CHAPTER 12
TUESDAY, MAY 10
Sometimes Northwest weather could fool a person. The forecast might be for bright and sunny skies, and then a gully washer would come over the mountains at high noon and let up only after midnight. Other times, when the forecast was for gray clouds and constant drizzle, the sun came out with the dawn and shone bright and hot all day. This was one of those days, and it made Annie feel more hopeful than she had in a long time. Summer was coming.
Then she remembered the task she’d promised to perform on behalf of the Suwana County Sheriff’s Office. Funny, it didn’t sound half as appealing as it had the previous day, when she’d been swept up with law enforcement machismo. What had she gotten herself into? Just when she was trying to get her life in order, she found herself under the unofficial thumb of Sheriff Stetson, precisely where she did not want to be.
Marcus had certainly made his feelings known the previous evening, when she’d admitted Dan had enlisted her help.
“It’s not as if I’m being asked to join the SWAT team and help kill the terrorists,” she’d explained, trying to inject a bit of humor into a conversation that had suddenly turned somber.
“Yes, but it seems to me that you’re being a bit used,” Marcus had countered. “Why can’t the Sheriff’s Office figure out a strategy for getting these women to talk without involving you?”
“Like waterboarding? Or taking away their Nordstrom cards?”
Marcus had refused to buy into Annie’s levity.
“You got way too involved in my case, Annie,” he went on. “Of course I’m immensely grateful that you did—I might not be sitting in my own home, talking to you, if you hadn’t. But I was hoping that life would get back to normal for you. For both of us.”
Now that hurt. She wanted the same thing.
“Look, Marcus, I’m just going to talk to a couple of girls, that’s all. If I find out anything, I’ll pass it on. If I fail, I can say I’ve tried. And I haven’t told you everything. Ashley’s death was . . . suspicious. I feel somehow responsible for her dying on my property. I know it’s crazy, but if I can do this one thing to help find the truth in her case, I think I’ll be able to put her death out of my mind. Right now, every time I open the hay barn door . . .
She couldn’t finish. She already was reliving the scene. On his end of the line, Marcus let out a long sigh.
“All right, Annie, do what you need to do. Just promise me that you’ll be careful.”
The conversation had ended shortly thereafter, and Annie couldn’t shake her discomfort over their parting words. She and Marcus had never disagreed before. It was unsettling.
She glanced at her calendar on the wall, a freebie from the local hardware store and the only one she owned. In a few days, she’d be talking to Marcus again, only this time, via Skype. Her meeting with Travis Latham, a neighbor whom she’d met while investigating Hilda’s death, and the board members of his new nonprofit—which included Marcus and her—was coming up soon. Marcus was unable to fly up from San Jose, but at least she’d be able to see him. The plan was to discuss Travis’s imminent acquisition of Hilda’s ranch and how the board planned to use it. If asked, Annie wanted to be able to report on the health and well-being of Hilda Colbert’s pedigreed horses that had once lived there.
Since the fire at Hilda’s ranch, which had preempted the horses’ hasty removal, they’d been boarded at a therapeutic equine center near Cape Disconsolate, about fifty miles north of her own stables. She hadn’t seen the herd since the day she and Tony had loaded them into the commercial trailer that had transported them to their new, temporary home. Normally, Annie would have tagged along, but there had been no time—her lambing season had just begun, and she was tied to the farm. Regular phone calls and e-mail from the facility had reassured her of the horses’ rapid recuperation, but it was high time that she visited the facilities for herself, and today would have been the perfect day.
Well, almost perfect. As she mucked her horses’ stalls, it occurred to Annie that it would be a fine idea for Jessica Flynn to accompany her on her trip north. She trusted her vet implicitly and knew that Jessica would do a more expert job in determining the state of the horses’ health than she would. The fact was that Hilda’s horses had lingering health issues—they’d barely escaped a raging fire in the dead of night, and all of them had suffered from smoke inhalation and flying cinders and just plain fear. Considering the trauma they’d lived through, they were doing remarkably well, at least according to clinical reports, but it wouldn’t hurt for Jessica to take a look at them and judge for herself. Annie reminded herself that Sarah had thought Layla’s care was exemplary, too, until she’d paid a personal call to the boarding facility.
To her surprise, Jessica picked up on the third ring.
“Hi, Jessica, it’s Annie. How’s the mule doing?” Delivering Molly the mule to Jessica one week before now seemed a distant memory. Annie felt guilty for not checking on the animal sooner.
“Molly’s great, thanks for asking. As we predicted, her hooves are going to need frequent visits from our best farrier over the next six months or so, but fortunately there seems to be no lasting damage. Her feet are tender, and she’s a bit lame in the hindquarters, but I think that’ll go away over time.”
“Great. How’d she check out in general? Is she ready for a foster home yet?”
Dan had brought Annie up to speed on the Bruscheau case before they’d left Laurie’s Café the previous afternoon. Larry would be cooling his heels in the Harrison County jail until his trial, which was probably six months out, and his wife had fled rehab and taken off for California, parts unknown. Jim and Susan Bruscheau now had legal custody of all three children and the bulk of the family menagerie, but still hadn’t made a decision on the mule. Foster care, Annie assured Dan, was the way to go until a final decision was made about the animal’s permanent residence.
“She has strangles, not surprisingly, and a couple of other nasty hosts that could have caused big problems down the line. But our deworming program is doing its job. She’s now up-to-date on all her vaccinations. The sores on her neck are healing nicely, and her hair’s already starting to come in over the wounds. Overall, she looks pretty darn good. If asked, I’d say she still has a long life ahead of her.”
“Fantastic!” Annie felt immensely relieved. “As usual, you are the miracle vet. Should I put the word out among our foster caretakers?”
“Not yet, Annie. I want to make sure her foot problems are fully resolved before I let her go to another home. And I may dig in my own heels, myself. Molly and I have bonded, and I’d just as soon she stays here than go someplace new. If you want, the kids who had her could visit Molly at the clinic. But I think she’s best served right now by staying put. She’s a good influence on the horses that have to spend the night at the clinic. It’s that calm and steady mule demeanor, you know.”
“I do. Trotter has the same effect on my horses and the ones I train.” It was true. Every new horse at her stables was first paired with Trotter. The little donkey had a tranquil composure about him that soothed even the most agitated equine. Trooper had arrived at Annie’s ranch after a near-death experience from a roadside accident, but with Trotter at his side, he had acclimated to his new environment in just a few days.
“Listen, Jessica, I’ve got another favor to ask—one that pays, for once.”
“Heart be still. Tell me more.”
“Remember the horses we saved from the fire at Hilda Colbert’s ranch several months ago?”
“How could I forget? It was the most horrific example of human depravity I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, at least the horses are doing fine. Or that’s the report that’s e-mailed to me every week from the administrative staff. But I really should run up to Cape Disconsolate for a hands-on wellness check. I’d be very happy if you’d come with me to give your professional opinion.”
“Where are they stabled?”
“A place called Running Track Farms. It primarily boards racehorses. It was the only facility I found that could house all eighteen. It’s quite the palace.”
“Eighteen horses? We’re talking a full day here.”
“Yup. But the horses’ new owner is more than happy to foot the bill.”
“Marcus? Then I’m not worried about being paid. But I’m concerned about finding time. The only day in the near future that might work is this Friday, my one day off, and that’s if I cancel a dental appointment, a meeting with my CPA, and—this is the potential deal breaker—an appointment with my massage therapist.”
Annie knew that Jessica always scheduled a massage after meeting with her accountant. She told Annie it was an excellent antidote to one of the most hideous aspects of running one’s own business.
“Just say yes, Jessica. It’ll be fun, almost like a day off. It’s a chance to meet eighteen gorgeous horses that are getting a second chance at decent lives. Plus, I’ll drive.”
She could sense Jessica’s indecision.
“I’ll throw in lunch at the greasy spoon of your choice.” Annie’s tone was wheedling, and she didn’t care.
“Deal. I’ve been dying to try out that fifties-style burger place that got written up in the paper. Be forewarned, though—I’ve been known to eat two double burgers in one sitting.”
“Hah! Your personal best is no way near close to mine.”
Now came the tricky problem of getting Lisa Bromwell to talk to her. She wondered which one of the heavily made-up girls who’d accosted her in the school auditorium she’d turn out to be. Annie hunted for a phone book and finally found one underneath Sasha, who was sleeping under her desk. Gently removing the puppy, she opened the book, glad to see that it had not been used as a urinal. Sasha associated newsprint as the place to relieve herself, and generally was rewarded for remembering this crucial fact. Annie hadn’t had the heart to discipline her last weekend when Sasha had happily peed all over the Arts section of the Sunday New York Times.
There were several Bromwells in the book, none with the first name of Lisa. Annie sighed, thought of what she would say, and punched in the first listed number on her cell.
“Hi. My name’s Annie Carson. I’m trying to reach Lisa Bromwell.” As she spoke the words, she envisioned repeating this line until late in the afternoon. Instead, she got lucky. All the Bromwells in the county, it seemed, belonged to the same tribe, and they were only too happy to divulge personal information about other family members.
“You want to talk to Lisa?” asked the woman who answered the phone. “That’s my husband’s niece. She’s probably over at her dad’s, tending to that horse of hers.”
“I heard that her horse had colicked. How’s it doing?”
“Well, I guess it survived, but Lisa’s in a state. The horse has colicked or nearly colicked almost every month this year. She’s beside herself, trying to figure out what she’s doing wrong.”
“Well, I’m a horse trainer, not a vet, but I’ve lived through enough colic scares to last a lifetime. Lisa said she wanted to talk to me when we met at Ashley Lawton’s memorial yesterday. Maybe I could stop by and look at the horse.”
“Well, I’m sure Lisa would appreciate it. Horse means the world to her. Means more to her than the rest of us, anyway. Did you say you went to the funeral of the girl who killed herself? She was a good friend of Lisa’s. It’s such a shame when something like this happens. A permanent solution to a temporary problem, I’ve always thought. I wonder if she cared how much she’d upset everyone by what she did.”
“Well, that’s hard to say.” Annie tried to tiptoe around the subject. “I think if you’re to the point where you want to kill yourself, you don’t really care about what anyone thinks. I think the pain is just too bad.”
“Lisa said she never saw it coming. Said everything was looking up in her life, just got a new job helping some horse lady . . . say, that wouldn’t be you, would it?”
Annie’s heart sank. Was she going to have to contend with the little fib Ashley had spread around with everyone she encountered? She’d have to figure out a diplomatic answer now.
“It’s true, I talked to Ashley the day before she died,” Annie admitted. “She seemed fine to me, as well.” She rushed on. “But I would like to talk to Lisa, if it’s possible. Maybe we could help each other better understand what happened.”
She couldn’t believe she’d just uttered such a pathetic platitude. It was enough to make her gag.
“You sound like such a nice person. The kind of person Lisa needs in her life right now. Would it help if I gave you directions to her dad’s place? And what was your name again?”
* * *
Lisa’s family lived near Chester Bay, south of town, and near a well-used public horse trail that afforded spectacular views of the water. Many horse owners lived in this area; the proximity to riding trails was just too good, and the neighborhoods had none of the standardized suburban look found elsewhere. It was one of the few places where people could still build a substantial home on substantial acreage and keep their horses in their own backyard. Property values were twice what they were in the valley, where Annie had built her ranch. That was the price of being so close to the water.
A winding driveway led Annie into the Bromwell compound, which consisted of a large, new farmhouse-style building with a wraparound porch and several horse-related buildings in back. Annie parked her car and decided to eschew the front doorbell and try to find Lisa first.
She discovered her in the round pen, walking a tall chestnut gelding. She looked as if she’d been crying, and try as she might, Annie could not place her with any of the exuberant women who’d been so keen to talk to her. She approached slowly and cleared her throat before reaching the pen. Lisa turned around. It was clear by the look on her face that she was expecting someone else.
“Hi, Lisa, I’m Annie Carson.” Annie walked up with a smile. “We met yesterday, remember? You and your friends wanted to ask me some questions. Your aunt told me you were out here, so I thought I’d try to find you. I’m sorry about your horse; she told me that he’s been colicking.”
“Oh. Hi.” Lisa didn’t seem half as excited to talk to Annie as she had the previous day. “I thought you were the vet. Hunter’s doing a lot better now, but I thought I was going to lose him last night.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her flannel shirt, which was not very clean.
“May I come in and look at him?”
Lisa nodded. Annie unhitched the pen gate and walked inside. She was glad that she’d kept Wolf and Sasha at home; Hunter looked as if he’d been through a siege and didn’t need to meet two active dogs right now. His magnificent head hung low, and his eyes drooped. Lisa was now at his rear, combing out his tail, but Hunter seemed not to care very much if his owner made him beautiful or not.
Annie knelt down by his left fetlock and took his pulse. It was close to normal, thank goodness, and not racing. She next stood up and gently opened his lips. His gumline was pale pink—not the robust hue one would hope to see with a well-hydrated horse, but at least it wasn’t white, or worse, purple—a danger signal that something was seriously wrong. She turned to Lisa.
“Any piles yet?”
“He pooped a bit about three o’clock in the morning, and a bit more this morning. The vet’s supposed to be out to tube him again.”
Annie knew Hunter wasn’t out of the woods yet. His eighty-foot-long large and small intestines still weren’t operating normally, and if they didn’t get back on track soon, his condition could easily turn into a crisis, solved only by emergency surgery or—if Lisa couldn’t afford this expensive alternative—euthanasia. Annie felt intense sympathy for the young woman. Tending a colicky horse was every horse owner’s nightmare while the danger lasted, and the situation could persist, unresolved, for days. She observed Hunter’s owner, who looked as if she hadn’t slept well for several nights. She wondered why, considering Hunter’s condition, she had even bothered to attend Ashley’s celebration of life. But then, saying good-bye to a good friend was important, as well.
“Have you and the vet talked about hydrating him with an IV drip?” she asked. Every horse owner, she knew, no matter how long or short that title may have applied, knew best how to take care of their animal, so suggestions on health care had to be delicately phrased.
“I’ve told Dr. Wiggins we should do it,” Lisa said angrily. “Hunter’s not drinking. But he said it wasn’t necessary. He just keeps tubing him.”
Tubing a horse was not fun for the horse or for anyone to watch. The vet inserted a long rubber hose up the horse’s nose and, using a hand pump, transferred a large bucket full of saline and milk of magnesia into the horse’s system. Annie hated when this procedure was required, even though she knew it was pro forma for colic cases.
Annie arched one eyebrow, a skill she’d honed sitting through many boring high school classes, and replied, “I think you’re right. I once had a horse that colicked during one of our winter floods, and the only way he survived until he could be transported to the mainland hospital was to keep him on a continuous drip. I kept him on it for six days and nights until the water receded and we could move him. Of course, the vet was out every day. But that drip saved him.”
“Would you tell Dr. Wiggins that?” begged Lisa, starting to cry. “I can’t lose Hunter now. I’ve just lost Ashley. I can’t lose anyone else.”
Annie dug out a relatively clean bandanna from her Levi jacket and handed it to her.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s put Hunter in your foaling stall right now so the vet can set up the drip as soon as he arrives.”
* * *
Two hours later, Annie and Lisa sat on milking stools in the foaling stall while they watched Hunter shift his weight from one back leg to another. The horse’s eyes were closed, but the two horsewomen knew that Hunter was resting, and not in pain. A bag of fluid on an aluminum rack stood near him, where a slow but steady flow of electrolytes seeped into his body. A small pile of manure—the first that looked even remotely normal, according to Lisa—was in the corner. To the women, it was gold. It meant Hunter’s gut was beginning to move again, and his chance of survival had just skyrocketed.
“So you really think it’s the sand?” Lisa asked, handing Annie a can of Coke.
“Makes sense,” Annie replied, taking a long swig of the sugary stuff. “I’ve got it on my ranch, and I’m twelve miles inland. Your stables are practically waterfront property. I’m sure your pastures are full of it. I’m guessing he’s out on pasture pretty much all day?”
Lisa nodded morosely.
“There’s your cause for Hunter’s recurring symptoms. Over time, he builds up enough sand in his large colon to cause an impaction-type colic. You don’t see him ingesting sand; you see only the colic. So you treat the colic, Hunter gets better, but then he goes right out to where the sand is. Even Dr. Wiggins conceded it could be a problem. The stethoscope pretty much forced him to.”
At Annie’s gentle insistence, the vet had listened to Hunter’s gut, which was still dangerously devoid of the usual healthy gurgle of gut sounds. But what he did hear was the soft, rolling sound of the ocean—exactly the sound that sand in the gut mimics. He was none too happy to have a civilian nicely suggest that too much sand ingestion was what was causing the horse’s chronic colic attacks, but he also was too much of a professional to protest—much. He grudgingly wrote out a prescription for a sand cleanser, and Annie promised to bring some of her own over to Lisa in the next few days.
“I was so happy to put him out on fresh pasture again,” moaned Lisa, her head resting on her horse’s thigh. “All that new grass. I thought I was doing what was best for him.”
“Oh, stop.” Annie said the words humorously, but she meant them. “Isn’t that all we ever do—what we think is best for our horses? Anyway, now you know how to fix the problem. Stay on the sand clearance program and I’ll bet you Hunter doesn’t colic again, knock on wood.”
Lisa face softened and a tear slid down her face. But she looked immeasurably relieved.
“Thank you so much for coming over. You saved my horse’s life.”
Annie hated compliments to her face. She never knew how to react to them. She stood up, stretched, and walked over to Hunter.
“Oh, pshaw. Happy to help. But I’m curious. Did you and Ashley get your horses together?”
“How’d you know? Oh, of course—because of their names. Yes, we both got our horses when we were ten and big into 4-H. We thought it would be cute to name them Hunter and Jumper. That’s what we planned to do, of course. Dressage and eventing and all of that fancy stuff. Instead, Ashley ended up using Jumper for barrel racing, and Hunter was always the lead horse in drill team events and parades.”
“A perfect job for such a handsome guy. Ashley said Jumper had been sold. Do you know where he went?”
“Dunno. Ashley’s father sold him when we were both on a church mission one weekend. Ashley was so upset I thought she was going to . . .” She paused, then looked away. “For a while, I actually thought she might kill herself. Or her father. But then her dad took off with a new girlfriend a few months later and Ashley never saw him again. At least, she never mentioned him again.”
“That must have been tough.”
“It really was. Have you met Ashley’s mother? I mean, after seeing Candy, you can kind of understand why her dad left. But as much of a jackass as he could be sometimes, he still acted as a kind of buffer between Ashley and her mother. That woman is mean. Ashley couldn’t wait to leave. And Pete offered her a way out. For a while.”
“You know, Ashley didn’t say anything about her boyfriend when we talked.”
“That would be like her. She was embarrassed that she’d made such a big mistake, living with such a loser.”
“Do you think she was scared of him? I heard that she filed a restraining order against him not too long ago.”
“Nah. Pete’s really a wuss when you get to know him. He just sat around and smoked dope all day. And lived on handouts from his parents and from what Ashley earned from her job.”
“He wasn’t violent toward her?”
Lisa looked at the ground. “Well, he might have hit her once or twice, but only when he was high.”
“Seems to me that Ashley wouldn’t put up with that kind of behavior very long.”
There was no way for Annie to know if Ashley would have or not, but it seemed the appropriate thing to say to keep the conversation going. She was right.
“She didn’t. Ashley hated drugs. After the last time Pete freaked out on her, she left. She stayed with me and my family for a while. Then Pete got all misty eyed and convinced her to come back. But the truth is, by then, Ashley had found someone new.”
Now this was interesting.
“Really? She had a new boyfriend when she died? Even though she was still living with Pete?”
Lisa stirred the dust in the pen with the toe of her cowboy boot.
“Well, don’t tell anyone, okay? I didn’t want to tell that deputy, you know, Kim, anything bad about Ashley. Although I guess the police are going to find out soon enough.”
“Lisa, listen to me. You really should tell Kim the name of Ashley’s new boyfriend. It could be important.”
“That’s the problem. She never told any of us.”