by Ann Self
“Yes, she did. She said...that if they were too impatient to wait for the magically transformed Lucinda, then they could take their chances with a reprobate like me. But she wasn’t to be held responsible.”
“Ha!” Dylan spat contemptuously.
Sam said: “That, I’m sure is Elliot’s doing. Trying to keep the boarders happy so they won’t all go stampeding out of here. I don’t think people are buying the new Lucinda scenario, no matter how hard the Whitbecks are trying to force-feed it. Gladys is not aware, though, that Elliot just sold General to the Bergstroms for a pretty hefty sum, and they would probably be delighted to have you keep training him.”
Jane sat up alertly. “He sold General to Richard and Margie?!” The Bergstroms maintained their own grooms and trailering equipment, and frequently hauled their twin daughters all over New England for shows.
This could be good, she thought.
“Yes,” Sam said, “they thought General would be a good learner horse for their girls, before they invest in something outrageous. I didn’t want to tell you, but now it could actually work out for the better.”
“You think they’d want me to show General?”
“Definitely. They love you. And their daughters are what, ten? And neither one of them is out of training level…”
Later that Friday afternoon, Jane felt like humming “I’m back in the saddle again” as she piloted General around the ring in a beautiful glide over the new high-tech footing. The family Bergstrom was grouped at the rail, laughing and clapping encouragingly as their freshly purchased horse came to sparkling life in Jane’s hands. They were excited about having Jane accompany them to the weekend horseshow—and maybe all their shows for that matter. They had no interest in the endless carping that Gladys, Lucinda and Ashley had been bending their ear with, the moment they discovered the family’s plan to team up with a rejected employee. The Bergstroms only cared about results. Blue ribbon results. They could see for themselves that Jane had the magic touch, and their daughters loved her.
Now that she was a free agent, the family was seriously considering hiring Jane as a personal, private trainer and coach for their daughters and the new horse; and willing to help promote her career as well as their own off-spring. People like the Bergstroms didn’t grow on trees and Jane knew a golden opportunity had fallen in her lap. Life goes on, she told herself. When one door closes, another, better door opens. Things would work out and she would show this weekend after all. Jane had eschewed the sling for the afternoon anyway, and taken enough ibuprofen to make the pain dull and bearable for a limited amount of time.
She stayed in this happy upbeat frame of mind right up until the moment she drove back to the barn after picking up a take-out lunch, and found General lying on his side under a shade tree near the barn with a small crowd standing over him.
“On no!” Jane screamed, jumping from her car and running to the side of the prone horse. He lay flat on the grass, with his black shiny tail fanned out behind him. His sides were heaving in desperate panting, and his hide was very dry. She fell to her knees next to the horse, while Joe Chapel—Bill Welsh’s replacement—listened to the heart, lungs and belly with a stethoscope. Sam and Dylan kneeled next to Jane, while the older knees of Lars and Reggie remained standing.
Margie Bergstrom and her red-haired twins stood nearby, clutching each other in shock, and looking at Jane as if she were a calamity magnet. Ashley Parker stood next to them, shaking her head and flapping her jaw. She was right on the spot with an I-told-you-so; her face an ugly frown as she carefully explained the dangers of casting your lot with a born loser.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jane demanded of the vet, gently stroking the horse’s neck.
“We don’t know,” Chapel answered. He was young and smooth faced, and dressed simply in jeans and a plaid shirt. Because he looked even younger than he was, people were often slow to realize he had as much knowledge and skill as if he were grizzled-face and stooped with age. Chapel glanced up with a stern look, taking note of the sling on Jane’s arm. His expression spoke volumes about Springhill being a highly suspect operation.
Ashley marched over with her arms crossed and stood hovering over Jane. “What in God’s name have you done to that horse?” she demanded.
Jane ignored her as she smoothed General’s forelock away from his glassy brown eye. Tears ran down her cheeks and dripped onto the horse.
Sam snapped his head up. “Jane hasn’t done anything, Ashley—she wasn’t even here when he got sick, so just cool your jets. Back up and give the horse some air.”
“Well...well, it’s no wonder she was fired!” she shot back, unwilling to give up her rant. She stomped back to the Bergstrom group with her nose in the air. Sam shook his head and rolled his eyes and the vet hung another rueful look on Jane. Jane felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment.
Sam put a soothing hand on the miserable horse and spoke to her: “I found him in his stall acting really distressed so I took him outside to walk him around and he just started to go down. It was all I could do to coax him into the shade before he collapsed.”
Chapel pulled the stethoscope out of his ears and let it drop around his neck, rocking back on his heels. The sweat was beading on his forehead, and his shirt was starting to stick to his back. “It resembles colic,” he said, deep in thought, “but his intestines sound okay, and there’s no pain or distention. Got to be something that’s related to this outrageous heat.”
Sam ran a hand over the horse’s neck. “He feels clammy. That can’t be good.”
Chapel agreed. “I’m concerned that the sweat is so dry. He should be perspiring more freely. It may sound simple minded—but I suppose you do keep them adequately watered?”
Sam took no offense. “Dylan goes down the aisles every couple of hours with the hose to keep the buckets topped off in this heat, in the older sections that don’t have an automatic watering system.”
“He was stabled in one of the older sections?” The vet questioned.
“Right. The north wing. Dylan’s been filling his bucket.”
“Let’s get some water to him anyway, inside and out,” Chapel ordered, and Dylan quickly produced two buckets and filled them with a hose. He took one bucket and began sponging the horse down with cool water.
“Is the hay okay?” Chapel asked Sam.
“Same hay every other horse ate,” he answered. “No mold, nothing likely to cause this.”
They helped the horse get his head up over the second bucket, and after a few feeble whiffles with his muzzle, General began to drink in great slurping gulps.
“Why is he so thirsty?” Jane asked.
“He shouldn’t be this thirsty,” Sam answered her.
Dylan was still wiping General’s dry, hot hide with a large sponge and liberal amounts of water. “I watered him myself all day,” he said. “Kept his bucket full. In fact, his didn’t even go down as much as the others.”
Jane and Sam exchanged glances, suspicion creeping into their thoughts. The horse finished his gulping, and then sighed and lay back to relax in the cool grass as Dylan gently sponged around his face. General’s lips quivered in appreciation and his panting was already slowing. Jane stroked his nose and wiped away tears with her arm. A glassy brown eye focused on her.
Sam stood up abruptly and pried Jane away from General and insisted she come with him to investigate the stall. The Bergstroms and Ashley watched them with suspicious eyes.
“It’s still too dark in here,” Sam said, examining the 12 X 14 foot box stall. “We never got around to replacing that bulb that Westerlund took away. I’m getting a ladder and a bulb so we can see better...” He left, and Jane poked around the stall, stepping gingerly through shavings, being careful to miss any leftover buns. Everything looked perfectly normal: wood planked walls, iron bars, wooden hay rack in the back corner; nothing out of the ordinary.
She glanced in the red water bucket hanging on a metal hook and snap in the f
ront corner. Full to the brim with clear water. She leaned over it, dipped her hand in and sniffed, but there was no chemical smell, or foul odor. She took a handful of hay out of the hay rack and put it up to her nose. Fresh and sweet.
“The answer is in here somewhere...” She spoke to herself while absently rubbing her shoulder that was again clanging like a fire alarm.
She turned slowly...looking up, looking down.
Sam entered the stall and propped up a tall stepladder in the shavings. He climbed almost to the top and screwed a new high-watt bulb to the hanging cord. “I found where Pooh Bah hid the 100-watt bulbs,” he said. “I’m going to replace every one I can—hope his electricity bill doubles.”
“It probably will,” Jane answered as she continued scanning the stall in the brighter light: hay rack, boards, water bucket, salt lick bracket...
Salt lick...?
The salt lick is gone...
“Salt lick!” Jane yelled. Her eyes were glued on a small bracket that was bolted into the wall at shoulder height.
“What..?” Sam asked, backing down the ladder.
“Sam! The block of salt is gone!”
“Huh!” He folded the step ladder and leaned it in the doorway.
“Where is General’s salt lick?” she demanded.
Sam looked at the bracket that normally held a red block of salt. “A red salt block!” he exclaimed, and they both ran to the water bucket on the opposite corner of the stall. Sure enough, staring straight down in the better light, they could see the faint outlines of a chunk of red salt submerged in the red bucket.
“Goddamnit!” Sam muttered, as he hauled the bucket off the hook.
“That’d do it,” Chapel said, as he reached into the water bucket and scooped out the slowly dissolving chunk of salt from the bottom. “In this heat, he’d keep trying to drink the water, and the high salt content combined with the lack of uncontaminated water has put his kidneys in great distress and raised his internal temperature.”
“How in hell would a salt lick get in his bucket?” Reggie demanded. “The bracket isn’t even near it!”
“Unless he picked it up in his teeth and tossed it in, I’d say it was impossible,” Sam said.
The vet rummaged around in his bag. “He seems to be recovering rapidly, and now I know what to treat him for I think he’ll be okay. Hopefully there’s no damage to the kidneys. Coupla days and he should be almost normal.”
“That should take us right past this weekend’s show,” Lars spoke, thinking out loud.
Jane sat back in the grass with her hand covering her mouth, her shoulder throbbing in tune with the anxiety. She gasped in a small voice: “Sam, who is doing this?”
“Someone who is absolutely determined that you won’t show,” he answered.
Chapel looked at them warily, and then concentrated on Jane. He wondered what in God’s name was going on with that woman and with Springhill Estate—it certainly was in the throes of some kind of jinx. He speculated that she might be a disgruntled employee, maybe causing these “accidents” herself. If that were true, the woman would now be a pariah to every barn on the east coast.
The vet sighed as he stood up to stretch his legs. He saw nothing but fear and tension in every face; it was as bad as people had warned him. He had volunteered for this, when no one else wanted to come, and he’d laughed off their fears. But not anymore. Something bad was going on there—something way out of the ordinary; and he was beginning to believe that carelessness had nothing to do with what happened to Bill Welch. He was suddenly wishing himself far away from Springhill Estate, he had no desire to join Bill Welch in the graveyard.
TEN
“So, how’s the Carolina project coming along?” Evan Canaday asked as he climbed into his son’s ice cool Mercedes on a hot Monday morning. The heat wave was continuing unabated. Evan was wearing a blue and white pinstripe shirt with a crisp stand-up collar, and his silvery-snow hair vibrated against the tan of his skin.
Brian squinted into the sun and roared away in the black SUV, heading for a meeting with Elliot Whitbeck. “Running smooth,” he answered his father. “The permits are all in place and they’re ready to break ground—but I’m afraid half my mind was on the problems back here. I wish I knew what in hell was going on with Whitbeck and that barn.”
“You mean the ghastly accident with the veterinarian?”
“No accident. My investigator tells me it was definitely a homicide.”
“A homicide! The vet really was murdered? The papers just said it was suspicious circumstances and under investigation.” Evan reached for his seatbelt and zipped it across his chest. “No wonder you didn’t want Olivia out of my sight.” With a sturdy clack, he fastened himself into the molded leather seat. “Well, I can see why Elliot Whitbeck is giving you cause to worry.”
“It’s not just about a death on the estate,” Brian explained. “There’s a lot of other disturbing signs about his corporation. A lot of flags going up that have me alarmed to the point of having a couple of investigators sniffing around, including a special financial team—something I probably should’ve done in the first place. I just hate to start a business deal by setting the dogs on the other guy. At face-value, Elliot looks pretty sterling.”
“Doesn’t he though,” his father agreed.
Brian zoomed up the highway on-ramp, and looked over at him. “The initial reports from these people are not good...that’s why I wanted you in on this meeting, to get your take on the situation. See how Elliot strikes your wise old head.”
“Ha! If Elliot’s a phony, he fooled me too…and I should know better at my advanced age.”
Brian tossed a grin at his father, and they rode some distance in silence, listening only to the purr of the Mercedes and the AC fan. After awhile Evan shifted in his seat, adjusted the belt and broached the subject of Jane.
“Olivia’s riding instructor is a very pretty girl, very personable,” he offered. “We spent a wonderful afternoon there with her. Olivia talks about nothing else than Jane Husted and her horses.” Evan flicked a glance at his son.
“I know.” Brian’s expression turned closed and tight. “There’s just something very secretive about her—something going on with her also...” Brian watched the highway hypnotically. It was loaded with images of Jane and her outlandish car. “She reminds me of someone I’ve met before, but I can’t quite put a finger on it.”
“Really? Nothing familiar about her to me.” Evan sighed and cleared his throat. “She did seem to have something behind the eyes though...a slightly haunted look, in spite of the cheerfulness,” he admitted.
“That whole damn place is slightly off-kilter. Something doesn’t ring true with Whitbeck Development and Springhill Estate.”
“Are the investigators checking the girl out too?”
Brian looked uncomfortable. “Low key, just a little fact-finding—it might be tied in to the whole Whitbeck deal. One of them’s supposed to call me today. I’m sure I know her from somewhere, and it’s keeping me awake at night.”
“Yes...” Evan chuckled, “she does look like someone who would keep a person awake at night.”
Brian sighed exasperatedly, and his father held up his hands in defense. “Okay, okay. I can see it’s no time for joking.” Evan relaxed back in his seat. “Fill me in on what your investigators have dug up on Elliot...”
Sam passed Jane as she was walking through the north wing towards the office, and stopped her. “Watch yerself. Big pow-wow going on up there,” he announced.
“What?” Jane stopped in mid stride, adjusting the strap on her sling. She wore it only occasionally now, to relieve her shoulder.
“Canaday Senior and Son are having Elliot on the carpet in his own office,” Sam informed her.
“Ooookay...” Jane had been on her way to the office to ask for a letter of recommendation, despite Gladys’s disparaging remarks; but now she turned on her boot heel and reversed direction, following in step with Sam. S
o much, she thought, for a chance at a little air conditioning. Elliot’s office was the only cool place in the barn. “I don’t need to overhear any more office meetings,” she grumbled to Sam.
“I don’t think they’re talking about you. Sounded to me like Elliot’s on the hot seat for some reason—from what I heard before the door was slammed.”
“Boy, that’s a switch. I thought the hot seat was reserved for everyone but him.”
“Something’s going on—they’re really grilling him. I wish I was a fly on the wall in there.” Sam suddenly rushed off, as if he’d thought of an important errand.
“Bye now,” Jane said facetiously. She decided to grab some hay for General. She found a full bale in the corridor and cut it open, separating the neatly packed squares with her good hand and selecting one for the horse. When Jane walked out the end of the west wing, she spied Sam sitting in his newly acquired Ford pickup parked in the stableyard, an F350 Super Duty with a crew cab, it’s shiny red paint frying in the sun. The truck was idling and the driver’s door was wide open, with one leg and cowboy boot dangling out. Sam was leaning forward in the cab, intent on something on the dashboard.
“Couldn’t wait to play with his new toy,” she muttered to herself as she turned in the opposite direction, down the drive towards General’s paddock near the front parking lot. She preferred to take the driveway, instead of walking down the north wing and risk getting near the conference going full tilt in the front office. From Sam’s description of the meeting, she figured it would probably be a long, drawn out confab. These things usually were.
Liquid heat shimmered on the pavement as she walked, making her sweat in her baseball cap and sling. She removed the cap and tucked the bill into her back pocket. Her hair was slicked back into a fat braid that trailed down her back. A weak breeze tickled her scalp and touched her flushed cheeks as she trudged along with the packet of hay.
When the meeting with Elliot at his barn office was suddenly concluded, Brian and his father were far from reassured as they climbed back into the Mercedes. In fact, they were now even more convinced that their private investigator was right when he said Elliot showed all the signs of a man cannibalizing his business—feeding on himself. Elliot’s answers to their questions were evasive and slick, and while Elliot’s own opinion was that he fielded the questions expertly, his explanations made the Canadays more wary than ever.
