Chapter 15

 

At seven-ten, after the day crew had filed into the clinic, Frank finally put me on a detail that didn't involve mucking stalls.

When he noted my expression, he said, "You've been doing so many damned stalls at night, it hardly seems fair to stick you on stall duty during the day."

"Thanks."

I smiled when he dismissed my reply with a flap of his hand, but my amusement dissolved when my gaze slid over Frank's shoulder. Paul Genoa had been goofing around with Tiller a minute ago, but as he'd listened to Frank, his facial muscles had stiffened, and any hint of cheerfulness drained from his face. Tiller glanced from Paul to me. He nudged Paul's arm, leaned closer, and whispered something in Paul's ear, but Paul wasn't interested in Tiller's opinion. He shrugged a shoulder at Tiller, then slid farther down the counter. Both of them had been leaning against the countertop by the sink with the morning sunlight streaming through the window behind them, and the combination of backlighting and sunglasses made Tiller's expression difficult to read.

Frank ticked off names on his clipboard. "Paul, Mike, Ralph, Chuck. Barns one through three. Dawn . . ." Frank looked up and frowned as he waited for the girls to stop giggling. He cleared his throat, and the sudden stilling of movement in the room got the girls' attention. "Dawn, you Gina, Lisa, and Beth, muck out four through six."

Dawn glanced at me and smiled, and I wondered if she'd already figured out that I'd been working in six.

Frank started to assign barns seven and eight but was interrupted once again, when Tiller yanked Ben's ball cap off his head.

"Tiller!"

He froze. Ben snatched his hat out of Tiller's hand, then dumped two buckets in the sink and cranked on the hot water. Tiller had left his coat at home, switching it out for a lightweight jacket, as I'd done. The mercury hovered right around freezing but was expected to climb above fifty degrees, and the change in the weather had a noticeable effect on the crew. Generally, everyone trickled into the clinic half-asleep and borderline grumpy, but not this morning.

"Randy and Luke," Frank said. "You're with me."

The girls were the first to leave, as they'd been milling around by the door. Dawn strode into the aisle and looked over her shoulder, waiting for the rest of her group to catch up, when her gaze slid my way. One of the other girls latched onto her arm, and their laughter drifted into the room.

"Looks like you got an admirer," Ronnie whispered in my ear.

I slipped my hands into my jacket pockets.

"Man, guy like you got it made."

I glanced at Ronnie, then watched Tiller and his group mosey down the aisle. "What are we doing again?"

"Palpations, ultrasound, undoing Caslicks." Ronnie waved a sheet of paper under my nose.

Ben stepped in front of us, and I noticed he'd filled the buckets with the same strong-smelling disinfectant that Maddie and I used when foaling out. "Time to load up."

"Hold your horses," Ronnie said. "I'm filling Steve, here, in on the routine."

Ben rolled his eyes.

"Two of us get the mares on this list and bring 'em down to the stocks while one of us helps Dr. Nash. I figure that'd be you, since you don't know the horses yet."

"And what do I do?"

"Lock 'em into the stocks and hold their tails out of the way for whatever exam the boss gotta perform." Ronnie glanced at his list. "Looks like we're starting in two."

I backed the truck down to the clinic doors, and after Ronnie and Ben loaded the ultrasound machine and utility cart into the bed, we headed over to the barn.

Ronnie scanned the sheet. "This time of year, we got palpations and ultrasounds and Caslicks while Frank and his crew do the teasing to see which mares are heating up. Later in the season, after more of the mares have foaled, we'll be racing to get done, cause we gotta get at least two barns done before the stall crews finish mucking their first."

"Yeah," Ben said. "It's a race."

Ronnie said, "Once we clear out, the stall crews come behind us. If we get behind, they get behind."

I pulled into barn two's drive. "Seems like you must have a lot of free time when the breeding season comes to an end."

"Hell, no," Ben said. "Then we gotta knock down cobwebs and bird nests and fix fences."

"And weed whack," Ronnie added and held up the paper. "But this, I don't mind."

"Beats mucking stalls," Ben said.

We unloaded the equipment, then sat on the tailgate and waited for Dr. Nash.

"Here she comes." Ronnie sighed as the little Spyder zipped around the curve bordering the lake. "Man, what I wouldn't give for a car like that."

"What I wouldn't give for a woman like that," Ben said under his breath.

Ronnie and I turned to stare at him, and he actually blushed.

A smile touched my lips. "She's old enough to be your mother."

"She sure don't look it, though," Ben said as the tires skidded through the gravel when Dr. Nash applied the brakes. "Or drive like it."

The three of us slid off the tailgate and headed into the barn. I hovered near the stocks while Ben and Ronnie grabbed lead ropes and went in search of the first two mares on the list.

"Morning, Steve."

I nodded and backed out of her way as she reached for the cart.

She laid a plastic container full of syringes on the top shelf, then piled some surgical packs wrapped in blue paper off to the side. She moved alongside me as Ronnie lead a dark bay mare down the aisle and into the stocks.

The mare stepped in placidly enough, and I took that as my cue and locked the back gate snug up against her hindquarters. She was now confined in a narrow chute constructed of heavy tubular steel. Dr. Nash pulled out a roll of gauze from a box on the bottom shelf and quickly wrapped the upper portion of the mare's tail.

She held out the free end of the gauze bandage. "Keep her tail pulled hard to the side."

"Yes, ma'am."

"We're performing some episiotomies this morning." She glanced at me. "But of course, you're already familiar with the procedure."

"I am?"

She smiled softly. "Yes, you are. I'm opening her up as I should have done with Sumthingelse."

"Oh."

Dr. Nash pulled on a pair of plastic gloves that reached her elbows, then carefully washed the mare in quick efficient strokes before drying her with handfuls of cotton. Her hair looked redder than usual under the barn's incandescent lights, and her lashes were almost as pale as her eyes. She exchanged the long gloves for sterile surgical gloves; then she picked up a syringe loaded with anesthetic.

"Ronnie, I'm ready for the twitch."

Ronnie slipped a chain around the mare's upper lip and tightened it just enough to keep her attention focused on him. Dr. Nash injected the mare in tracks up one side of the vulva and down the other. A drop of blood formed each time she withdrew the needle.

"You know, if that mare had torn severely, her breeding career could have been jeopardized?"

"Hmm."

Dr. Nash glanced at me as she dropped the empty syringe in a trash bag that hung off the cart. A slightly lopsided smile, that I found incredibly charming, tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Jenny likes you, you know?"

"She's a good kid."

"She is that." Dr. Nash swabbed the mare with an antiseptic, then withdrew a pair of forceps and a scalpel from the blue wrapping. "Where'd you go to school?" she said as she started the incision.

"Uh . . . here and there."

"College?"

I nodded. "Two years."

"Go back," she said. "You're too smart to be doing this."

"I need to figure out what I want to do first."

"Maybe. But you might find the answer there, as well."

I wondered how she imagined I'd afford a nice little experiment like that.

Ronnie, Ben, and I followed Dr. Nash from barn to barn while she opened more mares or took cultures or palpated and occasionally used the ultrasound machine, then at eleven-fifty we headed back to the clinic. I'd forgotten all about Elaine and hoped she was still in the office.

As it was, I needn't have worried. She was eating a salad at her desk when I walked in. She looked up, questioning.

"Do you have something for me to sign?"

"Oh, yeah. A tax form." She frowned. "Now, where'd I put it?"

She wedged the salad container in one of the few clear spots on her desk and shifted an issue of Cosmopolitan out of the way. While she rifled through the mass of papers, I studied the photographs on the wall. Three were professionally composed conformation shots of each stallion. Others featured the local hunt meets. One was a photograph of Jenny on a gray pony. The reins draped from Deirdre's hand, and both of them had their arms wrapped in a bear hug around the pony's neck, their cheeks touching, their eyes sparkling as they laughed at a shared joke. It was a great photograph. Spontaneous and happy. Unguarded.

Only one photograph on the wall hadn't captured an equine behind the lens. Victor and Dr. Nash stood at the top of a curved flagstone staircase in a terraced garden. The sunlight had that orange quality it gets early in the morning or just before sunset, so I assumed we were talking early evening in spring, judging by the azaleas in bloom. Victor had slipped his tuxedoed arm around Dr. Nash's slender waist. She looked radiant in a full-length strapless gown. The breeze had caught the folds of silky material, and the hem flapped across Victor's calves as the two of them leaned into each other and smiled at the camera. Her hair normally had a bit of a wave to it, like Jenny's, but she'd curled it, lifting the bangs off her face and entwining them with sprigs of baby's breath. She wore a single pendant necklace and long silver earrings. I leaned forward and squinted at the photograph.

Elaine cleared her throat. "Steve . . ." I turned around, and she slid a paper toward the edge of the desk. "Here you go. I need your signature here," she flipped the page, "and here."

I took the pen from her hand. "Elaine, where was that picture taken?"

"Which one?"

"The one on the terrace, of the Nashes."

"I'm not sure, but I believe they're at this extremely posh restaurant in Great Falls." She smiled. "French, too. Not that I've ever eaten there."

"L'Auberge Chez Francois," I mumbled half under my breath. The same restaurant where Deirdre and Lloyd Strauss had celebrated their engagement.

"That's it," Elaine said.

I scribbled my name on the lines indicated. "They're dressed so formally. What was the occasion, do you know?"

"Um, Deirdre's parents' wedding anniversary. Their fortieth, I think." She sighed. "Hard to imagine being married that long, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is."

"The sad thing is, that was their last."

"Don't tell me they got divorced?"

"No. They were killed," Elaine glanced at the door, "in a car accident."

"Oh, no."

"I know, that's horrible, isn't it?"

I nodded and felt Elaine's gaze on my back as I left the room.

* * *

I took advantage of the McDonald's drive-thru on my way out of town and an hour and five minutes later drove past the guard shack at Washington Park. I pulled onto the grass strip alongside the perimeter fence and switched off the engine. The track was holding an abbreviated winter meet, and the first race had just gone off. A few indistinct shouts from the grandstand carried across the infield on the cold air, and even at that distance, I could hear the horses as they swept into the turn. But compared to my time spent here last summer, the backside seemed subdued somehow, as if the people, the horses, even the buildings, had entered a stage of dormancy. The shriveled grass beneath my feet and the bare tree branches above my head looked as lifeless and drab as the deserted alleyways and dull whitewashed buildings.

On the drive in, I'd noticed that the barns most distant from the track were vacant. And even here, next to barn sixteen, Kessler's barn, activity appeared to have reached a low ebb. The Jamaicans who'd worked out of the barn across the way had packed up and headed elsewhere. Probably south. Even their roosters had flown the coop.

I jammed my hands in my pockets and strolled across the access road, stepped under barn sixteen's roof overhang and paused. Kessler braced his hand on a doorjamb midway down the shedrow and peered into a stall, said something I couldn't hear. Christopher J. Kessler, my father. I'd met him a little over seven months ago, almost by accident, after learning he was my biological father. He was a good decent man, honest to a fault and hardworking. A loving father to his daughter. A fair man who treated his employees with respect. I'd come to like him a great deal, and most of the time when I thought of him, I was grateful for the chance I'd been given to get to know him. Other times, I had to clamp down the resentment I couldn't help feeling for what he'd done to my family. To the man who'd raised me. But, who was I to judge?

I'd made more than my share of mistakes in the past.

I noted the security cameras installed under the eaves as I started down the aisle.

Kessler glanced over his shoulder when I drew closer and did a double take. "Steve." He stepped forward and clasped my hand. "What brings you here?"

I usually didn't drop in unannounced and wondered if he hoped I was taking him up on his job offer. "I've been working on a breeding farm in Warrenton. Temporarily," I added quickly. "You got a minute?"

"Sure." Kessler told his groom, a man I didn't recognize, that the rundown bandages looked good and to be ready to go in fifteen minutes.

We headed to his office, and like so many times in the past, I sat in the hard plastic chair alongside his desk. I briefly explained what I was doing at Stone Manor and met a wall of silence.

"Why am I not surprised?" he finally said. "For Christ's sake, be careful."

"I will. No one has any idea what I'm up to."

"If I know you, that'll change. You dig around, you're bound to catch someone's attention."

"I've been careful. Listen." I leaned forward in my chair. "I know you're in a hurry. Is there any reason for a thoroughbred breeding farm to be using an artificial vagina?"

"No," he said automatically. "Ah . . . well, wait a minute. They use them when they evaluate a stallion's fertility for insurance purposes. And of course, a report would be required if they planned on selling one of the studs, but a vet would perform the exam, so I don't see why they'd have that equipment."

"The farm's owner's a vet."

"Well, then, maybe he would so he could run his own tests for comparison."

"He's a she." I handed Irish Dancer's fertility report to Kessler, and he frowned as he studied the figures.

"This horse is in trouble. At a bare minimum, you need five hundred million sperm per breeding, using AI, and that's with good motility and morphology." He tapped the page. "He doesn't have either. They'll be hard pressed getting his mares to stick because it's much more difficult with a natural cover."

"So artificial insemination would help?"

"You can't use that with thoroughbreds," Kessler said as he handed me the report.

"I know, but when a horse is having trouble like this one obviously is, would you have a better chance getting mares in foal?"

"It's illegal."

I ran my fingers through my hair. "I know, but would it help?"

"Yeah, sure. But with his numbers, it still won't be easy. They'd add antibiotics and semen extenders to the sample, which they'd deliver directly into the uterus with a pipette so there's no waste. But still . . . I wouldn't want to bet on the outcome."

"What would happen if the breeder was found out?"

"Christ. I'd hate to think. All the stud's foals would lose their Jockey Club registration, and if any have raced, or entered breeding themselves," Kessler paused, "to be honest, I don't know what would happen, but I suspect the farm would be ruined."

"Hmm." I glanced around the little room as I folded the report and slipped it into my coat pocket. If anything, the office was more cluttered than the last time I'd been there. "How's Ruskie?"

"Pulling like a train." Kessler leaned back in his chair. "If all goes well, he'll run in the Blue Grass Stakes, and he's ready."

"And after that?" I asked, wondering if Kessler was considering the Derby.

"We'll see."

I smiled. It was almost as if he didn't want to acknowledge the fact that he was considering running Ruskie in the Kentucky Derby, as if the very mention of those two words would collapse the dream like a bubble bursting under the sun.

He filled me in on the rest of the stable as we strolled back into the aisle and stood in front of the great horse's stall.

Ruskie stepped toward the doorway as if he could walk straight through the nylon webbing that spanned the opening at waist height. He stuck his elegant head into the aisle, pricked his ears, and prodded Kessler's jacket with his nose.

"He's not spoiled, is he?" I said, and Kessler chuckled as he slipped several carrot chunks out of his pocket and cupped his hand under Ruskie's nose.

"You change your mind, Steve, and want to work here, you've got a job waiting for you."

"Thanks. How's Abby?"

Kessler sighed. "She's fine, and she won't care if you work for me. I even think she'd like having her brother around."

I grinned and patted Ruskie's neck.

We continued down the shedrow, looking in at each horse while Kessler told me that he expected to be traveling more in the coming year and that Ruskie's winning streak had brought him additional owners.

We stopped outside the bay gelding's stall as the horse's groom put on his bridle. "We've gotta head over now," Kessler said as the PA switched on, calling the horses for the second race. "You going to stay?"

I glanced at my watch. "Yeah. I've got time."

We walked down the track, and I stood with Kessler while he saddled his runner, then we went up to the third level and watched the race in quiet companionship. His runner, Jade's Risk finished third, and Kessler seemed pleased with the result. We returned to the barn, and as I prepared to leave, he told me to be careful.

"I will."

I looked over my shoulder as I stepped into the alley and saw that Kessler was watching after me.

I stopped at the loft, switched out dirty clothes for clean, then called Detective Brandon. He picked up on the second ring.

"This is Steve Cline. What have you decided?"

"We'd like to proceed, if you're willing."

"Yeah, I am."

"Good. When do you get home tomorrow? We need time to brief you and rig Claremont's phone before he calls to set the deal."

"I get off at noon, and it'll take me ten minutes to get to the apartment."

"And he's calling at one?"

"Yeah."

"All right. One of my guys'll be waiting for you. Name's Tyler McPherson. Big guy. Looks like a goon with scraggly frizzy brown hair tied in a ponytail." Scuffling noises, followed by a squawk and laughter, sounded in the background, and I figured McPherson hadn't appreciated the description. "He'll meet you in the lot and get your phone set up for the call."

"Okay."

"And he'll accompany you when the buy goes down."

"What if Yates doesn't go for that?"

"He will. With that quantity, I doubt he'll be alone, either. If he objects, call it off, 'cause you aren't going to be by yourself."

I hung up and headed to Foxdale. Rachel typically arrived at three-thirty, and I wanted to surprise her. I waited in the pickup until four, then went into the office to use the phone. Mrs. Hill had already left for the day. The door to the lounge was locked and the room was dark. I left the lights off and dialed Rachel's number. Her mother told me that she'd gone out.

"Do you know if she intended to ride today?" I asked.

"I don't think so. She didn't take a change of clothes to work this morning."

"Thanks." I gave her the office number. "I'll be here until five. If she gets home before then, could you have her call me?"

She told me she'd relay the message. I said goodbye and looked through the Plexiglass window as I hung up. Karen's three-thirty class had finished their flatwork, and the riders had formed a disorganized line along the opposite wall as they waited for their turn to jump. A school pony headed toward a cross rail that was set so low, the gelding simply cantered over it while the little girl clung to his mane.

* * *

Rachel never did show or call. I stopped at Sullivan's and got back to Bruce's apartment by seven-forty-five, dead on my feet and not in the best of moods. I opened the door to the sound of a ringing phone.

I snatched it up. "Rachel?"

"No," a gruff male voice said. "And if she's still with you, she deserves a medal."

I frowned, wondering how Detective James Ralston of the Maryland State Police had known how to get in touch with me.

"What the hell are you doing?" he said.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play stupid with me. I just got off the phone with Brandon after spending ten minutes trying to persuade him to drop this bullshit controlled buy. You know how dangerous they are?"

"Controlled buy?"

"Controlled buy, drug sting. Whatever."

"His team will be careful."

"I don't give a shit how careful they are, it's still dangerous. Two months ago, one of our detectives had to shoot a suspect during a buy, and he was damned lucky he didn't get killed. The dealer was in the front passenger seat, and his buddy had slipped in behind them, and the guy up front tells our guy 'this is gonna be a holdup,' and they both pull guns on him. Well, Troy wrestled the gun out of the guy's hands and shoots the guy in the backseat. Killed him. The dealer in front takes off on foot and is shot by the cops monitoring the buy. And you know what?"

I didn't think I wanted to hear.

"Troy hasn't been back to work since. He'll probably retire. Do you know how fucking scared he must have been?"

"Yeah. I have a pretty good idea."

Ralston grew quiet, and for a moment, I was no longer standing in Bruce Claremont's kitchen. Instead, I was lying on a cold sidewalk in the rain with a gun in my hand, listening to windshield wipers slap across wet glass as my blood channeled down a crack in the concrete.

"Well . . . I guess you do," Ralston said and drew me out of the past.

"Listen, I'm in it now, so help me out."

"I know I'm not going to like this."

"Probably not, but would you run records' checks on some people down here? Knowing what I'm dealing with can only help."

"Help you get in deeper, I expect." He sighed. "What are their names and ages? Approximate will do if you don't know."

"Paul Genoa, 27, Michael Tiller, 24, Shane Hadley, 33, Victor Nash, 45." For the hell of it, I added Bruce Claremont, 26.

Papers rustled before he said, "Is there any way I can talk you out of this?"

"I don't think so."

"Do you know when the buy's going down?"

"Not yet." I gave him the farm's cell phone number in case I was at work.

"Be careful," Ralston said. "Just because you jumped into this with both feet doesn't mean you have to see it through."

* * *

Maddie was uncharacteristically quiet at the three o'clock switchover Wednesday morning.

"Do you expect any foals?" I said.

She shrugged as she punched out. "Just keep an eye on them."

"Maddie, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just tired." She left the clinic and closed the door behind her, and I had an uncomfortable suspicion that Paul had more to do with her mood than lack of sleep.

Out of curiosity, I opened the doors under the sink and checked the AV unit. As far as I could tell, it hadn't been disturbed. Maybe Dr. Nash only used it for fertility exams. I certainly had no proof that she was illegally using artificial insemination, but the fact that Irish Dancer only covered mares in the late afternoon bothered me. The day crew left at five, and Maddie didn't come in until six, so that gave them an hour's window of opportunity. And if they were using AI, Frank had to be involved because it took three people, one to hold the mare, one to hold the stallion, and one to collect the sample.

Had Bruce uncovered what they were doing, and had that knowledge become his death sentence? I couldn't believe the Nashes capable of that. However, I had no trouble picturing Paul becoming violent if he'd caught Bruce and Maddie engaged in a late-night romp in the hay. And violence could easily escalate to murder under the right circumstances.

An equally probable scenario was that Bruce had gotten in over his head with some drug dealers and had paid the price for his naiveté. If Corey was very lucky, Bruce was off somewhere, selling his stash. And just where had he gotten his hands on a kilo of coke, anyway? From his buddy, AJ? And what if they weren't buddies as I'd assumed? A deal between the two could have gone sour, which could mean, at the very least, that Bruce had stolen the dope from AJ. At the very worst, Bruce might know more about the explosion than he'd ever want to admit.

I looked out the window toward the Nashes' home. Maybe the events revolving around the bank barn only appeared suspicious because of my attempt to twist them into something sinister. A simple fact that I had yet to uncover could easily drop all the pieces into place and provide a logical, innocent explanation.

I put my lunch in the fridge and locked the door on my way out. The temperature still hovered in the upper forties and felt incredibly mild after the bitter cold that had gripped the Eastern Seaboard for the last couple of weeks.

After I checked barns one through six, I climbed into the Chevy and headed over to seven and eight. As I sped down Bear Wallow, the headlights flashed across a clump of ornamental grass at the side of the road. No breeze rustled through the blades. Wind had a way of spooking horses, creaking the barn siding and snapping tree branches and swirling leaves across the ground, but sometimes, a lack of air movement could be equally unsettling. Tonight, the air was unnaturally still, as if the earth were holding its breath. And my moon was gone, swallowed in the expanse of black space.

As I'd learned from my sessions in the library, scouring the local papers, area residents fought suburban sprawl on a regular basis, but the terrain surrounding Stone Manor was relatively desolate. To the west, the Blue Ridge Mountains formed a starless black wall without depth as they rose and fell beneath a star-filled sky. In the foothills, a pattern of lights delineated the roads that crossed the valley. A few porch lights left on by mistake, scattered dusk-to-dawn lamps illuminating barn lots, an occasional pole lamp. Otherwise, wide expanses of black undefined ground spread out in all directions. Stone Manor itself took up hundreds of acres.

As I turned off Cannonball, my arm muscles tensed when I saw that barns seven and eight were dark. "Not again."

I angled the Chevy's headlights so that they cut through the gap between barn seven's open doors. I checked that my cell phone was in my jacket pocket as I slipped out of the cab. Turned toward the bed to grab the pitchfork handle before I remembered I didn't have it with me. It was in one of the farm trucks, if it hadn't been thrown away.

I shifted the Mag to my left hand and pulled out my pocketknife, unfolded the blade. I stepped around the front bumper and crossed over to the bank of light switches. I flipped them on. The mare in the first stall slowly turned her head and squinted at me. She was half-asleep and unconcerned. I blew out a breath, then checked the rest of the barn. Except for the relaxing sound of a mare contentedly chewing her hay, barn seven was quiet. No breeze eddied under the eaves of the run-in shed, and the band of mares must have been at the far end of the field.

I pulled up to eight. As the Chevy's door creaked open, a mare snorted an alarm, a sudden, high-pitched exhalation of breath that signaled danger. When I moved past the pickup's bumper, my shadow grew and spread across the barn doors. I spun around as I stepped through the opening and was relieved when no one was there. As I turned toward the bank of light switches, something in the aisle by the gate to the lot caught my attention. I couldn't tell what it was, but I had a gnawing feeling in my gut that I wasn't going to like what I found.

As I pointed the flashlight toward the switches, the mare in the first stall moved as the cone of light caught her eyes. They were wide and white-rimmed as she reared her head back in alarm. I angled my knife sideways and flicked the switches with my knuckles. I slowly turned my head to look at the object lying in the middle of the aisle.

I think I stopped breathing.

A foal's body sprawled across the hard asphalt in the very center of the barn, still and lifeless.