Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery)

by Laura Crum

  I nodded, looking at him, avoiding Jeri. "I have no reason to think Jack was involved with drugs," I said carefully. "There is some question about Tara."

  At this, both detectives seemed to focus in. Claude Holmquist took out a small notepad and a pen and scribbled briefly. Jeri Ward said sharply, "Could you explain that statement, please?"

  I lost my temper. I suppose I felt guilty for bringing it up at all. Whatever the reason, I laid my ears back and lashed out at her. "What the hell is your problem? You come barging in here, wake me up, want to pick my brain, and you're being goddamn rude to me. Where do you get off? Is there some kind of law against my talking to these people? I don't get your attitude at all. "

  "Yes, there is a law," Jeri said evenly. "I can put you in jail for obstructing a homicide investigation."

  We stared at each other. I knew my own eyes were hot and angry; hers looked cold and hard. "So put me in jail," I snapped.

  For a second I thought I'd provoked her too far; I saw a blast of some strong emotion rip across that taut face. "Don't try me too hard, Gail. You're interfering in something you've no business to be involved in. You're not helping anybody here. It's your duty to assist us, and you'd better be forthcoming with what it is you know about Tara Hollister and drugs, or I may just slap you in jail."

  "Now, now, wait a minute here." Detective Holmquist raised his hand firmly, quelling any ill-judged reply I might have made. "I think we all have the same goal, don't we? We want this murderer arrested. So, Gail, can you tell me anything about Tara Hollister that connects her to drug use?"

  Frowning, I stomped on my emotions and tried to choose my words carefully. "I don't know that Tara used drugs. What I know, more or less, is she ran through a lot of money in two years and doesn't appear to have any left. There's been gossip about her doing drugs, and she hangs out with people who have been said to use drugs. And it's a way to go through a lot of money." I thought about what I'd just said and added, "I don't like Tara. You should probably know that, too."

  I wondered if I should tell them about Tara stealing Willy and decided not. That was really Bronc's business. And I couldn't see what possible bearing it could have on Jack's murder. Just like the fact that Tara had ridden JD to death and sued his former owner-these things illuminated what a nasty piece of work the woman was, that was all. Detective Holmquist caught my hesitation and prodded gently. "Anything else you can tell us?"

  There sure as shit was, I thought grimly. That Travis was seeing Laney would doubtless seem as pertinent to them as it did to me. Not to mention the fact that Joanna was Karen's niece. But I shut my mouth firmly and shook my head. Damned if I was going to hand them anything. They hadn't endeared themselves to me. I could always tell them later, I reassured myself.

  Instead, I said blandly, "Do you suppose one of the ex-wives might have hired a professional to do it? Offered to split her inheritance?"

  Claude Holmquist made another note on his pad and said, "We've considered that, of course. A twenty-two is frequently the weapon of choice for a professional. The fact that the serial numbers were filed off points in that direction, too."

  "But no evidence so far?"

  "No, no evidence so far."

  We are all quiet. I was aware, suddenly, of how tired I was. Today had been a long day. I stood up. "Look, I need to go back to bed. I have to go to work tomorrow. If I can help you any more, just let me know."

  Detective Holmquist stood up, too, and Jeri Ward followed suit. I knew, as I followed them to the door, that some sort of parting shot was bound to be coming. Claude Holmquist contented himself with "Good night, Dr. McCarthy," but Jeri Ward stopped and faced me. "I mean it, Gail. You can't be questioning murder suspects. You're putting yourself in danger and hindering the investigation. I want your word you'll stop."

  "Fine," I said wearily. "I'll stop. Good luck with the investigation."

  "Thank you." She looked as cool as ever as I shut the door behind her.

  TWENTY

  So how illegal, immoral, and downright wrong is it to lie to the cops? This was the question that was occupying my mind at seven o'clock the next morning as I drove to work. I'd said I'd stay out of the investigation, but I either had to tell the detectives about Travis and Laney and Karen and Joanna or look into it myself.

  Dammit, Gail, tell the cops and be done with it. That was the voice of reason. But there was another small voice that would not shut up. What about Travis, what will this do to him? And Joanna, whose life was in turmoil already? What makes you think the cops will handle this well, it said.

  I couldn't get that last idea out of my head. I simply have no great faith in government enterprises, in bureaucratic organizations of any sort. I often think they are at least as likely, if not more likely, to get things wrong as to get them right.

  I dithered all the way to work, but my mind was jerked sharply off the subject of Jack's murder when I walked into the office. Jim was the only one there and he was talking on the phone, but he crooked a finger at me and handed me a piece of paper. It was the results of the blood tests I'd run on Rebby. The lab work said he was positive for EPM.

  Oh shit. This was one message I was going to have to deliver personally. Before Jim could get off the phone and tell me I had to do something else, I was out of the office and in my truck.

  I drove to Kris's feeling apprehensive; what I saw when I pulled into her barnyard didn't alleviate my fears any. Kris was leaning on the corral fence, staring fixedly at her horse as he staggered around his pen. Even from the truck, I could see that his strange way of moving had not improved.

  Getting out of the cab, I walked over to stand next to Kris. She didn't say a word, just kept watching Rebby. The slump of her shoulders and the droop of her head reminded me forcibly of Joanna-Joanna during those two miserable days in Tahoe.

  It had to be said. I put my hand on her shoulder. "He tested positive for EPM."

  Kris started crying. She tried to hide it by looking away from me and surreptitiously passing her sleeve across her face, but I knew.

  It was Joanna all over again. And I still didn't know what to do. I wondered suddenly if I was missing some sort of emotional capacity that was necessary for female bonding. An even more unwelcome thought followed. Perhaps I was so vested in being in control of my world-a feeling that had grown out of my parents' early death-that I was drawn to women like Joanna and Kris because they seemed entirely competent and in charge. They made me feel safe. And when they lost that quality, when they seemed frightened and vulnerable, I withdrew-afraid of their vulnerability, which was too much like my own hidden fears.

  Shit. It was certainly the ultimate in emotional withdrawal to be sitting here psychoanalyzing myself while Kris was in dire need of comfort. Enfolding her in a sisterly hug was probably what I ought to be doing, but it just wasn't me. I wasn't sure it was Kris, either.

  As I stood there next to her, Reb waddled awkwardly from his water trough to his feeder and began eating. Jesus, I thought, why did it have to happen to him? Followed immediately by, At least it wasn't Plumber or Gunner, thank God. And then I was ashamed.

  I put my hand on Kris's shoulder. "I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know what to tell you. Wait and see is hard to do, I know, but I guess it's all we've got. Feed him his medication and watch him. The literature on this says it can take up to six weeks to see a response."

  "Maybe he won't get better." Kris said quietly. "Then what?"

  I shook my head and shrugged helplessly. "You'll have to decide. Is his quality of life good enough? Do you want to keep a crippled horse for a pet? Is he happy? Things like that." I added hastily, "We're not there yet, Kris, don't give up."

  "I'm not," she said, but she sounded as forlorn and defeated as a little kid lost in a shopping mall.

  I kept my hand on her shoulder. I knew how she felt, how I would feel in her position. Her baby was hurt and she couldn't help him.

  "He's been such a great horse, Gail; he's done everything
for me." Kris swallowed hard on a sob.

  I patted her arm. This was the downside to being a veterinarian, these cases where you feel you've failed, or are failing. The times when you can't alleviate the suffering, can't fix the animal, can't restore the grieving person's world to wholeness-these are the cases that keep you awake at night.

  As if on cue, Reb lifted his head from his feed and gently bumped my elbow with his nose. I rubbed his forehead with its white star and felt tears start to rise in my own eyes. This was such a nice horse.

  Firmly, I squelched the emotion, gritting my teeth hard together, compressing my lips. I would not cry. It wasn't going to help Kris if I broke down.

  Instead, when I thought I had everything under control, I said, I hoped cheerfully, "Let's look on the bright side. A lot of horses make amazing recoveries on this medication."

  Kris nodded dully.

  I squeezed her shoulder. "Hang in there. Call me anytime. I don't know exactly what I can do, but I'll sure come." She nodded again and said a brief thanks, but she kept her eyes on Reb.

  "Well, see you later then." I climbed back into my truck feeling useless and stupid. Blue, always in touch with my emotions, laid his chin on my thigh and stared worriedly up at me. I rubbed his head as I drove down Kris's driveway, thinking frustrated thoughts.

  Rebby's case was just like Jack's murder and the investigation that followed it; there simply were no easy answers. And in both cases I desperately wanted a solution. I wanted to fix the problem. It's my nature, I guess. It's why I'm a vet.

  Groaning out loud, I reached for the truck phone. I called the office and was informed that, like yesterday, the schedule was light, which was somewhat typical for midwinter. Jim had taken all the regular calls; the only thing for me was a colic case, a mild one, the client had said. Denise Hennessy's place.

  I almost dropped the phone. "Denise Hennessy?"

  The receptionist started to give me directions, but I cut her off. "No, no, I'm sorry, I know where it is. I was just thinking of something else."

  I hung up the phone, hardly believing my luck, if that's what you want to call it. Denise Hennessy was, had been, Jack Hollister's real estate agent.

  I knew where she lived-not far from Lonny, in the Aptos hills. It was a ten-minute drive, and I used the entire ten minutes wondering what, if anything, to ask her. By the time I drove into her graveled barnyard, I'd almost forgotten what I was there for.

  Staring out my truck windshield I could see a horse staring back at me over the corral fence, his ears forward in lively interest. He nickered-a deep huh, huh, huh sound-when I got out of the pickup.

  A sick horse does not look at you with his ears up, as bright and bushy-tailed as a baby fox. This guy was a common enough Quarter Horse-type gelding in appearance, brownish bay with some white on his forehead and one leg, distinguished only by the wide-eyed intelligence on his face. His expression alone branded him as both healthy (for the moment, anyway) and a likable character.

  "Hi, fella," I said, as I walked in his direction.

  "Hey, Gail," came from off to my right. Denise had been sitting on a haystack in a small pole barn, half hidden by the shadow of the shed roof. She was climbing down now, talking as she walked to meet me. "I know, I know, he looks fine. I swear he was colicked an hour ago."

  I smiled. "They do that. This isn't the first time it's happened. Better than if he was worse, anyway."

  Denise smiled back and kept chattering-when the horse had first gone down, when he had rolled, how long she had walked him. Nervousness increased her natural loquacity and her pleasantly musical voice seemed to rush over me in a torrent of lightly accented vowels and rolling consonants.

  Denise Hennessy was about my own age and had come from Ireland with her parents as a teenager; her lilting Irish accent was still very pronounced. I loved the sound of her voice, and could listen to her for hours, which was a good thing, as she loved to talk. Calls to Denise's place tended to be longer than scheduled.

  I interrupted her recitation now by saying, "Why don't you catch him and I’ll check him out."

  She took a halter from a peg in the shed and went into the corral, still talking nonstop. I watched her, thinking that stereotypes and cliches became such because they were often so very true. Denise was too Irish to be real, with her bubbly, laughing talk, her triangular face, curly black hair, green eyes, generous freckles. She was talking to her horse now, as she caught him, and was still alternately commiserating with him and describing his condition to me as she led him out of the corral.

  I took his pulse and respiration, checked his temperature, listened to his gut sounds-everything seemed normal. By Denise's account he had showed mild colic symptoms an hour ago, the symptoms lasting about twenty minutes, then disappearing. I recommended to her that we give him a shot of painkiller, just to be on the safe side-this sort of colic was notorious for recurring just as the vet drove out of the barnyard-and that she watch him closely for the next twelve hours. She was content with this, holding the horse while I injected eleven cc's of banamine into his jugular vein.

  When we were done and she was turning the gelding back out into his pen, I said, "You were Jack Hollister's real estate agent, weren't you?"

  As I'd more than half expected, this simple little question unleashed a lively monologue. Yes, she'd been his agent, she'd known him forever, wasn't it terrible ... etc. Eventually this petered out, though, with no information about current land deals included. I was forced to prod.

  "Were you working on anything for Jack when he was killed?" And Jeri Ward would kill you for that one, I told myself, but, hell, it was just too tempting.

  Denise's green eyes narrowed and she glanced at me shrewdly; for all her friendly blather, she was far from dumb. "And just why are you wanting to know?" The singsong accent and quick smile took the sting out of her words. Still, I was aware she'd meant them.

  "My friend Joanna's a suspect, sort of." I told a much abridged story of Joanna and her report that Jack had talked of an upcoming deal. Denise listened closely, head cocked a little to one side.

  "Well, I can be telling you, I suppose. Just don't pass it along. Jack was in escrow on a ranch."

  "But which ranch?" I asked her. "Jack had ranches all over the western United States."

  "Oh, I didn't do Jack's out-of-town work," Denise said in obvious surprise. "He had other people for that. But I did his local stuff. He bought several pieces of land around here, you know, and then sold them to developers."

  "So which ranch was he selling?"

  "The old ranch. The Hollister Ranch, it's called."

  "Not the Hollister Ranch. It couldn't be." This time it was my turn to look and sound surprised.

  "Well, I don't know about that. He was certainly in escrow. And Redwoods Inc., that's the developers, aren't happy at all right now. It'll be years, I'm sure, before the whole thing's straightened out. There goes my commission," she added philosophically.

  "You're sure it was the Hollister Ranch," I said, oblivious to her commission and other issues, following a track of my own.

  "Sure I'm sure."

  "And the deal was going to go through?"

  "Oh yes. It was solid. Jack would have had a lot of money coming in this week, if he'd lived."

  "Oh," I said blankly.

  Taking a quick leave of Denise, with a promise to come back promptly if her horse got worse, I climbed into my pickup with my head full of convoluted connections. The farther I drove the more complicated they got, until I patted the seat in an invitation to Blue. Stiffly he climbed up beside me and leaned into my body; I put my arm around him and rubbed him. Eventually I sighed, which caused him to turn his head and lick my cheek. "Nothing makes any sense," I told him. "Nothing at all."

  TWENTY-ONE

  Nothing seemed any clearer an hour later as I headed up Highway 1 toward the Hollister Ranch. I'd checked in with the office; there were no more calls. So, after some hesitation, and a sandwich from my fa
vorite deli, I'd started out in this direction.

  The ranch driveway appeared on my left; indecision washed over me. Should I or shouldn't I? Go on, I urged myself. Just find out what kind of alibis Travis and Bronc can give each other.

  I swung the pickup into the drive, feeling committed. As I rolled slowly between silvery-gray skeletons of leafless cottonwood trees and green pastures fenced with weathered grape stakes, I wondered why in the world I was doing this. Someone had planted narcissus along the drive and their nodding heads were sharp yellow, cream, and orange against the brilliant green new grass, their very cheerfulness mocking me.

  Afternoon sunshine lit the barnyard as I pulled in, reflecting off the whitewashed barns and fences, silvering the shingles of the employee houses. Everything was neat and well tended with the sort of quiet winter tidiness appropriate to February. I could see the now bare canes of what looked like climbing roses festooning the adobe-brick wall around the ranch house. I imagined it was a colorful sight in summer.

  I sat there for a few minutes, not sure what I wanted to do. No one appeared; the barnyard seemed deserted. No Bronc. No Travis. I began to relax a little.

  My eyes roved, noting the familiar elements. A big concrete water trough in front of the largest barn with a spigot steadily dripping into it, chickens scratching the ground in front of the smaller barn, a tractor parked in one of the open bays of the shop. A gray cat was hunting gophers on the front lawn of the adobe ranch house, and I could see two horses, a sorrel and a bay, grazing in the field off to my right. Business as usual.

  Eventually I got out of the truck. Still no one. The place was quiet, in the way that nature is quiet. Not the hushed, mechanical hum of a silent building, but a stillness interspersed with gentle sounds. A soft breath of a breeze, the faint screech of a seagull in the distance, the cluck of the chickens, and occasionally, as the wind shifted, the muffled noise of the surf. After a moment, I was aware of something else-a rhythmic pounding, punctuated by louder thuds, from the bullpen on the far side of the yard. I walked in that direction.