The Stars Shine Bright (4 page)

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She jumped. Her eyes were large and blue and scared.

“I don't need any help,” she said, tugging at her shirt. It was pink. Bright pink. For reasons beyond my investigative skills, the barn's racing color was Barbie pink. She lifted the bucket again, tipping the water into the metal basin hanging beside the horse's stall. “I can do it.”

I smiled, friendly and harmless, and tried not to limp as I walked down the sawdust path toward Hot Tin. The barns smelled of alfalfa and horse dander and worn dollar bills. Each barn was shaped like two Es facing each other. The long sides held horse stalls, connected by three lanes. I was walking down the middle lane when I heard a voice ask, “When did she run?”

“In the third,” a man replied. “Came in last.”

“Her stomach sounds bad.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“And there's too much fluid in her lungs,” the second man added. “You shouldn't have run her; she needs rest.”

“Are you lecturing me, boy?”

I recognized that voice. The sharp gravel of Bill Cooper. Head trainer for Hot Tin's horses.

“Nobody wants your advice,” Cooper continued. “You just get her ready to run on Wednes—”

“That's impossible.”

“Hit her with some Lasix. Or do you want me to call Doc Madison and tell him you don't know what you're doing?”

I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. The girl in the pink shirt waited at the end of the gallery, head tilted with curiosity. She had long pale blond hair that fell like bleached rain. I gave a friendly wave, then walked around the corner.

Bill Cooper stood at the edge of the stall. The top half of the Dutch door was open and I could see Solo in Seattle lying on the sawdust floor. The man kneeling beside her was the veterinarian's assistant, Brent Roth. Skinny and handsome in a scruffy sort of way, he had a permanent squint around his eyes that made him look thoughtful, and perpetually annoyed. But he was so young that his skin still had acne spreading across his cheeks and neck. It was half the reason Cooper called him “boy.” That, and Cooper was a bully.

The trainer looked at me. His eyes were a cold gray-blue, like zinc. “What're you doing here?”

“Aunt Eleanor wanted me to check on the horse.”

“Guess she wants you to learn something useful.” He turned back to the assistant vet. “Get the Lasix.”

But the younger man was now wearing a stethoscope, brushing the instrument's metal bell down the horse's side and pausing to listen. The animal's chestnut coat looked shiny, unctuous with sweat, and when Brent palpitated her hairless belly, she only gazed at the plank wall, her brown eyes glassy with illness.

“Lasix,” I said into the silence. “What does that do?”

Brent glanced over his shoulder. “Opens the lungs.”

“And it's safe?”

Neither man replied. I was almost getting used to that.

Like most places that revolved around money, Emerald Meadows was built on a libertine subculture. Every handshake made my radar quiver with questions. Gamblers and bookies and sharks. Narks and rats and foolish souls who plowed every ounce of faith into “luck.” Many of them were hiding secrets. Most were hatching plans. And all of them treated newcomers with suspicion—even the supposed niece of Eleanor Anderson.

“What did I tell you?” Cooper said. “Get the Lasix. Now.”

Brent Roth's eyes nearly closed with his squint. He yanked off the stethoscope. A flush of color came up his neck, enflaming the acne, as he dug through a black medical bag sitting on the ground.

“That's right,” Cooper said. “Do what you're told.”

I decided to try using Cooper's hostility to my advantage, since the assistant didn't like him either. Leaning over the bottom half of the Dutch door, I said, “She looks really sick. Are you sure this stuff 's a good idea?”

“Butt out,” Cooper said.

I saw the assistant turn his head, about to respond, when he was interrupted.

“You just don't care,” she said.

The girl in the pink shirt stood three feet behind me, glaring at Cooper. But when she saw the horse, the disgust in her eyes shifted to sadness. Brent was wiping the horse's neck with an alcohol swab, then pressing his thumb down until a thick vein bulged. The jugular, I guessed. He stabbed it with a syringe and pushed the plunger. The horse didn't react. When he extracted the needle, he patted the spot gently, comforting her.

Cooper said, “Was that so hard?”

Brent still had his hand on the horse. Solo in Seattle turned her head, the fevered eyes gazing at him.

The girl's voice almost broke. “You're cruel, Bill Cooper.”

“And you're outta line,” he replied. “Especially after Cuppa Joe destroyed her morale.”

When Solo in Seattle faltered in the third race today, a horse named Cuppa Joe flew past her to victory. He was the long shot. And he just so happened to belong to the Abbondanza barn. It was a big payday for Sal Gag.

“You should be ashamed.” The girl's eyes were wet as she turned and walked back toward her stables.

Brent Roth sighed and began packing up his medical bag.

“Do you think it could be Emerald Fever?” I asked.

“What?” Cooper whirled. “You want to jinx my barn?”

“It's my aunt's barn,” I said, keeping my eyes on the assistant vet. I was a bad liar. “And she wants blood tests.”

“What?” Cooper repeated.

It wasn't quite what Eleanor said, but she did hire me to find out what was going on. And blood tests might reveal something.

Cooper said, “How come she didn't tell me?”

“You were busy,” I lied. “But she thinks something's not right. Solo was winning. Now suddenly she's sick.”

“Colic,” Cooper said. “It's just colic.”

But Brent Roth had already swabbed the neck again and was pressing down to find the vein. As he filled an empty syringe with crimson ribbons of blood, the horse blinked her large brown eyes. Brent patted her side and deposited the full syringe in a Ziploc bag inside his medical kit.

“That 50 ccs of Lasix should hold her,” he said. “Doc Madison will come check her in the morning. But somebody should stay with her tonight. Just in case.”

“Juan,” Cooper said, referring to the barn's groom. “Juan will watch her.”

Brent glanced at me, stepping out of the stall. I thought his squint looked skeptical. Cooper practically pushed him down the gallery, hustling him out. But he stopped when I didn't follow them.

“What're you doing?” he asked.

“I'll watch her. Until Juan can take over.”

“Right.” He rolled his eyes. “Because you know so much about horses.”

He had a bandy-legged walk, and as he passed the third stall he rapped his knuckles on the plank wall.

“Hey, check on Solo when you get a chance!”

It was several minutes later when a man stepped from that stall. Cooper and Brent Roth were gone, and the man held a red bucket in one hand. The metal hasp was sunk deep into the flesh of his thick palm. His fingers were gray. As he closed the Dutch door's bottom half, the brown horse inside leaned forward and fluttered her lips. KichaKoo, a four-year-old filly. Juan Morales gave her whiskered chin a soft chuck.

Here's what I knew about him: Juan Morales came to the barn last year, when Eleanor hired Bill Cooper. He was taciturn and diligent, and his social security number belonged to a Native American from the Yakima Indian reservation who died seventeen years ago. Naturally, the bad trace bumped him up my list of suspects. I was also learning that grooms had the most access to the horses. Feeding, watering. Staying the night.

“Juan?” I walked toward him.

He was already stepping into the next stall, where a white horse tried to block his entrance.

“I want to stay with Solo tonight.”

He pushed the horse aside. Her name was Checkmate. “Your aunt,” he said, “she pay me to stay.”

“I'll make sure you get paid for the night.”

“El'nor, she no want you sweet on the horses.”

“She doesn't need to know I'm here.”

He glanced at me and set down the bucket inside the stall. The horse was rocking its head up and down, as if enthusiastically agreeing to something. A thin horse, she was shaped from neck to haunches like a silver blade. I waited while Juan reached inside the bucket and scooped out a handful of wet clay. It was gray and he worked the soil between his hands before leaning into the animal's side and clicking his tongue. The groom took her weight into his shoulders and back, and Checkmate raised her left leg, allowing him to massage the clay into her knobby knee.

“I would really like to stay.”

“You know no-ting about horses.”

“All she needs is someone to watch her. How hard is that?”

Still bent at the waist, he glanced up at me. His skin was the texture of raisins. And his dark eyes held a strange expression, like an old man who suspected any peaceful Sunday drive with his children might someday end at a retirement home. “Why?”

“I feel bad for her. She's suffering.”

He returned to his work, massaging the mud into the leg. The horse looked like she was wearing dingy socks.

“I promise to be gone before Cooper comes back in the morning.”

He said something in Spanish. The horse shook her mane.

“I'll pay you triple wages for the night.”

He glanced up. “Tree-pull?”

“Guaranteed.”

He straightened his back and dug two fingers into the front pocket of his jeans. The mud was such a fine clay that it had already started drying on the backs of his hands, flaking and falling like ash into the sawdust. He offered me a small brass key.

“What's this?” I leaned over the Dutch door to take it.

“Cold at night.” He scooped another lump of clay from the bucket. “Get a blanket.”

I rushed up the gallery, feeling hope swirl around my heart. But as I passed the stalls, the horses nickered. Like they were in on my secret. I walked to the end of the barn, where the grooms lived in apartments. I keyed open Juan's door. His room wasn't much bigger than the horse stalls. No window. No bathroom. No closet. Just a thin cot pushed against the wall and a green blanket nubby from wear. Standing in the door, I glanced back at the stables, then closed the door.

By giving me the key, Juan had surrendered all his “expectations of privacy.” It was a legal term that basically meant any objects in plain sight were fair game for law enforcement. But nothing could be touched or moved without his permission. And I wasn't tempted, not after making that mistake on the cruise ship.

A brown towel hung on a brass hook. The terrycloth looked rough as sandpaper. Below the towel, a pair of worn rubber sandals waited, probably for walking back and forth to the showers, which were in another building. A pile of dirty clothes slumped on the concrete floor, and a Spanish language newspaper lay next to a dented steel trunk at the foot of the bed. The trunk, unfortunately, was closed. I crouched down, checking under the bed. Inches from the metal frame, an aluminum pot sat on a hot plate and a scent rose from the simmering contents, earthy as tilled soil. Beans. Black beans, cooked down to the consistency of paste.

I stood up, looked around the room again, and saw the only thing resembling a spare blanket: a sleeping bag rolled up in the corner, with strands of hay protruding from the flannel like feathers in a cap. Picking up the bag, I headed back to the stables.

Juan had moved to the next stall and was working the clay into an equine warlord appropriately named SunTzu.

“Is this what you meant?” I lifted the sleeping bag.

He nodded, took his key back, and gave me a funny look. “You no tell?”

“As long as you don't tell Aunt Eleanor, I won't tell Cooper. And I'll make sure the triple time is in your next check.”