Reining in Murder

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Book: Reining in Murder Read Online Free PDF
Author: Leigh Hearon
stood still as Trotter walked up to the bay, where the two sniffed noses. Trotter nuzzled the bay’s lower neck—the highest point he could reach—until the bay lowered its head and gently exhaled. Then Trotter turned and continued his pursuit of stray hay on the floor.
    Jessica scrambled up from the floor and gave Annie a hard look.
    â€œDrugs,” they said simultaneously.
    * * *
    Annie never liked to see a horse sedated although she knew the horse hated it even more than she did, deprived of its natural senses and therefore, in its mind, more vulnerable to unknown prey. And there was the fear that the twelve-hundred-pound swaying animal would actually fall while under the influence and not be able to get up.
    Jessica knew all about Annie’s fears and pooh-poohed the latter, insisting that if Annie would simply stop resting her butt on the bay’s—which was heavily leaning into Annie’s thigh at this point—all would be fine.
    Annie politely thanked her for her opinion but didn’t believe her.
    Now, with the bay’s eyelids dropping and its head lowered halfway to the ground, Jessica was able to delicately probe inside its mouth to her heart’s content. She whistled an old Travis tune as she peered and poked.
    â€œOh, oh, oh.”
    â€œWhat do you mean,oh, oh, oh’?”
    â€œSome yahoo took a power saw to his mouth and cut off his premolars to the bone.”
    Annie’s mouth tingled. More silence.
    â€œYup—three-zero-six is cut right to the gum line. I’ll bet my Tucker saddle we’ve got a tooth root abscess. And voilà”—Jessica fiddled a bit more inside the droopy bay’s mouth—“an already fragile tooth has splintered into a jillion glittering little pieces.” She stood up from her squatting position and stretched her back.
    â€œOne more time for the medically-challenged?” asked Annie.
    Jessica sighed. “In recent years, motorized floating, rather than using the traditional rasp, has become all the rage. It’s fine, and, in fact, quite efficient, as long as the user knows what he’s doing. This vet obviously didn’t. Young horses’ teeth are changing all the time. They don’t need much outside help.”
    â€œJessica. The point—please.”
    â€œJudging by his mouth, I’d say this guy is only about three years old. You don’t need to do much to a horse’s mouth at that age—just make sure that any emerging points are taken off, and the mouth is developing nicely. There’s nothing wrong with this fellow’s mouth except an overindustrious vet who whittled away his surfacing teeth so much that bone infection may very well have set in.
    â€œMy guess is that when the trailer overturned, the horse clamped down and broke an already fragile tooth. It would have occurred anyway, sooner or later, although perhaps not this severely.”
    â€œWhat can you do?”
    â€œTake some X-rays, find out the extent of the damage, and go from there.”
    An hour later, Annie was peering over shadowy images Jessica had produced from her portable digital X-ray machine.
    â€œSee that first check tooth?” Jessica pointed to an image on the screen. “Thanks to our saw-happy vet, the lamina dura is almost completely eroded.”
    Glancing at Annie’s pleading look, Jessica smiled. “Annie, the bottom line is that the traumatized tooth lost its ligamentous attachment, which caused significant paradental disease. The infection has gone straight down to the root, and the broken tooth is wallowing in the pus.”
    Annie felt dizzy. Visits to the dentist were never high on her list, and when she did, she begged for massive doses of nitrous oxide.
    â€œThis is one of the teeth horses use most often to chew,” Jessica continued. “Eating is a side to side motion. Trouble is, every time our guy takes a bite on the wrong side, he’s in real
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