Cutter (Gail McCarthy Mystery series) (14 page)

Fortunately for the future of our relationship, Lonny didn't say anything derogatory about women's intuition. "Then you need a suspect who has a motive both for poisoning the horses and for killing Casey."

Lonny's face creased into a wide grin. "I'm amazed you don't know her. I thought everybody in the horse business in Santa Cruz County knew old Martha."

"Why should I?"

"She's legendary. She's been through several husbands, dozens of horse trainers, at least a half dozen vets. That's probably why you don't know her; I think she quit Jim several years ago. She can't get along with anybody. But what gives her a motive to kill Casey Brooks?"

"One of the horses that died belonged to her. Melissa said the horse was insured for a lot-more than it was worth. If Martha Welch wanted to kill it for the insurance money, it makes sense that she'd kill a bunch of the others so it didn't look like hers was a particular target. Of course, if she's as rich as everyone says, she wouldn't need the insurance money."

"Oh, I don't know about that. Martha's as notorious for being tight as she is for being rich. Most of her long string of disagreements were over money."

"She made out that she was angry at Casey about her horse dying," I went on, "but that could have been an act. She was upset with Casey, though. It was written all over her. She'd probably know what trail he usually took if she had a horse in training with him. Maybe he threatened to turn her in."

I glanced at Lonny speculatively. "Do you know where she lives?"

"Sure." Lonny had no trouble interpreting my look. "But what excuse do you have for going there? She doesn't use Jim as her vet anymore."

"No problem. I'm the vet that put her horse down, remember? I can say the insurance people called me. You know, it's kind of funny they haven't. Ken Resavich's insurance company contacted me right away about his horses."

Lonny sighed and scratched Blue's ears. "All right. I'll direct you to Martha's. But this is it. This is absolutely the last person we try and pin a murder on. Agreed?"

"It's a deal."

Chapter FOURTEEN

Martha Welch turned out to live in south Santa Cruz County, high in the hills behind Watsonville, not all that far from Ken Resavich. That argued well for my suspicions.

I drove the winding, narrow curves of Mt. Madonna Road at a crawl; the rain was still drumming down and visibility was terrible. Lonny directed me to an innocuous wooden gate between two redwood trees. The gate was standing open and a slender paved drive, slick with rain, led off between ranks of other redwoods, somber dark pillars in the gray.

"This doesn't look like a wealthy person's place," I commented, as I nosed the truck down the drive.

"You'll see." Lonny's voice was amused.

The road twisted between redwood groves; the woods around us peaceful and pristine in the rain-undisturbed wilderness, no house or garden or cultivation in sight. We'd gone at least half a mile before a rail fence appeared on our right, then our left, lining the road. The boards were natural, unpainted wood, like the gate, and blended easily into the surroundings. Inside the fences were wide pastures, and in the pastures were horses. Broodmares, weanlings and yearlings, I judged, arrayed in different fields according to type and looking wet but not unhappy in the streaming rain. Horses, I'd noticed, didn't mind being out in the rain, unless it was accompanied by extreme cold or high winds. Another half mile or so between the pastures, then the drive rose out of a little dip; I almost skidded to a halt.

"Holy cow," I breathed.

"See what I mean." Lonny was enjoying my reaction.

One carne upon Martha Welch's place suddenly-from the crest of the little dip, her house and barnyard were laid out in front and below the approaching vehicle in all their simple splendor. This was a far cry from Will George's kind of money. His place had been ostentatiously wealthy, advertising his success, nouveau riche if ever I had seen it. Martha Welch's was just the opposite.

A large, one-story, rambling house was situated on the slight slope, and the arms and branches of the building followed the little ridges and descents of the land, so that the house was constantly moving up and down a step or two. Shingled all over, the shingles stained a natural wood color like the fences, the house had no less than six gray stone chimneys, no more than ten doors. All the windows, of which there were many, had a latticework of small panes, the framework painted white-the whole place looked vaguely like a hunting lodge that Louis XIV would have used.

Small lawns and flowering plantings nestled in the bays between the various wings of the building, and across an acre or so of paved courtyard sat a pretty two-story barn, also shingled, with what was obviously living quarters up above it. Wide decks ran around the house on the far side, extending into a space that overlooked the whole panorama of the Monterey Bay.

It was the bay that lent this house its breathtaking drama; the house itself was carefully and expensively understated, its focal point a vista of hills tumbling down to the sweep of the coastline. From the house one could see everything-the half moon of the bay, Santa Cruz to the north and Monterey to the south-rendered even more dramatic this afternoon by the storm clouds scudding across the sky.

"Her parents built it. Her dad was a grandson of one of the original logging barons of the West Coast. Martha is his only child."

"Wow." I stepped gently on the accelerator and drove up to the house, trying not to feel intimidated. Martha Welch could be arrested for murder just like anybody else, I reminded myself.

One of the big, dark gray clouds seemed to break in two right over us, and a deluge was pouring down as I parked the truck in front of the house. Pulling my slicker on as I got out, I was about to dash for the front door when a figure came flying out of the barn, yelling in our direction.

"You're a vet, aren't you?" The shouted question was addressed to Lonny, not me. "Come quick!"

Startled, I peered through the rain at a woman I recognized as Martha Welch. Realizing that she'd identified the multi-compartmented cover on my pickup bed as that of a veterinarian, I nodded affirmatively. "I'm a vet. What's the matter?"

She wasn't listening. "Quick, come out here. She'll bleed to death!"

Martha dashed back through the rain toward her barn; I grabbed some tranquilizers and suturing equipment and followed at the run, Lonny beside me.

"She" proved to be a dun mare with a deep cut on her right front pastern, a cut that was squirting a veritable red fountain of blood with every beat of her heart. Artery, I thought.

Stepping up to the mare, who was tossing her head and dancing frantically in circles, spraying blood in all directions, I told a very young man with a cowboy hat who had the look of an aspiring trainer and was holding the lead rope, "Keep her as still as you can so I can get this injection in her jugular vein."

It would be a while before she'd bleed to death, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. Steadying the mare's head a little, I inserted the needle in the underside of her neck with a quick plink, attached the syringe and withdrew enough blood to be sure I'd hit the jugular vein, then injected rompin, a tranquilizer that rendered frantic horses relaxed and immobile. In a minute the mare was swaying on her feet, head down, oblivious to her cut leg and everything else.

I knelt beside her and clamped off the squirting artery, eliminating the bloody fountain. Using clean gauze pads to mop up most of the mess, I began suturing the wound together. Once sutured, I wrapped it with a bandage to protect it, Lonny bringing me the necessary materials from my truck. Martha Welch watched the whole operation with a silent but critical eye.

When I was done, I stood up and smiled at her. "I'm Gail McCarthy, and this is Lonny Peterson."

"Martha Welch. Thank you. That's one of my best broodmares. She was tied here in the barn; this idiot left a hoe where she could step on it." She gestured in a derogatory way at the young man in the cowboy hat, who winced and quickly led the mare away.

Now that her face was no longer distorted by distress, Martha Welch appeared a firmly elegant woman of indeterminate middle age, though the elegance was not a type I admired. Gold and diamonds sparkled from her ears, hung about her neck, and encrusted her fingers-it was evident where the nickname "Mrs. Gotrocks" had come from. Her hair looked crisp and unmessable despite her run through the rain, and her face was stretched tight and masked with make-up-one of the reasons her age was in question. A fit-looking figure said aerobics and maybe a few tucks. Martha Welch was anywhere between forty-five and sixty-five, and obviously determined not to get any older.

"I work for Jim Leonard," I went on conversationally, using a handful of gauze to wipe some blood off my boots.

"I suppose Jim will be sending me a bill." Martha Welch sounded disgruntled, and I noticed Lonny was having a hard time hiding his smile.

"Not necessarily," I said, thinking fast. "I came up here to ask you about another matter. Perhaps," I laid careful stress on the perhaps, "I could just do this as a favor. I'm not officially at work today."

The idea of what was undoubtedly a hundred-dollar-plus veterinary bill being written off like that roused Martha Welch to quick hospitality. "Why don't you come inside," she indicated both Lonny and me with a wave of her arm, "where we can be more comfortable."

Rain was still spitting fitfully as we crossed the courtyard; large, purplish clouds hanging over the bay seemed to indicate that more storm was on its way. Leaving my blood-spattered slicker in the pickup, I followed Lonny through the front door of Martha Welch's house, wiping my feet carefully on the doormat, and stopping to wash my hands in a sparkling little guest bathroom.

We were led into a room at the end of an arm of the house that stretched out toward the bay-a wonderful room, a room I'd have given my eye teeth for. Smallish, but high-ceilinged-I supposed you could call it a sitting room; a couch, two or three armchairs, and a stone fireplace (with a pleasant fire flickering in it) filled the available space. The floors were wide-planked oak, polished to a soft sheen, the walls and ceiling natural wood, the open-beam rafters shadowy above us. All the furniture was covered with a bright floral print-rust red on deep green-that was just colorful enough to be cheerful and pleasing rather than garish against the simple wood-toned walls. Martha Welch switched on a lamp on a small table and gestured at the furniture. I sat down in an armchair and stared.

Across the front of this room was a wall of windows, delicately lattice-paned; beyond the windows the Monterey Bay stretched in its full glory, with the coastal hills and the Pajaro Valley in the foreground. The first storm of the season rambled across an immensity of sky and space and I felt a sense of delight. If I owned this house, I thought, I'd sit in this room every evening with a glass of wine and watch the light die out of the west.

It appeared that I was going to get to do this at least once, as Martha Welch was offering us a drink. "Chardonnay, if you have it," I requested.

A yell of "Nancy," followed by our drink orders, informed me that she probably did have it.

Lonny had seated himself in an armchair; Martha Welch chose the couch and settled herself in one corner, crossing a leg with a self-conscious attempt at casualness.

As an effort at relaxation, it was largely a failure; the tension in the woman was obvious. I more or less suspected that it was habitual; Martha Welch had the appearance of someone who would never truly relax, even drinking a solitary cup of coffee, or sitting alone in the evening, she would be filled with nervous energy.

A fiftyish woman brought our drinks on a tray; I sipped my wine, Lonny had a bourbon and soda, Martha Welch had called for an old-fashioned. It all felt very civilized. I wasn't sure how to begin.

"I'm the vet that Casey Brooks used," was what I tried, and it elicited all the reaction that my interviews with Will George and Jay Holley had failed to provoke.

Martha Welch stiffened in her corner; her lips tightened and her eyes flashed. "What did he do, tell you I poisoned my own horse?"

She had the grace to look slightly abashed. "I heard." I had the impression she would have liked to say "good riddance to bad rubbish," but she didn't. She said, "Did he tell you not to sign the certificate for the insurance?" Before I could decide what answer to make, she went on. "Because I'm not putting up with that. Dead or not, Casey Brooks is not causing me any more trouble."

Martha Welch looked hostile, defiant and unrepentant-her emotions all in full view. She'd as good as admitted a motive for murdering Casey, and it didn't seem to bother her at all. There was something odd in what she'd said, though.