False Prophet (23 page)

Trees whizzed by as the horses continued at their frenetic pace. The branches above split his airstream, blowing wind onto the back of his wet neck. Swooshing sounds pounded in his ears, dirt sprayed his eyes. A kaleidoscope of nature’s colors raced past him. Greens, rusts, browns, objects losing their form, relegated to a blur. Everything around him was a deadly weapon — a tree, a branch, a fence, the telephone pole that popped out of nowhere. Even a small clod of dirt could cause the horses to stumble, throwing them onto the ground at fifty miles per hour.

Ahead was a four-foot hedge running across the path — a natural hurdle, but you didn’t do jumps at this kind of speed. There was no place to circumvent the shrubbery. Not that he had any choice. Where Apollo went, so did he. The palomino made the leap but shaved the bush’s top with his hooves. The Appaloosa followed suit, clearing the bush completely and gaining a little distance from the leap. The palomino regained his footing and sprinted forward.

But not quite as fast as before.

Hope flooded Decker’s body. He knew he was gaining ground. He could feel the palomino’s tailwind in his face.

Harder!

Creeping up on the left side, inching closer and closer. Hooves clopping against the dry, dusty ground. Dirt blinding his sight. Blinking it out. Blinking and blinking!

Closer!

The clumps of trees grew thinner, the foliage turned sparse. The sun became brighter and hotter as the horses came out of the protective shade of the woodlands. A few moments later, Decker was elated to see unencumbered land straight ahead. As the palomino broke toward open space, Decker felt his head throb, hope quashed as mountains, previously obscured by the treetops, suddenly jumped into view. An indestructible wall of granite closing in on them. Lilah screamed, her wails echoing as the rocky hillside grew in height and mass. Only minutes left…

Harder and harder!

Inches behind Apollo’s flanks, up to his flanks, up to his belly. The animals, finally neck and neck, nose and nose, the bodies so close they seemed harnessed together. Each step a choreographed death-defying dance, hooves missing each other by fractions of an inch.

Decker pulled ahead while looking backward. Lilah’s complexion was gray, arms clamped around the neck of the palomino.

The mountains coming upon them with horrific clarity!

Now or never. He screamed as loud as he could:

“Lilah, jump to me on the count of three!”

“You won’t catch me! You won’t catch me!”

“There’s no fucking choice! One! Two! Three!”

Lilah remained frozen and wide-eyed.

“Jump—”

“I can’t!”

“Jump now!”

“I—”

“Goddamn it, Lilah! Jump!
Jump! JUMP!
”

She catapulted to the left as Decker’s arm snaked around her waist and squeezed her tightly. He yanked the reins to the right, clearing the mountainside by at least six feet, but was still close enough to catch the blood spatter as the palomino crashed headfirst into stone.

It was only
a horse…

Little comfort when looking at remains. The poor thing’s head had been smashed to pulp, yet its coat was still soaked with sweat from its run.

Decker removed the camera from around his neck. He thought about calling down a police photographer but couldn’t justify the expense in his mind. It wasn’t a person, it was a horse. And as far as the case went, was this really an attempted murder or merely a domesticated animal going berserk? Regardless of what it was, the ordeal had to have reinforced Lilah’s sense of
omniscience
. The incident began to make Decker wonder as well.

Lilah as a prophetess of doom… what would Rabbi Schulman say about that?

He rolled up his sleeves and snapped a full body shot, bent down and took some close-ups — the impact point of animal versus stone. He focused on the blood-spattered ground. The sun was strong and he had to shield his eyes from the glare given off by the white rocks. Heat waves shimmied up from the ground, insects hummed in his face. He batted them away and thought about Carl Totes.

The ranch hand knew Lilah’s habits, knew which of the six horses she was likely to ride. He had access, he could easily obtain means — some drug to alter the horse’s behavior. What could possibly be his motive? If Lilah were dead, his days at the ranch would be numbered. Decker couldn’t imagine any of the clan keeping him on. He couldn’t imagine any one of the greedy bunch holding the ranch, period. They impressed Decker as the “liquidate the assets just as soon as the body’s buried” kind.

Maybe Totes had been hired by someone to kill his boss. But it was damn near impossible to picture Totes lifting a finger against Lilah. His affection for her was nothing short of idol worship. Decker thought about the look on Totes’s face when he’d brought Lilah back to the stables. As he explained what had happened, Totes’s nutmeg skin had blanched, a genuine expression of shock and fear.

Despite all that, Decker wasn’t quite ready to proclaim the ranch hand innocent. He was the only one — besides Lilah — who’d been around this morning. Of course, someone could have sneaked in and done the dirty work. But Totes was never far from the stables — hell, he lived in one of the stalls. Surely he would have noticed a trespasser.

Decker checked his watch. Two hours since the horse did a kamikaze, but the heat was already doing a number on the animal’s body. He took another full-body shot.

Totes and Lilah…

Lilah. Lilah monkeying with her own horse?

But why?

For attention… maybe even his attention. Maybe she’d liked being rescued the first time. Maybe this was a weak attempt to relive it.

Except that she didn’t know he could ride. And she had been legitimately terrified.

Decker heard sneakers scraping against the dirt and stood. Some kid was running toward him at full speed.

Swell. Someone new to muck up the works.

The kid turned out to be a man in his twenties. He stopped short, almost crashing into the face of the mountain, not the least bit winded by a sprint in hundred-degree heat. He was sweated up but smelled minty fresh. His eyes went to the dead horse.

“My God, what
happened
?”

“Who are you?” Decker asked.

“Oh, Christ, that’s right. We’ve never met.” The guy stuck out his hand. “Mike Ness. I work at the spa — aerobics and weight training. I talked to the other one… Detective Dunn, was it?”

“Yeah, it was.” Decker shook Ness’s hand and caught his eye. They squared off. “Still is, as a matter of fact.”

A slow smile spread across Ness’s face. “You have a finely tuned bullshit detector. Is it from years of experience or were you born like that?”

“You’re good, Mike. Clever but cocky. It’s going to trip you up one day.”

Ness shrugged. Decker studied Ness’s face. Dots of sweat patterned his upper lip. Dark hair, blue eyes, a James Dean pout — a pretty boy except he needed a shave. But maybe that was part of his look, a deliberate attempt to make a sweet face appear more masculine. Decker touched his own cheeks. He could do with a razor himself.

“So who invited you down, Mike?”

“No one. I just popped in to do some harvesting for the kitchen. Zucchini. We’ve already got a couple of baseball bats growing on the vine. We’ll stuff and slice those, but Lilah likes them small. Actually they’re bitter when they’re small, but the guests love the mini veggies. We also wilt the blossoms and toss them in our salads served with a pungent vinaigrette. That really knocks the ladies’ socks off.”

“Aerobics instructor, weight lifter, vegetable picker, and culinary expert. You’re a regular jack-of-all-trades.”

Decker pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. The kid had a light waiting before he could put the smoke in his mouth. Decker blew out the match.

“I just chew on them.”

“Trying to quit? We’ve got a wonderful program for that at the spa.”

“You’re an awfully devoted employee. Anything in it for you if the boss kicks suddenly?”

Ness’s eyes darkened. “Not a fucking thing.”

“No need for profanity, Mike. I was just asking you a question.”

“Look, you and your lady partner don’t like me, it’s your problem. But I didn’t have anything to do with Lilah’s misfortune — not with the rape, not with this — whatever it was. I
love
Lilah and not in the way
you’re
thinking—”

“What am I thinking?”

“That I’m only interested in fucking her.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah, I am, but I
don’t
.”

“Just like Ms. Betham—”

“Oh, man…” Ness threw his arms in the air and dropped them by his sides. “I don’t fuck the clientele. That’s not what
I
do, okay?”

“Who does?”

“Who says anyone does? Last I heard, Lilah runs a spa, not a stud rental.”

“That’s not what I hear about your good buddy, Mike. The tennis instructor…” Decker smiled. “Eubie Jeffers, is it?”

Ness shrugged. “What about him?”

“I hear he has a hard time keeping his pants zipped.”

“Never a shortage of rumors, huh?”

“I also hear he was with a woman the night Lilah was raped.”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“We did. You know what else he told us, Mike?”

“That I was with him. That what you want to hear?”

Decker stopped to reappraise his questioning. The kid was very good. He took out his notebook and pencil. “How long were you with him?”

“’Bout an hour.”

“He told my partner he was with you all night.”

It was Ness’s turn to stop and analyze. Decker could see him thinking: Is he trying to trick me or what? The boys obviously didn’t get their story straight — or someone had changed it.

Ness said, “Eubie has trouble remembering things.”

“He didn’t sleep over your place?” Decker asked.

“No.”

“Then how long was he there?”

“I already answered that. About an hour… maybe it was two hours…”

Good old Mike giving Eubie some slack. Decker said, “What time did he arrive?”

“Late.”

“How late?”

“I don’t know. Probably after midnight.”

“And stayed until about two?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Okay.” Decker’s eyes were on his notebook. “Were you two fucking?”

Silence. Decker looked up. Ness had turned crimson. Guilt or anger?

Nostrils flaring, Ness whispered, “You expect me to
answer
that?”

“You have a problem answering that?”

“I wasn’t
fucking
him. I don’t
fuck
guys.”

Decker said, “So what were you two doing?”

“Talking.”

“About what?”

“Why don’t you ask Eubie since we talked about his problems.”

Decker tapped his pencil on his notebook. “Because I’m asking you.”

Ness crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Look, is this an interrogation? Do I need a lawyer?”

“Do you?”

“Oh, man, you are really messing with my head. You know, I came over here out of concern for Lilah. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw Carl. He was as white as a sheet. Somehow, I gathered that something bad happened to Lilah, but she wasn’t hurt. That’s as far as I got. You ever try to get information out of Carl? The guy isn’t exactly articulate. When I tried the ranch house to talk to the boss, there was a cop at the door. I figured I’d check out the scene myself.”

Ness’s eyes drifted to the bloody rocks, to the dead horse now collecting fistfuls of black flies.

“God, what a mess! Is Lilah
really
okay?”

Decker regarded Ness’s expression — somber.

“She’s shaken up,” Decker said. “But she’s fine.”

“What happened?”

Decker smoothed his mustache and thought: If Ness knew what really had happened, Decker wouldn’t be revealing anything. If Ness was innocent, he was probably better off knowing the truth.

“Lilah’s horse went berserk and plowed into the mountain.”

“How’d she…? She must have jumped or something. Miracle she didn’t break her neck. Some people are kissed by God.”

“Or lucky enough to go riding with the right person. I caught her.”

Decker waited for Ness’s reaction. Just surprise, nothing else.

“You went
riding
with her? Why?”

“How about if I ask the questions?”

“Oooo, I hit upon something
official
.” Ness had a gleam in his eye. “Or personal. Talk about fucking. Maybe the cop doth protest too much.”

Decker was impassive. Ness let out a laugh.

“It’s been a while since I played weeny wag with anyone. Talk about being good, Detective.”

“Where were you this morning, Mike?”

Ness’s smile grew flippant. “So now I’m an official suspect?”

Decker waited.

“How early are we talking about?” Ness said.

“You go first.”

“Okay.” He exhaled. “I woke up. I do that every morning. Then… let’s see. Well, I made the seven o’clock hike. Had a bran muffin and tea after that. I ran the nine and ten aerobic classes. Natanya took over at eleven. I must have eaten around eleven-thirty. I was at the pool by noon.” He shrugged. “There you have it. My Life by Mike Ness. Somehow, I just can’t see it as a screenplay.”

Decker put his notebook away.

“No more questions? Did I pass, Detective?”

Decker pulled a card from his wallet. “If you learn
anything
about this — or about the rape — give me a call.”

“So, we’re buddies, Detective
Sergeant
?”

Decker laid his beefy hand on Ness’s shoulder. It was surprisingly bony. “I wouldn’t say that, Mikey. Now, even as we speak, I hear zucchinis calling your name. Why don’t you beat it before you screw up evidence?”

Ness’s eyes surveyed the scene for a final time. “How fast were you two going?”

Instead of answering, Decker cocked his thumb toward the fields. Ness started to leave, then stopped. “You must ride pretty well, Detective Sergeant.”

Decker picked up his camera and snapped another picture. “Yes, I must.”