Steve Cline Mysteries - 01 - At Risk

by Kit Ehrman

  "What happened next, Steve?"

  I squinted at him, then reluctantly lifted my head and told him the rest.

  Ralston folded his arms across his chest. "And you don't--"

  A sharp crack split the air and echoed off the metal walls. I jumped as if I'd been shocked with a cattle prod. It was just one of the horses rapping the top rail of a jump.

  Just one of the horses.

  I rubbed my forehead.

  "Okay," Ralston said. "I think we're done in here. Let's finish up in the car."

  "Finish up?" I mumbled.

  "Yes. I have a few more things to go over."

  Back outside, the white metal siding glowed pink as the sun neared the horizon. It wouldn't be long before it disappeared behind the tree line, and as so often happens, the wind had died down with the sun's descent. I climbed back into Ralston's car and wondered when I'd be getting back to work.

  He slammed his door and flipped through the ever present notebook. "I have a list of the owners of the stolen horses. I want you to tell me what you know about each one, okay?"

  I nodded, and he started checking off names. I hesitated when he got to Sanders.

  He looked over at me, his pencil poised, waiting. "What's the deal with him?"

  I shrugged. "Nothing. I just don't like him much."

  "Why?"

  "No particular reason. It's more a personality conflict than anything." I sighed. "I don't really know why I don't like him. . . . He's not a good horseman."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, stuff like not cooling out his horse after he's worked him, being too aggressive when he rides. Things like that. It's more like he uses his horse, treats him like an object instead of a living, breathing animal."

  Frowning at my explanation, Ralston switched on the engine and slid the control levers into position for maximum heat output. I listened to the purr of the engine and thought about how Sanders used his horse as a bizarre sort of aphrodisiac.

  Ralston must have seen something in my expression because he said, "What are you thinking?"

  "Nothing. . . . Nothing to do with this."

  "Tell me anyway."

  He'd said it like I didn't have a choice. Like I wouldn't be getting out of his car if I didn't tell him what he wanted to know, which kind of pissed me off. But it wasn't any big deal, so I told him.

  When he checked off the last name, he said, "The evidence clearly shows they were familiar with the farm's layout and routine."

  "Um."

  "Tell me about the employees. Anyone have a gripe with management?"

  I thought about Brian and decided that his grumpy attitude didn't make him a suspect. "No. They're a pretty good group."

  He shifted in his seat and leaned against the door. "And you didn't recognize their voices?"

  I shook my head. "The guy with the ball cap," and a whine in his voice I thought but kept to myself, "I've never seen him before. I'm sure of that. As for the other two, far as I remember, they always spoke in a whisper. I don't know whether I could have recognized them under those circumstances."

  "Maybe you do know them, and they were trying to disguise their voices."

  I didn't like that thought one little bit. That someone I knew could be so callous. Could hate me so much. Someone I knew, maybe even liked and trusted. I didn't believe it. I turned in my seat to face him and said, "So. What similarities?"

  "What?"

  "You said there are similarities between the case you're working on and this one."

  He looked at me with an expression that would have served him well in a high-stakes poker game. When he spoke, his voice was flat. "Six months ago, seven horses were stolen from a farm in Carroll County. Not far from here, actually. The owner was murdered."

  Chapter 4

  I couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak.

  He, however, continued. "A white or off-white pickup, pulling a dark-colored horse trailer, was seen in the vicinity around the time we estimate the owner was abducted. A month later, two boys were hiking a trail that parallels the western bank of the Patuxent when they discovered the partially-buried body of a white male. He was later identified as the farm's owner. Before he died, he had been beaten and," he paused, still watching me, "his wrists had been bound with baling twine. It was still on what was left of the body."

  I leaned my head against the side window and closed my eyes. A humming noise filled my ears, and I felt as if I were sinking, the blackness behind my eyelids spiraling out of control.

  "Mr. Cline . . . you okay?"

  I swallowed. My throat was dry. My tongue felt like it was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I opened my eyes. "Yeah, sure," I mumbled. "How the hell do you think I am?" I couldn't keep the anger out of my voice. Or was it fear?

  He didn't say anything, just looked at me with that damn uninformative expression of his, and I wondered if anything rattled him.

  I shifted in my seat and stared out the window. A dozen riders were circling their horses, waiting to go inside for their lesson. Behind us, the sun cast long shadows down the lane. The light had an orangish late-afternoon quality to it. Voices drifted on the cold air while some of the horses, impatient to be going, blew down their noses and pawed the ground. Farther down the lane, the barns looked warm and inviting . . . and safe.

  He cleared his throat. "So, now you see why it's important that you carefully think through everything that happened, every detail."

  "I already have." I rubbed my face. "I didn't see enough or hear enough to be a threat to them. They took me anyway, and I learned more because of it." Though what good it would do, I couldn't imagine. "Once I was out of the trailer, I could see them better. The leader had light brown hair, maybe blond." I licked my lips and turned to face him. "So, if they wanted to kill me," I paused and hoped he couldn't hear the tremor in my voice, "why didn't they just do it here, on the farm? When I was out?"

  He closed his notebook and slid the pencil through the channel formed by the spiraled metal wire. "These guys are smart. In the first place, their timing would have been perfect if you hadn't interrupted them. Under normal circumstances, they wouldn't have been disturbed. In the first incident, in Carroll County, it was just pure luck that we got a description of the truck and trailer, as vague as it is. Howard got zilch when they canvassed this neighborhood. Montgomery County didn't do any better at the location where you escaped. Whatever they used to hit you with, they took with them. They didn't leave fingerprints. The ground was too frozen for tire tracks. You saw how careful they were after you got away from them. That's rare. I'm surprised they didn't double back after they lost you in the woods."

  I groaned.

  Ralston compressed his lips and studied me with an otherwise dispassionate expression. "And what do you think would have happened Saturday morning, when the rest of the employees arrived to find seven horses missing and you nowhere to be found?"

  I looked at him and didn't think I liked the implication.

  "Your boss and fellow employees might have been certain you had nothing to do with it," he said. "But sure as I'm sitting here, the police would've been looking for a suspect, not a body. If these guys were really smart, they would have gotten rid of your truck. Then you would have been on top of our list, without question. Not until the connection was made between the two cases, would we seriously have considered that you'd been abducted, and by that time, we would've been lucky to find your body. In the other case, we never found the murder scene. We were damn lucky to find the body, and after a month's exposure in the heat and humidity we had last summer, much of the forensic evidence had been destroyed."

  I shifted in my seat. Such a casual discussion of inhumanity was more than a little unsettling.

  Ralston reached inside his jacket. "Here's my card. Call me if you think of anything else, no matter how insignificant."

  He dropped the gear into reverse, and as I put my hand on the door latch, it occurred to me that they had tried to move my truck. I tol
d him how Marty had found it. That they must have been unsuccessful because the starter was acting up. That I was certain I hadn't left the door open, which had drained the battery. I refrained from telling him about Marty's hot-wiring capabilities.

  He tossed his notebook into the briefcase and lowered the lid but left it unlatched. "You need to be careful when you come here outside normal business hours."

  "Why?" It came out high-pitched. I cleared my throat. "Why would they come back?"

  "I doubt they will. As long as they stay smart they won't, but . . ."

  "But what?"

  He shrugged. "Just a thought."

  "Oh, great." I shoved his card into my jeans pocket. "Who was the man who was, eh . . . killed?"

  "James Peters. Ever heard of him?"

  I shook my head.

  "He and his wife owned and operated a horse farm. Hunter's Ridge. He went out to check on a sick horse and never came back."

  I climbed out of the car and watched Ralston drive off. With him went any confidence I'd been able to scrape together in the past week.

  The lane was deserted now. All the horses had gone inside for their lesson, out of the wind, out of the cold. The glare from the sodium vapors was taking over in the fading daylight, and after the warmth of the car, the air felt bitterly cold. I pulled my collar up around my neck, got back on the tractor, and drove to the implement building on auto pilot.

  I parked next to the manure spreader and didn't bother unhitching the drag. Someone else could do it in the morning. I stopped alongside Dave's workbench and smoothed my fingers across the expertly-sanded wood. The sweet aroma of freshly-cut lumber still hung in the air.

  He never came back.

  My legs buckled, and I collapsed onto Dave's chair. I wrapped my arms around my waist and hunched forward to keep from shaking. I felt like I had when I was a kid. Felt as helpless and as scared and alone as I had the day my old man dropped me off at a dude ranch in West Virginia a week after my eleventh birthday. I'd stayed the entire summer. Learned more about horses than I'd thought possible, and that seemed to piss off my father even more. The following year, I'd gone off to soccer camp, then lacrosse. Being on my own like that, I'd learned how to take care of myself. By the time I was thirteen, I had grown used to the routine. Actually looked forward to it. Hell, it was better than staying at home with him, with them, where I wasn't wanted, both of them too caught up in their own lives to parent.

  I'd thought I could handle anything. Until now.

  After a while, I squinted at my watch and waited for the numbers to come into focus. I was late for evening feeding. I wiped my face, blew my nose, and hoped no one had missed me. As I hurried down the rutted lane, I saw that the horses had already been brought in for the night. The winter day had come to an end.

  Marty was standing in the middle of the feed room, staring at the cart. He turned with a start when I walked through the doorway. "Where the hell've you been? I was I' ready to grain the horses myself."

  "I'll do it."

  "Good. I don't know how you stand it. All those damn supplements." He squinted at me. "Hey, you don't look so good, Steve. You comin' down with somethin'?"

  "No, I'm fine." I rubbed my face. "Any problems this afternoon?"

  "Nope. Everything's done. Was that a cop you were talking to?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "What'd he want?"

  I glanced at Marty then looked down at the feed cart. "Nothing much."

  When I said nothing further, Marty said, "Well, seein' as you're gonna do the feeding, can I leave now?"

  "Sure . . . have a good night."

  "I always do. Jessica's off," he added with a grin that could only be described as wicked.

  I chuckled. Marty had the pursuit of happiness down to an art form. The pursuit of sex, more like.

  "You sure you're all right, Steve?"

  I told him to get the hell out before his girlfriend found a replacement and watched as he strolled out of the feed room, whistling under his breath.

  * * *

  Saturday afternoon, when the last batch of private turnouts were in their paddocks, I went into the feed room and lifted my clipboard off the shelf above the workbench. I leafed through the pages until I came to the medications list. There were no wounds to clean, medicate, and bandage, no eyes to apply ointment to, no injections to give. I was caught up until it was time to grain. I replaced the clipboard and walked up to the office.

  The last lessons of the day were winding up, but the farm was busy as usual. I grabbed a magic marker off Mrs. Hill's desk, pulled some paper out of the printer, and printed in bold black letters: NOTICE. A white or light-colored dualie and an older dark-colored, six-horse gooseneck were used in the horse theft at Foxdale Farm on February 24th. If you have any information regarding the identity of the rig's owner, or know anything about the theft, contact Steve Cline. I added Foxdale's phone number and my home number in the lower right-hand corner and made a couple of copies. I thumbtacked a sheet to the bulletin board in the office and walked into the lounge.

  I tacked a copy squarely in the center of the cork board by the soda machine. Across the room, Maryanne, Sheila, and Mrs. Curry had pigeonholed Mrs. Hill by the coffee machine. Because of the horse theft, they were planning another boarder meeting. I left before they drew me into what I knew from experience would be a long conversation and headed back to barn A. I stopped at the cork board in the aisle near the wash rack, rearranged some advertisements, and pulled off several outdated announcements. I pinned up my notice.

  "Cline, tack up Bethany for me."

  I turned around as Whitcombe, one of Foxdale's trainers, looked over my shoulder. As his gaze flicked over the wording, I noticed a momentary tightening around his eyes. His thick, curly red hair, which he had the good sense to keep cut short, was damp with sweat from his last ride, and his freckled, weather-wrinkled skin reminded me of a prune.

  "Fall off a horse?" he said, referring to the faded bruising under my right eye.

  "No." I edged past him and started down the aisle toward the tack room.

  "I'll be in the lounge," he called after me. "And, Cline?"

  I stopped and pivoted around. "Sir?"

  "I want a dropped nose band and a Dr. Bristol bit, and this time get it right."

  Get it right? Who was he kidding? I turned away from him and wondered when he'd grow tired of his stupid little control game and give it up, always asking for one thing, then telling me I'd gotten it wrong when I hadn't. Trying to make me look stupid. Maybe he wouldn't stop until I reacted. Got myself in trouble.

  "Cline?"

  I slid my hands into my pockets and turned around. Movement behind him caught my eye. Marty. Marty bouncing into the aisle, swinging a lead rope in his hand.

  "I didn't hear you," Whitcombe said.

  I refocused my gaze on Whitcombe's ugly face. "Yes . . . sir."

  He smiled as he spun around and headed for the exit. Marty suddenly became interested in the floor. As soon as Whitcombe passed him, Marty looked up at me and grinned, and I could have killed him. He caught up with me, glanced over his shoulder, and whispered, "The asshole likes to ride more than horses, don't he?"

  "Marty, don't." I cradled my arm along my ribs and tried not to laugh. "It hurts too much."

  "Awh, Stevie, don't cry."

  "Damn it, Marty, stop." I walked into the tack room and heard his footsteps behind me. "Don't you have something to do?" I said over my shoulder.

  "No."

  I spun the combination on the supply locker.

  "I can see it now," Marty said. "One day you're gonna let 'im have it and get your ass fired."

  "Won't happen. He's not worth it." I creaked the door open and stared at the pile of brushes, curry combs, rub rags, and cans of hoof oil. "Help me out, Marty. Grooming's a pain right now."

  "Sure."

  "Hope Bethany's not too dirty."

  "She's turned out."

  "Oh, shit. I forgot."


  "I'll go get her," Marty said.

  "Thanks. Bet that's why he wanted to ride her in the first place, 'cause he knew getting her ready would be more work."

  "The guy's a genuine, fu—" Marty glanced at me and shut his mouth. "Be back in a sec."

  He ended up doing most of the grooming and all the tacking up. When he was finished, I led Bethany into the indoor and waited for Whitcombe. I could see him in the office, talking to Mrs. Hill and one of the boarders. He saw me but pretended he hadn't—typical Whitcombe. I was ready to walk over and tap on the glass, when he pushed out of his chair and walked around to meet us.

  He carried a crop in his right hand and absentmindedly slapped it against his boot. Bethany moved away at his approach, subliminally voicing her opinion of who was preparing to climb on her back. I steadied the mare while he checked the girth and stirrups, gathered up the reins, and stood next to the horse with his knee bent, waiting for a leg-up.

  Damn. The guy weighed a good one-eighty, and—

  "Give me a leg-up, Cline."

  "I can't . . . sir."

  "What do you mean, you can't?"

  "I, eh . . . hurt my ribs," I said, trying to keep the distaste I felt for him from showing and conscious I wasn't succeeding.

  "You're stinking useless. Here." He jerked on the mare's mouth. "Hold her by the bleachers."

  Whitcombe stepped onto the plank. I held Bethany in position, put pressure on the stirrup so the saddle wouldn't slip, and wished he'd get on with it. The ribs were hurting more than I cared to admit. Whitcombe grunted as he hauled himself into the saddle. He swung his leg over the mare's back and almost kicked me in the face.

  I glared at him as I stepped back. He wisely didn't look at me, but busied himself with getting organized. He'd done it on purpose; although, to anyone watching, it would have looked like a careless accident.