Without a Doubt

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  “I get that. But Diaz and his people, they’re getting ready to go back to Europe. And the fact the Feds are going to let them go tells me they don’t think Diaz has anything to do with any of this, and I’ve got nowhere to turn.”

  I had to agree. I couldn’t believe Diaz was leaving the country. On the other hand, I still had questions about Paley and Donatella. I didn’t know what their relationship was, and I had seen them together on more than one occasion—the polo match, inside the barn at Carmen’s memorial, and last night at the Beverly Wilshire.

  “Tell me, what do you know about Donatella? I saw you with her in the barn the day of Carmen’s memorial. How well do you know her?”

  Paley looked at me like I’d accused him of skirt chasing.

  “Not at all.” He held his hands up in surrender. “She’s Diaz’s trainer. Other than that, I barely know the woman.”

  I put my glass down then raised a brow. If I was going to be lied to I needed something better than that.

  “Look, if you must know, I was at a dinner with her at the Beverly Wilshire last night. But only because Diaz insisted I come. He said it was to celebrate the transfer of the horse, although I suspect I was there more as a cover for their relationship. I don’t want to get involved. What the man does, who he does it with, it’s not my business. I felt I owed him, but other than last night, the only other time I saw her was in the barn the day of Carmen’s memorial. We were all watching the farrier work on Six Pence. I spoke with her a little about the horse, but that’s all. Other than that she was talking mostly with the other trainers. They all appeared to be pretty close and were speaking some language I didn’t understand. Czechoslovakian or something like that.”

  Chapter 29

  When I got home, Charlie met me at the front door with the house phone in his hand. He was dressed in his football jersey, despite the fact he’d been benched from practice because of his broken arm, and he looked like he was ready to tackle someone.

  “You okay?”

  “There’s a message on the house phone, Mom. You need to listen to it.” He handed me the phone and I put it on speaker. I couldn’t imagine why he was so concerned.

  “Ms. Childs…” My heart froze the minute I heard the soft, raspy drawl. I knew immediately it was Tomi. I feigned a cough and took the phone off speaker.

  “Charlie, could you get me a glass of ice water from the kitchen? I’ve been talking all day, my throat’s dry.”

  While Charlie fetched me a glass of water, I played the rest of the message.

  “You need to watch out for your friend. All the digging she’s doing; she’s becoming a nuisance. You might want to call her off. Accidents happen, you know.”

  Accidents happen? I had said those very words to Tomi when I last spoke to him.

  Charlie returned with a glass of ice water and a look of concern on his face. “What’s that about, Mom? It sounded serious. You okay?”

  I saved the message and turned my attention back to him.

  “It’s nothing to worry about, I promise.”

  I didn’t want to worry him. Since my first experience investigating a crazed psychopath I knew I needed to keep my work life and my personal life separate. But in the back of my mind, I also knew I was in trouble. Tomi had my home phone number, and it was my own fault. Like a lot of single women, I was listed in the phone book with my first initials only, family name, and no address. I should have known better; it was like a red flag to anyone trying to track down a single woman. It would have been better to be unlisted. It made it too easy.

  “Hey, I’ve got a coupon for Ben & Jerry’s. If you’re completely done with your homework, what do you say we call Sheri and Clint and treat ourselves to a little Cherry Garcia?”

  I knew Charlie couldn’t resist his favorite ice cream. The thought of something sweet was almost Pavlovian and guaranteed to redirect his teenage attention. I picked up the phone and left a message for Eric on his cell phone. I told him about the suspicious voicemail and then called Sheri. We needed to talk. If the “friend” in the voicemail was Sheri, I needed to find out why she was becoming such a nuisance.

  Sheri sat across from me at one of the small Ben & Jerry’s tables with a triple scoop of Tonight Dough, a blend of caramel and chocolate ice cream with chunks of chocolate and peanut butter cookie dough mixed in with chocolate chips. I splurged on my usual, a double scoop of Cherry Garcia, and then told her about the voicemail I had received on my home phone from Tomi.

  “He couldn’t have meant you, could he?”

  “Me? Are you kidding, Carol? I’m still waiting for my box of chocolates.”

  I loved that Sheri dispelled fear with humor, but this was serious. I reminded her that the caller could very well be the person who had murdered Carmen. “And any box of chocolates from this crazy Wigged Bandit, Tomi, Tomas, or otherwise, you don’t want.”

  Sheri closed her eyes and turned the small plastic spoon over in her mouth. The look on her face was somewhere between sweet ecstasy and deep meditative thought.

  “Sheri?”

  “Maybe it’s Bunny. Did you ever think of that? She’s pushed herself into the story. She’s probably pissed off your Wigged Bandit friend, and now he’s after her.”

  I couldn’t eat anymore. I pushed my ice cream away. My stomach clenched at the thought of the Wigged Bandit in pursuit of Bunny. Sheri looked at me then back at my half-eaten bowl of ice cream. “You’re not going to eat that?” I shook my head.

  “If it is Bunny, how am I going to tell her? It’s not like she’s going to believe me. She’ll think I’m trying to steal the story back from her.”

  “But just the same, Carol, you have to try.”

  I agreed, and after Charlie was in bed, I called Bunny’s cell. She didn’t pick up. Not that I expected she would, but I left a message all the same. “Bunny, it’s Carol. Look, we need to talk. I can’t get into everything right now, but I think you’re in trouble. It concerns the robberies and maybe Carmen’s murder. Call me. It’s important.”

  She never returned my call.

  The next morning, I came into work early. I wanted to talk to Tyler about the voicemail I had received at home, and I hoped I might find Bunny wandering the halls. Instead, it was unusually quiet, void of the usual buzz of activity with interns running in and out of the studio and sales reps mixing it up with on-air talent. This morning, it was as though everybody had left the building.

  I walked past the studio where KCHC’s new morning team, Mitzi and Charlie, were in the midst of their broadcast. I waved and got no reply and continued down the hall towards Tyler’s office.

  Tyler stood up when I walked in, as though he’d been expecting me. His slim, pencil-thin frame leaned against the desk, his freckled face unusually pale.

  “Good. You’re here.”

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Bunny’s missing.”

  “Missing?” I felt my stomach tighten. “What do you mean, missing?”

  “Morganstern just called. Said Bunny left early this morning before he got up. They were supposed to meet for breakfast—something about Bunny wanting to discuss some programming changes here at the station. He thought maybe she was upset about something and had just gone out for a walk, but she never came back. And she’s not here.”

  “Maybe she’s stuck in traffic or just running late. She does that, you know.”

  I wanted an explanation, anything that wouldn’t feed that growing feeling of dread I felt forming in the pit of my stomach.

  Tyler shook his head. “Morganstern’s got a bad feeling about it.”

  I sat down in the chair in front of Tyler’s desk.

  “So do I.”

  I told Tyler about the voicemail from last night. How I thought for certain the caller had been Tomi, and how he had said my friend was becoming a nuisance.
/>   “At first I thought it might be Sheri, but Sheri hadn’t done anything and suggested it could be Bunny. I’m tempted to agree with her. He was making a threat, Tyler. I think he thought I could call her off.”

  “You’re certain it was the same voice, the same mystery person—this Tomi—who’s called here before?”

  “He said accidents happen. That’s the same phrase I used with him the last time he called me. Only this time he used my name, Tyler, and he has my home number.”

  Tyler sat down. “We need to call the police.”

  I was about to explain that I’d left a message for Eric when Tyler’s inside line rang. A number only those who worked at the station, including Morganstern, had.

  Tyler looked over at me. “It’s Morganstern. Stay put.”

  Tyler stood up again and took the call. From the look on his face, and the half of the conversation I could hear, the news wasn’t good.

  “The police?…They’re sure?…I see. Diaz’s ranch?…Got it. I’ll get Carol out there right away, sir….and Mr. Morganstern, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Loss?” I gripped the railing on the chair and leaned forward. “Is she—”

  He hung up and looked at me. “Bunny Morganstern is dead.”

  The words burned my ears. I couldn’t believe it. We weren’t friends. In fact, the feelings between us were growing more adversarial by the day. But dead? I didn’t want Bunny to be dead. I felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room.

  Tyler sat back down behind his computer and began typing on autopilot. I knew he’d be pulling together a news story. Bad news happens, and newspeople focus on the work. In Tyler’s case, his feelings were coming from the tips of his fingers and out onto the keyboard. He kept typing as he spoke.

  “Morganstern says she was investigating Carmen’s death. Something about it led her to Diaz’s ranch. She was found dead in the barn this morning by one of Diaz’ trainers.”

  I closed my eyes. Of course she was investigating. Bunny had gone through my files and seen my notes. She knew the contributing cause of Carmen’s death had been copper sulfate, a chemical commonly used by vets for the treatment of thrush with horses. She had gone to the ranch to find the killer. Only the killer had found her first.

  Chapter 30

  I would have known something was wrong at Diaz’s ranch even without the early morning inside tip from Morganstern. Traffic headed west along the 118 had slowed to a near stop and police cars were parked everywhere, catawampus next to the hillside, their lights flashing. Halfway up the hill, off road, a silver-colored Land Rover with the driver’s door wide open had been deserted. Bunny’s car? It looked as though someone had put the vehicle into four-wheel drive and then plowed up the hillside in an attempt to avoid the main gate. Muddy footprints led from the vehicle to the white corral fencing surrounding the estate. On the side of the hill, slide marks indicated the climber had tried several times to sneak onto the property, avoiding the main entrance, before successfully crawling beneath the barrier.

  I passed two patrol cars parked outside the main entrance and proceeded towards the gate. Carmen’s former PR person, Penny Salvatti, was standing in the center of the road wearing a hooded windbreaker. Her red hair was frizzy from the moisture in the air, the gate wide open behind her. I flashed my station ID and said I was here to talk with Diaz. She nodded and pointed solemnly in the direction of another small brigade of early responders. An unmarked black SUV—possibly the FBI’s—and an LAPD patrol cruiser were parked outside the barn.

  I knew with the presence of the black SUV, Eric would be inside. Anything unusual that went down on the ranch at this point was bound to be on the FBI’s radar. I spotted Eric as I entered the barn. He was squatting down in front of Donatella, his back to me. She was seated on a bale of hay crying uncontrollably, her head in her hands. Across from her, next to the area where Nina had been grooming the horse, was a body. It was covered with one of the barn’s green horse blankets and appeared to be lying face up. From beneath the blanket, I could see the tips of Bunny’s brightly painted red fingernails and the bottom of her work boots. The same ones she had worn into the studio the day before. The only difference was today they were covered with mud.

  It didn’t take an investigator to know someone had moved the body. A trail of blood was smeared across the floor from the empty crossties to where the body now lay. Bloody hoof prints and footprints from a small pair of boots were everywhere. A torn bag of blue crystals I assumed to be copper sulfate had spilled open and mixed with the blood. It bled like little rivers into a bloody purple mass where it pooled beneath the crossties. Someone had removed the horse, taken it back to its stall, and dragged the body to its current position, then covered it with the blanket.

  I replayed Tomi’s voicemail in my head as I stared at the scene and imagined how it had all gone down. Bunny had probably received a call from Tomi, exactly like I had. Only to her, it would have been an anonymous caller, luring her to the barn with the promise of helping to solve Carmen’s murder.

  Bunny probably arrived early, before dawn, and found Donatella, or perhaps Tomas, grooming a horse in crossties with a small bag of copper sulfate at his feet. It would have been perfect. Bunny knew about the copper sulfate. She had stolen my notes and would have read how the coroner had found evidence of the chemical in Carmen’s system, and that the crystals were used for veterinary purposes. And there they were, like bait, beneath the horse’s hooves. Maybe Donatella or Tomas even pointed them out to her and asked if she could hand them the bag. If it were Tomas, I could almost hear him say it with his thin, raspy voice. “Would you mind, love?”

  But Bunny knew nothing about horses. A city girl from Chicago, she probably thought with the horse in crossties and Tomas holding his halter, it was fine. Except, if the horse had been Diego, the horse I had seen Nina with the day before, Bunny wouldn’t have stood a chance. The animal would have spooked and kicked her the minute she bent down behind him, his powerful rear legs smashing into her skull. Death would have been instantaneous. It would have looked like an accident. Exactly like Tomi had said on my voicemail. “Accidents happen.”

  Only I knew this wasn’t an accident.

  I took out my notepad and wandered down the aisle.

  The stall doors that yesterday had all been open were now shut, their barred, yoked windows bolted tight. The only view I could get of the horses was through metal bars. I found Diego’s stall, his brass nameplate above the door, and peered into his cell. The horse’s back was to me, his head hung low as he nibbled at a flake of hay in the far corner. My eyes went to his back legs. I scanned his haunches, his hocks, his hooves. At the base of his heel, I spotted evidence of trauma. There was blood on it, and more spots of blood on the bedding beneath him. I made a note and proceeded down the aisle. I needed to find Diaz.

  I found him inside the tack room at the end of the aisle. He was standing in the center of the room, dressed in his riding boots and jodhpurs. The walls of the room were lined with bridles and riding gear. Grooms and teammates sat on tack boxes like they had just been called for a meeting. They all looked dazed, as though they had just been slapped across the face and were still trying to absorb the blow. I wondered if one of them was Tomas. Diaz stopped talking and looked at me as I leaned against the door.

  “May I help you?” Diaz looked at me. His eyes and brows narrowed to a frown. I could see he was trying to place me.

  “I’m Carol Childs,” I said. I extended my hand and reminded him I was with the radio station. “Bunny Morganstern and I worked together.”

  He bowed his head and pinched his eyes shut like he might be holding back tears.

  “Yes. You were here for the memorial. Tyler Hunt said you’d be coming.” He pointed toward the door, and we walked back out to the aisle.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  He looked back down
the aisle at Bunny’s covered body and shook his head.

  “Donatella came and got me. She was in the barn this morning working with Diego. She was hysterical. She kept saying there had been an accident. When I got here, I found Bunny slumped in a ball beneath the crossties. Her head was bashed in.”

  “Did Donatella tell you what happened?”

  “She said she left Diego in the crossties. She’d forgotten a hoof pick and went back to the tack room to get one. Next thing she knows something’s wrong with Diego. She hears someone scream and the horse is whinnying and kicking like crazy. She comes running and finds Bunny on the ground, beneath his hooves.”

  “And she moved the horse?”

  Diaz nodded. “Of course. She put Diego back in his stall and then came running to get me. She was terrified. Still is, look at her.”

  I glanced back to where Donatella sat with Eric. She had a tissue in her hands and was gesturing frantically. She looked more emotional now than when I’d first seen her.

  But it wasn’t Donatella I was concerned about. Diaz was lying. Either that or Donatella was a better actress than anyone credited her to be. No trainer worth his boots would ever leave a horse in crossties alone. Certainly not a horse like Diego. Diaz had to know that. It was inviting disaster. Anyone who worked around horses knew better.

  “And who moved the body?”

  “I did,” Diaz said. “And then I called the police.”

  “Do you have any idea why Bunny was here?”

  “None. I’d invited her to come out to the ranch for riding lessons. It was an open invitation. I always ask friends. But she hadn’t told me anything about coming. She may have called and set something up, but I didn’t have it on my calendar.”

  “So you had no idea she’d be here?”

  “Not at all.” Diaz shook his head and glanced back at Donatella. He was clearly worried about the girl.