Horse of a Different Killer (12 page)

I could wait for Mr. Parnell, but things seemed a little hectic. Probably better to come back later.

As I headed to Bluebell, I started to set the socket set on Boomer's toolbox, then, thinking they might slide off if he drove away without seeing them, put the tools in the truck's bed. I noticed a hand-lettered sign advertising fresh guinea fowl eggs and smiled. I liked guineas, boisterous as they were, and it took a certain kind of person to successfully keep a flock.

The truck's back window sported a number of decals and stickers, including one that featured a stick-figure drawing of a rider being thrown off their horse along with the caption
I DO MY OWN STUNTS
.

At least he had a sense of humor about some things.

I also saw a row of parking decals dating from '07 to '09 with the name of a polo club located in Wellington. In all honesty, I didn't know much about the sport. The extent of my polo knowledge had been gleaned from
Pretty Woman
, but I was sure there was a lot more to it than fancy hats, champagne, and divots. Polo, like anything involving riding and handling an animal as large and powerful as a horse, had to carry some risk. I wondered if a fall during a match had precipitated Boomer's limp.

A question I probably wouldn't get a chance to ask him as it seemed he'd decided not to like me.

One thing I had learned from him—I needed to change my tactics when I talked to Mr. Parnell.

In my defense, Boomer had admitted to having a bad day, but there was a good chance Mr. Parnell would be having one, too.

I decided to come back after lunch and make an assessment then. It would give me time to think of the best approach, something I clearly needed to work on.

How to Lose Friends and Irritate People
, a practical guide by Grace Wilde.

My mind inadvertently jumped to what Kai had told me about Detective Boyle and I pushed the thought away.

I left R-n-R and, once again, looked for Nelly as I drove along. Finding Mr. Parnell's lost goat would be a good icebreaker, right?

My phone rang just as I was getting good and lost.

The number on the screen had a New York City area code. Who did I know from New York?

“Hello?”

“Grace, it's Jasmine.” The static was better than the day before, but her voice still sounded hollow and tinny.

“Hey, listen, I may lose you, I'm in a bad area.”

“Sorry? Oh, you mean on your mobile.” She pronounced the word with a long
i
—mow-bile. “No problem. I was just ringing to ask if you'd found anything.”

I winced, realizing I probably should have already called her with an update.

“Nothing much, yet.”

I told her what little I'd learned visiting the stables and my plans to go back and talk to the owner.

“But he was there?” Even with the bad connection, I could hear the hope bolstering her words.

“A
Friesian
was there,” I corrected.

“But the note,” she said, referencing the scrawl Tony had made about R-n-R. “It can't be a coincidence.”

“It's unlikely. I'm working on the assumption the horse was Heart. I'll know more after I speak to the owner.”

Fingers crossed, anyway.

“You don't happen to have come across any paperwork,” I asked. “A bill of sale or something? Just so I can prove to the stable owner I am who I say I am.”

“No, sorry. Mary is still looking through Tony's papers, and now that the police have his computer—well, I hope they would let me know if they found anything.”

“I have a contact I can ask,” I told her, thinking I'd get Kai to put a bug in Charlie's ear.

“Grace, can you ring back as soon as you know something?”

“I will. Um, sorry about not getting caught up with you before. I just didn't have much to tell you.”

“No worries, really. I'd rather you spend time looking for Heart than mollycoddling me.”

“I do have something I want to ask you,” I said, stopping to idle at a dirt road leading into the state park.

I wasn't sure how to word my question so I just spit it out. “Tony left me a message the day he died. He said he needed to talk to me about my sister, Emma. Do you have any idea what he might have meant?”

There was a long pause. “No idea. Odd. I felt sure he was trying to reach you because of Heart.”

Crap! Had I just put my foot in my mouth and implicated my sister in Ortega's murder?

“It probably had something to do with the auction,” I said, wishing I'd kept my mouth shut. “Which reminds me—Tony was the winning bidder for my services, so technically, you don't have to pay me.”

“Actually, I was thinking about that. In addition to paying your fee—which I will be doing, no arguments, please—I'd also like to offer a reward for Heart.”

“That's a great idea.”

“I should have thought of it before.” She sounded tired and it occurred to me Jasmine was probably having to make funeral arrangements and was burdened with any number of other issues, but I had to ask the next question.

“How much?”

“I was thinking ten. Would that be enough?”

“Ten . . . ?”

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“It's a good start,” I said. “I'm going to find him, Jasmine.”

“I know. Thank you.”

After hanging up, I stared out the windshield, hoping I hadn't bitten off more than I could chew.

“Like that's ever happened,” I scoffed aloud.

Step one was, well, figuring out where I was.

A chain stretched across the path in front of me. To one side a sign banning motor vehicles was posted; it also gave the name of the trail.

I retrieved the map gifted to me by the hikers the day before and had begun searching for the name when it hit me.

I'd just spoken to Jasmine on my cell. Maybe my GPS app was online.

Sure enough, it opened without too much delay and I was able to orient myself and determine how many rights and lefts it would take to find civilization and, hopefully, I thought as my stomach grumbled, lunch.

By a quarter after noon, I was on my way back to R-n-R with a to-go bag and a plan.

Boomer's truck was gone when I arrived. Parked in its place was a newer, less careworn white pickup with an illustration of the R-n-R logo on its side along with the slogan
YOUR STABL
ES AWAY FROM HOME
.

Not the catchiest, but it got the message across.

Boomer's assumption that I was maligning the stables by insinuating something had happened to Heart on their watch had made me worry about talking to Parnell.

But that had been before my conversation with Jasmine.

Now, I had a plan.

Keeping it in mind, I moseyed up to the house's front door. The sign hanging in the window indicated they were open for business, so I turned the knob and stepped inside.

To the left, where I imagined the living room would normally be, sat a large oak desk fronted by a set of visitor chairs. Both they and the desk chair were done in an odd shade of steel blue leather. In front of the window, a macramé planter cradled one of those variegated spider plants. All of this, when viewed in concert with the abstract peach, mauve, and turquoise painting on the wall, reminded me of an '80s dentist's office.

A row of metal filing cabinets acted as a divider to what might have once been a dining area. The temptation to open the cabinet's drawers and flip through the files made my fingers itch. But I knew I'd never have time to get far. Instead, I edged over to the desk to see if it yielded anything of interest.

There was a brochure from a company called Farmstead Properties who claimed to be “the farm and ranch specialists!”, a card from a place that sold new and used tractor parts, and a file folder labeled “Receipts.”

I started to open the file for a quick peek when footsteps clunked on the parquet floor. I snatched my hand back and stepped away from the desk. A few moments later, a man holding a half-eaten sandwich on a paper towel appeared from around the cabinets.

“Help you, ma'am?” he asked.

“Mr. Parnell?”

“Call me Rusty.” He was tall, a little bowlegged, and paunchy enough to put a strain on the pearly snaps of his plaid shirt.

“I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch.”

“No bother,” he said and moved behind the desk to set the sandwich down next to an open can of Coke. “What can I do you for?”

He sat and I followed his lead, lowering myself onto one of the chairs opposite.

“My name is Grace Wilde. I'm hoping you might have some information on a horse that boarded here not long ago.”

“You were here earlier, asking about the Friesian.”

“That's right.” Giving him my most professional smile, I laid the magazine, open to Heart's picture, on his desk.

Time to implement the plan.

Step one: establish credibility.

“I've been hired by the owner to find him. I'm an animal behaviorist. My skills and experience with animals make me uniquely qualified to locate an animal if it goes missing.” I'd spent most of my lunch break coming up with that line. Mr. Parnell was not impressed.

“Hmm.” He looked over the magazine and took a swig of Coke.

“What can you tell me about his time here?” I asked. When he hadn't answered after several seconds, I added, “Anything you might remember would be helpful.”

I'd chosen my wording to make sure I wasn't insinuating any wrongdoing on his part.

He took his time to reply, seeming to guard his words as carefully as I was.

“I'm afraid I can't tell you much. He wasn't here long.”

“Do you remember anything odd happening? Did anyone take an interest or ask questions about him?”

He pursed his bottom lip and shook his head. “Not that I know of.” He tilted back in his chair, making the springs groan in protest. “Look, I'd like to help, but I've got some paperwork to do, so . . .”

It was clear he expected me to leave. Darn it! No time to artfully move to step two of the plan.

“Well . . .” I stood, took one of his cards from its little display stand and shoved it into my back pocket. “Thanks for your time,” I said, picking up the magazine.

He gave me a dismissive nod.

Now or never, Grace.

A door banged opened somewhere beyond the row of filing cabinets and Hunter clomped into view a few moments later.

“I'm . . . Oh, sorry.”

“She's just leaving. What is it?” Parnell asked Hunter, completely dismissing me.

Before turning to go, I held out one of my cards to Mr. Parnell. He took it grudgingly. “There is a reward offered for the horse, so if you think of anything, give me a call.”

Just as I was shutting the door behind me on my way out, I caught a glimpse of something through the beveled glass. Parnell, tossing my card directly into the trash.

My knee-jerk reaction was to walk right back into his office and hand him another card, saying something snarky, like “here's an extra just in case you lose the first one,” but maturity prevailed.

I left R-n-R wondering if Parnell simply didn't want to get involved or if his reticence signaled a more sinister motive.

If so, what would it be?

I was almost to the beach when my phone erupted into a rousing version of the sea chantey “Randy Dandy Oh.”
Emma had assigned the ring tone to our uncle Wiley. An eccentric old man with a love of sailing, the sea, and pirates.

“Hey,” I answered as quickly as I could. “Everything okay?”

The last time my uncle had called me I'd ended up in a disco-era gold lamé jumpsuit.

Don't ask.

“Well, yes and no,” he answered. “Actually, I'm calling for a friend. She rescued a dog—well, not really a dog. She's like Moss.”

“A wolf hybrid?”

“Yep. Though she's more.” He paused. “Let's just say she needs your help.”

I heard a woman's voice call out something in the background, followed by a loud crash.

“Wiley?”

“We're fine. That was just a ficus plant. I'm not sure whether or not she's trying to kill it or play with it—either way, it's a goner now.”

“Give me the address. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

I've met plenty of people claiming to own a wolf or wolf-dog hybrid when what they really had was a mixed breed dog or, in some cases, a purebred Siberian husky with agouti coat coloring, which to the untrained eye resembled a wolf.

I'd even heard horror stories of purebred huskies and other northern breeds being seized and either euthanized or “returned to the wild.”

Wolf-dog or not, my uncle wouldn't have called me unless there was a serious problem.

I found the address easily and was soon knocking on the door to the tidy little brick home. I glanced around the neighborhood while I waited. It was a quiet street; I didn't hear any dogs barking or the squeal of preschool children. A lone, dark sedan rolled lazily by but no other traffic came or went.

Wiley answered the door—a relieved smile lifted the ends of his handlebar mustache when he saw me. As always, he wore a beret. Cottony tufts of white hair sprouted from under it.

“Thanks for coming, Gracie.”

“Sure. What's going on?”

A slim woman with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair appeared as he ushered me into the brightly lit foyer.

“This is my friend Janie,” Wiley said.

I nodded a greeting and shook her hand. She was probably in her seventies but had the energy and quick, fluid movements of a much younger woman. Had her features not been pinched with lines of worry, I would have called her beautiful.

“Wiley says you have a special gift with animals,” Janie said.

“You have a rescue you need some help with?”

“My late husband used to raise shepherds. He did Schutzhund training, so I've been around big dogs, but this . . .” She let out a troubled sigh.

“How long have you had—” I waited for someone to fill in the dog's name for me, and Janie quickly obliged.

“Pretty Girl. You'll understand why I call her that when you see her. I haven't had her long.” She glanced at my uncle, suddenly uncertain.

“It's okay,” Wiley told her. “You can trust Grace.”

“Every morning, I go on my walk,” Janie began. “The route I take goes through the neighborhood, then all the way around the park, about thirteen miles. Three times in the last month I saw a dog running loose in the street. I managed to catch her and found the owner, but he didn't seem to care that she was getting out. A couple of weeks ago, I walked by his house and noticed she was on a chain in the backyard. I guess she was climbing the chain-link fence and his solution was to tie her to a tree.”

I exchanged a look with my uncle but let Janie continue uninterrupted.

“I walked by the next day and she was still tied up. The poor thing was panicking. Trying to get loose. I was afraid she'd hurt herself, so I knocked on the door to let her owner know what was going on.”

She paused and pressed her lips into an angry, bloodless line.

“Let me guess,” I said, trying to keep a hold of my own temper. “He didn't care.”

“No. He did not,” Her words were crisp and filled with contempt. “And when I told him I was going to report it as animal abuse, he—” Janie's voice wavered and she broke off. Her hands balled into fists at her sides.

Wiley stepped closer and patted her on the back. My uncle's face had turned grim as he took up the story. “He told Janie if she reported him, he'd just shoot the dog and be done with it.”

The anger I felt toward this anonymous owner threatened to bubble over into rage.

I forced a calming breath. I'd be no use to anyone if I let myself get emotional.

“What happened?”

“I came home,” Janie said. “Got my bolt cutters, walked back to his house, into the backyard, and cut that damn chain.”

I felt my brows raise in surprise and more than a little admiration.

Janie squared her shoulders and set her jaw. Anticipating a rebuke perhaps.

Ha! Not from me, sister.

“I like her,” I said to Wiley. He smiled, light returning to sparkle in his eyes.

I looked at Janie. “But . . . ?” There was always a “but” with these stories.

Janie's posture deflated slightly. “Things were okay for a couple of days. Then, she ate my couch.”

I gave her a sympathetic nod.

“The next day, she tore a hole in the back door—which is made out of solid wood panels.”

“Impressive,” I said.

“She got into the refrigerator, too.”

I winced, imagining what that cleanup would've been like.

“Have you been taking her with you on your walks?” I asked, trying not to sound accusatory.

“I brought her with me once, but I was afraid that awful man might see us even though I don't walk past his house anymore. I tried a different route, but her reactions to new things can be unpredictable. Sometimes she's skittish, and she's so big . . .”

“It's okay,” I said, beginning to suspect my uncle was right about Pretty Girl being a wolf hybrid. Not that it mattered much. Sure, it was good to know what you were dealing with but, in the end, the most important thing to consider was temperament and whether she'd be amenable to training.

“Why don't I meet Pretty Girl and I'll see what I can do.”

“That would be great.”

As we walked through the house, the evidence of Pretty Girl's destruction was evident. Not only was the couch noticeably absent from the living room, I spotted torn curtains and a table lamp without a shade. The back door had been chewed and clawed, quite literally, to shreds.

“How is she around new people?” I asked Janie, though I had a feeling I knew the answer.

“Pretty shy, actually. She was very hard to catch that first time. In fact, I'd given up and was walking away when I noticed she'd started following me. I stopped and sat on the curb for a few minutes. Eventually she walked right up to give me a sniff. Now, she practically knocks me over if she hasn't seen me in a while.”

“No vet visit, yet?”

“I wanted to take her but I was afraid she'd panic.”

“Maybe you can give her a quick check-up.” My uncle suggested.

“I can try.”

After a couple of slow, centering breaths, I opened the back door.

Devastation reigned on the screened-in back porch. The ficus tree my uncle had mentioned during his phone call looked like it had been put through a mulcher. The large clay pot lay broken on its side, dark potting soil strewn all over the concrete floor.

In two places the screen was torn. The lower portion of the door was missing altogether.

I pushed through it into a backyard that had probably once been more . . . manicured. Now, holes were dug here and there, a couple of bushes had been vigorously gnawed on.

The canine standing in the middle of the yard studied me with eyes the color of sunlit amber. Had her coat been white instead of black, I'd have said she was the spitting image of a two-year-old Moss.

Pretty? Check.

Wolf-dog? Check.

Temperament and trainability?

“Let's find out,” I said.

Turning slightly so I wasn't facing her, I knelt, and reached out to Pretty Girl with my mind. A quick, gentle assessment told me she was wary, but curious.

I widened the mental conduit, showed her I meant no harm. I was a friend.

While continuing to convey lots of positive stuff, I called her to me.

Come.

She stayed where she was.

Stubborn. Just like Moss.

Something strange happened as I thought of my dog. It was almost as if the idea of Moss, the distilled, beautiful, wild, loyal, brave essence of my dog, reached out and connected with Pretty Girl.

So intrigued by the sudden Mossomeness I was projecting, Pretty Girl trotted to me with no further hesitation.

Kindred?
She sniffed around me looking for Moss.

Uh . . . not exactly. But we'll set up a playdate.

We spent a few more minutes chatting. She relaxed more than I had expected, which was good.

After another couple of minutes, the wolf-dog allowed me to do a rudimentary checkup. All was well on that front.

With a farewell pat and promise to bring Moss for a visit, I stood and went inside to find Janie.

From what I'd seen, the woman didn't lack in the moxie department, but I still believed it would be best to be very clear about the amount of work required to keep Pretty Girl both mentally and physically fit.

Janie promised to do her best, and I offered to bring Moss over to help. With a little luck and a lot of determination, we'd make the home a happy one—for everyone.

My uncle walked me outside to Bluebell and thanked me again before saying, “I heard about Anthony Ortega.”

“You did?” I asked surprised. My uncle didn't own a TV and hadn't had a newspaper delivered since the Reagan administration.

“Janie likes to watch the news.”

“Ah. So it's like that, huh? You old fox, you.”

“Old.” He grinned. “Not dead.”

We shared a laugh over that then he said, “How's Emma?”

“She's fine.” I didn't want to worry him with details of her arrest or say anything about Boyle's one-sidedness.

He nodded but didn't seem convinced.

“What?” I asked.

“Death, even the death of a despicable bastard like Ortega, can have an affect on the people who knew him. Keep an eye on your sister, okay?”

“I will.”

I let what my uncle had said ruminate as I drove toward the beach and realized I hadn't actually asked my sister how she felt about Ortega's murder.

“Great sister-skills, Grace.”

Just before I'd made it over the Intracoastal Waterway, traffic came to a complete halt. When I saw the flashing lights of a police car ahead, I eased Bluebell over toward the median to try and get a better look at what was causing the holdup.

And couldn't see squat.

After what seemed like an eternity with no forward movement, I decided I had time to check my messages.

I'd missed three texts while I'd been working with Pretty Girl. One was from a client asking to reschedule an upcoming appointment. The two others were from Wes and Kai, both asking me to call.

I took care of my client first with a quick text message, then started to call Kai. Before I could pull up his number, my phone rang.

“Miss Wilde? This is Hunter, um, from R-n-R. I heard you were offering a reward if anyone knows about that Friesian.”

“The owner is, yes.”

“There's one thing, I don't know if it'll help, but I just talked to the driver who delivered him. She told me something happened that day.”

I waited but he didn't elaborate. “Hunter? What happened?”

“She was followed.”

“Followed? By who?”

“Don't know. Lily Earl, that's the driver, she makes stops here pretty regular, so I asked if she'd hauled a Friesian lately. She told me she had and she remembered because she had been followed that day.”

“Can I talk to Lily Earl? Is she there?”