Hayburner (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (2 page)

"Hans," I yelled, over the hubbub.

"Ah, yes, the lovely Dr. Gail McCarthy." Hans was also an incorrigible flirt. His teeth flashed white in the darkness as he looked my way.

I didn't have the time for this. "Hans, I'm not going to have enough antibiotics in my truck for all the horses who need them. How about you?"

"I have some."

"Could we collaborate?"

"Of course, my dear. What is mine is yours."

"Thanks," I said briefly, not fooled. There would certainly be an accounting later. Hans was as well known for being tight with money as he was for being flirtatious with women.

Finishing up with the horse I was working on, I took a deep breath and dug my cell phone out of my pocket. Pushing one of my speed dial numbers, I waited.

A male voice answered after several rings, sounding both sleepy and annoyed. "Yes?"

"John, this is Gail. I need your help."

"I'm not on call tonight. You are."

"Right. However, this is a major emergency. I've got a fire at the Bishop Ranch and what looks like several dozen horses that need to be started on antibiotics. Could you go by the clinic, load up the other truck, and come out here and help me?"

"It's my weekend off."

"I know that, John. This is a big problem. I need help." I tried to keep the fury I was feeling out of my voice.

There was a moment of silence. Then, "All right, all right. I'll be there." And the click of the phone hanging up.

Damn right you will, you bastard. I stared at the cell phone in my hand, and then shoved it roughly back in my pocket. I still couldn't believe I had to deal with this asshole.

John Romero was our new junior vet. My boss, Jim Leonard, had hired him three months ago, while I was on vacation. We did need the help, and, in theory, I was pleased, though I would have liked to have been part of the hiring process. As it turned out, in practice John Romero was a complete pain in the butt.

Not to Jim, of course. With Jim he was downright obsequious. With me, however, he was hostile and unhelpful, and I had heard through the client grapevine that he bad-mouthed me at every opportunity. Why, I had no idea. He had appeared to resent me from the moment of our meeting, and in the subsequent three months things had gotten worse, not better.

And now, to top it off, Jim was on vacation for a month. With the ballast of his presence removed, John's sulkiness seemed to be leaning toward downright belligerence. I was nominally in charge, but John did everything he could to make things difficult for me, and I simply didn't know what to do about it.

Resolving once again to have a frank talk with Jim as soon as he got back, I started to look at the gray horse in front of me. At the same moment a loud crash startled me into a jerky twist. A sudden gout of flame burst from the barn. Shit. Something had exploded. The air was thick with smoke-my eyes had been running steadily for the last hour, and like my patients, I coughed and hacked.

Momentarily I stared at the barn, mesmerized by the sight. Above the roof, fire reached ever higher into the night. My heart pounded with adrenaline leaking into my system from the sudden start. At the same time I felt a sort of profound wonder. There is something about a big fire that is intensely moving in a primal way. Fear and awe intertwined. I took a deep breath.

Turning back to the gray horse, I began the examination. Focus, Gail, focus.

Two hours later I had treated all the horses brought to me for help. John had arrived with more antibiotics-between us, he, Hans, and I had administered them to all horses who had been trapped in the smoke. As far as I knew, two horses had died, two had moderate burns, a couple had mild burns, and roughly twenty were coughing.

"Is this it?" I asked Bart Bishop, Clay's brother and the manager of the boarding stable.

"Yep." Bart watched me inject penicillin into the last horse's rump. "There were a couple of dozen horses in the big barn." Bart's voice sounded both exhausted and wired-a combination I recognized in myself.

"How about the other barns?" I asked.

"No problems. They were all metal shed roofs. We got those horses out and away from the big barn and they're all fine."

I turned to look in the direction of Bart's stare, and saw firefighters playing hoses on the charred pile of rubble that was all that remained of the old barn.

"It's a complete loss," Bart said wearily, reading my thought. "And we're underinsured."

For all that I didn't particularly care for Bart Bishop, I felt a rush of sympathy.

"Damn," I said. "Does anyone know what happened?"

"Not really. I got a new load of hay yesterday. You've got to wonder."

It was true. Improperly baled hay had caused plenty of barn fires in its time. Essentially the hay was put up too wet, and the interior of the bale behaved like a compost pile, getting hotter and hotter. If conditions were just right, or just wrong, the hay could catch on fire. Last winter I had opened a bale in my own barn that had steamed heavily into the chilly morning air. The interior was too hot to touch.

I nodded my understanding and felt a hand on my shoulder. "Gail."

It was Clay. I knew his voice and his touch. Turning, I looked up into his eyes-weary, like Bart's, but sadder, it seemed to me.

Clay had beautiful eyes, big, blue-green and long-lashed, under strongly marked brows. Their beauty wasn't particularly apparent now, in the dim light and harsh circumstances, but I was familiar with them from other times and places. Clay's eyes often seemed a little pensive; now they looked positively somber.

"How are the two horses that got burned?" he asked.

"Better than you'd think," I said. "The burns aren't too deep or extensive. I heard you lost two." I looked from one brother to the other.

"Yeah," Bart said. "They were in back, next to the hay. They were trapped back there by the time we saw the fire and started getting the horses out. There wasn't anything we could do."

Clay nodded, not saying anything.

"Bad thing is," Bart went on, "one of them was a real nice show horse, belonged to this woman who spent a lot of money on him. I just hope she doesn't sue us."

I looked at him, thinking the remark a little callous, and reminded yet again of how much I didn't like Bart Bishop. His stance, as always, was somewhat rigid-spine straight, shoulders thrown back, chin up. Despite the exhausted lines around his eyes, visible even in the arena lights, his speech was rapid; in him the adrenaline-wired feeling seemed to be uppermost.

Clay, on the other hand, wasn't saying much of anything, but I could feel his upper arm just touching mine as he stood close to me, as if for comfort. Glancing at him, I saw his eyes were on the ground, not looking at Bart.

"You doing okay?" I asked him quietly.

"I'm fine. Just tired." He met my eyes and reached out to touch my hand at the same time. At the brush of his cool fingers, I was reminded of many other touches, more intimate, at other times. Clay and I had been dancing around the notion of becoming lovers for several months.

And just how do you feel about that, my mind asked dispassionately, registering the touch. Don't know, I answered myself.

Grimacing slightly at this inner dialogue-a habit of mine that I often wished I could shake-I turned my attention back to Clay. Granted that this handsome, personable man was pleasant to be with and I liked him a lot, I still felt surprisingly detached about him. I could acknowledge my attraction to Clay, but it wasn't driving me.

Another voice jarred me loose from my train of thought. "Is that it?" John Romero. Walking up to me with a characteristic expression and tone-sulky resentment.

"Looks like it," I said as cheerfully as I could manage. "You can go," I added. "And thanks." To this John merely nodded, then turned and walked away. His surly behavior seemed to penetrate Clay's fog.

"Not really friendly is he?" Clay said.

"He doesn't like me," I said. "I don't know why."

Anything else I might have added was drowned out by Hans Schmidt's voice. "So, Dr. McCarthy, I have a list here for you, of antibiotics I gave to your patients." Hans' teeth shone whitely in the still-smoky night air, his silver-gray hair, neatly coiffed, glowed with some inner moonlight. He looked clean, tidy, and unrumpled-a miracle considering the situation.

I took his list. "Thanks, Hans," I said briefly. Since John had arrived with drugs from our clinic, I hadn't really needed Hans' help. Nonetheless, I had asked, and was now obligated. "I'll have the bookkeeper mail you a check on Monday."

"I thank you," Hans said, sketching a bow. On him the gesture did not appear as ridiculous as one might expect-his courtly manner and flamboyant good looks made it seem natural. At roughly sixty, Hans was a bodybuilder and a triathlete; he was as aggressively fit as many much younger men. And he knew it.

Hans put an arm around my shoulders. "And how are you doing, my dear?"

I wasn't fooled by the pseudo-avuncular stance. Hans was about as avuncular as a great white shark.

"I'm okay," I said. "Rough night for all of us."

Hans squeezed my shoulders. "For a lady, especially."

I stepped quietly out of his arm, looked him in the eye, and said again, "For all of us. But especially for Bart. It's his barn."

Bart and Clay had been watching this exchange without a word. Now Hans met Bart's eyes and I smiled a little to myself. It was no secret that Bart didn't care for Hans Schmidt. Hans had been practicing in the area less than a year, and he had already convinced several of Bart's boarders to take their horses elsewhere, on the grounds that "horses weren't meant to live in confinement." One couldn't expect that Bart would be pleased.

The two men held each other's eyes for a long second; I was reminded of rival male dogs, or perhaps, banty roosters. Bart broke first. Half shrugging, he turned and walked away without a word.

Hans spread his arms. "What can I say? This is what comes of keeping horses in this kind of unnatural confinement."

I'd had enough. "I've heard the speech," I said. "Save it for someone who hasn't." I turned to Clay. "It's been a long night. I think I'll go home and get some sleep."

"You'd better do that," he agreed. It seemed to me there was some underlying emotion in his quiet voice, something I couldn't quite place. Grief? Bewilderment? Whatever it was, I was just too tired to sort it out.

"I'll call you," I said. And left.

TWO

Saturday morning dawned bright, clear, and warm. I lay in bed, looking out my window at the blue sky above the brushy ridgeline and wished fervently for clouds and rain. It was early October, and the usual long, dry California summer had been followed by an exceptionally hot, dry fall. There had been no rain as yet, and in the hills of southern Santa Cruz County, this was a big problem.

Little brush fires were becoming increasingly common; all of us hill dwellers lived in dread that one of these would take off. Last night's barn fire had raised that fear in my mind again. The only thing that would make me feel safe was rain, and plenty of it.

But there was to be none of that today, judging by the sky. I booted my dog off my feet and rolled out of bed. Roey, the small, red female Queensland heeler I had just kicked in the ribs, stretched and yawned and followed me to the door.

Letting the dog out, I walked back down the short hall for a cup of coffee. I'd given myself a coffeemaker with an automatic timer for my birthday, and I was really enjoying waking up to the smell of freshly brewed French roast. Not to mention the downright luxury of simply pouring myself a cup, rather than fumbling around in an early-morning daze and then waiting semi-patiently for the much-needed beverage to be ready.

Pouring the steaming coffee into my blue willow patterned mug, I added sugar and milk and sat down at one end of the couch. From here, I could see out big windows that faced south and overlooked my garden, and further down the slope, the barn and horse corrals. I watched Roey, prospecting about on her morning rounds, looking very much like a small red fox, and noted that a dozen or so chickens were pecking in my vegetable beds.

The resident pair of banties, Jack and Red, had finally managed to raise a brood. My initial excitement over the tiny, fluffy chicks, hardly any bigger than baby quail, had declined somewhat when Red had decided that her babies needed fresh vegetables. My vegetables. The vegetable garden was fenced, but Red merely flew over, and the walnut-sized chicks just went through.

"Stupid chickens," I said out loud. But I didn't bother to chase them out. They'd only be back in when I wasn't looking. I'd just have to put up with a few pecked tomatoes and lettuces.

Sipping my coffee, I stared out over the garden. Tattered, parched, and dusty as it was, to me it was still beautiful. I had devoted much care and attention when I had planned and planted my border, and used mostly drought-tolerant plants. Born and raised on the coast of California, I was familiar with the difficulty of growing classic British garden perennials in our climate, and had focused largely on Mediterranean plants and California natives, both well adapted to deal with my circumstances.