Death by Equine by Annette Dashofy (booksvooks txt) 📕

Jessie almost talked herself into leaving Daniel’s past buried. Except if Doc had threatened Daniel, would the charming and handsome racetrack CEO revert to old ways?

Just like Jessie almost reverted to running away?

The idea bloomed, and her gaze settled on the file cabinets. Steeling for whatever she might find, she rose and approached them.

The files she’d taken home, now largely ash, had only been from “A” to “H.” Shumway should still be here. Although, knowing Doc’s odd filing system, she couldn’t be sure. She dove into the drawer marked “S” and was relieved to find a folder with Daniel’s name scrawled across the tab. She carried it back to the desk. What did she expect to find in there? What she hoped to find was nothing. Nothing incriminating, nothing out of the ordinary. She might not be able to prove him guilty or innocent by strict legal standards, but perhaps she could put her mind at ease. She flipped the folder open.

Daniel didn’t own any racehorses. Conflict of interest, she imagined. He did, however, own two Appaloosas, which were used as lead ponies to escort the racehorses to the track and starting gate. She thumbed through the stack of paperwork and noted the usual assortment of minor emergencies and standard inoculations and tests. Nothing abnormal.

Until the last page. A notation dated a week before Doc’s death listed a vial of acepromazine had been dispensed to Daniel. But the handwriting didn’t match the rest of the entries.

Jessie closed the file. Sherry had given Daniel the same drug responsible for Doc’s death. Or had she? Maybe she’d penned the notation to set Daniel up to take the fall for her own crime.

The word premeditation screamed inside Jessie’s head.

She picked up her phone. Tried Greg’s number again, and again she got his voicemail. Maybe he was at the house. She tried that number. Her voice on the answering machine greeted her. At least the phone line had been repaired. She hung up without leaving a message. “Where are you when I need you?” she asked Greg and slapped the phone down on the desk.

She opened the desk’s top drawer and removed the silver and turquoise barrette. Rubbing the smooth stone with her thumb, she contemplated what to do next. No doubt the wisest choice would be to wait until Greg returned her call. Let him play connect the dots with all her new information.

The barrette stared up at her.

She picked up the phone again and entered a different number. This time the phone at the other end picked up.

“Milt?” she said. “I need your help.”

“ARE YOU SURE ABOUT this?” Milt waved away a fly buzzing around his head.

Jessie gazed doubtfully at the front of the rec hall. They’d asked five or six different people before someone reported seeing Sherry there. “I’m not sure about anything anymore.”

Milt and Jessie weaved around a crowd gathered outside the building. He paused and let her climb the wooden steps ahead of him.

“Maybe you oughta hold off a while. Think this through.” He swatted at the fly again.

She was tired of thinking. She wanted to do something—anything—to disprove her suspicions about Daniel.

The weathered wood and screen door screeched open. Milt let it slam behind him once they were inside. Four wiry-looking men sat in a huddle at one table discussing the day’s events or yesterday’s race results or maybe the threat of quarantine. Two young women in dirty sleeveless t-shirts and blue jeans occupied another table. A TV perched high in one corner aired televised races from another track. As Jessie’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, she spotted Sherry at the back of the room, alone, playing pinball.

The treads of Jessie’s boots squished against the tacky floor as she headed toward Doc’s daughter.

“About time you showed up.” Sherry kept her eyes on the game.

Milt grabbed a chair, turned it around, and straddled the back.

Jessie walked around the machine and shouldered the scoreboard. She wanted to see Sherry’s face. “You were expecting us?”

“You anyway.” She tipped her head in Milt’s direction. “Didn’t expect you’d bring reinforcements to help rub salt in my wounds.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t heard? I got a call today from my dad’s attorney. It seems he changed his will before he died.” Sherry bumped the machine hard with her hip. “He didn’t leave me his practice after all.”

“Oh?” Jessie realized her voice carried too much pleasure. She noticed one corner of Milt’s mouth slanting upward.

“Don’t get too excited. He didn’t leave it to you either.”

Had he left his illegitimate daughter anything at all, or had killing her father netted her absolutely nothing?

Sherry must’ve had mindreading skills. “He left me money instead.” She rocked the machine. “Not enough to buy his practice from Amelia, as if she’d ever sell it to me. But enough to repay some money I owe.”

Jessie pondered the source of those loans, but then she spotted the plain brown leather clip in Sherry’s hair. She fingered the silver and turquoise one in her pocket, regaining her focus. “I notice you’re not wearing that pretty barrette you usually have in your hair.”

Sherry removed a hand from the button on the side of the pinball machine to touch the back of her head. “I lost it the other day.”

Jessie considered revealing where she’d lost it but decided to keep her ace in the hole concealed for now. Instead, she shifted topics. “How long have you known about Doc falsifying Coggins tests?”

Sherry slammed her hip into the machine again. “Yes,” she hissed at the metal ball hurtling from flipper to bumper beneath the glass. To Jessie, she said, “Does it really matter?”

“You knew the gray was sick. You suspected EIA. I’d say it matters.”

Sherry jiggled the machine like a pro, keeping the ball in action. “I don’t know how long. It was just something Doc would do every so often if he knew the horse was healthy.”

“Healthy?” Jessie exclaimed. “You think that gray