I left a note for Mrs. Hill, emptied out my bin, and walked back to the barn.
Later that morning, after the crew had turned out the first batch of horses and we'd started in on the stalls, I grabbed a push broom from the storage area at the end of the aisle. When I turned around, I almost bumped into Dave.
He opened his mouth to say something, then hesitated. He hadn't gone to the party. Hadn't heard about the fight. Hadn't seen my face.
I looked more closely and saw he was angry, and I didn't think it had anything to do with me. "What's wrong?" I said.
"What happened to the Foxdale jump?"
I crossed my arms and leaned on the broom. Not one of the crew had noticed except him. "Someone was up to no good last night."
Dave looked affronted. Probably couldn't believe that someone had dared touch his artistic handiwork. He glared at me. "You seem to be takin' it lightly."
"Err…" I straightened. "Sorry. It was a magnificent piece of work, but at least it wasn't the barn they burned down."
"Well, shoot. Hadn't thought about that." He rubbed his hands down the front of his grubby overalls and strode out of the barn. Five minutes later he was back, and if anything, he was more agitated.
"What's wrong, now?"
"Somebody's been messin' about in my workshop," Dave said.
"What?"
"My tools are all right." He kept them locked up tighter than Fort Knox. "But paint's been spilled all over the place and somebody's painted obscenities on the walls."
"Damn it." I hadn't thought to check there. "Let's go see."
I hopped into Dave's rusted-out Ford, and he wrenched on the steering wheel and bounced the pickup into the side lane that led to the implement building. He had the wipers on high, even though the downpour had slackened to a drizzle, and there must not have been a shock absorber on the damn thing. I braced my hand on the dash and was still in danger of being bounced off the seat.
"Messing about" was an understatement. Every surface in the workshop was covered with paint, including both tractors. And what was printed on the walls was unbelievable. Filled with rage. Whoever had done it must be literally sick with hate. Dave leaned over to pick up an empty paint can.
"Don't touch that," I said.
He straightened and looked at me, his face blank.
"Don't touch anything, at least not yet."
"What about cleanin' up? The paint's still damp," Dave said. "It'll be easier to get off."
"The police are coming out because of the jump. They'll want to look at this, too." I looked at the walls. "Maybe take pictures. What were you going to work on, anyway?"
"I was gonna work in here 'cause of the rain." He looked out at the gray sky and, after a moment, said he might as well go back home.
"Dave, hold up. Could you buy some supplies, instead?"
He squinted at me and pursed his lips. "What kind of supplies?"
"Anything you need to make the place more secure, go out and buy it. Like better locks for all the tack rooms and the feed room. Maybe you should reinforce the locks on the lounge and office doors, too." I started for his truck. "And is there some type of lock we can put on the feed bin, the big one outside?"
Dave caught up with me by the front bumper. "Don't know."
"Well, if you can't rig something up, call the manufacturer. See if they have any suggestions." I walked around to the passenger's side and opened the door. "Get more fire extinguishers for all the buildings, too. And I think we'll install a gate across the lane to the road. What do you think… two 12-foot gates latched in the middle?"
"That'll work." Dave frowned. "What about where the side lane empties into that old road down by the manure pile?"
"There, too."
"Then we'll need to put up a line of fence."
"Oh, yeah. You're right. Let's just get the other things done first. We'll do that later, when we have time." I slid onto the seat and waited for him to climb behind the wheel. "If you think of anything else we can do to improve security, do it."
He simply nodded, and I wondered how much effort he would put into improving security against an unseen enemy.
"Oh," I said. "And get whatever you need to clean up that mess. When you come in tomorrow, find me. You can show me what to do, and I'll clean up while you install the locks, okay?"
Dave stared at me as if he couldn't quite remember who I was. "Sure," he mumbled before dropping the truck into reverse. He backed down the rutted lane without bothering to look over his shoulder. When he jounced the truck onto the asphalt lane between the barns and pointed the nose toward the road, I wished I'd walked.
"Shit, Dave. You can't drive like that around here."
He grunted and drove off at a more sedate pace but put his foot heavily on the brake pedal when we pulled up alongside the office door. The Ford jerked to a stop, and I just about slid off the smooth vinyl seat. I jumped out and slammed the door, thankful to be on firm, unmoving ground.
Dave sped off as abruptly as he'd stopped. The truck's bald tires sluiced through a large puddle, and I wondered how he'd lived to be so old.
After I called Ralston and was told he was out, I dialed Mrs. Hill's number with dread. Her answering machine picked up. I left a message and, for good measure, dropped another note on her desk.
Notwithstanding the rain pounding on the metal roof above our heads, we easily heard Mrs. Hill's voice crackle over the PA system. She did not sound happy.
Her message for me to report to the office ASAP elicited a variety of remarks from the crew, mostly obscene, and, as far as I was concerned, said with far too much pleasure. All morning long, they'd been debating whether or not Mrs. Hill would have heard about the fight and had been taking bets on her reaction. Ignoring them, I propped my pitchfork and rake in the corner of the stall I'd been mucking out and headed for the office.
By the time I got to the office door, I was sopping wet, which, when I thought about it, was kind of appropriate for the upcoming discussion. As I put my hand on the rain-splattered doorknob, I had a knot in my stomach reminiscent of visits to the principal's office. When I stepped inside, Mrs. Hill looked up from her paperwork and compressed her lips.
I took off my hat. Rainwater dripped off the ends of my hair and slid down the back of my neck. "Mrs. Hill?"
"Stephen…" She tapped a finger on my notes. "What's all this about?"
I looked out the door. It was raining so hard, I couldn't distinguish the pile of rubble from the line of the arena fence. "Last night, someone torched the Foxdale Jump. They stacked it into a heap and set it on fire. There's nothing left but charred wood."
"But why?"
I slowly turned to face her. "I don't know."
I told her about the vandalism, and her face grew stiff with disbelief. She stared at me and absentmindedly clicked the top of her ball point pen against the desk blotter. The sound acted as a metronome, measuring each passing second, intruding on the lengthening silence, and I found standing still under her gaze difficult.
"You called the police?"
I nodded.
"Another thing… "She did not look pleased. No pleasure anywhere. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. "Mr. Sanders told me that you got into a fight with someone at the party." Her face was flushed with anger.
Damn Sanders. He hadn't walked away like I'd thought but had hung around to watch. And when I'd had that damned piece of glass shoved up my nose, he hadn't done a thing to help. But he had the balls to imply that I'd started the whole thing. I hoped his horse would dump him on his ass. Into a puddle would be even better.
"Well?" she said.
"I don't know what he told you," I tried to keep my voice even, "but the guy I fought with hit me first. He was bothering Mr. Sanders, and I walked over to see if I could do anything to help. The guy was yelling obscenities, so I asked him to leave, and that's when he hit me. So I… defended myself."
She picked up a piece of hard candy and fingered the wrapper. "Who was this person?"
"He delivers hay for Mr. Harrison."
"What?"
"He drives the hay truck for Mr. Harrison sometimes," I said.
She swiveled around in her chair, pressed a couple of keys on her computer keyboard, and scrolled down the screen. When she found what she wanted, she snatched up the phone, punched in a number-Mr. Harrison's, I presumed-and unleashed some of her anger in his direction. More than likely, the poor guy didn't have the foggiest idea what she was talking about.
Mrs. Hill seldom got angry, but I saw that when she did, she didn't hold back. Personally, I was happy to be removed from target status. She demanded he dismiss his driver. He must have disagreed, because she said she "could be responsible"-her exact words-"for getting a different supplier." Here we go, I thought. Mrs. Hill listened without speaking, then disconnected.
She looked up at me. Her face flushed as patchy red blotches spread up her throat. "I'm sorry, Stephen. Mr. Sanders gave me the wrong idea. I should have known you wouldn't start anything."
"That's all right."
"No it isn't." She rubbed her forehead. "Mr. Harrison's going to dismiss his driver. He had the nerve to say he wasn't responsible for what his driver did when he was off. I tell you." She slapped her palm on the desk blotter. "He can be responsible for the type of person he employs, can't he?"
I struggled to keep a straight face. "Yes, ma'am."
She waved me off. I cut through the lounge, wondering what Harrison's driver and Sanders had been arguing about and, more to the point, whether he had purposefully been trying to get me in trouble. And if so, why?
The crew had moved on to barn B, and they almost seemed disappointed that I hadn't gotten my butt in trouble. Marty's opinion of Mr. Sanders was, as expected, unrepeatable. I didn't spend much time thinking about it, or the torched jump, but chose to think about Rachel instead.
I checked my watch. Lunch time was half over, which explained the lack of activity on the farm. I went into the lounge, grabbed my sandwich out of the fridge, and switched on the television. I was still channel surfing when I heard a vehicle pull up to the office door. The engine cut off and doors slammed. When someone opened the door and stepped into the office, I pushed myself off the sofa and strolled over to see who it was.
A uniformed cop and another man dressed in ratty jeans and an Orioles warm-up jacket stood on the square of carpet in front of Mrs. Hill's desk. They turned toward the door at my approach.
The uniformed cop glanced at the pocket-sized notebook he held in his palm. He was a lanky black man, a good four inches taller than me, with close-cropped hair and a narrow mustache. "You Stephen Cline?" he said.
"Yep." I explained about the burnt jump and briefly described the events of the past five weeks.
He gestured to my face. "Who you tangled with got anything to do with why we're here?"
"Nope. Someone was drunk at a party."
"Uh-huh. But not you?"
There was a look of amusement in his eyes which negated any irritation I might have otherwise felt. I glanced at his name tag. DORSETT was printed in all caps. "Nope. Not me."
"Let's take a look, then."
I dropped my orange into my jacket pocket, picked up my half-eaten sandwich, and switched off the TV. Outside, the air smelled of rain and moist earth. The cloud base was low and black, heavy with the threat of more rain. In the east, wispy tendrils of cloud broke free and scuttled across the sky in a wedge of fast-moving air.
We stood in a semi-circle around the jump. I lowered the brim of my cap and huddled inside my jacket while Dorsett's partner crouched down and peered at the pile of charred, soggy wood.
I said to Dorsett, "Did Detective Ralston send you?"
"Indirectly, through Linquist."
"When I talked to him on the phone this morning, I thought this was the only damage on the property, but afterwards, we found more vandalism in one of the other buildings."
"You finished here?" Dorsett asked his partner.
He nodded.
"Show us the way then, Cline."
"It's that building." I pointed. "Down there."
"We'll take the car."
I climbed in the back and found it a bit like sitting in a cage. A metal screen separated the back seat from the front.
Officer Dorsett glanced in the rear view mirror and laughed. "A bit unnerving back there, ain't it?" He slowed to make the turn onto the side lane that led to the implement building. "Every kid should take a ride in the back seat. See what it's like."
Kid?
He parked nose to nose with the John Deere 960. They got out. I couldn't. The doors in back wouldn't open from the inside. Dorsett and his partner stood by the car, and the black cop was grinning.
I tried to keep a straight face. "Funny, real funny," I said through the glass.
He unlocked the door, and we stood just inside the building's entrance.
Dorsett whistled. "Could be worse. They could've smashed up everything." He slid a flashlight from a loop on his belt.
"We had to pull the muck wagon and one of the tractors out of here this morning," I said, "so we could get some work done. Hope that was okay."
He had angled the cone of light along the walls and was reading the graffiti. "Do you have any enemies, someone who hates you personally?"
"No… Not really. Not like this."
"Pretty disturbing stuff," he said. "And the guy ain't no genius either."
"You mean the 'y-o-u-r dead' bit?"
Dorsett glanced over his shoulder and grinned. "Right-o. Can't spell, but he's sure into anatomy and bodily functions, ain't he."
"Yeah. But most of it's physically impossible." I watched Dorsett's partner walk back to the cruiser and pop the trunk. "You gotta hand it to him though," I said. "He did get a 12-letter word right."
"Probably had lots of practice. You sure this ain't directed at you?" Dorsett had turned to face me. "It sounds personal."
"Shit, I hope not."
He stepped closer to the wall and played the light across the dusty ground. "We might have some footprints here, Mark."
I edged along the 960 and stopped beside him. Sure enough, a row of prints were distinct in the soft dirt, and what caught my attention most was the fact that they pointed toward the wall-consistent with someone having stood there, painting their sick little message.
Dorsett squatted down. "Steve, these look familiar?"
"No. They're sneakers. Everybody around here wears boots. Especially when it's wet." I looked closer. "There were two of them. See over there?" I pointed to a different pattern tracked through the dirt near Dave's storage room.
"Okay," Dorsett said. "We'll take photos and make casts of both sets."
I leaned against Dave's workbench. "Now you just need the owners."
"Yeah, but we find 'em, we'll make the case." He pointed to a particularly clear print of a left shoe. "See the wear pattern in the tread on that one? There's a notch out of the edge on the inside heel, see?"
"Uh-huh."
"We get the guy, and he's still got the shoes, we got 'im nailed."
I sat on a row of hay and, with increasing fascination, watched them make casts, take photographs, and dust for prints. Maybe we were getting somewhere after all. I finished my lunch and glanced at my watch. I was way behind schedule, and they looked like they were going to be awhile.
I told them where they could find me and hopped off the hay bale. "After you're done today, can we clean up?"
"Don't see why not." He straightened up from where he'd been working on one of the footprints, a packet of plaster of Paris in one hand and a wooden stick in the other. "Just to be on the safe side, though, I'll talk to Linquist and get back to you."
I got a cup of coffee from the lounge and wondered if a drunk gate-crasher counted as an enemy. Maybe since I'd started checking hay shipments, he was an enemy, but he wasn't "the" enemy. The horse theft had happened before I'd confronted Harrison, and the burnt jump felt like the same old campaign against Foxdale.
I cupped my fingers around the Styrofoam and realized that the headache I'd been nursing for the last couple of days had disappeared. Only later did I realize how easy it was to take things for granted.
Toward the end of the day, I set my grooming tote on the ground outside Chase's stall. As soon as the realization that I was going to do something with him seeped into his tiny brain, he pinned his ears flat against his head. I unlatched his door, and he swung sideways so he could shift his hindquarters toward me. I grabbed the noseband on his halter and stopped him before he had the chance. He curled his neck around and tried to sink his teeth into my arm.
"You stupid son of a bitch," I muttered. His ear flicked at the sound of my voice.
I threaded the chain shank through his halter and cross-tied him in the center of his stall. I hadn't groomed him for three days, but damned if his coat didn't shine like copper. He was one beautiful horse. Too bad his mind was screwed. He bobbed his head as I worked the curry comb in small circles down his neck.
"Who's this?"
I turned around. Rachel was grinning at me through the grillwork. "Cut to the Chase," I said. "He's an open jumper."
"Kind of nasty, isn't he?"
"Yeah. But with his talent, nobody cares."
"Humph, poor thing. He seems so unhappy."
I snorted.
"What do you think his problem is?"
"Life."
"Steeve…"
I paused and considered him. Wrinkles creased the skin around his worried eyes, and his jaw was tight with tension. Hell. His entire body was tense.
"Damned if I know," I said. "He's hell on the ground, totally unpredictable, but point him at a jump, and he's one happy puppy. It's like he was born to it." I ran my hand down his neck, and he ground his teeth. "He lives for it."
"Hum. Looks like he lives for getting a piece of your hide between those molars of his."
"Yeah, but he can't help himself. If I discipline him, he gets worse, he's so strung up." I sighed. "He'll kick you as soon as look at you."
She groaned. "And you're the lucky one who gets to do him."
"I'm the only one who gets to do him. He's gotten used to me a little. I really think he hates men."
"So, why not have a girl groom him?"
"Right now, we don't have any girls on the weekday crew. Only the weekend."
"I pity whoever rides him," Rachel said.
"Oh, he's not so bad then, 'cause he knows he'll be jumping."
"So, did you have a nice day slopping around in the rain and mud?" She wrapped her fingers around the metal bars and grinned at me. She had a great smile. Straight, white teeth, gorgeous lips, a dimple in her left cheek.
"Cute, Rachel."
"No matter how awful the weather is," she said, "I love getting away from the office. Where I work, we don't have any windows. None you can see out of, anyway. That's one reason why I like riding so much, being outside and doing something physical. Maybe that's his problem."
Maybe that was my problem. I sure wouldn't have minded doing something physical with her.
"… And an indoor arena makes it even better." She reached up and worked her hair into a ponytail. "Where I boarded last, the footing was lousy most of the year. The ground was either frozen, sloppy with mud, or dry and hard as rock. I couldn't work on anything consistently."
I knocked the curry against the wall and dislodged a build-up of dirt. "Do you show?"
"Only at local shows. And when I can bum a ride off someone Well, I'd better get going. I left Koby tacked up in his stall." She adjusted a pair of headphones over her ears. "Music helps me concentrate," she said when she noticed me watching her.
From what I'd seen, she didn't need help in that department. She tuned out everything when she rode. I, on the other hand, was thoroughly distracted by her and found concentrating on anything else difficult when she was around.
After I transferred Chase into Anne's capable hands, I grained the horses, then went in search of Rachel. She had finished cooling out her horse and was in the tack room. I leaned against the locker next to hers and watched her stow her gear. Her face was damp with sweat, and loose wisps of hair clung to the back of her neck. She bent over and rifled through the clutter in the back of her locker. Her britches clung tightly to the full curves and narrow crease of her backside, and there was a nice gap between her thighs. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her. Wanted to feel her body against mine. She squatted back on her haunches and looked up at me. A quizzical expression crossed her face, and I supposed I must have appeared odd just standing there.
I rubbed my face and relaxed the muscles in my jaw. "Is Thursday still good for you?"
"Yes." She stood up. "I think so. Where were you just now?"
"Wanting to kiss you," I said.
"Oh." She turned her back to me and slid the lock through the clasp on her locker, then pushed the shaft down into the housing and spun the dial. Strange, even ordinary, everyday things could be exceedingly sexual.
She turned back around. We were standing close. I could smell her scent, imagined that I could feel her breath on my skin. The air around us felt curiously charged, enveloping us in a private world without sound. Her gaze rose slowly to my face. I brushed her bangs from her eyes and felt the dampness of her skin beneath my fingertips. I rested my hands on her shoulders and kissed her lightly on the lips. When I straightened and dropped my arms to my sides, I was no longer breathing normally. She smiled briefly, then lifted her jacket off the bench that separated the rows of lockers.
I cleared my throat. "Tomorrow. Is four-thirty too early?"
"No, that'll work." We made plans to meet at the farm, then she rooted around in her jacket pocket and pulled out her car keys. "I'd better go," she said, and there was a shyness to her smile that I found captivating.
I watched her walk toward the parking lot. The place felt empty without her.
After the day's work was done, and with security high on my list of pressing concerns, I methodically walked around the farm, looking for weaknesses in our defenses. First stop, the implement building. I crossed over to the wall that enclosed the small storage room and flicked on the lights. Because the fixtures were widely spaced and partially blocked by the hay mow, the work area was poorly-lit with heavy, deep shadows under the equipment.
I squeezed behind the row of tractors, ducked under the hay elevator, and looked up at the massive wall of hay. Large quantities of it. All highly combustible. For that reason, even though it was a pain in the ass to haul, we only stored a day's worth in the barns. I would get Dave to hang more fire extinguishers near the entrance, but what good it would do, I couldn't imagine. If they decided to burn down the building, it would be at night when no one was around. If they decided to burn down a barn… Well, I couldn't even think about that.
The smeared, sick graffiti seemed even more threatening at night. I backtracked, switched off the lights, and wondered if they'd been bold enough to turn them on while they spray-painted their little message. For the umpteenth time, I wondered who they were and why were they messing with Foxdale. And would they be back?
I followed the lane past the implement building and looked toward the old paved road. It dead-ended to my left, at a barricaded fire road that marked the western boundary of a wide swath of state park land. All of those unspoiled acres and the river that wound through it attracted boarders as much as anything else. Only Foxdale's employees and an occasional truck from the mushroom farm frequented this part of the farm. It wouldn't take much fencing and a couple of gates to prevent anyone getting onto the farm from the road, but if someone really wanted to hurt Foxdale, chains and locks and gates across the driveway wouldn't make any difference.
As I turned to go back, something moved in the pine grove that screened the muck pile.
I started, then saw it was just a fox. I exhaled slowly through my mouth and listened to the wind whistling through the boughs. Above my head, stars shone through breaks in the clouds, and in the west, the moon was a chalky smudge behind a thin veil of fast-moving cloud. Away from the farm's lights, the sky seemed vividly alive and close. Close enough to touch.
I slipped my hands into my pockets and headed back. A horse was being led into barn A, his figure back-lit by the soft light that poured through the open doors. Even at that distance, I could clearly hear his shoes scraping the asphalt.
I checked barn B. Short of installing better locks and adding more fire extinguishers, I couldn't think of anything else we could do to improve security. Outside, I looked at the grain bin that towered high above my head and thought about poison. If someone wanted to contaminate the grain, they would have to climb up a narrow ladder to reach the valve at the top. Thirty feet up. Thirty feet of flimsy metal ladder in the dark.
There were easier ways to ruin Foxdale. With a match, for one.
I walked into barn A and cut through the wash rack. Footsteps echoed behind me, and I spun around.
"Jumpy, aren't we?"
"Hello, Mrs. Timbrook," I said.
Elsa had come out of Satellite's stall, and she'd stopped so close, I thought she might bump into me. I resisted the urge to back up. Her eyes were a deep green, and I wondered if she was wearing colored lenses. She moved closer. Her musky perfume filled my head, and her closeness was overwhelming. I stepped back, forgetting myself, and her smile broadened.
"Stephen, there's a nail sticking out of a board in Lite's stall. I'm afraid he'll cut his smooth, beautiful skin."
Christ. "I'll get a hammer." I took a step backward to avoid bumping into her as I turned and went over to the other barn.
I unlocked the feed room door. "I'm afraid he'll cut his smooth. .. beautiful… skin," I mouthed. Give me a break. I scanned the pegboard-screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, all neat and organized thanks to Dave-and spotted the Craftsman hammer with the leather grip. As I lifted it off its bracket, I sensed subtle movement behind me. A slight shifting of air current. I spun around.
Elsa had followed me into the room.