Walk. Trot. Die Page 3

  Margo led the pony back to the barn and tugged off the small English saddle. She looked down the row of horses' stalls to see if she could see or hear Jessie but she was alone.

  She plopped the saddle down on a nearby saddle rack and retrieved the pony's halter from the tack room. It helped to work, to keep moving, keep busy. Looking for Jessie to untack the pony so she could go back to her office and mope was hardly wise psychological management, she told herself sternly.

  She removed Dancer's bridle, hooking it on a nearby nail, and snaked his worn leather halter over his nose and ears. She buckled the throat latch and then tied him to a ring in front of one of the stalls.

  If only she could stop thinking about everything: Jilly. Tess. If only she could just go about her work and take each day as it came. And whatever came, she would handle it. Her ears strained to hear the sound of the phone ringing. Nothing.

  She picked up each of the pony's little feet, cleaned out his shoes, and painted the frogs and soles with a thrush prophylactic. With the recent heavy rains, she knew the horses would all be more prone to developing fungus.

  She straightened up from her work and looked down the middle of the barn again. What was she looking for? Was it Jessie? Or did she expect those detectives to come back? One of the boarders said they had had to practically drive in a ditch this morning to get past all the cop cars and vans along the side of the road. They must have returned early. Bill had already reported to her that they'd left at least one man on guard in the clearing all night. She wondered if that was standard procedure.

  Did they expect the killer to come back?

  She picked up a large dandy brush and cleaned away the sweat from the pony's saddle area. He'd not had much of a work-out this morning, so she just brushed him lightly, groomed his mane and tail, then wiped out his eyes. The pony belonged to the barn and was used for lessons and, occasionally hired out as a trail horse. He looked up at her with large, slowly blinking eyes, like glassy pools of darkness. She felt a ridiculous urge to hug the animal and that surprised her. She hadn't felt such a sensation since she'd been a horse-crazy youngster. Just about Haley's age. A pang of guilt pierced her. She turned and led the pony to its stall.

  Back in her office, she peeled off her calf-length chaps and tossed them in a cracked leather-look swivel chair in the corner, then heaved herself into her desk chair.

  What had they thought of her? Did they think she might have killed Jilly?

  The young detective was cute in a kind of boring, generic way, she thought. But the other one, Burton, had a kind of particularity to his looks. Dark, tousled hair...wasn’t the police department all supposed to have super short hair? and those blue-blue eyes. Altogether very rugged-looking, she decided. In a messy, just rolled out of the sack kind of way. And very dishy.

  Margo loosened her belt two notches. She was a large woman, made up of sharp angles and soft spots, she was a physical contradiction in many ways. She caught a shadow of her reflection in the glass of the large group photo on the wall opposite her desk. Her jaw sprang out in Germanic insistency, yet her face was yielding and vulnerable. Was it the eyes? She blinked away her own image and stared directly at the photograph. Three men, four women, in complete fox- hunting regalia. Jilly, looking smug and mean, her long black hair caught up in a tight net and screwed to the back of her pale, long neck. Next to her was her then-husband, Mark Travers, looking somehow defenseless next to his wife. His smile was genuine and broad. His eyes laughed at the photographer. They hadn't been married very long, Margo thought grimly. And then there was Tess Andersen. Beautiful, blonde, and cool. As dangerous, in her way, as Jilly, Margo noted. Tess stood at the edge of the group. Uncoupled, unattached. Her eyes looked clear and penetrating, her smile, false. Next to her, Portia Stephens hugged her arms in her snug dark riding coat, her crop held up against her face like a threat. Her face was open and vacant. Pretty, Margo thought with surprise. It wasn't usually the first thing one noticed about Portia. Normally, it was the flat, dead eyes. The doors to the vacant house. Portia's husband stood next to her, uncomfortable and awkward in his riding pinks. He had a broad face with too-rosy cheeks and lips. His eyes were small and piggy, Margo thought. He wasn't a horseman. He was an outsider. He looked it, he rode it, and he photographed it. Margo dismissed him, and then looked at the photograph of herself. A younger...when was this picture taken? Ten years ago? Fifteen?...more eager version of herself. Slimmer too, she noted tiredly. Her own riding partner stood rigidly beside her. Todd something or other. She hadn't known him very well, never dated him again, and only agreed to ride with him for the hunt because she felt out-numbered by the Travers and Stephens. Tess didn't need to have a date. She was beautiful and, well, Tess. Margo had felt in need of the crutch. Later, Margo always felt a tinge of vexation that the man had been included in the group shot. She looked at the whole picture again. So young, so full of fire and good times. She was a trainer then, not a barn manager. And although she couldn't keep up with her friends financially, she was the better equestrienne, and felt respected and accepted by them. Her eyes scanned the black and white photo. So young, she thought.

  Her eyes fell on the laughing face of Jilly's ex-husband. A month after the picture was taken, she and Mark Travers had begun their affair.

  2

  It was a little before six in the morning. The night had been cold for November in Georgia and the morning was foggy and gray. Burton stepped into Jilly Travers' West Paces Ferry condominium, carefully placing the keys in his jacket pocket and moving aside to let Kazmaroff enter behind him. Instantly, he was struck by an almost palpable feeling of evil in the hallway. It was like a bad smell, except that there was no fragrance, no real scent of any kind in the place. Shaking off the feeling, Burton concentrated on taking a mental inventory of the apartment. Kazmaroff, he knew, would be taking notes. Burton preferred to work with initial impressions and feelings coupled with whatever facts were available. As far as he was concerned, when it came right down to it, a detective's instincts were all that separated him from the uniforms guarding the apartment door out front.

  From the hallway, he and Kaz emerged into the condo’s living room, everything appeared as cold and austere as the light in her eyes from every photo of her he'd ever seen. He walked through the living room and the small den. There were no signs of her riding hobby, no family pictures, no trophies from work or the riding ring, no indication that the kitchen was used for anything other than heating up the occasional cup of coffee.

  Her bedroom was equally cold and forbidding. Done in stark whites and grays, it looked as unused as the gleaming, stainless steel kitchen. Burton found himself impressed with its spartan decor. His own wife, if she had her way, would wallpaper their entire three bedroom bungalow in cabbage roses and vining violets. A reeking net-ball of potpourri was always tumbling out at him from some drawer, closet, or shelf. Kazmaroff, on the other hand, was appalled.

  "Jesus! Did she sleep here at night or just hang upside down in the closet?"

  "Different tastes," Burton muttered, annoyed that they were, once again, on polar opposite wavelengths.

  Jilly's closet, however, was packed with designer color. Burton bit back all comment as his partner reeled off the names of each designer as if they hung inside his own closet too.

  "Donna Karan, YSL, Blass, Dolce & Gabbana...this chick liked to dress nice."

  Was he trying to get a rise out of him? Was he trying to see if Burton would affect to know the names too?

  Burton ignored him and headed toward the fragile-looking antique desk next to Jilly’s bed.

  He rifled through a few bill stubs for water and cable. The woman seemed to have paid everything promptly, as soon as it came in. Burton thought this odd. People as hard-nosed in business as Jilly supposedly was, didn't pay their bills as soon as they came in, but waited until just before they were due, so their own banking accounts could retain every penny of interest due them. Why let creditors have one day more than
necessary of compounding interest? He put his hand on Jilly's engagement calendar, surprised to find it here and not at her office. Unless she was a control freak, he thought. Then she wouldn't be able to help herself paying the bills as they came in. The feeling of wanting that clean slate would be too overwhelming. He flipped to the present week and found the date on which she disappeared. On it, she'd scrawled: barn. And then, call Shue at home.

  "Find anything?" Kazmaroff, obviously tired of showing off his Women's Weekly expertise when noone was listening, peered over Burton's shoulder.

  Burton straightened up and snapped the diary shut. He was about to pop it into one of the paper bags they'd brought for evidence when the note fluttered to the soft, gray carpeting.

  Kazmaroff was quicker than he. He snatched it up and opened the four-folded sheet. "Christ, it's a blackmail note," he said.

  Burton grabbed it from him. It read, in innocuous serif type: I'll make you sorry. I'll make you dead sorry someday.

  "Now, the real question is," Kazmaroff said with a self-satisfied smile as he leaned against one of her stark bedroom walls. "Is this little missive to Miss Jilly? Or from her?"

  Burton pressed his right foot into the floorboard of the Ford's passenger seat. He hated it when Kazmaroff drove. Fact is, he hated it when anyone drove but himself. He eased off the imaginary brake pedal and forced himself to relax into the dark upholstery. The scenery flew by in a panorama of brown and mossy-green countryside. He flipped open Kazmaroff’s notebook and tightened his face into a knot of effort.

  "I can't read this shit," he said over the hum of the engine. "Something about...a ball of lint...?"

  "Bill Lint," Kazmaroff said, snapping on his right turn signal. "The groundskeeper at the farm. He's got a trailer near the murder site."

  "You should be reading this," Burton said. "It's your handwriting. And thanks for the bombshell," he said sarcastically. "Our guys go through it?"

  Kazmaroff nodded, unaffected by his partner's tone.

  "Place was clean."

  "Besides, he's got an airtight."

  "Yeah, the barn manager said he was with her that afternoon."

  "Convenient." Burton tossed the notebook onto the dashboard.

  "Maybe, yes, maybe, no," Kazmaroff said, turning off Georgia 400 onto State Highway 121 and heading east. "The stable girl, Jessie? Said Lint, like, adored Jilly Travers."

  Burton grunted and motioned to an upcoming convenience store. "Pull over and let me grab a paper," he said.

  Kazmaroff turned into the parking lot and parked the cruiser in front of the store. He turned off the engine but Burton made no move to get out.

  "So what've we got so far?" Burton asked, his eyes staring through the windshield as if talking to himself.

  Kazmaroff shifted his weight and unhooked his seatbelt.

  "Well," he said slowly. "We got a dead woman--"

  "Presumed dead," Burton corrected.

  "Yeah, okay, fine." Kazmaroff rolled his eyes. "We got a maybe dead woman. A blood-saturated area of about twenty feet by fifteen. An illiterate gardener with no motive and no opportunity. A foot print--which could be the victim's footprint for all we know. And a couple of weak tread prints from a car other than the circus ground of tire prints Atlanta's finest created. We got shit."

  "Don't forget the blackmail note," Burton said, finally turning to look at his partner.

  "Oh, yeah." Dave shrugged and looked out the window. Although technically part of Atlanta, this section of Highway 121 was still in the country. The lone convenience store stood out against a backdrop of virgin timber and thick scrub. A line of ten public telephones huddled against the front wall of the store. Burton noticed a pair of mourning doves settled on top of one of the phone boxes. He wondered if they were waiting around for hand-outs.

  "So far, I'm trying to find somebody who couldn't have written it." He looked back at Burton. "She didn't seem to have been exactly lovable."

  Burton paid for his morning edition of the Atlanta Journal/Constitution and a small carton of dusty-white doughnuts Kazmaroff had insisted he pick up for him. Through the window of the convenience store, he could see Kazmaroff talking on his cell phone, and he felt a pang of dismay. He hated it when the bastard got the juicy bits first. He inevitably tried to feed them to Burton from a string attached to a stick--like a farmer and his addled coon dog. The thought of it made Burton move toward the door before the cashier had finished counting out all his change. Tempted to tell the smiling Pakistani to keep it and loathe to give away nearly four bucks, Burton took a deep breath and returned to the counter. He could already hear Kazmaroff's affected, deep voice: "Guess what, partner?" No, that was a little too friendly for Kazmaroff at this stage of the game. He might've been foolish enough to have addressed Burton like that last year. No such mistake would be made today.

  Burton swung open his car door and tossed the doughnuts to Kazmaroff. He'd be damned if he'd ask the jerk what he found out.

  "HQ says Jilly's ex-husband, Mark Travers, has an alibi for the day in question, but that he will be, and I quote, more than happy to speak with us at our convenience."

  Burton felt his body sag a bit with relief. That was all?

  "So we can put him off a bit, huh?" Kazmaroff pushed two of the miniature doughnuts into his mouth, spilling a tiny clot of powdered sugar down the front of his wine-colored polo shirt.

  The pleasure of the ruined shirt softened Burton' irritation. "He'll wait," Burton said. "On to the Portia Stephens' portion of our program," he said lightly. "Are we pretty close?"

  "Oh yeah, hey, one other thing," Kazmaroff said as he started the engine. "You know that footprint? Turns out there must've been more than just horses and three girls prancing around in that clearing." He smiled at Burton deliberately. "Lab says the print belonged to a male, approximately six feet, one hundred and ninety pounds. Hey, man, you want to drive?"

  3

  Portia smoothed out the silky folds of her mid-calf skort and stood a foot back from the French doors that opened onto the widow's walk. Her friends had thought it silly--Jilly and Tess specifically--to build a walk with no hope of water for four hundred miles. But she had insisted on having it built. Since she was a little girl in Savannah, she'd wanted one, had wanted the feel of standing on one, the ache in her eyes of watching for her returning sailor. Now that she was grown, she wouldn't let a thing like living in the middle of a country park or the fact that her returning sailor was really a slightly pudgy attorney who returned every night from his law office in a cherry red Lexus convertible stop her from having her widow's walk. Six months ago, her house had been featured in Southern Homes and Living, but the widow's walk--the best part of the whole house--had not been photographed or mentioned. She told herself she didn't care. Like her Gramma Rose used to say: what other people felt or thought didn't matter a drop. Not a drop in the bucket.

  From her vantage point, she watched the approaching police cruiser wind its way along the curving driveway. She watched it slowly take the ambling switch backs, past the sentinels of azaleas and dogwood, the towering beech and willows. She wondered if they thought the grounds were beautiful. It was late autumn and everything was past its glory point, but still remarkable.

  She touched the pearls against her throat as she momentarily lost sight of the police car behind a stand of towering sycamores. She absently caressed the pearls, enjoying their warmth, the warmth they stole from her own skin.

  "You remember, darling? What we talked about? The fight?”

  "You mean I can tell them about the fight?"

  "Of course, tell them about the fight. Portia, darling, what part don't you understand?"

  "I wish you were going to be here, Tess."

  "Portia, it's very simple. Just tell them what happened. And then stop."

  "What if they ask what happened after we left Jilly?"

  "They want to know what happened in the clearing, dear. Not how we made our way back to the barn. They won't ask."
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  "But what if they do?"

  Portia's eyes followed the police cruiser as it rounded the last stand of camouflaging trees and broke into the clearing that presented the main house. Her ears still hummed with the words from Tess' early morning phone call:

  "Do not tell them what happened after we left the clearing. Do you hear me, Portia? Do not tell them what happened once we left."

  4

  Kathy Sue's hands trembled as she picked up the manila folder and nodded at Bob Shue. Business as usual. Get the product catalog put together for tomorrow's meeting. Rough layouts were fine but finished copy was expected. She wore a mask of concentrated attentiveness but every fiber in her wanted to explode, to sing, to run screaming and shrieking through the sedate advertising offices, to do a series of backflips across the conference room table, watching the crystal and brass figurine awards bobble and shake in her wake.

  Missing, presumed dead.

  As in, not coming back to work. Not today, not ever. The solemn announcement was made at the traffic meeting as if it were just another--albeit quite serious--scheduling problem to be unsnarled, and then on with tracking catalogs and brochures and ads and media deadlines. Kathy Sue wanted to risk a glance at her boss, Robert Shue, but didn’t dare.

  Carrying her load of manila folders and product fabric swatches for the shop-at-home client they'd just signed, she hurried back to her cubby-hole office, passing Jilly's large cavern of an office as she went. A yellow ribbon sealed off the door. Police Line. Do Not Cross. Kathy Sue slowed and peered through the glassed walls. A young, unsmiling policewoman stood inside looking through Jilly's filing cabinet. Kathy Sue felt a thrill run through her and continued her way to her own office. It's true. It's really true. The bitch is dead.