At Risk (6 page)

I looked at my hands. Dirt was permanently
ingrained in skin that was mostly chapped, and my fingernails
weren't too clean, either. Come to think of it, my clothes were
filthy, and I was certain I smelled like a horse, or worse.

I cleared my throat. "Why has the case been
referred to you? I thought someone else was handling it?"

He shifted in his seat so that he was facing
me, rested his arm on the backrest, and absentmindedly turned the
pencil over in his fingers. With effort, I kept still under his
gaze.

Finally, he said, "The detective who
interviewed you in the hospital, Gary Linquist, he responded to a
teletype I'd sent out to surrounding counties in the hope of
connecting with anyone who's investigating a case similar to one
I'm working."

"What kind of case?" I asked.

He gestured to the indoor. "Is that where the
assault took place?"

I glanced at the huge building. "Yes."

"I need to look at the scene." He stopped
fiddling with the pencil. "And I need you to walk me through what
happened that night."

I looked out the windshield.

"I also want to see each stall a horse was
taken out of and the location of the fuse box."

"Fuse box?"

"They didn't break the security lights,"
Ralston said. "Shooting them out would have made too much noise.
Turning all of them off would have attracted attention. Based on
Howard County's report, it looks like they just flipped the circuit
breakers for half the security lights and nothing else."

I nodded. The light behind barn A and the one
down the side lane to the implement building had been on. I
remembered seeing them from the road.

I showed him each stall and, for the first
time, realized that all of the stolen horses had been housed in
barn A. Next, we went into the utility room. The fuse boxes were
covered with a layer of black dust and smudges that I assumed were
the result of fingerprinting.

He examined both boxes, then stooped down and
angled the beam of his flashlight across the floor, even going as
far as peering behind the water heaters and heating unit. "Was this
room locked?"

"I don't know. It should have been." I looked
at the floor. From one end of the room to the other, hoses snaked
across the cement. We had stepped over them when we'd first walked
into the room. "I guess the door could have been left unlocked. The
crew's always coming in here to get the hoses since we can't keep
them in the barns this time of year without them freezing."

"Do you remember locking it that night?"

"No."

He straightened and glanced at me but said
nothing. After he examined the entire floor of the small room, I
showed him where the truck and trailer had been parked between the
barns, then we walked toward the parking lot.

As we neared the southwest corner of the
indoor, I turned around and looked down the lane. "I was about here
when I saw the rig."

"How much time passed from the time you
pulled off the road until you first saw the truck and trailer?"

I glanced toward the road and shrugged. "I
wasn't in a hurry. Five minutes. Probably not that long."

Ralston jerked his head toward the indoor.
"You went in there to use the phone?"

"Yeah."

"Through there?" He pointed to the entry door
by the bleachers.

"Yes."

"They moved fast." He crossed his arms over
his chest and rubbed his chin. "Probably had a lookout posted. When
he saw you turn off the road, he signaled the others, and they
moved into position behind you. Except you walked into the building
and surprised them. It still worked, but their strategy was risky.
There's no other entrance to the farm?"

"No."

"Okay, show me what you did after you saw the
truck and trailer."

I looked across the grass to the door.
"Lessons are going on right now," I said. "We'll be disturbing
them."

He looked me in the eye. "We won't actually
be standing where the horses are working, will we?"

I shook my head.

"Well, come on then. Let's go."

I wiped my face with the sleeve of my coat,
then strode across the grass. When he followed me into the arena, I
said, "I left the door open, but I'd better shut it so we won't
distract the horses."

"All right."

Across the arena, the school horses were
lined up, waiting their turn while a cute bay pony with a naturally
well-balanced stride negotiated the course of fences with ease. I
pulled the door inward until the latch clicked.

"I was standing here." When I pointed at the
pay phone, I was dismayed to see that my finger was trembling. I
jerked my arm down to my side and stuffed my hands in my pockets,
hoping he hadn't noticed. I cleared my throat. "Anyway, before I
could pick up the phone, someone hit me over the head."

"Do you know what they used?"

"No . . . except it was hard."

Ralston's head shot up at the tone of my
voice, and the corners of his mouth twitched. "Did it feel like
wood, metal?"

"Oh. Wood."

"Then you fell?"

He had his flashlight out again, and if he
could make anything of the jumble of footprints in the dirt, he was
Sherlock Holmes incarnate.

"No. I lost my balance, but one of them
shoved me against the wall there." I made a conscious effort at
keeping my hand steady and pointed to the space between the door
and pay phone.

Ralston stepped closer and angled the beam
across the siding. Even though we kept the arena floor watered
down, the horses kicked up a lot of dust. Except for a few smudge
marks at shoulder height, it looked like ten-years' worth of dust
and dirt coated the walls, and the spiders had been busy, too. I
backed out of his way and pulled my coat collar up around my
neck.

After a moment, he straightened and pocketed
the flashlight, then walked behind the bleachers and paused
alongside the large sliding door the students used to bring their
horses into the arena. Because of the cold, it was open only a foot
or two, just enough for a person to squeeze through.

He looked around. "Notice anything missing?
Out of place?"

I scanned the area. Except for the bleachers
and two fifty-five gallon drums we used for trash, the spectator
space was empty. "No. Everything looks the way it always does."

Ralston peered into one of the drums. "When
were these cans emptied last?"

"I don't know. Dave empties them when they
get full enough to bother with."

"Dave Wade?" Ralston said, and I saw he'd
done his homework.

"Yeah."

"Into the Dumpster out front?"

"Yes." I looked at the accumulation of empty
soda cans, paper cups, and candy wrappers. Someone had even tossed
a frayed crop into the trash. "The truck comes every Friday."

"It's been here already?" Ralston said.

"Uh-huh. Around one o'clock."

"Could you get Mr. Wade over here?"

"He's already gone home."

Detective Ralston compressed his lips in
annoyance. When he couldn't get Dave on his cell phone, he pulled
on plastic gloves and carefully emptied both drums into a large
plastic bag that he'd dug out of the trunk of his car. Dressed in a
suit and tie, he looked as incongruous rooting around in the trash
as he had earlier walking through the barn.

He taped the mouth of the bag shut, scribbled
on a label, and chucked it into the trunk. When he noticed my
expression, he said, "If Mr. Wade hasn't emptied them since the
theft, it's worth a closer look."

I nodded and tried to smother a grin as I
followed Ralston back into the indoor. When he asked to see where
I'd collapsed, I pointed out the spot alongside the bleachers.
Ralston unhooked his flashlight and flicked it on. He scanned the
ground and angled the beam under the bleachers near the metal
uprights. I pulled my cap off and yanked my coat open. At the sound
of the snaps popping apart in quick succession, Ralston glanced up
from where he was crouched. I crossed my arms on one of the planks
at shoulder level, rested my head on my arms, and wondered what was
taking him so long. My skin felt clammy, though the air temperature
was close to freezing.

"What happened next, Steve?"

I squinted at him, then reluctantly lifted my
head and told him the rest.

Ralston folded his arms across his chest.
"And you don't--"

A sharp crack split the air and echoed off
the metal walls. I jumped as if I'd been shocked with a cattle
prod. It was just one of the horses rapping the top rail of a
jump.

Just one of the horses.

I rubbed my forehead.

"Okay," Ralston said. "I think we're done in
here. Let's finish up in the car."

"Finish up?" I mumbled.

"Yes. I have a few more things to go
over."

Back outside, the white metal siding glowed
pink as the sun neared the horizon. It wouldn't be long before it
disappeared behind the tree line, and as so often happens, the wind
had died down with the sun's descent. I climbed back into Ralston's
car and wondered when I'd be getting back to work.

He slammed his door and flipped through the
ever present notebook. "I have a list of the owners of the stolen
horses. I want you to tell me what you know about each one,
okay?"

I nodded, and he started checking off names.
I hesitated when he got to Sanders.

He looked over at me, his pencil poised,
waiting. "What's the deal with him?"

I shrugged. "Nothing. I just don't like him
much."

"Why?"

"No particular reason. It's more a
personality conflict than anything." I sighed. "I don't really know
why I don't like him. . . . He's not a good horseman."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, stuff like not cooling out his horse
after he's worked him, being too aggressive when he rides. Things
like that. It's more like he uses his horse, treats him like an
object instead of a living, breathing animal."

Frowning at my explanation, Ralston switched
on the engine and slid the control levers into position for maximum
heat output. I listened to the purr of the engine and thought about
how Sanders used his horse as a bizarre sort of aphrodisiac.

Ralston must have seen something in my
expression because he said, "What are you thinking?"

"Nothing. . . . Nothing to do with this."

"Tell me anyway."

He'd said it like I didn't have a choice.
Like I wouldn't be getting out of his car if I didn't tell him what
he wanted to know, which kind of pissed me off. But it wasn't any
big deal, so I told him.

When he checked off the last name, he said,
"The evidence clearly shows they were familiar with the farm's
layout and routine."

"Um."

"Tell me about the employees. Anyone have a
gripe with management?"

I thought about Brian and decided that his
grumpy attitude didn't make him a suspect. "No. They're a pretty
good group."

He shifted in his seat and leaned against the
door. "And you didn't recognize their voices?"

I shook my head. "The guy with the ball cap,"
and a whine in his voice I thought but kept to myself, "I've never
seen him before. I'm sure of that. As for the other two, far as I
remember, they always spoke in a whisper. I don't know whether I
could have recognized them under those circumstances."

"Maybe you do know them, and they were trying
to disguise their voices."

I didn't like that thought one little bit.
That someone I knew could be so callous. Could hate me so much.
Someone I knew, maybe even liked and trusted. I didn't believe it.
I turned in my seat to face him and said, "So. What
similarities?"

"What?"

"You said there are similarities between the
case you're working on and this one."

He looked at me with an expression that would
have served him well in a high-stakes poker game. When he spoke,
his voice was flat. "Six months ago, seven horses were stolen from
a farm in Carroll County. Not far from here, actually. The owner
was murdered."

Chapter 4

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak.

He, however, continued. "A white or off-white
pickup, pulling a dark-colored horse trailer, was seen in the
vicinity around the time we estimate the owner was abducted. A
month later, two boys were hiking a trail that parallels the
western bank of the Patuxent when they discovered the
partially-buried body of a white male. He was later identified as
the farm's owner. Before he died, he had been beaten and," he
paused, still watching me, "his wrists had been bound with baling
twine. It was still on what was left of the body."

I leaned my head against the side window and
closed my eyes. A humming noise filled my ears, and I felt as if I
were sinking, the blackness behind my eyelids spiraling out of
control.

"Mr. Cline . . . you okay?"

I swallowed. My throat was dry. My tongue
felt like it was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I opened my eyes.
"Yeah, sure," I mumbled. "How the hell do you think I am?" I
couldn't keep the anger out of my voice. Or was it fear?

He didn't say anything, just looked at me
with that damn uninformative expression of his, and I wondered if
anything rattled him.

I shifted in my seat and stared out the
window. A dozen riders were circling their horses, waiting to go
inside for their lesson. Behind us, the sun cast long shadows down
the lane. The light had an orangish late-afternoon quality to it.
Voices drifted on the cold air while some of the horses, impatient
to be going, blew down their noses and pawed the ground. Farther
down the lane, the barns looked warm and inviting . . . and
safe.

He cleared his throat. "So, now you see why
it's important that you carefully think through everything that
happened, every detail."