Death by Equine by Annette Dashofy (booksvooks txt) 📕

engrossed in the variations in the coffin bone that she didn’t immediately catch the more obvious difference—the radiograph of the sound foot also showed a longer pastern than the other.

The radiographs were from two different horses.

She snatched one of the films off the light box and squinted in the quasi-darkness to read Doc’s scribble on the piece of white tape attached to the corner. Perhaps the wrong horse’s x-ray had been mistakenly placed into Blue’s records. But the film was clearly labeled “Mexicali Blue” and the date.

Doc had misrepresented Blue to the Dodds. He surely knew the horse was unsound. Otherwise, why substitute a different horse’s x-ray? Why convince Milt to purchase a lame horse for Catherine?

Then she thought of Blue’s past owner and the whole Coggins mess.

Doc was in cahoots with Emerick for more than swapping out blood samples.

Jessie gathered the films and the laptop and switched off the light box. Back inside the office, she dug out the phone Greg had given her and punched in a familiar number.

Vanessa’s muffled, sleepy voice answered.

“Vanessa, this is Jessie. I need your help.”

“What’s going on? Is Greg all right?”

“I’m sure he is. Go to my office. I’ll tell you what I need once you get there. Okay?”

Vanessa sounded tired. Too tired to be argumentative. “Hold on.” A minute or so passed. “Okay. I’m here. What do you want?”

“Look in the boxes of records I brought home and find the ones for Neil Emerick.”

Twenty-Seven

Over the phone, Vanessa relayed page after page of Doc’s notes on Mexicali Blue. Emerick purchased the colt as a yearling. A pre-purchase exam done on the horse showed the youngster had been clean. But following a strenuous training schedule and a couple of impressive wins as a two-year-old, Blue turned up lame, thanks no doubt to the trainer’s high-pressure techniques. At that point, Doc radiographed the colt and diagnosed the fracture of the coffin bone.

Jessie was about to thank Vanessa for her help and hang up when she gave a startled cry. Something fell out of the Emerick folder, she said. A note in Doc’s distinctive scrawl. As Jessie sat in stunned silence, Vanessa read it to her.

Jessie copied Blue’s new radiographs onto a flash drive, which she tucked in the envelope with the old films. Hugging the package under her arm, she made her way back to the gate. The wind stirred a dust devil that swirled up into the halogen light between barns, mirroring the tornadic spiral of Jessie’s thoughts.

Dazed, Jessie reached the gate, only to realize she hadn’t been paying attention. She was at the wrong one. The one that was padlocked. She swore and turned away. Lightning lit the shadowy side of a nearby barn, revealing a figure ambling toward her. Neil Emerick?

“Hey, darlin’. What are you doing out on a night like this?” Milt stepped out of the shadows, squinting against the wind.

Jessie relaxed. “Snooping. I’m not supposed to be here, remember? Why are you still here?”

He gestured over his shoulder. “Flat tire. Had to wait ’til the rain let up to change the dang thing. Got her done and was fixin’ to leave when I spotted you sneaking around. What’re you snooping into now?”

She touched the envelope clamped against her side and wondered how much, if any of it, he knew. “I figured out who killed Doc and why.”

“Oh?”

“Come on. Walk with me. I don’t want to be caught on Riverview property. At least not until I can clear things up with Daniel.”

“I gather it ain’t Daniel that you suspect?”

“No. Neil Emerick.”

“Neil?” Milt gave a low whistle that was drowned out by the rumble of thunder. “What’d you find?”

Jessie lowered her head against another gust of wind, shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her hoodie, and revealed what Vanessa had shared minutes earlier. “You know how Neil claimed ignorance about the condition of that gray that started this EIA business? Turns out Neil had Doc do one of his ringer blood tests on the horse before it arrived. But once the gray got here, Doc took one look at it and knew something was wrong. He demanded a real test. Only Neil had Sherry swap out the gray’s blood sample for one from Sullivan. When the test came back negative, Doc was appeased for a while. But apparently Sherry had a change of heart and admitted what she’d done.” A jagged flash split the night sky and a second later, thunder boomed, shaking the ground. Jessie flinched. Getting fried wasn’t high on her list of priorities for the evening. Tracking down Daniel and Greg and getting them to arrest Emerick was.

Milt must have been having similar concerns about the electrical storm. He caught her elbow and steered her under the cover of a shedrow. “How on earth do you know all this?”

Jessie thought about the envelope again. “I called Vanessa at my house and had her go through Doc’s records and a note fell out. You know how he documented every detail? Well, he’d written it all out. I’m pretty sure that’s why Doc and Sherry fought and why he decided against leaving his practice to her. The last part of the note stated he’d told Emerick once Doc got back from his vacation he planned to go public with everything. The entire scam. Even if it meant Doc lost his own license.” A rush of hot tears burned Jessie’s eyes. Maybe there really was a part of the man she thought she’d known left in Doc’s soul.

Milt leaned against the block wall of the barn, his face in shadows. “Neil had no choice but to do whatever it took to keep Doc from blowing the whistle.”

“And Doc must’ve known if anything happened to him, I would be the one to find his note condemning his killer.”

Milt pushed away from the wall and tipped his head to look out from under the shedrow roof at the sky. “Maybe if we make a run for it, we can beat