Barnstorming (Gail Mccarthy Mysteries)

by Laura Crum

  Sunny ignored me. His stride was rhythmic and relaxed as he plowed steadily through the loose sandy ground and up a hill. He knew where he was going. He didn’t need my encouragement or my pats. Solid-minded little Sunny knew how to take care of himself.

  I smiled and felt my shoulders drop a fraction. Maybe we were going to get through the rest of this ride undisturbed. So far it hadn’t exactly been my most relaxing horseback jaunt.

  The trail curved through a grove of madrones and oaks, headed toward the next ridge. I took in the brilliant blue of the sky behind the sharp-edged, shiny, green leaves and smelled the trail dust. Up ahead I could see the bright openness of another small meadow.

  And suddenly Sunny came to a stop. His head came up; his ears pricked so sharply that they almost touched at the tips. And then he nickered.

  Now this was surprising. Sunny didn’t nicker under saddle. Not once that I could remember had he done this. I craned to see ahead through the trees. One day last spring Sunny and I had met a coyote pup at this very spot. Both horse and coyote had been intrigued with each other—but Sunny had certainly not nickered.

  I couldn’t see anything. I bumped with my heels, but Sunny stood as if rooted to the spot and nickered again. This time an answering nicker rang out. Up ahead, in the meadow.

  Once again I bumped with my heels against Sunny’s sides and clucked to him. Sunny’s head lifted a fraction more, and he stepped forward. Both of us stared intently down the trail, peering through the screen of trees as we walked on. There was another horse there somewhere.

  In another fifty feet we emerged from the shrubbery into the sunny wide-open golden grass of what I called the “warm meadow.” Our trail ran right through the middle of this meadow until it reached the spot where four single-track paths came together. Standing near this junction, grazing, was a white horse, wearing a saddle and a bridle. She lifted her head and nickered softly when she saw us.

  I stared. Sunny stared. Surely that was Dolly. I recognized the mare, and the saddle. But where was Jane? It didn’t seem like her to turn her horse loose to graze dragging the bridle reins.

  “Hey, Dolly,” I said in a conversational tone. “Where’s your person?”

  The mare lifted her head and looked at me. I wasn’t exactly expecting an answer to my question, and yet it seemed as if the horse had heard and understood.

  She took a couple of steps down the trail, and then her hoof came down on the dragging reins, jerking her in the face. Dolly’s head flew up, but she was an old horse and she’d been around. She lifted her hoof, releasing the rein, and kept on down the trail at a walk. I followed her.

  Past the trail junction, on down the valley. Sunny eyed the trail that led to home, but followed the mare fairly willingly. I wondered if I should get off and catch the riderless horse, but Dolly seemed to be managing okay.

  “Jane!” I called. The sound seemed to echo off the hills around me. No one answered.

  This was weird. Where the hell was Jane?

  And then Dolly stopped. Her head went down. I rode past the small scrubby pine tree by the side of the trail and saw the figure lying on the ground behind the tree. Blue jeans, boots, dark blond hair streaked with gray—face down. Dolly was sniffing her hair.

  In a second I was off of Sunny and tethering him by the reins to a tree branch. Sunny stood quietly while I stepped past the white mare and reached down for Jane. I turned her over.

  Jane’s body was heavy in my arms, her head rolled back limply. Her eyes were open, not seeing me, glazed, the pupils fixed. I knew she was dead, even as my eyes searched frantically for a cause. Had she had a heart attack or a stroke, fallen and broken her neck?

  But no, the bright red blood splotching the small hole in her chest gave the answer. My heart pounded; I could feel a strange rushing in my ears. Even as I pressed my fingers to Jane’s neck to feel for a pulse, I sat down abruptly on the dry grass. Jane had been shot. And no doubt it was the shot I heard.

  I was having a hard time looking at her sightless eyes. I closed my own and tried to focus on feeling for the heartbeat in her carotid artery. Nothing.

  She was dead. What to do? My head was spinning.

  You will not pass out, I told myself firmly. I looked around.

  The familiar scrub was suddenly ominous. The person who had fired this shot could be hiding anywhere. They could be watching me right now. I took a deep breath.

  Panic would help nothing. Running away would serve no purpose.

  Pay attention, I told myself. Listen.

  I listened. Birds rustled in a nearby live oak. Dolly chomped a bite of grass. Sunny’s ears were pricked forward, watching me. No immediate threat presented itself.

  What to do?

  I dug my cell phone out of my pocket, already knowing it wouldn’t work. There was no reception in these little pockets in the hills. No signal.

  That way, I glanced to the west, was a group of big houses, not too far away, a newish upscale subdivision. But I knew no one there, and what about my horse?

  Jane was dead, no hurry would help her. I made a snap decision. My cell phone would work at the Lookout. If I loped, I could be there in less than ten minutes. Sunny and I would stay together. Somehow that felt right.

  What about Dolly? The mare was grazing calmly, but who knew what would happen while I was gone. I got up and walked over to her, patted her neck, and picked up her reins. Tying them in a simple knot around a tree branch, I stepped back. Dolly regarded me calmly. It wasn’t a great idea to tie horses by the bridle reins, but I didn’t see what else to do.

  I turned from the mare and approached my own little horse, who bumped me with his muzzle. Untying him, I flipped the reins over his head. Putting my left foot in the stirrup, I swung aboard, giving my usual inward thanks that he was only 14.3. “Come on, Sunny,” I said out loud.

  I sent him straight ahead down the trail, first at the walk, looking back over my shoulder to see that Dolly stayed calm. She did. I kicked Sunny up to a trot and then let him break into a lope. We were headed to the Lookout.

  Chapter 3

  Sunny loped steadily down the flat sandy trail that led across the warm meadow. The motion of his galloping stride was soothing, wiping some of the fear and shock from my mind. The landscape streaked by in a blur; the wind of our passing brushed my face, lifting my hair and Sunny’s mane. The meadow narrowed into a small valley, fringed by oaks and willows. Sunny’s hoofbeats drummed louder as the valley closed in ahead, meeting the north slope of a ridge. I could feel the chill as the air temperature dropped. We were in the “cold valley.”

  I checked Sunny to a scrambling trot as we forded the dry creekbed, home of a tumbling stream in the winter, and then let him pick up the lope again as we started up the hill. We were in the deep shade of the redwoods now, lunging steadily upwards, and I could feel Sunny beginning to puff. The thrust of his hindquarters rocked me forward and I urged him with my body as his rhythmic gait devoured the slope.

  We emerged from the redwoods into a tumble of leafy green berry vines, oak trees, and currant bushes, the trail leading steadily uphill throughout. I could see the three-way trail junction ahead on the ridgeline; late afternoon sunshine slanted through the trees, lancing into my eyes. I clucked to Sunny and bumped him with my heels and he loped on, his sides moving in and out with his huffing breath.

  As we topped the ridge I pulled him up under the big oak tree in the flat where the three trails met. Maybe my cell phone would work. I dug it out of the side pocket of my cargo pants, but a quick glance showed me “no signal.” The Lookout, then.

  Motion out of the corner of my eye made my head jerk to the right. A hiker was coming down the sun-splashed ridge trail. A heavyset middle-aged man in walking shorts with a stout yellow Lab on a leash. The man carried a machete in his right hand and wore a small pack on his back.

  The man saw me at the same moment I saw him, and halted. For a second our eyes met. I’m not sure what he saw in mine. Should I co
nfide in this stranger? Ask for help? Send him down to guard the body? Warn him not to go down there? See if he had a cell phone that would work from here?

  These thoughts raced through my mind in the few seconds that my no doubt frantic gaze rested on the guy. I took in the muscled legs under the stout body and the wagging tail on the big dog. The machete in the right hand gave me pause. I could read nothing in the man’s expression—nothing at all.

  I made a split-second decision. I didn’t know this guy. For all I knew he was the killer. I would ride on to the Lookout and call for help.

  Without a word I wheeled Sunny and trotted off down the trail that led to the Lookout.

  Sunny moved forward reluctantly. I could feel his displeasure. We’d been up this trail once before this afternoon and Sunny had been in favor of going home then. Now, tired, out of breath, and sweaty, he was being asked to lope up the steep hill to the Lookout.

  I clucked to him and thumped him with my heels and Sunny got the message. It was time to try. He put some real effort into lunging up the final ascents. I tried to keep my weight forward over his withers where it was easiest for him to carry and to stay with him as he scrambled uphill. I could feel his adrenaline pushing him as we charged forward and upward, the forest a blur around us.

  When we broke into the clearing that topped the Lookout hill, I pulled the horse up. Digging my cell phone out of my pocket as Sunny gasped for air, his nostrils wide and red, I started to dial 911 and then stopped. How was I going to describe where this body was? I pictured the dubious voice of officialdom listening to my story. And without wasting another second I dialed a number I still remembered. Jeri Ward’s cell phone.

  Jeri Ward was an old friend, and also a detective with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department. If anybody could help me, she could. I just hoped she hadn’t changed her cell phone number. I hadn’t talked to Jeri in almost ten years.

  She answered on the first ring: “Jeri Ward here.”

  “Jeri, it’s Gail. Gail McCarthy. I’m out riding in the woods and I found a woman shot. She’s dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, she’s dead.”

  “And she’s definitely been shot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is she?”

  “That’s the hard part.”

  I was thinking fast. The logging road came out on a country crossroad not too far from my house. I described the spot to Jeri, who said she’d meet me there in ten minutes.

  “I’m not sure if I can make it there in ten minutes,” I told her. “I had to ride to the top of a hill to get a signal to call you. But I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  As soon as I ended the call, I turned Sunny and walked him back down the logging road. Sunny was still puffing hard—sweat dripped off his neck—but walking downhill would not hurt him. The logging road proceeded at a fairly gentle grade, staying high on the ridgeline and then winding gradually down the hill, passing big flats that were once log decks. The views of the local mountains were spectacular. From one spot I could see the ridge I lived on, and make out the triangular shape of my front porch gable. Usually this was a sight that I paused to take in. Not today.

  Today I asked Sunny to walk briskly down the road, my thoughts on the shooting rather than the scenery. And yet, why would anyone shoot Jane? Jane, who was just out for a pleasant Saturday afternoon trail ride. Like me.

  The thought caused me to look over my shoulder. Whoever had shot Jane might still be somewhere about. My mind went back to the gunshot I’d heard…and the various people I’d seen. Had one of those people fired that shot?

  If so, I reflected, the gun would have to be a pistol. No one I saw had been packing a rifle or had any way to conceal one. I had no idea if the shot I’d heard had been a pistol or a rifle.

  Who had I seen besides Jane? I counted them off in my mind. Sheryl Silverman, Jonah Wakefield, someone on a sorrel horse loping away, the bearded dirt bike rider, and a hiker with a dog and a machete. Could one of these be the killer?

  I was so absorbed in my thoughts and the steady rhythm of bumping heels I was using to keep Sunny moving briskly that I almost didn’t see the camper. Parked behind a tree well off the road at the edge of one of the log decks, the battered old vehicle looked to have a wonderful view of the surrounding hills. I checked Sunny for a moment and stared.

  The ancient truck looked like a four-wheel drive. This must have been the author of the fresh tire tracks I’d seen. I looked down. Yep—tracks leading into this clearing. Did that camper have a perfect view of the meadow where I’d found Jane?

  The thought gave me an instant shiver down my spine. I could see no one; the vehicle looked shut up tight. But I wanted away from here—badly. I kicked Sunny up to a trot.

  Trotting downhill was not Sunny’s forte. Thick-bodied and coarse, he moved like a small draft horse and wallowed from side to side as he lumbered down the hill, occasionally stumbling. I kept him trotting anyway. He’d caught his breath and I knew from experience he wouldn’t fall down. Sunny might be a touch clumsy in some ways but he’d covered a lot of country in his life. He knew how to take care of himself.

  Down we went, the road zigging and zagging back and forth along the ridge. We came to the pampas grass meadow and Sunny tried to take the trail that led to the warm meadow and on to home. I reined him firmly down the road and urged him to trot faster. By my reckoning it had been more than ten minutes already.

  Down and down—we were in the shadows now; the westering sun was nearing the ridge. I could see the busy road ahead, and there where the logging road met the street were two dark green sheriff’s sedans. Jeri Ward was here.

  The road leveled out and I urged Sunny to the lope.

  I could see the small knot of people standing by the two cars—Jeri’s blond head was evident. All faces swung in my direction and various surprised eyes took in the sight of my approach on a galloping yellow horse, mane and tail flying. Jeri smiled as I pulled up.

  “Hey Gail—quite an entrance.”

  “Hi Jeri.” I was almost as out of breath as my horse. “Are you all coming with me?” I glanced at the two other uniformed male deputies.

  “Just me, for now.” Jeri looked over her shoulder at the men. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” And then, to me, “Will he take double?”

  I’d been thinking about this. “Yes. But we’ll have to walk him.”

  “Of course.”

  Jeri approached Sunny’s left side. I kicked my foot out of the left stirrup and she reached up and put her left foot in. Grabbing the back of the cantle with her right hand and the saddle horn with her left, she swung her right leg over Sunny’s butt and hauled herself upward. I leaned forward to give her room. In a moment I could feel her straighten up behind me. Sunny grunted but held his ground. The two male deputies stared.

  “Okay,” Jeri said. “Let’s go.”

  I turned Sunny up a trail that led west, over a nearby hill—a shortcut to the warm meadow. In a minute we were in the trees and out of sight of the deputies. Sunny trudged along, bearing our double weight stoically, as was his way. Jeri’s shoulders bumped mine occasionally; I glanced down to see her neatly manicured hands gripping the cantle behind me

  “Can you just leave those guys like that?” I asked her.

  I could feel her smile. “Yep. I’m their boss.”

  “You are?”

  “We haven’t seen each other in awhile. I’m Detective Sergeant in Charge of Homicide for Santa Cruz County now.”

  “Oh,” I said. “You got promoted.” When last I’d seen Jeri, she’d been one of several detectives in the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department.

  “That’s right.”

  “You can still ride, anyway,” I said. “Do you still have ET?”

  ET had been Jeri’s horse when I knew her. A sweet, gentle older gelding, he had one blind eye, and looked something like a giraffe crossed on a dachshund—not at all fancy but a good reliable trail
horse. It was only because I knew that Jeri had a horse and could ride that I’d assumed we could ride Sunny double to the site of the murder.

  “No,” Jeri said, “ET died when he was thirty. But I’ve got another sweet old horse now. A gray gelding, used to be a team roping horse. Called Gray Dog. So, Gail, what’s the deal here? Where are we going? Where’s the victim?”

  “You’ll see,” I said. “We’re close now.”

  Sunny topped the rise and I could see the warm meadow shining golden in front of us in the last late afternoon sunshine. It looked entirely peaceful and serene, and the thought of Jane’s body, killed by a shot, lying in that shimmering bleached grass was deeply disconcerting. I took a breath, about to speak, and was interrupted by a shrill whinny. Dolly had spotted us. Sunny whickered back.

  “That’s the victim’s horse,” I said to Jeri. “I tied the mare to a tree. Looks like she’s still there.”

  “Do you know this victim?” Jeri’s voice behind my ear was clipped and stern, her cop voice.

  “Yes. She’s Jane Kelly. I met her earlier this afternoon on her horse and we chatted for a while. Everything seemed entirely normal. After I left her, maybe twenty minutes later, I heard a shot. I’m pretty sure it was the shot that killed her.”

  Sunny trudged through the dry grass of the meadow, following the sandy trail. I could see the scrubby pine ahead that screened the body. A flash of white behind the tree was Dolly’s white coat. I took another deep breath.

  And then we were past the tree and could see the form lying on the ground. Jane’s body lay as I’d left it, face up, sightless eyes staring at the sky. The red splotch on her chest was immediately evident. I pulled Sunny up.

  Both Jeri and I were quiet for a moment. I could feel Jeri’s eyes taking in the scene.

  “Is this how you found her?” she said at last.

  “Almost. Her horse was loose and I ran into it back there a ways.” I motioned back in the direction we’d come from. “The mare actually led us to Jane. I pulled Sunny up about where we’re standing now, and then tied him to that tree over there.” I pointed. “Jane was lying just where she is, except face down. I turned her over—I couldn’t tell what was wrong with her. When I saw the bullet hole, I knew. I checked for a pulse and there was none. Her eyes were glazing, pupils were fixed.” I swallowed. “I knew she was dead. My cell phone wouldn’t work from here, so I tied the mare to a tree and rode to the top of a hill to call you. Then I rode back a different way to meet you. That’s about it.”