11

By six o’clock, the pounding in Susan’s head and the crackling in her ears had reached a point where she wanted to bang her head against the wall or soak it in a bucket of water. She shut down her computer and navigated the hallway, tacked a hard right and went into George Halpern’s office.

When she came in, he dropped his pen on the desk and rose to his feet. Gray hair circled a tonsurelike bald spot, pale blue eyes, kind, sympathetic, always ready to help anyone in need. Even thirty-some years in law enforcement didn’t shake his faith in the innate goodness of humankind. She’d lost that faith the second day on the job, when she arrested a woman who set her baby in the sink and poured boiling water over him.

“How’s Tim?”

“Serious condition. Burns over thirty percent of his body.” Susan lowered herself to a chair so he could sit back down.

“Poor boy.” George shook his head.

George had grown up in Hampstead, lived here all his life and knew everything about everybody. Whenever she wanted information about a local, he was better than the computer for facts, gossip, and rumor. “You know anything about an outfit calling itself Leading the Way? Miniature horses to lead the blind.”

He smiled. “I believe we call that ‘vision-impaired.’” He leaned back in his chair and tented his fingertips over a flat stomach. “Veronica Wells. Parents were farmers here for years, then like so many others, they couldn’t make it. Her father recently died and her mother went to live with her sister in Colorado. Ronny just moved back, bringing those horses. Always was a horse woman. Competition riding as a kid. Blue ribbons for cutting and roping, even jumping.”

Opening her mouth slightly, Susan moved her jaw back and forth to make her ears pop, hoping she could hear better. It didn’t help.

“Ronny always had horses, probably loves those four-legged beasts better than people. I went to see her when she got back, extend a welcome. We’ve been friends forever, since high school, me and my wife and Ronny and her husband.”

“Horses to lead the blind,” Susan said. The thing about George was, sometimes you got more information than you needed.

“Ronny told me the first mini was a gift. A friend gave it to her for her birthday. Then she thought the little guy needed a companion so she got a second one. And one thing led to another. The idea about a guide horse came when one mini paired up with a blind horse she owned and led the blind one around. Why are you asking?”

“Just checking that she’s not running some kind of con game.”

He shook his head. “Not Ronny. She’s got a business going.”

Because George thought most people were—deep down—good, Susan took that with a grain of skepticism and got directions to the Wells place. Letting Hazel know where she was headed, she went to the parking lot. The sun had bleached much of the blue from the sky, leaving it the color of dirty muslin. Heat from the pavement seeped up through her shoes.

Windows lowered, air-conditioning on, she waited the required minute or two for cool air to kick in. Directions on the passenger seat, she headed east of town, took a county road for a mile and a half, turned right at the crossroads and continued another mile, past pasture land, horses in some, cows in others. All very bucolic. When she came to the gate with an arched sign, LEADING THE WAY, she turned in.

After going up one hill and down another, she arrived at an old farmhouse recently painted white with deep blue shutters. The barn, red with white trim, sat behind. She pulled up near a corral where small horses walked around in a circle. A woman calling out commands noticed her, handed over a long whip to an assistant, and ducked under the rails. Susan climbed from the pickup. Heat slapped her in the face.

“Ronny Wells,” the woman said. “I figured you’d be out sooner or later.” Salt-and-pepper hair, tall and slender, wearing well-washed jeans and white T-shirt with sweat stains down the back and under the arms. “Let me show you around.”

In the barn, a tiny horse stuck its nose over the stall door and whickered softly. Ronny opened the door and the horse trotted out, nuzzled Ronny’s pockets. Ronny produced a carrot.

“This is Ginger,” she said. “The one we took to the restaurant Tuesday evening. She’s the smartest one we’ve ever had.”

Ronny rubbed Ginger’s neck. “This little girl is special, but she’s very sensitive. She’ll need to be with someone gentle, soft-spoken. If she gets yelled at, or anyone says a harsh word to her, her feelings get hurt. She gets depressed and withdraws in a sad huddle. Then she has to be played with, jollied back to a good mood. We’re very serious about fitting the animal with the handler. Personalities are taken into account, as well as how their walk fits.”

Ronny gave the horse a final pat and took Susan around to the corral where an assistant was putting four small horses—not ponies—through their paces. “These four are beginners. They’re learning the basics.”

Susan rested a hand on the railing and watched. “And these animals are safe to lead the blind?”

“Under all kinds of conditions. Horses are very good at it because they have a three-hundred-and-fifty-degree range of vision. They can see traffic in a flash, for instance, and they always look for the safest, most direct route to get from point A to point B. And they have fantastic memories.”

“They can be housebroken?” Susan’s voice was heavy with skepticism.

Ronny smiled, apostle to the unbeliever. “If they need to go out, they tap a hoof by the door. They’re good for up to six hours.”

Back in the sunshine, Ronny focused on the horses in the corral. One decided it had enough of this walking around getting nowhere and broke ranks. A command from the trainer brought it back in line.

“You worried a guide horse might spook and take its handler into traffic or let him fall in a lake?” Ronny said.

Actually, Susan wasn’t. Mounted police have horses trained to be calm in all kinds of noisy, chaotic situations. Fireworks, gunfire, vehicles honking, motors revving, balloons bursting, umbrellas popping open in their faces. There is nothing like a thousand-pound animal backing into a person to keep him in place.

“These guys like people. They bond, horse and handler, just like a Seeing Eye dog does. We’re careful to make the right pairing.”

The sun was beginning to make Susan feel a bit light-headed. “They live in the house with the handler?”

Ronny shook her head. “No. They’re horses after all. They need a barn or outside shed.”

“Are blind people interested in a small horse as opposed to a trained dog?” What would it be like to trust your welfare to a horse?

“Some people like horses, they ride, or used to ride. If it were me, I’d chose a horse every time. There are advantages.”

“And they are?”

“A dog has a working life of eight to ten years. Some blind people have had as many as three dogs. It’s heartbreaking when a dog gets too old to do his job. A horse, especially these guys, can live thirty-five, forty years. They stand quietly in line, even take a nap, at the grocery store. Dogs have to sniff things. And for a bonus, horses keep your grass mowed. They have only one problem.”

“Yes?”

“Just look at them. They’re so damn cute everybody wants to pet them.”

“Do you have many people wanting these animals?”

“Thirty on the waiting list. A woman here in Hampstead is interested.”

“Who?”

“Woman named Kelby Oliver. She called to find out about the program. Said she was calling on behalf of a friend.”

Kelby Oliver? For a second, Susan couldn’t trace the name to a memory in her mushy mind. Ah, the woman who hadn’t called her sister. Did Kelby have vision problems? If the sister called again, Susan would ask.

Ronny showed Susan the classrooms where handlers memorized basic commands, learned how to care for a horse. They went out to the pasture where beginners started training.

“We go to shopping malls with escalators and elevators, airports and get on planes, heavily trafficked areas. Set up situations where the horse has to lead his handler out of very tricky conditions, like roadwork with streets torn up or flooded areas with downed power lines.”

Susan thanked her for the tour and went back to the pickup. She took her aching head and crackling ears home, swallowed two Excedrin, and went to bed. Los Angeles Guitar Quartet on the CD player, she thought about Tim Baker and kids driving too fast, and what she could do about it. Sleep overtook her before she got anywhere.

In the dream, she was running through a grove of trees, afraid she wouldn’t get there in time. Wind whipped the branches overhead and they tore at her like beseeching hands. She heard gunfire.

“Hurry! Someone’s been shot!”

“Who?” She pounded along tangled undergrowth, stumbled and—

She woke with a jerk, sticky with sweat, heart banging away at her ribs.