Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) (3 page)

What could he have been doing in Cindy's garage, though, knocking on her door? Did she know him? Did Ed know him? Could he possibly have killed them? Somehow I didn't believe it. The expression in his eyes had not been that of a killer. It had been too innocent, too startled.

When Detective Ward reemerged from the house, a good half hour later, I'd had plenty of time to speculate on who might have killed Cindy and Ed, if the Walker hadn't. I can't say I thought of anything useful.

Jeri Ward ushered me briskly into the passenger seat of a dark green sheriff's car without a word. Once she was driving toward Santa Cruz, though, she seemed to unbend a trifle.

"Did you know them?" Her voice held a hesitant sympathy.

"A little. I've been over to their house for dinner, a couple of parties. Cindy was a client of mine." I felt reluctant to pose as a grief-stricken friend, as our relationship had been casual at best.

"Do you know anything about them?"

"Well, Ed was a Whitney. One of the Whitneys."

"As in Whitney-Kraus. That's what his paperwork suggested." She made a slight reflexive negative motion with her chin and was abruptly silent.

I could guess what she was thinking. Whitney-Kraus was one of the larger software firms in Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz County's miniature version of the Silicon Valley, and the Whitney family was one of Santa Cruz's wealthiest families. The phenomenon of their recently acquired millions was closely linked to the incredible population growth Santa Cruz County had experienced in the twenty or so years since I was a child. At that time the county was mostly rural, and Santa Cruz was a sleepy little resort city that came to life only in the summer, when a constant stream of tourists poured in from the San Francisco Bay Area bound for the beaches and Boardwalk.

Even during my high school years, though, the writing was on the wall, as the Santa Clara Valley became the heavily industrialized and even more heavily populated Silicon Valley. Santa Cruz, a mere twenty minutes away via that very torturously winding Highway 17 that had taken my parents' lives, became home to ever-increasing numbers of commuters. Developers had had a field day, and the Whitneys, major landowners in what was once the one-store town of Scotts Valley, had sold large portions of their land for housing tracts and commercial buildings and started their own highly successful computer software firm on the remaining piece. From their point of view it was doubtless a real Cinderella story. But there were lots of longtime locals like myself who were deeply saddened at the changes in the county; many of the fields and farms I remembered, including my childhood home, were now ugly suburban neighborhoods.

Jerking my mind away from the ever-sore subject of Santa Cruz's continual growth, I asked Detective Ward, "Do you think the Whitneys will make this difficult?"

She shrugged noncommittally; still, it was the most human gesture I'd seen her make yet.

"I think Ed was more or less estranged from his family," I offered tentatively. "He didn't work in the business; in fact, as far as I know, he didn't do anything but play."

She didn't reply, just fixed her eyes firmly on the road; I decided it was time to shut up. When we pulled into the parking lot of the county building and got out of the car, she asked me to come with her in a formal tone that made me think she regretted her departure from routine.

After I was established, more or less comfortably, in one of those neutral-looking waiting rooms, or conference rooms, with plastic chairs and industrial carpet, she left me. I had a paper cup of lousy coffee that a receptionist-type deputy had given me, and I sipped it. Patience, I told myself. In ten minutes, or close enough, the door was pushed open again and a short, fat, balding man in a suit came through it. Detective Ward was behind him. They seated themselves on the other side of the long table in the middle of the room, and Detective Ward put a tape recorder on the table and clicked it on.

We went through my address, phone number, and occupation. Then he asked me, "What were you doing at One twenty-eight Rose Avenue?"

We went through it all step by step. The short, fat detective was as impersonal as a machine. I explained how I had looked around the barn, knocked at the house, had a cup of coffee, and gone back to the house and looked in the garage.

"Why did you do that?" he wanted to know.

"I don't know," I said truthfully. "It didn't seem right. The paper was still in the driveway; the horse wasn't fed. I had a funny feeling about it. When I saw the cars in the garage ..." I spread my hands and shrugged. "I can't say I guessed anything like the truth. I suppose I was afraid that Cindy was sick or incapacitated in some way."

"What did you do next?"

"I went in the house." I paused, and the detective looked at me. "I ought to explain, I guess, that I knew Ed and Cindy socially as well as professionally. I'd been over to their house a couple of times."

The detective nodded. I told him how I found the bodies. He questioned me closely about where I had walked, what I had touched. I was able, I thought, to recount every step exactly.

"I called nine one one; then I left the house."

I hesitated. Only I could link the Walker to these murders, and I had an inward conviction, maybe unreasonable, that he hadn't done them. I wasn't sure who he was or where he came from-he didn't look as if he slept under a bridge-but in his constant walking and talking were the obvious signs of a mental disorder, and he, like many of the other street people, aroused my sympathy. Suppressing a feeling of guilt, I went on. "There was a man in the garage, knocking on the back door, when I opened it."

"Did you recognize him?"

"I've seen him walking around town before. He's got curly blond hair; in his thirties, I'd say. Sort of a young face. I'd know him if I saw him."

"All right. What did this man do?"

"He ran away. I said, 'Who are you?' and he looked at me and ran off." I wasn't sure if it was my imagination, but I thought Reeder grew more focused suddenly. His face stayed impassive, but something in his posture, maybe his eyes, reminded me of an Airedale spotting a mouse behind the feed sacks. Then it vanished.

Finishing my story with the arrival of the sheriff's cars, I sat quietly in my chair, wondering if I was done. Detective Reeder looked down, then back up into my face. I was getting to know his eyes. Brown, a little bloodshot, with pouchy bags under them, like fat men have. "Did you know Cindy Whitney well?" His voice was neutral.

I tried to answer the question honestly. "Not really. I'd been around her maybe thirty times in all, counting professional calls and running in to her at her trainer's barn and at horse shows. We were friendly."

"What was she like?"

"Outgoing-her main interest was horses. Definitely an extrovert, very social. She and Ed gave a lot of parties; it's my impression they were a part of Santa Cruz society, whatever that means these days. Cindy and I weren't close. She liked me, I think, because I was young, single, and a horse vet; I was the type of person she liked to know. She would have said we were friends." Inside I felt a little uncomfortable, as though I had betrayed Cindy.

"What about the husband?"

"Ed. I knew him even less than I knew her. She was the one that had the horse; he wasn't involved with it. He could be kind of abrasive."

The detective pounced on this. His voice didn't change, and the tired-looking brown eyes stayed droopy, but I could feel his mind pouncing. "What do you mean by abrasive?"

"He liked you to know he had a lot of money."

Reeder kept his eyes on my face, and I could see I was expected to continue.

"I'm not sure how to put this. As I say, I didn't know him very well, but he seemed to be the typical spoiled rich kid who's busy trying to impress everyone all the time. He had the Ferrari, the beautiful blond wife, the extravagant lifestyle. He liked to mention he'd flown to Aspen last weekend in his best buddy's Learjet. That sort of thing. His attitude toward Cindy, too-sort of casual possession, as if she were an object he'd bought and paid for-it was irritating. I didn't find him an appealing person."

Reeder nodded impassively. "Do you know anyone who might have wished to harm them?"

"No."

"Think about it," the detective repeated. The pouches under his eyes tightened as he narrowed his focus at me. "Don't forget, they were murdered."

"I don't know of anyone who had a reason to kill Ed and Cindy Whitney. I liked Cindy; as far as I know, everyone else did, too. I didn't know them well enough to be aware of any enemies they might have had."

Reeder sat silently for a minute. "Where were you last night?"

"I saw two emergencies and got home around midnight. The last time I could prove where I was would be about eleven-forty, when I left the second case." I gave him the names and addresses of the people involved.

Heaving himself up, he left the room. Fat body, ugly, crumpled suit. Detective Ward stood and watched him go, and I could swear there was resentment in her glance. Then she looked at me. Not warmth exactly, but some sort of unspoken shared comment seemed to pass between us. "We'll be in touch," was what she said.

THREE

A young deputy with a square face took me back to my truck and waited carefully to see that I drove away from the scene of the crime. They had the house roped off and all kinds of vehicles parked around it. They needn't have worried; I had no desire to stay and spectate.

I drove back to the office slowly, feeling disgusted with myself. It seemed to me that I ought to have felt more grief over Cindy and Ed. We weren't close friends-I had told the fat detective the truth-but Cindy, at least, had been friendly and hospitable to me. Their lives had been cut short with a savage finality, and I found that inexplicably intertwined with my sorrow was an interest and excitement that made me ashamed. What is it that drives us to stare at traffic accidents-that draws us to horror? Some sort of relief that at least it isn't me, this time? The relish I felt at being in the center of such a drama was leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

I pulled into the office parking lot filled with a sense of chagrin at the failings of human nature-my own in particular. It didn't help any to realize that half of my excitement about the murders had been the thought of telling my story at the office. That's sick, I told myself, sick.

Blue spilled stiffly out of the truck when I opened the door, ready to water the familiar trees in the parking lot. Looking up into my face when he was done, he snorted softly and stumped off to lie in his favorite box stall. Blue knew my emotions better than I did, I sometimes thought. Right now he knew I was in a rotten mood, not conducive to scratching his ears.

Shaking my head at myself, I walked in through the back door of the office. The rubble on my desktop was about knee-deep; I shoved it around, thinking that if I were a good person, I'd catch up on some long-overdue paperwork. I'd left the back door open and the sunny summer day poured into the room behind me. It was noon and, as usual, the fog had cleared. A Santa Cruz summer afternoon-seventy-two degrees, and the nicest weather in the world. I stared out the door thoughtfully, wondering if paperwork was such a good idea after all.

As I watched, a truck drove in. It was an old red Ford pickup, faded-looking but clean. Bret Boncantini was driving it.

The red truck swung casually into one of the spots marked STAFF ONLY, and Bret got out deliberately, not hurrying, making a point of it. He held himself up, shoulders back, stomach in. Sunglasses masked his eyes, but I knew they would be moving from one thing to another, quickly, curiously. Checking it out, he would have said. The same old Bret.

I sat at my desk and Bret walked confidently in the back door-again marked STAFF ONLY. Bret was a great one for back doors. He looked at me and grinned. "You look like you're working hard."

"Jesus." He sat down slowly in an empty chair. "I was over there yesterday afternoon." We stared at each other a moment. Bret was nothing if not quick. "I guess I'll have to go talk to the police."

"And you'd better do it right away."

He didn't say anything. He was gazing out the back door and his eyes weren't focused; they were watching something inside his mind. Sunlight made a sheen on the fringe of hair above his eyes.

Bret was something to look at. His smooth brown skin, brown hair streaked with blond, and square chin could have come out of an ad for California living. His eyes were green-brown, with lashes longer than most women's. They were laughing eyes, eyes that said, you and me, we understand things.