“Go right ahead. I can call you if I need anything.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you taking Sheriff?”
“Probably not. I think I’ll take a ride.”
“Excellent. Leave him in here with me.”
Gage opened the door and whistled. Sheriff shot across the hall and into the room. All Claudia did was pat the bed one time. Sheriff leaped up onto her bed, curling up at her feet like he did at least once a day. Gage had never allowed Sheriff on the furniture, but Claudia loved the dog’s daily visits.
“We’ll be here watching a show,” she said, putting her book away. She lifted the television remote.
“What’s on today?”
“I started Goodfellas last night,” she answered. “I’ve seen it at least a dozen times and it never gets old.”
Leaving under a hail of Joe Pesci curses, Gage went back to his room and put the marker board of suspects and theories away. Once he was bundled up with a toboggan, neck warmer, and several layers of jackets and boots, he headed out into the heavy snow.
A long ride would clear his mind.
CHAPTER SIX
Located a few hundred meters behind the Vogel estate homes, and mostly hidden by a screen of evergreens, was the stable. The Vogels had only one horse, a 14 year-old bay Westphalian mare. Gage had always heard it wasn’t a good idea to make a horse live alone, and said as much to Thomas. But he quickly informed Gage that Perle—that was her name, the German word for “Pearl”—didn’t get along with other horses, especially as she’d grown a bit older. She seemed quite content as the only horse, although she happily shared the stable with a few goats, a brood of hens and one cocky rooster who occasionally challenged her for top position in the Vogel animal kingdom.
Gage’s money was on Perle.
He stepped into the stable, satisfied that the infrared heaters had kicked on to knock the worst of the chill away. The thermometer, intentionally placed low on the wall, displayed a satisfactory temperature of 16 degrees Celsius. As soon as Gage turned the corner, Perle whinnied at him.
“Smart girl,” Gage said to her. “You know you’re going for a ride don’t you?”
Thomas had fixed her with snowball pads yesterday. This would keep the snow from bailing in her hooves. The caretaker had also informed Gage that Perle was used to snow and adept in dealing with it.
Twelve minutes later, Perle was saddled up and off they went, sticking to the well-marked trail that ran the full outer boundary of the Vogel estate. The snowflakes were enormous, piling on the ground and trees since the temperature hovered right around the freezing mark. Other than the roads, which were essentially just wet, the snow had accumulated to ankle depth in just a few hours. Once they were well away from the buildings, out on the north side of the property, Gage turned Perle back so he could view the rolling rear fields of the Vogel estate.
He leaned forward, clapping the mare on her neck, the two of them enjoying the moment together. They stared out over the Germanic postcard, brilliant in whites and splashes of brown and green where the snow hadn’t yet touched.
With just a flick of her reign, Perle spun to the right, rearing back before she accelerated across the field.
It was obvious she was enjoying this as much as Gage.
The Vogel estate was expansive, bounded on its perimeter by a blend of rock wall and steel fence. In total, Gage learned that the perimeter fence was approximately 13 kilometers in length—roughly eight miles. On top of the fence, including the gates, were three taut strands of razor wire. Years before, an elaborate detection system had been installed around the perimeter, alerting the guards and the alarm company if any sizeable being was detected inside the fence. Through a series of tests several weeks ago, Gage learned that a person would trigger the alarm, but a large bird or rabbit would not. He’d even experimented with Sheriff, and found that his dog wasn’t large enough to trip the system. It was sensitive, in all the right ways—a fine example of German engineering.
Such a discerning and substantial detection system was expensive, and Gage couldn’t begin to guess how much it had cost to run it around the inside of the full estate perimeter. It was because of this system that Gage and Thomas were confident that no one else had been on the estate on the night Karl Vogel died.
However, after riding a considerable distance, Gage halted. He was focused on a sight that gave him a moment of pause.
Gage and Perle were on the north side of the estate, halfway through their ride around the perimeter. In the distance, he could make out the chimneys of the estate manor now that the snowfall had abated to mere flurries. In a straight line, the manor was about two kilometers away. And right in front of Gage, between him and the manor, hidden deep in a thicket, was a large drain culvert. Gage had ridden by the culvert at least a dozen times, but he’d never before seen it due to the tangle of briars and vegetation over the opening. But today, with all the snow, the dark mouth of the culvert loomed, a blackened maw leading away from the estate and under the fence.
Gage repositioned Perle, careful to keep her away from the briars. When he’d moved to the other side, he could see the opening to the culvert. On the front of the massive pipe was a rebar grate, blocking anyone from crawling in or out. The pipe itself was a few feet in diameter, easily wide enough for a person to crawl through. The rebar grate would certainly do its job in preventing human traffic.
But it was askew.
Gage hopped off
