Wild Honey (11 page)

Had he washed a scrape and applied some antiseptic while he was in his camper? Had he bandaged an Ace-induced abrasion? While she'd been laughing at Jen and Darrell, had he slipped into the barn, discovered the injured mustang, then called a federal marshal to come arrest her?

Sam took such a deep breath, and exhaled so loudly, that Jen frowned at her.

“What?” Jen asked.

“You know,” Sam responded, and Jen's understanding nod said she did.

This nerve-racking day was going on way too long.

“Lieutenant Preston, can you—” Katie Sterling started to say.

“Just Preston,” he corrected her.

Katie nodded, but kept talking. “—tell us any more about the horse theft ring you're trying to break up? As I mentioned, we have a commercial stable, so…”

“
Trying
is sort of the key word. Honey was stolen two years ago and—well, I've got to back up a bit for
this all to make sense.” He looked around a bit awkwardly. “Sure you want to hear the whole story?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Allen said. Then, Barbara Ridge's “You bet,” overlapped Jake's “Sure.”

“Okay,” Preston said, satisfied. “The Fairfield Police Department had an agreement to use the university's agriculture department corrals. Campus police patrolled a little extra for us in exchange for some in-service training a couple times a year. That only matters because whoever took Honey got past the campus police.”

“Did they get all the police horses?” Jen asked.

“No, they almost got Spanky. He was a big bay and there was a trick to loading him. We found him wandering near the freeway. The others were spooked, but still locked up. Honey's stall was open and she was gone. She was always an easy loader,” he said wistfully.

“What did she look like?” Mrs. Allen interrupted.

The man clearly didn't mind being sidetracked from his story.

“She was a beauty,” he said. “A Quarter Horse built for speed and endurance. She'd be about ten, now, in her prime. She was rare among police horses—being both a mare and a palomino—so she had to work harder to be taken seriously. But she did it.”

From nearby, Nightingale whinnied to the captive mustangs. A raspy neigh, probably Roman's, answered, before Preston went on.

“If they'd gotten all six police horses, we probably could've hung in there a little longer, spent more time and money on our investigation, but we had nothin' except the ransom note until—”

“They sent a ransom note to a police department?” Darrell yelped.

“Kinda ironic, isn't it?” Preston asked. “I mean, we're not gonna pay it, and it puts a piece of evidence in our hands.” He drew a deep breath. “Not that it helped until we got two breaks.”

Sam saw the volunteers lean forward as if they were listening to a ghost story around a campfire.

“A Fell driving pony was stolen from a Washington, D.C., horse trailer. A ransom note was sent on this one, too, but the owner just happened to be a congressman's wife. The heat was pretty intense to solve that case. That's why we heard about it out in California, and we thought, huh, another horse stolen, another ransom note sent. This could be our guy.

“The case got such publicity, a few other victims finally stepped up. We heard about an American Saddlebred stallion stolen in Providence, Rhode Island, and two Arabian mares from Scottsdale, Arizona.”

“Did the owners pay?” Mrs. Allen asked.

“All except the senator's wife,” Preston said, nodding. “But the animals weren't returned.”

Disappointed sighs came from all around. Sam
knew one of them was hers.

“And the horses, were they ever found?” Dr. Yung asked gingerly.

“Actually,” Preston said, “some were.”

“Really?” Jen said solemnly. “I would have thought—”

“The Fell pony was found on the beach at Chincoteague Island, as if someone was trying to get him out to Assateague among the wild ponies, and the two Arab mares surfaced together at a breeders sale in London, Ohio, after they were found together in an urban park.”

“Does that mean”—Mr. Martinez seemed to pick through his own ideas—“that the thief wants the money, won't risk returning the horses, and yet is too softhearted to destroy them?” He shook his head, as if his theory was absurd.

“That's what we're trying to figure out,” Sheriff Ballard said. “It's a mystery.”

It was a mystery, but something about the story was familiar to Sam. Did the thefts remind her of Hotspot's disappearance? Not the ransom note, because there'd been no demand for money when Linc Slocum's Appaloosa disappeared. Not the soft-hearted thief. Although Sam thought it had been Karl Mannix, and Shy Boots had been given to a petting zoo instead of being destroyed, some other clue was jiggling around in her brain, waiting to be recognized.

Sam looked up to see Jake watching her. Had he
thought of something? His solemn brown eyes told her nothing.

“Our second break,” Preston went on, “came when we picked up an ex-jockey known as Bug Boy.”

“In his better days, he could get right up on a Thoroughbred's neck and stick there like a flea,” Sheriff Ballard added, explaining the nickname.

“We only had him for outstanding traffic tickets, but there were sixteen of them, and he tried to dodge a thousand-dollar fine by telling us about a former partner in crime named Mucho Mudge.”

“Where do they come up with these names?” Mrs. Allen muttered.

Preston laughed outright at Mrs. Allen's puzzlement.

Sheriff Ballard smiled and said, “I get a kick out of aliases. Sometimes they're linked to the criminal's real name, but not often enough. This guy we're after has gone by Christopher Mudge, Kit Mudge, and Mucho Mudge and probably a few other names, since we haven't caught him yet.”

“So Bug Boy told you Mucho was stealing the horses?” Katie Sterling prodded.

“Horses and other animals.”

Preston went on to explain that Mudge was part of an ongoing investigation nationwide.

The thefts had started on the East Coast. Pedigreed dogs and cats—not trophy winners, but beloved pets who were somewhat successful in show
rings—began disappearing. By not snatching from big breeders, the thieves managed to operate for years without a single report to the police.

“It was blackmail,” Preston said. “People were promised their pets would get food, water, and vet care if they paid up. Since they didn't want anything to happen to their beloved animals…”

“The thieves weren't too greedy, either,” Sheriff Ballard added. “They kept the ransoms in the five- to twenty-five-thousand-dollar range—”

“But the animals were never seen again,” Preston finished.

“Until the horses,” Jen insisted.

“Right,” Sheriff Ballard agreed.

“When Mudge hooked up with Bug Boy, he thought he'd struck it rich. Being a jockey, Bug Boy could steal a horse and ride it away quicker than Mudge could stick a Chihuahua in a briefcase.”

While his audience laughed, Preston opened a new soft drink can.

“So now that you know who you're after, the case is almost solved?” asked Mr. Martinez.

“It should be, but all this information is a year old, and though we have Bug Boy's information linking him to all this, Mudge doesn't have a record, at least not under any of the names we know. And Bug Boy only communicated with him over the phone.

“Without a physical description, and a department with the manpower to devote to the case,”
Preston went on, “we were kind of spinning our wheels.”

“So when Preston won the lottery, he struck out on his own.” Sheriff Ballard pointed his thumb toward Preston.

“You won the lottery?” Barbara Ridge said and gasped, flattening her hand against her chest.

“A little one,” Preston said. His face turned crimson.

“Sorry 'bout that,” Sheriff Ballard muttered, but Preston was already talking over him.

“Cracking this case would've been easy if we'd nabbed Bug Boy earlier. All the agencies thought the horses were being killed, but it turned out that as soon as the ransom had been paid, the horses were just taken a few hundred miles from the kidnap scene and released in some open area. To quote Bug Boy, ‘None of us had the stomach for killin' horses, even if they were prissy good-for-nothing's.'”

The line should have been funny, but Preston's voice was grim. As they waited to find out why, no one laughed.

“According to Bug Boy, a new rider, an ex-con they called Cowboy, elbowed his way into the operation. He announced he was the new mastermind and he was changing three things. First off, he'd replace Bug Boy. Second, all stolen horses were dead horses, whether the ransom was paid or not. Last thing was that any one with questions could come see him.”

Preston paused.

Then, though his glance swept over all of them, it stopped on Sam.

“I don't mind telling you I've dealt with some pretty rough characters during my career,” Preston said. “And Bug Boy is no innocent, but his eyes were round and darn scared when he told me ‘Ain't nobody wanted to ask Cowboy a thing.'”

W
hy was he staring at her while he was talking about horse thieves?

Sam's hands turned cold. Her arms felt like they'd frozen and then she shivered, even though the temperature must have reached ninety degrees.

She must have been giving off invisible icicles, because when Preston finished giving directions for the gauntlet and everyone else stood up to get ready, Jen reached over, grabbed Sam's hand, and squeezed it with concern.

“Don't panic,” Jen said quietly. “He looked at you because—”

“I wasn't imagining it, then?” Sam said, wishing Preston's stare had been produced by her paranoia.

“Definitely not,” Jen said. “But I'm convinced it's because Sheriff Ballard told him about Hotspot's disappearance and your role in it.”

“Wonderful,” Sam sighed. “Just because I tried to help your boyfriend—”

“Don't go there,” Jen snapped, but she took Sam's hands and pulled her to her feet with a sympathetic smile. “Go pick up those marachas and jitterbug 'til you've terrified every horse here.”

“Jitterbug?” Sam asked, but Jen gave her a shove between the shoulder blades, and she went.

Each horse ran the gauntlet alone, while the other riders lined up facing each other. Preston had explained that the point was for each horse to ignore the noise and visual distraction and listen to his rider, so those in the gauntlet used kazoos, plastic bags filled with aluminum cans, pom-poms, and other things to create chaotic rows for the horses to pass between.

Preston had gone to his truck cab and retrieved a bunch of helium-filled balloons he'd bought in Darton. When he gave them to Mrs. Allen and instructed her to stroll near the horses, she looked as pleased as if he'd handed her a bouquet of roses.

Though Sam started out feeling silly waving a pink pool noodle in one hand and a maraca in the other, it was fun. By the time her turn came, Ace had been watching for nearly an hour. He survived his trip through the gauntlet easily. When Preston dismissed the volunteer riders, Sam had managed not
to think about the Phantom's lead mare for at least fifteen minutes.

Dallas had left with Ace and Amigo. Sam, Jen, Darrell, and Jake were piling all the desensitization gear into boxes and the adults were talking nearby when Sam saw Mrs. Allen do something strange.

She released the balloons one by one and when they'd all floated away, colors dimmed to black dots in the sky, she looked sadly at Sam. Then she turned to Preston.

“I've got to show you something,” she said. “It's in the barn.”

Sam felt as if red ants covered every inch of her body. Jen dropped the plastic pipe she'd been picking up and Jake slowly put his thumbs in his pockets. Only Darrell didn't halt his movements and stare.

No!
Sam wanted to leap the clutter between her and Mrs. Allen and clap her hand over the old lady's mouth. But she trusted Mrs. Allen. She couldn't be about to do what Sam's paranoid mind was thinking.

Black skirts swishing back from her boots, Mrs. Allen led the way toward the barn. Preston, Dr. Scott, and Sheriff Ballard looked at each other, shrugged, and fell in behind her.

Finally, Sam grabbed Jen's forearm and demanded, “Is this because she likes him?”

That got Darrell's attention. Suddenly he noticed the tension around him.

“Is what because—?” Darrell began.

“He gave her the balloons,” Sam continued, “so she's…”

Dizzy and confused, it took Sam a few seconds to realize Jake was talking to her.

“You've got to go,” he was saying, nodding toward the barn. “Tell your side of things.”

“He's right,” Jen said.

Maybe because Sam had never heard Jen agree with Jake in her life, she ran.

 

Preston, Sheriff Ballard, and Dr. Scott were already inside the barn by the time Sam reached it. Panting from exertion, Sam looked back for her friends, then at Mrs. Allen.

With crossed arms and a mournful expression, Mrs. Allen waited at the door.

“How could you?” Sam demanded as soon as she had enough breath. The words hurt as if they'd been ripped from roots sunk deep inside her chest.

“How could I not, Sam?” Mrs. Allen asked.

“By keeping your word to me!”

Mrs. Allen winced, but she wore the look of an adult who's done what's best for a child as she said, “He's searched two years for her. She belongs to him. I'm sorry to disappoint you.”

“Disappoint? You didn't disappoint me.” Sam's voice spiraled in a high-pitched sound that was almost out of control. She stopped. She swallowed. Then, she said, “How about betray? You betrayed me
and the wild horses, and I don't know how you could do it.”

Sam was still shaking her head as she squeezed into the barn. Dr. Scott and Sheriff Ballard looked at her with blame on their faces, but Preston didn't even glance at her. For him, there was nothing but the horse.

“Honey,” he said on a sigh.

He moved closer, pressing against the box stall while the mare studied him.

Her golden ears tipped so far forward, she seemed to point at him. She looked away, gazing at Sam as if she couldn't believe her eyes, but a heartbeat later, the palomino was staring at him again.

Moving like a man in a dream, Preston slid back the bolt on the stall door.

The mare didn't retreat even a half step, but Preston changed his mind. He took a deep breath, slid the bolt closed again and turned on Sam.

She knew exactly what he was doing. She'd seen the reaction in Dad, Jake, Dallas, and every cowboy she knew. He might be a cop, not a cowboy, but he wasn't about to show his feelings in front of them all. He'd keep his love and relief for later.

Right now, Preston dumped two years' worth of frustration on her.

“That's my horse. Her registered name is Cha Cha Marengo. At the time she was stolen she was serving as a police horse for Fairfield County.”

He said it like she hadn't heard his story. He sounded like a robot, as if he'd rehearsed this moment so often, he couldn't deviate from the script.

“I don't think it's her,” Sam began. “This horse has been running with a wild herd for a long time. Since before Christmas, for sure.”

“Two years,” he said, and his eyes accused her.

“Wait. You don't think…” Sam sucked in more air. Still, she couldn't seem to go on. Sure, she'd hidden the horse overnight, but that was all. “Even if it is her, and I don't think it is—I didn't steal her.”

Preston's eyes said he'd heard it all before. Criminals didn't confess on the spot. They tried denial first.

Sam studied him. “That's not what you're thinking, is it?”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

Sam couldn't look away. Like a mouse hypnotized by a cobra, she knew she shouldn't let him gaze at her this way, but his pale blue eyes were mesmerizing. They didn't quite agree with her, but they didn't disagree, either. They implored her to keep talking.

“I rescued her,” Sam insisted. She had evidence. She could prove what she was saying. “Take a look at that front right leg,” she said, pointing. “Under the bandages.”

Preston started to look, but that would have meant lowering his magnetic stare.

“That could have happened in transit,” Preston
suggested, but he didn't say outright that she was lying. Then, in case she wasn't smart enough to know what he meant by
in transit
, he added, “When you were moving her from wherever to this ranch.”

“No! Go ahead and look her over.” Sam's arms flew out in a be-my-guest motion, and she finally broke away from his stare. “Or have Dr. Scott look her over.”

Sam turned to the vet. He looked so disappointed.

When she tried to explain what Jake had said about the mare's injuries, she couldn't.

She cleared her throat, but nothing physical kept her silent. For most of her life, Jake had protected her. Now it was her turn to protect Jake.

If things kept going downhill, if everyone believed Preston instead of her, she didn't want Jake involved. Being arrested as an accessory to grand theft probably wouldn't help his chances of getting into college.

“Dr. Scott,” Sam said formally, “the palomino has a bruise on her chest from a fight with another mare. I saw that happen last week.”

“And the cut? When did that happen?” Through his glasses, Dr. Scott's eyes accused her of knowing about the wound when he'd been there yesterday.

When she didn't answer, the vet moved to the stall door.

“I'll have a look at her,” he said.

“Check under her top lip for a tattoo identifying
her as a police horse. It'll be there,” Preston said.

The vet nodded.

He believes me,
Sam thought as he opened the door cautiously, and braced for the territorial charge of a wild horse. He sighed when it didn't come, when the mare just watched him with curiosity and lifted her front hoof a bit higher.

Sheriff Ballard moved to stand beside Preston.

Straw rustled behind Sam and she didn't have to look to feel Jake and Jen supporting her. Darrell was probably standing back there, too. Like an invisible net, her friends' support held her up.

“Preston, do you know what could have happened to her if I'd left her out there without her herd?” Sam asked, but she didn't let him answer. “Start with coyotes, I guess that would be the most likely, but this time last year there was a cougar and her year-old kitten out there. What do you think they'd do to a horse who couldn't run away?”

“What about bears?” he asked sarcastically.

It took Sam a few second to understand, and then her mind chorused, “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” from
The Wizard of Oz
. Preston thought she was making excuses, and not very good ones.

“I saw the cougars last year at Aspen Creek,” Jen said.

“Aspen Creek is where I found her yesterday morning,” Sam said, realizing she'd just admitted she'd had the horse for twenty-four hours without reporting it.

Not that it mattered, Sam thought. Mrs. Allen would have told them if she hadn't.

“Trees up there are still marked,” Jake offered. “And there's a coyote den upstream from where the mare was, with signs they're feeding pups.” He paused, but when Preston remained unconvinced, Jake added, “Take a look for yourself. There are tracks so clear your granny could read 'em without her glasses.”

Preston stiffened at Jake's sarcasm. You could tell the retired cop was used to dealing with guys who used humor to cover their emotions or to fight without throwing a punch. For a minute, he squinted at Jake, sizing him up.

“Are all you kids in on this?” he asked.

“There's no ‘this' to be in on!” Sam kept her voice just short of a shout. “I've seen her running with a wild herd since last year. She was the lead mare. That's how she got in the fight. I don't know how she got cut, but I didn't see it until yesterday morning. I brought her here because it was the closest place to get help.” Sam stopped to draw a breath. All the fight seemed to have drained out of her. “And if you don't believe the truth, I can't force you.”

“It's not my job to say whether you're telling the truth,” Preston said in an offhand tone. “I'm just a private horse owner, not a judge. But I'm pressing charges, and the sheriff can take you away. Don't think you'll need handcuffs, do you?”

He joked in a dark way, but Sam could tell he
really wanted her out of there. He wanted all of them gone so that he could be alone with his horse.

“She's right about the coyotes and cougars,” Sheriff Ballard commented.

Preston didn't seem to hear the sheriff. “Might as well tell me how you came into possession of her. Was it from Mudge directly, or one of his accomplices?” he asked. “Maybe the judge will go a little easier on you if you cooperate. Although,” his voice grew louder, “I wouldn't count on it. There are more girls in juvenile detention facilities every day.”

Sam knew he was trying to scare her. It worked, but she tried not to react.

Preston sucked in a breath and shook his head. “But most females don't get sent up. Those who do have generally committed violent offenses. It'd be a shame if a judge looked at all the stolen horses you've been associated with and tried to put you back on the straight and narrow path by locking you up.”

This time, Preston didn't sound like he was joking.

Sam whirled toward Sheriff Ballard.

“You know the story behind Hotspot!”

“That'd be the Appaloosa, but wasn't there an ownership question on a buckskin, too?”

Dark Sunshine.
Sam remembered the hidden bill of sale proving the mustang mare belonged to Curtis Flickinger, the man who'd starved and whipped her and threatened to steal the Phantom.

“And now Honey?” Preston pretended to mull things over. “Quite a coincidence, you always being in the middle of this stuff.”

“She didn't do anything wrong.” Jake's voice was no more than a whisper. “Showed some bad judgment, but she's fourteen years old.”

“Jake.” Mrs. Allen warned Jake to turn down the antagonism in his voice.

“Yeah?” Preston said. He looked willing to listen to Jake, but any hero worship Jake had felt toward the retired officer was long gone.

Jake's lazy tomcat look hid a desire to fight. Sam wasn't the only one who recognized it. Darrell grabbed Jake's arm.

“C'mon, buddy,” Darrell coaxed.

“There's no need to bully her,” Jake told Preston.

Sam didn't feel bullied, exactly, and she was about to say so when Jen's sensible voice sliced across Jake's threatening one.

“You can't browbeat and harass someone into a confession,” she said, shrugging. “We'll testify that's exactly what he did and it won't hold up in court.”