murder.'
She raised a hand lazily to acknowledge me, and rolled onto her stomach to tan her back.
I went to the show grounds, to Jade's barn, for a second shot at Javier. There was less chance on a Monday of his being caught speaking to me. The stables were closed. There was no reason for Trey Hughes to show up, or Paris. Perhaps he would feel more free to tell me what he knew.
But there was no one at Jade's stalls. The stalls had not been cleaned and the horses were clamoring for lunch. It appeared they had been abandoned. The aisle was an obstacle course of forks, rakes, brooms, and overturned muck buckets. As if someone had come through in a very big hurry.
I raided Jade's feed stall and tossed each horse a flake of hay.
'Don't tell me. Now you're pretending to be a groom?'
I looked out the back of the tent to find Michael Berne standing there in jeans and a polo shirt. He looked as happy as I had seen him since this mess had begun. Relaxed. His rival was in jail and all was right with the world.
'I'm a multitalented individual,' I said. 'What's your excuse for being here?'
He shrugged. I noticed for the first time he held a small box in his hand. Something from a vet's office.
'No rest for the weary,' he said.
'Or the wicked.'
Rompun. One of the sedatives used commonly on horses. Everybody has the stuff around, Paris had said as she spoke of the drug found in Stellar's bloodstream.
'Having a party?' I asked, looking pointedly at the box.
'I've got one that's hard to shoe,' Berne said. 'He needs a little something to take the edge off.'
'Was Stellar hard to shoe?'
'No. Why do you ask?'
'No reason. You haven't seen Paris today, have you?'
'She was here earlier. Just in time to watch the INS cart her last groom away.'
'What?'
'There was a raid this morning,' he said. 'Her Guatemalan guy was one of the first rounded up.'
'Who tipped them off? You?' I asked bluntly.
'Not me,' he said. 'I lost a guy too.'
The INS rolled in for a surprise raid, and a man in barn nineteen was one of the first to go. The one person left in Jade's camp who might have been persuaded to tell the truth-if he knew it-gone just as the case seemed to be breaking.
Trey had seen me speaking with Javier. He might have told Paris. Or perhaps Bert Shapiro had wanted the Guatemalan out of the country in the event he might know something about Jade.
'I hear he's in jail,' Michael Berne said.
'Jade? Yes. Unless he's made bail. Kidnapping charges. Do you know anything about it?'
'Why would I?'
'Maybe you were here the night it happened. A week ago, Sunday, late in the day at the back gate.'
Berne shook his head and started to walk away. 'Not me. I was at home. With my wife.'
'You're a very devoted and forgiving husband, Michael,' I said.
'Yes, I am,' he said smugly. 'I'm not the criminal here, Ms. Estes.'
'No.'
'Don Jade is.'
No, I thought as he walked away, I don't believe that either.
50
My phone rang as I walked back to my car.
'Meet me for lunch,' Landry said.
'Your telephone etiquette is sorely lacking,' I pointed out.
He named a fast-food place ten minutes away and hung up.
Erin Seabright caught Jade in the stall with the dead horse,' Landry said. We sat in his car. A sack of food lay on the seat between us, filling the car with the aroma of charbroiled meat and french fries. Neither of us touched it. 'She caught him doctoring the electrical cord on the fan.'
'Erin told you that?'
'I'm on my way to ask her about it now. We didn't get into the whole dead horse saga this morning. I only asked her for details about her abduction. Paris Montgomery came in on her own and told me. There was a story on the morning news about Erin's escape from the kidnappers. Apparently, that put the fear of God in Ms. Montgomery.'
'More like a vulture circling a dying animal,' I said. 'She smells opportunity.
'She says Erin caught Jade, and at the end of the day Jade kidnapped her? It doesn't track, Landry.'
'I know. The kidnapping plot was already in motion.'
'If that's what it was,' I said. 'Have the technical wizards enhanced that first videotape?'
'Yes, but I haven't had a chance to look at it. Why?'
'Look for the bracelet I handed you this morning.'
'What about it?'
'Do you think the kidnappers gave it to her as a parting gift?' I asked. 'I've watched that tape fifty times. I don't see a bracelet, but she was wearing one last night.'
Landry looked incredulous. 'Are you trying to say the girl is in on it? You're out of your mind. Estes, you haven't seen her. She's had the shit kicked out of her. You didn't see that tape of the perp going at her with the whip. And this morning Weiss and Dwyer found another tape in Seabright's office. It shows the girl being brutally raped.'
That brought me up short. 'He had it in the house? In his office?'
'Stuffed behind some things on a shelf.'
I didn't know what to say to that. It was what I had been hoping for-for Seabright to be made to pay a price. But news of the taped rape was something else.
'It looked genuine?' I asked.
'Made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end,' Landry said. 'I wanted to take Seabright and choke him till his eyes popped out.'
'Where is he now?'
'He's sitting in a holding cell. The state's attorney is trying to decide what to charge him with.'
'What happened at Jade's arraignment?'
'Trey Hughes posted bail.'
'I wonder if Paris knows about that.'
'I'd bet he's paying for Bert Shapiro too.'
'Have you interviewed him yet? Trey?'
'He's been asked to come in. Shapiro won't allow it.'
'Run his name through the system,' I said. 'Trey has a checkered past. He told me yesterday he has a past professional acquaintance with my father. People don't hire Edward Estes for traffic mishaps.'
Landry shook his head in disgust. 'It's like a goddam bag of snakes, this bunch.'
'Yes,' I said. 'Now we get to find out how many of them are poisonous.'
N othing breeds contempt more virulent than unrequited devotion. I drove toward Loxahatchee, thinking of Paris Montgomery walking into the Sheriff's Office to give up her boss on the horse murder and insurance fraud. Paris was a first-chair kind of girl who had been playing second fiddle to Don Jade for three years. She had helped him build his clientele.
