Something Most Deadly Read online

  Jane caught up with the detective as he looked out the big end door of the west wing—in the direction of a small knot of people congregating in the stable yard, also curious about the new arrival. He turned at the sound of her footsteps.

  “Might as well walk out and join them, detective, they’ll all stay out there to look at the new horse.”

  Westerlund agreed, and walked with her to stand with Reggie, Lars and Dylan, near a paddock fence. Dylan left them to jog over to the truck to help Sam unload the horse. Sam had just opened the small side door of the trailer, when all hell broke loose. The trailer suddenly rocked and jumped as if it were holding a Tasmanian devil. Hooves struck tin walls, sounding like rapid shots from a high-powered gun.

  Sam jumped into the small front door of the trailer and tried unsuccessfully to calm the animal, while Dylan attempted to unlatch and drop the rear gate. Both guys had to give up and run for cover when the rear gate was quickly destroyed in an explosion of twisted metal, shredded rubber and a hale of splintered wood. The flying, striking rear hooves bent metal like tinfoil, and—after snapping his restraints—the dark bay thoroughbred rolled out backwards over the destroyed ramp. Thrashing and twisting for a few seconds, the crazed animal regained his feet and then bucked like a bronco, kicking the trailer and then the passenger door of Sam’s truck with the full force of both hind feet causing the door to be permanently closed. Finished with his demolition, the big bay ran wild-eyed into a distant lane between paddocks, his black mane and tail streaming out behind him.

  Detective Westerlund was stunned into complete silence as he stood next to Jane—never having witnessed the kind of performance a violently addled-brained horse was capable of.

  “Great school horse,” Jane commented dryly, as she watched Sam screaming at Dylan to get a grain bucket and a lead shank and some extra help as he struggled to unhitch the ruined scrap heap of a trailer from his battered truck. Sam jumped into the truck, muttering and cursing, as he drove down the road collecting guys running out of the barn. Lars was outraged. He took a few strides towards the pickup truck. “Catch him and return that monster immediately!” he yelled, gesturing in the horse’s direction. “I will not work with such an animal, and neither will anyone else that has an ounce of sense!”

  Reggie, following behind, shook his fist in the air. “Hell, don’t even try to capture him, he’s probably in Cleveland by now anyway.”

  Jane watched the truck with Sam and his stableboy posse, careening through the dirt lanes between paddocks chasing after the lunatic horse. If the situation weren’t so dire, she would’ve laughed at the Keystone-Kops drama, with Dylan struggling to climb in the passenger-side window of Sam’s truck, and a half dozen stableboys bouncing around in the bed of the pickup. When Lars and Reggie walked back to the small group flattened against the fence Jane asked, “Did Elliot really purchase that maniac?”

  “Ha!” Lars snarled. “It’s a thoroughbred off the track…Michael’s Folly. I’m sure Elliot was convinced that we were such wonderful skilled trainers we could magically turn a raving, brainless lunatic into a ribbon-winning show horse. I hope he didn’t pay much.”

  “I wonder how they even got that thing in the trailer in the first place?” Westerlund asked. They all looked at him.

  Finally Reggie spoke. “Drugged to the gills—that’s how you usually sell and transport a lunatic horse. By the time the stuff wears off, some poor fool has a maniac in his stable.”

  “Sam would have no way of knowing when he picked up the horse that he was drugged,” Lars explained, “even if he became suspicious. And Elliot probably thought he was getting a nice cheap schooling horse. You’d think he’d know better than to buy Thoroughbreds at firesale prices.”

  The horse suddenly reversed direction, leaving his posse out in the paddock lanes, and raced back to the stableyard. He flew by the small standing group, with his sides heaving, nostrils blasting like trumpets and his dark body covered in a frothing white foam. Sam was desperately trying to turn his truck around without broadcasting guys out of the bed like ping-pong balls.

  Detective Westerlund watched the group he was standing with for a sign that they should all leap over the fence or run back into the barn, but since they remained calmly stationary even when the freight train went snorting past, he’d be damned if he’d show fear and let them know the sweat was running into his collar. He watched the tall, pretty woman with the long dark hair; but she stood her ground and didn’t even as much as twitch or blink, although she never took her eyes off the animal.

  Westerlund had been a Navy Seal for five years, been on the police force for ten years and commended by the department for bravery at least three times, and seen the worst kind of violence—yet the wild-eyed snorting beast was terrifying to him. He glanced at his notebook to check the woman’s first name again. When he looked up, Jane Husted was staring at him with a slight tint of amusement, and he knew that she fully recognized his terror. His ego suddenly felt as dented as the trailer.

  The murderous horse kicked sideways in the air as he ran, smashing another blow to the ruined trailer—making Westerlund nearly jump out of his skin. The horse then galloped back out to greet his incoming posse. The detective asked a few quick questions of Lars and Reggie, scribbled the answers in his notebook with a jerky hand, and left, trying to walk casually back to the barn, forcing his feet not to run.

  Westerlund absently pressed an elbow against the Glock on his hip, under the suit jacket, imagining the paperwork for shooting a horse and what his explanation would be to the department. They would probably laugh him out of the barracks. Once inside the barn, he walked swiftly through corridors towards the front parking lot, snapping looks over his shoulder, wondering if the animal could find a way into the barn and come thundering down the wide aisle. He darted out the double front doors, and jumped into his car. He noticed his hands shaking when he rested them on the steering wheel.

  When Michael’s Folly suddenly roared through the front parking area, hooves slapping on pavement with a staccato popping sound, Westerlund flung himself across the front seat, adrenaline searing into his veins. He sat up abruptly and looked around embarrassed. The last time he’d done that was when a drug dealer shot out his windshield with an automatic. The detective took a deep breath and checked around for the horse, but he was long gone—probably gone before his face even planted in the car seat. Westerlund pried his hand from the side-arm, then started up the Crown Vic and raced off the estate.

  Michael’s Folly was eventually captured, but not without injury. Dylan had reached the horse first with a grain bucket, but made the mistake of grabbing the halter to snap on a lead. Dylan was yanked into a full gallop before he could even let go, streaming out from the horse’s head like a human ribbon. He finally did let go, and tried to roll clear, but an unshod hoof grazed his scalp; gashing the skin, and winning him a trip to the emergency room for a few stitches.

  Later that same day the blacksmith who tried to shoe Michael’s Folly also lost the battle, despite the horse being tranquilized—or so they thought—and ended up in the same emergency room with a slight concussion and a ragged tear on his forehead delivered by a smack from a front hoof. The Doctor’s joked about it being the same horse? but Steve the blacksmith, who was a solid block of muscle, and who had never lost a fight with a horse, did not think it so funny.

  That night, Dylan met with Lars and Jane to explain his method for getting “Mike” as he was now called, out of his stall and into another without dying. A procedure necessary to clean the bay thoroughbred’s stall, since no human could safely inhabit a small room with Mike. The three were standing in front of the grille of Mike’s stall, watching him munch quietly on hay. Dylan’s tee shirt was smeared with dirt, grass and blood, and a small square of his long hair was missing to accommodate stitches and a bandage.

  “He looks so peaceable now,” Jane observed.

  “He’s just playing possum,” Lars snorted, “typical of a ra
ging lunatic—they suck you in when they’re calm, and then boom they explode.”

  Dylan gingerly touched the bandage on the square of shaved hair on the back of his head, and then said: “He bites, he kicks, he does everything but spit like a camel. And he does play possum, until a micro-chip blows in his brain. I think his motherboard is snarled. Elliot should be the first volunteer to take lessons on him.”

  “Ha! I’d like to see that,” Lars ranted. “I’d like to give that lesson.”

  “He sure made a mess of the trailer and Sam’s truck,” Jane commented. “Think he can get it fixed?”

  “His truck? He’s going to trade it in next week,” Dylan answered her. “He’s been thinking about getting a new one, and this just made up his mind for him. Especially now he can’t open the passenger door. “

  “Mike took a little off the trade-in price,” Lars retorted dryly.

  Dylan nodded. “Sam’s in such a rage over this horse he won’t even look at him.”

  “Be careful Dylan,” Jane warned him, “until the Whitbecks can be made to realize they need to work on getting rid of this thing.”

  “Ha, you ain’t kidding I’ll be careful. Look at my ribs!” He pulled up his shirt and tucked the hem under his chin as he surveyed the damage to his chest.

  “I had to pay for an x-ray for this...”

  Jane gasped at the sight of abraded and bruised-purple ribs. She could see crescent hoof marks and bits of grass and little chunks of dirt still pressed into his skin. “No broken ribs?”

  “Nope. Lucky. Not that he didn’t try—ran right completely over me, he did. The horse is a flat-out killer.”

  “You sure are taking a beating lately from chickens and horses,” Jane deadpanned, and Dylan yanked his shirt down and grinned ruefully at her humor.

  “So who do you think will be sucker enough to take him?” Lars asked. “I’m sure the seller is gone with the wind, counting his money and laughing.”

  “I dunno. Unless we drug him, “Dylan joked, “I’m sure no one will touch him.”

  “Don’t even say that!” Jane looked askance at Dylan, and then noticed the dried blood rimming the neck of his tee shirt. Again, she felt a dreadful precognition, a keening of nerves. But the danger had passed, hadn’t it?

  “So—I’m afraid to ask,” Lars said. “How do you get him out of his stall and not end up back in the hospital?”

  “I just lure him out with a bucket of grain without any type of restraint. It’s the holding or tying or grabbing of his halter that really sets him off. It’s a risky way to move a horse, but as long as no one is trying to hold him it doesn’t set off his flip switch—and the grain keeps his mind off his hobby of biting and striking. He follows me right into another open stall, I set the grain down and exit...stage left, before he can think about savaging me.”

  “Pretty good,” Jane complimented him.

  Lars looked in on the horse, his face creased in worried frowns. “Michael’s Folly!” he spat. “His name should be Lawsuit. I’m going to tell Mr. Whitbeck straight out to get this horse out of the barn any way possible!”

  They were lined up, looking through the bars of the stall door like jailbirds. Jane turned to Dylan and again said, “please be really careful.”

  “Yeah, I will. I’m sure Michael must be dead.”

  EIGHT

  Sam pulled out of the stableyard on a rainy Saturday morning, towing Charmante in a newly purchased two-horse trailer. His truck however, looked far from new with its dented passenger door. Elliot, Cecily and Lucinda followed Sam and Charmante in Elliot’s Lexus to accompany Lucinda and her horse to New Jersey.

  Cecily had been horrified when she came down to the barn the previous Friday night, when Sam had informed her about Mike’s attacks on Dylan and the blacksmith. Sam explained what a huge risk Mike posed for the stable personnel, not to mention the liability exposure for the Whitbecks. Cecily immediately offered to pay Dylan’s hospital bills, and told Sam that Elliot had no idea the horse was drugged when he bought him. She promised to do everything she could to get rid of the deranged animal as soon as she returned from getting Lucinda squared away in New Jersey. And she left strict rules that no one besides Sam or Dylan was to get near the dangerous horse.

  Jane had only two lessons the Saturday of Lucinda’s departure. Saturdays were usually very busy at Springhill, but the stable now seemed vacant and drained of vibrant energy—like a school during summer vacation. To add to the dismal atmosphere, Saturday remained gloomy and rainy for the whole day, and Jane spent a dreary afternoon practicing school figures on General in the indoor ring. Students were trickling off to a handful, and some boarders had already announced plans to move their horses. Others had a wait-and-see attitude. The only area of high activity was the construction going on in the observation lounge over the indoor arena, and all that did was make the barn noisy and dusty. The echoing blasts of nail guns and the incessant screeching of table saws drove Jane crazy, and kept spooking General.

  Dylan and two other stableboys had moved to the loft apartments, so she had bodyguards and now felt fairly safe; at least from murder and mayhem. Winter Smoke had delivered a healthy foal, but no one was ecstatically excited over the birth, and no one from the veterinary hospital was jumping up to volunteer to come to the barn. Sunday was yet another cloudy drizzly day. Sam returned from New Jersey a day before the Whitbecks expected arrival; and Lars, Jane and Sam attended Bill Welsh’s funeral—which did nothing to lighten their collective mood.

  Monday afternoon the Whitbecks returned from New Jersey after settling in Lucinda and her horse. On Tuesday the sun finally poked through the solid bank of overcast clouds. Since Brian was in North Carolina on a business trip, Olivia had been delivered to the barn for her riding lesson by the senior Mr. Canaday—a tall, elegant, silver-haired gentleman with a Cary Grant face and a magnificent tan.

  Grandfather and granddaughter cruised down the lane to the barn in a restored convertible; a 1928 Lincoln Touring limo with wire wheels and giant white sidewalls. Jane recognized it as the automobile she had seen in the Canaday driveway—in what seemed like a decade ago. With great tact and politeness, Evan Canaday forwarded Brian’s wishes that his daughter not enter the barn, nor be out of her grandfather’s sight. It added to Jane’s sense of foreboding, but she understood. At least the perpetually happy little girl and her charming grandfather livened up one hour of her day.

  “How’s it look for Saturday, Sam?” Jane inquired on Wednesday, poking her head into Sam’s office. He was fully engrossed with the computer, his index fingers jabbing at the keyboard.

  “Nobody’s said we’re not showing, so I guess it’s a go.” He looked up from his hunt-and-peck typing and mouse clicking. “A bunch of students and boarders want to show this weekend, and at this point Elliot is anxious to please his customers—so we’ll probably all be going even though Lucinda is away.”

  “Great! Well, at least something’s going right. I guess I’ll go work the horse then.”

  “You should take a look at this spread sheet,” he called after her. “It’s amazing! It’ll tally up everything four ways to Sunday. I can apply the same figures to ten horses or a hundred and know what the grain and hay will cost in a split second. Even if the price of feed fluctuates a penny...”

  “Astonishing. Maybe I’ll check it out later.” Jane laughed to herself at Sam’s preoccupation with his new toy, as she walked into the north wing. Since the modem had been installed and Dylan showed him how to use the internet, Sam was completely hooked. He perused the stock market, checked out Thoroughbred bloodlines, and emailed his friends in Louisville. His newest hobby was keeping tabs on international weather and tracking hurricanes. Even Reggie was getting sucked in to watching the weather.

  Jane grabbed a saddle and bridle from a small tackroom in the middle of the north wing and walked to General’s stall. Her footsteps sounded lonely and dismal, people seemed to be staying away in droves—although she was happy to see
that Lars and Owen were both coaching students in the outdoor paddocks. Maybe things were picking up. She could still hear the explosive pops of nail guns, and the whining skill saws echoing down the east wing, and was very happy that it was a nice sunny day so she could ride outdoors and not have to listen to the din.

  General was dozing in his stall, with his head in the back corner. His rump was to the door and all his weight was slung on one hip as he took an afternoon snooze, his glossy black tail occasionally flicking at flies. Jane set the tack down, opened the stall door and walked in, easing it slightly shut behind her.

  She greeted the horse as she gave him a friendly slap on the rump. The hindquarters shivered and dropped out from under her hand, and it was her first and only warning of trouble. Instinct and lightening fast reactions made her jump to the back corner of the box in time to avoid a pair of vicious rear hooves shooting out and splintering wood planks in the partition. It was enough force to turn her head and ribcage into jelly, had it connected. Jane was still crouched in the corner when the horse swung around, ears flat against the skull and teeth bared. General did not have a white strip on his nose!

  Michaels Folly!

  The bared white teeth, looking like giant Chiclets, went for her chest, but she dove to the ground and rolled towards the stall door. Mike reared over her, trying now to bash her head in with his front hoofs. She rolled again quickly, right up against the front wall, but a viciously slashing hoof grazed her shoulder and she screamed in pain. The horse reared for another try at stomping her prone figure to death in the shavings. Jane desperately kicked the stall door open with her boots, making Mike hesitate. For a moment, he was torn between finishing his work, or the freedom the opened door provided. Since freedom and food were Mike’s top priorities—and savaging only third—he charged by her.