Dark Horse

9

You got me out of bed for this?" Landry looked from Deputy Saunders to me with the kind of disgust usually reserved for spoiled food.

"She won't talk to anyone else," Saunders said.

We walked down the hall toward the squad room, Landry muttering, "Aren't I the lucky one. I don't see what any of us are doing here. You could have handled this in the field in half an hour. Jesus."

"I was assaulted," I said. "I think that warrants a detective."

"Then you take whoever is up. You know that."

"But I've already established a relationship with you regarding this case."

"No, you haven't, because there isn't any case. What you talked to me about yesterday isn't a case."

We went into the division offices through reception. Landry handed his badge and his weapon to the security officer through the drawer beneath the bulletproof glass. Saunders followed suit. I pulled the Glock out of the back of my jeans, put it and my car keys in the tray. Landry stared at me.

I shrugged. "I've got a license."

He turned to Saunders. "You fucking idiot. She could have blown your empty head off in the car."

"Now, Detective," I cooed, slipping past him as the security officer buzzed the door open. "I'm not that kind of girl."

"Get out of here, Saunders," he snapped. "You're about as useful as a limp dick."

We left Saunders looking forlorn in the outer office. Landry stalked past me, the muscles in his jaw working. We went past his desk to an interview room. He pushed the door back.

"In here."

I went in and gingerly took a seat. The pain in my back wouldn't let me draw a full breath. I had begun to wonder if maybe I really should go to an ER.

Landry slammed the door. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"That's rather a broad question, so I'm just going to take my pick of moments," I said. "I went to the equestrian center to look for some hint of what might have happened to Erin Seabright."

"But you weren't in the barn where she worked, right? She worked for some guy named Jade. So how is it you were in this other barn?"

"Michael Berne is an enemy of Don Jade. This morning I witnessed Berne threaten Jade."

"Threaten him how?"

"In that if-I-find-out-you-killed-that-horse-I'll-ruin-you kind of way."

"So this Jade sneaks in and turns the guy's horses loose. Big deal."

"It's a big deal to the man whose livelihood depends on the soundness of those horses. It's a big deal to the trainer who has to explain to owners how a horse worth a quarter of a million or a half a million dollars came to break a leg running around loose in the dead of night."

Landry heaved a sigh and turned his head at an odd angle, as if to pop a vertebra in his neck. "And you'd drag me out of bed for this?"

"No. I did that just for fun."

"You're a pain in the ass, Estes. Not like you haven't been told that before."

"That and worse. It doesn't bother me. I don't have a very high opinion of myself either," I said. "I suppose you think I'm being flip, and that's all right. I don't care what you think of me. I want you to be aware there are bad things going on that all seem to center on Don Jade. Don Jade is the man Erin Seabright was working for. Erin Seabright is missing. Do you see the connection here?"

He shook his head. "So I'm told you're caught standing there in this other guy's barn. How do I know you didn't let these nags loose just to get attention? You want people looking at Jade, so you orchestrate this little opera-"

"Nice turn of phrase. And did I beat myself with a pitchfork handle too? I can assure you, I'm not that flexible."

"You're walking around. You don't look any worse for wear to me."

I slipped my jacket off and stood up. "All right. I don't usually do this on the first interrogation, but if you promise not to call me a slut…"

I turned my back to him and pulled my sweater up to my neck. "If those marks look anywhere near as bad as they feel-"

"Jesus."

He spoke the word softly, without anger, without energy, the wind knocked out of his sails. I knew it probably didn't have as much to do with the marks my assailant had left on me as it did with the patchwork of skin grafts I'd worn for the past two years.

That wasn't what I had wanted. Not at all. I had lived with those scars a long time now. They were a part of me. I had kept them to myself because I kept to myself. I didn't dwell on them. I didn't look at them. In a strange way, the damage that had been done to my body was unimportant to me, because I had become unimportant to myself.

Suddenly the damage was very important. I felt naked emotionally. Vulnerable.

I pulled the sweater down and picked up my jacket, my back still to Landry.

"Forget it," I said, embarrassed and angry with myself. "I'm going home."

"You want to press charges?"

"Against whom?" I asked, turning to face him. "The asshole you're not going to bother to look for, let alone question, because nothing that goes on with that horse crowd is of any interest to you? Unless, of course, someone turns up murdered."

He couldn't think of anything to say to that.

The corner of my mouth moved in what passed for a bitter smile. "Imagine that: You at least have the humanity to feel sheepish. Good for you, Landry."

I stepped past him, going to the door. "How do you like my odds that Saunders is sitting in the parking lot catching twenty? Pretty good, I think. See you around, Landry. I'll call you when I find a body."

"Estes. Wait." He didn't want to meet my eyes when I turned again and looked at him. "You should go to an ER. I'll take you. You might have busted a rib or something."

"I've had worse."

"Jesus Christ, you're a hardhead."

"I don't want your pity," I said. "I don't want your sympathy. I don't want you to like me or care what happens to me. I don't want anything from you but for you to do your job. And apparently, that's too much to ask.

"I'll show myself out. I know the way."

He followed me back to reception. Neither of us spoke as we retrieved our weapons. I pretended he had ceased to exist as we walked down the hall and down the stairs.

"I'm good at what I do," he said as the front doors came into view.

"Really? What's that? You have a second career as a professional asshole?"

"You're a piece of work."

"I'm what I have to be."

"No, you're not," he said. "You're rude and you're a bitch, and that somehow makes you feel superior to the rest of us."

The rain was still coming down. It looked white as it passed through the beams of the security lights in the parking lot. Saunders and his radio car were gone.

"Great," I said. "I guess I have to take you up on that ride, after all."

Landry looked at me sideways as he flipped up the collar of his jacket. "Fuck you. Call a cab."

I watched him get into his car, and stood there in the rain until he'd backed up and driven away. Then I went back inside to use the phone.

I couldn't say I hadn't asked for it.

When the cabbie finally showed, he wanted to chat, curious about why I needed a ride from the Sheriff's Office at 3:45 in the morning. I told him my boyfriend was wanted for murder. He didn't ask any more questions after that.

I propped myself up in the back of the cab and spent the ride home wondering how Erin Seabright was spending the night.