Reining in Murder

by Leigh Hearon

  On the other hand, Dan looked tired beyond his years. Annie badly wanted to ask him what Dory was asking for in the divorce papers, but she knew it was none of her business. Instead, she asked him what he intended to do about the papers she’d uncovered, and that had presumably been left in situ over the weekend.

  “Talk to Latham, of course,” was his predictable answer. “Although this fellow Juan is still a viable suspect. We’ve tracked down the four other workers who skedaddled after Hilda’s murder. But they’ve all just taken up working at neighboring farms. They said they didn’t like the vibes around this place, and I can’t say I blame them. But Juan seems to have vanished into thin air.”

  Annie had carefully prepared for this conversation. She’d hurriedly replaced the Latham/Colbert correspondence in its original drawer, then tossed the horse files on Hilda’s desk and began to methodically make the copies she’d told Dan she needed. It had taken her the better part of the morning, and she’d cursed the scourge of technology more than once whenever Hilda’s copier machine jammed, ran out of paper, and once, God forbid, required a new toner cartridge. Fortunately, she’d found a new one in the credenza, and aside from ruining her sweatshirt with black ink smears that she was certain would never come out, she’d managed to complete the job before he’d come in to check her progress. Besides, finding the toner in the credenza gave her the viable excuse for “uncovering” the Latham/Colbert correspondence.

  The tedious task of photocopying Jockey Club records, pedigree histories, and various other documents had given Annie plenty of time to think. And the more she thought about Latham’s not-so-veiled threats, the more likely it seemed that he was responsible for Hilda’s death—and Wayne Johnston’s, as well. Hadn’t Latham said that he would make sure no horse made it onto Hilda’s property? Well, by derailing Wayne’s trailer, that’s exactly what he might have attempted to do—although why wait until now, when eighteen horses already were on the ranch? The curious part was the similarity in Latham’s writing style with the threatening voice mail. Dan might not make the connection now, but eventually he, or some other sharp deputy in the Sheriff’s Office, would.

  But even if Marcus had actually said those words to Hilda—which Annie still refused to believe, although she acknowledged that the voice was a dead ringer for Hilda’s husband’s—why would Marcus parrot the language used by a rival for Hilda’s ranch? It simply didn’t make sense. Except. . . Marcus had told Annie that he’d wanted Hilda to start spending more time with him in California. In fact, if she remembered correctly, he’d described it as “an ultimatum.” But who would resort to murdering his wife simply because she wanted to spend time with her horses more than she did with him? Plenty of people, she could hear Dan saying. Nonsense, Annie silently responded. Annie’s short-lived marriage had revolved around the same issue. Her husband had merely walked out and never looked back. The last she’d heard, he was living in Eugene with his new wife and four kids. Annie couldn’t have been happier for him. If Hilda had refused to start commuting more to San Jose, Marcus would have simply filed for divorce.

  Besides, how had Marcus ended that conversation? Annie thought back and remembered, “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.” There. Did that sound like someone who’d kill his wife? Sure, she could hear Dan telling her, if he’d already done it and wanted to convince someone he was innocent. Well, she didn’t buy it.

  After Dan had left, she’d had just about as much paperwork as she could handle for the moment. Carefully locking the office door behind her, she whistled for Wolf, who had been patiently waiting in the back of her truck, and took off for a walk around the property, far away from the grinding noise of the machines that were still so methodically looking for what would only be a gruesome treasure.

  She started up the hill that she and Marcus had once walked, a walk that now seemed to have occurred a lifetime ago. There was the same small, rusted gate that led to the overgrown road that obviously hadn’t been used in more than twenty years. She stood by it, thinking about her last conversation with Marcus. Wolf, on the other hand, had no appetite for ruminating about the past. He rushed by her and pushed his way through the hanging gate.

  Annie gave a small jump as he flew onto the overgrown trail beyond. She hadn’t seen Wolf take off, but more to the point, the gate hinges hadn’t made a sound. Odd. Most rusted gates creaked. This one didn’t. Annie examined it more closely. Clearly, someone had recently oiled it. In fact, it had probably been oiled on the day she and Marcus had first walked through it. She distinctly remembered Marcus’s opening the gate for her, gentleman that he was, but try as she might, she couldn’t recall its making a single begrudging squeak.

  But who would have oiled the gate, and why? At the time, neither Marcus nor Annie had thought anything of it. Both were too intent on Marcus’s predicament, and in Annie’s case, hearing Marcus explain his relationship with his deceased wife. But now, without Marcus to distract her, Annie knew she must tell Dan.

  Calling for Wolf, she retreated down the hill and found Dan deep in conversation with Tony, who was relating the efforts being made to locate the missing stable hand. Annie stood by quietly and listened.

  To Annie’s practical brain, Juan as a viable suspect made even less sense than Marcus. After all, she’d seen the guy quiver by Hilda’s home, and Dan hadn’t. Juan didn’t have the gumption to tackle Hilda, whether it was in her house or in the dressage arena. She’d also seen how lovingly and carefully he’d inspected the bay after its arrival. He’d unabashedly doted on the animal as soon as it stepped out of her trailer. There was no way he could be involved in murder. Why couldn’t Dan see that? Latham had to be his guy. As soon as Dan talked to him, he’d realize that he’d imitated Marcus’s voice and left the message for Hilda. Somewhere down the line, Latham must have met Marcus and realized the Colbert marriage was going south. Why not make the husband the fall guy for his murders? It was the only logical conclusion. She had to make Dan believe this.

  “Juan’s probably in Eastern Washington right now, waiting for the apple-picking season to begin,” Tony was saying to Dan as she walked over. “He’s an illegal immigrant, right? Why should he hang around to be a witness in a murder case, then get deported for his trouble?”

  “Maybe,” said Dan. “We’ve reached out to every law enforcement agency in the state, and no one’s seen hide nor hair of him. We’ve even got INS working on his family back in Mexico. They haven’t heard from him, either.”

  An uneasy silence passed among them. All of them, Annie knew, were wondering if Juan would end up being the fourth victim in this unholy mess of a crime. As she pondered Juan’s whereabouts, Annie’s curious tale of the non-squeaking gate went right out of her head.

  * * *

  With Dan in tow, Annie returned to Hilda’s office and loaded the copies she’d made of all the horse files into an empty box. She did not ask to make a copy of the Latham/ Colbert file. Dan wouldn’t have given it to her, and besides, she’d already jotted down Latham’s address and phone number from his personalized stationery and tucked the note into her saddlebag purse. It’s okay, Annie. Dan didn’t say you couldn’t copy down information and take it with you, her Bad Angel reminded her. The Good Angel declined to comment.

  “Hold on, Annie.”

  She had just grabbed the knob of the door leading outside when she heard Dan’s voice.

  “Did you happen to see this note in the file?”

  What note? Had she forgotten to put Latham’s information in her bag? She clutched it closer to her.

  “What note, Dan?”

  “Looks like it might be from Marcus. Can’t be from Hilda; it’s dated after her death. And to my knowledge, no one else worked here, unless it was Todos.”

  Annie was at Dan’s side before she knew how she got there.

  “What? What
is it?”

  “Don’t know. It just fluttered out when you put down a file. Do you recognize the handwriting? As I recall, the man wrote you a check.”

  Annie glared at him, willing herself not to remind him he knew full well the check would not be honored as long as Marcus’s bank accounts remained frozen. Then she attempted to grab what Dan was holding.

  “Not so fast, Annie. You can look, but don’t touch. This is going to the crime lab.”

  Annie noticed that Dan was holding the note by its edge and was wearing his thick work gloves. She peered over his swathed paw. It looked like Marcus’s handwriting, all right. It contained the same big block letters that Marcus had used when he wrote down his hotel and cell number the day they’d walked around the ranch. Annie’s heart melted as she saw the precise way in which he’d jotted down his thoughts. On the top of the notepad was the date—March 3—the Sunday Marcus had disappeared. The rest of the note read:

  DINNER WITH ANNIE

  ASK ABOUT HAY

  LATCH??

  PAPER TRAIL

  “Aww. Ain’t that sweet,” Dan said when they were both done reading.

  “Spare me, Dan. You see? Marcus was going to have dinner with me that night! He didn’t skip out. Something happened to him.”

  “A reasonable assumption; otherwise, we wouldn’t be tearing up Hilda’s property looking for the man.”

  Annie felt sick.

  * * *

  The brightness of the day was gone, even though the sun had finished its battle with the clouds and was shining brightly overhead. Annie crawled into her truck, eschewing Dan’s offer to drive her home. She felt mortified beyond belief. Only a week ago, she’d scoffed at the deputies who’d hurried out of Hilda’s house, upchucking over seeing a dead body. Now, it only took a mere note written by a missing man to make her queasy. She was losing her grip.

  She drove home slowly, deciding to forgo her visit to Johan Thompson to talk about an exit date for her Rambouillets. She could do that by phone, although by rights she should be looking at her ewes and gauging for herself how long it would be before they would lamb, as well as checking for any potential issues.

  No, that task would have to wait a day or two. Right now, she could only think about the possible meanings behind Marcus’s short but poignant checklist. She wished like hell that she’d been the one to discover it, then retracted the thought. It would have been difficult to turn over that little item to Dan, especially since she was still kicking herself for deleting Marcus’s last voice message to her more than a week ago. Better that it remained in the hands of the county. Certainly there was nothing incriminating about any of the items, although “Dinner with Annie” was sure to be titillating gossip throughout the Sheriff’s Office before nightfall.

  The other items had her stumped. Ask about hay? As far as she could see, Hilda’s horses dined on the best money could buy. Hilda had probably pulled strings and managed to obtain the Eastern Washington Timothy and alfalfa that now, regrettably for local ranchers, was largely being compressed and sold to Asian markets. Latch? Now that was a clue that resonated with her. Damn! How could she have forgotten to tell Dan? Although knowing the sheriff, he’d probably have tried to convince her that one of Hilda’s workers probably oiled all the gates once a week and not to worry her silly little pea brain over the trifling matter. Au contraire, Annie thought. I just know it has something to do with Hilda’s murder. But what?

  Paper trail. Now that was fraught with possibilities. Most likely, it referred to the Latham/Colbert correspondence since the note was found in the file. But it could refer to the so-called changes to Hilda’s estate that Dan kept alluding to as the key to finding Hilda’s murderer. Or it might have something to do with the sale of Trooper to Hilda. Annie was thankful that she’d used the ruse of making copies of all the horses’ files to return to the ranch, so she could now peruse Trooper’s file at leisure.

  It was altogether frustrating. Annie felt as if Marcus was giving her obvious clues, but, as her ignorance of thoroughbred sales with Todos had revealed, she was just not smart enough to put them together and ferret out what he was trying to tell her. Annie didn’t like to feel frustrated. But she felt an inordinate pull to do something that connected her with Marcus. And the only thing she could think of was to spend time with Trooper. As much as she hated to admit it, Todos was right. The horse did need to be exercised. His tooth problem had fully resolved a week ago, and there was nothing to stop her from working with him.

  She arrived home and went straight to the tack room. What could Trooper possibly use for a saddle? He was two hands higher than her biggest mount, Rover, and no doubt was accustomed to being under English saddle. Annie had none. Well, she would have to ride bareback, that was all. If she decided to ride at all, she reminded herself. A lot had to happen on the ground before she would ever ask Trooper to allow her on his back.

  One of the most satisfying moments of Annie’s summer days was calling for her horses at the end of the long twilights the Northwest is famous for. During these heavenly months, the sun seldom set before 9:00 P.M. and Annie, who liked to be an indulgent mother when she could, allowed her horses to stay outside as long as possible. On long summer evenings, it took just one ear-piercing whistle to bring the whole herd galloping up to the fence. Now, during the winter months, the vocal cue was hardly necessary. At 5:00 P.M. sharp, she could count on seeing all the horses lined up along the fence line, waiting for their suppers in their clean, warm stalls. But now it was just a little past two, hours before they would appear. So Annie stood by the gate and gave her world-famous whistle to bring them in. Sure enough, they cantered in together, ears forward, eager to see what their favorite human had in store.

  Stepping into the pasture, she quickly caressed each horse’s mane in turn before quickly slipping a string halter on Trooper. She led him into the round pen, where he stood docilely in front of her, obviously waiting for her instruction. This was clearly a horse that knew he had been born for a specific purpose. He was so unlike the other young horses that had come under Annie’s care, which thought behaving like a horse was their only job, and a fine one, too. It was only through Annie’s patient, gentle guidance that each learned that he or she still could be a horse with a human by its side or on its back.

  Annie put Trooper through her usual warm-up phases, starting with rubbing his body over and under until he lowered his head and gave a big sigh. Annie knew this was Trooper’s way of telling the world he was relaxed and ready for whatever came next. She then spent a half hour practicing his ability to move in all directions. She was curious to know how he’d been trained to yield.

  For a horse, yielding to a human is counterintuitive. Put a constraint on a horse, and it will want to pull against it. Annie’s job, as is the job of all good horse trainers, was to convince the horse to give in to the pressure. Hannah knew this as well as Annie. She knew that if she pressed her left heel against Bess’s rib cage, the horse would move to the right. If Bess was in one of her stodgy moods and refused to move, Hannah would increase the pressure until Bess grudgingly gave in. There was a silver lining to cooperating, which Bess knew full well, because as soon as she moved to the right, Hannah stopped bugging her.

  Similarly, if Hannah arced the reins to the left and Bess resisted moving in that direction, Hannah simply would continue to keep the pressure on and wait for the horse to accede to her request. Bess and all of Annie’s horses knew that when they gave in to pressure, they would be rewarded by its removal. What was essential was the rider’s ability to instantly acknowledge when the horse had given in to the “ask,” and just as instantly release the pressure. It was a nuanced game that took all of the rider’s attention to perform well, and the game rules varied according to each horse’s temperament. Annie was curious to see how Trooper would respond to her own cues.

  Within an hour, she declared him a prince, an absolute prince. Trooper might not have been taught to respond precisely to the
same stimuli that Annie routinely used, but his desire to please was evident, and Annie was soon able to ask Trooper to move forward, backward, and sideways with a mere flick of her hand. When she was able to move his hindquarters and forequarters with a gentle laying on of hands, she knew she was ready for the next test.

  Annie was fully aware of Trooper’s lunging capabilities; his performance the night she’d met him proved that he could move at a full gallop around a circle without seeming to tire. But she was curious to know how he moved at different paces.

  She attached a long lunge line to the string halter and stood in the center of the round pen. Trooper wanted to follow her and nuzzle her neck, but Annie asked him with her open arm to go back to his seat, and Trooper politely complied. As she expected, when she first asked him to circle, he broke into an all-out gallop. Annie could hardly blame him. After all, this is what Trooper had been bred and trained to do.

  She gently jiggled the lunge line to get the bay’s attention. Trooper ignored her; he obviously was programmed to think that when asked to move, he had one gait: run, and as fast as possible. But Annie’s constant, rhythmic jiggling did not escape Trooper’s notice. So he stopped. Annie went up to him and praised him. Then she asked him to circle again but did so with a languid movement with her left arm. The bay looked at Annie and walked off instead of running. Annie let him walk around the circle twice before jiggling him to stop and face her. To his utter surprise, she walked up to him and showered him with praise.

  “No one’s ever asked me to walk before!” Annie could almost hear the bay whinny the words.