Riding Lessons, Page 25

  I'm standing in line at the service center waiting to pay for my coffee when a man approaches me. He's grizzled, with a hefty paunch and a thin dirty tee-shirt. His jeans hang low because the waist is too small and his belly has slid over top. His front teeth are missing, his fingernails dirty, his hair sticks up in odd directions. He comes to a stop in front of me. I stiffen.

  "You okay?" he says.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Are you okay?"

  I stare suspiciously. "I'm fine. Why?"

  "You just look...I dunno, like maybe you've been crying. Just making sure you're okay."

  I'm so shocked I can't reply right away. It's as though I've suddenly forgotten English.

  "Yeah," I say finally. "Yeah, I am. Thanks, though."

  "Sure," he says, and wanders off.

  Back on the road, heading into darkness. I switch on my headlights and search fruitlessly for a radio station I can stand. Finally, I switch it off.

  How the hell am I going to get Eva back, and what am I going to do with her when I get her?

  When it comes to me, I slap the steering wheel with the heel of my right hand. Flicka! I'll adopt Flicka! I know Eva won't come back for me--there's no point in kidding myself on that score--but Flicka?

  So what if it's bribery? So what, if it gets her home and gives us a chance to start again? In this case, the ends absolutely justify the means.

  I form the conversation in my head, figuring out how to word it most enticingly. I'll help Eva train her. We'll arrange it so that Eva is the only person who ever gets on her back. It will bring her home, and give us something we can do together.

  My heart leaps for joy, and the warm glow of victory floods me. It may be only one thing to tick off my list of worries, but still, it's a start.

  Unless I really have caused Mutti to lose the farm. Up to now, I've been thinking about how it would affect Mutti, and how devastated Pappa would have been if he'd known. But suddenly, for the first time, I see what it means for the rest of us. If Mutti loses the farm, where will Eva and I go?

  I press my foot closer to the floor. The engine roars as it picks up speed.

  I will get Flicka. I will get a job. I will call Dan and apologize, and if he doesn't want to listen, I'll tell him that I know what I've been--I finally, really know what I've been--and beg him to give me another chance. I will give up on this ridiculous notion of hiding Hurrah, and simply talk to the insurance company. Surely there's a way I can keep him--they can't just turn him back over to Ian. They also can't possibly expect to get the amount he was insured for, not with his joint problems and missing eye. But even if they do, I can pay by installment. I'll get a job.

  My stable management days are clearly over, but it's not as though I don't have other choices. Even if Kilkenny doesn't have a software industry, I can contract from home. There's no reason in the world an editor can't telecommute. Not that I particularly want to be an editor again--in fact, it's more than that, I really, really, really don't want to be an editor again--but desperate times call for desperate measures. I'll put money into the stable, help Mutti keep the farm. I'll pay for Hurrah. I'll tell Eva after we get Flicka that she can only keep her if she stays in school.

  Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

  At midnight, I pull through the gates of our farm. I pause at the crest of the hill, just inside the gates, and survey the scene before me. It looks so peaceful. The house, nestled quietly at the top of a hill's gentle swell, the fences shining white in the moonlight. The stable, looming large and sleepy in the distance. The scene is so familiar it breaks my heart.

  I'm already halfway out of the car by the time I notice that the floodlights over the stable's parking lot are off. There's a bulky shadow at the end of the drive. I stare, squinting, until I see its outline.

  I drop back into the car and dump the contents of my purse on the passenger's seat, scrabbling through it until I find my cell phone.

  "Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"

  "This is Annemarie Zimmer from Maple Brook Farm, off Forty-one, just south of Ninety-seven. I'm calling to report a horse theft in progress."

  "Okay, Annemarie. Help is on its way. Stay on the line and tell me what's going on."

  "There's a truck and trailer in front of the entrance of the stable. And someone's turned off the floods."

  The car is in neutral, the motor off, and I'm coasting silently down the drive toward the stable.

  "Do you see anyone?" asks the dispatcher.

  "No."

  "Is it possible someone just parked there?"

  "No. All the boarders park their trailers in the back. And besides, this one is backed up to the door. No, there's someone in there. I'm pulling up now."

  I coast to a stop in front of the truck and put the car in park. I squint through the side window.

  "The license plate is ess three oh five oh two," I tell the dispatcher. "I don't think it's from New Hampshire but I can't quite...Oh Jesus, I just saw flashlights," I say. "I'm going to see what the hell is going on."

  "Annemarie, stay where you are. Help is about three minutes away. Stay where you are and don't hang up."

  I obey, inasmuch as I don't hang up. I toss the phone onto the passenger seat and move to the dark shadows beside the entrance of the stable, hoping that whoever's inside won't hear the gravel crunching under my feet.

  Two flashlights are moving like searchlights, from one stall to the next. I hear the sound of bolts being thrown, and doors sliding partway open.

  "Where the hell is he?" says a hushed male voice.

  "I don't fucking know," says another in frustration. "Are you sure this is the place?"

  "Maybe it's this one."

  "Maybe nothing. He's fucking striped."

  I reach inside and throw on the light. The two men in the aisle are holding flashlights and lead ropes. Most of the stall doors are partially open and the horses are moving nervously. "Jean-Claude!" I scream. "Jean-Claude!"

  The men bolt. The first knocks me backward into the doorway, but the second is not so lucky. As he passes, I tackle him, throwing him out the door onto the gravel. He grunts and swears, a rumble I hear through his rib cage because my face is pressed against his shirt. My arms are wrapped around him, my hands locked in a death grip on the loose cloth at his shoulder blades. In the distance, I hear sirens wailing.

  "Fuck, lady! Are you crazy? Let me go!"

  We roll around in our absurd embrace. I am alternately beneath him, with gravel poking through my shirt and into the back of my head, and on top, with my knuckles bearing our combined weight. Finally, he starts swinging. Both my arms are still wrapped around him, so I cannot deflect. His fist makes contact first with my ear, and then with my chin, driving my teeth into my tongue. My mouth fills with blood.

  "Jean-Claude!" I scream again, and a moment later the man's bulk is lifted off me. I roll onto my back and scootch backward with my feet, instinctively wiping the blood from my face with the back of my hand.

  Behind me, the truck's engine has started and a voice shouts, "Paco, Paco! Vamanos!"

  But Paco is not going anywhere. Paco is up against the doorframe of the stable, held there by Jean-Claude, who has one hand around his throat and is pressing the tines of a pitchfork to his chest with the other.

  The man in the truck revs the engine until it's roaring.

  "Paco!" he shouts one last time. Then he dumps the clutch and rams into the passenger door of my car. The two vehicles meet with a screeching moan, almost like whale-song, and then my car is moving in front of the truck, pushed along by its nose. After nearly twenty feet, it drops by the wayside and sits rocking on its shocks. I see a light come on in the house and then the flashing lights of one, two, three police cars wailing down the drive.

  The man in the truck throws his door open and bails. He hits the ground hard, taking his weight on his shoulder. When he regains his feet he staggers a few strides before rolling over the fence and lurching toward the forest.

/>   The cruisers slide to a stop in front of the truck. Behind them, I see Mutti's tiny form running down the drive.

  And then I know it's all over. Really all over, and I've been hoisted on my own petard.

  It takes the police an hour and a half to take everyone's statements, not to mention collecting the second man with the help of their canine unit. After they leave, I sit at the kitchen table dabbing my chin with a cloth napkin. My ear is ringing like hell.

  "I assume Eva is still in Minneapolis?" Mutti says, handing me a bag of frozen peas.

  "Yes," I say, pressing the peas to my jaw. I pull the bag back and look at it, and then wrap it in the napkin.

  "When is she coming back?"

  "I'm not sure that she is."

  "What?" Mutti's face blackens. "She's going to miss her Opa's funeral?"

  "It's me. She doesn't want anything to do with me."

  Mutti flashes me a look. Finally she says, "It's because of that boy, isn't it?"

  I glare at my coffee.

  "He's a good boy, you know. A nice boy."

  "Yes, Mutti. I know that now, don't I? I messed everything up. It's all my fault. I know that. I admit it. And now I'm trying to fix it."

  I cross the kitchen and put the peas back in the freezer. Mutti follows me with her eyes. I pause to rinse my hands, and then turn to face her.

  "When is the funeral?" I ask.

  "Monday."

  "Monday!" I look up sharply. "But that's so...Isn't that late?"

  "It was delayed by the autopsy."

  A silence, in which we both think the same terrible thing. It reminds me of right after I learned that Harry was dead, when all I could think about was what was happening to his body.

  "Monday," I repeat gloomily. I don't even have a black dress.

  I look at Mutti, who is tapping one bony finger on the table.

  "I'm going to try to get her back in time for Pappa's funeral. For now, that's the best I can do. Believe it or not, it means as much to me as it does to you."

  My eyes fill with tears, but hers are as clear as the arctic sky. I cross the kitchen again, under her scrutiny, and am about to exit to the hallway when she calls to me.

  "Annemarie, I have something to ask you."

  I stop, still facing the hallway. "What is it?"

  "Did you have anything to do with what happened tonight?"

  "What? No, of course not. I'm the one who called the cops. You heard my statement. Why would you say something like that?"

  "You know exactly why."

  "No, I don't," I sputter indignantly.

  "You thought I wouldn't notice that he's not striped anymore? You're up to something Annemarie, and I want to know what it is."

  In fact, it never crossed my mind that she'd notice the dye job. That's how rational I've been. I have no answer for her.

  "It's time for you to start telling the truth," she says, her voice rising headlong into anger.

  And so I do. At the end of it, she drops her head into her hands.

  "Mutti?" I take a tentative step forward.

  "Just go," she says without looking up. "Go to bed, Annemarie. It's late, and I need some time to think."

  Sleep is, of course, completely out of the question. At some point I give up and creep down to the living room to watch Peter Sellers movies and Gilligan's Island reruns.

  Shortly after sunrise, I hear the dining-room door open, and then, a few minutes later, the gurgling of coffee. I wait until Mutti has gone back into the dining room before getting a cup. Then I take it up to my room.

  I have no idea what I'm going to do today, but I'm too anxious to be still. I'm almost certainly not wanted at the stable--presumably Mutti has taken over as manager again, and I can see from the cars in the lot that she's persuaded the stable hands to come back. There's nothing else to do around here, and as for going into town--I don't even know if my car still runs.

  By late morning, the place is crawling with cops. There's one car stationed at the end of our drive, by the road, and two more at the stable. From my bedroom window, I can see them putting up yellow tape, blocking the entrances. I run down the stairs and press my face to the kitchen window. Jean-Claude is stalking up the drive, his face like thunder.

  He climbs up the porch and throws the door open, hard.

  "What is it? What's going on?" I demand, searching his face.

  He turns to look at me. His right eye is purple. "An 'investigation,'" he says with disgust. "They are insisting that we cancel all the lessons."

  "What? For how long?" I ask, but he just grabs a file from the bookshelf and leaves, slamming the door behind him.

  I slide on the gardening clogs by the back door and jog to the stable. Mutti must have seen me coming, because she exits the stable just as I arrive. She walks toward me with both hands extended, preventing my progress.

  "Go back to the house," she says quickly.

  "What's going on? What do they want?" I crane my neck, trying to see around her.

  Mutti grabs my face in both her hands and forces me to look into her eyes. "Annemarie," she says, each word a sentence. "Go home."

  I spend the day going from one window to another, watching the goings-on at the stable and the entrance to our farm. The police stationed at the entrance turn away about a half dozen cars, presumably students that Jean-Claude didn't reach in time. In the early afternoon, a white Dodge Neon turns into the drive, and after a short window-to-window conference with the police car, makes its way to the stable. Two men and a woman emerge. The woman stretches her arms over her head and then turns to study first my sorry car, then the outdoor arenas, the house, and the trailers behind the parking lot. After she drops her arms, she leans through the open passenger window and retrieves a binder. A uniformed officer meets them and leads them into the stable.

  After forty minutes, they leave again. Shortly thereafter, the hands start turning out the horses. All except Hurrah.

  Just before we would normally have dinner, a cop walks up the drive toward the house.

  I let the lace curtain fall, and then go to the living room to wait for his knock. Then I let a few seconds pass before I open the door.

  "Annemarie Zimmer?" he says.

  "Yes," I say, sticking my face in the crack of the door.

  "Detective Samosa of Kilkenny PD," he says, flashing a badge. "I need you to come to the station to answer some questions."

  "But I gave a statement last night."

  "Yes you did. But you neglected to mention that you're housing a horse on which an insurance company has paid out a one-and-a-quarter-million-dollar mortality policy. A horse that appears to have been disguised."

  I stare into his square-jawed face.

  After a few seconds, he adds, "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way."

  "What's the difference?" I ask.

  "The easy way is you cooperate and get to drive your own car." He pauses. "The hard way is that I arrest you and you ride in the back of the cruiser."

  I feel my lips tighten into a straight line.

  He crosses his arms. "Well?"

  "Can you wait and see if my car runs?" I ask.

  Chapter 19

  The room is dingy, like a conference room at a cheap hotel. The walls are plain, with white boards on two of them. There is a white laminate table with a tape recorder in the center, six quasi-office chairs, and bright fluorescent lighting that renders Detective Samosa's complexion splotchy and very nearly green.

  I know how it's going to be as soon as we start, because Detectives Samosa and Freakley come in with coffee for themselves and none for me.

  They sit opposite me, looking over notes and sipping their coffee. It seems calculatedly slow. Eventually the blond one--Detective Freakley, who evidently made up for daily beatings in high school by working out eighteen times a week--leans forward and presses the RECORD button with a beefy finger. I stare at the tape recorder and then at him.

  "Can you please stat
e your name," he says, leaning back in his chair.

  "Annemarie Costanze Zimmer."

  "Please state your address."

  "I live at Maple Brook farm, off Route Forty-one, south of Ninety-seven."

  "What is your place of work?"

  "The same. I'm the manager of our family's riding school."

  "Are you in charge of the daily care of the horses?"

  "I supervise it."

  "Are you in charge of the acquisition of horses?"

  "I'm responsible for those owned by the stable, yes."

  Throughout all this, both detectives have sat leaning back in their chairs, their notepads on the table. Now Freakley picks his pen out of his shirt pocket.

  "Tell us how you came to have possession of the horse in stall thirteen," he says, looking at his notepad. His face bears the scars of deep acne, and I can't help noticing that the end of his pen has been chewed.

  "I adopted him from a horse rescue center."

  "Dan Garibaldi's place?"

  "Yes."

  Freakley pauses to write something.

  "When was that?"

  "Not sure of the exact date. Near the middle of May. I have the papers at home."

  "And what did he look like at that time?"

  "What do you mean?"

  Freakley glances over at Samosa. "Did the horse have any distinguishing markings at that time?"

  "Well, he had only one eye."

  "Anything else?"

  I don't answer. My eyes flit to the spinning reels of the tape recorder.

  "What is your relationship with Dan Garibaldi?" asks Samosa, taking over for Freakley.

  Again, I don't say anything, but this time it's because I don't know the answer. My face starts to burn.

  "What is your connection with Ian McCullough?" Samosa continues, leaning forward and resting both elbows on the table.

  I lean back instinctively. "There is no connection."

  "Are you saying you don't know him?"

  "No, I know him. I rode against him a lot, but that was twenty years ago. I haven't had anything to do with him since."

  "Is that a fact," says Samosa, phrasing it as a statement rather than a question.

  "Yes, it is," I answer.