldn't be homophobic, now, would you?"

"Me?" Marty said. "Well, correct me if I'm
wrong, but more than once, I've seen you change course when you
were headin' to the men's room and saw Whitcombe go in first."

I grinned. "This may be true."

"He sure likes to keep on going and going,
don't he? Likes to jerk you around, see if he can piss you
off."

"Yeah," I said. "Like the Energizer Bunny. He
keeps going and going and--"

Marty snorted.

"--going. He sure likes his little games." I
rummaged through Whitcombe's locker. "You know, he threatened to
get me fired last week."

"What the fuck for?"

"For nothing." I sorted through the crate
until I found the segunda. "Guess he didn't like the way I said
'sir.'"

"Bet Mrs. Hill'd pick you over him if it came
down to it." Marty said. "Who cares about his reputation? He's
nothin' special."

I shrugged. "He thinks he is. My only hope's
that he'll get a job offer somewhere else, and seeing that trainers
usually don't stay in one place for long, especially trainers who
aren't as good as they think they are, I might luck out."

"I heard him chewing you out the other day
for the way you tacked up Nightshade."

I grunted. "Ever notice how he makes sure he
has an audience? I wouldn't be surprised if half the people around
here think I'm an idiot."

"Nah," Marty said. "It's pretty obvious who
the idiot is."

I selected one of Whitcombe's bridles and
switched the bits. "I'll bet you a thousand to one, when I take
Fleet down there, he'll find something to complain about."

"Why don't you say somethin' to Mrs.
Hill?"

"She doesn't need that. Anyway, I have a game
plan of my own when it comes to dealing with our Mr. Pretentious
Whitcombe."

Marty's eyebrows rose. "And what might that
be?"

"The more I keep my cool and don't respond to
his digs, the more pissed he gets. It's almost comical."

"Jesus. Remind me not to get on your bad
side."

I pulled Whitcombe's saddle off the rack and
ran my fingers across the smooth, supple leather. The rich, earthy
new-leather smell filled my head. "Damn, money must not be a
problem for him. He's already replaced his old saddle, and this
one's expensive big time."