Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) (11 page)

Gina led the horse back to the trailer and tied him up, then came walking back over to me, carrying her checkbook. I started to tell her the cost of the exam when motion in the comer of my eye caught at me. I looked back. The gray horse was trotting away from the trailer, ears forward, moving like he meant to go somewhere. There was no lead rope on his halter.

I didn't stop to wonder how he'd gotten loose. I just ran for the gate, knowing before I started that I wouldn't beat him. He was out in the paved front parking lot when I made the gate, and he broke into a lope and headed for the road. I yelled, "Whoa" desperately. He didn't even cock an ear. The heavy midday traffic whizzed up and down Soquel Avenue and the gray horse charged out into it.

Miraculously no one was coming. There was no screech, no crash. The horse galloped down the middle of the street, headed for the freeway, his hooves clattering on the pavement. I chased after him, running as fast· as I could, not quite believing it was all happening. This five-thousand dollar horse couldn't be out here among all these deadly solid cars. He couldn't.

He was. I had to catch him. He was way ahead of me now, up by the stoplight. No one had hit him yet, but it was just a matter of time. I ran, legs pumping, heart pounding.

People stared from their cars, faces full of shock and apprehension. No one in Santa Cruz was used to horses on a main street. Up at the intersection the cars had come to a stop. The horse skittered to a stop, too, his head up, his eyes big. Nothing looked familiar to him-no grass, no other horses. Only these shiny, noisy machines all around him. He didn't like it.

I was closer to him now. I slowed down, said, "Whoa" as firmly as I knew how. He looked at me; the whoa was familiar. A human on two legs, walking toward him with authority, that was familiar. He put his head down and walked to meet me, and I could have sworn there was relief in his eyes; I know there was plenty in mine.

Taking hold of his halter, I led him up on the sidewalk and started back for the office, waving a grateful hand at the cars. My heart was pounding as though it wanted to jump out of my chest.

A shaken Gina met me halfway back. Her face was pale and she had a hard time thanking me. It wasn't lack of gratitude; she was having a hard time talking. She clipped the lead rope back on the halter and we both stared at it.

"I don't know how it came off," she said.

I wondered if her anxiety level over Tony was so high she'd simply forgotten to clip the rope on correctly in the first place, then decided it didn't much matter at this point.

Back in the parking lot, I helped her load the horse and watched her pull out while my heart slowed down. Then I went in the office to check my schedule.

The first thing on the list made me say, "Uh-oh" out loud. It was a horse I'd seen earlier that week, a twenty-six-year-old horse that belonged to a woman who'd owned him since she was sixteen and he was seven. She'd turned him out to pasture with some friends who didn't know much about horses, and the old horse had gotten to be skin and bones without their realizing it. When his owner had gone to see him she'd been aghast and brought him home, but shortly after that he'd gotten a respiratory disease. I'd been to see him and given her the appropriate antibiotics and instructions, but it didn't look good, and I'd told her so. Old horses had a tendency to get pneumonia under those circumstances, and if they were as run-down as this one they tended to die of it.

I went on out and got in the truck, checking to make sure I had the necessary drugs to put the horse down. Giving a horse the green needle, as it had been called in vet school, always filled me with a mix of sadness and anger, even when it was obviously the only thing to do. I hated to lose a patient; it was both a personal defeat and a reinforcement of the underlying futility of my profession. It was my job to preserve life, and I always battled fiercely to do so, but neither I nor anyone else could succeed in an ultimate sense.

Teresa Kelly was waiting for me out at her barn, and I could tell by one look at her face that the news wasn't good. It was obvious she'd been crying. She had bright red hair and a round, chubby face with lots of freckles and she looked terrible, her skin dead white, with the freckles standing out like sores, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. I felt a rush of sympathy for her. I knew that I was going to feel pretty bad when Blue's time was up, or Gunner's.

Teresa shook her head when I got out of the truck. "He's a lot worse, Gail. I probably should have called you a couple of days ago, but I kept hoping he'd get better. I know what you're going to say when you see him."

I looked at her and looked down, wishing I could find the right thing to say. This type of situation was hard, and unfortunately common in the veterinary trade. I felt a lot of empathy with people when they were grief-stricken over their animals, but I also knew I couldn't let my emotions run away with me. If I took every animal I lost too deeply to heart, the job would rapidly become so stressful I wouldn't be able to do it.

"Let's go have a look at him," I told Teresa gently.

She led me to a clean stall at the back of the old shed that served as a barn. The horse was there, lying on his chest in a bed of crisp shavings. I could hear the labored wheeze of his breathing from the door.

I checked him over carefully as a matter of routine, but I knew what was wrong with him. He was painfully thin, his spine standing up in a row of sharp ridges, his hipbones and ribs jutting out. The old brown eyes under their sunken hollows looked at me calmly. This horse had seen enough to take anything in his stride.

I stood up and saw Teresa was crying. Shit. This was going to be difficult. "I'm sorry, Teresa." I tried to say it as kindly as I could. "He's got pneumonia and he looks like he's going downhill fast. I think the best thing to do is put him down."

She nodded, not speaking, and walked over to pet the horse. He pushed his face up against her and she rubbed his ears. It was clearly a routine they had.

Tears were running down her face, but when she spoke her voice was under control. "I just feel so bad, like it's my fault he got so thin and run-down and all. I meant to do him a favor, turning him out to pasture, and it's ended so badly." She looked at her horse while she talked, gently rubbing his ears. "I've had him a long time. He's always been a good horse."

The old horse bumped his head against her again and her voice caught in her throat. She gave him a final pat and stood up. "Okay, Gail, I know it's the right thing to do."

"It might be easier if you don't watch."

She looked at me and then at the horse and reached down to stroke his ears again. "All right," she said. "Will you pet him while you do it?"

"Yeah, I will."

She turned away, her face still wet with tears. I took the syringe out of my pocket, where I had put it earlier, just in case, and bent to the old horse to make the injection in his jugular vein. I rubbed his ears and spoke to him as Teresa had done and was relieved when he died easily, folding over on his side. The shot killed quickly, but some horses reacted more violently in the first instant of its effect than others. I'd seen one flip over backward.

When I walked out of the shed, Teresa was waiting for me, her face more composed. She gave me a questioning look and I said, "He died real peacefully."

She nodded in relief and, obviously making an effort to change the subject, said, "I heard you found Ed and Cindy Whitney, Gail. That must have been hard on you."

"It was pretty bad."

Teresa went on talking as we walked out to my truck. "My husband's a deputy sheriff and he says they're getting ready to arrest one of those street people. I guess they found him at the house and he ran away."

I shook my head with a sense of shock. That would be the Walker. "What do they have on him?" I asked her.

"Mike said he's been arrested for assaulting people. He hasn't got an alibi and I guess they think he had some kind of obsession about Cindy. Anyway, his fingerprints were in the kitchen."

"Was he supposed to have a gun?"

Teresa shrugged. "I don't know. But Mike said there were half a dozen guns hidden in that house. A gun in every drawer, he said. I guess the guy must have picked one up." She sighed. "This has been a bad week. First hearing about Cindy and now poor old Toby."

"Did you know Cindy well?"

She shook her head. "No. She was friendly, though. I saw her at a couple of horse shows. It just seems so terrible." Teresa's eyes were filling. "Thanks, Gail," she whispered.

I knew it was time for me to leave. She probably wanted to be alone to cry. Stifling my desire to ask her more questions about the Whitneys' murder, I got in my truck.

"Okay, Teresa. I'm sorry about Toby," I added awkwardly.

She gave me a faint smile. "Thanks. I know it was the only thing to do."

I could see her walking back to the barn in my rearview mirror. Her head was bent forward. Poor Teresa. I felt bad for her and a little bit bad for myself. Situations like this were the hardest part of being a vet.

NINE

I spent the rest of the day looking at horses. A mare with a messy uterine infection turned out to be a smelly job that took me an hour. Next I stitched up a stallion that had climbed on top of a pipe corral fence in an overeager attempt to get to a mare in heat. He had a gaping hole in one side that looked worse than it was. I stitched it up neatly, put a drain in it, and told the man who owned him that he'd be as good as new in a couple of weeks.

After that I saw three horses that were lame for various reasons, none of them serious, and one mild colic case. I didn't get home until 5:30 and I was due to meet Lonny at 6:00. The sun was low in the western sky, and the evening fog put a cold edge in the air as I pulled into my driveway. There was a car parked there. Not Bret's old red pickup, but a little white convertible Volkswagen Bug. I recognized the car.

The girl who went with the car was sitting on my porch, obviously waiting. Her name was Lynnie. I had met her at one of Cindy Whitney's parties, and she had a barrel racing horse named Tucker that I treated occasionally. Bret had dated her some last winter. All in all, I'd spent enough time around Lynnie to know I didn't care if I ever spent any more. I didn't dislike her exactly, but she was a type I tended to avoid. Lynnie was a pretty girl; that was her definition and her whole intent in life. In her twenties, with wildly kinked hair, tanned skin, and huge brown eyes, she had a face that was usually animated, with lots of sparkle in the eyes and a big smile. The only trouble, I discovered, was that all that sparkle wasn't wit or intelligence or even charm, but just a kind of forced gaiety, a routine she'd learned the way she'd learned to do her hair and put on her makeup.

She smiled at me now, but the smile was automatic. I didn't think Lynnie liked me any better than I liked her. I wasn't her type, though I doubt she would have put it that way. She would probably have said that I wasn't any fun.

"Hi, Gail." I detected a lack of interest in her greeting and wondered again what she was here for. She didn't leave me waiting. "Where's Bret?”

Ah hah. Somehow or other, Lynnie had discovered Bret was back in town and staying with me. I didn't bother to ask how. Lynnie probably had her ways.

"I don't know where he is," I answered truthfully.

Lynnie gave me a suspicious look, but I didn't volunteer any more information. Not just because I didn't have it but also because I made it a rule never to interfere with Bret and his women.

Lynnie's look changed from suspicious to curious. "I read in the papers that you found Ed and Cindy Whitney. Do you think it was a hit?"

"Coke." Lynnie was looking at me as if I had just fallen off the turnip truck, but I didn't really care. A light was beginning to dawn somewhere inside my brain. Ed had offered me some cocaine once, when I was over at their house for a party; I'd declined and thought no more of it. It had seemed all of a piece with the fancy car and sophisticated, rich playboy attitude he put on. It had never occurred to me that he sold it on a regular basis.

"I didn't know he sold it," I said slowly. "I don't buy it."

"Well, he did. He always had lots of it, and it was always good stuff, too. That's why I thought maybe it was a hit. Everybody says the Mafia's behind all the drugs." She got up off my porch in a graceful tangle of long tanned legs. "Tell Bret I came by, will you?"

"Sure. You want him to call you?"

She was already turning away. One shoulder flipped casually. "Whatever."

She got in her car and the white Bug made a U-turn in my driveway, spraying a little gravel in my direction. I saw her license plate zipping away from me-FOXI LYN. I grimaced; I'd always hated that license plate.

Blue was still in the truck and he yipped pointedly at me now. I let him out, and he shuffled toward the stairs, telling me by his demeanor that he was ready to water some trees. I waited for him, hunching my shoulders against the chill of the fog and thinking hard.

What Lynnie had said about Ed surprised me, even shocked me. It seemed unbelievable, given the Whitneys' young and rich high-society image, but why would Lynnie bother to lie? I wondered if the sheriff's department had heard about this. If Ed had been a drug dealer, it might well be something to do with drugs that had caused these murders.

If I could stumble over this, the cops would too, I told myself. After all, I wasn't Sherlock Holmes or anything.

Blue looked at me and then into the trees and growled, as though at an intruder. I looked where he was staring and couldn't see anything. Gnats played in a single remaining beam of sunlight; squirrels chattered in the redwood trees, squawking like birds. The breeze stirred the branches along the creek, a cold, foggy breath. I listened; the dog listened. Nothing. You're getting nervous, I told myself.