Hot Blooded Murder (8 page)

“I want to go back there tonight. Check things out.”

She finished drinking and looked agreeable. A person would have scolded me, and said something like,
Bryn! You can’t go! There’s a vicious killer wandering around St. Tremaine Parish.

But Lu only heard the word ‘go’ and she was ready.

“I may not take you.” Her tail wagged but disconsolately. She’d caught my tone. I frowned at her again. Someday, I might be able to afford Botox, and stop aging myself this way, but for now I frowned and created permanent wrinkle damage to my forehead.

“You don’t think the horse did it?”

Lu sat. Apparently I was going to run on.

“I have to prove he is innocent fast or he’ll get a lethal injection. I’ll go back over there later tonight, Lulu.”

Her tag wagged harder. She’d heard the magic word ‘go’ again. And I would, but not just yet.

Chapter Eight

“What’s the horsey grapevine say about Cade Pritchard and Marcie?” I was at Lila’s diner now and sitting across from my buddy, Arthur the farrier. I’d just arrived from a visit to the
Times Picayune
newspaper where Serge, in archives, had pulled newspaper articles about the death of Aimée Pritchard for me. No time to read them yet.

Arthur pushed his empty plate away. He was six-four and built like a greyhound. His face bore the gaunt asceticism of a benign mediaeval monk but he wore his black and gray-streaked hair pulled back into a foot-long ponytail. He wiped the crumbs of his oyster po-boy from his lips and smiled–lighting up his gray eyes. His hand was long-fingered, aristocratic, and attached to a slender forearm hard as the steel of his anvil. I once saw Arthur lift a half-ton horse off the ground for a split second. After that, the horse behaved for its hoof trimming.

“All I ever heard,” he said, “was Pritchard moved to New Orleans right after he sold the farm to Marcie. Took the one and a half mil insurance money with him. Was often seen–and still is, I understand–flashing the bucks around at the Fairgrounds, betting big on the ponies. Sometimes has an African-American woman with him. But the lady’s nowhere near Aimée’s class. And as for Miss Marcie? Well, besides not paying the feed bills or myself–her faithful farrier–she was apparently going through a divorce.”

“I know about the divorce situation. Divorces lose more farms and break up more breeding operations than anything on earth.” I contemplated my empty coffee cup. “Such a shame!” Then I grinned big at him. Arthur had an aura. It was well known lots of horsey ladies had the hots for him.

“How’s your wife?”

He beamed. “She is just wonderful. As ever.” Gotta love Arthur.

“Glad to hear it. Tell her hi from me.”

“Will do.” He signaled Lila. “‘Nother coffee, here?” Lila waved to a girl behind the counter, who rushed over with a coffee pot.

When she left I said, “At any rate, I did acquire some documents regarding all this stuff this morning. What Marcie was going through was not a divorce, but a property settlement with her husband. They never got the divorce.”

Arthur’s eyes widened. “You don’t say.”

“I do.”

“Well, that’s weird. I thought she told me they were divorcing. Marcie and I were friends, you know.”

“They may have been moving toward the divorce, but it never happened, at least it never showed up in Leteesha’s office. Nevertheless, she was desperately trying to sell that farm.”

Arthur drank, set his cup back down. “I met the buyers.”

My eyebrows intruded upon my forehead and again, created many furrows. “You did.”
Wow
. The tidbits that could be gleaned from innocent conversation! “Can you share?”

“Nothing to it. I was out there. They showed up to view the farm. Marcie shoved a video camera into my paws and said shoot the farm for me then she whispered: ‘I want them looking at it all night long in their cramped home in the city.’” He drank some coffee. “So I shot the farm. They were in the tape of course.”

“What were they like?”

“Weird. Tiny little woman. Seemed absolutely dominated by a lout of a husband. She loved the foals. They were snooty to me. Treated me like a serf.”

“That must have felt good.”

“It happens. People can’t decide how to categorize a farrier. We do magical things that help make their horses winners, yet it seems as though they could also ask us to clean a stall.”

“Never, Arthur!”

“Well, that’s because you, Bryn Wiley, get it and properly appreciate a farrier!” We grinned.

I did get it. He did something to one hind foot of Amethyst’s that changed the horse’s trot from constipated to gorgeous. Farriers could be gifted people.

“I knew there was trouble when I visited her last February,” I said.

“While you were there, you ever find out why Marcie was losing her farm?” asked Arthur.

“She was drinking too much champagne over a foal’s birth. Then she crumpled into the straw like a frumpy doll. I got her up and dragged her onto a leather sofa I found in her tack room. Some tack room, though. Only one word for it. Opulent. I guessed she’d be embarrassed to come to and find me hovering. So I left.”

He said, “So you never found out.”

“Nope. The quest continues, Arthur. But now, I have to go feed Am. I may also stop by the pound and visit Marcie’s accused stallion.”

Arthur blurted, “No way did that horse hurt Marcie!”

“I believe you and you would know. You shod him all the time.”

“Right. He had an exceptional temperament, Bryn.”

“That’s my thinking, too, Arthur.” I sighed. I was tired. “It’s been a long day. Good seeing you.” I was also getting hungry and if I stayed one more second in Lila’s I’d be ordering a deep-fried catfish po-boy and that would not delete the ten pounds. I stood and picked up the check. Arthur made a swipe for it.

“Nope. On me. You’ve given me some interesting information. Thanks, Arthur.”

But Arthur wasn’t moving. He fiddled with his coffee cup. I slid back into the booth and waited. “There is something else,” he said. “I feel strangely reluctant to reveal it, Bryn, somehow it seems wrong to make Marcie look even worse after she’s just–” His eyes met mine. “She called me late, day before yesterday. Guess now it was the evening before the night she was killed. Weeping, hard. The Takeurs had backed out on the deal. He said he’d lost his job. She didn’t believe him, but no matter. He wouldn’t be buying the farm.”

I stared, intent.

“She was crying so hard it was difficult to understand her, but I think she said she was just going to have to give the farm back to Pritchard. Just give it away. He wouldn’t cut her any more slack.”

“Just give it away? That bastard!”

“Maybe I misunderstood her. She was going on about foreclosure being inevitable and the only honorable thing for her to do now was just sign the place over to him. She said that then hung up on me. I couldn’t believe it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars lost! I didn’t know what to do. And like a fool I didn’t go over there. Me, over at her place comforting her–you know how people talk around here–”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Arthur. You had no way of knowing she’d be killed. No way.”

“I know it. But I feel damn guilty all the same.”

“Quit! You’ve been a big help right now. Someone misled Marcie big-time. Did Pritchard get his place back–and a pure profit for him?”

“I dunno. You think he killed her?”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But not if she just gave the farm away to him. No motive there. But someone’s up to something.”

His cell started to ring. “That’s the wife. Promised her I’d be home early tonight. Call me you need anything, Bryn.”

“I will. Thanks.”

He waved as he left. Outside he put a cell phone to his ear. I watched him get into his big truck and reverse it, and I saw the portable forge he used to custom-make horseshoes sitting in the truck bed. A frisson of foreboding; tiny hairs shivered at the nape of my neck. Even though Arthur was a friend and seemed to be Marcie’s friend, at this point I had to see everyone as a suspect. And his wife was a jealous woman…

I paid an unusually quiet Lila, then I left too.

Chapter Nine

With the rush of feeding myself another Lean Cuisine, the horse sweet feed and the dog dry kibble, I didn’t make it to the pound. Instead, I took an unplanned crash on my loveseat. Then I got up and got driving.

A milk-white moon hung over Marcie’s farm like the eye of a blind Cyclops. I parked my Tempo just past the cemetery, opposite the Word of God Church. Wild magnolia and hickory trees cast tall deep shadows over all. No one would see my dark green car from the church, house or barn. Or me. I’d dressed in black jeans and t-shirt. I threaded my way fairly silently through the trees but I couldn’t avoid the odd step on a branch, which cracked like a gunshot to my ears. The third time I did this I gasped, jumped again and felt something claw at my hips. I went rigid. Like a flopping fish, my heart pounded all the way up to my throat. I stared at the moon, took an edited breath–shallow, so no one would hear. My heart thumped back down to my chest. My eyes adjusted. I saw I was at the edge of the cemetery, still shrouded by trees. Patting down my torso, I felt barbwire snagged at the front of my jeans. The claws. Boneless with relief, I pulled free, bent and got through the fence. I made my way between granite tombstones reminiscent of the surly statuary of Easter Island.

I placed a hand on one of the granite gods. Immediately I felt a sense of doom. Doomed Marcie, doomed Once, even doomed dog–I snatched my hand from the stone, hitched up my jeans.
Doomed me?
What the hell was I doing in a cemetery at two o’clock in the morning, near where a brutal murder had just been perpetrated? I felt like the idiot in the movies who, despite the audience’s internal plea: ‘Don’t open that door,
don’t open that door
–opens the damn door!
I was that idiot!
I felt dizzy with fear. But if I didn’t find the killer soon, Once would strike out forever. My commitment strengthened, even though my trepidation refused to lessen. I crouched and darted through the stones, over the graves, thinking,
there are dead bodies under my feet! Excuse me, excuse me!
Now I was at Marcie’s wood fence and immediately a horse betrayed me by whinnying. Any horse person lurking about the property would suspect something was up. To worsen it, from the distance, the stabled horses answered. Loudly.

Was the original whinny-er that pregnant mare I met this afternoon? The landscape of undulating pasture was mouse-gray under the cataract moon. I moved forward. I saw a huge belly slung beneath four legs. The pregnant mare watched my approach with interest.
Do I just look like someone who packs carrots?
The mare stepped closer. My legs shushed through the foot-high grass. Insects leaped and hopped. I remembered this horse had been on another pasture on the far side of the house earlier.
Who’d moved her? Why?
I reached into my fanny pack, found an end of a carrot, grubby and soft. I held it out and the mare stuck out her head, sniffed, and her big lips snuffled gently round my fingers, moved to my hand. Her teeth removed the carrot from my palm with precision, my fingers unharmed.

“Good for you, old mare,” I whispered. “Now you can help me.” I put a hand on her nose and one on her shoulder. Keeping my head below the mare’s neckline, I turned her and started her walking toward the barn. Someone would have to be vigilantly attentive to notice a woman shielded by the horse. In this method, I reached the far fence and the drive. I let go of the mare, dropped, and slid under the bottom rail. With a soft crunch, my foot touched gravel. I stopped. Anyone hear? Smiled.
Anyone here?
It was, I grinned wider, deathly still. But even my own joke scared me so I sprinted across the crusty drive, through the dangerous circle of light cast by a tall yard light, toward the open barn doors: the gaping throat of a black hell. Silently, I plastered my body up against the side of the barn like someone in a suspense movie. I gasped for breath, winded more from fear than effort. I eased away from the barn wall and saw yellow police ribbon stretched across the entrance.
MacWain gettin’ fancy!
I stepped toward it when something white exploded, leaping straight at me. I shrieked and stepped back as a body brushed mine, then dropped to the ground in front of me. My arms flew up. White fangs were mere inches from my belt buckle. Snarls and growls and wild barking kept me standing respectfully still. In the moonlight, I saw the attack was from the lost dog, Domino, Marcie’s Dalmatian. I sagged in relief–but held my feet still.

“Domino. Good boy. It’s me, Bryn Wiley…remember me? Good boy.”

As he snarled, the dog’s tail slowly started to wag. I kept talking to him. “Hush, Domino. It’s okay now.” He settled, sat, and tilted his head at me.

“What a good boy,” I exhaled. Maybe he remembered me from my February visit.

His fierce look became yearning. He lowered his head and his body quivered with wagging.

“Poor doggie.” I knelt and let him sniff my knuckles. He licked my hand. I stroked his neck and shoulder. No collar. In February I recalled, he’d been wearing a red one that jingled with tags. I stood, and felt glad of the dog’s company. Since no human had bushwhacked me from the shadowy barn mouth, perhaps I was here alone.

I whispered, “Domino. Where have you been?” Had he escaped from somewhere? Had the murderer taken him? Or perhaps the dog had just been out chasing possums for a couple of days. Heaven knows St. Tremaine Parish abounded with them. His sucked-up flanks, though, told me if he’d been hunting, he was unsuccessful. I patted my thigh and Domino came to heel. I entered the blacked-out barn.

Horses shuffled in their stalls but there was none of the deprived outcry of yesterday. Teddy, I knew, had been assigned by the sheriff to feed.