"They set up another drop," Landry said. "With luck, we'll have the accomplice by the end of the day."
With luck.
"Where and when?" I asked.
He just looked at me, his eyes hidden by his sunglasses, his face like stone.
"Where and when?" I asked again, moving toward him.
"You can't be there, Elena."
I closed my eyes for a moment, knowing where this conversation was going to end. "You can't shut me out of this."
"It's not up to me. The lieutenant will run the show. You think he's going to let you ride along? Even if it was my call, you think I'd let you in after that stunt you pulled last night?"
"That stunt netted a torn, bloody shirt from a murder suspect."
"Which we don't have."
"That's not my fault."
"You got caught."
"None of that would have happened if you hadn't had to flex your muscles last night and take Van Zandt in when you did," I argued. "I might have gotten something out of him over dinner. You could have had him afterward, after the autopsy. You could have held him, gotten the warrant, found the shirt yourself. But no. You couldn't play it that way, and now this guy is running around loose-"
"Oh, it's my fault you broke into that house," Landry said, incredulous. "And I suppose it was Ramirez's fault he walked in front of that bullet."
I heard myself gasp as if he had slapped me. My instinct was to step back. Somehow, I managed not to.
We stood there staring at each other for a long, horrible moment, the weight of his words hanging in the air. Then I turned, very deliberately, and went back to D'Artagnon to put on his other boot.
"Jesus," Landry murmured. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
I didn't say anything. My focus was on tightening the boot straps just so, aligning them perfectly.
"I'm sorry," he said again as I stood. "You just make me so goddam mad-"
"Don't put this on me," I said, turning to face him. "I'm carrying enough guilt without taking on yours too."
He looked away, ashamed of himself. I could have done without the small victory. The price for it had been too high.
"You're a son of a bitch, Landry," I said, but not with any strong emotion. I could have as easily said, you have short hair. It was a simple statement of fact.
He nodded. "Yeah. I am. I can be."
"Don't you have a ransom drop to arrange? I've got a horse to ride."
I took D'Ar's bridle down from the hook and went to put it on him. Landry didn't move.
"I have to ask you a question," he said. "Do you think Don Jade could be Van Zandt's partner in this? In the kidnapping?"
I thought about that. "Van Zandt and Jade were both connected to Stellar-the horse that was killed. They both stand to make a lot of money if Trey Hughes buys this jumper from Belgium."
"So, they're partners of a sort."
"Of a sort. Jade wanted rid of Jill Morone-maybe because she was lazy and stupid, or maybe because she knew something about Stellar. Erin Seabright was Stellar's personal groom. She might have known something too. Why? Do you have something on Jade?"
He debated whether or not to tell me. Finally, he drew a deep breath and let it out, and lied to me. I could feel it. I could see it in the way his eyes went flat and blank. Cop eyes. "I'm just trying to connect the dots," he said. "There are too many coincidences for this not all to be tied together."
I shook my head and smiled my bitter, ironic half smile, and thought of Sean's matchmaking talk. Oh, yeah. Me and Landry. A match made in hell.
"So what came out in the autopsy?" I asked again. "Or is that a state secret too?"
"She suffocated."
"Was she raped?"
"My personal feeling: he tried to rape her and couldn't get the job done. He had her facedown in that stall, and she suffocated while he was trying. She aspirated vomit and horse manure."
"God. Poor girl." To die like that, and not one person she'd known here mourned her.
"Or the rape attempt was staged," Landry said. "No semen anywhere."
"Anything under her nails?"
"Not so much as a flake of skin."
I finished doing up the buckles on the bridle, turned and looked at him. "He cleaned her fingernails?"
Landry shrugged. "Maybe he's not as dumb as he seems."
"That's a learned behavior," I said. "That's not: oops, I've accidentally suffocated this girl and now I have to panic. That's an MO. He's done this before."
"I'm already running it as an MO through the VICAP database, and I've got a call in to Interpol and to the Belgian authorities for similar cases."
My thoughts were already on what it could mean for Erin if she was in the hands not of a kidnapper whose only motive was money, but of a serial killer whose dark motive was his own.
"That's why they have a file on him," I said more to myself than to Landry. "That bullshit about his business practices-I knew that didn't add up to Interpol involvement. Armedgian, you son of a bitch," I muttered.
"Who's Armedgian?"
The Interpol information had been filtered through him. If I was right, and Van Zandt had a documented history as a predator, my good friend at the FBI had kept that information to himself. And I knew why. Because I wasn't part of the club anymore.
"Have the feds been in contact with your office?" I asked.
"Not that I'm aware of."
"I hope that means I'm wrong, not just that they're assholes."
"Oh, they're assholes," Landry pronounced. "And if they try to horn in on my case, they'll each have a new one."
He looked at his watch. "I've got to go. We're executing a search warrant at Morone's and Seabright's apartments. See if there's anything that might point us in a direction."
"You'll find a lot of Erin's personal effects in Jill's apartment," I said, taking my horse by the reins.
"How do you know that?"
"Because in the photograph I have of Erin, she's wearing the blouse Jill Morone died in. That's why it looked like Erin had moved out-Jill stole everything."
I led D'Artagnon out of the barn to the mounting block, leaving Landry to see himself out. From the corner of my eye, I could see him just standing there with his hands on his hips, looking at me. Behind him, the door to the lounge opened and Irina emerged in ice blue silk pajamas, coffee mug in hand. She gave Landry a scathing look as she glided past on her way to the stairs to her apartment. He didn't notice.
I got on my horse and we walked away to the arena. I don't know how long Landry stayed. As I took up the reins, I cleared the detritus of our encounter from my mind. I breathed in the scent of the horse, felt the sun warm my skin, listened to the jazz guitar of Marc Antoine coming over the arena speakers. I was there to cleanse myself, to center my being, to feel the comfort of familiar muscles working and the trickle of sweat between my shoulder blades. If I hadn't earned a moment of peace, I was going to take one anyway.
By the time I had finished, Landry was gone. Someone else had come to call.
Tomas Van Zandt.
29
So she was the dead person they found at the show grounds?"
Landry looked sideways at the old lady. She was wearing pink tights, an off-the-shoulder sweater, and furry bedroom slippers. She held a hugely fat orange cat in her arms. The cat looked like it would bite.
"I really can't say, ma'am," Landry said, looking around the tiny apartment. The place was a dump. And filthy. And it looked like it had been tossed. "Has anyone been in here since Friday evening?"