by Laura Crum
His curly blond hair and oddly childlike face were the same as I remembered them from glimpses of him around town, but the man himself appeared completely different. The Walker had seemed alert and interested in his surroundings, a little shy, and if not precisely happy, not unhappy, either. The huddled figure in the chair had features that were blurred with some deep, fearful emotion, and he didn't seem aware of the room or us or anything around him at all.
"Terry, this is Gail. She came to see you. She's your friend."
Glenda spoke gently, touching Terry on the shoulder, but he never looked at her. He faced the wall, body hunched in a defensive curl, eyes blank. He mumbled-an endless, unintelligible monologue. He reminded me of a wild cat one of my clients had trapped and was trying to tame. It had crouched in a cage in the comer of her barn, deliberately facing the wall, terrified and resistant, unwilling or unable to trust, sure through bitter experience that all humans intended it harm.
"Terry," I said, wondering if any words could possibly help. "I know you didn't hurt Cindy."
At the mention of Cindy's name, he turned his head slightly and shot me a glance. The monologue stopped briefly and then resumed. I could hear Cindy's name, somewhat slurred, repeated, along with other words I couldn't catch.
"I know you didn't hurt her," I said again, not knowing what else to say.
Glenda touched my arm and we went back out, down the hall, far enough away that our voices wouldn't be heard.
"You see what he's like. He's terrified. And that detective wants us to bring him back down for more questioning tomorrow." She shook her head. "This is tearing him apart."
"I understand. I'm going to see one of the detectives today. I'll talk to her, but I'm not sure it will do any good."
"I'm not sure what would do any good, now." She looked down, her plain face sad. "But thank you for trying."
Escorting me to the door, she let me out, and I walked back to the truck with a sinking feeling in my heart. Blue was sleeping on the seat and sat up when I got in. I put my arm around him and rubbed his chest, and he licked my ear.
The depth of human misery I had caused by linking Terry to this crime dismayed me. I wondered if he would ever be the same again. With my rational mind, I knew I shouldn't blame myself, but my emotions were tangled. I felt responsible, at least in part, for Terry's despair, and I felt sure, even surer than I had been, that he was innocent. I wanted to do something about it.
TWELVE
I spent my lunch hour playing detective. My eleven o'clock appointment was in Watsonville, the agriculturally oriented city that dominates south Santa Cruz County and is as different from Santa Cruz as the hippiesque denizens of UCSC are from the mostly Latino farmworkers who earn their living in the fertile Pajaro Valley. Watsonville is a sometimes volatile mix of a minority of old-money, old-fashioned Republican landowners and the large Mexican-American community that forms the voting majority and has just recently started to assert its power.
My appointment was with one of the old-money types and involved diagnosing a lameness on a Peruvian Paso yearling-always difficult, as Pasos have such different gaits from other horses. I usually had a hard enough time figuring out if a Paso was lame at all, let alone in which foot. This Paso had a nail in his right front, which took care of the diagnosis. After opening the puncture so it would drain and wrapping the foot, I gave the owner instructions on antibiotics, painkillers, and rewrapping, and got done by noon, which left me an hour for lunch or sleuth work. I chose sleuthing and drove straight to Aromas, a small community in the hills just south of Watsonville. Gina Gianelli's twenty-acre dairy-converted-to-horse-ranch was on the outskirts of Aromas, and I had an unscheduled call to make.
As I bumped down the narrow gravel road that circled the apple orchard at the front of her property, I tried to decide what to say to Gina. If she didn't want to tell the sheriff's department anything, how was I going to deal with that? Play it by ear, I thought. See what it feels like.
I had a hard time believing Gina Gianelli could have had anything to do with the murders, mostly because I liked her. But Tony Ramiro, now that was a different story altogether. The trouble was, I simply could not believe that even Tony would murder someone in order to capture a year-end award. Not to mention Gina had said Tony had an alibi. Still, no doubt Gina was willing to lie about that. She had struck me as totally infatuated with Tony.
As I rounded the corner of the orchard and saw Gina's arena up ahead, with Gina and someone else-no doubt Tony-in it, both horseback, I felt a sense of trepidation. This could turn out to be an unpleasant scene if Tony was present. Well, tough shit, I told myself. We're talking about murder here. If Tony doesn't like it, so what?
It was Tony all right. His paunchy, baggy body was unmistakable, equally the trademark black felt cowboy hat. He was riding a gray horse, running him down the arena and sliding him to a stop, and the horse looked spectacular, light and controlled in the bridle, stopping with his hocks almost on the ground, leaving long eleven-shaped tracks in the dirt behind him. One thing about old Tony, he could ride a horse. I stared at the gray gelding in admiration and suddenly recognized him.
This was the horse who had gotten loose at the office, the horse I'd caught out on Soquel Avenue. The horse, I realized a split second later, with the odd X rays, that I'd been going to ask Jim about. I had left a note on Jim's desk, along with the X rays, but I'd completely forgotten to find out what he thought; I'd been too absorbed in the question of the Whitneys' murders.
Damn. Gina was sure to ask about the horse; I felt like a fool for forgetting. Not to mention irresponsible. I wasn't a private detective, after all; I was a horse vet. And Gina wasn't a suspect; she was a client.
Parking the truck, I got out and walked over to the arena. Gina gave me a friendly smile and rode the palomino mare she was on in my direction, but Tony beat her to the punch. He'd watched to see who got out of the pickup, too, and was headed toward me with a look of belligerent hostility on his jowly face.
He pulled the gray gelding up at fence and said, "I don't want you coming around here bothering Gina."
"I'm not bothering Gina," I said firmly. "I'm here to talk to her about the horse she brought in yesterday."
"Horse? What horse?" Tony's black eyes snapped over to Gina, who looked nervously apologetic.
"Oh, I just thought I'd have that gray horse vetted."
"Vetted? What the hell do you mean 'vetted'? This horse came from Stan Cameron-one of my best friends. You're gonna vet a horse Stan sends you?"
"Well, I thought it wouldn't hurt." Gina sounded sheepish, but even I had heard of Stan Cameron-a horse trainer known to one and all as a double-dealing coyote.
"Goddamn it, Gina, once in awhile you ought to listen to what I tell you." Tony wheeled the gray horse and rode off, slamming out the arena gate and leading the horse to the barn with a pronounced stalk that was probably supposed to represent angry, hurt feelings, but looked more like the waddle of a sulky duck.
I breathed a sigh of relief when he was gone, but Gina looked more nervous and unhappy than ever. "He's been so difficult lately," she half-whispered to me, though Tony was clearly out of earshot.
I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, so get rid of the son of a bitch, a comment I was sure would not be appreciated.
Looking into Gina's worried blue eyes, her well-wrinkled face once again heavily decorated with makeup, I felt deeply sorry for her and yet angry at her, too. Why did she put up with this shit? Gina was a tremendous hand on a horse-one of the best I knew. She owned her land, held down a responsible job, paid her bills, and was normally a friendly, funny, well-liked woman who derived tremendous satisfaction from her success showing bridle horses. What in the world had made her trade in such a pleasant life for the company of Tony Ramiro?
Loneliness, I supposed, thinking once again that it still wasn't a good bargain. It seemed to me that Gina, or I, for that matter, would be better off lonely than with this look of anx
ious insecurity in the eyes.
It's hard to judge other folks, though, and you probably shouldn't do it at all. Not being in Gina's shoes, I couldn't know what drove her, or maybe I just couldn't see Tony's good points. He must have some. They sure weren't obvious to me.
"Gina, I'm sorry," I said, "I haven't talked to Jim about that horse's X rays yet. I really came out here to ask you what you were going to do about talking to the sheriff's department."
Gina's expression went from anxious to miserable. "I don't know. Tony's furious with me already for not keeping my mouth shut."
"How about this. You tell me every word of that phone conversation and I'll call a detective I know. I'll ask her not to bother you unless she thinks it's important, and to be discreet if she does call you."
"Do you think that will work?"
"Who knows?. It's the best I can think of."
"All right." Gina looked decisive, a bit like the old Gina-for a split second. "Go ahead. I'll deal with Tony." "So what did Cindy say?"
"Not very much. She sounded worried and upset, and she said she might not be able to make the show at Salinas and asked if I would show Plumber for her. I didn't ask her what was wrong; it didn't seem like any of my business. I just said sure, and then after I hung up Tony asked me what all that was about and I told him and he had a fit about it. So I called her back and told her I couldn't. She sounded as if she'd been crying, and I felt bad about backing out, so I got off the phone as quick as I could. I really have no idea what she was upset about. Really."
Gina sounded convincing, but I wondered. "Are you showing at Salinas?" I asked her.
"Yes. Tomorrow. Dolly here"-she patted the palomino mare-"is entered in the non-pro bridle horse class."
Tomorrow was Saturday, I realized, the day Steve Shaw had said he was showing Plumber. "So would Cindy have showed tomorrow, too?"
"Yep. First is the non-pro hackamore, which is what Cindy would have been in, then the open hackamore, where Tony's gelding is running against Plumber and Steve Shaw; then comes the non-pro bridle horse class, then the open bridle horse class."
"What time will it start?"
"About eight o'clock. They run it along with the slack. In the small arena on the track in front of the grandstand."
"That's right."
The stock horse show in Salinas, I remembered, was run in conjunction with the Salinas Rodeo, one of the biggest rodeos in California. It was so large that the hundreds of contestants who entered could not all compete during the performance-not without making it six or seven hours long. Thus the slack, which occurred early in the morning, when all the contestants ran except those who'd been selected to be up in the show during the afternoon. I'd been to watch the slack before; it was much quieter and less crowded than watching the rodeo, and it was also free.
Apparently the bridle horses and hackamore horses would be running at the same time as the slack. Steve Shaw and Plumber, Tony and Gina would all be competing tomorrow morning. In a split second I decided.
"I'll be there," I told Gina. "I've never watched a reined cow horse show before; I'd enjoy it. Besides, Steve invited me." I grinned, remembering Amber's pique.
Gina seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "You'd better watch out Amber St. Claire doesn't claw your eyes out; she's got the hots for Steve."
"So I gathered."
"Amber can't stand anybody Steve seems to like. Anybody female that is. She hated Cindy."
"I can believe it. Enough to kill her?"
Gina shook her head ruefully. "I can't believe even Amber would do that." She sounded as if she'd have liked to believe it. "Though a nastier little cat never walked the earth than Amber St. Claire," she added.
I agreed with that assessment but thought I'd better not say so. "Well, I need to get back to work," I told Gina. "I'll talk to that detective today and do my best to keep you out of trouble. I'll talk to Jim about those X rays, too."
"Okay. Thanks, Gail."
"You bet. See you tomorrow."
Gina waved a friendly good-bye and went back to loping her mare. As I drove down her driveway I thought, not for the first or last time, that the number of genuinely good, strong women who were undone by their longing for a relationship-any relationship-with a man-was probably legion. Gina was merely one of many. And I hoped, I quite desperately hoped, that no matter what trials old age or solitude might visit upon me, I would never be among that number.
THIRTEEN
The rest of the day was business as usual; I ran around in a constant hurry, looking at horses. I checked on the pony and was relieved to find he was better. Telling the woman to call me if he took a bad turn, I dashed off to see an expensive jumping horse whose cough had suddenly escalated into the flu. The whole afternoon was like that. Frantic. In fact, it rapidly turned out to be "one of those days."
Before it was over I had to put down an endurance horse who'd gotten caught in a fence and virtually tom his leg off, tell a woman I really liked that her team roping horse had ringbone, an incurable lameness that tends to get progressively worse, and stitch together a foal whose hindquarters had been severely lacerated by the family dog. My last call was to a smiling, ignorant middle-aged man who had allowed his backyard horse to go untreated so long that a sole abscess, normally a minor complaint, had virtually rotted the horse's foot away. I tried unsuccessfully to convince the man that the only thing that would help his horse at this point was thorough and relatively expensive treatment, but I ran up against a blank wall.
"I imagine it'll get better" and "I can't spend that kind of money," were his only responses. I looked with frustration at the swimming pool in the backyard and then at the horse, holding his painful foot so that it didn't touch the ground, and drove away filled with anger and a feeling of helplessness.
Nothing I could do, sometimes. No way to force that man to treat his horse properly. Oh, I could call the humane society. But time and experience had taught me that that course of action often did more harm than good. The humane society, in their bumbling bureaucratic way, seemed incapable of making individual judgments and would often abide by some rule that indicated they must impound or euthanize an animal, even when said animal could only be usefully helped in some other way.
No, I wouldn't call the humane society in this case. It was possible that the horse would recover on his own. I'd seen it happen often enough. But the man's indifference to his horse's suffering-that was a cancer of the spirit that nothing could cure.
I banged my hand on the steering wheel and yelled "damn" out loud. Blue looked up at me curiously, making me feel stupid.
"I don't know what to do, buddy," I told him. "Sometimes I hate this job."
Glancing at the dashboard clock, I noted that it was 5:30. The county building was on my way home, more or less. Maybe, just maybe, I could catch Jeri Ward before she went home and end my day by doing something useful.
My stomach growled a protest, but I took the Ocean Street off-ramp and drove down to the sheriff's department. A young crew-cut deputy informed me, after a moment's hesitation, that Detective Ward was not available.
I pondered the idea of talking to Detective Reeder, always assuming he was available, and rejected it. I simply wasn't in the mood to be grilled by the man.
"Tell Detective Ward Gail McCarthy was by to see her," I said, and turned to go.
Jeri Ward's "Gail" stopped me with my hand on the door. "I saw you here at the desk," she said briefly. "I'm on my way out. Can I help you?"
"Well, it's a long story. Several long stories, really."
She glanced at a slim gold watch on her wrist. "I really do have to go." A second's hesitation. "Would you want to ride along with me? It should take about an hour."
My turn to hesitate. I was starving. But then, I'd come here to talk to her. "Sure," I said.
I didn't ask her where we were going as we walked out to the sheriff's car, and she didn't volunteer any information. Once we were moving down the road, I laun
ched off into the story of Gina Gianelli and Tony Ramiro and Cindy's phone call to Gina, as it struck me as the most innocuous and least difficult of the subjects I wanted to bring up.
Jeri listened quietly. When I was done, she said, "I'll have to talk to her."
"I was afraid you might say that. Do your best to be discreet, if you can."
"I'll try, but I can't promise anything. I may need to talk to him, too."
I pictured Tony's outrage at that possibility and grinned despite myself. "Poor Gina. He'll give her hell for that."
Jeri Ward's mouth twitched ever so slightly; I had the impression she had little sympathy for women who allowed their men to give them hell. I'd have been willing to bet my life savings that she herself was single and uninvolved. There was something in her cool self-containment that seemed to say, touch-me-not, a sense of almost asexual aloofness, though she wasn't an unattractive woman.
Of course I could be wrong, I reminded myself. She could be very different when she was off-duty. But I was still willing to bet there was no man in her life, though it wasn't a question I was liable to get an answer to anytime soon.
We were pulling off the freeway onto the Pasatiempo exit ramp, and my mind swung off Jeri's private life and back to the problem at hand.
"Where are we going?" I asked her.
"Thirty-six Pasatiempo Drive."
It was a classy address. Pasatiempo is a country club community. A lot of older homes, all of them big, laid out around a golf course that rivals Pebble Beach. In Santa Cruz County, a Pasatiempo address meant money.
"Can I ask why we're going there?"
"I've got an appointment with Cindy Whitney's father."
"Oh. So you found out who Cindy's parents are."
