Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) Read Online Free PDF

margaritas in the sunshine were one of his favorite things, his usual half-cocked grin was missing. "I can't prove where I was last night, Gail," he said slowly, not looking at me. "And when the police find out that I was at Cindy's yesterday, they're going to start wondering."
    "Were you planning on spending the night at Cindy's?" I asked him, feeling a renewed sense of foreboding.
    "I was thinking about it, but Ed threw me out." His eyes met mine across the table. "I don't like to say it, now that he's been killed, but the son of a bitch got in some kind of jealous fit and told me to get out."
    He sucked his margarita and stared off into the trees along Soquel Creek, and I knew he wasn't seeing the ducks floating on the water. "It was funny how he did it, though. I could have sworn it was all an act, that he wasn't really mad. He wanted me out of there all right, but I don't think he was really jealous. It doesn't make sense. I've been friends with Cindy for years, and he doesn't say a word. We know we don't like each other, but so what? I don't think anybody really liked that asshole, anyway. I come back to town after two months of being gone and he's suddenly jealous? Give me a break. No, it was something else, some other reason he wanted me out of there, and he made this big scene so I wouldn't stay."
    Bret's eyes swung back to me with an uncharacteristic expression in them-worry. "I called you, but you weren't home. I couldn't think of anybody else where I could just drive in and ask to sleep on their floor, not right at the moment, so I pulled Big Red down this road I know. I've stayed there before. I just slept in the cab. It's a good thing I'm short." He grinned. "The question is, Are the police gonna believe all that, or are they gonna think I hung around and shot Ed and Cindy out of 'jealous rage'?" He shook his head. "I still can't believe they're dead."
    I told him about finding the bodies and he expressed shock and fascinated interest. I'd gotten, I thought cynically, the audience I'd wanted. It was probably a natural human reaction-to distance the horror, make it less personal and threatening, but it still didn't seem right to me. Ed and Cindy were dead, and Bret and I were ordering enchiladas for lunch.
    I told Bret about seeing the Walker in the garage and asked him, "Do you know anything about that guy?"
    Bret grinned reflexively, his initial response to most questions. "Yeah," he said after a moment, "he was kind of a project of Cindy's. His name's Terry something. He walks around town---every day. You see him everywhere. Guy must be incredibly fit."
    "I've seen him."
    "So, anyway, I guess he walked by Cindy's every morning about the same time, when she was usually with the horse. She got the idea of trying to tame him, sort of-the guy." Bret flashed his eyes at me in an aren't-women-crazy look. "It sounds funny, but she told me he reminded her of a wild animal. She'd say hi to him all the time and eventually he'd say hi back and then he got where he'd come pet the horse, and the last morning I was over there before I left town, he actually came in the kitchen for a cup of coffee. He didn't talk much, at least not so's you'd understand, and he looked pretty skittish, but he obviously liked Cindy."
    "Would he ever have hurt her, do you think?"
    "How would I know? The guy had problems, that's for sure. Cindy told me he was a schizophrenic; lived in some board-and-care place over by the harbor-had a state check, you know. She didn't really know much about him; she just sort of took to him the way you'd take to a stray dog, I think."
    A sense of remorse rushed over me at his words. Cindy, whom I had spoken of so lightly to the cops, over whose death I hadn't really grieved, had been kind enough to be sympathetic to the Walker. I'd never even bothered to say hi to him.
    The waitress brought out our enchiladas at that point and conversation ceased. When we were done I said, "Now we're going to the sheriff's