Reining in Murder

by Leigh Hearon

  Both Judy and Mr. Fenton murmured assents. Annie thought that Marcus’s attorney looked like a cat who’d just swallowed cream. Judy looked as if she wanted to scratch his eyes out.

  Glaring at Marcus, Judge Casper continued. “You, sir, will keep in weekly contact with your attorney, who will report to the court on that basis your whereabouts and your current address. Your passport will be confiscated until these proceedings are over, and, should you be prosecuted, you are found innocent. Next case.”

  As Annie struggled out of her pew, she felt her eyes filling with tears. Part of her felt sorry for Dan, who’d just been humiliated in court over his paucity of evidence. But mostly, she felt supremely happy that Marcus had been set free. For now.

  * * *

  “Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT talk to that woman!”

  Mr. Fenton, who had been so eloquent in court, was now showing another side of his legal persona: that of a junkyard dog. He stood in front of Marcus, who was again dressed in his Armani suit, and glowered in Annie’s direction.

  Annie had squeezed by the Suwana County deputies guarding the jail entrance from the swarm of reporters outside. She saw Tony in the crowd and gave him a nod. Tony gave her a short nod back and looked straight ahead, his posture ramrod straight. He probably was just as ticked as Dan Stetson about the Sheriff’s Office being accused in open court as having done a half-ass job on the case. Annie really couldn’t blame him for being loyal to his boss, but that was no reason to eschew her overtures, she thought.

  She’d hoped to be able to talk to Marcus before he left with his attorney. But no sooner had the jailhouse door clanged and Marcus emerged from the inmate exit than Mr. Fenton leapt up, literally shielding his client from her approach.

  “She tried to frame you, Marcus! Don’t tell me she didn’t! The reason you spent a night in this despicable county jail is because she”—and here, an accusing finger pointed directly at her—“tipped off the local cops!”

  Marcus gently pushed aside his attorney’s arm.

  “Jim, it doesn’t matter if they found me at Annie’s or at the local roadside café. That sheriff was hot to arrest me. It was only a matter of time.”

  “I don’t care! The fact is that this woman is NOT your friend. As your attorney, I instruct you not to speak to her.”

  “And as my attorney, and a very well-paid one, you will trust me to do what I think best,” Marcus replied. “This woman saved the life of my wife’s horse. She found Hilda’s body. She’s been through hell, and I won’t have her blamed for the shenanigans of a couple of small-town cops. This will all blow over before you know it, Jim. In the meantime, I’d like Ms. Carson to take me to Hilda’s ranch, if she would be so kind.”

  Mr. Fenton fumed, but he apparently knew his client well enough not to push when the cause was futile. He snapped his burgundy briefcase buckles shut and strode to the jail entrance, also surrounded by Suwana County deputies in uniform. As one of them politely opened the door for him, he turned, and yelled back, “Remember, Marcus, no talking about the case! If I see that woman’s name in one more police report, I quit!”

  The attorney rudely shouldered his way through the reporters amid high-pitched voices and raised microphones.

  “What woman, sir? Who were you advising your client NOT to talk to?”

  “Is it true that your client made a threatening phone call to his wife just before she died?”

  “Was Marcus Colbert seeing another woman?”

  The deputy, startled by the sudden onslaught of voices, hastily shut the door, but not before Annie faintly heard Mr. Fenton slam his car door, rev his engine, and roar off.

  The deputy who’d just missed crushing the reporters’ fingers turned to Annie.

  “Ma’am? You’re Annie Carson, aren’t you? The woman who helps us on horse rescues?”

  Annie turned toward the speaker. He was embarrassingly young looking, eighteen or nineteen at most, although he must have been older, or he wouldn’t be in uniform yet. He still had acne and an emerging Adam’s apple. He looked appealingly innocent and eager to please.

  Annie smiled and stuck out her hand. “Good memory, Deputy . . . Lindquist,” she said, looking at his name tag. “What case did we work on together?”

  “It was my first call, ma’am. Horses left to starve on Old Man Wilson’s farm, up near Big Squill. They were awful thin. I remember you came in and rounded them up. I think they thought you were the best thing they’d seen since their last hay flake.”

  Annie remembered the case. It still made her sick to her stomach to think about the four emaciated horses, sunk to their pasterns in mud while their owner, Mack Wilson, drank his life away inside his dilapidated farmhouse. He hadn’t even known the horses were leaving until Annie’s trailer was backing out of the driveway and Dan was ordering Mack to put down his shotgun. Mack never saw his pitiful herd again.

  “That was a tough one,” she agreed. “You know, we had to put two down. They just weren’t going to make it. But I found good homes for the other two, one of them, actually, on my place. You may remember him. It was the quarter horse.”

  “That’s good, ma’am. You want some help getting out of here?”

  “I sure do.”

  Deputy Lindquist told them that the only way to leave without having to deal with the media outside was the back route. The back route turned out to be a closeted stairwell that led to the underground sally. It was the entrance for inmates who had to be shackled from wrist to feet and were considered high-risk. It hadn’t been used for years.

  “What kind of truck do you drive, ma’am?”

  “An F250. Blue.”

  “Hand me your keys, ma’am, and I’ll bring it to you, then the two of you can just leave from here.”

  Annie thankfully obliged him.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, riding shotgun in Annie’s pickup truck on Highway 101, Marcus fumbled in his coat pocket and drew out a pack of Nat Sherman cigarettes. He absentmindedly tapped the end of the slender brown cigarette against the pack.

  “Jim really shouldn’t do that.”

  Annie started. “Do what?”

  “Slam the door like that. His mechanic is on permanent retainer just to realign parts on his car. Jim has a bit of a temper, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “I thought he was pretty darn wonderful in court.”

  Marcus laughed. “That’s why I pay him the big bucks, although criminal law is hardly his bailiwick. I’m sure he’ll refer me to a more specialized attorney once he gets back to his office.”

  Annie gave a sidelong quizzical glance at her companion.

  “You mean, he won’t be able to defend you?”

  “Wouldn’t make sense. Jim’s the go-to guy for corporate mergers and IPOs, and believe me, I know just how good he is. But his criminal law knowledge probably extends to knowing where to pay a traffic ticket.”

  “That’s too bad. He speaks so eloquently. I could just imagine him in front of a jury, winning their hearts and minds.”

  “He does have a certain expressiveness about him, doesn’t he? Back in Silicon Valley, he’s known as the Smooth Operator. His competitors call him ‘Smoothie’ behind his back.”

  “Well, everything he told the judge was absolutely right. And, Marcus, he’s also right about me.” Annie looked down, then back at the road ahead of her. “It’s true. I did tell Dan Stetson that you’d be coming over. You see, I heard the voice message.”

  “I haven’t, but I hear it’s pretty gruesome. I don’t blame you for jumping to conclusions. In fact, what surprises me now is that you’ve jumped in the other direction. Why do you believe I didn’t kill Hilda?”

  Annie thought for a moment, then smiled and glanced over at Hilda’s widower.

  “Quite frankly, it was part Wolf—that’s my Blue Heeler—and the bay. Both of them trusted you instantly. If he’d thought you were dangerous, Wolf wouldn’t have let you near me, and frankly, I don’t want to think of how
the bay would have reacted. In fact, Hilda’s horse liked you a lot more than he probably would have liked your wife. And a horse never lies.”

  Marcus threw back his head and roared. “Poor Hilda! She really was a lovable person, you know. You just had to know her.”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “If you do, I’ll hit the eject button while we’re going around the corner at sixty miles per hour.”

  “I take it that’s a yes.”

  * * *

  Todos might not have shown much respect for Marcus in front of Dan Stetson, but he was positively unctuous in front of the man himself. He swept off his cowboy hat as soon as Marcus emerged from Annie’s truck and ducked his head deferentially when Marcus extended his hand. When Annie joined Marcus, Todos murmured, “Buenos dias, Señora Carson,” in such a sincere tone that Annie looked hard at him, wondering if this was the same taciturn wrangler who’d summarily ignored her a few days before.

  After a brief conversation about the horses, Todos showed them into Hilda’s stable office. A Suwana County deputy dutifully tagged behind them, but Marcus strode to Hilda’s desk, completely ignoring the man, and Annie decided to do the same. Looking at the desk strewn with bills and unopened mail, Marcus gave a barely audible groan. At this, Todos politely took his leave to “take care of Señora Colbert’s beautiful caballos.” One of them, he said, had thrown a shoe and he must assist the farrier. Annie thought it more likely he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to boss someone around but said nothing to Marcus.

  Marcus strolled around the spacious office, idly picking up piles of envelopes, then placing them back down without reading them. He lit a Sherman, and, since Hilda wasn’t around to object, Annie said nothing. In fact, she had been surprisingly silent for the rest of the journey out to the ranch and while Marcus and Todos had talked about the future care of the horses.

  She wondered if she was right in her assessment of Marcus. Could he be Hilda’s killer? God knew being around the woman could make anyone homicidal, given enough time with her. And it was true, Trooper had expressed no fear or hostility toward Marcus, even when Marcus had interrupted the bay’s precious dinnertime, and Annie placed a great deal of faith in how horses, dogs, and most other animals, for that matter, intuitively responded to humans. But the digital recording was troubling, to say the least, even though Marcus seemed to make light of it. Nor had he said a single word as to why he thought someone would imitate his voice to try to cast him in the role of suspect. If it was not Marcus, who the hell was the person who’d voiced the threat to Hilda?

  “A penny for your thoughts.”

  Annie looked up, realizing that she’d been staring at her cowboy boots for the past several minutes and now realized that they needed a shine.

  Marcus absentmindedly straightened up a sheaf of papers. “I know, it’s pretty depressing. Let’s get out of here. All this paperwork is making me claustrophobic.”

  He walked to the door and opened it for Annie.

  “I’ll deal with all this later. There’s too much on my brain right now to concentrate on anything, anyway. How about a walk? You know, I’ve never seen the whole place. When I’ve flown up, it’s usually been for a long weekend, and there were times when I never even left the ranch house.”

  Was Hilda so good in bed that Marcus never wanted to leave? Annie felt a stab of jealousy and immediately felt guilty. She was alive. Hilda was not.

  The two walked through the long stable hallway, Annie silently admiring the cedar siding on the inside stall walls while Marcus merely seemed intent to move forward. There were twenty stalls in the barn, all set in a circular fashion. In the middle was a competition-sized dressage arena. Large black numbers had been tacked up at various lengths against the inside wall. A sprinkler in the middle silently settled the dust.

  Marcus made an abrupt right and headed toward the back of the building, near the road to the house. Annie had to trot to keep up with him, wondering what made him change his direction so quickly. Then she realized that the walls were strewn with photos of Hilda at jumping events. She glanced at the various medals festooned along the wall. Maybe Hilda had been a better rider than she thought. It was just a damn shame that she had to fight her horses every step of the way to compel obedience.

  “I just remembered a gate I used to see out of our bedroom window, and always wondered where it went,” Marcus told her. “Let’s see if we can explore what’s beyond it, shall we, without arousing the suspicions of the police.”

  Annie smiled and nodded her assent. Passing the hay room, she was overwhelmed with the smell of rich Timothy hay and fragrant alfalfa. The hay barn was fairly redolent with the aroma, and the bales stood neatly packed, from floor to ceiling, ready to be fed to a bevy of large performance horses. There was nothing like that smell, Annie thought to herself. That and the smell of horses. It was better than any perfume on the market.

  They walked up the gravel road toward Hilda’s house. Bright yellow crime-scene tape still draped the perimeter and across the door. A deputy, whom Annie didn’t recognize, stood by the front door and nodded curtly at them as they walked by. Out of the corner of her eye, Annie saw him talk discreetly into his shoulder mike. She knew he was informing Dan of where they were going. A sense of annoyance swept through her. She didn’t know whose intrusion she resented more—that of the police or the media. Didn’t people have better things to do?

  “Oh, the puppies!”

  Annie started running toward the pen.

  “Wait up, Annie! Wait up!”

  Annie reached the pen, now empty, seconds before Marcus, who arrived, panting and catching his breath.

  “What puppies?”

  “Two little Belgians, that’s what! They were here when I came by two days ago. Now where are they?”

  Marcus squatted on his knees beside her. He spoke gently. “I don’t know. I didn’t know anything about any Belgians or any other dog on the premises. It’s hard enough to wrap my head around being the executor for all these horses. But I’ll find out, I promise you.”

  Annie sniffed. Her throat felt scratchy. She was close to tears, and she didn’t want Marcus to know it. She stood up.

  “Okay.” Her voice was husky. She swallowed. “How about that walk?”

  At the back of the Hilda’s property, beyond the swimming pool and carefully manicured lawn, stood a lone stile gate, hanging forlornly by one hinge. Beyond lay an overgrown path that clearly had once been a back entrance to the property. Marcus gingerly prodded the top stile, and the gate silently swung open.

  They walked through a volunteer forest of aspens, now shorn of leaves and giving light to the dull gray sky above. It was still winter, and Annie wished she’d worn her down parka rather than her corduroy blazer. As they crunched along the dead leaves, Marcus stuck his hands in his pocket and slowed his pace. It was a comfortable silence.

  Then Marcus cleared his throat.

  “Annie. I am touched by your instant loyalty to my cause, but I want you to know that I never would have harmed Hilda, as hard as she was to deal with at times.

  “The truth is, we hadn’t been getting along before her death. In fact, we had a big blowup just two weeks earlier. I’d given her an ultimatum: start coming home more often or the marriage was over. She demanded the same from me. The problem was, we were both talking about different homes.”

  Marcus stopped, reached in his pocket for another Sherman. His first exhale sounded like a sigh of defeat.

  “That might work for a lot of my employees, but it’s impossible in my position. I simply have to be a hands-on kind of guy. I tried to explain that to Hilda, but she just couldn’t see it. Of course, she’d retired from the company years before, when it was still in its infancy. She made a killing on the initial IPO and didn’t understand why I wouldn’t cash in my share as well. But my life’s work is with my company, not with a herd of four-footed friends. I was happy to continue working. That
was my life.”

  It’ll never work, Annie thought to herself. I’d demand the same thing.

  “We last talked on Valentine’s Day. The conversation did not go well, I can tell you that. Hilda hung up on me, and I didn’t try to call her back. To tell you the truth, if Hilda were still alive, I’m not sure where we’d be right now. But whatever happened in our relationship, I always assumed that she would still be among the living.”

  They’d reached the end of the path, which came out behind the sectioned horse pasture onto the local road leading to the highway. They stood together, looking at the elegantly blanketed horses, each quietly grazing in its allotted space.

  “But I will tell you that I never, and I mean never, told Hilda that I’d kill her. I don’t know what was in that message, or whose voice is on that recording, but they are not my thoughts, and it isn’t my voice.”

  “I’m sorry, Marcus,” Annie said. “I still believe you. But frankly, I can’t see how this is going to help your case. The prosecutor is going to find out about your marital difficulties sooner or later.”

  “I know. But I wasn’t here, and surely the tests that are being run will prove that.”

  “They’ll say you hired a hit man.”

  “They can ransack my home and office as much as they want. They won’t find anything.”

  “They’re probably already at your front door.”

  “Well, then, let me write you a check before they freeze my accounts.”

  * * *

  Driving home in the late-afternoon gloom, Annie felt her thoughts match the weather. There was a nip in the air. The forecast was for a few inches of snow. The horses would be hungry. And poor Wolf—he’d be wondering where his mistress had gone. She’d assured him she’d be back by noon. She popped a Patsy Cline recording into her CD player. It fit her mood.