Cutter (Gail McCarthy Mystery series) (16 page)

To no avail. The woman wasn't listening. She talked over me and through me, repeating that she was worried about her poor horse and thought he must be miserable.

After telling her that it would cost her sixty extra dollars just to have me set foot on her place for an emergency call, I agreed that I would certainly come see her horse if she wanted me to, and got in my truck, cursing at the stupidity of people in general.

The rest of the day turned out to be like that. I washed the gelding's sheath-a process which the woman could easily have done herself-reassured her that he would be fine, and before I could get back in my truck the pager beeped again. This time it was a client with a horse who had been lame for a week, but today he was "suddenly worse."

I asked questions; the information I elicited was vague, but this horse didn't sound like a true emergency either. Once again I explained about the extra costs of an emergency call; a very common scenario involved a client who'd demanded the vet come out for an "emergency" refusing to pay the bill on the grounds that the charges were too high for what little minor work the veterinarian had actually had to do. But once again, the woman on the phone was sure that I should come out right away.

I drove the hour and a half that it took me to get from Watsonville, where the horse with the swollen sheath was, to Boulder Creek, high in the mountains of the north county, thinking while I did it that this was probably going to prove to be another waste of time and money. This call was actually even worse, as the horse turned out to be only slightly lame, and I was unable to determine what was wrong with him without x-rays, which the woman refused to have, saying they "cost too much."

Not bothering to question the logic of spending sixty unnecessary dollars to get me out here on a Sunday but being unwilling to spend a hundred dollars to get some information that might actually help to diagnose her horse, I took my leave as gracefully as I could, telling her to call me if she changed her mind. Sure enough, the pager buzzed when I was halfway back to Santa Cruz.

Back I went; then out to two more calls, only one of which was a true emergency. This horse, a Peruvian Paso, had a sand colic that looked bad. I treated him as well as I could and told the people that if he got worse they would have to send him to the veterinary emergency center at Davis for a possible operation. This they obdurately refused to consider-again, too much money-and I drove out past the elaborate garden and what looked like a mansion gnashing my teeth. Some days were just like this.

It was almost five o'clock and I hadn't had much lunch-just a bag of chips and a mineral water, grabbed on the way to somewhere. Pushing the depressing memories of my day away from me, I stopped at Carpo's for dinner.

Carpo's is an institution in Soquel. A remodeled burger joint, it offers Santa Cruz-style fast food at prices even an underpaid vet can afford. Waiting through the usual long line, I virtuously ordered a salad bar to go with my glass of chardonnay-not such a hardship at Carpo's, as the salad bar was varied and featured terrific whole-wheat sourdough bread.

Carrying my assembled salad around the restaurant, looking for the always-hard-to-find empty table, I spotted a familiar face. Snub nose, wavy well-cut blonde hair-it was Detective Ward.

She was sitting alone at a table near a window, reading the paper. There was a glass of red wine in front of her, and as I watched, she reached a hand out to take a sip without looking up. She seemed absorbed and content, and I hesitated, wondering whether to disturb her in her private time. On the other hand, the sight of her brought what seemed like dozens of questions and ideas tumbling into my mind, questions that had disappeared in the hubbub of the day, but were still hanging there, unanswered.

Detective Ward looked up suddenly and our eyes met. For a second hers were puzzled, but then I saw what I was sure was a flash of recognition before her face became expressionless.

I nodded at her civilly. "Detective Ward. I'm Doctor McCarthy. Do you mind if I sit with you?"

She glanced around the restaurant, which was demonstrably crowded, and then back at me. "Of course not."

I sat down and we studied each other for a moment with what I thought was equal curiosity on both parts. She was as well dressed as when I had first seen her-medium gray lightweight wool suit, pale gray man-tailored shirt, a heavy braided gold chain around her neck that picked up the gold highlights in her hair. Career clothes. Apparently she worked Sundays, too.

Wondering what she would make of my definitely not dressed-for-success appearance, I had the impulse to wish that the last call of the day hadn't included an enthusiastic Labrador who'd jumped up on me and spattered my jeans with mud. I knew I looked casual, crumpled, and not too clean, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment.

The silent inventory had gone on long enough. I smiled at her and said, "I'm glad I saw you here. I was planning to go down to the sheriff's office and just got too busy." The part about the sheriff's office was an outright lie, but what the hell. I certainly had been busy.

She raised noncommittal eyes to my face. "Oh?"

I took a sip of wine. "I've found out some things that I think you should know, if you don't already."

She studied me with the expression of a woman being bothered by a pesky mosquito, uncertain whether to swat or ignore, but obviously exasperated.

"What things are these?" was what she said.

I told her everything I knew about Casey Brooks, between sips of wine and mouthfuls of salad and bread. Ignoring her pained expression, I waded through his accusations of Will George, his stormy relationship with Melissa, and his quarrel with Martha Welch. Allowing Detective Ward to escape only long enough to pick up her calamari and pasta when it was ready, I elaborated on the poisoned horses, the cut cinch, the unlikeliness of Shiloh ever dislodging Casey, talked at length about the hiding places along the trail and the wide choice of projectiles, went quickly through my interviews with Will George, Jay Holley, and Martha Welch. Finishing up my summary, I told my less-than-riveted audience, "That's about all I know. It seems suspicious to me, but, as you can tell, I don't have any proof, and there are a lot of things I need to know and don't. Like whether any or all of the suspects have alibis. And who may have had something to gain from Casey's death that I don't know about. Who inherited his money, if he had any. Does he have any family? I don't even know that."

In the course of my conversation-monologue, really-Detective Ward's expression had shifted from pained to resigned; now she forked up the last of her calamari and gave me a look that was both quizzical and irritated.

"So you feel the sheriff's department should do some legwork for you, is that it?" Her voice was cool.

I swallowed my remaining wine and fought to keep my temper. "Not exactly. I wanted to give you what information I had. Maybe-I'm not saying you have any obligation-you would be comfortable giving me the answers to some of those questions, supposing you knew them."

Detective Ward looked at me and sighed. Without saying anything she pushed her plate aside and reached for her purse, and I had the sense she was tempted to leave without another word.

Standing up, she looked down at me-a position that put me at even more of a disadvantage than I felt already. The scruffy, bumbling amateur detective facing a poised, competent, dominant member of the legitimate force. Struggling with my annoyance at this woman, I stayed seated, speculating that if she was on as much of a power trip as she appeared to be, it probably arose out of insecurity, and the more powerful I could make her feel, the better my chances were of getting a friendly reaction.

Gritting my teeth, I stared meekly up at her.

"People like you," she said dismissively, "make my job harder. If this were a murder, which it wasn't, you would be getting in my way and putting yourself in danger. I need to ask you to leave this sort of work to those of us who have been trained to do it." Having delivered the reprimand, she seemed to unbend a trace. "This wasn't a murder, Dr. McCarthy. But because it was an unexpected death, I did the routine checks. Casey Brooks had no money to speak of. Less than five thousand dollars in a savings account and a five-year-old Chevy truck were his only assets. Both were left to his mother, who lives in Las Vegas and was known to be there on the day he died. He has no other close relatives-no siblings, no ex-wife, his father's dead-and no one stands to gain in any way by his death."

"Except possibly the people I've talked about," I interjected.

"It's possible." She gazed at me cooly. "But not likely, I'm afraid. Once again: amateurs meddling in investigations only cause trouble. I'll thank you to leave this alone."

She turned with a decisive click of a classy black pump on the hard tile floor, and left me staring at the remains of my dinner. Detective Ward had, figuratively speaking, told me where to go.

She had also, I realized a minute later, told me part, at least, of what I'd wanted to know. There were no other significant suspects. Casey had not been killed for his fortune, or by some unknown ex-wife or brother or sister. If he'd been killed, in all likelihood it was one of the people I was "investigating," albeit in my amateur way. All that remained now was to work on alibis.

I was wondering just how I could start checking the various suspects' alibis as I headed through the parking lot toward my truck, when my pager started beeping once again. Muttering, I turned back to the restaurant and called the answering service from a pay phone near the door.

"This is Dr. McCarthy."

A woman's voice told me, "I have the fire chief on the line. He needs to speak to a veterinarian immediately. They have an emergency."

Slightly startled at the idea of a fire chief and contemplating various horrific scenarios in my mind, I said, "Put him on."

The man's voice was bluff, confident. "Gene Borba here. We've got a horse trailer off the road, Doc. Came unhitched as the gal pulled off the freeway onto the Corralitos exit ramp. Rolled into a little gully and turned over. It's lying there now. There's a horse inside and it's still alive; it's thrashing around. Can you come?"

"Right away," I told him.

Chapter SEVENTEEN

I had no trouble finding the capsized horse trailer. The Corralitos exit was a scene of full-blown disaster-a mass of loudly flashing lights, red, yellow and blue, emergency vehicles, and of all things, television cameras. I didn't stop to ask how they'd gotten there, but as I hurried up to the man pointed out to me as Gene Borba, I heard a murmur of, "That's the vet," and several of the cameras swiveled my way. Oh great. My less-than-professional appearance would now be scrutinized by the entire county.

Clutching a syringe with three cc's of rompin in it, I asked, "Where's the horse?"

Gene Borba, a plump fiftyish man with a relaxed air in the midst of pandemonium, pointed his hand at a trailer lying upside down in the gully, wheels in the air; I could hear a sudden metallic banging from inside. Scrambling down the hill in that direction, I told a weeping girl who was clearly the owner, "I'm a vet. We need to tranquilize your horse so it doesn't hurt itself."

"Yes, please." Tears were running down her face. "Get her out of there, oh please."

The horse trailer was lying at an odd angle, but, by opening one of the small cupboard-like doors that allowed access to the manger so that one could feed and tie the horse, and then wriggling half my body inside, I was able to reach the mare, a little gray Appaloosa, lying on her side on what was supposed to be the roof, her whole head and shoulders wedged uncomfortably into the manger compartment.

"Hang onto my legs," I told a young man in uniform, "and if I say 'pull,' pull me out of here, fast."

Reaching as far in as I dared, I touched the mare's neck and talked to her soothingly. If she started thrashing now, I was in real trouble; one of her front feet could get me in the chest or face without any effort. I talked to her quietly, gritted my teeth, and poked the needle into her jugular vein, hoping I'd aimed well. Drops of blood welled reassuringly out of the end of the needle-I'd gotten the vein. Mercifully the horse was holding still and I injected the rompin slowly and carefully.

"Okay, pull me out easy," I told the hands holding my legs.

Once I was outside again, the sedated horse now quiet in the trailer, we held a conference. The fire chief wanted to dismantle the whole undercarriage of the trailer, cut it open, and lift the horse out with a crane. I pointed out that it was probably a poor risk to try lifting the horse through an opening like that, as her legs could easily be injured on the jagged edges of the cut metal. Watching a four-wheel-drive tow truck that had maneuvered its way into the gully and was sitting next to the trailer, all its lights flashing, I suggested diffidently to the chief that maybe the tow truck could manage to spin the trailer around so that its back doors were facing up and out, so to speak, rather than downhill and away from us.

"What then?" Gene Borba's voice was questioning, open-minded; he clearly didn't know what to do and would welcome being told.

"If we could open both the back doors and cut the center divider out with a hacksaw so it was flush, we could hobble the horse's back legs together and let the tow truck pull it out of the trailer. Half the problem is the horse is more or less stuck in the manger. It can't get up."

The woman, girl, who owned the horse-she was twenty or so--erupted into fresh sobs at this point; the stress of the whole situation seemed to be too much for her.

I put a hand on her arm gently, trying to comfort. "I think we'll get her out of here okay. She looked fine when I gave her the tranquilizer-no injuries at all."

Wet eyes met mine with a desperate plea. "Do you really think she'll be okay?"

Nodding affirmatively, I said, "I stumbled on a trailer wreck like this when I was a graduate student. It looked much worse; there were two horses and one of them had tangled his legs in the manger and torn them up, and he was on top of the other one and looked as though he would trample him to death. But we got them both out and they were okay. The owner called me several months later to tell me they'd made a complete recovery."