said.
Blue headed for the refrigerator. "Sounds like your friend Sam might be an ideal candidate for a questioning session with Detective Johnson," he said over his shoulder.
"Yeah," I said slowly. "I've got to admit you're right."
EIGHT
Monday morning began like every other Monday morning-busy. Damn busy. The receptionist read off a list of at least a dozen people who had called since we opened at eight o'clock. Sick horses, colicked horses, lame horses. And Lee Castillo wanted to float the teeth on a new horse she'd just bought.
"Did she ask for me or Jim?" I pointed at Lee's name.
"You." Nancy sounded surprised. We both knew that Lee usually used my partner as her vet.
"Give Jim the colic up in Boulder Creek and I'll take the one in Watsonville and do Lee's horse after that."
In another minute Nancy and I had finished divvying up the calls and I was back in my truck headed for the first client of the day. We need another vet to help us here, I thought, not for the first time.
Jim and I once had another vet on our staff for a brief six months last year. But John Romero had quit and moved on, and I for one didn't miss him. Perhaps this next time around Jim, with my assistance, would manage to hire someone who wasn't a closet woman-hater.
At the thought, I had to smile. Blue had called me a closet man-hater the other night, and then a feminist. Sometimes life seemed to sort itself out into this odd battle of the sexes, men siding with men, women with women. I had never seen myself as part of that particular army, but there was no denying that a certain dismissive attitude on the part of an ignorant man made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Like Detective Johnson, for instance. Damn. My most fervent wish was to have nothing further to do with the guy. But it was a wish that was unlikely to be granted.
The thought of Detective Johnson led me to the thought of Lee Castillo and the rather peculiar fact that she had requested my services rather than Jim's. Lee had been using Jim by preference for almost twenty years. I'd seen her horses only when she had an emergency and I was the vet on call. Thus I knew her, but not well.
I had to wonder if today's call wasn't the result of Dominic's demise in my barnyard. After all, teeth that needed floating could usually wait. Perhaps Lee Castillo's curiosity couldn't.
Working my way through a minor gas colic in a broodmare in Watsonville-the horse had been brought in from a pasture and put on straight alfalfa hay, free-choice-I reassured the owner that all should be well and headed out to Lee Castillo's place in nearby Freedom.
An older ranch that had been chopped up into ten-acre parcels formed the framework of the small and not very upscale housing tract. A dirt road led the way in; Lee's property was the last one and included the original ranch house and barn, as well as various outbuildings.
Lee herself stood in front of the barn, directing what I thought were her two teenage children in the process of mucking out stalls. I parked my truck and got out.
"Gail. Good to see you." Lee pulled a pair of leather gloves off her hands and marched in my direction.
"Hello, Lee. How are you?" We shook hands, both of us, I thought, evaluating.
Lee Castillo was a striking woman. About my age-late thirties-she had prematurely gray hair that was a true silver color. It was also long and thick and shiny, usually worn, as now, in a ponytail down her back. The hair, combined with relatively unlined skin and strikingly large light brown eyes with dark lashes, created a disconcerting dissonance; Lee looked ageless-not young, not old, not middle-aged, a creature outside of time. This impression was enhanced by her tall, broad-shouldered frame, extremely fit body, and direct, even hearty manner. A hard woman to categorize.
As we made the requisite small talk, I was struck, as I had been before, at what an odd pairing she and Dominic Castillo must have been. I couldn't imagine what
Blue headed for the refrigerator. "Sounds like your friend Sam might be an ideal candidate for a questioning session with Detective Johnson," he said over his shoulder.
"Yeah," I said slowly. "I've got to admit you're right."
EIGHT
Monday morning began like every other Monday morning-busy. Damn busy. The receptionist read off a list of at least a dozen people who had called since we opened at eight o'clock. Sick horses, colicked horses, lame horses. And Lee Castillo wanted to float the teeth on a new horse she'd just bought.
"Did she ask for me or Jim?" I pointed at Lee's name.
"You." Nancy sounded surprised. We both knew that Lee usually used my partner as her vet.
"Give Jim the colic up in Boulder Creek and I'll take the one in Watsonville and do Lee's horse after that."
In another minute Nancy and I had finished divvying up the calls and I was back in my truck headed for the first client of the day. We need another vet to help us here, I thought, not for the first time.
Jim and I once had another vet on our staff for a brief six months last year. But John Romero had quit and moved on, and I for one didn't miss him. Perhaps this next time around Jim, with my assistance, would manage to hire someone who wasn't a closet woman-hater.
At the thought, I had to smile. Blue had called me a closet man-hater the other night, and then a feminist. Sometimes life seemed to sort itself out into this odd battle of the sexes, men siding with men, women with women. I had never seen myself as part of that particular army, but there was no denying that a certain dismissive attitude on the part of an ignorant man made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
Like Detective Johnson, for instance. Damn. My most fervent wish was to have nothing further to do with the guy. But it was a wish that was unlikely to be granted.
The thought of Detective Johnson led me to the thought of Lee Castillo and the rather peculiar fact that she had requested my services rather than Jim's. Lee had been using Jim by preference for almost twenty years. I'd seen her horses only when she had an emergency and I was the vet on call. Thus I knew her, but not well.
I had to wonder if today's call wasn't the result of Dominic's demise in my barnyard. After all, teeth that needed floating could usually wait. Perhaps Lee Castillo's curiosity couldn't.
Working my way through a minor gas colic in a broodmare in Watsonville-the horse had been brought in from a pasture and put on straight alfalfa hay, free-choice-I reassured the owner that all should be well and headed out to Lee Castillo's place in nearby Freedom.
An older ranch that had been chopped up into ten-acre parcels formed the framework of the small and not very upscale housing tract. A dirt road led the way in; Lee's property was the last one and included the original ranch house and barn, as well as various outbuildings.
Lee herself stood in front of the barn, directing what I thought were her two teenage children in the process of mucking out stalls. I parked my truck and got out.
"Gail. Good to see you." Lee pulled a pair of leather gloves off her hands and marched in my direction.
"Hello, Lee. How are you?" We shook hands, both of us, I thought, evaluating.
Lee Castillo was a striking woman. About my age-late thirties-she had prematurely gray hair that was a true silver color. It was also long and thick and shiny, usually worn, as now, in a ponytail down her back. The hair, combined with relatively unlined skin and strikingly large light brown eyes with dark lashes, created a disconcerting dissonance; Lee looked ageless-not young, not old, not middle-aged, a creature outside of time. This impression was enhanced by her tall, broad-shouldered frame, extremely fit body, and direct, even hearty manner. A hard woman to categorize.
As we made the requisite small talk, I was struck, as I had been before, at what an odd pairing she and Dominic Castillo must have been. I couldn't imagine what
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