Cutter (Gail McCarthy Mystery series)

by Laura Crum

  "She made out that she was angry at Casey about her horse dying," I went on, "but that could have been an act. She was upset with Casey, though. It was written all over her. She'd probably know what trail he usually took if she had a horse in training with him. Maybe he threatened to turn her in."

  I glanced at Lonny speculatively. "Do you know where she lives?"

  "Sure." Lonny had no trouble interpreting my look. "But what excuse do you have for going there? She doesn't use Jim as her vet anymore."

  "No problem. I'm the vet that put her horse down, remember? I can say the insurance people called me. You know, it's kind of funny they haven't. Ken Resavich's insurance company contacted me right away about his horses."

  Lonny sighed and scratched Blue's ears. "All right. I'll direct you to Martha's. But this is it. This is absolutely the last person we try and pin a murder on. Agreed?"

  "It's a deal."

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  Martha Welch turned out to live in south Santa Cruz County, high in the hills behind Watsonville, not all that far from Ken Resavich. That argued well for my suspicions.

  I drove the winding, narrow curves of Mt. Madonna Road at a crawl; the rain was still drumming down and visibility was terrible. Lonny directed me to an innocuous wooden gate between two redwood trees. The gate was standing open and a slender paved drive, slick with rain, led off between ranks of other redwoods, somber dark pillars in the gray.

  "This doesn't look like a wealthy person's place," I commented, as I nosed the truck down the drive.

  "You'll see." Lonny's voice was amused.

  The road twisted between redwood groves; the woods around us peaceful and pristine in the rain-undisturbed wilderness, no house or garden or cultivation in sight. We'd gone at least half a mile before a rail fence appeared on our right, then our left, lining the road. The boards were natural, unpainted wood, like the gate, and blended easily into the surroundings. Inside the fences were wide pastures, and in the pastures were horses. Broodmares, weanlings and yearlings, I judged, arrayed in different fields according to type and looking wet but not unhappy in the streaming rain. Horses, I'd noticed, didn't mind being out in the rain, unless it was accompanied by extreme cold or high winds. Another half mile or so between the pastures, then the drive rose out of a little dip; I almost skidded to a halt.

  "Holy cow," I breathed.

  "See what I mean." Lonny was enjoying my reaction.

  One carne upon Martha Welch's place suddenly-from the crest of the little dip, her house and barnyard were laid out in front and below the approaching vehicle in all their simple splendor. This was a far cry from Will George's kind of money. His place had been ostentatiously wealthy, advertising his success, nouveau riche if ever I had seen it. Martha Welch's was just the opposite.

  A large, one-story, rambling house was situated on the slight slope, and the arms and branches of the building followed the little ridges and descents of the land, so that the house was constantly moving up and down a step or two. Shingled all over, the shingles stained a natural wood color like the fences, the house had no less than six gray stone chimneys, no more than ten doors. All the windows, of which there were many, had a latticework of small panes, the framework painted white-the whole place looked vaguely like a hunting lodge that Louis XIV would have used.

  Small lawns and flowering plantings nestled in the bays between the various wings of the building, and across an acre or so of paved courtyard sat a pretty two-story barn, also shingled, with what was obviously living quarters up above it. Wide decks ran around the house on the far side, extending into a space that overlooked the whole panorama of the Monterey Bay.

  It was the bay that lent this house its breathtaking drama; the house itself was carefully and expensively understated, its focal point a vista of hills tumbling down to the sweep of the coastline. From the house one could see everything-the half moon of the bay, Santa Cruz to the north and Monterey to the south-rendered even more dramatic this afternoon by the storm clouds scudding across the sky.

  For a few minutes, I simply sat and stared.

  "Pretty, isn't it?" Lonny's voice was amused.

  "I guess. It's beautiful."

  "Her parents built it. Her dad was a grandson of one of the original logging barons of the West Coast. Martha is his only child."

  "Wow." I stepped gently on the accelerator and drove up to the house, trying not to feel intimidated. Martha Welch could be arrested for murder just like anybody else, I reminded myself.

  One of the big, dark gray clouds seemed to break in two right over us, and a deluge was pouring down as I parked the truck in front of the house. Pulling my slicker on as I got out, I was about to dash for the front door when a figure came flying out of the barn, yelling in our direction.

  "You're a vet, aren't you?" The shouted question was addressed to Lonny, not me. "Come quick!"

  Startled, I peered through the rain at a woman I recognized as Martha Welch. Realizing that she'd identified the multi-compartmented cover on my pickup bed as that of a veterinarian, I nodded affirmatively. "I'm a vet. What's the matter?"

  She wasn't listening. "Quick, come out here. She'll bleed to death!"

  Martha dashed back through the rain toward her barn; I grabbed some tranquilizers and suturing equipment and followed at the run, Lonny beside me.

  "She" proved to be a dun mare with a deep cut on her right front pastern, a cut that was squirting a veritable red fountain of blood with every beat of her heart. Artery, I thought.

  Stepping up to the mare, who was tossing her head and dancing frantically in circles, spraying blood in all directions, I told a very young man with a cowboy hat who had the look of an aspiring trainer and was holding the lead rope, "Keep her as still as you can so I can get this injection in her jugular vein."

  Martha Welch gave me a sharp look. "Are you the vet?" Her eyes moved questioningly to Lonny.

  "Yes, I am."

  "Well, get on with it then. Quick. Before she bleeds to death."

  It would be a while before she'd bleed to death, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. Steadying the mare's head a little, I inserted the needle in the underside of her neck with a quick plink, attached the syringe and withdrew enough blood to be sure I'd hit the jugular vein, then injected rompin, a tranquilizer that rendered frantic horses relaxed and immobile. In a minute the mare was swaying on her feet, head down, oblivious to her cut leg and everything else.

  I knelt beside her and clamped off the squirting artery, eliminating the bloody fountain. Using clean gauze pads to mop up most of the mess, I began suturing the wound together. Once sutured, I wrapped it with a bandage to protect it, Lonny bringing me the necessary materials from my truck. Martha Welch watched the whole operation with a silent but critical eye.

  When I was done, I stood up and smiled at her. "I'm Gail McCarthy, and this is Lonny Peterson."

  "Martha Welch. Thank you. That's one of my best broodmares. She was tied here in the barn; this idiot left a hoe where she could step on it." She gestured in a derogatory way at the young man in the cowboy hat, who winced and quickly led the mare away.

  Now that her face was no longer distorted by distress, Martha Welch appeared a firmly elegant woman of indeterminate middle age, though the elegance was not a type I admired. Gold and diamonds sparkled from her ears, hung about her neck, and encrusted her fingers-it was evident where the nickname "Mrs. Gotrocks" had come from. Her hair looked crisp and unmessable despite her run through the rain, and her face was stretched tight and masked with make-up-one of the reasons her age was in question. A fit-looking figure said aerobics and maybe a few tucks. Martha Welch was anywhere between forty-five and sixty-five, and obviously determined not to get any older.

  "I work for Jim Leonard," I went on conversationally, using a handful of gauze to wipe some blood off my boots.

  "I suppose Jim will be sending me a bill." Martha Welch sounded disgruntled, and I noticed Lonny was having a hard time hiding his smile.r />
  "Not necessarily," I said, thinking fast. "I came up here to ask you about another matter. Perhaps," I laid careful stress on the perhaps, "I could just do this as a favor. I'm not officially at work today."

  The idea of what was undoubtedly a hundred-dollar-plus veterinary bill being written off like that roused Martha Welch to quick hospitality. "Why don't you come inside," she indicated both Lonny and me with a wave of her arm, "where we can be more comfortable."

  Rain was still spitting fitfully as we crossed the courtyard; large, purplish clouds hanging over the bay seemed to indicate that more storm was on its way. Leaving my blood-spattered slicker in the pickup, I followed Lonny through the front door of Martha Welch's house, wiping my feet carefully on the doormat, and stopping to wash my hands in a sparkling little guest bathroom.

  We were led into a room at the end of an arm of the house that stretched out toward the bay-a wonderful room, a room I'd have given my eye teeth for. Smallish, but high-ceilinged-I supposed you could call it a sitting room; a couch, two or three armchairs, and a stone fireplace (with a pleasant fire flickering in it) filled the available space. The floors were wide-planked oak, polished to a soft sheen, the walls and ceiling natural wood, the open-beam rafters shadowy above us. All the furniture was covered with a bright floral print-rust red on deep green-that was just colorful enough to be cheerful and pleasing rather than garish against the simple wood-toned walls. Martha Welch switched on a lamp on a small table and gestured at the furniture. I sat down in an armchair and stared.

  Across the front of this room was a wall of windows, delicately lattice-paned; beyond the windows the Monterey Bay stretched in its full glory, with the coastal hills and the Pajaro Valley in the foreground. The first storm of the season rambled across an immensity of sky and space and I felt a sense of delight. If I owned this house, I thought, I'd sit in this room every evening with a glass of wine and watch the light die out of the west.

  It appeared that I was going to get to do this at least once, as Martha Welch was offering us a drink. "Chardonnay, if you have it," I requested.

  A yell of "Nancy," followed by our drink orders, informed me that she probably did have it.

  Lonny had seated himself in an armchair; Martha Welch chose the couch and settled herself in one corner, crossing a leg with a self-conscious attempt at casualness.

  As an effort at relaxation, it was largely a failure; the tension in the woman was obvious. I more or less suspected that it was habitual; Martha Welch had the appearance of someone who would never truly relax, even drinking a solitary cup of coffee, or sitting alone in the evening, she would be filled with nervous energy.

  A fiftyish woman brought our drinks on a tray; I sipped my wine, Lonny had a bourbon and soda, Martha Welch had called for an old-fashioned. It all felt very civilized. I wasn't sure how to begin.

  "I'm the vet that Casey Brooks used," was what I tried, and it elicited all the reaction that my interviews with Will George and Jay Holley had failed to provoke.

  Martha Welch stiffened in her corner; her lips tightened and her eyes flashed. "What did he do, tell you I poisoned my own horse?"

  I was taken aback. "Well, no."

  "He had the nerve to say that to me, the bastard."

  "Casey's dead, you know." I watched curiously for her reaction.

  She had the grace to look slightly abashed. "I heard." I had the impression she would have liked to say "good riddance to bad rubbish," but she didn't. She said, "Did he tell you not to sign the certificate for the insurance?" Before I could decide what answer to make, she went on. "Because I'm not putting up with that. Dead or not, Casey Brooks is not causing me any more trouble."

  Martha Welch looked hostile, defiant and unrepentant-her emotions all in full view. She'd as good as admitted a motive for murdering Casey, and it didn't seem to bother her at all. There was something odd in what she'd said, though.

  "It was my impression Casey thought Will George poisoned those horses," I said carefully.

  Martha Welch snorted. "It's a rough thing to say about somebody who's dead, but Casey was a damn fool. He was going around telling everyone that Will George did it, which is obviously ridiculous, and when he couldn't make enough trouble that way, he accused me of poisoning my own horse."

  I stared at her. Somehow that didn't go with the Casey I had known. Hardheaded, egotistical, abrasive, yes-but making trouble just for the sake of it, no.

  She was still talking. "Will George would never have poisoned those horses, any more than I would. I called him and told him what Casey was saying about him. He just laughed."

  That was interesting. Will George had known that Casey suspected him-Will George who had turned his quiet, blue-eyed gaze on me and said only, "He was a good hand," of Casey. Will George was not a man who would rattle easily.

  Martha Welch, on the other hand, seemed quite "rattle-able." I tried to picture her poisoning the horses, cutting the cinch, braining Casey with a rock. It was possible. There was a sense of suppressed violence in this woman, only half hidden under her polished exterior. She was strung tight as a piano wire; if the wire snapped, what sort of fury would be unleashed?

  "You are planning on signing the insurance forms, aren't you?" She was fixing me with a steely eye.

  Lonny smiled at me behind his drink; he'd very carefully kept out of this conversation, I'd noticed, as he had the last one. All this amateur detective work probably wasn't something he wanted to be involved with. He looked amused, though.

  "The horse was poisoned," I told Martha Welch frankly. "But I have no reason to believe you had anything to do with it."

  "You're damn right I didn't. I don't believe it was poisoned, anyway. All I'm interested in is that you sign the paperwork stating it needed to be destroyed."

  I considered arguing the point that poisoning was indisputable given the test results, and gave it up as a bad idea. She wouldn't listen.

  "The horse did need to be put down, I'll agree to that," I said calmly.

  "I'll have the company send you the paperwork right away." She took a final swallow of her drink and stood up. Clearly, as far as she was concerned, the interview was at an end.

  Draining the last of my chardonnay and taking a regretful glance at the view, I followed her to the door, Lonny accompanying me silently.

  When we were back in the truck he looked over at me. "What do you think?" I could hear the humor in his voice.

  "Beats me. She's got a motive, all right. I can't check her for an alibi, which would be the next step; I'm not a cop. I need to interest that detective in finding out where some of these people were when Casey was killed. That would help."

  "Good luck."

  "Thanks a lot. I can tell you don't think she'll be inter­ested." I looked at Lonny curiously. "Don't you care? Don't you want Casey's murderer, if there was a murderer, to be caught?"

  "Care? Sure, I care. But unlike you, I don't think he was murdered. And if he was, I still say, I'll pick the girlfriend every time."

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  Renewed gusts of rain spattered the windshield as I drove slowly down the loops and twists of Mt. Madonna Road. Evening was closing in and the sky was a dark and unrelieved gray. I felt a sense of depression. All my detective work hadn't come to much. I was hungry and tired of driving and I wanted to be cheered up.

  As if he'd read my thoughts, Lonny asked, "How about a home-cooked meal?"

  "Sounds great."

  "Spaghetti and red wine-real stormy night food. In front of the fire. I make a mean spaghetti." I smiled at him gratefully.

  "You're on."

  Lonny's house welcomed us when I pulled up in front of it; he'd left a couple of lamps on and the curtains open, and the cozy front room appeared a safe haven in the blowing ram.

  I got out of the truck feeling stiff and sore, and Blue slid out after me, stiffer than I was. He hobbled around in the rain peeing on my tires, then wagged his stump of a tail to indicate he wanted back in the cab.<
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  "Long day, huh, boy," I told him, scratching him behind the ears.

  He licked my hand and curled up on the seat of the truck with a grunt, apparently prepared to nap a few more hours. There were some advantages to being an old dog, I thought, as I cracked the windows a hair. Patience being one of them.

  Walking through the front door of Lonny's house I was greeted with a meow by the big pinkish beige cat who had jumped on his lap the other night. Sam, I remembered. Following the cat was a creature no larger than my hand, the color and texture of an animated dust ball. It mewed, giving me a clue to its identity.

  "What's that?" I laughed. "That's a cat," Lonny said with a proprietary grin. "What do you mean 'What's that?' That's Gandalf."

  The little creature was mewing and rubbing itself on Lonny's legs in a miniature imitation of Sam, who seemed to regard it with tolerant disdain. Lonny petted both cats and picked up the little one. "I found him two nights ago. I was at the barn feeding the horses their dinner; it was black dark, no moon at all, and I heard this meowing. I couldn't see a thing, but I tracked him down by all the noise he was making. He was just marching along the road screeching his head off. I scooped him up and brought him home."

  "Lucky for him." I petted the little cat, who purred at me from his seat in Lonny's palm; his eyes squinted shut in a cat smile of happiness.

  "Sit down by the woodstove, if you like," Lonny told me, taking in, I suppose, my weary expression. "I'll bring you a glass of wine and build us a fire."

  "Thanks." I settled myself on the couch, accepted a glass of chianti, and watched him lay split kindling and strike a match. The primitive ritual was deeply comforting; small flames flickered and grew until the wood was crackling happily and orangey fire shadows danced on the walls. Safety and warmth in the threatening night. I sipped the almost bitter red wine and listened to the rain on the roof and felt a growing sense of contentment.