Dark Horse (19 page)

“Jill. The groom. Don’s groom.”

“Why would I see her?” he snapped irritably. “He should fire her. She’s good for nothing.”

“She’s dead,” Landry said.

Van Zandt looked perturbed. “Dead? How is she dead?”

“That’s for the medical examiner to find out. My job is to find out why she’s dead and who killed her. Did you see her last night?”

“I don’t pay attention to grooms,” Van Zandt said with disdain, and went into the tack room.

“Sir, I have to ask you not to touch anything,” Landry said.

Van Zandt had the mini-fridge open. He closed the door and gave Landry an imperious look. “And who are you to ask anything of me?”

“Detective Landry. Sheriff’s Office. Who are you?”

“Tomas Van Zandt.”

“And what’s your connection to Don Jade?”

“We are business associates.”

“And you don’t know anything about this girl Jill? Except that she was good for nothing.”

“No.”

The deputies came in then to secure the scene, and herded us out of the tent into the blinding sun. Landry got in his car with Jade and drove away.

“They are arresting Jade?” Van Zandt said. He looked pasty and ill in the daylight. He was wearing a blue and red ascot at the throat of his blue dress shirt. Perhaps it was cutting off the blood supply to his brain.

“No. Routine questioning,” I said. “His employee was murdered. Don’t you find that shocking?” I asked. “I’ve never known anyone who was murdered.”

Van Zandt shrugged. He didn’t seem disturbed in the least. “The girl was a slut, always talking about this boy and that boy, dressing like a whore. It’s no surprise she would come to a bad end.”

“Are you saying she was asking for it?”

“I am saying if you lie down with the dogs, sometimes they bite.”

“Well, there you go. A lesson to us all.”

“This fucking sun,” he complained, putting on his shades, changing the subject as if a girl’s violent death was of no more consequence than a bad round in the showring. Less.

“What’s your story, Z.?” I asked. “You look like death, yourself. Were you out partying last night without me?”

“Bad food. I don’t get a hangover,” he said stubbornly. “I never become drunk.”

“Is that from lack of trying or are you superior to the rest of us?”

He mustered a thin smile. “The second, Elle Stevens.”

“Really? And I thought the Germans were supposed to be the master race.”

“It is only Germans who think that.”

“You’ve got it all figured out, Z. Come on,” I said, taking him by the arm. “I’ll buy you a Bromo-Seltzer and you can tell me all about the New World Order.”

23

You saw her at The Players last night.
You had an argument.”

“It wasn’t an argument,” Jade said calmly. “She was dressed inappropriately—”

“What’s it to you? Was she there with you?”

“No, but she’s my employee. The way she conducts herself in public reflects on me.”

“You weren’t there to meet her?”

“No. She worked for me. I didn’t socialize with the girl.”

Landry raised his brows. “Really? That’s funny, because she told me yesterday you were sleeping with her.”

“What? That’s a lie!”

Finally, a human reaction. Landry had begun to suspect Jade didn’t have a nerve in his body. They sat on opposite sides of a table in an interview room, Jade—until that moment—perfectly composed, every hair in place, a crisp white shirt accentuating his tan, his monogram on the cuff of the sleeve.

Michael Berne was next door with Weiss. The blonde was cooling her heels in the reception area. Jill Morone was on a slab in the morgue with an assortment of contusions but no obvious fatal injuries. Landry figured strangulation or suffocation. She appeared to have been sexually assaulted.

Landry nodded as he took a bite out of his tuna salad sandwich. “She told me she was with you Thursday night when Michael Berne’s horses were being turned loose.”

Jade rubbed his hands over his face and muttered, “Oh, that stupid girl. She thought she was helping me.”

“Helping you, as in giving you an alibi? Why would she think you needed one? She was right there when you told me you were with someone that night. Did she know otherwise?”

“Of course not. Jill didn’t know anything about anything. She was a dim, pathetic girl with a vivid fantasy life.”

“She had a thing for you.”

He let go a long sigh. “Yes, I suppose she did. That was why she was at the club last night. She was waiting for me, apparently with ideas to seduce me.”

“But you didn’t want to see her.”

“I asked her to leave. She was embarrassing herself.”

“And you.”

“Yes,” Jade admitted. “My clients are wealthy, sophisticated people, Detective. They want to be represented in a certain way.”

“And Jill didn’t fit the bill.”

“I wouldn’t take Javier to The Players either, but I didn’t kill him.”

“He hasn’t claimed you were fucking him,” Landry said, reaching again for his sandwich. “That I know of.”

Jade looked annoyed. “Do you need to be so crude?”

“No.”

Landry sat back and chewed on his lunch, more to be irritating than out of hunger.

“So,” he said, making a show of running the facts through his head as he formed a thought, “she got all dolled up and went to The Players to meet you . . . just on the off chance maybe you’d be interested?”

Jade made a gesture with his hand and shifted positions on his chair. He was bored.

“Come on, Don. She was around, she was hot for it, it was free. You’re telling me you never took advantage?”

“That suggestion is repugnant.”

“Why? You’ve fucked your help before.”

The zinger hit its mark. Jade twitched as if at a small electrical shock. “I once had an affair with a groom. She was not Jill Morone. Nevertheless, I learned my lesson, and have made it a policy ever since, not to become involved with the help.”

“Not even Erin Seabright? She’s no Jill Morone either, if you get my drift.”

“Erin? What’s she got to do with this?”

“Why isn’t she with you anymore, Don?”

He didn’t like the familiarity. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly every time Landry used his name.

“She quit. She told me she took another job elsewhere.”

“So far as I’ve been able to find out, you’re the only person she actually told about this big change in her life,” Landry said. “Taking a new job, moving to a new town. She never even told her family. I find that strange. She only told you. And no one has seen or heard from her since.”

Jade stared at him for a moment, speechless, or knowing the wisdom of holding his tongue. Finally, he stood up. “I don’t like the direction this conversation is taking. Are you charging me with something, Detective Landry?”

Landry stayed in his seat. He leaned back in the chair and rested his elbows on the arms. “No.”

“Then I’d like to leave now.”

“Oh. Well . . . I just have a few more questions.”

“Then I’d prefer to have my attorney present. It’s becoming clear to me you have an agenda that isn’t in my best interest.”

“I’m just trying to get a clear picture of the things going on in your business, Don. That’s part of my job: to map out the victim’s world, put all the pieces in place. You don’t want me to get to the truth behind Jill Morone’s death?”

“Of course I do.”

“Do you feel you need an attorney present to do that? You’re not under arrest. You’ve told me you don’t have anything to hide.”

“I don’t.”

Landry spread his hands. “So . . . what’s the problem?”

Jade looked away, thinking, considering his options. Landry figured he was maybe good for another five minutes, tops. A sergeant supervisor sat in a room down the hall watching the interview via closed-circuit TV, watching the readout of a computer voice-stress analysis machine, looking for lies.

“Feel free to call your attorney if you like,” Landry said generously. “We can wait for him . . .”

“I don’t have time for this,” Jade muttered, coming back to the table. “What else?”

“Mr. Berne said he heard Jill tell you she knew something about Stellar—this horse that died. What did she know?”

“I have no idea what she was talking about. The horse died accidentally in the middle of the night. There was nothing for her to know.”

“There was plenty to know if it wasn’t an accident.”

“But it
was
an accident.”

“Were you there when it happened?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t really know what happened. If it was an accident, why did the horse have a sedative in its system?”

Jade stared at him. “How do you know that?”

Landry looked back at him like he was an idiot. “I’m a detective.”

“There was nothing criminal in Stellar’s death.”

“But the owner stands to pick up a big check from the insurance, right?”

“If the insurance company decides to pay, which is unlikely now.”

“Would you have gotten a cut of that money?”

Jade stood again. “I’m leaving now.”

“What time did you leave Players last night?”

“Around eleven.”

“Where did you go?”

“Home. To bed.”

“You didn’t swing by the show grounds, check on your horses?”

“No.”

“Not even after what went on the night before? You weren’t worried?”

“Paris had night check last night.”

“And she didn’t notice anything wrong? She didn’t see the vandalism?”

“Obviously, she was there before it happened.”

“So, you went home to bed. Alone?”

“No.”

“Same friend as Thursday night?”

Jade sighed again and looked at the wall.

“Look, Don,” Landry confided, rising from his chair. “You need to tell me. This is serious business. This isn’t just some nags running around in the middle of the night. A girl is dead. I realize in your world, she might not have counted for much, but in my world, murder is a big deal. Everyone who knew her and had a problem with her is going to have to account for their whereabouts. If you have a corroborating witness, you’d better say so or I’m going to end up wasting a lot more of your valuable time.”

He thought Jade might let his arrogance get the best of him and just walk out. But he wasn’t a stupid man. Landry imagined the guy’s mind sorting information like a computer. Finally he said, “Susannah Atwood. She’s a client. I would appreciate if you didn’t mention this to any of my other clients.”

“Everybody wants to be the trainer’s pet?” Landry said. “That’s quite a gig you’ve got going, Don. Ride the horses, ride the owners too.”

Jade went for the door.

“I’ll need her address and phone number, and the name and number for Jill Morone’s next of kin,” Landry said.

“Ask Paris. She takes care of my details.”

His details, Landry thought, watching him go. That was what a young girl’s life came down to for Don Jade: details.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Jade.”

J
ade needs to run his business differently,” Van Zandt pronounced.

We stood alone along the rail of one of the competition rings, watching a pint-sized rider take her pony over a course of small, elaborately decorated fences. Both girl and pony wore expressions of absolute concentration, eyes bright with determination and the fire of competitive spirit. They were a team: girl and pony against the world.

I remembered that feeling well. Me and a bright copper pony called Party Manners. My very best friend and confidant. Even after I had outgrown him, I had taken all my troubles to Party and he had listened without prejudice. When he died at the ripe old age of twenty-five I mourned his loss more deeply than the loss of any person I had known.

“Are you listening to me?” Van Zandt asked peevishly.

“Yes. I thought you were making a rhetorical statement.” I had offered to buy him lunch, he had declined. I had offered to buy milk shakes and he had told me they would make me fat. Asshole. I bought one anyway.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Murder puts off potential clients.”

Van Zandt scowled. “I am in no mood for your sense of humor.”

“You think I was joking? One groom disappears. One turns up dead—”

“Disappears?” he said. “That one left.”

“I don’t think so, Z. The detective was asking about her.”

He turned sharply and looked down his nose at me. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. I’ve never even met the girl. I’m just letting you know. He’ll probably ask you too.”

“I have nothing to say about her.”

“You had a lot to say the other night. That she flirted with clients, that she had a smart mouth— Come to think of it, pretty much the same things you said about Jill. You know, you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Z. Especially not when there’s a detective in earshot.”

“They have no right to question me.”

“Of course they do. You knew both girls. And frankly, you didn’t have a very good attitude toward either of them.”

He puffed up in offense. “Are you accusing me?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Behave this way with the cops and they’ll pin the murder on you out of spite. And I’ll volunteer to push the plunger when they stick the needle in your arm.”

“What are you talking about? What needle?”

“This is a death penalty state. Murder is a capital offense.”

“That’s barbaric,” he said, highly offended.

“So is burying a girl in a pile of horseshit.”

“And you think I could do such a terrible thing?” Now he put on his expression of hurt, as if he were being betrayed by a lifelong friend.

“I didn’t say that.”

“This is all because of that Russian whore—”

“Watch it, Van Zandt,” I said, giving him a little temper back. “I happen to be fond of Irina.”

He huffed and looked away. “Are you lovers?”

“No. Is that your attempt to offend me? Accuse me of being a lesbian?”

He made a kind of shrugging motion with his mouth.

“That’s pathetic,” I said. “I’ll bet you say every woman who won’t fuck you is a lesbian.”

A hint of red came into his face, but he said nothing. The conversation was not going his way. Again.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” I informed him as the girl and the pony concluded their round and the spectators applauded, “but as it happens, I am happily heterosexual.”

“I don’t think happily.”

“Why? Because I haven’t had the pleasure of your company in my bed?”

“Because you never smile, Elle Stevens,” he said. “I think you are not happy in your life.”

“I’m not happy with you trying to get inside my head—or my pants.”

“You have no sense of purpose,” he announced. He was thinking he was back in control of the situation, that I would listen to him the way too many weak, lonely women listened to him. “You need to have a goal. Something to strive for. You are a person who likes a challenge and you don’t have one.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I muttered. “Just having a conversation with you is a challenge.”

He forced a laugh.

“You have a nerve, making presumptions about me,” I said calmly. “You don’t know a thing about me, really.”

“I am a very good judge of people,” he said. “I am a long time in the business of assessing people, knowing what they need.”

“Maybe I should set solving Jill’s murder as my goal,” I said, turning the tables around on him again. “Or solving the disappearance of the other girl. I can start by interviewing you. When was the last time you saw Erin Seabright alive?”

“I was more thinking you need a horse to ride,” he said, unamused.

“Come on, Z., play along,” I needled. “You might start me on the path to a career. Did you hear her say she was going to quit, or is that just D.J.’s story? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“You are giving me a headache.”

“Maybe she was kidnapped,” I said, pretending excitement, watching him carefully. “Maybe she’s being held as a sex slave. What do you think of that?”

Van Zandt stared at me, his expression blank. I would have paid a fortune to know where his mind was at that moment. What was he imagining? Was he thinking about Erin, hidden away somewhere for his own perverse pleasure before he cashed in? Was he remembering Sasha Kulak? Was he considering me as his next victim?

His cell phone rang. He answered it and started conversing in fluent French. I sucked on my milk shake and eavesdropped.

Europeans generally make the correct assumption that Americans can barely speak their own language, let alone anyone else’s. It never occurred to Van Zandt that I had an expensive education and a talent for languages. From listening to his side of the conversation, I gleaned that Van Zandt was cheating someone in a deal and was pissed off that they weren’t being entirely cooperative pigeons. He told the person on the other end of the call to cancel the horse’s transportation to the States. That would teach them they couldn’t fuck with V.