"But the owner stands to pick up a big check from the insurance, right?"
"If the insurance company decides to pay, which is unlikely now."
"Would you have gotten a cut of that money?"
Jade stood again. "I'm leaving now."
"What time did you leave Players last night?"
"Around eleven."
"Where did you go?"
"Home. To bed."
"You didn't swing by the show grounds, check on your horses?"
"No."
"Not even after what went on the night before? You weren't worried?"
"Paris had night check last night."
"And she didn't notice anything wrong? She didn't see the vandalism?"
"Obviously, she was there before it happened."
"So, you went home to bed. Alone?"
"No."
"Same friend as Thursday night?"
Jade sighed again and looked at the wall.
"Look, Don," Landry confided, rising from his chair. "You need to tell me. This is serious business. This isn't just some nags running around in the middle of the night. A girl is dead. I realize in your world, she might not have counted for much, but in my world, murder is a big deal. Everyone who knew her and had a problem with her is going to have to account for their whereabouts. If you have a corroborating witness, you'd better say so or I'm going to end up wasting a lot more of your valuable time."
He thought Jade might let his arrogance get the best of him and just walk out. But he wasn't a stupid man. Landry imagined the guy's mind sorting information like a computer. Finally he said, "Susannah Atwood. She's a client. I would appreciate if you didn't mention this to any of my other clients."
"Everybody wants to be the trainer's pet?" Landry said. "That's quite a gig you've got going, Don. Ride the horses, ride the owners too."
Jade went for the door.
"I'll need her address and phone number, and the name and number for Jill Morone's next of kin," Landry said.
"Ask Paris. She takes care of my details."
His details, Landry thought, watching him go. That was what a young girl's life came down to for Don Jade: details.
"Thank you for your time, Mr. Jade."
J ade needs to run his business differently," Van Zandt pronounced.
We stood alone along the rail of one of the competition rings, watching a pint-sized rider take her pony over a course of small, elaborately decorated fences. Both girl and pony wore expressions of absolute concentration, eyes bright with determination and the fire of competitive spirit. They were a team: girl and pony against the world.
I remembered that feeling well. Me and a bright copper pony called Party Manners. My very best friend and confidant. Even after I had outgrown him, I had taken all my troubles to Party and he had listened without prejudice. When he died at the ripe old age of twenty-five I mourned his loss more deeply than the loss of any person I had known.
"Are you listening to me?" Van Zandt asked peevishly.
"Yes. I thought you were making a rhetorical statement." I had offered to buy him lunch, he had declined. I had offered to buy milk shakes and he had told me they would make me fat. Asshole. I bought one anyway.
"Yes," I agreed. "Murder puts off potential clients."
Van Zandt scowled. "I am in no mood for your sense of humor."
"You think I was joking? One groom disappears. One turns up dead-"
"Disappears?" he said. "That one left."
"I don't think so, Z. The detective was asking about her."
He turned sharply and looked down his nose at me. "What did you tell him?"
"Nothing. I've never even met the girl. I'm just letting you know. He'll probably ask you too."
"I have nothing to say about her."
"You had a lot to say the other night. That she flirted with clients, that she had a smart mouth- Come to think of it, pretty much the same things you said about Jill. You know, you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, Z. Especially not when there's a detective in earshot."
"They have no right to question me."
"Of course they do. You knew both girls. And frankly, you didn't have a very good attitude toward either of them."
He puffed up in offense. "Are you accusing me?"
"Oh, for God's sake," I said, rolling my eyes. "Behave this way with the cops and they'll pin the murder on you out of spite. And I'll volunteer to push the plunger when they stick the needle in your arm."
"What are you talking about? What needle?"
"This is a death penalty state. Murder is a capital offense."
"That's barbaric," he said, highly offended.
"So is burying a girl in a pile of horseshit."
"And you think I could do such a terrible thing?" Now he put on his expression of hurt, as if he were being betrayed by a lifelong friend.
"I didn't say that."
"This is all because of that Russian whore-"
"Watch it, Van Zandt," I said, giving him a little temper back. "I happen to be fond of Irina."
He huffed and looked away. "Are you lovers?"
"No. Is that your attempt to offend me? Accuse me of being a lesbian?"
He made a kind of shrugging motion with his mouth.
"That's pathetic," I said. "I'll bet you say every woman who won't fuck you is a lesbian."
A hint of red came into his face, but he said nothing. The conversation was not going his way. Again.
"Not that it's any of your business," I informed him as the girl and the pony concluded their round and the spectators applauded, "but as it happens, I am happily heterosexual."
"I don't think happily."
"Why? Because I haven't had the pleasure of your company in my bed?"
"Because you never smile, Elle Stevens," he said. "I think you are not happy in your life."
"I'm not happy with you trying to get inside my head-or my pants."
"You have no sense of purpose," he announced. He was thinking he was back in control of the situation, that I would listen to him the way too many weak, lonely women listened to him. "You need to have a goal. Something to strive for. You are a person who likes a challenge and you don't have one."
"I wouldn't say that," I muttered. "Just having a conversation with you is a challenge."
He forced a laugh.
"You have a nerve, making presumptions about me," I said calmly. "You don't know a thing about me, really."
"I am a very good judge of people," he said. "I am a long time in the business of assessing people, knowing what they need."
"Maybe I should set solving Jill's murder as my goal," I said, turning the tables around on him again. "Or solving the disappearance of the other girl. I can start by interviewing you. When was the last time you saw Erin Seabright alive?"
"I was more thinking you need a horse to ride," he said, unamused.
"Come on, Z., play along," I needled. "You might start me on the path to a career. Did you hear her say she was going to quit, or is that just D.J.'s story? Inquiring minds want to know."
"You are giving me a headache."
"Maybe she was kidnapped," I said, pretending excitement, watching him carefully. "Maybe she's being held as a sex slave. What do you think of that?"
Van Zandt stared at me, his expression blank. I would have paid a fortune to know where his mind was at that moment. What was he imagining? Was he thinking about Erin, hidden away somewhere for his own perverse pleasure before he cashed in? Was he remembering Sasha Kulak? Was he considering me as his next victim?
His cell phone rang. He answered it and started conversing in fluent French. I sucked on my milk shake and eavesdropped.
Europeans generally make the correct assumption that Americans can barely speak their own language, let alone anyone else's. It never occurred to Van Zandt that I had an expensive education and a talent for languages. From listening to his side of the conversation, I gleaned that Van Zandt was cheating someone in a deal and was pissed off that they weren't being entirely cooperative pigeons. He told the person on the other end of the call to cancel the horse's transportation to the States. That would teach them they couldn't fuck with V.