Shadow Roll (22 page)

“I believe the money and the time.  But you got the brains.”

“Thanks, Sam.  I didn’t think so back then.  It took a few years to figure out it takes just as much brains to be a vet, only people don’t know it.  What I really learned the long hard way was what vets really had to do.  Doctors don’t give up on patients no one has a use for.  They don’t put down a man with a broken leg.  Unless they’re Nazis, they don’t send undesired humans to slaughterhouses.  God, Sam, we’re surrounded by horses, beautiful horses, more beautiful, the worst of ‘em, than most guys walking around.  But they don’t win enough, they’re so much meat, even the big names.  They start to lose, it’s over.  Stallions too, and broodmares.  Their foals don’t come up to snuff, that’ s all she wrote.  As for the low end, the hard knocking claimers— ”

“Like Carl Hessing’s.”

“Yeah, like his.”

Hank’s voice had gotten low.  What he was saying was said with a kind of growling passion I’d never heard before, not from him.  To me, Hank Hanson was as ugly as a wart hog, but as sweet as Betty Grable.  Just not now.

Jane opened her eyes.

“Hank!  She’s looking at me, Hank!”

He moved fast, fast enough to see I was right, before she closed them again.  I put out my hand to touch her and when I did, she’d tried to lick me.  It was a feeble effort, but she tried.  Jane, who had no time for anyone but Babe Duffy, tried to lick my hand.

I was big baby enough to weep.

Hank took me by the shoulders, began gently leading me back to the door.  “You can see her later, word of honor.  But right now she needs all the rest she can get.  She’s not out of the woods, Sam, not by a long shot.”

I pulled away.  “Let me stay a little longer, Hank.  I haven’t seen her since… since… ”

“Sure.  But not too long.”

I sat back down on the bed.  Hank left the door open and went back to tending Max.  I got to thinking about dogs.  I never thought I could care for a dog.  Sam Russo loved horses, he didn’t like dogs.  Especially a dog like Jane was a dog.  Dogs should be big.  Men had big dogs.  Only dames liked dogs like Jane.  Duffy’s mother probably gave him Jane.

She didn’t open her eyes again.  But her breathing was deep and easy.  I imagined my life from now on.  I was going to own a dog.

I took to looking around the room again, all those pictures of animals, the neat bed, the nice carpet, the bit of dark blue material sticking out from under the bed.

I leaned over for a better look, then farther over.

The bit of dark blue was a brand new delivery uniform.

I was off the bed and on my knees.  The uniform was stuffed under the bed like you’d stuff something you wanted rid off, something you didn’t want to see.  Something you probably expected to get rid of when you had the time.  I pulled it out a bit.  It was covered in drying blood.  Farther back, up against the wall, was a shoe, one of those two-toned correspondence shoes which are usually black and white or brown and white.  This one was red and white.  The other shoe must be under the bloody delivery outfit.

I pushed the uniform under the bed, far enough so the blue was out of sight.

As a vet, Hank always wore a shabby white coat over an old grey shirt tucked into a pair of older brown slacks.  His shoes were just as shabby.

From one second to the next, I had a headache.

Chapter 41

Back under the suddenly ominous stars, I walked away from Hank Hanson’s little clinic with its private bedroom, its photos on every wall of the animals he’d saved, and his bed.  My head ached.  My legs were stiff.  I was dizzy.  And I was thinking furiously.

It was Hank.  It wasn’t Hank.  How could it be Hank Hanson?

Would my old friend Hank, who cared more about animals than he did about humans—something we had in common along with Mrs. Willingford—deliberately set out to kill a dog?  Hank didn’t kill dogs.  He didn’t kill bugs if he noticed ‘em on his wall or under his shoe.  Hank saved animals—or tried his damndest to.

What about the uniform and the shoe?  Someone else stuffed them under his bed?  Oh sure, and I really
was
Robert Mitchum.  I couldn’t believe it.  I wouldn’t believe it.  I hated believing it.  I
did
believe it.

Why didn’t he get rid of the uniform?  Why didn’t he sink the shoes?  He knew where the lake was.

He
could
of ripped off the uniform anywhere from the pink hotel on Case Street to the track.  It wasn’t far.  He was covered in blood.  I thought of the neighborhood and the hour.  In the dark, who’d notice the blood?  In the dark, what was more noticeable: a quickly moving man in a uniform or a man struggling out of a uniform?

In that neighborhood the trash bins were behind the houses.  On the track, the uniform would of been found in a matter of hours if he’d used their bins.

Some killers liked to keep souvenirs.  Were these his?  Not likely.  It made more sense to think he intended to destroy them.  But it was the season.  He barely had time to sleep, much less run around looking for a great place to ditch evidence no one was looking for.

No one, that is, but me.  He knew I didn’t suspect him.  He knew I thought he was not only a good guy, but a great guy.

Even now, staggering from one shed row to the next, I thought he was a great guy.  He’d saved Jane’s life.

Oh, hell, he also tried to take Jane’s life.

By now, I was just going somewhere, anywhere, nowhere.  By now, my ears were ringing and my head was pounding so hard I could barely think.

This case was killing me.  Whose wise idea was it to become a private dick?  Dumbest idea I ever had.

It couldn’t be Hank.  But Hank had a new dark blue and bloody delivery outfit.  He had a shoe.

All right, but if Hank’d really gone to my pink hotel to kill Jane, he’d never make such a mess of it.  If I knew Hank, and by now I wasn’t sure I knew Hank, or anyone else, he would of brought a syringe full of something to put her quietly and painlessly “out of her misery.”

It didn’t take much to see the idea was a simple one.  No one would know he was the track vet.  He was a delivery man.  He’d come to deliver an easy death to a dog.  But it didn’t go like that.  When Jane saw a strange man open my door and slowly approach her with his compassionate needle, he got a reaction he hadn’t prepared for.  Maybe Jane smelled his intention, maybe she knew about needles.

I remembered his bandaged wrist.

I remembered she didn’t need to smell or sense anything.  She got a whiff of the guy who killed Babe Duffy.

Fuck.  If he killed Duffy, he killed them all.

Jane went for him—again—with everything she had.

His syringe was suddenly useless.  The quick and painless death wasn’t going to happen.  It was Hank on the receiving end.  That would explain the kitchen knife and the mess.  Stabbing a fast and furious dog over and over must have been a nightmare for a man who’d spent his life saving animals.

I practically fell down on a stool near an open stall.  I sat there trying to breathe.  I sat there trying to keep going.  I sat there for some time before I noticed I was sitting outside the stall of Fleeting Fancy.  Fancy’s chestnut head with its off-center star was over her door nodding at me.  I nodded back.

Mrs. and Mr. Willingford’s gorgeous filly was wide awake on the eve of the Travers.  It didn’t matter.  She wouldn’t be running in it.

I sat there and shivered.  I’d thought I knew who my killer was.  Mrs. Willingford thought she knew.  I’d bet anything we both had the same man in mind.  We were both wrong.

I put my head between my knees and quietly cried.

I loved Hank Hanson.  Why would Hank try and kill my dog?  There was only one reason.  He did it to save his own life.

How Jane could threaten his life was as obvious as the red and white shoe under his bed, as certain as Citation winning another race.  Because it was Hank who killed the jockeys.

But if he needed her dead, why try to save her?

Because I’d called him to the scene of the crime.  Because he had to come and he had to make it look good for me when he got there.  So why not finish the job while I was off getting fired?  Because he was Hank Hanson, and he couldn’t keep hurting her.  Because he didn’t believe she stood a chance anyway.  To him, she was already dead.  She was just taking her time getting around to accepting it.

But she still hadn’t died.  Because she was Jane.  But also because he was Hank.  He couldn’t help himself.  It was in his heart to save, not to kill.

I remembered what I hadn’t noticed at the time, the look on his face when I called out to him, when I told him she’d opened her eyes.  His eyes weren’t full of satisfied joy; they were empty with fear.

She was supposed to die.  He’d done all he could, but she was supposed to die.

I lifted my head.  Above me, Fancy snorted.

I stood and held her head.  Holding her, her scent in my nose, I whispered in her ear.  “If Hank Hanson killed three young jockeys, if the only person who could pin it on him was a dog, he has no choice.  He failed the first time.  He has to try again.  He still has to kill Jane.”

My dog was helpless, swaddled on his bed.  His bed was in his private bedroom.  He could inject her at any moment.  S’why he’d said she “wasn’t out of the woods.”  He said that so I wouldn’t be surprised when she didn’t make it.  He said it so I’d know it was on the cards.  So that I’d expect it.

I used my sleeve to wipe my eyes.

I said, “PIs don’t cry.”

Fleeting Fancy shook her head.  It was our secret.

Chapter 42

I was up and away from Fleeting Fancy’s stall like she’d of been up and out of the gate if Mrs. Willingford hadn’t scratched her from the Travers.

Less than an hour and the sky over Saratoga would lighten.  Less than an hour and the whole backstretch would come awake, every man, woman, horse and a whole host of animal chums.  The noise, the color, the life—I loved it so.  But now?

Less than an hour.

There were no choices left.  I had to do what I had to do, and I had to do it immediately.

Peeking round the corner of a shed row at Hank’s clinic, I saw Maisie standing in front of the slowly closing door.  I heard her say, “I could stay if you needed me, Mr. Hanson.  I could— ”

Hank said, “Max is fine.  I won’t leave his side.  You know I won’t.”

And then he shut the door in her face.  We both knew he would never leave an animal in as much trouble as Max was.  But only I knew he’d find just enough time to deal with Jane.  If she could lick a hand, what else could she do?

Maisie went one way, I went another.  I was slipping in and out of shadows to get to the back of Hank’s clinic.  In the back was his bedroom and in the back wall of his back bedroom was a good sized window.  Summer in Saratoga Springs meant open windows.  It also meant closed screens.  It was the screen I was thinking about.  That, and getting in and out without his hearing me.  Or his walking in just as I was climbing in.

The window wasn’t high.  It was a normal height from the scrub grass that grew against the back of the clinic.  What I needed was something to stand on.  I also needed something to pry open the screen.  What I needed most was luck.  Hank couldn’t see the Titanic without his glasses, but his hearing was just peachy.

In and around horse barns you can find pretty much anything.  I found a wooden feed bucket.  I also found a hoof knife.  The hoof knife was just the thing to pry open the screen window, or failing that, to cut the screen out of its frame.

I knew how to be sneaky.  The way I was raised, no one but Paul and Lino were as sneaky as me.  I’d swear on oath in court I was sneakiest of all.  It was all a matter of brains.  Lino didn’t have any and mine were better than Paul’s.  That was my opinion and I’d never found reason to change it.  Climbing in or out of a window was a snap.  Just so long as nothing went wrong.  And things could go wrong.  It was a law of nature: something usually gummed up the works.  A groom coming round the back of the clinic for a predawn piss.  One of the “companions” of any of one of a hundred high bred horses making a fuss over finding me.  Most likely of all, Hank choosing his moment exactly when I was choosing mine.

Turning over the bucket and placing it under the window was easy.  Stepping up on it was easy.  Seeing into the bedroom was easy.  Jane was still there, swaddled just as I’d left her.  The door to Hank’s bedroom was closed.  My dog was alone.  She could be dead, but I doubted it.  Hank would never take the risk while Maisie was still around.  To anyone else, he could say he was giving the dog a sedative, but Maisie would know what she was looking at.

Hank wasn’t a dummy.  Why do something when anyone was still around?  He’d wait until he was nice and alone and safe.  Me, I’d also wager anything, any damn thing at all, he was out with Max wrestling with his conscience.  If he killed the jocks, he must of had a good reason—Hank Hanson was a good man.  I thought so, even now.  But Jane, an animal, a dog—the only reason he had for this particular kiss off was no better than any other killer’s.  To save himself.

The screen came away pretty easy and about as easy I lowered it to the ground beneath me.  Now it was nothing more than hoisting myself through the window.  My childhood was all about hoisting myself through windows.  I did it to listen to Mister’s radio.  I did it to escape my happy home.  I did it out a small bathroom window and down a homemade rope.  On radio days, later I’d shimmy back up again.

Hank’s window was child’s play.  I made noise, couldn’t be helped, but not much noise.  I was a pro.

I’d brought a canvas hay bag—Fleeting Fancy’s spare.  I’d emptied it, then slung it over my shoulder by its strap; it was something to carry Jane away in since I hoped climbing
out
the window would be just as easy as climbing
in
.  Truth was, out couldn’t be as easy.  I had to drop down onto the upturned bucket without tipping it and I had to do that soundlessly carrying a dog in a hay bag.

Not much of a chance of that.  I was no ballerina and Jane wasn’t going to help.