At Risk (15 page)

"Yeah, Monday." Ralston hung up and filed the
sheet of paper he'd been taking notes on into an open binder.
"Thanks for coming in, Steve."

"No problem."

He wedged the binder in among the others that
lined the right side of his desk. Each one had a card slipped into
a slot on the spine with a name and date typed in bold black
letters. Peters, James S. was third from the left. The binder he'd
been working on had McCafferty, Margaret A. hand-printed in blue
ink. The date was a week old.

Ralston stood and stretched. "Want some
pizza? This is going to take a while."

"Sure."

He put in a call to the local pizzeria, then
hefted a cardboard box off the floor. I followed him into interview
room number two. Crumbs were scattered across the metal table. The
room smelled like fried onions and pastrami.

"I haven't received a response from everyone,
yet," Ralston said. "But we have more than enough to get started."
He lifted a bulky manila envelope out of the box. "Start with this
one while I get the MVA lists."

Ralston went back to his office as I emptied
the contents of the first packet onto the table. Though I hadn't
recognized the make and model of the trailer used in the theft, I'd
been able to eliminate some trailers at the schooling show. With a
little effort and attention to detail, I figured I could narrow
down the field, even if I had to do it on paper. When I'd suggested
this to Ralston, he had enthusiastically sent requests to every
trailer manufacture in the country.

I scanned the pamphlets sent in by Equifleet
Manufactures and saw they'd been more than happy to comply.
Equifleet produced top-of-the-line horse trailers in fourteen
different models, both bumper-pull and gooseneck, depending on
trailer size and customer preference. Their best-selling model was
a simple two-horse bumper-pull with a tapered tack room in the
front. All of their trailers featured optional living quarters for
the competitor who preferred to sleep on the show grounds.
Currently, the largest trailer they manufactured was a popular
four-horse slant load with an expanded camper section. No
six-horse.

I flipped through their brochures and saw
that they had switched to an aluminum shell a decade earlier.
Though I hadn't thought about it at the time, the trailer I had
been imprisoned in had definitely had a steel shell. That, in and
of itself, wasn't significant. In the past, all but a few elite
brands had used steel.

It wasn't until I opened an older Equifleet
pamphlet that I spotted a trailer that was a possibility. As I
studied the trailer's floor plan, memories of that night
unexpectedly crowded my mind, and the walls in the small,
windowless room seemed to close down on me. For the first time, I
thought about James Peters being in there, too. In the dark, alone.
Tied to one of the metal partitions. And I wondered what it had
been like for him. Maybe he hadn't been able to untie his hands, or
maybe he had been unconscious. Or it simply could have been that I
was the lucky one. The one who had found the old bolt.

The hum of the ventilation system seemed to
grow louder, but the room felt airless.

Ralston opened the door, dropped the MVA list
and a notepad on the table, and paused before handing me a Coke.
"What's up?"

I shook my head and looked back down at the
brochure. "Nothing."

Ralston hitched his chair up to the table and
grabbed another envelope out of the box. After a few seconds, I
sensed that his attention was on me and not the packet in his
hands. I looked up and saw that he was watching me, a slight frown
on his face. When I leaned back in my chair and popped the tab on
my Coke, Ralston opened his envelope and dumped the contents on the
table.

"What are we looking for?" he said. "I don't
know the first thing about trailers, or horses for that
matter."

I rubbed my forehead and sat up straighter.
"First of all, the trailer has to have a steel shell. Most if not
all of the companies are using aluminum nowadays, but their older
models, like the trailer I was in, were steel. It's gotta be a
gooseneck, too, with a loading door and ramp on the right
side--"

"Right side? You mean the same side as a
car's passenger door?"

"Yeah. The escape door's across from that and
a little toward the front, on the driver's side. And see this?" I
swiveled the Equifleet pamphlet around and pointed at the diagram
I'd been studying. "The layout's very much like this one. It's
called a six-horse head to head. The loading door accesses a wide
central aisle, and the horses are brought up the ramp and are
either backed into one of the three stalls in the front of the
trailer or into one of the three in the back. The horses face each
other as they travel, and it's easy to unload them. You just lead
them out of their stalls and down the ramp."

"Okay. Could that be the one?"

"I don't think so. It's fancier than the
trailer I was in, and it has a rear tack room. I'm pretty sure the
one I was in didn't." I looked up from the diagram. "But I'm not
one-hundred percent certain."

Ralston drew two lines down the top sheet of
his notepad and labeled the resultant columns "unlikely,"
"possible," and "positive."

I opened the last pamphlet Equifleet had sent
and scanned the diagrams. "This is the same layout. The same floor
plan, anyway."

Ralston stepped around the table and looked
down at the diagram.

"But the windows are in the wrong place," I
said.

"What about the escape door? Is it the same
kind?"

I studied the photograph of their oldest
six-horse. "I can't tell."

"Wouldn't details like the style of the
escape door and window location be optional?"

"I suppose so," I said.

"And they might make minor changes to the
design without going to the expense of printing a whole new batch
of pamphlets. I'll list them as a positive for now."

"Sounds good to me."

I was on my third packet from a company named
Kennsington, when the door opened.

"Delivery." The detective who'd directed me
to Ralston's desk laid a pizza box on the table and began to back
through the doorway. There was a look of amusement in his eyes that
Ralston picked up on immediately.

Ralston yanked up on the lid. Several slices
of pizza were missing. "Schnauz, what's this?"

The detective grinned and began to pull the
door closed. "Delivery perks."

"You're a shyster, you know that?" Ralston
yelled as the door clicked shut.

We worked steadily for the next two hours. By
the time we'd finished, the packets from the trailer manufacturers
were separated into three piles that matched the columns on
Ralston's list. Thirteen names on the MVA list were now highlighted
in yellow. The only positives. I commented on the low number.

"It only takes one," Ralston said. "And don't
forget, I haven't heard back from all the companies yet. He lowered
the "unlikely" pile into the box.

Phase one completed, now we actually had to
look at the trailers in person, and I had the impression Ralston
would have been happier if he could proceeded without a "civilian"
in tow. But it couldn't be helped.

"I hope the companies sent us all their old
pamphlets," I said. "Otherwise, we could have missed it."

"We'll start with the positives and work our
way down the list. If we don't get a hit, I'll contact the
companies again." Ralston rubbed the back of his neck. "Or, if it
comes to it, we could resort to checking all the names on the list
in person and hope we don't have to widen the search to the
counties I haven't run off."

I groaned. "It's going to take forever."

Ralston grunted. "Contrary to the public's
perception, detective work's ninety-nine-point-nine percent tedium.
Speaking of which, when can you start?"

I thought about the next two days. Besides
the usual workload, Foxdale was hosting a party Saturday to kick
off the show season. I told him the earliest would be Sunday
morning, late, and we agreed to meet at the farm.

* * *

Lunch time Friday, I spent at a nursery,
watching the bumper of my pickup sag closer to the ground as an
assortment of shrubs and flowering plants were loaded into the
bed.

On the trip back to Foxdale, I braked as I
approached the sharp curve on Rocky Ford. A pickup was half in the
road. I slowed even more and saw why the driver had parked where he
had. Three men were unloading a fancy wooden sign for what would
soon be the new housing development. A flatbed with a hoist had
delivered a load of bricks the week before, and decorative columns
already flanked the entrance.

As I pulled into Foxdale, I saw that a crew
from the local rental company had erected a huge yellow and white
striped canopy between the indoor and barn A. I bumped the pickup
across the grass, toward the rows of banquet tables and folding
chairs that had already been set up.

Marty and I unloaded my truck. Afterwards, I
gestured toward the potted plants that we'd positioned to keep the
guests from walking into the guy wires. "We'll use them around the
jumps next weekend if it's not too cold."

"Don't tell me. The first A-rated show of the
season."

"That it is."

Marty hung his head. "Man. The winter break
was too damn short."

I wiped the sleeve of my shirt across my
forehead. "Awh, come on, Marty. Think of all the overtime."

"What overtime?"

"Oh, yeah." I grinned. "Being salaried's the
pits, isn't it?"

"Got that right."

We both turned around when a heavy vehicle
rumbled down the lane.

"Damn it." I stood and peeled my shirt off
the back of my neck. In the last two weeks, the weather had gone
from winter to spring. "I forgot about the hay delivery."

Marty lifted the Chevy's tailgate and slammed
it home. "Want me to count and weigh the bales?"

"I don't know." I sighed. "Let's take a look
at the load and paperwork, then decide."

"Why don't you find another supplier?" Marty
said.

"Harrison might not be the most honest guy
around, but he's got the best quality hay in the area, and he was
only shorting us thirty-five bales or so. I'm hoping random checks
will be enough to keep him honest." I sighed. "I don't know. If he
tries it again, I'll dump him."

"I have no doubt."

The driver jumped down from the cab and
scanned the party preparations with apparent irritation.
"Alfalfa-timothy mix like you wanted," he said.

"Good," I said. "Could you drive on over to
the implement building? Someone will be down to help unload in a
minute."

He stared at me for a second, then wordlessly
climbed into the cab.

"Unfriendly sonofabitch," Marty said as the
truck lumbered out of sight behind barn B. "I think his face would
crack if he smiled."

Marty, I thought, was diametrically opposite.
I looked at my watch and frowned. It was later than I'd thought.
"Marty, I'll get Cliff and Billy to help me stack the hay. Round up
the rest of the guys to do turnouts, okay?"

"So, you're going to check?"

"Might as well."

"You never give up, do you?"

"Go on, Marty."

"Yes, sir . . . boss." He grinned, and I
wondered if he found it odd calling someone younger than he "boss."
I knew I was caught off guard whenever he said it.

The driver threw the bales off the flatbed,
and I tossed them up a level where Cliff and Billy were stacking
them in the mow. The quality was good throughout. Even though it
was last year's hay, the aroma was sweet. I started to throw a
heavy one up to Cliff, when my glove got stuck under the baling
twine and almost came off. I set the bale down, straightened the
glove, and bent over to grab the twine. The next bale slammed into
my back and almost knocked me off my feet.

I spun around and glared at the driver.
Before I could say anything, he said he was sorry, but he wasn't.
He was pissed. Except for the last time, we'd never checked his
shipments, and my counting the bales was shoving it in his face. I
resisted the urge to rub my back, threw the bale to Cliff, and left
the one that had tumbled to the ground where it was.

After we stacked the last bale in the mow, I
sat down on a row of hay and did some quick calculations while the
driver dragged heavy chains across the flatbed and dumped them into
piles just behind the cab. I glanced up in time to catch his stare.
He had been staring at me the entire time, or so it seemed. I stood
and stretched, trying to get the kinks out of my neck, and decided
I was getting paranoid. I signed his paperwork without comment,
then watched him drive past the muck pile. He ground the heavy
truck's gears as he pulled onto the side road on his way back to
the office.

* * *

Saturday morning dawned warm, and by late
afternoon, it was downright hot. I took off the flannel shirt I'd
been wearing over my T-shirt and ran it across my face and down the
back of my neck, then tossed it through the Chevy's open window. I
leaned against the back fender and watched Marty unload the last
case of soda into one of the plastic tubs under the canopy. That
done, he walked past me, reached across the tailgate, and picked up
a bag of ice.

"Here. This'll cool you off." He tossed the
bag at me.

I caught it, just.

"Oooh, good reflexes." He grinned then
hoisted another bag out of the bed.

We made a race out of filling the tubs, and
by the time I'd dumped my last bag of ice on top of cans of Coke
and 7-Up and root beer, my arms were frozen.

Marty ripped open his last bag and dumped the
ice into the nearest tub. "You know," he said, "warm as it is, this
won't be enough."

"I know. Terry and Cliff are going to haul in
some just before the party."