Dark Horse

by Tami Hoag

  “The same people who believe you electrocuted a horse for the insurance money.”

  “I did nothing of the kind.”

  “Erin knew, Jill knew. One’s dead, one’s lucky not to be.”

  “This is all speculation,” Shapiro said. “You don’t have a shred of evidence against him.”

  Landry ignored him. “Where were you a week ago Sunday, Don? Sunday late in the day, say around six o’clock.”

  Shapiro gave his client a look of warning. “Don’t answer that, Don.”

  “Let me speculate,” Landry said. “With your friend Ms. Atwood, who has the amazing ability to be in two places at once?”

  Jade glanced down. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You told me Ms. Atwood was with you Thursday night when Michael Berne’s horses were being set loose and a woman was being assaulted not fifty yards from your barn.”

  Shapiro held a finger up. “Don’t say anything, Don.”

  Landry went on. “The night Ms. Atwood was also seen in attendance at a charity ball in Palm Beach. Did you think we’d just take your word for it, Don? Or the lady’s, for that matter?”

  “We got together after her event.”

  “Don, don’t—”

  “Oh.” Landry nodded. “You mean the same time she was also partying with friends at Au Bar?”

  Jade sank back into his chair and rubbed his temples. “I don’t remember the time exactly—”

  “You would have been smarter picking Jill for your alibi for Thursday night, after all,” Landry said. “She was willing to lie for you, and she was probably home alone at the time.”

  Shapiro was up now, hovering behind his client. He leaned forward and said, “Mr. Jade has nothing to say to you on this subject or any other. We’re through here.”

  Landry gave the lawyer a look. “Your client can still help himself out here, Mr. Shapiro. Don’t get me wrong. He’s in deep shit, but maybe he can still climb out of it and take a shower. His partner is still out there, running around loose. Maybe Don here wasn’t the one with the whip. Maybe the whole scheme was the partner’s idea. Maybe Don can help himself out giving us a name.”

  Jade closed his eyes for a moment, inhaled and exhaled, composing himself. “I’m trying to be cooperative, Detective Landry,” he said, still struggling to be calm. “I don’t know anything about a kidnapping. Why would I risk doing something so insane?”

  “For money.”

  “I have a very good career. I have a very good situation with Trey Hughes at his new facility. I’m hardly desperate for money.”

  Landry shrugged. “So maybe you’re just a psycho. I once knew a guy killed a woman and cut her tongue out just to see how far back it went in her throat.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Yes, it is, but I see that kind of thing all the time,” Landry said reasonably. “Now I see this deal: one girl dead, one girl missing, and a horse killed for the insurance money; and it all revolves around you, Mr. Jade.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” Jade insisted. “I would have made good money on Stellar as a sales horse—”

  “Provided you could get him sold. I understand he had some problems.”

  “He would have sold eventually. In the meantime, I collected my training fee every month.”

  “And you’ll collect your training fee for his replacement, too. Right?”

  “Trey Hughes doesn’t have to wait to sell one horse to buy another.”

  “That’s true. But I’ve learned over the years there are few people greedier and less patient than the rich. And you stand to make a big commission on the replacement horse. Isn’t that right?”

  Jade sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to gather himself. “I intend to have a long and happy working relationship with Trey Hughes. He’s going to buy and sell a lot of horses in that time. I’ll profit on all of them. That’s how the business works. So, why would I risk that by kidnapping someone? The risk would far outweigh any possible gain.

  “If, on the other hand, I live a law-abiding life,” he went on. “I’m set to move into a beautiful new facility to train horses for people who will pay me a great deal of money. So you see, Detective Landry, you simply don’t have a case against me.”

  “That’s not quite true, Don,” Landry said, pretending sadness.

  Jade looked at Shapiro.

  “What do you think you have, Landry?” Shapiro asked.

  “I have ransom calls placed to the Seabright home on a prepaid cell phone purchased by Don Jade two weeks ago.”

  Jade stared at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “And do you have a witness who can positively identify Mr. Jade purchasing this phone?” Shapiro asked.

  “I never purchased any phone,” Jade said, peeved with his attorney for making it sound like he had.

  Landry kept his gaze on Jade. “I’ve got Erin Seabright, beaten and bloody and scared to death, telling me you’re responsible. It doesn’t get any more real than that, Don.”

  Jade turned away and shook his head. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You got greedy,” Landry said. “If you wanted her out of the way because she knew something about Stellar, you should have just killed her and dumped her body in a canal. You hold a hostage, things go wrong. People are unpredictable. You maybe wrote the script, but not everybody takes direction as well as a girl chained to a bed.”

  Jade said nothing.

  “Do you own property in the Wellington area, Mr. Jade?”

  “That would be a matter of public record,” Shapiro said.

  “Unless he put it in a partnership or a blind trust,” Landry pointed out. “Will you share that information with us or make us dig for it? Or should I ask Ms. Montgomery, who keeps track of all your little details?”

  “I fail to see what this has to do with anything,” Shapiro said.

  Again, Landry ignored him, his focus on Jade, watching every nuance of his expression. “Have you ever had any dealings with Bruce Seabright or Gryphon Development?”

  “I know Gryphon Development is in charge of Fairfields, where Trey Hughes’ barn is going up.”

  “Have you personally had any dealings with them?”

  “I may have spoken with someone from their office once or twice.”

  “Bruce Seabright?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “How did Erin Seabright come to work for you?” Landry asked.

  “Trey knew I was in need of a groom and told me about Erin.”

  “How long have you been associated with Mr. Hughes?”

  “I’ve known Trey for years. He brought his horses to me last year.”

  “Shortly after the death of his mother?”

  “That’s it,” Shapiro announced. “If you want to go on a fishing expedition, Detective Landry, I suggest you hire a boat. Come on, Don.”

  Landry let them move for the door to the interview room, speaking only as Shapiro reached for the doorknob.

  “I own a boat, Counselor,” he said. “And once I get a trophy on the line, I reel him in, fillet him, and fry him. I don’t care who he is or who his friends are or how long it takes.”

  “Good for you,” Shapiro said, pulling open the door.

  Dugan was standing on the other side with Armedgian and an assistant district attorney.

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Shapiro,” Dugan said. “Your client, however, will be enjoying the county’s hospitality for what’s left of the night. Bail hearing tomorrow.”

  Chapter 44

  He told me to meet him at the back gate,” she said quietly, her eyes downcast.

  Landry had slept on a bunk at the station and come back to the hospital at the crack of dawn to wait impatiently for Erin Seabright to wake up. Jade would be arraigned later that morning. Landry wanted the state’s attorney to have every scrap of ammunition possible to keep Jade in the tank.

  “People gossip—especially about
Don,” Erin said. “He said he didn’t want them talking about us. I totally understood that. I thought it was kind of exciting, really. Our secret affair. Pathetic.”

  “Had you had sex with him prior to that?” Landry asked. He kept his voice matter-of-fact. No accusation, no excitement.

  She shook her head. “We flirted. We were friends, I thought. I mean, he was my boss, but . . . But I wanted it to be more, and he did too. At least, that’s what he told me.”

  “So he asked you to meet him at the back gate. You knew no one would see you there?”

  “There weren’t any horses in those last two barns that weekend. That’s where the dressage horses are stabled when they come to Wellington for a show, but there wasn’t a show for them. Plus it was Sunday night. No one hangs around.”

  “You hadn’t told Mr. Jade you were quitting your job, moving to Ocala?”

  “No. Why would I? I wanted to work for him. I was in love with him.”

  “What happened then, Erin? You went to the back gate to meet him . . .”

  “He was late. I was afraid he had changed his mind. Then this van pulled up and a guy in a mask jumped out and—and—he grabbed me.”

  Her voice died out as another bout of tears came. Landry handed her a box of tissues and waited.

  “Did you recognize him, Erin?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you recognize his voice?”

  “I was so scared!”

  “I know you were. It’s hard to remember details when you’re afraid and something awful like that is happening. But you need to try to slow it all down in your mind. Instead of seeing it all happen so fast, you need to try to see individual moments, like snapshots.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “I know you are,” he said quietly. “Take your time, Erin. If you need a break, just let me know and we’ll take a break. Okay?”

  She looked at him and tried to smile. “Okay.”

  “If you never saw their faces, why do you think Jade was one of the kidnappers?”

  “He’s the one who told me to be there at the back gate.”

  “I know, but did you recognize anything in particular about one of the kidnappers that made you think it was him?”

  “I know him,” she said, frustration showing. “I know his build. I know how he moves. I’m sure I heard his voice different times.”

  “What about the other guy’s voice? Did he sound familiar? Did he have an accent?”

  The girl shook her head and rubbed a hand across her eyes, exhausted. “He didn’t talk much. And when he did, he whispered and mumbled. He never talked to me.”

  “Do you know where they were holding you?” Landry asked. “Could you take us there?”

  Erin shook her head. “It was a trailer house. That’s all I know. It was horrible. It was filthy and old.”

  “Could you tell if you were near a busy road? Were there any particular sounds you heard regularly?”

  “I don’t know. Cars, I guess, in the distance. I don’t know. They kept me drugged most of the time. Special K.”

  “How do you know that was the drug?”

  She glanced away, embarrassed. “I’ve had it before. At a party.”

  “What happened last night? How did you get away?”

  “One of them—the other one—he dragged me out of the trailer and put me in the van. I thought he was going to kill me and dump my body somewhere, and no one would ever find me!”

  She paused to catch a ragged breath and try to compose herself. Landry waited.

  “He just drove around. I don’t know how long. He had given me a shot of K. I was pretty out of it. I just kept waiting for the van to stop, knowing that when it did, he would kill me.”

  “You couldn’t see out the windows?”

  She shook her head. “I was on the floor. And then we stopped, and I was so scared! He opened the door and dragged me out. I was dizzy. I couldn’t stand up. I fell on the ground, a— a—dirt road. And he just got back in the van and drove away.”

  Thrown on the side of the road like a sack of garbage. Something they had used and didn’t need anymore. Still, she was damn lucky, Landry thought.

  “I don’t know how long I was laying there,” Erin said. “Then finally I got up and started walking. I could see lights. Town. I just started walking.”

  Landry said nothing for a moment. He let Erin’s story sink in. He turned it over a few times in his mind, more questions shaking loose.

  So, Jade and company figured out they weren’t going to get the ransom. They dumped the girl rather than face a murder rap. Only, the way Landry saw it, Van Zandt was Jade’s accomplice, and he was already under the lights for one murder. Why risk Erin Seabright identifying them? Because they knew she couldn’t do so positively? Because they had taken pains to make certain there was no physical evidence to tie them to her?

  That remained to be seen, of course. The clothes Erin had been wearing were at the lab being scrutinized under microscopes and fluorescent lights, swabbed and stained and picked over with tweezers.

  Maybe letting Erin go was just part of the game for them. Let the victim live, and let her live with the knowledge that she can’t put them away. Let the vic live, and let the cops live with the knowledge of their guilt, but no evidence to prove it. Power trip.

  The problem with that theory was that Landry had no intention of letting anyone get away with anything.

  “Erin, did they ever talk about why they singled you out?”

  She shook her head, her eyes on Landry’s microcassette recorder sitting on the bed tray, tape rolling. “I was so drugged up most of the time. I know they wanted money. They knew Bruce has money.”

  “Did they call him Bruce?”

  “They called him I don’t know how many times—”

  “When they talked about him,” Landry clarified, “did they use his first name? Did they call him Bruce?”

  Erin nodded, though he thought she didn’t get the significance of her answer.

  “Did you tell them his name?”

  “No. They just knew it.”

  It struck Landry odd the perps would call Seabright by his first name. Familiar. Like a friend.

  “I could have died because of him,” Erin said bitterly. “I can’t believe my mother stays with him. She’s so weak.”

  “People are complicated,” Landry offered, out of his element.

  Erin just looked at her lap and shook her head.

  “Erin, how many videotapes did they make of you while you were in the trailer?”

  “I don’t know. Three or four. It was so humiliating. They made me beg. They did things to me. They hit me.” She started to cry again. “It was horrible.”

  That son of a bitch, Landry thought. Three or four tapes. Seabright had handed over one besides the tape he had picked up at the ransom drop.

  “Erin, did either of the men have sex with you?”

  The tears came harder. “They k-kept drugging me. I couldn’t do anything about it. I c-couldn’t stop them. I c-couldn’t d-do anything.”

  “We’re going to try really hard to do something about it now, Erin. We’ll work together—you and me—to build the case against them. Deal?”

  She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes and nodded.

  “Get some rest,” Landry said as he started for the door.

  “Detective Landry?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  Landry walked out hoping he would be able to really give her something to thank him for sooner rather than later.

  I was waiting down the hall when Landry came out of Erin’s hospital room. He didn’t look surprised to see me. He stopped outside her door, took out his cell phone, and made a call that lasted about three minutes. When he ended the call, he glanced in the opposite direction down the hall, toward the nurses’ station, then came toward me.

  “What’s she saying?” I asked as we walked toward the emergency exit.

&nbs
p; “She says it was Jade, but that the kidnappers wore masks the whole time and they kept her doped up on ketamine. She never actually saw Jade. She can’t identify the other guy at all. She says he rarely spoke.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Van Zandt,” I said. “I’ve never met anyone who liked the sound of his own voice better than Tomas Van Zandt.”