Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [5]
When he’d returned to the ranch, an imported luxury sedan was parked in front of the cottage, and the door to his bunkmate’s bedroom was closed. To avoid disturbing the man, Kerney had read quietly in his room for a few hours before turning in.
From the porch he could see a night watchman moving down a line of corrals where brood mares about to foal were kept under observation. Kerney strolled over to join him. In front of the office was a five-gallon bucket filled with horse biscuits. He stuffed some in his jacket pocket and caught up with the watchman. Even in the dim light he could tell the mares were pampered ladies. He fed biscuits to those who came up to the corral fences to greet him.
He wandered up and down the stalls that held the mares with their newborn foals. Workers, including a veterinarian checking on the expectant mothers, soon began arriving. Barn boys started cleaning stalls and filling feed bins. One young man raked a herringbone pattern in fresh sawdust that he’d spread down the center aisle.
After watching for a while, Kerney went back to the cottage. There was no sound of movement behind the other guest’s closed bedroom door. Hilt had told Kerney that the man had an early morning appointment with the owner, who personally handled the sale of all racing stock. Kerney knocked on the door to give the guy a wake-up call. He got no response, so he knocked again and called out. Still nothing.
He opened the door and turned on the light. Lying faceup on the duvet covering the bed was a man, probably in his late sixties. One look told Kerney the man was dead.
He stepped over to the body, checked for a pulse at the carotid artery to make sure, and backed out of the room, touching nothing else.
The last thing Kerney had expected to see was a dead body. He went to find Devin Hilt, knowing full well his morning would be shot as soon as the local cops showed up.
According to the California driver ’s license found on the body, the dead man was Clifford Spalding, age seventy-one, from Santa Barbara, a two-hour drive down the coast.
Sergeant Elena Lowrey of the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Department thought it quite likely the deceased had died of natural causes. There were no visible wounds to the body, no defensive marks, no signs of a struggle. But until the coroner agreed with her observations and the autopsy findings confirmed it, she would handle the call as a death due to unknown causes.
If everything looked copacetic, there might be no need to call out the detectives and the crime scene techs.
She stood at the foot of the bed for a minute and watched the coroner begin his examination before stripping off her gloves and exiting the cottage. Outside on the front lawn three men waited: Kevin Kerney, who’d discovered the body; Devin Hilt, who’d called 911; and Jeffery Jardin, the ranch owner.
Behind them, near the barn and stables, two employees, who looked to be Mexican nationals, worked at cleaning out a cooldown corral while keeping a wary eye on the proceedings.
Lowrey, who had an Anglo father and Mexican American mother, bet that neither man held a green card. She had no desire to pursue it. Her grandfather, a migrant worker, had been deported years ago because of a disorderly conduct conviction stemming from a clash with police at a farmworkers rally. He could never legally return to the States, although he did sneak in for occasional visits, especially when Ellie’s kid sister, the baby-producing sibling of the family, added another grandchild to the clan.
She stepped off the porch and spoke to Jardin. “Can I use the ranch office to take statements?”
Jardin, a man in his sixties who sported a great tan, a full head of hair, and a worried expression, nodded.
“Thanks,” Lowrey said, switching her attention to Kerney, whom she guessed to be around fifty, and good-looking for a man his age. He stood six-one, had a nice build and deep-set, pretty