Haynes couldn’t decide whether it was a delayed reaction to her own ordeal or the shock of Isabelle Gelinet’s death that caused Letty Melon to tremble and then to shake. She was still shaking, although not nearly as much, when Erika McCorkle came through the kitchen door and said, without preamble, “There’s a dead horse in the barn.”
Zip, the nine-year-old bay gelding, apparently had gone down on his forelegs first because they were still tucked beneath him. His rear legs were splayed out to the side. His head rested on the fairly clean straw in his stall. The feed bin was half full and there was water in a wooden tub made from a large barrel that had been sawed in half. He had been shot once through the white blaze that formed a rough diamond between his eyes.
Letty Melon, no longer shaking, ran a gentle hand down his neck. She looked up and said, “He’s still almost warm.” She rose, glanced around the stall and said, “Poor old Zip.”
“Did you hear the shot, Letty?” Erika McCorkle asked.
“No, but he could’ve been dead when I got here.”
She took what seemed to be a long last look at the dead Zip, turned and walked to the center of the barn where four Dukakis posters had been arranged to catch a car’s slight oil leak and prevent it from soaking into the barn’s hard-packed dirt floor. Letty Melon stood for a moment, staring down at the Dukakis signs, then turned to Haynes and said, “Somebody pick up his old Cadillac?”
“His lawyer sent someone.”
“It was a mistake.”
“What?” Haynes said.
“My coming here. If I’d known about Isabelle, I wouldn’t’ve come near the place. With both her and Steady dead, it makes me look like a ghoul.” She paused, took a deep breath and said, “Look. I don’t want to have anything more to do with Steady. Nothing at all ever again.”
Haynes nodded.
“I want to go home now.”
“Fine.”
“And after I get there, I don’t want any calls or visits from the Clarke County sheriff or his deputies.”
Haynes again nodded.
“You going to talk to him—the sheriff?”
“I have to.”
“But you won’t mention me?”
“No.”
“Or the guys with sacks over their heads?”
“If I don’t tell the sheriff about you, I can’t tell him about them.”
“Well, what are you gonna tell him?”
Haynes turned to look at the dead Zip. “I’m going to ask him what to do with a dead horse.”
Chapter 17
Haynes got the number of the sheriff’s office in Berryville from directory assistance. After the man who answered said he was Deputy Soullard, Haynes identified himself and reported the death of the horse.
The deputy put Haynes on hold until a stern baritone voice came on, announced that it belonged to Sheriff Jenkins Shipp-with-two-
After Haynes replied yes, Sheriff Shipp asked, “What’s your name again?”
“Granville Haynes.”
“I’m sure sorry about your daddy, Granville, and I do mourn his passing.”
“You’re very kind.”
“Now what’s this about old Zip?”
Haynes said he had arrived at the farm to discover the horse had been shot and killed.
“Got a call from your daddy’s lawyer in Washington about Zip last Thursday. Tell a lie, Friday. He’s the one that told me Steady was dead and gone. Lawyer by the name of Mott, I believe.”
“Howard Mott.”
“That’s right, Howard. Said he was sending somebody out to pick up Steady’s old Cadillac and wanted to know if I could think of anybody who’d go out there and take care of Zip till he made other arrangements. Right away I thought of the Dyson kid—lives just down the road from Steady. Mott said he’d pay the kid twenty bucks a day to water and feed Zip, clean out his stall and exercise him some.” The sheriff paused. “And that’s what the kid’s been doing.”
“When?” Haynes said.
“After school.”
