Dark Horse

24

People can do the goddamnedest things.

Words of insight from Monte Hughes III. Perhaps there was a scrap of substance beneath the self-absorbed, alcohol-soaked narcissist after all. Certainly there was something lurking beneath his well-worn surface, something that had penetrated the fog enough to trouble him.

"… that would be because of the murder."

"But that was days ago."

I had to think he'd been referring to Stellar, and in that, admitting the horse had been killed. But at the same time, I couldn't get the image of Jill Morone's corpse out of my mind. The connection between Jill and Erin made me anxious. If one could be murdered, why not the other?

I hated that all of this was happening in the world that had been my refuge. But people are people. The setting doesn't change basic human emotions-jealousy, greed, lust, rage, envy. The players in this drama could have been plucked from this particular stage and placed on any other. The story would have been the same.

I left Trey Hughes and went in search of the one person no one had questioned who I thought might have something relevant to contribute. The one person in Jade's barn who was ever-present, but practically invisible. Javier.

His inability to speak English did not render him blind or deaf or stupid, but it did give him a cloak of anonymity. Who knew what he might have witnessed among the staff and clients of Jade's operation. No one paid any attention to him except to order him around.

But Javier had vanished that morning when Landry had come down the barn aisle, and I had no luck finding him. The Hispanic workers in the neighboring barns had nothing to say to a well-dressed woman asking questions, even if I did speak their language.

I felt at loose ends. For the first time that day I admitted to myself that I wished I still had a badge and could have been sitting in an interview room, pushing the buttons and pulling the strings of the people who had known and disliked Jill Morone, the people who had known Erin Seabright and may have held the key to her whereabouts. I knew those people and understood them in a way the detectives interviewing them never would.

At the very least I wanted to be there putting questions in Landry's ear. But I knew I would never openly be allowed that near an active investigation. And, despite my threats to Bruce Seabright, I would now be held completely outside the kidnapping investigation. I couldn't bully my way into that house with half the Palm Beach County detective division involved. I couldn't even call Molly on the phone because the calls would be traced and recorded.

I had been relegated to the role of informant, and I didn't like it-even though I had been the one dragging Landry into it in the first place.

I who had wanted no part of this case.

Grinding my teeth on my frustration, I left the show grounds and drove to a strip mall, to a cell phone store, where I purchased a prepaid, disposable phone. I would get it to Molly somehow so we could stay in contact without the Sheriff's Office listening in.

I thought about the caller who had rung Bruce Seabright twice in that long list of numbers from his home office phone, and wondered if the kidnappers had been smart enough to do what I was doing. Did they have a phone they could ditch? Had they bought it with cash, given a phony ID?

I had given the list of phone numbers to Landry, who would be able to get a line on all of them through the phone company. I doubted we would be lucky enough to have one of the numbers come back listed to Tomas Van Zandt or Don Jade or Michael Berne. Landry would know by the end of the day. I wondered if he would tell me. Now that he was in this mess up to his neck, I wondered if he would include me at all. A small hollow ball of fear had taken up residence in my stomach at the thought that he might not.

Sean waved me to the barn as I drove into the yard. The afternoon was slipping away in the west. The sky was orange with a drift of black smoke billowing along the horizon. Farmers burning off the stubble of their sugarcane fields. Irina was feeding the horses their dinner. I breathed in the scent of animals and molasses and grass hay. Better than a Valium to me. D'Artagnon stuck his head out over the door of his stall and nickered to me. I went to him and stroked his face and rested my cheek against his and told him that I missed him.

"Just in time for cocktails, darling. Come along," Sean said, leading the way to the lounge. He was still in breeches and boots.

"Sorry I haven't been any help the last few days," I said. "Are you going to fire me and throw me out into the street?"

"Don't be silly. You've embroiled me in international intrigue. I'll dine out on this for years to come." He went to the bar and poured himself a glass of merlot. "Want some? Blood red. That should appeal to you."

"No, thanks. I'll be giddy."

"That will be the day."

"Tonic and lime sounds nice."

He fixed the drink and I crawled onto a bar stool, tired and body sore.

"I spoke today with friends in Holland," he said. "They had already heard Van Zandt had been in my barn."

"That's some grapevine."

"Apparently, Van Zandt didn't waste any time putting the word out that I might be buying and selling horses with him."

"I'm sure he didn't. You're a plum catch, my peach. Great taste and lots of money. I'm sure he wanted that news to get to your longtime agent as soon as possible."

"Yes. Thank Christ I had called Toine ahead of time and warned him I was sacrificing myself for a noble cause. He would have been on the first plane over from Amsterdam to rescue me from Van Zandt's evil clutches."

"And what did your other friends have to say about the evil Z.?"

"That he's a pariah. He's been banished from the best farms in Holland. They simply won't do business with him."

"But plenty of other people will."

He shrugged. "Dealers always manage to find clients, and people with horses to sell need clients to sell them to. If no one did business with shady characters like Van Zandt, not much business would get done."

"I'll tell him you said so over dinner tonight."

He made a face. "You're having dinner with him? You'll want to buy a case of liquid Lysol."

"To drink?"

"To bathe in afterward. Seriously, Elle," he said, frowning at me, "be careful with that creep. Irina told me what he did to her friend. And now there's been a murder at the show grounds. Is he involved in that? That's where you were all day, isn't it?"

"I don't know if he was involved. Other people may have had reason to want the girl dead."

"Jesus, Elle."

"I know what I'm doing. And the cops are involved now."

"Is that who was here this morning?" he asked, a sly look coming into his eyes. "Mr. Very Good Looking in the silver car?"

"Detective," I corrected. "Is he good-looking? I hadn't noticed."

"Honey, you need an optometrist if you haven't noticed that."

"His personality leaves something to be desired."

"So does yours," he said, trying not to grin. "Could be a perfect fit."

"Could be you need your head examined," I complained. "This mess I'm involved in-thanks to you, by the way-involves a lot of ugly stuff. Romance is not on the agenda even if I was interested-which I'm not."

He hummed a note to himself, thinking something I was certain I didn't want to know. I was uncomfortable with the idea of anyone thinking of me as a sexual being, because I had ceased to think of myself in that way two years before.

Deeper than the scars on my body, my sense of self had been stripped down to nothing that day in rural Loxahatchee when Hector Ramirez had been killed and I had gone under the wheels of Billy Golam's truck.

Despite the fact that surgeons had spent the last two years repairing the physical damage to my body-mending broken bones, patching skin burned away by the road, rebuilding the shattered side of my face-I didn't know that I would ever feel whole again. Essential parts of me were missing-parts of my soul, of my psychological self. Maybe the layers would fill in eventually. Maybe that process had begun. But I had a very long way to go, and most days I doubted I had the strength or the will for the journey. I did know I didn't want anyone close enough to watch the process. Certainly not James Landry.

"Never say never, darling." Sean finished his wine and went off to ready himself for a night on the town in Palm Beach. I went to the guest house and checked my e-mail.

Special Agent Armedgian, my contact with the FBI field office in West Palm, had come through with the Interpol info.

According to Armedgian, Van Zandt had no arrest record, but Interpol had a file on him, which said something. He had dabbled in a lot of business pies, always skirting the line of what was legal and what was not, but never quite crossing over it-or not getting caught, at any rate.

There was no mention of him coming under scrutiny for anything of a sexual nature. I was disappointed, but not surprised. If there were other victims of his dubious charms, they were probably like Irina's friend: young, inexperienced, alone in a foreign country, afraid to tell anyone.

Needing to clear my head before the evening's mind games, I changed into a swimsuit and went to the pool to let the warm, silky water soothe my body and clean the layers of grit from my brain.

The sun was gone, but the pool shimmered midnight blue, lit from within its walls. I thought of nothing at all as I swam lazy laps with slow-motion underwater turns at the end of each. The tension washed away, and for a short time I was simply a sleek, aquatic animal, bone and muscle and instinct. It felt good to be something that fundamental and uncontrived.

When I'd had enough, I rolled over onto my back and floated, looking up at the pinpoint stars in the black velvet sky. Then Landry came into view, standing at the water's edge.

I dove under and came back up, shaking the water from my head.

"Detective. You got the drop on me," I said, treading water.

"I'm sure that doesn't happen very often."

He was still in his work clothes, though he had jerked the tie loose and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

"My fault for giving you the gate code," I said. "Hard day turning the thumbscrews?"

"Long."

"Sorry I missed it. No one makes a better bad cop than me."

"I have no doubt about that," he said with half a smile. "Aren't you going to invite me in? Say the water's fine?"

"That would be a cliché. I abhor predictability."

I swam to the ladder and climbed out, forcing myself not to rush to cover my body with my towel. I didn't want him to know how vulnerable I felt. Somehow I thought that even in the dim light around the pool he would see every scar, every imperfection. It made me angry that I cared.

I toweled myself off, rubbed my hair dry, then wrapped the towel around my waist like a sarong to hide the pitted, scarred flesh of my legs. Landry watched, his expression unreadable.

"Nothing about you is predictable, Estes."

"I'll take that as a compliment, though I don't think you consider unpredictability a virtue. Do you have any good news?" I asked, leading the way to the guest house.

"The deputies found Erin Seabright's car," he said. "Parked under about six inches of dust in a corner of that first lot at the truck entrance of the equestrian center."

I stood with my hand on the doorknob, holding my breath, waiting for him to tell me Erin had been found dead in the trunk.

"The CSU is going over it for prints, et cetera."

I let go a sigh at the initial sense of relief. "Where was it?"

"In the first parking lot as you come in the truck entrance, over by the laundry place."

"Why would it be there?" I asked, not expecting an answer. "She would have parked near Jade's barn, not half a mile away. Why would it be there?"

Landry shrugged. "Maybe she had dropped stuff off at the laundry."

"Then walked all the way to Jade's barn? And then walked to the back gate to meet whoever she thought she was meeting? That doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't make sense for the kidnappers to move it there either," Landry said. "They kidnapped her. Why would they care where her car was parked?"

I thought about that as we went into the house. "To buy time? Monday would have been Erin's day off. If not for Molly, no one would have missed her until Tuesday morning."

"And no one would have missed her then, because Jade claimed she'd quit and moved to Ocala," Landry finished the theory.

"How did he take the questioning?"

"It was an inconvenience to him. The interview and the murder."

"Any nerves?"

"Not worth mentioning."

"Well… the guy makes a living riding horses over fences taller than I am. It's not a game for the faint of heart."

"Neither is murder."

A game. It would be difficult for the average person to consider murder and kidnapping a game, but in a macabre way it was a game. A game with very serious stakes.

"Any word from the kidnappers?"

Landry sat against the back of a chair, hands in his pockets. He shook his head. "No. The phones are rigged at the Seabright house. I've had a couple of guys checking out the neighbors. That's a dead end."

"There's a bar in that armoire under the TV," I said, pointing into the living room. "You look like you need it. Help yourself while I change."

I made him wait while I took a quick shower, then stood in front of the mirror for five minutes, staring at myself, trying to read my own inscrutable expression.

I didn't like the anxious feeling lingering in my belly. The bubble of fear had been replaced by something I almost didn't recognize: hope. I didn't want it to mean so much that Landry had come back, that he was filling me in, including me.

"You told Seabright you're a private investigator," he said. His voice was strong and clear. He must have been standing just on the other side of the bedroom door. "Are you?"

"Not exactly."

"That's fraud."

"No. It's a lie," I corrected. "It would only be fraud if I were misrepresenting myself and accepting money from the Seabrights based on that misrepresentation. I'm not."

"You'd make a hell of a lawyer."

So my father had always said, which was the reason I had become a cop. I hadn't wanted to be like him, bending the law like it was made of wire, bending it to suit the needs of corrupted people, corrupted wealth. I hadn't realized at the time that as a cop I would end up bending it as many ways myself and excusing my actions because I believed my cause was just. I still wasn't like him. That was the important thing.

"I checked the Seabright kid's record," Landry said. "He's never been in any trouble. Good student, lots of extracurricular activities."

"Like screwing his stepsister?"

"And the math club."

"I don't like that he's lying about where he was Sunday," I said.

"Like father, like son."

I pulled on black underwear, checking over my shoulder, half-expecting to see Landry standing in the doorway. He wasn't.

"Seabright's going to stick by his own flesh and blood," I said. I put on a white tuxedo shirt and a pair of black cigarette pants. "He isn't going to allow for the possibility Chad might be involved somehow."

"That's assuming the father is the one providing the alibi. It works the other way too."

I tied the shirt at the waist and escaped the bedroom. Landry stood leaning back against the kitchen counter, a scotch in hand. He took in the outfit with hooded eyes.

"You didn't have to dress up for me," he said.

"I didn't. I can't see Bruce Seabright actively participating in the kidnapping. Even if he wanted Erin gone, he wouldn't get his hands dirty. Too risky. So why would he need an alibi?" I asked. "Chad was the one involved with Erin."

"And Erin is the one with the juvie record," Landry said. "Shoplifting. Possession."

"Of what?"

"Ecstasy. Busted at a party. She got a slap on the wrist. I've got someone in the Juvenile Division checking out the pals she was arrested with," Landry said. "And I reached out to a guy I know in Narcotics to get a line on the dealer."

"Who in Narcotics?"

"Brodie. You know him?"

I looked at my feet and nodded. I stood across from Landry, leaning back against the other counter, my arms crossed over my chest. The room was so small, my bare feet were nearly toe-to-toe with his shoes. Good quality, brown leather oxfords. No tassels for Landry.

Matt Brodie had been a friend once. Or so I had thought. I wished I hadn't asked the question. Now Landry was waiting for me to elaborate. "He's good enough," I said.

"I'm sure he'd be happy to have your approval," Landry said with a dry edge of sarcasm.

I wondered what Brodie might have said about me, not that it mattered. Landry would think what he wanted.

"Jade is the one who claims the girl just up and left," he said. "He's the last one who saw her. I think it goes this way: Erin knew something about the dead horse. Jade wanted her out of the way. He set up the kidnapping to make some extra money for his trouble. The girl is probably as dead as the one in the shit pile."

"I'll hope you're wrong about the last part," I said, knowing he could well be right. I'd had the thought myself.

"Look, Estes, I owe you an apology," he said. "That's why I'm here. Maybe if I'd listened to you the first time you came in, Jill Morone wouldn't be dead. Maybe we'd have Erin Seabright back by now."

I shrugged. "I don't know what to say to that."

He was right and we both knew it. I wasn't going to offer platitudes like some good wife excusing a husband's minor transgressions. Nor was I going to grind the truth in his face. He had made a judgment call, a bad one. I was the last person with a right to criticize on that count.

"It's not all about you," I said. "I was there ahead of you. I didn't stop that girl getting killed. I didn't find Erin. Sometimes things just play out the way they play out."

"You believe that?"

"I have to. If I didn't, then I'd be to blame for every rotten thing that ever happened, and I know for a fact I'm only to blame for two-thirds of them."

He looked at me for a moment that stretched on. I wanted to turn away or move, but I didn't.

"So, did Jade have an alibi for last night?" I asked.

"A woman. A client. Susannah Atwood."

"She confirmed?"

He nodded.

"And did she have anyone to corroborate her story?"

He rolled his eyes. "Sure. Jade. Why? Do you know her?"

"I know of her. Sean knows her. She has a reputation as a social dragonfly."

"Don't you mean butterfly?"

"No."

He raised his brows.

"I know her type," I said. "Susannah might just think providing an alibi to a murderer is the oral sex of the new millennium. I wouldn't trust her. Then again, I don't trust anyone."

I checked my watch and moved away from the counter. "I'm going to throw you out now, Landry. I've got a dinner date with the devil."

"Which one?"

"Van Zandt."

As I went in search of a pair of shoes, I told him what I'd learned through Sean and through Interpol via Armedgian. I had told Van Zandt I would meet him at The Players at eight. I had wisely declined his offer to pick me up.

Landry stood staring into the closet, hands on his hips. "You're telling me you think this guy could be a sexual predator, but you're going out to dinner with him?"

"Yes."

"What if he killed Jill Morone? What if he's got Erin stashed somewhere?"

"Hopefully, I'll learn something to help nail him."

"Are you on crack?" he asked, incredulous. "Are you stupid?"

"He won't try to pull anything with me," I said, coming out of the closet one heel on, one in hand. "First: He knows he doesn't scare me and can't control me. Second: He thinks I'm worth money to him as a client, not as a victim."

"And if he's just a fucking pervert who wants to rape you and slit your throat?"

"Then I will have made a gross misjudgment of his character-which I haven't."

"Estes, he may have killed that girl last night, for all you know. He lied about seeing her. He was there at The Players. The bartender and the waitress said he was there, drooling all over the girl. We'd have hauled him in by now, but we don't know where he is."

"What time did he leave the bar?"

"No one could say for certain."

"So pull him in and rake him over the coals if you want," I said. I stepped into the bathroom and looked at my hair. There was nothing to be done about it. "I'll gladly spend the evening in the tub reading a book. But if he's got Erin stashed somewhere, he's sure as hell not going to tell you about it."

"And you think he'll just up and tell you?" Landry asked, blocking the doorway. "Like that's some kind of smooth line: wanna come back to my place and see the girl I kidnapped? Jesus Christ!"

"So tail us! What are you getting so upset about?"

He shook his head and turned around in a circle, moving back into the bedroom. "This is why I don't want you involved in this," he said, pointing at me as I came out of the bathroom. "You've got your own agenda, you run off half-cocked-"

"So look the other way," I said, pushing his finger out of my face, my temper rising. "I'm a private citizen, Landry. I don't need your permission and I don't need your approval. If I turn up dead, you'll know who to arrest. I'll make your fucking case for you. You'll be a hero in the Sheriff's Office-getting rid of me and catching a killer all in one fell swoop."

"It's not my job to let you get yourself killed!" he shouted.

"Believe me, if I haven't done the job myself by now, I'm not about to let some hump like Van Zandt do it for me."

We were nearly nose to nose, the air in the scant inches between us charged with electricity. Landry held whatever it was he wanted to say tight in his chest. Maybe he was counting to ten. Maybe it was all he could do to keep from strangling me with his bare hands. I didn't know what he was thinking. I was thinking I was standing too damn close to him.

"I was good too, Landry," I said quietly. "On the job. I know that's not what anyone wants to remember about me, but I was good. You'd be a fool not to take advantage of that."

Another eternity came and went. We stood there staring at each other like a couple of angry porcupines-all defenses up. Landry blinked first and took a step back. I thought I should have been proud of that, but what I felt was more like disappointment.

"Van Zandt wants to impress me," I said. I went back into the closet and found a small clutch purse to stash my microcassette recorder in. "He wants to come across like a hotshot, but his mouth is bigger than his brain. I can get him to say things he shouldn't. I'll tape the conversation. I'll call you after."

"After what?" he asked pointedly.

"After coffee," I said. "I draw the line at prostituting myself. Glad you have such a high opinion of me, though."

"I'm glad you have a line," he muttered.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialed a number, and stood staring at me while he waited for someone to pick up on the other end. I knew what he was doing. A part of me wanted to ask him not to, despite what I'd said earlier. But I wouldn't allow it. I had come as close to begging as I was going to.

"Weiss. Landry. Van Zandt is at The Players. Pick him up."

Never taking his eyes off me, he put the phone back in his pocket. "Thanks for the tip."

I wanted to tell him to go to hell, but I didn't trust my voice. It felt like I had a hard, hot rock stuck in my throat. I much preferred feeling nothing, caring about nothing but getting from one day to the next-and not caring very much about that. If you have no expectations, no purpose, no goal, you can't be disappointed, you can't feel hurt.

Landry turned and walked out, taking the information I'd given him, taking my plans for the evening with him, taking my hope to make a break in the case. I felt like a fool. I thought he had come to me to include me, but all he had wanted was to absolve his conscience. The case was his case. He owned it.

"Thanks for the tip."

I paced the house, trying to shove back the emotions crowding in on me. I needed to do something. I needed a new plan. I wasn't going to sit home with all these feelings to contemplate, and I didn't have a good book to take to the bathtub.

An idea began to take shape in my mind. Before it was more than an embryo, I had changed clothes and was out the door.

My life would have been easier if I had gone to Barnes amp; Noble.