Thursday morning, I visited Gwendolyn Peters.
The only other living relative mentioned in Peters' obituary had been a nephew, and after a bit of detective work with the phone book the night before, I'd tracked him down. He knew little about the events surrounding August fourth and next to nothing about Hunters Ridge. He did, however, point me in the right direction as far as his aunt was concerned. Shortly after her husband's death, Mrs. Peters had suffered a nervous breakdown and seemed destined to live out the remainder of her days in a nursing home.
"What about the farm?" I'd said. "Do you think anyone still works or boards there who knew your uncle?"
"You're outta luck there, pal. Place got sold and is being bulldozed as we speak."
"Bulldozed into what?"
"A housing development, what else? Nice, too. The land backs right up to Piney Run."
Shortly after eight, I pointed the Chevy's nose northward. After a few wrong turns, I found the town of Wards Chapel and, on Eighth Street, Shady Grove Nursing Home.
They must have recently polished the floor, because my shoes squeaked with each step I took down the long, depressing corridor. I had always hated hospitals, and nursing homes were close enough to elicit the same adversionary response. I turned a corner and nearly walked into an elderly man with disheveled yellow-gray hair. His back was so stooped, he reminded me of a tree limb, ready to snap. Even his skin looked like bark. I continued on.
Most of the doors were open, but I did not look in any of them. I paused just before I got to room 309 and wished I were anywhere else. The air stank of strong disinfectant that couldn't mask the stench of urine and was nauseating. I wiped my hands on my jeans and stood in the doorway.
Mrs. Peters sat unmoving in a chair that had been placed so she could look out the window. Early morning sunlight shifted and winked in the branches of a nearby Mimosa and angled through the glass like a moving kaleidoscope. The view was pleasant enough-manicured lawn, a hedge of forsythia bushes that had probably been spectacular a week earlier, a patch of blue sky. A breakfast tray sat on the bedside table, and by the looks of it, Mrs. Peters ate very little. The room was cheerless and drab with institutional furniture and empty walls, except for a still-life print that hung above the bed. The only personal possession in evidence was a photograph on the night stand.
I cleared my throat. "Mrs. Peters?"
She didn't respond.
I walked around the bed and stood by the window where she could see me. "Mrs. Peters?"
She turned her head slowly and looked at me with pale, watery eyes, her expression blank. Her skin was deeply wrinkled and hung slackly from her bones. She no longer looked like a woman in her sixties as her nephew had said she was.
I introduced myself and asked if she would mind answering some questions about Hunters Ridge.
"Hunters Ridge?" Her eyes widened, and her hands clutched at the knitted afghan draped across her lap. "You know Hunters Ridge?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Is it a job you want?"
I blinked. "Uh…"
"Because you'll have to ask Jimmy. He's the one does the hirin'."
I didn't say anything. Couldn't.
"Have you seen him?"
I shook my head and swallowed. "I wasn't looking for a job. I wanted to know who worked for, uh… is working for him."
"Oh, well, Maryanne and Crystal come in the afternoons and on weekends, and Vicky gives lessons."
According to Greg, it had been years since they'd switched from boarding to breeding, and I wondered what time frame Mrs. Peters' mind was stuck in. "What are their last names?"
"Oh, heavens, I don't have the vaguest. Jimmy would know. He keeps the records. You just go on over and ask him. He'll know."
"What about boarders?"
"Oh, well there's Jenny and Sue Ellen, Linda and-"
"Their last names?"
"Oh, my. I don't rightly recall. They come and go, you know? You'll have to ask Jimmy."
I asked her who shod their horses, delivered their grain and hay, and anything else I could think of, and I learned that Mr. Peters had done with as little help as humanly possible. She mentioned a Buddy Harrison who may or may not have been related to John Harrison; otherwise, none of the names were familiar. If she was talking about twenty years ago, then I supposed it made sense.
"And your vet?" I said.
"Greg Davis." She nodded to me. "So young and handsome, like yourself. At first, I told Jimmy I thought Greg was too inexperienced, but Jimmy had great faith in him. Said he knows how to time a breeding better than Morgan ever did. Course, Morgan was always half in the bottle. Couldn't tell a one from a three if his life depended on it. And if you don't read the follicles right, you end up breeding too early or too late and have to wait another whole month."
"Morgan?"
"Doctor Morgan. Passed away, God rest his soul."
I glanced behind her, at the photograph on the night stand, and she followed the direction of my gaze and twisted around in her chair. She picked up the gold-framed photograph, then settled back against the cushions and balanced the frame on the folds of her afghan. It vibrated in her trembling hands. A network of blue veins and tightly strung tendons threaded their way under skin that looked transparent, and her knuckles were swollen, fingers misshapen with arthritis. A gold wedding band hung loosely around a bone-thin finger. I stepped to her side with sick fascination.
Peters had been a tall, gangly man with a broad forehead and easy smile. His arm was casually draped around his wife's shoulders as they stood in front of a split rail fence. A group of yearlings had gathered on the far side with their ears pricked curiously toward the couple. Mrs. Peters was leaning against her husband with her arms around his waist, her head tilted back as she gazed into his face. She looked young and carefree and exceedingly happy.
She touched the glass with her fingertips, as if she could bring back the moment. "Have you seen Jimmy?" she said without looking up.
I swallowed. "No, ma'am."
"I told him he shouldn't have reported it." Her voice caught in her throat. "But he always does what's right."
"Report what?"
She didn't answer.
"Mrs. Peters, who did he report?"
"Do you know when he'll be back?" Her voice was high-pitched with strain. "Dinner's almost ready."
"Mrs. Peters. It's important that you tell me. What did he report?"
She covered her mouth with a trembling hand.
"Who, Mrs. Peters? Who did he report?"
Tears spilled down her cheeks. "No, no, no-o-o." Her voice rose in a wail that filled the tiny room.
I put my hand on her bony shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Peters."
A nurse bustled into the room. "You. What are you doing?"
I straightened.
"You'll have to leave." She stood aside so I could move around her. "Now."
I walked out into the sunlight and tried to imagine all the possible things Mr. Peters might have reported that had anything to do with horses. As I drove back to Foxdale, I couldn't stop thinking about the fragility of the human mind. Under normal circumstances, I imagined, Gwendolyn Peters could have been reduced to such a state by senility or Alzheimer's or whatever, but I had an overwhelming feeling that she had been pushed. Pushed by the horror of her husband's sudden, violent death.
The man who was behind this, whoever he was, had destroyed more than one life on that hot summer night.
Rachel beat me to Foxdale by half a minute. She stretched back into her car as I idled my pickup down the row of parked cars and came to a stop behind her back bumper. She straightened and turned quickly, and I was rewarded with a welcoming smile. I hopped out and opened the door for her as she slipped on a sweater.
She reached up and flipped her hair out from under the collar. "Sneaking up on me?"
I grinned. "Me? Never."
"Uh-huh."
I checked out the rest of her outfit with growing appreciation. A short, brown skirt, secured around her waist with a wide, yellow belt, revealed a lot of good-looking leg. The only surprise… she was wearing tennis shoes.
Rachel smiled. "I like to be comfortable."
"So, you're a mind-reader."
"It's a girl thing. Or, I suppose you could say it's a guy thing. 'Cause you guys are easy to read."
"Oh, come on. Okay." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Where would I like to be right now?"
"Somewhere horizontal and… private."
"Damn. You are a mind reader."
She grinned, then climbed into the truck. The skirt rode up on her thighs. I reluctantly shut the door and walked around to the driver's side.
We headed south and, as it happened, the route I'd chosen took us past Greg's farm. I pointed it out.
"You live in that house?"
I shook my head. "No, I live in the barn."
"The barn?"
I glanced sideways at her. "Yes. Where the hay loft used to be. It was remodeled into an apartment. Very nice, too."
"Can we stop?"
I briefly wondered if she was initiating the horizontal and private thing but dispelled the idea as wishful thinking on my part. I pictured how I'd left the place and decided it would be acceptable. I'd picked the clothes off the floor a couple of days earlier, and I'd even thrown the bedspread back across the mattress.
She must have sensed my hesitation, because she said, "Oh… I shouldn't have asked."
"No," I said. "I'd like to show you."
I turned around, and we headed back. As I pulled onto Greg's farm, it struck me how elegant the place looked. Pin oaks lined the drive on both sides along with an immaculate four-board fence. The three-story brick house looked as stately as ever, and the barns were constructed of rich wood siding instead of the usual steel, which I found cold and dreary.
I pulled into the parking area behind the foaling barn, and we climbed the steps to the loft.
A dead mouse lay on the doormat.
"You have cats, I see." Rachel said.
"No. Well… yes. Actually, they're not mine. They sort of came with the place. They're barn cats, really. I probably shouldn't have let them in at all, but they're insistent."
She grinned at me, and I wondered why I couldn't shut the hell up. When I opened the door for her, she said, "You don't lock your door?"
"Nah. On a farm like this, there's always someone around. I don't worry about it."
Rachel walked inside and stood in the middle of the kitchen. "Wow. This is nice."
She turned slowly, taking it in, her brown skirt and the sweater's warm shades of tan, orange, and yellow a vibrant splash of color, intense and alive.
She spun around and walked onto the carpet. "What a great place. It's so cool and big and on a horse farm with such great views. I envy you. I live close to the Baltimore City line. Not even in a neighborhood."
Rachel paused at my stereo system. It was stacked on an old, wooden crate and had cost me a fortune. She picked up a stack of CDs and shuffled through them like they were a deck of cards. "Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Vilvaldi, Kid Rock, Mellencamp, Bach, matchbox 20." She looked up at me and raised her eyebrows. "You've got quite an eclectic collection here, don't you?"
I shrugged and told her about my sister. "With her room next to mine, it was either get used to it and like it, or live day after day in misery."
She smiled, then walked to the end of the loft and looked out the north windows at the tree-lined drive. When she turned around, it seemed to me that she had noticed my bed for the first time. She glanced from it to me and walked purposefully back into the kitchen. The long-haired cat squeezed out from under my bed and trotted over to her.
"Oh, what a beautiful cat." Rachel crouched down, and the cat rubbed against her legs.
I didn't look at the cat, however, having a definitely more interesting view elsewhere. Rachel's skirt was very short.
I cleared my throat. "You've made a life-long friend."
"I've never seen a cat that's so friendly." Rachel laughed when the cat flipped onto its back. "What a wiggle worm. What's her name?"
"Far as I know, she doesn't have one."
Rachel was on her hands and knees, and her hair had fallen forward over her shoulders. "How could you have a cat and not name it?"
"But it's not my cat."
Rachel shook her head and rose to her feet. She put her hands on her hips. "Don't you ever pet her?"
"Of course I do. That cat has an insatiable desire for affection." Not unlike my own, I thought.
We spent the afternoon paddling around Wilde Lake. We checked out every cove, risked getting stuck in the shallows, and went to dinner when the sun dipped below the horizon.
The food was delicious, but I couldn't, for the life of me, remember eating it. Rachel had candlelight in her eyes, and her hair glowed with a warmth and vibrancy of its own. We talked about everything and nothing while light seeped from the sky, the glass turning black with the night.
When the crowd thinned, and one of the waiters started pushing a sweeper across the carpet in the next room, I said, "Are you ready to go?"
She nodded.
Outside, it was chillier than expected, and neither one of us had dressed for it. Ignoring the cold, we followed the path as it hugged the shoreline. Where the woods thinned, we paused and looked across the lake. A half moon hung low in the east and reflected off the water's surface. A sure, straight path, cutting across the lake.
"How beautiful," Rachel murmured.
I took her in my arms and kissed her, not a drop-down-and-do-it kiss, but a gentle one that she returned in kind. When I felt her shiver, I wrapped my jacket around her, and she rested her head on my chest and slid her arms around my waist.
Above our heads, a gentle breeze moved through the trees. It would have been peaceful except for the primitive feelings brought to life by her body's closeness to mine. I felt the quiet rhythm of her breathing against me; yet, I was having a hard time controlling mine. I smoothed my fingers through her silky hair and breathed deeply. Her scent was barely perceptible on the shifting air currents. She looked up, and I kissed her again.
After a while, we headed back to Foxdale. Ignoring the fact that the roads weren't all the great, I put my arm around her shoulders, which I probably shouldn't have done. All I could think about was sliding my hand into her blouse. After maneuvering the truck out of a particularly sharp curve, I decided I'd better keep my eyes on the road and my hands on the steering wheel.
I clamped both hands on the wheel and glanced down. Shouldn't have done that, either. If I lowered my hand just a few inches, I would be touching her legs. And with that short skirt, one thought led to another, and I was right back where I'd started.
I was almost relieved when I turned into the lane at Foxdale.
I clenched my teeth. "Damn it."
Rachel shifted in her seat. "What's wrong?"
"The gates aren't locked." I glanced at my watch. It was almost midnight.
"Is that a problem?"
"I hope not. I forgot to ask Karen to lock up, but she should have thought about it. Everything else better be locked up, or-"
"Maybe she didn't know what to do because my car was still in the lot."
I glanced at her. Pale light from the dash shone on her face. "Yeah," I said softly. "You're probably right."
I pulled in alongside the Camry and scanned the grounds before I got out. Rachel swiveled around on the seat to face me. When she slid down to the ground, quite a distance for her, the skirt hung up on the vinyl bench for a brief second. Damn, she looked good. I pulled her to me and gave her an open-mouthed kiss. She felt perfect in my arms, and I thought I had better send her on her way before I wasn't as controlled.
Rachel unlocked her car. As she slid behind the wheel, I checked the back seat. We said goodbye, then I watched her drive away until her taillights disappeared around the bend.
I walked through every building, checked every corner, every horse, jiggled every doorknob, and felt bone tired by the time I climbed into the Chevy. As I slotted the key in the ignition, light flashed across the windshield. I swiveled around as a car headed down the lane.
A cop car. The cruiser angled across the parking lot and pulled in behind my truck. The driver lit up the interior of my truck with s spotlight and approached the truck with an interesting blend of confidence and caution. I kept my hands on the steering wheel.
He shone his flashlight in my face, then lowered the beam. "What are you doing here this late?"
I recognized him from Monday. Officer Dorsett, tall, lean, black, with a thin mustache and a gold hoop in his left ear that didn't quite go with the otherwise military turnout. "I was on a date," I said. "We met here. I dropped her off a little while ago, then checked the barns."
His radio crackled. "One-twenty-three, status?"
Dorsett keyed his mike. "One-twenty-three. Ten-six. No need to check further."
"Clear."
Dorsett switched off his flashlight. "You leaving?"
"Yep."
He followed me off the parking lot, waited for me to lock the gate, then followed me part of the way home. I stayed within the speed limit.
By late Friday afternoon, new locks had been installed wherever possible. I flipped through a ridiculously large bunch of keys, thanks to Dave's brilliant idea that multiple keys would confuse the enemy, and tried to remember which color tape went with the new feed room lock. Pink? No, yellow. I unlocked the door and pulled the feed cart away from the wall. I had organized the supplements and medications and was turning the cart around when I heard Marty yell my name.
I ran outside and found him standing between the barns, his back toward me. "Marty. What's wrong?"
He spun around. "I'm surprised you didn't hear."
"Hear what?"
"Whitcombe was riding that gelding of his. The plain bay…"
"Rennie's Luck?"
"Yeah, that's the one. Well, Lucky wasn't so lucky."
"What do you mean?"
"You know how he's been stoppin' at the jumps lately?"
I waited for him to get on with it.
"Well, Whitcombe took a whip to him and cut 'im up pretty-"
"Where is he?"
"Whitcombe?"
"No," I said. "The horse."
"In his stall."
I turned and started toward Lucky's stall.
"You'll be needin' to medicate him," Marty said. "And guess what?"
"What?"
He jogged up alongside me. "Mrs. Hill fired him."
I paused. "She fired Whitcombe?"
"Who else?"
"Fucking shit."
"Wait a minute." He cupped his hands behind his ears. "Did I hear you right, or was I just imaginin' things?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "You know, you really should watch your mouth, young man. Foxdale-"
"Geez." I turned and left him there.
"-has an image to uphold," he yelled at my back.
We stood outside Lucky's stall. The gelding was standing near the back wall, his eyes wide, muscles tensed.
"Goddamn it."
"You should of seen him, Steve. Whitcombe had ol' Lucky here so worked up, gallopin' full out, I thought he was gonna wipe out it in the turn… or crash through a fence."
I slid the door back and walked into the stall. Lucky was drenched with sweat, and the muscles along his flank trembled in spasms. I examined the cuts and was relieved to find they weren't as bad as I'd first thought-more gore than actual damage. I collected the supplies I would need, then we cross-tied him in the wash-rack.
"Damn Whitcombe," I muttered.
I stepped toward Lucky's shoulder, and he bobbed his head. The chains rattled hollowly against the wall.
"Marty, hold his head for me." I patted the gelding's neck and kept my hand on his body as I moved toward his flank.
"His ears are pinned, Steve."
"I'll be right back."
I grabbed a bag of carrots out of the feed room and fed him a couple.
"Poor guy." I broke another carrot in two. "Marty, what happened exactly?"
"Well, when Lucky here refused the Liverpool for the third time, Whitcombe just laid into him. I can't believe the shit was stupid enough to do it in front of everybody."
"What a fool."
"One of the boarders ran into the office and told Mrs. Hill what was goin' on. She saw the end of his little temper tantrum and fired his ass."
I grinned. "Good for her. It couldn't have happened to a better person." I glanced down the aisle. "Eh, where is Mr. Whitcombe, anyway?"
"He had a few words with Mrs. Hill, then drove off." Marty grinned. "Oh, and the little shit's got a new ride."
"What?"
"A fucking new Mustang convertible."
"Wonder where he got the money for that? He sure didn't earn it here."
Marty shrugged.
"Too bad I missed it. I would've liked to have said goodbye."
"I bet you would of."
"There's justice after all. Whitcombe loses his job, maybe now he won't be able to make his car payments." I ran my hand down Lucky's face and cupped my hand around his muzzle. His old, soft lips searched my palm for another piece of carrot. "Except ol' Lucky here'll be going with him."
I was leaving for the day when Mrs. Hill stopped me on the sidewalk just outside her office door.
"I have a favor to ask," she said. "After you've had your supper, would you come back and stay here until Mr. Whitcombe picks up his horses and tack?" She looked at my face and could see I was less than thrilled. "Please, Stephen… here's some pizza money-"
"No, thank you. You don't need to do that."
"Take it, dear." She shoved the folded bills into my palm. "I know I'm asking a huge favor, but he said he'd be back later tonight, and to be honest, dear, as angry as he was when he left, I don't trust him." She peered into my face. "I know everything will be all right if you're here."
I exhaled. "I'll be back in a little while, then."
"Oh, thank you, dear. Thank you so much. I'll stay until you get back. I told him you'd be here to lock up when he was finished, so he knows he won't be able to get away with anything."
I shoved Mrs. Hill's pizza money into my pocket and headed for the parking lot. It wasn't until I'd climbed into my truck that I realized I'd lost my appetite.