Dark Horse

4

I wonder why I'm still alive.

Billy Golam had pointed that gun right in my face. In countless nightmares I have looked down the barrel of that.357 and sucked in what should have been my final breath. But Golam had turned and fired in another direction.

Was living my punishment, my purgatory? Or was I supposed to have chosen to end it myself to pay for my recklessness? Or was I just damn lucky and unwilling to believe it?

Four-thirty A.M.

I was lying in bed, staring at the blades of the ceiling fan go around. The guest house had been decorated by a Palm Beach interior designer who had gone amok with delusions of Caribbean plantations. It seemed a cliché to me, but no one had ever paid me to pick out paint chips and pillow shams.

At four I went out and fed the horses. By five I had showered. It had been so long since I'd had to introduce myself to people and care about what they thought of me that I couldn't remember how to go about it. I couldn't shake the idea that I would be rejected on sight, or if not on sight, on reputation.

What a strange conceit to believe everyone in the world knew all about me, all about what I'd done and what had happened to end my career. I had been a story on the evening news for a couple of days. A sound bite. Something to fill the airtime before the weather came on. The truth was probably that no one not directly involved with what had happened, no one not living in that world of cops, had given the story more than the most cursory attention. The truth is that people seldom really care about the catastrophic events of someone else's life beyond thinking, "Better her than me."

I stood in my underwear, staring at myself in the mirror. I put some gel in my hair and tried to make it look as if it had an intentional style. I wondered if I should attempt makeup. I hadn't worn any since the surgery to put my face back together. My plastic surgeon had given me the card of a woman who specialized in postsurgical makeup. The Post-Traumatic Avon Lady. I had thrown the card away.

I dressed, discarding a dozen different choices and finally settling on a sleeveless silk blouse the color of fresh-poured concrete and a pair of brown trousers that were so big around the waist, I had to pin them shut to keep them from sliding down my hips.

I used to care about fashion.

I killed some time on the Internet, chewed my nails, and made some notes.

I found nothing of interest on Tomas Van Zandt. His name did not appear even on his own Web site: worldhorsesales.com. The site listed on his business card showed photos of horses that had been brokered through Van Zandt's business. Phone numbers were listed for a business office in Brussels, a number for European sales, and for two U.S. subagents, one of whom was Don Jade.

I found several articles about Paris Montgomery in the Chronicle of the Horse and Horses Daily describing recent wins in the showring, talking about her humble beginnings riding ponies bareback in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. According to the propaganda, she had worked her way up the ranks from groom to working student to assistant trainer; succeeding on hard work and raw talent. And charm. And the fact that she could have been a model.

She had been Don Jade's assistant trainer for three years and was so grateful for the opportunity, blah, blah, blah. So few people realized what a great guy he really was. He'd been unfortunate to do business with some people of questionable ethics, but shouldn't be condemned by association, et cetera, et cetera. Jade was quoted as saying Paris Montgomery had a bright future and the ambition and talent to attain whatever she set her sights on.

Photographs with the articles showed Montgomery going over a fence on a horse called Park Lane, and close-ups of her flashing the big smile.

The smile irritated me. It was too bright and came too easily. The charm seemed insincere. Then again, I'd only just met her for ten minutes. Maybe I didn't like her because I couldn't smile and wasn't charming.

I flipped the screen shut on my laptop and went outside. Dawn was a pale notion on the edge of the eastern sky as I let myself into Sean's house through the French doors into the dining room. He was alone in bed, snoring. I sat down beside him and patted his cheek. His eyelids pulled slowly upward, revealing a lot of red veins. He rubbed a hand over his face.

"I was hoping for Tom Cruise," he said in a voice full of gravel.

"Sorry to disappoint. If a horse dealer named Van Zandt comes around, my name is Elle Stevens and you're looking for a groom."

"What?" He pushed himself upright and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. "Van Zandt? Tomas Van Zandt?"

"You know him?"

"I know of him. He's the second-biggest crook in Europe. Why would he come here?"

"Because he thinks you might buy horses from him."

"Why would he think that?"

"Because I pretty much led him to believe it."

"Uh!!"

"Don't look offended," I said. "That expression emphasizes the lines around your mouth."

"Bitch."

He pouted for a moment, then caught himself and rubbed his hands over his face-outward and upward from his mouth. The ten-second face-lift. "You know I already have a European connection. You know I only work with Toine."

"Yes, I know. The last honest horse dealer."

"The only one in the history of the world, as far as I know."

"So let Van Zandt think he's wooing you away from Toine. He'll have an orgasm. If he comes around, pretend you're interested. You owe me."

"I don't owe you that much."

"Really?" I said. "Thanks to you, I now have a client and a career I didn't want."

"You'll thank me later."

"I'll exact my revenge later." I leaned over and patted his stubbled cheek again. "Happy horse dealing."

He groaned.

"And, by the way," I said, pausing at the door. "He thinks I'm a Palm Beach dilettante and that I'm leasing D'Artagnon from you."

"I'm supposed to keep this all straight?"

I shrugged. "What else have you got to do with your time?"

I was almost out the bedroom door when he spoke again.

"El…"

I turned back toward him, one hand on the door frame. He looked at me, uncharacteristically serious, a certain softness in his expression. He wanted to say something kind. I wanted him to pretend this day was like any other. We each seemed fully aware of the other's thoughts. I held my breath. One side of his mouth lifted in a smile of concession.

"Nice outfit," he said.

I waved at him and left the house.

M olly Seabright lived in a two-story stucco house on the edge of a development called Binks Forest. Upscale. Backyard on a fairway. A white Lexus in the drive. There were lights on in the house. The hardworking upper middle class preparing to face another day. I parked down the street and waited.

At seven-thirty kids in the neighborhood began drifting out of their homes and wandering past me toward the school bus stop at the end of the block. Molly emerged from the Seabright house pulling a wheeled book bag behind her, looking like a miniature corporate exec on her way to catch a plane. I got out of my car and leaned back against it with my arms crossed. She spotted me from twenty feet away.

"I've reconsidered," I said as she stopped in front of me. "I'll help you find your sister."

She didn't smile. She didn't jump for joy. She stared up at me and said, "Why?"

"Because I don't like the people your sister was mixed up with."

"Do you think something bad has happened to her?"

"We know something has happened to her," I said. "She was here and now she isn't. Whether or not it's something bad remains to be seen."

Molly nodded at that, apparently pleased I hadn't tried to falsely reassure her. Most adults speak to children as if they're stupid simply because they haven't lived as many years. Molly Seabright wasn't stupid. She was smart and she was brave. I wasn't going to talk down to her. I had even decided not to lie to her if I could help myself.

"But if you're not a private investigator, what good are you?" she asked.

I shrugged. "How hard can it be? Ask a few questions, make a few phone calls. It's not brain surgery."

She considered my answer. Or maybe she was considering whether or not to say what she said next. "You were a sheriff's detective once."

I might have been that stunned if she had reached up and hit me in the head with a hammer. I who wouldn't talk down to a child. It hadn't occurred to me Molly Seabright would run home and do her own detective work online. I felt suddenly naked, exposed in that way I had earlier convinced myself was unlikely to happen. Blindsided by a twelve-year-old.

I glanced away. "Is that your bus?"

A school bus had pulled up to the curb and the children gathered there were clambering aboard.

"I walk," she said primly. "I found a story about you in the computer archives of the Post."

"Only one? I'm offended."

"More than one."

"Okay, so my dirty secret is exposed. I was a detective for Palm Beach County. Now I'm not."

She understood to leave it at that. Wiser than most people I've known three times her age.

"We need to discuss your fee," she said. Ms. Business.

"I'll take the hundred you offered and we'll see what happens."

"I appreciate that you're not trying to patronize me."

"I just said I'd take a hundred dollars from a kid. Sounds pretty low to me."

"No," she said, those too-serious eyes staring at me through the magnifying lenses of the Harry Potter glasses. "I don't think so." She put her hand out. "Thank you for accepting my case."

"Jesus. You make me feel like we should sign a contract," I said, shaking her hand.

"Technically, we should. But I trust you."

"Why would you trust me?"

I had the feeling she had an answer, but that she thought it might be too much for me to comprehend and so thought better of sharing it with me. I began to wonder if she was really from this planet.

"Just because," she said. A child's pat answer to people who aren't really paying attention. I let it go.

"I'll need some information from you. A photograph of Erin, her address, make and model of her car, that sort of thing."

As I was asking, she bent down, unzipped a compartment of her book bag, and withdrew a manila envelope, which she handed to me. "You'll find everything in there."

"Of course." I shouldn't have been surprised. "And when you went to the sheriff's department, who did you speak with?"

"Detective Landry. Do you know him?"

"I know who he is."

"He was very rude and condescending."

"So was I."

"You weren't condescending."

A black Jag backed out of the Seabright garage, a suit at the wheel. Bruce Seabright, I assumed. He turned away from us and drove down the street.

"Is your mother home?" I asked. "I'll need to speak with her."

The prospect didn't thrill her. She looked a little nauseated. "She goes to work at nine. She's a real estate agent."

"I'll have to speak with her, Molly. And with your stepfather, too. I'll leave you out of it. I'll tell them I'm an insurance investigator."

She nodded, still looking grim.

"You should leave for school now. I don't want to be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor."

"No," she said, heading back toward the house, head up, her little book case rattling along on the sidewalk behind her. We should all have so much character.

K rystal Seabright was on a cordless phone when Molly and I walked into the house. She was leaning over a hall table, peering into an ornate rococo mirror, trying to stick down a false eyelash with a long pink fingernail while she chattered to someone about an absolutely fabulous town house in Sag Harbor Court. No one would have picked her out of a lineup as Molly's mother. Having met Molly first, I might have pictured her mother as a buttoned-up attorney or a doctor or a nuclear physicist. I might have, except that I knew firsthand children and parents didn't always match.

Krystal was a bottle blonde who'd used one too many bottles in her thirty-some years. Her hair was nearly white and looked as fragile as cotton candy. She wore just a little too much makeup. Her pink suit was a little too tight and a little too bright, her sandals a little too tall in the spike heel. She glanced at us out of the corner of her eye.

"… I can fax you all the details as soon as I get to my office, Joan. But you really need to see it to appreciate it. Places like this just aren't available now during the season. You're so lucky this just came up."

She turned away from the mirror and looked at me, then at Molly with a what now? expression, but continued her conversation with the invisible Joan, setting up an appointment at eleven, scribbling it into a messy daybook. Finally she set the phone aside.

"Molly? What's going on?" she asked, looking at me, not her daughter.

"This is Ms. Estes," Molly said. "She's an investigator."

Krystal looked at me like I might have beamed down from Mars. "A what?"

"She wants to talk to you about Erin."

Fury swept up Krystal's face like a flash fire burning into the roots of her hair. "Oh, for God's sake, Molly! I can't believe you did this! What is the matter with you?"

The hurt in Molly's eyes was sharp enough that I felt it myself.

"I told you something bad's happened," Molly insisted.

"I can't believe you do these things!" Krystal ranted, her frustration with her younger daughter clearly nothing new. "Thank God Bruce isn't here."

"Mrs. Seabright," I said, "I'm looking into a case at the equestrian center which might involve your daughter Erin. I'd like to speak with you in private, if possible."

She looked at me, wild-eyed, still angry. "There's nothing to discuss. We don't know anything about what goes on over there."

"But Mom-" Molly started, desperately wanting her mother to care.

Her mother turned a withering, bitter look on her. "If you've told this woman some ridiculous story, you're going to be in such hot water, young lady. I can't believe the trouble you're making. You don't have any consideration for anyone but yourself."

Two red dots colored Molly's otherwise paste-pale cheeks. I thought she might start to cry. "I'm worried about Erin," she said in a small voice.

"Erin is the last person anyone needs to worry about," Krystal said. "Go to school. Go. Get out of this house. I'm so angry with you right now… If you're late for school you can just sit in detention this afternoon. Don't bother calling me."

I wanted to grab a handful of Krystal Seabright's overprocessed hair and shake her until the hair broke off in my fist.

Molly turned and went outside, leaving the front door wide open. The sight of her wheeling away her little book bag made my heart ache.

"You can leave right behind her," Krystal Seabright said to me. "Or I can call the police."

I turned back to face her and said nothing for a moment while I tried to wrestle my temper into submission. I was reminded of the fact that I had been a terrible patrol officer when I'd first gone on the job because I lacked the requisite diplomatic skills for domestic situations. I have always been of the opinion that some people really do just need to be bitch-slapped. Molly's mother was one of those people.

Krystal was trembling like a Chihuahua, having some control issues of her own.

"Mrs. Seabright, for what it's worth, Molly has nothing to do with this," I lied.

"Oh? She hasn't tried to tell you her sister has vanished and that we should be calling the police and the FBI and America's Most Wanted?"

"I know that Erin hasn't been seen since Sunday afternoon. Doesn't that concern you?"

"Are you implying I don't care about my children?" Again with the bug-eyes and the practiced affront-always a sign of low self-esteem.

"I'm not implying anything."

"Erin is an adult. At least in her own mind. She wanted to live on her own, take care of herself."

"So you're not aware that she was working for a man who's been involved in schemes to defraud insurance agencies?"

She looked confused. "She works for a horse trainer. That's what Molly said."

"You haven't spoken with Erin?"

"When she left she made it very clear she wanted nothing more to do with me. Living a decent life in a lovely home was just all too boring for her. After everything I've done for her and her sister…"

She went to the hall table, glanced at herself in the mirror, and dug her hand into a big pink and orange Kate Spade purse. She came out of the bag with a cigarette and a slim lighter, and moved toward the open front door.

"I've worked so hard, made so many sacrifices…" she said, more or less to herself, as if it comforted her to portray herself as the heroine of the story. She lit the cigarette and blew the smoke outside. "She's done nothing but give me grief since the night she was conceived."

"Does Erin's father live in the vicinity? Might she have gone to spend time with him?"

Krystal burst out laughing, but not with humor. She didn't look at me. "No. She wouldn't have done that."

"Where is her father?"

"I wouldn't know. I haven't heard from him in fifteen years."

"Do you know who Erin's friends are?"

"What do you want with her?" she asked. "What's she done now?"

"Nothing I'm aware of. She may have some information. I'd just like to ask her some questions about the man she's been working for. Has Erin been in trouble in the past?"

She leaned way out the door, took another hard drag on the cigarette, and exhaled the smoke at a hibiscus shrub. "I don't see that my family is any business of yours."

"Has she ever been involved with drugs?"

She snapped a look at me. "Is that what this is about? Is she mixed up with drug people? God. That's all I need."

"I'm concerned about where she's gone," I said. "Erin's disappearance happened to coincide with the death of a very expensive horse."

"You think she killed a horse?"

I thought my head might split in two. Krystal's concern seemed to be about everyone except her daughter. "I just want to ask her some questions about her boss. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?"

She stepped outside, tapped her ash into a plant pot, and hopped back into the house. "Responsibility isn't Erin's thing. She thinks being an adult means doing whatever you damn well please. She's probably run off to South Beach with some boy."

"Does she have a boyfriend?"

She scowled and looked down at the tiled floor. Down and to the right: a lie. "How would I know? She doesn't check in with me."

"Molly said she hasn't been able to reach Erin on her cell phone."

"Molly." She puffed on the cigarette and tried to wave the smoke out toward the street. "Molly is twelve. Molly thinks Erin is cool. Molly reads too many mystery novels and watches too much A amp;E. What kind of child watches A amp;E? Law and Order, Investigative Reports. When I was twelve I was watching Brady Bunch reruns."

"I think Molly has reason to be concerned, Mrs. Seabright. I think you might want to speak with the Sheriff's Office about filing a missing person's report."

Krystal Seabright looked horrified. Not at the prospect that her daughter might have been the victim of foul play, but at the idea of someone from Binks Forest having to file a police report. What would the neighbors say? They might put two and two together and figure out her last house was a double-wide.

"Erin is not missing," she insisted. "She's just… gone somewhere, that's all."

A teenage boy emerged through a door into the upstairs hall and came thudding down the stairs. He looked maybe seventeen or eighteen and hungover. Gray-faced and glum, with platinum-tipped dark hair that stood up in dirty tufts. His T-shirt looked slept in and worse. He didn't resemble Krystal or her daughters. I made the assumption he belonged to Bruce Seabright, and wondered why Molly had made no mention of him to me.

Krystal swore under her breath and surreptitiously tossed her cigarette out the door. The boy's eyes followed it, then went back to her. Busted.

"Chad? What are you doing home?" she asked. A whole new tone of voice. Nervous. Obsequious. "Aren't you feeling well, honey? I thought you'd gone to school."

"I'm sick," he said.

"Oh. Oh. Uh… Would you like me to make you some toast?" she asked brightly. "I have to get to the office, but I could make you some toast."

"No, thank you."

"You were out awfully late last night," Krystal said sweetly. "You probably just need your sleep."

"Probably." Chad glanced at me, and slouched away.

Krystal scowled at me and spoke in a low voice. "Look: we don't need you. Just go away. Erin will turn up when Erin needs something."

"What about Erin?" Chad asked. He had come back into the hall, a two-liter bottle of Coke in one hand. Breakfast of champions.

Krystal Seabright closed her eyes and huffed. "Nothing. Just- Nothing. Go back to bed, honey."

"I need to ask her some questions about the guy she works for," I said to the boy. "Do you happen to know where I can find her?"

He shrugged and scratched his chest. "Sorry, I haven't seen her."

As he said it, the black Jag rolled back into the driveway. Krystal looked stricken. Chad disappeared down a hall. The man I assumed to be Bruce Seabright got out of the car and strode toward the open front door, a man on a mission. He was stocky with thinning hair slicked straight back and a humorless expression.

"Honey, did you forget something?" Krystal asked in the same tone she'd used with Chad. The overeager servant.

"The Fairfields file. I've got a major deal going down on a piece of that property this morning and I don't have the file. I know I set it on the dining room table. You must have moved it."

"No, I don't think so. I-"

"How many times do I have to tell you, Krystal? Do not touch my business files." There was a condescension in his tone that couldn't have been categorized as abusive, but was, in a subtle, insidious way.

"I'm-I'm sorry, honey," she stammered. "Let me go find it for you."

Bruce Seabright looked at me with a hint of wariness, like he suspected I might have a permit to solicit charitable donations. "I'm sorry if I interrupted," he said politely. "I have a very important meeting to get to."

"I gathered. Elena Estes," I said, holding my hand out.

"Elena is considering a condo in Sag Harbor," Krystal hurried to say. There was a hint of desperation in her eyes when she looked at me in search of a coconspirator.

"Why would you show her something there, darling?" he asked. "Property values in that neighborhood will only decline. You should show her something at Palm Groves. Send her to the office. Have Kathy show her a model."

"Yes, of course," Krystal murmured, swallowing down the criticism and the slight, allowing him to take away her sale. "I'll go find that file for you."

"I'll do it, honey. I don't want anything dropping out of it."

Something on the stoop caught Seabright's eye. He bent down and picked up the cigarette butt Krystal had thrown out. He held it pinched between his thumb and forefinger and looked at me.

"I'm sorry, but smoking is not allowed on my property."

"Sorry," I said, taking the thing away from him. "It's a filthy habit."

"Yes, it is."

He went into the house to find his errant file. Krystal rubbed at her forehead and stared down at her slightly too flashy sandals, blinking like she might have been fighting tears.

"Just go, please," she whispered.

I stuck the butt in the plant pot and went. What else could I say to a woman who was so under the thumb of her domineering husband, she would sooner abandon her own child than displease him?

Over and over in my life I've found that people are amazing, and seldom in a good way.