Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) (17 page)

"Is there any reason to think he murdered the Whitneys, other than his lack of an alibi and his fingerprints in the kitchen?"

Jeri sighed. "The idea that he's crazy. That he had an obsession with Cindy. An irrational crime as they say." Her eyes met mine. "He's an easy arrest. Crazy street people have a lot less clout than the Whitneys."

Abruptly, as if she was sorry she'd spoken so frankly, she turned her head away and put the car in drive, restraining it only with her foot on the brake. It was plainly a hint. I opened the door and got out.

"Well, good luck," I said awkwardly.

She nodded, took her foot off the brake, and drove off, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

I got back in my own pickup, rubbed Blue's head, and looked at the clock: 9:00 P.M. Too late to drop in on Lonny. I decided to get dinner at Carpo's and go on home. I needed to be up early in the morning.

FIFTEEN

At 6:30 the next morning, I pulled on my cleanest, newest Wrangler jeans. Keeping in mind the cold early-morning fog and hot late-morning sun, I layered a tank top with a bulky woven-cotton turtleneck and chose my favorite jacket-gray pile covered with a soft shell. Lacing up my buckskin packer boots and twining my hair into a neat French braid-well, semi-neat, anyway-I clambered up my ladder stairway into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.

I sat at the kitchen table and drank the first cup, then poured the rest into a thermos, grabbed my purse, and headed for the door. Snapping my fingers for Blue, I sneaked past Bret, snoring in his sleeping bag on the couch. I had no idea what time he'd gotten in; he certainly hadn't been home when I went to sleep. Probably at a bar, hustling women.

I pulled out of my driveway at 7:00; it took an hour to get to Salinas, and Gina had said the show started at 8:00. Rolling down the foggy highway, I began to marshal my thoughts. I often used my driving time to do this; it was frequently the only time in the day when I was left to myself.

My mind went instantly to last night, to Earl Ritter and his wife, and Carl Whitney. It would be nice to pin these murders on Earl Ritter; I'd seldom met a man I liked less. What had Cindy really said to him when she'd come to visit after an absence of twelve years? That she needed help? I wondered if Jeri Ward would be able to get the facts. Dr. Earl Ritter struck me as a man who was so deeply into denying reality he might not recognize a fact if it bit him.

Then there was Carl Whitney. Carl Whitney, who had an alibi. As did his sons and his niece, the snobbish-looking Anne Whitney, who was Ed's heir. I realized suddenly that that meant she would inherit Plumber, too. Cindy's brief will had left everything to her husband and his heirs. Anne Whitney didn't strike me as the type of person who would have any idea what to do with a horse.

It would also be satisfying to discover Ms. Whitney was the culprit, if for no other reason than she'd looked, the one time I'd seen her, as if the world existed for her convenience. On the other hand, that was hardly a motive.

I just couldn't believe Anne Whitney would have her brother and his wife bumped off because she found their lifestyle/background embarrassing. And if Ed had been putting pressure on his family for money, they should have killed him several years ago, not now, when he'd finally come into the income from his trust fund. It just didn't make sense.

No one, in fact, seemed to have any kind of a sensible motive for killing Cindy and Ed. I was on the way to this show, getting up at the crack of dawn on my one day off, in order to see if I could come up with some clues, but there was no legitimate reason for any of these horse people to have killed them, either.

I might dislike Tony Ramiro, but would he really murder somebody over a year-end award? Not likely. And what earthly reason would Gina have to wish them harm? Or Steve? It was hardly to his advantage to lose a client. Now Amber ... I gave a moment's thought to a fantasy in which Amber had hired someone to bump Cindy off out of jealousy and had Ed killed for convenience sake. It sounded good but was, again, unlikely.

Shit. I stared through the windshield at the foggy landscape of low, rolling hills just north of Salinas. This was ridiculous. I was a vet, for God's sake, not a detective. A vet. Jesus Christ, what was I thinking of? I'd forgotten yet again to ask Jim about those X rays on the gray horse. Gina would think I was a complete idiot.

Well, that was one problem that could be remedied. I picked up the car radio and called the office. It was only 7:45 and we weren't due to open until 9:00, but I was pretty sure Jim would be there, workaholic that he was. Yep. His curt, "Santa Cruz Equine Practice," was unmistakable.

Damn. It should have been the first thing I'd thought of, too. Navicular is a common problem, and is often solved by nerving. A veterinarian severs the nerves that run to the horse's navicular bones and, presto, the horse feels no more pain and doesn't limp. Nerved horses looked as if they were sound, but the fact that the heels of their front feet were numb could cause problems. Also the nerves often grew back together, resulting in a once-again-lame horse. All in all a nerved horse had some major disadvantages and it was considered unethical, if not downright lawsuit-causing dishonest, to pass one off as sound.

"Don't forget, you're on call tonight," Jim added; then a click as he hung up the phone.

Good old Jim. Mister Friendly. I briefly played with a familiar daydream of some future time when I could afford to set up my own practice, and then my mind went snapping back to the gray horse.

I'd better mention the possibility of the horse being nerved to Gina when Tony wasn't around. I had an idea Gina wouldn't be up to dealing with Tony's reaction.

The Salinas Rodeo Grounds were in front of me now, the big concrete bleacher structure dark gray against the lighter gray of the fog. I parked the truck under a cypress tree, cracked the windows for Blue, and got out, carrying my thermos. I'd only gone about ten steps before I ran the zipper on my coat up to my chin. Chill and clammy, the fog seemed to seep into me instantly. I could feel little beads of moisture condensing on the tendrils of hair that curled around my face. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. It looked as though I was going to freeze my butt off.

A glance at the grandstand depressed me still further. The bench seats were damp, guaranteed to soak right through my jeans. Oh well. Too late to back out now.

I chose a spot where I could watch the small arena on the track where the bridle horses were warming up and the big arena in the middle of the field where the rodeo events would be held.

Opening the thermos, I poured a cup of coffee and sipped it, surveying the scene in front of me. Horses-hundreds of horses, trotting and loping through the fog, being warmed up on the racetrack and in the infield, ridden by persons of both sexes-all wearing cowboy hats. For a second I felt I'd been transported back in history to a time when the ranchers and vaqueros from miles around had ridden into Salinas to ship their cattle and stayed to show off their talents. All the traditional events of rodeo-roping, riding the roughstock, steer wrestling-were based on skills actually needed on the ranch. And most prized was the ability to turn out a well-broke cowhorse-a stock horse or bridle horse-the event that Tony Ramiro, Gina Gianelli, and Steve Shaw were about to compete in.

Searching the crowd, I spotted Gina and Tony riding together on the track, wearing identical black felt hats. Tony rode a black-and-white paint gelding, Gina the palomino mare I'd seen her on before.

It took me longer to find Steve Shaw. He was in a little knot of people by the rail, all of them, I noticed with a grin, women. Several of the women were on horseback; Steve was standing on the ground, talking earnestly up at them. His cowboy hat was pearl gray, his coat a brilliant blue that I imagined matched his eyes perfectly. It looked as though he was coaching his non-pro clients in preparation for the show.

After a second, I saw that Amber St. Claire was standing on the fringes of the group, well away from any clumsy horse hooves, her auburn head vivid above a butter-colored jacket with a silky sheen.

Well, all the players were gathered, I thought, taking a sip of coffee and shivering. Now what?

Scratchy noises from the loudspeaker and then a voice announced the non-pro hackamore class. In the big arena, I could see the team roping had begun; men and horses dashed down the pen after cattle, ropes whirling in the air.

On the track, in the small arena, the first non-pro hackamore horse entered the ring, ridden by a woman who was middle-aged and slightly overweight. It appeared she was a client of Steve Shaw's, as he stood by the arena fence, offering instructions and encouragement whenever she rode by.

It was obvious the woman wasn't a particularly experienced rider-she looked awkward and a bit unsteady. The stocking-legged sorrel gelding she was riding was clearly gentle and willing, but she wasn't helping him any. I watched her execute a figure eight, run down and stop, spin both directions, and back up, all without any finesse, though I had the impression the horse could have done better in more expert hands. Doubtless Steve Shaw had trained him; had Steve been aboard the horse probably would have looked pretty good.

The woman almost fell off during the cow work; she'd drawn a hard-running cow, and I found myself crossing my fingers and praying she'd survive. She did-at least she stayed on-but it was clear she wasn't going to be a contender in this class.

There, I told myself, but for the grace of God, go I. Glancing at the team roping-the sport Lonny was trying to teach me-I remembered all the times I'd felt sure my horse and I were going to part company. Of course, I'd never tried to compete anywhere; I hadn't progressed beyond the stage of Lonny giving me lessons in his arena. Fortunately, too, Burt was a baby-sitter. Every time I started to fall off, he literally stopped and waited for me to pull myself back on.

Turning my attention back to the reined cowhorses, I watched the rest of the non-pro hackamore class closely and found that, despite knowing very little about it, I quickly picked up the basic ideas. Each contestant entered the ring individually and performed a reining pattern-figure eight with a flying lead change in the middle, run down to a sliding stop and then a spin in each direction, run down and stop again and back up. Horses that carried their heads in a steady, level position-nose down, mouth closed-and executed each maneuver smoothly, with speed and snap, responding immediately, alertly, and calmly to signals from the reins, were markedly superior to those that threw their heads in the air when stopped, or were sluggish, or bounced on their front ends instead of stopping and turning smoothly.

The cow work was more difficult to judge. Once the rider was done with the reining pattern, he or she nodded and a single cow was turned into the ring. Each contestant attempted to box the cow in one end of the arena, frustrating the cow's attempts to get by. Once this was accomplished to the rider's satisfaction-or the cow got away-the animal was allowed to run down the fence toward the other end and the rider dashed down after it and turned it back. This was sometimes a spectacular move, with horse and cow going full tilt at the point where the horse got his nose just far enough ahead of the cow to turn in front of it and block it.

I watched horse after horse slide deeply into the soft ground as they turned and jumped out again hard, trying to get back to the cow quickly and turn it again the other way. Some of the riders, like the first one, seemed to cling on through these turns by the skin of their teeth, clutching the saddle horn and looking scared. I could imagine how they felt, remembering my difficulty staying on Gunner when he spooked.

After the cow had been turned a few times on the fence, it was brought (hopefully) to the middle of the arena and circled up, a maneuver where the horse forced the cow to go in a small circle by maintaining a position at the cow's shoulder. This often proved difficult if the cow wasn't sufficiently tired, as the horse had to run a much larger circle than the cow, and a too-lively cow could get ahead and break out of the circle. Eventually, when the cow had been dominated to the judge's satisfaction, he blew a whistle and the contestant was dismissed.

I found that the most confusing factor when it came to evaluating the cow work was the varying degrees of difficulty in the cattle. It was obvious that the goal was to control the cow, but a stubborn, lively, hard-running cow was much harder to control than an easygoing, slow-moving, docile one. I had no idea how much slack the judge was supposed to cut a contestant who got a particularly difficult cow.

Still, when the riders came back into the ring and lined up for their awards, I found I'd correctly picked the winner-a thirtyish woman on a buckskin gelding who had completed both the dry work and cow work smoothly and competently. The woman had a large cheering section composed of what looked like her entire extended family, and they yelled and clapped enthusiastically when first place was announced as hers. All smiles, she patted her horse exuberantly on the neck, trotted out of the ring, and leaned over to hug Steve Shaw, where he sat on a horse near the gate.

Another of Steve's clients, I supposed. Looking at the horse Steve was sitting on, I recognized Plumber, brushed and shiny and wearing an elaborately silver-mounted bridle and saddle. The expression on the horse's face was alert, interested, and calm, even when the woman and her gelding bumped up against him as she threw an arm around Steve.

Little Plumber, who was now, I supposed, owned by Anne Whitney. It seemed a shame.