Elena Estes - Dark Horse Part 29

fact I'm only to blame for two-thirds of them."

He looked at me for a moment that stretched on. I wanted to turn away or move, but I didn't.

"So, did Jade have an alibi for last night?" I asked.

"A woman. A client. Susannah Atwood."

"She confirmed?"

He nodded.

"And did she have anyone to corroborate her story?"

He rolled his eyes. "Sure. Jade. Why? Do you know her?"

"I know of her. Sean knows her. She has a reputation as a social dragonfly."

"Don't you mean b.u.t.terfly?"

"No."

He raised his brows.

"I know her type," I said. "Susannah might just think providing an alibi to a murderer is the oral s.e.x of the

new millennium. I wouldn't trust her. Then again, I don't trust anyone."

I checked my watch and moved away from the counter. "I'm going to throw you out now, Landry. I've

got a dinner date with the devil."

"Which one?"

"Van Zandt."

As I went in search of a pair of shoes, I told him what I'd learned through Sean and through Interpol via

Armedgian. I had told Van Zandt I would meet him at The Players at eight. I had wisely declined his offer

to pick me up.

Landry stood staring into the closet, hands on his hips. "You're telling me you think this guy could be as.e.xual predator, but you're going out to dinner with him?" "Yes." "What if he killed Jill Morone? What if he's got Erin stashed somewhere?" "Hopefully, I'll learn something to help nail him." "Are you on crack?" he asked, incredulous. "Are you stupid?" "He won't try to pull anything with me," I said, coming out of the closet one heel on, one in hand. "First: He knows he doesn't scare me and can't control me. Second: He thinks I'm worth money to him as aclient, not as a victim." "And if he's just a f.u.c.king pervert who wants to rape you and slit your throat?"

"Then I will have made a gross misjudgment of his character-which I haven't." "Estes, he may have killed that girl last night, for all you know. He lied about seeing her. He was there atThe Players. The bartender and the waitress said he was there, drooling all over the girl. We'd havehauled him in by now, but we don't know where he is."

"What time did he leave the bar?"

"No one could say for certain."

"So pull him in and rake him over the coals if you want," I said. I stepped into the bathroom and looked

at my hair. There was nothing to be done about it. "I'll gladly spend the evening in the tub reading a

book. But if he's got Erin stashed somewhere, he's sure as h.e.l.l not going to tell you about it." "And you think he'll just up and tell you?" Landry asked, blocking the doorway. "Like that's some kindof smooth line: wanna come back to my place and see the girl I kidnapped? Jesus Christ!"

"So tail us! What are you getting so upset about?"

He shook his head and turned around in a circle, moving back into the bedroom. "This is why I don't

want you involved in this," he said, pointing at me as I came out of the bathroom. "You've got your ownagenda, you run off half-c.o.c.ked-" "So look the other way," I said, pushing his finger out of my face, my temper rising. "I'm a private citizen, Landry. I don't need your permission and I don't need your approval. If I turn up dead, you'll know who to arrest. I'll make your f.u.c.king case for you. You'll be a hero in the Sheriff's Office-getting rid of me and catching a killer all in one fell swoop."

"It's not my job to let you get yourself killed!" he shouted.

"Believe me, if I haven't done the job myself by now, I'm not about to let some hump like Van Zandt do it for me." We were nearly nose to nose, the air in the scant inches between us charged with electricity. Landry held whatever it was he wanted to say tight in his chest. Maybe he was counting to ten. Maybe it was all he could do to keep from strangling me with his bare hands. I didn't know what he was thinking. I was thinking I was standing too d.a.m.n close to him.

"I was good too, Landry," I said quietly. "On the job. I know that's not what anyone wants to remember about me, but I was good. You'd be a fool not to take advantage of that."

Another eternity came and went. We stood there staring at each other like a couple of angry porcupines -all defenses up. Landry blinked first and took a step back. I thought I should have been proud of that, but what I felt was more like disappointment.

"Van Zandt wants to impress me," I said. I went back into the closet and found a small clutch purse to stash my microca.s.sette recorder in. "He wants to come across like a hotshot, but his mouth is bigger than his brain. I can get him to say things he shouldn't. I'll tape the conversation. I'll call you after."

"After what?" he asked pointedly.

"After coffee," I said. "I draw the line at prost.i.tuting myself. Glad you have such a high opinion of me, though."

"I'm glad you have a line," he muttered.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialed a number, and stood staring at me while he waited for someone to pick up on the other end. I knew what he was doing. A part of me wanted to ask him not to, despite what I'd said earlier. But I wouldn't allow it. I had come as close to begging as I was going to.

"Weiss. Landry. Van Zandt is at The Players. Pick him up."

Never taking his eyes off me, he put the phone back in his pocket. "Thanks for the tip."

I wanted to tell him to go to h.e.l.l, but I didn't trust my voice. It felt like I had a hard, hot rock stuck in my throat. I much preferred feeling nothing, caring about nothing but getting from one day to the next-and not caring very much about that. If you have no expectations, no purpose, no goal, you can't be disappointed, you can't feel hurt.

Landry turned and walked out, taking the information I'd given him, taking my plans for the evening with him, taking my hope to make a break in the case. I felt like a fool. I thought he had come to me to include me, but all he had wanted was to absolve his conscience. The case was his case. He owned it.

"Thanks for the tip."

I paced the house, trying to shove back the emotions crowding in on me. I needed to do something. I needed a new plan. I wasn't going to sit home with all these feelings to contemplate, and I didn't have a good book to take to the bathtub.

An idea began to take shape in my mind. Before it was more than an embryo, I had changed clothes and was out the door.

My life would have been easier if I had gone to Barnes & n.o.ble.

Lorinda Carlton's Wellington address was a town house on Sag Harbor Court. Unless Van Zandt made a revelation during his interview with Landry, there was not probable cause for a warrant to search the premises. But if Van Zandt had been involved in Erin's kidnapping or Jill's murder, and had kept a souvenir, there was a good chance he would get rid of it as soon as he came back to the town house.

I parked in a visitor's slot at the end of the block of buildings where Carlton's unit was located. Half the places on the block had lights on, but there was no activity going on outdoors. No friendly neighbors sitting on their front stoop, watching Sat.u.r.day night go by.

Because of the nature of Wellington and the winter show season, rentals experience a big turnover of tenants every year. While some of the horse people own homes, many find themselves in a different apartment every winter. The nature of horse people being what it is, the accommodations for their horses are arranged first, accommodations for themselves often wait until the last minute. The town house and apartment complexes consequently do not have a strong feeling of community.

Carlton's unit was on the far end of the dead-end street and completely dark. I peered in the sidelight at the front door, looking for a security system panel. If there was one, it was located out of my limited range of sight. If there was an alarm and I tripped it, I was in a bad position to get back to my car. I would have to find a way to make my escape through or over the tall hedge that ran along the end of the complex, hoping that no one would see me, then double back around later to get my car.

With that much of a plan in mind, I slipped a couple of picks out of my coat pocket and went to work on the front door lock. Any casual pa.s.serby would be far less suspicious of someone unlocking a front door than trying to sneak in the back. I could always shrug and say I'd lost my key, make up a story about how I was in for the weekend to see my friend Van Zandt, who had rudely forgotten about me.

I held my breath as I worked the picks in the lock. Lock picking is not a skill taught at the police academy. I learned it from a groom when I was eleven years old. Bobby Bennet had spent many years working the south Florida racetracks until an unfortunate misunderstanding about a burglary had landed him in prison for three to five. He claimed to have mended his wicked ways after he got out, but he had retained his old skills and pa.s.sed them on to me because I was a pest and he got a kick out of me.

I thanked G.o.d for Bobby Bennet as the lock's tumblers fell into place. My heart was still thumping as I opened the door and went inside. Many security systems allow entry with a key, but then require the proper code to be entered on the keypad within a minute or two or the alarm sounds both within the house and with whatever agency the system is connected to, whether it be a private security company or the Sheriff's Office.

I found the system control panel on the wall adjacent to the hinged side of the door. A small green light declared the system unarmed.

Relieved, I moved on about my business. I flipped on a table lamp in the living room. Any neighbors bothering to notice the lights on would simply a.s.sume the person in the town house was the person who was supposed to be in the town house, because what thief would turn the lights on?

The place was vaguely shabby and smelled of stale dog. The carpet had been white once. So had the fake leather sofas that were now cracked and dingy. Van Zandt needed to get a wealthier client to put him up free of charge. He probably had Sean in mind for that. He was probably already scheming to get the guest house next season.

I pa.s.sed through the galley kitchen, doing a cursory check of drawers and cupboards. Nothing but the usual a.s.sortment of mismatched utensils, cereal boxes, and laundry soap. He liked Heineken beer and orange juice with extra pulp. There were no amputated body parts in the refrigerator or freezer. A small load of laundry lay clean, dry, and wrinkled in the dryer. Slacks, socks, and underwear. As if he had undressed and thrown everything into the washing machine together. Except that there was no shirt. I wondered why.

The living room offered nothing of interest. A collection of videos in the TV cabinet. Science fiction and romances. Lorinda Carlton's, I a.s.sumed. I couldn't picture Van Zandt sitting through t.i.tanic, weeping as Leonardo DiCaprio went under for the third time. There was no sign of the video camera he had brought to Sean's.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, where the bedrooms were located-one small and decorated with dog toys, one a master with cheesy laminated furnishings. This room smelled of Van Zandt's cologne. The bed was made, his clothes were put away neatly in the closet and in the drawers. He might have made some woman a good husband if not for those unfortunate sociopathic and misogynistic tendencies.

The video camera was in the closet, sitting on the floor beside a row of shoes. I opened the leather case and looked through the tapes, all of them labeled with the names of sale horses. Van Zandt would tape the horses, then copy the tapes (judiciously edited to show only the best traits of each horse) for prospective buyers to preview. I popped one of the VHSC ca.s.sette tapes into the camera, rewound it, and hit the play b.u.t.ton. A gray horse appeared on the viewing screen, going over a series of jumps. Good form. The tape fuzzed out, then refocused, and a chestnut came into view. I hit the stop b.u.t.ton and swapped tapes. More of the same. Van Zandt managed to get not only film of the horse in question, but also a smiling shot of some sweet young thing attached to the horse in some way or another. Rider or groom or owner. Cause for an eye roll, not alarm.

On the third tape I found Paris Montgomery astride a black gelding with a white star on his forehead. Stellar.

It broke my heart to watch him perform. He was a handsome animal with a mischievous sparkle in his eye and a habit of flipping his tail up like a flag as he jumped. He went to the fences with enthusiasm, but there wasn't a lot of spring in his jump and he didn't always get his hind legs out of the way in time to miss brushing the top rail of the fence. But I could see the will in him, the heart Dr. Dean had spoken of. When Stellar knocked a rail he pinned his ears and shook his head as he landed, as if angry with himself for not doing better. He had a lot of "try," as horse people say, but it took more than try to win at the elite level or be sold at an elite price.

Behind the camera, Van Zandt clearly became bored with the horse. There were far too many close-ups of Paris and her model's smile. I wondered just how close they were, whether or not Paris Montgomery drew the same line I did when it came to getting what she wanted from a man.

Then came one long shot of a girl holding Stellar by the reins, posing the riderless animal for a side view. Erin Seabright in a skin-fitting T-shirt and a pair of shorts that showed off slender, tan legs. Just as she got the horse positioned to best show him off, he b.u.t.ted her with his head and sent her staggering backwards, laughing. Pretty girl, pretty smile. She took hold of the horse's head and planted a kiss on his nose.

The tough, mouthy, bad girl. Not in this scene. I could see Erin's connection to the horse. I could see it in the way she spoke to him, the way she touched him, the way her hand lingered on his neck as she moved him. Knowing her family situation, it wasn't hard to imagine Erin felt closer to the horses she cared for than she did to most of the Seabright household. The horses didn't judge her, didn't criticize her, didn't let her down. The horses didn't know or care if she had broken rules. They only knew whether or not she was kind and patient, whether or not she brought them treats and knew where they liked to be scratched.

I knew these things about Erin Seabright because I had been Erin Seabright a lifetime ago. The girl who didn't fit the family mold, didn't want to live up to family expectations; the girl who chose acquaintances based on their objectionable qualities. Her only true friends lived in the stables.

The tape revealed more to me about Erin than it did about Van Zandt. I rewound it and watched Erin's part again, hoping I would have the opportunity to see her smile like that in person, though I knew even if I could get her out of this mess, it could be a very long time before she felt like smiling.

I swapped the tape for another and zoomed fast-forward through three more horses, then Sean and Tino popped up, and I let the tape play. The pair made a lovely picture as they moved around the arena. Sean was an excellent rider, strong, elegant, quiet and centered in his body. The brown gelding was lean and leggy and had a stylish way of going. The camera followed as they moved laterally across the ring toward the gazebo, diagonal pairs of legs crossing with the grace of a ballet dancer, the horse's body curving like a bow around Sean's leg. And then they went out of the frame.

The camera lingered on the gazebo, zooming in on Irina. She stared out of the picture with an expression of cold hatred, brought her cigarette to her lips, and blew the smoke right at the gla.s.s eye. It didn't seem to unnerve her that Van Zandt was watching her. It made my skin crawl. I wanted to go to Irina's apartment and lecture her on locking her door at night.

Elena Estes, Mother Hen.

I put the camera back where I had found it and went back into the bedroom, to the TV stand that housed another television and VCR. And a collection of p.o.r.n. Multiple girls with one guy. Multiple guys with one girl. Lesbian s.e.x. Lots of lesbian s.e.x. Gay men. Some of the movies looked like they might have been violent, most didn't.

An equal opportunity perv, our Mr. Van Zandt.

I searched the drawers of the dresser and nightstands. I looked under the bed and found dust bunnies and some petrified dog t.u.r.ds. Van Zandt's patron needed a new cleaning person.

I found no tapes related to Erin's kidnapping. I knew the kidnapper had to have them. The tape that had been sent to the Seabrights was a full-sized VHS tape. Most modern camcorders were either digital or recorded on eight millimeter or a small VHSC ca.s.sette like the ones in the closet. The tape would then have been copied via VCR onto the larger tape. The kidnapper had also had access to more sophisticated audio equipment than any I had seen in the town house. The voice on the tape had been mechanically altered. If Van Zandt was involved in the kidnapping, he had the tapes and recording equipment stashed elsewhere.