Stalking Ground

by Margaret Mizushima

  “We’ll find her killer, Brody. And we’ll need your help.”

  He nodded and went back to cleaning his hands.

  Chapter 24

  By the time the last client went out the door, it was well after six. Once again, Cole found himself falling short of his goal for family time. He and Tess locked up, and he followed her as he drove down the lane to his house while she traveled on to the highway. He sighed, wishing he could keep right on driving tonight, too.

  Sophie and Mrs. Gibbs sat at the kitchen table eating dinner. Mrs. Gibbs popped up from her chair as he came through the door from the garage.

  “I kept things warm here on the stove,” she said. “I’ll fix you a plate.”

  “No, keep your seat. I’ll fix my own here in a minute. Where’s Angela?”

  “She says she isn’t hungry. She doesn’t want to come down to eat, so I fixed her a tray and took it to her in her room.”

  Wondering if pandering to his daughter’s tantrum was the right thing to do, he exchanged pointed looks with his housekeeper. As if reading his mind, she shrugged and turned back to the stove. Perhaps she was at a loss as much as he was.

  “A little extra attention won’t hurt,” she murmured while she picked up a spoon and started to stir something in a pot. “Maybe she’ll feel more like talking after dinner.”

  Cole took that as a message that he should reach out to his daughter again, and it irritated him unreasonably. For a moment, he could relate to Angela’s desire for their new housekeeper to mind her own business. But he took a breath, pulled off his boots, and went to the half-bath under the stairwell to wash his hands. When he came out, he had his irritation under control.

  He visited with Sophie while they finished their meal, helped Mrs. Gibbs clear the table, and then followed his youngest into the great room to watch television when the housekeeper shooed them out of her kitchen. Sophie snuggled in under his arm while they watched a show, and then he told her it was time to go upstairs to take a bath before bed. Deciding he could face the lion’s den again, he followed Sophie up the staircase and tapped on Angela’s door.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “It’s Dad. Can I come in for a minute?”

  “I guess so.”

  Fortifying himself, he cracked open the door to let himself in. Angela sat on the bed with paper and textbooks spread around, presumably doing homework. The tray of food sat on her desk, looking like she hadn’t eaten much. He gestured toward it. “Not hungry?”

  Her expression stony, she refused to look at him. “No.”

  “You’re not getting sick, are you?”

  Her breath escaped in an exasperated puff. “I’m fine.”

  “Do you want to talk?”

  “Not really.”

  Cole went into the bedroom anyway and sat on the desk chair, not quite sure how to proceed. “Well, I guess I can’t force you to talk, but I’ve got something I want to say, so maybe you could just listen. I mean . . . feel free to talk if you feel like it . . . you know what I mean.”

  Angela threw him a look. She probably thought her father had turned into a blithering idiot. Well, he might as well tackle this full on.

  “I’m worried about you, Angel. You’re not acting like yourself. I know things have been tough, and hard times have piled up higher than good times here lately. But we’ve got to hang tough. You know, hang together.”

  Silent, she started gathering up her papers.

  “I don’t want us to be mad at each other, but I do want you to have some self-respect and to do as I say.”

  She glared at him, narrowing her eyes. “Yes, Dad.”

  He didn’t really know what to say next, so he decided to muddle through. “I hope you’ll think about it and truly agree. In the meantime, I can’t promise that I’ll spend more time here at home, but I’ll do the best I can. I’d like for us to work together at the clinic sometimes and have fun together when we’re not working. Like we were doing until just lately. I can’t believe we’re feuding over something as silly as clothes.”

  She looked away and began putting textbooks into her backpack.

  “Maybe this isn’t about clothes. What is it about, Angel?”

  She shrugged.

  “Let’s cool off and think about it. And let’s talk again after dinner tomorrow night. I’ve always trusted you to do what’s right. I’m putting you on the honor system for tomorrow morning, and I trust you to pick something appropriate to wear. You don’t have to show me your backpack, but I do want you downstairs for breakfast like always. Trying to be together when we can goes both ways, and it’s your responsibility, too.”

  Silence.

  “I’ll see you after school. And I will promise you this—if I can’t make it home when I say I will, I’ll call to let you know. And I’ll expect you to do the same for me. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  It sounded begrudging, but at least it was a reply. Cole decided to take it, and he stood up to leave. “Let’s talk again tomorrow. Good night, Angel.”

  No reply. Cole quietly closed the door behind him on his way out.

  By the time he read a story to Sophie and got her tucked into bed, it was shortly after nine. Not too late to call his vet school friend, Trace Dempsey. Though he felt exhausted from the long day, he needed to see if his friend could help him with a diagnosis for Diablo.

  Trace answered the phone, sounding happy to hear from him. “How you doing, Cole? It’s been a while.”

  “It has. Been busy. You?”

  “Busy enough. How are Olivia and the kids?”

  Cole should have realized his friend would ask about his family, but he hadn’t stopped to think about it, and it caught him off guard. “Well . . . Olivia moved out last May and our divorce was final in August. The kids are with me, and they’re doing fine.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth—half-truths.

  There was a pause. “I’m sorry to hear that, Cole.”

  “We’ll survive. How are Helen and your kids?”

  “Everyone’s healthy and the kids keep us hopping.”

  Cole chuckled, thoughts of Trace’s triplets giving him much-needed levity. “I’ll bet that’s a fact. How old are they now?”

  “Twelve. We’ve got puberty rearing its ugly head. Times three.”

  “I hear ya.”

  There was an awkward silence, and Cole decided to get to business. “Do you have a minute to talk about an equine case that’s got me stumped?”

  “Sure. What’ve you got?”

  “A racehorse. Stud. I thought he was tying up when I first saw him. Had all the classic symptoms. But he hasn’t responded to treatment, and the blood work isn’t quite matching the picture.”

  “Sweating, agitation, muscle tremor, tachycardia, hyperglycemic, elevated bilirubin?”

  “Yeah.” Seemed odd that Trace could summarize the clinical findings like that.

  “Frog juice.”

  “What?”

  “Never heard of it?” Trace asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s a highly concentrated form of Clenbuterol that some misguided trainers believe enhances performance in racehorses. They think it enhances aerobic capacity, but it can actually damage the heart muscle in high dosages,” Trace said. “It also breaks down fat tissue, so they’re using it to develop lean muscle mass.”

  “There’s not an ounce of fat on this horse,” Cole said. “I asked the trainer if she had this horse on any supplements, and she denied it.”

  “She probably would. It’s illegal. The racing commission would take away her license and ban her horses from the track.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “It’s a common problem down here, and we’re all on the lookout for it. The illegal form is smuggled in from Mexico in gallon jugs. Some of these horses get so hopped up, they’d run through a brick wall if you put them in front of one.”

  “This is the first time I’ve had a racing stable in my caseload. I had no idea.”<
br />
  “Sounds like your stud horse got too much of it.”

  “How many days will it stay in the bloodstream?” Cole asked.

  “Oh, about one to two weeks. Hair sample will pick it up for about six months.”

  “I have a blood sample I drew today. I’ll call the lab and have them run a test for it tomorrow morning,” Cole said. “I started this horse on insulin yesterday, and today it’s got laminitis. So far, I’m treating the symptoms as they pop up.”

  “Yeah, he’s toxic all right. You’ll be lucky if you can save him. If your test turns up positive, you gotta get him started on a beta-adrenergic antagonist.” Trace told him which drug he preferred.

  “Thanks for the info, Trace. I’ll do some more research on it. I owe you one.”

  “Hey, the next time one of my kids’ dogs is sick, I’ll give you a call.”

  “I hope you will.”

  Cole wrapped up the call and disconnected. He swiped to his contacts list and left a message with his lab saying they should add the screen for Clenbuterol to Diablo’s sample and that he would e-mail the order to them first thing in the morning. After that, he was pretty well done in for the day, so he got ready for bed.

  Once there, he tossed and turned, unable to shut his mind off and go to sleep. Thoughts of Carmen’s pass at him made him analyze her motives. She must be worried that he would detect the Clenbuterol before it passed out of Diablo’s system, and losing her license would most likely end her career and break her business. Did she think that a relationship would keep him from reporting her?

  And here he’d been thinking she was actually interested in him.

  Then his mind jumped to Angela and his concerns about her. Was the presence of Mrs. Gibbs truly the catalyst for the change in his daughter’s behavior? Or was it something more serious? Whatever it was, he’d better get to the bottom of it soon. He didn’t want anything to drive a wedge between them like the one that had been driven between him and her mother.

  *

  It was late by the time Stella pulled into the yard. Mattie had already taken sheets and blankets out of the closet and laid them on the coffee table. She kept busy—picking up her house, washing some dishes she had in the sink, feeding Robo—doing anything to keep her mind from going back to her brother’s words. She’d been fighting a low-grade sense of nausea all day and hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. But when she met Stella at the door, the scent of the pizza actually tempted her appetite.

  Robo started his happy dance when Stella came to the door.

  “Smells good,” Mattie said, holding the door wide for her guest to enter.

  “You’ve looked peaked all day, Mattie. You’re not getting sick from spending the night out in that snowstorm, are you?”

  “Nah, it takes more than that to get me down.”

  “Good. Get out of the way, Robo. Let me set this box down and I’ll give you the attention you deserve.” Stella carried the pizza through to the kitchen, set it on the counter, and then leaned down to pat Robo. He was ecstatic.

  “There, that makes you happy now, doesn’t it?” she cooed, looking around the kitchen. “I like your place, Mattie. It’s better than mine.”

  “Thanks.”

  Stella waved at the ancient refrigerator that huddled against the far wall. “That’s got to be an antique. Cute. Say, it wouldn’t have a beer in there for me, would it?”

  “Sure. Help yourself.” Mattie took out paper plates and plastic forks and laid them on top of the pizza box while Stella unscrewed the cap on her bottle. The tangy scent of the brewed drink wafted out, making her stomach lurch.

  “Want one?” Stella asked.

  “Not tonight. I’ll fix some peppermint tea.”

  Stella raised a brow, looking surprised. “You’re off your game, girl. There is something wrong with you, and I plan to find out what it is.”

  Christ. Nothing like having a detective for a friend. “Let’s take this into the living room,” Mattie said, pointing to the pizza box and the disposable dishware she’d placed on top of it. “I’ll heat some water and be right with you.”

  After a few minutes, she joined Stella and Robo in the living room. Robo was lying on his cushion with his head up and ears pricked, watching everything but looking completely at ease. Stella had kicked off her shoes and leaned back into the sofa cushions, her feet up on the coffee table, a slice of pepperoni pizza filling a plate on her lap. She was taking a pull on her beer when Mattie entered the room.

  “Ah . . .” she said, taking the bottle from her lips. “That’s good. I needed that.”

  Mattie sat her tea on her end of the coffee table, chose a pizza slice, and then settled down on the sofa, bending one leg under her. She hoped she could eat. Her body needed fuel if she was going to keep up with Robo.

  She turned to the one subject she was always comfortable with: work. “Did you find anything in the phone records and e-mails?”

  “Yes and no. It seems crazy in this day and age, but our victim didn’t use her cell phone or her e-mail all that much. So I was able to trace back to last May pretty easily. I thought I should take a look at the time she received that letter from Vasquez.”

  “What did you find?” Mattie asked, taking her first bite of the pizza.

  “I found his phone number. I compared dates, and it looked like she called him a few days after that letter was posted, which appears to confirm his statement that she contacted him soon after. There were no e-mails, no texts, but there were around ten phone calls back and forth. Some that she initiated, some from him that she answered, and many that lasted for close to an hour. They were talking all right. He didn’t lie about that.”

  “How about close to the time she was killed?”

  “No. The back-and-forth phone calls ended in late June. There are a few texts, but they seem to be updates. Normal brother and sister chitchat.”

  “What about the client list? What did you find there?”

  “It looks like she used phone calls and texts to schedule her appointments. There were some phone calls that matched up with the clients on our short list but nothing within the past two weeks. I called them before leaving the station. Everyone denies an appointment on Wednesday, and there were no texts that would contradict them.”

  “And there were no calls from that TracFone number?”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Stella said. “We’ve gotta think that the tipster might also be our killer.”

  “Rainbow’s not sure that Vasquez’s voice matches the tipster’s, and he doesn’t have an accent.”

  “Yeah. But easy to disguise,” Stella said.

  “True.”

  Stella pursed her lips, thinking. Then she took another drink of beer. “Thank God that Adrienne knew the two of them were half-siblings. Incest would have been a tough mistake to get over. What if Vasquez lied about that, and the two of them really did sleep together?”

  Mattie gagged as she tried to swallow the bite of pizza she had in her mouth. She put her slice back on her plate.

  From her end of the couch, Stella studied her reaction. “You look like someone poisoned your pizza, Mattie. What’s bothering you?”

  Mattie shook her head, not sure what to say, not sure if she could even talk.

  “You’ve looked sick off and on all day.”

  She shrugged and picked up her tea to take a sip.

  “Did you get in touch with your brother?”

  Stricken, Mattie stared at Stella, wondering how she could guess.

  “You look like you did the night you told me about your family. What’s going on?”

  Mattie curled her hands around the tea mug and held on tightly. “I’m not sure I can talk about it.”

  “Something’s eating you up inside. It might do some good to talk. Maybe I can help you put it into perspective.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Willie called last night. Turns out he’s working a twelve-step program. Drug rehab. He
’s at the stage of wanting to apologize for his transgressions.”

  “Okay?”

  “I didn’t get it when he apologized to me. Didn’t know how he might have hurt me. I mean, we were just kids. It was our dad that hurt us.”

  Stella nodded, her eyes sending encouragement.

  “He said he should have stopped our dad from coming into my bedroom . . . at night.” Mattie choked, and a wave of nausea hit her.

  “Excuse me,” she said, getting up and heading toward the bathroom. Robo jumped up to follow her and wouldn’t stay outside the door. She had to let him come inside with her, so she leaned against the cool tile on the wall taking huge gulps of air while he pressed against her legs. After a few minutes, her stomach settled, and she tentatively bent to pat him on the head to reassure him. She splashed cold water on her face and returned to the living room with Robo at heel.

  Stella remained on the sofa, and she searched Mattie’s face as she took her seat. “Do you want me to fix you some more tea?”

  Mattie shook her head. “I’ll be all right.”

  Stella sat in silence, her lips pursed.

  “I don’t know whether to believe it. If he molested me, I don’t remember it. But . . .”

  Stella raised her brows. “But?”

  Mattie took another deep breath. “I get these flashbacks. Just a bit here and there, nothing clear. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Something he said. Not to tell or he’d kill my mother.”

  Mattie fixed her eyes on Stella’s as if grasping for a lifeline. Stella didn’t let her down; her gaze remained true and didn’t waver.

  “I don’t know whether it’s my imagination or not,” Mattie said. “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “You know that some victims of childhood abuse dissociate while it’s happening, right?”

  Mattie nodded.

  “Could that be the case with you?”

  Mattie shrugged, not sure if she wanted to admit to the possibility.

  Stella paused, still holding eye contact. Finally, Mattie looked away.

  “Mattie, I’m not an expert in these things, but I’ll tell you this. Don’t waste a lot of time denying it. The sooner you accept that it could be true, the sooner you can get some help.”