'Is that part of the uniform?' I asked.
'It's part of my uniform.' He made a motion with it. 'Enough with the questions. Cut the light and give it to me. Let's go.'
I did as instructed, more than willing to get out in the open where I knew there were other people around. I considered and rejected the idea of making a break for it. I didn't want people looking for me, my description and sketch on the front page of the newspaper. Nor did I want to get shot in the back. Playing along for the moment could offer an opportunity to learn something.
Outside, people were calling, horses were whinnying. I could hear hoofbeats on the hard-packed road. The guard herded me to a golf cart parked on the side of tent nineteen-Jade's barn.
I wondered how long the cart had been parked there. I wondered how easy it would be to buy a guy like this to open some stall doors. Working nights for peanuts guarding horses worth more than the average man would make in a lifetime might alter a person's perspective of right and wrong.
I slid onto the passenger's side of the bench seat, the seat wet and slippery as the rain came harder. The guard kept his gun in his left hand as he started the cart and backed it around. I shifted positions, turning slightly toward him, and surreptitiously touched the Glock, still secure in the back of my jeans, beneath my jacket and turtleneck.
'Where are we going?'
He didn't answer. A walkie-talkie crackled on his belt. Other guards radioing about the loose horses. He didn't get on the air to tell anyone he'd apprehended me. I didn't like that. We started down the road toward the main part of the show grounds, a ghost town at two in the morning.
'I'll want to speak to your supervisor,' I said with authority. 'And someone will need to call Detective James Landry with the Sheriff's Office.'
That turned his head.
'Why?'
I took my turn not answering. Let him wonder. We passed other guards, other people running through the rain to join in the fun of trying to catch half a dozen hot-blooded horses drunk on freedom.
We drove through the maze of tents and down a row of deserted retail shops. The rain came now in sheets. We drove farther and farther away from any source of help. My heart rate increased a beat. Adrenaline was like a narcotic in my bloodstream, the prospect of danger intoxicating and exciting. I stared at the security guard and wondered what he would think if he knew that. Most people would find it disturbing.
He pulled the golf cart alongside one of the big trailers that housed the various show grounds management offices and cut the engine. We clattered up the metal stairs and the guard ushered me inside. A heavyset man stood beside a metal desk, listening to the noise coming over a walkie-talkie the size of a brick. He had a throat like a bullfrog: a sack of flesh wider than his head, spilling over the collar of his shirt. He wore the blue security uniform too, with a couple of extra pins on the chest. Decorated for meritorious ass-sitting and delegating above and beyond the call, I guessed. He scowled at me as I stood dripping water all over the floor.
'She's the one,' the guard said. 'I caught her opening stall doors.'
I looked him in the face and said with just enough point to make my meaning crystal clear: 'Any more little surprises like that in your pocket?'
He had stuffed the gun. I could see him struggle with the notion that he'd blown it showing me the thing. I had something to use against him. He wasn't supposed to be carrying on the job. He probably didn't have a permit for it either. If that was true and I reported him to the police, there was a good chance he'd lose his job at the very least. I could see on his face all these things were just now occurring to him.
If he'd been overly bright he wouldn't have been working dog watch in a rent-a-cop uniform.
'You caught me standing in a barn with a flashlight,' I said. 'I was trying to help. Same as you.'
'You got something against Michael Berne?' the bullfrog asked. He had the thick drawl of a panhandle Floridian, where the Sunshine State and the Deep South rub loins, as it were.
'I've never met Michael Berne, though I did see him having a loud, threatening argument with Don Jade this morning. You might want to find out where Mr. Jade is right now.'
The supervisor stared at me. 'Berne is on his way,' he said. 'And a couple of deputies. Have a seat, Miss…?'
I didn't answer and I didn't sit, though my back was aching like a son of a bitch from the beating I'd taken.
'You'll need to tell the deputies to treat that stall area as a crime scene,' I said. 'In addition to letting the horses loose, your perp assaulted me when I tried to run him off. They'll find a pitchfork or a broom-something with a long handle-that may have his prints on it. I'll want to press charges. And I'll want to go to the emergency room for an examination, and to have them take photographs of my bruises. I may sue. What kind of management does this place have if they can't keep people or animals safe?'
Bullfrog looked at me as if he'd never seen one of my kind before. 'Who are you?'
'I'm not telling you my name.'
'I need your name, miss. I have to make a report.'
'That's a problem then, because I'm not telling you,' I said. 'I don't have to tell you anything. You're not an officer of the court or of the government, and therefore you have no right to demand information of me.'
'Deputies are on the way,' he said by way of a threat.
'That's fine. I'll be happy to go with them, though they have no grounds to arrest me. Standing in a barn aisle is not a crime that I'm aware of.'
'Bud says you let them horses loose.'
'I think you should ask Bud again what he saw.'
He looked at Bud. 'Was she letting them loose or not?'
Bud looked constipated, unable to tell the lie he wanted to tell either to cover his own ass or to grab a little glory with his boss. 'She was right there.'
'So were you,' I pointed out. 'How do we know you didn't open those doors?'
'That's ridiculous,' Bullfrog said. 'Why would he do something like that?'
'I could only speculate. Money. Maliciousness. Mental illness.'
'Maybe those motives all apply to you.'
'Not in this particular instance.'
'You have horses here on the grounds, Miss-?'
'I'm through speaking with you now,' I announced. 'May I use your phone to call my attorney?'
He squinted at me. 'No!'
I sat then in a straight chair beside the desk. Bullfrog's radio crackled. The gate guard announcing the arrival of the sheriff's deputies. A stroke of luck. I didn't want to meet Michael Berne in these circumstances. Bullfrog instructed the gate guard to send the radio car to the security office.
'Letting them horses loose is a serious crime,' he said to me. 'You could do time for that.'
'No, I couldn't, because I didn't let the horses loose. The perpetrator might be charged with malicious mischief, which is a misdemeanor. There would be a fine and maybe community service. It's nothing compared to, say, illegally carrying a concealed weapon,' I said, looking at the scowling Bud.
'I thought you said you were through talking,' he said.
I smoothed my wet hair back with my hands and stood up as a car door slammed outside the trailer. The deputy came in looking like he'd been awakened from a sound sleep to answer the call.
'What's up, Marsh? Somebody let some nags loose? This her?'
'She was in the vicinity,' Bullfrog said. 'She may have information about the crime.'
The deputy looked at me, unimpressed. 'Do you, ma'am?'
'I'll speak directly to Detective Landry,' I said.
'What's your name, ma'am?'
I moved past him, going to the door, checking out his name tag as I passed. 'We'll talk in the car, Deputy Saunders. Let's get going.'
He looked at Bullfrog, who shook his head and said, 'Good luck with that, son. She's a pistol.'
