Walk. Trot. Die

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  "Yo, K.S!"

  Kathy Sue whirled around, nearly dropping her load of papers, to face a young, scraggly-bearded art director coming up from behind. Alex Wimmers. He was talented, new to the group, and up to this moment, quite standoffish. Kathy Sue stared at him and frowned. He was in the meeting. He knew his deadline. What was his problem?

  "Bunch of us heading out to an early lunch, talk about what went down with Jilly. Wanna come?" He smiled at her. Kathy Sue stared at him.

  "Yo!" the artist said. "Lunch. You. Me. Others. Yes?" The smile stayed put.

  Kathy Sue nodded, a smile trying to form on her face.

  "Yeah, okay," she said slowly.

  "We'll come get you." He shook his head and walked away. "Wake up, honey. It's all gonna start happening now."

  Kathy Sue knew he meant the workload, knew he was referring to the extra scramble that would result from losing their top account executive with nobody suitable to handle her clients. But she felt something else by his words. She felt something wonderful and releasing and good.

  It's all gonna start happening now.

  She went into her office and closed the door to call Ned, her fiancé, to tell him she wouldn't be coming home in tears anymore, wouldn't have to drink half a bottle of cooking sherry just to get some sleep, wouldn't have to take those pills to keep her stomach from hopping, her ears from ringing.

  The bitch was dead and it was all gonna start happening now.

  5

  Margo looked at her hand as it dialed the phone. Dirt was caked under the nails, her knuckles were grimy and lined. The older she got, the harder she seemed to be working. Was that the way it was supposed to be? She waited while the line rang on the other end. Be casual, she said to herself. Be cool.

  "Hello?" The voice on the other line sounded guarded but there was a lilt to it as if to affect indifference.

  "Tess? It's Margo."

  "Yes?"

  Margo's heart sank.

  "I...I thought you might have called me," she said, her voice heavy with disappointment. "That maybe I missed your call--"

  "I didn't call, Margo," Tess said. "Why? Is Wizard okay? Has something happened?"

  "Wizard...?" For a moment, Margo had no idea of who or what Tess was talking about.

  "You know, the thing I ride on when I come to the barn? My horse?”

  "Jesus, Tess! What is your problem?" Margo didn't know what to say to her. It was obvious Tess wasn't feeling like commiserating. "I just called to see if you were...if you were okay--"

  "If I were okay?" Tess's voice sounded supercilious, and piercingly condescending. Margo was horrified for having dialed the phone.

  "After...after what happened..." she muttered. "I just thought...the police have been here all day yesterday and all morning..."

  "Look, Margo, maybe it's a good thing you called."

  Margo took a huge breath and tried to steady her nerves. We used to be friends, didn't we? Riding pals? Friends?

  "I can't come out to ride" Tess continued. "But I know the farrier's coming today. Could you make sure that Wizard isn't turned out? He's a bitch to catch in the pasture, you know, and Joe's complained about it before. Is that a problem?"

  Margo hung up on the cool, pleasant voice, and tried to take another long breath. Screw you, Tess, she thought.

  Screw the hell out of you.

  The door to her office swung open, hitting the doorknob on the back wall with a loud bang. Margo jumped at the sound and whirled on the figure standing in the doorway.

  Bill Lint stood uncertainly just outside her office. His face had a pushed-in sort of look, as if someone had drunkenly remolded a wad of dough. His eyes were large and slightly rolling. Margo didn't like to look at him for very long, had even indulged in some shameless ridicule of the man with Jilly at times, although, of course, never within his earshot. He wore baggy, clean blue-jeans and a faded blue-jean shirt buttoned to his throat. Today, he literally fumed with the odor of garlic and onions.

  "For God's sakes, what is it?" Tess snapped, rubbing the goose bumps off her arms. "Why don't you knock, for Chrissake?"

  "I've done asked you before not to cuss 'round me, Margo." The man spoke in a slow, half-witted drawl, though, as far as Margo knew, he was simply uneducated, not mentally deficient. "I come in here to tell you 'bout the fence in the upper pasture yonder."

  "Yes, yes, what is it?" Margo began straightening the unstraightenable pile of receipts and bills on her desk. "What about the fence?” Margo slapped a paperback veterinarian book down on her desk. ”Oh, Bill, out with it! I don't have all day."

  "Well, excuse me for bothering you." Bill's face clouded with hurt. "I just thought you'd want to know about them horses hurting themselves on that fence with the nails all a-juttin' out like that."

  "Nails? What nails?" Margo felt the weight of the planet settle comfortably on her shoulders and she sat down hard in her desk chair. "Which horses?" she asked weakly.

  "Well, none’s hurt yet," he said self-righteously, "but it's only a matter a time before they find them nails. You know horses. If it's bad for 'em, they'll come onto it sooner or--"

  "Yes, yes, Bill. Thanks for letting me know. Now, do you think you could mosey down there and, say, fix the fence before any of our horses find the nails?"

  Bill's face brightened again.

  "Well, Margo," he said, cheerfully. "You know fixing fences ain’t my job. I'm hired to tend the polo fields and nothing else."

  Margo wanted to hit the man right over the head with the manure shovel.

  "I just thought you'd want to know so's you could get somebody to fix it before some of them expensive horses gets themselves hurt."

  "Thank-you, Bill," Margo said quietly, her eyes watching the man as he stood in the door jamb, his meaty hands crossed in front of him like the deformed gnarl of a tree trunk. "I wonder if now you wouldn't mind taking a flying leap--"

  "Margo! Great, you're here!" The breathless form of Jessie Parker edged Bill good-naturedly out of the doorway. Jessie was a bouncing bundle of snarly, gold hair and crinkly blue eyes. She wore her jeans tight, her boots high on her knee, and her jumping helmet--when she bothered to wear it at all--at a positively jaunty angle. Incredibly, the girl groom was as cheerful and affable as she was attractive.

  Margo put her head down on her desk.

  "Is now not a good time?" Jessie asked, her glittering smile still sparkling away.

  "What is it, Jessie?" Margo murmured from the protection of her folded arms.

  "I was just wondering if I could exercise Best-Boy? See ya, Bill. Hope I wasn't interrupting anything!" Lint slunk off down the long, dark corridor of the horse barn into the bright sunlight.

  "Best-Boy?" Margo said, raising her head slightly.

  "Yeah, Jilly's gelding? She never let me ride him before, but, I mean, before he's sold off or whatever, do you think it'd be okay? Margo?"

  Margo looked at the fresh-faced girl for a moment and then, surprising both of them, burst into tears.

  6

  Kazmaroff shifted in the passenger's seat of the car and concentrated on writing in the little spiral-top notebook Burton had tossed onto the dashboard. He shook out his hand and flexed his sore writing fingers.

  "God, that woman could talk," he said. "And what kind of rich do you think that is?"

  Burton glanced at his partner, unsure of the phrase and therefore annoyed.

  "Yeah, that's older-money rich," Kazmaroff said, poising the ball-point over the notebook. "I know her husband brings in a pretty bob or two..."

  Burton clenched the steering wheel tighter in his hands.

  "...but that palace wasn't bought with attorney's fees."

  Burton wanted to scream: What do you know about it? What do you know what you can buy with attorney's fees? What do you know about old money, for Crissakes? But he didn't. He stared straight ahead through the windshield and watched the road before him.

  "Yep, Miss Portia has done little else with h
er not-so-young life," Kazmaroff said, underlining key points in his notebook as he spoke, "except ride expensive horses, wear expensive clothes, and listen to landscapers talk about their expensive ideas. God, did you see that contrived forest lining the front drive? She must think she's the Duchess of bloody Windsor."

  "Whatever she is or who ever she thinks she is," Burton said deliberately, "I know one thing. She's not telling the truth."

  Dave straightened in his seat. "What do you mean?" He said. "What part isn't the truth?"

  Burton smiled thinly. "I mean," he said, "that she didn't tell us everything."

  "Sounded pretty complete to me," Dave said petulantly.

  He hates it when I find something before he does, Burton thought pleasantly.

  I know how the poor schmuck feels.

  "What have we got on the next one?" Burton asked, changing the subject. He knew the Stephens woman was lying, or at least withholding, but he didn't know exactly what. He wasn't about to have his feet held to the fire by Kazmaroff before he was a little closer to the truth himself.

  Kazmaroff flipped to the front of his notebook.

  "Tess Andersen," he read. "Thirty-eight, never been married, rich." He shrugged. "She's had her horse at the barn for two years now--"

  "Rich, how?"

  Kazmaroff read his notes.

  "A trust. Left to her by her father. Coca-Cola money, I think, from her Grandfather. I don't have the exact figure. Suffice to say, the woman doesn't have to work at the local Piggly-Wiggly in order to afford her barn board."

  "Anything else?" Burton sighed and felt the tension creep back into his hands. Why couldn't Kazmaroff just give the facts without all the cutesy-commentary? As if Burton cared what Kazmaroff thought of rich, idle women. As if he cared for his opinion on trust-fund babies.

  "Has a Master's degree in French from Yale"

  Burton said nothing.

  "Wild, huh? Portia Stephens stopped after her junior year at Ol' Miss."

  "And Jilly?"

  "Business degree from Georgia."

  "What? No MBA for Miss Hard Drivin' Business Gal?"

  "I don't think she needed it." Kazmaroff tapped the notebook against his knee and watched the scenery out the window. Tall Georgia pines scraped the sky as they drove. "She had something better or as good, you know? Why go back to school when everyone in business is falling all over themselves to be your client? She had a natural way in business."

  "Where'd you get that? Prelim interviews with co-workers?"

  "Phone work." Kazmaroff shrugged.

  "Not bad."

  Kazmaroff nearly gave himself whiplash whirling around to look at Burton.

  "What else on Tess Andersen?" Burton asked, ignoring his reaction.

  Kazmaroff returned to his notebook. "She had some ideas of riding with the U.S. Olympic team at one time."

  "You're kidding."

  "And now she just sort of rides and has lunch with friends and does some traveling. No husbands, no current boyfriends, no family."

  "Interesting."

  "Oh, yeah, I found out something else. She's had a face-lift."

  "How'd you find that out?"

  "People like to talk about that kind of thing." Kazmaroff tossed the notebook in the glove box. "One of the boarders at the barn mentioned it to me. She sounds like a classic stereotype."

  Burton pulled up to the guardhouse of the heavily-landscaped entrance of St. Ivan's. North Atlanta’s exclusive and largest subdivision, St. Ivan’s was a Gotham city of luxury residential homes, most featuring multiple chimneys, palladium windows as large as any cathedral’s, and at least three, and usually four, stories of towering brick and stucco.

  They were directed to Tess Andersen’s address at the back of the subdivision, a stylish brick Traditional with a blood-red Infinity convertible in the curving drive. Once inside, Tess sat on the pale lime damask couch in the living room facing the two detectives. The room itself was a pleasant recreation of springtime in the midst of the Georgia autumn. Pastels and hushed whites swathed the room in a cocoon of coolness and peacefulness. The afternoon sun invaded from the west through an impressive palladium window that covered one wall. Through the window--its warmth and brightness doing little to usurp the design of the room's intensive chill--they could see the tile roofs of Tess' prosperous or well-born neighbors.

  Burton had known beautiful women before. Had even sent a few of them to jail where they would age a lot less gracefully than their less pretty sisters. Tess Andersen was certainly beautiful. Her hair was blonde, like Portia's. But, unlike Portia's careful curls, Tess’s hair was long and untreated to hours in a beauty salon. It hung to her waist in a sheet of shimmering gold, its highlights flecks of darker topaz and amber which shifted and moved as she did. Her face was oval and delicate, with a small perfect nose, large blue-green eyes, and lips full and sensuous.

  She seemed open and friendly and extremely attentive, even offering them cocktails although she must have known through countless television shows that they would refuse. (Did the woman watch television? Burton wondered, looking around the room). He found himself aware of the uncomfortable sensation of becoming convinced that this woman could have had nothing to do with what had happened last Tuesday afternoon. He forced himself to harden.

  "Where should I start?" she asked them, her hands cool and calm in her lap. "What can I tell you? You've already spoken with Portia, right?"

  Burton nodded. "We'd like to hear it from you," he said.

  Tess pushed back a curtain of blonde hair with her hand and Burton noticed she wore no jewelry, not even a watch. Her fingers were manicured, her wrists fragile-looking. He tried to imagine those delicate hands reining in a 1500-pound horse.

  "Well," she began, her eyes looking over the detectives' heads to a gilt-framed Auguste Macke on the wall behind them. "We all rode out together about two o'clock, I guess..."

  "Did you ride together often?" Kazmaroff wrote as he spoke, not looking at her.

  "Umm, yes," Tess said.

  Kazmaroff looked up.

  "'Ummm,' you're not sure?"

  Tess smiled at him and Burton was aware again of how lovely she was. Her eyes blinked into half crescents when she smiled.

  "We rode together often, yes,” she said, smiling at him.

  "Did you get along well with your riding companions, Miss Andersen?" Burton asked.

  "Who couldn't get along with Portia? She wants to please more than my old springer, Daisy."

  "And Jilly?"

  "I imagine you detectives are good enough to have figured out that Jilly lacked some of Mother Theresa's finer qualities."

  "Did you get along with Jilly?" Burton pressed.

  "I wouldn't have called us fabulous buddies or anything." Tess's smile was firmly in place. "But we didn't have frequent hair pullings or dirt brawls at the barn or anything." She shrugged. "It would scare the horses."

  "You contemplated physically fighting with Jilly Travers upon occasion?" Kazmaroff leaned forward in his chair.

  "Forget it, Dave." Burton said, leaning back into his chair. "I believe Miss Andersen is being ironic."

  "Yes, thank you, Detective Burton. That's just what I'm being. I hope you don't mind."

  "Might prolong our visit a little."

  "I don't care if you don't."

  Kazmaroff looked from Tess to Burton and back to Tess again. "Did you or did you not get along with Jilly Travers?" Jack noticed he was using his I'm taking control of the situation voice and puffing his chest out a bit in order to better reach the most sonorous tones for the job.

  "Jilly Travers was a bitch," Tess said with a sigh. "You sure you don't want something to drink? I have iced tea."

  "Tea would be good," Burton said.

  Kazmaroff looked at him in amazement as Tess moved away to get the tea.

  "Detective Kazmaroff?" Tess called. "Tea?"

  "Uh...uh, sure," he said before turning back to Burton. “What are you doing here?"

>   "I'm questioning a witness, Dave." Burton looked around the room, determined not to pay too much attention to his partner.

  "A possible suspect, Jack," Kazmaroff said, crossing his arms and throwing one ankle over his knee. They waited in silence for Tess to return with the drinks.

  "Y'all don't look like the sugar type," she said as she entered the room. She handed them each a tall frosty tumbler of tea. The cubes clinked softly against the glasses. "No, Jilly was a bitch and hard to get a long with and incredibly selfish. Gosh," Tess slid back into her seat and pushed long drapes of hair away from her face again. "I'm trying to think of something nice to say about the woman!"

  "If she was so unpleasant, why did you ride with her as often as you did?" Kazmaroff asked.

  Tess shrugged. "She was just a body." She blushed immediately when she said it, the image of Jilly’s dead body rose up among them. "I mean, she made up numbers for a group. It's always more fun to ride in a group."

  "Margo Sherman said you enjoy riding alone more than any of her other boarders,” Burton said.

  "Margo said that?" Tess smiled again. "I suppose I do. But riding in a group's fun too."

  "And last Tuesday?" Kazmaroff asked abruptly. He was clearly getting impatient with the new, laconic style of questioning that Burton seemed to have developed. "You rode in a group last Tuesday afternoon. Would you like to tell us about it now?"

  "Absolutely."

  Burton noticed, imagined? that Tess's hands twitched just a bit as she spoke.

  "We rode out, as I've already told you, around two. Sorry I can't be more specific, I don’t wear a timepiece." She held up her bare arm. "We took the trail past the formal polo grounds. You know there's the practice field? And then the groomed grounds. Riders aren't allowed to ride across it unless they're involved in an actual match or something."

  "This is enforced?" Burton asked pleasantly, sipping his tea.

  "Well, there's a groundskeeper..."

  "Bill Lint."

  "That's right, and he's, like, always hiding behind bushes and trees, trying to catch you out. I can't tell you how many times he's been the cause of a horse spooking and unseating someone. I'm serious. The man's a menace."