Why the horse couldn’t sire fast runners was anybody’s guess. He had good speed and power. Bent low over Comeuppance’s neck, Kerney gave him his head for a full quarter-mile, enjoying every second of the ride. But he sensed that the horse was running under protest, with little enthusiasm. He slowed the stallion gently to a walk and circled the track, deliberately letting Lowrey cool her heels.
From phone calls he’d received, Kerney already knew that contact had not yet been made with Spalding’s wife. Both the state police and Detective Sergeant Ramona Pino, one of Kerney’s officers, had reported that the woman was away on a weekend trail-riding trip with friends somewhere in the Pecos Wilderness outside of Santa Fe.
At the stalls, he turned Comeuppance over to the stable hand, returned the borrowed helmet, and walked to the track railing where Lowrey waited.
She gave him a smile. “You ride well.”
Kerney nodded at the compliment.
“So what are you, a cowboy or a cop?”
“A little of one, more of the other,” Kerney replied.
Lowrey laughed. “In that order?”
Kerney nodded again.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a cop who kept racehorses as a hobby.”
“I don’t plan to race them, and it’s not a hobby.”
“Still, it must be expensive,” Lowrey said, the smile fixed on her face.
“Ask your question, Sergeant.”
“The last time I checked, police work wasn’t in the top ten high-income professions,” Lowrey countered.
Kerney stayed silent.
“How many horses do you own?”
“Right now, none. By the end of the day, probably four.”
“That’s interesting,” Lowrey said, her smile fading.
Kerney knew he had to give Lowrey more information or face her continued probes, starting with why a man who owned no horses would come to this ranch, at this particular time, to buy some animals.
“I own a small place outside Santa Fe,” he said, “and I’m partnering with my neighbors to breed cutting horses. Except for ones I’m looking to buy, they’ll supply the brood mares. I’m also fronting the costs for the stud horse and two geldings. We plan to start training the geldings as soon as possible.”
“On a ranch outside of Santa Fe,” Lowrey said.
“Yes.”
“I’ve never been there,” Lowrey said in a casual tone, “but I’ve heard it’s where the rich people like to go and play.”
“It’s one of those places,” Kerney said. “Let me answer some of the other questions you haven’t asked me yet. How can I afford a ranch outside of Santa Fe? I came into a sizable inheritance several years back. Do I live anywhere near Mrs. Spalding? I know all my neighbors and she’s not one of them. Why did I come to this ranch to buy horses? My partner suggested it. Some of the finest cutting horses in the country have been bred here.”
Lowrey laughed and turned to face the track, where a trainer was running a frisky two-year-old. “You don’t like being the subject of an inquiry.”
“Would you?”
“Probably not. Are you going home tomorrow?”
“That’s the plan,” Kerney replied.
“Maybe I’ll have to come see you in Santa Fe,” Lowrey said as she returned her gaze to Kerney.
“That would be a waste of your time.”
“You haven’t asked me if Mrs. Spalding has been advised of her husband’s death.”
“I figured you’d tell me if she had been.”
“Of course I would.” She handed Kerney a business card. “Call me if you’d like to get anything off your chest.”
Lowrey stepped away in the direction of her police cruiser. Kerney stuffed her card in his shirt pocket. Clearly, the sergeant was just doing her job, and doing it very well. But that didn’t ease the irritation he felt at being treated like a suspect.
He laughed at himself. No matter what Lowrey thought, he had nothing to worry about. He went to take a closer look at one of the four geldings. It seemed a bit shallow in the flank and somewhat razor-backed, which wouldn’t do at all.
In her unit, Ellie Lowrey checked with Price by radio on the status of the autopsy and learned it was still under way. She decided to drive to Los Osos and get a firsthand report from the pathologist. She had deliberately given Chief Kerney the impression that he’d be free to go back to Santa Fe tomorrow. But that depended on what the doctor had to say.
Ellie knew she was operating solely on her intuition. But coincidence was always questionable in a criminal investigation. Happenstance, fate, and chance were often used by subjects to camouflage the truth.
She pondered a scenario. Kerney lived in the same town as Spalding’s wife. Both of them were apart from their spouses a good deal of the time. Kerney, who owned no horses, came to California to buy stock at the same time Clifford Spalding was at the ranch. They shared accommodations, which allowed Kerney to conveniently find Spalding dead in his bedroom in the morning.
According to Jeffery Jardin, Spalding had never stayed at the ranch before, and had arrived surreptitiously to buy a horse as a surprise anniversary present for his wife. Did Claudia Spalding know Clifford’s whereabouts? Wives often have a way of keeping track of husbands.
And what about Kerney? Who better to orchestrate a crime than an experienced cop? Who better to stage a death that looked natural, leave no evidence behind, and have plausible explanations at hand?
Motive, opportunity, and means made up the three major components of any criminal investigation. So far, all she had for sure was opportunity, and a lurking suspicion that perhaps Kerney and Claudia Spalding were lovers who’d plotted and carried out a murder. But why?
She’d watched Kerney carefully, and he hadn’t shown any nonverbal signs of lying. But cops, the good ones anyway, were masters at lying. A lot of dirtbags were in the slam because of well-formulated, totally believable lies told to them by police officers.
Ellie tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. Was she completely off base? She hoped the autopsy would answer the question one way or the other.
She reached the mortuary in Los Osos, and the thought struck her that calling such places funeral homes was totally incongruous. If you were there to get buried, you were about as far away from home as you were ever going to get.
Inside, she found Price moving the body from the autopsy table to a gurney. “Where’s Doc?” Ellie asked.
“He left,” Price answered.
“And?”
Price shook his head as he covered the body. “It looks like straightforward heart failure. But Doc said he’d have the lab run exhaustive blood and chem tests, just as you asked. He’s particularly interested in learning what the levels were for the hormone replacement medication.”
“Did he say why?” Ellie asked.
Price laughed as he pushed the gurney into an open locker and closed it up. “For two reasons: to keep you happy, and to see if the drug may have contributed to the death. Spalding’s heart blew a valve and the muscles showed signs of fairly rapid and recent deterioration.”
“Getting the lab results could take several days.”
Price hosed down the autopsy table, stripped off the bloody gown and gloves, and dumped them in a hamper. “Not much we can do about it,” he said.
In his late fifties, Price had a fatherly air about him that always calmed Ellie down. Maybe she’d pushed the investigation as far as she could for the time being.
She gave Price a resigned smile and nodded. “Do you think I’m wrong about this one?”
Price responded with a shrug of a shoulder and a grin. “I’ve learned never to bet against you, Sarge.”
Ellie’s smile turned mischievous.
“What are you thinking?” Price asked.
“Did you do a plain-view search of the cottage?” she asked.
“No, just the bedroom.”
“I took a quick tour around the other rooms,” Ellie said, “and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe we should go back there and look again, this time more carefully. Perhaps Chief Kerney will let us search his personal property.”