“Good. Do you know where you are?”
“Mmm.” I felt the ground around me. Wooden floor with scattering of straw. Now I remembered. That damn horse! “Stables.”
“Very good. Let’s sit you up now.”
She took hold of me under my armpits, eased me up till my back was against the wall.
“Ramon and I saw the horse running free. I thought I’d better check in here.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Eight fifty-five.”
I’d come out here at about 8:45. I couldn’t’ve been out more than a few minutes.
“Let me look at your head.”
It was already bowed forward. I felt her fingers probing, winced when they touched a tender spot.
“Not so bad,” she said. “No cuts or abrasions, but you could have a mild concussion. I’ll take you back to the house in a few minutes and stay with you tonight. If there are any complications, we’ll go to the emergency clinic in the morning.”
Hooves clopping. I jerked my head up, wrenching my neck. Ramon, leading Lear Jet into the stable.
“Get him away from me!” I said. “He tried to kill me.”
Ramon frowned and looked at Sara. She shook her head.
He said, “The horse was spooked-”
“Damn right he was!”
“But not by you,” Sara added.
“What d’you mean?”
“The bump on your head isn’t anything he could have inflicted. I’d say someone else was here, possibly antagonizing him. When Lear Jet bolted, whoever it was hit you.”
“But why…?”
“I don’t know,” Ramon said.
I thought-fuzzily-of the people whom I’d come in contact with the whole day. Of others who might have felt they had reason to harm me. Of the rippling shadow at Willow Grove Lodge.
No. Not again. That part of my life was supposed to be over!
Thursday
When I awoke, Sara was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of Hy’s and my bedroom, her hands manipulating knitting needles and red yarn. She looked up when I stirred.
“Good morning, Sharon. How’re you feeling?”
I took inventory, touching my head. There was a fair-sized lump behind my right ear, but strangely it didn’t hurt much. “Not bad.”
“I put some ointment on your scalp last night. It must have helped.”
Vaguely I remembered the earthy smell and oily feel of it. “It did. One of your concoctions?”
“Of course. Are you seeing all right?”
“Yes.”
“No headache, or sickness in your stomach?”
“None.”
“Then I prescribe twenty-four hours bed rest, and you’ll be fit as ever.” She finished a row of knitting and began putting the needles and yarn away in a brightly colored tote bag.
“Thank God you were there last night, Sara. When I didn’t see any lights at your place I thought you and Ramon had gone to Bridgeport. That’s why I was trying to feed Lear Jet.”
“We’d planned to go up there, but when we called the sheriff’s department they said Miri couldn’t have any visitors until this afternoon. And Ramon made the… arrangements for Hayley by phone, and then we went out for dinner at Zelda’s. We thought we owed ourselves a nice meal-”
A knock at the bedroom door, and Ramon entered, eyes downcast as if he was afraid I might be scantily clad. No chance of that-Sara had enveloped me in a big terry cloth bathrobe of Hy’s. She’d seemed somewhat scandalized that I didn’t possess a proper nightgown.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Fine. Sara’s given me a clean bill of health.”
“Only if you stay in bed today,” she said.
I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender.
Ramon said, “I’ve been thinking about what happened last night. I’ve been around horses all my life. I can feel what they’re feeling. Lear’s been testing you, but he would never attack-especially when you were bringing food to him. Somebody else had to be there. Somebody he
“Who?”
“One person comes to mind: Boz Sheppard. He did some work up here a while back, rebuilding part of the pasture fence. He deviled the horse, and when I told him to stop, I suspect he kept on doing it behind my back. Lear landed him a good kick on the shoulder the last day he worked here.”
“But what would Sheppard be doing here last night? And why would he hit me?”
Didn’t add up, any of it.
I kept my promise to stay in bed until noon. Then restlessness got the better of me. I got up, showered, and dressed. Had some toast and coffee. Sara’s remedies had worked their magic, and I decided to do something nice for her and Ramon: I’d spend the afternoon making a casserole for them for when they returned, stressed and tired, from Bridgeport.
Trouble was, I have a limited repertoire of specialties that runs along the lines of garlic bread, spaghetti, stuffed sourdough loaves, and dressing for the holiday turkey. Hy cooks more than I do; we eat out frequently; I’m the expert on prepackaged foods and the microwave.
When I got back to the ranch house I located an old cookbook-
Day after Halloween: smashed pumpkins in the streets, trees draped with toilet paper; some windows soaped; candy wrappers on the sidewalk. Simple, old-fashioned mischief, the kind we haven’t had in the city in some years. For safety reasons, trick-or-treating doesn’t happen in most neighborhoods there, and pranks are usually on the vandalous side. Many times Halloween parties end in injuries and fatalities.
Of course, the day before Halloween here had been fatal for Hayley Perez. A reminder that no matter where you are, the world is a dangerous place.
The scarecrow in the Food Mart’s parking lot had been dismembered: its head lay on top of the bales of hay, its clothes strewn around. Black spray paint on the white wall said THE DEVEL MADE ME DO IT! No one ever said graffiti artists can spell.
I went inside, made my selections, and took them to the same checker I’d spoken with last Tuesday night. While she was ringing the order up she asked, “Did you find Amy Perez?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You hear about her sister, Hayley?”
“The woman who was murdered? Yes.”
“I’m wondering: Amy didn’t come in to work today, and nobody’s seen her. Maybe she and that scumbag Boz Sheppard killed her sister and took off. Nobody’s seen him, either.”
“Why would they do such a thing?”
“Money. I hear Hayley had a big life-insurance policy.”
