Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series)

by Laura Crum

  He was. I had just settled myself in the cab of the truck when I noticed the black car creeping down the road behind me. It looked sufficiently out of place to make me stare. Judging by the old corral and brushy field, I'd expected Paul Cassidy to drive a battered pickup. A black Jaguar was surprising.

  The Jaguar advanced up the road, slowly and purposefully; the potholes in that road were probably making the driver curse. Eventually the car reached the corral and rolled to a stop a little ways from my truck.

  A man got out-a man I'd never seen before. The dark suit he was wearing looked as out of place as his long, low black car, and his eyes were hidden by sunglasses. He stood and stared around, almost as if he didn't see me standing by my pickup. I waited.

  After a good long minute, he turned and faced me. I got the impression his eyes were looking me over carefully, but I couldn't really tell because of the glasses. Something about him made the hackles rise on the back of my neck. We stared at each other awhile.

  "I'm Paul Cassidy," he said at last.

  "Dr. McCarthy." I didn't hold my hand out or ask what was wrong with his horse. I just waited.

  Paul Cassidy's name was as square and all-American as a varsity football player, but his looks didn't match his name. He was square all right, with big shoulders like a bull and a hard chin, but he looked Hispanic. I would have expected a name like Rodriguez. His skin was dark olive and his hair was black. He had a clean, polished, expensive, big-city look that was somehow ominous. I didn't like him at all.

  He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but I thought he could just wait awhile. It looked like it would do him good to learn patience.

  A little more hard staring behind the sunglasses, or so I guessed, and he spoke again. His voice was flat-unemotional, unaccented, and unworried.

  "I've got a message for you, Dr. McCarthy."

  I noticed the gun right away. He pulled it out of his pocket casually, as if it were a pack of cigarettes, but the sight gave me a shock like a kick in the belly. This was no atypically obnoxious client. Without thinking twice, I knew Paul Cassidy was responsible for Ed and Cindy.

  He kept talking steadily, as if pulling out a gun were a normal part of conversation. "I work for some people, Dr. McCarthy, whose names you don't need to know. It has come to these people's attention that you are sticking your nose in the Whitney case. They don't like it. What you need to understand"-he gestured at my stomach with the gun-"is that my people want the Whitney case let alone. They are, let's say, satisfied, with the course of the investigation."

  His voice got flatter. "So this is what you do. You go on with your life as a nice little veterinarian and you don't speak to the police again. You don't call them, and if they call you, you tell them you don't know anything. Nothing at all." He moved the gun slowly so it pointed at my crotch. "If you talk to anyone about this case again, I'll come kill you." The sunglasses faced me blankly. "You can count on it."

  Words came out of me without volition. "You tried once."

  He shook his head. "That was bush league-not me. When I come after you, you won't be able to tell anybody about it. You understand?"

  I stared at him. Though I couldn't see the eyes behind the sunglasses, I knew they were as black as his hair and as cold and implacable as glacier ice. I didn't doubt that he meant every word he said.

  He spoke again. "You won't tell anybody, anywhere, anytime, that you saw me, and you won't talk to the police except to say that you don't know a thing, or I'll come kill you. And I'll kill anyone you talk to."

  Silence followed that remark. I was aware in a vague way of sunshine on the brush, horses in the distance, a small lizard scuttling down the corral post closest to me--everyday life that I had somehow stepped out of. The man in front of me was still, watching me, turning the world into a nightmare. He was waiting. I swallowed and nodded, not knowing what he expected. Another second of implacable silence, his mouth a quiet line, the gun held loosely pointed in my direction, then a short jerk of the chin, as if to express his confidence that he'd gotten the point across.

  He turned and walked back to the Jaguar, folded himself into it carefully, and drove slowly away. No adolescent flourishes for Paul, whoever he was. I had the impression of a man who was used to power, despite the fact that he looked barely thirty. The impression of menace was convincingly real.

  Sitting back down in my pickup, I stared out the window at the last sunshine on the yellow grass, my mind a shocked blank. Over and over, I repeated the Jaguar's license plate: 2ZSTlOl. Wouldn't forget it.

  In the distance, the three horses grazed peacefully, throwing long shadows. Blue snored on the floorboards, undisturbed. Loud voices would probably have aroused his protective instincts, but Paul Cassidy's quiet-voiced threat hadn't alerted him. An odd sense of unreality washed over me. Strangers who looked like sophisticated Mafia hit men did not threaten to kill you. It was impossible. It didn't happen.

  I sat there for what seemed like a long time. When I finally started the truck and put it in gear, the sun had dipped behind the ridge, and the gathering dusk half-hid the horses. I drove back up Steelhead Gulch Road at a slow crawl, questions beginning to buzz in my mind like flies.

  Paul Cassidy was obviously a professional killer; I felt sure he'd killed Ed and Cindy. So who had hired him? How did a person hire a professional hit man-check in the phone book under Rent-a-Thug?

  Alone in the truck, I laughed shakily. Blue looked up at the odd sound and then hopped onto the seat next to me. "It's okay," I told him, trying to make my voice normal. "Not your problem." I rubbed his head.

  Who would know how to find and hire a killer? Who had, in fact, hired one? Who were these people he worked for?

  More buzzing questions. The same old ones: Who had wanted Ed and Cindy dead? And why me? Who was I a threat to? How?

  The one person I could see that connected to things was Amber. But how in the world could Amber have known that I'd linked her with Fred Johnson? And why would Amber have killed Ed and Cindy in the first place? Out of jealousy? And why try to kill me? Jealousy again? Surely Steve Shaw wasn't worth that much trouble.

  I had the license plate number. I could go to Jeri Ward and . . . My mind shied away from that thought like a spooky horse. "You won't talk to the police," Paul Cassidy had warned me, "or I'll come kill you."

  Without thinking about it, I pointed the truck's nose for home, taking the Soquel exit off the freeway, running, as a frightened animal will do, for my den.

  As I passed the little cemetery outside Soquel, I saw a man digging a grave with a bright orange backhoe. Fog drifted around him, moving inland, cold white fingers on the dark pine trees. I shivered, the image printing itself on my mind. It seemed possible someone would be digging my grave with a backhoe in the near future if I didn't stay out of Paul Cassidy's business-whatever that was.

  I felt queasy at the thought. I'd never encountered a professional killer before, but I recognized one when I saw him. He would shoot me; he would do it mercilessly. My guts twisted and rolled a little more, and I realized my hands were clenching the steering wheel so tightly they were getting numb. I loosened them, stretched my fingers, unlocked my jaw. Faced the fact. Paul Cassidy's threat was having the desired effect. I was scared shitless.

  EIGHTEEN

  I woke the next morning with the undefined sense that something was wrong. Lying there, half-asleep and half-awake, I felt as I had in college on the morning of final exams. Frightened. A knot in my stomach.

  Dark and quiet and unthreatening, the bedroom was folded around me like a familiar blanket-nothing to be afraid of there. A little early-morning light filtered in through the uncurtained window, and my mind stumbled around in a confused way, like a groggy fighter. The thought of Paul Cassidy hit me like a sledgehammer.

  Rolling over, I tried to go back to sleep. Tried to shut reality out of my mind. I didn't want to deal with the thought of Paul Cassidy, with the fear, with the question of what I should
do.

  It didn't work. Sleep was banished effectively. I rolled from one side to the other. It was Sunday. Nobody'd paged me. I didn't need to get up.

  Getting up anyway, I stumbled through the litter of clothes on the floor and climbed the ladder that connected the bedroom to the kitchen. I put the water on for coffee and looked around at the chaos. Sunday was my day for housecleaning, usually, but I didn't feel very motivated right now.

  When the coffee was made, I carried a cup into the living room and sat down on the couch. Bret was gone; all that remained of his presence was a note on the kitchen table that said, in his barely legible printing, "Moved in with Deb. Thanks, Bret."

  Deb, my favorite of all Bret's many girlfriends, was a redhead with a somewhat thorny personality, lots of brains, and a spectacular figure. She and Bret had had an on-again, off-again relationship for the past year or so, the ons and offs fueled by Bret's flirtatious irresponsibility and Deb's quick temper. I couldn't imagine what had caused her to take him back in once again, but I was grateful to her. It would have been hard to hide my state of abject fear from Bret's sharp eye.

  I sipped my coffee and stared at the house. Bret's clothes and sleeping bag were gone-an improvement-but Blue's hair was everywhere. Blue himself snored in the antique armchair, getting hair all over it. I should clean this up, I thought. I watched the steam rise out of my blue willow mug, a sight that usually cheered me. Not this morning. I should call Lonny, I thought. He'll wonder why I didn't call last night.

  The truth was, I couldn't face it. Couldn't decide what to say and what not to say. In the end, I hadn't called. Hadn't eaten, either. Instead, I drank half a bottle of chardonnay and went to bed, grateful that my pager stayed quiet.

  But now. Now what?

  The phone sat on the counter, squat and brown and ordinary. My stomach twisted into a coil. Paul Cassidy had said he would kill me if I told anyone. I felt a stab of fear as another thought came to me. I pushed it away, but it came rolling back, as persistent as a pebble on a hillside. What if he was watching me, watching this house, tapping my phone. It seemed ridiculous, but how could I know?

  I noticed that my hands were shaking and put the coffee cup down. All right, I told myself, you can handle this. Just don't tell anyone. Do what he said. A million objections jumped out at me, but I forced myself to ignore them. Clean the house, I admonished myself. Forget that license plate number. Nothing will happen to you.

  I vacuumed and dusted and picked up; I washed the dishes and made a grocery list. I was just about ready to go to the store when my pager started its relentless beeping once again.

  It turned out to be a wire cut-sounded bad. I clambered into the truck and headed out to Corralitos, a little community in the hills northeast of Watsonville. My mind scrambled around like a cat in a cage the whole drive-back to Paul Cassidy, back to the Whitneys. I knew there had to be some kind of fact that I was missing, something that would explain why I'd been shot at and warned off. I went over every single thing I could remember, over and over again, but nothing jumped out at me.

  I got to the call in a zombie-like trance and managed to stitch together the horse, which had run through a barbwire fence-an hour-long process that kept me completely absorbed while it was going on, at least. The horse's chest and front legs were badly lacerated, but I thought he'd make a complete recovery given time. Just as I was putting in the last suture, my pager beeped again.

  A colic that evaporated by the time I got there and a horse with an eye that was swollen nearly shut were relatively simple, stress-free calls. I managed to get the grocery shopping done and get home by five o'clock without incident, fighting to keep my mind on hold the whole time.

  When the phone rang as I was shoving cans of chili beans into the cupboard, I jumped a foot.

  "Gail?" It was Lonny.

  "Yeah. Hi." I knew my voice sounded distant and cold. My heart was hopping in my chest like a startled rabbit.

  "Where've you been?"

  "Out on calls. I've been busy."

  "Would you like to have dinner tonight?" Lonny's voice

  was hesitant, puzzled. Our relationship had evolved to the point where we expected to see each other any and every evening when neither of us was occupied. I knew my reticence was unnatural, unexpected.

  Dinner. Thoughts of Paul Cassidy chased themselves rapidly through my brain. Lonny was quiet on the other end of the phone.

  "Sure," I said finally. "Where do you want to meet?"

  A dinner date-that was safe enough. I wouldn't have to talk about Paul Cassidy; I simply wouldn't mention the murders. And, I acknowledged to myself, I longed to see Lonny, be comforted by his presence.

  "How about Francesca's at six?"

  "I'll be there."

  "Great," he said briefly, then hung up the phone.

  It was 5:15. I went into the bedroom and put on a full coat of makeup-matte-tone foundation, blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, and lip gloss-something I almost never do.

  Staring into my closet, I wondered about human vanity. I was terrified of being killed and yet I still wanted to impress Lonny. Oh, well. If you feel like a pitiful, cowardly failure, all the less reason to look like one.

  I chose my nicest black pants and a simple scoop-necked top in deep blue-violet silk. My freshwater pearls, silver earrings, a black belt with a silver buckle, the all-purpose black suede shoes, and I was ready. I studied my reflection in the mirror and decided to wear my hair down for once. It waved and curled, a dark lion's mane framing my face. I'd look elegant, anyway, if I faced the executioner.

  Shivering, I unlocked the cupboard behind the headboard of my bed, took out the .357 pistol I kept there, and dropped it in the bottom of a deep leather bag. I'd bought the gun when I lived alone during my college years, taken a series of classes to learn to shoot it, and kept it in the "secret" cupboard of the old bed ever since. I wasn't sure what good it was going to be now; I certainly didn't plan to start blasting back at Paul Cassidy in some kind of western shoot-out. It was obvious enough that the only likely result of that would be to get me killed. Still, I felt better, not quite so defenseless.

  Noting the fog outside the windows, I grabbed a wool coat in a black and cream herringbone tweed and threw a couple of magazines and a black suede evening purse over the holstered gun to conceal it. I toted the now fairly heavy bag up the ladder, gave Blue's head a ritual rub and told him to be a good dog and stay off the couch-to which instruction he turned a ritual deaf ear-then blanked my mind to the possible consequences of this date. Lonny, I told myself; I'm going to see Lonny.

  NINETEEN

  I drove into the parking lot behind Francesca's just before six. A cheerful little shack of a place, painted dark green on the outside, with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and window curtains, Francesca's has candles in straw-covered wine bottles, an uneven wooden floor, and the best Italian food in Santa Cruz County. Pushing my way in the door, I shouldered a path to the bar. Francesca's was crowded. The atmosphere reminded me of one of Ed and Cindy Whitney's parties. The crowd was youngish, well dressed, wealthy; the parking lot was dotted with their BMWs and Porsches.

  I didn't see Lonny anywhere, so I got a bottle of Chianti and two wineglasses and went out on the little deck to wait. It was cold outside, enough that I was grateful for the wool coat. Sipping the astringent red wine and watching people arrive for dinner, I could smell the wet seaweed smell of the ocean drifting inland with the fog. It would have been a pleasant moment minus the fear that was preying on my mind.

  Lonny didn't keep me waiting long. He came walking across the parking lot while I was still on my first glass of wine. I watched him hurrying, his long, rangy stride even quicker than usual, his face intent. There was an unconscious virility about him that made my heart melt a little, even under the inauspicious circumstances.

  He saw me and his wide boyish smile lit up his face. "Gail." Sitting down on the bench next to me, he picked up a wineglass. "I take it this is for m
e. And I'm ready for it."

  I smiled at him almost involuntarily. "Had a rough day?"

  "You could say that. I went roping in Hollister, went three times in every pot, and never made a nickel."

  I took another sip of Chianti and felt it warming me. "That doesn't sound like a major tragedy."

  He grinned. "But I also never missed a steer. My partners put me out every time."

  I laughed. "That's team roping for you."

  Lonny hesitated a moment, then asked, "So how was your day?"

  "All right."

  There was a moment of quiet. Lonny drank some wine and turned the wineglass in his hand, staring at it as if it were a crystal ball. "Is something wrong, Gail?" he said at last.

  I was silent, conflicting impulses screaming at me from all directions. Something was sure as hell wrong. But could I tell him? Should I tell him? It was obvious I wasn't going to be able to hide my distress. Should I make up some penny-ante problem at work and pretend I was upset about that?

  "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to." Lonny's voice was neutral, neither rebuffing nor demanding confidences. Swirling the Chianti in his glass, he tipped it back and drank. A party of diners arrived, chattering noisily as they walked across the deck and went into the restaurant. It was cold enough that no one else was interested in sitting outside.