At Risk

by Kit Ehrman

  * * *

  By Friday afternoon, a week after the theft, three boarders had taken their horses somewhere safer. We were down ten horses, but I wasn't concerned. Owners who kept their horses at pasture for the winter would be looking for a facility like Foxdale as the show season drew nearer.

  I walked into the implement building and yanked my keys out of my pocket. Dave, who had been hunched forward over his workbench, rhythmically rubbing a sheet of sandpaper along the length of a two-by-four, looked up when he heard me.

  "How's it going?" I said.

  "I'm 'bout finished with the fan jump combination. Doin' the standards right now. Wanna see?"

  "Sure." I squeezed between the bush hog and an old manure spreader we no longer used and stood beside him. "They look great. I see you've finished the Liverpool."

  He nodded.

  I gestured to the piece of wood he was working on. "Why don't you use the sander for that?"

  "Already did. I like to finish up by hand."

  I ran my fingertips along the smooth wood. The show jumps he created were as much works of art as they were obstacles for the horses to negotiate. I was, as usual, impressed.

  "Supplies'll be arriving next week for that cross-country jump you want built in the southeast field," Dave said. "When you want to work on that?"

  "Maybe in a couple weeks." I walked over to the tractor, thinking I could do without that chore just then. "If the ground isn't frozen."

  When he saw me struggling to hook up the drag, he stepped in front of me, snapped on the lynch pins, and adjusted the hitch. The man did everything with precision, without fuss, and I would miss him when he decided to retire for real.

  I looked over my shoulder as I steered the tractor out of the building. Dave stood motionless, his face blank as he watched me drive off. Wisps of his thin white hair stuck out from beneath his Orioles cap, and he was sucking on his lower lip, giving an impression of the ordinary, but there was nothing common about Dave.

  I got to work on the largest outdoor arena and soon found that what I had hoped would be an easy job was more difficult than I'd anticipated. The big old John Deere was difficult steering through the heavy sand at the best of times, and it didn't take long before my ribs began to ache. I swung the tractor around to the north. A cold wind stung my face, and diesel fumes, caught in a down draft, wrapped around the back of my throat.

  I maneuvered the tractor through the one-stride in-and-out and made another sweep around the diagonal line of fences. As I pulled out of the turn, I almost ran into my favorite jump. I gritted my teeth and hauled on the steering wheel. The weights in front came within an inch of crashing into the rust-brown jump standard with a fox's head carved out of the middle. Mrs. Hill's sister had painted an impressive hunt scene on the wide middle panel of the jump, and my boss would have been majorly pissed if I'd creamed it.

  Someone yelled, and I looked over my shoulder. A bunch of kids were running toward the barn, just goofing around. But it was not they who held my interest.

  A car braked to a stop alongside the office door, ignoring an official-looking sign at the mouth of the lane that prohibited vehicular traffic of any kind. The driver climbed from behind the wheel and scanned the grounds before he walked into the office where I was certain Mrs. Hill would lay into him. I swung the tractor into another turn and made one last sweep down the outside line, then drove around to the far side of the judge's stand.

  A half-hour later, I pulled out of a tight corner and glanced toward the buildings. Mrs. Hill was standing outside the office door with her arms wrapped around her chest. When she saw me look over, she signaled that she wanted to see me. Wondering what was up, I drove across the arena, parked next to the gate, and climbed stiffly to the ground. I'd had enough. Dave could finish in the morning.

  I cut across the lane, head bowed, hands in my pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold, and wished I were going home instead. The driver watched my approach, and I had the distinct impression he was waiting for me. He stepped aside as I walked into the office. I glanced from him to the door between the office and lounge and frowned. It was closed, and what was more, it was locked. Mrs. Hill always left it open.

  She was standing behind her desk, her face tinged with color from the brief moment she had stood in the wind. Through the side window that looked into the arena, I saw that Karen's three o'clock was in full swing, the horses cantering by in a quiet, orderly line. Voices filtered in from the lounge, which was packed that time of day with students and boarders.

  "Stephen, this is--"

  Someone knocked on the lounge door.

  "Wait a minute," Mrs. Hill yelled. She frowned at her visitor. "Could you take this somewhere else? I need my office back."

  Take what, I wondered? I looked at him with growing curiosity. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had sandy brown hair like my own and pale hazel eyes. I glanced around the room and couldn't figure why she wanted us out.

  "My car will do," he said, his gaze on me, and there was a light in his eyes that spoke of nothing if not intelligence, and interest. Interest in human nature.

  Outside, a strong breeze cut across the open pasture and funneled between the buildings. Like so many winter days, when the sun begins its descent, so does the temperature. I looked more closely at his car, a dark green Crown Victoria with three whip antennas sticking out of the trunk. The guy was a cop. No wonder Mrs. Hill had wanted us out. Frequent visits by the police were definitely not on her list of boarder confidence builders.

  "I'm Detective James Ralston with the Maryland State Police." He pulled his identification from an inner pocket and flipped it open and shut too fast for me to read.

  I wondered if he'd done it on purpose. Like a police or psychological tactic of some kind. Or a test. He'd be able to draw a different set of conclusions based on whether or not his subject asked to see it more closely. I decided I wasn't going to play.

  He gestured to his car, and I climbed in, happy to get out of the wind.

  Detective Ralston lifted a pair of aviator glasses off the dash, put them on, and thumbed to a blank page in a worn notebook. "I have some questions regarding the horse theft and your assault and abduction which occurred Saturday morning, February the 24th."

  Ralston covered all the questions the detective in the hospital had asked, then added a few of his own. He made sporadic notes with a chewed on pencil, and I didn't think I had told him anything he didn't already know. He popped the latch on a briefcase that was wedged between the back seat and a bank of controls that straddled the transmission hump, then pulled several tightly-folded sheets of paper from a compartment built into the lid. He smoothed them out on his thigh. I watched him flip through the pages until he found what he wanted.

  "This is a printout from the MVA." He handed me the top page. "I had them compile a list of people who own white or off-white dual-wheel pickups and a separate listing for six-horse gooseneck trailers. The one you're looking at consolidates both. As you see, there aren't many matches. Do you recognize any of the names?"

  I studied the list, then shook my head.

  "All right. Take a look at the list of truck owners."

  He handed over a more substantial printout. The tractor-fed pages were still linked together. I took my time over the list, and before long, Ralston switched on the engine and cranked up the heat.

  Many of the registered owners weren't individuals, but companies. Rose Acre Farms, Smith Landscaping, T&T Industries, Murray Construction. "I had no idea there were so many white dualies on the road," I said.

  "And that's just from the surrounding counties. Howard, Montgomery, Carroll, Baltimore, Anne Arundel . . . Thought I'd start locally and expand the search if need be."

  "Well, I think you struck out." I handed him both lists, which he laid face down in the briefcase. "I don't know any of them," I said. "How come you think I'd recognize them, anyway?"

  Ralston ignored my question and handed me a smaller list. "These ar
e the trailer owners. The list isn't broken down as well as I would have liked. Some of these trailers are probably smaller than what they used."

  I studied the list and shook my head. "Sorry."

  He shrugged. "It was a long shot. How about this list?" He handed me another printout. This one, however, was not from the MVA.

  I scanned the sheet and told him the names I was familiar with--one farrier, two grain outfits, a fence company, and Greg, Foxdale's vet. As I read through to the end, I became conscious of the fact that he'd been watching me.

  "Does Raymond Crump work for Foxdale?" Ralston said, referring to the farrier whose name I had recognized.

  I shook my head. "No."

  "In the past?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "How do you know him, then?"

  "I don't. Just heard of him." I shrugged. "He doesn't hot-shoe, so we don't use him."

  He glanced at his notes. "What about the two feed suppliers?"

  "I've heard of them, but we haven't used either company, not since I've worked here."

  "How long's that been?"

  "Two years in June."

  "And the fence company?"

  "We buy supplies from them." I shifted in my seat and leaned my back against the door.

  "Do they deliver the supplies?"

  "Yes."

  "When were they here last?"

  I thought back to our last project. "In October."

  "Where do they unload? Would they know the farm's layout?"

  "Yeah, probably. We have them unload different places, depending on what we're working on."

  "And Gregory Davis?"

  "He's Foxdale's vet." I handed Detective Ralston the sheet. "And my landlord."

  He tossed the printout into his briefcase and scribbled something in his notebook. "He'd know Foxdale's routine, then?"

  "I guess so. He has a whole slew of clients, so I wouldn't say he's an expert on what goes on here." I gestured to his briefcase. "You don't think they have anything to do with what happened, do you?"

  He glanced at me over the rims of his glasses. "I'm checking everyone."

  Ralston shifted in his seat and looked toward the barns, and I couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking. When he said nothing further, I leaned my head against the vinyl headrest and stared unseeingly at the sun visor. After several minutes, I looked over at him. He was jotting down notes in a neat, controlled script. His fingernails were clean and well manicured, his hair cut military short. Everything about the man was neat and tidy, right down to his expertly-polished shoes.

  I looked at my hands. Dirt was permanently ingrained in skin that was mostly chapped, and my fingernails weren't too clean, either. Come to think of it, my clothes were filthy, and I was certain I smelled like a horse, or worse.

  I cleared my throat. "Why has the case been referred to you? I thought someone else was handling it?"

  He shifted in his seat so that he was facing me, rested his arm on the backrest, and absentmindedly turned the pencil over in his fingers. With effort, I kept still under his gaze.

  Finally, he said, "The detective who interviewed you in the hospital, Gary Linquist, he responded to a teletype I'd sent out to surrounding counties in the hope of connecting with anyone who's investigating a case similar to one I'm working."

  "What kind of case?" I asked.

  He gestured to the indoor. "Is that where the assault took place?"

  I glanced at the huge building. "Yes."

  "I need to look at the scene." He stopped fiddling with the pencil. "And I need you to walk me through what happened that night."

  I looked out the windshield.

  "I also want to see each stall a horse was taken out of and the location of the fuse box."

  "Fuse box?"

  "They didn't break the security lights," Ralston said. "Shooting them out would have made too much noise. Turning all of them off would have attracted attention. Based on Howard County's report, it looks like they just flipped the circuit breakers for half the security lights and nothing else."

  I nodded. The light behind barn A and the one down the side lane to the implement building had been on. I remembered seeing them from the road.

  I showed him each stall and, for the first time, realized that all of the stolen horses had been housed in barn A. Next, we went into the utility room. The fuse boxes were covered with a layer of black dust and smudges that I assumed were the result of fingerprinting.

  He examined both boxes, then stooped down and angled the beam of his flashlight across the floor, even going as far as peering behind the water heaters and heating unit. "Was this room locked?"

  "I don't know. It should have been." I looked at the floor. From one end of the room to the other, hoses snaked across the cement. We had stepped over them when we'd first walked into the room. "I guess the door could have been left unlocked. The crew's always coming in here to get the hoses since we can't keep them in the barns this time of year without them freezing."

  "Do you remember locking it that night?"

  "No."

  He straightened and glanced at me but said nothing. After he examined the entire floor of the small room, I showed him where the truck and trailer had been parked between the barns, then we walked toward the parking lot.

  As we neared the southwest corner of the indoor, I turned around and looked down the lane. "I was about here when I saw the rig."

  "How much time passed from the time you pulled off the road until you first saw the truck and trailer?"

  I glanced toward the road and shrugged. "I wasn't in a hurry. Five minutes. Probably not that long."

  Ralston jerked his head toward the indoor. "You went in there to use the phone?"

  "Yeah."

  "Through there?" He pointed to the entry door by the bleachers.

  "Yes."

  "They moved fast." He crossed his arms over his chest and rubbed his chin. "Probably had a lookout posted. When he saw you turn off the road, he signaled the others, and they moved into position behind you. Except you walked into the building and surprised them. It still worked, but their strategy was risky. There's no other entrance to the farm?"

  "No."

  "Okay, show me what you did after you saw the truck and trailer."

  I looked across the grass to the door. "Lessons are going on right now," I said. "We'll be disturbing them."

  He looked me in the eye. "We won't actually be standing where the horses are working, will we?"

  I shook my head.

  "Well, come on then. Let's go."

  I wiped my face with the sleeve of my coat, then strode across the grass. When he followed me into the arena, I said, "I left the door open, but I'd better shut it so we won't distract the horses."

  "All right."

  Across the arena, the school horses were lined up, waiting their turn while a cute bay pony with a naturally well-balanced stride negotiated the course of fences with ease. I pulled the door inward until the latch clicked.

  "I was standing here." When I pointed at the pay phone, I was dismayed to see that my finger was trembling. I jerked my arm down to my side and stuffed my hands in my pockets, hoping he hadn't noticed. I cleared my throat. "Anyway, before I could pick up the phone, someone hit me over the head."

  "Do you know what they used?"

  "No . . . except it was hard."

  Ralston's head shot up at the tone of my voice, and the corners of his mouth twitched. "Did it feel like wood, metal?"

  "Oh. Wood."

  "Then you fell?"

  He had his flashlight out again, and if he could make anything of the jumble of footprints in the dirt, he was Sherlock Holmes incarnate.

  "No. I lost my balance, but one of them shoved me against the wall there." I made a conscious effort at keeping my hand steady and pointed to the space between the door and pay phone.

  Ralston stepped closer and angled the beam across the siding. Even though we kept the arena floor watered down, the hor
ses kicked up a lot of dust. Except for a few smudge marks at shoulder height, it looked like ten-years' worth of dust and dirt coated the walls, and the spiders had been busy, too. I backed out of his way and pulled my coat collar up around my neck.

  After a moment, he straightened and pocketed the flashlight, then walked behind the bleachers and paused alongside the large sliding door the students used to bring their horses into the arena. Because of the cold, it was open only a foot or two, just enough for a person to squeeze through.

  He looked around. "Notice anything missing? Out of place?"

  I scanned the area. Except for the bleachers and two fifty-five gallon drums we used for trash, the spectator space was empty. "No. Everything looks the way it always does."

  Ralston peered into one of the drums. "When were these cans emptied last?"

  "I don't know. Dave empties them when they get full enough to bother with."

  "Dave Wade?" Ralston said, and I saw he'd done his homework.

  "Yeah."

  "Into the Dumpster out front?"

  "Yes." I looked at the accumulation of empty soda cans, paper cups, and candy wrappers. Someone had even tossed a frayed crop into the trash. "The truck comes every Friday."

  "It's been here already?" Ralston said.

  "Uh-huh. Around one o'clock."

  "Could you get Mr. Wade over here?"

  "He's already gone home."

  Detective Ralston compressed his lips in annoyance. When he couldn't get Dave on his cell phone, he pulled on plastic gloves and carefully emptied both drums into a large plastic bag that he'd dug out of the trunk of his car. Dressed in a suit and tie, he looked as incongruous rooting around in the trash as he had earlier walking through the barn.

  He taped the mouth of the bag shut, scribbled on a label, and chucked it into the trunk. When he noticed my expression, he said, "If Mr. Wade hasn't emptied them since the theft, it's worth a closer look."

  I nodded and tried to smother a grin as I followed Ralston back into the indoor. When he asked to see where I'd collapsed, I pointed out the spot alongside the bleachers. Ralston unhooked his flashlight and flicked it on. He scanned the ground and angled the beam under the bleachers near the metal uprights. I pulled my cap off and yanked my coat open. At the sound of the snaps popping apart in quick succession, Ralston glanced up from where he was crouched. I crossed my arms on one of the planks at shoulder level, rested my head on my arms, and wondered what was taking him so long. My skin felt clammy, though the air temperature was close to freezing.

  "What happened next, Steve?"

  I squinted at him, then reluctantly lifted my head and told him the rest.

  Ralston folded his arms across his chest. "And you don't--"

  A sharp crack split the air and echoed off the metal walls. I jumped as if I'd been shocked with a cattle prod. It was just one of the horses rapping the top rail of a jump.

  Just one of the horses.

  I rubbed my forehead.

  "Okay," Ralston said. "I think we're done in here. Let's finish up in the car."

  "Finish up?" I mumbled.

  "Yes. I have a few more things to go over."

  Back outside, the white metal siding glowed pink as the sun neared the horizon. It wouldn't be long before it disappeared behind the tree line, and as so often happens, the wind had died down with the sun's descent. I climbed back into Ralston's car and wondered when I'd be getting back to work.

  He slammed his door and flipped through the ever present notebook. "I have a list of the owners of the stolen horses. I want you to tell me what you know about each one, okay?"

  I nodded, and he started checking off names. I hesitated when he got to Sanders.

  He looked over at me, his pencil poised, waiting. "What's the deal with him?"

  I shrugged. "Nothing. I just don't like him much."

  "Why?"

  "No particular reason. It's more a personality conflict than anything." I sighed. "I don't really know why I don't like him. . . . He's not a good horseman."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, stuff like not cooling out his horse after he's worked him, being too aggressive when he rides. Things like that. It's more like he uses his horse, treats him like an object instead of a living, breathing animal."

  Frowning at my explanation, Ralston switched on the engine and slid the control levers into position for maximum heat output. I listened to the purr of the engine and thought about how Sanders used his horse as a bizarre sort of aphrodisiac.

  Ralston must have seen something in my expression because he said, "What are you thinking?"

  "Nothing. . . . Nothing to do with this."

  "Tell me anyway."

  He'd said it like I didn't have a choice. Like I wouldn't be getting out of his car if I didn't tell him what he wanted to know, which kind of pissed me off. But it wasn't any big deal, so I told him.

  When he checked off the last name, he said, "The evidence clearly shows they were familiar with the farm's layout and routine."

  "Um."

  "Tell me about the employees. Anyone have a gripe with management?"

  I thought about Brian and decided that his grumpy attitude didn't make him a suspect. "No. They're a pretty good group."

  He shifted in his seat and leaned against the door. "And you didn't recognize their voices?"

  I shook my head. "The guy with the ball cap," and a whine in his voice I thought but kept to myself, "I've never seen him before. I'm sure of that. As for the other two, far as I remember, they always spoke in a whisper. I don't know whether I could have recognized them under those circumstances."

  "Maybe you do know them, and they were trying to disguise their voices."

  I didn't like that thought one little bit. That someone I knew could be so callous. Could hate me so much. Someone I knew, maybe even liked and trusted. I didn't believe it. I turned in my seat to face him and said, "So. What similarities?"

  "What?"

  "You said there are similarities between the case you're working on and this one."

  He looked at me with an expression that would have served him well in a high-stakes poker game. When he spoke, his voice was flat. "Six months ago, seven horses were stolen from a farm in Carroll County. Not far from here, actually. The owner was murdered."